Hackaday Newsletter 0x07

Do you have what it takes to go the distance? [HACKADAY]( How Laser Headlights Work [Read Article Now»]( Putting Your Time In By [Elliot Williams]( I was absolutely struck by a hack this week -- [Adam Bäckström]'s [amazing robot arm built with modified hobby servos](. Basically, he's taken apart and re-built some affordable off-the-shelf servo motors, and like the 6-Million-Dollar Man, he's rebuilt them better, stronger, faster. OK, and smoother. We have the technology. The results are undeniably fantastic, and enable the experienced hacker to get champagne robot motion control on a grape-juice budget by employing some heavy control theory, and redundant sensors to overcome geartrain backlash, which is the devil of cheap servos. But this didn't come out of nowhere. In his writeup, [Adam] starts off with "You could say this project started when I ordered six endless servos in middle school, more than 15 years ago." And it shows. [robotarmgood666_thumbnail.png?w=250] Go check out [this video of his first version of the modified servos]( from a six-axis arm he built in 2009(!). He's built in analog position sensors in the motors, which lets him control the speed and makes it work better than any other hobby servo arm you've ever seen, but there's still visible backlash in the gears. A mere twelve years later, he's got magnetic encoders on the output and a fast inner loop compensates for the backlash. The result is that the current arm moves faster and smoother, while retaining accuracy. Twelve years. I assume that [Adam] has had some other projects on his plate as well, but that's a long term project by any account. I'm stoked to see his work, not the least because it should help a lot of others who are ready to step up their desktop servo-arm projects. But the real take-home lesson here is that if you've got a tough problem that you're hacking on, you don't have to get it done this weekend. You don't have to get it done next weekend either. Keep hammering on it as long as you need, but keep on hammering. When you get it done, the results will be all the better for the long, slow, brewing time. What's the longest project that you've ever worked on? From the Blog --------------------------------------------------------------- [Ask Hackaday: How Do You Prepare?]( By [Jonathan Bennett]( After the winter disaster caught Texas underprepared, Jonathan thinks about how to be ready next time. [Read more »]( [Hey Google, is My Heart Still Beating?]( By [Tom Nardi]( A cool medical paper demonstrates how a microphone array can be used to detect heart arythmia. [Read more »]( [How Fast is the Universe Expanding? The Riddle of Two Values for the Hubble Constant]( By [Moritz v. Sivers]( Multiple scientific experiements are narrowing down on the Hubble constant. The problem? They are getting two different numbers. [Read more »]( [Hackaday Podcast]( [Hackaday Podcast 111: 3D Graphics are Ultrasonic, Labotomizing Alexa, 3D-Printing Leaky Rockets, and Gaming the Font System]( By [Hackaday Editors]( What happened last week on Hackaday? Editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams get you up to speed. [Read more »]( If You Missed It --------------------------------------------------------------- [CNC Scroll Saw Add-On Cuts Beautiful Wooden Spirals]( [To Kill A Blockchain, Add Naughty Stuff To It?]( [Open Source Motion Controller for DIY Drones]( [A Simple but Effective High-Flow Oxygen Concentrator from Hardware Store Parts]( [A Mobius Strip Track For Superconductor Levitation]( [Digital PlayStation 3 Purchases May Only Live As Long As Your PRAM Battery Without Sony Servers]( [Hackaday]( NEVER MISS A HACK [Share]( [Share]( [Share]( [Terms of Use]( [Privacy Policy]( [Hackaday.io]( [Hackaday.com]( This email was sent to {EMAIL} [why did I get this?]( [unsubscribe from this list]( [update preferences]( Hackaday.com · 61 S Fair Oaks Ave Ste 200 · Pasadena, CA 91105-2270 · USA