With high-definition television becoming increasingly widespread, many people are tossing their old NTSC or PAL video equipment to the curb. But as makers, we can reclaim this old equipment for our own projects. Enter The Video Experimenter. This Arduino shield by Nootropic Design lets you program your Arduino microcontroller to manipulate and analyze NTSC or […]
Don’t let the sexy name fool you, the Extech 382213 is all business — the business of powering your awesome hacking projects! The 382213 plays the desktop power supply role — it gives you carefully measured voltages to play with when working on a project, reducing the number of batteries you might waste, as well […]
The author of this piece, Forrest M. Mims III, is an amateur scientist and Rolex Award winner. He was named by Discover magazine as one of the “50 Best Brains in Science.” His books have sold more than 7 million copies. He was a co-founder of MITS, Inc. and wrote the first Altair 8800 user’s […]
I have roughly one zillion screwdrivers at my disposal most of the time. I’ve got a few sets of general purpose screwdrivers, many small jewelers and electronics screwdrivers, and even some nice ones attached to Swiss Army knives and Leatherman multi-tools. But the one I use most for servicing small electronics is my Technician’s Pocket Screwdriver
If you’ve ever struggled to locate the center of a circular plate or a piece of round stock using a ruler or a square, you know it can be a tricky proposition. My usual ham-fisted method involves marking the midpoint of several diameters and kind of visually averaging all those sloppy centers to get roughly in the middle of the thing. If I need more accuracy, I try to sandwich the circle between two framing squares and then draw lines between opposing corners–lines which, at least in theory, should bisect each corner at 45 degrees and intersect in the middle of the circumscribed circle. In theory.
Overall, I like the Shinwa 78610. Even though I have a decent capacitative stud finder, I often seem to end up using a 1/16″ drill to probe for studs, anyway. And if I’m looking for joists in the ceiling instead of studs in the wall, mechanical probing is pretty much my only option, because inevitably the ceilings in my homes seem to have popcorn texture which prevents the use of any kind of instrument you have to slide across the surface. So for that use alone, I’m glad I’ve got the Shinwa in my toolbox and think it’s worth the $15.
Just saw these in a magazine and, although have never tried a pair, I am intrigued. If, like me, you’ve spent a lot of time fumbling with cheap tweezers, I might humbly suggest that, like me, you will discover that a bit of extra scratch spent on a quality pair will prove well worth it. And if, like me, you’ve ever ruined a pair of nice tweezers by tossing them carelessly in your luggage, you may, like me, also be curious about these folding precision tweezers from pocketweez.com. I’m gonna spring for a pair, I think, and I’ll let you know how it works out. In the meantime, if anybody’s got any first-hand experience or opinions, kindly let us know, below!
