diy engineering

Tech Ingredients shows how to build cheap, high-performance flat-panel speakers using audio exciters on sheet materials such as foam-core board. It explains how distributed-mode speakers work and walks through experiments to find good designs.

Tech Ingredients shows how to build flat panel speakers from exciters and foam board, with construction guidelines, measured SPL comparisons and a complete system playing music.

DIY Perks shows how to turn old or smashed TVs and monitors into realistic artificial window lights, using the backlight and Fresnel lens to simulate distant daylight.

Ben Krasnow of Applied Science shows how to make small batches of specialty glass with minimal equipment, including designing and making photochromic glass. He covers ingredients, melting and the challenges involved.

A roughly 90-minute film of John Dobson building a Dobsonian telescope step by step, including hand-grinding the mirror.

A step-by-step guide to building a lifter, a small triangular ionocraft made from balsa wood, aluminum foil and thin wire, powered by a high-voltage supply. It also shows high-voltage safety practices.

A woodworker shows how his table saw accident happened, why it happened and how to avoid a similar one. He describes severe hand lacerations from a blade contact.

A University of Michigan Medicine demonstration of building a cheap DIY air purifier from a box fan and a HEPA or high-MERV filter using hardware-store parts. It explains why this helps against dust, smoke and viruses and ties it to local air quality readings.

Tech Ingredients builds a pair of large Voigt speakers and explains ported, transmission line and horn designs. It tests them in an anechoic chamber and uses constrained layer damping for the enclosure.

Ben Krasnow of Applied Science explains how electrophoretic e-paper displays work and how he modified the driver firmware and waveform lookup tables of a 4.2-inch panel to reach roughly 3Hz partial refresh. It covers the tweakable constants in the refresh process and touches on colored e-ink microcapsules.

Jeri Ellsworth shows step by step how to make an NMOS transistor at home using a kiln, rust remover, spin-on dopant, eBay wafers and vinyl stickers.

Applied Science builds a replica Apollo DSKY using an electroluminescent driver circuit and screen-printed conductive ink, with source and PCB files published.

A two-hour NANOG tutorial by Richard Steenbergen aimed at network engineers, covering optical networking technologies. This is the updated 2017 edition of a recurring talk.

Ben Krasnow of Applied Science shows how to make and test YBCO high-temperature superconductor with a kiln and eBay chemicals. He demonstrates flux pinning and shows a close-up of the crystal structure.