Category: Open evening

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DIY Solar, Home Battery and Home Automation Meetup

We’re excited to host a special evening on Monday, the 18th of August 2025, from 7–9 pm in Tog Hackerspace. This informal meetup is all about sharing knowledge, projects, and experiences around DIY solar, home batteries, and home automation.

If you’ve been experimenting with adding solar panels to your home, wiring up batteries, or tinkering with smart switches and sensors, this is the night to come along and swap stories with like-minded makers.

On the night you can expect:

  • Show and Tell from people who have installed their own solar systems or set up home automation.
  • Hands-on kit: we’ll have solar panels, inverters, and some home automation gear like Shelly devices on display.
  • A DIY camper van demo showing off a converted setup with batteries, an inverter, and more.

This will be a casual, friendly evening—bring along your questions, projects, or just your curiosity. There’s plenty of parking, it’s free to attend, and no booking is required.

If the evening proves popular, we’d love to make it a regular thing.

📅 When: Monday, 18th August 2025, 7–9 pm📍 Location: Tog Hackerspace, Unit 1B Motor City, Kylemore Road, D12 CF6V, Dublin

Come along and join the conversation about powering your home (or van!) the DIY way.

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New Weekly Group Night: Hack and Chill

We’re launching a new regular night at Tog Hackerspace, and if you’re into computer security, hardware hacking, or just the hacker mindset, you’ll want to be there.

Hack and Chill is a space for folks who enjoy exploring systems, poking at protocols, reverse-engineering things, flashing firmware, or just chatting about exploits over a cup of tea.

What’s it all about?

It’s a chill, hacker-friendly night for messing with code, gear, networks, or ideas. No pressure to present or perform — just a place to learn, share, and maybe break a few things (ethically, of course). Think more Hackers (the movie) than hot glue and 3D printing.

Whether you’re a seasoned pentester, a hardware tinkerer with a soldering iron in your backpack, or just curious about the scene, come hang out.

📅 Opening Night: Friday, 22nd August
🕖 Time: 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
📍 Location: Tog Hackerspace, Unit 1B Motor City, Kylemore Road, D12 CF6V, Dublin

Hack and Chill will run every Friday night, except for the first Friday of the month — that’s when we’ll be over at 2600 Dublin.

So grab your laptop, your favourite hack, or just your curiosity — and swing by. We don’t bite (but we might packet-sniff your phone).

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🚗 DIY Electric Vehicle Meetup 🚗

Calling all DIY enthusiasts! Are you searching for an exhilarating and wallet-friendly project that promotes eco-friendliness? Look no further than converting your very own electric vehicle (EV)!

Embrace the philosophy of “reduce, reuse, recycle” for your personal transportation.

Picture that beloved car from your youth, revamped into an EV. Or envision a compact and low-maintenance runaround that’s affordable to operate.

Join a community of passionate bike, car, and motorbike tinkerers who have embarked on the journey of converting their vehicles to electric power.

📅 Date: Saturday, August 16th
⏰ Time: 3 pm – 7 pm

This casual meetup is the perfect occasion to discuss, explore, and inquire about the EV conversion process. Bring the entire family along, as this event is child-friendly. Reserve your tickets here and get ready for an inspiring afternoon.

🎟️ Eventbrite – DIY Electric Vehicle Meetup

We’ll have tea and coffee available on site, and Tog has an affordable tuck shop with fizzy drinks and snacks. After the event, Tog’s monthly open social night will be on with pizza and chats. Please consider adding a donation to your ticket to support this non-profit space. Suggested donation: €10

This event is run in partnership with the Electronic and Computing division of Engineers Ireland. The Electronic and Computing division members work in software development and testing, including the gaming industry; mobile and fixed line telecommunications; internet services; embedded systems development, and signal processing.

Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to delve into the world of electric vehicle conversion and meet like-minded individuals. See you there! 🔌🌿 #DIYEV #ElectricVehicles #GreenTransportation #EVConversion #SustainableMobility

This you are looking to spend the whole day in Tog, why not also check out our workshop that morning, Build Your Own RISC-V Computer – Olimex RVPC Workshop.

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Classic Car Tinker Day at TOG

Own a classic car or thinking about getting one? Join us at TOG Hackerspace for a special tinker day dedicated to classic car enthusiasts. It’s a great opportunity to meet fellow owners, share advice, and check out the workshop facilities we have on offer.

This free, open session is all about bringing like-minded people together. While access to group tools like welders and saws is limited to members, we want to give visitors a full tour of the space, chat about what’s possible, and spark ideas for future collaboration.

We don’t have a car lift (yet), but we do have a good selection of gear to support small jobs, including metal car ramps, axle stands, general hand tools, and some specialist equipment, such as a lathe.

Feel free to bring along your classic car and any bits you’re working on. Whether you’re mid-restoration or just want to talk shop, you’re very welcome.

When: Saturday 19th July 2025 from 3 pm to 6 pm
Where: TOG Hackerspace, near the Red Cow, behind Mr Price
Eircode: D12 CF6V – https://www.tog.ie/location

Stick around afterwards for our monthly open social night from 7 pm to 11 pm. We’ll have homemade pizza fresh from our DIY oven and plenty of good company. There’s loads of free parking available on site.

Hope to see you there!

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Another USB-C upgrade

USB-C conversions are becoming a bit of a thing around here. We repaired a faulty work light earlier this year, and we took the opportunity to upgrade the charging socket to USB-C. A few other items have had the same treatment over the last few months. This latest one is an old-school light box for viewing film negatives and slides. We’re still keen on our film photography at TOG, and we still have all of our dark room equipment. 

As-built, this particular light box came with with a foot-long fluorescent tube. Inside, there is a driver PCB for the tube, and a 6x D-cell battery compartment. It also has a 3.5mm power input socket if you want to run it from some kind of adapter.  

The small driver PCB inside takes the ~9V battery voltage and bumps it up to the high voltage required to to run the fluorescent tube. The switching transistor on the driver has already failed once in the past, and its heat sink gets very hot during operation. Probably not a very optimal design or power efficient.

A bit of work with a Dremel and we have a nice oval hole for the new USB-C socket. A few touches with a soldering iron to melt the plastic, and the socket is now joined firmly to the case. The intention was to feed in 5v, and then bump it up to something closer to 12v to charge the batteries via a current limiting resistor. A cheap voltage converter sourced from the usual websites would look after that.

That was the intended upgrade, but a bit of feature creep came along last night. We thought that it would be nice to replace the fluorescent lamp with a more power efficient LED one. This would also allow us to eliminate that iffy driver PCB. Rummaging around the space, an old emergency light fitting had a nice LED strip ripe for harvesting. Check back in with us over the next while to see the finished article. If you have anything that you think might benefit from a USB-C upgrade, drop in to our regular Monday and Tuesday open nights.

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Tog Hackerspace Featured on the All Things TechIE Podcast

We’re excited to share that Tog Hackerspace was recently featured on Episode 115 of the All Things TechIE Podcast! In this jam-packed episode, the conversation dives into what makes Tog a unique community space in the heart of Dublin and highlights all the exciting things we have planned for Dublin Tech Week, taking place from May 23rd to 30th.

Hosted by tech educator and AV expert Justin Dawson, the episode explores cutting-edge global tech—from a record-breaking drone show in Abu Dhabi to Google’s smart glasses—but one of the highlights is the in-depth interview about Tog’s mission, community, and hands-on approach to making.

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