Just like the garage computer explosion of the 70’s through the 80’s, which brought us such things as Apple, pong, Bill Gate’s hair, and the proliferation of personal computers, the maker movement is the new garage hardware explosion. Today, 135 million adults in the United States alone are involved in the maker movement.
Enthusiasts who want to build the products they want, from shortwave radios to personal computers, and to tweak products they’ve bought to make them even better, have long been a part of the electronics industry. By all measures, garage-style innovation remains alive and well today, as “makers” as they are called continue to turn out contemporary gadgets, including 3D printers, drones, and embedded electronics devices.
Making is about individual Do-It-Yourselfers being able to design and create with tools that were, as of a decade or two ago, only available to large, cash-rich corporations: CAD tools, CNC mills, 3D printers, low-quantity PCB manufacturing, open hardware such as Arduinos and similar inexpensive development boards – all items that have made it easier and relatively cheap to make whatever we imagine. For individuals, maker tools can change how someone views their home or their hobbies. The world is ours to make. Humans are genetically wired to be makers. The maker movement is simply the result of making powerful building and communication tools accessible to the masses. There are plenty of projects from makers that show good engineering: Take this Arduino board with tremendous potential, developed by a young maker, as example.
The maker movement is a catalyst to democratize entrepreneurship as these do-it-yourself electronics are proving to be hot sellers: In the past year, unit sales for 3D printing related products; Arduino units, parts and supplies; Raspberry Pi boards; drones and quadcopters; and robotics goods are all on a growth curve in terms of eBay sales. There are many Kickstarter maker projects going on. The Pebble E-Paper Watch raises $10 million. The LIFX smartphone-controlled LED bulb raises $1.3 million. What do these products have in common? They both secured funding through Kickstarter, a crowd-funding website that is changing the game for entrepreneurs. Both products were created by makers who seek to commercialize their inventions. These “startup makers” iterate on prototypes with high-end tools at professional makerspaces.
For companies to remain competitive, they need to embrace the maker movement or leave themselves open for disruption. Researchers found that 96 percent of business leaders believe new technologies have forever changed the rules of business by democratizing information and rewiring customer expectations. - You’ve got to figure out agile innovation. Maybe history is repeating itself as the types of products being sold reminded us of the computer tinkering that used to be happening in the 1970s to 1990s – similar in terms of demographics, tending to be young people, and low budget. Now the do-it-yourself category is deeply intertwined with the electronics industry. Open hardware is in the center in maker movement – we need open hardware designs! How can you publish your designs and still do business with it? Open source ecosystem markets behave differently and therefore require a very different playbook than traditional tech company: the differentiation is not in the technology you build; it is in the process and expertise that you slowly amass over an extended period of time.
By democratizing the product development process, helping these developments get to market, and transforming the way we educate the next generation of innovators, we will usher in the next industrial revolution. The world is ours to make. Earlier the PC created a new generation of software developers who could innovate in the digital world without the limitations of the physical world (virtually no marginal cost, software has become the great equalizer for innovation. Now advances in 3D printing and low-cost microcontrollers as well as the ubiquity of advanced sensors are enabling makers to bridge software with the physical world. Furthermore, the proliferation of wireless connectivity and cloud computing is helping makers contribute to the Internet of Things (IoT). We’re even beginning to see maker designs and devices entering those markets once thought to be off-limits, like medical.
Image source: The world is ours to make: The impact of the maker movement – EDN Magazine
In fact, many parents have engaged in the maker movement with their kids because they know that the education system is not adequately preparing their children for the 21st century. There is a strong movement to spread this DIY idea widely. The Maker Faire, which launched in the Bay Area in California in 2006, underlined the popularity of the movement by drawing a record 215,000 people combined in the Bay Area and New York events in 2014. There’s Maker Media, MakerCon, MakerShed, Make: magazine and 131 Maker Faire events that take place throughout the world. Now the founders of all these Makers want a way to connect what they refer to as the “maker movement” online. So Maker Media created a social network called MakerSpace, a Facebook-like social network that connects participants of Maker Faire in one online community. The new site will allow participants of the event to display their work online. There are many other similar sites that allow yout to present yout work fron Hackaday to your own blog. Today, 135 million adults in the United States alone are involved in the maker movement—although makers can be found everywhere in the world.
7,076 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/15/a-handy-breakout-board-for-e-paper-hacking/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/15/a-sleep-monitor-for-minimum-outlay/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/15/abacus-synthesizer-really-adds-up/
Tomi Engdahl says:
E-TKT: anachronic label maker
https://hackaday.io/project/185912-e-tkt-anachronic-label-maker
E-TKT is a DIY label maker that mixes both old fashioned and contemporary technology to create something as simple as… Labels!
Tomi Engdahl says:
CD/DVD mechanisms and cartesian thinggie[s?]
DVD-laser-etcher, dremmel-router, possibly a 3D printer? Who knows!
https://hackaday.io/project/7535-cddvd-mechanisms-and-cartesian-thinggies
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/18/build-your-own-two-factor-authenticator-with-good-usb/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Odd Inputs And Peculiar Peripherals: A Joystick Like They Used To Make
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/15/odd-inputs-and-peculiar-peripherals-a-joystick-like-they-used-to-make/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/16/office-life-the-old-gray-mare-she-aint-what-she-used-to-be/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building the WORLDS FIRST PlayStation 5 slim
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he6xyl_MHXY
The PlayStation 5 is a BIG console… let’s fix that! Also, visit http://dbrand.com/diydarkplates if you’d like to customise your own PS5!
Tomi Engdahl says:
LMN 3: An Open-Source DAW-in-a-Box
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5UmPTttN1s
The LMN-3 is an open-source synth/sampler/sequencer/DAW-in-a-box. You can find the collection of all LMN-3 repositories here:
https://github.com/FundamentalFrequency
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.io/project/185994-diy-retro-audio-player
Tomi Engdahl says:
Predictive Maintenance Of Compressor Water Pumps
https://hackaday.io/project/185930-predictive-maintenance-of-compressor-water-pumps
Applying sensor fusion with RSL10 and Bosch sensors to run a TinyML model for predictive maintenance of compressor water pumps.
SumitSumit
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mini Electromagnetic “Shake” Lantern
A mini electromagnetic lantern that can be recharged by shaking
https://hackaday.io/project/185103-mini-electromagnetic-shake-lantern
Tomi Engdahl says:
Household Electrically Enhanced Wet Scrubber
https://hackaday.io/project/7237-household-electrically-enhanced-wet-scrubber
A household air purification unit for kitchens, labs, & smokers used to scrub fine particulates and VOC’s out of the air.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/20/dont-mind-if-i-ski-do/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scrambling Pocket Calculators Made Easy With EMP Box V2
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/20/scrambling-pocket-calculators-made-easy-with-emp-box-v2/
[Rostislav Persion] has for some time been interested in making small, portable EMP devices capable of interfering with nearby electronics. In these EMP devices, high voltage is used to create a portable spark gap generator, whose operation in turn creates electromagnetic pulses capable of resetting or scrambling nearby electronics such as pocket calculators.
http://www.persion.info/projects/emp_box_002/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wonderful Foldable Printable Dodecahedron
Wonderful Foldable Printable Dodecahedron
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/20/wonderful-foldable-printable-dodecahedron/
Tomi Engdahl says:
No Tool Left Behind With The Help Of Homemade Shadow Boards
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/21/no-tool-left-behind-with-the-help-of-homemade-shadow-boards/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Step Down DC DC
Project based on LM2596S
https://hackaday.io/project/181250-step-down-dc-dc
Tomi Engdahl says:
Casting Parts In Urethane: Tips From A Master
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/21/casting-parts-in-urethane-tips-from-a-master/
Tomi Engdahl says:
CNC Mill for under $100
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R29G3hUiZnU
In this video I’m going to show how I built a basic CNC mill. Most of the hardware was sourced from spare / leftover parts I had laying around from other projects and ended up costing me under $100. It has a working area of approximately 250mm x 250mm x 70mm and is capable of milling aluminum (though somewhat rough).
The axes are moved with small NEMA17 stepper motors running at 24V, driven by A4988 drivers. The brain of the machine is an Arduino Uno running GRBL firmware, and G-code is sent to it via. USB from a laptop running Universal Gcode Sender – so everything is open source.
I have a little bit of experience operating a CNC mill, but this is the first one i’ve built / owned. The biggest learning experience from this build was that everything needs to be tightened up and made as rigid as possible to get good results. Between leadscrew backlash and rails flexing, the spindle could easily be moved +/- 1mm or more, which causes tons of vibration, chattering, rough cutting, and loss of precision. In a future video I’ll be upgrading the spindle and beefing up the structure to use 16mm rails instead of 8mm for better rigidity.
I don’t recommend trying to build this design yourself, because I created the printed brackets based on parts i had on hand, not what was “optimal”. However, if you really want to, the STL’s can be found here:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5262097
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chinese handheld Arc (stick) welder – just how sketchy is it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CF4TzGecco
A look at a dubious looking hand-held stick welder.
Viewer comments:
Neat video but I feel like a gun form factor like that is just about the worst possible choice for a stick welder. Thanks for taking the bullet for the rest of us!
This looks like the display is showing about double the real welding current supplied, just like some of the other “shoebox” sized el-cheapo stick welding mahines.
No, not at all. The meter is showing the average current while the set current will be the peak current. As far as I can see the indicated current was about 70% of the set current, which I should think is about right for the widely fluctuating current through an arc.
Welding action starts at 12:00
a better design would be to have all the circuitry in a small box compartment with only the electrode wire going to the gun, which only holds the electrode, that would be lighter and easier to handle!
It’s okay to stick some stuff together, but it would be way handier if it was just a small box with a normal stinger coming out of it. I couldn’t tolerate all that weight, and it looks almost impossible to use your off hand as a support. Sometimes you prop up your dominant hand, and other times I hold about 2/3 down the rod like a cigarette between my second and middle finger for fine control.
I’m a reasonably skilled welder and I think this thing isn’t terrible. It’s cheap and compact enough to be worth keeping one in your van just in case – and it will clearly do light duty welding ok.
Typically for working in difficult locations you have a compact inverter that goes on a harness or belt. Not sure if this is really better or worse for that application.
The bulk of the unit will definitely get in the way for a lot of tasks though, compared to a normal electrode holder.
If they did a cheap spool gun like this I would say that’s more useful.
One huge problem I see is hot sparks flying into the unit and melting the insualtion on transformer or something on PCB considering how close is the electrode to the actual unit. A DIY shield in front would help with this problem I think.
As a service engineer in the welding and power generation hire industry, I can honestly say that this is a dog turd that someone has tried to polish with a cat turd.
The polarity of the welding rod is the wrong way round, for a start.
“electrode negative” ~2/3 of heat end up in the work and not in the electrode, that’s good for TIG welding where you don’t want to melt the tungsten. For stick “electrode positive” is much more common
I’m a skilled stick welder, I’m tempted to buy one and try it for the lols. However with that volt/amp curve, that’s not going to weld very nicely. The output connector looks like a standard dinse socket so you could swap the polarity relatively easily
Positive electrode in the arc heats up more(like anode in vacuum tube). If you connect + to ground clamp you are heating welding rod less and metal more. (This is more common polarity).
If you swap leads, rod will get more heat and metal less, good for welding thin sheets as you are less likely to burn a hole.
afaik ~2/3 of the heat ends up in the positive
To be fair, I expected worse…
Though, having a more “traditional” box design with perhaps a shoulder strap and then two welding terminals would likely be nicer in practice.
Same for having a fuse inside, and perhaps some more mains filtering. But other than that, it seems surprisingly reasonable.
The maximum allowed fusing (breaker) on a standard EU outlet is 15A, the normal input current of this thing is 15A, so the socket branch breaker is actually the correct overcurrent protection for this, so it does need any extra overcurrent fuse within the device. If I remember well, UK’s socket system requires that fuse (I guess the 13A would be the proper one for 3kW intermittent power) to be within the plug, so again any extra fuse within the device would be useless (I mean the main power path; the small aux supply likely uses just a fusible resistor).
16A where I live, not 15A. 15A as I recall is an american thing, with their 115V circuits.
I don’t know the official UK regulations nowadays, but 40 years ago when I wired a house it was 30A breakers for a ring circuit, and the UK flat I currently live in has 30A breakers for the plug circuits, so I assume it’s still the same. A 15A breaker is only 3.6kW and would trip if I had my kettle and microwave on at the same time (kettle = 3kW, microwave = >900W) Each UK plug top is fused with a max rating of 13A, so is the primary protection.
Actually I am surprised with the performance of that unit, not bad at all! Best place for those glasses is the bin, nothing worse than UV radiation burn of the eyes so investing in good quality welding mask is a good idea. Good to practise on that heavy piece of metal, 100 amps is a good current setting to start with and try and run straight weld lines ( slowly and consistently to deposit the weld metal ). The light guage metal I suggest 70 amps or less as it will blow holes in the tube, tack the pieces together first to hold them. A ventilation fan is a good idea, smoke from the welding process is toxic especially metals containing Zinc and Cadmium. Welding is a great skill to have, grab plenty of old metal offcuts to practise on and a box of general purpose welding rods, have fun!
What was the price? You can get a decent stick welder, say 120A, from Lidl (real TUV certs, decent QA, PRC made of course, 3y warranty…) for ~60EUR, so this would have to be (much) cheaper than that…
He said 80$ at the start of the video.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A 3D-Printed Nixie Clock Powered By An Arduino Runs This Robot
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/22/a-3d-printed-nixie-clock-powered-by-an-arduino-runs-this-robot/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/22/how-far-can-you-push-a-500-small-electric-car-four-years-of-the-hacky-racer/
Tomi Engdahl says:
An Impressively Functional Tacobot
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/22/an-impressively-functional-tacobot/
We’re big fans of useless machines here at Hackaday, there’s something undeniably entertaining about watching a gadget flail about dramatically without actually making any progress towards a defined goal. But what happens when one of these meme machines ends up working too well? We think that’s just what we might be witnessing here with the Tacobot from [Vije Miller].
http://vijemiller.com/index.php?t=Tacobot
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/22/the-little-lightgun-that-could-sinden-makes-good/
Tomi Engdahl says:
This Brass “Cyberpunk-y” Smartwatch Packs an Arduino, Curved Display, and a 3D-Printed Button Ring
Made using soldered brass sheeting on a 3D-printed shell, this eye-catching watch has some clever design features.
https://www.hackster.io/news/this-brass-cyberpunk-y-smartwatch-packs-an-arduino-curved-display-and-a-3d-printed-button-ring-488c816d3a7b
Tomi Engdahl says:
Skycode22′s OpenTrack and OpenEx Are Fully 3D-Printable, Arduino-Driven Trackballs
With one model using keyboard-style switches and another paying homage to the Kensington Expert, these 3D-printable trackballs are neat.
https://www.hackster.io/news/skycode22-s-opentrack-and-openex-are-fully-3d-printable-arduino-driven-trackballs-b0fc7f1f6d1f
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.hackster.io/news/these-clever-3d-printed-led-cubes-connect-and-communicate-via-magnets-7a46ec37ba5b
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mechanical Keyboards Are Over, This Device Has Won
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/24/mechanical-keyboards-are-over-this-device-has-won/
Tomi Engdahl says:
An In-Depth Look At The Haptic Smart Knob
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/24/an-in-depth-look-at-the-haptic-smart-knob/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/25/getting-serial-data-out-of-an-old-spectrophotometer/
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Passive Automatic CNC Tool Changer
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/25/a-passive-automatic-cnc-tool-changer/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/26/odd-inputs-and-peculiar-peripherals-chorded-keyset-recreates-engelbarts-vision/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/26/diy-night-vision-where-four-is-better-than-two/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/26/this-custom-workbench-will-make-you-flip/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Injection Molds: Aluminum Or Resin?
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/27/injection-molds-aluminum-or-resin/
[JohnSL] and his friend both have injection molding machines. They decided to compare the aluminum molds they usually use with some 3D printed molds created with a resin printer. They used two different resins, one on each side of the mold. You can see a video of the results below.
One half of the mold used ordinary resin while the other side used a resin that is made to hold up to higher temperatures. As you might expect, the lower-temperature resin didn’t stand up well to molten plastic. However, the higher temperature resin did somewhat better. It makes sense, though, that an aluminum mold draws more heat out of the plastic which is helpful in the molding process.
3D Printed vs Aluminum Injection Molds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq5dw1x05zI
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stealing Electricity (The safe way)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLS8pbDNHbk
In this video i build a coil that’s effectively a huge loopstick antenna with tuning capacitors to resonate at 60 Hz, which is mains frequency in North America. The coil can generate over 5 volts near running appliances or power cables, and charge a capacitor or light up some LEDs. It works by collecting the small magnetic flux leakage that every AC device produces.
The power generated is less than 100 μW in most cases, so it can’t do anything very exciting, but it’s really interesting to stand under a power line and see a capacitor charge from its leak. The biggest limiting factor seems to be that transmission lines which have opposite phases very close to each other result in a near-zero magnetic field at a distance from canceling out most of each others magnetic flux.
Some figures:
Coil Wire Gauge: 28 AWG
Number of turns: ~12,000
Coil Inductance: 28.1 H
Capacitor Value: 250 nF
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.io/project/184570-music-spectrum-and-db-visualizer
Tomi Engdahl says:
Minamil: a minimal CNC mill. And friends.
Each axis: ̶$̶5̶ ̶$̶8̶ $10 motor+lead screw, 3x LM6UU, 3x 6mm x 100mm rod, 1/8in hardboard, PC case screws
https://hackaday.io/project/174370-minamil-a-minimal-cnc-mill-and-friends
Tomi Engdahl says:
Green Detect
Wireless Sensor Network Platform (WSN) , for enviromental monitoring
https://hackaday.io/project/186064-green-detect
Tomi Engdahl says:
My Little Scanning Electron Microscope
This project details the build of a scanning electron microscope and electron lithography unit.
https://hackaday.io/project/186063-my-little-scanning-electron-microscope
Easy Bake Fab Lab
A study into building a semiconductor fabrication lab for the home hobbyist.
https://hackaday.io/project/185897-easy-bake-fab-lab
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rugged retro joystick
https://hackaday.io/project/185951-rugged-retro-joystick
Decided to build my own joystick for the C64 I own. Just got disappointed with the ‘retro’ hardware out there.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/27/odd-inputs-and-peculiar-peripherals-roendi-smart-knob-thinks-outside-the-box/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/27/homebrew-optical-sensor-helps-your-diesel-pass-the-smoke-test/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/27/metal-detector-gets-help-from-smartphone/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Multispectral imaging smartphone camera
A smartphone imaging system for art conservation analysis
https://hackaday.io/project/185259-multispectral-imaging-smartphone-camera
This project started with utilizing a separate USB camera module, removing the IR filter, and interfacing with a smartphone with an app. That turned out to be a lot easier than modifying a smartphone, but was limited to the lower-quality cameras and USB camera software. I’ve gone through about a couple dozen smartphone camera modules to find ones that were able to be modified and the method by which to do so.
Finally, it’s starting to work.
I’ve been using the Google Pixel 3a because it has great camera software, excellent night and astrophotography modes, and used versions are available very affordably.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/28/building-a-serial-bus-to-save-an-old-hard-drive/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/28/odd-inputs-and-peculiar-peripherals-the-lowpow-shortkeyboard-can-work-on-your-desk-or-out-in-the-field/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/06/28/2022-hackaday-prize-reuse-recycle-revamp-finalists/