Making a DIY Refrigerated Vest With Battery and Solar Power

https://invidious.privacyredirect.com/watch?v=qv0IJM3BV9Y

Keeping a cool head is difficult at the best of times, least of all when it’s summer and merely thinking of touching bare skin to the pavement already gets you a second-degree burn. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to spend all summer in an air-conditioned room, but what if you took said room with you? Introducing [Hyperspace Pirate]’s air-conditioned vest.

Following on from last time’s adventures with a battery-powered air-conditioner that merely blew cold air onto one’s overheating body, this time the same compressor is used for a more compact build.

Since obviously using your body as part of the condenser would be...

Exploring a Modern SMTPE 2110 Broadcast Truck With My Dad

In October, my Dad and I got to go behind the scenes at two St. Louis Blues (NHL hockey) games, and observe the massive team effort involved in putting together a modern digital sports broadcast.

I wanted to explore the timing and digital side of a modern SMPTE 2110 mobile unit, and my Dad has been involved in studio and live broadcast for decades, so he enjoyed the experience as the engineer not on duty!

Robots Talking to Robots

Although there are a few robots on the market that can make life a bit easier, plenty of them have closed-source software or smartphone apps required for control that may phone home and send any amount of data from the user’s LAN back to some unknown server. Many people will block off Internet access for these types of devices, if they buy them at all, but that can restrict the abilities of the robots in some situations. [Max]’s robot vacuum has this problem, but he was able to keep it offline while retaining its functionality by using an interesting approach.

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He’s a Wrapper (Wire Wrapper, That Is)

https://invidious.privacyredirect.com/watch?v=TzlM8yZR5RI

Before PCBs, wiring electronic circuits was a major challenge in electronics production. A skilled person could make beautiful wire connections between terminal strips and components with a soldering iron, but it was labor-intensive and expensive. One answer that was very popular was wire wrapping, and [Sawdust & Circuits] shows off an old-fashioned wire wrap gun in the video below.

The idea was to use a spinning tool to tightly wrap solid wire on square pins. A proper wrap was a stable alternative to soldering. It required less skill, no heat, and was easy to unwrap (using a different tool) if you...

Texas Instruments unveils MSPM33C321A mixed-signal Cortex-M33 microcontroller with 256KB SRAM, 1MB flash

Texas Instruments MSPM33C321A is a new Arm Cortex-M33 mixed-signal microcontroller clocked at 160MHz, with up to 1MB of flash with ECC and 256kB SRAM with ECC, and a range of digital and analog peripherals. Those include 9.4MSPS dual SAR ADCs and comparators, QSPI, UART, SPI, I2C, I2S/TDM, & CAN-FD interfaces, and the company also highlights a separate VBAT power domain with RTC, integrated watchdog, and tamper I/O, as well as low power consumption with a 16µA standby current with 64kB SRAM and CPU/register retention. The MSPM33C321A also has a little brother with 512KB flash called the MSPM33C3219. MSPM33C321A specifications: MCU...

Why PlayStation Graphics Wobble, Flicker and Twitch

https://invidious.privacyredirect.com/watch?v=0psAfIFPtVI

Although often tossed together into a singular ‘retro game’ aesthetic, the first game consoles that focused on 3D graphics like the Nintendo 64 and Sony PlayStation featured very distinct visuals that make these different systems easy to distinguish. Yet whereas the N64 mostly suffered from a small texture buffer, the PS’s weak graphics hardware necessitated compromises that led to the highly defining jittery and wobbly PlayStation graphics.

These weaknesses of the PlayStation and their results are explored by [LorD of Nerds] in a recent video. Make sure to toggle on subtitles if you do not speak German.

It could be argued that...

CIA’s World Factbook is Gone

Before the Internet, there was a certain value to knowing how to find out about things. Reference librarians could help you locate specialized data like the Thomas Register, the EE and IC Masters for electronics, or even an encyclopedia or CRC handbook. But if you wanted up-to-date info on any country of the world, you’d often turn to the CIA. The originally classified document was what the CIA knew about every country in the world. Well, at least what they’d admit to knowing, anyway. But now, the Factbook is gone.

The publication started in 1962 as the classified “The National Basic...

Welding Nuts Inside Metal Tubes, Painlessly

https://invidious.privacyredirect.com/watch?v=nC161Ni67-E

[Jer Schmidt] needed a way to put a lot of M8 bolts into a piece of square steel tubing, but just drilling and tapping threads into the thin steel wouldn’t be strong enough. So he figured out a way to reliably weld nuts to the inside of the tube, and his technique works even if the tube is long and the inside isn’t accessible.

Essentially, one drills a hole for the bolt, plus two smaller holes on either side. Then one welds the...

Driving Sim Handbrake Based on Load Cell

https://invidious.privacyredirect.com/watch?v=xzpE0UGo8F0

Simulator-style video games are designed to scale in complexity, allowing players to engage at anything from a casual level to highly detailed, realistic simulation. Microsoft Flight Simulator, for example, can be played with a keyboard and mouse, a controller, or a huge, expensive simulator designed to replicate a specific airplane in every detail. Driving simulators are similar, and [CNCDan] has been hard at work on his DIY immersive driving sim rig, with this hand brake as his latest addition.

For this build, [CNCDan] is going with a lever-style handbrake which is common in motorsports like drifting and rallying. He has already...

The first good Raspberry Pi Laptop

Ever since the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 was introduced, I wondered why nobody built a decent laptop chassis around it.

You could swap out a low spec CM5 for a higher spec, and get an instant computer upgrade. Or, assuming a CM6 comes out someday in the same form factor, the laptop chassis could get an entirely new life with that upgrade.