A-Train sorts through boxes of circuit boards and presents one to the camera. (Luciano Cesta)

Every few months, the lab welcomes people from across the city and beyond to drop off their old electronics and snap up other items people brought. After, we take the remainder of the inevitable pile of old electronics to be recycled or otherwise disposed of safely.

On this JID, the entire surface of the 20’x5’ table in the middle of the lab was covered many times over with circuit boards, laptops, TVs, monitors, mice, keyboards, tablets, phones and the like. The air was full of excitement and curiosity as guests and members combed over the veritable mountain of junk. One hacker’s trash is another hacker’s treasure as they say. Who? I don’t know but they were probably pretty smart. ;)

“It gives people an outlet to repurpose and find new things to inspire new projects and ideas,” said Hacklab member Andrew Green. “And it’s great for the environment because we are able to repurpose, recycle or give away a lot of perfectly working electronics and tech.”

Assessing the full scope of the problem with e-waste is difficult, but United Nations estimates that 62 million tonnes of e-waste was generated in 2022 alone which is 82% more than in 2010. Perfectly good equipment is thrown away, economically important materials are lost to the landfill, and the environment and human health are endangered by lead, mercury and other harmful substances.

This time around, Andrew got his hands on a TI-Nspire graphic calculator that he later hacked to run his own applications. He also got a Pinephone that he installed Kali Linux on to use for security research.

Member Scott Sullivan recalls a time when he acquired 5 CD stereo system that he used for six years and then took to another JID where someone else scored it.

A-Train, another member, found some theatre props and an Arrow Squeezedriver, a neat little as-seen-on-TV item that drives a screwdriver bit with a squeeze of the hand. Take a look at the video below if you want to see a hilarious infomercial:

Member Loial scored two old 3D printers that he wants to either get working or use to build a new 3D printer. He agrees that the event is great for the environment but says that “it is a social event as much as it’s an ecologically responsible one.”

That seemed to be the sentiment that a lot of members and guests had. People were socializing, exchanging ideas, laughs and stories about what they brought into the event. As usual, the event was buzzing with activity. An equal number of people were socializing and scouring the tables.

A box of tablets and computer speakers ready to be taken for recycling. (Luciano Cesta)

Junk Independence Day is a way that Hacklab engages with the local community. Everyone is welcome and the door is wide open during the event. Many people have electronics that sit around for years in drawers and garages never being used. There are also many people who could use those items. The event has connected those people for at least the past 13 years.

• Sunday October 26
• 12 Noon – 6PM

Got some old electronics hiding away at home? Looking for a source of spare parts for a project? Junk Independence Day is where people bring in and swap old electronics and e-waste.

Typical / past items included:

• iPods / Mp3 Players / camcorders
• Computers, laptops and parts
• Printers / Scanners
• Stereo amps, speakers
• Traffic walk/don’t walk streetlights!
• Hobby Electronics parts + kits

Not to be forgotten, there are always lots of little chips and bytes for random hacking too. Anything left at the end will be picked up on Monday and responsibly recycled!

House Rules: Items brought in for the Junk Day are not to be disassembled on site. If you want only part of an item, take it home, and bring the rest back next junk day.

Come to Hacklab this Sunday, August 31 to learn about cyanotyping, a 100-year-old method of photographic reproduction! Register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cyanotype-blueprinting-in-the-present-day-registration-1595749181759

Spot welding is very useful in makerspaces. Whether you want to join pieces of sheet metal together to make a project box or make battery packs from existing cells, a spot welder is an awesome piece of equipment. Anton and Joshua, both recently inaugurated members, thought they would try making one themselves.

Spot welders work by using heat generated by a material’s resistance to melt metal pressed between its two electrodes. Unlike other forms of welding, no material is added to join the contact points.

To lower mains electricity to the correct voltage for this welder Anton and Joshua rescued two transformers from broken microwave ovens. They equipped the device with a controller board that regulates the time and the power of the weld. The welder can be controlled by a pedal, a button or a microswtich that is pressed when the electrodes contact the metal.

The welder joins a long list of projects that members have contributed to the space in their spare time recently like Scott’s Home Assistant Demonstration Lab, A-Train’s Frankenstein IDEX 3D printer, and the re-arranging of the electronics area.

While this would be an awesome project on its own, like the other projects listed it also enables others to do more at Hacklab. Building tools is something we like doing around here.

Anton said that he was inspired to make the spot welder when he needed to repair a few battery packs for power tools in the shop. Hacklab members and guests can now repair battery packs on their own avoiding costly replacements from manufacturers. Spot welders can also be a big help joining sheet metal for ducting, creating project boxes and other applications where thin sheet metal needs to be joined.  

As for Anton, he is already planning for his next projects. He said that he is thinking of making “either an electronic xylophone or a modified video microscope for electronics microsoldering.”

• Sunday July 20th
• 12 Noon – 6PM

Got some old electronics hiding away at home? Looking for a source of spare parts for a project? Junk Independence Day is where people bring in and swap old electronics and e-waste.

Typical / past items included:

• iPods / Mp3 Players / camcorders
• Computers, laptops and parts
• Printers / Scanners
• Stereo amps, speakers
• Traffic walk/don’t walk streetlights!
• Hobby Electronics parts + kits

Not to be forgotten, there are always lots of little chips and bytes for random hacking too. Anything left at the end will be picked up on Monday and responsibly recycled!

House Rules: Items brought in for the Junk Day are not to be disassembled on site. If you want only part of an item, take it home, and bring the rest back next junk day.

Members of Montreal’s Foulab visited HackLab this past Tuesday during our open house!

Foulab was founded around the time that we were in 2008 when the hacker space movement had its start. If you are in Montreal, visit them! More info at foulab.org.

Here you can see them repairing electronic badges from the North Sec conference.

Hello Toronto! We will be part of Doors Open on May 24 & 25! Come to HackLab, meet our members and come see the cool projects we’re working on. More details here.

We will be open from 10 am to 5 pm each day.

• Sunday April 13th
• 12 Noon – 6PM

Got some old electronics hiding away at home? Looking for a source of spare parts for a project? Junk Independence Day is where people bring in and swap old electronics and e-waste.

Typical / past items included:

• iPods / Mp3 Players / camcorders
• Computers, laptops and parts
• Printers / Scanners
• Stereo amps, speakers
• Traffic walk/don’t walk streetlights!
• Hobby Electronics parts + kits

Not to be forgotten, there are always lots of little chips and bytes for random hacking too. Anything left at the end will be picked up on Monday and responsibly recycled!

House Rules: Items brought in for the Junk Day are not to be disassembled on site. If you want only part of an item, take it home, and bring the rest back next junk day.

A-Train’s Ender3000 3D printer.

Deep inside the recesses of HackLab, a Frankenstein 3D printing monster was brought to life! A-Train, a long-time member and seasoned 3D printer enthusiast, hacked together two Creality Ender 3 printers that saw very limited use in the lab to create a beast with two extruders capable of simultaneously printing two different colours and/or materials. He calls it the Ender3000!

“So I was thinking, ‘How could I creatively dispose of these [3D printers]?’,” asked A-Train. “They were useless because they don’t offer anything unique… I could make them do something that the other printers didn’t do.”

The lab is lucky to have several newer, high quality, 3D printers that are far more capable then the two individual Ender 3s. The Ender3000 is an IDEX, or independent dual extruder printer which means that you can print with two materials at the same time. This can be used for printing with two different colors or types of material simultaneously.

Ender3000 printing a two-colour HackLab logo.

In addition to the Ender 3s, the printer was built with a Raspberry Pi 3 that was already associated with one of those printers, a $10 box of rubber belts and some other spare parts from around the lab.

Klipper, a free and open-source software and firmware ecosystem, makes the whole thing possible. A-Train used two micro-controllers that were taken from the original printers. One handles Z axis movement and the extruders, and one handles X and Y axis movement. The Raspberry Pi, running server-side software from Klipper, coordinates those two micro-controllers.

“It can run on any computer, it’s Python-based and it computes the movement a number of steps ahead of time,” said A-Train.

A-Train continues to work on fine tuning the Ender3000. He is adjusting the alignments of each extruder and testing different prints.

“The printer is also intended as a general lab test victim for learning about new software, teaching printer tuning, and experimenting with printer hardware & electronics,” said A-Train.

At HackLab we use Home Assistant to integrate and automate lighting, sensors and a disco ball into our space!

Come get familiarized with our Demonstration Lab where you can experiment with your own hardware and integration.
https://knowledge.hacklab.to/wiki/Home_Assistant_Demo_Lab

March 30th 2-5pm