The first light-emitting diodes went on sale in 1962, and you could have any kind you wanted as long as it was dim and red. Green, yellow and orange came next, but blue LEDs didn’t debut until 1989. So it may surprise you that the first LEDs, discovered in 1907, included blue—and were made of sandpaper.
You’ve got your components, and your datasheet, and you’re read to start hacking. But which way does the chip go? Pin 23 is where? If you’re lucky, the orientation is clearly marked, or perhaps diagrammed in the datasheet. But if it isn’t, or if you’re simply new at this, it’s helpful to know what to look for.
This upcoming Tuesday, 9 March 2010, 8pm at Crash Space in Culver City, we’ll be having some fun quick DIY projects for you to build. Come on over and have fun with us. The project kits are $5 for CrashSpace members or $10 for non-members and you can take them home after you build them.
Nicely done, Modified easy bake oven. Jeri writes – Part of the home chip bath project, fiber optic manufacturing.
This was an attempt to make a small furnace that could be used for semiconductors and fusing fiber optics. It didn’t work so well, but it might be worth trying again in the future.
We’ve partnered with Google to offer our entire 137-year archive for free browsing. Each issue appears just as it did at its original time of publication, complete with period advertisements. It’s an amazing resource that beautifully encapsulates our ongoing fascination with the future, and science and technology’s incredible potential to improve our lives. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
A sordid tale, starting in the bedroom, involving batteries, deceit, cheap tricks, LEDs, and a pot. We came across an interesting oddity from the realm of consumer electronics: a fake seven-segment LED display. Just for fun, we made our own version too…
