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https://hackaday.com/2022/03/30/a-new-wrinkle-on-wooden-ribbon-microphones/ | A New Wrinkle On Wooden Ribbon Microphones | Dan Maloney | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"BK-5",
"cyanoacrylate",
"microphone",
"neodymium",
"ribbon",
"transformer",
"walnut"
] | Not too many people build their own microphones, and those who do usually build them out of materials like plastic and metal. [Frank Olson] not only loves to make microphones, but he’s also got a thing about making them from wood, with some pretty stunning results.
[Frank]’s latest build
is a sorta-kinda replica of the RCA BK-5, a classic of mid-century design. Both the original and [Frank]’s homage are ribbon microphones, in which a thin strip of corrugated metal suspended between the poles of magnets acts as a transducer. But the similarities end there, as [Frank] uses stacked layers of walnut veneer as the frame of his ribbon motor. The wood pieces are cut with a vinyl cutter, stacked up, and glued into a monolithic structure using lots of cyanoacrylate glue. The video below makes it seem easy, but we can imagine getting everything stacked neatly and lined up correctly is a chore, especially when dealing with neodymium magnets. Cutting and corrugating the aluminum foil ribbon is no mean feat either, nor is properly tensioning it and making a solid electrical contact.
The ribbon motor is suspended in a case made of yet more wood, all of which contributes to a warm, rich sound. The voice-over for the whole video below was recorded on a pair of these mics, and we think it sounds just as good as
[Frank]’s earlier wooden Model 44 build
. He says he has more designs in the works, and we’re looking forward to hearing them, too. | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452583",
"author": "Rumble_in_the_Jungle",
"timestamp": "2022-03-30T20:07:24",
"content": "Cyanoacrylate and ear buds – quite disappointed that there was no flames :( or they made them now without cotton?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"c... | 1,760,372,743.327334 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/30/visit-the-worlds-largest-computer-museum-the-heinz-nixdorf/ | Visit The World’s Largest Computer Museum: The Heinz Nixdorf | Robin Kearey | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Reviews",
"Slider"
] | [
"computer history museum",
"computing history",
"HNF",
"Paderborn",
"retrocomputing"
] | Most stories in the history of computing took place in one of a small number of places. The wartime code-breaking effort in Bletchley Park led to Colossus, the first programmable electronic computer. Various university campuses in Britain and the US were home to first-generation computers like ENIAC, EDVAC and the Manchester Baby in the late 1940s. Silicon Valley then stole the limelight with the home computer revolution in the 1970s. Naturally, all of these places have their museums celebrating their local achievements, but the world’s largest computer museum is not found in Silicon Valley or on the campus of a famous university. Instead, you have to travel to a small German town called Paderborn, which houses the
Heinz Nixdorf Museumsforum
, or HNF.
Heinz Nixdorf might not be a household name in America like Jack Tramiel or Steve Jobs, but he was one of Europe’s great computer pioneers. Starting with vacuum tube based machines in 1952, Nixdorf gradually expanded his company into one of the largest computer manufacturers of the 1970s. His products were especially popular among large businesses in the financial sector, such as banks and insurance companies. By the late 1980s however, sales went downhill and the company was eventually acquired by Siemens. Today, the Nixdorf name lives on as part of Diebold-Nixdorf, a major producer of ATMs and checkout machines, reflecting the original company’s focus on the financial industry.
The museum’s roots lie in Heinz Nixdorf’s personal collection of typewriters and other office equipment. Although he already envisioned starting a museum dedicated to computing, his sudden death in 1986 put a stop to that. A few of his employees kept the plan alive however, and in 1996 the HNF was opened in Paderborn. Today the museum is run by a non-profit foundation that aims to provide education in information and communication technology to a wide audience.
The collection is housed in the former worldwide headquarters of Nixdorf Computer AG, a rather imposing 1970s office building covered in gold-tinted windows. Inside,]] you’re reminded of its former life as an office building through its compact layout and low ceilings. It does give the museum a bit of a cosy feel, unlike, say, the cavernous halls of London’s Science Museum, but don’t let this fool you: at 6,000 m
2
, the main exhibition area is about twice as large as that of Silicon Valley’s Computer History Museum.
First floor: The Basics of Communication and Calculation
The main exhibit begins with artifacts dating back 5,000 years: clay tablets from Sumeria show how ancient people recorded their thoughts, kept inventories and performed calculations. Devices like the abacus and the
quipu
from South America show how physical devices can help with arithmetic, which is otherwise a completely abstract science. Writing evolved through a series of different media into the printing press, making written materials available to more people than ever before.
These twin concepts of calculation and communication are carried forward throughout the exhibition. On one side of the hall, various printing techniques show the way to the invention of the typewriter, of which the museum has an impressive collection. On the other side, abacuses evolve into complex mechanical calculators.
Sholes & Glidden introduced the familiar QWERTY layout on their typewriters in the 1870s.
Flip those levers and turn those cranks: mechanical calculators can add, subtract, multiply and divide without electricity.
If you’ve never laid your hands on one of these machines filled with cams, cranks and levers, then here’s your chance. A helpful computer screen explains all the various steps needed to reset the calculator, dial in the inputs and set the gears in motion to obtain the desired result. The whirr of the gears and the clacking noise of the decimal displays give an indication as to how much work really needs to be done in order to perform even a simple calculation.
The HNF has made great use of modern technologies to bring its ancient artifacts to life. For example, an interactive exhibit links an abacus to a computer display that shows the state of the beads in real time, giving the user immediate feedback on their actions. But by far the most eye-catching piece of modern tech on this floor is PETRA, a steampunk-style robotic guide: ask her about a specific exhibit and she will physically lead you there and tell the artifact’s story on her integrated display.
An extensive Hall of Fame celebrates the contributions of fifteen pioneering scientists and engineers who laid the foundations for the development of information technology. Among them are Wilhelm Schickard, Blaise Pascal and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz who invented the first calculating machines; Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace who developed these concepts further into programmable computers; and Alan Turing and John von Neumann who laid the theoretical foundations of information science.
Petra will gladly guide you to specific exhibits and tell you all about them.
Petra will gladly guide you to specific exhibits and tell you all about them.
One impressive piece of kit towards the end of the first floor is a fully-functioning relay-based telephone exchange. In front of it are several different telephone models, all connected into a local phone system. You simply pick up one receiver, dial the number of another, hear it ring, and wait for someone to pick it up and talk to you. The most interesting thing goes on right in front of you however: as your phone sends pulses down the line, you can hear the relays clicking and routing your call in real time. Even kids who grew up with smartphones love playing with these phones (“can you hear me?” “yes, I can hear you too!”), although visitors born after 1990 or so might need some instruction first on how to use that weird spinning disk to enter a number.
Second Floor: From Big Iron to Pocket-Sized Gadgets
The second floor is where items begin to appear that most people will recognize as computers. Many of the oldest devices here were made in Germany by the likes of Zuse and Siemens, and processed data using relays and vacuum tubes while storing data on punched cards. These devices often took up entire rooms; one corner houses a typical setup of the ESER 1055, an East German clone of the IBM System/360 mainframe.
Wandering along those racks full of handmade circuit boards gives you a good sense of the enormous advances that were made in the first few decades of the computer era: the processing power of all that hardware barely comes close to that of a 1990s era desktop PC.
The Zuse Z11 from 1956 had 1,665 relays and could perform five additions per second.
Designed in 1963, the fully transistorized D4a was aimed at scientists and engineers.
Speaking of PCs, what was the first personal computer? While the Altair 8800 from 1974 might pop up in the minds of many, an engineer from the former East Germany who once visited the museum claims that his design, the D4a from 1962, should rightfully have that title. After all, it was a programmable calculating device that could store data, was meant for use by one person, and could fit on a (sturdy) desk. With just 200 transistors it managed to perform about 2,000 operations per second, and could store 4,096 words, each 33 bits wide, on its magnetic drum memory.
Several corners of the museum are dedicated to the social aspects of computing. The history of the office is described in detail, from medieval desks where monks copied Bibles to modern remote working via video link.
Another interesting social concept linking computing and communication is that of cryptography. The museum has two original Enigma machines, as well as several other cryptographic machines from various countries. A separate display case contains artefacts related to the hacking and phreaking scene, including an original Cap’n Crunch whistle – the one that emitted the famed 2600 Hz frequency that could be used to make free long-distance phone calls in the 1970s. Especially noteworthy are several artefacts belonging to the Chaos Computer Club, one of the oldest hacker collectives still in existence. Founded in West Berlin in 1981, the CCC became famous for breaking into banking systems in the 1980s, and for other rebellious acts like distributing modems that enabled German computer users to go online, at a time when connecting unauthorised devices to the phone network was strictly prohibited.
The world’s most famous codebreaker, Alan Turing, is also featured prominently, with one of the two Enigmas located in his booth. But he is of course also known for the Turing machine, the abstract model of a general computing device that carries his name. To illustrate its working principle, the HNF commissioned an electromechanical Turing machine model that visitors can experiment with.
The section titled “Computers for everyone” contains home computers and professional PCs from the 1970s to the 1990s. It’s a comprehensive collection of all big names from that era: the Commodore PET, the Apple Lisa, IBM’s Personal Computer, and of course the most expensive exhibit of all:
a working Apple I
. In fact, most of these computers are still working and are demonstrated during special events. At other times you can still try out their software in one of several emulator booths.
The Turing machine moves data between cells according to its program.
The 1974 Altair 8800 is often considered the first true personal computer.
TI or HP? Sharp or Casio? Algebraic or RPN? LED, VFD or LCD? They’re all here.
Just a decade later, all of this could fit in your pocket.
Where the first floor featured mechanical calculators, the second floor has electronic ones. And not just a few, either: a huge display case shows more than 700 different types dating from the 1960s to the late 1990s. If you went to school in those days, chances are good you’ll find the one you used somewhere in this collection. Again, all big names are represented: the early Canon Pocketronic, the scientific HP-35, the Sharp PC-1210 running BASIC, and the TI-84 and Casio Fx series graphing calculators that are still popular today.
Right next to the calculator wall is an exhibit that shows what a simple four-function calculator would look like if one were to build it using technology available in the 1960s. Instead of an integrated circuit it has a massive stack of circuit boards with hundreds of discrete transistors; instead of a low-power LCD screen it has a nixie tube display. It performs calculations in exactly the same way as a pocket calculator, although at much slower speed. So slow in fact, that you can track the flow of digits inside its circuitry in real time. This beautiful exhibit was made by the same egineer who also made the modern re-creation of the
Elektronensaldierer ES 24
.
Towards the end of the main exhibition area is a section dedicated to robotics and artificial intelligence. Fans of Claude Shannon will be pleased to find a recreation of Theseus, Shannon’s electro-mechanical maze-navigating mouse robot.
Nadine felt like a clear demonstration of the
uncanny valley
.
A more modern type of AI is implemented in Nadine, a human-like robot that can have a conversation with you, although on our visit she struggled to provide answers more useful than “I don’t know about that”; you’re probably going to have a more meaningful conversation with the voice assistant inside your smartphone. Then again, Nadine was built in 2013, which makes her a bit of a dinosaur in computer years.
Also present are several classic home robots from the ’80s and ’90s like Omnibot and Aibo, as well as numerous types of industrial robots. One called Beppo spends all day sweeping its enclosure with a broom, occasionally interacting with visitors. Naturally, you can also get your portrait drawn by Vincent, the one-armed pen-wielding robot artist.
The HNF does not disappoint when it calls itself the world’s largest computer museum: even spending a full day inside isn’t enough to fully appreciate its vast collection. But calling it simply a computer museum does not fully do it justice, as its collection covers way more than just computers. Whether you’re into telecoms gear, cryptography, the social aspects of information technology or the fundamentals of programming, there’s bound to be some corner of the museum that will have you hooked.
Knowledge of German is not required to appreciate the museum as most exhibits have bilingual German and English descriptions. For the few that don’t, any mobile translation app should be able to help; if you’re still confused, the museum’s human and robot staff are always on hand. In short, the HNF is definitely worth visiting if you’re in the area, and at just eight euros per adult it’s an absolute bargain as well. | 21 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452550",
"author": "voidnill",
"timestamp": "2022-03-30T18:56:45",
"content": "Oh, nice. I went to th HNCM in 2016. Made some large scale picse (206) and uppd the material into the archive. Pics are Public Domain, so feel free to use them for projects or research.https://archive.or... | 1,760,372,743.524303 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/30/fancy-wire-loop-game-is-a-beauty-in-brass/ | Fancy Wire Loop Game Is A Beauty In Brass | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"machining",
"wire loop game"
] | The simple wire-loop game is often built as a fun project to teach students about electronics. [W&M Levsha] built their own version, showing off their fine crafting and machining skills and branding it as a sobriety test
with the playful name “Breathalyzer.”
The mechanics of the game are quite simple. The player must guide a metal ring around the puzzle without touching it. A buzzer and light is used to indicate to the player when they’ve failed, with the project powered from a small lithium-polymer pouch cell charged via a USB port.
Where this build really shines is in the presentation, with [W&M Levsha] showing they really have what it takes to do great work in brass. Rather than a simple bent wire, we’re instead treated to a delicately-formed beam of rectangular cross-section hewn out of a single piece of metal. It’s paired with a nicely-crafted wand with a knurled handle.
We’ve seen similar displays of their exquisite craft before, too – such as with a
bespoke toothbrush
and a
powder-powered lighter
. Video after the break. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452472",
"author": "Prowler50mil",
"timestamp": "2022-03-30T16:06:23",
"content": "Beautiful final product.I would suggest buying an Air Deburring System or some other powered deburring tool. It would save a lot of time on the cleanup of the cnc cut on the brass part.",
"parent... | 1,760,372,743.176303 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/31/making-windshield-wipers-rock-to-the-beat/ | Making Windshield Wipers Rock To The Beat | Lewin Day | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"music",
"Musical",
"windscreen wipers",
"windshield wipers"
] | When you’re driving around, you might occasionally notice your indicators or windscreen wipers sync up fortuitously with the music. [Cranktown City] wanted to
ensure
his wipers would always match the beat, however,
and set about making it so.
After disassembling the wiper motor, The original controller PCB is ripped up, used solely for its home position contacts that help determine the position of the wipers. The battered board is then drilled out to fit a rotary encoder to track the wipers throughout their full motion.
An Arduino is used to read the signal coming from the wiper stalk in order to know what mode the wipers should be in, and uses a motor controller to drive the wipers thusly. It also reads the encoder and home position contacts to track the wiper movement, and uses a proportional controller to control the wiper position. An MSGEQ7 spectrum analyzer is used to track the bass of the music to determine the beat to sync up to.
The final build does work,
though in a different way to other designs we’ve seen.
Rather than measuring BPM and syncing on a four-to-the-floor pulse, it simply tracks the lower band output and thus is more reactive to funky drum beats.
It’s a fun way to modify your car, even if it did require cutting a chunk out of the hood. If you’re cooking up your own cheeky automotive hacks,
be sure to drop us a line.
Video after the break. | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452936",
"author": "Giorgio",
"timestamp": "2022-03-31T20:52:33",
"content": "Beautiful project. He is very bold, I would never cut a hole in my car.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6452957",
"author": "dendad",
"timest... | 1,760,372,743.080432 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/31/rural-hacker-de-crufts-and-rebuilds-hydroelectric-generator/ | Rural Hacker De-Crufts And Rebuilds Hydroelectric Generator | Ryan Flowers | [
"Parts",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"homesteading",
"hydroelectric",
"limited tools",
"Rural",
"simple",
"weld"
] | YouTuber [Linguoer] has a knack, and it’s one that we don’t often see on the pages of Hackaday: rewinding and rebuilding dilapidated motors and generators.
In the video below
, you’ll see [Lin] take a hydroelectric turbine and generator that looks like it’s been sitting at the bottom of a lake, and turn it into a working unit, all while wearing her trademark blue and yellow denim jumpsuit.
Where as most makers would have used a MIG or TIG welder, [Linguoer] uses a simple (probably A/C) stick welder. Generator windings are calculated and wound by hand, and the carcass of what used to be the generator is sandblasted out in the open. Missing parts are fabricated from scratch using nothing more than an angle grinder. “Simple” is the order of the day.
[Linguoer] often refers to herself as “Village Girl”. Whatever specialty tools she uses, they are elementary. And whatever methods she uses, they are manual. You will get the idea very quickly that [Linguoer] isn’t just a person with a skill, but a person with a passion for getting things done no matter the circumstances. [Linguoer] is a hacker if there ever was one!
If hydroelectric hacks spin your pelton wheel, give this
Impressive Off-Grid Hydroelectric Plant
a whirl. | 27 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452926",
"author": "J T McGregor",
"timestamp": "2022-03-31T20:18:52",
"content": "Rural village in Hong Kong? It’s the most densely populated area in the world…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6452951",
"author": "Ry... | 1,760,372,743.391713 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/31/circuit-vr-the-wheatstone-bridge-analog-computer/ | Circuit VR: The Wheatstone Bridge Analog Computer | Al Williams | [
"Engineering",
"History"
] | [
"analog computer",
"falstad",
"slide rule",
"voltage divider",
"wheatstone bridge"
] | We are always impressed with something so simple can actually be so complex. For example, what would you think goes into an analog computer? Of course, a “real” analog computer has opamps that can do logarithms, square roots, multiply, and divide. But would it surprise you that you can make an analog device like a slide rule using a Wheatstone bridge — essentially two voltage dividers. You don’t even need any active devices at all. It is an old idea and one that used to show up in electronic magazines now and again. I’ll show you how they work and simulate the device so you don’t have to build it unless you just want to.
A voltage divider is one of the easiest circuits in the world to analyze. Consider two resistors Ra and Rb in series. Voltage comes in at the top of Ra and the bottom of Rb is grounded. The node connecting Ra and Rb — let’s call it Z — is what we’ll consider the output.
Let’s say we have a 10 V battery feeding A and a perfect voltmeter that doesn’t load the circuit connected to Z. By
Kirchoff’s
current law we know the current through Ra and Rb must be the same. After all, there’s nowhere else for it to go. We also know the voltage drop across Ra plus the voltage drop across Rb must equal to 10 V. Kirchoff, conservation of energy, whatever you want to call it. Let’s call these quantities I, Va, and Vb.
There are many ways to go from here, but let’s accept that the current through two series resistors will be the same as if it were one resistor of equal value. That is, a 1 KΩ and a 2 KΩ resistor in series will draw as much current as a 3 KΩ resistor. That means Ohm’s law tells us:
I = 10/(Ra+Rb)
Now you can solve for each voltage drop:
Va = I Ra
Vb = I Rb
In fact, our voltmeter at Z will measure Vb since it is grounded.
Big Hairy Deal
Of course, you probably know about voltage dividers. But we were going to talk about Wheatstone bridges. The truth is these are just two voltage dividers in parallel and you measure the voltage between the two outputs (call them Z1 and Z2). You often see this circuit drawn like a diamond, but don’t let that fool you. It is still just two voltage dividers.
Without using any math, you can see that if the voltage dividers are the same then Z1 and Z2 will be the same and, therefore, no current will flow because the voltage between the two points is zero. What happens when the divider is not the same? There will be more voltage on one Z point than the other.
Historically, this was used to measure resistance. You could use two matched resistors in part of the bridge, have an unknown resistance in one of the remaining legs and a variable resistor with a dial calibrated to read ohms. You’d turn the dial until a meter read zero and read the resistance value from the dial. If the power source is AC, you can also measure reactance using a similar circuit.
But the Slide Rule?
So how do you get from a piece of antique test equipment to a slide rule? Let’s change the bridge so the left-hand divider has resistors Ra and Rb while the other one has Rc and Rd. We can look at the algebra:
Z1=V (Rb/(Ra + Rb))
Z2=V (Rd/(Rc + Rd))
We want Z1 to equal Z2 so:
V (Rb/(Ra + Rb)) = V (Rd/(Rc + Rd))
We can divide both sides by V and get rid of that term:
(Rb/(Ra + Rb)) = (Rd/(Rc + Rd))
So to balance the bridge we need:
(Ra + Rb)/Rb = (Rc + Rd)/Rd
reciprocal both sides
(Ra Rd + Rb Rd) = (Rc Rb + Rb Rd)
multiply both sides by Rb Rd
Ra Rd = Rc Rb
subtract Rb Rd from both sides
Ra = (Rb Rc)/Rd
Solve for Ra
As a simple thought experiment, then, imagine that Rd=1. If you set Rb and Rc then you can adjust Ra to balance and the value of Ra will be the answer. Or you can set Rb to 1 and enter numbers in Rc and Rd. Once you balance Ra, you’ll know the result of the division.
In practice, though, you might want to scale the result, especially for division. For example, if Rb=1, Rc=2, and Rd=1000 you would need to set A to .002 ohms which is hard to do. In that case, though, you could set Rb to a scale factor. If it were, say, 10K, then Ra can be set to 20 ohms.
Simulation
You could break out a few potentiometers and have a go at this. We’d suggest linear ones unless you are very handy at making logarithmic scale dials. But since this is Circuit VR, we’d rather do a simulation.
Falstad fits the bill
, but any simulator is well up to the task.
Analog slide rule simulation
There are two switches in the simulation. The top “C” switch lets you switch in the top resistor or a 10X, 100X, or 1000X range resistor for C. The bottom “D” switch lets you select a 1 ohm resistor or a variable resistor for D. The ammeter in the center shows the bridge balance and will read 0A when you are in balance.
Speaking of variable resistors, I did put sliders for each of the resistors on the right sidebar of the simulator. However, using them often puts values in like 10.002K which reads 10K on the screen and is a source of error. Of course, you’d have the same problem with real pots, so maybe that’s a good simulation. However, it is better to double click the resistor you want to change and enter its value directly. Obviously, you shouldn’t change the three fixed C resistors or the fixed D resistor.
Next Steps
A similar device in a
1960 Radio Electronics
If you want to see what this circuit looked like in the flesh, check out pages 48 and 49 of the
June 1960 Radio Electronics
. It may have even been the very article that spawned
[Bil Herd’s] first computer
kit. A similar kit from Edmund Scientific used three potentiometers to form the bridge in a common configuration. We’ve even seen
a version from GE
that used an
audio oscillator
so you could hear the null point using headphones. You can see both of those on the article starting on page 65 of the
December 1961 Popular Electronics
. Or check out
a newer build
over on Hackaday.io.
It would be an easy enough rainy day project. If you have an old-fashioned mirror scale meter from an old multimeter, it would really shine in this application. Making the dials in a CAD program and printing them out would be effortless, too.
If you want a challenge, why not use an AC source along with variable capacitors and inductors to make a complex number calculator? That’d be something and if you pull it off,
we’d cover it
.
Meanwhile, we’d like to point out that
real analog computers
were not this simple. On the other hand, by definition, this is an analog computer just like
a real slide rule
. If you read the Radio Electronics article, you’ll see it can even chain an answer into the next problem just like you would do on a slipstick. | 13 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452902",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2022-03-31T17:58:57",
"content": "Great article and what a fun concept! Adding it to my list…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6452903",
"author": "Miroslav",
"timestamp": "2022-03... | 1,760,372,743.134685 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/31/know-which-way-the-wind-blows-whether-weather-boosts-your-mood/ | Know Which Way The Wind Blows, Whether Weather Boosts Your Mood | Michael Shaub | [
"hardware",
"internet hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"Balena",
"data collection",
"etcher",
"notion",
"quantified self",
"raspberry pi",
"raspberry pi hat",
"SenseHAT"
] | As a quantified-self experiment, [Ayan] has tracked several daily habits and moods for a couple of years and discovered some insights. Too much coffee is followed by anxiety while listening to music leads to feelings of motivation and happiness. There was a strong correlation in the data, but [Ayan] wondered if external factors like the weather and air quality also played a role.
To find out, [Ayan] extended the custom dashboard built in
Notion.so
with weather data and some local sensors. Working at
Balena.io
(yes, the makers of the ubiquitous Raspberry Pi SD card flashing tool, Etcher), [Ayan] turned to balenaCloud to translate the data from (you guessed it) a Raspberry Pi into the dashboard via Notion’s API beta. We think Notion holds a lot of promise for all sorts of web-based dashboards as a research notebook and organizational tool. Who knows where the API will lead any interested readers?
Check out the
full tutorial
where [Ayan] walks you through the hardware used and each step to connect the APIs that bring it all together. [Ayan] plans to add a coffee-maker integration to automate that data entry and would welcome help getting a manual trigger set up for the data integrations. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452884",
"author": "Mog",
"timestamp": "2022-03-31T16:30:31",
"content": "So what were the results? Did it turn out that any way the wind blows *did* really matter, to him… to him?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6452896",
... | 1,760,372,743.009953 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/31/remoticon-2021-hal-rodriguez-and-sahrye-cohen-combine-couture-and-circuitry/ | REMOTICON 2021 // Hal Rodriguez And Sahrye Cohen Combine Couture And Circuitry | Kristina Panos | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"capacitive touch",
"conductive fabric",
"couture",
"raspberry pi",
"wearable"
] | [Hal Rodriguez] and [Sahrye Cohen] of Amped Atelier focus on creating interactive wearable garments with some fairly high standards. Every garment must be pretty, and has to either be controllable by the wearer, through a set of sensors, or even by the audience via Bluetooth. Among their past creations are a dress with color sensors and 3D-printed scales on the front that change color, and a flowing pantsuit designed for a dancer using an accelerometer to make light patterns based on her movements.
Conductive Melody — a wearable musical instrument that is the focus of [Sahrye] and [Hal]’s Remoticon 2021 talk — was created for a presentation at Beakerhead Festival, a multi-day STEAM-based gathering in Calgary. [Sahrye] and [Hal] truly joined forces for this one, because [Sahrye] is all about electronics and costuming, and [Hal] is into synths and electronic music. You can see the demo in the video after the break.
The dress’s form is inspired by classical instruments and the types of clothing that they in turn inspired, such as long, generous sleeves for harp players and pianists. So [Hal] and [Sahrye] dreamed up a dress with a single large playable sleeve that hangs down from the mid- and upper arm. The sleeve is covered with laser-cut conductive fabric curlicues that look like a baroque interpretation of harp strings. Play a note by touching one of these traces, and the lights on the front of the dress will move in sync with the music.
[Sahrye] started the dress portion of Conductive Melody with a sketch of the garment’s broad strokes, then painted a more final drawing with lots of detail. Then she made a muslin, which is kind of the breadboard version of a project in garment-making where thin cotton fabric is used to help visualize the end result. Once satisfied with the fit, [Sahrye] then made the final dress out of good fabric. And we mean really good fabric — silk, in this case. Because as [Sahrye] says, if you’re going to make a one-off, why not make as nicely as possible? We can totally get behind that.
[Sahrye] says she is always thinking about how a wearable will be worn, and how it will be washed or otherwise cared for. That sequined and semi-sheer section of the bodice hides the LEDs and their wiring quite well, while still being comfortable for the wearer.
Inside the sleeve is an MPRP121 capacitive touch sensor and an Arduino that controls the LEDs and sends the signals to a Raspberry Pi hidden among the ruffles in the back of the dress.
The Pi is running
Piano Genie
, which can turn eight inputs into an 88-key piano in real time. When no one is playing the sleeve, the lights have a standby mode of mellow yellows and whites that fade in and out slowly compared to the more upbeat rainbow of musical mode.
We love to see wearable projects — especially such fancy creations! — but we know how finicky they can be. Among the lessons learned by [Sahrye] and [Hal]: don’t make your conductive fabric traces too thin, and silver conductive materials may tarnish irreparably. We just hope they didn’t have to waste too much conductive fabric or that nice blue silk to find this out. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452885",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2022-03-31T16:30:56",
"content": "I’m always interested in wearable tech and conductive fabric is awesome. That said, current tech isn’t up to the challenge of being anything but a one-off art piece because of one major: power. Manually ... | 1,760,372,743.4358 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/31/tricking-a-smart-meter-into-working-on-the-bench/ | Tricking A Smart Meter Into Working On The Bench | Dan Maloney | [
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"ac",
"residential meter",
"smart meter",
"smps",
"split-phase",
"spoofing"
] | When the widget you’re working on is powered by a battery or a USB charger, running it on the bench is probably pretty safe. But when the object of your reverse-engineering desire is a residential electrical meter, things can get a little dicey.
Not that this elevated danger level has kept [Hash] from exploring the mysteries presented by smart meters. Still, with a desire to make things a little safer, he came up with
a neat trick for safely powering electrical meters on the bench
. [Hash] found that the internal switch-mode power supply on the meter backplane was easy enough to back-feed with a 12-volt bench supply, rather than supplying the meter with the full 240-volt AC supply it normally gets when plugged into a meter base (these are meters for the North American market, where split-phase 240-volt is the norm for residential connections.) But that wasn’t enough for the meter — it powered up, but stayed in a reset state without fully booting. Something more was needed to bring the meter fully to life.
That something proved to be a small AC signal. Normally, a resistor network divides the 240-volt supply down to about 3 volts, which is used by the sensing circuit in the meter. [Hash] found that injecting a 60-Hz, 600-mV sine wave signal with about a 3-volt DC bias into the sensing circuit was enough to spoof the meter into thinking it’s plugged into the meter base. The video below has a walkthrough of the hack, and some nice shots of the insides of the meters he’s been working with.
[Hash] has been working with these meters for a while now, and some of the stuff he’s learned is pure gold. Be sure to check out
his 2021 Remoticon talk on meter hacking
for all the fascinating details. | 27 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452813",
"author": "Davin Peterson",
"timestamp": "2022-03-31T11:47:07",
"content": "I live in Northern Virgnia and the electric company, Dominion Energy, has been upgrading customers meters to smart meters",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"... | 1,760,372,743.238715 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/31/cnc-toolpath-visualisation-with-opencv/ | CNC Toolpath Visualisation With OpenCV | Dave Rowntree | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"charuco",
"CNC router",
"homography",
"image",
"opencv"
] | [Tony Liechty] has been having a few issues getting into CNC machining — starting with a simple router, he’s tripped over the usual beginners’ problems, you know, things like alignment of the design to the workpiece shape, axis clipping and workpiece/clamp collisions. He did the decent hacker thing, and turned to some other technologies to help out, and came up with a rather neat way of using machine vision with OpenCV to help
preview the toolpath against an image of the workpiece in-situ
(video, embedded below.)
ChArUco (a combined chessboard and ArUco marker pattern) boards taped to the machine rails were used to give OpenCV a reference of where points in space are with respect to the pattern field, enabling identification of pixel locations within the image of the rails. A homography transformation is then used to link the two side references to an image of the workpiece. This transformation allows the system to determine the physical location of any pixel from the workpiece image, which can then be overlaid with an image of the desired toolpath. Feedback from the user would then enable adjustment of the path, such as shifts, or rotates to be effected in order to counter any issue that can be seen. The reduction of ‘silly’ clamping, positioning and other such issues, means less time wasted and fewer materials in scrap bin, and that can only be a good thing.
[Tony] says this code and setup is just a demo of the concept, but such ‘rough’ code could well be the start of something great, we shall see. Checkout the
realWorldGcodeSender GitHub
if you want to play along at home!
We’ve seen a few uses of OpenCV for assisting with CNC applications, like this cool
you draw it, i’ll cut it hack,
and this method for using machine vision to
zero-in a CNC mill onto the centre of a large hole
. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452802",
"author": "Duncan Batchelor",
"timestamp": "2022-03-31T11:08:04",
"content": "I think that is absolutely brilliant. You’ve taken a problem that so many have moaned about, including myself, and found the start of a solution. This would be a perfect addition for the link bet... | 1,760,372,743.279728 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/30/replaceable-batteries-are-coming-back-to-phones-if-the-eu-gets-its-way/ | Replaceable Batteries Are Coming Back To Phones If The EU Gets Its Way | Lewin Day | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Slider"
] | [
"cellphone",
"CellPhones",
"eu",
"legislation",
"phone",
"phones"
] | Back in the day, just about everything that used a battery had a hatch or a hutch that you could open to pull it out and replace it if need be. Whether it was a radio, a cordless phone, or a cellphone, it was a cinch to swap out a battery.
These days, many devices hide their batteries, deep beneath tamper-proof stickers and warnings that state there are “no user serviceable components inside.” The EU wants to change all that, though, and has voted to mandate that everything from cellphones to e-bikes must have easily replaceable batteries,
with the legislation coming into effect as soon as 2024.
Back To The Old Ways
Many phone batteries are designed to be non-replacaeble from the factory. Thus, when they swell up or fail, they can damage the whole phone rather than merely popping off a removable panel. Credit:
Mpt-matthew, CC-BY-SA-3.0
Once upon a time, most batteries in common use were primary cells – single-use items that could not be recharged and were intended to be discarded after use. Naturally, this meant that appliances relying on battery power had provisions to make swapping cells out a quick and easy process.
Fast forward to the modern day. Many of our appliances, and particularly our phones, rely on rechargeable lithium batteries. Since they’re rechargeable, manufacturers decided we no longer needed to replace them, and started sealing them away inside devices where they were free from the meddling fingers of the unwashed masses.
Many reasons are commonly cited for this change in design ethos, which hit the market slowly and then all at once as smartphone manufacturers moved to premium sealed-up designs with more exotic materials. Some claim it’s to provide the customer with a cleaner, fuss-free user experience, while others cite the packaging and miniaturization benefits of a device with a permanently-installed battery. It also makes it easier to waterproof a product, a feature that has been a particularly difficult design challenge on the smartphone market.
However, such designs come with the drawback that if the battery does fail, the device becomes useless, and is often thrown away. While one can perform surgery on modern smartphones and other devices with dead batteries, it’s a process fraught with danger for the inexperienced and can lead to damage or destruction of the device itself. And just as importantly, how do you recycle the battery if you can’t remove it?
A series of replaceable smartphone batteries from the GSM era. Few of us needed to swap them out regularly, but it could save you some trouble if you got caught short of charge in a bad spot and a friend had some juice left in a similar phone. Credit:
Phrontis, CC-BY-SA-3.0
As part of the EU’s
new battery regulations
, all this is set to change.
The text
of these regulations is one that mandates that batteries be easily removable, replaceable, and recyclable in a wide range of devices. This includes smartphones and other typical consumer appliances, as well as batteries for “light means of transport” such as e-bikes and e-scooters.
By January 1, 2024, these devices must be designed such that batteries can be safely removed and replaced using “basic and commonly available tools” and “without causing damage to the appliance or batteries.” Manufacturers must also provide documentation for the removal and replacement procedure. This documentation must also be provided online for the duration of a product’s expected lifetime.
It’s a measure that could drastically change the design of all manner of technology for the EU market. All kinds of appliances use integrated, hidden batteries these days – everything from top-tier smartphones to action cameras and electric shavers. All of these products would have to be redesigned to allow batteries to be removed and replaced easily.
Of course, it’s not impossible, by any means. It was only five or so years ago that many smartphones had removable batteries as standard. It will, however, require engineers to go back to the drawing board, and perhaps make some trade-offs when it comes to slimness, materials, and style. It’s a punchy move from the EU, much in the same vein as its push
to standardize chargers throughout the smartphone industry.
Like that legislation, this measure could be a big win for consumers tired of throwing out devices with irreplaceable batteries.
Many devices, like this Philips Norelco 9700 shaver, feature in-built batteries. The company specifically advisers customers not to attempt “to open the product to
remove or replace the built-in rechargeable
battery.” Credit:
moo.review
,
CC-BY-2.0
The EU isn’t just mandating replaceability when it comes to its war on e-waste, either. It comes along with a big push towards a more “circular economy” which relies more on recycling existing materials rather than relying solely on digging up new ones. Targets for collecting used portable batteries will be mandated, starting at a 45% collection rate by the end of 2023 and ramping up to 80% by the end of 2030. The law also mandates collection for all automotive, industrial, and electric vehicle batteries.
There’s also measures to mandate sustainability in battery production. For industrial and electric vehicle batteries, starting in 2030, these batteries should use a percentage of materials from recycled batteries. 12% of cobalt, 85% of lead, 4% of lithium, and 4% of nickel used in a battery should be from recovered sources. This steps up to 20% of cobalt, 10% of lithium, 12% of nickel by 2035, with the lead fraction remaining the same as the recycling infrastructure for that metal is already in place.
There’s a lot of good that could come from this legislation. The pressure on mining operations will be lower, and environmental impacts reduced, as recycling becomes a key part of the battery production supply chain. Additionally, there’ll be less need to toss out a device suffering battery issues, with replacement straightforward and easy. The trade-off is that companies will have to work a little harder to accommodate these requirements, and some designs may suffer a minor weight or size penalty in the meantime. But if that gives us longer-lived electrical gizmos and facilitates lithium recycling, it’s hard to argue against. | 150 | 44 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452405",
"author": "deshipu",
"timestamp": "2022-03-30T14:06:24",
"content": "They could make up their minds and remove the regulations that forbid you shipping devices with replaceable batteries, which, I suspect, are one of the reasons everybody glues them in now.",
"parent_i... | 1,760,372,744.000266 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/30/wind-up-tape-measure-transformed-into-portable-ham-antenna/ | Wind-Up Tape Measure Transformed Into Portable Ham Antenna | Dan Maloney | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"amateur radio",
"antenna",
"EFHW",
"end-fed halfwave",
"ham radio",
"portable",
"QRP",
"radiator",
"tape measure"
] | If there’s one thing that amateur radio operators are good at, it’s turning just about anything into an antenna. And hams have a long history of portable operations, too, where they drag a (sometimes) minimalist setup of gear into the woods and set up shop to bag some contacts. Getting the two together, as with
this field-portable antenna made from a tape measure
, is a double win in any ham’s book.
For [Paul (OM0ET)], this build seems motivated mainly by the portability aspect, and less by the “will it antenna?” challenge. In keeping with that, he chose a 50-meter steel tape measure as the basis of the build. This isn’t one of those retractable tape measures, mind you — just a long strip of flexible metal on a wind-up spool in a plastic case. His idea was to use the tape as the radiator for
an end-fed halfwave, or EFHW, antenna
, a multiband design that’s a popular option for hams operating from the 80-m band down to the 10-m band. EFHW antennas require an impedance-matching transformer, a miniature version of which [Paul] built and tucked within the tape measure case, along with a BNC connector to connect to the radio and a flying lead to connect to the tape.
Since a half-wave antenna is half the length of the target wavelength, [Paul] cut off the last ten meters of the tape to save a little weight. He also scratched off the coating on the tape at about the 40-meter mark, to make good contact with the alligator clip on the flying lead. The first video below details the build, while the second video shows the antenna under test in the field, where it met all of the initial criteria of portability and ease of deployment. | 21 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452373",
"author": "Leon Heller",
"timestamp": "2022-03-30T11:12:58",
"content": "What is a BNS connector? Perhaps he meant to say BNC.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6452434",
"author": "MAC",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,372,743.7249 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/30/building-7-segment-displays-with-lego/ | Building 7-Segment Displays With LEGO | Lewin Day | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"7-segment display",
"lego"
] | Utter the words “7-segment display” amongst hackers and you’ll typically get people envisaging the usual LED and LCD versions that we all come across in our daily lives. However, mechanical versions do exist, and [ord] has assembled a couple of designs of their very own.
The first uses what appears to be two LEGO motors
to drive individual segments of the display. Each segment consists of a pair of yellow axles thrust up through a black grid to represent parts of the number, as well as a minus sign as needed. [ord] demonstrates it by using it to display angle data from a tilt sensor inside a LEGO Powered Up controller brick.
Further photos on Flickr
show the drive system from underneath.
The second design
relies upon a drum-like mechanism that seems to only be capable of displaying numbers sequentially. It works in a manner not dissimilar to that of a player piano. The required movements to display each number are programmed into sequences with Technic pins sticking out of beams in a drum assembly driven by either a hand crank or motor. It’s again demonstrated by [ord] using it to display angular data.
While it’s unlikely we’ll see LEGO displays used as
angle of attack meters
in light aircraft, you could do so if you wanted a cheap and unreliable device that is likely to fall to pieces if unduly jostled. In any case, it’s not the first time we’ve seen
LEGO 7-segment displays
, but it’s always great to see a new creative take on an existing concept. We’d love to see such a design implemented into a fancy clock, or perhaps even a news ticker running on a 16-segment version. Video after the break. | 9 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452367",
"author": "NotALegoGuy",
"timestamp": "2022-03-30T10:33:21",
"content": "I admire the cleverness of these Lego-Topics, but then again: I find the amount of Lego-Related posts in HaD a bit too much in the last weeks. Can we dial it a bit back. I can not take anything from i... | 1,760,372,743.668891 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/29/building-a-diy-flight-yoke-for-flight-simulator/ | Building A DIY Flight Yoke For Flight Simulator | Lewin Day | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"flight yoke",
"yoke"
] | Flight yokes are key to getting an authentic experience when playing a flight simulator, but [Michel Rechtin] didn’t want to pay big money for a commercially-available solution. He ended up building a design using a lot of parts he had laying around,
which saved money and worked out great.
The build is based around an Arduino Micro, which reads a series of potentiometers from the yoke and pedals to control pitch, roll, and yaw, A series of buttons are then added to control ancillary functions for the plane and simulator software.
Much of the build uses old 3D printer components, including linear bearings and rods for the pitch axis for smooth operation. There’s even a throttle setup and some more buttons and switches for a more complete flying experience.
Files are available
on Thingiverse
from anyone looking to replicate [Michael]’s build. We love to see a yoke built from scratch, though we’ve also seen creative builds repurpose PlayStation controllers
for the same purpose
. Video after the break. | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452398",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2022-03-30T13:18:47",
"content": "I hope he used a high level of infill for the handle because for a good feeling it needs to have some weight and not flex. Adding feedback would also be nice but that is a project unto itself.",
"paren... | 1,760,372,744.037537 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/29/fifty-motored-paraglider-partly-flies-partly-glides/ | Fifty Motored Paraglider Partly Flies, Partly Glides | Ryan Flowers | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"aviation",
"electric flight",
"peter sripol",
"ultralight"
] | If there’s one thing you can count on [Peter Sripol] for, it’s for defining the the aviation category of “Don’t Try This At Home.” In the video below the break, [Peter] displays his latest terror of the skies:
A powered paraglider backpack that has
fifty
electric motors
. Does it fly? Yes. Was it a success? Eh… mostly.
As [Peter] even says in the video: Don’t try this at home. [Peter] has taken a paraglider, which is essentially a non-rigid fabric wing that to the untrained eye resembles a parachute, and powered it with fifty drone motors taken from other projects. Two motors each are mounted in a push/pull configuration inside a 5×5 array of 3d printed ducts.
While the experiment was essentially a success, it was also a failure due to not having enough power, too little battery life, and overall just not being that great. Does every experiment need to end in absolute success in order to have fun and learn lessons that can be applied to the next iteration? Definitely not! We applaud [Peter] for being willing to fail- although, we have to admit, failing is a lot easier when you’ve already got a parachute of sorts deployed!
Looking for some more don’t-try-this-at-home projects to gawk at? Look
no further than [Colin Furze]
who like
[Peter]
, has managed to gain his own Hackaday tag. | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452345",
"author": "mip",
"timestamp": "2022-03-30T07:16:46",
"content": "[Peter Sripol]’s channel is one of those DIY channels which has outgrown its “Y”. Too professional both in terms of equipment, and staff, as well as too obviously monetarized. Still entertaining sometimes, bu... | 1,760,372,744.096627 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/29/cute-oscilloscope-uses-leds-for-display/ | Cute Oscilloscope Uses LEDs For Display | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"led",
"oscilloscope"
] | Oscilloscopes were once commonly called CROs, for the fact that they relied on cathode ray tubes for display. Since then, technology has moved quickly, and oscilloscopes these days almost entirely rely on modern screens like LCDs. However, [lonesoulsurfer] went a different route with this fun DIY build, creating an oscilloscope
with a low-resolution LED display.
Yes, the signals are shown on a 10×10 matrix made up of red LEDs. The individual pixels look nicely diffused and chunky thanks to the fact that [lonesoulsurfer] was able to source square 5mm LEDs for the build. The whole project only uses four ICs – a decade counter and a LM3914 LED driver to run the display, a 555 timer for clock input, and an LM386 op-amp for amplifying incoming signals.
With a mic fitted onboard, the oscilloscope can act as a simple music visualizer, or be used with a probe to investigate actual circuits. It may not be of great enough resolution or precision for fine work, but it’ll at least tell you if your microcontroller’s clock is running properly if you’re scratching your head about the function of a simple project.
We’ve seen some great DIY oscilloscopes over the years,
like this neat Arduino-based build
. Video after the break. | 29 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452223",
"author": "YGDES",
"timestamp": "2022-03-29T23:07:48",
"content": "well, decade counter, you mean 4017, right ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6452225",
"author": "limroh",
"timestamp": "2022-03-29T23:13:40",
... | 1,760,372,744.257406 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/29/you-can-turn-soft-drink-bottles-into-handy-solar-lamps/ | You Can Turn Soft Drink Bottles Into Handy Solar Lamps | Lewin Day | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"bottle",
"diy",
"solar light"
] | Solar lights are a popular garden decoration. Of course, they’re available cheaply from most hardware and garden stores, but if you’re more of the DIY type, you might like to build your own. [opengreenenergy] has done just that,
using recycled materials for a cheap and simple design.
The design was inspired by
the Moser bottle
, which is a water-filled bottle used to diffuse sunlight into a room during the day. Instead of sunlight, however, this design uses an LED to provide the light, for decorating a garden or for use when out camping or traveling.
In this design, a solar panel is used to charge a lithium-polymer battery during the day using a LP4060B5F charge controller IC. It’s paired with a AP6685 battery protection IC to ensure the battery is not overly discharged or otherwise damaged in use. When the solar panel stops putting out power when it gets dark, the LED is automatically switched on. It can be set to a low or high brightness to provide more runtime or more light as needed.
All the circuitry is wrapped up in a neat 3D-printed case that allows the hardware to be screwed directly on top of a regular soft drink bottle. Paired with some water in the bottle, and perhaps a little bleach to stave off algal growth, the result is a handy, portable light that also has enough mass to avoid it being blown over easily.
It’s interesting to compare the design to commercial versions that aim
to pare costs down to a minimum
. Video after the break. | 17 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452190",
"author": "Llaves",
"timestamp": "2022-03-29T20:15:18",
"content": "The Aliexpress link for the solar panel links to a page listing 5 different panels, none matching the size in the instructions.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"co... | 1,760,372,744.148989 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/28/pdp-11-34-restoration-and-the-virtue-of-persistence/ | PDP-11/34 Restoration And The Virtue Of Persistence | Chris Wilkinson | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"DEC PDP-11",
"floppy disk",
"minicomputer",
"PDP-11/34"
] | The wildly successful PDP-11 minicomputer was a major influence on the evolution of computing throughout the 1970s. While fondly remembered in modern day emulation, there’s nothing like booting up the real thing, as [Jerry Walker]
explores in his video series on restoring a PDP-11/34
. Examples of PDP-11 hardware are becoming increasingly rare, which makes restoration and preservation of remaining equipment even more critical. [Jerry] has gone to exhaustive lengths to restore his PDP-11/34 to working condition, painstakingly troubleshooting wire-wrapped backplane and replacing suspect ICs across the entire system. With scant documentation on some of the cards, it was often a matter of sheer will and technical know-how that saw the system eventually come back to life.
If you’ve got a couple of hours, make sure to check out the entire series of videos documentation the restoration over on YouTube. If you’ve ever thought about restoring vintage computers, this series offers an insight into the satisfying yet oh-so-tedious process of chasing down broken traces and faulty logic. Exorcising the demons from decades-old computers is almost never straightforward, but [Jerry] demonstrates that persistence can yield exciting results. After the break is the latest installment of this series, which shows the system booting into the RT-11 operating system from floppy disk.
If you don’t have the time or real estate to restore a real PDP-11, you might want to check out
modern hassle-free replicas
. Or, if we’ve piqued your interest in restoring minicomputers, don’t miss what we had to say about previous PDP-11 resurrections,
like this PDP-11/04
. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452023",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2022-03-29T12:16:30",
"content": "I worked at DEC Westfield for two summers as a fill-in test tech. The final summer, I acquired from the scrap sales, parts for a VT-05 terminal (non functional, of course). It was basically, a keybo... | 1,760,372,744.193759 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/28/old-boat-becomes-toasty-floating-sauna/ | Old Boat Becomes Toasty Floating Sauna | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"boat",
"Sauna"
] | A sauna is a great place to feel warm and toasty and refreshed, but few of us have one at home. [Linus Strothmann] decided to build his own, using an old boat as the perfect base
for his steamy build.
Finding the right boat was the first challenge; the vessel should be big enough to fully house the intended number of occupants, and be able to withstand sitting outside in the weather year-round. If it’s to be used in a place where it gets icy in winter, it’s best to go with a steel-hulled vessel. [Linus] found a steel-hulled boat just under 8 m in length for less than 1000 Euros, and set to work on his project.
The boat was stripped out, and given high-quality glass windows capable of resisting the steam and high temperatures inside. A stove was installed for producing steam, and the boat-sauna was designed with multiple entries and exits for safety reasons. Insulation was also fitted to help keep heat in.
The result is a floating sauna that is an absolute pleasure to use in the winter months. Floating out on the lake, one can take in a steam, have a quick dip in the icy water, and then return to warm back up inside. [Linus] hopes to soon fit a small motor in order to allow the vessel to head out to the middle of the lake for an even better view during a steam session.
It’s not the first mobile sauna we’ve seen; a trailer-based design
graced these pages last year.
If you’re working on your own hot and steamy build, though,
do share your work with us promptly
! | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452104",
"author": "Jii",
"timestamp": "2022-03-29T17:13:41",
"content": "Sauna is a pleasure even in the summer, trust me, i’m an engineer.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6452148",
"author": "Jii",
"timestamp": "2022-... | 1,760,372,744.296578 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/28/retro-portable-computer-packs-printer-for-the-trip/ | Retro Portable Computer Packs Printer For The Trip | Tom Nardi | [
"computer hacks",
"Cyberdecks"
] | [
"foldable",
"hand wired",
"mechanical keyboard",
"pi zero",
"portable computer",
"thermal printer"
] | Looking like it dropped out of an alternate reality version of the 1980s, the
Joopyter Personal Terminal is a 3D printed portable computer
that includes everything you need for life in the retro-futuristic fastlane: a mechanical keyboard, a thermal printer, and the obligatory tiny offset screen. It’s a true mobile machine too, thanks to it’s onboard battery and a clever hinge design that lets you fold the whole thing up into something akin to a PLA handbag. You won’t want to leave home without it.
This gorgeous machine comes our way from [Gian], and while the design isn’t exactly open source, there’s enough information in the GitHub repository that you could certainly put together something similar if you were so inclined. While they might not serve as documentation in the traditional sense, we do love the faux vintage advertisements that have been included.
The upper section of the Joopyter holds a Raspberry Pi Zero W (though the new
Pi Zero 2 would be a welcome drop-in upgrade
), an Adafruit PiTFT 2.8″ display, a CSN-A2 panel mount thermal printer, and a Anker PowerCore 15600 battery to keep it all running. On the opposite side of the hinge is a hand wired keyboard powered by a Raspberry Pi Pico running KMK.
Speaking of that printed hinge, [Gian] says it comes on loan from [YARH.IO], which
Hackaday readers may recall
have produced a number of
very slick 3D printed portable Linux machines
powered by the Raspberry Pi over the last couple of years. | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451905",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2022-03-28T20:43:05",
"content": "That advert is really great – the age old disclaimer of cancer and birth defects according to California really helps sell it to me.Quite like the way it folds and unfolds for use to – it actually looks... | 1,760,372,744.345693 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/28/gravity-water-air-powered-engine/ | Gravity-Water-Air Powered Engine | Matthew Carlson | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Engine Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"air engine",
"cnc",
"compressed air engine",
"water power"
] | Air engines are a common occurrence here on Hackaday. They’re relatively novel and reasonably easy to 3D print without requiring any fluids or supporting machinery. For example, [Tom Stanton] took a previous air engine design, did away with the air compressor, and
instead used gravity and water to create just a few PSI to run the engine
.
The basic setup is to have a large jug of water up somewhere high. Flexible tubing runs down to [Tom’s] custom acrylic pressure chamber. A little CNC-ing and some epoxy made a solid chamber, and we’re happy to report that [Tom] did some initial simulation before construction to make sure he wasn’t accidentally building a bomb. Some back of the napkin math showed that he could expect around 0.6 bar (around eight psi) with his setup. His first test showed almost precisely that. Unfortunately, [Tom] ran into some issues despite the early success. His engine would stop as it drew air and the pressure dropped, and the replenishing rate of the pressure was limited by the relatively small inlet hole he had drilled.
To fix this, he
printed a larger diaphragm for the engine
, so the lower air pressure had more to push against. This allowed the engine to run for a good while before the tank filled up. Additionally, he smoothed and polished everything, so it was as low friction as possible. We know we often state it here, but it is incredible what can be achieved with 3D printed parts these days.
We love seeing the iteration evident in this video. The various engine versions splayed across the table offer a powerful story about [Tom’s] persistence. Powering an engine is a small step
to powering your whole home. | 19 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451882",
"author": "Kyle",
"timestamp": "2022-03-28T18:56:34",
"content": "Interestingly I just watched a YouTube video on a dam in Canada that was used to supply early twentieth century mines with pressurized air.Small air inlet tubes long enough to be below the water inlet incorp... | 1,760,372,744.402892 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/28/is-the-iphone-camera-too-smart-or-not-smart-enough/ | Is The IPhone Camera Too Smart? Or Not Smart Enough? | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Original Art",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"camera",
"computational photography",
"iPhone 12 Pro",
"iPhone 13 Pro",
"iPhone camera",
"photography"
] | What is a photograph? Technically and literally speaking, it’s a drawing (
graph)
of light
(photo).
Sentimentally speaking, it’s a moment in time, captured for all eternity, or until the medium itself rots away. Originally, these light-drawings were recorded on film that had to be developed with a chemical process, but are nowadays often captured by a digital image sensor and available for instant admiration. Anyone can take a photograph, but producing a good one requires some skill — knowing how to use the light and the camera in concert to capture an image.
Eye-Dynamic Range
The point of a camera is to preserve what the human eye sees in a single moment in space-time. This is difficult because eyes have what is described as high dynamic range. Our eyes can process many exposure levels in real time, which is why we can look at a bright sky and pick out details in the white fluffy clouds. But a camera lens can only deal with one exposure level at a time.
In the past, photographers would create high dynamic range images by taking multiple exposures of the same scene and stitching them together.Done just right, each element in the image looks as does in your mind’s eye. Done wrong, it robs the image of contrast and you end up with a murky surreal soup.
Image via
KubxLab
Newer iPhone Pro cameras are attempting to do HDR, and much more, with each shot, whether the user wants it or not. It’s called computational photography — image capture and processing that uses digital computation rather than optical processes. When the user presses the shutter button, the camera creates up to nine frames, on different lenses, each with a different exposure level. Then the “Deep Fusion” feature takes the cleanest parts of each shot and stitches them together into
a tapestry of lies
an image with extreme high dynamic range. Specifically, the iPhone 13 Pro’s camera has three lenses and uses machine learning to automatically adjust lighting and focus. Sometimes it switches between them, sometimes it uses data from all of them.
It’s arguably more software than hardware
. And so what is a camera, exactly? At this point, it’s a package deal.
Tarted-Up Toddlers
Various cameras have been desired over the years for the unique effects they give to the light-drawings they produce, like the Polaroid, the Diana F, or the Brownie. The newer iPhone cameras can wear all of these hats and still bring more to the table, but is that what we want? What if it comes at the cost of control over our own creations? Whereas the early iPhones would let the user shoot in RAW mode, the newer ones obfuscate it away.
Just the other day, our own Tom Nardi received a picture from his daughter’s preschool. Nothing professional, just something one of the staff took with their phone — a practice they have been doing more often since COVID protocols are still in place. Tom was shocked to see his daughter looking lipsticked and rosy-cheeked as though she’d been made up for some child beauty pageant or a “high-fashion” photo session at the mall. In reality, there was some kind of filter in place that turned her sweet little face into 3-going-on-30.
Whether the photographer was aware that this feature-altering filter was active or not is another matter. In this case, they had forgotten the filter was on, and turned it off for the rest of the pictures. The point is, cameras shouldn’t alter reality, at least not in ways that make us uncomfortable. What’s fine for an adult is usually not meant for children, and beauty filters are definitely on this list. The ultimate issue here is the ubiquity of the iPhone — it has the power to shape the standard of ‘normal’ pictures going forward. And doing so by locking the user out of choice is a huge problem.
Bad Apples?
Whereas the Polaroid et. al recorded reality in interesting ways, the iPhone camera distorts reality in creepy ways.
Users have reported that images look odd and uncanny, or over-processed
. The camera considers the low light of dusk as a problem to be solved or a blemish to erase, rather than an interesting phenomena worth recording. The difference is using cameras to capture what the eye sees, versus capturing reality and turning it into some predetermined image ideal that couldn’t have been done with any one traditional camera.
You can’t fault Apple for trying to get the absolute most they can out of tiny camera lenses that aren’t really supposed to bend that way. But when the software they produce purposely distorts reality and removes the choice to see things as they really are, then we have a problem. With great power comes great responsibility and all that. In the name of smoothing out sensor noise, the camera is already doing a significant amount of guessing and painting in what it thinks is in your image. As the camera does more processing and interpreting, they will either add more controls to manage these features, or keep the interface sleek, minimalist, and streamlined, taking away control from the user.
Where does it end? If Apple got enough pressure, would they build in certain other distortions into the software? When the only control we have over a tool is the should keep striving to capture reality as the eye sees it, and not massaging it toward some ideal. | 61 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451848",
"author": "Severe Tire Damage",
"timestamp": "2022-03-28T17:23:11",
"content": "As the saying goes “art is what you like”. Not everyone likes HDR. Lots of people love it. There are many “knobs” you can turn to fiddle with it. There are many flavors of HDR. The only que... | 1,760,372,744.737084 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/28/pcb-thermal-design-hack-chat/ | PCB Thermal Design Hack Chat | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hack Chat"
] | Join us on Wednesday, March 30 at noon Pacific for the
PCB Thermal Design Hack Chat
with Mike Jouppi!
Most of the time, designing a printed circuit board is a little like one of those problems in an introductory physics course, the ones where you can safely ignore things like air resistance. With PCBs, it’s generally safe to ignore things like trace heating and other thermal considerations in favor of just getting everything placed sensibly and routing all the traces neatly.
But eventually, the laws of physics catch up to you, and you’ll come across a real-world problem where you can’t just hand-wave thermal considerations aside. When that happens, you’ll want to have a really good idea of just how much a trace is going to heat up, and what it’s going to do to the performance of your board, or even if the PCB is going to survive the ordeal.
Digging into the thermal properties of PCBs is something that Mike Jouppi has been doing for years. After working in the aircraft industry as a mechanical engineer, he started
Thermal Management LLC
, which developed software to make the thermal design of PCBs easier. He’ll stop by the Hack Chat to answer your questions about PCB thermal design considerations, and help us keep all our hard work from going up in smoke.
Our Hack Chats are live community events in the
Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging
. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, March 30 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a
handy time zone converter
. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,372,744.628863 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/28/say-friend-and-have-this-box-open-for-you/ | Say Friend And Have This Box Open For You | Arya Voronova | [
"Art",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"hackaday.io",
"pocketsphinx",
"power management",
"raspberry pi",
"voice recognition",
"woodworking"
] | Handcrafted gifts are special, and this one’s no exception. [John Pender] made
a Tolkien-inspired box
for his son and shared the details with us on Hackaday.io. This one-of-a-kind handcrafted box fulfills one role and does it perfectly – just like with the Doors of Durin, you have to say ‘friend’ in Elvish, and the box shall unlock for you.
This box, carefully engraved and with attention paid to its surface finish, stands on its own as a gift. However, with the voice recognition function, it’s a project complicated enough to cover quite a few fields at once – woodworking, electronics, and software. The electronics are laid out in CNC-machined channels, and LED strips illuminate the “Say Friend And Come In” inscriptions once the box is ready to listen. If you’re wondering how the unlocking process works,
the video embedded below
shows it all.
Two solenoids keep the lid locked, and in its center is a Pi Zero, the brains of the operation. With small batteries and a power-hungry board, power management is a bit intricate. Two capacitive sensors and a small power management device are always powered up. When both of the sensors are touched, a power switch module from Pololu wakes the Pi up. It, in turn, takes its sweet time, as fully-fledged Linux boards do, and lights up the LED strip once it’s listening.
[John] didn’t want to go for any cloud-based voice recognition service – such a gift requiring a pre-established WiFi connection would be no fun at all. Instead, he set up and used PocketSphinx for offline voice recognition. The box is a surprise for his son, thus, [John] couldn’t quite ask for voice samples. Thankfully, PocketSphinx recognizes phrases without pre-training. There’s also a contingency mechanism – the electronics aren’t accessible until you open the box. The secret is to apply voltage to two pads, which will unlock the solenoids directly, just in case the battery dies or the Pi glitches out.
We don’t quite know what awaits when the box is opened, but we can only hope that the son’s name isn’t Balin. We thank [John] for
documenting the details
, as a reminder that our hacker skills let us build unique and beautiful things for the people we value. Hacker-built gifts are great – we’ve seen
guestbooks for weddings
,
couple’s proximity sensing LED badges
,
ESP32-based CTFs
, and even
meteorite turntable display stands
. | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451823",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2022-03-28T15:55:37",
"content": "It’s all good until you get a pair of drunk Scots burglars.. “Wheesht, stop yer banging around Angus, wha’ if it’s alarmed, ye’ll trigger the bell, och!”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,372,744.590379 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/29/non-contact-probe-works-better-with-a-little-more-complexity/ | Non-Contact Probe Works Better With A Little More Complexity | Al Williams | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"dollar store",
"flashlight",
"non-contact",
"non-contact voltage"
] | Non-contact voltage probes have been around a while and some test equipment now has them built-in. This is one of those things that you probably don’t think about much, but surely it isn’t that hard to detect AC voltage. Turns out there are a lot of circuits floating around that can do it and [nsievers51] tried a bunch. Many didn’t work very well, but
the best used a 4069 CMOS hex inverter
. A dollar store flashlight provided power, a case, and an LED and the result was a good-looking and effective probe.
The circuit came from the
Electronics Library
website and is fairly complex for this sort of device. The CMOS inverters have a high input impedance so they pick up the weak signal. Instead of directly driving an LED, two inverters form a ring oscillator that generate pulses around 1 kHz. At that frequency, the LED appears to be on, but battery consumption is less severe. A single 2N2222-style transistor drives the LED.
We’ve seen
a number of variations
on this tool in the past. Many of them
only use transistors
. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452168",
"author": "Alm865",
"timestamp": "2022-03-29T19:02:32",
"content": "Most non contact testers detect an electric field, not AC specifically",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6452250",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timesta... | 1,760,372,744.835054 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/29/converting-your-bike-to-electric-why-you-should-and-when-you-shouldnt/ | Converting Your Bike To Electric: Why You Should, And When You Shouldn’t | Jenny List | [
"Featured",
"Reviews",
"Slider",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"Brompton",
"electric bike",
"review",
"swytch"
] | A decade ago I was lucky enough to work for an employer that offered a bicycle loan scheme to its employees, and I took the opportunity to spend on a Brompton folding bike. This London-made machine is probably one of the more efficiently folding cycles on the market, and has the useful feature of being practical for longer journeys rather than just a quick run from the train. A 3-speed hub gearbox is fine for unhurried touring, but sadly my little folder has always been a bit of a pain on the hills. Thus around the start of the pandemic I splashed out again and bought
a Swytch electric upgrade kit
for it, and after a few logistical and life upheavals I’ve finally fitted it to the bike. I’ve ridden a few electric bikes but never had my own, so it’s time to sit down and analyse the experience. Is an electric bike something you should have, or not?
A Box Of Bits Becomes An Electric Bike
All the parts of a Swytch kit. From
the Swytch assembly manual
.
Swytch sell their kits via crowdfunding rounds, so I’d been on a waiting list for a while and got an early-bird price on my kit. It took quite a while to arrive, much longer than the expected time in mid-2020 because of the pandemic, finally being delivered some time in February last year. It came in a modestly-sized cardboard carton which would be an easy carry on the Brompton’s luggage rack, containing neatly packed a new front wheel with motor, as well as the battery and all sundry parts.
Fitting the kit shouldn’t stretch the capabilities of a Hackaday reader, with probably the trickiest part being the positioning of a Hall-effect sensor near the crank. The kit works by providing a motor assist when you pedal, so part of it is a set of magnets on a plastic disk with various attachments for different cranks and pedal sets. The Brompton front wheel is removed and its tyre and tube transferred to the Swytch one, which is then put on the bike. Once the magnet disk and Hall sensor are attached, the cables follow the existing ones and emerge at the handlebars where a sturdy bracket for the battery box is fitted.
The Swytch Kit First Impressions
The motor is a compact unit, more so than I expected.
The battery also contains the electronics and motor driver, and provisions for brake sensors and a hand throttle, which I had not ordered. My kit is painfully UK road legal with a pedal sensor, software-limited 250 W power, and around 15 mph top speed. I could have ordered it with no limits and all the extra toys to make it more like a small electric motorcycle, but even though I can remove the software limit I can’t negate the risk of a roadside inspection and fine if I did so.
Swytch offer two battery packs in 30 km and 50 km range sizes, and of those I bought the larger one. After charging it up, I turned it on and clipped it in the bracket. Ready to test a new toy on the concrete apron behind my hackerspace!
The Swytch battery pack comes with some controls on the top, the main function of which is to vary the amount of electrical assistance. This is best described in terms of who’s in charge; at maximum assistance it’s the bike that’s doing the pulling and all you need to do is move the pedals, while at the minimum it’s a handy aid that smooths out the effort and makes cycling a less strenuous exercise while leaving you definitely in control.
The Swytch battery pack on the Bromptoon handlebars.
There’s one minor snag: in some conditions the motor vibrates instead of starting smoothly. From my experience with AC motors for Hacky Racers and other machines I am guessing that this stems from the motor feedback to the controller being via back EMF sensing rather than Hall effect devices, so what I’m seeing is a temporary loss of that feedback. It’s usually quickly cured by stopping pedaling and restarting after the motor has cut out, something that doesn’t significantly impede progress.
I’ve used the bike a lot for general riding, but I’ve also set out to work out the real-world achievable range with a few longer cross-country test rides with it on low power mode to assist rather than replace my cycling. As expected, I never managed to crack 50 km, but I came pretty close.
My routes weren’t ideal with a few inclines and on one of them some stiff headwinds on the day I did it, but even so I achieved between 40 km and 45 km, which I count to be not too bad for a 50 km battery. Once the power is exhausted, there’s a perceptible drag from the motor, but it doesn’t render the bike unrideable.
So What’s An Electric Bike Like To Use?
The description of a Swytch kit aside, it’s time for some more general impressions about electric bikes based on a while using an electric Brompton as daily transport. There’s even a handling angle, as the bike is now an all-wheel-drive vehicle. How does it change the riding experience?
The electric Brompton in all its glory
The first impression of an electric daily rider might seem obvious in that it’s now much faster. I could reach the mid-teens speeds before but only with some effort, now they’re within reach any time I want. This is great for getting from A to B, but I’m also acutely aware that I can get into trouble a lot more quickly. Oddly I have found myself riding much more cautiously, particularly in town where there are pedestrians and traffic.
With electric power at the front and pedal power at the rear, the bike is now a two-wheel-drive vehicle. Two-wheel-drive motorcycles are so vanishingly rare as to be restricted to a very few small-production models, but courtesy of my friend Russ’s electric minimoto conversion I was given the rare opportunity to ride one at EMF 2018.
It was notably sure-footed on the gravel roads of the EMF campsite, but suffered from a pants-filling moment on start-up as the front wheel would spin while the rear had traction. By contrast, the momentary delay afforded by the Swytch pedal sensor system was enough to ensure that the Brompton was moving before power came to the front wheel, ensuring that even on loose surfaces there was never any unexpected wheelspin.
The resulting two-wheel drive makes a noticeable difference on surfaces such as grass and loose gravel that would normally challenge the Brompton, and when giving it a spirited ride on tarmac the extra traction can get me out of trouble. It’s dangerous to become addicted to fast tight turns with rear wheel slide, though, because when the inevitable happens and the front wheel lacks the purchase to pull me out of it, I can see that the results could be painful. The sight of a middle-aged woman exorcising her teenage BMX dreams on a folding commuter bike must be amusing to watch, but at least I was having fun.
So, should you go electric with your bicycle, or is it all a bit pointless? After all it’s not entirely cheap, and you have to pay for a bike on top. The answer is that if you’re fit or only ever riding short distances, then perhaps it’s not essential. But if you ride medium distances, and perhaps most importantly if you ride to places for which it’s important not to arrive a sweaty mess, then the electric bike is a worthwhile upgrade. The Brompton’s not my main bike, so I use it for trips where I need to take it on a train or in a car, and I value the Swytch kit for the extra range it gives me while keeping me from looking over-exerted.
Oddly there’s a use case for which an electric bike would be unsuitable, namely longer distance riding. The thought of riding for more than a short distance against the extra drag of the motor isn’t appealing, so the Brompton’s now a bike with an effective 50 km maximum range. I frequently use my everyday bike for longer trips, but for your only bike it’s worth bearing in mind.
Electric bikes aren’t for everyone, but perhaps is 2022 the time to give them a try? | 96 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452103",
"author": "Twisty Plastic",
"timestamp": "2022-03-29T17:13:17",
"content": "I still just can’t get over that 15MPH top speed. When I rode more often I used to exceed that all the time without any assist. Are you not allowed to pedal faster than that or is it only a limitat... | 1,760,372,745.172553 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/29/led-kaleidoscope-uses-induction-power-magic/ | LED Kaleidoscope Uses Induction Power Magic | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"kaleidoscope",
"led",
"wireless led"
] | The kaleidoscope was first invented back in the early 1800s, with the curio known for showing compelling psychedelic patterns as light passes through colored glass and is reflected by mirrors in a tube. [Debra] of
Geek Mom Projects
recently gave the classic toy a thoroughly modern twist
with her own build
. (
Thread Reader Link
).
[Debra]’s kaleidoscope still relies on the typical mirror-tube construction to create reflections upon reflections which generate symmetrical patterns for the viewer. However, instead of colored glass beads lit by external light, she replaced these with so-called “
wireless LEDs
.” These little bead-like LEDs are fitted with small coils that allow them to be inductively powered without wires when they are placed in the magnetic field generated by a powered coil. Thus, [Debra]’s kaleidoscope works day or night, even in a dark room, since the light is coming from the little beady LEDs themselves.
It’s a great demonstration of wireless LED technology; there’s something almost magical about the tiny free-moving glowing beads. If you don’t want to buy them off the shelf,
you can even make your own
! Video after the break.
Just created a fun build with a DIY kaleidoscope and wireless (induction-powered) LEDs:
pic.twitter.com/maaZvsa3My
— Geek Mom Projects (@GeekMomProjects)
March 20, 2022 | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452264",
"author": "Steven-X",
"timestamp": "2022-03-30T03:02:26",
"content": "Cool project for kids, but it also prompted me to look at conventional kaleidoscope construction.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6452647",
... | 1,760,372,744.874979 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/29/enter-the-2022-hackaday-prize-and-help-save-the-world/ | Enter The 2022 Hackaday Prize And Help Save The World | Elliot Williams | [
"contests",
"Featured",
"Slider"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Prize"
] | The biggest challenge facing humanity over the next century is how to do as much or more, with less environmental impact. Reducing our collective footprint on the planet is of course not any one person’s responsibility alone, and if it’s going to require a million clever solutions to create a sustainable future, then we know just the group of hackers to get to work.
This year’s
2022 Hackaday Prize
challenges
you
to think of big or small ways to create greener energy sources, make recycling easier, hack old devices to save them from the landfill, or build out the networks that keep our local communities together and conscious of our group effort. If you’ve got a super solar harvester, a recycling robot, or even reverse engineering tools to help combat forced technological obsolescence, we want to see your hacks. Or if you’d like, you can simply save the world in the wildcard round.
As always, courtesy of our overlords at Supplyframe and the generous sponsorship of Digikey, we’ve got tons of prize money to give out to the best projects. The top ten projects in each of five challenge rounds will receive a $500 cash prize, and five winning projects will bag from $5,000 to $50,000 in the finals in November. But you shouldn’t wait — the first round, Planet-Friendly Power, starts right now!
Get your team together, start brainstorming an idea,
post it up on Hackaday.io to enter in the Prize
, and you’re on your way. Independent of the judging, we’ll be looking through the field and writing up awesome projects as we find them. This is your chance to be seen, to help create a better world, and maybe even to win big.
Challenge
Date
The Details
Planet-Friendly Power
Mar 29 – May 1
Your solution should lower the cost of clean energy, through energy harvesting and/or storage efficiency improvements.
Reuse, Recycle, Revamp
May 1 – June 12
Your project facilitates recycling of material that would otherwise end up in the waste stream.
Hack it Back
June 12th – July 24
Your project adds new capabilities to older electrical gear to keep it useful.
Climate Resilient Communities
July 24 – Sept 4
Design devices that help communities be more resilient to weather and climate disasters and/or collect data from their environments so that they may advocate for changes in local infrastructure.
Save the World Wildcard
Sept 4 – Oct 16th
This is where anything goes, your designs should stand apart from the other challenges but still create a more promising future for all.
Prize Launch Summit
This year we kicked off the pre-Launch celebrations with a great day of talks on the topics of sustainability, decentralized wireless communications infrastructure, how open hardware and open supply chains help save the planet, and much more. And today, starting at 8 AM PDT,
we’re streaming the whole thing live
. (Embedded below.)
If you’re looking for some inspiration to start off your project planning brainstorming sessions, this’ll help for sure. And feel free to start up a conversation in the sidebar! Want to put your ideas together with other like-minded hackers after the stream? Join us on
Hackaday.io
and
on Discord
.
The
Hackaday
Prize2022
is Sponsored by: | 7 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452178",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2022-03-29T19:29:28",
"content": "Here in Sweden we cant afford to drive to work anymore.Drive over there for as long as you can.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6452197",
"auth... | 1,760,372,745.309253 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/29/finally-the-venerable-vectrex-gets-a-mini-makeover/ | Finally, The Venerable Vectrex Gets A Mini Makeover | Robin Kearey | [
"classic hacks",
"Games"
] | [
"miniature console",
"Raspberry Pi 2",
"vectrex"
] | It appears that every great console is bound to get a miniature remake: we’ve had the PlayStation Classic, the Mini NES and SNES, and even a miniature Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. But one great console that was sorely missing from that list, at least according to [Brendan], was the Vectrex. So he went ahead and
built a fully-functioning miniature Vectrex Console
.
If the name “Vectrex” doesn’t ring a bell in your mind, you’re not alone: a commercial failure, it was quickly forgotten by most following the 1983 video game crash. But it has retained a cult status among enthusiasts due to its unique design featuring a monochrome vector monitor, onto which you can place transparent overlays to obtain a sort-of color display. Its games can now all be emulated using software like RetroPie, which is what [Brendan] chose to run on a Raspberry Pi Model 2 that he had lying around.
As for the display, he settled on a Pi-compatible 3.5″ TFT device. Hooking it up to the Pi was easy enough, but getting the image rendered in its proper portrait orientation was quite a headache, requiring endless fiddling with drivers and configuration files.
Once he got this working, [Brendan] set to work designing a miniature copy of the Vectrex’s original case. It took a few iterations and several 10-hour runs on his 3D printer before he ended up with a sturdy case that securely held the Pi and its display in place. A few more hours of printing later he also had a handheld controller, which he based on an Arduino Pro Mega. The Arduino reads out four regular pushbuttons and a joystick, and communicates with the Pi through a coiled USB cable.
The end result, as you can see in the video embedded below, is the cutest little Vectrex we’ve ever seen. It’s really the opposite of
this big-screen Vectrex project
. We’ve also seen
a Vectrex projector
, and even
one with a real color monitor hacked in
. | 16 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452016",
"author": "Bas",
"timestamp": "2022-03-29T11:26:04",
"content": "Nice build. Do you want to share your collection of stl files?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6452361",
"author": "RetroGameOn",
"tim... | 1,760,372,744.932427 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/29/lego-string-winder-hints-at-greater-possibilities/ | LEGO String Winder Hints At Greater Possibilities | Lewin Day | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"lego",
"string",
"winder"
] | Unless you’re an avid fan of 1997’s box office hit
Mouse Hunt,
or actively working in the string industry, you probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about how those balls of string are made. [ord] has, however, and built a tidy little winding machine that has us contemplating the possibilities
of how useful LEGO machines can really be.
The design uses a large and imposing-looking ring gear to drive a spinning arm which carries the string onto the bobbin. The bobbin itself is rotated along with the spinning arm as the hand crank that operates the machine is mechanically linked to both. As the arm and bobbin turn, string is deposited onto the bobbin, building up into a pleasing ball of string that looks just like the ones you buy at the store.
We suspect that, unless [ord] is doing some very interesting things that we haven’t seen yet, the string was probably sourced off a reel or ball anyway, and this machine just serves to demonstrate how the process works.
However, it does go to show how LEGO machines can do real work. We’d love to see LEGO put to more practical uses like
winding pickups
or transformers, or other jobs that are maddeningly tedious when done by hand. Video after the break. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452015",
"author": "caseyparry",
"timestamp": "2022-03-29T11:20:55",
"content": "Knitter (and spinner) here. I can see this being immensely useful. As well as way cool!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6452032",
"author": "r... | 1,760,372,745.216227 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/28/raspberry-pi-creates-melody/ | Raspberry Pi Creates Melody | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"distance sensor",
"midi",
"music",
"pi zero",
"raspberry pi",
"theremin"
] | For those who are not into prog rock in the 70s or old radio shows from the 40s, the Theremin may be an unfamiliar musical instrument. As a purely electronic device, it’s well outside the realm of conventional musical instruments. Two radio antennas detect the position of the musician’s hands to make a unique sound traditionally associated with eeriness or science fiction.
Normally a set of filters and amplifiers are used to build this instrument
but this build instead replaces almost everything with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2
, and instead of radio antennas to detect the position of the musician’s hands a set of two
HC-SR04 distance sensors are used instead. With the processing power available from the Pi, the modernized instrument is able to output MIDI as well which makes this instrument easily able to interface with programs like GarageBand or any other MIDI-capable software.
The project build is split into two videos, the second of which is linked below. The project code is also available on
the project’s GitHub page
, so anyone with the Pi and other equipment available can easily start experimenting with this esoteric and often overlooked musical instrument.
It’s been around for over 100 years now
, and its offshoots (including this build) are as varied as the sounds they can produce. | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6452124",
"author": "Greg Chabala",
"timestamp": "2022-03-29T17:40:47",
"content": "Seems very staccato, compared to the continuous notes one would get from a theremin.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6452241",
"author... | 1,760,372,745.257756 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/28/nasa-continues-slow-and-steady-pace-towards-moon/ | NASA Continues Slow And Steady Pace Towards Moon | Tom Nardi | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Slider",
"Space"
] | [
"apollo",
"Artemis",
"artemis program",
"Moon landing",
"nasa",
"SpaceX",
"starship"
] | It’s often said that the wheels of government turn slowly, and perhaps nowhere is this on better display than at NASA. While it seems like every week we hear about another commercial space launch or venture, projects helmed by the national space agency are often mired by budget cuts and indecisiveness from above. It takes a lot of political will to earmark tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars on a project that could take decades to complete, and not every occupant of the White House has been willing to stake their reputation on such bold ambitions.
In 2019, when Vice President Mike Pence told a cheering crowd at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center that the White House was officially tasking NASA with returning American astronauts to the surface of the Moon by 2024, everyone knew it was an ambitious timeline. But not one without precedent. The speech was a not-so-subtle allusion to President Kennedy’s famous 1962 declaration at Rice University that America would safely land a man on the Moon before the end of the decade, a challenge NASA was able to meet with fewer than six months to spare.
Unfortunately, a rousing speech will only get you so far. Without a significant boost to the agency’s budget, progress on the new Artemis lunar program was limited. To further complicate matters, less than a year after Pence took the stage in Huntsville, there was a new President in the White House. While there was initially some concern that the Biden administration would axe the Artemis program as part of a general “house cleaning”, it was allowed to continue under newly installed NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. The original 2024 deadline, at this point all but unattainable due to delays stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, has quietly been abandoned.
So where are we now? Is NASA in 2022 any closer to returning humanity to the Moon than they were in 2020 or even 2010? While it might not seem like it from an outsider’s perspective, a close look at some of the recent Artemis program milestones and developments show that the agency is at least moving in the right direction.
The Shakedown Cruise
A key component of the Artemis program is the Space Launch System (SLS), a gargantuan rocket derived from Space Shuttle hardware. But unlike the reusable Shuttle, there will be no attempt to recover any of the hardware in-between flights. Each SLS will only fly on a single mission, at the end of which it will crash into the ocean downrange like the Saturn V that took Apollo to the Moon.
After years of delays, the first operational SLS was recently
rolled out to Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39B
for final checks before embarking on its debut mission: Artemis I. When it launches this summer, the megarocket will accelerate an uncrewed Orion capsule towards the Moon, where it will orbit for six days to perform checks on the vehicle’s systems, run various experiments that will support subsequent crewed missions aboard Orion, and deploy an array of small CubeSats.
In total the mission will run for a little over 25 days, which will give engineers time to collect data on the radiation environment inside the Orion capsule during deep space flight. Dosimeters inside the cabin will record how much radiation a human crew would have been exposed to in a standard “shirtsleeves” environment, while a second set will quantify the effectiveness of a wearable radiation-shielding vest currently in development by Lockheed Martin and StemRad.
Should everything go to plan, Artemis I will be followed by the Artemis II mission no earlier than 2024. This 10-day mission will see four astronauts make a flyby of the Moon, much like the Apollo 8 “dry run” in 1968. No landing will be attempted, but it will mark the first time humans have traveled beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972.
Preparing for Touchdown
According to the current plan, humans won’t actually step foot on the Moon until Artemis III, which is slated for no earlier than 2025. Astronauts will launch on the SLS and ride the Orion to lunar orbit, where a customized SpaceX Starship will already be there waiting for them. Two crew members will transfer to the Starship, which will land on the surface and serve as their base of operations for approximately one week. After the surface operations are complete, the Starship will liftoff from the Moon, meet the Orion capsule in orbit, and the reunited crew will return back to Earth.
Standing 50 meters (164 feet) tall, Starship is a very different vehicle than the spidery Apollo Lunar Excursion Module (LEM). It will very literally be like landing the Statue of Liberty on the surface of the Moon, and then launching it back into space in one piece. The massive scale of Starship offers tantalizing possibilities, but also poses considerable challenges. For example, how exactly are astronauts supposed to make “one small step” when the hatch is 12 stories up?
NASA recently released a document that goes over
some of the logistical challenges of the Human Landing System (HLS)
, and how they were working with the teams at SpaceX to convert Starship into a multi-purpose lunar exploration vehicle. That includes a large open elevator that can safely lower astronauts and equipment from the nose of Starship down to the lunar surface. The crew will also need a large airlock so they can enter and exit Starship without decompressing the entire vehicle as was done on the relatively tiny LEM.
None of these features were a secret, or unexpected. Indeed, even the earliest renders of the lunar Starship showed it would have some kind of elevator to descend down the side of the hull. But these photographs of actual prototype hardware being tested shows that we’re not just talking about a concept anymore — the next vehicle to take humans to the Moon is actively under construction.
The More The Merrier
Initially, SpaceX was the only firm to secure a contract from NASA to build an Artemis lunar lander. But some, including Congress, weren’t thrilled with America pinning its triumphant return to the Moon on just one company. Naturally it’s too late to have any of them ready to go by 2025, but as Artemis is supposed to
pave the way towards long-term exploration and habitation of our nearest celestial neighbor,
there’s plenty of room for other companies to develop additional landing capability.
Lunar Gateway Station
As such, NASA announced earlier this month that they will be looking for commercial partners to
develop vehicles for surface operations after Artemis III
. The plan is to have the Lunar Gateway station in operation by then, so the contract is specifically looking for vehicles that could ferry astronauts and cargo between the surface and the orbiting facility. In this arrangement, just like with the Starship, the SLS and Orion would still be required to get crews to and from the Moon.
There’s been plenty of debate
about the necessity of the expensive booster
, which it’s now estimated will cost taxpayers $4 billion per mission, in the face of increasingly capable commercial launch providers. But it seems clear that NASA, or at least those calling the shots from above, want to make sure there’s a niche cut out for it beyond the currently slated Artemis missions. | 61 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451799",
"author": "Viktor",
"timestamp": "2022-03-28T14:40:29",
"content": "Why not colonise the moon first before Mars? Baby steps",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6451850",
"author": "fiddlingjunky",
"timest... | 1,760,372,746.140278 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/28/low-power-mode-for-custom-gps-tracker/ | Low Power Mode For Custom GPS Tracker | Bryan Cockfield | [
"gps hacks"
] | [
"air station",
"durable",
"energy",
"gps",
"Ground Station",
"LoRa",
"power",
"small",
"tracker"
] | GPS has been a game-changing technology for all kinds of areas. Shipping, navigation, and even synchronization of clocks have become tremendously easier thanks to GPS. As a result of its widespread use, the cost of components is also low enough that almost anyone can build their own GPS device, and [Akio Sato] has taken this to the extreme
with efforts to build a GPS tracker that uses the tiniest amount of power
.
This GPS tracker is just the first part of this build, known as the air station. It uses a few tricks in order to get up to 30 days of use out of a single coin cell battery. First, it is extremely small and uses a minimum of components. Second, it uses LoRa, a low-power radio networking method, to communicate its location to the second part of this build, the ground station. The air station grabs GPS information and sends it over LoRa networks to the ground station which means it doesn’t need a cellular connection to operate, and everything is bundled together in a waterproof, shock-resistant durable case.
[Akio Sato] imagines this unit would be particularly useful for recovering drones or other small aircraft that can easily get themselves lost. He’s
started a crowdfunding page
for it as well. With such a long battery life, it’s almost certain that the operator could recover their vessel before the batteries run out of energy.
It could also be put to use tracking things that have a tendency to get stolen
. | 19 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451767",
"author": "sweethack",
"timestamp": "2022-03-28T12:36:03",
"content": "So, it’s an expensive version ofhttps://www.invoxia.comtrackers ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6451769",
"author": "TRT",
"tim... | 1,760,372,745.360832 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/28/putting-the-rp2040-on-a-stamp/ | Putting The RP2040 On A Stamp | Matthew Carlson | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"Raspberry Pi Pico",
"rp2040",
"stamp"
] | In the electronics world, a little one-inch square board with castellated edges allows a lot of circuitry to be easily added in a small surface area. You can grab a prepopulated module, throw it onto your PCB of choice, and save yourself a lot of time routing and soldering. This
tiny Raspberry Pi 2040 module
from [SolderParty] ticks all those boxes.
With all 30 GPIO broken out, 8MB of onboard flash, and a NeoPixel onboard, you have plenty to play with on top of the already impressive specs of the RPi2040. Gone are the days of in-circuit programmers, and it uses a UF2 bootloader to make it easy B to transfer new images over USB. Rust, MicroPython, Arduino, and the PicoSDK are all development options for code. All the KiCad files, BOM, schematics, and firmware are up on GitHub under a CERN license for your perusal pleasure. They’ve helpfully included footprints as well as a reference carrier board design.
It is a handy little project that might be good to keep in mind or just use as a reference design for your efforts. We have a
good overview of the RPi2040 from an STM perspective
. If you’re curious about what you could even use this little stamp for,
why not driving an HDMI signal
? | 22 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451743",
"author": "Mike Massen, Perth, Western Australia",
"timestamp": "2022-03-28T08:48:55",
"content": "Nice post, great to see more integration & accessibility ie bigger than SOT connections, eek. I’ve often used silabs parts for various embedded after moving up from Atmel’s 4... | 1,760,372,745.423867 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/27/solving-grounding-issues-on-switch-audio/ | Solving Grounding Issues On Switch Audio | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"Ground",
"Ground Loop",
"mixing",
"nintendo",
"pc",
"signal",
"switch",
"transformer"
] | Grounding of electrical systems is an often forgotten yet important design consideration. Issues with proper grounding can be complicated, confusing, and downright frustrating to solve. So much so that engineers can spend their entire careers specializing in grounding and bonding. [Bsilvereagle] was running into just this sort of frustrating problem while attempting to send audio from a Nintendo Switch into a PC, and documented some of the ways
he attempted to fix a common problem known as a ground loop
.
Ground loops occur when there are multiple paths to ground, especially in wires carrying signals. The low impedance path creates oscillations and ringing which is especially problematic for audio. When sending the Switch audio into a computer a loop like this formed. [Bsilvereagle] set about solving the issue using an isolating transformer. It took a few revisions, but eventually they settled on a circuit which improved sound quality tremendously. With that out of the way, the task of mixing the Switch audio with sources from other devices could finally proceed unimpeded.
As an investigation into a nuisance problem, this project goes into quite a bit of depth about ground loops and carrying signals over various transforming devices. It’s a great read if you’ve ever been stumped by a mysterious noise in a project. If you’ve never heard of a ground loop before, take a look at
this guide to we featured a few years ago
. | 32 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451724",
"author": "ncc",
"timestamp": "2022-03-28T05:14:44",
"content": "Nice. Mine would always leak noise into the audio whenever the game loads something.It’s too bad the system is so picky with USB DACs, none of mine work.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies"... | 1,760,372,745.49228 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/27/tube-tumbler-provides-the-perfect-culture/ | Tube Tumbler Provides The Perfect Culture | Brian McEvoy | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"biology",
"cell culture",
"lab equipment",
"laboratory",
"liquid",
"low-cost lab equipment",
"NEMA motor",
"tube tumbler",
"tumbler",
"usb"
] | We’ve all had to shake jars of nail polish, model paint, or cell cultures. Mixing paint is easy – but bacteria and cells need to be agitated for hours. Happily, laboratory tube tumblers automate this for us. The swishing action is handled with rotation. The vials are mounted at angles around a wheel. The angular offset means the tubes are inclined as they rise, and declined as they fall. This causes the liquid in the tube to slosh from one side to the other as the wheel rotates. [Sebastian S. Cocioba] aka [ATinyGreenCell] released his plans through
Tinkercad
and
GitHub
, and with a name like
Sir
Tumbalot, we know he must be cultured indeed.
Grab your monocles. Version 2 features a driven wheel lined with magnets to attach tube adapters, and he’s modeled 50mL and twin 15mL tube holders. The attachment points look like a simple beveled rectangle with a magnet pocket, so if you’re feeling vigorous for vials, you can whip up custom sockets and tumble any darn thing. A
Trinamic
StealthChop
chip
on a custom PCB controls the pancake stepper, and the whole shebang should cost less than $50USD. We’re wondering what other purposes this modular design could have, like the smallest rock tumbler or resin print rinser.
Making lab equipment is phenomenal for saving money for
things that just spin
up to a
biotech lab
.
Sweeeet, 50mL adapters fit like a velvet glove (literally) and snap on with way more magnetic strength than the g-forces the system will experience in bacterial culture conditions. No risk of 50mL tube flying off. Looking forward to test loading with all eight 50mL tubes full. 🛠
pic.twitter.com/PPdonsJAbI
— Sebastian S. Cocioba🌻🛠 (@ATinyGreenCell)
March 15, 2022 | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6454110",
"author": "Myself",
"timestamp": "2022-04-06T04:21:16",
"content": "Sweeeeeeeet! I’ve invented this in my head a dozen times, for paints and sauces and stuff, but never built it. This just saved me a bunch of time.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,745.529587 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/27/hackaday-links-march-27-2022/ | Hackaday Links: March 27, 2022 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"anti-counterfeiting",
"Baltimore",
"Benchy",
"Canberra",
"Deep Space Network",
"DSN",
"Ever Forward",
"Ever Given",
"hackaday links",
"HP",
"ip",
"Jerry can",
"Madrid",
"shipping"
] | Remember that time back in 2021 when a huge container ship blocked the Suez Canal and disrupted world shipping for a week? Well, something a little like that is playing out again, this time in the Chesapeake Bay outside of the Port of Baltimore, where
the
MV Ever Forward
ran aground over a week ago
as it was headed out to sea. Luckily, the mammoth container ship isn’t in quite as narrow a space as her canal-occluding sister ship
Ever Given
was last year, so traffic isn’t nearly as impacted. But the recovery operation is causing a stir, and refloating a ship that was drawing 13 meters when it strayed from the shipping channel into a muddy-bottomed area that’s only about 6 meters deep is going to be quite a feat of marine engineering. Merchant Marine YouTuber Chief MAKOi has
a good rundown of what’s going on
, and what will be required to get the ship moving again.
With the pace of deep-space exploration increasing dramatically of late, and with a full slate of missions planned for the future, it was good news to hear that
NASA added another antenna to its Deep Space Network
. The huge dish antenna, dubbed DSS-53, is the fourteenth dish in the DSN network, which spans three sites: Goldstone in California; outside of Canberra in Australia; and in Madrid, where the new dish was installed. The 34-meter dish will add 8% more capacity to the network; that may not sound like much, but with the DSN currently supporting 40 missions and with close to that number of missions planned, every little bit counts. We find the DSN fascinating, enough so that we did
an article on the system
a few years ago. We also love the insider’s scoop on DSN operations that
@Richard Stephenson
, one of the Canberra operators, provides.
Does anybody know what’s up with Benchy? We got a tip the other day that
the trusty benchmarking tugboat model
has gone missing from several sites. It sure looks like
Sketchfab
and
Thingiverse
have deleted their Benchy files, while other sites still seem to allow access. We poked around a bit but couldn’t get a clear picture of what’s going on, if anything. If anyone has information, let us know in the comments. We sure hope this isn’t some kind of intellectual property thing, where you’re going to have to cough up money to print a Benchy.
Speaking of IP protections, if you’ve ever wondered how far a company will go to enforce its position, look no further than
Andrew Zonenberg’s “teardown” of an anti-counterfeiting label
that Hewlett Packard uses on their ink cartridges. There’s a dizzying array of technologies embedded inside what appears to be a simple label. In addition to the standard stuff, like the little cuts that make it difficult to peel a tag off one item and place it on another — commonly used to thwart “price swapping” retail thefts — there’s an almost holographic area of the label. Zooming in with a microscope, the color-shifting image appears to be made from tiny hexagonal cells that almost look like the pixels in an e-ink display. Zooming in even further, the pixels offer an even bigger (smaller) surprise. Take a look, and marvel at the effort involved in making sure you pay top dollar for printer ink.
And finally, we got a tip a couple of weeks ago on
a video about jerry cans
. If that sounds boring, stop reading right now — this one won’t reach you. But if you’re even marginally interested in engineering design and military history, make sure you watch this video. What is now known to the US military as “Can, Gasoline, Military 5-Gallon (S/S by MIL-C-53109)” and colloquially known as the NATO jerry can, started life as the
Wehrmacht-Einheitskanister
, a 20-liter jug whose design addresses a long list of specifications, from the amount of liquid it could contain to how the cans would be carried. The original could serve as a master class in good design, and some of the jugs that were built in the 1940s are still in service and actively sought by collectors of militaria. Cheap knockoffs are out there, of course, but after watching this video, we’ve developed a taste for jerry cans that only the original will sate. | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451694",
"author": "GK",
"timestamp": "2022-03-27T23:12:48",
"content": "Who can drink 20 L of petrol?Jerry can!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6451699",
"author": "Sheff",
"timestamp": "2022-03-27T23:38:56",... | 1,760,372,745.581287 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/27/3d-printed-portal-turret-moves-and-talks-like-the-real-thing/ | 3D PrintedPortalTurret Moves And Talks Like The Real Thing | Robin Kearey | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"portal",
"portal turret"
] | Thanks to its innovative gameplay and quirky humor,
Portal
became an instant hit when it was released in 2007. Characters became cultural icons, quotes became memes and the game became a classic along with its 2011 sequel. Even today, more than a decade later, we regularly see hackers applying their skills in recreating some of the game’s elements. One beautiful example is [Joran de Raaff]’s
physical rendition of a Portal Turret
.
Inside the Turret it’s full of moving parts.
[Joran] decided to use his 3D printer to create a Turret that can move and speak exactly as it does in the game. The result, as you can see in the video embedded below, was a triumph. We’re making a note here, “huge success”. The outer shell is a beautiful shiny white, an effect achieved through patient sanding, priming, and spraying with high-gloss paint. The internals are even more impressive with servos, microswitches, and a whole array of 3D-printed gears, cams, and levers.
A motion sensor activates the Turret whenever a human moves nearby. It will then open its wings and fire its guns while playing the corresponding sounds from the game. Its brains are formed by a Wemos D1 which drives the various LEDs and servos, while an MP3 player board holds a library of sound bites and plays them through a speaker hidden inside the Turret’s shell.
After posting his creation on YouTube [Joran] got many requests for the 3D files, so he made them available and wrote a comprehensive build guide. This should enable anyone with a 3D printer to build this neat gun, without getting too much science done. If this model is too small for you, then perhaps
this life-sized model
is more to your liking. If you prefer your Turret small and cute, check out
this plushie version
.
https://joranderaaff.nl/portal-sentry/ | 19 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451653",
"author": "CptnHddck",
"timestamp": "2022-03-27T20:12:37",
"content": "Too bad it cannot walk and shot real projectiles …next revision then ;-D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6451658",
"author": "lthemick",
... | 1,760,372,745.789648 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/27/3d-printed-forge-for-recycling/ | 3D Printed Forge For Recycling | Matthew Carlson | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"crucible",
"forge",
"forge work",
"plaster of paris",
"recycling"
] | If you own a CNC and have kept tabs on metal prices these past few years (honestly months), you might shed a small tear as you watch chips fly off your work and into the trash. With a sigh, these flecks and pieces are consigned to be the cost of machining a part. Thankfully, the fine folks at [ActionBox] have been working on a
3d printed plaster forge for recycling their metal scraps
.
The team ordered some graphite crucibles of a few sizes from a large online bookstore and started 3D printing some molds for crucible holders. They started with a smaller version to try the method. While the walls were too thin in that initial version, the approach was proven. With slightly thicker walls, the medium-sized version worked much better. The goal of the forge was to smelt copper as they had a lot of thick copper wire lying around. Armed with several propane torches, they started melting aluminum and brass, which worked reasonably well. However, the melting point of copper continued to elude them (1984°F or 1085°C). To counter this, the [ActionBox] team bought some new torches that provided significantly higher BTU output, while still fitting the holes in the mold. This did the trick!
The mold to accommodate the large crucible was massive and printed in four sections. The team did melt copper successfully and had four ingots to show off. We want to stress how dangerous molten copper and other metals are, particularly regarding things you might not realize have moisture soaked up inside. Proper PPE is essential to use these things without getting hurt. [ActionBox] has some helpful pointers in that area, but they admit they are relatively new to forging and casting themselves. Perhaps version two can
incorporate a flip lid
for added safety.
Video after the break. | 30 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451615",
"author": "alypne",
"timestamp": "2022-03-27T17:30:40",
"content": "good gravy! everything wrong. watch 1 video per subject @ least. you got lucky!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6451702",
"author": "Bobtato... | 1,760,372,746.496385 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/27/generating-composite-video-on-esp32-with-lvgl-gui/ | Generating Composite Video On ESP32 With LVGL GUI | Maya Posch | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"composite video",
"ESP32",
"LVGL"
] | RCA connector mounted to ESP32 board. (Credit: aquaticus)
Just because a microcontroller doesn’t have a dedicated video peripheral doesn’t mean it cannot output a video signal. This is demonstrated once again, this time on the ESP32 by [aquaticus]
with a library
that generates PAL/SECAM and NTSC composite signals. As a finishing touch on the hardware side, [aqaticus] added an RCA jack is an optional extra. The composite signal itself is generated on GPIO 25, with the selection from a wide number of PAL and NTSC resolutions.
In addition,
LVGL
support is integrated: this is an open-source library that provides a cross-platform way to provide graphical UIs for embedded platforms. Using this combination any ESP32 can generate a fully graphical UI on a monochrome or color display to add some extra flair and functionality to an ESP32 project.
Currently, this library does not support color output, but hopefully this will be added in the future. Even so, together with simple VGA output using a DAC, this library provides yet another way to add analog video output to ubiquitous MCUs like the ESP32. Even if these MCUs are not going to be decoding any video formats at a reasonable speed, adding a UI that’s more user-friendly than an HD44780-based display and a few buttons can really elevate the user experience. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451555",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2022-03-27T15:43:54",
"content": "That’s really cool! Kudos! 😃 Just a minor complaint here: Composite really is CVBS (Color VBS) rather than VBS (monochrome video)!S-Video (which isn’t considered being Composite), by comparison, contains ... | 1,760,372,745.945125 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/27/tiny-pinball-is-as-cute-as-pi/ | Tiny Pinball Is As Cute As Pi | Matthew Carlson | [
"Games",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"pinball",
"pinball simulator",
"raspberry pi",
"virtual pinball"
] | Pinball machines are large, complex, and heavy boxes of joy and delight. However, when you don’t have the money or space for one, you have to make
your own mini Raspberry Pi-powered one
.
With access to a local makerspace and a bit of extra free time, [Chris Dalke] had plans to capture the flavor of a full-scale pinball machine in a small package. Laser-cut Baltic birch forms the enclosure, and a screen makes up the playing field rather than a physical ball. An Arduino Uno handles the three buttons, the four LED matrixes, and a solenoid for haptic feedback, communicating
with the Pi via serial. Unfortunately, even with a relatively decent
volume inside, it is still a tight squeeze.
Rather than use an off-the-shelf pinball game, [Chris]
wrote his own in C
using
raylib
and
raygui
, two handy libraries that can be included in the project quickly. SQLLite3 writes high scores out to disk. All in all, an inspiring project that has a very high level of polish.
If you’re looking for a tiny pinball machine but want more of the classic pinball feel, why not
look at this scale pinball machine? | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451571",
"author": "t67ui56",
"timestamp": "2022-03-27T16:14:35",
"content": "i need mechanic pinbal not electronicelectronic must be 8 bit arcadefor example tempest rotor",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6451709",
"au... | 1,760,372,745.889999 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/27/peltier-cloud-chamber-produces-some-lovely-trails/ | Peltier Cloud Chamber Produces Some Lovely Trails | Dave Rowntree | [
"Science"
] | [
"cloud chamber",
"ionizing ra",
"peltier cooler",
"radiator",
"water cooling"
] | [Advanced Tinkering] over on YouTube has some pretty unique content, on subjects of chemistry and physics that are a little more, interesting let’s say — anyone fancy distilling cesium? The subject of this build is the visualization of ionizing radiation tracks, with one of our old favorite physics demonstrators, the venerable cloud chamber. The
build video
(embedded below,) shows the basic construction and performance of a Peltier effect cooler setup. The system is used to create a layer of supersaturated (and cold) alcohol vapor in which the radiation source or other experiment can be immersed.
Peltier modules are a great solution for moving heat from one surface to another, but they are not terribly efficient at it, especially if you don’t keep the hot side temperature in check. Effectively they are a short-distance
heat pump, so you need to dump the hot-side heat elsewhere. The method [Advanced Tinkering] chose here was to use a pair of off-the-shelf water cooling blocks, mounted into a 3D printed plate. The hot side dumps into a pair of fan-cooled radiators. Four double-layer Peltier modules are wired in parallel to a 60A power supply, which seems like a lot, but Peltier modules are hungry little things. A reasonable amount of power is needed to drive the cooling fans and water pump. The vapor source is a simple pad of liquid alcohol at the top of the stack, just above a metal screen which is held at a high voltage. The vertical electric field allows visualization of the charge of emitted particles, which will curve up or down depending on their polarity.
As can be seen from the second video linked below, some really nice cloud trails are produced, so it looks like they got the setup just right!
Do you need all this complexity to visualize simple radiation paths?
No, you don’t, but just temper your expectations
. Peltier-based builds are not uncommon,
here’s another one
, but some builders say they’re not very robust, so
this build uses phase-change technology
instead for some serious runtimes.
Build log:
Some results: | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451502",
"author": "limpkin",
"timestamp": "2022-03-27T08:42:24",
"content": "this may just be the prettiest cloud chamber i’ve seen so far, congrats!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6451531",
"author": "Jerry",
"timest... | 1,760,372,745.994321 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/26/who-needs-yeast-when-you-have-lab-equipment/ | Who Needs Yeast When You Have Lab Equipment? | Donald Papp | [
"chemistry hacks",
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"autoclave",
"baking",
"bread",
"dough",
"Pizza",
"pressure",
"yeast"
] | This particular story on
researchers successfully making yeast-free pizza dough
has been making the rounds. As usual with stories written from a scientific angle, it’s worth digging into the details for some interesting bits. We took a look at
the actual research paper
and there are a few curious details worth sharing. Turns out that this isn’t the first method for yeast-free baking that has been developed, but it is the first method to combine leavening and baking together for a result on par with traditional bread-making processes.
Some different results from varying the amount of pressure released during the baking process.
Basically, a dough consisting of water, flour, and salt go into a hot
autoclave
(the header image shows a piece of dough as seen through the viewing window.) The autoclave pressurizes, forcing gasses into the dough in a process similar to carbonating beverages. Pressure is then released in a controlled fashion while the dough bakes and solidifies, and careful tuning of this process is what controls how the bread turns out.
With the right heat and pressure curve, researchers created a pizza whose crust was not only pleasing and tasty, but with a quality comparable to traditional methods.
How this idea came about is interesting in itself. One of the researchers developed a new method for thermosetting polyurethane, and realized that bread and polyurethane have something in common: they both require a foaming (proofing in the case of bread) and curing (baking in the case of bread) process. Performing the two processes concurrently with the correct balance yields the best product: optimized thermal insulation in the case of polyurethane, and a tasty and texturally-pleasing result in the case of pizza dough. After that, it was just a matter of experimentation to find the right balance.
The pressures (up to 6
bar
) and temperatures (145° Celsius) involved are even pretty mild, relatively speaking, which could bode well for
home-based pizza experimenters
. | 32 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451493",
"author": "T.Weeks",
"timestamp": "2022-03-27T06:15:39",
"content": "Sorry, but you obviously don’t understand what makes bread so good.. or what makes a “good bread”. Yes.. you can puff up dough in ways other than yeast farts.. but you’re missing an almost more important... | 1,760,372,746.428054 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/26/hacker-camps-are-back-to-get-you-in-the-mood-heres-a-story-from-1997/ | Hacker Camps Are Back. To Get You In The Mood, Here’s A Story From 1997 | Jenny List | [
"cons"
] | [
"cons",
"hacker camps",
"HIP97",
"history"
] | The past couple of years of the COVID pandemic have been rough in some unexpected ways, and it’s clear that our world will never be quite the same as it was beforehand. In our community, the hackerspaces are open again, and while the pandemic hasn’t gone away this year shows the promise of hosting the first major hacker camps to be held since 2019. We’re sure a number of you will be making your way to them. To give a taste of what is to come we’ve got a rare glimpse into hacker camps past.
The Netherlands events are held every four years outside pandemic disruptions, and we’re going back as far as 1997 for HIP, or Hacking In Progress, where [Christine Karman]
kept a daily diary of the event
. 25 years later it’s both a familiar account of a hacker camp and an interesting glimpse into a time when for much of the wider population an Internet connection was still a novelty.
With the WWW being such an integral part of our lives here in 2022 it’s easy to forget how much interest there was in the 1990s about the cultural possibilities of the new medium, and some of this comes through in the diary. There’s an elusive and probably fictional hacker called [Parsec], whose eventual denouement is very much redolent of that age, and it captures the sense of excitement that surrounded the 1990s Internet very well.
Meanwhile, the technology involved, Windows 95 laptops without any firewall, PCMCIA Thinwire network cards, and Internet kiosk public terminals operated by a telephone company, could only have been from that time. If you’d like to wallow in a little nostalgia, this is for you.
As a Hackaday scribe who had the chance to visit HIP and who turned it down because it didn’t seem to have enough hardware content, not for the first time there’s an element of kicking oneself in reading it.
Robot Wars
and a 1960 Triumph Herald gave me a lot of fun back in the ’90s, but with hindsight, I should have made the trip across the North Sea with my friends. To make up for that, alongside a number of smaller events this summer will see
EMF
and
MCH
in Europe, and for Americans, there will be
Toorcamp
and
Defcon
. Perhaps we’ll see you at some of them!
Thanks [Bas] for the tip! | 6 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451491",
"author": "Robin",
"timestamp": "2022-03-27T05:51:51",
"content": "We look forward to seeing you at MCH2022! It’s going to be really great to see everyone IRL again!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6451557",
"autho... | 1,760,372,746.034964 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/26/attiny85-snake-game-is-a-circuit-sandwich/ | ATtiny85 Snake Game Is A Circuit Sandwich | Kristina Panos | [
"ATtiny Hacks"
] | [
"attiny85",
"cork",
"cr2032",
"oled",
"plywood",
"snake"
] | If there’s any looming, unwritten rule of learning a programming language, it states that one must break in the syntax by printing
Hello, World!
in some form or another. If any such rule exists for game programming on a new microcontroller, then it is certainly
that thou shalt implement Snake
.
This is [__cultsauce__]’s first foray away from Arduinoville, and although they did use one to program the ATtiny85, they learned a lot along the way.
It doesn’t take much to conjure Snake with an ’85 — mostly you need a screen to play it on (an OLED in this case), some buttons to direct the snake toward the food dot, a handful of passives, and a power source.
[__cultsauce__] started by programming the microcontroller and then tested everything on a breadboard, both of which are admirable actions. Then it was time to make this plywood and cork sandwich, which gives the point-to-point solder joints some breathing room and keeps them from getting crushed. Be sure to check it out in action after the break, and
grab the files from GitHub
if you want to charm your own ‘tiny Snake.
There’s a ton you can do with this miniature microcontroller,
and that includes machine learning
. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451644",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2022-03-27T19:39:23",
"content": "Very impressive, great form factor for a handheld.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6451684",
"author": "Orzel",
"timestamp": "2022-03-27T22:16:2... | 1,760,372,746.353253 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/26/ai-generated-sleep-podcast-urges-you-to-imagine-pleasant-nonsense/ | AI-Generated Sleep Podcast Urges You To Imagine Pleasant Nonsense | Donald Papp | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Machine Learning"
] | [
"ai",
"art",
"automated",
"fairy tale",
"machine generated",
"machine learning",
"sleep"
] | [Stavros Korokithakis] finds the experience of falling asleep to fairy tales soothing, and this has resulted in a fascinating project that indulges this desire by
using machine learning to generate mildly incoherent fairy tales and read them aloud
. The result is a fantastic sort of automated, machine-generated audible sleep aid. Even the logo is machine-generated!
The
Deep Dreams Podcast
is entirely machine-generated, including the logo.
The project leverages the natural language generation abilities of
OpenAI’s GPT-3
to create fairytale-style content that is
just
coherent enough to sound natural, but
not quite
coherent enough to make a sensible plotline. The quasi-lucid, dreamlike result is perfect for urging listeners to imagine pleasant nonsense (thanks to
Nathan W Pyle
for that term) as they drift off to sleep.
We especially loved reading about the methods and challenges [Stavros] encountered while creating this project. For example, he talks about how there is more to a good-sounding narration than just pointing a text-to-speech engine at a wall of text and mashing “GO”. A good episode has things like strategic pauses, background music, and audio fades. That’s where
pydub
— a Python library for manipulating audio — came in handy. As for the speech, text-to-speech quality is beyond what it was even just a few years ago (and certainly leaps beyond
machine-generated speech in the 80s
) but it still took some work to settle on a voice that best suited the content, and the project gradually saw improvement.
Deep Dreams Podcast
has a
GitLab repository
if you want to see the code that drives it all, and you can
go to the podcast itself
to give it a listen. | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451359",
"author": "Franqlin",
"timestamp": "2022-03-26T21:07:01",
"content": "AI beaming thoughts directly into our ears while we sleep? Hmmmm",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6451525",
"author": "TacticalNinja",
... | 1,760,372,746.203593 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/26/arduino-keeps-your-classic-timex-datalink-in-sync/ | Arduino Keeps Your Classic Timex Datalink In Sync | Robin Kearey | [
"classic hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"retro watch",
"Timex",
"Timex Datalink"
] | The Timex Datalink was arguably the first usable smartwatch, and was worn by NASA astronauts as well as geek icons like Bill Gates. It could store alarms, reminders and phone numbers, and of course tell the time across a few dozen time zones. One of the Datalink’s main innovations was its ability to download information from your PC — either through flashing images on a CRT monitor or through a special adapter plugged into a serial port.
With CRTs thin on the ground and original serial adapters fetching ludicrous prices online, classic Datalink users today may find it hard to keep their watches in sync with their Outlook calendars. Fortunately for them, [famiclone] came up with a solution:
a DIY Datalink adapter based on an Arduino
. It works the same way as Timex’s serial adapter, in that it receives data through the computer’s serial port and transmits it to the watch by flashing a red LED.
Updating your watch does require the use of the original Datalink PC software, which only runs on classic operating systems like Windows 95 or 98, so you’ll need to keep a copy of such an OS running. Luckily, it has no problem with virtual machines or USB COM ports, so at least you don’t need to keep vintage PC hardware around. Then again, whipping out a 1995 Pentium laptop to update your Timex watch would make for the ultimate geek party piece.
Love classic geeky watches? Check out
this featured article
we did on them a few years ago. If you’re interested in using computer monitors to transmit data optically, we’ve covered
a few
projects
that do just that. | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451341",
"author": "Larif",
"timestamp": "2022-03-26T18:31:28",
"content": "LGR did a review of this watch a few weeks back:https://youtu.be/GCHHzw4s5W4",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6451347",
"author": "Josiah Gould",
... | 1,760,372,746.555373 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/26/inspiring-hacks-unfinished-hacks/ | Inspiring Hacks, Unfinished Hacks | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants"
] | [
"finishing",
"inspiration",
"proof of concept",
"Rant"
] | We got a tip this week, and the tipster’s comments were along the lines of “this doesn’t look like it’s a finished work yet, but I think it’s pretty cool anyway”. And that was exactly right. The work in question is basically
attaching a simple webcam to a CNC router and then having at it with OpenCV
, and [vector76]’s application was cutting out freeform hand-drawn curves from wood. To amuse his daughter.
But there’s no apology necessary for presenting a work in progress. Unfinished hacks are awesome! They leave room for further improvement and interpretation. They are like an unfinished story, inviting the hacker to dream up their own end. At least that’s how this one worked on me.
My mind went racing — adding smart and extensible computer vision to a CNC router enables not only line tracing, but maybe smarter edge finding, broken tool detection, and who knows what else. With the software end so flexible these days, and the additional hardware demands so minimal, it’s an invitation. It’s like Pavlov ringing that bell, and I’m the dog-hacker. Or something.
So remember this when you get half done with a project, get to a workable first-stage demo, but you haven’t chased down each and every possibility. Leaving something up to other hackers’ imagination can be just as powerful. Your proof of concept doesn’t have to be
the mother of all demos
— sometimes just a working mouse will suffice.
This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on
the web version of the newsletter
.
Want this type of article to hit your inbox every Friday morning?
You should sign up
! | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451305",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2022-03-26T14:42:23",
"content": "Yay for janky “not finished but it works” things!Especially those that are still running 10 years later.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6451308",
"a... | 1,760,372,746.604105 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/26/now-the-v-in-risc-v-stands-for-vroom/ | Now The V In RISC-V Stands For VRoom | Matthew Carlson | [
"FPGA",
"hardware"
] | [
"cpu",
"processor",
"RISC-V",
"system verilog"
] | Hundreds of variations of open-source CPUs written in an HDL seem to float around the internet these days (and that’s a great thing). Many are RISC-V, an open-source instruction set (ISA), and are small toy processors useful for learning and small tasks. However, if you’re [Paul Campbell], you go for a
high-end super-scalar, out-of-order, speculative, 8 IPC monster of a RISC-V CPU known as VRoom!
.
That might seem a bit like word soup to the uninitiated in the processor design world (which is admittedly relatively small) but what makes this different from
VexRISC
is the scale and complexity. Rather than executing one instruction at a time sequentially, it executes multiple instructions, completing them concurrently in whatever order it can handle. The VexRISC chip is a good 32-bit modular design that can run Linux. It pulls a solid 1.57
DMIPS/MHz
with everything turned on. The VRoom already clocks in at mighty 6.5 DMIPS/MHz, with more performance gains. It peaks at 8 instructions every clock cycle with a dual register file and a clever committing system to keep up.
VRoom is written in System Verilog to leverage Verilator (a handy linting and simulation framework), and while there is some C that generates different files, we’d wager it is pretty run-of-the-mill compared to a
TypeScript based project
. VRoom currently boots Linux thanks to an AWS-FPGA instance (a Xilinx VU9P Ultrascale), though it has to be trimmed to fit. [Paul] has big plans working his way up to a server-class chip with lots of cores and a huge cache.
It’s all on
GitHub
under a GPLv3 license; go check it out! [Paul] also
has a talk
with lots of great details. If you’re interested in getting into RISC-V but a server-class isn’t your speed, we heard Espressif is
starting to use RISC-V cores in their ever-popular ESP series
. | 24 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451259",
"author": "Paul Campbell",
"timestamp": "2022-03-26T11:15:58",
"content": "Paul Campbell here – AMAA minor nit – I’m currently building in Verilator rather than Icarus (I’ve started using System Verilog Interfaces) – I’d love to still be using Icarus (I’m a big fan of ‘X’ ... | 1,760,372,746.664113 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/26/reverse-engineering-your-own-bluetooth-audio-module/ | Reverse Engineering Your Own Bluetooth Audio Module | Jenny List | [
"Parts"
] | [
"audio",
"bluetooth",
"module"
] | There was a time when we would start our electronic projects with integrated circuits and other components, mounted on stripboard, or maybe on a custom PCB. This is still the case for many devices, but it has become increasingly common for an inexpensive ready-built module to be treated as a component where once it would have been a project in its own right. We’re pleased then to see the work of [ElectroBoy], who has combined something of both approaches by reverse engineering the pinout of a Chinese Bluetooth audio chip with minimal datasheet, and making
his own take on an off-the-shelf Bluetooth audio module
.
The JL_AC6939B comes in an SOIC16 package and requires a minimum number of components. The PCB is therefore a relatively simple proposition and indeed he’s fitted all parts and traces on one side with the other being a copper ground plane. It’s dangerous to assume that’s all there is to a board like this one though, because many an engineer has come unstuck trying to design a PCB antenna. We’d hazard a guess that the antenna here is simply a wavy PCB line rather than an antenna with a known impedance and bandwidth, at the very least it looks to have much thicker traces than the one it’s copying.
It’s possible that it’s not really worth the effort of making a module that can be bought for relative pennies ready-made, but to dismiss it is to miss the point. We make things
because we can
, and not merely
because we should
. | 32 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451240",
"author": "Thomas+Anderson",
"timestamp": "2022-03-26T09:01:13",
"content": "From what I’ve read in the past these JL chips (at least some of them) are full-blown microcontrollers that can be programmed to do a ton of stuff. Some can do FM radio and bluetooth in the same p... | 1,760,372,746.736094 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/25/polar-planimeter-quantifies-area-by-plotting-perimeter/ | Polar Planimeter Quantifies Area By Plotting Perimeter | Ryan Flowers | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"cad",
"drafting",
"old school",
"retro"
] | These days it’s hard to be carry the label “maker” or “hacker” without also being proficient in some kind of CAD- even if the C is for Cardboard. But before there was CAD there was Drafting and its associated arts, and one couldn’t just select a shape and see its area in the square unit of your choice. So how could an old school draftsman figure out the area of complex shapes? [Chris Staecker] introduces us to the polar planimeter, a measuring tool created specifically for the purpose and
explained in full in the video below the break
.
The polar planimeter being discussed is a higher end unit from the 1960’s. Interestingly, the first polar planimeters were invented in the early 19th century even before the math that describes their function was completed. A lever is placed in a fixed position on one end and into the planimeter on the other. The planimeter itself has another arm with a reticle on it. The unit is zero’d out with a button, and the outline of the shape in question is traced in a clockwise fashion with the reticle.
What makes the polar planimeter capable of measuring in multiple dimensions is the fixed arm. The fixed arm pivots around, allowing the planimeter to track angle changes which affects the output. So, the planimeter isn’t just measuring the length of the perimeter, but the
size
of the perimeter. The final measurement is output in square inches.
Overall it’s a really slick tool we didn’t know existed, and it’s fascinating to see how such problems were solved before everything could be done with a mouse click or two. Be sure to check out this
100+ year old reference set to round out your knowledge of past knowledge
. Thanks to [Zane] for the great tip! | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451254",
"author": "jwrm22",
"timestamp": "2022-03-26T11:01:01",
"content": "I’m a fan of these old calculation devices, this creator has quite the video collection. Recently invested time again in the slide rule, just because :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replie... | 1,760,372,748.97303 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/25/get-github-tickets-irl-with-a-raspberry-pi-and-a-receipt-printer/ | Get GitHub Tickets IRL With A Raspberry Pi And A Receipt Printer | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"github",
"issue",
"ngrok",
"php",
"raspberry pi",
"thermal printer",
"ticket",
"webhooks"
] | Thermal receipt printers are finding their way into all sorts of projects that are well beyond the point-of-sale environment that they normally inhabit. And while we applaud all the creative and artistic uses hackers have found for these little gems,
this GitHub physical ticket printer
has to be the best use for one yet.
According to [Andrew Schmelyun], seeing a fast-food order pop up on a thermal printer was the inspiration for this build. Maintaining over one hundred GitHub repos as he does, it’s easy for the details of any one bug report or feature request to get lost in the swarm of sticky notes that [Andrew] previously used to keep track of his work. To make it happen, he teamed an Epson thermal printer up to a Raspberry Pi Zero W and worked out the details of sending data to the printer using PHP. Luckily,
there’s a library for that
— the beauty of GitHub.
With the “Hello, World!” bit out of the way, [Andrew] turned his attention to connecting to GitHub. He set up some webhooks on the GitHub side to send a POST request every time an issue is reported on one of his repos. The POSTs are sent via ngrok to a PHP web server running on the Pi, which formats the data and sends the text to the printer. There’s a short video in the tweet below.
Between the sound of the printer working and the actual dead-tree ticket, it’ll be hard for [Andrew] to miss issues now. We’ve seen
thermal printers stuffed into cameras
, used to
send pictures to Grannie
, and even watched them
commit suicide slowly
, but we say hats off to [Andrew] for his solid work ethic and a fun new way to put a receipt printer to use.
So here's why I bought a receipt printer:
Every time one of my GitHub repos gets a new issue, I now get a physical ticket printed out on my desk 🪄
pic.twitter.com/g6uYtGP9J7
— Andrew Schmelyun (@aschmelyun)
March 24, 2022 | 15 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451205",
"author": "Feinfinger (looking confused)",
"timestamp": "2022-03-26T04:49:53",
"content": "Come on!Use ePaper instead of murdered trees!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6451214",
"author": "ConductiveInsulati... | 1,760,372,748.358654 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/25/diy-prony-dyno-properly-displays-power-production/ | DIY Prony Dyno Properly Displays Power Production | Ryan Flowers | [
"Engine Hacks"
] | [
"212cc",
"dynamometer",
"dyno",
"engine",
"harbor freight",
"horsepower",
"prony dyno",
"torque"
] | When hackers in the US think of a retailer called Harbor Freight, we usually think of cheap tools, workable but terrible DVM’s, zip ties, and tarps. [Jimbo] over at [Robot Cantina] looked at the 212cc “Predator” engine that they sell and thought “I bet I could power my Honda Insight with that.” And he did, successfully! How much power did the heavily modified engine make? In the video below the break, [Jimbo] takes us through
the process of measuring its output using a home built dyno.
The dyno that [Jimbo] has built is a Prony Dyno, and it’s among the oldest and simplest designs available. A torque arm is extended from a disk brake caliper and connects to a force gauge. The engine is ran up to its highest speed, and then he brake is applied to the crankshaft until the engine almost stalls. A tachometer keep track of the RPM, and the force gauge measures the force on the torque arm. Torque is multiplied by RPM and the result is divided by a constant of 5252, and voilà: Horsepower. A computer plots the results across the entire range, and the dyno test is complete.
That only tells part of the story, and the real hack comes when you realize that the dyno stand, the force gauge setup and pretty much everything that can be built at home has been built at home. You’ll also enjoy seeing the results of some driving tests between the 212cc engine and its bigger 420cc brother, how even minor changes to the engine affect the horsepower and torque curves, and how that affects the Honda that he calls his “Street legal go cart.”
Speaking of unusual power plants, how about
plant some hobby sized jet turbines on the back of your Tesla for fun
? | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451160",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2022-03-26T00:00:40",
"content": "212 cc?Why didn’t he just get a French car?To be fair. This is symmetry to my mouse (small block Chevy V8 for the eurotrash) powered push mower.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,748.296644 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/25/diy-sls-3d-printer-getting-ready-to-print/ | DIY SLS 3D Printer Getting Ready To Print | Dave Rowntree | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"klipper",
"raspberry pi",
"selective laser sintering",
"sls"
] | Ten years ago the concept of having on our desks an affordable 3D printer knocking out high quality reproducible prints, with sub-mm accuracy, in a wide range of colours and material properties would be the would be just a dream. But now, it is reality. The machines that are now so ubiquitous for us hackers, are largely operating with the FDM principle of shooting molten plastic out of a moving nozzle, but they’re not the only game in town. A technique that has also being around for donkeys’ years is SLS or Selective Laser Sintering, but machines of this type are big, heavy and expensive. However, getting one of those in your own ‘shop now is looking a little less like a dream and more of a reality, with the
SLS4All project
by [Tomas Starek] over on hackaday.io.
[Tomas] has been busy over the past year, working on the
design of his machine
and is now almost done with the building and testing of the hardware side. SLS printing works by using a roller to transfer a layer of powdered material over the print surface, and then steering a medium-power laser beam over the surface in order to heat and bond the powder grains into a solid mass. Then, the bed is lowered a little, and the process repeats. Heating of the bed, powder and surrounding air is critical, as is moisture control, plus keeping that laser beam shape consistent over the full bed area is a bit tricky as well. These are all hurdles [Tomas] has to overcome, but the test machine is completed and is in a good place to start this process control optimisation fun.
Hardware-wise, the frame is the usual aluminium extrusion and 3D printed affair, with solid aluminium plates all over the place where needed. Electronics are based around a Raspberry Pi (running Klipper) with a BigTreeTech 1.4 turbo mainboard handling the interfacing. The 5W blue laser is steered over the powder surface using a pair of galvanometers, which sounds easier to get right than it will be — we fully expect there to be some ‘fun’ to control the spot size and shape as well as ensure that it stays consistent over the full area of the build surface. Definitely fun times, and fingers crossed that [Tomas] irons out the details and gets some good prints out of it soon!
Those who’ve been around here a while may remember we covered the
OpenSLS project
a while ago, and whilst we’re on the subject of 3D printing in alternative ways to FDM, here’s a little something about
printing with metal
, so long as you’re plenty patient! | 12 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451099",
"author": "DC",
"timestamp": "2022-03-25T20:14:13",
"content": "If only a 5W laser is needed, I would just mount the laser head on an XY stage and call it a day. Galvanometers and mirrors are just a never ending headache, constantly drifting out of adjustment, degrading, ... | 1,760,372,748.687439 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/25/a-robot-game-to-open-your-hackerspace/ | A Robot Game To Open Your Hackerspace | Jenny List | [
"Hackerspaces",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"Hackerspace Drenthe",
"robot",
"tic-tac-toe"
] | It’s always good to welcome a new hackerspace to the fold, and thus we’re pleased to hear about the upcoming opening of Hackerspace Drenthe, on the north-eastern edge of the Netherlands. Starting a new space during a global pandemic is something of a feat. As part of their opening something is required to demonstrate a robot for the curious public, and what could be more accessible than
a robot arm playing tic-tac-toe
!
It would be correct to say that a robot moving blocks with precision is not necessarily a ground-breaking achievement, but in its purpose of providing eye-candy for a hackerspace opening while also serving as an experiment for some of the students from the school adjacent to the space it is a success. The interface is a pleasingly retro
War Games
style terminal, and the software is written in Python. For the curious all can be found on
a GitHub repository
, and should you be in that region of Europe you can find
Hackerspace Drenthe
in the Netherlands border town of Coevorden and attend their opening on the 2nd of April. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451071",
"author": "Alan Frost",
"timestamp": "2022-03-25T18:48:37",
"content": "Spending time in our makespace before the pandemic, we constantly were looking for cool projects for the new attendees to get into! Excellent project!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repl... | 1,760,372,748.40007 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/25/high-noon-for-daylight-savings-time/ | High Noon For Daylight Savings Time | Elliot Williams | [
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Rants"
] | [
"daylight saving time",
"economics",
"policy",
"Rant",
"sundial"
] | The US Senate has approved the “Sunshine Protection Act”, a bill to
make Daylight Saving time the default time
and do away with the annual time changes. While I can get behind the latter half of this motion, redefining Daylight Saving time as Standard time is, in my opinion, nonsense.
It’s particularly funny timing, coming right around the Vernal Equinox, when the sun stands at its highest right at Noon Standard Time, to be debating calling this time “one PM” forevermore.
Right Idea, Wrong Time
Let’s do a quick overview of the good idea here — doing away with time changes. These are known to
cause sleep disturbances
and this leads not just to sleepy heads on Monday morning, but to an
increased risk of heart attack
and
accidents in general
. When researchers look into the data, it’s the “springing forward” that causes trouble. People who’ve slept one extra hour don’t seem to suffer as much as people who’ve lost one. Go figure.
So maybe it makes sense to stop changing times. If we’re going to settle on one standard time, do we pick Standard time or Daylight Saving time? Admittedly, this is a totally unfair way to pose the question, but there are a number of good reasons to prefer all-year Standard time. The biggest one is winter. Basically, it’s already tough enough to get up on a cold January morning when the sun is not due to rise for another hour or two. Add another hour of darkness on top, and you know why
the two previous attempts to run all-year Daylight Saving were short-lived
. And why the Swedes drink so much coffee.
“
France-002886 – Sundial
” by
archer10 (Dennis)
CC BY-SA 2.0.
There’s also the fundamental logic behind our measurement of time that’s stood for centuries, and is embedded in most of our cultural references to time. Ante Meridian and Post Meridian. High Noon, when the hour hand on the clock points straight up, represents the sun itself. But even before clocks, the sun’s halfway point along its daily journey marked the halfway point of the day. That’s not only why we eat lunch when we do, it’s the origin of man’s time-telling itself.
If we change the definition of noon permanently, we’ve decoupled time from the sun. How will we explain time to future children? I’ll accept Daylight Saving time when we start reprinting analog watches with 1 o’clock at the top and start referring to 12 AM as the one that’s just before the sun reaches its peak. As soon as “one noon” replaces “twelve noon”, I’ll get on board. Midnight, when the clock strikes one, just doesn’t send the same shiver down my spine. Sorry, Dracula.
If culture and physics point to Standard Time, why would you want Daylight Saving to be the new normal? When people think of Daylight Saving, they naturally think of those nice long summer days that stretch out into the night. My personal bet is that many folks are confounding summertime with Summer Time. Heck, even the name of the bill proposes to protect sunshine itself, rather than just move the hands of the clock around. These are not good reasons.
The Economics
The good reason behind the Daylight Saving time proposal — indeed, the original reason — is to save energy. And this probably made intuitive sense in the 1950s, when a significant amount of energy was spent on lighting. But nowadays, when non-sleeping people are running the air conditioning even if their lights are still off, it’s not so clear. For the longest time, there were no empirical economic studies of Daylight Saving, until 2008, when there were, and when the situation
remained not entirely clear
.
In 2007, the
Energy Policy Act of 2005
came into effect, and America’s Daylight Saving time was extended by a couple weeks on one side, and a couple days on the other. And while it was a mild inconvenience for normal folks to remember the new dates, this sort of change in a system is an economist’s dream. In a field where running country-scale experiments is forbidden, these sort of external changes offer the next best opportunity to figure out how things work. Something changed in the system, what are the results?
The US Department of Energy (DOE) put out a
report to Congress in 2008
(PDF) analyzing the national effect of the change. They note a savings at night that slightly outweighs an increase in energy demand in the mornings, in summer. They also note that there are increased savings in March compared to November. Their conclusion was that there was a 0.5% daily energy savings attributable to Daylight Saving. All in all, the new policy saved the US 0.03% of annual energy demand. Not exactly overwhelming, but not nothing.
Another
empirical economic study
of Daylight Saving time came out in 2008. This paper was based on household-level evidence from Indiana, which had the peculiarity that Daylight Saving was implemented on a per-county basis both before and after the 2007 national change. Some counties switched to DST, some switched from DST, and some didn’t switch at all. This let the researchers do a much more direct comparison of “treatment” and “control” groups across counties; they chose Indiana because it was the perfect natural experiment. Their fine-grained dataset also allowed them to break down the overall energy consumption into a few categories. They found a 1% daily
increase
in energy use. As you’d expect electricity for lighting dropped, but was more than compensated for by heating and cooling.
Both of these studies agree that Daylight Saving time actually increases energy consumption starting some time in the early fall. And while neither of these studies were aimed at answering the right question — if we extended DST through the winter, what would happen? — they both suggest that it would be the opposite of saving. Making Daylight Saving time permanent won’t save energy. And depending on which of the two studies you believe, getting rid of it entirely might.
What to Do?
So if you asked Aristotle, he’d side with me. Noon is when the sun is at its highest, and the planets orbit in perfect circles. (OK, scratch that.) If medicine points toward running only one time standard, then astronomy as well as linguistic, horological, and cultural tradition all point toward Standard time as the right choice. The economic effects are probably not all that significant one way or the other, and will probably depend on future relative efficiency gains in lighting versus air conditioning. (Good luck predicting
that
.) All I know is that Daylight Saving messes up my sundial right now.
But how am I going to sell undoing Daylight Saving time to people who think they’re literally “Saving Daylight” or “Protecting Sunshine”? To people who’ve heard that DST saves energy their whole life, whether it’s demonstrably true or not? To people who confuse longer days in the summer with lies about the funny numbers on a clock? Fool’s errand. | 103 | 37 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451035",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2022-03-25T17:07:12",
"content": "Don’t forget, there was an earlier change. In the late seventies or early eighties, the clocks changed earlier, the last Sunday of October as I recall. It impacted Halloween. I think the spring d... | 1,760,372,748.919654 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/25/hackaday-podcast-161-laser-lithography-centurion-hard-drive-and-mad-bga-soldering/ | Hackaday Podcast 161: Laser Lithography, Centurion Hard Drive, And Mad BGA Soldering | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney for an audio tour of the week’s top stories and best hacks. We’ll look at squeezing the most out of a coin cell, taking the first steps towards DIY MEMS fabrication, and seeing if there’s any chance that an 80’s-vintage minicomputer might ride again. How small is too small when it comes to chip packages? We’ll find out, and discover the new spectator sport of microsoldering while we’re at it. Find out what’s involved in getting a real dead-tree book published, and watch a hacker take revenge on a proprietary memory format — and a continuous glucose monitor, too.
Or
Direct Download
, like you’ve got something to prove!
Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 161 Show Notes:
News This Week:
Almost 37 years after its launch, someone found an Easter egg in Windows 1.0
Satellite Snoopers Pick Up Surprising TV Broadcast
Welcome To The Future, Where Your Microwave Thinks It’s A Steam Oven
What’s that Sound?
Congratulations Phil, among 95 others, who recognized the theme music to The IT Crowd. (And thanks to a number of respondents, I have 0118-999 stuck in my head.)
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Old Printer Becomes Direct Laser Lithography Machine
Exposing PCBs With A Home Made Laser Printer
Laser Exposing PCBs With A Blu-Ray Laser
Minicomputer Restoration Hanging In The Balance
Hacker Challenges MemoryStick To A Fight And Wins
Careful Cuts Lets Logger Last A Year On A Coin Cell
Coin Cell Hacks That Won The Coin Cell Challenge
Heroic Efforts Give Smallest ARM MCU A Breakout, Open Debugger
How Small Is Too Small?
Tom’s “Hack Chat Recap” Series:
The Open Source ASICs Hack Chat Redefines Possible
Classic Chat: Arko Takes Us Inside NASA’s Legendary JPL
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Wireshark HTTPS Decryption
Tune Your Dish Antenna Like A Pro
Web Serial Terminal Means It’s Always Hacking Time
IR Remote Transforms To RF
Dan’s Picks:
Morse Keyboard Communicates With The Blink Of An Eye
POW Blinks ‘Torture’ in Morse Code
3D Printing Snap Fit Joints
Learn All About Writing A Published Technical Book, From Idea To Print
Can’t-Miss Articles:
The New-Phone Blues: A Reminder That Hackers Shouldn’t Settle
And we talked about
Owning A ShortWave Radio Is Once Again A Subversive Activity
, but the show went so far over time, that I cut it. It’s a cool hack-your-own radio thing, though, so you should go read it. We could post up that discussion as a bonus episode? Let us know in the comments. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,372,748.491805 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/25/label-your-smd-tapes-with-an-inkjet-printer/ | Label Your SMD Tapes With An Inkjet Printer | Jenny List | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"component tape",
"HP46",
"inkjet"
] | If you’ve ever had to use SMD components on tape outside the realm of the automated assembly machines for which they were designed, you’ll know that one tape looks very like another and it can be very annoying to keep track of which is which. We can’t help admiring [Yvo de Haas’]
inkjet printer for SMD tapes
then, which efficiently prints whatever identifying marks you need on the back of your tapes.
The printer uses the venerable HP45 inkjet cartridge, and teams it with a 3D printed mechanism and [Yvo]’s self-designed driver board. A worm gear motor and a sprocket take care of advancing the tape through the mechanism past the printhead, and there is a well-assembled piece of software to drive it all. With extremely comprehensive build instructions it should be within the reach of anyone who handles component tape, and from our experience of hand-labeling tape for kits we can see that it could be a Godsend. Take a look at it in action in the video below.
So far the tape-handling machinery we’ve seen has mostly been
for cutting sections
rather than labeling. We can see that this printer paired with a tape cutter should be
essential equipment for anyone starting a kit business
. | 15 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451033",
"author": "splud",
"timestamp": "2022-03-25T17:00:19",
"content": "Good for paper tape, so largely resistors and capacitors, but most other components are plastic tape. Any solutions for those?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"com... | 1,760,372,748.453392 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/25/this-week-in-security-browser-in-the-browser-mass-typo-squatting-and-dev-random-upgrades/ | This Week In Security: Browser In The Browser, Mass Typo-squatting, And /dev/random Upgrades | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"Lapsus$",
"linux",
"This Week in Security",
"typosquatting"
] | For every very clever security protocol that keeps people safe,
there’s a stupid hack that defeats it
in an unexpected way. Take OAuth for instance. It’s the technology that sites are using when they offer to “log in with Facebook”. It’s a great protocol, because it lets you prove your identity using a trusted third party. You don’t have to use a password at whatever site you’re trying to use, you just to be logged in to your Google/Facebook/Apple account, and click the button to allow access. If you’re not logged in, the pop-up window prompts for your username and password, which of course is one way phishing attacks try to steal passwords. So we tell people to look at the URL, and make sure they are actually signing in to the proper site.
An OAuth pop-up window
The stupid hack that isn’t stupid, because it works: Recreating the browser window in HTML/CSS. Yep, it’s pretty straightforward to add a
div
to your site, and decorate it to look just like a browser window, just like an OAuth pop-up. In the appropriate place goes an iframe pointing to the actual phishing form. It looks convincing, but once you’re aware of the game, there’s a dead giveaway — try to move the OAuth window outside the browser window that spawned it. Websites can’t draw outside the browser window or over its window decorations, so this limitation makes it easy to confirm whether this hack is in play. The other saving grace is that a password manager isn’t fooled by this trick at all.
Via:
Ars Technica
Typo-squatting At Scale
There’s
a typo-squatting campaign going on
at NPM, primarily targeted at Azure users. NPM has a packaging feature called “scoped packages”. A scope starts with the at sign, and indicates packages intentionally grouped together. In this case the scope is
@azure
, including packages like
@azure/core-tracing
, with over 1.5 million weekly downloads. The typo? Just drop the scope. NPM considers it completely acceptable to have both the
@azure/core-tracing
and
core-tracing
packages — in fact, it’s a feature of the scoping system. But forget to include the scope, and you may get a malicious package instead. Over 200 packages were targeted in this way, but have since been pulled by NPM.
The payload was strictly reconnaissance, grabbing directory listings, IP addresses, and the like. It’s likely that the information would be used to craft more malicious future updates, though no such behavior has been observed. This is likely due to how rapidly these packages were caught and removed — after only about two days. The domain used for data collection is
425a2.rt11.ml
, so that string showing up in a DNS log somewhere is an indicator that one of these packages were installed.
Lapsus$ Strikes Again, Again
The loose collection of hackers knows as Lapsus$ have potentially
scored breaches at both Microsoft and Okta
.
KrebsonSecurity has a bit more information
about the group and the Microsoft case. The group seems to be doing some of their coordination over a Telegram channel, which is open for anyone to join. The group boasted of their exploits on this channel, and Microsoft respondents found and cut their access during the data exfiltration. A 10 GB file has been released containing partial source to Bing search, Bing Maps, and Cortana.
The Okta situation is even murkier, as the released screenshots indicate access back in late January. The access seems to have been limited to a administrative portal, via a Support Engineer’s account. Okta has gone out of their way to assure everyone that there was no actual breach, and the rogue access was quickly dealt with. This seems to be a bit disingenuous, as Lapsus$ was after companies making use of Okta services, and didn’t need to compromise their systems any further. Okta provides access management for other companies, like Cloudflare. There’s likely been some quiet infiltration happening in the months since this happened.
Linux Gets More Random
[Jason Donenfeld], kernel hacker and main developer of Wireguard, has worked recently on the Linux random number generator. A few changes landed in release 5.17, and more are coming in 5.18. He was kind enough to
write up some of the interesting changes
for our education. He considers his most important contribution to be documentation. I can confirm, among the most frustrating problems a programmer can face is when the documentation has bit-rotted to uselessness.
One of the biggest user-facing changes was the attempt to unify
/dev/random
and
/dev/urandom
. We say attempt, because this change caused multiple failures to boot on the kernel’s test setup. Apparently some architectures, specifically when being virtualized, have no method of generating high quality randomness during boot. There next killer feature is the new
add_vmfork_randomness()
call, that allows a newly cloned virtual machine to request a regeneration of its randomness pool. Without a call like this, the first few random numbers generated by the kernel after a VM fork would be identical — obviously a problem.
Internally, the randomness code retires the venerable SHA-1 algorithm, replacing it with the more modern BLAKE2 hash function. An interesting advantage is that BLAKE2 is intentionally a very fast algorithm, so the kernel gains a bit of performance when generating random numbers. The rest of the changes delve into more complicated cryptography considerations. Definitely worth reading if you’re interested.
Western Digital NAS RCE
We’ve covered plenty of vulnerabilties and attacks in NAS boxes from QNAP and Synology, but this week
it’s Western Digital getting in on the action
. Thankfully it’s research from NCC Group,
demonstrated at Pwn2Own 2021
, and fixed in a January update. This Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability is in how the NAS handles the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP), and was actually a problem in the Netatalk project. AFP supports storing file metadata as a separate file, for the sake of compatibility. These files are in the AppleDouble format, are take the name of their parent file, prepended with a
._
. The kicker is that these files can also be accessed using the Windows SMB protocol, allowing direct manipulation of the metadata file. The function that parses the metadata file does indeed detect a malformed data structure, and logs an error to that effect, but fails to fail — it goes ahead and processes the bad data.
This continue-on-error is the central flaw, but actually building an exploit required a data leak to defeat the address layout randomization in place on the device. A simpler first step was to write memory locations into the AppleDouble file, and use SMB access to read it. With the leaked address in hand, the full exploit was easy. This would be bad enough, but these devices ship with a “Public” share world-accessible over SMB and AFP. This configuration makes it a pre-auth RCE. And this demonstrates the purpose of Pwn2Own — it was discovered, made the researchers a bit of money, and was fixed before the details were made public. | 19 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451023",
"author": "tomás zerolo",
"timestamp": "2022-03-25T15:54:46",
"content": "[OAuth] “… It’s a great protocol…”No, it’s not. It’s a Rube Goldberg, and as we see, a bunch of mishaps waiting to happen.The driving force is the Big Ones, who want to stick their proboscis into eve... | 1,760,372,748.640329 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/25/designed-from-scratch-and-fully-handmade-the-modular-coleman-z80-computer/ | Designed From Scratch And Fully Handmade: The Modular Coleman Z80 Computer | Robin Kearey | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"16x2 LCD",
"homebrew computer",
"modular hardware",
"z80"
] | While the phrase “I built my own computer” might sound impressive to the uninitiated, anyone with an interest in modern computer hardware knows that there’s really not much to it: buy a case, a motherboard with a CPU, some RAM and peripherals, and you’re pretty much there. What’s way more impressive is designing a complete computer system from the ground up, as [Joshua Coleman] just did
when he built the Coleman Z80
.
And when we say “from the ground up”, we mean it: everything down to the system bus was hand-drawn by [Joshua] himself. It does share something with modern PCs though: a strictly modular design. There’s a Z80 CPU board, a ROM and RAM board, and even two modules that you could describe as a video card and a sound card. All of these are built on prototyping boards with a 40-pin edge connector and hooked up to a single backplane carrying the main system bus.
Designed as an experimentation platform, the Coleman Z80 has many features that enable testing and debugging, such as an adjustable clock generator and a few beautiful vintage LED displays that show the status of the main bus. Input and output are mainly through a serial link and a 16×2 LCD, but [Joshua] is already planning a keyboard interface and composite video output to give it that proper 1980s home computer vibe. The software is currently limited to a ROM monitor that enables basic I/O commands, but with 256 KB of RAM there’s plenty of potential for writing useful software.
Just as impressive as the design itself is the fact that this was [Joshua]’s first electronic design project; we’ve certainly seen worse first projects! Over the years we’ve featured several cool homebrew Z80 computers, such as
a super-minimalistic board
,
a modular system based on the powerful eZ80
, and
this cute little one that fits inside an Altoids tin
. | 34 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450949",
"author": "Doug Leppard",
"timestamp": "2022-03-25T11:26:03",
"content": "This brings back memories. My first from the ground up was an 8008, I had to build everything. Next computer was a z80 cpm based computer built not quite from ground up but almost. But I never wan... | 1,760,372,748.568144 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/25/custom-controller-ups-heat-pump-efficiency/ | Custom Controller Ups Heat Pump Efficiency | Bryan Cockfield | [
"green hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"efficiency",
"Heat pump",
"heating",
"plumbing",
"siphoning",
"tank",
"temperature",
"timer",
"water"
] | Heat Pumps are an extremely efficient way to maintain climate control in a building. Unlike traditional air conditioners, heat pumps can also effectively work in reverse to warm a home in winter as well as cool it in summer; with up to five times the efficiency of energy use as a traditional electric heater. Even with those tremendous gains in performance, there are still some ways to improve on them as
[Martin] shows us with some modifications he made to his heat pump system
.
This specific heat pump is being employed not for climate control but for water heating, which sees similar improvements in efficiency over a standard water heater. The problem with [Martin]’s was that even then it was simply running much too often. After sleuthing the energy losses and trying a number of things including a one-way valve on the heating water plumbing to prevent siphoning, he eventually found that the heat pump was ramping up to maximum temperature once per day even if the water tank was already hot. By building a custom master controller for the heat pump which includes some timing relays, the heat pump only runs up to its maximum temperature once per week.
While there are some concerns with Legionnaire’s bacteria if the system is not maintained properly, this modification still meets all of Australia’s stringent building code requirements. His build is more of an investigative journey into a more complex piece of machinery, and his efforts net him a max energy usage of around 1 kWh per day which is 50% more efficient than it was when it was first installed. If you’re looking to investigate more into heat pumps,
take a look at this DIY Arduino-controlled mini heat pump
. | 59 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450926",
"author": "Viktor",
"timestamp": "2022-03-25T10:07:20",
"content": "I don’t use that much hot water to justify a heat pump, ever.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6450932",
"author": "Daniel",
"timesta... | 1,760,372,749.124078 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/24/lego-sorting-vacuum-defeats-the-problem/ | LEGO-Sorting Vacuum Defeats The Problem | Kristina Panos | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"lego",
"LEGO sorting",
"shop vac",
"vacuum"
] | What’s the worst thing about LEGO? Most would agree that it’s the fact that those bright and colorful pieces of ABS are somehow the most evil thing that can come between your bare feet and solid ground. [Unnecessary Inventions] have done a one-eighty from their handle and made a quite useful invention —
a LEGO-sorting vacuum cleaner
called Suck It.
Well, technically, it’s a shop vac attachment, but it does the job beautifully. [Unnecessary Inventions] started with a never-used machine and a clear plastic cylinder cut into fourths. Then he designed some 3D printable brackets that have two jobs: they hold the cylinder together again, and they do so in stages that collect and sort LEGO by size.
The sorting brackets have no top and bottom layers to them — they are all sorting holes and infill to allow maximum suction. But wait, it gets even better, because the brackets click together satisfyingly with embedded magnets. The only thing that would make this build better is some kind of head attachment that could gather more than a narrow swath at a time. Be sure to check out the build and demo video after the break.
Of course, with this method, you still have to open up the sections and put your LEGO away.
You could just vacuum them straight into the box
. | 17 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450870",
"author": "X",
"timestamp": "2022-03-25T06:39:48",
"content": "I do still play with my Lego blocks but I actually prefer to keep them all mixed up together in a big shopping bag, it is actually easier to find what you need because there is a lovely assortment of blocks rig... | 1,760,372,749.033092 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/24/pispy-the-camera-setup-designed-to-make-biological-observations-better/ | PiSpy, The Camera Setup Designed To Make Biological Observations Better | Dan Maloney | [
"Science"
] | [
"biology",
"raspberry pi",
"science"
] | Back in grad school, we biology students were talking shop at lunch one day. We “lab rats” were talking about the tools of the trade, which for most of us included things like gel electrophoresis, restriction endonucleases, and polymerase chain reaction. Not to be left out, a fellow who studied fire ants chimed in that his main tool was a lawn chair, which he set up by a Dumpster in a convenience store parking lot to watch a fire ant colony. Such is the glamor of field biology.
Ants on the march. Tough luck for the crickets, though.
What our colleague [Mike] wouldn’t have given for something like
PiSpy
, the automated observation tool for organismal biology by [Greg Pask] of Middlebury College,
et al
. As discussed in
the preprint abstract
, an automated imaging platform can be key to accurate observations of some organisms, whose behavior might be influenced by the presence of a human observer, or even a grad student in a lawn chair. Plus, PiSpy offers all the usual benefits of automation — it doesn’t get tired, it doesn’t need to take bathroom breaks, and it can even work around the clock. PiSpy is based on commonly available components, like laser-cut plywood and a Raspberry Pi and camera, so it has the added advantage of being cheap and easy to produce — or at least it will be when the Pi supply picks back up again. PiSpy takes advantage of the Pi’s GPIO pins to enable triggering based on external events, or controlling peripherals like lights or servos.
While built for biological research, there are probably dozens of uses for something like PiSpy. It could be handy for monitoring mechanical testing setups, or perhaps for capturing UI changes during embedded device development. Or you could just use it to
watch birds at a feeder
. The source is all open-sourced, so whatever you make of PiSpy is up to you — even if it’s not for watching fire ants. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6451009",
"author": "Thinkerer",
"timestamp": "2022-03-25T15:01:47",
"content": "From the preprint.Github for the project:https://github.com/gpask/PiSpyForum:https://forum.openhardware.science/c/projects/pispy/58",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,372,749.20062 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/24/desktop-performance-in-a-custom-mac-laptop/ | Desktop Performance In A Custom Mac Laptop | Bryan Cockfield | [
"News"
] | [
"3d print",
"apple",
"battery",
"custom",
"design",
"ipad",
"laptop",
"M1",
"mac",
"mac mini",
"Thermal"
] | Most of us either own or have used a laptop at some point. For traveling, as a student, or even for browsing Hackaday on the couch in front of the TV, they are pretty much indispensable. They do tend to have a sharp performance reduction compared to a desktop though thanks to the thermal and battery limitations of a portable form factor. [Scott Yu-Jan] wanted to solve that in his own life
by building a custom Mac laptop with none of these downsides
.
Noticing that a modern iPad Mini has exactly the same width of his Mac Mini, [Scott] set about combining the two devices into a single unit that he could assemble when traveling. A
3D printed case
with a traditional laptop clamshell design takes care of physically combining these two devices, and a USB-C cable between the two takes care of combining them in software thanks to Apple’s Duet program. While this has better performance than a Macbook Pro it might actually have some perks, since Apple continues to refuse to make a laptop with a touchscreen.
There are some downsides, of course. The price is higher than a comparable Macbook Pro for the iPad and Mac together, plus it doesn’t include a keyboard or mouse. It also has no battery, so it needs to be plugged in. In the follow-up video linked below, though, [Scott] notes that for him this still made sense as he uses the Mac and iPad individually already, and only works remotely at places that have power outlets readily available. For the average person, though,
we might recommend something different if you really need an esoteric laptop-like machine
.
Thanks to [Varun] for originally sending in this tip! | 17 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450874",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2022-03-25T06:47:22",
"content": "All-in-one machines such as the Mac Mini do suffer from the same issues – they are after all just laptop parts stuffed inside a different case.I don’t see any advantage from this build except for the touchs... | 1,760,372,749.437686 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/24/used-facemasks-turned-into-rapid-antigen-tests-with-injection-molding/ | Used Facemasks Turned Into Rapid Antigen Tests With Injection Molding | Dan Maloney | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"Covid-19",
"injection molding",
"mask",
"mold",
"polypropylene",
"PPE",
"rapid prototyping",
"sla",
"tooling"
] | Here’s a little eye-opener for you: next time you’re taking a walk, cast your eyes to the ground for a bit and see how far you can go without spotting a carelessly discarded face mask. In our experience, it’s no more than a block or two, especially if you live near a school. Masks and other disposal artifacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have turned into a menace, and uncounted billions of the things will be clogging up landfills, waterways, and byways for decades to come.
Unless they can be recycled into something useful, of course, like
the plastic cases used for rapid antigen tests
. This comes to us by way of [Ric Real] from the Design and Manufacturing Futures lab at the University of Bristol in the UK. If any of this sounds or looks familiar, refer back to October when the same team presented
a method for turning old masks into 3D printer filament
. The current work is an extension of that, but feeds the polypropylene pellets recovered from the old masks into a desktop injection molding machine.
The injection molding machine is fitted with 3D-printed molds for the shells of lateral flow devices (LFD) used for
COVID-19 rapid antigen testing
. The mold tooling was designed in Fusion 360 and printed on an Elegoo Mars MSLA printer using a high-strength, temperature-resistant resin. The molds stood up to the manual injection molding process pretty well, making good-quality parts in the familiar blue and white colors of the starting material. It’s obviously a proof of concept, but it’s good to see someone putting some thought into what we can do with the megatonnes of plastic waste generated by the pandemic response. | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450728",
"author": "Saabman",
"timestamp": "2022-03-24T20:04:18",
"content": "COVID 19, the gift that keeps on giving",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6450735",
"author": "come2",
"timestamp": "2022-03-24T20:39:35",
... | 1,760,372,749.252473 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/24/a-minidisc-optical-head-has-a-few-surprises-up-its-sleeve/ | A MiniDisc Optical Head Has A Few Surprises Up Its Sleeve | Jenny List | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"cd",
"laser",
"minidisc"
] | There was an odd era at the start of the 1990s when CDs had taken the lead from vinyl in pre-recorded music, but for consumer recordable formats the analogue cassette was still king. A variety of digital formats came to market to address this, of which Sony’s MiniDisc was the only one to gain significant traction outside the studio. These floppy-disk-like cartridges held a magneto-optical medium , and were the last word in cool until being swept away around the end of the decade by MP3 players. Hackaday alum [Nava Whitford]
has disassembled a MiniDisc optical head to document how the physical part of the system worked
.
The first surprise is that the MiniDisc was in fact a two-in-one system. The recordable discs were magneto-optical and wrote data by heating the disc with a laser under a magnetic field, while the pre-recorded discs used etched pits and lands in a similar way to the CD. Remembering the technical buzz around the system back in the day, either we audio enthusiasts glossed over this detail, or more likely, Sony’s PR did so to emphasize the all-new aspect of the system.
The teardown goes in depth into how while like a CD player there is a photodiode array involved, the extra components are a diffraction grating and a Wollaston prism, an optical component which splits polarized light into two beams. The photodiode array is more complex than that of a CD player, it’s speculated that this is to detect the different polarized beams as well as for the task of maintaining alignment with the track.
All in all this is a rare chance to look at something we know, but which few of us will probably have dismantled due to its relative scarcity compared to CD mechanisms. Definitely worth a look. Meanwhile if this era is of interest, take a look at a Hack Chat we did a while back
looking at the MiniDisc’s would-be competitor
. | 46 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450694",
"author": "Jonathan Bennett",
"timestamp": "2022-03-24T18:42:36",
"content": "I got my hands on some pro Minidisc hardware in the 2000s, and really loved the format, except for one glaring weakness. There wasn’t a way to dump the audio data to a computer. So to transfer a ... | 1,760,372,749.38327 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/24/remoticon-2021-jay-doscher-proves-tinkercad-isnt-just-for-kids/ | REMOTICON 2021 // Jay Doscher Proves Tinkercad Isn’t Just For Kids | Michael Shaub | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"3D CAD",
"3D Printering",
"cad",
"cyberdeck",
"educational",
"online service",
"tinkercad"
] | We invited [Jay Doscher] to give us a view into his process designing 3D printed parts for the impressive array of
cyberdecks we’ve covered since 2019
.
[Jay] got his start as a maker through woodworking in high school, getting satisfaction from bringing something from idea to reality. After a more recent class in blacksmithing and ax-making showed him what he could do when really focused, his hardware hacking really took off and his line of cyberdecks and other portable computers was born.
If you’ve heard of Tinkercad, you probably think it’s just for kids. While designed as an educational tool, [Jay] found that Autodesk’s younger sibling to the professionally powered (and priced) Fusion 360 had everything needed for making cyberdecks. If you’re willing to work around a few limitations, at the low-low price of free, Tinkercad might be right for you too.
What limitations? To start, Tinkercad is only available in a browser and online. There’s also no guarantee that it will remain free, but [Jay] notes that with its educational focus that is likely to remain the case. There is no library of common components to import while modeling. And, when your model is complete the options for exporting are limited to 2D SVGs and 3D STL, OBJ, and gaming-focused GBL formats. [Jay] has converted those to other formats for laser cutting and the STEP file a machine shop is expecting but admits that it’s something that adds complexity and is an annoyance.
In the talk, [Jay] discusses moving from his initial “cringy” explorations with Tinkercad, to his first cyberdeck, a little history on that term, and the evolution of his craft. It’s mostly a hands-on demo of how to work with Tinkercad, full of tips and tricks for the software itself and implications for 3D printing yourself, assembly, and machining by others.
While quite limited, Tinkercad still allows for boolean operations to join two volumes or the subtraction of one from another. [Jay] does a wonderful job of unpeeling the layers of operations, showing how combinations of “solids” and “holes” generated a complex assembly with pockets, stepped holes for fasteners, and multiple aligned parts for his next cyberdeck. Even if you already have a favorite CAD tool, another approach could expand your mind just like writing software in
Strange Programming Languages
can. | 20 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450671",
"author": "Eric Mockler",
"timestamp": "2022-03-24T17:36:43",
"content": "Yes, Tinkercad is pretty good. There most certainly is a library of common components, shapes or primitives. The memory & size limitations are what I bump into, which force me to break things up some... | 1,760,372,749.507001 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/24/you-draw-it-cnc-cuts-it/ | You Draw It, CNC Cuts It | Elliot Williams | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"gcode",
"Octoprint",
"opencv",
"path planning",
"webcam"
] | [Jamie] aka [vector76] hit us with a line-tracing plugin for OctoPrint that cuts out whatever 2D shape you draw on a piece of wood. The plugin lets you skip the modeling step entirely, going straight from a CNC-mounted webcam that
reads your scribbles and gives you a Gcode toolpath
in return.
The code is on GitHub
and there’s a demo video embedded below.
Under the hood, OpenCV is doing a lot of the image processing, including line detection, and the iterative “find the line” and “move the toolhead” steps really show off what computer vision can do. It starts off with a fiducial arrow for scale and orientation, then it mores the webcam around the scene. The user can enter the usual milling parameters: speeds, feeds, depth of cut, tool offset, milling direction, etc. And then it gets to work.
Right now, it’s limited to paths with non-crossing lines, and probably with good contrast and a nice dark line — all the usual CV restrictions. But mounting a webcam to a CNC toolhead and using it for various pathing problems really opens up tons of possibilities: visual homing, workpiece edge finding, copying parts, custom fitting odd shapes, and more. This project is clearly an invitation to keep on hacking, an appetizer. Once you see the girl pirate robot that [Jamie]’s daughter made, you’ll get the idea.
We’ve seen a similar OpenCV approach used for
center-finding bore holes
, but while we’ve seen a few webcams used with laser cutters, the CNC mill applications seem largely untapped. Let us know in the comments if you’ve got some other good examples.
Thanks [Jeff] for the tip! | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450641",
"author": "Andy Pugh",
"timestamp": "2022-03-24T15:55:25",
"content": "LinuxCNC has supported webcams for quite some time, but there is nothing like this level of integration.https://forum.linuxcnc.org/qtvcp/40032-qtvcp-cam-view-dialogHowever, I saw a demo of a Datron mill... | 1,760,372,749.305693 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/24/tech-in-plain-sight-car-doors/ | Tech In Plain Sight: Car Doors | Al Williams | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Slider"
] | [
"automobile",
"car",
"power door locks",
"power window"
] | There are a lot of common phrases that no longer mean what they used to. For example, you may have used the term “turn on the lights.” What are you actually
turning
? Where does this come from? Old gas lights had a valve that you did physically turn, and the phrase simply stuck around. Kids of the 90s have no idea why they “dial” a phone number. What about “roll up the car window”? You don’t often encounter old-fashioned car doors with manual locks or a crank to roll up the window. These days it is all electronic. But have you ever wondered what’s going on inside there?
Let’s take a look at car doors, how they keep you safe, and how that sheet of glass slides into place, sealing against wind, rain, and noise. Of course, there are fancy car doors like suicide doors or sexy-but-impractical gull wing doors. At least one concept car even has a door that disappears under the vehicle when it opens; check out the video below. But even garden-variety doors are marvels of mechanical engineering. A compact structure that is secure and — mostly — reliable. Let’s look at how they do that.
Conversion
When you think about it, a great many things we build convert something to something else. Energy to motion, for example. Or one type of motion to another. Car door mechanisms are no exception. Of course, the lock actuators and the window actuators both convert an electrical command to some kind of physical motion. But there is also the problem of getting the right physical motion in a confined space.
One of the interesting things about most car doors is that the locks have to be secure but offer many ways to open them. Electronic control alone is usually not sufficient: there is often a way to unlock the car manually. And you certainly have to be able to operate the door from the inside even with no power, to avoid trapping occupants. Some cars, like the Boxter or some Lotuses, have no obvious way to unlock the car without power. These cars usually have a hidden emergency keyhole or a set of hidden terminals that allow you to temporarily power up the system to unlock the vehicle.
Lock Up
The motor that controls the power locks in a car is known as an actuator. You can get universal actuators that can be made to fit most cars, even those that don’t normally have power locks. Because the door latch must be workable from multiple sources, the actuator usually drives a rod, and that rod often appears near the window so you can manually operate it as well. The rod engages and disengages the latching mechanism, and when disengaged you can’t open the door. In fact, often if the rod is disengaged and the latch is closed, you won’t be able to close the door if it is open.
Door lock mechanism from patent US4793640A
A typical actuator is a simple electric motor that rotates. Of course, we need a different motion, so gears not only reduce the motor speed and increase the torque but a rack and pinion gear converts the rotation to a linear motion. Because you usually don’t want the motor and the occupant fighting for control, there is often a clutch that does not transmit manual motion back to the motor. The motor only runs momentarily. Some cars have feedback and will try a few times if something goes wrong.
Older cars used vacuum pumps to suck or blow air to operate doors because electric motors were noisy and prone to failure. Mercedes, for example, used air-operated door locks until around 2003.
Windows
Windows are a bit easier because you don’t normally need manual control. There are some special concerns, though. For example, have you ever noticed that your window stays perfectly level? In addition, it should be almost impossible to force the window down for security reasons. This is often handled by using a worm gear. Because of the angle of contact between the worm gear and the spur gear, the worm gear can turn the spur, but not the other way around because of friction between the gear teeth.
Since the window has to go up and down, there is wiring similar to an H-bridge that can run the motor in either direction. For a car with a sophisticated controller, it probably does use an H-bridge and your window buttons are just inputs to the computer. But basic cars may simply have wiring that allows either the driver or passenger to rotate the window motor in either direction.
Very old cars actually used hydraulic systems to operate the windows. This had the advantage of allowing the window to roll down with no power, but you did need power to operate the pump to raise it again. However, hydraulic lifts fell out of favor long ago in favor of electric motors.
Window linkage from patent US6502352B1.
The actual mechanical part can be in several different configurations. With direct drive, there will be either a scissor-like mechanism or a single arm with teeth. Both of these configurations often use a spring to maintain tension.
Many modern cars use a thin steel cable on a reel. By playing out the cable or taking it up, a roller along the bottom of the window can move up or down. A thick plastic tape with sprocket holes serves a similar function in some systems. Altogether, these are known as a regulator. Like the power locks, you can find universal regulators that will repair any power window system or add power windows where you previously didn’t have any. However, as you might expect, these are more complicated and expensive than the comparatively simple door locks.
So What?
This is one of those things where you probably use your car door hundreds of times a year, but you don’t think much about what is in there until it breaks. But even if you never need to repair a door, consider this: universal power lock actuators make excellent linear actuators for all sorts of projects. If you are doing a one-off, you might even be able to harvest one from a junkyard for nearly free. Even if you buy them new, you can find them for $5 or $10 online.
Power window mechanisms cost more. While there are also universal windows available, they are probably harder to find a use for unless you really need something to pop up and down like a car window. If you do a project with either of these, don’t forget to
let us know
so we can share it with everyone.
Of course, these car parts are pretty beefy. If you need something more modest,
you have options
. You can even
convert a servo
.
[Banner image: “
Car door sides
” by
David Rosen
, CC BY 2.0. Thumbnail image: “
Muscle Car Door 47
” by
Steve Snodgrass,
CC BY 2.0.] | 54 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450596",
"author": "helge",
"timestamp": "2022-03-24T14:07:18",
"content": "No need to speculate about H bridges, check out the earlier article on Tesla mechanism iterations.https://hackaday.com/2021/09/16/tesla-door-handle-improvements/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,372,749.650077 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/24/opencv-brings-pinch-to-zoom-into-the-real-world/ | OpenCV Brings Pinch To Zoom Into The Real World | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Machine Learning"
] | [
"camera",
"control",
"gesture",
"IRL",
"opencv",
"real life",
"servo"
] | Gesture controls arrived in the public consciousness a little over a decade ago as touchpads and touchscreens became more popular. The main limitation to gesture controls, a least as far as [Norbert] is concerned, is that they can only control objects in a virtual space. He was hoping to use gestures to control a real-world object instead,
and created this device which uses gestures to control an actual picture
.
In this unique augmented reality device, not only is the object being controlled in the real world but the gestures are being monitored there as well, thanks to a computer vision system watching his hand which is running OpenCV. The position data is fed into an algorithm which controls a physical picture mounted on a slender robotic arm. Now, when [Norbert] “pinches to zoom”, the servo attached to the picture physically brings it closer to or further from his field of view. He can also use other gestures to move the picture around.
While this gesture-controlled machine is certainly a proof-of-concept, there are plenty of other uses for gesture controls of real-world objects. Any robotics platform could benefit from an interface like this, or even something slightly more mundane like an office PowerPoint presentation. Opportunity abounds, but if you need a primer for OpenCV
take a look at this build which tracks a hand in minute detail
. | 11 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450533",
"author": "Alex",
"timestamp": "2022-03-24T11:05:51",
"content": "hahahaha, that was genius ! zoom in and the picture comes to you ! hahaha great",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6450548",
"author": "Gravis",
"t... | 1,760,372,749.556757 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/24/copper-modding-helps-cool-a-toasty-gpu/ | Copper Modding Helps Cool A Toasty GPU | Lewin Day | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"copper",
"copper modding",
"heatsink"
] | [DandyWorks] had an NVIDIA RTX 3070 Ti GPU, and found it was running incredibly hot, with the card’s memory hitting temperatures of 110 °C. He decided to try “copper modding” to solve the problem,
and made some impressive improvements along the way.
Copper modding is where small copper shims are used to connect hot chips on the GPU to the heatsink more effectively than the standard thermal pads used by the manufacturer. Copper has much better thermal conductivity than thermal pads, and thus can help improve cooling of components when used in this fashion.
With the GPU carefully disassembled, [DandyWorks] notes the design uses a sub-heatsink specifically for the memory chips. He then sets about removing the thermal pads from the chips with isopropyl alcohol to help. They’re replaced with copper shims of a precise thickness, with a thin layer of thermal paste to ensure good heat flow. [DandyWorks] also shields all surrounding parts of the board with Kapton tape to avoid shorts if the copper shims happen to shift at any point.
Running the same hashing operation, the GPU now operates with its memory at a much cooler temperature of just 64 °C. [DandyWorks] ran the test for hours and temperatures didn’t climb beyond there. It’s evidence that the copper shims do a far better job of conducting the heat out of the memory chips versus the stock thermal pad setup.
We’ve seen some other interesting mods in this vein before, such as
CPU die lapping for better thermal performance.
Video after the break. | 35 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450475",
"author": "CampGareth",
"timestamp": "2022-03-24T08:08:11",
"content": "“with its memory at a much cooper temperature”Copper on the mind? :P",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6450501",
"author": "Elliot William... | 1,760,372,749.966812 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/23/air-football-looks-pro/ | Air Football Looks Pro | Al Williams | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Games"
] | [
"air hockey",
"football",
"soccer"
] | If you are an American, you’d probably think of [Silas Hansen’s] project as “air soccer” but most people will prefer
air football
. Either way, it is like air hockey but more of a football field feel. The project looks great — if you saw this on the shelves of the local toy store, you wouldn’t think anything of it. You can see a video of the game in action, below.
Unsurprisingly, the brains of the game are an Arduino. The case looks good thanks to laser cutting and 3D printing. A Roland printer produced the stickers that really dress the case up, but you could find another artistic way to do the decoration.
You could probably pull this off without all the fancy fabrication gear, but hand drilling all those air holes would be a pain. The air is from a 3,000 RPM brushless fan and a pair of line trackers are repurposed to sense when the puck — er, ball — reach the goals. A touch display handles the scorekeeping.
Overall, a great-looking project and one of those things that doesn’t use anything too high-tech, but still looks great and seems to work well.
We’ve seen
hockey tables
before, of course. If you are too antisocial to have an opponent, you can
always build one
. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450431",
"author": "Saabman",
"timestamp": "2022-03-24T05:11:34",
"content": "That looks great – I was supposed to see he painted the play field – I was expecting that to be printed in vinyl either way it looks great",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
... | 1,760,372,749.695373 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/23/finally-a-mapping-tool-for-addressable-led-strings/ | Finally, A Mapping Tool For Addressable LED Strings | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"addressable leds",
"led",
"led mapper",
"ws2812b"
] | Addressable LED strings have made it easier than ever to build fun glowable projects with all kinds of exciting animations. However, if you’re not going with a simple grid layout, it can be a little difficult to map your strings out in code. Fear not, for [Jason Coon] has provided a tool
to help out with just that!
[Jason]’s web app,
accessible here.
is used for mapping out irregular layouts when working with addressable LED strings like the WS2812B and others that work with libraries like FastLED and Pixelblaze. If you’re making some kind of LED globe, crazy LED tree, or other non-gridular shape, this tool can help.
The first step is to create a layout of your LEDs in a Google Sheets table, which can then be pasted into the web app. Then, the app handles generating the necessary code to address the LEDs in an order corresponding to the physical layout.
[Jason] does a great job of explaining how the tool works, and demonstrates it working with a bowtie-like serpentine layout with rainbow animations. The tool can even provide visual previews of the layout so you can verify what you’ve typed in makes sense.
It’s a great tool that we recently saw put to use
on [Geeky Faye’s] excellent necklace project
. Video after the break.
My LED Mapper app now supports gradient color palettes! Also has interactively editable pseudo
#FastLED
code for the sample patterns. Supports conversion to/from grid layout, XY coordinates,
#Pixelblaze
maps, etc.
App:
https://t.co/nxycSh9hig
Code:
https://t.co/riPnnRhFSF
pic.twitter.com/gXgTS0L6UN
— Jason Coon (@jasoncoon_)
February 10, 2022 | 30 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450391",
"author": "Leedan Johnson",
"timestamp": "2022-03-24T02:49:02",
"content": "Careful. This is patented by twinklylights unless I’m mistaken.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6450408",
"author": "lasdfiwerj",
... | 1,760,372,749.762743 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/23/brick-and-motor-table-saw-delivers-paper-cuts-on-demand/ | Brick And Motor Table Saw Delivers Paper Cuts On Demand | Ryan Flowers | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"lego",
"papercut",
"power tools",
"table saw"
] | Twenty Two Motors. Fifty gears. Eighty Two Hundred RPM. Hundreds of individual pieces, and one sheet of glossy paper cut into a disk. This isn’t a nightmare driven Rube Goldberg machine. Instead, it’s a Lego monstrosity created by [GazR] of [GazR’s Extreme Brick Machines!], and all of these parts are flying in formation for one Lego slicing purpose. In the video below the break, you can see what very well may be the worlds most powerful
Lego and Paper table saw
.
Starting out with a build that had a mere fourteen motors in a platform that looked quite a lot more like a table saw, [GazR] learned that
having only fourteen motors turning a Lego based blade was not a good combination
. In the next iteration, the same number of motors were used, but the gearing was increased to bring RPM up, and a
Lego toy saw blade took care of cutting duties
.
Seeing that higher speeds with thinner blades was a winning trend, [GazR] stepped it up to the aforementioned 8200 RPM twenty-two motored paper whirling Lego Death Machine. Yes, [GazR] cut Lego, carrots, carpet, and paper- all with circular sheet of paper.
Do Lego mechanisms turn your gears? You might enjoy this
Legopunk Orrery
from the Hackaday archives, too. Thanks to [Keith] for the great tip. Be sure to submit your own tips via the
Hackaday Tips Line
, or the #Submit-A-Tip channel in the
Hackaday Discord server
. | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450326",
"author": "Don Latham",
"timestamp": "2022-03-23T23:17:38",
"content": "Not anywhere near me!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6450340",
"author": "Jonathan Wilson",
"timestamp": "2022-03-24T00:12:31",
"cont... | 1,760,372,750.073022 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/23/lego-car-demonstrates-proper-use-of-ball-wheels/ | Lego Car Demonstrates Proper Use Of Ball Wheels | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"ball wheel",
"ball wheels",
"car",
"lego"
] | Wheels are typically just simple cylinders, though fans of
I, Robot (2004)
may have admired the handsome vehicle featuring ball wheels that was driven by the protagonist. YouTuber [Brick Technology] decided to evaluate the use of spherical wheels
with a Lego car design.
The benefit of ball wheels is that they can turn in multiple directions when driven on different axes, with the benefit of improved maneuverability. With a set of drive rollers spring loaded with rubber bands pushing against the 52mm Duplo spheres, the ball wheels can be rotated both forward and back as well as left and right. This gives the Lego car a rather neat strafing ability, as well as the ability to spin on the spot or steer in a more traditional fashion. The car is controlled via smartphone, thanks to BuWizz modules that allow remote control of the Lego motors.
Ball wheels are unlikely to catch on in mainstream automobiles; the mechanical complexity required to drive them makes such designs impractical for cars. However,
omniwheels
and similar designs have found some applications on
forklifts
and other such slow-speed applications where the ability to move in any direction is very useful. Video after the break. | 22 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450278",
"author": "RetepV",
"timestamp": "2022-03-23T20:05:26",
"content": "So, instead of a mouse with one ball clogging up every few days, you now have a car with 4 balls that clogging up every few days. :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,750.026853 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/23/3d-printing-concept-car-parts/ | 3D Printing Concept Car (Parts) | Al Williams | [
"car hacks",
"Engineering"
] | [
"3d printing",
"automotive",
"concept vehicle"
] | When you want to fabricate something you either start with something and take away what you don’t want — subtractive manufacturing — or you start with nothing and add material, which is additive manufacturing that we usually call 3D printing.
Popular Science
recently took a look inside Vital Auto
, the British lab that uses 3D printing for high-end concept cars from companies like Rolls-Royce, McLauren, Jaguar, and others. In the video below, [Anthony Barnicott], an engineer for Vital, says that the two technologies — additive and subtractive — work best when used together.
As you might expect, they are not using a $200 FDM printer. They have three Formlabs 3Ls that print with resin and five Formlab Fuse 1 selective laser sintering printers.
While metal printers are still uncommon in hacker’s workshops
, resin printers are now very affordable although your garage printer is probably a good bit smaller than the 3L’s 335x200x300 mm volume. For comparison, an LCD-based AnyCubic Photon X provides just 165x132x80 mm. Of course, you’re looking at about $11,000 for the dual-laser 3L versus about $240 for the Photon.
Vital started building the EP9 electric car concept for NIO, an electric car maker in China. You can imagine that modern manufacturing machines make it possible to create more sophisticated concept cars faster. How many times do you want to tweak a part that takes a machinist eight hours to produce? But if you can just let a machine run overnight and get the result in the morning, you are more likely to change and refine the part.
Vital Auto is an interesting look at how professional fabrication shops are using the same technologies we do, at least at the core. We’ve noted before how these same technologies are making
homebrew projects look better
than some commercial products not long ago. You can print
big things if you break them up
, of course. Or, break the bank and
buy a really big printer
. | 6 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450286",
"author": "tekkieneet",
"timestamp": "2022-03-23T20:28:17",
"content": "It is all fine and handy for prototyping. At some point they’ll need to be able to mass produce the new design using cost effective conventional techniques. i.e. Sheet metals bend, pressed etc to what... | 1,760,372,750.171161 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/23/old-school-mechanical-pong-still-amazes/ | Old School MechanicalPongStill Amazes | Elliot Williams | [
"classic hacks",
"Games"
] | [
"lightbulb",
"linkages",
"mechanical design",
"pong"
] | [Tom], of the YouTube channel
ThingsTomLike
, found a very sweet little mechanical
Pong
clone at a thrift store. It came in broken, but in only fifteen minutes of your time, [Tom] manages a
complete teardown and repair
. (Video, embedded below.)
The game works by balancing a lightbulb on the end of a pivot arm that projects a “ball” onto a screen, while players move their paddles up and down to hit the spring that surrounds the light assembly. The ball arm gets periodically kicked by a DC motor and cam assembly, which makes it careen wildly back and forth across the screen.
It’s a marvel of simple, no-IC engineering. Ironically, it might have been cheaper than making it out of silicon at the time, but viewed from today’s economy, just the human labor in adjusting that counterweight so that the “ball” floats would blow the budget.
Why a screen and lightbulb? Because it’s
emulating
Pong
, a video game, the new kid on the block. But even 45 years later, we think it has got a charm all of its own that the cold digital logic of
Pong
lacks, even if the gameplay suffers.
Thanks [Hari] for the great tip! | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450202",
"author": "cliff claven",
"timestamp": "2022-03-23T15:42:07",
"content": "I remember this well. The most amazing thing to me was a little conical drumhead and hammer that make a very realistic ping-pong ball “pock” sound when the ‘ball’ hits something. This one doesn’t see... | 1,760,372,750.12614 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/23/two-dimensional-polymer-is-a-new-ultra-strong-material/ | Two-Dimensional Polymer Is A New Ultra-Strong Material | Lewin Day | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"Chemistry",
"materials science",
"plastics",
"polymer",
"science"
] | Plastics, by and large, are well-understood materials. Not as strong as most metals, but often much lighter, these man-made polymers have found innumerable applications that have revolutionized the way we live. The properties of plastics have been improved in many ways over the years, with composite materials like fiberglass and carbon fiber proving to have strength and lightness far beyond the simple properties of basic polymers alone.
However, a group of engineers at MIT have been working on a revolutionary type of polymer that promises greater strength then ever before while remaining remarkably light weight. It’s all down to the material’s two-dimensional molecular structure,
something once thought to be prohibitively difficult in the world of polymer science.
2D Is Better Than 1D
The 2D polymer material assembles itself into sheets. The hope is that the ultra-strong material could have applications as a protective coating or in composite material use. Credit:
MIT
Typically, polymers assemble themselves into long one-dimensional chains, where multiple copies of the same molecular subunit, or monomer, links into a chain many times in what is often referred to as a macromolecule. These long molecules tangle together with themselves and each other in bulk, making up the polymer materials we know and love.
However, the manner in which monomers usually chain together has typically prevented any attempts to produce a polymer structure in two dimensions. If just one monomer attaches to another at the wrong rotation, further monomers will link onto it as well, creating a messy 3D structure instead of a neat and tidy 2D sheet.
With some careful synthesis, it turns out that a two-dimensional molecular polymer structure is indeed possible. As per the research paper
published in
Nature
in February this year, this feat was achieved through the use of melamine molecules as the monomer unit. The working theory is that the use of amide-aromatic interactions in the synthesis steps inhibited the melamine molecules from rotating out-of-plane during the linking phase.
The material self-assembles into 2D sheets in solution, allowing for the creation of thin films of great strength. This structure also has the unique ability of being impermeable to gas molecules. The monomers lock together so closely that there’s simply no way for them to get through.
The resulting material is remarkable in its properties; the two-dimensional polymer was tested to have an astonishing yield strength of 976 MPa, almost four times that of structural steel, despite having a far lower density of just 1/6th as much. Meanwhile, the elastic moduli was measured to be around 30 to 90 GPa, significantly higher than traditional plastics which typically range from 3-5 GPa. This means the material is far stiffer and deforms less in the elastic regime compared to plastics like polycarbonate and nylon. This figure is far closer to that of metals like aluminium, which has an elastic modulus of 69 GPa.
Of course, thus far, only tiny quantities of the 2D polymer have been created in the lab. Testing the material’s mechanical properties had to be done on the nanoscale, using a process called
AFM nanoindentation.
It allows microscopic samples to be tested using a hard indentation tip on an atomic force microscope to measure the material’s properties.
Importantly, the polymer as synthesized is mechanically and chemically stable. The paper’s authors suggest it has great potential for use in composite materials as well as for use as a lightweight but strong protective coating. It’s unclear at this stage how such a polymer could be produced at the macro scale, and it will likely be some time before this material is on sale in large sheets at your local plastic distributor. However, it shows that the world of science still has amazing secrets to be uncovered that could bring us new and wonderful materials beyond our wildest dreams! | 26 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450168",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2022-03-23T14:04:23",
"content": "Plastics.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6450174",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2022-03-23T14:16:15",
"content": "https:... | 1,760,372,750.235293 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/23/breathe-easy-with-this-led-air-sensor-necklace/ | Breathe Easy With This LED Air Sensor Necklace | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"ESP32",
"led",
"necklace",
"wearable"
] | When you’re building wearables and glowables, sometimes a flashy rainbow animation is all you need. [Geeky Faye] likes to go a little further, however, and built this impressive necklace
that serves to inform on the local air quality.
The necklace consists of a series of Neopixel LED strips, housed within a tidy 3D printed housing made with flexible filament. A dovetail joint makes putting on and removing the necklace a cinch. A TinyPico V2, based on the ESP32, runs the show, as it’s very small and thus perfect for the wearable application. A USB power bank provides power to the microcontroller and LEDs.
The TinyPico uses its WiFi connection to query a server fed with air quality data from a separate sensor unit. The necklace displays a calm breathing animation as standard in cool tones. However, when air quality deteriorates, it shows warmer and hotter colors in a more pointed and vibrant fashion.
It’s a neat project that shows off [Geeky Faye]’s abilities at both electronics and tasteful wearable fabrication. It’s not always easy to build projects that are both functional and comfortable to wear, but this one works on both counts. Both the 3D files for the necklace and the microcontroller firmware code is included in the GitHub repo for those keen to dive in to the nitty gritty.
We’ve seen some great necklaces over the years, including those that rely on some
beautiful PCB art.
Video after the break. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450125",
"author": "kuro68k",
"timestamp": "2022-03-23T12:08:30",
"content": "I’ve been thinking about something like this for years. Small enough to wear, decent battery life, warns about low air quality.It’s the battery life that’s the problem. Air quality sensors use quite a lot... | 1,760,372,750.290151 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/23/ken-shirriff-takes-a-bite-of-the-apple-i/ | [Ken Shirriff] Takes A Bite Of The Apple-I | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"Apple 1",
"ic decapsulation",
"ken shirriff",
"shift register"
] | The Apple-I was a far cry from Apple’s later products. A $666 single-board computer, the product had some unique design features including using a shift register for video memory to save money. The shift registers of the day required high-current clock pulses that ranged from -11 to 5V and there was a DS0025 clock driver chip to handle the job. [Ken Shirriff]
takes the unusual chip apart
for us in a recent blog post.
The use of a shift register as memory isn’t a new idea. Really old computers like EDSAC used mercury delay lines as memory which was essentially a physical shift register. In those cases, the ALU and other processing only had to deal with a bit at a time, further simplifying things. For the Apple, there were seven shift registers to store 6-bits of display data and a cursor position. The 6 bits of character data drove — indirectly — a character generator ROM to convert the data into dots for the display.
Driving all those shift register flip flops requires a lot of clock current, so the DS0025 uses an unusual transistor design. There are 24 separate emitters in two groups. It acts like a large transistor, but you could also consider it as two 12-emitter transistors or 24 separate transistors in parallel. The metal wiring, interestingly enough, tapers because at the start of the conductor, the current for all 12 sub-transistors flows, but by the end, it is only the current for the last sub-transistor, so the conductor doesn’t have to be as wide. In addition, the two transistors have to have matched resistance which requires careful design so the transistors turn on at the same time.
The final result is an inverter that can provide 1.5 amps. This current helps overcome the relatively large capacitance in the shift register’s clock line. The clock rate was 1 MHz and the load capacitance was about 150 picofarads.
We enjoy [Ken’s] posts ranging from
mysteries
to
space hardware
. It is always interesting to see what is inside these devices or, at least, what was in the old devices we’ve all seen. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450171",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2022-03-23T14:09:52",
"content": "There was this time when long shift registers were the viable memory. Don Lancaster’s first TV Typewriter is said to have used it. The Apple I was a computer with an attached video terminal, so whi... | 1,760,372,750.334623 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/22/wireshark-https-decryption/ | Wireshark HTTPS Decryption | Al Williams | [
"Network Hacks"
] | [
"encryption",
"https",
"ssl",
"wireshark"
] | If you’ve done any network programming or hacking, you’ve probably used Wireshark. If you haven’t, then you certainly should. Wireshark lets you capture and analyze data flowing over a network — think of it as an oscilloscope for network traffic. However, by design, HTTPS traffic doesn’t give up its contents. Sure, you can see the packets, but you can’t read them — that’s one of the purposes of HTTPS is to prevent people snooping on your traffic from reading your data. But what if you are debugging your own code? You know what is supposed to be in the packet, but things aren’t working for some reason. Can you
decrypt your own HTTPS traffic
? The answer is yes and [rl1987] shows you how.
Don’t worry, though. This doesn’t let you snoop on anyone’s information. You need to share a key between the target browser or application and Wireshark. The method depends on the target applications like a browser writing out information about its keys. Chrome, Firefox, and other software that uses NSS/OpenSSL libraries will recognize an SSLKEYLOGFILE environment variable that will cause them to produce the correct output to a file you specify.
How you set this depends on your operating system, and that’s the bulk of the post is describing how to get the environment variable set on different operating systems. Wireshark understands the file created, so if you point it to the same file you are in business.
Of course, this also lets you creep on data the browser and plugins are sending which could be a good thing if you want to know what Google, Apple, or whoever is sending back to their home base using encrypted traffic.
Wireshark and helpers can do lots of things,
even Bluetooth
. If you just need to replay network data and not necessarily analyze it,
you can do that
, too. | 48 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450010",
"author": "Jouni",
"timestamp": "2022-03-23T05:20:28",
"content": "99% times we don’t need the protection of HTTPS. I’ve started to think HTTPS is mostly actually against us; we cannot see what kind of information apps are sending. And yes part of it is “metrics” of us.Re... | 1,760,372,750.423058 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/22/quick-hacks-using-staples-when-recapping-motherboards/ | Quick Hacks: Using Staples When Recapping Motherboards | Dave Rowntree | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"apple",
"hot air rework",
"retrocomputing",
"Staples"
] | [Marcio Teixeira] needed to recap an old Apple Macintosh motherboard, and came across a
simple hack to use common paper staples as a temporary heat shield
(video, embedded below) during hot air rework. The problem with hot air rework is minimizing collateral damage; you’re wielding air at a temperature hot enough to melt solder, and it can be take quite a lot of experience to figure out how best to protect the more delicate parts from being damaged. Larger items take longer to heat due to their thermal mass but smaller parts can be very quickly damaged from excess heat, whilst trying to remove a nearby target.
The sharp edges of plastic connectors are particularly prone, and good protection is paramount. Sticky tapes made from polyimide (Kapton), PET, as well as metallic options (aluminium tape is useful) are often used to temporarily mask off areas in danger of getting such collateral overheat. But they can cause other problems. Kapton tape, whilst great at withstanding the heat, tends to distort and buckle up a little when under the blast of the rework pencil. Not to mention that some brands of tape leave a nasty sticky transfer residue all over the board when exposed to heat, which needs additional cleanup.
Maybe a box or two of staples might be worth adding to one’s bag of tricks, after all more options is always good. If you’re less interesting in hacking
with
a hot air work station and much more in hacking a hot air rework station,
here you go
, and whilst we’re on reworking duff computers, here’s what happens when a
Hackaday writer tries his hand at fixing his son’s Xbox
. | 23 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6450018",
"author": "Ondřej Petrlík",
"timestamp": "2022-03-23T05:59:36",
"content": "good idea, I’ve been using self-adhesive aluminium foil for years to protect the surrounding parts, which is otherwise used for air conditioning",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replie... | 1,760,372,750.48643 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/22/nvidia-unveils-jetson-agx-orin-developer-kit/ | NVIDIA Unveils Jetson AGX Orin Developer Kit | Tom Nardi | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"News"
] | [
"edge computing",
"Jetson",
"NVIDIA",
"Orin"
] | When you think of high-performance computing powered by NVIDIA hardware, you probably think of applications leveraging the capabilities of the company’s graphics cards. In many cases, you’d be right. But naturally there are situations where the traditional combination of x86 computer and bolt-on GPU simply isn’t going to cut it; try packing a modern gaming computer onto a quadcopter and let us know how it goes.
For these so-called “edge computing” situations, NVIDIA offers the Jetson line of ARM single-board computers which include a scaled-down GPU that gives them vastly improved performance for machine learning applications than something like the Raspberry Pi. Today during their annual GPU Technology Conference (GTC),
NVIDIA announced the immediate availability of the Jetson AGX Orin Developer Kit
, which the company promises can deliver “server-class AI performance” in a package small enough for use in IoT or robotics.
As with the earlier Jetsons, the palm-sized development kit acts as a sort of breakout board for the far smaller module slotted into it. This gives developers access to the full suite of the connectivity and I/O options offered by the Jetson module in a desktop-friendly form that makes prototyping the software side of things much easier. Once the code is working as intended, you can simply pop the Jetson module out of the development kit and install it in your final hardware.
NVIDIA is offering the Orin module in a range of configurations, depending on your computational needs and budget. At the high end is the AGX Orin 64 GB at $1599 USD; which offers a 12-core ARM Cortex-A78AE processor, 32 GB of DDR5 RAM, 64 GB of onboard flash, and a Ampere GPU with 2048 CUDA cores and 64 Tensor cores, which all told enables it to perform an incredible 275 trillion operations per second (TOPS).
At the other end of the spectrum is the Orin NX 8 GB, a SO-DIMM module that delivers 70 TOPS for $399. It’s worth noting that even this low-end flavor of the Orin is capable of more than double the operations per second as 2018’s Jetson AGX Xavier, which until now was the most powerful entry in the product line.
The Jetson AGX Orin Developer Kit is available for $1,999 USD, and includes the AGX Orin 64 GB module. Interestingly, NVIDIA says the onboard software is able to emulate any of of the lower tier modules, so you won’t necessarily have to swap out the internal modules if your final hardware will end up using one of the cheaper modules. Of course the inverse of that is even folks who only planned on using the more budget-friendly units either have to shell out for an expensive dev kit, or try to spin their own breakout board.
While the
$50 USD Jetson Nano is far more likely to be on the workbench of the average Hackaday reader
, we have to admit that the specs of these new Orin modules are very exciting. Then again, we’ve covered several
projects that used the previously top-of-the-line Jetson Xavier
, so we don’t doubt one of you is already reaching for their wallet to pick up this latest entry into NVIDIA’s line of diminutive powerhouses. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6449993",
"author": "ian 42",
"timestamp": "2022-03-23T04:07:02",
"content": "wow 275 TFOPS for the AGX Orin 64 GB. That might almost run windows 11..",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6449995",
"author": "M",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,372,750.551569 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/22/absolem-is-a-rabbit-hole-keyboard-build/ | Absolem Is A Rabbit Hole Keyboard Build | Kristina Panos | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"keyboard",
"nRF52",
"one-piece split keyboard",
"split keyboard",
"yaml"
] | This is usually how it happens — [mrzealot] had been using some awful chiclet-style keyboard without much of a care, and topping out at 50-60 WPM using an enhanced hunt-and-peck method. But he really wanted back-lighting, and so got his first taste of the mech life with a Master Keys Pro S. Hooked,
[mrzealot] started researching and building his endgame keyboard
, as you do once bitten. It looked as though his type would have as few keys as possible, and thumb keys laid out in arcs.
And so the cardboard prototyping began, with real switches and keycaps and a split design. After getting tired of adjusting the halves’ position on the desk, [mrzealot] threw that plan out the window and started scheming to build a monoblock split. He had a steel switch plate cut for this prototype, and used cardboard for the bottom layer, complete with a little hatch to access the Pro Micro’s reset button.
Now satisfied with the 36-key layout, it was time to go wireless with a Feather nRF52 Bluefruit LE. This is where things get serious and final, with a laser-cut layered oak case and thick, blank, PBT keycaps.
Under all that plastic lies a range of actuation force levels on the key caps that (in our opinion) range from heavy to really heavy — 62 gram switches on the pinkies and ring fingers, 65 g on the middle, 67 g on the index fingers, and a whopping 78 g for the thumb clusters.
We just love the way this ended up looking, and are pretty jealous of that neoprene layer on the bottom. Beauty aside, there is some real utility here to be shared. In designing the layout, [mrzealot] created
a keyboard generator called ergogen
that will get you closer to your endgame without the need for CAD skills, just
YAML
.
Those of you who read Hackaday closely may recognize the term ‘ergogen’ from [Matthew Carlson]’s coverage of
[Ben Vallack]’s guide to creating a low-profile keyboard
. This is something else in the same vein.
Thanks for the tip, [HBBisenieks]. | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6449884",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2022-03-22T21:38:34",
"content": "Pretty sure that layout isn’t for me, but it does look really special.For me the actuation force doesn’t seem all that heavy pretty sure the IBM keyboards I so love are considerably heavier, though I do... | 1,760,372,750.598012 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/22/tune-your-dish-antenna-like-a-pro/ | Tune Your Dish Antenna Like A Pro | Elliot Williams | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"dish",
"laser rangefinder",
"satellite"
] | It’s a problem we all have at one time or another: your five-meter radio astronomy dish gets out of calibration and you don’t have a ridiculously expensive microwave holography rig on hand to diagnose it. OK, maybe this isn’t
your
problem, but when [Joe Martin]’s parabolic antenna got out of whack, he set out to diagnose and repair it, and then wrote up how he did it. You can download the PDF from his
radio astronomy articles collection
.
At the heart of the measurement rig is a laser rangefinder connected to a
Porcupine Labs interface
that passes the data on to a Pi 4. This is placed on the end of a two-degree-of-freedom servo gimbal that scans over the surface of the dish, measuring its shape. After measuring and math, [Joe] found out that it’s a little bit long here and short there, he attached two cables with turnbuckles to the front of the dish and pulled it back into shape — the sort of thing that you should probably
only
do if you’ve got a measurement rig already set up.
The Fluke rangefinder and Porcupine labs interface combo is pretty sweet, but it comes with a fairly hefty price tag. (Nothing compared to a professional dish measurement rig, we presume.) We’ve seen a few attempt at hacking into el-cheapo laser rangefinders, but other than [iliasam]’s
heroic effort where he ended up writing his own firmware
, it
doesn’t seem like there are any successes
. A shame, because applications like [Joe]’s prove that there’s a need for one.
Let us know
if there’s anything we missed?
Thanks [Ethan] for the tip! | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6449804",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2022-03-22T17:41:59",
"content": "Oh good. I was having problems picking up transmissions from Turkmenistan. ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6449824",
"author": "tyjtyj",
"... | 1,760,372,750.640344 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/22/old-printer-becomes-direct-laser-lithography-machine/ | Old Printer Becomes Direct Laser Lithography Machine | Dan Maloney | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"etching",
"galvanometer",
"galvo",
"integrated circuit",
"laser",
"lithography",
"MEMS",
"optical",
"silicon"
] | What does it take to make your own integrated circuits at home? It’s a question that relatively few intrepid hackers have tried to answer, and the answer is usually something along the lines of “a lot of second-hand equipment.” But it doesn’t all have to be cast-offs from a semiconductor fab, as [Zachary Tong] shows us with
his homebrew direct laser lithography setup
.
Most of us are familiar with masked photolithography thanks to the age-old process of making PCBs using photoresist — a copper-clad board is treated with
a photopolymer
, a mask containing the traces to be etched is applied, and the board is exposed to UV light, which selectively hardens the resist layer before etching. [Zach] explores a variation on that theme — maskless photolithography — as well as scaling it down considerably with this rig. An optical bench focuses and directs a UV laser into a galvanometer that was salvaged from an old laser printer. The galvo controls the position of the collimated laser beam very precisely before focusing it on a microscope that greatly narrows its field. The laser dances over the surface of a silicon wafer covered with photoresist, where it etches away the resist, making the silicon ready for etching and further processing.
Being made as it is from salvaged components, aluminum extrusion, and 3D-printed parts, [Zach]’s setup is far from optimal. But he was able to get some pretty impressive results, with features down to 7 microns. There’s plenty of room for optimization, of course, including better
galvanometers
and a less ad hoc optical setup, but we’re keen to see where this goes. [Zach] says one of his goals is homebrew
microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)
, so we’re looking forward to that. | 22 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6449768",
"author": "Viktor",
"timestamp": "2022-03-22T16:24:36",
"content": "Perfect for storing bitcoin private keys",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6449776",
"author": "fiddlingjunky",
"timestamp": "2022-03-22T16:45:1... | 1,760,372,751.137506 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/22/the-new-phone-blues-a-reminder-that-hackers-shouldnt-settle/ | The New-Phone Blues: A Reminder That Hackers Shouldn’t Settle | Dan Maloney | [
"Medical Hacks",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"app",
"cgm",
"ClickSend",
"compatibility",
"continuous glucose monitor",
"diabetes",
"MacroDroid",
"Pixel 6",
"smartphone",
"sms"
] | For all the convenience and indispensability of having access to the sum total of human knowledge in the palm of your hand, the actual process of acquiring and configuring a smartphone can be an incredibly frustrating experience. Standing in those endless queues at the cell phone store, jumping through the administrative hoops, and staring in sticker shock at a device that’s likely to end its life dunked in a toilet all contribute to the frustration.
But for my money, the real trouble starts once you get past all that stuff and start trying to set up the new phone just right. Sure, most phone manufacturers make it fairly easy to clone your old phone onto the new one, but there are always hiccups. And for something that gets as tightly integrated into the workflows of your daily life as cell phones do, that can be a real bummer. Especially when you find out that your shiny new phone can’t do something you absolutely depend on.
The Problem
A case in point is my experience just this week, when I finally admitted that I needed a “real” cell phone plan, instead of the pay-as-you-go phones my wife and I have been carrying for the better part of a decade. We got what seemed like a hot screaming deal — brand new Pixel 6 phones for free, with a plan that would only cost $10 a month more than what we were currently paying. So we signed on the line and waited for our phones to ship. It was pretty painless, actually.
That should have been my first inkling of things to come. The Pixels did a pretty good job of porting all our apps over from the old phones. Getting things set up just so, with the right ring tones and screen settings, was tedious but straightforward. Where things started to fall apart, though, was with one special, critical app — the one we use to monitor our diabetic daughter’s blood glucose level.
This is the data that I need access to on the new phone.
I have written quite a bit about diabetes before, and about how
continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) has been both a godsend and a curse
for us as the parents of a child with Type 1 diabetes. But that app, which links us to a cloud service that her CGM system uploads data to, is absolutely essential for us. Our daughter sleeps like a rock; literally nothing wakes her, certainly not the beeping of her CGM when her blood sugar goes dangerously low in the middle of the night. That means we have to have the CGM app running on our phones, so we can get the notification that she’s in trouble and wake her up to give her a snack before severe and potentially deadly hypoglycemia sets in.
And what would you know, the CGM app wouldn’t work on the new Pixels. We did a little digging and found that the vendor has only certified the app as compatible with a very small number of phones, which doesn’t include the Pixel 6. Curiously, neither of our old phones are on the list either, but it worked on both. That’s why I wasn’t too concerned about the Pixels — if it runs on my wife’s ancient Moto G4, it should run on the latest and greatest, right? Wrong.
With an afternoon wasted on the phone with tech support from both the CGM vendor and the phone carrier under my belt, I sat down to dinner with my wife, feeling defeated. We dejectedly considered the possibility that we’d have to roll back the changes to our phone plan, when I had the thought:
Wait a minute! You’re supposed to be a hacker. So, get hacking!
The Hack
What I needed was a way to get alerted on the new phone when the CGM app on the old phone sounded an alarm. I realized that my old phone, where the CGM app is running fine right now, would be the centerpiece of my hack. The other asset on my old phone was MacroDroid, a scripting tool that I used to make sure that I wake up if my daughter’s alarms go off more than five times in the middle of the night by sounding a super obnoxious alarm — deep sleeping runs in the family.
Unfortunately, neither of the old phones had a SIM anymore, so sending a text to the new phones via SMS or MMS was off the table. I played around with sending an email, but that never worked very well. Then I stumbled upon
ClickSend
, a service that specializes in sending bulk SMS messages for marketing purposes — you know, text spam. But, they have an API that lets me compose an HTTP GET request to send a short text to both our phones. And luckily, MacroDroid supports GETs as one of the actions it can perform.
So, with a morning’s hacking, I came up with a workaround that’s good enough for now. If my daughter’s CGM senses a low blood glucose event, the app on my old phone sets a notification that MacroDroid recognizes as a trigger. It then sends a GET request to ClickSend, which instantly posts a text to both our new phones. All I have to do is leave my old phone powered up on my desk, and it’s almost as good as having the native app working on the Pixel.
Next Steps and Lessons Learned
It works! My daughter was out for the day, and the old phone (right) sent an SMS to the new phone when her blood glucose dropped below the limit.
Is it perfect? Far from it. I liked the convenience of having the full CGM app on my phone, and being able to check her number whenever I wanted to. It’s also important to see her chart, to make a judgment call about how to treat her — there’s a big difference between holding steady at 80 mg/dL and 55 mg/dL and falling fast. Not having instant access to that information will take some getting used to.
But my biggest problem with this workaround is that it relies on a long string of dependencies — my old phone working, my WiFi and ISP staying online, no service interruptions in the CGM vendor’s cloud app, and ClickSend being up and running. That’s a lot of things that can break. I’d really like to cut out all those middlemen and build a widget that directly receives the RF signals from my daughter’s CGM and sounds some local alarms if she goes low. I imagine a bedside box that can flash the room lights or activate
a bed shaker
— or, you know,
pelt her with Nerf darts
. There’s got to be some kind of upside to diabetes.
Until I can get the time to build something like that, this hack will have to do. Is it an epic hack for the ages? Not at all. What it is is a quick hack that I was able to cobble together with what I had on hand to solve a specific hardware problem now. In my book, that’s a win.
But I think the biggest lesson here is that it’s easy to forget exactly who you are sometimes. I let myself get beaten up by the process, and got to a point where I wasn’t able to see that I had a way around the problem. At the end of the day, hacking is about optimism — it’s about not accepting what the system dishes out and finding another way to a solution. And in times like these, we need all the optimism we can get. | 67 | 36 | [
{
"comment_id": "6449706",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2022-03-22T14:20:41",
"content": "“That’s a lot of things that can break. I’d really like to cut out all those middlemen and build a widget that directly receives the RF signals from my daughter’s CGM and sounds some local alarms if she ... | 1,760,372,750.987989 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/22/satellite-snoopers-pick-up-surprising-tv-broadcast/ | Satellite Snoopers Pick Up Surprising TV Broadcast | Jenny List | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Space"
] | [
"Meridian 9",
"satellite",
"tv"
] | While Internet based streaming services appear to be the future of television, there are still plenty of places where it comes into the home via a cable, satellite, or antenna connection. For most satellite transmissions this now means a digital multiplex carrying a host of channels from a geostationary satellite, for which a set-top box or other decoder is required. Imagine the surprise of satellite-watchers than when the Russian polar communications satellite
Meridian 9
which has a highly elliptical orbit
was seen transmitting old-style terrestrial analogue TV
(
ThreadReader Link
). What on earth was happening?
How a Russian polar comms satellite picked up a TV station.
The TV signal in question comes from Turkmenistan, so were some homesick Turkmenistanis in an Antarctic base being treated to a taste of their country? The truth is far more interesting than that, because the signal in question comes from a terrestrial transmitter serving domestic TV viewers in Turkmenistan.
We’ve all heard of the idea that somehow every TV show ever transmitted is somewhere out there still traveling as radio waves across space, and while perhaps we can’t fly far enough out to check for 1960s
Doctor
Who episodes it’s true that the horizontal transmissions from a TV tower pass out into space as the earth curves away from them.
Thus Meridian 9 passed through the beam from the Turkmenistan transmitter which happened to be on a UHF frequency that matched one of its transponders, and the result was an unexpected bit of satellite TV. We’re indebted to the work of [
@dereksgc
] and
[Scott Tilley
] for bringing us this fascinating observation. We’ve featured [Scott]’s work before, most notably
when he relocated a lost NASA craft
. | 25 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6449645",
"author": "JoseMonkey",
"timestamp": "2022-03-22T11:45:56",
"content": "How does a geostationary satellite randomly pass through a beam from a terrestrial transmitter? Isn’t the whole idea with a geostationary sat that it’s (from an Earth-based perspective) motionless and... | 1,760,372,751.200759 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/22/hacked-gdb-dashboard-puts-it-all-on-display/ | Hacked GDB Dashboard Puts It All On Display | Al Williams | [
"Linux Hacks",
"Software Development",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"debugging",
"gdb",
"linux",
"python"
] | Not everyone is a fan of GUI interfaces. But some tasks really lend themselves to something over a bare command line. Very few people enjoy old command line text editors like edlin or ed. Debugging is another task where showing source files and variables at all times makes sense. Of course, you don’t absolutely have to have a GUI
per se
. You can also use a Text User Interface (TUI). In fact, you can build gdb — the GNU Debugger — with a built-in TUI mode. Try adding –tui to your gdb command line and see what happens. There are also many GUI frontends for gdb, but [cyrus-and] has an easy way to get
a very useful TUI-like interface
to gdb that doesn’t require rebuilding gdb or even hacking its internals in any way.
The secret? The gdb program runs a .gdbinit file on startup. By using Python and some gdb commands, [cyrus-and] causes the debugger to have a nice dashboard interface for your debugging sessions. If you install a helper script, you can even get syntax highlighting.
The system uses modules and you can even add your own custom modules and commands, if you like. You can also control what modules appear on each dashboard display. Normally, the dashboard shows when the program stops. For example, on each breakpoint. However, gdb has a hook system that allows you to trigger a dashboard using the appropriately-named dashboard command on other commands, too. Using the layout option to the dashboard command, you can even trigger different modules at different times.
Installation is simple. Just put the .gdbinit file in your home directory. If you want syntax highlights, you need to install Pygments, too. We understand you can even use his under Windows, if you like.
We don’t always take full advantage, but gdb is
actually amazing
. The
flexible architecture
makes all sorts of interesting things possible. | 20 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6449604",
"author": "Viktor",
"timestamp": "2022-03-22T09:40:04",
"content": "just install Eclipse",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6449623",
"author": "JohnU",
"timestamp": "2022-03-22T10:33:28",
"conte... | 1,760,372,750.868923 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/21/ir-remote-transforms-to-rf/ | IR Remote Transforms To RF | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"ir",
"remote",
"RF",
"rf remote",
"rf remote control"
] | Most consumer remote controls operate using infrared light. This works well assuming the piece of equipment has a line of sight to the remote. But if you have, say a receiver in a cabinet or closet, the IR remote signal can’t reach the sensor. Some equipment has remote receivers that you can leave poking out, but it is still not very handy. That’s why some equipment now uses RF remotes. [Xtropie] used a pair of inexpensive 433 MHz RF modules to
convert an IR system to RF
. You can see a short video about the project below.
We might have been tempted to simply put an IR LED on the receiver so it could feed IR into the device sensor, but [Xtropie] took a different approach. He found the IR sensor and tied the RF receiver directly into its output. It seems to work, but we probably would have removed the IR sensor to make sure there were no conflicts.
In fact, if you removed the sensor, you could reuse it and connect it to the IR transmitter. It wasn’t clear how you could easily package the RF transmitter and the remote. But it struck us that you could wire the transmitter directly to the LED output and avoid the IR sensor at all. If there isn’t space in the remote case, maybe a 3D printed extension would do the trick.
Of course, nothing stops you from using
RF remotes with your own projects
. Of course, another way to go RF remote is to
leverage WiFi
. | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6449568",
"author": "vib",
"timestamp": "2022-03-22T07:10:52",
"content": "Wonderful Now anybody in the vicinity can control your devices, even through walls.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6449703",
"author": "Al Wil... | 1,760,372,751.355035 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/21/web-serial-terminal-means-its-always-hacking-time/ | Web Serial Terminal Means It’s Always Hacking Time | Tom Nardi | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"chrome",
"chromebook",
"Web Serial API"
] | Arguably one of the most important pieces of software to have in your hardware hacking arsenal is a nice serial terminal emulator. There’s plenty of choice out there, from classic command line tools to flashier graphical options, which ultimately all do the same thing in the end: let you easily communicate with gadgets using UART. But now you’ve got a new choice — instead of installing a serial terminal emulator, you
can simply point your browser to the aptly-named serialterminal.com
.
Well, maybe. As of this writing it only works on Chrome/Chromium (and by extension, Microsoft Edge), so Firefox fans will be left out in the cold unless Mozilla
changes their stance on the whole Web Serial API concept
. But assuming you
are
running the appropriate browser, you’ll be able to connect with your serial gadgets with a simple interface that should be familiar to anyone who’s worked with more traditional terminal software. In a quick test here at the Hackaday Command Center, we were able to bring up the Bus Pirate UI with no problems using Chrome on Linux.
The project comes our way from [Mike Molinari] of Autodrop3D who, unsurprisingly, often finds himself in a position where he needs to talk to 3D printer control boards over USB-to-serial. Since he’s using a Chromebook as his primary device these days, he thought a fast serial terminal emulator that he could use without leaving the browser would make his life a lot easier. With less than 150 lines of code between the HTML, CSS and JavaScript, he was in business. Add in a shiny new domain name, and now we’ve all got a handy tool for hacking on the go.
This isn’t the first hacker-friendly application of the Web Serial API that’s come our way.
Last year we featured a web oscilloscope
that worked in conjunction with the Logic Green LGT8F328P microcontroller, and more recently the Gabuino platform that provides
an STM32 compiler and debugging environment in your browser
. | 66 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "6449497",
"author": "Feinfinger (today just a moderate meanie)",
"timestamp": "2022-03-22T02:11:16",
"content": "Scary.Someday I’ll awake in a browser.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6449515",
"author": "Hellion666",
"t... | 1,760,372,751.307259 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/21/your-vacuum-cleaner-follows-you/ | Your Vacuum Cleaner Follows You | Al Williams | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Kinect hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"Kinect",
"robot"
] | There are several projects you can imagine where it would be useful to have a robot follow you. For example, we’ve always wanted luggage that would trail us at the airport and we’ve seen several coolers that will follow you. [Madmax95] apparently dream of having a medical cart following a patient, though, and that’s good too. But how do you do it? [Max’s] method was to strip down a Roomba and build a work table and electronics on it. An Arduino controls the motor and communicates with a PC. The PC reads video from a Kinect camera on the robot and uses special tracking software to
follow the patient.
We could easily imagine all of this project except the tracking. That depended on a service called
Nuitrack
. There is a free version that only works for 3 minutes, but it costs if you want to use it practically. However, it would still be cheaper than rolling your own if your time has value.
Nuitrack can do body tracking, face tracking, and also gesture recognition. So it would be easy to imagine commanding the robot using some sort of Jedi-style gesture. It looks like using this makes the project significantly easier than you’d imagine.
The project also uses
Thingsboard
to create a simple control panel. This is another solution that requires a subscription, but there is a free community edition you can host locally.
Overall, we probably won’t duplicate this robot ourselves, but we were interested in learning how we could pull off something similar for other projects. We’ve seen
variations of this
done with things like OpenCV. Our suitcase idea, by the way,
isn’t original
, but we wonder about how much packing volume you lose for batteries, electronics, and we imagine the airlines will be unhappy stowing one. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6449457",
"author": "rclark",
"timestamp": "2022-03-21T23:16:15",
"content": "Neat idea.By the way AdaFruit sells a already made for action product “iRobot Create® 2 Programmable Robot” that all you have to do is add all your equipment (say RPI board, with a camera, etc.) top side ... | 1,760,372,751.398758 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/21/home-made-scanning-electron-microscope-show-some-potential/ | Home Made Scanning Electron Microscope Shows Some Potential | Dave Rowntree | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"scanning electron microscope",
"sem"
] | Scanning electron microscopes are one of those niche instruments that most of us don’t really need all the time, but would still love to have access to once in a while. Although we’ve covered a few attempts at home-builds before, many have faltered, except this
project over on Hackday.IO
by user
Vini’s Lab,
which appears to be still under active development. The principle of the SEM is pretty simple; a specially prepared sample is bombarded with a focussed beam of electrons, that is steered in a raster pattern. A signal is acquired, using one of a number of techniques, such as secondary electrons (SE) back-scattered electrons (BSE) or simply the transmitted current into the sample. This signal can then be used to form an image of the sample or gather other properties.
Condenser assembly
The project is clearly in the early stages, as the author says, it’s a very costly thing to build, but already some of the machined parts are ready for assembly. Work has started on the drive electronics for the condenser stigmator. This part of the instrument takes the central part of the rapidly diverging raw electron beam that makes it through the anode, and with a couple of sets of octopole coil sets, and an aperture or two, selects only the central portion of the beam, as well as correcting for any astigmatism in the beam. By adjusting the relative currents through each of the coils, a quadrupole magnetic field is created, which counteracts the beam asymmetry.
Scanning control and signal acquisition are handled by a single dedicated card, which utilises the PIO function of a Raspberry Pi Pico module. The Pico can drive the scanning operation, and with an external FTDI USB3.0 device, send four synchronised channels of acquired sample data back to the host computer. Using PCIe connectors and mating edge connectors on the cards, gives a robust and cost effective physical connection. As can be seen from the project page, a lot of mechanical design is complete, and machining has started, so this is a project to keep an eye on in the coming months, and possibly years!
We have seen a few SEM hacks, here’s a
teensy powered SEM hack from [Ben Krasnow]
and
here’s another attempt
. For such a conceptually simple device, with such immense usefulness, its does seem a bit remiss that there aren’t more such projects out there. | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6449398",
"author": "Hash",
"timestamp": "2022-03-21T20:27:23",
"content": "Wow! Love everything about this and want to build one too!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6449462",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2022-03-2... | 1,760,372,751.451763 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/21/desk-accessory-pays-homage-to-macintosh/ | ‘Desk Accessory’ Pays Homage To Macintosh | Chris Wilkinson | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"e-ink",
"mac",
"macintosh",
"python",
"raspberry pi",
"system 6",
"system six"
] | The retrocomputing community are experts at keeping vintage Apple iron running, but if you’re looking for a simpler way to pay homage to the original Mac, check out this
Raspberry Pi powered ‘desk accessory’
by [John Calhoun], fittingly called ‘SystemSix’.
Housed inside a delightfully Mac-shaped piece of laser-cut acrylic, SystemSix is powered by as Raspberry Pi 3, with the graphics displayed on a sizeable 5.83″ e-ink panel. While it resembles a kind of retro-futuristic take on the ‘classic’ Macintosh, SystemSix is the illusion of a fully interactive computer. While non-interactive, the fake desktop is every bit as charming as a real Macintosh display, albeit scaled down. The desktop updates automatically with new information, and presently includes a calendar, dithered lunar phase graphic, and a local weather report.
Clearly calling it a ‘desk accessory’ is a neat play on words. The original Macintosh implemented simple desk accessory programs, such as the calculator and alarm clock, that could run alongside the main application in memory. This was the only way to run more than one application on the Macintosh, before MultiFinder added rudimentary cooperative multitasking in 1987. As such, SystemSix is a functional, stylish and quite literal ‘desk accessory’.
[John] has the full project write-up over on
GitHub
, and goes into great detail about maintaining the Macintosh aesthetic. For example, the lunar phase graphic uses ‘Atkinson’ dithering. This technique was pioneered by Apple programmer Bill Atkinson, the author of MacPaint and the QuickDraw toolbox on the original Macintosh (and later, Hypercard).
And in case you were wondering – yes, this is
the
[John Calhoun], who programmed Glider for Macintosh. Now recently retired from Apple, we’re really excited to see what other Macintosh-inspired creations he comes up with. Maybe he will come back around to his
Mac-powered MAME cabinets
that we covered all the way back in 2005. Or perhaps a sleeper battlestation, like the
iMac G4 lampshade that was upgraded with an M1 processor
. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6449358",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2022-03-21T18:34:49",
"content": "MoonTool! 😃❤️",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6449380",
"author": "joelfinkle",
"timestamp": "2022-03-21T19:13:57",
"content": "I know a ... | 1,760,372,751.627216 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/19/worlds-smallest-hair-straightener-for-fixing-old-lcd-ribbons/ | World’s Smallest Hair Straightener For Fixing Old LCD Ribbons | Arya Voronova | [
"handhelds hacks",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"cable",
"fixes",
"gaming",
"lcd",
"LCD repair",
"Liquid crystal display",
"repair",
"restoration",
"ribbon",
"ribbon cable",
"tiger 99x"
] | [Stephen] writes to us about
an LCD repair tool
he has created. We’ve all seen old devices with monochrome LCDs connected by thin film, where connections between the PCB and the LCD have deteriorated and the LCD would no longer show parts of the picture. This is a connection heating gadget, that [Stephen] affectionately dubs as World’s Smallest Hair Straightener, made specifically to bring cool old tech back to life.
A resin-printed mold houses a coil of Kanthal wire, easy to source and simple to make. He reuses a hair clip as a housing for the heating element, which also provides pressure needed to squish the film-printed conductive traces into the LCD as the adhesive melts. High-temperature epoxy brings the two together, and with a variable power supply, this tool successfully brought an old Tiger 99x handheld back to life.
This hack was made possible, in part, because of [JohnDevin Duncan] in Hackaday comment section
sharing his experience on repairing LCD ribbons
back in 2015, giving valuable insights on the problem that we initially thought would be solve-able with a soldering iron. The knowledge shared was distilled by [Stephen] into a tool that we all can now use when we encounter a device we really, really want to revive.
Last time we covered this topic
, quite a few hackers popped up with their stories and suggestions. Old game console fix stories are a staple here on Hackaday, a few pop to mind – this
high-effort trace repair of a water-damaged GameBoy cartridge
, a badly designed
NES cartridge socket reinvention
, and this
GameBoy LCD sunburn damage restoration guide
. | 8 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6448641",
"author": "Lee Studley",
"timestamp": "2022-03-20T01:15:38",
"content": "Kantian wire? Not heard of that. Is it Nichrome?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6448644",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2022... | 1,760,372,751.511395 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/19/reliving-second-hand-nostalgia-with-the-pdp-11/ | Reliving Second-Hand Nostalgia With The PDP-11 | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"assembly",
"DEC",
"pdp-11"
] | Levy’s
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
is something like required reading for the hacker subculture, and Hackaday by extension. The first section of that book is all about early hackers and their adventures with the PDP-1 at MIT. The PDP-11 has earned a special place in hacker history for being the minicomputer used to write the first Unix. We’re always amazed to find how many of our readers have stories about programming PDP microcomputers, usually the PDP-11. Those of us young enough to have missed out on the PDP experience often have something of a second-hand nostalgia for the old machines. An
exceptionally detailed article over at Ars Technica
promises to get us started reliving the glory days, even if it is for the first time.
It turns out that there’s an emulator for the old minicomputers, the History Simulator, abbreviated SimH. The article gives step-by-step instructions to get the emulator running, booting Unix 2.11 on a virtual PDP-11. The fun doesn’t stop there. The write-up includes an intro the the PDP-11 hardware, and a crash-course to assembly programming for the beast. It’s a great look at how the stack, branching, and subroutines work under the hood. Most of it still applies to computing today, so it really is worth the read.
Looking for more PDP-11 lore? Check out
our coverage of DEC’s history
.
The image above is
“PDP-11”
by
ToastyKen
, and is licensed under
CC BY 2.0 | 31 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6448563",
"author": "komradebob",
"timestamp": "2022-03-19T21:11:24",
"content": "UNIX was not written on a PDP-11, it was written on the PDP-7, then ported to a Interdata 8/32. The PDP-11 certainly shares quite a bit of relevant history with UNIX and the PDP-7, but UNIX predates th... | 1,760,372,751.584449 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/19/these-mind-controlled-cat-ears-move-with-your-mood/ | These Mind-Controlled Cat Ears Move With Your Mood | Robin Kearey | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"cat ears",
"eeg",
"mindwave",
"wearable"
] | As any cat owner will tell you, a cat’s ears are great indicators of its state of mind: pointed forward if they want your attention, turned backwards if they’re angry, and folded down flat when they’re afraid. Humans sometimes don cat ear headbands as a fashion statement, but sitting motionless those ears are more likely to confuse a cat than to provide any meaningful communication.
[Jazz DiMauro] aims to fill that gap by designing
a cat ear headband that actually responds to your emotions
. It does so by continuously taking an EEG measurement and extracting the “attention” and “meditation” variables from it. Those values are then applied to a set of servos that allow two-axis motion on each 3D printed ear. The EEG readout device is an off-the-shelf MindWave headset, which outputs its sensor data through Bluetooth. An Arduino then reads out the data and drives the servos.
Turning all this into a usable wearable device was a project on its own: [Jazz] went through several iterations to find a suitable power source and wiring strategy until they settled on a pair of lithium-polymer batteries and a single flat cable. The end result looks comfortable enough to wear, and the ears’ motion looks smooth and natural. All that’s left is to test it with real cats, to find out if they can now finally understand their human’s emotions too.
We’ve featured a few moving cat ear headbands before:
one that moves along with your head’s motions
, and
another one with manual control
. Today’s EEG-powered one shows yet another application for EEGs, which have been used for anything from
invoking lucid dreaming
to
playing beer pong
. | 15 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6448476",
"author": "DaBass",
"timestamp": "2022-03-19T17:21:25",
"content": "Interesting read. Almost the same design as Neco Mimi (https://necomimi.shop/en).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6448488",
"author": "Frankel",
... | 1,760,372,751.795702 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/19/impedance-mismatch/ | Impedance Mismatch | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants"
] | [
"impedance",
"mismatch",
"music",
"physics"
] | There are a few classic physics problems that it can really help to have a mental map of. One is, of course, wave propagation. From big-wave surfing, through loudspeaker positioning, to quantum mechanics, having an intuition for the basic dynamics of constructive and destructive interference is key. Total energy of a system, and how it splits and trades between kinetic and potential, is another.
We were talking about
using a bike generator to recharge batteries
on
the Podcast
last night, and we stumbled on a classic impedance mismatch situation. A pedaling person can put out 100 W, and a cell phone battery wants around 5 W to charge. You
could
pedal extremely lightly for nearly three hours, but I’d bet you’d rather hammer the bike for 10 minutes and get on with your life. The phone wants to be charged lightly — it’s high impedance — and you want to put out all your power at once — you’re a low impedance source.
The same phenomenon explains why you have to downshift your internal combustion automobile as you slow down. In high gear, it presents too high an impedance, and the motor can only turn so slowly before stalling. This is also why all vibrating string acoustic instruments have bridges that press down on big flat flexible surfaces, and why horns are horn shaped. Air is easy to vibrate, but to be audible you want to move a lot of it, so you spread out the power. Lifting a heavy rock with human muscle power is another classic impedance mismatch.
If these are fundamentally all the same problem, then they should all have similar solutions. The gear on the bike or the car, the bridge on a cello, the flared horn on the trumpet, and the lever under the boulder all serve to convert a large force over a short distance or time or area into a lower force over more distance, time, or area.
Pop quiz! What are the common impedance converters in the world of volts and amps? The two that come to my mind are the genafsbezre and the obbfg/ohpx pbairegre (rot13!). What am I missing?
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
! | 66 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6448397",
"author": "Nathan",
"timestamp": "2022-03-19T14:20:00",
"content": "Transformer and buck/boost converter (ebg13!)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6448403",
"author": "limroh",
"timestamp": "2022-03-19... | 1,760,372,752.571763 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/19/sensor-playground-keeps-track-of-indoor-air-quality-through-the-cloud/ | Sensor Playground Keeps Track Of Indoor Air Quality Through The Cloud | Robin Kearey | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"Air quality sensors",
"modular design",
"sensor interfacing"
] | When [tdw] wasn’t feeling well one day, his wife suggested that it might be due to poor air quality in their home. While an ordinary person could have simply opened a window after hearing such an idea, [tdw] instead showed his true hacker spirit and set about measuring the indoor air quality. He began by designing a simple PCB to measure CO2 and volatile organic compound (VOC) levels, but eventually broadened his scope to end up with the
Sensor Playground: a plug-and-play platform to read out various sensors and store the results in the cloud
.
Deliberately designed to be easy to assemble with minimal soldering skills, the Sensor Playground consists of a big two-layer PCB onto which various modules can be plugged. It supports either an ESP32 DevKit or an Adafruit Feather module to provide processing power, and provides sockets for a bunch of sensors, conveniently wired with power and SPI or I2C. It also provides a rotary encoder and two buttons for user input. All source files are available on
[tdw]’s GitHub page
, ready to be applied to any kind of sensing task.
[tdw] set up his Sensor Playground with sensors measuring CO2, VOC, PM2.5 (particulate matter), as well as temperature and relative humidity. A
web interface
allows anyone to track these measurements in real-time. The open and modular design should make it easy to extend this system with various other sensor types: we can imagine that things like solar irradiation, outside temperature and wind speed would also add useful data to the mix. Perhaps even a Geiger counter to keep track of radiation levels?
As indoor air quality sensors go, this one is definitely comprehensive and easy to use. We’ve featured
other air quality sensors
before, some of which
also link their data to the cloud
. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6448357",
"author": "Ben",
"timestamp": "2022-03-19T12:38:33",
"content": "I mean technically *all* air quality sensors “link their data to the cloud”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6448418",
"author": "Piotrsko",
"tim... | 1,760,372,751.744724 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/19/worlds-worst-i-o-dock-doesnt-deserve-elegant-fix/ | World’s Worst I/O Dock Doesn’t Deserve Elegant Fix | Donald Papp | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"3D printed enclosure",
"fail",
"HP thunderbolt"
] | Even spendy commercial products can end up being lemons. This is something [Mike Buss] is familiar with, as he had the misfortune of
being stuck using what he declares is the world’s worst USB hub
, and it’s not even a mystery discount device from overseas: it’s an HP Thunderbolt Dock G2. It is a sort of combination I/O dock and USB hub, and it caused him no end of frustration until he “fixed” it with a crude workaround.
The problems with [Mike]’s dock come down to two major issues. The first is that the USB-C connection will, if moved even the
slightest
amount, instantly trigger a disconnect from the host computer. Frankly, that sounds like a defect, but that’s not all. The other issue is that the whole top of the device is actually a giant, hyper-sensitive button. Even a stern gaze seems to be enough to cause it to activate. What does the button do? It puts the host computer to sleep; something that we all agree should suffer from as few false activations as possible.
We’ll spoil the surprise by revealing that the “fix” was nothing more than putting a 3D printed enclosure around the troublesome device, as shown in the image above. Keeping the dock covered and perfectly still at least prevents the two aforementioned issues, and that’s good enough for [Mike].
The curious part of all this is just how
badly
the device’s design affected normal use. We’d suspect a defect or malfunction, but a cursory search of reviews online suggests [Mike]’s experience isn’t unique. It’s certainly not the first poorly-designed product we’ve seen
fixed by a new enclosure
, but some problems just aren’t worth the effort of a more elegant solution. | 63 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "6448264",
"author": "Thijzer",
"timestamp": "2022-03-19T08:09:08",
"content": "Makes you think: dowsn’t HP test such devices? I bet it wasn’t even designed by HP itself. I hope so.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6448283",
... | 1,760,372,752.180407 |
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