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https://hackaday.com/2022/11/06/a-pi-pico-oscilloscope/ | A Pi Pico Oscilloscope | Jenny List | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"adc",
"oscilloscope",
"Raspberry Pi Pico"
] | At the budget end of the oscilloscope range lie the so-called pocket ‘scopes. About the size of a deck of cards, they combine a microcontroller and an LCD screen to make an instrument with a bandwidth in the tens of kilohertz and a not-too-sparkling performance. They’re something of a toy, but then again, if all that’s needed is a simple ‘scope for audio frequencies, they make a passable choice in a small package. Now [
jgpeiro
] has made one which is light years ahead of the toy kits,
using a Raspberry Pi Pico, a 100 MHz ADC, and an effort to design a better input circuit
.
At its simplest this could be a straightforward op-amp and ADC circuit feeding the Pico, but instead it has multiple stages carefully designed to offer the full bandwidth, and with gain, offset, and trigger settings being set by a series of DAC chips under software control. This and the decent bandwidth make this a much more viable oscilloscope, and one we’d like to see further developed.
By comparison,
we took a look at the best of the competition a few years ago
. | 40 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528939",
"author": "Ø",
"timestamp": "2022-11-06T21:22:30",
"content": "Anything that helps lower the barriers in regarding to “f@#&ing around and finding out” is a good thing.Especially when it comes to electronics where someone who’s only getting their feet wet can’t justify eith... | 1,760,372,506.198349 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/06/conducting-plastic-can-replace-metal/ | Conducting Plastic Can Replace Metal | Al Williams | [
"Science"
] | [
"conductive polymer",
"conductor",
"plastic",
"polymer"
] | The University of Chicago has announced they have created a material that
behaves like plastic but conducts like metal
. They also say they don’t fully understand why it works yet. Usually, good conductors like metals have very orderly atomic structures, something that plastics tend not to have.
The material is based on nickel, carbon, and sulfur. The resulting material was conductive and stable. However, the atomic structure isn’t orderly like a traditional conductor.
Described as “conductive Play-Doh,” the researchers report you can deform the material without changing its ability to conduct. Of course, what we want to know is if we could extrude it from a 3D printer and — almost as important — is there a way to make it not malleable like Play-Doh?
The team expects they can use different linkers and nodes in the polymer chain to alter the material properties, but we don’t know where the end of the research will lead. However, it is clear that there is more than one way to organize conductors at the atomic level. Understanding that process could lead to a new class of materials, better superconductivity, and much more.
While we have seen
conductive plastic
before, it is usually a polymer impregnated with some conductive material. Or, you can
electroplate
it, but that’s easy to understand and harder to actually do well. | 45 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528875",
"author": "Mystick",
"timestamp": "2022-11-06T18:09:43",
"content": "“The material is based on nickel, carbon, and sulfur.”So… it’s an otherwise mundane metallic alloy with novel properties of malleability at room temperature?“…researchers report you can deform the materia... | 1,760,372,506.122855 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/06/mini-ultrasonic-levitation-kit-is-an-exercise-in-sound-minimalist-design/ | Mini Ultrasonic Levitation Kit Is An Exercise In Sound Minimalist Design | Abe Connelly | [
"ATtiny Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"attiny85",
"levitation",
"open source hardware",
"ultrasonic",
"ultrasound"
] | For those that haven’t heard, ultrasonic levitation is a process by which two or more ultrasonic transducers are set opposite to each other and excited in such a way as to create a standing wave between them. The sound is, as the name implies, ultrasonic — so outside the range of human hearing — but strong enough so that the small, light objects can be positioned and held fixed in mid-air where there’s a pressure minimum in the standing wave. [Olimex] has created a small
ultrasonic levitation kit
that exemplifies this phenomena.
The kit itself is made using through-hole components, with an ATTiny85 as the core microcontroller to drive two TCT40-16T ultrasonic speakers, and a MAX232
to provide a USB interface
drives the transducers (thanks to the folks in the comments for the correction). Two slotted rectangular PCB pieces that solder connect to the main board, provide a base so that the device stands upright when assembled. The whole device is powered through the USB connection, and the ultrasonic speakers output in the 40KHz range providing enough power to levitate small Styrofoam balls.
The project is, by design, an exercise in minimalism, providing a kit that can be easily assembled, and providing code that can be easily flashed onto the device, examined and modified.
All the design files, including the bill of materials, KiCAD schematics, and source code
are provided under an open source hardware license to allow for anyone wanting to know how such a project works, or to extend it themselves, ample opportunity. [Olimex] also has the
kit for sale
for those not wanting to source boards and parts themselves.
We’ve featured ultrasonic levitation devices before, from bare bones
system driven by a NE555
to
massive phased arrays
. | 20 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528841",
"author": "Yveaux",
"timestamp": "2022-11-06T16:18:34",
"content": "The MAX232 is driving the ultrasound transmitters, not the USB interface.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6529151",
"author": "Abe Connelly"... | 1,760,372,506.008215 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/05/supercon-is-on-join-us/ | Supercon Is On! Join Us! | Elliot Williams | [
"cons",
"News"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Prize",
"2022 Hackaday Supercon"
] | Supercon is in high gear, after a full day of badge hacking that went well into the midnight hour. Now it’s time for the talks!
If you’re not here in person, you can still get in on the talks by
following the 2022 Hackaday Supercon Livestream,
which will be covering all the LACM stage action.
We have a great lineup of speakers
starting off with a keynote by Joe [Kingpin] Grand at 10:00 AM PDT and ending with the 2022 Hackaday Prize Awards at 7:00 PM — come see who won live!
Of course, talks are only one component of Supercon. The secret sauce has always been the people at the con. If you’re not joining us, we still need you to take part. There is a
conference chat on Hackaday.io
and on the
Hackaday Discord server
and all are welcome. Pop in and visit with people at the con, and others around the globe who wish they could have made it in person.
Make sure you’re on the live stream Saturday evening to watch as the Grand Prize is presented on stage during the Hackaday Prize Ceremony. Pop into the chat and ask for updates on badge hacking, the SMD Soldering Challenge, and all of the other shenanigans that make Supercon super. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528507",
"author": "Muth",
"timestamp": "2022-11-05T16:35:22",
"content": "Can’t wait!As I never remember, PDT is UTC-7 :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6528605",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,372,506.045983 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/05/the-seven-segment-display-thats-also-an-input-device/ | The Seven-Segment Display That’s Also An Input Device | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"7 segment",
"74hc165",
"arduino",
"AS3144",
"duodecimal",
"hall effect",
"hexadecimal",
"seven segment"
] | We’re used to seeing all manner of seven-segment displays, be they mechanical, electronic, or something in between. But what all these displays have in common is that they’re, you know, displays. Using them as inputs would just be crazy talk, right?
Perhaps, but we like where [
Dave Ehnebuske
] is going with
“InSlide,” the seven-segment input device
. The idea for this comes from the
“DigiTag” display
, which we covered back in October, and divides a standard seven-segment character into three vertical strips — two skinny ones for the outside vertical segments, and one wide strip holding the horizontal elements. By sliding these strips up and down relative to each other, the standard nine digits, plus a few other characters, can be composed.
[Dave]’s take on this theme started by building his display from laser-cut plywood pieces, which is a nice choice because of the good contrast between the white wood and the engraver segments. Next, he embedded rare earth magnets in the slides and installed seven Hall effect sensors in the frame. The sensors are connected to an Arduino Nano via a 74HC165 parallel-load shift register, which lets multiple modules be daisy-chained together. He also built an Arduino library to read the current state of the segments; it supports the full hexadecimal character set, or even duodecimal if you like.
[Dave] has
shared the library
, and it looks like you can get the build files for the mechanism from the original project. That’s good, because this looks ripe for hacking. It looks like it would be pretty easy to motorize a display like this by adding rack-and-pinion gearing and steppers — something like that could make an interesting clock. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528579",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-11-05T20:38:30",
"content": "And let it output in Morse Code!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,372,506.235619 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/05/garage-door-opener-ejection-seat/ | Garage Door Opener Ejection Seat | Jonathan Bennett | [
"car hacks",
"Misc Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"Big Red Button",
"garage door opener"
] | [Scott Prints] had a familiar problem. His garage door opener was boring, and rattled around annoyingly in his car’s center console. This was obviously a major issue that needed to be dealt with. His solution was to install an ejector seat.
Er, well, an ejector seat button
. At least, that’s what it’s labeled. (That’s sure to be a great conversation starter for passengers.)
The end result looks slick and combines several build techniques. He started by taking measurements and 3D-printing a test piece for the center console nook. Turns out, that’s a more complicated shape than it seems. Rather than try to measure the exact angles and radii, Scott turned to the tried-and-true method of fiddling with the parameters and printing a second test. Close enough.
The coolest and most challenging element of the build was engraving and cutting the aluminum plate that forms the visible part of the build. Turns out, the online recommendations for milling aluminum are laughably optimistic when you don’t have an industrial CNC machine. Slower, shallower cuts got the job done, albeit slowly. A red paint-filled marker made the letters pop. The guts of the donor garage door opener are fitted into a 3d-printed shell, and then a Big Red Button threads into the print, holding the whole build together. A bit of solder later, and the project is done. Simple, effective, and very stylish! We approve. Come back after the break for the build video.
And if you need more garage door opener hacking,
We’ve got you covered
. And getting started with a home-built CNC? Yeah,
we’ve got that too
. | 16 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528424",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2022-11-05T11:20:28",
"content": "Needs a guard to prevent inadvertent ejection :-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6528580",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known A... | 1,760,372,506.339902 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/05/pieca-is-a-pi-camera-with-some-very-nice-lenses/ | Pieca Is A Pi Camera With Some Very Nice Lenses | Jenny List | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"leica",
"Raspberry Pi HQ camera",
"removable lens"
] | The advent of the high-quality version of the Raspberry Pi camera has given experimenters a good-enough quality camera system that they can use it to create better devices than mere snapshot cameras. It’s been used by experimenters for some exciting projects, but so far, very few of them have broken away from the Pi camera’s C-mount lens system. [Tom Schucker]’s Pieca is an interesting departure then, because it takes the Pi HQ camera into new territory
by using Leica rangefinder lenses
.
There are enough Pi camera projects that by now the process of setting one up should be pretty well known. This one is a bit different in its use of a focal length reducer, mounted inside a 3D-printed Leica lens mounting plate. The result is that the Leica lens is better matched to the much smaller size of the Pi camera sensor compared to a 35mm frame.
The camera’s aesthetic design is on the chunky side, probably because of the choice of a Pi 4 rather than a Pi Zero. It remains very usable though, and produces photographs with a distinctive feel. You can see more in the video below the break. Meanwhile if you aren’t lucky enough to own a stable of Leica lenses, perhaps you could think about adapting more common optics?
We’ve seen it before with the original Pi camera
. | 24 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528382",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2022-11-05T08:25:10",
"content": "I really like the simplicity of the design (big triangle) it seems really usable and well thought out. For example the USB stick located in the cover and the way the display is tilted. The explanation of the ... | 1,760,372,506.536453 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/04/keyboard-one-is-an-ear-of-corne/ | Keyboard One Is An Ear Of Corne | Kristina Panos | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"alice",
"Corne",
"keyboard",
"monoblock",
"stagger"
] | There are all kinds of avenues into the mechanical keyboarding hobby, and one of the more well-traveled ones runs between coworkers. [crsayen] aka [DrJamesOIncandenza] has one such relationship, and was turned on to the CRKBD a while back by an office mate. For the uninitiated, that’s short for Corne keyboard, which is a column-staggered 3×6 split keyboard with three thumb keys per hand.
While [JOI] liked the Corne well enough, especially with chocs, he got the occasional craving to slap (that’s what we’re calling typing on linears from now on — slapping vs. clacking) on some silent MX switches
and so built this Corne-derivative monoblock split
called Keyboard One. Aside from the more obvious differences,
We think this looks rather spanking for a first keyboard, sort of like a slightly smaller Alice or something. But you don’t have to go to great lengths to obtain [JOI]’s knowledge, for
everything is on GitHub
. [JOI] says they sort of regret going 3×6, but are already planning another build with more keys. See, that’s the spirit.
Via
KBD #101 | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528439",
"author": "Mat",
"timestamp": "2022-11-05T12:30:10",
"content": "There is no spacebar….",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6528476",
"author": "toddmok",
"timestamp": "2022-11-05T14:45:20",
"cont... | 1,760,372,506.285482 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/04/hackaday-prize-2022-ultratower-is-a-powerful-gardening-vertical/ | Hackaday Prize 2022: Ultratower Is A Powerful Gardening Vertical | Kristina Panos | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Prize",
"hydroponics",
"piezo",
"ultrasonic"
] | The more people we have on this planet, the more food we need. Naturally, this extends to water, another precious resource that generally plays a part in farming and food production. And honestly, we’d probably all eat
a little better if it were really easy to grow healthy things like spinach. Well, that excuse doesn’t work anymore, thanks to [J Gleyzes]’ Ultratower.
It’s a simple-to-use hydroponic tower that uses recycled mist to water plants
, ultimately saving water in the process.
The ‘ultra’ part is a function of the way mist is created. In this case, it’s done with three piezoelectric disks mounted under a tank in the top of the PVC tube. Stick up to twelve plants in the little cubbies, and their roots will grow down the inside, where they’ll receive a fine shower of water at your command. Water that runs off the roots collects in a small tank at the bottom, where a pump starts the process over again.
At first, [J Gleyzes] had trouble with the piezo disks — using 1.7MHz disks created too much heat, warming the water up to nearly 40°C (104°F). Since cooking the spinach prematurely would be bad, they experimented with other values, finally landing on 108KHz. Be sure to check out the video after the break.
The
Hackaday
Prize2022
is Sponsored by: | 29 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528286",
"author": "Chaemelion",
"timestamp": "2022-11-05T02:24:59",
"content": "Hmm. I like the concept, but I’d be afraid that the plants will need more than pure water, and whatever nutrients dissolved in the water will eventually build up a crusty deposit on the disk or clog th... | 1,760,372,506.408884 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/04/plywood-bicycle-makes-frame-building-more-accessible/ | Plywood Bicycle Makes Frame Building More Accessible | Navarre Bartz | [
"cnc hacks",
"green hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bicycle",
"bicycle frame",
"bike",
"cnc",
"DIY bicycle",
"open source bicycle",
"openbike",
"wooden bicycle",
"wooden bike"
] | Bike frames are simple on the surface, but can quickly become complicated if you want to fabricate one yourself. Brazing and welding tend to be less common skills than knowing how to bolt things together, so [Arquimaña] has brought us the
OpenBike
to make the process accessible to more people.
An open-source set of files designed for CNCs and 3D printers, the OpenBike uses readily available materials like sheet plywood to make a sturdy, if unconventional-looking, bicycle. Like many other consumer goods, most bike frames are currently built in Asia. This allows for economies of scale, but removes locals from the design process. By using simpler tools, OpenBike allows for more local direction of what features might be needed for a particular region.
Shifting even a small portion of trips
to more active forms of transport is an important part of lowering carbon emissions, so making bikes a more attractive means of transportation is always welcome. What might be important in one region might be superfluous and expensive in another (multiple gears in a hilly region, for example). OpenBike could be especially useful as a way to rapid-prototype different feature sets for a particular region before committing to a more traditional frame-building technique for larger batches of bikes.
If you want to see some other bike hacks, why not check out this
extending bicycle
, this
steampunk recumbent trike
, or these
bike hacks from around the world
?
via
Yanko Design | 37 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528227",
"author": "John R Guy",
"timestamp": "2022-11-04T23:24:05",
"content": "This has a big flaw in my mind: The lack of a horizontal connection between the rear hub and the the bottom bracket makes all the force of braking transfer across a torque arm to the frame. This missin... | 1,760,372,506.478924 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/06/supercon-sunday-check-the-live-stream/ | Supercon Sunday: Check The Live Stream | Elliot Williams | [
"cons",
"News"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Supercon"
] | Supercon is entering the final phase: it’s Sunday! But it’s not over yet: there is a
phenomenal lineup of talks
today, starting at 9:30 AM PST, and we’re
streaming the main stage live
from the very beginning until the badge-hacking awards ceremony at 5:30 pm. And if you’d like to join in the conversation, head over to the
Hack Chat
or the
Discord
.
We kicked off Friday with a full day of badge hacking, workshops, food, drink, and music. What used to be a late-afternoon pre-registration has grown into the early morning hours, and gave people a great opportunity to catch up after two years of remote mode.
Saturday was full-on Supercon, and the talks were phenomenal. We recorded interviews, took tons of photos, and of course recorded the talks given on the DesignLab stage, and we’ll be getting those out to you over the next weeks. (It’s a
lot
.)
In addition to all the talks, we
announced the winners of the 2022 Hackaday Prize
! It was a big year for small-scale energy generation and recycling, and all of the winning projects were clever, well tested, and easily replicable. Check them out.
So now that you’re all caught up, settle in for a jam-packed Sunday. See you in the livestream if not in real life! | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528846",
"author": "cmholm",
"timestamp": "2022-11-06T16:39:30",
"content": "Next year, I’ll know to sign up for workshops. The list looks awesome.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,372,506.583362 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/05/wall-art-with-a-moving-coil-or-two/ | Wall Art With A Moving Coil Or Two | Jenny List | [
"Art"
] | [
"artwork",
"display",
"moving coil. meter"
] | Almost every type of retro indicator technology from a Nixie tube to a flipdot with everything else in between has found itself on these pages in some form of artwork or decoration. It’s pleasing then to see one that hasn’t appeared so much over the years, and particularly at the hands of our colleague [Voja Antonic]. He’s
taken a large array of moving-coil panel meters and hooked them up to a microcontroller board that’s triggered by a PIR sensor
. Normally the readings are random, but get too close to it and all those needles start moving, making for a very different take on an electronic wall display.
He’s not given us the details of the control circuit he’s used, but in a sense that matters little. We think any Hackaday reader who knows one end of a soldering iron from the other should be able to produce a small DC current from a DAC to drive a meter, and we don’t think the software to make random readings would trouble many of you either.
Meanwhile [Voja] has produced so many interesting projects over the years, not least the 2022 Superconference badge.
Here’s one from a few years ago
. | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528742",
"author": "Garth Bock",
"timestamp": "2022-11-06T08:26:56",
"content": "Would have been nice to have a video posted. Nice way to show off the classic panel meter. Gives me an idea to something similar except have mine in a row that gradually light up like the Krell panel d... | 1,760,372,506.900745 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/05/hackaday-prize-2022-meet-the-winners-of-this-years-competition/ | Hackaday Prize 2022: Meet The Winners Of This Year’s Competition | Tom Nardi | [
"cons",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Prize",
"2022 Hackaday Supercon",
"awards ceremony",
"Hackaday Prize"
] | This year, the
2022 Hackaday Prize
challenged hackers and makers in the open source community to develop projects which evoked the concepts of
Sustainability, Resiliency, and Circularity
— ideas which perhaps have never been more important. As humanity works to become better stewards to the only planet they can call home, everything we build (or rebuild) should reflect our desire to preserve our world for future generations.
Today, we’re excited to announce the projects that our panel of expert judges believe best exemplified this year’s theme and took home their share of the $50,000 USD in prize money.
Grand Prize: 3D Printed Portable Wind Turbine
Our way of life depends on energy, but that doesn’t mean we have to rely on fossil fuels to produce it. Natural and renewable sources of energy such as solar, hydro, and wind can help power our homes while reducing our impact on the environment. Unfortunately, such systems can be difficult and expensive to install.
Enter this year’s Grand Prize winner, the
“3D Printed Portable Wind Turbine” created by [Adrian Cubas].
The printed marvel is lightweight, affordable, and can be quickly deployed as needed. While it might not be enough to power your neighborhood by itself, the diminutive turbine could be perfect for the developing world or off-grid applications.
2nd Place: Bloft Waste Printer
Recycling plastic is one of those things that sounds simple enough, but in practice, is far more expensive and time consuming than you might realize. The fact is, today most plastic goes un-recycled because it’s cheaper to toss it in a landfill and produce new materials.
But the
Bloft large-format printer developed by [Atte Linna]
aims to change that by providing a turn-key plastic recycling facility that can turn plastic waste into useful objects at a rate of 2 kilograms per hour.
3rd Place: Polyformer
With the proliferation of desktop 3D printers, it’s never been a better time to develop a reliable and affordable way of turning waste plastic into filament that you can run back through your machine a second time.
The Polyformer, developed by [Reiten Cheng] and [Swaleh Owais]
, aims to turn common plastic water bottles into usable filament for less than what it would cost to have it shipped to your door.
4th Place: Boondock Echo
Anyone who’s driven through the mountains knows that radio reception can be a problem, but there’s bigger concerns than not being able to hear your favorite tunes. Emergency workers need to be able to communicate during natural disasters, when losing contact with team members for even seconds could mean the difference between life and death.
Project Boondock Echo, developed by [Mark J Hughes] and [Kaushlesh Chandel]
is an internet-backed time-shift radio that uses commercially available handheld radios and a microcontroller-based internet gateway.
5th Place: Kite Turbine
The
kite turbine created by [Roddy “Rags” Read]
is a simple and lightweight generator inspired by how birds fly through the air. A kite holds a guide cable into the air, and a series of rotors spin around it to produce energy wherever you need it without any existing infrastructure.
While the current version is small enough to put into the trunk of a car, the plan is to scale the design up to produce as much as 10kW and operate without needing human intervention.
The Future is What we Make It
We saw an incredible number of projects entered into the 2022 Hackaday Prize, and selecting just five winners was no easy task. But even if they didn’t get their name called out this evening on stage at Supercon, it doesn’t mean they aren’t worth checking out and supporting.
So
take a look through the more than 300 projects
that entered this year’s challenge, find something that resonates with you, and see if you can’t help out. Whether you join the team or just give some advice in the comments, your involvement could be just what’s needed to take that project to the next level.
Who knows, you might just find yourself on the stage when we announce the winners next year.
Thanks again to DigiKey for making the prizes possible!
The
Hackaday
Prize2022
is Sponsored by: | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528690",
"author": "John Opsahl",
"timestamp": "2022-11-06T04:19:50",
"content": "Congrats to this year’s winners. Congrats to everyone else who competed and through sheer force of will turned their idea into a prototype.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,506.950069 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/05/when-only-a-to92-will-do/ | When Only A TO92 Will Do | Jenny List | [
"Parts"
] | [
"through hole",
"TO92",
"transistor"
] | As through-hole components are supplanted by their surface-mount equivalents, we’re beginning to see the departure of once-common component form factors. Many such as the metal can transistors became rare years ago, while others still hang on albeit in fewer and fewer places. One of these is the once-ubiquitous TO92 moulded plastic transistor, which we don’t see very much of at all in 2022. [Sam Ettinger] is a fan of the D-shaped plastic blobs,
and has gone as far as to recreate them for a new generation to enjoy
.
Though a TO92 was a relatively miniature package in its day, it’s still large enough to easily fit a SOT23 or similar SMD packaged device on a small PCB. So the tiny board with just enough space for the part and the three wires was fabricated, ready for encapsulating. Epoxy moulding a TO92 gave very poor results, so instead an SLA print of a T092 shell was made. It fits neatly over the PCB, producing a perfect TO92 package. We’re sure a translucent pink package would have raised a few eyebrows back in the 1960s though.
There will come a time when restorers of old electronics will use and refine this technique to replace dead components.
We’ve seen the technique before, after all
. | 17 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528673",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2022-11-06T03:11:44",
"content": "Most TO-92 transistors are side collector, but if you’re willing to go with center collector I don’t see the need for the PC board since it should be possible to fixture the leads and solder a SOT-23 or SC-... | 1,760,372,507.002349 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/05/creating-your-alarm-on-the-fly/ | Creating Your Alarm On The Fly | Matthew Carlson | [
"clock hacks",
"Software Development"
] | [
"alarm clock",
"audio streaming",
"php",
"web development"
] | We suspect that most of us who use an alarm clock have our particular sound memorized. Common choices are annoying beeping, energetic marimbas, or what used to be your favorite song (which you have now come to despise). [Adam Kumpf] wanted a more pleasant alarm clock and came up with
WakeSlow, an alarm clock audio stream,
which is a spiritual successor to an earlier project he did called Warmly.
Some might say, “an audio stream? You could create an acceptable alarm tone generator with a 555 and a 2N2222”. The idea behind WakeSlow is to use your existing internet-connected alarm clock that can play an audio stream. You generate a URL using WakeSlow, and it plays the alarm. A custom URL is helpful since it incorporates weather data, letting you know if it’s going to rain, blowing wind, or be sunny that day. It mixes CC0 audio to form the stream, and includes a 5-minute fade to wake you up gradually. After five minutes, it’s jazz time, and it plays a sample of some CC0 jazz.
The code is super simple, and
he makes it available on his website
under a public domain/CC0 license. The simplicity offers something powerful, making it exactly how you like it. You could incorporate holiday information, a text-to-speech news announcer reading the news of what’s on your calendar that day, or anything you can dream of.
Hackers are generally particular about clocks, and alarm clocks fall under the same umbrella. WakeSlow allows you to skip the hardware part of making your customized alarm, but if you prefer to have the whole thing be custom, we
have a few suggestions
for
alarms to look at
. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528685",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2022-11-06T03:56:09",
"content": "When I need to get up, I use this free to air wireless streaming service that also plays music and tells me the weather and traffic.However, when it comes to perfect self hacked alarm clocks, you can... | 1,760,372,507.081394 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/05/nanoassembly-with-water/ | Nanoassembly With Water | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"3d printing",
"nanotechnology"
] | Water is sometimes known as the universal solvent. But researchers at Harvard want to use water to
put things together
instead of taking them apart. Really small things. In the video below, you can see a simple 3D-printed machine that braids microscopic fibers.
The key appears to be surface tension and capillary action. A capillary machine uses channels that repel floating objects. By moving the channel, materials move to avoid the channel, and by shaping the channel, various manipulations can occur, including braiding. This is one of those things that is easier to understand when you see it, so if it doesn’t make sense, watch the video below. The example uses tiny Kevlar fibers.
Like all micro-machining techniques, there are a number of possible applications. The one mentioned in the paper is braiding antennas for better microwave frequency antennas.
This technique is interesting because
no laser is required
. According to the paper, the channels are nothing a common 3D printer can’t handle. Lasers are what
we usually see
. But with this technique, a 3D printer, a tank of water, some tiny fibers, and some slightly larger floats are all that is required. | 4 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528576",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-11-05T20:31:30",
"content": "Now, let’s see a twisted pair!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6528608",
"author": "Ghent The Slicer",
... | 1,760,372,507.039053 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/05/the-great-resistor/ | The Great Resistor Embiggens The Smallest Value | Dave Walker | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"hardware",
"LED Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"arduino nano",
"color code",
"neopixel",
"oled",
"resistor",
"ws2812"
] | With surface-mount components quickly becoming the norm, even for homebrew hardware, the resistor color-code can sometimes feel a bit old-hat. However, anybody who has ever tried to identify a random through-hole resistor from a pile of assorted values will know that it’s still a handy skill to have up your sleeve. With this in mind, [j] decided to
super-size the color-code with “The Great Resistor”.
How the resistor color-code bands work
At the heart of the project is an Arduino Nano clone and a potential divider that measures the resistance of the test resistor against a known fixed value. Using the 16-bit ADC, the range of measurable values is theoretically 0 Ω to 15 MΩ, but there are some remaining issues with electrical noise that currently limit the practical range to between 100 Ω and 2 MΩ.
[j] is measuring the supply voltage to help counteract the noise, but intends to move to an oversampling/averaging method to improve the results in the next iteration.
The measured value is shown on the OLED display at the front, and in resistor color-code on an enormous symbolic resistor lit by WS2812 RGB LEDs behind.
Inside The Great Resistor, the LEDs and baffle plates make the magic work
Precision aside, the project looks very impressive and we like the way the giant resistor has been constructed. It would look great at a science show or a demonstration. We’re sure that the noise issues can be ironed out, and we’d encourage any readers with experience in this area to offer [j] some tips in the comments below. There’s a video after the break of The Great Resistor being put through its paces!
If you want to know more about the
history of the resistor color code bands
, then we have you covered. Alternatively, how about
reading the color code directly with computer vision
? | 29 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528517",
"author": "Georg",
"timestamp": "2022-11-05T17:04:39",
"content": "Ooooooooohmmm…….",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6528577",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-11-05T... | 1,760,372,507.148285 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/just-how-fast-could-you-charge-an-iphone/ | Just How Fast Could You Charge An IPhone? | Arya Voronova | [
"Battery Hacks",
"iphone hacks",
"Phone Hacks"
] | [
"iphone",
"Lithium-ion battery",
"Lithium-titanate battery",
"supercapacitor"
] | An iPhone 8, now a relatively cheap model, can charge its battery fully in two hours’ time. There’s hardly ever a need for faster charging, but it’s fair to ask –
how much faster could it really go?
[Scotty Allen] from [Strange Parts], back after a hiatus, is back to stretching the limits of what a regular iPhone can do, and decides to start off with an exploration of battery technologies.
What people commonly encounter is that charging speed depends on the charger involved, but even one hundred chargers in parallel won’t speed up this iPhone’s charging rate, so what’s up? First off, the phone’s charger chip and the battery’s BMS will both limit charging current, so for experiment purposes, those had to be bypassed. First attempt was using a hefty DC power supply with the original cell, and, unsatisfied with the lack of fire and still relatively slow charging, [Scotty] decides to up the ante.
There’s a few battery technologies you could pair with a phone if your aim is to speed up charging dramatically, and [Scotty] demonstrates one of them in action – for instance, Lithium-titanate batteries can take quite a pounding when it comes to charging current, and they’ve helped get the charging time down to 22 minutes. However, that’s no match for a supercapacitor pack, which the charging time down to nine minutes – a thirteenfold increase from the 90 minutes we expect. We might not hold a supercap-based iPhone anytime soon, but now, we sure have seen one.
Facing this demo, Apple ought to be ashamed of their Lightning charging ports. Perhaps, with a few
hobbyist-friendly supercapacitor tricks
in hand, supercapacitors will be handy for someone’s statistically inevitable project where charging time will be of major importance. Until then, we’ll probably keep focusing our efforts on
building powerbanks. | 23 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6527719",
"author": "battery",
"timestamp": "2022-11-04T03:10:23",
"content": "not bad… I bet some super capacitor could do the same capacity in 1 second",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6527786",
"author": "Ian",
"timest... | 1,760,372,507.241387 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/turbo-button-pays-charming-homage-to-early-personal-computers/ | Turbo Button Pays Charming Homage To Early Personal Computers | Chris Wilkinson | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"retrocomputing",
"seven segment display",
"turbo button"
] | The PC turbo button and LED clock speed display were common features on early personal computers. Wanting to add a little retro chic to his modern battle-station, [Matthew Frost] assembled a
charming and functional homage to the turbo button control panel
.
In days past, this automotive nomenclature implied a performance boost when activated. Instead, ‘turbo mode’ would clock your x86 processor at its rated speed. Disabling ‘turbo’ would throttle the CPU, often all the way down to 4.77MHz. Inherited from the original IBM PC, some early computer programs relied on this specific clock speed, and would otherwise run too fast (or not at all) on faster hardware. PC marketing teams and engineers alike stopped including the turbo button and glowing clock speed numbers around the Pentium era.
This modern re-imagining of the turbo button uses an Arduino microcontroller, seven-segment display and tactile switches to emulate the look and feel of the original hardware. Instead of directly adjusting the CPU clock speed, hitting turbo switches between balanced and high-performance Windows power plans. The seven-segment display measures this clock speed in GHz to two decimal places. We’ll admit that it’s pretty satisfying to see those numbers inch higher when switching to turbo.
The rightmost button switches between measuring CPU speed, GPU utilization, network load and memory utilization, which improves on its original inspiration. The tubular key lock, also a common sight on early PCs, enables and disables networking for the entire system, which is great for keeping the kids off the ‘net (at least until they figure out how to remove the 5.25″ drive bay from the system and hot-wire the network adapter with a paperclip).
There are more details on the
GitHub page
, in case you want to build your own. This project could look especially fetching in PC sleeper builds, where new components are ‘hidden’ in old case hardware. And if this has made you feel nostalgic at all, you may want to hear our thoughts on
why it’s all about the Pentiums
. | 33 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6527673",
"author": "Ryan Flowers",
"timestamp": "2022-11-04T01:02:05",
"content": "When I got my first PC – a 286/12- in 1989, I often ran it at 8 MHz with the turbo button OFF because I was worried that running it on Turbo would burn it out! I was 13… had no idea. Also had no idea... | 1,760,372,507.406671 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/led-diffusers-confusing-organize-a-practical-contest/ | LED Diffusers Confusing? Organize A Practical Contest | Arya Voronova | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"diffuser",
"LED Diffuser"
] | We all want a nice and shiny LED strip that doesn’t actually look like it consists of individual LEDs – a bar of uniform light is just that much more attractive. There’s all kinds of diffusion options available out there, but they can be confusing – sometimes you’d just like to know, which one is better? If there’s one thing that could easily settle this, it’s a practical test, and that’s what [The Hook Up]
has devised for us
to learn from.
First off, he talks about LED strips available – between 30, 60 and 144 LED per meter variations, the latter is going to be easier to diffuse than the former. From there, there’s a few different kinds of diffuser covers and aluminum profiles you can get, and [The Hook Up] pairs them in combinations, filming them from a distance and giving us concise visuals of how each combination works at different duty cycles, as well as making brightness measurements every now and then to evaluate losses of different diffuser layers. He proposes a simple rule – when picking a diffuser, distance between the LEDs and the diffuser has to be larger than the between-LED distance, and experiments confirm that. In the end, one of the takeaways is that the differences between 60LED/m and 144LED/m strips are not significant enough that they can’t be compensated for with a decent diffuser.
It seems as though you don’t always have to go for the most expensive option. Of course, you don’t have to go for the pre-made diffusers either – you can
3D print them,
or, indeed, use
one of the dozens options available.
However, if you ever simply need to diffuse a few meters of LED strip quickly, now you know which combinations will work for you.
We thank [P-Storm] for sharing this with us! | 8 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6527620",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2022-11-03T23:19:31",
"content": "Diffusers are great for if you want your lights to look pretty in the dark, but really diminish peak brightness making them visible from a much shorter range in daylight.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth"... | 1,760,372,507.282171 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/3-dof-robot-arm-wrist-without-the-motor-weight/ | 3-DOF Robot Arm Wrist Without The Motor Weight | Danie Conradie | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"bowden",
"robot arm",
"stepper motor"
] | A major challenge of robotic arms is the weight of the actuators, especially closer to the end of the arm. The long lever arm means more torque is required from the other actuators, and everything flexes a bit more. To get around this,
[RoTechnic] moved the wrist stepper motors off the arms entirely
.
He built a push-pull mechanism that uses braided fishing line to transfer motion to the robot arm’s wrist using Bowden tubes. The motors are mounted on the arm’s base, with a drum and two lengths of fishing line on the shafts. The lines pass through an adjustable tensioner before entering the Bowden tubes. This drum mechanism is also present on each of the three rotating axes of the wrist.
[RoTechnic] used an Arduino-powered RAMPS board as a controller, which is programmed to accept over the serial interface. He created a simple GUI and scripting interface in Jupyter Labs to generate and send command, which seems like an excellent solution for testing.
We can see this mechanism being a useful for a variety of motion applications, and definitely something to add to the idea toolbox. It is somewhat similar to some other cable-operated joints we’ve seen in
humanoid robots
and other
3D printed arms
. | 15 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6527492",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2022-11-03T19:24:40",
"content": "Yes, but the point is lost because of the flexibility of the bowden cables, which is apparent at the end of the video where he simply touches the gimbal and it moves a quarter turn. Any load on the arm will ... | 1,760,372,507.335152 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/m-2-for-hackers-connectors/ | M.2 For Hackers – Connectors | Arya Voronova | [
"computer hacks",
"Featured",
"how-to",
"laptops hacks",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [
"M.2",
"m2"
] | In
the first M.2 article,
I’ve described real-world types and usecases of M.2 devices, so that you don’t get confused when dealing with various cards and ports available out there. I’ve also designed quite a few M.2 cards and card-accepting adapters myself. And today, I’d like to tell you everything you need to know in order to build M.2 tech on your own.
There’s two sides to building with M.2 – adding M.2 sockets onto your PCBs, and building the PCBs that are M.2 cards. I’ll cover both of these, starting with the former, and knowing how to deal with M.2 sockets might be the only thing you ever need. Apart from what I’ll be describing, there’s some decent guides you can learn bits and pieces from, like
the Sparkfun MicroMod design guide,
most of which is MicroMod-specific but includes quite a few M.2 tips and tricks too.
First, Let’s Talk About The Y-Key
What could you do with a M.2 socket on your PCB? For a start, many tasty hobbyist-friendly SoMs and CPUs now have a PCIe interface accessible, and if you’re building a development board or a simple breakout, an M.2 socket will let you connect an NVMe SSD for all your high-speed low-power storage needs – many Raspberry Pi Compute Module mainboards have M.2 M-key sockets specifically for that, and there’s
NVMe support
in the RPi firmware to boot. Plus, you can always plug a full-sized PCIe adapter or an extender into such a socket and connect a PCIe network card or other much-needed device – even perhaps,
an external GPU!
However, as much as PCIe-equipped SoMs are tasty, they’re far from the only reason to use M.2 sockets.
PCIe itself is an interface
increasing in its popularity
and accessibility. We’ve covered someone make an
adapter aimed at digital cameras,
letting you use NVMe SSDs in place of CFExpress cards – both interfaces with PCIe as their backbone. A different adapter we’ve seen lets you
put a PCIe WiFi card into a Pinebook,
helping you increase the WiFi speeds quite a bit. And of course, it’s not just PCIe, not even when coupled with SATA or USB. Would you like to design a RISC-V
Linux-capable
SBC into a board of yours? Well, Sipeed
makes one of the few RISC-V SoMs available right now,
called LicheeRV, and it’s a $20 SOM using two M.2 B-key connectors with a completely custom pinout.
You can do a lot with a low-footprint group of 67 pins, it turns out. For instance,
Sparkfun MicroMod
is a microcontroller ecosystem that makes use of M.2 hardware with a custom pinout – in MicroMod’s case, it’s E-key hardware, with custom card length and the retention screw location being shifted so that WiFi cards can’t be plugged in. For hobbyists, they’re a neat and funky ecosystem with tons of different CPUs and sensors to play with – in business speak, they let us evaluate a variety of different processors for our applications. In fact, last year’s
Remoticon badge spin by [Thomas Flummer]
was designed for MicroMod CPUs, and just recently, [tzarc]
on Hackaday Discord
told us they had plenty of fun building
a MicroMod-based keyboard!
My own work with M.2 is mainly about improving laptops and bringing new life into old hardware. For instance, I’ve built quite a few adapters for reviving old laptops – i.e. small-footprint
mPCIe to M.2 M-key NVMe adapters,
which me and my friends use to put fast and cheap NVMe SSDs into old but still usable machines. I’ve also built a trove of M.2 key-to-key adapters for my friends’ usecases, such as one that lets you
replace an A/E WiFi card with a M-key SSD
, or
vice-versa,
and
an adapter for Apple Xserve boards
to use M.2 SATA SSDs in its proprietary SATA boot drive connector.
There’s a lot of fun to be had with M.2 sockets. Now – how?
Mechanical Mandates
What does it take for you to add a M.2 socket? Mechanically, its footprint, as well as some free board space. Let’s talk about board space first. Of course, you can make the card hang off your PCB – transferring the problem from the “PCB space” to the “space inside your case” area, but you still need to account for size. M.2 card size is described with four digits in WWHH format, which are width and height in millimeters – a 3042 WWAN card is 30mm wide and 42mm tall (including the card edge), and a 2280 SSD is 22mm wide and 80mm tall. When putting a footprint on a PCB, the exact location of the card edge related to the footprint will either be explicitly shown in the datasheet, or can be inferred from the cross-section image.
There’s various M.2 sockets you can get – I separate them into mid-mount, flat and angled insertion, and their most important difference is the height above your PCB. M.2 socket PCB-to-card distances are actually standardized, but mid-mount and flat-mounted sockets are a less-than-standardized area – nevertheless, they’re extremely useful for making your projects small and thin. I’m a big fan of using flat sockets because they just hold your card in place, no standoff required – that said, they likely won’t work well with double-sided cards like some fancier SSDs, and I wouldn’t dare put components under the card either.
Most of the M.2 sockets, regardless of the height, use the same exact PCB footprint, since it’s standardized as well – save for mid-mount sockets, which are very useful when you need to save vertical space, but their footprints vary quite a bit more. This footprint is actually standardized in the spec and will be the same for overwhelming majority of the sockets you encounter. A friend has recently shown to me, however, that this isn’t always the case –
LOTES APCI0162
is an example of an angled insertion connector that has lower distance between pads than the usual footprint sockets do. So, do recheck the footprint when buying a new part, just in case!
Acquisition And Attachment
Proper places like Digikey and Mouser will have M.2 connectors nicely sorted by key, height and mounting type. In case you, like me, choose price over convenience by shopping at LCSC, about a month ago I’ve
compiled a small database of then-in-stock M.2 sockets on LCSC,
since LCSC is so bad at actually keeping track of the important parameters. There’s even some G-key sockets in case your contraptions are too wacky to fit the in-spec pinouts!
I couldn’t find M.2 socket footprints in KiCad standard library – if you don’t mind borrowing footprints, I have some for you to reuse. Here’s footprints for
M
,
B
and E-key sockets, and here’s an
“all M.2 socket pads” footprint
– if you need a G-key or some other socket footprint, take this one and remove the pins you don’t need. This is, again, the standardized footprint that most angled-insertion and flat sockets will fit, but do check if your specific one does.
if you forget to add a standoff, you’ll have to improvise
With angled insertion cards, you’ll want a standoff – otherwise, it’s not likely that the card will mechanically connect until you hold it down properly. M2 hardware will work best, and M2.5 will work in a pinch. If the card will be fastened into your case, you’ll probably grab some threaded inserts and be done with it. If you need to fasten your SSD to your PCB, however, you’ll want solderable standoffs – and when shopping at LCSC,
s-ol on Twitter reminds us
that we can find them using the keyword “smtso”.
What about assembly? My experience is that you’ll absolutely want a stencil with solder paste, as these are pretty dense 0.5 mm pitch parts, and a hot air gun/hotplate/reflow oven will work best. That said, with a thin enough tip and maybe preheating, you can stencil your board and then use a soldering iron in a pinch, too, or perhaps thin solder with thin iron tip – but it will be tiresome if you want to assemble more than two or three boards.
After soldering, you might still end up with solder bridges between pins – in my experience, you can clear these bridges beautifully by heating the bridge area through a narrow hot air gun nozzle from below, adding flux after the bridge’s melted and then using sharp tweezers or a needle to mechanically separate the pins. If the short joins right after separation because you stenciled too much solder paste on the pads, using good old solder wick beforehand should help too.
Electrical Essentials
Not just any socket will do.
For PCIe, I recommend you use M-key for SSDs, B-key for WWAN-compatible cards and E-key for WiFi-compatible slots. These three slots can handle up to 4x, 2x and 1x wide PCIe links respectively, but even if you only have 1x PCIe on your CPU, you can use either of these three, only connecting the first lane pins – read
our PCIe hacking article
if you’d like to know more. If SATA is what you want instead, it’s also pretty simple, just two diffpairs. At that, you can use either B-key or M-key, since overwhelming majority of SATA SSDs are B+M – here’s
a board where I used M-key for SATA,
simply because by that point I stocked up on some nice M-key sockets.
Where do you get pinouts and symbols from? For a start, there’s symbols in KiCad standard library, at least, in KiCad 6. Other than that, you can, yet again, get symbols from my repo – I got some for
M-key, B-key, B+M key, A+E key and E-key
; these work with both sockets and cards, as the footprints for cards will just ignore lack of the mounting pads that are present on the sockets. If those are limiting and you need more specific ones, there’s always the dodgy websites, and the specification floating around that I mentioned in the end of the last article.
M.2 cards will only require 3.3 V, but they might use up quite a bit of current. If you’re building custom cards, that won’t be an issue, since you know how much your device might consume. When reusing existing SSDs, WiFi and WWAN cards in your designs, however, things might get a bit more complex. Learning from laptop schematics is the simplest way – to sum it up, providing 1 A – 2 A for WiFi cards and 1 A – 3 A for WWAN and SSD cards is likely a good idea. Also, the M.2 specification mentions some WWAN cards may be built for input voltage in single-cell LiIon range (3 V-4.2 V) instead of 3.3 V. You likely won’t encounter such cards and it’s likely to be written on the label or first page of the datasheet, but this is good to know about nevertheless.
An adapter tapping PCIe from proprietary Dell ODD bay and adding a SATA SSD in there while at it
PCIe cards require PERST, CLKREQ and PEWAKE signals. That said, CLKREQ is used for gating the clock for power management purposes, and can be tied to GND on the PCIe host side – as a testament to that, the ever-abundant USB 3-cable-abusing PCIe 1x risers only forward PEWAKE and PERST. For W_DISABLE signals on WWAN and WiFi cards, you might want to add pullups to VCC – I believe they’re active low, but please do double-check. DAA/DSS signal on SATA and NVMe is a nice ‘drive activity’ open-drain signal that you can use to drive a LED. SUSCLK is a 32 kHz clock useful for card power-saving but not required in practice, and DEVSLP is
a SATA-only low-power mode
signal. I2C signals likely won’t be useful, but it won’t hurt if you connect them to your target – through 0R resistors, just in case.
Nifty Niceties
Building a higher-current card, or card+host combination? Technically, M.2 connectors are rated at 0.5 A per pin, so, M-key with its nine 3.3 V pins would result in 4.5 A max – that said, the recommendation for M-key is to not exceed 2.5 A, and that’s what you’ll want to adhere to. In case both sides of the equation are under your control and you’re creating your own pinout (preferably, using something like G-key), go wild and make use of as many pins with as many different voltages as you want. I just wish that Sipeed knew that when designing LicheeRV – apparently, they
only use one M.2 socket pin
for feeding 5 V into the baseboard. I don’t know if it’s an actual problem, but it looks suboptimal for sure!
Facing an unjustifiably non-populated M.2 socket on your laptop’s mainboard? Finding a receptacle won’t be the hard part, what’s with footprints being standardized – especially if you have the schematics, as those often list the connector part number. Soldering the connector on would be trickier, however, as you can’t exactly stencil it on a populated mainboard. I recommend you wick off the factory-applied solder first so that the connector can sit flush to the PCB, then put the connector on, and use a thin tip soldering iron with thin solder to attach pads one-by-one. From there, it might be that some power management parts and signal passives, say, capacitors will be unpopulated. A good value for PCIe or SATA series capacitors
is about 220nF;
USB signals and stuff like PEWAKE/CLKREQ/PERST can be jumpered with something like 0R or 22 R, power management can typically just be jumpered to 3.3 V, and many other signals you’ll find to be optional.
Now, you’re well-equipped to build and hack M.2-accepting stuff, and know quite a few places where it’s useful. Next time, I want to show you how to build M.2 cards – there’s a trove of cool applications for these as well! | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6527398",
"author": "pavelsorejs",
"timestamp": "2022-11-03T17:21:26",
"content": "This is awesome – especially the LCSC links and hints – rally saved me a lot of time",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6527640",
"author": "Nev... | 1,760,372,507.459646 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/say-no-to-obsolescence-wire-up-your-house-with-fiber/ | Say No To Obsolescence, Wire Up Your House With Fiber | Arya Voronova | [
"home hacks",
"internet hacks"
] | [
"fiber optics",
"home networking",
"sfp"
] | These days, if you wire your house with anything less than gigabit, you might end up throttling your Internet connection. If you wired things up using two pairs per device back in 100BASE-T days, however, you’ll want to redo your cabling before you buy new switches. Now, some of us are already starting to equip ourselves with 2.5G hardware — which may require new cabling once again. Would you like to opt out of the Ethernet cabling upgrade rat race, at least for a while? Do like [Stefan Schüller] did, and
use fiber optics for your home networking needs!
[Stefan] walks you through everything you’d need to know if you ever choose to look into fiber for your networking needs, and explains the design decisions he’s made — from splicing fiber optics himself, to building a PC to do routing instead of getting a hardware Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) equipped router. He also describes pitfalls, like SFP modules requiring reconfiguration to work with different router brands, and having to buy a fiber splicer with an eye-watering pricetag.
In the end, he shows a cost breakdown, and says he’s quite happy with the upgrade. While the costs might seem prohibitive compared to running Ethernet, upgrading to fiber will have your equipment function at top speed whenever you need it – who knows, perhaps in a few years time,
2.5G will no longer suffice
for new advancements in home technology needs, and we’ll see more
SFP modules in hackers’ hands.
After all,
modern TVs already use fiber optics
for video data transfer. | 105 | 36 | [
{
"comment_id": "6527303",
"author": "Shirley Marquez",
"timestamp": "2022-11-03T15:38:11",
"content": "Pulling fiber to every room would be a bit too expensive for me right now, and most of the cable drops aren’t going to need more than gigabit for a while yet. But I probably will switch over to fi... | 1,760,372,507.798882 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/moca-networking-is-a-niche-solution-for-coax-lovers/ | MoCA Networking Is A Niche Solution For Coax Lovers | Lewin Day | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Network Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"cable TV",
"coaxial",
"coaxial cable",
"coaxial networking",
"moca",
"moca network",
"moca networking"
] | When it comes to networking these days, the vast majority of our devices are connected wirelessly. Beyond that, we’re all familiar with the Cat 5 and Cat 6 cables that form the high-capacity Ethernet networks in our homes, schools, and offices.
It’s only if you go back to the very dawn of Ethernet that coaxial cables are relevant… right? Wrong! MoCA networking is all about coaxial cables, designed to hook up devices over cable TV infrastructure!
Run What You Brung
MoCA hardware can be used to create networks on traditional cable TV infrastructure, such as that often laid in apartment buildings and hotels.
Credit:
Quique251, CC-BY-SA-3.0
America is the holy land of cable TV. Just 6.4% of Americans had cable TV by 1968, but that figure reached a full 62.4% by 1994. In those hallowed days, cable television was delivered as analog signals sent via coaxial cable runs.
These cables worked their way around the neighbourhoods of the nation, often being split or tapped to deliver cable TV services to yet more subscribers. Apartments and hotels would often have a distribution box with cable “drops” heading to each individual dwelling in the building. Individual homes would often have coaxial cable routed throughout to provide for multiple TVs in lounge rooms and bedrooms throughout.
Thus, in the United States, there are a huge number of buildings with coaxial cables sitting in the walls. Today, they’re often still in use, delivering cable TV and cable internet services. In this era, though, many coaxial outlets are going unused. Sometimes, it’s because the transition to digital cable meant that a separate set-top box was needed per TV, adding expense. Other times, it’s simply because cable TV has been supplanted in some respects by the rise of streaming services.
MoCA adapters, which hook up a typical RJ45 Ethernet connection to a coaxial cable.
This wide base of installed coax led to the devleopment of MoCA, a network standard intended to use these cable runs. 1.0 edition equipment first became available in 2006. MoCA stands for the Multimedia over Coax Alliance, and the technology was initially developed to send video over IP via existing coaxial cable runs. That use case didn’t really eventuate, but the underlying technology was sound.
Instead, the MoCA standard was developed into a networking technology to carry Ethernet over coaxial cabling. These days, it’s primarily touted as a solution to home networking problems. Common scenarios include when
WiFi signals may not reach across a home
, or where it’s desirable to get a wired network connection into a given room. MoCA can potentially help in these instances if coax hookups are available. Often, it involves hooking up a router to a MoCA adapter at one coaxial outlet in the house. Then, a MoCA WiFI extender or network adapter is hooked up at the other end to provide connectivity at the remote outlet.
MoCA Access is designed to work with a variety of coax network topologies. This is important to the product, as the whole value of MoCA is that it provides networking without requiring end users to recable their buildings.
Credit
:
MoCA Alliance
The MoCA concept may sound curious, given that Ethernet was originally carried over coax cables in its earliest iterations. Back then, the various standards for coax ethernet were colloquially known as
thicknet
and
thinnet
depending on the diameter of coaxial cable used. However, MoCA differs, as it was developed for a different use case. MoCA networking had to be able to run on coaxial cables that may still be in use for cable TV or cable internet delivery.
Functionally, this meant that MoCA signals had to avoid stepping on cable TV bandwidth, or interfering with DOCSIS cable internet signals. MoCA achieves this by simply running on frequencies not traditonally used by cable TV. In the case of DOCSIS internet though, special measures had to be taken to make the standards interoperable. Special filters are often also used to prevent MoCA signals from reaching other cable network users beyond the dwelling or building intended.
The first 1.0 version of the standard allowed for half-duplex operation at up to 100 Mbit/s, and could handle up to eight nodes. MoCA 1.1 was released in 2007, bumping speeds to 175 Mbit/s and adding capability to handle 16 nodes.
MoCA 2.0 further increased speed to 500 Mbit/s, or 1 Gbit/s in a bonded mode, while achieving latency of 3.6 ms. MoCA 2.1 later added bridge detection to avoid neighbours accidentally forming networks together, while also adding power saving features. MoCA 2.5 included the
MoCA Access development
, intended for facilities like hotels, hospitals, or other facilities with existing sprawling coax networks. It offered networking at up to 2.5 Gbit/s down, 2.0 Gbit/s up, and provisions for up to 32 nodes.
MoCA 3.0 was later released in 2021, able to achieve up to 10 Gbit/s operation. However, achieving these speeds requires using the entire bandwidth available on the coaxial cable. Thus, only lower speeds can be used in concert with cable TV or cable internet on the same lines. | 63 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6527239",
"author": "josemonkey",
"timestamp": "2022-11-03T14:05:08",
"content": "I wanted to run a wired backhaul for my mesh network to a 2nd story bedroom in the far corner of the house that wasn’t wired for ethernet. I was unsure how to do it until I remembered I had a completel... | 1,760,372,508.071335 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/end-of-an-era-as-lego-to-discontinue-mindstorms/ | End Of An Era, As LEGO To Discontinue Mindstorms | Jenny List | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"end of life",
"lego mindstorms",
"mindstorms"
] | When there are so many single board computers and other products aimed at providing children with the means to learn about programming and other skills, it is easy to forget at time before the Arduino or the Raspberry Pi and their imitators, when a computer was very much an expensive closed box.
Into this late-’90s vacuum left in the wake of the 8-bit home computer revolution came LEGO’s Mindstorms kits, a box of interlocking goodies with a special programmable brick, which gave kids the chance to make free-form computerized robotic projects all of their own. The recent news that
after 24 years the company will discontinue the Mindstorms range at the end of the year
thus feels like the end of an era to anyone who has ridden the accessible microcontroller train since then.
What became Mindstorms has its roots in the MIT Media Lab’s
Programmable Brick project
, a series of chunky LEGO bricks with microcontrollers and the Mindstorms LEGO brick contacts for motors and sensors. Their Logo programming language implementation was eschewed by LEGO in favor of a graphical system on a host computer, and the Mindstorms kit was born. The brand has since been used on a series of iterations of the controller, and a range of different robotics kits.
In 1998, a home computer had morphed from something programmable in BASIC to a machine that ran Windows and Microsoft Office. Boards such as Parallax’s BASIC Stamp were available but expensive, and didn’t come with anything to control. The Mindstorms kit was revolutionary then in offering an accessible fully programmable microcontroller in a toy, along with a full set of LEGO including motors and sensors to use with it.
We’re guessing Mindstorms has been seen off by better and cheaper single board computers here in 2022, but that doesn’t take away its special place in providing ’90s kids with their first chance to make a proper robot their way. The kits
have found their place here at Hackaday
, but perhaps most of the projects we’ve featured using them being a few years old now underlines why they are to meet their end. So long Mindstorms, you won’t be forgotten!
Header image: Mairi, (
CC BY-SA 3.0
). | 46 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6527140",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2022-11-03T11:18:05",
"content": "Very sad, its a great concept. That said I doubt its really going anywhere, they will keep making the motors and technic parts for everything else and the community that has created so many pi/Arduino t... | 1,760,372,507.876939 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/heirloom-knife-will-carve-pumpkins-for-years-to-come/ | Heirloom Knife Will Carve Pumpkins For Years To Come | Kristina Panos | [
"Holiday Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"carving",
"jigsaw",
"knife",
"maple",
"pumpkin",
"pumpkin carving",
"walnut"
] | Halloween may be behind us, but that just means that we’ve reached the best time to buy pumpkins. After all, it’s still fall, and there are pies to be made and tables to be decorated. Why should carved-up pumpkins be restricted to spooky season?
The only problem is that it’s 2022, and we’re still expected to use those terrible little serrated knives to carve our pumpkins. Those orange-handled garbage ‘knives’ are hardly suited to cut the lid, much less carve any of the intricate designs that come in the little booklet. So what’s a pumpkin-carving enthusiast to do? If you’re [XYZ Create],
you make your own out of walnut, maple, and a gently-used jigsaw blade
that’s still way sharp enough to tear through pumpkin flesh.
[XYZ Create] started with a nice chunk of walnut, which he split lengthwise in order to insert the blade, which sits in a cavity within a thin piece of maple. Once [XYZ Create] had the handle ready to go, he inserted the jigsaw blade and epoxied the sandwich together. After sanding down the edges to make a comfortable grip, he finished off the build by rubbing a bit of carving board wax into the handle. Check out the build video after the break. | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6527146",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-11-03T11:28:15",
"content": "Hack-o-lantern!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6527245",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2022-11-03T14:14:17",... | 1,760,372,508.111061 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/02/roll-the-radioactive-dice-for-truly-random-dd-play/ | Roll The Radioactive Dice For Truly Random D&D Play | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"autunite",
"dice",
"geiger",
"pseudorandom",
"radioactivity",
"random number generator",
"rng",
"uranium"
] | When you have a bunch of people gathered around a table for a “Dungeons & Dragons” session, you have to expect that things are not always going to go smoothly. After all, people who willingly create and immerse themselves in an alternate reality where one bad roll of the dice can lead to the virtual death of a character they’ve spent months or years with can be traumatic. And with that trauma comes the search for the guilty — it’s the dice! It’s always the dice!
Eliminating that excuse, or at least making it statistically implausible, is the idea behind
this radioactively random dice roller
. It comes to us from [Science Shack] and uses radioactive decay to generate truly random numbers, as opposed to the pseudorandom number generators baked into most microcontrollers. The design is based on
[AlphaPhoenix]’s muon-powered RNG
, but with a significant twist: rather than depending on background radiation, [Science Shack] brought the power of uranium to the party.
They obtained a sample of autunite, a weird-looking phosphate mineral that contains a decent amount of uranium, perfect for stimulating the Geiger counter built into the dice roller. Autunite also has the advantage of looking very cool under UV light, taking on a ghostly “fuel rod glow,” in the [Homer Simpson] sense. The decay-powered RNG at the heart of this build is used to simulate throws of every standard D&D die, from a D4 to a D100. The laser-cut hardboard case holds all the controls and displays, and also has some strategically placed openings to gaze upon its glowing guts.
We really like the design, but we have to quibble with the handling of the uranium ore; true, the specific activity of autunite is probably pretty low, but it seems like at least some gloves would have been in order. | 22 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526973",
"author": "Ian",
"timestamp": "2022-11-03T05:15:30",
"content": "How am I supposed to teach this thing to roll well if I can’t intimidate it by smashing bad dice with a hammer?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6527028... | 1,760,372,508.422004 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/02/your-car-has-driving-profiles-heres-how-to-change-them/ | Your Car Has Driving Profiles – Here’s How To Change Them | Arya Voronova | [
"car hacks",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"driving profile",
"hex editor"
] | Just like mobile phones of yesteryear, modern cars have profiles. They aren’t responsible for the sounds your car produces, however, as much as they change how your car behaves – for instance, they can make your engine more aggressive or tweak your steering resistance. On MQB platform cars, the “Gateway” module is responsible for these, and it’s traditionally been a black box with a few user-exposed profiles – not as much anymore, thanks to the work of [Jille]. They own a Volkswagen hybrid car, and had fun changing driving modes on it – so naturally,
they decided to reverse-engineer the configuration files
responsible.
Now, after two years of experimentation, tweaking values and observing changes, there’s
quite some sense made
of the configuration binaries. You can currently edit these binaries, also referred to as datasets, in a hex editor – there’s profiles for the 010 hex editor that make sense of the data you load, and explanation of the checksums involved. With this, you are no longer limited by profiles the manufacturer composed – if a slightly different driving combination of parameters makes more sense to you, you can recombine them and have your own profile, unlock modes that the manufacturer decided to lock out for non-premium cars, and even fix some glaring oversights in factory modes.
This is pretty empowering, and far from
ECU modifications
that introduce way more fundamental changes to how your car operates – the parameters being changed are within the range of what the manufacturer has implemented. The smarter our cars become, the more there is
for us hackers to tweak,
and even in a head unit, you can find
things to meaningfully improve
given some reverse-engineering smarts. | 24 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526975",
"author": "Misterlaneous",
"timestamp": "2022-11-03T05:21:20",
"content": "A steering: ON setting implies that they can turn steering:OFF",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6526999",
"author": "Erik T",
... | 1,760,372,508.213367 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/02/simple-wi-fi-cat-door-solves-the-extra-critter-problem-and-nothing-more/ | Simple Wi-Fi Cat Door Solves The Extra Critter Problem, And Nothing More | Dan Maloney | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"cat",
"cat door",
"Critter",
"ESP2866",
"feline",
"lock",
"rack and pinion",
"stepper"
] | Anyone with an outdoor cat in their life knows their propensity for bringing home offerings, in the form of critters in various stages of the process of becoming ex-critters. And anyone with a hacker in their life knows that there’s a tendency to throw technology at this problem. But sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best.
Take this simple
stepper-powered cat door lock
. For [Jason Winfield], the essential problem with his outdoor cat’s late-night demands for reentry was having to manually unlock the cat door after a quick visual check that no midnight snacks were along for the ride. Such activity tends to make it hard to get back to sleep. One natural reaction to this would be to completely automate the process with machine learning to recognize the offering and deny entry; we’ve seen
exactly that
before, after all. But recognizing that the disruptive part was the getting up to check bit, [Jason] just whipped up a simple stepper-driven lock with an ESP8266 microcontroller. With a 3D-printed case and a battery pack, and a nearby Wi-Fi camera, the lock denies entry to the cat until he gets a look at it, at which point he simply hits the lock’s webpage to unlock the door. The video below would show the lock in action, except the cat buggered off once it got a whiff of the doings. Cat’s gonna cat.
What we appreciate about this project is its simplicity. It solves the problem with the minimum feature set, which is something we see too little of sometimes. It’s also got some nice ideas, like the non-captive bolt that can be removed to unlock the door if the battery dies. Smart thinking, [Jason], and sweet dreams. | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526886",
"author": "Mark Alex Maidique",
"timestamp": "2022-11-03T01:47:39",
"content": "Poor guy. Hope the cat comes back!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6527162",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
... | 1,760,372,508.157103 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/02/low-voltage-dc-network-build-incited-by-solar-panels/ | Low-Voltage DC Network Build Incited By Solar Panels | Arya Voronova | [
"green hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"dc",
"dc power",
"dc ups",
"green power",
"home solar",
"low voltage",
"power",
"power grid",
"pv solar",
"solar",
"ups"
] | Nowadays, some people in Europe worry about energy prices climbing, and even if all the related problems disappear overnight, we’ll no doubt be seeing some amounts of price increase. As a hacker, you’re in a good position to evaluate the energy consuming devices at your home, and maybe even do something about them. Well, [Peter] put some solar panels on his roof, but couldn’t quite figure out a decent way to legally tie them into the public grid or at least his flat’s 220V network. Naturally, a good solution was to
create an independent low-voltage DC network
in parallel and put a bunch of devices on it instead!
He went with 48V, since it’s a voltage that’s high enough to be efficient, easy to get equipment like DC-DCs for, safe when it comes to legal matters concerned, and overall compatible with his solar panel setup. Since then, he’s been putting devices like laptops, chargers and lamps onto the DC rail instead of having them be plugged in, and his home infrastructure, which includes
a rack full of Raspberry Pi boards,
has been quite content running 24/7 from the 48V rail. There’s a backup PSU from regular AC in case of overcast weather, and in case of grid power failures, two hefty LiFePO4 accumulators will run all the 48V-connected appliances for up to two and a half days.
The setup has produced and consumed 115kWh within the first two months – a hefty contribution to a hacker’s energy independence project, and there’s enough specifics in the blog post for all your inspiration needs. This project is a reminder that low-voltage DC network projects are a decent choice on a local scale – we’ve seen quite viable
proof-of-concept projects done at hackercamps,
but you can just
build a small DC UPS
if you’re only looking to dip your feet in. Perhaps, soon we’ll
figure out a wall socket
for such networks, too. | 56 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526799",
"author": "Deneteus (@Deneteus)",
"timestamp": "2022-11-02T20:12:48",
"content": "48V is what the cell sites are using these days. I need to setup something like this for a neighborhood watch project.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,508.302769 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/02/laser-project-relies-on-steppers-rather-than-galvanometers/ | Laser Projector Relies On Steppers Rather Than Galvanometers | Dan Maloney | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"ESP32",
"laser",
"projector",
"STSPIN220",
"X-Y"
] | Laser light shows have always been real crowd-pleasers. There’s just something about the frenetic movement of a single point of intensely bright light making fluid animations that really captures the imagination. Large-scale laser shows require a lot of gear, of course, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get in on the fun yourself using something like
this homebrew X-Y laser projector
.
This is actually [Stanley]’s second pass at a stepper-based DIY projector; we featured his
previous build
back in 2016. This time around, he wanted to move beyond the “module mix-and-match” style of construction, so rather than use an Arduino and stepper shield, he rolled his own controller PCB to hold an ESP32 and a pair of STSPIN220 stepper drivers. The business end of the new version saw improvements, too — given that he was seeing unwanted softening of corners and curving of straight lines in the first projector’s images, he opted for smaller steppers holding smaller mirrors this time around. There’s also a new 3D printed chassis to hold everything, simplifying the build and keeping the two mirrors in better alignment.
The video below has the build details and some nice footage of the projector in action — it’s hard to go wrong with lasers and smoke. The performance seems pretty good, so the improvements seem to have paid off. And for those of you tapping out your “Should have used
galvos
” comments below, relax; [Stanley] says he’s thinking about ways to make his own galvanometers for the next version. | 29 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526777",
"author": "robertrapplean",
"timestamp": "2022-11-02T18:51:01",
"content": "An excellent description of how he built it, but I’d like to see what its performance characteristics are. Is it adequately precise for engraving, or does it suffer from having to be programmed in ... | 1,760,372,508.365825 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/04/three-computers-one-keyboard-with-usb-triplexer/ | Three Computers, One Keyboard With USB Triplexer | Jenny List | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"analog multiplexer",
"kvm",
"usb"
] | Many of us will have the problem of several computers on the same desk, and to avoid clutter we’ll use a KVM switch to share the peripherals. [The Turbanned Engineer] has an interesting solution to this problem in the form of
a USB triplexer
. It’s a device that routes USB data lines depending upon which of its connections is powered up.
The circuit is simple enough: a CMOS analogue multiplexer does the routing, and a set of opto-couplers do the selecting based on the power inputs. A set of USB A sockets connect to the computer, and a USB B socket connects to the peripheral.
We’re not entirely sure whether an analogue multiplexer chip would be good for the higher-speed USB data rates, but since keyboards and mice talk at the slowest data rates, we think he’ll get away with it. Either way making a USB switch however basic with such mundane components has something of the hack about it. What he does with the display we’re not so sure about, but at least his keyboard and mouse woes are dealt with.
Other similar switches we’ve featured have been
somewhat more basic
. | 25 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528167",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2022-11-04T20:09:40",
"content": "Hi Jenny, it seems from the linked article that the B type ports go to the computers and the A ports are where peripherals are plugged in (seems to be backwards in your description)",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,372,508.483894 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/04/3d-printed-newtonian-telescope-has-stunning-looks-hadley-breaks-the-bank/ | 3D Printed Newtonian Telescope Has Stunning Looks,HadleyBreaks The Bank | Ryan Flowers | [
"Space",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"3D printed parts",
"newtonian",
"telescope"
] | Have you ever considered building your own telescope? Such a project can be daunting, especially if you grind your own mirrors. But with a 3D printer, hardware store bits and bobs, and some inexpensive pre-made mirrors, you too can be the proud owner of your very own own
Hadley — a 114/900mm Newtonian Telescope
that can cost less than $150 USD to build! Check out the video below the break to get a good scope on the project.
Astrophotography is possible with the Hadley
The creator’s stated goal is to “
make an attractive alternative to the shoddy, hard to use “hobby-killer” scopes in the $100-200 range
“, and we have to say that it appears to have met its goal admirably. The optics — the most complex part of any build — can be easily purchased online, and the rest of the parts are available at your local hardware store.
While the original build was provided in Imperial measures, a metric version is now available. Various contributors have created a rich ecosystem of
accessories and alternative versions of various parts
, all in the interest of making the telescope more useful. Things like tripod mounts, phone mounts (for use with your favorite star chart app) and more are only a click away. The only real question to answer is “What color filament will I use?”
Of course, sometimes light waves can get a bit long in the tooth, and for those cases you’ll want a radio telescope, which can also be
DIY’d thanks to the availability of satellite dishes and SDR dongles
! | 49 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528127",
"author": "magic",
"timestamp": "2022-11-04T18:36:24",
"content": "You mispelled “hardly”. It’s ridiculous what passes for editing on Hackaday these day’s!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6528136",
"author": ... | 1,760,372,508.843495 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/04/3d-printer-tuning-an-engineering-approach/ | 3D Printer Tuning: An Engineering Approach | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer upgrade",
"Bowden extruder"
] | [MirageC] is a bit of a contrarian. Instead of taking pictures of 3D printed objects that show them in their best light, he takes pictures that show them at their worst. The reason? He wanted to figure out why he was seeing a
strange artifact
in his printer when using a direct extruder. Just at a quick glance, you might think the problem was Z wobble, but, in this case, it was something else. You can see the fine detective work in the video below.
There were a few odd things about the problem. First, it scaled with the part size. Secondly, the problem got better when he switched to a Bowden tube setup. We don’t want to give away the ending, but you can guess from that clue that the problem had something to do with the extrusion system.
The resulting analysis led [MirageC] to work with BMG to create a special gear which — surprisingly, didn’t help as much as he thought it would. However, it did help point the way to the correct solution.
Along the way, you can learn a lot from following along, and maybe you’ll even improve the quality of your prints. We always enjoy these detailed analyses of printer issues, like
the ones from [Stefan]
, for example. If you want to go hardcore engineering on your 3D prints, you can always do
finite element analysis on your infill
. | 14 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528082",
"author": "mrehorst",
"timestamp": "2022-11-04T16:47:35",
"content": "Very interesting! I sometimes print large, transparent vases and see a wood-grain pattern in the prints when the light shines through them just right. I wonder if that isn’t the same artifact of the Bond... | 1,760,372,508.534845 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/04/this-week-in-security-openssl-fizzle-java-xml-and-nothing-as-it-seems/ | This Week In Security: OpenSSL Fizzle, Java XML, And Nothing As It Seems | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"java",
"openssl",
"protestware",
"This Week in Security"
] | The security world held our collective breaths early this week for
the big OpenSSL vulnerability announcement
. Turns out it’s two separate issues, both related to punycode handling, and they’ve been downgraded to high severity instead of critical. Punycode, by the way, is the system for using non-ASCII Unicode characters in domain names. The first vulnerability, CVE-2022-3602, is a buffer overflow that writes four arbitrary bytes to the stack. Notably, the vulnerable code is only run after a certificate’s chain is verified. A malicious certificate would need to be either properly signed by a Certificate Authority, or manually trusted without a valid signature.
A
couple sources
have
worked out the details
of this vulnerability. It’s an off-by-one error in a loop, where the buffer length is checked earlier in the loop than the length variable is incremented. Because of the logic slip, the loop can potentially run one too many times. That loop processes the Unicode characters, encoded at the end of the punycode string, and injects them in the proper place, sliding the rest of the string over a byte in memory as a result. If the total output length is 513 characters, that’s a single character overflow. A Unicode character takes up four bytes, so there’s your four-byte overflow.
Now, how exploitable this overflow manages to be depends on what is in those four bytes. When Datadog researchers tested the vulnerability on Linux, they found that essentially every compiled binary had a 4-byte section of free memory here, that was initialized only after the overflow. In other words, on those binaries, this vulnerability is entirely benign. On Windows, that section of memory was handled differently by the compiler, due to different optimizations. Here, it contains a
stack canary
. That’s a special value that exists between the last buffer on the stack, and the pointer and return values. At the end of a function using a stack canary, the value is validated before returning to the parent function, and the processes crashes if it’s been tampered with. The idea is that a buffer overflow that overwrites the return address wouldn’t be able to predict the canary value, and canaries tend to intentionally include terminator bytes like 0x00 to make exploit even harder. Note that the Linux binaries also use stack canaries, which would prevent exploit, but because of the memory layout and limited overflow length, these aren’t ever modified.
The second issue fixed was CVE-2022-3786, and
Checkpoint Security took a shot at explaining this one
. In the case of Punycode followed by a dot, that dot is appended to the end of the output string, potentially past the end of the buffer. It’s the inverse of the previous vulnerability. Here the length of overflow is nearly arbitrary, but the value is locked to just the dot symbol. As a result, this one is strictly a Denial of Service problem.
Thankfully the sky isn’t falling with these vulnerabilities, but there could still be unanticipated cases where OpenSSL isn’t compiled with stack canaries, or the crash could be used as part of a more complicated exploit chain, so still be sure to grab the updated or backported patch if you’re running the vulnerable library, versions 3.0.0-3.0.6.
Security Researchers Turn to the Dark Side?
Betteridge’s law of headlines is certainly in play here. This story is just odd, as someone has launched a ransomware attack, that is also protestware, and also claims to be the work of some notable security researchers. So, is Bleeping Computer really behind this ransomware campaign that also protests the lack of support for Ukraine from the West? Oof, there’s a lot to unpack here.
First, it appears to not even be ransomware, as there’s no way to purchase a decryption key. So more properly it’s a wiper. The name used in the wiper note is “Azov”, a special forces regiment in Ukraine with an oddball neo-Nazi past, which happens to play into Russian rhetoric about their war there. Then the note claims to be from
Hasherezade
, and lists several security researcher Twitter handles. Then mentions Crimea and complains about not enough help for Ukraine. jThere’s a specific message for the people of the US, calling out president Biden, calling for revolution and then dropping the “Keep America Great” slogan. Then a message to Germany, helpfully run through Google Translate gives us: “You! A man from Germany, come on, come out!
But that’s a catastrophe that Biden has brought to them. How nice was it when Merkel was there?” And then even more bizarre, the note ends with the hashtag “#TaiwanIsChina”, which seems to be a slogan of the CCP sponsored rhetoric around Taiwan.
It’s hard to figure out exactly what is up with this campaign. It’s obviously not what it claims to be. A pro-Russia or anti-Russia hacker trying to gin up support? Something else entirely, using the geopolitics for cover? The infections all seem to be the result of SmokeLoader, one of the malware-as-a-service botnets. Pay some money, push your payload to machines on the botnet. Just a reminder, if you or someone you know does get hit by one of these campaigns, law enforcement offices do want to get record of it. In order to locate and prosecute the criminals behind these enterprises, they need some concrete cases to start with. And as much as it seems like ransomware criminals will never get caught,
they do get identified and caught
.
Project Zero Resists Calling it XML4Shell
[Felix Wilhelm]
found a Java problem
, and to our shared delight, he didn’t feel the need to contrive a “4shell” moniker for it. This story starts with SAML, Security Assertion Markup Language, the XML-based protocol that powers much of the web’s single-sign-on support. You want to visit website X, a Service Provider (SP) and use your account from website Y, your Identity Provider (IdP). The SP generates a SAML request, in the form of an XML document, and your browser send that document to the IdP. The IdP confirms that you do have an account there, and sends back an XML signature, via the browser. As it’s an obvious potential problem for the user’s browser to be the one handling the sign-on data, the data itself is verified as part of the signature. The whole process is complicated and one of the complexities is that a signature can include references to other signatures. Before the signature is fully verified, the signed XML document may need to go through several transformative steps, and eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) language is supported. Yeah, it’s a turing-complete language right in your SAML objects. And if the code doing the verification didn’t switch on
secureValidation
, the code gets compiled into Java code for the performance boost.
Part of this compilation process is converting values in the XSLT input to the Java constant pool. That pool has a limited size, and the compilation process doesn’t correctly do bounds checking. What happens when you write past the end of the pool? That data is understood as class fields — fields like method definitions. Do the work to make valid values for the three fields this overflow will clobber, and you have the ability to run arbitrary bytecode. This works for any Java application that handles XML signatures — in theory. The big caveat is that
secureValidation
disables all XSLT transformations, but that was only turned on by default in JDK 17.
urlscan.io Holds Secrets
The service provided by
urlscan.io
is actually pretty useful. Feed it a web link, and it will load it, preview the page for you, and spit out some statistics about it. Somebody send a weird link, and you don’t want to open it on your machine? Here’s your solution. The only thing to keep in mind is that unless you explicitly mark the scan as private, the link and results are publicly viewable. Github got bit by this last year, accidentally leaking private repository names to the service. This made [FABIAN BRÄUNLEIN] wonder,
had other services made a similar mistake
? Yes. There are links to private Google documents, API keys, Sharepoint and Zoom invites, and more. Apparently several automated security services push links to the service without any user interaction, and don’t use the API properly. Whoops. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6528025",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-11-04T15:04:26",
"content": "I have a difficult time understanding the SAML paragraph.I am not blaming it on the author, but more surprised by the convoluted chain it goes through.",
"parent_id": null,... | 1,760,372,508.935122 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/04/thin-client-and-smartphone-step-in-for-3d-printers-raspberry-pi-and-touchscreen/ | Thin Client And Smartphone Step In For 3D Printer’s Raspberry Pi And Touchscreen | Dan Maloney | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"debian",
"dell",
"ender 3",
"intel atom",
"klipper",
"Rufus",
"thin client",
"Wyse",
"X Server"
] | It’s no secret that Raspberry Pi’s are a little hard to come by these days. Unless you had the foresight to stock up before the supply dried up — and if you did, we want to talk to you — chances are good that you’ve got a fair number of projects that use the ubiquitous SBC on indefinite hold. And maybe that’s got you thinking about alternatives to the Pi.
That’s apparently what was on [Crimson Repair]’s mind lately, the result being the discovery that
an old thin client PC makes a dandy stand-in for a Raspberry Pi
, at least in some cases. The video below is on the long side, true, But it’s chock full of command-by-command instructions for getting a Dell Wyse 3040, a thin client that can be found on the secondary market for $25 or so, up and running as a Klipper alternative for a 3D printer. These machines, which usually see use in point-of-sale applications and the like, sport a 1.4-GHz Intel Atom processor and a couple of gigs of RAM, and the form factor is just right for tucking into the base of an Ender 3.
Getting one up and running is a matter of getting a Debian image onto a USB key and configuring the thin client to boot from USB. After that it’s a simple matter of installing
Klipper
and wiring up a buck converter to power the machine. It’s not exactly rocket surgery, but why muddle through the process when someone has already been down the path ahead of you? And if you want to take it further, the
second video
below walks you through all the steps needed to add a touchscreen using an old Android phone. With a 3D printed bracket, the whole thing is a nicely complete printer control solution.
Thanks to [Keith Olson] for the tip! | 19 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6527922",
"author": "Pietdevries",
"timestamp": "2022-11-04T11:43:44",
"content": "Nice project. I actually used a 3040 for a while as well (without any screen, just running OctoPrint), but I found it to be a bit underpowered. After replacing it with a Pi 4 (removed from another pro... | 1,760,372,508.987907 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/04/adjusting-shelves-like-its-1899/ | Adjusting Shelves Like It’s 1899 | Navarre Bartz | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"adjustable shelving",
"furniture",
"sawtooth shelf",
"sawtooth shelving",
"shelving",
"woodworking"
] | In most modern homes, any adjustable shelves or cabinets have metal shelf pins set inside conveniently spaced holes. Before the accoutrements of modern life, like easily replicated metal parts, you may have found a
sawtooth shelf
doing the same job with just wood.
The system comprises three parts: a series of “sawteeth” running up and down the front and back edge of a cabinet, a cleat to sit between the teeth, and a shelf with notched corners that can then be set down on the cleats on either side.
While not as convenient as running a drill through a shelf pin jig, this method has a certain charm and sturdiness that isn’t present in more modern methods of making adjustable shelves. We can see this being particularly useful for restoration projects of homes from the 19th Century or earlier where you want some of those aforementioned accoutrements without things looking too anachronistic.
If you want some shelving that’s decidedly more 21st Century, check out this
MP3 Player Shelf
or this
Smart Shelf with Serious Functionality
. | 39 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6527914",
"author": "MD",
"timestamp": "2022-11-04T11:36:24",
"content": "I’m resigned to the fact that virtually all articles here require serious editing, but can you not even afford a spell-checker…?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comme... | 1,760,372,509.05865 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/03/walnut-case-sets-this-custom-arduino-powered-rpn-calculator-apart-from-the-crowd/ | Walnut Case Sets This Custom Arduino-Powered RPN Calculator Apart From The Crowd | Dan Maloney | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"calculator",
"cnc",
"reverse polish notation",
"RPN",
"walnut"
] | How many of us have an everyday tool that’s truly unique? Likely not many of us; take a look around your desk and turn out your pockets, but more often than not, what you’ll find is that everything you have is something that pretty much everyone else on the planet could have bought too. But not so if you’ve got
this beautiful custom RPN calculator in a wooden case
.
This one comes to us from [Shinsaku Hiura], who generally dazzles us with unique mechanical
clocks
and
displays
. This calculator solves a more practical problem — the dearth of RPN calculators on the market with the correct keyboard feel, specifically with the large keys and light touch he desired. Appropriately, the build started with a numeric keypad, which once liberated of its USB interface was reverse-engineered to figure out how the matrix was wired. Next up, a custom PCB to connect the keypad to an Arduino and a 20×4 LCD display was milled up, while a test case was designed and printed to check fitment. The final case was milled from a block of solid walnut and fitted with an acrylic window, for a sharp look with clean lines and pleasing colors.
As for the calculator itself, the demo below shows it going through its paces. The code is clever because it leverages the minimal number of keys available by hiding all the scientific and engineering functions behind a “secret silver key” that was once the equals key and obviously not needed in RPN. Hats off to [Shinsaku] for a handsome and unique addition to his desk. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6527780",
"author": "Ale",
"timestamp": "2022-11-04T05:44:48",
"content": "It is a very nice case, and full size keys, remembers me of the Czerweny calculators.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6527830",
"author": "Truth",
... | 1,760,372,508.888902 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/02/make-your-pi-moonlight-as-a-security-camera/ | Make Your Pi Moonlight As A Security Camera | Arya Voronova | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"CCTV",
"diy security camera",
"make your own security camera",
"motion detection",
"motioneye",
"motioneyeos",
"security camera"
] | A decade ago, I was learning Linux through building projects for my own needs. One of the projects was a DIY CCTV system based on a Linux box – specifically, a user-friendly all-in-one package for someone willing to pay for it. I stumbled upon Zoneminder, and those in the know, already can tell what happened – I’ll put it this way, I spent days trying to make it work, and my Linux skills at the time were not nearly enough. Cool software like Motion was available back then, but I wasn’t up to the task of rolling an entire system around it. That said, it wouldn’t be impossible, now, would it?
Five years later, I joined a hackerspace, and eventually found out that its CCTV cameras, while being quite visually prominent, stopped functioning a long time ago. At that point, I was in a position to do something about it, and I built an entire CCTV network around a software package called
MotionEye
. There’s a lot of value in having working CCTV cameras at a hackerspace – not only does a functioning system solve the “who made the mess that nobody admits to” problem, over the years it also helped us with things like locating safety interlock keys to a lasercutter that were removed during a reorganization, with their temporary location promptly forgotten.
Being able to use MotionEye to quickly create security cameras became quite handy very soon – when I needed it, I could make a simple camera to monitor my bicycle, verify that my neighbours didn’t forget to feed my pets as promised while I was away, and in a certain situation, I could even ensure mine and others’ physical safety with its help. How do you build a useful always-recording camera network in your house, hackerspace or other property? Here’s a simple and powerful software package I’d like to show you today, and it’s called MotionEye.
Help => About
Motion is a powerful daemon for handing video streams on Linux in a security camera-like fashion – it does things like detecting movement and recording video clips when it happens. However, it’s a commandline daemon, and it doesn’t have a graphical interface comfortable enough for user-friendly camera image work. MotionEye is a Python package that wraps around Motion, providing a web interface for you to manage your cameras, but more importantly, a treasure trove of quality-of-life features.
MotionEye is
reasonably easy to install
– it just needs a few packages on your OS and a few Python dependencies, and you can set it to autostart using things like systemd. Then, point your browser at its web interface, and you’ll be presented with all that MotionEye offers, accessible using your desktop OS and your phone alike. There’s also
Docker images
if you like your software contained! From there, you can start exploring the features.
For instance, motion detection can be annoying to set up when dealing with GUI-less tools – sometimes there’s areas in your picture that change all the time, but you don’t consider these areas meaningful for motion detection purposes. MotionEye lets you quickly set up a motion mask through the web interface, that the Motion daemon then uses to filter motion events at their source, with as little overhead as possible. It also presents you with options like hardware encoding, something you could otherwise miss among the manuals.
For those of us who don’t want to set up some kind of local storage, or just would like movement notifications pushed to their phone, MotionEye can use a myriad of picture and video upload ways that depend on online services – email, Google Drive, Dropbox and so on. It also lets you set up commandline hooks on motion event start and end, which you can then use for various automation tasks – I’ve personally used these hooks to graph motion events using
matplotlib
, as a means of visualizing hackerspace attendance data for automation purposes.
There’s limitations, of course. For instance, just like Motion it’s based on, MotionEye doesn’t have audio support – though you can use MotionEye hooks with an external audio recording script to splice sound into the clips recorded. If you have cameras with different aspect ratios, MotionEye won’t always show them in a neat grid, though I have solved that through CSS hacking in the past. However, it’s still a mighty powerful package in terms of what you can do.
MotionEyeOS – Out-Of-The-Box Experience
You don’t have to have a distro preinstalled, either.
MotionEyeOS
is a small SD card image with MotionEye and everything you need to make it function, built with help of Buildroot. Just flash the image to a MicroSD card, provide wireless credentials or plug an Ethernet cable. After setting MotionEyeOS up, it will automatically pick up all the cameras it finds, including the CSI-connected Raspberry Pi Camera if one is found. It’s not limited to Raspberry Pi, to be clear – there’s
releases
for Odroid, NanoPi, BananaPi, OrangePi and Pine46 boards, too.
MotionEyeOS uses read-only storage for the system by default, and I’ve found it to be incredibly resilient to power outages, as of course, if you don’t enable local recording, it won’t ever write anything except settings changes to the SD card. Since the image is so small, I’ve used some leftover 512MB cards for the boards I set up. It’s so handy for single-purpose cameras, perhaps its only problem is that hasn’t yet been updated for boards like Zero W 2, but
there are custom builds
by MotionEye community members!
In the default configuration, MotionEye will record onto your main storage device available – using your root filesystem in case of standalone MotionEye install, and in case of MotionEyeOS, that will be an automatically created partition taking up all the space not occupied by the MotionEyeOS core. Given you’ll likely run it off an SD card plugged into your Raspberry Pi, it would make more sense if you connected a USB HDD or SSD instead, and if you’re setting multiple cameras up, a network-connected storage device would be even better. Which brings me to the next point!
DVR-Ready, Too
MotionEye isn’t just for camera-equipped devices – you can build a DVR with it. For that, install MotionEye on a reasonably powerful computer with a couple of large cheap hard drives and then have it grab video from network cameras, whether MotionEye-based ones or Chinese IP cameras connected to an Internet-less subnet. With such a setup, you don’t have to do motion detection or storage on the camera itself – which lets you use cheap Raspberry Pi boards, like even the original Model B, and small SD cards with no fear of video file corruption if power is cut in the middle of a write.
In the aforementioned hackerspace, I’ve had a bunch of Raspberry Pi-connected cameras in various corners, some powered by MotionEyeOS and some with MotionEye added alongside the software that was already running on them for enabling various hackerspace features. Our DVR platform was an industrial DN2800MT mainboard with on it and two SATA HDDs in software RAID1 – I didn’t have hardware encoding, as the N2800’s iGPU drivers were subpar on Linux, but CPU was good enough to work with 8 cameras of various resolutions at a time.
You don’t have to use a separate DVR, either. You can have MotionEye cameras, and then set up MotionEye as a non-recording camera viewer on some computer, perhaps, even your personal laptop – letting you view and configure all cameras from a single place. This way, you get a dashboard with all cameras and no extra hardware required. You’ll find that MotionEye is flexible beyond the scenarios I’m telling you about, but this is a decent overview of what you can get done.
Help Out, Stay Safe, Stay Equipped
Now, MotionEye is one of these projects that a lot of people hold dear, but that doesn’t get enough developer attention at the moment, since the main developer has stepped down two years ago. Due to the value it provides, the community remains lively and helpful, but the codebase could use some people willing to delve into it. The code is pretty maintainable, but there’s a myriad of TODOs to take care of – just a few that I’ve noticed are working through the kinks of the Python 3 port, integrating new Raspberry Pi firmware into the builds, reworking the Buildroot integration, fixing Google Drive integration, and going through
all the small issues
that have accumulated.
You might already have a usecase in mind, but don’t forget to check your local laws! You might not be allowed to run a camera willy-nilly, or with certain things in its field of view. However, a sticker with “video recording is being performed” might be enough for where you are. One could also argue that, if the camera is on your property, it has a right to be there and perform all the features that a camera does. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be wrong for a guest to be intimidated by a camera in your living room – as such, adjust accordingly.
You likely have a spare Raspberry Pi Camera or two, and now you know what you can do with one. Who knows what you could build – after all, we’ve even seen MotionEye-powered
Halloween decorations!
Next time, I’d like to tell you more about securing your Linux-powered camera network, specifically, using point-to-point Wireguard tunnels on your LAN – making sure that even WiFi-connected cameras of yours can’t be snooped on. | 22 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526762",
"author": "quietfox",
"timestamp": "2022-11-02T17:39:25",
"content": "Have RasPi inventory started to recover? I’ve held off on a few things (such as an OctoPi) build because they seem perpetually out of stock",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,509.363941 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/02/keeping-an-eye-on-heating-oil/ | Keeping An Eye On Heating Oil | Bryan Cockfield | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"fuel",
"fuel oil",
"heating",
"home",
"opencv",
"raspberry pi",
"tank",
"webcam"
] | Energy costs around the world are going up, whether it’s electricity, natural gas, or gasoline. This is leading to a lot of people looking for ways to decrease their energy use, especially heading into winter in the Northern Hemisphere. As the saying goes, you can’t manage what you can’t measure, so [Steve] has built
this system around monitoring the fuel oil level for his home’s furnace
.
Fuel oil is an antiquated way of heating, but it’s fairly common in certain parts of the world and involves a large storage tank typically in a home’s basement. Since the technology is so dated, it’s not straightforward to interact with these systems using anything modern. This fuel tank has a level gauge showing its current percentage full. A Raspberry Pi is set up nearby with a small camera module which monitors the gauge, and it runs OpenCV to determine the current fuel level and report its findings.
Since most fuel tanks are hidden in inconvenient locations, it makes checking in on the fuel level a breeze and helps avoid running out of fuel during cold snaps. [Steve] designed this project to be reproducible even if your fuel tank is different than his. You have other options beyond OpenCV as well;
this fuel tank uses ultrasonic sensors
to measure the fuel depth directly. | 70 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526703",
"author": "Bill Gates",
"timestamp": "2022-11-02T15:36:12",
"content": "How quaint. I wonder if this can be adapted to monitor my supply of whale oil for my lanterns.This whole “electricity” things seems new and scary.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies"... | 1,760,372,509.473018 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/02/bye-bye-linux-on-the-486-will-we-miss-you/ | Bye Bye Linux On The 486. Will We Miss You? | Jenny List | [
"computer hacks",
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Slider"
] | [
"486",
"linux",
"obsolete hardware"
] | A footnote in the week’s technology news came from Linus Torvalds,
as he floated the idea of abandoning support for the Intel 80486 architecture
in a Linux kernel mailing list post. That an old and little-used architecture might be abandoned should come as no surprise, it’s a decade since the same fate was meted out to Linux’s first platform, the 80386. The 486 line may be long-dead on the desktop, but since they are not entirely gone from the embedded space and remain a favourite among the retrocomputer crowd it’s worth taking a minute to examine what consequences if any there might be from this move.
Is A 486 Even Still A Thing?
An entire 486 PC in a chip that only uses 1W, that would have been amazing in 1994!
The Intel 80486 was released in 1989, and was substantially an improved version of their previous 80386 line of 32-bit microprocessors with an on-chip cache, more efficient pipelining, and a built-in mathematical co-processor. It had a 32-bit address space, though in practice the RAM and motherboard constraints of the 1990s meant that a typical 486 system would have RAM in megabyte quantities. There were a range of versions in clock speeds from 16 MHz to 100 MHz over its lifetime, and a low-end “SX” range with the co-processor disabled. It would have been the object of desire as a processor on which to run WIndows 3.1 and it remained a competent platform for Windows 95, but by the end of the ’90s its days on the desktop were over. Intel continued the line as an embedded processor range into the 2000s, finally pulling the plug in 2007. The 486 story was by no means over though, as a range of competitors had produced their own take on the 486 throughout its active lifetime. The non-Intel 486 chips have outlived the originals, and even today in 2022 there is more than one company making 486-compatible devices. RDC
produce a range of RISC SoCs that run 486 code
, and according to the ZF Micro Solutions website they still boast of
an SoC that is a descendant of the Cyrix 486 range
. There is some confusion online as to whether DM&P’s
Vortex86
line are also 486 derivatives, however we understand them to be descendants of Rise Technology’s Pentium clone.
Just Where Can A 486 Cling On?
486s and compatible chips were produced by a variety of manufacturers. Winhistory,
Copyrighted free use
.
It’s likely that few engineers would choose these parts for a new x86 embedded design in 2022, not least because there is a far greater selection of devices on the market with Pentium-class or newer cores. We’ve encountered them on modules in industrial applications, and we’re guessing that they’re still in production because somewhere there are long-lasting machine product lines still using them. We’re quite enamoured with the RDC part as a complete 486 PC on a chip with only 1 W power consumption as our ’90s selves would have drooled at the idea of a handheld 486 PC with long battery life, but here in 2022 should we need a quick fix of portable 486 gaming there are plenty of ARM boards that will run a software emulator quickly enough to show no difference. So will the relatively small community of 486 users miss the support for their platform in forthcoming Linux kernels? To answer that question it’s worth thinking about the kind of software these machines are likely to run.
If there’s one thing that operators of industrial machines value, it’s consistency. For them the machine is an appliance rather than a computer, it
must
do its job continuously and faultlessly. To do that it needs a rock-solid and stable software base rather than one which changes by the minute, so is an outdated industrial controller going to need access to the latest and greatest Linux distro? We think probably not, indeed we suspect it’s probably a lot more likely that an outdated x86-based industrial controller would be using a DOS flavour. Meanwhile the retrocomputing crowd are also more likely to be running a DOS or Windows version, so it’s difficult to imagine many of them squeezing the latest and greatest into a 486DX with 16 megabytes of memory.
Memory Lane Is Not So Rosy When You Remember How Little RAM You Had
The first ever Linux that I tried was a Slackware version on a 486DX-33 some time in 1994. At the time that would have been an extremely adventurous choice for an everyday operating system, and while it was great as an experiment, I kept using AmigaOS, DOS, and Windows for my everyday drivers. It would be around a decade later with a shiny new Core Duo laptop that I’d move to permanently dual booting and eventually switching away from Windows entirely rather than only using Linux on servers, and since then several generations of PC have continued the trend. If you used a 486 for real back in the day then it’s tempting to think of it as still somehow a contender, but thinking how many successive platforms have passed my desk in the intervening years drives home just how old this venerable platform really is. We’ve taken a look at the state of the 486 world in the paragraphs above, and we’re guessing that the support for 486 processors will be missed by very few people indeed. How about you, do you run a 486 for anything? Let us know in the comments.
Header image: Oligopolism,
CC0
. | 90 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526676",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2022-11-02T14:16:59",
"content": "The only reason to support 486 is because of old timer engineers afraid to move with the times. Stability is just an excuse, there are many things out there that are just as stable.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,372,509.657201 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/02/3d-printed-rov-is-the-result-of-many-lessons-learned/ | 3D Printed ROV Is The Result Of Many Lessons Learned | Danie Conradie | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"PixHawk",
"rov",
"submarine"
] | Building an underwater remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is always a challenge, and making it waterproof is often a major hurdle. [Filip Buława] and [Piotr Domanowski] have spent four years and 14 prototypes iterating to
create the CPS 5
, a 3D printed ROV that can potentially reach a depth of 85 m.
FDM 3D prints are notoriously difficult to waterproof, thanks to all the microscopic holes between the layers. There are ways to mitigate this, but they all have limits. Instead of trying to make the printed exterior of the CPS 5 waterproof, the electronics and camera are housed in a pair of sealed acrylic tubes. The end caps are still 3D printed, but are effectively just thin-walled containers filled with epoxy resin. Passages for wiring are also sealed with epoxy, but [Filip] and [Piotr] learned the hard way that insulated wire can also act as a tube for water to ingress. They solved the problem by adding an open solder joint for each wire in the epoxy-filled passages.
For propulsion, attitude, and depth control, the CPS 5 has five brushless drone motors with 3D printed propellers, which are inherently unaffected by water as long as you seal the connectors. The control electronics consist of a PixHawk flight controller and a Raspberry Pi 4 for handling communication and the video stream to a laptop. An IMU and water pressure sensor also enable auto-leveling and depth hold underwater. Like most ROVs, it uses a tether for communication, which in this case is an Ethernet cable with waterproof connectors.
Acrylic tubing is a popular electronics container for ROVs, as we’ve seen with an
RC Subnautica sub
,
LEGO submarine
, and the Hackaday Prize-winning
Underwater Glider
. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526640",
"author": "MB",
"timestamp": "2022-11-02T11:51:24",
"content": "I wonder if they’ve sprayed the inside with that Dip-it spray rubber stuff. Would that work?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6526665",
"author":... | 1,760,372,509.102564 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/02/what-if-your-day-to-day-devices-were-alive/ | What If Your Day-To-Day Devices Were Alive? | Arya Voronova | [
"green hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"biohacking",
"biowearables",
"slime"
] | We take advantage of a variety of devices in our day-to-day life, and we might treat them as just pieces of hardware, elements fulfilling a certain purpose — forgotten about until it’s time to use them. [Jasmine Lu] and [Pedro Lopes] believe that these relationships could work differently, and
their recent paper
describes a wearable device that depends on you as much as you depend on it. Specifically, they built wrist-worn heart rate sensors and designed a living organism into these, in a way that it became vital to the sensor’s functioning.
The organism in question is
Physarum polycephalum
, a slime mold that needs water to stay alive and remain conductive — if you don’t add water on a regular basis, it eventually dries out and hibernates, and adding water then will revive it. The heart rate sensor’s power rail is controlled by the mold, meaning the sensor functions only as long as you keep the mold alive and healthy. In their study, participants were asked to wear this device for one-two weeks, and the results go way beyond what we would expect from, say, a Tamagotchi — with the later pages describing participant reactions and observations being especially impressive.
For one, the researchers found that the study participants developed a unique sense of connection towards the slime mold-powered device, feeling senses of responsibility and reciprocity, and a range of other feelings you wouldn’t associate with a wearable. Page 9 of the paper tells us how one participant got sick, but still continued caring for the organism out of worry for its well-being, another participant brought her “little pet mold friend” on a long drive; most participants called the slime a “friend” or a “pet”. A participant put it this way:
[…] it’s always good to be accompanied by some living creature, I really like different, animals or plants. […] carrying this little friend also made me feel happy and peaceful.
There’s way more in the paper, but we wouldn’t want to recite it in full — you should absolutely check it out for vivid examples of experiences that you’d never have when interacting with, say, your smartphone, as well as researchers’ analysis and insights.
With such day-to-day use devices, developing a nurturing relationship could bring pleasant unexpected consequences – perhaps, countering the “kept on a shelf since purchase” factor, or encouraging repairability, both things to be cherished. If you’ve ever overheard someone talking about their car or laptop as if it were alive, you too might have a feeling such ideas are worth exploring. Of course, not every device could use a novel aspect like this, but if you wanted to go above and beyond, you could even build
a lamp that needs to be fed to function. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526620",
"author": "Ewald",
"timestamp": "2022-11-02T08:51:32",
"content": "tamagotchi 2.0",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6526629",
"author": "Peter/DL3PB",
"timestamp": "2022-11-02T10:04:47",
"content": "‘… in a w... | 1,760,372,509.523686 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/01/tambour-table-with-a-puzzling-secret/ | Tambour Table With A Puzzling Secret | Navarre Bartz | [
"Games",
"home hacks"
] | [
"furniture",
"Interactive Furniture",
"lathe",
"metal lathe",
"puzzle",
"puzzles",
"simone giertz",
"table",
"tambour"
] | Some people really like puzzles. [Simone Giertz] is one of these serious puzzle lovers and
built a transforming table
(YouTube) to let her easily switch between puzzles and more mundane tasks, like eating.
While there are commercial solutions out there for game tables with removable tops and simpler solutions like hinged lids, [Giertz] decided to “make it more complicated and over-engineered than that.” A tambour top that rolls out of the way makes this a unique piece of furniture already, but the second, puzzle table top that can be raised flush with the sides of the table really brings this to the next level.
If that wasn’t already enough, the brass handles on the table are also custom made. In grand maker tradition, [Giertz] listened to her inner MYOG (Make Your Own Gnome) and got a lathe to learn to make her own handles instead of just buying some off the shelf.
If you’re less enamored of puzzles, you may want to see how
Jigsaw Puzzles are Defeated
. If you’re worried about losing pieces, check out these
3D Printed Sliding Puzzles
. | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526587",
"author": "DrewTheMachinist",
"timestamp": "2022-11-02T05:32:21",
"content": "That is true meticulousity and grand complication in table design. I love this so much. I have had this exact problem where a huge puzzle took over my kitchen table for months and we ended up not... | 1,760,372,509.707096 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/01/dana-sibera-creates-devices-that-dont-exist/ | [Dana Sibera] Creates Devices That Don’t Exist | Arya Voronova | [
"Art"
] | [
"3D render",
"imagined devices",
"render",
"retrocomputing"
] | [Dana Sibera], known as
[@NanoRaptor] on Twitter,
makes us wonder about devices that could have been, and wince about devices that must never see the light of day – summoned into existence by her respectable photo editing and 3D modeling skills. Ever wanted to see
a Model M with a small green-tinted CRT
built into its side? Now you have. Perhaps, a “self-tapping”
DE-9 plug with wood screws for pins?
Tough luck, here it is anyway, but you can have
a palate cleanser
if it was too much to bear. Having started over a year ago with the classic
“spicy pillows, but actually pillows”
design, she keeps gracing us with portrayals of tech and tech-adjacent objects straight from the depths of her imagination.
None of the things she shows exist in real life, some regretfully and some thankfully so, but that’s not the first thing on your mind when you stumble upon
a cube-shaped iPod with a built-in equalizer
in your Twitter feed. Pictures like this
“cassette ROM”
or the
deluxe woodgrain 386DX
are quite apparent in what they are. On the other hand, devices like this
“Mini VGA” dongle
or the
amber CRT-adorned TI92 Plus
might have you reach for your wallet before you realize what’s up, and the photographic-proof-accompanied assertion about
early floppy drives being punchcard-based
might have you believe you are just not up to date on your retrocomputing trivia.
Older hardware is known to be more expressive and experimental, and [Dana]’s designs take full advantage of that – from an SGI Indy with its diagonal cut through the case
now paired with a matching monitor
, to
an L-display Powerbook.
New hardware doesn’t get a pass either – here’s the
latest iPod Nano with a clickwheel,
a logical conclusion that Apple never reached, and
a motherboard with a dozen USB-C inputs
in place of an ATX power connector.
Some designs will be
nostalgia-inducing,
some will be
intimidating,
and [Dana] keeps bringing new surprises into our feed on the regular. Prolific artists are a joy to observe – last time, we covered
Pepper’s Ghost experiments of [Joshua Ellingson],
and he
keeps experimenting
to this day.
25-pin MagSafe SCSI
pic.twitter.com/iUHBLyPPru
— Dana Sibera (@NanoRaptor)
February 8, 2022 | 43 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526575",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2022-11-02T04:14:51",
"content": "Mag safe SCSI with bits of steel wool and shraf. Scuzzy looking. That’s a laugh! Power to burn things up.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6526586",... | 1,760,372,509.787935 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/31/need-an-usb-i2c-adapter-use-your-pico/ | Need An USB-I2C Adapter? Use Your Pico! | Arya Voronova | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"i2c",
"I2C oled",
"Raspberry Pi Pico",
"rp2040"
] | Given its abundance and simplicity, the RP2040 has no doubt become a favourite for USB peripheral building – in particular, USB-connected tools for electronics experiments. Today, we see one more addition to our Pico-based tool arsenal –
a USB-I2C adapter firmware for RP2040
by [Renze Nicolai]. This is a reimplementation of the ATTiny-based
I2C-Tiny-USB
project and complies to the same protocol – thus, it’s compatible with the
i2c-tiny-usb
driver that’s been in the Linux kernel for ages. Just drag&drop the
.uf2
, run a script on your Linux system, and you will get a
/dev/i2c-X
device you can work with from userspace code, or attach other kernel drivers to.
The software will work with any RP2040 devboard – just connect your I2C devices to the defined pins and you’ll have them show up in
i2cdetect
output on your Linux workstation. As a demo, [Renze] has written
a userspace Python driver
for one of these SSD1306 128×64 OLEDs, and gives us a commandline that has the driver accept output of an
ffmpeg
command capturing your main display’s contents, duplicating your screen on the OLED – in a similar fashion that we’ve seen with
the “HDMI” I2C-driven display
a few months back. Everything you might need is available on the GitHub page, including
usage instructions and examples,
and the few scripts you can use if you want to add an
udev
rule or change the I2C clock frequency.
Just to name a few purposes, you can use a Pi Pico as a tool for SWD,
JTAG
,
CAN
,
a logic analyser
with both digital and analog channels, or even as
a small EMP-driven chip glitching tool.
The now-omnipresent $3 Pi Pico boards, it seems, are a serious contender to fondly remembered hacker tools of the past, such as
the legendary BusPirate. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526120",
"author": "zoobab",
"timestamp": "2022-10-31T15:38:33",
"content": "DirtyJTAG has now a Pico port, and an openocd port (testers are welcomed, contact me if you want to help):https://github.com/jeanthom/DirtyJTAGhttps://github.com/zoobab/openocd-dirtyjtag2",
"parent_id"... | 1,760,372,509.839968 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/31/moving-big-stuff-without-the-tears/ | Moving Big Stuff Without The Tears | Jenny List | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [
"heavy equipment",
"how to move heavy equipment",
"lifting",
"moving"
] | It’s something that has probably happened to more than one of us over the years, there’s an unmissable opportunity at the machinery auction or on eBay, with the small snag that it weighs a ton and requires a flatbed truck to transport. A big lathe, a bandsaw, or the like.
The sensible option would be to hire a crane or a forklift to do the job, but cash is tight so at the appointed hour the truck turns up at the end of your driveway to meet you and as big a group of your friends as you could muster. You’re going to shift this thing with pure muscle power! If you grow up around any form of workshop-based small business it’s something you’ll no doubt be familiar with. Craftsmen seem to have a network for such moments, so just as the blacksmith might find himself helping the woodworker unload a huge saw bench, so might they both spend an unexpected afternoon at the engineering shop manhandling a lathe.
It came as a shock in a casual hackerspace conversation to realise how many times I’d been involved in such maneuvers at home, for friends, or at hackerspaces, and how that experience in doing so safely isn’t necessarily something that’s universal. Maybe it’s time to tell the story of moving big machines on limited resources. This is something that starts by thinking ahead and planning what you’ll need and where you’ll need it.
Heave Ho, And Along It Goes
The armory of the shifting crew consists of a varied array of boards, blocks, wedges, thin pieces of wood, and long levers and crowbars, with jacks, ropes, straps, tensioners, and even the occasional chain hoist or winch if you have one. The key to success is not to plan the grand move in which somehow everything pivots instantly into place, but instead to perform a succession of achievable small moves. This way even the heaviest of equipment can be moved, maybe not with ease, but certainly in an achievable manner.
If your haulage company has one of these it will make your life a lot easier. Reise Reise,
CC BY-SA 4.0
.
If you take a moment to imagine a typical truck with a machine on it, it’s a flat platform several feet off the ground. Getting the machine off the truck by hand is a task for a hefty wooden ramp and a lot of pulling and swearing with more than a hint of danger, so here’s the moment when it’s a smart move to forgo the muscles and make sure the truck you use comes with a loading crane. If this sounds odd when writing about moving things without cranes or similar then it’s worth remembering that this is about moving things when you don’t have the means to hire in extra mechanical help rather than forgoing it by choice.
Making sure your haulier has a loading crane is a smart choice that saves a lot of bother, and shouldn’t cost a huge amount more than one without. Even if you don’t have a loading crane all isn’t entirely lost, growing up on a farm I’ve seen more than one heavy load moved by suspending it from a tractor foreloader, or from an excavator jib. A friend even suggests getting in a tow truck for the job as they have a capable crane and are surprisingly inexpensive if hired for a short time, but maybe that’s something to discuss with your towing company.
Lift It Off The Ground…
A group of “uncles”, Shenzhen handymen, prepare a wooden ramp to move a crated machine. Image used with permission: ©
Naomi Wu
.
A machine on the ground is just like any other heavy item that needs moving; it’s unwieldy, solidly wedded by gravity to the whatever it’s sitting on, and with a curious reluctance to move. If you have any sense you unloaded it onto a couple of planks over which you can slide it, but otherwise or if it’s something that’s sat for years in a forgotten corner of a yard, it’ll need lifting up to get something underneath. Easy with a crane, but still possible to do safely with ingenuity and simple equipment.
The key to lifting a heavy item off the ground lies in it being relatively easy to lift up one of its corners by a few millimetres with a lever or a jack, and then in repeatedly doing this on all corners while inserting thin wooden packing pieces to lift it off the ground bit by bit. Eventually a stack of the thin pieces can be replaced by a single block, and whatever planks, dolly, or other moving equipment can be slid underneath. It’s
very important
to remember
never
to put feet or other body parts under any large object lifted into the air in this way, something I once discovered the hard way by dropping an
Austin 1300
on my foot. (It hurt a lot but by some miracle nothing was broken.)
… And Gently Move It Sideways
Unexpected inspiration comes from the world of experimental archaeology, as with this French menhir on a set of rollers. François de Dijon,
CC BY-SA 4.0
.
Moving a heavy machine sideways without wheels comes back to those achievable small moves. Having got it resting on some planks, the key is then to lay a trackway of planks not unlike a crude railway, and lever the machine forward inch by inch sliding it along the planks.
My dad would do this by running straps from his building stanchions, then using an old-fashioned lever tensioner to shorten the strap by a small amount to move the load bit by bit. This is the point at which having all your friends over is a great idea, and you’ll be amazed how easy it can be to move a machine an inch forward when there are five of you.
Slopes can be negotiated with more levers and wedges to raise and guide onto fresh planks, and when the destination is reached the whole thing can be lifted into the air with wedges and blocks just enough to move the planks. The Shenzhen-based maker and YouTuber [Naomi Wu]
posted an excellent video last year
showing the whole process performed by a group of neighbourhood “uncles”, as they expertly moved her laser cutter from the street into her house.
It might seem an awful lot of effort to go to, but having the skills to safely move heavy machinery without extra drama can save a huge amount of bother and expense when equipping a workshop. It’s also handy for the reason my dad and all those other craftsmen found themselves handling large machinery in the first place, as people with an eye for a machinery auction bargain they knew that a very capable and useful machine can go for not a lot at the machinery auction if it’s old and heavy and looks too difficult to move. Perhaps it’s worth keeping a few planks and ropes handy, just in case. | 104 | 37 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526105",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2022-10-31T14:24:41",
"content": "PET or HDPE bottles/jugs have a fairly low coefficient of friction on a lot of surfaces… this means that if you can jack or lever something heavy just a little off the ground, and stuff a flattened b... | 1,760,372,509.991499 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/31/a-single-watt-hydroponic-lighting-system/ | A Single-Watt Hydroponic Lighting System | Bryan Cockfield | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"deep water culture",
"efficiency",
"energy",
"growing",
"hydroponics",
"lm301b",
"one watt",
"pepper",
"plant",
"samsung",
"single watt"
] | Hydroponic systems are an increasingly popular way to grow plants indoors using a minimum of resources. Even some commercial farming operations are coming online using hydroponic growing techniques, as these methods consume much less water, land area, and other resources than traditional agricultural methods. The downside is that the required lighting systems often take an incredible amount of energy. That’s why [ColdDayApril] set up a challenge
to grow a plant hydroponically using no more than a single watt
.
The system is set up to grow a single pepper plant in what is known as a deep-water culture, where the plant is suspended in a nutrient solution which has everything it needs to grow. The lightning system is based around the Samsung LM301B which comes close to the physical limits for converting electricity into white light and can manage around 220 lumens. A special power supply is needed for these low-power diodes, and the light is efficiently directed towards the plant using a purpose-built reflective housing. By placing this assembly very close to the plant and adjusting it as it grows, [ColdDayApril] was able to take the pepper plant from seed to flowering in 92 days.
It’s worth noting that the rest of the system uses a little bit of energy too. A two watt fan helps circulate some air in the hydroponic enclosure, and deep-water systems usually require an air pump to oxygenate the water which uses another two watts. This is still an impressive accomplishment as most hobbyist builds use lighting systems rated in the hundreds of watts and use orders of magnitude more energy. But,
if you’re willing to add some fish into the system
you can mitigate some of the energy requirements needed for managing the water system even further. | 24 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526073",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2022-10-31T11:51:11",
"content": "Nice performance.Maybe looking into spectrum absorption pattern of individual species and pulsed light is the next step she should look into.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
... | 1,760,372,510.882416 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/31/3d-printed-heat-exchanger-uses-gyroid-infill-for-cooling/ | 3D Printed Heat Exchanger Uses Gyroid Infill For Cooling | Danie Conradie | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"heat exchanger",
"metal 3d printing",
"powder bed printer"
] | 3D printing allows the physical manufacturing of some unique geometries that are simply not possible with other processes. If you design around these strengths, it is possible to create parts that significantly outperform more conventional alternatives. With this in mind [Advanced Engineering Solutions] created a
metal 3D printed heat exchanger
that is half the size and four times the efficiency of the one it was designed to replace. Video after the break.
Gyroid infill splits an internal volume in two, perfect for heat exchangers.
Made from an aluminum alloy using a Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) machine, the heat exchanger is intended to cool transmission oil on military helicopters by using fuel as the coolant. Looking somewhat similar to a Fabergé egg, it uses gyroid “infill” for the actual heat exchange part. An interesting characteristic of gyroids is that it creates two separate intermeshed volumes, making them perfect for this application.
It was printed in one piece, without any removable support, just an internal lattice that supports the gyroids at the inlet and outlets. The only post-processing required was threading and surface cleanup on the ports. Since metal 3D printing is still too expensive to really allow many iterative prints, a significant amount of design and simulation time was put in before the first print.
Whether you are printing heat exchangers,
enclosures
, or
wings
, be sure to keep the strengths (and weaknesses) of 3D printing in mind.
Thanks for the tip [Keith Olson]! | 33 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526056",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2022-10-31T09:32:47",
"content": "A very readable guide to gyroids for anyone like me who was unfamiliar with them, from a 3D printing point of view:https://makerindustry.com/gyroid-infill",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies"... | 1,760,372,510.063014 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/30/trinocular-lens-makes-digital-wigglegrams-easier-to-take/ | Trinocular Lens Makes Digital Wigglegrams Easier To Take | Dan Maloney | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"digital",
"GIF",
"lens",
"parallax",
"photography",
"photoshop",
"wigglegram"
] | Everyone likes a good animated GIF, except for some Hackaday commenters who apparently prefer to live a joyless existence. And we can’t think of a better way to celebrate moving pictures than with
a 3D printed trinocular camera
that makes digital Wigglegrams a snap to create.
What’s a Wigglegram, you say?
We’ve seen them before
, but the basic idea is to take three separate photographs through three different lenses at the same time, so that the parallax error from each lens results in three slightly different perspectives. Stringing the three frames together as a GIF later results in an interesting illusion of depth and motion. According to [scealux], the inspiration for building this camera came from
photographer [Kirby Gladstein]’s work
, which we have to admit is pretty cool.
While [Kirby] uses a special lenticular film camera for her images, [scealux] decided to start his build with a Sony a6300 mirrorless digital camera. A 3D printed lens body with a focusing mechanism holds three small lenses which were harvested from disposable 35 mm film cameras — are those still a thing? Each lens sits in front of a set of baffles to control the light and ensure each of the three images falls on a distinct part of the camera’s image sensor.
The resulting trio of images shows significant vignetting, but that only adds to the charm of the finished GIF, which is created in Photoshop. That’s a manual and somewhat tedious process, but [scealux] says he has some macros to speed things up. Grainy though they may be, we like these Wigglegrams; we don’t even hate the vertical format. What we’d really like to see, though, is to see everything done in-camera.
We’ve seen a GIF camera before
, and while automating the post-processing would be a challenge, it seems feasible. | 13 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526041",
"author": "Shirley Marquez",
"timestamp": "2022-10-31T06:59:47",
"content": "“disposable 35 mm film cameras — are those still a thing?” Yes, they are. Kodak, Fujifilm, and Ilford still make them, though availability can be limited. Kodak and Ilford even make black and whit... | 1,760,372,510.112815 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/30/stop-silicone-cure-inhibition-no-fancy-or-expensive-products-required/ | Stop Silicone Cure Inhibition, No Fancy Or Expensive Products Required | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"acetone",
"acrylic",
"casting",
"cure inhibition",
"PMMA",
"resin molds",
"silicone"
] | Casting parts in silicone is great, and 3D printing in resin is fantastic for making clean shapes, so it’s natural for an enterprising hacker to want to put the two together: 3D print the mold, pour in the silicone, receive parts! But silicone’s curing process can be inhibited by impurities. What’s cure inhibition? It’s a gross mess as shown in the image above, that’s what it is. Sadly, SLA-printed resin molds are notorious for causing exactly that. What’s a hacker to do?
Firstly: there are tin-cure and platinum-cure silicones, and for the most part tin-cure silicone works just fine in resin-printed molds. Platinum-cure silicones have better properties, but are much more susceptible to cure inhibition. Most workarounds rely on adding some kind of barrier coating to molds, but
[Jan Mrázek] has a cheap and scalable method of avoiding this issue that we haven’t seen before
.
A small number of the test pieces used to narrow down a working process. These pieces have loads of flat sides and corners. Many potential solutions worked only for flat mold surfaces, leaving corners problematic.
[Jan] goes into a lot of great detail about this issue and his results, but here’s the short version: after carefully cleaning the resin printed mold to ensure absolutely no uncured resin is left on the surface, he submerges the print in water. The print (sitting in the water bath) is exposed to external UV curing for 30 minutes, followed by a 6 hour soak in the water. After this, the water is changed and the process repeated. That seems to be all that is needed to end up with an SLA-printed resin mold that doesn’t inhibit silicone curing. It sounds simple, but getting there was anything but.
That process applies best to thick-walled molds; there is a second process for thin-walled molds with fine features. Why? Because resin prints absorb water to some degree. A thick-walled print won’t care much, but a thin-walled one can’t sit in a water bath for 12+ hours without expanding and deforming at least a little. To deal with that, [Jan] seals small prints with a thin layer of acrylic (PMMA) after the initial cleaning.
Coating something in a fine layer of acrylic is easier than it may sound. [Jan] simply dissolves a small piece of clear acrylic in a quantity of acetone. Acetone is a poor solvent for acrylic, but it’s readily available and it does work if given a few hours. Once a roughly 1% solution is made, simply dip the cleaned and dried resin part into the solution, allow it to dry completely, then repeat. As a bonus, molds treated with an acrylic dip do not need a release agent: silicone simply refuses to stick.
As usual, [Jan] provides plenty of photos and details of what did and didn’t work as he zeroed in on a process. However, he does acknowledge that there still remain variables he hasn’t been able to identify or control. His process is overall a great success, but about 5% of the time, curing will be inhibited for no apparent reason. So for now, he always tests a new mold with a small amount of silicone to check for cure inhibition before committing to anything; cleaning cure-inhibited silicone is a real pain.
[Jan]
does a lot of casting of parts in silicone
, so this issue is something he’s certainly invested in. We always love to see the unusual approaches and fine attention to detail [Jan] brings to all kinds of aspects related to SLA printing in resin, whether it’s figuring out
how to improve dimensional stability
, or
making and using flexible build plates before they were cool
. | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526017",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2022-10-31T03:38:04",
"content": "I’ve tried this process it does work. I’ve gotten inhibit-x to work reliably with less steps. I do coat my molds in the pmma solution It smooths out the layer lines. It also makes it easier to pull the sili... | 1,760,372,513.061841 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/30/hackaday-links-october-30-2022/ | Hackaday Links: October 30, 2022 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"c64",
"doom",
"earth music",
"fMRI",
"hackaday links",
"halloween",
"lego",
"mindstorms",
"regex",
"regular expression",
"sferics",
"solar storm"
] | Sad news for kids and adults alike as
Lego announces the end of the Mindstorms line
. The much-wish-listed line of robotics construction toys will be discontinued by the end of this year, nearly a quarter-century after its 1998 introduction, while support for the mobile apps will continue for another couple of years. It’s probably fair to say that Mindstorms launched an entire generation of engineering careers, as it provided a way to quickly prototype ideas that would have been difficult to realize without the snap-fit parts and easily programmed controllers. For our money, that ability to rapidly move from idea to working model was perhaps the strongest argument for using Mindstorms, since it prevented that loss of momentum that so often kills projects. That was before the maker movement, though, and now that servos and microcontrollers are only an Amazon order away and custom plastic structural elements can pop off a 3D printer in a couple of hours, we can see how Mindstorms might no longer be profitable. So maybe it’s a good day to drag out the Mindstorms, or even just that big box of Lego parts, and just sit on the carpet and make something.
Have you ever wondered what it sounds like when a solar storm crashes into Earth’s magnetosphere? We’re not sure the question has ever crossed our mind, but having heard
the data from three European Space Agency satellites converted to audio
, we can’t say it’s what we would have expected. We’d have thought it would be something like
the pings, snaps, and whistles of “Earth music”
, but it’s something else entirely. There’s a lot in there; at first it sounds like a forest fire, then rattling chains followed by someone dropping a box of screws on the floor, all backed up by the sound of bubbling lava and heavy breathing. It’s truly creepy, so much so that it would make a great soundtrack for that Halloween haunted house. The data are from a solar storm that hit the Earth in 2011, when the Sun was just waking up again for the start of Solar Cycle 24; we can’t help but wonder what it sounds like now that we’re in
Solar Cycle 25
.
We spotted an alarming headline this week:
“New Technique For Decoding People’s Thoughts Can Now Be Done From a Distance.”
But as it turns out, the distance in question is approximately the radius of the bore of a functional MRI machine, since that’s where your head needs to be for this “new technique” to work. Previously, decoding the electrical impulses in a person’s brain required electrodes implanted deep within it, an invasive procedure that most people would probably not fail to notice having undergone. The fMRI method, which measures the flow of oxygenated blood in the brain as a proxy for neural activity, is certainly less invasive than the holes-in-the-head method, but again a reasonably alert person might notice
the MRI machine jackhammering away
around them. And it’s not even like this method actually reads thoughts in real time — the data have to be analyzed after the fact, and then only “decodes the semantic meaning” of what the user is thinking.
Commodore 64 fans will want to check out
this collection of exotic C64s that never were
. The past never looked so cool! The 64-TX, which has a standard C64 case with an LCD display and a chunky joystick mounted where the keyboard should be, is our favorite. There’s no build info, so it’s all just eye candy, but it’s pretty tasty and may serve as inspiration for those C64s you’ve got lying around.
If you’re as big a fan of regular expressions as we are, you’ll want to check out
The Typing of the RegEx
. Chris Johnson’s online game was inspired by
The Typing of the Dead
, except that instead of killing zombies with your words, you’re knocking out regexes that match ever-changing text prompts. Each round is timed, and there are bonus points for coming up with non-obvious patterns that match the input, so there’s a lot of pressure to perform. We’re a bit rusty with our regexes, so it only took a couple of rounds before tapping out. But it was fun to get back in the groove again.
And finally, what would Halloween be without the potential for your kids to bring home treats laced with foreign objects? We suggest you go through the treat bags carefully and if you see something like this, make sure you get it before the kiddies do. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525992",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-10-31T00:01:06",
"content": "The solar audio sounds like Marley (not Bob) is about to visit Scrooge.LEGO, always capitalized, never pluralized.As much as my daughter loved LEGO, I wasn’t able to get her in... | 1,760,372,512.698412 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/01/the-best-threaded-holes-for-resin-parts/ | The Best Threaded Holes For Resin Parts | Danie Conradie | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"cnc kitchen",
"resin printing",
"threaded inserts"
] | Threaded inserts are great for melting into FDM prints with a soldering iron. The process isn’t so simple for resin prints, since they don’t generally soften with heat. Off course, you can also print the threads directly, screw a bolt into an un-threaded hole, or tap a hole. Following his usual rigorous testing process, [Stefan] from
CNC Kitchen
investigated various ways of
adding threaded holes to resin prints.
After establishing a pull-out force on PLA using threaded inserts (205 kg) and tapped holes (163 kg), [Stefan] tested parts printed with Prusament Tough Anthracite resin. Un-threaded and tapped holes failed at 44 kg and 55 kg respectively, while printed threads were almost twice as strong, reaching 106 kg before breaking. Stephan also tried gluing inserts into the parts using resin and CA glue. The resin didn’t cure properly in the opaque parts (6 kg) while CA was comparable to plastic threads, failing at 52 kg.
TLDR: Print your threads for best results
[Stefan] also tested regular ELEGOO Translucent resin. The higher hardness of the cured resin allowed the parts to hold on to around 100 kg for un-threaded and tapped holes, while printed threads reached 120 kg. Threaded insert glued with resin did better on the transparent parts thanks to improved UV penetration, but were very inconsistent. Inserts glued with CA performed about the same as on the Prusament parts, failing at 56 kg.
In an attempt to improve the performance of the inserts [Stefan] printed some parts with stepped holes to match the geometry of the inserts, which had the advantage of preventing the insert from falling through during gluing. It only made a marginal difference on the Prusament parts but boosted the strength of CA-glued inserts on the ELEGOO resin to 82 kg. Two-part epoxy was also tried, which matched the un-threaded holes in strength.
So for resin parts you’ll probably be best served by just modeling the threads in CAD and printing them directly. If you need to be able to repeatedly screw and unscrew fasteners in a hole without stripping, threaded holes with CA or epoxy might be a better solution. | 21 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526347",
"author": "schobi",
"timestamp": "2022-11-01T08:35:03",
"content": "Good work – thanks!I’m a little surprised about the absolute numbers. A single M3 bolt in PLA will hold more than twice my weight?For comparison, a Fischer Dübel for fixing a screw into drywall board of 1/... | 1,760,372,513.00115 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/31/an-easy-to-make-pi-powered-pocket-password-pal/ | An Easy-To-Make Pi-Powered Pocket Password Pal | Arya Voronova | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"bitwarden",
"password management",
"password manager"
] | Sometimes, we see a project where it’s clear – its creator seriously wants to make a project idea accessible to newcomers; and today’s project is one of these cases. The
BYOPM
– Bring Your Own Password Manager, a project by [novamostra] – is a Pi Zero-powered device to carry your passwords around in. This project takes the now well-explored USB gadget feature of the Pi Zero, integrates it into a Bitwarden-backed password management toolkit to make a local-network-connected password storage, and makes a tutorial simple enough that anybody can follow it to build their own.
For the physical part, assembly instructions are short and sweet – you only need to solder a single button to fulfill the hardware requirements, and there’s a thin 3D-printable case if you’d like to make the Pi Zero way more pocket-friendly, too! For the software part, the instructions walk you step-by-step through setting up an SD card with a Raspbian image, then installing all the tools and configuring a system with networking exposed over the USB gadget interface. From there, you set up a Bitwarden instance, and optionally learn to connect it to the corresponding browser extensions. Since the device’s goal is password management and storage, it also reminds you to do backups, pointing out specifically the files you’ll want to keep track of.
Overall, such a device helps you carry your passwords with you wherever you need them, you can build this even if your Raspberry Pi skills are minimal so far, and it’s guaranteed to provide you with a feeling that only a self-built pocket gadget with a clear purpose can give you! Looking for something less reliant on networking and more down-to-commandline? Here’s a buttons-and-screen-enabled
Pi Zero gadget
that uses
pass
. | 16 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526315",
"author": "ian 42",
"timestamp": "2022-11-01T06:02:35",
"content": "well, that seems complete processor overkill when all it is doing is remembering passwords… And takes a minute to boot? Hilarious.. 8266 anyone? Or a esp32 s2 if you want usb otg…",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,372,513.191621 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/31/infinitely-scrolling-e-ink-landscape-never-repeats/ | Infinitely Scrolling E-Ink Landscape Never Repeats | Danie Conradie | [
"Art"
] | [
"digital picture frame",
"e-ink display",
"image generator"
] | Traditional Chinese landscape scrolls can be a few dozen feet long and require the viewer to move along its length to view all the intricate detail in each section. [Dheera Venkatraman] replicated this effect with an
E-Ink picture frame
that displays an infinitely scrolling, Shan Shui-style landscape that never repeats.
A new landscape every time you look
The landscape never repeats and is procedurally generated using a
script
created by [Lingdong Huang]. It consists of a single HTML file with embedded JavaScript, so you can run it locally with minimal resources, or view the
online demo
. It is inspired by historical artworks such as
A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains
and
Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains
.
[Dheera]’s implementation uses a 10.3″ E-ink mounted in an off-the-shelf picture frame connected to a Raspberry Pi Zero running a
forked version
of [Lingdong]’s script. It does a decent job of avoiding the self-illuminated electronic look and creates a piece of decor that you could easily just stand and stare at for a long time.
Computer-generated art is making a lot of waves with the advent of AI models like
Dall-E
and
Stable Diffusion
. The ability to bring original art into existence with a simple phrase will have an undeniably profound long-term effect on the art world. | 52 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526289",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2022-11-01T02:34:54",
"content": "No video of it in action who then cares.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6526292",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2022-11-01T02:57:... | 1,760,372,512.796414 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/31/lighting-up-glue-stick-bicycle-tyres-with-rgb/ | Lighting Up Glue Stick Bicycle Tyres With RGB | Danie Conradie | [
"LED Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bicycle tire",
"RGB LED",
"the q"
] | Being visible to motorists is a constant concern for cyclists, but we doubt [The Q] will have this problem with his
RGB LED illuminated tires
made from glue sticks.
The project started with a set of 3D-printed tire molds that bolt to the standard wheels. A bot of melted glue sticks is poured into the mold, allowed to cool, and the mold sections are removed with the help of a heat gun after cooling. We doubt the weight and hardness make the tires particularly practical, but you can’t make normal tires glow from the inside.
The idea to illuminate the tires probably came after molding, because they had to be cut off to fit the LEDs. [The Q] built a simple hot wire jig with a piece of nichrome wire between two screws and used it to cut a few millimeters from the inside of the tire and fit a sleeved RGB LED strip in the wheel. Power come from a set of three 18650 batteries housed with a wireless controller in a 3D printed hub-mounted enclosure.
Like [The Q]’s
hubless
and
partial wheel bicycles
, it’s a definite head-turner, with function following form. | 28 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526234",
"author": "Wyrm",
"timestamp": "2022-10-31T23:05:18",
"content": "That’s fantastic. It’s a shame that the wheels are made from hot glue, it’d probably melt where I live. I would love to have something like this to make myself visible on my rides to work.",
"parent_id":... | 1,760,372,512.941193 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/31/3d-printed-strain-wave-gearbox/ | 3D Printed Strain Wave Gearbox | Danie Conradie | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"harmonic drive",
"NEMA17",
"strain wave gear"
] | 3D-printed gearboxes are always an interesting design challenge, especially if you want to make them compact. [ZeroBacklash] created a little
strain wave gearbox
(harmonic drive) for when you want to trade speed for torque on NEMA 17 stepper motors.
Strain wave gears work by deforming a stationary flexible spline into an ellipse so the teeth engage the internal teeth of the output spline. Add a couple of extra teeth on the output side, and you get a high-reduction gearbox with fewer parts and reduced volume than equivalent spur gearing. Keeping the flexible spline stationery is achieved by making half of it engage with a stationary spline with the same number of teeth.
In this case, there are 60 teeth on the input side and 62 on the output, giving a gear ratio of 30:1. The flexible spline is deformed using a set of bearing balls and an elliptical plug on the shaft of the motor. It makes for a compact design that matches the frontal size of the stepper motor and is only about 27 mm long. [ZeroBacklash] has not released any design files, but the idea should be simple to replicate.
We’ve featured a couple of 3D printed
harmonic drives
of different
sizes
, but they usually use a
pair of ball bearings
as the wave generators, which doesn’t lend itself well to smaller designs. | 19 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526189",
"author": "Dj Biohazard",
"timestamp": "2022-10-31T20:11:58",
"content": "That video screams “You have selected Microsoft Sam as the computer’s default voice.”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6526222",
"autho... | 1,760,372,512.64985 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/31/dropping-marbles-with-millisecond-accuracy/ | Dropping Marbles With Millisecond Accuracy | Danie Conradie | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"ball drop",
"marble machine",
"wintergatan"
] | The road to the perfect marble dropper
[Martin] of the band [Wintergatan] is on his third quest to build the ultimate musical marble machine, and that means dropping marbles with maximum reliability and precision timing. Working through several iterations, and returning to first principles, he engineered a marble gate that can
drop marbles with a timing standard deviation of 0 ms
.
[Wintergatan]’s first two machines,
Marble Machine
and
Marble Machine X
gained significant attention, but their complexity was their undoing. As it turns out, a Rube Goldberg machine that makes music has a lot of potential failure points, and both machines proved too temperamental for the live stage. The third version, Marble Machine XT (T for “touring”) needed to be re-engineered for simplicity and reliability to be practical on the road.
[Martin] broke the marble machine concept down to its key components, of which the marble drop gate is the most obvious. Using a pair of contact microphones to record the moment of release and impact, he can measure the timing with precision. The first design had a standard deviation of 3.91 ms, which is not nearly enough for us to detect by ear, but is not up to [Martin]’s standard for “tight music”. It used a clock-type
escapement mechanism
, where the wheel is the release gate. After reviewing his measurement software and compensating for drift between the software components of his setup, the measured standard deviation was reduced by 1 ms. Another breakthrough was to remove any guiding surfaces below the gate and let gravity do all the work. The 8th iteration proved to be the winner and used the escapement arm as the drop gate and wheel to hold back the queue of marbles.
Coming from an arts background, [Martin] had to learn a lot of engineering lessons the hard way. Looking at the videos on his YouTube channel, it seems like he is taking the lessons to heart, and we look forward to seeing the Marble Machine XT come to life. | 40 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526175",
"author": "MM",
"timestamp": "2022-10-31T19:03:52",
"content": "Interesting experiments.I wonder about the orientation of the sensor, which is at an angle of approx 45 degrees wrt the speed vector of the ball (which is vertical). Any horizontal speed component of the ball ... | 1,760,372,513.141505 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/31/europes-energy-squeeze-pushes-large-hadron-collider-to-halt-operations/ | Europe’s Energy Squeeze Pushes Large Hadron Collider To Halt Operations | Lewin Day | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"cern",
"large hadron collider",
"lhc",
"nuclear research",
"physics"
] | Energy prices have been in the news more often than not lately, as has war. The two typically go together, as conflicts tend to impact on the supply and trade of fossil fuels.
With Europe short on gas and its citizens contemplating a cold winter, science is feeling the pinch, too.
CERN has elected to shut down the Large Hadron Collider early to save electricity.
Bill Shock
With Europe facing a dire situation this winter, CERN has agreed to a request from Électricité de France (EDF) to cut its electricity use going forward. The laboratory will cut back on its energy consumption for the rest of 2022 and into 2023 to help ease the load on France’s electrical grid.
The governing council of CERN ratified the plan on September 26. In 2022, CERN will close its operations two weeks early to help cut demand, calling a technical stop on 28 November. It will also scale back operations by 20% for 2023. This will primarily be achieved by closing four weeks early next year, stopping operations some time in mid-November. Start dates for CERN’s operations will remain the same in 2023 and 2024, with the lab getting major work underway again as scheduled in late February.
Much of the LHC’s energy use is required to keep the facility’s superconducting magnets cool. Credit:
gamsiz, CC-BY-2.0
As a high-energy physics lab, CERN racks up significant energy bills even in a regular year. The lion’s share comes from the organization’s crown jewel, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and cools the particle accelerator’s superconducting magnets, which operate at a temperature of -271°C. To maintain that temperature, the LHC relies upon a 27-megawatt liquid helium cooling system. As it turns out, doing high-energy physics has high energy requirements. CERN draws
around 200 megawatts
during peak consumption periods, but this drops to just 80 megawatts during the quieter winter months.
In a typical year of normal operations, CERN uses around 1.3 terawatt-hours of electricity. As a comparison, the city of Geneva has a population of 200,000 people, and consumes 3 terawatt-hours per annum. Its electricity bill for 2022 is estimated to be around $89 million.
Cutting back on active research time will help save energy. However, a 20% cut to operational time won’t result in a 20% drop in energy use, due to maintenance requirements. For example, the LHC’s superconducting magnets must be kept cool, even when not in use.
CERN isn’t just cutting back on science to reduce its energy consumption. It will also take conventional measures, as well. On the lab’s campus, night time street lighting will be switched off where possible, and heating will be used one less week per year.
LHC CMS Detector
by Luigi Selmi
According to CERN, the decision to wind back operations hasn’t been made primarily over spiralling energy costs. Instead, measures are being taken out of concern for broader society. Much of Europe relies on natural gas for heating and electricity generation. With Russia continuing to wage war on Ukraine, those supplies are scarce. Fears abound over the coming winter, rolling blackouts, and potential supply shortages. Thus, the aim is to ensure that sufficient fuel resources are available to allow for crucial heating and electrical needs in people’s homes.
The early shutdown will mean that some experiments will no longer take place as scheduled. Those scientists who intended to use CERN’s facilities in the last two weeks of operations will instead be rescheduled for 2023. That also means there will be more competition for time on the facilities next year, in addition to the impacts of the further-reduced 2023 schedule.
Other science facilities are feeling the bite too, and some are more cost-sensitive than CERN. The German Electron Synchrotron has contracts that cover parts of its energy bill years in advance to avoid spikes. While 80% of the synchrotron’s bill is covered for 2023, the last 20% is still up in the air. At current prices, the organization cannot currently afford to cover the expense. Management is pursuing additional government funding, and exploring running some of its hardware at lower power settings as a compromise.
Much of CERN’s work is high-concept physics that doesn’t have a huge impact on our lives today. However, the research done there is the very sharpest of the cutting-edge, and is of profound value to humanity. For now, though, it is the prudent and noble thing to do to wind back operations as Europe faces a cold and uncertain winter ahead. | 45 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526144",
"author": "Myself",
"timestamp": "2022-10-31T17:35:47",
"content": "This seems to add very little info beyond what was already in the Hackaday Links roundup, October 23. Is there new news to add?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"co... | 1,760,372,513.276855 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/01/the-many-ways-you-can-easily-ruin-your-pcb-antenna-design/ | The Many Ways You Can Easily Ruin Your PCB Antenna Design | Maya Posch | [
"how-to",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"pcb antenna",
"PCB design"
] | PCB antenna impaired by copper fill and other attenuation sources.
We have all seen Printed Circuit Board (PCB) antennas: those squiggly bits of traces on PCBs connected often to a Bluetooth, WiFi or other wireless communication chip. On modules like for the ESP8266 and ESP32 platforms the PCB antennas are often integrated onto the module’s PCB, yet even with such a ready-made module it’s possible to completely destroy the effectiveness of this antenna. These and other design issues are discussed
in this article
by [MisterHW].
It covers a range of examples of poor design, from having ground fill underneath an antenna, to having metal near the antenna, to putting dielectric materials near or on top of the antenna. The effect of all of these issues is generally to attenuate the signal, sometimes to the point where the antenna is essentially useless.
Ultimately, the best PCB antenna design is one where there is no nearby copper fill, and there are no traces running near or on layers below the antenna. After all, any metal trace or component is an antenna, and any dielectric materials will dampen the signal. Fortunately, there is e.g. a
free KiCad library
with ready-to-use PCB antenna designs to help one get started with a custom design, as well as many other resources, covered in the article.
If you want to get really professional about checking the effectiveness of an antenna design, you’ll want to use a Network Vector Analyzer. These will also help you with tuning the capacitors used with the PCB antenna.
(Featured image: PCB antenna rendered useless by overly enthusiastic copper fill.) | 28 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526555",
"author": "NoWay Jose",
"timestamp": "2022-11-02T00:38:30",
"content": "You forgot to mention that holding wrong is another no no.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6526558",
"author": "Col. Panek",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,372,512.876799 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/01/reproducing-vinyl-records-in-resin/ | Reproducing Vinyl Records In Resin | Navarre Bartz | [
"Laser Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"Evan and Katelyn",
"glow",
"glow in the dark",
"glow in the dark vinyl",
"laser cutter",
"phonograph",
"resin casting",
"vinyl",
"Vinyl Record"
] | While most are just plain, vinyl records can be found in a variety of colors, shapes, and some even glow in the dark. [Evan and Katelyn] decided to spruce up a plain old record by
replicating it in bright, glow-in-the-dark resin
.
By first making a silicone mold of the vinyl record and then pouring several different colors of resin into the resulting mold, [Evan and Katelyn] were able to make a groovy-looking record that still retained the texture necessary to transmit the original sounds of the record. The resulting piece has some static, but the music is still identifiable. That said, audiophiles would probably prefer to leave this up on the wall instead of in their phonograph.
Acrylic rings were laser cut and bolted together to build the form for the silicone mold with the original record placed at the bottom. To prevent bubbles, the silicone was degassed in a vacuum chamber before pouring over the record and the resin was cured in a pressure pot after pouring into the resulting mold.
If you’re interested in how records were originally made, check out this installment of
Retrotechtacular
. A more practical application of resin might be this technique to
reproduce vintage plastic parts
. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526539",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2022-11-01T22:05:16",
"content": "Reminds me of my childhood when I made a balloon powered hovercraft disc from one of grandma’s old records and glue & a spool of thread. The instructions were printed in a comic magazine.. Ah, hood times! ... | 1,760,372,513.32669 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/01/plywood-lamp-has-customizable-light-output/ | Plywood Lamp Has Customizable Light Output | Navarre Bartz | [
"home hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"lamps",
"lighting",
"plywood",
"woodwork",
"woodworking"
] | There’s something about light fixtures that attracts makers like moths to a flame. [danthemakerman] wanted something with a more configurable light output and built this
Sculptural and Customizable Plywood Lamp
.
In his detailed build log, [danthemakerman] describes how he wanted something “sort of like an analog dimmable light.” By using a stack of split plywood donuts hinged on a brass rod, he can vary the output and shape of the lamp. These shutters allow the lamp to go from bright to nightlight without using any electrical dimming components.
The plywood was rough cut on a bandsaw before being turned on a lathe. The light cover sections were then hollowed out with a
Forstner bit
and split in half. The tricky bit is the overlap of the cut on the hinge side of the shutters. Cutting the piece exactly in half would’ve required a lot more hardware to make this lamp work than what was achieved by patient woodworking.
If you’d like to see more ways to make light fixtures with plywood, check out this
Hexagonal Lamp
, these
Upcycled Plywood and Glass Lamps
, or this
Laser-cut Sphere Lampshade that Packs Flat
. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526503",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2022-11-01T19:12:09",
"content": "That would make a great Shabbat lamp.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6526524",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,372,513.545519 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/01/linux-fu-easy-vms/ | Linux Fu: Easy VMs | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Linux Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"linux"
] | It wasn’t long ago that we looked at easily creating Docker containers from the command line so you could just easily spin up a virtual environment for development. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could do the same for virtual machines? You can. Using
Multipass
from Canonical, the makers of Ubuntu, you can easily spin up virtual machines under Linux, Mac, or Windows. Granted, most of the virtual machines in question are variations of Ubuntu, but there are some additional images available, and you can create your own.
Once you have it installed, starting up a new Ubuntu instance is trivial. If you have a set configuration, you can even set up predefined setups using a YAML file.
Installation
The process varies by platform, but on Ubuntu, installing Multipass is as easy as:
sudo snap install multipass
You should be sure that you are on a computer that can support virtual machines. The
/proc/cpuinfo
file should have a
vmx
or
svm
flag (actually, several of them; one for each core).
Catalog
You can see all the images available by running:
multipass find
Naturally, most of the images are Ubuntu versions, although there are a few other appliances like anbox and nextcloud available.
Suppose you want to do some testing in a Ubuntu bionic (18.04) instance. You can launch a default instance by issuing the command:
multipass launch bionic
However, you usually want a little more control since the default is one CPU core, a gigabyte of RAM, and 5G of disk storage. Say you want 4 CPUs, 6G of RAM, and a 10G disk. You can also provide a name for the virtual machine:
multipass launch -c 4 -m 6G -d 10G -n hackaday-vm bionic
On the Run
Once you have a bunch of virtual machines, you might want to see how they are doing:
multipass list
You can control them with start and stop. You can also delete a machine.
multipass stop hackaday-vm
multipass start hackday-vm
multipass stop hackaday-vm
multipass delete hackaday-vm
Access
So what do you do with it? By default, the machine starts up with a private network that you can only access from the host machine. There are ways to route traffic around if you need to do that.
However, many times you just want a shell into the new machine. That’s easy:
multipass shell hackaday-vm
If you want to share data, you can mount a host folder into the virtual machine:
multipass mount ~/hackaday hackaday-vm
If you lose track of everything, you can ask about a particular machine:
multipass info hackaday-vm
Name: hackaday-vm
State: Running
IPv4: 10.134.147.131
Release: Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS
Image hash: 5269cad5bc26 (Ubuntu 18.04 LTS)
Load: 0.78 0.41 0.16
Disk usage: 1.2G out of 9.5G
Memory usage: 143.2M out of 5.8G
Mounts: /home/alw/hackaday => /home/alw/hackaday
UID map: 0:default
GID map: 0:default
It really is that simple. There are other
commands
available to run programs in a machine or set up networking. There’s also a GUI that sits in your system tray, but if you aren’t running virtual machines as your own user, that isn’t as useful to you.
Configuration
If you have things you always have to set up, you can automate that. You create a yaml file (known as a
cloud init file
) and set things up like users, packages, ssh keys, and the like. Note that the standard allows for several formats, but apparently Multipass only supports YAML.
The other thing you can do is use Packer to package a new image of your own. That’s a bit involved, but you can
read the documentation to find out how
.
Have you ever set up a development environment and then a few years later found out it was all broken because of updates? With virtual machines that never has to happen again. You can archive entire environments. This can be important in production environments when you need to go back to the exact way code was built to resolve a problem. It is also extremely important for safety-critical software where you sometimes have a requirement to be able to produce the exact same executable and prove that you can do it. Virtual machines make that much easier and Multipass is an easy way to create and use at least some kinds of virtual machines. The fact that it runs on multiple platforms itself is also a great feature. | 34 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526466",
"author": "Jeff Karney",
"timestamp": "2022-11-01T17:26:55",
"content": "It’s called Vagrant and has been around for years. Is Canonical becoming Apple?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6526472",
"author": "So... | 1,760,372,513.614569 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/01/exploring-piston-engine-design-with-lego/ | Exploring Piston Engine Design With LEGO | Danie Conradie | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"air engine",
"lego technic",
"radial engine"
] | When learning about the design of a machine or mechanism, reading and watching videos is certainly effective, but it’s hard to beat hands-on experimentation. In the video after the break, [Brick Technology] uses LEGO to gain some practical insight into the
world of piston engine design
, from single-cylinder all the way up to radial twelve-cylinder engines.
Using pneumatic cylinders from the LEGO Technic series, [Brick Technology] starts by getting the basics working with a single-cylinder design. Besides the fact that there are no fuel-air explosions involved, these pistons are also double-acting thanks to a valve mechanism that switches the pressurized side of the piston as it reaches the end of its stroke. After a couple of experiments, he settles on using a bank of six two liter soda bottles as a source of pressurized air.
He also increased the performance of the LEGO cylinders by drilling out the ports and adding silicon oil for lubrication. In the initial prototypes, the cylinders also acted as connecting rods, tilting back and forth as the crankshaft rotates. After some testing, he discovered he could increase efficiency by constraining the cylinder with a slider mechanism and adding a separate connecting rod.
With the basics done, [Brick Technology] could start experimenting with engine arrangements and geometry. Inline two, three, and four cylinders and V2, V6, V8, and even R12 were all on the menu. He could also change crankshaft geometry to trade torque for RPM and vice versa, and build a starter motor, and torque generator.
Just like [Brick Technology]’s
LEGO electronic drums
and
vortex machine
, this video gives us a itch that can only be scratched by a few hundred LEGO pieces. For rapid prototyping of course. | 16 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526462",
"author": "hasge",
"timestamp": "2022-11-01T17:06:51",
"content": "One has to be insane to pay for overpriced bits of ABS plastic when food prices are up 150-200% year to year and some foods became scarce because of economic hardship.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": ... | 1,760,372,513.671631 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/01/identify-that-antenna-by-sight/ | Identify That Antenna By Sight | Jenny List | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Radio Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"antennas",
"radio",
"wavelength"
] | It’s a skill that radio amateurs pick up over years but which it sometimes comes as a surprise to find that is not shared by everyone, the ability to casually glance at an antenna on a mast or a rooftop and guess what it might be used for. By which of course I mean not some intuitive ability to mentally decode radio signals from thin air, but most of us can look at a given antenna and immediately glean a lot of information about its frequency and performance. Is this privileged knowledge handed down from the Elmers at the secret ceremony of conferring a radio amateur’s licence upon a baby ham? Not at all, in fact stick around, and I’ll share some of the tricks.
It’s The Size That Matters.
A very low frequency needs a very large antenna.
Anthorn radio station
, here viewed from about three miles away, has one of the largest antennas in the UK for its 19.2kHz submarine transmitter. Even then it’s not a full quarter-wavelength.
We normally think of frequencies in megahertz, or sometimes in kilohertz or gigahertz. But the other side of the frequency coin is wavelength in metres, the length of one cycle as it travels in free space. A function of radio waves traveling at the speed of light is that the frequency corresponds to the number of cycles that can be fitted into the distance light travels in a second. Thus if we take the speed of light to be the taught-to-schoolkids 3 x 10^8 metres per second then, that means that the wavelength is 3 x10^8 divided by the frequency in hertz. a more practical version of the formula is that 300 divided by the frequency in megahertz returns the wavelength in metres, so for example the wavelength at 100 MHz is 3 metres. The lower the frequency the longer the wavelength, thus lower frequency antennas are larger than higher frequency ones.
Knowing the wavelength of a particular frequency immediately gives us a handle on the size of antenna required to use it, but it’s not quite as simple as a 3 metre antenna being designed for 100 MHz. Instead the archetypal antenna uses a fraction of the wavelength, usually a half or a quarter, so immediately an element of identifying the type of antenna comes into play. You’ll need to hone your skills in guessing dimensions at a difference, for this it’s useful that there is often a mast or other easily gauged structure for a reference.
Just What Am I Looking At
The description says that this dipole is for “1 to 4 GHz”, but looking at this we’d guess it’s set up for 1 GHz, roughly 15cm long. Schwarzbeck Mess-Elektronik,
CC BY-SA 3.0
.
The most basic of antenna designs will be familiar to many readers as the dipole, two conductors each a quarter wavelength long arranged in a straight line with a usually coaxial feeder connected between them in the centre. It’s the antenna from which many other designs are derived, so knowing how to spot it within those other antenna designs gives you an immediate handle on how long a quarter or a half wavelendth is at that frequency. A 100 MHz antenna is therefore half of the 3 metre wavelength, or around 1.5 metres long. If you cast your eye around the rooftops until you see someone with an FM radio dipole antenna for 88 to 108 MHz then, it will be somewhere about that size.
An FM broadcast Yagi antenna. Sanjo,
Public domain
.
If you cast your eye around the antennas on rooftops, on utility buildings, and in other places, you’ll notice that few of them are dipoles. Many of them are long spiky affairs, a central boom with a ling of elements at right angles to it, or a triangular shaped array of elements yet again along a central boom. A rooftop TV antenna is a great example of the type, called a Yagi-Uda array after its inventors. They set out to create a wireless energy transmission system using radio waves, and found themselves instead creating a highly directional array in which a dipole was joined by a set of passive elements. The dipole is still the same though, so if you can estimate its size you can home in on the frequency.
A log-periodic antenna. This one is good for 250 to 2400 MHz. Schwarzbeck Mess-Elektronik,
CC BY-SA 3.0
.
There’s another type of antenna similar to the Yagi-Uda array, which looks extremely similar except for a characteristic triangular shape. This is a wideband antenna called a log-periodic, and it’s an array of dipoles of different frequencies. Yet again if you can estimate the size of each dipole it’s possible to work out the spread of frequencies by looking at the largest and smallest ones.
Both a Yagi-Uda and a log-periodic antenna are directional, so besides working out its frequency you can also tell where the station it’s communicating with is. I once spent a mildly enjoyable summer afternoon on a motorcycle combing the lanes of Oxfordshire to find the base station for the local village water plants this way, as each of them had a Yagi at about 450 MHz on a small mast By lining them all up on the map I was able to find the control point, not particularly surprisingly it was at the sewage plant in my local small town.
There’s a final type of antenna that you’ll see a lot of on vehicles and in other places, the vertical or whip antenna. The simplest of these is a quarter-wavelength springy wire making it easy to guess the frequency, but there are several complications which can put a guess off-course. You’ll often see whip antennas with coils either at the bottom or some point half way up, these can be loading or phasing coils to change the antenna’s performance. Usually they are to help pack a larger antenna into a smaller space, which makes the overall length less useful as a guide. If there’s a secret, it’s that most amateurs have seen enough antennas by now that we recognise the difficult ones by comparison to those we’ve seen. Apologies, maybe you do need an Elmer to pass this down after all.
Header: Bert Kaufmann from Roermond, Netherlands,
CC BY 2.0
. | 75 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526413",
"author": "12AU76L6GC",
"timestamp": "2022-11-01T14:40:15",
"content": "I always like telling baby engineers that antennas don’t have gain. At best they have loss but can focus the remaining power with directionality.Also ask them to get me me a quote and vendor for an iso... | 1,760,372,513.948809 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/01/deltapen-drawing-painting-and-taking-notes-without-the-drawing-tablet/ | DeltaPen: Drawing, Painting And Taking Notes Without The Drawing Tablet | Maya Posch | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"DeltaPen",
"drawing tablet"
] | Over the decades, a lot of attempts have been made to try and make pens and pencils “smart”. Whether it’s to enable a pen to also digitally record what we’re writing down on paper, to create fully digital drawings with the haptics of inks and paints, or to jot down some notes on a touch screen, past and present uses are legion.
DeltaPen internal components and their function. (Credit: SIP, Guy Luethy et al.)
Where
SIP Lab’s DeltaPen
comes in as an attempt at a smart pen that acts more like the pen of a drawing tablet, just minus the tablet.
This project is related to the decidedly more clumsy Flashpen which
we featured
previously. Due to the use of new flow sensors, the underlying surface (e.g. a desk) can be tracked without needing to be level with it, which allowed for the addition of a pressure-sensitive tip.
In addition the relative motion of the pen is measured, and there is haptic feedback, which allow for it to be used even for more delicate applications such as drawing. The results of trials with volunteers across a range of tasks is described in their presented
paper (PDF)
. | 24 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6526369",
"author": "shod",
"timestamp": "2022-11-01T11:25:01",
"content": "Looks like that lab version of the first mouse, not exactly that finished product look is it?And I LOLed at that squiggly drawing which suddenly had that perfect shading.Anyway, what I guess I”m saying is th... | 1,760,372,513.830965 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/30/zif-hdds-dying-out-heres-an-open-source-1-8-ssd/ | ZIF HDDs Dying Out? Here’s An Open-Source 1.8″ SSD | Arya Voronova | [
"computer hacks",
"laptops hacks",
"Repair Hacks",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"bga",
"nand",
"NAND flash",
"ssd",
"zif"
] | A lot of old technology runs on parts no longer produced – HDDs happen to be one such part, with IDE drives specifically being long out of vogue, and going extinct to natural causes. There’s substitutes, but quite a few of them are either wonky or require expensive storage medium. Now, [dosdude1] has turned his attention to 1.8 ZIF IDE SSDs – FFC-connected hard drives that are particularly rare and therefore expensive to replace, found in laptops like the Macbook Air 1,1 2008 model. Unsatisfied with substitutes, he’s
designed an entire SSD from the ground up
around an IDE SSD controller and NAND chips. Then, he made the design open-source and filmed an assembly video so that we can build our own. Take a look, we’ve put it below the break!
For an open-source design, there’s a respectable amount of work shared with us. He’s reverse-engineered some IDE SSDs based on the SM2236 controller to design the schematic, and put
the full KiCad files
on GitHub. In the video, he shows us how to assemble this SSD using only a hot air station and a soldering iron, talks about NAND matching and programming software intricacies, and shows the SSD working in the aforementioned Macbook Air. Certainly, assembly would have been faster and easier with a stencil, but the tools used work great for what’s a self-assembly tutorial!
In YouTube comments, [dosdude1] shares way more technical details, and says he’ll be selling these if there’s interest, too. We’ve seen him work on a variety of involved projects breathing life into old but deserving hardware – this
GPU RAM upgrade
to make it work with an Apple Xserve is a noteworthy endeavour alone. We’ve seen a similar journey done by another prominent hacker, [Wenting Zhang],
building an SSD
for a lovely-looking Benq S6 miniature machine.
We thank [rasz_pl] for sharing this with us! | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525959",
"author": "tj",
"timestamp": "2022-10-30T21:22:04",
"content": "Neat! Looks like he’s got a decent DIY SMD workflow going there. But as I heard the remark “long and tedious process”, referring to populating all those passives, I must recommend a hybrid approach. Why not us... | 1,760,372,513.99982 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/30/garmin-hud-got-discontinued-but-not-trashed/ | Garmin HUD Got Discontinued, But Not Trashed | Donald Papp | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"gps hacks"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"ESP32",
"gps",
"heads up display",
"hud",
"vfd"
] | The Garmin HUD+ was a small Bluetooth device intended for the dashboard of a car, meant to be used as a GPS heads-up display for data from Garmin smartphone apps. It used a bright VFD (vacuum fluorescent display) which was viewed through a clear reflector, and displayed GPS information and directions. It was discontinued in 2015, but [Doz] was fond of his and used it happily until a phone upgrade meant it no longer worked. Was it destined for a landfill?
Not if he had anything to say about it
!
The first thing [Doz] tried was using
an alternate Android app
, but since it also didn’t work, it was time to sit back and reflect on the scope of the issue. In [Doz]’s case, he really only wanted some basic meaningful data displayed, and decided he could do away with the phone altogether if he had the right hardware.
A GPS receiver and ESP32 board take the place of a mobile phone app that no longer works. The HUD display itself is unchanged.
A u-blox GPS module and ESP32 board were the keys to making a standalone device to display meaningful data on the Garmin HUD+ over Bluetooth, thanks to the fact that the protocol used had been
reverse engineered
. After a lot of troubleshooting, [Doz] got some basic functions working: speed, time, satellite count, and a working compass arrow. The GPS receiver and ESP32 live in a small 3D-printed enclosure, and the HUD? It stays on the dash just like it always has, forever in 2015, blissfully unaware that the march of smartphone technology has left it behind.
His code is on GitHub
and there is a video demonstrating the the unit embedded below, just under the page break. It’s always nice to see
VFD displays given new life
. | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525985",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2022-10-30T23:29:19",
"content": "He could have just used an old phone to keep it running but this is more creative.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6526059",
"author": "A... | 1,760,372,514.241319 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/30/playing-with-the-power-of-full-g-code-control/ | Playing With The Power Of Full G-Code Control | Danie Conradie | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d slicing",
"fullcontrol",
"gcode"
] | Slicing software needs to maintain a balance between ease-of-use and control, while handling handle any STL file you throw at it. If you eliminate the need to convert an existing 3D model, and create G-Code directly, you gain a lot of design freedom, at the cost of increased design effort. By taking advantage of this freedom and making it more accessible, [Andrew Gleadall] and [Dirk Leas] created the
FullControl Design Library
.
Each model is a mathematically generated extrusion path with a host of adjustable design parameters and print settings. This allows you to print things like a
single-layer non-planar part
, or
90° overhangs without any support
(video after the break). The website was built using the python version of the
original Excel-based FullControl Designer
(unreleased at the time of writing), and
threej
s for the 3D visualization.
Go browse the library, play with some parameters and see what strikes your fancy. For ideas, help and updates, keep an eye on the
FullControl Subreddit
.
We’ve covered another web-based tool,
Gcode Designer
, which actually took its inspiration from Full Control.
Thanks for the tip [Keith Olsen] | 5 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525893",
"author": "jpa",
"timestamp": "2022-10-30T16:24:53",
"content": "For a library called FullControl, it seems to give very little control. Maybe more will be published later, but for now it seems to be just a few quite limited demos.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,372,514.041782 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/30/recreating-the-stuck-throttle-problem-on-a-toyota/ | Recreating The “Stuck Throttle” Problem On A Toyota | Bryan Cockfield | [
"News"
] | [
"computer",
"ecu",
"emf",
"emp",
"fly-by-wire",
"memory fault",
"safety",
"stuck",
"throttle",
"toyota"
] | A few years ago, Toyota was in the news for a major safety issue with a number of their passenger vehicles. Seemingly at random, certain cars were accelerating without concern for driver input, causing many crashes and at least 37 confirmed deaths. They issued recalls both for the floor mats which were reported to have slid forward to jam the accelerator pedal, but this didn’t explain all of these crashes. There was another recall for stuck throttles,
which [Colin O’Flynn] demonstrates a possible cause for on his test bench
.
While most passenger vehicles older than about 15-20 years controlled the throttle with a cable connected directly from the throttle body to the accelerator pedal, most manufacturers have switched to a fly-by-wire system which takes sensor input from the accelerator pedal and sends that position information to the vehicle’s computer which in turn adjusts the throttle position. This might be slightly cheaper to manufacture, but introduces a much larger number of failure modes to a critical system.
[Colin] is recreating one of those failure modes by introducing an electromagnetic pulse at a specific point on the vehicle’s computer. In the real world, this could be caused by certain forms of EMF
potentially including cosmic rays
. This introduces a memory fault which the computer doesn’t seem capable of recognizing or clearing. With the right set of circumstances that [Colin] can reliably produce, the computer eventually will drive the throttle fully open, and the condition can only be corrected by power-cycling the vehicle’s computer.
Toyota is adamant that these problems have been successfully swept under the drivers-side floor mat, but according to IEEE and other professionals in related industries such as avionics, the passenger vehicle industry has done remarkably little to ensure enough redundancy in these systems to account for these types of failures. [Colin] does plan to test his setup in a real vehicle in the future to confirm that the vehicle will actually run under his lab scenario, so we should be seeing more information about this in the future. If you’re looking for a vehicle that is immune to all of the problems associated with computer control,
take a look at this car
which doesn’t even need a battery to drive, as long as you can give it a push start. | 68 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525832",
"author": "Louloulou",
"timestamp": "2022-10-30T11:15:47",
"content": "I RE’d the Mazda Speed ECU. They used two microprocessors. The larger one, A 32bit SH4, to manage the throttle position, and another (MCS9) that has a “Killswitch” to the throttle motor. If either MC... | 1,760,372,514.195135 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/30/super-8-film-editor-reborn-as-a-youtube-terminal/ | Super 8 Film Editor Reborn As A YouTube Terminal | Navarre Bartz | [
"ARM",
"Cyberdecks",
"hardware",
"home entertainment hacks",
"Raspberry Pi",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"film",
"Hanimex E300 Dual Editor",
"ortholinear keyboard",
"Raspberry Pi 4",
"retrofuturism",
"retrofuturistic",
"super 8",
"terminal",
"terminal video",
"vintage",
"vintage camcorder",
"vintage camera",
"ytfzf"
] | We love hacks that give new life to old gadgets, and [edwardianpug]’s
YouTube Terminal
certainly fits the bill by putting new hardware inside a Super 8 film editor.
[edwardianpug] could have relegated this classy-looking piece of A/V history to a shelf for display, but instead she decided to refresh its components so it could display any YouTube video instead of just one strip of film at a time. The Boost-Box keeps the retrofuturistic theme going by using the terminal to search for and play videos via
Ytfzf
.
The original screen has been replaced by an 800×600 LCD, and the yellow USB cord gives a nice splash of color to connect the ortholinear keyboard to the device. Lest you think that this “ruined” a working piece of retro-tech, [edwardianpug] says that
20 minutes
would get this device back to watching old movies.
Are you looking for more modern and retro mashups? Check out these
Dice Towers Built In Beautiful Retro Cases
, a
Vacuum Tube and Microcontroller Ham Transmitter
, or this
Cyberdeck in a Retro Speaker
. | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525814",
"author": "Jon H",
"timestamp": "2022-10-30T09:03:47",
"content": "“Lest you think that this “ruined” a working piece of retro-tech, [edwardianpug] says that 20 minutes would get this device back to watching old movies”FYI there’s currently 24 film editors listed on the Go... | 1,760,372,514.090382 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/29/pi-based-spectrometer-gets-an-upgrade/ | Pi-based Spectrometer Gets An Upgrade | Dave Walker | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Science",
"Software Development"
] | [
"opencv",
"raspberry pi",
"spectrometer",
"spectrometry",
"spectroscope"
] | Here at Hackaday, we love to see projects re-visited and updated after we’ve covered them on the site. It’s always exciting to see what the creators come up with next, and this
Pi-Based Spectrometer
project is a great example of that.
[LesWright] found himself with a problem when the new version of Raspberry Pi operating system was released (Bullseye), and it broke some functionality on his original software. Rather than just fix the issues, [Les] chose to
rewrite the software
more dramatically and has ended up with a much more capable spectrometer that is able to match professional devices costing many times more.
Screenshot of Waterfall Display for PySpectrometer 2
By using multi-wavelength calibration and polynomial regression data, the new version is much more accurate and can now resolve wavelengths down to +/- 1nm.
The whole project is now written in OpenCV, and there’s a nifty new waterfall spectrum display, that will show changes in measured spectra over time.
A low-cost benchtop spectroscope is coupled to a RaspberryPi Camera via a CCTV zoom lens and the whole setup is mounted to a small block of aluminium for thermal and mechanical stability. The spectroscope is pointed at a fluorescent lamp and the user is guided through a calibration routine to tune the software to the hardware.
We’re impressed with the precision [Les] has achieved with his builds, and the write-up is sufficiently detailed to allow others to follow in his footsteps. We’d love to see if readers build one themselves, and what they use them for!
If you want to read up on the original build, you can find
our article here
. We’ve covered several spectrometry projects in the past, including this
Gamma-Ray Spectrometer
and
this one based around an STM32 Nucleo
board. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525810",
"author": "JanW",
"timestamp": "2022-10-30T08:21:57",
"content": "What a nice build!One thing I wonder about is the calibration method.Why the manual clicking on specific peaks (inducing another ammount of uncertainty), if the software already knows the exact values of tho... | 1,760,372,514.409964 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/29/all-your-pixels-are-probably-not-belong-to-pantone/ | All Your Pixels Are (Probably Not) Belong To Pantone | Jenny List | [
"News"
] | [
"color",
"colour",
"intellectual property",
"Pantone"
] | There’s a piece of news floating around the open IP and allied communities at the moment which appears to have caused some consternation. It comes from Adobe, who have announced that due to an end of their licensing deal with Pantone LLC,
PSD images loaded into Photoshop will have pixels containing unlicensed Pantone colours replaced with black
. What, Pantone owns colours now? Are we expected to pay a royalty every time we take a picture of a blue sky? It’s natural to react with suspicion when hearing a piece of news like this, but for once we think this might not be the unreasonable intellectual property land grab it may first appear. To illustrate this, it’s necessary to explain what Pantone does, and what they don’t do.
Heinz use Pantone
to ensure their
Viridian Green
baked bean branding colour is consistent. Use it on a can of beans and Heinz will probably sue you, not Pantone.
For a company that bases its whole product line on colours, it might seem odd to say that Pantone do not own or sell colours. Instead their product is in effect a colour matching service, a library of defined and named colours which can be matched by designers, printers, ink manufacturers, paint companies, and anyone else who produces a coloured product. The bit they own is the name and index number for a colour in their library, not the colour itself. If a designer creates a logo for a customer and specifies a Pantone colour for it, the customer knows that they can order the paint for their trucks in that exact colour from a Pantone-licensed paint company, or have their packaging printed in the exact same colour by a printer using Pantone-licensed ink. Consistency in branding is important for companies, and it’s the consistency that Pantone sell, not the colours themselves. The customer is free to match colours themselves from any ink or paint, but as they will soon discover, exact colour matching is not an easy task. Pantone’s business lies in taking away that headache.
It would thus be extremely difficult for Pantone to argue that an image which happens to contain a load of pixels that match a colour in their library are infringing on their IP, so your pictures are safe from their grasp. The reason some Photoshop PSDs are now facing the problem is that Photoshop allows a designer to attach a Pantone index to a colour, and for files which have this applied what Adobe are saying is they no longer have the licence to act on that. There is a whole Pandora’s Box in asking why in 2022 a proprietary image processing package on a flawed monthly subscription model still has such a hold on designers, but as far as Hackaday readers are concerned there should be nothing to worry about. Nobody is coming for our precious
#F3BF10
!
Header image: Tuxyso (
CC BY-SA 3.0
). | 80 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525771",
"author": "Mr Name Required",
"timestamp": "2022-10-30T02:46:05",
"content": "Just another good reason I don’t use subscription software.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6525796",
"author": "Jennifer Gunn",
... | 1,760,372,514.36263 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/29/welding-aluminum-with-a-mig-welder/ | Welding Aluminum With A MIG Welder | Al Williams | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"aluminium",
"MIG Welding"
] | Steve Martin had a bit that was like a fake infomercial where he says, “You can be a millionaire and never pay taxes!” The instructions were, “First, get a million dollars. Then,…” [Brandon’s] instructions for how to
convert your MIG welder to do aluminum
for under $25 is not quite like that, but you do need the right kind of MIG welder to make it work. In particular, you need an actual MIG welder that has a provision to connect external gas. The instructions show a Hobart Handler 140 that meets the criteria and has sufficient power to handle aluminum.
The main task is to replace the liner for the torch. The stock liner is steel which is fine for its intended purpose, but it is too rough for aluminum wire. A PTFE liner is inexpensive and will work fine with the aluminum wire. If you want to do normal welding later, you’ll need to put the original liner back in.
The other thing you’ll need is argon gas and the welder needs to be configured for solid wire and gas. The chart in the welder shows that you can use it for aluminum, but it does mention that it is difficult to feed with the stock liner.
Aluminum wire expands as it heats, so you need a slightly larger tip than the wire size. For example, in the video, [Brandon] uses .030″ wire and a .035″ tip. The relatively low amperage and duty cycle of the welder mean you need a small wire size.
Did it work? It did. He did preheat the work to help the small welder get the workpiece to temperature. It took a little experimenting to get the right angles and technique. In the end, he points out some of the benefits of having a machine meant to weld aluminum. However, for occasional use, this seems like a practical modification.
Sometimes welding
takes a big bang
. We don’t know how to create our own argon, but we did see someone make their own
carbon dioxide shield gas
, not long ago. | 37 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525770",
"author": "The Gambler",
"timestamp": "2022-10-30T02:44:29",
"content": "i’ve seen this tried before and it has to many fails in any actual useage. Al wire is just to soft and eventually/sooner rather than later ends up just gumming up somewhere along the line. just do i... | 1,760,372,514.478836 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/29/using-the-sun-to-turn-epoxy-into-furniture/ | Using The Sun To Turn Epoxy Into Furniture | Navarre Bartz | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"epoxy",
"furniture",
"heat forming"
] | Epoxy resins have been used to make some pretty cool furniture, but since it’s still a relatively new material, makers are still discovering new techniques to work with resin. [Cam] from Blacktail Studio may be the first person to
bend fully cured epoxy
using nothing but a form and the power of the sun.
Inspired by a friend’s mishap with an epoxy table left out in the sun too long, [Cam] wanted to see if he could purposely bend an epoxy sheet into an interesting shape. The tabletop was poured in sections to give an ombre look before being planed and given a preliminary surface finish. The epoxy sheet was then clamped onto a form made of kerfed plywood and left in direct sunlight on a 104°F (40°C) day. Once the sheet began to deform in the sunlight, ratchet straps and more clamps were added to conform the sheet to the bending form.
After letting the tabletop relax for a few days, [Cam] finished the surface with lots of sanding and an automotive polishing regimen. The epoxy was then attached to a single zebrawood leg to give a very modern-looking, waterfall-esque table.
More interesting projects with resin you might want to check out are this
ocean-themed epoxy nightlight
,
how to degas epoxy on the cheap
, or some techniques for
cold casting with resin
. | 16 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525723",
"author": "Tom Brusehaver",
"timestamp": "2022-10-29T20:13:44",
"content": "This technique is well known in the composite aircraft and boat building area.Epoxy can gain strength with “post curing”, heating the epoxy after it cures. People will wrap structures in black garb... | 1,760,372,514.532701 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/29/play-doom-on-seven-segment-displays/ | PlayDOOMOn Seven-Segment Displays | Bryan Cockfield | [
"classic hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"display",
"doom",
"monitor",
"python",
"raspberry pi",
"screen",
"seven segment"
] | Getting
DOOM
to run on a computer it was never meant to run on is a fun trope in the world of esoteric retro computers. By now we’ve seen it run on everything from old NES systems to microwaves, treadmills, and basically anything with a computer inside of it. What we don’t often see are the displays themselves being set up specifically to run the classic shooter. This build might run the game itself on ordinary hardware, but the impressive part is that it’s able to be displayed
on this seven-segment display
.
This build makes extensive use of multiplexers to drive enough seven-segment displays to use as a passable screen. There are 1152 seven segment digits arranged in a 48 by 24 array, powered by a network of daisy-chained MAX7219 chips. A Python script running on a Raspberry Pi correlates actual image data with the digit to be displayed on each of the segments, and the Raspberry Pi sends all of that information out to the screen. The final result is a display that’s fast enough and accurate enough to play
DOOM
in a truly unique way.
There is much more information available about this project on their
project page
, and they have made everything open source for those who wish to follow along as well. The project includes more than just the ability to play
DOOM
, too. There’s a built-in video player and a few arcade programs programmed specifically to make use of this display. Perhaps one day we will also see something like this ported to
sixteen-segment displays
instead of the more common seven-segment. | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525720",
"author": "daniel v.",
"timestamp": "2022-10-29T19:28:16",
"content": "I love projects from the category “why would you do it? because we can!”. Very nice object and great execution!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6... | 1,760,372,514.649372 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/29/hackaday-supercon-back-at-last/ | Hackaday Supercon: Back At Last! | Elliot Williams | [
"cons"
] | [
"newsletter"
] | I’m unashamed to admit that I’ve really missed in-person hacker conferences over the last two and a half years. And while we’re not out of the water yet, COVID-wise, things are controlled and controllable enough that we felt we could safely hold our smallish, halfway out in the back-alley conference safely. It’s going to be so nice to see all the familiar faces, and meet the first-time Superconnisti as well. Welcome! You’re going to have fun.
For health, money, or other reasons, a lot of people who would like to go still can’t, and that bums me out. Of course there’s no substitute for being there live, but we’re trying our best to spread the Supercon love to everyone out there. If the two years of Remoticon were
different
, I’m not willing to say they were worse. It was awesome to be able to share live talks on some fantastic hacky topics, typing amongst ourselves instead of chatting in person, and it spanned the globe. There were no borders.
We’re still working on our remote plans – yes, a week before the con – because I don’t think things can ever fully go back to the before-times. That said, we will be streaming the main stage live as always, and you can pretend it’s Remoticon all over again by
hanging out in our Discord
, or over at the
Supercon Hack Chat
.
So to those of you attending, it’ll be great to see you in person. The rest of you out there – join us virtually. We’ve been working on this for the last five months now, and next week, it’s go time!
This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on
the web version of the newsletter
.
Want this type of article to hit your inbox every Friday morning?
You should sign up
! | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525691",
"author": "Adrian M Zeffert",
"timestamp": "2022-10-29T15:15:46",
"content": "I have asked twice: Where is Ssd’s upercon bring bnb held??????Lots of comments on the content but no address, hotel information no transportation guidance!!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth"... | 1,760,372,514.77553 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/29/3d-printer-slicing-in-the-manufacturing-world/ | 3D Printer Slicing In The Manufacturing World | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"slicing"
] | It is no secret that the way you build things in your garage is rarely how big companies build things at scale. But sometimes new techniques on the production floor leak over to the hobby builder and vice versa, so it pays to keep an eye on what the other side is doing. Maybe that was the idea behind [Carolyn Schwaar’s] post on All3DP entitled “
Beyond Cura Slicer: 3D Printing Build Prep Software for Pros
.” In it, she looks at a few programs that commercial-grade 3D printers use for slicing.
The differences in the software we typically use and those meant to work with a dedicated high-end machine are pretty marked, but maybe not in the way you would expect. While you might expect them to have tight integration with their target machine, you might not expect that they usually offer less control over parameters than a product like Cura. As a quote in the post points out, Cura has over 400 settings. Commercial 3D printers don’t have time to tweak those settings endlessly. So the emphasis is more on canned profiles that just work.
Not all of the programs are tied to machines, though. Commercial CAD offerings are becoming more capable with 3D printers and can sometimes slice and send jobs to printers directly. Regardless of software type, though, everyone needs certain functions: design, repair, simulation, build plate layout, and more.
If you are looking for a hobby-grade slicer other than Cura, we’ve been using
SuperSlicer
which is a fork of
PrusaSlicer
, which is a fork of Slic3r lately. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525681",
"author": "Robby",
"timestamp": "2022-10-29T14:33:36",
"content": "The fancy commercial slicers really are terrible. I use Cura at home, and have used the Stratasys GrabCAD slicer at work, the former is far better, the latter insists on dreadfully over-strength support str... | 1,760,372,514.60487 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/29/gutting-and-upgrading-laser-chiller-with-no-chill/ | Gutting And Upgrading Laser “Chiller” With No Chill | Arya Voronova | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"chiller",
"K40",
"K40 laser cutter",
"lasercutter",
"water fountain"
] | Getting a cheap CO2 laser cutter is great for your workshop needs, and while you might get a weaker-than-declared laser tube, it’s still going to cut whatever you need to be cut. That might not be the case for the cooling equipment you’re getting alongside it, however, as [RealTimeKodi] shows in
a post-project blogpost
. They bought a CX3000 “chiller” and
found out it had no chiller components
(
Nitter
), only equipped with a radiator, a fan, and a pump.
Having your laser tube water be somewhat close to ambient temperature is something you can already achieve with an aquarium pump and a bucket of water — and it isn’t worth paying $100 for. Left with the sunk cost and an unfulfilled need for a proper chiller, [RealTimeKodi] started looking for paths to take – first one was using TEC elements. The upgrade process was fun, but the result was subpar, as the elements gobbled power with hardly any useful output to show for it.
[RealTimeKodi] didn’t give up, and eventually found an old water fountain chiller with chiller-like components inside, sold for $200. They could’ve used the water fountain as-is, but a few design issues and thirst for adventure got in the way, indisputably forcing them to stuff the fountain’s guts into the CX3000’s case.
Buying a laser cutter can sometimes feel like buying a 3D printer a decade ago — you get a K40,
learn to use it
,
add the missing safety features
,
mod in autofocus
,
upgrade the control board
,
expand the work surface
… That said, our experience shows that you don’t need any of those if A4-sized 3 mm wood cutting suit you, but a proper chiller is still worth its weight in gold-plated acrylic.
I really need to finish this chiller.
all that's left is cutting some speed holes and minor finishing touches
pic.twitter.com/TrYW5V7FDA
— 🏳️🌈Real-Time (@RealTimeKodi)
October 25, 2022 | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525644",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2022-10-29T09:23:26",
"content": "I wonder how well an old refrigerator pump style dehumidifier would do. Just using the cold side, no doubt you’d be able to get the coolant pretty cold.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replie... | 1,760,372,514.90093 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/28/you-can-now-bootstrap-your-amiga-without-a-floppy-with-this-one-weird-trick/ | You Can Now Bootstrap Your Amiga Without A Floppy With This One Weird Trick | Lewin Day | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"amiga",
"amigaxfer",
"bootstrap",
"bootstrapping",
"retrocomputing",
"workbench"
] | Traditionally, most Amigas were intended to boot from a floppy disk. . An Amiga can readily make its own boot floppy, but only once it’s already booted up. If you don’t have a floppy ready to go, you’re out of luck, as PCs can’t readily make them for Amigas.
[Roc] whipped up the amigaXfer bootstrapping method to solve this very problem.
Shorting a couple of pins together can unlock a serial debug mode that can be used for bootstrapping the machine.
Available on Github
, the amigaXfer tool is able to perform several tasks with an Amiga via its serial port. The Amiga must first be turned on while plugged into another computer running amigaXfer via serial connection. When the Workbench floppy prompt comes up, the CrashEntry feature on amigaXfer should be triggered, and the BERR and GND pins on the Amiga’s 68000 CPU should be connected just for a split second, triggering the Amiga to go into a special serial debug mode. This enables amigaXfer to take control, allowing a disk to be formatted and written with a debug bootblock, and this disk can then be used to boot the Amiga without the need for the hack.
It’s a nifty way to get your Amiga up and running if you’ve just bought it off eBay and it didn’t come with any disks. From here, you can use amigaXfer to load other programs onto the Amiga via the same serial cable you used for the bootstrapping process, too. The hack isn’t limited to just the Amiga 500, either. It should work on a range of machines, including AmigaOS versions 1.x, 2.x, and 3.x.
Unlike the
Commodore 64,
we probably won’t see
brand new replica Amigas
anytime soon, but we can dream. As always, if you’ve got ’em, send your hottest Amiga projects
into the tipsline! | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525648",
"author": "Miguel",
"timestamp": "2022-10-29T10:04:47",
"content": "You may probably see [enhanced] amiga replicas such as A1100 soon!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6525709",
"author": "Stappers",
"... | 1,760,372,514.846306 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/28/luigis-mansion-first-person-mod-brings-spooky-new-perspective/ | Luigi’s MansionFirst Person Mod Brings Spooky New Perspective | Drew Littrell | [
"Games",
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"fps",
"halloween",
"nintendo",
"ROM hack",
"video game"
] | The Nintendo GameCube in many ways defied expectations. It was purple, it had buttons shaped like beans, and it didn’t launch with a Mario game. What we got instead was the horror-adjacent ghost adventure game starring Mario’s brother —
Luigi’s Mansion
. The game was a graphical showpiece for the time, however, the camera angles were all fixed like an early
Resident Evil
game. Not satisfied with playing within those bounds, modder [Sky Bluigi] created
a first person camera patch for the game
that finally let players see why Luigi was so freaked out all the time.
The patch dubbed
Luigi’s Mansion FPO
(First Person Optimized) does a lot to drive home the game’s child-friendly, spooky aesthetic. Along with the ability to explore environments with a new lens, it provides the ability to turn the flashlight on and off manually if you want. Though the most impressive part of
Luigi’s Mansion FPO
is that it runs on real hardware. All that’s needed to play the mod is clean image of the North American release of
Luigi’s Mansion
and a .xdelta
patching utility like Delta Patcher
. GameCube games can be ripped directly to a USB thumb drive using a soft-modded Nintendo Wii console running Clean Rip or similar backup tool.
Luigi’s Mansion FPO
actually provides a collection of patches that offer revised controls and increased field of view depending on which patch is used. The original game had inverted controls for aiming Luigi’s ghost vacuum, so the “Invert C-Stick Controls” patch will install a more modern aiming scheme where up on the right stick will aim upwards and vice versa. The “Better FOV” pulls the camera a little further back from where Luigi’s head would be while the original aiming scheme is retained. Though no matter which patch you decide to go with, a mod like this is always a good excuse to revisit a cult classic.
For another fresh GameCube mod check out this post about a
Raspberry Pi Pico based modchip
for the system. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525668",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-10-29T13:05:49",
"content": "Inre: Title Photo (IOW, off topic)Is that monitor sitting on the remains of a motorcycle?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": ... | 1,760,372,514.940688 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/28/driving-three-color-e-paper-pricetags-with-an-arduino/ | Driving Three-Color E-Paper Pricetags With An Arduino | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"display",
"e-ink price tag",
"e-paper",
"ESP32"
] | ePaper pricetags are becoming popular parts in the hacker community as a cheap way into tinkering with the technology. [Aaron Christophel] got his hands on a 4.4″ model with red, black, and white colors,
and set about programming an ESP32 to drive the price tag instead.
The protocol the display uses was reverse-engineered by prompting the display to update via RF and monitoring the signals sent to between microcontrollers on the display’s control board. Once the protocol was understood, one of the microcontrollers could then be removed and replaced with an ESP32 for direct control. Implementing this takes some disassembly and some delicate soldering, but it’s nothing that should scare off an experienced hacker.
With the right code flashed to the ESP32,
as available on Github,
it’s possible to run the display directly. The hacked code does a great job driving the display, showing crisp lines and clean colors that indicate the e-Paper display is running properly.
We’ve seen [Aaron’s] work before in this area,
when he hacked simpler two-color e-ink price tags.
He’s also gone so far as creating entire wall displays out of salvaged displays,
which is quite the sight
. Video after the break. | 14 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525586",
"author": "RobHeffo",
"timestamp": "2022-10-28T23:22:32",
"content": "What I wanna know is did those pricetag designers leave any passives for the rest of us??!? It looks like an Intel designed mainboard!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,514.996627 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/28/real-tractor-moonlights-as-farming-simulator-controller/ | Real Tractor Moonlights As Farming Simulator Controller | Drew Littrell | [
"Games"
] | [
"controller mod",
"diy usb controller",
"farm",
"tractor",
"video game"
] | Around October, amid all the pumpkin spiced food and beverages, folks make their yearly pilgrimage to a local farm. They load themselves onto hay-filled tractor trailers and ride out in search of the perfect pumpkin to put on the front porch, and let it slowly decompose. The “closest” a video game has come to replicating this seasonal event is the annual Farming Simulator series. One modder, [Dylan], decided to add an extra level of authenticity to the Farming Simulator experience by
controlling the game with an actual tractor
.
The opportunity for the project presented itself thanks to a local Kiwi farmer (Kiwi as in New Zealand, not the fruit) who provided [Dylan] with access to a Case IH 310 Magnum CVT tractor. [Dylan] built a custom USB controller that mirrored the actual layout of the tractor’s control pad. Tilt sensors were wrapped around the tractor’s steering wheel and throttle to provide analog input for steering and speed control. After a number of hours tweaking the setup on site, [Dylan] live-streamed his Farming Simulator PC play session (video below) with the tractor itself left off for obvious reasons. Without tractor motor engaged there was no power steering, so he deserves a bit of extra credit for making it through multiple hours.
This certainly isn’t the first ridiculous controller project [Dylan] has taken on. He’s created a trombone controller to just to play Trombone Champ, a Nerf bow controller for Overwatch, and he even played through Hades using a literal pomegranate. You can watch more of [Dylan’s] custom controller projects on his
Rudeism Twitch channel
.
For more on giant farm machines check out this post on
an autonomous John Deere tractor
. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525630",
"author": "Mr Name Required",
"timestamp": "2022-10-29T06:36:51",
"content": "Wrong brand, I know, but for a truly authentic simulation shouldn’t it run Doom?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6525670",
"author... | 1,760,372,515.124203 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/28/mini-mars-rover-runs-on-pi-pico-w/ | Mini Mars Rover Runs On Pi Pico W | Lewin Day | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"Pi Pico W",
"robot",
"rover"
] | NASA’s Mars Rovers are robots that have inspired many budding engineers around the world. [Nikodem Bartnik] had a particular fondness for them himself, and set out to build
a miniature version of his very own.
The Raspberry Pi Pico W is the brains of the operation, serving as both microcontroller and remote wireless link for control. The robot uses four mecanum wheels for locomotion, with each getting its own motor. This allows the robot to move in all directions simply by rotating the wheels in different configurations. On top, the rover sports a articulated robot arm controlled by servos, which allows it to pick things up and put them down. Plus, there’s an FPV camera on top that delivers a video feed so the robot can be driven remotely. This is achieved over WiFi, thanks to a bit of custom control code written in Python.
It’s a surprisingly capable bot on smooth surfaces, as the mecanum wheels allow strafing and other movements that regular wheels simply can’t do. It’s also fun having a bot
that can interact with its environment
, thanks to its motorized appendages. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525528",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2022-10-28T18:54:07",
"content": "Fun project, but I’m pretty sure those Mecanum omniwheels would fare very poorly indeed on Mars.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6525565",
"au... | 1,760,372,515.166766 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/28/cursive-out-loud-dealing-with-dragons/ | Cursive Out Loud: Dealing With Dragons | Kristina Panos | [
"Featured",
"Interest"
] | [
"communication",
"dictation",
"speech to text"
] | When we last left this broadening subject of handwriting, cursive, and moveable type, I was threatening to sing the praises of speech-to-text programs. To me, these seem like the summit of getting thoughts committed to what passes for paper these days.
A common thread in humanity’s tapestry is that we all walk around with so much going on in our heads, and no real chance to get it out stream-of-consciousness style without missing a word — until we start talking to each other. I don’t care what your English teacher told you — talking turns to writing quite easily; all it takes is a willingness to follow enough of the rules, and to record it all in a readable fashion.
But, alas! That suggests that linear thinking is not only possible, but that it’s easy and everyone else is already doing it. While that’s (usually) not true, simply thinking out loud can get you pretty far down the road in a lot of mental vehicles. You just have to record it all somehow. And if your end goal is to have the words typed out, why not skip the the voice recorder and go the speech-to-text route?
Communication Breakdown
Some programs are better than others, but you get back what you put into them — especially with the higher-end, super-trainable kind like Dragon Dictation. If you’ve listened to me on
the Podcast
, you might understand how difficult it could be for a robot to understand the nuances of my speech 100% of the time.
While this is not meant to be an ad for any particular service or software package, there have been days where
the nerve damage in my arms
and long recovery from surgery prevented me from doing any typing or mousing without agony and regret. So what’s a professional writer supposed to do? Hire a typist and dictate? Then I’d have to share my paycheck. And who could be themselves with a typist shoehorned between their brain and the digital page, anyway? If good writing is a conversation between writer and reader, then there’s really no room for a third party, not even for transcription.
Necessary Evils
Google’s Live Transcribe is, of course, smart about sounds. Image via
VentureBeat
The problem that I have with speech to text programs is that I have to speak slowly and robotically for best results. No, actually, that’s not the real problem — it’s that I get going about something and establish a good flow, but Dragon is picking up words here and there that are just wrong. And then I go back through the talk-writing and I see stuff I don’t recognize, and thoughts get lost that way.
So I either need to use dictation programs enough that they understands me completely a hundred percent of the time, or I need to check myself every paragraph and make sure that what I said didn’t get garbled. As usual, the answer is some combination of both.
Dragon is much better than what I used to use, which is Google’s built in speech-to-text converter that’s available in Google Docs. Although it isn’t terrible as far as utility goes, I don’t like the idea of the very roughest draft form of my writing being right there in Google’s hands. Or ears, as it were. I know, I know, any program is gonna send my words over the Internet anyway, but it’s the principle of the thing. Interestingly enough,
Google open-sourced
their
transcription engine
in 2019. I guess if Dragon ever does me dirty, I might go that route.
Complications aside, for someone like me, any semblance of speech to text feels like a godsend. It’s gotten me through some of my darker, nerve-damaged days, and it’s well worth the amount for which I was reimbursed so graciously by my employers. When I have a lot to say quickly, I’ll just use a voice recorder. Once in a while, I’ll play the recording into Dragon and marvel the marriage of technologies to do my bidding. Anything to get the words out. | 21 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525517",
"author": "Andy Pugh",
"timestamp": "2022-10-28T17:59:56",
"content": "I recall a documentary about this subject, probably last century.It ended with the phrase “Who knows, some time in the future we may be able to get a machine to wreck a nice beach” (cut to toy excavato... | 1,760,372,515.274968 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/28/hackaday-podcast-191-researchers-parse-starlink-switches-sense-muscles-and-lft-plays-the-commodordion/ | Hackaday Podcast 191: Researchers Parse Starlink, Switches Sense Muscles, And LFT Plays The Commodordion | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney get together for a look at everything cool under the hardware-hacking sun.
Think you need to learn how to read nerve impulses to run a prosthetic hand? Think again — try spring-loaded plungers and some Hall effect sensors. What’s Starlink saying? We’re not sure, but if you’re clever enough you can use the radio link for ad hoc global positioning. Historically awful keyboards, pan-and-scan cable weather stations, invisibility cloaks, plumbing fittings for electrical controls — we’ll talk about it all. And if you’ve never heard two Commodore 64s and a stack of old floppies turned into an electronic accordion, you really don’t know what you’re missing.
Download it your own bad self
!
Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 191 Show Notes:
News:
Chaos Computer Club saves the healthcare system 400 million euros
Saving 400 million euro of public health care money from reckless vendors
USB-C approved by EU council
What’s that Sound?
On a break: we’re saving up our sounds for Supercon!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
When [Elon] Says No, Just Reverse Engineer The Starlink Signal
Starlink Ground Stations Successfully Hacked
Snooping On Starlink With An RTL-SDR
GPS? With Starlink, We Don’t Need It Any More!
[PDF] The First Carrier Phase Tracking and Positioning Results With Starlink LEO Satellite Signals
Forearm Muscle Contraction Sensor Is Useful Component For Open Source Prosthetics
Electromyography Hack Chat
EMG Tutorial Lets You Listen To Your Muscles
Fiber Laser Your Way To Flexible PCB Success!
Decompiling Software To Fix An Old Solar Inverter
How The Art-Generating AI Of Stable Diffusion Works
LAION-Aesthetics
Stable Diffusion And Why It Matters
The Commodordion Turns Two C64s Into A Single Instrument
Craft by lft
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Get Clear Insights Into Cloudy Water With The Open Colorimeter
Lego Plays Electronic Drums
Render Yourself Invisible To AI With This Adversarial Sweater Of Doom
Dan’s Picks:
Plumbing Valves As Heavy Duty Analog Inputs
Sight And Sound Combine In This Engaging Synthesizer Sculpture
One Of The Worst Keyboards Ever, Now An Arduino Peripheral
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Dancers Now Help Power Glasgow Nightclub
Retrotechtacular: The Original Weather Channel
Relive The Glory Days Of Cable TV With This Retro Weather Feed | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525766",
"author": "Sam",
"timestamp": "2022-10-30T02:15:02",
"content": "“multilaterate” is the word you’re looking for Elliot.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6526102",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestam... | 1,760,372,515.214397 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/28/esp8266-web-server-saves-60-power-with-a-1-ms-delay/ | ESP8266 Web Server Saves 60% Power With A 1 Ms Delay | Donald Papp | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"ESP8266",
"low power",
"microcontroller",
"web server"
] | Arduino has a library for quickly and easily setting up a simple web server on an ESP8622-based board, and [Tomaž] found that
power consumption on an ESP-01 can be reduced a considerable amount by simply inserting a 1 ms delay in the right place
. The reason this works isn’t because of some strange bug or oddball feature — it’s really just a side effect of how the hardware operates under the hood.
[Tomaž] uses the
“hello world” example from ESP8266WebServer
to explain. In it, the main loop essentially consists of calling
server.handleClient()
forever. That process checks for incoming HTTP connections, handles them, sends responses, exits — and then does it all over again. A simple web server like this one spends most of its time waiting.
A far more efficient way to handle things would be to launch
server.handleClient()
only when an incoming network connection calls for it, and put the hardware to sleep whenever that is not happening. However, that level of control just isn’t possible in the context of the Arduino’s ESP8266WebServer library.
So what’s to be done? The next best thing turns out to be a simple
delay(1)
statement right after each
server.handleClient()
call in the main loop.
Why does this work? Adding
delay(1)
actually causes the CPU to spend the vast majority of its time in that one millisecond loop. And counting microseconds turns out to be a far less demanding task, power-wise, than checking for incoming network requests about a hundred thousand times per second. In [Tomaž]’s tests, that one millisecond delay reduced idle power consumption at 3.3 V from roughly 230 mW to around 70 mW — about 60% — while only delaying the web server’s response times by 6-8 milliseconds.
For simple web server applications, this is is for sure a good trick to keep in mind. There are also much more advanced techniques for saving power on ESP8266-based boards; from
boards that barely sip a single microamp
while sleeping, to coin-cell powered boards that
go so far as to modify the TCP/IP stack to help squeeze every bit of power savings possible
. | 42 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525471",
"author": "Ken",
"timestamp": "2022-10-28T15:43:26",
"content": "This reminds me of reports years ago about how Linux was much more power efficient/longer battery life and ran cooler than the same hardware under windows.The difference was (as I recall) was that windows jus... | 1,760,372,515.464274 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/28/this-week-in-security-ios-openssl-and-sqlite/ | This Week In Security: IOS, OpenSSL, And SQLite | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"ios",
"openssl",
"sqlite",
"This Week in Security"
] | Earlier this week, a new release of iOS rolled out,
fixing a handful of security issues
. One in particular noted it “may have been actively exploited”, and was reported anonymously. This
usually means that a vulnerability was discovered in the wild
, being used as part of an active campaign. The anonymous credit is interesting, too. An educated guess says that this was a rather targeted attack, and the security company that found it doesn’t want to give away too much information.
Of other interest is the GPU-related fix, credited to
[Asahi Lina]
, the VTuber doing work on porting Linux to the Apple M1/M2 platform, and particularly focusing on GPU drivers. She’s an interesting case, and doing some very impressive work. There does remain the unanswered question of how the Linux Kernel will deal with a pull request coming from a pseudonym. Regardless, get your iOS devices updated.
I got credited by Apple for a security report!!! ✨✨
Now you know what I was doing that time I took one week off of streaming! 😊
I can't talk about the details yet, but look forward to a stream all about CVE-2022-32947 in the future! 💫
https://t.co/UqriYSIeFK
pic.twitter.com/igMhNO8yKD
— Asahi Lina / 朝日リナ //nullptr::live (@LinaAsahi)
October 25, 2022
The Coming OpenSSL Apocalypse
OK, probably not. But still, the folks behind OpenSSL have announced version 3.0.7 coming November 1st, and have already warned that
it will contain a fix for a CRITICAL vulnerability
. For those keeping track, this is the second vulnerability fixed in the OpenSSL project to get the CRITICAL rating, going back to 2014 when they started rating flaws. This problem only affects the 3.x release series, so distros like Red Hat Enterprise Linux and clones are safe, as they’re still on the 1.1.1k release.
It is interesting that OpenSSL announces the presence of a serious flaw, and a bit of information about when it was introduced, a week before release. You might think that you can just go find the latest security fix in their git repository, but it seems that fix is being held til just before the version release. Approaching the problem from the other end could work, you’d just have to look for the commit that introduced the vulnerability. We even get a hint, it’s only in the 3.x series of releases. It seems the previous version was forked for maintenance back in 2018, so any commits to the master branch since then are fair game. That’s a bunch of commits to wade through, though I’m confident multiple researchers are attempting it. This happens to land at the perfect time to
trigger a Fedora 37 release date slip
. Last minute update,
Fedora delayed the release of 37 for this bug
.
Word To Ring Zero
This one is mainly for fun — or a testament to the power of Visual Basic embedded in Word documents. Either way, a vulnerable antivirus driver can be used to elevate a user process up to kernel-level execution. As a fun challenge,
[DISREL] decided to port the exploit to VBA, and run it from a word document
. Keep in mind there’s some setup here, like turning off some features that prevent running VBA automatically, and having the vulnerable driver installed. Still, It’s fun. Enjoy.
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/word_ring_0.mp4
Give Out Processor Time, People Mine Crypto
Freejacking is all about taking advantage of free trials and free tiers of compute services. Digital Ocean offers a 60 day free trial? Time to mine! If you’ve ever been annoyed at how hard it is to get set up on a free trial, that’s part of why. Researchers at Sysdig have
identified a previously unknown ring of scammers, and have dubbed them PURPLEURCHIN
. The scheme is impressive, starting with many docker images that include miners and a Command & Control node. The mining happens on free GitHub accounts, as GitHub actions. Carefully kept just under the limits for free accounts. In fact, one of the themes of this whole operation is carefully flying under the radar. That may be why the mining isn’t for any of the big coins, but the likes of Tidecoin and Onyx. Clever.
Stranger Strings in SQLite
The SQLite project is one of the most secure, boasting a code test suite that manages 100% coverage. It’s pretty much as close to bulletproof as code can get. Which is why [Andreas Kellas] was particularly surprised when
he managed to make it crash
. So here’s the lowdown. SQLite has a 1 GB internal limit. By definition, you can’t feed it more data than that at once. Except, you can call SQLite’s API from a C program, and it’s pretty easy on a modern system to allocate way more memory than that. Feed it a 2 GB string to process, and you’re outside test coverage, even when the test suite boasts 100% code coverage.
The exact API call is
sqlite3_snprintf()
, a string formatting function, specifically written to handle some special characters like quotation marks in the input. The code uses an
int
internally to keep track of the extra output size, and grows the size as special characters are encountered and escaped. If that length exceeds 2,147,483,647; then two’s complement math kicks in and it rolls over to a negative number. A negative number is smaller than the stack buffer size, so the whole string gets written to the stack, smashing things and causing the crash.
A crash is interesting, but with a crack discovered in SQLite’s armor, is there a way to exploit? The problem is that the gigabytes-long string needed to trigger the exploit is way too much data to copy onto the stack. There’s another integer,
i
, that keeps track of the number of input bytes, as well as controlling exactly how many bytes are copied to the destination buffer. As a for loop process the input buffer, a special case involving Unicode characters will increment
i
without affecting the other counters. Trigger that case enough times, and
i
also overflows. Now remember earlier when we just assumed that overflowing an
int
results in a negative number? It’s not so simple.
Integer overflow is actually undefined behavior. Did the compiler opt to make this int 32, or 64 bits? The exact CPU instruction may temporarily handle the value as a 64-bit integer. It may or may not see it as a signed integer, for that instruction. And most interestingly, a single program can contain different combinations of these options at different points. And in the version of SQLite [Andreas] was working with, this was the observed behavior. In one calculation, the 32-bit integer overflowed into negative, and was “sign extended” to cast into a 64-bit value — still negative. In another instruction, the value was incremented by one, as a 64-bit value. For that memory access, no overflow happened, as it was treated as a normal 64-bit integer. Call it a “Divergent Representation”, where two different values can be read from the same source variable. Trippy.
Careful management of these variables and tricks allows for near-arbitrary writing to the stack. If an attacker could supply the string that was sent to the vulnerable function,
and
that function is called with a format string that makes it possible, then it could allow for arbitrary code execution. The good news is that not every application that uses SQLite is vulnerable. As ubiquitous as the SQLite library has become, there are like a handful of vulnerable uses out there. Version 3.39.2 fixes the vulnerability.
Bits and Bytes
DEF CON 30 talks are
finally available for all
, and there appear to be some goodies in there. Like
the kid that Rickrolled his entire school district as a senior prank
. And of course
[Sick Codes] and his infamous Tractor Doom mod on a John Deere
.
The password is dead, long live the passkey. You may have heard of
Passkey, the new standard from Microsoft, Apple, and Google
. It’s the death of the password that we’ve been promised for so long. So how does it work? Instead of passwords, your device automatically generates a private key per service. When you need to log on, the device prompts for a biometric or PIN, and then uses the private key to authenticate. For more technical information, check out the
FIDO multi-device credentials white-paper
.
Want to try your hand at browser exploitation, but not sure how to start? [Jack Halon] is starting
a series on the deep internals of web browsers
. It quickly gets into memory layouts, and how the underlying language manages JS objects. Good stuff.
And to cap the week, the reference implementation of
SHA-3 has a buffer overflow
. It’s
essentially an integer overflow
. It remains to be seen how big of a deal this is, though I can imagine many projects have simply copied and pasted this code. That’ll take a while. | 13 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525482",
"author": "ONV",
"timestamp": "2022-10-28T16:04:42",
"content": "“The password is dead, long live the passkey. You may have heard of Passkey, the new standard from Microsoft, Apple, and Google. It’s the death of the password that we’ve been promised for so long. So how doe... | 1,760,372,515.525714 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/28/nvidia-power-cables-are-melting-this-may-be-why/ | NVIDIA Power Cables Are Melting, This May Be Why | Arya Voronova | [
"computer hacks",
"News"
] | [
"12VHPWR",
"crimp connectors",
"NVIDIA",
"overheating"
] | NVIDIA has recently released their lineup of 40-series graphics cards, with a novel generation of power connectors called 12VHPWR. See, the previous-generation 8-pin connectors were no longer enough to satiate the GPU’s hunger. Once cards started getting into the hands of users, surprisingly, we began seeing pictures of melted 12VHPWR plugs and sockets online — specifically, involving ATX 8-pin GPU power to 12VHPWR adapters that NVIDIA provided with their cards.
Now, [Igor Wallossek] of
igor’sLAB
proposes a theory about what’s going on,
with convincing teardown pictures to back it up. After an unscheduled release of plastic-scented magic smoke, one of the NVIDIA-provided connectors was destructively disassembled. Turned out that these connectors weren’t crimped like we’re used to, but instead, the connectors had flat metal pads meant for wires to solder on. For power-carrying connectors, there are good reasons this isn’t the norm. That said, you can make it work, but chances are not in favor of this specific one.
The metal pads in question seem to be far too thin and structurally unsound, as one can readily spot, their cross-section is dwarfed by the cross-section of cables soldered to them. This would create a segment of increased resistance and heat loss, exacerbated by any flexing of the thick and unwieldy cabling. Due to the metal being so thin, the stress points seem quite flimsy, as one of the metal pads straight up broke off during disassembly of the connector.
If this theory is true, the situation is a blunder to blame on NVIDIA. On the upside, the 12VHPWR standard itself seems to be viable, as there are examples of PSUs with native 12HPWR connections that don’t exhibit this problem. It seems, gamers with top-of-the-line GPUs can now empathize with the problems that we hackers
have been seeing in very cheap 3D printers. | 57 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525409",
"author": "wibble",
"timestamp": "2022-10-28T11:02:45",
"content": "exasperated, eh? !",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6525411",
"author": "Arya Voronova",
"timestamp": "2022-10-28T11:07:53",
... | 1,760,372,515.678332 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/28/gesture-controlled-filming-gear-works-super-intuitively/ | Gesture Controlled Filming Gear Works Super Intuitively | Lewin Day | [
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"automation",
"camera slider",
"filming rig",
"node.js",
"robot"
] | Shooting good video can be an arduous task if you’re working all by yourself. [Pave Workshop] developed a series of gesture-responsive tools to help out,
with a focus on creating a simple intuitive interface.
The system is based around using a Kinect V2 to perceive gestures made by the user, which can then control various objects in the scene. For instance, a beckoning motion can instruct a camera slider to dolly forward or backwards, and a halting gesture will tell it to stop. Bringing the two hands together or apart in special gestures indicate that the camera should zoom in or out. Lights can also be controlled by pulling a fist towards or away from them to change their brightness.
The devil is in the details with a project that works this smoothly. [Pave Workshop] lays out the details on how everything Node.JS was used to knit together everything from the custom camera slider to Philips Hue bulbs and other Arduino components.
The project looks really impressive in the demo video
on YouTube
. We’ve seen some other impressive
automated filming rigs before, too
. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525497",
"author": "fho",
"timestamp": "2022-10-28T16:26:02",
"content": "Impressive project! Feels like there is a missed chance to automatically zoom exactly to where the fingers are pointing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,372,515.764132 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/27/a-steam-engine-for-empty-beer-cans/ | A Steam Engine For Empty Beer Cans | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"steam engine"
] | If Hero — the ancient Greek inventor — had been able to enjoy a beer after work, he might have pulled a trick like [BevCanTech] did: use it to
create a simple steam engine
. Of course, we aren’t sure why it has to be a beer can, but even with a soda can there is a fundamental problem: the can is open, assuming you’ve already enjoyed the beverage.
A pressure vessel with a big gaping hole in it isn’t much of a pressure vessel. The resealing process was actually quite simple. First, you bend back the tab to close up the opening as best you can. Next, you use cyanoacrylate glue and baking soda to seal up what’s left. We wondered if you could use epoxy, hot glue, or UV-curable resin. The top might get too hot for hot glue to last, but we aren’t sure.
Like Hero’s engine, this probably isn’t terribly practical, but it is fun. Eventually, the string twists up and you need a very hot flame. The “methylated spirits” flame mentioned is what Americans usually call denatured alcohol. That’s nothing more than alcohol that has additives to make it unpleasant for people to drink.
We’ve seen
this trick before
, but it required emptying the can without opening the main hole. Simple steam engines like this are attributed to Hero, but he actually
invented quite a few things
. | 10 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525368",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2022-10-28T05:16:36",
"content": "Hackaday must be really struggling for things to post.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6525377",
"author": "Manfred",
"timestamp": "2022-10-28T0... | 1,760,372,515.72526 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/27/a-collection-of-websites-that-look-like-desktops/ | A Collection Of Websites That Look Like Desktops | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"internet",
"os",
"web",
"website"
] | Web design has come a long way since those halcyon days of Web 1.0. There are plenty of rules about how to make a clean and efficient website, but sometimes it’s more fun to throw them out and just be creative instead. In that vein,
[Simone] has curated a wonderful collection of websites that emulate the computer desktop experience online.
The collection’s website very much fits this theme. Upon visiting, an Award BIOS screen flashes up. From there, we get a Windows 95-like interface full of links to other sites that emulate a computer desktop layout. There’s even a 3D screensaver that pops up if you mouse away for too long.
There’s
Browso.app
, which semi-accurately tells you information about your computer in a theme reminiscent of MacOS 9. Meanwhile, clicking on “It Is As if You Were Doing Work” will take you to
a weird game
that’s compelling in its replication of office banality.
Nightwave Plaza
offers exquisite vaporwave vibes, while others simply intend to faithfully recreate
various
OSes
in a browser window.
It’s a fun collection of websites that go from the weirdly afamiliar to downright impressive recreations of former realities. It’s certainly fun to click around for a while and see what’s out there. We do love some good
web ephemera
around these parts! | 15 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525356",
"author": "Karl",
"timestamp": "2022-10-28T03:18:31",
"content": "https://www.atari.st/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6525494",
"author": "Adrian",
"timestamp": "2022-10-28T16:22:13",
"conte... | 1,760,372,515.579063 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/27/a-solar-supercap-power-supply-to-keep-your-projects-running/ | A Solar Supercap Power Supply To Keep Your Projects Running | Lewin Day | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"solar power",
"supercap",
"supercapactior"
] | Solar garden lights and many other similar trinkets typically rely on cheap rechargeable batteries as a power source when the sun isn’t shining. [Darryl] figured that a supercapacitor could do the job instead,
and set about building a solar supercap power supply that could run various projects.
The power supply is built to use a small 60 x 40mm solar panel that provides approximately 500 mW at max output. This charges two supercapacitors which feed their output into a TPS61200 boost converter, specifically designed for working with ultra-low input voltages down to 0.3 V. The boost convert can then be configured to output 3.3 V or 5 V depending on the desired voltage for the device to be powered.
A special MOSFET array part
is used to charge the dual supercaps in series, ensuring they stay balanced and don’t get overcharged by the sun.
The design has worked well in practice. [Darryl] reports that it has successfully powered a LoRa device reporting every 10 minutes for over two years without issue.
Solar power is a magical thing, capable of providing energy for free
if you can get out there and capture it.
If you’re working on your own solar-powered projects,
don’t hesitate to drop us a line! | 16 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525325",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-10-27T23:08:31",
"content": "This project may be just what I am looking for to get my remote weather station working again!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"commen... | 1,760,372,515.881863 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/27/a-homemade-tube-amplifier-featuring-homemade-tubes/ | A Homemade Tube Amplifier Featuring Homemade Tubes | Dan Maloney | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"amplifier",
"cathode",
"grid",
"plate",
"retro",
"triode",
"tungsten",
"vacuum tube",
"vintage"
] | With the wealth of cheap and highly integrated audio amplifier modules on the market today, it takes a special dedication to roll your own from parts. Especially when those parts include vacuum tubes, and doubly so when
you make the vacuum tubes from scratch
too.
Now, we get it — some readers are going to find it hard to invest an hour in watching [jdflyback] make a pair of triodes to build his amplifier. But really, you’ve got to check this out. Making vacuum tubes with all the proper equipment — glassblower’s lathe, various kinds of oxy-fuel torches, all the right hand tools — is hard enough. But when your lathe is a cordless drill, and you’re using a spot welder that looks like it’s cobbled together from junk, your tube-making game gets a lot harder. Given all that, you’d expect the tubes to look a lot rougher than they are, but even with plain tungsten wire heaters and grids made from thick copper wire, they actually work pretty well. Sure, the heaters glow as bright as light bulbs, but that’s all part of the charm.
Speaking of charm, we just love the amp these tubes went into. Built in 1920s breadboard-style, the features some beautiful vintage mica capacitors and wirewound resistors, plus a variable resistor the likes of which we’ve never seen. The one nod to modernity is the clever use of doorbell transformers, one for a choke and one for the speaker transformer. They don’t sound great, but there’s no doubt they work.
We may have seen
other homemade vacuum tubes
before — we even recently featured
a DIY X-ray tube
— but there’s something about [jdflyback]’s tubes that really gets us going. | 23 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525317",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-10-27T22:39:21",
"content": "“various kinds of oxy-fuel torches, all the right hand tools —”So, lefties are not able to build their own tubes?B^)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
... | 1,760,372,515.827544 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/27/plasma-channel-shows-off-a-remarkably-stylish-fusor/ | Plasma ChannelShows Off A Remarkably Stylish Fusor | Tom Nardi | [
"High Voltage"
] | [
"farnsworth fusor",
"fusor",
"nuclear fusion",
"Plasma Channel"
] | We’ve seen our fair share of Farnsworth–Hirsch fusors over the years — these high-voltage devices can get ions cooking to the point of achieving nuclear fusion even on a hobbyist’s budget, and even though they won’t solve the world’s energy problems, they certainly make for an impressive light show. While “simple” to build in the relative sense, the examples we’ve seen in the past have still been bulky contraptions supported by a cart full of complex gear befitting a nuclear reactor.
Which is why the
fusor [Jay Bowles] recently completed is so impressive
. As you can see in the latest
Plasma Channel
video which we’ve placed below the break, this desktop “star in a jar” not only features an incredibly low part count, but looks more like a movie prop than anything you’d expect to find in a physics lab. If you ever considered building a fusor of your own but were put off by the size and complexity of existing designs, you’ll definitely want to check this out.
Epoxy protects the HV components, plus it looks cool.
The decidedly non-fusor look of this creation can be attributed, at least in part, to [Jay]’s well-known love of building things out of multi-colored acrylic sheets. But you’ve also got to give credit to the transparent walls of the vacuum chamber, which offer breathtaking views of the plasma field surrounding the electrode. In a traditional fusor you’d usually expect a tiny view-port popped in the side of beefy metal tank, but in this case its almost the other way around.
Now to be clear, the build wasn’t without its issues. Building the 40 kilovolt epoxy-potted voltage multiplier was no problem for [Jay]
given the sort of projects he’s used to
, but this was the first time he’d tried to work with a vacuum. As you might expect, that meant some trial-and-error surrounding everything from how to seal the connections to the strength of the pump used to pull down the chamber. Still, after a few false starts, he was treated with the mesmerizing glow of confined plasma.
[Jay] says the next step is to introduce some deuterium into the chamber, so stay tuned for an update.
Much like the multi-stage ion thruster he put together last month
, we expect to be a project that’s going to be popping on
Plasma Channel
regularly as improvements are made. There’s also a good chance we’ll be hearing more about these builds when [Jay] takes the stage at the
2022 Hackaday Supercon
. | 19 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525297",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2022-10-27T21:10:26",
"content": "Really cool. I think the white Teflon tape is ok for liquid seals, there’s yellow tape for gas seals (I could be wrong).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id"... | 1,760,372,516.051914 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/27/m-2-for-hackers-expand-your-laptop/ | M.2 For Hackers – Expand Your Laptop | Arya Voronova | [
"computer hacks",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"laptops hacks",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [
"4g modem",
"CNVi",
"M.2",
"m2",
"NVMe",
"SDIO",
"ssd"
] | You’ve seen M.2 cards in modern laptops already. If you’re buying an SSD today, it’s most likely an M.2 one. Many of our laptops contain M.2 WiFi cards, the consumer-oriented WWAN cards now come in M.2, and every now and then we see M.2 cards that defy our expectations. Nowadays, using M.2 is one of the most viable ways for adding new features to your laptop. I have found that the M.2 standard is quite accessible and also very hackable, and I would like to demonstrate that to you.
If you ever searched the Web trying to understand what makes M.2 tick, you might’ve found one of the many confusing articles which just transcribe stuff out of the M.2 specification PDF, and make things look more complicated than they actually are. Let’s instead look at M.2 real-world use. Today, I’ll show you the M.2 devices you will encounter in the wild, and teach you what you need to know to make use of them. In part 2, I will show you how to build your own M.2 cards and card-accepting devices, too!
Well Thought-Out, Mostly
You can genuinely appreciate the M.2 standard once you start looking into it, especially if you have worked with mPCIe devices for some amount of time. mPCIe is what we’ve been using for all these years, and it gradually became a mish-mash of hardly-compatible pinouts. As manufacturers thought up all kinds of devices they could embed, you’d find hacks like mSATA and WWAN coexistence extensions, and the lack of standardization is noticeable in things like mPCIe WWAN modems as soon as you need something like UART or PCM. The M.2 specification, thankfully, accounted for all of these lessons.
The M.2 standard is designed with real-world usecases in mind and defines as many pins as possible, making sure that same-purpose cards from different manufacturers can be substituted for one another. It’s split into different keyings that each serve a purpose – like storage-oriented, WWAN, WiFi and other purpose keyings. Each keying defines a pinout for a group of interfaces like PCIe, USB 2.0 or 3.0, SATA, I2C, DisplayPort and so on. Most of these interfaces are, naturally, quite tasty for a hacker.
A M.2 B+M-key SSD ready to be inserted into a M-key socket
Two cards showing four most popular M.2 keys. Top is A+E WiFi card and bottom is B+M SATA SSD
Neither a card nor a socket is required to support all interfaces defined in the keying’s pinout, or any particular interface. This makes sense if you design systems – a lot of interfaces defined are situational or expensive. However, of course, it can cause confusion of the “it fits, but doesn’t work” kind. For instance, a B+M key SATA SSD will not work in some NVMe-only M-key sockets, and some proprietary standards like CNVi throw a wrench into the “any M.2 WiFi card will work with your laptop” concept.
Some M.2 cards might look flippable, but they’re not
However, in real-world use, there’s anchors you can rely on – if you see a M-key, A-key or E-key slot, it has PCIe, if you see a B-key slot, A-key or E-key slot, it has USB 2.0; and if you have schematics or a few M.2 devices on hand, you can quickly test compatibility of any particular slot. There’s also I2C SDA and SCL pins defined in all keyings, but whether they’re connected to anything at all is a 50/50 chance, apparently dependent on the phase of the moon of the exact day when your laptop mainboard was designed.
B+M? The M.2 standard allows combining keys on cards, letting a card fit into two different types of socket and increasing compatibility of your card. There are two combinations you will see – B+M and A+E, used for SSDs and WiFi cards respectively, and the B, M, A and E key pinouts are designed around these two combinations being possible. You lose on some of the optional features, but the crucial stuff like PCIe remains accessible. As an aside, while it might feel like you can insert a B+M SSD flipped upside down if you apply enough force, or push an M-key card into a B-key socket, not only it will not work, you will reverse the input voltage polarity and there might be fiery consequences. Even given these few hiccups, M.2 is way more reasonable and powerful than mPCIe ever could be.
A Stick Of Solid-State
Two B+M SSDs – one SATA and one NVMe through 2x PCIe link
Undoubtably most popular are M.2 SSDs. They’re either SATA, or NVMe – the latter is a storage interface using PCIe as its physical layer. We’ve talked about
NVMe internals
in depth, feel free to check that out. SATA SSDs usually use B+M keying – some are B-key only, but it’s rare. NVMe SSDs usually use M-key, some using a combination of B+M and thus being limited to 2 PCIe lanes, you’ll see it with cheaper SSDs.
An SSD can only support one of these standards – never both. It might be hard to figure out which one, so if there’s no NVMe or SATA logo on the label, look the model number up. If you have the SSD in hand or got some higher-resolution pictures, look at the number of differential pairs. If there’s only two of them, it’s SATA; if there’s three, five or nine of them, it’s NVMe. Statistically, you’re way more likely to see NVMe SSDs, as they’re getting more and more abundant.
An M-key or B-key port might support either both of them or only one of them. On the B and M pinouts, there’s a pin defined to distinguish between PCIe and SATA SSDs, and if a host supports both standards, it will switch between them automatically. With some laptops, it might be hard to tell if an M.2 SATA SSD would be supported – in contrast, NVMe is a safe bet, as it’s is hardly ever non-supported. And, if you have a simple external adapter that has only a PCIe connector or a SATA connector, it will only support that type of SSD.
All The Ways To Do WiFi
M.2 WiFi uses A or E keyings – most WiFi cards you will see will use a combined A+E keying, and sockets used to be A-key but nowadays E-key is the rule. You get an 1x PCIe link and USB 2.0 , with former used for actual WiFi and latter used for Bluetooth. On both A and E keys, you can get a second PCIe 1x link – not lane, link! – but it’s rare to see sockets that wire it up, hence it’s
hard to find hosts
for cards like this
Google Coral Dual TPU Accelerator.
Compared to mPCIe, the antenna connectors are no longer uFL – they’re
MHF3, also known as wFL,
so it might be that you’ll need some new antenna hardware.
Not all embedded WiFi cards run PCIe, of course – the E-key pinout also accounts for SDIO WiFi cards. SDIO is an embeddable interface used mostly for SD cards and WiFi chip connections – for instance, on boards like the Raspberry Pi. A few cards and adapters
have been seen out there
using E-key, having the yet-uninitiated hackers
raise eyebrows.
Given how easy it is to design your own M.2 cards, hopefully we could see M.2 SDIO WiFi cards become more popular one day – maybe then, Pine64 will no longer design
weird WiFi modules.
half-sized WiFi card on top, 1216 M.2 WiFi module on the bottom
It’s rare to see pure E-key or A-key cards – one of the exceptions,
CNVi,
uses E-key, and it’s not the good kind of exception. It’s an
Intel-only proprietary
M.2-derived interface that lets the chipset do most of the WiFi work that used to be done on the PCIe WiFi cards. Not only do these cursed M.2 WiFi cards not work with AMD processors or older laptops, there are two versions of CNVi and they have
neither backwards nor forwards
compatibility,
resulting in user confusion,
extra expenses, and e-waste. There’s one tentative upside – slots usually wire up both CNVi and PCIe+USB2, so you can theoretically use a CNVi card, then get yourself extra internal PCIe and USB links for your hacking purposes.
There are two somewhat wacky WiFi card form-factors you might encounter. First of all, there’s this fun-sized E-key WiFi card – made possible because large portion of the pinout is unused by default. Going even more fun-sized but not necessarily as fun, you might’ve seen these small shielded soldered-on modules in ultrabooks. This, too, is M.2 form-factor, called 1216. It’s solderable and hence not as easily upgradeable, but with a pre-defined pinout all the same. Sadly, these modules also come in CNVi variety – on the upside, it’s not like you’re going to be swapping these cards often.
Go Worldwide With B-Key
Project-ready USB 4G modems for cheap
If you need a cheap USB-connected 4G modem with decent Linux support in your project, you won’t go wrong with getting a used M.2 B-key modem, typically coming in 3042 form-factorm, so 30 mm wide. A lot of these cards got manufactured for laptops with WWAN connectivity, and the second-hand market has them for ultra low prices. Most of them are USB 2.0, with some USB 3.0 cards available – for either, you can find USB-plug-equipped breakouts online, and there’s some
homebrew open-source breakouts
out there as well.
These go into B-key slots on laptops – out of all M.2 slots available, these are the most “wild west” ones, in that you can only really rely on USB 2.0 being present – everything else highly varies. The standard defines quite a few other features – some B-key slots have extra SATA, some have extra PCIe, some have both SATA and PCIe switchable by the same PCIe/SATA config pin M-key SSDs use. Sometimes there’s USB 3.0 too, but no guarantee. You will definitely have USB 2.0 for your modem, but for any other devices like SSDs, you’ll have to google your laptop’s model number with “can I put SSD in B-key slot” inquiries.
Sadly, if your laptop didn’t actually come with a WWAN option, not only the WWAN antennas might be absent, but the on-mainboard B-key socket might not be soldered either – it’s a bizarre and frustrating assembly choice to face and it hampers upgradability, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen done with mPCIe, I guess. On the upside, if you do have a B-key slot, you don’t have to limit yourself by SSDs and WWAN cards – for instance, here’s an
open-source
USB 2.0-connected
RP2040-based M.2 expansion card by [Timonsku],
likely to be a fun upgrade for your laptop!
M.2: Evolving, Ever-Present, Here To Stay
Some parts of the M.2 standard are fading into obscurity, and are no longer accessible on laptops out there – if they’ve ever been in the first place. If you want to go down a rabbithole, the M.2 Electromechanical Specification Rev1.0 document can be found online, and you can learn a lot from its 201 pages. For instance, you will find that the F-key is reserved for some obscure thing called Future Memory Interface, no doubt a shelved Intel project only described on some Blogspot page that’s not even indexed by Google anymore.
For more real-world but no less fun parts, there was a standard called WiGig, and some ThinkPads exposed a DisplayPort link on the A-key WiFi slot for that – along with actually making use of the second PCIe link on the A-key I mentioned above. Apparently, you could have wireless laptop docks, with DisplayPort and USB3.0 connectivity bringing you a ton of devices without a cable in sight. There’s some interesting pictures of WiGig dock internals out there –
the in-dock receiver hardware is actually a M.2 G-key card itself.
You can even find the in-dock cards on eBay, as a piece of somewhat recent computing peripheral history.
You will find M.2 basically everywhere. It has plenty of hidden potential, and if we ever need to tap into that, it helps that you learn how it’s used out there in the wild. Even if you’re never going to design a M.2 card, now you know how to tell SATA and NVMe M.2 SSDs apart, and why pushing a B-key 4G card into your M-key SSD slot will not result in anything good. In the next article, I’ll show you how to design a M.2 card or put a M.2 socket on your own board, too! | 55 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525258",
"author": "sweethack",
"timestamp": "2022-10-27T17:40:18",
"content": "Now waiting for TP M.2 .0 key.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6525281",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2022-10-27T19:51:47"... | 1,760,372,516.153452 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/27/digital-kitchen-spoon-makes-weighing-your-ingredients-a-snap/ | Digital Kitchen Spoon Makes Weighing Your Ingredients A Snap | Dan Maloney | [
"cooking hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"cooking",
"gravimetric",
"kitchen",
"recipe",
"scale",
"strain gauge",
"utensil",
"volumetric"
] | There seem to be two camps when it comes to recipes: those based on volume-based measurements, and those based on the weight of ingredients. Gravimetric measurements have the advantage of better accuracy, but at the price of not being able to quickly scoop out a bit of this and a dash of that. It would be nice to get the convenience of volumetric measurements with the accuracy of weighing your ingredients, wouldn’t it?
It would, and that’s just what [Penguin DIY] did with
this digital kitchen spoon scale
. The build started with, perhaps not surprisingly, a large mixing spoon and a very small kitchen scale. The bowl of the spoon got lopped off the handle and attached to the strain gauge, which was removed from the scale along with its LCD display and circuit board. To hold everything, a somewhat stocky handle was fabricated from epoxy resin sandwiched between aluminum bolsters. Compartments for the original electronics parts, as well as a LiPo battery and USB charger module, were carved out of the resin block, and the electronics were mounted so that the display and controls are easily accessible. The video below shows the build as well as the spoon-scale in action in the kitchen.
We think this is not only a great idea but a fantastic execution. The black epoxy and aluminum look amazing together on the handle, almost like a commercial product. And sure, it would have been easy enough to build a scale from scratch — heck, you might even be able to
do away with the strain gauge
— but tearing apart an existing scale seems like the right move here. | 14 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525241",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2022-10-27T16:20:34",
"content": "Seems like an awful execution to me – its a kitchen good which means the spoon part at the very least has to be properly washable, so it really needs to be disconnectable if the whole thing isn’t washab... | 1,760,372,516.205503 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/27/computing-fluidly/ | Computing Fluidly | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Misc Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"fluidics"
] | Computers come in many forms, depending on your definition. We’ve seen computers and computer gates built out of things as diverse as marbles, relays, and — of course — transistors. However, there are logic gate systems that use a property of moving fluids to form logic gates and a bistable element. That’s all the pieces you need to build a working computer.
It may sound far-fetched, but there have been general-purpose computers built using this technology. It is also used in specialized applications where fluids are already flowing, like shower heads, automotive transmissions, and in places where electronics are prone to misbehave. Many think the field will see a resurgence when we need to build logic at the molecular level for nanotech applications, too.
Basics
In its most basic form, a fluidic gate uses flow as a logic 1 and less flow to be a logic 0. Merging two streams together provides an OR gate. Using a supply stream that you can divert with a control stream provides a NOT function. Given enough inverters and OR gates, you can build everything else.
Charles Ahem’s 1966 Patent
However, the most effective fluidic logic gate is a
bistable element sometimes known as a fluidic amplifier
. This is analogous to an RS flip-flop. A supply flow feeds the device and two pressure ports provide inputs. If pressure appears on one port, the flow will continue out of one of two output ports. If pressure appears on the other port instead, the flow will continue out of the opposite port.
These flip-flops are designed in a Y shape with the control ports just before the branch. A smaller amount of pressure from the control ports makes the fluid “stick” to one wall or the other and, thus, prefer going on one side of the Y versus the other.
History
Nikola Tesla developed a fluidic diode in 1920. In 1949, an economist from New Zealand, Bill Phillips, wanted to model the economic processes of the United Kingdom and with computers difficult to access and not very powerful, he turned to a fluidic computer he built called MONIAC.
The computer used water tanks to represent different parts of the economy. The topmost tank was the treasury, and altering valve positions let you spend money at different rates and watch the effect. The prototype cost about £400 (about £15,000 pounds today) and was built from scrap. In total, somewhere around a dozen machines were eventually built, mostly by schools that appreciated how the model was understandable visually. There is a working replica in the New Zealand Reserve Bank as an exhibit that you can see in the video below.
In reality, though, using water to represent mathematical quantities wasn’t a new idea. In 1901, Arnold Emch proposed using particularly shaped weights to compute powers by measuring the amount of water displaced. Using water as an analogy for integration is also an old idea and “hydraulic calculators” were available in the 1930s to perform integration for specialized tasks and saw reasonably wide adoption in Russia up until the 1980s.
The idea came up again in 1957 when an Army lab realized that flue gasses could be directed down one of two pathways. And this led to the “fluidic amplifier” flip-flop that we mentioned above. Univac built a prototype
FLODAC
computer in 1964 to show how it might work.
Those amplifiers are what allow for what we think of as logic gates. Of course, they aren’t very fast, but they are very robust compared to, say, relays, or electronic devices that are sensitive to noise, static discharge, and vibration problems. Some experimental aircraft, like BAE’s MAGMA unmanned aerial vehicle, use fluidic thrust vectoring to control jet exhaust, something that might be hard to do with a 555. So even if your desktop computer’s water consumption will be limited to cooling, there are applications where it would be hard to do it any other way.
As we make tiny things where electrons don’t behave, we may see these methods get a new lease on life. Also, Rice and Harvard Universities have been using
fluidics to build robots
, and you can see what they are up to in the video below.
We’ve looked at
water adders before
. Turns out, you can make logic gates out of
almost anything
. | 20 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525229",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-10-27T14:52:24",
"content": "While reading this, I wondered how these techniques could be used to increase the station life of a Venus lander; using some mechanical or fluid logic instead of electronic gat... | 1,760,372,516.268537 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/27/the-wifi-pumpkin-is-the-wifi-pineapple-we-have-at-home/ | The WiFi Pumpkin Is The WiFi Pineapple We Have At Home | Lewin Day | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Security Hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"pentest",
"pentesting",
"wifi"
] | While networking was once all about the Cat 5 cables and hubs and routers, now most of us connect regularly in a wireless manner. Just like regular networks, wireless networks need auditing, and [Brains933] decided to whip up a tool for just that,
nicknaming it the PumpkinPI_3.
The build is inspired by the
WiFi Pineapple
, which is a popular commercial pentesting tool. It runs the
WiFi Pumpkin framework
which allows the user to run a variety of attacks on a given wireless network. Among other features, it can act as a rogue access point, run man-in-the-middle attacks, and even spoof Windows updates if so desired.
In this case, [Brains933] grabbed a Raspberry Pi Zero W to run the framework. It was stuffed in a case with a Alfa Network AWUS036NHA wireless card due to its ability to run in monitoring mode — a capability required by some of the more advanced tools. It runs on a rechargeable LiPo battery for portability, and can be fitted with a small screen for ease of operation.
It should prove to be a useful tool for investigating wireless security on the go. Alternatively, you can go even leaner,
running attacks off an ESP32
. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525215",
"author": "Myself",
"timestamp": "2022-10-27T12:24:04",
"content": "Can the ESP32 run in monitor mode?Can it run firmware that makes it appear as a generic NIC under a larger host, so all those heavyweight tools can run, without having to track down increasingly-scarce Alf... | 1,760,372,516.329057 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/27/comparing-solar-energy-harvesters/ | Comparing Solar Energy Harvesters | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Solar Hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"cell",
"energy",
"energy harvester",
"integrated circuit",
"small",
"solar",
"weather station"
] | There doesn’t have to be much more to setting up a simple solar panel installation than connecting the panel to a battery. Of course we would at least recommend the use of a battery management system or charge controller to avoid damaging the battery, although in a pinch it’s not always strictly necessary. But these simple systems leave a lot on the table, and most people with any sizable amount of solar panels tend to use a maximum power point tracking (MPPT) system to increase the yield of the panels. For a really tiny installation like [Salvatore] has, you’ll want to take a look at a similar system known as
a solar energy harvester
.
[Salvatore] is planning to use an energy harvester at his small weather station, which is currently powered by an
LDO regulator
and a small solar cell. While this is fairly energy efficient, the energy harvesters that he is testing with this build will go far beyond what an LDO is capable of. The circuit actually has two energy harvesters built onto it which allows him to test the capabilities of both before he makes a decision for his weather station. Every amount of energy is critical when using the cell he has on hand, which easily fits in the palm of one’s hand.
The testing of this module isn’t complete yet, but he does have two working prototypes to test in future videos to see which one truly performs the best. For a project of this size, this is a great way to get around the problem of supplying a small amount of power to something remote. For a larger solar panel installation,
you’ll definitely want to build an MPPT system though
. | 11 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6525200",
"author": "ono",
"timestamp": "2022-10-27T10:31:57",
"content": "another contender is the BQ25570, with its Supercap buffer, works wonder.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6525292",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
... | 1,760,372,516.485601 |
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