Category: hardware
A billion digits of Pi – experiments in ultra-microprinting with gold on sapphire
You can print extremely tiny text using the same techniques that are used to make semiconductor chips. Like so tiny that you can fit one billion digits of Pi on a 5″ square plate…
You can’t see the digits because they so tiny, but they are all there (I’ve checked). 40,000 digits per row * 25,000 rows. So many tiny digits.
Here is what it looks like under a high-power 1000x microscope…
Here is the upper-left corner zoomed in all the way…
See the “3.1515…”? Each pixel in this 3×5 font is 750 nanometers x 750 nanometers. At the limits of visible light wavelengths.
If you use gold as the ink and sapphire as the paper it will also last for a very, very long time.
This was so cool we felt like we needed to do something cool with it (besides making silicon chips that no one will ever look at). So we teamed up with the cool people at CW&T (the cool pen type-B people) to make a cool pocket sized viewer for viewing these microprints. It looks like this…
Cool, right?
There is a kickstarter where you can get one. As soon as you back, you will get a link where you can upload your own tiny 500×500 image and pick where you want it to go. It is like a tiny gold-on-sapphire time capsule to preserve the 1,000 cool images from 1,000 cool people. You can see a live zoomable online version of the cool stuff the cool people have uploaded so far here…
If you want to be a part of this then back the kickstarter here (1 day left)…
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cwandt/pocket-fiche?ref=avhkql
If you want to buy one of the 1-billion-digit plates, leave a comment with your contact info (it will not be made public). We will probably charge $5,000 each (pretty cheap on a per-digit basis). Bring your own microscope (we can make recommendations, but it will not be cheap).
-josh
FAQ:
Q: Why?
A: We had to develop the lithology process to make semiconductor chips, and the tech is just so damn cool.
Q: But why Pi?
A: Because it doesn’t repeat, so it is *extremely* challenging. If you know what a GDS is and you are wondering how the hell this is possible, get in touch.
Q: But why gold and sapphire?
A: Pure gold does not oxidize and is resistant to almost all acids (but don’t dip it in iodine!), and it looks so cool. Pure sapphire has extremely high durability chemical stability, and it also looks so cool.
Q: Semiconductors?
A: Gotham Silicon is coming. But don’t tell anyone yet because it is a big secret.
Q: How did you make that cool viewer?
A: So cool, right?? Mostly leaflet JS, but with some tricks. Github here.
Build a giant live scrolling tickertape display from WS2812B Neopixels and an Arduino Uno
Display live scrolling sports scores, crypto prices, or hot tweets on the side of your favorite newspaper building. All you need are some cheap pixel strips, an Uno, and a 5 volt power supply (I used a USB charger with the connector cut off).
Demo video and easy instructions below!
Continue readingSome of the more interesting air conditioners I have met
Almost all air conditioners and refrigerators on the planet work basically the same way, but some units have their own unique charms. Click on to through to see inside the thinnest, quietest, tiniest, and crappiest units I’ve ever met.
The inside of the cheapest ($99) AC I’ve ever seen. Most of the internal structure is styrofoam and the vibration dampeners are squished on plumbers putty. But it works!
Pneumatic Hydraulics Are So Fricken Fun!!!!
How did I not know about Pneumatics before now?!? They are just like the hydraulics on your backhoe, except they are super cheap and easy and fun- and they don’t smell, won’t ruin your shirts, and won’t turn your arm into a meat pie (warning! gross!!!).
Today I share with you the full breadth of pnuematics wisdom that I’ve painstakingly acquired over the course the last 20 minutes so you can start playing with them too.
Full video after the break….
A software only solution to the vexing Beagle Bone Black PHY issue
Sometimes the Ethernet port on a Beagle Bone Black does not work on power up. It takes either a physical reset button press or a power cycle to fix it. This problem affects all BBB’s and until now could only be solved with hardware hacks.
The final official word from TI on this problem:
This sucks. If you are thinking of using a Beagle Bone Black for anything important… then don’t. And don’t bother reading the rest of this article.
If you already are stuck with the Beagle Bone Black and wish that it worked right each and every time you turn it on, then read this article.
Here is a workaround that can guarantee that an unmodified Beagle Bone Black will have a working Ethernet port within a few minutes after power up.
Continue readingDeconstructing Kitty
“Google called, and josh.com needs more cats.”
So today we look inside these amazing cats that can somehow keep on wavin’ using less than 15 microwatts (!) of power. If you are into either ultra low-power or extreme design-for-manufacture, the you will want to see what is inside of these guys!
“What I can not create with an Arduino, I do not understand”, so we then proceed to recreate a lucky cat under Arduino digital control.
Make your BeagleBone Black am355x magically turn itself on with the built-in alarm clock
The am335x ARM chip in the BeagleBone Black has a Real Time Clock hidden inside that you can use to have the board spontaneously turn itself on anytime in the next 100 years.
Here I present a new utility to manage that built-in clock from the Linux command line, and explain how to use it to keep time, shutdown, software power cycle, and more!
More Adventures in Auto-routing – The Big Spin Swap
It doesn’t matter which side of a resistor goes to which connection, and sometimes switching them around can make a board much easier to route. Same goes for equivalent IO pins on a microcontroller and lots of other cases. Here we see what a big difference a little pin swapping can make, and how to give the TopoR auto-router the freedom to swap your pins for you.
Challenge: Can you figure out how this single part boost converter works?
If you think this is easy, then I think you are missing something. This is hard. You need to know your hardware intimately to figure this one out.
Free Less Is More Hacker tee-shirt to the first correct answer in the comments. More details and demo video below…
Blinking Blue- Powering a 3.7 volt LED from a 2.4 volt coin cell with a $0.02 charge pump
Everyone loves blue LEDs and everyone loves coin cell batteries, but if you want to power a blue LED from a coin cell you will need some help. Here is a super-cheap and easy way add a to boost your LED voltage with only an additional capacitor & diode, and a little software.