As you dive deeper into the world of electronics, a good oscilloscope quickly is an indispensable tool. However, for many use cases where you’re debugging low voltage, low speed circuits, that expensive oscilloscope is using only a fraction of its capabilities. As a minimalist alternative for these use cases [fhdm-dev] created Scoppy, a combination of firmware for the Raspberry Pi Pico and an Android app to create a functional oscilloscope.
To make metal 3D printing accessible, YouTuber Integza is experimenting with metal 3D printing with a welder.
3D printing has come a very long way in the past decade, particularly in the consumer market. But all consumer 3D printers produce plastic parts and metal 3D printing is out of the reach of hobbyists. Today’s metal 3D printers utilize the SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) process, in which a laser melts and fuses metallic powder. But SLS 3D printers are very expensive — often hundreds of thousands of dollars. If we’re lucky, more affordable options will hit the market in the future. In the mean time, YouTuber Integza, AKA Joel, is experimenting with metal 3D printing with a welder.
Nintendo’s classic Game Boy has long been the darling queen of the handheld scene. However, with many fans modifying their handhelds with power-sucking features like modern backlit LCDs, running on AA batteries can become a frustrating exercise as they rapidly run out. [esotericsean] gets around that by modifying his Game Boys with a USB rechargeable battery setup. (Video, embedded below.)
The hack is a simple one, but the execution is quite tidy. [esotericsean] starts by removing the original DC jack from the Game Boy motherboard, and hogs out the hole in the case to fit a micro USB port. The original battery housing is similarly carved out to suit a 2000 mAh lithium-polymer pouch cell. A single-cell charging board is used to manage the battery, with its original connector removed and replaced with a neater-looking panel mount micro USB port instead. The electronics is then wrapped up in Kapton tape and stuffed inside the shell as everything is put back together.
Servos, CD player parts, and wine boxes complete this unique three-axis plotter.
Popular Instructables creator tuenhidiy has come up with a unique CNC machine, which can be seen demonstrated in the video below drawing several nice pictures. The machine runs GRBL firmware, and features a fairly standard X axis gantry setup with a movable table for the Y axis. For the Z component, it lifts its drawing instrument up with drive parts from a CD player.
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FacelessTech built this Game Boy cartridge that shows the game title on a small OLED screen.
The original Nintendo Game Boy is now more than 30 years old, but it still has an active community of enthusiasts who make new hardware or modify existing hardware. That includes people who make new game cartridges. To make those, they use “repro” (short for “reproduction”) PCBs that contain re-flashable chips and Game Boy-compatible edge connectors. FacelessTech noticed that those PCBs are quite compact and built a shortened Ghost Cart that is about half the height of a standard cartridge. For his newest project, he used that extra space to add an OLED screen to a Game Boy cartridge.
Making battery packs is a common pursuit in our community, involving spot-welding nickel strips to the terminals on individual cells. Many a pack has been made in this way, using reclaimed 18650 cells taken from discarded laptops. Commercial battery spot welders do a good job but have a huge inrush current and aren’t cheap, so it’s not uncommon to see improvised solutions such as rewound transformers taken out of microwave ovens. There’s another possibility though, in the form of cheap modules that promise the same results using a battery pack as a power supply.
