Electronics

How-To:  Build a heat pipe

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 […]

One-minute PCB etching

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

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 […]

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). […]