Aachen Maker Meetup #145 (Mar. 15, 2023): 3D-printed art, weather balloon probe, digital tube clock, a refurbished radio receiver and chinese fake sensors

This year's third Aachen Maker Meetup took place in a cozy Atmosphere. Because of the smaller group size, there was greater opportunity for detailed conversations and a thorough examination of the showcased projects. Several interesting projects were presented:

Andreas Schuderer presented a piece of artwork created with a 3D-printer. The first layer was printed with red, green and blue lines adjacent to each other. The following layers were printed in white. Depending on the thickness of the white layers it allowed varying amounts of light to shine through and create an appealing visual effect.

Helge Faulwetter presented the measuring device used in a weather balloon. This battery powered device transmits its sensor data over radio. The picture on the right side shows a special kind of litmus strip that is used for one of the sensors. Because those strips are very sensitive they are kept inside an airtight metal can.

Roger Leifert presented a vintage radio receiver from Braun Lectron. The item was purchased in poor condution, but after being refurbished it was restored to its former state and functioned as originally intended. For testing purposes he even brought a radio transmitter that could be used to play audio files from his phone.

 Another interesting project Roger Leifert presented was this digital tube clock. Cathode ray counter tubes are used to show the time. The first frequency and Geiger counters used a similar setup to count events.

 A rather sad but fun presentation was an air quality detector from china. It presented a whole range of interesting air quality values, but after opening the device we were rather shocked. It only featured a simple VOC sensor, so all the values for CO2 or CO were likely fake as we could not find a corresponding sensor for those.

In summary, the evening was enjoyable and captivating.