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https://hackaday.com/2022/08/17/were-hiring-come-join-us-6/ | We’re Hiring: Come Join Us! | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"contributor",
"hiring"
] | You wake up in the morning, and check Hackaday over breakfast. Then it’s off to work or school, where you’ve already had to explain the Jolly Wrencher to your shoulder-surfing colleagues. And then to a hackspace or back to your home lab, stopping by the skull-and-cross-wrenches while commuting, naturally. You don’t bleed red, but rather #F3BF10. It’s time we talked.
The Hackaday writing crew goes to great lengths to cover all that is interesting to engineers and enthusiasts. We find ourselves stretched a bit thin and it’s time to ask for help. Want to lend a hand while making some extra dough to plow back into your projects? We’re looking for contributors to write a few articles per week and keep the Hackaday flame burning.
Contributors are hired as private contractors and paid for each article. You should have the technical expertise to understand the projects you write about, and a passion for the wide range of topics we feature. You’ll have access to the Hackaday Tips Line, and we count on your judgement to help us find the juicy nuggets that you’d want to share with your hacker friends.
If you’re interested,
please email our jobs line (jobs at hackaday dot com)
and include:
One example article written in the voice of Hackaday. Include a banner image, at least 150 words, the link to the project, and any in-links to related and relevant Hackaday features. We need to know that you can write.
Details about your background (education, employment, interests) that make you a valuable addition to the team. What do you like, and what do you do?
Links to your blog/project posts/etc. that have been published on the Internet, if any.
What are you waiting for? Ladies and Gentlemen, start your applications! | 37 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6503772",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2022-08-17T16:19:26",
"content": "You must also understand that not everyone knows everything, and have the patience to deal with the personality flaws of those who think they do.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repl... | 1,760,372,598.965179 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/14/hackaday-prize-2022-solar-harvesting-esp32-camera-is-waterproof-repeatable/ | Hackaday Prize 2022: Solar-Harvesting ESP32 Camera Is Waterproof, Repeatable | Arya Voronova | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Prize",
"BQ25504",
"ESP32-CAM",
"ESP32-S",
"solar harvesting",
"waterproof"
] | [alberto nunez] shows off his sleek build of a
solar-harvesting ESP32 camera
– waterproof, somewhat energy-efficient, and able to be built by more-or-less anyone. For that, he’s chosen fairly jellybean components – an ESP32-CAM module with a matching protoboard, a small solar cell, a LiFePO4 battery, and a waterproofed GoPro shell that all of these parts neatly fit into.
A BQ25504 energy harvesting chip is used to ensure the ‘solar’ part of the project can meaningfully contribute to the project’s power budget, with energy otherwise mainly provided by the LiFePo4 battery. Since this battery’s nominal voltage is 3.2 V, it can be wired straight to ESP32’s power input and there’s no need for a regulator – thus, that one got mercilessly desoldered. [alberto] has also modded the board using a FET to gate power to the ESP32-CAM module’s camera, with all of these hacks bringing the board’s deep sleep current from 2.8 mA to 0.8 mA. Not great for a low-power device, but not terrible for something you can build so easily. Plus, it’s waterproof, dust-resistant, and quite robust!
These ESP32 camera modules are seriously nifty – we see them put to good use on the regular. Whether you need to
detect motion
in your Halloween project,
decode your water meter readings,
or perhaps merely a
security camera
, it’s worth having a few in your toolbox. Maybe even pick up
a programming helper
for these while you’re at it!
The
Hackaday
Prize2022
is Sponsored by: | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502922",
"author": "cncFriend",
"timestamp": "2022-08-14T20:44:33",
"content": "Great and doable project. Congrats",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,372,598.809724 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/14/this-snake-has-legs/ | This Snake Has Legs | Adam Fabio | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"allen pan",
"Animals",
"mech",
"robot",
"snake"
] | [Allen Pan] loves snakes. He loves them so much that he’s decided to play god, throwing away millions of years of evolution —
just to give snakes back the legs
they’ve “lost”.
Ok, so this hack has tongue planted firmly in cheek, but it’s still pretty darn cool. [Allen] designed and 3D printed what can best be described as a robot for snakes to ride.
The build wasn’t easy. Allen’s first attempts using toys based on
[Jamie Mantzel]’s giant robot
didn’t go exactly to plan. Thankfully those were only tested with a plush snake test dummy. Thankfully [Allen’s] second was on target.
The robot itself consists of 4 legs, each with 3 joints and two servos. The foot joint pivots freely to handle any uneven terrain. The robot’s gait is derived from lizards Allen observed in a pet shop. The main body of the robot is a clear plastic tube. Once
Shinji
the snake decides to
get in the robot
, it isn’t strapped in. In fact, the snake is free to leave whenever it wants.
Currently, the whole system just walks forward. [Allen] appears to be using a servo controller with a hard-coded walking sequence. We’d love to see the next step – figuring out a way for the snake to control the robot’s direction. Perhaps with a camera with gaze detection?
We’ve covered
robots driven by animals before
, and we’ve covered some of [Allen]’s builds — like this
electromagnetic rendition on Mjölnir
. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502849",
"author": "Bob Coggeshall",
"timestamp": "2022-08-14T15:50:13",
"content": "Everyone’s thinking it: Was it written in Python? (Da bum tsssss)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6502869",
"author": "Steven",
"times... | 1,760,372,599.352494 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/14/hoverboard-go-kart-build-is-a-delight-to-watch/ | Hoverboard Go-Kart Build Is A Delight To Watch | Arya Voronova | [
"Toy Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"electric go kart",
"go-kart",
"gokart",
"hoverboard",
"mini go kart"
] | Hoverboards have been an indispensable material for hackers building their own vehicles in the last few years. [Mahmut Demir] shows how he’s built
a hoverboard-powered go-kart for his son.
Unable to hack the board’s firmware, he instead set out to reuse the hoverboard without any disassembly, integrating it into the go-kart’s frame as-is. This build is completely mechanical, distinguished in its simplicity – and the accompanying six minute video shows it all.
This go-kart’s frame is wood and quite well-built, with the kind of personal touch that one would expect from a father-son gift. Building the vehicle’s nose out of a trashcan gave us a chuckle and earned bonus points for frugality, and the smiley face-shaped wheel is a lovely detail. As for the ‘hoverboard reuse’ part, the board is pivoted backward and forward, just as it normally would be. Rather than feet, the kart uses a lever that’s driven with two pedals through a pulley-string arrangement, giving granular speed control and the ability to reverse. It’s a clever system, in fact we don’t know if we could’ve done it better. You can see [Mahmut]’s son wandering in the background as [Mahmut] goes through the assembly steps — no doubt, having fun doing his own part in the build process.
[Mahmut] tells us he’s also added a remote off switch as a safety feature, and we appreciate that. We’ve seen hoverboards in go-kart builds before, as well as
rovers
,
e-bikes
,
robot vehicles
, and even
mobility platforms
. Truly, the hoverboard is
a unicorn
of hacker transportation helpers. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502831",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "2022-08-14T14:23:53",
"content": "Only possible way to make it better is vectored steering. Ala ‘cutting brakes’ popular on dune buggies and tractors.On the dune buggy it is one or two levers that can apply braking action to only one rear ... | 1,760,372,598.892174 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/14/just-how-good-is-a-tape-measure-antenna-anyway/ | Just How Good Is A Tape Measure Antenna Anyway? | Dan Maloney | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"carbon steel",
"copper",
"FEMM",
"finite element method magnetics",
"permittivity",
"skin effect",
"tape measure"
] | Amateur radio operators have played a longstanding game of “Will It Antenna?” If there’s something even marginally conductive and remotely resonant, a ham has probably tried to make an antenna out of it. Some of these expedient antennas actually turn out to be surprisingly effective, but as we can see from
this in-depth analysis of the characteristics of tape measure antennas
, a lot of that is probably down to luck.
At first glance, tape measure antennas seem to have a lot going for them (just for clarification, most tape measure antennas use only the spring steel blade of a tape measure, not the case or retraction mechanism — although
we have seen that done
.) Tape measures can be rolled up or folded down for storage, and they’ll spring back out when released to form a stiff, mostly self-supporting structure.
But [fvfilippetti] suspected that tape measures might have some electrical drawbacks, thanks to the skin effect. That’s the tendency for current to flow on the outside of a conductor, which at lower frequencies on conductors with a round cross-section turns out to be not a huge problem. But in a thin, rectangular conductor, a little finite element method magnetics (FEMM) analysis revealed that most of the current is carried in very small areas, resulting in high electrical resistance — an order of magnitude greater than a round conductor. Add in the high permittivity of the carbon steel material of the blade, and you end up something more like what [fvfilippetti] calls “a tape measure dummy load.
One possible solution: stripping the paint off the blade and copper plating it. It’s not clear if this was tried; we’d think it would be difficult to accomplish, but not impossible — and surely worth a try. | 36 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502769",
"author": "steelman",
"timestamp": "2022-08-14T08:18:07",
"content": "at lower frequencies on conductors with a round cross-section turns out to be not a huge problemI believe “at higher frequencies” fits better here.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies":... | 1,760,372,599.430535 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/13/remember-dab-radio-the-psion-wavefinder-gets-a-teardown/ | Remember DAB Radio? The Psion WaveFinder Gets A Teardown | Jenny List | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"DAB",
"Psion",
"wavefinder"
] | With digital music making a clean sweep in the 1990s over almost all listening media, it’s a surprise to find that there’s one area in which an analog hold-out is still very much alive and kicking. We’re talking not of a vinyl resurgence here but of FM radio, which has managed to effectively hold off its digital competition for a few decades now. Twenty years ago its days seemed numbered though, and in Europe the first generation of DAB digital radios looked ready to conquer the airwaves. Among them was a true oddity and one of Psion’s last significant consumer products, the WaveFinder USB DAB radio receiver. [Backofficeshow] has one,
and has given it a teardown for our entertainment
. He describes it as the first consumer SDR product which may be a little hyperbolic, but nevertheless, it’s an interesting look at what would become one of computing’s backwaters.
Inside the peak-90s-style translucent blue case is a single PCB with a lot of screening, on which sits a USB controller and a bunch of DSP chips. Radio demodulation was done in hardware, but signal demodulation was apparently done on the host PC. At the time its £299 price made it the affordable end of DAB reception, and
The Register
opined that
its ability to download broadcast broadband data made it a revolutionary product
, but sadly neither consumers nor broadcasters agreed and it was heavily discounted before making an ignominious exit. DAB itself would struggle to meet the expectations, and a multiplex-based licensing model for broadcasters making it unattractive to local stations means that even now FM is still full of stations. Perhaps as listening moves inexorably to streaming its time has passed, indeed
Ireland has gone so far as to abandon DAB altogether
.
If you’d like to know more about DAB,
we took a look at the technology a while back
.
Via [
RTL-SDR
] | 16 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502732",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-08-14T03:06:24",
"content": "1990s eh?It looks like a prop from a B-grade 1950s Sci-fi movie.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6502753",
"author": ... | 1,760,372,599.493723 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/13/testing-a-laser-cut-wrench-vs-a-forged-wrench/ | Testing A Laser Cut Wrench VS A Forged Wrench | Al Williams | [
"cnc hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"Laser cutting",
"tools",
"wrench"
] | It is easy to not think much about common tools like screwdrivers and wrenches. But not for [Torque Test Channel]. The channel does a lot of testing of tools and in the video, below, they
test a new wrench
that is, oddly enough, laser cut instead of forged like the usual wrench.
You would expect a machined wrench to be weaker than a forged wrench. We were impressed, though, that there is so much difference between wrenches when you start making measurements.
Speaking of measurements, we would like to see more details of the test setups shown both in the video and in some of the video clips included. We did enjoy seeing the examination of the internal grain structure of both wrenches.
Be forewarned. Watching this video is likely going to send you to the computer to buy some new wrenches, especially if you don’t have 30/60 head wrenches.
The real question is why laser cut a wrench? It doesn’t seem like it is actually better than the forged variant. It is more expensive, but the setup costs for forging are higher. Particularly for a tool made in the United States, forging is both expensive and it is difficult to find time on the limited number of large-scale forges left in the country.
As the video points out, the tool is fine for its intended purpose. However, we still love these detailed analyses of almost anything. For example,
high-flow 3D printing
. If you are into common hand tools,
what about screwdrivers
? | 30 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502687",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2022-08-13T23:48:44",
"content": "Makes me wonder if you could make these on a waterjet cutter, and how much a used waterjet cutter is?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6502780",
... | 1,760,372,599.035343 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/13/the-286-gives-up-one-of-its-final-secrets/ | The 286 Gives Up One Of Its Final Secrets | Jenny List | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"286",
"80286",
"intel",
"undocumented instructions"
] | Though it is largely forgotten today, the Intel 80286 was for a while in the 1980s the processor of choice and designated successor to the 8086 in the world of PCs. It brought a new mode that could address up to 16 Mb of memory, and a welcome speed boost over machines using an 8086 or 8088. As with many microprocessors, it has a few undocumented features, and
it’s a couple of these that [rep lodsb] takes a look at
. Along the way we learn a bit about the 286, and about why Intel had some of these undocumented instructions in the first place.
If you used a 286 it was probably as an end-user sitting in front of a PC-AT or clone. During manufacture and testing though, the processor had need of some extra functions, both for testing the chip itself and for debugging designs using it. It’s in these fields that the undocumented instructions sit, and they relate to an in-circuit emulator, a 286 with a debug port on some of its unused pins, which would have sat on a plug-in daughterboard for systems under test. The 286 was famous for its fancy extended mode taking rather a long time to switch to, and these instructions relate to loading and saving states before and after the switch.
The 286s time as the new hotness was soon blasted away by the 386 with its support for virtual memory, so for most of us it remains as simply a faster way that we ran 8086 code for a few years. They appear from time to time here,
even being connected to the internet
.
286 image: Thomas Nguyen (PttNguyen.net),
CC BY-SA 4.0
. | 115 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502655",
"author": "Romilly Cocking",
"timestamp": "2022-08-13T20:08:22",
"content": "Coherent was a unix-likevOS that ran on the 286. It was my first encounter with a pipe and filters command line.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_... | 1,760,372,599.301918 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/13/an-amstrad-nc100-has-a-new-purpose-in-life/ | An Amstrad NC100 Has A New Purpose In Life | Jenny List | [
"Cyberdecks"
] | [
"Amstrad",
"Amstrad NC100",
"cyberdeck"
] | We’re used to laptop computers featuring flip-up screens; this article is being written on one and it’s probable you’re reading it on another one. But there’s another laptop form factor that has gained legions of fans ever since the days of the TRS-80 Model 100, the flat slab with no hinge and both keyboard and display on its upper surface. It’s surfaced most recently in the DevTerm, which inspired [0x17] to have a go at building his own. Instead of starting from scratch though, he’s chosen
to use the shell of an Amstrad NC100 from the 1990s
.
This series of Amstrad portables followed the company’s tried and tested course of repackaging decade-old technology for the consumer market, and were Z80-based machines that shared much with the company’s PCW series of desktop wordprocessors. The character LCD, mainboard, and keyboard were replaced with a modern LCD, a Raspberry PI, and a custom ergonomic layout keyboard with all associated modules and cables.
The result is undeniably a neat flat form factor laptop computer, and one we could see ourselves using. There may be some questions relating to the repurposing of a retrocomputer when the same result could have been achieved with a bit of CAD work and a 3D printer, but perhaps the machine should speak for itself on that.
Meanwhile this isn’t the first Amstrad laptop we’ve seen recently,
the company also did some unusually-shaped PCs in the 1990s
. | 3 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502624",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2022-08-13T17:07:51",
"content": "But one of the most important accessories for the Model 100 were a pair of feet to raise the back of the computer, giving you better angle to see the screen. I was never sure if it was deliberately... | 1,760,372,598.848608 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/13/how-do-you-build-a-tradition/ | How Do You Build A Tradition? | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants"
] | [
"contests",
"Culture",
"education"
] | I was struck by reading
our writeup of the Zenit in Electronics contest
– an annual event in the Slovak Republic – that it’s kind of like a decathlon for electronic engineers and/or hardware hackers. It’s a contest, in which students compete presumably initially on a local level, and then up to 32 at the national level. There’s a straight-up knowledge test, a complex problem to solve, and then a practical component where the students must actually fabricate a working device themselves, given a schematic and maybe some help. Reading through the past writeups, you get the feeling that it’s both a showcase for the best of the best, but also an encouragement for those new to the art. It’s full-stack hardware hacking, and it looks like a combination of hard work and a lot of fun.
What’s most amazing is that it’s in its 38th year. Think how much electronics, not to mention geopolitics, has changed in the last 40 years. But yet the Zenit competition still lives on. Since it’s mostly volunteer driven, with strong help from the Slovak electronics industry, it has to be a labor of love. What’s astounding to me is that this love has been kept alive for so long.
I think that part of the secret is that, although it’s a national competition, it’s possible to run it with a small yet dedicated crew. It’s certainly a worthwhile endeavor – I can only imagine how many young students’ lives have been impacted by the exposure to microelectronics hacking through the contest. Indeed, it’s telling that the current chairman of the competition, Daniel Valúch,
was a competitor himself back in 1994
.
I wonder if the people founding Zenit back in 1984 thought of themselves as creating a perpetual electronic engineering contest, or if they just wanted to try it out and it took on a life of its own? Could you start something like this today?
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
! | 6 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502610",
"author": "Klaws",
"timestamp": "2022-08-13T16:22:43",
"content": "Never heard of this event, but, yes, it’s amazing that it’s still around and alive since 1984. Unlike a lot of magazines – back in the 1980s, there were a lot of electronics magazines targeted at the hobbyi... | 1,760,372,598.770192 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/13/air-filter-drm-hacker-opts-out-with-nfc-sticker/ | Air Filter DRM? Hacker Opts Out With NFC Sticker | Donald Papp | [
"home hacks",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"air filter",
"air purifier",
"NFC",
"NFC tag",
"reverse engineering",
"xiaomi"
] | [Flamingo-tech]’s Xiaomi air purifier has a neat safety feature: it will refuse to run if a filter needs replacement. Of course, by “neat” we mean “annoying”. Especially when the purifier sure seems to judge a filter to be useless much earlier than it should. Is your environment relatively clean, and the filter still has legs? Are you using a secondary pre-filter to extend the actual filter’s life? Tough! Time’s up. Not only is this inefficient, but it’s wasteful.
Every Xiaomi filter contains an NTAG213 NFC tag with a unique ID and uses a unique password for communications, but how this password was generated (and therefore how to generate new ones) was not known. This meant that compatible tags recognized by the purifier could not be created. Until now, that is. [Flamingo-tech] has shared
the discovery of how Xiaomi generates the password for communication between filter and purifier
.
A small NFC sticker is now all it takes to have the purifier recognize a filter as new.
[Flamingo-tech] has long been a proponent of fooling Xiaomi purifiers into acting differently. In the past, this meant installing a modchip to hijack the DRM process. That’s a classic method of getting around nonsense DRM on things like
label printers
and
dishwashers
, but in this case, reverse-engineering efforts paid off.
It’s now possible to create simple NFC stickers that play by all the right rules. Is a filter’s time up according to the NFC sticker, but it’s clearly still good? Just peel that NFC sticker off and slap on a new one, and as far as the purifier is concerned, it’s a new filter!
If you’re interested in the reverse-engineering journey, there’s
a GitHub repository
with all the data. And for those interested in purchasing compatible NFC stickers, [Flamingo-tech] has some
available for sale
. | 55 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502529",
"author": "ngaseo",
"timestamp": "2022-08-13T11:36:13",
"content": "There’s little point investing time for better DRM in devices like this. You may hack it but 100,000 Karens will rush to buy new filter as soon as some stupid red light comes on. As it is in the joke where... | 1,760,372,599.595361 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/13/the-chip-shortage-leads-to-the-strangest-things/ | The Chip Shortage Leads To The Strangest Things | Jenny List | [
"Parts"
] | [
"bill of material",
"chip shortage",
"production error"
] | The global chip shortage has not made the life of the electronic design engineer an easy one, as products have been designed around whatever parts are available rather than the first choices. This has manifested itself in some unexpected ways, including as [CNX software] investigates,
products whose multiple-choice bill of materials has led to mistakes being made in manufacture
.
On the face of it, designing a PCB with two sets of footprints to accommodate more than one part choice is a clever move. But as Radxa found out with their Rock 3A single board computer, this could lead to a production mishap as some boards left the production line with a mix-and-match BoM in their USB PD circuitry
which left them unable to operate from voltages above 5 V
. The board has footprints for both an Injoinic and a WCH part, and the faulty boards appear to have the support components fitted for the other chip to the one on the board.
We’d join [CNX] in congratulating Radxa for coming clean, and we like that one of the options to fix it is to be sent the chip to fit yourself. We’re left rather glad that it wasn’t us on whose watch such a mistake occurred, as from experience we know these things can happen all too easily.
Has the chip shortage led to any similar production mistakes in your life? Let us know in the comments. | 19 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502498",
"author": "Anonymous Mouse",
"timestamp": "2022-08-13T08:23:51",
"content": "So that explains why OKDO’s launch of this new “amazing” Pi competitor has been delayed.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6502517",
"autho... | 1,760,372,600.146501 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/12/swarm-vs-iridium-which-satellite-iot-service-is-right-for-you/ | Swarm Vs. Iridium: Which Satellite IoT Service Is Right For You? | Dan Maloney | [
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"downlink",
"IoT",
"iridium",
"satellite",
"shoot-out",
"swarm",
"uplink"
] | In a world where it seems like everyone’s face is glued to a device screen, the idea that wireless service might be anything other than universal seems just plain silly. But it’s not, as witnessed by vast gaps in cell carrier coverage maps, not to mention the 70% of the planet covered by oceans. The lack of universal coverage can be a real pain for IoT applications, which is a gap that satellite-based IoT services aim to fill.
But which service is right for your application? To help answer that question, [Mike Krumpus] has performed the valuable work of
comparing the services offered by Swarm and Iridium
in a real-world IoT shootout. On the face of it, the match-up seems a little lopsided — Iridium has been around forever and has a constellation of big satellites and an extensive ground-based infrastructure. But as our own [Al Williams] discovered when
he tested out Swarm
, there’s something to be said for having a lot of 1/4U Cubesats up there.
[Mike] picked up the gauntlet and did head-to-head tests of the two services under real-world conditions. Using the same Swarm development kit that [Al] used for his test, alongside an Iridium dev board of his own design, [Mike] did basic tests on uplink and downlink times for a short message on each service. We couldn’t find specs on the test message length, but
Swarm’s FAQ
indicates that packets are limited to 192 bytes, so we assume they’re both in that ballpark. Iridium was the clear winner on uplink and downlink times, which makes sense because Swarm’s constellation is much smaller at this point and leaves large gaps in coverage. But when you consider costs, Swarm wins the day; what would cost over $1,500 with Iridium would set you back a mere $60 with Swarm.
The bottom line, as always, depends on your application and budget, but [Mike]’s work makes it easier to do that analysis. | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502474",
"author": "MrSVCD",
"timestamp": "2022-08-13T06:08:58",
"content": "How does these things handle encryption/authentication to the iot server? Could normal TLS be used?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6502479",
... | 1,760,372,599.699621 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/12/svelte-vr-headsets-coming/ | Svelte VR Headsets Coming? | Al Williams | [
"News",
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"vr",
"vr headset"
] | According to Standford and NVidia researchers, VR adoption is slowed by the bulky headsets required. They want to offer
a slim solution
. A SIGGRAPH paper earlier this year lays out their plan or you can watch the video below. There’s also a second video, also below, covers some technical questions and answers.
The traditional headset has a display right in front of your eyes. Special lenses can make them skinnier, but this new method provides displays that can be a few millimeters thick. The technology seems pretty intense and appears to create a hologram at different apparent places using a laser, a geometric phase lens, and a pupil-replicating waveguide.
The original method uses a beam splitter to divert light to the eye, but the novel part of this is the use of a waveguide instead of the beamsplitter. Of course, there are drawbacks, many of which you can mitigate using techniques discussed in the paper and video.
Of course, these are a long way from practical, although there are some small glasses that have giant ribbon cables that would get you some raised eyebrows. In fact, they look like comically raised eyebrows themselves.
If you want to build it yourself, you might be better off with
something more traditional.
We will admit, though, to being fascinated with the whole idea of
holograms
. | 20 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502436",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-08-13T02:32:30",
"content": "I don’t want AR/VR!I want a low cost, lightweight, unobtrusive HUD!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6502443",
"... | 1,760,372,599.651319 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/12/local-simulation-feature-to-be-removed-from-all-autodesk-fusion-360-versions/ | Local Simulation Feature To Be Removed From All Autodesk Fusion 360 Versions | Maya Posch | [
"News",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"autodesk",
"cad",
"Fusion 360"
] | The removal of features from Autodesk products would appear to be turning into something of a routine at this point, with the announced
removal of local simulations
the latest in this series. Previously Autodesk had severely
cut down
the features available with a Personal Use license, but these latest changes (effective September 6) affect even paying customers, no matter which tier.
While previously executed local simulations on designs will remain accessible, any updates to these simulations, as well as any new simulations will have to use Autodesk’s cloud-based solver. This includes the linear stress, modal frequencies, thermal, and thermal stress simulation types, with each type of simulation study costing a number of
Cloud Tokens
.
Solving a linear simulation should initially cost 0 tokens, but the other types between 3 – 6 tokens, with the exact cost per token likely to vary per region. This means that instead of solving simulations for free on one’s own hardware, the only option in a matter of weeks will be solely through Autodesk’s cloud-based offerings.
Naturally, we can see this change going over exceedingly well with Fusion 360 users and we’re looking forward to seeing how Autodesk will spin the inevitable backlash.
(Thanks, [Jeremy Herbert] for the tip) | 180 | 48 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502396",
"author": "Borja",
"timestamp": "2022-08-12T23:06:58",
"content": "So… how to squeeze more money out of the client/users. To be honest, at this point, from Autodesk nothing is a surprise",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id"... | 1,760,372,600.480748 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/12/homebrew-biped-bot-shows-off-some-impressive-moves/ | Homebrew Biped Bot Shows Off Some Impressive Moves | Tom Nardi | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"biped",
"self balancing",
"Self Balancing Robot"
] | We’ve seen enough DIY robotic platforms here on Hackaday to know that most of them take the literal and figurative path of least resistance. That is, they tend to be some type of wheeled rover. But of course, there are plenty of other forms of locomotion, should you want to take on something a bit more challenging.
This
biped robot from [Tast’s Robots] is a perfect example
. While it’s still technically wheeled, its self-balancing nature makes things quite a bit more complex. It doesn’t just stand upright either, it also has a unique ability to crouch down by rotating its motorized knees and hips. As demonstrated in the video below, it can even navigate relatively uneven terrain — pulling off such a smooth transition between hardwood and carpet is no easy feat for a self-balancing bot like this.
But the best part? It isn’t just fully open source, it’s also designed to be built with only the tools and capabilities available to the average home gamer. That means 3D printed components, wooden dowels, and RC car parts. Even the power supply, a Ryobi 18 V tool battery, is easy to source and relatively hacker friendly.
Just as impressive as the hardware is the suite of software packages developed to handle things like balancing, locomotion, and reverse kinematics. Each one is maintained and documented as their own individual Apache-licensed projects, making them far easier to utilize than they would be if it was all implemented as one monolithic system.
If you
really
want to ditch the wheels,
we’ve seen a few biped walkers in the past
. But frankly, none of them can compare to the capabilities and scope of this project. | 6 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502400",
"author": "orange",
"timestamp": "2022-08-12T23:15:14",
"content": "Looks really cool.I looked at the parts list. It is certainly *interesting* what happened in my brain as I started adding up the costs of the various parts as I’m reading an article stressing easily access... | 1,760,372,599.986503 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/12/hackaday-prize-2022-solar-power-through-pyrolysis/ | Hackaday Prize 2022: Solar Power Through Pyrolysis | Jenny List | [
"green hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Prize",
"pyrolysis",
"solar power",
"solar pyrolysis"
] | We’re all familiar with solar cells, be they photovoltaic, or for heating water. But they are only the more common ways of converting the sun’s energey into usable power, and to the extended list there is now an addition courtesy of [Dennis].
He’s using the sun to drive the pyrolysis of biomass waste, releasing hydrogen fuel
.
For those who aren’t familiar with the chemistry, pyrolysis refers to chemical reactions triggered by heat. In this case, when organic biomass is heated in the absence of oxygen it breaks down and releases the gaseous products of that breakdown as well as a mass of carbon. The idea behind this pyrolysis cell is that a Fresnel lens will focus the sun on a reaction chamber, providing the required heat for the reaction to occur. A test with a magnifier and a test tube proves that there’s something in it.
Of course, sharp-eyed readers will notice that this isn’t quite in the same vein as other cells which convert the Sun’s energy into a usable form, in that while it provides an input of energy for the pyrolysis the chemical energy in the resulting gas comes mostly from the original biomass. There is a silver lining to the prospect of burning gas though, in that the left-over carbon can be incorporated into the soil as biochar, an effective carbon sink.
We’ve seen a project pursuing a similar chemistry before, though
not using solar energy to do it
.
The
Hackaday
Prize2022
is Sponsored by: | 19 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502350",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-08-12T18:52:04",
"content": "So does this biochar work like activated charcoal and be used As a filtering agent?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "650... | 1,760,372,600.047029 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/12/cyberdeck-builders-talk-shop-in-roundtable-chat/ | Cyberdeck Builders Talk Shop In Roundtable Chat | Tom Nardi | [
"Cyberdecks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"cyberdeck",
"cyberpunk",
"Hack Chat"
] | In honor of our recently announced
2022 Cyberdeck Contest
, we decided to do things a little differently for this week’s Hack Chat. Rather than pick just one host, we looked back through the archive and selected some of the most impressive builds we’ve seen and asked their creators if they’d like to take part in a freewheeling discussion about their creations and the nascent community surrounding these bespoke computing devices.
Despite conflicting time zones and at least one international vacation, we were able to put together an impressive panel to helm this special
Cyberdeck Brainstorming Hack Chat
:
[bootdsc] – Creator of the
VirtuScope
, and founder of the
Cyberdeck Cafe
[Back7] – Speaker during the
2021 Remoticon
, responsible for the
Pelican case craze
[H3lix] – Moderator of the Cyberdeck Discord server
[a8ksh4] – Builder of the
Chonky Palmtop
and
Paper Pi Handheld
[Io Tenino] – Builder of the and the
Joopyter retro personal terminal
[cyzoonic] – Builder of the
watertight ruggedized cyberdeck
featured in the
2022 Sci-Fi Contest
So what did this accomplished group of cyberdeck builders have to talk about? Well, quite a bit. During a lively conversation, these creators not only swapped stories and details about their own builds, but answered questions from those looking for inspiration and guidance.
bootdsc’s radio-packed VirtuScope
The discussion immediately kicked off with what’s perhaps the most obvious question: why build a cyberdeck if we already have laptops and smartphones — mobile computing form factors which [Io Tenino] admits are likely as close to perfect as we can get with current technology. Most of the builders agreed that a big part of the appeal is artistic, as the design and construction of their personal deck allowed them to show off their creativity.
But what of productivity? Can these custom machines do more than look good on a shelf? There seemed to be consensus that it was difficult to compete with a standard laptop in terms of general purpose computing, but that a cyberdeck tailored to a specific use case could be a powerful tool.
For example, [bootdsc] built a high-power WiFi adapter as well as an RTL-SDR receiver and up-converter into the VirtuScope, while [Io Tenino] says the Joopyter’s integrated printer is occasionally used to run off a grocery list. [H3lix] also mentioned that the trend towards ever-thinner laptops has meant removing ports and expansion options which used to be taken for granted, a potentially frustrating situation for hardware hackers that a cyberdeck can alleviate.
Naturally, the Chat also covered more technical aspects of cyberdeck design. There was quite a bit of discussion about powering these custom machines, and whether or not internal batteries were even a necessary design consideration. In keeping with the survivalist theme, [cyzoonic] included 18650 cells and an integrated charger, while [Io Tenino] is content to use a standard USB battery bank. Ultimately, like most aspects of an individual’s cyberdeck, the answer largely depended on what the user personally wished to accomplish.
[Io Tenino]’s Joopyter comes from a decade that never existed.
As you might expect with [Back7] in attendance, there were also several questions about the logistics of using a Pelican case as the enclosure for your build. Different techniques were discussed for mounting hardware within the case without compromising its integrity, such as gluing your fasteners to the inside of the case, or 3D printing an internal framework.
Others wondered if the protection provided by these cases was really necessary given the relatively easy life most of these machines will lead, especially given their considerable cost. Although to that end, we also saw some suggestions for alternative cases which provide a similar look and feel at a more hacker-friendly price point.
Though they are certainly popular, Pelican cases are just one option when planning your own build. Many chose to 3D print their own enclosures, and there’s even the argument to be made that the rise of desktop 3D printing has helped make cyberdeck construction more practical than it has been in the past. Others prefer to use the chassis of an old computer or other piece of consumer electronics as a backbone for their deck, which fits well with the cyberpunk piecemeal aesthetic. That said, the Chat seemed in agreement that care needed to be taken so as not to destroy a rare or valuable piece of vintage hardware in the process.
This Hack Chat was a great chance to get some behind the scenes info about these fantastic builds, but even if you didn’t have a specific question, it was an inspiring discussion to say the least. We’re willing to bet that the design for some of the cyberdecks that get entered into the contest will have been shaped, at least in part, due to this unique exchange of niche ideas and information. Special thanks to [bootdsc], [Back7], [H3lix], [a8ksh4], [Io Tenino], and [cyzoonic] for taking the time to share this glimpse into their fascinating community with us.
The Hack Chat is a weekly online chat session hosted by leading experts from all corners of the hardware hacking universe. It’s a great way for hackers connect in a fun and informal way, but if you can’t make it live, these overview posts as well as the
transcripts posted to Hackaday.io
make sure you don’t miss out. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502343",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-08-12T18:11:11",
"content": "Sorry I missed it!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6502385",
"author": "Nuxi",
"timestamp": "2022-08-12T22:25:56"... | 1,760,372,599.935916 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/12/hackaday-podcast-181-3d-printing-with-volcano-nuts-the-hackaday-bookshelf-and-a-puzzlebot/ | Hackaday Podcast 181: 3D Printing With Volcano Nuts, The Hackaday Bookshelf, And A Puzzlebot | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos convened in a secret location to say what we will about the choicest hacks of the past week. We kick things off by discussing the brand new
Cyberdeck contest
, which is the first of it’s type, but certainly won’t be the last. In other contest news,
we recently announced the winners of the Hack it Back Challenge
of the Hackaday Prize, which ran the gamut from bodysnatching builds to rad resto-mods and resto-recreations.
IBM’s Linkway, French edition. Très tubulaire, non?
Taking top honors in wow factor this week is [Stuff Made Here]’s jigsaw puzzle-solving robot. This monster can currently tackle small laser-cut puzzles, but is destined to solve an all-white 5000-piece nightmare once all the engineering pieces have come together.
Then we took a field trip to Zip Tie City, where the plastic’s green ♻ and the wiring’s pretty, admired volcano nuts from afar, and briefly considered the idea of a 3D printer with a heating zone of programmable length.
Finally, we take a look at a creatively destructive robot that’s akin to a useless machine, bloviate about
books you should read
, and dance around the topic of learning by playing.
Direct download.
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 181 Show Notes:
News:
Load Your Icebreakers, The 2022 Cyberdeck Contest Starts Now
2022 Hackaday Prize: Congratulations To The Winners Of The Hack It Back Challenge
What’s that Sound?
If you know what that sound was,
you should fill out the form here
to win a t-shirt!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Solar Plane Might Be Able To Last Through The Night
Retrotechtacular: The Gossamer Condor
Solar Impulse 2 (HB-SIB) Solar Airplane
Jigsaw Puzzles Are Defeated
Telecentric lens – Wikipedia
Student Competition Badge Bears Custom Silicon
Welcome To Ziptie City
Want Faster Extrusion But Don’t Have A Volcano? Nuts!
Converting An 80s Typewriter Into A Linux Terminal
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
MCH2022 Badge CTF Solved, With Plenty To Learn From
Should’ve Used A 555 — Or 276 Of Them
Robot Repeatedly Rearranges Remnants In The Round
Kristina’s Picks:
Stewart Platform Wields Magic Fingers To Massage Your Scalp
3D Printed Braiding Machine Brings Back Some History
Hackaday Prize 2022: Saving The World, One Brew At A Time
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Books You Should Read: The Hardware Hacker’s Handbook
Books You Should Read
Fumbling the future : how Xerox invented, then ignored, the first personal computer (Book, 1999) [WorldCat.org]
Learning By Playing
Review: LinkWay | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502320",
"author": "calculus",
"timestamp": "2022-08-12T16:17:35",
"content": "The media box on this post has episode 180 but the direct download link has episode 181.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6503108",
"author... | 1,760,372,600.093655 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/12/remove-a-speakers-voice-from-a-recording-using-ultrasound/ | Remove A Speaker’s Voice From A Recording Using Ultrasound | Maya Posch | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"ultrasound",
"ultrasound jamming"
] | What if you could effectively prevent someone from recording your voice? This is the focus of a study by Guo et al. (2022) at Michigan State University, in which they use a dynamically calculated audio signal that
effectively cancels out one’s voice in a recording device
. This relies on an interesting aspect of certain micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) microphones, which are commonly used in smartphones and other recording devices.
Pressure sensitivity of a MEMS microphone. (credit: Brian R. Elbing)
A specially crafted ultrasound signal sent to the same microphone which is recording one’s voice can result in the voice audio signal being gone on the final recording. The approach taken by the authors involves using a neural network that is trained on voice samples of the person (“Bob”) whose voice has to be cancelled. After recording Bob’s voice during a conversation, the creatively named Neurally Enhanced Cancellation (NEC) system determines the ultrasound signal to be sent to the target recording device. Meanwhile the person holding the recording device (“Alice”) will still perceive Bob’s voice normally.
As ultrasound is highly directional, the system can only jam a specific microphone and wouldn’t affect hidden microphones in a room. As noted by the authors, it is possible to do general microphone jamming using other systems, but this is legally problematic, which should not be an issue with their NEC system.
Thanks to [JohnU] for the tip! | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502311",
"author": "Darren",
"timestamp": "2022-08-12T15:27:18",
"content": "A sound of sufficient intensity outside of the human hearing, would probably in most devices cause the ALC to lower the volume so that recording is effectively impossible. Most devices won’t filter the inp... | 1,760,372,600.698242 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/12/this-week-in-security-breaches-aepic-squip-and-symbols/ | This Week In Security: Breaches, ÆPIC, SQUIP, And Symbols | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"microsoft",
"SQUIP",
"This Week in Security",
"ÆPIC"
] | So you may have gotten
a Slack password reset prompt
. Something like half a percent of Slack’s userbase had their password hash potentially exposed due to an odd bug. When sending shared invitation links, the password hash was sent to other members of the workspace. It’s a bit hard to work out how this exact problem happened, as password hashes shouldn’t ever be sent to users like this. My guess is that other users got a state update packet when the link was created, and a logic error in the code resulted in too much state information being sent.
The evidence suggests that the first person to catch the bug was a researcher who disclosed the problem mid-July. Slack seems to use a sane password policy, only storing hashed, salted passwords. That may sound like a breakfast recipe, but just means that when you type your password in to log in to slack, the password goes through a one-way cryptographic hash, and the results of the hash are stored. Salting is the addition of extra data, to make
a precomputation attack
impractical. Slack stated that even if this bug was used to capture these hashes, they cannot be used to directly authenticate as an affected user. The normal advice about turning on 2-factor authentication still applies, as an extra guard against misuse of leaked information.
Et Tu Twilio
Not to be outdone,
Twilio just disclosed an ongoing problem
, but this one was an active social engineering attack. It started as a targeted phishing campaign against Twilio employees, and as employees fell for the fake login page, the attackers used the captured credentials to access internal tools and access end-user data. Of particular note is that these phishing attempts were successful because they were targeted at known Twilio employees, using the correct phone numbers, and included names or usernames. It’s reported that other companies, namely Cloudflare and Cicso, are experiencing similar attacks. It’s possible there was a breach in a shared provider, that enabled the targeted fishing.
More From The CPU Vulnerability Nightmares Front
Leading the charge is Intel’s
ÆPIC Leak
, a new sort of processor bug. This isn’t a speculative execution bug — we’re not tricking the CPU into acting on memory that will be rolled back. This is more like reading from uninitialized memory, and finding another process’s secrets there. That’s actually the exact sort of bug the researchers were looking for, as they intentionally filled buffers and caches with a known pattern, and then attempted to read from nonsensical memory locations looking for those patterns. If a memory read returned their canary data, then something interesting was afoot.
This was exactly what happened when reading from I/O addresses assigned to the Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (APIC). Certain bytes inside the APIC range are reserved, and trying to read them invokes undefined behavior. On many CPU models, this means a system hang and/or full CPU crash. On some processors, the read worked, but because the APIC doesn’t actually send data on these addresses, stale cache contents are returned. This is a very interesting result, but note that actually pulling off the attack requires root-level access to the system. That makes it basically meaningless, as the kernel can already read arbitrary memory, right?
There is an important exception to the rule of Kernel-sees-all. Intel’s SGX enclave technology is specifically designed to protect regions of memory from even the kernel. In practice this means DRM keys and SGX protected virtual machines. DRM key leakage is not a threat *to* the end user, so isn’t something to worry about. And the collection of people that run SGX protected VMs is likely quite small.
SQUIP
AMD isn’t missing out on the fun,
making SQUIP public this week
(
whitepaper
). It’s a new side-channel that derives process state from the scheduler queue. Simultaneous MultiThreading (SMT) is the technique used by modern processors to feed two threads of instructions into a single processing core. Because different instructions use different components of the CPU, SMT results in higher throughput than traditional one-thread-per-core arrangements. One downside is that the activity of one thread can have an impact on the performance of the other. For instance, for doing live audio processing, one of the recommendation was to disable SMT to avoid data underruns. For the security minded, there’s an obvious side-effect, that one process can learn a bit of information about what its sibling thread is doing on the CPU core. There have been a handful of methods to detect and take advantage of this effect, and what SQUIP brings is a new method to spy on the sibling thread.
In AMD Zen processors, there are multiple Arithmetic Logic Units (ALUs) per CPU core, but only one of those units can do multiplication, division, and Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) operations. SQUIP queues up many multiplication operations requests in a row, and then issues an
rdpru
instruction, Read Processor Register. It’s specifically looking for the value of the Actual Performance Frequency Clock Counter (APERF). There’s a quirky behavior here that is the key to the attack. There are separate queues for each of the ALUs, as well as the master queue for the core. The master queue pushes instructions into the individual sub-queues, but if the next target queue is full, the master queue stalls until the next instruction can be sent to the correct component. In effect, if the ALU1 queue is full+1, the
rdpru
call is delayed. Once that instruction makes it to the end of the primary CPU queue, it can immediately execute on one of the other ALUs. This, in essence, allows an underpriviledged process to spy on how many multiplication instructions are being performed by its sibling process, even if that sibling happens to be in a different VM, for instance.
So we can determine multiplication instructions. What exactly does that get us? The example the researchers reached for was RSA’s square-and-multiply, where each bit of the secret key will trigger either two or three multiplications, depending on the value of that given bit. By using the SQUIP technique over many runs (more than 50,000), it’s possible to infer the value of the secret key. It’s a brilliant bit of work, but probably of limited real-world use. This is AMD’s take, at least, as their guidance is to use best-practice coding techniques to mitigate this issue.
Microsoft Office and Symbols
It’s another of those “hath hell frozen over?” moments, as
Microsoft announces the release of debugging symbols for Microsoft Office
. What exactly are debugging symbols you ask? Maybe think of them as a roadmap to what’s in a binary file. When a program crashes, debugging symbols tell you what function was being executed when the crash happened, and maybe even the name of the variable that was the culprit. Now while this isn’t as much information as a full source release, it really does bring a lot of transparency to what is happening inside a given program. Imagine what a Ghidra decompile of Office might turn up. And that’s sort of the point. Microsoft wants researchers to find exploitable bugs and report them. On top of that, third-parties make plugins and integrations for Office, and better debugging makes both jobs easier.
VMWare
[Steven Seeley] of Source Incite
found a collection of VMWare vulnerabilties back in May
, and when they are put together, they make for an impressive RCE to root vulnerability chain. First off is a quirk that’s probably a feature. When an admin creates a dashboard link in the vRealize Manager application, a token embedded in that link allows anyone to access the dashboard without a valid account. While it’s essentially read-only access, there’s a second issue, where an API call to create a new user bypasses the normal authentication checks.
That next problem happens to be sensitive information that winds up in the logs, and that the system allows log access to an underprivileged user, or no user at all, in this case! The log line in question contains a Basic authorization string. Basic auth is just Password and ID run through a Base64 encoding. As demonstrated in this attack chain, it’s really not a good idea to use. Regardless, this allows a password reset for the admin user, getting an attacker admin access to the system. admin can go enable the SSH port, and log in. So an attacker has admin and SSH, but that’s still not root.
Up next is a
sudo
rule that allows any user to run a specific Python script with sudo — meaning that script runs as root. That script looks to an environment variable to find its binaries, and that variable is trivial to set. Set the variable so the script running as root will run a script you wrote, and you can do anything, like giving your account full sudo rights. The full exploit chain is called
DashOverride
, and patches are available for the three vulnerabilities in play. Well done [Steven] for the find.
SELinux
If you play in RedHat land, you’re probably familiar with SELinux, if only as the pesky thing that you turn off to make software work. Many of us sysadmins that work on RHEL and its clones are used to temporarily disabling it as a first troubleshooting step. Well, [esp0x31]
would like you to reconsider that habit
, making the case that SELinux can be a useful tool for system hardening. The post describes how you can set up a file context for a given program, and then strictly limit its access to only files with that context. Should this application be able to talk over UDP? If not, add a rule that prevents any UDP socket creation. A killer tip is the
newrole
command, which puts you into the SELinux domain you just defined — perfect for bashing on your new rules looking for a loophole.
Bits and Bytes
The Point-to-Point Protocol in Windows has a flaw,
CVE-2022-30133
, where sending traffic to port 1723 can result in arbitrary code execution. The scary bit about this one is that it’s potentially wormable, and that the port might be intentionally exposed to the internet, as this was an early VPN solution in Windows. Yoiks.
X-as-a-Service is one of the hottest ways to monetize, and the criminal element has jumped onboard. We’ve had ransomware-as-a-service, and now there’s
command&control-as-a-Service
. Is directing the hoard of machines in your botnet just too much trouble? For a low monthly fee, these guys will do it for you, and it comes with a slick looking dashboard and everything. We truly live in modern times.
Rsync has a flaw,
where a malicious server can write arbitrary files on a connecting client
. This could also be leveraged in the form of a man-in-the-middle attack. Look for
a release of 3.2.5 in the coming days
, which will contain the fix.
5.4 million Twitter accounts had their private data scraped and sold,
thanks to a zero-day in Twitter’s web code
. The sensitive bit was the email or phone number used to verify the account. For most of us it would just be an annoyance for that to escape. Just another make it another couple spammers’ lists. There are a handful of Twitter accounts that are run anonymously for good reason, and this sort of leak could be quite a problem, if it allowed bad actors to connect the dots. Thanks to [app-le-bees] for pointing this one out
in our Discord
! | 9 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502297",
"author": "X",
"timestamp": "2022-08-12T14:17:03",
"content": "When the AI models start learning how to find hardware vulnerabilities we are all gonna be buying new computers on a regular basis. The engineers at Intel and AMD are clearly the keystone cops of computer secur... | 1,760,372,600.638881 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/12/young-inventor-builds-motor-without-rare-earths/ | Young Inventor Builds Motor Without Rare Earths | Al Williams | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"electric vehicle",
"motor",
"reluctance motor",
"science fair"
] | [Robert Sansone] is a 17-year-old from Florida and, like most of us, he likes to tinker. He’s apparently got the time for it because he’s completed at least 60 projects ranging from animatronic hands to a high-speed go-kart. However, his interest in electric vehicles coupled with his understanding of the issues around them led him to investigate synchronous reluctance motors — motors that don’t depend on expensive rare earth magnets. His experiments have led to
a novel form of motor
that has greater torque than existing designs.
Rare earths are powerful but expensive, costing much more than common metals like copper or steel. Traditionally, synchronous reluctance motors use steel rotors and air gaps and exploit the difference in reluctance — a term for magnetic resistance– to generate rotation. [Robert’s] idea was to replace the air gap with a different material to increase the ratio of reluctance between the rotor and the gap. Reconfiguring the motor to a more traditional configuration shows startling results: the new design
generated almost 40% more torque
and did so more efficiently, as well.
His work has earned him first prize, and $75,000, in this year’s Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair. It took 15 tries to get the motor to its current state, something made easier with 3D printing. There are plans for a 16th version that [Robert] hopes will perform even better. We can’t wait to see what he’ll do next.
Electric vehicles have made people look into many
motor design topologies
. The reluctance motor has been around for a long time, but controlling them has become significantly easier. That’s true of
many kinds of motors
. | 49 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502269",
"author": "rewolff",
"timestamp": "2022-08-12T12:00:23",
"content": "Currentl Synchronous reluctance motors run at 90+ percent efficiency.When this guy claims a 37% improvement in efficiency… I call bullshit.His measurements are wrong, he’s measuring something different. S... | 1,760,372,600.576214 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/12/tvout-library-brings-cardboard-arcade-to-life/ | TVout Library Brings Cardboard Arcade To Life | Orlando Hoilett | [
"classic hacks",
"Games"
] | [
"arcade",
"bandai",
"namco",
"taito",
"Tomohiro Nishikado"
] | Recycling old CRTs is a true Hackaday tradition, and [Rob’s]
mini arcade is sure to grab your attention
.
First of all, you’ll probably appreciate [Rob] circumventing the supply shortage by getting all his components from recycled material. That’s probably the only way to get anything these days. He salvaged a small CRT from an old-school video intercom system and snagged the buttons, speakers, and switches from other unused devices laying around. Not all is lost, however, as [Rob] was able to purchase an Arduino Nano and a few resistors online. So maybe things are turning around in that category, who knows?
You’ll probably also appreciate how remarkably simple this hack is. No need for a Raspberry Pi as your standard 8-bit microcontroller will do the trick. And, fortunately, [Rob] found a
nice library to help him generate the composite video signal
, doing most of the work for him. All that was left to do was to build the arcade cabinet. Recreating the classic design was a pretty easy step, but you might opt for something a little nicer than cardboard though. But, hey, if it does the trick, then why not?
Cool project, [Rob]! We’re definitely happy to add this project to our
retro collection here at Hackaday
. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502251",
"author": "peek",
"timestamp": "2022-08-12T10:15:32",
"content": "Wait, he found resistors online !But where and how did he do this ?Joking aside, good construction, simple and effective.Well done.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"... | 1,760,372,600.74103 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/11/a-portable-computer-living-in-1988-but-also-in-the-future/ | A Portable Computer Living In 1988 But Also In The Future | Matthew Carlson | [
"computer hacks",
"Cyberdecks"
] | [
"amd",
"cyberdeck",
"retro computer",
"sleeper pc"
] | Every once in a while, there will be a project that is light on details but inundated with glorious, drool-worthy pictures. [Nexaner7] recently showed off his
cyberdeck he built over a year inside an old LCD-386
. So what’s special about it? This isn’t just a Raspberry Pi or some SBC inside but a complete AMD Ryzen 5600, Nvidia RTX 3060, screen, and keyboard in a 19.5-liter space (0.68 cubic feet). Since there wouldn’t be enough space inside for decent airflow, he decided to water-cool everything, which added to the build.
While [Nexaner7] doesn’t have a video walkthrough, he does have a build log with dozens of pictures in two parts:
part 1
and
part 2
. As you can imagine, there were copious amounts of 3d printing for brackets and holders, trying various screens and GPUs to see what fit and what didn’t. He tried to use the original keyboard, even with a 5-pin DIN to PS2 to USB adapter, but the keyboard was flakey, likely due to rust. He dropped in a CM Quickfire TK PCB with a few modifications as it was close to the same size. He swapped the display for a 1440p portable monitor with a thin ribbon HDMI cable to route from the GPU to the screen.
We’re happy to report that the parts inside were sold to someone who restores old PC, so a somewhat rare LCD-386 wasn’t destroyed. With a gorgeous build like this, perhaps he should
enter the Cyberdeck contest
. Eagle-eyed readers might notice that recently
we covered an LCD-386 with its contents retrieved via a hacked-together serial bus
. | 35 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502216",
"author": "philosiraptor117",
"timestamp": "2022-08-12T05:36:24",
"content": "ooh thats hawt.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6502227",
"author": "wibble",
"timestamp": "2022-08-12T06:39:25",
"content": "I’... | 1,760,372,600.814388 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/11/hack-your-engine-virtually/ | Hack Your Engine Virtually | Al Williams | [
"car hacks"
] | [
"engine",
"internal combustion engine",
"simulation"
] | It is no secret that we like simulating circuits before we build something and there are plenty of great tools for that. But what about those of us who work on cars? Well, you might try
engine-sim
which is a real-time internal combustion engine simulation. Honestly, the program freely admits that it isn’t accurate enough to do engineering or engine tuning. But on the plus side, it has audio output and is at least good as an educational tool to show an engine running and how different parameters might affect it. You can see a video of the tool below.
[Ange-Yaghi] mentions that the code was primarily to power the YoutTube demo. However, the Readme hints that it might be better — or at least different — and collaboration to make it better is welcome.
We know firsthand that a simulator doesn’t have to be totally accurate to give you a feel for how things work. After all, most simulations for electronics don’t always model things like wire resistance and parasitic effects. We’ll leave it to the more engine savvy to tell us if this simulator is close enough to be useful.
The keyboard commands let you toggle the ignition, change gearing using a clutch, and change the throttle. We’d love to see a screen of data like this for our actual car engine and maybe using one of those Bluetooth dongles, you could get close.
We remember
a clock that was also an engine simulator
, of sorts. If your simulation dreams center more on electronics, there are
plenty of choices
there. | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502192",
"author": "Sam",
"timestamp": "2022-08-12T02:16:19",
"content": "I think this is great for learning some basics, well done to the author. However if you want to do any real engineering you’d be best sticking with Ricardo’s software or similar, which can do literally the en... | 1,760,372,600.876414 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/11/back-up-encrypted-zfs-data-without-decrypting-it-even-if-truenas-doesnt-approve/ | Back Up Encrypted ZFS Data Without Decrypting It, Even If TrueNAS Doesn’t Approve | Donald Papp | [
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"backups",
"cloud storage",
"crontab",
"encryption",
"nas",
"TrueNAS",
"zfs"
] | [Michael Lynch] recently replaced his Synology NAS with a self-built solution built on ZFS, a filesystem with a neat feature: the ability to back up encrypted data without having to decrypt it first. The only glitch is that [Michael] is using TrueNAS, and TrueNAS only wants to back up unencrypted ZFS data to another TrueNAS system.
Fortunately, there’s a way around this
that isn’t particularly complicated, but definitely requires leveraging the right tools. It also provides an educational walkthrough for how ZFS handles these things.
The solution is
a small handful of shell scripts
to manage full and incremental backups and restores of encrypted datasets, without having to decrypt the data first. As mentioned, this is something
TrueNAS
will handle by default, but only if the destination is also a TrueNAS system. Now, [Michael] can send that backup to off-site cloud storage with only a little extra work.
There’s one additional trick [Michael] uses to monitor his backups. He leverages a paid (but with a free tier) service called
Cronitor
. It’s not very obvious from the site’s features, but there is a way to implement cron job monitoring that doesn’t require adding any software whatsoever. Here’s how that part works: Cronitor provides a custom, unique URL. If that URL isn’t visited regularly (for example, because the cron job fails), then the user is notified. By integrating this into an existing cron job, one can be notified. Such an integration would look like this:
0 0 3 * * monthly-job && curl --silent https://cronitor.link/p/<API-KEY>/monthly-job?state=complete
In short, if the cron job runs successfully,
curl
checks in by visiting the custom URL. If that doesn’t happen, the user gets a notification. No added software, just a simple leveraging of a free service for some added peace of mind.
Backups are easy to neglect, so maybe it’s time to
take a few moments to consider what you do for data storage
, including how you’d recover from disaster. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502220",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2022-08-12T06:04:40",
"content": "“As mentioned, this is something TrueNAS will handle by default, but only if the destination is also a TrueNAS system.”Wonder if that is a “pay for” feature.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,372,600.978316 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/11/presence-detecting-cushion-keeps-you-from-sitting-your-life-away/ | Presence-Detecting Cushion Keeps You From Sitting Your Life Away | Dan Maloney | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"health",
"posture",
"presence",
"sensor",
"sitting",
"velostat"
] | They say that sitting is the new smoking. They’re wrong — smoking is much, much worse, for you than sitting, and smoking only while standing or while jogging around the block in no way to justify the habit. But they’re also not wrong that humans weren’t made for extended periods parked on their posteriors, but we do it anyway, to the detriment of our heart health, posture, and general well-being. So something like
this butt-detecting stand-up reminder
could make a big difference to your health.
While like many of us, [Dave Bennett] has a wearable that prompts him to get up and move around after detecting 30 minutes of sitting, he found that it’s too easy to dismiss the alarm and just go right on sitting. Feeling like he needed a little more encouragement to get up and go, he built a presence detector completely from scratch. His sensor is a sheet of static-protective Velostat foam wrapped in conductive tape; when compressed, the resistance across the pad drops, making it easy to detect with a simple comparator circuit.
We admit to getting excited when we first saw the alarm circuit; a quick glance at the schematic seemed like it was based on a 555, which it totally could be. But no, [Dave]’s design goals include protection against spoofing the alarm with a quick “cheek sneak,” which was most easily implemented in code. So that 8-pin device in the circuit is an ATtiny85, which sounds the alarm after 30 minutes and requires him to stay off his butt for a full minute before resetting. The video below hits the high points of design and shows it in use.
Annoying? Yes, but that’s the point. Of course
a standing desk
would do the same thing, but that’s not going to work for everyone, so this is a nice alternative. | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502132",
"author": "Severe Tire Damage",
"timestamp": "2022-08-11T20:24:35",
"content": "I hear that sitting is the new smoking. People who say it isn’t are in denial.I’m not sure what the morbidly obese say, but they have some excuse also.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,... | 1,760,372,600.929105 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/11/want-to-use-a-classic-mac-mouse-on-a-modern-computer-no-heres-how-to-do-it-anyway/ | Want To Use A Classic Mac Mouse On A Modern Computer? No? Here’s How To Do It Anyway | Donald Papp | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"classic",
"diy",
"hid",
"mac",
"mouse",
"usb",
"vintage"
] | Need to hook a classic Mac mouse up to your modern machine with the help of a DIY USB adapter?
[John Floren] has you covered
. [John]’s solution uses a board with an ATmega32U4 microcontroller on it to connect to the Mac mouse on one end, and emulate a USB HID (Human Interface Device) on the other. A modern machine therefore recognizes it like it would any other USB input device.
Why is this necessary? The connector on the classic Mac mouse may look like a familiar DE-9 connector, but it is not an RS-232 device and wouldn’t work if it were plugged into a 9-pin serial port. The classic Mac mouse uses a different pinout, and doesn’t have much for brains on the inside. It relies on the host computer to read its encoders and button states directly.
This project is actually a bit of an update to a piece of earlier work [John] did in
making a vintage Depraz mouse work with modern systems
. He suspected that it wouldn’t take much to have it also work with a classic Mac mouse, and he was right — all it took was updating the pin connections and adding some pull-up resistors.
The source code and design files are on GitHub
.
Even if one does not particularly want to use a classic Mac mouse for daily work, there’s definitely value in this kind of thing for those who deal in vintage hardware: it allows one to function-check old peripherals
without having to fire up a vintage machine
. | 23 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502111",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2022-08-11T18:39:59",
"content": "There is no brains inside. Just some scmidt triggers to clean up the waveforms from the switch and the rotary wheels.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"commen... | 1,760,372,601.110818 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/11/haptic-baby-monitor-gets-the-wearers-attention/ | Haptic Baby Monitor Gets The Wearer’s Attention | Tom Nardi | [
"home hacks",
"Microcontrollers",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"baby monitor",
"bluetooth",
"haptic feedback",
"vibration motor"
] | Anyone who’s ever slept through a morning’s alarm can tell you that sounds, even loud piercing ones, don’t always wake a person out of a deep sleep. Similarly, hearing a baby cry on the other side of the monitor might not always wake a parent up in the middle of the night. So what’s the solution? This
haptic baby monitor
created by [Guy Dupont] certainly looks like it has some promise.
[Guy] picked up a fairly standard baby monitor from VTech and popped it open to see how he could tie a vibration motor into the original circuitry. He originally thought he’d have to do some signal processing magic to figure out the amplitude of the audio, but then he realized that the five LEDs on the front of the unit that light up to indicate the audio level were already doing the hard work for him.
Detecting audio level by reading the status of the LEDs.
So he wired each of the LEDs up to the pins of a Seeed Studio XIAO nRF52840 microcontroller, and wrote some code that would poll their status a few hundred times per second. Dividing the total number of LEDs by the count of how many are currently illuminated gives him a nice average that he can use to set the intensity of the vibration motor that he’s built into a stretchy armband.
For extra points, [Guy] is also using the Bluetooth capability of the XIAO to provide a rudimentary configuration service — just connect up to the MCU with a Bluetooth serial application on your computer or phone, and fire off a value between 0 and 10 to augment the motor’s intensity. There’s also a BLE characteristic which can be read from a client device to determine the currently detected audio amplitude, which could be used to chart how well the baby is sleeping over time. Alternately, as demonstrated at the end of the video, you could use it to play
Flappy Bird
.
It’s an elegant modification that could potentially hold promise for parent’s who need a bit of extra help keeping tabs on their miniature humans. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen
hackers try to improve upon the classic baby monitor
, but this is arguably the most approachable attempt we’ve seen to date. | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502067",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-08-11T15:40:54",
"content": "He could avoid the possibility of the motor failing, and have the wrist strap a voltage shock instead.B^)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,601.04468 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/11/microsofts-new-simulator-helps-train-drone-ais/ | Microsoft’s New Simulator Helps Train Drone AIs | Lewin Day | [
"Current Events",
"drone hacks",
"Featured",
"Slider"
] | [
"ai",
"drone",
"simulation",
"simulator"
] | Testing any kind of project in the real world is expensive. You have to haul people and equipment around, which costs money, and if you break anything, you have to pay for that too! Simulation tends to come first. Making mistakes in a simulation is much cheaper, and the lessons learned can later be verified in the real world. If you want to learn to fly a quadcopter, the best thing to do is get some time behind the sticks of a simulator before you even purchase anything with physical whirly blades.
Oddly enough, the same goes for AI. Microsoft built a simulation product to aid the development of artificial intelligence systems for drones
by the name of Project AirSim
. It aims to provide a comprehensive environment for the testing of drone AI systems, making development faster, cheaper, and more practical.
The Cheaper Way of Making Mistakes
Many companies are developing drones to take on tasks that have historically been executed manually by humans. For example, lofting a drone up to look at a wind turbine nacelle or insulators on a power line is far safer than having a human climb up the structure. However, with a basic drone, this requires a skilled pilot to avoid crashing into expensive hardware, particularly if conditions get hairy. Automation would allow drones to handle their tasks themselves at the mere push of a button.
AI models can quickly learn through trial and error in a simulator. Credit:
Microsoft
Testing drone AIs in the field is difficult, though, with plenty of risks involved. Let’s say you’re building an AI-controlled drone to inspect powerlines. If the drone’s navigation algorithm isn’t quite right, you might watch it sail out over the ocean, never to return. Meanwhile, if you haven’t got the object avoidance quite right, it could run straight into the powerlines it’s supposed to be inspecting. The consequences are even worse if it happens to take down power to the local area in the process.
Simulation offers a way to test drone AIs in various conditions without the risk to life, limb, and property. Drone behaviour can be quickly run through a sanity check, and silly mistakes can be spotted easily. If the drone crashes in the simulator, you simply hit reset, make some changes, and go again. In real life, you have to pick up the pieces and rebuild the drone first, after apologizing to the owner of whatever it just hit.
Microsoft’s Offering
Project AirSim is Microsoft’s new simulation offering for drone development. It enables drone AIs to be tested and developed in a realistic 3D world. Conditions like wind, rain, and snow can all be simulated, along with different environments, from urban cityscapes to thick forests.
Included will be recreations of places like New York City and London, as well as more generic offerings such as a virtual airport. Data from Bing Maps will also be available to create detailed 3D environments of other locations around the world.
Having such a environment to test in is invaluable for developing not only AI to control drones, but the sensors those systems rely on. For example, when developing a machine vision system, one may wish to test how it works during the day, at night, and in dense foggy conditions. Achieving this in reality would require waiting for the weather to change, but it can be simulated at will.
Project AirSim also hopes to help designers quantify the performance of their drones. A particularly windy test environment could show how battery life is affected in such conditions. Things like climb rates and loiter times can also be quantified in the simulator to collect ballpark figures ahead of real-world testing.
Recreations of real-world locations will serve as proving grounds for drones in the simulator. Credit: Microsoft
Project AirSim is a new offering, developed from Microsoft’s earlier open-source project of the same name. That codebase is still available to the community, but required users to have significant experience in coding and machine learning disciplines.
To open up development to a broader audience, Project AirSim will include AI building blocks for common control tasks. Users will be able to integrate existing AI systems for tasks like automatic landings or obstacle avoidance into their drones. Having these modules included makes sense, as the vast majority of drones can benefit from the use of similar modules applicable to many missions.
Some heavy-duty collaborators are working with Microsoft on the project, too. Ansys has helped develop physics-based sensor simulations to provide realistic sensor outputs to simulated drone control systems. Meanwhile, MathWorks is working on a system to let users import their own physics models to the simulator via its Simulink software.
Drones are set to revolutionize all kinds of fields, from environmental monitoring to delivering the mail. Simulation will go a long way to helping develop autonomous drones as quickly and affordably as possible. Microsoft’s new offering will likely find plenty of customers eager to get to testing. | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502063",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2022-08-11T15:28:32",
"content": "Rule #1: If they are running an illegal copy of Windows, cut their powerline!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6502065",
"author": "The Commenter Forme... | 1,760,372,601.418282 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/11/building-the-most-high-tech-pond-in-the-neighborhood/ | Building The Most High-Tech Pond In The Neighborhood | Tom Nardi | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"fish feeder",
"garden",
"pond",
"water measurement",
"water monitor"
] | What do you think of when you hear the word pond? If you’re like most people, it conjures up images of a simple water-filled hole in the ground, maybe with a few fish added in for good measure. But not [Anders Johansson] — his pond is a technical marvel,
utilizing more unique pieces of hardware and software
than many of the more traditional projects that have graced these projects over the years.
In fact, this is one of those projects that is so grand in scope that any summary we publish here simply can’t do it justice. The aptly-named Poseidon project is built up of several modular components, ranging from an automated fish feeder to an array of sensors to monitor the condition of the water itself. How many other ponds can publish their current water level, pH, and oxygen saturation over MQTT?
The ESP8266 fish feeder is just one element of Poseidon
[Anders] has provided schematics, 3D models, and source code for all the various systems built into the pond, but the documentation is where this project really shines. Each module has it’s own detailed write-up, which should provide you with more than enough guidance should you want to recreate or remix what he’s put together. Even if you use only one or two of the modules he’s put together, you’ll still be ahead of the game compared to the chumps who have to maintain their pond the old fashioned way.
In the past we’ve seen projects that tackled some of the individual elements [Anders] has developed,
such as 3D printed fish feeders
, but after searching through the archives we can’t find anything that’s even half as ambitious as Poseidon. At least, not for ponds.
It reminds us more of a highly advanced aquaponics setup
, and we wonder if that might not be a possible spin-off of the core project in the future. | 14 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502068",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-08-11T15:43:09",
"content": "Does it deliver a shock if a neighborhood cat tries to get a free lunch?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6502136",
... | 1,760,372,601.701006 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/11/loki-is-part-cyberdeck-part-sinclair-spectrum-and-pretty-tricky/ | Loki Is Part Cyberdeck, Part Sinclair Spectrum, And Pretty Tricky | Dan Maloney | [
"Cyberdecks"
] | [
"cyberdeck",
"FPGA ZX Uno",
"Loki",
"pico",
"raspberry pi",
"sinclair",
"spectrum"
] | You’ve got to watch out for Loki — he’s a trickster, after all, and he might make you think
this semi-cyberdeck mash-up machine
is named after him, when the backstory on this build is more interesting than anything in the current Marvel scene.
According to [Steve Anderson], Loki was the name of a mocked-up machine that Sinclair teased in the mid-1980s as a competitor for the Amiga. [Steve] coveted the vaporware machine and never quite got over it, but rather than pine for something that never existed, he created his own Loki. He only loosely qualifies the machine as a cyberdeck — it has some features of the genre, like a Raspberry Pi and a cast-off iPad screen for a display, but isn’t really intended to be as portable as a real cyberdeck. To scratch his Sinclair itch, the machine also includes a ZX Uno, which is an FPGA emulator of the Sinclair Spectrum. The keyboard is hand-wired using mechanical switches, and is backed up by a Pico running custom software so it can talk both USB and PS/2.
[Steve] has much more detail on Loki and his other cyberdeck builds over on
his blog
, which you should probably check out. Somewhat surprisingly, it doesn’t look like he’s entered Loki in
our new Cyberdeck Contest
that just launched. Hopefully that’s just an oversight. | 5 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6502034",
"author": "irregularshed",
"timestamp": "2022-08-11T13:20:52",
"content": "Hey, it’s Steve here 👋Loki would’ve been entered into the Cyberdeck contest if it were possible to actually enter the Cyberdeck contest! The page about it directs visitors to the Odd Inputs and Pec... | 1,760,372,601.460819 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/10/a-deeper-dive-into-reverse-engineering-with-a-ct-scanner/ | A Deeper Dive Into Reverse Engineering With A CT Scanner | Dan Maloney | [
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"apollo",
"CAT scan",
"computed tomography",
"CT Scan",
"non-destructive",
"reverse engineering"
] | We’ve recently got a look at how [Ken Shirriff] used an industrial CT scanner as a reverse engineering tool. The results were spectacular, with pictures that clearly showed the internal arrangement of parts that haven’t seen the light of day since the module was potted back in the 60s. And now, [Ken]’s cohort [Curious Marc] has dropped
a video with more detail on the wonderful machine
, plus deep dives into more Apollo-era hardware
If you liked seeing the stills [Ken] used to
reverse engineer the obscure flip-flop module
, you’re going to love seeing [Marc] using the Lumafield scanner’s 3D software to non-destructively examine several Apollo artifacts. First to enter the sample chamber of the CT scanner was a sealed module called the Central Timing Equipment, which served as the master clock for the Apollo Command Module. The box’s magnesium case proved to be no barrier to the CT scanner’s beam, and the 3D model that was built up from a series of 2D images was astonishingly detailed. The best part about the virtual models is the ability to slice through them in any plane — [Marc] used this feature to hunt down the clock’s quartz crystal.
[Marc]’s Apollo gyroscope was next up, and the look inside the sealed case was very revealing. The details of the mechanical construction were stunning, right down to the bearings supporting the gyro rotor. A power supply module that had seen better days also got the treatment; its scans revealed the exploded capacitor responsible for its rough outward appearance.
All the scan data are publicly available
on Lumafield’s website, although you’ll need to create an account if you want to play with the models.
As for the scanner itself: is it something that could be built at home? Perhaps. We’ve seen plenty of
homebrew X-ray machines
, and even
a CT scanner
or
two
. Let us know if you tackle a build like this — we’d love to get a look inside. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501937",
"author": "hinspect",
"timestamp": "2022-08-11T05:51:41",
"content": "I used to work with Food X-Ray systems which were basically modified baggage scanners. We were one of the first in the business. Conveyors and pumped through food grade pipes. The main business was to de... | 1,760,372,601.349236 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/10/your-micropython-board-can-be-your-tinkering-peripheral/ | Your MicroPython Board Can Be Your Tinkering Peripheral | Arya Voronova | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"firmata",
"micropython",
"python"
] | [Brian Pugh] has shared a cool new project that simultaneously runs on desktop Python and MicroPython –
the Belay library.
This library lets you control a MicroPython device seamlessly from your Python code – interacting with real-world things like analog/digital trinkets, servos, Neopixels and displays, without having to create your own firmware or APIs.
You need a serial-connected MicroPython board – even an ESP8266 should do. Then, you can
intersperse your Python code
with MicroPython-written functions, and call them whenever you need your connected device to do something – keeping the entire logic of your project within a single device. [Brian] provides
quite a few examples,
even for more complex things like
displays.
No doubt, there are limitations, but this looks to be a powerful tool in a hacker’s arsenal.
Readers might be reminded of an Arduino library called Firmata –
an old-time way
to do such connectivity. We’ve also previously covered
a Pi Pico firmware
that does a similar thing, and even features a breakout board for all your experimentation needs! | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501920",
"author": "MrRadiotron",
"timestamp": "2022-08-11T04:20:17",
"content": "Interpreted IOIO",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6501922",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2022-08-11T04:28:12",
"content": "Hmmm… D... | 1,760,372,601.640225 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/10/a-linear-actuator-entirely-in-one-pcb/ | A Fast Linear Actuator Entirely In One PCB | Jenny List | [
"hardware"
] | [
"linear actuator",
"PCB inductor",
"pcb motor"
] | There are many ways to make a linear actuator, a device for moving something is a straight line. Most of the easier to make ones use a conventional motor and a mechanical linkage such as a rack and pinion or a lead screw, but [Ben Wang] has gone for something far more elegant. His linear actuator uses a linear motor, a linear array of coils for the motor phases, working against a line of magnets. Even better than that,
he’s managed to make the whole motor out of a single PCB
. And it’s
fast
!
This represents something of an engineering challenge, because achieving the required magnetic field from the relatively few turns possible on a PCB is no easy task. He’s done it by using a four-layer board to gather enough turns for the required magnetic field, and a simple view of the board doesn’t quite convey what lies beneath.
PCB motors are perhaps one of those areas where the state of the art is still evolving, and the exciting part is that their limits are being pushed right there in our community. And this isn’t the only linear motor we’ve seen recently either,
here’s one used in a model train
. | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501894",
"author": "tonyvr",
"timestamp": "2022-08-11T01:14:51",
"content": "It seems neat, but I’m very confused about where the magnets are and why the steel plates are so huge.The CAD drawing sucks and doesn’t show any magnets, and the image is so small that you can’t see any de... | 1,760,372,601.893207 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/10/from-product-to-burnout-to-open-source-the-ergo-s-1-keyboard-story/ | From Product To Burnout To Open-Source: The Ergo S-1 Keyboard Story | Arya Voronova | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed keyboard",
"3D printed mechanical keyboard",
"ergonomic keyboard",
"keyboard"
] | [Andrew] from [Wizard Keyboards] emailed us and asked if we were interested in his story of
developing an ergonomic keyboard as a product.
Many of us can relate to trying to bring one of our ideas to market. [Andrew], being a mechanical keyboard geek, knew a niche with no product to satisfy it, and had a vision he wanted to implement. He started meticulously going through steps for bringing his keyboard idea into life as a manufacturable product, and gave himself six months to get it done.
After evaluating competing products and setting a price point, he designed the case, the keyboard’s mainboard, and even flexible circuit boards for wiring the keys up. The mechanical design alone had him go through many iterations and decisions, and he walks us through the different paths he’s faced. Whether it’s these insights, a story of a module with fraudulent FCC certification, or an approach to electronics design that led to him passing EMC tests with flying colors, there’s plenty to learn from [Andrew]’s journey.
Sadly, at some point, the project quickly outgrew the intended goal and became a drain. For instance, tuning the 3D printing processes alone took three months instead of one as planned. As the design was done, he got stuck on marketing material production – a field that turned out to be unexpectedly hostile to a hacker like him. After a year of work and five thousand hours of work spent on the project, he took a break, and afterwards, as he was trying to come back, [Andrew] realized that he has burned out. He took a few month long hiatus, and having recovered a bit, revisited the project. Still not thrilled about the product route, he decided that open-sourcing the keyboard would be the best outcome – doing justice to the time and effort spent working on it.
This is where the story ends – for now. [Andrew] has
open-sourced everything
one would need to create such a keyboard by yourself, designed assembly instructions, and even sells kit parts for those who’d like to take a shortcut. This wasn’t what he aimed for, but it’s a honorable ending – most commercial projects never get open-sourced even if they utterly fail to launch. Thanks to [Andrew], we got an insightful journey, a postmortem, and an open-source ergonomic keyboard project. Product stories grace our pages every now and then – here’s a similarly swerving
story about a MIDI controller. | 21 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501838",
"author": "Bruce",
"timestamp": "2022-08-10T20:40:02",
"content": "I guess developing anything worthwhile is a lot of work, if one is going to do it right.The first thing I noticed was no numeric (10 button) keypad. One of my pet beefs is the way the zero key on computer ... | 1,760,372,601.765233 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/10/a-merciless-environmental-monitoring-system/ | A Merciless Environmental Monitoring System | Tom Nardi | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"environmental monitor",
"environmental sensor",
"Raspberry Pi Pico",
"wireless sensors"
] | We’ve seen plenty of environmental monitoring setups here on Hackaday — wireless sensors dotted around the house, all uploading their temperature and humidity data to a central server hidden away in some closet. The system put together by [Andy] from
Workshopshed
is much the same, except this time
the server has been designed to be as bright and bold as possible
.
The use of Mosquitto, InfluxDB, Node Red, and Grafana (M.I.N.G) made [Andy] think of Ming the Merciless from
Flash Gordon
, which in turn inspired the enclosure that holds the Raspberry Pi, hard drive, and power supply. Some 3D printed details help sell the look, and painted metal mesh panels make sure there’s plenty of airflow.
While the server is certainly eye-catching, the sensors themselves are also worth a close look. You might expect the sensors to be based on some member of the ESP family, but in this case, [Andy] has opted to go with the Raspberry Pi Pico. As this project pre-dates the
release of the wireless variant of the board
, he had to add on an ESP-01 for communications as well as the DTH11 temperature and humidity sensor.
For power each sensor includes a 1200 mAh pouch cell and a Pimoroni LiPo SHIM, though he does note working with the Pico’s energy saving modes posed something of a challenge. A perfboard holds all the components together, and the whole thing fits into an understated 3D printed enclosure.
Should you go the ESP8266/ESP32 route for your wireless sensors,
we’ve seen some pretty tidy packages that are worth checking out
. Or if you’d rather use something off-the-shelf, we’re big fans of the
custom firmware developed for Xiaomi Bluetooth thermometers
. | 12 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501839",
"author": "Misterlaneous",
"timestamp": "2022-08-10T20:40:04",
"content": "If using an esp-01, you should still have a free pin to read the sensor. The pi pico seems extraneous",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6501912... | 1,760,372,601.834521 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/10/what-goes-into-a-hacker-camp/ | What Goes Into A Hacker Camp | Jenny List | [
"cons",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Slider"
] | [
"hacker camps",
"logistics",
"MCH2022"
] | Long-time readers of Hackaday will know that we attend quite a few events, including summer hacker camps. Here in Europe this year there are two large events, the British Electromagnetic Field, and the Dutch MCH, or May Contain Hackers. These events are put together by volunteers from within the community, and as part of the MCH setup I noticed they needed drivers for their off-site logistics. I have a licence to drive medium-sized trucks in Europe so it seemed like a perfect fit. I traveled early on the first set-up day to the Dutch city of Utrecht, and found myself behind the wheel of a large Volkswagen box van. My brief career as a trucker had begun!
An Empty Field Of Dreams
The tents stand in isolation at the end of day one.
The Netherlands is a relatively small country and the MCH site at Zeewolde is roughly in its centre, so while the traffic could be heavy the distances weren’t large by American or even British standards. There were however a wide variety of loads waiting for me and my fellow driver, and a few obstacles such as the hottest days of the year and
angry Dutch farmers blockading the roads
. If you’re interested in the logistics behind a large hacker camp then our journeys provided an insight that maybe wandering around the field doesn’t quite deliver.
Arriving on site on the first day gives a perspective on how much of the infrastructure comes from specialist contractors and thus isn’t delivered by the hackers. Articulated trucks from the marquee company were disgorging the main tents, with their crews expertly assembling them in record time. The toilets and showers were arriving as self-contained hook lift container units, and yet more contractors were delivering fencing or tables and chairs. I can add the power infrastructure to this list, but due I’m told to delays at another event this wasn’t on site on the first day.
Hackers Move Some Surprising Things
My Hackaday colleague Arya Voronova pausing for a moment during unloading.
Amid all this heavy lifting, what’s left for the off-site transportation crew? There were still a few camp infrastructure loads, for example I brought a couple of vanloads of hand washing sinks up from the far south-eastern corner of the country.
Beyond that were loads more in the vein of a hacker camp, stuff that you’d find at no other event. My fellow driver moved a pile of network infrastructure from a Dutch hackerspace and a precious load of retrocomputing hardware from the
Home Computer Museum
in Helmond, while I shifted more than one consignment of the incredible eye candy into which the deco team had put so much work. From the smoke-breathing dragon to the crystal lighting and more, it was all assembled within our community, in homes and hackerspaces across the Netherlands.
As more people came to help assemble the camp our little team grew and more vans were hired, to the point at which we could have formed a tidy little haulage operation had we been foolhardy enough to do so. The extra hands were very welcome indeed during the more restricted timing demanded by teardown, during which I was unlucky enough to spend half a day stuck on a motorway blocked with piles of manure by those farmers.
If you’ve ever been to a hacker camp and wondered how everything came together then from my ringside seat in a Volkswagen box van I hope I’ve given you some idea. A huge amount of work from contractors and volunteers goes into creating these events, and I would tell any of you to give volunteering during set-up and teardown a go some time if you’d like to prolong your hacker camp experience. It can be very hot and hard work, but as a way to meet and make friends it’s second to none. Perhaps I’ll be back behind the wheel again next time. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501824",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-08-10T19:58:48",
"content": "Okay, before reading this, I figured the infrastructure was all supplied by the hacking community.Yes, I can be quite naive at times.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,372,601.945263 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/10/heres-the-worlds-smallest-wood-plane-probably/ | Here’s The World’s Smallest Wood Plane…Probably | Tom Nardi | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"miniature",
"plane",
"woodworking"
] | Admittedly, we aren’t really in a position to confirm whether or not the
miniature wood plane put together by [Daniel d’Entremont]
is actually the smallest in the world, but we’re willing to take his word for it. At the very least, we certainly haven’t seen a smaller one.
In the video below, [Daniel] crafts the diminutive tool from a small block of wood by first slicing off a square using a band saw and then switching over to a small hand saw to cut out the individual pieces. These are glued together to make the body of the plane, and the shank of a small drill bit is used to hold down the wedge and blade. All told it’s about 1/2 of an inch long, and is fully functional…or at least, as functional as a 1/2 inch wood plane can be.
Interested in more miniature tools? Believe it or not,
we’ve got you covered
. | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501750",
"author": "FuhzzyOne",
"timestamp": "2022-08-10T16:18:25",
"content": "My first thought was… how does that thing fly?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6501800",
"author": "Daniel",
"timestamp": "2022-0... | 1,760,372,602.000794 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/10/linux-fu-the-chrome-os-flex-virtualization/ | Linux Fu: The Chrome OS Flex Virtualization | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Linux Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"chrome",
"flex",
"Linux Fu"
] | The Flex Desktop is user-friendly and responsive
You’ve probably heard about Google Chromebooks. Like Android, Chrome OS is based on some variant of Linux, but it is targeted at the “cloud first” strategy so Chromebooks typically don’t have a huge amount of storage or compute power. If you have a real Chromebook, you can also use it to run certain other kinds of programs via virtualization. However, Google has recently pushed out Chrome OS Flex which is meant to install on a spare laptop you might happen to have hanging around. Seems attractive to take that only Windows 7 laptop and repurpose it to run Chrome OS, especially if you can run Linux apps on it. Unfortunately, Chrome OS Flex has a very different use case and I would only recommend installing it if you meet the exact use case it addresses.
The other option, of course, is to just install Linux on that old hardware. There are several distributions that are made for that purpose and, honestly, even most of the major distributions will work fine on older hardware with a little tweaking to turn off some of the more resource-costly features. That assumes you know how to install, tweak, and maintain Linux.
That’s What It is For
That is, in fact, the exact use case for Chrome OS Flex. If you want to give Grandpa your old laptop, putting Linux on it can be very challenging, unless Grandpa is pretty tech-savvy. Even people who are pretty comfortable with Windows or the Mac can find the number of options, log files, and command lines daunting for Linux. Some distributions are better than others, but in the end, if you are having a bad day, you really need to know something about the system or be willing to learn it.
Chrome OS deliberately doesn’t give you much choice. The installation is painless but inflexible. You have to create a USB drive on a working computer and the installer gives you no options to, say, install as a secondary operating system. You can boot from the USB and either try the OS in live mode or install it, wiping out your hard drive. That’s it.
If all you want to do is surf the web and use Chrome-based applications, that’s great! The system works well and is pretty snappy. But what about running apps from other systems? Unlike real Chrome OS, you can’t run Android apps or much of anything else. You can, maybe, run Linux applications, but there are a few catches.
Real World
I installed the OS on an old HP X2 3-in-1 convertible I happened to have retired. I’ll admit it was easy and the performance was fine — much better than the Windows 11 I had force-installed on the old hardware. But I was disappointed to find there was no option in the Developer mode to enable the Linux subsystem. The hardware isn’t on the approved list so you had to accept that the front camera didn’t work. In addition, the fancy back camera had some issues, although it usually was workable.
Vivaldi running on Flex in Linux mode
The reason? Virtualization was turned off in the laptop’s BIOS. Once you turn that on, the option appears and you can install a basic Debian-based Linux OS. However, it is not running on the ChromeOS Linux instance. It is virtual. That means that you have your own root file system that is different from the “real” file system. There are a few other issues with trying to use Linux-based software. Some devices –notably the cameras — are not accessible from within Linux, for example. So you can’t videoconference with a Linux browser — at least not without tweaking; there may be some way to make it work.
Installing Snap, for example, required the addition of
squashfs
which did not occur automatically. Some installed software just doesn’t work. Vivaldi, a Chrome alternative, did work, but since it isn’t in the main space, it can’t replace Chrome in general.
No Android?
What about Android apps? Could something like AnBox allow you to run Android apps even on Flex? Maybe, but it would not easily install since you need kernel module support. So while you can run Linux on Chrome OS Flex, it requires a lot of tweaking and modification and still doesn’t support everything. At that point, why not just load Linux?
There’s really nothing Chrome OS Flex does that Linux can’t do at least as well, and perhaps better, other than the simple experience of installing, using, and maintaining. But once you try to install Linux software you are back to hacking missing packages and reading error logs. Why bother?
Is it Just Me?
But if you don’t care about running Android or Linux apps, it is a great way to revive an old laptop as a web appliance. Just don’t expect it to be your daily Linux drive. After my experience, I noted the YouTube video below called “Chrome OS Flex is a NIGHTMARE.” I don’t know if I’d go that far, but his experiences mirror mine and you might want to watch to see how it handles some other laptops, Steam, and a few other applications. You can’t beat the price and, for just the right use case, it might be just the ticket. For everyone else, just install Linux.
Will you try Flex? If not, what would make you think about it? Android emulation? Windows emulation? Access to the underlying Linux system? | 50 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501702",
"author": "X",
"timestamp": "2022-08-10T14:31:55",
"content": "In case you are wondering, this sort of thing is done on purpose. Tech support is potentially a bottomless pit of money spending and staffing,. If a feature is supported then it needs an army behind it to under... | 1,760,372,602.219804 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/10/shouldve-used-a-555-or-276-of-them/ | Should’ve Used A 555 — Or 276 Of Them | Dan Maloney | [
"clock hacks",
"Parts"
] | [
"555",
"discrete",
"flip-flop",
"gate",
"latch",
"logic",
"should have used a 555",
"timer"
] | When asked to whip up a simple egg timer, most of us could probably come up with a quick design based on the ubiquitous 555 timer. Add a couple of passives around the little eight-pin DIP, put an LED on it to show when time runs out, and maybe even add a pot for variable timing intervals if we’re feeling fancy. Heck, many of us could do it from memory.
So why exactly did [Jesse Farrell] manage to do essentially
the same thing using a whopping 276 555s
? Easy — because why not? Originally started as an entry in
the latest iteration of our 555 Contest
, [Jesse]’s goal was simple — build a functional timer with a digital display using nothing but 555s and the necessary passives. He ended up needing a few transistors and diodes to pull it off, but that’s a minor concession when you consider how many chips he replaced with 555s, including counters, decoders, multiplexers, and display drivers. All these chips were built up from basic logic gates, a latch, and a flip-flop, all made from one or more 555s, or variants like the 556 or 558.
As one can imagine, 276 chips take a lot of real estate, and it took eleven PCBs to complete the timer. A main board acts as the timer’s control panel as well as serving as a motherboard for ten other cards, each devoted to a different block of functions. It’s all neat and tidy, and very well-executed, which is in keeping with the excellent documentation [Jesse] produced. The whole thing is wonderfully, needlessly complex, and we couldn’t be more tickled to feature it. | 33 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501639",
"author": "Rumble_in_the_Jungle",
"timestamp": "2022-08-10T11:07:27",
"content": "I get the 555 fetish and coolness factor.But this is on the edge of resource waste and depletion. HaD Prize for environment conservation and this box, is a bit schizophrenic.Or I’m getting ol... | 1,760,372,602.125053 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/10/a-steam-box-for-not-a-lot/ | A Steam Box For Not A Lot | Jenny List | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"bending",
"bentwood",
"steam box"
] | If you have ever marveled at the complex wooden curves used by shipbuilders or some furniture makers, then you have probably at some point hankered after a steam box. This is as its name suggests, a chamber in which a piece of wood is steamed until it becomes flexible, at which point it can be pressed into a new shape that it will retain once cooled. The ever-resourceful [Xyla Foxlin] shows us
how to make a steam box using easy-to-find parts
, as can be seen in the video below the break.
The steam supply comes from a commercial steam boiler of the type used by decorators for wallpaper stripping, and the steam box itself is made from a length of PVC pipe. Inside the pipe are a series of aluminium dowels that form a rack upon which the wood sits away from any condensation, and the whole things sits at a slant with the steam inlet and a condensation drain at the bottom end.
In use, a piece of wood is loaded into the tube and steamed, before being bent using a set of forms in a vice. The process looks straightforward enough that even we could give it a go, so we’re sure Hackaday readers will find it interesting.
We think this may be the first steam box we’ve brought you, but
it’s not the first time we’ve discussed bending wood
.
Thanks [Abe Tusk] for the tip. | 21 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501632",
"author": "Alexander Wikström",
"timestamp": "2022-08-10T10:36:32",
"content": "Personally wouldn’t use PVC piping for a project involving steam. A lot of off the shelf PVC melts at rather low temperature.I would go for a piece of ventilation duct made from galvanized stee... | 1,760,372,602.058316 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/09/forget-the-uv-resist-mask-expose-custom-pcbs-directly-on-your-sla-printer/ | Forget The UV Resist Mask: Expose Custom PCBs Directly On Your SLA Printer | Maya Posch | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"pcb",
"photoresist",
"SLA printer"
] | For the enterprising hobbyist and prototyping hardware developer, creating custom PCBs remains somewhat of a struggle. Although there are a number of approaches to go about this, they usually involve printing or drawing a mask that is used to expose the photoresist layer on the to-be-etched PCB. Here [Andrew Dickinson]’s
Photonic Etcher
project provides an intriguing shortcut, by using the UV source of an MSLA 3D printer directly after converting the project’s Gerber files into a format the MSLA printer can work with.
The concept is as simple as can be: since MSLA printers essentially function by creating a dynamically updated UV mask (either via an LCD panel or DLP system), this means that an MSLA printer can be used to expose the PCB’s UV-sensitive
photoresistive
coating, effectively making the mask there insoluble during the etching step. This can be done with negative as well as positive photoresistive coatings, depending on the use case.
The obvious advantage of this approach is that you don’t need an additional UV source or any kind of separate mask, only an MSLA printer with a large enough work area to fit the PCB you wish to expose. One limitation of [Andrew]’s project at this point is that it can only convert Gerbers to PWMS (Photon Mono) files, but this can presumably be fairly easily extended to support more MSLA printers. | 22 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501568",
"author": "tomás zerolo",
"timestamp": "2022-08-10T06:05:32",
"content": "That goo is called a “photoresist”.The corresponding adjective, “photoresistive”, though, does mean quite another thing.Language is messy, yes.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies":... | 1,760,372,602.291524 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/09/scratching-out-business-intelligence/ | Scratching Out Business Intelligence | Matthew Carlson | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"big data",
"business",
"scratch",
"sql"
] | At Hackaday, we love things both from scratch and in Scratch, Scratch being the blocks building helpful language for teaching kids and the like how to program. However, when you have a large amount of data that needs to be processed, queried, and collated to get meaningful insights, it is a pain to rewrite a SQL query every time a new question arises that needs an answer. So perhaps a more elegant approach would be to give the people asking the questions the tools to answer them, but rather than teach them SQL, Mongo, GraphQL, or any other database, give them
the tools to scratch out the answers themselves
.
That’s enough scratch puns for one article. [Tommy] ran into this situation in 2011 and recently wrote about it. Scratch came out in 2003 and has inspired several projects, such as Google’s Blockly. [Tommy] used Blockly to create a web app where users could drag and drop different blocks to form queries. These layouts were passed to a PHP-backed (though later HVVM for performance reasons) and executed as SQL.
Eventually, big data came around, and the company hired proper data scientists. Though [Tommy] notes that some of those who used his tool went on to learn proper SQL and do it themselves. Applying concepts from programs designed to teach children programming might sound a little odd in a business sense, but we love seeing projects that
help someone become curious enough to peer inside the machine
. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501519",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2022-08-10T02:34:40",
"content": "“That’s enough scratch puns for one article.”I’m itching for more.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6501520",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,372,602.353567 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/09/smoking-meat-finds-natural-home-in-the-cloud/ | Smoking Meat Finds Natural Home In The Cloud | Chris Wilkinson | [
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"barbecue",
"bbq",
"ESP8266",
"smoked meat",
"smoking",
"thermistor"
] | Did you know that backyard barbecues now come with WiFi? It should be no surprise, given the pervasiveness of cloud-enabled appliances throughout the home. However [Carl] wasn’t ready to part with his reliable but oh-so-analog BBQ smoker, so instead he created an
affordable WiFi-based temperature monitor
that rivals its commercial counterparts.
Accurate temperature measurement is essential to smoking meat from both a taste
and
safety standpoint. In this project, two Maverick ET-732/733 thermistor probes take care of the actual temperature monitoring. One probe is skewered into meat itself, and the other measures the ambient ‘pit’ temperature. Combined, these two gauges ensure that the meat is smoked for exactly the right length of time. [Carl] mentions that adding an extra temperature sensor is trivial for larger setups, but he’s getting by just fine with two data points.
Naturally an ESP8266 does most of the heavy lifting in bridging the gap between smoke and cloud. At the core of this project is utility and practicality – temperature statistics can be viewed on any device with a web browser. Being able to study the temperature trends in this way also makes it easier to predict cooking times. Electronic alerts are also used to notify the chef if the temperature is too hot or cold (among other things). The entire contraption is housed in a smart looking project box that contains an LCD and rotary encoder for configuration.
If this has piqued your culinary interest, check out the extensive
documentation
recipe over on GitHub and the
project Wiki
. W
e also recommend checking out
this project
that takes automated meat smoking to the next level. | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501509",
"author": "Murm",
"timestamp": "2022-08-10T01:29:24",
"content": "While the result is amazing, and the work inspiring, the whole “affordable” aspect might be a stretch. At $100+AU is the same as pre made units (at least some that I’ve seen on that online book-seller).I a... | 1,760,372,602.48099 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/09/student-competition-badge-bears-custom-silicon/ | Student Competition Badge Bears Custom Silicon | Arya Voronova | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"badge",
"conference badge",
"custom silicon"
] | [Daniel Valuch] shared a fun and record-setting
conference badge story
(Slovak,
translated
) with us. He was one of the organizers for the “ZENIT in electronics” event, which is an annual Slovak national competition for students. During the competition, students are assigned a letter+number code for the purpose of result submission anonymity, and organizers are always on the lookout for a fun way to assign these codes – this time, they did it with custom silicon!
It just so happened that [Peter], one of [Daniel]’s colleagues, was at the time working for onsemi who were doing a tapeout and had some free space on their test chips. Of course, they didn’t have to think twice. When it was a student’s turn to draw their identification number, instead of a slip of paper, they received a SOIC-16 package with custom silicon bonded to it. Then, they had to solder it to their competition badge – which was, of course, a PCB. Each chip was individually laser-trimmed to contain the student’s number, and that number could then be decoded using a multimeter – or a reasonably sharp eye.
There’s way more to this competition story than just the badge, but the custom silicon part of it sure caught our eyes. Who knows, maybe next year stars will align again and we’ll see custom silicon on one of the hacker conference badges. After all, things have been advancing rapidly on that front – for instance, since
Skywater PDK project’s inception
in 2020, there’s been
several successful runs already,
and if you’d like to learn more, you could check
the HackChat we’ve had
this year, and this
Remoticon 2020 workshop! | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501697",
"author": "Daniel V.",
"timestamp": "2022-08-10T14:22:45",
"content": "well, if it makes things look better we did not use only custom made chips. There was also arduino :-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6501721",
... | 1,760,372,602.421886 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/09/up-your-desk-toy-game-with-this-3d-printed-escalator/ | Up Your Desk Toy Game With This 3D Printed Escalator | Tom Nardi | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"3D printed parts",
"desk toy",
"escalator",
"gear motor",
"motorized"
] | Let’s be real, nobody
needs
a tiny motorized escalator for their desk. But now that you’ve seen it, can you really say you don’t want one of your own? The
design comes our way from [AlexY]
, and is actually the logical evolution of a
manually-operated version released previously
. But for our money (and 3D printing time), we’d definitely go with this new motorized variant.
While the core mechanism is largely the same, the powered unit uses a N20 geared motor and an 18650 cell. There’s no fancy motor controller here — just flip the switch and you’ve got 30 RPMs worth of stair-steppin’ action. When you’ve run the cell down, and you will, there’s an onboard TP4056 charging module to keep the good times rolling.
[AlexY] hasn’t had a chance to document the build process for the motorized version of the escalator, but as most of the parts are compatible with the manual version, you should be able to figure it out by referencing the earlier assembly guide.
Hot squirted plastic not your thing? We’ve
previously seen a wooden escalator designed to keep a Slinky in motion
for as long as it takes for you to realize you could be using your skills for something more constructive.
Thanks to [Abe] for the tip. | 21 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501427",
"author": "no",
"timestamp": "2022-08-09T19:05:21",
"content": "make it carry downwards the egress of a paper shredder, and put a miniature golden toilet bowl with an automated flush would be just perfect.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,602.544154 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/09/2022-hackaday-prize-congratulations-to-the-winners-of-the-hack-it-back-challenge/ | 2022 Hackaday Prize: Congratulations To The Winners Of The Hack It Back Challenge | Elliot Williams | [
"contests",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Prize",
"finalists",
"winners"
] | Wow! We knew that the Hack it Back Challenge round of the Hackaday Prize would bring out the clever repairers among you, but we’re still impressed to see the results! This was a tough round for the judges, but they came up with a short list of ten finalists, and we’re pleased to bring them to you here.
The Hack it Back Challenge aimed to keep old gear from being thrown away by performing a heroic repair, giving it a new purpose in life, or otherwise bringing it back to a useful state. Of course, once you’ve got the box open, you start thinking of how to improve whatever the gadget is, and some of our finalists took that in unexpected directions.
Invasion of the Bodysnatchers
Some of the hacks took the form of inside-out redesigns. Let’s start off with some of the most ambitious. The
Notkia (name change planned)
project essentially gutted an old 1680 Nokia phone, wedging a more modern computer and array of peripherals inside. It’s such a joy to see a Linux kernel up and running on the device, you’d be forgiven for overlooking the fact that it’s
no longer a phone
but something else entirely – a pocket computer in a comfortable form factor. In common with Notkia,
Put an RPi CM4 into an original iPad
is another complete redesign that does just what it says on the tin. The quality of the reverse engineering, re-engineering, and complete re-imagining of the original iPad on display here is perhaps alone in terms of technical sophistication. Not bad for [Evan]’s “first real PCB project”.
[Jeremy]’s
DuePrint
takes over an old Stratasys Uprint SE+ 3D printer, replacing its mainboard with a Duet3D and its servo controllers with a Gecko Drive. The result is that the new printer works just as well as the original, talks WiFi, and uses open-source hardware and firmware. And [Sean Billups]’s
Multispectral imaging smartphone camera
peels the UV filter off of a cell phone camera, adds multiple filters in its place, and some software to tie it all together into a cool diagnostic tool.
Resto-Mods
For some of our entries, the nostalgia of the old device is an important part of the reason for saving it in the first place. Sure, you can simply print out your labels from your main printer, but there’s a certain
something
about the old Dymo-style label printers that drew [Andrei Speridião] to reimagine the device for the modern era with his
E-TKT: anachronic label maker
. Similarly, when [dsagman]’s old Vox amplifier cabinet went on the fritz,
a Raspberry Pi and a modern Class D amplifier
inside brought it back to its former glory, and then some.
Similarly, [Adalbert]’s
Toshiba T3200 upgrade
and [John Anderson]’s
Audible Digital Dice Towers
still look the part, but are more than they used to be.
Resto-Recreations
Finally, two of our finalists aimed to not simply hack back their own obsolete technology, but help us
all
do so, potentially preserving old tech for the future.
[Anders Nielsen]’s
Simple Universal Modem
is just that, but it’s also an interface that allows modern computers to speak with the ancients who used to store their bits on tape or even vinyl records. And [W. Jason Altice]’s
Hack it Back View-Master
preserves the old format in as much detail as possible, while also making it dirt simple to create a modern video presentation of the art. View-master films for the YouTube era!
Congratulations!
All told, our Hack it Back finalists richly deserve their $500 prizes, and will all be eligible to win the main prizes in the final round in November. In the mean time, the Hackaday Prize has
moved on to the Climate Resilient Communities Challenge
, and we’re all working on environmental sensors and distributed disaster-ready communications networks.
Join in
!
Thanks again to our sponsors Digikey and Hackaday’s parent company, Supplyframe, for sponsoring the 2022 Hackaday Prize.
Ten Finalists Hack it Back
Notkia (name change planned)
Put an RPi CM4 into an original iPad
Multispectral imaging smartphone camera
DuePrint
Resto-Mod Audible Digital Dice Towers
E-TKT: anachronic label maker
Raspberry Pi Guitar Amplifier
Toshiba T3200SXC fix/upgrade
Hack it Back View-Master
Simple Universal Modem
The
Hackaday
Prize2022
is Sponsored by: | 7 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501405",
"author": "Anders Nielsen",
"timestamp": "2022-08-09T17:47:49",
"content": "Wow! Much appreciated!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6501457",
"author": "Dennis",
"timestamp": "2022-08-09T20:47:37",
"content"... | 1,760,372,602.712121 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/09/mapping-out-the-leds-on-an-outlet-tester/ | Mapping Out The LEDs On An Outlet Tester | Tom Nardi | [
"Teardown",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"epoxy blob",
"mains wiring",
"power outlet",
"reverse engineering",
"test equipment",
"wall outlet"
] | The concept of an outlet tester is pretty simple: plug the gadget into a suspect wall receptacle, and an array of LEDs light up in various patterns to alert the user to any wiring faults. They’re cheap, reliable, and instantaneous. Most people wouldn’t give them much more thought than that, but like any good hacker,
[Yeo Kheng Meng] wanted to know how these devices worked
.
After picking up a relatively advanced model that featured an LCD display capable of showing various stats such as detected voltage in addition to the standard trio of LEDs, he started by using some test leads to simulate various fault conditions to understand the basic principle behind its operation. The next step was to disassemble the unit, which is where things went briefly sideways — it wasn’t until [Yeo Kheng Meng] and a friend had nearly cut through the enclosure that they realized it wasn’t ultrasonically welded liked they assumed, and that the screws holding it together were actually hidden under a sticker. Oops.
The write-up includes some excellent PCB shots, and [Yeo Kheng Meng] was able to identify several components and ascertain their function. He was even able to find some datasheets, which isn’t always such an easy task with these low-cost devices. Unfortunately the MCU that controls the device’s more advanced features is locked away with a black epoxy blob, but he was able to come up with a schematic that explains the rather elegant logic behind the LED display.
This isn’t the first time [Yeo Kheng Meng] has
taken apart an interesting piece of hardware for our viewing pleasure
, and given the fine job he does of it, we hope it’s not the last either. | 13 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501407",
"author": "Steven-X",
"timestamp": "2022-08-09T18:04:40",
"content": "Always check under stickers, LOL. I’ve discoved that several times myself.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6501418",
"author": "limroh",
... | 1,760,372,602.766361 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/09/ai-creates-your-spreadsheets-sometimes/ | AI Creates Your Spreadsheets, Sometimes | Al Williams | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"ai",
"excel",
"GPT-3",
"Rant"
] | We’ve been interested in looking at how AI can process things other than silly images. That’s why the “
Free AI Bot that Generates the Excel Formula for Any Problem
” caught our eye. Based on GPT-3, it supposedly transforms your problem description into a formula suitable for Excel or Google Sheets.
Our first prompt didn’t work out very well. But that was sort of our fault. When they say “Excel formula” they mean that quite literally. So trying to describe the actual result you want in terms of columns or rows seems to be beyond it. Not realizing that, we asked:
If the sum of column H is greater than 50, multiply column A by 0.33
And got:
=IF(SUM(H:H)>50,A*0.33,0)
A Better Try
Which is close, but not really how anyone even mildly proficient with Excel would interpret that request. But that’s not fair. It really needs to be a y=f(x) sort of problem, we suppose.
Here’s a different prompt:
Negative 1 if the sum of column H is greater than 50,
otherwise 1 unless cell A4 is negative and then the result is 42
And the result:
=IF(SUM(H:H)>50, -1, IF(A4<0, 42, 1))
So where’s the intelligence? The result is correct, of course, but it isn’t that hard to figure out yourself.
Part of the problem with these sorts of things is that they are inexact. The website has disclaimers about “there may be imperfections in the model” and “verify this output before putting to use.” Verifying this is correct implies you could have written it yourself and it probably wouldn’t take much more time.
Looking Up Formulas
We were impressed that it seems to know how to find certain relationships. For example:
Find the power if the voltage is in cell B1 and the current in cell C1
=B1*C1
Or…
The current for a resistor in R1 when the voltage is in E1
=E1/R1
Here’s what’s funny, though. It must be keying on the actual names of the cells because try this:
The current for a resistor in C5 when the voltage is in C6
That flips the equation over for some reason:
=C5/C6
It just goes to show that the neural net doesn’t think about the problem the way we do. We think this one was right:
The amount of interest on a V1 balance at a compound interest rate in P1 compounded annually for V2 years
=V1*(1+P1)^V2
But we were pretty sure this one was wrong:
The time it takes a ball to fall to the ground from Q1 feet
=Q1/32
Our Opinion
So, in our opinion, this is little more than a parlor trick. You could have had some keyword-matching templates and gotten as good a result that would also be more repeatable. You could even ask for clarification or note impossible-seeming situations.
Is there a market for this? Sure, when it becomes Star Trek-level computer interaction. (“Computer: Run an analysis of all known Romulan transmission format…”). But at the level of GPT-3 guessing our formulas from natural language, it is just a toy. Even
Wolfram Alpha
which does a better job is still not up to the task, although we wonder how hard it would be for them to push out Excel formulae? At least it is better than the “
prompt engineering
” we’ve been hearing about.
That’s not to say that
GPT-3 isn’t useful
. It clearly is for some problems. This implementation of using it for spreadsheets just isn’t one of them. Still neat, though. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501374",
"author": "dudenamedben",
"timestamp": "2022-08-09T16:27:41",
"content": "3x+1That should keep it busy for a while.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6501399",
"author": "Peter",
"timestamp": "2022-08-09T17:32:09... | 1,760,372,602.813901 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/09/open-source-wearables-for-infants/ | Open Source Wearables For Infants | Orlando Hoilett | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"Autonomic nervous system",
"Empatica",
"fitbit",
"psychology",
"smartwatch"
] | We’ve seen plenty of hacks that analyze biometric signals as measures of athletic performance, but maybe not as many hacks that are trying to study behavior. Well, that’s exactly what developmental psychologists at Indiana University and the University of East Anglia have done with their
open-source, wireless vest for measuring autonomic function in infants
.
Their device includes a number of components we’ve seen already. There is an HC-05 Bluetooth module,
AD8232 electrocardiography (ECG) analog front-end
, LIS3DH 3-axis accelerometer, MCP73831 LiPo charger, a force-sensitive resistor for measuring respiration, and a Teensy microcontroller. Given how sensitive an infant’s skin can be, they opted for
fabric electrodes for the ECG
instead of those awful sticky ones that we’re accustomed to. They then interfaced the conductive fabric with copper plates using snap fasteners (or press studs or snap buttons, whichever terminology you’re more familiar with). The copper plates were connected to the circuit board using standard electrical wire. Then, they embedded the sensors into a vest they sewed together themselves. It’s basically a tiny weighted vest for infants but it seems well-padded enough to be somewhat comfortable.
They did a short test analyzing heart and breathing rates during a period of “sustained attention,” basically when you’re quietly fixated on a single object or activity for a period of a few minutes or longer. They were really pleased with the vest’s ability to collect consistent data and noted that heart and respiratory rate variability decreased during the sustained activity test, which was an expected outcome. Apparently, when you’re pretty fixated on a singular task, your body naturally calms down, so to speak, and the variability in some of your physiological responses decreases. Well,
unless someone slowly walks up behind you and pinches you, of course
.
They provided detailed instructions for recreating the vest, so be sure to check those out. They probably want their device to look a lot less than body armor though.
Maybe the Sewbo can help them out with their next iteration
. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501298",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2022-08-09T12:08:42",
"content": "Looks like a pretttttyyy lonnnnggg cable to be around an infant. At least the remote monitoring functionality will let you know when heartbeat has stopped due to strangulation",
"parent_id": null,
"de... | 1,760,372,604.769505 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/09/junkbox-build-keeps-tesla-coils-perfectly-varnished/ | Junkbox Build Keeps Tesla Coils Perfectly Varnished | Dan Maloney | [
"High Voltage",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"coil",
"gear motor",
"lathe",
"tesla coil",
"varnish",
"winding"
] | Admittedly, not a lot of people have a regular need to varnish coils. It’s mainly something that Tesla coil builders and other high-voltage experimenters are concerned with. But since that group probably constitutes a not insignificant fraction of the Hackaday audience, and because there are probably more applications for
this homebrew coil varnishing setup
, we figured it would be a good idea to share it.
For [Mads Barnkob], coil maintenance isn’t something to take lightly. If you check out his
Kaizer Power Electronics
channel on YouTube, you’ll see that he has quite a collection of large, powerful Tesla coils, some of which are used for demos and shows, and others that seem to be reserved mainly for blowing stuff up. To prevent one of his coils from joining the latter group, keeping the coat of insulating varnish on the secondary coil windings in tip-top condition is essential.
The setup seen in the video below helps with that tedious chore. Built entirely from scraps and junk bin parts, the low-speed, low-precision lathe can be set up to accommodate coils of all sizes. In use, the lathe turns the coil very slowly, allowing [Mads] to apply an even coat of varnish over the coil surface, and to keep it from sagging while it dries.
[Mads]’ setup is probably not great for coil winding as it is, but for coil maintenance, it’s just the thing. If your needs are more along the lines of a coil winder, we’ve got
a fully automated winder
that might work for you. | 21 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501286",
"author": "Dr Cockroach",
"timestamp": "2022-08-09T10:35:35",
"content": "Funny how this wright-up pops up just a day after I finish my first ( very small and low power ) Tesla Coil. This is a great idea for larger coils and even for winding the turns.",
"parent_id": ... | 1,760,372,604.718108 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/08/large-tip-driven-copter-turns-very-slowly/ | Large Tip Driven Copter Turns Very Slowly | Danie Conradie | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"drone",
"flight controller",
"helicopter"
] | Picking propeller size for any aircraft, but especially VTOLs, it’s a tradeoff between size and RPM. You can either move a large volume of air slowly or a small volume of air quickly. Small and fast tend to be the most practical for many applications, but if you’re thinking outside the box like [amazingdiyprojects], you can
build a massive propeller and make it fly at just one revolution per second
. (Video, embedded below the break.)
One of the challenges of large propellers is their high torque requirements. To get around this, [amazingdiyprojects] drives the 5m diameter propeller from the tips using electric motors with propellers. The blades are simple welded aluminum frames covered with heat-shrunk packing tape, braced with wires for stiffness.
The flight controller, with its own battery, is prevented from spinning with the blades by counteracting the spin of a small DC motor. Each blade is equipped with a servo-driven control surface, which can give roll and pitch control by adjusting deflection based on the blade’s radial position.
[amazingdiyprojects] control setup is very creative but somewhat imprecise. Instead of trying to write a custom control scheme, he configured the old KK2.15HC flight controller for a hexacopter. Each control servo’s PWM signal routes through a commutator disc with six sectors, one for each motor of the virtual hexacopter. This means each of the servos switches between six different PWM channels throughout its rotation. To compensate for lag when switching between channels, [amazingdiyprojects] had to tune the offset of the commutator disc otherwise it would veer off in the wrong direction. After a
second test flight session
to tune the flight controller settings, control authority improved, although it is still very docile in terms of response.
[amazingdiyprojects] is no stranger to giant VTOL aircraft, having built and flown in his own manned drones, powered by both
internal combustion
and
electric motors
. This latest craft is very similar to
[Nicholas Rehm]’s spinning tricoper,
and might be able to take advantage of the control scheme. | 21 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501239",
"author": "hinspect",
"timestamp": "2022-08-09T05:23:46",
"content": "That is a great job! Congratulations on your hobby👏",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6501247",
"author": "Unochepassa",
"timestamp": "2022-0... | 1,760,372,604.882196 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/08/replace-an-aa-battery-with-paper/ | Replace An AA Battery With Paper | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Science"
] | [
"aa",
"battery",
"ink",
"paper",
"science"
] | Paper is an ubiquitous part of society; so much so that the incredible engineering behind it often goes unnoticed. That isn’t the case for [Robert], though, who has a deep appreciation for the material and all its many uses far beyond recording information. In this particular video, he recreates a method found by researchers to
turn a piece of paper into a battery with equivalent performance to a AA-sized alkaline battery
. (Video, embedded below the break.)
The process involves the creation of a few different types of ink, each of which can be made with relatively common materials such as shellac, ethanol, polyethylene glycol, and graphite. Each of these materials are mixed in different proportions to create the inks. Once the cathode ink and anode ink are made, a third ink is needed called a current collector ink which functions essentially as a wire. The paper is dipped into a salt solution and then allowed to dry, given a partial waterproof coating, and when it is needed it can be activated by wetting it which allows the ion flow of the battery to happen.
The chemistry of this battery makes a lot of sense once you see it in action, and the battery production method also has a perk of having a long shelf life as long as the batteries stay dry. They also don’t damage the environment as much as non-rechargable alkaline cells do,
at least unless you want to go to some extreme measures to reuse them
. | 54 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501213",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2022-08-09T02:26:25",
"content": "Translate the H@D hack speak, equivalent performance is what, you can read 1.5V on a meter, or it has better than 1000mAh of capacity?Well from vid, a very low draw LCD clock runs 2.5 hours???? Heh, ... | 1,760,372,604.969531 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/08/the-car-of-theseus-boldly-goes-where-many-cars-have-gone-before/ | The Car Of Theseus Boldly Goes Where Many Cars Have Gone Before | Matthew Carlson | [
"car hacks"
] | [
"car hack",
"less is more",
"william osman"
] | We could all use a good chuckle every once in a while. [William Osman] revisited the ship of Theseus in a simplified manner. How many
parts can you remove from a car and still be a car
? (Video, embedded below the break.)
Of course, there
are
legal definitions of what a car is and a minimum set of requirements to be met to drive on the road. So, with two older cars ready for hacking and a group of hackers gathered, they split into two teams and started ripping parts of the vehicle. It becomes pretty humorous as it reminds us of many refactoring projects we’ve undertaken. For example, you move one BGA chip, and suddenly, it might be faster to reroute the whole board. Or you remove one component, you have to rip it out of three other modules, which affect four or more other modules, and so on. Accidentally cutting part of the electrical harness meant that one team had to dig further and further into the car to get back to a working car state. It was a race to get back to street legal while taking off more parts.
By the end of the exercise, they have a
technically
street-legal car they drove around, enjoying passersby’s pointed looks and confusion. They even take it to a dealership to see how much they could get for it. [William] points out that their abysmally low offer proves that a car with less stuff costs less. While we doubt that car manufacturers will follow his lead, it’s a good 15 minutes of fun.
We’ve got you covered if you’re interested in
more minimal motoring
. | 45 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501202",
"author": "Observer",
"timestamp": "2022-08-09T00:14:34",
"content": "I have only one thing to say: “Red Green”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b61f6bAuytw",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6501210",
"author": "... | 1,760,372,604.52389 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/08/automated-microsd-card-swapping-helps-in-embedded-shenanigans/ | Automated MicroSD Card Swapping Helps In Embedded Shenanigans | Arya Voronova | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"microsd",
"microsd card",
"sd card"
] | [Saulius Lukse] has been working on some single board computer, seemingly, running Linux. Naturally, that boots from a microSD card – and as development goes on, that card has to be reimaged all the time. Sick of constantly plugging and unplugging the microSD card between the SBC and an SD card reader, [Saulius]
started looking for a more automated solution
– and it wasn’t long before he found out about
the SDWire project,
a hardware tool that lets you swap a card between a DUT (Device Under Test) and your personal computer with no moving parts involved.
SDWire is an offshoot from the Tizen project, evidently, designed to be of help in device development, be it single-board computers or smartphones. The idea is simple – you plug your MicroSD card into the SDWire board, plug the SDWire into a MicroSD slot of your embedded device, and then connect a USB cable from the SDWire to your development computer. This way, if you need to reflash the firmware on the SBC you’re tinkering with, you only need to issue a command to the SDWire board over the USB cable, and the MicroSD card appears as a storage drive on your computer. SDWire is a fully open source project, both in hardware and in software, and you can also buy preassembled boards online.
Such shortening of development time helps in things like automated testing, but it also speeds your development up quite a bit, saving you time between iterations, freeing you from all the tiny SD card fiddling, and letting you have more fun as you hack. There’s a clear need for a project like SDWire, as we’ve already seen a hacker
assemble such a device
using breakouts. | 20 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501180",
"author": "ukezi",
"timestamp": "2022-08-08T20:52:01",
"content": "If you got a linux based SBC and network connectivity you can also boot from nfs. That may be even simpler.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6501182",... | 1,760,372,604.438828 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/08/load-your-icebreakers-the-2022-cyberdeck-contest-is-here/ | Load Your Icebreakers, The 2022 Cyberdeck Contest Starts Now | Tom Nardi | [
"contests",
"Cyberdecks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"cyberdeck",
"cyberpunk",
"William Gibson"
] | TL;DR:
Enter the 2022 Cyberdeck Contest
, starting right now!
When William Gibson first described the “cyberspace deck” used by the protagonists in
Burning Chrome
and
Neuromancer
, he offered only a few concrete details: they allow the user to explore cyberspace, are generally portable, and more adept owners often modify them to fit their particular needs. Anything else was left to the individual’s imagination, due in no small part to the fact that he author himself didn’t exactly know what the things would look like at the time. Still, not bad for a guy who was hammering it all out on a typewriter at the time.
Build your deck like Gibson is watching, because he is.
Now 40 years later, fact has caught up with fiction. The hacker and maker community have embraced the cyberdeck idea in a big way, and we’ve been blown away by the incredible creativity that goes into these bespoke computing devices.
Which is why we’re happy to announce the first, but very likely not the last,
2022 Cyberdeck Contest
. Impress the judges with your Sprawl-ready rig, and you could claim one of three $150 USD Digi-Key shopping sprees to help fund your next cyberpunk masterpiece. You’ve got until Sept. 30, 2022.
So what is a cyberdeck, exactly? That’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer, but since we’re running a contest here, we’ll have to give it a shot…
It needs to be a computer of some sort, certainly. It should also serve a practical purpose; as impressive as your cosplay prop might be, we’re really looking for functional devices here. Nominally that means it will have a keyboard and some kind of display, but figuring out how it all connects and what form the components will take is where things get interesting.
Above all, it needs to be personal. What would your dream computer look like? What features would it have? There’s no right or wrong answer here — a good cyberdeck should be a reflection of the person who built it, and no two should ever be quite the same.
Need some inspiration? Not to worry, you’ve come to the right place.
We’ve seen dozens of these custom machines over the last couple of years
if you need some help to get moving in the right direction.
Hosaka R&D Department
In addition to the three winners, we’ll also be keeping an eye out for decks that best represent these special categories:
All-in-Wonder
: Does your deck do more than just compute? Can it flash a microcontroller? Double as a logic analyzer? Serve as the brains of your synthesizer orchestra? We’re looking for cyberdecks that do what you need them to.
Post-Apocalyptic Cobbledeck
: After the War, we had to make do with whatever bits of tech still remained. If your deck is put together out of remnants, or even if it just looks like it, this is the category for you.
Shiny:
Or is your deck the polar opposite? Is it so refined that it’s indistinguishable from an Ono-Sendai 7? (It doesn’t have to literally shine to be shiny.)
Jacking In:
In Neuromancer, decks immersed you entirely in cyberspace. Yeah, that’s a tall order outside of fiction, but we’ll celebrate your small victories! Is your deck more immersive than just the standard keyboard, monitor, mouse combo? Jack in, cowboy!
The Matrix is Waiting
Ready to make your cyberpunk dreams come true? Just start a new Hackaday.io page for your deck, tell us about it, and use the “Submit Project To” button to enter it into the Contest. We’re just as interested in learning about how your rig is built as we are in seeing the final product, so don’t be shy on the details. | 22 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501146",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-08-08T17:19:47",
"content": "I’m looking forward to seeing entries.No glued on clockworks, please!(Unless it is functioning)And wearable cyberdecks along the lines of a Pip-Boy.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,372,605.034309 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/06/compare-pdfs-visually/ | Compare PDFs Visually | Al Williams | [
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"linux",
"pdf"
] | Sometimes a problem seems hard, but the right insight can make it easy. If you were asked to write a program to compare two PDF files and show the differences, how hard do you think that would be? If you are [serhack], you’ll make it
much easier
than you might guess.
Of course, sometimes making something simple depends on making simplifying assumptions. If you are expecting a “diff-like” utility that shows insertion and deletions, that’s not what’s going on here. Instead, you’ll see an image of the PDF with changes highlighted with a red box. This is easy because the program uses available utilities to render the PDFs as images and then simply compares pixels in the resulting images, drawing red boxes over the parts that don’t match.
Obviously, this is best for PDFs that just have a few changes. Inserting a paragraph, for example, makes the output pretty useless. For that, you might consider extracting the text from the PDF using something like pdf2text (which uses the same underlying library this uses to generate images).
The program thows a lot of messages about missing files but seems to do the job anyway. Here is the result of comparing two versions of the Hackaday home page captured to PDF a few minutes apart:
You can see, though, that if a new article was posted and everything slid down by one, you’d have nothing but a giant red block.
It is still a clever idea. There are surprisingly few tools out there for this, although we did
find a few others
. There are, of course, plenty of
Linux tools for manipulating PDFs
. Many of them are
mashups of other tools
like this one is. | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500874",
"author": "Greg Chabala",
"timestamp": "2022-08-07T05:08:09",
"content": "I’ve been using DiffPDF 2.1.3.1 by Mark Summerfield (open source, and prepackaged for Debian, Ubuntu, and others). Not perfect, but pretty good for tracking down changes in a huge, multi-page PDFs.On... | 1,760,372,604.820899 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/06/this-stainless-steel-knife-build-starts-with-raw-iron-ore/ | This Stainless Steel Knife Build Starts With Raw Iron Ore | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"alloy",
"knifemaking",
"magnetite",
"metal",
"metallurgy",
"smelting",
"stainless steel",
"Thermite"
] | Making knives at home has become a popular hobby, thanks partly to reality TV and the free time and idle hands afforded by lockdowns. Depending on how far you get into the hobby, builds can range from assembling and finishing a kit with pre-forged parts, to actual blacksmithing with a hammer and anvil. But pretty much every build includes steel from a commercial supplier.
Not
this one
. Rather than buy his metal from the usual sources, [Thoisoi]’s first stop was an iron mine in the Italian Alps, where he picked up a chunk of iron ore — magnetite, to be precise. Smelting one’s own iron from raw ore and alloying it into steel is generally not a backyard project thanks to the high temperatures needed, a problem [Thoisoi] solved with the magic of thermite. The iron oxide and aluminum in the thermite mix react in
an exceptionally exothermic manner
to generate elemental iron, which under controlled conditions can be captured as a more or less pure ingot, ready for forging.
After a test with commercially obtained iron oxide, [Thoisoi] tried his pulverized magnetite. And thanks to the addition of goodies like graphite, manganese, nickel, silicon, and chromium, he was eventually able to create a sizable lump of 402 stainless steel. He turned the metal over to an actual blacksmith for rough forging; it sure seemed to act like steel on the anvil. The finished knife looks good and performs well, and the blade has the characteristic look of stainless. Not a bad result, and all at the cost of a couple of clay flowerpots.
Thanks to [Keith Olson] for this tip. | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500852",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2022-08-07T01:07:06",
"content": "This is very interesting. I’ve made my own copper thermite to use in exothermic welds to ground my ham radio tower, but never tried the iron version. It turns out that where I live I can drag a strong mag... | 1,760,372,604.653158 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/06/pixmob-wristband-protocol-reverse-engineering-groundwork/ | PixMob Wristband Protocol Reverse-Engineering Groundwork | Arya Voronova | [
"Reverse Engineering",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"flipper zero",
"infrared",
"led band",
"led wristband",
"pixmob"
] | The idea behind the PixMob wristband is simple — at a concert, organizers hand these out to the concertgoers, and during the show, infrared projectors are used to transmit commands so they all light up in sync. Sometimes, attendees would be allowed to take these bracelets home after the event, and a few hackers have taken a shot at reusing them.
The protocol is proprietary, however, and we haven’t yet seen anyone reuse these wristbands without tearing them apart or reflashing the microcontroller. [Dani Weidman] tells us, how with [Zach Resmer], they have laid the groundwork for
reverse-engineering the protocol of these wristbands
.
Our pair of hackers started by obtaining a number of recordings from a helpful stranger online, and went onto replaying these IR recordings to their wristbands. Most of them caused no reaction – presumably, being configuration packets, but three of them caused the wristbands to flash in different colors. They translated these recordings into binary packets, and Dani went through different possible combinations, tweaking bits here and there, transmitting the packets and seeing which ones got accepted as valid. In the end, they had about 100 valid packets, and even figured out some protocol peculiarities like color animation bytes and motion sensitivity mode enable packets.
The GitHub repository provides some decent documentation and even a video, example code you can run on an Arduino with an IR transmitter, and even some packets you can send out with a
Flipper Zero
. If you’re interested in learning more about the internals of this device,
check out the teardown we featured back in 2019
. | 38 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500859",
"author": "some guy",
"timestamp": "2022-08-07T01:40:44",
"content": "This aquatic animal thing looks interesting… Not cheap but obviously quite capable.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6500866",
"author": "The Com... | 1,760,372,604.604376 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/06/hackaday-prize-2022-diy-brushless-hand-cranked-generator/ | Hackaday Prize 2022: DIY Brushless Hand Cranked Generator | Jenny List | [
"green hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Prize",
"hand generator",
"portable power",
"stepper motor"
] | A standard part of travel kit for the 2020s is now a battery pack — a hefty lithium-ion cell with onboard electronics for USB charging, that ensures all of our devices stay topped up while we’re out of range of a socket. But what happens when there is no handy mains supply to recharge it from? Step in [Chleba], with
a hand cranked generator
.
There are plenty of hand cranked generators to be found online, from tiny devices intended to top up a single phone to sturdy metal boxes intended for battery charging. This one differs from those in that most use a brushed DC motor as a cheap generator, while here that function comes from a stepper motor feeding a rectifier pack and thence a DC-to-DC converter. A step-up gearbox provides the necessary shaft speed, and a neat 3D-printed case rounds everything off.
The result is about as neat a generator as you could imagine, and would certainly be of use shoved into any off-grid backpack. Meanwhile it’s not the first we’ve shown you,
we’ve even see one that could start a car
.
The
Hackaday
Prize2022
is Sponsored by: | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500805",
"author": "Christian Knopp",
"timestamp": "2022-08-06T18:03:00",
"content": "Wouldn’t be hard to have one of those tulip blades as a swappable part, so you can hand crank, or have a wind generator?🤔",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"... | 1,760,372,605.084298 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/06/learning-by-playing/ | Learning By Playing | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"3D modelling",
"learning",
"minecraft"
] | Summer break has started over here, and my son went off to his first of a few day-camp-like activities last week. It was actually really cool – a workshop held by
our local Fablab
where they have the kids make a Minecraft building and then get to 3D-print it out. He loves playing and building in Minecraft, so we figured this would be right up his alley.
TinkerCAD model of a Lego Minecraft fox. Kiddo trifecta!
I had naively thought that it would work something like this: the kids build something in Minecraft, and then some software extracts the build and converts it into an STL file. Makes sense, because they already are more-or-less fluent in Minecraft modelling. And as I thought about that, it was a pretty clever idea.
But the truth was even sneakier. They warmed up by making something in Minecraft, then they opened up TinkerCAD, which was new to all of the kids, and built a 3D model there. Then they converted the TinkerCAD models into Minecraft, and played with what they had just built while the 3D printers hummed away.
The kids didn’t even flinch at having to learn a new 3D modelling tool, and the parallels to what they were already comfortable doing in Minecraft were obvious to them. My son came home and told me how much easier it was to do your 3D modelling in “this other Minecraft” – he meant TinkerCAD – because you don’t need to build everything out of single blocks. He thought he was playing games, but he’d secretly used his first CAD tool. Nice trick!
Then I look back and realize how much I must have learned about computers through playing as a kid. Heck, how much I still learn through playing. And of course I’m not alone – that’s one of the things that shines through in a large number of the projects we feature. Hack on and have fun!
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
! | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500777",
"author": "Claudiu Chereji",
"timestamp": "2022-08-06T14:23:21",
"content": "That’s a really cool experience for a kid to have! Makes me wanna learn more now too!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6500786",
"author":... | 1,760,372,605.281888 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/06/solar-plane-might-be-able-to-last-through-the-night/ | Solar Plane Might Be Able To Last Through The Night | Danie Conradie | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"ardupilot",
"Fixed-wing aircraft",
"solar plane"
] | “Just add solar panels to the wings” is a popular suggestion for improving the flight times of fixed-wing drones. However, the reality is not so simple, and it’s easy to hurt rather than help flight times with the added weight and complexity. The team at [Bearospace Industries] has been working on the challenge for the while, and their
Solar Dragon
aircraft recently had a very successful
test flight
, producing about 50% more power than it was consuming.
Instead of just trying to slap solar panels to an existing plane, an airframe should ideally be designed from the ground up as a balancing act between a range of factors. These include weight, efficiency, flight envelope, structural integrity, and maximum surface area for solar panels. All the considerations are discussed by [Bearospace] in an excellent in-depth
video
, which is an indispensable resource for anyone planning to build a solar plane.
[Bearospace] put all the theory into practice on
Solar Dragon
, which incorporates over 250 W of high-efficiency Maxeon C60 solar cells on the wing, tail, and triangular fuselage. The cells were wired to match their maximum power point voltage as closely as possible to the plane’s 3S lithium-ion battery pack, enabling the solar cells to charge the battery directly. To prevent overcharging, a solid state relay was used to disconnect the solar cells from the battery as required.
The batteries maintained the same average state of charge during the entire one-hour late morning flight, even though the panels were only connected 65% of the time. The team expects they might be able to
get even better performance from the cells with a good MPPT charger
, which will be required for less than ideal solar conditions.
Solar Dragon
has a much larger payload capacity than was used during the test flight, more than enough for an MPPT charger and a significantly larger battery. With this and a long list of other planned improvements, it might be possible for the Solar Dragon to charge up during the day and fly throughout the night on battery power alone. One interesting potential approach mentioned is to also store energy in the form of altitude during the day, and use the aircraft’s slow sink rate to minimize battery usage at night.
Solar planes come up every few months on Hackaday, with
[rctestflight] being one of the usual suspects
. You also don’t need solar panels for long flight times, as
[Matthew Heiskell] proved with a 10-hour 45 minute flight
on battery power alone. | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500755",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2022-08-06T11:27:04",
"content": "I always enjoy seeing the variety of deigns such challenges promote – like the Human powered aircraft there is still some divergence in design choices and build methods to meet the goal so some pretty s... | 1,760,372,605.846355 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/06/heres-how-the-precursor-protects-your-privacy/ | Here’s How The Precursor Protects Your Privacy | Arya Voronova | [
"FPGA",
"handhelds hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"betrusted",
"bunnie",
"Bunnie Huang",
"bunniestudios",
"precursor",
"trust",
"trusted computing"
] | At some point, you will find yourself asking – is my device actually running the code I expect it to? [bunnie] aka [Andrew Huang] is passionate about making devices you can fundamentally, deeply trust, and his latest passion project is the Precursor communicator.
At the heart of it is an FPGA, and Precursor’s CPU is created out of the gates of that FPGA. This and a myriad of other design decisions make the Precursor fundamentally hard to backdoor, and you don’t have to take [bunnie]’s word for it — he’s made an
entire video going through the architecture, boot protections and guarantees of the Precursor
, teaching us what goes into a secure device that’s also practical to use.
If you can’t understand how your device works, your trust in it might be misplaced. In the hour long video, [bunnie] explains the entire stack, from the lower levels of hardware to root keys used to sign and verify the integrity of your OS, along the way demonstrating how you can verify that things haven’t gone wrong.
He makes sure to point out aspects you’d want to be cautious of, from physical security limitations to toolchain nuances. If you’re not up for a video, you can always check out
the Precursor wiki,
which has a treasure trove of information on the device’s security model.
As you might’ve already learned, it’s
not enough for hardware to be open-source
in order to be trustworthy. While open-source silicon designs are undoubtedly the future, their security guarantees
only go so far.
Whether it’s esoteric
hard drive firmware backdoors
, weekend projects
turning your WiFi card into a keylogger,
or rootkits you can get
on store-bought Lenovo laptops,
hell, even our latest
This Week In Security installment
has two fun malware examples – there’s never a shortage of parties interested in collecting as much data as possible. | 14 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500731",
"author": "Ewald",
"timestamp": "2022-08-06T08:26:40",
"content": "….and you don’t have to take [bunnie]’s word for it….Normally an independent audit follows such a precursor, not the same person doing an (in depth) explanation ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,372,605.674763 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/07/hackaday-links-august-7-2022/ | Hackaday Links: August 7, 2022 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"chorizo",
"class action",
"data privacy",
"data recovery",
"hackaday links",
"jwst",
"proxima centauri",
"quantum gates",
"quantum programming",
"qubits",
"sausage",
"sd card",
"settlement",
"Tim Hortons",
"tracking"
] | If you ever needed proof that class-action lawsuits are a good deal only for the lawyers, look no further than the news that
Tim Hortons will settle a data-tracking suit with a doughnut and a coffee
. For those of you who are not in Canada or Canada-adjacent, “Timmy’s” is a chain of restaurants that are kind of the love child of a McDonald’s and a Dunkin Donut shop.
An investigation
into the chain’s app a couple of years ago revealed that customer location data was being logged silently, even when they were not using the app, and even far, far away from the nearest Tim Hortons. The chain is proposing to settle with class members to the tune of a coupon good for one free hot beverage and one baked good, in total valuing a whopping $8.68. The lawyers, on the other hand, will be pulling in $1.5 million plus taxes. There’s no word if they are taking that in cash or as 172,811 coffees and doughnuts, but we think we can guess.
If you’ve ever wondered what’s involved with the recovery of data from busted SD cards, check out
this brief but fascinating video of the process
. First, the plastic enclosure of the memory card is ablated by a laser engraver, which exposes the traces within. A series of probes are then lowered onto various pads within, presumably to bypass a defective controller and access the memory directly. We’re not sure if this is the standard method used when a whoopsie befalls an SD card, but it sure is interesting. If anyone knows of a full-length video or has more information on this method, send it along — we’d love to do a more in-depth article.
If your personal edification shortlist includes understanding quantum programming, you could do worse than watching
New Mind’s latest video on the subject
. Where this one stands out for us is in the comparison of quantum concepts to what most of us already know about how digital computers work — how normal gates compare to quantum gates, for instance. We have to admit that the first watch-through didn’t entirely sink in — we’ll be giving it another go soon, hopefully before the next part is released.
And finally, who says scientists don’t have a sense of humor? At least one French physicist does, and Etienne Klein proved it by posting a picture he purported to be
a stunning up close and personal look at Proxima Centaurus
, our nearest extra-Solar neighbor, courtesy of the new James Webb Space Telescope. It seemed plausible — we’ve all seen what the $10 billion space observatory can do, and the level of detail in the photo sure seemed like it could be an image of the red dwarf star. But alas, a few days later Dr. Klein came clean with the news that the picture is just
a slice of chorizo on a black background
. We can understand the confusion — check out the thumbnail of the video below to see how close the sausage matches a legit picture of our own sun. But while we appreciate the lulz here, we kind of regret that it will inevitably feed the trolls who insist that we never landed on the Moon. After all, if sausage can stand in for a star, why can’t green cheese be used to stage a Moon landing? | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501031",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2022-08-08T00:39:06",
"content": "I love chorizo. Mexican and Spanish.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6501047",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2022-08-08T03:58:23",... | 1,760,372,605.615406 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/07/build-a-tablet-out-of-your-framework-motherboard/ | Build A Tablet Out Of Your Framework Motherboard | Arya Voronova | [
"laptops hacks",
"Tablet Hacks"
] | [
"3D printable",
"framework",
"Framework laptop",
"tablet"
] | The Framework laptop project is known for quite a few hacker-friendly aspects. For example, they encourage you to reuse its motherboard as a single-board computer – making it into a viable option for your own x86-powered projects. They have published a set of CAD files for that, and people have been working on their own Framework motherboard-based creations ever since; our hacker, [whatthefilament], has already built a few projects around these motherboards. Today, he’s showing us the high-effort design that is
the FrameTablet
– a 15″ device packing an i5 processor, all in a fully 3D printed chassis. The cool part is – thanks to his instructions, you can build one yourself!
This tablet sports a FullHD touchscreen IPS display and shows some well-thought-out component mounting, using heat-set inserts and screws, increasing such a build’s mechanical longevity. You lose one of the expansion card slots to the USB-C-connected display, but it’s a worthwhile tradeoff, and the touchscreen functionality works wonders in Windows. [whatthefilament] has also published a desk holder and a wall mount to accompany this design – if it’s a bit too large for you to hold in some situations, you can mount it in a more friendly, hands-free way. This is a solid and surprisingly practical tablet, and unlike the Raspberry Pi tablet builds we’ve seen, its x86 heart packs enough power to let you do things like CAD on the go.
With STLs and STEPs available,
his build is a decent option for when you’ll want to
replace your Framework’s motherboard
with a new, upgraded one. You might’ve already noticed a few high-effort projects with these motherboards on our pages – perhaps, this
transparent shell handheld
with a mech keyboard and trackball, or this
personal terminal
with a futuristic-looking round display. This project is part of the “send 100 motherboards to hackers” initiative that
Framework organized
a few months ago, and we can’t say it hasn’t been working out for them!
Two big drops today! I've released V1.3 of the
@FrameworkPuter
tablet on my GitHub, which now includes support for the stock battery, speakers, and a
@iFixit
style instruction manual to walk you through the build.
https://t.co/cpfFSOA7fH
https://t.co/32CVIwOB9y
pic.twitter.com/WW5RsodFIC
— What the Filament (@whatthefilament)
August 5, 2022 | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501001",
"author": "erghregh34",
"timestamp": "2022-08-07T20:25:16",
"content": "how long this device work on one charge",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6501010",
"author": "banana man",
"timestamp": "2022-08-... | 1,760,372,605.732378 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/07/homemade-cat-scan-shouldnt-scan-cats/ | Homemade CAT Scan Shouldn’t Scan Cats | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"CAT scan",
"CT Scan",
"x-ray",
"xray"
] | [Pyrotechnical] thought about buying a CAT scanner and found out they cost millions of dollars. So
he decided to build one for about $200
using a salvage X-ray tube and some other miscellaneous parts. A scintillating detector provides the image for pick up with a camera phone. The control? An Arduino, what else? You can watch the video below, but due to plenty of NSFW language, you might want to put your headphones on if you don’t want to shock anyone.
Of course, you need to be careful when working with energetic X-rays. To keep away from the X-ray source, [Pyrotechnical] used a Roku remote and an IR sensor to control the device from afar. The electronics is pretty easy. You just have to rotate a turntable and trigger the camera while lighting up the X-ray tube.
The real problem is performing tomography (the T in CAT) to convert the flat pictures into a 3D representation. There’s software for that, of course, and that’s what he uses. Honestly, this reminded us of the cheap 3D scanners that use a cell phone and a turntable. If you took one of those and added the scintillator and the X-ray tube, it should work just as well.
If you decide to replicate this, please be sure you understand X-ray safety. You shouldn’t be subjecting anything alive to the beam — cat or otherwise. The “throw-together” build quality reminded us of another
homemade X-ray machine
we’ve seen. Surprisingly, this isn’t the first
homemade CAT scanner we’ve seen
.
(Reminder, the video below contains a good bit of NSFW language.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRjN72PT3Xs | 32 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500964",
"author": "Frankel",
"timestamp": "2022-08-07T17:21:18",
"content": "Without a Radon transform this is hardly a CT scanner. Sorry for being so blunt, but I got hyped first, only to be disappointed to just see classical xrays being performed. No sinograms spotted!",
"pa... | 1,760,372,606.01981 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/07/ct-scans-help-reverse-engineer-mystery-module/ | CT Scans Help Reverse Engineer Mystery Module | Dan Maloney | [
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"apollo",
"CAT scann",
"computed tomography",
"cordwood",
"ct",
"module",
"motorola",
"reverse engineering",
"x-ray"
] | The degree to which computed tomography has been a boon to medical science is hard to overstate. CT scans give doctors a look inside the body that gives far more information about the spatial relationship of structures than a plain X-ray can. And as it turns out,
CT scans are pretty handy for reverse engineering mystery electronic modules
, too.
The fact that the mystery module in question is from Apollo-era test hardware leaves little room for surprise that [Ken Shirriff] is the person behind this fascinating little project. You’ll recall that [Ken] recently
radiographically reverse engineered
a pluggable module of unknown nature, using plain X-ray images taken at different angles to determine that the undocumented Motorola module was stuffed full of discrete components that formed part of a square wave to sine wave converter.
The module for this project, a flip-flop from Motorola and in the same form factor, went into an industrial CT scanner from an outfit called
Lumafield
, where X-rays were taken from multiple angles. The images were reassembled into a three-dimensional view by the scanner’s software, which gave a stunningly clear view of the components embedded within the module’s epoxy body. The cordwood construction method is obvious, and it’s pretty easy to tell what each component is. The transistors are obvious, as are the capacitors and diodes. The resistors were a little more subtle, though — careful examination revealed that some are carbon composition, while others are carbon film. It’s even possible to pick out which diodes are Zeners.
The CT scan data, along with some more traditional probing for component values, let [Ken] reverse engineer the whole circuit, which turned out to be a little different than a regular J-K flip-flop. Getting a non-destructive look inside feels a little like sitting alongside the engineers who originally built these things, which is pretty cool. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500928",
"author": "Dave",
"timestamp": "2022-08-07T14:08:06",
"content": "Glad the scan wasn’t done at a medical facility… Would have cost $17,000 for the pic, but the price wouldn’t be known until it was done.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,606.072032 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/07/want-faster-extrusion-but-dont-have-a-volcano-nuts/ | Want Faster Extrusion But Don’t Have A Volcano? Nuts! | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"melt zone",
"volcano hotend"
] | A lot of people want to print faster. Maybe they don’t like to wait, or they need to print a lot of things. Maybe it is just human nature to want to push things to go faster. The problem is, if you move filament too fast it may not have time to melt inside the hot end. To combat that, some people install a “volcano” — a larger heat block that takes a special longer nozzle. The melt zone is longer so there is more time for the filament to liquefy before shooting out of the nozzle. This is also a problem if you are using a very large nozzle size. But what if you don’t have one of these special hot ends? According to [Stefan], you can use a normal hotend with a volcano-style nozzle just by
adding some common nuts
. You can see the explanation in the video, below.
The idea came from a few commercial offerings that allow converting between different-sized melt zones. Some of these use the same idea. But, if you are familiar with [Stefan’s] videos, you know he tested the results thoroughly. The tests reveal that a standard V6-style hotend can handle rates of just over 9.8mm/second. with a 0.4mm nozzle at 210C and is usable beyond that. A true volcano hotend. starts deviating from the ideal at about 15mm/second and, also, is usable at even higher rates. But what about just using a long nozzle in a regular block with or without the nuts?
You should watch the video, but spoiler alert: with or without the nuts, it worked quite well. In fact, it worked slightly better than the real volcano. There is a lot of discussion about what makes your extrusion system work — or not work. We always enjoy his analysis and methodical testing.
Towards the end, there is some data about how part cooling does impact the results and what you might do about it. Increasing temperature can also improve melt performance. The difference in performance isn’t enough that we’d suggest you take off a volcano hot end for this method. However, if you were wanting to add a volcano-style hotend, this is a great deal. You only need the nozzle and some nuts. Even better, you can easily switch back and forth between conventional and high-flow setups. After all, you don’t always want the long melt zone since it can contribute to undesirable things like oozing.
If you’ve avoided larger nozzles because you fear losing detail, newer slicers
might make you rethink that decision
. When you watch the video, watch for an appearance of [Stefan’s]
special high-flow nozzles
. | 18 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500914",
"author": "Daid",
"timestamp": "2022-08-07T12:00:24",
"content": "For the editor: mm/s != mm^2/s (I’m glad we’re finally measuring performance in mm^2/sec)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6500925",
"author": ... | 1,760,372,605.789058 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/07/mch2022-badge-ctf-solved-with-plenty-to-learn-from/ | MCH2022 Badge CTF Solved, With Plenty To Learn From | Arya Voronova | [
"Reverse Engineering",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"badge",
"badgelife",
"capture the flag",
"ctf",
"MCH",
"MCH2022"
] | Among all the things you could find at MCH2022, there were a few CTFs (Capture The Flag exercises) – in particular, every badge contained an application that you could try and break into – only two teams have cracked this one! [dojoe] was part of one of them, and he has composed
an extensive reverse-engineering story
for us – complete with Ghidra disassembly of Xtensa code, remote code execution attempts, ROP gadget creation, and no detail left aside.
There was a catch: badges handed out to the participants didn’t contain the actual flag. You had to develop an exploit using your personal badge that only contained a placeholder flag, then go to the badge tent and apply your exploit over the network to one of the few badges with the real flag on them. The app in question turned out to be an echo server – sending back everything it received; notably, certain messages made it crash. One man’s crashes are another man’s exploit possibilities, and after a few hacking sessions, [dojoe]’s team got their well-deserved place on the scoreboard.
If you always thought that firmware reverse-engineering sounds cool, and you also happen to own a MCH2022 badge, you should try and follow the intricately documented steps of [dojoe]’s writeup. Even for people with little low-level programming experience, repeating this hack is realistic thanks to his extensive explanations, and you will leave with way more reverse-engineering experience than you had before.
The MCH2022 badge
is a featureful creation of intricate engineering, with the ESP32 portion only being part of the badge –
we’re eager to hear
about what you’ve accomplished or are about to accomplish given everything it has to offer! | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500892",
"author": "Frankel",
"timestamp": "2022-08-07T09:12:23",
"content": "Indeed an amazing write-up, but from the perspective making code more secure. It’s fun seeing how a tiny mistake will allow people to leak secrets from something as trivial as an echo server. Cheers dojoe... | 1,760,372,605.890692 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/06/laptoppin-like-1975/ | Laptoppin’ Like 1975 | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"6502",
"laptop",
"retrocomputing"
] | When we first saw the
PZ1 laptop
— a 6502 laptop-style computer with a small display and 512K of RAM — we couldn’t help but think of the old
AIM 65
computer from Rockwell, although that only had 1K of memory. The other thing the AIM didn’t have was an ancillary microcontroller to help out that is way more powerful than the main processor.
There are actually several versions of the PZ1 and you can find some very detailed information over on Hackaday.io and
GitHub
. Recently, [Adam] release version 2.0 and tested some PC boards that are working well.
Of course, you need software. [Adam] has ported
Fuzix
over which is nice. We wonder what the Rockwell designer would have thought of such an extravagance of memory, an SD Card, and a larger display. They’d probably complain there was no thermal printer.
A lot of the supporting functions use a Teensy and an Arduino Nano. There is also a Raspberry Pi Pico in the mix. That offers a lot of possibilities for future upgrades for displays. Maybe an ESP32 could even put it on WiFi.
For us, when we want to play with 6502 code, we grab a
Kim-UNO
, even though it is emulated. We’ve seen a lot of
6502 activity lately
. Not bad for a CPU approaching 50 years of age. | 22 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500878",
"author": "macsimski",
"timestamp": "2022-08-07T06:24:31",
"content": "Well, my aim65 looks quite different, but the resemblance to the trs80 model 100 is striking",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6500882",
"author"... | 1,760,372,605.948149 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/08/cyberdeck-brainstorming-hack-chat/ | Cyberdeck Brainstorming Hack Chat | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hack Chat"
] | Join us on Wednesday, August 10 at noon Pacific for the
Cyberdeck Brainstorming Hack Chat
!
If there’s one thing for sure about Hackaday, it’s that we keep a finger on the pulse of the hardware hacking community. Trends come and go, but they rarely slip by us, thanks to the constant supply of tips to hot projects that our loyal readers send in. It’s great to get a first look at these projects and see what kind of trends they represent, and to see how the community reacts to them. Some trends fade quickly, some catch on for a bit, and some really catch fire.
One trend that’s gotten pretty hot lately is the cyberdeck. Finding ways to squeeze a computer into a compact, field-ready package and make it useable is a challenge right off the bat. Adding the suite of sensors and peripherals that have become de rigueur for cyberdecks adds another level of complexity, and taking the build across the finish line with the proper cyberdeck aesthetic makes these gadgets super-fun to build and (hopefully) to use.
If cyberdecks sound like fun, you’re right! And to help us all get onboard the cyberdeck train, we’re going to mix things up with this Hack Chat. Rather than putting one person in the hot seat for our usual AMA-style discussion, we thought it would be fun to get everyone into a chat and brainstorm some cyberdeck designs. And to help seed the discussion, we’ve invited a bunch of hackers whose cyberdeck builds we’ve featured before:
[bootdsc], maker of
the VirtuScope
[Back7], who popularized
the Pi-in-a-Pelican
style of cyberdeck
[a8ksh4], designer of
the “chonky palmtop”
[I/O] and
the Joopyter
retro personal terminal
[cyzoonic], who upped the complexity with
a watertight ruggedized cyberdeck
We’re not sure everyone will be able to make it, but we are sure that the more cyberdeck-adjacent people we have in the chat, the better. Whether you’re a veteran builder or just starting your first build, you’re going to want to stop by this Hack Chat and get in on the discussion. Particularly because
we’re just kicking off our new Cyberdeck Design Contest
in about an hour (spoiler!), and this’ll be a great way to get going!
Our Hack Chats are live community events in the
Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging
. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, August 10 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a
handy time zone converter
. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501200",
"author": "william payne (@william45994166)",
"timestamp": "2022-08-08T23:46:36",
"content": "<~$100 x86 and ARM platforms [raspberries, x86 SBCs, windows 11 laptops, chromebooks] appear to us as embedded controllers, not mainframes. Which require embedded controller sof... | 1,760,372,606.120129 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/08/a-plasma-tweeter-for-ultimate-clarity/ | Hackaday Prize 2022: A Plasma Tweeter For Ultimate Clarity | Jenny List | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"plasma tweeter",
"tesla coil"
] | In the world of audio there are a huge variety of esoteric technologies which are rarely seen. One such is the plasma tweeter, a type of loudspeaker which generates sound by modulating a small electrical discharge. The benefit of this design comes in its delivering the closest possible to a point audio source, in effect the theoretical ideal speaker for treble frequencies. They’re a little hazardous due to the voltage but aren’t too difficult to make,
as demonstrated by [M
ircemk]
whose version uses a recycled power pentode tube — which is how it showed up in the Hack it Back round of the Hackaday Prize.
It can be thought of as a cousin of the Tesla coil, with the same resonant oscillator but no capacity hat. Instead the top of the coil ends in a point, from which in the perfect speaker a ball of plasma replaces the Tesla’s impressive sparks. In this case the pentode is joined by a high-voltage TV line output transistor as a bias supply, which is in turn modulated with the audio through a small amplifier. It sometimes needs the plasma teasing out of it through discharge to a screwdriver, but the result is a very effective and clear plasma tweeter.
If plasma tweeters interest you,
we’ve featured them before
.
The
Hackaday
Prize2022
is Sponsored by: | 18 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501136",
"author": "fiveseven",
"timestamp": "2022-08-08T16:08:15",
"content": "No mention of ozone? 😁 Might turn out to be a headache-inducing listening experience.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6501178",
"author"... | 1,760,372,606.295159 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/08/martian-successes-reshape-sample-return-plans/ | Martian Successes Reshape Sample Return Plans | Tom Nardi | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Slider",
"Space"
] | [
"Curiosity",
"Ingenuity",
"mars",
"Mars Ascent Vehicle",
"Mars Sample Return",
"Perseverance"
] | For as long as humans have been sending probes to Mars, there’s been a desire to return rock, soil, and atmosphere samples back to Earth for more detailed analysis. But the physics of such a mission are particularly demanding — a vehicle that could land on the Martian surface, collect samples, and then launch itself back into orbit for the return to Earth would be massive and prohibitively expensive with our current technology.
Mars sample return tube
Instead, NASA and their international partners have been working to distribute the cost and complexity of the mission among several different vehicles. In fact, the first phase of the program is well underway.
The
Perseverance
rover has been collecting samples
and storing them in 15 cm (6 inch) titanium tubes since it landed on the Red Planet in February of 2021. Considerable progress has also been made on the
Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) which will carry the samples from the surface
and into orbit around the planet, where they will eventually be picked up by yet another vehicle which will ultimately return them to Earth.
But there’s still some large gaps in the overall plan. Chief among them is how the samples are to be transferred into the MAV. Previously, the European Space Agency (ESA) was to contribute a small “fetch rover” which would collect the sample tubes dropped by
Perseverance
and bring them to the MAV launch site.
But in a recent press release
, NASA has announced that those plans have changed significantly, thanks at least in part to the incredible success of the agency’s current Mars missions.
Reliable Rovers
Originally, the NASA-built Sample Retrieval Lander (SRL) was to have delivered both the MAV and the ESA’s rover to the surface in one shot. But
in 2020 an Independent Review Board expressed concern
with the size and mass of such a vehicle, specifically that it would necessitate the development of a new and therefore untested Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) system. They argued that the MAV and ESA rover should land separately using a variation of the EDL technology developed for the
Curiosity
and
Perseverance
rovers.
Instead, NASA and the ESA have agreed to simply delete the rover entirely and have
Perseverance
deliver the samples to the SRL itself. Based on the longevity of
Curiosity
, which has now
spent a decade on the Martian surface
, there’s an excellent chance that
Perseverance
will still be operational in 2031 when the SRL is expected to arrive.
Testing the Sample Retrieval Lander’s robotic arm.
From an outsider’s perspective, it might seem like this should have been the plan from the start. After all, if the samples are already on a functioning rover, why do you need a second rover to come retrieve them? But keep in mind that when this plan was originally devised,
Curiosity
and its twin
Perseverance
had yet to prove themselves. Having the smaller and less complex ESA fetch rover available was seen as a reasonable precaution, so that the samples could be retrieved even if
Perseverance
itself had failed or became stuck.
But there’s something of a catch. The robotic arm on
Perseverance
which handles the sample tubes lacks the necessary dexterity to actually load them into the MAV. The best it will be able to do is drop them on the surface close enough to the SRL that its
ESA-developed 2.5 meter (8.2 feet) Sample Transfer Arm
can pick them up and store them. It won’t be the most glamorous of hand-offs in the history of interplanetary exploration, but there’s something to be said for keeping things simple.
Helicopter Backup
While the new plan utilizes
Perseverance
as the primary means of sample transportation, the success of the overall mission is too important not to build some redundancy into the plan. So in place of a second rover, NASA has decided to go with a bold approach that would have been considered science fiction just a few years ago: should
Perseverance
be unable to reach the SRL for whatever reason, a pair of helicopters derived from
the design of the wildly successful
Ingenuity
will attempt to retrieve them.
Helicopters based on
Ingenuity
offer a contingency plan.
Little information has been released about how these new helicopters will differ from their predecessor, other than the fact that they will now feature wheels mounted to the end of the landing legs and a miniature robotic arm capable of capturing a single sample tube. The addition of wheels means that the helicopters don’t need to land directly over the tube, they just need to get close enough that they can roll over to them. After the sample tube has been picked up from the surface, the helicopter will fly it back and drop it by the SRL.
While
Ingenuity
has far exceeded all expectations in terms of its performance and longevity, the proposed modifications to the aircraft and this ambitious new mission present new challenges and risks. Sending a pair of helicopters offers another layer of redundancy, and it’s likely that the second helicopter won’t even be activated until the first one has demonstrated its ability to retrieve a sample, offering mission controllers a valuable “do over” should something go wrong.
Of course, should
Perseverance
not need any help completing its mission, you can be sure that NASA will have some scientifically valuable task that the pair of choppers can set themselves to. After all, you don’t carry hardware 100 million miles to
not
use it. | 19 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501115",
"author": "setho",
"timestamp": "2022-08-08T14:18:10",
"content": "I sense a disconnect here with NASA. They are betting that in a couple of years Space-x’s Starship is going to be able to land men on the moon, but they are at the same time acting that it is going to be i... | 1,760,372,606.709289 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/08/pc-hardware-monitor-uses-tricorder-derived-tech/ | PC Hardware Monitor Uses Tricorder-Derived Tech | Tom Nardi | [
"computer hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"2022 Sci-Fi Contest",
"sci-fi",
"system monitor"
] | The
visually striking hardware monitor that [Mangy_Dog] recently put together
for his new custom PC build might look like something out of the
Alien
franchise, but the hardware he’s built it around actually comes from a very different science-fiction property:
Star Trek
. Or at least, from a very impressive line of
Star Trek
props, anyway.
Given the incredible amount of time and effort that
[Mangy_Dog] has put into developing his
Star Trek: Voyager
tricorder
, it’s no surprise that he would decide to reuse its graphics chip and microcontroller. But while the familiar hardware might have helped jump-start this build, this was no weekend project.
He’s steadily been working on it for several months now,
and even entered it into the 2022 Sci-Fi Contest
back in April. Obviously he wasn’t able to complete it before the Contest deadline, but looking at the final results, we’re happy to see he kept chugging away at it.
Of course, with a project like this, the hardware is only half the battle. In the video below, [Mangy_Dog] explains the challenges involved in creating not only the firmware that runs on the monitor, but the accompanying PC-side application. This included modifying existing libraries to add support for the device’s unique flash storage arrangement, and pulling the relevant system status information out of the operating system and into a series of customizable widgets.
As impressive as the project is, [Mangy_Dog] says he’s not done yet. A second revision of the hardware and software will address several issues and add new capabilities, and considering the
high degree of polish we’ve come to expect from his creations
, we’re not surprised | 17 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501095",
"author": "GEO",
"timestamp": "2022-08-08T12:09:30",
"content": "Is there a place that has style guides or something similar for sci-fi franchises, or do people just really watch and look closely and come up with there own?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"rep... | 1,760,372,606.537921 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/08/was-there-a-programmable-pong-chip/ | Was There A ProgrammablePONGChip? | Jenny List | [
"Games",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"MOS Technology",
"pong",
"PONG on a chip"
] | Students of game console history will reach back into the 1970s for the primordial machines, tracing from the Magnavox Odyssey onwards, and thence via the Fairchild Channel F into the world of microprocessors and the chain of machines that lead us to those we enjoy today. In the early days there was a parallel evolution for a few years of dedicated video game consoles with no interchangeable cartridges or microprocessors, these took their inspiration from the legendary
PONG
arcade game and used dedicated non-programmable hardware in custom chips to create their video. But
was there a programmable
PONG
chip lurking among all the others
? [Old VCR] takes a look.
Many readers will be familiar with MOS Technology as the originator of the 6502 processor used in so many 8-bit home computers. But perhaps many of our attention spans will have passed over another of their products, the MOS 7600 and 7601. These were the chip company’s entry into the surprisingly congested mid-70s
PONG
-in-a-chip market, and the article investigates the question of whether they might in fact be mask-programmed microcontrollers masquerading as dedicated chips.
It’s a fascinating tour through the mid-70s in terms of games consoles, MOS, and through their eventual takeover, Commodore. The possibility of a mask-programmed
PONG
chip is explored in detail and discounted, though like [Old VCR], we’d love to see one decapped and reverse engineered. For us a stronger line of evidence comes in asking why MOS would stop at
PONG
if they had a mask-programmed microcontroller in their catalogue, and that our not having seen MOS microcontrollers appearing all over Commodore’s subsequent products suggests that it may be simply another dedicated
PONG
chip like all the others.
We’ve seen quite a few variants of this iconic game over the years, but few as impressive as
one made from discrete components
. | 19 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501080",
"author": "Timo",
"timestamp": "2022-08-08T09:07:37",
"content": "I did something very similar, just not mask-programmed. Even the graphics look very similar.https://hackaday.io/project/185639-oszipong",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,606.643201 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/07/real-robot-one-is-real/ | Real Robot One Is… Real | Al Williams | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"robot",
"robot arm",
"robotics"
] | Most of the robot arms we see are cool but little more than toys. Usually, they use RC servos to do motion and that’s great for making some basic motion, but if you want something more industrial and capable, check out [Pavel’s]
RR1 — Real Robot One
. The beefy arm has six degrees of freedom powered by stepper motors and custom planetary gearboxes. Each joint has an encoder for precise position feedback. The first prototype is already working, as you can see in the video below. Version two is forthcoming.
When you see the thing in action, you can immediately tell it isn’t a toy. There are four NEMA23 steppers and three smaller NEMA17 motors. While there are 3D printed parts, you can see a lot of metal in the build, also. You can see a video of the arm lifting up a 1 kilogram barbell and picking up a refreshing soft drink.
From [Pavel’s] comments about the second revision, it sounds like he is trying to minimize backlash which must be a bit of a problem with the first version. One thing we didn’t see were any design files for any part of the device so, for now, it will just have to serve as inspiration. But since the project is up on Hackaday.io, we are hopeful we will eventually get a peek at the second revision design.
Meanwhile, if you want to build something more modest, maybe
raid a CD drive
. While servo-based arms have a bad reputation, you can, in fact,
make them very capable
with some work. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501063",
"author": "SaratogaJerry",
"timestamp": "2022-08-08T06:10:43",
"content": "Well, I don’t know much about robot building (yet, HAD helping) but I do visit auction sites and was a little frustrated having to go through three or four 60-item pages of steppers. So, it you are... | 1,760,372,606.477363 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/07/robot-repeatedly-rearranges-remnants-in-the-round/ | Robot Repeatedly Rearranges Remnants In The Round | Michael Shaub | [
"News",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"art",
"art installation",
"cinema 4d",
"Dynamixel",
"prototype",
"robot arm",
"Robot Operating System",
"ros",
"sand table",
"Sisyphus",
"Sisyphus table"
] | Sisyphus
is an art installation by [Kachi Chan] featuring two scales of robots engaged in endless cyclic interaction. Smaller robots build brick arches while a giant robot pushes them down. As [Kachi Chan] says “this robotic system propels a narrative of construction and deconstruction.” The project was awarded honorary mention at the Ars Electronica’s Prix Ars 2022 in the
Digital Communities
category. Watch the video after the break to see the final concept.
[Kachi Chan] developed the installation in pre-visualizations and through a series of prototypes shown in a moody process film, the second video after the break. While the film is quite short on details, you’ll see iterations of the robot arm and computer vision system. According to
this article
on the project [Kachi Chan] used Cinema 4D to simulate the motion, ROS for control, PincherX150 robotic arms modified with Dynamixel XM 430 & XL430 servo motors, and custom 3D prints.
We’ve covered another type of Sisyphus project,
sand tables like this
and the
Sisyphish
. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501036",
"author": "paul shallard",
"timestamp": "2022-08-08T02:37:40",
"content": "beautiful analogue of my lifeI try to build thingsbig brother tears them down",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6501062",
"author": "Bi... | 1,760,372,606.755113 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/05/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-sdram-timing-but-were-afraid-to-ask/ | Everything You Wanted To Know About SDRAM Timing But Were Afraid To Ask | Al Williams | [
"News"
] | [
"ddr4",
"sdram"
] | One of the problems with being engaged in our hobby or profession is that people assume if you can build a computer out of chips, you must know all the details of their latest laptop computer. Most of the memory we deal with is pretty simple compared to DDR4 memory and if you’ve ever tried tweaking your memory, you know a good BIOS has dozens of settings for memory. [Actually Hardcore Overclocking] has a
great description of a typical DDR4
datasheet and you can watch it in the video below.
Of course, he points out that knowing all this really doesn’t help you much with memory overclocking because you can’t really predict the complex effects without trial and error. However, most of us like to understand the knobs we are randomly twisting. On top of that, one theme of the video is that DRAM is dumb and simple. If you’ve ever thought about using it in a project, this might be a good place to start.
After all, there are only 18 commands — way less than a typical microcontroller. If self-design appeals to you, you’ll be a little disappointed that he doesn’t cover the self-refresh and power saving modes, but the video will give you a good foundation to start learning more.
Even of the 18 commands, to just read and write, you only need a small number of commands. However, if you want to roll your own, you’ll need quite a few of them. If you are targeting an FPGA, there are a number of FPGA-based controllers like
this one
that can help you learn even more.
Don’t forget that
DDR5
is going to make you buy new RAM soon enough and then you’ll have lots of spare DDR4. Of course, these days you might prefer designing around
NVMe
which is sort of memory and sort of a disk drive. | 9 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500737",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2022-08-06T09:11:28",
"content": "Low capacitance on lines for good slew rateDifferential traces as close as possibleLength matched traces (impedance matched if its very high speed)Line termination resistorsAm I missing anything?",
... | 1,760,372,606.580676 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/05/e-paper-price-tags-combined-to-create-a-large-wireless-display/ | E-paper Price Tags Combined To Create A Large Wireless Display | Danie Conradie | [
"hardware"
] | [
"e-ink price tag",
"e-paper",
"zigbee"
] | E-paper price tags have become popular for retail stores over the past few years, which is great for hackers since we now have some more cheap commodity hardware to play with. [Aaron Christophel] went all on creating
grid displays with E-paper price tags
, up to a 20×15 grid.
E-paper price tags are great for these kinds of projects, since they are wireless, lightweight, and can last a long time with the onboard batteries. To mount the individual tags on the plywood backboard,[Aaron] simply glued Velcro to the backboard of the tags. The displays’ firmware is based on the
reverse engineering work of [Dmitry Grinberg]
, flashed to a few hundred tags using a convenient
3D printed pogo pin programming jig
. All the displays are controlled via a Zigbee USB dongle plugged into a PC running station software.
[Aaron] is also experimenting with the displays removed from their enclosure and popped into a 3D printed grid frame. The disadvantage is the loss of the battery holders and the antenna, which are both integrated into the enclosure. He plans to get around this by powering the displays from a single large battery, and connecting an ESP32 to the displays via ISP or UART.
This project comes hot on the heels of
another E-ink grid display
project that uses Bluetooth and a rather clever update scheme. | 3 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500732",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2022-08-06T08:51:17",
"content": "First thing I did was look up the price of these price tags, and apparently they’re around EUR 21 a piece. (Single quantity from Ali)21*20*15 = EUR 6300 and that’s a bit much for a fun project.Second thou... | 1,760,372,606.949585 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/05/lawnmower-doesnt-need-a-base-station/ | Lawnmower Doesn’t Need A Base Station | Al Williams | [
"gps hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"DWM1000",
"gps",
"lawnmower",
"mower",
"UWB"
] | A recent tour of an old WWII-era aircraft carrier reminded us how hard navigation was before the advent of GPS. It used to be the work of skilled people to sight the sun or the stars and use giant books to figure out a vessel’s position. Now you just ask your phone to listen to some GPS satellites and you have precision undreamed of with other systems. But GPS sometimes isn’t enough. Just using conventional GPS, you can locate yourself to a couple of meters. The new L5 band, which isn’t on all satellites yet, can get you to about 30cm. But if you need better — up to around 1 or 2 cm — you need to use special techniques lumped together as GNSS enhancements. [Viktor] wanted to have an
Arudino -based lawnmower
, but wanted to use more conventional GPS techniques along with ultrawideband (UWB) ranging tags.
Given that the ranging anchors are in the mowing area, we aren’t sure why the mower even has GPS other than to geofence so you can’t start autonomous operations until you are in range of the tags. The three anchors are placed in a triangle, so if the robot knows the distance to each tag it can use some math to locate itself inside the area quite precisely.
In addition to knowing where it is, the mower needs to learn where to cut. To do this, you have to manually drive the mower around the perimeter using Bluetooth.
Overall, a good-looking project. If you need super accuracy with GPS, it is common to use a base station and compare the phase of the received signals from the base station with those of the robot. This lets you know very precisely where you are in relation to the base station, but doesn’t tell you any more about exactly where you are than using regular GPS. Of course, if you know exactly where the base station is, that works, too.
A lot of mowers we see use an
off-the-shelf motion base
. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen
an Arduino-based mower
. | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500696",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2022-08-06T03:15:03",
"content": "This is cool. It uses four Qorvo (created by the 2014 merger of TriQuint Semiconductor and RF Micro Devices)[1] DWM1000 3.5 – 6.5 GHz Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Transceiver Modules [2] which cost $16.67 USD each ... | 1,760,372,607.003662 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/05/bps-space-succesfully-lands-a-model-rocket/ | BPS.Space Succesfully Lands A Model Rocket | Danie Conradie | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"bps.space",
"flight computer",
"joe barnard",
"model rocketry",
"Thrust vectoring"
] | If you’ve been following [Joe Barnard]’s rocketry projects for the past few years, you’ll know that one of his primary goals has been to
propulsively land a model rocket
like SpaceX. Now, 7 years into the rollercoaster journey, he has finally achieved that goal with the latest version of his Scout rocket.
We have touchdown!
Many things need to come together to launch AND land a rocket on standard hobby-grade solid fuel rocket motors. A core component is stabilization of the rocket during the entire flight, which achieved using a thrust-vectoring control (TVC) mount for the rocket motors and a
custom flight computer
loaded with carefully tuned guidance software. Until recently, the TVC mounts were 3D printed, but [Joe] upgraded it to
machined aluminum
to eliminate as much flex and play as possible.
Since solid-fuel rockets can’t technically be throttled, [Joe] originally tried to time the ignition time of the descent motor in such a manner that it would burn out as the rocket touches down. The ignition time and exact thrust numbers simply weren’t repeatable enough, so in his
2020 landing attempts
, he achieved some throttling effect by oscillating the TVC side to side, reducing the vertical thrust component. This eventually gave way to the final solution, a
pair of ceramic pincers
which block the thrust of the motors as required.
Another interesting component is the landing legs. Made from light carbon fiber rods, they are released by melting a rubber band with nichrome wire and fold into place under spring tension. They also had to be carefully refined to absorb as much impact as possible without bouncing, which killed a few previous landing attempts.
Scrolling back through [Joe]’s videos and seeing the progress in his engineering is absolutely inspiring, and we look forward to his future plans. These include a functional scale model of the belly-flopping starship, a mysterious “meat rocket”, and the big one, a space shot to exceed 100 km altitude. | 16 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500648",
"author": "goop",
"timestamp": "2022-08-05T21:46:02",
"content": "It’s been so cool watching this come together over the years.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6500649",
"author": "Paul LeBlanc",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,372,606.909061 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/05/esp32-powers-covert-pentesting-device/ | ESP32 Powers Covert Pentesting Device | Tom Nardi | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"covert",
"ESP32-S",
"pentesting"
] | Looking to expand their hardware design experience,
[mentalburden] recently put together a low-cost handheld gadget
that can be used for various security-related tasks such as logging WiFi traffic, operating as a dead drop, and performing deauthentication attacks.
The custom PCB plays host to the essentials — an ESP32-S microcontroller, AMS1117 3.3 V regulator, a SSD1306 OLED, and a couple of buttons. This lets the user navigate through a simple menu system and select whatever function they wish to enable. During testing, a pair of 18650 cells kept the electronics running for an impressive 22 hours.
A second version of the PCB fixed a few bodges that were required to get the original prototype working, and given how energy efficient the hardware ended up being, [mentalburden] decided to drop the power supply down to a single 18650 for a total runtime of around 15 hours. A 3D printed case and some silicone buttons, produced with a simple clay mold, completed the package.
There’s still some improvements that could be made, namely integrating a battery charging circuit into the PCB and switching over to USB-C, but overall its a solid prototype with an impressive per-unit cost of less than $10 USD. Though if you’re looking for something even cheaper, we’ve seen
an even more simplistic approach based on the ESP-01
. | 11 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500623",
"author": "Sword",
"timestamp": "2022-08-05T18:44:42",
"content": "Meh. I wrote code for the TTGo Twatch 2020 v1 for packet injection (Broadcast Deauth, and beacon spam) tied into lvgl. A bonus is it also provides smartwatch functionality. Battery life is terrible while in... | 1,760,372,607.060738 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/05/books-you-should-read-the-hardware-hackers-handbook/ | Books You Should Read: The Hardware Hacker’s Handbook | Arya Voronova | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Reverse Engineering",
"Reviews",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [
"hardware hacking",
"power glitching",
"Side channel",
"side channel analysis"
] | Here on Hackaday, we routinely cover wonderful informative writeups on different areas of hardware hacking, and we even have our own university with courses that delve into topics one by one. I’ve had my own fair share of materials I’ve learned theory and practical aspects from over the years I’ve been hacking – as it stands, for over thirteen years. When such materials weren’t available on any particular topic, I’d go through hundreds of forum pages trawling for details on a specific topic, or spend hours fighting with an intricacy that everyone else considered obvious.
Today, I’d like to highlight one of the most complete introductions to hardware hacking I’ve seen so far – from overall principles to technical details, spanning all levels of complexity, uniting theory and practice. This is
The Hardware Hacking Handbook, by Jasper van Woudenberg and Colin O’Flynn
. Across four hundred pages, you will find as complete of an introduction to subverting hardware as there is. None of the nuances are considered to be self-evident; instead, this book works to fill any gaps you might have, finding words to explain every relevant concept on levels from high to low.
Apart from the overall hardware hacking principles and examples, this book focuses on the areas of fault injection and power analysis – underappreciated areas of hardware security that you’d stand to learn, given that these two practices give you superpowers when it comes to taking control of hardware. It makes sense, since these areas are the focus of [Colin]’s and [Jasper]’s research, and they’re able to provide you something you wouldn’t learn elsewhere. You’d do well with a ChipWhisperer in hand if you wanted to repeat some of the things this book shows, but it’s not a requirement. For a start, the book’s theory of hardware hacking is something you would benefit from either way.
Giving You A Solid Framework…
Having a solid theoretical basis for hardware hacking helps a lot. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll do pretty well reading our articles and learning from examples of your fellow hackers’ work – but there are going to be structural gaps when it comes to how hacks relate to each other and what else is out there.
Traditionally, such gaps would be by universities and educational courses, taking a lot of information, structuring it and then gifting that structure for you to sort all further knowledge into. Sadly, we know that even if you can find a professor, it’s not a requirement that their lectures are engaging – or up to date with modern times. This book spends a hundred pages creating a structure for you, a categorized bookshelf to sort your books into. In order to have a complete picture of hardware and never run out of ways to approach it, it helps if you understand your device in the same way that a hardware security understand s it, and both of our authors worked tirelessly to convey their mental frameworks to you, with plentiful examples.
Whether it’s going through Intel CPU die shots and pointing out different areas, showing protocol signal traces to demystify what really happens with a signal, or explaining the potential hidden in different PCB features you might encounter on the board you’re tackling, you get a glimpse into an expert’s mind as you go through the examples they provide you with. It doesn’t shy away from topics like cryptography, either – something that a hacker might not know they could use, and might be compelled to treat as a black box. In fact, it’s arguably one of the most important topics such a book could go into – and go there, it does. Before you start RSA key extraction, they go through RSA calculations involved in cryptographic signatures – while some understanding of algebra is beneficial, it’s not required, and you can always supplement with something like
the RSA calculator
we covered recently.
…And Teaching You How To Apply It
Without a doubt, you’ll want examples, as that’s how we learn best. With these advanced techniques in hand, they take the Trezor One cryptowallet, a device sold online today, and bypass its security measures, extracting the private keys stored on the wallet. The focus on power analysis and glitching pays off handsomely here – in fact, almost literally. This demonstration is advanced and heavy enough that it deserves its own chapter, and even if you don’t follow the steps as you go through it, the attack ties the concepts you’ve seen together, helping you make the links between what you’ve read and what you will do when you need to extract secrets out of your own device.
The authors make sure to keep the theory firmly coupled to real-world hardware as the book progresses. As training grounds for the Trezor wallet foray, you’ll be taught you how to solder a FET to the underside of a Raspberry Pi 3B+ PCB in order to glitch the CPU power rail and try making the CPU skip instructions. This exercise assumes you have a ChipWhisperer, though just the Lite version will do, but if you want to get real results anyway without the precise timing that the ChipWhisperer brings, you can use an ATMega328P and a piezoelectric generator from a BBQ lighter – giving you insights without tying the book’s value to a piece of extra hardware.
Then, they go into power analysis – something that you can often do with an oscilloscope, and present you with the basics. It’s a chapter that I’m only going through myself still, with this book being as information-dense as it is. However, I have high hopes for it, as power analysis is simultaneously a relatively non-invasive way to extract information and also an attack vector that most of hardware out there in the wild is susceptible to, making this part of the book a priority of mine when facing a bit of free time in my schedule. In fact, about a third of this book is devoted to power analysis techniques, from simple to advanced, and goes through multiple test setups, with even an Arduino-based target to get your feet wet.
Of course, part of hardware hacker’s power is in the equipment, which is why it’s hard to write a book like that and not expect your reader to have a few specific tools. The authors are mindful of that, which is why there’s an entire chapter going into equipping your own lab – on budgets from high to very low. A lot of the tools, you’ll be able to makeshift or repurpose, or will be able to use thanks to a friendly nearby hackerspace. Of course, most of them, you’ll get by without in the beginning, but when you encounter a particular problem, it’s helpful to know that there’s a tool for your exact need.
Side Channel Attacks Will Only Get Better
Since this book’s release, we’ve seen Colin advance the frontier of side channel attacks once more. Just last year, he’s given
a Remoticon talk
about EM injection glitching, and provided us with an accessible method on doing that without any fancy hardware requirements. These side channel attacks are an advancing field that chips will remain vulnerable to in the foreseeable future, and this book will get you up to speed on applying these methods when unlocking your own
For newcomers, such a promising field of study is a great intro to getting hardware, as many other attack surfaces we’ve known for years are nowadays well-protected and often won’t work as well in the wild. For professionals, you’ll undoubtedly find a few blind spots in your knowledge that you’d do good eliminating. We don’t have technology for uploading information into our brain – yet; as it stands, books are the closest we can get to that, and The Hardware Hacking Handbook is a respectable attempt to teach you what hardware hackers like [Jasper] and [Colin] know. | 37 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500593",
"author": "Ale",
"timestamp": "2022-08-05T17:20:24",
"content": "A German version of the book would be great",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6500857",
"author": "some guy",
"timestamp": "2022-08-07T01... | 1,760,372,607.142544 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/05/hackaday-podcast-180-tiny-crts-springy-pcbs-and-measuring-trees/ | Hackaday Podcast 180: Tiny CRTs, Springy PCBs, And Measuring Trees | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | The demogorgon just wants to be friends. See? He’s waving hello.
This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos traded sweat for silence, recording from their respective attic-level offices in the August heat unaided by fans (too noisy). We decided there’s no real news this week that lacks a political bent, except maybe that Winamp is back with a new version that’s four years in the making. (Is Winamp divisive?) Does it still whip the llama’s ass? You be the judge.
After Elliot gives Kristina a brief math lesson in increasing area with regard to 3D printer nozzle sizes, we talk a bit about 3D pens, drool over a truly customizable macropad that uses a microcontroller for each keyswitch, and discuss dendrometers and tree health. Then it’s back to keyboards for one incredible modular build with an e-ink display and haptic feedback knob which is soon to go open source.
Finally, we talk tiny CRTs, a USB drive that must have the ultimate in security through obscurity, discuss the merits of retrograde clocks, and wonder aloud about the utility of jumping PCBs. Don’t bounce on us just yet — not until you hear about our first electronics wins and learn the one thing Kristina doesn’t do when she’s spending all day in the heat.
Direct download.
And listen with Winamp!
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 180 Show Notes:
News:
Elliot is going camping for real
Kristina is going glamping in a nearby burg and staying in a cottage
And Winamp gets a version update!
What’s that Sound?
Almost everyone got it right, including Kristina! Only one person can win, however, and that person is [highflux7]!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Go Big Or Go Home: 0.6 mm Nozzles Are The Future
A Customizable Macropad To Make Anyone’s Tail Wag
OpenDendrometer Can Measure How Your Tree Feels
(28) Point dendrometer – WSL
Smart Modular Keyboard Sports An E-ink Display And A Haptic Feedback Knob
ElectronBot: A Sweet Mini Desktop Robot That Ticks All The Boxes
Homemade SawStop Attachment Is Just About As Sketchy As It Sounds
Tiny Arcade Uses Tiny CRT
A Vintage Sony Portable TV, Brought Up To Date
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Ultimate Bokeh With A Projector Lens
Hoverboard Powered Sofa Is Fun And A Bit Dangerous
USB Drive Keeps Your Secrets… As Long As Your Fingers Are Wet?
Scavenging CDs For Flexible Parts
Kristina’s Picks:
DIY Retrograde Clock Is 3D Printed
You Can Build A Giant 7-Segment Display Of Your Very Own
When [Carl] Says Jump, PCBs Say “How High?”
180° PCB Flaps
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Ask Hackaday: What Was Your First Electronics Win?
Clacker Hacker: Popping a Cap in a Brother EP-43 Thermal Typewriter
Electrolytes, They’re What Dehydrated Hackaday Writers Crave! | 4 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6501173",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2022-08-08T19:36:56",
"content": "The point of Winamp is what it doesn’t have. No cloud integration, no social media integration, not connected to a streaming platform, no ads, no accounts or logins, is not a video player by design, isn’t tr... | 1,760,372,607.190983 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/04/converting-an-80s-typewriter-into-a-linux-terminal/ | Converting An 80s Typewriter Into A Linux Terminal | Dan Maloney | [
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"daisy wheel",
"linux",
"multiplexer",
"raspberry pi",
"teletype",
"terminal",
"tty",
"typewriter"
] | Typewriters may be long past their heyday, but just because PCs, word processor software, and cheap printers have made them largely obsolete doesn’t mean the world is better off without them. Using a typewriter is a rich sensory experience, from the feel of the keys under your fingers that even the clickiest of PC keyboards can’t compare with, to the weirdly universal sound of the type hitting paper.
So if life hands you a typewriter, why not put it back to work? That’s exactly what [Artillect] did by
converting an 80s typewriter into a Linux terminal
. The typewriter is a Brother AX-25, one of those electronic typewriters that predated word processing software and had a daisy wheel printhead, a small LCD display, and a whopping 8k of memory for editing documents. [Artillect] started his build by figuring out which keys mapped to which characters in the typewriter’s 8×11 matrix, and then turning an Arduino and two multiplexers loose on the driving the print head. The typewriter’s keyboard is yet used for input, as the project is still very much in the prototyping phase, so a Raspberry Pi acts as a serial monitor between the typewriter and a laptop. The video below has a good overview of the wiring and the software, and shows the typewriter banging out Linux command line output.
For now, [Artillect]’s typewriter acts basically like
an old-school teletype
. There’s plenty of room to take this further; we’d love to see this turned into a cyberdeck complete with a built-in printer, for instance. But even just as a proof of concept, this is pretty great, and you can be sure we’ll be trolling the thrift stores and yard sales looking for old typewriters. | 26 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500362",
"author": "Artillect",
"timestamp": "2022-08-04T20:46:37",
"content": "Thanks for writing this wonderful article about my project! Nothing beats the sound of the mechanism clacking away :)Let me know if you have any questions!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"... | 1,760,372,607.249377 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/04/30-free-circuit-simulators-lightly-reviewed/ | 30 Free Circuit Simulators Lightly Reviewed | Al Williams | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"simulation",
"SPICE"
] | We live in a time where great software is available with the click of a mouse, often for free or — at least — low cost. But there’s a problem: how do you select from so many alternatives? We were interested in [Lee Teschler]’s review earlier this year of
30 free circuit simulators
. If you are selecting one or don’t like the one you are currently using, it is well worth the time to review.
There are several on the list that you’ve probably heard of before like GNUCap and LTspice. There are also some lesser-known products. Some of those are just trial or student versions of paid products. Some are branded versions of commercial products (like Tina) or were made free after selling for higher price tags (like
MicroCap 12
).
Old favorites like Falstad (which is apparently known as Circuit Sims) and TinkerCAD made the list. Many of the trial versions were very limited. For example, DCAClab only provides an NPN bipolar transistor model. Proteus doesn’t let you save or print unless you pay. While the list includes TI’s Tina, it doesn’t seem to mention that TI also provides a
free version of PSpice
which is a very popular professional product.
While the capsule descriptions are nice, you may want to dig in a little on the ones you are most interested in. For example, Falstad has a great mixed mode that can even
include an AVR microprocessor
. But there were a few on the list we had not heard of and maybe you’ll find something new there, too. | 17 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500343",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2022-08-04T19:43:19",
"content": "Qucs and QucsStudio (not mentioned) are actually different programs – the backend simulation stuff for QucsStudio is entirely redone. It’s one of the only transmission line calculators I’ve found that has cou... | 1,760,372,607.489862 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/04/reduced-sulfur-emissions-could-cause-climate-shock/ | Reduced Sulfur Emissions Could Cause Climate Shock | Lewin Day | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Science"
] | [
"aerosol",
"aerosols",
"albedo",
"climate change",
"global warming",
"science",
"sulfur",
"sulfur dioxide",
"sulfur emissions"
] | When we talk about emissions these days, we typically talk about cutting them back for the good of the environment. However, the climate system is a complex beast, and one we’re still learning to understand.
As it turns out, cutting back on emissions may have unexpected or undesirable effects. Some scientists are concerned that cuts to human-induced sulfur emissions may actually be warming the Earth.
What’s The Deal With Sulfur Emissions?
The G.G. Allen Steam Plant features a large scrubber to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions from the plant. These are common in developed countries to reduce pollution. Credit:
Murr Rhame, CC-BY-SA-3.0
Much work has been done over past decades to cut down on sulfur emissions. This has taken many forms, but often comes down to targeting fossil fuel sources. The European Union, United States, and many other jurisdictions have legislated lower sulfur levels in diesel fuels. This has led to cleaner engine designs with emissions control devices that rely on lower sulfur levels to work. Similar efforts have been made to cut sulfur levels in marine fuels as well. Many coal plants have also cut down on emissions of sulfur dioxide, through the use of flue-gas desulfurization hardware.
Cuts to sulfur emissions have been made with good intentions. SO2 and other oxides of sulfur (SOx) are harmful to human health. High levels of sulfur oxides in the air can harm plant growth, and these emissions also have a habit of causing acid rain, too.
However, as it turns out, sulfur emissions tend to help create sulfur-based aerosols that end up in the stratosphere. These aerosols actually increase the amount of sunlight reflected away from Earth. In this way, they have a cooling effect on the planet – quite the opposite of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane.
Overall, the efforts to cut down on sulfur emissions have been successful. Over time, more and more countries have switched to cleaner low-sulfur fuels, and the maritime industry has been proactive in following suit. In particular, sulfur emissions from the shipping industry have dropped 80% worldwide since 2020. The effect has only been compounded by the abrupt drop in shipping activity experienced in the first year of the coronavirus pandemic.
So What’s The Problem?
The problem is that the aerosols produced by sulfur emissions were probably doing good work cooling the Earth. As our greenhouse gas emissions have continued to ratchet up over the years, the cooling effect of our sulfur emissions may have hidden some of the damage being done.
With such a rapid reduction in sulfur emissions, we may face something called an “aerosol shock” or “termination shock.” This is where the Earth’s climate rapidly heats up once the production of cooling aerosol is terminated. This can have rapid and catastrophic impacts on the climate, or at the very least, unexpected ones.
Unfortunately, our understanding of aerosols is limited at this stage.
Models show
that the impacts of reduced sulfur emissions could be unmeasurable, or could be serious and severe warming on a regional or even global scale. That’s a wide range of options, showing that we need to better understand the problem before we can be sure.
Acid rain is just one of the many negative effects of sulfur emissions. Thus, reducing sulfur emissions is necessary, but may not be without consequences. Credit:
Nino Barbieri, CC-BY-2.5
However, we do have some measurements that indicate there may be a real problem here. Comparing 2014 to 1750, the estimated cooling effect of aerosols on the Earth was to cut roughly 1.3 watts of solar energy per square meter (W/m
2
). By 2019, that had dropped by 15%, to just 1.1 W/m
2
. That’s a significant amount.
There’s some correlation in data
from past decades, too.
As Europe began to cut sulfur dioxide emissions from the 1980s, it has seen an uptick in temperatures. Correlation does not equal causation, of course, but it’s an area worthy of further investigation.
It’s part of a broader trend in Earth’s albedo, the amount of light it reflects back to space. Less aerosols and less ice on Earth are both
making the planet less reflective
. That means the Earth absorbs more heat, leading to higher temperatures. It’s feared that rising temperatures could push further change to albedo as glaciers and ice sheets melt, locking in
a runaway increase in temperatures beyond our control
.
Can’t Turn Back The Clock
Of course, this isn’t to say we should ramp up sulfur emissions to cool things down. That would cause harm to health, likely dampen crop yields, and increase incidents of acid rain, among other negative effects.
Plus, aerosol shock is a primary reason many say
we shouldn’t intentionally use aerosols to cool the climate
. If we relied on aerosol production to counteract global warming from greenhouse gases, we’d be in big trouble we had to stop all of a sudden. Whether due to politics, mechanical failure, or some other cause, we’d be exposed to sudden ramp up in temperatures that would play havoc with the climate.
The fact that sulfur aerosols may have counteracted some warming effects is notable, but by no way a solution for the problem of climate change. Instead, it should serve as further incentive to drastically cut back on greenhouse gas emissions. We may just have to work harder than expected in order to account for the fact that sulfur-based aerosols may have been obscuring the worst consequences of our excesses.
[Headline image: “
Sulfur Fumarole
” by USGS.] | 53 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500295",
"author": "a Jaded Hobo",
"timestamp": "2022-08-04T17:28:42",
"content": "Just read “Termination Shock” by Neal Stephenson to get a good picture of this issue. Written as a novel but based on hard science.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,607.430639 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/04/jigsaw-puzzles-are-defeated/ | Jigsaw Puzzles Are Defeated | Brian McEvoy | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"because I can",
"cnc",
"gantry",
"jigsaw",
"jigsaw puzzle",
"puzzle",
"robot",
"solution without a problem",
"suction",
"telecentric",
"vacuum"
] | To some folx, puzzles are the ultimate single-player game, but to others, they are like getting a single Tootsie Roll on Halloween. [Shane] of
Stuff Made Here
must fall into the latter category because he spent the equivalent of 18 work-weeks to make a
robot that solves them automatically
. Shots have been fired in the war on puzzles.
The goal of this robot is to beat a hybrid idea of two devilish puzzles. The first is all-white which could be solved by taking a piece at random and then checking its compatibility with every unsolved piece. The second is a 5000-piece
monster
painted white. There is a
Moby Dick
theme here.
Picking up pieces
like a human with fingers is out of the question, but pick-and-place machines solved this long ago, and we learn a cool lesson about how shop-air can create negative pressure. Suction. We wonder if anyone ever repurposed canned air to create a vacuum cleaner.
The meat of this video is overcoming hurdles, like a rhomboidal gantry table, helping machine vision see puzzle pieces accurately, and
solving a small puzzle
. [Shane] explains the solutions with the ear of someone with a technical background but at a high enough level that anyone can learn something. All the moving parts are in place, but the processing
power to decode the puzzle
is orders of magnitude higher than consumer machines, so that will wait for part two. | 30 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500254",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2022-08-04T15:35:27",
"content": "“shop-air can create negative pressure. Suction. We wonder if anyone ever repurposed canned air to create a vacuum cleaner.”*Giovanni Battista Venturi enters through the wall like the koolaid mascot*... | 1,760,372,607.329716 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/04/stentrodes-a-way-to-insert-brain-electrodes-without-invasive-surgery/ | Stentrodes: A Way To Insert Brain Electrodes Without Invasive Surgery | Maya Posch | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Science"
] | [
"bci",
"Brain controlled interface",
"stent-electrode array",
"Stentrode"
] | When we think of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) that use electrodes, we usually think of Utah arrays that are placed directly on the brain during open brain surgery, or with thin electrodes spliced into the exposed brain as
postulated
by Neuralink. While Utah arrays and kin as a practical concept date back to the 1980s, a more recent concept called
Stentrodes
– for stent-electrode array – seeks to do away with the need for invasive brain surgery.
As the name suggests, this approach uses
stents
that are inserted via the blood vessels, where they are expanded and thus firmly placed inside a blood vessel inside the brain. Since each of these stents also features an electrode array, these can be used to record neural activity in nearby neural clusters, as well as induce activity through electrical stimulation.
Due to the fact that stents are already commonly used by themselves in the brain’s blood vessels, and the relatively benign nature of these electrode arrays, human trials have already been approved in 2018 by an ethics committee in Australia. Despite lingering concerns about the achievable resolution and performance of this approach, it may offer hope to millions of people suffering from paralysis and other conditions.
Using Existing Infrastructure
Arteries of the brain. (Credit: MedlinePlus, NIH)
The human brain is of all the body’s organs the one that relies the most on a constant supply of oxygen and nutrients to function and survive, and thus has a very
dense network
of blood vessels that innervate every single part. While many of these blood vessels are too narrow for medical interventions such as a cerebrovascular stent, starting with the jugular arteries and veins, a large part of the brain’s vasculature is thus accessible.
In the case of a Stentrode, a similar approach is thus employed as with a regular stent, in that using a guidewire the device is guided into position via the jugular vein and external tracking to ensure it reaches the appropriate location prior to deployment. Over the course of a few weeks the stent anchors fully into the inside of the blood vessel, where it can remain virtually indefinitely to provide mechanical support or whatever other function is required.
While for the treatment of cerebrovascular conditions using stents there’s no question about why you’d want to use this approach – since the sole goal is to deploy the supporting stent inside the blood vessel – in the case of an electrode array that is supposed to interact with the brain’s neurons there’s the question of why you would want to choose this approach.
Utah array drawing from Richard Normann’s patent. This part goes into your brain.
The obvious answer is that it involves non-invasive surgery, with no opening of the skull, and little risk of complications such as inflammation of the brain and other adverse affects that may result from invasive brain surgery. This makes it very different from the standard Utah (or
microelectrode
) array approach, as well as the electrode strings proposed by Neuralink. Theoretically Stentrodes could be placed under local anesthetic, with essentially zero recovery time afterwards required.
Although the benefits here are obvious, the questions that remain are how the performance of Stentrodes compares to other electrode arrays, and whether Stentrodes pose long-term risk in terms of blood clotting and similar cardiovascular issues, due to the necessity of having conductors running inside cerebral veins to conduct signals to and from the array.
Checking The Studies
The first research on these endovascular stent-electrode arrays was performed as far back as the 1970s (Penn et al., 1973), with
Soldozy et al. (2020)
providing a systematic literature review in the
Journal of Neurosurgery
. As noted by
Bower et al. (2013)
, for traditional neural implants transcranial surgery is required, via a burr hole or craniotomy (lifting of part of the skull), which limits the attractiveness of the use of intracranial implants.
In the Bower et al. study, they compared intravascular electrodes with subdural electrodes, finding a similar recording response with induced epileptic activity for both. In the Opie et al. (2016) proof-of-concept study Stentrode implants were used to stimulate parts of a sheep’s motor cortex with a 4 mA -6 mA current.
A:
Diagram of a sheep brain showing the motor cortex (red), and somatotopic representations of the hindlimb (yellow), forelimb (green), head and eyes (blue), and facial muscles (purple).
B:
Contrast-enhanced venogram of a sheep highlighting the cortical vessels. The asterisk indicates the desired location of the stent tip in A and B. Bar = 2 cm.
C:
Stent-electrode array (Stentrode) inside the 1.04-mm internal diameter delivery catheter prior to deployment. Bar = 1 cm.
D:
Fully expanded Stentrode. Republished with permission of IOP Publishing, Ltd, from Chronic impedance spectroscopy of an endovascular stent-electrode array: Opie NL, John SE, Rind GS, et al., J Neural Eng 13(4): 046020, 2016.
In a study with two sheep that had either just a Stentrode, or a Stentrode as well as a subdural and epidural array implant on either brain hemisphere,
Forsyth et al. (2019)
found that the accuracy of determining the sheep’s movement from the recorded data was as good if not better with just the Stentrode. Along with the results of e.g. John et al. (2019) that saw a similar study performed, this suggests that Stentrodes may be a viable BMI implant.
This then mostly leaves the question of the long-term implications of running wiring through these blood vessels, especially in terms of clotting and other, potentially fatal complications. In the meta-analysis the maximum study duration with live sheep subjects was 190 days. At the end of the study the sheep were euthanized and an autopsy was performed to assess the state of the implant.
The used devices were made out of
Nitinol
, which appears to have good biocompatibility and in-vivo is observed to induce
neointimal
coverage, which both stabilizes and anchors the material into the blood vessel’s wall. It is likely that this will also prevent the formation of blood clots, though long-term studies are required for a solid conclusion here.
Human Test Subjects
Stentrode array with transceiver unit. (Credit: Synchron Medical, Inc)
As noted earlier, the minimally invasive nature of a Stentrode implant and its adaptation of existing, approved medical devices and techniques have made its testing in human subjects. The company marketing the Stentrode, Synchron Medical, is currently running a
clinical trial
in a few locations in Australia. This study targets people who have suffered an injury or have a condition that prevents them from fully using their limbs.
Using what Synchron calls the Motor Neuroprosthesis these subjects are implanted with Stentrodes that will record the activity in their motor cortex and ultimately restore muscle control to the patient’s limbs. With the study only having started in June 2022 it will still take until the end of 2023 before the study is expected to deliver results on whether this is a viable treatment for people who suffer from paralysis, but who still have a functional motor cortex.
More details are provided on the
Synchron website
, which lists past, current and upcoming clinical trials. The clinical trial that just began follows the
Switch 1
trial, which confirmed the biocompatibility of the device in a human subject. The
Command
clinical trial appears similar to the Switch 2 trial, but takes place in the USA . Trial subjects are implanted with the Stentrode device and a transceiver unit in the chest, with communication with the transceiver apparently occurring via Bluetooth.
No Silver Bullet
As with all brain-machine interfaces, it remains important to understand the limitations of current technology. One major aspect of most brain activity recording devices in use today and in clinical trials is that they are uni-directional. For example, they read activity in the motor cortex and use that data to interpret the intended action and perform the limb movement. Yet the sensory input from the body part being manipulated is not provided back to the patient’s sensory cortex, instead ending up petering out in the spinal cord or wherever else the discontinuity starts.
This is something which is also being addressed with
current research
, but the challenge remains to provide a robust interface between computer systems and the fickle nature of biological systems. Ideally we could provide a 1:1 mapping between the motor cortex and muscles, and back from the sensors to the parts of the brain which process touch and other sensory inputs, in order to restore full biological functionality.
What is however encouraging is to see multiple, different and perhaps complementary approaches being employed and developed. Even if we don’t have the perfect way yet to undo the ravages of injury and disease, with sustained effort we will find ways to address the remaining issues. Regardless of whether the best solution turns out to be fully electrical, regenerative therapies of the remaining tissues, or a combination thereof, it is the quality-of-life improvement that these therapies provide which make them so worth pursuing. | 24 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500223",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2022-08-04T14:25:09",
"content": "Ohhh Yeah Baby – Sign Me Up! I am losing soooo many brain cells these days due to never-ending YouTube butt-in ads (ouch), maybe this can help??",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,607.559573 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/04/liberated-e-ink-shelf-labels-turned-10x2-display/ | Liberated E-Ink Shelf Labels Turned 10×2 Display | Al Williams | [
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"e-ink",
"eink",
"Electronic shelf label"
] | How expensive is it to make a panel that uses e-ink technology? That might depend on how flexible you are. [RBarron] read about reverse engineering point-of-sale shelf labels and found them on eBay for just over a buck apiece. Next thing you know, 20 of them
were working together in a single panel
.
The panels use RF or NFC programming, normally, but have the capability to use BLE. Naturally you could just address each one in turn, but that isn’t very efficient. The approach here is to use one label as a BLE controller and it then drives the other displays in a serial daisy chain, where each label’s receive pin is set to the previous label’s transmit pin.
That allows a simple piece of code to read incoming messages and process the ones addressed to that label. Anything else just gets sent out the serial port. Only the BLE node has special firmware. At first, we thought each label would need an address and we wondered how it would be set other than having unique firmware for each one since there doesn’t appear to be a handy way to do a hardware-based configuration.
The actual solution is clever. Each message has a hop counter that each node decrements before passing the message along the chain. When the hop count is zero, the message is at its destination. Simple and very easy to configure. In theory, you could replace any of the labels after the first one with any other label and the system would still work correctly.
Even the wiring is clever, with a jig to bend the wire to ensure even spacing of each element on the panel. A laser-cut box finishes the project off nicely. The code is all available on
GitHub
. We’ve seen these kinds of tags used for things like
weather stations
. Not to mention
conference badges
. | 27 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500183",
"author": "Shoe",
"timestamp": "2022-08-04T11:36:44",
"content": "The video on the Github page of the display being written to is very satisfying, just in the way that the refresh of the individual screens is staggered so the whole thing moves in a wave.I’ve never seen the... | 1,760,372,607.627493 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/04/3d-printed-braiding-machine-brings-back-some-history/ | 3D Printed Braiding Machine Brings Back Some History | Danie Conradie | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"braiding machine",
"textiles"
] | Mechanizing the production of textiles was a major part of the industrial revolution, and with the convenience of many people are recreating the classic machines. A perfect example of this is [Fraens]’
3D printed braiding machine
, which was reverse engineered from old photos of the early machines.
The trick behind braiding is the mesmerizing path the six bobbins need to weave around each other while maintaining the correct tension on the strands. To achieve this, they slide along a path in a guide plate while being passed between a series of guide gears for each section of the track. [Fraens] cut the guide plate components and the base plate below it from acrylic and mounted them together with standoffs to allow space for the guide gears.
Each of the six bobbins contains multiple parts to maintain the correct tension. The strands are fed through a single guide ring, where the braid is formed, and through pair of traction gears. All the moving parts are driven by a single 24 V motor and can produce about 42 cm of a braided cord per minute, and you can even set up the machine to braid around an inner core.
This braiding machine is just one in a series of early industrial machines recreated by [Fraens] using 3D printing. The others include a sewing machine, and a
power loom
, and a
generator
. | 19 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500173",
"author": "macsimski",
"timestamp": "2022-08-04T10:02:19",
"content": "Oohh. Adapt it to make nice covers for cables!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6500181",
"author": "Alex99a",
"timestamp": "2022-08-04T11:3... | 1,760,372,607.683621 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/05/build-your-own-3d-printed-bluetooth-headphones/ | Build Your Own 3D Printed Bluetooth Headphones | Tom Nardi | [
"digital audio hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"3D printed parts",
"bluetooth",
"kit",
"wireless headphones"
] | A few years back, [Shannon Ley] wondered how hard it would be to build a pair of Bluetooth headphones from scratch. Today, we have our answer. The
Homebrew Headphones
website is devoted to just one thing: explaining how you can use common components and some 3D printed parts to
build an impressively comprehensive pair of wireless headphones for around $50 USD
.
The headphones pair a CSR8645 Bluetooth audio receiver with a TP4056 USB-C charging module, a 500 mAh LiPo pouch battery, a pair of Dayton Audio CE38MB-32 drivers, and replacement ear covers designed for the Bose QuietComfort QC15. Some perfboard, a couple buttons, a resistor, and an LED round out the parts list.
All of the components fit nicely into the meticulously designed 3D printed frame, and assembly is made as simple as possible thanks to an excellent step-by-step guide. It’s all so well documented that anyone with even basic soldering experience should be able to piece it together without too much fuss.
Of course,
these aren’t the first 3D printed headphones we’ve ever seen
. But the quality of the documentation and attention to detail really make these stand out. | 20 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500559",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2022-08-05T15:15:00",
"content": "You wouldn’t /steal/ a pair of headphones.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6500592",
"author": "X",
"timestamp": "2022-08-05T17:18:0... | 1,760,372,607.745132 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/05/this-week-in-security-symbiote-research-and-detection-routing-hijacks-bruggling-and-more/ | This Week In Security: Symbiote Research And Detection, Routing Hijacks, Bruggling, And More | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"bgp",
"Symbiote",
"This Week in Security"
] | Last week we covered the Symbiote Rootkit
, based on the excellent work by Blackberry, Intezer, and Cyber Geeks. This particular piece of malware takes some particularly clever and devious steps to hide. It uses an
LD_PRELOAD
to interfere with system libraries on-the-fly, hiding certain files, processes, ports, and even traffic from users and detection tools. Read last week’s column and the source articles linked there for the details.
There is a general technique for detecting rootkits, where a tool creates a file or process that mimics the elements of the rootkit, and then checks whether any of the fakes mysteriously disappear. In reading about Symbiote, I looked for tooling that we could recommend, that uses this technique to check for infections. Coming up short, I dusted my security researcher hat off, and got to work. A very helpful pointer from Intezer led me to
MalwareBazaar’s page on Symbiote
. Do note, that page hosts live malware samples. Don’t download lightly.
This brings us to the first big problem we need to address. How do you handle malware without getting your machine and wider network infected? Virtualization can be a big part of the answer here. It’s a really big leap for malware to infect a virtual machine, and then jump the gap to infect the host. A bit of careful setup can make that even safer. First, use a different OS or distro for your VM host and research client. Sophisticated malware tends to be very targeted, and it’s unlikely that a given sample will have support for two different distros baked in. The bare-metal host is an up-to-date install for best security, but what about the victim?
While we want a bulletproof foundation, our research VM needs to be vulnerable. If the malware is targeted at a specific kernel version or library, we need that exact version to even get started. Unfortunately the samples at MalwareBazaar don’t include details on the machine where they were found, but they do come with links off to other analysis tools, like
Intezer Analyze
. One particular embedded string caught my eye:
GCC: (GNU) 4.4.7 20120313 (Red Hat 4.4.7-17)
That’s likely from the machine where this particular Symbiote sample was compiled, and it seems like a good starting point. GCC 4.4.7-17 shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 6.8. So we grab a CentOS 6.8 live DVD ISO, and get it booting on our VM host.
The next step is to download the malware samples directly from MalwareBazaar. They come in encrypted zips, just to make it harder to accidentally infect yourself. We don’t want those to land anywhere but the intended target. I went a step further and disconnected both the virtual network adapter and physical network cable, to truly air gap my research environment. I had my malware and likely target, and it was time to test my theory that Symbiote was trying too hard to be sneaky, and would sound the alarm on itself if I poked it just right.
Success! We’re using
touch
to create a file named
java.h
, and using
ls
to verify that it’s really there. Then, add the
LD_PRELOAD
and run
ls
again, and
java.h
is mysteriously missing. A similar trick works for detecting process hiding. We turn
java.h
into a script by writing
while true; do sleep 1; done
into it. Run the script in the background, and see if it’s listed in
ps -A -caf
. For a filename on Symbiote’s hide list, it too disappears. The best part is that we can script this detection. I give you,
sym-test.sh
. It creates and runs a simple script for each of the known Symbiote files, then uses
ls
and
ps
to look for the scripts. A Symbiote variant that works like the samples we’ve seen in the wild will give away its presence and be detected. If you find Symbiote on your machine via this script, be sure to let us know!
BGP Hijack — Maybe
There was a bit of BGP weirdness last week, where the
Russian telecom company, Rostelecom, announced routing for 17.70.96.0/19
. This block of IPs is owned by Apple, and all signs point to this being an unauthorized announce. BGP, the Border Gateway Protocol, is one of the most important network protocols you may not have heard of, and essentially carries the instructions on how to route internet traffic around the world. It’s also historically not had any security protocols baked-in, simply relying on good behavior from all the players. There is
RPKI
, a new standard for cryptographic signatures for routing updates, but it’s not a hard requirement and not widely deployed yet.
BGP, without any of the security enhancement schemes, works by honoring the most specific route available. Apple announces routes for 17.0.0.0/9, a network of over 8,000,000 IPs. Rostelecom started announcing 17.70.96.0/19, a much smaller subnet containing just over 8,000 IPs. The more specific route wins, and Rostelecom has a valid ASN, so the Internet made the routing shift. Someone at Apple was paying attention, and pushed a routing update for 17.70.96.0/21, moving what is presumably the most important 2,046 IPs back to their proper destination. After about 12 hours, Rostelecom dropped the bogus routes. Neither Apple nor Rostelecom have released statements about the incident.
Were this the first incident involving Rostelecom, it would be natural to conclude this was an honest mistake. Rostelecom has demonstrated bad behavior in the past, so the element of plausible deniability is waning. Could this have been part of a targeted operation against someone’s iPhone or Apple account? It’s hard to say whether we’ll be privy to the details any time soon. At the very least,
you can watch a replay of the network carnage
.
Email Routing Hijack
Cloudflare is expanding into email routing, and
researcher [Albert Pedersen] was a bit miffed
not to get invited into the closed Beta. (
The Beta is open now
, if you need virtual email addresses for your domains.) Turns out, you can use something like the Burp Suite to “opt in” to the beta on the sly — just intercept the Cloudflare API response on loading the dashboard, and set
"beta": true
. The backend doesn’t check after the initial dashboard load. While access to a temporarily closed beta isn’t a huge security issue, it suggests that there might be some similar bugs to find. Spoilers: there were.
When setting up a domain on your Cloudflare account, you first add the domain, and then go through the steps to verify ownership. Until that is completed, it is an unverified domain, a limbo state where you shouldn’t be able to do anything other than complete verification or drop the domain. Even if a domain is fully active in an account, you can attempt to add it to a different account, and it will show up as one of these pending domains. Our intrepid hacker had to check, was there a similar missing check here? What happens if you add email routing to an unverified domain? Turns out, at the time, it worked without complaint. A domain had to already be using Cloudflare for email, but this trick allowed intercepting all emails going to such a domain. [Albert]
informed Cloudflare via HackerOne
, and scored a handy $6,000 for the find. Nice!
Post-Quantum, But Still Busted
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, is running an ongoing competition to select the next generation of cryptography algorithms, with the goal of a set of standards that are immune to quantum computers. There was recently a rather stark reminder that in addition to resistance to quantum algorithms,
a cryptographic scheme needs to be secure against classical attacks as well
.
SIKE was one of the algorithms making its way through the selection process, and a paper was just recently published that demonstrated a technique to crack the algorithm in about an hour. The technique used has been known for a while, but is extremely high-level mathematics, which is why it took so long for the exact attack to be demonstrated. While cryptographers are mathematicians, they don’t generally work in the realm of bleeding-edge math, so these unanticipated interactions do show up from time to time. If nothing else, it’s great that the flaw was discovered now, and not after ratification and widespread use of the new technique.
Bits and Bruggling Bytes
A portmanteau of Browser and Smuggling, Bruggling is
a new data exfiltration technique that is just silly enough to work
. Some corporate networks try very hard to limit the ways users and malicious applications can get data off the network and out to a bad actor over the Internet. This is something of a hopeless quest, and Bruggling is yet another example. So what is it? Bruggling is stuffing data into the names and contents of bookmarks, and letting the browser sync those bookmarks. As this looks like normal traffic, albeit potentially a *lot* of traffic, it generally won’t trigger any IDS systems the way odd DNS requests might. So far Bruggling is just an academic idea, and hasn’t been observed in the wild, but just may be coming to malware near you.
LibreOffice just patched a handful of issues, and two of them are particularly noteworthy. First is
CVE-2022-26305
, a flaw in how macros are signed and verified. The signature of the macro itself wasn’t properly checked, and by cloning the serial number and issuer string of a trusted macro, a malicious one could bypass the normal filter. And
CVE-2022-26306
is a cryptographic weakness in how LibreOffice stores passwords. The Initialization Vector used for encryption was a static value rather than randomly created for each install. This sort of flaw usually allows a pre-computation attack, where a lookup table can be compiled that enables quickly cracking an arbitrary encrypted data set. In up-to-date versions of LibreOffice, if using this feature, the user will be prompted for a new password to re-encrypt their configuration more securely.
Samba has also fixed a handful of problems, one of which sounds like a great plot point for a Hollywood hacking movie. First is
CVE-2022-32744
, a logic flaw where any valid password is accepted for a password change request, rather than only accepting the valid password for the account being changed. And
CVE-2022-32742
is the fun one, where an SMB1 connection can trigger a buffer underflow. Essentially a client tells the server it wants to print 10 megabytes, and sends along the 15 bytes to print (numbers are fabricated for making the point). The server copies the data from the way-too-small buffer, and uses the size value set by the attacker, a la
Heartbleed
. I want to see the caper movie where data is stolen by using this sort of bug to print it out to the long-forgotten line-feed printer.
And finally,
Atlassian Confluence installs are under active attack
, as a result of a handful of exploits. There were hard-coded credentials left behind in the on-premise Confluence solution, and those credentials were released online. A pair of critical vulnerabilities in Servlet Filters are exploitable without valid credentials. If you’re still running unpatched, unmitigated Confluence installs, it may be time to jump straight to containment and cleanup. Ouch! | 8 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500541",
"author": "X",
"timestamp": "2022-08-05T14:08:49",
"content": "There are many known vulnerabilities in all of the virtualization technologies. The virtualization security must be perfect because any escape is gonna be at the root level and allow complete takeover of the h... | 1,760,372,607.887427 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/05/welcome-to-ziptie-city/ | Welcome To Ziptie City | Elliot Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [] | Gravity, magnetism, the weak and strong nuclear forces; sure they hold a lot of stuff together. But the other binding force of nature that demands your utmost respect? Zip ties.
Or at least that’s [Alan Reiner]’s
take on the combination of cable ties and 3D printing
. (Video, embedded below.) So he’s designed a demo model,
Zip Tie City
, that goes through a number of the possibilities that designing in zip-tie channels offer.
He then designs a multi-output battery box with a ton of zip tie holds that keep wiring in check and hold modules and batteries where they belong. (And releases some magic smoke, but even zip ties can’t keep that stuff inside.)
We love zip ties for those situations where screws are overkill or a simple solution is sufficient. Designing channels for zip ties is a pure win, and makes use of the unique advantage of 3D printing; these would be horrible to try to subtractively machine into a part.
Zip ties aren’t the only game in town, though. If you need a glue, our own [Tom Nardi] went through his local hardware store and
tested out the options in this must-read classic piece
.
Thanks for the tip to [Keith Olson], who wants you to check out
Zip Tie Guy
(video) while you’re in the mood. | 36 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500511",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2022-08-05T12:31:02",
"content": "Neat idea, but from the top pic I was expecting a zip-tie clock!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6500612",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Kno... | 1,760,372,608.010941 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/05/hackaday-prize-2022-saving-the-world-one-brew-at-a-time/ | Hackaday Prize 2022: Saving The World, One Brew At A Time | Elliot Williams | [
"classic hacks",
"contests",
"Repair Hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Prize",
"coffee machine",
"display",
"hack",
"repair"
] | OK, so maybe [satanistik] is overreaching with his project title “
Save the Coffee, Save the World
” but keeping an otherwise working coffee machine out of the landfill by hacking around its broken display is nonetheless a worthy pursuit. The juice must flow!
The busted display used a SSD1303 controller OLED module, for which the SSD1305Z is an almost-compatible module. Almost. The one glitch is that the screen is filled in the opposite direction by default. Digging through the manuals, there is a screen-direction bit to set, and tracing out the communication with a logic analyzer, it’s set the wrong way with every screen refresh. If only he could flip that one bit while it’s in transit. Time to man-in-the-middle!
While we certainly would have put a microcontroller in the game, [satanistik] goes old-school. A two-IC logic solution can do exactly the same thing, trading wires for code. The final iteration of the converter board is correspondingly spartan, but it does its one job.
So if you’ve got a Nivona coffee machine with a bum display, or perhaps an Agilent U1273A multimeter, or any other piece of equipment that needs a hard-to-find SSD1303 controller, now you have a ready-made solution. But if not, and you find yourself looking for a display that you can’t find, let this serve as an example to you – with a little (fun) effort, you can hack it back.
The
Hackaday
Prize2022
is Sponsored by: | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500486",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2022-08-05T10:46:49",
"content": "“Sory for my English, I preferred scrap yards to school. ” What an absolute boss.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6500513",
"author": "The Part... | 1,760,372,607.931451 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/04/buzzword-bingo-bitcoin-burial-burrowing-blueprint-balked-at-by-bureaucracy/ | Buzzword Bingo Bitcoin Burial Burrowing Blueprint Balked At By Bureaucracy | Jenny List | [
"News"
] | [
"bitcoin",
"hard drive recovery",
"landfill"
] | Many of you will at some time have heard the unfortunate tale of [James Howells], a Welsh IT worker who threw away a hard drive containing 8,000 Bitcoin back in 2013. Over the years he’s hatched various schemes to persuade his local council to let him dig up the landfill where it’s reputed to be buried, and every time he’s been rebuffed. Despite the fall in the price of cryptocurrencies
he’s back with another.
With the added spice of AI and robot dogs alongside the cryptocurrency angle, it reads like a buzzword bingo card and adds a whole new meaning to “Bitcoin mining”. Seemingly despite generous offers the local council are still not keen on letting him dig for the drive.
We can’t help feeling sorry for the guy — after all, in the early days of cryptocurrency the coins were a worthless curiosity so it’s not impossible there are readers with similar stories. But we’re curious how well the drive will have survived its 9-year interment even if the AI robot arm and robot dog security would ensure its recovery. With that much cash at stake the best in the data recovery business will no doubt be unleashed on whatever remains they might recover, but in the unfriendly environment of a festering landfill we’d be curious as to whether chemical action might have corroded the platters to the point at which nothing might remain. Wales has a high rainfall unlike the American southwest, so we doubt it would survive as well as
an Atari cartridge
.
Meanwhile, tell us your cryptocurrency might-have-beens in the comments.
Landfill Site sign by Geographer,
CC BY-SA 2.0
. | 46 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500426",
"author": "Rumble_in_the_Jungle",
"timestamp": "2022-08-05T05:08:18",
"content": "He sacrificed his bitcoins to the Gods of Entropy on a rusty platter.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6500428",
"author": "RW ver 0.... | 1,760,372,608.100712 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/04/the-fishfeeder-keeps-your-fish-fed-while-youre-away/ | The FishFeeder Keeps Your Fish Fed While You’re Away | Robin Kearey | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"ESP32",
"fish feeder",
"tinygo"
] | With summer in full swing in the Northern Hemisphere, millions of people are out on vacation leaving millions of homes empty. Thanks to modern technology it’s easier than ever to keep an eye on those empty homes: internet-connected cameras report suspicious activity, and smart-home devices like curtains and light bulbs can be operated from your holiday home. If you’ve got an aquarium and want to keep your fish well-fed during your vacation, then [FoxIS]’s
internet-connected automated fish feeder
might come in handy too.
The heart of the system is a 3D-printed mechanism that holds a bottle of fish food in a funnel and dispenses a set amount through a servo-operated shutter. The servo is driven by an ESP32 sitting inside an M5StickC IoT development kit. [FoxIS] wanted to use TinyGo for this project, which unfortunately meant that he couldn’t use the ESP32’s built-in WiFi system due to software limitations. He therefore connected the M5StickC to a Raspberry Pi, which he can log into from anywhere in the world to operate the feeding mechanism or to watch his aquatic pets through a USB camera.
Apart from automating the feeding process, the FishFeeder system also keeps track of the aquarium’s temperature through an IR thermometer and shows reminders for other maintenance tasks, such as changing the water or cleaning the filter. A minor inconvenience is the requirement to have that Raspberry Pi present for internet connectivity, but perhaps a future version of TinyGo will support WiFi on the ESP32 and make the FishFeeder a fully self-contained system.
While 3D-printing is an obvious choice for custom mechanisms like this, you can also make a much simpler system
from a Tupperware bin and a drill bit
. If metalworking is your thing, you can build
really accurate fish feeders
too. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500413",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-08-05T03:00:31",
"content": "Fish feeder frees friends from failing to fastidiously feed fish for a fortnight.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6500449... | 1,760,372,608.15595 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/04/stewart-platform-wields-magic-fingers-to-massage-your-scalp/ | Stewart Platform Wields Magic Fingers To Massage Your Scalp | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"end effector",
"head",
"kinematics",
"Massage",
"scalp",
"Stewart platform",
"stimulator"
] | Attention Hackaday editors: We on the writing crew hereby formally request budget allocation for installing
a Stewart platform head massager
on the chair of each workstation in the secret underground writer’s bunker. We think the benefits that will accrue thanks to reduced stress alone will more than justify the modest upfront costs. Thank you for your consideration.
OK, maybe that request is going nowhere, but having been on the receiving end of
these strangely relaxing springy scalp stimulators
, we can see where [David McDaid] was going with this project. As he clearly states up front, this is a ridiculously over-engineered way to get your scratchies on, but there’s very little not to love about it. Stewart platforms, which can position a surface with six degrees of freedom and range in size from
simple ball balancers
to
full-blown motion simulators
, are fascinating devices, and we can’t think of a better way to learn about them than by building one.
Like all Stewart platforms, [David]’s is mechanically simple but kinematically complicated, and he takes great pains to figure out all the math and explain it in an approachable style. The device is mounted with the end-effector pointed down, allowing the intended massagee to insert their noggin into the business end and receive the massage pattern of their choice. Looking at the GIFs below, it’s easy to see why [David] favors the added complexity of a Stewart, which makes interesting patterns like “The Calmer” possible. They’re all intriguing, although the less said about “The Neck Breaker” the better, we’d say.
Hats off (lol) to [David] for this needless complex but entertaining build. | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500389",
"author": "philosiraptor117",
"timestamp": "2022-08-05T00:24:53",
"content": "there is something vaguely permissive about this, id love to see an open cv implementation with a big ol kuka arm to do this, something about a robot that can punch through your face instantly do... | 1,760,372,608.258905 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/03/brass-plaque-honors-brother/ | Brass Plaque Honors Brother | Brian McEvoy | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"brass",
"copper",
"electro-etching",
"electroetching",
"electrolysis",
"etching",
"memorial",
"metal etching",
"vinyl",
"vinyl cutter"
] | Brass plaques are eye-catching
because no one makes them on a whim. They are more costly than wood or plastic, and processing them is proportionally difficult. [Becky Stern] picked the medium to honor her brother, who enjoyed coffee, motorcycles, and making things by hand. She made some playing card-sized pieces to adorn his favorite brand of hot bean juice and a large one to hang at his memorial site.
The primary components are a vertical salt water bath, DC power supply, metal to etch, scrap steel approximately the same size, and a water agitator, which in this case is an air pump and diffuser stone. You could stir manually for two hours and
binge your shows
but trust us and take the easy route. The video doesn’t explicitly call for flexible wires, but [Becky] wisely selected some high-strand hook-up leads, which will cause fewer headaches as stiff copper has a mind of its own, and you don’t want the two sides colliding.
There are a couple of ways to transfer an insulating mask to metal, and we see the ole’ magazine paper method fail in the video, but cutting vinyl works a treat.
You may prefer lasers
or
resin printers
, and that’s all right too. Once your mask is sorted, connect the positive lead to the brass and the negative to your steel. Now, it’s into the agitated salt water bath, apply direct current, and allow electricity to immortalize your design. | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6500147",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2022-08-04T06:33:49",
"content": "You can use a similar method to cut spring steel. Just paint with etching primer and scratch the outline. Great for making replacement read valves for your pulse jet. You do have a pulse jet? If not stop was... | 1,760,372,608.206396 |
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