Equipment
All HacDC members and visitors have access to a variety of tools, equipment, and supplies. Explore full, updated documentation at the href=”https://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/Category:Equipment”>Equipment Wiki Category, including contact information for major contributors (see operator’s logs and similar pages).
Below is a quick summary for a few of our more versatile or impressive tools and projects.
Amateur Radios
Coverage from 160m to 10m (all shortwave bands), legally including CB. Also VHF 2m and 70cm capability.
Primarily based on Icom FT-718 and Micom 2TS Transceiver w/ALE backed by a rooftop 20m vertical antenna with SGC-237 automatic tuner.
Biosignal Amplifier
Operational, ultra-low-noise EEG/EMG/ECG, useful for all types of biosignals, completely designed and built at HacDC, by HacDC, for HacDC.
CNC Mill
Automatic milling machine, suitable for circuit boards, complex metal parts, and more. Also can accept other tools, such as high-power focused UV lasers for high-precision laser-cutting or photolithography.
Laser Cutter
40W CO2 Laser Cutter
20″x12″ Cutting Area
Optical Table
Heavy – 800 pounds (350kg), can be kept level to within ~15nm. Sufficiently rigid for simultaneous optical and mechanical use. Gantry is in progress to enable ultra high-accuracy and wide area CNC milling, laser cutting, and 3D printing.
Photolithography PCB Fab
Fully tested high-resolution (~6mil) PCB fabrication process.
3D Printers
HacDC has a long history of maintaining 3D printers for use by all, from a Darwin, to a Cupcake, to a PrusaMendel. We now have two more operational 3D printers, thanks to recent sponsors.
Stereoscan Scanning Electron Microscope
High-resolution (<10nm) microscope and E-Beam lithography exposure capable system. Physical components are in great condition, vacuum testing and electronics replacement is underway.
TestCart
Highly-versatile and comprehensive electronics testing lab on a cart. Vector network analyzer, signal generator, oscilloscopes, inductor/capacitor/resistor banks, and more. Capable of implementing a full HF radio receiver just through clever connection of BNC cables.
Servers
Internet-connected Shell and VPS hosting provided for HacDC members. See https://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/Category:Servers .
Business class 75/15mBit internet service is on the way.
Library
HacDC has a small library, filled mostly with technical reference books and publications you may find rare elsewhere. Amateur radio license manuals, electronics textbooks, programming references, and LiveCDs are among the resources available.
Regular Events
Monday Open House
Often our most popular event at HacDC, for a wide range of people and projects. Arduinos, solder, coding, robotics, music, LEDs, all sorts of collaboration takes shape here. Things kick off around 7PM and can last late into the night. The event, like all HacDC activities, is free and open to the public, and is generally the best time for newcomers to drop by.
GrindDC Thursday (Biohacking)
Our biohacking community occasionally meets to discuss and create new research and technology. Active biohackers can be reached through the meat@hacdc.org mailing list. Additionally, a wide range of people and projects may toe present Thursday nights (7PM onward).
Amateur Radio
HacDC Amateur Radio Group (W3HAC) hosts regular meetings on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays @ 7:30 pm. Our goal is to create interest & increase education in amateur radio. We’ll help you get licensed, collaborate on equipment design, discuss all manner of radio topics including APRS (used to track our space blimp), nanosats (tracking, attitude control system, photography), HF digital modes & beacon systems, spread spectrum, software defined radio, microwave/high power wifi, direction finding & fox hunting, emergency operations.
Occasional Events
Classes on topics ranging from FPGAs to infomation security are hosted at HacDC when teachers are available.
Active Projects
Byzantium
Byzantium is a live Linux distribution that delivers easy-to-use, secure, and robust mesh networking capabilities. Incubated and collaborated on at HacDC, the core developers are active members available in person and at IRC. See https://project-byzantium.org/ .
During Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts, WiFi mesh networking connectivity was provided by the team for survivors, volunteers, and emergency personnel.
LostPLA Casting
HacDC member Julia Longtin has made the the process of casting 3D printed parts to robust metal down accessible to anyone with a microwave oven and common household items. Documentation available at https://fosscar.faikvm.com/trac/wiki/LostPLA .
Efforts are underway to deploy this capability for routine use at the HacDC space.
OpticalTableRobot
Massive scale all-in-one 3D printer, CNC mill, and laser cutter under construction atop our 8’x4′ OpticalTable. VLSI fabrication is also planned for testing. Documentation on our wiki at https://wiki.hacdc.org/index.php/OpticalTableRobot .
Projector/OpenDisplay
DIY 1080p and 10k lumen theater-grade projector under construction. We have three of the four required Giant Fresnel lenses found in old Projection TVs posted to Craigslist.
Space Blimp
On Aug 7, 2010, we launched our first balloon: HacDC Spaceblimp 1. Its epic journey began well enough, but the antenna came loose somewhere around 60,000 ft and we never heard from it again. Until three months later, when a farmer found it in her field, called up a friend (who happened to be an engineer) and it came back home. The pictures are fantastic, but the telemetry data was lost — it overwrote itself many times over before the batteries finally gave up. Following (what we thought was) the loss of Spaceblimp-1, we scrambled and launched HacDC Spaceblimp 2 on Aug 21. It went flawlessly — fast, light, and with good radio contact the whole way through. It may be the third fastest-ascending amateur radio balloon ever! Then we added more cameras, HD video, more radios, an accelerometer, geiger counter, and a pressure sensor! For HacDC Spaceblimp 5 (launched on July 9, 2011) we bought a yet-bigger balloon to try to get higher, and we reached an astounding 118,533 ft!