Posts

Highly Sensitive Camera Makes A Great Night Vision Scope

Image
Traditional military-grade nightvision gear has a history stretching back to the Second World War, relying on photomultiplier tubes to help soldiers see in the dark. Such devices have trickled down to the civilian market in intervening years, however other simpler techniques can work too. [Happy_Mad_Scientist] whipped up a simple nightvision monocular using a very sensitive camera instead. Due to the high noise, still photos don’t do it justice. The video quality is highly impressive for a system running with no IR illumination. The camera in question is the Runcam Night Eagle 2 , prized for its 0.00001 lux sensitivity. Black and white only, its capable of providing vision in moonlight and starlight conditions without external illumination. In this project, it’s hooked up to a monocle display designed for use with drone FPV setups. With lithium batteries and a charge circuit hooked up, and everything stuffed inside a compact 3D printed case, the final result is a portable, pocket

Three-Wheeled Turret Car Looks Like It Should Be Orbiting Thunderdome

Image
In a post-apocalyptic world, this is the hacker you want rebuilding society. He’s showing off a three-wheeled go-kart that pivots the cockpit as it steers . A hand crank mounted at the center of the vehicle pivots each of the three wheels in place, but keeps the driver facing forwards with a matching rotation. Hit up the video after the break to see it for yourself. The real question here is, how did he pull this off? The watermark on the video shows that this was published by [wo583582429], a user on Douyin (the platform known as TikTok in the US). We plied our internet-fu but were unable to track down the user for more of the juicy details we crave. If you have a lead on more info, leave it in the comments below. For now, please join us in speculating on this build. This is a pretty good closeup of one of the wheel assemblies. First question is how does the turning mechanism work? Since all three wheels and hub are smoothly coordinated it’s likely this is a planetary gearing setup

Tech Hidden in Plain Sight: Gas Pumps

Image
Ask someone who isn’t technically inclined how a TV signal works or how a cell phone works, or even how a two-way switch in a hall light works and you are likely to get either a blank stare or a wildly improbable explanation. But there are some things so commonplace that even the most tech-savvy of us don’t bother thinking about. One of these things is the lowly gas pump. Gas pumps are everywhere and it’s a safe bet to assume everyone reading this has used one at some point, most of use on a regular basis. But what’s really going on there? Most of it is pretty easy to figure out. As the name implies, there must be a pump. There’s some way to tell how much is pumping and how much it costs and, today, some way to take the payment. But what about the automatic shut off? It isn’t done with some fancy electronics, that mechanism dates back decades. Plus, we’re talking about highly combustible materials, there has to be more to it then just a big tank of gas and a pump. Safety is paramount

Meticulous Bionic Hand

Image
[Will Cogley] is slowly but surely crafting a beautiful bionic hand . (Video, embedded below.) The sheer amount of engineering and thought that went into the design is incredible. Those who take their hands for granted often don’t consider the different ways that their digits can move. There is lateral movement, rotation, flexion, and extension. Generally, [Will] tries to design mechanisms with parts that can be 3D printed or sourced easily. This constrains the hand to things like servos, cable actuation, or direct drive. However, the thumb has a particularly tricky range of motion. So for the thumb [Will] designed to use a worm geared approach to produce the flexing and extension motion of the thumb. These gears need to be machined in order to stand up to the load. A small side 3d printed gear that connects to the main worm gear is connected to a potentiometer to form the feedback loop. Since it isn’t bearing any load, it can be 3d printed. While there are hundreds of little tiny pro

After Eight-Month Break, Deep Space Network Reconnects with Voyager 2

Image
When the news broke recently that communications had finally been re-established with Voyager 2 , I felt a momentary surge of panic. I’ve literally been following the Voyager missions since the twin space probes launched back in 1977, and I’ve been dreading the inevitable day when the last little bit of plutonium in their radioisotope thermal generators decays to the point that they’re no longer able to talk to us, and they go silent in the abyss of interstellar space. According to these headlines, Voyager 2 had stopped communicating for eight months — could this be a quick nap before the final sleep? Thankfully, no. It turns out that the recent blackout to our most distant outpost of human engineering was completely expected, and completely Earth-side. Upgrades and maintenance were performed on the Deep Space Network antennas that are needed to talk to Voyager. But that left me with a question: What about the rest of the DSN? Could they have not picked up the slack and kept us in tou

Quick And Dirty Trebuchet Flings Mashed Potato

Image
Thanksgiving is just round the corner and [mrak_ripple] was worried about serving food under social distancing conditions. Rather than bother with standard best practice, he chose to take a more exciting route – flinging side dishes with miniature siege weaponry. (Video, embedded below.) The mashed potato trebuchet is a build in the modern style, relying on 8020 aluminium extrusion to allow for quick and easy assembly. It also takes advantage of what appears to be a heavy duty laser cutter, which creates strong steel brackets to hold everything together. The launcher cup to hold the mash is a 3D printed part, created in resin and held on the end of the arm with duct tape, since appropriate bolts didn’t fall to hand. In the end, repeatability was a struggle, and we suspect the trebuchet won’t actually do food service on the holiday itself. However, it could certainly make for a fun game after dinner, seeing who can get the most mash onto a willing target. We’d love to see a mash cann

Really Useful Robot

Image
[James Bruton] is an impressive roboticist, building all kinds of robots from tracked, exploring robots to Boston Dynamics-esque legged robots. However, many of the robots are proof-of-concept builds that explore machine learning, computer vision, or unique movements and characteristics. This latest build make use of everything he’s learned from building those but strives to be useful on a day-to-day basis as well, and is part of the beginning of a series he is doing on building a Really Useful Robot . (Video, embedded below.) While the robot isn’t quite finished yet, his first video in this series explores the idea behind the build and the construction of the base of the robot itself. He wants this robot to be able to navigate its environment but also carry out instructions such as retrieving a small object from a table. For that it needs a heavy base which is built from large 3D-printed panels with two brushless motors with encoders for driving the custom wheels, along with a suspen