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https://hackaday.com/2020/03/09/3d-printed-tooling-punches-above-its-weight-with-added-hardware/ | 3D Printed Tooling Punches Above Its Weight With Added Hardware | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"hybrid",
"press brake",
"sheet metal",
"tooling"
] | Reddit user [thetelltalehart] has been making brake press tooling with 3D printed PLA, and
recently shared an interesting picture of a hybrid brake press punch
, shown here on the right, in blue.
Printed in PLA, with 80% infill and 12 walls, the tool (right) failed at 5 tons.
In a press, material such as sheet metal is formed into a shape by forcing the material around the tooling. Some types of tooling can be 3D printed, and it turns out that printed tools are not only fast and economical, but can be surprisingly resilient. You can see such tools in action in our earlier coverage of this approach
here
and
here
.
[Thetelltalehart]’s previous work was printed at 80% infill and 12 walls, and failed at 5 tons. The new hybrid tool adds some common hardware that has the effect of reinforcing the tool for very little added expense or complexity. The new tool made it up to 7 tons before failure. It’s a clever idea, and an apparently effective one.
The goal with these 3D printed tools is twofold: doing short-run work, and reducing costly rework when developing “real” tooling. Having to re-cut a tool because it isn’t quite right in some way is expensive and costly, and it’s much easier and cheaper to go through that process with 3D printing instead of metal. | 18 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226348",
"author": "Danjovic",
"timestamp": "2020-03-09T23:53:30",
"content": "Unles this part is intended to be a “mechanical fuse” the author should run it through many cycles to determine what is the useful load the part can bear.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"re... | 1,760,373,563.120811 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/09/wood-turning-a-bladeless-fan/ | Wood-Turning A Bladeless Fan | Erin Pinheiro | [
"home hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"bladeless",
"dyson",
"fan",
"woodworking"
] | It’s a simple enough premise: to make a Dyson-style bladeless fan out of wood. The execution of the finished fan,
done and filmed by [Neil] from Pask Makes on YouTube
, is however spectacular. Using nothing but scrap wood from a chopping board business local to him, he’s made the entire body of the fan using some interesting fabrication methods.
To plan the circular design of the body, [Neil] used an online calculator to measure the specific cuts of wood he needed in order to form cylinders out of trapezoidal sections glued together. Once the rough shape is made, he then used a profile template to turn the air channel with precision out of the two main parts of the fan body. Then, he uses SketchUp in order to figure out what shape needs to be cut from the base in order for the top to fit on it. From there, it’s just a matter of drilling out slots for the air intake, which he does so with an ingenious custom jig, and fitting the internals of a standard fan into the new wooden body.
The video, which you should definitely watch after the break if you have a spare half hour, might not be detailed enough to be used as a tutorial, but it certainly outlines his methods and the tools used well enough to impress us. And the finished build is beautiful to look at, too! If you’re looking for more impressive woodworking, we’ve covered
this gorgeous recreation of a Commodore 64 case in wood
. But if the hand-built nature of that doesn’t satisfy you,
here’s a professional-looking custom caliper case made with CNC and laser engraving
.
[Thanks to Tobias for the tip!] | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226307",
"author": "excerpstentialist",
"timestamp": "2020-03-09T20:33:50",
"content": "That feeling of excitement when you see a hack you submitted a tip for, then someone else with the thanks at the end",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"co... | 1,760,373,562.59309 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/09/fear-of-potato-chips-samy-kamkars-side-channel-attack-roundup/ | Fear Of Potato Chips: Samy Kamkar’s Side-Channel Attack Roundup | Dan Maloney | [
"cons",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"2019 Hackaday Superconference",
"clock glitching",
"fpga",
"InfoSec",
"injection fault",
"instruction skipping",
"lasers",
"MEMS",
"security",
"side-channel attacks",
"ultrasound"
] | What do potato chips and lost car keys have in common? On the surface, it would seem not much, unless you somehow managed to lose your keys in a bag of chips, which would be embarrassing enough that you’d likely never speak of it. But there is a surprising link between the two, and Samy Kamkar makes the association in his newly published 2019 Superconference talk, which he called “
FPGA Glitching and Side-Channel Attacks.
”
Information on the Side
Most of Samy’s talk is devoted to explaining the nature of side-channel attacks, which he defines as “information you’re gathering from an implementation rather than the algorithm or system itself.” I found that to be a particularly instructive way to think about side-channel attacks, since they provide what is often a completely unforeseen way into a system despite there being no direct vulnerabilities of the kind usually associated with exploits, such as software bugs or weaknesses in cryptographic systems.
The world of side-channel attacks that Samy describes is a weird place where attacks can come literally out of the blue. They can squeeze information from the slightest of signals, like snooping into what a user is typing by monitoring the unique mechanical vibrations of each key, either with a microphone or by bouncing a laser off the machine to pick up induced vibrations. Ultrasonic attacks based on electrostrictive vibrations of capacitors that betray the internal state of the target machine are possible, as are attacks based on the slight changes in power usage as a target goes through its paces. And some of these side-channel attacks can even target air-gapped machines, which is nightmare fuel for security pros.
And it’s not even just computers that can be compromised with a side-channel attack. Samy related a story of security researchers who managed to exfiltrate a normal conversation from a sealed, soundproof room simply by pointing a DSLR camera through a window at a potato chip bag on the table. The bag vibrated slightly with the air pressure changes caused by the voices in the room, enough to create a signal in the video captured by the camera. Side-channel attacks seem to be limited only by the imagination of the attacker.
Injection Detection
Samy also spent a lot of time talking about fault injection attacks. We’ve featured a few of these recently, including
attacks on smart speakers using lasers
to induce a signal on the MEMS microphone, making Alexa do your bidding remotely. Samy relates that and similar attacks on drone IMUs with ultrasound, which we found fascinating. Yet wilder are temperature attacks, where memory chips are flash-frozen with a blast of propellant from a gas duster; by cooling down the capacitors in a memory chip, it can extend the discharge time long enough to remove the chip and dump its contents using another device, potentially exposing passwords or other sensitive information.
Perhaps the most interesting technique Samy explained was instruction skipping. Clock glitches are slightly malformed pulses in the normal stream of clock pulses in any computer system. Time a clock glitch just right, and you can force a CPU to skip over parts of the code it’s executing, possibly even the part that checks passwords. Voltage glitches, where the CPU is strategically starved of power, can accomplish much the same thing. Samy even detailed a few examples of glitch attacks that can be performed easily on an Arduino or even on the amazing FPGA-powered Hackaday Supercon badge.
But what about the lost car keys? Where do they fit into all of this? Starting in the early 2000s car manufacturers
invented yet another way to pry money out of customers
decided to increase the security of their cars by adding RFID chips to every key. Lose a key and it’ll cost you big bucks to get the security code in a new key programmed into the ignition system of the car and allow you to drive your car again. Unless, of course, you use a side-channel attack to figure out the encryption key and set up something to spoof that code so you can start the car with a plain old key. That’s just one of the many tools Samy’s talk put in everyone’s toolbox with this talk. | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226263",
"author": "Simon",
"timestamp": "2020-03-09T19:04:04",
"content": "Why do i have to pause the video, and write the urls he show, when you have all da info….. ? Links should atleast be in this article.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,373,562.885217 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/09/dexter-robot-arm-embraces-new-manufacturing-with-first-micro-factory/ | Dexter Robot Arm Embraces New Manufacturing With First Micro-Factory | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Robots Hacks",
"Slider",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2018 Hackaday Prize",
"dexter",
"Hackaday Prize",
"haddington dynamics",
"manufacturing",
"robot arm"
] | Haddington Dynamics, the company behind the Dexter robot arm that won the 2018 Hackaday Prize,
has opened its first microfactory to build robot arms
for Australia and Southeast Asia.
You may remember that the combination of Dexter’s makeup and capabilities are what let it stand out among robotics projects. The fully-articulated robot arm can be motion trained; it records how you move the arm and can play back with high precision rather than needing to be taught with code. The high-precision is thanks to
a clever encoder makeup that leverages the power of FPGAs
to amplify the granularity of its optical encodes. And it embraces advanced manufacturing to combine 3D printed and glue-up parts with mass produced gears, belts, bearings, and motors.
It’s a versatile robot arm, for a fraction of the cost of what came before it, with immense potential for customization. And
did I mention that it’s open source
?
What is a Micro-Factory?
3D-Printer farm used by Haddington Dynamics at their HQ. Note the rails designed for Dexter to remove parts from printers as they are completed
Simply put, a micro-factory is a recreation of the tools and skills the Haddington Dynamics team have at their current headquarters in Las Vegas. With four production stations in their office, each capable of building two robots at a time, the team can build 30 robots a month.
The micro-factory model licenses this technology. Those who will staff the new locations come to headquarters for training in the process of building a robot arm. They take this knowledge back and use the same tools and materials to begin producing robots at their own location.
The first micro-factory produced robot arm was complete on February 24, 2020 in Toowoomba, Australia, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) inland from Brisbane. There are currently two people working at the new DCISIV Technologies location and their goal in the near term is to reach a capacity of 32 robots per month with a workforce of four people.
Why Not Traditional Manufacturing?
A combination of 3D printed and carbon fiber materials being assembled into a Dexter robot arm
So why not just set up shop in a traditional factory and start banging out robot arms as fast as you can stack them on pallets?
First off, total sales volume isn’t quite there yet. But with about 300 robots now in the wild across over 20 different countries it’s not hard to see that they do need to step up production abilities. The immediate factors driving their assembly methods are the complexity of the parts and their desire for the ability to customize and improve the design without the headache of factory retooling.
The current design includes parts that would be difficult or impossible to injection mold, as well as other made of materials like carbon fiber. So they use 3D printing for many of their parts, ranging in material from PETG and nylon, to a combination of carbon fiber reinforced nylon (
called Onyx Filament
) to
continuous carbon fiber filament
. For multiple-material parts, molds are used to align everything during the glue-up process. The molds and the 3D printers themselves are all part of the equipment specified for the micro-factory model. You can check out the intense manufacturing process in
the assembly image gallery
or from this
eleven-part video series
.
There are some very interesting things on the horizon. At launch, each of these micro-factories is set up to build robot arms. But there’s no reason they couldn’t be used to make something else. Haddington Dynamics wants to see robots building robots. This first iteration is 3D printers, which we suppose are a type of robot, building robot arms. The next iteration could be robot arms doing the building.
It’s also worth noting that this model untangles complex supply chains. The majority of parts are manufactured on-site. The remainder are common goods like threaded rod and fasteners. Even the bearings come from common mass-produced items like motorcycle hub bearings and inline-skate wheel bearings. If there was ever a shortage of these components it’s entirely possible to quickly redesign the manufactured parts to suit a replacement part.
What Does Dexter Have in Its Future?
As mentioned before, one of key features of Dexter is how easily it is to train the robot arm. The video below shows two arms being trained to pull a pint of beer from a tap. One uses a special end effector to pick up the cup while the other operates the tap.
It’s a great way to show off what the robot can do, but real-world applications are not far off from this type of skill set. The team tells me they’re working on a routine that uses Dexter for gong meditation. For those that are not able to connect in person with a human instructor, the robot arm can precisely record and playback the motions used.
Dexter project being tailored to serve as an inspection robot in NASA’s Fit2Fly program
They’re also working with NASA to establish a commercial drone certification protocol. Delivery companies are chomping at the bit to get automated drone delivery in place, with the FAA trying to keep up in establishing safety regulations. Large drones need to have their airframes inspected every 100 hours of flight and any drone that flies beyond line of sight — the purpose of a delivery drone — needs to have the integrity of its electronics recertified for every flight. This is labor intensive for what is meant to be an autonomous delivery system, and Dexter is being tasked at doing the automated drone inspection process for both airframe and electronics
through NASA’s Fit2Fly program
(PDF).
Dexter is being used in a university for stem cell research, and robotics students at Duke University have recently done the work to use Dexter in conjunction with Robot Operating System. Two of the robots are headed to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, although the team is not sure what their role there will be. And back on the manufacturing automation front, Haddington Dynamics is working on a protocol to use the robot arms to build cable harnesses, a dexterous job that is often done by humans and when it is automated the machines are prohibitively expensive.
The future is automation, and Dexter makes that future look like a pretty good tomorrow. | 32 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226228",
"author": "Mike Massen in Perth, Western Australia",
"timestamp": "2020-03-09T17:06:21",
"content": "Thanks for post, keen to see comments on augmentations and variations whether practical or otherwise :-)Cheers",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,373,563.059143 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/09/pcb-finishes-hack-chat/ | PCB Finishes Hack Chat | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"enig",
"gold",
"HASL",
"nickel",
"OSP",
"pcb",
"plating",
"resist",
"silkscreen",
"The Hack Chat"
] | Join us on Wednesday, March 11 at noon Pacific for the
PCB Finishes Hack Chat
with Mark Hughes and Elijah Gracia!
There’s no way to overestimate the degree to which the invention of the printed circuit board revolutionized electronics. What was once the work of craftspeople weaving circuits together with discrete components, terminal strips, and wiring harnesses could now be accomplished with dedicated machines, making circuit construction an almost human-free process. And it was all made possible by figuring out how to make copper foil stick to a flat board, and how to remove some of it while leaving the rest behind.
Once those traces are formed, however, there’s more work to be done. Bare copper is famously reactive stuff, and oxides soon form that will make the traces difficult to solder later. There are hundreds of different ways to prevent this, and PCB surface finishing has become almost an art form itself. Depending on the requirements for the circuit, traces can be coated with tin, lead, gold, nickel, or any combination of the above, using processes ranging from electroplating to immersion in chemical baths. And the traces aren’t the only finishes; solder resist and silkscreening are both important to the usability and durability of the finished board.
For this Hack Chat, we’ll be talking to Elijah Gracia and Mark Hughes from Royal Circuit Solutions. They’re both intimately familiar with the full range of PCB coatings and treatments, and they’ll help us make sense of the alphabet soup: HASL, OSP, ENIG, IAg, LPI, and the rest. We’ll learn what the different finishes do, which to choose under what circumstances, and perhaps even learn a bit about how to make our homebrew boards look a little more professional and perform a bit better.
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 11 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. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226280",
"author": "Eric Chapin",
"timestamp": "2020-03-09T19:36:24",
"content": "Cheating a little here by not waiting until Wednesday. Common protection for exposed copper pads are HASL and ENIG.HASL stands for Hot Air Solder Leveling. ENIG stands for Electroless Nickel Immersio... | 1,760,373,562.639341 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/09/john-deere-and-nebraskas-right-to-repair-the-aftermath-of-a-failed-piece-of-legislation/ | John Deere And Nebraska’s Right To Repair, The Aftermath Of A Failed Piece Of Legislation | Jenny List | [
"green hacks",
"News",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"drm",
"john deere",
"right to repair"
] | For the past few years now we’ve covered a long-running battle between American farmers and the manufacturers of their farm machinery, over their right to repair, with particular focus on the agricultural giant John Deere. The manufacturer of the familiar green and yellow machinery that lies in the heart and soul of American farming has attracted criticism for using restrictive DRM and closed-source embedded software to lock down the repair of its products into the hands of its dealer network.
This has been a hot-button issue in our community as it has with the farmers for years, but it’s failed to receive much traction in the wider world. It’s very encouraging then to see
some mainstream coverage from Bloomberg Businessweek
on the subject, in which they follow the latest in the saga of the Nebraska farmers’ quest for a right to repair bill. Particularly handy for readers wishing to digest it while doing something else,
they’ve also recorded it as an easy-to-listen podcast
.
We last visited the Nebraska farmers a couple of years ago
when they were working towards the bill reaching their legislature. The Bloomberg piece brings the saga up to date, with the Nebraska Farm Bureau failing to advance it, and the consequent anger from the farmers themselves. It’s interesting in its laying bare the arguments of the manufacturer, also for its looking at the hidden aspect of the value of the data collected by these connected machines.
It’s likely that the wider hardware hacker community and the farming community have different outlooks on many fronts, but in our shared readiness to dive in and fix things and now in our concern over right to repair we have a common purpose. Watching these stories at a distance, from the agricultural heartland of the European country where this is being written, it’s striking how much the farmers featured are the quintessential salt-of-the-earth Americans representing what much of America still likes to believe that it is at heart. If a company such as John Deere has lost those guys, something really must have gone wrong in the world of green and yellow machinery.
Header image: Nheyob /
CC BY-SA 4.0 | 99 | 33 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226200",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2020-03-09T15:36:36",
"content": "“It’s likely that the wider hardware hacker community and the farming community have different outlooks on many fronts, but in our shared readiness to dive in and fix things and now in our concern over r... | 1,760,373,563.408432 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/09/the-legacy-of-one-of-sciences-brightest-stars-freeman-dyson/ | The Legacy Of One Of Science’s Brightest Stars: Freeman Dyson | Maya Posch | [
"Biography",
"Featured",
"News",
"Original Art",
"Science",
"Slider",
"Space"
] | [
"climate change",
"dyson",
"dyson shell",
"dyson sphere",
"freeman dyson",
"global warming",
"nuclear propulsion",
"nuclear pulse propulsion",
"profiles in science",
"QED",
"quantum electrodynamics",
"triga"
] | Of the many well-known names in science, few have been as reluctant to stick to one particular field as
Freeman John Dyson
. Born in the UK in 1923, he showed a great interest in mathematics and related fields even as a child. By the time he was 15 he had won a scholarship at Trinity College, in Cambridge, where he studied mathematics. Though the war forced him to work at the Air Force’s Operational Research Section (
ORS
), afterwards he would return to Trinity to get his BA in mathematics.
His subsequent career saw him teaching at universities in the UK and US, before eventually ending up at Cornell University, where he joined the
Institute for Advanced Study
at the invitation of its head, J. Robert Oppenheimer. Here he would meet up with such people as
Richard Feynman
with whom he would work on quantum electrodynamics.
Beyond mathematics and physics, Dyson would also express great interest in space exploration — with Dyson spheres being well-known — and genetics, both in the context of the first formation of life and in genetic manipulation to improve plants to deal with issues today. He also worked on the famous
Project Orion
, which used nuclear bombs for propulsion.
In this article we’ll take a look at these and other parts of Mr. Dyson’s legacy, as well as the influence of his works today.
Quantum Electrodynamics
The elements of a Feynman diagram.
Back in the late 1940s, a lot was still being discovered about quantum electrodynamics (
QED
) as a relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics. Uniting quantum mechanics and special relativity, it describes the interactions involving electrically charged particles through the exchange of photons. It’s essentially the quantum counterpart of classical electromagnetism, describing the interaction of matter and light.
Starting with theories by
Hans Bethe
, and with subsequent papers by
Shinichiro Tomonaga
,
Julian Schwinger
, Richard Feynman, and Freeman Dyson, it was finally possible to develop a coherent, functional model of QED that would go on to serve as the template for subsequent quantum field theories, including
quantum chromodynamics
, which covers the strong interactions between quarks and gluons, which underlie hadrons such as neutrons and protons.
Dyson’s contributions consisted of proving that the diagrams Feynman had created to model the interactions were equivalent to the field-theory, operator-based approach by Schwinger and Tomonaga. As Dyson put it in a
2014 interview with Quanta magazine
:
I didn’t invent anything new — I translated Feynman’s ideas into mathematics so it became more accessible to the world, and, as a result, I became famous, but it all happened within about six months.
Unfortunately Dyson did not share the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics for these efforts on QED together with Tomonaga, Schwinger, and Feynman due to the limit of three scientists for a prize. His efforts were, however, seen as instrumental in making QED work.
Nuclear Propulsion
NASA concept for a modern nuclear pulse propulsion space craft.
The concept of
nuclear pulse propulsion
dates back to 1947 when
Stanislaw Ulam
pitched it. In the late 1950s DARPA created
Project Orion
, leaving
General Atomics
to design a nuclear pulse rocket. Freeman Dyson performed the first analysis of the types of missions that Orion would be capable of, including reaching
Alpha Centauri
, the closest star system to the Sun. His hope was to see affordable space travel to new colonies in the solar system.
Although a nuclear pulse rocket like the Orion fell out of favor, mostly on account of the expected complexities with the open detonation of nuclear bombs, the concept would eventually be revived.
Project Daedalus
was a 1970s study performed by the British Interplanetary Society to create an uncrewed interplanetary craft that would use deuterium/helium-3 fuel pellets, with an electron beam using the concept of inertial confinement fusion to produce thrust.
The Daedelus concept was further developed by NASA in the 1980s with
Project Longshot
, followed in the 1990s by research at Pennsylvania State University into
antimatter-catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion
. At this point NASA and others are actively researching different types of nuclear propulsion for space craft.
TRIGA
A TRIGA reactor core, with the blue glow from Cherenkov radiation.
Freeman Dyson was part of the design team for TRIGA, the
Training, Research, Isotopes, General Atomics
nuclear research reactor. This type of reactor is manufactured by General Atomics with the first, Mark I prototype commissioned on the 3rd of May, 1958 on the General Atomics campus in San Diego which remained in operation until 1997. It is now a historic landmark.
The TRIGA is a pool-type reactor that uses uranium zirconium hydride (UZrH) fuel which has a large negative
fuel temperature coefficient of reactivity
. This implies that as the temperature of the fuel increases, its reactivity (chain reaction) rapidly decreases. Because of this, it is a safe, melt-down proof research reactor that needs no containment structure. The TRIGA, mostly in its Mark II, III and other variants, is commonly used around the globe at universities and research institutes for isotope production and testing purposes.
Dyson shells
Visualization of a Dyson ring around a star.
Though usually referred to as
Dyson spheres
, Freeman Dyson’s
original 1960s paper
titled “Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation.” referred to these hypothetical structures as a ‘shell’, though he did not specify in detail what these structures would look like. He proposed that the increasing need for energy in a civilization would drive it to increasingly more advanced ways to obtain this energy, following the
Kardashev scale
.
Though this is by far the concept which has gotten him the most fame, with one
Star Trek: The Next Generation episode
featuring a Dyson sphere that enveloped an entire star, it’s perhaps rather ironic that this is the one concept which Dyson wished hadn’t been attributed to him. After all, it had been coined before by science-fiction writers as far back as 1937’s
Star Maker
by Olaf Stapledon. He didn’t care much for most interpretations of these structures, either, saying:
A solid shell or ring surrounding a star is mechanically impossible. The form of ‘biosphere’ which I envisaged consists of a loose collection or swarm of objects traveling on independent orbits around the star.
Colony in an O’Neill cylinder, with a clear view of nearby planets.
The simple reason for a solid sphere or shell being impossible or at least severely unrealistic comes down due to orbital mechanics. If an object, like a planet, is in an orbit around a star, it will stay there. If it’s an unmoving object like a solid shell, what reason is there for it to maintain from the star? Instead it will obey gravity and unless constant corrections are made, will destroy itself in the star as it collides with it.
Here the use of loosely coupled objects, in say a ring formation, could be in an orbit around the star, yet otherwise fulfill the requirements of a so-called Dyson swarm of independent structures. What these would look like is another question. They could be purely energy-harvesting satellites that would somehow send energy back to a nearby planet, or a civilization could also expand to live on those, in structures akin to an
O’Neill cylinder
.
Climate Studies
During the 1970s, Dyson would work with the
Institute for Energy Analysis
on climate studies, as well as on studies conducted by the
JASON
defense advisory group for the US government. At the time he could probably not have predicted that during the last decades of his life, he would end up in the cross-hairs of the global climate change controversy.
Even though Dyson himself had stated that to him the impact of human-made climate change was obvious, he disagreed with the stark warnings and predictions of doom that usually accompany it. In his 2007 essay titled ‘
Heretical thoughts about science and society
‘ he covers why, as a physicist and mathematician, he disagrees with the climate models being used today being treated as the sole truth. During the about seventy years that he worked in the scientific field, he has worked in teams with both those who are often out in the field — like biologists — and those who mostly work with theoretical models.
His ‘heresy’ is to question the assumption that we have all of the facts right now, that the models cover all important details and that increased CO2 in the atmosphere will absolutely lead to a disaster. As he says in his essay:
But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.
In the rest of his essay he lists some conflicting arguments that exist today, as well as the lack of attention being paid to something unloved like top soil and what the world-wide loss of it could mean for the climate. Even though he’s not a meteorologist, as he points out, he’s comfortable with questioning where he feels the data is lacking, as he explained in a
2009 interview with Yale Environment 360
.
Other Items of Interest
Dyson’s further contributions include a large stack of papers published on topics ranging from number theory, physics and mathematical subjects. Named after Dyson are the
Dyson’s transform
(additive number theory), the
Schwinger-Dyson equation
(quantum field theory),
Dyson’s crank
(number theory), and the
Dyson series
(scattering theory, in mathematical physics).
He would also pitch the idea for a
Dyson tree
, a hypothetical genetically engineered plant that could contribute to the biosphere inside of a hollowed-out comet, a self-replicating space craft called
Astrochicken
, and the Dyson Scenario, also known as
Dyson’s eternal intelligence
, which proposed a way to get around the heat death of an open (always expanding) universe.
The character
Gordon Freeman
in the Half-Life video game series is named after Freeman Dyson.
Always Stay Curious
Freeman Dyson unfortunately suffered a fall in February of 2020 and died in hospital on the 28th of February from complications. At the age of 96 years, he had seen some of the biggest advances in science and technology, and contributed to a number of these advances. Although he didn’t live long enough to see his dream of humanity reaching out to the stars becoming a reality, his legacy will forever be with us.
By never being content with just sticking to one subject or particular field in science and always seeking a new puzzle to crack, he showed some of the best qualities that humanity has to offer. He was someone who was not afraid to dream and challenge himself to chase those dreams. He also showed a refreshing contempt for the rigid structure of academics by calling the PhD system an ‘abomination’, insisting that it is a meaningless piece of paper that does not show the true qualities of an individual.
Here is to a future that will exceed Freeman Dyson’s wildest hopes and expectations. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226183",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2020-03-09T14:31:46",
"content": "Freeman was also George’s father, both were featured in Kenneth Brower’s “The Starship and the Canoe”, George very deep into making traditional kayaks with modern material.I read jt when I got a pa... | 1,760,373,562.938194 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/09/see-the-damage-250-pound-combat-robots-get/ | See The Damage 250-Pound Combat Robots Get | Donald Papp | [
"Repair Hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"battlebots",
"combat robot",
"damage",
"heavyweight",
"repair",
"tv"
] | Combat robots have been a thing for a while, but we don’t normally get a close look at the end results of the sort of damage they can both take and deal out. [Raymond Ma] spent time helping out with season four of BattleBots and wrote about the experience, as well as showed several pictures of
the kind of damage 250-pound robots can inflict upon each other
. We’ve embedded a few of them here, but we encourage you to read [Raymond]’s writeup and see the rest for yourself.
The filming for a season of
BattleBots
is done in a relatively short amount of time, which means the pacing and repair work tends to be more fast and furious than slow and thoughtful. [Raymond] says that it isn’t uncommon for bots, near the end of filming, to be held together with last-minute welds, wrong-sized parts, and sets of firmly-crossed fingers. This isn’t because the bots themselves are poorly designed or made; it’s because they can get absolutely
wrecked
by the forces at play.
Combat robotics has been around for as long as people have been able to give a power tool some wheels and point it towards an opponent. Flying bots are even getting into the scene nowadays, with
DroneClash
leveraging the explosive growth of the drone industry to take the action into the air. | 14 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226148",
"author": "jwebola",
"timestamp": "2020-03-09T12:26:35",
"content": "I had friends growing up that would use RC airplanes and dogfight them. Tie a piece of toilet paper to the tails and see who can cut it off the opponent’s plane and leave the shortest piece. The day typic... | 1,760,373,562.6951 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/09/dont-scrape-magnet-wire-do-this-instead/ | Don’t Scrape Magnet Wire, Do This Instead | Donald Papp | [
"how-to",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"magnet wire",
"perfboard",
"prototyping"
] | [Tom] doesn’t much like breadboarding. He prefers to wire up prototypes with perfboard and solder point-to-point with enameled magnet wire. That may sound troublesome to some of you, but [Tom] has come up with
a few tips to make prototyping with perfboard and magnet wire easier and more effective
, and the biggest tip is about how to manage stripping all that magnet wire.
Push the tip of the magnet wire a small distance into the molten solder and hold it there for a few moments. The solder will bubble away the enamel and tin the copper underneath in the process.
Magnet wire is a thin, solid-core conductor that has a clear coating of enamel. This enamel acts as an electrical insulator. The usual way to strip away the enamel and reveal the shiny copper underneath is to scrape it off, but that would get tiresome when working with a lot of connections. [Tom] prefers to “boil it away” with a blob of molten solder on an iron’s tip.
Begin by melting a small amount of solder on the iron, then push the tip of the magnet wire a small distance into the molten solder and hold it there for a few moments. The enamel will bubble away and the solder will tin the copper underneath in the process. The trick is to use fresh solder, and to clean the tip in between applications. You can see him demonstrate this around the 1:00 mark in the video embedded below.
Once the tip of the magnet wire is tinned, it can be soldered as needed. Magnet wire bends well and holds its shape nicely, so routing it and cutting to size isn’t too difficult. [Tom] also suggests a good hands-free PCB holder, and points out that 0603 sized SMT resistors fit nicely between a perfboard’s 0.1″ pads.
Perfboard (and veroboard) have been standbys of prototyping for a long time, but there are still attempts at improving them, usually by
allowing one to combine through-hole and surface-mount devices on the same board
, but you can see [Tom] demonstrate using magnet wire on plain old perfboard in the video below. | 111 | 32 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226083",
"author": "James Smirniotopoulos",
"timestamp": "2020-03-09T08:15:24",
"content": "You can also use a match or lighter to burn off the enamel. Remember to wipe of the burnt coating with a paper towel.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,373,563.27107 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/08/homebuilt-onewheel-uses-hoverboard-parts/ | Homebuilt Onewheel Uses Hoverboard Parts | Lewin Day | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"hoverboard",
"monowheel",
"one wheel"
] | Since
Back To The Future II
first screened back in 1989, people have been waiting for hoverboards to become reality. Instead, we got a dangerous two-wheeled contraption going by the same name. Wanting something a little cooler,
[Bartek Plonek] decided to convert his to a one-wheel design.
(Video, embedded below.)
The hack starts by machining the hub motors of the hoverboard. They’re bolted together, and used as the hub of a single larger wheel. Care is necessary to avoid cracking the motor housing during this process, as [Bartek] found during his first attempt. The wheel is then fitted to the centre of a steel frame, upon which two halves of a skateboard are attached to act as a footplate. The original hoverboard controller is still used; we’d love to know if firmware modification was required to work with the new motor configuration.
It’s a classic garage hack that results in a viable personal electric vehicle. Plus, cornering is far easier, with the DIY onewheel capable of carving back and forth quite well.
We’ve seen others aim to commute using similar builds. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226075",
"author": "DarkISO",
"timestamp": "2020-03-09T07:02:52",
"content": "Seems like a copy of ddiritos homemade one wheel. Also the video quality is shit, can’t see anything going on at all.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": ... | 1,760,373,562.982141 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/08/tiny-duck-hunt-looks-like-big-fun/ | Tiny Duck Hunt Looks Like Big Fun | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Games"
] | [
"duck hunt",
"ESP-12E",
"ESP8266",
"NodeMCU",
"oled"
] | Unless you’ve held on to an old tube TV, did the hack that lets you use a light gun with an LCD via Wiimote receiver and a couple of microcontrollers, or live close to one of those adult arcades, you might be really jonesing to play Duck Hunt by now. It’s time to renew that hunting license, because
[Danko] has recreated the game for NodeMCU boards, and it’s open season
.
Instead of ducks, you get to shoot cute little Twitter-esque birds of varying sizes and point values, and a tiny cab-over truck if you wish. There’s a 60-second free-for-all, and then time is up and your score is displayed. As a special bonus, there’s no smug dog to laugh at you if don’t hit anything. Be sure to check out the demo and build video after the break.
This pocket console lives on a nicely-wired breadboard for now while [Danko] works on a custom PCB. He’s also planning to add support for Arduboy games in the future, and maybe a joystick instead of a D-pad of buttons.
There are a lot of myths floating around about how the old CRTs read the NES light gun, but
our own [Will Sweatman] shot them down in his fascinating Duck Hunt: Reloaded write-up
. | 5 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226102",
"author": "cortova",
"timestamp": "2020-03-09T09:31:12",
"content": "Neat little shooter game there. From reading at the beginning I was expecting some sort of light gun implementation on the board instead of button controls. It’s still always cool to see people making cla... | 1,760,373,563.455269 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/08/hackaday-links-march-8-2020/ | Hackaday Links: March 8, 2020 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"2019-nCoV",
"bugs",
"coronavirus",
"Covid-19",
"daylight saving",
"folding@home",
"hackaday links",
"leap day",
"leap year",
"Mars 2020 Rover",
"Robinhood",
"seti@home",
"y2k"
] | A lot of annoying little hacks are needed to keep our integer-based calendar in sync with a floating-point universe, and the big one, leap day, passed us by this week. Aside from the ignominy of adding a day to what’s already the worst month of the year, leap day has a tendency to call out programmers who take shortcuts with their code. Matt Johnson-Pint has compiled
a list of 2020 leap day bugs
that cropped up, ranging from cell phones showing the wrong date on February 29 to an automated streetlight system in Denmark going wonky for the day. The highest-profile issue may have been system crashes of Robinhood, the online stock trading platform. Robinhood disagrees that the issues were caused by leap day code issues, saying that it was a simple case of
too many users and not enough servers
. That seems likely given last week’s coronavirus-fueled trading frenzy, but let’s see what happens in 2024.
Speaking of annoying time hacks, by the time US readers see this, we will have switched to Daylight Saving Time. Aside from costing everyone a precious hour of sleep, the semiannual clock switch always seems to set off debates about the need for Daylight Saving Time.
Psychologists think it’s bad for us
, and it has elicited
a few bugs
over the years. What will this year’s switch hold? Given the way 2020 has been going so far, you’d better buckle up.
Can distributed computation be harnessed in the fight against Covid-19? Folding@Home thinks so, and wants you to
donate some computational cycles
to the effort. Folding@Home uses an ad hoc cloud to run protein folding simulations, which are computationally difficult problems that normally require supercomputer-level machines. They hope that enlisting more volunteers will increase the power of their system and reveal the mysteries of 2019-nCoV, the coronavirus causing Covid-19.
Download Folding@Home
and put that spare machine to work.
Coincidentally, one of the most famous distributed computation efforts of all time, SETI@Home,
announced this week that they’d be shutting down
. For 21 years, the possibility of having your computer be the one that teased the call from ET from the background noise of the radio universe kept people hooked. The SETI@Home shut down is only a hiatus; the team says that the effort has been so successful that they have a huge backlog of results to work through, and they need a little breathing room. Sounds like a great time to switch to Folding@Home.
And finally, color us only slightly disappointed that
Rover McRoverface
wasn’t at least a finalist in the Mars Rover 2020 naming competition. NASA announced the winner this week with much fanfare, as
the somewhat lengthy video below
shows. Skip to 9:27 for the reveal; we won’t spoil it here, but we will say that we’re sure our colleague Jenny List will be displeased with the results. Curious as to what’s onboard the new rover?
We’ve got you covered
. | 16 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226047",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-03-08T23:37:09",
"content": "“What will this year’s switch hold? ”I saw it pointed out elsewhere that this week had people shorted an hour on sleep, a full moon on Tuesday and a Friday the 13th, so yeah, buckle up.",
"parent... | 1,760,373,564.096391 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/08/a-wireless-controller-for-the-mostly-printed-cnc/ | A Wireless Controller For The Mostly Printed CNC | Tom Nardi | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"CNC controller",
"handheld",
"MPCNC",
"remote",
"touchscreen"
] | The Mostly Printed CNC (MPCNC) is an impressive project in its own right, allowing anyone with a 3D printer and some electrical conduit to build their own fairly heavy-duty CNC platform perfect for routing. Customization is the name of the game with the MPCNC, and few machines will look the same when they’re done. But even fewer will feature a control interface nearly as slick as
the wireless handset that [Steve Croot] has put together for his.
On the hardware side, the project is fairly straightforward. Inside the 3D printed enclosure is a 4.3″ Nextion touchscreen, a Mega 2560 PRO microcontroller, a nRF24L01 2.4 GHz transceiver, and a 4000 mAh 3.7 V LiPo battery with appropriate charging circuit. Besides the physical toggle switch to turn the handheld on and off, all of the device’s functions are touch controlled. For the receiver side, [Steve] is using another nRF24L01 radio and microcontroller pair to toggle relays and shuffle the appropriate G-code commands around.
But what really makes this project shine is the software. As you can see in the video after the break, [Steve] has done an absolutely phenomenal job with the user interface on this controller. The themed boot screen and concise iconography give the controller a very professional look, and the ability to jog the machine around using taps on a virtual workspace helps keep the touch interface from being a gimmick.
We’ve seen some impressive custom-built CNC controllers over the years
, but between the mostly off-the-shelf hardware used and impressive UI, we think [Steve] has created something unique. It looks like he’s keeping the source code to himself for the time being, but hopefully he sees fit to release it in the future; a project of this caliber deserves to become more than a one-off creation.
[Thanks to jeffeb3 for the tip.] | 26 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6226017",
"author": "Max",
"timestamp": "2020-03-08T20:34:07",
"content": "Just watch out for the MPCNC creator going after you for derivative works.He has some really strange ideas on how copyright works.Thomas Sanladerer ran into some trouble by optimizing his MPCNC build:https://... | 1,760,373,563.784572 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/08/bus-sniffing-leads-to-new-display-for-vintage-casio/ | Bus Sniffing Leads To New Display For Vintage Casio | Tom Nardi | [
"classic hacks",
"hardware"
] | [
"blue pill",
"calculator",
"casio",
"lcd",
"logic analyzer",
"stm32",
"vintage"
] | Despite his best efforts to repair the LCD on his Casio FX-702P, it soon became clear to [Andrew Menadue] that it was a dead-end. Rather than toss this relatively valuable device in the trash, he wondered if would be possible to replace the LCD with a more modern display. Knowing that reverse engineering the LCD panel itself would be quite a challenge, he decided instead to focus his efforts on
decoding the communications between the calculator’s processor and display controller
.
With his logic analyzer connected to the Casio’s four bit bus [Andrew] was able to capture a sequence of bytes during startup that looked promising, although it didn’t quite make sense at first. He had to reverse the order of each nibble, pair them back up into bytes, and then consult the FX-702P’s character map as the device doesn’t use ASCII. This allowed him to decode the message “READY”, and proved the concept was viable.
Of course a calculator with a logic analyzer permanently attached to it isn’t exactly ideal, so he started work on something a bit more compact. Armed with plenty of display controller data dumps, [Andrew] wrote some code for a
STM32 “Blue Pill” ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller
that would sniff and decode the data in near real-time. In the video after the break you can see there’s a slight delay between when he pushes a button and when the corresponding character comes up on the LCD below, but it’s certainly usable.
Unfortunately, the hardware he’s created for this hack is just
slightly
too large to fit inside the calculator proper. The new LCD is also nowhere near the size and shape that would be required to replace the original one. But none of that really matters. While [Andrew] says he could certainly make the electronics smaller, the goal was never to restore the calculator to like-new condition. Sometimes it’s more about the journey than the destination. | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225993",
"author": "daveb",
"timestamp": "2020-03-08T17:38:57",
"content": "Nice work.. theres going to be a lot of lost technology and ways of doing things in the future. ..people like this make that a little less true with their work.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,373,563.713062 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/08/robot-fights-fire-with-ir/ | Robot Fights Fire With IR | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"2WD robot",
"arduino",
"atmega32u4",
"flame sensor",
"PICO board"
] | Fighting fire with robots may take jobs away from humans, but it can also save lives. [Mell Bell Electronics] has built a (supervised)
kid-friendly version of a firefighting robot
that extinguishes flames by chasing them down and blowing them out.
This hyper-vigilant robot is always on the lookout for fire, and doesn’t waste movement on anything else. As soon as it detects the presence of a flame, it centers itself on the source and speeds over to snuff it out with a fan made from a propeller and a DC motor.
Here comes the science: fire emits infrared light, and hobbyist flame sensors use IR to, well, detect fire. This fire bot has three of these flame sensors across the front that output digital data to what has got to be the world’s smallest Arduino – the ATmega32U4-based PICO board that [Mell Bell] just so happens to sell. Cover your mouth and nose and crawl along the floor toward the break to see how responsive this thing is.
Firefighters aren’t the only brave humans involved in the process of keeping the forests standing, or who feel the rising pressure of automation. Hackaday’s own [Tom Nardi] wrote a piece on
a dying breed called fire lookouts
that will no doubt ignite your interest. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225981",
"author": "markg",
"timestamp": "2020-03-08T15:48:16",
"content": "Put the IR detectors and the fan a bit higher and make Birthday Candle Bot.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6225994",
"author": "0xfred",
"time... | 1,760,373,563.880132 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/08/velocity-based-training-with-a-camera/ | Velocity Based Training, With A Camera | Jenny List | [
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"exercise",
"opencv",
"VBT",
"weight training"
] | In the world of weight training, the buzzword of the moment is VBT, or Velocity Based Training. This involves sensors being used to measure the speed and position of a weight as it moves through each repetition, and thus provide instant feedback for the athlete and glean information from which they can work upon their training routine. Typically the sensors involved may be accelerometers, but [Kris] has taken a different tack
using a webcam and machine vision to do the same job
.
The barbell has a green disc attached to its end, and the software tracks it and measures the velocity. It issues a warning when the velocity of a repetition drops below a preset level, telling the athlete to stop their set before pushing themselves too far. Under the hood is a Python script and OpenCV, and the write-up
in his GitHub repository
takes us through its camera calibration to remove the effects of distortion, and set-up. All calibration of distances within the image is made through the known size of the green disc, allowing the software to accurately chart the distance through which it travels.
We’ve not seen a machine vision approach to weight training before, but
we have seen one using accelerometers
. Maybe this project will re-ignite interest in this field. | 3 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225960",
"author": "Jeff McGehee",
"timestamp": "2020-03-08T13:06:19",
"content": "There’s an iOS app called Keelo lift that does computer vision bar tracking. I’ve been using it for years.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "62... | 1,760,373,563.920746 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/08/smashed-laptop-becomes-stylish-all-in-one/ | Smashed Laptop Becomes Stylish All-In-One | Lewin Day | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"all-in-one",
"computer",
"laptop",
"thinkpad"
] | Many of us will have broken a laptop at one point or another, destroying the screen or smashing the case. It can be frustrating, as there’s a perfectly usable computer in there, trapped inside a broken husk of a body. [Matthew] saw this not as a problem, but an opportunity –
and built a beautiful all-in-one desktop PC.
(Video, embedded below.)
With a badly damaged Thinkpad laptop to hand, an ASUS monitor was sourced with a thin body and flat back, perfect for mounting hardware. An MDF base was created, on to which the laptop motherboard was mounted. A USB hub and audio amplifier were then added, along with a USB power isolator and soundcard to avoid problems with groundloops from the onboard headphone output. Speakers were Harman Kardon units salvaged from an old television, providing great quality sound for the build.
There’s plenty of great ideas in the video, from using epoxy for a strong permanent assembly, to a nifty hack to make the power button work. It has us contemplating a build for our own broken laptops in the junkpile. We’ve seen other creative all-in-one builds too,
like this one inside a printer. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225956",
"author": "H. Hubert Dreiling",
"timestamp": "2020-03-08T12:50:07",
"content": "I have done this before with another Asus Laptop model. But I have a problem, i can not go into BIOS configuration, because it only shows on the internal display, not on a display on the VGA Po... | 1,760,373,563.835762 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/07/z80-computer-is-both-arduino-and-shield/ | Z80 Computer Is Both Arduino And Shield | Erin Pinheiro | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"arduino",
"arduino mega",
"debugger",
"retro computer",
"z80"
] | There have been plenty of Z80 computer builds here on Hackaday, but what sets them apart is what you do with them. [Andrew] writes in with
his Z80 single-board computer made from scratch, using the Arduino standard headers for its I/O
. In turn, since he needed an easy way to program the flash memory which holds the software to run on the Z80, he used an Arduino Mega as a debugger, making the SBC an Arduino shield itself.
Using such a common header pinout for the Z80 computer allows it to be used with a variety of readily-available Arduino shields. This compatibility is achieved with an analog-digital converter and a 3.3 V regulator, mimicking the pins found in an Arduino Uno. The code,
available on GitHub
, includes an extensive explanation and walkthrough over the process in which the Mega takes over the bus from the Z80 to function as a fully-featured debugger. Programs can be loaded through embedding an assembly listing into the Mega’s sketch, or, once the debugger is up you can also upload a compiled hex file through the serial connection.
This isn’t the first time [Andrew] has been featured here, and his past projects are just as interesting. If you need to
translate a Soviet-era calculator’s buttons into English
,
hack a metallurgical microscope
or even
investigate what’s that Clacking Clanking Scraping Sound
, he’s the one you should call. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225985",
"author": "BrendaEM",
"timestamp": "2020-03-08T16:18:08",
"content": "Interesting combination. I wonder why no one has fused a Raspberri Pi with a an Arduino Mega.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6225990",
"a... | 1,760,373,563.655267 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/06/mini-rc-helicopter-becomes-even-smaller-submarine/ | Mini RC Helicopter Becomes Even Smaller Submarine | Tom Nardi | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"ir control",
"remote control",
"submarine",
"underwater"
] | We often think of submarines as fairly complex pieces of machinery, and for good reason. Keeping the electronics watertight can naturally be quite difficult, and maintaining neutral buoyancy while traveling underwater is a considerable engineering challenge. But it turns out that if you’re willing to skip out on those fairly key elements of submarine design, the whole thing suddenly becomes a lot easier. Big surprise, right?
That’s precisely how [Peter Sripol] approached his latest project, which he’s claiming is
the world’s smallest remote control submarine
. We’re not qualified to say if that’s true or not, but we were certainly interested in seeing how he built the diminutive submersible. Thanks to the fact that it started life as one of those cheap infrared helicopters, it’s actually a fairly approachable project if you’re looking to make one yourself.
The larger prototype version is also very cool.
After testing that the IR communication would actually work as expected underwater, [Peter] liberated the motors and electronics from the helicopter. The motor’s wires were shortened, and the receiver PCB got a slathering of epoxy to try and keep the worst of the water out, but otherwise they were unmodified.
If you’re wondering how the ballast system works, there isn’t one. The 3D printed body angles the motors slightly downwards, so when the submarine is moving forward it’s also being pulled deeper into the water. There aren’t any control surfaces either, differential thrust between the two motors is used to turn left and right. This doesn’t make for a particularly nimble craft, but in the video after the break it certainly looks like they’re having fun with it.
Looking for a slightly more complex 3D printed submersible vehicle? Don’t worry,
we’ve got you covered
.
[Thanks to Blaubär for the tip.] | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225556",
"author": "Luke",
"timestamp": "2020-03-06T16:49:22",
"content": "Two channels is plenty to control a submarine.Example: if you create a virtual ground at half the battery voltage (small op-amp + resistors), then the motor output channel will always drive each motor backwa... | 1,760,373,564.202843 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/06/this-week-in-security-lets-encrypt-revocation-ghostcat-and-the-ridler/ | This Week In Security: Let’s Encrypt Revocation, Ghostcat, And The RIDLer | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"Ghostcat",
"HIBP",
"Letsencrypt",
"RIDL",
"This Week in Security"
] | Let’s Encrypt recently
celebrated their one billionth certificate
. That’s over 190 million websites currently secured, and thirteen full-time staff. The annual budget for Lets Encrypt is an eye-watering $3.3+ million, covered by sponsors like Mozilla, Google, Facebook, and the EFF.
A cynic might ask if we need to rewind the counter by the
three million certificates Let’s Encrypt recently announced they are revoking
as a result of a temporary security bug. That bug was in the handling of the Certificate Authority Authorization (CAA) security extension. CAA is a recent addition to the X.509 standard. A domain owner opts in by setting a CAA field in their DNS records, specifying a particular CA that is authorized to issue certificates for their domain. It’s absolutely required that when a CA issues a new certificate, it checks for a CAA record, and must refuse to issue the certificate if a different authority is listed in the CAA record.
The CAA specification specifies eight hours as the maximum time to cache the CAA check. Let’s Encrypt uses a similar automated process to determine domain ownership, and considers those results to be valid for 30 days. There is a corner case where the Let’s Encrypt validation is still valid, but the CAA check needs to be re-performed. For certificates that cover multiple domains, that check would need to be performed for each domain before the certificate can be issued. Rather validating each domain’s CAA record, the Let’s Encrypt validation system was checking one of those domain names multiple times. The problem was caught and
fixed on the 28th
.
The original announcement gave administrators 36 hours to manually renew their affected certificates. While just over half of the three million target certificates have been revoked, an
additional grace period
has been extended for the over a million certs that are still in use. Just to be clear, there aren’t over a million bad certificates in the wild, and in fact, only 445 certificates were minted that should have been prevented by a proper CAA check.
Ghostcat
Apache Tomcat, the open source Java-based HTTP server, has had a vulnerability for something like 13 years. AJP, the Apache JServ Protocol, is a binary protocol designed for server-to-server communication. An example use case would be an Apache HTTP server running on the same host as Tomcat. Apache would serve static files, and use AJP to proxy dynamic requests to the Tomcat server.
Ghostcat
,
CVE-2020-1938
, is essentially a default configuration issue. AJP was never designed to be exposed to untrusted clients, but the default Tomcat configuration enables the AJP connector and binds it to all interfaces. An attacker can craft an AJP request that allows them to read the raw contents of webapp files. This means database credentials, configuration files, and more. If the application is configured to allow file uploads, and that upload location is in the folder accessible to the attacker, the result is a full remote code execution exploit chain for any attacker.
The official recommendation is to disable AJP if you’re not using it, or bind it to localhost if you must use it. At this point, it’s negligence to leave ports exposed to the internet that aren’t being used.
Have I Been P0wned
You may remember
our coverage of [Troy Hunt]
over at
haveibeenpwned.com
. He had made the decision to sell HIBP, as a result of the strain of running the project solo for years.
In a recent blog post
, [Troy] reveals the one thing more exhausting that running HIBP: trying to sell it. After a potential buyer was chosen, and the deal was nearly sealed, the potential buyer went through a restructuring. At the end of the day, the purchase no longer made sense for either party, and they both walked away, leaving HIBP independent. It sounds like the process was stressful enough that HIBP will remain a independent entity for the foreseeable future.
You Were Warned
Remember the Microsoft Exchange vulnerability
from last week
?
Attack tools have been written
, and the internet-wide scans have begun.
Ridl Me This, Chrome
We’ve seen an abundance of speculative execution vulnerabilities over the last couple of years. While these problems are technically interesting, there has been a bit of a shortage of real-world attacks that leverage those vulnerabilities. Well, thanks to
a post over at Google’s Project Zero
, that dearth has come to an end. This attack is a sandbox escape, meaning it requires a vulnerability in the Chrome JS engine to be able to pull it off.
To understand how Ridl plays into this picture, we have to talk about how the Chrome sandbox works. Each renderer thread runs with essentially zero system privileges, and sends requests through Mojo, an inter-process communication system. Mojo uses a 128 bit numbering system to both identify and secure those IPC endpoints.
Once an attacker has taken over the unprivileged sandbox process, the next step is to figure out the port name of an un-sandboxed Mojo port. The trick is to get that privileged process to access its Mojo port name repeatedly, and then capture an access using Ridl. Once the port is known, the attacker has essentially escaped the sandbox.
The whole read is interesting, and serves as a great example of the sorts of attacks enabled by speculative execution leaks. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225530",
"author": "M&Mes",
"timestamp": "2020-03-06T15:17:59",
"content": "Also intel again.https://www.ptsecurity.com/ww-en/about/news/unfixable-vulnerability-in-intel-chipsets-threatens-users-and-content-rightsholders/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,373,564.153946 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/06/farewell-setihome/ | Farewell SETI@Home | Al Williams | [
"News"
] | [
"boinc",
"distributed computing",
"SETI",
"seti@home"
] | It was about 21 years ago that Berkley started one of the first projects that would allow you to donate idle computing time to scientific research. In particular, your computer could help crunch data from radio telescopes looking for extraterrestrial life. Want to help? You may be too late. The project is going into hibernation while they focus on analyzing data already processed.
According to the
home page
:
We’re doing this for two reasons:
1) Scientifically, we’re at the point of diminishing returns; basically, we’ve analyzed all the data we need for now.
2) It’s a lot of work for us to manage the distributed processing of data. We need to focus on completing the back-end analysis of the results we already have, and writing this up in a scientific journal paper.
So what do you think? Maybe they found ET and just don’t want to announce it too soon. Or maybe the cost of
GPU-based supercomputers
is now so low that it really doesn’t make sense to send jobs all over the Internet. Maybe everyone who used to donate is mining Bitcoin now? Or maybe they just really analyzed all their data. But what fun is that?
On the other hand, there are still other projects around that do distributed processing, most of them built on the Berkley framework BOINC.
Folding@Home
just started up a coronavirus program, for instance. If you’d rather do something more personal as a citizen scientist, you can
join the zoo
. | 59 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225463",
"author": "djsmiley2k",
"timestamp": "2020-03-06T12:10:47",
"content": "They “analyzed all their data” a long time ago, it’s been repeating the same data afaik for awhile (it may well of had extra data added, but this definitely happened for awhile). Possibly with ‘more’ i... | 1,760,373,564.303229 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/06/dumpster-finds-combined-into-4k-desktop-monitor/ | Dumpster Finds Combined Into 4K Desktop Monitor | Tom Nardi | [
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"4K",
"dell",
"LG",
"monitor",
"salvage",
"trash"
] | Dumpster diving is a time honored tradition in the hacking community. You can find all sorts of interesting hardware in the trash, and sometimes it’s even fully functional. But even the broken gadgets are worth taking back to your lair to strip for parts. If you’re as lucky as [Jamz],
you might be able to mash a few devices together and turn them into something usable
.
In this case, [Jamz] scored a LG 27UK650 monitor with a cracked display and a Dell OptiPlex 7440 “All-in-One” computer that was DOA. Separately these two pieces of gear were little more than a pile of spare parts waiting to be liberated. But if the control board could be salvaged from the monitor, and the working LCD pulled from the Dell…
After taking everything apart, [Jamz] made a frame for this new Frankenstein monitor using pieces of aluminum channel from the hardware store and 3D printed side panels. With the Dell LCD mounted in the skeletal frame, the control board from the LG monitor was bolted to the back and wired in. Finally the center section of the LG monitor’s back panel was cut out and mounted to the new hybrid display with a 3D printed frame.
Admittedly, these were some pretty solid finds as far as trash goes. You won’t always be so lucky. But if you can keep an open mind, the curb is littered with possibilities. How about some impressive
home lighting that started life as a cracked flat screen TV
? | 31 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225441",
"author": "lurker",
"timestamp": "2020-03-06T10:31:08",
"content": "Congrats. Definitely lucky one.The only thing I found “worth” the dive recently was a Playstation 2 in great condition, I still had the accessories and cables.I have to go to the waste management park* tod... | 1,760,373,564.376264 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/05/pump-up-the-windows-volume-with-physical-sliders/ | Pump Up The (Windows) Volume With Physical Sliders | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino nano",
"linear pot",
"slide pot",
"volume control",
"Windows volume mixer"
] | For as long as we can remember, Windows has provided a mixer that breaks out the volume level of every applicable application into its own slider-controlled lane. But navigating to these controls is non-trivial, especially if you’re in a hurry to silence someone on team speak. You have to stop what you’re doing, click the speaker, go into the mixer, and then go find the appropriate slider. Windows won’t respect resizes between mixer visits, so
you’ll almost always have some horizontal scrolling to do.
So why on Earth would you put yourself through all of this when
you could be pushing physical sliders on the fly like a DJ?
A slider is just a potentiometer in a straight line, after all.
These are wired up to an Arduino Nano, which sends the serial data to a Python script on the PC that changes the volume values accordingly for whatever five programs are in the config file. Thanks to a little bit of Visual Basic, the Python script can run in the background.
[Aithorn]’s got everything you need to replicate this, so slide on over and grab the STL files and code. If you get to point where
these
sliders are too small, just
build some bigger ones
. | 20 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225408",
"author": "macsimski",
"timestamp": "2020-03-06T06:39:04",
"content": "/me mumbles something about midi… Yes i know. Its also serial data.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6225412",
"author": "Penny N Giles",
"t... | 1,760,373,564.497276 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/05/brute-forced-copyrighting-liberating-all-the-melodies/ | Brute-Forced Copyrighting: Liberating All The Melodies | Sven Gregori | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"brute force",
"composing",
"copyright",
"copyright infringement",
"intellectual property",
"law",
"legal",
"melody",
"midi",
"music",
"philosophy"
] | Bluntly stated, music is in the end just applied physics. Harmony follows — depending on the genre — a more or less fixed set of rules, and there are a limited amount of variation possible within the space of music itself. So there are technically only so many melodies possible, making it essentially a question of time until a songwriter or composer would come up with a certain sequence of notes without knowing that they’re not the first one to do so until the cease and desist letters start rolling in.
You might well argue that there is more to a song than just the melody — and you are absolutely right. However, current copyright laws and past court rulings may not care much about that. Aiming to point out these flaws in the laws, musician tech guy with a law degree [Damien Riehl] and musician software developer [Noah Rubin] got together
to simply create every possible melody as MIDI files
, releasing them under the Creative Commons Zero license. While their current list is limited to
a few scales of fixed length
, with the code
available on GitHub
, it’s really just a matter of brute-forcing literally every single possible melody.
Admittedly, such a list of melodies might not have too much practical use, but for [Damien] and [Noah] it’s anyway more about the legal and philosophical aspects: musicians shouldn’t worry about getting sued over a few overlapping notes. So while the list serves as a “safe set of melodies” they put in the public domain, their bigger goal is to mathematically point out the finite space of music that shouldn’t be copyrightable in the first place. And they definitely have a point — just imagine where music would be today
if you could copyright and sue over chord progressions
. | 23 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225377",
"author": "jb",
"timestamp": "2020-03-06T03:16:11",
"content": "Reminds me of Nick Briz’s Coldplay Song Generatorhttp://nickbriz.com/blog/?p=171",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6225378",
"author": "Gravis",
"ti... | 1,760,373,564.621437 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/05/robotic-ball-bouncer-uses-machine-vision-to-stay-on-target/ | Robotic Ball Bouncer Uses Machine Vision To Stay On Target | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"ball",
"bouncer",
"Hough transform",
"juggling",
"machine vision",
"opencv",
"ping pong",
"platform",
"stepper",
"Teensy"
] | When we first caught a glimpse of
this ball juggling platform
, we were instantly hooked by its appearance. With its machined metal linkages and clear polycarbonate platform, its got an irresistibly industrial look. But as fetching as it may appear, it’s even cooler in action.
You may recognize the name [T-Kuhn] as well as sense the roots of the “Octo-Bouncer” from his
previous juggling robot
. That earlier version was especially impressive because it used microphones to listen to the pings and pongs of the ball bouncing off the platform and determine its location. This version went the optical feedback route, using a camera mounted under the platform to track the ball using OpenCV on a Windows machine. The platform linkages are made from 150 pieces of CNC’d aluminum, with each arm powered by a NEMA 17 stepper with a planetary gearbox. Motion control is via a Teensy, chosen for its blazing-fast clock speed which makes for smoother acceleration and deceleration profiles. Watch it in action from multiple angles in the video below.
Hats off to [T-Kuhn] for an excellent build and a mesmerizing device to watch. Both his jugglers do an excellent job of keeping the ball under control; his
robotic ball-flinger
is designed to throw the ball to the same spot every time. | 20 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225344",
"author": "Leandro Heck",
"timestamp": "2020-03-06T00:35:48",
"content": "Is it possible to keep de ball at the same height always?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6225370",
"author": "qwert",
"timest... | 1,760,373,564.557717 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/07/if-coffee-true/ | If Coffee == True { | Bryan Cockfield | [
"internet hacks"
] | [
"amazon web services",
"AWS",
"coffee",
"ESP8266",
"NodeMCU",
"office",
"simple notification system",
"slack",
"sns",
"wifi"
] | Having a shared coffee maker in the workplace is both a blessing and a curse. It’s nice to have constant access to coffee, but it can be frustrating to find the coffee pot emptied right as you walk in to the break room. To solve this problem in their office, [Vitort] and co.
built an IOT solution that notifies everyone of the current coffee status on a Slack channel
.
This project wasn’t built just as a convenience for the office, either. It makes extensive use of AWS SNS, the simple notification system from Amazon Web Services because they wanted to learn to use this technology specifically. Besides the notification system, the device itself is based on a NodeMCU/ESP8266, communicating over WiFi, and is a simple push-button design which coffee drinkers push when a fresh pot is made, and then push again when the coffee is empty.
While relatively straightforward, this project is a good one to look at if you’ve been interested in AWS at all, especially the simple notification system. It’s a pretty versatile tool, and all of the code used in the project is available on the project page for your reading pleasure. If you’re more interested in the coffee aspect of this project,
we have a special coffee maker for you too
. | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225904",
"author": "YGDES",
"timestamp": "2020-03-08T03:16:49",
"content": "418 I’m a teapotwikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper_Text_Coffee_Pot_Control_Protocol",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6225987",
"author": "M&Mes",
... | 1,760,373,564.431396 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/07/that-retro-video-look-without-the-tapes/ | That Retro Video Look, Without The Tapes | Jenny List | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"camcorder",
"digital video",
"Mini-DV"
] | We’re lucky to live in an age of rapid technological advancement, lucky in more ways than one because as well as receiving a constant supply of new things, we have the benefit of the older tech that once we lusted over, at knock-down prices. [Luke Baker] spent his youth as a skateboarder, and the cameras of desire in that community were the high-end MiniDV models. They may not have high definition but their output has a Millennial aesthetic that captures the period, so he’s brought one into the 2020s
by adding a digital SD card recorder designed for a multirotor to it
.
On the face of it this is a pretty straightforward job of coupling an off-the-shelf recorder to a battery and the camera’s analogue output terminals. But the resulting spaghetti on what is supposed to be a portable device is hardly attractive, so he’s created an all-in-one 3D-printed enclosure that is attached to the camera’s handle with a set of cable ties. It’s shaped to fit the recorder and has a sliding lid over the battery compartment, and he’s added a handy on-off switch. Whether or not he takes it to the skate park in a bid to roll back the decades, as you can see int he video below the break it’s a well-executed piece of work that should serve to remind that there’s still life in some of this easily-available old tech if you’re prepared for a bit of lateral thinking.
This isn’t the first vintage video hack we’ve seen,
back in 2016 we were treated to the grainy period feel of a vintage 8mm camera through the eye of a Raspberry Pi
. | 11 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225912",
"author": "Menga",
"timestamp": "2020-03-08T03:48:48",
"content": "Great hack. It’s nice to have off the shelf components to solve that quickly.The “video look” cannot be achived convincely in software.I always wonder if you can hook up a better brain to one of those camer... | 1,760,373,564.676165 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/07/an-8085-retrocomputer-from-the-heart/ | An 8085 Retrocomputer From The Heart | Jenny List | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"8085",
"retrocomputer",
"single board computer"
] | The world of 8-bit retrocomputing splits easily into tribes classified by their choice of processor. There are 6809 enthusiasts, 6502 diehards, and Z80 lovers, each sharing a bond to their particular platform that often threads back through time to whatever was the first microcomputer they worked with. Here it’s the Z80 as found in the Sinclair ZX81, but for you it might be the 6502 from an Apple ][. For [Craig Andrews]
it’s the 8085
, and after many years away from the processor he’s finally been able to return to it and recreate his first ever design using it. The SBC-85 is not wire-wrapped as the original was, instead he’s well on the way to creating an entire ecosystem based around an edge-connector backplane.
The CPU board is an entire computer in its own right as can be seen in the video below the break, and pairs the 8085 with 8k of RAM, a couple of 2732 4k EPROMs, and an 8155 interface chip. This last component is especially versatile, providing an address latch, timer, I/O ports, and even an extra 256 bytes of RAM. Finally there is some glue logic and a MAX232 level shifter for a serial port, with no UART needed since the 8085 has one built-in. The minimal computer capable with this board can thus be slimmed down significantly, something that competing processors of the mid 1970s often struggled with.
Craig’s web site is shaping up to be a fascinating resource for 8085 enthusiasts, and so far the system sports that backplane and a bus monitor card. We don’t see much of the 8085 here at Hackaday, perhaps because it wasn’t the driver for any of the popular 8-bit home computers. But it’s an architecture that many readers will find familiar due to its 8080 heritage, and could certainly be found in many control applications before the widespread adoption of dedicated microcontrollers. It would be interesting to see where Craig takes this next, with more cards, and perhaps making a rival to
the RC2014
over in Z80 country. | 22 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225834",
"author": "Old Guy",
"timestamp": "2020-03-07T21:23:59",
"content": "Everyone has their own stuff that they like. This kind of “primitive” (non-Arduino, non-Pi) stuff is one of the things I like, so thanks for this article and video. I own a Raspberry Pi so I do move wit... | 1,760,373,564.740037 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/07/a-calculator-in-2020/ | A Calculator In 2020? | Elliot Williams | [
"Roundup",
"Slider"
] | [
"calculator",
"newsletter",
"Scientific Calculator"
] | This week, Al Williams wrote up an article on what might be the
last scientific calculator
. Back in the day, the fanciest of scientific calculators had not just sin, cos, and tan, but were also programmable so that you could code in frequently used formulae. And the calculator that he reviews is certainly powerful: with a screen, processor, and memory almost rivalling a mid-scale smartphone.
Wait a minute! “Almost”? I have a smartphone in my pocket right now. Why would I want something less powerful, when all that the calculator brings to the table is a bit of software? And that app can even be purchased for $20!
I’ll confess. I want a proper desktop calculator from time to time. But why? Sure, I can run calculations on the very computer that I’m using to type right now. And in terms of programming languages, the resources are far superior on my laptop. Unit conversions?
Units
, or the
Interwebs
. Heck, I can even
type calculations directly into the Unix world’s default editor
.
But there’s something nice about the single-purpose device. Maybe it’s the feel of the keys. Maybe it’s because it doesn’t require a context-switch on the computer. Maybe it’s irrational calculator nostalgia. Or maybe it’s an elegant tool from a more civilized age: the user experience is better because the tool is just simpler.
I like stand-alone devices that do their one thing right, and I almost always pick them over their more complex, if also more capable, counterparts when I only need that function. The fixed wrench over the adjustable wrench. The standalone audio recorder over my computer’s software. The simple bench power supply over the programmable. And, when I’m actually setting out to take good photos, a real camera instead of my cell phone’s. Purpose-built tools tend to work much better for their purpose than devices that try to do everything.
The days of the standalone calculator are nearly gone, though, so what am I going to do? I’m certainly not going to shell out megabucks for an overly-fancy calculator, nor am I going to be lured by nostalgia into picking up an antique at the ridiculous prices they fetch online. That leaves one option, and it’s both the Hackaday and the Jedi way. I’m going to have to build it myself. Where am I going to get a nice-feeling numeric keypad?
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
! | 91 | 34 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225783",
"author": "MrSVCD",
"timestamp": "2020-03-07T18:16:32",
"content": "I bought a Sinclair scientific clone, running using a arduino board and I had some hopes of writing a new firmware for it (long, long term project) since it is not as limited as the original calculator chi... | 1,760,373,565.228338 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/07/vanquish-your-foes-with-lego-playing-card-machine-gun/ | Vanquish Your Foes With Lego Playing Card Machine Gun | Jenny List | [
"Toy Hacks",
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"lego",
"lego gun",
"playing card gun",
"playing cards"
] | There was something exceptionally satisfying about those playground games of cops and robbers when we were young, but they were missing something in that a pretend gun made with your fingers lacks a certain
Je ne sais quoi
. Our youthful blood-lust demanded something a bit more real, and though the likes of NERF and other toys could supply it their lost projectiles came at a price not all parents could sustain. We’d have given anything for [Brick Experiment Channel]’s
rapid-firing Lego playing card gun
! (Video, embedded below.)
The principle is simple enough, one of the larger Lego road wheels is spun up to a respectable speed through a gear train from a pair of motors, it’s positioned over a channel through which playing cards are fed, and it picks each one up and accelerates it to a claimed 20 miles per hour. The card is fired off into the distance, ready to take down your Lego figure or plastic drinking cup enemies with maximum prejudice.
It’s clear some significant thought has gone into the firing platform design, with the cards sliding along smooth rails and the wheel sitting in a gap between the rails so that the natural springiness of the card can engage with it. The cards also emerge with a spin, due to the wheel being offset. The mechanism is completed with a third motor which acts as a feeder pushing individual cards from the deck into the main firing platform. This achieves an astonishing six cards per second, as can be seen in the video below the break.
We can see that this is a huge amount of fun, and we hope should any youngsters get their hands on it that there are not lurid tales of kids with playing card injuries. It’s not the first novelty projectile gun we’ve brought you, there have been numerous
rubber band guns
but our favourite is the
automatic paper plane folder and launcher
. | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225766",
"author": "Jesse Jenkins",
"timestamp": "2020-03-07T16:53:53",
"content": "Je ne c’est quoi?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6225826",
"author": "cuagn",
"timestamp": "2020-03-07T20:22:15",
"c... | 1,760,373,564.895068 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/07/a-super-brain-for-an-e-bike/ | A Super-Brain For An E-bike | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"arm",
"bicycle",
"data",
"development",
"ebike",
"electric bike",
"I/O",
"logging",
"microcontroller",
"motorcycle",
"pyboard",
"stacking"
] | There’s no better way of improving a project than logging data to make informed decisions on future improvements. When it came to [Brian]’s latest project, an electric bike, he wanted to get as much data as he could from the time he turned it on until the time he was finished riding. He turned to
a custom pyBoard-based device
(and wrote it up on
Hackaday.io
), but made it stackable in order to get as much information from his bike as possible.
This isn’t so much an ebike project as it is about a microcontroller platform that can be used as a general purpose device. All of the bike’s controls flow through this device as a logic layer, so everything that can possibly be logged is logged, including the status of the motor and battery at any given moment. This could be used for virtually any project, and the modular nature means that you could scale it up or down based on your specific needs. The device is based on an ARM microcontroller so it has plenty of power, too.
While the microcontroller part is exceptionally useful ([Brian] talks about
some of its other uses here
and gives us even more data on his
personal webpage
), we shouldn’t miss
the incredible bike
that [Brian] built either. It has a 3 kW rear hub motor and can reach speeds of around 60 mph. While we let the commenters below hash out the classic argument of “bicycle vs. motorcyle” we’ll be checking out some
electric vehicles that are neither
. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225757",
"author": "Rex",
"timestamp": "2020-03-07T15:46:31",
"content": "No pedals, it’s not a bike.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6225761",
"author": "Bob Magana",
"timestamp": "2020-03-07T16:16:03",
... | 1,760,373,564.809727 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/07/tweet-your-bbc-basic-code-to-the-cloud/ | Tweet Your BBC Basic Code To The Cloud | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"bbc basic",
"bbc:micro",
"twitter"
] | From the “things we like, but can’t explain why file” comes the
BBC-Micro-bot twitter robot
. BBC Basic was a staple in the UK and if you tweet a BBC Basic program to @bbcmicrobot you’ll get a reply with a 30 second video of your program being emulated in all its glory.
As you can see in the above tweet, the code can get a bit terse, but if you look at the bot’s feed you can find some
more legible examples
. As the author, [@Dominic Pajak] said:
You might want to use fewer and smaller line numbers, fewer spaces and check out the minimum abbreviations for BBC BASIC keywords to achieve this.
The output from the code is a video because you see the emulated machine’s screen during the 30 second run. We know this is a sort of pointless exercise, but there’s something cool about seeing vintage code populating your Twitter feed.
It looks like the ‘bot has some defense against bad words. We assume it is looking at the output so your tricks to pick your bad word out of every other character of a string probably won’t work. Probably. We didn’t feel like risking a ban to find out.
Of course, you can run a lot of
old computers in your browser
. You might think this was the first 6502 we’ve seen in the cloud, but
you’d be really wrong
. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225839",
"author": "Emyr Derfel",
"timestamp": "2020-03-07T21:49:56",
"content": "10 PRINT “Hello, world!”20 GOTO 10REM Job done.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,373,564.930921 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/06/using-voice-commands-to-start-a-jeep/ | Using Voice Commands To Start A Jeep | Lewin Day | [
"car hacks"
] | [
"Jeep",
"voice command",
"voice control"
] | If you’ve got a car built in the last 5 years or so, it’s quite likely it’s started by the push of a button when in the presence of a keyfob. Older vehicles make do with the twist of a key. Of course, starting a car by voice command would be cool,
and that’s what [John Forsyth] set out to do
.
The build uses a Macbook to handle voice recognition, using its Dictation feature. With a hefty download, it’s capable of doing the task offline, making things easier. The dictated words are passed to a Python script, which searches for words like “start” and “go” as a trigger. When an appropriate command is received, the Python script sends a signal over a USB-serial connection to an attached Arduino. The Arduino then toggles a relay connected to the Jeep’s external starter solenoid, starting the vehicle.
As a fan of recent popular films, [John] programmed the system to respond to the command “Jarvis, let’s get things going!”, causing the vehicle to spring into life. There’s room for future improvement, too – the system could benefit from being a little more compact, and there’s a long delay between finishing the sentence and the vehicle starting. A Raspberry Pi and faster dictation software could likely help in this regard.
We’ve seen voice commands used for everything from
chess
to
finding electronic components.
Video after the break. | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225714",
"author": "NachtRitter",
"timestamp": "2020-03-07T06:19:16",
"content": "Oh hell, I’ve used voice commands to start my car for decades. Occasionally it even (seemed) to work!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6225716",
... | 1,760,373,564.985164 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/06/a-quick-and-easy-recipe-for-synthetic-rubies/ | A Quick And Easy Recipe For Synthetic Rubies | Dan Maloney | [
"chemistry hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"aluminum oxide",
"arc welder",
"chromium oxide",
"corundum",
"crucible",
"graphite",
"ruby"
] | With what it takes to make synthetic diamonds – the crushing pressures, the searing temperatures – you’d think similar conditions would be needed for any synthetic gemstone. Apparently not, though, as [NightHawkInLight] reveals his
trivially easy method for making synthetic rubies
.
Like their gemstone cousin the sapphire, rubies are just a variety of corundum, or aluminum oxide. Where sapphire gets its blue tint mainly from iron, rubies get their pink to blood-red hue from chromium. So [NightHawkInLight]’s recipe starts with aluminum oxide grit-blasting powder and chromium (III) oxide, a common green pigment and one of the safer compounds in a family that includes spectacularly toxic species like hexavalent chromium compounds. When mixed together, the two powders are heated in a graphite crucible using an arc welder with a carbon electrode. The crucible appears to be made from an EDM electrode; we’ve seen them used for
air bearings
before, but small crucibles are another great use for the stuff. There’s some finesse required to keep the nascent rubies from scattering all over the place, but in the end, [NightHawkInLight] was rewarded with a large, deep pink ruby.
This looks like a fun, quick little project to try sometime. We wonder if the method can be refined to create
the guts of a ruby laser
, or if perhaps it can be used to create sapphires instead. | 37 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225696",
"author": "Isaac",
"timestamp": "2020-03-07T04:22:34",
"content": "Linde did it decades ago — rubies, sapphires, maybe some others. Google on Linde star.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6225717",
"author": "T... | 1,760,373,565.307818 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/06/darpa-challenge-autonomous-robot-teams-to-navigate-unfinished-nuclear-power-plant/ | DARPA Challenge Autonomous Robot Teams To Navigate Unfinished Nuclear Power Plant | Roger Cheng | [
"contests",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"autonomous drone",
"autonomous robot",
"cave",
"cave mapping",
"darpa",
"DARPA Robotic Challenge",
"robotics",
"underground"
] | Robots might be finding their footing above ground, but today’s autonomous robots have a difficult time operating underground. DARPA wanted to give the state of the art a push forward, so they are running a Subterranean (SubT) Challenge which just wrapped up its latest round. A great review of this Urban Circuit competition (and some of the teams participating in it)
has been published by IEEE Spectrum
. This is the second of three underground problem subdomains presented to the participants, six months apart, preparing them for the final event which will combine all three types.
If you
missed the livestream
or prefer edited highlight videos, they’re all part of
DARPAtv’s Subterranean Challenge playlist
. Today it starts with a compilation of Urban Circuit highlights and continues to other videos. Including team profiles, video walkthrough of competition courses, actual competition footage, edited recap videos, and the awards ceremony. Half of the playlist are video from the Tunnels Circuit six months ago, so we can compare to see how teams performed and
what they’ve learned along the way
. Many more lessons were learned in the just-completed Urban Circuit and teams will spend the next six months improving their robots. By then we’ll have the Caves Circuit competition with teams ready to learn new lessons about operating robots underground.
The systems track (actual robots in real world environments) competition took place at an unfinished nuclear power plant in Elma, Washington. Its less-than-pristine concrete and metal environment represented complex urban underground infrastructure. If the facility looks familiar, that may be because it is also occasionally rented by the entertainment industry for filming. This SubT competition was likely the innocent reason why DARPA sent out
some ominous-sounding tweets
several few months ago. As outlined in that request, the two competition courses challenged robots with navigating irregular shaped areas spanning from claustrophobic tight quarters to spaces the size of auditoriums, spread across multiple floors.
All of this is only dimly lit (if at all) so robots using cameras needed to bring their own bright lights. To solve the challenge of widely varying terrain, many teams sent in groups of different robots and each were deployed for their specialties. For these robots to coordinate, they also had to bring their own networking infrastructure. We see several robots setting down mesh network nodes that can also function as location beacons, just like Hansel and Gretel’s bread crumbs.
Read the IEEE Spectrum story for more stories of last-minute hacks. See the team that chopped chunks out of their robot wheels to help it climb stairs, the team that rushed out and bought a laptop computer to replace a fried robot brain, and the team that put a member on a trans-Pacific flight as overnight courier for critical replacement parts.
For those that rather watch videos, here is DARPAtv’s playlist for Subterranean Challenge. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225682",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2020-03-07T02:01:33",
"content": "Needs subterranean GPS. Neutrino detector for “sun is that way”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6225683",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
... | 1,760,373,565.353622 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/06/esp8266-adds-web-control-to-old-home-theater/ | ESP8266 Adds Web Control To Old Home Theater | Tom Nardi | [
"home entertainment hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"ESP8266",
"home theater",
"ir prototocol",
"remote control",
"web interface"
] | There was a time when you could hold onto a TV or A/V receiver for the better part of the decade and not feel as though you were missing out on the latest and greatest features. But today you’re lucky to get three years out of a “smart” TV before it’s either supplanted by a vastly improved version, or falls victim to some weird issue that (surprise, surprise) means you need to buy a new one.
A simple touch interface hosted on the ESP8266
Not content with the status quo of planned obsolescence, [aamarioneta] recently set out to
add a sprinkling of modern convenience to a circa 2008 Denon AVR 2308
home theater receiver. Like any good A/V receiver, the AVR 2308 features a dizzying array of ports on the back panel, one of which happens to be for an external infrared receiver. This turned out to be the perfect place to jack in an ESP8266, earning this 12 year old receiver an honorary membership into the Internet of Things.
The interesting thing about this hack is that there’s actually no IR involved. Sure, the code could be used to drive an IR LED attached to the ESP8266’s GPIO pins, and the AVR 2308 would respond as if the original remote was being used; but where’s the fun in that? Thanks to the receiver port, they’re able to inject the IR codes directly into the device. It’s the same protocol, just without the photons.
With a simple web-interface running on the ESP8266, they can control the AVR 2308 from a smartphone’s browser anywhere in the house. From here it would only take a few more lines of code to tie it into an existing home automation system or
add in support for Alexa voice control
.
We love seeing
projects that add modern features to older hardware
, as that’s one less piece of gear sent to an early grave because its owner felt they were behind the curve.
It’s getting a bit unfriendly out there for consumers
, and anything that puts the power back into the owner’s hands is a step in the right direction. | 23 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225630",
"author": "N",
"timestamp": "2020-03-06T21:37:43",
"content": "It would be totally awesome to make this work with other hardware, with an actual IR LED, a detector for training, and some software this could be a generic way to replace an old school remote with an app on yo... | 1,760,373,565.423893 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/06/mithro-runs-down-open-source-fpga-toolchains/ | Mithro Runs Down Open Source FPGA Toolchains | Elliot Williams | [
"cons",
"FPGA",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"artix-7",
"fpga",
"iCE40",
"icestorm",
"lattice",
"nextpnr",
"symbiflow",
"xilinx",
"yosys"
] | Tim [Mithro] Ansell
has a lot to tell you about the current state of open FPGA tooling
: 115 slides in 25 minutes if you’re counting.
His SymbiFlow project
aims to be the GCC of FPGA toolchains: cross-platform, multi-platform, completely free, and all-encompassing. That means that it’s an umbrella framework for all of the work that everyone else is doing, from work on synthesis and verification tools, to placing and routing, to vendor-specific chip libraries. His talk catches you up with the state of the art at the end of 2019, and it’s embedded below. Spoiler alert: SymbiFlow has the big Xilinx 7-series FPGAs in its crosshairs, and is closing in. SymbiFlow is
that close
to getting a networked Linux system on the FPGA fabric in a Xilinx 7 today, completely independent of any vendor tools.
But let’s step back a sec for a little background. When you code for an FPGA, words you type get turned into a bitstream of ones and zeroes that flip perhaps a few million switches inside the chip. Going from a higher-level language to a bitstream is a lot like compiling normal programming languages, except with the twist that the resulting computational logic doesn’t map straight into a machine language, but rather into lower-level physical hardware on the FPGA. So “compilation” for FPGAs involves two steps: synthesis and place-and-routing. Synthesis takes the higher-level language that you write and turns it into a set of networks and timing requirements that represent the same logic, and can work across chip families.
Yosys
is the open-source synthesis tool of choice here.
Place-and-route then maps the program logic into the individual FPGA’s architecture and feature set, and it’s here that reverse engineering work has and is being done to accommodate more FPGA families.
nextpnr
takes the program logic and maps it into FPGA gates, and it can’t do this without detailed descriptions of the various chips’ internals. For this, SymbiFlow splits each FPGA chip family into its own bitstream documentation and tooling projects. So far, we’ve got Project
IceStorm
for the Lattice iCE40 chips, Project
Trellis
for the Lattice ECP5s that were on the Supercon badge, and Project
X-Ray
for the Xilinx 7s.
Mithro starts the talk off by mentioning that the goal is to cover all FPGAs with one toolchain. That’s an incredible goal that’s far, far away. But progress is being made ridiculously fast. In early 2018, for instance, only the Lattice iCE40 parts were really well understood and supported. This FPGA was picked because
it’s accessible
, cheap, and was easy to reverse engineer, but Lattice’s market share is approximately zero. Xilinx and Altera are the Intel and AMD of the FPGA world, and without coverage of their chips, the project can only be said to be just getting off the ground. However, within a year, Dave Shah had essentially completely documented the much more powerful Lattice ECP5, and we were able to bring you the Hackaday Supercon Badge. So much for Lattice.
As alluded to in the opening, the real story here is the tremendous progress made in 2019 on Xilinx parts. As Project X-ray got seriously underway, some parts of nextpnr turned out to be more Lattice-specific than previously thought, and a new place-and-route tool
Verilog to Routing
developed at the University of Toronto, got pulled into SymbiFlow.
At the same time, some of the synthesis steps in Yosys weren’t taking optimal use of some of the more advanced functionality of the Xilinx parts, like the specialized digital-signal processing blocks (DSP), and made great progress on that front in 2019. (Of course, some of the optimizations of DSP on the Xilinx 7 chips spilled over to the Lattice ECP5s, so everyone wins.)
Which brings us to the punchline. Can SymbiFlow fully replace Xilinx’s proprietary (and unwieldy) Vivado toolchain? No, because the FPGA’s high-speed peripherals don’t play nice with the open place-and-route yet. And while Mithro said in the talk that the Symbiflow consortium were working full-out to get to that point by the end of 2019, we talked to him on Dec 29th, and they were still at it. But if you’re asking us, we’d predict that we will see a full and fully open Xilinx 7 toolchain in 2020. Maybe even this summer? It’s a project that’s near and dear to our hearts, so we’ll keep you in the loop.
But while Mithro, being a Linux/software guy at heart, is focused on getting a fully open toolchain to build up a Linux system, you shouldn’t be discouraged from trying anything else on the Xilinx 7 or Lattice parts
right now
. Both of these flows are entirely functional for microcontrollery or IoT applications. As long as you don’t need the high-speed memory and Ethernet peripherals, you’re good to go. And if you do need those things, you can synthesize with Yosys and do place-and-route with the closed Vivado tools until SymbiFlow ticks off a couple more boxes. There’s never been a better time than NOW to get started with FPGAs, IMHO. | 28 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225622",
"author": "Alan Hightower",
"timestamp": "2020-03-06T20:54:43",
"content": "It’s Xilinx not XiLEX. I nearly stopped watching after the first 20 mispronunciations. But hats off to these guys for what they are doing.Lattice market share has grown beyond 10% in 2019/2020 fo... | 1,760,373,565.499719 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/06/from-hacker-hotel-2020-badges-sharks-tentacles-old-school-hacking-and-much-more/ | From Hacker Hotel 2020: Badges, Sharks, Tentacles, Old-School Hacking, And Much More | Jenny List | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"hacker camp",
"Hacker Hotel",
"Netherlands"
] | The North Sea in a winter storm is a spectacular sight, one of foam-crested waves and squalls driven on the gale. It’s not a place to spend a lot of time if you are a land-lubber, so to cross it twice in a few weeks must mean there is something very much worth seeing on its other side.
More of that exotic cruise ship lifestyle.
But one of the best antidotes to February weather in the European hacker community was
Hacker Hotel 2020
. Around 350 people came from all the countries of the northwest of the continent to the comfort and hospitality of the
Westcord Hotel de Veluwe
in the eastern Netherlands, to experience a hacker camp with all the convenience and luxury of a resort hotel rather than a muddy field.
Three days in this environment results in a camp that’s just a bit special, and one that’s very much worth a visit if your range extends this far.
An Upscale Hotel Gets The Hacker Treatment
The Hacker Hotel badge 2020 has many hidden depths
Our small party of Brits arrived a day early, on a damp Thursday morning ready to lend a hand with the set-up. Slowly an upscale business conference centre was transformed into a hacker camp venue, with conference rooms turned into lecture halls, lighting and video equipment in place and 3-phase power cables snaking along the skirting boards. A large hardware hacking area was set up in one wing of the building, then the
EventInfra
people came in and laid out a hacker-camp-grade wireless and wired network that delivered connectivity everywhere. The contrast between the two worlds is significant, but together they make for a unique experience.
One by one, hackers arrived from all points of the compass, bearing crates of the usual cool stuff. An amateur TV satellite earth station, a brace of oversized delta 3D printers, a coin-pushing game that’s familiar from other camps. And smaller projects; little roving robots, indoor-sized multirotors, and several crates of outdated Chinese photo-frames that it’s said can be hacked to run a Linux distro.
This is the lifeblood of a hacker camp, but of course the signature piece of hardware for any hacker camp is its badge. In this Hacker Hotel 2020 didn’t disappoint, with a beautifully designed Ancient Egyptian-themed badge that concealed an array of puzzles across multiple levels. We’ll cover the badge in detail in a separate piece, but suffice to say that it is something of a tour de force. For now let’s jump into all of people and activities on offer at the con.
Plenty Of Talks To Occupy Your Brain
Dimitri throws thew switch to change the
SpaceAPI
state and declare the event open.
This event is one with a bit more software and infosec than hardware, but there was still plenty to amuse the hardware enthusiast and plenty of interesting stuff from the rest of the programme. The schedule kicked off with
organiser Dimitri Modderman’s welcome
, then proceeded straight into a (sadly not recorded) talk from Walter Belgers on UNIX hacking by students in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Nostalgic for me, who at the same time could often be found wrestling with text-mode SPICE or pulling down Amiga shareware in a similar lab at another European university.
The talks had more of an emphasis on infosec and software than hardware, even the promising-looking open-source SOC talk from [Roel van der Valk] was about Security Operations Centres rather than Systems On Chip. Worth seeking out are
[Sake Blok] on using Wireshark
, [David], on
the coffee roasting process and creating a coffee roasting product for Kickstarter
, and perennial locksport speaker
[Jos Weyers], on attacking master key systems
.
An unexpected talk of interest came from [Anco Scholte ter Horst], on
the establishment of the Dutch ISP Freedom Internet
. While it has a lot specific to the Netherlands and the history of their first ISP XS4ALL, it was interesting to a non-Dutch person because setting up an ISP is something that happens vanishingly rarely in 2020.
Plenty Of Hacks To Please Your Eye
Upstairs in the hardware hacking area was the usual array of projects, and people clustered for hours round their laptops solving the badge puzzles. There were a few large exhibits, and some stand-out projects. On entry you might have heard some guitar music. [XDr4g0nX]’s bass guitar is 3D printed, and
we’ve covered the tale of its construction elsewhere
.
A (Mostly) 3D-printed guitar
The robot tentacle shows its reach.
The tentacle “knuckle” mechanism.
[Yvo de Haas] had brought along a tentacle-like mechanical robot arm with a very clever mechanism of interlinking segments coupled by gears, all controlled by a set of cables driven by two windlasses. The mechanism was under compression while the cables were under tension, making it a very stable structure indeed. Control was through a joystick and an Arduino driving the windlasses. I have a feeling that this is a project of which we will see more in the future, as he has plans to extend it beyond this prototype into more comprehensive robot arm functionality.
All this shark needs is a laser beam!
One of these retrocomputers is new.
A working MB Vectrex, not something you see every day.
The LED/resin cube in all its glory.
Meanwhile on another table was [Boekenwuurm], with two particularly eye-catching pieces of work. The first was an inflatable textile project that’s been on the go for a while. I mentioned that I’d seen an earlier set of experiments at
the eth0 weekend camp last year
, here she was taking that to the next level. There seems to be a fascination among sections of the European hacker community with the IKEA Blahåj stuffed shark, and in homage as her prototype she’d made
a very impressive inflatable shark
supplied with air from an electric leaf blower. Then she had also brought along an addressable LED cube cast within a clear resin cube which caught the attention of all passers-by. It sat on a pedestal containing its electronics, and was possessed of an almost-otherworldly glow. We’ve seen it all when it comes to addressable LEDs, and yet this one caught our attention.
Beyond that there was a collection of retrocomputers from [Benadski], and an amateur radio station with a special interest in TV. Sadly I’m told they didn’t manage the satellite contact they were hoping for, but they had plenty of other activity aside from their HF WSPR beacon.
How many badges do you recognise?
Finally there was a project of mine with a little help from my friends across the European electronic badge community. I’ve spoken and written in more than one place in the past about how the astonishing creativity of the BadgeLife scene is an artistic movement coming entirely from within our community, and that it should be identified and established as such. To that end I’ve been working on the beginnings of a community-owned traveling museum with the aim of exhibiting at European hacker camps. In this I’m not alone, on the other side of the Atlantic [
Marie-Lynn Richard
] has been working on a similar project for the benefit of North Americans. Hacker Hotel 2020 saw the first proof-of-concept for our European exhibition, just two exhibits this time showing the progression of badges from both British and Dutch events. Watch this space for our future outings.
All good things come to an end, and with our ferry booked the following day we were able to help with the teardown. The hotel emerged from amid the wires and screens, and we are indebted to the staff for tolerating our eccentricities and making us very welcome. It’s interesting now to take a moment to reflect on what makes this camp different from some of the others we attend.
Aside from something cheerful in the damp and chilly depths of a Northern European winter, this camp is a little different because of the comfort of its venue. Thus it attracts a slightly more diverse crowd of people to whom the idea of roughing it in a dusty field is a little less attractive. It’s limited to somewhere in the region of 350 people by the size of the complex so it’s possible to get to know most of the attendees, and though a hotel room can make it a little more expensive than some camps there remains the budget option of sharing one of the many bungalows on the site. I look at it and can’t help thinking that this off-season formula of a comfortable venue and a small-to-medium sized hacker camp could work elsewhere too, I hope we might see more in future.
So back on the ferry we went, for a slightly bumpy but otherwise comfortable crossing to Harwich. This camp is a destination worth making the journey for next year! | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225575",
"author": "operaptor",
"timestamp": "2020-03-06T18:19:01",
"content": "We were happy to see everyone on the ground at HACKER HOTEL again this year! We are glad everyone enjoyed the CYBER SCARAB SAO we were giving away~ We are planning to do a second run for everyone that c... | 1,760,373,565.610817 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/06/hackaday-podcast-057-dismantled-lcd-panels-unexpected-dynamometer-a-flappy-pov-and-dastardly-encryption/ | Hackaday Podcast 057: Dismantled LCD Panels, Unexpected Dynamometer, A Flappy POV, And Dastardly Encryption | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams are onto an LCD and motors kick this week. Two different LCD screen teardowns caught our eye as one lets you stare into the void while using your iMac and the other tries to convince us to be not afraid of de-laminating the LCD stackup. On the motors front, it’s all about using magnets and coils in slightly different ways; there’s a bike generator that uses a planar alternator design, a dynamometer for testing motor power that itself is built from a motor, and a flex-PCB persistence of vision display that’s a motor/display hybrid. We round out the episode with talk of the newly revealed espionage saga that was Crypto AG, and riveting discussion of calculators, both real and virtual.
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 057 Show Notes:
New This Week:
Elliot is building an audio shield for an FPGA board and misusing SMD sizes along the way:
YIL: 1206 and 0603 both fit on 0805 footprints, with a little TLC, but it's a lot more fun to solder-bridge the small ones than to heat-the-tracks-and-pray with the 1206s. All's well that ends well…
pic.twitter.com/16CEYgRKKJ
— Elliot Williams (@hexagon5un)
March 4, 2020
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
A Tetris To Be Proud Of, With Only A Nano
tetris.ino uses #include to populate array
artwork_tiles.h show the values getting populated
New Depths For IMac Repair
Transparent LCD Makes Everything Look Futuristic
DIY Monochrome LCD Hack Doesn’t Go As Planned
Cellphone Screen Repair in the Shenzhen Markets of Huaqiangbei
Hacker Abroad: Cellphone Repair In Huaqiangbei And A Huge Meetup At Seeed
Latest FlexLED Milestone Refines The POV Display
Superconference Interview: Carl Bugeja
This DIY Dynamometer Shows Just What A Motor Can Do
Generate Power As You Ride With A Bicycle Planar Alternator
[PDF] Design and Testing of a Permanent Magnet Axial Flux Wind Power Generator
Quick Hacks:
Mike’s Picks:
Giant Clock Made In The Nick Of Time
Never Miss A Doorbell With This Notifier
A Tin Can Phone, But With Magnets
DIY Ribbon Element Upgrades A Studio Microphone
Elliot’s Picks:
Dog-Harnessing The Power Of Walkie Talkies
ESP32 Rover With PCB Chassis Is Ready To Roll
A Minimal ESP8266 Digital Picture Frame
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Project Rubicon: The NSA Secretly Sold Flawed Encryption For Decades
The Last Scientific Calculator? | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225577",
"author": "Johnathan Feistner",
"timestamp": "2020-03-06T18:23:20",
"content": "Yet another amazing podcast! I always eagerly await each new installment! I’ve also begun a tiny project of my own to download and archive every episode I can find.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,373,565.543309 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/05/144-7-segment-displays-combine-to-form-a-mighty-clock/ | 144 7-Segment Displays Combine To Form A Mighty Clock | Adam Fabio | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"7-segment display",
"clock",
"multiplex"
] | What do you do with 144 7-segment displays? If you’re [Frugha] you put them all together to
create an epic clock
. Each display has 8 individual LEDs — 7 segments, and a decimal point. Put that all together, and you’ve got 1152 individual LEDs to control. This presented a problem, as [Frugha] wanted to control the clock with a single Arduino Nano. Even charlieplexing won’t get you that many I/O lines.
The solution was a nifty little chip called the MAX7219. The ‘7219 speaks SPI and can control 64 individual LEDs. [Frugha] used 18 of them in the clock, giving him full control over all his LEDs. That’s pretty impressive, considering the last
matrix 7-segment display we saw required 48 Arduinos
!
Another problem is memory – 1152 “pixels” would quickly overrun the 2KB RAM in the ATmega328. This is a clock though — which means only digits 0-9 and a colon. [Frugha] picked a nice font and hand-coded lookup tables for each digit. The lookup tables are stored in ROM, saving precious RAM on the Arduino.
A clock wouldn’t be any good if it wasn’t accurate. A Tiny RTC supplies battery-backed time data. [Frugha] wrapped everything up with a neat layout on a custom PCB. Sure, you could put it in a case, but we think a clock this crazy deserves to be left open – so you can see it in all its glory. | 25 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225302",
"author": "James",
"timestamp": "2020-03-05T21:54:20",
"content": "Will it fit on my wrist?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6225306",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2020-03-05T22:17:56",
... | 1,760,373,565.675664 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/05/debugging-electronics-to-know-why-it-didnt-work-first-find-what-it-is-actually-doing/ | Debugging Electronics: To Know Why It Didn’t Work, First Find What It Is Actually Doing | Roger Cheng | [
"cons",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"2019 Hackaday Superconference",
"bench instruments",
"debug",
"debugging",
"debugging tools",
"electronics",
"electronics tools",
"instruments"
] | Congratulations, you have just finished assembling your electronics project. After checking for obvious problems you apply power and… it didn’t do what you wanted. They almost never work on the first try, and thus
we step into the world of electronics debugging
with Daniel Samarin as our guide at Hackaday Superconference 2019. The newly published talk video embedded below.
Beginners venturing just beyond blinking LEDs and premade kits would benefit the most from information here, but there are tidbits useful for more experienced veterans as well. The emphasis is on understanding what is
actually
happening inside the circuit, which explains the title of the talk:
Debugging Electronics: You Can’t Handle the Ground Truth!
So we can compare observed behavior against designed intent. Without an accurate understanding, any attempted fix is doomed to failure.
To be come really good at this, you need to embrace the tools that are often found on a well stocked electronics bench. Daniel dives into the tricks of the trade that transcend printf and blinking LED to form a plan to approach any debugging task.
Because the flow of electrons are invisible to the eye, understanding our circuit requires measurement tools of the electronics trade. Such equipment can get quite expensive, but Daniel points to several tools with good “bang for the buck” where a modest investment can give us substantial insight. We rarely need the top of the line specialized instruments. A humble multimeter can take us a long way! It’s less about the tools we use, and more about how we use them in a rigorous and disciplined manner. It doesn’t matter if it’s a basic meter or the
latest augmented reality helper hotness
, the foundations are the same.
It’s no surprise that DMM and oscilloscope are the first two recommended tools but he goes on to recommend having a thermal sensor — you can use your finger but infrared thermal guns and thermal cameras are going to be much more useful. Checking to see if anything’s getting too — or hotter than it should be — is on the front lines of troubleshooting when bringing up a new board design. Daniel’s list of must-have tools is rounded out with current sensors and logic analyzers.
Don’t forget to double-check your tools; is that bench supply full of noise? Is it actually putting out the right voltage? Are your Oscilloscope probes damaged? Debugging your own test bench is as important as debugging the board you’re working on.
Isolating the problem is key. If you cannot reproduce the issue, you can’t solve the problem. A big part of this is taking good notes along the way so that you don’t waste time going over and over the same portion of the design trying to figure out what you did that caused the failure. Notes make patterns appear that won’t if you’re doing everything from memory.
We can poke and prod at mechanical issues to understand problems, and software development offer debuggers for internal insight at our fingertips. The tools of electronics debugging may be different, the symptoms may be more opaque to discovery, but the fundamentals apply everywhere. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225258",
"author": "Thrasher",
"timestamp": "2020-03-05T20:04:14",
"content": "This is helpful! Thank you!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6225281",
"author": "sperryfreak01",
"timestamp": "2020-03-05T20:52:36",
"c... | 1,760,373,565.721599 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/05/3d-printering-getting-started-is-still-harder-than-it-needs-to-be/ | 3D Printering: Getting Started Is (Still) Harder Than It Needs To Be | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"3D Printering",
"Getting Started",
"primer",
"resources"
] | Stop me if this sounds familiar. You are interested in 3D printing but lacked a clear idea of what was involved. Every time you looked into it, it returned to the back burner because after spending your limited free time researching, it
still
looked like a part time job just to get up to speed on the basics. If this is you, then you’re exactly the reason I say the following: despite 3D printing being more accessible than ever, getting started remains harder than it needs to be. It’s a shame, because there are smart, but busy, people just waiting for that to change.
A highly technical friend and colleague of mine had, off and on, been interested in 3D printing for some time. He had questions, but also didn’t have a very good understanding of the basics because it’s clumsy and time-consuming to research something when one doesn’t even know the right terms.
I told him to video call me. Using my phone I showed him the everyday process, from downloading a model to watching the first layer get put down by the printer. He had researched getting started before, but our call was honestly the first time he had ever seen a 3D printer’s actual workflow, showing hands-on what was involved from beginning to end. It took less than twenty minutes to give him a context into which he could fit everything else, and from where he felt comfortable seeking more information. I found out later, when I politely inquired whether he had found our talk useful, that he had ordered a Prusa MK3S printer later that same day.
It got me thinking. What from our call was important and useful, but not available elsewhere? And why not?
Here Are The Important Questions
When it comes right down to it, the problem is one of basic information not getting where it needs to be. Basic 3D printing information for a busy hacker doesn’t mean “what can a 3D printer make?” They already know that; it’s probably what got them interested in the first place. Basic information means answers to questions like:
What does the actual workflow of 3D printing look like? What happens from beginning to end?
Does it look like something I can and want to do?
How much of my time, money, and desk space will it need?
What else will I have to buy besides what comes in the box?
Does it have special needs, like unusual power or specific maintenance?
Are there any side effects to deal with? Noise, mess, or unpleasant smells?
These are the practical and high-level things a curious technical person needs to know. Such a person is already familiar with the kinds of things 3D printing can do, they now want to know how it can fit into their lives and what it will cost in time, money, and hassle.
Sadly, I found a real lack of easy to find 3D printing resources that present this information in a hacker-friendly way. Most of what I found was piecemeal, overly specific, or fragmented. Even busy hackers will find the time to research and learn things on their own, but it’s more effective if they can get the right tools up front.
Making Info For Busy Hackers
Here is the kind of up-front information a curious and free-time-strapped person will find most useful:
An overview of how a technology works, from beginning to end
What the important parts of it are called
What those parts do
That also happens to be a generally useful method for presenting information in a hacker-friendly way. It provides even a busy hacker with a toehold, and interested folks can and will take it from there all on their own.
For 3D printing, this kind of information just doesn’t seem very easy to find. Some experimental Google searching came up with a mishmash of junk, much of which was intelligible only to experienced 3D printer people anyway. None of it was very useful for answering the really important questions I outlined above.
3D Printing Can Be for Busy People
I think there’s an opportunity here. If you are making introductory information about 3D printing, don’t forget to present things in a hacker-friendly way and try not to make assumptions about what your audience already does or doesn’t know. That doesn’t mean diving into spirals of ever-deeper detail, it means taking a step back. Focus on showing what’s possible, what’s involved, what is out there, and what things are called so that people know what to look for when they seek out more detail on their own. It’s the only thing holding some of these folks back from mashing a BUY button.
3D printing is more accessible than ever but there is still a lack of what I call “3D printing for busy people.” Any resources that do this are nowhere I, nor my friend, were able to easily find, and that’s a shame. Do you know of a favorite resource that would be a great primer for busy hackers? Don’t keep it to yourself! Share it in the comments because it absolutely deserves more visibility than it currently has. | 83 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225215",
"author": "NickMakes&Breaks",
"timestamp": "2020-03-05T18:11:10",
"content": "Unfortunately, unless 3D printing becomes as foolproof as pressing ctr+p on a word document, it will always be difficult to get into without doing at least some level of research.To actually oper... | 1,760,373,565.857739 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/05/blister-pack-with-jet-fighter-toy-is-a-business-card/ | Blister Pack With Jet Fighter Toy Is A Business Card | Jenny List | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"how-to",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"blister pack",
"business card",
"toy plane"
] | In the world of business cards, it seems that for some people a white rectangle of card just doesn’t cut it any more. A card isn’t simply a means to display your contact details, instead it can be a way to show off your work and demonstrate to the world your capabilities. For [agepbiz] those are the skills of a 3D design specialist, so what better way to proceed than by distributing a 3D-printed example of his work? How to render that into a business card?
Put it in a retail-style blister pack, of course
. Take a look at the video below the break.
It’s an interesting process to follow, because there are certainly readers who will have toyed with the idea of selling their work, and this makes an attractive way to display a small assembly while still keeping it safe from damage. The toy –
a small 3D-printed jet fighter
with working swing wings that’s a masterpiece in itself – is laid on a backing card and a custom blister is glued over it. The manufacture of the printed backing card with a CNC card cutter is shown, followed by that of the blister with a custom SLA-printed mould being used to vacuum-form a sheet of clear plastic. Surprisingly the whole is assembled with just a glue stick, we’d have expected something with a bit more grab. The result is a professional-looking blister packed product of the type you wouldn’t bat an eyelid over if you saw it in a shop, and one of those things that it’s very useful to have some insight into how one might be made..
It’s possible this card might be a little bulky to slip in your wallet, but it’s hardly the only novelty card we’ve brought you over the years. Some of our most recent favourites
run Linux
or
play Tetris
. | 20 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225185",
"author": "NickMakes&Breaks",
"timestamp": "2020-03-05T17:02:59",
"content": "If you designed the card from scratch, you know the dimension of it and where the cut lines need to be. Taking a photo of the printed cards and determining cut lines from that seems like an extra... | 1,760,373,565.915167 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/05/us-navy-looking-to-retire-futuristic-prototype-ships/ | US Navy Looking To Retire Futuristic Prototype Ships | Tom Nardi | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"competition",
"LCS",
"modular",
"navy",
"US Navy",
"warship"
] | From the Age of Sail through to the Second World War, naval combat was done primarily in close quarters and with cannons. Naturally the technology improved quite a bit in those intervening centuries, but the idea was more or less the same: the ship with the most guns and most armor was usually the one that emerged victorious. Over the years warships became larger and heavier, a trend that culminated in the 1940s with the massive Bismarck, Iowa, and Yamato class battleships.
But by the close of WWII, the nature of naval combat had begun to change. Airplanes and submarines, vastly improved over their WWI counterparts, presented threats from above and below. A few years later, the advent of practical long-range guided missiles meant that adversaries no longer had to be within visual range to launch their attack. Going into the Cold War it became clear that to remain relevant, warships of the future would need to be smaller, faster, and smarter.
The aft flight deck of a modular LCS
It was this line of thinking that lead the US Navy to embark on the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program in the early 2000s. These ships would be more nimble than older warships, able to quickly dash through shallow coastal waters where adversaries couldn’t follow. Their primary armament would consist of guided missiles, with fast firing small-caliber guns being relegated to defensive duty. But most importantly, the core goal of the LCS program was to produce a modular warship.
Rather than being built for a single task, the LCS would be able to perform multiple roles thanks to so-called “mission modules” which could be quickly swapped out as needed. Instead of having to return to home port for a lengthy refit, an LCS could be reconfigured for various tasks at a commercial port closer to the combat area in a matter of hours.
A fleet of ships that could be switched between combat roles based on demand promised to make for a more dynamic Navy. If the changing geopolitical climate meant they needed more electronic reconnaissance vessels and fewer minesweepers, the Navy wouldn’t have to wait the better part of a decade to reshuffle their assets; the changeover could happen in a matter of weeks.
Unfortunately, the Littoral Combat Ships have been plagued with technical problems. Citing the expensive refits that would be required to keep them operational,
the Navy is now looking at retiring the first four ships in the fleet
, the newest of which is just six years old.
Get Two For the Price of Two
One reason the refit would be so expensive is that the Navy never actually decided on which LCS they want to keep. When they opened bidding for the program, Lockheed Martin submitted a traditional steel monohull design and Australian shipbuilder Austal offered up an aluminum trimaran based on a high-speed ferry the company had already built. The two craft offered their own unique advantages, making it difficult to declare a clear winner. Since both ships ended up being cheaper than the Navy had originally anticipated,
in 2010 the decision was made to buy ten ships from each of the two companies
rather than selecting one design over the other.
Lockheed Martin’s Freedom-class
Austal’s Independence-class
While the upfront costs might have been low enough for the decision to make sense a decade ago, the Navy is now dealing with the unpleasant realities of supporting both ships. Sailors need to be trained differently depending on which ship they’ll be assigned to, and two separate supply lines of replacement parts need to be maintained. Even the different materials used in their construction have become a problem. Repairs need to be approached differently for aluminum versus steel, as do the methods used for preventing corrosion.
The situation is even worse when talking about the first-generation ships. Over the years an untold number of issues have been resolved, and naturally those improvements were rolled into the later vessels. But those initial four ships, two of each LCS class, would need to have all those improvements retrofitted before they could be on par with their peers. As such, the Navy had
previously decided to use the first four ships for training purposes only
.
But even for training, they’ve become of limited use. The operational versions of the ships have enough differences that the earlier models aren’t fully representative of the vessels the crew would actually serve on. If they can’t be deployed and aren’t useful for training, it’s hard to justify why more money should be allocated for their continued operation.
Some Assembly Required
One might wonder why these ships couldn’t be utilized for the research and development of future mission modules. After all, at one time the Navy touted that the LCS program would eventually see modules for near-future weapon technologies such as lasers and rail guns; equipment which would surely require extended sea trials before it was approved for deployment. Indeed, using these ships as floating module testbeds would make perfect sense. Unfortunately, nobody is actually making any more modules.
A 30 mm gun LCS Mission Module
In what’s truly the greatest failure of the LCS program, the idea of a modular warship has at this point been all but completely abandoned. In practice, the Navy found that it took far longer to switch out the modules than was originally envisioned. A well-trained crew could do it in as little as 92 hours under controlled conditions, but on average it took a week or more to perform the switch.
Arguably that’s still an impressive technical accomplishment, but operationally it left something to be desired. In the time it would take an LCS to switch over to another role, a different ship could have been called in to take is place.
In 2016, it was decided that
each deployed ship would be assigned specific mission modules
. What’s more, it was hinted that future versions of the LCS would likely lose the ability to swap modules altogether. In doing so, the Navy effectively negated the entire point of the program. If each hull in the LCS fleet has a permanent mission module, then the ships are are really no different than the ones they set out to replace originally.
Finding a Replacement
In reality, the early retirement of the
Freedom
,
Fort Worth
,
Independence
, and
Coronado
is the first step towards the Navy ultimately winding down the LCS program. With the modular concept of the ships not living up to expectations, there’s little reason to keep the fleet operating. Both LCS variants were built with the assumption that their modest offensive and defensive capabilities would be augmented with future mission modules. Now that those aren’t coming, the ships have limited combat usefulness.
Recognizing the hole that the under-performing LCS program puts in their capabilities, the Navy is currently holding a competition for the design and construction of a new class of multi-mission guided-missile frigates referred to as FFG(X). While they aren’t looking for a fully modular design, the Navy does request that
proposals include an explanation of how easily the ship could be upgraded in the future
. Specifically, they’re looking for designs that could be outfitted with new systems in the field, avoiding the need for putting the ships in dry dock or cutting into the hull.
So while the Littoral Combat Ship never reached its full potential, it would seem the Navy hasn’t completely given up on the idea. It may be that a fully-modular warship isn’t practical with current technology, but the LCS program at least demonstrated that replacing weapons and equipment without bringing the ship back to its home port was possible. The program didn’t produce the Navy’s dream ship, but it might have been a necessary step towards something better. | 91 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225149",
"author": "cyberteque",
"timestamp": "2020-03-05T15:17:33",
"content": "this is why we have not been back to the moon or further than LEO“pork barreling” and the military industrial complex spending obscene amounts of money on what exactly?endless war to what end?I’m braci... | 1,760,373,566.482121 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/05/camera-and-code-team-up-to-make-impossible-hovering-laser-effect/ | Camera And Code Team Up To Make Impossible Hovering Laser Effect | Dan Maloney | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"bullet time",
"laser",
"rolling shutter",
"scanning",
"special effect",
"synchronization"
] | Right off the bat, we’ll say that
this video showing a laser beam stopping in mid-air
is nothing but a camera trick. But it’s the trick that’s the hack, and you’ve got to admit that it looks really cool.
It starts with the [Tom Scott] video, the first one after the break. [Tom] is great at presenting fascinating topics in a polished and engaging way, and he certainly does that here. In a darkened room, a begoggled [Tom] poses with what appears to be a slow-moving beam of light, similar to a million sci-fi movies where laser weapons always seem to disregard the laws of physics. He even manages to pull a [Kylo Ren] on the slo-mo photons with a “Force Stop” as well as a slightly awkward
Matrix
-style bullet-time shot. It’s entertaining stuff, and the effect is all courtesy of the rolling shutter effect. The laser beam is rapidly modulated in sync with the camera’s shutter, and with the camera turned 90 degrees, the effect is to slow down or even stop the beam.
The tricky part of the hack is the laser stuff, which is the handiwork of [Seb Lee-Delisle].
The second video below
goes into detail on his end of the effect. We’ve seen [Seb]’s work before, with
a giant laser
Asteroids
game
and
a trick NES laser blaster
that rivals this effect. | 20 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225131",
"author": "Puzzled",
"timestamp": "2020-03-05T13:48:54",
"content": "Why is there sticky tape on the camera display?Broken or trying to hide someting?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6225140",
"author": "jpa"... | 1,760,373,566.339316 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/05/clean-air-and-a-gentle-breeze-in-your-hoodie/ | Clean Air And A Gentle Breeze In Your Hoodie | Sven Gregori | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"air filter",
"air filtering",
"environment",
"fresh air filter",
"hoodie",
"wearable"
] | Hoodies are great, and rightfully a hacker’s favorite attire: they shield you from the people around you, keep your focus on the screen in front of you, and are a decent enough backup solution when you forgot your balaclava. More than that, they are also comfortable, unless of course it is summer time. But don’t worry,
[elkroketto] has built a solution to provide the regular hoodie wearer with a constant breeze around his face
, although his
Clean Air Bubble
is primarily tackling an even bigger problem: air pollution.
Wanting to block out any environmental factors from the air he breathes, [elkroketto] got himself a thrift store hoodie to cut holes in the back, and attach two radial fans that suck in the air through air filtering cloths. A 3D printed air channel is then connected to each fan, and attached on the inside of the hood, blowing the filtered air straight into his face. Salvaging a broken drill’s battery pack as power supply and adding a 3D printed clip-in case for the step-up converter, the fans should provide him a good 5 hours of fresh air. Of course, one could also add
a solar charging rig
if that’s not enough.
Keep in mind though, while a wearable air filter might sound particularly useful in current times, [elkroketto] specifically points out that this is not for medical use and won’t filter out any airborne diseases. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225076",
"author": "nah!",
"timestamp": "2020-03-05T10:04:31",
"content": "am i the only one who wears a hoodie as a protection against cold?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6225082",
"author": "Midnight",
"ti... | 1,760,373,566.040767 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/04/cherrypi-mechanical-keyboard-warrants-a-long-look/ | CherryPi Mechanical Keyboard Warrants A Long Look | Kristina Panos | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"cherry keyswitches",
"mechanical keyboard",
"raspberry pi"
] | [Gosse Adema] has been poking a Microsoft Natural Elite for the last 20 years, and the curvy old girl is about to give out. Looks like he got bit pretty hard by the DIY mechanical keyboard bug in his quest to replace her. Luckily for us,
he documented his build
.
Where do we start? A first keeb is decently-sized undertaking, but [Gosse] turned it up a notch and made it as low-profile as he could — it’s 2cm thick with the keycaps on. This ultimately meant designing the board such that the anti-ghosting diodes sit inside a cutout underneath their respective switches, which are low-profile Cherry MX Reds. There is no Eagle template for those yet, so [Gosse] whipped one up and milled a prototype PCB before deciding to go the fab route.
The Raspberry Pi Zero W that controls this keeb lives in a separate controller box in the name of slimness. If you are as-yet unimpressed by this build for some reason, [Gosse] even rolled his own firmware, which he explains as part of this epic journey. Seems the only thing he didn’t do was mold his own keycaps, but not everyone wants to type on blanks. We wonder if [Gosse] is aware of the terrifically low-slung Kailh choc switches, although prefab keycap options for those are even more limited.
Speaking of,
here’s a tasty choc-filled game pad
. | 33 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225054",
"author": "eternityforest",
"timestamp": "2020-03-05T06:31:19",
"content": "Dude! That’s almost commercial quality! I love seeing DIY projects like this that become real usable things, not just junk bin filler.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
... | 1,760,373,566.274566 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/04/procedurally-generating-marble-runs/ | Procedurally Generating Marble Runs | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"marble",
"marble run",
"marbles",
"maths"
] | Marble runs are somehow incredibly soothing to play with and watch, with the gentle clack of the marbles and the smooth, predictable motion. Sadly for some, they never quite got enough time to enjoy them in school. Luckily,
[Fernando Jerez] is here with a way to procedurally generate marble runs you can actually play with!
[Fernando] does a great job of explaining the mathematical process of generating the marble runs, using the method of random space filling curves. A maze is drawn on a grid, with points on the grid acting as walls. Each grid cell is then given a value based on points on its corners, and these values then translate into directions of travel. This creates a path through the maze. Scaling this path along the Z-axis, and then replacing the path with a marble track creates the run. It’s then a simple matter of adding a shaft to the loop with a screw to drive marbles back to the top of the run, and you’re all set!
With both animated explanations and actual 3D printed marble runs, [Fernando] demonstrates the concept well. We’d love to print a few runs of our own, and we can’t help but think there’s other great applications for the mathematics behind this concept. If you’re wise to it, drop it in the comments.
Otherwise, check out these exquisite creations we’ve featured before! | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6225052",
"author": "MinorHavoc",
"timestamp": "2020-03-05T06:01:03",
"content": "Neat! As it’s basically a non-branching 2D maze generator it doesn’t allow for the marble run to cross over/under itself or produce things like a spiral, but it’s great for easily creating relatively ... | 1,760,373,566.086337 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/04/lighting-up-a-tiny-train-needs-tiny-tools/ | Lighting Up A Tiny Train Needs Tiny Tools | Donald Papp | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"led",
"led strip",
"train"
] | A
tiny toy train that [voidnill] illuminated with a small LED strip fragment
demonstrates several challenges that come with both modifying existing products, and working with small things in general. One is that it is hard in general to work around existing design choices and materials when modifying something. The second is that problems are magnified with everything is so small.
[voidnill]’s plentiful photos illustrate everything from drilling out small rivets and tapping the holes for screws to installing a tiny switch, LED strip, and button cells as a power supply. When things are so small, some of the usual solutions don’t apply. For example, cyanoacrylate glue may seem like a good idea for mounting small plastic parts, but CA glue easily wicks into components like the tiny power switch and gums up the insides, rendering it useless.
[voidnill] uses lots of careful cutting and patience to get everything done, and demonstrates the importance of quality tools. The LED strip fragment is driven by three small button cells, and while tape does a serviceable job as a battery holder, [voidnill] believes a 3D printed custom frame for the cells would really do the trick.
The kind of work that goes into making or modifying small things really puts into perspective the amount of effort behind projects like
this coffee table with an N-gauge model railway inside it
. | 11 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224978",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2020-03-05T00:14:32",
"content": "Not to be pedantic… oh, who am I kidding, I love to be pedantic, but that is specifically a streetcar/trolley, not really a train.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,373,566.538803 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/04/visualizing-energy-fields-with-a-neon-bulb-array/ | Visualizing Energy Fields With A Neon Bulb Array | Tom Nardi | [
"Science"
] | [
"array",
"energy",
"FIELD",
"high voltage",
"neon",
"tesla coil"
] | Everyone knows that one of the coolest things to do with a Tesla coil is to light up neon or fluorescent tubes at a distance. It’s an easy and very visual way to conceptualize how much energy is being pumped out, making it a favorite trick at science museums all over the world. But what would it look like if you took that same concept and increased the resolution? Replace that single large tube with an array of smaller ones. That’s exactly what [Jay Bowles] did in his latest video,
and the results are impressive to say the least
.
From a hardware standpoint, it doesn’t get much simpler. [Jay] knew from experience that if you bring a small neon indicator close to a Tesla coil, it will start to glow when approximately 80 volts is going through it. The higher the voltage, the brighter the glow. So he took 100 of these little neon bulbs and arranged them in a 10×10 grid on a piece of perfboard. There’s nothing fancy around the backside either, just all the legs wired up in parallel.
When [Jay] brings the device close to his various high-voltage toys, the neon bulbs still glow like they did before. But the trick is, they don’t all glow at the same brightness or time. As the panel is moved around, the user can actually see the shape and relative strength of the field by looking at the “picture” created by the neon bulbs.
The device isn’t just a cool visual either, it has legitimate applications. In the video, [Jay] explains how it allowed him to observe an anomalous energy field that collapsed when he touched the base of his recently completed Tesla coil; an indication that there was a grounding issue. He’s also observed some dead spots while using what he’s come to call his “High-Voltage Lite-Bright” and is interested in hearing possible explanations for what he’s seeing.
We’ve been fans of
[Jay] and the impressively produced videos he makes
about
his high-voltage projects for years now
, and we’re always excited when he’s got something new. Most hardware hackers start getting sweaty palms once the meter starts indicating more than about 24 VDC, so we’ve got a lot of respect for anyone who can build this kind of hardware and effectively communicate how it works to others. | 20 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224937",
"author": "Bobs Uncle",
"timestamp": "2020-03-04T21:30:25",
"content": "I’m pretty sure I remember seeing something like this here on HaD years ago. Except, for that one the light was moved all around the room all while taking a long-exposure picture. The result was a real... | 1,760,373,566.604577 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/04/raising-the-titanics-radio-room/ | Raising The Titanic’s Radio Room | Dan Maloney | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Radio Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"Marconi",
"radio",
"rov",
"salvage",
"spark gap",
"titanic"
] | For some reason, of all the ships that have sailed the oceans, it’s the unlucky ones that capture our imagination. Few ships have been as unlucky as the RMS
Titanic
, sinking as she did on the night of April 15, 1912 after raking across an iceberg on her maiden voyage, and no ship has grabbed as much popular attention as she has.
During her brief life,
Titanic
was not only the most elegant ship afloat but also the most technologically advanced. She boasted the latest in propulsion and navigation technology and an innovation that had only recently available: a Marconi wireless room, used both for ship-to-shore and ship-to-ship communications.
The radio room of the
Titanic
landed on the ocean floor with the bow section of the great vessel. The 2.5-mile slow-motion free fall destroyed the structure of the room, but the gear survived relatively intact. And now, more than a century later,
there’s an effort afoot to salvage that gear
, with an eye toward perhaps restoring it to working condition. It’s a controversial plan, of course, but it is technologically intriguing, and it’s worth taking a look at what’s down there and why we should even bother after all these years.
Wireless as a Service
When
Titanic
‘s keel was laid down in 1909, commercial radio was in its infancy. The Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company, popularly known as the Marconi Company after its founder, Guglielmo Marconi, was established mainly to provide wireless telegraphy services to ships at sea. It had only been in business for twelve years at that point, and had only been installing “Marconi Rooms” in ocean liners since 1903. Before Marconi, once a ship was beyond sight of land, it may as well not have existed. Radio changed all that, and the lifesaving potential of being able to send a distress signal was used by shipping lines to justify the expense of adding a Marconi system to a ship.
In practice, though, safety of life at sea was a secondary consideration in including wireless telegraphy into the design of ocean liners. The Marconi Company was a commercial venture, and as such needed to monetize their service to the greatest extent possible. Sending messages back and forth to other ships or using the system to contact shipping agents on shore to arrange berthings were important use cases, but not terribly profitable. Catering to the whims of well-heeled passengers, however, many with the desire to flaunt their wealth by sending a “Marconigram” from the middle of the Atlantic was very profitable. It cost 12 shillings and 6 pence for the first 10 words, the equivalent of $63 dollars in 2017.
Titanic
‘s Marconi radio. Source:
The Telegraph Room
The Marconi service proved so popular that in the first 36 hours of the crossing that
Titanic
‘s two radio officers, Harold Bride and Jack Phillips, sent approximately 250 Marconigrams to shore stations in the Marconi network. The young men, 22 and 24 respectively, worked long hours to service the demand, made worse by a failure of the brand new radio gear – it had only been installed a week before sailing – the day before the collision. The two stayed up all night diagnosing and repairing the problem, which was a violation of Marconi Company policy, but showed considerable dedication to their employer.
State of the Art
The Marconi suite on the Titanic was relatively spacious. It consisted of three rooms: the main room for the operator, a “Silent Room” with soundproof walls to house the loud spark-gap radio gear, and a small bunk room for the Marconi operators. The suite was located on the boat deck between the bridge and the Grand Staircase of the First Class entry. It was located as close to the top of the ship as possible to keep the feedline run to the antenna as short as possible.
The radio gear consisted of a motor-dynamo generator that boosted the ship’s DC electrical supply to high voltage AC to power the synchronous rotary spark-gap transmitter. At 5 kilowatts, the transmitter was the most powerful on the sea, and capable of reaching New York or London from the middle of the Atlantic. International convention called the use of the 600-meter band for ship-to-shore communications, and the 300-meter band for ship-to-ship work.
Left is a CG render of the Marconi room on
Titanic
, compared on the right to its current state. Source:
r/Titanic
; render appears to be the work of Parks Stephenson, underwater shot appears to be a screengrab from a James Cameron expedition.
A Night to Remember
Beginning on April 14, ships in the area off Newfoundland began spotting icebergs. As was common practice, radio-equipped ships would broadcast warnings of the floating mountains, to warn other vessels of the danger ahead. No fewer than six messages warning of icebergs were received by the
Titanic
‘s Marconi operators. The first two of these messages were relayed to Captain Edward Smith; the last four, however, were never brought to his attention. It is speculated that Bride and Phillips were so busy servicing the backlog of Marconigrams caused by the outage that they never relayed the messages to the bridge. That’s supported by Bride’s response to the last warning from the SS
Californian
: “Shut up, I am working Cape Race,” referring to the Marconi relay station at the southern tip of Newfoundland. That final warning was received at 23:30 ship’s time, a mere nine minutes before
Titanic
‘s death blow.
Jack Phillips and Harold Bride. Source:
Amateur Radio from Scotland
Whatever role Bride and Phillips’ deference to their employer’s business played in causing the disaster, their response to it and the raw power of their gear and their skills as telegraphists made up for it. Without the wireless, there’s little doubt that the loss of life would have been even greater than it was.
Titanic
stayed on the air for almost all of the two and a half hours it took for her to finally go under, and Bride later testified that Phillips was still transmitting as they heard water flowing up the deck outside the Marconi suite. Both Bride and Phillips made it into the frigid North Atlantic before the bow section slid under and got into the last lifeboat; Bride survived with only minor injuries, but Phillips died of exposure during the long wait for RMS
Carpathia
, responding to the distress call that he himself had hammered out only hours before. The 705 lives that were saved that night were saved because they stayed on the job, despite being relieved by Captain Smith.
It’s Not a Ship. It’s a Tomb
Titanic
‘s secrets, and her dead, lay hidden beneath the Atlantic for almost three-quarters of a century. Once Robert Ballard found the wreck in 1985, it stirred something in the collective imagination, and spawned an entire industry of Titanica. Subsequent explorations of the wreck have mapped out in exquisite detail the location of every inch of the ship and every artifact’s location, and multiple items have been recovered by remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) over the years.
The Marconi suite’s location at the top of the ship was fortuitous, as the bow section of the great ship settled to the seafloor in essentially an upright position. This makes salvage of the gear, which can be seen in the video below, technically possible.
RMS Titanic, Inc
, an Atlanta-based company that has the sole right of salvage over the wreck, has recently received permission in US District Court in Virginia for the “surgical removal and retrieval” of the Marconi gear from Titanic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVP_Aqgbcik&feature=youtu.be&t=1840
The wreck is protected by a treaty between the US and the UK, which has so far limited salvage to items in the debris field surrounding the wreck. The retrieval of the radio, which will require cutting away a section of the suite’s roof, will mark the first time the wreck has been plundered for its treasure. The argument put forth is a sensible one; that the steadily deteriorating structure of the ship will soon lead to a complete collapse, burying the Marconi gear under tons of corroded metal and rendering it lost to the ages. Others argue that this will be an act of grave robbery, a desecration of the final resting place of 1,527 victims of that fateful night.
Whatever your position, it’s hard to deny that the recovery of such an important artifact, one that both cost so many lives and saved many too, is a tantalizing idea, and one that should prove very interesting to watch unfold. | 149 | 35 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224885",
"author": "J. Kent Hastings",
"timestamp": "2020-03-04T18:30:40",
"content": "This is a fine Marconigram!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6224886",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-03-04T18:34:47",
... | 1,760,373,568.948299 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/04/gorgeous-clock-and-not-a-line-of-code-in-sight/ | Gorgeous Clock, And Not A Line Of Code In Sight | Donald Papp | [
"classic hacks",
"clock hacks"
] | [
"clock",
"cmos",
"crystal",
"glass dome",
"logic"
] | [Harry] dropped us a note to let us know about
his completed CMOS clock project
, and we’re delighted that he did because it’s gorgeous. It’s a digital clock satisfyingly assembled entirely from hardware logic, without a single line of code. There are three main parts to this kind of digital clock: ensuring a stable time base, allowing for setting the time, and turning the counter outputs into a numerical display.
Keeping accurate time is done with a 32.768 kHz crystal, and using CMOS logic to divide that down to a 1 Hz square wave. From there, keeping track of hours and minutes and seconds is mostly a matter of having counters reset and carry at the appropriate times. Setting the clock is done by diverting the 1 Hz signal so that it directly increments either the hours or minutes counter. The counter values are always shown “live” on six 7-segment displays, which makes it all human-readable.
The whole thing is tastefully enclosed in a glass dome which looks great, but [Harry] helpfully warns prospective makers that such things have an unfortunate side effect of being a fingerprint magnet. Schematics and design files are provided for those who want a closer look.
This clock uses a crystal and divider, but there’s another method for keeping accurate time and that’s to
base it off the alternating current frequency of power from the grid
. Not a bad method, albeit one that depends on being plugged into the wall. | 41 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224858",
"author": "Roamin",
"timestamp": "2020-03-04T17:07:32",
"content": "I understand that “To each one his taste” (translated from french), but I fail to see where this is “gorgeous”? How is a black pcb with all that silkscreen, ugly looking parts like the transformer, rainbow... | 1,760,373,568.397166 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/04/write-once-run-everywhere-cross-platform-programming-done-right/ | Write Once, Run Everywhere: Cross-Platform Programming Done Right | Maya Posch | [
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Skills",
"Slider",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"api",
"cross-platform",
"hal",
"hardware abstraction layer",
"portability",
"portable code",
"real time operating system",
"RTOS"
] | One of the goals of programming languages back in the 1950s was to create a way to write assembly language concepts in an abstract, high-level manner. This would allow the same code to be used across the wildly different system architectures of that era and subsequent decades, requiring only a translator unit (compiler) that would transform the source code into the machine instructions for the target architecture.
Other languages, like BASIC, would use a runtime that provided an even more abstract view of the underlying hardware, yet at the cost of a lot of performance. Although the era of 8-bit home computers is long behind us, the topic of cross-platform development is still highly relevant today, whether one talks about desktop, embedded or server development. Or all of them at the same time.
Let’s take a look at the cross-platform landscape today, shall we?
Defining portable code
The basic definition of portable code is code that is not bound or limited to a particular hardware platform, or subset of platforms. This means that there shall be no code that addresses specific hardware addresses or registers, or which assumes specific behavior of the hardware. If unavoidable that such parameters are used, these parameters are to be provided as external configuration data, per target platform.
For example:
#include <hal.h>
int main() {
while(1) {
addr_write(0xa0, LEVEL_HIGH);
wait_msec(1000);
addr_write(0xa0, LEVEL_LOW);
wait_msec(1000);
}
}
Here, the
hal.h
header file would be implemented for each target platform — providing the specialized commands for that particlular hardware. The file for each platform will contain these two functions. Depending on the platform, this file might use a specific hardware timer for the
wait_msec()
function, and the
addr_write()
function would use a memory map containing the peripheral registers and everything else that should be accessible to the application.
When compiling the application for a specific target, one could require that a target parameter be provided in the Makefile, for example:
ifndef TARGET
$(error TARGET parameter not provided.)
endif
INCLUDES := -I targets/$(TARGET)/include/
This way the only thing needed to compile for a specific target is to write one specialized file for said target, and to provide the name of that target to the Makefile.
Bare Metal or HAL
The previous section is most useful for bare metal programming, or similar situations where one doesn’t have a fixed API to work with. However, software libraries defining a fixed API that abstracts away underlying hardware implementation details is now quite common. Known as a Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL), this is a standard feature of operating systems, whether a small (RT)OS or a full-blown desktop or distributed server OS.
At its core, a HAL is essentially the same system as we defined in the previous section. The main difference being that it provides an API that can be used for other software, instead of the HAL being the sole application. Extending the basic HAL, we can add features such as the dynamic loading of hardware support, in the form of drivers. A driver is essentially its own little mini-HAL, which abstracts away the details of the hardware it provides support for, while implementing the required functions for it to be called by the higher-level HAL.
Generally speaking, using an existing or a custom HAL is highly advisable, even when targeting a single hardware platform. The thing is that even when one writes the code for just a single microcontroller, there is a lot to be said for being able to take the code and run it on a HAL for one’s workstation PC in order to use regular debugging and code analysis tools, such as the Valgrind suite.
Performance Scaling Isn’t Free
An important consideration along with the question of “will my code run?” is “how efficient will it be?”. This is especially relevant for code that involves a lot of input/output (IO) operations, or intense calculations or long-running loops. Theoretically there is no good reason why the same code should not run just as well on a 16 MHz AVR microcontroller as on a 1.5 GHz quad-core Cortex-A72 System-on-Chip system.
Practically, however, the implications go far beyond mere clock speed. Yes, the ARM system will obliterate the raw performance results of the AVR MCU, but unless one puts in the effort to use the additional three cores, they’ll just be sitting there, idly. Assuming the target platform has a compiler that supports the C++11 standard, one can use its built-in multithreading support (in the <
thread
> header), with a basic program that’d look like this:
#include <thread>
#include <iostream>
void f0(int& n) {
n += 1;
}
int main() {
int n = 1;
std::thread t0(f0, std::ref(n));
t0.join();
std::cout << "1 + 1 = " << n << std::endl;
}
As said, this code will work with any C++11-capable compiler that has the requisite STL functionality. Of course, the major gotcha here is that in order to have multithreading support like this, one needs to have a HAL and scheduler that implements such functionality. This is where the use of a real-time OS like
FreeRTOS
or
ChibiOS
can save you a lot of trouble, as they come with all of those features preinstalled.
If you do not wish to cram an RTOS on an 8-bit MCU, then there’s always the option to use the RTOS API or the bare metal (custom) HAL mentioned before, depending on the target. It all depends on just how portable and scalable the code has to be.
Mind the Shuffle
The aforementioned Cortex-A72 is an out-of-order design, which means that the code generated by the compiler will get reshuffled on the fly by the processor and thus can be executed in any order. The faster and more advanced the processor gets which one executes the code on, the greater the number of potential issues. Depending on the target platform’s support, one should use processor atomics to fence instructions. For C++11 these can be found in the <
atomic
> header in the STL.
This means adding instructions before and after the critical instructions which inform the processor that all of these instructions belong together and should be executed as a single unit. This ensures that for example a 64-bit integer calculation on a 32-bit processor will work as well on a 64-bit processor, even though the former needs to do it in multiple steps. Without the fencing instructions, another instruction might cause the value of the original 64-bit integer to be modified, corrupting the result.
Though mutexes, spinlocks, rw-locks and kin were more commonly used in the past to handle such critical operations, the move over the past decades has been towards lock-free designs, which tend to be more efficient as they work directly with the processor and have very little overhead, unlike mutexes which require an additional state and set of operations to maintain.
After HAL, the OS Abstraction Layer
One of the awesome things about standards is that one can have so many of them. This is also what happened with operating systems (OSes) over the decades, with each of them developing its own HAL, kernel ABI (for drivers) and application-facing API. For writing drivers, one can create a so-called glue layer that maps the driver’s business logic to the kernel’s ABI calls and vice versa. This is essentially what the NDIS wrapper in Linux does, when it allows WiFi chipset drivers that were originally written for the Windows NT kernel to be used under Linux.
For userland applications, the situation is similar. As each OS offers its own, unique API to program against, it means that one has to somehow wrap this in a glue layer to make it work across OSes. You can, of course, do this work yourself, creating a library that includes specific header files for the requested target OS when compiling the library or application, much as we saw at the beginning of this article.
It is, however, easier is to use one of the myriad of existing libraries that provide such functionality. Here GTK+, WxWidgets and Qt have been long-time favorites, with
POCO
being quite popular for when no graphical user interface is needed.
Demonstrating Extreme Portability
Depending on the project, one could get away with running the exact same code on everything from an ESP8266 or STM32 MCU, all the way up to a high-end AMD PC, with nothing more than a recompile required. This is a strong focus of some of my own projects, with
NymphCast
being the most prominent in that regard. Here the client-side controller uses a remote procedure call (RPC) library:
NymphRPC
.
Since NymphRPC is written to use the
POCO libraries
, the former can run on any platform that POCO supports, which is just about any embedded, desktop, or server OS. Unfortunately, POCO doesn’t as of yet support FreeRTOS. However, FreeRTOS supports all the usual multithreading and networking APIs that NymphRPC needs to work, allowing for a FreeRTOS port to be written which maps those APIs using a FreeRTOS-specific glue layer in POCO.
After this, a simple recompile is all that’s needed to make the NymphCast client software (and NymphRPC) run on any platform that is supported by FreeRTOS, allowing one to control a NymphCast server from anything from a PC to a smartphone to an ESP8266 or similar network-enabled MCU, without changes to the core logic.
The Future is Bright (on the CLI)
Though the C++ standard unfortunately missed out on adding networking support
in the C++20 standard
, we may still see it in C++23. With such functionality directly in the language’s standard library, having C++23 supporting compilers for the target platforms would mean that one can take the same code and compile it for FreeRTOS, Windows, Linux, BSD, MacOS, VxWorks, QNX and so on. All without requiring an additional library.
Of course, the one big exception here is with GUI programming. Networking for example has always stuck fairly close to Berkeley-style sockets, and multithreading is fairly consistent across implementations as well. But the graphical user interfaces across OSes and even between individual window managers for XServer and Weyland on Linux and BSD are very different and very complicated.
Most cross-platform GUI libraries do not bother to even use those APIs for that reason, but instead just create a simple window and render their own widgets on top of that, sometimes approximating the native UI’s look and feel. Also popular is to abuse something like HTML and use that to approximate a GUI, with or without adding one’s own HTML rendering engine and JavaScript runtime.
Clearly, GUIs are still the Final Frontier when it comes to cross-platform development. For everything else, we have come a long way. | 58 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224844",
"author": "ejonesss",
"timestamp": "2020-03-04T16:09:19",
"content": "java and python is supposed to be universal",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6225003",
"author": "N",
"timestamp": "2020-03-05T01:2... | 1,760,373,568.499421 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/04/dog-harnessing-the-power-of-walkie-talkies/ | Dog-Harnessing The Power Of Walkie Talkies | Kristina Panos | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"555",
"dog collar",
"schmitt trigger",
"walkie talkie"
] | [javier.borquez] likes to take his dog to the hang out at the dog park around dusk. But once the sun goes down and [Rusio]’s off the leash, running amok with the other dogs, it’s almost impossible to keep track of him.
Sure, there are probably glow-in-the-dark or lighted collars out there, but if you go commercial, chances are good that someone else’s dog will be wearing the same thing. Besides, what’s the fun in buying something that you can do a better job making yourself? With this
dog distance indicator harness
, you don’t even have to program anything. Instead, it uses a cheap pair of modified walkie talkies to show green LEDs on the harness while the dog is in range, and red when it isn’t.
Although [javier]’s pupper is the best pupper yes he is, [Rusio] can’t be expected to hold down the button and bark his location. His walkie talkie uses a 555-based frequency generator and a glued-down button to speak at 1 kHz.
Over in [javier]’s walkie, there’s a resistor in place of the speaker to keep the talkie parts working. There’s also a half-wave bridge rectifier that charges a capacitor when [Rusio] is within range, and a resistor that drains it when he’s outside the 6-8 meter range. The rectifier’s output goes to a second 555 set up as a Schmitt trigger, which tells a transistor to turn the red LEDs on instead.
If you got stuck on the idea of hearing your dog talk to you over distances,
here’s a Bluetooth Babelfish collar
. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224810",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2020-03-04T13:37:55",
"content": "Instead of spending time making stuff to find your dog. You should invest that time into teaching your dog to listen to you when you say come. Or just buy a shocker collar, and when you hit the button liste... | 1,760,373,568.315876 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/04/wire-wrapping-skills-put-to-use-for-sign-making/ | Wire Wrapping Skills Put To Use For Sign Making | Tom Nardi | [
"Art",
"classic hacks"
] | [
"art",
"nails",
"sign",
"wire wrapping",
"woodworking"
] | We don’t see many wire wrapped circuits these days, and you could be forgiven for thinking it was nearly a lost art at this point. But that doesn’t mean the technique can’t be applied elsewhere. [MiHu-Works] recently wrote in to share a sign they recently made for a client’s restaurant
that looks an awful lot like the back panel of a homebrew computer to us
.
Before you get a chance to scroll down and complain about it in the comments, we admit this one is fairly deep into the crafts side of the spectrum. But it’s also a gorgeous piece that we’d be happy to hang up in the hackerspace, so we don’t care. There might not be any angry pixies zipping around through all that lovingly wrapped copper wire, but it certainly
feels
like you’re looking at the internals of some complex machine.
To make it, [MiHu-Works] first printed out the lettering on paper and put it on the wood to serve as a guide. Roofing nails were then driven into the wood to create the outline of the text. A simple tool made from a forked piece of wood was placed under the head of each nail as it was hammered in to make sure the depth was consistent. It also made sure there was adequate room underneath to wrap the copper wires through them. Then it was time for the wrapping…so much wrapping. (Who is going to come through with the robot to do this?)
A few years back
we asked the Hackaday readers if they thought the days of wire wrapped circuits were over
. It generated a lot of discussion and interesting ideas, but looking at projects like this, perhaps we were asking the wrong question. | 20 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224753",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2020-03-04T09:41:42",
"content": "Spiders will love it.They will build their webs all over it. Egg sacks, twigs, and debris will build up.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6224776"... | 1,760,373,568.159334 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/03/stop-n-go-duplo/ | Stop ‘n Go DUPLO | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"arduino nano",
"Duplo",
"lego",
"traffic light"
] | [beshur]’s 2-year-old is obsessed with transportation, so he lifted a few DUPLO blocks from the bin and made
this toy traffic light
as a birthday present. Hey, might as well get him used to the realities of traffic, right? It also makes for a good early hacker lesson: why buy something when you can make it yourself?
The traffic pattern is determined by an Arduino Nano V3 situated inside the carved-out rear block. There’s a push button on the side in case there’s a spill and the lights need to go blinking red until the issue is dealt with. Instead of trying to solder everything in situ and risk melting the plastic, [beshur] dead-bugged the LEDs and resistors to the Nano with a helping hands and then worked everything into the case. The 5mm LEDs fit perfectly into the drilled-out posts of a second block and produce a nice, soft glow. Proceed with caution and check it out after the break.
Of course, plastic building blocks can do real work, too.
This LEGO chocolate pantograph
is pretty sweet. | 8 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224730",
"author": "Luke",
"timestamp": "2020-03-04T08:02:51",
"content": "Could have done it with a 556:http://worldtechnical.blogspot.com/2012/02/traffic-lights.htmlIf you want the blinking yellow light, then you need one 555 and one 4017 counter. In any case, these can be deadbu... | 1,760,373,568.210793 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/03/another-minimalist-window-manager/ | A(nother) Minimalist Window Manager | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"catwm",
"dwm",
"linux",
"pet project",
"sara",
"software",
"window manager"
] | For however many Linux distributions there are to choose from, there are perhaps even more window managers that can be paired with them, and some have dramatically different features than the X window systems that most of us are familiar with. There’s a rabbit hole to fall down, as with most Linux-related topics, but while
this tiling window manager
from [caoluin], called sara, adds to the cacophony, it’s also representative of any pet project that lets us take a deep dive into something personally interesting.
What started as a desire to revive an abandoned window manager called
catwm
eventually evolved into a fork of sorts of another popular window manager called
dwm
. dwm is used as a basis or as building blocks for many other window managers, and while [caoluin] was writing sara he found that many of the solutions he found converged on the same things that dwm had already implemented. In a way, it’s reassuring if your solutions are similar to tried-and-true methods already in use. For other things he found interesting solutions, and other features that dwm has he found to be unnecessary and removed them.
Does the world need another window manager? Probably not. But we can all appreciate building something from scratch, just to see how it really works under the hood. As far as that goes, we’d consider sara a success for [caoluin], and if you’re really interested in window managers then you can take a look at his
Github page
or one of the
more esoteric window managers
we’ve seen. | 31 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224688",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-03-04T03:34:59",
"content": "All we need is one universal window manager that covers everyone’s use cases …https://xkcd.com/927/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6224694",
... | 1,760,373,568.56369 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/03/diy-large-format-book-press-puts-on-the-pressure/ | DIY Large Format Book Press Puts On The Pressure | Tom Nardi | [
"classic hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"book binding",
"book press",
"manual",
"paper"
] | For those in the audience who aren’t well versed in wrangling dead trees, a large press with a lot of clamping pressure can be used for binding books or printing. It can even be used to squeeze the water out of homemade paper. It’s an important tool for anyone looking to make or repair books, but they also tend to be fairly expensive. Which is why
[Paul] decided to make his own
.
Despite the preconceived notions you might have about the type of guy who binds his own books, it seems like [Paul] is a rather modern fellow. He actually designed the press in CAD and made many of the parts for it on his CNC router. That’s not
strictly
required, though we do think cutting out the hole for the monstrous lead screw nut would be a bit tricky if you had to do it by hand. But beyond that, the design is pretty straightforward and the video after the break provides a very clear step-by-step guide on how to build your own.
In the past we’ve seen how a similar, if much smaller, book press can be used to
make bound books of all those PDFs littering your computer
. These sort of projects are getting more rare in an increasingly paperless world, but we always like to see people keeping the old ways alive. If the revolution comes and we end up needing to publish Hackaday on hand-pressed paper, we’ll know who to call. | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224661",
"author": "Tim Rice",
"timestamp": "2020-03-04T00:14:39",
"content": "I made a press that was half as sturdy a few years ago. I think I’ll be switching to this design. I won’t miss the disturbing flex and pop that let me know that it was at max pressure.",
"parent_id":... | 1,760,373,568.764151 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/03/new-depths-for-imac-repair/ | New Depths For IMac Repair | Bryan Cockfield | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"apple",
"backlight",
"broken",
"display",
"imac",
"plasti-dip",
"repair",
"screen",
"see through"
] | There’s not much economic sense in fixing a decade-old desktop computer, especially when it’s the fancy type with the screen integrated into the body of the computer, and the screen is the thing that’s broken. Luckily for [JnsBn] aka [BEAN] the computer in question was still functional with a second monitor, so he decided to implement a cheap repair to
get the screen working again by making it see-through
.
The only part of the screen that was broken was the backlight, which is separate from the display unit itself. In order to view at least something on the screen without an expensive replacement part, he decided to remove the backlight altogether but leave the display unit installed. With a strip of LEDs around the edge, the screen was visible again in addition to the inner depths of the computer. After a coat of white Plasti Dip on the inside of the computer, it made for an interesting effect and made the computer’s display useful again.
While none of us, including the creator, recommend coating the inside of an iMac with Plasti Dip due to the risk of fire and/or other catastrophic failure, there’s not much to lose otherwise. Just
don’t shove this one into the wall
. | 17 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224643",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2020-03-03T21:40:45",
"content": "Well I don’t know if it’s the best monitor repair (still way better than I could do) but it IS a hell of a “case mod”! You just use the second monitor and let people marvel at your see-thru Mac! Also I ... | 1,760,373,568.264943 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/03/train-all-the-things-contest-update/ | Train All The Things Contest Update | Dan Maloney | [
"contests"
] | [
"artificial intelligence",
"AWS",
"azure",
"cloud",
"edge",
"gateway",
"Google Cloud",
"machine learning",
"model",
"training",
"vison"
] | Back in January when we announced the
Train All the Things contest
, we weren’t sure what kind of entries we’d see. Machine learning is a huge and rapidly evolving field, after all, and the traditional barriers that computationally intensive processes face have been falling just as rapidly. Constraints are fading away, and we want you to explore this wild new world and show us what you come up with.
Where Do You Run Your Algorithms?
To give your effort a little structure, we’ve come up with four broad categories:
Machine Learning on the Edge
Edge computing, where systems reach out to cloud resources but run locally, is all the rage. It allows you to leverage the power of
other people’s computers
the cloud for training a model, which is then executed locally. Edge computing is a great way to keep your data local.
Machine Learning on the Gateway
Pi’s, old routers, what-have-yous – we’ve all got a bunch of devices laying around that bridge space between your local world and the cloud. What can you come up with that takes advantage of this unique computing environment?
Machine Learning in the Cloud
Forget about subtle — this category unleashes the power of the cloud for your application. Whether it’s Google, Azure, or AWS, show us what you can do with all that raw horsepower at your disposal.
Artificial Intelligence Blinky
Everyone’s “hardware ‘Hello, world'” is blinking an LED, and this is the machine learning version of that. We want you to use a simple microprocessor to run a machine learning algorithm. Amaze us with what you can make an Arduino do.
These Hackers Trained Their Projects, You Should Too!
We’re a little more than a month into the contest. We’ve seen some interesting entries bit of course we’re hungry for more! Here are a few that have caught our eye so far:
Intelligent Bat Detector
– [Tegwyn☠Twmffat] has bats in his… backyard, so he built this Jetson Nano-powered device to capture their calls and classify them by species. It’s a fascinating adventure at the intersection of biology and machine learning.
Blackjack Robot
– RAIN MAN 2.0 is [Evan Juras]’ cure for the casino adage of “The house always wins.” We wouldn’t try taking the Raspberry Pi card counter to Vegas, but it’s a great example of what YOLO can do.
AI-enabled Glasses
– AI meets AR in ShAIdes, [Nick Bild]’s sunglasses equipped with a camera and Nano to provide a user interface to the world. Wave your hand over a lamp and it turns off. Brilliant!
You’ve got till noon Pacific time on April 7, 2020 to get your entry in, and four winners from each of the four categories will be awarded a $100 Tindie gift card, courtesy of our sponsor Digi-Key. It’s time to ramp up your machine learning efforts and get a project entered! We’d love to see more examples of straight cloud AI applications, and the AI blinky category remains wide open at this point. Get in there and give machine learning a try! | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224622",
"author": "ziggurat29",
"timestamp": "2020-03-03T19:43:52",
"content": "re: taking a Pi into a casino — this was before the ascent of machine learning, but these guys put a computer in their sneaker for roulette:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eudaemonic_Pie",
"paren... | 1,760,373,568.610954 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/03/inputs-of-interest-my-first-aggressively-ergonomic-keyboard/ | Inputs Of Interest: My First Aggressively Ergonomic Keyboard | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"Buckling Spring",
"ergonomic keyboard",
"ergonomics",
"keyboard",
"mechanical switches",
"open source keyboard",
"ortholinear",
"repetitive stress injury",
"split keyboard"
] | Ever since my
RSI surgery
, I’ve had to resort to using what I call my compromise keyboard — a wireless rubber dome affair with a gentle curvature to the keys. It’s far from perfect, but it has allowed me to continue to type when I thought I wouldn’t be able to anymore.
This keyboard has served me well, but it’s been nearly three years since the surgery, and I wanted to go back to a nice, clicky keyboard. So a few weeks ago, I dusted off my 1991
IBM Model M
. Heck, I did more than that — I ordered a semi-weird hex socket (7/32″) so I could open it up and clean it properly.
And then I used it for half a day or so. It was glorious to hear the buckling springs singing again, but I couldn’t ignore the strain I felt in my pinkies and ring fingers after just a few hours. I knew I had to stop and retire it for good if I wanted to keep being able to type.
Rectangle keyboards can make you tingle, and not in a good way. Image via
Kinesis
Ergo, I Must Go Ergo
I can’t go back to that compromise keyboard, though. It’s got ABS keycaps, and they’re all slick and gross now because that’s what ABS does. The thing is, that keyboard is hurting me in other ways — namely my neck and shoulders. Something this rectangle-keyboard-shaming image doesn’t mention is that the ten-key, or number pad of a standard keyboard makes things worse because of the extra distance to the mouse and back.
For a second, I thought about going back to an original Microsoft Natural keyboard. I used one for many years at my old job, and stopped for the stupidest possible reason — I was tired of the gigantic footprint and wanted more desk space. But honestly, a Natural isn’t going to cut it for me anymore. I need more distance between my hands. I want mechanical switches, and a key layout designed for my needs.
So I started investigating aggressively ergonomic keyboards. Spoiler alert: they’re expensive. And these days, there are all kinds of open-source ergo keyboards out there, which is great to hear if you want to casually fall down the keyboard rabbit hole and make your own. The
ErgoDox
is a well-documented project with many variants. The one that caught my eye is the
Dactyl
, which is essentially a bowl-shaped ErgoDox.
Of course I want to make my own, but that will take a while, and I have to keep typing in the meantime. So I had to act fast. While the world of DIY ergo keyboards is mind-boggling, the number of off-the-shelf options is nearly as bad. I’ve never typed on anything crazier than a Microsoft Natural, so how am I supposed to know which one is right for me? Or what keys I would want on the thumb clusters? Which switches? My head was swimming.
Yesterday’s Keyboard of Tomorrow, Today
Fortunately, there’s a company called Kinesis that started making split keyboards with contoured key wells in the early 1990s. You’ve probably seen one and not realized it — there are a bunch of them around the
Men In Black
headquarters. Kinesis is still making new models for $300+, so you can find older versions starting around $100. I bought the best-looking old one I could find within a few days of searching. Isn’t she a beaut?
I wanted to like this keyboard — heck, I
needed
to like this keyboard, and I do. There’s no going back now.
It has a great personality! Nice tan, too.
Why Is This Better Than a Regular Keyboard?
In a word, ergonomics. And not just the obvious ones, like the split and separated halves that allow me to type without turning my forearms in or hunching over the board. Since the keys are also set into contoured wells, I don’t have to move my fingers or wrists as much, which means less overall strain.
Lined-Up Layout
You may have noticed that the key rows aren’t staggered. For instance, 1-Q-A-Z are vertically aligned, which means this layout is considered ortholinear. That in itself can take some getting used to. I had no idea how it would go, but it’s one of the things I was looking forward to about this keyboard. Surprisingly, it doesn’t feel all that different to me, but it depends on your touch typing skills.
I consider myself a touch typist in the sense that I don’t need to look at the keys. My typing is not quite textbook, though it’s close. As I waited for this keyboard to arrive, I focused on the fingers I was using and compared them to touch typing diagrams.
My biggest sin is that I use my index finger to type ‘c’, and you’re supposed to use the middle finger. I took an informal poll around the Hackaday dungeon and although a few do it correctly, the index fingers won 11-5. My guess is that it has to do with the brick-wall layout of standard keyboards that places ‘c’ closer to the index.
Under My Thumbs
The best thing about this keyboard has to be the thumb clusters. Moving heavily-used keys like Enter, Backspace, and Control from the pinkies to the thumbs is genius, and has already helped quite a bit.
I have had surprisingly little trouble adjusting to these changes, especially Backspace — it’s as though I’ve been doing it with my left thumb all my life.
Other thumb moves have taken a bit longer to get used to: sometimes I leave my right thumb on Enter instead of moving it back to rest on Space, or I hit Backspace when I really mean Delete. Other than that, I was used to it within a day or so, and started to get back up to speed within a week.
Browns are bumpin’. Via
Cherry
Satisfying Switches
Part of good ergonomics is in the switches. Your modern came-with-the-computer keyboard doesn’t have springs that bounce the keys back toward your fingertips — instead, it either has little rubber domes that collapse and feel like mush, or chiclet keys that are like popping bubble wrap that’s too low-profile to be fun. The only feedback you get is from bottoming out, or pushing the keys down as far as they can go. It may not seem that stressful to your fingertips, but if you’re punching switches all day, the abuse will add up, especially on the weaker fingers.
Mechanical switches aren’t just better for you and more satisfying to type on — they are often rated for millions more key presses than rubber dome and membrane-only switches.
The Model M has good switches, yes, but they take a great deal of actuation force — something like 65 g. The Kinesis Advantage has Cherry MX browns, which only take about 55 g of force, or a stack of eleven United States nickels. Legend has it that Browns were developed especially for Kinesis after they asked Cherry to make a quiet version of their Blue switch. Cherry liked them so much that they eventually started offering them in their own keyboards. Here’s a clip of what they sound like (no, really — I’m not shredding hard drives here):
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/kinesis-advantage.mp3
Browns are tactile and not ridiculously clickykjj, but they definitely have a sound. The Kinesis controller also provides audible feedback for every key press, sort of a gentle ticking sound that can be turned off. I like it, because it makes them feel more like Blues, but without the extra required actuation force. Along with the standard LED indicators, there is audible feedback for Caps/Num/Scroll Lock in the form of two weird robotic buzz-beeps for on, and one for off. Also handy, also turn off-able.
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/tics-and-buzz-beeps.mp3
It’s Not Perfect and That’s Okay
There are a few things I don’t like about this keyboard. Some I’ve already taken care of, and some are fueling my desire to build my own.
The home row keys are a different color (which is awesome), but they don’t have those little homing bumps on them like you can find on literally any cheap keyboard. Instead, the home row keycaps are sculpted differently than the rest. This might work for some people, but my callused fingertips can’t really tell the difference, so I got some aftermarket blanks with homing bumps for F and J.
The Dactyl Manuform, via
[tshort]
(corrected)
Unfortunately, all the keycaps except for F and J are ABS, so they will get shiny and gross eventually. Not only that, the legends are pad printed, so they’re like little stickers you can feel and pick at that will definitely disappear given enough time and fingernail contact.
I thought I would miss the ten-key more than I do, although there is a ten-key embedded in the right side that’s accessible with the Keypad F-row button. Mostly what I miss is the ten-key Enter, because it’s right there by the mouse. But it’s okay, because I can reprogram it!
Since I was never a right-Shifter and I recently started using a foot pedal for it anyway, I took five seconds and copy-pasted the Enter key on to the right Shift, right by the mouse. Sometimes I even remember to use it.
Do You Really Own Your Keyboard?
If all you can do to change things is toggle Caps Lock, Num Lock, and Scroll Lock, then I would say no. This keyboard is fully programmable, meaning you can switch a few keys around or go full Dvorak if you want. You can also program macros into the F keys. With the Advantage 2, this is all done through an editor.
The Dactyl Manuform, via
[tshort]
(corrected)
While it’s true that you can use a program like Autohotkey to bind macros to any key you want, those are all tied to one computer. The Advantage of the Kinesis is portability — all the macros and mappings live inside it.
Unfortunately, the Kinesis’ portability ends there. Yes it’s lightweight, and no it’s not that big (16.5″ x 8″), but if you want to throw it in a backpack, you’d better have a pretty big one. I’m already dreaming of being able to put my hands even farther apart with a split keyboard.
There are tons of open-source alternatives to drool over, thanks to the 2010s boom in mechanical keyboard interest. Many of them use firmware like
QMK
that allows for layers of key functions, so you’ll see minimal, highly customized, perfectly portable builds.
I’ve got my eye on building a
Dactyl Manuform
(corrected link), which is like a liberated Kinesis with even more ergonomic thumb cluster design. It kind of has to be hand-wired, which I’m actually looking forward to — flex PCBs would be too fiddly. Just have to get the halves printed and I’ll be on my way to split ergo freedom. | 59 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224597",
"author": "Adam",
"timestamp": "2020-03-03T18:29:11",
"content": "I’ve long had an interest in ergo keyboards, and had my cursor over the buy button more than once on a Kinesis or something like a P.I. Engineering X-Keys macro board only to chicken out at the price. I’ll ... | 1,760,373,569.063825 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/03/just-when-you-thought-there-was-nothing-new-in-nixie-clocks/ | Just When You Thought There Was Nothing New In Nixie Clocks… | Jenny List | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"binary",
"clock",
"nixie"
] | Nixie clocks have become such a staple in our community as to have become mundane. They’re pretty, but show us something
new
! It seems [Marcin Saj] has done just that with his offering, because with a bank of 18 IN-2 Nixie tubes
he’s telling the time – but in binary rather than the usual decimal
.
The tubes are arranged in three banks of six, the upper registering hours, the middle minutes, and seconds on the lowest. Each one only uses two digits, as you might expect from a binary device they are 0 and 1. Behind is a large PCB with the Nixie sockets, and on the back of that in sockets are a pair of Nixie driver boards, a real-time clock module, temperature sensor module, PSU module, and either a Particle Photon or an Arduino Nano IoT. This two-option set-up for the choice of dev board is unusual, and
there is code for both of them in the GitHub repository
.
The result is eye-catching and unusual, and certainly a departure from the usual Nixie digital clock. Hackaday readers are probably more likely than the average Joe or Jane to be able to read binary at a glance, watching it in action in the video below the break is an interesting exercise in testing one’s binary-aptitude.
Meanwhile if binary Nixies are too commonplace, how about
binary neon lamps
? | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224581",
"author": "ALEJANDRO",
"timestamp": "2020-03-03T16:40:37",
"content": "Binary lamp can be one simple lamp on or off. You can use a neon indicator lamp, and is more readable from the distance.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"commen... | 1,760,373,569.111749 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/03/expanding-and-eventually-replacing-the-international-space-station/ | Expanding, And Eventually Replacing, The International Space Station | Tom Nardi | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Slider",
"Space"
] | [
"Axiom Space",
"commercial space",
"docking",
"international space station",
"nasa",
"space station"
] | Aboard the International Space Station (ISS), humanity has managed to maintain an uninterrupted foothold in low Earth orbit for just shy of 20 years. There are people reading these words who have had the ISS orbiting overhead for their entire lives, the first generation born into a truly spacefaring civilization.
But as the saying goes, what goes up must eventually come down. The ISS is at too low of an altitude to remain in orbit indefinitely, and core modules of the structure are already operating years beyond their original design lifetimes. As difficult a decision as it might be for the countries involved, in the not too distant future the $150 billion orbiting outpost will have to be abandoned.
Naturally there’s some debate as to how far off that day is. NASA officially plans to support the Station until at least 2024, and an extension to 2028 or 2030 is considered very likely. Political tensions have made it difficult to get a similar commitment out of the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, but its expected they’ll continue crewing and maintaining their segment as long as NASA does the same. Afterwards, it’s possible Roscosmos will attempt to salvage some of their modules from the ISS so they can be used on a future station.
This close to retirement, any new ISS modules would need to be designed and launched on an exceptionally short timescale. With
NASA’s efforts and budget currently focused on the Moon
and beyond, the agency has recently turned to private industry for proposals on how they can get the most out of the time that’s left. Unfortunately several of the companies that were in the running to develop commercial Station modules have since backed out, but there’s at least one partner that still seems intent on following through: Axiom.
With management made up of former astronauts and space professionals, including NASA’s former ISS Manager Michael Suffredini and Administrator Charles Bolden, the company boasts a better than average understanding of what it takes to succeed in low Earth orbit. About a month ago, this operational experience helped secure
Axiom’s selection by NASA to develop a new habitable module for the US side of the Station by 2024
.
While the agreement technically only covers a single module, Axiom hasn’t been shy about their plans going forward. Once that first module is installed and operational, they plan on getting NASA approval to launch several new modules branching off of it. Ultimately, they hope that their “wing” of the International Space Station can be detached and
become its own independent commercial station by the end of the decade
.
The First Piece of the Puzzle
The module Axiom will build as part of the recently announced agreement with NASA will be called “Axiom Node One”, or AxN1. It will be a slightly larger version of the design used for the existing
Harmony
and
Tranquility
nodes. These cylindrical nodes not only provide living and working environments, but act as vital junctions for expanding the Station. Each one features six Common Berthing Mechanism (CBM) ports that can either be used temporarily for resupply spacecraft such as the SpaceX Dragon or as a permanent mount point for another module. They cannot however be used for crewed spacecraft such as Russia’s Soyuz or the Boeing CST-100 Starliner, as those vehicles use active docking ports that are faster to disconnect in the event of an emergency.
The AxN1 node is also planned to include a so-called “Earth Observatory” module, envisioned as a larger version of the Station’s existing Cupola. Rather than being a simple window, the Observatory will be deep enough to allow crew members to enter and move around in. During flight the Observatory will be attached to the forward CBM port of the AxN1, and after it’s been attached, the Station’s robotic arm will move it to the node’s nadir (Earth-facing) CBM port.
But before it can be installed, things will need to get rearranged slightly. The plan is to berth AxN1 to the front of the
Harmony
mode, but that’s currently where the second Pressurized Mating Adapter (PMA-2) is installed. This recent video released by Axiom
shows how they propose to attach their modules to the ISS
, but it starts with PMA-2 already removed and out of sight (the PMA seen on top of
Harmony
in the video is actually PMA-3).
AxN1 being installed on the ISS
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/axiomspace-attaching-modules-to-ISS.mp4
This device converts a CBM into a docking port for crewed spacecraft, which is obviously a capability the Station requires to function. So the PMA-2 will need to be relocated before the arrival of AxN1, it’s just not immediately clear where it’s going to go.
Packing Up and Moving Out
Assuming all goes according to plan with AxN1 and the ISS program gets the expected extension, the company plans to launch their second module in 2025. Called “Axiom Habitation Module One” or AxH1, this module will only have ports on either end and devote most of its internal volume to crew accommodations. Rendered images show the inside of AxH1 offering high-tech luxury not unlike something from
2001: A Space
Odyssey
, though it seems likely the final module would have a somewhat more utilitarian appearance for practical reasons. The following year, the pair of modules would be joined by the “Axiom Research and Manufacturing Facility” (AxRMF).
Axiom’s completed station separates from the ISS.
If this seems like a breakneck pace to launch and install new Station modules, that’s because it is. By the time AxN1 and AxH1 get installed, retirement of the ISS may only be two or three years away. If the company has any chance of using the existing Station infrastructure as a springboard to help get their own self-sustaining segment built, they’ll need to move fast.
Before this hypothetical Axiom commercial space station could break free of the ISS and operate independently, it’s going to need power. Concept art of the Axiom modules show they will all feature integrated solar panels to support basic functionality, but performing any kind of useful science or manufacturing aboard the station will require more energy then they can provide. There also needs to be a way for the station to dissipate all of the heat generated by the humans and equipment onboard.
So the long term-plan is to add an extendable module with its own large photovoltaic array and thermal radiators to take over once the ISS is gone. As this array would potentially be deployed before the Axiom segment separates, it would mount to the zenith (space-facing) port of AxN1 and extend vertically so it won’t interfere with the solar panel “wings” of the Station.
Open For Orbital Business
Axiom’s plan has a lot of steps that need to happen very quickly, and success is far from guaranteed. But assuming everything works out and nobody beats them to the punch, by 2030 the company should be the proud owner of the world’s first commercial space station. It would be a phenomenal technical achievement, and a historic moment as far as the democratization of space goes. But for a commercial outpost to make sense there obviously needs to be customers. So who’s paying?
The view is phenomenal, but it’s certainly not cheap.
With crew compartments that look like they were inspired by science fiction and an Observation deck large enough for multiple people to float freely inside, there’s no question Axiom has their eyes on space tourism. If the likes of Mark Shuttleworth and Richard Garriott were willing to pay tens of millions of dollars to spend a few days aboard the International Space Station, a destination that features all the comforts and luxuries of a ship’s engine room, the potential ticket price for a true “Space Hotel” could be enormous.
But there are very few individuals who could afford such an opportunity, and of them, only a small percentage would be willing to actually strap into a rocket and make the trip. There’s little doubt that a few more wealthy tech entrepreneurs would be willing to book a short stay aboard, but that alone isn’t going to be enough to cover the cost of building and operating the station.
Somewhat ironically, Axiom’s biggest customer in the foreseeable future will likely end up being NASA. The retirement of the International Space Station doesn’t mean an end to science in low Earth orbit, it just means it will have to be done somewhere else. All of that research that NASA either performs themselves or orchestrates for other agencies will need a new home, and the Axiom station could be where it ends up.
The agency currently spends $3-$4 billion each year to maintain and support the ISS, representing about half of their annual human spaceflight budget. If even a fraction of that could be earmarked for purchasing time on a commercial space station after 2030, then commercial operators like Axiom will have at least one heavyweight customer they can count on. | 99 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224575",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2020-03-03T16:12:01",
"content": "Sounds like we need a Meccano design.**Some assembly required.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6224582",
"author": "Tjay",
"timest... | 1,760,373,569.304473 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/03/a-honeycomb-patching-robot-powered-by-arduino/ | A Honeycomb Patching Robot Powered By Arduino | Tom Nardi | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"automation",
"boeing",
"honeycomb",
"metal working",
"repair"
] | No, it’s not the kind of honeycomb you’re probably thinking of. We’re talking about the lightweight panels commonly used in aerospace applications. Apparently they’re rather prone to dents and other damage during handling, so Boeing teamed up with students from the California State University to
come up with a way to automate the time-consuming repair process
.
The resulting machine, which you can see in action after the break, is a phenomenal piece of engineering. But more than that, it’s an impressive use of off-the-shelf components. The only thing more fascinating than seeing this robotic machine perform its artful repairs is counting how many of its core components you’ve got laying around the shop.
Built from aluminum extrusion, powered by an Arduino Due, and spinning a Dewalt cut-off tool that looks like it was just picked it up from Home Depot, you could easily source most of the hardware yourself. Assuming you needed to automatically repair aerospace-grade honeycomb panels, anyway.
At the heart of this project is a rotating “turret” that holds all the tools required for the repair. After the turret is homed and the condition of all the cutting tools is verified, a hole is drilled into the top of the damaged cell. A small tool is then carefully angled into the hole (a little trick that is mechanical poetry in motion) to deburr the hole, and a vacuum is used to suck out any of the filings created by the previous operations. Finally a nozzle is moved into position and the void is filled with expanding foam.
Boeing says it takes up to four hours for a human to perform this same repair. Frankly, that seems a little crazy to us. But then again if we were the ones tasked with
repairing a structural panel for a communications satellite
or aircraft worth hundreds of millions of dollars, we’d probably take our time too. The video is obviously sped up so it’s hard to say exactly how long this automated process takes, but it doesn’t seem like it could be much more than a few minutes from start to finish. | 13 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224568",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2020-03-03T15:24:35",
"content": "My engineering experience does not include much in the way of structural or aerospace stuff. So I would like to know how the injection of a solid into the honeycomb effects a repair?Minor point. The Cal Sta... | 1,760,373,569.16938 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/03/evolution-of-a-backpack-vr-system/ | Evolution Of A Backpack VR System | Adam Fabio | [
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"backpack",
"untether",
"virtual reality",
"vr"
] | Persistence is what a hacker needs to make it to their goal. That’s exactly what it took for [Erik] to make an
untethered VR backpack system
.
Starting way back in the Spring of 2019, [Erik] began working on an untethered VR system. Sure, the Oculus Quest was coming out, but it wouldn’t be compatible with the game library of PC based systems. [Erik] decided he wanted the best of both worlds, so he decided to build a backpack that carries a computer powerful enough to drive the Rift S.
The initial system was to use a cut-up backpack, an HP mini PC with an external Nvidia 1060 GPU, and a basic DC-DC converter. The result? Just about nothing worked. The HP’s boot process didn’t play well with an external GPU.
[Erik] went through several iterations of this project. He switched over to a standard PC motherboard and tried a few different DC-DC converters. He settled on a device from HDPLEX rated at 200 watts continuous. The converter plugs directly into a standard 24-pin ATX motherboard power connector and isn’t much larger than the connector itself.
The old backpack with its added padding and wood frame gave way to a Zotac VR go backpack. Only the straps and frame of the Zotac are used, with [Erik’s] custom parts mounted using plywood and 3D printed parts. The outer frame is aluminum, with acrylic panels.
Power comes from 7000 mAH LiFe batteries, with each pack providing an hour of runtime. The Backpack can hold two packs though, so wiring them up in parallel should double that runtime.
We have to say this is an extremely well-documented build. [Erik] explains how he chose each component and the advantages (and pitfalls) of the choices he made. An example would be the RAM he picked. He chose DDR4 with a higher spec than he needed, just so he could undervolt the parts for longer run-times.
Not everything in VR is fun and games though – you can
ditch that monitor and go with a VR desktop. | 8 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224530",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2020-03-03T11:27:24",
"content": "Cool build. For the work I do a Desktop is usually more applicable. My PC is very old now though (12jr) and I’m thinking of buying parts for a new one, and so I accidentally bumped into a cots product ver... | 1,760,373,569.606751 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/02/esper-makes-virtual-reality-from-live-reality/ | Esper Makes Virtual Reality From Live Reality | Kristina Panos | [
"Art",
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"ESP32",
"ESP32 camera",
"virtual reality",
"vr"
] | There’s a scene in
Bladerunner
where Deckard puts a photograph in a magical machine that lets him zoom and enhance without limit, and even see around obstacles. In today’s climate, this is starting to seem more plausible, what with all the cameras everywhere. [Jasper van Loenen] explores this concept in
Esper, a technological art installation
he created in Seoul, Korea during an artist residency.
Esper is a two-part piece that turns virtual reality on its head by showing actual reality in VR. It covers two adjoining rooms, one to record reality, and the other for real-time virtual viewing on headsets. The first is outfitted with 60 ESP32 cameras on custom mounts, all pointing in different directions from various perches and ceiling drops. [Jasper] used an Android app based on openFrameworks to map the cameras’ locations in 3D space. The room next door is so empty, it’s even devoid of FOMO. You don’t want to miss this one, so check it out after the break.
Recreating sci-fi props is all fun and games until the dystopia arrives. Then again, the fact that
we can all easily access 70,000 or so insecure surveillance cameras
is a pretty good start. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224509",
"author": "sweethack",
"timestamp": "2020-03-03T09:27:35",
"content": "Not sure I’ve understood correctly what this does. Is that just showing textured 2D planes in 3D ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6224986",
"a... | 1,760,373,569.456315 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/02/arduino-drives-astronomy-dome/ | Arduino Drives Astronomy Dome | Al Williams | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"astronomy",
"observeratory",
"telescope"
] | The South Florida Science Center recently added a new ten-inch telescope and turned to [Andres Paris] and his brother to replace the hand-cranked dome door system. They turned to
an Arduino along with some beefy motor drivers
. You can see some videos of the beast in operation, below.
According to a Reddit post, the brothers picked up a 5A 12V motor but decided to overdesign and selected an H-bridge that would handle 20A peak current. An IR remote allows the operator to open and shut the door and reed switches sense the extremes of the door’s motion.
The second video shows the motor and the 3D printed coupling to the existing door gear train. Since the displays on the box are fairly bright, the operator can turn them off using the remote control.
It doesn’t look as thoug any code or diagrams are available, but we are guessing that this type of system would be custom for each individual case anyway. As it turned out, the moving of the existing gear train wasn’t the biggest problem, instead it was supplying the power.
Since the dome rotates, it was not possible to wire the box to power. The system uses some batteries that right now have to be manually charged. However, the brothers plan to take advantage of the fact that the dome is always put back to the same position so they can wirelessly charge the batteries using a Qi transmitter that lines up with the associated receiver when in the home position.
If you would like
your own dome
, we — along with the Wayback Machine — can help. We truly envy all of the people out there with no
deed restrictions
. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224469",
"author": "Saabman",
"timestamp": "2020-03-03T03:13:21",
"content": "I wouldn’t say using a 20Apk controller on a 12Amotor is over designing. It would not be unreasonable for a 12A motor pull in excess of double that (24A) for short periods ie when starting or when stalle... | 1,760,373,569.55608 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/02/multi-band-receiver-on-a-chip-controlled-by-arduino/ | Multi-Band Receiver On A Chip Controlled By Arduino | Tom Nardi | [
"Parts",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"Arduino libraries",
"radio",
"receiver",
"Si4735",
"Si47xx"
] | The Silicon Labs Si4735 is a single-chip solution for receiving AM, FM, and shortwave radio. With a bit of hacking, it even supports single sideband (SSB). All you’ve got to do is provide it with a suitable control interface, which
[Ricardo Lima Caratti] has done with his recent project
.
Using an Arduino Pro Mini, a handful of buttons, and a standard TFT display, [Ricardo] has put together a serviceable little receiver with a fairly impressive user interface. We especially like the horizontal bars indicating the signal to noise ratio and received signal strength. The next evolution would be to put this whole rig into some kind of enclosure, but for now he seems content to control the action with a handful of unlabeled buttons on a piece of perfboard.
Of course, the presentation of this receiver isn’t really the point; it’s more of a proof of concept. You see, [Ricardo] is the person who’s actually developed the library that allows you to
control the Si4735 from your microcontroller of choice over I2C
. He’s currently tested it with several members of the official (and not so official) Arduino family, as well as the ESP32.
The documentation [Ricardo] has put together for his MIT licensed Arduino Si4735 library is nothing short of phenomenal. Seriously, if all open source projects were documented even half as well as this one is, we’d all be a few notches closer to world peace. Even if you aren’t terribly interested in adding shortwave radio reception to your next project, you’ve got to browse his documentation just to see where the high water mark is.
We actually first heard about this library a few days ago
when we covered another receiver using the Si4735
and [Ricardo] popped into the comments to share some of the work he’d been doing to
push the state-of-the-art forward for this promising chip
. | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224464",
"author": "steven",
"timestamp": "2020-03-03T02:34:05",
"content": "I didn’t notice if it was demonstrated, but id love to see RDS/RDBS implemented.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6224537",
"author": "Ricard... | 1,760,373,569.731183 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/02/this-diy-dynamometer-shows-just-what-a-motor-can-do/ | This DIY Dynamometer Shows Just What A Motor Can Do | Dan Maloney | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"angular velocity",
"dynamometer",
"dyno",
"Electric motor",
"horsepower",
"power",
"torque"
] | Back in high school, all the serious gearheads used to brag about two things: their drag strip tickets, and their dynamometer reports. The former showed how fast their muscle car could cover a quarter-mile, while the latter was documentation on how much power their carefully crafted machine could deliver. What can I say; gas was cheap and we didn’t have the Internet to distract us.
Bragging rights are not exactly what [Jeremy Fielding] has in mind for
his DIY dynamometer
, nor is getting the particulars on a big Detroit V8 engine. Rather, he wants to characterize small- to medium-sized electric motors, with an eye toward repurposing them for different projects. To do this, he built a simple jig to measure the two parameters needed to calculate the power output of a motor: speed and torque. A magnetic tachometer does the job of measuring the motor’s speed, but torque proved a bit more challenging. The motor under test is coupled to a separate electric braking motor, which spins free when it’s not powered. A lever arm of known length connects to the braking motor on one end while bearing on a digital scale on the other. With the motor under test spun up, the braking motor is gradually powered, which rotates its housing and produces a force on the scale through the lever arm. A little math is all it takes for the mystery motor to reveal its secrets.
[Jeremy]’s videos are always instructional, and the joy he obviously feels at discovery is infectious, so we’re surprised to see that we haven’t featured any of his stuff before. We’ve seen our share of dynos before, though, from
the tiny
to
the computerized
to
the kind that sometimes blows up
. | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224441",
"author": "Jesse Welling",
"timestamp": "2020-03-03T00:56:09",
"content": "This is what I typically use…https://www.nxp.com/doc/AN4680But that won’t get you an equivalent kW rating for continous ussage until you load it…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replie... | 1,760,373,569.509364 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/02/scott-shawcroft-is-programming-game-boys-with-circuitpython/ | Scott Shawcroft Is Programming Game Boys With CircuitPython | Kristina Panos | [
"cons",
"Games",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"2019 Hackaday Superconference",
"CircuitPython",
"Direct Memory Access",
"game boy",
"game boy classic",
"lookup tables",
"SAMD51"
] | Some people like to do things the hard way. Maybe they drive a manual transmission, or they bust out the wire wrap tool instead of a soldering iron, or they code in assembly to stay close to the machine. Doing things the hard way certainly has its merits, and we are not here to argue about that. Scott Shawcroft — project lead for CircuitPython — on the other hand, makes
a great case for doing things the easy way
in his talk at the 2019 Hackaday Superconference.
In fact, he proved how easy it is right off the bat. There he stood at the podium, presenting in front of a room full of people, poised at an unfamiliar laptop with only the stock text editor. Yet with a single keystroke and a file save operation, Scott was able make the LEDs on his Adafruit Edge Badge — one of the other pieces of hackable hardware in the Supercon swag bag — go from off to battery-draining bright.
Code + Community
As Scott explains,
CircuitPython
prides itself on being equal parts code and community. In other words, it’s friendly and inviting all the way around. Developing in CircuitPython is easy because the entire environment — the code, toolchain, and the devices — are all extremely portable. Interacting with sensors and other doodads is easy because of the import and library mechanics Python is known for, both of which are growing within the CircuitPython ecosystem all the time.
CircuitPython is so friendly that it can even talk to old hardware relatively easily without devolving into a generational battle. To demonstrate this point, Scott whipped out an original Nintendo Game Boy and a custom cartridge, which he can use to play fun sounds via the Game Boy’s CPU.
Now You’re Playing With Python
It’s interesting to see the platforms on which Scott has used the power of CircuitPython. The Game Boy brings the hardware for sound and pixel generation along with some logic, but he says it’s the code on the cartridge that does the interesting stuff.
The CPU communicates with carts at a rate of 1MHz. As long as you can keep this rate up and the CPU understands your instructions, you can get it to do anything you want.
Scott’s custom cart has a 120MHz SAMD51. He spends a second explaining how he gets from Python libraries down to the wire that goes to the Game Boy’s brain — basically, the C code underneath CircuitPython accesses direct structs defined within the SAMD to do Direct Memory Access (DMA), which allows for jitter-free communication at 1MHz.
He’s using the chip’s lookup tables to generate a 1MHz signal out of clock, read, and A15 in order to send music-playing instructions to the sound register of the Game Boy’s CPU. It sounds like a lot of work, but CircuitPython helps to smooth over the dirty details, leaving behind a simpler interface.
If you want easy access to hardware no matter how new or nostalgic, the message is clear: snake your way in there with CircuitPython. | 18 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224409",
"author": "Dave Everett",
"timestamp": "2020-03-02T21:50:26",
"content": "I don’t get the logic. The interpreter must reside on the device, consuming valuable memory. It runs maybe 100 times slower than a compiled program.How is any of this better?",
"parent_id": null,... | 1,760,373,569.674262 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/02/the-last-scientific-calculator/ | The Last Scientific Calculator? | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"calculator",
"hp prime"
] | There was a time when being an engineering student meant you had a sword. Well, really it was a slide rule hanging from your belt, but it sounds cooler to call it a sword. The slide rule sword gave way to calculators hanging from your belt loop, and for many engineers that calculator was from HP. Today’s students are more likely to have a TI or Casio calculator, but HP is still in there with the HP Prime. It is hard to call it a calculator since the latest variant has a 528 MHz ARM Cortex A7, 256 MB of RAM, and 512 MB of ROM. But if you can’t justify a $150 calculator, there are some cheap and even free options out there to get the experience. To start with, HP has
a free app
that runs on Windows or Mac that works just like the calculator. Of course, that’s free as in no charge, not free as in open source. But still, it will run under Wine with no more than the usual amount of coaxing.
You might wonder why you need a calculator on your computer, and perhaps you don’t. However, the HP Prime isn’t just your 1980s vintage calculator. It also has an amazing number of applications including a complete symbolic math system based on
xCAS/Giac
. It is also programmable using a special HP language that is sort of like Basic or Pascal. Other applications include plotting, statistics, solvers, and even a spreadsheet that can hold up to 10,000 rows and 676 columns.
Portability
It is easy to think that HP provides the free PC software so you’ll go out and buy the real calculator, and that may be part of it. However, you can also get official apps for Android and iOS. They aren’t free, but they are relatively inexpensive. On iOS the cost right now is $25 and on Android it is $20. There are also “lite” versions that are free.
It appears that these apps are not emulating the actual calculator hardware, but are ports of the calculator code. So this isn’t a case of someone just writing a pretend calculator, these apps act like the real calculator because it is running the same source code. For example, there is an application, HP Connectivity Kit, that lets you talk to a real calculator over the network. The PC and phone versions will also connect just like a real device.
Programming
You can write programs on the device or if you have the HP Connectivity software (also free) you can write programs on your PC. You can even
find some from the Internet
. If you miss your old calculator, there is a define feature that lets you program like a key macro recording.
The programming language isn’t hard to pick up. Here’s a short snippet:
EXPORT AREAVOL()
BEGIN
LOCAL N1, N2, L1;
CHOOSE(N1, "Area or Volume?", "Area", "Volume");
IF N1 == 1 THEN
CHOOSE(N2, "Choose shape", "Rectangle", "Triangle", "Disk");
ELSE
CHOOSE(N2, "Choose solid", "Prism", "Cylinder", "Cone", "Pyramid", "Sphere");
. . .
Hacking and What’s Next?
You’d think that the real hardware would be a prime platform for hacking, but so far that’s still on the to-do list. The only really good hardware hack for the real calculator adds a Samsung battery with a higher capacity to the machine. There are also some enticing pads on the PCB that appear to support a buzzer and I2C communications, but there’s no firmware for it. There have been a few attempts to
load alien firmware
into the device, but there’s no full-blown development system. Getting to the JTAG port
looks pretty intense
. There’s also been the inevitable hacking of the
communication protocol
.
History is replete with products that seemed amazing for their day but turned out to be just a stopgap for something better. Cassettes gave way to CDs and then CDs gave way to digital music. Telephone answering machines gave way to voicemail. Calculators have that feel to them. How much longer will we need them? Are the virtual HP Prime applications going to overshadow the physical device?
Regardless, the Prime is state of the art and would shame a personal computer from a few years ago. You can only wonder if it will be the last great calculator, or if there are more yet to come. And a calculator still makes a
nice project
. Not all
homemade calculators
are simple. | 107 | 35 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224337",
"author": "Severe Tire Damage",
"timestamp": "2020-03-02T18:10:53",
"content": "Of course I need a culculator on my computer. I use one all the time. No real interest in this one though.Anything beyond simple math I jump to a real programming language.",
"parent_id":... | 1,760,373,570.10018 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/02/on-demand-manufacturing-hack-chat/ | On-Demand Manufacturing Hack Chat | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"Additive",
"cnc",
"cutter",
"distributed manufacturing",
"laser",
"ponoko",
"subtractive",
"The Hack Chat"
] | Join us on Wednesday, March 4 at noon Pacific for the
On-Demand Manufacturing Hack Chat
with Dan Emery!
The classical recipe for starting a manufacturing enterprise is pretty straightforward: get an idea, attract investors, hire works, buy machines, put it all in a factory, and profit. Things have been this way since the earliest days of the Industrial Revolution, and it’s a recipe that has largely given us the world we have today, for better and for worse.
One of the downsides of this model is the need for initial capital to buy the machines and build the factory. Not every idea will attract the kind of money needed to get off the ground, which means that a lot of good ideas never see the light of day. Luckily, though, we live in an age where manufacturing is no longer a monolithic process. You can literally design a product and have it tested, manufactured, and sold without ever taking one shipment of raw materials or buying a single machine other than the computer that makes this magic possible.
As co-founder of
Ponoko
, Dan Emery is in the thick of this manufacturing revolution. His company capitalizes on the need for laser cutting, whether it be for parts used in rapid prototyping or complete production runs of cut and engraved pieces. Their service is part of a wider ecosystem that covers almost every additive and subtractive manufacturing process, including 3D-printing, CNC machining, PCB manufacturing, and even final assembly and testing, providing new entrepreneur access to tools and processes that would have once required buckets of cash to acquire and put under one roof.
Join us as we sit down with Derek and discuss the current state of on-demand manufacturing and what the future holds for it. We’ll talk about Ponoko’s specific place in this ecosystem, and what role outsourced laser cutting could play in getting your widget to market. We’ll also take a look at how Ponoko got started and how it got where it is today, as well as anything else that comes up.
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 4 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. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224326",
"author": "hybls",
"timestamp": "2020-03-02T17:45:08",
"content": "excited for this! Parts ordered from Ponoko are arriving here today in fact.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6224364",
"author": "reg",
"timest... | 1,760,373,569.950115 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/02/giant-clock-made-in-the-nick-of-time/ | Giant Clock Made In The Nick Of Time | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"clock hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"arduino uno wifi",
"clock",
"NEMA-17",
"RGB LEDs",
"stepper motors"
] | When [tnjyoung] was asked to build a huge lighted clock for a high school theater’s production of Cinderella with only two weeks before opening night, he probably wished for a fairy godmother of his own to show up and do it for him.
But he and his team pulled it off, and it looks amazing
. That medallion in the middle? It was laid out painstakingly by hand, using electrical tape.
This thing is 12 feet wide and weighs more than 500 pounds. Even so, it isn’t a permanent set piece, so it has to move up and down throughout the show on airplane cables. Now for the minutiae: there’s an Arduino Uno with built-in Wi-Fi that receives UDP commands from a phone to raise and lower the clock at the appropriate times. The ‘duino is also controlling two stepper motors, one for the hour hand and one for the minute hand.
Time is almost a minor character in the story of Cinderella, since she has to get back by midnight. Because of this, [tnjyoung] programmed a dozen or so time cues that move the steppers at various speeds to achieve different effects, like time flying by as she dances the night away with the Prince. Hour you still just sitting there? Sweep past the break to watch the build process fly by in a matter of minutes.
Got all the time in the world?
Make a clock out of clocks
. Clocks all the way down. | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224310",
"author": "Josh Bensadon",
"timestamp": "2020-03-02T16:37:40",
"content": "The only thing missing is a glass shoe. Excellent work… only 2 weeks!?? amazing!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6224324",
"author": "dren... | 1,760,373,570.350149 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/02/project-rubicon-the-nsa-secretly-sold-flawed-encryption-for-decades/ | Project Rubicon: The NSA Secretly Sold Flawed Encryption For Decades | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Original Art",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"cia",
"Crypto AG",
"cryptography",
"nsa"
] | There have been a few moments in the past few years, when a conspiracy theory is suddenly demonstrated to be based in fact. Once upon a time, it was an absurd suggestion that the
NSA had data taps in AT&T buildings
across the country. Just like Snowden’s revelations confirmed those conspiracy theories, a news in February
confirmed some theories about Crypto AG
, a Swiss cryptography vendor.
The whole story reads like a cold-war era spy thriller, and like many of those novels, it all starts with World War II. As a result of a family investment, Boris Hagelin found himself at the helm of Aktiebolaget Cryptograph, later renamed to Crypto AG (1952), a Swedish company that built and sold cipher machines that competed with the famous Enigma machine. At the start of the war, Hagelin decided that Sweden was not the place to be, and moved to the United States. This was a fortuitous move, as it allowed Hagelin to market his company’s C-38 cipher machine to the US military. That device was designated the M-209 by the army, and became the standard in-the-field encryption machine.
From M-209 to PDP-11
The CX-52, thanks to Rama, Cc-by-sa-2.0-fr
In an interesting intersection of history, the M-209 caught the interest of Dennis Ritchie and Robert Morris, both Unix pioneers who worked at Bell Labs. Together with James Reeds, they wrote
a paper on a statistical cryptanalysis of the cipher
, and concluded their technique could decipher an unknown message of at least 2500 characters with almost perfect accuracy, in just a few minutes on a pdp-11.
Ritchie’s written recollection of the matter
includes a relevant anecdote. As part of preparing the paper for publishing, the authors also submitted it to the NSA for review. It made enough of an impression that Ritchie and Morris got a visit from a “retired gentleman” from the NSA, sometime around 1978.
According to Ritchie:
…the agency didn’t particularly care about the M-209. What they did care about was that the method that Reeds had discovered was applicable to systems that were in current use by particular governments, and that even though it was hard to imagine that these people would find the paper and relate it to their own operations (which used commercially-available crypto machines)…
The result of that visit was a decision to delay publication indefinitely. As cool as it is to see some Unix heroes show up unexpectedly, perhaps the most interesting element of this anecdote is the reasoning for the unofficial request not to publish: Other governments are using commercially-available crypto machines that were vulnerable to this attack, and the NSA wanted to keep that information quiet.
The Handshake with the NSA
After the success of the M-209, Hagelin moved back to Sweden and re-established his company there, before finally moving himself and the company to Switzerland. The CIA and NSA (then called the AFSA) kept tabs on the activities of Hagelin and Crypto AG. A new machine was under development, the CX-52, and that worried the spooks back in the states.
You see, even during the war, it had been discovered that a C-38 encoded message could be broken in just a few hours. The new CX-52 was extremely difficult to decrypt, meaning that the NSA would lose their all-seeing eye into communications around the world. The NSA had a secret weapon in the form of William Friedman, who was chief cryptologist for the NSA, as well as a personal friend to Hagelin. In 1951, at the Cosmos Club in Washington D.C., Friedman made an informal proposal to Hagelin: Crypto AG would restrict sales of the newer, more secure machines to a list of approved customers, and the US would reimburse him for the lost sales. The men shook hands on the gentlemen’s agreement, and then waited for the slow process of making that agreement official.
The wheels of government turn slowly indeed, and it was February of 1955 before the agreement was finalized. In addition to the money and sales restrictions, the NSA would produce the instruction manuals for the improved machines. It’s been suggested that the NSA produced manuals included
intentionally misleading instructions
, intended to weaken the encryption of Crypto AG machines for specific users.
Building Backdoors
In 1967, Crypto AG released the H-460, an electronic encryption machine. This should have represented another massive leap in encryption strength over the older mechanical models, and it likely would have been such a leap, had the NSA not been the primary designer of the new system. How did they compromise the security of the system? It appears that they manipulated the random number generator at the heart of the system, such that at a known interval, the “random numbers” would repeat. The list of approved customers received units without the compromised generator, but H-460 devices sent to the rest of the world had this intentional weakness built-in from the factory. When the NSA intercepted a communication that had been encrypted using a weakened H-460, they could decrypt it in seconds rather than months.
1950’s era Crypto AG Device. Image by Cory Doctorow, CC BY-SA 2.0
Does a weakened random number generator sound familiar? How about
the RDRAND instruction in Intel processors
, just a few years ago? It was suggested that the random number generating instruction in Intel chips was untrustworthy. There were
fireworks in the Linux kernel development
, but ultimately, several different communities began treating RDRAND output as untrustworthy.
The Buyout
Though it wasn’t entirely without conflict, the agreement between the NSA and Hagelin lasted until his retirement. Boris Hagelin had planned to pass his company to his son, Bo Hagelin, but Bo died in a car crash in the Washington D.C. area in 1970. Shortly after this event, Boris Hagelin stepped down from leadership of the company, and a buyout of the company was carried out. A series of shell companies were used to mask the identity of the new owners of Crypto AG, but recently declassified documentation reveals the truth of the matter. Crypto AG was purchased in a joint venture between the CIA and the West German BND. From 1970 until 2018, one of the foremost providers of encryption equipment for governments around the world was secretly a covert operation run by these two intelligence agencies. This operation was eventually known as Rubicon.
The details of Rubicon were chased down by a group of journalists, as well as the
Crypto Museum
in the Netherlands. Most of the information presented here is distilled from the Crypto Museum and
The Washington Post story
. You may be looking for a link to the declassified CIA documentation, but unfortunately only snippets are available. From the Washington Post: “The Post was able to read all of the documents, but the source of the material insisted that only excerpts be published.”
An unexpected benefit was that Crypto AG was a profitable business. The paperwork of the business was handled by the BND, who then shared the profits with the CIA. This arrangement persisted until 1993, when the CIA bought out the German involvement in the project. By this time, the financial profitability of Crypto AG had faded, but many governments were still using their products.
Real World Uses of the Crypto AG Backdoor
We have a few glimpses into the intelligence that Crypto AG helped to gather: In 1978, the Egyptian president came to Camp David to negotiate a peace accord, and his communications were “secured” using Crypto AG hardware. In 1979, after the Iranians captured American hostages, president Carter’s negotiations relied heavily on intelligence captured through Crypto AG hardware.
An example that included some fallout was the bombing of a West Berlin club in 1986. Because of this program, the NSA was able to conclusively determine that Libya was behind the bombing. The decision was made to be precise when revealing what the US knew about the bombing coordination, giving hints to the nature of NSA capabilities.
Leaking Information
As you might imagine, it was impossible to keep the NSA’s involvement in Crypto AG a perfect secret. Peter Frutiger, for example, was an engineer for the company who figured out that something was wrong with Crypto AG products. He made a trip to Syria to troubleshoot complaints, and proceeded to fix the vulnerable devices he found there. For his trouble, the Crypto AG CEO fired Frutiger as soon as his fix was discovered.
Mengia Caflisch was another employee, too smart for her own good, who made life difficult for her unseen overlords. Together with other researchers from the company, she discovered some of the weaknesses of Crypto AG’s products, and tried to improve their security.
In response to company engineers doing their job too well, the CIA began looking for someone to keep the engineers in line. They settled on Kjell-Ove Widman, A mathematics professor from a Swedish university. More importantly, Widman was a famous cryptographer was sympathetic to the US. His recruitment in 1979 was rather straightforward, and Widman served as the CIA’s man until 1994. As a somewhat famous cryptographer, his word became law in the company, keeping the rest of the company in line. Widman helped to develop the next generation of compromised algorithms, aiming for flaws that wouldn’t show up in a statistical analysis, and yet could be easily explained as human error. He got more than he bargained for, as Widman was one of the representatives that went to Argentina in 1982,
to explain vulnerabilities in Crypto AG devices
. The gambit worked — the vulnerable algorithm was replaced by a more advanced, but still vulnerable cipher, and Argentina remained a Crypto AG customer.
The tensions between Crypto AG and customers came to a head in 1992. Iranian communications had been vulnerable for a decade, and Iran was slowly becoming wise to the con. Hans Buehler, a Crypto AG sales rep, was detained in Tehran, and interrogated about company products. The only problem? As far as Buehler knew, his company was legitimate. Nine months passed while the CIA and German BND argued over what to do. The US policy was to never pay ransom demands, so the CIA was unwilling to be a part of bailing out Buehler. Finally the German agency opted to provide the ransom money, and secured Buehler’s release. This event proved to be the beginning of the end for the CIA-BND partnership. In 1994, the CIA bought out the BND’s ownership of Crypto AG.
The End of the Story?
The declassified information dries up around this era. Thanks to
news reporting in 1995
and
the 2014 release of the Friedman archives
, some of this story was already known. The 2018 sale of the remaining Crypto AG assets seems to have been the end of the CIA’s involvement with the company. Two companies, CyOne and Crypto International AG, were created from the ashes of Crypto AG. While it appears that neither of these new companies are actively compromised, their products may still contain compromised cryptography, and so should still be considered untrustworthy.
It’s unclear whether any governments are still using CIA-era Crypto AG hardware for their communications, but the inertia of governments and red tape would lead one to assume that these products are still in use somewhere. Beyond that possibility, we have to wonder whether other proprietary encryption products have been similarly compromised. It’s even conceivable that an open source encryption product has been subtly designed to be vulnerable.
Operation Rubicon was considered “the intelligence coup of the century” by the CIA, and it’s not hard to understand why. The question we are left with, is what the intelligence coup of the 21st century will look like, and will we see it coming, or only learn about it years later. | 83 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224288",
"author": "Mark S.",
"timestamp": "2020-03-02T15:05:41",
"content": "And this is the reason US government tries to keep Huawei tech out of 5G networks. They want to keep their own backdoors.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment... | 1,760,373,570.230163 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/02/esp32-rover-with-pcb-chassis-is-ready-to-roll/ | ESP32 Rover With PCB Chassis Is Ready To Roll | Tom Nardi | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"chassis",
"ESP32",
"gearmotor",
"pcb enclosure",
"rover",
"wheeled robot"
] | The microcontrollers are cheap, the sensors are cheap, even the motors are cheap. So why are all the good wheeled robotics platforms so expensive? [Dimitris Platis] wanted to develop an affordable platform for experimenting with rovers, but the cheap plastic chassis he was using gave him all sorts of problems. So he did what any good hacker would do,
and built a better version himself
.
Interestingly, [Dimitris] decided to go with a chassis made from two PCB panels. The motors, mounted to small angled brackets, bolt directly to the lower PCB. These aren’t your standard $2 DC cans either. Each JGB37-520 gearhead motor comes complete with an encoder that allows your software to determine speed, distance, and direction. The upper PCB connects to the lower with several rows of pin headers, and plays host to whatever electronics payload you might be experimenting with at the time.
For the controller, [Dimitris] says the ESP32 is hard to beat by pretty much any metric you want to use. With integrated wireless and considerable computational power, there’s plenty of options for controlling your little rover either remotely or autonomously. But he also says that every effort has been made to ensure that you could switch out the microcontroller with something else should you want to spin up a customized version.
The whole idea
reminds us a bit of quadcopters we’ve seen in the past
, where the PCB wasn’t just being used structurally as a place to bolt the motors and hardware to, but actually contained functional traces and components that reduced how much wiring you needed to do. Naturally, this means that any damage to the chassis might cripple the electronics, but presumably, that’s what the big foam bumpers are there for.
[Dimitris] designed this project for educational use, so he assumes you’ll want to build 10 or 12 of these for your whole classroom. In those quantities, he says each bot will cost around $60. If you wanted to reduce the price a bit more, he says swapping the motors would be your best bet as they’re the single most expensive component of the design. That said, $60 for a quality open source rover platform sounds pretty fair to us.
Still too much? You could check out one of the
3D printable rover designs we’ve covered over the years
. Or see if you can get lucky and
pick up a cheap robot from the clearance rack and hack it
. | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224289",
"author": "dj",
"timestamp": "2020-03-02T15:16:34",
"content": "what about the steering ?steering by 2 motors requires 2 wheels from the second (not powered) axis to turn left right freely, to not generate stress to tyressteering by 4 motors is fit for slowly moving vehicl... | 1,760,373,570.293872 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/02/generate-power-as-you-ride-with-a-bicycle-planar-alternator/ | Generate Power As You Ride With A Bicycle Planar Alternator | Jenny List | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"altenator",
"bicycle",
"magnets"
] | For most riders, bicycle lighting consists of an array of LED lamps and flashing gizmos, usually powered by lithium-ion batteries, or coin cells for the smaller ones. Some people though prefer to dispense with batteries and generate their own power, and that’s what [Thomas D] has done by fitting his bike with an alternator. But this is no off the shelf unit that rubs the tire or sits in a wheel hub. Instead,
he’s built his own planar alternator that attaches to the spokes
.
The design is inspired by those used in some wind generators, a central disk holding a set of planar coils sits between two rotating disks holding magnets. The stator holding the coils is made from laser-cut acrylic, and the rotors holding the magnets are sheet steel. One rotor is attached to the rear wheel spokes of the bicycle in close proximity to the stator which is attached to the rear frame. The second rotor sits on the other side of the stator while attached to the first rotor by its edge.
The coils are wired as two parallel groups in series in a ring with a single-phase output that feeds a rectifier and DC to DC converter. It would be interesting to see the effect of the same alternator with different winding arrangements or multiple phases.
This is the first time we’ve seen one of these on a bicycle, but this type of alternator has appeared here in
more than one wind generator
. | 21 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224253",
"author": "Saabman",
"timestamp": "2020-03-02T10:21:17",
"content": "Cool I was thinking doing something very similar the other day to my bike – but looks like everything I think of someone has already done it…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,373,570.409673 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/01/a-minimal-esp8266-digital-picture-frame/ | A Minimal ESP8266 Digital Picture Frame | Tom Nardi | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"digital photo frame",
"ESP8266",
"photo frame",
"PROGMEM",
"SPIFFS",
"ST7735",
"tft"
] | Over the last few years, the price of a good digital picture frame has dropped to the point that we don’t often see DIY versions anymore. As much as we might hate to admit it, it’s hard to justify building something yourself when the economies of scale have made it so you can buy the final product for less than the cost of the parts themselves. But of course, there are always fringe cases where
building it might be the only way to get what you need
.
Granted we’re not sure that [Tony Liu] actually
needs
a 1.8-inch digital picture frame, but we’re sure somebody out there does. The ST7735R display used in this project is a real TFT, so the color and refresh rate is pretty good; but with a resolution of just 128×160, we’d recommend keeping your expectations low in regards to visual fidelity.
What’s really interesting about this project is how low the part count is. All you need is the ST7735R display and the ESP8266 itself (or the development board of your choice, naturally). Even the 3D printed frame is technically optional. The display is driven by SPI, so with the power added in, that’s only eight wires that need to be soldered between the two devices. If you’re looking for an easy way to add a photo slideshow to a small device, say a conference badge, this is about as easy as it gets.
But where are the images coming from? You might think SPIFFS, but in this case [Tony] has converted the images to bitmaps and is loading them into the Arduino Sketch as a header file with PROGMEM. Helpfully, he provides the link for the tool he uses to convert the images into an array the graphics library can understand. This makes adding new images slightly time consuming, but we imagine if you have the need for something like this, it’s probably only showing a pretty specific set of images anyway.
If you’re looking for something bigger, or maybe just an excuse to put that dusty Raspberry Pi to use, you might be interested in
one of the more substantial builds we’ve seen over the years
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yeeBgClBrs | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224226",
"author": "Riley",
"timestamp": "2020-03-02T06:45:07",
"content": "Points for effort I guess, but start with the spiffs/sd web server example and load images from there. That way pics can be viewed and updated via WiFi…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replie... | 1,760,373,570.509799 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/01/never-miss-a-doorbell-with-this-notifier/ | Never Miss A Doorbell With This Notifier | Jenny List | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"doorbell",
"ESP8266",
"reed switch"
] | [PatH] tells us that he tragically missed a craft beer delivery to his home, and vowed never to let this happen again. His problem was that he’d missed the doorbell, resulting in one of those annoying notes from the delivery guy. His solution?
An ESP8266-driven doorbell detector
, that both sends him an SMS and records each doorbell press to a Google Sheet.
The doorbell detection is surprising but simple and non-intrusive, instead of running a GPIO line through some kind of interface to the button itself he’s added a reed switch to his ESP8266 board and used that to detect the magnetic field of the bell solenoids. It’s a convenient method, but one that only works with an old-style bell.
When the bell rings the magnetic field triggers the reed switch, and in turn the sketch running on the ESP calls out to IFTTT which triggers both an SMS and a write to a Google Sheets document that records each doorbell activation.
The ESP8266
seems to be a popular choice with doorbell automatprs
probably because of its built-in networking and low price, but it’s not the only option. This optocoupler-sensed effort for example
uses a Particle Xenon
. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224220",
"author": "Nibbamab",
"timestamp": "2020-03-02T05:52:41",
"content": "Maybe something similar can be done with esp32cam which will send a pic of the person who comes",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6224280",
... | 1,760,373,570.462527 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/01/hackaday-links-march-1-2020/ | Hackaday Links: March 1, 2020 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"Bagger 288",
"Betelgeuse",
"cold war",
"daredevel",
"dns",
"doh",
"hackaday links",
"PNW",
"rocket",
"seattle",
"soviet",
"spy radio",
"Supernova",
"VCF"
] | Talk about buried treasure:
archeologists in Germany have – literally – unearthed a pristine Soviet spy radio
, buried for decades outside of Cologne. While searching for artifacts from a Roman empire settlement, the archeologists found a pit containing the Soviet R-394KM transceiver, built in 1987 and apparently buried shortly thereafter without ever being used. It was found close to a path in the woods and not far from several sites of interest to Cold War-era spies. Curiously, the controls on the radio are labeled not in Cyrillic characters, but in the Latin alphabet, suggesting the radio was to be used by a native German speaker. The area in which it was found is destined to be an open-cast lignite mine, which makes us think that other Cold War artifacts may have fallen victim to
the gore-covered blades of Bagger 288
.
Good news for Betelgeuse fans, bad news for aficionados of cataclysmic cosmic explosions: it looks like
the red giant in Orion isn’t going to explode anytime soon
. Betelgeuse has been dimming steadily and rapidly since October of 2019; as a variable star such behavior is expected, but the magnitude of its decline was seen by some astronomers as a sign that the star was reaching the point in its evolution where it would go supernova. Alas, Betelgeuse started to brighten again right on schedule, suggesting that the star is not quite ready to give up the ghost. We’d have loved to witness a star so bright it rivals the full moon, but given the times we live in, perhaps it’s best not to have such a harbinger of doom appear.
If you plan to be in the Seattle area as the winter turns to spring, you might want to check out the
Vintage Computer Fair Pacific Northwest
. We visited back
during the show’s first year
and had a good time, and the
Living Computers: Museum + Labs
, where the event is held, is not to be missed.
The Museum of Flight
is supposed to be excellent as well, and not far away.
Mozilla
announced this week
that Firefox would turn on DNS over HTTPS (DoH) by default in the United States. DoH encrypts the DNS requests that are needed to translate a domain name to an IP address, which normally travel in clear text and are therefore easily observed. Easily readable DNS transactions are also key to content blockers, which has raised the hackles of regulators and legislators over the plan, who are singing the usual “think of the children” song. That DoH would make user data collection and ad-tracking harder probably has nothing to do with their protests.
And finally, sad news from California as
daredevil and amateur rocketeer “Mad” Mike Hughes has been killed in a crash of his homemade rocket
. The steam-powered rocket was to be a follow-up to an earlier, mostly successful flight to about 1,900 feet (580 m), and supposed to reach about 5,000 feet (1.5 km) at apogee. But in an eerily similar repeat of the mishap that nearly killed Evel Knievel during his Snake River Canyon jump in 1974, Mike’s parachute deployed almost as soon as his rocket left the launch rails. The chute introduced considerable drag before being torn off the rocket by the exhaust plume. The rocket continued in a ballistic arc to a considerable altitude, but without a chute Mike’s fate was sealed. Search for the video at your own peril, as it’s pretty disturbing. We never appreciated Mike’s self-professed Flat Earth views, but we did like his style. We suppose, though, that such an ending was more likely than not. | 16 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224197",
"author": "reg",
"timestamp": "2020-03-02T00:44:21",
"content": "Pick a number and stand in line to call me a total asshole, but the sad news from California is just Darwin being right again.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"commen... | 1,760,373,570.563697 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/01/a-patch-antenna-is-just-a-rectangle-it-should-be-easy-to-design-right/ | A Patch Antenna Is Just A Rectangle, It Should Be Easy To Design, Right? | Jenny List | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"antenna",
"microwave",
"patch antenna",
"RF"
] | If a grizzled RF engineer who bears the soldering-iron scars of a thousand projects could offer any advice, it would be that microwave antennas are not a field to be entered into lightly. Much heartache is to be saved by using an off-the-shelf design, and only the foolhardy venture willingly down the stripline into the underworld of complex microwave resonances.
But every would-be microwave designer has to start somewhere, and for [Adam Gulyas]
that start came with a 2.4 GHz patch antenna
. His write-up is a fascinating tale of the challenges and pitfalls of creating something which is deceptively simple at first sight but which becomes significantly more complex as he characterizes his design made real as a PCB.
The process started with a set of calculations to derive the patch dimensions and a bit of PCB work adding a stripline feed. This was produced on a PCB, a normal 1.6mm thick FR4 fiberglass board. When hooked up to a VNA its impedance was all wrong. Further, it had a resonance at the required frequency but also unexpected ones at 3.7 and 4.6 GHz. Simulation of the design also yielded a different resonance from the one calculated, and discussing it with others yielded the conclusion that the feed might be at fault. He ended up using an inset feed, with a co-axial cable emerging away from the edge of the patch, and was able to achieve a far better result.
We can all learn something from [Adam]’s write-up, and we salute him for staying the course to get the design to a usable point. It would be interesting to see the same antenna produced from a more consistent dielectric material than generic FR4. Meanwhile, if you are interested in microwave RF design,
take a look at Michael Ossmann’s primer on the subject
. | 20 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224166",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-03-01T21:06:44",
"content": "Remember kiddies, speed of light and dielectric constant may vary wildly between materials…. so when you jig up that perfect length of mini coax and use that length on your fibreglass PCB, el problem... | 1,760,373,570.623442 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/01/the-high-seas-are-open-source/ | The High Seas Are Open Source | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"Autopilot",
"boat",
"germany",
"hardware",
"navigation",
"open source",
"software",
"transportation"
] | One of the biggest problems of owning an older boat (besides being a money pit – that is common to all boats regardless of age) is the lack of parts and equipment, and the lack of support for those parts if you can find them at all. Like most things, this is an area that can benefit greatly from some open source solutions, which the
Open Boat Projects in Germany
has been able to show. (
Google Translate from German
)
This group has solutions for equipment problems of all kinds for essentially any sized boat. At their most recent expo, many people were interested in open source solutions for situations where there is currently only an expensive proprietary option, such as support for various plotting devices. This isn’t the only part of this project, though. It includes many separate projects, like their solutions for autopilot and navigation. There are even complete hardware packages available, all fully documented.
Open source solutions for large, expensive things like this are often few and far between for a number of reasons. There are
limited options for other modes of open source transportation too
, as it seems like most large companies are not willing to give up their secrets easily. Communities like this, however, give us hope that people will have other options for repairing their vehicles without having to shell out too much money.
Thanks to [mip] for the tip! | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224159",
"author": "Sowlaki",
"timestamp": "2020-03-01T20:17:16",
"content": "Would be nice to see a Plotter where the digital sea maps (SD Cards) doesn’t cost as much as the Plotter itself. The market is similar to the printer market with it’s ink cartridges.",
"parent_id": nu... | 1,760,373,570.671466 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/01/diy-monochrome-lcd-hack-doesnt-go-as-planned/ | DIY Monochrome LCD Hack Doesn’t Go As Planned | Tom Nardi | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"lcd",
"masked SLA",
"monochromatic",
"MSLA",
"resin printer"
] | Manufacturers of low-cost 3D printers that use the masked stereolithography (MSLA) process are able to build their machines so cheaply because they’re using repurposed smartphone or tablet LCD panels to mask off the UV backlight. Considering the quality you get out of even the entry-level MSLA resin printers, we certainly aren’t complaining about this bit of thrift.
But as [Jan Mrázek] explains in a recent blog post
, there’s certainly room for improvement.
The problem is that those repurposed LCD panels are, as you’d expect, color displays. After all, even the bottom of the barrel mobile devices moved away from monochrome displays decades ago. But in this case, that’s not what you really want. Since the printer operates on a single wavelength of light, the color filters inside the LCD are actually absorbing light that could otherwise be curing the resin. So an MSLA printer with a monochrome screen would use less energy and print faster. There’s only one problem: it’s not very easy to find high-resolution monochrome displays in the year 2020.
So [Jan] decided to see if he could take a replacement screen intended for his Elegoo Mars MSLA printer and convert it from color to monochrome by disassembling it and manually removing the color filters. If this sounds a bit crazy, that’s because it is. Turns out taking apart an LCD, modifying its internal layout, and putting it all back together in working order is
just
as difficult as you’d think.
But it was still worth a try. [Jan] pulls the display apart, removes the liquid crystals, scrapes off the color filters, and then puts it all back together again. His first attempt got him a monochrome display that actually worked, but with debris trapped inside the screen, the image was too poor to be useful. He tried again, this time trying harder to keep foreign material out of the crystals. But when he got it back together a second time, he found it no longer functioned. He thinks it’s possible that his attempt to clean up the inside of the display was too aggressive, but really there are so many things that could go wrong here it’s hard to pin down just one.
Long story short, manually creating monochrome displays for low-cost MSLA printers might not be a viable option. Until a better solution comes along, you might be interested in seeing
some slightly less invasive ways of improving your resin print quality
. | 41 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224115",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2020-03-01T15:32:53",
"content": "Seems the laser SLA is still the gold standard.https://theorthocosmos.com/laser-sla-vs-dlp-vs-masked-sla-3d-printing-technology-compared/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{... | 1,760,373,571.212224 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/01/single-bolt-transformed-into-a-work-of-art/ | Single Bolt Transformed Into A Work Of Art | Dan Maloney | [
"Art",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"art",
"brass",
"craftsmanship",
"drawing",
"jewelry",
"metalwork",
"ruby"
] | Every once in a while, this job helps you to discover something new and completely fascinating that has little to do with hacking but is worth sharing nonetheless.
Turning a single brass bolt into a beautiful Cupid’s bow
is certainly one of those times.
Watching [Pablo Cimadevila] work in the video below is a real treat, on par with
a Clickspring build
for craftsmanship and production values. His goal is to use a largish brass bolt as the sole source of material for a charming little
objet d’art
, which he achieves mainly with the use of simple hand tools. The stave of the bow is cut from the flattened shank of the bolt with a jeweler’s saw, with the bolt head left as a display stand. The offcuts are melted down and drawn out into wire for both the bowstring and the shaft of the arrow, a process that’s fascinating in its own right. The heart-shaped arrowhead and the faces of the bolt head are bedazzled with rubies; the technique [Pablo] uses to create settings for the stones is worth the price of admission alone. The complete video below is well worth a watch, but if you don’t have the twelve minutes to spare,
a condensed GIF is available
.
[Pablo]’s artistry reminds us a bit of
this not-quite-one-bolt combination lock
. We love the constraint of sourcing all a project’s materials from a single object, and we really appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into builds like these.
[via
r/interestingasf*k
] | 24 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224082",
"author": "dt",
"timestamp": "2020-03-01T13:01:01",
"content": "He’s gifted. I wonder why so many people disliked this video in YouTube.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6224101",
"author": "Chris",
"t... | 1,760,373,571.020995 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/01/assistive-specs-help-jog-your-memory/ | Assistive Specs Help Jog Your Memory | Jenny List | [
"Machine Learning"
] | [
"assistive technolgy",
"machine vision",
"neural network"
] | It’s something that can happen to all of us, that we forget things. Young and old, we know things are on our to-do list but in the heat of the moment they disappear from our minds and we miss them. There are a myriad of technological answers to this in the form of reminders and calendars, but [Nick Bild] has come up with possibly the most inventive yet.
His Newrons project is a pair of glasses with a machine vision camera
, that flashes a light when it detects an object in its field of view associated with a calendar entry.
At its heart is a JeVois A33 Smart Machine Vision Camera, which runs a neural network trained on an image dataset. It passes its sightings to an Arduino Nano IoT fitted with a real-time clock, that pulls appointment information from Google Calendar and flashes the LED when it detects a match between object and event. His example which we’ve placed below the break is a pill bottle triggering a reminder to take the pills.
We like this idea, but can’t help thinking that it has a flaw in that the reminder relies on the object moving into view. A version that tied this in with more conventional reminding based upon the calendar would address this, and perhaps save the forgetful a few problems. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224080",
"author": "Michael C",
"timestamp": "2020-03-01T11:58:55",
"content": "Nice project.To be able to develop something like this in spare time and living room is really something.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6224081",... | 1,760,373,570.902634 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/29/a-tin-can-phone-but-with-magnets/ | A Tin Can Phone, But With Magnets | Brian McEvoy | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"coil",
"electromagnet",
"magnet",
"microphone",
"solenoid",
"speaker",
"voice coil"
] | The tin can phone is a staple of longitudinal wave demonstrations wherein a human voice vibrates the bottom of a soup can, and compression waves travel along a string to reproduce the speaker in another can at the other end. All the parts in this
electrical
demonstration
are different, but the concept is the same.
Speakers are sound transducers that turn electrical impulses into air vibrations, but they generate electricity when their coil vibrates. Copper wires carry those impulses from one cup to another. We haven’t heard of anyone making a tin can phone amplifier, but the strictly passive route wasn’t working, so an op-amp does some messy boosting. The link and video demonstrate the parts and purposes inside these sound transducers in an approachable way. Each component is constructed in sequence so you can understand what is happening and make sense of the results.
Can someone make a tin can
amplifier
transformer?
We’d like to see that
. In another twist of dual-purpose electronics, did you know that
LEDs can sense light
? | 17 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224050",
"author": "leeahart",
"timestamp": "2020-03-01T06:13:04",
"content": "You don’t need a transformer; you just need a carbon microphone. That’s exactly how it was done 100+years ago in the first telephones.A diaphragm vibrates a “resistor” made with two metal plates filled w... | 1,760,373,570.960274 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/29/adora-ble-synth-wails-without-wires/ | Adora-BLE Synth Wails Without Wires | Kristina Panos | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"Adafruit Feather",
"bluetooth",
"bluetooth LE",
"CircuitPlayground Bluetooth",
"color packets",
"monophonic",
"synth"
] | Isn’t this the cutest little synth you ever saw? The matching sparkly half-stack amp really makes it, visually speaking. But the most interesting part? There’s not a wire in sight, ’cause
[Blitz City DIY]’s futuristic rig sends the bleep boops over Bluetooth LE
.
Hardware-wise, both the synth and the amp are fairly simple. Underneath each of those cute little printed keys is one of those clicky momentaries that usually come with bright button caps in primary colors — the keys themselves just press-fit over the tops. All twelve ebonies and ivories are connected up to an Adafruit Feather, which communicates over Bluetooth LE to a CircuitPlayground Bluefruit (CPB) in the amp. Each time a note is played on the synth, its corresponding color circles comet-like around the CPB’s NeoPixels, which shine through the amp’s speaker grille.
The super interesting part is that all the hard work is happening in the code. Both boards have the same array of colors in rainbow order, and the CPB has an array of tone frequencies that match up one for one with the colors. For every note played, the CPB looks up the color, swirls it, and plays the note. If you want to build one, this project is wide open — [Blitz City DIY] even made
a learn guide with all the dirty details
. Be sure to check out the demo and extended walk-through after the break.
More in the market for making a computer keyboard?
Just grab the nearest ESP32
.
Via
Adafruit | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224066",
"author": "ziew",
"timestamp": "2020-03-01T09:31:24",
"content": "Don’t take this as nitpicking, but would it be possible to stream digital audio from it? I mean, does any cheap Bluetooth-enabled board allow to send raw audio frames? Just wondering.",
"parent_id": null... | 1,760,373,571.258775 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/29/converting-an-atari-2600-into-a-home-computer-did-that-ever-work/ | Converting An Atari 2600 Into A Home Computer; Did That Ever Work? | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"6502",
"atari",
"atari 2600",
"basic",
"computer"
] | [Tony] posted an interesting video where he looks at the
Atari 2600
and the way many companies tried to convert it into a real home computer. This reminded us of the ColecoVision, which started out as a video game but could expand to a pretty reasonable computer.
It might seem silly to convert a relatively anemic Atari video game into a computer, but keep in mind that computers were pretty expensive in those days. Not to mention, the Atari itself was a fair investment back then, too.
There were four options [Tony] found, although none of them seemed to be very popular. One looked like a cassette player that plugged into your cartridge port and a keyboard port for a cheap-looking keyboard. [Tony] thinks it, along with the “piggy back,” never actually made it to market.
Atari also got into the act with the Graduate. For $79 you got 8K of RAM and a membrane keyboard. There was a big public relations push including a very period TV commercial you can see in the video.
Apparently a dispute between Atari and the actual designers of the Graduate, caused Atari to kill the project with no sales. So far, of the three [Tony] covered, none of them were sold to the public.
The fourth one, CompuMate, was sold for $79. You would get some extra memory and an odd-looking membrane keyboard along with a cassette port. If you want to see the guts, fast forward to 13:30. Like many period computers, it will start up at a BASIC prompt. Unlike many other computers, it would also play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
The screen resolution was very poor. Apparently, the flavor of BASIC used by the CompuMate isn’t very well documented. A 100 line program fills up the memory which is funny when you think of how much memory your PC or even your phone has today.
It is hard to realize that the days when this kind of add on might make sense was not that long ago. You can wonder what the computers of 2080 will look like.
If you want to
write native
, there are ways to do that with a bit of work. There are plenty of ways to get
the equivalent
of a 2600 — and more — in a much smaller package now. | 19 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224014",
"author": "localroger",
"timestamp": "2020-03-01T01:18:52",
"content": "The Atari 2600 only had 4K of program space, and no write line put out to the cartridge slot. I spent some time learning to program it in the late 1990’s. The video system is so primitive that displa... | 1,760,373,571.421768 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/29/media-streamer-with-e-ink-display-keeps-it-classy/ | Media Streamer With E-Ink Display Keeps It Classy | Tom Nardi | [
"digital audio hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"audio streaming",
"e-ink",
"media player",
"nas",
"openscad",
"Squeezebox"
] | The Logitech SqueezeBox was a device you hooked up to your stereo so you could stream music from a Network Attached Storage (NAS) box or your desktop computer over the network. That might not sound very exciting now, but when [Aaron Ciuffo] bought it back in 2006, it was a pretty big deal. The little gadget has been chugging all these years, but the cracks are starting to form. Before it finally heads to that great electronics recycling center in the sky,
he’s decided to start work on its replacement
.
Thanks to the Raspberry Pi, building a little device to stream digital audio from a NAS is easy these days. But a Pi hooked up to a USB speaker isn’t necessarily a great fit for the living room. [Aaron] didn’t necessarily want his replacement player to actually
look
like the SqueezeBox, but he wanted it to be presentable. While most of us probably would have tried to make something that looked like a traditional piece of audio gear, he took his design is a somewhat more homey direction.
An OpenSCAD render of the enclosure.
The Raspberry Pi 4 and HiFiBerry DAC+ Pro live inside of a wooden laser cut case that [Aaron] designed with OpenSCAD. We generally associate this tool with 3D printing, but here he’s exporting each individual panel as an SVG file so they can be cut out. We especially like that he took the time to add all of the internal components to the render so he could be sure everything fit before bringing the design into the corporeal world.
While the case was definitely a step in the right direction, [Aaron] wasn’t done yet. He added a WaveShare e-Paper 5.83″ display and mounted it in a picture frame.
Software he’s written for the Raspberry Pi
shows the album information and cover art on the display while the music is playing, and the current time and weather forecast when it’s idle. He’s written the software to plug into Logitech’s media player back-end to retain compatibility with the not-quite-dead-yet SqueezeBox, but we imagine the code could be adapted to whatever digital media scheme you’re using.
Over the years,
we’ve seen a number of SqueezeBox replacements
. Many of which
have been powered by the Raspberry Pi
, but even
the ESP8266 and ESP32 have gotten in on the action
recently. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224003",
"author": "mrehorst",
"timestamp": "2020-02-29T22:17:41",
"content": "I have 3 squeezeboxes and all are still working fine. I use the Logitech Media Server running on a computer with Vortexbox that serves video to my theater system using Plex. I was a real doubter about ... | 1,760,373,571.303224 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/29/desktop-pcb-mill-review/ | Desktop PCB Mill Review | Al Williams | [
"cnc hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"PCB mill",
"PCB milling"
] | [Carl] wanted to prototype his circuits quickly using printed circuit boards. He picked up a Bantam Tools Desktop PCB Mill and made a video
about the results
. His first attempt wasn’t perfect, as you could notice under the microscope. A few adjustments, though, and the result was pretty good.
Be warned, this mill is pretty expensive — anywhere from $2,500 to $3,000. The company claims it is a better choice than a conventional cheap mill because it uses a 26,000 RPM spindle and has high-resolution steppers. Because of its low backlash and high accuracy and repeatability, the company claims it can easily mill boards with 6 mil traces.
Of course, the mill can do things other than PCBs. [Carl] was impressed with the speed of the system, too. The boards he tries in the video are pretty small, but they took a few minutes each.
Of course, like most homemade PCBs, there are no plated-through holes or solder mask or plating. Of course, you could add all of those things using additional steps. We’ve seen people use wires for vias or even rivets. However, that sort of takes away from the main idea of push a button and PCB pops out.
We’ve looked at using
a cheap mill to do the same thing
, and Hackaday’s own [Adil] found that 0.3 mm traces (not quite 12 mils) were easily doable. If that’s sufficient for your needs, you might save quite a bit of money over the mill presented here. We’ve seen
others do 10 mil traces
, so that’s probably doable, too. | 19 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6223958",
"author": "Chasin",
"timestamp": "2020-02-29T19:16:46",
"content": "I’ve had one for a few years. If you need to rapid prototype a design or are making a few of something, it’s ideal. Perfect for the single/double sided smaller stuff / SMD where breadboarding doesn’t cut... | 1,760,373,571.363611 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/29/the-iot-trap/ | The IoT Trap | Elliot Williams | [
"Roundup"
] | [
"internet of things",
"IoT",
"iot trap",
"newsletter"
] | I’m sure that you’ve heard about the Sonos speaker debacle. (If not,
read about it on Hackaday
.) Basically, a company that sells a premium Internet-connected speaker wanted to retire an older product line, and offered a 30% discount to people who would “trade in” their old speakers for new ones. The catch: they weren’t really trading them in, but instead flashing a “self-destruct” firmware and then taking it to the recycling.
Naturally, Sonos’ most loyal customers weren’t happy about intentionally bricking their faithful devices, a hubbub ensued, and eventually the CEO ended up reversing course and
eating crow
. Hackaday’s own Gerrit Coetzee wrote up our coverage and mentioned that maybe Sonos just couldn’t afford to support the service for the old products any more, and didn’t want them to remain in the wild. So much so, that it’s worth 30% of the cost of their current product to get out from under the implicit contract.
By buying one of these IoT devices, you’re paying more money up front for the promise that the company will keep supporting the service that it relies on into the future. But providing this service costs money, and as more and more “products” are actually services in disguise, we’ve seen case after case of working machines shut down because the company doesn’t want to keep paying for the service. It doesn’t seem to matter if the company is small, like Sonos, or an
immensely wealthy monopoly player like Google
. Somehow, the people planning these products have a much shorter lifetime in mind than their customers do, and fail to make the up-front price cover costs.
This puts these companies in a tough spot. The more a customer loves the device, the longer they’ll want to keep it running, and the worse the blowback will be when the firm eventually has to try to weasel its way out of a “lifetime” contract. And they are alienating exactly their most loyal customers — those who want to keep their widget running longer than might even be reasonable. Given that this whole business model is new, it’s not surprising that some firms will get it wrong. What’s surprising to me is how many fall into the IoT trap.
So take this as a cautionary tale as a consumer. And if you’re in a company offering a product that depends on a service to continue to function, ask yourself if you’re really going to be able to support it for the customer’s idea of the lifetime of the product. What looks like a great deal at a five-year horizon might bankrupt your company at ten. Will you, or your customers, be willing to throw their devices away? Should they be?
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
! | 65 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "6223941",
"author": "Alexander Wikström",
"timestamp": "2020-02-29T17:25:51",
"content": "A simple solution to a lot of the problem is to ensure that the end user can still have the device be usable locally.Ie, give the end user the option to run their own server for their IoT devic... | 1,760,373,571.526824 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/29/watch-linux-boot-on-your-hackaday-superconference-badge/ | Watch Linux Boot On Your Hackaday Superconference Badge | Jenny List | [
"cons",
"FPGA",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"badge",
"badgelife",
"fpga",
"Hackaday SuperConference",
"Supercon badge"
] | Last year’s Hackaday Superconference badge was an electronic tour de force, packing an ECP5 FPGA shoehorned into a Game Boy-like form factor and shipping with a RISC-V core installed that together gave an almost infinite badge hacking potential. It did not however run Linux, and that’s something [Greg Davill] has addressed, as he’s not only running Linux on his badge, but also a framebuffer
that allows him to use the badge screen as the Linux terminal screen
. Finally you can watch Linux boot on your Superconference badge itself, rather than over its serial port.
He’s achieved this by changing essentially everything: from the new
VexRiscv
CPU core, to new video drivers and
a VGA terminal
courtesy of Frank Buss, now
part of the LiteVideo project
. It’s not quite a fully fledged Linux powerhouse yet, but you can find it in a GitHub repository should you have a mind to try it yourself.
Paging back through his Twitter feed
reveals the effort he’s put into this work over the last few months, and shows that it’s been no easy task.
For those keeping score at home, this is an open hardware design, running an open CPU core, with community-designed open-source peripherals, compiled by an open-source toolchain, running an open-source operating system. And it’s simply a fantastic demo for the badge, showing off how flexible the entire system is. One of the best parts of writing for Hackaday is that our community is capable of a huge breadth of amazing pieces of work, and this is an exemplar of that energy. We can’t wait to see what Greg and any other readers tempted to try it will come up with.
If you’d like to refresh your memory over the 2019 Supercon badge,
here’s our write-up at the time
. | 4 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224027",
"author": "Timothy Legg",
"timestamp": "2020-03-01T03:03:44",
"content": "What I find odd is that I see a part number TK032F4500 that turns up absolutely nothing in three prominent search engines",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"co... | 1,760,373,571.570196 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/29/a-3d-printed-bass-guitar/ | A 3D-Printed Bass Guitar | Jenny List | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"bass",
"guitar"
] | A visit to the hardware hacking area of the recent Hacker Hotel hacker camp in the Netherlands would bring plenty of interesting pieces of hardware to delight the eye. Among them though was one to delight the ear, and on hearing it we asked whether its creator could put it online so we could share it with you.
[XDr4g0nX]’s bass guitar is 3D printed
, and while it still contains some non-3D-printed parts it’s still a very effective musical instrument.
This is not the first model he’s produced, he told us, an earlier guitar was entirely 3D-printed but proved not to be rigid enough. Tuning such an instrument merely resulted in its bowing out of shape and becoming unplayable as well as out of tune. This one has hefty steel bars for rigidity, though it uses a Yamaha neck rather than 3D-printing the whole instrument. The main body of the instrument has to be printed in multiple parts and epoxied together, which he’s done without some of the ugly seams that sometimes disfigure prints of this nature.
Having heard it, we’d be hard pressed to tell it wasn’t a more traditional guitar, but then again since people have made guitars
from all kinds of scrap
it’s not the first home build we’ve encountered. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6224017",
"author": "LordNothing",
"timestamp": "2020-03-01T01:49:23",
"content": "now they can make fun of you for being both a nerd and a bass player.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,373,571.607641 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/29/a-mini-usb-keyboard-that-isnt-a-keyboard/ | A Mini USB Keyboard That Isn’t A Keyboard | Jenny List | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"computer hacks"
] | [
"serial",
"usb",
"usb keyboard"
] | A useful add-on for any computer is a plug-in macro keyboard, a little peripheral that adds those extra useful buttons to automate tasks. [
Sayantan Pal] has made one, a handy board with nine programmable keys and a USB connector, but the surprise is that at its heart lies only the ubiquitous ATmega328 that you might find in an Arduino Uno. This isn’t a USB HID keyboard, instead it uses a USB-to-serial chip and appears to the host computer as a serial device. The keys themselves are simple momentary action switches, perhaps a deluxe version could use key switches from the likes of Cherry or similar.
The clever part of this build comes on the host computer, which runs some Python code using the PyAutoGui library. This allows control of the keyboard and mouse, and provides an “in” for the script to link serial and input devices. Full configurability is assured through the Python code, and while that might preclude a non-technical user from gaining its full benefit it’s fair to say that this is not intended to compete with mass-market peripherals. It’s a neat technique for getting the effect of an HID peripheral though, and one to remember for future use even if you might not need it immediately.
More conventional USB keyboards have appeared here in the past, typically
using a processor with built-in USB HID support such as the ATmega32u4
. | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6223899",
"author": "LightningPhil",
"timestamp": "2020-02-29T09:21:53",
"content": "Did someone miss AutoHotkey off the options list?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6223902",
"author": "Ewald...",
"timestamp": "2020-02... | 1,760,373,571.904164 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/28/casual-tetris-comes-in-at-9/ | Casual Tetris Comes In At $9 | Al Williams | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Games"
] | [
"arduino",
"game",
"tetris"
] | [Michael Pick] calls himself the casual engineer, though we don’t know whether he is referring to his work clothes or his laid back attitude. However, he does like to show quick and easy projects. His latest? A little
portable Tetris game
for $9 worth of parts. There is an Arduino Pro Mini and a tiny display along with a few switches and things on a prototyping PC board. [Michael] claims it is a one day build, and we imagine it wouldn’t even be that much.
Our only complaint is that there isn’t a clear bill of material or the code. However, we think you could figure out the parts pretty easy and there are bound to be plenty of games including Tetris that you could adapt to the hardware.
The display looks suspiciously like an SSD1306 display which is commonly cloned. so that answers one question. These are just less than an inch of screen, but if you buy them from China that eats up almost half of the $9 budget. The Arduino is probably another $3. The other parts are cheap, but it is easy to imagine you might exceed $9 by a bit if you try to duplicate this.
Just from looking at the video, the code looks a lot like
Tiny Tetris
by [AJRussel], though there are a few others out there if you look. The rest should be pretty easy to puzzle out. Maybe [Michael] will add a link to the code, a bill of materials, and some specific wiring instructions.
Of course, if you just want Tetris, grab your
transistor tester
. We’ve even seen smaller versions of Tetris given away
as business cards
. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6223934",
"author": "Salvador Limones",
"timestamp": "2020-02-29T16:40:41",
"content": "Hate to be one of those people, but what exactly was the reason for reporting this?The idea that you can replicate something that other people created, on a perforated board?",
"parent_id": n... | 1,760,373,571.853026 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/28/opensource-gui-tool-for-opencv-and-deeplearning/ | OpenSource GUI Tool For OpenCV And DeepLearning | Inderpreet Singh | [
"Machine Learning"
] | [
"framework",
"keras",
"python",
"pytorch",
"wrapper"
] | AI and Deep Learning for computer vision projects has come to the masses. This can be attributed partly to the community projects that help ease the pain for newbies. [Abhishek] contributes one such project called
Monk AI which comes with a GUI for transfer learning
.
Monk AI is essentially a wrapper for Computer Vision and deep learning experiments. It facilitates users to finetune deep neural networks using transfer learning and is written in Python. Out of the box, it supports Keras and Pytorch and it comes with a few lines of code; you can get started with your very first AI experiment.
[Abhishek] also has an
Object Detection wrapper
(GitHub) that has some useful examples as well as a
Monk GUI
(GitHub) tool that looks similar to the tools available in commercial packages for running, training and inference experiments.
The
documentation
is a work in progress though it seems like an excellent concept to build on. We need more tools like these to help more people getting started with Deep Learning. Hardware such as the
Nvidia Jetson Nano
and
Google Coral
are affordable and facilitate the learning and experimentation. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6223974",
"author": "wefef",
"timestamp": "2020-02-29T20:16:54",
"content": "how detect more than one object? for example I have captcha and text.how detect char but input are image captcha (whole) and output as asci text. No cuting image",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,373,571.815774 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/28/using-ir-leds-to-hide-in-plain-sight/ | Using IR LEDs To Hide In Plain Sight | Sharon Lin | [
"LED Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"camera",
"infrared",
"surveillance"
] | Getting by without falling under the gaze of surveillance cameras doesn’t seem possible nowadays – from malls to street corners, it’s getting more common for organizations to use surveillance cameras to keep patrons in check. While the freedom of assembly is considered a basic human right in documents such as the US Condition and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is not a right that is respected everywhere in the world. Often times, governments enforcing order will identify individuals using image recognition programs, preventing them from assembling or demonstrating against their government.
Freedom Shield
built by engineer [Nick Bild] is an attempt at breaking away from the status quo and giving people a choice on whether they want to be seen or not. The spectrum of radiation visible to humans maxes out around 740nm, allowing the IR waves to remain undetected by normal observers.
The project uses 940nm infrared (IR) LEDs embedded in clothes to overwhelm photo diodes in IR-sensitive cameras used for surveillance. Since the wavelength of the lights are not visible to humans, they don’t obstruct normal behavior, making it an ideal way to hide in plain sight. Of course, using SMD LEDs rather than the larger sizes would also help with making the lights even less visible to the naked eye.
The result doesn’t perfectly obscure your face from cameras, but for a proof-of-concept it’s certainly a example of how to avoid being tracked. | 91 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "6223829",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2020-02-29T00:09:41",
"content": "Well, I have to say something.As much as this is true in theory, think about it just a bit more.Given:(Other) people are walking around without this system and are showing their faces.YOU walking around wi... | 1,760,373,572.165078 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/28/latest-flexled-milestone-refines-the-pov-display/ | Latest FlexLED Milestone Refines The POV Display | Tom Nardi | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"flexible PCB",
"hologram",
"led",
"persistence of vision",
"RGB LED"
] | With his FlexLED project,
[Carl Bugeja] is trying to perfect a simple and affordable persistence of vision (POV) display
capable of generating “holographic” characters in mid-air. Traditionally POV systems spin LEDs rapidly to create the desired illusion, but that means motors, slip rings, and noise. As the name implies, the goal with this project is to do away with all that and replace it with a self-actuating flexible PCB.
The device is able to quickly move the LEDs back and forth quietly and efficiently thanks to a permanent magnet and magnetic coils integrated into the flexible PCB. With no motors or gears, the whole unit is smaller and less complex than other POV displays. As an added bonus, there’s no danger to the operator or the device should a curious user stick their finger into it.
The last time we took a look at this project,
[Carl] had entered an earlier single-LED version into the 2019 Hackaday Prize
. Competition was tough last year, and unfortunately FlexLED didn’t get selected as a Finalist. But we’re still extremely interested in seeing the project develop, and we imagine so are you.
The recently completed second version of the display features an improved coil design, eight RGB LEDs and a 3D printed base with integrated magnet. With more LEDs onboard, a single display is able to show multiple characters and even rudimentary animations. A large array of these flapping elements promises to be quite a sight.
But before you get too excited, [Carl] does have some bad news. For one, the cost of building them in small quantities is high, which is always tough for a single hacker trying to iterate a design. Worse, some of the LEDs seem to have died on this prototype already. He says it likely has something to do with the stress of flexing back and forth so quickly, which is obviously a bit troubling. He’s looking to get some feedback from the community, and is hoping to address these issues in the next version.
For an interesting look into his flexible PCB actuator projects,
check out the interview [Carl] did with us at the 2018 Hackaday Superconference
. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6223810",
"author": "Adobe/Cloudfront hater",
"timestamp": "2020-02-28T21:55:49",
"content": "Strain reliefs and braided lines (like audio drivers) But, alas, the mass goes up rapidly.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6223818",
... | 1,760,373,572.038883 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/28/building-cameras-for-the-immersive-future/ | Building Cameras For The Immersive Future | Lewin Day | [
"cons",
"digital cameras hacks",
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"2019 Hackaday Superconference",
"3d camera",
"ar",
"augmented reality",
"cons",
"Hackaday Supercon",
"Hackaday SuperConference",
"virtual reality",
"vr"
] | Thus far, the vast majority of human photographic output has been two-dimensional. 3D displays have come and gone in various forms over the years, but as technology progresses, we’re beginning to see more and more immersive display technologies. Of course, to use these displays requires content, and capturing that content in three dimensions requires special tools and techniques. Kim Pimmel came down to Hackaday Superconference to give us
a talk on the current state of the art in advanced AR and VR camera technologies
.
[Kim]’s interest in light painting techniques explored volumetric as well as 2D concepts.
Kim has plenty of experience with advanced displays, with an impressive resume in the field. Having worked on Microsoft’s Holo Lens, he now leads Adobe’s Aero project, an AR app aimed at creatives. Kim’s journey began at a young age, first experimenting with his family’s Yashica 35mm camera, where he discovered a love for capturing images. Over the years, he experimented with a wide variety of gear, receiving a Canon DSLR from his wife as a gift, and later tinkering with the Stereorealist 35mm 3D camera. The latter led to Kim’s growing obsession with three-dimensional capture techniques.
Through his work in the field of AR and VR displays, Kim became familiar with the combination of the Ricoh Theta S 360 degree camera and the Oculus Rift headset. This allowed users to essentially sit inside a photo sphere, and see the image around them in three dimensions. While this was compelling, [Kim] noted that a lot of 360 degree content has issues with framing. There’s no way to guide the observer towards the part of the image you want them to see.
Moving the Camera to Match What Happens in the Virtual Environment
It was this idea that guided Kim towards his own build. Inspired by the bullet-time effects achieved in
The Matrix (1999)
by John Gaeta and his team, he wished to create a moving-camera rig that would produce three-dimensional imagery. Setting out to Home Depot, he sourced some curved shower rails which would serve as his motion platform. Kim faced a series of mechanical challenges along the way, from learning how to securely mount the curved components, to reducing shake in the motion platform. He also took unconventional steps, like designing 3D printed components in Cinema4D. Through hard work and perseverance, the rig came together, using a GoPro Hero 4 triggered by an Arduino for image capture. The build was successful, but still had a few issues, with the camera tending to dip during motion.
The rig packs a twin-lens camera and is portable for shooting in the field.
The promising results only whet Kim’s appetite for further experimentation. He started again with a clean sheet build, this time selecting a Fujifilm camera capable of taking native 3D photos. This time, a stepper motor was used instead of a simple brushed motor, improving the smoothness of the motion. Usability tweaks also involved a lock on the carriage for when it’s not in use, and a simple UI implemented on an LCD screen. All packaged up in a wooden frame, this let Kim shoot stereoscopic video on the move, with a rig that could be conveniently mounted on a tripod. The results are impressive, with the captured video looking great when viewed in AR.
Smarter Motion
With smooth camera motion sorted, Kim is now experimenting with his Creative CNC build, designed to move a camera in two dimensions to capture more three-dimensional data. This leads into a discussion of commercial options on the market for immersive image capture. Adobe, Samsung, Facebook, and RED all have various products available, with most of the devices existing as geometric blobs studded with innumerable lenses. There’s also discussion of light field cameras, including the work of defunct company Lytro, as well as other problems in immersive experiences like locomotion and haptic feedback. If you want to geek out more on the topic of light field cameras, check out
Alex Hornstein’s talk from the previous Supercon
.
While fully immersive AR and VR experiences are a ways away, Kim does a great job of explaining the development in progress that will make such things a reality. It’s an exciting time, and it’s clear there’s plenty of awesome tech coming down the pipeline. We can’t wait to see what’s next! | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6223788",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-02-28T20:09:06",
"content": "“There’s no way to guide the observer towards the part of the image you want them to see.”That seems like declaring minecraft is tetris then getting mad because nobody stacks the blocks right.",
... | 1,760,373,571.991296 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/28/last-call-for-hackaday-belgrade-proposals-grants-you-a-four-day-reprieve/ | Last Call For Hackaday Belgrade Proposals Grants You A Four-Day Reprieve | Mike Szczys | [
"cons"
] | [
"2020 Hackaday Belgrade",
"cfp"
] | We want you to present a talk at Hackaday Belgrade and this is the last call to
send us your proposal
.
Europe’s biennial
conference on hardware creation returns to Serbia on May 9th
for an all-day-and-into-the-night extravaganza. Core to this conference is people from the Hackaday community sharing their stories of pushing the boundaries of what’s possible on their electronics workbenches, firmware repos, and manufacturing projects.
Here at Hackaday we live a life of never ending deadlines, but we also understand that this isn’t true for everyone. In that spirit, we’re extending the deadline so that those who count procrastination as a core skill don’t miss their chance to secure a speaking slot at the last minute. You now have until 18:00 GMT (19:00 in Belgrade) next Friday
to file your talk proposal
.
The conference badge is being built by Voja Antonic, the inventor of Yugoslavia’s first widely-adopted personal computer. We know he has prototype PCBs on hand and plan to share more information on what he has in store for you very soon. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,373,571.939704 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/28/this-week-in-security-chrome-bugs-and-non-bugs-kr00k-and-letsencrypt/ | This Week In Security: Chrome Bugs And Non-bugs, Kr00k, And Letsencrypt | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"chrome",
"Kr00k",
"This Week in Security"
] | Google Chrome minted a new release to
fix a trio of bugs
on Monday, with exploit code already in the wild for one of them. The first two bugs don’t have much information published yet. They are an integer-overflow problem in Unicode internationalization, and a memory access issue in streams. The third issue, type confusion in V8, was also fixed quietly, but a team at Exodus Intel took the time to look at the patches and
figure out what the problem was
.
The actual vulnerability dives into some exotic Javascript techniques, but to put it simply, it’s possible to change a data-type without V8 noticing. This allows malicious code to write into the header area of the attacked variable. The stack, now corrupted, can be manipulated to the point of arbitrary code execution. The researchers make the point that even with Google’s fast-paced release schedule, a determined attacker could have several days of virtual zero-day exploitation of a bug mined from code changes.
Story via The Register
.
The Chrome Problem that Wasn’t
A second Chrome story came across my desk this week: Chrome 80 introduces a new feature, ScrollToTextFragment. This useful new feature allows you to embed a string of text in a URL, and when loading that address, Chrome will scroll the page to make that text visible. For certain use cases, this is an invaluable feature. Need to highlight a specific bit of text in a big document online?
The following
bookmarklet code by [Paul Kinlan]
is the easy way to start using this feature. Paste this code into the URL of a bookmark, put it on the bookmark bar, highlight some text in a webpage, and then run the bookmarklet. It should open a new tab with the new URL, ready to use or send to someone.
javascript:(function()%7Bconst%20selectedText%20%3D%20getSelection().toString()%3Bconst%20newUrl%20%3D%20new%20URL(location)%3BnewUrl.hash%20%3D%20%60%3A~%3Atext%3D%24%7BencodeURIComponent(selectedText)%7D%60%3Bwindow.open(newUrl)%7D)()
Since we’re talking about it in the security column, there must be more to the story. A privacy guru at Brave, [Peter Snyder],
raised concerns about privacy implications of the feature
. His argument has been
repeated and misrepresented
in a few places. What argument was he making? Simply put, that it’s not normal user behavior to immediately scroll to an exact position on the page. Because modern web pages and browsers do things like deferred loading of images, it could be possible to infer where in the page the link was pointing. He gives the example of a corporate network where DNS is monitored. This isn’t suggesting that the entire URL is leaked over DNS, but rather that DNS can indicate when individual components of a page are loaded, particularly when they are embedded images from other sites.
While this concern isn’t nonsensical, it seems to me to be a very weak argument that is being over-hyped in the press.
Whatsapp Groups Searchable on Google
It’s not new for search engines to index things that weren’t intended to be public. There is a bit of mystery surrounding how Google finds URLs to index, and StackExchange is full of
plenty of examples
of webadmins scratching their heads at their non-public folders showing up in a Google search.
That said, a story made the rounds in the last few days, that
WhatsApp and Telegram group invites are being indexed by Google
. So far, the official word is that all the indexed links must have been shared publicly, and Google simply picked them up from where they were publicly posted.
It appears that
WhatsApp has begun marking
chat invitation links as “noindex”, which is a polite way to ask search engines to ignore the link.
If it’s shown that links are getting indexed without being posted publicly online, then we have a much bigger story. Otherwise, everything is working as expected.
Letsencrypt Makes Attacks Harder
Letsencrypt has rolled out an invisible change to their validation process that makes a traffic redirection attack much harder. The new feature,
Multi-Perspective Validation
, means that when you verify your domain ownership, Letsencrypt will test that verification from multiple geographic regions. It might be possible to spoof ownership of a domain through a BGP attack, but that attack would be much harder to pull off against traffic originating from another country, or multiple countries simultaneously. Letsencrypt is currently using different regions of a single cloud, but plans to further diversify and use multiple cloud providers for even stronger validation.
Kr00k
Brought to us by the researchers at Eset,
Krook
(PDF) is a simple flaw in certain wireless chips. So far, the flaw seems to be limited to WPA2 traffic sent by Broadcom and Cypress chips. They discovered Kr00k while doing some followup research on
KRACK
.
Let’s talk about WPA2 for a moment. WPA2 has a 4-way handshake process that securely confirms that both parties have the shared key, and then establishes a shared Temporal Key, also known as a session key. This key is private between the two devices that performed the handshake, meaning that other devices on the same wireless network can’t sniff traffic sent by other devices.
When a device disconnects, or disassociates, that session key is reset to all 0s, and no packets should be sent until another handshake is performed. Here’s the bug: The packets already in the output buffer are still sent, but are encrypted with the zeroed key, making them trivially decrypted. As it’s simple to trigger deauthentication events, an attacker can get a sampling of in-the-clear packets. The ubiquity of TLS is a saving grace here, but any unencrypted traffic is vulnerable. Eset informed vendors about the flaw in 2019, and at least some devices have been patched.
Exchange
Microsoft Exchange got a security patch this past Tuesday that addressed a pair of bugs that together resulted in
a remote code execution vulnerability
. The first bug was an encryption key that is
generated
on Exchange server installation. That generation seemed to lack a good source of entropy, as apparently every Exchange install uses the the exact same key.
The second half of this bug is a de-serialization problem, where an encrypted payload can contain a command to run. Because the encryption key is known, any user can access the vulnerable endpoint. The process of exploitation is so trivial, be sure to patch your server right away.
TODO: Remove Vulnerabilities
This one is just humorous. An Intel virtualization feature appears to have been
pushed into the Linux kernel before it was finished
. Know what unfinished code tends to contain? Bugs and vulnerabilities. CVE-2020-2732, in this case. It’s unclear how exactly an exploit would work, but the essence is that a virtual guest is allowed to manipulate system state in unintended ways. | 20 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6223761",
"author": "N",
"timestamp": "2020-02-28T18:13:57",
"content": "We humans have been making the same coding errors over and over again for decades, apparently learning nothing in the process. It is good solid proof that humans are bad engineers, they cannot be trusted to ma... | 1,760,373,572.481902 |
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