Yik Yak is dead, long live Yik Yak

Manual LCD Makes Information Display Tedious, Educational

The HD44780 is one of the first chips we learned about as a kid, and chances are good you’ve used one in your project at some point, and almost certain that you’ve interacted with one in your life. The character LCD is ubiquitous, easy to interface, and very robust. They come in sizes from 8 x 1 to 20 x 4 and even larger, but they almost all have the same pinout, and there are libraries in many embedded environments for interacting with them. [The 8-Bit Guy] decided to interface with one using just switches and a button, (YouTube, embedded) with the intent of illustrating exactly how to use them, and how easy they are.

If you’ve never used a character LCD before and want a great introduction to them, this is the video for you. It turns out that there’s no clock to worry about, and the instruction set is easily discerned from a datasheet table. [The 8-Bit Guy] even gets fancy with additional commands.

These displays have featured quite frequently here at Hackaday. Just a couple of many are this serial drive hack using a PIC microcontroller, and exploiting the custom characters to create non-character graphics.

Thanks [emuboy] for the tip.

Filed under: how-to, parts

Filament Friday: “Silk Like” Filament Gives Glossy Prints

Everyone at my hackerspace kept asking what filament I'd used for a print I'd made with Silk Like, because it gives off a shiny lustrous texture that turns heads.

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The post Filament Friday: “Silk Like” Filament Gives Glossy Prints appeared first on Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers.

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A Home Made Air Pump From PVC Pipe

If you need a supply of low pressure air – let’s say enough pressure to ensure a constant supply but not enough to describe as “Compressed air” with a straight face – what do you do? Many people will reach for an aquarium pump, after all that represents a readily available and relatively inexpensive source of bubbles.

But not [truebassB], instead he built his own air pump from first principles (YouTube, embedded below) using PVC pipe. It’s a straightforward design in which the cylinder is a length of pipe with a disc of flat PVC glued to its end, and the piston is fabricated from a short piece of the same tube with a section cut out to reduce its diameter. An adequate seal is achieved using a piece of rubber cut from an inner tube, and the gudgeon pin is cut from a piece of wire. The connecting rod is another longer piece of wire, and the crank is a wooden disc with an offset hole. Power comes from a DC motor taken from a dead power tool. A couple of ball check valves are used for air input and output.

The resulting pump isn’t the prettiest of pumps, and it could probably do with a bit of balancing as it rattles somewhat. But it’s a pump, and it obviously cost next-to-nothing, so that in our eyes makes it a neat build. He’s posted a video of the build which we’ve placed below the break.

We’ve not featured many such simple pumps here. Perhaps this peristaltic pump comes close.

 

Filed under: Tech Hacks

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