Category Archives: lab

There Are 200 Electronic Kits In That Box

Posted on February 10, 2019 by Fernando Gomes

If you grew up in the latter part of the 20th century, you didn’t have the Internet we have today — or maybe not at all. What you did have, though, was Radio Shack within an hour’s drive. They sold consumer electronics, of course, but they also sold parts and kits. In addition to specific kits, they always had some versions of a universal kit where lots of components were mounted on a board and you could easily connect and disconnect them to build different things. [RetoSpector78] found a 200-in-1 kit at a thrift store that was exactly like the …read more

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Posted in kit, lab, radio shack, repair hacks, retro, tandy, teardown | Leave a comment

Spectrometer Is Inexpensive And Capable

Posted on February 9, 2019 by Fernando Gomes

We know the effect of passing white light through a prism and seeing the color spectrum that comes out of the other side. It will not be noticeable to the naked eye, but that rainbow does not fully span the range of [Roy G. Biv]. There are narrowly absent colors which blur together, and those missing portions are a fingerprint of the matter the white light is passing through or bouncing off. Those with a keen eye will recognize that we are talking about spectrophotometry which is identifying those fingerprints and determining what is being observed and how much is …read more

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Posted in chemistry hacks, equipment, how-to, lab, laboratory, laboratory equipment, spectrometer, spectrophotometry, UV/Vis | Leave a comment

Biology Lab on Your Christmas List

Posted on December 11, 2018 by Fernando Gomes

We hope you have been good this year because we have a list to start your own biology lab and not everything will fit into Santa’s bag (of holding). If you need some last minute goodie points, Santa loves open-source and people who share on our tip line. Our friends at [The Thought Emporium] have compiled a list of the necessary equipment for a biology lab. Chemistry labs-in-a-box have been the inspiration for many young chemists, but there are remarkable differences between a chemistry lab and a biology lab which are explained in the Youtube video linked above and embedded …read more

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Posted in biology, chemistry hacks, genetics, lab, laboratory, stock, the chem life, the thought emporium, [Justin Atkin] | Leave a comment

Chemical Hacking at a Store Near You

Posted on November 11, 2016 by Fernando Gomes

Imagine for a minute that you aren’t an electronic-savvy Hackaday reader. But you find an old chemistry book at a garage sale and start reading it. It has lots of interesting looking experiments, but they all require chemicals with strange exotic names. One of them is ferric chloride. You could go find a scientific supply company, but that’s expensive and often difficult to deal with as an individual (for example, 2.5 liters of nitric acid costs over $300 for a case of six at a common lab supply company). Where would you go?

As an astute electronics guy (or gal) …read more

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Posted in home lab, lab | Leave a comment