In my posting War on DIY Electronics I already told that that the trend is that electronics is heading to be less and less hackable. Wired has an opinion article Forget the Cellphone Fight — We Should Be Allowed to Unlock Everything We Own that has many good points that I can agree on. USA →
Inductive amplifier is a type of test instrument that does not require electrical contact to detect an AC wire under voltage. The conventional use of the inductive amplifier is finding the location of hidden wires and breaks in them. Inductive amplifiers can also be used to find an individual cable pair in a telephone cross →
RS-232 serial interface is still quite widely used in many applications. Usually RS-232 Mini Tester with LEDs for indicating state of different signals is all that is needed to make things work. But sometimes seeing signals with your eyes is not enough for troubleshooting and testing. There are nowadays cheap logic analyzers (like Saleae Logic →
One way to test electrolytic capacitors is to measure their capacitance. It does not tell the whole story of capacitor condition. Another usually more useful way to measure electrolytic capacitor condition is to use an ESR meter. EEVblog #365 – ESR Meter Bad Cap Monitor Repair video gives you tips how to use ESR meter →
I write some time ago about USBEE AX clone. tubbutec blog writer got the remark about the bidirectional driver gave and investigated this a little bit further. It turned out you can modify this logic analyzer pretty easily to provide output capabilities. Adding output capability to a 10€ logic analyser article tells how you can →
The most common joystick type in home computers in 1980′s and some time after that have been Atari-style digital joysticks. Atari 2600 joystick pinout”>Those joysticks are named after Atari, because this joystick type was first introduced in Atari 2600 videogame and then adopted to the home computers introduced on ever since (VIC 20, Commodore 64, →
DIY Tables Are Made From Recycled Tech, Look Awesome article tells that some of the most dangerous waste is that of computers and other gadgets, so any way of recycling such items is a plus. Some may turn parts into earring jewelry or necklace. Others melt computer parts down to make beautiful and geeky furniture →
99 Life Hacks to Make Life Easier page is a great list of images that each give one of 99 life hacks that might just make certain life situations a little easier for all of us. Hopefully those images make this day a little bit better and give you ideas for new hacks. →
The Open 7400 Logic Competition has brought awareness to open hardware and software, and fosters understanding of the building blocks of modern integrated circuits. What can you build with basic logic chips? 7400 Logic Competition winners are announced According to competition results page all the entries were amazing! There are quite a few of them. →
MaKey MaKey is an interesting gadget that allows you to easily build your own touchpad keyboard to your PC. →