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https://hackaday.com/2022/05/01/clever-scope-probe-drawers-keep-your-workbench-tidy/ | Clever Scope Probe Drawers Keep Your Workbench Tidy | Robin Kearey | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"drawers",
"oscilloscope probe",
"probe storage"
] | Probes are an essential component of a good oscilloscope system, but they have the nasty habit of cluttering up your workbench. If you have a four-channel scope, it’s not just several meters of cable that get in the way everywhere, but also four sets of all those little clips, springs, cable markers, and adjustment screwdrivers that need to be stored safely.
[Matt Mets] came up with a clever solution to this problem:
a 3D printed cable organizer that neatly fits below your scope
. It has four drawers, each of which has enough space to store a complete probe and a little compartment for all its accessories. A cable cutout at the front allows you to keep the probes plugged in even when they’re not in use.
It’s a beautifully simple solution to a common problem, and with the STL files
available on Printables
anyone with a cluttered workbench can build one for themselves. If, however, you’d like to keep those probes even closer at hand, have a look at
these probe caddies
.
Keep your oscilloscope probes safe and at your fingertips with the oscilloscope probe organizer:
https://t.co/FYFPKYMfrB
pic.twitter.com/bbiN54gltk
— Matt Mets (@cibomahto)
April 29, 2022 | 20 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466947",
"author": "Alex99a",
"timestamp": "2022-05-01T12:05:56",
"content": "Now this one I like. Well done!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6467096",
"author": "Alex99a",
"timestamp": "2022-05-01T23:12:42",
... | 1,760,372,709.439321 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/01/mini-midi-synth-uses-minimum-number-of-parts/ | Mini MIDI Synth Uses Minimum Number Of Parts | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"eight bit",
"eight channel",
"ESP32",
"I/O",
"midi",
"music",
"pwm",
"synth",
"synthesizer"
] | The 80s were the golden age of synthesizers in pop music. Hugely complicated setups that spared no expense were the norm, with synths capable of recreating anything from pianos and guitars to percussion, strings, and brass. These types of setups aren’t strictly necessary if you’re looking to make music, though, especially in the modern age of accessible microcontrollers.
This synthesizer from [Folkert] with MIDI capabilities
, for example, creates catchy tunes with only a handful of parts.
This tiny synth is built around an ESP32 and works by generating PWM signals normally meant for LEDs. In this case, the PWM signals are sent through a rudimentary amplifier and then on to an audio output device. That could be a small speaker, an audio jack to another amplifier, or a capture device.
The synth’s eight channels use up most of the ESP32’s I/O and provide a sound that’s reminiscent of the eight-bit video game era. The total parts count for this build is shockingly small with only a handful of resistors, the ESP, an optocoupler, and a few jacks.
For those wishing to experiment with synthesizers, a build like this is attractive because it’s likely that all the parts needed are already sitting around in a drawer somewhere with possibly the exception of the 5 pin DIN jacks needed for MIDI capabilities. Either way, [Folkert] has made all of the schematics available on the project page along with some sample mp3 files. For those looking to use parts from old video game systems sitting in their parts drawer, though,
take a look at this synthesizer built out of a Sega Genesis
. | 18 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466923",
"author": "Daniel",
"timestamp": "2022-05-01T08:18:44",
"content": "Please use the ESP32’s DAC. My ears are still hurting from Chiquitita.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6466937",
"author": "Folkert van Heus... | 1,760,372,709.770766 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/30/learn-sign-language-using-machine-vision/ | Learn Sign Language Using Machine Vision | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Machine Learning"
] | [
"Alphabet",
"american sign language",
"ASL",
"camera",
"computer vision",
"mobilenetv2",
"opencv",
"picamera",
"raspberry pi",
"sign language",
"signapse"
] | Learning a new language is a great way to exercise the mind and learn about different cultures, and it’s great to have a native speaker around to improve the learning experience. Without one it’s still possible to learn via videos, books, and software though. The task does get much more complicated when trying to learn a language that isn’t spoken, though, like American Sign Language.
This project allows users to learn the ASL alphabet with the help of computer vision and some machine learning algorithms
.
The build uses a computer vision model in MobileNetV2 which is trained for each sign in the ASL alphabet. A sign is shown to the user on a screen, and the user needs to demonstrate the sign to the computer in order to progress. To do this, OpenCV running on a Raspberry Pi with a PiCamera is used to analyze the frames of the user in real-time. The user is shown pictures of the correct sign, and is rewarded when the correct sign is made.
While this only works for alphabet signs in ASL currently, the team at the University of Glasgow that built this project is planning on expanding it to include other signs as well. We have seen other machines built to teach ASL in the past,
like this one which relies on a specialized glove rather than computer vision
. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6467126",
"author": "DeafMyles",
"timestamp": "2022-05-02T00:11:26",
"content": "Ack this is pretty cringe-worthy and potentially even harmful to the Deaf community. This “Sign Language AI training tool” is showing INCORRECT hand signs for many classifiers. T, G, P, Q, J (no movemen... | 1,760,372,709.813178 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/30/clever-stereo-camera-uses-sony-wireless-camera-modules/ | Clever Stereo Camera Uses Sony Wireless Camera Modules | Jenny List | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"stereo camera",
"stereoscopy"
] | Stereophotography cameras are difficult to find, so we’re indebted to [DragonSkyRunner] for sharing
their build of an exceptionally high-quality example
. A stereo camera has two separate lenses and sensors a fixed distance apart, such that when the two resulting images are viewed individually with each eye there is a 3D effect. This camera takes two individual Sony cameras and mounts them on a well-designed wooden chassis, but that simple description hides a much more interesting and complex reality.
Sony once tested photography waters with the QX series — pair of unusual mirrorless camera models which took the form of just the sensor and lens. A wireless connection to a smartphone allows for display and data transfer. This build uses two of these, with a pair of Android-running Odroid C2s standing in for the smartphones. Their HDMI video outputs are captured by a pair of HDMI capture devices hooked up to a Raspberry Pi 4, and there are a couple of Arduinos that simulate mouse inputs to the Odroids. It’s a bit of a Rube Goldberg device, but it allows the system to use Sony’s original camera software. An especially neat feature is that the camera unit and display unit can be parted for remote photography, making it an extremely versatile camera.
It’s good to see a stereo photography camera designed specifically for high-quality photography, previous ones we’ve seen have been
closer to machine vision systems
. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466909",
"author": "Thopter",
"timestamp": "2022-05-01T04:48:31",
"content": "My first thought is how well would this work for photogrammetry?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6466921",
"author": "OGoldman",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,372,709.856009 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/30/aimbot-does-it-in-hardware/ | Aimbot Does It In Hardware | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Games",
"hardware"
] | [
"aim",
"aim lab",
"aimbot",
"cheat",
"computer vision",
"hardware",
"mouse",
"robot",
"trainer",
"video game"
] | Anyone who has played an online shooter game in the past two or three decades has almost certainly come across a person or machine that cheats at the game by auto-aiming. For newer games with anti-cheat, this is less of a problem, but older games like Team Fortress have been effectively ruined by these aimbots. These types of cheats are usually done in software, though, and [Kamal] wondered if he would be able
to build an aim bot that works directly on the hardware instead
.
First, we’ll remind everyone frustrated with the state of games like TF2 that this is a proof-of-concept robot that is unlikely to make any aimbots worse or more common in any games. This is mostly because [Kamal] is training his machine to work in Aim Lab, a first-person shooter training simulation, and not in a real multiplayer videogame. The robot works by taking a screenshot of his computer in Python and passing the information through a computer vision algorithm which recognizes high-contrast targets. From there a PID controller is used to tell a series of omniwheels attached to the mouse where to point, and when the cursor is in the hitbox a mouse click is triggered.
While it might seem straightforward, building the robot and then, more importantly, tuning the PID controller took [Kamal] over two months before he was able to rival pro-FPS shooters at the aim trainer. It’s an impressive build though, and if one of his omniwheel motors hadn’t burned out it may have exceeded the top human scores on the platform. If you would like a bot that makes you worse at a game instead of better, though, head over
to this build which plays Valorant by using two computers to pass game information between
. | 27 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466876",
"author": "Rick Seiden",
"timestamp": "2022-05-01T00:57:13",
"content": "This is very impressive, and something I couldn’t do. I do have a question, kind of along the lines of, “You could have done that with a 555.” Was there a need for the physical mouse and all the mot... | 1,760,372,709.717872 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/30/plant-growth-accelerated-tremendously-with-leds/ | Plant Growth Accelerated Tremendously With LEDs | Arya Voronova | [
"green hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"automated",
"automated plant care",
"automatic gardening",
"gardening",
"grow",
"growing",
"horticulture",
"led",
"photosynthesis",
"plants"
] | [GreatScott!] was bummed to see his greenhouse be empty and lifeless in winter. So, he
set out to take the greenhouse home with him
. Well, at least, a small part of it. First, he decided to produce artificial sunlight, setting up a simple initial experiment for playing with different wavelength LEDs. How much can LEDs affect plant growth, really? This is the research direction that Würth Elektronik, supporting his project, has recently been expanding into. They’ve been working on
extensive application notes
, explaining the biological aspects of it for us — a treasure trove of resources available at no cost, that hackers can and should learn from.
Initially, [GreatScott!] obtained LEDs in four different colors – red, ‘hyper red’, deep blue, and daylight spectrum. The first three are valued because their specific wavelengths are absorbed well by plants. The use of daylight LEDs though has been controversial. Nevertheless, he points out that the plant might require different wavelengths for things other than photosynthesis, and the daylight LEDs sure do help assess the plants visually as the experiment goes on.
Next, [GreatScott!] borrowed parts of Würth’s LED driver designs, creating an Arduino PWM driver with simple potentiometers. He used this to develop his own board to host the LEDs.
An aluminum PCB increases heat dissipation, prolonging the LEDs lifespan. [GreatScott!] reflowed the LEDs onto it with solder paste, only to find that the ‘hyper red’ LEDs died during the process. Thankfully, by the time this problem reared its head, he managed to obtain the official horticulture devkit, with an LED panel ready to go.
[GreatScott!’s] test subjects were Arugula plants, whose leaves you often find on prosciutto pizza. Having built a setup with two different sets of flower pots, one LED-adorned and one LED-less, he put both of them on his windowsill. The plants were equally exposed to sunlight and equally watered. The LED duty cycle was set to ballpark values.
The results were staggering, as you can see in the picture above — no variable changing except the LEDs being used. This experiment, even including a taste test with a pizza as a test substrate, was a huge success, and [GreatScott!] recommends that we hit Würth up for free samples as we embark on our own plant growth improvement journeys.
Horticulture (aka plant growing) is one of the areas where hackers, armed with troves of freely available knowledge,
can make big strides
— and we’re not even talking about the kind of plants our commenters are sure to mention. The field of plant growth is literally fruitful and ripe for the picking. You can accomplish a whole lot of change with
surprisingly little effort
. The value of the plants on your windowsill doesn’t have to be purely decorative, and
a small desk-top setup
you hack together, can easily scale up! Some hackers understand that, and we’ve started seeing
automated growing solutions
way before Raspberry Pi was even a thing. The best part is, that
you only need a few LEDs
to start.
We thank [MendesL] for sharing this with us! | 37 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466820",
"author": "The Eternal President Kim Il Sung",
"timestamp": "2022-04-30T20:30:12",
"content": "Where are these people even finding Arduinos in this economy?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6466950",
"author":... | 1,760,372,709.525777 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/30/hacking-toy-rc-cars-with-the-hackrf-one/ | Hacking Toy RC Cars With The HackRF One | Ryan Flowers | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"gfsk",
"hackrf one",
"R/C car",
"sdr"
] | The origin story for many who’d call themselves a member of the hacker community usually starts with taking things apart as a child just to see how they worked. For [Radoslav], that trend doesn’t seem to have slowed down, and he’s continued taking toys apart. Although since it’s his daughters little radio controlled car, he stuck to a non-destructive teardown. The result? He’s able to
control the car with his laptop through a HackRF One SDR transceiver
as shown in the video below the break.
[Radoslav] is no stranger to reverse engineering embedded devices, IoT gadgets, and probably more. So he started with what information was publicly available about the radio control interface in use. Many electronic devices sold in the US must be certified by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and prominently display their ID number, and this toy was no exception. The FCC database gave [Radoslav] enough information to know that the communication protocol is modulated with GFSK, a type of Frequency Shift Keying.
He fired up his favorite radio
signal analysis tool
and and got to work on the protocol itself. Along the way he found that communication between the car and controller is bidirectional but also very easy to get around. The result is that he can drive the car around with his laptop- definitely a cool hack, but for this one, the journey was surely the goal, not the destination.
If hacking on RC cars really gets your wheels turning, you might like this little
RC car that can drive
on the ceiling
.
Or if you’re feeling a bit hungry, check out how you can use the
HackRF to nab a table at your local restaurant
. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466861",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2022-04-30T23:41:23",
"content": "Put a camera on it and you’ve got a tiny robot.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6466942",
"author": "João Paulo Ferreira Claro",
"timestamp... | 1,760,372,709.566013 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/30/new-tech-and-the-old-ways/ | New Tech And The Old Ways | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"darkroom",
"lcd",
"modern",
"old",
"photography"
] | This week on Hackaday, we featured a project that tickled my nostalgia bone, and proved that there are cool opportunities when bringing new tech to old problems. Let me explain.
[Muth] shared a project with us that
combines old-school analog photography printing with modern LCD screens
. The basic idea is to use a 4K monochrome screen in place of a negative, making a contact print by placing the screen directly on top of photographic paper and exposing it under a uniform light source. Just like the old ways, but with an LCD instead of film.
But what’s the main difference between a screen and film? You can change the image on the LCD at will, of course. So when [Muth] was calibrating out exposures, it dawned on him that he could create a dynamic, animated version of his image and progressively expose different portions of the paper, extending the available dynamic range and providing him the ability to control the slightest nuances of the resulting image contrast.
As an old photo geek, this is the sort of trick that we would pull off manually in the darkroom all the time. “Dodging” would lighten up a section of the image by covering up the projected light with your hand or a special tool for a part of the exposure time. With [Muth]’s procedure, he can dodge the image programmatically on the per-pixel level. We would have killed for this ability back in the day.
The larger story here is that by trying something out of the box, applying a new tool to an old procedure, [Muth] stumbled on new capabilities. As hackers, we’re playing around with the newest tech we can get our hands on all the time. When you are, it might be that you also stumble on new possibilities simply afforded by new tech. Keep your eyes open!
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
! | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466891",
"author": "Jeff Wallin",
"timestamp": "2022-05-01T02:24:05",
"content": "There is huge money to be made in the screenprinting industry with what is described. a huge amount of waste is created in both time and supplies because burning a screen requires actual printed trans... | 1,760,372,709.899175 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/30/training-doppler-radar-with-smart-watch-imus-data-for-activity-recognition/ | Training Doppler Radar With Smart Watch IMUs Data For Activity Recognition | Maya Posch | [
"home hacks",
"Machine Learning"
] | [
"IMU",
"mmwave radar"
] | When it comes to interpreting sensor data automatically, it helps to have a large data set to assist in validating it, as well as training when it concerns machine learning (ML). Creating this data set with carefully tagged and categorized information is a long and tedious process, which is where the idea of cross-domain translations come into play, as in the case of using millimeter wave (mmWave) radar sensors to recognize activity of e.g. building occupants with the
IMU2Doppler project at Smash Lab
of Carnegie Mellon University.
The most commonly used sensor type when it comes to classifying especially human motion are inertial measurement units (
IMU
) such as accelerometers and gyroscopes, which are found in everything from smartphones to smart watches and fitness bands. For these devices it’s common to classify measurement patterns as matches a particular activity, such as walking, jogging, or brushing one’s teeth. This makes them both well-defined and very accessible.
As for why a mmWave-based Doppler radar would be preferred for monitoring e.g. building occupants is the privacy aspect compared to using cameras, and the inconvenience of equipping people with a body-worn IMU. Using Doppler radar it would theoretically be possible for people to
track activities within their own home
, as well as in a medical setting to ensure patients are safe, or at a gym to track one’s performance, or usage of equipment. All without the use of cameras or personal sensors. In the past, we’ve seen a
similar approach that used targeted laser beams
.
As promising as this sounds, at this point in time the number of activities that are recognized with reasonable accuracy (~70%) is limited to ten types. Depending on the intended application this may already be sufficient, though as the
published paper
notes, there is still a lot of room for growth. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466787",
"author": "AKA the A",
"timestamp": "2022-04-30T15:56:22",
"content": "any info on the sensor used",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6466790",
"author": "Adrian",
"timestamp": "2022-04-30T16:06:22",
... | 1,760,372,709.606158 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/30/giant-cnc-partners-with-powerful-laser-diode/ | Giant CNC Partners With Powerful Laser Diode | Arya Voronova | [
"cnc hacks",
"Laser Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"diode laser",
"DIY CNC",
"laser cutter",
"laser diode",
"laser engraver",
"lasercutter",
"lasercutting",
"lasers"
] | [Jeshua Lacock] from
3DTOPO
owns a large-format CNC (4’x8′, or 1.2×2.4 m), that he strongly feels is lacking laser-cutting capabilities. The frame is there, and a 150 W CO2 laser tube has been sitting in a box for ages – what else could you need? Sadly, at such a scale, aligning the mirrors is a tough and finicky job – and misalignment can be literally blinding. After reading tales about cutters of such size going out of alignment when someone as much as walked nearby, he dropped the idea – and
equipped the CNC head with a high-power laser diode module instead
. Having done mirror adjustment on a few CO2 tube-equipped lasers, we can see where he’s coming from.
Typically, the laser modules you see bolted onto CNC heads are firmly under three watts, which is usually only enough for engraving. With a module that provides 5 watts of optical power, [Jeshua] can cut cardboard and thin plywood as well he tells us even 10 W optical power modules are available, just that he didn’t go for one. We reckon that 20 W effective power diodes are not that far into our future, which is getting very close to the potential of the blue box “40 W but actually 35 W but actually way less” K40 laser cutters we cherish. [Jeshua]’s cutter is not breaking speed limits, but it’s built on what’s already there, and the diode is comparatively inexpensive. Equipped with a small honeycomb surface and what seems to be air assist, it’s shown in the video cutting an ornamental piece out of cardboard!
We hackers have been
equipping CNCs with laser diodes
for a while, but on a way smaller scale and with less powerful diodes – this is definitely a step up! As a hacker, you should have at least some laser cutting options at your disposal, and
this overview of CO2 cutters
and their availability can get you started. We’ve also given you detailed breakdowns about different sides of laser cutting, be it
the must-have of safety
, or the nice-to-have of
air assist. | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466704",
"author": "Greg Garriss",
"timestamp": "2022-04-30T08:59:58",
"content": "Iʻve noticed several diode module vendors have been listing their products not by optical output but by power supply rating. “ Wow! 80 watts!”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": ... | 1,760,372,709.654273 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/29/a-great-resource-for-the-would-be-pinball-machine-builder/ | A Great Resource For The Would-Be Pinball Machine Builder | Dave Rowntree | [
"Games",
"how-to"
] | [
"construction",
"DIY pinball",
"electronics",
"pinball machine",
"retro"
] | Those of us beyond a certain age will very likely have some fond memories of many an hour spent and pocket money devoured feeding the local arcade pinball machine. At one time they seemed to be pretty much everywhere, but sadly, these days they seem to have largely fallen out of favour and are becoming more of speciality to be specifically sought out. Apart from a few random ones turning up — there’s a fun Frankenstein-themed machine in the Mary Shelley Museum in Bath, England — a trip to a local amusement arcade is often pretty disappointing, with modern arcade machines just not quite scratching that itch anymore, if you ask us. So what’s an old-school hacker to do, but learn how to build a machine from scratch, just the way we want it? A great resource for this is the excellent
Pinball Makers site
, which shows quite a few different platforms to build upon and a whole ton of resources and guides to help you along the way.
P3-ROC pinball machine controller mainboard – note the Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA
Building a working machine requires some serious skills from a wide range of areas covering woodworking, metal bashing, graphics design, electronics, game design and programming. For a newbie, there is so much to learn that it must be really daunting trying to work out where to begin! Luckily Pinball Makers has sections for each of these disciplines, and many more, with guides to the special pinball-specific construction techniques as well. Want to know how to construct a slingshot? Covered! What about an electronics platform to build upon? There are many options, some based around then Open Pinball Project (OPP) and some not so much. Now, hands up who fancies building a Hackaday-themed pinball machine (dark theme, naturally), and what would the game be? Answers down below!
Boy, have we covered pinball machines a lot over the years, here’s a
beautiful machine built into a coffee table form factor
, that might help you sneak that out of the workshop and into the living room. If that’s too big, and you ‘got the look’ when you wheeled your creation into the house, here’s a
teeny tiny PI-based virtual machine
to make you feel better. Finally, if building one is not your game, and you’re hankering for the real-deal, you might need
some debug help with the older machines
!
Thanks [Keith] for the tip! | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466665",
"author": "Gregg Eshelman",
"timestamp": "2022-04-30T05:37:19",
"content": "On a Hackaday themed pinball machine the ball drain should be named Comment Edit Button.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6466669",
"author... | 1,760,372,709.990628 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/29/arduino-and-git-two-views/ | Arduino And Git: Two Views | Al Williams | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Software Development"
] | [
"arduino",
"Git",
"github",
"version control"
] | You can’t do much development without running into Git, the version control management system. Part of that is because so much code lives on GitHub which uses Git, although you don’t need to know anything about that if all you want to do is download code. [Dr. Torq] has
a good primer on using Git with the Arduino IDE
, if you need to get your toes wet.
You might think if you develop by yourself you don’t need something like Git. However, using a version control system is a great convenience, especially if you use it correctly. There’s a bug out in the field? What version of the firmware? You can immediately get a copy of the source code at that point in time using Git. A feature is broken? It is very easy to see exactly what changed. So even if you don’t work in a team, there are advantages to having source code under control.
If you are already using a more advanced IDE, Git is probably integrated into your environment, or, at least, it could be. If you are allergic to the command line, there are plenty of GUI tools to use Git, also. One nice thing about Git is that your local repository is just a directory. You don’t need to stand up a special server or anything to use it.
We don’t think it is directly related, but [Andreas] recently had a video on Git and Arduino. It isn’t as detailed, but it does have some good stuff and is worth the time to watch. You can see it below.
We’ve used
Git for some odd things
in the past. Note that Git is the version control system while GitHub is a website. However, if you are a hardcore command line user, you can
manipulate GitHub
from there, too. | 16 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466696",
"author": "Rybec Arethdar",
"timestamp": "2022-04-30T07:37:02",
"content": "Honestly, even non-devs should be using Git. It’s also good for things like writing, where instead of working on a completely new draft, you might prefer an iterative process (like me), and using ... | 1,760,372,710.149437 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/29/motorcycle-voltage-regulator-uses-mosfets/ | Motorcycle Voltage Regulator Uses MOSFETs | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"alternator",
"circuit",
"custom",
"mosfet",
"motorcycle",
"power",
"regulator",
"shunt"
] | For how common motorcycles are, the designs and parts used in them tend to vary much more wildly than in cars and trucks. Sometimes this is to the rider’s advantage, like Honda experimenting with airbags or automatic transmissions. Sometimes it’s a little more questionable, like certain American brands holding on to pushrod engine designs from the ’40s. And sometimes it’s just annoying, like the use of cheap voltage regulators that fail often and perform poorly. [fvfilippetti] was tired of dealing with this on his motorcycle,
so he built a custom voltage regulator using MOSFETs instead
.
Unlike a modern car alternator, which can generate usable voltage even at idle, smaller or older motorcycle alternators often can’t. Instead they rely on a simpler but less reliable regulator that is typically no more than a series of diodes, but which can only deliver energy to the electrical system while the motor is running at higher speeds. Hoping to improve on this design, [fvfilippetti] designed a switched regulator from scratch out of MOSFETs with some interesting design considerations. It is capable of taking an input voltage between 20V and 250V, and improves the ability of the motorcycle to use modern, higher-power lights and to charge devices like phones as well.
In the video below, an LED was added in the circuit to give a visual indication that the regulator is operating properly. It’s certainly a welcome build for anyone who has ever dealt with rectifier- or diode-style regulators on older bikes before. Vehicle alternators are interesting beasts in their own right, too, and
they can be used for much more than running your motorcycle’s electrical system
. | 34 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466639",
"author": "Tom Hargrave",
"timestamp": "2022-04-30T02:56:08",
"content": "Nice project but motorcycle voltage regulators are extremely reliable, probably more reliable than anything I could design. Most are shunt regulators designed to turn on and clamp the alternator to a... | 1,760,372,710.870603 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/29/equipping-an-atv-with-a-trashcan-lifter/ | Equipping An ATV With A Trashcan Lifter | Arya Voronova | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"atv",
"trash can",
"welded hacks",
"wench"
] | [ITman496] is one of us hackers working his way around health problems, in his case, a back injury. He is eager to solve various difficulties he has to deal with, and in case of
the video he made
, it was about moving a large trashcan through ice-covered roads on his property. Not willing to risk his health any further and dissatisfied with the flimsy solutions for sale requiring him to do the heavy lifting, still, he designed and built a winch-powered trashcan lifter mechanism – not entirely unlike a forklift. He mounted it to his ATV, tested it, improved upon it, filming his progress along the way – and then made a video detailing the entire build for us!
Having sketched the concept on his phone, he modeled and tested it in SketchUp, then cut and welded the parts, describing a welding alignment trick along the way – using 3D-printed joints to hold the two parts-to-be-welded together for tack welds, ensuring nigh-perfect alignment. Initial testing was a success! From there, he describes a good few surprising but in retrospect expected ease-of-use improvements that didn’t crop up during simulations, like adding chamfers to the scoop, so that he doesn’t have to angle his ATV super precisely to pick the trashcan up. In the end, having used it for about a month now, he tells us it’s been working extremely well for his purposes!
Not all such garbage cans need to be taken out, thankfully – some of them
go voluntarily
, and you can even get smaller ones that
catch stuff
you throw from across the room. We’ve covered the adventures of [ITman496] before,
learning lessons from a failed robot build in 2016.
, and
adopting an ultralight plane in 2018
! | 6 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466579",
"author": "Bruce Perens K6BP",
"timestamp": "2022-04-29T20:03:46",
"content": "The “wench” power trash can lifter definitely brought a smile to my face, but you should fix that.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "646658... | 1,760,372,710.491809 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/29/hackaday-prize-2022-runtinyrun-is-a-fully-solar-powered-portable-dinosaur-game/ | Hackaday Prize 2022: RunTinyRun Is A Fully Solar-Powered, Portable Dinosaur Game | Robin Kearey | [
"contests",
"Games",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Prize",
"attiny10",
"google dinosaur game",
"solar power"
] | Fully solar-powered handheld gadgets have so far mostly been limited to ultra-low power devices like clocks, thermometers and calculators. Anything more complicated than that will generally have a battery and some means to charge it. An entirely solar-powered video game console is surely out of reach. Or is it? As [ridoluc] shows, such a device is actually possible:
the RunTinyRun gets all its power directly from the Sun
.
To be fair, it’s not really a full-fledged game console. In fact it doesn’t even come close to the original Game Boy. But RunTinyRun is a portable video game with an OLED display that’s completely powered by a solar panel strapped to its back. It will run indefinitely if you’re playing outside on a sunny day, and if not, letting it charge for a minute or two should enable thirty seconds of play time.
The game it runs is a clone of Google’s Dinosaur Game, where you time your button presses to make a T-Rex jump over cacti. As you might expect, the game runs on an extremely minimalist hardware platform: the main CPU is an ATtiny10 six-pin micro with just 1 kB of flash. The game is entirely written in hand-crafted assembly, and takes up a mere 780 bytes. A 0.1 farad supercap powers the whole system, and is charged by a 25 x 30 mm
2
solar cell through a boost converter.
RunTinyRun is a beautiful example of systems design within strict constraints on power, code size and board area. If you’re looking for a more capable, though slightly less elegant portable gaming console, have a look at
this solar-powered Game Boy
.
The
Hackaday
Prize2022
is Sponsored by: | 7 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466571",
"author": "RunnerPack",
"timestamp": "2022-04-29T18:41:51",
"content": "I didn’t know hypercube solar cells were a thing… /s",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6466608",
"author": "Nick",
"timestamp": "2022-04-29T... | 1,760,372,710.452478 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/29/building-a-swiss-army-lab-with-software-defined-instrumentation/ | Building A Swiss Army Lab With Software Defined Instrumentation | Tom Nardi | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"Hack Chat",
"instrumentation",
"software defined",
"test equipment"
] | It’s a fair bet that anyone regularly reading Hackaday has a voltmeter within arm’s reach, and there’s a good chance an oscilloscope isn’t far behind. But beyond that, things get a little murky. We’re sure some of you have access to a proper lab full of high-end test gear, even if only during business hours, but most of us have to make do with the essentials due to cost and space constraints.
The ideal solution is a magical little box that could be whatever piece of instrumentation you needed at the time: some days it’s an oscilloscope, while others it’s a spectrum analyzer, or perhaps even a generic data logger. To simplify things the device wouldn’t have a physical display or controls of its own, instead, you could plug it into your computer and control it through software. This would not only make the unit smaller and cheaper, but allow for custom user interfaces to be created that precisely match what the user is trying to accomplish.
Wishful thinking? Not quite. As guest host
Ben Nizette explained during the
Software Defined Instrumentation Hack Chat
, the dream of replacing a rack of test equipment with a cheap pocket-sized unit is much closer to reality than you may realize. While software defined instruments might not be suitable for all applications, the argument could be made that any capability the average student or hobbyist is likely to need or desire could be met by hardware that’s already on the market.
Ben is the Product Manager at Liquid Instruments, the company that produces the Moku line of multi-instruments. Specifically, he’s responsible for the Moku:Go, an entry-level device that’s specifically geared for the education and maker markets. The slim device doesn’t cost much more than a basic digital oscilloscope, but thanks to the magic of software defined instrumentation (SDi), it can stand in for eleven instruments — all more than performant enough for their target users.
So what’s the catch? As you might expect, that’s the first thing folks in the Chat wanted to know. According to Ben, the biggest drawback is that all of your instrumentation has to share the same analog front-end. To remain affordable, that means everything the unit can do is bound by the same fundamental “Speed Limit” — which on the Moku:Go is 30 MHz. Even on the company’s higher-end professional models, the maximum bandwidth is measured in hundreds of megahertz.
Additionally, SDI has traditionally been limited to the speed of the computer it was attached to. But the Moku hardware manages to sidestep this particular gotcha by running the software side of things on an internal FPGA. The downside is that some of the device’s functions, such as the data logger, can’t actually live stream the data to the connected computer. Users will have to wait until the measurements are complete before they pull the results off, though Ben says there’s enough internal memory to store months worth of high-resolution data.
Of course, as soon as this community hears there’s an FPGA on board, they want to know if they can get their hands on it. To that end, Ben says the Moku:Go will be supported by their “Cloud Compile” service in June. Already available for the Moku:Pro, the
browser-based application
allows you to upload your HDL to the Liquid Instruments servers so it can be built and optimized. This gives power users complete access to the Moku hardware so they can build and deploy their own custom features and tools that precisely match their needs without a separate development kit. Understanding that
obsolescence is always a problem with a cloud solution
, Ben says they’re also working with Xilinx to allow users to do builds on their own computers while still implementing the proprietary “secret sauce” that makes it a Moku.
It’s hard not to get excited about the promise of software defined instrumentation, especially with companies like Liquid Instruments and Red Pitaya bringing the cost of the hardware down to the point where students and hackers can afford it. We’d like to thank Ben Nizette for taking the time to talk with the community about what he’s been working on, especially given the considerable time difference between the Hackaday Command Center and Liquid’s Australian headquarters. Anyone who’s willing to jump online and chat about FPGAs and phasemeters before the sun comes up is AOK in our book.
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. | 33 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466551",
"author": "Bill Gates",
"timestamp": "2022-04-29T17:44:39",
"content": "very much like a cell phone, it does a number of things, all of them poorly.poor adc performance, poor noise floor, poor bandwidth, poor resolution, poor this, half way acceptable that.there are still ... | 1,760,372,710.722844 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/29/hackaday-podcast-166-engraving-with-the-sun-explosive-welding-juggling-chainsaws-and-torturing-wago-connectors/ | Hackaday Podcast 166: Engraving With The Sun, Explosive Welding, Juggling Chainsaws, And Torturing Wago Connectors | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney as they dive into the last week of Hackaday articles. If you love things that go boom, you won’t want to miss the discussion about explosive welding. Ever use the sun to burn something with a magnifying glass? Now you can CNC that, if you dare. We’ll take a quick trip through the darkroom and look at analog-digital photography as well as a tactical enlarger you can build, watch someone do terrible things to Wago and Wago-adjacent connectors, and talk about how suborbital chainsaws can be leveraged into a mass storage medium. Not enough for you? Then don’t miss our bafflement at one corporation’s attitude toward 3D printing, the secret sauce of resin casting, and our rundown of the 2022 Sci-Fi Contest winners.
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 below!
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 166 Show Notes:
News This Week:
2022 Sci-Fi Contest: The Winners Are In
Ingenuity Mars helicopter snaps amazing photos of Perseverance rover’s landing gear (video)
What’s that Sound?
If you think you know what this week’s sound was (like Dan did!) then
write down your guess, your e-mail, and your handle on this form right here
!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
No-Laser CNC Engraver Is Something New Under The Sun
Scratch-Built CO2 Laser Tube Kicks Off A Laser Cutter Build
Selective Solar Sintering With Sand
Testing 7 Wago-like Wire Connectors For Science And Fire
Print-in-Place Connectors Aim To Make Wiring Easier
Omnibot Shows Off Over A Decade Of CNC Prowess
Machine Learning Helps You Get In Shape While Working A Desk Job
Digital To Analog In The Darkroom
Simple Photo Enlarger Makes Great Addition To Any Darkroom
Hard(er) Drives: Impractical, Slow, Amazing, And Incredible
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Hackaday Prize 2022: Glass Tube Solar Thermionic Converters
CAD Sketcher, It’s Parametric CAD For Blender
Drone Filming Chile’s Urban Bike Race Takes Some Fancy Radio Gear
Dan’s Picks:
All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Flow: Russia’s Nord Stream 2 Pipeline
The Apollo Digital Ranging System: More Than Meets The Eye
Genaille’s Rods: When Paint Sticks Do Math
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Explosion Welding Goes Off With A Bang
The Honda Takedown: How A Global Brand Failed To Read The Room | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466894",
"author": "fid",
"timestamp": "2022-05-01T02:36:07",
"content": "Started laughing at the mention of Star Star. It brought to mind the Rolling Stones song. 😁Is it “Star*”, or something like that? I’ll have to re-listen to that part.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,... | 1,760,372,710.534852 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/29/super-simple-scope-shambles-solution/ | Super Simple Scope Shambles Solution | Jenny List | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"bench organiser",
"openscad",
"organization",
"probe caddy",
"scope probe"
] | Sometimes the projects we write up for Hackaday require their creators to produce pages of technical explanation, while others need only rely on the elegance of the hack itself. The
Scope Probe Caddy
from [Tonyo] has probably one of the shortest write-ups we’ve linked to from a Hackaday piece, because its utility is self-evident just by looking at it.
The Hackaday Rigol gets the caddy treatment.
It’s likely that everyone who has owned an oscilloscope will have encountered this problem: that multiple ‘scope probes soon manifest themselves into a tangled mess, an unruly octopus which threatens to overwhelm your bench. The probe organizer is an extremely simple solution tot his problem, a 3D printed clip which fits over the probe connector and into which the probe itself can also slot.
The clip comes as an OpenSCAD file, which starts with a range of size definitions for different types of probe connector. The Rigol we have here isn’t among them, but a very quick measurement with the calipers allowed us to enter the size of a Rigol probe connector at 11.5 mm. It’s not often we make something we’re writing up as we’re writing it, but in this case a quick bit of 3D printing and we too have tidy probe storage. With the addition of a cable tie or a small nut and bolt it’s assembled, and now helps make a Hackaday bench a little clearer.
Once you’ve printed this organizer,
you might want to turn your attention to the probe itself
. | 22 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466489",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-04-29T15:48:33",
"content": "Where’s the Like button?B^)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6466512",
"author": "bstriggo",
"timestamp": "2022-04... | 1,760,372,710.598461 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/29/this-week-in-security-android-and-linux-virustotal-more-psychic-signatures/ | This Week In Security: Android And Linux, VirusTotal, More Psychic Signatures | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"linux",
"Nimbuspwn",
"sneakers",
"virustotal"
] | To start our week of vulnerabilities in everything, there’s
a potentially big vulnerability in Android handsets, but it’s Apple’s fault
. OK, maybe that’s a little harsh — Apple released the code to their Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) back in 2011 under the Apache License. This code was picked up and shipped as part of the driver stack for multiple devices by various vendors, including Qualcomm and MediaTek. The problem is that the Apple code was terrible, one researcher calling it a
“walking colander”
of security problems.
Apple has fixed their code internally over the years, but never pushed those updates to the public code-base. It’s a fire-and-forget source release, and that can cause problems like this. The fact that ALAC was released under a permissive license may contribute to the problem. Someone (in addition to Apple) likely found and fixed the security problems, but the permissive license doesn’t require sharing those fixes with a broader community. It’s worth pondering whether a Copyleft license like the GPL would have gotten a fix distributed years ago.
Regardless, CVE-2021-0674 and CVE-2021-0675 were fixed in both Qualcomm and MediaTek’s December 2021 security updates. These vulnerabilities are triggered by malicious audio files, and can result in RCE. An app could use this trick to escape the sandbox and escalate privileges. This sort of flaw has been used by actors like the NSO group to compromise devices via messaging apps.
Nimbuspwn
Researchers at Microsoft
have been looking at D-Bus
, and the various daemons that listen to it. It’s interesting, because many of those daemons run as root, but a non-root program can make calls to D-Bus. It seems likely that some unintended interaction could lead to security problems. Right on cue, a pair of problems in
networkd-dispatcher
can be chained to elevate privileges from user to root. The problems were fixed in
networkd-dispatcher
version 2.2, so look for at least that release on your Linux distro. Edit: It looks like several distros have backported this fix, calling it
2.1-2
.
CVE-2022-29799 and CVE-2022-29800 are the two flaws, with the first being a directory traversal flaw. A message can be sent, setting a state field to a directory name like
../../maliciousScripts/
. The second is a time-of-check-time-of-use (TOCTOU) flaw, where a script is verified to be controlled by root, but execution isn’t initiated right away. Since symlinks can be used in these directories, the trick is to set up symlinks to what appears to be properly secured scripts, and after the check has been performed, switch the link to the attacker-controlled scripts.
Via Ars Technica
VirusTotal Got Totalled
Dealing with live malware is tricky, and running a public site dedicated to security research tends to attract both good and bad attention. In this case, it was
fellow security researchers that discovered that VirusTotal was vulnerable to attack
. The flaw was CVE-2021-22204, a vulnerability in
exiftool
. VirusTotal uses this as part of it’s file analysis feature, and hadn’t integrated the patches yet. It was straightforward to embed the malicious command, and submit the file for scanning. As individual hosts went to work on the malware sample, they hit the exploit and launched reverse shells back to the researchers. A total win. After confirming that they had indeed hit pay dirt, the researchers from Cysrc turned their findings over to Google, who runs VirusTotal, and the vulnerable binary has since been updated.
Yes I Agree, What Could Go Wrong?
Do you read the End User License Agreements on the apps you install? Have you ever found the EULA so onerous, that you refused to agree? We might all want to get out of the habit of mindlessly agreeing to the Terms of Service. Many of those apps use GPS location data, and many of those EULAs specify that your location data can be sold to advertisers. The data is “anonymized”, which just means instead of names or email addresses, the location data is tied to pseudo-random numeric IDs. Surely no-one would go to the trouble of getting your data and unmasking your identity, right? Right?
According to The Intercept
, a pair of intelligence companies have ingested location data en masse and automated the de-anonymizing process. How many people have their data caught up in this real-world version of
The Machine
? Something like three billion devices. Yikes.
So About that Pentest…
Red team exercises are the source of some of the most impressive security stories. How a scrappy team overcame adversity to pull off the ultimate hack is the stuff of legends. (Seriously, go watch Sneakers again.) But what happens when you go to all that work, try multiple approaches, and still don’t score a successful breach?
This was
the question [DiabloHorn] pondered
, with some good guidelines to help any of us in that awkward situation. The first task is to ask, what led to a null result? Was the test scoped too narrowly? Too many restrictions on techniques? Not enough time given? That’s all good information to report, so the next test can be more profitable. Additionally, what worked? If the code in use was bulletproof because of a really good test suite with fuzzing already being done, that’s good info, too. The whole write-up is a thought-provoking exercise, even for the rest of us, who are just trying to stay secure.
Psychic Signatures Continued
Last week we brought the Java Psychic Signatures story, and less than a week later, there is a particularly fun
Proof of Concept to take a look at
: Breaking TLS. Since the flawed implementation can be used to secure HTTPS traffic via TLS, this means a malicious server can authenticate as any host desired. It seems like this would defeat HSTS and certificate stapling as well. The attack extends to Man-in-the-Middle attacks as well. Remember this vulnerability only applies to Java clients that haven’t been updated. See
last week’s coverage
for more information. | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466513",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-04-29T16:16:56",
"content": "” “walking colander” of security problems.”Descriptive!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6466692",
"author": "Da... | 1,760,372,710.650595 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/29/chonky-palmtop-will-slide-into-your-heart/ | Chonky Palmtop Will Slide Into Your Heart | Kristina Panos | [
"Cyberdecks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"7\" touch screen",
"Corne",
"Corne keyboard",
"cyberdeck",
"Raspberry Pi 4"
] | You probably know what a cyberdeck is by now, but you’ll find that people’s definitions differ. Some use the term rather loosely, applying it to things that are luggable at best. But we think you’ll agree that the
“Chonky Palmtop” created by [Daniel Norris] AKA [a8ksh4]
is without a doubt, quite cyberdeckian.
One of the hallmarks of a cyberdeck is that it folds up, often like a laptop in the screen-over-keyboard sense. Not only does chonky palmtop do that, but the split keyboard (more on that later) has this impressive pivot geometry and really satisfying slider mechanism thing going on. The whole thing folds up into a little brick, which [Daniel] says is about the size of an old Asus EEE laptop. (Remember those bad boys? Those were the days.)
Inside the brick is some stuff you might expect, like a Raspberry Pi 4 and a 7″ touchscreen. [a8ksh4] also packed in an AmpRipper 3000 LiPo charger, which is especially good for high voltage projects. Speaking of, there is a voltage button to check the battery level, which is then displayed on a trio of 7-segment displays that are smack dab in the middle below the screen.
Now about that split keyboard — that’s a Corne, which is kind of a happy medium between a lot of keys and too few, and 42 is probably enough keys for most people. Considering the overall size, we think that is a great amount of keys.
Not that you can tell by the keycaps on those Chocs, but [a8ksh4] is rocking the Miryoku layout and firmware. Slide past the break to watch chonky palmtop unfurl, boot into Ubuntu, and close back up in a brief demo video. | 41 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466415",
"author": "not",
"timestamp": "2022-04-29T11:15:48",
"content": "No handle ? meee.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6466417",
"author": "Sword",
"timestamp": "2022-04-29T11:21:14",
"content": "Wayyyy thicker... | 1,760,372,710.801167 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/29/this-machine-vision-ekranoplan-might-just-follow-you-home/ | This Machine-Vision Ekranoplan Might Just Follow You Home | Dan Maloney | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"AprilTag",
"ekranoplan",
"fiducial",
"GEV",
"ground effect",
"machine vision",
"raspberry pi",
"ros"
] | What is it that’s not quite either a plane or a boat, but has characteristics of both? There are probably a lot of things that fit that description, but the one that [Nick Rehm] is working on is known as an ekranoplan. Specifically, he’s looking to make
the surface-skimming ground-effect vehicle operate autonomously
.
If you think you’ve heard about ekranoplans around here before, you’d be right — we’ve covered
a cool LIDAR-controlled model ekranoplan
that [rctestflight] worked on about a year ago, and more recently, [ThinkFlight]’s attempts to make
an autonomous ekranoplan
that can follow behind a boat. The latter is where [Nick] enters the collaboration, and the featherweight foam ground-effect vehicle shown in the video below is his test platform.
After sorting out the basic airframe design and getting the LIDAR integrated, he turned his attention to the autonomous bit, which relies on a Raspberry Pi 4 running ROS and a camera with a wide-angle lens. The Pi uses machine vision algorithms to find an “AprilTag” fiducial marker in the scene, which gives the flight controller information about the relative orientation of the ekranoplan to the tag. [Nick] tested tag tracking using an electric longboard, and the model ekranoplan did an admirable job of not only managing the ground-effect, but also staying on target right behind him. And hats off to [Nick] for keeping all the balls in the air and not breaking his neck in the process.
We’re looking forward to seeing what [Nick] built here end up in [ThinkFlight]’s big ekranoplan build. Ground-effect vehicles like these are undeniably cool, and it seems like they’ve got the potential to solve some interesting transportation problems. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466388",
"author": "Viktor",
"timestamp": "2022-04-29T08:26:48",
"content": "Chinese drones can track you without QR for years now.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6466422",
"author": "lmphamdanggmailcom",
"ti... | 1,760,372,710.913117 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/28/a-real-gpu-on-the-raspberry-pi-barely/ | A Real GPU On The Raspberry Pi — Barely. | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"gpu",
"linux",
"PCIe",
"raspberry pi"
] | [Jeff Geerling] saw the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 and its exposed PCI-Express 1x connection, and just naturally wondered whether he could plug a GPU into that slot and get it to work. It didn’t. There were a few reasons why, such as the limited Base Address Register space, and drivers that just weren’t written for ARM hardware. A bit of help from the Raspberry Pi software engineers and other Linux kernel hackers and those issues were fixed, albeit with a big hurdle in the CPU. The Broadcom chip in the Pi 4, the BCM2711, has a broken PCIe implementation.
There has finally been a breakthrough — Thanks to the dedicated community that has sprung up around this topic, a set of kernel patches manage to work around the hardware issues. It’s now possible to
run a Radeon HD 5000/6000/7000 card on the Raspberry Pi 4 Compute Module
. There are still glitches, and the Kernel patches to make this work will likely never land upstream. That said, It’s possible to run a desktop environment on the Radeon GPU on a Pi, and even a few simple benchmarks. The results… aren’t particularly inspiring, but that wasn’t really ever the point. You may be asking what real-world use is for a full-size GPU on the Pi. Sure, maybe crypto-mining or emulation, or being able to run more monitors for digital signage. More than that, it might help ensure the next Pi has a working PCIe implementation. But like many things we cover here, the real reason is that it’s a challenge that a group of enthusiasts couldn’t leave alone. | 36 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466357",
"author": "RPi5c",
"timestamp": "2022-04-29T07:15:45",
"content": "Don’t get me wrong, it’s amazing overall but there are still things to improve it in the next release. The Raspberry Pi 4 has had several broken things. At least they fixed it by moving to version 4b but wh... | 1,760,372,710.98741 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/28/recycling-plastic-into-filament/ | Recycling Plastic Into Filament | Bryan Cockfield | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"filament",
"pet",
"plastic",
"recycle",
"reuse",
"spool"
] | Plastic is a remarkable material in many ways. Cheap, durable, and versatile, it is responsible for a large percentage of the modern world we live in. As we all know, though, it’s not without its downsides. Its persistence in the environment is quite troubling, so any opportunity we can take to reduce its use is welcome.
This 3D printed machine
, although made out of plastic, is made out of repurposed water bottles that have been turned into the filament for the 3D printer.
While there’s not too much information available on the site, what we gather is that the machine cuts a specific type of plastic water bottle made out of
PET plastic
into strips, and then feeds the strips into a heated forming tool. The tool transforms the strips into the filament shape and spools them so they are ready to feed back into a 3D printer. As a proof of concept, it seems as though this machine was made from repurposed plastic, but it could also be made using whatever filament you happen to have on hand.
As far as recycling goes, this is a great effort to keep at least some of it out of landfills and oceans. Unfortunately, plastic can’t be recycled endlessly like metal, as it will eventually break down. But something like this could additionally save on some filament costs for those with access to these types of bottles. Other options for
creating your own filament also include old VHS tapes
, but you will likely need a separate machine for that. | 43 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466350",
"author": "ganzuul",
"timestamp": "2022-04-29T04:31:58",
"content": "I work as a machinist and we produce a lot of plastic waste. A product can easily cause 80% waste from the raw stock, and it all gets thrown in the dumpster. We work with POM, PVC, Teflon, PEEK, Nylon, PV... | 1,760,372,711.076519 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/28/multiband-crystal-radio-set-pulls-out-all-the-stops/ | Multiband Crystal Radio Set Pulls Out All The Stops | Dan Maloney | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"crystal",
"detector",
"germanium",
"radio",
"rectifier",
"woodworking"
] | Most crystal radio receivers have a decidedly “field expedient” look to them. Fashioned as they often are from a few turns of wire around an oatmeal container and a safety pin scratching the surface of a razor blade, the whole assembly often does a great impersonation of a pile of trash whose appearance gives little hope of actually working. And yet work they do, usually, pulling radio signals out of thin air as if by magic.
Not all crystal sets take this slapdash approach, of course, and some, like
this homebrew multiband crystal receiver
, aim for a feature set and fit and finish that goes way beyond the norm. The “Husky” crystal set, as it’s called by its creator [alvenh], looks like it fell through a time warp right from the 1920s. The electronics are based on the Australian “Mystery Set” circuit, with modifications to make the receiver tunable over multiple bands. Rather than the traditional galena crystal and cat’s whisker detector, a pair of1N34A germanium diodes are used as rectifiers — one for demodulating the audio signal, and the other to drive a microammeter to indicate signal strength. A cat’s whisker is included for looks, though, mounted to the black acrylic front panel along with nice chunky knobs and homebrew rotary switches for band selection and antenna.
As nice as the details on the electronics are, it’s the case that really sells this build. Using quarter-sawn oak salvaged from old floorboards. The joinery is beautiful and the hardware is period correct; we especially appreciate the work that went into transforming a common flat washer into a nickel-plated escutcheon for the lock — because every radio needs a lock.
Congratulations to [Alvenh] for pulling off such a wonderful build, and really celebrating the craftsmanship of the early days of radio. Need some crystal radio theory before tackling your build? Check out
[Greg Charvat]’s crystal radio deep dive
. | 23 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466286",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2022-04-28T23:20:50",
"content": "Wow, just wow.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6466550",
"author": "greenbit",
"timestamp": "2022-04-29T17:42:29",
"conte... | 1,760,372,711.136165 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/28/plinko-like-build-takes-advantage-of-wireless-leds/ | Plinko-Like Build Takes Advantage Of Wireless LEDs | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"led",
"wireless led",
"wireless leds"
] | Imagine if you had some magic glowing beads, that would emit beautiful colors without any wires tangling them up. They exist, in the form of wireless induction-powered LEDs, and [Debra] of
Geek Mom Projects
has been experimenting with them in a new way.
The build takes the wireless LEDs and wraps each one up in a 1/4″-thick clear ring of acrylic. This toughens up the LEDs and helps diffuse their light. They’re then installed in a hexagonal plastic container, featuring a grid of screws
not unlike the metal pins of the game Plinko.
Thanks to the induction coil mounted behind, the LEDs glow as they ricochet around the metal pins in various ways.
We’d love to see the container full of LEDs mounted on a slowly-turning motor, such that they would tumble around endlessly, glowing all the while. It would be quite mesmerizing, in much the same way as
the kaleidoscope project [Debra] built using these parts previously
. Video after the break.
New wireless (induction powered) LED experiment. Each LED assembly is housed inside a 1/4" thick clear acrylic ring. I like the way these thicker rings diffuse the colored light.
pic.twitter.com/0cevJGxHjz
— Geek Mom Projects (@geekmomprojects@qoto.org) (@GeekMomProjects)
April 18, 2022
[Thanks to Peter Martin for the tip!] | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466254",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2022-04-28T20:26:42",
"content": "I wonder if it would be possible to have an LC circuit tuned for a different frequency in each LED, so you could switch them off by sending in a different AC frequency.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": ... | 1,760,372,711.18254 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/28/tiny-risc-virtual-machine-is-built-for-speed/ | Tiny RISC Virtual Machine Is Built For Speed | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"design",
"l1vm",
"microcontroller",
"modular",
"nanovm",
"raspberry pi",
"small",
"software",
"virtual machine",
"vm"
] | Most of us are familiar with virtual machines (VMs) as a way to test out various operating systems, reliably deploy servers and other software, or protect against potentially malicious software. But virtual machines aren’t limited to running full server or desktop operating systems.
This tiny VM is capable of deploying software on less powerful systems
like the Raspberry Pi or AVR microcontrollers, and it is exceptionally fast as well.
The virtual machine is built from scratch, including the RISC processor with only 61 opcodes, a 64 bit core, and runs code written in his own programming language called “Brackets” or in assembly. It’s designed to be modular, so only those things needed for a given application are loaded into the VM. With these design criteria it turns out to be up to seven times as fast as comparably small VMs like NanoVM. The project’s creator, [koder77], has even used its direct mouse readout and joystick functionality to control a Raspberry Pi 3D camera robot.
For anyone looking to add an efficient VM to a small computing environment, [koder77] has made the project open-source
on his GitHub page
. This also includes all of the modules he has created so far which greatly expand the project’s capabilities. For some further reading on exceedingly tiny virtual machines,
we featured this project way back in 2012
which allows users to run Java on similar hardware. | 13 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466236",
"author": "Steven Clark",
"timestamp": "2022-04-28T19:23:09",
"content": "I wonder how much faster this is than other academic VMs like Spim or Mars.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6466256",
"author": "Joshu... | 1,760,372,711.620578 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/28/2022-sci-fi-contest-the-winners-are-in/ | 2022 Sci-Fi Contest: The Winners Are In | Elliot Williams | [
"contests",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"2022 Sci-Fi Contest",
"props",
"replica",
"sci-fi",
"star trek",
"star wars"
] | The Sci-Fi Contest closed out on Monday, and we put our heads together and picked our favorites. And it was no easy task, because in addition to many of the projects simply looking stellar, many went all-out on the documentation as well, making these stellar examples that we can all learn from, whether you’re into sci-fi or not. But who are we kidding? From the responses we got, you are.
The Winners
[RubenFixit]’s
Star Trek
Shuttle Console
is a
Trek
themed escape room in a box. The project’s extraordinary attention to detail and exhaustive project logs absolutely won our judges heart. From the LCARS graphics to the 3D printed isolinear chip bays and mimetic crystals, it’s all there. [Ruben] estimates about 300 hours of work went into this one, and it shows.
We had no shortage of robotic projects in the contest, but [RudyAramayo]’s
R.O.B.
won our judges over. This one is not a joke, weighing in at over 140 lbs of custom metalwork and righteous treads. It’s also made out of some expensive hardware all around, so maybe this isn’t your weekend-build robot. We love the comment on the Arduino test code suite: “For gods sake man, you must test your code when it becomes an autonomous vehicle.”
Finally, [zapwizard]’s
Functional Razor Crest Control Lever
is a prop and a video game controller in one. We can totally see Grogu playing with this, and we were wowed by the attention to detail in the physical build — with custom gears and a speed limiter — as well as the attention to prop-making detail. Some parts are custom-cut stainless steel plates. 3D printed parts are covered in aluminum tape and chemically aged. Awesome. Oh yeah, it’s also a working USB joystick.
These three winners will be receiving a $150 shopping spree at Digi-Key.
Living in the Future
This year’s contest featured a number of real projects in Sci-Fi clothing, and that’s awesome. We don’t know what it says about the Hackaday audience, but far too many of the entries this year weren’t just props — there was a lot of real engineering going on. Maybe we
are
really living in the future.
[j]’s
µ Spec Mk II
is a science-reality version of a tricorder. It’s got a spectrometer, thermal camera, spectrum analyzer, and a 2D LIDAR ranger inside. It’s not out of the future, but maybe it could be.
[andrewfentem]’s
Accelerator 22
is a game of future space air hockey, except it’s real. This is one of an ongoing series of projects that create interactive surfaces by pushing stuff around with electromagnets. Here, the paddles put out EM pulses to make the puck rebound as if by magic.
[Victor Serrano]’s
Droid Trooper
is the result of putting a decade’s worth of robotics tinkering into one rolly Stormtrooper toy. It’s self-balancing and has got image tracking and a first-person-view VR overlay. This is a slick robot build! Absolutely watch the video demos.
Finally, [Kevin Harrington]’s
The Child
and [Matthias Kubisch]’s
flatcat
both run right through the uncanny valley, or maybe around it. You must decide. Either way, the future is now.
Star Star
In the never-ending fan battle between
Star Wars
and
Star Trek
: this round goes to the
Wars
. Half of the credit goes to [CuriousMarc] and his fantastic
Mouse Droid
and
R2-D2
replicas, but if we had to have a sub-category just for
The Mandalorian
, we could have. [Kenneth Zaborny]’s
Chopper droid
has been around for years, and it still looks great!
Star Wars
fans just represented.
Stolen off the Set
We love [Melissa Matos]’s
Warehouse 13 Tesla Gun
— it’s a polyphase ass-kicker. It’s got Nixies, a 3D printed frame, and a power knob that goes up to an understated four. [Legionlabs]’s
Schrödinger’s Trigger
isn’t the cleanest or the most refined, but it makes up for it with hacker-style grit, and for that it looks somehow
realer
. And [cyzoonic]’s
Cyberdeck1
, which we’ve
covered before on Hackaday
, still rocks. [Bram]’s
RayTime
watch is from another universe, and we love it.
Exo-Suit
This category had really only one contender, and [Andrea Piccinno]’s
3X0
is all-in. Starting with a 3D photogrammetry scan of himself, a lot of 3D printing, springs, and shock absorbers are heading in the direction of half man, half machine. This is a project to keep your eye on.
The Most Important Device
This category is for things that look like the future because they’re bright and blinky. [Luke J. Barker]’s
C.O.R.A. from
Battlestar Galactica
fits the bill, while looking a lot like the real deal out of Starbuck’s ship. Why were LEDs that blink out FFTs a thing? It’s the future, baby! And although it doesn’t blink, we have to give a hat-tip to [Eddie]’s
Kaleidoscope
: it’s a bunch of RGB LEDs hand-soldered to fixed resistors, and the natural component tolerances makes for subtle, beautiful, lighting. It might look good in the background of a starship officer’s quarters.
In sum, we got a
ton
of awesome entries! Thanks to everyone who entered, and the rest of you definitely should
check out all projects
. There was a lot more going on than we could ever do justice to. | 4 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466255",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-04-28T20:30:21",
"content": "” Here, the paddles put out EM pulses to make the puck”Wow! Making a puck from EM pulses??We are moments away from a working Holodeck!B^)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": ... | 1,760,372,711.486468 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/28/automatic-turntable-makes-photogrammetry-a-cinch/ | Automatic Turntable Makes Photogrammetry A Cinch | Lewin Day | [
"Cellphone Hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"3.5mm jack",
"audio socket",
"phone socket",
"Photogrammetry",
"turntable",
"usb"
] | Photogrammetry is a great way to produce accurate 3D models of real objects. A turntable is often a common tool used in this work as it helps image an object from all angles. [Peter Lin] wanted a way to run the photogrammetry process with minimal human intervention,
and set about building an automated turntable setup.
The build relies on a smartphone to take images of the physical object. The phone is triggered to take photos by an ESP8266, which fires the shutter via the phone’s audio socket. The microcontroller then turns the turntable on for a short period of time after each shot, rotating it by a set angle.
The build still requires objects to be repositioned in various orientations on the turntable now and then, in order to capture the top and bottom areas that would otherwise be obscured. However, the grunt work of taking the photos and rotating the objects is now entirely automated.
It’s a useful build for anyone that finds themselves regularly imaging objects to create 3D models. The results of [Peter]’s rig look great, and as a bonus come with life-like textures ready to go.
We’ve seen some other great photogrammetry builds before, too
. Video after the break. | 9 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466205",
"author": "RunnerPack",
"timestamp": "2022-04-28T17:09:18",
"content": "Doesn’t the lighting change if you rotate the object, making the photos useless? Or, is this not a problem for photogrammetry software anymore?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": ... | 1,760,372,711.666887 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/28/ev-charging-connectors-come-in-many-shapes-and-sizes/ | EV Charging Connectors Come In Many Shapes And Sizes | Lewin Day | [
"car hacks",
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Slider"
] | [
"CCS",
"chademo",
"ChaoJi",
"electric vehicle",
"ev",
"EV charger",
"GB/T 20234.3",
"j 1772",
"j1772",
"Mennekes",
"mennekes connector",
"tesla",
"type 1",
"Type 2"
] | Electric vehicles are now commonplace on our roads, and charging infrastructure is being built out across the world to serve them. It’s the electric equivalent of the gas station, and soon enough, they’re going to be everywhere.
However, it raises an interesting problem. Gas pumps simply pour a liquid into a hole, and have been largely standardized for quite some time. That’s not quite the case in the world of EV chargers, so let’s dive in and check out the current state of play.
AC, DC, Fast, or Slow?
Since becoming more mainstream over the past decade or so, EV technology has undergone rapid development. With most EVs still somewhat limited in range, automakers have developed ever-faster charging vehicles over the years to improve practicality. This has come through improvements to batteries, controller hardware, and software. Charging tech has evolved to the point where the latest EVs can now add hundreds of miles of range in under 20 minutes.
However, charging EVs at this pace requires huge amounts of power. Thus, automakers and industry groups have worked to develop new charging standards that can deliver high current to top vehicle batteries off as quickly as possible.
As a guide, a typical home outlet in the US can deliver 1.8 kW of power. It would take an excruciating 48 hours or more to charge a modern EV from a home socket like this.
In contrast, modern EV charge ports can carry anywhere from 2 kW up to 350 kW in some cases, and require highly specialized connectors to do so. Various standards have come about over the years as automakers look to pump more electricity into a vehicle at greater speed. Let’s take a look at the most common options out in the wild today.
“Type 1” aka SAE J1772
The SAE J1772 connector. Credit:
Mliu92, CC-BY-SA-4.0
AC, single phase.
The SAE J1772 standard was announced in June 2001, also known as the J Plug. The 5-pin connector supports single-phase AC charging at 1.44 kW when hooked up to a standard home power socket, ramping up to a full 19.2 kW when installed on a higher-speed EV charging station. The connector carries single-phase AC power on two conductors, signalling on two further conductors, with the fifth being a protective earth connection.
The J Plug became mandatory for all EVs sold in California after 2006, and quickly caught on in the USA and Japan, with some penetration into other worldwide markets.
“Type 2” aka Mennekes
The female Type 2 Mennekes connector. Credit:
Mliu92, CC-BY-SA-4.0
AC, single or three phase.
The Type 2 connector, also known for its creator, German manufacturer Mennekes, was first proposed in 2009 as a replacement for SAE J1772 in the European Union. It’s headline feature is that its 7-pin connector design can carry single-phase or three-phase AC power, allowing it to charge vehicles with at up to 43 kW. In practice, many Type 2 chargers top out at 22 kW or less. It similarly features two pins for signalling pre-insertion and post-insertion, similar to J1772. It then has a protective earth, a neutral, and three conductors for the three AC phases.
In 2013
, the EU chose Type 2 plugs as the new standard to replace J1772 and the obscure EV Plug Alliance Type 3A and 3C connectors in AC charging applications. The connector has become widely accepted the European market since then, and is available on many international market vehicles, too.
CCS – Combo 1, Combo 2
AC, single or three phase, DC fast charging
CCS Combo 1 and Combo 2 connectors. Credit:
Mliu92, CC-BY-SA-4.0
CCS stands for Combined Charging System, and uses “combo” connectors to allow both DC and AC charging. The standard was published in October 2011, and aimed to allow for high-speed DC charging to be easily implemented on new vehicles. This would be achieved by adding a pair of DC conductors to existing AC connector types. CCS comes in two main forms, the Combo 1 connector and the Combo 2 connector.
The Combo 1 features a Type 1 J1772 AC connector paired with two large DC conductors. Thus, a vehicle with a CCS Combo 1 connector can hook up to J1772 chargers for AC charging, or a Combo 1 connector for high-speed DC charging. This design was intended for vehicles on the US market, where the J1772 connector had become commonplace.
The Combo 2 connector features a Mennekes connector paired with two large DC conductors. Intended for the European market, this allows cars with a Combo 2 socket to charge on single or three phase AC with a Type 2 connector, or to hook up to a Combo 2 connector for DC fast charging.
CCS allows for AC charging as per the standards of either the J1772 or Mennekes subconnectors built into the design. When used for DC fast charging, however, it allows for lightning-fast charge rates up to 350 kW.
Notably, DC fast chargers with the the Combo 2 connector eliminate the AC phase connections and neutral from the connector, as they are unneeded. Combo 1 connectors leave them in place, though they are unused. Both designs rely on the same signalling pins as used by the AC connector in order to communicate between vehicle and charger.
Tesla
AC single phase, DC fast charging
As one of the pioneering companies in the EV space, Tesla set out to design its own charging connector to suit the needs of its vehicles. This was rolled out as part of Tesla’s Supercharger network, which aimed to build out a fast-charger network to support the company’s vehicles when little other infrastructure existed for the purpose.
While the company fits its vehicles with Type 2 or CCS connectors in Europe, in the US, Tesla has used its own charge port standard. It can support both AC single and three phase charging, as well as the high-speed DC charging at Tesla’s Supercharger stalls.
Tesla’s original Supercharger stations could deliver up to 150 kW per car, though later low-power models for urban areas had a lower limit of 72 kW. The company’s latest chargers can deliver up to 250 kW to suitably equipped vehicles.
Chinese GB/T 20234.3 Standard
China’s GB/T 20234.3 connector for EV charging. Credit:
Mliu92, CC-BY-SA-4.0
DC fast charging
Issued by the Standardization Administration of China, the
GB/T 20234.3 standard
covers a connector capable of both single-phase AC and DC fast charging. Virtually unknown outside
China’s unique EV market,
it’s rated to run at up to 1,000V DC and 250 amps, providing charging speeds up to 250 kW.
It’s unlikely you’d find this port on a vehicle that wasn’t built in China, and intended for its own market or perhaps those countries it has strong trade relationships with.
Perhaps most interesting about this port design are the A+ and A- pins. These are rated for up to 30 V and up to 20 A of current. They’re described in the standard as being for “low voltage auxiliary power supply provided by the off-board charger for the electric vehicle.”
Their exact function isn’t clear from that translation, but they may be intended to help jump-start an EV that has completely dead batteries. When an EV’s traction battery and 12V battery are both dead, it can be difficult to charge the vehicle as the car’s electronics don’t have any power to wake up and communicate with the charger. Nor can contactors be energized to connect the traction pack to the car’s various subsystems. These two pins may be intended to provide enough juice to run the car’s basic electronics and energise contactors so that the main traction battery can be charged even if the vehicle has absolutely no power. If you know more about this, feel free to let us know in the comments.
CHAdeMO
DC fast charging
Pinout of the CHAdeMO connector. Credit:
Mliu92, CC-BY-SA-4.0
CHAdeMO is a connector standard for EVs that was built first and foremost for fast-charging applications. It can deliver up to 62.5 kW via its unique connector. It was the first standard that aimed to provide DC fast charging to EVs regardless of manufacturer, and features CAN bus pins for communication between vehicle and charger.
The standard was proposed in 2010 for global use, backed by Japanese automakers. However, the standard has only really caught on in Japan, with Europe sticking to Type 2 and the US going with J1772 and Tesla’s own connector. The EU at one point considered mandating a complete phase-out of CHAdeMO chargers, but instead settled for a requirement that charging stalls “at least” feature a Type 2 or Combo 2 connector instead.
A backwards-compatible upgrade was announced in May 2018, which would allow CHAdeMO chargers to deliver
up to 400 kW
, eclipsing even CCS connectors in this area. Proponents of CHAdeMO cited its nature as a single standard around the globe, versus the split between US and EU CCS standards. However, it has failed to find much purchase outside the Japanese market.
The proposed ChaoJi connector. An “Ultra-ChaoJi” connector featuring additional DC conductors for supplying even greater power levels to trucks and other heavy vehicles has been proposed. Credit:
Mliu92, CC-BY-SA-4.0
A CHAdeMo 3.0 standard has been in development since 2018. Known as ChaoJi, it features a completely new 7-pin connector design, developed in partnership with the Standardization Administration of China. It hopes to increase charging rates up to 900 kW, running at 1.5 kV and delivering a full 600 amps through the use of liquid-cooled cabling.
Summary
Reading this article, you could be forgiven for thinking that there’s a whole mess of different charging standards ready to give you headaches wherever you drive your new EV. Thankfully, it’s not really the case. Most jurisdictions have worked to support one charging standard to the exclusion of most others, leading to most vehicles and chargers in a given area all being compatible. The exception, of course, is Tesla in the US, but they also have their own dedicated charging network.
While there are a few people that have gotten stuck with the wrong charger in the wrong place at the wrong time, they can often get by with an adapter of some sort or other where needed. Going forward, most new EVs are sticking to the established charger types in their region of sale, making life easier for everyone. | 69 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466148",
"author": "lmphamdanggmailcom",
"timestamp": "2022-04-28T14:05:07",
"content": "I will forever refer to Tesla’s Supercharger as the “Surprised Robot Face Plug”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6466155",
"author": "c... | 1,760,372,711.953793 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/28/diy-arduino-based-ev-charger-saves-money-looks-pro/ | DIY Arduino Based EV Charger Saves Money, Looks Pro | Ryan Flowers | [
"car hacks"
] | [
"charger",
"diy",
"electric vehicle",
"ev",
"EV charger"
] | Electric vehicles (EVs) are something of a hot topic, and most of the hacks we’ve featured regarding them center on conversions from Internal Combustion to Electric. These are all fine, and we hope to see plenty more of them in the future. There’s another aspect that doesn’t get covered as often: How to
charge
electric vehicles- especially commercially produced EV’s rather than the DIY kind. This is the kind of project that [fotherby] has taken on:
A 7.2 kW EV charger for his Kia
.
Faced with spending £900 (about $1100 USD) for a commercial unit installed by a qualified electrician, [fotherby] decided to do some research. The project wasn’t outside his scope, and he gave himself a head start by finding a commercial enclosure and cable that was originally just a showroom unit with no innards.
An Arduino Pro Mini provides the brains for the charger, and the source code and all the needed information to build your own like charger is on
GitHub
. What’s outstanding about the guide though is the deep dive into how these chargers work, and how straightforward they really are without being simplistic.
Dealing with mains power and the installation of such a serious piece of kit means that there are inherent risks for the DIYer, and [fotherby] addresses these admirably by including a ground fault detection circuit. The result is that if there is a ground fault of any kind, it will shut down the entire circuit at speeds and levels that are below the threshold that can harm humans. [fotherby] backs this up by testing the circuit thoroughly and documenting the results, showing that the charger meets commercial standards. Still, this isn’t a first-time project for the EV enthusiast, so we feel compelled to say “Don’t Try This At Home” even though that’s exactly what’s on display.
In the end, several hundred quid were saved, and the DIY charger does the job just as well as the commercial unit. A great hack indeed! And while these aren’t common, we did cover
another Open Source EV charger
about a year ago that you might like to check out as well. | 63 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466093",
"author": "steaky",
"timestamp": "2022-04-28T11:17:53",
"content": "Using software (let alone an Arduino) for RCD operation is very dangerous. If the software hangs for any reason then goodbye RCD!Adding in a watchdog would help, but I’d still be very nervous around this.Y... | 1,760,372,711.8376 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/27/no-laser-cnc-engraver-is-something-new-under-the-sun/ | No-Laser CNC Engraver Is Something New Under The Sun | Dan Maloney | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"CdS",
"cnc",
"engraver",
"gantry",
"gimbal",
"solar",
"sun tracker"
] | Hooking up a laser to a CNC gantry isn’t exactly an Earth-shattering innovation, but it does make for a useful tool. Even a cheap diode laser mounted to an old 3D printer can do engraving, marking, or even light-duty cutting. But what about a laser engraver without the laser? Can that be of any use?
Apparently, the answer is yes, if you can harness the power of the sun. That’s what [Lucas] did with
his solar-tracking CNC engraver
, the build of which is shown in the video below. The idea is pretty simple — mount a decent-sized magnifying lens where the laser optics would normally go on a laser engraver, and point the thing at the sun. But as usual, the devil is in the details. The sun has a nasty habit of moving across the sky during the day, or at least appearing to, so [Lucas] has to add a couple of extra degrees of freedom to a regular X-Y CNC rig to track the sun. His tracking sensor is simplicity itself — four CdS photocells arranged with a pair of perpendicular shades, and an Arduino to drive the gimbals in the correct direction to keep all four sensors equally illuminated. He had some initial problems getting the jerkiness out of the control loop, but the tracker eventually kept the whole thing pointing right at the Sun.
So how does it work? Not bad, actually — [Lucas] managed to burn some pretty detailed designs into a piece of wood using just the sun. He mentions adding a shutter to douse the cutting beam to allow raster patterns, but even better might be a servo-controlled iris diaphragm to modulate beam intensity and control for varying sun conditions. He might also check out
this solar engraver we covered previously
for some more ideas, too.
Thanks to [Zane Atkins] for the tip. | 28 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465700",
"author": "Jens",
"timestamp": "2022-04-27T15:41:21",
"content": "There was the “solar sinter” project by Markus Kayser a few years ago. It uses the same method to sinter sand grains together for a 3D printer.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,711.72757 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/27/the-state-of-play-in-solid-state-batteries/ | The State Of Play In Solid State Batteries | Lewin Day | [
"car hacks",
"chemistry hacks",
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Slider"
] | [
"battery",
"electric vehicle",
"ev",
"Murata",
"nissan",
"panasonic",
"solid state",
"solid-state battery",
"tesla",
"toyota"
] | Electric vehicles are slowly but surely snatching market share from their combustion-engined forbearers. However, range and charging speed remain major sticking points for customers, and are a prime selling point for any modern EV. Battery technology is front and center when it comes to improving these numbers.
Solid-state batteries could mark a step-change in performance in these areas, and the race to get them to market is starting to heat up. Let’s take a look at the current state of play.
Why Go Solid State?
The hope is that solid-state batteries could pack in higher energy densities by making it practical to use a lithium metal anode design. Credit:
BMW, press site
Currently, lithium-ion or lithium-polymer batteries are used in the vast majority of EVs. They have higher power density and lower weight than other practical, commercialized battery technologies, making them ideal for vehicle use. However, they also have some drawbacks. They’re still heavier than we’d like for their given capacity, they take too long to recharge, and they have a nasty habit of catching on fire in a rather ferocious manner.
Solid-state batteries could change all this. They’re called “solid state” because the liquid electrolyte is replaced with a solid-state material. Solid electrolytes would be far less flammable than liquid materials used presently, and thus far less sensitive to heat, too. This could allow for greater current draw as well as faster charging, as the battery would not have to be kept in as narrow a temperature range for safety reasons.
Additionally, the solid electrolyte may allow use of different anode materials that would provide greater energy density. In particular, scientists have long wished to use lithium metal directly as an anode material in batteries. However, in current liquid electrolyte batteries, the lithium metal anode forms dendrites that short out the battery, destroying it in the process. It’s believed that a solid electrolyte would prevent this growth, and could provide up to two and a half times the energy density of existing lithium batteries.
Challenges
Solid-state battery technology has not matured to the point of mainstream use just yet. Some solid-state batteries
have been arriving on the market
, but they’re several orders of magnitude too small for use in electric vehicles.
Challenges remain around conductivity, particularly at lower temperatures, as well as issues of high resistance between the solid materials that make up the cathode, anode, and solid electrolyte. Many solid state battery designs require the solid electrolyte to be under great pressure to maintain good conductivity, which introduces mechanical issues around stress and fragility.
Additionally, there simply isn’t any infrastructure to produce solid-state batteries en masse. Automotive manufacturers have been rushing to build new battery plants to support EV manufacturing. However, the vast majority are to make up a perceived shortfall in producing current battery designs. It’s likely plants would have to be significantly retooled to produce solid-state batteries, which have very different internal designs.
Contenders
Electric scooter manufacturer Gogoro unveiled a prototype solid-state battery earlier this year. The “lithium ceramic battery module” came with a 40% boost in capacity over the company’s existing cells. Credit:
Gogoro, press site
Regardless, the tipping point at which solid-state batteries become viable commercially is nearly upon us. Several companies are investing big money in this space. Each hopes to be the first to get a competitive advantage over its rivals by having the best battery tech available.
On the small scale, we already saw last year that component manufacturer Murata had developed
25 mAh solid-state batteries last year.
These are awesome to mount on a PCB, but won’t really help you drive anywhere. Stepping up a little, but still on the smaller scale, is the effort from Hitachi Zosen. The company has produced a high-performance solid-state battery
of 1000 mAh capacity,
however, the technology is not yet commercialized.
Electric scooter company Gogoro has cornered the Taiwanese market in electric mopeds. Their vehicles feature a handy swappable battery system, with battery-swap stations dotted around the country to keep riders on the move. Now, the company has unveiled
a new solid-state battery prototyp
e, compatible with their existing battery form factor. This means the new battery can drop into all their existing vehicles on the road. The new battery ups capacity to 2.5 kWh, up from 1.7 kWh. It’s a full 40% increase in energy density, boosting the range of any vehicle that can run on a Gogoro battery pack. However, the pack remains a demo article at this stage, and the company hasn’t announced definite plans to roll the batteries out to their network just yet.
Nissan recently unveiled a prototype production facility for solid-state batteries. Credit:
Nissan, press site
Meanwhile, titans of the automotive industry are also vying for the lead in this area. Last year, BMW made it clear it would show
a solid-state powered tech demonstrator by 2025
, while it hopes to go into production closer to 2030.
Nissan has gone further, revealing a prototype factory for solid-state batteries
in partnership with NASA.
The Japanese automaker claims that its solid-state cars could be charged up to three times faster than current models, while offering twice as much range. The company hopes to have a pilot production line running by 2024, in preparation to sell solid-state EVs to the public in 2028. The company also noted that solid-sate tech would produce a pack “about half the size of the current battery” and that it could “fully charge in 15 minutes instead of a few hours.”
BMW has managed to produce prototype solid-state batteries up to 20 Ah capacity in partnership with Solid Power. The plan is to test 100 Ah batteries in 2022. Credit
BMW, press site
Toyota has also invested big, and is
working hard with Panasonic
to be at the head of the pack. The company claimed
earlier this year
that it would have a hybrid vehicle on sale with solid-state batteries as soon as 2025. Given the high cost of developing and producing the new batteries, this counterintuitive move makes some sense. Hybrid cars use smaller batteries than EVs, and thus the solid-state tech won’t inflate the price of a hybrid as much, keeping it market-suitable.
When it comes to the automotive market, though, solid-state batteries are fundamentally too important a technology to ignore. Everyone from
Volkswagen
to
Rivian
is taking a look, though most of the other players aren’t showing their hands just yet.
Overall, solid-state battery technology promises to be a gamechanger. All that’s required is for scientists and engineers to solve a few issues around reliability, manufacturability, and cost. If those hurdles can be overcome, the new batteries should blow lithium cells out of the water, and quickly take the market by storm.
Banner image:
Solid Power
‘s production 20 Ah battery versus 2 Ah first version. | 141 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465665",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2022-04-27T14:10:34",
"content": "There’s been some really exciting news in batteries over the last year. One recent thing I was reading was about how an additive for lowering the combustibility of Lithium batteries made higher densi... | 1,760,372,712.293433 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/27/nasas-giant-sls-rocket-rolled-back-for-repairs/ | NASA’s Giant SLS Rocket Rolled Back For Repairs | Tom Nardi | [
"News",
"Space"
] | [
"Artemis",
"nasa",
"sls",
"Space Launch System"
] | There’s little debate that the most exciting move in a rocket’s repertoire is when it launches itself skywards on a column of flame. But failing that, it’s still pretty interesting to see how these massive vehicles get juggled around down here on terra firma before getting fired off into the black. Which is great for anyone interested in NASA’s towering Space Launch System (SLS), as it’s been doing an awful lot of milling about on the ground for a vehicle designed to return humanity to the Moon.
Most recently, the SLS completed
a trek from the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to launch pad 39B and back again aboard the same “crawler” that moved the Space Shuttle and Saturn V before it. While the nearly 60-year-old tracked vehicle has received some updates to carry the 98 meter (322 ft) tall booster, clearly the space agency subscribes to the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” school of thought.
The ICPS being loaded onto the SLS
The SLS itself however is definitely in need of some work. The rocket was
brought out to the pad for the first time on March 18th
, where it was to conduct what’s known as a “wet dress rehearsal” — a test of the pre-flight operations, propellant loading, and countdown that includes everything except engine ignition. Unfortunately, the test was plagued with technical issues, and after three attempts, it was decided to bring the rocket back into the VAB to make the necessary repairs to both it and the ground support equipment.
One issue involves a valve in the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS), a propulsion module that’s being used on the early SLS flights to provide the trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn that will
send the Orion spacecraft on a course towards the Moon
. As the name implies, the ICPS is destined to be replaced with the larger Exploration Upper Stage on later missions. There’s also a leak on the launch tower itself that will need to be addressed. After the identified problems are repaired and some adjustments are made, the SLS will once again be rolled out to the pad to reattempt the launch rehearsal.
Now in development for over a decade, the Space Launch System has been
plagued with technical issues and delays
. At the same time, commercial launch providers like SpaceX have moved the state of the art forward considerably, leading many to wonder if the mind-bogglingly expensive rocket will be able to compete with in-development vehicles such as Starship and New Glenn. The fact that missions which were previously assigned to the SLS have
started to get shifted over to commercial rockets
would seem to indicate that even NASA is losing confidence in their flagship program. | 33 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465616",
"author": "Michael",
"timestamp": "2022-04-27T11:31:11",
"content": "I was around during the Mercury missions. Noone ever thought that private corporations could ever accomplish what NASA did. It was a truism that only a nation state could do it.And now here we are with NA... | 1,760,372,712.113222 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/27/building-reaction-wheels-with-python-and-lego/ | Building Reaction Wheels With Python And LEGO | Lewin Day | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"control theory",
"inverted pendulum",
"pendulum",
"pid",
"pid control"
] | Reaction wheels are useful things, typically used by satellites to keep themselves oriented the right way up in space. Turning the reaction wheel creates an equal and opposite torque in the spacecraft, allowing it to point and rotate itself accurately. The same technique also works here on Earth, and [Brick Experiment Channel] decided
to build one out of LEGO to control an inverted pendulum.
The initial design using a small LEGO wheel on an inverted pendulum was only able to work reliably over a 4-degree angle from the vertical. Upgrading the wheel to a larger, heavier one enabled the wheel to instead work over a 28-degree range instead.
A MPU9250 inertial measurement unit was pressed into service for control of the reaction wheel, fitted to the base of the pendulum and read by a Raspberry Pi. The Pi takes accelerometer and gyroscope readings, and then controls the motor on the pendulum with a PID controller to keep the inverted pendulum upright.
The video goes into a great deal of detail on what it takes to make the pendulum run smoothly. From changes to the control coefficients to measuring the motor’s back EMF, [Brick Experiment Channel] demonstrates everything required to make the pendulum robust to outside perturbances.
The inverted pendulum is a great way to learn about control theory,
as we’ve seen time and again. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465655",
"author": "George K Ott",
"timestamp": "2022-04-27T13:34:53",
"content": "Someone get this guy an ESD mat!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6465666",
"author": "Pez",
"timestamp": "2022-04-27T14:10:44",
"con... | 1,760,372,711.994457 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/26/genailles-rods-when-paint-sticks-do-math/ | Genaille’s Rods: When Paint Sticks Do Math | Ryan Flowers | [
"History",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"division",
"maths",
"multiplication",
"old school",
"slide rule"
] | What is a hacker, if not somebody who comes up with solutions that other just don’t see? All the pieces may be in place, but it takes that one special person to view the pieces as greater than the sum of their parts. As [Chris Staecker] explains in the
video below the break
, Henri Genaille was one such person.
When French mathematician Edouard Lucas (himself well known for calculating the longest prime number found by hand) posed a mathematical problem at the French Academy, a French railway engineer named Henri Genaille developed the rods we’re discussing now.
Genaille’s Rods are designed to perform multiplication. But rather than require computation by the user, the rods would simply need to be laid out in the correct order. The solution could readily be found by just following the lines in the correct pattern.
This might sound a lot like cheating
, and that’s exactly what it is. No manual math needed to be done. Genaille also created rods for doing long division, which we’re sure were every bit as enthralling as the multiplication rods. Demonstrations of both are included in the video below.
While Genaille’s Rods have gone the way of the slide rule, we can’t help but wonder how many engineers and scientists carried around a set of marked up wooden sticks in their pocket protector.
If designing and building manual mathematical machines is something that you think really adds up to a good time,
check out this post on how to design and build your own circular slide rule
!
Thanks [Keith] for the excellent tip. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465671",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "2022-04-27T14:24:37",
"content": "The Wikipedia article is concise, and demonstrates the use well.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genaille%E2%80%93Lucas_rulers",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment... | 1,760,372,712.033285 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/26/fort-knutz-squirrels-go-all-mission-impossible/ | Fort Knutz – Squirrels Go All Mission Impossible | Anne Ogborn | [
"Lifehacks",
"Misc Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"animal",
"animal feeder"
] | [Mark Rober] has a bird feeder in his back yard. Also, squirrels who eat the seed. So, as one does, he built a nine part squirrel obstacle course with a reward of walnuts at the end, and
filmed them beating the course
.
(Spoiler – this is all much better in the video, which we’ve placed below the break).
His four backyard squirrels enter a ‘Casino’ and avoid the plushie ‘security’. From there it’s across a rod mounted on bearings, leap into a crate under a helicopter, which zip-lines to a brick wall with randomly moving bricks, and into their hideout.
Security is about to get him.
The hideout elevator shaft leads to a sewer, which leads to the famous room from
Mission Impossible
where [Tom Cruise] has to avoid the floor, but to get to the hatch in the top they have to lower a ladder by ‘hacking into’ the control system (by pushing a keyboard shaped button) and lowering a rope ladder.
Next they go through a tube maze to a room full of laser beams (3D printer filament) and finally they can jump onto the platform with Fort Knutz. If they get the vault door open, they’re rewarded with a shower of walnuts.
Yes, this is completely bonkers.
It’s a fantastic build, mostly done with pneumatic actuators. It’s beautiful craftsmanship in places. The obstacles are well proportioned and pleasing to the eye. He’s applied principles of cuteness. It’s also squirrel safe. For example, every enclosed space has an easy one way emergency exit. And the video is a wonderful bit of film making. There’s adorable characters, a plot, and ultimately an engaging story about conflict turned to a relationship of fun and giving.
This is a rebuild of his earlier squirrel maze, the
Ninja Warrior Course.
We write about animal hacks occasionally. From
toilet training cows
to
Virtual Hamster Vacations
. | 22 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465546",
"author": "Gregg Eshelman",
"timestamp": "2022-04-27T03:04:53",
"content": "Two squirrels had minimal problems with the roof maze. One got on the roof and examined the whole maze from the outside. Then when he entered it, he went through it without error. The 4th squirrel ... | 1,760,372,712.351584 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/26/simple-photo-enlarger-makes-great-addition-to-any-darkroom/ | Simple Photo Enlarger Makes Great Addition To Any Darkroom | Lewin Day | [
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"darkroom",
"enlarger",
"flim",
"photo"
] | Chemical-based photography can seem like a dark art at times, but it needn’t be so. [Dan K] developed the Simple Enlarger to help spread the idea that classical photographic darkroom tools are fundamentally
quite easy to understand and build
.
The assembled enlarger.
A photographic enlarger illuminates a negative with light, and focuses this light on a sheet of photographic paper which can then be developed. [Dan’s] enlarger design is intended to be built using materials readily available from any dollar store or stationer’s shop, and can be built in just a few short hours. It’s built to work with a single film format and with a fixed size of photographic paper for simplicity’s sake.
A simple M-mount camera lens is pressed into service for the main optic, with the ex-Soviet part chosen for its easy focusing and cheap price. A small plywood box makes a decent body, and a white phosphor LED provides the light source. The final rig is designed to print 35mm negatives on to standard 8×10 paper.
If you want to get into developing your own negatives and don’t want to buy a commercial enlarger, [Dan]’s build could be just the way to go.
We’ve seen some other similar builds before, too.
Meanwhile, if you’ve got your own nifty darkroom hacks, be sure to
drop us a line! | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465518",
"author": "Dave Walker",
"timestamp": "2022-04-26T23:23:05",
"content": "Great project,but it was a few years ago now…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6465536",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2022-04-2... | 1,760,372,712.439598 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/28/90s-apple-computer-finally-runs-unsigned-code/ | 90s Apple Computer Finally Runs Unsigned Code | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Mac Hacks"
] | [
"apple",
"bandai",
"crack",
"custom",
"macintosh",
"operating system",
"Pippin",
"software",
"unsigned"
] | Back in the 90s, the console wars were in full swing. Nintendo vs Sega was an epic showdown at first, but when Nintendo seemed sure to clench the victory Sony came out of nowhere with the PlayStation. While these were the most popular consoles at the time, there were a few others around that are largely forgotten by history even if they were revolutionary in some ways. An example is the Pippin, a console made by Apple,
which until now has been unable to run any software not signed by Apple
.
The Pippin was Apple’s only foray into gaming consoles, but it did much more than that and included a primitive social networking system as well as the ability to run Apple’s Macintosh operating system. The idea was to be a full media center of sorts, and the software that it would run would be loaded from the CD-ROM at each boot. [Blitter] has finally cracked this computer, allowing it to run custom software, by creating an authentication file which is placed on the CD to tell the Pippin that it is “approved” by Apple.
The build log goes into incredible detail on the way these machines operated, and if you have a Pippin still sitting around it might be time to grab it out of the box and start customizing it in the way you probably always wanted to. For those interested in other obscure Apple products, take a look at this build
which brings modern WiFi to the Apple Newton
, their early PDA.
Thanks to [Jens] for the tip! | 12 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466072",
"author": "moonrush",
"timestamp": "2022-04-28T09:28:56",
"content": "Sony didn’t come out of nowhere with the PlayStation. The PlayStation was going to be a Nintendo product, but Nintendo went with Panasonic, and left Sony holding the bag. Its been featured here on Hac... | 1,760,372,712.398372 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/27/drone-filming-chiles-urban-bike-race-takes-some-fancy-radio-gear/ | Drone Filming Chile’s Urban Bike Race Takes Some Fancy Radio Gear | Lewin Day | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"downhill mountain bike",
"drone",
"drone repeater",
"drove fpv",
"FPV",
"fpv flight",
"fpv racer"
] | Drones have revolutionized the world of videography in perhaps the biggest way since the advent of digital hardware. They’re used to get shots that are impractical or entirely impossible to get by any other means. The [Dutch Drone Gods] specialize in such work. When it came to filming an urban mountain bike race in a dense Chilean city,
they had to bust out some serious tricks.
The FPV video feed was grainy, but good enough to keep the pilot on track. The drone carried a separate second camera for capturing high-quality footage of the run.
Typically, running a drone chase cam behind a biker would require some good first-person flying skills and a quick drone. However, for the Red Bull Valparaiso Cerro Abajo urban downhill event, this alone would not be enough. The tight course winds down staircases between thick concrete walls and even through houses, presenting huge challenges to maintaining signal integrity. Without a clear video signal, the pilot can’t fly the drone without crashing.
To make this all possible, the team used a variety of techniques to help combat the uncooperative radio environment. Directional antennas were used to target different sections of the course. Additionally, a second drone was flown high above the course carrying a radio repeater, helping provide a better line-of-sight contact to the camera drone following the riders when the buildings would otherwise block the signal to the pilot.
Even with all this work, the signal was still scratchy and would cut out at some points. However, with a bit of blind faith when cutting through the worst areas,
the [Dutch Drone Gods]
and the [Red Bull] team were able to put together an amazing FPV drone shot shadowing [Tomas Slavik] on his run down the extremely difficult urban course.
Details on the precise hardware are scarce. However, it’s something that any experienced drone builder could probably whip up without too much trouble. The idea of using a drone-based repeater is particularly exciting, and something we’re sure could help out many pilots who find themselves operating in difficult urban environments.
We’ve seen plenty of great FPV stories over the years, from early experiments
in the 1980s
to
fun DIY cockpit builds of today.
Video after the break. | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6466027",
"author": "DerMondkeks",
"timestamp": "2022-04-28T06:15:50",
"content": "Insane shots. This really sent chills over my spine!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6466045",
"author": "Jouni",
"timestamp": "2022-04-2... | 1,760,372,712.593718 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/27/cad-sketcher-its-parametric-cad-for-blender/ | CAD Sketcher, It’s Parametric CAD For Blender | Anne Ogborn | [
"cnc hacks",
"News"
] | [
"3D CAD",
"blender"
] | It’s very early days for
CAD Sketcher
, a new parametric CAD add-on for Blender by [hlorus], but it looks very promising.
We do a lot of 3D work and like Blender as an environment. It’s always annoying that Blender doesn’t do parametric modeling, so we’re forced into a dedicated CAD package. Blending the two for that robot ocelot is always particularly annoying.
CAD Sketcher lets the user make a ‘sketch’, a 2D drawing. They then constrain it, saying “this line is vertical, that line is parallel to this one”, until the sketch is fully defined. It’s a normal part of parametric modelling. This is powerful when your model needs refined over and over.
There’s an old adage, “Better a tool that does 90% of the job well than one that does 100% poorly”. For CAD systems, (and much other software), we’d suggest “Better a tool that does 90% of the job well and works with whatever does the other 10%”.
Guard Drawn In CAD Sketcher And Blender
We tried a test part, and being in Blender’s universe showed its value. CAD Sketcher doesn’t do bevels and rounds yet, and probably won’t for a while. But Blender’s perfectly happy doing them.
It’s not going to put SolidWorks out of business any time soon, but it’s a very promising new development. We hope it gathers some community and encourage contributions.
We cover CAD frequently, like the recent advances with
CadQuery
and the port of
OpenSCAD
to WASM.
[thanks paulvdh] | 39 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465929",
"author": "Autodrop3d (@autodrop3d)",
"timestamp": "2022-04-28T02:05:45",
"content": "If I am not mistaken this tool is using the solvespace kernel.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6466066",
"author": "hackki... | 1,760,372,712.820411 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/27/digital-to-analog-in-the-darkroom/ | Digital To Analog In The Darkroom | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"4K",
"analog",
"black and white",
"contact",
"darkroom",
"display",
"monocrhome",
"paper",
"photography",
"resin"
] | As the world becomes more and more digital, there are still a few holdouts from the analog world we’ve left behind. Vinyl records are making quite the comeback, and film photography is still hanging on as well. While records and a turntable have a low barrier for entry, photography is a little more involved, especially when developing the film. But with the right kind of equipment you can bridge the gap from digital to analog
with a darkroom setup that takes digital photographs and converts them to analog prints
.
The project’s creator, [Muth], has been working on this project since he found a 4K monochrome display. These displays are often used in resin 3D printers, but he thought he could put them to use developing photographs. This is much different from traditional darkroom methods, though. The monochrome display is put into contact with photo-sensitive paper, and then exposed to light. Black pixels will block the light while white pixels allow it through, creating a digital-to-analog negative of sorts. With some calibration done to know exactly how long to expose each “pixel” of the paper, the device can create black-and-white analog images from a digital photograph.
[Muth] notes that this method isn’t quite as good as professional print, but we wouldn’t expect it to be. It creates excellent black-and-white prints with a unique method that we think generates striking results. The 4K displays needed to reproduce this method aren’t too hard to find, either, so it’s fairly accessible to those willing to build a small darkroom to experiment. For those willing to go further,
take a look at some other darkroom builds we’ve seen in the past
. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465886",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2022-04-27T23:44:22",
"content": "That isn’t all that different from ‘traditional darkroom methods’.Contact prints were fairly common back in large format days.Why not put a cell phone display in the film holder. Then you can adjust the size... | 1,760,372,712.864719 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/27/diy-bench-psu-looks-like-a-million-bucks-but-is-easy-on-the-budget/ | DIY Bench PSU Looks Like A Million Bucks But Is Easy On The Budget | Ryan Flowers | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"12 volt",
"3.3 volt",
"5 volt",
"atx power supply",
"bench equipment",
"bench power supply"
] | As one becomes more and more involved in hobbies that involve electronics of almost any kind, it becomes necessary to graduate from wall warts and USB power breakout boards and move up to something more substantial. One great way to do this is to repurpose an old computer PSU, and that’s exactly what
the excellent writeup by [Mukesh Sankhla]
shows us how to do.
Starting with an ATX power supply from a derelict computer that was otherwise heading to to the bin, [Mukesh] walks us through the teardown of the power supply as well as how we can rebuild it in a snazzy 3d printed case complete with a voltage readout.
Now it’s easy to say “Sure, this is just another ATX PSU project” but the care that went into making a nice case adds a lot to build. There’s another element that is extremely important: The power resistor across the 5 Volt power bus. There are cheap kits online that will break out an ATX PSU into banana plugs, but they omit this vital piece. Depending on the ATX power supply being used, they may be unstable without the load.
The project also leaves a lot of room for adding your own hacks such as variable voltage and current limiting. We think this PSU would be a great (and great looking) addition to any hacker’s workbench. If ATX Power Supply get your electrons flowing, check out this
entire computer built into a gutted ATX PSU
. | 29 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465825",
"author": "Twisty Plastic",
"timestamp": "2022-04-27T20:36:13",
"content": "Can’t or don’t want to source that big power resistor? When using old AT power supplies that absolutely required a load on the 5V line I used an old turn-signal bulb. It does the job, can also ser... | 1,760,372,712.719034 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/27/hackaday-prize-2022-glass-tube-solar-thermionic-converters/ | Hackaday Prize 2022: Glass Tube Solar Thermionic Converters | Lewin Day | [
"contests",
"Science",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Prize",
"solar",
"solar power",
"thermionic",
"thermionic conversion",
"thermionic tube",
"tube",
"tubes",
"vacuum tube"
] | Typically, if you want to convert solar energy into electrical energy, you use either photovoltaic (PV) cells, or you use the sunlight to create steam to turn a turbine. Both of these methods are well-established and used regularly in both small- and grid-scale applications. However, [Nick Poole] wanted to investigate an alternative method,
using thermionic converters for solar power generation.
[Nick] has been gearing up to produce various styles of vacuum tubes, and noted that the thermionic effect that makes them work could also be used to generate electricity. They are highly inefficient and produce far less power than a photovoltaic solar cell, meaning they’re not in common use. However, as [Nick] notes, unlike PV cells etched in silicon, a thermionic converter can be built with basic glassworking tools, requiring little more than a torch, a vacuum pump, and a spot welder.
Experiments with a large lens to focus sunlight onto a 6V3A diode tube showed promise. [Nick] was able to generate half a volt, albeit at a tiny current, with the design not being optimized for thermionic conversion. Further experiments involved electrically heating a pair of diode tubes, which was able to just barely light an LED at 1.7 V and a current of 7.5 uA. The conversion efficiency was a lowly 0.00012%, around 5 orders of magnitude worse than a typical PV cell.
[Nick]’s hope is that he can produce a tube designed specifically to maximize thermionic conversion for energy generation purposes. It’s likely there is some low-hanging fruit in terms of gains to be made simply by optimizing the design for this purpose, even if the technique can’t compete with other solar generation methods.
In any case, we’re eager to see what [Nick] comes up with! We love to see makers
building tubes in their own home workshops
.
The
Hackaday
Prize2022
is Sponsored by: | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465762",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2022-04-27T18:53:51",
"content": "I’ve always wondered if you can achieve this with car headlight assemblies … you’ve got two filaments, or possibly it can work with one good one and one burned out, as long as there is conductor expo... | 1,760,372,712.651826 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/27/2022-hackaday-prize-get-your-planet-friendly-power-on/ | 2022 Hackaday Prize: Get Your Planet-Friendly Power On! | Elliot Williams | [
"contests",
"green hacks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Prize",
"clean energy",
"energy",
"mppt",
"renewable",
"solar"
] | Time flies! This weekend marks the end of the first stage of the
2022 Hackaday Prize
, and your chance to enter your alternative-energy projects. There are ten $500 prizes up for grabs, and there’s still time to
whip up a project page
over on Hackaday.io to showcase it.
In this round, we’re looking for projects that harvest their own energy — solar, wind, heat, vibration, you name it — or projects that make it easier to collect, store, or use renewable energy. Whether this is microwatts or megawatts, the scale of the project is up to you! As long as it’s using or making it easier to use clean energy, we want to see it.
So far, we’ve seen some great projects, ranging from a
optimizes the tilt angle of a home solar installation
to a demonstration of
using a new type of lithium-ion capacitor to add solar power to smaller projects
. We really love [MartMet]’s
simple Bluetooth thermometer hack
, which adds a supercapacitor and solar cell to an outdoor thermometer, and then uses hacked firmware to log the charge status over a year of use! We’re suckers for good data.
The sun is not the only game in town, though. There are a surprising number of projects based on human energy production in emergency situations, from
cranking
to shaking.
Thermionic converters
were new to us, but we love explorations of fringe tech. Other traditional favorites like
wind
and
water
may make more sense for larger applications. And don’t forget how you’re going to
store all this juice
you’ve collected.
[Nick Poole]’s
thermionic converter array
[Anuradha Gunawardhana]’s
18650 Pack
In short, we’ve got a bunch of great entries, but we’re still missing yours! There’s no minute like the last minute: if you’ve done some work in clean or renewable energy, set yourself up a Hackaday.io project page now. You’ll help make all our projects cleaner, and stand a good chance of taking home some real money to boot!
Once we’ve handled power, the next round is “Reuse, Recycle, Revamp” where any tech that uses recycled parts or facilitates reuse, repair, or recycling is fair game!
The
Hackaday
Prize2022
is Sponsored by: | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465900",
"author": "Daniel Matthews",
"timestamp": "2022-04-28T00:39:15",
"content": "The best power is power you didn’t use because you achieved your goals without needing it, the source matters far less than that.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
... | 1,760,372,713.011876 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/26/a-baudot-code-speaking-chatterbot-with-a-freakish-twist/ | A Baudot Code Speaking Chatterbot With A Freakish Twist | Dave Rowntree | [
"Artificial Intelligence"
] | [
"artifical intelligence",
"baudot code",
"MegaHal",
"raspberry pi",
"tty"
] | [Sam Battle] known on YouTube as [Look Mum No Computer] is mostly known as a musical artist, but seems lately to have taken a bit of shine to retro telecoms gear, and this latest foray is into the realm of the minicom tty device which was a lifeline for those not blessed with ability to hear well enough to communicate via telephone. Since in this modern era of chatting via the internet, it is becoming much harder to actually find another user with a minicom, [Sam] decided to
take the human out of the loop entirely and have the minicom user talk instead to a Raspberry Pi running an instance of MegaHal
, which is 1990s era chatterbot. The idea of this build (that became an exhibit in this museum is not obsolete) was to have an number of minicom terminals around the room connected via the internal telephone network (and the retro telephone exchange {Sam] maintains) to a line interface module, based upon the
Mitel MH88422
chip. This handy device allows a Raspberry Pi to interface to the telephone line, and answer calls, with all the usual handshaking taken care of. The audio signal from the Mitel interface is fed to the Pi via a USB audio interface (since the Pi has no audio input) module.
The minicom speaks
Baudot code
, to encode the characters typed into an audio stream that the other end can decode, so this needed to be handled by the Pi also. Since the code itself dates from the 1870s, this was likely not
a huge deal to implement.
MegaHal
uses a model based on a
hidden Markov model
which can be considered an example of an AI system, depending on your viewpoint. MegaHal’s model can generate (sometimes!) intelligible sentences from some input text, after being trained on an appropriate data set. [Sam]’s collaborator [MarCNeT] used lyrics from [Sam]s’ songs for the training purpose. With the minicom-to-MegaHal interfacing done, that was not enough for [Sam] so he added an additional interface to his slightly terrifying Kosmo creation, to add some teeth and eye movement into the mix. A sparkfun audio trigger gives Kosmo its voice, although we reckon the Pi could have probably managed to do that as well. If you want to follow along with the design process, you can
read the discourse transcript
, and that’s not enough and you’re close enough, you could pop over to
this Museum is (Not) Obsolete
, and check it out in person.
AI related shenanigans are not rare in these parts. here’s a fun
clickbait generator
, then there’s a way to
get Linux to do what you mean
, not necessarily what you say, and finally, if this is just too far fetched and not practical enough for you, you could just
hack your coffee maker to learn to steam up
for you when you most need it. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465490",
"author": "Jii",
"timestamp": "2022-04-26T20:58:43",
"content": "Man, i need that “Thinking, thinking, thinking…” track for when someone asks me a question at work. And then i need to learn to speak in baudot code.But another great video from him.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,372,712.965451 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/26/2022-sci-fi-contest-multi-sensor-measurement-system/ | 2022 Sci-Fi Contest: Multi-Sensor Measurement System | Lewin Day | [
"contests",
"Science"
] | [
"2022 Sci-Fi Contest",
"science",
"sensor"
] | Many sci-fi movies and TV shows feature hand-held devices capable of sensing all manner of wonderful things. The µ Spec Mk II from [j] is built very much in that vein, packing plenty of functionality
into a handy palm-sized form factor.
An ESP32 serves as the brains of the device, hooked up to a 480×320 resolution touchscreen display. On board is a thermal camera, with 32×24 pixel resolution from an MLX90640 sensor. There’s also a 8×8 LIDAR sensor, too, and a spectral sensor that can capture all manner of interesting information about incoming light sources. This can also be used to determine the transmission coefficient or reflection coefficient of materials, if that’s something you desire. A MEMS microphone is also onboard for capturing auditory data. As a bonus, it can draw a Mandelbrot set too, just for the fun of it.
Future plans involve adding an SD card so that data captured can be stored in CSV format, as well as expanding the sensor package onboard. It’s a project that reminds us of some of the
tricorder builds
we’ve seen over the years. Video after the break. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465525",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2022-04-27T00:21:50",
"content": "It would be interesting to see with sensor fusion, various sources plus some machine learning.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6465532",
"author... | 1,760,372,712.905707 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/26/modern-wildfires-and-their-effect-on-the-ozone-layer/ | Modern Wildfires And Their Effect On The Ozone Layer | Lewin Day | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"bushfire",
"bushfires",
"fire",
"fires",
"ozone",
"ozone layer",
"science",
"wildfire",
"wildfires"
] | The ozone layer is a precious thing, helping protect the Earth from the harshest of the sun’s radiative output. If anything were to damage this layer, we’d all feel the results in a very short order indeed.
In the past, humanity has worked to limit damage to the ozone layer from our own intentional actions. However, it’s not just aerosol cans and damaged air conditioning systems that are putting it at risk these days. The fierce wildfires we’ve seen so much of in recent years are also having a negative effect. Let’s take a look at why the ozone layer matters, and how it’s being affected by these wildfires.
A Protective Blanket
NASA modelling shows that the hole in the ozone layer would have covered the entire Earth by 2060 if CFC production had not been outlawed by the Montreal Protocol in the 1980s. Credit: NASA, public domain
The fusion reactor that we call the Sun is a vicious thing. As it collides hydrogen atoms, mashing them together into helium, it releases a great deal of heat, light, and other electromagnetic radiation. Much of this radiation can be harmful to humans, plants, and other organisms.
Thankfully, the Earth has the ozone layer for protection. It’s a part of the atmosphere, or the stratosphere to be precise, that has a higher concentration of ozone than the rest of the atmosphere. The difference is actually quite slight – the ozone layer features the triple-atom oxygen molecule at a level of 10 parts per million (ppm), versus the level of 0.3 ppm seen on average in the rest of the atmosphere.
Those ten ozone molecules out of every million do an important job: blocking around 97-99% of the sun’s medium-frequency ultraviolet radiation. Without the ozone layer in place, we’d all sunburn far more quickly. In fact, if it was gone entirely,
plants would struggle to photosynthesize
, food supplies would dry up, and the surface of the Earth would essentially
be sterilized in short order
The ozone layer is delicate, however. A wide variety of man-made chemicals, primarily CFCs, can break down ozone molecules, and have led to the commonly-known hole in the ozone layer which is still present to this day. Due to the crucial protective nature of the ozone layer, much work has gone into restricting the use of these chemicals and other measures to protect the ozone layer’s existence.
The Effect of Wildfires
The Australian bushfire season of 2019-2020 was so fierce and widespread that even downtown city areas like the Sydney CBD were shrouded in smoke. Credit:
VirtualWolf, CC-BY-SA-2.0
The largest wildfires burn with such heat and intensity that they create huge plumes of smoke that can reach immense heights, even lofting smoke particles and combustion byproducts
into the stratosphere
. It’s a simple result of the fact that hot gases tend to rise up, and wildfires create plenty of those.
New research has now shown
that these compounds can actually change the composition of gases in the upper atmosphere, and potentially even destroy ozone in this atmospheric layer. Scientists used the infrared spectrometer on the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment, a mission running on Canadian satellite SCISAT, to investigate the issue in the wake of Australia’s tragic 2019/2020 “Black Summer” fires.
Taking spectral measurements of the smoke particles in the upper atmosphere, it became clear that the particles contained oxygenated organic molecules, which could undergo chemical reactions with other molecules in the stratosphere. Further measurements noted increases in levels of molecules like formaldehyde, chlorine nitrate, chlorine monoxide, and hypochlorous acid. In turn, decreases in ozone levels were detected, as well as a drop in levels of nitrogen dioxide and hydrochloric acid.
Smoke columns stretched high into the atmosphere due to the huge scale and intensity of the bushfires. Credit: Helitak430,
CC-BY-SA-4.0
Such major perturbations in the atmospheric chemistry being studied had not been observed in the previous 15 years of satellite measurements. There was a small initial bump to ozone levels after the wildfires, suspected to be due to similar reactions that create ozone pollution at ground level. However, from April to December 2020, ozone levels dropped precipitously to below the averages seen from 2005 to 2019.
Realistically, there’s not a lot that can be done to rectify this problem directly. Wildfires are already fought by those on the ground to protect life and limb, as well as property. Putting them out quicker would help, but fire crews are already doing everything they can in such cases.
It’s not all bad news for the ozone layer, however. Since the Montreal Protocol outlawed most production of CFC gases that harmed the ozone layer, we’ve seen gradual recovery from earlier human-induced damage. Despite recent spikes, the hole in the ozone layer is expected to close up
within the next 50 years or so.
In fact,
when NASA checked in 2019
, the hole in the ozone layer was the smallest its been since 1982. However, if major wildfires continue to occur with increasing severity, we may be in for more trouble.
In the end, reducing carbon emissions, and halting the pace of climate change is the best thing we can do to tackle this problem. Reducing global temperatures should help reduce the occurrence of wildfires, and their severity, and thus less smoke will be lofted into the upper atmosphere where it’s causing such a stir.
Headline image from the ESA’s Sentinel-2 satellite.
ESA, Copernicus EMS via Twitter | 36 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465456",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2022-04-26T17:38:33",
"content": "One thing, for “a long time” forest fires were seen as abad thing.But my ancestors, and the distant cousins today, did controlled burns in the Pacific Northwest. Not to burn trees, but get rid of d... | 1,760,372,713.231282 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/26/pianolizer-helps-your-musical-projects-distinguish-notes/ | Pianolizer Helps Your Musical Projects Distinguish Notes | Arya Voronova | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"fast fourier transform",
"fft",
"fourier transform",
"music transcription",
"note",
"notes",
"piano",
"sdft",
"signals processing",
"software library"
] | [Stanislaw Pusep] has gifted us with
the Pianolizer project
– an easy-to-use toolkit for music exploration and visualization, an audio spectrum analyzer helping you turn sounds into piano notes. You can run his toolkit on a variety of different devices, from Raspberry Pi and PCs, to any browser-equipped device including smartphones, and use its note output however your heart desires. To show off his toolkit in action, he set it up on a Raspberry Pi, with Python code taking the note data and sending color information to the LED strip,
displaying the notes in real time as he plays them on a MIDI keyboard!
He also created
a browser version
that you can use with a microphone input or an audio file of your choosing, so you only need to open a webpage to play with this toolkit’s capabilities.
He took time to make sure you can build your projects with this toolkit’s help, providing
usage instructions
with
command-line
and
Python examples
, and even shared all the code used in the making of the demonstration video. Thanks to everything that he’s shared, now you can add piano note recognition to any project of yours! Pianolizer is a self-contained library implemented in
JavaScript
and
C++
(which in turn compiles into WebAssembly), and the examples show how it can be used from Python or some other language.
[Stanislaw] also
documented the principles behind the code
, explaining how the note recognition does its magic in simple terms, yet giving many insights. We are used to Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) being our go-to approach for spectral analysis, aka, recognizing different frequencies in a stream of data. However, a general-purpose FFT algorithm is not as good for musical notes, since intervals between note frequencies become wider as frequency increases, and you need to do more work to distinguish the notes. In this toolkit, he used a Sliding Discrete Fourier Transform (SDFT) algorithm, and explains to us how he derived the parameters for it from musical note frequencies. In the end of the documentation, he also gives you
a lot of useful references
if you would like to explore this topic further!
What are you going to build with this? Maybe, a box that records you playing the flute and
instantly turns it into sheet music
? Or, perhaps, an AI that
continues the song for you
when you stop? | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465433",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2022-04-26T15:53:14",
"content": "Yissss… that’s all I need to turn my noodling on a kazoo to platinum certified rock hits.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6466172",
"a... | 1,760,372,713.153601 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/26/the-sinclair-zx-spectrum-turns-40/ | The Sinclair ZX Spectrum Turns 40 | Jenny List | [
"History",
"Interest",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"40th anniversary",
"sinclair",
"ZX Spectrum"
] | It’s an auspicious moment for retrocomputing fans, as it’s now four decades since the launch of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. This budget British microcomputer was never the best of the bunch, but its runaway success and consequent huge software library made it
the
home computer to own in the UK. Here in 2022 it may live on only in 1980s nostalgia, but its legacy extends far beyond that as it provided an entire generation of tech-inclined youngsters with an affordable tool that would get them started on a lifetime of computing.
What Was 1982 Really Like?
Sinclair User issue 3
captures the excitement surrounding the Spectrum launch.
There’s a popular meme among retro enthusiasts that the 1980s was a riot of colour, pixel artwork, synth music, and kitschy design. The reality was of growing up amid the shabby remnants of the 1970s with occasional glimpses of an exciting ’80s future. This was especially true for a tech-inclined early teen, as at the start of 1982 the home computer market had not yet reached its full mass-market potential. There were plenty of machines on offer but the exciting ones were the sole preserve of adults or kids with rich parents. Budget machines such as Sinclair’s ZX81 could give a taste of what was possible, but their technical limitations would soon become obvious to the experimenter.
1982 was going to change all that, with great excitement surrounding three machines. Here in the UK, the Acorn BBC Micro had been launched in December ’81, the Commodore 64 at the start of ’82, and here was Sinclair coming along with their answer in the form of first the rumour of
a ZX82
, and then the reality in the form of the Spectrum.
This new breed of machines all had a respectable quantity of memory, high-res (for the time!) colour graphics, and most importantly, sound. The BBC Micro was destined to be the school computer of choice and the 64 was the one everybody wanted, but the Spectrum was the machine you could reasonably expect to get if you managed to persuade your parents how educational it was going to be, because it was the cheapest at £125 (£470 in today’s money, or about $615).
This dual-page advert for the Spectrum could be found across all manner of magazines in 1982.
Never Quite As Good As Its Competitors, But Cheaper
For a teen in 1982 the Spectrum was an incredibly big deal, but from 2022 how did it rack up? It’s very obviously a development of their earlier ZX81, with an updated version of the same Sinclair BASIC and the same single-key keyword entry system.
40 years later, the design still looks sharp.
The design came from Rick Dickinson, the same industrial designer who had shaped the ’81, and for the Spectrum there was a new keyboard that topped the underlying membrane with a squishy rubber moulding.
With a 3.5 MHz Z80 it could compete in the processing stakes, but its architecture and memory management model was very similar to that of its predecessor. An improved logic design in its Ferranti ULA now freed the processor up from drawing scan lines, so there was no longer a FAST mode in which the display went blank, and the full power of the processor could be used at all times.
The original Spectrum came with 16 MB of memory upgradeable to 48 kB via an internal daughterboard, but these early models were soon supplanted by a 48k-only model that became the huge-selling version.
Typical ZX Spectrum gameplay, in this case
Atic Atac
The high-resolution graphics came in at 256 x 192 pixels which was a great improvement over the block graphics of the ZX81, but the attribute-based colour system operated on a much lower resolution and gave an effect of blocks of colour.
Clever software designers could mask this as much as possible by arranging their tiles to coincide with the blocks, but sometimes this effect could be seen in even the most polished of titles. The Acorn and Commodore both had far better graphical capabilities, but the Sinclair was good enough for its teenage audience to forgive it. (As an aside, clever ZX81 hackers eventually figured out how to make it too do high-res without an add-on, but this came too late to make a splash).
It’s fair to say that the sound capabilities of the first generation of Spectrums was disappointing, being simply a speaker connected to a bit on an I/O port that could make beeps or even poor quality PWM with some very clever programming, but couldn’t be described as competing with other machines that had dedicated sound chips. Later machines rectified this situation, but we’re concerned here only with the original.
Essential for any Spectrum user: You HAD to own a Kempston joystick interface!
Beyond the hardware described, the Spectrum had very little else built-in. Storage was via tapes as was the case with most computers of the day, and with none of the Commodore or Acorn’s array of ports it simply exposed the Z80 signals to an edge connector at the rear. Sinclair themselves produced
a thermal printer add-on
as well as interfaces that gave access to joysticks, serial ports, simple networking, and of course their
Microdrive
tape loop storage peripheral. The interface that the majority of owners would have had though came not from Sinclair, the Kempston joystick interface was an essential for any owner.
So the Spectrum was a huge success for its attractive price, despite being in the best tradition of Sinclair products a device that promised much while delivering less than its competitors. It soon spawned a healthy ecosystem of
magazines
and third party companies supplying every conceivable upgrade or piece of software, and geeky 1980s teens throughout the land would arm themselves for playground arguments over the relative merits of a Z80 versus a 6502. Having been a ZX81 owner I joined the party a little later, and I credit the Sinclair machines with teaching me the fundamentals of how a microcomputer works in a way that no machine I’ve owned since could come close.
The Spectrum, Viewed From 2022
After a little looking through storage boxes, I’ve pulled out my box of all things Sinclair for this article. It contains my Spectrum alongside the ZX81, as well as a pile of cassettes and peripherals. My model is an Issue 3, 48 kB version made in 1983, and is from the moment when a Spectrum was
the
machine to have. Opening it up reveals the PCB below the keyboard, with the Z80, ROM, ULA, and RAM as well as the video modulator in its silver can. As Sinclair products went, this was a pretty reliable one, and though I really should replace its ageing capacitors, it still works. I’m not sure I have the patience to get back into Sinclair Basic or Z80 machine code again on real hardware, but that box contains a lot of memories.
My Spectrum, laid bare.
For me the Spectrum will always be the classic rubber-keyboard model, but as the 1980s wore on and I drifted further into amateur radio and eventually back into 16-bit computers, the little Sinclair continued to evolve. A “Plus” model followed with a better keyboard and styling similar to the company’s QL 16-bit offering, and then a 128 kB bank-switched model with extra capabilities including a proper sound chip. By then the commercial failure of the QL was dragging the company to the brink, and eventually in 1986 the entire Sinclair computer range was sold to their competitor Amstrad. The Amstrad Spectrums would gain extra capabilities including built-in cassette and disk drives as well as the ability to run CP/M, and I am astounded to find that they continued to be made until 1992.
Everyone who got their technological start through that era of home computers sees “their” machine as the “classic” platform against which all must be measured, and while I may be no exception I am certainly not overlooking its flaws. It was a budget machine with limited on-board capabilities compared to its competitors and requiring extra peripherals to do almost anything not possible with the keyboard, but its value lies in what it gave to the lucky teens who received one for Christmas back in 1982.
Most of them would have used it for games, but in any school there was always a hard core of kids who ran with it, and as one of those kids in my school I am thankful for what it game me and many of my colleagues since. I would never have been able to save up £350 for a BBC Micro and my parents certainly wouldn’t have been able to buy me one, but because Sinclair were providing something I could save up for, I could use mine to gather skills I still use today.
Now
that’s
an educational computer! | 68 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465392",
"author": "Peter Misenko",
"timestamp": "2022-04-26T14:18:19",
"content": "I am just started work on Pocket ZX Spectrumhttps://hackaday.io/project/184965-picomputer-zx-pocket-zx-spectrum",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id"... | 1,760,372,713.34101 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/26/hand-built-metal-mouse-is-beautifully-engraved/ | Hand-Built Metal Mouse Is Beautifully Engraved | Lewin Day | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"brass",
"metalworking",
"mouse",
"steampunk"
] | Computer mice, like computers themselves, used to be built almost solely in hideous beige designs. These days, things are a bit more stylish, but they’re still largely following a simple plastic formula. [Uri Tuchman] decided to build a fancy metal engraved computer mouse
for a little more style on the desktop.
The build starts by gutting a simple three-button scroll mouse, as there’s really no sense in reinventing the wheel where the electronics is concerned. The PCB inside is pulled out and assembled on a brass baseplate, along with standoffs and supports for the mouse wheel as needed. It’s paired with a hefty brass enclosure with a nice gentle slope to sit well in the hand. Or, as well as it can, given the square metal edges of the finished product.
The build is full of fun details, like [Uri] trying to form a hex shaft by hand, and the work that goes into the engraving is similarly impressive. In any case, it’s a build that would pair wonderfully
with a proper steampunk keyboard.
Alternatively, if you hate the idea of having to do all that engraving by hand, think about
building your own CNC machine.
Video after the break.
Thanks to [DainBramage] for the tip! | 19 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465350",
"author": "none",
"timestamp": "2022-04-26T11:43:16",
"content": "Lead!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6465372",
"author": "Prowler50mil",
"timestamp": "2022-04-26T13:17:17",
"content": "Ther... | 1,760,372,713.389946 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/26/physical-control-panel-elevates-flight-sim-experience/ | Physical Control Panel Elevates Flight Sim Experience | Ryan Flowers | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"buttons",
"controller",
"flight sim interface",
"flight simulator",
"switches"
] | Like so many of us, [pgsanchez] has been bitten by the flight simulator bug. It’s a malady that can only be treated, but never cured — and like so many hobbies, it has a nasty tendency to spawn more hobbies. A software developer by trade, [pgsanchez] is also adept with Arduino and electronics, and his blog post about the
PGS-2 Flight Simulator Control Panel
demonstrates his fine abilities well, as does the video below the break.
A player of
Digital Combat Simulator
, he grew tired of having to remember awkward key combinations to control the simulator. Flying a jet, even in a simulator, can require quick thinking bound with quick reflexes, so having a button to press, a switch to flip, or a knob to turn can be vastly superior to even the simplest keyboard based command.
An Arduino interfaces the buttons to the computer, and a white acrylic case is employed to keep all the parts flying in formation. Yes, a white case — with great care taken to allow the case to be backlit. The effect is excellent, and it looks like the panel would be right at home in the Sukhoi Su-25T that it’s designed to control in the game.
We appreciated the attention to detail in the panel, as even the gear status lights and flap indicators match those in the simulator, a nice touch! What more could [pgsanchez] build? We’d like to see! If you’re into flight sims and the like, you might be interested in this
fully 3D printed flight sim controller
. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465312",
"author": "e",
"timestamp": "2022-04-26T09:12:26",
"content": "If he wants to simulate an Su-24 cockpit, he’ll need duct tape and a garmin GPShttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/FNQfH2kXoAQRch6?format=jpg",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"c... | 1,760,372,715.288229 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/25/lofipi-keeps-the-chill-beats-coming/ | Lofipi Keeps The Chill Beats Coming | Lewin Day | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"radio",
"raspberry pi",
"streaming device"
] | These days, many people love having some lo-fi beats on when they chill and study. This has led to a cottage industry dedicated to producing said beats, and the format continues to grow in popularity. [Nicholas Sherlock] decided to build a custom audio device
solely for the delivery of these comfortable tunes.
As seen on Reddit
, the build relies on a Raspberry Pi 3B, paired with an X400 audio amplifier board and hooked up to a nicely-sized mid-range speaker. The hardware is assembled inside a case printed out of wood-effect PLA filament, giving it a nice old-school home audio aesthetic. As a bonus, the layer lines line up in such a way as to boost the woodgrain effect. Plug it in, and you will be immediately rewarded with lo-fi beats from boot.
Originally, the system ran a port of the code from lofigenerator.com, which algorithmically creates lo-fi beats from scratch. However, [Nicholas] could not in good conscience share the ported code, and has retooled the system to stream YouTube playlists using command line media player mpv instead. It’s set to stream typical lo-fi playlists, though could be repurposed to target anything on the platform.
It’s a nice build that really suits the lo-fi beats ideal. When you’re trying to study or focus, you don’t want to be mucking around with a YouTube tab open serving as a distraction. Instead, you can simply flick on the Lofipi, and vibe out.
The Raspberry Pi’s cheap price and great internet and media capabilities make it very popular
for builds like these.
They go some way to recreating the idea of
receiving a broadcast
, rather than forcing us into choice as per today’s modern on-demand media paradigm. If you’ve got thoughts on this, drop them in the comments, and if you’ve got your own great projects,
do drop us a line. | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465292",
"author": "Arduino Enigma",
"timestamp": "2022-04-26T06:12:46",
"content": "What’s wrong with using the http:/:www.lofigenerator.com code? Better than streaming from YouTube and dealing with adverts.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,715.466928 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/25/learning-electronics-by-just-doing-it/ | Learning Electronics By Just Doing It | Ryan Flowers | [
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"electronics",
"learn by doing",
"learning electronics"
] | Learning anything new, especially so broad and far reaching as electronics, can be hard. [IMSAI Guy] knows this because he gets asked regularly “how do I learn electronics?” Many of you reading this will have a few ideas to pass along (and we encourage you to share your take on it in the comments below) but there is an even greater number of people who are asking the same question, and [IMSAI Guy]’s take on it is one that this particular Hackaday writer can relate to.
The ARRL Handbook can be found at hamfests, radio clubs, libraries, or at arrl.org
According to [IMSAI Guy], an excellent place to start is the ARRL Handbook. The ARRL Handbook is an electronics and RF engineering guide published by the
Amateur Radio Relay League
in the US. It’s a wonderful reference, and past editions can be had very inexpensively and are every bit as handy. Many hams will have a copy they could be talked out of, and you can likely find one at your local library. Where to start in the Handbook, then?
[IMSAI Guy] recommend starting with whatever catches your fancy. As an example, he starts with Op Amps, and rather than diving straight into the math of how they work or even worrying to much about what they are- he just builds a circuit and then plays with it to intrinsically understand how it works, a “learn by doing” approach that he has found extremely helpful just as many of us have. We also appreciated is very straightforward approach to the math: Don’t bother with it unless you need to for some reason, and definitely don’t start by learning it first.
In fact, that same reasoning is applied to any subject: Learn it as you need it, and don’t start by learning but rather by
doing.
The learning will come on its own! Be sure to check out the entire video and let us know what you think, and how you approached learning electronics. Thanks to [cliff] for the great Tip! | 33 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465262",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2022-04-26T03:12:58",
"content": "Pile in and have at it Ms Frizzle style…“Take chances, make mistakes, get messy….”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6465457",
"author":... | 1,760,372,715.127136 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/25/the-apollo-digital-ranging-system-more-than-meets-the-eye/ | The Apollo Digital Ranging System: More Than Meets The Eye | Ryan Flowers | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Space"
] | [
"apollo",
"jpl",
"ken shirriff",
"nasa",
"radar",
"range finder"
] | If you haven’t seen [Ken Shirriff]’s teardowns and reverse engineering expeditions, then you’re in for a treat. His
explanation and demonstration of the Apollo digital ranging system
is a fascinating read, even if vintage computing and engineering aren’t part of your normal fare.
The average Hackaday reader should be familiar with the concept of determining the distance of a faraway object by measuring how long it takes a sound or radio wave to be reflected, such as in sonar and radar. Going another step and measuring Doppler Shift – the difference in the returned signal’s frequency – will tell us the velocity of the object relative to our position. It’s so simple that an Arduino can do it. But in the days of Apollo, there was no Arduino. In fact, there were no Integrated Circuits. And Apollo missions went all the way to the moon- far too distant for relatively simple Radar measurements.
The TPAC contained transistor logic for the ranging computer
How could range (distance), position, and speed then be measured? The answer is one that [Ken] aptly describes as fractal: Each layer of complexity hides beneath it another layer of complexity. Using equations dating from 3rd century China as well as cutting edge weak signal telemetry, Apollo engineers devised a complex but workable system that used an S-Band transponder to take data transmitted from a powerful ground station and send it back on another frequency. One great hack was to use Phase Modulation to encode the downlink instead of Frequency Modulation so that Doppler data gained on the uplink wouldn’t be lost on the downlink.
By knowing the precise position of the ground station and the very large parabolic antennae, not only could the distance and speed be measured, but a good estimation of the spacecraft’s position in 3d space could also be had.
From the use of delay line memory to aggregate weak signals to a state machine computer made up of discrete transistor logic, all the way to the cutting edge transponder on the Command Module, the Apollo digital ranging system is an excellent example of great hacks coming out of a program with tight technical constraints.
We highly recommend
giving [Ken]’s blog a read
and be sure to check out the interactive demonstration web pages he’s put up to help us grasp the genius of the Apollo engineering teams. [Ken]’s been featured on Hackaday
a number of times
reverse engineering such diverse things as a
Yamaha DX7 Synth chip
. | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465220",
"author": "SteveS",
"timestamp": "2022-04-26T00:12:49",
"content": "So. Many. Little. Coax. Connectors!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6465371",
"author": "robomonkey",
"timestamp": "2022-04-26T13:14... | 1,760,372,715.400948 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/25/3d-printed-turbo-pump-hopes-to-propel-rockets-to-the-sky/ | 3D Printed Turbo Pump Hopes To Propel Rockets To The Sky | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"impeller",
"turbine",
"turbo",
"turbopump"
] | There are plenty of rocket experimenters toying with various liquid-fueled contraptions at the moment, and [Sciencish] is one of them. He grew tired of using air-pressurized fuel delivery systems in his experiments due to safety reasons, and decided to create something approximating more grown up rocket designs.
The result was a 3D-printed turbopump for fuel delivery.
The design is not dissimilar from a turbocharger in a car. On one side, a turbine wheel is turned by compressed air supplied from a tank or compressor. This turbine wheel is affixed to the same axle as an impeller which draws up fuel and pumps it out, ideally into a rocket’s combustion chamber. It’s all made out of resin-printed parts, which made creating the fine geometry of the turbine and impeller a cinch.
Running on compressed air at 80 psi, the turbopump is able to deliver 1.36L of water or rubbing alcohol fuel a minute. However, unfortunately, this first pass design can only deliver 20 psi of fuel pressure, which [Sciencish] suspects will not be enough to counteract combustion chamber pressures in his rocket design. More work is required to up this figure. Paired with a nozzle and ignition source, though, and it does make for some great flames.
Overall though, the safety benefit of this turbopump comes from the fact that the fuel is kept separate from the oxidizer until it reaches the combustion chamber. This comes with far less chance of fire or explosion versus a system that stores fuel pressurized by air.
While the design isn’t yet up to scratch for rocket use, it nonetheless works, and we suspect with some improvement to tolerances and fin design that the project should move along at a quick pace.
If solid rockets are more your thing though,
we’ve featured plenty of those too.
Video after the break. | 22 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465149",
"author": "Comedicles",
"timestamp": "2022-04-25T20:35:52",
"content": "The pump that hopes. Why oh why all the dang children’s book titles? Comment Powered by the Little iMac that Could!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,372,715.338241 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/25/2022-sci-fi-contest-a-mac-based-droid-named-r-o-b/ | 2022 Sci-Fi Contest: A Mac-Based Droid Named R.O.B. | Lewin Day | [
"contests",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"2022 Sci-Fi Contest",
"droid",
"r.o.b",
"robot",
"robots"
] | Droids and robot assistants are still not really a part of our daily lives, even if they started showing up in movies many long decades ago. [Rudy Aramaryo] perhaps hopes that will change one day, and is pursuing this goal with
their own droid build named R.O.B.
R.O.B. is quite a hefty ‘bot, weighing 140 lbs and sporting a full 80 Ah of lithium-iron-phosphate batteries for a long running time and plenty of power. For brains, R.O.B. packs in an Apple Mac Mini M1 and a Mac Studio, running OS X. It’s an unusual choice for a robot, but one that brings plenty of computing power to bear, nonetheless. Equipped with tracked propulsion, R.O.B. also features a slip-ring setup in the base allowing the droid to rotate endlessly without tangling wires.
By virtue of its size and power, R.O.B. goes a long way to emulating the general feel of the droids of the
Star Wars
series. It’s all about the roughly-human-scaled design, and the anthropomorphic features. Further helping the cause are a basic chat ability powered by Python, along with arms and actuators to interact with the world.
The name of this droid recalls us of the
charming Nintendo console toy from the 1980s
. If these aren’t the droids you’re looking for, and you’ve been hacking on ‘bots of your own,
be sure to drop us a line. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465116",
"author": "Anonymouse",
"timestamp": "2022-04-25T19:29:02",
"content": "hmm… reminds me of a certain S.A.I.N.T unit made by Nova Robotics.Number five ALIVE!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6465154",
"author": "Pete... | 1,760,372,715.244125 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/25/explosion-welding-goes-off-with-a-bang/ | Explosion Welding Goes Off With A Bang | Lewin Day | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"explosion welding",
"explosive welding",
"nasa",
"weld",
"welding"
] | Welding is often a hot and noisy process. It generally involves some fancy chemistry and proper knowledge to achieve good results. Whether you’re talking about arc, TIG, or MIG, these statements all apply.
The same is true for explosion welding, though it’s entirely unlike any traditional hand welding methods you’ve ever seen before. Today, we’ll explore how this technique works and the applications it’s useful for. Fire in the hole!
Don’t Blow Them Apart, Blow Them Together!
Explosion welding occurs near-instantaneously, but is done in a progressive fashion. The angle of collision, as well as the speed of the explosive front, is key to getting a quality weld. Image credit: NASA, public domain
The technique of explosion welding is relatively new compared to other metal-joining techniques. In the two World Wars of the 20th century, pieces of shrapnel were often found stuck to armor plating. Close observation showed that shrapnel was in fact welding on to metal armor, rather than simply being embedded in such. Given that collisions between shrapnel and armor often occur without the extreme heat of typical welding operations, it indicated that it was instead great velocity of the impact between shrapnel and armor that was melding the metals together.
The same results were later recreated in the lab, and explosoin welding was developed into a refined technique after World War II. 1962 saw DuPont
patent a process
for explosion welding later to be known under the “Detaclad” trademark.
NASA explored the use of ribbon explosives to weld a variety of different joints in a memorandum published in the 1980s. Image credit: NASA, public domain
Explosion welding occurs with the metal remaining in the solid phase, so this is referred to as a “solid-state” welding technique. In its most common form, a thick metal plate known as the “backer” is laid flat, with spacers on the order of an inch or less placed on top. A thinner metal plate, known as the “cladder” is then placed on top of the spacers, such that there is a small gap between the two plates to be welded together. The two plates are ground flat prior to joining, in order to remove impurities and guarantee a quality weld.
Explosive powder is then packed on top of the cladder. The powder charge is typically detonated starting from one or corner or side of the cladder. This creates a sweeping effect through the explosive charge, with the explosion front moving across the top of the cladder at a uniform rate. This progressively forces the cladder into contact with the backer below. This process generates a plasma jet of air, oxides, and impurities that is shot out ahead of the closing gap between the two plates, cleaning the surfaces of the plates as it goes.
The resulting weld is caused by the plastic deformation of both metals, rather than by their liquification as is typical in traditional welding processes. These bonds can have up to 100% of the strength of the parent material, and typically have less issues around heat-affected areas compared to liquid-phase welding techniques. The results are similar in this regard to those achieved with friction welding. The two metal plates are joined in a continuous and uniform fashion across their entire surface.
The process enables dissimilar metals to be welded together. This even includes odd combinations like
steel and aluminium
, and even some reactive metals. Companies that specialize in the technique typically quote lists in excess of 260 different metal combinations that can be bonded in this manner.
Of course, due to the violence of the explosive reaction, explosion welding is typically limited to plates and simple cylindrical forms. The technique is often used to create tubes or tanks with clad metal surfaces for use in chemical and petrochemical industries. Explosion welding was even used
in the Apollo spacecraft
, which relied on the process to create a strong titanium-to-steel transition joint.
NASA had ideas for structures that could be welded in space using explosive techniques, and demonstrated that idea with the 18-inch model seen here. The idea never really caught on, however, and explosion welding is primarily used for simple cladded plate work these days. Image credit; NASA, public domain
The space agency even published
a technical memorandum
on the topic in 1983, sharing details on Practical Small-Scale Explosive Seam Welding. The techniques involved relied on RDX explosives to create long, uniform joints that were of such high, consistent quality as to be hermetically sealed. The paper notes that the technique was applied to the repair of nuclear reactors in Canada, though it could also be used in other situations such as sealing pipelines or other vessels.
Given the use of high explosives, it’s not a technique that’s particularly easy to DIY in the home garage. However, if you find yourself needing to stick a plate of one metal to a completely different one to build something with useful combined properties, explosion welding might just be the tool you need. Just be sure to do it somewhere safe and far away, and to call out before you hit the detonator!
[Header image: Still from “
Explosive Welding
“, JRP RC Judd Phillips] | 25 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465050",
"author": "no",
"timestamp": "2022-04-25T17:21:14",
"content": "Can´t wait that [integza] tries this in his garage.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6465102",
"author": "Zach",
"timestamp": "2022-04-25... | 1,760,372,715.632659 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/25/software-defined-instrumentation-hack-chat/ | Software Defined Instrumentation Hack Chat | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"Hack Chat"
] | Join us on Wednesday, April 27 at noon Pacific for the
Software Defined Instrumentation Hack Chat
with Ben Nizette!
Imagine, if you will, the perfect electronics lab. Exactly how it looks in your mind will depend a lot upon personal preferences and brand loyalty, but chances are good it’ll be stocked to the gills with at least one every conceivable type of high-precision, laboratory-grade instrument you can think of. It’ll have oscilloscopes with ridiculously high bandwidths, multimeters with digits galore, logic analyzers, waveform generators, programmable power supplies, spectrum analyzers — pretty much anything and everything that can make chasing down problems and developing new circuits easier.
Alas, the dream of a lab like this crashes hard into realities like being able to afford so many instruments and actually finding a place to put them all. And so while we may covet the wall of instruments that people like Marco Reps or Kerry Wong enjoy, most of us settle for a small but targeted suite of instruments, tailored to our particular needs and budgets.
It doesn’t necessarily need to be that way, though, and with software-defined instrumentation, you can pack a lab full of virtual instruments into a single small box. Software-defined instrumentation has the potential to make an engineering lab portable enough for field-service teams, flexible enough for tactical engineering projects, and affordable for students and hobbyists alike.
Ben Nizette is Product Manager at
Liquid Instruments
, the leader in precision software-defined instrumentation. He’s the engineer behind
Moku:Go
, the company’s first consumer product, which squeezes eleven instruments into one slim, easily transported, affordable package. He’s been in the thick of software-defined instrumentation, and he’ll drop by the Hack Chat to talk about the pros and cons of the virtual engineering lab, what it means for engineering education, and how we as hobbyists can put it to work on our benches.
Our Hack Chats are live community events in the
Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging
. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, April 27 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a
handy time zone converter
. | 14 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465016",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2022-04-25T16:21:40",
"content": "Having worked with neither an oscilloscope nor a logic analizer, I always failed to understand why they need to be two separate devices.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,715.022572 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/24/2022-sci-fi-contest-cyberglove-tests-your-reactions/ | 2022 Sci-Fi Contest: CyberGlove Tests Your Reactions | Lewin Day | [
"contests",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"2022 Sci-Fi Contest",
"addressable leds",
"reaction game",
"reaction trainer",
"ws2812b"
] | Since the 1980s, we’ve seen innumerable attempts to revolutionize the way we interact with computers. Since the advent of keyboards and mice, we’ve seen everything from magic wands to electric gloves, with [Deemo Chen]’s project
fitting into the latter category.
The build takes on a cyberpunk aesthetic, with addressable LEDs installed along each digit. The various digits light up randomly, and the wearer of the glove must tap a button on the corresponding digit in order to test their reaction times. An Arduino Uno runs the show, and keeps track of the score, displaying the results on an attached HD44870-compatible LCD.
The mess-o’-wires aesthetic, with bare electronics hanging off the glove, goes a long way to making this look like a proper bit of sci-fi kit. The lurid, colorful glow is a key part of this look, and something we’ve seen
on many projects over the years
.
Overall, the reaction trainer served as a great freshman project for [Deemo], along with their chums [Dhruv] and [Ryan]. Along the way, the team clearly picked up skills in microcontroller programming, as well as learning how to work with LCD displays and addressable LEDs. Master these skills and you can
pull off some impressive feats
. Video after the break. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464784",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2022-04-24T22:57:34",
"content": "That video makes me cringe. No one should EVER solder breadboarding wires to parts as if they’re pretinned wires. Wire can be found for free in the trash. Those things are expensive! And say no to nonrecharg... | 1,760,372,715.059146 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/24/xiaomi-cryptographically-signs-scooter-firmware-whats-next/ | Xiaomi Cryptographically Signs Scooter Firmware – What’s Next? | Arya Voronova | [
"Security Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"digital signature",
"electric scooter",
"elliptic curve cryptography",
"escooter",
"firmware hacking",
"Firmware modding",
"scooter",
"scooter hacking"
] | [Daljeet Nandha] from [RoboCoffee] writes to us,
sharing his research
on cryptographic signature-based firmware authenticity checks recently added to the Xiaomi Mi scooter firmware. Those scooters use an OTA firmware update mechanism over BLE, so you can update your scooter using nothing but a smartphone app – great because you can easily get all the good new features, but suboptimal because you can easily get all the bad new features. As an owner of a Mi 1S scooter but a hacker first and foremost, [Daljeet]
set up a HTTPS proxy
and captured the firmware files that the app downloaded from Xiaomi servers, dug into them, and summarized what he found.
Confirming this update will indefinitely lock you out of any third-party OTA updates
Unlike many of the security measures we’ve seen lacking-by-design, this one secures the OTA firmware updates with what we would consider the industry standard – SHA256 hash with elliptic cryptography-backed signing. As soon as the first firmware version implementing signature checks is flashed into your scooter, it won’t accept anything except further firmware binaries that come with Xiaomi’s digital signature. Unless a flaw is found in the signature checking implementation, the “flash a custom firmware with a smartphone app” route no longer seems to be a viable pathway for modding your scooter in ways Xiaomi doesn’t approve of.
Having disassembled the code currently available, [Daljeet] tells us about all of this – and more. In his extensive writeup, he shares scripts he used on his exploration journey, so that any sufficiently motivated hacker can follow in his footsteps, and we highly recommend you take a look at everything he’s shared. He also gives further insights, explaining some constraints of the OTA update process and pointing out a few security-related assumptions made by Xiaomi, worth checking for bypassing the security implemented. Then, he points out the firmware filenames hinting that, in the future, the ESC (Electronic Speed Control, responsible for driving the motors) board firmware might be encrypted with the same kind of elliptic curve cryptography, and finds a few update hooks in the decompiled code that could enable exactly that in future firmware releases.
One could argue that these scooters are typically modified to remove speed limits, installed there because of
legal limitations in a variety of countries
. However, the legal speed limits are more nuanced than a hard upper boundary, and if the hardware is capable of doing 35km/h, you shouldn’t be at mercy of Xiaomi to be able to use your scooter to its full extent where considerate. It would be fair to assert, however, that Xiaomi did this because they don’t want to have their reputation be anywhere near “maker of scooters that people can modify to break laws with”, and therefore we can’t expect them to be forthcoming.
Furthermore, of course, this heavily limits reuse and meaningful modification of the hardware we own. If you want to
bring a retired pay-to-ride scooter back to usefulness
,
add Bluetooth
, or even
rebuild the scooter from the ground up
, you should be able to do that. So, how do we go around such restrictions? Taking the lid off and figuring out a
way to reflash the firmware through SWD
using something like a Pi Pico, perhaps? We can’t wait to see what hackers figure out. | 33 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464688",
"author": "aernaut",
"timestamp": "2022-04-24T17:33:27",
"content": "Considering these scooters are usually parked (and locked) in public places, a secure firmware update process helps prevent someone from bricking or otherwise changing the operational characteristics of y... | 1,760,372,715.561287 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/24/ssh-is-magic-but-tunnels-are-even-better/ | SSH Is Magic, But Tunnels Are Even Better | Jonathan Bennett | [
"internet hacks",
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"linux",
"ssh",
"SSH Tunnels"
] | Once upon a time, I was doing on-site support for a hardware install at a hotel a few years ago. The remote tech’s remote desktop software didn’t want to play with my Linux laptop, so he couldn’t get into the switch he needed to configure, to make the install work. I asked if it had an SSH port he could use, were he were in the room with me. Of course it did, but that didn’t do him much good. I ran a reverse SSH tunnel out to my public server, and pointed it at the switch on the local side. I convinced him to SSH to my server on the given port, and he was magically connected to his switch. He was literally in awe of that trick, and demanded to know how it could be done. SSH is magical, but tunneling traffic over SSH is straight-up wizardry. [Shawn Powers] agrees, and
decided to help the rest of us understand the process
.
There are two basic ways to launch a tunnel, the first being a local tunnel, that listens on the local machine, and forwards it to the remote machine. On the other hand, a remote tunnel will listen on the remote machine, and deliver the traffic to the local machine. The real fun begins when you have multiple SSH sessions, and connect one tunnel to another, to route something just where you need it. For extra credit, check out the hidden SSH command line, by pressing Enter, then
tilde
and the
C
key, each one at a time. Also for extra credit, check out the rest of [Shawn]’s Linux content, to learn some extra Linux goodness. | 17 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464653",
"author": "Jack Dansen",
"timestamp": "2022-04-24T15:05:37",
"content": "Also, more recently SSH implemented ProxyJump which is fantastic for when you need to SSH through a series of servers. Instead of copy your key through every server or setting up a new tunnel at ever... | 1,760,372,715.734015 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/24/diy-laptop-stand-why-stop-at-one-when-you-can-slot-three/ | DIY Laptop Stand: Why Stop At One When You Can Slot Three? | Donald Papp | [
"laptops hacks"
] | [
"cable management",
"laptop stand",
"multiple laptop",
"organization",
"plywood"
] | We make the tools we need, and that’s definitely the case with [Marco Schulte]’s laptop stand. It slots
not one, not two, but three laptops at once
.
For all their portability, multiple laptops can be a bit clunky to manage on a desk, so [Marco]’s solution definitely saves space while keeping things accessible. The laptop in the front can be open for use and easy access, while the two in the back are held vertically and can be attached to external monitors or other peripherals.
Not only does it save space, but the stand provides ample spots to anchor cable ties for securing the inevitable mess of wires and cables that dealing with three laptops brings. It makes for a tidier desk, that’s for sure.
The stand was designed in Fusion 360 and was cut from plywood with a CNC router. Does this design give you any ideas, or would you like to make one for yourself?
The design files are here
.
No access to a CNC router? No problem if you have glue and some spare boxes laying around! You might be surprised
at how sturdy a few layers of cardboard and glue can be
. | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464655",
"author": "rthrthrt",
"timestamp": "2022-04-24T15:10:10",
"content": "all laptops have ugly keyboards",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6464669",
"author": "lj",
"timestamp": "2022-04-24T16:31:41",
... | 1,760,372,715.683743 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/24/can-you-identify-this-mystery-unicode-glyph/ | Can You Identify This Mystery Unicode Glyph? | Jenny List | [
"News"
] | [
"font",
"glyph",
"unicode"
] | For anyone old enough to have worked with the hell of multiple incompatible character sets, Unicode has been a liberation; a true One Character Set To Contain Them All. We have so many Unicode characters to play with that there’s a fascinating pursuit in itself in probing at the obscure corners of what can be rendered on screen as a Unicode glyph. With so many disparate character sets having been brought together to make the Unicode standard there are plenty of unusual characters to choose from, and
it’s one of them that [Jonathan Chan] has examined in detail
.
U+237C ⍼, or the right angle with downwards zigzag arrow, is a mysterious Unicode symbol with no known use and from an unknown origin.
XKCD featured it as a spoof “Larry Potter”
, but as [Jonathan]’s analysis shows it’s proving impossible to narrow down where it came from. Mystical cult symbol? Or perhaps fiscal growth in an economy in which time runs downwards? Either way, when its lineage has been traced into the early 1990s with no answer to the question it appears that there may be a story behind it.
Hackaday readers never cease to amaze us with the breadth of their knowledge, ingenuity, and experience, so we think it’s not impossible that among you there may be people who will turn and pull a dusty computer manual from the shelf to give us the story behind this elusive glyph. We’d love to hear in the comments below.
Meanwhile if Unicode sparks your interest,
we’ve given it a close look in the past.
Thanks [Jonty] for the tip. | 58 | 30 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464562",
"author": "Vulcan Ignis",
"timestamp": "2022-04-24T08:27:33",
"content": "I call it the LiteCoin Elliptic Curve Symbol",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8132148",
"author": "Gregorio O. De Mojeca",
"tim... | 1,760,372,716.090149 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/23/a-fet-oscilloscope-probe-for-higher-frequencies/ | A FET Oscilloscope Probe For Higher Frequencies | Jenny List | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"FET probe",
"RF",
"RF probe"
] | It’s a problem that has dogged electronic engineers since the first electrons were coaxed along a wire: that measuring instruments can themselves disrupt the operation of a circuit. Older multimeters for example had impedances low enough to pull resistor values, thus our multimeters today have high-impedance FET inputs. [Christoph] faced it with his oscilloscope probe, its input capacitance was high enough to put unacceptable load on a crystal oscillator and stop it oscillating. He thus built
a FET input probe for higher RF frequencies
, and its construction is an accessible view of wideband RF instrumentation design.
The circuit is a very simple one using a dual-gate FET, but the interest comes in the PCB and screening can design to ensure good RF performance. Off-the-shelf cans have four sides, so to accommodate the circuit one wall of the can had to be removed. The end result is
a tiny PCB
with miniature co-ax connectors for power and signal, which when characterised was found to have a 1.3 GHz bandwidth and a very low input capacitance.
If the language of RF design is foreign to you, may we recommend
[Michael Ossmann]’s talk at a Superconference a few years ago
. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464557",
"author": "Mike Massen, Perth, Western Australia",
"timestamp": "2022-04-24T08:02:36",
"content": "Hmm, nice idea, I recall National Semiconductor had an application note some 25+ years ago for a 100MOhm diff amp with very cheap ICs, worked a treat though didn’t need it ab... | 1,760,372,715.891449 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/23/riding-mower-cvt-upgrade-really-gets-things-moving/ | Riding Mower CVT Upgrade Really Gets Things Moving | Tom Nardi | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"CVT",
"drivetrain",
"racing",
"riding mower"
] | As we’ve learned from past experience, videos from [HowToLou] tend to be a bit controversial. His unique style of expedient engineering isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, especially when it’s combined with a devil-may-care attitude towards safety. On the other hand, there’s no arguing that his methods get results. His video on
converting an 18 HP riding mower into something akin to a go-kart
is a perfect example.
The first phase of the project involves removing all the hardware related to mowing, as obviously you won’t be cutting any grass while pushing speeds of 48 kph (30 mph). This both saves weight, and removes a lot of mechanical complication that would be in the way of further modification. That said, it also leaves the mower immobile, as there’s no longer be any connection between the engine and transaxle.
The new drivetrain features some beefy bracing.
In its place, [HowToLou] installs an off-the-shelf torque converter kit that uses a continuously variable transmission (CVT) clutch. As he quickly demos, the CVT technology allows the gear ratio to automatically adapt to the engine RPM thanks to pulleys that change their size depending on how fast they’re spinning. It’s a big improvement over the system he originally yanked out, though as you might expect, fitting it into the mower required some custom work. The final step was to pull the old pulley off of the transaxle and replace it with one that’s less than half the original size.
Wearing his protective flip-flops, [HowToLou] hops on the souped-up mower and is nearly thrown off the back of it as soon as he steps on the gas. Clearly the modifications were a success, and the video ends with some open road testing — presumably he’s riding off to the store to go buy a helmet.
We actually missed this video when it first made the rounds, but it has since picked up steam and is pulling in some impressive numbers. [HowToLou] tells us he thinks it’s due to the fact that a lot of people are upgrading to more modern zero-turn mowers, meaning there’s a surplus of these second-hand mini tractors on the market. Whatever the reason, we’re happy to see this backyard engineer get some mainstream success; his methods
might not always be by the book
, but
they’re always entertaining
. | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464644",
"author": "dm",
"timestamp": "2022-04-24T14:21:53",
"content": "Many wives would say this is exactly why men don’t live as long as women do! Hogwash! I feel the need for speed!!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6464... | 1,760,372,715.999319 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/23/retrotechtacular-the-power-to-stop/ | Retrotechtacular: The Power To Stop | Dan Maloney | [
"Retrotechtacular"
] | [
"brakes",
"cast iron",
"dynanometer",
"metallurgy",
"phosphorus",
"railroad",
"railway",
"retrotechtacular",
"train"
] | In everyday life, the largest moving object most people are likely to encounter is probably a train. Watching a train rolling along a track, it’s hard not to be impressed with the vast amount of power needed to put what might be a mile-long string of hopper cars carrying megatons of freight into motion.
But it’s the other side of that coin — the engineering needed to keep that train under control and eventually get it to stop — that’s the subject of this gem from British Transport Films on
“The Power to Stop.”
On the face of it, stopping a train isn’t exactly high-technology; the technique of pressing cast-iron brake shoes against the wheels was largely unchanged in the 100 years prior to the making of this 1979 film. The interesting thing here is the discovery that the metallurgy of the iron used for brakes has a huge impact on braking efficiency and safety. And given that British Railways was going through about 3.5 million brake shoes a year at the time, anything that could make them last even a little longer could result in significant savings.
It was the safety of railway brakes, though, that led to research into how they can be improved. Noting that cast iron is brittle, prone to rapid wear, and liable to create showers of dangerous sparks, the research arm of British Railways undertook a study of the phosphorus content of the cast iron, to find the best mix for the job. They turned to an impressively energetic brake dynamometer for their tests, where it turned out that increasing the amount of the trace element greatly reduced wear and sparking while reducing braking times.
Although we’re all for safety, we have to admit that some of the rooster-tails of sparks thrown off by the low-phosphorus shoes were pretty spectacular. Still, it’s interesting to see just how much thought and effort went into optimizing something so seemingly simple. Think about that the next time you watch a train go by. | 22 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464431",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2022-04-24T01:35:35",
"content": "Megatons? Sanity check please.More like kilotons.(rule of thumb: a ton per foot.)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6464588",
"author": "lj",
... | 1,760,372,715.949683 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/23/2022-sci-fi-contest-your-home-assistant-hal-9000/ | 2022 Sci-Fi Contest: Your Home Assistant, HAL 9000 | Lewin Day | [
"contests",
"home hacks"
] | [
"2022 Sci-Fi Contest",
"chromecast",
"hal",
"hal 9000"
] | Anyone who has seen
2001: A Space Odyssey
will easily remember HAL 9000, the sentient computer that turned against its human companions aboard Spacecraft Discovery One. [Ben Brooks] decided to recreate the foreboding digital being,
and put it to work as a smart home assistant.
The build consists of a 3D printed assembly that looks very much like HAL did in the movie. It runs as a standalone device hooked up to [Ben]’s Home Assistant instance, a self-hosted home automation solution. The device is capable of playing sound clips from the movie, with the help of an ESP8266 and a DF Player Mini module. It’s triggered by a button or motion sensor, but it’s also hooked up to Home Assistant for some extra smarts. This setup makes sure HAL stays silent when a Chromecast is playing content on TV, so as not to disturb essential viewing.
Overall, it’s a fun movie tribute build that is remarkably true to the source material. Let’s just hope this HAL doesn’t get any maniacal ideas, forcing [Ben] to pull apart its processor to stop its dangerous machinations.
We’ve seen
some other great HAL builds before, too
. Video after the break. | 17 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464386",
"author": "Steven-X",
"timestamp": "2022-04-23T21:44:24",
"content": "If I ever get off my lazy butt I’m going tp repackage my older Echo Dot into this form factor.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6464388",
"author... | 1,760,372,716.200087 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/23/a-universal-non-planar-slicer-for-3d-printing-is-worth-thinking-about/ | A Universal, Non-planar Slicer For 3D Printing Is Worth Thinking About | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Software Development"
] | [
"3d printing",
"non-planar",
"slicing",
"universal slicer"
] | One may think that when it comes to 3D printing, slicing software is pretty much a solved problem. Take a 3D model, slice it into flat layers equal to layer height, and make a toolpath so the nozzle can create those layers one at a time. However, as 3D printing becomes more complex and capable, this “flat planar slicing” approach will eventually become a limitation because a series of flat slices won’t necessarily the best way to treat all objects (nor all materials or toolheads, for that matter.)
How a 20 mm cube looks when sliced in a cone-shaped plane.
[René K. Müller] works to re-imagine slicing itself, and shows off the results of
slicing 3D models using non-planar geometries
. There are loads of pictures of a 20 mm cube being sliced with a variety of different geometries, so be sure to give it a look. There’s a video embedded below the page break that covers the main points.
It’s all forward-thinking stuff, and [René] certainly makes some compelling points in favor of a need for
universal slicing
; a system capable of handling any geometry, with the freedom to process along any path or direction. This is a concept that raises other interesting questions, too. For example, when slicing a 20 mm cube with non-planar geometries, the resulting slices often look strange. What’s the best way to create a toolpath for such a slice? After all, some slicing geometries are clearly better for the object, but can’t be accommodated by normal hot ends (that’s where a
rotating, tilted nozzle
comes in.)
Such worries may not be an issue for most users at the moment, but it’s worth trying to get ahead of the curve on something like this. And lest anyone think that non-planar slicing has no practical purpose, we previously covered [René]’s demonstration of how
non-planar slicing can reliably create 90° overhangs with no supports
. | 28 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464314",
"author": "Sok Puppette",
"timestamp": "2022-04-23T17:17:23",
"content": "So, the thing is that it’s relatively, sort of, vaguely, easy to figure out that kind of slicing… until you have to think about whether the tool head is going to hit any parts of any reasonably compl... | 1,760,372,716.501788 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/23/research-its-like-cheating-but-fair/ | Research: It’s Like Cheating, But Fair | Elliot Williams | [
"Rants",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"bugs",
"Getting Started",
"hacking",
"research",
"reverse engineering"
] | My niece’s two favorite classes in high school this year are “Intro to AI” and “Ethical Hacking”. (She goes to a much cooler high school than I did!) In “Hacking”, she had an assignment to figure out some bug in some body of code. She was staring and staring, figuring and figuring. She went to her teacher and said she couldn’t figure it out, and he asked her if she’d tried to search for the right keywords on the Internet.
My niece responded “this is homework, and that’d be cheating”, a line she surely must have learned in her previous not-so-cool high school. When the teacher responded with “but doing research is how you learn to do stuff”, my niece was hooked. The class wasn’t abstract or academic any more; it became real. No arbitrary rules. Game on!
But I know how she feels. Whether it’s stubborn independence, or a feeling that I’m cheating, I sometimes don’t do my research first. But attend
any
hacker talk, where they talk about how they broke some obscure system or pulled off an epic trick. What is the first step? “
I looked all over the Internet for the datasheet
.” (Video) “
I found the SDK and that made it possible
.” (Video) “Would you believe this protocol is already documented?” In any serious hack, there’s always ample room for your creativity and curiosity later on. If others have laid the groundwork for you, get on it.
If you have trouble overcoming your pride, or NIH syndrome, or whatever, bear this in mind: the reason we share information with other hackers is to give them a leg up. Whoever documented that protocol did it to help
you
. Not only is there no shame in cribbing from them, you’re essentially morally obliged to do so. And to say thanks along the way!
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
! | 53 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464264",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2022-04-23T14:32:02",
"content": "My favorite phrase is “on The Internet, in between the kiddie porn and the bomb-making instructions, I found…”While the internet is often maligned as a “wretched hive of scum and villainy”, it is al... | 1,760,372,716.594539 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/23/omnibot-shows-off-over-a-decade-of-cnc-prowess/ | Omnibot Shows Off Over A Decade Of CNC Prowess | Ryan Flowers | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"CNC router",
"mold making",
"resin",
"robot platform"
] | At first glance, you might think the Omnibot v3 wasn’t anything more than a basic 3D printed robotics platform, but you’d be wrong on both counts. There’s actually no 3D printed parts on the build, and while you could describe the platform as simplistic, calling it basic certainly doesn’t do the clever design justice.
In the video after the break
, creator [Michal] takes us through the process of designing and building this high quality bot.
The build starts with huge amounts of time and effort in a CAD program designing the Omnibot v3 with its four wheel steering and ability to do fancy things like spin in place. With the CAD and 3D renders out of the way, the process of transforming the digital into the physical began with a CNC router.
Rather than routing the individual components out of a suitable material, [Michal] cut forms. Those forms were made only for the creation of silicone molds. Those silicon molds where then used to pour the actual parts with polyurethane resin. It is these resin parts that make up the actual Omnibot v3, which is manually demonstrated at the end of the video.
All in all, it’s a neat project with a neat process. If we were to stop here, things would be mostly complete and you’d click on to the next great Hackaday article. But there’s more to be had here. You see, [Michal] is also fellow behind the
Guerrilla guide to CNC and resin casting
. In his own words: “
CNC machining and resin casting are an underappreciated method for producing engineering-grade parts, but the process is fast, predictable, and garage-friendly.
” After seeing the results, we can’t help but to agree.
By the way, before anybody in the comments can yell “DUPE!”, we already know. You see, we featured the Guerrilla guide to CNC and resin casting once before,
almost exactly 11.5
years ago
!
It’s been updated since then, and appears to be an absolute gold mine of information for anybody wanting to walk in [Michal]’s shoes. | 17 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464237",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2022-04-23T11:46:16",
"content": "Resin casting is great, but I’m not sure I’d call it garage freindly – they tend to be unheated/cooled and resin working times are temperature affected, and so can be the final parts mechanical properti... | 1,760,372,716.256972 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/23/high-temp-heat-engine-achieves-40-efficiency/ | High Temp Heat Engine Achieves 40% Efficiency | Al Williams | [
"News",
"Science"
] | [
"energy",
"heat",
"mit",
"waste heat"
] | People generate lots of waste heat. It makes sense that there is a desire to convert that heat into usable energy. The problem is one of efficiency. Researchers from MIT and the National Renewable Energy Lab have announced
a new heat converter
that they claim has 40% efficiency. Of course, there’s a catch. The temperature range for the devices starts at 1,900 °C .
The thermophotovoltaic cells are tandem devices with two cells mated on one substrate. Each cell is multiple layers of very thin and somewhat exotic materials. So this probably isn’t something you will cobble up in your basement anytime soon unless
you’re already manufacturing ICs down there
. It appears that the secret is in the multiple layers including a reflective one that sends any missed photons back through the stack.
The paper is pretty dense, but there’s a Sunday-supplement summary over on the
MIT site
. Using heat storage leads to the ability to make heat batteries, more or less, and harness what would otherwise be waste energy.
We’ve noticed a lot of interest in
drawing power from hot pipes
lately. All of them techniques we’ve seen rely on some kind of
exotic materials
. | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464198",
"author": "helge",
"timestamp": "2022-04-23T08:51:33",
"content": "There’s an entire field of waste heat thermoelectric energy harvesting. Reference that as an intro is unfortunate, if not bait-and-switch.Anyway, a tangible comparison can be made between TPV cells and an o... | 1,760,372,716.431017 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/22/meet-the-routerpi-a-compute-module-4-based-gbe-router/ | Meet The RouterPi, A Compute Module 4 Based GbE Router | Ryan Flowers | [
"Network Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi",
"Software Development"
] | [
"cm4",
"compute module 4",
"firewall",
"GbE",
"iptables",
"linux",
"nat",
"raspberry pi"
] | [Zak Kemble] likes to build things, and for several years has been pining over various Raspberry Pi products with an eye on putting them into service as a router. Sadly, none of them so far provided what he was looking for with regard to the raw throughput of the Gigabit Ethernet ports. His hopes were renewed when the Compute Module 4 came on scene, and [Zak] set out to turn the CM4 module into a full Gigabit Ethernet router. The project is
documented on his excellent website
, and sources are provided via
a link to GitHub
.
A view underneath shows off the RTC, power supply, and more.
Of course the Compute Module 4 is just a module- it’s designed to be built into another product, and this is one of the many things differentiating it from a traditional Raspberry Pi. [Zak] designed a simple two layer PCB that breaks out the CM4’s main features. But a router with just one Ethernet port, even if it’s GbE, isn’t really a router. [Zak] added a Realtek RTL8111HS GbE controller to the PCIe bus, ensuring that he’d be able to get the full bandwidth of the device.
The list of fancy addons is fairly long, but it includes such neat hacks as the ability to power other network devices by passing through the 12 V power supply, having a poweroff button and a hard reset button, and even including an environmental sensor (although he doesn’t go into why… but why not, right?).
Testing the RouterPi uncovered some performance bottlenecks that were solved with some clever tweaks to the software that assigned different ports an tasks to different CPU cores. Overall, it’s a great looking device and has been successfully server [Zak] as a router, a DNS resolver, and more- what more can you ask for from an experimental project?
This CM4 based project is a
wonderful contrast to Cisco’s first network product
, which in itself was innovative at the the time, but definitely didn’t have Gigabit Ethernet. Thanks to [Adrian] for the tip! | 26 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464177",
"author": "Kryptylomese",
"timestamp": "2022-04-23T06:49:57",
"content": "Where can I buy one?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6464184",
"author": "Clueless",
"timestamp": "2022-04-23T07:28:37",
... | 1,760,372,716.664609 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/25/machine-vision-helps-you-terminate-failing-3d-print-jobs/ | Machine Vision Helps You Terminate Failing 3D Print Jobs | Robin Kearey | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer upgrade",
"machine vision",
"Remote monitoring"
] | If you’re a 3D printer user you’re probably familiar with that dreaded feeling of returning to your printer a few hours after submitting a big job, only to find that it threw an error and stopped printing, or worse, turned half a spool of filament into a useless heap of twisted plastic. While some printers come with remote monitoring facilities, [Kutluhan Aktar]’s doesn’t, so he built
a device that keeps a watchful eye on his 3D printer and notifies him if anything’s amiss
.
The device does this by tracking the movement of the print head using a camera and looking for any significant changes in motion. If, for example, the Y-axis suddenly stops moving and doesn’t resume within a reasonable amount of time, it will generate a warning message and send it to its owner through Telegram. If all three axes stop moving, then either the print is finished or some serious error occurred, both of which require user intervention.
The camera [Kutluhan] used is a HuskyLens AI camera that can detect objects and output a set of 3D coordinates describing their motion. A set of QR-like AprilTags attached to the moving parts of the 3D printer help the camera to identify the relevant components. The software runs on a Raspberry Pi housed in a 3D-printed enclosure with a T-800 Terminator head on top to give it a bit of extra presence.
[Kutluhan]’s description of the project covers lots of detail on how to set up the camera and hook it up to a Telegram bot that enables it to send automated messages, so it’s an interesting read even if you’re not planning to 3D print something to check on your 3D printer. After all, software like
Octoprint
has many similar features, but having an independent observer can still be a good safety feature to prevent some types of
catastrophic failure
. | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6465017",
"author": "mrehorst",
"timestamp": "2022-04-25T16:21:54",
"content": "You can achieve similar functionality without a camera by homing the printer periodically during the print, maybe every 5th or 10th layer (you could do it with every layer but that will add a lot of prin... | 1,760,372,716.791082 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/25/axioms-private-iss-mission-was-no-space-vacation/ | Axiom’s Private ISS Mission Was No Space Vacation | Tom Nardi | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Slider",
"Space"
] | [
"Axiom Space",
"commercial space",
"international space station",
"SpaceX"
] | In an era where anyone with deep enough pockets can hitch a ride to the edge of space and back, you’d be forgiven for thinking that
Axiom’s Ax-1 mission to the International Space Station
was little more than a pleasure cruise for the four crew members. Granted it’s a higher and faster flight than the suborbital hops that the likes of William Shatner and Jeff Bezos have been embarking on, but surely it must still be little more than a publicity stunt organized by folks with more money than they know what to do with?
Thankfully, there’s a bit more to it than that. While the mission was privately funded, the Ax-1 crew weren’t just orbital sightseers. For one thing, there was plenty of real-world experience packed into the SpaceX Dragon: the mission was commanded by Michael López-Alegría, a veteran NASA astronaut, and crew members Larry Connor and Eytan Stibbe are both accomplished pilots, with the latter clocking in thousands of hours on various fighter jets during his time with the Israeli Air Force.
But more importantly, they had work to do. Each member of the crew was assigned a list of experiments they were to conduct, ranging from medical observations to the testing of new hardware. Of course there was some downtime — after all, if you spent $50 million on a ticket to space, you’d expect to have at least a little fun — but this wasn’t just a photo op: Axiom was looking for results. There was no hiding from the boss either, as López-Alegría is not just the Mission Commander, he’s also Axiom’s Vice President of Business Development.
Which makes sense when you consider the company’s ultimate goal is to use the ISS as a springboard to accelerate the
development of their own commercial space station
. The data collected during Ax-1 is going to be critical to Axiom’s path forward, and with their first module already under construction and expected to launch by 2025, there’s no time to waste.
So what did the crew members of the this privately funded mission to the International Space Station accomplish? Let’s take a look at a few of the more interesting entries from the docket.
Future Station Tech
While Axiom might technically be in the space tourism business at the moment, their goal is to eventually establish a destination for both government and commercial astronauts to perform space research and manufacturing. Rather than starting from scratch, they want to build onto the ISS with a series of modules that can eventually be detached and act as a free-flying station once the Station has officially been retired.
That being the case, it’s no surprise that Ax-1 crew was tasked with evaluating various technologies which would be useful on a near-future space station. Chief among them was a
photocatalyst air purification device developed by the Japan Manned Space Systems Corporation (JAMSS)
. The device uses LEDs and a special filter medium to remove odors from the air, a problem that has long-plagued the 20+ year old orbiting laboratory.
JAMSS Developed Air Purifier
Mission Specialist Mark Pathy was also tasked with studying two-way “holoportation”, a communication technology that allows the user to see a 3D representation of the person they are speaking with through an augmented reality headset.
NASA had previously tested a one-way version of the concept in October of last year
, where callers from the ground would appear as if they were on the Station, but the Ax-1 mission debuted the ability for visuals to be transmitted from orbit. Allowing for more personal and interactive communication, NASA believes this tech will become increasingly valuable for long-duration spaceflight.
One of the technologies studied by Eytan Stibbe is a deployable high-gain antenna developed by Israeli startup company NSLComm. Designed so the reflector can be packed up tightly for launch, the antenna can only be tested in a microgravity environment. While primarily intended for small satellites, these sort of deployable structures have been considered a
key technology for future orbital facilities and spacecraft
.
Building In Space
Naturally, a commercial space station needs to have customers. To that end, technologies which take advantage of the unique microgravity environment offered by a permanent facility in low Earth orbit are of particular interest to Axiom.
Take for example the Fluidic Space Optics project which Eytan Stibbe was responsible for. In microgravity, filing a rigid frame with liquid polymer will naturally produce a perfect spherical shape due to surface tension. When cured with UV light, the result is an optical lens which on Earth could only be produced by laborious grinding and polishing. This technique could potentially allow the production of high quality optics at arbitrary scales, enabling the orbital construction of space telescopes which would be too large or fragile to launch from the ground.
Commander Michael López-Alegría also worked on a small scale demonstration of
MIT’s concept for a self-assembling space architecture
called the TESSERAE. The edges of which tile feature electropermanent magnets, and with the ability to maneuver autonomously, these tiles could connect to each other to create structures far larger than what could be packed into a rocket’s payload fairing. While obviously on the edge of what’s possible with current technology, TESSERAE is a fascinating look at how embracing microgravity could enable unique forms of extraterrestrial construction.
A Promising Start
Axiom currently has a contract with SpaceX to conduct three more flights to the ISS by 2023, all carrying four crew members. Little is publicly known about these future missions beyond the fact that NASA Astronaut Peggy Whitson will Command Ax-2 and race driver John Shoffner will serve as its Pilot. It’s also expected that two of the seats will go to reality show contestants,
though as we learned from Mars One
, any claims that have their source in the entertainment industry should be taken with a grain of salt.
Whoever ends up strapping into the Dragon on future Axiom missions, we can only hope they are held to the same standard as the crew of Ax-1. With commercial human spaceflight still in its infancy, the imperative should be to send the best and brightest of us on missions that have real impact and tangible benefits. Someday the average retiree might get the chance to chose between a European vacation and a short jaunt to orbit, but until then, there’s plenty of work to be done. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464990",
"author": "fiddlingjunky",
"timestamp": "2022-04-25T14:35:53",
"content": "Some funny things in that TESSERAE animation: anti-spinwise direct launch (let’s not even talk about the lack of a gravity turn), the first stage going along for the ride to mars (with RTLS fins and... | 1,760,372,716.737132 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/25/insteon-abruptly-shuts-down-users-left-smart-home-less/ | Insteon Abruptly Shuts Down, Users Left Smart-Home-Less | Arya Voronova | [
"home hacks",
"News"
] | [
"bankruptcy",
"home automation",
"Insteon",
"internet of things",
"IoT",
"proprietary",
"smart home"
] | In today’s “predictable things that happened before and definitely will happen again”, Insteon, a smart home company boasting the Insteon ecosystem of devices built around their proprietary communication standards,
has shut down their servers
without a warning. For almost two decades,
Insteon
used to offer products like smart light switches, dimmers, relays, various sensors, thermostats – the usual home automation offerings, all linked into a cozy system. Looking through the Insteon subreddit’s history,
there were signs
of the company’s decline for good half a year now, but things were mostly stable – until about a week ago, when users woke up and noticed that
parts of their smart home network stopped working
, the mobile app would no longer respond, and the company’s resources and infrastructure went down. What’s more – the C-rank management
has scrubbed their LinkedIn profiles
from mentioning Insteon and SmartLabs (Insteon’s parent company).
Instantly, the Insteon subreddit has livened up. People, rightfully angry about being literally left in the dark, were looking for answers – as if mocking them, Insteon’s homepage claimed that all services were operational. Others, having expected the shutdown to eventually happen, started
collecting
and
rehosting
rapidly disappearing documentation,
helping each other
keep their tech up in the meantime, and
looking into alternative platforms
. It turned out to be imperative that users don’t factory reset their Insteon hubs, since those have to communicate with the currently Inste-Gone servers as part of initial configuration, diligently
verifying the SSL certificates
. Sadly, quite a few users, unaware and going through the usual solutions to make their network function again, are now left with hubs that are essentially bricked, save for
a few lucky ones
.
A modem capable of connecting an Insteon network to a Raspberry Pi – its original price being $80
A week after the services went down, Insteon
released an update
that
surprised nobody and addressed nothing
the users didn’t know already; blaming the pandemic for the company’s financial downfall, and not even offering any solutions for the people impacted the most. Proprietary parts of the ecosystem – code, certificates and documentation – are firmly stuck in the liquidation limbo, and it’s clear that there’s no foreseeable return to normal for people who relied on Insteon to keep their homes functioning.
The users have been moving on, and the smart home platforms, open and closed alike, have been welcoming the Inste-off refugees. HomeAssistant
has made an intro
putting users at ease and supporting them in their relocation to a different platform. They even currently have a dedicated developer working on improving documentation and software integrations for Insteon – and users are already
sharing success stories
with their HomeAssistant migration! Other platforms, like HOOBS, OpenHAB and HomeSeer,
followed suit
. The Raspberry Pi shortages don’t help, and the integrations aren’t perfect, but they appear to be miles ahead of what users expect, and lightyears away from the broken systems they’re stuck with. Of course, moving platforms is
not the only problem
to be figured out. Why do such things keep happening? Why do we keep returning to the proprietary-technology-backed smart home models?And what should we do differently, so that such scenarios are no longer possible in the future?
Every now and then, yet another smart home system’s infrastructure is shut down, leaving its users stranded, their stack of hardware rendered useless. Even large companies aren’t safe – we’ve seen it with
Google-affiliated Revolv
in 2016,
Charter
(known as Spectrum in USA) in 2020, and
Samsung’s SmartThings
in 2021. When Best Buy shuttered its smart home offerings on a short notice, we had
an in-depth conversation
about why that happens, and the lessons we are compelled to take away. After all, it’s not just the smart home systems that are prone to this – it’s even devices like
prosthetic eyes
.
We thank [Andrew] for sharing this with us! | 88 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464917",
"author": "ConsultingJoe",
"timestamp": "2022-04-25T11:23:04",
"content": "Lol and I just sold a usb module.This sucks.They were the best before google and alexa took over",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6464918",
... | 1,760,372,717.109268 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/25/testing-7-wago-like-wire-connectors-for-science-and-fire/ | Testing 7 Wago-like Wire Connectors For Science And Fire | Maya Posch | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"clamp lever terminal",
"electrical safety",
"house wiring"
] | At the intersection of saving a few bucks and expensive home insurance claims due to a house fire, we find clones of certified and tested electrical connectors, even when many would argue that so-called wire nuts are fire hazards no matter how many certification labels are on them. When it comes to no-fuss wire connectors, Wago clamp connectors are an attractive target to save some money on due to their perceived high cost. But how expensive are they really?
This was the thought behind a
recent video
by [GreatScott!] (also embedded after the break) when he hopped onto everyone’s favorite e-commerce website and searched for ‘clamp lever terminal’. The resulting selection of seven connectors come in a wide variety of shapes, colors and configurations, though all are supposedly rated for mains (250 VAC) voltage and safe enough to put into a permanent installation.
While running the connectors through their paces with high-current, fire and mechanical strength tests, the conclusion was that all are good enough for hobbyists use and some brief connections while testing, but that only the ones with independent certification marks (like VDE) filled him with enough confidence to consider using in house wiring. One of these being the connectors by the German brand ViD, which would seem to be a slightly cheaper alternative to the Wago connectors, with similar guarantees of safety.
At the end of the day it is the certification that matters, after all, since long-term reliability is of primary concern with house wiring, not whether a few Euros were saved on material costs. | 31 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464876",
"author": "HackJack",
"timestamp": "2022-04-25T08:07:40",
"content": "WAGO design is fundamental. I am just surprised that it took so long for the idea to catch on.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6464899",
"... | 1,760,372,716.863503 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/24/all-dressed-up-and-nowhere-to-flow-russias-nord-stream-2-pipeline/ | All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Flow: Russia’s Nord Stream 2 Pipeline | Ryan Flowers | [
"News",
"Science"
] | [
"maritime",
"maritime engineering",
"natural gas",
"pipeline",
"underwater",
"welding"
] | At over 1230 km (764 mi) in length, $10 billion in cost, and over a decade in the making, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was slated to connect the gas fields of Russia to Western Europe through Germany. But with the sanctions against Russia and the politics of the pipeline suffering a major meltdown, this incredible feat of engineering currently sits unused. What does it take to lay so much underwater pipe, and what challenges are faced? [Grady] over at Practical Engineering lays out out nicely for us
in the video below the break
.
A Bubble Curtain containing the disposal of WW2 ordinance
As with any undersea pipeline or cable, a survey had to be done. Instead of just avoiding great chasms, underwater volcanos, or herds of sharks with lasers, planners had to contend with culturally important shipwrecks, territorial waters, and
unexploded
ordnance
dating from the second world war. Disposing of this ordinance in a responsible way meant employing curtains of bubbles around the explosion to limit the propagation of the explosion through the water- definitely a neat hack!
Speeding up the job meant laying several sections of pipe at once, and then tying them together
after
they were laid. The sheer amount of engineering, manpower and
money
involved are nothing short of staggering. Of course [Grady] makes it sound simple, and even shares his take on some of the geopolitical issues involved, such as Germany refusing to certify the line for use after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So far, the $10 billion pipeline is unused, and even Shell has walked away from its $5 billion investment.
Be sure to watch the whole video for even more fascinating details about the Nord Stream 2’s amazing engineering and construction. Check out a
Robot Eel concept
for the maintenance of underwater pipelines too. | 37 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464855",
"author": "Menno",
"timestamp": "2022-04-25T06:10:44",
"content": "Maybe the pipeline can still be used to shoot Russian defectors to the West.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6465014",
"author": "GeneralFaul... | 1,760,372,716.954681 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/24/ibm-pcjr-types-again-thanks-to-keybjr/ | IBM PCjr Types Again, Thanks To KeybJr | Donald Papp | [
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"ibm",
"ir",
"keyboard",
"pcjr",
"vintage"
] | Most of us think of keyboards — even vintage ones — as being fairly standardized and interchangeable, but that isn’t the case for the IBM PCjr. Its keyboard was quite unlike most others of its time, which means that a PCjr without an original keyboard is pretty much a dust collector. That’s what led [Jozef Bogin] to create the
KeybJr
, a piece of hardware that allows one to use any AT, XT, or PS/2 keyboard with the IBM PCjr.
The PCjr’s oddball keyboard can be a bit of a hassle for vintage computing enthusiasts.
What was strange about the PCjr’s keyboard? From the outside it looked pretty normal, but it definitely had its own thing going on. For one, the PCjr keyboard operated over a completely different protocol than the other keyboards of the time. In addition, its connection to the host was either by IR, or via its own wired cable adapter.
The KeybJr solves this by using an Arduino-based board to turn inputs from other keyboards of the time into something the PCjr expects. These signals are sent out and received either over infrared, or by the PCjr’s “K” port for a wired keyboard link.
Why bother with the IR functionality? Well, the connector and pins on the PCjr are not very rugged, and sometimes they are damaged. In those cases, it is nice to have the option of using a normal (for the time) keyboard over the IR link. Vintage hardware is not always in perfect shape, after all. That’s why things like
ATX power supply adapters
for the PCjr exist.
Want to give it a shot? There is
a GitHub repository for the KeybJr
, and you can see it in action in a brief video, embedded below. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464840",
"author": "Oscar Goldman",
"timestamp": "2022-04-25T04:42:21",
"content": "I remember the scorn heaped upon the PCJr keyboard for being a “chiclet” one. Fast-forward to the mid-2010s, when Apple sold five years’ worth of computers with keyboards that were far inferior not ... | 1,760,372,717.162247 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/24/hackaday-links-april-24-2022/ | Hackaday Links: April 24, 2022 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"bookbinding",
"bricking",
"comet",
"cookie",
"hackaday links",
"Insteon",
"IoT",
"Luxembourg",
"modulus",
"oreo",
"Rhode Island",
"shear",
"skiving",
"torque"
] | Wait, what? Is it possible that a tech company just killed off a product with a huge installed base of hardware and a community of dedicated users, and it wasn’t Google? Apparently not, if the stories of
the sudden demise of Insteon
are to be believed. The cloud-based home automation concern seems to have just disappeared — users report the service went offline at the end of last week, and hasn’t been back since. What’s more, the company’s executives removed Insteon from their LinkedIn profiles, and the CEO himself went so far as to remove his entire page from LinkedIn. The reasons behind the sudden disappearance remained a mystery until today, when
The Register reported
that Smartlabs, Inc., the parent company of Insteon, had become financially insolvent after an expected sale of the company failed in March. The fact that the company apparently knew this was going to happen weeks ago and never bothered to give the community a heads up before pulling the switches has led to a lot of hard feelings among the estimated 100,000 Insteonhub users.
Then again, with
a comet the size of Rhode Island heading our way
, a bunch of bricked smart bulbs might just be a moot point. The comet, known as C/2014 UN271, has a nucleus that is far larger than any previously discovered comet, which makes it a bit of an oddball and an exciting object to study. For those not familiar with the United States, Rhode Island is said to be a state wedged between Connecticut and Massachusetts, but even having lived in both those states, we couldn’t vouch for that. For scale, it’s about 80 miles (128 km) across, or a little bit bigger than Luxembourg, which we’re pretty sure is mythical, too. The comet is a couple of billion miles away at this point; it may never get closer than a billion miles from the Sun, and that in 2031. But given the way things have been going these last few years, we’re not banking on anything.
From the “Answering the Important Questions” file, news this week of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s breakthrough development of
the “Oreometer,”
a device to characterize the physical properties of Oreo cookies. The 3D printed device is capable of clamping onto the wafer parts of the popular sandwich cookie while applying axial torque. The yield strength of the tasty goop gluing the two wafers together can be analyzed, with particular emphasis on elucidating why it always seems to stay primarily on one wafer. Thoughtfully, the MIT folks made the Oreometer models available to one and all, so you can print one up and start your own line of cookie-related research. As a starting point, maybe take a look at the shear strength of the different flavors of Oreo, which might answer why the world needs
Carrot Cake Oreos
.
And finally, since we mentioned the word “skiving” last week in this space, it seems like the all-knowing algorithm has taken it upon itself to throw
this fascinating look at bookbinding
into our feed. We’re not complaining, mind you; the look inside Dublin’s J.E. Newman and Sons bookbinding shop, circa 1981, was worth every second of the 23-minute video. Absolutely everything was done by hand back then, and we’d imagine that very little has changed in the shop over the ensuing decades. The detail work is incredible, especially considering that very few jigs or fixtures are used to ensure that everything lines up. By the way, “skiving” in this case refers to the process of thinning out leather using a razor-sharp knife held on a bias to the material. It’s similar to
the just-as-fascinating process used to make heat sinks
that we happened upon last week. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464789",
"author": "Slacker",
"timestamp": "2022-04-24T23:13:10",
"content": "Never trust any product where any part of its function lies within the cloud and not the product itself.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6464993",
... | 1,760,372,717.210341 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/22/add-conductive-traces-on-vacuum-formed-plastic-with-3d-printing/ | Add Conductive Traces On Vacuum Formed Plastic With 3D Printing | Anne Ogborn | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"News"
] | [
"3d print",
"conductive ink",
"vacuum forming"
] | Surface conductors on vacuum formed parts appear in many hacks, from cosplay armor to 3D touch pads and smart objects. But making them has always been painful. Either they had to be hand painted after forming, which looked sloppy and was labor intensive, or they had to be printed with some difficult to use stretchable ink tech.
[Freddie Hong] and his group have another solution
, using tech most hackers already have – a 3D printer and a vacuum former.
Smart tray created by this method.
They 3D print the traces with conductive PLA filament directly onto a base plastic sheet, and then vacuum form the whole thing. The filament is happy to deform when heated – it’s printer filament.
We like this process. We’ve found conductive filament isn’t reliably resistive across vertical layers, but is reliable in the XY plane. Their method only requires one layer. Also, they suggest 3D printing a layer of non conductive PLA atop most of the conductor, like a PCB solder mask.
Conductive filament has a fair bulk resistance. They suggest electroplating it before applying the top mask layer. They also are exploring 3D printing logos, stripes, and such with colored filament, or even making surface detail like rivets on model parts or adding thickness where the plastic thins during vacuum forming.
Designing the 3D print requires guessing what bit of plastic sheet ends up where in the vacuum formed final part. His group used a commercial program,
t-sim
, to do the prediction and
Grasshopper
to import the result into
Rhino3D
. This seems a lot for a home hacker. Drawing lines on a test sheet and vacuum forming seems simpler.
We’ve looked at vacuum forming before. We did a piece on
3D printing bucks
, and covered [Ted Brull]’s
Kevo vacuum former
back in 2015.
Thanks to [howielowe] for the tip. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464964",
"author": "BantamBasher",
"timestamp": "2022-04-25T13:43:06",
"content": "“We like this process. We’ve found conductive filament isn’t reliably resistive across vertical layers, but is reliable in the XY plane.” Do you have a source for this? I am currently writing a prop... | 1,760,372,717.255641 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/22/harder-drives-impractical-slow-amazing-and-incredible/ | Hard(er) Drives: Impractical, Slow, Amazing, And Incredible | Ryan Flowers | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"great hacks",
"hack",
"icmp",
"kilobytes",
"memory",
"ping",
"storage",
"tetris",
"virtual machine"
] | Computer memory is a problem that has been solved for many years. But early on, it was more than just a small problem. We’ve many of the different kinds at Hackaday over the years, and we’ll link to some of them later on. But one of the original types of memory was called Delay Line memory, which worked by waiting for a signal to propagate slow enough through a device that it was essentially stored in the device. This was highly inefficient, but still a neat concept- one that [Tom7] has taken to entirely new levels of amazing and impractical as seen in the
video below the break
.
Such factors as “harm to society” are artfully considered
Starting with a demonstration of orbiting chainsaws, he then moves on to explaining how radio propagation waves could be used to temporarily store data while it’s in transit. He missed the opportunity to call it cloud storage, but we’ll forgive him. Extrapolating that further, he decided to use the Entire Internet to store data without its permission, utilizing large ICMP packets and even making it available as block storage in Linux.
Not content to use the entire Internet to store a few kb of data, he moved on to several thousand virtualized NES game systems which are all playing “an inventory management survival horror game” commonly known as Tetris. [Tom7] deconstructs Tetris, analyzing its Random Number Generator, gaming the system to store data in virtual NES consoles by the thousands. What data did he store? The source code to Tetris for the NES. And what did he do with it? Well, he mounted it and ran the program, of course!
The last Harder Drive we’ll leave for those who want to watch the video, because it’s a bit on the “ewww gross!” side of things but is also a bit less successful due to some magic smoke being released.
If none of these things we’ve mentioned were enough, then watch the video for an excellent breakdown of the cost, efficiency, and even the harm to society. For fun, he also tosses blockchain into the mix to see how it fares against the Harder Drives. There’s also at least one easter egg in the video, and the whimsical discussion of engineering is both entertaining and inspiring. How would
you
implement a Harder Drive?
[Tom7] also gives you the opportunity to follow along with the fun and mayhem by making
much of the code available
for your perusal. For more fun reading, check out this
walk down computer memory lane
that we covered last year, as well as a look into
Acoustic Delay Line memory
. | 19 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464111",
"author": "Nuxi",
"timestamp": "2022-04-23T01:37:00",
"content": "Why am I only now learning about SIGBOVIK? I know what I’ll be binging on this weekend.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6464112",
"author": "LordNot... | 1,760,372,717.447571 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/22/building-an-edge-lit-sign-from-the-scrap-pile/ | Building An Edge Lit Sign From The Scrap Pile | Tom Nardi | [
"Art",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"acrylic",
"edge lighting",
"meccano",
"sign"
] | Whether in a shop window or mounted to the top of consoles in NASA’s Mission Control Center, edge lit acrylic is a popular choice for making high visibility signs. Partly because of their striking hologram-like appearance, but also because they’re exceptionally cheap and easy to produce. Just
how
cheap and easy? Take a look at
this recent video from [Hack Modular]
for a perfect example.
Now you might think you’d need something like a CNC router to produce a sign like this, and for more complex images, that’s arguably the case. But if you’re only concerned with text, and have a fairly steady hand, you can pull off the etching step with nothing more exotic than a printed template and a razor blade. Of course, the LCD style font that [Hack Modular] picked for this sign is particularly well suited to hand cutting — if you’re interested in edge lit calligraphy, this method probably isn’t what you’re looking for.
This linear LED provides a more consistent light.
With the text carved into the acrylic, the only missing ingredient is light. For that, [Hack Modular] is using a 12 volt linear LED strip light. That is, instead of being dotted with individual LEDs like traditional strips, it provides a continuous band of light that’s perfect for this application. That gets stuck down to a scrap piece of wood, and a rusty angle bracket from an old Meccano set is used to hold the acrylic right on the center-line. If you think the final product looks like something that was created from trash, don’t feel bad, that was the intent.
The end result looks great. In fact, if we’re being honest, it’s a lot better than we would have thought was possible using hand tools. Granted the choice of font has a lot to do with that, but then again, we wouldn’t mind if all our edge lit acrylic signs ended up
looking like big seven-segment displays either
. | 3 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464352",
"author": "Johannes Burgel",
"timestamp": "2022-04-23T19:18:55",
"content": "Where do I find more information about this “Linear LED”? Internet search was not helpful.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6464654",
... | 1,760,372,717.300812 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/22/2022-sci-fi-contest-a-very-star-wars-door/ | 2022 Sci-Fi Contest: A VeryStar WarsDoor | Lewin Day | [
"contests",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"2022 Sci-Fi Contest",
"Carbonite",
"Han Solo",
"star wars"
] | Every fan of the original
Star Wars
trilogy knows the plight of Han Solo, who was so cruelly frozen in carbonite by Imperial forces. [erv.plecter] came into possession of a replica Solo, this time frozen in polyurethane,
and set about using it as the door for a home theater setup.
Just like in the movie, there are a series of controls and lights on the side of the door, clearly intended to represent the state of the carbonite block and the smuggler trapped within. This was achieved with the use of a SAMD51 microcontroller, which controls five meters of WS2812B LED strip along with a small OLED display.
There’s also an amazing little smoke effect, built using a vape inhaler. These devices have proved popular for all kinds of theme builds and costumes,
as it turns out.
They’re a great way to produce a visible fog or smoke in a tiny, compact package.
[erv.plecter] was kind enough to share plenty of details on the build, including how the polyurethane cast was assembled into the door. The final result looks remarkably authentic, and would surely prove a hit at any
Star Wars
movie night. Just don’t spoil things by forcing everyone to sit through
Revenge of the Sith.
Video after the break.
You’ve got a Sci-Fi device burning in your soul? You’ve got this weekend left to enter it in the Sci-Fi Contest. This is the last minute. It’s time to get started! | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,372,717.482511 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/22/movie-prop-electronics-hack-chat-takes-us-behind-the-scenes/ | Movie Prop Electronics Hack Chat Takes Us Behind The Scenes | Tom Nardi | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"Adafruit Feather",
"ghostbusters",
"Hack Chat",
"movie props",
"props",
"star trek"
] | It’s no surprise that the hacking and making community has traditionally had something of a love affair with movie props, especially those of the science fiction variety. Over the years we’ve seen folks put untold hours into incredible recreations of their favorite pieces of fictional gear — and by the time this post goes out, our 2022 Sci-Fi Contest will be entering into the final stretch. So it’s a safe bet that if you make your living by creating the electronics behind all that Hollywood movie magic, you’ll find ours to be an especially welcoming community.
We were fortunate enough to see this in action this week when
Ben Eadie stopped by to host the Hack Chat
. It’s no exaggeration to say that he’s been living out what most of us would consider a dream,
having worked on films from iconic franchises
such as
Star Trek
and
Predator
. But perhaps his most enviable credit is that of propmaster for 2021’s
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
, where he got the chance to work on the proton packs and ghost traps; arguably some of the most well-known props in the history of cinema.
Not bad for a guy who only recently got in the game. Ben spent 20 years working as an aerounatical engineer until a friend from his local maker space mentioned they were working on a film and could use a hand. Suddenly he found himself behind the scenes of
Star Trek: Beyond
in 2015, helping to design and fabricate one of the largest rotating sets ever made. He figures he must have done something right, because Hollywood has been calling ever since.
This anecdote about his first time working on a feature film helped answer what many wanted to know early on in the Chat, which was how one manages to get into the prop and special effects industry. Ben once again confirmed a truth well known to this community: that what you’re capable of is far more important than where you went to school and what you studied. There’s not a lot of formal education out there that can train you to make the impossible possible, and Ben says the majority of his day-to-day knowledge came from a lifetime of fiddling around with electronics. In fact, he attributes much of his professional success with hanging out in maker spaces, reading Hackaday, and watching YouTube. If that’s the recipe, then we should all be in pretty good shape.
Over the last few years, Ben has been trying to pay that forward by
documenting some of the tricks of the trade on his own YouTube channel
. In a particularly interesting piece of marketing on Sony’s part, some of Ben’s videos have even been featured on the official
Ghostbusters
YouTube channel as part of a “Maker Monday” series. In fact, we first got in contact with Ben when he left a comment on
our coverage of his “PKE Meter” prop build
. This is the kind of advertisement we can get behind, and wish more companies would embrace the hacker and maker culture with this kind of interactive content. Ben says the best way to make initiatives like this more popular is to consume it — if Sony sees people watching and sharing this kind of content, hopefully more will follow.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Hack Chat unless some arcane compartmentalized technical knowledge was dished out. In this case, several of the questions were about the unique challenges posed by operating custom electronics on a movie set. For example, Ben says he always uses addressable LEDs controlled by the APA102 chip as it offers an external clock pin that he can feed with a different frequency to avoid on-screen flickering. The radio spectrum also tends to be pretty noisy on set, so if at all possible, you want to make sure your gear has a wired connection. Otherwise, you’ll need to get intimately acquainted with what other RF signals are being used on set so as not to interfere with the production.
Ben’s creations include the Remote Trap Vehicle (RTV) from
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
.
But while some of the challenges he has to deal with might seem pretty foreign to us, the technology itself is in some cases more familiar than you might think. It turns out there’s plenty of Sparkfun and Adafruit gear behind the scenes, with Ben specifically mentioning the Feather nRF52 as one of his go-to microcontrollers. Sometimes the graybeards on set grumble about his “consumer grade” tech, but when his gear is up and running in half the time, it’s usually he who gets the last laugh.
Towards the end of the Chat, Ben says the most important thing he’s learned over the years is to always have backups. His motto is “One is None”, and if he can help it, he usually builds four of everything: that gives him two to learn from, and a pair to actually use for whatever the project is. Even if our own projects don’t quite rise to the level of a key prop from a summer blockbuster, there’s no certainly no harm in being prepared.
We want to thank Ben Eadie for taking the time to talk with the community and sharing some of his fascinating stories and tips with us. At the risk of sounding a bit sappy, stories like his are what motivates us here at Hackaday. If we can provide even a small part of the what it takes to help people like Ben achieve their goals, that’s reason enough for us to keep the lights on.
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. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464290",
"author": "Jerry",
"timestamp": "2022-04-23T16:14:18",
"content": "The struggle is real.. I just purchased a bag of LED Laser components, perchance to add sighting to some random nerf guns. A bit of camo paint, instant prop. Amazon has everything.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,372,717.532218 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/22/hackaday-podcast-165-old-printers-dark-towers-3dp-gaskets-and-wavy-traces/ | Hackaday Podcast 165: Old Printers, Dark Towers, 3DP Gaskets, And Wavy Traces | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos as we gab about the most interesting hacks and stories of the previous week. This time, we start off by marveling over everything happening this weekend. Most urgently, it’s your last chance to enter
the 2022 Sci-Fi contest
, which closes Monday, April 25th at 8:30 AM Pacific Time sharp. Already got your hat in the ring? If you’re anywhere in the neighborhood of New Jersey, don’t miss the VCF’s Vintage Computer Festival East. Don’t want to leave the house? Then check out all the talks that start approximately right now, assuming you get your Hackaday Podcasts hot off the server.
In this episode, we’ll fawn over a KiCAD plug-in that gives your PCBs that old-timey look, discuss ancient telephone exchanges and the finest in 70s-era custom telephones, and dream about building a wall of sound out of Raspberry Pis. Then we’ll talk about awesome old printers and the elegance of RSS feeds, developing your own digital film, and a really cool line follower robot that works without a brain. Stay with us to find out where Kristina likes her taskbar, and we’ll tell you the cool-kid name for the the Commodore key.
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 below!
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 165 Show Notes:
News This Week:
Last weekend for the Sci-Fi Contest
Vintage Computer Festival East Is This Weekend
So is the 2022 Open Hardware Summit (virtual)
What’s that Sound?
Last week’s sound was an arcade button. Blue. Congratulations to [Madeira] for guessing correctly, and getting lucky with the dice!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
KiCAD Plugin Gives Your PCBs That Handmade Look
The Simplest Electro-Mechanical Telephone Exchange That Actually Works
A Vintage Phone In 2020
Vintage ITT Teleconcepts lucite clear rotary periscope phone
Teleconcepts Telephones
Using Old Phones As An Intercom In Your VW Bus (or Anywhere Else)
Ask Hackaday: Would A Scooter Get You Back To The Office?
Build Your Own Cat – Some Assembly Required
Bare Metal Gives This Pi Some Classic Synths
Dexed
RSS Printer Gives You The Hard Copy News You Desire
Blog – Hackaday
Not Acceptable!
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Gaskets, Can They Be 3D Printed?
Developing Your Own Digital Film
A Line Follower With No Brains
Kristina’s Picks:
Edible Electronics Let Us Hear The Lamentations Of The Chocolate Bunnies
Mini DarkTower Clone Restores Your Childhood
2022 Sci-Fi Contest: Nixie Calculator Is Resplendent In Walnut Enclosure
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Commodore C64: The Most Popular Home Computer Ever Turns 40
Mobile-Focused Windows 11 Leaves Taskbar Stuck Along The Bottom | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6463953",
"author": "Quartet",
"timestamp": "2022-04-22T17:29:24",
"content": "Today’s outro/blooper song is brought to you by: Trio!https://youtube.com/watch?v=4_kZdimDGfM",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6464021",
"au... | 1,760,372,717.573852 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/22/blu-ray-microscope-uses-blood-cells-as-lenses/ | Blu-ray Microscope Uses Blood Cells As Lenses | Anne Ogborn | [
"chemistry hacks",
"Laser Hacks",
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"blood",
"blu-ray",
"CCD",
"digital microscope"
] | When you think of high-throughput ptychographic cytometry (wait, you
do
think about high throughput ptychographic cytometry, right?) does it bring to mind something you can hack together from an old Blu-ray player, an Arduino, and, er, some blood? Apparently so for [Shaowei Jiang] and some of his buddies in this
ACS Sensors Article.
For those of you who haven’t had a paper accepted by the American Chemical Society, we should probably clarify things a bit. Ptychography is a computational method of microscopic imaging, and cytometry has to do with measuring the characteristics of cells. Obviously.
This is definitely what science looks like.
Anyway, if you shoot a laser through a sample, it diffracts. If you then move the sample slightly, the diffraction pattern shifts. If you capture the diffraction pattern in each position with a CCD sensor, you can reconstruct the shape of the sample using breathtaking amounts of math.
One hitch – the CCD sensor needs a bunch of tiny lenses, and by tiny we mean six to eight microns. Red blood cells are just that size, and they’re lens shaped. So the researcher puts a drop of their own blood on the surface of the CCD and covers it with a bit of polyvinyl film, leaving a bit of CCD bloodless for reference.
There’s an absolutely wild video of it in action here
.
Don’t have a Blu-ray player handy? We’ve recently covered a
promising attempt at building a homebrew scanning electron microscope
which might be more your speed. It doesn’t even require any bodily fluids.
[Thanks jhart99] | 12 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6463934",
"author": "Ethan Waldo",
"timestamp": "2022-04-22T16:03:13",
"content": "Looks like they’ve built upon the pioneering work of Dr. Edwin En-Te Hwu and his teamhttps://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0sqEbLEAAAAJ&hl=enwho have been featured on Hackaday beforehttps://hackad... | 1,760,372,717.633516 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/22/this-week-in-security-javas-psychic-signatures-aws-escape-and-a-nasty-windows-bug/ | This Week In Security: Java’s Psychic Signatures, AWS Escape, And A Nasty Windows Bug | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"ECDSA",
"Log4Shell",
"This Week in Security"
] | Java versions 15, 16, 17, and 18 (and maybe some older versions) have a big problem,
ECDSA signature verification is totally broken
. The story is a prime example of the dangers of unintended consequences, the pitfall of rolling your own crypto, and why to build a test suite for important code. In Java 15, the ECDSA verification code was re-written, moving the code from C++ to a Java-native implementation. The new code misses an important check, that the initialization and proof values are both non-zero.
A
refresher on ECDSA
will likely help. The Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm is a asymmetric cryptography scheme, where a public-private keypair is used to encrypt or sign messages. Rather than using the using factorization of large numbers as the one-way function, ECDSA uses a vector bouncing around the inside of a special elliptic curve. A signature consists of two values, the random starting point
r
, and the proof
s
. Part of the ECDSA spec is that those can’t be zero, because the verification function includes multiplication by those values. Multiplication and division by zero has a tendency to short-circuit algorithms, and this one is no exception. A signature of
r=0
and
s=0
is always valid, no private key needed.
The Java code left out the sanity-check for zeroes in the signature, so any Java program using ECDSA signatures can be defeated with trivial fake credentials — all zeroes. The worst part of this flaw is that it’s a known problem, and included in
published test cases like Wycheproof
. This wasn’t a project I was familiar with, but it’s definitely on my cryptographic radar now.
NIST famously publishes test vectors
for various cryptography algorithms — published plaintext, key, and ciphertext sets, useful for validating that your code correctly implements the given scheme. The problem with these is that they aren’t adversarial; NIST vectors use the algorithm properly. Wycheproof’s tests are all invalid uses, designed to find edge case bugs like this one. If you’re involved with a crypto implementation, definitely use published test vectors in a test suite, but include Wycheproof or something like it.
This flaw was announced on Tuesday, but was originally discovered back in November, about five months ago. As keenly observed on Twitter, that’s a long time for Oracle to add an
if
statement to their Java code. There is
already a scanner
to help you audit your Java programs for exposure to the problem. The official fix was released in the April collection of critical updates.
Log4Shell Second-Order Consequences
We don’t often think about second-order consequences of big bugs like Log4shell, but the fact is that every bugfix is also a possible new vulnerability, and when the bug being fixed is widespread and serious, there’s more likely to be follow-on bugs. The unlucky winners of this statistical lottery was Amazon, in this case. AWS added a hot-patch system to their Java infrastructure, and
that system was vulnerable to container escape
.
The hotpatch service scanned for any
java
application running inside a container, and attempted to patch those processes if needed. Part of this process included running the container’s
java
binary on the underlying host — without proper containerization, and running as root. It’s pretty trivial to replace the container’s
java
binary with something malicious, trigger the hotpatch, and then take over the host when it runs the payload. Amazon has updated their code, but depending on what service you’re using, some manual steps may need to be taken.
Windows RPC
Windows versions all the way back to Windows 7 have
a glaring security problem in how Remote Procedure Calls are handled
. What’s surprising is that this vulnerability isn’t accessed through the RPC port (135), but SMB (445), though an exploit at port 135 may still be found. CVE-2022-26809 is a pre-auth Remote Code Execution (RCE), scoring a CVSS of 9.8. Akamai has
published an analysis of the patch
, and it looks like an integer overflow could lead to a heap buffer overflow.
Stolen OAuth Tokens
In a developing story, GitHub has discovered that
multiple private repositories have been checked-out using stolen OAuth tokens
. It seems that the tokens were leaked from Heroku and Travis-CI. Both of those organizations are invalidating their tokens, and warning affected users. Travis CI has
published a post
, suggesting that tokens were accessed through a man-in-the-middle attack, but few concrete details have been released.
Watchguard Attacks in the Wild
CVE-2022-26318 was announced and fixed back in March with the very helpful “a vulnerability that could allow an unauthenticated user to execute arbitrary code on the Firebox.” As we know, an obscure vulnerability description isn’t enough to prevent a determined attacker from reverse-engineering a flaw; by the end of March, attacks were being observed in the wild. [Dylan Pindur] comes to our rescue in
this post from Assetnote
, which recaps the history of the bug, and does an analysis of the vulnerability. The whole dive is good stuff, but the short version is that a malformed XML document triggers too many calls to
strcat()
, which overflows a buffer into the heap.
Bits and Bytes
Lenovo has released firmware updates for a wide swath of their laptop models, as
researchers have discovered vulnerabilities in Lenovo’s UEFI firmware
. The problems all seem to be due to manufacturing and debugging code that was unintentionally included in production firmware. The danger is that a sufficiently advanced piece of malware would no longer have to stop at just encrypting your data, it could install a module into the firmware, making for a very stubborn infection.
A
VMware vulnerability
, CVE-2022-22954, is being exploited in the wild. It’s described as “Server-side Template Injection Remote Code Execution”. The vulnerable component, the VMware Identity Manager is a component of other VMware products, so you may be running it unawares. It’s a CVSS 9.8, and appears to be exploitable pre-authentication.
And finally,
Apache Struts 2.x has a recurring vulnerability
: CVE-2020-17530 is back as CVE-2021-31805, as the initial fix proved to be insufficient. This flaw allowed OGNL code to be evaluated twice, which could lead to RCE. The bug was fixed again in version 2.5.30, released this month. Hopefully this fix catches all the corner cases. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6464001",
"author": "Doc",
"timestamp": "2022-04-22T19:44:10",
"content": "one processors code is anothers malware",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6464187",
"author": "Ewald",
"timestamp": "2022-04-23T07:42:53",
"con... | 1,760,372,717.715095 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/22/modular-anti-drone-drone-sacrifices-itself-for-self-defense/ | Modular Anti-Drone Drone Sacrifices Itself For Self Defense | Ryan Flowers | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"anti drone defenses",
"anti-drone",
"drone defense",
"racing drone",
"take down net"
] | Part Racing Drone, Part RC Airplane, Part Rocket…all Menace
. How else could you describe a quadcopter that shoots off at high speed and is designed for taking down other small quadcopters? The
Interceptor Drone by [Aleksey]
borrows elements from all of the aforementioned disciplines of flying things.
Built with standard racing drone parts, [Aleksey] assures that no prohibited parts are used in its construction. Instead, the Interceptor Drone relies on a very powerful motors and a light weight frame to keep the power to weight ratio in the “rocketing into the sky” category.
A close up shows the details: Detachable motors and rotors and the stowed net.
But what Interceptor Drone would be complete without a way to take its target out of the sky? This is where the biggest divergences begin. The motors are all oriented to point away from the center-line of the craft. Upon command, these motors actually detach from the frame, each spreading out and deploying the corner of a net that’s designed to entangle the rotors of the target, causing its battle with gravity to come to a grinding halt.
How does the Interceptor Drone survive the attack? Without its motors, the core of the quadcopter falls to the earth. Arresting the fall is a parachute much like those used in model rocketry. An audio beacon sounds the alarm to help somebody to find it — a move taken straight from the RC aircraft hobby.
There’s certainly a lot of room to discuss legalities in localities, but regardless of opinion about the craft’s intended use, the system looks very slick, and there are some great hacks baked right in. Don’t want to build a drone-killing-drone?
Maybe all you need is a pumpkin and good (bad?) timing
.
Thanks [Chris] for the tip. | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6463882",
"author": "Danjovic",
"timestamp": "2022-04-22T12:53:24",
"content": "Deadly flying carrot!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6464192",
"author": "Jason",
"timestamp": "2022-04-23T08:08:49",
"co... | 1,760,372,717.825089 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/22/machine-learning-helps-you-get-in-shape-while-working-a-desk-job/ | Machine Learning Helps You Get In Shape While Working A Desk Job | Robin Kearey | [
"computer hacks",
"Machine Learning"
] | [
"fitness",
"image recognition",
"machine learning",
"push-ups"
] | Humans weren’t made to sit in front of a computer all day, yet for many of us that’s how we spend a large part of our lives. Of course we all know that it’s important to get up and move around every now and then to stretch our muscles and get our blood flowing, but it’s easy to forget if you’re working towards a deadline. [Victor Sonck] thought he needed some reminders —
as well as some not-so-gentle nudging
— to get into the habit of doing a quick workout a few times a day.
To this end, he designed a piece of software that would lock his computer’s screen and only unlock it if he performed five push-ups. Locking the screen on his Linux box was as easy as sending a command through the network, but recognizing push-ups was a harder task for which [Victor] decided to employ machine learning. A Raspberry Pi with a webcam attached could do the trick, but the limited processing power of the Pi’s CPU might prove insufficient for processing lots of raw image data.
[Victor] therefore decided on using a Luxonis OAK-1, which is a 4K camera with a built-in machine-learning processor. It can run various kinds of image recognition systems including Blazepose, a pre-trained model that can recognize a person’s pose from an image. The OAK-1 uses this to send out a set of coordinates that describe the position of a person’s head, torso and limbs to the Raspberry Pi through a USB interface. A second machine-learning model running on the Pi then analyzes this dataset to recognize push-ups.
[Victor]’s video (embedded below) is an entertaining introduction into the world of machine-learning systems for video processing, as well as a good hands-on example of a project that results in a useful tool. If you’re interested in learning more about machine learning on small platforms, check out
this 2020 Remoticon talk on machine learning on microcontrollers
, or this
2019 Supercon talk about implementing machine vision on a Raspberry Pi
. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6463854",
"author": "tomás zerolo",
"timestamp": "2022-04-22T10:56:04",
"content": "“Humans weren’t made to sit in front of a computer all day …”Oh. They weren’t? You sure?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6463873",
"author":... | 1,760,372,717.765565 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/21/optimized-super-mario-64-offers-exciting-possibilities/ | OptimizedSuper Mario 64Offers Exciting Possibilities | Matthew Carlson | [
"Games",
"Nintendo Hacks",
"Software Development"
] | [
"nintendo 64",
"refactoring",
"super mario 64"
] | When working on any software project, the developers have to balance releasing on time with optimizations. As long as you are hitting your desired time constraints, why not just ship it earlier? It’s no secret that
Super Mario 64
, a hotly anticipated launch title for the Nintendo 64 console in 1996, had a lot of optimizations left on the table in order to get it out the door on time. In that spirit, [Kaze Emanuar] has been plumbing the depths of the code, refactoring and tweaking until he had a version with
serious performance gains
.
Why would anyone spend time improving the code for an old game that only runs on hardware released over two decades ago? There exists a healthy modding community for the game, and many of the newer levels that people are creating are more ambitious than what the original game could handle. But with the performance improvements that [Kaze] has been working on, your budget for larger and more complex levels suddenly becomes much more significant. In addition, it’s rumored that a multi-player mode was originally planned for the game, but Nintendo had to scrap the feature when it was found that the frame rate while rendering two cameras wasn’t up to snuff. With these optimizations, the game can now handle two players easily.
Luigi has been waiting 26 years for his chance to shine.
[Kaze] has a multi-step plan for improving the performance involving RAM alignment, compiler optimizations, rendering improvements, physics optimizations, and generally reducing “jankiness.” To be fair to the developers at Nintendo, back then they were working with brand new hardware and pushing the boundaries of what home consoles were capable of. Modeling software, toolchains, compilers, and other supporting infrastructure have vastly improved over the last 20+ years. Along the way, we’ve picked up many tricks around rendering that just weren’t as common back then.
The central theme of [Kaze]’s work is optimizing Rambus usage. As the RCP and the CPU have to share it, the goal is to have as little contention as possible. This means laying out items to improve cachability and asking the compiler to generate smaller code rather than faster code (no loop unrolling here). In addition, certain data structures can be put into particular regions of memory that are write-only or read-only to improve resource contention. Logic bugs are fixed and rendering techniques were improved. The initial results are quite impressive, and while he isn’t done, we’re very much looking forward to playing with the final product.
With the Nintendo 64
on its way to becoming a mainline-supported Linux platform
, the old console is certainly seeing a lot of love these days. | 13 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6463794",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "2022-04-22T06:11:26",
"content": "Thoughts,First his ram alignment and optimizations require the ram expansion pack.Second I am quite curious whether any of the optimizations would translate to the PC port.He is doing this to make his custo... | 1,760,372,717.904618 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/21/electric-chopsticks-bring-the-salt-not-the-pain/ | Electric Chopsticks Bring The Salt, Not The Pain | Kristina Panos | [
"chemistry hacks",
"News"
] | [
"chopsticks",
"electric chopsticks",
"miracle berry",
"salt",
"umami"
] | The Japanese people love their salt, perhaps as much as Americans love their
sugar
high fructose corn syrup and caffeine. But none of these are particularly good for you. Although humans do need some salt in their diets to continue existing, the average Japanese person may be eating too much of it on a regular basis — twice the amount recommended by the World Health Organization, according to Reuters. Cue the invention of
electric chopsticks, which provide salty flavor without the actual sodium
.
No, you won’t get shocked — not even a fresh 9 V to the tongue’s worth. The tips of the chopsticks are made of something food-safe and conductive, and one is wired to a bracelet that contains a small computer. Using a weak current, the chopsticks transmit sodium ions from the food to the tongue, which increases the perceived saltiness by 1.5x. The device was co-created by a Meiji University professor and a Japanese beverage maker, who hope to commercialize it sometime next year.
This isn’t the first time humans have used trickery when it comes to diets. The older among you may remember the miracle berry weight loss craze of the 1970s. When ingested first,
miracle berries make sour things taste sweet
, so chowing down on grapefruits and lemons suddenly sounds like a good idea. What people failed to realize was that the acidity would still wreak havoc on their teeth and tongues, leaving them regretful the next day.
Images via
Reuters | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6463773",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2022-04-22T02:44:08",
"content": "I’m not sure 1.5X is worth the effort, but interesting nonetheless.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6464083",
"author": "Gareth Alexander Bau... | 1,760,372,718.070866 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/21/car-hacker-hacks-lawn-care-carb-into-hot-rod-car/ | Car Hacker Hacks Lawn Care Carb Into Hot Rod Car | Ryan Flowers | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"car hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"automotive",
"carburetor",
"mpg",
"small block ford"
] | Internal combustion engines have often been described (quite correctly) as air pumps, and because of this nature, they tend to respond very well to more air. Why? Because more air means more fuel, and more fuel means more power- the very nature of hot rodding itself. [Thunderhead289] is an accomplished car hacker, and he’s decided to take things the opposite direction: Less air, less fuel… more mileage? As you can see in the video below the break, [Thunderhead289] has figured out
how to mount a single barrel carburetor from a
lawn mower
to the four barrel intake of a Ford 302
– a V8 engine that’s many times larger than the largest single cylinder lawnmower!
The hacks start not just with the concept, but with getting the carburetor installed. Rather than being a downdraft carburetor, the new unit is a side draft, with the float bowl below the carb’s venturi. To mount it, a 3d printed adapter was made, which was no small feat on its own. [Thunderhead289] had to get quite creative and even elevate the temperature of his workshop to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) to get the print finished properly. Even then, the 34 hour print damaged his Ender printer, but not before completing the part.
The hackery doesn’t stop there, because simply mounting the carburetor is only half the battle. Getting the engine to run properly with such a huge intake restriction is a new task all its own, with a deeper dive into fuel pressure management, proper distributor timing, and instrumenting the car to make sure it won’t self destruct due to a poor fuel mixture.
While [Thunderhead289] hasn’t been able to check the mileage of his vehicle yet, just getting it running smoothly is quite an accomplishment. If silly car hacks are your thing, check out [Robot Cantina]’s 212cc powered Insight and how they
checked the output of their little engine
. Thanks to [plainspicker] for the tip! | 45 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6463732",
"author": "ThisGuy",
"timestamp": "2022-04-21T23:15:46",
"content": "Gasoline engines are not going anywhere for a LONG time to come. Electric doesn’t yet work for everyone for a multitude of reasons, electric cars are currently still very expensive (especially compared to... | 1,760,372,718.162461 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/21/scanning-receipts-proves-trickier-than-anticipated/ | Scanning Receipts Proves Trickier Than Anticipated | Tom Nardi | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"api",
"ocr",
"optical character recognition",
"receipt",
"scanner"
] | It’s one of those things that certainly sounds simple enough: take a picture of a receipt, run it through optical character recognition (OCR), and send the resulting information to whatever expense-tracking website or software you wish. There are companies that offer such a service, so it can’t be too difficult to replicate on your own…right?
That’s what
[Marcel Robitaille] thought when he set out to create his homebrew “Receipt Ingestion” system
, anyway. But in reality it took so much time to troubleshoot and implement that he says it would have been faster to just enter in all his receipts by hand. We’re happy he stuck with it though, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading about it on Hackaday, and we wouldn’t be able to learn anything from the detailed account he’s provided.
It only took an evening to hack together a rough demo, and the initial results were very promising. The code could detect the edges of the receipt, rotate the captured image appropriately, and then pull out the critical information such as date, total amount, business name, etc. He was then able to decipher the API for Splitwise, an online service for splitting bills, by capturing the data sent by his browser while adding a new bill. With this information, writing up some Python code to push his captured data into the service was trivial. So far, so good.
Using a QR code as reference point.
But like so many horror films that begin with a happy family starting a new life in a beautiful home, there was a monster lurking in the shadows. It’s one thing to capture data from perfectly clean and flat receipts, but quite another to get any useful info out of one that spent half the day crumpled up in your back pocket. The promising proof of concept that worked a treat under controlled conditions failed completely in the real-world, with [Marcel] reporting that only 1 in 5 receipts he tried to scan actually went through.
In the end, [Marcel] realized that the best way to handle the unreliable condition of the receipts was to focus on a different object in the image. He came up with a QR code marker that he could put on the table with the receipt to be scanned, which his software can use as a known point of reference. This greatly improves the reliability of the image rotation and transformation, which in turn makes the OCR more reliable. It also makes it much easier to tell which images need to be scanned — if there’s no QR code found, the software just skips that shot and keeps looking.
The unique challenges of
digitizing large amounts of printed content using OCR
makes for some fascinating problem solving, and we’re glad [Marcel] shared this particular story with us. While there’s still some edge cases that need chasing down, he’s using the software on a nearly daily basis, and
has posted it up on GitHub
for anyone who might wish to build on his efforts. | 25 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6463690",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2022-04-21T20:24:32",
"content": "The qr code reads, “ingest me”, if anyone was interested.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6463799",
"author": "Bartz0r",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,372,718.237241 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/21/2022-sci-fi-contest-a-star-wars-mouse-droid-of-your-very-own/ | 2022 Sci-Fi Contest: AStar WarsMouse Droid Of Your Very Own | Lewin Day | [
"contests",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"2022 Sci-Fi Contest",
"droid",
"mouse droid",
"robot",
"robot companion",
"star wars"
] | The show-stealing droids of
Star Wars,
R2-D2 and C-3PO, are quite challenging to replicate at home, due to their size and complexity. [curiousmarc] had built the former, with much work going into drawing and design. The more humble Mouse Droid, as seen skittering about the halls of the Death Star, is a considerably easier build —
especially with this somewhat improvised approach
.
The build relies on reject parts from [curiousmarc]’s R2-D2 build, and other stuff laying around the house, like a toy eggbeater, a VFD, and other electronic bits and pieces. An RC car chassis was placed in the droid’s vacuum-formed shell in order to provide propulsion, with much of the rest of the work being decoration of the housing with various sci-fi ephemera. There’s also a pair of Arduinos inside, controlling the VFD, sound output, and the movable antenna dish on top.
It’s a build with a lot of personality. The sounds, flickering display, and moving antenna do a lot to imbue this droid with a
soul,
something Lucasfilm readily achieved with many of the robots in the series. It’s something we’ve also seen in
robot companion builds from [Jorvon Moss],
which are quite sci-fi in their own way, too. Video after the break. | 5 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6463642",
"author": "Comedicles",
"timestamp": "2022-04-21T18:43:40",
"content": "Put an aluminum “dog head” on it and you get something familiar.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6463661",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
... | 1,760,372,718.297684 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/21/the-honda-takedown-how-a-global-brand-failed-to-read-the-room/ | The Honda Takedown: How A Global Brand Failed To Read The Room | Jenny List | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Slider"
] | [
"3d printing",
"Honda",
"intellectual property"
] | Perhaps the story of the moment in the world of 3D printing concerns a Japanese manufacturer of cars and motorcycles. Honda has
sent a takedown notice requesting the removal of models starting with the word “Honda”
to the popular 3D printing model repository site Printables. It’s left in its wake puzzlement, disappointment, and some anger, but what’s really going on? Perhaps it’s time to examine what has happened and to ponder what it means for those who put online printable parts and accessories for cars or any other item manufactured by a large corporation.
If You Make Something, What Rights Do You Have?
Soichiro Honda, famous for being an engineer rather than a serial litigator. Roderick Eime,
CC BY 2.0
.
The story is that as far as we can glean from reports online, the takedown notice was sent only to Printables by the European arm of Honda, and was pretty wide-ranging with any Honda-related model in its scope. Printables complied with it, but as this is being written there are plenty of such models available from Thingiverse and other model repository sites.
Anyone who makes a career in content creation has by necessity to have a working knowledge of copyright and intellectual property law as it’s easy for the unwary to end up the subject of a nasty letter, so here at Hackaday while we’re not lawyers
this is a subject on which we have some professional experience
. What follows then is our take based on that experience, our view on Honda’s motivation, and whether those of you who put up 3D models have anything to worry about.
If you create something, you own its copyright. Whatever it is, be it a musical composition, a Hackaday piece, or a 3D model. You can transfer that ownership as I have done to Hackaday with these words in return for being paid, but that doesn’t change the existence of the ownership. There are also patents should the thing you create be an invention rather than a piece of content, and design patents to protect the distinct look and feel of some creations.
Technically this isn’t a fake Rolex, but and “
Rqlex
“. Gdead, Public domain.
If the thing you create uses within it something with a copyright or patent owned by somebody else, that somebody else can assert those rights. Commonly you’ll hear this with respect to music, if my latest ditty samples that of Ed Sheeran then either I should have secured a licence for those samples before I release it, or I should expect a letter from his lawyers.
So it’s clear that if you’re putting up an original 3D print without anyone else’s work within it, then it’s yours and nobody else can claim its removal on copyright grounds. Which sounds clear-cut, but when it comes to the Honda case this is evidently not that simple and there exists something of a grey area.
I have a friend with a fake Rolex watch bought for a few dollars as a novelty on a Thai market. It looks the business from the front, but from the side it lacks the real thing’s chunkiness and of course it has a very cheap mechanism. It’s an obvious fake, and were he to import a container of them to London he’d undoubtedly face a swift legal takedown. As you might expect the same applies to a fake car part, and were that container to be full of Honda Civic door handles with fake Honda packaging then the car company would be completely justified in taking him down.
When Does A Civic Part Cease To Be A
Honda
Civic Part
Which VW Polo lock part is infringing, the broken genuine one on the left, the aftermarket one in the middle, or my 3D-printed one on the right?
This might seem like a cut-and-dried case for a 3D printer model of a Civic door handle then, but here’s where we enter the grey area. An exact model of the handle labelled “Official Honda® Civic® door handle” is like the fake Rolex, it’s passing off as the real thing so would be a justified recipient of a letter. The question is though, at what point does a Civic door handle stop being a Civic door handle and thus a copyrighted Honda design and start to become a different door handle that happens to fit a Civic, or indeed a generic door handle?
There’s a parallel in the world of fashion, a designer can create a couture dress but another designer can make one that looks a lot like it but is not identical without fear of legal threat; this is how the dress worn by a starlet on the Oscars red carpet can be bought for a fancy party within hours of the awards ceremony. That designer just can’t print “Gucci” on it.
In the case of the Printables takedown it extends further than parts into accessories, alongside a Civic door handle, it might catch a clip-on mobile phone holder designed to engage with a Civic air vent. There there can be no possible claim on the basis of copyright replacing to the part itself as the phone holder is the invention of its creator, so all that’s left is the possibility of a counterfeit. Yet again, an “Official Honda® Civic® air vent phone holder” would be passing off as the real thing, but to assert that any such accessory designed to fit a Honda is passing off as a Honda product is extremely tenuous.
It seems likely that Honda are being creative in their interpretation of a grey area in intellectual property, and are pushing that creative interpretation to the limit. They do not own the copyright on designs created by third parties just because they look a bit like a Honda part unless they are direct copies of copyrighted Honda parts, and with something as generic as a door handle they are unlikely to be able to pursue a patent infringement claim.
Given they’ve targeted any use of the word “Honda”, it’s possible their angle is not one of intellectual property in the parts themselves, but in counterfeiting and passing off as Honda products. Once more I think that the carmaker has stretched a grey area to breaking point, as the difference between an “Official Honda®… ” model and one that states it fits a Honda is so wide as to be a chasm even Evel Knievel himself wouldn’t be able to jump.
We Think Honda Are Taking A Few Liberties
A Mugen spolier made for a Honda Accord. Having gone after 3D printing, we now await Honda’s takedown of their entire aftermarket parts ecosystem. RG72,
CC BY-SA 4.0
.
So I think that an over-enthusiastic corporate lawyer at Honda thinks that he’s hit the jackpot with a tenuous and speculative takedown, and given that a huge aftermarket car parts and accessories business has been legally supplying bits for Hondas and countless other cars ever since the advent of mass-market motoring, it’s possible that in doing so he’s set the company on a collision course with a multi-billion-dollar industry.
Except of course he hasn’t, because Honda know that this will never see the inside of a courtroom and it’s easy to come after the little guy with a 3D model but difficult to take on a huge car accessory manufacturer. Should you be worried about
that car part model
you put online then? Probably not, because we think it’s very unlikely that other manufacturers will be foolhardy enough to follow suit.
We think it’s significant that so far this extends only to Honda Europe and Printables, who as part of Prusa Research are based in Europe. Either this is a test of the waters to see what they can get away with, they know that similar tactics would be more difficult against an American website such as Thingiverse, or possibly their clueless lawyer simply works out of their European office. Whichever of these possibilities is the case it’s a regrettable move, and it’s one for which we think Honda should now pay the price in the form of bad publicity.
Meanwhile to other manufacturers we’d say this: be less like Honda
and more like Ford
.
Banner image:
“Honda Ridgeline Sport Grille”
by [McChizzle], public domain. | 141 | 41 | [
{
"comment_id": "6463616",
"author": "tomás zerolo",
"timestamp": "2022-04-21T17:25:04",
"content": "FUD [1]. It’s a proven tactic.It’s telling that big corps resort to the classical tactics of totalitarian regimes.I strongly hope something bad happens to Honda out of this.[1]https://en.wikipedia.or... | 1,760,372,719.335743 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/21/watch-a-complete-reflector-telescope-machined-from-a-single-block-of-glass/ | Watch A Complete Reflector Telescope Machined From A Single Block Of Glass | Dan Maloney | [
"Parts"
] | [
"glass",
"hyperbolic",
"machining",
"miror",
"optics",
"parabolic",
"reflector",
"Schmidt-Cassegrain"
] | If this is the easy part of
making a complete reflector telescope from a single piece of glass
, we can’t wait to get a load of the hard part!
A little backstory may be in order for those who don’t follow [Jeroen Vleggaar]’s
Huygens Optics
channel on YouTube. A few months ago, he released
a video discussing monolithic telescopes
, where all the reflective and refractive surfaces are ground into a single thick block of glass. Fellow optical engineer [Rik ter Horst] had built a few tiny monolithic Schmidt-Cassegrain reflectors for use in cube sats, so [Jeroen] decided to build a scaled-up version himself.
The build starts with a 45 mm thick block of crown glass, from which a 50 mm cylinder is bored with a diamond hole saw. The faces of the blank are then ground into complex curves to reflect incoming light, first off the parabolic rear surface and then onto the hyperbolic secondary mirror ground into the center of the front face. A final passage through a refracting surface in the center of the rear face completes the photons’ journey through the block of glass, squeezing a 275 mm focal length into a compact package.
All this, of course, vastly understates the work required to pull it off. Between the calculations needed to figure out the surface shapes in the first place to the steps taken to machine a famously unforgiving material like glass, every step is fraught with peril. And because the design is monolithic, any mistakes mean starting all over again. Check out the video below and marvel at the skills needed to get results like this.
What strikes us most about [Jeroen]’s videos is the mix of high-tech and age-old methods and materials used in making optics, which we’ve seen him put to use to make everything from
tiny Tesla valves
to
variable-surface mirrors
. | 16 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6463612",
"author": "acidbourbon",
"timestamp": "2022-04-21T17:18:43",
"content": "Wow. He has all that in his basement? :O",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6463615",
"author": "Physics Ultras (hea BVB)!!!",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,372,718.350585 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/21/linux-fu-an-odd-use-for-fork/ | Linux Fu: An Odd Use For Fork() | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Linux Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"fork",
"linux"
] | If you are a Star Trek fan, you’ll probably remember the phrase “
You have to learn why things work on a starship
.” The truth is, in most episodes, knowing how to override another ship’s console or make gunpowder didn’t come in very handy, but boy when it did, it really saved the day. Linux is a lot like that. There are a few things you probably don’t need to know very often, but when you do need to know, it makes a huge difference. In this particular post, I want to look at an odd use of the
fork
system call. For many purposes, you’ll never need to know this particular irregular use. But when you need it, you are really going to need it.
This is actually based on an old client of mine who used Unix to run a massive and very critical report every day. The report had a lot of math since they were trying to optimize something and then generate a lot of reports. In those days, the output of the report was on old green-bar paper on a line printer. The problem was that the report took something like 14 hours to run including the printouts. If someone discovered something wrong, there was no time to run the report again because the next day’s report would have to start before the second run would finish.
The client had a bunch of Windows programmers and — at that time — there wasn’t anything really analogous to a real
fork
call in Windows. I looked at the code and realized that probably most of the code was spending time waiting to print the output. The computer had multiple CPUs and there were multiple printers, but that one program was hanging on the one printer. There was a lot of data, so writing it to a database and then running different reports against it wasn’t a great option. The answer was to use the power of
fork
. With a change in the code that took less than 30 minutes, the report ran in five hours. They were very pleased.
So how did I do it? The answer lies in how
fork
works. Just about every time you see a
fork
, you see some sort of
exec
call to start a new program. So if you think about
fork
at all, you probably think it is part of how you start a new program and, most of the time, that’s true.
What does
fork()
Do Exactly?
The call, however, does something very strange. It actually copies the entire running process into a new process. It then runs the new process. Of course, the original process is running, also. Normally, when you see fork, it looks like this:
int childPID;
childPID = fork();
if (childPID == 0) exec....; /* load child program and run that */
/* the parent only gets here with childPID set to the new process' PID */
...
In other words, the return value for
fork
is zero for a child process and something else for the parent process. Some early Unix systems really copied everything in the running process. However, that’s really inefficient, especially when most of the time you just immediately load a new program.
Modern systems use COW or Copy On Write semantics. That means the new process gets what amounts to a pointer to the original process memory and it only copies relatively small amounts of memory when the child or parent program makes changes to that region of memory. This is good for things like instruction spaces that shouldn’t change anyway since very few people still write self-modifying code. That means that right after a
fork
call, both parent and child see the exact same data, but any changes they make will not reflect to the other side.
Parallel Processing Made Easy
For my client’s long report, the program was mostly I/O bound. However, each report also had some pretty hairy math to go along with it, in addition to all the math required to get to the point that each report could execute. Instead of executing all of it in one process, I broke the program up into multiple pieces. The first piece did as much math as it could that applied to nearly everything. Then the program called
fork
a bunch of times and each child started a report which did a little more math just for itself and claimed a printer to write the output.
Since the CPU had multiple processors, everything got sped up. Report three didn’t have to wait for reports one and two to complete. Everyone was able to drive the printers at once. It was an overall win and it took almost no time to make this fix.
Granted, not every problem will allow for a fix like this one. But giving each report process a memory copy of the data was very fast compared to reading it from a file or database. The data didn’t change after the reports started, so real memory consumption wasn’t too bad, either.
An Example
So is it really that simple? It is. The only problem now is that with modern machines, it is hard to find a simple problem to demonstrate the technique. I finally settled on just doing something simple, but doing lots of it. My made up task: fill a really large array of double-precision floating point numbers with some made up but predictable data and then find the average. By really large I mean 55 million entries or more.
I created a program that can do the job in two ways. First, it just does it in the simplest way possible. A loop walks each item in the array, you add them up, and you divide at the end. On my machine, running this a few times takes an average of about 458 milliseconds — using the
time
command to figure that out.
The program can also accept an
F
parameter on the command line. When that is in effect, the setup is the same, but a fork creates two processes to split the array in half and find the average of each half. I didn’t want to have the child communicate back to the process, but that is possible, of course. Instead, you just have to read the two averages, add them together, and divide by two to get the true average. I didn’t want to add the overhead to communicate the result, but it would be easy enough to do.
The time for the fork version to run? About 395 milliseconds. Of course, your results will vary, and while 60 or so milliseconds doesn’t seem like a lot, it does show that having two processes working together can allow multiple cores to work at the same time.
The larger the array, the bigger the time savings. For example, setting the size to 155,256,000 showed a savings of around 150 milliseconds. Of course, these timings aren’t scientific and there are a lot of factors to consider, but the data clearly shows that splitting the work between two processes works faster.
The Code
The code is straightforward. The work isn’t hard, there’s just a lot of it.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
// compile: gcc -o stress stress.c
// run: time stress
// time stress F
#define SIZE 55256000 // how big is the array?
double bigarray[SIZE];
// The process routine will go from llimit to ulimit
// For the single case, that's everything
// For the child case we will split in half
unsigned int ulimit=SIZE;
unsigned int llimit=0;
double total; // running total
// Load up the array with some bogus data
void setup(void)
{
unsigned int i;
for (i=llimit;i<ulimit;i++)
{
bigarray[i]=i/3.0f;
}
}
// Average the range defined by llimit and ulimit
void process(void)
{
unsigned int i;
unsigned int n=ulimit-llimit;
total=0.0;
for(i=llimit;i<ulimit;i++)
{
total+=bigarray[i];
}
printf("Avg=%f\n",total/n);
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int dofork=0;
int pid;
if (argc>1 && (*argv[1]=='f' || *argv[1]=='F')) dofork=1; // f or F will trigger a fork
setup(); // load array
if (!dofork)
{
// single case
// ulimit and llimit are already set
process();
exit(0);
}
else // forking here
{
if (pid=fork())
{
// parent -- adjust ulimit
ulimit=SIZE/2;
process();
waitpid(pid,NULL,0); // wait for child
exit(0);
}
else
{
// child -- adjust lower and upper limit
llimit=SIZE/2;
ulimit=SIZE;
process();
exit(0);
}
}
// we never get here
}
Why Things Work on a Starship
Now that you know how
fork
really works. Well, sort of. There are plenty of nuances about what handles get passed to the child and which don’t. And, as I said, you won’t need this very often. But there are times when it will really save the day.
If you want a higher-level look at multitasking, try
an older Linux Fu
. Or, check out the
GNU Parallel tool
. | 46 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6463559",
"author": "robertklep",
"timestamp": "2022-04-21T14:10:30",
"content": "I must be getting old, the number of times I used `fork()` like this far outshadows the number of times I used it combined with `exec()` 😅 It’s what we did before multithreading was common place.",
... | 1,760,372,718.451123 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/21/modular-laptop-maker-provides-mainboard-documentation-for-non-laptop-projects/ | Modular Laptop Maker Provides Mainboard Documentation For Non-Laptop Projects | Ryan Flowers | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"3D printable",
"framework",
"hack",
"laptop",
"mainboard",
"motherboard",
"x86 sbc"
] | If you’ve been following the latest advancements in computing for a while, you already know that there’s a big problem with laptops: When they’re no longer useful as a daily driver, it can be a struggle to find a good use for all its parts. Everything is proprietary, and serious amounts of reverse engineering are required if you decide to forge ahead. This is where
Framework, a laptop company
building modular laptops comes in. They’ve made it clear that when you upgrade your Framework laptop with a new mainboard
they want you to be able to continue to use the old mainboard
outside of the laptop
.
When it’s done powering your laptop, use it for a cyberdeck?
To that end, Framework have provided 2D mechanical drawings of their mainboard and 3D printable cases that can of course be modified as needed. “But what about peripherals?” you might ask. Framework has
provided pinouts for all of the connectors on the board
along with information on which connectors to use to interface with them. No reverse engineering needed!
While it’s possible to buy a mainboard now and use it, their stated goal is to help people make use of used mainboards leftover from upgrades down the line. With just a stick of memory and a USB-C power adapter, the board will spring to life and even has i2c and USB immediately available.
What would
you
do with a powerful Intel i5-1135G7 mainboard? Framework wants to know, and to that end, they are actually
giving away 100 mainboards to makers and developers
. Mind you this is a program created and ran by Framework — and is not associated in any way Hackaday or our overlords at Supplyframe.
If you’ve read this far and still don’t know what the Framework laptop is,
go check out this introduction by our own [Jenny List]
. | 27 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6463536",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2022-04-21T12:37:19",
"content": "Nice, if I actually had a need for a new laptop the Framework was currently at the top of my list as it seems by far the most versatile and least likely to turn to e-waste any time soon, and now its got... | 1,760,372,718.522705 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/21/hoverbike-turns-hoverboard-into-ebike/ | Hoverbike Turns Hoverboard Into Ebike | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bicycle",
"bike",
"controller",
"ebike",
"electric",
"frame",
"hoverbike",
"hoverboard",
"motor",
"throttle"
] | Hoverboards were a popular trend with the youths and in-crowd a few years ago, and now that the fad has largely died out there are plenty of them sitting unused in closets and basements around the world. That only means opportunities to put the parts from these unique transportation devices into other builds. A more practical method of transportation is a bicycle, and
this build scavenges most of the parts from a hoverboard to turn a regular bicycle into a zippy ebike
.
This bike build starts with a mountain bike frame and the parts from the hoverboard are added to it piece by piece. The two motors are mounted to the frame and drive the front chain ring of the bike, allowing it to still take advantage of the bike’s geared drivetrain. Battery packs from two hoverboards were combined into a single battery which give the bike a modest 6-10 km of range depending on use. But the real gem of this build is taking the gyroscopic controller board from the hoverboards and converting it, with the help of an Arduino Due, to an ebike controller.
Eventually a battery pack will be added to give the bike a more comfortable range, but for now we appreciate the ingenuity that it took to adapt the controller from the hoverboard into an ebike controller complete with throttle and pedal assist. For other household objects turned into ebikes, be sure to check out one of our favorites based on a washing machine motor:
the Spin Cycle
. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6463497",
"author": "Kevin Michael Callihan Sr.",
"timestamp": "2022-04-21T08:26:02",
"content": "Thank you kindly for the excellent idea!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,372,718.637226 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/04/20/smt-part-counter-aims-to-ease-taking-inventory/ | SMT Part Counter Aims To Ease Taking Inventory | Donald Papp | [
"Crowd Funding",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"7 segment",
"Crowd Funding",
"Crowd Supply",
"inventory",
"kit production",
"smt reel",
"SMT tape",
"tools"
] | [Nick Poole] has an interesting idea for a new tool, one that has the simple goal of making accurate part counts of SMT reels as easy as pulling tape through a device. That device is the
BeanCounter
, an upcoming small handheld unit of his own design that counts parts as quickly as one can pull tape through a slot. The device is powered by a CR2032 cell and and works with 8 mm wide tapes up to 2 mm in height, which [Nick] says covers most 0805 or smaller sized parts, as well as things like SOT-23 transistors.
Why would one want to make such a task easier? Two compelling reasons for such a tool include: taking inventory of parts on partial reels or cut tape, and creating segments that contain a known number of parts.
The first is handy for obvious reasons, and the second is useful for things like creating kits. In fact, the usefulness of this tool for creating tape segments of fixed length is perhaps not obvious to anyone who hasn’t done it by hand. Sure, one can measure SMT tape with a ruler or a reference mark to yield a segment containing a fixed number of parts, but that involves a lot of handling and doesn’t scale up very well. In fact,
the hassle of cutting tape segments accurately and repeatedly
is a common pain point, so making the job easier has value.
If you looked at the photos and suspected that the big, 7-segment numeric display is done with clever PCB fabrication options (making segments by shining LEDs through PCB layers,
a trick we always like to see
) you’re not alone. After all,
[Nick] has a lot of experience in getting clever with board fabrication
, and eagle-eyed readers may even suspect that the reset and setup buttons on the edge of the tool are created by using flex PCB segments as switches. Want the nitty-gritty details? Visit
the GitHub repository for the project
and see it all for yourself at the CAD level. | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6463485",
"author": "Zehan",
"timestamp": "2022-04-21T05:51:26",
"content": "A ordinary ruler can do the same job.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6463495",
"author": "Cami",
"timestamp": "2022-04-21T08:06:31",... | 1,760,372,718.692059 |
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