Engineer In Wonderland

In a world of mosfets and hemts, it is not often you see a new pnp power transistor. Earlier this year, Diodes did just that, with some 2.5W dual pnp bipolars for switching automotive lighting – particularly matrix headlights – the soon-to-be realised headlights that change beam shape by projecting an image of a high-fill-factor square array of leds into ...

The 64m Australian radio telescope near Parkes in New South Wales, subject of the film The Dish’, has been named Murriyang (ceremony right), from the local Wiradjuri laguage which apparently represents “the ‘Skyworld’ where a prominent creator spirit of the Wiradjuri Dreaming, Biyaami (Baiame), lives”, according to CSIRO (Commonwealth scientific and industrial research organisation), This sent me into an Internet rabbit hole ...

Professional additive manufacturing expo and conference Formnext is live and virtual next week, from 10 to 12 November as Formnext Connect. ‘Entry’ is free this year. According to the organisers: In addition to the entire spectrum of different AM processes, Formnext presents an overview of all upstream and downstream processes. An accompanying conference with talks by industry innovators, moderators and ...

I have been printing bungs for a Swiss ball – the big plastic exercise balls the size of a Space Hopper – from which the a friend lost the bung. It took three goes to get the size right – tapered fit, don’t you know. The first one came out too small, the next too big (top photo, look at ...

Leiden University in The Netherlands has scaled the well-known #3Dbenchy 3d printing challenge down and printed it to measure 30μm from end to end. It was printed on a Photonic Professional GT from Nanoscribe, which uses an immersion lithography lens system to implement two-photon polymerisation. A mini Benchy was not the real aim of the Leiden research project, which was to ...

RS Components has been running a mini-series on Team SeaQuest, a bunch of maker-engineers brought together to build a boat with a particular mission, followed on RS’s DesignSpark website. This episode sees the team and its prototypes at QinetiQ’s huge ocean simulator for scale model boats in Hampshire. This fascinating facility has a tank 121m long, 61m wide and 5.5m deep ...

Land speed record cars are fascinating things, with technology pushed to its limits. If safety of the driver is of primary concern – as it should be – then few people can afford to play at the highest levels. However, I just came across something that sounds fun, and intellectually challenging, and safe for the driver. And that is radio ...

Engineers at the University of Rochester in New York have achieved real room temperature superconductivity … …but sadly only at super-pressure. The team developed a material to compress with hydrogen – using hydrogen with carbon and sulphur to photo-chemically synthesise carbonaceous sulphur hydride in a diamond anvil cell. Peak superconducting temperature was ~15°C, achieved at ~267Gpascal. Superconductivity was available from 140 ...

I got mesmerised yesterday evening, watching someone on YouTube hand make a giant nixie tube. A rather exotic lathe is involved in the process and I was fascinated with the plastic manipulation of hot glass, and the fiddly nature of spot-welding electrode wires. Truly a craftsman at work, re-learning skills that evaporated from the world in the 1960s. The channel ...

I bought a screw assortment through ebay It arrived from Falcon Workshop supplies, in a very nice divided organiser box – a cut above the usual brittle-feeling stuff – although a little stiff to open with my currently frozen fingers. And when I turned it over, that organiser box was made in the UK, by What More UK of Burnley ...