url stringlengths 37 208 | title stringlengths 4 148 | author stringclasses 173
values | publish_date stringclasses 1
value | categories listlengths 0 12 | tags listlengths 0 27 | featured_image stringlengths 0 272 | content stringlengths 0 56.1k | comments_count int64 0 900 | scraped_comments_count int64 0 50 | comments listlengths 0 50 | scraped_at float64 1.76B 1.76B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/25/custom-music-box-cylinder-puts-a-spin-on-romance/ | Custom Music Box Cylinder Puts A Spin On Romance | Kristina Panos | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"Music box",
"music box mechanism",
"python"
] | Music boxes are awesome little mechanical devices. These days, they even make some with slightly more modern tunes, like the Zelda and Star Wars themes. But they don’t have everything, of course — certainly not that one song from that TV series that [RandomPrototypes]’ girlfriend absolutely adores.
But it’s 2021, and there are options for making your own music box. [RandomPrototypes] could have printed the whole thing, but those don’t sound as good with their plastic combs. Then there’s those paper punch ones, but you have to sit there and crank the thing continuously to hear the song.
In the end, [RandomPrototypes] mixed methods and made a custom cylinder that’s playable with a standard music box mechanism
.
[RandomPrototypes] started by taking the music box apart to measure the cylinder, and then created a software representation of a cylinder that’s designed to pluck the eighteen notes from low to high rather than play a song. Then he used a Python script to turn it in a 3D model. The slicing preview showed a lot of stops and starts and weak points, so [RandomPrototypes] generated the Gcode directly so that it would print in one continuous spiral and be much stronger.
In order to generate a cylinder with the song his girlfriend likes so much, [RandomPrototypes] printed this scale cylinder and used it to record the notes as a single mp3 and make note of the start times of each note. Finally, he built the new score based on the available notes built into the music box comb. If you want to do this yourself,
the code is freely available
. The hard part will be choosing a music box mechanism, because
they tend to come with a single comb that’s designed to play a specific song
. You’ll have to figure out which tune has most or all of the notes you need.
If you don’t mind doing the cranking to listen to the tune, then the paper-punched type of music box is going to be much easier.
But why do all that punching yourself, when you could build a machine? | 9 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6351635",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2021-05-25T19:20:23",
"content": "Neat. I’d like to see him write a program that could take a MIDI file (yea I know old, but easier than an MP3) and spit out a file to print the song (or portion of it) as a music box cylinder.",
"pa... | 1,760,373,075.835488 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/25/technical-audacity-and-the-phone-book/ | Technical Audacity And The Phone Book | Al Williams | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Phone Hacks",
"Rants"
] | [
"phonebook"
] | I often think we — or maybe the people who control our money — lack the audacity to take on really big projects. It is hard to imagine laying the transatlantic cable for the first time today, for example. When I want a good example of this effect, I usually say something like: “Can you imagine going to a boardroom of a major company today and saying, ‘We plan to run wire to every house and business in the world and connect them all together.'” Yet that’s what the phone company did. But it turns out, running copper wire everywhere was only one major challenge for the phone company. The other was printing phone directories. In today’s world, it is easy to imagine a computer system that keeps track of all the phone numbers that can spit out a printed version for duplication. But that’s a relatively recent innovation. How did big city phonebooks work before the advent of the computer?
Turns out, the Saturday Evening Post talked about how it all worked in
a 1954 article
. We aren’t sure there weren’t some computerized records by 1954, but the whole process was still largely manual. By that year, an estimated 60,000,000 directories went out each year in the United States alone. Some of these were small, but the Chicago directory — not including suburban directories — had over 2,100 pages. In New York City, the solution was to print a separate book for each borough. Even then. the Manhattan book was three inches thick and projected to grow to five inches by 1975.
It’s in the Book
If you aren’t old enough to remember phonebooks, they were printed in tiny small print — usually in a typeface called Bell Gothic — and on very thin paper. So five inches of book adds up to quite a few names. We don’t know how they arrived at the figure, but the article claims the book is 91.91% accurate. That seems like an awfully specific number and it makes us recall the old adage: “88.72% of all statistics are made up on the spot.”
Only nine printing presses in the country were able to handle the printing and binding of thick directories. Another thirty shops could handle smaller ones. But we can only imagine the amount of work that went into collating, updating, and typesetting. The article also talks about something that would be easy today but was a massive undertaking in the precomputer age: directory assistance.
From the article:
Manhattan Island alone has five information exchanges; at each one some 90,000 queries a day are received in automatic rotation by long rows of operators. The girls sit in glass-partitioned booths, surrounded by borough and suburbant directories. Close at hand is the printed daily addendum of 500 or so new numbers, which comes to the information operators about twenty-four hours after the phones have gone into service.
History
If you’ve never seen a real phone book, the Library of Congress has
a whole collection
you can view online. Need some
plaster work done in Los Angeles in 1940
? They’ve got you covered.
For some people, this was
their big chance to see their names in print
.
Phone books have been slowly dying for a long time. It isn’t surprising that some Canadian students had
trouble using one
.
Audacity
It is hard to think of projects quite this ambitious and audacious today. Maybe it is because, with computers and other modern tech, the whole undertaking would be manageable. Sure, we are going back to the moon, but that’s been done and with modern technology, it is less audacious than it was in 1969. We mobilized COVID 19 vaccines in record time, but that was in response to a crisis.
Sure, we spend plenty of money on big projects. Expensive telescopes and supercolliders come to mind. Quantum computers are expensive, but it just isn’t the same scale. Where are projects that truly break new ground on a massive scale? Maybe the
hyperloop
if we ever build one. It is hard to define why, but telescopes, supercolliders, big computers, and hyperloops don’t seem to have the grand scope of
the phone system
, the
transatlantic cable
, or delivering 60 million phone books a year. There are a few examples. The swarms of satellites to provide Internet access feels like a large-scale project. Stringing fiber everywhere there are phone lines isn’t very exotic, but it is a lot to handle.
What do you think? What’s the most audacious engineering project of our time? What’s the most audacious one you’d like to see? A space elevator? An underwater city? A flying airport? Let us know in the comments. Meanwhile, [Mike] thinks we
shouldn’t even be using phone numbers anymore
. As for big projects, sure they are
costly
, but the
payout
can be huge, too. | 74 | 28 | [
{
"comment_id": "6351547",
"author": "Skip Flem",
"timestamp": "2021-05-25T14:05:53",
"content": "And they also sent you a detailed bill of all the calls you made.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6351551",
"author": "uselessmore999",
"ti... | 1,760,373,076.21936 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/25/ram-fiddling-turns-vga-converter-into-video-synth/ | RAM Fiddling Turns VGA Converter Into Video Synth | Tom Nardi | [
"hardware",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"circuit bending",
"composite video",
"vga",
"video synthesizer"
] | If you’re interested in circuit bent video but not sure where to start, the
excellent guide [LoFi Future] has come up with for modifying the cheap and readily available GBS-8100
VGA to composite converter would be a great first step. While we wouldn’t call it an easy modification, the circuit documentation and demonstration video below go a long way to making it as accessible as possible to new players.
Some soldering will be required…
While other video converters have all-in-one chipsets that are much harder to work with, [LoFi Future] explains that the separate EM636165TS DRAM chip on the GBS-8100 provides an ideal spot to tap in and wreak some technicolor havoc. By mapping out the pins and studying how the video output is corrupted by grounding them out or connecting them to each other, he’s been able to come up with fairly repeatable “recipes” for different effects.
In the most basic form, once you’ve soldered the pins of the DRAM chip up to the plug board interface, you’d technically be done. But [LoFi Future] takes it a step further and pairs the GBS-8100 with a separate composite to VGA converter. This provides some additional effects in the form of feedback loops and hue adjustment, but more practically, allows the device to handle composite on both the input and output. It’s a lot of hardware to cram into the enclosure, but thanks to little touches like the printed panel graphics, the final product does looks very professional.
Aside from the occasional modified NES Zapper
, most of the
circuit bent hardware we see is of the audio variety
. But with projects like this one and
the MIDI controlled SNES we covered last year
as inspiration, we might see a balancing of the scales. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6351698",
"author": "Ergotron",
"timestamp": "2021-05-25T23:09:21",
"content": "Would be interesting to use this as some kind of music visualizer. Could probably even use a microcontroller to automate the glitches by grounding out the pins to the GPIO, so it could loop through prese... | 1,760,373,075.59918 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/25/simple-micropython-game-is-a-30-minute-game-dev-course/ | Simple MicroPython Game Is A 30 Minute Game Dev Course | Donald Papp | [
"Games",
"Software Development"
] | [
"ardupy",
"galaga",
"micropython",
"retro",
"space invaders",
"wio terminal"
] | Sometimes, it’s really useful to watch a project’s parts come together one piece at a time in order to get a complete understanding and mental picture of the whole, and we found that to be the case with
this simple, retro-inspired sample game from [ezContents]
. (Video, embedded below.) The
code is on GitHub
but if you’re at all interested in what goes on behind the scenes in a game like that, don’t miss the video.
In the video, each game element and function is illustrated, showing exactly what gets done and why. This part is collision detection (click to enlarge.)
These sprite-based games are mostly about moving a small graphical object (a sprite) around a screen in response to user input, and managing what happens when collisions are detected between the player’s sprite and other sprites like enemies, projectiles, and so forth. The development process is wonderfully documented and demonstrated in a video, as each separate part of functionality gets built and explained one piece at a time.
The simple game is made using
ArduPy
(which is
MicroPython
combined with Arduino APIs) using Seeed Studios’
Wio Terminal
, a small microcontroller development board with integrated screen, sensors, and button inputs including a little directional clicker that [ezContents] uses as a joystick.
The video of the whole process is embedded below; give it a watch and you’ll maybe come away with inspiration, but you’ll definitely have a much better understanding of how these types of games are developed, even if you’re not using the same hardware or development environment.
Like what you see, but wish to go even smaller than the Wio Terminal? No problem,
the Arduboy Nano pushes “tiny” to the limits
. | 7 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6351509",
"author": "Osgeld",
"timestamp": "2021-05-25T11:54:37",
"content": "If only I could do this on a computer I already own instead of investing in yet more junk",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6351560",
"author"... | 1,760,373,075.788073 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/24/running-modern-linux-from-a-single-floppy-disk/ | Running Modern Linux From A Single Floppy Disk | Tom Nardi | [
"Linux Hacks",
"Software Development"
] | [
"3.5\" floppy disk",
"486",
"busybox",
"Embedded Linux",
"floppy disk",
"linux"
] | There was a time when booting Linux from a floppy disk was the norm, but of course, those days are long gone. Even if you still had a working 3.5 inch drive, surely the size of the modern kernel alone would far exceed the 1.44 MB capacity of the disks, to say nothing of all the support software required to create a usable operating system. Well that’s what we thought, anyway.
But then
[Krzysztof Krystian Jankowski] dropped Floppinux
, a live Linux OS that boots from just a single floppy. There’s even a few hundred KB left over on the disk, allowing the user to tuck a few of their own programs and scripts onboard before booting it up. But most impressively, the project doesn’t rely on ancient software releases like so many other embedded systems do. Every component of Floppinux is pulled directly from the cutting edge, including version 5.13.0-rc2 of the Linux kernel which is literally just a few days old.
Floppinux running on the Asus Eee PC
Of course some concessions had to made in order cram the latest Linux kernel and build of BusyBox into slightly north of 1 MB, so Floppinux certainly isn’t what anyone would call a daily driver. The kernel is stripped down the absolute minimum, and is targeted for the decidedly poky i486. [Krzysztof] had to be very selective about which programs actually made the cut as well, so once the system is booted, there’s not a whole lot you can do with it outside of writing some shell scripts. But then, that was sort of the goal to begin with.
If you’re wondering how [Krzysztof] pulled it off, you don’t have to. He walks you though the entire process, down to the commands he used to do everything from pull down and compile the source code to creating the final disk image. Even if you don’t own a floppy drive, it’s well worth following his guide and booting the image up in QEMU just to say you’ve officially built a Linux system from scratch. It’s good for more than just bragging rights; learning how all the components of a minimal install like this fits together will no doubt come in handy the next time you
find yourself poking around inside an embedded Linux device
. | 34 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6351449",
"author": "Craig Hollabaugh",
"timestamp": "2021-05-25T06:13:53",
"content": "Oh yeah, booting from a floppy was common back then. In fact, I wrote many chapters of my Embedded Linux book using a single floppy. I’d park near the Ouray campground then boot a desktop with CR... | 1,760,373,075.739152 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/24/self-driving-or-mind-control-which-do-you-prefer/ | Self-Driving Or Mind Control? Which Do You Prefer? | Orlando Hoilett | [
"Medical Hacks",
"Science",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"ai",
"artificial intelligence",
"biohack",
"Biopotential",
"electroencephalography",
"radio frequency"
] | We know you love a good biohack as much as we do, so we thought you would like
[Tony’s] brainwave-controlled RC truck
. Instead of building his own electroencephalogram (EEG), he thought he would use
NeuroSky’s MindWave
. EEGs are pretty complex, multi-frequency waves that require some fairly sophisticated circuitry and even more sophisticated signal processing to interpret. So, [Tony] thought it would be nice to off-load a bit of that heavy-lifting, and luckily for him,
the MindWave headset is fairly hacker-friendly
.
EEGs are a very active area of research, so some of the finer details of the signal are still being debated. However, It appears that
attention can be quantified by measuring alpha waves which are EEG content between 8-10 Hz
.
And it seems as though eye blinks can be picked from the EEG as well
. Conveniently, the MindWave exports these energy levels to an accompanying smartphone application which [Tony] then links to his Arduino over Bluetooth using the ever-so-popular HC-05 module.
To control the car, he utilized the existing remote control instead of making his own. Like most people, [Tony] thought about hooking up the Arduino pins to the buttons on the remote control, thereby bypassing the physical buttons, but he noticed the buttons were a bit smaller than he was comfortable soldering to and he didn’t want to risk damaging the circuit board. [Tony’s] RC truck has a pistol grip transmitter, which inspired a slightly different approach. He mounted the servo onto the controller’s wheel mechanism, allowing him to control the direction of the truck by rotating the wheel using the servo. He then fashioned another servo onto the transmitter such that the servo could depress the throttle when it rotates. We thought that was a pretty nifty workaround.
Cool project, [Tony]!
We’ve seen some cool EEG Hackaday Prize entries before
. Maybe this could be the next big one. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6351421",
"author": "Somun",
"timestamp": "2021-05-25T02:32:30",
"content": "Didnt read the article yet. Just replying to the title, I would not like to get brainwashed so that leaves me with self driving. Just say no to mind control.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"re... | 1,760,373,075.881914 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/24/ground-effect-drone-flies-autonomously/ | Ground Effect Drone Flies Autonomously | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"ardupilot",
"autonomous",
"drone",
"ekranoplan",
"flight",
"ground effect",
"ground-effect vehicle",
"lake",
"rc"
] | There are a number of famous (yet fictional) sea monsters in the lakes and oceans around the world, but in the Caspian Sea one turned out to be real. This is where the first vehicles specifically built to take advantage of the ground effect were built by the Soviet Union, and one of the first was known as the Caspian Sea Monster due to the mystery surrounding its discovery. While these unique airplane/boat hybrids were eventually abandoned after several were built for military use, the style of aircraft still has some niche uses and
can even be used as a platform for autonomous drones
.
This build from [Think Flight] started off as a simple foam model of just such a ground effect vehicle (or “ekranoplan”) in his driveway. With a few test flights the model was refined enough to attach a small propeller and battery. The location of the propeller changed from rear-mounted to front-mounted and then back to rear-mounted for the final version, with each configuration having different advantages and disadvantages. The final model includes
an Arudino running
an autopilot program called Ardupilot, and with an air speed sensor installed the drone is able to maintain flight in the ground effect and autonomously navigate pre-programmed waypoints around a lake at high speed.
For a Cold War technology that’s been largely abandoned by militaries in favor of other modes of transportation due to its limited use case and extremely narrow flight tolerances, ground effect vehicles are relatively popular as remote controlled vehicles.
This RC ekranoplan
used the same Ardupilot software but paired with a LIDAR system instead of GPS to navigate its way around its environment.
Thanks to [TTN] for the tip! | 14 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6351405",
"author": "robocars",
"timestamp": "2021-05-25T01:21:44",
"content": "It doesn’t use an Arduino. It’s been a decade since the ArduPilot code actually ran on its namesake. Instead, it runs an a 32-bit ST-based Pixhawk autopilot",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"... | 1,760,373,075.935256 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/24/optical-sensor-keeps-eye-on-wandering-saw-blade/ | Optical Sensor Keeps Eye On Wandering Saw Blade | Tom Nardi | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"CNC scroll saw",
"computer vision",
"optical sensor",
"Raspberry Pi HQ camera"
] | Over the last year or so, we’ve been checking in on the progress [Andrew Consroe] has been making with his incredible CNC scroll saw project. While we were already impressed with his first prototype version, he somehow manages to keep pushing the envelope forward with each new upgrade, and we’re always excited when one of his progress reports hits the inbox.
Recently he’s been struggling with the fact that the considerable flexing of the scroll saw’s ultra-thin blade introduces positional errors while cutting. To combat this, he’s
developed an ingenious sensor that can track the movement of the blade
in two dimensions without actually touching it. Utilizing the Raspberry Pi HQ camera, a 3D printed framework, and some precisely placed mirrors, [Andrew] says his optical sensor is able to determine the blade’s position to within 10 microns.
In the video below [Andrew] goes over how his “Split Vision Periscope” works, complete with some ray traced simulations of what the Pi camera actually sees when it looks through the device. After experimenting with different lighting setups, the final optical configuration presents the camera with two different perspectives of the saw blade set on a black background. That makes it relatively easy to pick out the blade using computer vision, and turn that into positional information.
The periscope arrangement is particularly advantageous here as it allows the camera and lens to be placed under the work surface and well away from the actual cutting, though we’re interested in seeing how it fares against the dust and debris that will inevitably be produced as the saw cuts. While he hit all of his design goals, [Andrew] does note that his mirrors do leave some room for improvement; but considering he hand cut them out of old hard drive platters we think the results are more than acceptable.
An incredible amount of progress
has been made since the
first time we saw the CNC scroll saw
, and we’re eager to see this new sensor fully integrated into the next version of [Andrew]’s impressive long-term project. | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6351323",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2021-05-24T20:53:44",
"content": "Next step, a closed loop controller with his sensor instructing a series of magnets to tug the blade back into line, with a similarly high level of precision. A bit like the magnetic alignment in the lens ... | 1,760,373,075.660105 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/24/persistent-displays-with-uv-light/ | Persistent Displays With UV Light | Jenny List | [
"clock hacks",
"LED Hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2021 Hackaday Prize",
"glow in the dark",
"phosphorescence",
"uv"
] | This year’s Hackaday Prize has “Rethink Displays” as one of its first theme, and [Tucker Shannon] has given us his best shot on that subject with
a set of impressive displays that “write” on glow-in-the-dark material using ultra-violet light
. These materials glow for a while after UV illumination, so moving a light source like a UV LED over the surface draws glowing text or simple graphics which can be readily consumed.
One of the examples
this a clock we were first smitten with back in 2018
. It is a rather attractive 3D-printed affair with those servos mounted below the screen that moves a UV LED through a pair of linkages. Other offerings that play on the same UV stylus medium include a laser on an az-el mount controlled by a Raspberry Pi Zero. It’s a neat idea very effectively done, and we can see it has a lot of potential.
But the most impressively advanced so far is the model shown in the image at the top of the article and the demo video at the bottom. A loop of phosphorescent material is the display surface itself. This one moves that loop with two rollers to make up the X axis, and moves the UV source up and down for the Y axis. As with all of these designs, whatever is written will soon fade, leaving the surface ready for the next bit of information.
Interested in this project and think you could do a display of your own?
The Hackaday Prize 2021
is live, and we’d love to see you enter it!
The
Hackaday
Prize2021
is Sponsored by: | 52 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6351250",
"author": "ConsultingJoe",
"timestamp": "2021-05-24T18:35:05",
"content": "“PERSISTENT DISPLAYS WITH UV LIGTH”Such a hurry, you can’t proof read the title?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6351253",
"author": ... | 1,760,373,076.311888 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/24/starlink-a-review-and-some-hacks/ | Starlink: A Review And Some Hacks | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Featured",
"internet hacks",
"Reviews",
"Slider"
] | [
"IPv6",
"PoE",
"review",
"satellite internet",
"Starlink"
] | I could probably be described as a SpaceX enthusiast. I catch their launches when I can, and I’ve watched the development of Starship with great interest. But the side-effect of SpaceX’s reusable launch system is that getting to space has become a lot cheaper. Having excess launch capacity means that space projects that were previously infeasible become suddenly at least plausible. One of those is Starlink.
Starlink is SpaceX’s satellite Internet service. Wireless and cellular internet have helped in some places, but if you really live out in the sticks, satellite internet is your only option. And while satellite Internet isn’t exactly new, Starlink is a bit different. Hughesnet, another provider, has a handful of satellites in geostationary orbit, which is about 22,000 miles above the earth. To quote Grace Hopper, holding a nearly foot-long length of wire representing a nanosecond, “Between here and the satellite,
there are a very large number nanoseconds
.”
SpaceX opted to do something a bit different. In what seemed like an insane pipe dream at the time, they planned to launch a satellite constellation of 12,000 birds, some of them flying as low as 214 mile altitude. The downside of flying so low is that they won’t stay in orbit as long, but SpaceX is launching them significantly faster than they’re coming down. So far, nearly 1,600 Starlink satellites are in orbit, in a criss-crossing pattern at 342 miles (550 km) up.
This hundred-fold difference in altitude matters. A Hughesnet connection has a minimum theoretical latency of 480 ms, and in reality runs closer to 600 ms. Starlink predicts a theoretical minimum of under 10 ms, though real-world performance isn’t quite that low yet. In the few weeks I’ve had the service, ping times have fallen from mid-60s down to 20s and 30s. The way Starlink works right now, data goes up to the closest satellite and directly back to the connected ground station. The long-term plan is to allow the satellites to talk directly to each other over laser links, skipping over the ground stations. Since the speed of light is higher in a vacuum than in a fiber-optic cable, the fully deployed system could potentially have lower latency than even fiber Internet, depending on the location of the endpoint and how many hops need to be made.
I got a Starlink setup, and have been trying out the beta service. Here’s my experience, and a bonus hack to boot.
The Hardware
In the box, you get a router, a PoE injector, a simple tripod, and “Dishy McFlatface” —
the innovative satellite dish
with a permanently attached 100-ft Ethernet cable. The router itself is uninteresting, and has an initial setup page to configure the WiFi, and no further configurations. Of great interest to me, however, is the fact that the router reports itself to be an OpenWRT device. Taking the case apart was quite a pain, as the seams are tight, and the clips are recessed a bit. Once you’ve made it in, however, there is a header that is likely a serial port.
The PoE brick is very interesting. It has two outputs. One supplies the router low power, but the other port supplies the satellite dish with 56 V at 1.6 A x 2. For those following along at home, that’s just under 180 watts of power down a Cat5e cable. I’ve not yet found any other PoE implementations that push that much power, so it seems that we’re limited to using the supplied power supply for Dishy.
The dish itself is motorized and automatic. There’s none of the fiddly manual pointing that other dishes require. Dishy determines its location and orientation on boot, and automatically points itself in the proper direction. From there, the phased array antenna steers the beam to precisely target the overflying satellites.
The biggest issue to wrestle with is avoiding obstructions. Dishy needs a clear view of the sky, and the EHF frequency in use is very sensitive to physical barriers. Tree leaves are enough to completely block the signal. Because the system talks to satellites that are continually moving, the window of sky that needs to be clear is quite wide. Some optimizations have been added recently to be more fault tolerant of obstructions, like an automated fail-over to a secondary satellite when the preferred endpoint is unavailable. The system may eventually be robust enough to work well with obstructions, but for now, obstructions still means service interruptions, so setting the dish in the open is critical.
The Real World Performance
It’s not Gigabit fiber, but I’m regularly getting 200 Mbps down and 15 Mbps up. Ping times are low enough that latency isn’t a noticeable problem.
That’s not to say that there aren’t any problems. There are three main annoyances. The first is the drop-outs. According to the built-in statistics page, gaps in the satellite coverage has resulted in five minutes of downtime over the last 24 hours, with an additional two minutes of miscellaneous downtime:
two nines
.
It doesn’t sound like much, but these drop-outs are spread out over a few seconds here and there, and it is irritating. A second problem, ironically, is updates. During the beta period, updates are automatically installed, resulting in unpredictable disconnects.
The last irritation to mention is that IPv4 connectivity is provided using Carrier Grade NAT (CGNAT). I’m currently assigned 100.82.35.212, which is part of the address space specifically set aside for CGNAT. The important bit is that it’s not a routable address. I wondered if Starlink would route between these addresses, from one Starlink connection to another, but in my testing those packets were blocked.
— google.com ping statistics —
100 packets transmitted, 100 received, 0% packet loss, time 99130ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 17.801/27.748/44.228/5.769 ms
Still, ping times are getting better and dropouts are getting fewer and further between as more satellites are launched. The firmware updates will likely be more controllable once the Beta period is over. And while Starlink doesn’t hand out a routable IPv4, it does assign an IPv6 prefix, if you have a router that supports it. They don’t yet support handing out static IPv4 addresses or IPv6 prefixes, but it sounds like this is a feature they plan to eventually support.
Speaking of eventual support, you should know that Starlink is geolocked. They’ve divided the world into cells approximately 15 miles across, and they’re turning on support for them one at a time. You register for Starlink at your home address, and your Dishy is assigned to the associated cell. You can pick up and move, but if you go outside that cell, your connection won’t work. For now, all it takes is a change of your service address to get things working again. Elon has publicly committed to making it fully mobile, up to and including staying connected while in motion.
Yeah, should be fully mobile later this year, so you can move it anywhere or use it on an RV or truck in motion. We need a few more satellite launches to achieve compete coverage & some key software upgrades.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)
April 15, 2021
Hacks
So what kind of Hackaday review would this be without some clever hack to make Starlink more useful? My existing cable internet is actually pretty decent: the speeds are good, and the latency is quite low. The biggest annoyance is that it was IPv4 only. Starlink has great speed, slightly worse latency, and no routable IPv4 addresses, only IPv6. Oddly enough that makes it the perfect compliment to cable.
The interesting thing about having IPv4 and IPv6 on the same network is that the addressing and routing are completely separate from each other. Or to put it another way, there’s no reason that your IPv4 gateway has to be the same device as your IPv6 gateway.
To achieve this, I plugged Dishy in to my existing OpenWRT router as a second WAN device. I had to enable an IPv4 DHCP interface for IPv6 DHCP to work, and I noticed an option in the OpenWRT interface: “Use default gateway. If unchecked, no default route is configured.” That setting, and the couple of other switches to turn IPv6 support back on, and I suddenly had IPv4 internet provided by my cable company, and IPv6 provided by Starlink.
I don’t know if you’ve ever looked into balancing your network across two internet connections, but it’s a decidedly non-trivial problem. Doing a fail-over is easy by comparison — you simply detect when one connection is down, and make sure your default route goes through the other one. Trying to use both at once is harder, because the router has to track connections, and keep the different connections going down the right pipes. Complex web services can consist of multiple connections, and there can be problems if the service sees you coming from different IPs. By splitting IPv4 and IPv6, you get balancing for free because only some services are IPv6 enabled. You also get limited failover because much of the internet is built to try IPv6, and fall back to IPv4.
Is that a Serial Port?
As I mentioned it in the beginning, there is what looks like a test point in the router, with a missing SMD resistor. It’s very likely that there is a serial port to be found here. Hopefully we’ll see a future hack where we can add the resistor and header, and get into the router. If you recognize exactly what connector fits there, let us know.
One more DIY trick you should know is that the supplied cable is a Cat5e outdoor rated FTP (Foil Twisted Pair) cable, with 24 AWG conductors. That’s pretty standard stuff for outdoors rated Ethernet.
What does this mean? You can make a portable installation by simply cutting the 100 ft cable down to a convenient length, and terminating it yourself. Run either the original cable, or another outdoor rated cable, and throw a grounded jack on the end. Put it in a waterproof enclosure, and you now have a portable solution. Ready to hit the road? Just unplug Dishy and you’re ready to go, as long as you stay within your cell. It’s not perfect yet, but Starlink is getting better as time goes by. From my perspective, at least, the future is bright. Now all I need is to build a cabin somewhere in the mountains, and my digitally connected hideaway dreams will be realized. | 129 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "6351205",
"author": "Leonard",
"timestamp": "2021-05-24T17:21:18",
"content": "Any improvements in adjusted mtu?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6351272",
"author": "Jonathan Bennett",
"timestamp": "2021-05-24T... | 1,760,373,076.106931 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/24/a-high-torque-3d-printed-harmonic-drive/ | A High Torque 3D Printed Harmonic Drive | Danie Conradie | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"harmonic drive",
"robotic arm",
"strain wave gear"
] | Actuators that are powerful, accurate, compact, and cheap are like unicorns. They don’t exist. Yet this is what [3DprintedLife] needed for a robotic camera arm, so he developed a custom
3D printed high torque strain wave gearbox
to be powered by a cheap NEMA23 stepper motor.
Strain wave gears
, otherwise known as
harmonic drives
, are not an uncommon topic here on Hackaday. The work by deforming a flexible toothed spline with a rotating elliptical part, which engages with the internal teeth of an outer spline. The outer spline has a few more teeth, causing the inner spline to rotate slowly compared to the input, achieving very high gear ratios. Usually, the flexible spline is quite long to allow it to flex at one end while still having a rigid mounting surface at the other end. [3DprintedLife] got around this by creating a separate rigid output spline, which also meshes with the flexible spline.
At first, he used a toothed rubber belt for the flexible spline, which proved to be a bit too flexible and introduced unnecessary backlash. It was replaced with a 3D printed flex spline, which also allowed [3DprintedLife] to tune the tooth profile for maximum torque handling and minimum backlash. He also created an automated test rig with a 20 kg load cell, Arduino, and aluminum extrusions. This allowed each design iteration to be tested repetitively with no manual intervention, allowing design weaknesses to be rapidly identified and fixed as parts broke. The final version is capable of repeatedly producing 10 Nm of output torque, and [3DprintedLife] was only able to break it by putting almost his full body weight on the output arm.
All the parts were printed with PLA, but [3DprintedLife] plans to move to Nylon in the future. The robotic arm is still in the design phase, but we look forward to seeing it collect B-roll for future videos.
A camera arm doesn’t need to be motorized to work well.
[Ivan Miranda]
and
[Alexandre Chappel]
recently built large camera arms for their workshops, and both made heavy use of 3D printed parts. | 5 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6351174",
"author": "Brian Silverman",
"timestamp": "2021-05-24T15:55:58",
"content": "Nice build. What printer/plastic are you using?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6351252",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,373,076.451287 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/24/ask-hackaday-how-is-the-chip-shortage-affecting-you/ | Ask Hackaday: How Is The Chip Shortage Affecting You? | Jenny List | [
"Ask Hackaday",
"Current Events",
"News",
"Slider"
] | [
"chip shortage",
"parts",
"semiconductor"
] | Some friends of mine are designing a new board around the STM32F103 microcontroller, the commodity ARM chip that you’ll find in numerous projects and on plenty of development boards. When the time came to order the parts for the prototype, they were surprised to find that the usual stockholders don’t have any of these chips in stock, and more surprisingly, even the Chinese pin-compatible clones couldn’t be found. The astute among you may by now have guessed that the culprit behind such a commodity part’s curious lack of availability lies in the global semiconductor shortage.
A perfect storm of
political unintended consequences
, climate-related crises
throttling Taiwanese chip foundries
and
shutting down those in the USA
, and faulty pandemic recovery planning, has left the chipmakers unable to keep up with the demand from industries on the rebound from their COVID-induced slump. Particularly mentioned in this context is the automotive industry, which has seen
plants closing for lack of chips
and even models
ditching digital dashboards for their analogue predecessors
.
Chips on order everywhere on the Mouser website.
The fall-out from all this drama in the world’s car factories has filtered down through all levels that depend upon semiconductors; as the carmakers bag every scrap of chip fab capacity that they can, so in turn have other chip customers scrambled to keep their own supply lines in place. A quick scan for microcontrollers through distributors like Mouser or Digi-Key finds pages and pages of lines on back-order or out of stock, with those lines still available being largely either for niche applications, unusual package options, or from extremely outdated product lines. The chances of scoring your chosen chip seem remote and most designers would probably baulk at trying to redesign around an ancient 8-bit part from the 1990s, so what’s to be done?
Such things typically involve commercially sensitive information so we understand not all readers will be able to respond, but we’d like to ask the question: how has the semiconductor shortage affected you? We’ve heard tales of unusual choices being made to ship a product with any microcontroller that works, of hugely overpowered chips replacing commodity devices, and even of specialist systems-on-chip being drafted in to fill the gap. In a few years maybe we’ll feature a teardown whose author wonders why a Bluetooth SoC is present without using the radio functions and with a 50R resistor replacing the antenna, and we’ll recognise it as a desperate measure from an engineer caught up in 2021’s chip shortage.
So tell us your tales from the coalface in the comments below. Are you that desperate engineer scouring the distributors’ stock lists for any microcontroller you can find, or has your chosen device remained in production? Whatever your experience we’d like to know what the real state of the semiconductor market is, so over to you! | 133 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "6351123",
"author": "Osgeld",
"timestamp": "2021-05-24T14:03:46",
"content": "It shut the factory I work at down for 2 weeks… Luckily I’m in systems engineering so free upgrade time for me",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6351124... | 1,760,373,076.875353 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/24/custom-keyfob-fixes-mazda-design-mistake/ | Custom Keyfob Fixes Mazda Design Mistake | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"3d print",
"car",
"keyfob",
"mazda",
"modification",
"pcb",
"shrink",
"small"
] | While Mazda has made some incredible advances in fuel efficient gasoline engines over the past few years, their design group seems to have fallen asleep at the wheel in the meantime, specifically in regards to the modern keyfob design. The enormous size and buttons on the side rather than the face are contrary to what most people need in a keyfob: small size and buttons that don’t accidentally get pressed. Luckily, though,
the PCB can be modified with some effort
.
This particular keyfob has a relatively simple two-layer design which makes it easy to see where the connections are made. [Hack ‘n’ Tink] did not need the panic button or status LED which allowed him to simply cut away a section of the PCB, but changing the button layout was a little trickier. For that, buttons were soldered to existing leads on the face of the board using 30-gage magnet wire and silicone RTV. From there he simply needed to place the battery in its new location and 3D print the new enclosure.
The end result is a much smaller form factor keyfob with face buttons that are less likely to accidentally get pressed in a pocket. He also made sure that the battery and button relocation wouldn’t impact the antenna performance. It’s a much-needed improvement to a small but crucial part of the car; the only surprise is that a company that’s
usually on point with technology and design
would flop so badly on such a critical component.
Thanks to [Brian] for the tip! | 60 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6351089",
"author": "JanW",
"timestamp": "2021-05-24T11:22:54",
"content": "Well done video and explanation. Two critical things I see with his new design:1) no tab to attach it to a keyring/your keys. But maybe he doesn’t need it?!2) the copper tape. It is fine for a while but oxid... | 1,760,373,076.663252 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/24/cocktail-of-chemicals-makes-this-blueprint-camera-unique/ | Cocktail Of Chemicals Makes This Blueprint Camera Unique | Dan Maloney | [
"chemistry hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"blueprint",
"camera",
"contact print",
"cyanotype",
"pigment",
"Prussian Blue",
"uv"
] | When you’re looking at blueprints today, chances are pretty good that what you’re seeing is anything but blue. Most building plans, diagrams of civil engineering projects, and even design documents for consumer products never even make it to paper, let alone get rendered in old-fashioned blue-and-white like large-format prints used to produced. And we think that’s a bit of a shame.
Luckily, [Brian Haidet] longs for those days as well, so much so that he built
this large-format cyanotype camera
to create photographs the old-fashioned way. Naturally, this is one of those projects where expectations must be properly scaled before starting; after all, there’s a reason we don’t go around taking pictures with paper soaked in a brew of toxic chemicals. Undaunted by the chemistry, [Brian] began his journey with simple contact prints, with Sharpie-marked transparency film masking the photosensitive paper, made from potassium ferricyanide, ammonium dichromate, and ammonium iron (III) oxalate, from the UV rays of the sun. The reaction creates the deep, rich pigment Prussian Blue, contrasting nicely with the white paper once the unexposed solution is washed away.
[Brian] wanted to go beyond simple contact prints, though, and the ridiculously large camera seen in the video below is the result. It’s just a more-or-less-lightproof box with a lens on one end and a sheet of sensitized paper at the other. The effective ISO of the “film” is incredibly slow, leading to problematically long exposure times. Coupled with the distortion caused by the lens, the images are — well, let’s just say unique. They’ve got a ghostly quality for sure, and there’s a lot to be said for that Prussian Blue color.
We’ve seen
cyanotype chemistry used with UV lasers
before, and
large-format cameras using the collodion process
. And we wonder if [Brian]’s long-exposure process might be better suited to
solargraphy
. | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6351066",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2021-05-24T09:29:21",
"content": "Ammonium Dichromate is a carcinogen in addition to just toxicity. Read the MSDS before you even think about using this stuff.https://www.nj.gov/health/eoh/rtkweb/documents/fs/0097.pdfA mask is not enough pro... | 1,760,373,076.510665 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/23/python-runs-through-a-zombified-8-bit-avr/ | Python Runs Through A Zombified 8-Bit AVR | Stephen Ogier | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"AVR",
"python",
"uart",
"UPDI"
] | As amazing as CircuitPython is, it hasn’t yet been ported to any 8-bit microcontrollers. [Chris Heo] was unsatisfied with his inability to use Python on his 8-bit ATmega4808 AVR, so he worked out a way to
zombify it and bend it to his will using Python on his PC
.
The trick to making this all work is the UPDI interface: a single-wire UART interface for programming and debugging Microchip’s newer 8-bit AVR microcontrollers. UPDI reaches deep into the microcontroller’s core, allowing you to stop and start execution of microcontroller code and access all of the onboard data and I/O. [Chris] realized this could be used to stop execution of any code running on the AVR and directly control the output pins using
the pyupdi library
. Since UPDI lets him modify the AVR’s I/O registers, he was also able to
blink an LED and use the microcontrollers UART to send a message back to his PC
without compiling a single line of code.
This may seem like an entirely unnecessary hack, but for devices too small or basic to have a JTAG interface for debugging this could be the best way to test and debug peripherals in an assembled circuit. We hope this catches on and would love to see how much of the chip can be controlled in this way. Maybe this will make it easy to experiment with
the programmable logic that’s on some of the newer AVRs
. | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6351037",
"author": "SetSceToAux",
"timestamp": "2021-05-24T06:24:43",
"content": "Good stuff. I have a general question that I would like to get other peoples opinion on. When doing register manipulation like in the above screenshot, what is your preferred way of setting the initia... | 1,760,373,076.713167 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/23/iridescent-rainbow-chocolate-just-add-diffraction-grating/ | Iridescent Rainbow Chocolate, Just Add Diffraction Grating! | Donald Papp | [
"Art",
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"chocolate",
"diffraction grating",
"holo-chocolate",
"sugar"
] | Chocolate plus diffraction grating equals rainbow chocolate
Here’s a great picture from [Jelly & Marshmallows] that shows off the wild effects of
melted chocolate poured onto a diffraction grating
. A diffraction grating is a kind of optical component whose micro-features act to disperse and scatter light. Diffraction gratings are available as thin plastic film with one side that is chock full of microscopic ridges, and the way light interacts with these ridges results in an iridescent, rainbow effect not unlike that seen on a CD or laserdisc.
It turns out that these micro-ridges can act as a mold, and pouring chocolate over a diffraction grating yields
holo-chocolate
. These photos from [Jelly & Marshmallows] show this effect off very nicely, but as cool as it is, we do notice that some of the letters seem a wee bit hit-or-miss in how well they picked up the diffraction grating pattern.
Fortunately, we know just what to suggest to take things to the next level. If you want to know more about how exactly this effect can be reliably accomplished, you’ll want to check out
our earlier coverage of such delicious optics
, which goes into all the nitty-gritty detail one could ever want about getting the best results with either melted sugar, or dark chocolate. | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6351014",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2021-05-24T02:47:00",
"content": "> one side that is chock full of microscopic ridgesYou’re really satisfied with that one, I can tell.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6351022",
"a... | 1,760,373,076.566375 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/23/hackaday-links-may-23-2021/ | Hackaday Links: May 23, 2021 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"amateur radio",
"CircuitPython",
"dummy load",
"Earth-Moon-Earth",
"EME",
"hackaday links",
"Karman vortex",
"mit",
"PCBWay",
"python",
"radar",
"radome",
"shenzhen",
"skyscraper",
"sla",
"ti-84"
] | The epicenter of the Chinese electronics scene drew a lot of attention this week as
a 70-story skyscraper started wobbling in exactly the way skyscrapers shouldn’t
. The 1,000-ft (305-m) SEG Plaza tower in Shenzhen began its unexpected movements on Tuesday morning, causing a bit of a panic as people ran for their lives. With no earthquakes or severe weather events in the area, there’s no clear cause for the shaking, which was clearly visible from the outside of the building in some of the videos shot by brave souls on the sidewalks below.
The preliminary investigation declared the building safe
and blamed the shaking on a combination of wind, vibration from a subway line under the building, and a rapid change in outside temperature, all of which we’d suspect would have occurred at some point in the 21-year history of the building. Others are speculating that
a Kármán vortex Street
, an aerodynamic phenomenon that has been known to
catastrophically impact structures
before, could be to blame; this seems a bit more likely to us. Regardless, since the first ten floors of SEG Plaza are home to one of the larger electronics markets in Shenzhen, we hope this is resolved quickly and that all our friends there remain safe.
In other architectural news, perched atop Building 54 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge for the last 55 years has been a large, fiberglass geodesic sphere, known simply as The Radome. It’s visible from all over campus, and beyond; we used to work in Kendall Square, and the golf-ball-like structure was an important landmark for navigating the complex streets of Cambridge. The Radome was originally used for experiments with weather radar, but fell out of use as the technology it helped invent moved on. That led to plans to remove the iconic structure, which consequently kicked off
a “Save the Radome” campaign
. The effort is being led by the students and faculty members of the MIT Radio Society, who have put the radome to good use over the years — it currently houses an amateur radio repeater, and the Radio Society uses the dish within it to conduct Earth-Moon-Earth (EME) microwave communications experiments. The students are serious — they applied for and received
a $1.6-million grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC)
to finance their efforts. The funds will be used to renovate the deteriorating structure.
Well, this looks like fun: Python on a graphing calculator. Texas Instruments has announced that their TI-84 Plus CE Python graphing calculator uses a modified version of CircuitPython. They’ve included seven modules, mostly related to math and time, but also a suite of TI-specific modules that interact with the calculator hardware. The Python version of the calculator
doesn’t seem to be for sale in the US yet
, although
the UK site
does have a few “where to buy” entries listed. It’ll be interesting to see the hacks that come from this when these are readily available.
Did you know that PCBWay, the prolific producer of cheap PCBs, also offers 3D-printing services too? We admit that we did not know that, and were therefore doubly surprised to learn that they also offer SLA resin printing. But what’s really surprising is the quality of their clear resin prints, at least the ones shown on
this Twitter thread
. As one commenter noted, these look more like machined acrylic than resin prints. Digging deeper into PCBWay’s offerings, which not only includes all kinds of 3D printing but CNC machining, sheet metal fabrication, and even injection molding services, it’s becoming harder and harder to justify keeping those capabilities in-house, even for the home gamer. Although with what we’ve learned about supply chain fragility over the last year, we don’t want to give up the ability to make parts locally just yet.
And finally, how well-calibrated are your fingers? If they’re just right, perhaps you can put them to use for
quick and dirty RF power measurements
. And this is really quick and really dirty, as well as potentially really painful. It comes by way of amateur radio operator VK3YE, who simply uses a resistive dummy load connected to a transmitter and his fingers to monitor the heat generated while keying up the radio. He times how long it takes to not be able to tolerate the pain anymore, plots that against the power used, and comes up with a rough calibration curve that lets him measure the output of an unknown signal. It’s brilliantly janky, but given some of the burns we’ve suffered accidentally while pursuing this hobby, we’d just as soon find another way to measure RF power. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350990",
"author": "Cbob",
"timestamp": "2021-05-23T23:22:30",
"content": "Such an interesting target for Tesla’s device. It’s good to see it’s been tuned for higher resolution",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6351103",
... | 1,760,373,076.923401 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/23/a-high-power-wood-rocket-in-5-days/ | A High Power Wood Rocket In 5 Days | Danie Conradie | [
"Space",
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"national rocketry association",
"rocketry",
"xyla foxlin"
] | Getting started with model rocketry is relatively cheap and easy, but as you move up in high power rocketry, there are a few hoops to jump through. To be able to buy rocket motors larger than H (160 N·s / 36 lbf·s impulse) in the US, you need to get certified by the National Association of Rocketry. The main requirement of this certification involves building, flying, and recovering a rocket with the specific motor class required for the certification level. [Xyla Foxlin] had committed to doing her Level 2 certification with a couple of friends, thanks to the old procrastination monster, was forced to
build a rocket
with only 5 days remaining to launch data.
For Level 2 certification, the rocket needs to fly with a J motor, which is capable of producing more than 640 N·s of impulse. Fortunately [Xyla] had already designed the rocket in OpenRocket, and ordered the motor and major body, nosecone, and parachute components. The body was built around 2 sections of 3″ cardboard tubes, which are covered in a few layers of fiberglass. The stabilizing fins were laser cut from cheap plywood and were epoxied to the inner tube which holds the motor and passes through the sides of the outer tube. The fins are also fibreglassed to increased strength. For a unique touch, she covered the rocket with a real wood veneer, with the rocket’s name, [Fifi], inlaid with darker wood. The recovery system is a basic parachute, connected to the rocket body with Kevlar rope.
[Xyla] finished her rocket just in time for the trek out to the rocket range. She successfully did the certification flight and recovered [Fifi] in reusable condition, which is a requirement. There was nothing groundbreaking about [Fifi], but then again, reliability the main requirement. You don’t want to do a certification with a fancy experimental rocket that could easily fail.
Rocketry can quickly become a deep rabbit hole, where sending a rocket
all the way to space
or getting one to
land like the Falcon 9
is within the realm of possibility. On the design side, there is also now a
rocket workbench
for FreeCAD. | 30 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350965",
"author": "socksbot",
"timestamp": "2021-05-23T20:05:51",
"content": "I watched that this week; she knows her stuff and pays good attention to detail.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6350969",
"author": "Hirudinea"... | 1,760,373,076.989317 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/23/rc-car-gets-fan-assisted-downforce-to-slay-teslas-0-60-times/ | RC Car Gets Fan-Assisted Downforce To Slay Tesla’s 0-60 Times | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"fan car",
"R/C car",
"tesla"
] | Tesla have claimed that their upcoming new Roadster will post a sub-2 second 0-60mph time. While it’s backed up by little more than a shiny website at this stage,
[Engineering After Hours] took the number as a target to beat with his RC fan car build.
(Video, embedded below.)
We’ve seen an earlier prototype of this build before,
with the first version generating enough downforce to successfully drive upside down.
The new build has several modifications to maximise its lateral acceleration capabilities. The new build drives all four wheels, which are fitted with sticky tyres coated in traction compound for maximum grip. The main drive motor, along with the fan and skirt assemblies, are all mounted in the center of the car now to properly balance the aero loads across the axles and provide a stable weight distribution for fast launches.
The results are impressive, with the car posting a 0-60mph time of just 1.825 seconds. There’s likely still time left on the table, too, once the car can be tuned to launch harder off the line. We’d love to see a racing series of fan-equipped RC cars hit the track, too, given the amount of grip available with such hardware. | 26 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350935",
"author": "lthemick",
"timestamp": "2021-05-23T17:15:23",
"content": "How much resistance does a flat GoPro introduce?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6350941",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2021-05-23T17:45:... | 1,760,373,077.049 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/23/smart-guitar-will-practically-play-itself/ | Smart Guitar Will Practically Play Itself | Kristina Panos | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"accessibility",
"fretboard",
"guitar"
] | Playing the guitar is pretty difficult to do, physically speaking. It requires a lot of force with the fretting hand to produce clear notes, and that means pressing a thin piece of metal against a block of wood until the nerve endings in your fingertips die off and you grow calluses that yearn to be toughened even further. Even if you do get to this point of being broken in, it takes dexterity in both hands to actually make music. Honestly, the guitar is kind of an unwelcoming instrument, even if you don’t have any physical disabilities.
A Russian startup company called Noli Music wants to change all of that.
They’re building a guitar that’s playable for everyone, regardless of physical or musical ability
. Noli Music was founded by [Denis Goncharov] who has a form of muscular dystrophy. [Denis] has always wanted to rock out to his favorite songs, but struggles to play a standard guitar.
If you can touch the fretboard, it seems, you can whale away on this axe without trouble. It’s made to be easier to play all around. The strings aren’t fully tensioned, so they’re easy to pluck —
the site says they only take 1.7oz of force to actuate
.
Right now, the guitar is in the prototype stage. But when it’s ready to rock, it will do so a couple of ways. One uses embedded sensors in the fretboard detect finger positions and sound the appropriate note whether you pluck it or simply fret it. In another mode, the finger positions light up to help you learn new songs. The guitar will have a touchscreen interface, and Noli are planning on building a companion app to provide interactive lessons.
We have to wonder just how exactly this will be able to mimic the physics of guitar playing, especially since it’s designed with all players in mind. How satisfied will seasoned players be with this instrument? Can it do pull-offs and hammer-ons? What about slides? Do the sensors respond to bends? And most importantly, will the built-in speaker be loud enough to drown out the string vibrations? It seems to do just fine on that front, as you can see in the video below.
If the built-in speaker didn’t drown out the strings, it could make for some interesting sounds that stray outside the western chromatic scale, much like this
LEGO microtonal guitar
. | 25 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350921",
"author": "Rogfanther",
"timestamp": "2021-05-23T14:57:15",
"content": "To answer the article´s question, seasoned players will probably stay with the traditional guitars. But if this can get a reasonable sound, it will be of great value for people that just want to enjoy ... | 1,760,373,077.11232 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/23/design-an-electronic-catan-board-in-a-day/ | Design An Electronic Catan Board In A Day | Rich Hawkes | [
"hardware"
] | [
"3D design",
"design",
"PCB design",
"settlers of catan"
] | One of the things that makers sometimes skip over is the design of the project that they’re creating. Some of us don’t do any design at all, we just pants it. The design part of making something
can
take quite a while – there is sketching to do, as well as 3d-modelling and PCB creation. [Sam March] wanted to try and create something interesting where he did the design in a single day. The result is, or will be, a
3D printed, electronic, Settlers of Catan game board
.
As [Sam] goes through his thoughts while working, we get a good, quick, overview of the design process. It’s good to see that it can be done but this is only the design stage – [Sam] will post the video of the build for this design once he’s received the PCBs and the board has been printed. Take a look at some other Settlers of Catan projects on the site, like this
3D Catan board
or shock your friends with this
Catan timer
. | 5 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350946",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2021-05-23T18:19:02",
"content": "“Some of us don’t do any design at all, we just pants it”The word design is overrated sometimes…You can buy a regular bathroom accessory that costs an acceptable amount of money.And you can buy some expensive... | 1,760,373,077.157726 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/23/modifying-lights-for-diy-ambiance/ | Modifying Lights For DIY Ambiance | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"bulb",
"diy",
"diyhue",
"ESP8266",
"hue",
"lighting",
"philips",
"proprietary"
] | The ESP32 and ESP8266 spread like wildfire a few years ago due to their small form factor, low price, and wireless capability. They didn’t just take over the DIY scene, though. Plenty of mass market products began to incorporate these tiny chips as well, which means that there are some interesting pre-made devices around that are ripe for modification. In this case,
using an off-brand smart light bulb as a base for an semi-proprietary lighting setup
.
The lighting in this build is a generic RGB light bulb with the ability to control its color over Wi-Fi. Since it has an ESP8266 chip in it, it can be made to work with Philips Hue lights with some minor modifications, allowing a much wider range of control than otherwise available. For this one, [Vadim] needed to pry open the bulb case to access the chip, then solder wires to it for reprogramming. It needed power during this step which meant plugging the resulting mess of wires back into a lamp socket, but after this step the new programming allows the bulb to be reprogrammed remotely.
After that step is complete, though, the generic bulb is ready for its inclusion into a Hue lighting system. In this case, [Vadim] is using
diyHue
, a Hue emulator that allows control of the bulbs without needing to use any cloud services, running on a BeagleBone. It’s a fairly comprehensive way of adding many different types and brands of bulbs to one system, and avoids any subscription models or the use of a cloud service,
which is always something we can get behind
. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350879",
"author": "IanS",
"timestamp": "2021-05-23T09:17:37",
"content": "Be careful removing the PCB using the method shown above. I have a similar bulb here where one of the LEDs broke up in the process.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,373,077.331284 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/22/adding-remote-controls-to-a-blackmagic-studio-camera-without-breaking-the-bank/ | Adding Remote Controls To A Blackmagic Studio Camera Without Breaking The Bank | Maya Posch | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"blackmagic design",
"remote control",
"s.bus"
] | What to do when one ends up in the possession of a 4K studio camera, but without the requisite hardware and software to remotely control it? When [Glen Akins] ended up in this situation, he took the reasonable option here and
developed his own knob-based remote control
to adjust exposure and focus on the Blackmagic Designs
Micro Studio Camera 4K
. Without a remote control option, the only adjustment options are via fiddly small buttons on the camera itself, which wouldn’t have been a fun experience during the webcam usage that this camera would be used for.
This camera is normally controlled via the control channel on the SDI input which also handles the video output from the camera. For larger installations the proprietary ATEM software is commonly used, and there’s a $99 Arduino expansion board as well that’s apparently rarely stocked. With SDI not an option, the second option was LANC, which runs into pretty much the same issue with proprietary protocols and very expensive hardware.
Behind door number three is the more curious control option of the
Futaba S.BUS
protocol. Originally created for remotely controlling radio-controlled aircraft and similar remotely controlled systems, the thought here appears to be that this studio camera can also be used with systems that already have an S.BUS receiver, such as large drones.
With this S.BUS protocol having been reverse-engineered for a while now, it was a fairly straightforward procedure from there to create an MCU-based board with a lot of encoder knobs on it that map to a specific adjustment on the camera. The result of [Glen]’s labor can be
found on GitHub
.
Main image:
The finished knob-box with the Blackmagic Designs camera. (Credit: Glen Akins) | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350922",
"author": "juli",
"timestamp": "2021-05-23T15:04:49",
"content": "Lanc expensive?. I thought was simple to build with arduino lanc libraries and it’s a serial interface similar to uart but different configuration. The problem it’s the codes are closed but you can find info... | 1,760,373,077.225106 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/22/affordable-transilluminator-helps-visualize-dna/ | Affordable Transilluminator Helps Visualize DNA | Al Williams | [
"Science"
] | [
"gel electrophoresis",
"illuminator",
"science"
] | If you want to examine the results of gel electrophoresis — and who doesn’t — you need a transilluminator. These devices can be quite pricey, though, so you might want to check out [Gabriel St-Pierre’s] plans to make an
affordable blue-light version
. You can see a video about the device below.
Using a UV filter, an Arduino Nano, an LED strip, 3D printing, and some mechanical items, it looks like this is a very easy project if you need such a device. There are a few miscellaneous parts like a hinge and some mirror material, but nothing looks too exotic.
If you need a refresher, electrophoresis uses an electric charge to separate material and shorter bits of material move faster, which means different clusters of molecules have similar lengths. The gel used is too fine to pass proteins, so they remain behind. A stain helps make things like DNA, RNA, and proteins visible but requires the right light wavelength. That’s the purpose of the device.
If you want to do the entire setup, you can find
instructions
to do the work with a handful of 9V batteries. We’ve covered a
simple setup
, too. If you prefer your DNA even more visible, we suggest
this lamp
. | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6351042",
"author": "Ingenuity",
"timestamp": "2021-05-24T07:13:53",
"content": "Now I’ve seen it with my own eyes that legit comments are simply removed.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6351072",
"author": "Elliot Wil... | 1,760,373,077.266024 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/22/portable-drill-press/ | Portable Drill Press | Al Williams | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"drill press",
"drillpress",
"power tools"
] | We aren’t sure that [John Heisz’s] build is really what we think of as a drill press, but it is a very portable way to convert
a regular drill into something like a drill press
. Your drill will probably be different, but you can follow along with his build in the video below.
On the face of it, it doesn’t seem like this would be very hard, but there are a few tricks. Finding the exact center of the drill axis on the back of the drill takes a bit of effort.
[John] has a well-equipped woodshop, so he fashioned everything out of wood. We couldn’t help but think that a laser cutter or 3D printer might have made easy work out of some of the pieces, even if you might have had to laminate thinner plywood together for thickness with the laser cutter.
The wood slides seem to work well, but we thought it might be useful to use rails like some 3D printers use or even cabinet slides. The basic idea is so simple that you should be able to modify it and extend it with your own ideas.
At some point, you could just skip the drill and use your
own motor and chuck
. We’ve seen a lot of
homemade presses
, although many of them aren’t this portable. | 31 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350835",
"author": "Yeshua Watson",
"timestamp": "2021-05-23T00:04:17",
"content": "Am I missing something here, how is this different from the adapters you can buy on the cheap from most hardware store websites or Amazon?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,373,077.485847 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/22/a-close-look-at-usb-power/ | A Close Look At USB Power | Tom Nardi | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"benchmark",
"electronic load",
"USB cable",
"usb charger",
"USB Power"
] | It’s not a stretch to say that most devices these days have settled on USB as their power source of choice. While we imagine you’ll still be running into the occasional wall wart and barrel jack for the foreseeable future, at least we’re getting closer to a unified charging and power delivery technology. But are all USB chargers and cables created equal?
The answer, of course, is no. But the anecdotal information we all have about dud USB gear is just that,
which is why [Igor Brkić] wanted to take a more scientific approach
. Inspired by the lighting bolt icon the Raspberry Pi will flash on screen when the voltage drops too low, he set out to make a proper examination of various USB chargers and cables to see which ones aren’t carrying their weight.
In the first half of his investigation, [Igor] tests four fairly typical USB chargers with his TENMA 72-13200 electronic load. Two of them were name brand, and the other just cheap clones. He was surprised to find that all of the power supplies not only met their rated specifications, but in most cases, over-performed by a fair amount. For example the Lenovo branded charger that was rated for only 1 A was still putting out a solid 5 V at 1.7 A. Of course there’s no telling what would happen if you ran them that high for hours or days at a time, but it does speak to their short-term burst capability at least.
He then moved onto the USB cables, were things started to fall apart. The three generic cables saw significant voltage drops even at currents as low as 0.1 A, though the name brand cable with 20 AWG power wires did fare a bit better. But by .5 A they were all significantly below 5 V, and at 1 A, forget about it. Pulling anything more than that through these cables is a non-starter, and in general, you’ll need to put at least 5.2 V in if you want to actually run a USB device on the other side.
Admittedly this might not be groundbreaking research, but we appreciate [Igor] taking a scientific approach and tabulating all the information. If you’re still getting low voltage warnings on the Pi after swapping out your cheapo cables,
then maybe the problem is actually elsewhere
. | 29 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350802",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2021-05-22T20:29:35",
"content": "I would love a little test box, like a battery tester, that told me which usb power supplies and cables were good and which were crap, since I have so many floating around I could toss the crappy ones i... | 1,760,373,077.610215 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/22/yee-haw-full-set-of-cowboy-emojis-now-available/ | Yee Haw: Full Set Of Cowboy Emojis Now Available | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"cowboy",
"emoji",
"emoticon"
] | This cat looks like he plays bassoon in a jazz band.
Emojis are all well and good if you want to add a fun tiny picture to your textual communication to try and add some finer context or zing, but what if the appropriate tiny picture doesn’t accurately represent you or how you feel? Never fear, cowboys,
the emoji set you’ve been dreaming of has now been created.
The set was initially created by the appropriately-named [pensivecowboy], by using scripts to place cowboy hats atop existing emojis from the
twemoji set
automatically. Over time, it was decided to instead just apply these hats to the 300 most-used emojis instead, with some manual fettling in cases where the script-generated result needed a little work.
The fire is coming out of the hat, which is just absolutely fantastic attention to detail.
The result is a complete set of Unicode-compatible cowboy and pensive_cowboy emojis, for when you’re feeling like a cowboy, or feeling like a sad cowboy. Scripts are included for those wishing to work more intimately with the emojis, and
there’s even Discord channels to give instant access to the new emojis for those with Nitro subscriptions.
Is this important, groundbreaking work? Your opinion on that likely depends on how much of a cow or a boy you are. But down at the ranch, it’ll likely bring many a smile to a pensive cowboy’s face. A quick search did note the absence of a :snake_in_my_boot: emoji, however, which could be a safety issue down the line.
We’d love to see some open tools built for programmatically hacking emojis; if you’ve developed some,
drop us a line
. Alternatively,
consider this emoji gun that shoots small foam emojis at other people to delight or annoy them
. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350800",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2021-05-22T20:26:23",
"content": "Wait a minute, he has an emoji of a cow wearing a cowboy hat, but cows are girls! Is this one of those pronoun things?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_... | 1,760,373,077.536035 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/22/irc-will-never-die/ | IRC Will Never Die | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"Freenode",
"irc",
"newsletter",
"Rant"
] | The big kerfuffle in the open source world this week
surrounds the biggest IRC server operator, Freenode
. Wherever the dust settles, myriad important open source projects use Freenode’s IRC servers for their main channel of user feedback, and a number of vibrant communities call or called Freenode home. What you would call a 3D printer, and most of the software that drives it, for instance, was brainstormed up in Freenode’s #reprap. If you want help with a Linux distribution, you’ll be set straight within a few minutes in the relevant channel, because the people who wrote, packaged, or maintain it are probably on Freenode waiting to chat.
But suppose Freenode burns to the ground tomorrow, as some are suggesting. So what? My take is that is doesn’t matter. Freenode doesn’t own IRC, setting up an IRC server is essentially trivial, and what’s really important is the online community — they can just pick up and move somewhere else with very little hassle.
This is not to say that we don’t all benefit from the diligence that Freenode’s volunteer administrators and operators have donated to the cause over the years. IRC servers don’t run themselves, and Freenode’s admins fought and won an epic battle with spammers a couple years back. Keeping IRC running at scale is a different thing than setting up something for your friends, and so the Freenode folks definitely deserve our thanks.
But look,
IRC is an old protocol
and it’s
a simple protocol
. It’s so simple, in fact, that writing an IRC bot is just a few dozen lines in Python, using
no
external libraries. All you need to do is send plain text over a socket.
You can do this
— it makes a great networking
hello world
.
IRC is fun for hackers, but if you want a user-friendly GUI client, you ridiculously many to choose from. There are even no-install
web clients
if you just want to dip your toes in. Heck, you could
install your own server
in an hour or so.
So saying that the demise of Freenode is the end of IRC is a lot like saying that the end of Hotmail was the end of e-mail. In the grand scheme of things, almost nobody actually uses IRC — Freenode has 78,000 users while Slack has 10 million — and IRC users are very savvy, if not full-on geeky. These are the sort of people who can probably find the server field in a menu and change it from
irc.freenode.net
to
irc.whatever.org.
In addition to our traditional #hackaday channel on
irc.freenode.net
, there’s also a channel set up on
irc.libera.chat
as well. There isn’t much action in either — IRC tends to be a slow conversation, so don’t freak out if someone responds to you an hour later — but if you want to swing by, we’re there. IRC will never die!
2021 Hackaday Prize Begins!
If you missed our announcement,
this year’s Hackaday Prize is on
! We’ve all had a rough year and a half, and it’s lead a lot of us to think seriously about our world. How would you want to change it going forward? Fifty entrants will rethink, refresh, and rebuild their way into $500, and the Grand Prize is $25,000. Get hacking!
This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on
the web version of the newsletter
.
Want this type of article to hit your inbox every Friday morning?
You should sign up
! | 51 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350738",
"author": "JanW",
"timestamp": "2021-05-22T14:08:47",
"content": "TIL: kerfuffle is a proper English word.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6350744",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2021-05-22T14:2... | 1,760,373,077.832307 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/22/3d-printed-earth-clock-is-cute-replica-of-our-delicate-planet/ | 3D Printed Earth Clock Is Cute Replica Of Our Delicate Planet | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"clock",
"earth",
"earth clock"
] | Plenty of clocks around us are useful for telling us the precise hour, minute, and second of the day. However, few can give us an intuitive sense of how far away we are from the enveloping cloak of night.
This 3D printed Earth clock built by [Simon Rob] promises to do just that.
The build consists of an Arduino Nano driving a stepper motor, which turns a 3D printed model of the Earth through 360 degrees each day. The Earth is rotated within a black shroud such that the current portion of the Earth seeing sunlight is the visible section on the clock, while the rest is hidden from view. There’s a three-stage planetary gear reduction which turns a date wheel connected to the black shroud so that the clock remains accurate throughout the year. The gear ratio isn’t perfect — [Simon] calculates its drift to be 20 hours over a year -but it’s close enough for the clock’s given purpose of
being a cool thing.
The clock looks great, and a lot of that is down to [Simon]’s careful work painting the Earth to match the real thing based on Google’s satellite maps.
Incidentally it’s not the first Earth clock we’ve seen, either
. We might just have to get building one for our own coffee table at home. Video after the break. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350773",
"author": "Soc Rat",
"timestamp": "2021-05-22T17:26:10",
"content": "Cool idea but “The gear ratio isn’t perfect — [Simon] calculates its drift to be 20 hours over a year -but it’s close enough for the clock’s given purpose of being a cool thing.” So you’re drifting multi... | 1,760,373,077.742119 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/22/diy-insulating-nuts-and-bolts/ | DIY Insulating Nuts And Bolts | Chris Lott | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"Bolts",
"nuts",
"threads",
"wooden threads"
] | [Rudi Schoenmackers] has devised a clever
set of custom 3D-printed jigs
that makes it easy to build your own wooden hex nuts and bolts. Well, easy if you have access to a woodworking shop with a router, bandsaw and belt sander.
You won’t be using these to mount your PCBs, however. They are pretty big — UNC 1½-6 threads (the closest metric thread would probably be M36-4). [Rudi] points out that these jigs can be readily adapted to generate different sizes and pitches of threads, even left-handed ones, but we suspect making a #4-40 or M3-0.5 is out of the question. There are commercial jigs for making threads, but as [Rudi] points out, those are quite expensive. The price of [Rudi]’s jigs is quite low, assuming you have a 3D printer.
We’re not sure how to best take advantage of these nuts and bolts in ordinary hacking projects, but [Rudi] enjoys giving them away as cool toys or making large clamps and vises out of them. Let us know if you have any applications where wooden threaded fasteners could come in handy. If wooden threads interest you, then check out
this project we covered a few years ago
on making simple taps. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350735",
"author": "e",
"timestamp": "2021-05-22T13:21:29",
"content": "The router with the 60 degree double angle cutter seems to have the cutter axis parallel to the threaded nut’s longitudinal axis, rather than inclined at the pitch of the thread.Presumably, for a small enough c... | 1,760,373,077.880857 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/21/lithophane-lamp-has-us-over-the-moon/ | Lithophane Lamp Has Us Over The Moon | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"lamp",
"lithophane",
"moon"
] | Lithophanes are artistic creations which rely on the varying thickness of a material that is then backlit to reveal an image. While these were often made in porcelain in the past, these days we have the benefit of 3D printing on our side. The principle can be deftly applied to everything from flat planes to spheres,
with [Tiffany Lo] demonstrating a great application of the latter with her 3D printed moon lamp.
The basic concept is to take a 2D image of the lunar surface, and then use it to generate a height mapped sphere for 3D printing. When lit from within, the sphere will appear as per the surface of the moon. The sphere geometry was generated with the
Lithophane Sphere Maker online tool
combined with
NASA data of the moon
intended for computer graphics purposes. The sphere was then printed on a typical FDM printer before being assembled upon a base with LEDs inside for backlighting.
The result is an attractive moon lamp that both recalls the heavy rock that follows us in a tidally-locked orbit, and yet can be switched off at night to make it easier to sleep. Unfortunately, it’s impractical to turn off the shine from the real moon, and we suspect nobody is working on the problem.
We’ve seen other moon lamps before
; they’re a great starting point because the moon’s greyscale tones work well as a lithograph. More advanced techniques are likely necessary for those eager to create lamps of the gas giants; if you’ve done so,
be sure to drop us a line
. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350734",
"author": "Edward Nardella",
"timestamp": "2021-05-22T13:19:58",
"content": "Now make it have exaggerated surface texture based on the shape of the moon.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6350750",
"author": "Ren",
... | 1,760,373,077.691236 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/21/one-instruction-to-rule-them-all-c-compiler-emits-only-mov/ | One Instruction To Rule Them All: C Compiler Emits Only MOV | Al Williams | [
"Software Development",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"c compiler",
"mov instruction",
"single instruction"
] | How many instructions do you need to successfully compile C code? Let’s see, you’d need some jump instructions, some arithmetic functions, and — of course — move instructions, right? Turns out you
only need the move instruction
, which — on x86, at least — is Turing complete.
While the effort is a bit tongue-in-cheek, we have to admit that if you were trying to create your own CPU, this would make for a simple architecture and might have power or complexity advantages, so maybe someone will find a practical use for it after all. If you wanted a C compiler for a simple CPU, this wouldn’t require much to emulate at a byte-code level, either.
How does it work? The best way to answer that is to look at the presentation
slides
on the GItHub site. Everything works through clever usage of memory locations and dummy addresses to do nothing. Efficient? Maybe not. But it does work.
For example, if you want to test to see if x and y are equal
mov [x],0
mov [y],1
mov R,[x]
That hides a lot of detail, of course, but the idea is that if Y doesn’t equal X, you’ll write a 1 to some random memory location (which better not be important; that’s one of the details). If X and Y are equal, you’ll overwrite with a 1. So R winds up with a 0 if X and Y are different or a 1 if they are the same.
In practical terms, if you want to translate something like “if (x==y) x=100” you wind up setting an integer pointer to either point to X or to a dummy location using the above trick (just substitute the address of X for 1 and the dummy address for the 0). Then you store the 100 to that integer pointer. With no branches, each line of code executes.
In fact, though, the compiler makes a few compromises including using a jump to call external functions and a floating point instruction. You can avoid both by recompiling libraries and adding the MOV-only floating point emulator, which is entertaining, but probably not very performant.
This reminded us of several
“one instruction” computers
we’ve seen in the past (including mine). While this is a bit of a strange compiler target, it is hardly the
strangest one
we’ve seen. | 17 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350681",
"author": "Joel",
"timestamp": "2021-05-22T03:17:18",
"content": "Congratulations, the gcc project finally is -O3 flag safe on all x86 cpus after several decades.;-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6350682",
"autho... | 1,760,373,077.935811 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/21/custom-macro-keyboard-looks-good-in-wood/ | Custom Macro Keyboard Looks Good In Wood | Kristina Panos | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"cherry mx",
"cherry switches",
"keyboard",
"keyboard controller",
"oak",
"plywood",
"reuse"
] | There’s more than one way to make a mechanical macro pad, and this wooden wonder represents one of our favorites
. [Tauno Erik] had an old rubber dome rectangle keyboard lying around that still worked, but the poor thing was missing some of its caps. After salvaging the controller, [Tauno Erik] got to work on the tedious task of figuring out the mapping of the matrix, which was made easier with a Python script.
Almost every component of this beauty is wood, including the mounting plate and those thicc and lovely keycaps — their top layer is solid oak, and the bottom bit is birch plywood. In order to interface the ‘caps with the switches, [Tauno Erik] designed and printed connector pieces that sit inside the extra large keycaps and accept the stems of the key switches.
Speaking of switches, we’re not sure if [Tauno Erik] ended up using Cherry green switches, browns, or a mix of both (that would be interesting), but each one is mounted on a custom PCB along with a diode and a pull-up resistor. You can see
more build pictures
at [Tauno Erik]’s site, and stick around for a visual tour of the completed build after the break.
Wood is a great choice for keycaps, and we imagine they’ll only look better with age and use.
A more common use for wood on a keyboard build is in surprisingly comfortable wrist rests
. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350685",
"author": "rok",
"timestamp": "2021-05-22T04:36:50",
"content": "It would look good If it would be in wood, instead of laminated glue",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6350688",
"author": "Newman",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,373,077.984609 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/21/simple-probe-sniffs-out-emi/ | Simple Probe Sniffs Out EMI | Tom Nardi | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"arduino nano",
"electromagnetic interference",
"emi",
"emi probe"
] | Unable to account for the strange glitches he was seeing on his DIY CNC router, [Daniël Van Den Berg] wondered if his electronics might be suffering from some form of electromagnetic interference (EMI). So he did what any good hacker would do, and
rummaged through the parts bin to build an impromptu EMI detector
.
[Daniël] is quick to point out that he’s not an electrical engineer, and makes no guarantees about the accuracy of his tossed together gadget. But it does seem to work well enough in his testing that he’s able to identify particularly “noisy” electronic components, so it’s probably worth putting one together just to hear what your hardware is pumping into the environment.
The hardware here is very simple, [Daniël] just attached a coil of solid copper wire to one of the analog pins on an Arduino Nano with a resistor, and hung a speaker off of one of the digital pins. From there, it just took a few lines of code to read the voltage in the coil and convert that into a tone for the speaker. The basic idea is that a strong alternating magnetic field will set up voltage fluctuations in the coil large enough for the Arduino’s ADC to read.
If you’re looking for a bit more insight into what kind of interference your electronic creations might be putting out,
[Alex Whittimore] gave a fantastic presentation during the 2020 Hackaday Remoticon
about performing RF debugging using a cheap RTL-SDR dongle. | 19 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350631",
"author": "Jace",
"timestamp": "2021-05-21T20:39:22",
"content": "…but did he find what was causing the glitches?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6350700",
"author": "Giorgio Filardi",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,373,078.045505 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/20/reading-floppies-with-an-oscilloscope/ | Reading Floppies With An Oscilloscope | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"BBC Micro",
"data recovery",
"floppy",
"floppy disc",
"floppy disk",
"floppy diskette",
"oscilloscope",
"siglent"
] | There’s a lot of data on magnetic media that will soon be lost forever, as floppies weren’t really made to sit in attics and basements for decades and still work. [Chris Evans] and [Phil Pemberton]
needed to read some disks
that reportedly contained source code for several BBC Micro games, including Repton 3. They turned to Greaseweazle, an interface board that can dump just about any kind of floppy disk if it is attached to the right drive. The problem is that Greaseweazle couldn’t read the disks due to CRC errors. Time to break out the oscilloscope and read the disk manually, which is what they did.
Greaseweazle provides a nice display of read sectors and shows timing coming from the floppy read head. The disk in question looked good with reasonably clean timing clocks except in the area of one sector. At that point, the clocks degenerated into noise. Looking on the disk, it was easy to see why. The actual media had a small dent in it.
Flattening the dent didn’t really help. There was a second disk that was in even worse shape for no apparent reason. The guys hooked their scope up and used Greaseweazle to attempt to read the disk, but captured the disk data directly from the drive.
It is funny that a floppy was high tech in its day, but now a cheap Siglent scope is powerful enough to capture the entire track at much higher resolution than the drive’s controller. It turns out that when you look at it that way, different drives even give slightly different results and that can make a difference when reading marginal floppies.
One neat trick: the team used Audacity to study the analog waveforms. It can import a CSV file and has great tools for looking at the data and even changing it. As a bonus, they can let us hear what the
floppy data sounds like
if you shift it into the human hearing range. Unsurprisingly, it sounds like an old modem.
If you are interested in recovering floppies or just enjoy seeing someone use a scope for interesting work, you’ll enjoy the post. There’s even some analysis of how some of the disks probably got the way they are. Between Greaseweazele and an oscilloscope, maybe more data can be saved.
Some
scopes used floppy disks
, so it is entirely possible that one day someone will use a scope to read the disk from a scope. If you want a super USB floppy drive try
FluxEngine
. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350463",
"author": "yetihehe",
"timestamp": "2021-05-21T07:10:11",
"content": "> As a bonus, they can let us hear what the floppy data sounds like if you shift it into the human hearing range. Unsurprisingly, it sounds like an old modem.Semisurprisingly, most of data transfers hear... | 1,760,373,078.086505 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/20/project-starline-realizes-asimovs-3d-vision/ | Project Starline Realizes Asimov’s 3D Vision | Al Williams | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"google hacks",
"News",
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"google",
"google starline",
"starline",
"trimensional personification",
"video conferencing",
"WebEx",
"zoom"
] | Issac Asimov wrote
Caves of Steel
in 1953. In it, he mentions something called trimensional personification. In an age before WebEx and Zoom, imagining that people would have remote meetings replete with 3D holograms was pretty far-sighted. We don’t know if any Google engineers read the book, but they are trying to create a very similar experience with project
Starline
.
The system is one of those that seems simple on the face of it, but we are sure the implementation isn’t easy. You sit facing something that looks like a window. The other person shows up in 3D as though they were on the other side of the window. Think prison visitation without the phone handset. The camera is mounted such that you look naturally at the other person through your virtual window.
Since you are sitting in a relatively fixed position, making a 3D display without headgear is much easier. From the video demonstrations, the display is awfully good, too. Of course, there are only a few Starline setups in Google offices today, but it does give you an idea of where things are probably going.
Then again, there’s no reason you couldn’t try cooking something like this up on your own. Granted, making a really good 3D display is still
pretty difficult
. Then again, you could
always go retro
. | 36 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350418",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2021-05-21T02:26:41",
"content": "Ah great. Add some “agony” to that booth and realize our Trek fantasies.Thing is these booths run smack into the desire for telecommuting because only the most monied (and hooked up) will be able to use ... | 1,760,373,078.265271 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/20/spherical-keyboard-build-leaves-hacker-well-rounded/ | Spherical Keyboard Build Leaves Hacker Well-Rounded | Kristina Panos | [
"Lifehacks",
"Microcontrollers",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"dactyl",
"dactyl keyboard",
"dactyl manuform",
"Elite-C",
"ergonomic keyboard",
"force feedback",
"mechanical keyboard",
"pointing device",
"QMK",
"stainless steel"
] | Often times we as hackers don’t know what we’re doing, and we sally forth and do it anyway. Here at Hackaday, we think that’s one of the best ways to go about a new project, and the absolute fastest way to learn a whole lot as you go. Just ask [Aaron Rasmussen] regarding this
spherical, standing 5×6 dactyl manuform keyboard build
, which you can see in a three-part short video series embedded after the break.
[Aaron] gets right down to it in the first video. He had to get creative right away, slicing up the dactyl manuform model to fit on a tiny print bed. However, there’s plenty of room inside the sphere for all that wiring and a pair of Elite-C microcontrollers running QMK. Be sure to turn on the sound to hear the accompanying voice-overs.
The second video answers our burning question: how exactly does one angle grind a slippery sphere without sacrificing sheen or shine? We love the solution, which involves swaddling the thing in duct tape and foam.
You may be wondering how [Aaron] is gonna use any kind of mouse while standing there at the pedestal keyboard. While there is space for a mouse to balance on top, this question is answered in the third video, where [Aaron] learns the truth behind the iconic ThinkPad nubbin and applies this knowledge to build a force-feedback joystick/trackpoint mouse. Awesome answer, [Aaron]!
Not ready to go full-tilt, sci-fi prop ergo?
Dip your toe in the DIY waters with a handy macropad
.
@aaronaarontoktok
Making a spherical keyboard.
#craft
#keyboard
#howto
#sculpture
#timelapse
♬ original sound – Aaron Rasmussen
@aaronaarontoktok
A spherical mechanical keyboard. Walt Whitman. Read next Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.
#craft
#sculpture
#timelapse
#poetry
#keyboard
♬ original sound – Aaron Rasmussen
@aaronaarontoktok
Making a joystick mouse for my spherical keyboard. Thanks for all the ideas in your comments!
#keyboard
#mouse
#technology
#howto
#timelapse
♬ original sound – Aaron Rasmussen | 20 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350382",
"author": "Joe.",
"timestamp": "2021-05-20T23:12:41",
"content": "Tik tok?!? Ugh, no thanks!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6350410",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2021-05-21T01:43:31",
"co... | 1,760,373,078.329699 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/20/shop-exhaust-fan-salvaged-from-broken-microwave/ | Shop Exhaust Fan Salvaged From Broken Microwave | Tom Nardi | [
"home hacks",
"Parts"
] | [
"blower fan",
"exhaust",
"fan",
"fume extractor",
"microwave",
"microwave oven"
] | You don’t have to look hard to find a broken microwave. These ubiquitous kitchen appliances are so cheap that getting them repaired doesn’t make economical sense for most consumers, making them a common sight on trash day. But is it worth picking one of them up?
The [DuctTape Mechanic] certainly thinks so. In his latest video, he shows how the
exhaust fan from a dead microwave can easily and cheaply be adapted
to blow smoke and fumes out of your workshop. While it’s obviously not going to move as much air as some of the massive shop fans we’ve covered over the years, if you’re working in a small space like he is, it’s certainly enough to keep the nasty stuff moving in the right direction. Plus as an added bonus, it’s relatively quiet.
Now as you might expect the exact internal components of microwave ovens vary wildly, so there’s no guarantee your curbside score is going to have the same fan as this one. But the [DuctTape Mechanic] tries to give a relatively high-level overview of how to liberate the fan, interpret the circuit diagram on the label, and wire it up so you can plug it into the wall and control it with a simple switch. Similarly, how you actually mount the fan in your shop is probably going to be different, though we did particularly like how he attached his to the window using a pair of alligator clips cut from a frayed jumper cable.
Got a donor microwave but not in the market for a impromptu shop fan? No worries. We recently saw a
dud microwave reborn as a professional looking UV curing chamber
that would be the perfect partner for your resin 3D printer. Or perhaps you’d rather turn it into a
desktop furnace capable of melting aluminum, copper, or bronze
. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350354",
"author": "drenehtsral",
"timestamp": "2021-05-20T20:53:51",
"content": "I have been constructing a home chemistry lab and found that an 80mm EDF intended for a RC jet makes an excellent exhaust fan. (Derating the motor’s maximum power by a factor of four by driving it fr... | 1,760,373,078.378109 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/20/roku-tv-hacked-to-run-philips-ambilight-setup/ | Roku TV Hacked To Run Philips Ambilight Setup | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"ambilight",
"hue",
"philips hue",
"roku",
"roku tv",
"smart tv",
"smart tv hacks",
"tv",
"tv hacks"
] | Roku TVs are interesting beasts, which use automatic content recognition on whatever you happen to be watching in order to market online streaming services direct to your loungeroom.
[Ammar Askar] realised that this technology could instead be used to feed data to a computer to run a Philips Ambilight setup natively from whatever the TV displays.
The core of the hack came about because [Ammar’s] TV doesn’t work natively with Philips Ambilight technology. Most off-the-shelf solutions involve feeding sources, like Chromecasts or game consoles, to a HDMI splitter and then to a PC running the Ambilight software, but it gets messy real quick. Instead, [Ammar] realised that the Roku-enabled TV should be more than capable of working with the Ambilight system, given the capability of its inbuilt hardware.
The hack consists of a custom app running on the Roku hardware, which uses the in-built Roku libraries to capture frames of whatever is being displayed on the TV. It then breaks up the screen into sections and averages the color in each area. This data is then passed to a laptop, which displays the relevant colors on its own screen, where the standard Philips Hue Sync app handles the Ambilight duties.
It’s a great hack and [Ammar] doesn’t skimp on the granular fine details of what it took to get this custom code running on the Roku TV. We’d love to see more hacks of this calibre done on smart TVs; after all, there’s plenty of horsepower under the hood in many cases. Alternatively, you could always follow the CIA’s example and
turn your Samsung TV into a covert listening device
. Video after the break. | 24 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350329",
"author": "mrehorst",
"timestamp": "2021-05-20T19:04:03",
"content": "Interesting hack, but can anyone tell me the point of ambilight?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6350332",
"author": "jalnl",
"ti... | 1,760,373,078.682232 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/20/practical-sensors-the-hall-effect/ | Practical Sensors: The Hall Effect | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"hardware",
"Parts",
"Slider"
] | [
"edwin hall",
"hall effect",
"hall effect sensor",
"magnetometer",
"sensor"
] | Measuring a magnetic field can be very easy with some pretty low tech, or it can be very high tech. It just depends on what kind of measurement you need and how much effort you want to expend. The very simplest magnetic sensors are
reed switches
. These are basically relays with no coil. Instead of a coil, an external magnet gets close enough to make or break the contacts in the reed. You see these a lot in, for example, door alarm sensors.
Then again, there’s no real finesse to a reed. It changes state when it sees enough of a magnetic field and that’s about all. You could use a compass with some sort of detection on the needle to get some more information about the field, but not much more. That was, however, how early magnetometers worked. Today, you have lots of options, including the nearly ubiquitous Hall effect sensor.
You might use a Hall effect to measure the magnetic button on a keyboard key coming down when you press it or the open and closed state of a valve. A lot of Hall effects see service as current monitors. Since a coil generates a magnetic field proportional to the current through it, a magnetic sensor can estimate the current in a coil of wire without any physical contact. Hall effects can also watch a magnet go by in a linear motion system or a rotating system to get an idea of position or speed. For example, check out this brushless motor controller that uses
three sensors to understand the motor’s position
.
History
Edwin Hall identified the effect in 1879. The basic idea is simple: an electrical conductor carrying current will exhibit changes due to an external magnetic field nearby. These changes show up as voltage you measure across the conductor. Normally, the voltage across a conductor will be nearly zero, but with a magnetic field, you’ll get a non-zero reading in proportion to the magnetic field strength in a particular plane, as we’ll see shortly.
Hall effect sensors are just one type of modern magnetometer. There are many different kinds including those that use inductive pickup coils that may or may not rotate or a fluxgate, which is a special type of coil. Some use a scale or a spring to measure force against another magnet — sometimes microscopically. You can even detect a magnetic field using optical properties like the Kerr effect or Faraday rotation.
Then you get into the really exotic sensors. You can also measure proton resonance in hydrogen-rich materials like kerosene or detect energy states in gasses like cesium. Superconducting coils are also on the menu.
Still, Hall effects, especially those using semiconductors, are cheap and plentiful. They are also small. It is hard to imagine your PC keyboard using a superconducting coil to pick up small magnets glued to the bottom of the keys.
How Does it Work?
We like the video from [rcmodelreviews] that talks about the theory behind the Hall Effect (see below). however, the explanation is pretty simple even with no video. Consider a conductive sheet shaped like a dollar bill. Connected across the left and right sides is a constant voltage source, causing a current to flow through the conductor. If you measure the voltage — the Hall voltage — across the top and bottom of the bill, you’d expect the voltage to be nearly zero if the conductor is any good. With no magnetic field present, you would be right. The voltage across the top and bottom will be practically zero volts.
However, when a magnetic field is present with flux lines at right angles to the bias current, a Lorentz force acts on the electrons — or other charge carriers, such as holes — and they will bend away from the force as you can see in this animation. This will cause electrons to group together on one side of the conductor and tend to be absent from the other side.
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Hall_Sensor.webm
Hall effect animation is by [FraunhoferIIS],
CC-BY-SA-4.0
.
This causes the two sides to have different charges, and where we have a charge differential, we must have a voltage. In the animation, you can see the battery providing the current flow and the meter measuring the Hall effect voltage as the horseshoe magnet applies different magnetic fields to the device.
A practical device will have additional circuitry. Usually, there’s an amplifier for the Hall voltage. Sometimes there’s a regulator for the bias voltage. A digital output sensor may have a comparator and an output transistor, too.
Reading the Datasheet
Every device is different, so it pays to read the
datasheet
for the one you want to use. Hall effects generally have limitations on frequency range and can be rather expensive. Melexis, for example, has a 250 kHz device, and that’s much faster than many other similar products. That particular device requires 5 V and less than 15 mA to operate.
From the datasheet, you can see there are two versions. One can operate up to about 7.5 millitesla and the other works around 20 millitesla. There’s even a version that can work to 60 millitesla. Of course, there are many other choices from other vendors with different parameters.
Some sensors output a voltage proportional to the sensed magnetic field or you can get a digital on/off type sensor. Obviously, if you expect to deploy a sensor, you’ll need different support for whichever sensors you choose to use. In some cases, you don’t even need an external device. The ESP32, for example, has its own Hall effect built in, as you can see in this video.
Building with Hall Effect Sensors
If you want to build your own Hall effect projects, there are plenty to choose from. A
portable magnetometer
is quite simple and lives in a Tic Tac box. If you are
measuring current
, you might want to use a device that contains not just the Hall effect sensor, but everything else you need, too.
Or, why not build something new? If you do, though, be sure to send us
a note on the tip line
, so we can spread the word about your latest creation. | 22 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350308",
"author": "Reactive Light",
"timestamp": "2021-05-20T17:33:26",
"content": "Could you improve the sensitivity by using a flux capacitor?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6350309",
"author": "YGDES",
"t... | 1,760,373,078.613549 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/20/3d-printing-omni-balls-for-robot-locomotion/ | 3D Printing Omni-Balls For Robot Locomotion | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"omniball",
"wheel",
"wheels"
] | Wheels are all well and good for getting around, but they only tend to rotate about a single axis. Omni-wheels exist, but they’re still a little too pedestrian for [James Bruton].
His latest project involved 3D printing custom omni-balls which roll in all directions.
(Video, embedded below.)
The omniball concept comes from earlier work by Osaka University
, which also produced a treaded tank-like vehicle by the name OmniCrawler as well. The spherical design, fitted with an axle and casters as well, allows rotation in multiple directions, allowing for a platform fitted with such omni-balls to easily rotate and translate in all directions.
[James] set about creating his own version of the design, which relies on grippy TPU filament for grip pads to give the 3D printed hemispheres some much needed grip. There’s also bearings inside to allow for the relative rotation between the hemispheres and the internal castor, necessary to allow the wheels to move smoothly when sitting on either pole of the hemispheres. Skate bearings were then used to assemble three of the omni-balls onto a single platform, which demonstrated the ability of the balls to roll smoothly in all directions.
While it’s just a demonstration of the basic idea for now, we can imagine these balls being used to great effect for a robot platform that needs to navigate in tight spaces on smooth surfaces with ease. The mechanical complexity of the omni-balls probably negates their effective use in dirtier offroad contexts, however.
We’ve seen [James]’s work before too –
such as his compliant leg design for walking robots,
and his
active gyroscope balancer
last week. When does [James] sleep?
[Thanks to Baldpower for the tip!] | 6 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350293",
"author": "Steven Clark",
"timestamp": "2021-05-20T16:56:58",
"content": "Next stop homemade Tachikomas",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6350334",
"author": "Greg Graham",
"timestamp": "2021-05-20T19:2... | 1,760,373,078.419049 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/19/transparent-hard-drive-gives-peek-at-the-platters/ | Transparent Hard Drive Gives Peek At The Platters | Tom Nardi | [
"computer hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"acrylic",
"hard drive",
"hdd",
"transparent"
] | Solid-state drives (SSDs) are all the rage these days, and for good reason. But that doesn’t mean the era of the spinning disk is over, as traditional mechanical hard drives still offer a compelling value for mass storage applications where access times aren’t as critical. But the components inside these “slow” mechanical drives are still moving at incredible speeds, which
[The Developer Guy] has nicely illustrated with his transparent hard drive
.
Now unfortunately the technology to produce a
fully
transparent hard drive doesn’t exist, but laser cutting a new top plate out of acrylic is certainly within the means of the average hacker. The process is pretty straightforward: cut out a piece of clear plastic in the same shape and size as the drive’s original lid, put the appropriate mounting holes in it, and find some longer screws to accommodate the increased thickness.
Because this is just for a demonstration, [The Developer Guy] doesn’t need to worry too much about dust or debris getting on the platters; but we should note that performing this kind of modification on a drive you intend on actually using would be a bad idea unless you’ve got a cleanroom to work in.
In the videos below [The Developer Guy] records the drive while it’s in use, and at one point puts a microscope on top of the plastic to get a close-up view of the read/write head twitching back and forth. We particularly liked the time-lapse of the drive being formatted, as you can see the arm smoothly moving towards the center of the drive. Unfortunately the movement of the platters themselves is very difficult to perceive given their remarkably uniform surface, but make no mistake, they’re spinning at several thousand RPM.
Have an old mechanical drive of your own that you’re not sure what to do with? We’ve seen them
turned into POV clocks
, impromptu
rotary encoders
, and even
surprisingly powerful blower fans
. | 29 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349964",
"author": "k-ww",
"timestamp": "2021-05-19T18:43:38",
"content": "BASF in the late 70’s / early 80’s made a 24Megabyte hard drive with a plexi cover in an 8″ floppy form factor. Unfortunately, the main body was out of a fiber reinforced plastic, so it both had to be shiel... | 1,760,373,078.808921 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/19/river-cleanup-aims-to-expand-in-earnest-to-tackle-plastic-pollution/ | River Cleanup Aims To Expand In Earnest To Tackle Plastic Pollution | Lewin Day | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Interest",
"News",
"Original Art"
] | [] | The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is just one of a number of pollution disasters affecting the world’s oceans. All over the globe, huge amounts of plastic enter waterways every day, causing havoc in delicate ecosystems.
Heading up the charge to deal with the problem, The Ocean Cleanup have been working on a variety of projects to help clean up plastic pollution. Chief among these is their river cleanup efforts, aiming to stop plastic pollution from reaching the ocean in the first place. The non-profit group intends to rapidly scale up its efforts,
partnering with Finnish industrial manufacturer Konecranes
in order to put its latest river cleaning design into series production.
We last reported on the group’s efforts in 2020
, with their Interceptor craft operating in rivers in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Dominican Republic. They’ve since refined the design for better functionality and easier deployment. Let’s jump in and see what they’ve learned and how their hunt for plastic pollution is shaping up.
A Gargantuan Task
One of the first Interceptors in action. River plastic is collected into dumpsters on board which are then emptied for processing on land.
The Ocean Cleanup was founded in 2013, aiming to find a solution to clean up plastic pollution in the open ocean. However, in years, since the group’s focus has shifted to other areas as well, as modelling has shown that stemming plastic flows from the world’s rivers can be more effective than capturing it once it’s in the ocean itself.
The Interceptors use floating barriers to allow river flows to guide plastics into the capture machinery.
Much focus has been placed on correctly identifying the greatest sources of plastic pollution, in order to best focus the cleanup where it can make the biggest difference.
The latest research dives deep into the causal factors behind plastic outflows
, and further reinforces previous studies that suggest up to 80% of ocean plastic flows out of just 1,000 rivers worldwide. Populated areas close to rivers or oceans, particularly those with poor waste management practices, are the most likely to produce large amounts of plastic pollution that finds its way to the ocean. Other factors, such as rainfall and terrain elevation can also play a role in where discarded plastic ends up.
Taking Things Up A Notch
The Ocean Cleanup has taken the lessons learned from its first four river-based Interceptor craft, which autonomously collect plastic waste from rivers before it can flow out to the ocean. This knowledge has led to the development of the upgraded third-generation Interceptor, which aims to work more efficiently than its predecessors. The new design mounts a bigger conveyor belt and larger dumpsters to process larger amounts of trash with less blockages. It’s also been redesigned with an eye to containerization, allowing Interceptors to be more readily shipped around the world and deployed more easily.
Interceptors 005 and 006 under construction at Konecranes’ Malaysian facility.
Two of the new Interceptors are being manufactured in Konecranes’ MHE-Demag facility in Malaysia for future deployment, with a further craft designated for Los Angeles later this year. It’s intended for the Finnish company to run production and servicing for the Interceptor craft going forward, drawing on their industrial machinery experience to build and maintain the fleet in the most efficient manner possible. Mainstream rock band Coldplay have also jumped on board,
sponsoring the build of Interceptor-005,
with the band citing their passionate support of the project.
A render of the original Interceptor next to the newer design on the right.
In an interview with
CNET
,
CEO Boyan Slat highlighted that the first two Interceptors built with Konecranes will be used to validate the operational model
, while not providing a clear timetable for full series production. The company has committed to production of ten Interceptors at this stage. The upgrades will be key to the success of the project, with Slat stating “We’ve found that we can still further reduce the cost, the ease of rollout and the ease of assembly to really speed up the deployment as much as possible while also making it more efficient.” He goes on to say “We found [the previous Interceptor] often would clog when it comes to very large debris. So widening that will help also improve the reliability of the operation.”
Today the Rivers, Tomorrow the Ocean
The organisation hasn’t forgotten about the ocean either,
with the group set to deploy System 002 in 2021
– the latest iteration of its ocean-scouring rig. It aims to solve some of the operational issues with earlier designs of the group’s original headline project, which struggled to effectively collect large amounts of garbage in early deployments. As an aside to the project, The Ocean Cleanup also
produced a run of sunglasses
produced with the plastic harvested in early missions. However, the effort was more of an aid to promote the group’s work rather than a major push towards commercialization. “We don’t plan to become a products organisation; our focus is to clean the oceans,” said Slat.
With a thousand rivers and the entire Great Pacific Garbage Patch on the organisation’s target list, obviously a huge amount of funding will be required to produce enough Interceptors to do the job, as well as a monumental effort to work with local governments on the red tape prior to deployment. The basic concept remains a good one, and the hardware better than ever, but The Ocean Cleanup still faces an uphill battle in the fight against water-borne plastic pollution. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349944",
"author": "Rok",
"timestamp": "2021-05-19T17:48:25",
"content": "It is a welcome solution for macroplastic, but i suspect it’s only the tip of the plastiberg, and smaller or just non-floating debris won’t be caught by this setup…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,373,078.737501 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/19/linus-akessons-a-mind-is-born-commodore-64-demo-in-just-256-bytes/ | Linus Åkesson’s ‘A Mind Is Born’ Commodore 64 Demo In Just 256 Bytes | Maya Posch | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"commodore 64",
"demo",
"demoscene"
] | It would be an understatement to say that the Commodore 64 demo scene is quite amazing. For those who are unaware, a ‘demo’ in this context is essentially a technological demonstration. Usually to show off particular effects or other (visual) properties that either push the limits of the platform on which it is being run, or use its hardware in a special fashion. In the case of [Linus Åkesson]’s
A Mind Is Born
demo, the challenge was to do as much as possible in 256 bytes, while providing an audiovisual experience.
Although at first glance 256 bytes may sound like a lot to work with, this code has to generate the entire melody that is output via the Commodore 64’s SID audio chip, while simultaneously generating an attractive visual pattern. This is quite an undertaking, as the video capture of the result (included after the break) makes clear. The secret sauce here is to make use of the C64’s SID audio & VIC-II video chips.
Driven by a 60 Hz timer interrupt, the three voices of the SID are used to play the kick drum and bass, melody and drone respectively, creating the 64 total bars of the music using a linear-feedback shift register (
LFSR
). This means that the melody is in a sense randomly generated, but deterministically enough to sound pleasing to the human ear.
For the visual side, the C64 runs in Extended Character Mode, using fonts along with a background color to create interesting patterns using what is essentially a
cellular automaton
algorithm. While there are some visual glitches due overwriting of video data, and a race condition, these end up adding to the charm. The resulting audio track is pretty catchy too, and absolutely worthy of a listen.
Thanks for the tip, Johannes!
(That banner image? That _is_ the whole code.) | 36 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349910",
"author": "Daniel Johnson",
"timestamp": "2021-05-19T16:12:05",
"content": "A single frame from the video is more bytes than the entire program was written with",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6349957",
"auth... | 1,760,373,078.880853 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/19/raspberry-pi-rp2040-hands-on-experiences-from-an-stm32-perspective/ | Raspberry Pi RP2040: Hands-On Experiences From An STM32 Perspective | Maya Posch | [
"ARM",
"Featured",
"hardware",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"arm",
"arm cortex m0",
"CMSIS",
"raspberry pi",
"rp2040",
"stm32"
] | The release of the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s Raspberry Pi Pico board with RP2040 microcontroller has made big waves these past months in the maker community. Many have demonstrated how especially the two Programmable I/O (PIO) state machine peripherals can be used to create DVI video generators and other digital peripherals.
Alongside this excitement, it raises the question of whether any of this will cause any major upheaval for those of us using STM32, SAM and other Cortex-M based MCUs. Would the RP2040 perhaps be a valid option for some of our projects? With the RP2040 being a dual Cortex-M0+ processor MCU, it seems only fair to put it toe to toe with the offerings from one of the current heavyweights in the 32-bit ARM MCU space: ST Microelectronics.
Did the Raspberry Pi Foundation pipsqueak manage to show ST’s engineers how it’s done, or should the former revisit some of their assumptions? And just how hard is it going to be to port low-level code from STM32 to RP2040?
How Hard Could it Be?
Raspberry Pi Pico RP2040-based board, hooked up to a Raspberry Pi SBC acting as SWD dongle.
Long story short, after the RP2040 caught my eye, I figured it might be interesting to try and port my
C++-based STM32 framework
to this new MCU. Not so much for the dual Cortex-M0+ cores, though, as I have STM32H7 dual-core (M4 & M7) MCUs lying around which will handily beat the stuffing out of an RP2040 with gobs more I/O to spare. What mostly intrigued me was this state machine peripheral (PIO) in the RP2040 that seemed worthy of a closer look.
Based on my experience with STM32, I figured I could quickly port over some files, create a new ‘RP’ architecture branch in the project and be off to the races. Cortex-M is Cortex-M, right? The usual procedure with a new ARM-based MCU is to get the datasheets, reference manual and the CMSIS device files. After this one can easily adapt the low-level code to use the new peripheral naming & register layout, while core-level devices (SysTick, NVIC, etc.) stay the same.
Perhaps naively, I had put in an order for a Raspberry Pi Pico board before even checking for CMSIS support, or glancing at the reference manual. To my surprise, I found that CMSIS support or even interoperability with the rest of the Cortex-M ecosystem
was not yet on the radar
. Still, the SVD file for RP2040 MCU is provided in the ‘Pico SDK’, which can be used to
generate the device header
from. Courtesy of Chris Hockuba’s efforts on
bootstrapping CMSIS
with the RP2040 I eventually had a working solution together.
This Could be Easier
RP2040 boot sequence (RP2040 datasheet, Fig. 15).
With an STM32 project, there are a few items required to make a bare-metal project work on a target MCU. These include the start-up code which performs some basic setting up of the environment as well as the vector table for interrupt handlers. There’s also the
linker script
to ensure that all bits end up at the right memory offset. This is all fairly minimal, with the MCU upon boot loading the firmware image from Flash ROM at the default address.
The first hurdle with the RP2040 is to understand its chained bootloader process. Much like with bootable floppy disks of yore, or a HDD/SSD in a PC, the external QSPI Flash ROM is treated essentially as a potential boot device by the MCU. The first stage bootloader is integrated into the MCU in boot ROM, address 0x0000 0000, which upon boot checks the QSPI interface to try and load 256 bytes from it. This will be checked for a valid CRC32 hash match and assumed to be the second stage bootloader if it matches.
There are a lot of things which this second stage bootloader could do and some which are required. Suffice it to say for now that compared to some
famous STM32 clones
– such as the GigaDevices
I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-a-genuine-STM32
clones – which also use SPI ROMs, this whole process with the RP2040 is not as intuitive, well-documented or transparent as it could be, with plenty of stumbling blocks.
Good Artists Copy
It took me a fair bit of digging around in the
RP2040 datasheet
and asking around to figure out how the peripheral clock manager in STM32 maps to the RP2040 system architecture. As it turns out, the RP2040’s version is called RESETS and works basically in reverse: you have to unset the reset condition on a block to enable the clock for it. To enable the GPIO clock, you have to toggle bit 8 in RESETS_RESET (PADS_BANK0).
Block diagram of an RP2040 GPIO pad.
That figured out, I looked at the GPIO peripheral section in the documentation (section 2.19). One thing is immediately apparent: this is completely different from the STM32, AVR, SAM and most other GPIO peripherals I have ever seen.
While most chips have one or two registers per function, and you shift bits into them to activate that function for a particular pin, the RP2040 has a register per pin and you shift bits into a place that dictates the function. It’s a unique choice, and I had to write some custom code to look up the memory address of the control registers for each pin.
After going through all of this effort, surely it will just work, right?
Boot Shenanigans
As mentioned before, the second stage bootloader has to be located at the beginning of the firmware image. Since I figured this had to be some generic code, I simply took the ready-to-use ASM code that got spat out by the official PicoSDK while building the
Blinky
example. With this added to the RP2040 Nodate port, the
Blinky
example built without issues.
Flashing the resulting ELF binary to the RP2040 was the next challenge, as there is no onboard ST-Link-style SWD adapter on the Raspberry Pi Pico board, and as a dual-core Cortex-M MCU, it requires a multi-drop SWD adapter. So far the only multi-drop SWD adapters which I have are integrated on STM32H7 Nucleo boards. Thus I decided to use the
custom OpenOCD fork
which was created by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, running it on a Raspberry Pi SBC.
With all that in place, I successfully flashed the firmware to the RP2040 and… got absolutely nothing. From a cursory inspection it appeared that the code never got past the initial boot loader and into the actual firmware in the SPI ROM. Whether this is due to an issue related to the second stage bootloader ASM, something in the experimental RP2040 CMSIS files which I had to borrow from someone else’s efforts, or due to something else entirely is hard to say at this point.
To Be Continued?
After spending quite a few hours on making bare-metal RP2040 work using cobbled together CMSIS and second stage bootloader files, it felt like the right time to take a few steps back and reevaluate. Since my initial evaluation of the RP2040, the
CMSIS feature request
in the Pico SDK tracker has joyfully been updated with the suggestion that official CMSIS support may be added with the 1.2.0 release of the Pico SDK.
I think it makes sense for anyone who wants to get intimate with the RP2040 using industry standard tools to wait for this release. Once it drops, I’ll likely end up revisiting first the Nodate Blinky example, and then finally check out the PIO peripheral. Having read up on its two state machine architecture, it seems interesting enough. Not as powerful as a CPLD or FPGA, but still extremely useful.
The single RP2040 ‘datasheet’ (more a reference manual & datasheet mashed together) seems to at times forget that it’s supposed to be covering the MCU, and will veer off into being a Pico SDK tutorial. While useful for those who wish to use the SDK, it’s decidedly less useful to those who are writing their own implementation.
From the convoluted GPIO peripheral, the complicated multi-core boot process, and the added hurdle of having to integrate a second stage bootloader along with a non-transparent external ROM, much of it rather grates. You’re going to want to use
the official SDK
.
It’s possible that once one gets used to these design choices, it won’t feel as jarring. Or maybe it’s just a question of working the RP2040 into the standard toolchain. Every new MCU is a bit of a learning experience, after all. | 97 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349887",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2021-05-19T14:48:15",
"content": "i wish maya had gotten to the bottom of why the blinky doesn’t work, so we’d know which deficit was responsible for that stumbling block, and how severe it is…i’m really disappointed in RPF, now that i fin... | 1,760,373,079.024831 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/19/perfecting-paper-planes-peering-past-perspex-portals/ | Perfecting Paper Planes Peering Past Perspex Portals | Michael Shaub | [
"Science"
] | [
"3d print",
"cardboard",
"fan",
"maker faire",
"nasa",
"paper airplane",
"wind tunnel"
] | This wind tunnel
is a pile of junk and we love it! When making science and engineering accessible to kids, it really helps to show that it doesn’t require a fancy research lab. [Jelly & Marshmallows] show kids that it takes little more than cardboard, duct tape, and dumpster-diving to up your paper airplane game to NASA levels of engineering.
[Jelly & Marshmallows] built their wind tunnel for a Maker Faire using the aforementioned cheap and free materials for the straightener, collector, diffuser, and fan sections. We especially love the efficient hack of using stacked ceiling light diffusers rather than hundreds of straws for the straightener.
The most time went into the working section, custom-built from plywood frames and acrylic windows. Many 3D printed parts came together to convert a smoke-ring gun to emit smoke trails and LEDs were employed to make those trails a little easier to see. We think the magnetic clips for quick changes of aircraft and their position along a steel ruler were inspired.
The kids attending the Maker Faire (we miss those!) loved the exhibit, having the best time hitting a big green arcade button to spin up the fan. It’s the little things in life. How would you get the kids even more involved with analyzing aerodynamics and make the smoke trails more visible?
Thanks for the tip [Rómulo Antão] | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349847",
"author": "dgrc",
"timestamp": "2021-05-19T12:13:08",
"content": "Collect (or or model) everything you’ve ever seen tumble slowly from the sky.Maple seeds come most immediately to mind. Turn the tunnel upright (yeah, I know, easier said than done) and drive the fan with a ... | 1,760,373,079.077132 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/19/repairing-a-vintage-hp-9825-the-hard-way/ | Repairing A Vintage HP 9825 The Hard Way | Jonathan Bennett | [
"computer hacks",
"Repair Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"CuriousMarc",
"repair",
"retro computer"
] | [CuriousMarc] is at it again, this time trying to
undo the damage from a poorly designed power circuit, that fried the internals of his HP 9825 computer
. (Video, embedded below.)
The power supply on this particular model has a failure mode where a dying transistor can lead to 13 V on the 5 V line. This causes all the havoc one would expect on the internals of a 1970s era portable computer. This particular computer is rather rare, so instead of calling it a lost cause, our protagonist decides to replace the faulty transistor, install a proper overvoltage protection circuit, and then start the tedious hunt for which chips actually let their magic smoke out.
It helps that [Marc] has a second, known-working machine, so he can isolate individual parts and identify problems. There were plenty of problems, and a handful of false positives, but after replacing four blown chips, the machine finally boots again. There are eight episodes of troubleshooting, and they’re full of information and troubleshooting tips for this era of hardware. Set a couple hours aside, and enjoy the trip down the retro repair rabithole. | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349841",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2021-05-19T11:46:52",
"content": "Sad to hear. HP was known for quality engineering, hopefully this power supply was an anomaly. On the upside, CuriousMarc is an excellent choice to fix it. And HP manuals are complete with circuit ... | 1,760,373,079.253906 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/18/omnibot-from-the-80s-gets-led-matrix-eyes-camera/ | Omnibot From The 80s Gets LED Matrix Eyes, Camera | Donald Papp | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"computer vision",
"eyes",
"led matrix",
"omnibot",
"raspberry pi",
"robot",
"Tomy"
] | [Ramin assadollahi] has been busy rebuilding and improving an Omnibot 5402, and the last piece of hardware he wanted to upgrade was
some LED matrix eyes and a high quality Raspberry Pi camera for computer vision
. An Omnibot was something most technical-minded youngsters remember drooling over in the 80s, and when [ramin] bought a couple of used units online, he went straight to the workbench to give the vintage machines some upgrades. After all, the
Omnibot 5402
was pretty remarkable for its time, but is capable of much more with some modern hardware. One area that needed improvement was the eyes.
The eyes on the original Omnibot could light up, but that’s about all they were capable of. The first upgrade was installing two 8×8 LED matrix displays to form what [ramin] calls
Minimal Expressive Eyes
(MEE), powered by a Raspberry Pi. With the help of a 3D-printed adapter and some clever layout, the LED matrix displays fit behind the eye plate, maintaining the original look while opening loads of new output possibilities.
Adding a high quality Raspberry Pi camera with wide-angle lens was a bit more challenging and required and extra long camera ribbon connector, but with the lens nestled just below the eyes, the camera has a good view and isn’t particularly noticeable when the eyes are lit up. Having already upgraded the rest of the hardware, all that remains now is software work and we can’t wait to see the results.
Two short videos of the hardware are embedded below, be sure to give them a peek. And when you’re ready for more 80s-robot-upgrading-action,
check out the Hero Jr
.
r | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349808",
"author": "Gregg Eshelman",
"timestamp": "2021-05-19T06:48:04",
"content": "I’d like to see someone replace all the innards in an Androbot BOB. The Androbot’s wheels are the shape of a shallow, truncated cone and steeply angled. Along with the heavy, lead acid battery posi... | 1,760,373,079.202048 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/21/new-part-day-esp32-wroom-da/ | New Part Day: ESP32-WROOM-DA | Jenny List | [
"Parts",
"Slider"
] | [
"ESP32",
"espressif",
"wifi"
] | We’re always interested in the latest from the world’s semiconductor industry here at Hackaday, but you might be forgiven for noticing something a little familiar about today’s offering from Espressif. The
ESP32-WROOM-DA
has more than a passing resemblance to the ESP32-WROOM dual-core-microcontroller-with-WiFi module that we’ve seen on so many projects over the last few years because it’s a WROOM, but this one comes with a nifty trick to deliver better WiFi connectivity.
The clever WiFi trick comes in the form of a pair of antennas at 90 degrees to each other. It’s a miniaturised version of the arrangement with which you might be familiar from home routers, allowing the device to select whichever antenna gives the best signal at any one time.
We can see that the larger antenna footprint will require some thought in PCB design, but otherwise the module has the same pinout as the existing WROVER. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine it nestled in the corner of a board at 45 degrees, and we’re sure that we’ll see it appearing in projects directly. Anything that enhances the connectivity of what has become the go-to wireless microcontroller on these pages can only be a good thing. | 38 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350599",
"author": "Rok",
"timestamp": "2021-05-21T18:47:13",
"content": "ESP32-WROOM-DA ist hier !",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6350608",
"author": "bastetfurry",
"timestamp": "2021-05-21T19:26:24",
... | 1,760,373,079.154196 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/21/retrotechtacular-double-for-nothing/ | Retrotechtacular: Double For Nothing | Jenny List | [
"Interest",
"Retrotechtacular",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"disk doubler",
"ram doubler",
"scam",
"softram"
] | If you are in the market for web hosting in 2021 and you sign up with one of the cloud computing providers, you’ll soon see how the different resources are priced. Storage and bandwidth are cheap, while CPU time is expensive. This reflects the state of a modern computer, in which a typical disk drive now holds a terabyte or more and rising by the year while a new processor is becoming a bottleneck whose performance hasn’t increased as much as the manufacturers would like over models from years ago.
Twice As Much Hardware From A Bit Of Software?
In the early 1990s though it was a different matter. A 486 or early Pentium processor was pretty powerful compared to the DOS or Windows 3.1 software it was expected to run, and it was the memory and disk space attached to it that limited performance… and cost an arm and a leg. There was a period in about 1995 when a supposed fire in a chip factory somewhere sent RAM prices into the hundreds of dollars per megabyte, briefly causing an epidemic of RAM raiding in which criminals would break into offices and take only the SIMs from the computers.
A solution to this problem came perhaps surprisingly from the software industry. Disk Doubler was a DOS driver that promised more disk space, achieving this seemingly impossible feat by compressing the disk to fit more data on it. Processor power swapped for disk space was a reasonable trade at the time so it became extremely popular, and eventually Microsoft incorporated their own disk compression into DOS. In some cases it could even speed up a computer with a slow disk drive, as I found out as a student with a 286 packing an MFM drive.
Something For Nothing, Perhaps It’s Too Good To Be True.
If compression could increase disk space then couldn’t it do the same for RAM? The industry came to the rescue once more with an array of RAM doubler products, first applying the disk doubling technique to on-disk virtual memory, and then doing the same with the contents of the memory itself. The first approach worked at the expense of a system slow-down, while the second, not so much. In fact it was little more than a scam, with software products promising much but delivering absolutely nothing behind the scenes.
The video below the break takes a look at
Syncronys SoftRAM
, and takes us through its operation. There were RAM optimisers for WIndows 3.1 that worked by moving as many items as possible from the 640k of conventional memory in a DOS PC to the extended memory supported by 386 and higher processors. These worked very well in allowing many more processes to run, but while they increased the available conventional memory, they didn’t claim to deliver any extra memory.
SoftRAM by comparison appeared to work in exactly the same way as the disk doublers, and had an impressive dashboard with a meter showing just how much extra memory you had gained by using it. Unfortunately that was the only thing the software did, and investigators soon rumbled the scam. Lawsuits and an FTC investigation followed, and the company finally folded in 1998 with many of its fines and rebates for users unpaid.
At the time, most non-corporate PC users were sitting in front of their first computer, usually bought from a big-box electronics retailer more used to selling appliances. They were sold on wonders of the age such as CD-ROM multimedia discs, and their owners had not yet learned to mistrust software products of uncertain provenance. The term coined for SoftRAM was “Placebo software”, for software that simply reassured the user it was doing something such that they imagined their machine was faster. Given that the company sold 700,000 copies of the software and many of those users never even suspected that there was anything wrong with it, evidently they were on to something. | 52 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350576",
"author": "jonmayo",
"timestamp": "2021-05-21T17:29:16",
"content": "It was (and is) a problem with technology literacy. Computers are magic boxes and most people have no idea how they work. They’re unable to pose a simple thought experiment of what-if’s because they have ... | 1,760,373,079.339162 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/21/hackaday-podcast-119-random-robot-writing-slithering-snake-shenanigans-and-phased-array-phenomena/ | Hackaday Podcast 119: Random Robot Writing, Slithering Snake Shenanigans, And Phased Array Phenomena | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams pick up on the neatest hacks you may have missed. We start off with another “What’s that Sound?” so put your geeky-ears to the test and win a Hackaday Podcast T-shirt. Here are a couple of classic hacks to bring you joy: music based on Markov chains, and a squiggly take on the classic Nokia game of snake. For the more hardcore science geeks we dive into the B Meson news coming out of CERN’s physics experiments. And after taking a detour in bristle-bot-based pen plotting, we unpack the hidden system of pipes that carry oil, gas, diesel, and more from the refinery to your region.
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
(The best 57 MB you’ll download all day!)
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
Google Podcasts
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
Episode 119 Show Notes:
What’s that Sound?
Tell us your answer for this week’s “What’s that sound?”
. Next week on the show we’ll randomly draw one name from the correct answers to win a limited-edition Hackaday Podcast T-shirt. (How limited? So far, limited to two. But I’m sure we’ll make another in a couple weeks.)
New This Week:
2021 Hackaday Prize: Rethink, Refresh, And Rebuild
Siemens accelerates digital marketplace strategy with acquisition of Supplyframe
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Tiny DeLorean Made From Lighters Is A Total Gas
A Phased-Array Ultrasonic 3D Scanner From Scratch
Mapping WiFi Signals In 3 Dimensions
Random Robot Makes Random Art
Autograph: A String Art Printer
Reverse-Engineering An Unknown Microcontroller In E Ink Displays
Play Your Favorite Nokia Game On The Raspberry Pi Pico
Making Minty Fresh Music With Markov Chains: The After Eight Step Sequencer
Remoticon Video: How To Use Max In Your Interactive Projects
Quick Hacks:
Mike’s Picks
Gaming Headset Gets Simple Wireless Charging
Repurpose A Monitor Arm As Microscope Mount
Projecting Moving Images In Air With Lasers
Elliot’s Picks
Actively Balancing A Robot With A Gyroscope
Tape Cutter Makes Short Work Of Through-Hole Resistor Reels
Scanner Captures View-Master Discs As Glorious 3D Videos
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Something’s Up In Switzerland: Explaining The B Meson News From The Large Hadron Collider
The Mysterious Wobble Of Muons
Gassing Up: Understanding The Liquid Fuel Distribution Network | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350936",
"author": "Lesley",
"timestamp": "2021-05-23T17:16:15",
"content": "Can we please talk about the building in Shenzhen?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6351074",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp... | 1,760,373,080.952489 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/21/perfecting-a-3d-printed-camera-motion-control-rig/ | Perfecting A 3D Printed Camera Motion Control Rig | Tom Nardi | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"camera rig",
"motion control",
"slip rings",
"stepper motor"
] | If you’ve ever watched one of those high production value YouTube videos and wondered how they’re able to get those smooth shots where the camera seems to be spinning around an object, you were probably looking at the product of an motorized camera motion system. There’s no question these rigs can produce visually striking shots, but their high cost usually keeps them out of the hands of us lowly hackers.
Unless of course you do like [Andy], and build your own.
The latest version of this impressive rig
features the ability to continuously rotate thanks to commercial 12-wire slip rings, with optical endstops so the machine can still be homed at the beginning of a move. An onboard Raspberry Pi and Arduino Uno are responsible for controlling the stepper motors, the configuration of which ends up being reminiscent of a standard 3D printer.
The MQTT remote can hold a phone for live video.
The software [Andy] has come up with lets him synchronize the camera rig with a small rotating platform he built, which allows for even more complex shots as demonstrated in the video below. It also supports a very slick MQTT-enabled remote controller that he built as a previous project, which makes taking direct control over the camera and monitoring its status much easier.
Want to add a little polish to your own project videos? [Andy] has released all of the files and information you’d need to build your own version of his motion control rig, though we wouldn’t blame you for feeling a bit intimidated by this one. It might not be
the most elaborate camera motion control system we’ve seen
, but it’s certainly up there. If you just want an overhead video and don’t need those fancy tracking shots,
perhaps a modified VESA arm would fit the bill
. | 10 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350573",
"author": "Andy",
"timestamp": "2021-05-21T17:14:39",
"content": "Hey Tom,thank you so much for the article!This made my entire week!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6350633",
"author": "Tenkara Anarchist",
... | 1,760,373,081.408119 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/21/this-week-in-security-watering-hole-attackception-ransomware-trick-and-more-pipeline-news/ | This Week In Security: Watering Hole Attackception, Ransomware Trick, And More Pipeline News | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"pipeline",
"ransomware",
"This Week in Security"
] | In what may be a first for watering hole attacks, we’ve now seen
an attack that targeted watering holes
, or at least water utilities. The way this was discovered is a bit bizarre — it was found by Dragos during
an investigation into the February incident at Oldsmar, Florida
. A Florida contractor that specializes in water treatment runs a WordPress site that hosted a data-gathering script. The very day that the Oldsmar facility was breached, someone from that location visited the compromised website.
You probably immediately think, as the investigators did, that the visit to the website must be related to the compromise of the Oldsmar treatment plant. The timing is too suspect for it to be a coincidence, right? That’s the thing, the compromised site was only gathering browser fingerprints, seemingly later used to disguise a botnet. The attack itself was likely carried out over Teamviewer. I will note that
the primary sources on this story
have named Teamviewer, but call it unconfirmed. Assuming that the breach did indeed occur over that platform, then it’s very unlikely that the website visit was a factor, which is what Dragos concluded. On the other hand, it’s easy enough to imagine a scenario where the recorded IP address from the visit led to a port scan and the discovery of a VNC or remote desktop port left open.
One Weird Ransomware Trick
This time it’s not clickbait, we promise. This
really is a weird trick
, and it really does prevent some ransomware infections. Blame [Brian Krebs] for the clickbait title, because he made this oddity well known.
A sizable chunk of ransomware campaigns are run out of Russia, including the Colonial Pipeline attack by DarkSide. Historically, Russian officials have been somewhat laissez-faire towards computer crime committed by Russian nationals, so long as the victims were not Russian, or from an allied state. (Though there is news about that, we’ll cover in a moment.) How does a Russian criminal check where their potential victim lives? One way is to check for the languages installed on the machine, as part of the ransomware install. So the trick? Install the Russian language and Cyrillic virtual keyboard. It’s not a guaranteed solution, by any means, but it might just keep you out of trouble, and it won’t hurt.
QNAP
We have even more bad news for QNAP and their users. First,
a new pair of vulnerabilities were just announced
, one in the MusicStation app, and the other, ironically, in the MalwareRemover app. The initial report was in September of last year, and the fixed versions were published on or before May 6.
And secondly,
the Qlocker ransomware campaign has been taken down
. That sounds like a good thing, but with the end of the campaign also comes the end of the opportunity to pay for decryption keys. So far, there hasn’t been a decryption program released, and this looks like the end of the line for decrypting the ransomed data, until someone can crack it.
The Pipeline
News continues to come in regarding the Colonial Pipeline, some of which was rumored last week. First off, it’s been confirmed that
it was the corporate network that was hit with the Ransomware
, and not the pipeline operations itself. I know many have been quite frustrated by the news that the outage was actually caused by the billing systems going down. Before you get your pitchforks out, remember that a bankrupt company doesn’t pump gasoline down the pipeline, either.
In what is welcome news,
DarkSide seems to be disbanded
, some of their accounts seized, and at least some of their bitcoin drained, probably by law enforcement. In other words, the pipeline attack achieved political critical mass, and a chain reaction was kicked off, leading to law enforcement action, maybe even by Russian authorities. Regardless of the details, it sounds like decryption tools will be released, and this particular ransomware gang is done.
International Insurer and Ransomware
One of the big international insurers,
AXA, was hit by a triple-threat ransomware campaigns over the past weekend
. It doesn’t appear to be the entire company, but a handful offices in Asia were compromised. After the compromise, a coordinated DDoS attack was launched against their websites. The worst part of the attack is that data, some of it very personal, was exfiltrated in addition to being encrypted. This includes medical reports and legal identification documents. The ironic part is that AXA had announced a new policy just a week earlier, that their French policies would no longer reimburse for ransom payments. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350543",
"author": "Alice Lalita Heald",
"timestamp": "2021-05-21T14:20:01",
"content": "Ironic AXA case, hope they learn :D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6350551",
"author": "Piotrsko",
"timestamp": "2021-05-21T14:44... | 1,760,373,080.997845 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/21/building-a-quick-and-dirty-rc-mower-with-fpv/ | Building A Quick And Dirty RC Mower With FPV | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"FPV",
"grass",
"mower"
] | Mowing the lawn can be a tedious job. Tired of the effort involved,
[i did a thing] decided to enlist the help of [Makers Muse] to build a radio controlled mower instead to make the backyard chore a little more interesting.
(Video, embedded below.)
The mowing itself is done by a typical push-along garden mower with a gasoline engine. However, it’s fitted with twin DC gear motors harvested from a mobility scooter. The mowers original front wheels were also removed, replaced with casters from the same mobility scooter that donated the drive train. Off-the-shelf speed controllers were then used to run the motors, and hooked up to an RC receiver. The mower could then be steered via a radio controller set up with mixing to enable the twin-motor setup to steer and drive.
An FPV camera was then fitted on the front of the mower, sitting on a stack of kitchen sponges that act as a isolator to negate the effects of the engine vibrations on the camera. The result is a relatively smooth video feed, allowing the operator to sit at a comfortable distance and control the mower via radio and goggles.
It may not be the most effective way of trimming the lawn, but it does look like a fun project, and sometimes that’s all that matters. Of course,
you could always upgrade to a fully autonomous mower instead
. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350550",
"author": "UnderSampled",
"timestamp": "2021-05-21T14:41:28",
"content": "I guess you could say they used an Inertial Dampener for image stabilization.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6350553",
"author": "ome... | 1,760,373,081.267009 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/21/with-a-big-enough-laser-the-world-is-your-sensor/ | With A Big Enough Laser, The World Is Your Sensor | Tom Nardi | [
"Laser Hacks",
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"big data",
"laser",
"retroreflector",
"sensing",
"vibration"
] | It’s difficult to tell with our dull human senses, but everything around us is vibrating. Sure it takes more energy to get big objects like bridges and houses humming compared to a telephone pole or mailbox, but make no mistake, they’ve all got a little buzz going on. With their new automated laser, the team behind VibroSight++ believes they can exploit this fact to
make city-scale sensing far cheaper and easier than ever before
.
The key to the system is a turret mounted Class 3B infrared laser and photodetector that can systematically scan for and identity reflective surfaces within visual range. Now you might think that such a setup wouldn’t get much of a signal from the urban landscape, but as it so happens, the average city block is packed with retroreflectors. From street signs to road studs and license plates, the team estimates dense urban areas have approximately 7,000 reflectors per square kilometer. On top of those existing data points, additional reflectors could easily be added to particularly interesting devices that city planners might want to monitor.
Once VibroSight++ has identified its targets, the next step is to bounce the laser off of them and detect the minute perturbations in the returned signal caused by vibrations in the reflector. In the video below you can see how this basic concept could be put to practical use in the field, from counting how many cars pass over a certain stretch of road to seeing how popular a specific mailbox is. There’s a whole world of information out there just waiting to be collected, all without having to install anything more exotic than the occasional piece of reflective tape.
If this technology seems oddly familiar, it’s probably because we covered the team’s earlier work that focused (no pun intended) on
using reflected laser beams for home automation in 2018
. Back then they were aiming a much smaller laser at blenders and refrigerators instead of license plates and street signs, but the concept is otherwise the same. While we’ll admit the
technology does give off a distinctive Orwellian vibe
, it’s hard not to
be intrigued by the “Big Data” possibilities
afforded by the team’s upgraded hardware and software. | 31 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350470",
"author": "Rick",
"timestamp": "2021-05-21T08:13:58",
"content": "Point it at a window and listen in to anyone. Nice surveillance network.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6350487",
"author": "jwrm22",
... | 1,760,373,081.17874 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/18/fir-filters-for-xilinx/ | FIR Filters For Xilinx | Al Williams | [
"FPGA"
] | [
"digital signal processing",
"dsp",
"FIR",
"FIR filter",
"fpga",
"mac",
"verilog"
] | Digital filters are always an interesting topic, and they are especially attractive with FPGAs. [Pabolo] has been working with them in a series of blog posts. The
latest
covers an 8th order FIR filter in Verilog. He covers some math, which you can find in many places, but he also shows how an implementation maps to DSP slices in a device. Then to reduce the number of slices, he illustrates folding which trades delay time for slice usage.
Folding takes a multi-stage parallel multiplication and breaks it into fewer multiplications done over a longer period of time. This reuses slices to reduce the number required for high-order filters.
By the end, you can see three different implementations of the same filter and it is illustrative how each one uses resources, power, and time. The code is all available on
GitHub
. The posts focus mostly on Xilinx, although there is also discussion of other DSP block styles.
Mathematically, an FIR filter has no poles which means it is always stable. However, compared to IIR filters which use state information, they require higher filter orders to get similar performance.
If you want to play with FIR filtering, you could do some
simulations
. Or you could
use a spreadsheet
. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349800",
"author": "macsimski",
"timestamp": "2021-05-19T05:25:00",
"content": "For the first time for me on hackaday I had no idea what this all is about and had to look up all acronyms except fpga. I feel youg again.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,373,081.357026 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/18/toolchanging-printers-get-a-nozzle-hanky-like-no-other/ | Toolchanging Printers Get A Nozzle Hanky Like No Other | Sonya Vasquez | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"News"
] | [
"3d printer",
"3D printer nozzle",
"multimaterial",
"nozzle cleaning",
"toolchanger",
"toolchanging"
] | When it comes to toolchanging 3D printers, idle nozzles tend to drool. Cleaning out that nozzle goo, though, is critical before switching them into use. And since switching nozzles can happen hundreds of times
per print
, having a rock-solid cleaning solution is key to making crisp clean parts. [Kevin Mardirossian] wasn’t too thrilled with the existing solutions for cleaning, so he developed
the
Pebble Wiper
, a production worthy nozzle wicking widget that’s wicked away nozzles thousands of times flawlessly.
With a little inspiration from [BigBrain3D’s]
retractable purge mechanism
, [Kevin] is first purging tools onto a brass brad. Rather than have filament extrude into free space, it collects into a small bloblike “pebble” that cools quickly into a controlled shape. From here, after one quick flick with a servo arm and a small wipe with a silicone basting brush, the nozzle is ready to use. The setup might sound simple, but it’s the result of thousands and thousands of tests with the goal of letting no residual ooze attach itself to the actual part being printed. And that’s
after
[Kevin] put the time into scratch-building his own toolchanging 3D printer to test it on first. Finally, he’s kindly
made the files available online on Github
for other hackers’ tinkering and mischief.
So how well does it work? Judging by the results he’s shared, we think spectacularly. Since adopting it, he’s dropped any sacrificial printing artefacts on the bed entirely and been able to consistently pull off stunning multimaterial prints flawlessly with no signs of residual nozzle drool. While toolchanging systems have been great platforms for hacking and exploration, [Kevin’s] Pebble Wiper takes these machines one step closer at hitting “production-level” of reliability that minimizes waste. And who knows? Maybe all those pebbles can be sized to be ground up,
remade into filament
, and
respooled
back into usable filament? | 7 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349799",
"author": "Drew",
"timestamp": "2021-05-19T05:11:57",
"content": "Awesome work! I love that 3d printers run on GCODE so they’re so easy to extend and modify. Imagine if the most popular 3d printers were made by google and used some proprietary closed source system for slic... | 1,760,373,081.449594 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/18/send-old-fashioned-pager-messages-with-new-fashioned-hardware/ | Send Old-Fashioned Pager Messages With New-Fashioned Hardware | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"34u4",
"antenna",
"arduino",
"battery",
"communications",
"pager",
"pcb",
"pocket",
"POCSAG",
"solder"
] | In a world of always-connected devices and 24/7 access to email and various social media and messaging platforms, it’s sometimes a good idea to take a step away from the hustle and bustle for peace of mind. But not
too
big of a step. After all, we sometimes need some limited contact with other humans, so that’s what [EverestX] set out to do with
his modern, pocket-sized communication device based on pager technology
from days of yore.
The device uses the
POCSAG
communications protocol, a current standard for pager communications that allows for an SMS-like experience for those still who still need (or want) to use pagers. [EverestX] was able to adapt some preexisting code and port it to an Atmel 32u4 microcontroller. With a custom PCB, small battery, an antenna, and some incredibly refined soldering skills, he was able to put together this build with an incredibly small footprint, slightly larger than a bottle cap.
Once added to a custom case, [EverestX] has an excellent platform for sending pager messages to all of his friends and can avoid any dreaded voice conversations.
Pager hacks have been a favorite around these parts for years
, and are still a viable option for modern communications needs despite also being a nostalgic relic of decades past. As an added bonus, the
32u4 microcontroller has some interesting non-pager features
that you might want to check out as well.
Thanks to [ch0l0man] for the tip! | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349697",
"author": "tryst",
"timestamp": "2021-05-18T20:48:07",
"content": "Pagers are funhttps://hackaday.io/project/160997-the-wireless-badger",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6349772",
"author": "n1kt0",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,373,081.220914 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/18/making-minty-fresh-music-with-markov-chains-the-after-eight-step-sequencer/ | Making Minty Fresh Music With Markov Chains: The After Eight Step Sequencer | Adam Zeloof | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"hardware",
"Machine Learning",
"Musical Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"arduino",
"machine learning",
"max msp",
"ml",
"step sequencer"
] | Step sequencers are fantastic instruments, but they can be a little, well, repetitive. At it’s core, the step sequencer is a pretty simple device: it loops through a series of notes or phrases that are, well, sequentially ordered into steps. The operator can change the steps while the sequencer is looping, but it generally has a repetitive feel, as the musician isn’t likely to erase all of the steps and enter in an entirely new set between phrases.
Enter our old friend machine learning. If we introduce a certain variability on each step of the loop, the instrument can help the musician out a bit here, making the final product a bit more interesting. Such an instrument is exactly what [Charis Cat] set out to make when she created the
After Eight Step Sequencer
.
The After Eight is an eight-step sequencer that allows the artist to set each note with a series of potentiometers (which are, of course, housed in an After Eight mint tin). The potentiometers are read by an Arduino, which passes MIDI information to a computer running the popular music-oriented visual programming language Max MSP. The software uses a series of Markov Chains to augment the musician’s inputted series of notes, effectively working with the artist to create music. The result is a fantastic piece of music that’s different every time it’s performed. Make sure to check out the video at the end for a fantastic overview of the project (and to hear the After Eight in action, of course)!
[Charis Cat]’s wonderful creation reminds us of some the work [Sara Adkins] has done,
blending human performance with complex algorithms
. It’s exactly the kind of thing we love to see at Hackaday- the fusion of a musician’s artistic intent with the stochastic unpredictability of a machine learning system to produce something unique.
Thanks to [Chris] for the tip! | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349725",
"author": "then",
"timestamp": "2021-05-18T22:04:44",
"content": "So this is what spam emails from the ’00’s would have sounded like =D Sounds great!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6349764",
"author": "elsei... | 1,760,373,081.312756 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/18/do-you-really-own-it-motorcycle-airbag-requires-additional-purchase-to-inflate/ | Do You Really Own It? Motorcycle Airbag Requires Additional Purchase To Inflate | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"air bag",
"motorcycle",
"Rant"
] | If you ride a motorcycle, you may have noticed that the cost of airbag vests has dropped. In one case, something very different is going on here.
As reported by Motherboard
, you can pick up a KLIM Ai-1 for $400 but the airbag built into it will not function until unlocked with an additional purchase, and a big one at that. So do you really own the vest for $400?
Given the nature of the electronics and computer business lately, we spend a good bit of time thinking of what it means to own a piece of technology. Do you own your cable modem or cell phone if you aren’t allowed to open it up? Do you own a piece of software that wants to call home periodically and won’t let you stop it? Sometimes it makes sense that you are paying for a service. But there have been times where, for example,
a speaker company essentially bricks devices that could work fine on their own
even though you — in theory — own the device.
Nice Airbag You Got There; Be a Shame if It Didn’t Go Off
The Klim airbag vest has two components that make it work. The vest itself is from Klim and costs $400 and arrives along with the airbag unit. But if you want it to actually detect an accident and inflate, you need load up a smartphone app and activate a small black box made by a different company: In&Motion. That requires your choice of another $400 payment or you can subscribe at $12 a month or $120 a year. If you fail to renew, the vest is essentially worthless.
To put this in electronics terms, it is one thing to realize your oscilloscope no longer does I2C protocol decoding because accounting screwed up paying the bill. It is another thing to suffer life-changing or life-ending injuries due to an accident. Granted, you get a 30 day grace period to correct any problems with payment, but still.
Pardon Me While I Feed the Meter on My Critical Safety Device
I can’t really decide how I feel about this. The capitalist in me knows that you need to make a profit. However, this seems like putting coin-operated oxygen on a commercial airliner. Especially since the vest apparently can work fine with no external support as long as you paid the extra $400. In all fairness, indicator lights which must be verified before every ride will alert you if the vest is locked for non-payment (or any other problem), so there’s little chance you’d drive with it thinking you had protection that you didn’t.
So maybe this is defensible, but you have to wonder where this trend will take us. Will we see cars that require a subscription to use advanced safety features the way automotive companies already upsell some non-critical software features?
What do you think? Do you own a vest that needs a subscription? Some things are incapable of working without backend support (for example, your cell phone or cable modem). Is it more defensible to cut those off? Even so, many areas require all cell phones to be capable of calling emergency services (like 911 in the US) no matter the state of their associated account. That’s a crucial safety feature of a phone and all it requires is that you have the device, not the subscription. | 218 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349595",
"author": "rok",
"timestamp": "2021-05-18T17:16:11",
"content": "Spread the word and boycott !Safety features on subscription should be made illegal.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6349661",
"author": "Hirud... | 1,760,373,081.700736 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/18/2021-hackaday-prize-hack-chat-join-us-live-on-wednesday/ | 2021 Hackaday Prize Hack Chat; Join Us Live On Wednesday | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2021 Hackaday Prize",
"Hack Chat"
] | Join us on Wednesday, May 19 at noon Pacific for the
2021 Hackaday Prize Hack Chat
with Majenta Strongheart!
At this point last year, we probably all felt like we’d been put through a wringer, and that things would get back to normal any day now. Little did we know how much more was in store for us, and how many more challenges would be heaped on our plates. Everything that we thought would be temporary seems to be more or less permanent now, and we’ve all had to adapt to the new facts of life as best we can.
But we’re hackers, and adapting to new situations more often than not means making the world fit our vision. And that’s why
the 2021 Hackaday Prize
has adopted the theme of “Rethink, Refresh, Rebuild.” We want you to rethink and refresh familiar concepts across the hardware universe, and create the kind of innovation this community is famous for.
The 2021 Hackaday Prize will have it all. As in previous years, the Prize will have several specific challenges, where we set you to work on a creative problem. There will also be mentoring sessions available, $500 cash prizes for 50 finalists along the way, with $25,000 and a Supplyframe Design Lab residency awarded to the Grand Prize winner.
We know you’re going to want to step up to the challenge, so to help get you started, Majenta Strongheart, Head of Design and Partnerships at Supplyframe, will drop by the Hack Chat with all the details on the 2021 Hackaday Prize. Come prepared to pick her brain on how the Prize is going to work this year, find out about the mentoring opportunities, and learn everything there is to know about this year’s competition. It’s the Greatest Hardware Design Challenge on Earth, so make sure you get in on the action.
Our Hack Chats are live community events in the
Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging
. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, May 19 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a
handy time zone converter
.
Click that speech bubble to the right, and you’ll be taken directly to the Hack Chat group on Hackaday.io. You don’t have to wait until Wednesday; join whenever you want and you can see what the community is talking about.
The
Hackaday
Prize2021
is Sponsored by: | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350373",
"author": "irox",
"timestamp": "2021-05-20T22:28:12",
"content": "FYI, transcript of the hack chat:https://hackaday.io/event/178151-2021-hackaday-prize-hack-chat/log/193026-hack-chat-transcript-part-1",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,373,081.809763 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/18/tiny-delorean-made-from-lighters-is-a-total-gas/ | Tiny DeLorean Made From Lighters Is A Total Gas | Kristina Panos | [
"green hacks",
"how-to"
] | [
"DeLorean",
"lighter",
"scrap acrylic"
] | There’s making stuff out of trash, and then there’s mind-blowing stuff like this:
a DeLorean built from four disposable cigarette lighters and various other bits and bobs
like wire sheathing and cotton bud sticks. If it weren’t for the video evidence embedded below, we would have never believed that [Ank Creative] or anyone else could have turned boxy acrylic into the fastback time machine we all know and love.
Is the back window the most important detail? Maybe.
[Ank Creative] seems to have wasted no parts of the lighters, and even saved themselves a bit of trouble by using curved scraps to make the wheel wells. After installing the windshield, we certainly didn’t expect them to saw the thing in half, but how else are they going to put in the little seats and the steering column when the gull-wing doors aren’t real?
This build is all about unbelievable craftsmanship and deft but daring use of hand tools. Although this totally qualifies as an open source how-to video, you’d have to be quite the sorcerer to pull this one off. Zoom past the break (if you haven’t already) and check out this amazing build.
Disposable lighters are dirt cheap, but they get the job done and you can always see how much gas is left in the tank. On the other hand, a refillable lighter is just that, and if you build it yourself,
you can make it actuate like a cap gun
.
Thanks for the tip, [Keith]! | 29 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349570",
"author": "misk",
"timestamp": "2021-05-18T16:18:21",
"content": "this is incredible. absolute piece of art!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6349573",
"author": "Observer",
"timestamp": "2021-05-18T16:27:06",
... | 1,760,373,081.768751 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/18/2021-hackaday-prize-rethink-refresh-and-rebuild/ | 2021 Hackaday Prize: Rethink, Refresh, And Rebuild | Mike Szczys | [
"contests",
"Featured",
"Slider",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2021 Hackaday Prize"
] | The
2021 Hackaday Prize
begins right now. Tap into your creativity and build your piece of a better future on the topics of supportive technology, everyday robotics, imaginative displays, and work-from-home innovations.
Now in its eighth year, the Hackaday Prize is a global engineering initiative that seeks out new and interesting uses of electronics and other technologies with an eye toward open source/open hardware and a goal of getting your creations out into the world.
The grand prize winner will receive $25,000 and a residency at the Supplyframe Design Lab. In addition to top prizes for the second through fifth place winners, 50 finalists will each receive a $500 prize. But you don’t need to win the Hackaday Prize to take something away. This is your calling: spend time working on those abstract ideas and figuring out how they will fit into life tomorrow, next month, or next decade. Whether it changes peoples’ lives or just brings a smile to a few faces, every interesting step forward is an example where people had ideas so crazy they actually worked. Let’s get in on that!
There are five categories to target with your builds. If you have an idea kicking around, you can probably enter it this year.
Choose From Five Challenges
Rethink Displays:
Screens are all around us, and unfortunately they’re most often begging us to stare at them and stop paying attention to the wider world. What about the information that’s nice to have handy but doesn’t demand you pull out and unlock your phone? Maybe what is normally an artistic wall hanging can now update itself with important daily reminders for you to notice while enjoying that morning coffee. The wall beside your front door is now your best friend advising you to take a jacket or umbrella. Or maybe there’s a more subtle way for customers waiting for help at your work to know what’s going on from the state of the surroundings in the waiting area.
Come up with a cool way to communicate information that isn’t just a push notification on that phone in your purse or pocket.
Refresh Work-From-Home Life:
Being productive from home used to be novel, but suddenly it became a necessity for a huge number of people, from the adults who could no longer go into the office to the students who could no longer visit the classroom. Of course homes and workplaces are very different, no wonder it was a rocky transition. But a lot of good ideas made life more tolerable: from
building offices in sheds
to
turning your laptop webcam into a document camera
, we want to bubble up the good ideas.
Show us your ideas for carving out some space at home to make it feel like office or school, for bringing specialty equipment to life, and for managing your time and sanity when a change of physical location isn’t an option.
Reimagine Supportive Tech:
Raise your hand if you’ve designed something without much thought toward how it feels to use the thing. Great ideas are only great if they actually get used, so let’s do the legwork on making things work for everyone. This could be an assistive technology to overcome physical challenges, or it could be ergonomics that make tasks easier for everyone. It might be hardware that helps better learn a skill or makes it easier to get high-end results with less than 10,000 hours of practice.
Think about time and labor savers, and think about designs that preserve precious resources.
Redefine Robots:
Automation shouldn’t be dystopian; it should make sense. There’s already automation in your house that follows this mantra: both the dishwasher and the clothes washer were revolutionary time savers, and it turns out they are a great way to curb water waste. You could argue that they’re robots — not the brightest of robots, but something that’s able to operate automatically.
We want to see what other everyday automation makes a better future, from making changes around the house to keeping you company and cared-for. Get to work because everyone deserves a chance to benefit from our robotic future.
Reactivate Wildcard
One of the biggest problems with setting goals for inventors is that it doesn’t leave room for the problems you didn’t realize needed solving. So all bets are off with the wildcard challenge. Just make sure you explain the problem you’re solving, how you solve it, and you’re set to go.
Out of Lockdown and Into the Future
An incredible opportunity lies in front of us
. The global pandemic is a wake-up call to how we have lived our lives before and during. Now it’s time to decide what life can be after the pandemic has passed. Technology should work for all of us, and it’s up to all of us to show what that means.
The
Hackaday
Prize2021
is Sponsored by: | 17 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349555",
"author": "Opossumax",
"timestamp": "2021-05-18T14:59:47",
"content": "I’ve always wanted to participate in these but I am neither talented nor creative enough to do anything on my own.If anyone needs an extra teammate please recruit me. I’m okay at most things and I do ha... | 1,760,373,081.86505 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/18/spy-tech-cia-masks-in-five-minutes-or-less/ | Spy Tech: CIA Masks In Five Minutes Or Less | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"cia",
"espionage",
"hyper realistic mask",
"silicone",
"silicone mask",
"spies",
"spy"
] | You know the old trope: James Bond is killed but it turns out to be someone else in an incredibly good-looking Sean Connery mask. Mission: Impossible and Scooby Doo regularly had some variation of the theme. But, apparently, truth is stranger than fiction. The CIA has — or at least had — a chief of disguise. A former holder of that office now works for the International Spy Museum and has some very interesting stories about
the real masks CIA operatives
would use in the field.
According to the video you can see below, the agency enlisted the help of Hollywood — particularly the mask maker from Planet of the Apes — to help them with this project. Of course, in the movies, you can take hours to apply a mask and control how it is lit, how closely the camera examines it, and if something goes wrong you just redo the scene. If you are buying secret plans and your nose falls off, it would probably be hard to explain.
While the technology to make a mask like this is interesting in of itself, a comment from former chief [Jonna Mendez] was the most interesting part of the video. She says: “The fact that we (the museum) are allowed to show it (the masks) tells me the CIA has moved on.”
So you can only wonder what tech the CIA and other spy agencies might have now to disguise an agent. In William Shatner’s short-lived TekWar series, people used holomasks that looked like black hoods with some sort of emitters along the surface to project a different face. Or maybe you put your face in a specialized 3D printer and hold your breath. We’ll entertain guesses in the comments.
Apparently, the industry term for these sort of things are hyperrealistic masks and they’ve been used in everything from Halloween costumes to committing bank robberies. Still, we imagine even the priciest of these can’t be put on in two minutes while running down an alley in the rain.
If you are wondering what these masks could do to face recognition systems,
you aren’t the only one
. We wouldn’t suggest making your own silicone masks, but since you won’t listen to us, here’s some tips on
making molds
. | 23 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349491",
"author": "datacarrierdetect",
"timestamp": "2021-05-18T11:34:43",
"content": "How do you deal with sweat in such masks? I find wearing surgical gloves uncomfortable after as little as 10min, because transpiration starts to accumulate as moisture inside the gloves, and I ... | 1,760,373,082.008062 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/18/retro-isa-card-means-old-slow-computers-no-longer-need-old-heavy-monitors/ | Retro ISA Card Means Old, Slow Computers No Longer Need Old, Heavy Monitors | Donald Papp | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"cga",
"composite video",
"isa",
"MDA",
"retro",
"retrocomputing",
"vga",
"video card",
"vintage"
] | One thing about vintage computers is that they depend greatly on whether or not one can plug a compatible monitor into them. That’s what’s behind [Tube Time]’s
Graphics Gremlin, a modern-design retro ISA video card
that uses an FPGA to act just like a vintage
MDA
or
CGA
video card on the input end, but provides a VGA port for more modern display output options. (Actually, there is also an RGBI connector and a composite video out, but the VGA is probably the most broadly useful.)
Handy silkscreen labels make everything crystal clear. Click to enlarge.
Why bother making a new device to emulate an old ISA video card when
actual
vintage video cards are still plentiful? Because availability of the old cards isn’t the bottleneck. The trouble is that MDA or CGA
monitors
just aren’t as easy to come across as they once were, and
irreplaceable vintage monitors that do still exist risk getting smashed during shipping
. Luckily, VGA monitors (or at least converters that accept VGA input) are far more plentiful.
The board’s design files and assembly notes are all on
the project’s GitHub repository
along with plenty of thoughtful detail about both assembly and troubleshooting, and
the Verilog code has its own document
. The Graphics Gremlin is still under development, but you can also watch for the latest on
[Tube Time]’s Twitter feed
.
Thanks to [NoxiousPluK] for the tip! | 66 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349454",
"author": "Stappers",
"timestamp": "2021-05-18T08:16:22",
"content": "Nice.Yes, that is a compliment.It is very nice to see that [Tube Time] bridges vintage computer and modern monitor.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,373,082.309574 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/17/a-disgusting-1980s-computer-restored/ | A “Disgusting” 1980s Computer Restored | Al Williams | [
"Repair Hacks",
"Retrocomputing",
"Teardown"
] | [
"acorn",
"acorn electron",
"retrocomputing"
] | It takes a special eye to see a junkyard car and envision it as your latest hotrod. The guys at RMC found what they termed a “disgusting” Acorn Electron and
decided to restore it to its former glory
. The Electron was a budget version of the BBC micro with a 6502 running at 2 MHz when executing code from ROM and 1 MHz when it hit the RAM. Apparently, at least some of the bus was operating at 4 bits instead of 8. Go figure.
The 1982 machine was meant to head off the Sinclair ZX and was set to sell for about £200. However, the machine didn’t catch on like the Sinclair and undersold it by around 20 times with a paltry quarter of a million units.
Powering the machine up showed white raster on a monitor, so it wasn’t running but it wasn’t dead either. The computer had a type of programmable logic chip known as a ULA that replaced lots of interface logic and the guys knew that many common problems wind up being a dirty socket for that chip. When you see the package it is in, you won’t be surprised.
After a good scrub of both the socket and the IC, they were rewarded with a Basic prompt. So electrically, the restoration wasn’t too much of a challenge. Cosmetically, though, there was a lot of work to do and that affords us some great shots of the computer’s internals.
They did replace a few components as long as they had it open. The case stayed a bit yellowed, but at least it was cleaner and by the end of the 20-something minute long video, you can see the computer going through its paces quite well.
If you have one of these machines, it probably doesn’t have WiFi. But
it could
. You can even get a
fully modernized version of its competitor, the Sinclair ZX
. | 42 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349398",
"author": "jimmydevice",
"timestamp": "2021-05-18T05:09:03",
"content": "if you haven’t done a mouse piss rebuild your a bit lacking or live in a nice area",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6349581",
"author": ... | 1,760,373,081.950316 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/17/the-history-of-neon-lights/ | The History Of Neon Lights | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"geissler tube",
"history",
"neon",
"neon bulb",
"neon light"
] | We always enjoy history videos from [The History Guy] but they don’t always cover technology history. When they do, though, we enjoy them twice as much as with the recent video he posted on the
history of neon signs
. Of course, as he points out, many neon lights don’t have actual neon in them — they use various noble gasses depending on the color you want. Sure, some have neon, but the name has stuck.
The back part of the video is more about the signs themselves, but the early portion talks about [William Ramsay], a Scot chemist who started extracting component gasses out of the atmosphere. The first one found was argon and then helium. Krypton and neon were not far behind. The other noble gas, Xenon, also fell to his experiments. He and another scientist won the Nobel for this work.
[The History Guy] also mentions Geissler tubes, a name we’ve only read in old radio books before. It is interesting that just about all vacuum and gas-filled tubes evolved from that technology. After all, a neon light is really a type of gas-filled tube and so is a common neon bulb.
Commercialization of neon bulbs had to wait for [Georges Claude] to learn how to liquefy air efficiently. He formed a company you may have heard of: Air Liquide which competed with [Carl von Linde’s] earlier system for producing atmospheric gasses and the Linde company that you’ve also probably heard of if you buy any sort of industrial gasses. Of course, access to high voltage was also a requirement.
Oddly enough, [Claude] didn’t think of using them for eye-catching signs. He wanted to use them as a form of artificial illumination. It was an associate, [Jaques Fonseque] who saw the possibility of using the electric lights to create advertising signs. In 1913 a Cinzano sign appeared in Paris and by 1919, the entrance to the Paris Opera had neon tube lighting.
Commercial use of neon light is far less common than it used to be. However, neon light as art is making something of a comeback, something that happens periodically. If you want to make your own replica with no glass blowing, try
EL wire
. We’ve seen
quite a few faux neon projects
and they look great. | 12 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349361",
"author": "Old Guy",
"timestamp": "2021-05-18T02:30:58",
"content": "“The other noble gas, Xenon…”So no love for Radon, also a noble gas? Measure twice, cut once, won’t you?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6349422"... | 1,760,373,082.151362 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/17/a-standing-desk-on-the-cheap/ | A Standing Desk On The Cheap | Chris Lott | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"diy",
"low cost",
"monitor arm",
"standing desk"
] | A programmer forced to work from home during the pandemic, [MrAkpla] was having back pains from sitting in front of the computer all day. He considered buying a standing desk, but all the various options didn’t fit with either his desk or his budget. Not to be deterred, he devised
one of the simplest standing desk implementations that we’ve seen
. It clearly works for him, because he’s been using it for one year now with great success. [MrAkpla] espouses three main benefits of his approach:
Cheap as heck
Five minute set up time
Uses your existing desk
These goals were accomplished. You can see in the video below that transition from sitting to standing is indeed as quick as he claims, is clearly inexpensive, and indeed it doesn’t require any modifications to his desk or furniture.
This design centers on a having an 80 cm long monitor arm, which is quite a range of adjustment. He’s using a monitor arm pole mount from UK manufacturer Duronic. Although they are having delivery problems these days because of Brexit issues, [MrAkpla] was able to get one delivered from existing inventory outside of the UK.
Admittedly, this is a crude design — in effect two trash bins and a board. But even if this doesn’t fit well with your office decor, its a great way to try out the concept of a standing desk without the up-front investment. By the way, [MrAkpla] is on the lookout for similar monitor mounting poles from non-UK manufacturers. If you have any recommendations, put them in the comments below. If you’re interested in a DIY standing desk that is on the opposite side of the complexity spectrum, check out
this beauty
that we covered back in the pre-pandemic era. | 23 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349340",
"author": "Mono",
"timestamp": "2021-05-18T00:29:15",
"content": "The ergonomics of this are all wrong. If you’re looking to try out a standing desk for health reasons, this isn’t it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "... | 1,760,373,082.367865 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/17/gaming-headset-gets-simple-wireless-charging/ | Gaming Headset Gets Simple Wireless Charging | Tom Nardi | [
"digital audio hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"3D printed parts",
"headset",
"qi charger",
"wireless charging"
] | Despite the technology itself being widely available and relatively cheap, devices that offer wireless charging as a feature still aren’t as common as many would like. Sure it can’t deliver as much power as something like USB-C, but for low-draw devices that don’t necessarily need to be recharged in a hurry, the convenience is undeniable.
Sick of having to plug it in after each session, [Taylor Burley] decided to take matters into his own hands and
add wireless charging capability to his Turtle Beach Recon 200 headset
. But ultimately, there’s nothing about this project that couldn’t be adapted to your own particular headset of choice. Or any other device that charges via USB, for that matter.
To keep things simple, [Taylor] used an off-the-shelf wireless charging transmitter and receiver pair. The transmitter is housed in a 3D printed mount that the headset hangs from, and the receiver was simply glued to the top of the headset. The receiver is covered with a thin 3D printed plate, but a couple turns of electrical tape would work just as well if you didn’t want to design a whole new part.
Once everything was in place, he then ran a wire down the side of the headset and tapped into the five volt trace coming from the USB port. So now long as [Taylor] remembers to hang the headset up after he’s done playing, the battery will always be topped off the next time he reaches for it.
Considering how many projects we’ve seen
that
add wireless charging to consumer devices
, it’s honestly kind of surprising that it’s still not a standard feature in 2021. Until manufacturers
figure out what they want to do with the technology
, it seems like hackers will just have to keep doing it themselves. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349300",
"author": "raster",
"timestamp": "2021-05-17T20:19:41",
"content": "I did something similar, but using contacts.http://blog.rastersoft.com/?p=1945http://blog.rastersoft.com/?p=2139",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "634... | 1,760,373,082.205656 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/20/freenode-debacle-prompts-staff-exodus-new-network/ | Freenode Debacle Prompts Staff Exodus, New Network | Tom Nardi | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Slider",
"Software Development"
] | [
"foss",
"Freenode",
"irc",
"open source"
] | It’s no secret that Internet Relay Chat (IRC) has lost some of its appeal in recent years. These days there’s plenty of free chat platforms boasting slick web interfaces and smartphone push notifications, to say nothing of social networks like Facebook and Twitter. The ability to communicate with like minded individuals from all over the planet in real-time is now something we take for granted, so it’s little surprise that newer and flashier protocols and services have steadily eroded the IRC user base.
But there’s often a hidden cost to using these more modern communication protocols. A lack of operational transparency naturally leads to concerns over monitoring and censorship, which makes such services a poor match for the free and open source community. As such, many open projects have eschewed these newer and more popular services for IRC networks that were developed and maintained by the community itself. Among these, the best-known and most respected is Freenode. Originally started as a Linux support channel in 1995, Freenode grew to become the defacto communication and support tool for free and open source projects of all shapes and sizes, and by 2013 had officially become the largest and most active IRC network in the world.
Unfortunately, the incredible legacy of Freenode is now being jeopardized by what
former staff members are describing as nothing short of a hostile takeover
. Through a complex series of events which actually started several years ago, control of Freenode has been taken from the community and put into the hands of an enigmatic and wealthy entrepreneur who claims his ultimate goal is to revolutionize IRC and return it to the forefront of online communication. Here’s where it gets weird.
The Crown Prince of IRC
Andrew Lee’s story, at least the first half of it, is not unlike that of many young rising stars in the tech world. The Korean-American was born in Indiana and attended Purdue and the University at Buffalo before dropping out to try his luck with a number of startups. In 2010 he launched an anonymous VPN service called Private Internet Access that he later sold for $95.5 million, and worked on a Bitcoin price tracker that was eventually acquired by Mt. Gox.
During interviews from this time, Lee would credit IRC and the hacker subculture for nurturing him during his formative years as a minority growing up in middle America. Lee said that while he had to struggle with racism in the outside world, the anonymous meritocracy of IRC allowed him to learn and grow. This open and welcoming environment drew him deeper into the world of computers and is what ultimately put him on the path towards becoming a software developer.
While he’d already amassed more wealth and success than the average person could ever dream of, fortune would once again smile on Lee when it was discovered he was a relative of His Imperial Highness King Yi Seok, and officially named
Crown Prince of Korea in a lavish 2018 affair
.
Crown Prince Andrew Lee (center-left) during the 2018 Passing of the Sword ceremony.
Determined to use his fame and fortune to enact positive change,
Lee penned an open letter to the IRC community
detailing his plans to revive the 30+ year old protocol through an influx of funds and talent. This included not only sponsoring the development of open source IRCv3 servers that could support modern functionality such as persistent logging, away notifications, and the ability to edit sent messages, but through ambitious “IRC University” and “IRC Gaming” initiatives designed to pull in new users.
In the letter, Lee made it abundantly clear that he believed his fate to be intertwined with that of IRC’s, and that shepherding it through this next phase of its development was part of his destiny:
Today, I’m strong. Today, I’m confident. Today, I am social.
Today, I am patient. Today, I am accepting. Today, I have a cause.
This would not be the case, if yesterday, for me, was not IRC.
I will do unto others as I would like done to myself. IRC created me. And for this reason, I pledge to revive IRC.
For IRC users, this was an exciting and surreal turn of events. Like something out of a Graybeard’s fever dream, a handsome young prince with millions of dollars at his disposal had vowed fealty to an antiquated communications protocol held near and dear to their heart. Even if the chances were slim that IRC would make it back into the mainstream consciousness, assuming it was ever truly there in the first place, it seemed undeniable that this was a positive development for the tens of thousands of hackers that still swore by IRC.
Sleight of Hand
Unfortunately, according to several key members of the Freenode staff, Lee’s desire to bring IRC into the 21st century ended up taking a dark turn. It all started with his appointment as the
Director of “Freenode Limited” in 2017
, a holding company that was ostensibly formed to help funnel funds into the network and manage live conferences. At the time, it was explained to the rest of the staff that this company would have no involvement with the day-to-day operations of the IRC network itself.
But as time went on, Lee started to exert an undue amount of authority on the network.
As chronicled in staffer
Aaron Jones’s resignation letter
, it started simply enough. First the logo for one of Lee’s other companies suddenly appeared in the header of Freenode’s official site, rather than being listed on the appropriate
Acknowledgements
page. Lee then demanded pages detailing the network’s staff and operational structure be deleted from the site, and created a
#freenode-board
channel on the network.
Eventually, he and his associates started to seek out and install new staff members on the authority of the so-called “Freenode Board”, an entity which until that at point in time, did not exist. It was around this point that one of these individuals, Shane “nirvana” Allen,
attempted to bribe developer Ariadne Conill with the promise of a channel operator role
if she would get behind Lee’s claim to Freenode.
During the confusion, Freenode’s head of staff Christel Dahlskjaer stepped down. It was further revealed that, through mechanisms which are not yet fully clear, she signed away ownership of the network itself to Freenode Limited. The staff, made up entirely of volunteers, maintains that Dahlskjaer should not have had the authority to relinquish ownership of the network to begin with. However after consultations with legal experts, the consensus seems to be that fighting the agreement in court would be far too costly; especially with the considerable funds and influence that Lee has at his disposal.
An Uncertain Future
At the time of this writing,
several senior members of the Freenode staff have stepped down
and published
resignation letters
that largely tell the same story: Andrew Lee, though a series of underhanded maneuvers, has effectively taken over the network and intends to reform it to fit his idealistic vision. The logic is sound enough: if Lee is to have any chance at “reviving” IRC with the sweeping changes he publicly outlined, having full control over the most active network in the world would certainly be a good way to get your foot in the door.
For the record,
Lee has posted his own statement
which naturally paints a very different story. Interestingly, while he denies the allegations made against him, he
does
agree that Freenode is currently in the throes of a hostile takeover. However by his account it’s Freenode’s head of projects and communities, who goes by the handle tomaw, that’s the actual perpetrator. In Lee’s version of events, he’s little more than a bystander that’s been begrudgingly dragged into a volatile situation, and he closes the letter by urging the staff to identify the true traitor among them for the good of Freenode.
Former staffers have launched Libera Chat.
Clearly, we haven’t heard the last of this story. In the meantime, former Freenode staffers have
started a new IRC network they’re calling Libera Chat
. Billed as a “next-generation IRC network for free and open source software projects and similarly-spirited collaborative endeavours”, Libera Chat hopes to continue where Freenode left off and become the new home for communities that value freedom, transparency, and privacy.
But it will likely take more than some drama at the top, however juicy it may be, to drive away more than a fraction of Freenode’s users. Without the benefit of experienced leadership, and in the face of potentially radical changes coming down the pike, the majority who remain behind are likely in for a bumpy ride. If the situation is truly past the point where all parties can come to an amicable agreement and reunify, it could be a loss to the entire open source community.
[Ed note: Or maybe everyone will just move over to Libera Chat. Non-random sampling: #vim and #reprap have officially moved, #archlinux is “letting the dust settle” — meanwhile freenode is still official, and #hackaday was already registered on Libera by the time I got there.] | 68 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350239",
"author": "zoobab",
"timestamp": "2021-05-20T14:36:49",
"content": "The price of centralisation.Can we decentralize, or is it too hard for humans?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6350283",
"author": "Gravis",... | 1,760,373,082.474719 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/20/terminal-magic-with-notcurses/ | Terminal Magic With Notcurses | Jonathan Bennett | [
"computer hacks",
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"demoscene",
"Notcurses"
] | Writing a command line program that needs a little more pizzaz? Ncurses just not colorful or high res enough? Or maybe you want to bring the demo scene to the command line.
Notcurses has your back
. The demo is great, and looks like it can push out enough detail to pull off silliness like pushing an SNES game’s output straight to the console. What might be the most impressive element of the library is that while it can blit high res graphics through a terminal emulator with graphical support, it will also work on the basic Linux console, with no graphical system installed, by using some very old tricks. I know what you’re wondering: That’s all well and good, but can it run Doom?
Yep
. Come back after the break for a demo.
[Nick Black], the author of the project, started it back in 2019, and boasts a handful of contributors, and boasts support for C, C++, Python, and Rust. It looks like a promising project. It works over SSH, and even has mouse support. Not only that, the aesthetic really tickles our love for the demoscene, particuarly since it borrows some of those techniques as a fallback pixel drawing mode. If you get inspired and build a demo using notcurses, make sure to let us know! | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350199",
"author": "Iván Stepaniuk",
"timestamp": "2021-05-20T11:31:35",
"content": "———-| MEH |———-",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6350206",
"author": "Vince",
"timestamp": "2021-05-20T12:12:14",
"content": "I’d l... | 1,760,373,082.519692 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/20/what-nes-development-looks-like-on-the-apple-ii/ | What NES Development Looks Like On The Apple II | Lewin Day | [
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"apple",
"apple II",
"nes",
"Nintendo Entertainment System"
] | These days, if you want to code a game for the original Nintendo Entertainment System, it’s about as easy as downloading an assembler, firing up Notepad, and running the ROMs you cook up in any one of a variety of emulators. In the 1980s none of those things existed, and the process was a little more complicated –
as demonstrated by [Tyler Barnes]
in the video embedded below.
[Tyler] has put together a 40-minute guide on what it takes to get to “Hello World” – or more accurately, a simple pink screen – on the NES, using period-correct hardware. He starts the process by formatting some floppy disks and whipping up some basic assembly code on an Apple IIe, which gets run through the Merlin assembler for the 6502. It’s particularly convenient as the Apple II line and the NES both run the same CPU. From there it’s a case of using a standalone EPROM programmer to verify some appropriately-datecoded chips are empty, before programming them in a special add-on card for the Apple II. From there, the EPROMs are loaded into a cart custom modified with chip sockets, where it can be inserted into a NES for testing.
It’s a tedious process, with just the programming side of things taking on the order of ten to twenty minutes with a few fiddly steps along the way. While there are likely some efficiency gains to be had that were used by studios back in the day, it remains clear that development in this era was a much slower process.
Of course, if you prefer your Nintendo homebrew a couple generations hence,
consider getting stuck in on the Nintendo 64
. Video after the break.
[Thanks to Alex McAlpine for the tip!] | 29 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350185",
"author": "kodjo",
"timestamp": "2021-05-20T10:18:10",
"content": "What is this extended keyboard? I don’t know Apple II had these.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6350236",
"author": "f15sim",
"times... | 1,760,373,082.580259 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/19/inside-the-vic-20/ | Inside The VIC-20 | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Teardown"
] | [
"commodore",
"retrocomputing",
"teardown",
"VIC-20",
"vic20"
] | Commodore machines are well-loved around here, but usually when you think Commodore, you think about the Commodore 64, or maybe the PET or Amiga. But the Commodore 64 had an older sister, the VIC 20. This was the first computer to sell a million units and has a lot in common with its better-known successor. The machine was only made for a few years, and [Dubious Engineering] has been restoring one over a few videos. In the video below, he
opens it up for a look inside
, among other things.
If you want to get straight to the opening, you’ll need to fast forward about 5 and a half minutes. The keyboard pulls off and a nice old-fashioned set of cables made from individual wires connect to the skinny main board with all the smarts on it. No ribbon cables or flex PCBs!
It is interesting to see the design choices made back in the 1980s. The caps lock key, for example, is an actual latching key that mechanically maintains its position. There are two ROM chips, one for the system software and one for Basic. Two RAM chips give you a whopping 5K of read/write memory.
A $300 computer in those days would be about the same as an $800 computer today. You still needed a monitor or a TV and a cassette recorder. Meanwhile the memory could be expanded somewhat but the display was stuck at 176×184 and your choice of 8 colors.
The VIC20 might not have been the most influential computer of its day. But it was a clear stepping stone from the PET to the very influential Commodore 64. It was nice to see one running again.
The machine in this video looks a lot better than the
last one we saw restored
. Our own [Bil Herd] was part of the Commodore story and he appears in the
documentary of that name
which is well worth watching. | 51 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350148",
"author": "Tom Hargrave",
"timestamp": "2021-05-20T06:14:45",
"content": "I owned a VIC 20. It was my second computer, my first was a Timex Sinclair. The Sinclair used a Z80 and I expanded memory in both. Both machines used static RAM.The Sinclair was expanded by soldering... | 1,760,373,082.672008 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/19/psa-amazon-sidewalk-rolls-out-june-8th/ | PSA: Amazon Sidewalk Rolls Out June 8th | Kristina Panos | [
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"amazon",
"Amazon Echo",
"Amazon Sidewalk",
"bluetooth",
"LoRa",
"LoRaWAN",
"mesh network",
"privacy"
] | Whether you own any Amazon surveillance devices or not, we know how much you value your privacy. So consider this your friendly reminder that Amazon Sidewalk is going live in a few weeks, on June 8th. A rather long list of devices have this setting enabled by default, so if you haven’t done so already,
here’s how to turn it off
.
Don’t know what we’re talking about?
Our own Jenny List covered the topic quite concretely a few months back
. The idea behind it seems innocent enough on the surface — extend notoriously spotty Wi-Fi connectivity to devices on the outer bounds of the router’s reach, using Bluetooth and LoRa to talk between devices and share bandwidth. Essentially, when Amazon flips the switch in a few weeks, their entire fleet of opt-in-by-default devices will assume a kind of Borg hive-mind in that they’ll be able to share connectivity.
A comprehensive list of Sidewalk devices includes: Ring Floodlight Cam (2019), Ring Spotlight Cam Wired (2019), Ring Spotlight Cam Mount (2019), Echo (3rd Gen), Echo (4th Gen), Echo Dot (3rd Gen), Echo Dot (4th Gen), Echo Dot (3rd Gen) for Kids, Echo Dot (4th Gen) for Kids, Echo Dot with Clock (3rd Gen), Echo Dot with Clock (4th Gen), Echo Plus (1st Gen), Echo Plus (2nd Gen), Echo Show (1st Gen), Echo Show (2nd Gen), Echo Show 5, Echo Show 8, Echo Show 10, Echo Spot, Echo Studio, Echo Input, Echo Flex. —
Amazon Sidewalk FAQ
Now this isn’t a private mesh network in your castle, it’s every device in the kingdom. So don’t hesitate, don’t wait, or it will be too late. Grab all your Things and opt-out if you don’t want your doorbell cam or Alexa machine on the party line. If you have the Alexa app, you can allegedly opt out on all your devices at once.
Worried that Alexa is listening to you more often than she lets on?
You’re probably right
. | 41 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350102",
"author": "Gyro",
"timestamp": "2021-05-20T02:52:57",
"content": "The link “here’s how to turn it off” does not have the correct instructions anymore. They moved the setting from where that article says it is. I’m not sure where they moved it to.They have moved settings be... | 1,760,373,082.864682 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/19/javascript-app-uses-advanced-math-to-make-pcbs-easier-to-etch/ | JavaScript App Uses Advanced Math To Make PCBs Easier To Etch | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"app",
"etching",
"g-code",
"gerber",
"javascript",
"laser",
"pcb",
"resist",
"tessellation",
"voronoi"
] | We all remember the litany from various math classes we’ve taken, where frustration at a failure to understand a difficult concept bubbles over into the classic, “When am I ever going to need to know this in real life?” But as we all know, even the most esoteric mathematical concepts have applications in the real world, and failure to master them can come back to haunt you.
Take Voronoi diagrams, for example. While we don’t recall being exposed to these in any math class, it turns out that they can be quite useful in a seemingly unrelated area:
converting PCB designs into easy-to-etch tessellated patterns
.
Voronoi diagrams
are in effect a plane divided into different regions, or “cells”, each centered on a “seed” object. Each cell is the set of points that are closer to a particular seed than they are to any other seed. For PCBs the seeds can be represented by the traces; dividing the plane up into cells around those traces results in a tessellated pattern that’s easily etched.
To make this useful to PCB creators, [Craig Iannello] came up with a JavaScript application that takes an image of a PCB, tessellates the traces, and spits out G-code suitable for a laser engraver. A blank PCB covered with a layer of spray paint, the tessellated pattern is engraved into the paint, and the board is etched and drilled in the usual fashion. [Craig]’s program makes allowances for adding specific features to the board, like odd-shaped pads or traces that need specific routing.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen
Voronoi diagrams employed for PCB design
, but the method looks so easy that we’d love to give it a try. It even looks as though it might work for CNC milling of boards too. | 28 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350059",
"author": "Zelea",
"timestamp": "2021-05-19T23:19:23",
"content": "Does anyone know of a similar application that works on a vector format PCB rather than on raster images? I am routing my PCBs on a CNC machine so my workflow is Gerber -> isolation -> NC code. This works ... | 1,760,373,082.732513 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/19/thousands-of-discrete-mosfets-make-up-this-compact-cpu-less-computer/ | Thousands Of Discrete MOSFETs Make Up This Compact CPU-Less Computer | Dan Maloney | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"ALU",
"discrete",
"logic",
"mosfet",
"nor",
"retrocomputer"
] | How long has it been since a computer could boast about the fact that it contained 2,500 transistors? Probably close to half a century now, at a guess. So in a world with a couple of billion transistors per chip, is a 2,500-transistor computer really something to brag about?
Yes. Yes, it is
.
The CPU-less computer, called the TraNOR by its creator [Dennis Kuschel], is an elaboration on his previous
MyNOR
, another CPU-less machine that used a single NOR-gate made of discrete transistors as the core of its arithmetic-logic unit (ALU). Despite its architectural simplicity, MyNOR was capable of some pretty respectable performance, and even managed to play a decent game of Tetris. TraNOR, on the other hand, is much more complicated, mainly due to the fact that instead of relying on 74HC-series chips, [Dennis] built every single gate on the machine from discrete MOSFETs. The only chips on the four stacked PCBs are a trio of memory chips; we don’t fault him at all for the decision not to build the memory — he may be dedicated, but even art has its limits. And TraNOR is indeed a work of art — the video below shows the beautiful board layouts, with seemingly endless arrays of SMD transistors all neatly arranged and carefully soldered. And extra points for using
Wintergatan’s marble machine melody
as the soundtrack, too.
As much as we loved the original, TraNOR is really something special. Not only is it beautiful, but it’s functional — it’s even backward-compatible with MyNOR’s custom software. Hats off to [Dennis] for pulling off another wonderful build, and for sharing it with us. | 19 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6350002",
"author": "Severe Tire Damage",
"timestamp": "2021-05-19T20:13:25",
"content": "It is indeed pretty!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6350009",
"author": "boz",
"timestamp": "2021-05-19T20:24:55",
"content":... | 1,760,373,082.789123 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/17/disgusting-apple-ii-monitors-live-again/ | Disgusting Apple II Monitors Live Again | Chris Lott | [
"green hacks",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"apple II",
"color monitor",
"landfill",
"refurbish",
"rescue"
] | [The 8-Bit Guy] recently went to check out a stash of old Apple II Color monitors which had been sitting outside in a trash pile for 20 years, and
decided to bring one home to restore
. As you can see from the lead photo, they were dirty — really dirty. Surprisingly, the team of volunteers who discovered these monitors had fired them up, and every one of them works to some extent or another.
Check out the video below as he cleans up this filthy monitor and starts troubleshooting. You’ll chuckle aloud when he turns the circuit board over to desolder a mysterious diode, and when he flips the board back over, the diode has disappeared (it actually disintegrated into dust on his lab bench). For the curious, one commenter on YouTube found that it was a glass passivated and encapsulated fast recovery diode called a V19. There’s going to be a part 2, and we have every confidence that [The 8-Bit Guy] will succeed and soon add a shiny, like-new monitor to his collection.
If you’re a collector of old monitors, this demonstrates that they can survive quite a bit of abuse and exposure. We’re not sure that rummaging through your local landfill is the best idea, but if you run into an old monitor that has been exposed to the elements, don’t be so quick to dismiss it as a lost cause. Do you have any gems that you’ve restored from the trash? Let us know in the comments. | 33 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349264",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2021-05-17T18:33:41",
"content": "When I was a teenager in around 1977 my father brought home a colour TV he had found dumped in a roadside ditch, in the wet UK winter, for me to “fiddle with”. I let it dry out, replaced a big fat oozing capac... | 1,760,373,083.129617 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/17/telemetry-debate-rocks-audacity-community-in-open-source-dustup/ | Telemetry Debate Rocks Audacity Community In Open Source Dustup | Tom Nardi | [
"Current Events",
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Slider",
"Software Development"
] | [
"analytics",
"foss",
"open source",
"privacy",
"telemetry"
] | Starting an open source project is easy: write some code, pick a compatible license, and push it up to GitHub. Extra points awarded if you came up with a clever logo and remembered to actually document what the project is supposed to do. But maintaining a large open source project and keeping its community happy while continuing to evolve and stay on the cutting edge is another story entirely.
Just ask the maintainers of Audacity. The GPLv2 licensed multi-platform audio editor has been providing a powerful and easy to use set of tools for amateurs and professionals alike since 1999, and is used daily by…well, it’s hard to say. Millions, tens of millions? Nobody really knows how many people are using this particular tool and on what platforms, so it’s not hard to see why a
pull request was recently proposed which would bake analytics into the software
in an effort to start answering some of these core questions.
Now, the sort of folks who believe that software should be free as in speech tend to be a prickly bunch. They hold privacy in high regard, and any talk of monitoring their activity is always going to be met with strong resistance. Sure enough, the comments for this particular pull request went south quickly. The accusations started flying, and it didn’t take long before the F-word started getting bandied around: fork. If Audacity was going to start snooping on its users, they argued, then it was time to take the source and spin it off into a new project free of such monitoring.
The situation may sound dire, but truth be told, it’s a common enough occurrence in the world of free and open source software (FOSS) development. You’d be hard pressed to find any large FOSS project that hasn’t been threatened with a fork or two when a subset of its users didn’t like the direction they felt things were moving in, and arguably, that’s exactly how the system is supposed to work. Under normal circumstances, you could just chalk this one up to
Raymond’s
Bazaar
at work.
But this time, things were a bit more complicated. Proposing such large and sweeping changes with no warning showed a troubling lack of transparency, and some of the decisions on how to implement this new telemetry system were downright concerning. Combined with the fact that the pull request was made just days after it was announced that Audacity was to be brought under new management, there was plenty of reason to sound the alarm.
Meet the New Boss
It’s impossible to talk about the proposed changes to Audacity without acknowledging the project’s new owner, Muse Group. The organization is dedicated to developing and supporting audio tools and music software for content creators from all walks of life, and in addition to the Muse-branded packages such as MuseScore and MuseClass, they’re also responsible for Ultimate Guitar and Tonebridge. Despite the impressive catalog of software and communities that fall under their umbrella, representing hundreds of millions of users before Audacity is even factored into the equation,
the Muse Group as an entity has only officially existed since April 26th
(yes, that’s just eight days prior to the telemetry pull request).
Muse Group’s acquisition of Audacity was first acknowledged just four days later, in a YouTube video posted by Martin Keary (known online as Tantacrul) entitled “
I’m now in charge of Audacity. Seriously
“
. On May 3rd,
an official announcement was posted to the Audacity site
confirming the news that they had joined the Muse Group and that Keary would take over as the new project leader.
The pace at which things were moving was alarming to say the least. But in his video, Keary made it clear that his intention wasn’t to strip the heart and soul out of Audacity. It would still remain free software under the GPLv2, and beyond some admittedly much needed user interface tweaks, would be the same program that millions of users had been enjoying for over 20 years.
Less than 24 hours after the official announcement of their acquisition had been posted to the Audacity site, the pull request to implement telemetry was opened.
Good Intentions, Terrible Optics
It should seem obvious that if you’re interested in a smooth transition of power and a happy community, the absolute last thing you should do is rush through massive changes that undermine a project’s core values within hours of taking ownership. Yet, that’s precisely what happened here. Not even a full day after users saw the first official word that the project had been absorbed by another group, unpopular changes were seemingly being rammed through the approval process without so much as a discussion period. For many, it was difficult to view this as anything but a hostile takeover of an established project by a group that didn’t even exist a week ago.
As you might expect, the reality isn’t nearly so racy. The Muse Group, looking to put development time and money into a revamp of Audacity’s antiquated UI and the squashing of some particularly tricky bugs, wanted the same insight into the software’s user base that they have with their existing projects. In fact Keary was instrumental in implementing a similar telemetry program for MuseScore back in 2019, specifically to determine which elements of the software were being used the most. With this data, the development team argued they could craft a more streamlined experience that better reflected the typical workflow.
The difference was, back then, it was
announced with a well thought out and detailed blog post
that articulated exactly what the development team was trying to achieve and how they hoped to do it. There were still some dissenting voices, but the explanation and clear goals helped to smooth things over. A similar post explaining the changes on the Audacity site could have helped avoid a lot of the confusion in those first few days, but unfortunately, somebody dropped the ball pretty badly this time around.
Eventually the pull request was amended with clarifying information, such as the fact that the telemetry would be opt-in and even then only applied to binary builds of Audacity released through GitHub and not distribution-specific packages. It even included a breakdown of what data would be collected, and how it would be used. The new information did quell some of the complaints, but others still took issue with the way the data was to be collected. For example, rather than handle it in-house, Muse Group was going to push all the telemetry through Google and Yandex. Collecting optional analytics for the sake of improving the Audacity user experience is one thing, but do we really need to funnel even more of our usage information through the search giants?
Message Received
When I started writing this, it really wasn’t clear how this situation was going to play out. Sure the community was mad, but as long as Muse Group kept to their word and made it so users had to opt-in before their data was collected, the reality is that most of them would cool off eventually. The chances of such a well established project actually getting forked over an optional feature that wasn’t even going to be included in distribution specific package repositories was slim to none. Would some users have jumped ship and found another audio editor for purely ideological reasons? Probably. But frankly, not enough of them to matter.
But before this article could go to print, the pull request in question was closed and
Martin Keary himself dropped in to sort things out
. He explained that the plan was to introduce the idea of telemetry to the Audacity community before actually proposing any changes, like they did with MuseScore, but that there was some internal miscommunication that caused things to happen out of order. Further, based on the response from the community, the decision was made to suspending any current plans to add telemetry to Audacity.
Looking ahead, Keary says the team is interested in getting community feedback on how they could implement some limited analytics for diagnostic purposes. They acknowledge that it needs to be handled in-house and not passed through a third party, but even still, there’s some debate about even adding tracking code to the project in the first place. Some members of the community have already suggested it be implemented as a plugin that’s maintained separately from the main Audacity source code, but it’s not immediately clear if that will be technically feasible.
At least for the time being, the Audacity community can rest easy. While there’s no question that Muse Group bungled things pretty badly here and got started on the wrong foot, it seems they’re looking to make it right and give the community the respect it deserves. We’ve often spoken of the incredible things that can be accomplished when a project
embraces the creativity of its users and treats them as co-developers
rather than as adversaries, and we’re hopeful Audacity’s new owners can harness that potential to guide the project through its second decade and beyond. | 107 | 26 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349242",
"author": "Iiiiiii",
"timestamp": "2021-05-17T17:19:35",
"content": "Tl;Dr: ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6349256",
"author": "Eugene",
"timestamp": "2021-05-17T18:05:29",
"content": "Auda... | 1,760,373,083.535664 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/17/projecting-moving-images-in-air-with-lasers/ | Projecting Moving Images In Air With Lasers | Al Williams | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"hologram",
"optical trap display",
"volumetric display"
] | You’ve seen it a million times in science fiction movies and TV shows: a moving holographic display. From Princess Leia asking for help to virtual tennis on
Total Recall
, it is a common enough idea. [Dan Smalley]’s team at BYU has made progress in
projecting moving 3D images
in thin air. While they might not be movie quality, they are a start, and, after all, you have to start somewhere.
The display traps a small particle in the air with a laser beam and then moves that particle around, leaving behind an illuminated path in the air. You can see the effect in the video below. The
full paper
explains how a type of ray tracing allows the relatively small optical trap display to appear larger and more fluid. While it does make images seem to appear behind the display’s actual volume, it also requires eye tracking to work since the illusion only works from a certain perspective.
These are not, of course, technically holograms. That’s actually an advantage in some cases because holograms require a tremendous amount of data that increases rapidly as the size of a display scales up. The optical trap display uses a much more manageable data rate.
We’ve seen
optical trap displays before
. In fact,
volumetric displays
seem to be all the rage lately. | 14 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349225",
"author": "mrehorst",
"timestamp": "2021-05-17T15:48:03",
"content": "I found this a little disappointing. Essentially you use a high powered laser to position a particle that you light up with another laser. I don’t know what kind of power it takes to levitate a particle ... | 1,760,373,083.341672 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/17/gassing-up-understanding-the-liquid-fuel-distribution-network/ | Gassing Up: Understanding The Liquid Fuel Distribution Network | Dan Maloney | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"News",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"gas",
"infrastructure",
"pipeline"
] | When someone talks about “The Grid,” as in “dropping off the grid” or “the grid is down,” we tend to think in terms of the electromagnetic aspects of the infrastructure of modern life. The mind’s eye sees The Grid as the network of wires that moves electricity from power plants to homes and businesses, or the wires, optical cables, and wireless links that form the web of data lines that have stitched the world together informatically.
The Grid isn’t just about power and data, though. A huge portion of the infrastructure of the developed world is devoted to the simple but vital task of moving liquid fuels from one place to another as efficiently and safely as possible. This fuel distribution network, comprised of pipelines, railways, and tanker trucks, is very much part of The Grid, even if it goes largely unseen and unnoticed. At least until something major happens to shift attention to it, like the recent Colonial Pipeline cyberattack.
A Series of Tubes
This story actually started a week before the pipeline attack while I was filling up some gas jugs at the local filling station. There was a tanker truck parked in the lot, dispensing gasoline and diesel into the buried storage tanks through big hoses. Any driver is likely to have witnessed a scene like this before without giving it a second thought, as I had many times before. But it struck me this time that I had no idea where that tanker truck had filled up before heading out on the morning rounds. Where I live in North Idaho, the nearest seaport — a logical place for gasoline and other fuels to arrive by tanker from refineries located in other parts of North America — is a six-hour drive away. Would a truck driver really be asked to drive that far to pick up and then deliver fuel?
As it turns out, the tanker trucks that we all see topping off the tanks at gas stations are only the very last link in the petroleum transport network, and tanker trucks in general play only a small role in the fuel distribution system. The network is divided into two main functions: getting crude petroleum from where it’s produced to where it can be processed into finished products, and getting the finished products to the customers. While surface transportation, especially oil tankers, play an outsized role in moving crude oil around, the finished products network is dominated by pipelines.
In the United States, there are close to 200,000 miles (322,000 km) of oil pipelines, the bulk of which is dedicated to moving finished products from refineries to consumers. Some of these stretch vast distances, like the 5,500 miles (8,900 km) that the Colonial Pipeline covers on its way from the refineries of Texas through the major cities of the southeast and Eastern seaboard through to its terminus outside of New York City in Linden, New Jersey. The twin pipelines, with one devoted mostly to moving gasoline and a smaller one used for other products, like diesel and jet fuel, move a total of three million barrels (126,000,000 gallons or 477,000,000 liters) of product every day.
Pipelines move oceans of petroleum products around every day, and criss-cross the country in an intricate web of infrastructure. And yet, almost all of this vast network is invisible, buried safely below ground for the majority of its length, surfacing only occasionally at pumping stations, control points, and tank farms. Pipeline construction itself is a fascinating subject; a pipeline is much more than just a buried pipe, and an immense amount of effort and engineering goes into building one.
Mix and Mingle
Once a finished products pipeline is built and tested, it begins the non-stop work for which it was designed. Like trucking companies, shipping lines, and railways, pipeline companies are what’s known as common carriers, which means they have to accept shipments from anyone who meets their published specifications. They don’t generally own the product that’s being shipped, but rather contract with the products’ owners to move it from one place to another. This means there are almost always products from more than one refiner in a pipeline at any time, queued up along the length of the pipe.
In addition to a mix of product owners, each shipper will likely have a variety of products in the pipe at any one time. The most common example is the different grades of gasoline, which in the United States basically means different octane ratings and varying amounts of ethanol. These all travel in the pipeline in sequence, immense slugs of each product nestled up against each other. There will necessarily be some mixing of products that occur in transit, resulting in what’s known as intermix zones. Product from intermix zones needs to be treated differently from the “clean” product in the middle of the bolus. In the case where different grades of gasoline are intermixed, the receiving tank farm generally puts the mixed product into the storage tank for the lower of the two grades, on the theory that it’s better to sell a slightly higher grade of fuel than is being advertised. When different products, like gasoline and diesel, get intermixed, the receiving facility has to segregate the intermixed products and send the unmarketable cocktail back to the refinery for reprocessing.
An above-ground section of a petroleum pipeline. Plenty of valves and sensors, plus satellite and terrestrial radio links.
In either case, the state of the product in transit and the overall health of the pipeline are monitored by a far-flung array of sensors. Determination of which product is at which point in the pipeline is normally the business of specific gravity sensors, which continually sample the density of the product as it moves along in the pipe. Pipelines also routinely monitor pressure, temperature, and flow rate along their length, as well looking for leaks and any sign of intrusion into any of their above-ground facilities. These sensors, along with actuators on valves that control the flow, are remotely controlled by the pipeline operators through a SCADA, or supervisory control and data acquisition, network.
Down on the Farm
At the terminus of most pipelines, and sometimes at points along the way, are located one of their more recognizable above-ground features: the tanks farms. Also known as oil terminals and varying in size from just a few small storage tanks to dozens or hundreds of towering structures, tank farms serve as a rest stop for finished petroleum products on their journey from refinery to filling station. Tank farms can also serve as junctions between two or more independent pipelines; for example, in my area, finished products are shipped from refineries in Utah in a pipeline that terminates in Spokane, Washington. The tank farm there serves the entire eastern Washington and Idaho Panhandle region; another pipeline starts at the Spokane terminal and extends east over the Rocky Mountains to an oil terminal in Thompson Falls, Montana, which serves the entire western region of that state.
Each oil terminal will have the pumping gear and valves needed to divert the pipeline’s flow into different storage areas, so that the incoming products from different manufacturers can be segregated before being shipped to customers. Different tanks are available to store the different grades of fuels, too, as well as for the intermix products that need to be shipped back to the refinery. Most oil terminals do very little in the way of manufacturing; products generally arrive there ready to be sold to consumers. Some terminals do perform a limited amount of blending, though, and some may even add ingredients such as ethanol as seasonal needs dictate.
As efficient as pipelines are at moving products around, it’s important to note that they’re not universal. There are vast stretches of North America that aren’t serviced by any pipelines, particularly in the western areas of the United States where population density can’t support the investment needed. The northeast US also lacks many pipelines, but for the exact opposite reason — population density makes it hard to get right-of-way to build pipelines. There, other modes of transportation have to suffice; in New England, for instance, the oil terminals in New Jersey fill up barges with finished products, including the all-important home heating oil, which then head up Long Island Sound to fill the tanks of oil terminals in cities all along the coast.
Spokane oil terminal of the Yellowstone Pipeline. The pipeline enters the terminal at the lower right; a portion of the tank farm is visible upper left, and the loading area for tanker trucks is at the center. Source: Google Maps
On the Road Again
Finished products generally don’t spend much time in the tank farms of an oil terminal. From the pipeline operator’s perspective, storage space in an oil terminal is a limited resource, and clearing out tanks to make room for new products coming up the pipeline is critically important. From the products’ owners viewpoint, they can’t make any money until the product is delivered to a retailer. So, it’s in everyone’s best interest to have a streamlined and efficient process for getting products shipped out of the terminal.
To that end, most terminals are designed to get tanker trucks filled and on the road again as quickly and safely as possible. Tanker trucks are filled from the bottom, with the vapor phase of the volatile liquids recovered for recycling. Each tanker is usually divided into multiple compartments, so that different grades of gasoline can be loaded — in the United States, diesel is never carried in the same tanker as gasoline, so an entirely different tanker is used to deliver diesel to gas stations.
The total time that finished petroleum products spend in transit from refinery to customer varies, but is primarily a function of how long it spends in the various pipelines along the way. In the case of the Colonial Pipeline, under normal circumstances it takes about five days for a product to make it from Houston to New York. So in most cases, thanks to the efficiency of the fuel distribution network, the fuel you’re filling up with today was probably refined no more than a week or so ago, and has spent most of its short life in the pipe. | 40 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349206",
"author": "Steven-X",
"timestamp": "2021-05-17T14:44:11",
"content": "My wife and I walk through a local tank farm as part of our daily walk (a public road cuts it in two) and it was fascinating to watch as they went through some major upgrades last winter (pre covid).",
... | 1,760,373,083.616861 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/17/soil-moisture-sensors-how-do-they-work/ | Soil Moisture Sensors, How Do They Work? | Donald Papp | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"capacitive sensor",
"gardening",
"moisture sensor",
"plants",
"soil sensor",
"water"
] | In a way, the magic of a soil moisture sensor’s functionality boils down to a simple RC circuit. But of course, in practice there is a bit more to it than that. [rbaron]
explains exactly how capacitive soil moisture sensors work
simply, clearly, and concisely. He also shows, with a short video, exactly how their output changes in response to their environment, and explains how it informed his own sensor design.
At its heart, a moisture sensor measures how quickly (or slowly) a capacitor charges through a resistor, but in these sensors the capacitor is not a literal component, but is formed by two PCB traces that are near one another. Their capacitance — and therefore their charging rate — changes in response to how much water is around them. By measuring this effect on a probe sunk into dirt, the sensor can therefore indirectly measure the amount of water in the soil.
This ties into his own work on
b-parasite: an open-source, all-in-one wireless soil moisture sensor
(which was also a runner-up in
our Earth Day contest
) that broadcasts over BLE and even includes temperature readings. One thing to be mindful of if you are making your own PCBs or ordering them from a fab house is that passing current through metal in a moist environment is a recipe for oxidation, so it’s important not to expose bare traces to wet soil. A good coated PCB should avoid this problem, but one alternative we have seen proposed is to
use graphite rods in place of metal
. | 19 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349169",
"author": "Russ",
"timestamp": "2021-05-17T11:47:47",
"content": "Capacitive soil moisture sensors are very sensitive to salt content unless the frequency is high (> 50 MHz). This design appears to operate at 0.5 MHz.I experimented with a sensor like this for automated tom... | 1,760,373,083.292127 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/17/actively-balancing-a-robot-with-a-gyroscope/ | Actively Balancing A Robot With A Gyroscope | Danie Conradie | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"balancing robot",
"gyroscope",
"james bruton"
] | Self-balancing robots are a common hacker project, but we don’t often see them using spinning gyroscopes to achieve that balance. Robot master [James Bruton] decided to build a robotic platform with
active gyroscopic stabilization
, starting from a simple
proof of concept
.
A gyroscope can balance, but cannot actively counteract external forces directly. However, if the gyroscope is tilted around an axis it will exert a force perpendicular to that axis of tilt, known as gyroscopic precession. By tilting the gyroscope with an actuator, and orienting the gyroscope correctly, gyroscopic precession can be used for stabilization. This is known as a control moment gyroscope. [James] demonstrated this with a 3D printed proof of concept, which is used as an IMU to measure the angle of tilt, and use a PID loop to correct the imbalance with a servo actuating the gyroscope.
His second platform used a pair of gyroscopes spinning in opposite directions to compensate for any unintended gyroscopic precession along another axis. A pair of roller skate wheels allow the entire platform to roll along. Due to a slight imbalance in the platform, [James] noticed that the gyroscopes will continue to creep in one direction, until reaching the end-stops and falling over. By adding a second software controller to keep track of how much the gyroscopes have to move to maintain balance, it can continuously calculate and update the balancing point. This prevents the gyroscopes from hitting the end stops.
Control moment gyroscopes are commonly used for attitude control on spacecraft, and to reduce the rolling motion of boats in waves. [James] has plans to combine a control moment gyroscope with the more conventional balancing method, to balance a robot on a single wheel.
We’ve seen a
two wheeled RC cars
use
gyroscopes
before, but without the active control part. | 9 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349154",
"author": "Erik Christiansen",
"timestamp": "2021-05-17T09:10:37",
"content": "Very interesting to see double gyroscope balancing in action. Somewhere in my library there’s a novel from before WWI with a fictional tale of a young man driving a two-wheeled gyrocar through A... | 1,760,373,083.389617 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/16/rodriguez-iv-curve-tracer-on-the-cheap/ | Rodriguez — IV Curve Tracer On The Cheap | Chris Lott | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"curve tracer"
] | In response to an online discussion on the Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange, [Joseph Eoff] decided to prove his point by slapping together a
bare-bones IV curve tracer
using an Arduino Nano and a handful of passives. But he continued to tinker with the circuit, seeing just how much improvement was possible out of this simple setup. He squeezes a bit of extra resolution out of the PWM DAC circuit by using the Timer1 library to obtain 1024 instead of 256 steps. For reading voltages, he implements oversampling (and in some cases oversampling again) to eke out a few extra bits of resolution from the 10-bit ADC of the Nano. The whole thing is controlled by a Python / Qt script to generate the desired plots.
While it works and gives him the IV curves, this simplicity comes at a price. It’s slow — [Joseph] reports that it takes several minutes to trace out five different values of base current on a transistor. It was this lack of speed that inspired him to name the project after cartoon character Speedy Gonzales’s cousin, Slowpoke Rodriguez, AKA “the slowest mouse in all of Mexico”. In addition to being painstakingly slow, the tracer is limited to 5 volts and currents under 5 milliamps.
[Joseph] documents the whole design and build process
over on his blog
, and has made the
source code available on GitHub
should you want to try this yourself. We covered another interesting
IV curve tracer build on cardboard
ten years ago, but that one is much bigger than the Rodriguez. | 9 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349121",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2021-05-17T06:26:21",
"content": ">He squeezes a bit of extra resolution out of the PWM DAC circuit by using the Timer1 library to obtain 1024 instead of 256 steps.You can get up to 16 bits of resolution by summing the two 8-bit timers’ PWM ... | 1,760,373,083.668979 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/15/using-ikea-guts-to-add-sonos-compatibility-to-a-vintage-speaker/ | Using Ikea Guts To Add Sonos Compatibility To A Vintage Speaker | Jenny List | [
"digital audio hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"ikea",
"sonos",
"speaker",
"symfonisk"
] | We’re in a fortunate position when it comes to audio gear, because advances in amplifier and signal processing technology have delivered us budget devices that produce a sound that’s excellent in comparison to those of a few years ago. That said, a decent quality device is good whichever decade it was manufactured in, and a speaker from the 1960s can be coaxed into life and sound excellent with a modern amplifier. It’s something [Sebastius] has explored, as he picked up an attractive-looking set of Swedish speakers from the 1960s. Wanting to bring them into the 21st century,
he’s upgraded them for Sonos compatibility
by hacking in the guts of an IKEA Symfonisk bookshelf speaker.
The speakers themselves looked good enough, but on closer examination they proved to bear the scars of many decades. After testing new wiring and drivers they still had a good sound to them. Their passive crossover meant that hooking them up to a single amplifier is as straightforward as it was decades ago, but a Symfonisk has an active crossover and two amplifiers. Fortunately
there’s a neat hack by which those two amplifiers can be combined as one
, and this is what he’s done with the resulting Symfonisk electronic package mounted on the reverse of the speaker.
The fate of the original speaker’s broken mid-range and tweeter drivers was a common enough one back in the day as speakers were ill-matched to amplifiers. Too small an amp would need turning up in volume to get a good sound resulting in distortion that would burn out the top end drivers, while too much power would result in the bass drivers being overloaded and failing. It’s unclear whether the drivers in a vintage speaker would be well-matched to an amplifier such as the Symfonisk, but we’re guessing they are safe while run at sensible volumes. Perhaps of more interest is whatever on-board DSP a Symfonisk contains, because while vintage speakers were designed for as flat a response as possible, modern compact speakers use DSP to equalise the frequency and phase responses of otherwise not-very-good-sounding enclosures. If the Symfonisk does this then those adjustments will appear as distortion in the sound of a different cabinet, but the question remains whether that distortion will be significant enough to be detectable by ear.
If the Symfonisk catches your attention,
we’ve covered a teardown of it in the past
. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6348813",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2021-05-15T09:41:28",
"content": "Are there any handy DSP modules you can just drop in between your sound source and the amp?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6348835",
"author"... | 1,760,373,083.712519 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/14/spacewar-on-pdp-11-restoration/ | Spacewar! On PDP-11 Restoration | Chris Lott | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"DEC PDP-11",
"DECUS",
"PDP-1",
"restoration",
"spacewar"
] | If you want to play the original Spacewar! but you don’t have a PDP-1 nearby, then you’re in luck — assuming you have a PDP-11, that is. [Mattis Lind] has
successfully restored a PDP-11 port of the game
from PDF scans of the source code, which was thought to have been lost to the trash bins of
DECUS
(Digital Equipment Computer Users’ Society). Fortunately, [Mattis] learned that [Bill Seiler], one of the original authors, had saved a printout of the assembly language.
Using a combination of OCR and manual transcription to retrieve the code, [Mattis] took a deep dive into cleaning up the errors and solving a whole lot of system library and linking issues. Adding to the difficulty is that his PDP-11 is slightly different from the one used in 1974 when this port was written.
The project was not all software — [Mattis] also needed to make a pair of joysticks, which he made from a handful of items found on AliExpress. As you can see in the video below, he indeed got it all working. [Mattis] is no stranger to the PDP-11 world.
We wrote about his PDP-11 restoration project back in 2015
, a quest that took over 18 months. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6348798",
"author": "JWhitten",
"timestamp": "2021-05-15T08:07:56",
"content": "I remember this game. Or at least, I think I do. Wasn’t there a video-game console version of it made briefly? Pre-Atari, or thereabouts? I found a web site with the information about it. I remember play... | 1,760,373,083.764212 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/14/random-robot-makes-random-art/ | Random Robot Makes Random Art | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"art",
"bristlebot",
"control",
"random",
"rng",
"robot"
] | For the price of a toothbrush and a small motor with an offset weight, a bristlebot is essentially the cheapest robot that can be built. The motor shakes the toothbrush and the bristle pattern allows the robot to move, albeit in a completely random pattern. While this might not seem like a true robot that can interact with its environment in any meaningful way, [scanlime] shows just how versatile this robot – which appears to only move randomly –
can actually be used to make art in non-random ways
.
Instead of using a single bristlebot for the project, three of them are built into one 3D printed flexible case where each are offset by 120
°, and which can hold a pen in the opening in the center
. This allows them to have some control on the robot’s direction of movement. From there, custom software attempts to wrangle the randomness of the bristlebot to produce a given image. Of course, as a bristlebot it is easily subjected to the whims of its external environment such as the leveling of the table and even the small force exerted by the power/communications tether.
With some iterations of the design such as modifying the arms and control systems, she has an interesting art-producing robot that is fairly reliable for its inherently random movements. For those who want to give something like this a try, the code for running the robot and CAD files for 3D printing the parts are
all available on the project’s GitHub page
. If you’re looking for other bristlebot-style robots that do more than wander around a desktop, be sure to take a look at this
line-following bristlebot
too.
Thanks to [johnowhitaker] for the tip! | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6348772",
"author": "Somun",
"timestamp": "2021-05-15T04:25:31",
"content": "Random person makes random comment.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6348773",
"author": "Jul13",
"timestamp": "2021-05-15T04:53:31",
"conte... | 1,760,373,083.802989 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/14/automated-watering-machine-has-what-plants-crave-fertilizer/ | Automated Watering Machine Has What Plants Crave: Fertilizer | Kristina Panos | [
"Lifehacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"arduino",
"arduino nano",
"automated plant care",
"automatic plant watering",
"ESP32",
"fertilizer",
"lcd",
"peristaltic pump"
] | We’ve seen countless automated plant care systems over the years, but for some reason they almost never involve the secret sauce of gardening — fertilizer. But [xythobuz] knows what’s up. When they moved into their new flat by themselves, it was time to spread out and start growing some plants on the balcony. Before long, the garden was big enough to warrant
an automated system for watering and fertilizing
.
This clever DIY system is based around a 5L gravity-fed water tank with solenoid control and three [jugs] of liquid fertilizer that is added to the water via peristaltic pump. Don’t worry, the water tank has float switches, and [xythobuz] is there to switch it off manually every time so it doesn’t flood the flat.
On the UI side, an Arduino Nano clone is running the show, providing the LCD output and handling the keypad input. The machine itself is controlled with an ESP32 and a pair of four-channel relay boards that control the inlet valve, the four outlet valves, and the three peristaltic pumps that squirt out the fertilizer. The ESP also serves up a web interface that mimics the control panel and adds in the debug logs. These two boards communicate using I²C over DB-9, because that’s probably what [xythobuz] had lying around. Check out the demo video after the break, and then go check on your own plants. They miss you!
Don’t want to buy just any old peristaltic pumps?
Maybe you could print your own. | 19 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6348741",
"author": "norro211",
"timestamp": "2021-05-14T23:53:24",
"content": "Because plants generally don’t need fertilizer, especially not litres of it for a balcony.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6348752",
"auth... | 1,760,373,083.859363 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/14/wood-enclosure-lends-warmth-to-this-diy-ribbon-microphone/ | Wood Enclosure Lends Warmth To This DIY Ribbon Microphone | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"cnc",
"microphone",
"neodymium",
"plywood",
"ribbon",
"wood"
] | We love it when someone takes an idea they’ve seen on Hackaday and runs with it, taking it in a new and different direction. That’s pretty much what we’re here for, after all, and it’s pretty gratifying to see projects like
this wooden ribbon microphone
come to life.
Now, we’re not completely sure that [Maya Román] was inspired by our coverage of [Frank Olson]’s
homage to the RCA Model 44 studio mic rendered in walnut veneer
, but we’re going to pat ourselves on the back here anyway. The interesting thing with [Maya]’s build is that she chose completely different materials and design styles for her project. Where [Frank] built as much of his mic from wood as possible, [Maya] was fine with a mixed media approach — CNC-milled plywood for the case and stand, laser-cut acrylic for the ribbon motor frame, and 3D-printed pieces here and there as needed. The woven brass cloth used as a windscreen is a nice detail; while the whole thing looks — and sounds — great, we think it would be even better with a coat of dark stain to contrast against the brass, as well as a nice glossy coat of polyurethane.
The video below shows the whole design and build process, which was a final project for [Maya]’s audio production class this semester at college. Here’s hoping that it got as good a grade as we would give it. | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6348713",
"author": "Dan Lavin",
"timestamp": "2021-05-14T20:19:21",
"content": "Bravo Maya! I thought this project was going to be a DIY casing of a kit microphone … which would’ve been awesome regardless. The fact that the whole dang microphone is from scratch is amazing! You have... | 1,760,373,083.952776 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/14/a-stackable-planetary-gearbox-you-can-print-at-home/ | A Stackable Planetary Gearbox You Can Print At Home | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"gearbox"
] | In one little corner of YouTube is a small but vibrant community sharing videos about gearboxes of their own design, particularly those with very high ratios or other quirky features. Adherents of the subculture are known as
gearheads
, and [Let’s Print] is among them. His latest creation is a 3D printed planetary gearbox design
with a focus on easy assembly and versatile ratio choice.
(Video, embedded below.)
The gearbox came about as [Let’s Print] grew weary of designing bespoke geartrains for each of their individual projects. The planetary design they landed on has the benefit of being stackable, with each reduction block fitted adding a 1:3 stepdown to the train.
For testing purposes, four stages were ganged up for a total reduction ratio of 1:81. The resulting gearbox was able to lift 40 kg before its output coupler failed, no mean feat for some plastic squirted out of a hot nozzle. It’s a common problem with huge ratio gearboxes made out of plastic – often, the very components of the gearbox can’t hold up to the huge loads generated.
Regardless of the limitations of the material, we’re sure the gearbox will prove useful in future projects from [Let’s Print]. We’ve seen other tough 3D printed gearbox builds before too,
such as this anvil-lifter from the aptly-named [Gear Down For What]
. Dive into the online gearbox subculture yourself. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,373,084.044549 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/14/increased-neutron-levels-at-chernobyl-4-how-dangerous-is-corium/ | Increased Neutron Levels At Chernobyl-4: How Dangerous Is Corium? | Maya Posch | [
"Featured",
"News",
"Science"
] | [
"Chernobyl",
"corium",
"nuclear safety"
] | When the Chernobyl nuclear plant suffered the
power output surge
that would destroy its #4 reactor, a substance called ‘
corium
‘ was formed. This originally lava-like substance formed out of the destroyed fuel rods along with surrounding materials, like concrete, that made up the reactor. The corium ultimately cooled down and left large amounts of solid corium in the rooms where it had pooled.
Over the past few days there have been numerous reports in the media regarding a ‘sudden surge’ in neutron flux levels from this corium, with some predicting a ‘second Chernobyl disaster’. Obviously, this has quite a few people alarmed, but how dire are these neutron output changes exactly, and what do they tell us about the condition of the corium inside the ruins of the #4 reactor building?
Matter of Perspective
When it comes to translating scientific measurements and data into health and safety information, perspective is everything. For example, after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster, marine life near the wrecked plant got exposed to increased levels of radioactive cesium isotopes. Some of these, like tuna, are migratory, and are caught by fishers off the US West Coast. As
explained
by NOAA Fisheries, the fact that we can measure these increased levels in the caught tuna does not mean that they’re of concern to public health, but it’s still not cool.
When it comes to consuming fish, the bigger danger is heavy metals. In the case of tuna, mercury levels are generally high enough that the mercury exposure from a single 85 gram serving of tuna may
surpass
the (US EPA) safe levels for mercury consumption in an entire week. We have
previously covered
the dangers of methyl mercury in fish and its role in Minamata disease.
The radioactive beaches of Guarapari, due to monazite minerals.
Back to Chernobyl. How much have emissions increased, and is that a lot? 1 milliSievert (mSv) annually is a standard maximum dose for the public. While it’s obviously a good idea to have a conservative maximum dose, there are places where naturally occurring radiation exposes the public to a lot more.
The famous
black beaches
of Brazil expose tourists and inhabitants to significantly higher levels than this 1 mSv due to the presence of
monazite
, a phosphate mineral that contains thorium and some uranium. Monazite is found in India, South Africa and other regions as well. Despite these massive violations of what is perceived as the safe limit, studies
are not finding significant harm
from these high background radiation levels.
Back to Corium
The corium at Chernobyl-4 is not a homogeneous mass, but displays distinct phases depending on when different materials were added. In sub-reactor room 305/2 where the corium first pooled, it is mostly presumably the
black ceramics
type. All of the corium consists out of a
silicate glass
matrix with the other substances mixed into it. Constituents are the (non-enriched) uranium oxide fuel, the zirconium from the fuel rod cladding and
serpentinite
.
Serpentinite was used inside the RBMK reactor as radiation shielding at the top of the reactor, due to its ability to slow down neutrons through elastic collisions — the neutrons literally bounce off without changing the serpentinite. In the corium samples analyzed, the main constituent was silicon dioxide (SiO
2
), commonly known as glass. With the amount of SiO
2
in the corium samples ranging from 60-70%, the long-term stability of corium hinges on the stability of this glass matrix under constant irradiation.
As the radioactive isotopes in the corium, mostly
transuranics
and
actinides,
undergo radioactive decay, the short-lived isotopes are responsible for most of the radiation. The high-energy, but low penetration, alpha decay particles can cause so-called
Coulomb explosions
, which could conceivably damage the crystalline SiO
2
matrix to the point of collapse. Estimates are that the self-irradiation levels of the Chernobyl-4 corium are not sufficiently high to warrant such a transformation over a 100 year timespan.
Rainwater
A recent significant change at the Chernobyl-4 reactor has been the placement of the New Safe Confinement (
NSC
) structure over the ruins. This replaces the original 1980s improvised concrete sarcophagus which was originally erected around the reactor remains by the Soviet government. This old sarcophagus was anything but airtight, allowing rainwater and even small animals to enter the structure.
With the NSC in place, however, this steady supply of rainwater has now stopped, which presumably would have begun to dry out the reactor remains and the sub-subterranean rooms. As a highly effective neutron moderator and absorber, this rainwater is
speculated
to have reduced the reactivity of the corium. With the water content decreasing, the initial effect would be that of a void formation that decreases neutron capture, and thus increases reactivity of the fissile material.
With less water, the neutron flux has accordingly increased. However, it should also be noted that this is not a new or sudden phenomenon. The neutron flux has been gradually increasing over the past four years, with a doubling during that time in room 305/2. It and the other changes since the installation of the NSC having been a subject of constant study by the Institute of Nuclear Power Plant Safety (IPBAE) of the Ukraine Academy of Sciences.
According to the IPBAE, there are many uncertainties about what may happen next, but that so far the neutron flux has not exceeded established safety limits. With the neutron flux density still gradually increasing, the situation warrants caution, but not alarm. Their models show that the worst case situation would cause a sudden spike in thermal output due to a run-away fissile reaction with the boiling off of any remaining water in the material contained in room 305/2.
The resulting steam explosion might weaken the reactor’s ruins and the degrading sarcophagus further, but the NSC is expected to contain the radioactive dust in this scenario. Definitely a bad day for NSC operators, but unlikely to affect the area outside this containment.
Tempest in a Corium Teapot?
Considering that this is a slowly developing situation that has been constantly monitored ever since the NSC was rolled into place above Chernobyl-4’s ruins, and with even the worst-case scenario likely to remain within the confines of the NSC, it seems somewhat odd that it would get this much media attention. Especially considering that the current neutron flux density is in science lingo merely ’cause for concern’, meaning a situation that still far removed from any situation that would require immediate action.
The goal at this point is for scientists to work on further monitoring and modelling the interactions that are happening in room 305/2 and other parts of Chernobyl-4’s ruins. With Chernobyl-4’s corium being essentially unique in its severity and scope, much of this is still a learning experience. Yet it should not be a concern to the average citizen.
For example radioactive radon gas is the
number one cause of lung cancer
in non-smokers in the US, responsible for 21,000 lung cancer deaths each year. The reasonable approach for people who don’t work at or near the Chernobyl-4 NSC would be to pay attention to the radon gas levels in their house and mind the amount of tuna they eat.
In addition, as covered in
our earlier article
on the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster, the leading cause behind the disaster was a complete lack of safety culture. This pervaded not only the design of this RBMK-style reactor, but also the way it was operated and maintained. In current day Ukraine, and under the watchful eye of the
IAEA
, safety culture is no longer optional at the now shuttered Chernobyl nuclear plant.
None of this is to say that accidents cannot happen, but it is important in life to keep the appropriate perspective. | 60 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6348655",
"author": "Artenz",
"timestamp": "2021-05-14T17:09:36",
"content": "Not great, not terrible",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6348662",
"author": "Alexander Wikström",
"timestamp": "2021-05-14T17:27:32"... | 1,760,373,084.232945 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/16/magic-pyramids-blink-eternal-with-the-power-of-the-sun/ | Magic Pyramids Blink Eternal With The Power Of The Sun | Kerry Scharfglass | [
"hardware",
"Solar Hacks"
] | [
"degassing",
"energy harvesting",
"indoor light",
"led",
"LIC capacitor",
"pyramid",
"resin casting",
"solar",
"solar energy",
"super capacitor"
] | Without knowing it, we’ve spent years watching [Jasper Sikken] piece together an empire of energy harvesting equipment, and now he’s putting the pieces together into wonderful creations. His recently finished
solar harvesting pyramids
are mesmerizing objects of geometric perfection we’d love to see glinting in the sun.
These solar harvesting pyramids are well described by their name. Each one contains a PCBA around 30mm on a side with a solar energy harvester built around the dedicated AEM10941 IC, a single solar cell, and a very bright green LED. [Jasper] calculates that the solar cell will charge the super capacitor at 20uA at with just 200 lux of light (a level typical for casual indoor spaces) letting it run indefinitely when placed indoors. Amazingly with the LED blinking for 15ms every 2 seconds it will run for
21 days
in complete darkness. And that’s it! This is a software-free piece of hardware which requires no input besides dim light and blinks an LED indefinitely.
Small PCBA, large capacitor
What about that super capacitor? It’s called a Lithium Ion Capacitor (LIC) and is a hybrid between a typical rechargeable lithium battery and an electrolytic capacitor, offering extremely high capacity in a convenient two leg through hole form factor. This one is a whopping 30 Farad at 3.8 V, and we first saw it when
[Jasper] won the Hackaday Earth Day contest
last month. Check out that link if you want to know more about their uses and how to integrate them.
For more detail about all of the components of the solar pyramid we need only turn to the Hackaday archives. In December 2019 [Tom Nardi] wrote about
building a cheap degassing system
for making some very familiar looking resin pyramids. And before that [Donald Papp] brought us another familiar piece of the pyramid when he wrote up
a different 1″ x 1″ solar harvesting system
that [Jasper] designed.
Check out the video after the break to see what one of these gems looks like from all sides. And for many more experiments leading up the final pyramid check out the
logs on the Hackaday.io page
. | 21 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349098",
"author": "Henry",
"timestamp": "2021-05-17T02:11:32",
"content": "really really nice build!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6349284",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2021-05-17T19:16:50",
... | 1,760,373,084.134162 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/16/hackaday-links-may-16-2021/ | Hackaday Links: May 16, 2021 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"AFR",
"brain",
"Curiosity",
"fab",
"foundry",
"hackaday links",
"hard drive",
"inventory",
"marketplace",
"mars",
"mri",
"mtbf",
"semiconductor",
"shortages",
"wheels"
] | With the successful arrival of
China’s first Mars lander and rover this week
, and the relatively recent addition of NASA’s
Perseverance
rover and its little helicopter sidekick
Ingenuity
, Mars has collected a lot of new hardware lately. But while the new kids on the block are getting all the attention, spare a thought for the reliable old warhorse which has been plying Gale Crater for the better part of a decade now —
Curiosity
. NASA has been driving the compact-car-sized rover around Mars for a long time now, long enough to rack up some pretty severe damage to its six highly engineered wheels, thanks to the brutal Martian rocks. But if you think
Curiosity
will get sidelined as its wheels degrade, think again — the rover’s operators have a plan to continue surface operations that includes
ripping off its own wheels if necessary
. It’s a complex operation that would require positioning the wheel over a suitable rock and twisting with the steering motor to peel off the outer section of the wheel, leaving a rim to drive around on. JPL has already practiced it, but they predict it won’t be necessary until 2034 or so. Now that’s thinking ahead.
With all the upheaval caused by the ongoing and worsening semiconductor shortage, it might seem natural to expect that manufacturers are responding to market forces by building new fabs to ramp up production. And while there seems to be at least
some movement in that direction
, we stumbled across
an article
that seems to give the lie to the thought that we can build our way out of the crisis. It’s a sobering assessment, to say the least; the essence of the argument is that 20 years ago or so, foundries thought that everyone would switch to the new 300-mm wafers, leaving manufacturing based on 200-mm silicon wafers behind. But the opposite happened, and demand for chips coming from the older 200-mm wafers, including a lot of the chips used in cars and trucks, skyrocketed. So more fabs were built for the 200-mm wafers, leaving relatively fewer fabs capable of building the chips that the current generation of phones, IoT appliances, and 5G gear demand. Add to all that the fact that it takes a long time and a lot of money to build new fabs, and you’ve got the makings of a crisis that won’t be solved anytime soon.
From not enough components to too many: the Adafruit blog has
a short item
about
XScomponent
, an online marketplace for listing your excess inventory of electronic components for sale. If you perhaps ordered a reel of caps when you only needed a dozen, or if the project you thought was a done deal got canceled after all the parts were ordered, this might be just the thing for you. Most items offered appear to have a large minimum quantity requirement, so it’s probably not going to be a place to pick up a few odd parts to finish a build, but it’s still an interesting look at where the market is heading.
Speaking of learning from the marketplace, if you’re curious about what brands and models of hard drives hold up best in the long run, you could do worse than to look over real-world results from a known torturer of hard drives. Cloud storage concern Backblaze has published
their analysis of the reliability of the over 175,000 drives
they have installed in their data centers, and there’s a ton of data to pick through. The overall reliability of these drives, which are thrashing about almost endlessly, is pretty impressive: the annualized failure rate of the whole fleet is only 0.85%. They’ve also got an interesting comparison of HDDs and SSDs; Backblaze only uses solid-state disks for boot drives and for logging and such, so they don’t get quite the same level of thrash as drives containing customer data. But the annualized failure rate of boot SDDs is much lower than that of HDDs used in the same role. They slice and dice their data in a lot of fun and revealing ways, including by specific brand and model of drive, so check it out if you’re looking to buy soon.
And finally, you know that throbbing feeling you get in your head when you’re having one of those days? Well, it turns out that whether you can feel it or not, you’re
having one of those days every day
. Using a new technique called “3D Amplified Magnetic Resonance Imaging”, or 3D aMRI, researchers have made cool new videos that show the brain pulsating in time to the blood flowing through it. The motion is exaggerated by the imaging process, which is good because it sure looks like the brain swells enough with each pulse to crack your skull open, a feeling which every migraine sufferer can relate to. This reminds us a bit of
those techniques
that use special algorithms to detects a person’s heartbeat from a video by looking for the slight but periodic skin changes that occurs as blood rushes into the capillaries. It’s also interesting that when we spied this item, we were sitting with crossed legs, watching our upper leg bounce slightly in time with our pulse. | 19 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349089",
"author": "Rumble_in_the_Jungle",
"timestamp": "2021-05-17T00:04:33",
"content": "XScomponents: “Our selling fee starts at 23.5% of the purchase price”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6349090",
"author": "Rum... | 1,760,373,084.702907 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/16/repurpose-a-monitor-arm-as-microscope-mount/ | Repurpose A Monitor Arm As Microscope Mount | Chris Lott | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"articulating arm",
"microscope",
"microscope mount",
"monitor arm"
] | Being a bit shocked at the prices of articulating arm microscope mounts, not to mention the shipping fees to the UK, [CapTec] realized they looked substantially similar to your typical computer monitor arm mount. Thinking he could adapt a monitor arm for much less money,
he fired up FreeCAD and started designing
.
[CapTec] is using this to support his Amscope / Eakins camera-equipped trinocular microscope, but notes that the same mechanical bracket / focus rack interface is found on binocular ‘scopes as well. He observes that the mount is no more stable than your desk or lab bench, so keep that in mind.
Ultimately the monitor arm set him back less than $40, and all told he reckons the whole thing was under $55. Based on prices he’s been researching online, this represents a savings of well over $200. In his calculations, the shipping fee comprised quite a hefty percentage of the total cost. We wonder if they are artificially high due to coronavirus — if so, the make / buy price comparison might yield different results in the future.
This type of project is a perfect use-case for a home 3D printer — making your own parts when the normal supply channels are unavailable or overpriced. Are articulating arms that are purpose-built for microscopes significantly different than those designed for big computer monitors? If you know, please comment down below. | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349067",
"author": "rok",
"timestamp": "2021-05-16T20:09:43",
"content": "… and when one needs a sturdy but longer arm with a smooth movement look in the direction of second hand hair-dresser supplies for an old wall-mounted hair dryer:https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=... | 1,760,373,084.49274 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/16/thought-control-via-handwriting/ | Thought Control Via Handwriting | Al Williams | [
"Machine Learning",
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"accessibility",
"handwriting",
"machine learning",
"neural network",
"paralysis"
] | Computers haven’t done much for the quality of our already poor handwriting. However, a man paralyzed by an accident can now feed input into a computer by simply
thinking about handwriting
, thanks to work by Stanford University researchers. Compared to more cumbersome systems based on eye motion or breath, the handwriting technique enables entry at up to 90 characters a minute.
Currently, the feat requires a lab’s worth of equipment, but it could be made practical for everyday use with some additional work and — hopefully — less invasive sensors. In particular, the sensor used two microelectrode arrays in the precentral gyrus portion of the brain. When the subject thinks about writing, recognizable patterns appear in the collected data. The rest is just math and classification using a neural network.
If you want to try your hand at processing this kind of data and don’t have a set of electrodes to implant, you can download nearly eleven hours of data
already recorded
. The code is
out there
, too. What we’d really like to see is some easier way to grab the data to start with. That could be a real game-changer.
More traditional input methods
using your mouth
have been around for a long time. We’ve also looked at work that involves
moving your head
. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349045",
"author": "Randy R",
"timestamp": "2021-05-16T17:53:18",
"content": "Shouldn’t the title be “Handwriting via thought control?”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6349048",
"author": "socksbot",
"timestam... | 1,760,373,084.542496 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/16/scratch-built-tricycle-maximizes-fuel-efficiency/ | Scratch Built Tricycle Maximizes Fuel Efficiency | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bike",
"fuel efficient",
"reverse trike",
"tricycle",
"trike"
] | While the bicycling community is welcoming an influx of electric bikes, there’s a group of tuners on the fringes that are still intent on strapping gas motors of all sizes to bicycles and buzzing down the roads in a loud and raucous fashion. Kits are readily available and are much cheaper than comparable e-bike kits, and with a little bit of work it’s possible to squeeze a lot of excitement from these small motors. With a lot of work, though, you might end up with something like this
incredibly fuel efficient and fully customized reverse trike from [Paul Elkins]
.
The entire goal with this build was fuel efficiency, so the plan is to eventually enclose the vehicle in aerodynamic fairings,
most likely using his favorite material, Coroplast
. The frame itself is completely hand-made from square tube and welded by [Paul] himself to his own custom specifications. He bolts on a suspension and custom steering rack with levers to control the two front wheels, and the small engine and gas tank are attached to the back above the single drive wheel. The engine hadn’t been started in ten years, but once he got it all put together, it started right up and he was able to take his latest prototype out on the road for a test drive.
While the build isn’t completely finished, the video below (eleventh so far in the build log) is far enough along to show the fruits of years of [Paul]’s labor. It’s taken a while to get a design that worked like he wanted, but with this iteration, he finally has what he was looking for. | 27 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349021",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2021-05-16T14:21:39",
"content": "Looks like a really fun build and ride!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6349160",
"author": "J.dickinson",
"timestamp": "2021-05-17T10... | 1,760,373,084.645077 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/16/3d-printed-tank-takes-on-the-elements/ | 3D Printed Tank Takes On The Elements | Lewin Day | [
"Robots Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"3D printed parts",
"remote control",
"tank",
"tank track",
"tank tread"
] | Commercially available radio control tanks are fun and all, but sometimes you’ve just got to build your own. [Let’s Print] did just that, whipping up a tank on his 3D printer before taking it out in the snow.
The tank is a fairly straightforward build, relying on a pair of brushed motors for propulsion, controlled by twin speed controllers hooked up to standard radio control hardware. Everything else is bespoke, however, from the 3D printed gearboxes, to the chassis and the rather aggressive-looking tracks. The pointed teeth of the latter leave deep indentations when the tank cruises around on mud, though weren’t quite enough to stop the little tank from getting high-centered in deep snow.
The build isn’t for the impatient, however. [Let’s Print] notes that the tracks alone took over 80 hours to run off in PETG, let alone the rest of the frame and gearboxes. However, we’re sure it was a great learning experience, and great fun to drive outside.
Now the next step is surely to go bigger
. Video after the break. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6349041",
"author": "William Gallant",
"timestamp": "2021-05-16T16:39:20",
"content": "Sorry, I saw tank and 3D printing and since I know zip I have to ask. Out from left field…can you 3D print a fish aquarium? Or even print lenses? Clear plastic?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth... | 1,760,373,084.584993 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/16/tape-cutter-makes-short-work-of-through-hole-resistor-reels/ | Tape Cutter Makes Short Work Of Through-Hole Resistor Reels | Jenny List | [
"Parts",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"components",
"parts",
"tape cutter",
"through hole"
] | As the world of electronics makes its inexorable movement from through-hole parts to surface-mount, it’s easy to forget about the humble wire-ended resistor. But a stack of them is still a very useful resource for any experimenter, and most of us probably have a bunch of them with their accompanying twin strips of tape. We’re entranced by
[Sandeep]’s automated resistor tape cutting machine
, which uses a fearsome looking pair of motorized knives to slice the tape into predetermined lengths.
At its heart is an Arduino and a set of stepper drivers, and it uses a PCB that he’s designed as a multipurpose board for motor-based projects. One motor advances the reel of resistors, while the other two operate those knives that simultaneously slice the two tapes. The whole is held in a wooden frame with 3D-printed parts, and control is through a touch screen. This feels more like an industrial machine than a maker project, and as can be seen in the video below, it makes short work of those tapes. Full details can be found on his website, including code.
We’ve not had so many through hole tape cutters, but
we’ve seen at least one SMD cutter
. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6348996",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2021-05-16T09:00:08",
"content": "But! One of the nyloc nuts is on the wrong way! Can’t watch!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6349007",
"author": "Dave",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,373,084.797898 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/15/vintage-hp-25-calculator-gets-wireless-charging/ | Vintage HP-25 Calculator Gets Wireless Charging | Chris Lott | [
"classic hacks",
"Parts"
] | [
"battery packs",
"hp-25",
"replacement",
"restoration"
] | [Jan Rychter] really likes his multiple HP-25C calculators, but the original battery pack design is crude and outdated. No problem —
he whips up a replacement
using Fusion 360 to design an enclosure, prints a few on his SLS 3D printer, and packs them with LiPo batteries and Qi/WPC wireless charging circuits.
In his blog post, he explains the goals and various design decisions and compromises that he made along the way. We like [Jan]’s frank honesty as he remarks on something we have all been guilty of at one time or another:
In the end, I went with design decisions which might not be optimal, but in this case (with low power requirements) provide acceptable performance. In other words, I winged it.
One problem which proved difficult to solve was how to provide a low battery indicator. Since low voltage on a LiPo is different from the original HP-25’s NiCad cells, it wasn’t straightforward, especially since [Jan] challenged himself to build this without using a microcontroller. He discovered that the HP-25’s internal low battery circuit was triggered by a voltage of 2.1 volts or lower.
In a really clever hack, [Jan] came up with the idea of using an MCU reset supervisor chip with a low voltage threshold of 3.0 volts, which corresponds with the low voltage threshold of the LiPo battery he is using. The reset signal from the supervisor chip then drives one of the pins of the TPS62740 programmable buck converter, changing its output from 2.5 volts to 2.1 volts.
This project is interesting on several levels — extending the life of a useful but end-of-life calculator, improving the original battery design and introducing new charging techniques not available in the early 1970s, and it is something that a hobbyist can afford to do in a home electronics lab. We do wonder, could such a modification could turn an HP-25 into an HP-25C?
We’ve written about battery pack replacement project before, including one for
the Sony Discman
and another for
an electric drill
. Let us know if you have any battery pack replacement success (or failure) stories in the comments below. | 9 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6348977",
"author": "rnjacobs",
"timestamp": "2021-05-16T05:48:24",
"content": "I love it!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6348984",
"author": "Nikolai",
"timestamp": "2021-05-16T06:48:09",
"content": "He cam make a ... | 1,760,373,084.753523 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/15/robotic-bartender-built-with-industrial-grade-hardware/ | Robotic Bartender Built With Industrial-Grade Hardware | Lewin Day | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"barbot",
"robotic bartender",
"servo"
] | Robotic bartenders are a popular project around these parts. If there’s one thing hackers love, after all, it’s automating tasks – as much for the challenge as for the actual time saved. This build from a group of [Teknic Servo] engineers is an impressive example of
what can be done with some industrial-grade hardware.
The bartender is built as a demo project for the ClearCore controller, [Teknic’s] industrial-grade device capable of interfacing with a whole bunch of servomotors and sensors to get the job done. The controller is hooked up to a bunch of ClearPath servomotors that handle spinning the bottle carousel, muddling or stirring the beverage, or transporting the drinking glass through the machine. There’s also several interlocks to avoid the patron coming into contact with the bartender’s moving parts while it’s working, and a standard bar-style mixer dispenser actuated with solenoids to keep things simple. Drink selection and control is via a touch screen, with sliders for selecting preferences such as alcohol content and sweetness.
The bartender is certainly capable of producing a neat drink (pun intended), and serves as a great example of how easily a project can be put together with industrial-grade hardware. If you’ve got the budget, you might find using an industrial plug-and-play components quicker than assembling development boards, motor controller shields and other accessories on breakout boards. There’s always more than one way to get the job done, after all.
We’ve seen some great barbots over the years,
from builds relying on robotic arms
to
those focused on ultimate speed.
Video after the break. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6348965",
"author": "Yeshua Watson",
"timestamp": "2021-05-16T02:49:06",
"content": "I mean, this was an ad but at least it was an ad I didn’t mind watching to the end. And damn effective as I was really thinking “I need one of these in my life.” Sure you can accomplish this with so... | 1,760,373,085.254776 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/05/15/a-phased-array-ultrasonic-3d-scanner-from-scratch/ | A Phased-Array Ultrasonic 3D Scanner From Scratch | Jenny List | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"3d scanner",
"ultrasonic",
"ultrasonic array"
] | Who wouldn’t want an autonomous drone to deliver cans of fizzy drink fresh from the fridge? [Alex Toussaint] did, and in thinking how such a machine might work he embarked on a path that eventually led him to create
a fully functional ultrasonic 3D scanner.
In writing it up he’s produced a straightforward description of how the system works, which should also be of interest to anyone curious about phased array radar. He starts with an easy-to-understand explanation of the principle behind phased array beam forming, and there follows his journey into electronics as he uses this ambitious project to learn the art from scratch. That he succeeded is testament to his ability as well as his sheer tenacity.
He finally arrived at a grid of 100 ultrasonic emitters controlled from an Arduino through a series of shift register boards. Using this he can steer his ultrasonic beam horizontally as well as vertically, and receive echoes from objects in three-dimensional space. The ornamental bird example he uses for his scanning tests doesn’t quite emerge in startling clarity, but it is still clear that an object of its size and rough shape is visible enough for the drone in his original idea to detect it. If you would like to experiment with the same techniques and array then all the resources can be found
in a GitHub repository
, meanwhile we’re still impressed with the progress from relative electronics novice to this. We hope the ideas within it will be developed further.
We’ve seen ultrasonic arrays before, but
mainly used in levitation experiments
. | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6348960",
"author": "Cuthbert",
"timestamp": "2021-05-16T02:27:23",
"content": "I think this is really neat. Phased array with sound seems like it should be a lot more attainable by hobbyists. Always wanted to give this a try some day. Hopefully there will be something open source ... | 1,760,373,084.846216 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.