Hackaday Podcast Ep 335: Beer, Toast, and Pi
Aug 29, 2025
Join the hosts as they dive into the intriguing world of brewing, with a focus on automating the mashing process for homemade beer. They tackle lightning protection with an innovative system developed for rural Arkansas. Discover solutions for reviving dead Ryobi batteries and unravel the nuances of consumer technology, including evolving business models. Plus, they discuss the challenges of coding with the RP2040 microcontroller and the complexities of measuring liquids in outer space. It's a delightful mix of tech and creativity!
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Huge But Low-Tech Neutrino Detectors
- Neutrino detectors use huge volumes of transparent medium and many photomultiplier tubes to catch rare flashes from neutrino interactions.
- Their scale is large but the underlying technology is comparatively low-tech and effective for detecting extreme-energy neutrinos.
Homebrew Automation With A Hacked Induction Plate
- Fieldman automated the beer mashing stage by adding a lid-mounted stirrer and a hacked IKEA induction hotplate controlled by an Arduino.
- The project gives desktop-scale temperature control across arbitrary pots and shows clever hardware hacking of consumer cooktops.
Real Lightning Protection Is Multi-Layered
- Lightning protection requires more than consumer surge strips; industrial approaches use gas discharge tubes, MOVs, chokes, and solid grounding strategies.
- MOVs degrade with each surge, so commercial surge strips are often insufficient for heavy transient environments.