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https://hackaday.com/2022/01/17/electromyography-hack-chat/ | Electromyography Hack Chat | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"action potential",
"electromyography",
"emg",
"Hack Chat",
"muscle",
"nerve",
"neural",
"phsyiology"
] | Join us on Wednesday, January 19 at noon Pacific as we kick off the 2022 Hack Chat season with the
Electromyography Hack Chat
with
hut
!
It’s one of the simplest acts most people can perform, but just wiggling your finger is a vastly complex process under the hood. Once you consciously decide to move your digit, a cascade of electrochemical reactions courses from the brain down the spinal cord and along nerves to reach the muscles fibers of the forearm, where still more reactions occur to stimulate the muscle fibers and cause them to contract, setting that finger to wiggling.
The electrical activity going on inside you while you’re moving your muscles is actually strong enough to make it to the skin, and is detectable using electromyography, or EMG. But just because a signal exists doesn’t mean it’s trivial to make use of. Teasing a usable signal from one muscle group amidst the noise from everything else going on in a human body can be a chore, but not an insurmountable one, even for the home gamer.
To make EMG a little easier, our host for this Hack Chat, hut, has been hard at work on
PsyLink
, a line of prototype EMG interfaces that can be used to detect muscle movements and use them to control whatever you want. In this Hack Chat, we’ll dive into EMG in general and PsyLink in particular, and find out how to put our muscles to work for something other than wiggling our fingers.
Our Hack Chats are live community events in the
Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging
. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, January 19 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a
handy time zone converter
. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,372,819.885697 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/17/old-firewall-reborn-as-retro-pc/ | Old Firewall Reborn As Retro PC | Chris Lott | [
"computer hacks",
"hardware"
] | [
"embedded",
"firewall",
"motherboard",
"retrogaming",
"router"
] | We like projects where old gear is given a new life. [Splashdust] has a twenty-year old business firewall that’s build like a tank. He cracks it open and finds a complete x86 embedded motherboard inside, and sets off to restore it and turn it into a retro gaming computer (see the
video from his
Odd & Obsolete
YouTube channel
below the break).
This business firewall and router box is from a small Swedish firm Clavister, part of their S-Series from the early 2000s. The motherboard appears to be a generic one used in other equipment, and is powered by a
VIA Eden ESP 4000
running at 400 MHz. The Eden line of x86 processors were low-power chips targeting embedded applications. The graphics chip is a Twister T by S3 Graphics which was purchased by VIA in 2000. After replacing the electrolytic capacitors, and making a few cables, [Splashdust] pops in a PCI sound card and boots up into Windows 98 from a CF card (we like the compact PCB vise he uses).
In two follow-up videos (
here
and
here
), he builds an enclosure (
instructions on Thingiverse
) and tries out several other operating systems. He was able to get the
Tiny Core Linux
distribution running with the
NetSurf browser
, but failed to get Windows 2000 or XP to work. Returning to Windows 98, he tweaks drivers and settings and eventually has a respectable retro-gaming computer for his efforts. The next time you’re cleaning out your junk bins, have a peek inside those pizza-box gadgets first — you may find a similar gem. | 16 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6415040",
"author": "VarneyJLV",
"timestamp": "2022-01-17T15:17:41",
"content": "Years ago I found one of these old business firewall’s at a thrift store for $5.00. The CPU was a Pentium 3 which wasn’t that old at the time. I plugged a PCI video card into it that I found at a flea m... | 1,760,372,819.939496 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/17/3d-printed-magnetic-switches-promise-truly-custom-keyboards/ | 3D Printed Magnetic Switches Promise Truly Custom Keyboards | Jenny List | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed keyboard",
"keyboard",
"magnetic keyboard",
"openscad",
"parametric design"
] | While most people are happy to type away at whatever keyboard their machine came with, for the keyboard enthusiast, there’s no stone to be left unturned in the quest for the perfect key switch mechanism. Enter [Riskable], with
an innovative design for a 3D printed mechanism
that delivers near-infinite adjustment without the use of springs or metallic contacts.
The switching itself is performed by a Hall effect sensor, the specifics of which are
detailed in a second repository
. The primary project simply represents the printed components and magnets which make up the switch mechanism. Each switch uses three 4 x 2 mm magnets, a static one mounted on the switch housing and two on the switch’s moving slider. One is mounted below the static magnet oriented to attract it, while the other is above and repels it.
With this arrangement the lower magnet provides the required tactility, while the upper one’s repulsive force replaces the spring used in a traditional mechanism. [Riskable] calls it the magnetic separation contactless key switch, but we think “revolutionary” has a nicer ring to it.
The part which makes this extra-special is that it’s a fully parametric OpenSCAD model in which the separation of the magnets is customisable, so the builder has full control of both the tactility and return force of the keys. There’s a video review we’ve posted below that demonstrates this with a test keypad showing a range of tactility settings.
We have a resident keyboard expert here at Hackaday in the shape of our colleague [Kristina Panos], whose
Keebin’ With Kristina
series has introduced us to all that is interesting in the world of textual input. She plans on taking a
keyboard made of these clever switches on a test drive
, once she’s extruded the prerequisite number of little fiddly bits.
Thanks [Daren Schwenke] for the tip. | 57 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6415007",
"author": "abjq",
"timestamp": "2022-01-17T12:44:59",
"content": "Looking at the Hall switches: OH49E Series …The output voltage is set by the supply voltage and varies in proportion to the strength of the magnetic field.So maybe you could do away with the traditional caps... | 1,760,372,819.84738 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/17/hack-the-web-without-a-browser/ | Hack The Web Without A Browser | Al Williams | [
"Software Development",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"scraping",
"screen scraping",
"web scraping"
] | It is a classic problem. You want data for use in your program but it is on a webpage. Some websites have an API, of course, but usually, you are on your own. You can load the whole page via HTTP and parse it. Or you can use some tools to “scrape” the site.
One interesting way to do this is woob
— web outside of browsers.
The system uses a series of backends tailored at particular sites. There’s a collection of official backends, and you can also create your own. Once you have a backend, you can configure it and use it from Python. Here’s an example of finding a bank account balance:
>>> from woob.core import Woob
>>> from woob.capabilities.bank import CapBank
>>> w = Woob()
>>> w.load_backends(CapBank)
{'societegenerale': <Backend 'societegenerale'>, 'creditmutuel': <Backend 'creditmutuel'>}
>>> pprint(list(w.iter_accounts()))
[<Account id='7418529638527412' label=u'Compte de ch\xe8ques'>,
<Account id='9876543216549871' label=u'Livret A'>,
<Account id='123456789123456789123EUR' label=u'C/C Eurocompte Confort M Roger Philibert'>]
>>> acc = next(iter(w.iter_accounts()))
>>> acc.balance
Decimal('87.32')
The list of available backends is impressive, but eventually, you’ll want to create your own modules. Thankfully, there’s plenty of documentation about how to do that. The framework allows you to post data to the website and easily read the results. Each backend also has a test which can detect if a change in the website breaks the code, which is a common problem with such schemes.
We didn’t see a Hackaday backend. Too bad. There are, however, many application examples, both console-based and using QT. For example, you can search for movies, manage recipes, or dating sites.
Of course, there are
many approaches
possible to this problem. Maybe you need to find out when the
next train is leaving
. | 20 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414968",
"author": "YGDES",
"timestamp": "2022-01-17T09:18:22",
"content": "Well well well… I once made a HaD.io scraper but it was quickly broken by “updates” to the pages.Considering I have > 100 projects, I would love to have a snapshot of everything.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,372,820.190283 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/16/a-dodgy-dial-gets-a-teardown-and-some-oil/ | A Dodgy Dial Gets A Teardown And Some Oil | Jenny List | [
"classic hacks",
"Phone Hacks"
] | [
"GPO",
"pulse dial",
"telephone dial"
] | The pulse-dial telephone and its associated mechanical exchange represents the pinnacle of late-19th and early-20th century electromechanical technology, but its vestiges have disappeared from view with astonishing rapidity. [Matthew Harrold] is a telecoms enthusiast who’s been kind enough to share with us
the teardown and refurbishment of that most signature of pulse-dial components, a telephone dial
. In this case it’s on a rather unusual instrument, a British GPO outdoor phone that would have been seen in all kinds of industrial and safety installations back in the day and can probably still be found in the wild today
if you know where to look
.
The teardown soon identifies a dial that runs very slowly and is sorely in need of a clean. There follows a detailed part-by-part dismantling of the dial mechanism, followed by a careful clean, polish, and reassembly. He notes that a previous owner had used grease to lubricate it, probably the reason for its slow operation.
The result is a smoothly running dial and a refurbished phone that would probably last another half-century or more before needing more maintenance. It’s enough to make
others who’ve experimented with pulse dial phones
very envious. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6415015",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-01-17T13:20:42",
"content": "Timely!My old phone’s dial became “dodgy” being stored in the garage (humidity?),",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "64151... | 1,760,372,820.034385 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/16/open-source-replacement-for-ezcad/ | Open Source Replacement For EzCAD | Chris Lott | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"balor",
"EZCAD",
"fiber laser",
"laser engraving"
] | [Bryce] obtained a fiber laser engraver to use for rapid PCB prototyping last Fall. But he was soon frustrated by the limitations of the standard EzCAD software that typically comes with these and similar devices — it is proprietary, doesn’t have features aimed at PCB manufacturing, only runs on Windows, and is buggy. As one does, [Bryce] decided to ditch EzCAD and
write his own tool, Balor
, named after the King of the Fomorians.
The controller board in [Bryce]’s machine is a Beijing JCZ LMCV4-FIBER-M board, containing an Altera FPGA and a Cypress 8051 USB controller. So far, he hasn’t needed to dump or modify the FPGA or 8051 code. Instead, he sorted out the commands by just observing the USB operations as generated by a copy of EzCAD running know operations. A lot of these engraving systems use this control board, but [Bryce] want’s to collect data dumps from users with different boards in order to expand the library.
Balor is written in Python and provides a set of command line tools aimed at engineering applications of your engraver, although still supporting regular laser marking as well. You can download the program from the
project’s GitLab repository
. He’s running it on Linux, but it should work on Mac and Windows (let him know if you have any portability issues). Check out our write-up from last year about
using these lasers to make PCBs
. Are you using a laser engraver to make rapid prototype boards in your shop? Tell us about your setup in the comments. | 24 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414953",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2022-01-17T07:10:02",
"content": "Master Oscillator Power Amplifier (MOPA) [1] LASER-Fiber Engravers are expensive. Here’s a 30W desktop unenclosed MOPA-Fiber model for $3.8k USD, and that’s cheap.[2] [Bryce] uses a 20W version from LIT LAS... | 1,760,372,819.995285 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/16/hackaday-links-january-16-2022/ | Hackaday Links: January 16, 2022 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"astrophotography",
"bmw",
"e-ink",
"electronic ink",
"electrostatic discharge",
"esd",
"hackaday links",
"Heat pump",
"james webb space telescope",
"jwst",
"orion",
"polar vortex",
"Social Media",
"street view",
"tesla"
] | As winter well and truly grips the northern hemisphere, it’s time once again to dunk on Tesla for
leaving some owners out in the cold — literally
. It seems that some Model 3 and Model Y owners are finding their ride’s heat pump isn’t exactly up to the task of, you know, pumping heat. That this seems to be happening mostly in the northeastern US and southern Canada, where a polar vortex is once again dominating the weather and driving temperatures down into the -30 °C (-22 °F) range, perhaps speaks more to the laws of thermodynamics than it does to the engineering of the Tesla climate control system. After all, if there’s not much heat outside the car, it’s hard to pump it inside. But then again, these are expensive machines, some of which have had extensive repairs to address this exact same issue when it cropped up last year. It seems to us that owners have a legitimate gripe with Tesla about this, and they may be getting some help from the Feds, who are
taking an interest in the situation
from a safety standpoint. After all, no heat likely means fogged up windows, and that’s hardly conducive to a safe trip. But hey, that’s what self-driving is for, right?
Much has been made of the dearth of engineering cameras on the James Webb Space Telescope, and the fact that we’ve been relying on animations to illustrate the dozens of deployments needed to unfurl the observatory and make it ready for its mission. Putting aside the fact that adding extra cameras to the spacecraft makes little sense since the interesting stuff was all happening on the side where the sun doesn’t shine, we did get treated to what was billed as
“humanity’s last look at Webb”
thanks to an engineering camera on the Ariane 5 rocket. But not so fast — an astrophotographer named
Ethan Gone managed to spot the JWST
as it transited to L2 the day after launch. Granted, the blip of light isn’t as spectacular as the Ariane shots, and it took a heck of a lot of astrophotography gear to do it, but it’s still thrilling to watch Webb moving gracefully through Orion.
When it comes to protecting components and assemblies from damage by electrostatic discharge (ESD), there seem to be two schools of thought: either you take it seriously and take precautions, or you think it’s a lot of fuss about nothing. It seems like Dan Kollen (AI6XG) falls into the former camp, and shared with us
his thoughts on the risks of ESD damage
and the approaches he takes to mitigate them. The article is brief but full of interesting information, like the effect of relative humidity on ESD generation and the relative sensitivity of various components to getting zapped. He also shares his strategies for ESD protection — spoiler alert: you don’t always need to wear a wrist strap. The ESD nomenclature list is a handy reference too.
If Henry Ford were alive today, and somehow managed to get a job at BMW at the ripe old age of 159, he might be tempted to say that “You can have any color you want, as long as it’s black or white, or maybe red someday.” That’s thanks to the German company’s announcement at CES of
a color-changing car with an electronic ink paint job
. If the promotional video is to be believed, it actually looks pretty cool, especially the faint hexagonal grid of electrodes visible on the surface. While we can see the utility of the idea — a white car for summer, a black car for winter — we can’t help but wonder about the legality of changing the physical appearance of the car on the fly like that.
And finally, apparently there’s no hiding from the all-seeing eyes of Google. At least that’s probably what Gioacchino Gammino thinks now that
Google Street View was used to help find and capture the alleged mafioso
(English translation from original Spanish) after two decades on the lam. The clue came from a Street View image of a grocery store in Galapagar, Spain, where Gammino had fled and started a new life under an assumed name. Apparently, the police already knew he was in the town; the pixelated shot resembled the suspect enough to give them a lead to his specific whereabouts. A quick check of the establishment’s Facebook page showed a clear photo of Gammino, complete with an identifying facial scar. We suppose the lesson here is that crime doesn’t pay, and it really doesn’t mix well with social media. | 21 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414924",
"author": "Eric Chapin",
"timestamp": "2022-01-17T00:50:13",
"content": "Color changing car could be the police’s bane. They could radio ahead of criminals fleeing in a white car, the police ahead only sees black car and completely misses the criminal.",
"parent_id":... | 1,760,372,820.090967 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/16/aeroponic-cell-grows-garlic-forwards-cellsol-packets/ | Aeroponic Cell Grows Garlic, Forwards CellSol Packets | Arya Voronova | [
"green hacks",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"aeroponic",
"Aeroponics",
"automated plant care",
"automatic gardening",
"gardening",
"growing",
"horticulture",
"plants"
] | Certain pictures draw attention like no other, and that’s what happened when we stumbled upon
a Twitter post about “resuscitating supermarket garlic”
by [Robots Everywhere]. The more we looked at this photo, the more questions popped up, and we couldn’t resist contacting the author on Twitter – here’s what we’ve learned!
This is an aeroponics cell – a contraption that creates suitable conditions for a plant to grow. The difference of aeroponics, when compared to soil or hydroponics methods, is that the plant isn’t being submerged in soil or water. Instead, its roots are held in the air and sprayed with water mist, providing both plenty of water but also an excess of oxygen, as well as a low-resistance space for accelerated root growth – all of these factors that dramatically accelerate nutrient absorption and development of the plant. This cell design only takes up a tiny bit of space on the kitchen countertop, and, in a week’s time, at least half of the cloves have sprouted!
Much like a garlic bulb, this project has layers to it – in that this aeroponic cell is also a CellSol node! The CellSol project is a distributed communication system that can use LoRa and WiFi for its physical layer, enabling you to build widely spanning mesh networks that even lets you connect your smartphone to it where it’s called for – say, as an internet-connected hub for other devices to send their data through.
We’ve covered CellSol and it’s hacker-friendliness previously
, and one of the intentions of this design is to show how any device with a bit of brains and a SX1276 module can help you form a local CellSol network, or participate in some larger volunteer-driven CellSol-powered effort.
If, like us, you’re looking at this picture and thinking “this is something I’d love to see on my desk”, [Robots Everywhere] has
published the STL files for making a hydroponic cell like this at home
, as well as all the code involved, and some demo videos. Hopefully, the amount of aeroponics projects in our tips line is only going to increase! We’ve covered
Project EDEN
before, a Hackaday Prize 2017 entry that works to perfect an aeroponics approach to create an indoor greenhouse. There’s also
a slew of hydroponics projects
to have graced our pages, from
hardware store-built
to
3D printed ones
!
the garlic is escaping
pic.twitter.com/Bz2UQSY6NZ
— Robots Everywhere (@SmallRobotArmy)
January 9, 2022 | 16 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414909",
"author": "Gael",
"timestamp": "2022-01-16T22:00:35",
"content": "This is pretty cool",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6414918",
"author": "spiritplumber",
"timestamp": "2022-01-16T23:38:17",
"... | 1,760,372,820.139933 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/16/thirty-seconds-at-100-megakelvins/ | Thirty Seconds At 100 Megakelvins | Chris Lott | [
"News",
"Science"
] | [
"ITER",
"kstar",
"nuclear fusion"
] | Back in Dec 2020 we wrote about the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) magnetic fusion reactor’s
record-breaking feat of heating hydrogen plasma up to 100 megakelvins for 20 seconds
. Last month it
broke its own record, extending that to 30 seconds
. The target of the program is 300 seconds by 2026. There is a bit of competition going, as KSTAR’s Chinese partner in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (
ITER
), the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST)
did a run a week later reaching 70 million degrees
for 1056 seconds. It should be noted that KSTAR is reaching these temperatures by heating ions in the plasma, while EAST takes a different approach acting on the electrons.
The news reports seem to be using Celsius and Kelvins interchangeably, but at millions of degrees, that’s probably much smaller than measurement error. These various milestones are but stepping stones along the path to create a demonstration large fusion reactor, the goal of the global ITER mega-project. Currently China, the EU including Switzerland and the UK, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States are members of ITER, and Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, and Thailand are participants. The ITER demonstration reactor is being constructed at the Cadarache facility located 60 km northeast of Marseille, France, and is on track for commissioning phase to begin in 2025, going operational ten years later. | 28 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414871",
"author": "William J Steele",
"timestamp": "2022-01-16T18:57:47",
"content": "Ah, the age old question.Q) How hot is the sun?A) A million degrees!Q) Is that K or C?A) Doesn’t matter!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6... | 1,760,372,819.746618 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/16/printable-portable-mask-gives-you-the-numbers-on-your-workout/ | Printable Portable Mask Gives You The Numbers On Your Workout | Dan Maloney | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"differential pressure",
"ESP32",
"exercise",
"mask",
"O2",
"oxygen",
"physiology",
"respirator",
"sensor",
"sports medicine",
"Venturi",
"VO2 max"
] | We’re currently in the midst of New Year’s Resolutions season, which means an abundance of spanking new treadmills and exercise bikes. And one thing becomes quickly obvious while using those machines: the instruments on them are, at best, only approximately useful for measuring things like your pulse rate, and in the case of estimating the calories burned by your workout, are sometimes wildly optimistic.
If precision quantification of your workout is your goal, you’ll need to monitor your “VO
2
max”, a task for which
this portable, printable mask
is specifically designed. This is [Robert Werner]’s second stab at a design that senses both pressure differential and O
2
concentration to calculate the maximum rate of oxygen usage during exercise. This one uses a commercially available respirator, of the kind used for painting or pesticide application, as the foundation for the build. The respirator’s filter elements are removed from the inlets to provide free flow of air into the mask, while a 3D printed venturi tube is fitted to its exhaust port. The tube houses the pressure and O
2
sensors, as well as a LiPo battery pack and an ESP32. The microcontroller infers the volume of exhaled air from the pressure difference, measures its O
2
content, and calculates the VO
2
max, which is sent via Bluetooth to a smartphone running an exercise tracking app like Zwift or Strava.
[Robert] reports that his $100 instrument compares quite well to VO
2
max measurements taken with a $10,000 physiology lab setup, which is pretty impressive. The nice thing about the design of this mask is how portable it is, and how you can take your exercise routine out into the world — especially handy if
your fancy exercise bike gets bricked
. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414856",
"author": "Evan Rowley",
"timestamp": "2022-01-16T15:53:18",
"content": "Wow! I just bought a pair of these exact 3M masks for some dusty jobs. Glad to hear they have uses beyond just home improvement.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,819.684993 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/16/giant-3d-prints-piece-by-piece/ | Giant 3D Prints Piece-by-Piece | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"large scale 3d printing"
] | While FDM printers have gotten bigger lately, there’s almost always going to be a part that is bigger than your bed. The answer? Break your design into parts and assemble them after printing. However, the exact method to do this is a bit of a personal choice. A mechanical engineering student wrote:
After researching the state of the art as well as your ideas here on
reddit
, I realized, that there are almost no universal approaches to divide a large part and join the pieces which maintain mechanical strength, precisely position each segment, and also counteract tolerances due to the FDM-process.
Therefore I tried to develop a universal method to segment large trim parts, additively manufacture each segment and finally join those segments to form the desired overall part.
The result is
a research paper
you can download for free. The method focuses on thin parts intended as automotive trim, but could probably be applied to other cases.
You can read about the thought process, but the final result was a joggle — a joint made with a rabbet and tongue. Adhesive holds it together, but the joint offers advantages in constraining the final product and the transmission of force in the assembly. Judging by the picture, the process works well. It would be interesting to see slicer software develop the capability to segment a large model using this or a similar technique.
Of course, you can just
build a bigger printer
, at least to a point. It seems, though, that that point is
pretty big
. | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414857",
"author": "MrSVCD",
"timestamp": "2022-01-16T15:59:20",
"content": "Nice!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6414860",
"author": "Peter",
"timestamp": "2022-01-16T16:11:49",
"content": "Luban was featured on H... | 1,760,372,820.243049 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/16/coin-sorter-is-elegant-and-beautiful/ | Coin Sorter Is Elegant And Beautiful | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"coin",
"coin counter",
"coin sorter",
"coins"
] | Counting change is a great way to teach children about mathematics and money, but it grows tiresome for those of us that have passed the first grade. Thus, a machine should the job,
as [Daniele Tartaglia] demonstrates.
A vibrating motor is used to shake a hopper full of coins, letting them fall through a feeder slot into the machine at a steady rate. They then go through a size-based sorter, which flicks the coins into a different channel depending on their physical dimensions. The coins are counted via infrared sensors wired up to an Arduino, and then pass through a rather lovely maze on their way down to sorting bins at the bottom of the machine.
It’s a tidy build, and a great thing to have if you regularly find yourself needing to count change. We haven’t seen too many coin counters before, but we have seen
a laundromat given an overhaul with some hacker skills
. Video after the break. | 32 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414816",
"author": "Christoph",
"timestamp": "2022-01-16T10:09:28",
"content": "The roller coaster mid-part is visually interesting (which is likely the point of this project) but it doesn’t add to the functionality. Some minor improvements : use a hinged door so that no screw dri... | 1,760,372,820.96712 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/15/serial-studio-one-year-on/ | Serial Studio One Year On | Chris Lott | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"dashboard",
"data visualizer",
"json",
"serial plotter",
"serial port"
] | Last year we
wrote about [Alex Spataru]’s Serial Studio project
, which started life as serial port data visualizer, like a souped-up version of the Arduino serial plotter. [Alex] has been actively improving the project ever since, adding a variety of new features, including
JSON editor for data formats
TCP, UDP, and Multicast
New and more flexible display widgets
Multi-signal plots
FFT and logarithmic plots
VT-100 emulation
Support for plugins and themes
Added MQTT support
[Alex] originally came up with
Serial Studio
because he was involved in ground station software for various CanSat projects, each one with similar yet slightly different data formats and display requirements. Rather than make several different programs, he decided to make Serial Studio which could be configured using JSON descriptor files.
The program is open-source and multi-platform. You can build it yourself or download pre-compiled binaries for Windows, Linux, and Mac. See the
project GitHub repository
for more details. In addition to English, it has also been translated into Spanish, Chinese, and German. What is your go-to tool for visualizing serial data telemetry these days? Let us know in the comments below. | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414807",
"author": "NotThatDan",
"timestamp": "2022-01-16T08:26:48",
"content": "This is exactly what I have been looking for the last couple of days.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6414837",
"author": "Alysson+Rowan... | 1,760,372,820.90019 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/15/giant-wheels-make-for-exciting-powered-rollerskates/ | Giant Wheels Make For Exciting Powered Rollerskates | Lewin Day | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"chainsaw",
"roller skates",
"wheels"
] | Roller skates are fun and all, but they’re pretty well limited to rolling on relatively smooth surfaces. [Fireball Tool] wanted something a little more rugged,
so set about a build of his own.
The challenge of the design was to build these skates using as many wheelchair parts as possible, including the wheels. Roughly 22″ tall, the wheels have great bearings inside and are designed to run on a single-sided axle support, perfect for the skates. A metal bracket is then used to attach a snowboard boot binding so the wheels can be fitted to the wearer’s feet. Training wheels were fitted to the rear to make it easier for the rider, while a chainsaw engine was pressed into service to provide some welcome propulsive force.
In a short test on a flat workshop floor, the wheels performed ably. The hope is that the large diameter wheels should do better than traditional roller skates would on rough surfaces like grass or dirt. We look forward to seeing that test in action as a comparison to
other powered skates we’ve seen
. Video after the break. | 14 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414782",
"author": "Tom Hargrave",
"timestamp": "2022-01-16T03:11:16",
"content": "That’s gonna hurt!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6414786",
"author": "BobbyMac99",
"timestamp": "2022-01-16T04:35:24",
"content": ... | 1,760,372,820.634799 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/15/glitch-your-way-to-reverse-engineering-glory-with-the-picoemp/ | Glitch Your Way To Reverse-Engineering Glory With The PicoEMP | Dan Maloney | [
"Security Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"electromagnetic fault injection",
"EMFI",
"emp",
"glitching",
"high voltage",
"hv",
"Raspberry Pi Pico",
"Side channel"
] | Most of our projects are, to some extent, an exercise in glitch-reduction. Whether they’re self-inflicted software or hardware mistakes, or even if the glitches in question come from sources beyond our control, the whole point of the thing is to get it running smoothly and predictably.
That’s not always the case, though. Sometimes inducing a glitch on purpose can be a useful tool, especially when reverse engineering something. That’s where
this low-cost electromagnetic fault injection tool
could come in handy. EMFI is a way to disrupt the normal flow of a program running on an embedded system; properly applied and with a fair amount of luck, it can be used to put the system into an exploitable state. The PicoEMP, as [Colin O’Flynn] dubs his EMFI tool, is a somewhat tamer version of his previous
ChipSHOUTER
tool. PicoEMP focuses on user safety, an important consideration given that its business end can put about 250 volts across its output. Safety features include isolation for the Raspberry Pi Pico that generates the PWM signals for the HV section, a safety enclosure over the HV components, and a switch to discharge the capacitors and prevent unpleasant surprises.
In use, the high-voltage pulse is applied across an injection tip, which is basically a ferrite-core antenna. The tip concentrates the magnetic flux in a small area, which hopefully will cause the intended glitch in the target system. The video below shows the PicoEMP being used to glitch a Bitcoin wallet, as well as some tests on the HV pulse.
If you’re interested in the PicoEMP and glitching in general, be sure to watch out for [Colin]’s 2021 Remoticon talk on the subject. Until that comes out, you might want to look into glitching attacks on
a Nintendo DSi
and
a USB glitch on a Wacom tablet
.
Hat tip goes to [leo60228] for this one. Thanks! | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414766",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-01-16T01:10:34",
"content": "Slightly(?) Off-topic;What is that one handed, dual probe holder he uses starting around 6:00 in the video?As I don’t have a 3D printer, does anyone have a source for one?",
... | 1,760,372,821.007145 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/15/recycling-soda-bottles-into-filament-to-print-smaller-soda-bottles/ | Recycling Soda Bottles Into Filament To Print Smaller Soda Bottles | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d print",
"3d printer",
"filament",
"pet",
"recycling"
] | Thermoplastics are great, because you can melt them down and reform them into whatever you like. This is ably demonstrated by [The Q] by recycling old soda bottles into usable 3D printer filament.
Cute, huh? Why aren’t Coca-Cola making these? Tiny fake grocery items already proved
hugely popular in Australia.
Soda bottles are usually made out of PET plastic, or polyethylene terephthalate, which is one of the most popular thermoplastics in modern society. A soda bottle can be cut into a continuous long, thin strip with the use of a simple hand-operated machine that slices the bottle with a blade. This strip of plastic can then be fed through a heated nozzle in order to produce filament for 3D printing. [The Q] demonstrates both parts of this process, including using a motorized reel to take up filament as the bottle material is fed through the extruder.
The filament is then demonstrated by printing tiny versions of soda bottles. [The Q] fills these with soda and gives them the appropriate lids and labels for completion’s sake. It’s a neat way to demonstrate that the filament actually works for 3D printing. It bears noting that such prints are almost certainly not food safe, but it’s really a proof of concept rather than an attempt to make a usable beverage container.
Like similar builds we’ve seen in the past
, the filament is of limited length due to the amount of plastic in a single bottle. We’d like to see a method for feeding multiple bottles worth of plastic into the extruder to make a longer length spool, as joining lengths of filament itself can be
fraught with issues.
Video after the break. | 32 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414737",
"author": "BadAngel",
"timestamp": "2022-01-15T22:42:10",
"content": "Simple design … I must do it for me (I already have all the required parts).To solve the “short filament issue”, I would try to join the bottle strips before converting them to filament. If joining the s... | 1,760,372,820.703138 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/15/the-eerie-sounds-of-ioalieia-an-esp32-valve-analog-hybrid-circuit-sculpture/ | The Eerie Sounds Of Ioalieia: An ESP32/Valve/Analog Hybrid Circuit Sculpture | Dave Rowntree | [
"Art",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"analog",
"AS3320",
"Circuit Sculpture",
"digital",
"Digital echo",
"ESP32",
"MCP4251",
"PT2399",
"vacuum tube"
] | We’ve not had a circuit sculpture piece for a while, so here’s
“ioalieia” a lovely hybrid digital-analog sound sculpture
by [Eirik Brandal] to dig into.
Tidy straight lines. Nice job!
The host of the show is the ESP32 module, which generates audio frequency square waves, which are fed into a
MCP4251
digital potentiometer. From there, it is fed into a
AS3320
Voltage controlled filter (VCF), from Latvia-based
ALFA
(which is new to us, despite them being manufacturing electronics for sixty years!) This is an interesting device that has a four independently configurable filter elements with voltage controlled inputs for frequency control and resonance. The output from the VCF is then fed into a 6n2p (Soviet equivalent to the
12ax7
) twin-triode vacuum tube, which is specifically aimed at audio applications.
The suitably distorted filtered square waves then pass into a
Princeton Tech Corp PT2399
echo processor chip, which being digitally constructed, uses the expected ADC/RAM/DAC signal chain to implement an audio echo effect. As with the VCF, the echo depth can be modulated via the digipot, under the ESP32’s command. For a bit of added bling, the vacuum tube output feeds back into the ESP32, to be consumed by the internal ADC and turned into a light show via some PWM controlled LEDs. Lovely.
The final audio output from the echo chip is then fed into a speaker via a pair of LM380 amplifiers giving a power of about 5 W. It sounds pretty good if you ask us, and software configurable via Wi-Fi, giving this sculpture plenty of tweakabilty.
Of course circuit sculpture come in all shapes and sizes, and it wouldn’t do to not mention at least
one sculpture clock project
, and while we’re on it, here’s last year’s
Remoticon circuit sculpture workshop
. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414723",
"author": "Redhatter (VK4MSL)",
"timestamp": "2022-01-15T20:29:35",
"content": "> The suitably distorted filtered square waves then pass into a Princeton Tech Corp PT2399 echo processor cjip…What is a “cjip”, exactly?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies":... | 1,760,372,820.845941 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/15/hacking-is-hacking/ | Hacking Is Hacking | Elliot Williams | [
"classic hacks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants"
] | [
"newsletter",
"reverse engineering",
"travis goodspeed"
] | Tom Nardi and I had a good laugh this week
on the Podcast
when he compared
the ECU hacks
that enabled turning a VW with steering assist into a self-driver to a hack last week that
modified a water cooler
to fill a particular cup. But it’s actually no joke — some of the very same techniques are used in both efforts, although the outcome of one is life-and-death, and the other is just some spilled ice-cold water.
This reminded me of Travis Goodspeed’s now-classic talk “
In Praise of Junk Hacking
” from way back in 2016. For background, this was a time when IoT devices and their security were in their relative infancy, and some members of the security community were throwing shade on the dissection of “mere” commercial crap. (Looked back on from today, where every other member of a Botnet is an IP camera, that argument didn’t age well.)
Travis’ response was that hacking on junk lets us focus on the process — the hack itself — rather than getting distracted by the outcome. Emotions run high when a security flaw affects millions of individuals, but when it’s a Tamagotchi or a pocket calculator, well, it doesn’t really matter, so you focus on the actual techniques. And as Travis points out, many of these techniques learned on junk will be useful when it counts. He learned about methods to defeat address-space randomization, for instance, from an old hack on the TI-85 calculator, which garbage-collected the variables that needed to be overwritten.
So I had junk hacking in the back of my mind when I was re-watching
Hash Salehi’s great talk on his work reverse engineering smart meters
. Funnily enough, he started off his reverse engineering journey eleven years ago with work on a robot vacuum cleaner’s LIDAR module. Junk hacking, for sure, but the same techniques taught him to work on devices that are significantly more serious. And in the craziest of Hackaday synergies, he even hat-tipped Travis’ talk in his video! Hacking is hacking!
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 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414666",
"author": "Hash Salehi",
"timestamp": "2022-01-15T15:25:53",
"content": "Travis’s talk is great to understand the separation of the art and skill of hacking from the potential effects when applied to the devices that run our world.He’s also an entertaining character so I r... | 1,760,372,821.086242 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/15/doing-the-right-thing-the-wrong-way-dumping-stm8-firmware-with-555-timers/ | Doing The Right Thing The Wrong Way: Dumping STM8 Firmware With 555 Timers | Ryan Flowers | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"555 timer contest",
"firmware dump",
"glitching",
"stm8"
] | When [Jarrett] decided to enter the 555 Contest that’s just wrapped up, he leaned up on an idea that’s been rattling around in his noggin for a few years:
Using 555 timers to trigger a firmware dump on a microcontroller
. It’s definitely the wrong tool for the job, but [Jarrett] got it working and documented it nicely at Hackaday.io.
The premise is that by interrupting the power supply to the STM8 microcontroller at
just the right time
and for
just the right duration
, it would skip the instruction telling it not to allow its firmware to be read. Time and duration… things the 555 is well known for being capable of. There was a problem, however.
The first problem is that the duration was to be measured in
nano
seconds. A garden variety 555 has can only pulse down to about 10 microseconds. The solution? Well, you’ll have to read the excellent project page to find out, but don’t worry- it’s a 555. The second problem? He was using 555’s!
Was [Jarrett] successful? After much fiddling and twiddling, he absolutely was! The old firmware was dumped from the STM8 processor and the new firmware could be flashed with impunity.
This 555 contest has seen some truly epic entries, including but not limited to this
555 based accordion like instrument
that this particular author just can’t get enough of! | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414671",
"author": "darkspr1te",
"timestamp": "2022-01-15T16:02:00",
"content": "The Nerd version of “Hold my beer”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6414682",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"t... | 1,760,372,821.045269 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/15/improve-your-front-panels/ | Improve Your Front Panels | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"front panel",
"laminator"
] | For many of us, the bane of electronic projects is making a professional-looking enclosure. Sure, 3D printing has made it easier to make the actual enclosure, but there’s still the problem of labeling it. [Richard Langner] has the answer with something he calls
easy front panels
. You can read about it or watch the tutorial video below.
The concept is easy enough. You create your beautiful artwork in your choice of graphics programs. The example uses Inkscape, but you could do it in anything, even PowerPoint. You print it out and cut it to size. You could, of course, print it in color or — as the example does — color it in by hand.
Even if you print in color, [Richard] suggests you print a black border around holes and then use a black marker to color it to hide any imperfections in cutting. For the next step, you place the artwork in a laminator pouch and laminate it. We wondered if any of the self-laminating pouches would work as well.
After lamination, you trim almost to the edge. The instructions say to leave 1 mm to avoid losing the laminate seal. It is best not to cut holes in the laminate (for example, for the display window) unless absolutely necessary. One thing missing was how the finished front panel attaches to the box. We presume some glue that sets thin would do the trick.
The box looks great and this seems easier than using, say, waterslide paper to create labels. You could also get fancy by using laser printer foil or other printing tricks as long as they will survive the lamination step.
A laminator can have
many uses around the shop
. You can even use it in your
PCB fabrication
. | 58 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414622",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2022-01-15T09:37:55",
"content": "Excellent.If you want to make holes in laminations (e.g. if you want to hang it outside with a thumbtack or so), first make a larger hole in the paper, so the laminate also seals the inside of the hole.",
... | 1,760,372,821.175211 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/14/travel-guitar-hacked-with-digital-fx-setup/ | Travel Guitar Hacked With Digital FX Setup | Lewin Day | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"guitar",
"music",
"musical hacks"
] | [Courcirc8] was a big fan of the ALP AD-80, with the travel guitar being a surprisingly competent instrument despite its folding form-factor. However, the onboard headphone amp left something to be desired,
so it was time to get hacking.
To achieve better audio output, [courcirc8] decided to purchase an iRig HD 2 guitar interface, and installed it inside the body of the compact guitar. The original volume pot on the guitar was instead spliced into the iRig circuit, and a switch hooked up to allow the guitar to output clean tones to an amp or the digital audio output of the iRig instead. It’s a tight fit inside, but it all nestles in there rather neatly when finished.
The result is a compact guitar that has a capable digital FX platform built in to the body; all one has to do is hook up a smartphone to gain access to a broad selection of software effects. It makes the guitar much more of a Swiss Army knife when playing on the road.
We’ve seen others before installing guitar effects
into the instrument itself;
it remains perhaps one of the best ways a hacker can express themselves with a completely individual instrument! | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414700",
"author": "Nitpicker Smartyass",
"timestamp": "2022-01-15T17:29:44",
"content": "I love the idea.However, this kind of ruins it:> all one has to do is hook up a smartphone to gain access to a broad selection of software effects.… I would prefer making music to handling a “... | 1,760,372,821.216392 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/14/smart-sutures-become-wise/ | Smart Sutures Become WiSe | Chris Lott | [
"Medical Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"health care",
"infection",
"surgery",
"suture",
"wounds"
] | A team at the Wireless Bioelectronics Lab at the National University of Singapore led by [Dr John Ho] announced the results of their new
Wireless Sensing (WiSe) smart sutures program
last month. Their system consists of a specially prepared patch of polymer gel (the sensor) which is sewn into the wound using a silk suture coated with a conductive polymer. An external reader scans the sensor to monitor the status of the wound.
The concept is not unlike a NFC public transportation card, although with simplified electronics. There is no microcontroller or digital data being transferred. Rather, the sensor behaves like a tuned tank. The gel on the sensor was designed to degrade if the wound becomes infected, changing capacitance of the sensor structure and thus shifting its resonant frequency.
If you’ve ever had the misfortune to experience surgery, no doubt the surgeon and nurses drove home the importance of diligent monitoring of the wound for early signs of infection. These smart sutures allow detection of wound infection even before symptoms can seen or felt. They can be used on internal stitches up to 50 mm inside the body. More details can be read in
this paper
, and we covered
another type of smart sensor back in 2016
. | 12 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414588",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2022-01-15T04:19:07",
"content": "As much as I love electronics, this seems more like a chemistry type problem. The “sutures with beet juice concentrate that change from a bright red hue to a purple color when the pH level indicates an in... | 1,760,372,821.266469 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/14/making-your-own-mclaren-f1-lm/ | Making Your Own Mclaren F1 LM | Matthew Carlson | [
"car hacks"
] | [
"diy car",
"fabrication",
"McLaren"
] | It isn’t often we get a project that has an eighteen-year-long timeline, as staying focused on one project for that long is a significant investment of someone’s lifetime. But when you’re
making your own carbon copy Mclaren, you need to be prepared for it to take a while
. Unfortunately, there are only 6 of them in the world so for most people if you want one, you need to make your own.
Granted, in those eighteen years, [Brough Built] freely admits there were some gaps. He scrapped most of the earlier work, and today’s current iteration took about three years. This car is made of steel, aluminum, foam, carbon fiber, and sweat. It is a close copy of the F1, and it has all the features you would expect to see on the real thing, like the centered driver’s seat and the gold cladding in the engine bay.
A BMW V12 engine mated to an Audi six-speed gearbox provides the power inside the car. A custom clutch assembly was machined to make it all work. Overall, this is an incredible build with time, and precision just poured into it. Folding and cutting all that metal alone, not to mention all the meticulous welds on everything from the gas tank to the door panels.
Making your own car is a complex and long journey that can be incredibly rewarding. Perhaps not a copy of an existing vehicle but something new; check out
this soap shaped hand-made electric car
. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414578",
"author": "wjp",
"timestamp": "2022-01-15T02:10:55",
"content": "It would have taken Tavarish longer.Wrench every day.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6414579",
"author": "Tom Hargrave",
"timestamp": "2022-01-1... | 1,760,372,821.464057 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/14/improving-an-already-phenomenal-star-trek-prop/ | Improving An Already PhenomenalStar TrekProp | Tom Nardi | [
"handhelds hacks",
"LED Hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"prop",
"replica",
"star trek",
"tricorder",
"voyager"
] | When
Star Trek: Voyager
was in the development phase, concept art was created for a new style of tricorder to be used by the crew of the titular starship. But as it often the case with a younger sibling, the show ended up having to largely make do with the hand-me-down props from
Star Trek: The Next Generation
, which had recently finished its TV run.
Trek
aficionado [Mangy_Dog] completed a jaw-dropping recreation of this unused tricorder design back in 2019, but unable to leave well enough alone,
he’s recently completed a second version that truly raises the bar for fan replicas
. It’s not hyperbole to say that the prop he’s created is of a far higher quality and fidelity than anything they would have had during the actual filming of the show.
Now you might be thinking that building the second version of the tricorder was easier than the first, and indeed, [Mangy_Dog] learned some important lessons from the earlier build. But that’s not to say that construction of this new replica, which was actually done on commission, went off without a hitch. In fact, he almost immediately ran into a serious problem. When he attempted to order a new display from Nextion, he found the quality had dropped significantly from the ones he’d used previously.
The viewing angles and color reproduction were abysmal
, so he was forced to go back to the drawing board and not only find a new display, but a completely new graphics chip to talk to it.
Simplifying the hinge meant making the electronics more complex.
Being forced to redesign the main PCB was of course regrettable, but it was hardly the only challenge [Mangy_Dog] ran into building his new tricorder. Discovering that the SLA 3D printed hinges utilized in the first build weren’t strong enough for long-term use, he had to figure out how to make new ones out of brass while still retaining the ability to run wires through them invisibly as well.
Along the way he realized that if he switched over to using two-wire serial communications between his different PCBs, he could cut down the number of wires he had to use the first time around. Retooling large sections of both the hardware and code like this added more and more time to the total project. How much time? Well, to give you an idea, [Mangy_Dog] had originally planned on delivering this commissioned prop around Christmas of 2019.
Still, we think you’ll agree that it was time well spent. Speaking of which, we know putting aside the nearly two hours it will take to watch the three videos [Mangy_Dog] has produced about this build is a lot to ask, but think of it this way: if you skip
Tattoo
and
Threshold
on your next re-watch of
Voyager
, it will basically even itself out and nothing of value will be lost.
Interested in more terrestrial projects from [Mangy_Dog]? We were particularly fond of his
touch screen reflow oven back in 2020
, and his
scratch-built retro gaming handheld
is still one of the best we’ve ever seen.
Thanks to [SomeComputerGuy] on the
Hackaday Discord server
for the tip. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414553",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2022-01-14T22:30:16",
"content": "I’m not surprised. China: where the product is a lie an the specs don’t matter.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6414787",
"author": "Ed",
... | 1,760,372,821.417023 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/14/toilet-paper-warmer-is-a-unique-chinese-luxury/ | Toilet Paper Warmer Is A Unique Chinese Luxury | Lewin Day | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"bathroom",
"china",
"toilet",
"toilet paper"
] | [Handy Geng] lives in Baoding, China, where average winter temperatures can get as low as −7.7 °C (18.1 °F). Rather than simply freezing in the cold when using the bathroom, he decided he could do better. Thus came about his rather unique
toilet paper heating system
.
The build uses a gas burner heating up a wok. Toilet paper is fed into the wok body via motorized rollers salvaged from what appears to be an old counterfeit money detector. The wok is then shaken by a second motor in order to more evenly heat the toilet paper within. The burner can then be turned off, and the lid of the wok opened in order to gain access to the toasty toilet paper.
The system heats the toilet paper to a scorching 75 °C (167 °F); a little too warm to comfortably touch, but thankfully toilet paper doesn’t have a lot of thermal mass so cools off relatively quickly. It’s also thankfully well below the auto-ignition temperature of paper of 451 °F.
It’s a noisy, clanging machine that nonetheless provides the same warmth and comfort that you’re probably more familiar with from the office photocopier.
It’s not [Handy Geng]’s first bathroom hack, either
. Video after the break.
Thanks to [Adam Quantrill] for the tip! | 32 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414513",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2022-01-14T19:48:08",
"content": "When I was a kid, in winter the toilet paper hung with the toilet seat on the wall next to the door, right beside the woodstove. You’d grab both on your way out to the outhouse. (Yes, back then we were civ... | 1,760,372,821.54689 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/14/3d-printering-getting-started-with-universal-bed-leveling/ | 3D Printering: Getting Started With Universal Bed Leveling | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"3d printing"
] | Last time we talked about how
Marlin has several bed leveling mechanisms
including unified bed leveling or UBL. UBL tries to be all things to all people and has provisions to create dense meshes that model your bed and provides ways for you to adjust and edit those meshes.
We talked about how to get your printer ready for UBL last time, but not how to use it while printing. For that, you’ll need to create at least one mesh and activate it in your startup code. You will also want to correctly set your Z height to make everything work well.
Phases
Nearly all the UBL mechanisms are in the G29 command. Unless you are totally starting from scratch, you’ll want to load a mesh from a “slot” in EEPROM:
G29 L2
That means slot 2’s mesh is now in memory and you’ll work with it. If you don’t save it, any changes you make will be lost. This doesn’t necessarily activate leveling, by the way. It just loads the mesh. If you are starting from scratch, you don’t need to load anything.
Setting up the mesh requires the use of phase commands to G29 which use the letter P and a number:
P0 – Zero the mesh and turn off the leveling system.
P1 – Automatically probe as much as possible. Normally, this wipes out the existing mesh unless you use the C option. If you realize you don’t want to probe dozens or hundreds of points, you can stop by holding the controller button down for a few seconds.
P2- Manually probe any points not filled in. The printer will prompt you on the display screen to proceed. You can manually touch the bed with the nozzle or use the B argument to measure a shim like a piece of paper the first time and then use that height to manually measure all the points. You can abort, again, by holding down the controller button.
P3 – Fill unpopulated areas of the mesh. You can specify a value with C or omit it and the printer will try to guess the right value from surrounding data. It is surprisingly good at this. However, if you have multiple rows or columns of points unspecified, this command will only do the “first” set of points so you can possibly refine them and guess better for the rest of the points. What that means is that if you are just trying to get the grid filled, you may need to issue P3 multiple times.
P4 – Fine tune mesh points. This makes the printer prompt you on the screen to measure specific points. Usually, you’ll provide an X and Y coordinate along with a repeat count (often 1).
P5 – GIve statistics on the mesh including mean and standard deviation. Include a C if you want to shift the mesh so that the average value is considered zero.
P6 – Shift the mesh. Provide a value with C to move the entire mesh up or down. This might be useful if you were, say, printing PLA and wanted the print to move up a few hundred microns to prevent overadhesion.
That seems confusing, but the general idea is you will start with P1 and then use either P2 or P3 (or both) until all the points are set. The rest are used for special purposes or for fine-tuning things. Just don’t forget to store the mesh and remember where you put it:
G29 S1
I suggest you save your first P1 result in a slot that you never change and then store the results after P2 and P3 somewhere else. That way if you mess things up, you can go back to the baseline and start over without having to redo many probes.
Visualize Your Bed Heights
So how do you know what UBL is doing? You can ask for a topography report (T) and get some data:
G29 T
You can add V1 to get a little more verbosity and T1 will output data suitable for a spreadsheet or other software to read.
Here’s an example report:
Bed Topography Report:
( 0,210) (210,210)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
6 | -0.533 -0.533 -0.522 -0.483 -0.461 -0.429 -0.400
|
5 | -0.400 -0.367 -0.324 -0.245 -0.183 -0.112 -0.183
|
4 | -0.359 -0.259 -0.183 -0.075 -0.026 +0.076 +0.200
|
3 | -0.333 -0.233 -0.115 -0.001 +0.070 +0.181 +0.200
|
2 | -0.348 -0.248 -0.140 -0.009 +0.062 +0.161 +0.200
|
1 | -0.350 -0.290 -0.177 -0.049 -0.003 +0.130 +0.400
|
0 | -0.350 [-0.290] -0.177 -0.049 -0.003 +0.130 +0.400
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
( 0, 0) (210, 0)
The P5 command, by the way, reports the standard deviation of this set as about 0.24. That means that about 68% of the data is plus or minus 0.24 mm of the mean value. Then 95% of the readings are within 0.48 mm (again, plus or minus). As you can see, I have one corner that needs a little work — the total variation is about 1 mm from the highest point to the lowest.
The bed data plotted
Z Height
Even if we know the shape of the bed, there are other factors at play. In particular, the actual height of the nozzle is crucial. You must set the Z offset so that the difference between the probe and the nozzle is just right.
Everyone has their own way to set up UBL, but my advice is to start with turned off. Then print a small ring or disk in the center of the bed. It doesn’t have to be very thick and should be small enough that the bed will be flat under it. For example, a 5 mm high cylinder with a 20 mm diameter. You can quickly see if the plastic is sticking to the bed or not. If it is too squishy or not sticking, adjust the Z offset until it is. Then do the mesh measurements.
However, the offset doesn’t change the shape of the bed, so you can set the offset last or you can adjust the height of the mesh, too. All legitimate solutions, but I prefer to set the height first.
Start Up
Your startup code has a few things to do. You need to load the desired mesh and turn on leveling. By default, a home command will turn it off, but you can change that if you rebuild Marlin. Your bed probably won’t change shape, but it might shift a little. You can use G29 J to make a 3 point measurement and skew the mesh based on that measurement. You also need to activate leveling with G29 A, if it isn’t always enabled.
You should also set a fade height, which you can do once in EEPROM if you like. This is usually 10 mm and the correction applied due to the mesh gets less and less on each layer until you hit that height. After that, there is no Z correction applied. Usually, by that point, your print is fine and it saves time and wear on your Z axis, too.
A Plan
So if you wanted to experiment with UBL, here’s a plan:
Recompile Marlin to enable UBL and resist the urge to start with too many points. You might want to get familiar first and then expand the number of points. A 7×7 grid is good for many printers. You might also want to set it so that auto-leveling is restored to its previous state after a HOME.
Level your bed in the usual way as best you can. The less correction required, the better UBL will work.
Do not turn on auto-leveling yet. Get a nice cylinder to print in the center of the bed first by adjusting the Z offset.
Heat up the bed to your normal temperature and do a G29 P1. Save the results in, say, slot 2 (G29 S2).
Do a G29 T and see if any points are not measured. You should understand why they were not measured. For example, if the Z probe is to the left of you print nozzle, you should not have unprobed points on the left-side of the bed. If you do, your setup in Marlin is wrong and you need to recompile.
You can do a G29 P2 to fill in the rest of the spots, but for a first attempt, try G29 P3 instead.
Do a G29 T again and repeat the P2 or P3 commands until you have a full mesh.
Save the mesh in slot 1 (G29 S1)
Set your startup code to load slot 1 (G29 L1) and activate (G29 A). You might want to do a G29 J after the load and, preferably, after your bed is hot.
Print a test object. You might want to start with a small centered object again just to validate you haven’t screwed anything up. A bed flatness pattern is useful. Marlin has a “mesh validation” command that will draw a pattern like that (G26) and you could use that, too. However, any bed flatness test print will be fine to start.
If you notice some points are too high or low, you can try editing them. If you get too far off, you can always revert back to the saved copy in slot 2 and start over. Inductive sensors sometimes, for example, give odd results near the edge when they are partially off the metal bed.
Tips
Octoprint can edit meshes with a little help,
Notice that I always try to do any probing with a hot bed. Heat makes things expand, so probing the bed cold probably isn’t as accurate as you’d like.
If you need a quick bed verification print, there are plenty on sites like Thingiverse,
including mine
. You can scale the X and Y size to fit your bed instead of recreating it. Just don’t scale the Z axis proportionately.
If you use Octoprint, you can view and edit meshes there with a
plugin
. There’s also a plugin to visualize the mesh or you can do like I did above and use a
website
for that purpose.
That’s a Wrap!
So are you using UBL? If not, why not? Sure, if you have a great bed, you could just make it parallel to the X axis and be done. But if you use beds that are not perfectly flat, you won’t be able to just move the corners to get everything perfect.
The UBL system is sort of a “virtual bed surface” and that means you can adjust it easily without mechanical issues. If you want PETG to not stick so hard, you can just shift the mesh up a bit. If a part of a model is very tiny and needs extra squish into the bed, you could do that, too.
Of course, bed leveling is nothing new. But if you are not using UBL, you might want to consider upgrading. Just the ability to tweak the mesh and store multiple bed leveling setups is worth the effort. | 10 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414507",
"author": "Derpapopulus Rex",
"timestamp": "2022-01-14T19:20:27",
"content": "Thanks for the non-constructive comment. Glad you got your posting karma for the day.Move on to…. what?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "64... | 1,760,372,821.776114 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/14/hackaday-podcast-151-the-hackiest-vr-glove-plotting-boba-fett-with-shoelaces-ecu-hacking-and-where-does-ammonia-come-from/ | Hackaday Podcast 151: The Hackiest VR Glove, Plotting Boba Fett With Shoelaces, ECU Hacking, And Where Does Ammonia Come From? | Tom Nardi | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi are back again to talk about all the weird and wonderful stories from our corner of the tech world. Canon had to temporarily give up on chipping their ink cartridges due to part shortages, and that’s just too perfect to ignore. There’s also some good news for the International Space Station as the White House signals they’re ready to support the orbiting outpost until 2030.
We’ll also look at an extremely promising project to deliver haptic feedback for VR, programming bare-metal x86 with the Arduino IDE, and the incredible reverse engineering involved in adding a DIY autonomous driving system to a 2010 Volkswagen Golf. Finally we’ll find out why most of the human life on this planet depends on a process that many people have never heard of, and learn about the long history of making cars heavier than they need to be.
Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Direct download
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 151 Show Notes:
News This Week:
ISS 2030: NASA Extends Operations of the International Space Station – YouTube
Canon Temporarily Abandons Smart Ink Cartridges
What’s that Sound?
Last week’s sound was an “electro-mechanical thumb stabber” — an industrial sewing machine. Congrats, Alex Dickman!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Low Cost Haptic VR Gloves Work With Hacked Steam Games
GitHub – LucidVR/opengloves-driver: An OpenVR Driver for VR Gloves
Arduino IDE Creates Bootable X86 Floppy Disks
Servo Plotter Needs Nothing Exotic
GitHub – SonarSonic/DrawingBotV3: Open source software for converting images to line drawings
Lack Of Space Is No Longer An Excuse For Not Having A Pen Plotter
RC Keith’s Foam Cutter
also uses drawer slides to good effect.
3D Printed Sensor For Finding Wind Direction And Likely Much More
Baby Steps Toward DIY Autonomous Driving: VW Golf Edition
GitHub – commaai/openpilot: An open source driver assistance system.
This Little Minecraft Mine Cart Of Mine
CCCamp: 5,000 Hackers Out Standing in Their Field
— [Sebi]’s rail hammock was the one I was thinking of.
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
HitClips Custom Cartridge Hack Will Never Give Up, Let Down, Or Turn Around
$7 Tent Heater Provides Comfort On A Budget
The Atari Punk Console, Now With More Vacuum Tubes
Tom’s Picks:
Digital Rain Animation Crammed Into Pi Pico
Honda Ignition Coils Sing The Song Of Their People
Reusable Booster Rockets, Asian Roundup
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Haber-Bosch And The Greening Of Ammonia Production
Does This Lead Make My Car Look Fat? | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,372,821.724754 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/14/rapid-reload-vacuum-cannon-totally-demolishes-those-veggies/ | Rapid-Reload Vacuum Cannon Totally Demolishes Those Veggies | Dave Rowntree | [
"classic hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"air cannon",
"vacuum"
] | [NightHawkInLight] has been developing his design for a vacuum canon for a while now, so it seems fitting to
drop in check out the progress
. The idea is pretty straightforward, take a long rigid tube, insert a close fitting piston, magnetically attached to a projectile, and stopper the open end with something easily destroyed. The piston needs to be pulled into the tube with some force, to pull a vacuum against the stopper. The interesting bit happens next, when the piston exits the other end of the tube, with the vacuum at its maximum, there is a sudden inrush of air. Apparently this inrush of supersonic velocity, and the momentum of the mass of air is sufficient to eject the projectile at considerable velocity, smashing through the plug and demolishing the target. So long as the target is of the soft and squishy variety anyway.
It’s an interesting idea, and certainly gives plenty of bang for not many bucks. That big lump of acrylic tubing (presumably used for ease of explanation in the video) looks fairly expensive to buy off the shelf, but we reckon any old pipe would probably work out fine.
We’ve definitely covered our share of DIY projectile weapons, like this
air cannon made from PVC pipe parts
, and of course there’s
this crazy big one
, that you should definitely not try at home.
Thanks [Keith] for the tip! | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414519",
"author": "Comedicles",
"timestamp": "2022-01-14T20:04:49",
"content": "Supersonic inrush? How can that be?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6414532",
"author": "Dave Rowntree",
"timestamp": "2022-01-1... | 1,760,372,822.081868 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/14/this-week-in-security-npm-vandalism-simulating-reboots-and-more/ | This Week In Security: NPM Vandalism, Simulating Reboots, And More | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"NPM",
"protestware",
"qnap",
"This Week in Security"
] | We’ve covered quite a few stories about malware sneaking into NPM and other JavaScript repositories. This is a bit different. This time,
a JS programmer vandalized his own packages
. It’s not even malware, perhaps we should call it protestware? The two packages,
colors
and
faker
are both popular, with a combined weekly download of nearly 23 million. Their author, [Marak] added a breaking update to each of them. These libraries now print a header of
LIBERTY LIBERTY LIBERTY
, and then either random characters, or very poor ASCII art. It’s been confirmed that this wasn’t an outside attacker, but [Marak] breaking his own projects on purpose. Why?
It seems like this story starts back in late 2020, when [Marak]
lost quite a bit in a fire, and had to ask for money on Twitter
. Edit: Thanks to commenter [Jack Dansen] for pointing out an important detail that was missing. Marak was charged for reckless endangerment, and was suspected for possible terrorism aspirations, as
bomb-making materials were found in his burned-out apartment
. Two weeks later,
he tweeted that billions were being made
off open source devs’ work, citing a FAANG leak. FAANG is a reference to the big five American tech companies: Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google. The same day, he opened an issue on Github for
faker.js
, throwing down an ultimatum: “Take this as an opportunity to send me a six figure yearly contract or fork the project and have someone else work on it.”
If you find yourself feeling sorry for [Marak], there’s a wrinkle left to turn. He hasn’t committed code to
colors.js
since February 2018. Another developer, [DABH] has been doing maintenance since then, up until the vandalism happened. All told, it’s a mess. Both projects on NPM have been reverted to their unmolested releases, and will likely be pivoted to official forks of the projects.
Simulated Reboots
The common wisdom is that while there are multiple iOS malware kits, produced by the likes of of NSO group, that malware can’t actually defeat Apple’s secure boot, so a phone reboot is enough to “uninstall” it. The problem with this is obvious once you hear it: You’re trusting a compromised device to
actually perform a clean reboot
. Researchers at ZecOps have demonstrated the ability to interrupt the reboot process in what they’re calling NoReboot. Their code hooks into the shutdown function, and instead kills the user interface. Once the power button is pressed again, the boot animation is shown, and finally a handy system command reboots userspace. Watch the demo embedded below.
No problem, right? Just use the hardware force restart function. Volume up, volume down, then hold the power button til you get the Apple logo. How long do you hold it? Until the logo shows up — right, it’s trivial to fake a forced reboot before the real one happens. OK, so to know you get a true reboot you just pull the battery…
Oh
.
via The Record.
Microsoft Hacks MacOS
MacOS has a feature called Transparency, Consent, and Control (TCC) that handles permissions for individual apps. This system prevents the calculator application from accessing the system’s webcam, for instance. The settings are stored in a database stored in the home directory, with strict controls preventing apps from modifying it directly. Microsoft has announced
the Powerdir vulnerability
, which combines a couple quirks to overcome the protection. The exploit is simple: Create a fake TCC database, and then change the user’s home directory so that spoofed database is now the active one. It’s a little more complicated than that, because a random app really shouldn’t be able to remap the home directory.
They found two techniques to make the remap work. First is the directory services binaries,
dsexport
and
dsimport
. While changing the home directory directly requires root access, this export/import dance can be done as an unprivileged user. The second technique is to provide a malicious bundle to the
configd
binary, which does a code-injection attack. It’s interesting to see Microsoft continue to do security research targeting MacOS. Their motivation might be less than noble, but it really does help keep all our devices more secure.
QNAP and UPnP
We’ve covered quite a few NAS vulnerabilities over the years, and I’ve noted several times that it really isn’t wise to expose appliances like this to the internet. One of the suggested explanations was UPnP, and today we have some official confirmation that this is indeed part of the problem. In a new advisory, QNAP officially recommends
turning off UPnP in QNAP devices
. It seems like this should have been recommended quite some time back, or better yet, these devices shipped with UPnP disabled by default. I would go a step further, and suggest turning the feature off in your router, too, unless you know that you actually need it for something.
If You Get a USB Drive in the Mail…
For goodness sake, don’t plug it in! It seems that a few companies didn’t get that memo, as there has been
a successful ransomware campaign by FIN7
using just this approach. The trick is that they include an official looking letter, and maybe a gift card, tempting the receiver to plug in the USB drive to claim their loyalty reward. A 2020 campaign from the same group
impersonated Best Buy
, where this one claims to be from either Amazon or HHS.
You may have gathered that these flash drives are more than just flash storage. In fact, they seem to be BadUSB devices — small chips that register as HID devices and send keystrokes to the computer. Once plugged in, they open Powershell and run a malicious script, giving remote access to the attackers. If you receive one of these, or a similar attack, call the FBI or your local equivalent. Reports from companies and individuals is what leads to warning like this one.
Notable Updates
The first round of Android updates for
this year is out
, and there’s one standout issue, affecting a plethora of devices sporting the Qualcomm Snapdragon.
CVE-2021-30285
is a critical rated vulnerability in Qualcomm’s closed source software. It’s called an “Improper Input Validation in Kernel”, but appears to be a memory management problem in the Qualcomm hypervisor. It’s rated a 9.3 on the CVSS scale, but no other details are available at this time.
VMWare’s virtualization products have been
patched against CVE-2021-22045
, a heap-overflow vulnerability in their virtual CD-ROM device code. Exploitation could result in a VM escape and arbitrary code run on the machine hypervisor, a worst-case scenario for VM operators. The flaw rates a 7.7, and thankfully there must be a CD image actively attached to the machine, so the workaround is pretty easy — just remove the CD drive or image. | 33 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414458",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2022-01-14T15:21:06",
"content": "So… if doing an iOS forced reboot, keep the button down for a minute or so, enough to definitely force a reboot?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "641447... | 1,760,372,822.000108 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/14/game-boy-becomes-super-game-boy-with-a-pair-of-pis/ | Game Boy Becomes Super Game Boy With A Pair Of Pis | Bryan Cockfield | [
"classic hacks",
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"controller",
"game boy",
"microcontroller",
"nes",
"original",
"pico",
"raspberry pi",
"restoration",
"snes",
"super game boy",
"vga",
"video"
] | For the Nintendo aficionados of the 90s, the Super Game Boy was a must-have cartridge for the Super Nintendo which allowed gamers to play Game Boy games on your TV. Not only did it allow four-color dot-matrix gaming on the big screen, but it let you play those favorite Game Boy titles without spending a fortune on AA batteries. While later handhelds like the PSP or even Nintendo Switch are able to output video directly to TVs without issue, the original Game Boy needed processing help from an SNES or, as [Andy West] shows us,
it can also get that help from a modern microcontroller
.
Testing the design before installing it in the NES case.
The extra processing power in this case comes from a Raspberry Pi Pico which is small enough to easily fit inside of a donor NES case and also powerful enough to handle the VGA directly. For video data input, the Pico is connected to the video pins on the Game Boy’s main board through a level shifter. The main board is also connected to a second Pico which handles the controller input from an NES controller. Some fancy conversion needed to be done at this point because although the controller layouts are very similar, they are handles by the respective consoles completely differently.
With all of the technical work largely out of the way, [Andy] was able to put the finishing touches on the build. These included making sure the power buttons, status LEDs, and reset button all functioned, and restoring the NES case complete with some custom “Game Guy” graphics to match the original design of the Game Boy. We commend the use of original Game Boy hardware in this build as well, which even made it possible for [Andy] and his wife to play a head-to-head game of
Dr. Mario
through a link cable with another Game Boy. If you’re looking for a simpler way of playing on original hardware without burning a hole in your wallet buying AA batteries, take a look at
this Game Boy restoration which uses a Lithium battery instead
.
Thanks to [BaldPower] and [adistuder] from the
Hackaday Discord server
for sending this one in. | 13 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414410",
"author": "3L_S4N70",
"timestamp": "2022-01-14T13:01:24",
"content": "Interesting build just three comments:– Spending a fortune in AAs?? Come on, GB was able to run for hooooours on 4 AAs, not enough motivation for this build. Playing the games on TV definitely is.– The P... | 1,760,372,821.827622 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/14/this-diy-microscope-design-is-all-wet/ | This DIY Microscope Design Is All Wet | Al Williams | [
"Science"
] | [
"microscope",
"Robert Murray-Smith",
"water microscope"
] | [Robert Murray-Smith] wanted to recreate how some ancient microscopes worked: with
a drop of water as a lens
. The idea is that the meniscus of a drop of water will work as a lens. This works because of surface tension and by controlling the attraction of the water to the surface, you can actually form convex and concave surfaces.
What’s interesting is that this doesn’t require a lot of equipment. Some plastic, a hole punch, some pens, a flashlight, and some other odds and ends. Then it’s just a matter of grabbing some puddle water and examining the critters inside. Of course, with a single lens, these are more properly magnifying glasses. Some claim that people in China built such instruments thousands of years ago. [Robert] mentions [Antonie van Leeuwenhoek] as the father of the microscope, although he wasn’t the first to build such a device. He did create amazing glass lenses using a method he kept secret but has been worked out using modern science.
It is hard to see much through the camera, but it clearly was magnifying. Not a bad little rainy day kid’s project since you probably have everything you need on hand. We wonder what other readily-available things you could image with a device like this.
Of course, if you want to build a real microscope, the designs are
out there
. You can even make one using — mostly —
LEGO
. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414400",
"author": "Prfesser",
"timestamp": "2022-01-14T11:57:43",
"content": "I think a very old “The Amateur Scientist” article (CD available athttps://www.surplusshed.com/pages/item/M2071.html) showed how to make a glass-droplet microscope of the same sort. Center of a glass rod... | 1,760,372,822.036686 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/13/pico-does-pid/ | Pico Does PID | Al Williams | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"pico",
"pid",
"temperature controller"
] | If you wanted to, say, control a temperature you might think you could just turn on a heater until you reach the desired temperature and then turn the heater off. That sort of works, but it is suboptimal — you’ll tend to overshoot the goal and then as the system cools down, you’ll have to catch up and the result is often a system that oscillates around the desired value but never really settles on the correct temperature. To solve that, you can use a PID — proportional integral derivative — loop and that’s what [veebch] has done with a
Rasberry Pi PICO
and Micropython.
The idea is to control an output signal based on the amount of difference between the actual temperature and the desired temperature (the proportional error). In addition, the amount is adjusted based on the long term error (integral) and any short term change (the derivative). You can also see a video about using the control loop to make a better
sous vide
burger, below.
PIDs are useful for things other than temperature control, of course. They generally apply to any (usually linear) process where a control value influences some other value. For example, we’ve seen robots use PIDs to
follow a line
. Some use them for balance, too, or you can
balance a ball
. | 23 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414330",
"author": "PIDguru",
"timestamp": "2022-01-14T06:47:43",
"content": "If you really want to do it nicely (with resistive loads only) grab a PID controller with a 4-20mA output and a phase controller (like this:https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001632554726.html?spm=a2g0o.... | 1,760,372,822.13446 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/13/microwave-sampler-is-like-time-domain-mixer/ | Microwave Sampler Is Like Time Domain Mixer | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"microwave",
"mixer",
"sampler"
] | [Gregory] is building some microwave gear and wanted to convert a 3.3 GHz signal to a 12 MHz intermediate frequency. You might think of using a mixer, but you’d need a local oscillator of nearly 3.3 GHz which is not only hard to build, but also will be very close to the signal of interest which is not a great idea. Instead, [Gregory] opted for
a sampler
, which uses an effect you usually try to avoid —
aliasing
— to allow downconversion with a much smaller local oscillator. You can see the design in the video below.
In the case of converting 3.3 GHz to 12 MHz, the local oscillator is around 100 MHz. How does that work? Watch the video and find out. The final project will triple the 3.3 GHz signal and we presume the 12 MHz downconvert is to easily phase lock the frequency using a PLL (phase-locked loop).
The circuit is little more than an electronic switch and a capacitor. The first part of the video covers the theory of operation. About 7 minutes in, the whiteboard talk gets more practical, using diodes as switching elements. At the very end, we see he has a PC board design but it isn’t generally available. Still, the theory explanation is well worth the 20 minute watch.
If you want some ideas about prototyping microwave gear, there are some
tools available
. If you want to dig more into
PLLs
, there’s a lot of info about that in previous posts, too. | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414308",
"author": "BrightBlueJim",
"timestamp": "2022-01-14T04:10:40",
"content": "Nice job teaching the fundamentals of a sampling system. I honestly didn’t know how he was going to get the precisely-matched positive and negative pulses. I knew there would probably be a transfo... | 1,760,372,822.186838 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/13/soviet-era-auto-dialler-uses-magnetic-rope-core-memory/ | Soviet-Era Auto Dialler Uses Magnetic Rope Core Memory | Dave Rowntree | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"core memory",
"rom",
"rope core memory",
"Soviet electronics",
"telephone"
] | We’ve seen a few interesting magnetic core memories on these fine pages over the years, but we don’t recall seeing too many
user
programmable
magnetic core memory devices. This interesting Russian telephone auto dialer in its day would have been a very useful device, capable of storing and dialing forty user programmable 7-digit numbers.
[mikeselectricstuff] tore into one
(video, embedded below), and found some very interesting tech. For its era, this is high technology stuff. Older Russian tech has a reputation for incredibly ingenious use of older parts, that can’t be denied. After all, if it works, then there’s no need to change it. But anyway, what’s interesting here is how the designers decided to solve the problem of programming and recalling of numbers, without using a microprocessor, by using discrete logic and
core rope memory
.
This is the same technology used by the Apollo Guidance Computer, but in a user configurable form, and obviously much smaller storage capacity. The core array consists of seven, four-bit words, one word per telephone digit, which will be read out sequentially bottom to top. The way you program your number is to take your programming wire, insert it into the appropriate hole (one row related to numbers 1-20, the other row is shifted 1-20 for the second bank) and thread it along the cores in a weave type pattern. Along the way, the wire is passed through or bypasses a particular core, depending upon the digit you are coding for. They key for this encoding is written on the device’s lid. At the end, you then need to terminate the wire in the matching top connector, to allow the circuit to be completed.
As far as we can tell, the encoding is a binary sequence, with a special ‘stop’ code to indicate telephone numbers with less than seven digits. We shall leave further analysis to interested parties, and just point you at the
Original manufacturer schematics
. Enjoy!
Of course we’re not just going to mention rope core memory and the AGC without linking to
a fantastic article about the very same
, and if that’s wetting your appetite for making a rope core memory, here’s
a little thing about that too
! | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414261",
"author": "SPD",
"timestamp": "2022-01-14T00:05:40",
"content": "deja vuhttps://hackaday.com/2021/12/30/threaded-wires-save-phone-numbers/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6414271",
"author": "The Commenter Fo... | 1,760,372,822.23384 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/13/ride-on-tracked-vehicle-is-a-stout-metal-build/ | Ride-on Tracked Vehicle Is A Stout Metal Build | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"internal combustion engine",
"tracked vehicle",
"tracks"
] | When we think of tracked vehicles, we normally think of tanks, or perhaps heavy construction machinery. Meanwhile the average member of the public is left out of the fun. [Bob] of [Making Stuff] won’t be one of them, however, having put together a ride-on tracked vehicle
for his own enjoyment.
The machine is welded together from plenty of steel, making it more than tough enough to soak up the punishment of off-road duty. The design features four suspended buggy wheels on either side running inside rubber tracks, with a cogged drive wheel at the front. Propulsion is thanks to a 440 cc DuroMax engine good for a full 18 horsepower and 26 ft-lbs of torque, driving the tracks through a differential mounted up front.
The design has one major issue at the moment. The heavy engine is mounted ahead of the front wheel inside the tracks, which means the vehicle wants to nosedive at the slightest provocation. Such an event would be highly uncomfortable for the rider, so mods are needed, either by scooching the engine back a little or pushing the wheels forward.
We look forward to seeing [Bob] fix the issues and get the machine driving soon. We’ve seen other tracked builds before, too –
often on the smaller scale
. Video after the break. | 17 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414211",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-01-13T21:02:23",
"content": "Using buggy wheels for boogie wheels!B^)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6414601",
"author": "Drone",
"... | 1,760,372,822.284312 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/13/exploring-tesla-model-s-high-voltage-cabling/ | Exploring Tesla Model S High Voltage Cabling | Chris Lott | [
"car hacks"
] | [
"automotive",
"electric vehicle",
"high voltage",
"teardown",
"Tesla Model S"
] | When he’s not busy with his day job as professor of computer and automotive engineering at Weber State University, [John Kelly] is a prolific producer of educational videos. We found his video
tracing out the 22+ meters of high voltage cabling in a Tesla Model S
(below the break) quite interesting. [John] does warn that his videos are highly detailed and may not be for everyone:
This is not the Disney Channel. If you are looking to be entertained, this is not the channel for you.
We ignored the warning and jumped right in. The “high” voltages in the case of an electric vehicle (EV) like the Model S is approximately 400 volts. Briefly, external input via the charge connector can be single or three phase, 120 or 250 VAC, depending on your region and charging station. This get boosted to a nominal 400 VDC bus that is distributed around the various vehicle systems, including the motors and the battery pack.
Rear Modules
Charge receptacle
On-board charger module
Rapid splitter
Rear motor inverter
Front Modules
High voltage junction block
Cabin air heater
DC to DC converter
Battery coolant heater
Air conditioning compressor
Front motor inverter
He goes through each module, showing in detail the power routing and functionality, eventually assembling the whole system spanning two work benches. We liked his dive into the computer-controlled fuse that recently replaced the standard style one, and were impressed with his thorough use of labels.
If you’ve ever been curious about the high voltage distribution of a EV, grab some popcorn and check out this video. Glancing through his dozens of playlists, [John]’s channel would be a good place to visit if you’re interested any topic related to hybrids and electric vehicles, drive trains, and/or transmissions. We’ve written about some Tesla teardowns before,
the Model 3
and
the Model S
battery packs. Have you worked on / hacked the high voltage system in your EV? Let us know in the comments below. | 36 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414192",
"author": "clydesdal",
"timestamp": "2022-01-13T19:43:28",
"content": "This guy is pretty good. He had an earlier series where he tore apart some toyota eCVT transmissions showing the difference between planetary and belts.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"re... | 1,760,372,822.360284 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/13/remoticon-2021-hash-salehi-outsmarts-his-smart-meter/ | Remoticon 2021 // Hash Salehi Outsmarts His Smart Meter | Matthew Carlson | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"2021 Hackaday Remoticon",
"reverse engineer",
"smart meters"
] | Smart meters form mesh networks among themselves and transmit your usage data all around. Some of them even allow the power company to turn off your power remotely, through the mesh. You might want to know if any of this information is sensitive, or if the power shutdown system has got glaring security flaws and random people could just turn your house off. Hash Salehi has set out to get inside these meters, and luckily for the rest of us,
he was kind enough to share his findings during Remoticon 2021
. It’s a journey filled with wonderful tidbits about GNU Radio, embedded devices, and running your own power company inside a Faraday cage.
The smart meter in question is deployed by a power company known as Oncor in the Dallas, Texas, area. These particular meters form an extensive mesh network using a ZigBee module onboard that allows them to to pass messages amongst themselves that eventually make their way to a collector or aggregator to be uploaded to a more central location. Hash obtained his parts via everyone’s favorite online auction house and was surprised to see how many parts were available. Then, with parts in hand, he began all the usual reverse engineering tricks: SDR, Faraday cages, flash chip readers, and recreating the schematic.
To continue further down the rabbit hole, Hash took a two-pronged approach and started pouring over the firmware (over 300 kB) and attempting to capture traffic in his area. Starting with just listening on one channel, he expanded to listen on all 240-260 channels but found that listening on each channel separately was eating all the compute power he threw at it. A talk from GNU Radio con gave him the inspiration needed to employ a frequency hopping approach that allowed him to decode all the packets. A drive down a freeway with an antenna in his car allowed him to capture fascinating graphs showing the area’s meters and how long they’ve had uptime.
The true test of understanding the protocol isn’t just receiving, however. He would also like to send some packets. But, of course, the power companies wouldn’t be too thrilled with rogue actors on their network, regardless of intentions. So Hash needed his own network, effectively starting a power company that doesn’t provide any power.
He had previously bought a collector and found a whole Intel processor inside running Windows 7 Embedded. The main program was .Net, so that makes it trivial to tweak. Now that he had a receiver, it was time to make a transmitter he could control. He’s still working on that, but it’s all out in the
open on GitHub
and other places. The coolest trick here is his workaround on the frequency hopping schedule that the receivers expect: he simply broadcasts all 240 channels at once! Gotta love SDRs.
This is clearly not a weekend project, and we have had a
Hack Chat with Hash about smart meters
before if you’re interested. We’re looking forward to what else he discovers. | 27 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414164",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2022-01-13T18:30:53",
"content": "What ever happened to Broadband over powerlines that was supposed to give rural users internet and wipe out the HF spectrum? Even a little of that would have made all this Zigbee stuff moot. After all t... | 1,760,372,822.424627 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/13/impedance-matching-revisited/ | Impedance Matching Revisited | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"impedance matching",
"LTSpice",
"RF"
] | If you are an old hand at RF design, you probably have a good handle on matching impedance. However, if you are just getting started with RF,
[FesZ Electronic]’s latest video series
on lossless impedance matching is well worth watching.
Matching is important for several reasons. Maximum power transfer occurs when the source and load impedance match. Also, at RF, mismatched impedance can cause reflections which, again, robs you of useful power. The video covers some math and then moves on to LTSpice to simulate a test circuit. But the part you are really waiting for — the practical circuits — is about 15 minutes in. Since the values you need are often oddball, [FesZ] makes his own adjustable inductors and uses a trimmer capacitor to adjust the actual capacitance value.
This is a big topic, but the first video is a great introduction blending theory, simulation, and hands-on. A great way to get started with a very fundamental RF design skill.
We’ve worked on
explaining all this before
if you want a second take on it. If you want to understand why mismatched impedance
leads to less power delivery
, we’ve done that, too. | 15 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414142",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2022-01-13T17:28:45",
"content": "Impedance matching in general used to be a bigger thing. But some of the more obvious is gone, no transformers at the output of audio amplifiers. Opamps may not do away with it, but they give near... | 1,760,372,822.628598 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/12/arduino-and-an-oled-make-this-space-invaders-cabinet-tiny/ | Arduino And An OLED Make ThisSpace InvadersCabinet Tiny | Dan Maloney | [
"classic hacks",
"Games"
] | [
"arduino nano",
"cabinet",
"miniature",
"OLED SSD1306",
"replica",
"space invaders",
"video game"
] | For as simple as it appears now,
Space Invaders
was one machine from the Golden Age of video games that always seemed to have a long line waiting for a chance to lose a couple of quarters. And by way of celebrating the seminal game’s influence, [Nick Cranch] has executed what might just be
the world’s smallest
Space Invaders
replica
.
It appears that this started mainly as an exercise in what’s possible with what’s on hand, which included a couple of quite small OLED displays. For the build photos it looks like there’s an Arduino Nano running the show; [Nick] relates that the chosen hardware proved challenging, and that he had to hack the driver library to make it work. Once he got a working game, [Nick] didn’t rest on his laurels. Rather, he went the extra mile and built a miniature cabinet to house everything in.
The video quality below may be poor, but it’s more than enough to see how much work he put into detailing the cabinet. The graphics of the original US release of the game cabinet are accurately represented, right down to the art on the front glass. The cabinet itself is made from 1.5 mm plywood which he cut by hand. It even looks like he recreated the original scheme of cellophane overlays on the monochrome screen to add a little color to the game. Nice touch!
We really appreciate the attention to detail here, with our only quibble being no schematics or code being posted. Hopefully, we’ll see those later, but for now, this looks like a fun project and a nice trip down memory lane. But if you think it’s too small, no worries — we’ve got
a much, much bigger version of the game
too. | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413892",
"author": "dendad",
"timestamp": "2022-01-12T21:11:32",
"content": "Not only is getting the Arduino and display to run all this a pretty amazing effort, the case alone is a great achievement!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"commen... | 1,760,372,822.581255 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/12/the-charachorder-keyboard-is-too-fast-for-competition/ | The Charachorder Keyboard Is Too Fast For Competition | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"chorded keyboard",
"chording",
"chording keyboard",
"keyboard"
] | We interrupt the flow of Keebin’ with Kristina to bring you this special bulletin. When three different people alert you to a keyboard within 48 hours or so, it calls for more than just a paragraph in the roundup column. So here are several paragraphs, an animated GIF, and some extended commentary about
the Charachorder
, a new kind of input that came up through Kickstarter in 2021.
Driving this hype train are some short viral videos that show the founder hitting 500+ WPM on this crazy thing. FYI,
that is fast enough to get you banned from typing competitions
, including the monkeytype leaderboard. Those apes forbid chorded input altogether, and automatically throw out entries above 300 WPM. It acheives these insane speeds through clever mechanical design and, of course, firmware.
Wiggle Room
The Charachorder resembles a pair of rock climbing holds connected with a length of extruded aluminum. Each hold has nine little golf tee-looking joysticks sprouting out of it, which take the place of keys.
There are three golf tees for the thumb to wiggle, four for the fingers, and two extras beneath the middle and ring fingers for arrow keys and mouse control.
Instead of using up-down motion like a regular keyswitch, each little joystick has D-pad directionality for four-way input per digit. The founders claim that 300+ unique inputs and over 17 billion chord combinations are possible without lifting a finger.
One of the cool things about Charachorder is that it accepts standard-one-at-a-time typing as well as chorded input. The chording style isn’t particular, either. According to the site, you just mash h, e, l, o at the same time, and you’ve got ‘hello’. Doesn’t matter if they hit the screen in the wrong order, because the processor rearranges them on the fly. So there’s none of this ‘learn a whole new language’ business to type syllables by shorthand, but of course, you will have to learn a new layout.
Could Have Been an IO Project
Although none of the technical details seem to be listed anywhere on the site, there’s a rather nice GIF that shows the internals.
Astute viewers will notice what appears to be an Arduino Pro Micro along with another board that looks like a wireless module of some kind, and a single AA cell. However, the site says that only wired versions are available, and the picture above shows that the halves are connected with a retractable 3.5 mm cable.
This thing totally reminds me of
the DataHand keyboard
and its open-source successor
the lalboard
, although I don’t find it as aesthetically pleasing as either one. I think I prefer the individual switches of the DataHand, though I like the idea of slightly less finger movement from rocking those little joysticks around. Honestly, I’d have to try both to be sure. Y’all know where to send donations to the keeb fund, right?
Thanks to [D—-], [The Commenter Formerly Known as Ren], and [RoganDawes] for the tip!
[Images via
Charachorder
] | 50 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413863",
"author": "dlcarrier",
"timestamp": "2022-01-12T18:29:55",
"content": "Yes, a typing speed test doesn’t allow macros and cording keyboards. What’s next, speed run rankings that don’t include tool-assisted speed runs?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies":... | 1,760,372,822.764823 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/12/rohde-schwarz-fsiq-signal-analyzer-if-filter-module-repair/ | Rohde & Schwarz FSIQ Signal Analyzer IF-Filter Module Repair | Maya Posch | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"rohde & schwarz",
"signal analyzer"
] | Who can’t resist snapping up a piece of really expensive laboratory testing gear for next to nothing when browsing eBay or similar? Maybe it’s giving you mournful eyes when browsing through a yard sale. Often such gear is sold for cheap because it’s defective, but with a bit of attention, can be brought back to life. This is how [Roberto Barrios] ended up with a Rohde & Schwarz FSIQ 7 signal analyzer
lounging around his place for a few months until he got it fixed
.
See anything wrong with this picture?
Part of the fix was replacing a busted RF converter module (A160 IF-Filter) with a used-but-working replacement, but this left the device with odd calibration failures. In the process of tracing down the cause, [Roberto] took many high-resolution images of both sides of the PCBs in order to reverse-engineer the circuit. To complicate matters, the calibration results indicated that the unit’s filters were fine on boot-up, but would deviate after a few minutes.
After extending the filter module to work outside the enclosure and experimental use of a hot air gun, ultimately the cause was tracked down to an unsoldered pad. Considering the extremely simple cause of the failure, it would seem that R&S QA had an off-day when that replacement module was produced. If there’s a lesson to be learned here it is probably that a simple visual inspection is sometimes all that is needed to fix a hardware issue.
What are your
expensive gear repair stories
? What did you learn that could save others hours of their time? | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413827",
"author": "smellsofbikes",
"timestamp": "2022-01-12T16:36:12",
"content": "This is not at all foolproof, but when I was working in electronics manufacturing, we found we could often hold a board up so a bright light reflected off it, and spot unsoldered pads because they’r... | 1,760,372,822.920386 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/12/regenerative-medicine-the-promise-of-undoing-the-ravages-of-time/ | Regenerative Medicine: The Promise Of Undoing The Ravages Of Time | Maya Posch | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Medical Hacks",
"Original Art",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"biomedicine",
"bioprosthetics",
"medicine",
"regenerative medicine"
] | In many ways, the human body is like any other machine in that it requires constant refueling and maintenance to keep functioning. Much of this happens without our intervention beyond us selecting what to eat that day. There are however times when due to an accident, physical illness or aging the automatic repair mechanisms of our body become overwhelmed, fail to do their task correctly, or outright fall short in repairing damage.
Most of us know that lizards can regrow tails, some
starfish regenerate
into as many new starfish as the pieces which they were chopped into, and
axolotl
can regenerate limbs and even parts of their brain. Yet humans too have an amazing
regenerating ability
, although for us it is mostly contained within the liver, which can regenerate even when three-quarters are removed.
In the field of
regenerative medicine
, the goal is to either induce regeneration in damaged tissues, or to replace damaged organs and tissues with externally grown ones, using the patient’s own genetic material. This could offer us a future in which replacement organs are always available at demand, and many types of injuries are no longer permanent, including paralysis.
Everything Begins with Knowledge
Our level of understanding of human physiology and that of animals in general has massively expanded since the beginning of the 20th century when technology allowed us to examine the microscopic world in more detail than ever before. Although empirical medical science saw
its beginnings
as early as the Sumerian civilization of the 3rd millennium BCE, our generalized understanding of the processes and components that underlie the body’s functioning are significantly more recent.
DNA was first isolated in 1869 by Friedrich Miescher, but its structure was not described until 1953. This discovery laid the foundations for the field of
molecular biology
, which seeks to understand the molecular basis for biological activity. In a sense this moment can be seen as transformative as for example the transition from classical mechanics to quantum mechanics, in that it changed the focus from macroscopic observations to a more fundamental understanding of these observations.
Japanese population by age group. (Credit: OurWorldInData.org)
This allowed us to massively increase our understanding of how exactly the body responds to damage, and the molecular basis for regenerative processes, as well as why humans are normally not able to regrow damaged limbs. Eventually in 1999 the term ‘regenerative medicine’ was coined by William A. Haseltine, who wrote
an article
in 2001 on what he envisions the term to include. This would be the addressing of not only injuries and trauma from accidents and disease, but also aging-related conditions, which would address the looming demographic crisis as the
average age
of the world’s populations keeps increasing.
The state of the art in regenerative medicine back in 2015 was covered by
Angelo S. Mao et al. (2015)
. This covers regenerative methods involving either externally grown tissues and organs, or the stimulating of innate regenerative capabilities. Their paper includes the biomedical discipline of
tissue engineering
due to the broad overlap with the field of regenerative medicine. Despite the very significant time and monetary requirement to bring a regenerative medicine product to market, Mao et al. list the FDA-approved products at that time:
FDA-approved regenerative products in 2015. (Credit: Angelo S. Mao et al., 2015)
While these were not miracle products by any stretch of the imagination, they do prove the effectiveness of these approaches, displaying similar or better effectiveness as existing products. While getting cells to the affected area where they can induce repair is part of the strategy, another essential part involves the extracellular matrix (
ECM
). These are essential structures of many tissues and organs in the body which provide not only support, but also play a role in growth and regeneration.
ECM is however non-cellular, and as such is seen as a ‘medical device’. They play a role in e.g. the healing of skin to prevent scar tissue formation, but also in the scaffolding of that other tantalizing aspect of regenerative medicine: growing entire replacement organs and body parts in- or outside of the patient’s body using their own cells. As an example,
Mase Jr, et al. (2010)
report on a 19-year old US Marine who had part of his right thigh muscle destroyed by an explosion. Four months after an ECM extracted from porcine (pig) intestinal submucossa was implanted in the area, gradual regrowth of muscle tissue was detected.
An important research area here is the development of synthetic ECM-like scaffolding, as this would make the process faster, easier and more versatile. Synthetic scaffolding makes the process of growing larger structures
in vitro
significantly easier as well, which is what is required to enable growing organs such as kidneys, hearts and so on. These organs would then ideally be grown from induced pluropotent stem cells (
iPS
), which are a patient’s own cells that are reverted back to an earlier state of specialization.
Swapping parts
It should come as little surprise that as a field which brings together virtually every field that touches upon (human) biology in some fashion, regenerative medicine is not an easy one. While it’s one thing to study a working system, it’s a whole different level to get one to grow from scratch. This is why as great as it would be to have an essentially infinite supply of replacement organs by simply growing new ones from iPS cells, the complexity of a functional organ makes this currently beyond our reach.
Essentially the rule is that the less complicated the organ or tissue is, the easier it is to grow it
in vitro
. Ideally it would just consist out of a single type of cell, and happy develop in some growth medium without the need for an ECM. Attractive targets here are for example the cornea, where the number of people on a waiting list for a corneal transplant outnumber donor corneas significantly.
In a review by
Mobaraki et al. (2019)
, the numerous currently approved corneal replacements as well as new methods being studied are considered. Even though artificial corneas have been in use for years, they suffer from a variety of issues, including biocompatibility issues and others that prevent long-term function. Use of donor corneas comes with shortages as the primary concern. Current regenerative research focuses on the stem cells found in the limbus zone (limbal stem cells, LSC). These seem promising for repairing ocular surface defects, which has been studied since 1977.
The evolution pathway of ocular surface reconstruction investigations which started with autologous conjunctival transplantation in a patient with bilateral alkali burn in 1977 and have been continued with other methods specially limbus regeneration over the past four decades. (Credit: Nakamura et al., 2016).
LSCs play a role in the regular regenerative abilities of the cornea, and provide a starting point for either growing a replacement cornea, or to repair a damaged cornea, along with the addition of an ECM as necessary. This can be done in combination with the inhibiting of the local immune response, which promotes natural wound healing. Even so, there is still a lot more research that needs to be performed before viable treatments for either repairing the cornea
in situ
, or growing a replacement
in vitro
can be approved the FDA or national equivalent.
A similar scenario can be seen with the development of
artificial skin
, where fortunately due to the large availability of skin on a patient’s body grafts (autografts) are usually possible. Even so, the application of engineered skin substitutes (ESS) would seem to be superior. This approach does not require the removal of skin (epidermis) elsewhere, and limits the amount of scar formation. It involves placing a collagen-based ECM on the wound, which is optionally seeded with keritanocytes (skin precursor cells), which accelerates wound closure.
Here the scaffolding proved to be essential in the regeneration of the skin, as reported by
Tzeranis et al. (2015)
. This supports the evidence from other studies that show the cell adhesion to the ECM to be essential in cell regulation and development. With recent changes, it would seem that both the formation of hair follicles and nerve innervation may be solved problems.
Still a long way to go
Longitudinal spinal cord section treated with the most bioactive therapeutic scaffold. Regenerated axons (red) regrew within the lesion. (Credit: Samuel I. Stupp Laboratory/Northwestern University)
It will likely still be a long time before we can have something like a replacement heart grown from a patient’s own iPS cells. Recent research has focused mostly on decellularization (leaving only the ECM) of an existing heart, and repopulating it with native cells (e.g.
Gálvez-Montón et al.
, 2012
). By for example creating a synthetic scaffold and populating it with cells derived from a patient’s iPS cells, a viable treatment could be devised.
Possibly easier to translate into a standard treatment is the regrowth of nerves in the spinal cord after trauma, with a recent article by
Álvarez et al, (2021)
(
press release
) covering recent advances in the use of artificial scaffolds that promotes nerve regeneration, reduces scarring and promotes blood vessel formation. This offers hope that one day spinal cord injures may be fully repairable.
If we were to return to the ‘body as a machine’ comparison, then the human body is less of a car or piece of heavy machinery, and more of a glued-together gadget with complex circuitry and components inside. With this jump in complexity comes the need for a deeper level of understanding, and increasingly more advanced tools so that repairs can be made efficiently and with good outcomes.
Even so, regenerative medicine is already saving the lives of for example burn victims today, and improving the lives of countless others. As further advances in research continue to translate into treatments, we should see a gradual change from ‘you’ll have to learn to live with that’, to a more optimistic ‘give it some time to grow back’, as in the case of an injured veteran, or the victim of an accident. | 15 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413809",
"author": "It's way, way more complicated than just food selection.",
"timestamp": "2022-01-12T15:15:43",
"content": "“Much of this happens without our intervention beyond us selecting what to eat that day.”So things like drinking, smoking, unprotected sex, gambling, lack ... | 1,760,372,822.87238 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/12/an-oil-diffusion-vacuum-pump-from-thrift-store-junk/ | An Oil Diffusion Vacuum Pump From Thrift Store Junk | Dan Maloney | [
"Science",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"fusor",
"oil diffusion",
"pump",
"vacuum pump",
"WD-40"
] | It seems like creating a vacuum should be a pretty easy job, but it turns out that sucking all the air out of something is harder than it seems. A cheap vacuum pump will get you part of the way there, but to really pull a hard vacuum, you need an oil diffusion pump that costs multiple tens of thousands of dollars.
Or, you need
a bunch of thrift store junk, a TIG welder, and a can of WD-40
. At least that’s what [Lucas] put into his homebrew oil diffusion pump. The idea of such a contraption is to vaporize oil in a chamber such that the oil droplets entrain any remaining gas molecules toward an exhaust port. His low-budget realization of this principle involved a lot of thrift store stainless steel cookware, welded together with varying degrees of success, with liberal applications of epoxy to seal up any leaks. And an electric smores cooker for the heating element, which was a nice touch. The low-budget approach extended even to the oil for the pump; rather than shelling out for expensive specialty oil, [Lucas] distilled some from a WD-40 silicone spray lubricant.
The video below details all the travails [Lucas] encountered along the way, plus the testing process. The results were at least encouraging — the diffusion pump was pulling vacuum far in excess of what the roughing pump was capable of. He clearly still has some work to do, but getting as far as he did with the scrap heap of parts he cobbled together is pretty impressive.
[Lucas]’ goal with all this? A fusion reactor. No, not
that kind
.
This kind
.
Thanks to [fruitbaticus] and [supereggbert] for the near-simultaneous tips on this one. | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413771",
"author": "macona",
"timestamp": "2022-01-12T12:08:41",
"content": "Thats.. umm.. yeah. Ill be surprised if he can get into the -4 range with that. And he wont be able to tell with that vacuum gage anyway.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{... | 1,760,372,822.814189 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/12/digital-rain-animation-crammed-into-pi-pico/ | Digital Rain Animation Crammed Into Pi Pico | Lewin Day | [
"classic hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"digital rain",
"matrix",
"pi pico",
"pico",
"Raspberry Pi Pico",
"the matrix"
] | With a new
Matrix
movie now in cinemas, we’ve all been reminded of those screensavers that were just the
coolest thing ever
when the original film dropped in 1999. [en0b] decided to
recreate the classic “digital rain” effect on the Raspberry Pi Pico
, using up all the little microcontroller’s storage in the process.
Rather than rely on existing graphics libraries, [en0b] set about using a high-quality GIF for the animation. The original file was 8 MB, which was far too big to fit on the Pico. After some finagling in an image editor and with the help of a custom Python script, however, [en0b] managed to fit the 127-frame animation at 240 x 135 resolution into the 2 MB Flash onboard the chip. With the microcontroller hooked up to the 1.14″ IPS “Pico Display” from Pimoroni, the final looks great and faithfully recreates the aesthetic seen in the film.
[en0b]’s technique could reliably be used for displaying any GIF that you can cut down to 14 to 16 colors without losing too much quality. It’s not the world’s highest-end graphics format, but it does the job for little animations like these.
We’ve seen similar builds before too, using more heavy-duty hardware to build
a magic 8-ball
in much the same way. Meanwhile, if you’ve got your own neat little GIF hacks or Pico projects, don’t hesitate
to send them in! | 6 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413785",
"author": "Greg",
"timestamp": "2022-01-12T13:50:24",
"content": "Given the relatively high speed of the chip, rendering the effect live instead of loading a pre-rendered animation might be the more “natural” choice for the platform?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1... | 1,760,372,823.142205 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/11/synth-and-visualizer-combo-has-retrocomputing-vibe/ | Synth And Visualizer Combo Has Retrocomputing Vibe | Donald Papp | [
"Art",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"art",
"Intel NUC",
"midi",
"music",
"synth",
"visualizer"
] | [Love Hultén]’s latest piece of interactive art is the
SYNTH#BOI
, a super-clean build with something of the semi-cyberdeck, semi-vintage computing vibe to it. The device is a combination synthesizer and visualizer, with a 15-inch display, MIDI keyboard, and based on an
Intel NUC
i5 small form factor PC.
There are not many details about the internal workings of the device, but the high quality of the build is very evident. Photos show a fantastic-looking enclosure with clean lines and sharp finish; it’s a reminder that careful measuring and attention to detail can be the difference between something that looks like a hack job, and something that looks like a finished product.
Watch the SYNTH#BOI in action in the video, embedded below. And if the name [Love Hultén] seems familiar, it’s probably because we featured his
VOC-25
“Pink Denture Synth”, a concept instrument with a decidedly memorable design of its own. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413743",
"author": "Giorgio",
"timestamp": "2022-01-12T07:45:15",
"content": "Buongiorno semplicemente Stupendo",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6413756",
"author": "Robert Link",
"timestamp": "2022-01-12T09:49:06",
... | 1,760,372,822.958577 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/11/falling-down-the-carbon-rabbit-hole/ | Falling Down The Carbon Rabbit Hole | Matthew Carlson | [
"chemistry hacks",
"News"
] | [
"carbon nanotubes",
"transistor"
] | Research projects have a funny way of getting blown out of proportion by the non-experts, over-promising the often relatively small success that the dedicated folks doing the science have managed to eke out. Scaling-up cost-effectively is one of the biggest killers for commercializing research, which is why
recent developments in creating carbon nanotube transistors have us hopeful
.
Currently, most cutting-edge processes use FETs (Field Effect Transistors). As they’ve gotten smaller, we’ve added fins and other tricks to get around the fact that things get weird when they’re small. The industry is looking to move to
GAAFETs
(Gate All Around FET) as Intel and Samsung have declared their 3 nm processes (or equivalent) will use the new type of gate. As transistors have shrunk, the “off-state” leakage current has grown. GAAFETs are multi-gate devices, allowing better control of that leakage, among other things.
As usual, we’re already looking at what is past 3 nm towards 2 nm, and the concern is that GAAFET won’t scale past 3 nm. Carbon Nanotubes are an up-and-coming technology as they offer a few critical advantages. They conduct heat exceptionally well, exhibit higher transconductance, and conduct large amounts of power. In addition, they show higher electron mobility than conventional MOSFETs and often outperform them with less power even while being at larger sizes. This is all to say that they’re an awesome piece of tech with a few caveats.
The gotchas are mainly related to production and reliability. The current process for growing nanotubes produces a few tubes: metallic and semiconducting. For transistors, you want to use the latter rather than the former, and getting an accurately uniform mix of tubes is tricky when they’re only 1 nm wide. Additionally, once you have a uniform, high-quality tube mixture, how do you get the tubes where you want them? Each transistor will use several tubes so a single wafer uses several trillion tubes. Even at fractions of fractions of pennies, a trillion of something adds up quickly. There have been some attempts at growing the tubes on-chip, but ALD (Atomic Layer Deposition) doesn’t nucleate on carbon surfaces.
As we mentioned earlier, there are two reliability concerns. First, carbon nanotubes of this size degrade in the atmosphere, some early ICs only lasting a few weeks before a critical channel broke. Second, multi-channel transistors (where multiple tubes are used per transistor) last longer because of redundant connections.
Most players are investigating the space: IBM, Darpa, TSMC, Stanford, MIT, Intel, Nantero, and dozens of others. Right there are dozens of different designs: wraparound, sheathed, suspended, top gated, and bottom gated, with no clear consensus on which is better.
This isn’t the first time
we’ve talked about carbon nanotubes in transistors
and hopefully, it won’t be the last. Perhaps CNTFETs (Carbon NanoTube transistors) will be used in specific spaces such as memory or low-power high-performance applications.
[Image courtesy of
Wikipedia
] | 18 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413718",
"author": "Jonathan+Wilson",
"timestamp": "2022-01-12T03:21:14",
"content": "I see all this talk about great things Carbon can do (Graphene, carbon nano tubes, etc) but (like so many advancements in technology) it never seems to leave the lab and get turned into real world... | 1,760,372,823.103538 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/11/3d-printed-sensor-for-finding-wind-direction-and-likely-much-more/ | 3D Printed Sensor For Finding Wind Direction And Likely Much More | Ryan Flowers | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"gray code",
"simple hack",
"Simple Hacks",
"weather station",
"weather vane"
] | Have you ever wondered how an electronic wind vane translates a direction into a unique signal? It seems as though it might be very complicated, and indeed some of them are. [martinm] over at
yoctopuce.com
has an
excellent writeup about measuring wind direction
using just a single, easily printed disk and some phototransistors.
Commercial weather vanes often use complicated multi-tracked disks with magnets and reed switches, conductive traces and brushes, or some other means of getting a fine resolution. Unfortunately some of these are prone to wear or are otherwise more complicated than they need to be.
What makes [martinm]’s solution unique is that they have applied previous research on the subject to a simple and durable 3d printed wind vane that looks like it’ll be able to handle whatever global warming can throw at it. The encoder’s simplicity means that it could likely be used in a large number of applications where low resolution position sensing is more than enough- the definition of a great hack!
Adding more tracks or even more disks would enable higher resolution, but the 12 degree resolution seems quite good for the purpose. Such a neat wind vane design will surely be welcome if you want to
3d print your own weather station
. Thanks to [Adrian] for the great tip! | 35 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413701",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2022-01-12T00:32:51",
"content": "Yeah, Gray Code! (not grey code) And with an honorable pedigree too (see references).It’s like quadrature coding, but with 5 instead of 2 bits.But only 30 discernable positions (not 32), for reasons (see abo... | 1,760,372,823.256987 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/11/honda-ignition-coils-sing-the-song-of-their-people/ | Honda Ignition Coils Sing The Song Of Their People | Tom Nardi | [
"Parts",
"Science"
] | [
"555 timer",
"Bluetooth audio",
"high voltage",
"ignition coil",
"plasma speaker"
] | High-voltage experimenters have been using automotive ignition coils to generate impressive sparks in the home lab for decades, and why not? They’re cheap, easily obtainable, and at the end of the day, producing sparks is literally what they’re designed to do. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement.
In his latest
Plasma Channel
video [Jay Bowles] revisits this classic experiment
, bringing to bear the considerable high-voltage experience he’s gained over the last several years. Building on an earlier setup that used a single Honda ignition coil, this new dual-coil version can produce up to 60,000 volts and is driven by a cleaner and more reliable circuit based on the iconic 555 timer. A pair of potentiometers on the front of the driver can adjust its square wave output from 1 to 10 kilohertz manually, while a commercial Bluetooth audio receiver tied into the 555 circuit allows the output to be modulated by simply playing audio from a paired device.
As [Jay] explains, wiring up a basic ignition coil is very simple. Usually there are just three terminals: the positive and negative inputs, and a high-voltage output. But in this case since he’s driving two coils, he’s actually wired one backwards. Bolted into a nice acrylic holder and with banana plugs to provide the roughly 18 – 25 VDC input, you’ve got a compact and reliable high-voltage source. The driver itself is an
evolved version of a circuit he’s used in past projects
, and beyond the addition of the Bluetooth audio input, now features a snubber circuit to help keep the 555 from getting cooked.
So what’s the result? Well a lot of gorgeous sparks, for one thing. But with audio playing through Bluetooth, the arc between the dual coils will act as a plasma speaker. The output is clear, but not terribly loud. According to [Jay] that’s because the ignition coils weren’t meant to be driven at such high frequencies, with the result being reduced output voltage. But as demonstrated at the end of the video, it turns out there’s more than one way to get audio out of this rig; with an antenna connected to the output of the coils, the system becomes a radio transmitter.
In the market for more high-voltage fun using the 555?
Check out this DIY plasma ball
driven by
the fifty year old integrated circuit
that hardware hackers just can’t get enough of. | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413685",
"author": "JD",
"timestamp": "2022-01-11T22:50:49",
"content": "Awesome. I will be building my next speakerphone shortly.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6413688",
"author": "Victor Martelli",
"timestamp": "202... | 1,760,372,823.18778 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/11/electronic-drum-toy-built-from-scratch/ | Electronic Drum Toy Built From Scratch | Lewin Day | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"drum machine",
"drums"
] | Drum kits used to be key to any serious band, however, these days, much of our music is created on computer or using a drum machine instead. [spanceac] has built a simple example of the latter, using a microcontroller to build
a basic sample-based drum toy.
The brains of the operation is the STM32F100VET6B, which comes complete with a 12-bit DAC for outputting sound. It’s also got a healthy 512 KB of flash, enabling it to store the drum samples onboard without the need for extra parts. Samples are stored at a sample rate of 22,050 Hz in 16-bit resolution – decent quality for a tiny little build, even if the DAC chops that back down to 12-bits later.
[spanceac] was sure to code proper mixing into the drum machine, so that triggering a second sample doesn’t stop the first one playing. With a kick, snare, two toms, and crash and ride samples onboard, there’s plenty to get a solid beat going on the kit. It’s all built up on a small PCB with tactile buttons to activate each sound.
The demo video shows the kit performing ably; it’s not clear if there’s an issue with latency on the samples or that’s just from the difficulty of [spanceac] playing one-handed. If the former, likely some code tweaks or simply trimming silence at the start of samples would be all that was needed. Overall, it’s a neat little groovebox, and the kind of thing that’s great fun to use
when jamming with other musicians.
Video after the break.
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/143319866-a4ecc4ed-9de9-49c2-8885-e092aff31822.mp4 | 9 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413652",
"author": "BrightBlueJim",
"timestamp": "2022-01-11T20:48:12",
"content": "This is where I head the opposite direction from “coulda’ done it with a 555”: the Raspberry Pi Pico has two 12-bit DACs, 2MB of flash and 264kB of RAM, and if latency is an issue (which it sounds l... | 1,760,372,823.2973 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/11/3d-printering-soldering-a-heated-bed/ | 3D Printering: Soldering A Heated Bed | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"3d printer",
"butane",
"butane soldering iron",
"soldering"
] | There’s an old saying about something being a “drop in the ocean.” That’s how I felt faced with the prospect of replacing a 12 V heated bed on my printer with a new 24 V one. The old bed had a nice connector assembled from the factory, although I had replaced the cable long ago due to heating issues with that particular printer. The new bed, however, just had bare copper pads.
I’m no soldering novice: I made my first solder joint sometime in the early 1970s. So I felt up to the challenge, but I also knew I wouldn’t be able to use my usual Edsyn iron for a job like this. Since the heated bed is essentially a giant heatsink for these pads, I knew it would require the big guns. I dug out my old — and I mean super old — Weller 140 W soldering gun. Surely, that would do the trick, right?
Well, the Weller…
Obviously, it didn’t, or you wouldn’t be reading this right now. It could be it just needed a new tip — the thing is seriously old, but it just wouldn’t get the pads hot enough for solder to truly flow. I did finally get the wires to stick, but the solder joints were so bad I could not imagine they would hold up to constant flexing.
The Weller 140 W gun fails!
I thought about trying a hot air gun, but I decided I’d try something even different: flame. You can get butane soldering irons and torches from a variety of places at many different price points. Being cheap, I picked up a Schneider-branded iron from Harbor Freight. The handle has three attachments that nest. One collar just shoots flame like a torch. A little tube that fits the collar keeps the flame away and you get hot air out the end. That tube can also take a soldering iron tip.
Hard to imagine using this iron for fine SMD work.
We think the promotional picture on the Harbor Freight website (see adjacent) might be a bit optimistic. We don’t recommend this iron for doing surface mount work on a PCB. However, I needed a lot of heat and, as the video below discusses, the thing puts out almost too much flame. You can mod it like [marshkid1] does in the video to make it put out less, but that wasn’t my problem.
Turns out, it isn’t as easy to get butane as it used to be. Besides that, you really want butane made for this sort of tool so it doesn’t clog. I settled on just using lighter refill butane and took my chances. So far, so good.
There was only one problem. Despite the vigorous flame, the solder just wouldn’t really melt enough to flow. The tinning on the wire would melt and a little of the top surface of the pads, but with the entire surface area of the PCB resistance to sink heat, it was impossible to get a good joint.
What to Do?
I contemplated heating the whole board up in an oven or with a hot plate. I even thought about soldering under an IR lamp. In the end, I used a two-pronged approach. I removed the soldering tip from the iron and let it jet hot gas over the connections. Then I used the Weller and I did finally get reasonably good solder flow. The hot air alone, however, was not sufficient.
Adequate, but not great.
The joints aren’t the best-looking ones I’ve ever done, but it seems to be holding even under use. Of course, I soaked everything with rosin, tinned everything, and made sure everything was clean. There was just too much heat capacity.
I may yet try again, even though it is working well enough for now. Maybe I need one of those huge automotive soldering irons. Or maybe I should use the SMD heat gun to preheat the joints. I’m sure I’ll get some things to try in the comments.
I don’t think
this is the answer
. Maybe it takes
a PCB heater
to solder a PCB heater? | 62 | 35 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413608",
"author": "Rusty shackleford",
"timestamp": "2022-01-11T18:09:44",
"content": "I let my RadioShack soldering iron heat all the way up then hit the iron with a torch to bring it to a probably irresponsibly high temp and soldered it easily enough. I was removing the connecto... | 1,760,372,823.649225 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/11/reusable-booster-rockets-asian-roundup/ | Reusable Booster Rockets, Asian Roundup | Chris Lott | [
"Current Events",
"Space"
] | [
"booster",
"reusable",
"rocket",
"space"
] | The Space Shuttle’s solid rocket boosters were reusable, although ultimately the overall system didn’t prove cheaper than expendable launches. But given the successes of the Falcon 9 program — booster B1051 completed its 11th mission last month — the idea of a rocket stage returning to the launch site and being reused isn’t such a crazy proposition anymore. It’s not surprising that other space agencies around the world are pursuing this technology.
Last year the India Space Research Organization (ISRO)
announced plans for a reusable launcher program
based on their
GSLV Mark III rocket
. The Japan Aerospace Exploratory Agency (JAXA)
announced last Fall that it is beginning a reusable rocket project
, in cooperation with various industries and universities in Japan. The South Korean space agency, Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), was surprised in November when lawmakers
announced a reusable rocket program that wasn’t requested in their 2022 budget
. Not in Asia, but in December France’s ArianeGroup
announced a reusable rocket program called Maïa
.
Speaking of South Korea’s rocketry program, we wrote about the
Nuri rocket in October which failed to reach orbit
because of a problem in the third stage. Kari recently completed a review of all the data, and concluded the problem was with the anchors of the helium tanks which are located inside the oxidizer tank.
Apparently the changing buoyancy of the submerged tanks with altitude wasn’t completely accounted for in the design of the mounting brackets. When they ultimately failed, the resulting broken piping caused a LOX leak and the subsequent 46-second premature engine shutdown. The next scheduled launch in May 2022 will very likely be delayed. | 28 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413591",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2022-01-11T16:55:23",
"content": "> booster B1051 completed its 11th mission last monthSo what’s the bottom line? Did it actually save the cost of the recovery system and break even as foretold by Musk, or do we need to wait for more data fr... | 1,760,372,825.847112 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/11/haber-bosch-and-the-greening-of-ammonia-production/ | Haber-Bosch And The Greening Of Ammonia Production | Dan Maloney | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"green hacks",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [] | We here on Earth live at the bottom of an ocean of nitrogen. Nearly 80% of every breath we take is nitrogen, and the element is a vital component of the building blocks of life. Nitrogen is critical to the backbone of proteins that form the scaffold that life hangs on and that catalyze the myriad reactions in our cells, and the information needed to build these biopolymers is encoded in nucleic acids, themselves nitrogen-rich molecules.
And yet, in its abundant gaseous form, nitrogen remains directly unavailable to higher life forms, unusably inert and unreactive. We must steal our vital supply of nitrogen from the few species that have learned the biochemical trick of turning atmospheric nitrogen into more reactive compounds like ammonia. Or at least until relatively recently, when a couple of particularly clever members of our species found a way to pull nitrogen from the air using a combination of chemistry and engineering now known as the Haber-Bosch process.
Haber-Bosch has been wildly successful, and thanks to the crops fertilized with its nitrogenous output, is directly responsible for growing the population from a billion people in 1900 to almost eight billion people today. Fully 50% of the nitrogen in your body right now probably came from a Haber-Bosch reactor somewhere, so we all quite literally depend on it for our lives. As miraculous as Haber-Bosch is, though, it’s not without its problems, particularly in this age of dwindling supplies of the fossil fuels needed to run it. Here, we’ll take a deep dive into Haber-Bosch, and we’ll also take a look at ways to potentially decarbonize our nitrogen fixation industry in the future.
Easy to Find, Hard to Use
There had to be a better way. Guano mining was once one of the few sources of fertilizers. Source:
Mystic Seaport Museum
The heart of the nitrogen problem, and the reason why the production of ammonia is both necessary and so energy-intensive, stems from the nature of the element itself, specifically its tendency to bond strongly with others of its kind. Nitrogen has three unpaired electrons available for bonding, and the triple bond that results in the diatomic nitrogen that makes up most of our atmosphere is very difficult to break.
These triple bonds are what make gaseous nitrogen so inert, but it also creates a problem for the organisms that need elemental nitrogen to survive. Nature has found a number of hacks to that problem, through nitrogen-fixing processes, which use enzymes as catalysts to convert diatomic nitrogen into ammonia or other nitrogenous compounds.
Nitrogen-fixing microorganisms make nitrogen bioavailable up and down the food chain, and for most of human history, natural processes were the only method of obtaining the nitrogen necessary for the fertilization of crops. Mining of deposits of nitrogenous compounds, such as saltpeter (potassium nitrate) or in the form of guano from bat and bird droppings, was once the primary source of nitrates for agriculture and industry.
But such deposits are relatively rare and finite in extent, leading to a problem both in terms of feeding a rapidly expanding world population and providing them with the products needed for an increased standard of living. This led chemists to search for methods of turning the vast reserves of atmospheric nitrogen into usable ammonia, starting at the end of the 19th century. While there were several successful contenders, German chemist Fritz Haber’s laboratory demonstration of making ammonia from air became the de facto process; once it was scaled up and industrialized by chemist and engineer Carl Bosch, the Haber-Bosch process was born.
Under Pressure
The simple chemistry of the Haber-Bosch process belies its complexity, especially when undertaken at industrial scales. The overall reaction makes it seem quite straightforward — a little nitrogen, a little hydrogen, and you’ve got ammonia:
But the problem lies in the aforementioned triple bond in the N
2
molecule, as well as in that double-headed arrow in the equation. That means the reaction can go both ways, and depending on reaction conditions such as pressure and temperature, it’s actually more likely to run in reverse, with ammonia decomposing back into nitrogen and hydrogen. Driving the reaction toward the production of ammonia is the trick, as is providing the energy needed to break down diatomic nitrogen in the atmosphere. The other trick is providing enough hydrogen, an element that is not particularly abundant in our atmosphere.
To achieve all of these goals, the Haber-Bosch process relies on heat and pressure — a lot of each. The process starts with the production of hydrogen by steam reformation of natural gas, or methane:
Steam reformation takes place as a continuous process, where natural gas and superheated steam are pumped into a reaction chamber containing nickel catalyst. The output of the first reformer process is further reacted to remove the carbon monoxide and unreacted methane and scrubbed of any sulfur-containing compounds and carbon dioxide, until nothing remains but nitrogen and hydrogen.
The two feed gasses are then pumped into a heavy-walled reaction chamber in a ratio of three hydrogen molecules to each nitrogen molecule. The reactor vessel must be extremely sturdy because the optimum conditions to drive the reaction to completion are a temperature of 450 °C and a pressure 300 times atmospheric. The key to the reaction is the catalyst inside the reactor, most of which are based on powdered iron. The catalyst allows the nitrogen and hydrogen to bind into ammonia, which is removed by condensing it into a liquid state.
The handy thing about Haber-Bosch is what Bosch brought to the table: scalability. Ammonia plants can be massive, and are often co-located with other chemical plants that use ammonia as feedstock for their processes. About 80% of the ammonia produced by the Haber-Bosch process is destined for agricultural uses, either applied directly to the soil as a liquid, or in the manufacture of pelletized fertilizer. Ammonia is also an ingredient in hundreds of other products, from explosives to textiles to dyes, to the tune of over 230 million tonnes produced worldwide in 2018.
Schematic of the Haber-Bosch process. Source: by
Palma
et al
, CC-BY
Cleaner and Greener?
Between the use of methane as both feedstock and fuel, Haber-Bosch is a very dirty process from an environmental standpoint. Worldwide, Haber-Bosch consumes almost 5% of natural gas production, and is responsible for about 2% of the total world energy supply. Then there’s the CO
2
the process produces; while a lot of it is captured and sold off as a useful byproduct, ammonia production produced something like 450 million tonnes of CO
2
in 2010, or about 1% of the total global emissions. Add in the fact that something like 50% of the food production is absolutely dependent on ammonia, and you’ve got a ripe target for decarbonization.
One way to knock Haber-Bosch off the ammonia pedestal is to leverage electrolytic processes. In the simplest case, electrolysis could be used to create the hydrogen feedstock from water rather than methane. While natural gas would still likely be needed to generate the pressures and temperatures needed for ammonia synthesis, this would at least eliminate methane as a feedstock. And if the electrolytic cells could be powered by renewable sources like wind or solar, such a hybrid approach could go a long way to cleaning up Haber-Bosch.
But some researchers are looking at a completely electrolytic process that will make ammonia production much greener than even the hybrid approach. In a recent paper, a team from Monash University in Australia
details an electrolytic process
that uses chemistry similar to that in lithium batteries to make ammonia in a completely different way, one that potentially eliminates most of the dirtier aspects of Haber-Bosch.
The process uses a lithium-containing electrolyte in a small electrochemical cell; when current is applied to the cell, atmospheric nitrogen dissolved in the electrolyte combines with lithium to make lithium nitride (Li
3
N) at the cathode of the cell. Lithium nitride looks a lot like ammonia, with the three lithium atoms standing in for the three hydrogens, and sort of acts like a scaffolding upon which to build ammonia. All that remains is to replace the lithium atoms with hydrogen — a feat easier said than done.
The secret to the process lies in a class of chemicals called phosphonium, which are positively charged molecules with phosphorus at the center. The phosphonium salt used by the Monash team proved to be effective at carrying protons from the anode of the cell to the lithium nitride, which readily accepted the donation. But they also found that the phosphonium molecule could go through the process again, picking up a proton at the anodes and delivering it to the lithium nitride at the cathode. In this way, all three lithium atoms in the lithium nitride are replaced with hydrogen, resulting in ammonia produced at room temperature without methane as a feedstock. The Monash process appears promising. In a 20-hour test under lab conditions, a small cell produced 53 nanomoles of ammonia per second for every square centimeter of electrode surface, and did it with an electrical efficiency of 69%.
If the method can prove out, it has a lot of advantages over Haber-Bosch. Chief among these is the lack of high temperatures and pressures, and the fact that the whole thing could potentially run on nothing but renewable electricity. There’s also the possibility that this could be the key to smaller, distributed ammonia production; rather than relying on a relatively few centralized industrial plants, ammonia production could potentially be miniaturized and brought closer to the point of use.
There are plenty of hurdles to overcome with the Monash process, of course. Relying on lithium electrolytes in a world where EVs and other battery-powered devices are already stretching the limits of lithium extraction seems tenuous, and the fact that lithium mining is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, at least for the time being, tarnishes the green potential of electrolytic ammonia as well. Still, it’s an exciting development and one that just may keep the world fed and fueled in a cleaner, greener way. | 47 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413557",
"author": "zupet",
"timestamp": "2022-01-11T15:10:01",
"content": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-020-00809-9?proof=t%29.Mechanochemistry for ammonia synthesis under mild conditionsisn’t this the best ammonia synthesis alternative ?",
"parent_id": null,
"de... | 1,760,372,825.440946 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/10/mining-and-refining-copper-the-metal-that-built-technology/ | Mining And Refining: Copper, The Metal That Built Technology | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"copper",
"metal",
"Mining and Refining"
] | It’s hard to reckon exactly when in history humans became a technological species. Part of that is because the definition of technology is somewhat subjective; if you think making a stick pointy enough to grub roots from the dirt or to poke enough holes in an animal to convince it to let you eat it is technology, then our engineered world goes back a long, long way indeed.
But something about pointy sticks just doesn’t seem transformative enough, in the sense of fundamentally changing a naturally occurring material, to really count as a technological line in the sand. To cross that line, it really seems like the use of metals should be part of the package. Even if that’s the case, our technological history still goes pretty far back. And copper ends up being one of the metals that started it all, about 11,000 years ago, when our ancestors discovered natural deposits of the soft, reddish metal and began learning how to fashion it into the tools and implements that lifted us out of the Stone Age.
Our world literally cannot run without copper, forming as it does not only the electric-motor muscles of civilization, but also the wires and cables that form the power and data grids that stitch us together. Ironically, we are just as dependent on copper now as we were when it was the only metal we could make tools from, and perhaps more so. We’ll take a look at what’s involved in extracting and purifying copper, and see how the methods we today use are not entirely different from those developed over seven millennia ago.
Shiny Rocks
As useful as copper was to early civilizations, and for as easily accessible as it was thanks to surface deposits of native copper sprinkled around the world, it was not the first metal to be discovered and worked. That honor falls to both gold and, strangely enough, meteoric iron. But neither of these metals was abundant enough to make anything but a token impact on technology, and mostly ended up enriching and ornamenting kings and princes.
Copper, however, was easily located and, perhaps more importantly, easily worked without the need to develop much infrastructure — at least at first. Lumps of copper could be pried from native copper deposits and cold-worked with stone tools into useful artifacts, thanks to copper’s malleability. It wasn’t long before copper’s relatively low melting point led to the discovery of casting, which led to more uses for the metal and increased demand.
You can practically see the copper in chalcopyrite. Source:
Rob Lavinsky
, via Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA 3.0)
Eventually, supplies of native metal from easily exploited deposits couldn’t meet demand, and our ancestors discovered smelting from various copper-bearing ores. The most important ore for commercial copper production is called chalcopyrite, an iron-containing copper sulfide mineral with the chemical formula CuFeS
2
. Chalcopyrite deposits are found all over the world, with particular abundance in North and South America, as well as Africa and Australia. Other important ores occur as oxides and carbonates of copper, like azurite and cuprite.
Although some deep-shaft mining is done, most of the big copper mining operations are vast open-pit mines. The world’s most productive copper mine right now is the
Minera Escondida
in the Atacama Desert in Chile, which produced $10 billion worth of copper in 2007 and can output 1.2 million tons a year. While a pure sample of chalcopyrite is about 34% copper by weight, the mineral is usually associated with a host rock species that reduces the ore to a fraction of a percent of copper. This means that vast amounts of ore have to be processed to make a mining operation commercially viable. In some deposits, gold and silver are sparingly substituted for copper in the ore, making these precious metals a valuable side product that in some cases can actually pay for the entire cost of extraction of all the copper.
Extraction in open-pit mines begins with typical hard-rock mining methods, like blasting. Ore-bearing rock is loaded 200 to 300 tonnes at a time by enormous loaders and shovels into mammoth haul trucks, for the trip up out of the pit to the processing plant. There, enormous crushers reduce the car-sized boulders into smaller and smaller fractions, which are passed to ball mils for finer grinding. The goal is to reduce the physical contact between the ore minerals and the waste rock that surrounds it, which is called
gangue
.
What happens next is the extraction of the elemental copper from the ore minerals, but the method used depends upon which type of ore is present. For oxides and carbonates of copper, the copper is soluble in acid solutions, so a
hydrometallurgical
process is used. Details vary, but in leaching processes, typically the powdered ore is piled up in large pits lined with an impervious barrier. Dilute sulfuric acid is sprayed onto the piles and leaches copper sulfate from the ore minerals. The copper is stripped from the leachate with special
extractants
, which leaves the sulfuric acid clean and ready to be recycled for another round of leaching, plus a copper-rich solution ready for further purification.
Heap leaching schematic. Piles of ore are sprinkled with sulfuric acid; the copper-laden leachate is collected and concentrated. Source:
University of Arizona Superfund Research Center
Floating to the Top
Copper sulfide ores are at a disadvantage when it comes to chemical methods of extraction, since the sulfides are barely soluble in acid. To free copper from these ores, refiners need to turn up the heat with
pyrometallurgical
methods. These begin with the same crushing and grinding steps as before, resulting in a fine powder that is mixed with water in large vats. To the slurry are added chemicals known as
collectors
, whose job it is to bind to the sulfide mineral particles. The collector molecules cover the sulfide particles and increase their hydrophobicity, or tendency to repel water, while leaving the waste rock particles alone. When air is bubbled through the solution, the now-hydrophobic sulfides attach to the air bubbles and form a froth at the surface of the vat, which is skimmed off the top and subjected to further rounds of this froth flotation method to increase the concentration of copper.
The output from this froth flotation process is then put through a thickening process, to remove as much water as possible. This is done by a combination of simple evaporation in open ponds, and by filtration using porous ceramic discs or cylinders. The filtration step is critical, as it lowers the moisture content to around 8% and results in a copper concentrate of about 20-30% enrichment that can be easily shipped to smelting plants.
Cross-section of a flash smelter. Ore concentrate melts in the superheated air blast in the reaction chamber, and matte copper collects at the bottom for tapping. Source:
Jylhä
et al
, MDPI
(CC-BY-4.0)
To extract the copper from the concentrate, a flash smelting process is used. Concentrate is sprayed into a reaction column in a flash furnace along with heated, oxygen-enriched air. The sulfide compounds in the concentrate melt instantly and fall to a collecting pool at the bottom of the furnace. There, the molten materials separate by density, with the molten copper, called
matte copper
, sinking to the bottom, while the iron and silicate slag floats to the top with the assistance of added fluxes.
Matte copper, now about 60% pure, is tapped off the bottom of the flash furnace for further purification through conversion, which is basically blowing hot air through the molten matte. The oxygen reacts with the remaining sulfur, leaving behind
blister copper
that’s about 98% pure.
Winning with Electricity
The final stage of purification for the end products of both hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical extraction is called
electrowinning
. This is simply electrolysis, albeit on a massive scale. For hydrometallurgical copper, the copper sulfate solution that comes from the leaching pit is used as the electrolyte, with lead anodes and thin stainless steel sheets for cathodes. Current is passed through the electrolyte, causing the copper in the solution to plate out onto the stainless steel cathodes. When about 100 pounds (45 kg) of copper have accumulated on the cathodes, they are removed, rinsed, and flexed to pop off the finished, 99.99% pure copper sheets.
For pyrometallurgical copper, the blister copper ingots serve as anodes for electrowinning. They are suspended in a tank filled with dilute copper sulfate mixed with sulfuric acid, interleaved with cathodes of either pure copper sheets or, again, stainless steel. Current is passed through the tank and the copper plates out on the cathodes, again reaching 99.99% purity in the finished process.
The waste product left behind in the electrowinning tanks is known as
anode slime
, and despite its unappealing name is a valuable product. Depending on the minerals present in the feedstock and the voltage used for electrowinning, the anode slime can contain gold, silver, selenium, tellurium, and possibly even platinum-group metals, along with a fair amount of copper that wasn’t recovered in the first go-around. Anode slime is generally sold off to specialty smelters for recovery of these valuable metals, using combinations of hydrometallurgical and pyrometallurgical processes that are customized to the blend of metals in the slime.
Banner image: “
Native copper-replaced cross-bedded sedimentary rocks
” by James St. John,
CC BY 2.0 | 16 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413348",
"author": "monsonite",
"timestamp": "2022-01-10T18:19:13",
"content": "Fascinating read, thankyou for making it accessible and easy to follow.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6413353",
"author": "BT",
"timestam... | 1,760,372,825.352839 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/10/low-cost-haptic-vr-gloves-work-with-hacked-steam-games/ | Low Cost Haptic VR Gloves Work With Hacked Steam Games | Dave Rowntree | [
"Games",
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"Arduino-esp32",
"force feedback servo",
"glove",
"haptic",
"steam"
] | [Lucas VRTech] has made some significant progress with building
force-feedback type haptic gloves
for use with Steam VR games. The idea is pretty straightforward: the end of the finger is attached to a cable, which is pulled from inside a sprung-loaded spool; the kind used for hanging ID cards on.
The spool body can rotate, but a peg protruding from it engages with the arm of a co-located servo motor. This produces a programmable stop position. But it is a hard stop, and it is not possible with the current hardware to detect precisely when the stop is reached, nor is it possible to control the force it is pushing with. Such features are not difficult to achieve, its just a matter of a little more development with some custom mechatronics.
The current prototype has a focus on cost, which is great as an early development platform. By leveraging 3D printing and off-the-shelf parts that are easy to source; just a handful (chuckle!) of potentiometers, some servo motors and one from any number of ESP32 dev boards and you’re done. The real work is on the software side of things, as the games themselves need to be modified to play ball with the VR glove hardware. This has been achieved with a combination of a custom steam driver they call
OpenGloves
, and community developed per-game mods. A few titles are available to test right now, so this is definitely something some of us could build in a weekend and get involved with.
The hardware source for the glove mount and per-finger units can be found on the
project GitHub
, together with the ESP32 source for Arduino.
For some other haptic-related inspiration, here’s
a force-feedback mouse
, and for a more hand-off feedback, we have a
wind-blaster project
.
Thanks [iraqigeek] for the tip! | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413374",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2022-01-10T20:54:02",
"content": "“Sprung-loaded” :’D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6413385",
"author": "iraqigeek",
"timestamp": "2022-01-10T21:49:22",
"content": "Dave,As... | 1,760,372,825.295707 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/10/open-3d-engine-amazons-old-clothes-or-a-game-engine-to-truly-get-excited-about/ | Open 3D Engine: Amazon’s Old Clothes Or A Game Engine To Truly Get Excited About? | Maya Posch | [
"Featured",
"Games",
"Interest",
"Slider",
"Software Development"
] | [
"game engines",
"o3de",
"open 3d engine",
"ue4",
"unity",
"unreal engine"
] | Recently Amazon
announced
that they would be open sourcing the 3D engine and related behind their
Amazon Lumberyard
game tooling effort. As Lumberyard is based on
CryEngine
3.8 (~2015 vintage), this raises the question of whether this new open source engine – creatively named
Open 3D Engine
(
O3DE
) – is an open source version of a CryTek engine, and what this brings to those of us who like to tinker with 2D, 3D games and similar.
When reading through the marketing materials, one might be forgiven for thinking that O3DE is the best thing since sliced 3D bread, and is Amazon’s benevolent gift to the unwashed masses to free them from the chains imposed on them by proprietary engines like Unity and Unreal Engine. A closer look reveals however that O3DE is Lumberyard, but with many parts of
Lumberyard replaced
, including the renderer still in the process of being rewritten from the old CryEngine code.
What Makes a Good Game Engine?
My own game development attempts started with the Half Life engine and the Valve
Hammer editor
, as well as the Doom map editor. This meant that some expectations were set before encountering today’s game engines and their tools. The development experience with the Hammer editor in the late 1990s was pretty much WYSIWYG, and when I was just getting started with Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) a number of years back this was pretty much the same experience, making it relatively easy to hit the ground running.
Installing UE4 takes a few steps: after
installing
the Epic launcher using its installer and logging in with an Epic Games account, it takes a few clicks to install any of a range of available versions of UE4. Afterwards a wizard allows for the creation of a new game project using an optional template. This then creates a dedicated editor for the project that is also the game, so you can edit it while having a live preview window you can interact with.
To build the game, you press a single button and out rolls a game for any of the wide range of supported target platforms. At its core, this experience allows for the most essential feature of a good game engine: the ability to create games without having to pick a fight with the engine’s tools or build system. Many users are likely to be graphics artists or similar who have little interest in the internals of the tools which they’re using.
Here the UE4 experience is relatively painless: using the Blueprint object system you can wire up complicated games and game logic in a graphical editor, with no writing of code involved, although C++-based development is possible for various levels of customization.
If we take this gradated system of complexity as the gold standard for what makes a good game engine and associated tooling, how do O3DE and its primary competition (Unreal Engine, Godot and Unity) compare? At first glance, they seem rather similar, being all written in C++. The most notable difference is probably in the languages they support for extending the engine’s features.
Here Unity supports C# for its scripting API, Godot offers GDScript (Python-like) as well as C# and C++. Unreal Engine is extended using C++, as is O3DE. All well and good then, but what is using them like?
The Quick Start
Before we can install the development tools on our platform of choice, we need to check the system requirements. For O3DE
these are
:
Windows 10 1809 or higher, or
Ubuntu 20.04 or higher.
This
contrasts
with UE4’s minimum
requirements
of Windows 7 or higher, or MacOS 10.9 (Mavericks) or higher, both of which offer a binary installer. For Linux the engine has to be built
from source
, but
should work
with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and up, as well as a range of other Linux distributions. For Unity the system requirements are
similar
, requiring Windows 7 SP1+, MacOS 10.12+ and Ubuntu 16.04+ or CentOS 7.
While Unity does
not require
its Unity Hub application to be used (so far), it promotes it heavily as a central way to manage Unity projects and licenses, similar to the Epic Games Launcher application for UE4. Whether this is an asset or a burden would depend largely on one’s workflow. For managing multiple concurrent projects with their own engine versions and keeping these updated, having such a central tool can be useful.
In contrast to Unity and UE4, Godot doesn’t claim any strong system requirements based on the website, and should compile on any platform that supports the required compiler and dependencies. The provided binaries come in an archive, without installer and run stand-alone, making this possibly the easiest to install of these engines.
When installing O3DE
on Windows
, it installs the O3DE Editor and Project Manager. For Linux (the aforementioned Ubuntu 20.04 or higher), there is a DEB package you
can install
after download. From the
Project Manager
new projects can be created and built. Other than the limited number of supported development platforms this workflow seems relatively comparable.
As there would be little point in installing a development environment if it couldn’t do the required task, we should back up a bit and look at which platforms these engines can be used to develop for. This should tell us whether we’d be interested in spending our time and energy on learning it. Here O3DE falls rather flat, at least in
terms of documentation
, or lack thereof.
While the Android and iOS mobile platforms are listed, finding concrete information is hard, just like for MacOS, and only some information listed
for Linux
as of writing. This contrasts with Godot, which lists its platforms in the
feature list
and includes everything from desktop, mobile, web and console platforms, including
detailed
information on how to build for these platforms.
For
Unity
and
UE4
we see a similar offering of target platforms and documentation to get started. O3DE would appear to be mostly limited to common desktop platforms and mobile platforms, though the documentation is rather scarce on what features are supported. The
build instructions
for O3DE targets would suggest that it requires manual configuring of CMake and running this build script generator before being able to build for any target. Whether CMake is better than Godot’s use of SCons is another can of worms, but it does highlight the technical knowledge required for both U3DE and Godot.
Documentation and Support
It’s undeniable that Unity, UE and Godot are very popular for game development, with the former two having strong commercial backing as well. All of these also have a big community behind them, made possible by the (relatively) open nature of these products. All of them can be used freely and have many years of development of everything from AAA to metric loads of indie games behind them.
The result of this is that even if the documentation is unclear on something or misses some details, there’s a good chance that the community can help out with any questions. This contrasts with the engine formerly known as Lumberyard, which as the
release notes
for the most recent release as of writing mentions is still very much in development and that one should not expect to build a production-ready product with it.
This Beta-feel persists heavily in the documentation as it exists today, with none of the verbosity of the documentation by the other engines. Considering the lack of popularity of the Amazon Lumberyard engine over the past years, none of this is perhaps all too surprising. Regardless, these findings mark out what one should expect from diving into O3DE today.
All of which raises the question of what the future for this project may be like. Will it become a competitor for Godot, Unity or – heavens forbid – UE4/5?
Paying the Bills
The biggest asset of products like Unity and UE is perhaps that they can coexist in the divide between AAA games and small-time developers as well as hobbyists. Most of this is handled by the licensing system of both. For UE4 this means
free to use
and no royalties if the engine is used for anything other than game development. If you make a game with UE4 that grosses over $1M (USD), there is a 5% royalty fee for any amount over that first million.
For Unity, the Personal plan is free, as well as the Student plan. If revenue is over $100,000 in a year, the Plus plan applies, for $399 per seat. These plans
ramp up
with increasing revenue (next >$200k/year). Like with UE4, if you do not commercialize the software, no payment is needed. This contrasts with Godot, which does not have commercial plans, but does receive
monetary rewards
and donations, in addition to code contributions.
Although many studios have their own in-house game engine, both Unreal Engine and Unity see their products used in a variety of commercial software, all of which ensures that even small developers and hobbyists get to benefit from bleeding edge features implemented for these commercial customers. While Lumberyard could theoretically have become something similar to Unity and UE4, it would seem that it didn’t get nearly the same level of funding as those two products do.
Yet Another Engine
Despite the lofty claims about O3DE, it’s hard to ignore the elephant in the room. After Amazon’s game development ambitions got scaled down a lot, its Lumberyard-based
New World
game received only middling reviews while in the background Lumberyard got de facto axed. It would thus seem that O3DE is more of a cynical way to cut the costs of developing a game engine that’s seemingly on its last legs.
Perhaps the best thing to come out of this is that an existing project like Godot can take the useful bits from O3DE engine, which would give users the best of both worlds: a fully free and open source game engine, with decent tooling and a large community supporting it. Whether this would include porting over the AWS Cloud Support module in O3DE is anyone’s guess.
At the end of the day, however, developer time in the OSS world is precious. Splitting it up between more and more similar projects would not seem to be very beneficial. Pooling resources would seem to be the wisest course there.
As for what works best for people who just want to make a game, by themselves or with a couple of buddies? UE4 or Unity if you aren’t interested in tinkering with the guts of the build system and tooling, otherwise Godot would seem to be a platform that might be decent for anything from simple mobile games to significantly more complicated desktop or even console games.
But O3DE? We’ll probably see over the coming months or years where it ends up and whether it becomes something capable for creating production-ready games with. It’s not over until the last beaver sings its swansong.
[Heading image: Open 3D Engine editor with Amazon Shader Language file and asset from the game Deadhaus Sonata open. (Credit: O3DE project)] | 14 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413317",
"author": "Ali Gator",
"timestamp": "2022-01-10T15:06:08",
"content": "Amazon makes games?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6413404",
"author": "McNugget",
"timestamp": "2022-01-10T23:06:54",
"... | 1,760,372,825.497139 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/10/raspberry-pi-pico-gets-a-tiny-keyboard-on-its-back/ | Raspberry Pi Pico Gets A Tiny Keyboard On Its Back | Tom Nardi | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"keyboard",
"Raspberry Pi Pico",
"tiny keyboard",
"usb hid"
] | With hackers and makers building custom computing devices that don’t necessarily follow conventional design paradigms, there’s been a growing demand for smaller and smaller keyboards. Many of the cyberdecks we’ve seen over the last couple of years have used so-called 60% or even 40% keyboards, and there’s been a trend towards repurposing BlackBerry keyboards for wearables and other pocket-sized gadgets. But what if you need something even smaller?
Enter this
incredibly diminutive keyboard created by [TEC.IST]
. With 59 keys crammed into an area scarcely larger than three US pennies, it may well be the smallest keyboard ever made. The PCB has been designed to mount directly onto the back of a Raspberry Pi Pico, which is running some CircuitPython code to read the switch matrix and act as a standard USB Human Interface Device. The board design files as well as the source code for the Pico have been released on the project’s Hackaday.io page, giving you everything you need to spin up your own teeny tiny input device.
The Pi Pico’s castellated pads make attaching the PCB a snap.
Of course, you probably won’t be breaking any speed records when banging out text on this thing.
We know from past Hackaday badges
that an array of microswitches make for a functional, if somewhat unpleasant, method of text entry. | 25 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413288",
"author": "Bunsen",
"timestamp": "2022-01-10T13:00:11",
"content": "So HE’s the one that bought all the damn B3U-1000Ps.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6413387",
"author": "Ryan Timothy Vasquez",
"ti... | 1,760,372,825.621684 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/10/powering-up-an-original-apple-i-after-three-decades-in-a-museum/ | Powering Up An Original Apple I After Three Decades In A Museum | Robin Kearey | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"Apple I",
"computer museum"
] | The Apple I is the stuff of legend. Designed and marketed in 1976 by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, it was the very first product released by what would become today’s multi-trillion-dollar manufacturer of iPhones and iMacs. With about 60 original ones known to exist today, prices at auction are commonly in the $300,000 range, while confirmed working ones are even more valuable.
The Heinz Nixdorf Museumsforum (HNF), a computer museum in the German city of Paderborn, is fortunate enough to have an original Apple I in its collection. Although it has been there since 1996, it was always on static display and had never been powered on. In fact, it was unknown whether it would even work, and with it being the most valuable exhibit in the entire museum, simply firing it up would be a seriously risky project.
But computers are meant to be used, so museum director [Jochen Viehoff] decided to take the plunge and attempt to get the classic Apple to run again. In
the four-part video series embedded below
, [Jochen] explains the history of Apple’s first product and the steps he took to bring it back to life. This began with taking it out of its bullet-proof display case and bringing it upstairs to the museum’s workshop.
In order to make a complete system, HNF staff also dug up a period-correct keyboard as well as a slightly newer Apple monitor that could display the 60 Hz composite video output. Hooking up an original power supply would have been way too risky, because a single mistake or malfunction could send their top exhibit up in flames. Instead, they used a set of lab power supplies with a programmable current limit; this way, even a dead short on the PCB would not result in any serious damage.
Not that there were any shorts: after a bit of fiddling with the keyboard and adjusting the video output level, the 45-year-old computer came to life and began to respond to commands. With just 256 bytes of ROM, its default feature set is rather limited, but the computer duly executed a simple “Hello, World” program writen in 6502 machine code. It thereby joined the elite club of confirmed working Apple I’s, of which there are thought to be about twenty.
If you haven’t got $300,000 to spare but would still like to try your hand at programming the Apple I, you’ll be happy to hear that you can get
a modern copy at a far more affordable price
. And if all that classic hardware is too fiddly for you, you might want to try
implementing the Apple I on an FPGA
. | 27 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413248",
"author": "juergenUK",
"timestamp": "2022-01-10T09:11:20",
"content": "Great post. I just wonder, for how long the electrolytic capacitors will still last before exploding.My Beep is in the garage – but i hesitate to switch it on after about 40 years …",
"parent_id": n... | 1,760,372,825.558486 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/09/blink-an-led-on-a-pic32-with-rust-easily/ | Blink An LED On A PIC32 With Rust, Easily | Donald Papp | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Software Development"
] | [
"microcontrollers",
"pic32",
"rust"
] | Got a PIC32 microcontroller and a healthy curiousity about the
Rust
programming language and its low-level capabilities, but unsure how to squash the two of them together with a minimum of hassle? If that’s the case, then today is your lucky day!
[Harry Gill] has you covered with
his primer on programming a PIC32 with Rust
, which will have you blinking an LED in no time. [Harry] admits that when he got started, his microcontroller programming skills were a bit rusty, so don’t let yourself think setting this up is beyond your abilities. If you have a working knowledge of the basics of microcontroller programming, you’ll be fine. [Harry] had to jump through a few hoops to get the right tools working, but thoughtfully documented the necessary steps, and provides a bare minimum hardware list.
Unsure what
Rust
is or what it offers?
Check out the basics here
, and see if it’s something that interests you. If you want to look even deeper, check out the kind of work that goes into
writing a bare metal kernel in Rust
. | 25 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413262",
"author": "kwikius",
"timestamp": "2022-01-10T10:23:58",
"content": "The obvious question. Can it blink as fast as C?#################That is a JOKE BTW.#################One would hope itcanproduce code of similar quality and so I hope the comments don’t turn into another... | 1,760,372,825.685116 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/09/peek-behind-the-curtain-of-this-robotic-mouse/ | Peek Behind The Curtain Of This Robotic Mouse | Tom Nardi | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"animatronic",
"Arduino Uno",
"GT2",
"leadscrew",
"NEMA17",
"puppet",
"sg90",
"TB6600"
] | At first glance, this little animatronic mouse might seem like a fairly simple affair. A door opens, our rodent friend pops its head out, looks around, and goes back in. But just like in
The Wizard of Oz
, a strategically placed curtain is hiding
the impressive array of gadgetry that makes the trick possible
.
Creator [Will Donaldson] has put together a fantastic write-up of just what went into creating this little fellow, and we think you’ll be surprised at just how serious the mechanics involved are. Take for example the rig that provides horizontal motion with a NEMA 17 stepper motor mated to a 200 mm leadscrew and dual 8 mm rail assembly that would like right at home as part of a 3D printer.
The star of the show rides atop a beefy sliding carriage assembly made of printed components and acrylic, which is linked to the door via a GT2 timing belt and pulley in such a way that it automatically opens and closes at the appropriate time. To inject some life into the puppet, [Will] stuffed it with a pair of SG90 servos in a sort of pan-and-tilt arrangement: the rear servo turns the mouse’s body left and right, while the forward one moves the head up and down.
An Arduino Uno controls the servos, as well as the stepper motor by way of a TB6600 controller, and optical limit switches are used to make sure nothing moves out bounds. [Will] is keeping the CAD files and source code to himself for the time being, though we imagine a sufficiently dedicated mouseketeer could recreate the installation based on the available information.
This would
appear
to be the first animatronic mouse to grace the pages of Hackaday, but we’re certainly no strangers to seeing
folks imbue inanimate objects with lifelike motion
. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413214",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-01-10T04:03:45",
"content": "Topo Gigo",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6413216",
"author": "SM",
"timestamp": "2022-01-10T04:32:39",
"cont... | 1,760,372,825.254216 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/13/four-wheel-steering-always-the-option-never-the-defining-feature/ | Four Wheel Steering, Always The Option, Never The Defining Feature | Jenny List | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Slider",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"4 wheel steering",
"4ws",
"steering"
] | A couple of weeks ago when it emerged that a new Tesla might have a four-wheel steering capability, our colleague Dan Maloney
mused aloud
as to how useful a four-wheel steering system might be, and indeed whether or not one might be necessary at all. This is hardly the first time four-wheel steering has appeared as the Next Big Thing on the roads. It’s time to take a look at the subject and ask whether it’s an idea with a future, or set to go the way of runflat tyres as one of those evergreen innovations that never quite catches on.
What’s your dream vehicle? If you’re like me, you have more than one. There in my lottery-winner’s garage, alongside the trail bikes and the mobile hackerspace, the dictator-size Mercedes and the Golf Mk1, will be a vehicle that by coincidence has four-wheel steering. The
JCB Fastrac
is a tractor that can travel across almost any terrain at full speed, and though I have no practical use for one and will never own one, I have lusted after one of these machines for over three decades. Their four-wheel steering system is definitely unusual, but that makes it the perfect vehicle with which to demonstrate four-wheel steering.
Four-Wheel Steering Where It’s Really Useful
The Fastrac steering in action, in a still from the linked JCB Agriculture video.
The Fastrac has two axles, and in four-wheel steering configuration the rear axle has steering pivots as well as the front. It doesn’t have a steering box in the same way as a car, instead steering is entirely hydraulic and fly-by-wire. For this reason the top speed is software-limited by law, but the early ones without this annoyance could do motorway speeds. It is after all
the world’s fastest tractor
.
This steering system is computer controlled, and as such has a variety of modes. There is a mode for tight turns in which front and rear axles pivot in opposite directions, one for sideways movements in which they pivot in the same direction, and even specialist modes such as one in which both front and rear wheels follow the same track when following tram lines in a crop. This lets a giant tractor with huge wheels nonetheless move around in quite small spaces.
… And Where It Isn’t Quite So Much
The tractor makes a great introduction to four-wheel steering, but outside that specialist environment how would it apply to a more normal vehicle? Back in the 1980s there were a slew of 4WS-equipped cars from major manufacturers exploring the market. Probably the most famous example is the third-generation Honda Prelude on which it was an optional extra. This vehicle had an all-mechanical system with an extra steering box at the rear and was driven by a shaft, which makes it an easy-to-understand exemplar.
It’s pretty obvious how any trick to deliver a tighter turning circle would be extremely useful in a crowded parking garage, so pivoting the axles in opposite directions at low speeds is a desirable trait. Meanwhile at high speeds, changing lanes on a motorway could be made more stable by pivoting the axles in the same direction.
The Honda Prelude 4WS rear steering box. Soyuz72,
CC BY-SA 4.0
.
The Honda achieved the feat of delivering both steering configurations in one, by the clever use of an epicyclic gearbox for the rear steering. A slight turn of the steering wheel would set the rear wheels pivoting in the same direction as the front allowing it to drift sideways at speed, while further turns would move them round to the opposite direction from the front in order to reduce the turning circle. The dramatic effect on its turning ability is extremely evident in the video linked above, but as an expensive option on the standard Prelude it didn’t tempt enough customers to be made a fixture on later cars.
The story of the Prelude with its interesting steering system that didn’t catch on is the one that has put four-wheel steering in the scrapyard of automotive ideas for every manufacturer that has toyed with the idea since. It’s analogous to 3D cinema: an idea that comes around every few decades as the Next Big Thing, only to fade away soon afterwards. The Honda and its 1980s cohort remain only as interesting curiosities. Will the Tesla do the same? The answer lies in looking again at the Fastrac, it remains a volume-selling 4-wheel steered vehicle because the steering brings something of use to its customers over a conventional 2-wheel-steered tractor. The challenge facing Tesla, or any other manufacturer tempted to give it a try, is to find that elusive usefulness, otherwise they’ll find out as Honda did that consumers prefer to spend their money on something more substantive to boast about.
Header image: Aconcagua,
CC BY-SA 3.0
. | 67 | 34 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414090",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2022-01-13T15:16:35",
"content": "What if the point of it is to sell a gimmick?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6414315",
"author": "Golf Aman",
"timestamp": "2022-01-1... | 1,760,372,825.956543 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/13/canon-temporarily-abandons-smart-ink-cartridges/ | Canon Temporarily Abandons Smart Ink Cartridges | Chris Lott | [
"News",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"canon",
"consumables",
"drm",
"ink cartridge",
"printers",
"toner cartridge"
] | An unexpected side effect of the global semiconductor shortage came to light this week — Japanese printer manufacturer Canon
announced they are temporarily going to provide consumable ink and toner cartridges without microchips
. Furthermore, they provided instructions for consumers on how to bypass the printer’s logic, allowing it to function even when it incorrectly thinks the ink or toner is low. Included in the
announcement (German)
, the company stated what most people already knew:
There is no negative impact on print quality when using consumables without electronic components.
It’s well known that many printer companies make their profit on the consumable cartridges rather than the printers themselves. And most printers require consumers to only use factory original cartridges, a policy enforced by embedded security ICs. Use a third-party ink cartridge and your printer will likely refuse to print. There are legitimate concerns about poor quality inks damaging the print heads. But with reports
like this 2003 one from the BBC
noting that 17% to 38% additional good quality pages can be printed after the consumable is declared “empty”, and that the price per milliliter of inks is seven times the cost of vintage champagne, one can reasonably conclude that these DRM-protected consumables are more about on ensuring profits than protecting the hardware.
For now, this announcement applies to German customers, and covers the Canon imageRunner family of multi-function printers (the complete list is in the company announcement above). | 49 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6414019",
"author": "st01014",
"timestamp": "2022-01-13T12:11:28",
"content": "We live in a world where Ink has DRM/Louckout…Well deserved Canon",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6414474",
"author": "ADam",
"time... | 1,760,372,826.0409 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/13/work-the-world-on-a-555/ | Work The World On A 555 | Jenny List | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"555",
"80 metres",
"amateur radio",
"transmitter"
] | Over the years the humble 555 timer has been used in so many unexpected places,
but there’s a project from [Frank Latos] which we think may be a first
. On a piece of stripboard sit a pair of 555s, and instead of the usual passives there are a set of LC circuits. This is no timer, instead it’s a CW (Morse) transmitter for the 80 metre amateur radio band.
One 555 is configured as a feedback oscillator through a toroidal transformer with a tuned circuit to set the frequency of oscillation. The other takes an inverted input from the oscillator to produce complimentary push-pull outputs from both 555s, which are fed to another transformer that in turn feeds a low-pass filter and thus the antenna.
Free-running squarewave oscillators of this type are not unusual for the lower HF bands, but we think this is the first 555 design we’ve seen. As shown it doesn’t produce much in the way of RF power, but remembering half-decent motor drivers using a 556 dual timer we think that selection of one of the more powerful 555 variants might deliver some more punch. We commend his creativity though, and hope he can get that all-important entry in the log to prove it works.
If you’re curious about low-power radio operation,
it’s something we’ve explored before
. | 14 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413995",
"author": "YGDES",
"timestamp": "2022-01-13T09:44:11",
"content": "I might remember reading about a 555 used as a radio receiver…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6414083",
"author": "duncanmcintyre",
... | 1,760,372,826.140934 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/12/arduino-ide-creates-bootable-x86-floppy-disks/ | Arduino IDE Creates Bootable X86 Floppy Disks | Tom Nardi | [
"computer hacks",
"Software Development"
] | [
"arduino",
"bootable",
"floppy",
"x86"
] | Arguably the biggest advantage of the Arduino ecosystem is how easy it is to get your code running. Type a few lines into the IDE, hit the button, and in a few seconds you’re seeing an LED blink or some text get echoed back over the serial port. But what if that same ease of use didn’t have to be limited to microcontrollers? What if you could use the Arduino IDE to create computer software?
That’s exactly what boot2duino
, a project developed by [Jean THOMAS] hopes to accomplish. As you might have guessed from the name, the code you write in the Arduino is turned into a bootable floppy disk image that you can stick into an old PC. After a few seconds of beeping and grinding your “Hello World” should pop up on the monitor, and you’ve got yourself the world’s biggest Arduino.
A minimal x86 Arduino sketch.
Now to be clear, this isn’t some kind of minimal Linux environment that boots up and runs a compiled C program. [Jean] has created an Arduino core that provides basic functionality on x86 hardware. Your code has full control over the computer, and there’s no operating system overhead to contend with. As demonstrated in a series of videos, programs written with boot2duino can display text, read from the keyboard, and play tones over the PC’s speaker.
The documentation for boot2duino says the project serves no practical purpose, but we’re not so sure. While the feature set is minimal, the low overhead means you could theoretically press truly ancient PCs into service. There’s certainly an appeal to being able to write your code on a modern OS and effortlessly deploy it on a retrocomputer, from
somewhat modernized versions of early computer games
to more practical applications. If any readers end up exploring this concept a bit further, be sure to
let us know how it goes
. | 71 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413971",
"author": "Eric Chapin",
"timestamp": "2022-01-13T06:34:30",
"content": "Budget SSFD? (solid state floppy disk) Could be useful for faster booting into DOS?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6414013",
"author"... | 1,760,372,826.24726 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/12/illuminating-origami-is-just-around-the-corner/ | Illuminating Origami Is Just Around The Corner | Michael Shaub | [
"Art",
"News",
"Science"
] | [
"co2 laser",
"laser etch",
"origami",
"QLED",
"research",
"south korea",
"university"
] | Pop-up greeting cards are about to get a whole lot more interesting. Researchers at Seoul National University in Korea have created glowing 3D objects with a series of prototypes that fold thin QLED (Quantum Dot LED) sheets like origami. They used a CO
2
laser to etch “fold lines” in the QLED so the sheets could be formed into 3D shapes. The bends are actually rounded, but at 5μm they appear to be sharp corners and the panels continue to illuminate across the fold lines for at least 500 folds. Some glow in solid colors, while others use smaller addressable areas to create animated matrix displays of patterns and letterforms. See the short video after the break, read the
Physics World article
or to see all the prototypes and dig into details of the full
research paper in Nature
(freed from the paywall by SharedIt).
Folded QLED Panels – forming a pyramid and a cube
Folded QLED Panels – various patterns and the 3D forms they fold into
We’re not sure how soon this technique can be duplicated in our home labs, but we can’t wait to fold up our own 3D lights and matrices. Until then, check out some glowing origami you can make right now from
[Charlyn Gonda] at Remoticon 2020
and
earlier that year
and this amazing
origami lamp
. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413961",
"author": "KOB",
"timestamp": "2022-01-13T04:34:20",
"content": "I’m not certain what the applications for discrete QLEDs that can be bent a few hundred times would be (though I assume they’ll be apparent at some point) but if the output is homogenous enough it could elimi... | 1,760,372,826.094012 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/12/stout-peristaltic-pump-fabricated-from-scratch/ | Stout Peristaltic Pump Fabricated From Scratch | Lewin Day | [
"hardware"
] | [
"peristalsis",
"peristaltic pump",
"pump"
] | The peristaltic pump is perhaps most well known for its ability to pump fluids without the pump mechanism coming into contact with the working fluid. This is key for food-safe applications and other situations where a pump could contaminate the fluid. [Maciej Nowak] has built
a great example of such a pump
, crafted out of aluminium from scratch.
The build video covers the machining process in detail, showing how the aluminium body was fabricated on the lathe before installing bearings and a silicone hose. The pump shaft was then fabricated, along with a set of brass rollers to press along the tube, creating the pumping action. The rollers were also lubricated in order to reduce friction on the tubing. Powering the pump is a small DC motor, sending drive via a small toothed belt, giving the finished build quite an industrial look.
We’re used to seeing plenty of
3D-printed pumps
about the place
. This build, while it requires a fully-equipped machine shop, is much tougher than anything plastic, and you could easily use it to break a window in an emergency too, an obscure feature nevertheless requested by some discerning pump customers.
[Maciej] shows off the build by pumping some green liquid, noting the peristaltic design requires no priming which makes operation much easier. It’s also bidirectional, and can be run very slowly if required.
Overall, it’s a build that shows off the benefits of working in metal as well as the great features of the peristaltic pump design. Video after the break. | 18 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413942",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2022-01-13T00:33:42",
"content": "“STOUT PERISTALTIC PUMP”Do you mean a robust pump or a pump that pumps dark beer?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6414086",
"author": "Pr... | 1,760,372,826.307672 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/12/bitcoin-mining-asics-repurposed-to-keep-ntp-server-on-track/ | Bitcoin Mining ASICs Repurposed To Keep NTP Server On Track | Dan Maloney | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"ASIC",
"bitcoin",
"blockchain",
"hash",
"mining",
"mqtt",
"network time protocol",
"ntp",
"oven",
"temperature"
] | They say time is money, but if that’s true, money must also be time. It’s all figurative, of course, but in the case of
this NTP server heater powered by Bitcoin mining dongles
, money actually does become time.
This is an example of the lengths to which Network Time Protocol aficionados will go in search of slightly better performance from their NTP servers. [Folkert van Heusden], having heard that thermal stability keeps NTP servers happy, used a picnic cooler as an environmental chamber for his Pi- and GPS-based NTP rig. Heat is added to the chamber thanks to seven Block Erupter ASIC miner dongles, which are turned on by a Python script when a microcontroller sends an MQTT message that the temperature has dropped below the setpoint.
Each dongle produces about 2.5 Watts of heat when it’s working, making them pretty effective heaters. Alas, heat is all they produce at the moment — [Folkert] just has them working on the same hash over and over. He does say that he has plans to let the miners do useful work at some point, not so much for profit but to at least help out the network a bit.
This seems like a bit of a long way around to solve this problem, but since the mining dongles are basically obsolete now —
we talked about them
way back in 2013 — it has a nice hacky feeling to it that we appreciate. | 27 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413894",
"author": "GameboyRMH",
"timestamp": "2022-01-12T21:21:41",
"content": "Idea for doing useful work – replace the ASIC miners with one or more RasPis running BOINC. Old Android phones or Android TV boxes could also do this, but the automation will be more difficult.On the t... | 1,760,372,826.409626 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/11/led-bubbles-from-the-1970s-tell-the-time/ | LED Bubbles From The 1970s Tell The Time | Al Williams | [
"classic hacks",
"clock hacks",
"Parts"
] | [
"bubble display",
"bubble led",
"clock"
] | [CuriousMarc] is nothing if not curious. Finding some old TI timekeeping chips to reverse engineer, he set out to
make a clock using old-fashioned “bubble LEDs.”
You can see the result of his tinkering in the video below. For the uninitiated, bubble LEDs are 7-segment LEDs with magnifying bubbles over each digit. These were popular in calculators, watches, and other places that used LEDs before LCDs largely displaced them.
The history of these has to do with the power required to light an LED. You don’t technically need a magnifying lens, but larger LEDs take more power. These displays were relatively low power and used tiny LEDs with light pipes to make each dot a full segment. The lens made the segments larger and easier to see.
Beyond the TI chip and HP displays, there isn’t too much else needed. [Marc] just wired the whole thing using the IC as a substrate. Sort of dead bug construction using enameled wire. At first, it didn’t work but it turned out to be a battery issue. The device really wanted 2.5 V and not the 3 V provided by the battery. The solution required a little detective work.
We know this isn’t a very practical project, but we love seeing this old tech again and while the dead bug construction isn’t beautiful, there is something appealing about the look of it. Maybe one day people will build steampunk things and discopunk will be for the 1970s?
We’ve seen
bubble LED projects before
. If you want something more in
a watch form factor
, that exists, too. | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413523",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-01-11T12:40:59",
"content": "If you do have working HP bubble displays, please don’t use them for projects like this!They are needed for restoration of HP calculators from the same period.See hpmuseum.org"... | 1,760,372,826.459026 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/11/the-atari-punk-console-now-with-more-vacuum-tubes/ | The Atari Punk Console, Now With More Vacuum Tubes | Dan Maloney | [
"classic hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"555",
"apc",
"astable",
"atari punk console",
"monostable",
"oscillator",
"synth",
"vacuum tube"
] | Most of us have beheld the sonic glory of an Atari Punk Console, that lo-fi synth whose classic incarnation is a pair of 555 timers set up to warble and bleep in interesting ways. Very few of us, however, have likely seen an
APC built from 555s that are made from vacuum tubes
.
It’s little surprise to regular readers that this one comes to us by way of [David] at Usagi Electric, who hasn’t met a circuit that couldn’t be improved by realizing it in vacuum tubes. His “hollow-state” Atari Punk Console began with
the 18-tube version of the 555
that he built just for fun a while back, which proved popular enough that he’s working on a kit version, the prototype of which served as the second timer for the synth. With 32 tubes aglow amid a rats-nest of jumpers, the console managed to make the requisites sounds, but lacked a certain elegance. [David] then vastly simplified the design, reducing the BOM to just four dual-triode tubes. Housed on a CNC milled PCB in a custom wood box, the synth does a respectable job and looks good doing it. The video below shows both versions in action, as well as detailing their construction.
As cool as a vacuum tube synth may be, we realize that not everyone goes for the hot glass approach. No worries — plenty of silicon Atari Punk Consoles to choose from here. There’s
one built into a joystick
, a
circuit sculpture version complete with mini-CRT
, or even
eight APCs teamed up with MIDI control
. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413503",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2022-01-11T10:20:31",
"content": "I always love how the “analog” audio folks complain about how “digital” digital synths sound.This is a fully _tube_ synth that sounds just as squeaky-squawky a pair of 555s. :)",
"parent_id":... | 1,760,372,826.349358 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/10/hitclips-custom-cartridge-hack-will-never-give-up-let-down-or-turn-around/ | HitClips Custom Cartridge Hack Will Never Give Up, Let Down, Or Turn Around | Ryan Flowers | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"cartridge",
"music",
"portable player",
"SAM D09"
] | In August 2000, Tiger Electronics released HitClips: Music cartridges and players designed to easily share 60 second low quality Clips of a youngster’s favorite Hits. Various players were available, and individual cartridges were inexpensive enough to collect. And it’s these toy music players that [Guy Dupont] has been hacking quite successfully on as you can see in the
video after the break
and on [Guy]’s
Hackaday.io page
.
Two PCB’s make up the new cartridge
[Guy]’s main goal was to make cartridges of his own that could not just hold more music than the short clips in the commercially made product, but could make use of modern technology that has matured since HitClips came onto the scene more than 20 years go.
The project’s components are relatively simple, but beautifully executed. An ATTINY84 didn’t work out, so a SAM D09 controller was put it place to to read files from a microSD card and translate the WAV file into the HitClips player’s format. 3d printed cartridges and custom PCB’s complete the hack, ensuring that you can use any of the many HitClips players to play something new for a change.
The end result is quite good, considering that it’s still just 8 bit audio on a 20 year old toy player. Tiger Electronics made another toy that’s
quite popular with hackers of the musical kind
. | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413473",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2022-01-11T06:49:15",
"content": "Wow, that’s a really cool hack. I love the idea of hacking retro things to give them new functionality. It’s really too bad the quality of the player is so low. It basically kills all motivation to recreate ... | 1,760,372,826.528282 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/10/this-john-deere-tractor-doesnt-need-a-driver/ | This John Deere Tractor Doesn’t Need A Driver | Al Williams | [
"News"
] | [
"autonomous driving",
"autonomous tractor",
"autonomous vehicle",
"john deere",
"tractor"
] | While most autonomous vehicles are meant to travel over the highway, John Deere’s new
8R tractor
shown at the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show will likely only traverse fields and it will do so without a human at the wheel.
The tractor is slated to be available to farmers in late 2022 and has six pairs of stereo cameras to generate a 360 degree view of obstacles. It also uses location technology, including GPS, to ensure it is where it is supposed to be with a claimed accuracy of 1 inch. You can see a video about the beast below.
According to press releases, the company has been testing the technology for at least 3 years. It is controlled by — what else? — a smartphone app that can set it to its task and monitor it remotely, allowing the farmer to monitor and control the operation from anywhere. The company claims it can prepare 325 acres in 24 hours.
In the video, it mentions you can let the tractor run 24 hours a day, too, so we presume the cameras don’t need ambient lighting to work. We imagine that the price of this will be staggering and — honestly — if you’ve done any sort of robotics, it doesn’t seem like a very difficult task. You have to wonder if there will be cheaper competitors if the usually- conservative farming industry starts to adopt the technology. Of course, big competitors such as Case IH have either announced plans or demonstrated pilot programs to do similar things.
Not that there aren’t already driverless tractors available from the likes of Monarch and Fendt, and even companies that will refit existing equipment such as The Autonomous Tractor Corporation and Bear Flag Robotics.
Usually when we are talking about John Deere is it related to their reticence to let people
repair tractors
. If you are thinking about building your own, you might want to
start your research with this project
. | 50 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413434",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-01-11T03:08:21",
"content": "Old farmer joke:“Did you know that John Deere is coming out with a tractor that doesn’t have a steering wheel or a seat?”“Really???”“Yeah, it’s for farmers who have lost their ... | 1,760,372,826.613606 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/10/get-a-grip-on-troubleshooting-your-vintage-pinball-machine/ | Get A Grip On Troubleshooting Your Vintage Pinball Machine | Chris Wilkinson | [
"Games",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"electromechanical",
"pinball",
"vintage"
] | Restoring vintage technology can be a tricky business, especially without the appropriate schematics and documentation. To this end [Mark] has spent the past twelve months building a
comprehensive schematic editor and circuit simulator library for electromechanical pinball machines
.
Rather than explore each and every table in excruciating detail, the emSim software aims to examine how specific circuits work, and how they are used as part of the gaming experience. The aim of the project is to aid in the diagnosis and repair of vintage electromechanical pinball machines, the types that rely on a dizzying array of switches, gears, motors and coils in their operation, operating like clockwork underneath the play field. While these older pinball machines typically use alternating current, the game logic (for the most part) is still binary, and can be effectively described with Boolean operators.
Like any machine with moving parts, these systems will eventually wear down and require servicing, a task which may not be in the wheelhouse for your casual pinball enthusiast. [Mark]’s hope is that his circuit simulations will allow just about anyone to repair these classic tables, and keep them around for future generations to explore and enjoy.
If tinkering with pinball innards isn’t for you, then make sure to check out our coverage of this awesome
virtual pinball table
. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413588",
"author": "pmhupman",
"timestamp": "2022-01-11T16:50:46",
"content": "This is well timed since I just got an old Williams Super Flite machine to bring back to life. Don’t know if I can simulate the whole thing since the schematic is over 7 feet long and 24 inches wide.",
... | 1,760,372,826.64671 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/10/a-simple-emf-detector-and-electroscope-you-can-make-from-junk-box-parts/ | A Simple EMF Detector And Electroscope You Can Make From Junk Box Parts | Dave Rowntree | [
"hardware"
] | [
"4017",
"electroscope",
"emf detector",
"NPN bipolar"
] | 2N2222 devices used, but practically any junkbox NPN will do
Electromagnetic fields are everywhere, all around us. Some are generated naturally, but in vast majority of cases, it’s we humans that are generating them with artificial, electronic means. Everything from your mobile phone to the toaster will emit some sort of signal, be it intentional or not. So we think it only befits the general electronics-orientated hacker to have some way of sniffing around for these signals, so here is [Mirko Pavleski] with his take on a
very simple pair of instruments to detect both static and dynamic electromagnetic fields
.
CMOS clock input connected directly to the antenna. Warning! ESD damage risk!
The first unit (a simple
electroscope
) uses a cascade of 2N2222 NPN bipolar transistors configured to give a high current gain, so any charge near the antenna will result in increasing currents in subsequent stages, finally illuminating the LED. Simple stuff.
The second unit relies on the extremely high input impedance of the old-school
CMOS 4017 decade counter
, which is likely of the order of 100 MΩ or even more. Normally you would not leave such a CMOS input floating, or even connect it with too long a PCB trace — lest it pick up a stray signal —but for detecting alternating EM fields, this appears to work just fine. Configured as a simple divide-by-ten, when presenting 50 Hz AC, the LED can be seen to flash at 5 Hz.
Simple stuff, and this scribe has all those exact parts in the junk box, so will be constructing these shortly!
We’ve covered electroscopes for years, here’s a
modern twist on a famous classic experiment
, and some
hair-raising experiments
to get you started. | 48 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413380",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2022-01-10T21:24:05",
"content": "“sorry, but [Mirko] is from North Macedonia, and they use 50 Hz AC”I wonder why you feel it necessary to appologise for the creator of these devices having 50Hz AC mains? HAD has a large international readersh... | 1,760,372,826.86505 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/10/this-little-minecraft-mine-cart-of-mine/ | This Little Minecraft Mine Cart Of Mine | Matthew Carlson | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"minecart",
"minecraft",
"rail",
"tracks",
"train"
] | [Joel] of Joel Creates loves trains and Minecraft. So what better way to combine them than to make a
real-life electric mine cart and ride it around
?
At first glance, it seems pretty straightforward. Four wheels, each with a flange, mounted to a box with a motor. In practice, it was a little more complex than that. Just finding a spot of track to even ride on is tricky. Most “abandoned” tracks that you might see around your city often aren’t all that abandoned. Luckily for [Joel], he remembered an amusement park in the area that he went to as a kid, which he remembered having a decent amount of track. Additionally, the rails were smaller and closer to the scale of a real Minecraft track where one block is 1 meter. After calling up the owner and receiving permission, Joel began to build his cart.
First attempts to procure actual train wheels were foiled by cost and lead times, and simply CNCing a set of wheels was too expensive from a time and materials point of view. [Joel]’s first thought was about making an assembly out of two wheels to grip the rail, much like a roller coaster. However, there were dozens of switch points on the track at the park and several road crossings, both things that wouldn’t work with that sort of setup. Stumbling upon a bit of hacker inspiration, [Joel] turned to brake drums, which happen to be reasonably close to the correct size. They also have the superb quality of being relatively cheap and available. Almost all the parts were CNCed out of aluminum, plywood, or foam.
Given that the theme of the build was doing things to scale, [Joel] was mindful of the top speed of a minecart in the game, which is 8 meters per second or roughly 25 miles per hour, so he set that as his goal to hit. A beefy motor from an online warehouse and a lithium-ion pack allowed him to hit that easily; it was just a matter of doing so safely.
If you need even more Minecraft vehicles in your life, perhaps
an RC boat might do the trick
? Video after the break. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413359",
"author": "Ali Gator",
"timestamp": "2022-01-10T19:40:26",
"content": "Wow, those tracks held up pretty well for being unused so long.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6413371",
"author": "C. Scott Ananian",
... | 1,760,372,826.781994 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/08/hidden-shaft-and-gears-make-this-hollow-clock-go/ | Hidden Shaft And Gears Make This Hollow Clock Go | Donald Papp | [
"Art",
"clock hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"art",
"clock",
"clock movement",
"hidden"
] | [shiura]’s
Hollow Clock 3
is a fantastic 3D printed take on a clock movement that uses a hidden mechanism to pull off its unusual operation. The Hollow Clock has no face, just an open space with an hour and minute hand that move as expected. Only the longer minute hand has any apparent connection to the rest of the clock body, with the rest appearing to hang in the air.
Hidden shaft and gearing.
This is how it works: the longer minute hand is connected to the white ring, and it is in fact this ring that rotates, taking the attached minute hand with it. But how does the hour hand remain stationary while the rest turns? A concealed shaft and gear assembly takes care of that. For every full rotation of the minute hand (actually the white ring), the hour hand is only permitted a relative advancement of 1/12th of a rotation. It’s a clever system, and you can see the insides in the photo here.
Unlike
clock projects that showcase their inner workings
, the Hollow Clock works hard to conceal them. If you decide to make your own, [shiura] warns to expect to do a bit of tweaking to fine-tune the amount of friction between moving parts so that operation is smooth, and provides useful guidelines for doing so. Take a few minutes to watch the clock in action in the video, embedded below. | 20 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413011",
"author": "jonsmirl",
"timestamp": "2022-01-09T03:30:26",
"content": "Another way to do this might be to permanently fix the minute hand to the white part, and then use a mechanism in the base to spin the white part. Embed wires in the minute hand and then use a motor in ... | 1,760,372,826.93205 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/08/modernizing-the-game-boy-advance/ | Modernizing The Game Boy Advance | Al Williams | [
"classic hacks",
"Nintendo Game Boy Hacks"
] | [
"game boy",
"game boy advance"
] | [Zekfoo] decided to honor the Game Boy Advance’s 20th birthday by
redesigning it at the circuit level to give it a more modern twist
. To quote the project readme:
I really want to like the Game Boy Advance. Growing up with a GBA SP, I was spoiled by its clicky buttons, rechargeable battery, and illuminated screen. When I finally got my hands on an original GBA, I couldn’t be more disappointed by the stark difference in feel and function. While today’s retro modding scene has produced many improvements for the GBA (referred to from now on as its codename AGB), the console still has many quirks that simple modding hasn’t been able to fix, but that can be addressed in a circuit redesign.
The four-layer board looks great and there a number of modernized features.
For example, this new version is rechargeable. The unit has proper switches, which most people will prefer over the mushy membrane switches. There’s also a screen light and an improved power supply that helps produce cleaner audio, among other things.
We were disappointed that the repository only has images and audio files — if you want to duplicate the build you are on your own. He’s also done a clone of the
Game Boy Color
, but — alas — no design files there either. Still, a couple of good-looking projects.
We always enjoy seeing
old products given a facelift
. If you think you just need an emulator, they sometimes
don’t exactly mimic real hardware
. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413008",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2022-01-09T02:56:54",
"content": "“Special thanks to everyone who compiled the critical information I used and made it freely available. Not that I respect them enough to pass it on.”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies":... | 1,760,372,826.977217 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/08/de10-lite-ful-fpga-dev-board-hack-plays-the-1981-classic-defender/ | DE10-Lite-Ful FPGA Dev Board Hack Plays The 1981 Classic Defender | Ryan Flowers | [
"FPGA",
"Games"
] | [
"classic games",
"defender",
"fpga"
] | We’re not sure what the assignment was, but the results of [Garret Carter]’s homework for his Digital System Design class at Tennessee Tech couldn’t help but capture our attention. Below the break you can see what [Garrett] describes as a “
simplified stylized version” of the 1981 arcade hit “Defender”
.
With the goal of keeping the price low but keeping performance as high as possible, [Garrett] set forth to program the DE10-Lite FPGA development board in VHDL. The results are convincing, and while not perfect, came in under budget.
The DE10-Lite board gave [Garrett] the opportunity to get even more creative, using the dev board’s onboard switches, buttons, 7-segment LED’s and
accelerometer
to full effect. In this case, the dev board is not only the game, but also the controller and status display. A very neat hack indeed!
If you want to make your own, you can get the full project details at
[Garrett]’s Github page
. And [Garrett], we don’t know what marks your professor will give, but we give you an A+, would definitely play again.
While FPGA development boards aren’t necessarily inexpensive, our own Jenny List shows where you might be able to
find a used but workable FPGA board for a fraction of the cost, If you know where to look
. | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6412976",
"author": "Xark",
"timestamp": "2022-01-08T22:35:49",
"content": "Looking very nice! I like the smooth hi-res stars combined with the more retro Defender-esque “sprites”.Not using a “soft core” CPU for this, but all done with VHDL logic (it looks like). A somewhat challe... | 1,760,372,827.018482 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/08/advanced-pcb-graphics-with-kicad-6-and-inkscape/ | Advanced PCB Graphics With KiCAD 6 And Inkscape | Dave Rowntree | [
"hardware",
"how-to"
] | [
"graphics",
"KiCAD",
"learning",
"tutorial"
] | There are many, many video tutorials about designing the functional side of PCBs, giving you tips on schematic construction, and layout tips. What is a little harder to find are tutorials on the graphical aspects, covering the process from creating artworks and how you can drive the tools to get them looking good on a PCB, leveraging the silkscreen, solder and copper layers to maximum effect. [Stuart Patterson] presents his guide for
Advanced PCB Graphics in KiCAD 6.0 and Inkscape,
(Video, embedded below) to help you on your way to that cool looking PCB build.
Silkscreen layers in yellow, solder mask opening in red
The first step is to get your bitmap, whether you create it yourself, or download it, and trace it into a set of vectors using the Inkscape ‘trace bitmap’ tool. If you started with an SVG or similar vector shape, then you can skip that stage.
Next simply create a PCB outline shape by deleting all the details that aren’t part of the outline. A little scaling here and there to get the dimensions correct and you’re done with the first part. [Stuart] has an earlier video
showing that process
.
The usability improvements in KiCAD 6.0 are many, but one greatly demanded feature is the ability to group objects, just like you do in Inkscape and any other vector graphics tool for that matter. That means you can simply import that SVG outline into the Edge.Cuts PCB layer and all the curves will be nicely tied together. Next you select the details you want for the silkscreen layer, solder mask removal layers and any non-circuit copper. In Inkscape it would be wise to use the layers feature to assign the different material types to a uniquely named layer, so they can be hidden for exporting. This allows you to handle silk, mask and copper PNG exports from a single master file, in addition to any vector details for outline, slots and holes.
Once you have PNG bitmap exports for the silk, mask etc. you need to create a footprint inside a board-specific library, using the KiCAD image converter tool. It was interesting to note that you can export a new image footprint from the tool and paste it straight into the footprint editor, and tweak all the visibility details at the same time. That will save some time and effort for sure. Anyway, we hope this little tutorial from [Stuart] helps, and we will be sure to bring you plenty more in the coming months.
Need some more help with KiCAD?
Checkout this tutorial
, and if you want a bit more power from the tool, you need
some action plugins
! | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6412942",
"author": "Per Jensen",
"timestamp": "2022-01-08T19:15:05",
"content": "Is there missing a word in here “it would be wise to the layers feature”?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6412959",
"author": "Dave Rown... | 1,760,372,827.070106 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/08/the-year-of-owning-it/ | The Year Of Owning It | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"consumer",
"diy",
"everything as a service",
"reverse engineering"
] | Talking over the year in review on
the Podcast
, Tom Nardi and I were brainstorming what we thought was
the single overarching trend in 2021
, and we came up with many different topics: victories in the right to repair, increasingly dystopian service contracts, a flourishing of cyberdecks, and even greater prevalence of reverse engineering style hacks. And then we realized: they are all different faces of the same beast — people just want to
own
the devices that they own.
Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, our modern Internet-connected-everythings have two sides. On one side, we get so much additional functionality from having everything on the net. But on the other, if your car is always connected, it gives
Toyota a means to make you pay a monthly fee to use a car fob
, and if you have to use Cricut’s free online service to upload designs to the cutter,
they can suddenly decide to start charging you
. It allows Samsung to not only spy on whatever you’re currently watching on your smart TV, but
to also brick it if they want to
. More and more, we don’t actually own (in the sense of control) the devices that we own (in the sense of having purchased).
We don’t have to take it lying down. On the one hand, consumer protest made Cricut walk back their plans, and may do the same with Toyota. We can achieve a lot, collectively, by just talking about our grievances, and letting the firms in question know how we feel — naturally also with our wallets. But as hackers and all-around techie types, we can do even more. When something is broken because of a bad service, we can often fix it with firmware or by standing up our own version of the service. We can pwn them.
But there’s even more to the cyberdeck and the extreme DIY movements of the last few years than just the defense against lock-in or the liberating of hardware. There’s also the pride of truly owning something because you made it. Not just owning it because you bought it, or owning it because you control it, but owning it because you
understand
it and because you gave birth to it.
Whichever way you’re into owning your own, I think that’s the single overarching trend of 2021 — both on the positive and proactive side and the negative and reactive. Talking about it, reverse engineering it, or building it yourself, 2021 was the year of owning it.
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
! | 41 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6412907",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2022-01-08T16:40:16",
"content": "I think the real lesson here is to not buy internet dependent goods. People like me knew they would be a disaster and they have proven to be just that. They take away control and have horrible security. ... | 1,760,372,827.144944 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/08/vw-power-steering-reverse-engineering/ | Baby Steps Toward DIY Autonomous Driving: VW Golf Edition | Dave Rowntree | [
"car hacks"
] | [
"canbus",
"firmware",
"Ghidra",
"kali linux",
"multi chip module",
"OpenPilot",
"Renesas V850",
"reverse engineering",
"volkswagen"
] | Nice thermal design, but conformal coating and no ID marks make this tough to reverse engineer
[Willem Melching] owns a 2010 Volkswagen Golf – a very common vehicle in Europe – and noticed that whilst the electronic steering rack supports the usual Lane Keep Assist (LKAS) system, and would be theoretically capable of operating in a far more advanced configuration using
openpilot
, there were some shortcomings in VW’s implementation which means that it would not function for long enough to make it viable. Being very interested in and clearly extremely capable at reverse engineering car ECUs and hacking them into submission, [Willem] set about
documenting his journey to unlocking openpilot support for his own vehicle
.
And what a journey it was! The four-part blog series is beautifully written, showing every gory detail and all tools used along the way. The first part shows the Electronic Power Steering (EPS) ECU from a 2010 Volkswagen Golf Mk6 module (which rides on the back of the three-phase steering rack motor) being cracked open to reveal an interesting multi-chip module approach, with bare die directly bonded to a pair of substrate PCBs, that are in turn, bonded to the back of the motor casing, presumably for heat dissipation reasons. Clever design, but frustrating at the same time as this makes part identification somewhat tricker!
Entropy less the 1.0, and zero sections indicate no encryption applied
[Willem] uses a variety of tools and tricks to power up and sniff the ECU traffic on the CAN bus, when hooked up to a
SAE J2534-
compliant debug tool, eventually determining it speaks the
VW-specific TP2.0
CAN bus protocol, and managed to grab enough traffic to check that it was possible to use the standard KWP2000 diagnostic protocol to access some interesting data. Next was a very deep dive into reverse engineering update images found online, by first making some trivial XOR operations, then looking at an entropy plot of the file using
Binwalk
to determine if he really did have code, and if it was encrypted or not, After running
cpu_rec
, it was determined the CPU was a
Renesas V850
. Then the real work started – loading the image into
Ghidra
to start making some guesses of the architecture of the code, to work out what needed patching to make the desired changes. In the final part of the series, [Willem] extracts and uses the bootloader procedure to partially patch the code configuration area of his vehicle and unlocks the goal he was aiming at – remote control of his steering. (OK, the real goal was running
openpilot.
)
In our opinion, this is a very interesting, if long, read showing a fascinating subject expertly executed. But we do want to stress, that the vehicular EPS module is an
ASIL-D safety tested
device, so any hacks you do to a road-going vehicle will most definitely void your insurance (not to mention your warranty) if discovered in the event of a claim.
Older ECUs are a bit easier to hack,
if you can pull the EPROM
, and people out there are
producing modules for allsorts of vehicular hacking
. So plenty to tinker with! | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6412866",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2022-01-08T12:19:51",
"content": "This is what I come here for. Awesome!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6412892",
"author": "kwikius",
"timestamp": "2022-01-08T15:31:... | 1,760,372,827.218282 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/08/555-timer-on-its-own-in-electronic-dice/ | 555 Timer On Its Own In Electronic Dice | Bryan Cockfield | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"555",
"cd4017",
"circuit",
"clock",
"dice",
"electronic",
"logic",
"NE555",
"random number",
"timer"
] | One of the most common clichés around here is that a piece of equipment chosen for a project is always too advanced. If a Raspberry Pi was used, someone will say they should have used an Arduino. If they use an Arduino, it should have been an ATtiny. And of course, if an ATtiny was used, there should have simply been a 555 timer. This time, however, [Tim] decided to actually show how this can be done by removing some of the integrated circuits from an electronic dice and
relying entirely on the 555 timer for his build
.
The electronic dice that [Tim] has on hand makes use of two main ICs: a NE555 and a CD4017 which is a decade counter/divider used for cycling through states. In order to bring the 555 to the forefront of this build, he scraps the CD4017 and adds an array of 555 timers. These are used to generate the clock signals necessary for this build but can also be arranged to form logic circuits. This comes at a great cost, however. The 555 chips take up an unnecessarily large area on the PCB (even though these are small surface-mount chips), consume an incredible amount of power, and are very slow. That’s fine for an electronic dice-rolling machine like this one, but that’s probably where [Tim] will leave this idea.
The 555 timer is a surprisingly versatile chip, and this project shows that there is some element of truth to the folks claiming that projects need naught but a few 555s. We’ve seen
entire CPUs built using nothing but 555s
, and even a classic project that
uses a 555 timer to balance a robot
. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6412837",
"author": "wiz",
"timestamp": "2022-01-08T09:01:27",
"content": "This could have been built using only transistors",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6412932",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,372,827.314371 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/09/hackaday-links-january-9-2022/ | Hackaday Links: January 9, 2022 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"dental hacks",
"diet",
"dishy mcflatface",
"hackaday links",
"james webb space telescope",
"jwst",
"low poly",
"mandible",
"nintendo",
"Starlink"
] | It looks like we have a new space observatory!
According to NASA
, all the major deployments on the James Webb Space Telescope have been completed successfully. This includes the tricky
sunshield deployment and tensioning
, which went off this week without much in the way of trouble. The final major deployment, the unfolding of the starboard wing of the primary mirror of the telescope, was completed on Saturday while the spacecraft was still almost 400,000 km from its forever home orbiting Lagrange point L2. Mission controllers had allotted two weeks for the 300-odd deployments needed to turn the packaged machine into a working observatory. The remaining two weeks or so of flight include less dramatic tasks, such as
trimming the shape of the primary mirror
with servos that subtly alter the position and curvature of each of the 18 segments, plus a bunch of calibration tasks. But it looks like most of the really scary stuff is behind us now.
From the “Interesting Innards” department, if you’re a fan of either gaming or industrial CT scans, check out
Scan of the Month’s look inside Nintendo handheld game consoles
. They’ve put a bunch of games through computed tomography scans, and the results are really interesting, false-colored though they may be. Seeing the progression of technology from the original 1989 Game Boy to the Switch is fascinating. The side notes on the history and tech inside each one are pretty cool too.
A couple of weeks ago
we mentioned Andrew Sink’s online low-poly generator, which takes any 3D model and allows you to control the number of polygons used to render it. He dropped us a line to let us know the tool proved popular enough that he had to move it off GitHub and onto
a dedicated site
. Check it out at its new home.
When something like this pops up in your feed, it seems like the best approach is to share it. I
t’s called DentalSlim
, and claims to be the first intra-oral device designed for weight loss. It’s a hardware lock for your teeth, and it looks perfectly horrifying. The device is designed to be applied by a
sadist
dentist and effectively locks the lower jaw to the upper with magnets, allowing the wearer to open his or her mouth only enough to take a liquid diet. There’s also a provision for the wearer to unlock the device in an emergency, which is wise — can you imagine catching a stomach bug with your jaw locked shut? — but that seems to defeat the “hardware-enforced willpower” that the device is based on.
Have you got a bunch of filament spools lying around from all that 3D printing? Rather than put them to use rolling up strings of lights from the Christmas tree, here’s another idea:
turn them into nice covered bird feeders
. All you need to do is apply a rim around one side to hold the seed before hanging them out for the birds. We suppose walling off the space between the sides completely and drilling some holes could also turn them into birdhouses, too.
And finally, if your filament spool bird feeder isn’t attracting the attention of the neighborhood cats, perhaps it’s because they’ve found a nice, cozy spot to soak up some heat. At least that’s what some Starlink users are seeing as
their feline friends cuddle up on Dishy McFlatface for a long winter’s nap
. You see, the phased array antenna inside the enclosure gets pretty toasty, and cats are pretty much any-port-in-a-storm critters, so it’s only natural. We can’t imagine their choice of basking locale does much for data throughput, and it’s probably quite a laugh when the dish pivots to track a satellite. But it’s hard to feel sorry for something that sleeps 23-½ hours a day. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413197",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2022-01-10T00:48:21",
"content": "“Damn Starlink, I not getting anything except cat videos!”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6413210",
"author": "CityZen",
"timest... | 1,760,372,827.263908 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/09/fail-of-the-week-3d-printed-parts-that-burn-like-nasas-rocket-fuel/ | Fail Of The Week: 3D Printed Parts That Burn Like NASA’s Rocket Fuel | Dave Rowntree | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Engine Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed rocket engine",
"3D resin printer"
] | [Integza] is on a mission to find as many ways as possible to build rockets and other engines using 3D printing and other accessible manufacturing techniques. He had an a great idea –
is it possible to 3D print a solid fuelled rocket
, (video, embedded below) specifically can you 3D print the rocket grain itself? By using the resin as a fuel and mixing in a potent oxidiser (ammonium perchlorate specifically – thanks for the tip NASA!) he has some, erm, mixed success.
Effective thrust vs grain cross-sectional profile
As many of us (ahem, I mean
you
) can attest to, when in the throes of amateur
solid-propellant rocket
engine experimentation (just speaking theoretically, you understand) it’s not an easy task to balance the thrust over time and keep the combustion pressure within bounds of the enclosure’s capability. Once you’ve cracked making and securing a nozzle within the combustion chamber, the easiest task is to get control of the fuel/oxidiser/binder (called the fuel
grain
) ratio, particle size and cast the mixture into a solid, dry mass inside. The hard part is designing and controlling the shape of the grain, such that as the surface of the grain burns, the actively burning surface area remains pretty constant over time. A simple cylindrical hole would obviously increase in diameter over time, increasing the burning surface area, and causing the burn rate and resulting pressure to constantly increase. This is bad news. Various internal profiles have been tested, but most common these days is a multi-pointed star shape, which when used with inhibitor compounds mixed in the grain, allows the thrust to be accurately controlled.
[Integza] tried a few experiments to determine the most appropriate fuel/binder/oxidiser ratio, then 3D printed a few fuel grain pellets, rammed them into an acrylic tube combustion chamber (obviously) and attached a 3D printed nozzle. You can see for yourself the
mach diamonds
in the exhaust plume (which is nice) due to the supersonic flow being marginally over-expanded. Ideally the nozzle wouldn’t be made from plastic, but it only needs to survive a couple of seconds, so that’s not really an issue here.
The question of whether 3D printed fuel grains are viable was
posed on space stack exchange
a few years ago, which was an interesting read.
We’ve seen some more sophisticated 3D printed rocket engines lately, such as this
vortex-cooled, liquid-fuel engine
, and over on Hackaday,IO, here’s a
3D printed engine attempting to use PLA as the fuel source
. | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413169",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2022-01-09T21:48:20",
"content": "I wonder if you could make a “real” (you know, shoot something into orbit) with this? Just solid fuel, a graphite nozzle and a very cheap carbon fiber body, only strong enough to hold itself and cargo u... | 1,760,372,827.38039 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/09/macropopsicle-melts-on-your-desk-not-in-your-mouth/ | Macropopsicle Melts On Your Desk, Not In Your Mouth | Kristina Panos | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"adafruit QtPy",
"macro keyboard",
"macro pad",
"macropad",
"popsicle"
] | We all know by now that macropads are super cool shortcut machines. And what’s cooler than a popsicle? Well, this cute little thing, which goes by the name of Macropopsicle.
The freezer’s open if you want your own Macropopsicle
. There’s not much more to this tasty and practical desktop treat than an adafruit QT Py, a couple of Cherry MX-style switches, some wires, and a handful of printed parts. One cool thing about this design is that all the pieces print with little to no supports, and many of them snap together.
We say there’s a lot to like about Macropopsicle — it’s cute, it’s useful, and there’s even a little bite taken out of it that you can see in some of the renders. [oxisidia] even shoved a real popsicle stick in there to complete the look.
Keyboard aficionados will no doubt recognize Macropopsicle as a great companion to
Milk, a 2% keyboard
. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413154",
"author": "Grounded",
"timestamp": "2022-01-09T19:45:30",
"content": "Now to combine this with the taste output device posted a little while ago…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6413160",
"author": "Feinfinger (M-x... | 1,760,372,827.421882 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/09/portable-pi-powered-music-player/ | Portable PI Powered Music Player | Matthew Carlson | [
"handhelds hacks",
"Musical Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"media player",
"raspberry pi"
] | There was a brief time in the early 2000s when we carried cellphones, wallets, keys, and a bespoke digital media player loaded with a small selection of our music libraries. Devices like iPods, Zunes, Sandisk Sansa, and iRiver. Then as cell phones gained more storage and processing power, the two devices became one, and audio players slipped to obscurity as sports accessories. Perhaps in that vein, [BalderDragonSlayer] made his
own Raspberry Pi-powered media player
.
The device was cobbled together using a Raspberry Pi Zero, an Adafruit OLED bonnet, a LiPo charger, and a cheap USB DAC. The interface software is written in python, which has all your usual player controls, using the directional joystick and two pushbuttons on the bonnet. DietPi is a slimmed-down Linux that offers an impressively fast boot time, which is why it was picked for this project. The case was a simple project case with some holes dremeled into the face for the screen and buttons.
It is a wonderful little project that seems wonderful for walks in the park. This isn’t the first
Pi-powered media player we’ve seen before
. But we’re hoping we see more in the future. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413114",
"author": "Ale",
"timestamp": "2022-01-09T15:22:08",
"content": "Zunes ? nay… did someone buy one of those ? I remember reading “The inquirer” at the time, they were very acid with their comments, and on one comment someone wrote “I’ll put this tune in my zune” I think th... | 1,760,372,827.504362 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/09/automated-mushroom-cultivation-yields-delicious-fried-goodies/ | Automated Mushroom Cultivation Yields Delicious Fried Goodies | Donald Papp | [
"chemistry hacks",
"cooking hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"automation",
"environment control",
"fungi",
"fungiculture",
"mushrooms",
"raspberry pi"
] | [Kyle Gabriel] knows mushrooms, and his years of experience really shine through in his
thorough documentation of an automated mushroom cultivation environment
, created with off-the-shelf sensors and hardware as much as possible. The results speak for themselves, with some delicious fried oyster mushrooms to show for it!
Fried oyster mushrooms, grown from scratch.
The most influential conditions for mushroom cultivation are temperature, humidity, and CO2 concentration, and to automate handling the environmental conditions [Kyle] created
Mycodo
, an open-source system that leverages inexpensive hardware and parts while also having the ability to take regular photos to keep an eye on things.
Calling [Kyle]’s documentation “comprehensive” doesn’t do it justice, and he addresses everything from setting up a positive pressure air filtration system for a work area, to how to get usable cultures from foraged mushrooms, all the way through growth and harvesting. He even includes a delicious-looking recipe for fried mushrooms. It just doesn’t get more comprehensive than that.
We’ve seen [Kyle]’s earlier work
before, and it’s fantastic to see the continued refinement. Check out a tour of the whole thing in the video embedded below (or
skip to 16:11
if you want to make yourself hungry.) | 30 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413067",
"author": "Nath",
"timestamp": "2022-01-09T13:29:43",
"content": "The combination of skills (microbiology, woodworking, electronics, software engineering) that this person master to turn this project into a reality is nothing short of astonishing. Really great project.",
... | 1,760,372,827.5801 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/09/powering-up-a-135-scale-panther-tank/ | Pi Powered 1:35 Scale Panther Tank | Tom Nardi | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"gear motor",
"Raspberry Pi Zero",
"RC tank",
"remote control",
"tamiya"
] | Tank aficionado [Daniel Zalega] has enjoyed playing around with armored fighting vehicles in the digital realm for years, but only recently realized he had the technology and skills necessary to take his passion into the physical world. Albeit on a slightly reduced scale. So he bought a 1:35 plastic model kit for the German WWII Panther tank from Tamiya, and
started working on a way to make it move
.
Luckily for [Daniel], the assembled model is essentially hollow. That gave him plenty of room to install the geared drive motors, batteries, motor controllers, voltage regulators, a servo for the turret, and the Raspberry Pi Zero that controls the whole show. Those with an aversion to hot glue would do well not to look too closely at the construction here, but it gets the job done. Besides, it’s not like this little Panther is going to see any front line combat.
Another element of the model kit that made it well-suited to motorization is the fact that it had real rubber treads. That meant [Daniel] just had to pop some holes in the side of the tank, and figure out how to mount the drive sprockets to his gear motors. Unfortunately it looks like the wheels are static on this model, meaning the tread has to be dragged over them. That’s certainly robbing the tank of some power and speed, but in the video after the break, you can see its movement is still fairly realistic.
To control the tank, he points his phone’s browser to a simple page running on the Raspberry Pi. By simply dragging a finger on the screen, you can operate the tank’s two independent treads and rotate the turret. [Daniel] said his original plan was more elaborate, with the web page displaying a live video feed from an onboard camera as well as the readings from various sensors. But at least for now, things are kept as straightforward as possible.
This certainly isn’t the first souped-up toy tank we’ve seen here at Hackaday.
From gorgeous steam powered machines
to this
Tiger tank with a laser-assisted aiming system
, these small tracked platforms have long been a favorite of hardware hackers. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413042",
"author": "ConductiveInsulation",
"timestamp": "2022-01-09T10:39:53",
"content": "I have 3 R/C tanks in 1/16 with binary controls, thought about modifying their controls when I have finished a few other projects. Had a Xbox Controller in my mind. I’d need a lot more spare ... | 1,760,372,827.667447 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/08/adding-an-audio-jack-to-classic-headphones-is-a-nifty-upgrade/ | Adding An Audio Jack To Classic Headphones Is A Nifty Upgrade | Lewin Day | [
"Portable Audio Hacks",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"headphones",
"TRS",
"trs jack"
] | One of the most common ways to junk a pair of headphones is to damage the cord. Obviously, the lead can be repaired, but it involves busting out the soldering iron and can be tedious when dealing with the tiny little coated wires.
It does involve soldering, but ideally, you only have to do it once.
[mauriziomiscio.mm] has a way of dealing with the problem in a once-and-done fashion, by
installing a female audio jack into his vintage headphones
. The benefit is that if the cable is damaged, it can simply be unplugged and replaced with a new one, and is commonly seen on headphones
from companies like KRK.
The hack is simple when applied to a classic pair of AKG K141 headphones. The little plastic casing on one earpiece is popped off, and replaced with a 3D-printed version that stoutly holds a female TRS jack in place. This can then be soldered up to the wiring inside the headphones.
With everything assembled, the headphones can now use an easily-replaceable cable, and one needn’t worry about having to bust out the soldering iron if the lead is damaged in future. It’s a particularly useful hack for those who use their headphones on the road, always throwing them into backpacks between gigs.
If that’s not hardcore enough, consider attaching a headphone jack to an old 8-track player
for the most ridiculous Walkman you can imagine.
If you’ve been working on your own portable audio hacks, be sure to
drop us a line! | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6413040",
"author": "12L14",
"timestamp": "2022-01-09T10:27:57",
"content": "Or mini xlr(like they did in K141 MkII).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6413043",
"author": "Harvie.CZ",
"timestamp": "2022-01-09T11:21:08",
... | 1,760,372,827.842489 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/07/playing-super-hang-on-with-hacked-controller-gives-reason-for-paws/ | Playing Super Hang-On With Hacked Controller Gives Reason For Paws | Ryan Flowers | [
"classic hacks",
"Games"
] | [
"arcade controller",
"game controller",
"game controller hack",
"super hang-on"
] | There’s a thing that happens when you’re shopping at a second hand store. You know how it goes: You see an item that strikes your fancy, your mind immediately locks in, and the item just has to be yours. [Tom Tilley] experienced this when he saw a Paw Patrol kids toy at a local thrift store, and you can see
the results of his holiday hacking sessions in the video below the break
.
How did [Tom] put the Paw Patrol game to use? Looking like a motorcycle cockpit left him with few choices. Before long he’d flipped the game over over, pulled the innards, and hacked together what just might be the most perfect toy based interface we’ve seen lately.
Using a Raspberry Pi Pico controller and some careful surgery, [Tom] turned the Paw Patrol game into a controller for the 1987 Sega motorcycle race arcade game Super Hang-On. Watching [Tom] play is a blast, but just in case the whole thing is a losing prospect, it’s completely reversible as well!
Of course we were a little disappointed that Super Hang-On couldn’t make use of the paws button.
On the other end of the spectrum, here’s an
actual car turned into a game controller
. Got a hot controller hack to share? Be sure to let the
Tip Line
know! | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6412998",
"author": "Yeshua Watson",
"timestamp": "2022-01-09T01:01:58",
"content": "While not terribly impressive, I’m still jealous that I didn’t think of doing this when I threw this toy away about a year ago. Although maybe I’m misremembering, but I could have sworn the handles ... | 1,760,372,827.70495 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/07/production-pcb-and-pogo-pins-produce-a-clever-test-jig/ | Production PCB And Pogo Pins Produce A Clever Test Jig | Dave Rowntree | [
"hardware",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"ATE",
"Pogo pin",
"Test jig"
] | [Hans Summers] runs a site qrp-labs.com, selling self-assembly kits mostly for radio gear and GPS applications, and had some production problems with his QCX-mini QRP transceiver kit. They were using an assembly house that had some problems with a sub-contractor going under during the pandemic, and the replacement service was somewhat below the expected level of quality, resulting in a significant number of SMT populated boards coming out non-functional. Obviously, not wanting to pass these on to customers as a debug problem, they set to work on an in-house QA test jig, to give them the confidence to ship kits again. The
resulting functional test jig
, (video, embedded below) takes a fairly interesting approach.
Skip the video to 9:00
for the description of the test jig and detailed test descriptions.
By taking an existing known-good PCB, stripping off all the SMT parts, and moving the through hole components to the rear PCB side, pogo pins could be soldered to strategic locations. Building the assembly into a rudimentary enclosure made from sawn-up raw copper clad board, with the pogos facing upwards, and a simple clamp on top, allowed the PCB-under-test (let’s call it the
UUT
from hereon) to be located and clamped in place. This compressed the pogos in order to make a firm electrical contact. A piece of MDF that had been attacked with a dremel did duty as a pressure plate, with cutouts around the SMT component areas to achieve the required uniform board pressure and keeping the force away from the delicate soldered parts. All this means that with an UUT connected via pogo pins to a through-hole only test PCB, the full circuit would be completed, if and only if the UUT was completely functional, and that means defect-free soldering and defect-free components.
Next the firmware was rewritten to do duty as the test controller, which when powered up would step through a sequence of test scenarios and measurements, logging the results to an OLED display and a serial interface. This rig survived 1,000 SMT tests without failing, giving [Hans] the confidence to ship out new kits and providing a database of datalog results as a backup should a customer have an issue during final assembly. All-in-all a smart idea to solve a difficult problem, with nary a custom test jig PCB in sight!
These pages have been graced with many a pogo-based test rig over the years. Here’s
one to start
, and if you’ve got a handy laser cutter and some scrap wood, making an accurate
test rig is no bother either
.
Thanks [Paul] for the tip! | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6412841",
"author": "Hans Summers",
"timestamp": "2022-01-08T09:11:49",
"content": "Wow, I know that hackerMinor correction: it wasn’t my QCX+ that had the SMD problem. It was the QCX-minihttp://qrp-labs.com/qcxminiFYI the test jig is still going strong almost a year after construct... | 1,760,372,827.892642 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/07/slither-a-visual-pedometer-that-sheds-light/ | Slither: A Visual Pedometer That Sheds Light | Kristina Panos | [
"LED Hacks",
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"Feather huzzah",
"leds",
"pedometer",
"step counter"
] | Have you already broken that New Year’s resolution to get more exercise? Yeah, us too. Maybe the problem is simply that we didn’t gamify the goal. A simple visual aid that shows your progress can help make a goal more achievable and easier to stick to, day after January day. That’s the idea behind [skhackett]’s
Slither, the visual pedometer
.
Although Slither uses the Fit Bit app, no actual Fit Bit is required — great news for those of us who don’t like to wear accessories. But you will have to carry your phone everywhere if you want your steps to count. By tracking the steps taken each day, the sum of Slither’s segments signifies a weekly total goal of 50,000 steps.
Around back is a Feather Huzzah that receives step data from the phone and drives a strand of side-lit LED strips. There’s a Hall effect sensor in the tail, and Slither is powered on and off with a small, separate piece of wood and acrylic with a magnet embedded inside. Isn’t that a classy way to switch a snake?
We really like the look of the plywood here, though [skhackett] recommends using MDF instead because they experienced a fair amount of chipping. If you just want to watch the snake light up, it shouldn’t be too hard to
cheat the pedometer
. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,372,827.929867 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/07/tiger-boy-advance-is-a-90s-kid-dream-come-true/ | Tiger Boy Advance Is A 90s Kid Dream Come True | Tom Nardi | [
"classic hacks",
"Nintendo Game Boy Hacks"
] | [
"3D printed enclosure",
"game boy advance",
"GBC",
"lcd games",
"tiger",
"Tiger Electronics"
] | From the release of the DMG-01 in 1989 until the final Micro variant hit store shelves in 2005, the Nintendo Game Boy line represented the epitome of handheld gaming for hundreds of millions of players. But that’s not to say there weren’t a wide array of other handheld systems that aimed to chip away at the Japanese gaming giant’s monopoly. SEGA and Sony released high-tech systems that brought impressive technical innovations, while Tiger Electronics famously took the opposite approach with ultra-cheap handhelds that leveraged simplistic games based on popular children’s franchises.
[Chris Downing] had to make do with these budget Tiger games as a child, and now as an adult,
he’s determined to made things right with the Tiger Boy Advance
. As the name implies, this retro hybrid combines the look and feel of a branded Tiger game with the power and software compatibility of a legitimate Nintendo Game Boy Advance (GBA) circa 2001. It even sprinkles in some modern niceties, like USB-C charging and a backlit display. While most of its charm is probably lost on anyone who didn’t grow up within a fairly narrow range of years, the video below seems to prove that even modern kids can appreciate this one-of-a-kind creation.
From an electronics standpoint, the system is essentially just a gutted GBA crammed into a 3D printed approximation of an old Tiger game from around the mid 1990s. But what makes this project special is the nostalgia-fueled attention to detail that [Chris] brings to the table.
Take for example the custom manufactured faceplate that combines artwork from some of the era’s best known games. Getting the image printed on the back of the CNC-cut piece of clear acrylic proved to be quite a challenge, but the final result looks incredibly professional. Instead of using the GBA’s stock buttons and directional pad, [Chris] decided to 3D print replacements that mimic the look of the original Tiger controls. It all culminates in a device that perfectly recreates the unique look of the original Tiger games.
Some will argue that he’d have done better to
equip the system with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2
and
the latest build of RetroPie
, and frankly, it’s easy to see the appeal of going that route. But [Chris] didn’t make this for us, he built it to encapsulate a very specific time from his own childhood. We’re just glad that the technology now available to the individual maker allowed him to turn this particular dream into reality. | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6412758",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-01-07T23:01:28",
"content": "“But [Chris] didn’t make this for us”Ofc NOT! If he had, he would’ve used a 555!B^)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6412... | 1,760,372,827.977785 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/07/a-savage-discussion-of-measurement-and-accuracy/ | A Savage Discussion Of Measurement And Accuracy | Ryan Flowers | [
"classic hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"accuracy",
"adam savage",
"measurement",
"meters",
"microns",
"nanometers"
] | It’s commonly said that the great thing about standards is that there are so many of them. Of course, that’s talking about
competing
standards. But there’s another kind of standard that you
want
a lot of: Measurements. Without standard measurements, the Industrial Revolution wouldn’t have been facilitated to the extent it was. The illustrious [Adam Savage] takes a deep dive into the art of measurement in
the video below the break
, and if you have 45 minutes to spare, you will not be disappointed.
We don’t want to give away any big spoilers, but [Adam] starts out with things we can all relate to if we’ve done any kind of measuring for accuracy: measuring between the given lines on a standard tape measure. From there he goes into calipers and other tools for measurement.
Then, out come the Big Guns. The ceramic blocks so flat that… well you’ll just have to watch it. But the discussion goes deep into nanometers, microns, and jeweled movements.
Whether you’re a machinist or a garage hacker with nothing more than a stick welder and an angle grinder at your disposal, or anywhere in between in any segment of being a maker, this video is for you. [Adam]’s enthusiasm is off the charts in this diatribe, and we have to admit- it’s contagious! We’ve never been so excited about measuring things.
Of course,
if you need to measurement tool, you can just
build
a measurement tool
. It’s all subjective, after all. | 69 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6412693",
"author": "Amen",
"timestamp": "2022-01-07T19:38:09",
"content": "Resolution and accuracy are not the same thing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6412698",
"author": "three_d_dave",
"timestamp": "2022... | 1,760,372,828.079832 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/07/books-you-should-read-the-perfectionists/ | Books You Should Read: The Perfectionists | Sonya Vasquez | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Reviews",
"Slider"
] | [
"engineering history",
"history",
"metrology",
"precision",
"precision engineering",
"simon winchester",
"tolerances"
] | After pulling late hours in my school machine shop for a few years, I couldn’t help but wonder,
who measures the measurement tools? How did they come to be?
I’d heard anecdotes from other students and engineers while they inspected my freshly machined parts, but these stories were one-offs. What I wanted was a tale of industrial precision from start to finish. Years later, I found it.
The story of precision, as told by Simon Winchester, is captured in
The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World
. Published in 2018, Winchester’s overview stretches as far back to the Antikythera mechanism and brings us to present day silicon wafer manufacturing. Of course, this isn’t a chronology of all-things made precisely. Instead, it’s a romp through engineering highlights that hallmark either a certain level of precision manufacturing or a particular way of thinking with repercussions for the future.
Structurally, every chapter follows an increasing order of magnitude in tolerance, what was built, and the implications. I’ll confess that the book only loosely follows this organizational structure. While the first part of the book sticks to the formula pretty closely when discussing tolerances for mechanical components, the later chapters seek out tighter numbers by deviating into precision manufacturing of jet engines, lenses, time-keeping devices, and silicon wafers.
Something I’m particularly fond of is how Winchester manages to tie his history of precision into the everyday engineer’s understanding of the subject. I’m sure plenty of our readers will have heard about James Watt, creator of the steam engine. But I’d bet that most of us probably
don’t
know about John “Iron-Mad” Wilkinson, the machinist who could hold a tight enough tolerance machining iron to bore pistons for Wat] that could actually form an airtight seal. And while plenty of folks will know Thomas Jefferson as a former United States president, they might not know that it was his Francophilia that brought the French creation of interchangeable parts to the United States. The book does this over and over, either shedding light on unfamiliar figures, like Henry Royce and Carl Johansson, shedding
new
light on familiar figures, like Eli Whitney, or tying the history of machinists together to show how one directly influenced the other.
For capturing a historical piece of non-fiction on what might seem like a dry topic, Winchester does a fantastic job of putting you right back into the moment when history was being made. You’ll can
feel
the anxiety of a middle-aged Joseph Whitworth, as he prepares to watch Queen Victoria fire his Whitworth Rifle at a target 400 yards away to inaugurate Great Britain’s first National Rifle Association meeting. You’ll be ready to shed a tear at the first successful test flight of early jet-engine powered aircraft. (Unsurprisingly, war plays a big role in making things precisely.) I’ll also mention that this book captures an outstanding retelling of the launch, failure, repair, and eventual success of the Hubble Space Telescope–all while highlighting the precision instrument that failed and dictated such an extravagant repair in the first place. (I mean, who doesn’t appreciate a good hotfix story–in space?)
If you’re curious for some bed-time stories of machinists, scientists, and engineers making things to higher-and-higher standards, you’re in for a treat. | 28 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6412672",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-01-07T18:21:06",
"content": "I wish I could have written book reports like that when I was a kid!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6412676",
"autho... | 1,760,372,828.141363 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/07/hackaday-podcast-150-blackberry-runs-out-of-juice-node-has-your-pinouts-rats-learn-doom-and-2021-is-done/ | Hackaday Podcast 150: Blackberry Runs Out Of Juice, NODE Has Your Pinouts, Rats LearnDOOM, And 2021 Is Done | Tom Nardi | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Join Hackaday Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi as they ring in the New Year with the first podcast episode of 2022. We get the bad news out early for those still thumbing away at their Blackberries, then pivot into some of the highlights from over the holidays such as the release of NODE’s
The Pinouts Book
and the discovery of a few expectation-defying OpenSCAD libraries. We’ll look at modifying a water cooler with Ghidra, and the incredible technology that let’s historians uncover the hidden history of paintings. Oh, and we’ll also talk about all the best and most important stories of the last 12 months. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so get comfortable.
Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Direct download
(70 MB)
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 150 Show Notes:
News This Week:
Blackberry Will Run Out Of Juice On January 4th
LoRa Messenger Does Its Best BlackBerry Impression
What’s that Sound?
If you know what that sound was,
you’ve got a shot at a Hackaday Podcast t-shirt
!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Modular Design Enables Huge Ping-Pong Ball LED Displays
The Pinouts Book Is Here, And It’s Just What You Need
Rats Learn To Play DOOM In This Automated VR Arena
When Hacking And Biosensing Collide
An OpenSCAD Library For All Your CNC Cutting Needs
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Painted Over But Not Forgotten: Restoring Lost Paintings With Radiation And Mathematics | 4 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6412827",
"author": "BrightBlueJim",
"timestamp": "2022-01-08T06:51:16",
"content": "Yeah, most hookup wire is PVC-insulated.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6412898",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,372,828.181001 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/07/how-many-wires-do-you-need-to-measure-a-resistor/ | How Many Wires Do You Need To Measure A Resistor? | Al Williams | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"4-wire",
"6-wire",
"resistance"
] | Measuring resistance doesn’t seem to be a big deal. Put your meter leads across two wires or terminals and read the value, right? Most of the time that is good enough, but sometimes you need better methods and for those,
you need more wires
, as [FesZ] explains in his recent video that you can see below.
In the usual case, the meter applies a known voltage and measures the current which, by Ohm’s law, gives you the resistance. It is also possible to control the current and measure the voltage — doesn’t matter. [FesZ] shows how many meters measure voltage across a known resistor and the unknown so that a precision voltage or current source isn’t necessary.
But there are a number of problems with this simple method. For one thing, the test leads have resistance as well. So some voltage will drop across them, contributing to measurement error. Sure, that extra 0.5 ohms won’t matter if you are looking at a 100K resistor, but if you are trying to measure, say, the heated bed of a 3D printer, that extra 0.5 ohms is a large percentage of the total measurement.
Bench meters for lab use often support 4-wire measurements. As [FesZ] shows, this method measures three different voltages to try to negate some of the measurement errors. We liked that he used three different meters to show how it works and the difference between a 2-wire and 4-wire measurement on a small resistor.
There’s an even stranger method using 3 wires to save on wiring for, say, a sensor a long distance away. There are actually at least two ways to use 3 wires, and the video covers both of them.
For measuring resistors in a circuit, though, you need a whopping six wires. This technique uses the two extra wires to control a balance voltage that keeps the current between the unknown resistor and the rest of the circuit at zero. This prevents current flowing except for the measurement current. You’ll see a simulation of how this works in the video.
We’ve
looked at 4-wire measurements before
if you want some practice simulations to try.
Probes
for this measurement are a popular project, too. | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6412653",
"author": "janus199",
"timestamp": "2022-01-07T17:10:04",
"content": "“For one thing, the test leads have resistance as well.”Would it make sense to measure resistance across the probes (touch them together) and offset the measurement by that amount? Make it a function wh... | 1,760,372,828.232246 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/07/this-week-in-securityy2k22-accidentally-blocking-911and-bug-alert/ | This Week In Security: Y2K22, Accidentally Blocking 911, And Bug Alert | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"exchange",
"SSRF",
"This Week in Security",
"wordpress",
"Y2k22"
] | If you had the misfortune of running a Microsoft Exchange server this past week, then you don’t need me to
tell you about the Y2K22 problem
. To catch rest of us up, when Exchange tried to download the first malware definitions update of 2022, the version number of the new definitions triggered a crash in the malware detection engine. The date is represented as the string
2201010001
, where the first two digits represent the year. This string gets converted to a signed long integer, which maxes out at
2,147,483,647
. The integer overflows, and the result is undefined behavior, crashing the engine. The server fails safe, not processing any messages without a working malware engine, which means that no e-mail gets through. Happy new year!
Android 911 Denial of Service
Dialing 911 for emergency services is pretty much
the worst time for a software bug to manifest itself
. Google just fixed such a bug in the January Android update. It’s one of those odd unintended app interactions — in this case Microsoft Teams triggering the Android bug. If the Teams app is installed, but no account logged in, Teams creates and registers a new
PhoneAccount
object on every launch. This sounds like it should be rare, but Teams on Android is also notorious for logging out the user spontaneously. When you dial 911, Android runs a routine to determine which
PhoneAccount
should be used to route the call, and solves ties by comparing hashes. That comparison is just a naive subtraction, meaning that there’s a 50% chance in getting a negative result. This was unanticipated, leading to the crash.
Garage Door Reverse Engineering
Reverse engineering a 30-year-old wireless authorization scheme may not be the most attention grabbing feat, but sometimes
the journey is its own reward
. [Maxwell Dulin] brings us the story, and this journey is certainly worth it. The fundamentals of this hack are definitely still viable, starting with looking at the hardware. The garage door is synced to the garage door opener by holding a pushbutton on the receiver while sending a code. Inside the opener, there are nine dip switches, each with three positions. What do they do? He pulled out his trusty SDR to grab the traffic and try to decode the signals. Inspectrum and GNU Radio were the heroes here, giving insight into this simple auth scheme. The conclusion on this actual garage door? You can brute force an unknown code by sending every possible combo, and it only takes 104 minutes.
BugAlert
If you’re a sysadmin, you know that some problems call for immediate action. If you ran Java servers, the Log4J vulnerability was a fire test of your response protocol. The time between public disclosure and whenever you heard about it, may have been enough to trigger disaster. While there are multiple bug reporting services and frameworks, nothing quite fits this niche use case: notifying you as soon as possible that your hair may truly be on fire. That unfilled niche bugged [Matthew Sullivan], who has
announced a new project, Bug Alert
. It’s all open source, so you can host your own instance if you really want to. You can opt to get a tweet, text, or even phone call. This has the potential to be a useful tool, take a look!
I feel like I need to make Bug Alert trigger
a certain Weird Al song…
The Zombie SSRF
[David Schütz] was
searching for obscure Google APIs
, and discovered
jobs.googleapis.com
, which
you can demo yourself
. That demo is interesting, because it’s not a fully fleshed-out service, but talks to the real back-end. The requests go through a proxy,
cxl-services.appspot.com
, which handles the authentication step for the demo page. If he could trigger a Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF), he might be able to get at the authenticated requests, and maybe trick the proxy into sending traffic on his behalf. URL parsing is hard. The trick that worked? A backslash in the url.
GET /proxy?url=https://sfmnev.vps.xdavidhu.me\@jobs.googleapis.com/ HTTP/1.1
With an access token in hand, [David] started carefully exploring other Google APIs to see what this token gave him access to. He gives the warning we’ve covered before, be careful how far you push. He could have reported the bug right away, but wanted to confirm that he actually had a live access token. After confirming the token worked for read access, he turned in the finding, and netted a very nice $3133.70, as well as an extra $1000 for a good report and the careful look at lateral movement. That’s all there is to it, right? Nope. Just before the 90 day disclosure deadline passed, [David] discovered a fix bypass. Adding any text between the backslash and @ was enough to break it. Another $3133.70. Just for fun, he probed the old URLs, that shouldn’t be in service after the fix. Yep, he found yet another security token, and netted $3133.70. This Zombie SSRF still isn’t dead,
as evidenced on Twitter
:
I told you, its unfixable!
@n1nj4sec
already bypassed the fix. So cool! Will you be the 4th one to bypass it and get $3k? 😎 Parsing a URL is really hard.
pic.twitter.com/5xmg5tbybw
— David Schütz (@xdavidhu)
January 2, 2022
WordPress Update
If you haven’t set your WordPress instance to update automatically, it’s time to go check
for the latest version
. There are four potentially dangerous issues here, though the details are scarce at this point. First up is a Cross-Site Scripting vulnerability in post slugs, the part of the URL that matches the post name. The second issue mentioned is object injection in some multisite configurations. The last two vulnerabilities are SQL injections, definitely worthy of the “What Year is It?” meme. | 45 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6412614",
"author": "YGDES",
"timestamp": "2022-01-07T15:19:01",
"content": "The Y2K22 is probably the dumbest, moronic, self-inflicted pain that Microsoft has published lately. How is it EVEN possible ? WHO wrote that piece of code ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"re... | 1,760,372,828.312893 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/07/psylink-an-open-source-neural-interface-for-non-invasive-emg/ | PsyLink An Open Source Neural Interface For Non-Invasive EMG | Dave Rowntree | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"analog",
"arduino",
"electromyography",
"emg",
"GnuRadio",
"instrumentation amp",
"op-amp",
"python"
] | We don’t see many EMG (electromyography) projects, despite how cool the applications can be. This may be because of technical difficulties with seeing the tiny muscular electrical signals amongst the noise, it could be the difficulty of interpreting any signal you do find. Regardless, [hut] has been striving forwards with a stream of prototypes,
culminating in the aptly named ‘Prototype 8’
The current prototype uses a
main power board
hosting an
Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense
, as well as a boost converter to pump up the AAA battery to provide 5 volts for the Arduino and a selection of connected EMG amplifier units. The
EMG sensor
is based around the
INA128 instrumentation amplifier,
in a pretty straightforward configuration. The EMG samples along with data from the IMU on the Nano 33 BLE Sense, are passed along to a connected PC via Bluetooth, running the PsyLink software stack. This is based on Python, using the
BLE-GATT
library for BT comms,
PynPut
handing the PC input devices (to emit keyboard and mouse events) and
tensorflow
for the machine learning side of things. The idea is to use machine learning from the EMG data to associate with a specific user interface event (such as a keypress) and with a little training, be able to play games on the PC with just hand/arm gestures. IMU data are used to augment this, but in this demo, that’s not totally clear.
An earlier prototype of the PsyLink.
All hardware and software can be found on the
project codeberg
page, which did make us double-take as to why
GnuRadio
was being used, but thinking about it, it’s really good for signal processing and visualization. What a good idea!
Obviously there are many other use cases for such a EMG controlled input device, but who doesn’t want to play Mario Kart, you know,
for science
?
Checkout the demo video (embedded below) and you can see for yourself, just be aware that this is streaming from
peertube
, so the video might be a little choppy depending on your local peers. Finally, if
Mastodon
is your cup of tea,
here’s the link for that
. Earlier projects have attempted to dip into EMG before, like
this Bioamp board
from Upside Down Labs. Also we dug out an
earlier tutorial on the subject
by our own [Bil Herd.] | 30 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6412569",
"author": "Attentive observer",
"timestamp": "2022-01-07T12:11:36",
"content": "Wow, this looks indeed great. But for some of the movements (punch-like forward movement, twisting/rotating the arm) I am sure that they can be detected using a gyro/acceleration sensor more ea... | 1,760,372,828.385312 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/07/ceefax-lives-courtesy-of-a-raspberry-pi/ | CEEFAX Lives! (Courtesy Of A Raspberry Pi) | Jenny List | [
"home entertainment hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"ceefax",
"raspberry pi",
"teletext"
] | As analogue TV slides from memory, there’s a facet of it that’s fondly remembered by a band of enthusiasts. Teletext was an electronic viewdata information service digitally encoded in the frame blanking period, and a TV set with a decoder chip would provide access to many pages of news and other services all displayed in the characteristic brightly colored block graphics. It went the way of the dinosaur with the demise of analog TV, but for [Nathan Dane] the flame is kept alive with
his own private version of the BBC’s CEEFAX service
.
He has a particular enthusiasm for analog TV, and as such has his own in-house channel served by a UHF modulator. He shares with us
the story of how he arrived at a teletext service
, before writing code to scrape the BBC news and weather websites and populate his modern-day CEEFAX. Behind it all is a Raspberry Pi, with
a vbit-pi board
injecting the teletext signal onto the video, and
raspi-teletext
creating the pages from source material derived from a set of custom scraper scripts.
We like this project a lot, because while
it’s not the first Pi teletext system
we’ve encountered, the use of a scraped live feed makes it one of the most creative.
Thanks [kwikius] for the tip! | 28 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6412519",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2022-01-07T09:22:27",
"content": "Very nice, very clever, and took me right back!I always admired the Teletext system for the utility they managed to get out of the technology of the era, all as a hack-on to the standard TV signal while remain... | 1,760,372,828.451289 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/06/tiny-led-matrix-panels-tile-together-perfectly/ | Tiny LED Matrix Panels Tile Together Perfectly | Dan Maloney | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"led",
"matrix",
"rgb",
"SK6805",
"tesselate",
"TILE"
] | There’s a lot to admire about LED matrix projects, which more often than not end up looking really cool. But most of them rely on RGB matrix panels sourced from the surplus market, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, building your own
tiny, tileable LED matrix panels
makes these builds just a little bit cooler.
There’s a lot to admire about these matrix panels, not least of which is the seamless way they tile together. But to get to that point, [sjm4306] had a lot of prep work to do. He started with a much simpler 5×7 array, using the popular WS2812 RGB LEDs on a custom PCB. With a little practice under his belt, it was time to move to the much smaller SK6805 LEDs, which were laid out in an 8×8 matrix. The board layout is about as compact as it can be; [sjm4306] reports that it pushed the PCB fab to their limits, but he ended up with LEDs spaced perfectly on the board and just enough margin to keep consistent spacing in two dimensions when the boards are adjacent to each other.
Assembly of the boards was challenging, to say the least. The video below shows that the design left barely enough room for handling the LEDs with tweezers, and some fancy finagling was needed to get the boards on and off the hotplate for reflow. [sjm4306] says that he’ll be exploring JLC PCB’s assembly service in the future, since each board took an hour for him to assemble. But they look fantastic when daisy-chained together, with no detectable gaps at the joints.
With matrices like these, the possibilities are endless. We’ve even got
a whole list of LED matrix projects
over on Hackaday.io for you to check out. | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6412515",
"author": "glaskows",
"timestamp": "2022-01-07T08:57:09",
"content": "I wonder what would be the best way to have a black pixel. The problem of most of this diffused led matrices is that they look white-ish when turned off. Is it enough to use a dark diffuser or do you nee... | 1,760,372,828.538789 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/01/06/how-do-capacitors-work/ | How Do Capacitors Work? | Al Williams | [
"Science"
] | [
"capacitors",
"physics"
] | If you are like [The Science Asylum], you might wonder how
a capacitor can work
since, at their core, they are nothing more than a gap filled with air or another insulator. He explains how in a recent video you can see below.
Of course, at DC, a capacitor doesn’t conduct any better than the insulator used as its dielectric. However, a DC voltage has to start sometime and when it does, it briefly looks like AC. The video explains it all in simple terms. Of course, if you are math savvy, you can probably get as much out of the normal C=dQ/dV equation.
If that doesn’t speak to you, the explanation in the video about charges will shed some light. He even shows an animation of the classic “hydraulic model”, which is helpful to develop intuition about the process.
We often don’t think about the details of how charge, voltage, current, and energy all relate, but as [The Science Asylum] points out, he is a theoretical physicist and not an engineer. So he dives into the actual explanation that isn’t what we usually think of when we design with capacitors, because we are usually just interested in practical results. Still good to know, though.
While most real capacitors don’t look like open-air gaps,
some do and you can even make them
. You can also just
twist together some wires
. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6412486",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-01-07T04:25:45",
"content": "How do capacitors work?Fine, usually.B^)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6412589",
"author": "ratStomper",
... | 1,760,372,828.49022 |
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