Collin’s Lab Notes: Exploratory IC Torching
Taking a torch to an IC package to see what’s inside.
Electronics
How-To: Build a heat pipe
Heat pipes, I am obliged to point out, are awesome. When somebody first explained to me how they work, I was like, “No way. Uh-unh. Don’t believe you.” And yet they persist in existing, and working, in spite of my disbelief. I’m still getting over the pain. Lots of people sell heat pipes to overclockers/PC […]
Scrounging parts from a desk phone
On uC Hobby, they took apart an old desk phone, scavenged it for parts, and wrote up what they found: The easiest way I have found with modern technology to identify parts is to type all of the markings on the part into a Google search, and refine your search from there. If you then […]
One-minute PCB etching
Jim, from TechShop, has a nifty how-to on Instructables covering the sponge and Ferric Chloride method of quick n’ dirty PCB etching. He writes: This weekend I tried this sponge and ferric chloride method to etch 3 Arduino shield boards I am prototyping for our RFID-enabled member access system at TechShop (TechShop is the 15,000 […]
Tilt sensor tutorial on adafruit
Limor has posted another installment of her exceedingly excellent sensor tutorials, this one on that most marvelous of switches, the tilt sensor. When you just have to know which end is up, you need to strap on one of these puppies. Here’s how. Sensor tutorials – Tilt sensors! More: Force Sensitive Resistor (FSR) tutorial Ladyada’s […]
Sparkfun open-sources hardware kits
Our friends over at Sparkfun have announced their decision to officially make some of their kits open source. Nathan and company have always been supporters of OSH, but now they’re going to be putting links to the engineering files up to at least some of their kits. The first is the ClockIt kit, an alarm […]
Explaining voltage on FMCG
In this clip from FMCG, Ken responds to Jeri’s capacitor deconstruction with his own very visual (and very mechanical) demonstration of how voltage is generated and how you can build a simple capacitor, with aluminum foil and plastic, to generate charge mechanically and dump it into the cap (analogous to how a Wimshurst machine works). […]
