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https://hackaday.com/2020/03/19/saving-4-patients-with-just-1-ventilator/ | Saving 4 Patients With Just 1 Ventilator | Adam Fabio | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"2019-nCoV",
"Covid-19",
"medical",
"ventilator"
] | We all know that COVID-19 is stressing our health system to the limit. One of the most important machines in this battle is the ventilator. Vents are critical for patients experiencing the worst symptoms of respiratory distress from the virus. Most of the numbers predict that hospitals won’t have enough ventilators to keep up with the needs during the height of the pandemic.
Now anyone with a walkman or iPod can tell you what they do when there is one music device and two people who want to listen: Plug in a Y-connector. Wouldn’t it be great if you could do the same thing with a medical ventilator?
It turns out you can
– – with some important caveats.
Way back in 2006, [Greg Neyman, MD and Charlene Babcock, MD] connected four simulated patients to a single ventilator. Ventilators connect to a patient with two tubes – an inflow and an exhaust. Using common parts available in just about any hospital, the doctors installed “T-tube” splitters on the inflow and exhaust tubes. They tested this with lung simulators and found that the system worked.
There were some important considerations though. The patients must be medically paralyzed, and have similar lung capacity — you couldn’t mix an adult and a child. The tubing length for each patient needs to be the same as well. The suggestion is to place the patients in a star pattern with the ventilator at the center of the star.
[Dr. Charlene Babcock] explains the whole setup in the video after the break.
Interestingly enough, this technique went from feasibility study to reality during the Las Vegas shooting a few years ago. There were more patients than ventilators, so emergency room doctors employed the technique to keep patients alive while equipment was brought in from outside hospitals. It worked — saving lives on that dark day.
The video and technique remind us of Apollo 13 and the CO2 scrubber modifications. Whatever it takes to keep people alive.
We’ve already started looking into open source ventilators
, but it’s good to see that medical professionals have been working on this problem for years. | 59 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "6229322",
"author": "behle",
"timestamp": "2020-03-19T11:20:21",
"content": "I guess you can mix different lung capacies by adding a valve just before each patient.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6229338",
"author": "... | 1,760,373,550.981206 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/19/sweet-streams-are-made-of-these-creating-music-on-the-command-line/ | Sweet Streams Are Made Of These: Creating Music On The Command Line | Sven Gregori | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"command line",
"music",
"music synthesis",
"sed",
"sheet music"
] | There are countless ways to create music. In the simplest form, it won’t even require any equipment, as evidenced by beatboxing or a capella. If we move to the computer, it’s pretty much the same situation: audio programming languages have been around for as long as general-purpose high-level languages, and sound synthesis software along with them. And just as with physical equipment, none of that is particularly necessary thanks to
sed
. Yes,
the
sed
, the good old stream editor, as [laserbat] shows
in her music generating script
.
Providing both a
minified
and
fully commented
version of Bach’s
Prelude 1 in C major
as example, [laserbat] uses a string representation of the sheet music as the script’s starting point, along with a look-up table of each transformed note’s wavelength. From here, she generates fixed length PCM square wave signals of each of the notes, to be piped as-is to the sound card via ALSA’s
aplay
or SoX’s
play
. To keep things simple enough, she stays within the region of printable characters here, using space and tilde as low and high values respectively, providing highest possible volume at the same time this way.
The concept itself is of course nothing new, it’s how
.au
and
.wav
files work, as well as
these little C lines
. And while the fixed note duration takes away some of the smoothness in [laserbat]’s version, adding variable duration might just be a hint too much for a
sed
implementation, although
we’ve certainly seen some more complex scripts in the past
.
[via
r/programming
] | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6229415",
"author": "[TheDarkTiger]",
"timestamp": "2020-03-19T15:54:28",
"content": "This is very ingenious.The article may not make it look appealing, but the code is very clever, just have a look!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id... | 1,760,373,550.589733 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/18/seven-segment-shelves-do-double-duty/ | Seven-Segment Shelves Do Double Duty | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"clock hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"arduino nano",
"RGB LED",
"ws2812b"
] | [Lewis] of [DIY Machines] was always on the lookout for that perfect something to hang above the couch. After spending a lot of time fruitlessly searching, he designed and built
this awesome shelving unit with recessed lighting that doubles as a huge 7-segment clock
.
The clock part works as you probably expect — an Elegoo Nano fetches the time from a real-time clock module and displays it on the WS2812B LED strips arranged in 7-segment formations. There’s a photocell module to detect the ambient light level in the room, so the display is never brighter than it needs to be.
Don’t have a 3D printer yet? Then you may need to pass on this one. Aside from the wood back plane and the electronics, the rest of this build is done with printed plastic, starting with 31 carefully-designed supports for the shelves. There are also the LED strip holders, and the sleeve pieces that hide all the wires and give this project its beautifully finished look.
You may have noticed that the far left digit isn’t a full seven segments. If you’re committed to 24-hour time, you’d have to adjust everything to allow for that, but you’d end up with two more shelves. Given the fantastic build video after the break, it probably wouldn’t take too long to figure all that out.
We like big clocks and we cannot lie. If you have room for it, build something like
this blinkenlit beauty
. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6229273",
"author": "Saabman",
"timestamp": "2020-03-19T07:25:32",
"content": "That looks really neat.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6229291",
"author": "Gérald",
"timestamp": "2020-03-19T09:09:33",
"content": "Nic... | 1,760,373,550.716971 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/18/github-on-the-go/ | GitHub On The Go | Al Williams | [
"News",
"Software Development"
] | [
"android",
"Git",
"github",
"ios",
"iphone",
"phone"
] | It is hard to find anyone that does any kind of software development that doesn’t have some interaction with GitHub. Even if you don’t host your own projects there, there are so many things to study and borrow on the site, that it is nearly ubiquitous. However, when you’ve needed GitHub on the run, you’ve probably had to turn to your phone browser and had a reduced experience.
GitHub for Mobile
is now out of beta and promises a more fluid phone-based GitHub experience.
In addition to working with tasks and issues, you can also review and merge pull requests. The app sends your phone notifications, too, which can be handy. As you might expect, you can get the app for Android or iPhone in the respective stores.
[Andrew Allbright] has a quick review of the iOS version in the video below. It is amazing how much GitHub has become an integral part of development that it is almost losing its branding. We had someone tell us the other day they’d set up a “GitHub” for us to share some private work. They, of course, meant a Git repository on a private server. Much like Xerox or Velcro, for some people, GitHub is synonymous with Git.
GitHub have had a lot of activity since Microsoft acquired them. We recently talked about how they are providing
command line tools
. If you need an excuse to use Git and GitHub, check out our
stupid Git tricks
. | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6229192",
"author": "Jonathan Bennett",
"timestamp": "2020-03-19T02:03:45",
"content": "Does it handle large source files sanely? Mobile Chrome has been a pain for Github for quite a while, as it hangs when looking at large files.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repli... | 1,760,373,550.66975 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/18/homemade-masks-in-a-time-of-shortage/ | Homemade Masks In A Time Of Shortage | Sharon Lin | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"Covid-19",
"health",
"mask"
] | Due to the worldwide pandemic of COVID-19, there has been a huge shortage of
N95
masks. [
Paddy Robertson
] from Smart Air has been working on
designs for a DIY mask
that may be able to protect those who haven’t been able to secure their own masks. While there may be an abundance of memes around the various material people have been able to use to substitute for the filters, there is some very real science behind the sorts of materials that can effectively protect us from the virus.
According to a studied performed at Cambridge University during the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, while surgical masks perform the best at capturing
Bacillus atrophaeus
bacteria (0.93-1.25 microns) and Bacteriophage MS virus (0.023 microns), vacuum cleaner bags, and tea towels
, and cotton T-shirts
were not too far behind. The coronavirus is 0.1-0.2 microns, well within the range for the results of the tests.
As it turns out, cotton homemade masks may be quite effective as alternatives – not to mention reusable. They also found out that double layering the masks didn’t help with improving the protection against viruses. On the other hand, one significant design choice was the breathability of the material. While vacuum cleaner bags may be quite effective at keeping out small particles, they aren’t as comfortable or easy to breathe in as cotton masks.
Have you tried making your own cotton masks? In a time when hospitals are running low on surgical masks, it’s possibly the best option for helping to keep much-needed medical supplies in the hands of those helping at the front line.
[Thanks to pie for the tip!] | 528 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "6229140",
"author": "William",
"timestamp": "2020-03-18T23:20:16",
"content": "I can’t believe I’m posting this, but this old hack doesn’t require any cutting or sewing and would work just as well:http://how2dostuff.blogspot.com/2005/11/how-to-make-ninja-mask-out-of-t-shirt.html",
... | 1,760,373,551.344184 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/18/youll-flip-for-this-toggle-switch-handheld-game/ | You’ll Flip For This Toggle Switch Handheld Game | Tom Nardi | [
"Games",
"handhelds hacks"
] | [
"ESP8266",
"handheld game",
"NodeMCU",
"oled",
"sh1106",
"toggle switch"
] | Teacher says that every time a toggle switch clunks, a hacker gets their wings. Or something like that. All we know is that there are few things the hardware tinkerer likes more than the satisfying action of a nice flip. Which by extension means this
handheld game built by [Roman Revzin] and controlled by nothing more than three toggle switches
will likely be a big hit at the hackerspace.
The parts list for this game, which [Roman] calls the ToggleBoss, is about as short as it gets. There’s a NodeMCU ESP8266 development board, a common SH1106 OLED display, and a trio of suitably clunky toggle switches. Add a bit of wire, toss it all into a 3D printed enclosure, and you’re halfway to thumb flicking nirvana.
Naturally, you might be wondering about the sort of games that can be played with three latching digital inputs; after all, it’s not exactly the most conventional controller layout. But there is where ToggleBoss really shines. Instead of trying to shoehorn traditional games into an exceptionally unconventional system, [Roman] has come up with several games which really embrace the limited input offered to the user.
In a platforming game not unlike the classic
Mario Bros
, the positions of the physical switches are mapped to virtual walls that are raised and lowered to control a character’s movement through the level. Another game shows the player three dots which correspond to the intended switch states, which they have to match as quickly and as accurately as possible. [Roman] has released the source code to his current lineup of games, which hopefully will inspire others to try their hand at creating software for this fascinating little system.
With the availability of cheap OLED displays and powerful microcontrollers, we’ve started to see more
of these bespoke gaming systems
. While some will undoubtedly prefer
a pocket full of Nintendo’s classics
, we think there’s something special about a game system that you can truly call your own. | 13 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6229075",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-03-18T20:15:33",
"content": "Correct me if I’m wrong (Okay, that’s total redundancy here, gah, so is this.) but aren’t toggle switches the ORIGINAL way to play computer video games, Spacewar I’m thinking…Also back in the postwa... | 1,760,373,550.813512 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/19/an-armored-vehicle-from-foam-core-and-big-box-toys/ | An Armored Vehicle From Foam Core And Big Box Toys | Tom Nardi | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"concept vehicle",
"foam core",
"laser cut",
"mock-up",
"RC tank"
] | Over the last several months, [Eric Strebel] has been working on a concept for an electric-powered infantry combat vehicle. We don’t
think
he’s been contracted by any nation’s military to design this vehicle, but as a product designer we imagine he does this sort of thing to keep himself sharp. In any event,
it’s been fun to watch from the sidelines
.
In the latest installment in this series of videos, [Eric] turns his earlier concept art into a functional prototype; albeit at somewhat reduced scale. Still, building any kind of vehicle from the ground up is no easy feat and it’s fascinating to watch the process.
The futuristic faceted look of the vehicle’s armor plate makes for an exceptionally time-consuming build, as he has to cut and glue each piece of foam core into place. Some of the smaller pieces seem to have
the tell-tale char marks from a trip through the laser cutter
, but in the video after the break you can see that the larger panels are hand cut with a razor.
The plan was originally to just make a static mock-up of the vehicle, but thanks to a pair of remote controlled trucks that [Eric] found at this local Big Box retailer, this foam fighter ended up getting an upgrade. After liberating the motors and gearboxes from the two trucks, he 3D printed axle extensions to take into account the wider track of his vehicle, and built his “tub” around it. While the R/C gear is clearly on the low end of the spectrum, the overall effect looks great as the vehicle is bounding around the yard.
Readers of Hackaday will no doubt be well aware of [Eric Strebel] and his many talents.
From 3D scanning via photogrammetry
to
embedding electronics into flexible molded parts
, you’re sure to learn something new from following this prolific maker. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6229638",
"author": "macsimski",
"timestamp": "2020-03-20T09:41:14",
"content": "If this is ever made for real, its going to be a hell of a lot more expensiive due to all the different angles and all the welding involved. Or is this for tesla?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1... | 1,760,373,550.760898 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/19/rubber-bands-can-secure-your-sanity/ | Rubber Bands Can Secure Your Sanity | Kristina Panos | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"broom handle",
"diy instrument",
"piezo",
"piezo disk",
"rubber band",
"rubber band bass"
] | One of the greatest joys of being a child was figuring out that rubber bands make awesome sounds when they are plucked, and that the sound is easily changed by stretching the band to different lengths. For those of us who need firsthand experience to truly understand how the world works, these types of self-discovery are a pretty great way to learn about physics.
If you’re looking to build a physical music lesson or musical physics lesson into your burgeoning home school curriculum, look no further than the junk drawer, the broom closet, and the 3D printer. [Ham-made] used to stretch his bands across an empty tissue box, but came up with
a much more professional implementation based on a broom handle
. Check out this fat sound!
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/RubberBandBassExperimentation.mp3
You don’t even need to find a spare broom handle, because none of this is permanent — the headstock piece with the hooks is meant to slide up and down to create cool sounds, and the tailpiece threads on in place of the broom bristles. Inside the tailpiece is a piezo disk and a 1/4″ jack so you can plug it in to your amp stack and start an impromptu jazz group. Just keep it under 10 people, okay?
You’ll need to mic your chanteuse, so keep the physics fun going with
this plastic cup microphone
. | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6229606",
"author": "Rob",
"timestamp": "2020-03-20T05:03:09",
"content": "Bandolin?Strumbroom?Elastophone?Bandtar?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6229652",
"author": "Lord Elpus",
"timestamp": "2020-03-20T11:12:10",
... | 1,760,373,550.629422 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/19/baby-keyboard-is-really-three-boards/ | Baby Keyboard Is Really Three Boards | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"CircuitPython",
"keyboard",
"macro keyboard",
"rotary encoder",
"trinket m0"
] | Just when we think we’ve peeped all the cool baby keebs out there, another think comes along. This bad boy built by [andyclymer]
can be configured three different ways
, depending on what kind of control you’re after.
As designed, the PCB can be used as a six-switch macro keyboard, or a rotary encoder with two switches, or a pair of rotary encoders. It’s meant to be controlled with Trinket M0, which means it can be programmed with Arduino or CircuitPython.
This could really only be cooler if the key switch PCB holes had sockets for hot-swapping the switches, because then you could use this thing as a functional switch tester. But hey, you can always add those yourself.
If you’re in the market for purpose-built add-on input device, but either don’t have the purpose nailed down just yet, or aren’t sure you want to design the thing yourself, this board would be a great place to start. Usually, all it takes is using someone else’s design to get used to using such a thing, at which point it’s natural to start thinking of ways to customize it.
[andyclymer] is selling these boards over on Tindie
, or you can roll your own from the repo.
Need just a few more inputs?
We’ve got you covered
. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,373,550.448166 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/19/handwashing-timer-makes-sure-the-suds-stay-on-long-enough/ | Handwashing Timer Makes Sure The Suds Stay On Long Enough | Dan Maloney | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"animated",
"arduino",
"countdown",
"handwash",
"hygiene",
"led",
"matric",
"neopixel",
"proximity",
"timer"
] | “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”? How we wonder why you’d resort to singing a ditty to time your handwashing when you can use your social isolation time to build
a touch-free electronic handwash timer
that the kids — and you — might actually use.
Over the last few months, pretty much everyone on the planet has been thrust into strange, new, and oftentimes scary practices to limit the spread of the SARS-CoV-2virus and the disease it causes, COVID-19. Judging by the number of people we’ve seen leaving public restrooms without a visit to the washbasin before the outbreak began — and sadly all too often since — we collectively have a lot of work to do in tightening up our handwashing regimens. Time on target and plenty of friction are the keys to that, and [Denis Hennessy]’s “WashTimer” aims to at least help you out with the former. His build is as simple as can be: an Arduino driving an LED matrix when a proximity sensor fires. Wave your dirty paws in front of the unit as you start to scrub up, and the display goes through a nicely animated 20-second countdown, at which time it’s safe to rinse off.
[Denis] purposely made this design as simple and as customizable as possible. Perhaps you’ve got
a Neopixel ring
lying about rather than the LED matrix, or maybe
an ultrasonic sensor
would work better for you. Be creative and take this design where it needs to go to suit your needs. We can’t stress enough that handwashing is your number one defense; if you don’t need to moisturize your hands at least three times a day, you’re probably not washing often or long enough. And 20 seconds is way longer than you think it is without a prompt.
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/timer.mp4 | 21 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6229527",
"author": "none",
"timestamp": "2020-03-19T20:54:48",
"content": "There are 10 types of people in the world; those who can count to 10100 and those who just don’t give a sh11.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6229552"... | 1,760,373,550.869443 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/19/a-555-and-a-lighter-make-high-voltage/ | A 555 And A Lighter Make High Voltage | Al Williams | [
"classic hacks"
] | [] | If you don’t have a ready source of high voltage,
here’s an easy way to build one
from the aptly-named [HVZapp]. The parts list is pretty simple to acquire, except for the transformer. For that, [HVZapp] raided a broken arc lighter. It took us a minute to realize that the MOSFETs are in parallel. The hand-drawn schematic shows a little “jump” from the drain lead to the source lead, but if you aren’t careful, it looks like the FETs are shorted out, which — of course — they aren’t.
The original arc lighter, of course, did a fine job of creating high voltage, although perhaps not as much as this circuit. Also, it would turn off every 10 seconds, which isn’t very useful if you want to use it as a power supply.
If you aren’t sure what to do with a high voltage, supply, there’s an associated quick and dirty Jacob’s Ladder in the video below. If you want your high voltage in a more natural way, consider
harnessing lightning
. There are
many ways
to generate high voltages. | 20 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6229522",
"author": "daveboltman",
"timestamp": "2020-03-19T20:40:01",
"content": "@Moryc Could you please share some of your designs (instead of just complaining)?Just after school I tried to build my own 12″ monochrome CRT monitor (since I had a CRT). Never got the HV flyback circ... | 1,760,373,551.403295 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/19/the-corona-clock/ | The Corona Clock | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"home hacks",
"LED Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"coronavirus",
"ESP8266",
"NodeMCU",
"Simple Hacks",
"ws2812"
] | Schools are closed here in Germany until after Easter vacation, and that means that our almost-six-year-old son Max is staying at home with us. The good news is that my wife and I work from home anyway, so it’s not too stressful as long as he can look after himself for eight hours per day. The bad news is that there’s no way a kindergarten kid can take care of himself for such long stretches, and we don’t want to just park him in front of the boob tube. At least there’s two of us.
The new stay-at-home life has required some adjustment, but for at least the first five days (and counting) it’s working out pretty darn well. One trick: my wife came up with the idea of a visual schedule to help Max divide his day up into kindergarten-sized chunks, and then we added an LED strip behind it to turn it into a linear clock of sorts. And we did it with stuff we had lying around the house.
Granted, it’s not a super deep hacky-hack, and some of you out there could probably get it done with a handful of 555 timers. But it was quick, gets the job done, and heck, with NTP sync, it’s the most accurate kiddie clock in the world! So those of you out there who are stuck like we are, trying to balance childcare and working from home, here’s a quick project that can increase familial harmony while giving you an excuse to order more LED strips.
Ingredients
There isn’t much to the Corona clock. An ESP8266, in my case running NodeMCU firmware, connects over WiFi and displays the time on a WS2812 strip, connected on pin 4. In our case, I had a meter-long 60-LED strip, and we needed to cover approximately 15 waking hours, so it’s just a matter of lighting up one LED every 15 minutes. We spent more time coming up with a day-plan and looking for clip art than we did coding or soldering. I tried to think of cool things to do with the colors, but in the end just went with my son’s favorite: blue. (Any good ideas?
Feel free to fork it
and let me know.)
I mounted the strip to what I had in the basement: a conveniently 1 m aluminum U extrusion. If you’ve got a yardstick, or even a long-enough piece of cardboard, you’re in good shape. The LED strip had a sticky backing, but there’s no small amount of “magic” tape used to keep everything else together and in place. You can probably think up something smarter. On to the clock face!
Art, Aesthetics, and User Experience
The one trick was printing out the cells for the clock to match the spacing of the LEDs. They’re a maddening 1.66666 cm center-to-center, which means that I had to open up Inkscape to get the art done. But then you’re home-free, because in Document Properties, aside from setting up for landscape printing, you can set up a grid of any size that you want, and even darker lines every four grids, or one hour. Enabling snap-to-grid made all our boxes exactly the right sizes, and I imported and scaled all of the clip-art that my wife found.
If you’re looking for a nice diffused LED look, a 20 mm deep U channel with a paper front as diffuser is probably pretty close to ideal. I ran some rainbow fades up and down the length of it, and they look great. But for an “accurate” clock that doesn’t require color mixing, it’s probably a little blurry. Anyway, it works. Max can tell when it’s the last LED in his blocks of playing-alone time and hasn’t missed one yet. For a kid who can’t yet tell clock time, it’s a pretty neat experience for him to be able to say “Dad, come look at the clock, it’s time to go out with the dog!” and order us around for a change. I’ll get my revenge when kindergarten opens back up again.
Corona Clocks and Co.
It’s funny how small things like this can change what would be a daily conflict — the fight over Max’s schedule, and his feeling that it’s out of his control — into a pleasure. Granted, Max will be happier when he is back to playing with his friends, and we’ll be happier not working nights to make up for the “lost” couple hours of childcare during the day: free time got pushed somewhere off the timeline for the moment. But it’s also been a sincere pleasure to take an hour off to go on a bike ride in the forest with Max. Quality corona time?
Are you quarantining or working from home with kids? Got any cool projects, hacks or not, to help out? Post ’em up in the comments. | 19 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6229455",
"author": "Kevin Shumaker",
"timestamp": "2020-03-19T17:18:56",
"content": "This is truly an excellent project! Congrats. And your son Max should be commended, too, for picking it up so quickly!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comme... | 1,760,373,551.576381 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/19/do-you-smell-what-the-magic-chef-is-cookin/ | Do You Smell What The Magic Chef Is Cookin’? | Kristina Panos | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"automata",
"geared motors",
"look ma no microcontroller",
"toys"
] | Automata are already pretty cool, but the ones that can fool us are something extraordinary. The legendary [Greg Zumwalt] has recently turned his toy-making attentions toward illusory automata, and we think he’s off to a great start with his admirable appetizer,
the Magic Chef
.
The Chef aims to please, and as long as he has the power to do so, he’ll keep offering dishes from his six-item menu of hamburger, hot dog, pizza slice, BLT, sunny-side-up egg, and banded gelatinous chunk we can’t quite identify. Amazingly, this one-man restaurant does everything with a single 6VDC gear motor, some magnets, and 58 printed parts including gears, cams, and levers. The way the food carousel moves on a sort of magnetic slip ring system is the icing on the cake.
If you want to whip up a Magic Chef of your own,
all the STL files are available for take-out from the Instructables page
. Hungry for more details? go wash up and get situated after the break, ’cause we’re serving up a demo video with some close-up views of the inner workings. Oh, and
here’s some automata-brewed coffee
for dessert. | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6229423",
"author": "John Hanson",
"timestamp": "2020-03-19T16:07:34",
"content": "GZumwalt is the most amazing designer out there. If you have a 3d printer, check him out- incredibly clever stuff!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,373,551.615683 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/18/avoripe-takes-a-firm-grip-on-the-ultimate-first-world-food-problem/ | AvoRipe Takes A Firm Grip On The Ultimate First World Food Problem | Sven Gregori | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"arduino",
"color sensor",
"ESP8266",
"force sensor",
"fruit",
"IoT",
"servo motor",
"smartphone"
] | You don’t have to be an extinct mammal or a Millennial to enjoy the smooth, buttery taste of an avocado. Being psychic on the other hand is definitely an advantage to catch that small, perfect window between raw and rotten of this divaesque fruit. But don’t worry, as modern problems require modern solutions, [Eden Bar-Tov] and [Elad Goldberg] built the AvoRipe,
a device to notify you when your next avocado has reached that window
.
Taking both the firmness and color of an avocado as indicators of its ripeness into account, the team built a dome holding a TCS3200 color sensor as stand for the avocado itself, and 3D printed a servo-controlled gripper with a force sensor attached to it. Closing the gripper’s arms step by step and reading the force sensor’s value will determine the softness the avocado has reached. Using an ESP8266 as centerpiece, the AvoRipe is turned into a full-blown IoT device, reporting the sensor readings to a smartphone app, and collecting the avocado’s data history on an Adafruit.IO dashboard.
There is unfortunately one big drawback: to calibrate the sensors, a set of nicely, ripe avocados are required, turning the device into somewhat of a chicken and egg situation. Nevertheless, it’s a nice showcase of tying together different platforms available for widescale hobbyist projects. Sure, it doesn’t hurt to know how to do each part from scratch on your own, but on the other hand, why not use the shortcuts that are at our disposal to remove some obstacles —
which sometimes might include programming itself
. | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6229009",
"author": "weirdwhit",
"timestamp": "2020-03-18T18:51:46",
"content": "“what is my purpose?”“you squeeze avocados”“oh my god”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6229016",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "20... | 1,760,373,551.739044 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/18/join-team-hackaday-to-crunch-covid-19-through-foldinghome/ | Join Team Hackaday To Crunch COVID-19 Through Folding@Home | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Medical Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"Covid-19",
"distributed computing",
"folding@home",
"protein",
"research",
"virus"
] | Donate your extra computer cycles to combat COVID-19.
The Folding@Home project
uses computers from all over the world connected through the Internet to simulate protein folding. The point is to generate the data necessary to discover treatments that can have an impact on how this virus affects humanity. The software models protein folding in a search for pharmaceutical treatments that will weaken the virus’ ability to attack the human immune system. Think of this like mining for bitcoin but instead
we’re mining for a treatment to Coronavirus
.
Initially developed at Standford University and released in the year 2000, this isn’t the first time Hackaday has advocated for Folding@Home. The “Team Hackaday” folding group was started by readers
back in 2005
and that team number is still active, so let’s pile on and work our way up the rankings. At the time of writing, we’re ranked 267 in the world, can we get back up to number 30 like we were in 2008? To use the comparison to bitcoin once again, this is like a mining pool except what we end up with is a show of goodwill, something I think we can all use right about now.
Setting Up Your Computer for Folding@Home
You can get set up in five minutes. The software package is just a few megabytes and configuration is minimal:
Download and run the installer
for Linux, Mac, or Windows (
UPDATE:
alternate download links
)
Choose any name to identify your efforts on the public ranking system
Use the Team Hackaday team number to contribute to our collective rankings:
44851
It’s optional but I recommend getting your own passkey — it’s a hash that uniquely identifies your efforts and
you can get one emailed to you on the FAH Passkey page
That’s about it, just open FAHControl and the software will connect to the Folding at Home servers and request a Work Unit (WU) — part of the protein folding math puzzle currently being solved. Once it has a WU the software will solve that unit and upload the result. Rinse and repeat and you’re a worker bee in a super-computer that’s distributed throughout the world.
The F@H project is seeing a surge of new computers on the network. Because of this you may run into a situation where no new WUs are getting downloaded. I experienced this on Wednesday morning and believe it’s simply caused by the buffer of work running out and needing to be replenished. The nice thing is you don’t need to do anything, so just let your instance run and it’ll get to work when more is available.
The software does allow you to use your GPU for much more efficient calculations, but that setup may be non-trivial and beyond the scope of this article. I suggest you just get the client up and running and then look to configure GPU as a later step.
Follow the Leaderboard
Are you making a difference? Yes! But of course
metrics tell this message the best
. You can see the team summary above. This statistics page includes a user summary showing 21 active users right now, including the “hackaday_wrencher” instance I added when working on this article which is just beginning to score points.
This group has over 1600 members right now but most are inactive. Can we reactivate those? Can we double that number? Grab those gaming rigs and let the electrons flow. Folding@Home has made a huge impact on research over the last twenty years and now more than ever we can build on that groundwork by joining in to fight this global pandemic. | 85 | 40 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228980",
"author": "Lou Hannoe",
"timestamp": "2020-03-18T17:23:35",
"content": "We collectively have a metric crapton of Raspberry Pis sitting on our shelves. Is it worthwhile to try and get all those little GPUs cranking on this problem?If so, could we get an article showing what... | 1,760,373,551.92839 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/18/a-practical-dual-arm-scara-3d-printer/ | A Practical Dual-Arm SCARA 3D Printer | Jenny List | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"3d printing",
"scara"
] | We see a lot of 3D printers here at Hackaday, but as over the years the 3D printer has moved from being an exciting item in its own right to being an everyday tool, it’s increasingly rare for us to feature a build of one as a project. It’s especially rare for us to see a 3D printer that isn’t a variation of either an XYZ Cartesian design or a delta printer, but that’s what [bondus] has done with
a printer based upon a parallel SCARA mechanism
. If SCARA isn’t something you’re familiar with, it’s a design used in the world of industrial robots in which an almost humanoid jointed arm works in two dimensions, with the third being provided by raising or lowering the whole construction. It has the advantage of greater speed than Cartesian designs, at the expense of higher quality joints being required to maintain accuracy of positioning.
This is the second SCARA printer he’s built, and has a sturdy set of aluminium arms and substantial bearings. Drive comes via a pair of belts to some very large pulleys, and calibration is extremely important to ensure that both arms are in exactly the same plane. The curcular bed is on a lead screw that provides the Z axis.
The results are certainly impressive, both is speed and in print quality. We’ve placed a video of it in action below the break. Whether or not SCARA printers improve to the point of being ubiquitous isn’t something we can supply an answer to, but we’ve featured a small number of them in the past. Particularly memorable is
this one using an industrial robotic arm
.
Thanks [TechnomadicJim] for the tip. | 24 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228961",
"author": "CodeMonkey",
"timestamp": "2020-03-18T16:32:40",
"content": "That is a nice, nimble, large volume 3D printer with a novel concept!Also, second paragraph, last sentence: “curcular”? circular?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,373,551.675437 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/18/teardown-cobra-xrs-9740-radar-detector/ | Teardown: Cobra XRS 9740 Radar Detector | Tom Nardi | [
"car hacks",
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Slider",
"Teardown"
] | [
"atmega644",
"cobra",
"jtag",
"laser",
"LED display",
"radar",
"radar detector",
"reverse engineering",
"superheterodyne",
"waveguide"
] | Drivers with a lead foot more often than not have Waze open on their phone so they can see if other drivers have spotted cops up ahead. But avoiding a speeding ticket used to involve a lot more hardware than software. Back before the smartphone revolution, that same driver would have had a radar detector on their dashboard. That’s not to say the gadgets are completely unused today, but between their relatively high cost (one of the top rated models on Amazon as of this writing costs over $300) and the inevitable false positives from so many vehicles on the road having their own radar and LIDAR systems, they’ve certainly become a less common sight over the years
The subject of today’s teardown is a perfect example of “Peak Radar Detector”. Manufactured back in 2007, the Cobra XRS 9740 would have been a fairly mid-range entry offering the sort of features that would have been desirable at the time. Over a decade ago, having an alphanumeric display, voice alerts, and a digital compass were all things worth shouting about on the box the thing was sold in. Though looking like some kind of Cardassian warship was apparently just an added bonus.
As the name implies these devices are primarily for detecting radar activity, but by this point they’d also been expanded to pick up infrared lasers and the strobe beacons on emergency vehicles. But false positives were always a problem, so the device allows the user to select which signals it should be on the lookout for. If you were getting some kind of interference that convinced the detector it was being bombarded with IR lasers, you could just turn that function off without having to pull the plug entirely.
But it’s important to remember that this device was built back when people were still unironically carrying around flip phones. Detecting laser and multi-band radars might sound like something pulled from the spec sheet of a stealth fighter jet, but this is still a piece of consumer electronics from more than a decade in the past. So let’s crack it open and take a look at what goes on inside a radar detector that’s only a few years away from being old enough to get its own driver’s license.
The Horn of Plenty
With the Cobra’s case open the largest and most obvious component is, as you might have guessed, the radar detector itself. Or more accurately, the metallic waveguide of the detector. This structure, often called the “horn” for fairly obvious reasons, funnels the radar waves down into the detector circuitry. You’ll note here that there’s only a single wave guide, and it faces forward; this unit would have limited ability to detect radar from any other direction than directly ahead, which was typical until they started adding more wave guides on higher end models later on.
Another interesting note are the set screws directly behind the horn. These allow adjusting the resonant frequency of the detector cavity, and once they were set to the appropriate lengths at the factory, an adhesive was applied to the top to make sure they didn’t rotate from vibration. Upon opening the wave guide itself, you can see that the length of these screws actually varies wildly. Combined with the fact that there are open holes for additional unused screws to be installed in, it would seem that there was considerable variation between detectors that needed to be manually addressed during the QA process.
Behind the set screws and located 90 degrees from the face of the horn itself is the superheterodyne receiver. According to the manual it can detect frequencies from the X band at 10.5 GHz all the way up to Ka band at 34.7 GHz. Owing to the amount of high frequency RF Dark Arts that are happening on this 20 mm long board, the construction techniques and even the substrate used on this PCB are markedly different from the rest of the device.
Seeing the Light
Located under a shield slightly smaller than the radar waveguide housing is the infrared laser detector. This component is actually a separate module, complete with a header that allows it to be easily swapped out once the screws holding it down are removed. It could be that laser detection technology was considered such a moving target at the time that Cobra wanted to keep it as a separate module, allowing them to potentially improve that particular capability down the line without having to redesign the entire board. It’s also possible that a cheaper version of the Cobra XRS 9740 was available that didn’t have the laser capability. In either event, it would be interesting to take a peek inside of other detectors from the era to see if this was a common trait.
The main components on this module are the PIC12F629 microcontroller on the far left and BA10358 operational amplifier to the right of it. Unfortunately the dual IR detectors, one mounted on the front of the board to align with the radar horn and the other mounted flat on its back and facing a lens assembly on the top of the device, don’t have any identifying markings. That said, the two-pin sensors look suspiciously like the sort of IR detectors you’d see in an old mouse.
Valuable Treasure
The display aficionados in the audience have been waiting patiently, and now it’s their turn. Along the back edge of the Cobra XRS 9740, diffused with a piece of smoked black plastic, is an absolutely gorgeous eight character alphanumeric LED display in that perfect shade of
Matrix
green.
It turns out this is a HCMS-2973, a well documented display that’s even supported by a couple of Arduino libraries. These are normally pretty pricey, selling for $10 to $20 used and
currently listed for $36 a pop on Digi-Key
. That’s more than these old radar detectors often go for on eBay (to say nothing of flea market finds), so if you don’t mind spending some quality time with the desoldering wick, you could potentially turn a profit just by snapping up old detectors and reselling their screens.
In this case the HCMS-2973 lives on a small daughter-board that allows it to be mounted vertically. The fine people at Cobra even went through the trouble of sorting out the display’s somewhat unusual pin arrangement and broke out the five lines you need to actually drive it to solder pads along the edge of the board. Very thoughtful of them.
Potential for Greatness
On the flip side of the Cobra’s main PCB, we find a relatively familiar face: an ATmega644 microcontroller. Next to the 44-pin TQFP packaged chip are helpfully labeled JTAG points and what appears to be an unpopulated programming header.
Seeing not one but two recognizable microcontrollers is certainly refreshing considering
how many miserable epoxy blobs we run into these days
. Admittedly there aren’t a lot of folks chomping at the bit to hack a radar detector from the early 2000s, but assuming there was sufficient interest, let’s theorize a bit here.
Following the traces, the PIC in the laser module is connected directly to the I/O pins on the ATmega. A logic analyzer placed between them should reveal in relatively short order whatever whispered secrets the pair of microcontrollers are sharing with each other. That’s half of the device’s functionality right there. Getting the display working wouldn’t be a problem either, the HCMS-2973 is a standard component, and it to can be traced directly back to the pins on the ATmega.
So what stands between the Cobra XRS 9740 and an open source replacement firmware for freedom-loving speedsters? Well, the big chip labeled “MCS LOGIC COBRA” might have something to say about it.
Any effort to create a custom firmware for the device would have to involve reverse engineering whatever this chip is doing. If Cobra
went through the trouble of getting the chips manufactured
, especially in a device that otherwise doesn’t seem to have a problem using off-the-shelf components, it’s probably used for some radar groking magic they wanted to keep close to the vest.
Of course, this is a
bit
of an oversimplification. There’s a handful of other unidentified chips lurking around the PCB that would need to be dealt with as well. Getting the classic “Hello World” running on the display might only be an afternoon’s worth of tinkering, but the difficulty really ramps up from there. If anyone feels like challenging themselves, it seems like there’s enough pieces here to conduct a fascinating open source experiment. Ultimately it might just boil down to how far a free software fanatic is willing to go keep the Smokey off his tail. | 46 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228916",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-03-18T14:23:22",
"content": "“they wanted to keep close to the vest.” Aha, yet more evidence that hackaday articles are generated by a neural net trained on twitter, or that it’s written by Space Aliens.",
"parent_id": null,... | 1,760,373,552.020233 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/18/can-a-cpap-fan-become-a-ventilator/ | Can A CPAP Fan Become A Ventilator? | Jenny List | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"Covid-19",
"CPAP",
"ventilator"
] | Watching the hardware community respond to the global pandemic is a fascinating process, because of the breadth of projects being considered, and also because of the differing experiences and perspectives being brought to the table. Components most of us might have been unaware of are appearing, such as
the CPAP blower used by [Jcl5m1] in his ventilator design
.
He starts with a very necessary disclaimer against trusting a random person on the Internet on the subject of medical equipment design, and since it must be possible to do damage with an inappropriate ventilator we can only echo that. But as a CPAP user he’s familiar with their operation and parts, and he’s taken the centrifugal blower from one of them and paired it with a speed controller and an Arduino to provide an adjustable pressure.
What we take away from this is not in any way a ventilator that’s ready to be hooked up to sick patients, but an interesting look at ventilators in general, CPAP components, and the possibility that this project and others like it might eventually form the basis of something more useful if they attract the attention of people with more experience in the field. We’ve already seen 3D-printing used to make valves for a respirator
at a hospital in Italy
. | 137 | 49 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228842",
"author": "histaf",
"timestamp": "2020-03-18T11:15:44",
"content": "International group of volunteers for trying to help with this:https://www.projectopenair.org/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6228999",
"au... | 1,760,373,552.212846 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/18/hearing-plants-giggle-is-just-as-creepy-as-you-think/ | Hearing Plants Giggle Is Just As Creepy As You Think | Tom Nardi | [
"green hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"agriculture",
"DFPlayer",
"indoor plants",
"plants",
"soil moisture sensor"
] | While best known for
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
, Roald Dahl wrote quite a few similarly oddball stories in his time. One of them,
The Sound Machine
, is about a device that allowed the user to hear the anguished screams of trees as they were cut down. Sounds kind of weird to us, but
[Roni Bandini] liked the idea so much he decided to build his own version
.
Now to be fair, the device doesn’t
only
scream in pain. In fact, most of the time it should be emitting laughs and happy noises. Using a moisture sensor driven into the soil of a plant’s pot, the device uses these audio cues to tell you the relative health of your leafy friend. So assuming you’ve got any sort of green thumb at all, things should be fine.
But once the soil gets too dry and the device determines the plant is in “pain”, things take a turn for the worse. We suppose it doesn’t technically scream out so much as grunt like a zombie, but it’s still not a noise we’d want to hear while walking through the house at night. Luckily, it seems you need to hit the button on the front of the 3D printed enclosure to get it to play the appropriate sound track from its DFPlayer module.
Personally we’d rather build something that
makes sure the plants are being taken care of automatically
than a gadget that cries out in anguish to remind us that we don’t know what we’re doing. But hey, everyone gets inspired in their own way. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228815",
"author": "K",
"timestamp": "2020-03-18T09:30:06",
"content": "I’m curious to know if the plant could learn to emit certain signals to a sensor that would trigger a certain amount water to be giben to the plant. Same with light. Would the plant be able to choose its own am... | 1,760,373,551.792472 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/17/this-is-not-an-argument-bot/ | This Is Not An Argument Bot | Kristina Panos | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"chatbot",
"DialogFlow",
"Google AIY",
"Monty Python",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspberry Pi B+",
"servo"
] | While in-person arguments are getting harder to come by these days, we’ll always have the internet (hopefully). So what can you do to stay on your game in a time when a little levity is lauded? Build an argument bot and battle wits with the best — a stern-faced John Cleese!
This latest offering from [8 Bits And A Byte]
refers to a Monty Python sketch featuring an argument service — an office with a receptionist who will take your money and send you down the hall for a healthy and heated discussion. If you’ve never gone on a Monty Python binge, well, it’s probably as good a time as any.
Electronics-wise, the argument bot is a pretty simple build. A Raspberry Pi B+ outfitted with a Google AIY hat listens to your side of things and decides which bones to pick. Your obviously misguided statements are then matched with DialogFlow intents, and dissent is sent back through the speaker. Meanwhile, Mr. Cleese’s jaw moves up and down on a printed and servo-driven linear actuator while he maintains a stiff upper lip. Before you go off on that Python binge, check out the build video after the break.
Have you seen what can happen two robots argue?
‘Tis but a scratch
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8sNcNIGNsU | 41 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228786",
"author": "Luke",
"timestamp": "2020-03-18T06:46:52",
"content": "The irony of Monty Python: nobody really understands their jokes any longer since they’re written in the cultural context of the 70’s Great Britain – except those who lived through that time, and most of the... | 1,760,373,552.304069 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/17/open-source-arm-development-simplified/ | Open-Source ARM Development Simplified | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"arduino",
"arm",
"cli",
"command line",
"developer",
"development",
"education",
"shell",
"stm32",
"unix"
] | The ARM series of processors are an industry standard of sorts for a vast array of applications. Virtually anything requiring good power or heat management, or any embedded system which needs more computing power than an 8-bit microcontroller is a place where an ARM is likely found. While they do appear in various personal computers and laptops, [Pieter] felt that their documentation for embedded processors wasn’t quite as straightforward as it could be and
created this development board which will hopefully help newbies to ARM
learn the environment more easily.
Called the PX-HER0, it’s an ARM development board with an STM32 at its core and a small screen built in. The real work went in to the documentation for this board, though. Since it’s supposed to be a way to become more proficient in the platform, [Pieter] has gone to great lengths to make sure that all the hardware, software, and documentation are easily accessible. It also comes with the Command Line Interpreter (CLI) App which allows a user to operate the device in a Unix-like environment. The Arduino IDE is also available for use with some PX-HER0-specific examples.
[Pieter] has been around before, too. The CLI is based on work he did previously which gave an
Arduino a Unix-like shell
as well. Moving that to the STM32 is a useful tool to have for this board, and as a bonus everything is open source and available on his site including the hardware schematics and code. | 12 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228763",
"author": "Steven Clark",
"timestamp": "2020-03-18T03:30:03",
"content": "Since it’s an STM32 I bet it’s relatively easy to port Mbed to it and get stuff the Arduino libraries don’t have, like interrupts and/or RTOS.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": ... | 1,760,373,552.362674 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/17/3-2-ghz-vector-signal-generator-tear-down/ | 3.2 GHz Vector Signal Generator Tear Down | Al Williams | [
"Repair Hacks",
"Teardown"
] | [
"rohde & schwarz",
"signal generator"
] | [The Signal Path]
snagged a fancy Rohde & Schwarz vector signal generator
that can go up to 3.2 GHz, but sadly it wasn’t in working order. It powered up and even put out a 1 GHz signal, but the amplitude output was very wrong. Interestingly relative changes to the output were correct, it was just that the absolute output amplitude was off by quite a bit and changed with frequency. That started a detective job which you can follow along in the video below.
The instrument is pretty high-end, and did not report any problems even during self-check. This implied that all the internals were probably good and whatever was wrong probably lay close to the output. The service manual’s block diagram wasn’t terribly useful, especially given that all the processing portions appear to work well.
This is a good excuse to just look at the inside of this well-built instrument. Given that the output amplitude changes with frequency, a good guess can be made that the issue will involve some component or components that involve a reactance either on purpose or due to some failure mode.
The obligatory cat didn’t seem to have much of an opinion besides finding the instrument a satisfactory perch. Tracing through the output shows some fast diodes to sample power and trigger a reverse power protection relay. Those diodes were easy to see through their transparent cases via optical microscopy.
As it turned out, the MOSFET controlling the relay was always holding the relay off, and replacing the MOSFET restored normal operation. We don’t think of a relay as a capacitor, but a tiny relay in the off position does exhibit capacitance at these frequencies. Had it been on as it should have been, there should have been no attenuation of the output. But because the failed MOSFET kept it open, it provided a capacitive path that reduced the amplitude of the output signal.
We like opening things up just because, but when we can’t do it ourselves
a video of someone else doing it
is nearly as good. Test equipment might be our favorite, but
old stuff
is fun, too. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228721",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2020-03-17T23:43:33",
"content": "Niiiice. I love stories about getting expensive but non-functional equipment, and repairing it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6228726",
... | 1,760,373,552.42154 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/17/a-smart-controller-for-your-diy-uv-cure-box/ | A Smart Controller For Your DIY UV Cure Box | Tom Nardi | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"LED Hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"controller",
"led strip",
"oled",
"pwm",
"timer",
"user interface",
"UV cure box"
] | Resin 3D printers are finally cheap enough that peons like us can finally buy them without skipping too many meals, and what means we’re starting to see more and more of them in the hands of hackers. But to get good results you’ll also want a machine to cure the prints with UV light; an added expense compared to more traditional FDM printers. Of course you could always build one yourself to try and save some money.
An earlier prototype build of the interface.
To that end, [sjm4306] is working on a very impressive
controller for all your homebrew UV curing needs
. The device is designed to work with cheap UV strip lights that can easily be sourced online, and all you need to bring to the table is a suitable enclosure to install them in. Here he’s using a metal paint can with a lid to keep from burning his eyes out, but we imagine the good readers of Hackaday could come up with something slightly more substantial while still taking the necessary precautions to not cook the only set of eyes you’ll ever have.
Of course, the enclosure isn’t what this project is really about. The focus here is on a general purpose controller, and it looks like [sjm4306] has really gone the extra mile with this one. Using a common OLED display module, the controller provides a very concise and professional graphical user interface for setting parameters such as light intensity and cure time. While the part is cooking, there’s even a nice little progress bar which makes it easy to see how much time is left even if you’re across the room.
At this point we’ve seen a number of hacked together UV cure boxes, but many of them
skip the controller and just run the lights full time
. That’s fine for a quick and dirty build, but we think a controller like this one could help turn a simple hack into a proper tool. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,373,552.463971 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/17/used-soda-stream-cylinder-becomes-diy-canned-air/ | Used Soda Stream Cylinder Becomes DIY Canned Air | Donald Papp | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"canned air",
"co2",
"compressed air",
"soda stream"
] | Soda Stream machines use a cylinder of compressed CO2 to carbonate beverages, and cylinders that are “empty” for the machine’s purposes in fact still have a small amount of gas left in them. User [Graldur] shared a clever design for using up those last gasps from a cylinder by
turning it into a makeshift compressed air gun
, the kind that can blow crumbs or dust out of inconvenient spots like the inside of a keyboard. It’s 3D printed in PETG with a single seal printed in Ninjaflex.
[Graldur]’s 3D printed assembly screws onto the top of an “empty” cylinder and when the bottom ring is depressed like a trigger, the valve is opened slightly and the escaping gas is diverted through a narrow hole in the front. As a result, it can be used just as you would a can of compressed air. The gas outlet even accommodates the narrow plastic tubes from WD-40 cans (or disposable compressed air cans, for that matter) if more precision is required.
The design is intended for use with nearly-empty cylinders, but even so, [Graldur] also points out that it has been designed such that it can never fully actuate the cylinder’s release valve no matter how hard one presses, so don’t modify things carelessly. We also notice the design keeps the user’s hand and fingers well away from the business end of things.
This device also reminds of somewhat of a past experiment which used 3D printing to create serviceable (albeit low pressure)
3D printed compressed air tanks in custom shapes
. | 16 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228663",
"author": "schmiben",
"timestamp": "2020-03-17T18:47:13",
"content": "Use a full bottle and turn it upside down for eve more fun!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6228681",
"author": "cunningfellow",
"... | 1,760,373,552.679479 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/17/yet-more-takata-airbags-are-causing-fatalities-despite-different-propellant-chemistry/ | Yet More Takata Airbags Are Causing Fatalities Despite Different Propellant Chemistry | Lewin Day | [
"car hacks",
"Current Events",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"airbag",
"cars",
"takata",
"takata airbag",
"takata airbag recall"
] | Takata Corporation has become well known as a lesson in product safety, thanks to their deadly airbags which were installed in cars worldwide. Despite filing for bankruptcy in 2017, their shadow lingers on as the biggest product recall in history continues to grow ever larger. Over time, the story grows deeper, as investigators find new causes for concern and deaths continue to mount.
In late 2019, another Takata recall was announced —
one which caused fresh worry among industry officials familiar with the case
. Up to this point, the defective parts produced by Takata were the models based on ammonium nitrate propellants,
a chemical that other manufacturers had deemed too dangerous to use.
However, there have been reports of other models using different chemistries having fatally injuring motorists, raising the question of whether any Takata airbag could be considered safe.
Problems, Plural
The airbag deployment in a BMW vehicle in which a man was injured, suspected to be caused by the Takata airbag deployment. Source: NT Police, Australia
After years of research, both internally and by outside investigators, the problem seemed settled. Takata had chosen to use a propellant that became unstable over time, thus leading to overpressure events which could destroy the metal airbag casing, causing injuries and fatalities to drivers and passengers. It was believed that this affected only the phase-stabilised ammonium nitrate (PSAN) airbag inflators. This chemistry was only used by Takata, as other manufacturers had deemed it too dangerous for practical use.
In 2019, everything changed with the first recalls for Takata’s NADI 5-AT inflators. NADI stands for Non-Azide Driver Inflators, which use a tetrazole propellant, widely considered safe when used properly. Takata NADI airbags in cars produced between 1996 and 2001
are reported to have taken two lives in Australia
, This is on top of the existing 24 deaths and 300 injuries worldwide
caused by Takata’s PSAN inflators.
Large metal fragments can be fired at vehicle occupants during deployment of malfunctioning Takata airbags.
According to Takata’s submission to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
, the issue is caused by a defective foil seal, which fails to prevent moisture ingress into the airbag casing. Moisture ingress can have several negative effects on inflator performance. It may cause slow deployment of the airbag, reducing its effectiveness at restraining passengers in the event of a crash. Alternatively, through repeated cycles of moisture ingress and drying or freezing, the propellant may mechanically break down, increasing its surface area.This leads to an increased rate of reaction, creating the overpressure events that shatter casings, spraying passengers with deadly shrapnel.
The results of an overpressure event during a Takata airbag deployment. The violent explosion destroys the airbag casing with deadly results. Source: NHTSA
I reached out to John Keller, a former Takata engineer from 1998-2001, for comment on these recent developments. John undertook studies into the performance of airbag products at the time, collecting data on a variety of models. According to John, “Propellant surface area is critical. If there’s too much propellant surface area, relative to the vent area, during combustion the inflator housing can fracture […] It’s important regardless of the propellant formulation […] The increase in propellant surface area from the broken propellant could cause the inflator to rupture.”
In the cases of deaths and injuries caused by Takata airbags,
the primary cause has been due to metal fragments ejected by the airbag.
In practice, this has led minor accidents involving airbag deployments to become casualty events. Drivers are being instructed to avoid driving their vehicles in some cases, with automakers doing mobile inspections or towing vehicles to dealerships.
Getting To The Root Cause
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/takata-malfunctionGIF.mp4
As pictured in the video above, faulty inflators deploy with violent results. Understanding the cause behind this is key to solving the problem. With recalls now affecting multiple different Takata airbag chemistries, it is no longer realistic to place the blame solely at the door of ammonium nitrate. Instead, it hints at a broader issue in design and manufacture. In the case of the NADI inflators, the problem is an imperfect moisture seal. With regards to the PSAN inflators, similarly humidity and moisture are blamed.
Automakers have been working to educate customers of the dangers involved, in an attempt to maximise the effectiveness of the recall. Source: Honda
In November 2015, The NHTSA gave Takata
until December 31st, 2019 to prove that PSAN inflators featuring a dessicant were safe to use.
Thus far,
the federal agency has not commented definitively on the issue
, which would lead to a recall of yet further vehicles. According to Keller, “That remedy is not fundamentally sound. It’s an illusion of a remedy that may persuade some people, but not anyone who truly understands
Takata
’s inflator defects. Eventually any desiccant will saturate, once that happens, moisture goes into propellant.”
The common thread here is the effect of moisture ingress on propellant stability. With multiple airbag types now affected, it’s clear that the broader issue at play is one of poor inflator design, not simply the selection of the wrong propellant chemistry. This should raise alarm bells for other airbag manufacturers, who can no longer consider themselves safe for having avoided the use of ammonium nitrate in their designs. Instead, it goes to show that rigorous attention must be paid to the long-term stability of the propellant charge. Failure to control this issue can lead to tragic results.
Given the long lifetime of the average automobile, the public have reason to expect airbags to remain safe over many decades of use. Any protection method that comes with a time limit, such as a dessicant, seems likely to cause more problems down the road. As more and more cars with airbags reach old age, there remains the possibility that more airbags will suffer dangerous failures. Thus far, other manufacturers have largely avoided major issues with degradation on a timescale of multiple decades, but whether these devices can remain safe over 40 years, 50 years, or further, remains an open question. At these timescales, this only affects a tiny fraction of motorists driving vintage vehicles, but one that the community will have to face nonethelesss.
Moving Forward
The timescale involved confounds efforts to solve the problem. As the latest NADI recalls cover vehicles of a greater age, it becomes difficult for automakers to remedy the issue.
BMW estimate it will take between 14 and 22 months
to develop and produce replacement parts. Along with Toyota, they are the only manufacturers intending to do so. The business case for redesigning parts for a small fleet of cars up to 25 years old is a poor one, due to the huge engineering and logistical expensive involved.
Other companies are instead exploring buyback programs
to compensate consumers for their vehicles that are no longer safe to drive.
Airbags are not a part that can readily be treated as a consumable, due to the dangers involved in their installation and handling. With these constraints in place, research will be required to ensure airbags can withstand such extended environmental exposure without becoming dangerous to vehicle occupants. Most manufacturers have thus far succeeded in this task; time will tell if they can keep up the good work.
The fact that multiple branches of Takata’s technology has proven fatal suggests a deeper problem at the company, rather than one fateful poor decision. Manufacturing defects were allowed to flow out to customer vehicles, leading to the loss of several lives and countless further injuries, some of which are permanently life-altering. Against that background are the devastating economic consequences, which have affected the livelihoods of many who worked for Takata or related companies. It’s clear that rigorous change is required from automakers and suppliers to ensure such a disaster is not allowed to happen again. | 63 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228638",
"author": "Dj Biohazard",
"timestamp": "2020-03-17T17:21:23",
"content": "Takata: the “gift” that keeps on giving.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6228691",
"author": "kdev",
"timestamp": "2020-03-17T... | 1,760,373,552.790684 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/17/custom-reddit-keyboard-only-needs-one-hand/ | Custom Reddit Keyboard Only Needs One Hand | Tom Nardi | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"internet hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"arduino pro micro",
"cherry mx",
"keyboard",
"macro",
"one handed",
"reddit"
] | Sometimes you might want to browse your favorite social media site while eating a sandwich, or throwing darts, or fending off an attacker with a sword. You know, normal things that might occupy only one of your hands. If you’ve ever found yourself in such a situation, then
this custom Reddit keyboard could be for you
.
Built by [jangxx], this little board is about as simple as it gets. Even if you aren’t looking for a way to browse /r/cooking while practicing your single-handed egg cracking technique, the same principles could be used to quickly throw together a macro keyboard for whatever your particular needs might be.
Inside the 3D printed enclosure is nothing more exotic than an Arduino Pro Micro and five Cherry MX Red switches. The switches have been wired directly to the GPIO pins on the Arduino,
and a simple Sketch takes care of the rest
. [jangxx] has written the code in such a way that you can easily define the mapping of USB HID keys to physical switches right at the top of the file, making it easy to reuse for your own purposes.
As simple as this project is, we really like the trouble that [jangxx] went through on the 3D printed key caps. The white up and down arrows allow you to navigate through the posts, and the center key selects the one you want to view. Since it’s for Reddit, naturally the red and blue buttons for rapid voting. When you want to go back to the list of posts, just hit the center button again.
Back in 2011 we saw a dedicated Reddit voting peripheral
, but we think the addition of simple navigation keys makes this project a bit more compelling. Incidentally, if you can think of any
other
reason you might want a one-handed keyboard for browsing Reddit…we definitely don’t want to hear about it. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228600",
"author": "socksbot",
"timestamp": "2020-03-17T15:45:05",
"content": "So you can follow and feed the hive mind faster.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6228604",
"author": "N",
"timestamp": "2020-03-17... | 1,760,373,552.628385 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/17/northrop-grumman-tests-space-tow-truck/ | Northrop Grumman Tests Space Tow Truck | Tom Nardi | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Slider",
"Space"
] | [
"docking",
"mission extension",
"northrop grumman",
"orbit",
"satellite",
"service",
"space junk"
] | In the early days, satellites didn’t stick around for very long. After it was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, it only took about three months for
Sputnik 1
to renter the atmosphere and burn up. But the constant drive to push ever further into space meant that soon satellites would remain in orbit for years at a time. Not that they always functioned for that long; America’s
Explorer 1
remained in orbit for more than twelve years, but its batteries died after just four months.
Of course back then, nobody was too worried about that sort of thing. When you can count the number of spacecraft in Earth orbit on one hand, what does it matter if one of them stays up there for more than a decade? The chances of a collision were so low as to essentially be impossible, and if the satellite was dead and wasn’t interfering with communication to its functional peers, all the better.
The likelihood of a collision steadily increased over the years as more and more spacecraft were launched, but the cavalier approach to space stewardship continued more or less unchanged into the modern era. In fact, it might have endured a few more decades if companies like SpaceX weren’t planning on mega-constellations comprised of thousands of individual satellites. Concerned over jamming up valuable near-Earth orbits with so much “space junk”,
modern satellites are increasingly being designed with automatic disposal systems
that help make sure they are safely deorbited even in the event of a system failure.
That’s good news for the future, but it doesn’t help us with the current situation. Thousands of satellites are in orbit above the planet, and they’ll need to be dealt with in the coming years. The good news is that many of them are at a low enough altitude that they’ll burn up on their own eventually, and
methods are being developed to speed up the process
should it be necessary to hasten their demise.
Unfortunately, the situation is slightly more complex with communications satellites in geosynchronous orbits. At an altitude of 35,786 kilometers (22,236 miles), deorbiting these spacecraft simply isn’t practical. It’s actually far easier to maneuver them farther out into space where they’ll never return. But what if the satellite fails or runs out of propellant before the decision to retire it can be made?
That’s precisely
the sort of scenario the Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV) was developed for
, and after a historic real-world test in February, it looks like this “Space Tow Truck” might be exactly what we need to make sure invaluable geosynchronous orbits are protected in the coming decades.
Unexpected Company
Fragile: Handle with Care.
On paper, the idea behind the Mission Extension Vehicle is simple. It flies up to a satellite, attaches itself securely to it, and very literally drags it to where it needs to go. In the case of a completely defunct satellite, the destination would be a so-called “graveyard orbit” that will never intersect with another vehicle. If the satellite is just out of propellant but otherwise functional, then the MEV could remain attached to it for the remainder of its mission; taking over the maneuvering and propulsion tasks that the spacecraft could no longer perform on its own.
There’s only one problem with this concept: these satellites were never designed to dock with another spacecraft. In fact, they were never even supposed to come within a 100 kilometers of another vehicle. Between unfurled solar panels and extended antenna arrays, approaching a large communication satellite and trying to capture it is not entirely unlike trying to grab a cactus. The result of anything but the most delicate and accurate handhold is going to be immediately and exceptionally unpleasant.
So where do you even attempt to snag such a satellite? There won’t be a formal docking port or dedicated capture point. Again, this is a vehicle that was launched into space with the assumption that it would operate in total isolation until such time that it was pushed into deep space for all eternity. A convenient carrying handle wasn’t exactly on anyone’s mind while it was being designed.
A Lesson in Satellite Anatomy
With so many different satellite designs in use, and precious few of them being well suited to mid-mission servicing attempts, the engineers behind the MEV had to find some kind of common structural component that could be used as a makeshift grapple fixture. Attaining compatibility with 100% of the spacecraft currently in orbit wouldn’t be possible, but if they could at least make sure MEV was able to snag the majority of targets it ran up against, it would be a step in the right direction.
MEV “docks” with the engine of a target satellite.
Somewhat ironically, the perfect grapple point ended up being the part of the satellite that at this point would be otherwise useless: the engine. Nearly every geostationary satellite will have what’s known as an “apogee motor”, a liquid propellant thruster that’s used to put the spacecraft into a circular geostationary orbit after it has separated from the booster rocket that carried it into space.
Not only does the nozzle of this engine make an ideal visual detail to search for on the surface of the target, but the area where it’s mounted to the satellite would have obviously been designed to handle considerable structural loads. In short, the best place to push a satellite is the exact spot where the engineers originally designed it to be pushed.
To firmly attach itself to the engine of the target satellite, the MEV uses an expandable probe not unlike an anchor used to secure a screw into a hollow wall. The probe is carefully inserted down the “throat” of the engine, and then expanded inside of the combustion chamber so that it’s too large to come back out. Damage to the engine seems inevitable with this method, but again, at this point the satellite would have either failed entirely or expended all of its propellants. In either event, the engine was doomed before MEV ever paid it a visit.
All In a Decade’s Work
The MEV is designed to operate for at least 15 years, which Northrop Grumman hopes will allow it to service multiple satellites during its lifetime. In theory it could spend 10 years proving auxiliary propulsion for an elder communications satellite, send it off towards deep space once its replacement was ready, and still have a few good years left in it should another satellite require its services. With a fleet of MEVs, the company could provide orbital “Roadside Assistance” for an entire industry.
To that end, Northrop Grumman chose an excellent candidate for the first mission. Intelsat 901 is a Ku-band satellite launched back in June of 2001 that had recently run low on propellant and moved itself into a graveyard orbit as a precaution. On February 25th, Mission Extension Vehicle 1 (MEV-1) met Intelsat 901 in this orbit and commenced docking operations. The event not only marked the first docking of two commercial spacecraft, but the first time a docking has ever been performed with a spacecraft that wasn’t originally designed with the capability.
Soon, MEV-1 will tow Intelsat 901 back into a standard orbit where it will resume normal operations for five more years. After which, the satellite will be returned to the graveyard orbit and MEV-1 will detach with at least a decade left on the clock. With the ability to extend the lifetime of multiple expensive geosynchronous communications satellites on each mission, the Mission Extension Vehicle promises to be very lucrative endeavor for both Northrop Grumman and its future customers. | 33 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228577",
"author": "DainBramage",
"timestamp": "2020-03-17T14:14:55",
"content": "That Joe Kim artwork is truly epic.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6228595",
"author": "Ryan",
"timestamp": "2020-03-17T15:01:... | 1,760,373,552.873208 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/17/can-lego-break-steel/ | Can Lego Break Steel? | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"abs",
"gear",
"lego",
"metal fatigue",
"plastic",
"steel",
"Technics",
"torque"
] | Betteridge’s Law of Headlines holds that any headline ending in a question mark can be answered with a resounding “No”. But as the video below shows,
a Lego machine that twists steel asunder
is not only possible, it’s an object lesson in metal fatigue. Touché, [Betteridge].
In pitting plastic against metal, the [Brick Experiment Channel] relied on
earlier work
with a machine that was able to twist a stock plastic axle from the Technics line of parts like a limp noodle. The steel axle in the current work, an aftermarket part that’s apparently no longer available, would not prove such an easy target.
Even after beefing up the test stand with extra Technics struts placed to be loaded in tension, and with gears doubled up and reinforced with extra pins, the single motor was unable to overcome the strength of the axle. It took a second motor and a complicated gear train to begin to deform the axle, but the steel eventually proved too much for the plastic to withstand. Round Two was a bit of a cheat: the same rig with a fresh axle, but this time the motor rotation was constantly switched. The accumulated metal fatigue started as a small crack which grew until the axle was twisted in two.
The [Brick Experiment Channel] is a fun one to check out, and we’ve featured them before. Along with destructive projects like this one, they’ve also got fun builds like
this Lego playing card launcher
,
a Technic drone
, and
a Lego submarine
.
Thanks to [M&Mes] for the tip! | 14 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228551",
"author": "lthemick",
"timestamp": "2020-03-17T11:33:58",
"content": "“… but the steel eventually proved too much for the plastic to withstand.”I’m confused. Should this be the other way around?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"co... | 1,760,373,552.925614 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/17/using-additives-for-better-performing-epoxy/ | Using Additives For Better Performing Epoxy | Lewin Day | [
"chemistry hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"Additive",
"Chemistry",
"epoxy"
] | Epoxy resins are an important material in many fields. Used on their own as an adhesive, used as a coating, or used in concert with fiber materials to make composites, their high strength and light weight makes them useful in many applications. [Tech Ingredients] decided to explore how
combining basic epoxy resin with various additives can make it perform better in different roles.
The video primarily concerns itself with explaining different common additives to epoxy resin mixtures, and how they impact its performance. Adding wood flour is a great way to thicken epoxy, allowing it to form a bead when joining two surfaces. Microbeads are great to add if you’re looking to create a sandable filler. Other additive like metal powders lend the mixture resistance to degradation from UV light, while adding dendritic copper creates a final product with high thermal conductivity.
The video does a great job of not only explaining the additives and their applications, but also shares a few handy tips on best workshop practices. Things like triple-gloving and observing proper mixing order can make a big difference to your workflow and lead to better results.
We’ve seen practical applications of epoxy mixes before –
with epoxy granite being a particularly popular material.
Video after the break. | 13 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228525",
"author": "Dave",
"timestamp": "2020-03-17T08:42:36",
"content": "Next video after this is even better, thermal epoxies!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6228527",
"author": "LightningPhil",
"timestamp": "2020-... | 1,760,373,552.978953 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/16/patterned-plywood-makes-for-attractive-speakers/ | Patterned Plywood Makes For Attractive Speakers | Lewin Day | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"speaker",
"speakers"
] | In the matter of audio, we’re well past the reign of the home hi-fi and the boombox. If you’re not listening on headphones or directly on your phone, you’ve got a brick-sized Bluetooth speaker pumping out the tunes. Still a fan of the old-school,
[Amanda Ghassaei] built some bookshelf speakers with a hip aesthetic
.
First, the speaker enclosures were designed in WinISD, a software package specifically made for the task. For given woofers and tweeters, it helps get the enclosure and port sizes in the correct range for good sound. Panels were then fabricated out of plywood to make the enclosures. The plywood was cut and reformed several times to make the panels, using the pattern from the multiple plies to create the zig-zag look. Audio wise, a class D amplifier takes in line-level signals, before pumping them out to a woofer and tweeter through a custom designed crossover network.
It’s a tidy build, and we’d love to experiment ourselves with the fancy patterned plywood technique. Getting your enclosure design right can make a big difference to sound quality,
as we’ve seen before.
Video after the break. | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228528",
"author": "Kaiser",
"timestamp": "2020-03-17T09:03:46",
"content": "Neat!, I have to confess I first thought this is another wood-type 3D print with specialized printing pattern :) (which would have been cool as well)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies":... | 1,760,373,553.024958 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/16/dissecting-china-sourced-vintage-hp-1970s-ics-genuine-or-not/ | Dissecting China-Sourced Vintage HP 1970s ICs: Genuine Or Not? | Maya Posch | [
"hardware",
"Repair Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"AC5948N",
"HP",
"retrocomputing",
"texas instruments"
] | While repairing a real-time clock module for a 1970s HP computer that had been damaged by its leaky internal battery, [CuriousMarc] began to suspect that maybe the replacement clock chips which he had sourced from a seller in China were the reason why the module still wasn’t working after the repairs. This led him down the only obvious path: to
decap and inspect
both the failed original Ti chip and the replacement chip.
The IC in question is the Texas Instruments AC5948N (along with the AC5954N on other boards), which originally saw use in LED watches in the 1970s. HP used this IC in its RTC module, despite it never having been sold publicly. This makes it even more remarkable that a Chinese seller had the parts in stock. As some comments on the YouTube video mention, back then there wasn’t as much secrecy around designs, and it’s possible someone walked out of the factory with one of the masks for this chip.
Whether true or not, as the video (also included after the break) shows, both the original 1970s chip and the China-sourced one look identical. Are they original stock, or later produced from masks that made their way to Asia? We’ll probably never know for sure, but it does provide an exciting opportunity for folk who try to repair vintage equipment. | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228477",
"author": "BrightBlueJim",
"timestamp": "2020-03-17T03:09:27",
"content": "There is no reason anybody would obtain the original masks to produce new chips as obscure as these. The fact that this was available from Chinese suppliers, just means that they were probably remov... | 1,760,373,553.135586 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/16/custom-logo-display-pushes-nixie-tube-technology/ | Custom Logo Display Pushes Nixie Tube Technology | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"custom",
"glassblower",
"Keysight",
"lathe",
"logo",
"neon",
"nixie"
] | No matter what you think about Nixie tubes, you’ve got to admit that having a Nixie custom made for you would be pretty cool. The cost of such a vanity project is probably prohibitive, but our friends at Keysight managed to convince none other than [Dalibor Farný] to
immortalize their logo in glass, metal, and neon
, and the results are beautiful.
Nixie aficionados and lovers of fine craftsmanship will no doubt be familiar with [Dalibor]’s high-end, hand-built Nixie tubes,
the creation of which we’ve covered before
. He’s carved out a niche in this limited market by turning the quality far above what you can find on the surplus Nixie market, and his custom tubes grace sleek, distinctive clocks that really make a statement. Bespoke tubes are not a normal offering, but he decided to tackle the build because it gave him a chance to experiment with new methods and materials. Chief among these are the mesh cathodes seen in the video below. Most Nixies have thin cathodes for each character cut from solid sheet metal. The elements of the Keysight logo were skeletonized, with a solid border and a hexagonal mesh infill. We’d have loved to see the process used to create those pieces — laser cutting, perhaps?
The bulk of the video is watching the painstaking assembly process, which centers around the glassblower’s lathe. It’s fascinating to watch, and the finished, somewhat out-sized tube is a work of art, although part of the display seems a little dark. Even though, [Dalibor] needs to be careful — plenty of outfits would love to see their logo Nixie-fied. Wouldn’t a Jolly Wrencher tube look amazing?
Thanks to [Sebastian] for the tip. | 22 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228431",
"author": "BrightBlueJim",
"timestamp": "2020-03-16T23:23:54",
"content": "I’m guessing they’re photoresist-etched, i.e., chem-milled.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6228433",
"author": "BrightBlueJim",
"times... | 1,760,373,553.085828 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/16/a-diy-stun-gun-you-probably-shouldnt-build/ | A DIY Stun Gun You Probably Shouldn’t Build | Tom Nardi | [
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"dangerous",
"high voltage",
"stun gun",
"transformer"
] | In these troubled times, when a trip to the grocery store could turn into a brawl over toilet paper, you might be inclined to build yourself a low-cost electroshock weapon. Or at least,
that’s what [Alex Zidros] did
. We don’t necessarily recommend you follow in his footsteps, and we’re certainly not advocating testing it on a loved one. We just bring you this information, you have to decide what you do with it.
This is what peer pressure looks like.
So what does it take to build an improvised stun gun? Not a whole lot, it turns out. As you might have guessed, the star of the show is a high voltage transformer which
supposedly
puts out 400 kV. Just looking at it (and the price) we’re going to go out on a limb and say the performance specs are way overrated, but in this case that might actually be a good thing.
Beyond the transformer, there’s a simple 9 V battery holder and electrodes made from the prongs of a hacked up travel adapter. To deliver the lightning, [Alex] is using a pink arcade button. Just because you might be fighting for your life doesn’t mean you can’t have a little fun, right? Everything is packed into a simple 3D printed enclosure, but you could easily replace that with any suitably sized box. Something made out of wood might be a good idea, considering.
If you’d like to see another person shocked by a cobbled together high-voltage weapon, and potentially even learn something in the process,
check out the “tutorial” video [Mehdi Sadaghdar] did back in 2014
. We did mention you definitely shouldn’t do this at home, right? | 37 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228369",
"author": "Bryce",
"timestamp": "2020-03-16T20:22:00",
"content": "Why would wood be better? Wood isn’t a better electrical insulator than most plastics, it’s just as flammable as common FDM plastics if not more so, it can become water-logged and hence very much more condu... | 1,760,373,553.220102 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/16/silo-launched-model-rocket-goes-thoomp/ | Silo Launched Model Rocket GoesThoomp | Danie Conradie | [
"Tech Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"bps.space",
"control system",
"flight computer",
"missile",
"missile silo",
"model rocket"
] | While rockets launched from silos are generally weapons of war, [Joe Barnard] of [BPS.Space] thought model rocketry could still do with a little more
thoomp.
So he built a functional
tube launched model rocket
.
Like [Joe]’s
other rockets
, it features a servo-actuated thrust vectoring system instead of fins for stabilization. The launcher consists of a 98 mm cardboard tube, with a pneumatic piston inside to eject the rocket out of the tube before it ignites its engine in mid-air. When everything works right, the rocket can be seen hanging motionlessly in the air for a split second before the motor kicks in.
The launcher also features a servo controlled hatch, which opens before the rocket is ejected and then closes as soon as the rocket is clear to protect the tube. The rocket itself is recovered using a parachute, and for giggles
he added a tiny Tesla Roadster
with its own parachute.
Projects as complex as this rarely work on the first attempt, and Thoomp was no exception. Getting the
Signal flight computer
to ignite the rocket motors at the correct instant proved challenging, and required some tuning on how the accelerometer inputs were used to recognize a launch event. The flight computer is also a very capable data logger, so every launch attempt, failed or successful, became a learning opportunity. Check out the second video after the break for a fascinating look at how all this data was analyzed.
[Joe]’s willingness to fail quickly and repeatedly as part of the learning process is a true display of the hacker spirit. We’ll definitely be keeping a close eye on his work. | 20 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228331",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2020-03-16T18:12:12",
"content": "2nd vid 1:05… before they make it shoulder launch, they need to work on that targetting computer, missed the quadcopter by quite a bit :-p",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,373,553.365438 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/16/where-do-you-get-your-neutrons-neutron-sources-for-nuclear-fusion-science-medicine-and-industry/ | Where Do You Get Your Neutrons? Neutron Sources For Nuclear Fusion, Science, Medicine, And Industry | Maya Posch | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"neutron generators",
"neutron imaging",
"neutrons",
"nuclear fusion",
"quantum mechanics"
] | All of us probably know what neutrons are, or have at least heard of them back in physics class. Yet these little bundles of quarks are much more than just filler inside an atom’s nucleus. In addition to being an essential part of making matter as stable as it (usually) is, free neutrons can be used in a variety of manners.
From breaking atoms apart (nuclear fission), to changing the composition of atoms by adding neutrons (transmutation), to the use of neutrons in detecting water and inspecting materials, neutrons are an essential tool in the sciences, as well as in medicine and industrial applications. This has meant a lot of development toward the goal of better neutron sources. While nuclear fission is an efficient way to get lots of neutrons, for most applications a more compact and less complicated approach is used, some of which use nuclear fusion instead.
In this article we’ll be taking a look at the many applications of neutron sources, and these neutron sources themselves.
The Humble Neutron
Strictly defined, a neutron is a
hadron
, just like a proton. What this means is that they both are composite particles which consist out of two or more valence quarks. In the case of both the proton and neutron we find that they contain three quarks. This makes them the baryon sub-type of hadrons. The difference is that a neutron has two down quarks and one up quark, whereas a proton has two up quarks and one down quark. Confusing as this may sound, it’s essential to understanding how the sub-atomic world affects everything around us.
Outside of a nucleus,
a neutron is unstable
, with a half-life of approximately 10 minutes and 11 seconds, after which it beta decays into a proton. One of the neutron’s down quarks emits a W
–
boson which then decays into an electron and an anti-neutrino:
Or using the quark notation:
About 1 in 1,000 of these beta decays also produce gamma radiation, which is a form of internal
bremsstrahlung
. This occurs when the emitted beta particle (the electron) interacts with the (positively charged) proton.
Generally a Bit Unstable
Inside a nucleus a neutron isn’t necessarily stable, either. A nuclide (collection of bound neutrons and protons) forms a quantum mechanical system, which may or may not form a stable energy state. Essentially, if there is a lower energy state available within the nuclide, neutron decay will occur. An example of this is carbon-14 (6 protons, 8 neutrons) which decays to the more stable nitrogen-14 (7 protons, 7 neutrons).
During bound neutron decay we see the same process as for free neutron decay. This is distinct from
inverse beta decay
and
electron capture
, two processes through which a proton in a nuclide can transform into a neutron. The latter type being useful for our purposes, as we will see in the next section.
Generating Free Neutrons at Will
Since neutrons cannot exist for extended periods of time outside of a nuclide, this means that free neutrons have to be generated where they are needed. The easiest way to accomplish this is to take an isotope which exhibits
neutron emission
as part of its radioactive decay chain, such as
californium-252
or berylium-13:
The obvious disadvantage of using a radioactive isotope as neutron source is that it cannot be turned off, and will emit fewer and fewer neutrons per time unit as more of its nuclides settle into a new state which will be either stable or not emit neutrons when they decay further. A partial solution here is the use of
photodisintegration
, whereby a gamma ray is used to excite a nuclide to the point where it emits a neutron. For example in the case of the only stable form of berylium:
This interestingly leads us to another fascinating source of neutrons: nuclear fusion of deuterium and tritium (D-T):
The relative ease of using (cheap) D-T fuel in a simple inertial electrostatic confinement (
IEC
) device (like a fusor) has led to them to become a popular neutron source for both scientific research and medicine, allowing for a device that generates neutrons at will, and at a constant rate over the device’s lifetime.
Neutrons on Mars
The Curiosity rover which has been doing science on Mars for years now has an instrument on board which is called the
DAN
, which is short for
Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons
. It uses a neutron beam aimed at the ground from about 80 cm height. The neutrons which are scattered back to its sensors after interacting with the soil provide information about the soil’s contents, specifically its moisture content. This is caused by the interaction of neutrons and hydrogen.
VNIIA ING-10K neutron generator module. (Courtesy of VNIIA)
This DAN instrument uses an
ING-10K
neutron tube-based pulse
neutron generator
, manufactured by VNIIA (a Rosatom company). It emits 10
7
neutrons per pulse, rated for 10
7
pulses during a 3-year lifespan. These neutron generators generally use D-T fusion, using a linear accelerator to accelerate deuterium, tritium, or a combination thereof into a metal hydride target, which also contains these isotopes. With enough energy to overcome the
coulomb barrier
, these isotopes’ nuclides will fuse and neutrons are emitted.
Neutrons in Medicine
Neutron tubes are similar to the colliding beam fusion concept, along with that of the aforementioned
fusor
and the
polywell
in that they use the principle of IEC to achieve fusion. The fusor uses two spherical grids, using opposing charges to accelerate the isotopes, whereas the polywell does essentially the same, but seeks to eliminate these physical grids, to increase the efficiency of the fusion reaction.
Regardless of the exact configuration, such IEC devices have found significant interest in the field of medical
A simple technetium-99m generator from 1958 at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
isotopes, specifically
molybdenum-99
(
99
Mo). This particular isotope is the precursor to metastable
technetium-99m
(
99m
Tc) — its decay product — before the
99m
Tc decays to
99
Tc with a half-life of 6.01 hours. Here,
99m
Tc is crucial in medicine as a radioactive tracer, seeing regular use for imaging studies of the body as it emits clearly detectable, 104 keV gamma rays.
Unfortunately, the main source of
99
Mo is from a small number of fission reactors in which uranium-235 targets are bombarded with neutrons. With these reactors suffering extended downtime due to maintenance and replacement reactors having been cancelled, a shortage of
99
Mo is becoming critical. This has led to alternatives being explored, one of which is the use of IEC fusion devices as the source of neutrons.
A promising approach by a company called
Phoenix LLC
uses
a linear accelerator fusion device
to generate neutrons which irradiate a uranium target, causing it to fission and generate the
99
Mo and other isotopes. The
99
Mo can then be separated and transported to hospitals in a
technetium-99m generator
as is already commonly done every day. This
99
Mo production is
supposed to start in 2021
with commercial scaling projected for 2022, according to Phoenix.
Neutron Imaging
The imaging of objects using neutrons is very similar to that of using X-rays, with the main difference being the way
Example of neutron imaging versus X-rays of a flashlight. (Courtesy of Phoenix, LLC)
that they produce an image. With
X-rays
, the resulting image depends on the density of the materials encountered, so that the final image depends on how much the X-rays were attenuated. With
neutron imaging
, the interaction with the materials determines how many neutrons will reach the sensor and what their physical (molecular) properties are. The result is something similar to an X-ray, but with important differences due to how neutrons interact with the object relative to X-rays, as the image to the right illustrates.
Prototype NEMESIS explosives detector. (Provided by Phoenix LLC)
In neutron imaging, after the neutrons have been produced, they have to be slowed down to the desired speed for the imaging. The speed of the neutrons will affect the penetration depth and the final imaging results, allowing for fine-tuning the process. The use of neutron imaging ranges from
inspecting finished products
— including welds, cast parts, turbine blades, nuclear fuel rods and high-precision parts in industry and beyond — to proposed uses like
detecting explosives
, such as in a war zone.
Distinct from neutron imaging is
neutron activation analysis
(NAA), which is essentially what the Curiosity’s DAN module does.
The use of nuclear fusion-based neutron generators is becoming more common for neutron imaging and related, because of the potential for smaller, more efficient devices. The US military’s
NEMESIS
(Neutron-Emitting Mobile Explosives Sensing and Identification System) program is one example of this, which may enable the use of small devices that can detect explosives like improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and landmines with great ease, even for tricky metal-free landmines that metal detectors and ground-penetrating radar struggle to detect.
Involved in the NEMESIS program is the aforementioned Phoenix LLC, which expresses their belief that such NAA as well as neutron imaging devices can in the future be used for not only dangerous tasks, but also more routine ones such as bridge inspections and presumably inspections in avionics. According to Phoenix, most effort currently goes into improving the detection algorithms, and to make the equipment more rugged and economical.
Beyond Science Fiction
Although a lot of this may sound rather fantastical, such as the ability to ‘look’ inside the ground to find any buried explosives there, or to see fractures inside a turbine blade or weld, one can see this as the progression from commonly used technologies like X-rays. Whereas X-rays and their kin were found to be easy enough to produce during the early 20th century and beyond, the process of producing a large number of neutrons in an efficient manner that did not require the use of a nuclear fission reactor has held progress back for decades.
Fusion devices have many advantages, with maintenance being fairly uncomplicated as well. For non-sealed fusion devices, a continuous supply of deuterium-tritum (or deuterium-deuterium) fuel is supplied, with the device running maintenance-free except for the swapping out of components of the generator that become radioactive due to neutron activation. These components fall under low- to medium-radioactive waste, akin to what laboratories and hospitals produce, making for easy disposal.
While the prospect of a handheld scanning device that uses a neutron source to perform environmental analysis is still a while off, neutron imaging stands a good chance of improving life in a lot of ways, much like X-rays have done. | 27 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228317",
"author": "dr",
"timestamp": "2020-03-16T17:36:11",
"content": "Thanks for the nice writeup on neutrons. Let me add a less known fact about the neutron here for all of you:If you manage to slow the neutrons down to below about 6m/s, they reflect from many materials under a... | 1,760,373,553.437951 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/16/amateur-radio-homebrewing-hack-chat/ | Amateur Radio Homebrewing Hack Chat | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"amateur radio",
"cw",
"ham",
"homebrew",
"QRP",
"sdr",
"ssb",
"The Hack Chat",
"transceiver",
"wspr"
] | Join us on Wednesday, March 18 at noon Pacific for the
Amateur Radio Homebrewing Hack Chat
with Charlie Morris!
For many hams, the most enticing part of amateur radio is homebrewing. There’s a certain cachet to holding a license that not only allows you to use the public airwaves, but to construct the means of doing so yourself. Homebrew radios range from simple designs with a few transistors and a couple of hand-wound coils to full-blown rigs that rival commercial transceivers in the capabilities and build quality — and sometimes even surpass them. Hams cook up every piece of gear from the antenna back, and in many ways, the homebrewers drive amateur radio technology and press the state of the art forward.
Taking the dive into homebrewing can be daunting, though. The mysteries of the RF world can be a barrier to entry, and having some guidance from someone who has “been there, done that” can be key to breaking through. New Zealand ham Charlie Morris (ZL2CTM) has been acting as one such guide for the adventurous homebrewer with
his YouTube channel
, where he presents his radio projects in clear, concise steps. He takes viewers through each step of his builds, detailing each module’s design and carefully walking through the selection of each component. He’s quick to say that his videos aren’t tutorials, but they do teach a lot about the homebrewer’s art, and you’ll come away from each with a new tip or trick that’s worth trying out in your homebrew designs.
Charlie will join us for the Hack Chat this Wednesday to discuss all things homebrewing. Stop by with your burning questions on DIY amateur radio, ask about some of Charlie’s previous projects, and get a glimpse of where he’s going next.
Our Hack Chats are live community events in the
Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging
. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, March 18 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have got you down, we have
a handy time zone converter
.
Click that speech bubble to the right, and you’ll be taken directly to the Hack Chat group on Hackaday.io. You don’t have to wait until Wednesday; join whenever you want and you can see what the community is talking about. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228297",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2020-03-16T16:32:38",
"content": "A good ground (like copper circuit board) and short leads. It’s harder the higher the frequency, but the anticipation of difficulties may be worse than reality.The first few things I tried to bui... | 1,760,373,553.492647 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/16/hot-wire-ribbon-cutter-ceremoniously-heats-up-productivity/ | Hot Wire Ribbon Cutter Ceremoniously Heats Up Productivity | Kristina Panos | [
"Art",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"crafts",
"hot wire cutter",
"nichrome wire",
"phone charger",
"ribbon"
] | Anyone who’s ever cut ribbon, grosgrain or otherwise, may be dismayed by the frayed edge. There are methods of avoiding this, like cutting the ribbon diagonally, or double-diagonally into a forked point, or cutting it straight across and cauterizing the threads with a lighter. But if you have a thirteen dozen baker’s dozens’ worth of goodies to festoon, ain’t nobody got time for that.
[IgorM92] made
this hot wire ribbon cutter
for his wife, who has a yummy-looking baking business. It combines the cutting and the heat-sealing into a single step by using the heating element from an old soldering iron. If you don’t have one of those, you could just as easily use the nichrome wire from an old hair dryer, a toaster, or wire-wound resistor.
Since the idea is essentially shorting a power source to heat up a wire, it should be done safely. [IgorM92] used a phone charger to condition mains power down to 5 V. There isn’t much else to the circuit, just a rocker switch, a power-indicating LED, and its resistor, but this simple project will no doubt save a lot of time and labor. Burn past the break to watch it ramp up production.
Nichrome wire is good for cutting foam, too.
Here’s a bare-bones version that can be made in minutes
. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228267",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2020-03-16T15:08:36",
"content": "Heh, I mistook the title for meaning the ribbon type hotwire that you find in toasters being used. I was hoping to see a system of tensioning it or restraining it, so it doesn’t swerve off course whe... | 1,760,373,553.534961 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/16/review-the-riden-rd6006w-dc-power-supply-module/ | Review: The Riden RD6006W DC Power Supply Module | Jenny List | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Reviews",
"Slider"
] | [
"power supply",
"psu",
"Riden RD6006",
"ruideng"
] | You may have seen the Ruideng range of programmable power supply modules from China: small and relatively inexpensive switch-mode buck converters, with microprocessor control and a front panel featuring a large colour OLED screen. Given 30 volts or so they can supply any lower voltage with the extra bonus of current limiting. They’ve been so successful over the several years they’ve been available that they’ve even spawned their own Chinese clones, and countless hacker projects, for instance on the
DPS300X
and
DPS500X
models.
Late last year a new module came from Ruideng, the Riden-branded
RD6006
combines the basic idea of the previous modules with an extremely flexible front panel with full keypad and rotary encoder, creating something like the front panel to a decent bench power supply but without the accompanying power supply. I ordered one, waited for it to clear customs, took it to my bench, and reviewed it.
What Does Fifty Dollars Get You As A Power Supply?
The front panel, with the display in graph mode.
It’s well packed in a sturdy box with a foam inner shell, and additionally includes a plug-in temperature sensor, a set of crimp spade terminals, and a spare fuse. I’d ordered the slightly more expensive “W” version with WiFi connectivity, so my £38 ($49) also netted a small plug-in PCB holding an ESP8266 module.
There isn’t a paper manual. Instead there’s a card directing the user to a PDF download on the Ruideng website that yields a document in both Chinese and English which is well written and easy to follow.
The unit itself is a grey rectangular plastic box around 165 mm x 81 mm (6.5″ x 3.2″) on its front panel, and about 50 mm (2″) deep. The front panel has the complement of buttons and encoder, a 6.25 mm (2.5″) diagonal OLED screen, and a set of output terminals. It’s designed to be a module that sits in a piece of equipment rather than a standalone device, so the rear is not covered and the printed circuit boards are fully accessible. Sockets for temperature sensor and WiFi module are on the left-hand side, and these were easily installed.
The rear of the unit, with the WiFi module on the top right.
Power input is via a set of pluggable screw terminal blocks that can take anything between 6 V and 70 V. I lack a handy 70 V supply, but as will many people with a junk box, I do have a power supply from an HP printer that supplies 32 V at 1.5 A. I hooked it up, and then powered up the unit with its on-off switch.
The basic interface will be familiar to anyone who has used one of the previous Ruideng modules. There are three main displays of output voltage, current, and power, and to the right of them a set of smaller displays showing the parameters of the system. Input voltage, output voltage and current limit, and over voltage and current settings are all there, while along the bottom is a temperature display and a set of status flags. To set values there are a set of buttons for selecting which to change, and then a numerical keypad or the rotary encoder to select a value. There is also a battery-backed clock.
What’s It Like In Use?
The default screen, with voltage and current readings.
Beyond the basics the device supports up to nine memory settings for frequently used voltages, and most interestingly, a graphing display option that provides a view of current and voltage over time. The graph can be the default screen, and when it is enabled the input and output voltage and current displays are relegated to the right hand side in a smaller font. It has a flaw though in that it does not appear to automatically update its axes, making it difficult to follow small currents. There did not appear to be a menu option to disable this.
Power output comes from three 4 mm socket/screw terminal combos as you’ll expect from other power supplies. There are the usual positive and negative terminals, with a third terminal between them for a lead-acid battery charging function.
Graph mode, showing a load being turned on and off.
At first glance it’s a capable and easy to use little power supply. Press “V-set” or “I-set” and key in a value, and it’s ready to go. There’s an “On/off” button below the encoder that enables the output; pressing this makes the juice flow. I tested the supply with a variety of loads, from big wirewound resistors to motors, other pieces of electronics, and even shorting a 4 mm cable across it to test the current limiter. As a straight DC power supply in this way it performed faultlessly, never missing a beat and providing measured voltages and currents exactly as it claimed.
There’s a little more to a DC power supply than just DC though, because only the idealised DC from a textbook page is really DC in the frequency domain. All power supplies contain some noise, even batteries, and since the Riden is a switch-mode supply there’s a chance that some of its switching frequency might find its way onto its output terminals. With cheap switch-mode supplies, such as dollar-store phone chargers, this can soemtimes even be visible as a high-frequency ripple on a normal oscilloscope. In the case of the Riden there is no such ripple to be seen.
An FFT spectrum of the Riden’s output.
How do you characterise the noise output of a power supply? In this case I think rather than overall noise we should be interested in looking for any peaks at particular frequencies , for example at harmonic multiples of its switching frequency. The only suitable instrument I have is my oscilloscope with its FFT function enabled. It’s a mediocre substitute for a spectrum analyser, but it will quite happily display the harmonics of a square wave used for calibration, so it will serve our purpose here. Hooking the Riden up to a wirewound heating element as a load and applying some volts with my trusty Rigol 1054z attached, I was able to pull up a spectrum of its output. As I would expect there was a broad spectrum of noise but not significantly higher than when connected to a linear supply, and I was pleased to see that there were no obvious peaks even up into the HF range. It seems they’ve done a good job of regulation and filtering, but without better test equipment that’s about as far as we can go.
But This Is The W Version, What’s That All About?
The Riden app, showing the variation in current over time drawn by a colour changing LED.
There’s one final part of this review: the WiFi module. It looks suspiciously like an ESP8266-to-serial module that plugs into the main PCB, but how do you use it? In essence it provides connectivity to either an iOS or an Android app. There is an option to enable WiFi connectivity, and then the supply should be restarted in proximity to the mobile phone running the Riden app. At a guess it sets up an access point that the app connects to, you are asked for the credentials of your wireless network, and that’s pretty much it. You can then connect to your power supply with your phone.
At first sight it simply replicates some of the front panel controls, handy should you ever need to change your current limit from your armchair, but on further inspection there’s a little bit more to it. The graphing function in the app is far superior to that on the device, with axes that scale to the readings in question, and there is the option to save a log of readings. This turns the phone into a powerful extension to the unit, and is in my opinion worth the extra few quid. It’s worth pointing out that in addition to the WiFi there is a USB serial port on the front panel, I’d be extremely disappointed if someone in our wider community doesn’t reverse engineer the APIs involved and produce some open-source software to do more with this facility.
In conclusion, the Riden RD6006(W) seems to follow on from the quality established with the previous Riden modules, and provides a very useful power supply for the price, with plenty of features to keep you occupied. It doesn’t have a mains power supply of its own, so factor that into the price. However, as I found out, there are plenty of readily available supplies that can be used even if they don’t provide the full range of what the unit is capable of. This is well worth considering when you are in search of a power supply. | 42 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228257",
"author": "Fred",
"timestamp": "2020-03-16T14:46:21",
"content": "I have a DPS*** (15A,50V) buck supply module which I use daily. The OLED has a problem that the backlight turns off occasionally. A slight tap with the finger on the display does ‘fix’ it. Other than that... | 1,760,373,553.726495 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/16/3d-printed-parts-keep-respirators-operational-during-covid-19-epidemic/ | 3D Printed Parts Keep Respirators Operational During COVID-19 Epidemic | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Medical Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"coronavirus",
"Covid-19",
"respirator"
] | COVID-19 can seem like a paper tiger, when looking at bare mortality rates. The far greater problem is the increase in fatalities as health systems are stretched to the limit. With thousands of patients presenting all at once, hospitals quickly run out of beds and resources and suddenly, normally survivable conditions become life threatening. One Italian hospital found themselves in such a position, running out of valves for a critical respirator device needed to save their patients. Supplies were running out –
but additive manufacturing was able to save the day.
The original part, left, with its 3D-printed replacement.
While the article uses the term “reanimation device”, it’s clear we’re talking about respirators here, necessary to keep patients alive during respiratory distress. The valve in question is a plastic part, one which likely needs to be changed over when the device is used with each individual patient to provide a sterile flow of air. After the alarm was raised by Nunzia Vallini, a local journalist, a ring around of the 3D printing community led to a machine being sent down to the hospital and the parts being reproduced. Once proven to work, things were stepped up, with another company stepping in to produce the parts in quantity with a high-quality laser fusion printer.
It’s a great example of 3D printers being used to produce actual useful parts, and of the community coming together to do vital lifesaving work.
We’ve seen the technology come in clutch in the medical field before, too.
Stay safe out there, and live to hack another day.
Thanks to [Jarno Burger], [LuigiBrotha], and [Michael Hartmann] for the tips! | 71 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228212",
"author": "Nicolas Raynaud",
"timestamp": "2020-03-16T11:28:28",
"content": "Can someone explain a bit more the context? is it sigle use? does it need autoclaving?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6228213",
"a... | 1,760,373,553.83097 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/16/drones-can-undertake-excavations-without-human-intervention/ | Drones Can Undertake Excavations Without Human Intervention | Sharon Lin | [
"drone hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"autonomous",
"drone",
"lstm",
"PID controller",
"scanning"
] | Researchers from Denmark’s Aarhus University have developed a method for
autonomous drone scanning
and measurement of terrains, allowing drones to independently navigate themselves over excavation grounds. The only human input is a starting location and the desired cliff face for scanning.
For researchers studying quarries, capturing data about gravel, walls, and other natural and man-made formations is important for understanding the properties of the terrain. Controlling the drones can be expensive though, since there’s considerable skill involved in manually flying the drone and keeping its camera steady and perpendicular to the wall it is capturing.
The process designed is a Gaussian model that predicts the wind encountered near the wall, estimating the strength based on the inputs it receives as it moves. It uses both nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) and a PID controller in its feedback control system, which calculate the values to send to the drone’s motor controller. A long short-term memory (LSTM) model is used for calculating the predictions. It’s been successfully tested in a chalk quarry in Denmark and will continue to be tested as its algorithms are improved.
Getting a drone to hover and move between GPS waypoints is easy enough, but
once they need to maneuver around obstacles it starts getting tricky
. Research like this will be invaluable for developing systems that
help drones navigate in areas where their human operators can’t reach
.
[Thanks to Qes for the tip!] | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228227",
"author": "lthemick",
"timestamp": "2020-03-16T12:31:12",
"content": "Drones can undertake ‘excavations’?I was hoping to see a pair of drones working an archeological dig – one with a small pick, the other with a broom and dustpan.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,373,553.918405 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/15/link-coupling-antenna-tuner-wordless-workshop/ | Link Coupling Antenna Tuner Wordless Workshop | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"air variable capacitor",
"antenna tuner",
"capacitor",
"coil",
"ham radio",
"inductor",
"link coupling tuner"
] | Remember “Wordless Workshop” in Popular Science? [Roy Doty] illustrated a household problem and the solution for it cobbled up in the main character’s garage workshop. We wonder what [Roy] would have done with YouTube? Maybe something like the video from [VE2TAE] and [VE2AEV] showing their
link coupling antenna tuning build
. You can watch the video after the break, and if you aren’t a fan of Jazz, you can mute the volume.
Like [Doty’s] cartoons, the video presumes you are going to have your own idea about dimensions and component values to fit your needs. But the construction is beautiful in its own right. The tubing wound into giant coils is impressive and brings back memories of the old days. However, the construction of the variable capacitors really got us excited. Big air variable caps may be hard to find, but the video makes them look easy to make.
A couple of nice looking knobs and panel meters make for a great looking tuner. With that spacing, we imagine it would handle full legal power without any difficulty at all. If you want to learn more about this type of tuner, [VK1OD] had a great page about it which seems to be defunct now. But the
Internet Archive
comes to our rescue, as usual.
The design is quite old, so even a
1934 copy of “Radio”
can explain it (look on page 6). If you want to see a more wordy example of making variable capacitors — although they are smaller, the same principles apply — [N4DFP] has a
good write up
for that.
Of course, these days, most people expect their
antenna tuning to be automatic
. With some Lego, though, you could
refit your manual one
, if you like. | 13 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228186",
"author": "QROscar",
"timestamp": "2020-03-16T08:05:24",
"content": "That should handle the legal limit, with a little to spare…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6228188",
"author": "Andy",
"timestamp": "2020-03... | 1,760,373,553.879346 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/15/watchman-watches-you-watching-him-watch-you/ | Watchman Watches You Watching Him Watch You | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"animatronic",
"Arduino Uno",
"face tracking",
"Google AIY",
"Raspberry Pi Zero"
] | At this point, society has had over three decades to get used to the Blue Man Group. Maybe that’s why we’re less disturbed by
[Graham Jessup]’s face-tracking Watchman
than we should be. Either that, or it’s because it reminds us of Data from
Star Trek: The Next Generation
. Frankly, this is just way too cool to be dismissed out of hand as creepy.
The Watchman finds faces via video feed from a camera module positioned in his forehead as a third eye. The camera is connected to a Pi Zero that’s wearing a Google AIY vision bonnet. The Pi translates the face locations into servo positions and feeds them to an Arduino UNO located in the frontal lobe region to move the eyeballs and lids accordingly.
[Graham] had a bit of trouble with tracking accuracy at first, so he temporarily replaced the pupils with 5 mW lasers and calibrated them by tracking a printed stand-in of his head to avoid burning out his retinas.
This project builds on
previous work by [Tjahzi]
and the animatronic eye movements of [Will Cogley]. We can only imagine how awesome the Watchman would look with a pair of
[Will]’s incredibly realistic eyeballs
. Either way, we would totally trust the Watchman to defend our modest supply of toilet paper in the coming weeks. Check out a brief demo after the break, and a whole lot more clips on [Graham]’s site.
Via
reddit | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228139",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-03-16T03:05:59",
"content": "Sony launching the first salvo of lawyers in 5..4..3..",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6228202",
"author": "playaspec",
"timestamp": "20... | 1,760,373,553.969031 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/15/hackaday-links-march-15-2020/ | Hackaday Links: March 15, 2020 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"Covid-19",
"eda",
"Eric S Raymond",
"ESR",
"gears",
"hackaday links",
"involute",
"mars",
"mocap",
"motion capture",
"open source",
"osd",
"OSI",
"PCD",
"rover",
"surplus",
"Tanner"
] | Just a few weeks ago in the Links article, we ran
a story about Tanner Electronics
, the Dallas-area surplus store that was a mainstay of the hacker and maker scene in the area. At the time, Tanner’s owners were actively looking for a new, downsized space to move into, and they were optimistic that they’d be able to find something. But it appears not to be, as we got word this week from James Tanner that the store would be shutting its doors after 40 years in business. We’re sad to see anyone who’s supported the hardware hacking scene be unable to make a go of it, especially after four decades of service. But as we pointed out in
“The Death of Surplus”
, the center of gravity of electronics manufacturing has shifted dramatically in that time, and that’s changed the surplus market forever. We wish the Tanner’s the best of luck, and ask those in the area to stop by and perhaps help them sell off some of their inventory before they close the doors on May 31.
Feel like getting your inner Gollum on video but don’t know where to begin? Open source motion capture might be the place to start, and
Chordata
will soon be here to help. We saw Chordata as
an entry in the 2018 Hackaday Prize
; they’ve come a long way since then and are just about to open up their Kickstarter. Check out
the video
for an overview of what Chordata can do.
Another big name in the open-source movement has been forced out of the organization he co-founded. Eric S. Raymond, author of
The Cathedral and the Bazaar
and co-founder and former president of the Open Source Initiative
has been removed
from mailing lists and banned from communicating with the group. Raymond, known simply as ESR,
reports
that this was in response to “being too rhetorically forceful” in his dissent from proposed changes to OSD, the core documents that OSI uses to determine if software is truly open source. Nobody seems to be saying much about the behavior that started the fracas.
COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the newly emerged SARS-CoV-2 virus, has been spreading across the globe, causing panic and claiming lives. It’s not without its second-order effects either, of course, as everything from global supply chains to conferences and meetings have been disrupted. And now,
coronavirus can be blamed for delaying the ESA/Russian joint ExoMars mission
. The mission is to include a Russian-built surface platform for meteorological and biochemical surveys, plus the ESA’s
Rosalind Franklin
rover. Program scientists are no longer able to travel and meet with their counterparts to sort out issues, severely crimping productivity and forcing the delay. Social distancing and working from home can only take you so far, especially when you’re trying to get to Mars. We wonder if NASA’s
Perseverance
will suffer a similar fate.
Speaking of social distancing, if you’ve already decided to lock the doors and hunker down to wait out COVID-19, you’ll need something to keep you from going stir crazy. One suggestion: learn a new skill, like PCB design.
TeachMePCB
is offering a free rigid PCB design course starting March 28. If you’re a newbie, or even if you’ve had some ad hoc design experience, this could be a great way to productively while away some time. And if that doesn’t work for you, check out Bartosz Ciechanowski’s
Gears page
. It’s an interactive lesson on why gears look like they do, and the math behind power transmission. Ever wonder why gear teeth have an involute shape? Bartosz will fix you up.
Stay safe out there, everyone. And wash those hands! | 21 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228083",
"author": "Dj Biohazard",
"timestamp": "2020-03-15T23:05:00",
"content": "Shame the “TeachMePCB” is US only.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6228088",
"author": "kitlaughlin",
"timestamp": "2020-03-15... | 1,760,373,554.031821 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/15/robotic-eels-take-care-of-undersea-pipelines/ | Robotic Eels Take Care Of Undersea Pipelines | Al Williams | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"autonomous underwater vehicle",
"eelume",
"submersible",
"underwater"
] | We can’t tell if the
Eelume
actually exists, or if it’s just a good CG and a design concept, but when we saw the video below, we wanted to start working on our version of it immediately. What’s an Eelume? A robotic eel that lives permanently under the ocean.
If you have to take care of something underwater — like a pipeline — this could be much more cost-effective than sending divers to the ocean floor. We liked the natural motion and we really liked the way the unit could switch batteries and tool heads.
We do have some questions, though. How do you get rid of one battery and pick up another? There would have to be some battery capacity that doesn’t exchange, but that’s not very efficient since the new battery would have to recharge the internal battery. Perhaps you can add batteries at either end. Some of the still pictures don’t clearly show how the batteries fit in, although they do show the flexible joints, sensors, cameras, and thrusters, which are all modular.
According to the web site, tools can go on either end and there’s a robot arm. The device can apparently shape itself like a U to bring both ends to bear on the same area. Generally, we like robots that mimic nature, but this is one of the best examples of that being practical we’ve seen.
There’s a video on the site of what appears to be real hardware tethered in a swimming pool, though we couldn’t tell how much of the device was subject to remote control and how much would be autonomous. Communicating underwater is finicky and usually requires either an antenna on the surface or a very low frequency (and, thus, not much bandwidth). While completely duplicating this would probably be a feat, it might inspire some hacker-friendly eels.
A lot of underwater vehicles seem to
emulate biologic life
. Shape-wise we had to remember [Alex Williams’]
award-winning underwater glider
, even though it doesn’t undulate. | 11 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228065",
"author": "punkdigerati",
"timestamp": "2020-03-15T21:50:56",
"content": "The cg video shows a buoy tethered to their little hut for power and outside communication. Probably directed to go on short autonomous missions.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies... | 1,760,373,554.186756 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/15/repurposed-uv-curer-makes-your-prints-hard-as-nails/ | Repurposed UV Curer Makes Your Prints Hard As Nails | Kristina Panos | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"555",
"DLP printer",
"resin printer",
"timer",
"UV curing resin"
] | The price of resin printers has dropped significantly in the last couple of years, and it’s down to the point where you can pick up a fairly decent DLP machine for less than $500. While this is great news, you still need several things beyond resin for successful prints, like a way to do post-process UV curing.
[Inhibit] picked up the formidably-priced Wanhao D7 awhile back. Rather than spending another printer’s worth of paper on a UV curing box,
he rescued and repurposed a small commercial curing device meant for gel-based nail polish
. You stick your fingertips in, switch it on, and it runs for 60 seconds and then shuts off.
It’s a great idea, but unfortunately prints don’t cure as fast as fingernails. So the first order of business was to bypass the dual 555-based timing system by wiring the UV LEDs directly to power. The manufacturer never intended for the lights to run continuously, so to keep the board from melting, [Inhibit] added in a small 12 V computer fan for cooling. There’s even a little printed grille with angled fins to keep UV light from leaking out and burning nearby retinas.
[Inhibit] also designed and printed a tray for the prints to sit on, and a front enclosure piece to focus as much light on the parts as possible.
Files for both parts are floating around the Thingiverse
, and we’ve got the build video all
cured
queued up after the break.
These little commercial boxes don’t cost all that much, but
you could always just build your own
. | 28 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228012",
"author": "punkdigerati",
"timestamp": "2020-03-15T17:27:01",
"content": "The layers to that pun…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6228013",
"author": "mime",
"timestamp": "2020-03-15T17:27:34",
"content": "... | 1,760,373,554.093969 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/15/a-practical-look-at-chokes-for-emi-control/ | A Practical Look At Chokes For EMI Control | Dan Maloney | [
"Parts",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"choke",
"common mode",
"emi",
"ferrite",
"Machine tool",
"RF",
"variable frequency drive",
"vfd"
] | Radio frequency electronics can seem like a black art even to those who intentionally delve into the field. But woe betide the poor soul who only incidentally has to deal with it, such as when seeking to minimize electromagnetic interference.
This primer on how RF chokes work to reduce EMI
is a great way to get explain the theory from a practical, results-oriented standpoint.
As a hobby machinist and builder of machine tools, [James Clough] has come across plenty of cases where EMI has reared its ugly head. Variable frequency drives are one place where EMI can cause problems, and chokes on the motor phase outputs are generally prescribed. He used an expensive choke marketed as specific for VFD applications on one of his machines, but wondered if a cheap ferrite core would do the job just as well, and set to find out.
A sweep of some ferrite cores with a borrowed vector network analyzer proved unsatisfying, so [James] set up a simple experiment with a function generator and an oscilloscope. His demo shows how the impedance of a choke increases with the frequency of the test signal, which is exactly the behavior that you’d want in a VFD – pass the relatively low-frequency phase signals while blocking the high-frequency EMI. For good measure, he throws a capacitor in parallel to the choke and shows how much better a low-pass filter that makes.
We love demos like this that don’t just scratch an intellectual itch but also have a practical goal. [James] not only showed that (at least in some cases) a $13 ferrite can do the same job as a $130 VFD choke, but he showed how they work. It’s basic stuff, but it’s what you need to know to move on to
more advanced RF filter designs
. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228268",
"author": "jafinch78",
"timestamp": "2020-03-16T15:11:26",
"content": "No comments? Seemed like a great practical use situation and lab test method to me. Always is interesting observing the simple ways to test and then the rack mount version methods… even if with bench ... | 1,760,373,554.136994 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/15/rover-runs-slow-and-steady-on-solar-power/ | Rover Runs Slow And Steady On Solar Power | Danie Conradie | [
"Robots Hacks",
"Solar Hacks"
] | [
"ardurover",
"rctestlfight",
"rover",
"solar powered robot"
] | The solar panel technology we have available today doesn’t really lend itself to practical everyday transport. But when speed isn’t a concern, it can make for some very interesting autonomous rovers. One example of this is [Daniel Riley] aka [rctestflight]’s
solar powered rover
, which he built to live autonomously at his flight testing field, crawling around whenever it has gathered enough juice from the sun.
[Daniel] has thing for autonomous craft of all types, with quite a few
aircraft
and
boats
to his name. This rover is built around a welded steel frame, with each wheel driven by a brushless geared motors via a chain. While it’s technically a skid steer, the electronic speed controls are from a quadcopter and can’t reverse, so it doesn’t turn quite on the spot.
With the rigid steel frame, any small bump in the ground would cause one wheel to lose traction. To fix this, the frame was cut in two and a pivot added in the center, allowing all four wheels to always remain on the ground. Another problem is that the wheels would sometimes dig themselves into the soft wet ground, so this, [Daniel] attached a 3D printed “hump” to each drive wheel, which helps them to climb out of any soft spots. For the next version of this rover, [Daniel] plans to use cheap DC geared motors from a Barbie jeep. They’re a bit too fast though, so he’ll be adding 3D printed cycloidal reduction gearboxes. We’re definitely looking forward to seeing here this project goes from here.
There have been a number of projects to test solar powered robots for
agricultural use
. We really like the idea, with its potential for long duration missions. Imagine something like this roaming the Black Rock playa in the US, the Makgadikgadi Pan in Botswana, or even the Sahara Desert, while gathering environmental data and making awesome time-lapse videos. | 11 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227983",
"author": "Prof. Dr. Dr. Künstler und Superschurke Feinfinger",
"timestamp": "2020-03-15T13:18:33",
"content": "On private soil this may work… I’d like to have a rover driving around and exploring the environment… but we all remember what happens to bots in an area with ho... | 1,760,373,554.229502 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/15/digital-designer-teaches-high-school/ | Digital Designer Teaches High School | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"basic electronics",
"course material",
"curriculum",
"digital design",
"education",
"high school"
] | We wish we had met [Mr. Mueller] when we were in high school. After 20 years as a digital design engineer, he decided to teach a digital electronics class at the high school level at LASA high school in Austin, Texas. He’s been doing it for seven years and has
made his course material available via Google Docs
.
Don’t let the high school level fool you. Topics range from simple electronics to Spice. There’s coverage of discrete devices, oscilloscopes, and Arduinos. There’s plenty of digital logic, of course, and a simple 16-bit microprocessor, too. There are labs for FPGAs using Verilog and talks about ARM. It’s pretty comprehensive and we wonder if they can really cram all this into a single school year. One thing we saw that caught our eye was the simulation of a transistor using Play-Doh. Turns out it isn’t an electrical simulation, but a simulation of how photolithography creates transistors. Still good stuff.
This would be great for teaching students of pretty much any age, even if you took only parts of it. It would also be worthwhile for self-study. We know how much work it takes to put something like this together, and we can’t commend [Mr. Mueller] and the
LASA high school
enough for making it available to everyone.
There is
more and more course material
out there at all levels and we think that’s a great thing. If you need something for a younger set,
try a blindfold
. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6228027",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2020-03-15T18:33:57",
"content": "Kudos to LASA for an apparently excellent program. Public schools systems in California would probably not tolerate institutions such as LASA. California, as a society, does not believe in meritocracy.Am a ... | 1,760,373,554.341623 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/14/powering-neon-with-a-joule-thief/ | Powering Neon With A Joule Thief | Bryan Cockfield | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"joule thief",
"led",
"neon",
"steampunk",
"toroid",
"transistor"
] | Joule thief are small, fun circuits which exploit a few characteristics of electronics and LEDs in order to “steal” virtually all of the energy stored in a battery. They can operate at incredibly small voltages and are fairly simple to make. With a few modifications to this basic circuit it’s possible to drive other things than an LED, though, like
this joule thief that lights up a neon bulb
.
The circuit from [suedbunker] aka [fuselage] is based on a pin from the Chaos Communication Camp which had a standard LED. To get a neon light to illuminate a few modifications to the standard joule thief are needed.
First, the windings have to be changed from 10:10 to 10:80 to increase the voltage across the bulb. Second, a transistor with slightly different characteristics was used than the original design. The capacitor was also replaced with a larger one.
While it might seem simple, the physics of how a joule thief works are anything but, and modifying the delicate circuit to work with something other than an LED is commendable. It also has a steampunk vibe which is a cool look
even in projects that don’t involve steam at all
. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227951",
"author": "Saabman",
"timestamp": "2020-03-15T06:43:15",
"content": "It needs to have all the components on the front so you can still pin it on!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6227952",
"author": "espectra",
... | 1,760,373,554.578391 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/14/get-your-weather-images-straight-from-the-satellite/ | Get Your Weather Images Straight From The Satellite | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Space"
] | [
"noaa",
"satellite",
"weather satellite",
"WXtoIMG"
] | [Josh] has a series called Ham Radio Crash Course and a recent installment covers how you can grab
satellite images directly from weather satellites
. This used to be more of a production than it is now thanks to software defined radio (SDR). Josh also has another project using
a 3D printer to make an antenna
suitable for the job. You can see the video below.
The software is the venerable WXtoImg program. This is abandonware, but the community has kept the software available. The program works on Linux, Windows, and Mac. The satellites in question operate around 137 MHz, but that’s easily in the range of even the cheap SDR dongles. [Josh] shows how to use a virtual audio cable on Windows to connect the output of the radio to the input of the WXtoImg program. Under Linux, you can do this with Pulse or Jack very easily without any extra hardware.
There’s some setup and calibration necessary for the software. You’ll also need the current orbital data and the program will tell you when you can find the next satellite passing overhead. Generally speaking you’ll want your antenna outside, which [Josh] solved by taking everything outdoors and having some lunch during the pass. It also takes some time to post-process the data into images and audio.
We know
this isn’t new
. But we did like [Josh’s] clear and up-to-date guide. We remember watching
NOAA 15
as it started to lose its electronic mind. | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227931",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2020-03-15T02:45:59",
"content": "Keep meaning to figure this out with a coathanger turnstile antenna and a Radioshack Patrolman with input to a soundcard.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comm... | 1,760,373,554.522329 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/14/manual-to-hydraulic-press-with-a-paint-sprayer/ | Manual To Hydraulic Press, With A Paint Sprayer | Jenny List | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"compressor",
"hydraulic press",
"hydraulics",
"paint sprayer"
] | A press can be one of the most useful additions to a workshop, once you have one you will wonder how you ever coped beforehand when it came to all manner of pressing in and pushing out tasks. An arbor press with a big lever and ratchet is very quick to use, while a hydraulic press gives much higher pressure but is extremely slow. [The Buildist] missed out on an arbor press, so turned his eye to improving the speed of his hydraulic one. The solution came from an unexpected source,
an airless paint sprayer that had come his way because its valves were gummed up with paint
.
An airless paint sprayer is simply a high pressure pump that supplies paint to a nozzle, and that pump is easily repurposed to pump oil instead of paint. Testing revealed it could produce a pressure of 3000 PSI, which would be plenty to move the hydraulic jack even if the hand pump would be needed to finish the job when higher force was required.
What follows over two videos is a masterclass in hydraulic jacks, as he strips down the jack from his press, and modifies it not only to take an input from the pump, but also to run inverted by the addition of an oil reservoir pick-up pipe. Along the way we learn a few useful gems such as the fact that a grease gun pipe is the same as a hydraulic pipe, but much cheaper.
The result is a jack that extends quickly, and has the pressure to do most pressing tasks without the hand assistance. He crushes a drinks can for effect, then pinches the end of a piece of pipe, because given a press, why wouldn’t you! Take a look at both videos below the break. | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227922",
"author": "targetdrone",
"timestamp": "2020-03-15T01:50:43",
"content": "Nice build, and good reuse of an old paint sprayer. But I still don’t understand why he felt he had to invert the bottle jack. Seems to me he could have tapped the reservoir at the bottom, no matter... | 1,760,373,556.525731 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/14/the-ultimate-game-boy-talk/ | The Ultimate Game Boy Talk | Elliot Williams | [
"Games",
"Nintendo Game Boy Hacks"
] | [
"33C3",
"conference",
"gameboy",
"hack",
"talk"
] | It is absolutely no exaggeration to say that [Michael Steil] gave
the Ultimate Game Boy talk
at the 33rd Chaos Communication Congress back in 2016. Watch it, and if you think that there’s been a better talk since then, post up in the comments and we’ll give you the hour back. (As soon as we get this time machine working…)
We were looking into
the audio subsystem
of the Game Boy a while back, and scouring the Internet for resources, when we ran across this talk. Not only does [Michael] do a perfect job of demonstrating the entire audio system, allowing you to write custom chiptunes at the register level if that’s your thing, but he also gets
deep
into the graphics engine. You’ll never look at a low-bit Pole Position clone the same again. The talk even includes some new (in 2016, anyway) hacks on the pixel pipeline in the last 15 minutes, and a quick review of the hacking tools and even the Game Boy camera.
Why do you care about the Game Boy? It’s probably the last/best 8-bit game machine that was made in mass production. You can get your hands on one, or a clone, for dirt cheap. And if you build a microcontroller-based cartridge, you can
hack the whole thing non-destructively
live, and in Python! Or emulate the whole shebang. Either way, when you’re done, you’ve got a portable demo of your hard work thanks to the Nintendo hardware. It makes the perfect retro project. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227928",
"author": "gregg4",
"timestamp": "2020-03-15T02:27:37",
"content": "For my part, one of the surviving Game Stop stores in the City tells me that they do not have any of the original Game Boy rigs in stock, not even a Game Boy Color. They might be able to find a GBA in a fe... | 1,760,373,556.171862 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/14/corona-cancels-cons/ | Corona Cancels Cons | Elliot Williams | [
"cons",
"News"
] | [
"conventions",
"coronavirus",
"newsletter"
] | As you read this, the Open Hardware Summit is taking place, but differently than in previous years. This year, it’s
taking place in cyberspace
! To what do we owe this futuristic development? Unfortunately, COVID-19, the corona virus.
And OHS isn’t alone.
Vintage Computer Festival Pacific Northwest was cancelled outright
. In Germany, where I live, the national health board has recommended cancelling all events with more than 1,000 attendees, and both the Maker Faire Berlin and the Chaos Computer Club’s
20th annual Easterhegg
have been called off.
And just announced yesterday, our own Hackaday Belgrade event is going to be postponed and rescheduled for later this year. It’s truly sad, but we’re still looking forward to seeing you all a little bit later in the summer. If you can’t make the new date, tickets will of course be refunded. We’ll keep you informed when we get a new venue and time.
The best way to slow the spread of a global pandemic,
according to the WHO who should know best
, is washing your hands and avoiding contact with other people. “Social distancing” is the new catch-phrase, and that means keeping a few meters away from other folks whenever reasonable. And clearly, gathering people from all over the world, packing them into a single auditorium, and spending quality time together doesn’t meet this requirement.
So we’re all probably going to be laying low globally for a little while. On the positive side, this means more time for hacking here in the lab, and I’m excited to be able to watch the online version of the Open Hardware Summit. If you’re working from home, it’s that much easier to keep up to date with Hackaday. Still, I can’t wait to be on the other side of this thing, and it makes me appreciate the various social gatherings that much more.
And of course I have
Isaac Newton
in my thoughts, who developed the groundwork for his Calculus and laws of gravitation while at home because Cambridge was closed to stop the spread of the Great Plague. Wash your hands!
This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 210 weeks or so. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on
the web version of the newsletter
.
Want this type of article to hit your inbox every Friday morning?
You should sign up
! | 32 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227839",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2020-03-14T17:10:32",
"content": "It’s time to reactivate the hackaday Folding@Home team.https://www.gamesradar.com/nvidias-calling-on-gaming-pc-owners-to-put-their-systems-to-work-fighting-covid-19",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,373,556.78271 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/14/civilian-rc-car-uses-lego-nxt-and-ada/ | Civilian RC Car Uses Lego NXT And Ada | Al Williams | [
"Robots Hacks",
"Software Development"
] | [
"ada",
"arm",
"Lego NXT"
] | Back in the last century, the US Department of Defense declared that Ada was going to be used everywhere and for everything. Books were published, schools build curriculum. Working programmers, however, filled out waivers to continue working in their languages of choice. As a result, only a little bit of safety-critical software really used Ada. However, we’ve noticed a bit of a resurgence lately. Case in point:
an RC car using Ada for the brains
. You can watch it tool around in the video below.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about Ada in the past few months. Partially, this could be because of the availability of the GNU compiler, although that’s been around since 1995, so maybe there’s another explanation. Ada’s strong typing does tend to plug holes that hackers exploit, so while we would hate to say it is hack proof, it certainly is hack resistant compared to many popular languages.
The car looks like a fun project. They started with the Lego NXT but replaced the controller. Using the HiTechnic design gives you a motion base that has Ackerman steering and a differential on the drive wheels. The original design used an IR receiver to talk to a Lego remote, but the Ada version adds a Bluetooth connection, as well.
For the replacement CPU, a $15 Discovery board puts a Cortex M4 running at 168 MHz onboard. A smattering of 3rd party modules and some parts in an Altoid tin completed the electronics portion of the car.
In case you miss all the Arduino-provided libraries, the
Ada Drivers Library
provides interfaces for timers, communications, and the like. Not everything the car needed was in the library, but some of the abstractions made creating and integrating the custom pieces easier.
If you have ever been interested in Ada, this is a fun project to learn from and would not be too hard to replicate. If you make things that could be unsafe — a large robot, a drone, or a control system for something that could do bad things — you ought to consider Ada as a way to cut down on the potential for mishaps.
[Maya Posch] made
the case for Ada
last year. You can even
target the RISC-V
if you like. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227822",
"author": "Programmer",
"timestamp": "2020-03-14T15:49:39",
"content": "As someone who works with Ada I find this disgusting lol",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6227900",
"author": "tadpole",
"timesta... | 1,760,373,556.130198 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/14/honeywell-may-pull-into-the-quantum-computer-lead/ | Honeywell May Pull Into The Quantum Computer Lead | Al Williams | [
"News"
] | [
"Honeywell",
"quantum computing"
] | It has been a while since we thought about computers and thought about Honeywell. Sure, they had a series of computers they bought from General Electric and Computer Control Company in the 1970s. Even before that they joined with Raytheon and produced vacuum tube computers that later morphed into transistor-based computers. But in recent years, you are more likely to think of Honeywell for thermostats, air filters, and industrial controls. But now, Honeywell has come out of the computer shadows with some
impressive quantum computer hardware
and they clearly have big plans.
Comparing quantum computers is a bit dicey just as, for example, judging CPUs by instructions per second has its problems. In the past, vendors have jockeyed for the maximum number of qubits, but that’s misleading in some cases. Processing power depends on the number of qubits, their quality, and how they are connected. IBM introduced the idea of quantum volume and Honeywell claims their new machine will hit 64 by that measure, twice that of anyone else’s quantum computer that we know about.
What’s more, is they’ve promised to increase the volume by a factor of ten each year. The company plans to make their computers available via
the Microsoft cloud
.
According to Honeywell, their use of trapped ion qubits is superior to other computers that use some indirect method which is more prone to noise. Of course, the computer operates in an exotic environment, which Honeywell is used to handling.
Want to know more about quantum computing? Check out our
series using (mostly) Quirk
. Who knows? You might be able to
build your own
one day. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227802",
"author": "doppler",
"timestamp": "2020-03-14T11:51:25",
"content": "By a factor of 10…A bit into the future: “I want to submit a long term project for Quantum resolvement.”“OK, just pay the bill over there and I get the results for you now.”",
"parent_id": null,
"... | 1,760,373,556.69337 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/13/retrotechtacular-mobile-phones-1940s-style/ | Retrotechtacular: Mobile Phones 1940s Style | Al Williams | [
"Cellphone Hacks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"History"
] | [
"bell",
"cell phone",
"mobile phone",
"retrotechtactular",
"telephone"
] | We think of the mobile phone — well, what we would call a cell phone — as something fairly modern. Many of us can still remember when using a ham radio phone patch from your parked car would have people staring and murmuring. But it turns out in the late 1940s, Bell Telephone offered Mobile Telephone Service (MTS). It was expensive and didn’t work as well as what we have now, but it did let you make or receive calls from your automobile. After the break, you can see
a promotional film about MTS.
The service rolled out in St. Louis in the middle of 1946. The 80-pound radios went in the trunk with a remote handset wired to the dashboard. At first, there were only 3 channels but later Bell added 29 more to keep up with demand. An operator connected incoming and outbound calls and if three other people were using their mobile phones, you were out of luck.
Use Cases and Gear
The video shows a truck driving team that receives a call to make an unscheduled pickup, then a worker who calls the main office while out in the field. There were a lot of manual steps to determine what base station to use for the call. It isn’t obvious until close to the end of the video, but the system was half-duplex. You had to push a button on the handset to talk.
The radio gear shows up around seven minutes. Be prepared. They are going to tell you the two units are “compact!” The
dynamotor
that supplies plate voltage to the transmitting tubes alone probably weighs 15 times your largest cell phone’s weight. Not to mention there was a possibility your vehicle would need to have a larger battery and alternator installed. As big as these were, the output power was only about 3 watts.
If you want more technical detail and some great pictures, [wb6nvh] has a really good page
detailing the history of MTS
.
Base Station
Around the eight minute mark, you can see the base station antennas and radios. In the middle was an operator sitting at a classic switchboard. There were two services available: an urban service that had radios in cities and the highway service had antennas along major roadways.
The frequency, by the way, was in several bands. The low VHF band was around 40 MHz for the highway service and around 150 MHz — not far from the current 2-meter ham band — for the urban service. At first, you had to listen for the operator to announce your mobile phone number, but this was soon replaced by selective calling as seen in the video.
There was a variant of MTS that used shortwave frequencies and single sideband. Of course, that was noisy and finicky. There was also some use of MTS to make
public phone calls on a train
.
Before Cell
Common sense would make you think that a “good” radio system would have high power and a large footprint. The problem with that is that the larger area invalidates a channel for all users in that area.
The key to successful mobile service was to make transmitters weak and antennas very directional and low range. This allows you to restrict a set of channels to a small region or cell. Those same frequencies can then find use again in a nearby, but not adjacent, cell.
This made it hard to fit too many customers into the mobile system. In some cities, the waiting list was about three years. Prices were high because the systems were often at full capacity so encouraging new subscribers didn’t make sense.
Farewell MTS
MTS hung around until the 1980s. But by 1964, the writing was on the wall and Improved Mobile Telephone Service (IMTS) was available. IMTS has direct dialing and full-duplex. A common IMTS phone, the 25 watt Motorola TLD-1100, had two roughly 8-inch square circuit boards to locate an idle channel and do other channel management via audio tones. That is, an idle channel had a 2 kHz tone transmitted, while a busy channel had 1.8 kHz. You could even get an IMTS phone in a briefcase.
Phones have a very rich history
. We’ve even looked at a Rube Goldberg-style
answering machine
. | 24 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227622",
"author": "bluecat57",
"timestamp": "2020-03-13T17:28:50",
"content": "Microwave ovens, fax machine, color tv all much older than you think.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6227710",
"author": "Hirudinea",
... | 1,760,373,556.593452 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/13/hackaday-podcast-058-motorheads-3d-prints-that-bend-metal-and-homebuilt-onewheel-deathmachines/ | Hackaday Podcast 058: Motorheads, 3D Prints That Bend Metal, And Homebuilt Onewheel Deathmachines | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Hackaday editor Elliot Williams and contributor Jonathan Bennett discuss the past week of Hackaday. Freeman Dyson, who wanted to send us to space on the back of nuclear explosions, passed away. Only slightly less dangerous, we looked at self-balancing vehicles, 3D printed press brakes, and making rubies in the home lab. All the usual suspects make cameo appearances: robots, FPGAs, and open-source software.
Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Direct download
(60 MB or so.)
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 058 Show Notes:
New This Week:
Jonathan writes our weekly
This Week in Security
column, and you should check it out.
Corona Virus is taking out tech conferences left and right:
Open-Source Hardware Summit goes Virtual
And Hackaday Belgrade is postponed. Stay tuned for details.
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Forming Sheet Metal Parts With 3D Printed Dies
3D Printed Tooling Punches Above Its Weight With Added Hardware
How To Get Into Cars: Handling Mods
Mighty Car Mods
Roadkill Show – Full Episodes on Demand – MotorTrend
A Quick And Easy Recipe For Synthetic Rubies
John Deere And Nebraska’s Right To Repair, The Aftermath Of A Failed Piece Of Legislation
We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea of Ownership
Homebuilt Onewheel Uses Hoverboard Parts
another one-wheeled skateboard – YouTube
10 years building self-balancing ride on robots
3000W Unicycle’s Only Limitation Is “Personal Courage”
OneWheeled
The Legacy Of One Of Science’s Brightest Stars: Freeman Dyson
Ringworld – Wikipedia
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
DARPA Challenge Autonomous Robot Teams To Navigate Unfinished Nuclear Power Plant
See The Damage 250-Pound Combat Robots Get
Bus Sniffing Leads To New Display For Vintage Casio
Jonathan’s Picks:
ESP8266 Adds Web Control To Old Home Theater
Custom Tibia Keyboard For A Leg Up In The Game
IoT Cassette Scroller Never Needs A Pencil
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Dexter Robot Arm Embraces New Manufacturing With First Micro-Factory
Massmind:
Personal Computer Technical Reference
Mithro Runs Down Open Source FPGA Toolchains
David Williams Is “FPGA-Curious” | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227676",
"author": "Jonathan Bennett",
"timestamp": "2020-03-13T20:52:17",
"content": "My first stab at the security column was published on May 1st, so almost a year.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6227829",
"author... | 1,760,373,556.217389 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/13/an-epic-story-of-1980s-fpv-flight/ | An Epic Story Of 1980s FPV Flight | Jenny List | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"flight",
"FPV",
"radio control",
"radio control plane"
] | A staple of today’s remote-controlled flight is the so-called FPV transmitter, allowing the pilot of a multirotor or other craft to see the world from onboard, as a pilot might do. It’s accessible enough that it can be found on toy multirotors starting at not much more than pocket money prices, and reliable enough that in its better incarnations it can send back high definition video at surprisingly long range.
In case you think of FPV flight as a recent innovation,
the video below the break from [Larry Mitschke]
should come as a revelation. In 1986 he was a bona-fide rockstar playing in a band, whose radio-controlled flight hobby led him into creating an FPV system for his planes and soaring above the Texas countryside at significant distance from his base while flying it watching a CRT screen.
The video is quite long but extremely watchable, all period footage with his narration here in 2020. We see his earliest experiments with a monochrome security camera and a video sender, and a whole host of upgrades until finally he can fly three miles from base with good quality video. 70 cm amateur TV makes an appearance with a steerable tracking antenna, he even makes a talking compass for when he loses himself. It’s an epic tale of hacking with what seems rudimentary equipment by our standards but was in fact the cutting edge of available video technology at a time when the state of the video art was moving rather fast. This is the work that laid the path for today’s $30 FPV toys, and
for flying FPV from space
.
Thanks [Morgan] for the tip. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227603",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2020-03-13T15:22:15",
"content": "I think it was David Boddington who was doing stuff like this in the UK, possibly as an extension of his film work. Though he also tried to pitch a low cost tactical RPV to the MoD at one point. Some... | 1,760,373,556.639038 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/13/this-week-in-security-smbv3-amd-and-intel-and-huawei-backdoors/ | This Week In Security: SMBv3, AMD And Intel, And Huawei Backdoors | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"Huawei",
"LVI",
"Takeaway"
] | Ready for more speculative execution news? Hope so, because both Intel and AMD are in the news this week.
The first story is
Load Value Injection
, a different approach to reading arbitrary memory. Rather than try to read protected memory, LVI turns that on its head by injecting data into a target’s data. The processor speculatively executes based on that bad data, eventually discovers the fault, and unwinds the execution. As per other similar attacks, the execution still changes the under-the-hood state of the processor in ways that an attacker can detect.
What’s the actual attack vector where LVI could be a problem? Imagine a scenario where a single server hosts multiple virtual machines, and uses Intel’s Secure Guard eXentensions enclave to keep the VMs secure. The low-level nature of the attack means that not even SGX is safe.
The upside here is that the attack is quite difficult to pull off, and isn’t considered much of a threat to home users. On the other hand, the
performance penalty of the suggested fixes can be pretty severe
. It’s still early in the lifetime of this particular vulnerability, so keep an eye out for further updates.
AMD’s Takeaway Bug
AMD also found itself on the receiving end of
a speculative execution attack
(
PDF original paper here
). Collide+Probe and Load+Reload are the two specific attacks discovered by an international team of academics. The attacks are based around the reverse-engineering of a hash function used to speed up cache access. While this doesn’t leak protected data quite like Spectre and Meltdown, it still reveals internal data from the CPU. Time will tell where exactly this technique will lead in the future.
To really understand what’s going on here, we have to start with the concept of a
hash table
. This idea is a useful code paradigm that shows up all over the place. Python dictionaries? Hash tables under the hood.
Hash table image from
Wikipedia
by
Jorge Stolfi
Imagine you have a set of a thousand values, and need to check whether a specific value is part of that set. Iterating over that entire set of values is a computationally expensive proposition. The alternative is to build a hash table. Create an array of a fixed length, let’s say 256. The trick is to use a hash function to sort the values into this array, using the first eight bits of the hash output to determine which array location each value is stored in.
When you need to check whether a value is present in your set, simply run that value through the hash function, and then check the array cell that corresponds to the hash output. You may be ahead of me on the math — yes, that works out to about four different values per array cell. These hash collisions are entirely normal for a hash table. The lookup function simply checks all the values held in the appropriate cell. It’s still far faster than searching the whole table.
AMD processors use a hash table function to check whether memory requests are present in L1 cache. The Takeaway researchers figured out that hash function, and can use hash collisions to leak information. When the hash values collide, the L1 cache has two separate chunks of memory that need to occupy the same cache line. It handles this by simply discarding the older data when loading the colliding memory. An attacker can abuse this by measuring the latency of memory lookups.checking
If an attacker knows the memory location of the target data, he can allocate memory in a different location that will be stored in the same cache line. Then by repeatedly loading his allocated memory, he knows whether the target location has been accessed since his last check. What real world attack does that enable? One of the interesting ones is mapping out the memory layout of ASLR/KASLR memory. It was also suggested that Takeaway could be combined with the Spectre attack.
There are two interesting wrinkles to this story. First, some have pointed out the presence of a thank-you to Intel in the paper’s acknowledgements. “Additional funding was provided by generous gifts from Intel.” This makes it sound like Intel has been funding security research into AMD processors, though it’s not clear what exactly this refers to.
Lastly, AMD’s
response has been underwhelming
. At the time of writing, their official statement is that “AMD believes these are not new speculation-based attacks.” Now that the paper has been publicly released, that statement will quickly be proven to be either accurate or misinformed.
Closed Source Privacy?
The Google play store and iOS app store is full of apps that offer privacy, whether it be a VPN, adblocker, or some other amazing sounding application. The vast majority of those apps, however, are closed source, meaning that you have little more than trust in the app publisher to ensure that your privacy is really being helped. In the case of Sensor Tower, it seems
that faith is woefully misplaced
.
A typical shell game is played, with paper companies appearing to provide apps like Luna VPN and Adblock Focus. While technically providing the services they claim to provide, the real aim of both apps is to send data back to Sensor Tower. When it’s possible, open source is the way to go, but even an open source app can’t protect you against a malicious VPN provider.
Huawei Back Doors
We haven’t talked much about it, but there has been a feud of sorts bubbling between the US government and Huawei.
An article was published a few weeks back in the Wall Street Journal
accusing Huawei of intentionally embedding backdoors in their network equipment. Huawei
posted a response
on Twitter, claiming that the backdoors in their equipment are actually for lawful access only. This official denial
reminds me a bit of a certain Swiss company…
Does the word “
#backdoor
” seem frightening? That’s because it’s often used incorrectly – sometimes to deliberately create fear. Watch to learn the truth about backdoors and other types of network access.
#cybersecurity
pic.twitter.com/NEUXbZbcqw
— Huawei (@Huawei)
March 4, 2020
[Robert Graham] thought the whole story was fishy, and
decided to write about it
. He makes two important points. First, the Wall Street Journal article cites anonymous US officials. In his opinion, this is a huge red flag, and means that the information is either entirely false, or an intentional spin, and is being fed to journalists in order to shape the news. His second point is that Huawei’s redefinition of government-mandated backdoors as “front doors” takes the line of the FBI, and the Chinese Communist Party, that governments should be able to listen in on your communications at their discretion.
Graham shares a story from a few years back, when his company was working on Huawei brand mobile telephony equipment in a given country. While they were working, there was an unspecified international incident, and Graham watched the logs as a Huawei service tech remoted into the cell tower nearest the site of the incident. After the information was gathered, the logs were scrubbed, and the tech logged out as if nothing had happened.
Did this tech also work for the Chinese government? The NSA? The world will never know, but the fact is that a government-mandated “front door” is still a back door from the users’ perspective: they are potentially being snooped on without their knowledge or consent. The capability for abuse is built-in, whether it’s mandated by law or done in secret. “Front doors” are back doors. Huawei’s gear may not be dirtier than anyone else’s in this respect, but that’s different from saying it’s clean.
Abusing Regex to Fool Google
[xdavidhu]
was poking at Google’s Gmail API
, and found a widget that caught him by surprise. A button embedded on the page automatically generated an API key. Diving into the Javascript running on that page, as well as an iframe that gets loaded, he arrived at an ugly regex string that was key to keeping the entire process secure. He gives us a tip,
www.debuggex.com
, a regex visualizer, which he uses to find a bug in Google’s JS code. The essence of the bug is that part of the URL location is interpreted as being the domain name. “www.example.com\.corp.google.com” is considered to be a valid URL, pointing at example.com, but Google’s JS code sees the whole string as a domain, and thinks it must be a Google domain.
For his work, [xdavidhu] was awarded $6,000 because this bit of ugly regex is actually used in quite a few places throughout Google’s infrastructure.
SMBv3 Wormable Flaw
Microsoft’s SMBv3 implementation in Windows 10 and Server 2019 has
a vulnerability in how it handles on-the-fly compression
, CVE-2020-0796. A malicious packet using compression is enough to trigger a buffer overflow and remote code execution. It’s important to note that this vulnerability doesn’t required an authenticated user. Any unpatched, Internet-accessible server can be compromised. The flaw exists in both server and client code, so an unpatched Windows 10 client can be compromised by connecting to a malicious server.
There seems to have been a planned coordinated announcement of this bug, corresponding with Microsoft’s normal Patch Tuesday, as both Fortinet and Cisco briefly had pages discussing it on their sites. Apparently the patch was planned for that day, and was pulled from the release at the last moment. Two days later, on Thursday the 12th,
a fix was pushed via Windows update
. If you have Windows 10 machines or a Server 2019 install you’re responsible for, go make sure it has this update, as proof-of-concept code is already being developed. | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227582",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-03-13T14:14:17",
"content": "Ah yes, I often secure one of my ground floor window openings with only a sheet of tissue paper, secure in the knowledge that it’s against the law to break through it.",
"parent_id": null,
"d... | 1,760,373,556.278677 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/13/plastic-cleanup-via-retrobrighting/ | Plastic Cleanup Via Retrobrighting | Al Williams | [
"Repair Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"retr0brite",
"retrobright",
"retrobrighting",
"yellow plastic",
"yellowing"
] | If you work on old radios, electronics is only one of the skills you need. The other is wood or metal working to restore the cabinets and chassis. However, more recent electronics have plastic and old plastic tends to turn yellow. [Odd Experiments]
shows how to whiten plastic
using a UV light source, aluminum foil, and hydrogen peroxide. Generally, ABS is the plastic at fault, especially those mixed with bromine as a fire retardant. You can see the results in the video below.
Note the peroxide in use was 12% — much stronger than what’s probably in your medicine cabinet. That’s usually only 3% solution, although you can get different strengths including some over 30% if you shop. However, if you search you’ll find that people have used 12%, 6%, and even 3% successfully, although we’d imagine it takes more time with 3%.
You’ll also need some patience. Best results apparently occur in 24 to 48 hours. We’ve seen other people use small amounts of TAED (tetraacetylethylenediamine; a laundry additive) to accelerate the process. The TAED mixes with hydrogen peroxide to form peroxyacetic acid.
We’ve also seen people do this with hydrogen peroxide-based hair bleaching creams that they can apply like a paste. We can’t promise any of this doesn’t weaken the plastic, but it does seem like it works, for the most part.
We have
looked at this process before
, and that post explains some of the chemistry occurring. If you want to restore old knobs, maybe
try Neosporin
. | 31 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227525",
"author": "cyberteque",
"timestamp": "2020-03-13T11:06:21",
"content": "30% peroxide???that will rip your skin to bits and can start firesI used to use 30% peroxide with 30% paracetic acid to flush the water lines on the turkey farmyou can not flush it off your skinwe trie... | 1,760,373,556.474184 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/13/inside-a-can-bus-mileage-manipulator/ | Inside A CAN Bus Mileage Manipulator | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"attack",
"can-bus",
"car",
"fraud",
"man-in-the-middle",
"mileage",
"odometer",
"software",
"teardown",
"vehicle"
] | In the days of carburetors and leaf spring suspensions, odometer fraud was pretty simple to do just by disconnecting the cable or even winding the odometer backwards. With the OBD standard and the prevalence of electronics in cars, promises were made by marketing teams that this risk had all but been eliminated. In reality, however, the manipulation of CAN bus makes odometer fraud just as easy, and [Andras] is here to show us exactly how easy with
a teardown of a few cheap CAN bus adapters
.
We featured
another project that was a hardware teardown of one of these devices
, but [Andras] takes this a step further by probing into the code running on the microcontroller. One would imagine that basic measures would have been taken by the attackers to obscure code or at least disable debugging modes, but on this one no such effort was made. [Andras] was able to dump the firmware from both of his test devices and start analyzing them.
Analyzing the codes showed identical firmware running on both devices, which made his job half as hard. It looked like the code was executing a type of man-in-the-middle attack on the CAN bus which allowed it to insert the bogus mileage reading. There’s a lot of interesting information in [Andras]’s writeup though, so if you’re interested in CAN bus or attacks like this, it’s definitely worth a read. | 28 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227504",
"author": "none",
"timestamp": "2020-03-13T08:42:12",
"content": "> It looked like the code was executing a type of man-in-the-middle attackWhat else could it be?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6227506",
"a... | 1,760,373,556.844815 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/12/one-anti-static-ring-to-delight-them-all/ | One Anti-Static Ring To Delight Them All | Kristina Panos | [
"Lifehacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"copper tape",
"electrostatic discharge",
"esd",
"neon lamp",
"static electricity"
] | What’s the worst thing about winter? If you’re as indoorsy as we are, then static electricity is probably pretty high on the list. It can ruin your chips, true, but you always wear a wrist ground strap when you handle those, right? But away from the bench, every doorknob and light switch is lying in wait, ready to shock you. If you had
an anti-static ring
like [LaPuge], you could be watching a tiny neon bulb light up instead of the air between your poor finger and the discharge point.
The ring itself is printed in TPU 95A filament for comfort and flexibility. There isn’t a whole lot to the circuit, just a neon bulb, a 1MΩ resistor, and some copper tape, but this piece of functional jewelry has the potential to spark up plenty of charged conversations. Zap your way past the break to see it light up against a door handle.
If you want to light up neon bulbs all year long,
build a field of them and wave them near your Tesla coil
! | 17 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227476",
"author": "Sunoo",
"timestamp": "2020-03-13T05:32:07",
"content": "Haven’t “wireless” ESD straps been proven to be useless though?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6227482",
"author": "AzureCrimson",
"... | 1,760,373,557.442976 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/14/hybrid-supercapacitors-are-well-super/ | Hybrid Supercapacitors Are — Well — Super | Al Williams | [
"News"
] | [
"capacitor",
"energy storage",
"Lithium-ion battery",
"supercapacitor"
] | Kurt.energy is promoting a new line of hybrid supercapacitors. By itself, that wouldn’t be very newsworthy, but the company claims these graphene-based supercapacitors merge the best features of both supercapacitors and lithium-ion batteries. Based on technology from a company called Shenzhen Toomen New Energy, the capacitors are optimized for either high energy or high power. They can reportedly charge and discharge 10-20 times faster than lithium-ion batteries. Of course, we’ve heard wild claims surrounding graphene capacitors before and, so far, they haven’t seemed very credible.
In addition to high performance, the company claims the capacitors are safe from overcharging, short circuit, and other safety issues that plague batteries. The devices are said to operate — including charging — from -40C to 80C. You can see a video from the company, below.
Assuming this all proves out, it seems like the devices would open up a lot of new design possibilities. Designs would no longer need complex charging systems, active thermal management, and would degrade gracefully and safely.
New Atlas has a good write up
where they interview the Belgian engineer who saw the Toomen devices at a trade show and after testing them brought them to market with Kurt.energy. According to that article, the capacitor uses a graphene electrode and a metallic oxide material for the other electrode. The energy storage is like that of a capacitor — there is no chemical reaction generating electricity.
The capacitors aren’t in full production yet. There are a few scaling problems with charging at such fast rates, too. According to the New Atlas article, a 10 kWh pack charged in 5 minutes would require a 100 kW charger. However, the new capacitors could have big implications for hybrid cars and solar. We also remember
a supercap-powered bicycle
that didn’t turn out very well.
With limited production, the price is still somewhat high although that is offset by the simplistic power management system required as well as the lower weight and size of the units. The safety, temperature range, and rapid charging might also tip the balance against traditional components.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, of course, and we haven’t seen these in real life. We will be interested to see if the components live up to the hype. We’ve seen
graphene supercapacitors
show up before and it still makes us suspicious. What do you think? Is this the next power revolution or just another wild claim? | 39 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227789",
"author": "tomás zerolo",
"timestamp": "2020-03-14T09:29:45",
"content": "This is f%@#*ng exciting.Went to TFA and yes, this has a very high potential. Let’s hope it bears out!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6227801... | 1,760,373,557.286209 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/13/this-barometer-looks-mighty-fine-rain-or-shine/ | This Barometer Looks Mighty Fine, Rain Or Shine | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"barometer",
"BMP280",
"PCA9685",
"weather display"
] | Mythological legend has it that Tempestas, the Roman goddess of storms and sudden weather, saved the consul Scipio when his fleet of ships got caught in a storm off of Corsica. In return, she demanded that a temple be dedicated to her.
[SephenDeVos]’
beautiful barometer, dubbed Tempestas II
, demands nothing of the viewer, but will likely command attention anyway because it looks so cool. If the weather is anything but clear and sunny, the appropriate sun-obscuring weather actor, be it clouds, more clouds, rain, or lightning will swing into place, blocking out the blue sky in layers, just like real life.
There’s a total of five weather-serving servos, and they’re all controlled by an Arduino Nano through a 16-channel PWM driver. The Nano gets the news from a BMP280 barometric pressure/temperature sensor and drives the servos accordingly.
Nine layers of nicely-decorated Plexiglas® hide the clouds and things in the wings while it’s nice outside. We totally love the way this looks — it’s even pretty on the back, where the sun don’t shine. This one is new and ongoing, so it seems likely that [Sephen] will post the code before the sun sets on this project. In the meantime, check out the demo after the break.
We don’t see too many barometers builds around here — maybe there’s too much pressure.
This one tells you to lay off the coffee when the pressure’s too low
. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227765",
"author": "Jii",
"timestamp": "2020-03-14T06:05:30",
"content": "Ooh, nice. I like.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6227767",
"author": "Jaap",
"timestamp": "2020-03-14T06:43:46",
"content": "cat for scale?... | 1,760,373,557.342109 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/13/hearing-aid-reads-your-mind/ | Hearing Aid Reads Your Mind | Al Williams | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"Deaf",
"eeg",
"hearing",
"hearing aid"
] | If you’ve ever seen an experienced radio operator pull a signal out of the noise, or talked to someone in a crowded noisy restaurant, you know the human brain is excellent at focusing on a particular sound. This is sometimes called the cocktail party effect and if you wear a hearing aid, this doesn’t work as well because the device amplifies everything the same. A German company, Fraunhofer, aims to change that. They’ve demonstrated
a hearing aid
that uses EEG sensors to determine what you are trying to hear. Then it uses that information to configure beamforming microphone arrays to focus in on the sound you want to hear.
In addition to electronically focusing sound, the device stimulates your brain using transcranial electrostimulation. A low-level electrical signal tied to the audio input directly stimulates the auditory cortex of your brain and reportedly improves intelligibility.
The company isn’t producing the hearing aids yet but is working with the University of Oldenburg to bring the devices to their full potential. Although they are working on making the device more like a conventional hearing aid, it is difficult to imagine that you would not have to wear something over your head. Perhaps the EEG part could go in a sock cap.
The company claims there may be other uses for this technology in the medical field or safety-critical work situations. We aren’t sure what that means. Perhaps to know that you are actually listening to something or detecting that you are dozing?
We wondered if such a device might work out for
seizure detection
. If you want to do your own experiments, don’t forget about
OpenHardwareExG
.
Photo from Fraunhaufer website; credit: University of Siegen, Tim zum Hoff. | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227738",
"author": "r4m0n",
"timestamp": "2020-03-14T02:28:09",
"content": "I’m VERY skeptical of those claims. Detecting the direction someone is trying to focus on is probably a couple orders of magnitude harder than what people have been doing with EEGs around, and then they wan... | 1,760,373,557.204796 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/13/led-shirt-does-it-with-tulle/ | LED Shirt Does It With Tulle | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"led",
"wearable",
"Wearables",
"ws2812b"
] | Given that we are living in what most of humanity would now call “
the future”,
we really ought to start acting like it. We’re doing okay on the electric cars, but sartorially we’ve got some ground to make up. Helping with this effort is [Amy Goodchild],
who put together a fancy LED shirt for all occasions.
The basis of the shirt is an ESP8266 running the FastLED library, hooked up to strings of WS2812B LEDs. It’s a great combination for doing quick and simple colorful animations without a lot of fuss. The LED strips are then fastened to the shirt by sewing them on, with heatshrink added to the strips to give the thread something to attach to. Tulle fabric is used as a diffuser, hiding the strips when they’re off and providing a more pleasant glowing effect. Everything is controlled from a small box, fitted with an arcade button and 7-segment display.
It’s a fun piece that’s readily achievable for the novice maker, and a great way to learn about LEDs and sewing. We’ve seen other similar builds before,
such as this glowing LED skirt
. Video after the break. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227712",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2020-03-13T23:51:13",
"content": "“we are living in what most of humanity would now call “the future”” Hey man, I lived in the past and I got out for a reason! Anyhoo I have to admit for future couture this is a hell alot better than th... | 1,760,373,557.389223 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/13/this-compact-pi-terminal-will-show-you-the-way/ | This Compact Pi Terminal Will Show You The Way | Tom Nardi | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"3D printed enclosure",
"bluetooth keyboard",
"cyberdeck",
"mobile computer",
"terminal"
] | The Raspberry Pi holds incredible promise for those looking to build a small mobile terminal that they can take with them on the go, something you can throw into your bag and pull out whenever there’s some hacking to be done. But getting the diminutive Linux board to that point can take quite a bit of work. You need to find a suitably small keyboard, design a custom case, and wire it all up without letting any of that pesky Magic Smoke escape.
But
a recent project from [remag293] might make things a bit easier
for those looking to get their feet wet in the world of custom mobile computers. The boxy handheld device has everything you need, and nothing you don’t. A basic case, a short parts list, and an absolute minimum of wiring. What’s not to love? Even if you don’t make an exact clone of this device, it’s an excellent reference to quickly bootstrap your own bespoke terminal.
So what’s inside the 3D printed case? Not a whole lot, really. Obviously there’s a Raspberry Pi, a 3.5 inch TFT touch screen display, and a miniature keyboard. The keyboard is of the Bluetooth variety, and other than being freed from its enclosure and wired into the header on the display module for power, it’s otherwise stock.
As for the parts you can’t see from the outside, there’s a 3.7 V 4400 mAh battery pack and an Adafruit PowerBoost 1000 module to handle charging and power distribution. Beyond the big lighted button on the side (which you could certainly replace with something more low-key should you chose), that’s about it. When it’s all together, you’ve got a battery powered computer that’s ready for the road with a minimum amount of fuss.
If you’re looking for something that’s a
bit
larger, and more than a little unconventional,
you could start by printing out a full cyberdeck
. After all, if you’re going to build your own non-traditional portable computer, you might as well go all out. | 21 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227670",
"author": "e",
"timestamp": "2020-03-13T20:33:10",
"content": "Inspired by talk of custom carbon pill keyboards a few months back on HaD, and interested in implementing a vaguely secure/trusted pi based terminal similar to this, I investigated silicone keyboard membranes w... | 1,760,373,557.7809 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/13/slippy-slapper-uselessly-uses-all-the-arduinos/ | Slippy Slapper Uselessly Uses All The Arduinos | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"Arduino Uno",
"servo",
"ultrasonic",
"useless machine"
] | Want to take that annoyingly productive coworker down a notch? Yeah, us too. How dare they get so much done and be so happy about it? How is it possible that they can bang on that keyboard all day when you struggle to string together an email?
The Slippy Slapper is a useless machine that turns people into useless machines
using tactics like endless distraction and mild physical violence. It presses your buttons by asking them to press buttons for no reason other than killing their productivity. When they try to walk away, guess what? That’s another slappin’. Slippy Slapper would enrage us by proxy if he weren’t so dang cute.
You’re right, you don’t need an Arduino for this. For peak inefficiency and power consumption, you actually need four of them. One acts as the master, and bases its commands to the other three on the feedback it gets from Slippy’s ultrasonic nostrils. The other three control the slappin’ servos, the speakers, and reading WAV files off of the SD card. Slap your way past the break to see Slippy Slapper’s slapstick demo.
Need to annoy a group of coworkers all at once? Slip
a big bank of useless machines
into the conference room while it’s being set up. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227656",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-03-13T19:42:40",
"content": "The AI takeover is real, I’ve seen places that could replace 60% of their staff with these and keep exactly the same productivity.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,373,557.488155 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/13/hackaday-belgrade-conference-postponed/ | Hackaday Belgrade Conference Postponed | Elliot Williams | [
"cons",
"News"
] | [
"2020 Hackaday Belgrade",
"cons"
] | Due to uncertainties about the progress of the spread of the novel corona virus, it’s with a sad heart that we announce that we’re postponing the 2020 Hackaday Belgrade conference.
We
will
be rescheduling for later in the year, but for now we’ll be refunding conference tickets. We received a record number of incredible presenter proposals, and once we’ve rescheduled, we’ll get in touch with everyone who entered a proposal to check up on your availability.
In the meantime, come and hang out with us virtually on
Hackaday.io’s Hackaday Belgrade page.
We know how much you were all looking forward to Belgrade in May, and it pains us to have to take this step. When we get more details ironed out, we’ll be sure to let you know! See you all a little bit later in the summer? | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227638",
"author": "Aleks",
"timestamp": "2020-03-13T18:38:28",
"content": "Second best date is in October!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6227641",
"author": "Le Roux Bodenstein",
"timestamp": "2020-03-13T18:53:46",
... | 1,760,373,557.53032 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/12/messagepack-is-a-more-efficient-json/ | MessagePack Is A More Efficient JSON | Al Williams | [
"Software Development",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"data format",
"json",
"messagepack",
"serialization",
"xml"
] | It is an age-old problem, that of having some data you want to store somewhere, and later bring it back. How do you format the data? Custom file formats are not that hard, but if you use an existing format you can probably steal code from a library to help you. Common choices include XML or the simpler JSON. However, neither of these are very concise. That’s where
MessagePack
comes in.
For example, consider this simple JSON stanza:
{"compact":true, "schema":0}
This is easy to understand and weighs in at 27 bytes. Using MessagePack, you’d signal some special binary fields by using bytes >80 hex. Here’s the same thing using the MessagePack format:
0x82 0xA7 c o m p a c t 0xC3 0xA6 s c h e m a 0x00
Of course, the spaces are there for readability; they would not be in the actual data stream which is now 18 bytes. The 0x82 indicates a two-byte map. The 0xA7 introduces a 7-byte string. The “true” part of the map is the 0xC3. Then there’s a six-byte string (0xA6). Finally, there’s a zero byte indicating a zero.
You can probably puzzle it out for the most part. Any byte that starts with a zero is a fixed integer. Numbers that start at 0x80 encode a map, so 0x84 is a four-element map. For arrays, the prefix is 9 instead of 8 and strings start with either 0xA0 or 0xB0, so you can have up to 32 characters easily encoded.
Of course, you might need an integer bigger than 0x7F, right? So there are other integer formats such as 0xCC for 8-bit unsigned or 0xD3 which is a 64-bit signed big-endian number. Prefixes of 0xCA and 0xCB store 32- or 64-bit IEEE 754 floating point numbers.
For larger strings there is str8 (0xd9), str16 (0xda), and str32 (0xdb). In each case, the number is the count of bits in the string length. So 0xd9 gets a single byte count and 0xdb gets four-bytes for the count. There are other formats, of course, and you can see them in
the spec
.
The real trick, of course, is the availability of library code. The project claims over
50 languages
on their web page. So if you are writing in C, C++, Haskell, Dart, Kotlin, or Matlab, you can find code to help you.
We’ve seen a lot of
JSON
out there, and it will probably remain since most applications don’t care about the efficiency of representing data. While XML has fallen out of favor because of its complexity,
there are still places you run into it
. | 50 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227438",
"author": "aleksclark",
"timestamp": "2020-03-13T02:10:34",
"content": "let me guess, next week we’ll have an article about protobufs, and then the week after an article about how weird stuff isn’t worth it when gzip is available, so might as well use json anyways since th... | 1,760,373,557.615667 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/12/build-your-own-mouse-for-high-performance/ | Build Your Own Mouse For High Performance | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"mouse",
"optical mouse"
] | For the dedicated gamer or hardcore computer user, there’s plenty of options for high-end input peripherals. We’ve seen plenty of makers build their own bespoke keyboards, too. Less commonly seen are custom mice,
but [
gipetto
TranquilTempest] has crafted just such a device to suit their tastes.
The mouse is based on the PMW3360 sensor, prized for its 250 inch per second speed and 50g acceleration capability. Buttons are read by an ATMEGA32U4 which handles hardware debouncing for improved control. Anyone that’s accidentally double-clicked all their villagers in AOE II can appreciate this feature. There’s also specialised code to read the wheel encoder from [Ben Buxton] which helps avoids backscrolling.
The PCB was ordered from JLCPCB using their assembly service, which comes in handy for makers who want to build advanced designs without messing around with reflow. It’s designed to fit inside Microsoft mouse shells popular in years past – like the Wheel Mouse Optical and the Intellimouse 1.3.
Building your own mouse from the ground up is a great way to get yourself an input device that perfectly serves your needs. We’ve seen others work in the field, with
custom trackballs
and
breakout boards for sensors.
If you’ve got your own cutting edge build,
be sure to let us know! | 12 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227404",
"author": "Slips",
"timestamp": "2020-03-12T23:55:08",
"content": "Honestly only a matter of time. Custom peripherals are booming nowadays.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6227406",
"author": "Atomicwrites",
"t... | 1,760,373,557.837858 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/12/welcome-to-the-open-hardware-virtual-summit/ | Welcome To The Open Hardware (Virtual) Summit | Jenny List | [
"cons",
"News"
] | [
"#ohs2020Virtual",
"Covid-19",
"OHS2020",
"OHSWA"
] | Readers are no doubt aware of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact it’s having on many public gatherings. Some events have been curtailed, while others have been cancelled outright. Among the events impacted is the Open Hardware Summit, which was set to kick off this Friday in New York. But all is not lost, as the decision has been made to turn it into
a virtual event with with speakers delivering their talks to a live online audience
.
Full refunds are available should anyone want them, but ticket holders will still receive their swag bags.
The schedule for the one day event
is expected to remain pretty close to the one that was already announced, and there will also be
a Discord chat
and
#ohs2020Virtual
Twitter hashtag for viewers to discuss the presentations. When it goes live, a link to watch the stream will be added to the front page of the event’s website.
With the usual schedule of hacker events stretching out across the year, it’s likely that this won’t be the only major one impacted by COVID-19. Judging by what we have heard from those event organizers among our friends, the planning required for the outbreak is causing a lot of stress on top of the usual worries inherent to the job. We’d like to ask everyone to extend their understanding to the teams behind any events that are cancelled or postponed during these exceptional times. Stay safe everyone, and enjoy the (virtual) Open Hardware Summit. | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227340",
"author": "qwert",
"timestamp": "2020-03-12T20:08:14",
"content": "Anyone ever wonder at what point the job loss and other effects of recession outstrip the disease itself in terms of harm? Like economic effects kill people too, you know. I’m not one of those people who th... | 1,760,373,557.877939 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/12/vocal-effects-on-the-arduino-uno/ | Vocal Effects On The Arduino Uno | Lewin Day | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"Arduino Uno",
"vocal effect",
"vocal effects"
] | When one thinks of audio processing, the mind doesn’t usually leap to an 8-bit micro. Despite this, if you’re looking for some glitchy fun, it’s more than possible,
as [Amanda Ghassaei] demonstrates with the Arduino Uno in this 2012 throwback project.
The build is designed for vocal effects, based on the idea of granular synthesis. This is where audio samples are chopped up into small chunks, called “grains”, and manipulated in various ways to make fun sounds. Controls on the box allow the nature of the sound created to be modified by the user.
[Amanda]’s project serves as a great example of what it takes to run audio processing on the Arduino Uno. There’s a guide to using the on-board ADC as a microphone input, as well as the construction of a resistor ladder DAC for output. As a neccessity, this also requires discussion of how to write directly to the ATMEGA’s IO ports, rather than using the slower digitalWrite() function typically used in Arduino projects. There’s plenty of value here for anyone learning to do audio on a microcontroller platform.
Overall, it’s a fun project that serves as a good primer for those keen to dive into digital sound processing. Of course, those looking to kick things up a gear would do well to
check out the Teensy Audio Library, too.
Video after the break. | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227315",
"author": "Salman Sheikh",
"timestamp": "2020-03-12T18:43:41",
"content": "Cool project.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6227491",
"author": "Harvie.CZ",
"timestamp": "2020-03-13T07:16:55",
"c... | 1,760,373,558.021698 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/12/the-hacker-hotel-2020-badge/ | The Hacker Hotel 2020 Badge | Jenny List | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns",
"hardware"
] | [
"ATtiny1617",
"badge",
"badgelife",
"Hacker Hotel",
"text adventure",
"text adventure game"
] | The art of the electronic conference badge has evolved over the last decade or more, such that for an individual example to be of note it now has to include some exceptional features. Perhaps a function that might previously have been considered impossible in a badge, or maybe an unusually beautiful design, an entertaining and compelling functionality, or it simply pushes the capabilities of an otherwise limited device in an unusually ingenious way. The badge from the recent Hacker Hotel 2020 comes from the same badge team
that created the software platform derived from the SHA 2017
badge, and it ticks many of these boxes by combining a genuine work of art with a set of delightfully intricate puzzles at enough levels to interest all participants in the event.
Exquisite Artwork For An Ancient-Egyptian-Themed Puzzle
The badge, fresh out of its bag.
The badge arrived packaged in a paper bag with a cartoon strip on the outside setting the scene for the device’s puzzles. The badge.team badger and python head to Egypt, where they become trapped in a pyramid, and the badge puzzles are there to free them. Pulling it out of the bag reveals a matte black and Electroless Nickel Immersion Gold (ENIG) board about 140 mm (5.5″) by 80 mm(3.2″) with artwork from the badge.team designer Nikolett featuring an ancient Egyptian styled cat – representing the god
Bastet
– surrounded by an array of clear FR4 panels. There’s also a lanyard with hieroglyphic text, and a cheap pair of earbud headphones. The badge makes extensive use of clear FR4 with LEDs behind it to provide diffuse light.
Turning it over, most of the middle of the board is taken up by a pair of AA cell holders with the surface-mount microcontroller just visible beneath them. At the bottom of the board is a 3.5 mm headphone connector, to its right are PSU components with a power switch and to its left a Shitty Addon connector. The upper half of the badge has those clear FR4 panels, and the surface-mount LEDs behind them can clearly be seen
A text adventure game on a badge, this is going to be fun!
Installing batteries and flipping the switch makes some LEDs flash, and the cat’s collar illuminates as a row of red lights. A bit of fiddling with the four miniature momentary-action buttons sets the player on their way; the badge is a series of puzzles, and the completion of each one lights another section of the cat’s collar green. The first one is easy enough, a
Simon Says
game that’s best played with the headphones. Then there’s a puzzle involving the hieroglyphs on the lanyard, and a badge communication game that requires players to physically connect to other badges via a 3.5 mm audio cable.
After that the puzzles really get interesting, because in the hardware hacking area they provided a huge box full of USB-to-serial adapters. Hook one up to the SAO connector, set up a terminal to talk to it, and straight away you’re in a text adventure game. You’re in the lobby of the hotel, and you need to make sense of it all.
The game, with its fiendish twists and turns, kept many participants awake late into the night. The badge packs an array of sensors, so there were tasks that had to be done in the dark, one which required it to be heated up, and more than one involving a magnetometer and some pictures that had been placed around the event. Eventually an intrepid trio solved it, which is more than I managed to do.
How They Snatched A Working Badge From Disaster
Some very neatly-executed bodge wires to cover for the missing MOSFETs.
The full rundown of the badge’s gestation can be seen in Bas Oort’s talk below. Early ideas had included an ultra-cheap Padauk microcontroller, but on board is the eventual choice, an ATtiny1617. There’s also a 24C256 32k EEPROM, a Hall sensor, light sensor, and 30 LEDs. The ATtiny has 16k of Flash memory on board, as well as 2k of RAM.
The manufacturing just managed to get in before Chinese New Year with a heroic effort from the assembly company in China, but unfortunately when the boards arrived in Europe not a single one worked. At fault were the LEDs, which due to a mistake reading their data sheet, were all the wrong way round. It’s possible to hand rework 30 SMD LEDs, but not a task to be undertaken lightly.
The team devised a number of solutions including changing the polarity of the MOSFETs driving them, but eventually evolved a plan of removing the MOSFETs entirely and driving them from the ATtiny. This put the processor out of its specification and resulted in dimmer LEDs, but fortunately not to the extent of stopping the badge from working. A 10-hour soldering sweatshop session in a Dutch hackerspace ensued, followed by another to program and pack the badges.
Interestingly the programming platform was powered by a SHA 2017 badge, both proving the versatility of that platform and providing a curious squaring of the circle.
The software for this has been made available in the badge.team hatchery
, so if you have any of the multiple ESP32 badges running the badge.team firmware you can update your Hacker Hotel 2020 badge yourself.
[Myrtle]’s winning badge, with all the LEDs green.
Moving to
the software
, some heroic assembly work by Benadski brought it into the 16k available with only two bytes to spare. It was that text adventure game that made this badge a little more than the run-of-the-mill, in that it provides a full text game engine in a format suitable for a microcontroller with limited resources. Written by Sake Blok, it defines the game as a JSON file which is processed to fit in the meager space of the EEPROM chip, and the engine which was originally written in Python has been ported to the ATtiny. This can be reproduced with an entirely different game, making it suitable for all kinds of badge based adventure games.
The Python version even runs on a badge.team badge
through its serial port.
This badge was a departure from the trend at larger European events of having something approaching a general purpose computer on a badge, and certainly something completely different from
the ESP32 offering at last year’s Hacker Hotel
. But it managed to combine top-class artwork with an extremely complex and multilayered set of puzzles, and aside from being fully hackable in its own right, it leaves that text adventure game engine ripe for anyone else to have a go.
Perhaps its most important success came in the level of interaction it achieved. Outside of the hardcore hardware hackers, many camp badges see little use during the event save for referring to the event schedule and maybe a moment’s diversion with some of the games. This badge had a significant number of people hooking up a serial port to a microcontroller and hacking away at the terminal, in some cases probably for the first time in their lives. If it shows anything it is that creative design and functionality doesn’t need WOW! factor hardware to make for a memorable result. We look forward to seeing where the rest of the BadgeLife community takes some of these ideas. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227381",
"author": "Sebastius",
"timestamp": "2020-03-12T22:24:31",
"content": "I had great stress and fun being part of this team, coordinating stuff. If someone would like specific answers, just ask :) We can probably fill you in. And if anyone needs help with their badges, reach... | 1,760,373,558.072195 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/12/augmented-reality-aids-in-the-fight-against-covid-19/ | Augmented Reality Aids In The Fight Against COVID-19 | Dan Maloney | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"ar",
"augmented reality",
"coronavirus",
"Covid-19",
"HTC Vive",
"Intel RealSense",
"protein",
"SARS-CoV-2",
"structure"
] | “Know your enemy” is the essence of one of the most famous quotes from [Sun Tzu]’s
Art of War
, and it’s as true now as it was 2,500 years ago. It also applies far beyond the martial arts, and as the world squares off for battle against COVID-19, it’s especially important to know the enemy: the novel coronavirus now dubbed SARS-CoV-2. And now,
augmented reality technology
is giving a boost to search for fatal flaws in the virus that can be exploited to defeat it.
The video below is a fascinating mix of 3D models of viral structures, like the external spike glycoproteins that give coronaviruses their characteristic crown appearance, layered onto live video of [Tom Goddard], a programmer/analysts at the University of California San Francisco. The tool he’s using is called ChimeraX, a molecular visualization program developed by him and his colleagues. He actually refers to this setup as “mixed reality” rather than “augmented reality”, to stress the fact that AR tends to be an experience that only the user can fully appreciate, whereas this system allows him to act as a guide on a virtual tour of the smallest of structures.
Using a depth-sensing camera and a VR headset, [Tom] is able to manipulate 3D models of the SARS virus — we don’t yet have full 3D structure data for the novel coronavirus proteins — to show us exactly how SARS binds to its receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (ACE-2), a protein expressed on the cell surfaces of many different tissue types. It’s fascinating to see how the biding domain of the spike reaches out to latch onto ACE-2 to begin the process of invading a cell; it’s also heartening to watch [Tom]’s simulation of how the immune system responds to and blocks that binding.
It looks like
ChimeraX
and similar AR systems are going to prove to be powerful tools in the fight against not just COVID-19, but in all kinds of infectious diseases. Hats off to [Tom] and his team for making them available to researchers free of charge. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227262",
"author": "Comedicles",
"timestamp": "2020-03-12T16:38:11",
"content": "Looks like it shows where to put the dynamite.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6227287",
"author": "Steven13",
"timestamp": "2020-03-12T17... | 1,760,373,557.947387 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/12/interplanetary-whack-a-mole-nasas-high-stakes-rescue-plan-for-insight-landers-science-mission/ | Interplanetary Whack-A-Mole: NASA’s High-Stakes Rescue Plan For InSight Lander’s Science Mission | Dan Maloney | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"News",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"exploration",
"InSight",
"mars",
"nasa",
"robotic",
"space",
"The Mole"
] | People rightly marvel at modern surgical techniques that let surgeons leverage the power of robotics to repair the smallest structures in the human body through wounds that can be closed with a couple of stitches. Such techniques can even be applied remotely, linking surgeon and robot through a telesurgery link. It can be risky, but it’s often a patient’s only option.
NASA has arrived at a similar inflection point, except that their patient is the Mars
InSight
lander, and the surgical suite is currently about 58 million kilometers away. The lander’s self-digging “mole” probe needs a little help getting started, so they’re planning a high-stakes rescue attempt that would make the most seasoned telesurgeon blanch: they want to use the lander’s robotic arm to press down on the mole to help it get back on track.
All About Friction
Mole at work. Rendering of the HP³ penetrator mechanism. Source:
German Aerospace Center, DLR
We’ve been covering InSight for a while now, starting with
a discussion
of how the mole, part of the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP³) experiment, is supposed to work. As a quick recap, the mole is basically an electric impact driver, with a rotating cam that loads a spring to release a burst of mechanical energy into a heavy hammer. The impact is supposed to drive the mole into the Martian regolith a few millimeters at a time, slowly burrowing up to five meters into the regolith while dragging a sensor-filled tail behind it, to measure subsurface heat flow.
Unfortunately, HP³ has been unable to dig itself into the soil. The failure has been attributed to everything from hitting a rock just below the surface to a previously unknown layer of duricrust, a hard layer made of soil particles that have been cemented together by chemical precipitates in the water that once flowed freely on Mars. Add to these possibilities the fact that the Martian soil has proven to be far less cohesive than originally thought, giving the mole little friction to work with, and it’s no wonder it’s stuck.
Back in October of 2019, it looked like
the mole was on the move again
. JPL engineers had decided to use the lander’s robotic arm to press against the hull of the mole while it tried to dig. The thought was that increasing the friction would give it the boost it needed to penetrate the duricrust and get on the move again.
Whack-A-Mole
Initial reports were that the mole was making progress after this pinning maneuver, but that proved to be optimistic. The mole did make progress, but it popped back out of the hole on two occasions. Those failures cleared the way for the current and riskiest idea: using the robotic arm’s scoop to push directly on the back cap of the mole.
Pinning was working, but the mole popped back out. Source:
NASA/JPL
On the face of it, this seems to be the approach that makes the most sense. After all, if the mole is having trouble moving downward, applying force downward should help it penetrate the duricrust. But it’s not as simple as giving the mole a little shove.
First of all, consider the physical aspects of the problem. The mole is about 3.5 cm in diameter, which is a pretty small target to hit with the robot arm’s scoop. The back cap is also not the most friendly surface in terms of manipulation, either. It’s bisected by the mole’s tail, which looks like a flexible Kapton PCB. There’s also a protrusion on the back cap to one side of the tail, which would appear to limit the scoop’s ability to bear down on the mole.
The tail itself is a problem as well. Extreme care will need to be taken to ensure that the scoop doesn’t touch the flexible PCB, which would likely be damaged if it got pinched. The tail not only powers the mole but provides data connections; lose any of those and you’ve likely lost the mission. Positioning the scoop will have to be done very gingerly, and is already being practiced on Earth-side mockups and using the actual hardware on Mars.
Testing the push maneuver on Earth-side simulator. Source:
NASA
Latency is certainly going to be a huge problem as well. The current round-trip time for radio signals from Earth to Mars is in excess of six minutes, meaning that realtime control of the operation will be out of the question. The moves will have to be carefully planned in advance and made in very small increments, so as to minimize the chance of damage.
Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat through engineering ingenuity has been the story of space exploration since its very earliest days, so there’s a good chance that engineers will be able to push on the mole without damaging it. Whether that game of interplanetary Whack-A-Mole will yield results is anyone’s guess, but even if it HP³ never gets a chance to dig down into Mars, it won’t be for a lack of trying. | 55 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227205",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2020-03-12T14:16:33",
"content": "I am certainly not an aerospace engineer, but am, nonetheless, dumbfounded that the design used kapton as a cable material. And kapton sheets do not have four degrees of flexibility that a wired cable has. ... | 1,760,373,558.173969 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/11/retrotechtacular-automotive-suspension-is-all-about-waves/ | Retrotechtacular: Automotive Suspension Is All About Waves | Mike Szczys | [
"car hacks",
"Retrotechtacular",
"Slider"
] | [
"automotive suspension",
"chevrolet",
"chevy",
"physics",
"retrotechtacular",
"shock absorber",
"suspension",
"swing arm"
] | In addition to driving home the need for Steadicam or Optical Image Stabilization, this eighty-year-old video illustrates some
elegant solutions the automotive industry developed in their suspension systems
. Specifically, this Chevrolet video from 1938 is aimed at an audience that values science and therefore the reel boils down the problem at hand using models that will remind you of physics class.
Model of a wheel with a leaf spring records the effect of a bump on a piece of paper above
The problem is uneven ground — the “waves in the Earth’s surface” — be it the terrain in an open field, a dirt road, or even a paved parkway. Any vehicle traveling those surfaces will face the challenge of not only cushioning for rough terrain, but accounting for the way a suspension system itself reacts to avoid oscillation and other negative effects. In the video this is boiled down to a 2-dimensional waveform drawn by a model which begins with a single tire and evolves to include a four wheeled vehicle with different suspension systems in the front and the rear.
Perhaps the most illuminating part of the video is the explanation of how the car’s front suspension actually works. The wheels need to be able to steer the vehicle, while the suspension must also allow the tire to remain perpendicular to the roadway. This is shown in the image at the top of this article. Each wheel has a swing arm that allows for steering and for vertical movement of the wheel. A coil spring is used in place of the leaf springs shown in the initial model.
You probably know what’s coming next. The springs are capable of storing and releasing energy, and left to their own devices, they’ll dissipate the energy of a bump by oscillating. This is exactly what we don’t want. The solution is to add shock absorbers which limit how the springs perform. The waveforms drawn by the model encountering bumps are now tightly constrained to the baseline of flat ground.
This is the type of advertising we can wholeheartedly get behind. Product engineers of the world, please try to convince your marketing colleagues to show us the insides, tell us why the choices were made, and share the testing that helps users understand both how the thing works and why it was built that way. The last eighty years have brought myriad layers of complexity to most of the products that surround us, but human nature hasn’t changed; people are still quite curious to see the scientific principles in action all around us.
Make sure you don’t bomb out of the video before the very end. A true bit of showmanship, the desktop model of a car is recreated in a full-sized Chevy, complete with “sky-writing smoke” to draw the line. I don’t think it’s a true analog, but it’s certainly the kind of kitsch I always look for in a great Retrotechtacular subject. | 30 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226898",
"author": "Owl",
"timestamp": "2020-03-11T17:54:15",
"content": "That explained it better than most articles and videos i’ve watched.Makes you want to go over to archive.org and start watching.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comm... | 1,760,373,558.560894 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/11/custom-tibia-keyboard-for-a-leg-up-in-the-game/ | Custom Tibia Keyboard For A Leg Up In The Game | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"arduino pro micro",
"Cherry MX brown",
"custom gamepad"
] | [Elite Worm] wrote in to tell us about a cool little keyboard designed to make playing a certain game a whole lot easier. One of the ways you can move your character is with the numpad in directional mode plus Control and Shift, but those are too far apart to drive blindly with one hand. This is all the motivation [Elite Worm] needed to build
a custom keyboard with only the essentials
.
The keyboard is controlled by an Arduino Pro Micro, which is fairly standard for this type of build — it’s usually that or a Teensy. [Elite Worm] used Cherry MX browns for a nice tactile feel, and added LEDs for a purple-white under-glow. We love the way the printed keycaps turned out, and are impressed because tolerances are notoriously tight for those fruity switch stems.
Starting to think of a few uses for a small custom keypad? This thing is wide open, and [Elite Worm] will even send you the PCB files if you ask nicely. See if you can get past the break without your mouse, and check out the build video while you wait.
Want more flexibility?
Just use more switches! | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226866",
"author": "Steven Clark",
"timestamp": "2020-03-11T16:33:09",
"content": "Oh God I hated the hacks this game took since it used it’s own incompatible memory management. I remember raising the typematic rate on a system because I couldn’t cram the mouse driver into memory ... | 1,760,373,558.880667 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/11/smart-speakers-accidentally-listen-up-to-19-times-a-day/ | Smart Speakers “Accidentally” Listen Up To 19 Times A Day | Kristina Panos | [
"Featured",
"home hacks",
"Interest",
"News",
"Original Art",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"accidental alexa",
"alexa",
"cortana",
"privacy",
"siri",
"smart speaker"
] | In the spring of 2018, a couple in Portland, OR reported to a local news station that
their Amazon Echo had recorded a conversation without their knowledge, and then sent that recording to someone in their contacts list
. As it turned out, the commands Alexa followed came were issued by television dialogue. The whole thing took a sitcom-sized string of coincidences to happen, but it happened. Good thing the conversation was only about hardwood floors.
But of course these smart speakers are listening all the time, at least locally. How else are they going to know that someone uttered one of their wake words, or something close enough? It would sure help a lot if we could change the wake word to something like ‘rutabaga’ or ‘supercalifragilistic’, but they probably have ASICs that are made to listen for a few specific words. On the Echo for example, your only choices are “Alexa”, “Amazon”, “Echo”, or “Computer”.
So how often are smart speakers listening when they shouldn’t? A team of researchers at Boston’s Northeastern University are conducting
an ongoing study to determine just how bad the problem really is
. They’ve set up an experiment to generate unexpected activation triggers and study them inside and out.
Sequestered Smart Speakers
The team corralled a group of mainstream smart speakers into a box representing all the major players — four Alexas and one each of her cohorts. We’d love to see them maximize the test subjects by including enough devices of each type to cover all the possible assigned wake words, but that would be pretty expensive.
Then they piped in 125 hours worth of audio from TV shows with rapid-fire dialogue using Netflix. The shows they chose are healthy cross-section of televised entertainment — mostly newer stuff, but some going back a decade or more. Everything from comedy to drama. A video camera trained on the speakers will record any lights that indicate a successful activation. There’s also a microphone to pick up anything the devices say in response to the dialogue stream, and a WAP to capture network traffic in and out of the box.
While the results indicate that these devices aren’t constantly recording (phew!), they do tend to wake up quite frequently for short periods of time — up to 19 times in a 24-hour period. The worst offenders were the Apple and Microsoft speakers, both of which activated more often than the others. Not all of the activations were short and sweet, though — both the Microsoft Invoke and the Echo Dot had accidental activations lasting up to 43 seconds long. That’s plenty of time to record and/or distribute your late-night 16-digit utterances to the QVC operators, or the secret ingredient in your mother-in-law’s Quiche Lorraine.
Listening for aircraft before radar. Image via
Rare Historical Photos
Are You Talkin’ To Me?
The researchers saw patterns emerge in the dialogue that caused activations lasting five seconds or longer, but the patterns aren’t terribly surprising. Basically, any phrase starting with a word that contains the ‘ey/ay’ sound (e.g. they/may/pay/sleigh) followed with a hard ‘g’ sound (or anything close to it) will wake up a Google Home mini set to listen for ‘hey Google’. The other speakers acted the same way when they heard strings that rhyme with their wake word(s).
At present, the group is still studying activations that lead to recordings being uploaded to the cloud. They’re also trying to determine whether human modifiers such as gender, ethnicity, and accent have any impact on the probability of accidental activation.
Just like the humans that designed them, smart speakers occasionally mishear things, including music lyrics and their own names. Whether they are learning from their mistakes remains to be seen. | 66 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226820",
"author": "pac",
"timestamp": "2020-03-11T14:11:36",
"content": "This is (one of the reasons) why none of that garbage is allowed in my home.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6226822",
"author": "Rob",
... | 1,760,373,558.82507 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/11/getting-1000-fps-out-of-the-raspberry-pi-camera/ | Getting 1000 FPS Out Of The Raspberry Pi Camera | Lewin Day | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"camera",
"imx219",
"Raspberry pi camera",
"sony imx219"
] | The Raspberry Pi camera has become a de facto standard for many maker projects, making things like object recognition and remote streaming a breeze. However, the Sony IMX219 camera module used is capable of much more, and [Gaurav Singh] set out to unlock its capabilities.
After investigating the IMX219 datasheet, it became clear that it could work at higher bandwidths
when configured to use all four of its MIPI CSI lanes
. In the Raspberry Pi module, only two MIPI lanes are used, limiting the camera’s framerate. Instead, [Gaurav] developed a custom IMX219 breakout module allowing the camera to be connected to an FPGA using all four lanes for greater throughput.
With this in place, it became possible to use the camera at framerates up to 1,000 fps
. This was achieved by wiring the IMX219 direct to an FPGA and then to a USB 3.0 interface to a host computer, rather than using the original Raspberry Pi interface. While 1,000 fps is only available at a low resolution of 640 x 80, it’s also possible to shoot at 60 fps at 1080p, and even 15 fps at 3280 x 2464.
While it’s probably outside the realm of performance required for the average user, [Gaurav] ably demonstrates that there’s often capability left on the table if you really need it.
Resources are available on Github for those eager to delve deeper.
We’ve seen others use advanced techniques to
up the frame rate of the IMX219, too.
Video after the break. | 35 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226781",
"author": "Hummmmmmmmm",
"timestamp": "2020-03-11T12:10:58",
"content": "(Grabs dslr camera, scrolls through settings) 30s, 20s, 10s, 5s, 3s, 1s, 5fps, 10fps,15fps, 30fps, 60, 100, 500, 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000. Neat project though perhaps I could do something similar ... | 1,760,373,558.643862 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/11/chip-decapping-the-easy-way/ | Chip Decapping The Easy Way | Dan Maloney | [
"classic hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"cleavage",
"decapping",
"die",
"epoxy",
"hot air",
"leadframe",
"rework",
"ship",
"silicon"
] | Chip decapping videos are a staple of the hacking world, and few things compare to the beauty of a silicon die stripped of its protective epoxy and photographed through a good microscope. But the process of actually opening that black resin treasure chest seems elusive, requiring as it does a witch’s brew of solvents and acids.
Or does it? As [Curious Marc] documents in
the video below
, a little heat and some finesse are all it takes, at least for some chips. The method is demonstrated by [Antoine Bercovici], a paleobotanist who sidelines as a collector of old chips. After removing chips from a PCB — he harvested these chips from an old PlayStation — he uses hot air to soften the epoxy, and then flexes the chip with a couple of pairs of pliers. It’s a bit brutal, but in most of the Sony chips he tried for the video, the epoxy broke cleanly over the die and formed a cleavage plane that allowed the die to be slipped out cleanly. The process is not unlike revealing fossils in sedimentary rocks, a process that he’s familiar with from his day job.
He does warn that certain manufacturers, like Motorola and National, use resins that tend to stick to the die more. It’s also clear that a hairdryer doesn’t deliver enough heat; when they switched to a hot air rework station, the success rate went way up.
The simplicity of this method should open the decapping hobby up to more people. Whether you just want to take pretty pictures or if
reverse engineering
is on your mind, put the
white fuming nitric acid
down and grab the heat gun instead.
Thanks to [killergeek] for the tip. | 27 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226782",
"author": "ellisgl",
"timestamp": "2020-03-11T12:13:07",
"content": "Has anyone tried this on blob chips?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6226813",
"author": "Benoit",
"timestamp": "2020-03-11T13:46:2... | 1,760,373,558.713224 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/10/surviving-the-apocalypse-with-a-briefcase-full-of-pi/ | Surviving The Apocalypse With A Briefcase Full Of Pi | Tom Nardi | [
"hardware",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"mobile computer",
"recovery",
"rugged raspberry pi",
"survival"
] | Let’s imagine that you’ve spent most of your life indoors tinkering with electronic gadgets and that you don’t have a lot of practical survival experience. Since you’re currently reading Hackaday, it shouldn’t be much of a stretch for you. Let’s further imagine that our entire civilization gets upended by an ecological disaster, nuclear war, invaders from Zeta Reticuli, that sort of thing. What do you do?
If you’re [Evan Meaney], you might start by retrieving the Crash Recovery Device
from its EMP shielded storage nook. This mobile digital library is designed to serve as a backup copy of all the information we’d lose in a post-Internet world. It holds detailed geological maps, a library of survival manuals, agriculture guides, and should you get bored, the entirety of Wikipedia.
Of course, having all that information in a digital format is no good if you can’t access it. Rather than designing a device from scratch, [Evan] based his rugged command center on
the Raspberry Pi Recovery Kit by [Jay Doscher]
.
He deleted the more esoteric components such as the mil-spec connectors on the front panel, and improved the ability to switch between different power sources with a capacitor bank big enough to smooth out any momentary interruptions. There’s also added circuitry so the device can be run on a wider range of voltages, allowing the use of whatever batteries or power sources can be scrounged up. [Evan] even thought to use automotive style fuses that could be pilfered from abandoned vehicles if necessary.
We know what you’re probably thinking; a better way to hone your survival skills and prepare for a disaster would be to just go camping a few times a year. Fair enough. But if you’re a city dweller who might not have the option, it’s hard to argue that you wouldn’t be better off having a mobile repository of survival information to consult should you need it. Doubly so if it looks this cool. | 63 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226690",
"author": "Jon H",
"timestamp": "2020-03-11T05:10:42",
"content": "Can’t help but think the blank keycaps are a bad idea.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6226741",
"author": "Martin",
"timestamp": "20... | 1,760,373,558.99308 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/10/open-source-collaboration-tackles-covid-19-testing/ | Open-Source Collaboration Tackles COVID-19 Testing | Lewin Day | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"coronavirus",
"Covid-19",
"research"
] | When you think of open source, your mind likely jumps to projects such as Linux, Firefox, and other now-mainstream software. The ideals of the movement are applicable to other areas, too, however – and a group have come together
to pool resources to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.
The group has formed around Just One Giant Lab, a non-profit organisation operating out of Paris, France. They aim to create an open platform for scientific collaboration on a broad range of issues facing humanity. The current project aims to create an open-source method for safely testing for COVID-19 infection, in an attempt to help better manage cases popping up around the world.
Thus far, the group has collected a variety of resources and begun to host conference calls discussing best practices for testing for the virus. There’s discussion of various PCR assays and virus sequences that are all useful in detecting the virus,
along with data from WHO reports in China.
The current state of play has been boiled down in
the lab notebook the group has prepared, available online.
It’s inspiring to see open-source ideals put to work in new arenas outside computer software. Time will tell if this is the new way forward, but it certainly can’t hurt to have more minds tackling the problems of today and tomorrow. | 18 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226675",
"author": "Jim Oss",
"timestamp": "2020-03-11T02:34:13",
"content": "Wow.Nobody else here. Reminds me of from ‘The Day After’,“This is Lawrence Kansas. Is there anybody out there? Anybody at all?”And that’s what’s it’s going to be like, Folks, testing kits or not.",
... | 1,760,373,559.145197 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/10/iot-cassette-scroller-never-needs-a-pencil/ | IoT Cassette Scroller Never Needs A Pencil | Kristina Panos | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"Adafruit.IO",
"cassette tape",
"IFTTT",
"notifications",
"Raspberry Pi Zero W",
"scrolling"
] | The see-through electronics craze of the ’80s and ’90s clearly had an effect on [MisterM], and we can totally relate. Those candy-colored components inside undoubtedly launched a few thousand kids in the direction of electronics, as we can attest.
Though the odds seemed very much against him, [MisterM] was able to fit all the necessary components for
a scrolling IoT notifier inside a standard cassette tape
. It took a bit of surgery on both the Raspberry Pi Zero W and the donor cassette in the name of getting all the components to fit in such a tight space. We’re glad he kept at it, because it looks amazing.
The Raspi uses Adafruit.IO and IFTTT to get all kinds of notifications — tweets, weather, soil moisture, you name it — and scrolls them across an 11×7 LED matrix. A vibrating disc motor gives a buzzing heads up first, so [MisterM] doesn’t miss anything. Hit the break button and flip this thing over, because the build video is all queued up on the B-side.
If you’d rather play around with cassette decks,
add in some playback speed potentiometers to mess with the sound
, or
go all out and make a Mellotron
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgY40e9mi8w | 33 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226642",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-03-10T23:14:04",
"content": "Is only blinkenlights? Does not turn boombox into wifi audio device with track display??",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6226644",
"au... | 1,760,373,559.218962 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/10/a-stylish-coffee-table-featuring-conways-game-of-life/ | A Stylish Coffee Table Featuring Conway’s Game Of Life | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"game of life"
] | Coffee tables are a great place to put your hot beverages, but most don’t offer a lot beyond that. For most people this is perfectly acceptable, but hackers often desire a little more. [Andrei Erdei] is one such person,
who built Conway’s Game of Life into this handsome piece of furniture.
The build began with an existing coffee table, chosen for its glass top. Unfortunately, the top was painted black on one side, and was completely opaque, negating its use as a diffuser for LEDs. Instead, this was replaced with smoked glass, with frosted window film applied to make the final piece darker. This attention to detail allowed [Andrei] to install the WS2812B LED strips underneath such that they’re invisible when switched off. The LEDs themselves are run by a WEMOS D1 mini, based on the ESP8266. This microcontroller has plenty of grunt, which makes running the LEDs and the Game of Life code a cinch.
If you want to make something attractive and blinky, it’s hard to go wrong with Conway’s Game of Life. You can even use it to make
a clock
or
a synthesizer
; or
build an entire game of Tetris within it
. Video after the break. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226622",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2020-03-10T21:28:07",
"content": "Gives a whole new meaning to “Coffee is Life!”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6226686",
"author": "Mantech1",
"timestamp": "2020... | 1,760,373,559.26355 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/10/forming-sheet-metal-parts-with-3d-printed-dies/ | Forming Sheet Metal Parts With 3D Printed Dies | Tom Nardi | [
"Parts",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"die",
"metal working",
"punch",
"sheet metal"
] | Using 3D printed forms to bend sheet metal isn’t exactly new. We’ve seen several people create custom dies for their brakes, and the results have shown the concept has merit for small-scale production. But that’s usually where the process ends. A bend here or there is one thing, but the ability to form a complex shape with them has always seemed like asking too much. But judging by his recent experiments,
[Shane Wighton] is very close to changing that perception
.
The process at work here is, relatively speaking, pretty simple. You print out the upper and lower die, put a piece of sheet metal between them, and then smash them together with a hydraulic press. If everything works correctly, and your CAD skills hold true, the metal will take the desired shape.
Of course, that’s vastly oversimplifying things. As [Shane] explains in the video after the break,
there are
many
nuances to forming sheet metal
like this that need to be taken into account, and iteration and experimentation are basically unavoidable. So it’s a good thing you can rapidly redesign and reprint the dies.
Which isn’t to say that the dies themselves didn’t come with their own unique set of challenges. The first ones shattered under the pressure, and it took a few design revisions and eventually a switch to a stronger resin before [Shane] got a set of dies that could form the desired piece. Even still, he’s had a lot of trouble getting the printed parts to survive multiple uses. But he’s confident with some more refinements he could get a repeatable process going, and thinks ultimately producing runs of up to 100 parts on a set of printed dies isn’t out of the question.
Logically, it would seem plastic isn’t an ideal choice for punching and shaping metal. Frankly, it’s not.
But if you’re doing in-house manufacturing
, the
ability to produce complex tooling quickly and easily
can help make up for any downsides it might have. | 27 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226586",
"author": "BeatJunkie",
"timestamp": "2020-03-10T19:00:20",
"content": "Lessons learned? Use machined dies which can be made in 15 minutes. OK. Thanks for the tip.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6226602",
"a... | 1,760,373,559.331727 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/10/eu-duty-changes-a-whole-vat-of-trouble-for-hackers/ | EU Duty Changes, A Whole VAT Of Trouble For Hackers? | Jenny List | [
"Current Events",
"News"
] | [
"china",
"eu",
"shipping",
"trade",
"VAT"
] | It could be said that there are a number of factors behind the explosion of creativity in our community of hardware hackers over the last couple of decades, but one in particular that is beyond doubt is the ease with which it has been possible to import small orders from China. See something on AliExpress and it can be yours for a few quid, somewhere in a warehouse on the other side of the world it’s put into a grey shipping bag, and three weeks later it’s on your doorstep. This bounty has in no small part been aided by a favourable postage and taxation environment in which both low postage costs and a lack of customs duties on packages under a certain value conspire to render getting the product in front of you a fraction of the cost of buying the thing in the first place.
A Nasty Shock In Store For Euro Hardware Hackers
An email from Royal Mail in January 2020 showing a £8 ($10.44) handling charge for paying VAT on a package. This charge stays the same even for small VAT amounts.
For people in the European Union though, all this could be about to come to an end. The catalyst for it all comes from Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/1143,
which removes the purchase tax, or VAT, exemption on packages with a value less than 22 €
and replaces it with a reduced-complexity declaration for packages under 150 €. Suddenly your Arduino clone will come with a VAT bill to pay, and since the current norm is for these charges to be collected by the courier before delivery, you’ll probably also have a hefty handling charge from your post office. The $2 electronic module now has not only a 20% tax added to it, but an extra ten dollars or so just for the privilege of being told that you owe them 40 cents. The days of easy access to the world of imported electronics could be over, and for Europeans at least it looks as though it might be time to step back a few decades.
Of course we’re not just talking about electronics hackers importing component pieces. The seeds of this situation have been sown over several years, with mounting concern over the activities of giant online companies such as Amazon and their use of loopholes in the complex EU tax environment resulting in a loss to the continent’s exchequers in the billions of Euros.
This has resulted in a raft of proposals
with the unfortunate side effect of gathering up small fry such as our community along with the big fish.
How then are the wheels of international commerce going to keep turning for Europeans after the end of this year? If we had the definitive answer to that we’d probably be off buying superyachts and private islands on our earnings as financial soothsayers instead of covering the world of tech, but it’s fair to say that nobody wants this type of trade to stop abruptly. The problem though is that while this law applies across all 27 EU member states,
the VAT regimes of individual states are not harmonised
. Thus any attempt to create a centralised VAT scheme in which the tax is prepaid at the point of ordering would run the risk of failure due to complexity.
Will There Be Shipping Chaos?
A European Amazon warehouse, in Leipzig. Medien-gbr /
CC BY-SA 3.0
Larger sellers would be likely to try to circumvent this by locating their distribution infrastructure within the EU and taking the hit of working within the taxation framework rather than outside it. Some companies such as Amazon and Banggood already do this of course, but at the cost of much higher pricing for the EU-sourced item. The chances of a solution of this type that could work for a smaller business are thus not high, as how many AliExpress sellers working from a unit in Shenzhen have the resources to suddenly set up a warehouse in the EU?
Perhaps a new class of business will emerge, one of EU shippers who import orders from China in bulk and who enter into a shipping arrangement with the final customer in which they pay whatever duties are applicable from within the EU. Whatever happens the likely outcome will be that the customer pays more for the privilege of convenient shipping rather than risking an extra service charge to pay the VAT on a direct-shipped product before it can be delivered.
The key to this looming debacle lies in the one detail with which we haven’t been provided, namely how the tax is to be collected under the new scheme. The focus is on making the process easier for both seller and tax authority, with seemingly little thought for the end user. If they can arrive at a solution in which all that need be paid is the VAT itself then the extra 40 cents on our $2 Arduino clone will be of little consequence, but if they allow couriers to continue charging excessive fees for its collection then it will be game over for many of the orders we take for granted. This measure can only truly succeed if it is accompanied by meaningful regulation of these handling charges, otherwise not only will consumers of all types miss out on smaller orders, but the EU will miss out on its intended result of earning all the VAT they would generate.
This is being written not from the EU but from the United Kingdom, at present in the odd limbo of having left the EU but still being in a transitional phase in which we are still working under the same EU rules as before Brexit. Depending on the state of any deal the British government strike with the EU over this year we’ve been told that
a tariff-free scheme will operate in the period following a no-deal Brexit
, so it’s possible that for once in this context something could be falling in our favour. If so then we look forward to our EU-based friends visiting our hackerspaces to stock up on cheap tech the way we once visited France to stock up on cheap wine, but perhaps the overall benefit of this situation when considering the likely turmoil in other quarters will be marginal. Given that
there have also been rumblings in the USA over the low cost of shipping from China
, perhaps it’s time we all recognised that the party may to some extent be over.
Customs sign header image:
MPD01605 / Public domain
. | 105 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226544",
"author": "Drunken Idiot",
"timestamp": "2020-03-10T17:21:21",
"content": "Buy your swag from Mouser …. They pay the customs taxes at their end and there’s no stinging handling charge. Also reminds me of some dealings with DHL, who not only added handling charges to my del... | 1,760,373,559.484581 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/10/bolts-brass-and-machining-chops-make-up-this-tiny-combination-safe/ | Bolts, Brass, And Machining Chops Make Up This Tiny Combination Safe | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"brass",
"combination",
"lathe",
"lock",
"machining",
"safe",
"stainless"
] | Another day, another video that seriously makes us doubt whether eschewing the purchase of a lathe in favor of feeding the family is a value proposition. This time, [Maker B] shows us what the queen of machine tools can do by
turning a couple of bolts into a miniature safe
.
We’ll state right up front that this build doesn’t source all its material from a single bolt. It’s more like two bolts and a few odd pieces of brass, but that doesn’t detract from the final product one bit. [Maker B] relieves the two chunky stainless steel bolts of their hex heads and their threads on the lathe, forming two nesting cylinders with a satisfyingly tight fit. A brass bar is machined into a key that fits between slots cut in the nesting cylinders, while discs of brass form the combination dials. Each disc is stamped around its circumference with the 26 letters of the alphabet; we thought the jig used for stamping was exceptionally clever, and resulted in neat impressions. The combination, which is set by placing a pin next to a letter in each disc, protects the admittedly limited contents of the tiny safe, but functionality is hardly the point. This is all about craftsmanship and machining skills, and we love it.
If you’ve sensed an uptick in resource-constrained builds like this lately, you’re not alone. The “one bolt challenge” has resulted in
this wonderfully machined combination lock
, as well as the artistry of
this one-bolt sculpture
. We’re all in favor of keeping the trend going. | 8 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226518",
"author": "Andy Pugh",
"timestamp": "2020-03-10T15:42:58",
"content": "You can buy a lathe _and_ feed the family:http://www.lathes.co.uk/apple/Or get any old lathe, paint is white and park it in the kitchen for precision carrot peeling and perfectly spherical brussels spro... | 1,760,373,559.892746 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/10/how-to-get-into-cars-handling-mods/ | How To Get Into Cars: Handling Mods | Lewin Day | [
"car hacks",
"Featured",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [
"cars",
"handling",
"suspension"
] | As a budding automotive enthusiast, you finally took the plunge and
scored yourself a sweet project car.
After going through it from top to toe,
you’ve done your basic maintenance and it’s now running like a top.
Now you’re getting comfortable, you’ve set your sights on turning your humble ride into a corner carving machine. Here’s a guide to get yourself started.
It’s All About Grip
When it comes to creating a handling monster, the aim is to create a car that sticks to the road like glue, and is controllable when it does break loose. Having a car that handles predictably at the limit is a big help when you’re pushing hard on track, particularly for an inexperienced driver. And, whether you’re hitting the canyons on the weekend or trying to slash your laptimes, it’s always nice to have more grip. Through selecting the right parts and getting the set up right, it’s possible to hone your car’s cornering ability to make it a rewarding experience to drive fast and hard.
Wheels and Tires
A good set of semi-slicks will shave seconds off your laptime, but beware – they’ll wear incredibly quickly in normal road use. Source:
Speed Academy
No other part on your car has as much effect on handling as your wheels and tires. No matter your suspension set up, no matter what you’ve done under the hood, it all comes to naught if you’re driving around on bald, slippery tyres. Your tyres are what connects the car to the road, and thus it’s the first place you should look to upgrade when you want to go faster in the bends.
There’s a few factors that come into play when selecting wheels and tyres. You’ll want a set of wheels that are nice and wide so you can fit fat tyres with plenty of grip; however, your car’s geometry and guards will limit how far you can go here. High-powered track builds will often go as far as cutting sheet metal and fitting overfenders to fit wider rubber, while lower-powered builds can often get by without such extreme measures. Wheel diameter is dependent on your car’s suspension setup. Most cars have a certain wheel size that is the best tradeoff between performance and having a good selection of tyres to choose from. Early Miatas do great with 15″ wheels, while an RX-7 is more at home on 17″ or 18″, for example.
Lightweight wheels are a great way to improve handling, but come at a price. Carbon fibre wheels are the latest tech in this area, but cost a fortune. Forged wheels are a more usual choice for the amateur track racer. Source:
Carbon Revolution
Weight also plays a big role. Wheels and tyres count as unsprung weight – the weight that is not supported by the suspension components. Reducing this weight makes it easier for the suspension components to do their job of keeping the tyres in contact with the road, thanks to lower inertia. Additionally, they’re also rotational weight, and reducing this helps the car accelerate and decelerate more quickly. Lightweight wheels are expensive, but performance gains can be significant. Serious track fiends will spend big money on a set of lightweight forged wheels, with even lighter carbon fibre items slowly entering the mainstream at even higher prices.
Tyre compound is important, too, and depends on how you’ll be using the vehicle. For street use with the occasional track day, a performance road tyre is best – think the Hankook Ventus RS4 or Michelin Pilot Sport 4. If you’re looking for super-sticky race tyres that you can still drive on the road to get to the track, consider a semi-slick like the Nankang AR-1. Alternatively, if you’re trailering your car to events, you can go for an all-out racing slick. Don’t use semi-slicks or slicks for normal driving duties, though – they’re dangerous in the wet and will wear out incredibly rapidly! Of course, if you’re in the rally game, you’ll be eyeing specialist mud or gravel tyres instead.
Wheel and tyre upgrades are often the cheapest way to make big gains in laptime at the track. Without good tyres gluing you to the road, any other mods you do will be far less effective, so it pays to do this first.
Shocks And Springs
Likely the next area you’ll want to consider is upgrading to a better set of shocks and springs. Typically, cars come with a setup that balances comfort and handling. Often, enthusiasts are willing to sacrifice the former to get more of the latter.
One option is to source a set of lowering springs to drop the ride height of the car. This lowers the center of gravity which helps improve handling, with the drawback of making bumps and potholes more difficult to deal with. Often, such spring will be stiffer than stock to help keep the tyre in contact with the road better, albeit at the cost of a harsher ride. Such modification is often done in concert with a set of performance shock absorbers designed for the lower ride height. This is a good choice for drivers looking for better handling without compromising too much day-to-day drivability.
Adjustable coilovers are the go-to choice for those after serious handling gains. However, there’s often a trade-off to be made with regards to comfort. Source:
KW Suspensions
Alternatively, a more popular option on modern cars is to switch to a coilover setup. This is most common on Japanese cars, where the coil spring is placed over the shock absorber in a single assembly. Coilover setups often come with adjustable ride height and damping, allowing the car to be set up with a more aggressive alignment. Camber plates can usually be added too, further improving adjustability – useful when trying to dial in the ultimate setup for race applications. The trade-off is that usually, coilover setups are aimed at more serious track use, and can give quite a harsh ride on the road. However, they make a great choice for those spending plenty of time at track, chasing every last second of laptime.
Swapping out shocks and springs is a good way to hone your car’s handling, but it’s also an easy way to ruin your car, too. It’s important to buy quality parts and understand the effect they’ll have on your car. A $200 set of eBay coilovers, for example, will do little more than make your car handle like a brick on wheels. A $3,000 set of Ohlins race shocks will do great at the track, but may be a little much for going down to the shops. And those lowering springs you scored off Craigslist might have eliminated your car’s body roll, but you’ll struggle to get in and out of your sloped driveway. The key is to improve your handling without going too low, or too stiff, and ruining your ride.
Sway Bars
Aftermarket swaybars are a great way to tune the handling balance of your car. Source:
Brian Cuison
Sway bars are components that connect the left and right suspension components to help reduce body roll. They’re not fitted to all cars, but are relatively common and have a big effect on handling. Installing stiffer sway bars can help reduce body roll which can be disconcerting during fast cornering.
Additionally, they can be used to dial in the oversteer or understeer characteristics of your vehicle to your liking. Installing a stiffer front swaybar or a softer rear swaybar can help reduce oversteer, while installing a softer front swaybar or a stiffer rear swaybar can reduce understeer. They can also be removed entirely where applicable.
Aftermarket swaybars are available for most cars that have sporting pretensions. It’s a good area to consider tweaking when you’ve begun to find the weaknesses of your setup after doing some basic upgrades. If you’re upgrading to a set of aftermarket sway bars, you’ve probably already lowered your car with a set of shocks and springs, and so scoring a set of adjustable end-links will help you get things installed just right. Skipping this step and using stock swaybar links can lead to problems with pre-loading the bar, and can make installation difficult. Additionally, some cars need extra bracing when installing uprated bars; be sure to research common setups for your vehicle to avoid nasty surprises.
Bushings
Installing a fresh set of bushings can make your car feel brand new, and reduce play in your suspension and steering. Upgrading to stiffer polyurethane parts can sharpen handling, but comes with a penalty to noise, vibration and harshness. Source:
SADfab
Bushings are the stiff, yet flexible components that connect parts of your suspension together. Usually, stock bushings are made of rubber, with a steel sleeve in the middle to locate bolts and allow movement in your suspension components. They serve to help isolate road vibrations from the rest of the car and act as another damping mechanism in your suspension system.
If you’ve got a project car that’s over 20 years old, it’s likely that the factory rubber bushings have grown tired and are beginning to perish. Replacing them with a fresh set can help reduce play in your suspension and steering, and make your car feel like new again.
However, there are upgrade options, too. It’s often possible to order aftermarket bushes made from polyurethane instead of rubber, which can help sharpen handling up significantly. This is due to the greater stiffness of the polyurethane material. The drawback is that often, these bushes can squeak if not greased regularly, making them a pain for regular road use. For some popular sports cars, like the Mazda Miata, it’s possible to instead source aftermarket bushes that are still rubber, but stiffer than stock. These can be a good choice of those wanting an upgrade in performance without dealing with the headaches of polyurethane bushes.
Setup And Alignment
It’s possible to do your own alignment at home, though most elect to hand a list of specs to a dedicated alignment shop. Source: Bernice Loui
So, you’ve thrown a whole bunch of parts at your car, and now you’re ready to go faster, right? Wrong. It’s one thing to fit upgraded suspension components, but without the right setup, you’re going to have a bad time. Between adjustable dampers, camber, toe, and spring rates, there’s a lot you need to get right to keep your car pointed in the right direction.
For the novice, this is where it’s crucial to learn from the experts. Finding a local alignment shop that’s comfortable working on modified vehicles is key; your local Lube ‘n’ Tyre isn’t really up to the job here. They’ll be able to help guide you with the right alignment settings to give you sharp turn-in and predictable handling. They’ll also be able to give you tips on how to set your dampers and whether you’ve got enough tyre for the job. Other great sources of informations are forums and car clubs – other owners with similar vehicles will gladly tell you how to set up your car properly. They’ll tell you not only what parts are good, but how to get the most out of them by getting your setup right.
A great practical example is the
SuperMiata alignment page.
With the original Mazda Miata being one of the most popular track cars of the last three decades, there’s a huge wealth of knowledge on how to get the best out of the vehicle on track. The page describes several different alignment setups, along with their intended use and what other parts or modifications are necessary to make it work. It’s a useful resource for those new to customizing a car for handling gains. Similar resources exist for many popular cars. Failing that, it never hurts to ask around your local club or alignment shop!
It’s All About Compromise
When you’re choosing parts for your project car, it’s all about doing the right research and deciding what trade-offs you’re willing to make. The choices you’ll make for an all-out track car are different than those for a weekend canyon carver that still needs to get you to work on Monday.
While these recommendations won’t win you a national title in your first year, they’re a great place to start for the beginner. Swapping out these parts is mostly achievable in the garage at home, without too many expensive tools. Through observing what parts others have used in their builds, it’s easy to get an idea of what parts you’ll want to achieve your goals. Good luck slashing those laptimes, and happy hacking! | 31 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226490",
"author": "MikeR",
"timestamp": "2020-03-10T14:35:47",
"content": "Tire pressure is a big one. You can alter your handling with a few PSI difference. On the 300ZX it was like 28psi for under 100mph and up to 32psi for up to 140mph. Of course you better be paying for those ... | 1,760,373,559.764859 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/10/solar-panel-keeps-car-battery-topped-off-through-obd-ii-port/ | Solar Panel Keeps Car Battery Topped Off Through OBD-II Port | Dan Maloney | [
"car hacks",
"Solar Hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"charging",
"discharge",
"odb",
"schottky",
"solar",
"trickle",
"vehicle"
] | Up until the 1980s or so, a mechanic could check for shorts in a car’s electrical system by looking for sparks while removing the battery terminal with everything turned off in the car. That stopped being possible when cars started getting always-on devices, and as [Kerry Wong] learned, these phantom loads can leave one stranded with a dead battery at the airport after returning from a long trip.
[Kerry]’s solution is simple:
a solar trickle charger
. Such devices are readily available commercially, of course, and generally consist of a small photovoltaic array that sits on the dashboard and a plug for the lighter socket. But as [Kerry] points out in the video below, most newer model cars no longer have lighter sockets that are wired to work without the ignition being on. So he chose to connect his solar panel directly to the OBD-II port, the spec for which calls for an always-on, fused circuit connected directly to the positive terminal of the vehicle battery. He had to hack together an adapter for the panel’s lighter plug, the insides of which are more than a little scary, and for good measure, he added a Schottky diode to prevent battery discharge through the panel. Even the weak winter sun provides 150 mA or so of trickle charge, and [Kerry] can rest assured his ride will be ready at the end of his trip.
We used to seeing [Kerry]
tear down test gear
and
analyze unusual devices
, along with the odd
post mortem on nearly catastrophic failures
. We’re glad nothing burst into flames with this one. | 47 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226460",
"author": "dave",
"timestamp": "2020-03-10T12:22:36",
"content": "Better than the opposite, learning that I had to unplug my older bluetooth-OBD dongle whenever I left the car to sit for over a week or two or I would have a flat battery.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth... | 1,760,373,559.846629 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/12/ultimate-medical-hackathon-how-fast-can-we-design-and-deploy-an-open-source-ventilator/ | Ultimate Medical Hackathon: How Fast Can We Design And Deploy An Open Source Ventilator? | Gerrit Coetzee | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"coronavirus",
"respirator",
"ultimatemedicalhackathon",
"ventilator"
] | [Gui Cavalcanti], whose name you might recognize from MegaBots, got on a call with a medical professional in San Francisco and talked about respirators. The question being, can we
design and deploy an open source version in time to help people?
Unnerving reports from Italy show that when the virus hits the susceptible population groups the device that becomes the decider between life and death is a ventilator. Unfortunately they are in short supply.
The problem gets tricky when it comes to what kind of respirator is needed CPAP, BIPAP, or Hi-Flo oxygen NIV are all out. These systems aerosolize the virus making it almost guaranteed that anyone around them will get infected.
What we need is a
Nasal cannula-based NIV
. This system humidifies air, mixes it with oxygen and then pushes a constant stream of it into people’s lungs. If we can design a simple and working system we can give those plans to factories around the globe and get these things made. If the factories fail us, let’s also have a version people can make at home.
If you aren’t sure if a ventilator is something you can work on there are other problems. Can you make algorithms to determine if a person needs a ventilator. Can we recycle n95 masks? Can we make n95 masks at home? Workers also require a negative pressure tent for housing patients. This will be especially useful if we need to build treatment facilities in gyms or office spaces. Lastly if you’re a medical professional, can you train people how to help?
Let’s beat this thing. The ultimate medical hackathon begins. | 898 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227134",
"author": "Albin",
"timestamp": "2020-03-12T11:13:36",
"content": "I’m an anesthesiologist/intensivt so I’m a specialist in mechanical ventilation. The device described in this post is not a ventilator but a high flow nasal cannula. The air is warmed and humidified to not ... | 1,760,373,560.832908 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/12/an-rf-engineers-fpga-learning-journey/ | An RF Engineer’s FPGA Learning Journey | Al Williams | [
"FPGA"
] | [
"Altera",
"fpga",
"intel"
] | [KF5N] admits he’s not a digital design engineer; he’s more into the analog RF side of things. But he’s recently taken on a project to communicate between a Ubuntu box and an Intel MAX10 FPGA. He
did a presentation at a recent ham radio convention
about what he’d learned and how you could get started.
The video talks a lot about the Intel (used to be Altera). However, the nearly 40 minute video after the break isn’t a step-by-step tutorial so even if you are interested in other devices, you’ll probably enjoy watching it. If you’ve programmed even one FPGA, this video likely won’t hold your interest — you aren’t the target audience. However, at about 00:31 he does recommend some books and some very inexpensive FPGA boards, so it’s not a total wash.
[KF5N] talks about what an FPGA is and how it’s different from a microcontroller. He also recommends Cornell’s [Bruce Land’s] course materials. He wasn’t a big fan of the online courses he tried. Of course, since he’s using an Intel chip, he also recommended the Intel courses. A lot of the video covers how to save on getting a development board. The Cornell class calls for a $250 board that is pretty powerful. That’s also pretty expensive, so he recommends a lighter version for about $85.
He also talks about the toolchain and his project to interface to his Linux box. He wound up with an SPI interface that ran up to 30 MHz. He also talks about using Julia to build a driver to talk to the interface on the PC side.
We didn’t notice him mentioning our own
FPGA bootcamp
, although he did mention projects on Hackaday.io. If you want to see
a similar video but with open source tools
, [David Williams] did a talk at Superconference that gives the same kind of overview but with Yosys and other related tools. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6235161",
"author": "Larry Landis",
"timestamp": "2020-04-07T11:22:43",
"content": "Thanks for sharing your journey … awesome job getting this all running on your own!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6235183",
"author"... | 1,760,373,559.931922 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/11/there-really-was-a-sewing-machine-controlled-by-a-game-boy/ | There Really Was A Sewing Machine Controlled By A Game Boy | Lewin Day | [
"Nintendo Game Boy Hacks",
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"game boy",
"nintendo",
"sewing",
"sewing machine"
] | These days, high-quality displays and powerful microcontrollers are cheap and plentiful. That wasn’t the case a couple of decades ago, and so engineers sometimes had to get creative.
The result of this is products like the Jaguar nu.yell sewing machine, as covered by [Kelsey Lewin].
The later nuotto model was capable of more advanced embroidery patterns. A Mario character cartridge was sold, while a later Kirby edition was scrapped before release.
The Japanese market product eschewed the typical mechanical controls of the era, to instead interface with a Nintendo Game Boy. The sewing machine would hook up to the handheld console via the Link Port, while the user ran a special cartridge containing the control software. This would allow the user to select different stitch types, or embroider letters. Very much a product of its time, the nu yell mimics the then-cutting edge industrial design of the first-generation Apple iMac. The technology was later licensed to Singer, who brought it to the US under the name IZEK. Sales were poor, and the later Jaguar nuotto didn’t get a similar rebranding stateside.
Back in the late 90s, the Game Boy was likely an attractive package to engineers. Packing a Z80 processor, buttons, and a screen, it could act as a simple human interface in lieu of designing one from the ground up.
Aprilia even used them to diagnose motorbike ECUs
, and we’ve seen Game Boy parts
used in medical hardware from the era, too
. Video after the break. | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227081",
"author": "Allan-H",
"timestamp": "2020-03-12T05:14:05",
"content": "Let’s not forget the XBOX controllers used as “periscope” controllers in recent US Navy submarines. (BTW, They’re not really traditional periscopes.)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies... | 1,760,373,559.983996 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/11/java-on-gpus-and-fpgas/ | Java On GPUs And FPGAs | Al Williams | [
"computer hacks",
"FPGA",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"fpga",
"gpu",
"java"
] | There was a time when running a program on an array of processors meant that you worked in some high-powered lab somewhere. Now your computer probably has plenty of processors hiding in its GPU and if you have an FPGA, you have everything you need to make something custom. The idea behind TornadoVM is to modify OpenJDK and GraalVM to support
running some Java code on parallel architectures
supported by OpenCL. The system can utilize multi-core CPUs, GPUs (NVIDIA and AMD), Intel integrated GPUs, and Intel FPGAs.
If you want to try your hand at accelerated Java, there are some docker containers to get you started fast. There’ are also quite a few examples, such as a computer vision application.
There are some easier examples, such as this one that uses
an FPGA
. You can see the use of the @Parallel inside for loops and some basic task management. If you prefer, you can start with the simple
hello world
example.
There are several articles and papers about TornadoVM, some of which are behind paywalls. However, we enjoyed this article which has
a good blend of theory and practice
.
Java isn’t always the first choice for high-performance computing and we have to wonder how this would benchmark against someone using OpenCL in a more traditional language. On the other hand, if you know Java this might be a great way to get started with parallel processing.
We talked about
CUDA
, a competing technology awhile back, but many of the concepts are the same.
OpenCL
will even run on the Raspberry PI. | 48 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227055",
"author": "Bill Gates",
"timestamp": "2020-03-12T02:46:27",
"content": "Java would be awesome on a GPU. Java runs fast on as little as a quad core CPU, with as little as 16GB of ram, and just a few hundred GB of helper libraries.Imagine what 4096 cores would do!Pity GPUs h... | 1,760,373,560.342131 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/11/3d-printed-swirl-rocket-injector-turns-up-the-heat/ | 3D Printed Swirl Rocket Injector Turns Up The Heat | Tom Nardi | [
"Parts"
] | [
"3d printed",
"combustion",
"injector",
"rocket",
"V-2"
] | Conceptually speaking, a liquid propellant rocket engine is actually a very simple piece of hardware. All you need to do is spray your fuel and oxidizer into the combustion chamber at the proper ratio, add a spark, and with a carefully designed nozzle you’re off to the races. Or the Moon, as the case may be. It’s just that doing it in the real-world and keeping the whole thing from exploding for long enough to do some useful work is another story entirely.
Taking the process one step at a time,
[Luke Walters] has been working on a 3D printed injector that tackles the first half of the problem
. After nearly a dozen different prototypes, he’s come up with a printable injector design that atomizes the fuel and combines it with pressurized air at a suitable ratio for combustion. As you can see in the video at the break, it’s certainly capable of generating some impressive fireballs.
A cloud of highly atomized alcohol from the injector.
The internal passages of the injector have been designed in such a way that fuel (91% isopropyl alcohol) and air are spinning in opposite directions when they meet. This promotes more complete mixing, which in turn leads to a more efficient burn. Originally developed in the 1930s, so-called “swirl injectors” of this type were one of the key
technological advancements made by Germany’s V-2 rocket program
. Some ideas never go out of style.
Since the injector only touches the fuel and air prior to ignition, it doesn’t need to be particularly heat resistant. To be on the safe side [Luke] has printed the part in PETG at 100% infill, but in reality the flame front is far enough away that temperature isn’t much of a concern. That said, he does hope to eventually fit these injectors into some kind of combustion chamber, which is where things will start getting toasty.
To be clear this is
not
a rocket engine, and it produces no appreciable thrust. Turning a big flame into a useful means of propulsion is where things get tricky,
almost as though it’s rocket science or something
. But that
doesn’t mean it can’t be done by suitably ambitious hackers
. | 14 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6227024",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-03-11T23:10:36",
"content": "So potentially useful in current pandemic for just hosing down everything with unlit isopropyl alcohol too :-D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": ... | 1,760,373,560.080614 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/11/design-and-construction-with-copper-pipe/ | Design And Construction With Copper Pipe | Lewin Day | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"cad",
"copper",
"copper pipe",
"Fusion 360",
"fusion360",
"openscad"
] | Copper is a material with many applications; typically, it’s used for electrical wiring or in applications where good heat conductivity is a requirement. However, it can also make for an attractive material in furnishings,
which [Andrei Erdei] decided to explore.
A render of the coffee table design, exported from OpenSCAD into Fusion360.
[Andrei]’s work began in OpenSCAD, where he wrote scripts to enable the quick and easy assembly of various designs. The modular nature of commercially-available copper pipe and fittings allows complex structures to be assembled, particularly if you’re a fan of 90-degree bends. The final renders of some of these designs are impressive, with the coffee table design a particular highlight. Staying conceptual wasn’t enough, however, so [Andrei] set out to build one of his designs. Constructing a table lamp shroud out of copper parts was successful, though the real components have flanges and other features that aren’t represented in the rendering.
It’s a project that shows the value of tools such as OpenSCAD to aid the design process before committing to cutting real-world materials. While the designs on screen aren’t perfect representations of what’s possible in reality, it still proves to be a useful guide.
We’re a fan of the aesthetic, and would love to see more done with copper pipe as a construction kit. Global ore prices may limit experimentation, however. Alternatively,
you can always harvest the metal from scrap! | 21 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226956",
"author": "Miharix",
"timestamp": "2020-03-11T20:33:19",
"content": "This reminds me of my ultra simple version of Laptop/Tablet stand constructed so kids in my primary school, had to build their version in class.Here a build video (sorry only in Slovenian language)https:/... | 1,760,373,560.140159 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/11/three-tales-of-making-it-in-electronics-design-and-manufacturing/ | Three Tales Of Making It In Electronics Design And Manufacturing | Mike Szczys | [
"cons"
] | [
"2019 Hackaday Superconference",
"panel",
"Supercon"
] | Having found success in different areas, it’s a pleasure to hear from Erika Earl, Paul Beech, and Spencer Owen during a panel discussion at the 2019 Hackaday Superconference. Led by Tindie’s Jasmine Brackett, the panel covers some of
the background needed to develop a product and get it into the hands of your customers
.
Erika’s origin story begins with an interest in electronics during her teenage years that led to work in recording studios. It seems nobody on staff there was interested in repairing anything. Every company needs a hacker to make sure everything continues to work and she decided to take on the role.
From there Erika found her way into the world of manufacturing and has never looked back. You may remember hearing some of her experiences in her 2016 Hackaday Supercon talk on
turning your manufacturing mistakes in a learning experience
. During this panel she recounts one particularly painful experience when over-torque on a six-layer PCB damaged traces and led to extensive manual rework; always include a torque-spec!
Paul Beech is one of the minds behind
Pimoroni
, the UK-based electronics manufacturer and distributor with a strong focus in the maker movement. He began on home computers in the 1980s and was happy to embrace the maker movement early on when the only way to get your hands on a quadcopter was to build your own. Paul’s other claim to fame is that
he designed the Raspberry Pi logo
.
It’s easy to see how running Pimoroni could gobble up all of your time. Paul says that it’s still paramount to make room for your own passion projects, ignore this advice at your own peril. He also makes a good point that we’re facing a turning point with climate change and that in our projects, both personal and professional, it’s important to look at what impacts our choices make on society and on the planet.
Spencer Owen supports himself with
his store on Tindie
that sells a Z80-based computer system he designed called RC2014. He began his career in network engineering, with the side project of building his own retrocomputer designs. That grew quickly as the word got out and more and more people wanted him to make them a kit so they could have some retrocomputer fun as well.
The breadth of online resources is something that Spencer credits for his success. From podcasts like the Amp Hour and EEVblog to articles that share the secrets of computer design, he’s been quite happy to pay forward the things he’s learned. When it comes to creating a successful product, he warns against
the hug of death being featured on Hackaday
can bring. It’s tough to make the commitment to carry a large stock of your products hoping to get noticed. But when lightning struck for him, everything was out of stock in the blink of an eye.
The panel wraps up with a question and answer session that you should stick around for. The most illuminating questions are at the end when an audience member inquires about FCC testing. Paul mentions that once you start shipping to a substantial number of customers, say 1000 or more, it’s paramount that you have all of your certifications in order, be they RoHS 3, REACH, or otherwise. Erika drops an interesting tip that those seeking FCC and other certifications should look into doing a prescan where a testing lab will charge much less to run your product through the most stringent of the tests to tell you where it will fail during actual certification. It can save you a bundle in the long run.
Being at the con to speak with others who are working on similar projects is one of the things Erika mentions she did to help level up her manufacturing skills. You should definitely try to get out there and rub elbows with other hackers, but if you can’t swing it, watching panels like this one is the next best thing.
[Main image via
@guru
] | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226922",
"author": "spiritplumber",
"timestamp": "2020-03-11T18:51:00",
"content": "Is this something people may want my input on?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6226947",
"author": "MvK",
"timestamp": "2020-03-11T19:4... | 1,760,373,560.023353 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/10/the-best-voltage-and-current-reference-this-side-of-a-test-lab/ | The Best Voltage And Current Reference This Side Of A Test Lab | Jenny List | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"calibration",
"current",
"voltage",
"voltage reference"
] | When you measure a voltage, how do you know that your measurement is correct? Because your multimeter says so, of course! But how can you trust your multimeter to give the right reading? Calibration of instruments is something we often trust blindly without really thinking about, but it’s not always an impossible task only for a high-end test lab. [Petteri Aimonen]
had enough need for a calibrated current source to have designed his own
, and he’s shared the resulting project for all to see.
The cost of a reference source goes up with the degree of accuracy required, and can stretch into the many millions of dollars if you are seeking the standards of a national metrology institute, but fortunately [Petteri]’s requirements were considerably more modest. 0.02% accuracy would suffice. An Analog Devices precision voltage reference driving a low-offset op-amp with a driver transistor supplies current to a 0.01% precision resistor, resulting in a reference current source fit for his needs. The reference is available in a range of voltages, his chosen 2.048 volts gave a 2.048 mA current sink with a 100 ohm resistor.
In a way it is a miracle of technology that the cheapest digital multimeter on the market can still have a surprisingly good level of calibration thanks to its on-chip bandgap voltage reference, but it never hurts to have a means to check your instruments. Some of us still rather like analogue multimeters, but beware —
calibration at the cheaper end of that market can sometimes be lacking
. | 16 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226433",
"author": "Mike Massen",
"timestamp": "2020-03-10T08:37:15",
"content": "Thanks for the reference to a good reference :-) Cheers",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6226439",
"author": "MRE",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,373,560.883792 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/09/divvy-out-the-crypto-with-this-physical-bitcoin-faucet/ | Divvy Out The Crypto With This Physical Bitcoin Faucet | Tom Nardi | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"bitcoin",
"camera",
"cryptocurrency",
"qr code",
"scanner"
] | For those unfamiliar with the term, a “Bitcoin Faucet” is usually used as an incentive in software that wants your attention. Complete a captcha or look at and advertisement and you get one millionth of a BTC, that sort of thing. You’re never going to get rich off of one of them, but most people aren’t going to turn down free money either.
The latest project from [TJ Bruno] follows that same concept
and brings it into the physical world. But you still aren’t going to get rich off of it.
The hardware used for this corporeal Bitcoin Faucet is pretty simple. All you need is a Raspberry Pi, a camera module, and a 2.8″ touch LCD. Naturally you could use a larger screen if you wanted, but then it wouldn’t fit inside of the very slick 3D printed stand that [TJ] developed. We might consider upgrading to a slightly speedier Pi though, in the demonstration video it looks like the Zero is struggling pretty hard to handle the GUI.
Using the Faucet is straightforward enough. You tap the screen and place a QR code representing your Bitcoin wallet on the device’s tray, where it’s scanned by the camera. In a few seconds the Faucet shows a QR code on its own screen that will point your phone’s browser to the transaction details so you can verify your digital coinage is on the way.
You might be wondering why you’d want to have a device that sits there waiting to pay out fractions of a BTC to anyone who’s willing to flash their wallet at it. We’re not entirely sure, though it might make for an interesting way to raise awareness about cryptocurrency. In this particular case though, [TJ] says he was just looking for a project that would give him an excuse to hone his Python skills. Nothing wrong with that around these parts.
Watching the growth of cryptocurrency from our unique vantage point
, we can see how the hacker’s interest in Bitcoin as changed over the years. Where we once saw people
excited about building custom mining rigs
, we now see counters that
tick down as the last coins are put into circulation
. Looking at projects like this, it seems hackers are happy enough to just give the things away in an interesting way. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226458",
"author": "dave",
"timestamp": "2020-03-10T11:43:50",
"content": "Damn…A bitcoin faucet, back then it was to generate interest in the bitcoin project, takes me back.In the old days, when we all imagined Cryptonomicon grade societal change(and didn’t really consider the abs... | 1,760,373,560.979296 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/09/a-reminder-not-to-touch-your-face/ | A Reminder Not To Touch Your Face | Lewin Day | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"coronavirus",
"Covid-19",
"glasses",
"sunglasses"
] | In 2020, the world is focused on the rampant spread of a new virus by the name of COVID-19. Like many infectious diseases, transmission can be reduced by good hygiene practices. To help in the fight,
[Nick Bild] threw together a device he calls Sentinel.
The concept is simple. Reduce the user touching their own face by shining a warning light when such behaviour is detected. This is achieved through the use of an Arduino, which controls an LED through feedback from an ultrasonic proximity sensor. The LED is placed in the user’s peripheral vision, glowing when the sensor detects hands (or other objects) approaching the face.
While it’s unlikely to be rolled out en-masse, it’s a project that nevertheless reminds us to practice good self-care routines. And, as the adage goes, prevention is better than cure. As governments and industry grapple with the ongoing problem,
consider how your supply chain may be exposed to the crisis.
Video after the break. | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226391",
"author": "Saabman",
"timestamp": "2020-03-10T02:30:40",
"content": "The supply chain has been severely impacted in Australia not due to issues with the virus but do to a bunch of cognitively challenged individuals that have bought every last scrap of toilette paper.",
... | 1,760,373,560.935722 |
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