Museum exhibits are difficult to make, and they’re always breaking down; especially the interactive ones. This is a combination of budget, building a one-off, and the incredibly harsh abuse they take from children. My first exhibit is an interactive laser show that turns waveforms from music into laser patterns, and different types of music have very…
Author: Bob Baddeley
Designing Your Project To Scale: Crossing the Chasm
Hackaday is all about the neat hacks and the repurposing of old components into new projects, but many people then try to take those projects and turn them into businesses. We’ve seen lots of people offer their stuff as kits and sell them on Tindie, with the rare few going on to develop a consumer electronic…
Designing Products with Injection Molding in Mind
3D printing is a technique we’ve all been using for ages at home, or via Shapeways, but if you are designing a product, 3D printing will only get you so far. It’s crude, slow, expensive, and has lots of limitations. While it’s great for the prototyping stage, ultimately products manufactured in volume will be manufactured…
Periodic Table of Motion
A science museum needs interactive exhibits, and this is an exhibit that can easily be extended, is easy to setup and install, is robust and safe and easy to maintain. Exhibits can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars, but this one can grow to any size budget but the top of the line is…
Life on Contract: Hacking Your Taxes
You’re a contractor and people are paying you to work in your pajamas. It’s a life of luxury, but when tax time comes, you are in a world of hurt and you wonder why you even do it. Taxes are tricky, but there are some tools you can use to make it less painful on…
Low Background Steel – So Hot Right Now
The nuclear age changed steel, and for decades we had to pay the price for it. The first tests of the atomic bomb were a milestone in many ways, and have left a mark in history and in the surface of the Earth. The level of background radiation in the air increased, and this had an…
WTF Are Ground Loops?
These magical creatures crop up out of nowhere and fry your electronics or annoy your ear holes. Understanding them will doubtless save you money and hassle. The ground loop in a nutshell is what happens when two separate devices (A and B) are connected to ground separately, and then also connected to each other through…
There should be more love in our politics, like there is at the library
The news has been filled with hate and anger lately. My normal sources of information are overflowing with it, and it makes the world seem like a terrible place. This weekend I went to the Verona Public Library on a tour. My friend was so proud of it and wanted to show it off. I’ve been…
Nerd Nite January 2017
I had the honor of presenting at Nerd Nite Madison in January of 2017. Here’s my talk:
PCB Design Guidelines to Minimize RF Transmissions
There are certain design guidelines for PCBs that don’t make a lot of sense, and practices that seem excessive and unnecessary. Often these are motivated by the black magic that is RF transmission. This is either an unfortunate and unintended consequence of electronic circuits, or a magical and useful feature of them, and a lot…