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https://hackaday.com/2020/02/18/film-negative-viewer-has-many-positives/ | Film Negative Viewer Has Many Positives | Kristina Panos | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"digitizer",
"film",
"film negative",
"negative viewer",
"photography"
] | Not so long ago, taking pictures was a much more sacred thing. Film and processing were expensive compared to the digital way, and since you couldn’t just delete a picture off the camera and get your film back, people tended to be much more selective about the pictures they took. Even so, for every roll of film, there was usually at least one stinker. If you’ve made it your quest to digitize the past, you’ll quickly realize that they’re not all gems, and that some can be left to languish.
[Random_Canadian] recently found himself knee-deep in negatives, but wanted an easy way to weed out the mediocre memories. With this
film negative viewer and converter
, he can step through the pictures one by one on a big screen and decide which ones to keep.
The Pi uses the negative image effect to turn the negatives positive, and then outputs them to the TV. If [Random_Canadian] finds one worth bringing into the 21st century, he pushes the green button to take a picture with the Pi camera and save it to that awesome
cryptex USB drive
. When he’s tired of walking down memory lane, he pushes the red button to exit the program.
We especially like that [Random_Canadian] made his own light panel by edge-lighting a piece of 6 mm Lexan. Fresh out of flat-topped LEDs, he made his own by grinding down some regular ones on a belt sander.
Got some old 8mm film you want to digitize? Check out
this beautiful automated film scanner
. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220873",
"author": "reg",
"timestamp": "2020-02-18T16:54:50",
"content": "I picked up a slide scanner at a flea market for a couple of bucks and it had a negative strip feed as well. I had a lot of fun going through my old negatives. For me, there has been kind of a rift in my st... | 1,760,373,585.171989 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/18/dna-now-stands-for-data-and-knowledge-accumulation/ | DNA Now Stands For Data And Knowledge Accumulation | Bob Baddeley | [
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"bacteria",
"dna",
"DNA Editing",
"DNA sequencing",
"enzyme",
"oligonucleotide",
"Oligonucleotide Synthesizer",
"openpcr",
"PCR",
"polymerase chain reaction",
"virus"
] | Technology frequently looks at nature to make improvements in efficiency, and we may be nearing a new breakthrough in copying how nature stores data. Maybe some day your thumb drive will be your actual thumb. The entire works of Shakespeare could be stored in an infinite number of monkeys. DNA could become a data storage mechanism! With all the sensationalism surrounding this frontier, it seems like a dose of reality is in order.
The Potential for Greatness
The human genome, with 3 billion base pairs can store up to 750MB of data. In reality every cell has two sets of chromosomes, so nearly every human cell has 1.5GB of data shoved inside. You could pack 165 billion cells into the volume of a microSD card, which equates to 165 exobytes, and that’s if you keep all the overhead of the rest of the cell and not just the DNA. That’s without any kind of optimizing for data storage, too.
This kind of data density is far beyond our current digital storage capabilities. Storing nearly infinite data onto extremely small cells could change everything. Beyond the volume, there’s also the promise of longevity and replication, maintaining a permanent record that can’t get lost and is easily transferred (like medical records), and even an element of subterfuge or data transportation, as well as the ability to design self-replicating machines whose purpose is to disseminate information broadly.
So, where is the state of the art in DNA data storage? There’s plenty of promise, but does it actually work?
The Nature of DNA
We’ve been taught that DNA is the blueprint of life, and that information about how cells are made and interact is encoded in the nucleotides of Adenine, Thymine, Guanine, and Cytosine, held together with their complement in a long chain. When information needs to be gleaned from this database, enzymes pull apart the chain along its length, make a copy of half in RNA, then transfer the RNA to a ribosome where the RNA is mirror copied into the appropriate protein. Think of how powerful that is. Essentially every cell contains the mechanisms needed for reading and writing data.
There’s even a mechanism for data integrity. We have multiple chromosomes because if the strands get too long they break in the wrong places, so splitting them up makes sure this doesn’t happen. When the cell divides, the whole chromosomes split in half, and then nucleotides that pair with the half-chain combine with the strand to make two complete copies.
Using DNA Like a Machine
The way we do it with machines is different. First, the idea that each nucleotide can hold two bits of information doesn’t work. It turns out that some sequences don’t work well and are prone to errors or breaking. In addition, some overhead is required to mark starts and stops and indices. Second, the methods for reading and writing require LOTS of copies. The process involves many amplification steps to generate enough copies of the data that will be pulled apart and analyzed in bulk. The gene science community has made leaps and bounds in the last two decades since the start of the Human Genome Project and the discovery of techniques to rapidly sequence DNA, but it still has a long way to go.
The short description of the state of the art is that writing DNA is currently still pretty slow and wet and complicated. Modern biochemistry uses a term called an oligonucleotide, or an oligo, which is a short snippet of DNA or RNA. These oligos are up to a couple hundred bases in length, and usually represent a gene or a set of genes. They are designed and ordered from a few companies (
Twist Bioscience
and
IDT
are the big names right now), that essentially take a web form where you upload a text string, and they grow the oligo base by base onto a glass or silicon etched array. A chemical reaction gets the first nucleotide to bind to the substrate, and then there’s a process of heating, exposing to the next base, and cooling to get the next base to bind to the next rung in the ladder. This is repeated until the oligo is complete, which can take some time.
This article from Twist
is probably the most accessible explanation of the process.
The big advances in the past decade have been in automating this process for ever smaller amounts of liquid, smaller wells, and faster cycles. In 2019 a company called Catalog was able to achieve
write speeds of 4 megabits per second
using essentially an i
nkjet printer to deposit bases
.
[youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG-mrnnD8UY?start=309%5D
Once the oligo generation is done, the scientists have a whole bunch of the same oligo. They typically then perform
PCR
on it, which is essentially a DNA photocopier machine that rapidly replicates DNA by using an enzyme to convince it to split in half in a juice of bases so that the halves become full strands again, then repeats over and over,
a topic we’ve written more deeply on in the past
. The other process they do is
CRISPR-Cas9
, which allows them to take full genomes and cut them in specific locations and splice in the oligos or do other editing.
The good news is that reading this DNA is significantly faster. We used to use the
Sanger method of sequencing
, which uses fluorescent dyes attached to bases to determine the next base, but the newest hotness is
Illumina dye sequencing
, which also uses fluorescent dyes, but in parallel instead of serial. Understanding how either of them works broke me, but the gist is that Illumina is way faster and cheaper (
relatively speaking
) than Sanger. Both are very wet, though, and require lots of chemicals and copies of the strand to be sequenced.
IO Operations and File Structure
It’s shortsighted to think that we’ll always need wet labs and PCR to read and write DNA. The room-sized machines that stored data on magnetic tapes were just as amazing 50 years ago as the room-sized machines that are reading and writing data on DNA now. The problem is that the number of steps and chemical reactions required with DNA operations is significantly higher than magnetic tape. A completely new method of reading and writing will need to be discovered before it can be practical and miniaturized, and when it is and we have the ability to read and write individual molecules at rapid rates, the structure of DNA may not be the best way to do it. All of the advantages of DNA storage are eliminated if the IO requires complicated and expensive machinery.
Understanding and organizing the data is another issue because of the fragility of DNA. One group has come up with a method of storing data called
DNA Fountain
, which nears the theoretical maximum amount of information. It also takes into account oligo length limits, base pair percentages (can’t have too many GCs to ATs), and long strings of the same base (AAAAAAAAA). The coding structure builds a large number of 38 byte payloads that contain the data, Reed-Solomon error correcting code, and 4 bytes of a random number generator seed that sort of converts into an index, which are turned into oligos. This pile of oligos can then be replicated and sequenced to extract the data and decode it. Current methods of reading and writing DNA aren’t working on full strands and chromosomes; they have tiny little chunks of DNA oligos. Mix two batches of oligos and you may not be able to get your original data back.
With DNA Fountain, a sequence is coded using a special process, and an index is attached. If the ‘droplet’ passes the acceptance tests then the oligo is create. If not, they repeat with different sequences. Eventually all of the data is captured in droplets, some of which overlap to get redundancy and error correction.
To summarize, building a cell that contains the data you want requires using DNA Fountain to encode the oligos, synthesizing the oligos, using CRISPR-Cas9 to insert the oligos into functional DNA, and then embedding that DNA into a cell. It’s not impossible, but it requires a boatload of expensive equipment.
Backups
Once you’ve settled on DNA as your storage medium, making backups becomes possibly the easiest part of the whole thing, and you can do it right now on the cheap with the
PocketPCR thermal cycler
. It may make more sense to keep the DNA in cells, though, because they have built in mechanisms for reading and writing the data and making copies, and they protect the DNA. It means some of the DNA must be dedicated to this cell structure, but consider that to be similar to the overhead like you would already have for a filesystem. Having DNA in cells, and specifically in bacteria, means making backups is as easy as not washing your hands after going to the bathroom. In this case, DNA stands for “Dat’s Nasty, Alright?”
Longevity
DNA has been successfully
sequenced from a horse
that lived roughly 700,000 years ago. With that kind of retention possibility, we can be confident that our backups of the Windows ME ISO could last far beyond a computers’ ability to run it, and our tweet history will baffle anthropologists for millennia. Of course, we don’t know if this kind of longevity can be exceeded using existing technology, but some research has been done to figure out how to make sure the DNA doesn’t break down much sooner than that.
DNA stands for Denatures Near Jalapenos (the J is silent), though, and unravels when things get hot, between 70-100C. That makes it hardly better than regular electronic devices, and it’s got the extra vulnerability to UV light as well. To get around these problems, the DNA can be
encased in silica and titanium dioxide
. The neat thing is that DNA isn’t really harmed by some organic solvents, so it’s possible to dissolve away the silica and extract the DNA relatively easily. These extra steps make it unsuitable for rapid data access, though, and makes duplication impossible while encapsulated, so for short term storage the DNA still has to be exposed.
Conclusions
DNA, short for Discovering New Acronyms, is a data storage technique developed over hundreds of millions of years, and it’s very good at what it does. Electronics developed by humans pale in comparison to the capabilities of cells in many ways, but excel in others. Will it be possible to bridge the gap and use aspects of each to create even better machines? Considering the timeline of progress, we’re much closer now to mastering that bridge than we were when the structure of DNA was discovered in 1952 and the transistor was invented in 1947, and we will likely be able to miniaturize and speed up the interface significantly further in the decades ahead, to the point of being commercially viable. We may see a new Moore’s Law emerge with respect to interfacing molecular data storage.
In other words, this could become a real thing. At the moment the process of writing and reading DNA is way too slow and requires too many chemical processes and reactions, but it’s commonplace enough that people are now regularly doing fun things like
embedding videos in DNA
and
embedding the gcode
in
3D printed rabbits
.
A completely new paradigm of IO is necessary to make it work. It’s possible DNA isn’t the best way to do it in favor of another molecular storage mechanism that’s more silicon friendly. What evidence of our civilization do you think will survive tens of millions of years? The only real evidence left over may just be our fossils and our DNA, which makes me wonder if maybe the common cold is an encoded video of a dinosaur dancing that went viral in more ways than one. | 33 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220851",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2020-02-18T15:41:25",
"content": "Went to school with a guy that is a ‘computational biophysicist’ (whatever that is). He claims that DNA research is being (unwittingly) held back by principle researchers that do not have the math or chemis... | 1,760,373,585.423743 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/18/how-many-leds-can-you-drive/ | How Many LEDs Can You Drive? | Bryan Cockfield | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"arm",
"display",
"dma",
"driver",
"flexio",
"i.mx",
"led",
"library",
"rt1062",
"Teensy 4.0"
] | Driving more than a handful of LEDs from a microcontroller is often a feat that takes tedious wiring, tricking the processor, or a lot of extra external hardware. Charlieplexing is perhaps the most notorious of these methods, and checks two of those three boxes. This library for the Teensy 4.0 checks all three, but it
can also drive a truly staggering 32,000 LEDs
at one time.
The TriantaduoWS2811 library is able to drive 32 channels of LEDs from a Teensy 4.0 using only three pins and minimal processor resources. It uses the FlexIO and DMA subsystems of the i.MX RT1062, the particular ARM processor on the Teensy, to drive four external shift registers. Together, the system is able to achieve 30 frames per second on with 1,000 LEDs per channel, for a total of 32,000 LEDs. Whoah.
[Ward] aka [wramsdell] wondered what one would do with
all of the horsepower of a Teensy
microcontroller when he first saw its specifications, and was able to build this project to take advantage of its features. What’s surprising, though, is that it doesn’t use nearly everything the processor is capable of, so you can do other tasks at the same time as driving that giant LED display. | 35 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220801",
"author": "Osgeld",
"timestamp": "2020-02-18T13:10:56",
"content": "It can’t drive 32000 leds at one time just sayin",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6220805",
"author": "Alphatek",
"timestamp": "2020-02-18T13:1... | 1,760,373,585.817671 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/18/insecure-surveillance-cameras-provide-dystopian-peep-show/ | Insecure Surveillance Cameras Provide Dystopian Peep Show | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"Arduino micro",
"peephole",
"raspberry pi",
"surveillance",
"web cam"
] | It probably doesn’t surprise you to hear there are tens of thousands of web-connected cameras all over the world that are set to take the default credentials. Actually, there are probably more than that out there, but we can assure you that at least 70,000 or so are only a click away. With this project, [carolinebuttet] proves that it’s quite possible to make art from our rickety, ridiculous surveillance state — and
it begins with a peephole perspective
.
The peephole in your own front door grants you the inalienable right to police your porch, stoop, or patch of carpet in the apartment building’s hallway while going mostly undetected. In Virtual Peephole, the peephole becomes a voyeuristic virtual view of various corners of the world.
Slide aside the cover, and an LDR connected to an Arduino Micro detects the change in light level. This change makes the Micro send a key press to a Raspberry Pi, which fetches a new camera at random and displays it on a screen inside the box. You can peep a brief demo after the break, followed by a couple of short build/walk-through videos.
If you’re a peephole people watcher,
put a camera in there and watch from anywhere
.
Via
Adafruit | 29 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220778",
"author": "Hans Peter Haastrup",
"timestamp": "2020-02-18T10:13:16",
"content": "That is so cool!Brilliant project and what a way to put focus on the insecurity. Nicely done :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6220784",... | 1,760,373,585.655561 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/17/wearable-cone-of-silence-protects-you-from-prying-ears/ | Wearable Cone Of Silence Protects You From Prying Ears | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"alexa",
"google assistant",
"interference",
"jamming",
"MEMS",
"noise",
"non-linear",
"privacy",
"security",
"smart speaker",
"ultrasound"
] | Careful, the walls have ears. Or more specifically, the smart speaker on the table has ears, as does the phone in your pocket, the fitness band on your wrist, possibly the TV, the fridge, the toaster, and maybe even the toilet. Oh, and your car is listening to you too. Probably.
How does one fight this profusion of listening devices? Perhaps
this wearable smart device audio jammer
will do the trick. The idea is that the MEMS microphones that surround us are all vulnerable to jamming by ultrasonic waves, due to the fact that they have a non-linear response to ultrasonic signals. The upshot of that is when a MEMS hears ultrasound, it creates a broadband signal in the audible part of the spectrum. That creates a staticky noise that effectively drowns out any other sounds the microphone might be picking up.
By why a wearable? Granted, [Yuxin Chin] and colleagues from the University of Chicago have perhaps stretched the definition of that term a tad with their prototype, but it turns out that moving the jammer around does a better job of blocking sounds than a static jammer does. The bracelet jammer is studded with ultrasonic transducers that emit overlapping fields and result in zones of constructive and destructive interference; the wearer’s movements vary the location of the dead spots that result, improving jamming efficacy.
Their paper
(PDF link) goes into deeper detail, and
a GitHub repository
has everything you need to roll your own.
We saw
something a bit like this before
, but that build used white noise for masking, and was affixed to the smart speaker. We’re intrigued by a wearable, especially since they’ve shown it to be effective under clothing. And the effect of ultrasound on MEMS microphones is really interesting.
Thanks to [isaac] for the tip. | 36 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220740",
"author": "Loller",
"timestamp": "2020-02-18T06:39:25",
"content": "Probably the most “wearable” design using off-the-shelf products would be this. With this brick on your neck, you’d need to explain everyone what is it. I hope it’ll get smaller to an unnoticeable size.",
... | 1,760,373,585.33792 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/17/what-does-your-necklace-say/ | What Does Your Necklace Say? | Brian McEvoy | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"art",
"bead",
"craft",
"indigenous",
"music",
"native",
"reproduction",
"sound",
"SoundWave"
] | If we write about sound reproduction, there is a good chance we found a home-made amplifier or an upcycled speaker system. In this case, you don’t use your ears to appreciate the sound; you use your hands or eyes. [ElatisEagles] converted an
amplitude sound graph into a wearable bead
. Even without much background it should be immediately recognizable for what it is. Presumably, they converted a sound wave to vectors, then used the “Revolve” function in Rhino, their software of choice. Sometimes this is called a “lathe” function. Resin printers should be able to build these without supports and with incredible fidelity.
Some tattoos put a sound wave on the skin, and use an app to play it back, but if you want to wear a sound bite from your favorite show and not get branded as the “Pickle Rick” gal/guy at the office, maybe swap out the color and sound wave before it goes stale. We would wear a bead that says, “
drop a link in our tip line
,” but you can probably think of something more clever.
We have other
high-tech ornamentation
that leverages motion instead of sound, or how about a
necklace that listens
instead.
[tweet
https://twitter.com/EaglesElatis/status/1226526692648407040
align=’center’]
Thank you, [cyberlass], for the tip. | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220738",
"author": "Tweepy",
"timestamp": "2020-02-18T06:14:51",
"content": "The sound tattoo are not wave shaped tattoo played back with an application, but simply a audio cloud player using the tattoo image as qr-code: that sucks.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"rep... | 1,760,373,585.462005 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/17/cable-operated-blast-door-needs-no-power/ | Cable Operated Blast Door Needs No Power | Danie Conradie | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"blast gate",
"carpentry",
"dust collection",
"mechanical",
"woodworking"
] | Every well-equipped wood shop has a dust collection system, with blast gates at every tool to direct the suction power where you need it. If these gates are hard to reach they can be real pain to operate. [Cosmas Bauer] had this problem with his table saw, and created
a convenient cable-operated mechanism
.
The dust chute on table saw is on the back end, meaning he needs to walk around it to open it, and then walk back to the front to operate the machine. As we all know,
laziness
increased efficiency can be an excellent reason for projects. Electronics or pneumatics might get the job done, but [Cosmas] realised that a mechanical system might be simpler and more reliable. Being a woodworker, he built most of the system out of wood.
The blast door itself is held in the closed position by a piece of elastic tubing. To pull it open, he attached a bicycle cable to the blast door, with the other side attached to a latching mechanism that is the star of the show. It’s a rotating disc, with the end of the cable and operating handle attached on the outer edge. A slot track is cut in the disc, in which a pin on the end of a short arm slides. It has a few sharp corners in the track, which forces the pin to only go around in one direction, and to latch in two possible positions when released. Check out the video after the break to see it in action.
With electronics and actuators so cheap, we sometimes forget that a lot of problems can be solved in ways that don’t involve flowing electrons. This mechanism is a perfect example of that, and a 3D printed version would be handy for a number of applications.
For a fully automated, Arduino controlled dust collection system, check out [I like to make stuff]’s
fully automated version. | 34 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220688",
"author": "scott.tx",
"timestamp": "2020-02-18T00:10:46",
"content": "when I saw blast door I was expecting something more star wars and less norm abrams.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6220696",
"author": "... | 1,760,373,585.252135 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/16/hackaday-links-february-16-2020/ | Hackaday Links: February 16, 2020 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"hackaday links"
] | Have you heard the exciting news about Betelgeuse? It’s been hard to miss these days, with reports of the red supergiant star suddenly dimming, and speculation growing that the star will go supernova sometime in the next 10,000 years. But the exciting part is that astronomers have gotten together and
scheduled the Betelgeuse supernova for February 21, 2020
. Or at least that’s how at least a half-dozen poorly written articles make it sound. We thought that seemed odd, so we dug a bit and
the real story
is more complicated and more interesting. Betelgeuse is normally a variable star that goes through complex cycles of brightening and dimming. Its current dimming is unprecedented in magnitude, but the timing coincides with its normal cycle. If this dimming is just a deepening of its normal cycle, the star should start brightening again on February 21. If it doesn’t, it could mean the star is entering the next phase in its evolution. We’d love to see a star so bright it’s visible in daylight and casts shadows at night, but we’ll just have to see what happens on Friday.
One of the last two factories in the world that makes the lacquer master discs needed to make vinyl records
burned to the ground last week
. Luckily nobody was hurt, but it took 82 firefighters hours to get the blaze under control. It remains to be seen how this loss will impact the vinyl record market, but since the appearance of a new star in the sky has long been seen as a bad omen and a portent of doom, if Betelgeuse does go boom next week, expect to hear the hipsters gnash their teeth and rend their man-buns. In the meantime, enjoy perhaps your last look at the fascinating vinyl manufacturing process.
Rent it once, rent it for life? Apparently, at least if you rent a Ford vehicle from Enterprise and install the FordPass app on your phone.
That was the experience of one Masamba Sinclair
when he rented a Ford Expedition in October and found that even five months later, the app – which he never unpaired from the rental vehicle – allowed him to start and stop the car’s engine, unlock the doors, and even track its location. The same thing even happened again this month when he rented a Mustang. Ford and Enterprise might both want to rethink the security model here; leaving it up to the customer to unlink the car from the app is a recipe for disaster.
Don’t forget that we have a really interesting contest going on right now: the
Train All The Things
machine learning contest. With so many different machine learning platforms and frameworks available today, you can surely find a way to build something that really shines. The early entries are interesting, with everything from
an intelligent bat detector
to
sunglasses that give you control of the world
. The contest is sponsored by Digi-Key and runs through April 7, so get started on your AI masterpiece and send it in.
Speaking of Digi-Key, they’ve put together
a handy list
of vendors from their line card who are reporting impacts from the Covid-19 outbreak in China.
We wondered about supply chain effects from the outbreak recently
, and this is confirmation that we’re starting to see a pinch. As of this writing, there are 62 vendors listed, with the majority reporting impacts from the extension of the Chinese New Year holiday. We’ll stay on top of this story, and of course we continue to wish our friends in China well. | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220394",
"author": "Nick",
"timestamp": "2020-02-17T00:51:19",
"content": "This rental car app pairing thing is even more pernicious. At least our Chevys let you look up the car’s location. Meaning you can wait until the car’s been rented (left the rental lot), find it and then bur... | 1,760,373,585.520548 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/16/diy-dispenser-places-solder-paste-without-the-mess/ | DIY Dispenser Places Solder Paste Without The Mess | Jenny List | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"solder",
"solder paste",
"solder paste dispenser",
"surface mount"
] | When doing surface-mount assembly you can certainly use a soldering iron in the traditional way, but it’s far more convenient to cover the pads with solder paste, place the components, and bake the board in a reflow oven. If you’re lucky enough to have a precut stencil this can be done in one go, otherwise a tiny blob of paste must be laboriously placed on each pad by hand. [Kevarek] has made this a bit easier by
designing a low-cost handheld solder paste dispenser
.
The unit takes the form of a handheld 3D printed wand containing a geared motor and a threaded shaft, that engages with a syringe full of paste clamped onto its end. There’s a control box powered by an STM32 microcontroller that not only allows adjustment of flow rate, but provides advanced features such as performing a slight retraction at the end of dispensing to avoid excess paste. There’s a push-button on the wand for control, as well as a set on the control box to adjust its parameters.
If you’ve ever handled solder paste, you’ll know it can be a uniquely annoying and finicky substance. Either it’s too stiff and clumps together, or too runny and spreads out. No doubt some readers are lucky enough to always have fresh paste of the highest quality to hand, but too often a hackerspace will have a tub of grey goop with uncertain provenance. We like this tool, and while it won’t make up for poor quality or badly stored paste, at least it’ll make applying paste a breeze.
We’ve covered
paste dispensers
quite a few times in the past, but you might also wish to read
our in-depth guide to the subject
. | 17 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220387",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-02-16T23:54:34",
"content": "But I’m worried that my grey goo hand wrangling skillz will get rusty and I’ll be out of shape for the nanopocalypse.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"commen... | 1,760,373,585.582455 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/16/a-cheap-and-easy-gopro-mount-for-model-rocketry/ | A Cheap And Easy GoPro Mount For Model Rocketry | Lewin Day | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"GoPro",
"model rocket",
"model rocketry",
"rocket",
"tinkercad"
] | Launching model rockets is fun, but the real meat of the hobby lies in what you do next. Some choose to instrument their rockets or carry other advanced payloads. [seamster] likes to film his flights,
and built a nosecone camera package to do so.
A GoPro is the camera of choice for [seamster]’s missions, with its action cam design making it easy to fire off with a single press of a button. To mount it on the rocket, the nosecone was designed in several sections. The top and bottom pieces are 3D printed, which are matched with a clear plastic cylinder cut from a soda bottle. Inside the cylinder, the GoPro and altimeter hardware are held in place with foam blocks, cut to shape from old floor mats. The rocket’s parachute is attached to the top of the nose cone, which allows the camera to hang in the correct orientation on both the ascent and descent phases of the flight. Check out the high-flying videos created with this setup after the break.
It’s a simple design that [seamster] was able to whip up in Tinkercad in just a few hours, and one that’s easily replicable by the average maker at home. Getting your feet wet with filming your flights has never been easier –
we’ve certainly come a long way from shooting on film in the 1970s
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=y1z3ncFvNl0&feature=emb_title
https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=hB-UqE1aeqw&feature=emb_title | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,373,585.121886 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/16/have-led-bulbs-reached-their-final-and-cheapest-form/ | Have LED Bulbs Reached Their Final (and Cheapest) Form? | Donald Papp | [
"LED Hacks",
"Teardown"
] | [
"cost",
"decapping",
"led",
"LED bulbs",
"teardown"
] | [electronupdate] has done a lot of LED light bulb teardowns over the years, witnessing a drive towards ever-cheaper and ever-simpler implementations, and suspects that LED light bulb design has finally reached its ultimate goal.
This teardown of a recent dollar store example
shows that cost-cutting has managed to shave even more off what was already looking like a market saturated with bottom-dollar design.
The electrical components inside this glowing model of cost-cutting consists of one PCB (
previously-seen dollar store LED bulb examples had two
), eleven LEDs, one bridge rectifier, two resistors, and a controller IC. A wirewound resistor apparently also serves as a fuse, just in case.
Inside the unmarked controller IC. The design is as cheap as it is clever in its cost-cutting.
That’s not all. [electronupdate] goes beyond a simple teardown and has decapped the controller IC to see what lurks inside, and the result is shown here. This controller is responsible for driving the LEDs from the ~100 Volts DC that the bridge rectifier and large electrolytic cap present to it, and it’s both cheap and clever in its own way.
The top half is a big transistor for chopping the voltage and the bottom half is the simple control logic; operation is fast enough that no flicker is perceived in the LEDs, and no output smoothing cap is needed. The result, of course, is fewer components and lower cost.
Some of you may recall that back in the early days of LED lighting, bulbs that could last 100,000 hours were a hot promise.
That didn’t happen for a variety of reasons
and the march towards being an everyday consumable where cost was paramount continued. [electronupdate] feels they have probably reached that ultimate goal, at least until something else changes. They work, they’re cheap, and just about everything else has been successfully pried up and tossed out the door. | 129 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220272",
"author": "Erik",
"timestamp": "2020-02-16T15:06:01",
"content": "They work, they’re cheap, and just about everything else has been successfully pried up and tossed out the door.Including EMC compliance at a reasonable level. They even interfere with DAB radio nowadays, we... | 1,760,373,586.033493 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/16/make-a-set-of-headphones-from-scratch/ | Make A Set Of Headphones From Scratch | Jenny List | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"headphone",
"moving coil"
] | There are a variety of ways to enjoy your audio, of which headphones are one. Making a set of headphones is a straightforward enough project, but [madaeon] has taken the art to a new level by
building the headphone drivers
from scratch rather than using an off-the-shelf pair.
The result is a set of moving coil drivers with a construction technique involving using the semi-opaque thin window from an envelope as a diaphragm and as a former for the coil. Cyanoacrylate adhesive holds everything in place. The diaphragm is suspended across the mouth of a cardboard tube with the coil positioned above a magnet, resulting in the minimum moving mass necessary for as good a sound reproduction as possible. Judge for yourself, there’s a video that we’ve placed below the break.
The drivers are placed in a set of 3D-printed on-ear holders, and while they probably won’t match an expensive set of commercial headphones, we’d hazard a guess that they won’t have too bad quality. At the very least, it’s an interesting design to base further experimentation on.
Surprisingly few home made speaker or headphone drivers have made it onto these pages, probably because of the ubiquity of the ready-made article. An exception is
this flexible PCB speaker
, and of course we’ve also talked about
home made electrostatic speakers
. | 7 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220281",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-02-16T16:12:53",
"content": "Actually the only other speaker/headphone project I can remember seeing was in a 50s kids activity book, and it made one out of boot polish tins.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies... | 1,760,373,585.859624 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/16/making-your-own-maple-syrup-just-got-a-little-easier/ | Making Your Own Maple Syrup Just Got A Little Easier | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"maple",
"maple syrup",
"stove"
] | [ctstarkdesigns] had fond memories of collecting maple syrup as a child. At the same time, he also remembered the work involved: from lugging buckets around on an unstable snow mobile to accidentally burning the mixture and making all the effort for naught. So he set out to
make things a little easier this time around by building his own evaporator
.
The build starts as many do, with a surplus 44-gallon drum. With an off-the-shelf kit, and some cutting and welding, it’s readily repurposed into a stove capable of burning wood in a roaring fire. From there, it’s a simple matter of making a few further incisions to install warming trays, used to hold the takings from the maple trees. There, the mixture can be boiled down into the tasty, delicious substance that goes so perfectly on pancakes.
The build has the dual benefits of both easing the boiling process and keeping the user warm while doing so. Already, the rig has proven itself as an adept heater, and we’re sure it will only prove more popular once it’s producing sweet maple syrup en mass. If that’s not enough,
consider building an entirely automated system in your back yard! | 23 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220236",
"author": "Gregg Eshelman",
"timestamp": "2020-02-16T09:20:54",
"content": "This could also be used to extract molasses from ground up sugar beets.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6220390",
"author": "Hirudin... | 1,760,373,586.188304 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/15/github-goes-gui-less/ | GitHub Goes GUI-less | Al Williams | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"command line",
"Git",
"github"
] | Git is a handy tool that many of us are using for more than just software development. Having a cloud-based upstream repository is also surprisingly useful, but until now using GitHub — the most common upstream server — meant firing up a web browser, at least for certain tasks. Now GitHub is releasing a beta version of
command-line tools
made to
manipulate your GitHub repos
.
The tools are early release so they mostly focus on issues and pull requests. Of course, git itself will do the normal things like clone and checkout — you’ve always been able to do that on the command line. The example given in the announcement blog post lists all issues with a help wanted label:
gh issue list --label "help wanted"
We noticed that asking to view the issue, while done on the command line, will still open a browser. The tools are still a little early, so this is an excellent time to let the developers know what you’d like or otherwise influence the project.
We were a little surprised it wouldn’t just consume git, so that you’d use the same commands for everything and it would just pass pre-formed commands to git. Of course, that would be pretty easy to write as a shell script wrapper if you were interested in such a thing.
You’d be forgiven for only thinking of git as a way to manage source code revisions,
but it’s actually capable of all sorts of interesting tricks
. | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220240",
"author": "Feinfinger",
"timestamp": "2020-02-16T09:35:06",
"content": "Like fossil, git should integrate issues, PR discussion, forum and all the “good stuff” into the normal local tool to make real peer based development possible. The need for a central hub is a good bus... | 1,760,373,586.095572 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/17/sherbet-custom-game-pad-is-smooth-and-sweet/ | Sherbet Custom Game Pad Is Smooth And Sweet | Kristina Panos | [
"Games",
"Microcontrollers",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"game pad",
"gaming keypad",
"homing bump",
"Kailh",
"Kailh chocs",
"Teensy"
] | When [Billiam]’s beloved Logitech G13 game pad went to that great spectate room in the sky, he decided to pay homage by designing a custom, more ergonomic replacement from the desk up. Grab a spoon and dig into
the story of [Billiam]’s journey toward Sherbet
, because it’s a sweet ride.
Here’s the scoop: like a lot of DIY game pads and keyboards, Sherbet is based on the Teensy. We often see the micro USB coming straight off the Teensy, especially in clear acrylic builds, but [Billiam] added a USB breakout board so there’s no direct stress on the Teensy itself.
One of [Billiam]’s design challenges comes from the game pad placement — he has a tall desk and uses a keyboard tray, so it has to fit the space and leave enough room for his hand. Fortunately, there are low-profile mechanical switches out there, although the keycap options are strongly limited. We love that [Billiam] embedded a tiny ceramic bearing into one of them to use as a homing bump, because that’s a great idea.
If you want to take a crack at this project, [Billiam] has
all the goodies
laid out. [Billiam] wanted to use QMK firmware, but they didn’t have joystick support yet, so he’s got an Arduino sketch running in the meantime.
We love a good custom game pad around here,
especially if they can reprogram themselves
. | 25 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220668",
"author": "LordNothing",
"timestamp": "2020-02-17T22:09:49",
"content": "idk why people go with the teensy, there are cheaper alternatives with native usb. my go to is the pro micro (chinese knockoff of course). usually go for $2-3 bucks.",
"parent_id": null,
"dept... | 1,760,373,586.554563 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/17/transparent-lcd-makes-everything-look-futuristic/ | Transparent LCD Makes Everything Look Futuristic | Al Williams | [
"hardware",
"Parts"
] | [
"lcd",
"polarizer",
"transparent",
"transparent display"
] | According to [Kelsey], transparent displays are guaranteed to make “everything feel like the future.” Unfortunately they’re hard to find, and the ones typically available are OLED and can’t make solid black colors. But as luck would have it, it’s possible to repurpose
a common LCD to be sort of transparent
.
A LCD uses nematic crystals that can polarize light, with the amount of polarization changing based on the electric field applied to the crystal. Light enters the front of the panel through a polarizing film, passes through the display, and then bounces off a reflective back coating. The display itself usually polarizes light in a way that matches the front polarizer. That means if you do nothing you get reflected light. However, if a part of the LCD gets an electric field, it will repolarize in such a way as to block the reflected light making the display look black in that area.
[Kelsey’s] trick is to peel off the reflector and replace it with polarizing film taken from another display. The new polarizer needs to be bigger than the display for one reason: you need to match the polarizing angle of the front film with the new back film. That means if the new film is exactly the right size, it won’t be able to rotate without leaving gaps. By starting with a larger piece, you’ll be able to rotate for maximum transparency before you stick it on.
We’ve seen some homemade
transparent numeric displays
. The
transparent wood
, though, has usually left something to be desired. | 43 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220607",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-02-17T18:31:36",
"content": "I’ve got a desk clock that came this way stock, have to keep white or shiny things sitting behind it to be able to read the damn thing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,373,586.487524 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/17/why-some-chips-have-inconvenient-pinouts/ | Why Some Chips Have Inconvenient Pinouts | Donald Papp | [
"classic hacks",
"Parts"
] | [
"4017",
"decapping",
"ic",
"inconvenient",
"pinout",
"semiconductor design",
"silicon"
] | If you’ve ever handled a chip with a really strange or highly inconvenient pinout and suspected that the reason had something to do with the inner workings, you may be interested to see [electronupdate]’s analysis of
why the 4017 Decade Counter IC has such a weirdly nonintuitive pinout
. It peeks into an IC design dating from the 1970s to see an example of the kind of design issues that can affect physical layout.
Inside the 4017. Want to make sense of how lines and shapes on a silicon wafer make an IC work?
With the right teachers, it’s simple
.
In the case of the 4017, once decapped and the inner workings exposed, things became more clear. Inside the chip are a bunch of flip-flops and NAND gates, laid out in a single layer. Some of the outputs (outputs 5 and 1 for example, physically on pins 1 and 2 respectively) share the same flip-flop.
The original design placed the elements in a way that made the most logical sense for routing and layout, which resulted in nice and tidy inner workings but an apparently illogical pinout. A lot of this is probably feeling familiar to anyone who has designed and routed a single-layer PCB, where being limited to one layer makes it important to get the most connections as directly near one another as possible.
Chip design has of course come a long way since the 70s, but there is forever some level of trade-off to be made between outward tidiness and inner design harmony. The next time you’re looking at a part with an apparently illogical pinout, there’s a fair chance it makes far more sense on the inside.
If any of you are interested in decapping ICs yourselves to see what’s inside,
we saw that it’s possible with commonly available chemicals
, not just nasty ones. | 29 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220552",
"author": "JerrysFinalTHOT",
"timestamp": "2020-02-17T15:47:45",
"content": "Yes, of course! IC pad and package pinout is a compromise between die routing constraints and board routing constraints. In this case only die routing constraints were considered. In a complex hig... | 1,760,373,586.630998 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/17/electrification-of-a-cheap-bead-roller/ | Electrification Of A Cheap Bead Roller | Jenny List | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"bead roller",
"metalworking",
"motor",
"sheet metalwork"
] | We all have old projects which maybe didn’t quite deliver knocking about, sometimes they gather dust for years. They have a use though, in that when you *really* need that part you can lift it from that forgotten project. That’s what [Mustie1] did with a forgotten electric bicycle project,
he took its motor and used it to automate his bead roller
.
A bead roller is a tool used in the world of automotive bodywork to press a bead — a continuous depression — into a piece of sheet metal. The inexpensive roller he had fitted in a bench vice, and was operated by means of a handle. Unfortunately the size of the tool meant that it was difficult to operate at the same time as rolling a precise bead, so improvement was required.
He first considered using a cordless drill, but then remembered the electric bicycle project. Its geared motor had come from an electric wheelchair and certainly possessed the right speed, but he needed a suitable sprocket. This was supplied from a scrap engine-assisted bicycle that he’d acquired, and proved to be perfect for the job. The final automated roller used the trigger controller from a cordless drill mounted in a foot switch, and the roller mounted on a stand repurposed from a piece of gym equipment. The result is a useful, and above all controllable, tool that can run a perfect bead in any shape desired on a piece of sheet metal.
Surprisingly this is the first bead roller we’ve featured here, but sheet metal work is a constant in hardware hacker projects.
Read our guide to sheet metal bending
, for a start.
Thanks [Cliff Miller] for the tip. | 9 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220532",
"author": "Lee Ambrose",
"timestamp": "2020-02-17T14:37:11",
"content": "Great",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6220535",
"author": "Clipping World",
"timestamp": "2020-02-17T14:44:34",
"content": "Done good... | 1,760,373,586.342541 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/17/bubbly-filament-works-better-than-you-think/ | Bubbly Filament Works Better Than You Think | Danie Conradie | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printed rc plane",
"cnc kitchen",
"expanding foam",
"filament"
] | Normally bubbles appearing in your extruded filament would be considered a bad sign, but it turns out you can now buy filament that has been specifically formulated to foam.
[Stefan] from CNC Kitchen has doing some experiments with these bubbly filaments
, and the results have been very interesting.
The filaments in question are VARIOSHORE TPU and LW-PLA, both by ColorFabb. Both filaments have a blowing agent added to the formulation, which releases gas as the temperature is increased. This causes bubbles to form, creating a cellular structure, which decreases the density and increases the flexibility of the printed part. This isn’t the first time that foaming is sold as a feature, but previously it was only done for aesthetic purposes in Polymaker’s Polywood filament.
Before putting the materials through his
excellent test procedures
, [Stefan] first goes through the process of tuning the print settings. This can be tricky because of the foaming, which increases the effective volume of the plastic, requiring careful adjustment of the extrusion rate. Foaming in the PLA filament reached its maximum foaming at 250 C, at which its density was 44% of the unfoamed filament.
In testing the physical properties, [Stefan] found that the tensile strength and stiffness of printed parts are reduced as foaming increases, but the impact strength is improved. He concludes that the lightweight PLA can have some interesting applications because of the reduced weight and increased impact strength, with
3D printed RC aircraft being an excellent example
of this. It should also be possible to change the between layers, effectively sandwiching the foamed layers between solid skins.
[Stefan]’s videos are an excellent resource for those looking to master the finer points of 3D printing with different materials. He has
reinforced prints with carbon fiber
, played with
extrusion widths
and developed an
ingenious gradient infill technique
. | 22 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220482",
"author": "Brendan",
"timestamp": "2020-02-17T10:40:54",
"content": "I wonder if you could combine this with resin stabilization to produce even stronger parts….",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6220495",
"aut... | 1,760,373,586.404657 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/16/amp-volt-ohm-meter-model-8-mark-iii-from-the-1960s/ | Amp Volt Ohm Meter Model 8 Mark III From The 1960s | Al Williams | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"avometer",
"meter",
"multimeter",
"test equipment",
"vintage electronics",
"volt ohm meter",
"VOM"
] | There’s hardly any piece of test equipment more fundamental than a volt ohm meter. Today you’re likely to have a digital one, but for most of history, these devices had real needle meters. The
AVOmeter Model 8 Mark III
that [Jeff Tranter] shows off had an odd banana-shaped meter. Maybe that goes with the banana plugs. You can get a closer view of this vintage piece of equipment in the video after the break.
Even the outside description of the meter is interesting. There were several unique features. For example, if the meter goes full scale a little button pops out and disconnects the probes to protect the meter. Another unusual control reversed the polarity of the leads so you didn’t have to swap them manually.
Some of the other features will be familiar to anyone who has used a good analog meter. For example, the meter movement has a mirror under the needle. This is used to make sure you are looking straight down on the needle when making readings. If you can see the reflection of the needle, then you are off to one side and will not read the precise value you are interested in.
If you only want to see the insides, [Jeff] teases you until around the six minute mark. There are no active devices and this meter is old enough to not use a printed circuit board. The AC ranges work with a transformer and germanium diodes. The rest of the circuit is mostly a bunch of resistors.
The point to point wiring always makes us wonder who built this thing sixty years ago. You can only wonder what they would think if they knew we were looking at their handiwork in the year 2020.
We see a lot of
meter clocks
, but it would be a shame to tear this unique meter apart for its movement. Perhaps someone should make a clock that outputs a voltage to a terminal so you could read it with your favorite meter. This instrument was probably pretty precise for its day, but we doubt it can match
a modern 6.5 digit digital instrument
. | 22 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220459",
"author": "Gorgus",
"timestamp": "2020-02-17T07:10:09",
"content": "The Rolls Royce of analog multimeters.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6220460",
"author": "dendad",
"timestamp": "2020-02-17T07:19:25",
"... | 1,760,373,586.69209 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/16/closed-ham-radio-peripheral-reveals-its-windows-secrets/ | Closed Ham Radio Peripheral Reveals Its Windows Secrets | Jenny List | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"flexradio",
"sdr",
"windows"
] | The student radio society in Trondhjem owns a Flex 6500-radio, with its associated Maestro panel peripheral. This is a software defined radio, and the Maestro is a computer containing just enough of an embedded version of Windows to run its front-end software. Unfortunately for our Norwegian radio amateur friends it runs very little else, even to the extent of being unable to connect to public WiFi that requires a web log-in. This was particularly annoying as the student network does this and they’d had to create their own hotspot, so
they’ve provided some details
on how they were able to open it up a little to do a bit more.
At first they were cagey about the exact nature of the exploit they used to penetrate the device’s defenses, but since then they’ve published
a second installment with full details
. It involved gaining access to the filesystem and a terminal through a right-click menu from a web browser screen within the Maestro software, then using that access to change configuration such that it could be exposed across the network. From there they were able to treat it much as they would a normal Windows installation, including putting other software such as SmartSDR onto it.
This piece of work provides a fascinating insight into an embedded Windows device, and leaves us as usual surprised by the ease of the exploit. We’d say it’s something of a brave move for a company to ship a feature-limited product to radio amateurs of all people, a community that has been experimenting and finding whatever means to extend the capabilities of their equipment for over a hundred years.
Perhaps Flexradio’s eyes are on greater things
. | 25 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220438",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2020-02-17T03:49:53",
"content": "https://shop.flexradio.com/certified-pre-loved-flex-6500-signature-series-sdr-transceiver/$2,599.00 yeah I can see why people want a little more out of their equipment.",
"parent_id": null,
"dept... | 1,760,373,586.759825 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/15/wall-panels-with-3760-antennas-can-increase-wireless-range/ | Wall Panels With 3760 Antennas Can Increase Wireless Range | Danie Conradie | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"2.4ghz antenna",
"beamforming",
"directional antennas",
"mit",
"rf signal"
] | Most of us know that to get the best possible WiFi signal, you want there to be as few walls as possible between you and the Access Point. But that might soon change, as researchers at MIT have found
a way to make surfaces increase signal strength
. Called RFocus, the technique uses a wall panel covered in simple antennas to dynamically focus or reflect RF energy towards a intended receiver.
The normal methods to increase wireless range usually involve increasing the transmitter output or adding larger, more efficient, or directional antennas to the receivers and transmitters. But these techniques are limited when you need to the reduce power consumption and size of the devices. The MIT teams approached the problem from a completely different angle, by optimizing the environment.
The wall panel in question consist of 94 PCBs, each containing 40 passive antenna elements in the form of copper rectangles. Each element is a quarter wavelength long (125 mm for 2.4 Ghz), and on its own it doesn’t have any real effect on the signals, allowing it to pass through the panel. Between the ends of elements are small RF switches, that can close to combine two antenna elements into single half wavelength antenna, creating a reflector. When this is applied across the panel in different patterns it can effectively beamform the signal to focus it at different points in space.
The RF switches are connected to shift registers, which are all controlled via a single SPI bus with an Arduino. Each RF switch is activated in a pseudo-random sequence, changing the configuration of the panel 10,000 times in 100 ms. The signal strength at the receiver is reported to the panel controller for each configuration, allowing the controller to select the best configuration for any single transmitter. In a scenario where multiple low-power sensor nodes are deployed, this can allow the receiver to “focus” on each node in turn. The full paper is a very interesting read,
downloadable as a PDF
.
RF is generally considered the black magic of electronics, but it can all become a bit clearer with a basic knowledge of
antenna theory
and
modulation schemes
.
Thanks to [Qes] for the tip! | 34 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220198",
"author": "tzuede",
"timestamp": "2020-02-16T03:09:16",
"content": "Here is a serious question. What would be ideal for cheap RF blocking and perhaps allowing one range of frequency to pass through? Aka just IR warmth and Visible light. Is there any plastics or wall paper ... | 1,760,373,586.830578 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/15/sequence-your-beats-with-the-magic-of-magnets/ | Sequence Your Beats With The Magic Of Magnets | Lewin Day | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"magnet",
"magnets",
"midi controller",
"midi sequencer",
"sequencer"
] | Typically, when we think of a music sequencer, we envisage LEDs and boards covered in buttons. Of course, there are naturally other ways to build such a device. MesoTune takes a different tack entirely,
relying on magnets and rotating mechanisms to get the job done.
MesoTune acts as a MIDI controller, and is designed to be hooked up to a computer or other MIDI synthesizer device. The heart of MesoTune is a set of eight magnet wheels, rotating together on a common shaft. The rotational speed of the shaft, dictated by the requested tempo in beats per minute, is controlled by an Arduino. Each magnet wheel has 16 slots into which the user can place a spherical magnet. Every time a magnet on the wheel passes a hall sensor, it sends a MIDI message to the attached computer which is then responsible for using this to synthesize the relevant sound.
There are other useful features, too. Each of the eight magnet wheels, or channels, gets its own fader, which can be used to control volume or other parameters. There’s also a handy tempo display, and a 16-button touchpad for triggering other events. These additions make it more practical to use in a compositional context, where it’s nice to have extra controls to make changes on the fly.
Made out of 3D printed parts and readily available off the shelf components, it’s a fun alternative sequencer design that we’re sure many makers could whip up in just a weekend. We’d love to see other remixes of the design – if you’ve got one,
hit us up at the tipline
.
We’ve seen other great sequencer builds before, too.
Video after the break. | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220182",
"author": "Old Guy",
"timestamp": "2020-02-16T00:23:53",
"content": "So it can play a maximum of 8 notes at once (stacked) with patterns that repeat after 16 notes (in a line)? Help me understand.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"... | 1,760,373,587.062874 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/15/aaa-powered-lora-mailbox-sensor-goes-the-distance/ | AAA Powered LoRa Mailbox Sensor Goes The Distance | Jenny List | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"LoRa",
"LoRaWAN",
"mailbox",
"notification",
"The Things Network"
] | As more of the world’s communication moves into the electronic realm, a casualty has come in the physical mail. Where once each new day might have brought with it a bulging mailbox, today it’s not uncommon for days to pass with not even so much as a bill or a coupon book. For [Eivholt] this presents a problem: he doesn’t want to miss a parcel but most visits to the mailbox are futile. His solution is
a LoRa-connected mailbox monitor
that sips power from a pair of AAA batteries to the extent that so far it’s run for over two years on a single set.
At its heart is a single board, a Talk2 Whisper Node. This packs a low-power version of the ATmega328 microcontroller alongside a LoRa radio and an efficient power regulator allowing it to draw only 8.70 uA in standby mode, waking up only for extremely short periods to check for mail and report via LoRa to The Things Network. The sensor is simply a microswitch, selected after finding a reed switch problematic to install. Finally an SDR was used to debug the operation of the radio.
The write-up also provides an introduction to extreme low power projects, including some tips on measuring such tiny currents. Even if you have no interest in a mailbox, any
tricks that can help maximize power efficiency
are always worth taking a look at. Check out the video after the break to see this radio-equipped mailbox in action. | 29 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220170",
"author": "AggregatVier",
"timestamp": "2020-02-15T22:43:38",
"content": "While I realize sometimes we build things without cost consideration (guilty as charged) but there are ready built solutions for mailbox alerts that are under $50 that even include email notification... | 1,760,373,587.019934 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/15/3d-printing-skin-or-maybe-a-dermal-regenerator/ | 3D Printing Skin Or Maybe A Dermal Regenerator | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Medical Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"3d printing skin",
"bioprinting",
"burns",
"skin"
] | In space — at least on Star Trek — no one can hear you apply a band-aid. That’s too low tech. When a Star Fleet officer gets an ouchie, the real or holographic doctor waves a dermal regenerator over the afflicted area, and new skin magically appears. Science fiction, huh? Maybe not. A group of scientists from Canada recently published
a paper
on a handheld instrument for depositing “skin precursor sheets” over full-thickness burns. The paper is behind a paywall and if you don’t know how to get it or don’t want to get it, you can see a video from the
University of Toronto
, below.
Although they use the term 3D printing, the device is more like a paint roller. Several substances merge together in the print head and lay down on the burn in broad stripes.
The machine is meant for people with full-thickness burns. These are burns that destroy both the outer and inner layers of your skin and often occur over very large areas. The team thinks the device could be in real use within five years. They have already gone through ten prototype designs.
Here’s a brief description of the machine from the paper:
The fibrin-based bioink is permissive for cell viability and proliferation and is cross-linked with a thrombin solution. The compact (20 cm × 11 cm × 15 cm) and light (1.4 kg) instrument is operated with one hand.
The operator holds the instrument on the handle such that the soft wheel to contacts the wound bed. Upon engaging the toggle switch, the wheel rotates at velocity V, guiding the deposition process. Simultaneously, the bioink and cross-linker stored on-board in separate syringes are co-delivered at the respective flow rates QB and QC. The solutions then pass through flexible
tubing to separate inlets of the microfluidic printhead that trails the wheel. Within the printhead, they are distributed through a bifurcated channel network towards a parallel array of microchannels at the exit that deposit a uniform thickness skin precursor sheet conformal to the wound bed, covered with the crosslinker.
Because the widths of the printhead and deposited sheet exceed the width of the wheel, arbitrarily wide wounds can be covered by successive side-by-side sheet deposition. The deposited sheets are visually distinguishable from the wound immediately after leaving the printhead, allowing the user to adjust
the printhead position to ensure neighboring layers to be deposited without gap.
We have to admit that we spend more time thinking about
robot skin
. But we occasionally do think about
bioprinting
. | 11 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220140",
"author": "Romain",
"timestamp": "2020-02-15T18:57:01",
"content": "Hi, sorry, French are already on this business with a working skin 3D printer ;)https://poietis.com/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6220144",
"au... | 1,760,373,587.113575 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/15/a-nifty-tool-for-separating-magnets/ | A Nifty Tool For Separating Magnets | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"magnet",
"magnets",
"tool"
] | Neodymium magnets are fun to play with, largely thanks to their incredibly strong magnetic field. This also gives them plenty of applications where other magnets won’t cut the mustard. This very strength is also a drawback, making them difficult to work with and posing a danger to squishy human bodies.
To help ease the task, [RandomCitizen4] developed a handy magnet separator tool.
The tool is similar in design to a pair of scissors, with two blades that are slid together when the handles are squeezed. The design is subtly different, however, with plastic blades that slide in between the gaps of a pair of magnets stuck together, pushing them apart. With just three parts to be 3D printed, a handful of fasteners and a rubber band, the tool is easy to build, too.
As someone who has spent significant time sliding magnets apart on the edge of a desk, wearing away the skin on my hands in the process, this tool would certainly come in handy. It might also be useful
if you find yourself experimenting with magswitches or similar.
Video after the break. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220114",
"author": "alfcoder",
"timestamp": "2020-02-15T15:53:54",
"content": "you can even buy a separator for lego :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6220287",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2020-02-16T16:40... | 1,760,373,587.151199 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/15/gravity-defying-cosmetics-explained-by-science/ | Gravity-Defying Cosmetics Explained By Science! | Jenny List | [
"Science"
] | [
"cosmetics",
"electrostatic",
"van de graaff"
] | There probably comes a point in every female technical journalist’s career at which she covers her first make-up story and wonders aloud whether this is what her life has come to. But this make-up story involves some physics, and follows a series of viral videos in the TikTok community in which specialist cosmetics vloggers were surprised to see lip gloss apparently levitating — defying gravity — from the ends of its applicators. This caught the attention of [Steve Mould],
who followed up on his hunch that static electricity might be responsible
. What follows in the video below the break are a variety of attempts to recreate and characterise the phenomenon.
The tried-and-trusted approach of rubbing feet on the carpet failing to cause any movement in the damp atmosphere of a British January, he’s off to try a Van de Graaff generator Even the hefty electrostatic charge from that failed to produce more than a tiny blip, but did at least give a suggestion that the effect might be electrostatic.
Finally he was able to replicate the beauty vloggers’ results using the FunFlyStick electrostatic toy, with satisfying threads of lip gloss heading off into the air. The FunFlyStick is an interesting device in its own right, being a Van de Graaff generator in toy form and
capable of generating significant quantities of charge
. The flying lip gloss is an interesting phenomenon, but speaks further about just how much electrostatic charge can accumulate on mundane objects in a dry climate. Those of in damper climes would do well to take note before we travel.
Thanks [Käpt’n Blaubär] for the tip! | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220078",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2020-02-15T13:09:29",
"content": "I come to Hackaday, see a story on cosmetics and my immediate thought is that it’s some sub discipline of cosmology that I’ve yet to read about!Interesting article nonetheless!",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,373,587.262751 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/15/the-red-dwarf-talkie-toaster-made-real/ | The Red Dwarf Talkie Toaster Made Real | Jenny List | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"Red Dwarf",
"Talkie Toaster",
"toaster"
] | It’s cold outside, there’s no kind of atmosphere, you’re all alone, more or less. More or less meaning that you share the gigantic mining ship that is your home on the other side of the galaxy with an ineffectual android, a humanoid descended from your cat, a holographic representation of your dead colleague who’s a complete
smeghead
, and a
really
annoying sentient toaster that’s obsessed with bread products. If all this rings a bell, then maybe you’re familiar with the cult BBC TV series,
Red Dwarf
. It’s a show that evidently [
Bill Dudley
] has spent too much time watching, because
he’s created a really convincing replica of that talking toaster
.
The base toaster is a toy appliance with a little clockwork ejector for toy toast, that comes with plenty of space inside and is easy to accessories for the classic Talkie Toaster look. Inside is an off-the-shelf MP3 player board and a home-made PCB which drives a set of LEDs behind the speaker grille in time with the audio. The result won’t make any toast, waffles, or even crumpets, but it will delight any
Red Dwarf
fans who might be passing, whether someone has smoked them a kipper or not.
Surprisingly
this is not the first Talkie Toaster build we’ve seen
. If they met, would they have a harmonious conversation about bagels? | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220049",
"author": "Feinfinger",
"timestamp": "2020-02-15T09:38:06",
"content": "Next stop: Talky doors?Or even better: More Hyperdrive episodes?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6220054",
"author": "Khai",
"ti... | 1,760,373,587.315531 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/14/arduino-drives-a-600-character-display/ | Arduino Drives A 600-Character Display | Al Williams | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"led matrix",
"MAX7219"
] | [Peterthinks] admits he’s no cabinet maker, so his projects use a lot of hot glue. He also admits he’s no video editor. However, his latest video uses some a MAX7219 to create a
600 character scrolling LED sign
. You can see a video of the thing, below. Spoiler alert: not all characters are visible at once.
The heart of the project is a MAX7219 4-in-1 LED display that costs well under $10. The board has four LED arrays resulting in a display of 8×32 LEDs. The MAX7219 takes a 16-bit data word over a 10 MHz serial bus, so programming is pretty easy.
The MAX chip can decode for seven-segment displays or just allow you to light up the outputs directly, which is what the code here does. You can cascade the chips, so it is possible to string more than one of these modules together.
The code is available on
Dropbox
. The code is extremely simple due to the use of the
Parola
library and a
MAX72XX
library. We’ve seen a number of projects based around
this chip
. Some of the uses are
pretty novel
. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219872",
"author": "Petie Martin",
"timestamp": "2020-02-14T16:08:09",
"content": "I just got mine 8×8 (4×1) module in the mail earlier this week! I’m glad to see this project here, and I’m glad to see a link to the library for it. There are multiple libraries out there, and this o... | 1,760,373,587.211905 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/14/this-week-in-security-robinhood-apple-mail-aslr-and-more-windows-7/ | This Week In Security: Robinhood, Apple Mail, ASLR, And More Windows 7 | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"ASLR",
"GCP",
"ransomware",
"This Week in Security"
] | First off this week, a ransomware named Robinhood
has a novel trick up its sleeve
. The trick? Loading an old known-vulnerable signed driver, and then using a vulnerability in that driver to get a malicious kernel driver loaded.
A Gigabyte driver unintentionally exposed an interface that allows unfettered kernel level read and write access. Because it’s properly signed, Windows will happily load the driver. The ransomware code uses that interface to turn off the bit that enforces the loading of signed drivers only. From there, loading a malicious driver is trivial. Robinhood uses it’s kernel-level access to disable anti-virus applications before launching the data encryption.
This is a striking example of the weakness of binary signing without a mechanism to revoke those signatures. In an ideal world, once the vulnerability was found and an update released, the older, vulnerable driver would have its signature revoked.
The last Windows 7 Update For Real This Time, Maybe
More news in the ongoing saga of Windows 7/Server 2008 reaching end-of-life.
KB4539602
was released this patch Tuesday, fixing the black background problem introduced in the last “final” round of updates. Surely that’s the last we’ll hear of this saga, right?
Not so fast. Apparently that patch has led to multiple Windows Server 2008 machines
failing to boot after install
. According to Microsoft, the problem is a missing previous patch that updates SHA-2 support.
Apple Mail Exposed Encrypted Emails
Back in November, [Bob Gendler] discovered something disconcerting about how Apple Mail handles encrypted emails. On MacOS, the suggestd service gathers snippets of emails and files, in an effort to more intelligently handle searches and Siri requests.
The resulting dataset contains the plaintext of emails
, even those that encrypted using GPG. He gave a set of workarounds, and notified Apple of the issue.
Just recently, Apple pushed 10.15.3, and buried in the change log is a note stating that encrypted emails will no longer appear in spotlight searches.
[Bob] Did some further testing
, and confirmed that the suggestd service now identifies encrypted messages, and deletes snippets taken from those messages immediately.
Gitlab’s GCP DeepDive
Curious about Google’s Cloud Platform, and how security considerations there differ from a more traditional environment? Gitlab did some research into GCP, and it turned into a step-by-step guide to
exploring and compromising a GCP project
.
There’s a bunch of basic information about GCP, as well as common mis-configurations that make for vulnerable instances. One of my favorites from the write-up: Follow the scripts. If you find a backup script, you not only have some credentials to work with, you also get a copy of the whole filesystem. The guide includes tips on moving to other VMs, as well as a possible path to compromising the whole Google Suite account.
Linux ASLR
Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) is a security enhancement that was added to the Linux kernel in 2005. It randomizes the memory layout of userspace programs, in an effort to make actual compromise harder to achieve. If you have a buffer overflow, for example, how do you write an exploit when the memory layout is different every time a program is run?
The guys over at
Wildfire Labs took a look at Linux ASLR
, and concluded that it’s still lacking. The main problem is the information available in “/proc/[pid]/*”, and the way security checks are done on those virtual files. The most straightforward example is “/proc/[pid]/maps”, which contains the randomized memory layout. As disclosed in mid-2019, this virtual file would do a permissions check when another application attempted to read its contents, but not when attempting to simply open the file. In practice, this means a non-root application can obtain a file descriptor pointing at the “maps” virtual file, and pass that descriptor to another application. If passed to a setuid root application, the protected information can be freely read, and potentially leaked back to the unprivileged application.
“Setuid root” is worth an aside to explain. Ping is the perfect example: It’s reasonable to allow a non-root user to use the ping command to test network connectivity. Sending an ICMP packet requires a raw socket, which in turn requires root privileges. How do we securely allow a non-root user to access this function? Setuid is a special file permission for executables, that allows the executable to run as root, regardless of the user that launches it. As you can imagine, it takes a lot of care to avoid local exploits in setuid binaries.
While the permissions bypass in the maps virtual file was fixed, the fix wasn’t applied to the rest of the nodes in the /proc structure. The novelty of the Wildfire work is that they found other nodes that can be similarly abused, to retrieve the mapping information. There seems to be some disagreement with kernel devs about whether current mitigations are sufficient, but with a proof of concept published, it’s sure to get sorted soon.
Data Collection
Last up this week is news about
way too much data being collected by a Wacom tablet driver
. Look forward to a dedicated article from our own Kristina Panos, taking a closer look at this story, and the techniques used to figure out exactly what was going on. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219859",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2020-02-14T15:53:48",
"content": "I booted to the Win7 side of my PC a few weeks ago, (first time in a year?), I was surprised that it made no mention of an update available.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,373,587.361654 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/14/a-little-rewiring-teaches-a-creality-ender-3-new-tricks/ | A Little Rewiring Teaches A Creality Ender 3 New Tricks | Tom Nardi | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Parts"
] | [
"A4988",
"Creality",
"stepper driver",
"TMC2208",
"Trinamic",
"uart"
] | The Creality Ender 3 is part of the new wave of budget 3D printers, available for less than $250 from many online retailers. For the money, it’s hard to complain about the machine, and it’s more than suitable for anyone looking to get make their first steps into the world of FDM printing. But there’s certainly room for improvement,
and as [Simon] shows in a recent blog post
, a little effort can go a long way towards pushing this entry-level printer to the next level.
The first step was to replace the printer’s stepper drivers with something a bit more modern. Normally the Ender 3 uses common A4988 drivers, but [Simon] wanted to replace them with newer Trinamic drivers that offer quieter operation. Luckily, Trinamic makes a drop-in replacement for the A4988 that makes installation relatively easy. You’ll need to change out a few caps and remove some resistors from the board to make everyone play nice, but that shouldn’t pose a challenge to anyone who knows their way around a soldering iron.
Beyond quieter running steppers, the Trinamic TMC2208 drivers also offer direct UART control mode. Of course the Ender’s board was never designed for this, so the MCU doesn’t have enough free pins to establish serial communications with the three drivers (for the X, Y, and Z axes). But [Simon] realized if he sacrificed the SD card slot on the board, the six pins that would free on the controller could be cut and rewired to the driver’s UART pins.
Combined with the Klipper firmware, these relatively minor modifications allows him to
experiment with printing at speeds far greater than what was possible before
. Considering the kind of
headaches that a ~$200 printer would have given you only a few years ago
, it’s impressive what these new machines are capable of; even if it takes a few tweaks. | 36 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219807",
"author": "Chuck",
"timestamp": "2020-02-14T13:01:22",
"content": "He also could have just used an SKR Mini E3 board. It has 32 bit processor and UART controlled TMC2209’s. And connector layout is made to match Ender 3 board.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"r... | 1,760,373,587.43168 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/14/200-resin-printer-reviewed/ | $200 Resin Printer Reviewed | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"3D resin printer",
"resin",
"sla"
] | [3DPrintFarm] got an early version of the
Phrozen Sonic Mini
resin printer. If you look at the video below, he was very impressed with its build quality and results. The price is reported to be $200, although we have seen it on some web sites for a bit more. The build quality does look good, although you have to admit, the motion mechanism on a resin printer is pretty simple, since you just need to move up and down.
The printer uses a monochrome LCD which allows it to cure layers very fast (apparently, monochrome panels pass more ultraviolet light through). The panel also has a higher-rated lifetime than color LCDs
The steps to print are pretty simple. An LCD test lets you make sure the LCD panel is working. Leveling or Z axis calibration, is, as always, some amount of work, although it is guided and not very hard compared to a filament printer.
Once complete, you are ready to go, and the video shows a real-time build with each layer taking just a hair over two seconds. Watching items grow out of a vat of liquid always seems like some sort of magic to us and that’s quite fast. The build size isn’t super large — 4.7 inches by 2.6 with a height of about 5 inches. That’s still big enough for a lot of purposes.
We had trouble finding the printer for $200 other than on the company’s
web site
. Amazon listed the product but showed it unavailable and didn’t list a price. Despite putting the web site in US dollar mode, the shopping cart rang up in Taiwan dollars (TWD) and shipping was around $60 (NT$1,699). The cart informed us that the total in US dollars was about $258. They did offer PayPal as an option to pay.
We can actually get an ELEGOO Mars for a little less that that. Sure the retail price is higher, but there are free shipping options. We’ve seen some
other resin printers
for as little as $180. We’d love to see how those printers stack up to this one. According to the video, this printer is probably faster than many other printers, if nothing else.
If you want to get into resin printers, make sure you know
what you are getting into
. | 29 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219791",
"author": "Alphatek",
"timestamp": "2020-02-14T11:33:09",
"content": "Interesting point about mono LCDs – Now you mention it, it makes sense as I guess they’re not TFT, so have more LC per D.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"commen... | 1,760,373,587.49145 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/13/training-a-dog-to-speak-with-a-sound-board/ | Training A Dog To “Speak” With A Sound Board | Lewin Day | [
"Medical Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"AAC",
"dog",
"speech"
] | The field of Augmentative and Alternative Communciation (AAC) covers communication methods used by those who are unable to otherwise produce or comprehend spoken or written language. Many will be familiar with the speech synthesizer used by Stephen Hawking as just one such example of AAC technology. [Christina Hunger] is a speech language pathologist, and is intimately familiar with such tools.
She decided to use these techniques to teach her dog, Stella, to talk
.
[Christina] began her project by implementing a button board which triggers various speech samples when triggered. There are plenty of typical words that a dog may wish to use, like beach, park, and ball – as well as words describing concepts, such as where, later, and come. Over time, she has observed Stella using the button board in various ways, that she claims indicate a deeper understanding and use of language than would normally be ascribed to a dog.
From the outset, [Christina] has been intentional in her methods,
being sure to only demonstrate the use of the board to Stella
, rather than simply pressing the buttons for her. The experiment has many similarities to the case of Koko the gorilla,
known for learning symbols from American Sign Language.
The project is also documented on Instagram
, where she films Stella using the device and gives interpretations of the meaning of Stella’s button pressing.
Attemping to communicate on a higher level with animals has long been a mysterious and complex pursuit; one which we’re sure to see more of as various technologies continue to improve. We’d love to see a broader scientific study on the use of AAC tools to “talk” to animals. In such matters, context and interpretation play a large role, and thus it’s difficult to truly gauge the quality of understanding an animal may actually have. More research would be great to shed light on these techniques. Video after the break.
[Thanks to SoggyWaffles1984 for the tip!] | 44 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219758",
"author": "AmEv",
"timestamp": "2020-02-14T07:05:47",
"content": "Among special interest is when the button for “beach” broke, so Stella – very deliberately – pressed the buttons for “water” then “outside”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,373,587.743768 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/13/taking-pictures-of-the-space-station-with-a-handheld-camera/ | Taking Pictures Of The Space Station With A Handheld Camera | Al Williams | [
"Space"
] | [
"iss",
"nikon",
"space station"
] | It is easy to find out when the space station is passing overhead, and you may have run outside to see the blip of light moving at five miles per second. It turns out that some people make a hobby out of taking its picture, and if you have a pretty beefy telescope you can get some good shots. [Scott], on the other hand, wanted to take a handheld consumer-grade camera and try some pictures.
His results show up in the video below
.
If you look at the second video from [Thierry], you’ll see [Scott’s] videos are a far cry from state of the art. However, the [Thierry] photos essentially use a special telescope made to track the station very precisely. [Scott] is using a handheld, consumer-grade Nikon P1000.
Granted, the P1000 has a pretty heavy-duty zoom lens with a focal length of 3,000. So don’t expect to get even close to these pictures using grandma’s old Brownie. Still, it is impressive what he was able to do, particularly after applying a moving window to the station’s image to counteract what [Scott] calls “my old man hands.”
The [Thierry] images are amazing if you haven’t seen them. It is reportedly the only image of an astronaut taken from an amateur telescope. You can see some images of them at the start of [Scott’s] video. Of course, a handheld camera won’t be a likely contender for best picture compared to those big scopes with their impressive tripods.
Even with the Nikon, [Scott] did have to hack the camera a bit. Unless, of course, you happen to already have a range finder telescope mounted to your camera’s hot shoe.
If you want constant updates on the ISS position,
build this globe
. Of course, won’t be long, your pictures will have nothing but
Starlink
in them, anyway. | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219738",
"author": "Alan Hightower",
"timestamp": "2020-02-14T04:32:31",
"content": "Just another agent of the disc-wide global Earth conspiracy theory… disappointing fake news.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6219741",
... | 1,760,373,587.652858 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/13/bbq-burners-built-from-scratch/ | BBQ Burners Built From Scratch | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"barbecue",
"burner",
"gas burner",
"propane"
] | Building a barbecue is a common DIY pursuit, and one that comes with a tasty payoff at completion. While many projects focus on charcoal or wood-fired designs, [Andrew] is more of a gas man. Not one to simply buy off the shelf,
he designed his own burners from scratch.
This quest wasn’t just
unnecessary yak shaving
; burners to suit [Andrew]’s desired size and power simply weren’t available. The burner is designed around the Venturi effect, wherein the propane gas is passed through a small orifice, creating a jet and pulling air along with it as it enters the burner tube. This causes the gases to mix, and they can then be ignited when passing through the outlet holes of the burner. Get the orifice and outlet holes sized just right, and you’ll have a burner that produces a hot, blue flame, perfect for efficient cooking.
The orifice was produced with brass plumbing components, and hooked up to a valve rated for use with gas lines. The burner tube itself was created from stainless steel tube, with slots cut to act as outlet holes and with the end crimped and welded shut. A black iron pipe reducer was then used as the air inlet and orifice mount.
The final result is a powerful barbecue burner that is perfectly sized to [Andrew]’s needs. If you’re keen to build your own custom rig, you may find this a useful and cheap way to go versus sourcing parts off the shelf.
We’ve seen [Andrew]’s work before, too
. Video after the break. | 23 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219689",
"author": "The Gambler",
"timestamp": "2020-02-14T00:08:25",
"content": "posting a video of a guy welding to galvanized steel……descent video otherwise",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6219693",
"author": "Eric... | 1,760,373,587.878956 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/14/nixie-clock-claims-to-be-simplest-design/ | Nixie Clock Claims To Be Simplest Design | Al Williams | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"clock",
"nixie"
] | [Engineer2you] built a
nixie tube clock
and claims it is the simplest design. We felt like that was a challenge. In this design, the tubes are set up as a matrix with optoisolators on each row and column. With 60 segments, the matrix allows you to control it all with 16 bits. There are six columns, each corresponding to a digit. That means each row has 10 lines.
The Arduino code
reads the clock and produces the output to the tubes fast enough that your eye perceives each digit as being always on, even though it isn’t.
It may be semantics, but part of what makes the design simple isn’t that it is simple on its own, but that it does use a small number of dense modules. For example, the clock is a DS3231, and there is a DC step up board to generate 390V for the tubes. So instead of minimizing part count, this design really minimizes how many parts you have to connect by employing modules, including the Arduino. That’s still something, though.
It looks as though the nixie tubes used are of Soviet origin. They need no more than 170V to ignite and at least 120V to stay lit. Not a problem with a simple DC to DC converter since the current is very low — on the order of 2.5 mA or so.
We suppose one day the stock of nixie tubes will be gone. But there are still
people making them
. Or you can do a modern version with
light pipes
. | 29 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220059",
"author": "Erik Johnson",
"timestamp": "2020-02-15T10:48:09",
"content": "What an obnoxious video, with subscribe interludes? Closed immediately",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6220093",
"author": "ratStompe... | 1,760,373,587.816562 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/14/rf-shield-turns-arduino-and-pc-into-shortwave-radio/ | RF Shield Turns Arduino (And PC) Into Shortwave Radio | Al Williams | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"elektor",
"sdr",
"shield",
"software-defined radio"
] | Microcontrollers tend to consume other kinds of electronics. A project you might once have done with a 555 now probably has a cheap microcontroller in it. Music synthesizers? RC controllers? Most likely, all microcontroller-based now. We always thought RF electronics would be immune to that, but the last decade or two has proven us wrong. Software-defined radio or SDR means you get the RF signal to digital as soon as possible and do everything else in software. If you want an introduction to SDR, Elektor now has
an inexpensive RF shield
for the Arduino. The Si5351-based board uses that oscillator IC to shift RF signals down to audio frequencies and then makes it available to the PC to do more processing.
The board is available alone or as part of a kit that includes a book. There’s also a series of Elektor articles about it. There’s also a review video from Elektor about the board in the video, below.
We peeked at the schematic and the shield is more for letting the Arduino control the radio by changing the oscillator frequency rather than performing the SDR functions. The IQ signals appear on the PC’s soundcard via a microphone or line-in jack, and don’t really route to the Arduino.
That’s a shame because some of the 32-bit Arduinos might be able to do some interesting things with the right hardware. Plus there are many capable CPU and FPGA boards that have Arduino shield-compatible layouts. That could have led to some interesting possibilities.
Then again, having a programmable signal source on the Arduino isn’t a bad thing and compared to the older version of the board, the new board offers easier breakout for the oscillator signals.
If you want to learn more about how SDR works, try starting with
spreadsheets
. However, if you want to graduate to something more practical, try our series on
GNU Radio
. | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6220042",
"author": "sdr",
"timestamp": "2020-02-15T07:59:24",
"content": "It would be very well possible to do SDR processing in the atmega328. Example here:https://gist.github.com/threeme3/dc6e02a3a1c2ba49e717ac622719e720",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
... | 1,760,373,587.927675 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/14/emergency-torch-runs-without-batteries/ | Emergency Torch Runs Without Batteries | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"flashlight",
"magnet",
"torch"
] | It’s always good to have a torch on hand for emergencies. Unfortunately, sometimes these torches can be forgotten, and wind up with dead batteries when you need them most. For those cases,
this build from [techrallyofficial] is just the ticket.
Instead of a battery, the torch relies on a 1.5 farad supercapacitor to store energy. The body of the torch is constructed out of PVC pipe and fittings, and packs strong neodymium magnets inside. A coil of wire wrapped is formed around an old solder spool, which, when shaken past the magnets, generates a current. This is rectified with a series of diodes and charges the supercapacitor, powering the light.
It’s a classic design that is available commercially, but it’s one easily replicated in the home shop, too. It would make a great educational project, particularly as students would be left with a useful device to take home at the end of the lesson.
We’ve seen others resurrect commercial builds with upgrades, too.
Video after the break. | 29 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219989",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-02-15T00:21:24",
"content": "If you’ve got a sanding drum set, you might wanna check if one jams into the middle of the bobbin/reel you’re using before you bother making the bit for it. Also if you made that RPM counter from the... | 1,760,373,587.997411 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/14/this-servo-actuated-multimeter-does-the-twist/ | This Servo Actuated Multimeter Does The Twist | Tom Nardi | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"assistive technolgy",
"automation",
"multimeter",
"servo",
"VOM"
] | This tip comes our way courtesy of [Elad Orbach], who’s been experimenting with a device that
uses a servo to turn the function dial on a multimeter
. It’s something you can put together in a few minutes with leftovers from the parts bin, and as you can see in the video after the break, the basic concept seems to be sound enough.
As to finding a practical reason for spinning the switch on your meter with a servo, that’s left largely as an exercise for the reader. [Elad] hints at the possibility of using such a setup to help automate repetitive testing, which we could see being useful especially in combination with a foot pedal that allows you to switch modes without having to put the probes down. The same basic idea could also be helpful as an assistive device for those who have difficulty grasping or limited dexterity.
Whether top of the line or bottom of the barrel
, the multimeter is easily the hardware hacker’s most frequently used tool (beyond the screwdriver, perhaps).
We’ve seen plenty of projects
that try to
graft additional features
onto this common gadgets, though automation isn’t usually among them. | 9 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219977",
"author": "Rick",
"timestamp": "2020-02-14T22:46:49",
"content": "bought a new DMM just a few minutes ago, love this hack just for the potential whimsical nature.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6220001",
"author":... | 1,760,373,588.215161 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/14/a-crash-course-in-thermodynamics-for-electrical-engineers/ | A Crash Course In Thermodynamics For Electrical Engineers | Lewin Day | [
"cons"
] | [
"2019 Hackaday Superconference",
"heat sink",
"heat transfer",
"thermodynamics"
] | It’s a simple fact that, in this universe at least, energy is always conserved. For the typical electronic system, this means that the energy put into the system must eventually leave the system. Typically, much of this energy will leave a system as heat, and managing this properly is key to building devices that don’t melt under load. It can be a daunting subject for the uninitiated, but never fear — Adam Zeloof delivered a talk at Supercon 2019 that’s
a perfect crash course for beginners in thermodynamics
.
Adam’s talk begins by driving home that central rule, that energy in equals energy out. It’s good to keep in the back of one’s mind at all times when designing circuits to avoid nasty, burning surprises. But it’s only the first lesson in a series of many, which serve to give the budding engineer an intuitive understanding of the principles of heat transfer. The aim of the talk is to avoid getting deep into the heavy underlying math, and instead provide simple tools for doing quick, useful approximations.
Conduction and Convection
Conduction is the area first explored, concerning the transfer of heat between solid materials that are touching. Adam explains how this process is dependent on surface area and how this can be affected by surface condition, and the reasons why we use thermal paste when fitting heatsinks to chips. The concept is likened to that of electrical resistance, and comparisons are drawn between heat transfer equations and Ohm’s law. Thermal resistances can be calculated in much the same way, and obey the same parallel and series rules as their electrical counterparts.
With conduction covered, the talk then moves on to discussion of convection — where heat is passed from a solid material to the surrounding fluid, be it a liquid or a gas. Things get a little wilder here, with the heat transfer coefficient
h
playing a major role. This coefficient depends on the a variety of factors, like the fluid in question, and how much it’s moving. For example, free convection in still air may only have a coefficient of 5, whereas forced air cooling with a fan may have a coefficient of 50, drawing away 10 times as much heat. Adam discusses the other factors involved in convection, and how surface area has a major role to play. There’s a great explanation of why heatsinks use fins and extended surfaces to increase the heat transfer rate to the fluid.
Modelling Thermodynamics
[Adam] demonstrated a heat transfer simulation running on the Hackaday Superconference badge, to much applause.
With the basics out of the way, it’s then time to discuss an example. Given the talk is aimed at an electrical engineering audience, Adam chose to cover the example of a single chip in the middle of a printed circuit board. In three dimensions, the math quickly becomes complex, with many differential equations required to cover conduction and all the various surfaces for convection. Instead, the simulation is simplified down to a quasi-1-dimensional system. Some imperfect assumptions are made to simplify the calculations. While these are spurious and don’t apply in many circumstances, chosen properly, they enable the simple solution of otherwise intractable problems — the magic of engineering! After showing the basic methods involved, Adam shows how such an analysis can be used to guide selection of different cooling methods or heatsink choices, or make other design decisions.
The talk is a great primer for anyone wanting to take a proper engineering approach to solving thermal problems in their designs. And, as a final party piece, Adam closed out the talk with
a demonstration of a heat transfer simulation running on the conference badge itself
. Thermodynamics can be a dry topic to learn, so it’s great to see a straightforward, intuitive, and engineering-focused approach presented for a general technical audience! | 26 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219945",
"author": "kc8rwr",
"timestamp": "2020-02-14T20:12:10",
"content": "Sounds interesting. But too technical to concentrate on at the moment. Best to save it for later when I can give it full attention.Hey.. there’s no add to “watch later” button.Oh well. Click on it to view ... | 1,760,373,588.168293 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/14/it-aint-over-til-the-paperwork-is-done-test-driving-tiddlywiki/ | It Ain’t Over ‘Til The Paperwork Is Done: Test Driving TiddlyWiki | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"documentation",
"html",
"tiddlywiki",
"wiki"
] | Working on projects is fun. Documenting them is often not so much. However, if you want anyone to duplicate your work — or even just want to remember what you were doing a few years ago when something needs upgrading or repairing.
There’s a ton of ways to keep track of the details of your projects. We love seeing how things come together and of course we’re happy to suggest documenting on
Hackaday.io
. But sometimes, you just want to keep your own notes to yourself. There’s always a notebook, of course, but that seems kind of old fashioned. A lot of projects are on Wikis but you hate to stand up a web server and a Wiki instance just to keep notes. But what if you could have a local Wiki with minimal setup?
I recently came across TiddlyWiki
and decided to take it for a spin. Join me after to break to see what it’s all about.
Low-Overhead Wikis
With TiddlyWiki You can actually store a pretty nice Wiki in a single file. If you don’t like to depend on an internet connection, you can store it on your own computer or a flash drive. But you can also arrange to host it on the cloud if you like. You could even save it to Hackaday.io, although you’d have to zip it as the platform doesn’t accept straight HTML files.
How much power can you get in a single file? Actually, quite a lot. The infrastructure is one single HTML file, so maybe you can’t host Wikipedia with it. But you can modify that HTML file and, in fact, there are lots of plugins and other things that you can add even if your HTML skills aren’t up to doing it yourself. But more on that later.
Basics
It is dead easy to get started, tust
download an empty TiddlyWiki template
. You can name it anything you like and when you open it with a web browser, you’ll see it gives you a form to set things up. That form is actually written in the Wiki, so that should give you some idea of how powerful this is.
The file will contain one or more topics, called tiddlers. These can be visible or hidden and there are many ways to find, open, and close them. Each tiddler can have tags and hyperlinks. You might build a sidebar that lists all the tiddlers marked with a menu tag, for example. Or you might want to tag all your RISC-V tiddlers with that tag so you can find them easily. You can also search or dynamically include one tiddler inside another.
Every time you open a tiddler, it adds to your view. You can close any that you don’t want. You can also minimize them or you can minimize or close all other tiddlers if you want to focus on your work.
Saving and Other Features
The only small problem is how do you save your changes? In the default online Wiki, there is a topic called “
GettingStarted
” that actually shows you all the choices you have broken down by platform and web browser. There are connectors for storing your files locally or on a variety of cloud services including GitHub. There are also browser extensions available to make it easier to work with TiddlyWiki. There isn’t just one way, and everyone’s situation will be different. Worst case, you can elect to download the updated Wiki as you would any other file in your browser.
You can use a Tiddler to store bookmarks, organize tasks, keep inventories, organize images — you can even edit images. The nice thing is since it is all in one file, you can easily send it to someone and they can open it with just a web browser. You can, in fact, post it online and use it as a web site — something the tiddlywiki.com site does.
Plugins
There are a wide variety of plugins you can install. For example, there is a syntax coloring plugin. Another one will embed Twitter data into the Wiki. In addition to the standard plugins, there are many user-contributed ones. For example, you can get tools to migrate from Evernote, generate QR codes, or work with Google Analytics.
Of particular interest is one plugin that provides the CodeMirror editor. It is made to edit code and you can install extra features for it such as syntax highlighting, brace completion, and keymappings.
In addition to plugins, you can download more themes and languages, too. Some of the themes are cosmetic, but some are practical. For example, you can install a theme that hides the ability to edit a tiddler. This would be useful if you were using it to deliver a web site. You can also require a password to save.
There are also many macros and widgets. For example, there’s a widget called
<$codeblock>
which will display a block of code appropriately. There’s even an encryption widget. Macros allow you to define shortcuts for things you want either repeated in a tiddler or — if you put it in the right place — to multiple or even all tiddlers. You can also write macros in Javascript.
On Your Own
This isn’t meant to be a full TiddlyWiki tutorial — there are plenty of those online. If you prefer video, the series that appears below will get you started, too.
You can use TiddlyWiki for just about anything. We’ve even seen it used to build an
adventure game
. If you are using it now, or you plan to, drop a comment to tell us how. We’ve seen wikis used for a lot of neat documentation, including
signal identification
. Since the system is pretty extensible, we wonder if you could push a
Jupyter notebook
inside of it? | 25 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219931",
"author": "Eddy Robinson",
"timestamp": "2020-02-14T18:55:36",
"content": "I used TiddlyWiki to write the User manual for a commercial microscopy product about 10 years or so ago. Worked beautifully and generated a very professional product that could grow with developing ... | 1,760,373,588.282104 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/14/hackaday-podcast-054-xenomorph-cookies-101-uses-for-hot-glue-rolling-robots-and-a-clippy-computer/ | Hackaday Podcast 054: Xenomorph Cookies, 101 Uses For Hot Glue, Rolling Robots, And A Clippy Computer | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"cookies",
"Hackaday Podcast",
"iss",
"nasa",
"retro computing",
"strain relief",
"SWD"
] | Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys reflect on great hacks of the past few days. Strain relief is something every electronics geek encounters and there’s a spiffy way to make your hot-glue look like a factory connector. There’s something in the air and it seems to be recreating early computers. Did you know astronauts are baking cookies they’re forbidden to eat? And did you hear about the 3D printer that’s being fed oil from the deep fryer?
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 054 Show Notes:
New This Week:
Hackaday Belgrade is May 9th!
Voja Antonic’s origina Galaksija computer article
(January 1984, use top arrows for navigation)
Ask Hackaday: What’s Your Coronavirus Supply Chain Exposure?
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
A Modern Take On The “Paperclip Computer”
Automatic Component Tape Cutter For When Your Electronics Kit Hits The Big Time
Tape Cutting Bot Trims The Tedium
Xbox Controller Provides Intro To SWD Hacking
Laser Tachometer Knows How Fast You Were Spinning Back There
Mystery light-sensing component
Cheap Strain Relief By Casting Hot Glue In A 3D Print
A Short Introduction to Staking and Potting
Rollbot Crams Ten Arms Onto One Wheel
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Name That Unknown RF Signal With A Little FFT Magic
Huge Seven Segment Display Made From Broken Glass
Welcome To McDonald’s; Would You Like 3D Printing Resin With That?
Mike’s Picks:
Sort The Rainbow With An Algorithm Machine
A French Press You Can Take Out Camping
3D Printing For Wire Paths Yields An Arduboy Minus The PCB
Can’t-Miss Articles:
New Part Day: The Wi-Fi Stepper Gets Ideas Working Faster
First Space Cookies: Cosmic Cooking Is Half-Baked | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219926",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2020-02-14T18:47:35",
"content": "PLEASE!Reading “Clippy” and “Computer” in the same sentence brings back frightful memories!B^)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6219934",
"autho... | 1,760,373,588.340917 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/13/simplify-your-life-with-this-pocket-rotary-cellphone/ | Simplify Your Life With This Pocket Rotary Cellphone | Dan Maloney | [
"Cellphone Hacks",
"Phone Hacks"
] | [
"3g",
"adafruit fona",
"ATmega2560V",
"cell",
"dial",
"mashup",
"retro",
"rotary",
"trimline"
] | With its constant siren song of distraction and endless opportunity for dopamine hits, a smartphone can cause more problems than it solves. The simple solution would be a no-nonsense flip phone, but that offers zero points for style. So why not
build your own rotary dial pocket cellphone
?
Of course, what style points accrue to [Justine Haupt] take a hit in terms of practicality, but that was never really the point of this build. And even then, the phone appears to be surprisingly useful. It’s based on the rotary dial from a Trimline phone, which itself was an epic hack back in 1965 when it was introduced. The 3D-printed case contains an ATmega2560V microcontroller and an Adafruit FONA 3G cell module, while a flexible mono eInk display adorns the outside. Some buttons, a folding SMA antenna, and some LEDs for signal strength and battery level complete the build, which easily slips into a pocket. The dial can be used not only to dial the phone but to control the speaker volume; in practice, [Justine] mainly uses the speed dial buttons to make calls, though.
We’ve seen
rotary phones converted to cell before
, but this one is a next-level integration of the retro and the modern. It’s simple, intuitive, and distraction-free, and best of all, it’s a great excuse not to return a text.
Thanks to [J. Peterson] for the tip. | 40 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219650",
"author": "Wretch",
"timestamp": "2020-02-13T21:19:20",
"content": "I. Want. One.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6219657",
"author": "Danjovic",
"timestamp": "2020-02-13T21:55:46",
"content... | 1,760,373,588.484031 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/13/ultra-rare-nintendo-play-station-prototype-hits-auction-block/ | Ultra-Rare Nintendo Play Station Prototype Hits Auction Block | Jenny List | [
"News",
"Nintendo Hacks",
"Playstation Hacks"
] | [
"nintendo play station",
"play station",
"playstation",
"snes",
"sony nintendo"
] | If you are interested in such things,
you can buy a 1990s Sony Play Station via Heritage Auctions
. We’re sure this will have caught your interest, after all it’s not every day you get the chance to catch such a machine. But before you call us out for seemingly reporting the news of an unremarkable sale featuring the runaway success story of 1990s gaming, take a look at the first sentence again. This is not a PlayStation, the ubiquitous grey console of the 1990s, but a Play Station, said as two words rather than one. This ill-fated collaboration between Sony and Nintendo was intended to be an SNES with a CD-ROM drive, but the project faltered and all that remained was the almost mythical tale of a few prototype consoles.
So far there has only been one of these devices that has surfaced, and this is the machine in the auction. So what seemed as though it might be a mundane console turns out to be one of the rarest machines ever created, a true Holy Grail of console collecting.
This machine has a known provenance, and has appeared on these pages before. In 2016 Ben Heck
did a teardown to reveal the combination of Sony CD drive and SNES motherboard
, and by 2017
he had it working with some homebrew games
. There was no official software produced for this console, so it seems the lucky purchaser may have only homebrew games with which to try their console.
At the time of writing the auction is standing at $57,600, and we’d expect this to increase significantly. So you may not have the chance to own the Play Station, but with such a rare machine it’s always worth noting its appearances. It’s also worth remembering that there was more than one of them produced, in fact
when your scribe was working in the same industry in the 1990s
a senior colleague talked about having been shown one during dealings with Nintendo UK a few years earlier. The machine on sale today may be the only one we know to have survived, but it’s a fair possibility that there are others still gathering dust in long-forgotten archive boxes or collections of gaming hardware junk. Keep an eye out, you might just find your own rarest console ever produced! | 26 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219615",
"author": "D00med",
"timestamp": "2020-02-13T19:51:20",
"content": "the starting price should be shifted one, if not two decimal places to the left.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6219619",
"author": "RW ver... | 1,760,373,588.408386 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/13/sky-is-new-limit-for-dot-com-domain-prices/ | Sky Is New Limit For Dot Com Domain Prices | Kristina Panos | [
"Ask Hackaday",
"Hackaday Columns",
"internet hacks",
"News"
] | [
"domain names",
"ICANN",
"tld",
"top-level domains",
"verisign"
] | Earlier this week, domain name registrar Namecheap sent out
an email to all customers advising them of a secret deal that went down between ICANN and Verisign sometime late last year
. It has the potential to change the prices of domain names drastically over time, and thus change the makeup of the Internet as we know it.
Domain names aren’t really owned, they’re rented with an option to renew, and the annual rate that you pay depends both on your provider’s markup, but also on a wholesale rate that’s the same for all names in that particular domain. This base price is set by ICANN, a non-profit.
Officially, this deal is a
proposed Amendment 3
to the contract in place between Verisign and ICANN that governs the “.com” domain. The proposed amendment would let Verisign increase the wholesale rental price of “.com” domain names by 7% per year for the next four years. Then there will be a two-year breather, followed by another four years of 7% annual hikes. And there is no foreseeable end to this cycle. We think it seems reasonable to assume that the domain name registrars might pass the price gouging on to the consumer, but that really remains to be seen.
The annual wholesale domain name price has been sitting at $7.85 since 2012, and as of this writing, Namecheap is charging $8.88 for a standard “.com” address. If our math is correct, ten years from now, a “.com” domain will cost around $13.50 wholesale and $17.50 retail. This almost-doubling in price will affect both small sites and companies that hold many domain names. And the increase will only get more dramatic with time.
So let’s take a quick look at the business of domain names.
The backs of the racks via
@tvick on unsplash
They CANN and They Will
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) formed in 1998 with the intent to coordinate, allocate, and assign domain names and IP addresses, assign protocols, and more. ICANN is also responsible for the thirteen root name servers that make up the Internet, and they’re the reason you type words instead of numbers when you want to visit a website. They officially operate as a not-for-profit, public-benefit corporation.
Verisign was founded in 1995 and got their start issuing SSL certificates. They became an internet superpower when they acquired Network Solutions in 2000 and took over the company’s registry functions. As part of this new deal, Verisign will be able to operate as a domain name registrar, stopping just short of being able to sell “.com” real estate themselves, although they could potentially act as a reseller through another company.
As part of the proposed amendment, Verisign will give ICANN $20 million over the next five years, beginning January 2021. Although it isn’t exactly clear how they’ll spend the money, it’s supposed to be earmarked for continued support of things ICANN were already doing, like mitigating threats to DNS security, governing the root name server system, and policing possible name collisions. But people have questioned ICANN’s transparency and accountability — so far, there doesn’t seem to be a system in place to verify that the funds aren’t misappropriated.
ICANN has transparency? Image via
ICANN
What’s a Web Address Worth?
If domains are too cost-prohibitive, then only the rich can stake a claim in cyberspace, and democracy dies in that regard. Conversely, if land is too cheap, cyber-squatters will snatch up URLs and/or dilute the web with snakeoil sites. Any right answer will need to balance these offsetting effects.
Inflation drives the prices of all other goods up, why not domain names? But is the rate too high? The average inflation rate in the US runs under 3% per year, and hasn’t seen 7% in ages.
What do you think, Hackaday universe? Is this increase schedule cause for alarm, or is it just business as usual?
We think ICANN could have at least notified registrars sooner, but that may have given consumers too much time to complain. This isn’t the first time that ICANN has ignored public comment in recent memory — last summer when there was talk of removing price caps on “.org” domains, many people commented in favor of keeping prices capped on the other legacy TLDs, and ICANN completely ignored them.
A few months later, the .org registry was purchased by a private equity firm
, and the details are still being worked out. Is ICANN still working for the public good?
In the tradition of begging forgiveness later, and for all the good it’ll do,
ICANN has an open comment period until Friday, February 14th
. So go tell ’em how you feel, even if it feels like screaming into the void. | 68 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219579",
"author": "aeva",
"timestamp": "2020-02-13T18:13:42",
"content": "icann’t even",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6219581",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-02-13T18:18:32",
"content": "I think… th... | 1,760,373,588.643426 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/13/tell-time-contest-winners-clocks-to-knock-your-socks-off/ | Tell Time Contest Winners: Clocks To Knock Your Socks Off | Mike Szczys | [
"clock hacks",
"contests"
] | [
"clock",
"tell time contest",
"winners"
] | The results are in and the
Tell Time Contest
was a spectacular showing of creativity. Five winners and a number of runners-up have have been chosen based on craftsmanship, functionality, and creativity.
The one that’s going to steal your heart is
Fetch: A Ferrofluid Display
. Pitting the force of gravity against electromagnetism, this project manages to wrangle a liquid into the segments of a display and the animations used to change between numbers are fascinating. It’s a wickedly complicated system and the gang over at Applied Procrastination did a great job of documenting the research and development that went into building this open source marvel. Has anyone tried to replicate it? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!
UV Glow-In-The-Dark Plot Clock
TORLO
Mechanical movements date back to the transition away from sundials and hourglasses, but these two modern takes on “clockwork” prove there’s still plenty of room for creativity. The first is a plotter that uses two servo motors and a UV LED to
draw hours and minutes on a phosphorescent material
.
The second is both minimal and a stunning mastery of a traditional clock mechanism.
TORLO uses the voice coil from a hard drive to move the gears
. It’s 3D-printed and does it all in plain sight, superb!
“Alien” Cuckoo Clock
Flip Dot Clock
Fans of the
Alien
franchise will immediately recognize this insect-like “facehugger”, the second stage of a developing Xenomorph. Embracing the tradition of the Cuckcoo clock,
at the top of the hour a “Chestburster” pops through the chest of the bust
to mark the passage of time. Creepy but well executed.
The
flip-dot display uses a beautiful home-etched circuit board
to keep things tidy inside of the case. Of course the question with these displays is always “where did you get the flip dots?”. This panel is on it’s second life after serving a tour of duty as a bus info sign.
Runners Up and Eight Score of Entries
Linear Calendar Clock
IKEA LACK Table Lamp Clock
Relay clock
Forklift clock
Spiral Clock
Stranger Board
TetrisWaterRun
TTL/CMOS Linear LED Clock
8×8 RGB LEDMatrix Desktop Word Clock
Bendulum Clock
doodle clock #2
CircuitPython 7-Segment Character Clock
Clock 512
Chiming Clock
Congratulations to all of our runners-up in the Tell Time contest. It was
a tight field with 160 total entries
, each of them a fascinating take on the simple, yet very complex practice of watching the seconds tick away. Add this to your weekend bucket list as you’ll certainly get lost in the details of many of these projects. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219588",
"author": "Zack Kummer",
"timestamp": "2020-02-13T18:41:29",
"content": "Surprised the digital clock made of analog clocks didn’t get any love. Of all the entries I saw, that’s the only one I’d actually want to make a space for because it seemed more like a commentary art... | 1,760,373,588.537688 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/13/flywheel-stores-energy-to-power-an-airplane-eventually/ | Flywheel Stores Energy To Power An Airplane – Eventually | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"airplane",
"angular momentum",
"bevel gear",
"carbon fiber",
"clutch",
"flywheel"
] | Question: Can a flywheel store enough energy to power an airplane? Answer: Yes it can, for certain values of “flywheel” and “airplane.”
About the only person we can think of who would even attempt to build
a flywheel-powered airplane
is [Tom Stanton]. He’s a great one for off-the-wall ideas that often pay off, like
his Coandă effect hovercraft
, as well as for ideas that
never got far off the ground
, or
suddenly met it again
. For most of the video below, it seems like his flywheel-powered plane is destined to stay firmly in the last category, and indeed, the idea of a massive flywheel taking flight seems counterintuitive. But [Tom] reminds us that since the kinetic energy stored by a flywheel increases as the square of angular velocity, how fast it’s turning is more important than how massive it is. The composite carbon fiber and aluminum flywheel is geared to the propeller of a minimal airplane through 3D-printed bevel gears, and is spun up with an external BLDC motor.
Sadly, the plane never made it very far, no matter how much weight was trimmed. But [Tom] was able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by making the propeller the flywheel – he printed a ring connecting the blades of the prop and devised a freewheel clutch to couple it to the motor. The flywheel prop stored enough energy to complete a few respectable flights, as well as suffer a few satisfyingly spectacular disintegrations.
As always, hats off to [Tom] for not being bashful about sharing his failures so we can all learn, and for the persistence to make his ideas take flight. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219559",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-02-13T16:58:24",
"content": "Ima tell this dude about rubber bands, he’ll be blown away.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6219603",
"author": "Michael",
"ti... | 1,760,373,588.687814 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/13/mars-2020-rover-curiositys-hi-tech-twin-is-strapped-for-science-includes-a-flying-drone/ | Mars 2020 Rover: Curiosity’s Hi-Tech Twin Is Strapped For Science; Includes A Flying Drone | Dan Maloney | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Slider",
"Space"
] | [
"Curiosity",
"drone",
"helicopter",
"Mrs",
"nasa",
"rover JPL",
"space"
] | While Mars may be significantly behind its sunward neighbor in terms of the number of motor vehicles crawling over its surface, it seems like we’re doing our best to close that gap. Over the last 23 years, humans have sent four successful rovers to the surface of the Red Planet, from the tiny
Sojourner
to the Volkswagen-sized
Curiosity
. These vehicles have all carved their six-wheeled tracks into the Martian dust, probing the soil and the atmosphere and taking pictures galore, all of which contribute mightily to our understanding of our (sometimes) nearest planetary neighbor.
You’d think then that sending still more rovers to Mars would yield diminishing returns, but it turns out there’s still plenty of science to do, especially if the dream of sending humans there to explore and perhaps live is to come true. And so the fleet of Martian rovers will be joined by two new vehicles over the next year or so, lead by the Mars 2020 program’s yet-to-be-named rover. Here’s a look at the next Martian buggy, and how it’s built for the job it’s intended to do.
If It Ain’t Broke…
The Mars 2020 mission is part of the broader
Mars Exploration Program
, or MEP. The MEP was born from the failure of the Mars Observer mission in 1992, NASA’s first attempted mission to Mars since the successful Viking program in the 1970s. The soil chemistry experiments performed by the static Viking landers suggested that life may have been possible on Mars, but the results were equivocal. NASA launched the MEP to answer the question of life on Mars definitively, as well as to characterize the geology and atmosphere of the planet to prepare for human exploration.
Unfortunately, a lot of the missions that were to make up MEP were lost to budget cutbacks in 2012, and the only money earmarked for planetary exploration was contingent of being spent on missions capable of returning samples to Earth.
Curiosity
had already made it to Mars by that point, though, and was returning exciting results and glorious photos of the Martian landscape. And while it was capable of sampling the Martian regolith,
Curiosity
was not able to collect samples that could one day be returned to Earth.
Curiosity
did, however, prove that a large rover with a complex mission profile could land successfully and perform under challenging conditions. Not willing to mess with success, and operating under budget restrictions, NASA decided to essentially clone
Curiosity
for the Mars 2020 rover. The rovers would be mechanically very similar, with different science packages bolted on, as well as the addition of the hardware needed to package samples for eventual retrieval and return to Earth.
Super-Charged for Science
Outwardly, it’s hard to tell the difference between
Curiosity
and the Mars 2020 rover. Both use the proven six-wheel articulated bogie design, with each wheel powered by its own electric motor. The wheels have been redesigned for Mars 2020, though, thanks to lessons learned from seven years of abuse suffered by
Curiosity
‘s wheels.
Mars 2020 rover, bedazzled with 23 cameras. Source:
NASA
The main hulls of the two rovers look almost identical, with the same angled “trunk” area at the rear of the vehicle supporting the same
plutonium-powered Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermal Generator
(MMRTG) module to provide 110 Watts of electrical power and 2,000 Watts of heat for the rovers’ guts. The Mars 2020 MMRTG is literally a leftover from
Curiosity
, as are many other parts and instruments.
Things start to differ when you start looking at the science the two rovers were designed to support. The most obvious difference is the main robotic arm of Mars 2020, which is stronger than the arm on
Curiosity
and sports different instruments, such as an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer dubbed PIXL and a pair of adorably named geological instruments: SHERLOC, an ultraviolet Raman spectrometer for fine-scale mineralogy and detection of organic molecules, and WATSON, a high-resolution camera to provide images of targets that SHERLOC might be interested in.
The Mars 2020 rover arm also supports a coring drill, designed to cut cylindrical core sections from rock rather than just pulverize them as
Curiosity
‘s drill does. A “bit carousel” allows the arm to select from a number of other tools, including grinding tools to abrade rocks.
Return to Sender
Should a particular sample prove promising based on the results of on-board experiments, a sample handling system in the belly of the rover will get to work. The bit carousel has slots to accept special sample containers, which are stored in a rack under the rover. A small robotic arm, looking somewhat like a SCARA arm from a semiconductor fab, places a sample tube in the bit carousel, which rotates it up so the arm can access it. The core sample is ejected into the sample tube, which is then returned to storage in the sample handling area before being hermetically sealed. The sample handling hardware is shown nicely in the video below:
The rover can collect and store up to 43 samples on-board. The mission plan calls for the team to designate a “caching depot” where the samples collected during the one Martian year-long primary mission will be dropped. Sample tubes, along with control tubes to assess unintended contamination, will be released from the sample handler into a pile on the regolith. Any samples collected during the subsequent extended mission will also be left at the cache, to await a future sample return mission.
The Mars 2020 rover’s landing site, Jezero Crater, was selected because it was once a 250 meter deep lake at about the time life was first appearing on Earth. On Earth, the sediments that are deposited into lake beds are rich in life, and it’s hoped that Martian sediments have preserved any signs of life that developed 3.5 billion years ago. Also, the ancient lake bed features a delta structure from a river that once fed into it, again holding potential for finding “biosignatures” from any life that got a toehold on Mars.
Droning On
The Mars Helicopter Scout being prepared for a vacuum chamber test flight. Click for higher resolution, and behold the engineering in the dual swash plates. Source:
NASA/JPL
One of the most interesting pieces of hardware making the trip aboard the rover is the
Mars Helicopter Scout
. Primarily included to test the technology and explore the challenges of extraterrestrial aviation, the small drone will make several short flights sometime in the early part of the rover’s primary mission. Stored in the rover’s belly, the coaxial-rotor drone carries an array of technology that will seem familiar to most hackers: a Snapdragon SoC running Linux, MCUs for flight control, and a Zig-Bee link back to the rover. It even has a lithium-ion battery pack and camera for navigation and observation.
Each of the MHS flights will last only about 3 minutes and get no more than 10 meters above the surface. Navigation will use a solar tracker and inertial guidance. NASA hopes that the high-resolution camera will provide detailed images of the sample cache to inform the design of sample return mission hardware.
Between the first extraterrestrial aircraft, the slate of science experiments planned – including making oxygen from the thin Martian atmosphere – and the potential to actually return pieces of the Martian regolith, Mars 2020 has the potential to be a breakthrough mission. And with the rover
safely bundled up
and being prepared for integration with the launch vehicle, everything seems on-track for the mission’s July launch, and the rover’s date with destiny.
[Featured images: NASA/JPL] | 35 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219538",
"author": "Luke",
"timestamp": "2020-02-13T16:11:14",
"content": "And still no microscope.If the question is whether there’s life on Mars, the best way to find it is to stick a bit of the soil on a glass plate, put a little water on it, and zoom in to see if anything moves... | 1,760,373,588.773494 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/13/emulating-a-bluetooth-keyboard-with-the-esp32/ | Emulating A Bluetooth Keyboard With The ESP32 | Tom Nardi | [
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"ESP32",
"hid",
"macro keyboard",
"membrane keypad",
"TinyPICO"
] | Most people associate the ESP family of microcontrollers with WiFi, which makes sense as they’ve become the solution of choice for getting your project online quickly and easily. But while the WiFi capability might be the star of the show, the ESP32 also comes equipped with Bluetooth; we just don’t see people using it nearly as often. If you’re looking to get started using Bluetooth on the ESP32,
then this simple wireless macro keypad from [Brian Lough] would be a great way to get started
.
From a hardware standpoint, this project is incredibly straightforward. All you need to do is connect a membrane keypad up to the GPIO pins on the ESP32. Adding in a battery is a nice touch, and you probably would want to put it into a enclosure of some sort, but as a proof of concept it doesn’t get much easier than this. In this case [Brian] is using the TinyPICO board, but your personal ESP32 variant of choice will work just as well.
The rest of the project is all software, which [Brian] walks us through in the video after the break. There’s a preexisting library for Bluetooth Human Interface Device (HID) emulation on the ESP32, but it needs to be manually installed in the Arduino IDE. From there, he demonstrates how you can build up a functioning keyboard, including tricks such as sending multiple virtual keys at once.
In the past
we’ve seen the ESP32 used to create a Bluetooth game controller
, but the ability to emulate a keyboard obviously offers quite a bit more flexibility. With a practical demonstration of how easy as it is to turn this low-cost microcontroller into a wireless input device, hopefully we’ll start seeing more projects that utilize the capability. | 16 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219521",
"author": "Peter",
"timestamp": "2020-02-13T15:05:26",
"content": "I’ve been looking for a keyboard that can do USB and Bluetooth for a long time so that I can switch between my Desktop Gaming machine and my work laptop. I might just have to build my own mechanical keyboar... | 1,760,373,588.924843 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/13/star-wars-themed-laser-badge-all-that-is-missing-is-the-pew-pew-sound-effect/ | Star Wars Themed Laser Badge: All That Is Missing Is The Pew Pew Sound Effect | Jenny List | [
"cons",
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"badge",
"badgelife",
"ESP8266",
"laser"
] | In the quest to advance the art of the electronic badge, the boundaries of what is possible to manufacture in small quantities are continually tested. Full-colour PCBs, injection moulding, custom keyboards, and other wow factor techniques have all been tried, leading to some extremely impressive creations. With all this innovation then it’s sometimes easy to forget that clever design and a really good idea can produce an exceptional badge with far more mundane materials.
The 10th InCTF cybersecurity contest held at Amrita, Kerala, India, had
a Star Wars themed badge
designed by Team bi0s for the event. It takes the form of a Millennium Falcon-shaped PCB, with a NodeMCU ESP8266 board mounted on it, a shift register, small OLED display, and the usual array of buttons and LEDs. The fun doesn’t stop there though, because it also packs a light-dependent resistor and a laser pointer diode that forms part of one of its games. Power for this ensemble comes courtesy of a set of AA cells on its underside.
They took a novel approach to the badge’s firmware, with a range of different firmwares for different functions instead of all functions contained in one. These could be loaded through means of a web-based OTA updater. Aside from a firmware for serial exploits there was an Asteroids game, a Conway’s Game Of Life, and for us the star of the show: a Millennium Cannon laser-tag game using that laser. With this, attendees could “shoot” others’ LDRs, with three “hits” putting their opponent’s badge out of action for a couple of minutes.
Unusually this badge is a through-hole design as a soldering teaching aid, but its aesthetics do not suffer for that. We like its design and we especially like the laser game, we look forward to whatever next Team bi0s produce in the way of badges.
This isn’t the first badge packing a laser we’ve seen,
at last year’s Def Con
there was
a laser synth badge
. No laser tag battles though. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219450",
"author": "kucho",
"timestamp": "2020-02-13T09:14:38",
"content": "“no pew pew?? hold my beer…”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6219452",
"author": "ERIC S CHAPIN",
"timestamp": "2020-02-13T09:21:27",
"cont... | 1,760,373,588.872056 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/12/werewolf-ears-with-a-sense-for-danger/ | Werewolf Ears With A Sense For Danger | Lewin Day | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"ears",
"motion sensor",
"wearable"
] | When walking down a dark street, it’s common to get a sense that one is being followed. It pays to check, of course, but what if we could get better data than simply a vague feeling from the unknown? [caitlinsdad] built a project that can do just that,
with a cute pair of ears to boot.
The werewolf ears claim to be ISO Standard, though we’re yet to see the relevant documents to bear that out. Regardless, they use an Adafruit Gemma M0 microcontroller to run the show, hooked up to an infrared proximity sensor to detect movement. When triggered, the Gemma responds to the signal by twitching the wolf ears attached to a headband, alerting the wearer that someone is closing in.
Built and calibrated properly, this could be a useful invention for those who regularly find themselves followed by those skulking on the sidewalk and for whom moving to another neighbourhood is a more expensive option.
We’ve seen other responsive wearables, too
. Video after the break. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219426",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2020-02-13T06:12:22",
"content": "We all have to start somewhere.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6219447",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2020-02-13T08:55:36",
... | 1,760,373,590.542802 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/12/all-band-radio-uses-arduino-and-si4730/ | All Band Radio Uses Arduino And Si4730 | Al Williams | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"radio",
"Si4730",
"Si4735",
"Si473x",
"Si47xx"
] | It is getting harder and harder to tell homemade projects from commercial ones. A good case in point is [Mirko’s]
all band radio
which you can see in the video below the break. On the outside, it has a good looking case. On the inside, it uses a Si4730 radio which has excellent performance that would be hard to get with discrete components.
The chip contains two RF strips with AGC, built-in converters to go from analog to digital and back and also has a DSP onboard. The chip will do FM 64 to 108 MHz and can demodulate AM signals ranging from 153 kHz to 279 kHz, 520 kHz to 1.71 MHz, and 2.3 MHz to 26.1 MHz. It can even read RDS and RBDS for station information. The output can be digital (in several formats) or analog.
The radio takes serial (I2C) commands, and the Arduino converts the user interface so that you can control it. The chip comes in several flavors, each with slightly different features. For example, the Si4731 and Si4735 have the RDS/RBDS decoder, and the shortwave mode is available on Si4734 and Si4735. Confused?
Page 2 of the programming guide
should help. According to [Mirko], he used a 4730, but it still did shortwave with the 4735 library.
Breakout boards with the chip are just a few bucks. It appears the chip has the technical capability to receive single sideband, but it requires a poorly documented patch. It is in recent versions of
this library
, though.
We always smile when we think that
AM is still alive and kicking
. Perhaps this is the modern take on that first
crystal radio project
. | 45 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219406",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-02-13T04:01:08",
"content": "Nah, you can tell it’s not a commercial product… the knobs are too nice for anything made these days :-D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "62194... | 1,760,373,590.886825 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/12/laser-tachometer-knows-how-fast-you-were-spinning-back-there/ | Laser Tachometer Knows How Fast You Were Spinning Back There | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino nano",
"oled display",
"relaxing build videos",
"tachometer"
] | Does your drill go as fast as the manufacturer says it will? Well, you’d need a tachometer to figure that out. They’re not that expensive to buy, but
as [Elite Worm] shows, they’re not that expensive to make, either
— about $10 total if you get your parts from the right places. Lucky for you, he has links to everything.
Really, the links are just the tip of the iceberg here as far as the gifts that [Elite Worm] bestows upon those who choose to undertake this project. The build video (after the break, as usual; our favor to you) is fantastic, and would be perfect for a beginner because of the entrancing speed at which he builds it. The video is straight up relaxing to watch, whether you want to build one or not.
It’s a fairly simple circuit — just push the momentary switch, and the laser diode and sensor pair count the revolutions over one second. The Arduino Nano multiplies this number by 60 and displays the RPM on the OLED screen. What we absolutely love about this build is the care that taken in designing the case. There’s a designated spot for each component, and the ones without their own special holder are kept in place with printed crossbar pieces. [Elite Worm] says this has a higher refresh rate than his store-bought tacho, and we say it looks way cooler, too.
Still don’t want to make one yourself? Well, okay. Before you buy one,
try using your phone to calculate RPM
.
Via
r/duino | 25 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219383",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-02-13T01:31:52",
"content": "Looks like one could gin this up on a breadboard with one of those sensor kits, so great for learning. If you don’t have a handy display you could have it report RPM back to the console. Don’t necess... | 1,760,373,590.948141 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/12/pneumatic-glove-for-therapy-and-experimentation/ | Pneumatic Glove For Therapy And Experimentation | Lewin Day | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"glove",
"pneumatic",
"Pneumatics"
] | Many projects have aimed to replicate the function of the human hand, creating robotic structures that mimic real anatomy. Fewer have attempted to work with human hands directly.
SoftGlove is a project by [france.bonde] that uses pneumatics to do just that
.
The glove works by using a silicone pneumatic actuator for each digit on the human hand, attached to a glove. These are created with 3D printed molds, into which EcoFlex silicone is poured. A FlowIO device is used to run the pneumatics, which combines a microcontroller with penumatic hardware to pump air in and out of the actuators.
The goal of the project is to use a companion unit, in which a glove with flex sensors is used to make the SoftGlove mimic its movements. This would allow SoftGlove to move the fingers of a person with damaged muscle control, potentially aiding the muscles and nerves to recover when used in a therapeutic setting.
It’s exciting to see typical maker technologies used in a context to create better outcomes for patients, and we’re excited to see where this project leads next. It also has potential applications for robotic actuators, too.
Programmable Air is another exciting project working in this space, too
. And of course, if you’ve got a hot pneumatics project you’re cooking up in the garage,
be sure to let us know! | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219336",
"author": "dendad",
"timestamp": "2020-02-12T22:11:35",
"content": "This is a great idea! A very handy tool for physiotherapy too.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6219382",
"author": "Tim",
"timestamp": "2020-0... | 1,760,373,590.805464 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/12/in-pursuit-of-haptics-for-a-better-vr-experience/ | In Pursuit Of Haptics For A Better VR Experience | Mike Szczys | [
"cons",
"Virtual Reality",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"2019 Hackaday Superconference",
"erm",
"haptic feedback",
"haptics",
"lra",
"open sound control",
"vibration motor",
"virtual reality"
] | Virtual reality holds the promise of an immersive experience that can satisfy our senses to a level comparable with… well, reality. The field has come a long way, but Sarah Vollmer makes a good point that many of the VR systems currently in use are bulky and difficult to transfer from person to person.
While headsets have become smaller and lighter and now feature improved motion tracking and resolution, their ability to affect the user’s other senses hasn’t seen nearly the same advancement. Haptic feedback systems need to catch up with headsets, and
how to unobtrusively allow users feel simulated physical contact in VR
is an area Sarah is researching as part of her PhD work. This is the topic of her 2019 Hackaday Superconference talk which you’ll find embedded below.
Sarah brought along one of her
current prototype systems
which acts as a central hub for up to eight different actuators. The PCB for the sensor board includes two cutouts through which an elastic belt can be passed to secure them to wrists or other parts of the body. Each board accepts either a eccentric rotating mass (ERM) or linear resonant actuator (LRA) — two types of vibration motors with ERM being what you might associate as a pager motor while the LRA encapsulates the unbalanced weight in a disc spinning on an axis perpendicular to the PCB.
Open Sound Control
is used to send signals to these modules in sync with actions in the virtual environment.
Concept drawing for finger ring and bracelet haptic feedback system
PCB for vibration motor modules
Where things get really interesting is in Sarah’s concept for unobtrusive wearables for your hands and wrists. Current technology uses gloves, but she’s pursuing rings and bracelets. The hope is that rings around the wrist and fingers can be used for both granular motion tracking and haptic feedback. Pumping air or liquids into bladders built into the material could provide the sensation of pressure, and she’s even looking into the possibility of using direct electric stimulus.
Having to don bulky or heavy equipment has the opposite effect from what virtual reality is trying to achieve. Making systems both light-weight and tightly reactive to the digital environment is key to making the virtual more real and something we can all look forward to as this research continues. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219282",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2020-02-12T19:58:29",
"content": "This needs to get good enough I can slap someone across the internet.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6219291",
"author": "N",
"ti... | 1,760,373,590.591023 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/12/nuclear-fusion-reactors-that-arent-tokomaks-or-stellarators/ | Nuclear Fusion Power Without Regular Tokamaks Or Stellarators | Maya Posch | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"Fusion power",
"magnetic mirror",
"national ignition facility",
"nuclear fusion",
"nuclear power"
] | When it comes to nuclear fusion, the most well-known reactor type today is no doubt the tokamak, due to its relatively straight-forward concept of plasma containment. That’s not to say that there aren’t other ways to accomplish nuclear fusion in a way that could conceivably be used in a commercial power plant in the near future.
As we covered previously
, another fairly well-known type of fusion reactor is the stellarator, which much like the tokamak, has been around since the 1950s. There are other reactor types from that era, like the Z-pinch, but they seem to have all fallen into obscurity. That is not to say that research on Z-pinch reactors has ceased, or that other reactor concepts — some involving massive lasers — haven’t been investigated or even built since then.
In this article we’ll take a look at a range of nuclear fusion reactor types that definitely deserve a bit more time in the limelight.
Inertial Confinement Fusion
Target assembly at the NIF in 2010, with the target pellet mounted in the cryogenic positioning device.
Inertial Confinement Fusion
(ICF) relies on the rapid transfer of energy into a fuel target — usually a fuel pellet. This causes the outer layer of the pellet to rapidly expand, causing a shock wave to travel inwards, into the target. If done properly, this causes compression of the fuel (usually deuterium and tritium) at sufficient levels to start a fusion reaction that travels outwards from the center.
The use of ICF ranges from fusion weapons research to generating electricity. France’s
Laser Mégajoule
(LMJ) is an example of the former, whereas the US’s
National Ignition Facility
(NIF) is the world’s most prominent example of the latter, though it has also been used for materials science and weapons research.
Both LMJ and NIF use lasers to transfer energy to the fuel pellets, which
in the case of NIF
involves
192 main laser amplifier
beamlines that amplify the initial low-power (1 billionth of a joule) laser pulse to the target of about 4 million joules, with each beam traveling 1.5 km before hitting the target.
At this point in time, there are a number of ICF facilities operating around the world, though some newer ones like the EU’s
HiPER
ICF project never got off the ground. Interest in ICF seems to be waning on account of its economic viability as an energy source remaining questionable. This is mostly due to the cost of the fuel pellets and surrounding infrastructure. Unless ways can be found to sharply reduce these costs, it seems unlikely that ICF reactors will be used for anything other than materials science and weapons research.
Magnetic Confinement Fusion
Although tokamaks and stellarators are also
Magnetic Confinement Fusion
(MCF) reactor designs, they are not the only type of MCF reactor. The Z-pinch reactor design is another type of MCF reactor, using the Lorentz forces through the plasma instead of surrounding the plasma with (super-conducting) magnets. The main advantage of the latter approach is that it allows for continuous operation, something which is a fairly unique property in fusion reactor designs, which most commonly use a pulse-based design.
Whereas ITER is considered to be a bog-standard tokamak design, along with China’s HL-2M and upcoming CFETR tokamaks, more exotic configurations are also being worked on. One of the most prominent being the
ARC
design. The acronym stands for ‘Affordable, robust, compact’, one can tell where its focus lies. While ITER and CFETR are massive tokamaks with a large internal volume, ARC aims to use
ReBCO
— rare-earth barium copper oxide — high-temperature superconducting magnets.
The inside of the National Spherical Torus Experiment’s vacuum chamber.
Theoretically, this should allow ARC to generate a stronger magnetic field than current tokamaks, doubling the magnetic force on the plasma, while allowing it to be much more compact and sheeting the requirement the same level of cryogenics as low-temperature superconducting magnets. It is also suggested that the use of ReBCO would allow for enough flexibility to allow the tokamak to be ‘folded open’ when not in use, to allow for easy maintenance. At this point, however, ARC is a purely theoretical design by
MIT
and
PSFC
. It’s possible that a demonstration reactor (SPARC) could be constructed in the future.
Spherical tokamaks
(STs) are another interesting topic of current research. The principle here is simple: instead of forcing the plasma into a tokamak’s typical toroidal (‘doughnut’) shape, it is allowed to take on a spherical shape as much as possible, with only a minimal ‘hole’ in the center for the central magnets. This should make a reactor less expensive and easier to manage. A currently active ST is the
National Spherical Torus Experiment
, (NSTX) constructed by Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory along with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Columbia University and University of Washington.
After an upgrade between 2012 and 2015, NSTX was renamed to ‘NSTX-U’, for ‘Upgrade’. This version was stopped in 2016 due to issues with its poloidal coils, which required dismantling of a significant part of the reactor to diagnose and fix the issue. Reactivation of NSTX-U is not planned until the end of 2020. With some luck we’ll be seeing more of this reactor soon.
An interesting proposition by some scientists involved in STs is to replace the central magnet column with a design inspired by the Z-pinch reactor, using Lorentz forces to provide the magnetic field in the center instead of a physical column. This would allow for an ST to form a virtually perfect sphere of plasma.
One of the two yin-yang mirrors arrives at LLNL.
Finally, Lockheed Martin’s
Compact Fusion Reactor
(CFR) has received a lot of attention since they announced it in 2014, conveniently omitting that a lot of work was still left to be done on the design. This MCF design is interesting because it appears to revive the concept of a
magnetic mirror
, a fusion design that many had thought to have been left behind in history after the
Mirror Fusion Test Facility
was shut down in the 1980s. Time will tell whether the demise of magnetic mirror reactors was truly exaggerated.
Worthy of mention is the
Field-Reversed Configuration
(FRC). Although not as prominently present in power generation research, FRC has the interesting property that by trapping plasma on closed magnetic field lines, it can manipulate this plasma to be accelerated in one direction, which would make it useful for spacecraft propulsion. It’s one of various possible new propulsion designs under consideration.
Here’s to All the Other Designs
Implosion of a fusion microcapsule on the NOVA laser system.
Although the goal of this article wasn’t to provide an exhaustive list of current fusion power reactors, it should at least give a solid overview of the big players on the field at this point in time. There are countless smaller players out there as well, often start-ups testing out a new idea or concept using some funding money. Some of those designs may prove to work well as a neutron source, while an occasional concept may make it past the prototyping stage and show enough promise to be considered for something more.
The most exciting thing about nuclear fusion research is perhaps that nothing is set in stone. Much like the plasma inside a tokamak, it constantly changes shape and direction. Once it was thought that the stabilized Z-pinch reactor design was going to work, only for that to fall apart. Then there are the magnetic mirror, stellarator, tokamak (spherical or toroidal), and ICF configurations. Nobody can tell which of these approaches will turn out to be the golden ticket towards the one design that will end up getting commercialized.
This knowledge, along with the promise of the immense pay-off if one cracks this one, has led to a modern day gold rush. Who will figure out the first commercial scale fusion power reactor? The first compact and cheap fusion reactor? The first fusion battery that will run a smartphone for a decade? The first fusion powered spaceship?
With the tokamak design seemingly reaching its zenith with ITER and CFETR, we might end up with another ZETA moment in another decade or two with plasma physics throwing an unexpected spanner in the wheels, or we will have 2 GW commercial fusion reactors churning out cheap, clean power by the 2030s. Nobody knows for sure. That’s both exciting and terrifying, which is exactly the kind of situation that draws in those who are in for a bit of adventure.
Here’s to keeping that bright star of fusion research burning.
[Featured image: The preamplifiers of the National Ignition Facility in 2012. (CC-BY 3.0, Damien Jemison/LLNL)] | 120 | 29 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219232",
"author": "Jerry",
"timestamp": "2020-02-12T18:06:39",
"content": "This Is Getting Out Of Control, and We’ll Be Lucky To Survive It!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6219289",
"author": "Gunplumber",
"... | 1,760,373,591.17415 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/12/hacked-protective-gear-keeps-doctor-safe-in-the-hot-zone/ | Hacked Protective Gear Keeps Doctor Safe In The Hot Zone | Dan Maloney | [
"Medical Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"contagious",
"filter",
"HEPA",
"HME",
"mask",
"personal protective equipment",
"positive pressure",
"PPE",
"surgical",
"virus"
] | It’s rarely a wise idea to put a plastic bag over one’s head, but when the choice is between that and possibly being exposed to a dangerous virus, you do what you have to. So you might as well do it right and build
a field-expedient positive pressure hood
.
We’ve all been keeping tabs on the continuing coronavirus outbreak in China, but nobody is following as closely as our many friends in China. Hackaday contributor [Naomi Wu] is
in
from Shenzhen,
posting regularly from the quarantined zone
, and she found this little gem of ingenuity from a [Doctor Cui] in one of the hospitals in Wuhan. Quarantines and travel restrictions have put personal protective equipment like masks and gowns in limited supply, with the more advanced gear needed by those deal most closely with coronavirus patients difficult to come by.
There’s no build information, but from the pictures we can guess at what [Dr. Cui] came up with. The boxy bit is an
AirPro Car
, a HEPA filter meant to clean the cabin air in a motor vehicle. He glued on a USB battery pack to power it, used a scrap of plastic and some silicone adhesive to adapt
a heat-moisture exchange filter
from a mechanical ventilator to the AirPro’s outlet, and stuck the tube into a plastic bag sealed around his neck. The filter provides dry, positive pressure air to keep the bag from fogging up, and to keep [Dr. Cui] from asphyxiating. Plus he’s protected from droplet contact, which is a big plus over simple paper masks.
With the news always so dark, it’s heartening to see stories of ingenuity like this. We wish [Dr. Cui] and all our friends in China the best during this outbreak. | 33 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219227",
"author": "Wretch",
"timestamp": "2020-02-12T18:01:12",
"content": "That’s a cool hack. But, how come he’s not wearing gloves?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6219230",
"author": "AKA the A",
"timest... | 1,760,373,591.017374 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/12/3d-printed-flip-clock-is-worth-a-second-look/ | 3D Printed Flip Clock Is Worth A Second Look | Kristina Panos | [
"clock hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"flip clock",
"ir",
"raspberry pi",
"split-flap display",
"spotify",
"stepper motor"
] | Flip clocks: they were cool long before Bill Murray was slapping one repeatedly in
Groundhog Day
, they were cool in 1993, and they’re still cool now. If you can’t find one on the secondhand market, you’re in luck, because [iz2k] has laid out
an extensive blueprint for building a gorgeous retro-looking clock with some modern touches
.
There’s a Raspberry Pi to fetch the time, the weather, and the Spotify. Old flip clocks invariably tuned in FM radio, so [iz2k] used an RTL-SDR dongle and a software decoder for the deed. This clock even has a big snooze bar, which functions like a night light when there is no alarm actively going off. The three groups of painstakingly-printed flaps are controlled with stepper motors and an IR transmitter/receiver pair to do the counting.
For the interface, [iz2k] kept things nice and simple. The big-knobbed rotary encoder handles volume up/down/mute, and the little one on the front switches between FM radio, Spotify, and silence. Moving either knob generates feedback by flashing LEDs that sit underneath the display. Take a few seconds to flip past the break and check out the short demo.
If you do find a nice flip clock out in the wild,
maybe you can retrofit it
. | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219217",
"author": "Danjovic",
"timestamp": "2020-02-12T17:24:47",
"content": "Awesome! The orange body with a black mask resembles the flip clock at my parent’s house in early 80’s.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6219266",
... | 1,760,373,591.354861 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/12/how-to-get-into-cars-basic-maintenance/ | How To Get Into Cars: Basic Maintenance | Lewin Day | [
"car hacks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Original Art"
] | [
"car build",
"car engine",
"car maintenance",
"car mod",
"engine",
"maintenance"
] | So, you’ve decided you want to get into cars.
After much research and deliberation, you’ve bought yourself a sweet project car
, and can’t wait to get down to work. First things first – it’s time to learn about basic maintenance!
Get It Right For A Good Time
Doing necessary maintenance on time is key to enjoying your project car. Too many gearheads know the pain of a neglected beast that spends more time up on jackstands than out on the road. Buying the right car, and keeping a close eye on what needs to be done, will go a long way to improving your experience and relationship with your ride.
If you’ve just bought a car, no matter how good things look, it’s a good idea to go through things with a fine-tooth comb to make sure everything’s up to scratch. This can avoid expensive damage down the line, and is a great way to get your feet wet if you’re new to working on cars. Here’s a bunch of easy jobs you can tackle as a novice that will keep your ride in tip-top condition.
Fluids
Your car relies on a variety of highly-engineered fluids in order to run smoothly and reliably. Using the right fluids and changing them at regular intervals is important to ensure your car performs well. While the seller may have assured you that everything’s been changed on schedule, the first thing you should be doing when you get your project home is to change the fluids.
A lack of oil pressure caused the cam to seize in the head in my 1992 Daihatsu Feroza. This totalled the car, and I miss it dearly!
Engine oil is perhaps the most important. Over time, contaminants build up in the oil and it begins to lose its effectiveness as a lubricant. Left too long, and your oil pump can clog and you’ll lose oil pressure,
destroying your engine in mere seconds
. Alternatively, metallic particles can build up as the engine wears, and your oil filter can only do so much. You want to keep your oil fresh and of the appropriate grade, with most manufacturers recommending a set time period or mileage amount to change the oil. This is an easy job on the vast majority of cars, though you might find some difficulty in reaching your oil filter (looking at you, Miata). It’s a great way to get comfortable working on your car – just make sure you put the new oil in before you start the engine, else you’ve almost certainly ruined your ride.
You can even send samples of your oil away for analysis that can help diagnose long-term issues.
Oh, and be sure to us a new filter every time – and keep an eye out for leaks!
A spill-free funnel makes changing your coolant and burping the system easy.
Coolant is also an important fluid to check and change regularly. If it looks rusty and brown, your engine components are corroding and that’s no good for the long time health of your ride. Thankfully, it’s easy to change: most cars having a tap to help dump the coolant before you top it up. If things are particularly dirty, you might want to run a coolant flush solution through the system before you replace the fluid. Just make sure you burp the air out of the system properly before heading out back on the road, lest you overheat your engine.
Other fluids in your car are generally have quite long intervals before service is required. Automatic transmissions often recommend oil changes quite rarely; more than 100,000 km is common. Similar intervals are typical for manual transmissions and differential oil. If you’ve just got the car and it’s shifting and driving well, you’re likely safe to leave these alone. They’re a little more difficult to tackle, usually, so consider approaching these once you’ve gotten a little more comfortable with the wrenches.
Filters
Filters play an important role, ensuring your car doesn’t clog its fuel injectors every time you fill up at a dodgy gas station, or making sure sand doesn’t wreck the cylinder bores. However, they get clogged over time, leading to reduced performance and other niggling issues. Thankfully, they’re often cheap and easy to change, and are easily handled by the shadetree mechanic.
If your filter looks like the one on the right, it’s time for a change. Image credit: Napa Auto Parts
Air filters are the engine’s main protection from dust and particulates. Often made out of paper or foam, they’re usually located in an accessible spot next to or on top of the engine, and a simple visual inspection is usually enough to tell if they need replacement. If they’re dirty or falling apart, swap it out. If it’s covered in oil, you’ll also want a new one, though that ‘s indicative you have other problems. Generally, a high quality OEM filter is the best replacement. There’s little to be gained by swapping to a pod-filter or a cheap eBay intake, unless you really know what you’re doing and are sourcing high quality parts.
Carbureted cars often use these nifty transparent filters, making inspection easy. Fuel injected cars run at higher fuel pressures, necessitating metal-cased filters instead.
Fuel filters are responsible for making sure the tiny passages of your carburetor or injectors don’t get blocked with detritus in fuel. If you’re having strange issues with stumbling or a lack of acceleration, you might find your fuel filter is nearing the end of its life. When they get clogged, fuel pressure drops and this can lead to performance issues. Carbureted cars often have one or more inline filters that can be swapped out with little more than a screwdriver. Fuel injected cars can be a little more complex and often have multiple filters, but they’re still fairly straightforward to change if you know where to look. Their in-tank pumps also have a special filter sock on them, but these usually last as long as the pump and you needn’t worry about them too much.
Wheels and Tires
Ask around the racetrack about how to start making your car faster, and the first thing you’ll get told is “tires, tires, tires”. Your tires are the interface between your car and the road, and no matter what you do to the rest of the car, if you’ve got bad tires, it’ll all be for naught. It’s not just about speed on the track, though – whether you’re driving on the street or off-road, a good set of tires is important to keep your car pointed the right way, and avoid ending upside down in a ditch.
My project car originally came on a set of ugly 17″ rims with mismatched tires, which I promptly swapped for something a little more fitting. I’m also very poor at caring for the paint.
Oftentimes, project cars can come with a mismatched set of wheels and tires, or completely bald rubber. Worst case, you’ve dragged something out of a barn or a field, and it’s sitting on rubber well over 10 years old. Just because they have tread and hold air, doesn’t mean they’re safe to drive on. Rubber doesn’t age well, and unless your new ride has a set of fresh meats with plenty of tread and a current date code, you’ll want to get them replaced.
It’s also important to pay attention to wheel and tire size. Putting huge rims on your car can look cool to some, but it’s often a great way to spoil your handling. There’s no need to stick rigidly to the manufacturer’s standard wheels, of course – these can be ugly and boring, after all. The best way to get the right wheels and tires is to talk to other enthusiasts that have builds similar to what you’re going for. They’ll be able to tell you what works for your car, with your suspension setup, and your intended goals.
For example, the original NA Miata came with 14″ x 5″ wheels. These are fine for getting about town, but for track use, they’re too skinny to generate much grip. It’s also difficult to find good rubber to suit 14″ wheels these days; there are options available, but they’re expensive and obscure. By asking around forums, and chatting to the old hands at the track, I was able to learn that a set of 15″ wheels between 7″-8″ wide would be a good bet, ideally with an offset between +20 and +35 to make sure they nicely filled the guards. Armed with this knowledge, I was able to purchase a set of wheels that looked great and fit properly without needing any wheel spacers or other ugly hacks. Wrapped in some sticky semi-slicks, my lap times dropped by 4 seconds overnight! By doing my research, I got a great result without wasting any time or money.
Fixing Faults
It’s likely that, as you’ve bought a project, your car has a few issues. Maybe it’s got a noisy exhaust,
or it’s using more fuel than it should
. While these may not get in the way of your car getting from A to B, they can dull your enjoyment significantly, and add to the financial burden of having a project car. However, fixing these issues is a great way to start learning about how your car works!
Diagnosis can be tough for the beginner, particularly when faced with a tricky problem, minimal tools, and limited experience. Many will guess at the cause of the problem, and begin replacing parts only to find the issue reoccurring time and again. Ideally, finding the root cause of an issue is more productive. This is achieved by logically looking at the symptoms, and testing parts and subsystems to see that they are indeed properly operational. This involves learning how to use a multimeter, pressure gauges, and all manner of other equipment. This can be expensive, but can pay off down the road. Oftentimes, it’s important to weigh up buying more tools versus simply taking the car to a shop that already has the gear.
A scantool makes fault finding easier on modern EFI cars. Bluetooth versions like the one above interface with your smartphone to display codes.
The one tool that any wrencher should have for working on OBD-II equipped cars is the scantool. This plugs into the diagnostic port in post-1996 vehicles, and allows the ECU to communicate fault codes to the driver. This is helpful in a wide variety of situations. For example, if your fuel economy is poor, and your scantool reports a bad oxygen sensor signal, it’s simple to replace the part and get things up and running again. Other problems, like misfires, can be more difficult to diagnose, but a scantool still helps point you in the right direction.
Thankfully, many parts of the car community are eager to share their knowledge and passion with those eager to learn. Facebook groups, forums, and similar gatherings are great places to look for help. Often, your problem will have been faced by many before, and simply putting the symptoms into Google will net the answers you need. Else, reach out, and start a conversation with those that may be able to help. Finding a good local mechanic can also be helpful. While many shops simply exist to get cars in and out the door, others often specialize in certain makes and models and are willing to work with enthusiasts who need a little help on their journey toward working on their car. I’ve been lucky myself to know several great mechanics, who were able to step in and solve a couple of sticky issues that were just outside of my own abilities to solve. After picking up the car, I’ve learned a lot from a quick chat about what they had to do to fix the problem!
It’s a Marathon, Not A Sprint
For the newly initiated into the automotive hobby, it can sometimes feel like too much. If you’ve just started poking around under the hood of your new ride and found a mess of wires, bodged hoses and a forest of zipties, you might be a little overwhelmed. However, through regular maintenance, consultation with those in the know and a little perseverance, you can learn a lot and build yourself a sweet ride along the way. Happy hacking! | 84 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219168",
"author": "RetepV",
"timestamp": "2020-02-12T15:23:37",
"content": "“Oh, and be sure to us a new filter every time – and keep an eye out for leaks!”And, oh, fill the new filter with oil first, before mounting it.Otherwise you’ll have a big air bubble in your oil system whi... | 1,760,373,591.30397 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/12/sniffing-signals-to-teach-old-speakers-new-tricks/ | Sniffing Signals To Teach Old Speakers New Tricks | Tom Nardi | [
"ATtiny Hacks",
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"bose",
"cec",
"db9",
"subwoofer",
"surround sound",
"toslink"
] | Like many of the stories you’ll find on these pages, this one starts with a user being annoyed about their device’s inability to perform a simple task. All [Jay Tavares] wanted was for his Bose Cinemate speakers to turn themselves on and off as needed. It seems like a reasonable enough request, and indeed, is exactly the point of HDMI’s Consumer Electronic Control (CEC) feature. But in this case, it would take
a bit of custom hardware to get similar functionality
.
Unfortunately, the speakers [Jay] has only support optical audio; so any interoperability with HDMI-CEC (hacked or otherwise) was immediately out the window. Still, he reasoned that he should be able to detect when the TOSLINK audio source is actually active or not, and give the speaker system the appropriate signal to either power on or shut down. You might think this would require some kind of separate stand-alone device, but as it turns out, all the necessary information was available by reverse engineering the connection between the receiver and the subwoofer.
After some investigation, [Jay] found that not only was the content of the TOSLINK audio source being sent over this DB9 cable, but so were the control signals required to turn the system on and off. So he designed a simple pass-through device with an ATtiny85 and a couple passives that latches onto the relevant lines in the cable.
When audio is detected over the optical connection, the MCU will inject the appropriate signals on the control line to simulate the user pressing the “Power” button the remote. When the chip hasn’t detected audio after 10 seconds, it sends the signal to shut the speakers off.
While [Jay] notes he can’t guarantee this works on anything other than the particular Bose Cinemate GS Series II system he has, we’d be willing to bet the concept could be adapted to other models or even brands that use a similar cable to link their principle components. If all else fails, you could always
add an ESP8266 to your sound system and control it over WiFi
. | 24 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219132",
"author": "Mr Roland",
"timestamp": "2020-02-12T13:07:02",
"content": "Nice hack!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6219145",
"author": "kevinski",
"timestamp": "2020-02-12T13:31:21",
"content": "I have the s... | 1,760,373,590.767717 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/12/concrete-solder-squid-is-a-solid-solution/ | Concrete Solder Squid Is A Solid Solution | Kristina Panos | [
"classic hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"all hands on deck",
"alligator clips",
"concrete",
"coolant hose",
"helping hands",
"solder squid",
"soldering"
] | Although it’s possible to buy a soldering setup out of the box, the one that works for you will likely develop over time. Honestly, it may never stop evolving. Sure, you can start with el-cheapo helping hands or a nice hobby vise, but it probably won’t end there. Why? Because no one of these tools will be right for all applications, unless you plan to solder the same thing over and over again. Sometimes it’s just easier to alligator clip a board in place than to slowly manipulate the jaws of a vise, but those helping hands have such a limited range of motion.
Have you been meaning to build a soldering squid out of coolant hose because that stuff just looks so dang cool and bendy? Well, then let Hackaday alum [JeremySCook]
show you how it can be done
. A few years ago
he built a similar squid with a wooden base
, but it just isn’t heavy enough, so he redesigned it with a concrete base. He took the opportunity to make some nice tweaks, like zip-tying a small PC fan and 9 V to make an endlessly repositionable ventilation system, and adding a big clip in the back for extra stability while soldering. And of course, threading the solder spool on to one of the hoses is genius.
If you follow [Jeremy] at all, you know he’s been playing around with concrete for a while now, and it’s neat to see him cement his devotion to the stuff by using it in the pursuit of better tools. He’s got the files for the printed mold up on
GitHub
, and the build video after the break should be all set up by now.
Not custom enough for you?
Fire up that printer and make your own ball and socket arms
. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219089",
"author": "Dennis Ng",
"timestamp": "2020-02-12T09:16:20",
"content": "Like his comment about “may be not” referring to whether I live in a free country. Humorous.The project is interesting.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"commen... | 1,760,373,591.402417 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/11/custom-firmware-for-cheap-smart-bulbs-is-a-cinch-to-tinker-with/ | Custom Firmware For Cheap Smart Bulbs Is A Cinch To Tinker With | Lewin Day | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"bulb",
"internet of things",
"IoT",
"Smart Bulb"
] | It’s the end of another decade, and while we don’t have real hoverboards, flying cars, or affordable dental care, we do have multicolored lightbulbs you can control over WiFi. [Don Howdeshell] picked up a couple of cheap Merkury branded units in a Black Friday sale,
and quickly set about hacking them.
By and large, many of these bulbs are manufactured by various companies and rebranded for whoever happens to place an order. The bulbs tend to use the Tuya IOT ecosystem. Based on the ESP8266, reflashing the bulbs with custom firmware is simple,
thanks to the Tuya Convert project.
Using a Linux computer with a WiFi card running in Access Point mode, it spoofs a server that tricks the Tuya product into downloading a firmware update. From there, the bulb is an open book, ready to do your bidding.
One of [Don]’s attempts didn’t go so swimmingly, however. Flashing the firmware failed and the bulb was non-functional. [Don] elected to to a teardown, photographing it for our perusal, before hooking up to the ESP8266 directly over its serial interface. From there, it was simple to reprogram the bulb with
Tasmota firmware
, getting it back up and running.
Security alone is a great reason for running your own firmware on IoT devices.
It never hurts to know what you’re connecting to your network! | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219109",
"author": "Webstaff",
"timestamp": "2020-02-12T10:52:11",
"content": "No made but designed by Tuya.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6219154",
"author": "[Don]",
"timestamp": "2020-02-12T14:22:19",
... | 1,760,373,591.847313 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/11/name-that-unknown-rf-signal-with-a-little-fft-magic/ | Name That Unknown RF Signal With A Little FFT Magic | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"amateur radio",
"fft",
"ham",
"hash",
"modulation",
"PACTOR",
"PSK",
"rtty",
"Shazam",
"SigID"
] | Time was once that the amateur radio bands were an aurally predictable place. Spinning the dial up and down the bands, one heard familiar sounds – the staccato of Morse, the [Donald Duck] of sideband voice transmissions, and the occasional flute-like warble of radioteletype signals. Now, the ham bands are full of exotic signals encoding all manner of digital signals, each one with a unique sound and unique demodulation needs. What’s a ham to do?
Help is on the way. [José Carlos Rueda] has made progress toward
automatically classifying unknown signals
by modifying a Shazam-like app. Shazam is a popular smartphone app that listens to a few seconds of a song, creates an audio fingerprint of it, and searches a massive database of songs for a match. [Rueda] used a homebrew version of the app to search a SQL-lite database of audio fingerprints populated not with a playlist of popular music, but with samples from every known signal type in the
Signal Identification Wiki
. The database contains hashes for an FFT of each sample, which can be easily searched. With a five to ten second sample of a signal, captured either live over a microphone or from a recording, he is able to identify the signal automatically.
Whether it be the weird, dissonant wail of PSK-31 or the angry buzzing of PACTOR, the goings-on across the bands no longer have to remain a mystery. We really like the idea here, and wonder if it can be expanded upon to visually decode signals based on their waterfall signatures using TensorFlow. There are some waterfall examples in
[Danie Conradie]’s excellent article on RF modulation
that could get you started.
[via
RTL-SDR.com
] | 27 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6219046",
"author": "Clara",
"timestamp": "2020-02-12T03:38:42",
"content": "You wonder if you could use machine learning to solve something that’s more elegantly solved with a simpler, more thoughtful approach? Of course you can, that’s what half the field of computer science is d... | 1,760,373,591.800124 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/11/portable-pizza-oven-does-the-job-and-fast/ | Portable Pizza Oven Does The Job, And Fast | Lewin Day | [
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"Pizza",
"pizza oven",
"propane"
] | Pizza ovens are a fun thing to have in your back yard, and often wood is the fuel of choice for that smoky, rustic charm. However, [Andrew] is a fan of speed, leading him to prefer propane when it comes time to make a pizza.
This guided his portable pizza oven build, with impressive results.
Hot, fresh pizza cooked in just minutes. Pretty attractive, huh?
With this build, [Andrew]’s goal was to have a portable oven that didn’t sacrifice on performance. Commercial offerings were easy to lug around, but tend to cool down too much after cooking a pie, leading to lengthy waits for the oven to return to temperature. Not content to wait, [Andrew] specified his build with two custom tube burners to heat the floor, with separate jet burners to heat the cavity. When two jets proved too much, he refined the design to just one to improve efficiency and reduce carbon build up.
The Instructable is a great read, covering both the design of the oven as well as the necessary techniques to cook high-quality Neapolitan pizzas in minutes flat – right down to the selection of flour and proper insertion techniques to avoid sticking. The home pizza enthusiast could learn a lot here, and it’s great to see [Andrew] continue to improve on his earlier designs. Video after the break.
This is only the most recent of many pizza ovens to grace these pages.
How about one in a beer keg
? | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218985",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2020-02-12T00:23:06",
"content": "Can I do naan in this, I loves me some oven (tandoor) fresh naan!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6219009",
"author": "Kevin",
"t... | 1,760,373,591.469552 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/11/build-your-own-active-load/ | Build Your Own Active Load | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"Active Load",
"power supply",
"PSU testing"
] | When it comes to testing power supplies, it’s useful to have a dummy load to put the gear through its paces. While it’s possible to just use some old heating elements or other big resistors, an active load can provide more control over the process. [Charles Ouweland] found himself in need of just such a piece of gear,
and decided to build his own.
Commercial units often pack in a raft of features, operating in different modes from constant resistance, constant power, and constant current. For [Charles]’s needs, just constant current would be fine, and thus the design progressed around this constraint.
The IRFP250 MOSFET specified in the build can dissipate up to 190W, but as it heats up, this is reduced. In this design, cooled by a heatsink and PC fan, [Charles] estimates 120W continous output is a safe limit. It’s combined with an LM358 op-amp and TL431A reference voltage source to act as a current sink, controllable between 0 and 10 amps.
We’re sure that the new hardware makes testing power supplies a cinch for [Charles], and it’s always good to have a strong understanding of the workings of your own test gear.
We’ve seen open-source designs in this space, too! | 29 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218933",
"author": "scott griffitts",
"timestamp": "2020-02-11T21:26:00",
"content": "that pcb design makes me feel bad :(",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6218937",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-02-11T21:... | 1,760,373,591.532219 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/11/cheap-strain-relief-by-casting-hot-glue-in-a-3d-print/ | Cheap Strain Relief By Casting Hot Glue In A 3D Print | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"drone hacks",
"how-to"
] | [
"3d printed",
"battery",
"casting",
"hot glue",
"JST",
"jst-xh",
"lipo",
"mold",
"rc",
"strain relief"
] | [Daniel Roibert] found a way to add cheap strain relief to JST-XH connectors, better known to hobby aircraft folks as the charging and balance connectors on lithium-polymer battery packs. His solution is to
cast them in hot glue, with the help of 3D printed molds
. His project provides molds fitted for connectors with anywhere from two to eight conductors, so just pick the appropriate one and get printing. [Daniel] says to print the mold pieces in PETG, so that they can hold up to the temperature of melted glue.
The 3D models aren’t particularly intuitive to look at, but an instructional video makes everything clear. First coat the inside surfaces of the mold with a release agent (something like silicone oil should do the trick) and then a small amount of hot glue goes in the bottom. Next the connector is laid down on top of the glue, more glue is applied, and the top of the mold is pressed in. The small hole in the top isn’t for filling with glue, it’s to let excess escape as the mold is closed. After things cool completely, just pop apart the mold (little cutouts for a screwdriver tip make this easy) and trim any excess. That’s all there is to it.
One last thing: among the downloads you may notice one additional model. That one is provided in split parts, so that one can make a mold of an arbitrary width just by stretching the middle parts as needed, then merging them together. After all,
sometimes the STL file is just not quite right
and if sharing CAD files is not an option for whatever reason, providing STLs that can be more easily tweaked is a welcome courtesy. You can watch a short video showing how the whole thing works, below. | 53 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218915",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-02-11T19:52:38",
"content": "I would imagine you could do about the same job by pressing a likely looking USB connector into clay and filling that with hot glue.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,373,591.62306 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/11/hackit-why-arent-we-hacking-on-the-led-printer/ | HackIt: Why Aren’t We Hacking On The LED Printer? | Jenny List | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"HackIt",
"LED Hacks",
"Parts",
"Slider"
] | [
"led",
"LED array",
"LED printer"
] | Strings of LEDs are a staple of the type of project we see here at Hackaday, with addressable devices such as the WS2812 in particular having changed beyond recognition what is possible on a reasonable budget. They’ve appeared in all kinds of projects, but are perhaps most memorable when used in imaging projects such as screen-like arrays or persistence-of-vision systems. There’s another addressable LED product that we haven’t seen here, which is quite a surprise considering that it can be found with relative ease in junk piles and has been on the market for decades. We’re talking about the LED printer, and the addressable LED product in question is a very high density array of LEDs the width of a page, designed to place an image of the page to be printed on the toner transfer drum.
Inkjets, Lasers, And Now LEDs? How’s That Work Then?
OKI LED print heads
LED printers share their basic operation with photocopiers and laser printers, in that they use an electrostatic process to create the image on paper. A photosensitive drum is electrostatically charged before being exposed to brightly lit image of the page to be printed. The electrostatic charge is dissipated where the strong light hits the drum, but remains where there is no light. As the drum passes through a powdered toner it picks up the powder wherever it is charged, resulting in a copy of the page in toner on its surface.
The toner is then transferred to a piece of paper and heated such that it sets into the paper to produce a permanent print. On a photocopier, a lens and a bright light project the document, while on a laser printer the drum is charged by painting the laser dot line by line with a spinning mirror. The LED printer meanwhile exposes it one line at a time by shining light from a very long row of LEDs, and offers the advantage of lower cost and complexity than a laser printer with traditionally a slightly lower quality print. For this last reason it’s the laser that has captured the public imagination instead of its cheaper cousin, and though LED printers have remained available since they first appeared in the 1980s they remain something of a poor relation and their marketing often fails to mention LEDs at all.
Depending on the manufacturer the LEDs can be a variety of wavelengths, with the most common ones being either near-infra-red, or visible red. The LED arrays usually contain all their driver chips and are driven serially, leading to the possibility that they could be adapted for other purposes.
Getting Your Hands On All Those Lovely LEDs
It’s easy enough to find an LED printer array by dismantling a scrap printer, but a surprise is that they seem impossible to find as components in their own right. This is almost certainly because they are manufactured as parts for a particular printer mechanism rather than as parts in their own right, so unless you happen to be the manufacturer of that mechanism then there is little demand for them. Having salvaged one and been lucky enough to find that it has a visible wavelength though, how might you use it? An obvious application would be in very high resolution POV displays. They offer hundreds or even thousands of dots per inch, a resolution that a string of Neopixels can’t even come close to matching. Or how about using them for light painting, in this even an IR array could be pressed into service given a camera with sensitivity in that range.
So come on then, Neopixels are getting stale and we’ve seen almost every conceivable application for them before. Show us an LED project we haven’t seen before, one with breathtaking resolution!
Our tips line is open
, as always. To get you started we’ve put a video below the break with an intro to LED printers, then there’s
OKI’s introduction to the technology
, followed by
this white paper from them talking about the LED arrays
, and finally for a few more pointers take a look at
this EEVblog thread
.
Header image: OkiUkraine [
CC BY-SA 3.0
] | 54 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218878",
"author": "zaprodk",
"timestamp": "2020-02-11T18:06:36",
"content": "Those LED-bars are infrared, so unless you have eyes that are visible to infrared light, not much fun in looking at them …",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"commen... | 1,760,373,592.11724 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/11/airport-split-flap-letters-carry-on-as-spotify-display/ | Airport Split-Flap Letters Carry On As Spotify Display | Kristina Panos | [
"green hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"ESP8266",
"split flap",
"split-flap display",
"spotify"
] | Today’s tale of being in the right place at the right time comes from [fabe1999], who was doing an intern gig at the airport when the controller on their split-flap display bought a one-way ticket going south. They were just going to throw away
thousands
of these letters and replace them with monitors,
but the intern intervened
.
[fabe1999] grabbed an armload, took them home, and set about making them flap again, one letter at a time. An ATtiny worked okay, but it wasn’t really fast enough to flip them at their full clacking potential, so [fabe1999] switched to an ESP8266. So now there is one ESP for each of the 20 characters, and another that runs a web server where text can be directly entered for immediate display.
Each letter uses two sensors to flap to the right letter. The first one acts as a start sensor, detecting the blackness of a blank character. Another sensor counts the letters and makes the ESP stop the motor on the right one. So far, [fabe1999] hasn’t figured out how to recognize when a blank character can stay blank, so they flap all the way around back to blank for now. It certainly adds to the rich, flappy sound, but that can’t be good for the long-term life of the letters. Your flight is now departing for Post Break Island, where the letters are spending part of their retirement showing song titles from Spotify.
No chance of split flaps falling into your lap? Here’s a tip:
you can fab your own flip
. | 25 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218851",
"author": "Mike Szczys",
"timestamp": "2020-02-11T16:37:22",
"content": "I know it would drive you crazy to have this operating in your home (or office)… but I want it anyway!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6218860"... | 1,760,373,592.028106 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/11/first-space-cookies-cosmic-cooking-is-half-baked/ | First Space Cookies: Cosmic Cooking Is Half-Baked | Kristina Panos | [
"cooking hacks",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"News",
"Original Art",
"Slider",
"Space"
] | [
"cookies",
"cooking in space",
"experimental oven",
"international space station",
"zero-gravity baking"
] | For decades, astronauts have been forced to endure space-friendly MREs and dehydrated foodstuffs, though we understand both the quality and the options have increased with time. But if we’re serious about long-term space travel, colonizing Mars, or actually having a restaurant at the end of the universe, the ability to bake and cook from raw ingredients will become necessary. This zero-gravity culinary adventure might as well start with a delicious experiment, and
what better than chocolate chip cookies for the maiden voyage?
That little filtered vent lets steam out and keeps crumbs in. Image via
Zero-G Kitchen
The vessel in question is the
Zero-G Oven
, built in a collaboration between Zero-G Kitchen and Nanoracks, a Texas-based company that provides commercial access to space. In November 2019, Nanoracks sent the Zero-G oven aloft, where it waited a few weeks for the bake-off to kick off. Five pre-formed cookie dough patties had arrived a few weeks earlier, each one sealed inside its own silicone baking pouch.
The Zero-G Oven is essentially a rack-mounted cylindrical toaster oven. It maxes out at 325 °F (163 °C), which is enough heat for Earth cookies if you can wait fifteen minutes or so. But due to factors we haven’t figured out yet, the ISS cookies took far longer to bake.
Since no one really knew how it would go, the astronauts baked the first cookie for 25 minutes, thinking it might take a little longer than terrestrial trials. It was still dough, though, so they baked the second one twice as long. The fifth and final available cookie patty was in the oven for over two hours before it morphed from dough to cookie. Maybe we should have started experimenting sooner.
Is this capsule painted Cookie Monster blue on purpose? One can only hope. Image via
Zero-G Kitchens
But cooking in zero gravity is problematic. Cakes and breads don’t rise, and convection ovens need gravity to work. The Zero-G oven presents its own problem. There’s no viewing window or camera that we can see, which means the gastronauts have to keep opening the door to check status, which of course leads to heat loss, extended bake times, and the wasting of precious power.
So how do they taste? No one knows yet — they have to be tested first. Three of the cookie pouches splashed down in
milk
a SpaceX capsule a few weeks ago, and they’re being kept fresh in a NASA freezer.
You sign up for a lot as an astronaut, but having to smell chocolate chip cookies baking and not being able to eat them is almost cruel. Fortunately, a tin of already-baked cookies went up with the oven, although it’s unclear whether the astronauts saved any to munch on during the marathon baking session. There’s a morsel of footage waiting after the break.
What’s on the menu for the space oven? According to Zero-G Kitchen, the next experiments will involve other patty-like things, such as a roll or a meatball. Meatball? We vote cheeseburger. | 52 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218834",
"author": "mrehorst",
"timestamp": "2020-02-11T15:26:25",
"content": "Convection ovens need some sort of atmosphere, but gravity?Why do the cookies have to be inside silicone envelopes?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,373,592.21623 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/11/xbox-controller-provides-intro-to-swd-hacking/ | Xbox Controller Provides Intro To SWD Hacking | Tom Nardi | [
"hardware",
"Xbox Hacks"
] | [
"arm",
"debugging",
"Firmware modding",
"jtag",
"openocd",
"reverse engineering",
"SWD"
] | It’s amazing to see how much technology is packed into even the “simple” devices that we take for granted in modern life. Case in point, the third party Xbox controller that [wrongbaud] recently decided to tear into. Not knowing what to expect when he cracked open its crimson red case, inside he found an ARM Cortex microcontroller and
a perfect excuse to play around with Serial Wire Debug (SWD)
.
Though even figuring out that much took a bit of work. As is depressingly common, all the interesting components on the controller’s PCB were locked away behind a black epoxy blob. He had no idea what chip was powering the controller, much less that debugging protocols it might support. But after poking around the board with his multimeter, he eventually found a few test points sitting at 3.3 V which he thought was likely some kind of a programming header. After observing that pulling the line labelled “RES” low reset the controller, he was fairly sure he’d stumbled upon a functional JTAG or SWD connection.
The Serial Wire Debug architecture.
As [wrongbaud] explains in his detailed blog post, SWD is something of a JTAG successor that’s commonly used by ARM hardware. Using just two wires (data and clock), SWD provides hardware debugging capabilities on pin constrained platforms. It allows you to step through instructions, read and write to memory, even dump the firmware and flash something new.
For the rest of the post, [wrongbaud] walks the reader through working with an SWD target. From compiling the latest version of OpenOCD and wiring an FTDI adapter to the port, all the way to navigating through the firmware and unlocking the chip so you can upload your own code.
To prove he’s completely conquered the microcontroller, he ends the post by modifying the USB descriptor strings in the firmware to change what it says when the controller is plugged into the computer. From here, it won’t take much more to get some controller macros like rapid fire implemented; a topic we imagine he’ll be covering in the future.
This post follows something of a familiar formula for [wrongbaud].
As part of his continuing adventures in hardware hacking
, he finds relatively cheap consumer devices and demonstrates how they can be used as practical testbeds for reverse engineering. You might not be interested in
changing the ROM that a
Mortal Kombat
miniature arcade cabinet plays
, but learning about the tools and techniques used to do it is going to be valuable for anyone who wants to bend silicon to their will. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218801",
"author": "mime",
"timestamp": "2020-02-11T13:18:18",
"content": "Nice. More of this.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6218805",
"author": "wrongbaud",
"timestamp": "2020-02-11T13:30:05",
"cont... | 1,760,373,592.320012 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/10/diy-radio-telescopes-hack-chat/ | DIY Radio Telescopes Hack Chat | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"antenna",
"dish",
"Galaxy",
"Radio Astronomy",
"Radio Telescope",
"receiver",
"satellite",
"spectrum",
"The Hack Chat",
"universe"
] | Join us on Wednesday, February 12 at noon Pacific for the
DIY Radio Telescopes Hack Chat
with
James Aguirre
!
For most of history, astronomers were privy to the goings-on in the universe only in a very narrow slice of the electromagnetic spectrum. We had no idea that a vibrant and wondrous picture was being painted up and down the wavelengths, a portrait in radio waves of everything from nearly the moment of creation to the movement of galaxies. And all it took to listen in was an antenna and a radio receiver.
Over the years, radio telescopes have gotten more and more sophisticated and sensitive, and consequently bigger and bigger. We’re even to the point where one radio telescope often won’t cut it, and astronomers build arrays of telescopes spread over miles and miles, some with antennas that move around on rails. In the search for signals, radio astronomy has become the very definition of “Big Science.”
But radio astronomy doesn’t have to be big to be useful. James Aguirre, an astronomer at the University of Pennsylvania, spends his days (and nights) studying the radio universe with those big instruments. But he’s also passionate about down-scaling things and teaching everyone that small radio telescopes can be built on the cheap. His
Mini Radio Telescope
project uses a cast-off satellite TV dish and a couple of hundred bucks worth of readily available gear to scan the skies for all sorts of interesting phenomena.
Dr. Aguirre will join us on the Hack Chat to discuss all things radio astronomy, and how you can get in on the radio action on the cheap. Chances are good your junk pile — or your neighbor’s roof — has everything you need, and you might be surprised how approachable and engaging DIY radio astronomy can be.
Our Hack Chats are live community events in the
Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging
. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, February 12 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. | 8 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218544",
"author": "Laurence Stant",
"timestamp": "2020-02-10T18:00:09",
"content": "When I was at uni we were really close to building one of the “Simple” interferometers based on the one at Narrabri:https://www.atnf.csiro.au/news/newsletter/oct02/simple.htmWe didn’t have the spac... | 1,760,373,591.96493 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/10/building-a-sound-activated-shop-fan-with-arduino/ | Building A Sound Activated Shop Fan With Arduino | Tom Nardi | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"air circulation",
"automatic",
"dust collection",
"remote control",
"solid state relay",
"sound activated"
] | Whether you’re using a soldering iron or a table saw, ventilation in the shop is important. Which is why [Atomic Dairy] built a monster air cleaner called the Fanboy that looks like it should be mounted under the wing of an F-15. Realizing a simple switch on the wall wouldn’t do this potent air mover justice,
they decided to build a sound activated controller for it
.
It’s certainly an elegant idea. The sound created once they kick on their woodworking tools would be difficult to miss by even the most rudimentary of sound-detection hardware. At the most basic level, all they needed was a way for an Arduino to throw a relay once the noise level in the room reached a specific threshold.
Of course it ended up getting a bit more complicated than that, as tends to happen with these kinds of projects. For one, the sound doesn’t directly control the solid state relay used in the fan controller. When the microphone equipped Arduino detects enough noise, it will start a timer that keeps the fan running for two hours. If the tool keeps running, then more time gets added to the clock. This ensures that the air in the room is well circulated even after the cutting and sanding is done.
[Atomic Dairy] also added a few additional features so they could have more direct control over the fan. There’s a button to manually add more time to the clock, and another button to shut it down. There’s even support for a little wireless remote control, so the fan can be operated without having to walk over to the control panel.
We’ve seen some
impressive air circulation and dust collection systems over the years
, but finding a way to elegantly switch them on and off has always been a problem given the wide array of tools that could be in use at any given time. Sound activation isn’t a perfect solution, but it’s certainly one we’d consider for our own shop. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218504",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2020-02-10T16:37:00",
"content": "Could use one for the bathroom too!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6218507",
"author": "Medix",
"timestamp": "2020-02-10T16:42:08",
"content"... | 1,760,373,592.266697 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/10/ask-hackaday-whats-your-coronavirus-supply-chain-exposure/ | Ask Hackaday: What’s Your Coronavirus Supply Chain Exposure? | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Medical Hacks",
"News",
"Slider"
] | [
"china",
"epidemic",
"factory",
"infection",
"manufacturing",
"market",
"shenzhen",
"supply chain",
"virus"
] | In whichever hemisphere you dwell, winter is the time of year when viruses come into their own. Cold weather forces people indoors, crowding them together in buildings and creating a perfect breeding ground for all sorts of viruses. Everything from the common cold to influenza spread quickly during the cold months, spreading misery and debilitation far and wide.
In addition to the usual cocktail of bugs making their annual appearance, this year a new virus appeared. Novel coronavirus 2019, or 2019-nCoV, cropped up first in the city of Wuhan in east-central China. From a family of viruses known to cause everything from the common cold to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in humans, 2019-nCoV tends toward the more virulent side of the spectrum, causing 600 deaths out of 28,000 infections reported so far, according to official numbers at the time of this writing.
(For scale: the
influenzas
hit tens of millions of people, resulting in around four million severe illnesses and 500,000 deaths per season, worldwide.)
With China’s unique position in the global economy, 2019-nCoV has the potential to seriously disrupt manufacturing. It may seem crass to worry about something as trivial as this when people are suffering, and of course our hearts go out to the people who are directly affected by this virus and its aftermath. But just like businesses have plans for contingencies such as this, so too should the hacking community know what impact something like 2019-nCoV will have on supply chains that we’ve come to depend on.
Unhappy New Year
The 2019-nCoV outbreak could not have come at a worse time in China’s calendar. Although there is some dispute about whether the virus really first appeared at the end of December or if it cropped up earlier in the month, it’s the fact that it bumped into the annual Chinese lunar new year holiday that counts. And the cultural elements surrounding this time of year are key to understanding what effect the outbreak will have on supply chains, and the degree to which the hacker community will be impacted.
The Chinese New Year starts on the day of the new moon that occurs between January 21 and February 20; this year the holiday began on January 25. It kicks off the Spring Festival, with most people getting a full week off from work to visit relatives and celebrate.
The resulting travel period dwarfs every other periodic human migration
, with up to 385,000,000 people on the move, mostly on the country’s extensive rail system. The travel season generally starts two weeks before the lunar new year and lasts for about 40 days.
Since much of the Chinese labor force is made up of workers who come from rural areas to large cities where jobs are more readily available, the annual New Year migration is mostly in the opposite direction – from the cities to the countryside. Aside from travel headaches, the lunar new year holiday doesn’t cause much disruption in a normal year because everyone has more or less the same time off from work. Factories traditionally shut down for the week, markets like those in Shenzhen board up, and business returns to normal after everyone returns to work well-fed and rested. This year, though, is anything but normal.
In response to the increasing death toll of the novel virus, Chinese officials imposed a de facto quarantine on Wuhan, the city at its epicenter, by cutting all rail and air service to the city of 11 million on January 23. Other cities followed with equally draconian lockdowns until eventually more than 50 million people were isolated. The lunar new year festivities were officially extended by three days, and things were supposed to get back to normal work-wise by February 3, but many factories are still shut down. This is partly due to the continuing increase in new cases of the infection, but also due to travel restrictions keeping workers who made it out of the cities before the quarantine from returning.
Your Turn
With businesses understaffed, there’s a good chance that the normal Chinese New Year supply chain disruptions will not only continue well past the end of the holiday, but possibly worsen. The financial news is filled with stories of potential disaster for manufacturers like Apple, who have
outstanding orders for 45 million AirPods
with Chinese contract manufacturers. Similar tales of financial woe abound for every industry whose supply chain passes through China, from
automobiles
to
pharmaceuticals
.
But what impact will any of this have on us? The hacking community’s slice of the global market from electronics may be small compared to the needs of an Apple or a Foxconn, but we source a lot of stuff from the currently shuttered markets of Shenzhen. Lots of those modules and boards we so love to include in our projects come from China. What happens if nobody shows up to work, either by necessity or by choice, to fulfill those orders?
With all that in mind, we’d like to turn the question over to the readers. Have you noticed any problems getting parts and supplies from China since the start of the coronavirus outbreak? Any delays in fulfilling or shipping orders? Have any suppliers contacted you to warn you of possible disruptions? What about those of you who place larger orders, perhaps as part of your jobs? Are your companies giving you any guidance on supply chain disruptions? We’d also love to hear from our friends in China, both to wish them well and for a boots-on-the-ground report. Please sound off in the comments below, with all due respect and sensitivity for the seriousness of the situation. | 128 | 30 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218462",
"author": "limpkin",
"timestamp": "2020-02-10T15:08:24",
"content": "I have several small production batches (PCBA, machining…) that were about to be finished before CNY which are now blocked, likely until the end of the month.My logistics center isn’t opened, my flight to... | 1,760,373,592.561082 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/10/a-french-press-you-can-take-out-camping/ | A French Press You Can Take Out Camping | Lewin Day | [
"cooking hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"camping",
"coffee",
"french press"
] | There’s many a hacker that considers coffee a necessary fuel, without which, little work can be achieved. This applies whether in the office or traipsing around in the great outdoors. For the latter situation, [Poehls05] developed
a robust French press that’s well suited to field use
.
Typically, a French press consists of a plunger assembly which moves within a glass vessel. This is fragile and unwieldy for throwing in a backpack. Instead, in this design, the plunger assembly is harvested from an existing press and repurposed to fit within a sturdy Nalgene water bottle, designed specifically for overlanding.
The modifications involve cutting the existing press plate into three slices, and reassembling with hinges so it may fold. The plunger rod is then modified to make it possible to tilt the press plate relative to the rod. These modifications allow the plunger to be slid into the narrower neck of the Nalgene water bottle, and also enable the plunger rod to work with the original screw-down lid. In this configuration, the bottle is no longer water tight, but can be converted to normal use by swapping a regular lid back on top.
With the changes in place, the plastic bottle can easily be used in the same manner as a regular French press. Simply fill with hot water, allow the grounds to steep, and then press and pour. It’s a great way to make high-quality coffee in the wilderness, and one that may prove popular with hackers who don’t wish to give up the finer things when out and about.
We’ve also featured tricks to make the most of hotel coffee, too. | 41 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218425",
"author": "That guy...",
"timestamp": "2020-02-10T12:10:46",
"content": "Portable french presses are kind of a standard commercial item from camping stores/online, and they will withstand hot water better than a Nalgene bottle. Jetboil and others offer plunger assemblies ... | 1,760,373,592.404205 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/10/bringing-a-swap-meet-3d-printer-back-from-the-dead/ | Bringing A Swap Meet 3D Printer Back From The Dead | Tom Nardi | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"hotend",
"ptfe",
"repair",
"stepper motor",
"swap meet"
] | At a recent swap meet, [digitalrice] found what appeared to be a like-new QIDI X-Plus 3D printer. It wasn’t clear what was wrong with it, but considering it retails for $900 USD, he figured the asking price of $150 was worth the gamble. As you might expect, the printer ended up being broken. But armed with experience and a supply of spare parts,
he was able to get this orphaned machine back up and running
.
The first and most obvious problem was that the printer’s Z axis didn’t work properly. When the printer tried to home the axis, one of the motors made a terrible noise and the coupler appeared to be spinning backwards. From his experience with other printers, [digitalrice] knew that the coupler can slip on the shaft, but that didn’t appear to be the case here. Removing the stepper motor and testing it in isolation from the rest of the machine, he was able to determine it needed replacing.
Improving the printer’s filament path.
Unfortunately, the spare steppers he had weren’t actually the right size. Rather than waiting around for the proper one to come in the mail, he took an angle grinder to the stepper’s shaft and cut off the 5 mm needed to make it fit, followed by a few passes with a file to smooth out any burrs. We’re not sure we’d recommend this method of adjustment under normal circumstances, but we can’t argue with the results.
The replaced Z motor got the printer moving, but [digitalrice] wasn’t out of the woods yet. At this point, he noticed that the hotend was hopelessly clogged. Again relying on his previous experience, he was able to disassemble the extruder assembly and free the blob of misshapen PLA, leading to test prints which looked very good.
But success was short lived. After swapping to a different filament, he found it had clogged again. While clearing this second jam, he realized that the printer’s hotend seemed to have a design flaw. The PTFE tube, which is used to guide the filament down into the hotend, didn’t extend far enough out. Right where the tube ended, the filament was getting soft and jamming up the works. With a spare piece of PTFE tube and some manual reshaping, he was able to fashion a new lining which would prevent the filament from softening in this key area; resulting in a more reliable hotend than the printer had originally.
It’s great to see this printer repaired to working condition, especially since it looks like [digitalrice] was able to fix a core design flaw. But a broken 3D printer can also serve as the base for a number of other interesting projects, should you find yourself in a similar situation. For example,
replacing the extruder assembly with a digital microscope
can yield some very impressive results. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218427",
"author": "mime",
"timestamp": "2020-02-10T12:17:33",
"content": "proper hacking, well done.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6218445",
"author": "Jerry",
"timestamp": "2020-02-10T14:15:41",
"content": "Hack... | 1,760,373,592.606291 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/09/simple-3d-printed-robotic-arm-uses-compliant-mechanism/ | Simple 3D Printed Robotic Arm Uses Compliant Mechanism | Danie Conradie | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"3d prining",
"arm",
"robot",
"servo"
] | Learning through play is effective for humans of all ages, and since 2016 [slantconcepts] has been designing STEM kits that help teach kids to build their future overlords. They are launching
version 3 of their LittleArm robotic arm
, and the progression from version 1 is an interesting study in simplification and parts count reduction without sacrificing functionality.
In all of the LittleArm versions the main mechanical components are 3D printed, and driven by 3 servos for motion plus one additional servo to run the gripper. These kits are specifically intended to be built and disassembled repeatedly, and classrooms are a great place for small screws to easily disappear, so reducing the number of screws was a big goal for v3. The gripper/forearm shows the most dramatic improvement from the previous versions, being simplified from 8 separate components to a single 3D printed part by using a compliant mechanism — that squiggly pattern that allows the gripper to flex into place. The gripper tips also feature a simple “cutout” that allow it more easily grasp horizontal objects.
An Arduino Nano based expansion board is used to control the arm, with a HC-06 Bluetooth module to allow it to be controlled via a smart phone app. Various sensors can also be added to expand the kit’s capabilities. Unfortunately the mechanical design is not open source, but it can still be a source of inspiration for your own design projects.
Hopefully this kit will inspire some future hackers to build a more
advanced 3D printed version
, or even a
giant hydraulic powered arm
. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218469",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2020-02-10T15:17:27",
"content": "I had hopes that “compliant” meant they found a cheap actuator (servo) that could be overpowered without damage. Replacing a hinge with a soft bit of plastic is a disapointment, by comparison.",
"pare... | 1,760,373,592.645567 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/09/c-the-language-for-all-platforms-now-including-windows-3-11-and-dos/ | C#, The Language For All Platforms – Now Including Windows 3.11 And DOS | Jenny List | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
".NET",
"c++",
"dos",
"Win32",
"windows",
"Windows 3.11"
] | The Microsoft .NET framework has been with us in one form or another since the millennium, and though it has remained largely the preserve of the Microsoft universe, it has found its way since then through a variety of implementations to other platforms including MacOS and GNU/Linux. In Microsoft terms though its history goes back only as far as Windows 98, earlier MS operating systems remain off-limits.
Just a glimmer of .NET in DOS and Windows 3.11 comes courtesy of [Michal Strehovský],
who has successfully compiled .net C# code for both Windows 3.11 and DOS
. An in-depth explanation
comes courtesy of [Scott Hanselman]
, and it involves some tricks spanning the decades since the early 1990s. The .NET Core compiler’s object files can be fed into the linker that shipped with an ancient version of Microsoft’s C++ compiler, which when used with Microsoft’s Win32s compatibility layer that brought some of Windos NT’s APIs to the 16-bit OS, allows C# from 2020 to run as though it were 1992 again. Meanwhile the DOS version uses .NET Core’s ability to produce self-contained executables along with some very significant tricks to pare down the size of the finished program from many megabytes to an eventual DOS-suitable 27k. Remember the apocryphal Bill Gates quote, that “
640k should be enough for anyone
“, that refers to the
maximum
memory available to DOS without extra memory-extending tricks.
Neither piece of software is especially useful, and we can’t see a rush of C# coders to these new platforms. But we applaud him for his ingenuity, and getting old hardware to do new tricks is right up our alley. It’s certainly dredged up a few memories from back in the day for us. Meanwhile we’ve featured .NET in a few projects over the years,
most recently on an FPGA
. | 34 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218346",
"author": "Somun",
"timestamp": "2020-02-10T03:19:49",
"content": "Apparently it works for F#, too. Noice ;p",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6218354",
"author": "T",
"timestamp": "2020-02-10T04:19:40",
"con... | 1,760,373,592.805029 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/09/hackaday-links-february-9-2020/ | Hackaday Links: February 9, 2020 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"bitcoin",
"blackberry",
"hackaday links",
"moon",
"taxes",
"TCL",
"tesla"
] | In case you thought that we learned everything we need to know to land on the Moon fifty years ago, think again. NASA still has a lot of questions, and has scheduled
the first of many commercial missions
designed to fill in the blanks. As part of the Artemis program, which aims to land the first women and the next men on the Moon by 2024, NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Service (CLPS) will send 16 science payloads to the Moon via two separate commercial flights. The two companies, Astrobotics and Intuitive Machines, will send landers to the Moon in 2021 using a ULA Vulcan Centaur and a SpaceX Falcon 9, respectively. Fourteen companies were selected for CLPS, and with much to learn (or relearn) about landing and working on the Moon, watch for many more flights in the years to come. We’re all for the commercialization of space, but we have to admit that things were easier to keep track of when space exploration was a little more monolithic.
It looks like millions of BlackBerry phone users will have to find something else to do with their thumbs now that
TCL is getting out of the BlackBerry business
. The Chinese company announced this week that they would no longer have the rights to manufacture BlackBerry-branded phones like the Key2 as of August 31, 2020.
Crackberry addicts were understandably upset
, but all may not be lost for those who can’t stand the virtual keyboards on most other smartphones, as there’s still a chance another manufacturer will step in to fill the void.
Hypothetical situation: You’re in need of a car, so you go to a used car dealer. You see a nice car, take it for a test drive, and decide to buy it. Money is exchanged, paperwork done, and the salesman hands you the keys. You go out to the lot to drive your new ride home only to find out that the mechanic has removed the tires. When you ask what the deal is, the salesman says, “Sorry, you didn’t buy a license for the tires.” Hypothetical perhaps, but not far off from
what happened to one Tesla Model S buyer
when an over-the-air update disabled the Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features he paid for. Tesla didn’t see it that way, though, claiming that he’d need to pony up to use the new features, which originally sold for $8,000. It raises interesting questions about how the secondary automotive market will respond to the increasingly complicated relationship between hardware and software, and what you’re actually paying for when you buy a car.
Back in the early days of Bitcoin, skeptics used to dismiss the cryptocurrency by saying, “When you can pay your taxes with it, then it’s real money.” Well, that day is apparently here for the municipality of Zermatt in Switzerland, where it was
announced that Bitcoin will be accepted
as payment for local taxes and other official fees. The Zermatt city hall has installed a Bitcoin point-of-sale terminal, or payments can be made directly from a Bitcoin wallet after filling out the proper paperwork. Bitcoin as legal tender for public debts is not exactly new;
Ohio was doing it
back as far as 2018. But we find the economic implications of this interesting — as our resident econometrician [Elliot Williams] pointed out, paying taxes in anything but the national currency was considered preposterous not that long ago. | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218321",
"author": "gregg4",
"timestamp": "2020-02-10T00:41:27",
"content": "It could be worse. Here in the US, one individual walked into a Midwest town tax assayer or something like that, and paid what he owed in a big heap of pennies. That’s right, he paid the entire bill in pen... | 1,760,373,592.861756 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/09/why-settle-for-the-standard-catan-board/ | Why Settle For The Standard Catan Board? | Kristina Panos | [
"Games"
] | [
"laser cut",
"settlers of catan"
] | Let’s face it, game night can get downright rowdy. Whether your game nights involve wine and cats, beer and dogs, or vodka and bear cubs, things happen. Maybe the robber gets batted irretrievably far under the couch, or someone gesticulates wildly and spills wine all over your sheep. [EEEEEEEEEDEN]’s gatherings were getting way out of hand, and it was time to design a custom Catan board.
But she didn’t stop with the board tiles —
this is Catan redesigned from the ground up
, including the pieces, the resource cards, and a custom storage box. [EEEEEEEEEDEN] even planned for player expansion by designing a leaf to drop in the middle. There are a few hundred magnets built into the frame, so there shouldn’t be any more lost pieces. And as far as liquor-proofing all the cardboard goes, [EEEEEEEEEDEN] designed new board tiles and cards, laser cut them from acrylic, and painstakingly painted them all with Plasti-Dip spray.
We think it’s gorgeous, but understand that maybe this minimalist style isn’t for everyone. If you want to go custom, it’s hard to argue against the beauty of
3D Catan
.
Thanks to [Johannes] for the tip! via
/r/DIY | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218303",
"author": "Phillip",
"timestamp": "2020-02-09T22:45:45",
"content": "It’s definitely a work of art :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6218323",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2020-02-10T00:53:28",
"cont... | 1,760,373,593.029654 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/09/sort-the-rainbow-with-an-algorithm-machine/ | Sort The Rainbow With An Algorithm Machine | Kristina Panos | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"algorithm",
"ESP32",
"rotary encoder",
"ws2812"
] | When you’re trying to learn how an algorithm works, it’s not always easy to visualize what’s going on. Well, except for maybe binary sort, thanks to the phone book. Professor [thatguyer] is a computer science teacher who wanted a way to help his students visualize the process of algorithms and at the same time, get a grasp on their resource cost.
The Algorithm Machine
can demonstrate 8 different search and sort algorithms using two 100-count strips of RGB LEDs — one to represent an array of integers, and one to create indicators pointing to the integers under scrutiny.
This functional beauty is totally interactive, too. Once the user chooses the values and the algorithm and starts the process, they can speed it up or slow it down with the rotary encoder, or pause to discuss and start again with that slick triangular play button. We particularly like the control button wiring harness [thatguyer] created to keep everything neat and hot-swappable.
This iteration uses 3D printed face plates to give the LEDs shape, but in an early version, [thatguyer] cut and sanded a ton of circles out of brass tubing, and folded as many triangles cut from disposable baking pans. The world could use more teachers as committed as [thatguyer]. This really seems like a handy teaching aid for these concepts, and we wish we’d had one in class to play around with. Here’s your algorithm for watching the demo: click break, press play, enjoy.
If you’re still confused, there are
other ways to understand algorithms through visualization
. Failing all that, just
watch these Hungarian folk dancers work out various algo-rhythms
. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218245",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-02-09T18:10:45",
"content": "Back in my day we just had visualisation material like “Bubblesort” on side B of the ZX Spectrum “Horizons” demo tape…Skip to 13:10https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMzc27HDt8c",
"parent_id": null,... | 1,760,373,592.988344 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/09/rental-home-thermostat-gets-smart-upgrade-without-modifying-the-dumb-controller/ | Rental Home Thermostat Gets Smart Upgrade Without Modifying The Dumb Controller | Jenny List | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"ESP8266",
"heating controller",
"rental home",
"time switch"
] | A problem facing those who live in rental properties comes with two prongs: that such properties rarely have up-to-date facilities such as heating controllers, and that landlords tend to take a dim view of tenants installing their own alternatives. [Andy] wanted to upgrade the heating controller in his home and was in this situation, so
he came up with a smart controller add-on for the existing mechanical timer
that does not irreversibly modify anything and is easily removable when he moves on.
This sounds like an impossible task, but it’s one he’s done very well by mounting a stepper motor on a 3D-printed frame over the timer switch. It’s the type with a motorised ring onto which plastic fingers can be placed to flip a switch on or off; he’s simply removed the plastic fingers and designed a shaft extension for the motor that simulates their passing the switch. He can now turn his heating on and off at will from an ESP8266, in this case on an Adafruit Feather Huzzah.
Behind it all lies
Adafruit IO
with a custom dashboard — Hackaday’s [Sean Boyce]
took this service for a trial run
if you’d like his take on it’s features. For this project, Adafruit IO delivered exactly what [Andy] was after but still left a few teething troubles. The stepper needed to be told not to try to hold its position, and moving a stepper very slowly generated wait periods long enough to trigger the ESP’s watchdog timers. Adding in
IFTTT
gave him the ability to schedule, as well as Alexa control. All in all he’s replicated some commercial offerings with a lot less cost and all without annoying his landlord. You can see it in action in the video below the break. | 25 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218221",
"author": "Sunoo",
"timestamp": "2020-02-09T16:19:47",
"content": "Interesting hack, but I can’t imagine the landlord would be any more thrilled to walk in and see that than if they had just swapped the thermostat out.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies"... | 1,760,373,593.091753 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/09/see-in-the-dark-the-simple-way/ | See In The Dark, The Simple Way | Jenny List | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"ir",
"ir camera",
"night vision"
] | Night vision googles used to be the exclusive preserve of the military, and then of the well-heeled. Image intensifier tubes were very expensive, and needed high-voltage power supplies to keep them going. Now that we have solid-state infra-red cameras the task of seeing in the dark had become much simpler, and [Alex Zidros] is here to show us just how easy that can be.
His night vision goggles
take a selection of off-the-shelf parts and a little bit of 3D printing to produce a complete set-up for a fraction of the cost of those night-vision goggles of old.
At its heart is a little NTSC/PAL LCD display in a 3D printed bracket. These used to be a small display of choice, but we see them rarely now because standalone displays and the microcontrollers to drive them have become so much more useful. Driving the display is a video camera with its IR filter removed, and providing illumination is an IR flashlight. In effect it’s a classic analogue CCTV system in miniature, but the most important thing is that it works.
We might have expected a Raspberry Pi Zero
and NoIR camera, but it’s difficult to argue with a functioning night vision system. If you want to look at a project with an image intensifier tube though,
we’ve covered one of those in the past
. | 42 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218161",
"author": "preamp",
"timestamp": "2020-02-09T12:50:46",
"content": "Now add a thermal imaging camera for complete Predator vision",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6218277",
"author": "Drew",
"timestamp... | 1,760,373,592.937201 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/09/hands-free-oreo-dispenser-now-with-milk/ | Hands-Free Oreo Dispenser, Now With Milk | Bryan Cockfield | [
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"3d print",
"dispenser",
"hands free",
"lever",
"milk",
"oreo",
"pump",
"the practical engineer"
] | A while back, [Emiel] aka [The Practical Engineer] created a hands-free Oreo dispenser for his shop. This was a necessary addition to his fleet of handy tools, and allowed him to multitask much more effectively by using a sander, for example, at the same time that he needed to eat a cookie. Of course, this time-saving device was missing one crucial element: milk. [Emiel] is
back in this video to show off his milk-dispensing upgrade
to his original Oreo dispenser.
A few ideas were considered before [Emiel] decided to build a separate unit for the milk dispenser, so as not to create a gigantic mess any time an Oreo was delivered, and also to maintain some decorum in the shop. He rebuilt the Oreo dispenser with a 3D printer and then also 3D printed the milk dispenser. The chin-activated switch inside the device turns on a small pump which squirts milk into the user’s mouth, presumably after an Oreo has been delivered.
There are a few problems with the build, but most are easily solved by replacing non-food-grade parts with plastic that is more safe for being around consumables. The only other thing we can see here is that it might be a little hard to keep things clean, both inside and out, but most
Oreo-related builds
like this one have at least some problem with cleanliness that isn’t impossible to keep up with. | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218133",
"author": "zoobab",
"timestamp": "2020-02-09T09:26:38",
"content": "Oreo is full sugar.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6218145",
"author": "Alexander",
"timestamp": "2020-02-09T10:44:13",
"co... | 1,760,373,593.226557 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/08/a-barn-find-6502-is-restored/ | A Barn Find 6502 Is Restored | Jenny List | [
"Parts",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"6502",
"atari",
"MOS"
] | The phrase “Barn find” is normally associated with the world of older cars, where enthusiasts live in the hope that they may one day stumble upon a dusty supercar lurking unloved for decades on a remote farm. It’s not so often found in the context of electronics, but that’s the phrase that [John Culver] uses for
a mid-1970s Atari arcade board that had been through a very hard time indeed
and was in part coated with cow dung. It’s interesting because it sports a very early example of a MOS 6502 in a ceramic package, whose date code tells us was manufactured in week 22 of 1976.
Finding a microprocessor, even a slightly rare one, is not that great an event in itself. What makes this one interesting is the state it was in when he got it, and the steps he used to retrieve it from the board without it sustaining damage, and then to clean it up and remove accumulated rust on its pins. We are fast approaching a point at which older microprocessors become artifacts rather than mere components, and it’s likely that more than one of us with an interest in such things may one day have to acquire those skills.
We’re rewarded at the end with a picture of the classic chip passing tests with flying colours, and the interesting quirk that this is a chip with the famous rotate right bug that affected early 6502s. If you are interested in the 6502 then you should definitely read our colleague [Bil Herd]’s
tribute to its recently-departed designer, [Chuck Peddle]
. | 26 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218101",
"author": "rnjacobs",
"timestamp": "2020-02-09T06:27:37",
"content": "Since it wasn’t mentioned in the linked article, the arcade board that this person found appears to be an instance of Flyball:https://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=10581",
"parent_id"... | 1,760,373,593.17801 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/11/classic-toy-helicopter-flies-again-as-diy-version/ | Classic Toy Helicopter Flies Again As DIY Version | Dan Maloney | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"design",
"flight",
"helicopter",
"rotor",
"slip ring",
"toy",
"VertiBird"
] | For many of us who grew up in the 1970s, “VertiBird”, the fly-it-yourself indoor helicopter, was a toy that was begged for often enough that it eventually appeared under the Christmas tree. And more than a few of the fascinating but delicate toys were defunct by Christmas afternoon, victims of the fatal combination of exuberant play and price-point engineering. But now
a DIY version of the classic toy flies again
, this time with a more robust design.
To be fair to the designers at Mattel, the toy company that marketed VertiBird, the toy was pretty amazing. The plastic helicopter was powered by a motor located in the central base, which rotated a drive rod that ran through a stiff tether. Small springs in the base and at the copter acted as universal joints to transmit power to the rotor. These springs were the weak point in the design, especially the one in the base, often snapping in two.
[Luke J. Barker]’s redesign puts a tiny gear motor in the aircraft rather than in the base, something that wouldn’t have been feasible in the original. To address the problem of getting electrical power from the base to the aircraft, [Luke] eschewed an expensive slip ring and instead used a standard 3.5-mm audio jack and plug. The plug serves as an axle for the main gear in the base that powers the copter’s rotation; sadly, this version doesn’t tilt the aircraft mechanically to control backward and forward flight like the original. A pair of pots with 3D-printed levers control throttle and flight direction through an Arduino; see it in action in the video below.
These pages abound with rotorcraft builds, both
helicopters
and
multirotor
. We appreciate all manner of flying machines, but this one really takes us back. | 32 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218748",
"author": "Rocky",
"timestamp": "2020-02-11T09:07:23",
"content": "If using new tech, why not a tethered QUAD ROTOR?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6218812",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,373,593.290176 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/10/fake-that-fireplace-flicker-with-flame-bulbs/ | Fake That Fireplace Flicker With Flame Bulbs | Kristina Panos | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"fireplace",
"flame bulb",
"led bulb",
"psychology",
"toggle switch"
] | Ask anyone who’s ever tuned into Fireplace TV on a cold winter’s night — even though you can’t feel the heat or roast a marshmallow with it, fake fire is almost as soothing as the real thing. And if you have kids or pets, it’s a whole lot safer. But why go to the expense of buying a lighted insert when you could just
make your own
?
You don’t even need to get fancy with a microcontroller and RGB LEDs, either — just do what [Ham-made] did and dismantle some LED flame bulbs. They already have everything you need, and the flex PCB makes them easy to work with.
[Ham-made] adhered three bulbs’ worth to a piece of foam board with double-stick tape, soldered all the leads together, and wired in a toggle switch and a 2xAA battery pack. The bulbs each had a tilt switch so that the “flames” flow upward regardless of orientation, but [Ham-made] removed those to avoid flickering connectivity and fights with the toggle switch.
Once it was all wired up, [Ham-made] hot-glued some magnets to the foam board and attached it to the underside of the grate to keep it safe from the logs and the ash pit, while still allowing the glow to emanate from the right spot for realism. The only thing missing are the crackles and pops, and [Ham-made] is burning to hear your implementation ideas.
[Ham-made] wasn’t using his fireplace in the traditional way because the house is smallish and centrally heated. But if you rely on yours to keep you warm and cozy, why not
make it voice-activated
? | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218736",
"author": "TacticalNinja",
"timestamp": "2020-02-11T08:17:24",
"content": "You may want to check out [Adam Savage]’s One Day Build: v=JMv0PlMKkbs which uses an off-the-shelf fake fire bulb with a neat housing. On top of that is the surprisingly easy conversion of the mains... | 1,760,373,593.484417 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/10/welcome-to-mcdonalds-would-you-like-3d-printing-resin-with-that/ | Welcome To McDonald’s; Would You Like 3D Printing Resin With That? | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"cooking oil",
"McDonald's",
"resin"
] | University of Toronto researchers have succeeded in converting used cooking oil — from McDonald’s, no less — into
high-resolution 3D printing resin
. Your first response might be: “Why?”, but thinking about it there are several advantages. For one thing, waste oil is a real problem for the food industry, and thus it can be acquired rather cheaply. An even bigger benefit is that the plastic that originates from this oil is biodegradable. Their 3d-printed butterfly, of course, is made from the recycled resin.
We aren’t chemists, but apparently 3D resin has a lot in common with cooking oil already. The team used a one-step chemical process to convert one liter of McDonald’s greasiest into a little more than 400 milliliters of resin.
Conventional 3D printing resin derives from fossil fuels (as opposed to the renewable PLA often used in FDM printers), and takes multiple steps. This drives its cost up. The researchers think they can produce their resin for about $300 per metric ton.
The one thing that worried us was the biodegradability. They claim that a buried object lost about 20% of its weight in a week due to microbes eating the fat. We don’t know how long the pieces would last sitting up on your kitchen counter.
Resin printers are
getting more common
, even though they still aren’t as plentiful as fused filament fabrication. If you want to try one, be sure you know
what you are getting into
. | 33 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218694",
"author": "The Gambler",
"timestamp": "2020-02-11T03:39:12",
"content": "the problem is not that there is nothing to do with the waste oil from these places as there are plenty of uses for it, it is more along the lines of the regulations that you have to go through to do ... | 1,760,373,593.436841 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/10/converted-car-lets-toddlers-tool-around/ | Converted Car Lets Toddlers Tool Around | Kristina Panos | [
"how-to",
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"assistive device",
"Joystick",
"Power Wheels",
"PVC",
"ride on car"
] | A few years ago, a professor at the University of Delaware started a project called Go Baby Go. It’s designed to bring fun and affordable mobility to small children with disabilities. The idea is to modify Power Wheels cars to make them easier for disabled kids to operate, and to teach as many people as possible how to do it in the process. The [South Eugene Robotics Team]
is taking this a step further
by replacing the steering wheel with a joystick that controls two motors with an Arduino Nano.
In the first instance you replace the foot pedal with a push button. The plans also call for a PVC frame, a high-backed seat, and a seat belt to make it safer. The end result is a fun ride the kid can control themselves that functions a lot like a power wheelchair, but is much more affordable. It has the added bonus of being a fun conversation piece for the other kids instead of a weird scary thing.
They also replace the front wheels with 5″ casters, because being able to spin around in circles is awesome. Their project shows how to do the entire conversion in great detail, starting with a standard ride-on car that comes with some assembly required. Motor past the break to check out a short demo with an extremely happy child tooling around in a fire truck.
If these kids get too wild, they’re gonna need
traction control for these things
. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218667",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2020-02-11T00:20:56",
"content": "Oh that is so cool, I love it! And now parents of disabled kids can enjoy the thrill of chasing after a runaway toddler (roller) just like every other parent!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,373,593.5234 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/10/huge-seven-segment-display-made-from-broken-glass/ | Huge Seven Segment Display Made From Broken Glass | Tom Nardi | [
"clock hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"clock",
"diffuser",
"epoxy",
"RGB LED strip",
"seven segment display",
"wall clock"
] | A staple of consumer devices for decades, seven segment displays are arguably one of the most recognizable electronic components out there. So it’s probably no surprise they’re cheap and easy to source for our own projects. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for personal interpretation.
[MacCraiger] wanted to build a wall clock with the classic seven segment LED look,
only his idea was to make it
slightly
larger than average
. With RGB LED strips standing in for individual LEDs, scaling up the concept isn’t really a problem on a technical level; the tricky part is diffusing that many LEDs and achieving the orderly look of a real seven segment display.
All those segments perfectly cut out of a sheet of plywood come courtesy of a CNC router. Once the rectangles had been cut out, [MacCraiger] had to fill them with something that could soften up the light coming from the LEDs mounted behind them. He decided to break up a bunch of glass bottles into small chunks, lay them inside the segments, and then seal them in with a layer of clear epoxy. The final look is unique, almost as though the segments are blocks of ice.
At first glance the use of a Raspberry Pi Zero to control the LED strips might seem overkill, but as it turns out, [MacCraiger] has actually added in quite a bit of extra functionality. The purists might say it still could have been done with an ESP8266, but being able to toss some Python scripts on the Linux computer inside your clock certainly has its appeal.
The big feature is interoperability with Amazon’s Alexa. Once he tells the digital home assistant to set an alarm, the clock will switch over to a countdown display complete with digits that change color as the timer nears zero. He’s also written some code that slowly shifts the colors of the digits towards red as the month progresses, a great way to visualize at a glance how close you are to blowing past that end of the month deadline.
We’ve seen something of a run on custom multi-segment displays recently. Just last month we saw
a clock that used some incredible 25-segment LED displays
, complete with their own unique take on the on epoxy-filled diffusers. | 12 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218659",
"author": "MAC",
"timestamp": "2020-02-10T23:44:40",
"content": "brilliant ideawonder where he got all the empty beer bottles from.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6218740",
"author": "Martin",
"times... | 1,760,373,593.886654 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/10/recreating-fast-oscilloscopes-is-a-slow-process/ | Recreating Fast Oscilloscopes Is A Slow Process | Kristina Panos | [
"cons",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"2019 Hackaday Superconference",
"coplanar waveguide",
"oscilloscope",
"sampling oscilloscope",
"tdr",
"tektronix"
] | If you want to do something you’ve never done before, there are two broadly-defined ways of approaching it: either you learn everything you can about it and try to do it right the first time, or you get in there and get your hands dirty, and work out the details along the way. There’s a lot to be said for living life by the seat of your pants. Just ask anyone who found inspiration in the 11th hour of a deadline, simply because they had no other choice.
Ted Yapo didn’t have a lot of high-speed design knowledge when he set out to build an open-source multi-GHz sampling oscilloscope, but he didn’t let that stop him. Fast forward a year or so, and Ted’s ready to build his third prototype armed with all the hands-on practical knowledge he’s gained from building the first two.
At the 2019 Hackaday Superconference,
Ted gave a talk about his journey into the high-stakes world of high-speed design
. It’s an inspiring talk, and Ted gives a good look into everything he’s learned in trying to build a sampling ‘scope. We think you’ll appreciate not only Ted’s work, but also the ease with which he explains it all.
So why is Ted doing all of this? For one thing, his 1989 Tektronix has been trucking along for 75,000+ hours, and it won’t last forever. The bigger problem is that this is one of the last digital scopes to use equivalent-time sampling, because manufacturers jumped to real-time sampling within a few years. Ted sees the opportunity to duplicate this with modern technology, and we are over here nodding vigorously and setting aside cash for whenever this thing is ready to either buy outright or build.
Equivalent-Time Sampling
The first scope Ted ever used was a 1968 Tektronix, so that’s where he started his studies. His journey began with that age-old question: how do equivalent-time sampling ‘scopes work, exactly? He found schematics and descriptions for that vintage, and then bought a used one and dismantled it.
What Ted found inside the sampling head seems shockingly simple. There are two Schottky diodes doing the sampling, and they are fed short current pulses by a separate strobing circuit controlled by a step recovery diode.
Ted quickly discovered that the biggest hurdle would be generating these extremely fast pulses. He found that while it’s harder for the hobbyist to get bleeding-edge components that get the speed down to single-digit picosecond range, it’s definitely possible to get to the 20-30 ps range with affordable components.
Analog to Digital Conversion
Armed with enough knowledge to be dangerous, Ted built an analog sampler using a six-Schottky diode gate and a couple of 74HC logic chips to generate the strobing pulses. Ted says it took half an hour to take his first sample because the UI is completely manual — he sampled using a potentiometer, read the values off of a voltmeter, and wrote them all down, covering five sheets of paper. But it worked, and he calculated the bandwidth at 141MHz.
For his second prototype, Ted went digital. He explains that this method uses a comparator: it compares two inputs, and tells if one is higher than the other using successive approximation. This is the sampling part. But you also need a time base, and he ended up using a switched gate delay to align the clock edges.
Ted’s second prototype is several orders of magnitude faster than the first. He’s up to 7GHz bandwidth, has the rise time down to 48 picoseconds, and averages 100 gigasamples per second. Amazingly enough, the BOM comes in under $100 including the PCB. Are you salivating yet?
Fast Signals For a Fast ‘Scope
So, what can you do with such a fast scope? One thing Ted wants to do is Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR), which is a lot like radar for transmission lines. By sending a signal down a PCB trace or wire and measuring what comes back, you can determine the characteristic impedance of a circuit or section of a circuit.
Ted talks about a common problem in high-speed circuit designs: calculating the right trace width necessary for a coplanar waveguide. In other words, how wide should the copper squiggle connecting the components be to achieve
standard 50Ω impedance
? Many calculators have been built to make this easier, but they’re all based firmly in theory that doesn’t account for the realities of uneven impedance across the fiberglass in PCBs. So Ted made a board to test different trace widths. None of them hit 50Ω exactly, but with his handy new 7GHz ‘scope, he was able to easily determine that 22mil traces are optimal given the circumstances.
For the third prototype, Ted is shopping around for a 32-bit CPU and a way to enhance the time base circuitry. Aside from ultra-wideband radar and LIDAR, Ted is looking for interesting use cases, so hit him up on IO or Twitter if you’ve got fast signals that need scoping out. | 20 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218601",
"author": "Tecnologia y celulares",
"timestamp": "2020-02-10T20:12:08",
"content": "Looks alike to Walter White, I will be cautious with questions when conference ends ……… ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6218781",... | 1,760,373,593.840003 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/10/new-part-day-the-wi-fi-stepper-gets-ideas-working-faster/ | New Part Day: The Wi-Fi Stepper Gets Ideas Working Faster | Donald Papp | [
"cnc hacks",
"Featured",
"Slider",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"ATECC508A",
"ESP8266",
"NEMA",
"NEMA17",
"prototyping",
"stepper",
"stepper driver",
"stepper motor",
"wifi",
"WSX100"
] | Like most of us, I sometimes indulge in buying a part for its potential or anticipated utility rather than for a specific project or purpose. That’s exactly how I ended up with
the WSX100 Wi-Fi Stepper
, a single board device intended to be one of the fastest and easiest ways to get a stepper motor integrated into a project. Mine came from their
Crowd Supply campaign
, which raised money for production and continues to accept orders.
What’s It For?
The WSX100 Wi-Fi Stepper Driver (with motor), by Good Robotics
The main reason the Wi-Fi Stepper exists is to make getting a stepper motor up and running fast and simple, in a way that doesn’t paint a design into a corner. The device can certainly be used outside of prototyping, but I think one of its best features is the ability to help quickly turn an idea into something physical. When prototyping, it’s always better to spend less time on basic bits like driving motors.
In a way, stepper motors are a bit like RGB LEDs or LCD displays were before integrated drivers and easy interfaces became common for them. Steppers require work (and suitable power supplies) to get up and running, and that effort can be a barrier to getting an idea off the ground. With the Wi-Fi Stepper, a motor can be fired up and given positional commands (or set to a speed and direction) in no time at all. By sending commands over WiFi, there isn’t even the need to wire up any control logic.
Why Use Steppers?
Stepper motors are great for any project that needs to do physical work in the real world with any sort of exactitude. Every 3D printer, laser cutter, and other CNC device uses them. They’re inexpensive, come in standardized shapes and sizes, can be precisely controlled, and can interface with many things directly without needing a gearbox. The downside is that steppers aren’t quite plug-and-play. They may be common, but they are also relatively complex electromechanical devices that require more than just applying power to get them to move. If you’re new to the idea of steppers,
this project explains the theory and inner workings beautifully by using an oversized, 3D printed stepper as a visual aid
.
What the Wi-Fi Stepper Delivers
All that’s really needed for the WSX100 to work is to hook up a DC power supply (input range of 9-80 V supported) and attach a stepper motor; there are convenient presets for NEMA 11, 17, 23, 34, and 42 motors. Once power is applied, the board will by default create a wireless access point named
wsx100-ap
with a unique id appended to the name.
Easy operation consists of connecting to the device’s network, then opening a browser window to 192.168.4.1 (or
wsx100.local
if enabled) and using the Quickstart section of the web interface. From there, the motor can be set to either servo mode (motor moves to a position on command) or speed mode (motor is given a direction and speed), and is then ready to move.
All configuration and basic movements are accessible via this web interface; simply drag the shaft position or click a direction and the motor will immediately do it. There are also Python and RESTful interfaces, so all commands and configuration can be done using HTTP GET requests, usually from python or a bash script (the latter uses
curl
piped to
jq
, a tool for command-line JSON processing.)
Embedded below is a short video demonstrating Servo Mode with a NEMA17 motor attached to a simple 3D-printed assembly. First the servo is moved by dragging the handle in the web interface, then a simple bash script is run that demonstrates bouncing between two points with a one second delay between each position. The commands in the script came from copying and pasting from the Quick Code section of the web interface, one of several handy features.
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/WSX100-Wi-Fi-Stepper-Servo-Mode-Video.mp4
‘Quick Code’ Feature
There’s a particularly handy section in the web interface I want to highlight. After setting all desired configuration options (and there are presets for everything from NEMA 11 to 42 as well as stall detection, shutdown parameters, and everything else) and optionally giving a movement command, a Quick Code window provides matching sample code for both Python and Bash scripts. Therefore, after using the web interface to test things, a cut and paste will provide code to do exactly the same thing.
What the Wi-Fi Stepper board
doesn’t
have is a hardware encoder for absolute motor position sensing. This isn’t uncommon, but don’t misunderstand “Servo Mode” as implying the presence of such an encoder. Servo Mode in this context refers to moving the motor shaft by telling it to go to a specific position, which it then does and holds that position until further notice.
There’s one more feature I’d like to get into: wireless security.
Let’s Celebrate That Security
Wasn’t
An Afterthought
Something that caught my eye on this project was how seriously security was taken during development. Being mindful of security is good practice in principle, but there’s a practical consideration as well. The developers made a valid point that since the board can support large motors at high currents, there is potential for real damage to result from someone mistreating or compromising the unit and telling it to do things it shouldn’t. Security is always worth taking seriously, but as the developers put it:
Security is
hard
. Really hard. In a world where IoT devices are notoriously bad at security, we hope [our efforts are] a step in the right direction.
You can gain some insights into security design by
reading the developer update that explains how exactly they approached securing a device like this
. Briefly, it starts by stating some assumptions about how the device will be used and in what context, and letting the security design flow from those points.
In the case of the WSX100 Wi-Fi Stepper it is assumed that the device will be provisioned and configured in a secure environment, no sensitive information will be transmitted as part of commands, and physical security (e.g. tamper protection and detection) is out of scope. Working from these assumptions, the WSX100’s security focused on ensuring that only commands from an authenticated source are considered valid (thwarting things like man-in-the-middle and replay attacks.)
To do this, the WSX100 uses the
ATECC508A by Microchip
to provide an authentication key framework, and if enabled, implementing it is made painless by the API. Once the master key is set on the device, commands are transmitted unencrypted but with a computed signature attached. If a command’s signature is not valid, the command is not legitimate. It is not possible to deduce the master key from the signature, and by not encrypting transmissions there is minimal overhead and latency added.
The team also explains possible security issues that have not been addressed or could still cause problems. For example, for a wireless device denial of service or jamming is a possibility. While not much can be done to prevent attacks of that nature, it is possible to use timeouts to ensure that motors are parked in safe positions in the case of a loss of connectivity.
It’s wonderful to see security taken seriously, and not as an afterthought.
How Does It Fare?
The Wi-Fi Stepper is easy to get up and running, supports a wide range of motors and voltages, and security hasn’t been ignored. So far so good, but what does it do best, and are there any shortfalls?
As someone who doesn’t live and breathe steppers in my usual projects, some of the best value comes from making them almost plug-and-play. Any projects that do physical work (like automatic pet feeders or
automated curtains
) are better to develop the easier it is to play with the motors. Also important to consider are the things it
doesn’t
do.
The Wi-Fi Stepper absolutely does a great job of getting a motor moving,
but it doesn’t have any external sensors (like limit switches) or simple ways to add them. That means it’s ridiculously easy to tell a motor “start turning” but adding “…until this switch is hit, then stop” is up to the developer.
[Update: Good news! Actually there is an input for this; it’s the
SW
pin and
GoUntil
command. See also below.] Likewise, there is no built-in support for an encoder with which to track and sense the motor’s real-world position, so applications that require an encoder will need one added and managed separately. The API and web interface won’t have any knowledge of them.
That all being said, position encoding isn’t necessary for using steppers effectively and the device’s Servo Mode — the ability to tell the motor to move to a certain position and stop there — can cover most bases.
Still, being able to integrate a limit switch or two would have been a nice feature.
[Update: The
SW
pin can be used to attach a zeroing or limit switch. It works with the
GoUntil
command, which I had embarrassingly
completely
missed until it was kindly pointed out to me.]
The ability to get a stepper going with minimal wiring and little more than a browser window is an awfully nice tool that I’m delighted to add to my workbench. The WSX100 Wi-Fi Stepper is, of course, open source. The
Github repository is here
and online documentation is at
wifistepper.com
. It’s available
directly from Crowd Supply
. | 38 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218560",
"author": "Severe Tire Damage",
"timestamp": "2020-02-10T18:34:43",
"content": "A bad idea whose time has come.I can’t imagine any way this would be useful. Doing anything like sensing limits and then telling the motor to stop via commands over Wifi would be epic bad desi... | 1,760,373,593.648956 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/08/lightbulb-glows-when-you-have-that-eureka-moment/ | Lightbulb Glows When You Have That Eureka Moment | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"lamp",
"neopixel"
] | We’re not entirely sure where the lightbulb-idea concept came from, but it’s a cultural touchstone rapidly becoming outmoded by the prevalence of compact fluorescent and LED lighting. Despite this,
[Alex Glow] and [Moheeb Zara] whipped up the Prometheus Lamp to let you experience it for real.
The build starts with a glass lightbulb souvenir from the Neon Museum in Las Vegas. Inside, a TinyLily Mini microcontroller board is tasked with talking to an accelerometer to detect movement. When the lightbulb is picked up and oriented in the vertical axis, it lights up a NeoPixel LED, glowing to indicate that you’ve just had a remarkable idea! It’s all powered off a single CR2032 coin cell, thanks to the low voltage requirements of the modern TinyLily components.
It’s a build that serves as a good way to learn about accelerometers, and it makes a fun desk toy, too. We’ve seen some other projects go by the name “Prometheus”, too —
like a wrist mounted flame thrower
. How’s that for variety? | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218090",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-02-09T03:34:21",
"content": "I just want it to say “Light bulb!” in Gru’s voice.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6218098",
"author": "Onetruegod",
"timestamp": "2020... | 1,760,373,593.692031 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/08/3d-printing-for-wire-paths-yields-an-arduboy-minus-the-pcb/ | 3D Printing For Wire Paths Yields An Arduboy Minus The PCB | Jenny List | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Arduino Hacks",
"Games"
] | [
"3d printing",
"Arduboy",
"pcb"
] | What is part way between a printed circuit board and a rats-nest of point-to-point wiring? We’re not sure, but this is it. [Johan von Konow] has come up with an inspired solution,
3D printing an Arduboy case with channels ready-made for all the wires
. The effect with his 3DPCBoy is of a PCB without the PCB, and allows the console to be made very quickly and cheaply.
The Arduboy — which
we originally looked at back in 2014
— is a handheld gaming console in a somewhat Gameboy-like form factor. Normally a credit-card sized PCB hosts all the components, including a microcontroller, display, and buttons. Each has a predictable footprint and placement so they can simply be wired together with hookup wire, if you don’t mind a messy result.
Here the print itself has all the holes ready-created for the components, and the path of the wires has a resemblance to the sweeping traces of older hand-laid PCBs. The result is very effective way to take common components — and Arduino pro micro board for the uC, an OLED breakout board, and some buttons — and combine them into a robust package. This technique of using 3D prints as a combination of enclosure and substrate for components and wiring has an application far beyond handheld gaming. We look forward to seeing more like it.
[Via
the Arduboy community forum
, thanks Kevin Bates for the tip.] | 23 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218058",
"author": "MacAttack",
"timestamp": "2020-02-09T00:33:16",
"content": "Have the patents on MultiWire boards expired ? With todays cheap CNC machines I can envision a consumer/hobbyist grade machine being a thing for prototypes.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,373,593.949269 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/08/a-modern-take-on-the-paperclip-computer/ | A Modern Take On The “Paperclip Computer” | Tom Nardi | [
"classic hacks",
"computer hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"digital computer",
"digital logic",
"early computer",
"paperclip computer",
"replica"
] | Back in 1968, a book titled
“How to Build a Working Digital Computer”
claimed that the sufficiently dedicated reader could assemble their own functioning computer at home using easily obtainable components. Most notably, the design utilized many elements that were fashioned from bent paperclips. It’s unclear how many readers actually assembled one of these so-called “Paperclip Computers”, but today we’re happy to report that
[Mike Gardi] has completed his interpretation of the 50+ year old homebrew computer
.
A view behind the computer’s ALU
The purist might be disappointed to see how far [Mike] has strayed from the original, but we see his embrace of modern construction techniques as a necessary upgrade. He’s recreated the individual computer components
as they were described in the book
, but this time plywood and wheat bulbs have given way to 3D printed panels and LEDs. While the details may be different, the end goal is the same: a programmable digital computer on a scale that can be understood by the operator.
To say that [Mike] did a good job of documenting his build would be an understatement. He’s spent the last several months covering every aspect of the build on Hackaday.io, giving his followers a fantastic look at what goes into a project of this magnitude. He might not have bent many paperclips for his Working Digital Computer (WDC-1), but he certainly designed and fabricated plenty of impressive custom components. We wouldn’t be surprised if some of them, such as the
3D printed slide switch we covered last month
, started showing up in other projects.
While the WDC-1 is his latest and certainly greatest triumph, [Mike] is no stranger to recreating early digital computers. We’ve been
bringing you word of his impressive replicas for some time now
, and each entry
has been even more impressive than the last
. With the WDC-1 setting the bar so high, we can’t wait to see what he comes up with next. | 44 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6218033",
"author": "Pablo",
"timestamp": "2020-02-08T22:32:38",
"content": "From the learning point, do you think building and operating in a computer like this one can have any value today ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": ... | 1,760,373,594.031768 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/08/generate-3d-printable-qr-codes-with-this-web-tool/ | Generate 3D Printable QR Codes With This Web Tool | Tom Nardi | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"3MF",
"qr code",
"stl",
"web based"
] | Since most people are carrying a camera-equipped computer in their pockets these days, QR codes can be a great way to easily share short snippets of information. You can put one on your business card so people can quickly access your contact information, or on your living room wall with your network’s SSID and encryption key. The design of QR codes also make them well suited to 3D printing, and thanks to a new web-based tool,
you can generate your own custom STL in seconds
.
Created by [Felix Stein], the website provides an easy to use interface for the many options possible with QR codes. Obviously you have full control over the actual content of the code, be it a simple URL or a something more specific like a pre-formatted SMS message. But you can also tweak physical parameters like size and thickness.
Once you’re happy with the 3D preview, you can have the website generate an STL for either single or multi-extrusion printers. For those of us who are puttering along with single extruder machines, you’ll need to swap the filament color at the appropriate layer manually. With so many variables involved, you’ll also need figure out which layer the swap should happen on your own.
Incidentally, this is an excellent example of where STL leaves something to be desired. When using a format like 3MF, color and material information could be baked right into the model. Once opened in a sufficiently modern slicer, all the tricky bits would automatically sorted out. Or at least,
that’s what Prusa Research is hoping for
. | 15 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6217980",
"author": "Someguy",
"timestamp": "2020-02-08T19:14:01",
"content": "This is great for those times when printing on a piece of paper isn’t cool enough for you.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6217983",
"autho... | 1,760,373,594.083134 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/08/usb-password-keeper-runs-on-tiny-chip/ | USB Password Keeper Runs On Tiny Chip | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"attiny",
"attiny85",
"keeper",
"password",
"security",
"snopf",
"usb"
] | The most important rule of password use, especially when used for online logins, is to avoid reusing passwords. From there, one’s method of keeping track of multiple passwords can vary considerably. While memorization is an option in theory, in practice a lot of people make use of a password manager like Lastpass or KeePass. For those with increased security concerns, though, you may want to implement a
USB password keeper like this one
based on an ATtiny.
This password keeper, called “snopf”, is a USB device with an ATtiny85 which adds a layer of separation to password keeping that increases security substantially. Passwords are created by the USB device itself using a 128-bit key to generate the passwords, which are physically detached from the computer. Password requests are made by the computer to the USB device, but the user must push a button on the snopf in order to send the password to the computer. It does this by emulating a keyboard, keeping the password information off of the computer’s clipboard.
Of course, snopf isn’t perfectly secure, and the project’s creator [Hajo] goes into detail on the project’s page about some of the potential vulnerabilities. For most use cases, though, none of these are of serious concern. Upgrading your password keeper to a physical device is likely to be a huge security improvement regardless,
and one was actually developed on Hackaday
a few years ago. | 37 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6217934",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "2020-02-08T15:40:57",
"content": "Can this install on a digispark for example? I realize I would need to add a button, but I would prefer a remote button anyway",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"com... | 1,760,373,594.154598 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/08/a-3-3-v-tube-preamp-without-an-inverter/ | A 3.3 V Tube Preamp Without An Inverter | Jenny List | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"6J6",
"pentode",
"tube",
"tube audio",
"Tube Preamp",
"valve",
"valve audio"
] | If you’ve ever worked with vacuum tubes, you’ll probably have a healthy appreciation for high voltage power supplies. These components require higher potentials to get those electrons moving, or so we’re told. It’s not the whole truth though,
as [
Albert van Dalen
] demonstrates with his tube preamplifier running from only 3.3 V
. If your first thought is that he must have made a flyback converter to step that voltage up to something more useful then you’re in for a surprise, because the single 6J6 pentode really does run from just 3.3 volts. Even its heater, normally supplied with 6.3 V, takes the lower voltage.
The circuit appears at first sight to be a conventional single-ended design, but closer examination reveals a grid bias circuit more reminiscent of a bipolar transistor. This results in a positive grid voltage rather than the more usual negative, and an unusually high 0.3 mA grid current. The cathode current is only 0.15 mA, but the preamplifier delivers a 3.5x gain.
There is more detail on his website
.
It would be interesting to subject this circuit to a full audio analysis and comparison with a more conventional design. As with so much in the world of audio there’s some smoke and mirrors around what constitutes the so-called “valve sound”, and it’s a question whether the satisfaction comes through the sound itself or the bragging rights of having a unit with a vacuum tube on show. Still, this is a simple enough design which takes few resources to build, so we look forward to seeing further experimentation. Careful though –
down the vacuum audio route can lie folly
. | 34 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6217927",
"author": "Doug Coulter",
"timestamp": "2020-02-08T14:32:18",
"content": "Transcription issue – it’s the _plate_ current that is .15 ma. I checked as it seemed impossible for the cathode current to be less than the grid current (pretty basic stuff).I recall the 6j6 type, ... | 1,760,373,594.269931 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/08/this-pic-is-a-squarewave-generator/ | This PIC Is A Squarewave Generator | Jenny List | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"oscillator",
"pic",
"squarewave"
] | When we use a microcontroller to flip a few GPIOs or talk SPI to a peripheral chip, we are often overlooking that it will usually contain an array of built-in peripherals that were once the preserve of extra hardware. Analogue ports, timers, UARTs, and clock generators, to name just a few. [Giovanni Bernardo] has been experimenting with one of these, the internal frequency synthesiser on many PIC microcontrollers, and he’s produced a handy square wave generator
for which he’s placed code on GitHub
and produced
a write-up
(Italian language,
Google translate link
).
The board used is a PIC16F375 Curiosity Nano, and code takes input from a rotary encoder to set the frequency, with a button to select different step sizes and an alphanumeric LCD display to show the current settings. Frequencies from 1 Hz to 15 MHz are possible, with a clever switch between two of the PICs internal clocks to be used as the reference frequency. Stability depends upon whatever source the PIC uses for its own clock, and while we suspect that will be enough for most users it’s not inconceivable that the PIC could be clocked from a GPS-disciplined source or similar were there a requirement for it.
There are plenty of ways to generate square waves from a microcontroller.
Most projects use waveform generator
ICs. | 18 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6217924",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-02-08T14:00:08",
"content": "Gonna need to see that on a scope, to see how clean or messy the transitions are before I know if it’s useful or not.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"commen... | 1,760,373,594.20244 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/07/a-very-buttoned-up-raspberry-pi-media-server/ | A Very Buttoned Up Raspberry Pi Media Server | Tom Nardi | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"3D printed enclosure",
"media server",
"nas",
"usb drive"
] | Projects that turn the Raspberry Pi into a low-cost Network Attached Storage (NAS) solution are very common; all you need is the right software, the Pi itself, and some USB storage devices. But unless you particularly like the “Medusa” look, with loose cables running all over the place, you’ll probably want to put the hardware into a suitable enclosure. Unfortunately, that’s where the somewhat unusual layout of the Pi can make things tricky.
Which is why [AraymBox] came up with this
unique “capsule” enclosure for the Raspberry Pi and two USB-attached hard drives
. Every effort has been made to keep the outside of this design as clean and streamlined as possible. The asymmetrical loops of wires that we so often see on other projects are gone, with everything been brought inside thanks to some clever wiring. This enclosure looks like a professional product, and if you’re willing to put in the effort, you can have one to call your own.
The good news is that the 3D printed enclosure only has four parts, albeit rather large ones, and none of which require support material. So it should be an easy print even on a relatively low-end machine. Of course, you’re not going to get that futuristic metallic look without a little work. You’ll need to do a considerable amount of
sanding, filling, and paint work to get that kind of a surface finish
. Then again, that rough “just printed” look has a certain cyberpunk appeal to it as well.
But the printed enclosure is only half the battle. Inside, [AraymBox] has soldered the USB to SATA adapter cables directly to the Raspberry Pi to keep things tight and compact. A micro USB breakout board was then used to add a power connector on the back of the device where the Ethernet and USB ports are, solving the issue of having one lonely USB cable coming out of the side of the case.
In the past we’ve seen other attempts to
create a 3D printable enclosure for Pi servers
, with varying levels of success. While some would argue that the better solution is to just
throw the Pi and the drives in a large enough enclosure
that it doesn’t matter what the wiring looks like, we appreciate the effort that some hackers are willing to put in to make something custom. | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6217877",
"author": "Jonathan Bennett",
"timestamp": "2020-02-08T07:09:16",
"content": "I wonder if heat is a problem on this one.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6217896",
"author": "sudos",
"timestamp": "2020... | 1,760,373,594.328415 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/07/hacking-multiplication-binary-multiply-on-paper/ | Hacking Multiplication: Binary Multiply On Paper | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"binary math",
"binary multiplication",
"egyptian",
"math",
"multiplication",
"russian"
] | We’ve often noted that whether had ancient man known binary, we could all count to 1023 on our fingers. We thought about that while watching [Numberphile’s] latest video about
“Russian” multiplication
(see below). Apparently, the method dates back quite a way, sometimes known as Ethiopian or peasant multiplication. Even the ancient Egyptians did a form of it.
If you’ve ever written long multiplication code for a microcontroller, you can probably tell how this works. Each halving of the number amounts to a right shift. Each doubling is a left shift. Throwing out the even numbers means you only take the values when the least-significant bit is zero.
Booth’s algorithm
is more efficient, but the “Russian” method is simple to do on paper.
The main difference between the Russian and Egyptian methods is if you start with one of the multiplicands (Russian) or start with 1 and work your way up (Egyptian). Either way, you ought to start with the smallest multiplicand.
For example, suppose you have 321 x 17. You would pick 17 since it is smaller and halve it to form the left side of your table. Throw away any halves as those are bits shifting off the right-hand side. The right side of the table starts with the other number (321) and doubles on each row. So:
17 321
8 642
4 1284
2 2568
1 5136
The rows for 8, 4, and 2 are even, so they represent multiply by zero in the long multiplication. You can cross them out. That leaves the row for 17 and 1. Adding those up, you get 5457, the correct answer.
If you want to see the binary case, consider 9×3, which we know is 27 and using the Russian method works out to 9+18. In binary, we would say:
1001
x 0011
-----------
000000
000000
10010 (18)
1001 (9)
-------------
0011011 (27)
Oddly, this is only one way the Egyptians knew how to calculate. Some of how they dealt with fractions was not
completely understood until 2002
.
This is a great example of how a rote method works, even if you
don’t understand why
, but it is better if you do understand. Of course, these days, we can just
ask a computer
.
m | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6217858",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2020-02-08T03:30:59",
"content": "“Of course, these days, we can just ask a computer.”Computer doesn’t understand it either. :-p",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6217860",
"author... | 1,760,373,594.497181 |
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