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/2021/02/11/tesla-recalls-cars-with-emmc-failures-calls-part-a-wear-item/ | Tesla Recalls Cars With EMMC Failures, Calls Part A ‘Wear Item’ | Lewin Day | [
"car hacks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Slider"
] | [
"emmc",
"flash",
"flash storage",
"tesla"
] | It’s a problem familiar to anyone who’s spent a decent amount of time playing with a Raspberry Pi – over time, the flash in the SD card reaches its write cycle limits, and causes a cavalcade of confusing errors before failing entirely. While flash storage is fast, compact, and mechanically reliable, it has always had a writeable lifespan much shorter than magnetic technologies.
Flash storage failures in the computer behind Tesla’s famous touch screen are causing headaches for drivers.
Of course, with proper wear levelling techniques and careful use, these issues can be mitigated successfully. The surprising thing is when a major automaker fails to implement such basic features,
as was the case with several Tesla models.
Due to the car’s Linux operating system logging excessively to its 8 GB eMMC storage, the flash modules have been wearing out. This leads to widespread failures in the car, typically putting it into limp mode and disabling many features controlled via the touchscreen.
With the issue affecting important subsystems such as the heater, defroster, and warning systems, the NHTSA wrote to the automaker in January requesting a recall.
Tesla’s response acquiesced to this request
with some consternation, downplaying the severity of the issue. Now they are claiming that the eMMC chip, ball-grid soldered to the motherboard, inaccessible without disassembling the dash, and not specifically mentioned in the owner’s manual, should be considered a “wear item”, and thus should not be subject to such scrutiny.
Certainly An Odd Wear Item
The chip in question, a sub-$7 eMMC chip packing 8GB of storage.
Historically, major electronic parts in automobiles are not considered consumables. While it’s not uncommon for some cars to face issues with engine control units or body control modules, they’re not typically treated as wear items to be replaced at nominal intervals. Thus far, precedent has considered these parts as something to last the lifetime of the vehicle, and to be replaced in the case of unexpected malfunction. The Tesla case is different in that the eMMC failure is, by and large, inevitable. Rather than being a case of isolated malfunctions in a small percentage of cars as would be expected from the occasional manufacturing defect, this is a issue affecting every car that rolled off the line up to a certain date.
Failure rates are up to 30 percent in certain build months.
With the computer and touchscreen being in charge of so many vital vehicle functions, it’s not a defect that can be easily ignored by the end user.
Replacing the chip involves reflowing the board,
and carefully pulling off the offending part with tweezers
.
Tesla’s assertion that the eMMC chip should be considered a ‘wear item’
is a dubious one at best. Flash memory does wear out, it’s true, as Tesla points out when discussing the limits of the technology. Many parts on a modern car wear out over time – brake pads, belts, and air filters are all common examples. The difference is that these parts are all
designed
to be replaced by the end user or a typical mechanic.
Trying to claim that a ball-grid array chip, permanently soldered onto a PCB and buried inside the dashboard is a wear item is patently ludicrous. If it were, we’d expect to see several things. There’d be a recommend time and mileage upon which the eMMC would be changed to avoid surprise failures, and this would be listed in the manual. Additionally, Tesla’s repair process would involve desoldering the eMMC chip from the board and replacing it directly. Given that Tesla are instead replacing the computers as a whole is indicative that the part is
not
being treated as a wear item by anyone, anywhere.
Obviously, the chip
can
be replaced, but it’s no easy job. Once the computer’s main board has been extracted from the car, the storage must be backed up over JTAG. Then,
it must be carefully reflowed to remove the chip
, in a delicate process that has a significant chance of damaging other components on the board. If the chip was a wear item, it wouldn’t require specialist BGA reflow equipment to change. We’d see Tesla doing it routinely, replacing
a sub-$7 chip
rather than swapping out entire mainboards instead at the costs of thousands of dollars. Granted, there are parts of modern cars that are also time consuming to replace – such as timing belts, water pumps, and so on. However, again, in these cases, automakers make it clear that these are wear items ahead of time, create maintenance schedules for them, and standard processes to change them.
Nobody would put up with swapping out their entire front suspension setup every time their brakes wore out – automakers realised brake pads were wear items and designed accordingly. Tesla simply dropped the ball, writing too often to the flash memory, which isn’t easily replaceable. The proper solution is trivial. Either stop logging so much to flash storage, or make it easier to swap out.
And maybe put the logs in their own partition. While SD cards probably aren’t up to snuff for storing the car’s operating system, they’d make a cheap place to store non-critical logs that probably are never read anyway. Alternatively, put the eMMC chip on a removable module, or just use an M.2 drive with automotive-rated connectors.
The issue is claimed to only effect models built prior to March 2018, which run on an NVIDIA Tegra 3. Later models are based on the Intel Atom, and feature a larger eMMC chip on board. These modules are yet to demonstrate the same failures, and Tesla claim they should not suffer the issue. We’ll see. | 150 | 43 | [
{
"comment_id": "6321078",
"author": "Thomas",
"timestamp": "2021-02-11T15:15:43",
"content": "As a Tesla owner, I know this is going to be an issue. I saw it before I bought my Model Y. Why they didn’t go for removable flash is beyond me. Even as tech advances, the packages will change. But at ... | 1,760,373,190.592706 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/11/phishing-with-morse-code/ | Phishing With Morse Code | Danie Conradie | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"email",
"javascript",
"phishing"
] | All of us have seen our share of phishing emails, but there are a lot more that get caught by secure email gateways and client filters. Threat actors are constantly coming up with new ways to get past these virtual gatekeepers. [BleepingComputer] investigated a new phishing attack that used some old tricks by
hiding the malicious script tags as morse code
.
The phishing attack targets Microsoft account login credentials with an HTML page posing as an Excel invoice. When opened, it asks the user to re-enter their credentials before viewing the document. Some external scripts are required to render the fake invoice and login window but would be detected if the links were included normally. Instead, the actor encoded the script links using dots and dashes, for example, “.-” equals “a”. A simple function (creatively named “decodeMorse”) is used to decode and inject the scripts when it runs in the victim’s browser.
Of course, this sort of attack is easy to avoid with the basic precautions we are all familiar with, like not opening suspicious attachments and carefully inspecting URLs. The code used in this attack is simple enough to be used in a tutorial on JavaScript arrays, but it was good enough to slip past a few large company’s filters.
Phishing attacks are probably not going to stop anytime soon, so if you’re bored, you could go
phishing for phishers
, or write some scripts to
flood them with fake information
. | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6321018",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2021-02-11T12:20:49",
"content": "“carefully inspecting URLs” this sounds so easy and technically speaking this is so completely true.However, if you do not know the exact URL (because, hey.. many people enter a site via a search engine or a ... | 1,760,373,189.892191 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/11/restored-dreamcast-is-a-sega-fans-dream-come-true/ | Restored Dreamcast Is A SEGA Fan’s Dream Come True | Tom Nardi | [
"classic hacks",
"Games"
] | [
"Adafruit CLUE",
"CircuitPython",
"console mod",
"dreamcast",
"restoration",
"sega"
] | [Bren Sutton] has been a long time fan of SEGA’s Dreamcast, eagerly snapping one up right around its October 1999 European release. But after years of neglect and a somewhat questionable paint job a decade or so back,
he decided it was time to spruce his old friend up
. He could have just cleaned the machine and been done with it, but he took the opportunity to revamp the console’s internals with both practical and cosmetic trickery.
The first step was getting the system looking a bit fresher. Removing the silver metallic paint he applied in his youth with a rattle can wasn’t going so well, so he ended up buying a broken donor console on eBay so he’d have a new shell to work with. The donor was yellowed with age, but a coating of peroxide cream and a few hours under a cheap UV light got it whitened up nicely. Now that he had a fresh new case, [Bren] turned his attention to the internal components.
Those who might be plugged into the active Dreamcast homebrew scene may already know that
several upgrade modules exist for SEGA’s last home game console
. One of the most popular replaces the optical drive with an SD card filled with your favorite game ISOs. You can also get a modern high efficiency power supply, as well as a board that replaces the original soldered-on clock battery with a slot that fits a CR2032. [Bren] threw them all in, ensuring several more years of gaming bliss.
But he wasn’t done yet. He also wanted to add some visual flair to his new and improved console. After some consideration, he gingerly cut the logo out of the Dreamcast’s lid, and installed an Adafruit CLUE board underneath it. With a few carefully crafted GIFs installed onto the CircuitPython-powered board, the console now has a gorgeous fully animated logo that you can see in the video after the break.
[Bren] could have really taken his console to the next level by
doubling its available RAM to an eye-watering 32 MB
, but considering the limited software support for that particularly bodacious modification, we’ll let it slide. | 43 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6321003",
"author": "Ty Carriere",
"timestamp": "2021-02-11T10:18:29",
"content": "Freaking awesome!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6321656",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2021-02-12T19:55:26",
"c... | 1,760,373,189.835451 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/10/a-hair-raising-twist-on-infinity-mirrors/ | A Hair-Raising Twist On Infinity Mirrors | Kristina Panos | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"copper",
"electroplating",
"infinity mirror",
"leds",
"SMD LED"
] | Just when we thought we’d seen it all in the infinity mirror department, [FieldCrafting] blazed a tiny, shiny new trail with their
electroplated infinity mirror hair pin
. We’d sure like to stick this in our French twist. Fortunately, [FieldCrafting] provided step-by-step instructions for everything from the 3D printing to the copper electroplating to the mirror film and circuitry application.
And what tiny circuitry it is! This pin is powered by a coin cell and even has a micro slider switch to conserve it. The stick parts are a pair of knitting needles, which is a great idea — they’re pointy enough to get through hair, but not so pointy that they hurt.
[FieldCrafting] was planning to solder 1206 LEDs to copper tape and line the cavity with it, but somehow the CAD file ended up with 0603, so there wasn’t enough space for two tape traces. We think it’s probably for the better — [FieldCrafting]’s solution was to use two-conductor wire, strategically stripped, which seems a lot less fiddly than trying to keep two bare tape traces separated and passing pixies.
Don’t have enough hair for one of these? Surely you could use
some handsome infinity coasters
to round out that home bar setup. | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6321029",
"author": "Borg Mc Borgface",
"timestamp": "2021-02-11T12:55:36",
"content": "An eye patch version would be wonderful for Halloween. It’d look like you’ve been assimilated.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6321248",
... | 1,760,373,189.938127 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/10/1938-radio-has-awesome-dial/ | 1938 Radio Has Awesome Dial | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"am radio",
"Crosley",
"deforest",
"magic eye",
"radio",
"vintage radio"
] | [Mr. Carlson] is truly an old radio surgeon. The evidence? He recently restored an 83-year-old DeForest radio by
transplanting an identical chassis from another similar radio
. The restoration is fun to watch, but the 7D832 radio dial looks amazing. The dial is very colorful and the wooden knobs and preset selector are beautiful. To seal the deal, the center of the dial has a magic eye tube, giving the radio a retro high tech look.
The donor chassis needed some work before the surgery. In addition, [Carlson] makes some improvements along the way. The radio showed signs of previous service work, which is not surprising after 83 years.
The preset dial is interesting and required two adjustments in the back of the radio. Each button had a limited range of frequencies. We suspect this was a pretty high-end radio in its day.
There are some interesting tubes in the radio including Canadian tubes with a metal spray-on shield. We will warn you: the video is about three and a half hours long. No kidding. There’s a lot to talk about. We know its a big investment of time, but if you are interested in old radios, there’s a lot here and a great opportunity to watch a pro restore a radio from start to finish.
We love the look and sound of
these old radios
. We’ll admit, not all of
them are as pretty
as this DeForest. | 19 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320967",
"author": "richfiles",
"timestamp": "2021-02-11T03:54:41",
"content": "That is a beautiful radio!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6321012",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2021-02-11T11:41:03",
... | 1,760,373,189.994894 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/10/tonewheels-warble-in-this-organ-inspired-musical-instrument/ | Tonewheels Warble In This Organ-Inspired Musical Instrument | Dan Maloney | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"bias",
"coil",
"Hammond",
"inductance",
"magnet",
"organ",
"pickup",
"tonewheel"
] | Younger readers may not recall the days when every mall had a music store — not the kind where tapes and LPs were sold, but the kind where you could buy instruments. These places inevitably had an employee belting out mall-music to all and sundry on an electric organ. And more often than not, the organist was playing a Hammond organ, with the distinct sound of these instruments generated by something similar to
this tonewheel organ robot
.
Tonewheels are toothed ferromagnetic wheels that are rotated near a pickup coil. This induces a current that can be amplified; alter the tooth profile or change the speed of rotation, and you’ve got control over the sounds produced. While a Hammond organ uses this technique to produce a wide range of sounds, [The Mixed Signal]’s effort is considerably more modest but nonetheless interesting. A stepper motor and a 1:8 ratio 3D-printed gearbox power a pair of shafts which each carry three different tonewheels. The tonewheels themselves are laser-cut from mild steel and range from what look like spur gears to wheels with but a few large lobes. This is a step up from
the previous version of this instrument
, which used tonewheels 3D-printed from magnetic filament.
Each tonewheel has its own pickup, wound using
a coil winder
that [TheMixed Signal] previously built. Each coil has a soft iron core, allowing for the addition of one or more neodymium bias magnets, which dramatically alters the tone. The video below shows the build and a demo; skip ahead to 16:10 or so if you just want to hear the instrument play. It’s — interesting. But it’s clearly a work in progress, and we’re eager to see where it goes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8jOL0m5NeU | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320930",
"author": "Craig Hildreth",
"timestamp": "2021-02-11T00:18:42",
"content": "Check out the motor synth that was released last year. Weird but cool.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6320939",
"author": "rnjacobs",
... | 1,760,373,190.128053 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/10/3d-printed-turbocharger-boosts-pulsejet-performance/ | 3D Printed Turbocharger Boosts Pulsejet Performance | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"pulse jet",
"pulse jet engine",
"turbocharger"
] | Pulsejets are a popular DIY build for the keen experimenter, much loved for their mechanical simplicity and powerful roar. However, it can be difficult to get them running smoothly and producing high amounts of thrust. In an ongoing quest to do just that, [Integza] has been iterating hard on his designs,
recently adding an electric turbocharger to add some boost
.
Like any combustion engine, adding more air means that more fuel can be burned for more power. The electric turbocharger is a perfect way to do this, using a powerful brushless motor to turn a radial compressor wheel to force high-pressure air into the pulse jet’s combustion chamber. [Integza] used a resin printer to produce the turbocharger compressor wheel and housing, which made producing the complex geometry a cinch.
Initial results were positive, with the pulsejet maintaining better combustion with the turbocharger activated. It does come with the drawback of requiring battery power to run, but it may be worth the tradeoff for added thrust. However, the fragile setup requires more refinement before a thrust test can be carried out. Up until now, [Integza] has made do with a set of bathroom scales; we imagine a spring force gauge or strain gauge might be in order. If you’re keen to build your own pulsejet without welding,
consider the carbon fiber method used in this project
. Video after the break. | 34 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320880",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2021-02-10T21:22:08",
"content": "Pretty sweet.Maybe get an automotive turbocharger, design things so some of the pulse jet exhaust spins the hot side (exhaust) turbine, and the intake turbine blows into the chamber? You may need a motor to... | 1,760,373,190.076954 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/14/truck-bed-liners-improve-3d-prints/ | Truck Bed Liners Improve 3D Prints | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"asphalt rubber",
"bitumen rubber",
"rubber",
"waterproof"
] | There are at least two kinds of 3D printer operators: those who work hard to make their prints look better after they come off the bed and those who settle for whatever comes off the printer. If you are in the latter camp, you probably envy people who have smooth prints with no visible layer lines. But the sanding and priming and multiple coats of paint can put you off.
[Teaching Tech] has a few tricks that might change your mind. He shares his technique for
using different coatings for 3D prints
that provide good quality with a lot less effort. The coatings in question are polyurethane used for coating pickup truck beds and bitumen rubber used for waterproofing. In the United States, bitumen is known as asphalt, and both materials are relatively cheap, available, and safe to use.
According to the video you can see below, there’s no need to sand or prime the print. In addition to covering imperfections and sealing gaps, it produces watertight prints that have UV resistance and some measure of protection against heating.
The waterproofing example was fun. Using vase mode, [Teaching Tech] printed a few boats. Having single-layer shells, the boats had a few imperfections. Untreated, the boats actually floated, because they didn’t weigh enough to break the surface tension. However, placing a payload — in this case, a stepper motor — into the boats caused them to sink. With the coatings, though, the boats would float with their motor cargo.
The outward appearance is good, although it isn’t as smooth as paint. You’ve probably seen truck beds and that’s what it looks like. Still, for many parts that’s not a bad look; it almost appears powder-coated. Painting the material on didn’t look very difficult, although the rubber sealant looked thin. On the other hand, it was cut with water, so it might work to use less water in the mixture.
We are anxious to try this out. We aren’t sure if the popular Flex Seal is asphalt rubber, but it might be a good thing to try and is easily available in the states.
We’ve looked at some
coatings
before.
Paint
doesn’t have to be hard, but we get why some people don’t want to bother. | 27 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6322182",
"author": "rpavlik",
"timestamp": "2021-02-14T13:15:23",
"content": "I’ve got some of that rubber “undercoating” spray here in the USA – which I learned after buying is not recommended because it will just rust underneath the coating. Looks like I’ve got a use for it now! ... | 1,760,373,190.408071 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/14/accessing-legacy-digital-photos-turns-out-tougher-than-expected/ | Legacy Digital Photos, With A Side Of Murphy’s Law | Donald Papp | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Retrocomputing",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"digital photography",
"image formats",
"konica",
"KQP",
"photo scanning",
"proprietary",
"virtualbox"
] | [Dave Madison] came across some old digital photos, and in his quest to access them, he ran into quite a few challenges. The saga brings to mind both Murphy’s Law, and while [Dave] prevailed in the end,
it required quite a few more steps than one might expect
.
The one smooth part of the process was that Konica’s proprietary software had a handy JPEG export feature.
Here’s the scene: in the late 90s, Konica partnered with photo shops to provide a photo scanning service, delivering digital scans of film photos on 3.5″ floppy disks, and that’s exactly what [Dave] had to work with. The disks were in good condition, and since modern desktop computers still support floppy drives and the FAT filesystem, in theory all one needs to do is stick disks into the reader one at a time in order to access the photos.
Sadly, problems started early. A floppy drive is revoltingly slow compared to any modern storage device, so [Dave]’s first step was to copy all of the files to his machine’s local storage before working on them. This took a bit of wrangling to deal with
8.3 format file names
and avoid naming collisions across disks while still preserving some metadata such as original creation date. It was nothing a quick python script couldn’t handle, but that soon led to the next hurdle.
The photos in question were in an obsolete and proprietary Konica
.KQP
format. [Dave] went through a number of photo viewing programs that
claimed
to support .KQP, but none of them actually recognized the images.
Fortunately, each disk contained a copy of Konica’s proprietary “PC PictureShow” viewer, but despite having a variety of versions dated between 1997 and 2001 (making them from the Windows 98 and Windows ME eras) [Dave] could not get any version of the program to run in Windows 10, even with compatibility mode for legacy programs enabled. The solution was to set up a Windows XP virtual machine using Oracle’s
Virtualbox
, and use that to ultimately run PC PictureShow and finally access the photos. After all that work, [Dave] finally had a stroke of luck: Konica’s software had a handy feature to export images in JPEG format, and it worked like a charm.
In the end, [Dave] was able to save 479 out of the 483 images on the old floppy disks, with a reminder that proprietary formats are a pain. The disks and images may have been over twenty years old, but the roots of digital imaging go considerably further back than that. Take a few minutes out your day to
read a bit about Russell Kirsch and the first digitized image, that of his three-month old son in 1957
. | 26 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6322134",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2021-02-14T09:45:14",
"content": "Interesting! Thanks! 👍Reminds me a bit of Kodak PhotoCD (not PictureCD) and my 286 PC running Windows 3.1.Back in 1992 or so, you could get your photos back in CD-ROM format.The CD was in a special format... | 1,760,373,190.19286 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/13/rfid-music-player-gets-the-whole-house-pumping/ | RFID Music Player Gets The Whole House Pumping | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"music",
"rfid"
] | RFID tags are normally used for pedestrian tasks like tracking shipping crates or opening doors to workplaces we’d rather be absent from, but they can also be cool and fun.
[hoveeman] demonstrates this ably with a tidy jukebox project.
The build is based on a Raspberry Pi Zero, secreted away underneath a table with a USB RFID reader attached. Atop the table are a series of RFID cards upon which [hoveeman] printed the artwork from his favorite albums using a special caddy in an inkjet printer. Through some Python code and shell scripts, when scanning a card, the Pi Zero is able to trigger all the Google Home compatible devices in the house to play the album selected at the same time.
It’s a visually enjoyable way to cue up some music, and likely more reliable than most voice assistants, too. We can see this being particularly useful for Weezer fans; with the band’s many self-titled releases, Siri and the Google Assistant typically fail to play the right album on request. We’ve seen other
beautiful RFID jukeboxes
before, but one player that really sticks out ditched the RF and just
uses computer vision with vinyl albums as the ID
. | 11 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6322162",
"author": "Daniel Dunn",
"timestamp": "2021-02-14T11:52:04",
"content": "I really think RFID has a lot of potential that can’t quite be used till it’s totally ubiquitous.A lot of just plain annoying uses of course, but it’s the perfect way to replicate the experience of ol... | 1,760,373,190.34111 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/13/can-you-code-without-google/ | Can You Code Without Google? | Jenny List | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"coding",
"google",
"internet",
"search engine"
] | Imagine for a moment that something has taken out your phone line, cell, and fibre connection so you have no internet. For some of you this may even be reality, but go with it and imagine yourself deciding to use your unexpectedly disconnected lockdown time pursuing that code project you always promised yourself. You pull out your laptop and fire up a code editor. Can you write code that works, without the Internet as a handy crib sheet?
[Austin Z. Henley] couldn’t, when he tried writing a straightforward web app
. He uses it as a hook to muse on the nature of learning, and it’s certainly a thought-provoking subject.
It has become an indispensable tool for the engineer and the coder alike, to constantly refer to online knowledge. This makes absolute sense, as it provides a reference library that will be many orders of magnitude in excess of anything an individual can possibly hold personally.
This holds true whether the resource takes the form of code snippets from StackOverflow or GitHub, or data sheets from TI or Microchip. Even our calculations have moved online, as it’s often much quicker to use an online calculator on a web page to derive for example an impedance calculation. This is not necessarily a bad thing, instead it’s an enabler; skills that used to take months to master due to slow information access can now be acquired in an afternoon. But it does pose the interesting question, in the Internet age what is the measure of an expert coder? Is it the ability to produce the code effectively with whatever help is available, or is it a guru-like mastery of the code? Maybe it’s both. If you have the Internet, give us your views in the comments. | 106 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "6322048",
"author": "spiritplumber",
"timestamp": "2021-02-14T03:16:31",
"content": "I can on a microcontroller unless I’m doing something strange, but not on a computer.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6322107",
"auth... | 1,760,373,190.725215 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/13/spinach-photo-prints/ | Spinach Photo Prints | Brian McEvoy | [
"chemistry hacks",
"cooking hacks",
"green hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"anthotype",
"artwork",
"black and white",
"borax",
"BW",
"dye",
"monochrome",
"natural",
"organic",
"print",
"spinach",
"turmeric"
] | Some people like spinach in their salads. Others would prefer it if it never gets near their fork. Still, other folks, like [Almudena Romero], use it for printing pictures, and they’re the folks we’ll focus on today.
Anthotypes are positive images made from plant dyes
that fade from light exposure. Imagine you stain your shirt at a picnic and leave it in the sun with a fork covering part of the stain. When you come back, the stain not sheltered by cutlery is gone, but now you have a permanent fork shape logo made from aunt Bev’s BBQ sauce. The science behind this type of printmaking is beautifully covered in the video below the break. You see, some plant dyes are not suitable for light bleaching, and fewer still if you are not patient since stains like blueberry can take a month in the sun.
The video shows how to make your own plant dye, which has possibilities outside of anthotype printing. Since the dye fades in sunlight, it can be a temporary paint, or you could use samples all over your garden to find which parts get lots of sunlight since the most exposed swatches will be faded the most. Think of a low-tech UV meter with logging, but it runs on spinach.
If the science doesn’t intrigue you, the artistic possibilities are equally cool. All the pictures have a one-of-a-kind, wabi-sabi flare. You take your favorite photo, make it monochrome, print it on a transparent plastic sheet, and the ink will shield the dye and expose the rest. We just gave you a tip about finding the sunniest spot outdoors, so get staining.
Anthotype printing shares some similarities with
etch-resist in circuit board printing
processes, but maybe someone can remix spinach prints with
laser exposure
!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeDmmsp8lUg | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6322014",
"author": "k-ww",
"timestamp": "2021-02-14T00:12:25",
"content": "Guess it’s how Popeye made his pix of Olive Oil.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6322016",
"author": "cyberlass",
"timestamp": "2021-0... | 1,760,373,191.073192 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/13/express-your-love-with-candy-and-engineering/ | Express Your Love With Candy And Engineering | Kristina Panos | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"3D printed gears",
"candy dispenser",
"candy machine"
] | Still don’t have anything for Valentine’s Day? We wholeheartedly suggest that you fire up that printer and get ready to fall in love with engineering all over again, because [JBV Creative] has designed
a super-sweet piece of machinery
that would turn the gears of anyone’s heart. He calls this the most overly-engineered candy dispenser ever, and we have to agree. It’s certainly one of the most beautiful we’ve ever seen.
There’s no electronics at all in this elegant design, just purely mechanical, hand-cranked fun. Turning the crank does two things at once — it moves a little access panel back and forth underneath the chute that governs the number of candies given, and at the same time, moves the conveyor belt along to deliver the goods to the receiving area.
This entire design is absolute genius, especially the decoupling mechanism that shuts off the flow of candy but allows the belt to keep moving. Be sure to watch the build video where [JBV Creative] effortlessly snap-fits the machine together without a single tool, and stay for the follow-up video where he discusses the engineering challenges and shows just how much work went into it.
Of course, there’s more than one way to overly-engineer a candy dispenser. Here’s one that finds the holy grail of peanut M&Ms —
the ones that didn’t get a peanut
. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6322085",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2021-02-14T05:03:48",
"content": "Hmm. I wonder. Perhaps it might be possible to make a skittles mincer that can injection mould the resulting paste? Perhaps a grinder that can remove the shells separately and then coat the resulting mould... | 1,760,373,190.894584 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/13/making-printed-food-more-palatable-for-those-who-need-it/ | Making Printed Food More Palatable For Those Who Need It | Kristina Panos | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printed food",
"dysphagia",
"food printer",
"hydrocolloids",
"xanthan gum"
] | Most foods when pureed become pretty unappetizing to look at. For that reason, patients who have trouble swallowing are often given pureed food that’s been molded into fun shapes to make it more appealing. The problem with molding food is that it’s labor-intensive, time-consuming, and the resulting edible toys require a lot of storage space.
When 3D printing came along, it was poised to solve the problem, but in the quest to make foods printable, they became even worse. Printable food paste typically starts with dehydrated and/or freeze-dried vegetables, and then hydrocolloids like xanthan gum and locust bean gum are added so the paste holds together after extrusion. Unfortunately, these additives are a big step backward; they change the texture for the worse, and make the food smell and taste bad, too.
The solution is one of those things that sounds obvious in hindsight
: some researchers in Singapore tried using fresh and frozen foods instead of freeze-dried, and figured out the minimum amount of hydrocolloids they could get away with for a given food.
In their research they categorized all the feasible foods this way
. Some vegetables like garden peas which have higher starch and lower water percentages don’t need any hydrocolloids to be printable. As the starch level falls and water rises, more hydrocolloids are needed. So carrots can get away with using just one type of hydrocolloid, while things like bok choy need two types to print effectively. Even so, results of the study show that fresh vegetable printing calls for far less than their powdered counterparts to the extent that it no longer affects the taste of the end product.
The researchers envision a future where every hospital and elder care facility has a food printer to churn out carrot boats and spinach skylines on demand. We think this tasty development is totally awesome — it’s just too bad the carrot boats don’t look more like Benchy.
In the mood for printed food?
Our own [Tom Nardi] sampled the menu of additive edibles a while back
.
Thanks for the tantalizing tip, [Qes]! | 18 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6321932",
"author": "Charles Stephens",
"timestamp": "2021-02-13T18:19:05",
"content": "Is that supposed to be a little guy in a coolie hat? Because if there’s a man in the boat most people will starve before they find it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
... | 1,760,373,190.854341 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/10/simple-slide-whistle-gets-a-midi-makeover/ | Simple Slide Whistle Gets A MIDI Makeover | Dan Maloney | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"hysteresis",
"midi",
"servo",
"slide whstle",
"tuning"
] | On today’s episode of “Will it MIDI?” we have
the common slide whistle
. Spoiler alert: yes, it will, and the results are just on the edge of charming and — well, a little weird.
As maker [mitxela] points out, for all its simplicity, the slide whistle is a difficult instrument to play. Or, at least a difficult one to hit a note repeatably. It’s a bit like a tiny plastic trombone, in that both lack keys or stops that limit the vibrating column of air to a specific length. Actually, the beginning of the video below shows a clever fix for that problem on the slide whistle using magnets, but that’s mainly a side project.
[mitxela]’s MIDI-fication of the slide whistle required a bit more than a few magnets. To move the slide to defined positions, a pair of high-precision servos was connected by a laser-cut plywood scissors linkage. The lung-power of the musician is replaced by a small electric blower, mounted away from the whistle and supplying air through a long hose. The fan’s speed, and therefore the speed of the airflow, can be varied; this prevents low notes from shifting up in register from over-blowing, if that’s the right term. Another servo controls a damper that shuts off the flow of air from the mouth of the whistle to control notes without having to turn off the fan completely. The main article goes into detail about the control electronics and the calibration process.
The video has a few
YouTube copyright strikes
demo songs, and we have to say we’re impressed with the responsiveness of the mechanism. Some will object to the excess servo noise, but we found it nice — almost like guitar string-squeak. We like the tunes where
[mitxela]’s servo-plucked music box
joined in, too. | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320845",
"author": "mrehorst",
"timestamp": "2021-02-10T19:52:12",
"content": "No, the flexatone is the greatest musical instrument ever invented, and the musical saw comes next. The slide whistle is 3rd or 4th…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,373,191.113724 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/10/the-50-ham-digital-modes-with-wsjt-x/ | The $50 Ham: Digital Modes With WSJT-X | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Original Art",
"Radio Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"digital",
"FT8",
"joe taylor",
"propagation",
"QSO",
"The $50 Ham",
"weak signal",
"WSJT-X"
] | As it is generally practiced, ham radio is a little like going to the grocery store and striking up a conversation with everyone you bump into as you ply the aisles. Except that the grocery store is the size of the planet, and everyone brings their own shopping cart, some of which are highly modified and really expensive. And pretty much every conversation is about said carts, or about the grocery store itself.
With that admittedly iffy analogy in mind, if you’re not the kind of person who would normally strike up a conversation with someone while shopping, you might think that you’d be a poor fit for amateur radio. But just because that’s the way that most people exercise their ham radio privileges doesn’t mean it’s the only way. Exploring a few of the more popular ways to leverage the high-frequency (HF) bands and see what can be done on a limited budget, in terms of both cost of equipment as well as the amount of power used, is the focus of this installment of The $50 Ham. Welcome to the world of microphone-optional ham radio: weak-signal digital modes.
Just a Regular Joe
First things first, let me make it clear that there are a ton of modes available to amateur radio service licensees that don’t require talking into a microphone, going right back to the beginning of radio with continuous wave (CW) modes. Banging out dits and dahs with a straight key is perhaps the original digital mode, if we stretch the meaning of the term just a wee bit from its current modern connotation of transmitting and receiving encoded messages using computers, either built into the radio or attached as a separate component. I’ll use that as my definition of “digital mode” for the purposes of this article.
But even with that stricter definition, there is still a huge ecosystem of digital modes that have cropped up over the history of ham radio; the desire for communications without the need to be a conversationalist goes way back, it seems. But for this article, I’ll be focusing on a couple of modes within the “weak signals” family of modes, mainly because I find them fascinating and incredibly useful, and I get a real kick out of seeing what kinds of contacts are possible using less power than it takes to light up an LED light bulb.
When you get into the weak-signal space, one name keeps popping up: Joe Taylor (K1JT). Joe is a ham based in New Jersey, and when you first start hearing about him, you figure he’s just a, well, regular Joe, an old school ham who has come up with some clever software to make low-power signals easier to pull out of a high-noise environment. And while that’s certainly true, it quickly becomes apparent that Joe is a lot more than that. Joseph Hooton Taylor, Jr. earned his Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard in 1968. He joined the physics faculty at Princeton in 1980, and has won pretty much every major prize in physics and mathematics, including the Draper Medal, the Wolf Prize, and in 1993,
the Nobel Prize in Physics
.
The Magic of WSJT-X
For all these lofty achievements, in many ways Joe is very much a “ham’s ham”, and since his retirement in 2006 he has turned his considerable experience in digital signal processing toward an all-encompassing weak-signals package called “
WSJT
“, for “weak signals, Joe Taylor.” Actually first written in 2001, the program has undergone nearly constant revision and updating by Joe and a cadre of digital-modes enthusiasts, with the latest incarnation,
WSJT-X
, which implements ten different weak-signal digital modes.
Joseph H. Taylor, Jr. (K1JT), 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics. Source:
Nobel.org
.
We’ll skip a deep dive into the DSP techniques underpinning WSJT-X — although it’s fascinating stuff and probably worthy of an article all by itself — and suffice it to say that the package implements various multiple frequency-shift keying (MFSK) modulation methods, each of which is optimized to work under different propagation conditions. The ten modes currently implemented cover everything from high-noise ionospheric propagation to tropospheric scatter, with modes that support bouncing signals off meteor ionization trails or even listening to your own signals bouncing off the Moon.
Even though WSJT-X modes are separated into broad “fast” and “slow” categories, by modern networking standards, they’re all pretty slow. Typical bit-rates range from a dozen characters per second to 400 baud or so. The low-throughput nature of these modes is entirely by design; by not attempting to achieve blazing speeds, WSJT-X makes very efficient use of the spectrum. Some modes only need a few hertz of bandwidth, with the tradeoff being that even very short messages can take multiple minutes to transmit.
The mode that I’ve been playing with most lately, FT8, is a relatively recent addition to the WSJT-X suite. FT8 was written by Joe Taylor and Steve Franke (K9AN), hence the “FT” in the moniker. The “8” refers to “8-FSK”, which means that the modulation scheme uses eight different tones spaced 6.25 Hz apart. Each FT8 signal therefore occupies 50 Hz, a huge chunk of bandwidth when compared to other weak-signal modes, but still pretty compact. All that extra bandwidth means that FT8 transmissions can be much shorter than, say, a 30-minute transmission on JT9. That makes FT8 suitable for quick QSOs and contesting, which is sort of the contact sport of amateur radio.
Speed Dating for Hams
While FT8 is fast, the tradeoff is message length. Each FT8 transmission encodes only 75 bits, with a 12-bit cyclic-redundancy check (CRC). That and the rapid turnaround time means that most operators rely on automation built into WSJT-X, as well as standardized messages, to make their FT8 contacts.
Setting up WSJT-X and getting a transceiver ready for FT8 is highly dependent on your computer and your radio. In my case, I built a dedicated Raspberry Pi 4 to run my ham radio operation, using
the excellent Ham Pi image
by Dave Slotter (W3DJS). I also attempted to use
KM4ACK’s equally excellent Build-a-Pi image
, but I had trouble getting my Icom IC-7200 transceiver talking to WSJT-X, and rather than devote a lot of time to troubleshooting I just tried the Ham Pi build. Both images have outstanding communities that will help you get spun up, as does WSJT-X, which has a forum where you’ll often see Joe Taylor pop in to answer questions. A community that has a Nobel laureate as a frequent contributor is a strong community indeed.
The video above shows why I call FT8 “the speed dating of ham radio.” The waterfall display at the top shows about 2,500 Hz of passband — the transceiver must be set up to allow as wide a possible band of frequencies through to WSJT-X (tip o’ the hat to
Josh KI6NAZ
for the help getting that right.) The FT8 algorithm decodes every 50-Hz wide FT8 signal in the passband at once; that along with the fact that each transmission is 15 seconds long followed by 15 seconds idle results in the characteristic checkerboard appearance on the waterfall display.
The characteristic FT8 checkerboard pattern develops on the WSJT-X waterfall. The 40-meter band was pretty good tonight, but I couldn’t make any QSOs.
Decoded messages are displayed in the left window of WSJT-X, with operators generally looking for stations calling CQ. Clicking on an entry in the Band Activity window starts a series of automatic messages, with WSJT-X keying up the transmitter and sending a minimal QSO — basically just the two call signs, a grid square locator, and the received signal strength. It’s important to note that the two sides of the conversation don’t have to be, and in fact shouldn’t be, on the same frequency — the other operator’s copy of WSJT-X will decode the entire passband if it can. Once the acknowledgment of the CQ is received by the other station, the exchange of messages is entirely automatic, until the final 73s are sent and WSJT-X gives both sides a chance to log the QSO.
Since I’ve set up
my end-fed half-wave antenna
for the HF bands and gotten WSJT-X installed, I’ve made quite a few contacts. Most of them have been in the continental US and Canada, but I did manage to bag Japan on 30 meters last week, which was a treat. The fact that I could do all of this without once picking up the microphone, struggling to think of something to say, is a godsend to me, and the fact that WSJT-X is able to decode signals that are so far down into the noise floor is an intoxicating technical feat. It’s also really nice to sit down for a half-hour or so before dinner and bang out a couple of low-effort QSOs without having to invest too much in the process.
As mentioned, FT8 isn’t the only weak-signal mode that Joe Taylor and his collaborators built into WSJT-X. Next time on The $50 Ham, we’ll look at the equally addictive WSPR mode, and see how you can actually work HF bands for far less than $50, transmitter included. | 33 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320856",
"author": "Steven Naslund",
"timestamp": "2021-02-10T20:20:45",
"content": "This is a really great series and I am enjoying it a lot. The content and writing are both really good. Thank you.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment... | 1,760,373,191.021244 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/10/basic-in-10-lines-or-less/ | Basic In 10 Lines Or Less | Al Williams | [
"News",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"8 bit",
"basic",
"contest",
"retrocomputing"
] | For the last 11 years [Gunnar Kanold] has run the annual BASIC 10 Liner contest, and the rules for the
2021 edition
are now available. There are four categories and each category has specific definitions of what constitutes a line. All entries must run on an 8-bit computer system that can be emulated.
The first three categories are for games but differ in the line length allowed. You can elect to compete with 80 character lines, 120 character lines, or 256 character lines. There’s also a category for demos, tools, and other applications that must constrain lines to 256 characters.
There are some common-sense rules, of course. You can’t load other programs or data from mass storage. You can’t use machine language or self-modifying code.
If you want to participate, you’ll need to submit your entry by March 27th and the results will be revealed on April 10th. If you need inspiration, look at some of the entries from last year, including Bomb Catcher, Ainvader, and Asteroid.
This is a good excuse to dust off your last retrocomputer project or replica. Seems like you’d want a BASIC that at least let you put multiple statements on a line, though, so probably don’t want to go back too far. Of course, you can always work on your favorite emulator, if you don’t have any hardware.
If you don’t want your own emulator, you could
Tweet to an Atari
. Or, just
fire up your browser
. | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320777",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2021-02-10T17:31:28",
"content": "Hehe. Anybody remember the Beagle Bros two-line contests?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6320791",
"author": "_Sol_",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,373,190.949809 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/10/would-you-like-fries-with-your-insect-burger-maam/ | Would You Like Fries With Your Insect Burger, Ma’am? | Jenny List | [
"cooking hacks",
"Featured",
"green hacks",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"farming",
"insect farming",
"insect protein",
"mealworms"
] | A trip to a supermarket is a rare luxury in a pandemic lockdown, but were I to cruise the aisles with my basket today I’d probably come away with a healthy pile of fruit and veg, a bit of meat and fish, and maybe some cheese. My shopping basket in 2031 though might have a few extras, and perhaps surprisingly some of them might be derived from insects. That’s a future made a little closer,
by EU scientists declaring that farmed insect products are safe for humans and animals to eat
.
Is meat consumption at this level sustainable? Our World In Data,
CC BY 3.0
.
We humans, like some of our fellow great ape cousins, are omnivores. We can eat anything, even if we might not always want to eat some things twice. As such, the diets of individual populations would in the past have varied hugely depending on the conditions that existed wherever they lived, giving us the ability to spread to almost anywhere on the planet — and we have.
Over the past few hundred years this need to subsist only on foods locally available has been marginalized by advances in agriculture. For those of us in developed countries, any foodstuff that takes our fancy can be ours for a trivial effort. This has meant
an explosion of meat consumption
as what was once a luxury food has become affordable to the masses, and in turn a corresponding agricultural expansion to meet demand that has placed intolerable stresses on ecosystems and is contributing significantly to global warming. It’s very clear that a mass conversion to veganism is unlikely to take place, so could farmed insects be the answer to our cravings for meat protein? It’s likely to be a tough sell to consumers, but it’s a subject that bears more examination.
Your Tasty, Nutritious, And Wriggy Friend!
Mealworms thrive on a diet of bran. Richard Chambers, (
CC BY-SA 3.0
).
Before any reader imagines chowing down on a creepy-crawly, it’s worth pointing out that the insects in question are likely not to be winged and legged adults staring back at would-be diners. Instead this is a story of an alternative protein source. These would almost certainly be larvae, the earlier stage in an insect lifecycle, dried and processed into other foodstuffs. So we may eventually eat a hamburger made from insect protein, for example.
The species most often named as a candidate is the mealworm, a beetle larva that is particularly easy to breed and which can be fed on readily available by-products of the cereal industry such as wheat bran.
They are so straightforward to farm that it can be done at home
, but even when scaled up to a commercial size facility they take up a fraction of the land and water resources required to farm the equivalent volume of livestock protein.
Don’t Get EU Scientists Started
The research paper from the EU scientists
presents a detailed analysis of dried mealworm larvae, both whole and ground to a powder. For a non-food-scientist it’s an eye-opener how much detail they go into when doing this work, but as consumers it’s important for us to know that levels of bacteria, toxic heavy metals, or other poisonous compounds are kept in check. After a detailed examination of the farming procedure, they conclude that properly treated mealworm products fed on appropriate food that doesn’t contain any such nasties present no risks when eaten. Of the batches they tested, some had as high as 58.9% protein and 27.6% fat, with the majority of the rest being dietary fibre in the form of chitin. Anecdotal evidence from the online research for this piece suggests they have a pleasant flavour, described by some as slightly nutty.
I grew up surrounded by farmland on a heavy clay soil that had traditionally been dairy land but which transitioned over the 1970s and 1980s to arable with the introduction of more efficient soil management tillage techniques. Today it grows acres and acres of cereal crops, but they are by and large not destined for your plate. Instead huge swathes of countryside provide the feed for indoor livestock rearing operations, a vast quantity of land produces a surprisingly small quantity of foodstuff. Growing up in a British farming community as I did I enjoy eating good-quality meat, but it’s a view I’ve progressively arrived at over the years that farming it in this way is by no means the most efficient way to make food from land, nor is it the most environmentally friendly. I’d prefer to eat smaller quantities of higher-standard beef than expect daily to eat beef that has been intensively farmed in this manner. The prospect of farmed insect protein fed on the by-products from food crops grown on that land is thus one that can only be a positive step, and I welcome the EU move as an early step in our making that change. The question is, who will be first to pop a bug-burger in their shopping basket? | 167 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320687",
"author": "1 of 25",
"timestamp": "2021-02-10T15:12:33",
"content": "nope",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6320722",
"author": "Joel",
"timestamp": "2021-02-10T16:21:41",
"content": "Most peopl... | 1,760,373,191.401495 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/10/android-10-ported-to-the-nintendo-switch/ | Android 10 Ported To The Nintendo Switch | Lewin Day | [
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"android",
"nintendo",
"Nintendo Switch"
] | Nintendo’s Switch is perhaps most famous for blurring the lines between handheld consoles and those you plug into a TV. However, the tablet-esque device can also run Android if you’re so inclined,
and it recently got an upgrade to version 10.
It’s an upgrade that brings many new features to the table, most of which you might consider must haves for regular use. The newer port brings support for USB Power Delivery, as well as deep sleep modes that enable the unit’s battery to last for several weeks. There’s also support for over-the-air updates which should ease ongoing maintenance, and improvements for Bluetooth compatibility and the touch screen as well.
Like most console hacks to run custom code, you’ve got to have the right hardware version with the right firmware, as Nintendo have been regularly iterating to try and lock out hacks where possible. The install has a few hurdles to jump through, but nothing too strenuous that would scare away the average Hackaday reader. Just be sure to not attempt this on a cherished console, as there’s always the chance that it all ends in tears. If you pull it off,
you can then go about turning your Nintendo Switch into a networking switch. Net…tendo… Switch?
Come up with a better pun in the comments.
[Thanks to David Beckershoff for the tip!] | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320725",
"author": "Steven Gann",
"timestamp": "2021-02-10T16:22:27",
"content": "The Nintendo switch is basically the Nvidia Shield tablet upgraded and running Nintendo software.I’d buy one immediately if I could dual-boot between Nintendo and Android without fear of Nintendo remo... | 1,760,373,191.436875 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/10/3d-printer-laser-cutter-cnc-yes-please/ | 3D Printer? Laser Cutter? CNC? Yes, Please | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"cnc hacks",
"Laser Hacks",
"Reviews"
] | [
"3d printing",
"cnc",
"Laser cutting",
"laser engraving",
"snapmaker"
] | Most of us have, or, would like to have a 3D printer, a laser engraver, and a CNC machine. However, if you think about it naively, these machines are not too different. You need some way to move in the XY plane and, usually, on the Z axis, as well.
Sure, people mount extruders on CNCs, or even lasers or Dremel tools on 3D printers. However, each machine has its own peculiarities. CNCs need rigidity. 3D printers should be fast. Laser engravers and CNCs don’t typically need much Z motion. So common sense would tell you that it would be tough to make a machine to do all three functions work well in each use case. [Stefan] thought that, too, until he got his hands on a
Snapmaker 2.0
.
As you can see in the video below, the machine uses different tool heads for each function. The motion system stays the same and, curiously, there are three identical linear motion modules, one for each axis.
In addition to the interchangeable heads, you also have to swap out the beds for different functions. That means changing over quickly isn’t really an option. [Stefan] reports there are 22 bolts to attach the heated bed for 3D printing, for example.
This isn’t cheap, of course, but if you had to buy all three devices, you’d probably spend as much, especially for all aluminum framed machines. There are some compromises. The linear modules use a leadscrew, which is an unusual choice on X and Y axis for 3D printers because they are slow and have more backlash than belts. However, [Stefan] found the quality was good, even though printing speed was slow and noisy.
Of course, when machining with the CNC head, the rigid leadscrews are a plus, even though the 50 W spindle isn’t going to replace a larger CNC machine. He was even able to machine some aluminum slowly. The laser head is modestly powered, but it does have a camera and low-tech air assist, although it isn’t a proper air system. Overall, [Stefan] felt like the machine was usable in all three phases. He did miss a prominent emergency stop button on the machine or even on the graphical user interface.
Overall, the Snapmaker looks like a good concept with some implementation problems, but no show stoppers. Like most amateur builds, the machine is basically a small CNC with accessories to do laser cutting and 3D printing. Could you build better? Maybe. But it wouldn’t be trivial to match the build quality and software integration of the device.
We’ve seen conversions of 3D printers to a
laser
or
CNC
more than once. Results vary, of course, but it is doable. | 60 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320637",
"author": "Andy Pugh",
"timestamp": "2021-02-10T09:48:52",
"content": "“CNCs don’t typically need much Z motion”Try telling that to my CNC lathe.CNC _routers_ might not need much Z motion, but “CNC” is a much wider category than that.A less pedantic concern is that these d... | 1,760,373,191.536784 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/09/an-out-of-this-world-opportunity-become-an-esa-astronaut/ | An Out-Of-This-World Opportunity; Become An ESA Astronaut | Jenny List | [
"News",
"Space"
] | [
"astronaut",
"ESA",
"human spaceflight",
"space exploration"
] | In the six decades or so of human space exploration, depending on whose definition you take, only 562 people have flown in to space. We haven’t quite reached the state of holidaying in space that science fiction once promised us even though the prospect of sub-orbital spaceflight for the exceedingly well-heeled is very close, so that cadre of astronauts remains an elite group whose entry is not for the average person. Some readers might have an opportunity to change that though, as the European Space Agency
have announced a fresh round of astronaut recruitment that will open at the end of March
.
Sadly for our American readers the successful applicants have to hail from ESA member states, but since that covers a swathe of European countries we’re guessing that a lot of you might have your long-held dreams of spaceflight revived by it. You can learn more at a press conference to be held on the 16th of February, and streamed via
ESA Web TV
. Meanwhile whoever is recruited will be likely not only to participate in missions to the ISS, but maybe also more ambitious planned missions such as those to the planned
Lunar Gateway
space station in Lunar orbit. If you think you’ve got the Euro version of The Right Stuff, you’ll have the 8 weeks from the end of March until the 28th of May to get your application in. Good Luck! | 25 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320597",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2021-02-10T06:21:10",
"content": "“…only 562 people have flown in to space. ”Huh? I would have thought it much smaller considering the difficulties involved.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"commen... | 1,760,373,191.594966 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/09/3d-printer-makes-ham-antenna-portable/ | 3D Printer Makes Ham Antenna Portable | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"antenna",
"end fed half wave",
"ham radio"
] | You don’t normally think of a 3D printer as a necessity for an antenna project. However, if you are interested in making a handy portable antenna, you might want to melt some plastic. [N2MXX] has an
end fed antenna winder
design that also contains the necessary matching toroid. This would be just the thing to throw in your backpack for portable operation.
The end-fed configuration is handy for portability too, because you can easily secure one end and feed the other end. Compare that to a dipole where you have to feed a high point and secure both ends.
Of course, you also need wire and some other components — we don’t know how to 3D print a usable ferrite toroid. Honestly, there is some controversy about how these antennas actually work, but people swear that they work well.
There are quite a few ways to operate a portable station, depending on your definition of convenient is. Verticals are popular, although laying out ground wires can be painful. A dipole isn’t that hard to erect, especially if you are staying in one place for a while. However, we really like how small this design is and it should be easy to clip one end and just play out the wire to operate. Our only concern is how plastics will fare in the elements over the long term. Then again, if it wears out, you can just print a new one.
Our own [Dan Maloney] has made these
sort of antennas and had good luck
. If you want to go really tiny, try
surface mount
. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320564",
"author": "Ken",
"timestamp": "2021-02-10T03:48:07",
"content": "“Honestly, there is some controversy about how these antennas actually work, but people swear that they work well.”We know HOW these antennas work, the debate is about how WELL they work.",
"parent_id": n... | 1,760,373,191.638133 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/09/stay-focused-with-this-distraction-free-cyberdeck/ | Stay Focused With This Distraction Free Cyberdeck | Tom Nardi | [
"Cyberdecks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"3D printed enclosure",
"cyberdeck",
"lisp",
"Lisp machine",
"mechanical keyboard",
"widescreen"
] | While on the surface they might seem like little more than cosplay accessories, there are perfectly valid and practical reasons for building a custom cyberdeck. For one thing, a hand-built deck is going to be easier to upgrade and modify down the line. A bespoke rig can also be made to fit your exacting specifications, with each and every design choice made specifically to support your personal style and workflow.
For [Conrad Barski], that meant a computer that would stay out of his way and allow him to
take notes and write code while keeping distractions to the absolute minimum
. All he wanted in his dream machine was a nice mechanical keyboard, a widescreen display, and enough battery power to go mobile should the need arise. Anything else would be gilding the lily. For those who want to distill personal computing down to its simplest form, this build is really the high water mark.
[Conrad] is currently in the early stages of turning his
Lisperati1000
into a kit others can build for themselves, so details are a bit sparse at the moment. But we do know there’s a Raspberry Pi Zero W, a Vortex Core 40% keyboard, and 4,400 mAh worth of battery power wrapped up in that slick 3D printed enclosure. Readers may recognize the 1920×480 ultra-wide LCD from the
modernized TRS-80 Model 100 we covered recently
, or perhaps the
gorgeously reimagined retro terminals of [Oriol Ferrer Mesià]
. If you’ve got retro-futurism on the brain, this seems to be the display to beat.
Whether you want to
explore vintage computing
, stylishly
take control of your custom race car
, or
cruise the airwaves with an integrated software defined radio
, a completely custom portable computing device can make for an interesting alternative to another ho-hum laptop from the Big Box electronics store. | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320557",
"author": "Alan",
"timestamp": "2021-02-10T02:44:21",
"content": "Based on a Vortex Core keyboard – an elegant design, but unlikely to be cheap.https://candykeys.com/product/vortex-core-rgb",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_... | 1,760,373,191.687273 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/09/reverse-engineering-usb-protocols-on-a-function-generator/ | Reverse Engineering USB Protocols On A Function Generator | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"function generator",
"reverse engineering",
"W"
] | When working with test equipment such as oscilloscopes and function generators, it can be useful to take a screen capture. Historically this was done with Polaroid cameras that were bolted in place, but these days it can be done over a simple USB connection. [Majenko] didn’t like the Windows-only software that shipped with their Tenma 72-14110 function generator, however,
and set about reverse engineering the USB protocol to create their own.
The hack was pulled off by running the original software in a Windows VM, while running Wireshark in the host Linux OS to capture the USB traffic. Once enough data had been captured, [Majenko] set about figuring out how the function generator formatted the screen data when sending it to the PC. Based on the fact that the data changed in length depending on what was on the display, it was surmised that the data was not raw, but compressed somehow. A hunch suggested it was probably some form of Run-Length Encoding, and this proved to be correct. With a little more digging and experimentation, [Majenko] was able to put together some code that netted a clear image from the device.
It’s a useful guide for reverse engineering image data, one that could prove useful if you’re tackling a similar problem on other hardware. We’ve seen some great reverse engineering efforts over the years, on everything from
old video hardware
to the
Sega Saturn
. If you’ve been diving deep into the secrets of software or hardware yourself,
be sure to drop us a line. | 21 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320510",
"author": "niobwnb",
"timestamp": "2021-02-09T21:35:03",
"content": "It could probably be done with Ghidra on the Windows executable. No need to reverse-engineer low-level USB comms.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6... | 1,760,373,191.865078 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/09/some-tips-for-monetizing-work-in-open-source/ | Some Tips For Monetizing Work In Open Source | Donald Papp | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"advice",
"career advice",
"foss",
"monetization"
] | Free and open-source software (FOSS) doesn’t have to be entirely separate from the concept of bringing in money, but the path to monetizing is maybe less clear than it could be. To help address this, [Drew DeVault] has
shared some concise thoughts on different ways to monetize FOSS work and projects
. [Drew] observes that monetizing one’s own projects is one approach, but that it is entirely possible, and less difficult, to make money by participating in open source work in a more general sense.
There are companies and organizations out there who may make their money otherwise, but are nevertheless involved in or reliant upon open source software for running their business. Such companies are a good starting point for anyone looking to work in FOSS, and [Drew] shares a clever tip for finding them: use
git
to clone the software repositories of large projects that are of interest to you, then run this command:
git log -n100000 --format="%ae" | cut -d@ -f2 | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | less
This will extract the domain names from the last 100,000 commits to the repository in question; a good set of leads to companies and organizations that are invested enough in FOSS to contribute, and who may be willing to pay for such work.
There is also the option of monetizing one’s own projects, which [Drew] says is the more difficult approach. He shares tips on monetization options, but cautions that fundamentally one is building a business when going this route. One should therefore be prepared to face the attendant non-software-related problems in the process.
[Drew] runs
SourceHut
and works entirely in FOSS, but still makes time for fun hacks like
using this old line printer to emulate the experience of working on a teletype
, which is how it was done when terminal output went to paper, instead of a CRT monitor. | 25 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320475",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2021-02-09T19:54:58",
"content": "But what if it makes you feel unclean? Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6320484",
"author": "X",
"... | 1,760,373,191.744257 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/09/the-modding-restoration-and-demise-of-a-3m-analog-computer/ | The Modding, Restoration, And Demise Of A $3M Analog Computer | Chris Lott | [
"computer hacks",
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"analog computer",
"georgia tech",
"history",
"Power Systems",
"westinghouse"
] | How do you rapidly record the output from your three million dollar analog computer in the 1940s when the results are only available on analog meters? The team responsible for the Westinghouse 1947 AC Network Calculator at Georgia Tech was faced with just this problem and came up with a nifty solution — hack the control panel and wire in a special-purpose drafting table.
What Is It?
What is this beast of a computer? Machines of this type were developed during and after World War 2, and strictly speaking, belong in the category of scale models rather than true computers. Although these machines were very flexible, they were primarily designed to simulate power distribution grids. There is a lot of theory under the hood, but basically a real world, multi-phase distribution system would be scaled to single-phase at 400 Hz for modeling.
The engineers would “program” the machine by connecting together the appropriate circuit elements (like capacitors, inductors, transmission lines, generators, etc.) on big patch panels. Thus programmed, a 10 kW motor-generator located in the basement would be started up and the simulation was underway.
Block Diagram
Part Time Job
Back in the early 1980s, my first job in college was to get one of these machines up and running. It had been purchased by Georgia Power and donated to Georgia Tech back in 1947, where it had seen more or less continuous service for several decades. It had then been used as a teaching aid for some time, and moved to a couple of locations. By the time of my involvement, it was unused and in a state of disrepair.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t that difficult to fix. The patch panels’ wiring needed replacement, as the insulation was brittle and cracked. Decades of crud was removed from the switches and contacts in all of the circuit elements. For several semesters, this quiet room in the basement was my refuge when I needed silence to study and read, occasionally entertaining myself by firing it up to solve random AC network problems from my textbook.
Operation
Once the motor generator set spun up to frequency and stabilized, you could monitor the simulated network by connecting the metering circuits in the operator’s console to any of the circuit elements. You did this by pressing the reference designator into a keyboard that looked like an old-fashioned mechanical adding machine (it probably was). Almost instantly, the element’s current, voltage and power would be displayed. These quantities were complex, so both magnitude and phase were presented on the meters.
Control Panel Detail
The operators would obtained the simulation results by stepping through all the desired circuit elements. After each measurement, they would pause, record numbers in a notebook, and move on to the next element.
Interestingly, this whole process was basically a big passive circuit without any active components. Sure, there were relays for meter connections, and of course the motor-generator provided power for the voltage sources. Other than that, reading the output from the console was equivalent to having a technician carry test meters around to each circuit and probing the points by hand. There was one exception, one of the meters was driven by a small vacuum tube amplifier. But it was only used for one measurement type, I think it was VARS. Even with the amplifier turned off, the machine was completely functional and quite useful.
We Can Do Better
The team decided to modify the calculator so that results would be easier to record and interpret by the engineers. Their approach was to write the answers directly on the schematics, aided by the installation of a special drafting table next to the main operator’s console.
Recording Simulation Results
This drafting table’s top was like no other you’ve seen. It lifted up like the hood of a car, complete with supporting bracket. The table top was made primarily of metal, with a translucent material laminated on top to provide a smooth writing surface. The metal plate was perforated with small holes throughout in a regular grid pattern, accessible from the bottom. If you examined it closely, you would notice that the whole plate was connected to ground by a flexible braided strap.
Inside the table, there was a panel with a grid of hundreds of well-labeled pin-tip jacks. There was one pin-jack for each of the circuit elements — C1 to C99, L1 to L99, etc. The engineers dug into the main console keyboard and tapped into the appropriate logic signals. These were routed to new relay circuitry inside the table, and ultimately to the big panel of pin-tip jacks. Each of these circuits would be energized corresponding to the circuit element the operator engaged for metering.
There was also a big jumble of loose, single-conductor jumper wires inside the table. Each jumper wire had a pin-tip plug on one end and a small light bulb on the other. These light bulbs, T-1 3/4 midget flange base as I recall, could be gently pushed into any of the holes underneath the table, thereby grounding one side of the filament. The pin-tip plug on the jumper wire would be plugged into any desired jack on the panel, completing the circuit to the other end of the filament.
CAD Rendering of the Drafting Table
Getting output from the simulation now would require a new setup procedure. Not only did the circuit itself have to be “patched” in, but the indicator bulbs had to be connected. A schematic page was taped down on the drafting table. Then dozens of these light bulbs with jumper wires were put in place. Each bulb would be mounted in the hole underneath the corresponding element on the schematic. Then the wire would be plugged into the corresponding jack on the panel. For example, the light bulb plugged into the table underneath capacitor C16 would be plugged into the C16 tip-jack on the patch panel, and so on.
Once this rat’s nest of wires was hooked up, the table top would be closed and used like a regular drafting table. The network analyzer begins running, and one operator (at the console) would cycle through each of the various elements of interest, calling out the values from the meters. A second operator, at the drafting table right next to the console, would write the results directly onto the schematic, guided by the illuminated spot appearing under each element as it was selected by the operator. Looking back, this reminds me of a crude precursor to modern GUI SPICE simulators, where you hover your mouse or click on a circuit element to see these “metered” values.
Old Schematics
I found a schematic drawing of the meter selection circuitry from a patent filed in 1940. I found it very interesting, if only because of the different symbology and style from today’s schematics. You don’t see such a mass of relays very often these days, but if you study it briefly you can understand the gist of the circuit. It’s basically a 24-wire decimal-digit address bus, with a units and tens place. What would be the hundreds place consists of only four wires instead of ten. These are used to select the category of circuit element, such as power supply, capacitor, etc. The keypad drives the address bus, and the RESET button releases the “drivers”.
Meter Selection Schematic
Digging around in the desk drawers one day, some friends and I found an old article about Herbert Peters, a colorful Westinghouse engineer who transferred to Georgia Tech with the network analyzer and ended up living in Atlanta for the rest of his life. Mr Peters seemed to be the epitome of an old-school, hard-core engineer. We could picture him in our minds, sporting that bow-tie, hunched over the computer deep in thought, absentmindedly brushing aside the occasional cigarette ash that would fall on the console.
Herb Peters at Work
Although I never met him, I heard that he returned to consult on a project after I graduated. He encountered a transistor amplifier that I had worked on for months to replace the old broken vacuum tube amp. With barely a second thought, he tossed my chassis in the trash can and proceeded to fixed the tube amplifier in less than an hour. As a result, designing transistor amplifier circuits gives me pause to this day.
Not long after I graduated in 1985, I heard that half of the network analyzer was thrown away in order to save space. The basic core was preserved — just the number of circuit elements was cut in half. Some years ago, even this remaining half was finally surplussed. Today all that remains are fading photos, a 10 kW motor-generator set in the basement, and the fond memories of those who once used this majestic machine.
I want to thank Dr Roger Webb, the professor who hired me to work on this machine so many years ago. He shared his recollections with me after discovering that his archives on the Network Analyzer had been discarded by the university a few years back. | 24 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320446",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2021-02-09T18:59:57",
"content": "Odd, if you’d have asked me to guess how data output was handled from an analog computer circa 1920 to 1960 I’d have said…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chart_recorder",
"parent_id": null,
"de... | 1,760,373,191.811971 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/09/3d-printed-butterfly-valve-helps-automate-fume-extraction/ | 3D Printed Butterfly Valve Helps Automate Fume Extraction | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"butterfly valve",
"fume extractor",
"valve"
] | It’s not something we always think about, but there’s plenty of hazardous fumes in the average workshop that can be deleterious to human health. Whether its soldering, lasercutting, or 3D printing, all of these processes release nasty chemicals into the air that are best filtered for health reasons. To help build out a working filtration system,
[Fab] needed some valves, so set about printing some of his own.
[Fab] went with a simple butterfly valve design, similar to the throttle valve in most gasoline-powered cars. The butterfly vane rotates to vary the flow, turned by a small SG90 servo. A Wemos D1 Mini is used to run a pair of the valves, which are paired with a Y-adapter to connect both a soldering station and 3D printer to the fume extraction system. As a nice touch, a WiFi-enabled outlet is hooked up to the soldering iron which notifies the D1 Mini when it’s switched on, flipping the valve open to automatically start fume extraction.
It’s a tidy system that will enable [Fab] to breath easy in the workshop for years to come.
Files are available
for those wishing to print a set of butterfly valves for themselves.
We’ve seen some other smart fume extractors before, too.
Video after the break. | 18 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320420",
"author": "Michael Shaub",
"timestamp": "2021-02-09T17:01:11",
"content": "This is great! I’d love to build for my workshop. Would something like this work at a larger scale for HVAC vent automation?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,373,192.036781 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/09/teardown-bug-zapper-bulb/ | Teardown: Bug Zapper Bulb | Tom Nardi | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"home hacks",
"LED Hacks",
"Slider",
"Teardown"
] | [
"bug zapper",
"dimmer",
"high voltage",
"led bulb",
"voltage multiplier"
] | Up here in the Northern Hemisphere, mosquitoes and other flying pests are the last thing on anyone’s mind right now. The only bug that’s hindering gatherings at the moment goes by the name of COVID-19, but even if we weren’t social distancing, insects simply aren’t a concern at this time of year. So it’s little surprise that these months are often the best time to find a great deal on gadgets designed to deter or outright obliterate airborne insects.
Whatever PIC stands for…it’s not that.
Case in point, I was able to pick up this “Bug Zapper LED Bulb” at the big-box hardware store for just a few bucks. This one is sold by PIC Corporation, though some press release surfing
shows the company merely took over distribution of the device in 2017
. Before then it was known as the Zapplight, and was the sort of thing you might see advertised on TV if you were still awake at 3 AM. It appears there are several exceptionally similar products on the market as well, which are likely to be the same internally.
In all fairness, it’s a pretty clever idea. Traditional zappers are fairly large, and need to be hoisted up somewhere next to an electrical outlet. But if you could shrink one down to the size of a light bulb, you could easily dot them around the porch using the existing sockets and wiring. Extra points if you can also figure out a way to make it work as a real bulb when the bugs aren’t out. Obviously the resulting chimera won’t excel at either task, but there’s certainly something to be said for the convenience of it.
Let’s take a look inside one of these electrifying illuminators and see how they’ve managed to squeeze two very different devices into one socket-friendly package.
Let there Be Light
Under the frosted plastic dome on the front of the zapper bulb is…well, what you’d expect to find inside of a cheap LED bulb. A few years ago this kind of thing might be novel, but we’ve seen it all before.
With just fourteen run-of-the-mill diodes, the light produced from this bulb isn’t particularly impressive. According to the manual it’s putting out 600 lumens, which would put it just slightly north of what you’d expect from an old school 40 W incandescent bulb. Being a relatively low-power array there’s no external heatsink on the bulb, the aluminum backing of the PCB seems enough to keep things cool.
The limited light output is made worse by the fact that all the diodes point forward, making this more of a bad spotlight than anything. Arguably that might be desirable outside, especially if this was placed in a high light socket and you wanted to throw a beam down on a porch or deck. But in that case it would have been nice if they actually indicated that by giving the bulb a more distinct spotlight shape.
Beyond the LEDs, the only components of any note are the dual SM2212EA driver ICs. I couldn’t find an English datasheet for these, but a rough online translation of the PDF provided the highlights: they run on 90 to 240 VAC, offer a two-stage brightness control, and have built in thermal shutdown. But the fact that there are two of them seemed odd, and on closer inspection, the way they were connected didn’t seem to make any sense.
With the traces highlighted, it’s clear both ICs are tied together.
The answer comes from the datasheet, which explains on one of the final pages that if the power requirements are so high that a single SM2212EA goes into thermal overload, you can simply duplicate the single chip application and tie their outputs together to run them in parallel. Each chip has two output pins because one is the full brightness pin that comes on first, and the second is the reduced current pin that dims the LEDs after the power switch has been flicked on and off.
That makes sense, except for one problem: the LEDs on this product don’t actually dim. When you flick the switch on the first time the light and zapper functions are both on, and when you flip it again, the LEDs go off completely while the zapper stays on. So what’s going on?
While the datasheet isn’t very clear, it seems that the resistor connected to pin 4 of the SM2212EA is used to set the amount of current the secondary dimming pin will pass. But a close look at the PCB shows that this resistor is missing for both chips (pads R3 and R6 on the silkscreen, R2 and R4 on diagram), so the dimming function is essentially disabled. If you were so inclined you should be able to drop a pair of 200 ohm resistors across those pads to turn it back on, but you’d lose the ability to use the zapper without the light on.
Ride the Lightning
Below the LED PCB and on the other side of a little plastic bulkhead, we find the electrified elements that do the actual zapping of bugs. They appear preposterously overbuilt for this application, which makes me think more thought was given to the aesthetics of the shiny chrome grid than its bug-busting properties. It seems like a tighter grid of smaller diameter wires would have been more effective, but wouldn’t have looked nearly as nice sitting on the shelf or during the late-night TV infomercial.
On the plus side they’re attached to the high-voltage PCB with nothing more exotic than some M3 screws, so they can be easily removed for potential modification or reuse. At the center of the grid are four UV LEDs which serve as the “bait” to bring the bugs in. Now as we’ve learned from the COVID pandemic,
not all UV LEDs are created equal
, and these are probably only good for attracting bugs. (Oh wait.)
Taking a look at the back of the HV PCB, we can see just how simple of an arrangement we’re dealing with. There’s no transformer involved, just a basic voltage multiplier circuit using four pairs of diodes and capacitors. That gives a maximum potential of a little under 500 VDC when running at 120 VAC here in the US, which as far as I can tell, is exceptionally poor for a bug zapper. A quick perusal of Amazon shows even the relatively cheap models are advertising grid voltages of 3 to 4 kV.
For the record, I didn’t lose count. The fifth capacitor off to the left side with the pair of diodes is being used to provide the power for the UV LEDs on the other side of the board, and doesn’t appear to be connected to the HV side of things.
Master of None
So on the top we have a pretty ho-hum LED bulb, and on the bottom, a photogenic but ultimately anemic bug zapper. Through a pair of legitimately hacked dimmer ICs, the user has the ability to turn off the LEDs, but the high voltage zapper is live whenever the power is supplied. Though to be fair, it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which somebody would buy one of these things but
not
want to use the zapper function.
I can’t say that it’s poorly built, in fact, I was somewhat impressed by how competently everything seemed to be put together. But functionally, I’d be hesitant to pay the full $20 USD MRSP. If you’ve got a bug problem, you’d be better served with a real zapper that has a bigger UV light source (often a small fluorescent bulb) and a more powerful HV source. That said, if you see one of these drifting around the clearance rack for a buck or two, it’s probably worth
salvaging its internal components to power your high voltage adventures
. | 17 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320395",
"author": "NorthernDIY",
"timestamp": "2021-02-09T15:08:17",
"content": "Bug zappers are at best ineffective at mosquito control, and at worst extremely damaging to local insect populations.Insect die-off is not a good thing, despite your feelings regarding being un-assail... | 1,760,373,192.10697 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/09/interfacing-a-z80-cpu-with-the-raspberry-pi/ | Interfacing A Z80 CPU With The Raspberry Pi | Lewin Day | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"python",
"raspberry pi",
"z80",
"Zilog Z80"
] | The Z80 was a big deal in the 1970s and 1980s, and while its no longer a dominant architecture today, its legacy lives on. [James Andrew Fitzjohn] is a fan of the Z, and decided to interface the real silicon with the Raspberry Pi,
by and large for the fun of it!
The Z80’s address and data lines, as well as the clock, are hooked up to the Raspberry Pi through several MCP23017 GPIO expanders. The Pi’s GPIO lines aren’t known for their speed, of course, and using expanders through I2C isn’t exactly quick either. However, speed isn’t necessary, as the clock only goes as fast as the Raspberry Pi desires, since it’s controlling the clock along with everything else. There’s also an LCD for viewing the Z80s status, along with some era-appropriate blinkenlights.
This setup allows the Pi to run code directly on the Z80 itself, while managing the CPU’s RAM in its own memory, all through a Python script. It’s a fun hack that lets you run retro code on retro silicon without using an emulator. Techniques like these are useful for finding undocumented or edge case performance of a processor. If this hack isn’t enough Zilog for your liking,
consider throwing one in your pocket as well! | 25 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320355",
"author": "cliff claven",
"timestamp": "2021-02-09T12:29:44",
"content": "Lovely hack. Absolutely useless, in the practical sense, but has amazing teaching potential.The Z80 was a great processor, in the day. I still have a few SBC’s around that run Z80’s (original Z80A an... | 1,760,373,191.988172 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/09/cyberattack-on-florida-citys-water-supply/ | Cyberattack On Florida City’s Water Supply | Lewin Day | [
"News"
] | [
"Florida",
"utilities",
"water"
] | The city of Oldsmar, Florida was the source of disturbing news this week, among reports that
someone gained unauthorized access to a water treatment facility.
In an era where more systems than ever are connected to the Internet, the story is a sobering one for the vast majority of people reliant on grid utilties.
The hacker was first noticed to have gained remote access to a computer system at the plant at 8 a.m. on February 5. An operator at a workstation controlling chemical dosing at the plant observed a remote connection, though did not initially raise the alarm as such access is common practice at the facility for troubleshooting purposes. However, at 1:30 pm, the hacker connected again, this time commanding the dosing system to raise levels of sodium hydroxide in the water from 100 to 11,000 ppm – dangerous levels that would make the city’s water unsafe to drink. The increased level command was immediately overridden by the operator, who then raised the alarm.
The city notes that other safeguards such as pH monitors at the plant would have triggered in the event the original intrusion went undetected. However, the event raises renewed questions about the level of security around critical utility systems connected to the internet. In the last decade, cyberattacks on physical infrastructure
have become a reality, not a vague future threat.
Nothing’s known yet about the perpetrator, or how secure the system was (or wasn’t?) before the event. It’s been long known that a lot of infrastructure is simply connected to the internet, as
Dan Tentler has been showing us since at least 2012.
(Video, ranting.) Indeed, it’s amazing that we’ve seen so
few
malicious attacks. | 62 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320314",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2021-02-09T09:59:58",
"content": "Friends don’t let friends install TeamViewer on their critical utility infrastructure…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6320317",
"author": "... | 1,760,373,192.344786 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/08/this-joy-con-grip-steers-to-its-way-to-sweaty-victory/ | This Joy-Con Grip Steers Its Way To Sweaty Victory | Kerry Scharfglass | [
"Games",
"Nintendo Hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"exercise",
"joy-con",
"mario kart",
"nintendo",
"Nintendo Switch",
"ring-con",
"stationary bike",
"switch"
] | Here at Hackaday we’re always exited to see hacks that recycle our favorite childhood consoles into something new and interesting. In that context, it’s not so uncommon to see mods which combine new and unusual control methods with old devices in ways that their manufacturers never intended. What [Mike Choi] has built with
the Labo Fit Adventure Kit
is the rare hack that combines radically new control schemes with a modern console: without actually modifying any hardware.
Face button pusher in blue
In short, the Labo Fit Adventure Kit lets the player play Mario Kart on the Nintendo Switch by riding a stationary exercise bike, steering with a wheel, and squeezing that wheel to use items. The Fit Kit combines the theme of
Labo, Nintendo’s excellent cardboard building kit
for the Nintendo Switch with the existing Ring-Con accessory for the unrelated Nintendo game
Ring Fit Adventure
plus a collection of custom hardware to tie it all together. That hardware senses cadence on the stationary bike, watches for the user to squeeze the handheld wheel controller, and translates those inputs to button presses on the controller to play the game.
Shoulder button pusher in green
The most fascinating element of this project is the TAPBO module which adapts the Joy-Con controller to remote input. The module includes electronics, actuators, and a clever mechanical design to allow it to be mounted to the Ring-Con in place of an unmodified Joy-Con. Electrically the components will be familiar to regular Hackaday readers; there is a breakout board for a Teensy which also holds an XBee module to receive inputs remotely and drive a pair of servos. The entire module is
described in detail starting at 4:42
in the video.
Mechanically the TAPBO relies on a pair of cam-actuated arms which translate rotational servo motion into linear action to press shoulder or face buttons. The module directly measures flex of the Ring-Con with an added flexible resistor and receives cadence information from another module embedded in the stationary bike via Zigbee. When these inputs exceed set thresholds they drive the servos to press the appropriate controller buttons to accelerate or use an item.
We’ve focused pretty heavily on the technical aspects of this project, but this significantly undersells the level of polish and easy to understand documentation [Mike] has produced. It includes a TAPBO Amiibo in customized packaging, and more. Check out the full video to get the complete scope of this project. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,373,192.158098 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/08/building-a-cheap-kubernetes-cluster-from-old-laptops/ | Building A Cheap Kubernetes Cluster From Old Laptops | Lewin Day | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"cluster",
"cluster computing",
"kubernetes"
] | Cluster computing is a popular choice for heavy duty computing applications. At the base level, there are hobby clusters often built with Raspberry Pis, while the industrial level involves data centers crammed with servers running at full tilt. [greg] wanted something cheap, but with x86 support –
so set about building a rig his own way.
The ingenious part of [greg]’s build comes in the source computers. He identified that replacement laptop motherboards were a great source of computing power on the cheap, with a board packing an i7 CPU with 16GB of RAM available from eBay for around £100, and with i5 models being even cheaper. With four laptop motherboards on hand, he set about stacking them in a case, powering them, and hooking them up with the bare minimum required to get them working. With everything wrapped up in an old server case with some 3D printed parts to hold it all together, he was able to get a 4-node Kubernetes cluster up and running for an absolute bargain price.
We haven’t seen spare laptop motherboards used in such a way before, but we could definitely see this becoming more of a thing going forward. The possibilities of a crate full of deprecated motherboards are enticing for those building clusters on the cheap. Of course, more nodes is more better,
so check out this 120 Pi cluster to satiate your thirst for
raw FLOPs. | 28 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320286",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2021-02-09T05:42:11",
"content": "“… while the industrial level involves data centers crammed with servers running at full tilt. ”I imagine some in the homeserver subforum use older blade servers.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,... | 1,760,373,192.410143 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/08/recreating-the-mac-se-logic-board/ | Recreating The Mac SE Logic Board | Matthew Carlson | [
"Mac Hacks"
] | [
"68k",
"mac se",
"macintosh",
"Macintosh SE",
"Macintosh SE/30",
"macintosh se30",
"pcb",
"sprint"
] | When [Kai Robinson] found himself faced with the difficult task of saving as many Mac SE’s as he possibly could, the logical but daunting answer was to
recreate the Mac SE logic board
for machines that would otherwise be scrapped. These machines are over 30 years old and the PRAM battery often leaks, destroying parts and traces. Given that the logic board is a simple through-hole
two
four-layer board, how hard could it be?
The first step was to get some reference photos so [Kai] set to desoldering everything on the board. The list of components and the age of solder made this an arduous task. Then a composite image was produced
by
merging images together using a scanner and some Inkscape magic
.
in graphics software.
Rather than simply putting the pins in the right place and re-routing all the netlists, [Kai] elected instead to do a copy, trace for trace of the original SE board. [Kai] and several others on the forum have been testing the boards and tracking down the last few bugs and kinks in the design. An unconnected pin here and an improperly impedance matched resistor there. Hopefully, soon they’ll have Gerbers and design files ready for anyone should they need a new logic board PCB.
It’s no secret that we
love the Macintosh SE
here at Hackaday. We’ve seen
new custom cases for it
and now new PCBs for it. It does cause the mind to ponder though and wonder, what’s next?
Thanks [Toru173] for sending this one in! | 27 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320235",
"author": "Phelps",
"timestamp": "2021-02-09T00:35:16",
"content": "Tracing is probably a pretty good idea, since it would be a kick in the groin to do all that work and testing, and find out that you have bunch of interference problems that you would end up solving by… re... | 1,760,373,192.517395 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/08/vesa-arm-turned-low-cost-overhead-camera-rig/ | VESA Arm Turned Low-Cost Overhead Camera Rig | Tom Nardi | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"monitor arm",
"overhead",
"photography",
"vesa",
"vesa mount"
] | Whether you’re live streaming builds or just want to take your project photography to the next level, you can’t beat an overhead camera setup. Unfortunately, they tend to be cumbersome and more often than not quite pricey. Looking for an affordable solution that could easily be moved out of the way when not in use,
[Jay Doscher] had the clever idea of adapting a common VESA monitor arm
to give his camera a bird’s eye view of the action.
If you think about it, one of these monitor arms is a nearly perfect base for a camera rig. They’re easily mounted to a desk or work bench, can be quickly repositioned by design, and perhaps best of all, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get a decent one. A camera is also a far lighter and less awkward payload than the arm was designed to hold, so you don’t have to worry about it potentially dropping your expensive gear. Or cheap webcam, as the case may be.
All [Jay] had to do was come up with a way to securely mount his Sony A7R3 on the end of one. While there’s certainly a few ways you could solve this particular problem, he went the extruded plastic route and 3D printed a beefy adapter plate with the standard VESA bolt pattern. His Smallrig camera cage attaches to the plate, and thanks to a pair of press-fit bubble levels from McMaster Carr, he’s able to get everything lined up properly over the bench.
Of course, there’s an excellent chance you don’t have the same camera as [Jay]. But that doesn’t mean you can’t modify the design of his adapter to fit your own gear. To that end, he’s not only shared the final STLs, but he’s provided a link to the
TinkerCAD project that you can actually edit right in the browser
.
If you’ve got a light enough camera, you could
put something similar together with PVC pipes
or even
an articulated arm intended for a desk lamp
. But if you’ve got a DSLR or other full-sized camera, we think it’s more than worth the $30 USD one of these will cost you on Amazon to make sure your gear doesn’t end up smashing into the deck during a live stream. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320202",
"author": "Moromi_ken",
"timestamp": "2021-02-08T21:20:03",
"content": "really smart idea, not only for overhead shots but even for web conference/streamers a simple VESA adapter to standard tripod socket or arca-swiss would be much easier to mount",
"parent_id": null,... | 1,760,373,192.457048 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/08/a-modern-homage-to-the-til311-display/ | A Modern Homage To The TIL311 Display | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"led",
"texas instruments",
"til311"
] | Back in the 1970s, there were a huge variety of esoteric LED displays on the market. One of those was the DIP-packaged TIL311 from Texas Instruments, capable of displaying hexadecimal, from 0-9 and A-F. While these aren’t readily available anymore, the deep red plastic packages had some beauty to them,
so [Alex] set about making a modern recreation.
The build consists of a small PCB fitted with 20 LEDs, and a STM8S microcontroller to run the show. This can be used to emulate the original decoder logic on the TIL311, or programmed with other firmware in order to test the display or enable other display functions. Where the project really shines however is in the visual presentation. [Alex] has been experimenting with potting the hardware in translucent red resin to properly emulate the look of the original parts, which goes a long way to getting that cool 70s aesthetic. Attention to detail is top notch, with [Alex] going so far as to carefully select pins that most closely match the square-cut design on the original TIL311 part.
It’s a fun build that could be useful for a project when you can’t get working new old stock.
We’ve seen similar efforts for Nixie tubes in the past.
Video after the break. | 40 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320169",
"author": "Bruce Perens K6BP",
"timestamp": "2021-02-08T19:40:23",
"content": "The Yaesu FT-301D ham transceiver uses these, and they die. If anyone is still preserving that old rig, they could use some of these.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
... | 1,760,373,192.592618 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/07/hackaday-links-february-7-2021/ | Hackaday Links: February 7, 2021 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"adobe",
"amateur radio",
"Betelgeuse",
"flash",
"gerbil",
"hackaday links",
"html5",
"joy-con",
"nintendo",
"patents",
"Phosphine",
"venus"
] | What’s that they say about death and taxes? Apparently that maxim doesn’t apply to Flash, at least when it comes to the taxman. As we noted
last week
, the end of the Adobe Flash era took with it a scheduling and routing app for the railway system in a Chinese city. This time around, it’s
the unfortunately acronymed SARS, for South African Revenue Services, having Flash woes
. They still have several online tax forms that haven’t been migrated to HTML5, so to keep the revenue flowing they built
their own Flash-enabled browser
. Taxpayers are free to download and use the browser while SARS works on getting the rest of their forms migrated. It sort of reminds us of
those plans the Internal Revenue Service has
to ensure tax collection continues after a nuclear apocalypse — death and taxes indeed.
Trouble for Nintendo in the EU? It looks that way, as consumer groups have made the case to EU regulators that Nintendo’s wildly popular Switch consoles are showing
unacceptably premature obsolescence with the notorious “Joy-Con drift” issue
. The problem, which manifests as players being unable to control a game due to constant movement despite no inputs on the joystick-like controller, requires a repair, one that Nintendo initially only did for free as warranty service for consoles less than a year old. For consoles out of the warranty period, Nintendo was charging €45, which is approximately the same as what a new controller would cost. This didn’t sit well with regulators, and now they’re breathing down Nintendo’s neck. They now offer free repairs for up to two years, but they’re still under the EU microscope. The interesting bit in the linked document is the technical reason for the problem, which is attributed to premature PCB wear — possibly meaning the traces wear away — and inadequate sealing of the Joy-Con mechanism against dust intrusion.
Last year looked as though it was going to be an exciting one with respect to some of our nearest solar and galactic neighbors. For a while there, it looked like the red giant Betelgeuse was going to go supernova, which would have been interesting to watch. And closer to home, there were some signs of life, in the form of phosphine gas, detected in the roiling atmosphere of our sister planet, Venus. Alas,
both stories appear not to have panned out
. The much-hoped-for (by me) Betelgeuse explosion, which was potentially heralded by a strange off-cycle dimming of the variable star, seems now to be due to its upper atmosphere cooling by several hundred degrees. As for Venus, the phosphine gas that was detected appears actually to have been a false positive triggered by sulfur dioxide. Disappointing results perhaps, but that’s how science is supposed to work.
Amateur radio often gets a bad rap, derided as a hobby for rich old dudes who just like to talk about their medical problems. Some of that is deserved, no doubt, but there’s still a lot of room in the hobby for those interested in advancing the state of the art in radio communications. In this vein, we were pleased to learn about
HamSCI
, which is short for Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation. The group takes to heart one of the
stated primary missions
of amateur radio as the “ontinuation and extension of the amateur’s proven ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art.” To that end, they’ll be holding HamSCI Workshop 2021, a virtual conference that will be focused on midlatitude ionospheric science. This appears to be a real science conference where both credentialed scientists and amateurs can share ideas. They’ve got a Call for Proposals now, with abstracts due by February 15. The conference itself will be on March 19 and 20, with free admission. The list of invited speakers looks pretty impressive, so if you have any interest in the field, check it out.
And finally, we got a tip this week about
a collection of goofy US patents
. Everything listed, from
the extreme combover
to
baby bum-print art
, is supposedly covered by a patent. We didn’t bother checking Google Patents, but some of these are pretty good for a laugh. We did look at a few, though, and were surprised to learn that
the Gerbil Shirt
is not a garment for rodents, but a rodent-filled garment for humans. | 14 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319824",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2021-02-08T00:54:13",
"content": "“For consoles out of the warranty period, Nintendo was charging €45, which is approximately the same as what a new controller would cost. This didn’t sit well with regulators, and now they’re breathing d... | 1,760,373,192.647795 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/07/holding-a-mirror-up-in-front-of-gnu-linux/ | Holding A Mirror Up In Front Of GNU/Linux | Jenny List | [
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"BSD",
"GNU/Linux",
"linux"
] | We’re guessing that we have something in common with a substantial number of our readers in that this post is being written on an open-source operating system. A well-known GNU/Linux distribution provides everything you might expect from a PC, but of course it’s not the only open-source game in town. A year-old piece from [Unixsheikh] caught the eye with the title “
Why you should migrate everything from Linux to BSD
“, and being naturally curious, it was worth a read. It’s interesting enough to talk about here not because of its BSD advocacy, but because of its examination of some of GNU/Linux’s shortcomings. Using and appreciating an operating system shouldn’t mean slavish fandom, it’s worth every Linux user taking a moment to consider its points.
There are two main thrusts to the argument, firstly that GNU/Linux has become a bloated kernel with a fragmented operating system, and secondly that the interests of the various big businesses that derive income from Linux-based products have led to the resulting ecosystem being shaped by those businesses and in their interests. The piece points to the huge disconnect between kernel developers and operating system users, and the seeming lack of concern over some of the problems this can create. It’s a jarring read for an open-source software enthusiast because while there is much good in the world of free software even the most devoted of fans should admit that it’s not without problems. We think it’s worth a read not necessarily to agree with but in order to stir discussion and debate. Every community needs to look in the mirror sometimes.
As for BSD, it’s worth admitting there lies a shameful gap in a Hackaday scribe’s knowledge. One that deserves to be plugged, in the interests of better understanding.
Header: Tux, Larry Ewing,
CC0
. | 122 | 29 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319764",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2021-02-07T21:24:17",
"content": "I protest at the use of the name GNU without appending Linux in front of it, as GNU was a failing project that Linux picked up out of the gutter and made relevant to the 21st century. Therefore if GN... | 1,760,373,192.859028 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/07/simple-sensor-makes-filament-measurements-a-snap/ | Simple Sensor Makes Filament Measurements A Snap | Dan Maloney | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"abs",
"diameter",
"filament",
"hall effect",
"magnet",
"PETG",
"PLA",
"quality control",
"sensor"
] | Just how tight are the manufacturing tolerances of modern FDM printer filament. Inquiring minds want to know, and when such minds are attached to handy fellows like [Thomas Sanladerer], you end up with something like
this home-brew filament measurement rig
to gather the data you seek.
The heart of this build is not, as one might assume, some exotic laser device to measure the diameter of filament optically. Those exist, but they are expensive bits of kit that are best left to the manufacturers, who use them on their production lines to make sure filament meets their specs. Rather, [Thomas] used a very clever homemade device, which relies on a Hall effect sensor and a magnet on a lever to do the job. The lever is attached to a roller bearing that rides on the filament as it spools through the sensor; variations in diameter are amplified by the lever arm, which wiggles a magnet over the Hall sensor, resulting in a signal proportional to filament diameter.
The full test rig has a motor-driven feed and takeup spools, and three sensors measuring across the filament in three different spots around the radius; the measurements are averaged together to account for any small-scale irregularities. [Thomas] ran several different spools representing different manufacturers and materials through the machine; we won’t spoil the results in the video below, but suffice it to say you probably have little to worry about if you buy from a reputable vendor.
When we see a filament sensor, it’s generally more of the “there/not there” variety to prevent a printer from blindly carrying on once the reel is spent.
We’ve seen a few of those before
, but this is a neat twist on that concept.
Thanks to [Baldpower] for the tip. | 29 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319704",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2021-02-07T18:09:17",
"content": "I don’t think you have to get too clever to monitor filament width optically, the shadow of filament on a photocell would be a different size with differing thickness, such that you’d also get a sign... | 1,760,373,192.707962 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/07/an-esp-will-read-your-meter-for-you/ | An ESP Will Read Your Meter For You | Jenny List | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"ai",
"ESP camera",
"ESP32",
"Water Meter"
] | As home automation starts to live up to its glossy sci-fi promise there remains a deficiency when it comes to interfacing between the newer computerised components and legacy items from a previous age. A frequent example that appears in projects on Hackaday is the reading of utility meters, and in that arena
[jomjol] has a very neat solution involving an ESP32 camera module
and a software neural network to identify meter readings directly.
The ESP and camera sit at the top of a 3D-printed housing that fits over the meter. The clever trick comes as each photo’s orientation is determined, and not only is OCR used to read digits but also figures are derived from small dial meters and other indicators on the meter face. It’s a very well-thought-out system, with a web-based configuration tool that allows full customisation of the readable zones and how they should be treated.
This project makes full use of the ESP32’s capabilities, and the attention to detail that has gone into making it usable is particularly impressive. It certainly raises the bar against
previous OCR meter reading projects
.
[Thanks for the tip
Sascha
] | 17 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319665",
"author": "irregularshed",
"timestamp": "2021-02-07T15:46:36",
"content": "This is great! I have the same module in front of my gas meter but am running basic software and have to read the results off an upside down jpeg :) of course I could have a ‘smart meter’ but I’m id... | 1,760,373,192.911335 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/07/ice40-runs-doom/ | Ice40 Runs DOOM | Lewin Day | [
"FPGA"
] | [
"does it run doom",
"doom",
"iCE40",
"icebreaker"
] | Spec sheets are an important tool in determining the performance of a given part or system, but they’re not the be all and end all when it comes to engineering. However, specs alone don’t prove whether a given system can complete a given task. Sometimes, you need to actually do the work to prove it instead –
as [Sylvain] has done, running DOOM on the iCE40 FPGA.
DOOM’s minimum specifications demand a 386 with 4MB RAM minimum, but it’s commonly agreed that a 486 DX2 running at 66MHz with 8MB of RAM is required to play the game smoothly. With an iCEBreaker v1.0b running a RISC V softcore at 25MHz, it may seem like a difficult task, but the RISC V core has the benefit that many instructions run in a single clock cycle that take many on the 486. While the iCEBreaker doesn’t have much RAM onboard, it’s a simple job to piggyback an 8MB SPI device on top of the existing flash storage. Control of the game is via keystrokes sent to the iCEBreaker over serial, while video is handled over a PMOD video interface with an HDMI connector.
[Sylvain] does a great job of explaining all the minute details of the work that was required to get things working, and has
provided files on Github
for those keen to replicate the feat or expand upon the code. Music is notably absent but MIDI output could likely be achieved without much hassle. “Does it run DOOM?” is still a question asked of many platforms,
even the new Nintendo Game & Watch
. Video after the break. | 22 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319648",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2021-02-07T14:52:44",
"content": "Dang that audio is hard to follow, sounds like he got a cheap 486 era multimedia kit microphone, and dipped it in coffee.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"co... | 1,760,373,192.966464 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/07/sensing-danger-with-spinach/ | Sensing Danger With Spinach | Kristina Panos | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"explosives",
"groundwater",
"harbinger",
"nitroaromatics",
"spinach"
] | Do you need more proof that we’re living in the future?
A group of MIT engineers have found a way for spinach, aka Popeye’s favorite short-term strength booster, to send potentially lifesaving emails regarding explosives in the area
.
As the team outlined in a paper published in 2016, the field of plant nanobionics uses nanotechnology to enhance the natural abilities of plants and make them do new tricks. Here’s how this one works: the roots of the spinach plants absorb nitroaromatic compounds such as picric acid from the groundwater, and these transpire up through the stem and into the leaves along with water and other nutrients. When the compounds reach the leaves, they accumulate in the plants’ mesophyll — the inner tissue of the leaves.
A pair of sensors made of single-walled carbon nanotubes are built into the leaves. One sensor is engineered to detect nitroaromatic compounds using near-infrared fluorescent emission, and the other is used as a reference signal. As the the compounds build up in the mesophyll, the IR signal gets stronger. This change is detected by a camera, which triggers an email alert to the researchers within a matter of minutes. After running the experiments with a fancy-pants indium-gallium-arsenide camera, the researchers were able to duplicate the results using a Raspberry Pi and a CCD camera module with the infrared filter removed.
Plants have an ear to the groundwater like none other and absorb a lot of information about the environment around them, so the researchers believe that detecting explosive materials is only the beginning — they could also be harbingers of pollution and other environmental concerns.
Even if there is no threat of landmines in the vicinity, weeds are a problem everywhere.
There’s a Raspberry Pi-based solution for those, too
. | 22 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319619",
"author": "uda-thortit",
"timestamp": "2021-02-07T12:11:03",
"content": "“…found a way for spinach…. to send emails”. I’m not sure about detecting nitroaromatics but my hype/gimmick detectors are picking something up with this one.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,373,193.038899 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/06/gba-gets-homebrew-usb-c-charging-upgrade/ | GBA Gets Homebrew USB Charging Upgrade | Tom Nardi | [
"classic hacks",
"Nintendo Game Boy Hacks"
] | [
"game boy advance",
"gba",
"TP4056",
"USB C"
] | Sure there are pre-made kits to add a rechargeable battery and USB-C compatibility to Nintendo’s venerable Game Boy Advance, but
[HorstBaerbel] thought he could throw together something similar for a fraction of the price
. Plus, he wouldn’t have to wait on shipping. The end result might not be quite as polished, but it’s certainly impressive for what’s essentially a junk bin build.
The star of the show is the popular TP4056 lithium-ion charger module. [HorstBaerbel] went with the more common micro USB version, but these boards are also available with USB-C should you want to embrace the future. The module fits nicely inside the original battery compartment while while still leaving room for a 1,000 mAh pouch cell. The 4.2 V output of the fully charged battery is a bit too high for the Game Boy’s liking, so he used the forward voltage drop of a diode to bring it down to a more acceptable 3.5 V.
Naturally this does waste a good deal of energy, especially compared to the DC-DC converters used in commercial offerings like the
CleanJuice
, but it still delivers a respectable seven hours of runtime. The only issue with this modification seems to be that you’ve got just five minutes to save your progress and shut down when the GBA’s low-battery light goes on; but what’s life without a little excitement?
While not nearly extreme as
some of the other GBA modifications we’ve seen over the years
, this project is yet another example of the
seemingly unlimited hacking potential
of Nintendo’s iconic Game Boy line. | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319584",
"author": "Josh",
"timestamp": "2021-02-07T06:47:54",
"content": "I see micro-usb. I think the author may have misunderstood the project write-up, which merely mentions the availability of USB-C charging boards.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,373,193.101255 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/08/getting-ready-for-mars-the-seven-minutes-of-terror/ | Getting Ready For Mars: The Seven Minutes Of Terror | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Original Art",
"Slider",
"Space"
] | [
"autonomous",
"Curiosity",
"EDL",
"entry descent landing",
"jpl",
"mars",
"Mars 2020",
"nasa",
"rover",
"space"
] | For the past seven months, NASA’s newest Mars rover has been closing in on its final destination. As Perseverance eats up the distance and heads for the point in space that Mars will occupy on February 18, 2021, the rover has been more or less idle. Tucked safely into its aeroshell, we’ve heard little from the lonely space traveler lately, except for a single audio clip of the whirring of its cooling pumps.
Its placid journey across interplanetary space stands in marked contrast to what lies just ahead of it. Like its cousin and predecessor Curiosity, Perseverance has to successfully negotiate a gauntlet of orbital and aerodynamic challenges, and do so without any human intervention. NASA mission planners call it the Seven Minutes of Terror, since the whole process will take just over 400 seconds from the time it encounters the first wisps of the Martian atmosphere to when the rover is safely on the ground within Jezero Crater.
For that to happen, and for the two-billion-dollar mission to even have a chance at fulfilling its primary objective of searching for signs of ancient Martian life, every system on the spacecraft has to operate perfectly. It’s a complicated, high-energy ballet with high stakes, so it’s worth taking a look at the Seven Minutes of Terror, and what exactly will be happening, in detail.
Slow Down There, Buddy
To fully understand the enormity of the undertaking of landing a rover on Mars, the first thing to grasp is the scale of the problem. At the time of launch back in July, Mars and Earth were in optimal orbital positions relative to each other to keep the 480 million km crossing time to a minimum. But Perseverance was built for a very specialized mission, and therefore is headed for a very specific spot on the Red Planet.
Jezero Crater, Perseverance’s target, is an ancient lake bed about 40 km across, making it a very small target to hit on a plant the size of Mars. But that’s not the half of it. The northwest quadrant of Jezero shows evidence of a delta system, where the flow of water in the ancient river that once fed into the crater slowed and dropped its load of silt and sediment. On Earth, river deltas are highly productive biologically; planetary scientists think that if there was ever life there, the delta is the place to look. Landing near that delta system while avoiding boulder-strewn areas of the crater left mission planners aiming Perseverance at an ellipse only 7 km by 8 km.
The other problem of scale is the sheer size of Perseverance. Like the Curiosity rover that it’s based on, Perseverance is huge — about the size of a compact car. It measures three meters in length and has a mass of over 1,000 kilograms. Getting a package that size slowed down enough to land safely on the surface is a major challenge. But luckily, it’s a challenge that flight controllers have faced before, and one they conquered. Perseverance will follow nearly the same entry, descent, and landing (EDL) stages of the mission as Curiosity did back in 2012; NASA has produced
a wonderful animation of the EDL phase of the mission
that makes a great visual aid to the following play-by-play.
EDL starts when Perseverance sheds its supporting cruise stage, with the solar panels and maneuvering engines needed for the trip from Earth, along with two 70-kg balance masses, and first encounters the Martian atmosphere. The spacecraft will be traveling at about 20,000 km/h at that point, and will need to safely shed an enormous amount of kinetic energy in the next few minutes. The aeroshell covering the leading edge of the spacecraft will bear the brunt of this energy, turning the ablative heat shield of honeycomb aluminum and phenolic resin into a streak of plasma across the thin Martian upper atmosphere.
As on Earth, the Martian atmosphere is a turbulent place, and Perseverance will need to adjust its trajectory with continual thruster bursts to make sure it stays on track. During this guidance phase, which includes a maneuver called SUFR, or “straighten up and fly right”, the spacecraft will slow down to 1,500 km/h. It is at this point where the most dramatic part of the early EDL stage occurs: parachute deployment. The backshell of the spacecraft has a 21-m supersonic nylon and kevlar parachute tucked into it, which is deployed and inflates within 500 milliseconds. This produces over 311 kN of drag force on the spacecraft, slowing it further. If this all goes well, Perseverance will have survived about four and a half minutes of its seven-minute thrill ride.
The Skycrane
The final 150 seconds of EDL will be somewhat calmer than the preceding breakneck race to 11 km above the Martian surface, but there are still more dramatic events in store for the mission. After the heat shield drops off the bottom of the package at an altitude of about 10 km, downward-looking cameras will begin the process of comparing what Perseverance sees below it to a high-resolution photo of its target, stored in the rover’s memory. Called Terrain Relative Navigation, this phase of EDL was not done for Curiosity, which was one reason the landing zone for the previous rover was so much larger (20 km by 25 km). TRN should allow Perseverance a landing accuracy of about 40 meters while avoiding any large obstacles.
The TRN process only takes about 20 seconds, during which time Perseverance will still be attached to its backshell. The parachute will have bled off as much energy as it can in the thin Martian atmosphere by this point, and at an altitude of 2,000 meters and a speed of about 300 km/h, the rover, attached to its powered descent stage, will release from the backshell. After free-falling for a few seconds, the eight hydrazine-fueled thrusters ringing the descent stage will fire for about the next 30 seconds, both slowing the spacecraft further as well as maneuvering it to the landing spot selected during TRN.
Now within 20 meters of the surface, and slowed to 25 km/h of vertical speed and almost zero horizontal speed, the single most dramatic and technically complex maneuver of the whole EDL process begins: skycrane deployment. In order to prevent contamination of the landing site by descent-stage propellants and to prevent kicking up dust which could obscure cameras and damage systems on the rover, the descent stage will instead lower the 1,000-kg rover to the surface on three nylon cords. The rover’s wheels, which have been folded under its hull for the last seven months, will finally rotate into the deployed position as the descent stage gently lowers the machine to the surface. If all goes well, the rover will make a six-point touchdown at a graceful vertical speed of 2 km/h.
I’ll Fly Away
Once the rover reports touchdown, explosive “guillotine” fittings on the upper hull fire to cut the skycrane cords and the small umbilical connecting it to the descent stage. Once the ascent stage confirms that it has cleanly separated from the rover, the descent engines will throttle up and gimbal to steer the descent stage away from the landing site at a 45-degree elevation, to maximize the distance between it and the rover. The descent stage will fly until its hydrazine tanks run dry, at which point the nearly inert vehicle will crash into the Martian surface well outside of Jezero crater.
Back at the landing site, Perseverance will be undertaking some early system checks and reporting back to controllers. Once we find out about it, 11 minutes later, Perseverance will be ready to start its ground operations and its primary mission of
collecting samples for a future sample-return mission
. As a side benefit, the 20-odd video cameras and microphones on the rover and in the descent stage, which will be active during the EDL, will have captured the landing in great detail. It’ll be weeks before that data is uploaded back to Earth, but when it’s finally ready for viewing, it ought to be pretty spectacular.
By the time you read this, Perseverance will be only about ten days away from its date with destiny. Coordinating the fast-paced, high-stakes events of the EDL phase of the mission seems almost like an impossible feat of engineering, especially given that it must be completed autonomously. If it weren’t for the precedent of Curiosity’s successful landing, there would be ample room for skepticism that this could be pulled off at all. There will certainly be a lot of tension in Mission Control and around the world as we watch events unfold on the live stream, but with a little luck, Perseverance will be able to repeat its cousin’s success and perhaps even exceed it.
As for coverage, NASA will be live-streaming the landing on
their YouTube channel
, so make sure to tune in if you can. The coverage will start on February 18, 2021 at 11:15 AM Pacific Standard Time (UTC-8). We’ve created
a handy time zone converter and countdown
so you don’t miss the show. | 47 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320129",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2021-02-08T18:24:33",
"content": "Nice title picture.I like the article too.I hope it all works out.What was this about;“EDL starts when Perseverance sheds its supporting cruise stage, with the solar panels and maneuvering engines needed for ... | 1,760,373,193.482385 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/08/finishing-your-projects-hack-chat-with-zack-freedman/ | Finishing Your Projects Hack Chat With Zack Freedman | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"finishing",
"follow-through",
"Hack Chat",
"organization",
"project management",
"Wearables"
] | Join us on Wednesday, February 10 at noon Pacific for the
Finishing Your Projects Hack Chat
with Zack Freedman!
Try as we might, some of us are much better at starting projects than finishing them. Our benches — or all too often, our notebooks — are graveyards of good attempts, littered with the scraps of ideas that really sounded good at the time and clouded by a miasma of good intentions and protestations that “This time, it’ll be different.” Spoiler alert: no, it won’t.
Trying to pin the cause of this painfully common problem on something specific is probably a fool’s errand, especially when given the fact that some people mysteriously don’t suffer from it, it would appear brain chemistry plays a role. Maybe some people just really like the dopamine hit of starting something new, which gives them the rush of excitement while the idea is still fresh, only to have it wane rapidly as the project enters the churn.
Whatever it is, if you suffer from it, chances are good you’ve looked for a way out at least once. If so, you’ll want to hop into this Hack Chat, where “very serious hacker” Zack Freedman, proprietor of the
Voidstar Labs
channel on YouTube, will share his thoughts on project follow-through. We’ve enjoyed Zack’s projects for a while now, and covered a few, from
his in-your-face (on-your-wrist?) smartwatch
to
his video editing keypad
. He gets stuff done, perhaps in part due to
his workshop organization
, but however he does it, we’re eager to hear about it. Join us as we discuss the art of follow-through and getting stuff done.
Our Hack Chats are live community events in the
Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging
. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, February 10 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. | 15 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320097",
"author": "JanW",
"timestamp": "2021-02-08T17:19:50",
"content": "Can you please provide the article artwork/poster as a sticker so I can put one on every unfinished project I have? Thanks",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_i... | 1,760,373,193.170865 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/08/hands-on-the-risc-v-esp32-c3-will-be-your-new-esp8266/ | Hands-On: The RISC-V ESP32-C3 Will Be Your New ESP8266 | Elliot Williams | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Microcontrollers",
"Reviews",
"Slider"
] | [
"benchmark",
"ESP32",
"esp32-C3",
"ESP8266",
"hands on"
] | We just got our hands on some engineering pre-samples of the
ESP32-C3 chip and modules
, and there’s a lot to like about this chip. The question is what should you compare this to; is it more an ESP32 or an ESP8266? The new “C3” variant has a single 160 MHz RISC-V core that out-performs the ESP8266, and at the same time includes most of the peripheral set of an ESP32. While RAM often ends up scarce on an ESP8266 with around 40 kB or so, the ESP32-C3 sports 400 kB of RAM, and manages to keep it all running while burning less power. Like the ESP32, it has Bluetooth LE 5.0 in addition to WiFi.
Espressif’s website says multiple times that it’s going to be “cost-effective”, which is secret code for cheap. Rumors are that there will be eight-pin ESP-O1 modules hitting the streets
priced as low as $1
. We usually require more pins, but if medium-sized ESP32-C3 modules are priced near the ESP8266-12-style modules, we can’t see any reason to buy the latter; for us it will literally be an ESP8266 killer.
On the other hand, it lacks the dual cores of the ESP32, and simply doesn’t have as many GPIO pins. If you’re a die-hard ESP32 abuser, you’ll doubtless find some features missing, like the ultra-low-power coprocessor or the DACs. But it
does
share a lot of the ESP32 standouts: the LEDC (PWM) peripheral and the unique parallel I2S come to mind. Moreover, it shares the
ESP-IDF
framework with the ESP32, so despite running on an entirely different CPU architecture, a lot of code will run without change on both chips just by tweaking the build environment with a one-liner.
One of these things is not like the other
If you were confused by the chip’s name, like we were, a week or so playing with the new chip will make it all clear. The ESP32-C3 is a lot more like a reduced version of the ESP32 than it is like an improvement over the ESP8266, even though it’s probably destined to play the latter role in our projects. If you count in the
new ESP32-S3
that brings in USB, the ESP32 family is bigger than just one chip. Although it
does
seem odd to lump the RISC-V and Tensilica CPUs together, at the end of the day it’s the peripherals more than the CPUs that differentiate microcontrollers, and on that front the C3 is firmly in the ESP32 family.
Our takeaway: the ESP32-C3 is going to replace the ESP8266 in our projects, but it won’t replace the ESP32 which simply has more of everything when we need it. The shared codebase and peripheral architecture makes it easier to switch between the two when we don’t need the full-blown ESP32. In that spirit, we welcome the newcomer to the family.
But naturally, we’ve got a lot more to say about it. Specifically, we were interested in exactly what the RISC-V core brought to the table, and ran the module through power and speed comparisons with the ESP32 and ESP8266 — and it beats them both by a small margin in our benchmarks. We’ve also become a lot closer friends with the ESP-IDF SDK that all of the ESP32 family chips use, and love how far it has come in the last year or so. It’s not as newbie-friendly as ESP-Arduino, for sure, but it’s a ton more powerful, and we’re totally happy to leave the ESP8266 SDK behind us.
RISC-V: Power and Speed
The ESP32-C3 shares the coding framework with the ESP32, some of the peripherals, and has about the same amount of memory. What’s different? The RISC-V CPU of the C3 vs. the Tensilica cores in the ESP32 and the ESP8266. So we thought we’d put them through their paces and see how they stack up in terms of processing speed and overall power use.
In terms of standard benchmarks for microcontrollers and other embedded devices,
CoreMark
is probably the go-to. And we found that it had been already
ported to the ESP8266 and ESP32
by [Ochrin]. (Thanks!) CoreMark includes three tests: finding and sorting with linked lists to tax the memory units, running a state machine to test switch/case branching speed, and a matrix multiplication task to tax the CPU and compiler.
In practice, and mimicking our general experience with the ESP8266 and ESP32 frameworks, the code compiled without any hassle for the ESP32 and ESP32-C3. In contrast, getting it running on the ESP8266 was a hair-pulling few hours spent degrading versions of the RTOS framework, installing modules in Python 2 inside
virtualenv
s, and getting the set of
PATH
s and other environment variables
just right
. But we weren’t going to leave you without a proper comparo, so we burned the midnight oil.
The takeaway is that a single RISC-V core on the ESP32-C3 is marginally faster per MHz than a single core on either of the Tensilica-based devices. Of course, if you’re crunching numbers hard and using both cores of the ESP32, it’s in another league, and you know who you are. But if you’re running Arduino on the ESP32 and you’re not
explicitly running the RTOS tasks yourself
, or running MicroPython and not using threads, you’re probably running a single core on the ESP32 anyway. Modulo some small difference in having a free core to exclusively handle WiFi, you might not be much worse off with the C3.
While running this test, we also hooked up our super-sophisticated power measuring unit to the devices under test, a USB cable with three 3 Ω resistors and an oscilloscope. Of course, if you simply wanted the chip’s power specs, you could hit up the datasheet.
Instead, here we’re looking at the real-life performance of three different modules: the WeMos D1 mini for the ESP8266, the Lolin 32 for the ESP32, and our demo ESP32-C3-DevKitC-1, straight from Espressif. All were running with LEDs off, or clipped summarily with side-cutters in the case of the ESP32-C3 unit. (It didn’t make all that much difference, but you don’t know until you try.)
With power consumption data, we could also check out the modules’ power efficiency, measured in CoreMark score per milliwatt. Here, the ESP32-C3 does a bit better than the ESP8266, and somewhere between the ESP32 running one core and two cores respectively. This confirms what we’ve suspected for a while — if you want to save power, your best bet is to keep the chip sleeping as much as possible, and then run it full-out when it needs to run. If you’re doing that with an ESP32, use both cores.
And while our results
are
definitely significant and repeatable in terms of power and speed, they’re not game-changing. If we really needed to crush floats, we’d go for a chip that’s better suited for the task like an STM32F4xx or STM32F7xx, or those brutal NXP/Freescale 600 MHz i.MX ARM7 chips
in the Teensy 4.0
. If you’re buying an ESP-anything, it’s because you want the wireless connectivity, and it’s good to know that you’re not giving anything away with the ESP32-C3 on the CPU speed.
We hinted at it in the introduction, but the RISC-V nature of this chip, at least in terms of user experience, is
no big deal
. You code, compile, and flash just the same as you would with any other toolchain. The ESP-IDF makes using the new chip as easy as typing
idf.py set-target esp32c3
and maybe
idf.py fullclean
for good measure. Then you go about your business. I must have swapped architectures 30 times in the course of this testing, and it’s literally that simple.
Of Peripherals and Pins
The first limitation you run into with an ESP8266 is that it doesn’t have enough GPIOs, or ADCs, for your particular project. While the ESP32 is a serious improvement in sheer GPIO quantity, once you’ve taken account of the pins with dedicated functions, or that are only input, you can end up pushing the limits of the chip easily. So you design in an external ADC chip and connect it via I2C, or you tack on a shift register and drive it with the blindingly fast I2S peripheral — something you can’t do with the ESP8266.
Sharing the peripheral set with the ESP32 will help alleviates some of these woes on the ESP32-C3, even though it has the same number of pins as the ESP8266. Heck, if you’re willing to allocate them, the C3 even has JTAG capabilities. And while the JTAG isn’t, a lot of the hardware peripherals are assignable to whichever pins you wish.
But we have to conclude that designing with the ESP32-C3 is
still
going to be a lot like designing for the ESP8266. I/O is limited. You’ll have to work with that.
Situating the ESP-C3
The ESP8266 started life as a simple AT-command-set WiFi modem, and a bunch of hackers
proved that it had a lot more to offer
. It’s sometimes hard to remember how difficult and expensive WiFi connectivity was before the ESP8266, but at the time, WiFi for $5 was revolutionary compared to
WiFi for $50 – $100
. Flash forward a few years, and the ESP32 is a competent microcontroller in its own right, with
some cool quirky features
. Oh yeah, and WiFi and BLE. We’ve come a long way in a very short time.
The C3 is really a blend of the two: a limited number of GPIO pins like the ESP8266, but with nice peripherals like the ESP32. If it’s priced to compete with the ESP8266, it will push that chip into retirement. But maybe it’s time.
The ESP-IDF has grown on us, but it’s still nothing compared to the overabundance of examples for ESP-Arduino or the incredible ease of use of MicroPython. When the latter gets ported over to the ESP32-C3, with its significantly expanded memory over the ESP8266, that’ll be a tremendously inexpensive platform that will make many forsake ever compiling again. But when you need the speed of the native SDK, it’s nice to be able to lean on the extant ESP32 codebase, so an ESP8266 in ESP32’s clothing is a winner.
We’ve got pre-production samples, and Espressif is still working on supporting all the features of the ESP32-C3 in the IDF. Heck, you can’t buy an ESP32-C3 module yet anyway, so we’re stuck looking into our crystal ball a little bit. But the murmurs about pricing similarly to the ESP8266 make us take notice, and it’s certainly a worthy upgrade even at a small price premium, if that’s what the market will bear. At the same time, the ESP32-C3 is fundamentally less capable than the ESP32, so it’s got to come in cheaper than that. With ESP8266 dev boards selling for $2 and ESP32 dev boards selling for $4, that doesn’t leave much wiggle room, and we suspect some folks will just pony up for the ESP32s. So it’s hard to say how much the price really matters anyway.
But it’s nice to see RISC-V cores in more devices, not least because the standardized instruction set architecture — which essentially amounts to a standard set of machine-language commands — makes writing optimizing compilers easier and faster. For the end user, it doesn’t matter all that much, but if saving money on IP licensing fees is what allows Espressif to include a more modern peripheral set for the ESP8266 price, then we’re all for it. | 78 | 33 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320046",
"author": "Sprite_tm",
"timestamp": "2021-02-08T15:19:33",
"content": "Fwiw, we *might* have a solution in the final mass-production ESP32C3 when it comes down to not spending IO-pins on the JTAG port. Keep your fingers crossed that it makes it through verification *this* ... | 1,760,373,193.394261 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/08/this-classy-but-chaotic-gear-clock-keeps-you-guessing/ | This Classy But Chaotic Gear Clock Keeps You Guessing | Dan Maloney | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"acrylic",
"brass",
"clock",
"cog",
"gear",
"random",
"time"
] | There are a lot of ways to tell time, but pretty much all of them involve some sort of sequential scale — the hands sweeping across the face of an analog clock comes to mind, as does the incremental changes of a digital clock. Clocks are predictable by their very nature, and therefore somewhat boring.
This nonsequential gear clock
aims to break that predictability and make for a timepiece that’s just a little bit different. It’s the work of [Tony Goacher], who clearly put a lot of work into it and pulled out nearly every tool in the shop while doing it. He started with a laser-cut plywood prototype to get the basics worked out — a pair of nested rings with internal gear teeth, each hanging on a stepper-driven pinion. The inner ring represents hours and the outer minutes, with the numbers on each randomly distributed — more or less, since no two sequential numbers are positioned more than five seconds of rotation apart.
The finished version of the clock is rendered in brass, acrylic, hardwood, and a smattering of aluminum, with a case reminiscent of the cathedral radios of yore. There are some really nice touches, like custom-made brass screws, a CNC-engraved brass faceplate with traditional clock art, and a Latin inscription on the drive cog for the hours ring that translates roughly to “Time rules all.” When we looked that up we found that “tempus rerum imperator” is the motto of the
Worshipful Company of Clockmakers
, the very existence of which we find pleasing in the extreme.
The clock runs through its initialization routine in the brief video below. We’re not sure we’d want this on our nightstand, but it’s certainly a unique and enjoyable way to show the passage of time. It sort of reminds us of
this three-ringed perpetual calendar
, but just a bit more stochastic. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6320003",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2021-02-08T13:43:22",
"content": "Really needs some felt on the drive gears, perhaps some spring loaded idlers to stop it bouncing.. As that noise is awful. Looks like the light positioning could use a little work too, though maybe that... | 1,760,373,193.5573 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/08/the-bright-side-of-the-moon-lamp-its-any-colour-you-like/ | The Bright Side Of The Moon Lamp: It’s Any Colour You Like | Kristina Panos | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed lamp",
"blinkenlights",
"boost converter",
"lamp",
"moon",
"RGB LED strip"
] | One of the easiest ways to get into hardware hacking is by piecing together a few modules and shoehorning them into a really cool home. For example, why buy a commercial moon lamp when you can spend 30+ hours printing your own, and a few more hours hacking the guts together?
[Amit_Jain] was inspired by a project that combined a color map and bump map of the moon into a highly-detailed printable model.
Displeased with the lack of features like portability and pretty colors, [Amit] took it to the next level
by designing a threaded cap that unscrews to show the streamlined guts of an off-the-shelf RGB LED controller.
[Amit] freed the controller board from its plastic box and soldered the LED strip’s wires directly to it. For power, [Amit] taped the board to the battery from an old cell phone and stepped it up to 12 V with a boost converter. We think this looks quite nice and professional, especially with the stand. A brief demo is on the rise after the break.
If you’ve got the room for
a much, much larger light-up moon
, you should go for it. | 6 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319948",
"author": "Karl",
"timestamp": "2021-02-08T09:20:04",
"content": "I bought one in amazon for 12€ with remote controller and rechargable battery inside… several finishes like moon, jupiter, mars…. etc…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,373,193.665034 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/07/when-is-apple-beige-not-apple-beige/ | When Is Apple Beige Not Apple Beige? | Jenny List | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"apple",
"Apple 2",
"beige",
"paint"
] | If we cast our minds back a few decades, almost all computers were a beige colour. “Beige box” even became a phrase for a generic PC, such was their ubiquity. Long before PCs though there were other beige computers, and probably one of the first to land on the desks of enthusiasts rather than professionals was the Apple ][. But exactly what beige colour was it?
It’s a question that interested [Ben Zotto]
, and his quest led him through a fascinating exploration of a colour most of us consider to be boring.
We’re used to older beige computers becoming yellow with time, as the effect of light and age causes the fire retardants in their plastic to release bromine. But the earlier Apple products haven’t done this, because their beige came not from the plastic but from a paint. [Ben] was lucky enough to find a small pot of touch-up paint from Apple that was made available to dealers, so notwithstanding any slight pigment changes from its age, he set off in pursuit of its origin.
Along the way to identifying a modern Pantone shade (Pantone 14–0105 TPG, for the curious) he treats us to a cross-section of Apple’s early colour history with reference to the memories of early Apple luminaries. He even suggests readily available shades that could suffice, pointing to Gloss Almond Rust-Oleum spray paint.
So should you wish to colour-match to an early Apple, now you can. If you have a Commodore or an Atari though,
maybe your task is a little easier
. | 20 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319899",
"author": "Jon H",
"timestamp": "2021-02-08T06:28:48",
"content": "That looks too gray/green, but that may just be due to color camera/monitor profile variation.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6320271",
"aut... | 1,760,373,193.615666 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/07/these-plastic-pavers-are-earth-savers/ | These Plastic Pavers Are Earth Savers | Kristina Panos | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"plastic pollution",
"plastic recycling",
"sand"
] | Plastic waste is everywhere you look, and there’s seemingly no end in sight for both the demand and production of plastic goods. So isn’t it time to try putting all that waste from the plastic industry to good use? [Nzambi Matee], a materials engineer in Kenya, thinks so. She was tired of seeing plastic littering the streets of Nairobi, and saw an opportunity to solve two problems at once — cleaning up the streets and paving them with plastic.
Three years ago, [Nzambi] quit her job as an oil industry data analyst and used all her savings to pursue a solution for the pesky plastic problem
. She built a lab in her mother’s backyard and begin experimenting with plastics and sand, melding them together to make blocks.
After about a year of trial and error, she had discovered which plastics worked and which didn’t. Then she developed machinery to churn out the sand-plastic paste and stamp it into sturdy paving bricks. Her company Gjenge Makers gets most of their plastic free from factories that would otherwise have to pay to dispose of it. The bricks are strong, lightweight, and nearly indestructible compared to concrete pavers. In the video after the break, there’s a shot of [Nzambi] spiking one on the ground to demonstrate its toughness.
Now, her company produces about 1,500 of these pavers each day. [Nzambi] and her team are planning to start making building blocks as well. With a melting point somewhere above 350° C, the material seems pretty well-suited for that purpose.
Want to do more than just recycle your plastic, but don’t know how? You could start by
turning plastic bottles into rope
, and then
use the rope to make things like brooms and brushes
.
Thanks for the tip, [foamyguy]! | 102 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319852",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2021-02-08T03:29:25",
"content": "One word to describe why this is a terribly bad idea – Microplastics",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6319855",
"author": "Ostracus",
... | 1,760,373,194.00216 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/06/the-future-of-hydrogen-power-is-paste/ | The Future Of Hydrogen Power… Is Paste? | Al Williams | [
"green hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"alternate energy",
"hydrides",
"hydrogen"
] | We’ve been promised hydrogen-powered engines for some time now. One downside though is the need for hydrogen vehicles to have heavy high-pressure tanks. While a 700 bar tank and the accompanying fuel cell is acceptable for a city bus or a truck, it becomes problematic with smaller vehicles, especially ones such as scooters or even full-sized motorcycles. The Fraunhofer Institute wants to run smaller vehicles on magnesium hydride in a paste form that they call
POWERPASTE
.
The idea is that the paste effectively stores hydrogen at normal temperature and pressure, where it stays chemically locked until mixed with water. The researchers note that it will decompose around 250 °C, but while your motorcycle may seem hot when parked in the sun, it isn’t getting quite to 250C.
Interestingly, the paste only provides half the available hydrogen. The rest is from water added start a reaction to release the hydrogen. Fraunhofer claims the energy density available is greater than that of a 700 bar tank in a conventional hydrogen system and ten times more than current battery technology.
One thing that’s attractive is that the paste is easy to store and pump. A gas station, for example, could invest $20-30,000 and dispense the paste from a metal drum to meet low demand and then scale up as needed. A hydrogen pumping setup starts at about $1.2 million. Fraunhofer is building a pilot production plant that will produce about four tons of the material a year.
This isn’t a totally new idea, of course. Using metal hydrides to store hydrogen chemically has other proponents, including French company McPhy energy. There have also been schemes to use other hydrides in powder form as well as chemical hydrogen carriers like formic acid and ammonia.
Will your next drone power itself on paste and water? Probably not for a while although
it has been done
. If you want to dig into the hydrogen energy economy, [Lewin Day] can
fill you in
. | 142 | 28 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319551",
"author": "Henry Berg",
"timestamp": "2021-02-07T03:16:58",
"content": "What happens to the leftover magnesium? Would it be stored in a secondary tank that you empty when refilling?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6... | 1,760,373,193.832334 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/06/pcb-bath-comes-from-russia-with-love/ | PCB Bath Comes From Russia With Love | Al Williams | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"etch",
"etching",
"magnets",
"pc board",
"pcb"
] | [Ruvin Kub] likes magnets, a lot. Most of his projects feature some sort of magnet and his
PC board agitation bath
is no exception. You can see a video about the device, below. We’ll admit our Russian is pretty rusty, but if you ask YouTube nicely it will translate the Russian subtitles into whatever language you like.
One of the things we liked about the video was that he uses hydrogen peroxide, citric acid, and salt as an etchant. We’ve
seen the same mix with vinegar
or muriatic acid instead of citric acid. We aren’t sure what the actual translation is about why he doesn’t like ferric chloride, but YouTube says, “she’s too gloomy for my light souls.”
There are a few translation glitches, but overall the design is straightforward. A motor moves a little see saw in the base with magnets that repel similar magnets in the tank. In that way, the electronics are isolated from the liquid. The whole affair runs on a rechargeable battery.
As a bonus, in the end, there’s a brief tutorial on making a board with toner transfer along with comparing the time to etch the board with agitation and without. Like a Tootsie Roll Pop, he finally got tired of waiting for the non-agitated board and finished it with agitation. The test board that started in the bath had been done for a long time.
If you want to try different etching solutions, we’ve
asked people to share their favorites
. Or, just break out that
CNC machine
. | 19 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319526",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2021-02-07T00:38:54",
"content": "Citric acid? Hey, when life gives you lemons, make PCBs.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6319544",
"author": "Leandro Sehnem Heck",
... | 1,760,373,195.961444 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/06/cap-gun-lighter-built-from-scratch/ | Cap-Gun Lighter Built From Scratch | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"cigarette lighter",
"fire lighter",
"lighter"
] | For most of us, a lighter is a cheap $2 plastic tool that serves a purpose, and little more. Some of us may go so far as to have a nice Zippo, or perhaps a windproof lighter for better outdoor performance. But if you’re a machinist, you could consider whipping yourself up something special,
like this build by [W&M Levsha]
.
There’s plenty to love here for those who love making chips. The body is crafted out of brass and copper, soldered together by blowtorch. The lighter works by an unusual mechanism. The fluid tank is stuffed with cotton wool and filled with lighter fluid, which feeds a wick, which by itself, is fairly ordinary. However, ignition is via a spring-loaded aluminium hammer, which fires off a paper cap, igniting the wick. The flame can then be extinguished by blowing it out.
It’s a lighter that’s sure to be a conversation piece, though we wonder how welcome it’s cracking report will be at a quiet, reserved cigar bar. The mechanism may have more consumables than a typical lighter, but that’s the price paid to be truly unique. There are other creative designs out there too,
like this lighter which uses a platinum catalyst for ignition
. Video after the break. | 22 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319490",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2021-02-06T21:22:39",
"content": "You don’t light up a cigar with a zippo, tastes like kerosene if you do that.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6319513",
"author": "cliff clave... | 1,760,373,195.571418 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/06/super-mario-original-sound-tracks-get-high-quality-remaster-thanks-to-gigaleak/ | Super Mario Original Sound Tracks Get High Quality Remaster Thanks To Gigaleak | Lewin Day | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"mario",
"nintendo",
"snes",
"super mario"
] | 2020 saw many gigabytes of internal Nintendo data leaked on the broader internet. Known as the “Gigaleak”, it contained source codes and assets from many games. Using data from this leak,
a group of enthusiasts has put together high-quality renditions of the SNES Super Mario World Original Sound Tracks (OST)
.
The work was made possible when source code from the Gameboy Advance remake of Super Mario World was found in the leaked data. The source code included the names of the samples, which were the same as were used in the original SNES game. This allowed the team to find the original samples amongst the gigabytes of leaked files.
We wondered what would be done with all that code
, speculating that it would be a poison pill for the emulator scene. This type of hack wasn’t even on our radar and we’re delighted to see the project come to light. The reproduced songs have an altogether different quality than the original SNES soundtrack. This is largely due to the samples not having to be compressed or cut down to fit on a cartridge and work with the console’s sound chip. Other variances in the sound also come from the fact that unlike in the game, the samples in these renditions don’t match the play lengths in the original game.
Regardless of the changes, it’s interesting to hear a more full, rounded sound of these classic video game tunes. It reminds us somewhat of the later CD console era, when sound designers were able to break free of the limitations of earlier hardware. Of course, we still bow at the alter of chiptune, though — and
this MIDI Gameboy mod
is a great place to start if you’re curious. Video after the break. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319469",
"author": "Pedant",
"timestamp": "2021-02-06T19:47:26",
"content": "“bow at the alter of chiptune” should probably be altar if it’s not a pun on modifying a gameboy",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6319470",
"author... | 1,760,373,196.144639 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/06/the-right-tools-for-the-job/ | The Right Tools For The Job | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Microcontrollers",
"Rants"
] | [
"design",
"microcontrollers",
"newsletter",
"the wannits"
] | We’re knee-deep in new microcontrollers over here, from the new Raspberry Pi Pico to an engineering sample from Espressif that’s right now on our desk. (Spoiler alert, review coming out Monday.) And microcontroller peripherals are a little bit like Pokemon — you’ve just got to catch them all. If a microcontroller doesn’t have 23 UARTS, WiFi, Bluetooth, IR/DA, and a 16-channel 48 MHz ADC, it’s hardly worth considering. More is always better, right?
No, it’s not. Chip design is always a compromise, and who says you’re limited to one microcontroller per project anyway? [Francesco] built
a gas-meter reader
that reminded to think outside of the single-microcontroller design paradigm. It uses an ATtiny13 for its low power sleep mode, ease of wakeup, and decent ADCs. Pairing this with an ESP8266 that’s turned off except when the ATtiny wants to send data to the network results in a lower power budget than would be achievable with the ESP alone, but still gets his data up into his home-grown cloud.
Of course, there’s more complexity here than a single-micro solution, but the I2C lines between the two chips actually form a natural division of work — each unit can be tested separately. And it’s using each chip for what it’s best at: simple, low-power tasks for the Tiny and wrangling WiFi on the ESP.
Once you’ve moved past the “more is better” mindset, you’ll start to make a mental map of which chips are best for what. The obvious next step is combination designs like this one.
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
! | 16 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319448",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2021-02-06T17:25:41",
"content": "“ATtiny13 for its low power sleep mode, ease of wakeup, and decent ADCs…”I dunno, a 10b ADC with 8 to 9 ENOB having dubious input Z might be “decent” if you are not doing much with a small-range hi-Z DC inp... | 1,760,373,195.896647 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/06/proto-tv-tech-lies-behind-this-pov-clock/ | Proto-TV Tech Lies Behind This POV Clock | Dan Maloney | [
"clock hacks",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"clock",
"mechanical TV",
"nipkow",
"persistence of vision",
"POV",
"scanning"
] | If it weren’t for persistence of vision, that quirk of biochemically mediated vision, life would be pretty boring. No movies, no TV — nothing but reality, the beauty of nature, and live performances to keep us entertained. Sounds dreadful.
We jest, of course, but POV is behind many cool hacks, one of which is [Joe]’s neat
Nipkow disk clock
. If you think you’ve never heard of such a thing, you’re probably wrong; Nipkow disks, named after their 19th-century inventor Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, were the central idea behind the earliest attempts at mechanically scanned television. Nipkow disks have a series of evenly spaced, spirally arranged holes that appear to scan across a fixed area when rotated. When placed between a lens and a photosensor, a rudimentary TV camera can be made.
For his Nipkow clock, though, [Joe] turned the idea around and placed a light source behind the rotating disk. Controlling when and what color the LEDs in the array are illuminated relative to the position of the disk determines which pixels are illuminated. [Joe]’s clock uses two LED arrays to double the size of the display area, and a disk with rectangular apertures. The resulting pixels are somewhat keystone-shaped, but it doesn’t really distract from the look of the display. The video below shows the build process and the finished clock in action.
The key to getting the look right in a display like this is the code, and [Joe] put in a considerable effort for his software. If only the early mechanical TV tinkerers had had such help.
[Jenny List] did a nice write-up
on the early TV pioneers and their Nipkow disk cameras; we’ve also seen
other Nipkow displays
before, but [Joe]’s clock takes the concept to another level. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319412",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2021-02-06T14:51:02",
"content": "Will have to bookmark this one, I’ve got something a bit Nipkow-ish in the pipeline.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6319453",
"author": "Ro... | 1,760,373,195.614998 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/06/open-source-thermostat-wont-anger-your-landlord/ | Open-Source Thermostat Won’t Anger Your Landlord | Anool Mahidharia | [
"home hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"altium",
"control design",
"electronics",
"firmware",
"hardware",
"KiCAD",
"MCU",
"pcb",
"programming",
"stm32",
"temperature",
"thermostat"
] | [Nathan Petersen] built a
Hackable Open-Source Thermostat
to smooth out temperature fluctuations caused by the large hysteresis of the bimetallic strip thermostat in his apartment. While it may be tempting to adjust the “
anticipator
” to take care of the problem or even replace the bimetallic thermostat with an electronic version, building your own thermostat from scratch is a good way to add to your project portfolio while making your way through college. Plus, he got to hone his hardware and software design chops.
The hardware is designed around the STM32, using a cheap, minimal variant since the device just needs to sense temperature and control the furnace in on-off mode. The TMP117 high-accuracy, low-power, temperature sensor was selected for temperature measurement since accuracy was an essential feature of the project. Dry-contact output for the furnace is via a normally-open solid state relay (opto-isolator). For the user interface, instead of going the easy-route and using an I
2
C/SPI OLED or LCD display, [Nathan] used three 7-segment LED displays, each driven by an 8-channel constant current driver. The advantage is that the display can be viewed from across the room, and it’s brightness adjusted via PWM. Temperature set-point adjustment is via a simple slide potentiometer, whose analog voltage is read by the micro-controller ADC. To remind about battery replacement, a second ADC channel on the micro-controller monitors the battery voltage via a voltage divider. The PCB components are mostly surface mount, but the packages selected are easy enough to hand solder.
[Nathan]’s
Github repo
provides the hardware and firmware source files. The board is designed in Altium, but folks using KiCad can use either the awesome
Altium2KiCad converter
or the
online service
for conversion. (The results, with some minor errors that can be easily fixed, are quite usable.) Serendipitously, his PCB layout worked like a charm the first time around, without requiring any rework or bodge wires.
The firmware is a few hundred lines of custom bare-metal C code, consisting of drivers to interface with the hardware peripherals, a UI section to handle the user interface, and the control section with the algorithm for running the furnace. [Nathan] walks us through his code, digging into some control theory and filtering basics. After making a few code tweaks and running the thermostat for some time, [Nathan] concludes that it is able to achieve +0.1°F / -0.5°F temperature regulation with furnace cycles lasting about 10-15 minutes (i.e. 4-6 cycles per hour). Obviously, his well insulated apartment and a decent furnace are also major contributing factors. Moving on, for the next version, [Nathan] wants to add data collection capabilities by adding some memory and SD card storage, and use an RTC to allow seasonal adjustments or time-based set-points.
This is his first attempt at a “functional’ useful project, but he does love to build the occasional toy, such as this
POV Top
. | 51 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319351",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2021-02-06T09:45:07",
"content": "Kudos to the developer on the interesting project but I wonder who really needs temperature regulation to +0.1/-0.5 F. I would also think cycling the heater (or A/C) often enough to achive that narrow r... | 1,760,373,196.106613 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/05/building-a-continuously-variable-transmission-with-lego/ | Building A Continuously Variable Transmission With Lego | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"continuously variable transmission",
"CVT",
"lego"
] | The first continuously variable transmission fitted to an automobile actually has its roots in the late 19th century, though the technology has only become popular in the last two decades or so. While a relatively complex technology in its modern automotive form,
it’s still possible to illustrate the basic principles with everyone’s favourite mechanical learning toy – Lego.
The transmission as built isn’t great at high torque delivery, as the belt tends to slip on the smooth plastic of the cones. Increasing friction would help.
The build consists of a Lego motor driving the transmission’s input shaft, upon which a cone is mounted. A similar cone is mounted on the output shaft, and a rubber belt stretched between the two. With the cones mounted in opposing directions, the gear ratio can be continually varied by changing where upon the cones the belt rides. By riding on the small diameter section of the input cone, the belt correspondingly rides on the large diameter section of the output cone, leading to a slower, high torque output. By sliding the belt to the other end of the cone, the ratios are reversed, leading to high output speed with less torque.
The demonstration works somewhat differently than modern automotive models, but the basic concept is the same. It’s also limited in its torque transfer ability by the coefficient of friction of the plastic Lego parts. Despite this, it’s a quick way to illustrate the mechanisms at play, and where some of the common losses are in such a system. If you prefer your gearboxes of a more classic sequential design,
we’ve seen those too, of course
. Video after the break. | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319335",
"author": "dudefromthenorth",
"timestamp": "2021-02-06T06:19:13",
"content": "Needs some rollers along the cone pulleys to pinch the silicone lego band…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6319337",
"author": "du... | 1,760,373,195.84645 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/05/sequencing-dna-for-metagenomics/ | Sequencing DNA For Metagenomics | Al Williams | [
"Science"
] | [
"dna",
"gene sequencing",
"metagenomics",
"PCR",
"polymerase chain reaction"
] | If someone brought you an odd piece of electronic hardware and you wanted to identify it, you’d probably look for markings on the outside first. If that didn’t work out, you might look under the cover and read some markings on the board or key components. However, in a tough case, you might dump the firmware and try to guess what the device is or what it does by examining the code that makes it run. That’s kind of what [Ciro] did. Wanting to determine the bacteria in a water sample led to using relatively inexpensive DNA sequencing hardware to look at the
DNA present in the samples
. This would have been a huge undertaking for a well-funded lab just a few short years ago. Now it just takes a USB device and some software.
Of course, inexpensive is in the eye of the beholder. The micropore sequencer costs about $500 and has a one-time use consumable cost of about $500, although that’s enough to process about 10 human genomes. The technology depends on using a small pore only large enough to pass one strand of DNA at a time. Blocks of nucelotides cause different amounts of electrical current to flow through the pore.
A lot of blood cell counters work in a similar fashion, but have an easier mechanism as they look for the tiny aperture’s partial blockage. Determining which DNA components are passing through the pore requires very precise measurements.
Of course, such a thing is hardly plug and play. First, the water samples needed reduction using several filtration and separation techniques. Then a polymerase chain reaction clipped the part of the DNA that would allow for the identification of unique bacteria types. Truly, the work in concentrating the DNA samples seemed to dwarf the actual sequencing.
Honestly, we aren’t as knowledgeable about DNA science as we’d like to be, but we were impressed at the results you could get for less than you’d spend on a big PC.
Polymerase chain reaction
technology has become cheap and simple, maybe this is the next frontier on biohacking. We’ve looked at how you can get
started with PCR
several times. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319311",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2021-02-06T04:08:07",
"content": "I nearly sent an article on this in, it’s like a bar code reader for DNA, achieved by pulling it through a tiny hole, or nanopore. Some signal processing required to turn the tiny impulses into usefu... | 1,760,373,196.189282 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/05/custom-ignition-for-a-citroen-mehari/ | Custom Ignition For A Citroën Mehari | Lewin Day | [
"car hacks"
] | [
"car",
"car hacks",
"citroen",
"electric ignition",
"electronic ignition",
"ignition"
] | The 20th century saw a great many cheap, utilitarian vehicles enter the marketplace. Cars like the Mini and the original Jeep offered low-cost, no-frills motoring. However, they were also decidedly low-tech, and not as reliable as modern cars by a long shot. The Citroën Mehari fits into this category neatly, and when [FVFILIPPETTI] grew tired of the unreliable points ignition system,
he decided to build a more modern replacement.
The system is based around at ATmega328, the venerable chip many are familiar with from its starring role in the Arduino Uno. The chip tracks engine position with a magnet mounted on the flywheel combined with a hall-effect sensor, passed through an optocoupler to avoid nasty high-voltage spikes from the spark system interfering with the microcontroller. The chip then charges the ignition coil and fires it at the necessary time to ignite the air fuel mixture.
Old-school mechanical ignition systems were, if we’re honest, terrible compared to more modern solutions. This build has rewarded [FVFILIPPETTI] with a far more reliable ride, which we’re sure is very satisfying. If all this hacking has you thirsty for an automotive project of your own, dive into our primer on
how to get into cars! | 42 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319290",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2021-02-06T00:39:38",
"content": "“Old-school mechanical ignition systems were, if we’re honest, terrible compared to more modern solutions.”True, but in a third-world country where is one going to pick up an ATmega328?",
"parent_id"... | 1,760,373,195.686879 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/05/lora-messenger-does-its-best-blackberry-impression/ | LoRa Messenger Does Its Best BlackBerry Impression | Tom Nardi | [
"handhelds hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"blackberry",
"communicator",
"featherwing",
"LoRa",
"qwerty"
] | While the de facto smartphone design ultimately went in a different direction, there’s no denying the classic BlackBerry layout offered some compelling advantages. It was a gadget primarily designed to send and receive emails and text messages, and it showed. So is it really any wonder
[MSG] would build his pocket-sized LoRa messengers in its image
?
Of course, he did have some help. The communicators use the Keyboard FeatherWing by [arturo182],
which puts a surplus BlackBerry Q10 keyboard on a custom PCB
designed to accept a board from Adafruit’s Feather collection. [MSG] ended up pairing his with a Feather M4 because he wanted to work with CircuitPython, with a 900 MHz LoRa FeatherWing along for the ride. He notes that switching his code over to Arduino-flavored C would allow him to use the Feather M0 that features integrated LoRa; a change that would allow him to make the gadget a bit thinner.
Inside the 3D printed enclosure, He’s made room for a 3.7 V 1800 mAh pouch battery that should provide plenty of runtime. There’s also an external antenna with a uFL pigtail for connecting to the radio.
The case is held together with heat-set inserts
, which should make it more than robust enough to handle a few adventures.
[MSG] says slight variations in hardware versions means his STLs might need a little tweaking to fit your components, and warns that his code is basically just a mashup of examples he found online, but he’s still sharing the goods for anyone who wants to
reach out and touch someone without all that pesky infrastructure in the way
. | 23 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319274",
"author": "smerrett79",
"timestamp": "2021-02-05T22:44:27",
"content": "While it’s perfectly valid to prioritise the “look like a Blackberry” aesthetic, it seems at odds with the purpose of LoRa (long and range come to mind) to hide the antenna behind all the plastic, disp... | 1,760,373,196.025497 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/05/raspberry-pi-takes-over-volvos-integrated-lcd/ | Raspberry Pi Takes Over Volvo’s Integrated LCD | Tom Nardi | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"android auto",
"CAN",
"ESP32",
"raspberry pi",
"volvo"
] | As [Luuk Esselbrugge] explains in a recent blog post, his 2002 Volvo S60 had an optional GPS navigation system and backup camera that used a motorized display that would rise out of the dashboard when needed. His particular car didn’t come with the hardware installed, but after getting his hands on a display module and doing some research,
he figured out how he could drive it with the Raspberry Pi and a couple of microcontrollers
.
Given the age of the display, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that it uses composite video. Not exactly high resolution, but in the demonstration after the break, we have to admit it looks more than up to the task. [Luuk] is running Android Auto on the Raspberry Pi 3 through the openauto project, which gives him a nice big display and access to all the navigation and media applications you’d expect. The display doesn’t support touch, but thanks to an ESP32 plugged into the CAN bus, he’s able to control the software by reading the buttons built into the Volvo’s steering wheel.
Composite video sources are switched with a simple relay.
To actually raise and lower the display, [Luuk] found you just need to fire a few bytes down the 1,200 baud serial bus that’s built into the display’s wiring harness. The ESP32 handles this duty as well, at least partly because it’s already plugged into the CAN bus and can tell when the vehicle is in reverse. This lets it bring up the screen to show the video feed from the newly installed backup camera in the event that the Pi hadn’t already asked to raise the display. Incidentally plugging in the phone normally triggers the system to wake up and raise the screen, and disconnecting it will command the screen to lower back into the stowed position.
The attentive reader or Volvo aficionado may be wondering how [Luuk] got the audio working. Since his car’s sound system doesn’t feature an auxiliary input, he’s using an Arduino to spoof the existence of a CD changer, which allows him to inject an audio signal into one of the pins on the back of the radio. Eventually he wants to move this task over to the ESP32, but he says a big change like that will have to wait until warmer weather.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the Raspberry Pi used to
add enhanced features to a somewhat older vehicle
. While some bemoan the increased complexity of modern vehicles, it seems some hackers can’t get enough of it. | 11 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319235",
"author": "Somun",
"timestamp": "2021-02-05T19:38:46",
"content": "Now this is a hack. In fact this is many hacks combined. Great job.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6319249",
"author": "Col. Panek",
"timestam... | 1,760,373,196.239259 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/05/using-your-phone-as-a-microscope-on-the-electronics-workbench/ | Using Your Phone As A Microscope On The Electronics Workbench | Jenny List | [
"Featured",
"Skills",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"microscope",
"mobile phone",
"soldering"
] | One aspect of working for Hackaday comes in our regular need to take good quality photographs for publication. I have a semi-decent camera that turns my inept pointing and shooting into passably good images, but sometimes the easiest and quickest way to capture something is to pull out my mobile phone.
It’s a risky step because phone camera modules and lenses are tiny compared to their higher quality cousins, and sometimes the picture that looks good on the phone screen can look awful in a web browser. You quickly learn never to zoom on a mobile phone camera because it’s inevitably a digital zoom that simply delivers grainy interpolated pictures.
That’s not to say that the zoom can’t be useful. Recently I had some unexpected inspiration when using a smartphone camera as a magnifier to read the writing on a chip. I don’t need an archival copy of the image… I just needed a quick magnifying tool. Have I been carrying a capable magnifier for soldering in my pocket or handbag for years without realising it? I decided to give it a try and it worked okay with a few caveats. While I have seen
optics turn these cameras into pretty good microscopes
, my setup added nothing more than a phone tripod, and will get you by in a pinch.
What’s Your Magnifier Of Choice?
A pin-sharp image delivered by Elliot’s optical microscope.
There was a time when I was much younger in which I remember being able to read the text on a SOT-23 transistor, but sadly even now wearing glasses those days are long past. Fortunately for me though I have a huge variety of options for soldering magnification. At various times I’ve used desktop magnifiers and headband magnifiers, but I’ve settled upon a large lens on an Anglepoise-style arm — you know, the
springy lamp kind
. These lens-on-an-arm are very common with beauty therapists and the like, utilizing a powerful ring of LED lights and providing ample magnification even for my eyes. I’ve also used various different LCD magnifiers belonging to friends and hackerspaces, but while I an extremely impressed by them I’ve so far been put off by the price for decent ones (
even if I’ve brought you a super-cheap alternative via the unexpected medium of an ear cleaning camera in the past
). My colleague Elliot meanwhile uses a very high quality 1970s binocular examination microscope that delivers exceptional quality, an instrument he swears by and which you will sometimes see being used in his work like
the recent Raspberry Pi Pico review
.
With all this very usable and capable equipment to hand it’s very clear that a mobile phone would have to be an exceptionally good alternative if it were to supplant them. But how about as a quick in-the-field option to sit alongside what you already have? Time to give it a try, and solder something with it.
Useful For More Than Cat Pictures? We give Our Phone A Try
Soldering in close-up, a phone camera view.
The phones I had to hand were nothing special, the mid-range Huawei and Motorola Android devices that are my constant companions for both business and personal use. No high-end flagship cameras here, but the current generation of decent-ish phone cameras with which they gave similar results. I’m guessing that almost any smartphone made over the last few years could be pressed into service here. I put it on the mini tripod I use for Hackaday close-up shots, and pulled out a half-finished kit for a bit of soldering practice.
The image on maximum zoom provides plenty of magnification, and provides a high quality view of the work. In that context it’s better than my big magnifier, as it can deliver a closer view. The positive news ends though when the work starts, as a small but noticeable delay between action and screen leads to something of a learning curve as your soldering technique adapts. Perhaps more disconcerting is an unexpected disorientation in what I can only describe in perspective terms if that’s possible on a 2D display.
These effects hold a fascination for me as someone who can’t see stereoscopic 3D
, so why does a real 2D LCD microscope not have this problem? I am theorising when I say this, but I suspect that the solution lies in the camera’s depth of field. A mobile phone is designed to take reasonable pictures of everything in its field of view, so it has a particularly wide depth of field. The microscope meanwhile is designed to bring objects at a particular distance into sharp focus, so with its narrow depth of field it transmits some depth information in terms of focus. Our brains subconsciously process this, making depth placement of a soldering iron an easier process.
So I was able to solder a few components successfully through my phone’s view of the world. The slight delay and lack of perspective took a little getting around, and I can’t honestly recommend this technique for anybody’s bench. It does however remain a just-about-viable solution for impromptu SMD soldering in the field, but I’d advise you to practice a little before working on anything you care about. Perhaps a better bet would be to put one of those ear cameras I mentioned in your field toolkit alongside your miniature soldering iron, and use the mobile phone instead as its display. Everything is worth trying once, but perhaps a phone as an SMD soldering aid isn’t worth trying twice. | 28 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319207",
"author": "yetihehe",
"timestamp": "2021-02-05T18:17:58",
"content": "I’m often using phone to read small chips, quality depends heavily on light sources nearby. Sometimes even changing angles by 10 degrees can make text unreadable. If you can’t magnify enough with phone, ... | 1,760,373,196.631138 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/05/hackaday-podcast-ep-104-delicous-ai-dvd-scanning-microscope-and-battery-friendly-microcontroller-designs/ | Hackaday Podcast 104: Delicous AI, DVD Scanning Microscope, And Battery-Friendly Microcontroller Designs | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys spin the wheel of hardware hacking brilliance. We’re enamored with the quest for a root shell on a Nissan Xterra infotainment system, and smitten with a scanning microscope that uses a laser beam and precision positioning from DVD drives. We speculate on the future of artificial intelligence in the culinary arts. And this week turned up a clever way to monitor utility usage while only changing the battery on your sensor once per year.
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
(~65 MB)
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
Google Podcasts
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
Episode 104 Show Notes:
New This Week:
Elliot’s working on a rover with mechanum wheels
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Nissan Gives Up Root Shell Thanks To Hacked USB Drive
32C3: Dieselgate — Inside The VW’s ECU
DVD Optics Power This Scanning Laser Microscope
Take The Long Road To A Precise Laser PCB Exposer
Youngster’s ESP32 Jukebox Uses RFID To Queue Tunes
Giant DIY Mouse Sets The Ball Free
Old Gas Meter Gets Smart With The ESP8266
Logic Meter Aims To Make Hobby Electronics Troubleshooting Easier
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Serial Studio: Easily Visualise And Log Serial Data
Upgrading An Old MIG Welder Wire Feeder With Arduino
Handy Tool Drains 18650 Cells So You Don’t Have To
Mike’s Picks:
An Op-Amp From The Ground Up
Learn Bil Herd’s DIY Surface Mount Assembly Process
How Does A Circuit Breaker Break?
Inside A Circuit Breaker With MikesElectricStuff
Can’t-Miss Articles:
It Costs WHAT?! A Sounding Into Hearing Aids
What is a telecoil – and do all hearing aids have telecoils?
Machine Learning In The Kitchen Makes For Tasty Mashup Desserts
[Ben Krasnow] Did It All For The (Perfect) Cookie | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319215",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2021-02-05T18:34:57",
"content": "Nope, the battery discharger did not bring the battery down to storage voltage, but to the minimum safe discharge voltage because they were using it for making empty batteries to test a battery charger.You d... | 1,760,373,196.51286 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/04/twisted-tea-launcher-refreshes-at-104-mph/ | Twisted Tea Launcher Refreshes At 104 MPH | Tom Nardi | [
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"3D printed parts",
"air cannon",
"launcher",
"Meme",
"pneumatic"
] | A few weeks ago, a video went viral on social media that depicted a rather unsavory individual receiving what could be described as a “percussive reminder” of social norms courtesy of a bystander armed with a can of Twisted Tea. The video served as inspiration for many a meme, but perhaps none more technically intricate than this air cannon that
launches 24 ounces of hard iced tea at better than 100 miles per hour
built by [Greg Bejtlich].
It’s all fun and games until somebody brings out the weaponized bead seater.
Technically we’re looking at two different hacks here. The first is the pneumatic launcher put together using a low-cost eBay tire bead seater. These tools are designed to unleash a large volume of air into a tire so it can be properly seated onto the rim, but it doesn’t take much more than a few pieces of PVC pipe from the hardware store to turn it into an impromptu mortar. It’s even got a convenient trigger and a handle to help control the recoil. Though as you can see in the video after the break, it still ends up being a bit too energetic for [Greg] to keep a grip on.
For the projectiles, [Greg] has 3D printed a nose cone and tail fin that snap onto the 24 oz cans in hopes of making them more aerodynamically stable. The slow motion video seems to indicate they aren’t terribly effective, but they certainly look impressive. Spring-loaded control surfaces that
deploy after the can leaves the muzzle could be the answer
, though at some point you have to ask yourself how far you’re willing to go for an Internet meme.
It probably goes without saying that you definitely shouldn’t try firing cans of alcoholic iced tea off in your backyard.
But the launcher itself might be useful for lofting antennas
or hurling the occasional potato.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFopqMB3g90
[Thanks to Eric for the tip.] | 60 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318914",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2021-02-04T21:27:45",
"content": "At a guesstimate by the angle the air will come off the back of the can, I think that only about the top quarter inch of the fins are effective. So if total length an issue, I’d lose it in the nose, ... | 1,760,373,196.737609 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/04/reverse-engineering-an-elevator-control-panel-results-in-clicky-goodness/ | Reverse-Engineering An Elevator Control Panel Results In Clicky Goodness | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"control",
"elevator",
"ladder logic",
"lift",
"relay",
"reverse engineering",
"simulator",
"urban exploration"
] | We have to admit that in the hardware hacking universe, there aren’t generally too many chances to hack elevators. Well, at least not opportunities that don’t also include the risk of incarceration. But fortune favors the bold, and when he found the remains of an elevator control panel in an abandoned Croatian resort hotel, [Davor Cihlar] undertook
an extensive and instructive reverse-engineering of the panel
.
The video below highlights his efforts, which were considerable given the age and state of the panel. This is a relay-only control panel, after all, with most of the relays missing and a rat’s nest of wires connecting the sockets. So [Davor] put his
“RevIng”
concept to work. This uses a custom PCB with a microcontroller on-board that plugs into each relay socket and probes the connections between it and every other socket. Very clever stuff, and it presented him with the data needed to develop a ladder-logic diagram of the board, with the help of some custom software.
With the original logic in hand, [Davor] set about building a simulator for the panel. It’s a lovely piece of work, with buttons and lights to mimic the control panel inside the elevator car, as well as the call stations that would have graced each lobby of the hotel. Interestingly, he found logic that prevented the elevator from being called to some floors from anywhere but inside the car. The reason remains a mystery, but we suppose that a hotel built by
Penthouse
publisher [Bob Guccione] would have plenty of secrets.
We love the supremely satisfying clickiness of this build, and the reverse engineering prowess on display, but we can’t find much practical use for something like this. Then again,
DIY elevators are a thing
. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318891",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2021-02-04T20:11:37",
"content": "Very clever. Not too useful, but very clever. Impressive tools he build to do the reverse engineering.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6318903"... | 1,760,373,196.553189 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/04/feeling-the-kicad-6-electricity/ | Feeling The KiCad 6 Electricity | Kerry Scharfglass | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"eda",
"KiCAD",
"pcb"
] | In 2018, when KiCad Version 5 modernized the venerable 4.X series, it helped push KiCad to become the stable and productive member of the open source EDA landscape that we know today. It has supported users through board designs both simple and complex, and like a tool whose handle is worn into a perfect grip, it has become familiar and comfortable. For those KiCad users that don’t live on the bleeding edge with nightly builds it may not be obvious that the time of version 6 is nearly upon us, but as we start 2021 it rapidly approaches. Earlier this month [Peter Dalmaris] published a
preview of the changes coming version 6
and we have to admit, this is shaping up to be a very substantial release.
Don’t be mistaken, this blog post may be a preview of new KiCad features but the post itself is extensive in its coverage. We haven’t spent time playing with this release yet so we can’t vouch for completeness, but with a printed length of nearly 100 pages it’s hard to imagine [Peter] left anything out! We skimmed through the post to extract a few choice morsels for reproduction here, but obviously take a look at the source if you’re as excited as we are.
There’s No Place Like (0, 0)
The mythical hatched fill
Starting with the foundation, KiCad 6 will finally bring a configurable coordinate system! We’ve found that a significant stumbling block for new users is that the default KiCad coordinates start at the upper left instead of the lower left, as in most CAD and drawing tools.
Version 6 will allow the user to relocate the origin as well as flip either axis, allowing for maximum ordinal freedom. Clearly it doesn’t take much to get us excited, does it?
Rounding Traces and Filling Zones, Mostly
Another historically missing feature in KiCad is curved traces. V6 moves part of the way there, allowing traces to have rounded fillets. This doesn’t quite get to the groovy curvy traces of the 70s but it’s progress in the right direction.
Along similar lines there is new variety in the way a zone can be filled. Now instead of being forced into a solid fill there is a second choice; hatched fill! We say the more the merrier! Next stop; hearts, stars and horseshoes?
Getting Together with Groups
A flock of grouped components in layout
It may seem minor, but should be appreciated by anyone who has worked with carefully arranged groups of components during layout; items can be grouped! It’s always been possible to select multiple elements and drag them together, but that grouping was lost as soon as the selection changed. In KiCad 6 components can be explicitly grouped, allowing you to move those pesky headers around all at once, in perpetuity.
Bussing in the Signals
Even after using version 5 for years, signal busses in KiCad schematics seemed like an ugly duckling with a usage so awkward that they weren’t worth using. [Peter]’s overview has taught us a few new things about that older tool that we didn’t know under the rubric “enhanced bus handling”. For instance, the older version 5 allows the user to textually specify net names to connect across a bus instead of forcing the use of bus entry connections and individual net labels.
Version 6 makes busses significantly more powerful. It’s now possible to specify more elaborate and less uniform net names that share a single bus, and there are graphical hooks in context menus that allow you to “unfold” individual nets from the bus without the guesswork required in version 5. And as an added bonus, in version 6 the visual style of busses can be changed. We’re excited to start getting our signals together!
That’s Not All Folks
Whew, what a list! And that was but a
tiny fraction
of the improvements in KiCad 6, or the coverage from [Peter]’s excellent post.
It’s worth noting that the post is based on nightly builds euphemistically versioned 5.99. Until the release is officially cut, features and functionality are subject to change, but everything is publicly available to try out in the nightly builds if something catches your eye. | 72 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318851",
"author": "none",
"timestamp": "2021-02-04T18:23:15",
"content": "Does it have a unified interface and shortcuts across eeschema, pcbnew and the library editors?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6318857",
"aut... | 1,760,373,196.849189 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/04/mechanical-seven-segment-display-smaller-and-better-than-the-original/ | Mechanical Seven-Segment Display, Smaller And Better Than The Original | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"7 segment",
"display",
"electromagnet",
"electromechanical",
"PCB coil",
"seven segment"
] | One thing we love here at Hackaday is when we get to track the evolution of a project over time. Seeing a project grow over time is pretty typical — scope creep is real, after all. But watching a project shrink can be a real treat too, as early versions get refined into sleeker and more elegant solutions.
This slimmed-down mechanical seven-segment display
is a perfect example of that downsizing trend. When we saw [IndoorGeek]’s
first vision of an electromechanical display
, it was pretty chunky. Then as now, each segment is a 3D-printed piece with a magnet attached to the rear. The segments hover over solenoid coils, which when energized repel the magnet and protrude the segment, forming the desired digit. The old version used large, hand-wound coils, though, making the display pretty bulky front to back.
Version 2 of the display takes a page from [Carl Bugeja]’s playbook and replaces the wound coils with PCB coils. We’ve seen [Carl]’s coils on both
rigid substrates
and
flex PCBs
; [IndoorGeek] used plain old FR4 here. The coils occupy four layers so they have enough oomph to extend and retract each segment, and the PCB includes space for H-bridge drivers for each segment. The PCB forms the rear cover for the display, which is also considerably slimmed down for this version. What’s the same, though, is how good this display looks, especially with strong side-lighting — the shadows cast by the extended segments are striking against the plain white face of the display.
Congratulations to [IndoorGeek] on a great-looking build and a useful improvement over the original. | 19 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318815",
"author": "David Cook",
"timestamp": "2021-02-04T16:54:05",
"content": "Cool. Shut up and take my money!I wonder if adding a thin foam pad between the PCB and the magnets would eliminate the clicking sound?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,373,196.904554 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/04/sewage-maceration-is-as-gross-as-it-sounds/ | Sewage Maceration Is As Gross As It Sounds | Lewin Day | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Misc Hacks",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"maceration",
"macerator",
"sewage",
"sewage maceration",
"sewage macerator",
"utilities"
] | Day to day, few of us really contemplate what’s happening on a deep, mechanical level when we use the toilet. The business is done, the toilet is flushed, and we go about our day. However, the magnificent technology of indoor sanitation should not be sniffed at, given the manner in which it facilitates a cleaner, more comfortable existence for us all.
The vast majority of flush toilets rely on the benefit of gravity to remove waste from the house. This necessitates that the toilet be installed above the sewage lines that exit the house. For most installations at ground floor and above, this isn’t a problem. However, on occasions you may encounter basements or houses with rooms at lower levels where a regular toilet simply won’t work
.
Obviously, a pump is in order, but human sewage being a mixture of liquids and solids makes this impractical. Instead, it must be turned into a slurry that
can
be pumped; a process known as
sewage maceration.
Buckle up!
How It Works
A typical macerator unit installed behind a toilet. This unit is installed behind a wall, though many installs simply elect to leave the unit directly behind the cistern.
A macerator is, at its heart, essentially a blender for sewage, combined with a pump. They’re commonly used in the home when its desired to install a toilet at a level beneath the main sewer line, or to do so without drilling through the floor. Thanks to the pump, they don’t need to rely on gravity and can be used to move sewage tens of feet vertically and hundreds of feet horizontally.
Perhaps the most representative model of macerator for the home market is
the Saniflo
, which uses a mains-powered motor to spin a steel blade to chop the sewage into a slurry, before pumping it using a typical impeller design. These are often combined with special toilets with rear outlets that are otherwise uncommon in the US market, and can also be plumbed to use the pump with sinks and showers as well. Upon water and waste entering the toilet, a pressure switch is triggered that turns on the system, breaking up the matter with the blades and pumping it away. The limitation of this design is that the maceration blades can become jammed, particularly with fibrous material such as wipes or sanitary products.
This can lead to results that are only humorous if they’re happening to someone else
, as repairing a jammed system typically involves dismantling the unit and the sewer line, which is typically full of the horrible waste you were trying to get rid of and doesn’t typically have an on/off valve. Higher end models exist, which pack heavy duty “grinding” blades to break down such material, but no system is perfect and jams are still common.
Sewage macerators used at temporary accommodation at a mine site. They’re necessary whenever sewage needs to be pumped – even if height isn’t an issue, horizontal distance may be.
The real issue with sewage maceration is not that it works, but that it sometimes breaks down, and when it does, it’s a filthy mess. A system of motors, pressure switches, and valves will always be less reliable than a simple hole in the floor, and more prone to failure. With the bonus of being installed below the sewer line, any maintenance will typically lead to a spill of raw sewage. It’s a peril this writer hasn’t experienced in 30 years of typical gravity toilet use; one must suspect few home maceration systems are quite so reliable. Regardless, it should lead any homeowner to think carefully about whether having a toilet in the basement is quite worth the complications.
Industrial Maceration
Industrial-grade machines like these are installed throughout municipal sewage systems to break up those things you really weren’t supposed to flush. Like goldfish.
Of course, maceration isn’t just for the home gamer. Larger systems are used at the municipal level to break up waste and pump it through treatment facilities. This has become a more important issue in recent years, as more ignorant citizens flush wipes and other matter that doesn’t break up in water. Rather than attempt to educate the populace, many cities have simply elected to solve the issue with heavy machinery. Some manufacturers are even
marketing heavy duty grinders to do the job.
If the trend continues, it should be possible to flush a Hot Wheels by 2037 without undue repercussions from the local authorities.
While already familiar to the plumbing fraternity, we hope this article has served as an education in the how and why of pumping sewage. It can be done, and at relatively low cost — albeit with significant consequences when it goes wrong. May this aid your decision making process when it comes time to remodel your poolhouse, or when your significant other asks if the downstairs bedroom should have an ensuite. Good luck, and happy plumbing! | 100 | 28 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318794",
"author": "Shoe",
"timestamp": "2021-02-04T15:34:41",
"content": ">[Industrial maceration] has become a more important issue in recent years, as more ignorant citizens flush wipes and other matter that doesn’t break up in water.I don’t think it’s always that. In my region... | 1,760,373,197.19039 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/04/zoom-out-of-the-classroom-with-a-mushroom-button/ | Zoom Out Of The Classroom With A Mushroom Button | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"Arduino Mega 2560",
"big red buttons",
"hardware controls",
"videoconferencing",
"zoom"
] | Considering the state of well, everything, we can’t tell you how glad we are to be out of school. That goes double for not being a teacher these days. [Elena] had some awesome light-up tactile buttons set aside for a killer Kerbal Space Program controller, but it’s funny how a pandemic will change your priorities.
Instead, those buttons found a good home in this colorful and enticing Zoom control panel
.
[Elena]’s ready pile of Arduinos yielded no Leonardos or Pro Micros, but that’s okay because
there’s a handy bootloader out there
that allows you to reprogram the USB interface chip of an Uno or a Mega and use it as a keyboard. After setting that up, it was mostly a matter of wiring all those latching and momentary buttons and LEDs to the Mega and making them look fantastic with a set of icons. (We all know the big red mushroom button is for aborting the call; so does it really need an icon?)
[Elena] was inspired by
the Zoom call-terminating pull chain
we saw a month or so ago as well as
the pink control box
that launched a thousand or so macro keyboards. Have you made your own sanity-saving solution for our times?
Let us know! | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318774",
"author": "Mike Giles",
"timestamp": "2021-02-04T13:11:52",
"content": "Looks a lot like a safety stop button.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6318782",
"author": "sjm4306",
"timestamp": "2021-02-04T1... | 1,760,373,197.044899 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/04/a-four-year-old-event-badge-makes-an-environmental-sensor/ | A Four-Year-Old Event Badge Makes An Environmental Sensor | Jenny List | [
"cons",
"green hacks"
] | [
"badgelife",
"CO2 sensor",
"sha2017"
] | By now we’re all used to the requirements imposed by the pandemic, of social distancing and wearing masks indoors. But as [polyfloyd] and the rest of the board at Bitlair hackerspace in Amersfoort in the Netherlands were concerned, there are still risk factors to consider when inside a building. Without fresh air the concentration of virus-bearing droplets can increase, and the best way they could think of to monitor this was to install a set of CO2 sensors. To run them they didn’t need to buy any new hardware,
instead they turned to a set of event badges, from 2017s SHA hacker camp
.
This badge sported an ESP32 module with an e-ink screen, and of most interest for this project it still has
a supported software platform
and comes with a handy expansion connector on the rear. The commonly-available MH-Z19 infra-red CO2 sensor and BME280 humidity sensor fit on a PCB that follows the shape of the badge with a protrusion at the top on which they appear as an integrated unit. Processing those readings is a MicroPython badge app that issues warnings via MQTT and plots a CO2 graph on the screen. Everything is available, both
the hardware in a GitHub repository
and
the software as a badge.team app
.
We applaud anyone who makes use of an event badge for a project, and especially so for using one years after the event. The SHA badge and its descendants are uniquely suited to this through their well-supported platform, so if you have one in a drawer we’d urge you to pull it out and give it a try. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318932",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2021-02-04T22:34:48",
"content": "Nice.But, will CO2 and humidity levels _really_ give an indication regarding Fauci’s Flu?(insert snarky comment about SAOs here)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"commen... | 1,760,373,197.276819 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/05/arduboy-gets-even-smaller-with-new-nano-edition/ | Arduboy Gets Even Smaller With New Nano Edition | Tom Nardi | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"handhelds hacks"
] | [
"Arduboy",
"Arduboy Nano",
"atmega32u4",
"handheld game",
"miniaturization",
"oled"
] | One of the selling points of the Arduboy is how slim [Kevin Bates] was able to get the Arduino-compatible game system, which is perhaps less surprising when you realize that it originally started out as a design for an electronic business card.
But compared to the recently unveiled Nano version
, it might as well be the old school “brick” Game Boy.
Now to be clear, [Kevin] isn’t looking to put these into official production. Though it does sound like the bare PCBs might be going up for sale in the near future. This was simply an experiment to see how far he could shrink the core Arduboy hardware while still keeping it not only playable but also code-compatible with the full-size version. While “playable” might be a tad subjective in this case, the video after the break clearly demonstrates that it’s fully functional.
Inside the 3D printed case is the same ATmega32U4 that powers the Arduboy, a 64×32 0.49″ OLED display, and a tiny 25 mAh pouch battery. There’s even a miniature piezo speaker for the bleeps and bloops. All of the pinouts have remained the same so existing code can be moved right over, though the screen is now connected over I2C. [Kevin] has released the schematics for the board in keeping with the general open nature of the Arduboy project, though for now he’s decided to hold onto the board files until it’s clear whether or not there’s a commercial future for the Nano.
We’ve seen attempts to shrink the Arduboy down before,
most notably down to the point it could fit inside of a Dreamcast Visual Memory Unit
, but the Nano certainly raises (or is that lowers?) the bar considerably. | 10 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319164",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2021-02-05T16:42:31",
"content": "Well it’s nice to know that if screwing around with Pym particles goes wrong, someone can make you a gameboy to keep yourself amused with until you can buy a Pym reverser ray at Walmart.",
"paren... | 1,760,373,197.236431 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/05/this-week-in-security-perl-com-the-great-suspender-and-googles-solution/ | This Week In Security: Perl.com, The Great Suspender, And Google’s Solution | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"perl",
"raspberry pi",
"This Week in Security"
] | Perl has been stolen
. Well, perl.com, at least. The perl.com domain was transferred to a different registrar on January 27, without the permission of the rightful owner. The first to notice the hack seems to have been [xtaran], who
raised the alarm on a Reddit thread
. The proper people quickly noticed, and started the process of getting control of the domain again. It seems that
several other unrelated domains were also stolen in the same attack
.
I’ve seen a couple of theories tossed around about how the domains were stolen. With multiple domains being moved, it initially seemed that the registrar had been compromised in some way. One of the other victims was told that a set of official looking documents had been supplied, “proving” that the attacker was the rightful owner of the domain. In any case, the damage is slowly being unwound. Perl.com is once again in the proper hands, evidenced by the proper SSL certificate issued back in December.
The Great Suspender, Suspended
I was greeted by a particularly nasty surprise on Thursday of this week. One of the Chrome extensions I’ve come to rely on was removed by Google for containing malware.
The Great Suspender
automatically hibernates unused tabs, saving ram and processor cycles that would otherwise be spent on those 150 open tabs that should really be bookmarks. What happened here?
I’ll point out that I’m extremely careful about installing extensions. It’s code written by a third party, often very difficult to inspect, and can view and modify the sites you visit. You can manage what sites an extension has access to, but for a tool like the Suspender, it essentially needs access to all of them. The solution is to use open source extensions, right? “Well yes, but actually no.” Suspender is open source, after all. The link above goes to the project’s Github page. In that repo you’ll find an announcement from last year, that the founding developer is finished with the project, and is selling the rights to an unknown third party, who took over maintainership. If this sounds familiar, there are echoes of the
event-stream debacle
.
It’s not clear exactly what malicious behavior Google found that led to the extension being pulled, but a more careful look at the project reveals that there were potential problems as early as October of 2020. An addition to the extension introduced execution of code from a remote server, never a good idea. For what it’s worth, the original maintainer has
made a statement
, defending the new owners, and suggesting that this was all an innocent mistake.
The lesson here? It’s not enough to confirm that an extension checks the “open source” box. Make sure there is an active community, and that there isn’t a 6 month old bug report detailing potentially malicious activity.
Libgcrypt
It’s not everyday you see a developer sending out
a notice that everyone should stop using his latest release
. That’s exactly what happened with Libgcrypt 1.9.0. Our friends over at Google’s Project Zero
discovered an extremely nasty vulnerability in the code
. It’s a buffer overflow that happens during the decryption process, before even signature verification. Since libgcrypt is used in many PGP implementations, the ramifications could be nasty. Receive an encrypted email, and as soon as your client decrypts it, code is executing. Thankfully, an update that fixes the issue has already been released.
Android Botnet
A new botnet is targeting Android devices in a peculiar way —
looking for open ADB debug ports exposed to the Internet
. Google makes it very clear that ADB over the network is insecure, and should only be used for development purposes, and on controlled networks. It’s astounding that so many vendors ship hardware with this service exposed. Beyond that, it’s surprising that so many people give their Android devices public IP addresses (or IPv6 addresses that aren’t behind a firewall). The botnet, named Matryosh, has another unique feature, as it uses Tor for command and control functions, making it harder to track.
Google Solution to Open-Source Security
Google published
a post on their open source blog
, giving an overview for their new framework for the security of open source projects. “Know, Prevent, Fix” is their name for the new effort, and it must have been written by management, because it’s full of buzzwords. The most interesting elements are their goals for critical software. They identify problems like the ability of a single maintainer to push bad code into a project, and how anonymous maintainers is probably a bad idea. It will be interesting to see how these ideas develop, and how Google will help open source communities implement them.
Microsoft in My Pi
And finally, I was amused by
an article lamenting the inclusion of the VSCode repository
in the default Raspberry Pi OS images. He does raise a couple legitimate points. Amont them, you do send a ping to Microsoft’s servers every time you check for new updates.
The larger point is that the official VSCode binaries have telemetry code added to them — code that isn’t in the open source repository. What is it doing? You don’t know. But it
probably violates European law
.
Want to use VSCode, but not interested in shipping info off to Microsoft?
VSCodium is a thing
. | 46 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319124",
"author": "X",
"timestamp": "2021-02-05T15:09:58",
"content": "Use of the C and C++ programming languages is looking more and more foolish. Apache is now committed to rewriting httpd in Rust, finally. Hopefully soon we can rid the world of these terrible languages before t... | 1,760,373,197.357781 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/05/motor-controller-reverse-engineering-releases-smoke/ | Motor Controller Reverse Engineering Releases Smoke | Tom Nardi | [
"hardware"
] | [
"brushless motor",
"h-bridge",
"Isolation",
"microcontroller",
"motor controller",
"reverse engineering"
] | It may have been designed for a sewing machine, but [Haris Andrianakis] found his imported DC brushed motor was more than up to the challenge of powering his mini lathe. Of course there’s always room for improvement, so
he set out to reverse engineer the motor’s controller
to implement a few tweaks he had in mind. Unfortunately, things took an unexpected turn when plugging his AVR programmer into the board’s ISP socket not only released the dreaded Magic Smoke, but actually tripped the breaker and plunged his bench into darkness.
Studying how the Hall-effect sensors in the motor are wired.
Upon closer inspection, it turned out the board has no isolation between the high voltage side and its digital logic. When [Haris] connected his computer to it via the programmer, the 330 VDC coming from the controller’s rectifier shorted through the USB bus and tripped the Earth-leakage circuit breaker (ELCB). The good news is that his computer survived the ordeal, and even the board itself seemed intact. But the shock must have been too much for the microcontroller he was attempting to interface with, as the controller no longer functioned.
Now fully committed, [Haris] started mapping out the rest of the controller section by section. In the write-up on his blog, he visually masks off the various areas of the PCB so readers have an easier time following along and understanding how the schematics relate to the physical board. It’s a nice touch, and a trick worth keeping in mind during your own reverse engineering adventures.
In the end, [Haris] seems to have a good handle on what the majority of the components are up to on the board. Which is good, since getting it working again now means replacing the MCU and writing new firmware from scratch. Or perhaps he’ll just take the lessons learned from this controller and
spin up his own custom hardware
. In either event, we’ll be keeping an eye out for his next post on the subject. | 31 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319084",
"author": "rok",
"timestamp": "2021-02-05T13:22:26",
"content": "For less than 10USD one can get an USB isolator from Ali*, why spare on that ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6319106",
"author": "Bob",
"timest... | 1,760,373,197.425297 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/05/hands-on-with-the-voltera-v-one-pcb-printer/ | Hands On With The Voltera V-One PCB Printer | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"conductive ink",
"pcb",
"Printed Circuit Board",
"voltera"
] | Creating your own PC board is a rite of passage for many. These days, though, you can order super inexpensive boards and have them in very little time, so it doesn’t always make sense to build your own. Still, some people like the challenge, and others don’t want to wait even a few days. Probably everyone has dreamed of a 3D printer-like machine that would just crank out beautiful PCBs. The Voltera V-One isn’t quite at that level of sophistication, but it isn’t too far from it. [Great Scott] shows us how he
built two different boards using the system
in the video below. While the results were impressive, you can also see that there are several limitations, especially if you are not designing your board with the machine in mind.
One thing that is obvious is that the machine does need your help. In addition to aligning holes, you’ll need to install tiny rivets for vias and slightly less tiny rivets for through-hole components. The
last time we looked at the machine
, it didn’t do holes at all, but [Scott] shows the drill attachment which allows the machine to produce vias and support leaded components.
The system relies on interchangeable heads and conductive inks. Mechanically, it doesn’t differ much from a 3D printer. The ink, however, appears to be a little temperamental. On the first test board, one side did not cure properly since [Scott] forgot a step. While it looked fine, it had problems soldering. Because the traces are not copper, the machine comes with its own recommended solder, too.
The most interesting part, though, was when [Scott] tried to port an existing board into the system. He had to make several changes for things like copper fills and via hole sizes. Close spacing required some hand rework, so he probably should have spaced the traces wider in the design.
The printer isn’t cheap and the consumables are rather expensive, too. It is hard to justify the cost just to get fast prototypes that aren’t very representative of a final board. Keep in mind the conductive ink isn’t as conductive as copper and you don’t get niceties like solder mask or silk screening. If you had an active hacker space, a school, or a busy lab it might be worth it to get one-off boards. However, for prototyping production boards, it is unlikely that you’ll want to constrain your final design to the restrictions necessary for the printer. Besides, if you don’t mind waiting for boards — keeping in mind that you can pay to get boards made and shipped quickly if you don’t mind paying more — the breakeven point on the printer is very high.
On the other hand, 3D printers used to be expensive and now they are everywhere. The quality of 3D printing isn’t as good as some other production methods, but it still has a place. So if this technology improves a little and gets a lot cheaper, it could find its way to your workshop one day.
Back in 2015, we predicted that
making your own PCBs was getting harder to justify
. At the time, many people were unhappy with that prediction, but further decreases in the cost of having boards made for you continue to chip away at the value proposition of making your own boards. Sure, sometimes you just want to do something despite the economics — we’ve all done that. But it does make the economics of PCB printers even harder to work out. | 42 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319046",
"author": "BorjaH",
"timestamp": "2021-02-05T09:29:24",
"content": "I’ve seen one up close. Is a solid machine, but the price of the consumables is what kills you. From what I remember, the machines where 4k -5k € (an Ok price I guess) but the conductive ink alone, at leas... | 1,760,373,197.502704 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/04/cooking-eggs-with-hand-warmers/ | Cooking Eggs With Hand Warmers | Lewin Day | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"eggs",
"hand warmer",
"hand warmers"
] | Handwarmers are great to keep your fingers functional in icy weather, but can they do more? [Greg] wondered if they could be put to good use cooking an egg,
and got down to work.
The handwarmers in question are the HotHands brand, based on an iron chemistry. The warmers create their heat from the exothermic reaction between iron and oxygen that creates rust. Thus, these handwarmers need plenty of airflow to heat up. To enable this, [Greg] 3D printed a small crate with plenty of vents, into which he stacked six hand warmer sachets. An egg was nestled in the center – a perfect choice as it can be cooked in its own packaging. The pile reached temperatures of 160 F and was able to maintain that level for an hour, important as egg proteins tend to start coagulating and denaturing around 150 F. Once removed, [Greg] hoped to find a solid egg, but instead was rewarded with a somewhat gooey, semi-solid result instead. Regardless, the egg had reached an elevated temperature and shown some signs of cooking, and as [Greg] appears to be still putting out videos, we’ll assume he hasn’t yet died of salmonella.
We’d love to see this turn into an engineering competition, though, with prizes for the best cooked egg with the least amount of handwarmers.
We’ve featured other egg cooking apparatus before, too
. Video after the break. | 27 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6319008",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2021-02-05T06:20:01",
"content": "Running low on news, and had to resort to this nonsense ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6319015",
"author": "Josh",
"timestamp": "20... | 1,760,373,197.565383 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/04/hacking-hardware-bitcoin-wallets-extracting-the-cryptographic-seed-from-a-trezor/ | Hacking Hardware Bitcoin Wallets: Extracting The Cryptographic Seed From A Trezor | Adam Zeloof | [
"FPGA",
"hardware",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"bitcoin",
"cryptocurrency",
"hardware wallet",
"trezor",
"voltage glitch"
] | It’s long been common wisdom that one of the safest places to keep your cryptocurrency holdings is in a hardware wallet. These are small, portable devices that encrypt your keys and offer a bit more peace of mind than holding your coins in a soft or web wallet.
But of course, as we know, nothing is
totally
secure.
And we were reminded of this fact by Kraken Security Labs, when they showed us how they
bypassed all of the safeguards in a popular wallet, the Trezor, to dump and decrypt it’s seed.
It’s worth noting that the hack does require physical access to the wallet — albeit only about fifteen minutes worth. And by “physical access” we mean that the hack leaves the device thoroughly mutilated. The Kraken team started by desoldering the heart of the wallet, a STM32 processor. They then dropped it into a socket on an interface board, and got to glitching.
The hack relies on an attack known as voltage glitching. Essentially, at a precisely-timed moment during the device’s boot sequence, the supply voltage is fluctuated. This enables the chip’s factory bootloader, which can read out the contents of it’s onboard flash memory. The memory is read-protected, but can be accessed 256 bytes at a time through a second voltage glitch. Neither of these attacks work 100% of the time, so if the device fails to boot or the memory remains locked, the FPGA performing the attacks simply tries again. After enough iterations, the Kraken team was able to fully dump the chip’s flash memory.
There’s one more hurdle here — the memory dump is encrypted. Enter brute forcing. Trezor devices allow a maximum pin code length of nine digits, but if you assume the average user’s pin is only four digits then it can be guessed via an automated script in a matter of minutes. Even a longer pin can be worked out in a matter of days or weeks — certainly within the realm of possibility. This yields the seed, which could then be entered into a new hardware wallet to effectively steal any cryptocurrency assets that lived on the original device.
So, aside from some cool hardware hacking techniques, what can we learn from the Kraken Security Lab’s work? First up, for any designers out there, the STM32 is not suitable for high-security applications. For all the end users, this doesn’t mean you need to trash your Trezor (even though this isn’t
the first wallet hack we’ve seen
). It does mean that you should keep it away from other people, and that you should enable the BIP39 passphrase, which Kraken says can protect against the attack. Perhaps most importantly, this serves to remind us all that
nothing is 100% secure
. | 30 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318993",
"author": "gangoke",
"timestamp": "2021-02-05T04:19:37",
"content": "This article is a year late. You guys using IE or something?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6319036",
"author": "Bob T. Builder",
... | 1,760,373,197.684219 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/04/bike-wheel-light-flashes-just-right/ | Bike Wheel Light Flashes Just Right | Kristina Panos | [
"ATtiny Hacks",
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"attiny85",
"bike light",
"leds",
"spring vibration sensor",
"vibration sensor"
] | When it comes to safely riding a bike around cars, the more lights, the better. Ideally, these lights would come on by themselves, so you don’t have to remember to turn them on and off every time. That’s exactly the idea behind [Jeremy Cook]’s latest build — it’s
an automatic bike light that detects vibration and lights up some LEDs in response
.
The build is pretty simple — a coin cell-powered ATtiny85 reads input from a spring vibration sensor and flashes the LEDs. This is meant to complement [Jeremy]’s primary bike light, which is manually operated and always on. We especially like that form follows function here — the board shape is designed to be zip-tied to the spokes so it’s as close to the action as possible. He cleverly used cardboard and a laser cutter to mock up a prototype for a board that fits between the spokes. Pretty cool for your second professionally-fabbed PCB ever, if you ask us. Ride past the break to check out the build video.
If you don’t think fireflies on your spokes are enough to keep you safe,
go full rainbow party bike
. | 22 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318955",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2021-02-05T00:45:21",
"content": "CAD (Cardboard Assisted Design) Colin Furze will be proud.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6318973",
"author": "Jeremy Cook 🤖 (@JeremySCook)"... | 1,760,373,197.617798 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/03/a-not-so-alarming-clock/ | A Not-So-Alarming Clock | Kristina Panos | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"alarm clock",
"clock",
"ESP8266",
"oled",
"wemos d1 mini"
] | By and large, alarm clocks (including phones that double as alarm clocks) are annoyingly alarming. If it’s not the light or the sound, it’s both. Yes, we know that’s the point of an alarm clock, but sometimes life presents opportunities to check the time and/or the weather and sleep in a little bit longer based on the result. We don’t know about you, but loud noises and eye-blasting light are not conducive to getting back to sleep, especially if you’re a light sleeper.
In [Stavros Korokithakis]’ case, if it’s a tennis practice morning but it’s raining, then it’s no longer a tennis practice morning and he can go back to sleep for a while. A phone seems perfect for this, but the problem is that it provides too much information: the phone can’t check the weather without the internet, and once it has internet access, a bunch of eye-opening notifications come flooding in.
[Stavros] had a long list of must-haves when it came to building the ultimate alarm clock
, and we can totally get behind that. He needed something smarter than the average off-the-shelf clock radio, but nothing too smart. Enter the ESP8266. As long as it has an internet connection, it can fetch the time and the weather, which is really all that [Stavros] needs. It gets the current temperature, wind speed, and forecast for the next two hours with the OpenWeather API, and this information is converted to icons that are easy to read at a sleepy, one-eyed glance at the OLED.
Adaptive brightness was high on the list of must-haves, which [Stavros] solved by adding a photoresistor to judge the ambient light and adjust the OLED screen brightness appropriately. And he really did think of everything — the octagonal shape allows for the perfect angle for reading from bed. There’s just one problem — it can’t accept input, so it doesn’t actually function as an alarm clock. But it makes a damn good bedside clock if you ask us.
If you really want to start the morning right,
use a winch to yank the covers off of you
.
Via
Adafruit | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318742",
"author": "Olivier",
"timestamp": "2021-02-04T08:15:58",
"content": "Lookin pretty cool!If really not wanting to add a few buttons but still wanting input, maybe consider a tilt sensor? not sure how you’d use that to set the alarm, but just thought it would be fun to have ... | 1,760,373,197.847549 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/03/retrotechtacular-design-for-assembly-1980s-style/ | Retrotechtacular: Design For Assembly, 1980s-Style | Dan Maloney | [
"Retrotechtacular"
] | [
"assembly",
"compliant mechanism",
"design for assembly",
"design for manufacture",
"DFA",
"dfm",
"DFMA",
"dot matrix",
"ibm",
"Retrotechtacluar",
"westinghouse"
] | To get its engineers thinking about design for assembly back in the 1980s, Westinghouse made
a video about a product optimized for assembly: the IBM Proprinter
. The technology may be dated, but the film presents a great look at how companies designed not only for manufacturing, but also for ease of assembly.
It’s not clear whether Westinghouse and IBM collaborated on the project, but given the inside knowledge of the dot-matrix printer’s assembly, it seems like they did. The first few minutes are occupied by an unidentified Westinghouse executive talking about design for assembly in general terms, and how it impacts the bottom line. Skip ahead to 3:41 if talking suits aren’t your thing.
Once the engineer gets going on the printer, though, things get really interesting. The printer’s guts are laid out before him, ready to be assembled. What’s notably absent from the table are tools — the Proprinter was so well designed that the only tool needed is a pair of human hands. And they don’t have to be particularly dexterous hands, either — the design favors motions that are straight down, letting gravity assist the assembly process and preventing assemblers from the need to contort their bodies. Almost everything is held in place by compliant mechanisms built into the plastic parts. There are a few gems in the film, like the plastic lead screw that drives the printhead, obviating the need to string a fussy timing belt, or the unique roller that twists to lock onto a long shaft, rather than having to be pushed to its center.
We found this film which we’ve placed below the break to be very instructive, and the fact that a device as complex as a printer can be assembled in just a few minutes without picking up a single tool is pretty illustrative of the power of designing for assembly. Slick designs that can’t be manufactured at scale are all too common in this age of powerful design tools and desktop manufacturing, so these lessons from the past might be worth relearning.
Thanks to [The Free Thinker] for the tip. | 23 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318698",
"author": "Mike B",
"timestamp": "2021-02-04T03:27:24",
"content": "I wish this came out as a DIY kit!Can anyone comment on the reliability of this printer once it entered the market? I’m curious of all that simplification had any impact on it’s long term function.That pow... | 1,760,373,197.808103 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/03/driving-upside-down-with-an-rc-fan-car/ | Driving Upside Down With An RC Fan Car | Lewin Day | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"active aero",
"fan car",
"radio control",
"traxxas"
] | We’ve all seen those tiny little RC cars that can climb walls thanks to the suction generated with fans. Their principle is essentially the opposite to that of a hovercraft. [Engineering After Hours] wanted to build his own RC car that could do the same,
driving upside down and generating huge amounts of grip.
The build is based on a Traxxas RC car, but heavily modified for the task. An undertray is crafted, with ducts feeding a pair of twin 50mm electric fans. A skirt is fitted around the edge of the undertray, helping create a seal to maximise the downforce generated. This skirt is the area of much engineering effort, as it must form a good seal with the ground, particularly over minor pertubations, without creating undue levels of friction. Suspension components correspondingly need to be beefed up to stop the car bottoming out with the huge downforce generated by the fan system.
After much experimentation, the kinks are worked out, and the car is able to drive upside down successfully. It generates far more downforce
than earlier wing experiments from [Engineering After Hours]
, as expected – with a tradeoff of higher weight and complexity. With the plan to create an RC car capable of huge lateral acceleration, we can’t wait to see what comes next. Video after the break. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318675",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2021-02-04T00:15:13",
"content": "SInce everyone is going to say it let me be the first, this SUCKS! :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6318683",
"author": "Ostracus",
"time... | 1,760,373,197.890539 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/03/orphaned-gimbal-gets-second-chance-to-fly/ | Orphaned Gimbal Gets Second Chance To Fly | Tom Nardi | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"drone hacks"
] | [
"accellerometer",
"BEC",
"camera gimbal",
"drone",
"gimbal",
"quadcopter",
"salvage"
] | A reality of flying RC aircraft is that at some point, one of your birds is going to fall in the line of duty. It could get lost in the clouds never to be seen again, or perhaps it will become suddenly reacquainted with terra firma. Whatever the reason, your overall enjoyment of the hobby depends greatly on how well you can adapt to the occasional loss.
Based on what we’ve seen so far, we’d say [Rural Flyer] has the right temperament for the job. After losing one of his quadcopters in an unfortunate FPV incident,
he decided to repurpose the proprietary gimbal it left behind
. If he still had the drone he could have slipped a logic analyzer in between its connection with the motorized camera to sniff out the communication protocol, but since that was no longer an option, he had to get a little creative.
Figuring out the power side of things was easy enough thanks to the silkscreen on the camera’s board, and a common 5 V battery eliminator circuit (BEC) connected to the drone’s 7.4 V battery pack got it online. A cobbled together adapter allowed him to mount it to one of his other quads, but unfortunately the angle wasn’t quite right.
[Rural Flyer] wanted the camera tilted down about 15 degrees, but since he didn’t know how to talk to it, he employed a clever brute force solution. After identifying the accelerometer board responsible for determining the camera’s position, he use a glob of hot glue to push the sensor off of the horizontal. Providing this physical offset to the sensor data caused the camera to automatically move itself to exactly where he wanted it.
In the video after the break, you can see the hacked up gimbal seems to perform admirably when attached to its new mothership. Using the original drone’s smartphone application, [Rural Flyer] is able to view the live stream and record the action. Thanks to the new antenna he whipped up for the transmitter, it sounds like he’s even improved things compared to the stock hardware.
We’ve seen DIY camera gimbals before
, and some of them have been
small enough that you could mount them to the bottom of a consumer quadcopter
. But saving a perfectly good piece of hardware from the trash is always preferable to starting from scratch in our book. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318990",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2021-02-05T03:42:40",
"content": "When Gimbal hits the cymbal. We’ll fix him up and set him up in flying in the air. With his nose bent down and new wings to boot he’s going everywhere. Alternate lyrics to a 30’s big band era song.",
... | 1,760,373,198.399576 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/03/brilliant-brick-prototyping/ | Brilliant Brick Prototyping | Kerry Scharfglass | [
"hardware"
] | [
"breadboard",
"lego",
"perfboard",
"proto board",
"protoboard",
"prototyping"
] | Have a rusty collection of protoboards wired together that would benefit from mechanical support? Working on putting together a robot and need to attach PCBAs without drilling holes, zipping a cable tie, or globing hot glue? Add some stud holes with
[James Munns]’ Brick Mount
! This isn’t the first time we’ve seen an interface between everyone’s favorite Nordic building system and circuitboards, but this implementation has the elegance we’ve come to expect from [James]’ software work.
4×8 Feather Medium protoboard
The project repository
contains two things: a KiCad library with components for holes in standard patterns and sizes (1×1, 1×2, etc) and a series of protoboards made with those hole components. The protoboards feature a couple common elements; QUIIC connectors for easy chaining between them and holes in the middle or edges for easy mounting on studs. Some are intended to be carriers for Feather-format PCBAs (very convenient!) and others are primarily undifferentiated prototyping space. Of particular note is the “medium” Feather breakout seen to the left, which incorporates clever cutouts to make it easy to wires down under the board so it can be mounted flush against another board.
The thesis here is that getting custom PCBs fabricated is easier and less expensive than ever before. So easy and inexpensive that fabricating customized protoboard to use in one-off projects is cost-efficient enough to be worthwhile. Waste concerns aside this does seem like a great way to level up those temporary projects which find a more permanent home. | 24 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318590",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2021-02-03T19:34:57",
"content": "Well, it’s about time someone thought of this!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6318784",
"author": "abjq",
"timestamp": "2021-02-04T13:... | 1,760,373,198.245152 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/03/the-bus-thats-not-a-bus-the-joys-of-hacking-pci-express/ | The Bus That’s Not A Bus: The Joys Of Hacking PCI Express | Maya Posch | [
"Engineering",
"FPGA",
"Hackaday Columns",
"hardware"
] | [
"differential pair",
"pci express",
"PCIe",
"SerDes"
] | PCI Express (PCIe) has been around since 2003, and in that time it has managed to become the primary data interconnect for not only expansion cards, but also high-speed external devices. What also makes PCIe interesting is that it replaces the widespread use of parallel buses with serial links. Instead of having a bus with a common medium (traces) to which multiple devices connect, PCIe uses a root complex that directly connects to PCIe end points.
This is similar to how Ethernet originally used a bus configuration, with a common backbone (coax cable), but modern Ethernet (starting in the 90s) moved to a point-to-point configuration, assisted by switches to allow for dynamic switching between which points (devices) are connected. PCIe also offers the ability to add switches which allows more than one PCIe end point (a device or part of a device) to share a PCIe link (called a ‘lane’).
This change from a parallel bus to serial links simplifies the topology a lot compared to ISA or PCI where communication time had to be shared with other PCI devices on the bus and only half-duplex operation was possible. The ability to bundle multiple lanes to provide less or more bandwidth to specific ports or devices has meant that there was no need for a specialized graphics card slot, using e.g. an x16 PCIe slot with 16 lanes. It does however mean we’re using serial links that run at many GHz and must be implemented as differential pairs to protect signal integrity.
This all may seem a bit beyond the means of the average hobbyist, but there are still ways to have fun with PCIe hacking even if they do not involve breadboarding 7400-logic chips and debugging with a 100 MHz budget oscilloscope, like with ISA buses.
High Clocks Demand Differential Pairs
PCIe
version 1.0 increases the maximum transfer rate when compared to 32-bit PCI from 133 MB/s to 250 MB/s. This is roughly the same as a PCI-X 64-bit connection (at 133 MHz) if four lanes are used (~1,064 MB/s). Here the PCIe lanes are clocked at 2.5 GHz, with differential signaling send/receive pairs within each lane for full-duplex operation.
Today, PCIe 4 is slowly becoming adopted as more and more systems are upgraded. This version of the standard runs at 16 GHz, and the already released PCIe version 5 is clocked at 32 GHz. Although this means a lot of bandwidth (>31 GB/s for an x16 PCIe 4 link), it comes with the cost of generating these rapid transitions, keeping these data links full, and keeping the data intact for more than a few millimeters. That requires a few interesting technologies, primarily differential signaling and SerDes.
Basic visualization of how differential signaling works.
Differential signaling
is commonly used in many communication protocols, including RS-422, IEA-485, Ethernet (via twisted-pair wiring), DisplayPort, HDMI and USB, as well as on PCBs, where the connection between the Ethernet PHY and magnetics is implemented as differential pairs. Each side of the pair conducts the same signal, just with one side having the inverted signal. Both sides have the same impedance, and are affected similarly by (electromagnetic) noise in the environment. As a result, when the receiver flips the inverted signal back and merges the two signals, noise in the signal will become inverted on one side (negative amplitude) and thus cancel out the noise on the non-inverted side.
The move towards lower signal voltages (in the form of
LVDS
) in these protocols and the increasing clock speeds makes the use of differential pairs essential. Fortunately they are not extremely hard to implement on, say, a custom PCB design. The hard work of ensuring that the traces in a differential pair have the same length is made easier by common EDA tools (including KiCad, Autodesk Eagle, and Altium) that provide functionality for making the routing of differential pairs a semi-automated affair.
Having It Both Ways: SerDes
Schematic diagram of a SerDes link.
A Serializer/Deserializer (
SerDes
) is a functional block that is used to convert between serial data and parallel interfaces. Inside an FPGA or communications ASIC the data is usually transferred on a parallel interface, with the parallel data being passed into the SerDes block, where it is
serialized for transmission
or vice-versa. The PCIe PMA (physical media attachment) layer is the part of the
protocol’s physical layer
where SerDes in PCIe is located. The exact SerDes implementation differs per ASIC vendor, but their basic functionality is generally the same.
When it comes to producing your own PCIe hardware, an easy way to get started is to use an FPGA with SerDes blocks. One still needs to load the FPGA with a design that includes the actual PCIe data link and transaction layers, but these are often available for free, such as with Xilinx FPGAs.
PCIe HDL Cores
Recent Xilinx FPGAs not only integrate SerDes and PCIe end-point features, but Xilinx also provides
free-as-in-beer PCIe IP
blocks (limited to x8 at PCIe v2.1) for use with these hardware features that (based on the license) can be used commercially. If one wishes for a slightly less proprietary solution, there are Open Source PCIe cores available as well, such as
this PCIe Mini project
that was tested on a Spartan 6 FPGA on real hardware and provides a PCIe-to-Wishbone bridge, along with
its successor project
, which targets Kintex Ultrascale+ FPGAs.
On the other sides of the fence, the Intel (formerly Altera)
IP page
seems to strongly hint at giving their salesperson a call for a personalized quote. Similarly, Lattice has their sales people standing by to take your call for
their amazing PCIe IP blocks
. Here one can definitely see the issue with a protocol like PCIe: unlike ISA or PCI devices which could be cobbled together with a handful of 74xx logic chips and the occasional microcontroller or CPLD, PCIe requires fairly specialized hardware.
Even if one buys the physical hardware (e.g. FPGA), use of the SerDes hardware blocks with PCIe functionality may still require a purchase or continuous license (e.g. for the toolchain) depending on the chosen solution. At the moment it seems that Xilinx FPGAs are the ‘go-to’ solution here, but this may change in the future.
Also of note here is that the PCIe protocol itself is officially available to members of
PCI-SIG
. This complicates an already massive undertaking if one wanted to implement the gargantuan PCIe specification from scratch, and makes it even more admirable that there are Open Source HDL cores at all for PCIe.
Putting it Together
PCI Express x1 edge connector drawing with pin numbers.
The basic board design for a PCIe PCB is highly reminiscent of that of PCI cards. Both use an edge connector with a similar layout.
PCIe edge connectors
are 1.6 mm thick, use a 1.0 mm pitch (compared to 1.27 mm for PCI), a 1.4 mm spacing between the contact fingers and the same 20° chamfer angle as PCI edge connectors. A connector has at least 36 pins, but can have 164 pins in an x16 slot configuration.
PCIe card edge connector cross section.
An important distinction with PCIe is that there is no fixed length of the edge connector, as with ISA, PCI and similar interfaces. Those have a length that’s defined by the width of the bus. In the case of PCIe, there is no bus, so instead we get the ‘core’
connector pin-out
with a single lane (x1 connector). To this single lane additional ‘blocks’ can be added, each adding another lane that gets bonded so that the bandwidth of all connected lanes can be used by a single device.
In addition to regular PCIe cards, one can also pick from a range of different PCIe devices, such as Mini-PCIe. Whatever form factor one chooses, the basic circuitry does not change.
This raises the interesting question of what kind of speeds your PCIe device will require. On one hand more bandwidth is nice, on the other hand it also requires more SerDes channels, and not all PCIe slots allow for every card to be installed. While any card of any configuration (x1, x4, x8 or x16) will fit and work in an x16 slot (mechanical), smaller slots may not physically allow a larger card to fit. Some connectors have an ‘open-ended’ configuration, where you can fit for example an x16 card into an x1 slot if so inclined. Other connectors can be ‘modded’ to allow such larger cards to fit unless warranty is a concern.
The flexibility of PCIe means that the bandwidth scales along with the number of bonded lanes as well as the PCIe protocol version. This allows for graceful degradation, where if, say, a PCIe 3.0 card is inserted into a slot that is capable of only PCIe 1.0, the card will still be recognized and work. The available bandwidth will be severely reduced, which may be an issue for the card in question. The same is true with available PCIe lanes, bringing to mind the story of cryptocoin miners who split up x16 PCIe slots into 16 x1 slots, so that they could run an equal number of GPUs or specialized cryptocoin mining cards.
It’s Full of PCIe
This flexibility of PCIe has also led to PCIe lanes being routed out to strange and wonderful new places. Specifications like Intel’s
Thunderbolt
(now
USB 4
) include room for multiple lanes of PCIe 3.0, which enables fast external storage solutions as well as external video cards that work as well as internal ones.
Solid-state storage has moved over from the SATA protocol to NVMe, which essentially defines a storage device that is directly attached to the PCIe controller. This change has allowed NVMe storage devices to be installed or even directly integrated on the main logic board.
Clearly PCIe is the thing to look out for these days. We have even seen that System-on-Chips (SoCs), such as those found on
Raspberry Pi 4 boards
now come with a single PCIe lane that has already been hacked to expand those boards in ways thought inconceivable. As PCIe becomes more pervasive, this seems like a good time to become more acquainted with it. | 55 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318559",
"author": "Osgeld",
"timestamp": "2021-02-03T18:17:36",
"content": "You can get non name drives that mount into a mpcie socket and you can get sata drives that mount into m2 sockets. So using the form factor as its main benefit is like saying the only thing the Romans gave... | 1,760,373,198.357971 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/03/transmit-your-gaze-to-this-fiber-optic-led-lamp/ | Transmit Your Gaze To This Fiber Optic LED Lamp | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed lamp",
"arduino",
"arduino pro min",
"leds",
"RGB LEDs"
] | Call us easily amused, but we think it’s pretty amazing what can be done with a microcontroller, some RGB LEDs, and a little bit of plastic. Case in point is [andrei.erdei]’s
beautiful and quite approachable fiber optic LED lamp
. It’s a desktop-friendly version of a similar piece [andrei] made that is roughly nine times the size of this one and hangs on the wall. The build may be simple, but the product is intricately lovely.
We really like the visual density of this lamp — it’s just the right amount of tubes and strikes a balance between being too sparse and too chaotic. As you might expect, there’s an Arduino and some RGB LED strips involved. But the key to this build is in the 16 pieces of side-glow plastic fiber optic tubing. Side-glow is designed to let light escape along the length of the tube as opposed to end-glow, which is made to minimize light loss from one end to the other like a data pipe. This allows for all sorts of fun effects, and you can watch [andrei.erdei] go slowly and soothingly through the different colors and modes in the demo video after the break. Make sure you watch long enough to see the tubes move like the old Windows 3D pipes screensaver
Already have too many knickknacks and wall hangings? You’re missing out on prime real estate — the ceiling.
Check out this fiber optic ceiling installation that reacts to music
. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318527",
"author": "josephsleary",
"timestamp": "2021-02-03T16:34:52",
"content": "Very cool",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6318552",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2021-02-03T18:00:41",
"content": "Nice!Now, to ma... | 1,760,373,198.171954 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/03/machine-learning-in-the-kitchen-makes-for-tasty-mashup-desserts/ | Machine Learning In The Kitchen Makes For Tasty Mashup Desserts | Kristina Panos | [
"cooking hacks",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Machine Learning",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"AI baking",
"bread",
"cake",
"chocolate chip cookie",
"cookies",
"explainability",
"machine learning"
] | What did you do during lockdown? A whole lot of people turned to baking in between trips to the store to search for toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Many of them baked bread for some reason, but like us, [Sara Robinson] turned to sweeter stuff to get through it.
The first Cakie ever made. Image via
Google Cloud
Her pandemic ponderings wandered into the realm of baking existentialist questions, like what separates baked goods from each other, categorically speaking? What is the science behind the crunchiness of cookies, the sponginess of cake, and the fluffiness of bread?
As a developer advocate for Google Cloud, [Sara] turned to machine learning to figure out why the cookie crumbles. She collected 33 recipes each of cookies, cake, and bread and built a TensorFlow model to analyze them, which resulted in a cookie/cake/bread lineage for each recipe in a set of percentages. Not only was the model able to accurately classify recipes by type, [Sara] was able to use the model to come up with a 50/50 cookie-cake hybrid recipe. The AI delivered a list of ingredients to which she added vanilla extract and chocolate chips for flavor.
From there, she had to wing it and come up with her own baking directions for the Cakie
.
From the Data Table to the Kitchen Table
In December 2020, [Sara] teamed up with [Dale Markowitz], an Applied AI Engineer for Google to build version 2.0 of the recipe predictor
. They also came up with a cookie-bread hybrid recipe that they’re calling the Breakie.
This time, they made a bigger dataset by collecting about 600 recipes. In order to level the playing field, they whittled all the recipes down to 16 essential ingredients: yeast, flour, sugar, egg, fat (any type of oil), milk, baking soda, baking powder, apple cider vinegar, buttermilk, banana, pumpkin puree, avocado, water, butter, and salt.
Feature importance of the essential ingredients in baked goods. Image via
Google Cloud
The point was to include ingredients that affect texture and consistency and leave out the ones that don’t, like cinnamon. They also converted everything to ounces and shuffled a few items around, mainly moving recipes like banana bread and pumpkin bread into the cake category (where they belong).
This time, the model had explainability baked in. Explainability in machine learning amounts to making models more interpretable, and understanding why they make the predictions they do. This is the meat and potatoes of finding out what delineates cookies from cakes from breads. [Sara] and [Dale] used Google’s
AutoML Tables
, which is a no-code machine learning tool that builds models based on tabular data. They fed in a CSV file and did the same thing as before — AutoML analyzed the ingredients of each recipe and judged them as cookies, cake, or bread based on the ingredients and their amounts.
One of the nifty things AutoML does is to compute ‘correlation with target’. Here, the target is whichever baked good they are trying to predict: cookie, cake, or bread. The biggest predictors of each category turned out to be the amounts of butter, sugar, yeast (if any), and egg. To this amateur baker, these results are interesting but not totally unexpected — the more eggs a recipe has, the more likely it is to be cake. And have you ever made cookies or cake with yeast? It’s not completely unheard of, but it’s not really the norm for those, either.
Baking for Science: the Cakie
I was so intrigued by these AI-created dessert mashups that I had to try them. I fired up the oven in the Hackaday test kitchen and got to baking. For the first experiment, I decided to make the cake-cookie hybrid recipe, because it sounded slightly more delicious than ‘bread-inspired cookies’.
The dessert you didn’t know you needed — a perfect cross between chocolate chip cookies and cake. Image via
Food & Wine
I followed the recipe as closely as possible and used room temperature butter. After doing some research, I decided to leave the egg out on the counter as well. My research indicated that the butter should be about 65 °F (18.33 °C), and it took around four hours for the butter to warm up to usable temperature.
One thing I did change was the pan. Who has a 6″ cake pan, anyway? Not me. I couldn’t even find a foil version at the grocery store, so I used a single 9″ round non-stick cake pan instead, and greased it as indicated. I thought 25 minutes sounded a bit too long, so I started with 20 minutes and then added two minutes when my toothpick didn’t come out clean. That turned out to be pretty spot on, so if you’re going to make these (and you definitely should), go for about 22 minutes in a 9″ round pan. Trust the toothpick test.
Once the cakie had been out of the oven for about ten minutes, I dug in. As you can see, it crumbles like a cookie and has a flaky top layer that is ever-so-slightly grainy from the sugars. I think it tastes amazing and my husband agrees. It tastes like an exact cross between cookie and cake, and somehow manages to have the mouthfeel of both. When I went back later for more, it held together much better.
Somewhere between cake batter and cookie dough.
Starting to look delicious.
The toothpick came out clean after 22 minutes.
I tried to eat it warm, and the top layer gave way.
Crumbles like a cookie.
Eats like cake.
Them’s the Breakies
“Bread-inspired cookies” is better than it may sound. Image via
Google Cloud
The next day, I made the breakies. Following the previous day’s success, I put my butter and egg out on the counter at 9:00 AM and I started baking around 1:15 PM.
There’s a little more to this recipe, which is clearly divided into ‘the bread part’ and ‘the cookie part’ as you can see in the directions. Although if you think about it, chocolate chip cookies are made the same way — you combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and gradually add it to a creamed mixture of butter, brown sugar, white sugar, eggs, and vanilla. The breakies come together much the same way, though the dough ended up quite thick — much more bread-like than cookie-like.
[Sara] and her breakies. See how poofy they are? Image via
Google Cloud
I said it to myself going in, and I stand by it after eating these breakies– yeast does not belong in cookies. There’s a reason cookies use baking soda to rise instead, like a quick bread. It’s not that I can taste the yeast in them, but I think it definitely affects the texture.
All of that said, the breakies taste pretty good. They have the mouthfeel of an oatmeal raisin or a sugar cookie — very textured. I found the yeast difficult to dissolve in in the prescribed amount of milk, and that’s likely why mine didn’t rise as impressively as [Sara]’s. It also may have something to do with the milk I used, which has lactase enzyme added to it for the lactose-intolerant. Or maybe I didn’t heat it up enough in the microwave.
Much like the cakie, the warm breakies sort of fell apart, but cooled breakies stay together much better. I had one fresh out the oven (as you do), and I think I prefer them cooled. Now, they have a sort of crisp outer shell to bite into.
It was already thick before I ever added any flour.
Seriously, I thought there was no way it would absorb all the dry ingredients.
I managed to get it all mixed in anyway.
The dough balls went flat right away.
They’re about as thick as regular cookies.
You can sort of see the texture here.
All in all, I would say this experiment was a success. I think that ultimately we can and should trust AI to give us tasty mashup desserts, if nothing else. I for one would be interested in experimenting even further by throwing pie recipes in the mix. Pudding cookies are delicious, so why not pie cookies? | 21 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318503",
"author": "Andy Pugh",
"timestamp": "2021-02-03T15:36:02",
"content": "Did the machine-learning algorithm allow for the off-by-one error in the naming of baked goods as you cross the Atlantic?Particularly obvious with muffins and biscuits.And I don’t think the US even has ... | 1,760,373,198.614359 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/03/a-usb-pd-laptop-conversion-in-extreme-detail/ | A USB-PD Laptop Conversion In Extreme Detail. | Jenny List | [
"laptops hacks"
] | [
"1-wire",
"USB C",
"USB-PD"
] | With USB-PD slowly making wall wart power supplies obsolete and becoming the do-it-all standard for DC power, it’s a popular conversion to slap an off-the-shelf USB-PD module in place of the barrel jack in a laptop. Not when it comes to [jakobnator] though, who
fitted his Dell with an upgrade lovingly and expertly crafted for both electrical and mechanical perfection
.
The video that you can find below the break is a long and detailed one, but in that detail lies touches that set the conversion apart from the norm. We’re treated to a full-run-down of USB-PD module design and chip programming, and then the mechanics of the 1-wire chip through which the Dell ties itself in with only Dell power supplies. Programming this chip in particular is something of a challenge.
It’s the mechanical design that sets this one apart. He started with an odd-shaped space that had contained the barrel jack socket and a ferrite choke, and designed a PCB to fit it exactly. 3D-printing a model to check for fit is attention to detail at the stratospheric level. The result is a fit that looks almost as though it was part of the original manufacture, and which should keep the laptop useful for years to come.
This may be the most elegant USB-C laptop conversion we’ve seen,
but it’s not the only one
.
Thanks [Jero32] for the tip. | 31 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318427",
"author": "Raxar",
"timestamp": "2021-02-03T12:15:22",
"content": "Heading typo, unless you meant putting dollars in a meter… ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6318505",
"author": "Mike Szczys",
"tim... | 1,760,373,198.469137 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/03/manual-pick-and-place-turntable-makes-board-assembly-easier/ | Manual Pick And Place Turntable Makes Board Assembly Easier | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"pick and place",
"smd",
"surface mount"
] | Surface mount devices were once upon a time considered a huge imposition for the electronics hobbyist. Tiny, difficult to solder by hand, and barely even labelled, many wondered whether the pastime was about to hit a brick wall entirely. Instead, enterprising hackers and makers set about learning new tricks and techniques to work with the technology, and we’ve never looked back since. [Seon] is one such enthusiast,
and has built a useful turntable for making manually picking and placing boards easier.
(Video, embedded below.)
The design is something [Seon] has refined gradually over time, having built two initial versions of the turntable before finally feeling ready to do a wider public release with version 3. It consists of a rotating caddy that has radial slots that hold all the tiny SMD parts, that can be labelled for easy parts identification. There’s also an acrylic window that ensures only one segment of the caddy is open at a time, to avoid accidentally dropping similar, tiny looking parts into adjacent slots – a big improvement over the first design. There’s then a smaller rotating central pad upon which a PCB can be placed, ready to receive parts.
Files are available on Github for those wanting to build their own.
[Seon] does a great job explaining how the final design came about, after populating hundreds of boards on his earlier designs and learning their limitations. If doing it by hand just doesn’t cut it for you, though,
you can always built a fully automated PnP
. | 19 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318410",
"author": "Tadpole",
"timestamp": "2021-02-03T10:51:59",
"content": "Very VERY cool. Thanks for sharing this.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6318421",
"author": "Foaly",
"timestamp": "2021-02-03T11:32:33",
... | 1,760,373,198.536349 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/02/youngsters-esp32-jukebox-uses-rfid-to-queue-tunes/ | Youngster’s ESP32 Jukebox Uses RFID To Queue Tunes | Tom Nardi | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"ESP32",
"I2S",
"jukebox",
"kid friendly",
"rfid"
] | Though kids today have an incredible knack for figuring out modern phones and tablets, there’s still something to be said for offering a simple physical user interface for little hands. To that end,
[Martin Hierholzer] has put together a whimsical jukebox that his two year old daughter can use
to listen to her favorite songs. With just a few simple buttons, no display to read, and the ability to stop and start songs using RFID tags embedded into 3D printed figures, it’s a perfect interface for tiny humans just getting the hang of interacting with technology.
While the Raspberry Pi might have been the more obvious choice to base this project around, [Martin] decided to go the ESP32 route for improved energy efficiency. The popular microcontroller is more than powerful enough to play MP3s, and its integrated WiFi connectivity allows the player to download new tracks from the network occasionally. He added a micro SD slot to provide some mass storage, a PCM5102 I2S DAC with a PAM8403 amplifier to handle the audio side of things, and a MFRC522 RFID receiver that can pick up tags placed on the top of the player. Power is provided by parts salvaged from a USB battery bank, and everything is housed on a custom PCB.
The relatively low power requirements of the ESP32 means the jukebox can keep the party going for many hours (perhaps even days) when in active use. When the RFID token is removed and there are no songs to play, some clever coding kicks the chip into low-power mode to greatly extend the player’s standby time. [Martin] says it can sleep for months without having to be recharged, and considering some of the
impressive feats of battery-sipping we’ve previously seen from the ESP32
, we don’t doubt it.
Even if you don’t have any young music lovers at home, the documentation [Martin] has put together for this project is absolutely worth a look. Whether its how he configures the server side to push songs and firmware updates to the player, how he wrangled the ESP32’s Ultra-Low Power coprocessor (ULP), or the woodworking tips used to produce the charming enclosure, you’re sure to pick up a trick or two.
The
children of hackers and makers always seem to get the coolest stuff
, and we’re looking forward to seeing what [Martin] comes up with next. After all, kids grow up fast and pretty soon his daughter is going to
need something new to entertain her
. | 14 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318387",
"author": "Martin Sivak",
"timestamp": "2021-02-03T08:38:22",
"content": "The RFID reader on the picture is commonly not effective enough and can be improved by replacing two coils. See here:http://ham.marsik.org/2017/04/using-cheap-rc522-nfc-reader-to-read.html(the bottom... | 1,760,373,198.672155 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/02/building-a-60s-toy-the-way-it-should-have-been/ | Building A 60s Toy The Way It Should Have Been | Dan Maloney | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"ESP32-CAM",
"punch card",
"qr",
"retrocomputing",
"toy",
"trivia"
] | The original Hasbro “Think-a-Tron”, a toy from the dawn of the computer revolution, was billed with the slogan, “It thinks! It answers! It remembers!” It, of course, did only one of these things, but that didn’t stop the marketers of the day from crushing the hopes and dreams of budding computer scientists and their eager parents just to make a few bucks. It’s not like we’re bitter or anything — just saying.
In an effort to right past wrongs, [Michael Gardi]
rebuilt the 1960s “thinking machine” toy with modern components
. The original may not have lived up to the hype, but at least did a decent job of evoking the room-filling computers of the day is a plastic cabinet with a dot-matrix-like display. The toy uses “punch-cards” with printed trivia questions that are inserted into the machine to be answered. A disk with punched holes spins between a light bulb and the display lenses, while a clever linkage mechanism reads the position of a notch in the edge of the card and stops the wheel to display the letter of the correct answer.
[Michael]’s update to the Think-aTron incorporates what would have qualified as extraterrestrial technology had it appeared in the 1960s. A 35-LED matrix with a 3D-printed diffuser and case form the display, with trivia questions and their answer as a QR code standing in for the punch-cards.He also added a pair of user consoles, so players can lock-in and answer before an ESP32-Cam reads the QR code and displays the answer on the LED matrix, after playing some suitable “thinking music” through a speaker.
As usual with [Michael]’s retrocomputing recreations, the level of detail here is fantastic. We especially like the custom buttons; controls like these seem to be one of his specialties judging by
his slide switches
and
his motorized rotary switch
. | 24 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318323",
"author": "BobbyMac99",
"timestamp": "2021-02-03T03:08:30",
"content": "This from the same People in the industry that thought up “Sea Monkeys, watch them grow”. Or the X-ray glasses, now that’s one that disappointed many a child.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,373,198.736338 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/02/arducam-now-working-with-the-rpi-pico/ | Arducam Now Working With The RPi Pico | Lewin Day | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"arducam",
"pico",
"Raspberry Pi Pico"
] | The Raspberry Pi Pico came out of absolutely nowhere, and has taken the maker world by storm. At the low, low cost of $4, packing some seriously grunty original silicon, and even available free on the cover of magazines, it’s already got a legion of fans. As with any new popular platform, there’s a scramble to get everything under the sun running on the hardware. Already,
ArduCAM is up and running on the Raspberry Pi Pico!
Based on the OV2640 image sensor, the ArduCAM is useful for microcontroller applications thanks to its onboard JPEG encoder. This limits the amount of RAM needed onboard the microcontroller to deal with the images fed from the camera. With the Pico now on the market, the team behind ArduCAM set about writing a library to get everything playing nicely with the SPI camera.
It’s available on Github
, complete with an example program so you can check everything is functional right out of the box. The easiest way to get up and running is from a Raspberry Pi environment, but the Pico acts as a USB Mass Storage device so can be programmed from virtually anywhere.
We’ll likely see the whole cavalcade of microcontroller bits and pieces ported to the Pico in the coming months,
along with plenty of interesting uses of the special IO features.
Video after the break. | 29 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318298",
"author": "powiesić kaczyńskiego",
"timestamp": "2021-02-03T01:34:21",
"content": "Wow, didn’t know there are cameras module that JPG photos. I thought it must be done in MCU firmware.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": ... | 1,760,373,198.805126 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/02/am-fm-radio-gets-bluetooth-upgrade/ | AM/FM Radio Gets Bluetooth Upgrade | Tom Nardi | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"AM/FM",
"bluetooth",
"radio"
] | For many commercial broadcast radio has lost its luster, leaving an unknowable number of perfectly serviceable AM/FM radios to lie dormant. But they don’t have to. As [Dan Gebhardt] shows in his recent hack,
integrating a Bluetooth audio receiver into portable radio may be easier than you think
.
For this project, [Dan] wanted to make sure no original functionality was lost. The radio still functions on the AM/FM bands, but now with the flip of a switch, he can listen to the audio coming his way courtesy of a Apt-X low-latency Bluetooth receiver. It sounds like the link is quick enough that he can even use this as a wireless speaker for watching TV, which isn’t always possible with cheaper chipsets that introduce a noticeable lag.
Isolating the audio trace.
The trick was to track down the receiver IC, a Silicon Labs chip
similar to ones we’ve seen used in a few DIY radio projects previously
. A peek at the datasheet told him which pins were carrying the audio signal, and after following them around the board, he found a convenient spot to cut the trace before it went into the volume control. From there is was just a matter of wiring in a SPDT slide switch that allowed him to select which device was passed through to the radio’s audio hardware.
While he had everything apart, [Dan] exorcised the Apt-X’s original 300 mAh LiPo pouch and replaced it with a DC-DC converter connected to the radio’s battery compartment. This allows him to run all of the hardware off of the same set of rechargeable NiMH cells, and also provides considerably improved runtime for the Bluetooth receiver.
Now as for physically integrating the Apt-X into the case of the radio…well, what can we say? [Dan] admits it’s a bit rough, but then the point was never to enter the thing into beauty pageants. It works well enough for his purposes, and in the end that’s all that matters. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318251",
"author": "dennis stanley",
"timestamp": "2021-02-02T21:55:31",
"content": "It’s a old radio hackers/technicians trick. the volume control is where you find the audio signal (ready to be attenuated for the pre amp) i know in modern designs an audio processing chip may use... | 1,760,373,198.861914 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/02/building-an-ultrasonic-levitation-rig/ | Building An Ultrasonic Levitation Rig | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"acoustic levitation",
"ultrasonic levitation",
"ultrasound"
] | Levitation may sound like magic, but there are a wide variety of physical phenomena that can be manipulated to generate the desired effect. In this case,
[Mirko Pavleski] has built a rig capable of levitating small, lightweight particles through the use of ultrasound.
The rig uses a 60W ultrasonic transducer, operating at approximately 40 KHz, to generate a standing wave in combination with a reflector – essentially a rigid piece of material off which sound waves can be bounced. The interaction between the sound waves as they are emitted from the transducer and bounce off the reflector creates what is known as a standing wave, wherein there are areas of high and low amplitude that do not move in space. These areas correspond to the wavelength of the emission from the transducer, and allow lightweight pieces of styrofoam to be placed in to the low amplitude areas, where they are held in place by the wave.
It’s quite astounding the first time you see it in action, as the tiny particles appear to simply float in the air apropos of nothing.
We’ve explored deeper applications of the technique before, too
. Video after the break. | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318183",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2021-02-02T19:41:36",
"content": "” We’ve explored deeper applications of the technique before, too.”Seem to remember speculation ages ago about that being how massive stones were moved. Of course this is the same age where pyramid powe... | 1,760,373,199.168218 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/02/learn-bil-herds-diy-surface-mount-assembly-process/ | Learn Bil Herd’s DIY Surface Mount Assembly Process | Bil Herd | [
"Featured",
"how-to",
"Skills"
] | [
"bil herd",
"reflow",
"smd",
"smt",
"soldering",
"surface mount",
"tutorial"
] | You can do your own Surface Mount Technology based PCB assembly with just a handful of tools and some patience. At the heart of my SMT process is stopping to inspect the various steps all while trying to maintain a bit of cleanliness in the process.
Surface mount or Surface Mount Technology (SMT) is the modern way to assemble Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) and is what is commonly seen when opening a modern piece of tech. It’s much smaller than the older Through-Hole (TH) technology where the component leads were inserted into holes in PCB, and act we called “stuffing” since we had to stuff the components into the holes.
A few specialized tools make this a lot easier, but resourceful hackers will be able to pull together a solder paste stencil jig, vacuum tweezers, and a modified toaster oven with a controller that can follow the reflow profile of the solder paste. Where you shouldn’t skimp is on the quality, age, and storage of the solder paste itself.
Join me after the break for my video overview of the process I use in my workshop, along with details of every step of my SMT assembly process.
Component Size Matters
Surface mount package names can be a little bit confusing. In the video I talk about pats that have a pin pitch of 0.5
millimeters
, but when it comes to resistors, we use numbers like 0603 and 0402 which measure 0.06×0.03
inches
. It’s always to good idea to have examples you can reference to ensure you’re using the right size package.
Adafruit Ruler Showing 0603 Size
Looking at my trusty Adafruit ruler with component sizes shown I will say that I commonly do the 0603 size components on a regular basis, though I have done 0402 for RF components where less size means less things like inductance which fight you as you go up in frequency. I don’t work with the smaller 0201 components as I am afraid of inhaling them they are so small.
Pretty much all of the SOIC parts you see can be done using the methods I show in the video and I commonly go down to 0.5 mm lead spacing, though in the video I solder some chips which have 0.4 mm lead spacing, the smallest I do in my home lab.
Caring for Solder Paste
Nowadays we “place” a component on PCB’s without the need of holes for the components leads, and instead of applying solder after the fact in its molten form, we use a solder paste consisting of flux and solder. The paste can be packaged in a variety of ways but I buy my paste in syringes and I keep them in a small refrigerator and only for a limited amount of time as solder paste has a shelf life depending on the kind and where you buy it.
Solder paste is denoted by the flux that it is based on, I use “no clean” which means pretty much what it says, the end result is operable without cleaning the PCB. If I am delivering the board to someone else I typically clean it anyways which I go over in the video.
Solder paste shown magnified X10
The solder is an amalgam of little beads of solder held in suspension with flux and can be the touchiest thing about DIY soldering as the solder has a definite shelf life of weeks if not days depending on the manufacturer. Simply put if you don’t remember when you purchased your solder, throw it away. I buy a solder formulated for better shelf life named Zeph paste which keeps longer than a production mix, and I store it in a small dedicated refrigerator (think six-pack cooler) and stored upright in syringes with the needle pointed down.
Solder also comes in many types, starting with leaded vs non-leaded and then variations depending on what kind of flux it contains. I use the “no clean” version which doesn’t
have
to be cleaned, or can be cleaned with alcohol instead of the stronger flux cleaners.
Applying the Solder
Solder Paste Stencil without Frame
Solder Paste Stencil with Frame in a Stencil Holder
There are several ways to get the solder paste on the PCB; it can be manually applied using a syringe and good old fashion squeezing to deposit the solder onto the connector pads of the PCB. I also have an air pressure operated dispenser that I don’t really use.
My go-to method is to use a paste mask stencil and squeegee the paste onto the PCB as seen in the video. There is a trick to squeegeeing the paste to not press too hard while forcing the paste through the paste mask screen. Paste mask stencils are available for a few dollars from the same sources I buy my PCB’s at, for larger runs I would look at companies like
OSH Stencil
.
Inspect Your Paste, then Place Components
I always inspect the PCB before placing the components on the board and I use a stereo X10 microscope for this step. What I am looking for is anything that would create a solder short later, I.E. if its shorted now it will most likely be shorted later.
Manual Pickup Tool
The trick is to place components on the board, kind of snuggled into the solder paste really, without smearing the paste or bending the component leads. Tweezers work for smaller components like resistors and capacitors but often for Integrated Circuits (ICs) one must be careful to lay the package flat. I have a variety of ways to do this using suction including the little suction cup with a squeeze bulb for a fully manual method or when doing a lot I might be inspired to fire up my little suction powered parts picker-upper made out of an old aquarium pump.
At Last, the Oven
I have tried a variety of reflow ovens including the T-962 (
complete with mods
per the Hackaday articles on the subject) but always found it wanting, especially with tall, dark components as the radiation patter inside the oven is somewhat uneven.
In order to make a better small scale oven I started with a Black & Decker convection oven and bought the
Controleo3 oven controller
which comes with an auxiliary heating element to boost performance. After applying lots of reflective tape and high temp RTV the oven is sealed against as much heat loss as feasible. The oven controller takes an hour for it to learn the oven’s characteristics but once learned I got really good and repeatable results.
Home Reflow Oven
An important consideration is the Solder Profile which is a chart of heat vs. time. It is pretty much the opposite of just sticking the boards in a hot oven until the solder melts, which is pretty much guaranteed to just bake off the flux leaving little clumps of solder as opposed to the smooth reflow that we want to achieve. The Solder Profile takes care of various phases such as preheat and rapid cooling in addition to the actual reflow stage.
I installed an additional heating element on my oven. The Controleo3 calibrates itself to the oven and even the size of what the oven is loaded with. I re-train the oven if doing large PCB’s using a blank board.
Final Inspection
True to my nature I slap the final soldered item under the microscope one last time and look carefully at each lead noting any solder bridges or voids in the process. I am also looking for the solder to have melted thoroughly and not look “grapey” or where the solder may have coalesced into tiny clumps instead of a properly whetted solder joint.
.4mm Leads Soldered in Home Lab Magnified X10
I like to give the boards a trip through my ultrasonic cleaner that I keep just for PCBs. While not usually necessary it gives the boards a nice professional look and makes inspection easier.
Conclusion
Hopefully one can see that doing DIY SMT assembly is certainly possible and can even be done for small scale production. In my case I can solder components down to 0.4mm lead pitch which is pretty small as long as I do ample inspection. Keep it clean, keep your solder paste fresh, and inspect at every step and you’ll get great results in your own workshop. | 40 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318150",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2021-02-02T18:20:43",
"content": "“Surface mount package names can be a little bit confusing.”On a side note: This past year I saw “E” being used to designate electrolytic capacitors on the silk screen.e.g. E243 instead of C243.I’m not sure h... | 1,760,373,199.116885 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/02/simple-3d-printed-seven-segment-displays/ | Simple 3D Printed Seven-Segment Displays | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"7 segment"
] | 7-segment LED displays were revolutionary, finally providing a clear, readable and low-power numerical display solution. We’ve got plenty of other cheap display options now, but sometimes you just need the old nought-through-nine, and in a big, visible package, to boot. For those circumstances,
consider whipping up a set of these 3D-printed seven-segment displays
.
The build consists of a 3D printed frame, with each segment containing two WS2812B addressable LEDs. Each 7-segment assembly is then wired so they can be daisy chained, passing on data to the next digit in the chain. Paper is used to diffuse the LEDs for a smoother look, and a white 3D printed cover is printed for each digit to further spread the light and give a clean finish.
Being based on the WS2812Bs, it’s easy to drive such displays with just about any microcontroller or GPIO-equipped Linux board out there. We love big, beautiful displays –
and the more artistic, the better
. Video after the break. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318185",
"author": "John Q. Public",
"timestamp": "2021-02-02T19:47:28",
"content": "Would be cool if it could display the seconds as well and be set by WWVB.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6318199",
"author": "Ostracus",
... | 1,760,373,199.021535 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/02/3d-printering-why-arent-enclosures-easier/ | 3D Printering: Why Aren’t Enclosures Easier? | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"3d printer enclosure",
"3D Printering",
"enclosures",
"product design"
] | For 3D printers that aren’t already enclosed, why is easily adding a cheap and effective enclosure still not a completely solved problem? The reason is simple: unless one’s needs are very basic, enclosures are more than just boxes.
Different people need different features, printers come in different shapes and sizes, and creating something that can be both manufactured and shipped cheaply is a challenge in itself. In this article I’ll explain how those things make boxing up your printer a tougher nut to crack then may seem at first glance.
Enclosures Have Different Jobs
People have different expectations of what an enclosure’s job should be, and that determines which features are important to them and which are not. Here is a list of meaningful features for 3D printer enclosures; not everything on this list is important to
everyone
, but everything on this list is important to
someone
.
Improving Print Quality
An enclosure can provide a better printing environment by protecting against drafts and partially retaining heat, creating an environment with a temperature that is more stable than the room it occupies. While retaining too much heat can lead to its own issues, a stable and draft-free environment is a plus.
Reduction of Noise
Some printers are noisier than others, and not every printer has the luxury of chattering happily away on a workbench without disturbing anyone. Though it’s rarely the sole factor in noise control, an enclosure can help reduce noise in environments where it is an issue.
Protecting Moving Parts
In some environments, loose objects or curious fingers (or paws) are more common than others. An enclosure helps keep the moving parts of a printer safely away from anything that might interfere with, or damage, them.
Staying Clean
Enclosures help keep dust away, but can also perform functions like
air filtering
and can help with humidity control.
Device Mounting and Cable Management
Mounting and wiring for devices like a webcam, LED lighting, or a Raspberry Pi running
OctoPrint
becomes much easier and tidier with an appropriate enclosure.
Improved Storage
An enclosure that allows the machine to be more easily moved, or even stacked, can have a lot of value in a workshop where bench space is limited, or printing is only done occasionally. I’ve personally always aimed to have my printers enclosed, at a comfortable working height, and on wheeled bases so that they can be moved as needed.
It is impractical to have an enclosure attempt to do everything, which means that features need to be chosen carefully to match needs. This is especially true if costs are to be kept to a minimum. However, a number of factors complicate this.
Complications Abound
Anyone can make a great enclosure if money and materials aren’t a factor. But if the goal is to implement a design both cheaply and effectively, the issues below make that more of a challenge.
Fire resistance
will rule out some materials, increasing costs. For example, if fire resistance is a priority then designs built around wood or cardboard cease to be an option.
Durability
usually comes with expense, either because durable materials cost more, or because durable materials are simply more difficult to work with. Both increase production costs.
Costs rapidly add up
for common materials like aluminum extrusions and acrylic sheets, when used in quantities necessary to enclose a printer. The size and weight of these components also makes them more expensive to ship.
Enclosures need windows and doors
of some kind so one can see what’s going on, as well as have easy access for print removal, filament loading and unloading, and maintenance. Adding windows and doors always complicates a design.
One size absolutely does not fit all.
Printer size and shape — as well as related issues like filament feed location and direction — are not standardized, but have a big impact on enclosure design.
Doing
Everything
Isn’t Practical
Creality’s
soft-shell enclosure
hits an attractive price point, but only serves some needs.
Accommodating every need while still being both economical and effective is impractical, and also probably impossible. Therefore, enclosure designs need to pick and choose their features, with the result being that not everything works for everyone. This goes a long way toward explaining the seemingly endless variety of design solutions that greet people who look online for printer enclosures.
Aside from DIY solutions, there have been efforts to create enclosures that can be offered as products. Here are a few of the very different approaches organizations have taken to try to make enclosures easier:
Prusa Research has a DIY option with a few variations.
In this blog post discussing their first version
, Prusa revealed that they had designed an enclosure, but couldn’t get the price low enough after considering cost of materials, shipping, and packing. They instead opted to release a DIY design that relies on people using locally-sourced materials, based mainly around the IKEA LACK table, acrylic panels, and 3D-printed parts.
Creality is offering a “soft” enclosure option
that is sized for specific printer models. They look similar to grow tents for plants, providing some useful features at a sub-$100 price point.
OpenBuilds offers a
modular enclosure system
which is solid, durable, and configurable. It comes at a price, however, and panels are not included.
Even DIY Enclosures Can Get Expensive Easily
The
Prusa Printer Enclosure V2
uses readily-available materials.
I want to share a quick word on costs. I discovered first hand how quickly and easily enclosures can get expensive when I built my own
Prusa Printer Enclosure V2
.
I used locally-sourced materials whenever possible, but it was surprisingly expensive by the time I was finished. I needed two LACK tables, three spools of PETG filament (for over 2 kg worth of printed parts), an acrylic sheet from a local supplier (which they cut into the panels needed at a reasonable price), plus the cost of other hardware like magnets and screws.
According to my spreadsheet, I easily spent over $200 USD on materials alone, and that amount doesn’t even include additional parts I added like fire alarm, caster wheels, and LED lighting. It would have been even more expensive if had I needed to pay shipping on parts instead of picking them up locally.
Designs Must Pick and Choose
A collapsible photo tent can cheaply meet some basic needs. (Photo:
Prusa Research
)
Unless using a pop-up photo tent as an enclosure will satisfy all of one’s needs, an effective solution that can be manufactured and shipped cheaply remains a considerable challenge. Enclosures aren’t just boxes, and different people have different needs.
Until someone comes up with something very clever, a cheap and effective drop-in solution will remain something plenty of people search for, but few find a satisfying solution to. Still, hackers being hackers,
there is no lack of solving one’s own problems when it comes to printer enclosures
.
Do you have a favorite solution, or clever idea that would make enclosures easier? We’re sure you do, so let us hear all about it in the comments. | 101 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "6318055",
"author": "Alice Lalita Heald",
"timestamp": "2021-02-02T15:12:34",
"content": "Even for dust build up it’s worth a small tent.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6318058",
"author": "david s",
"timestamp": "2021-... | 1,760,373,199.4195 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/02/alexa-stop-listening-to-me-or-ill-cut-your-ears-off/ | “Alexa, Stop Listening To Me Or I’ll Cut Your Ears Off” | Dan Maloney | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"alexa",
"echo",
"I2S",
"microphone",
"privacy",
"seeeduino",
"side-channel attacks",
"smart speaker",
"Xiao"
] | Since we’ve started inviting them into our homes, many of us have began casting a wary eye at our smart speakers. What exactly are they doing with the constant stream of audio we generate, some of it coming from the most intimate and private of moments? Sure, the big companies behind these devices claim they’re being good, but do any of us actually buy that?
It seems like the most prudent path is to not have one of these devices, but they are pretty useful tools. So
this hardware mute switch for an Amazon Echo
represents a middle ground between digital Luddism and ignoring the possible privacy risks of smart speakers. Yes, these devices all have software options for disabling their microphone arrays, but as [Andrew Peters] relates it, his concern is mainly to thwart exotic attacks on smart speakers, some of which, like
laser-induced photoacoustic attacks
, we’ve previously discussed. And for that job, only a hardware-level disconnect of the microphones will do.
To achieve this, [Andrew] embedded a Seeeduino Xiao inside his Echo Dot Gen 2. The tiny microcontroller grounds the common I²S data line shared by the seven (!) microphones in the smart speaker, effective disabling them. Enabling and disabling the mics is done via the existing Dot keys, with feedback provided by tones sent through the Dot speaker. It’s a really slick mod, and the amount of documentation [Andrew] did while researching this is impressive. The video below and
the accompanying GitHub repo
should prove invaluable to other smart speaker hackers. | 88 | 28 | [
{
"comment_id": "6317977",
"author": "windbag",
"timestamp": "2021-02-02T12:08:11",
"content": "Just ask the device (google, Alexis, Siri) “….. are you snooping?”The answers are delightful. No, they are not snooping… much!!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"co... | 1,760,373,199.724882 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/02/dvd-optics-power-this-scanning-laser-microscope/ | DVD Optics Power This Scanning Laser Microscope | Dan Maloney | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"biohacking",
"confocal microscopy",
"dvd",
"fluorescence",
"laser"
] | We’ve all likely seen the amazing images possible with a scanning electron microscope. An SEM can yield remarkably detailed 3D images of the tiniest structures, and they can be invaluable tools for research. But blasting high-energy cathode rays onto metal-coated samples in the vacuum chamber of a bulky and expensive instrument isn’t the only way to make useful images, as
this home-brew laser scanning microscope demonstrates
.
This one comes to us by way of [GaudiLabs], a Swiss outfit devoted to open-source lab equipment that enables citizen science; we saw
their pocket-sized thermal cycler for PCR
a while back. The basic scheme here is known as confocal laser scanning fluorescence microscopy, where a laser at one wavelength excites fluorescent tags bound to structures in a sample. Light emitted by the tags is collected, and a 3D image is built up from multiple scans of the sample at different focal planes.
Like many DIY projects, this microscope is built from old DVD parts, specifically the pickup heads. The precision optics in these commonly available assemblies, which are good enough to read pits as small as 150 nm on a Blu-Ray DVD, are well-suited for resolving similarly sized microstructures. One DVD pickup is used to scan the laser in the X-axis, while the other head is modified to carry the sample and move it in the Y-axis. The pickup head coils and laser are driven by an Arduino carried on a custom PCB along with the DVD heads. Complete build files are posted on
GitHub
for anyone interested in recreating this work.
We love tips like this that dig back a bit and find things we missed the first go-around. And the equipment [GaudiLabs] lists really has potential for the budding biohacker, which we also like.
Thanks for the tip on this one, [Bill]. | 35 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6317923",
"author": "Nathan",
"timestamp": "2021-02-02T09:16:11",
"content": "I’ve got the DIYouware PHR-803T kit sitting in a box somewhere, had been hoping to make a direct write litho system with it someday",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"... | 1,760,373,199.599389 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/01/upgrading-the-batteries-in-a-bmw-i3/ | Upgrading The Batteries In A BMW I3 | Lewin Day | [
"car hacks"
] | [
"battery swap",
"bmw i3",
"EV battery swap",
"i3"
] | The BMW i3 debuted on the market in late 2013, one of the brand’s first electric cars. Also available with an optional range-extending engine, early models featured a 60 Ah battery providing up to 130km range on a full charge. However, times have changed, and over the years, BMW have updated the model with larger capacity batteries over the years. So what does it take to retrofit an older model with the newer, fatter, juicer 120 Ah pack?
It’s all helpfully laid out in a video by [Daniel]
, who notes that it’s not a job for the faint of heart or poorly equipped. The good news is that, mechanically, the newer batteries have the same external dimensions as the older packs, meaning they can be bolted in without requiring any cutting, welding or, adapters. But that’s about it for the good news. The batteries are cooled by the air conditioning system, meaning that removal and replacement means draining the system of refrigerant using highly expensive specialised hardware. Additionally, many batteries in crashed cars are disabled when the airbags are triggered for safety reasons, requiring unlocking through BMW’s proprietary software or replacement of the internal battery controller. Then there’s the usual laundry list of gradual changes that happen across any automotive line, meaning that certain model years and trim packages can have incompatible plugs and connectors or other features.
Overall, it can be quite a bit of work to do, and with the tools required, something that needs the services of a dedicated mechanic’s workshop. However, find an experienced shop that regularly works with EVs, and you might find they can facilitate the upgrade for you without too much fuss. We’ve seen [Daniel] tackle upgrades before,
such as a much easier swap on the Nissan Leaf
. Video after the break. | 42 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6317899",
"author": "Mario",
"timestamp": "2021-02-02T07:58:34",
"content": "Great article, thanks!My only question about it is: WHY?I love electronic vehicles in every way, but why do all these manufacturers make upgrading so hard? Yes, things can break if you do something wrong. Y... | 1,760,373,199.804009 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/01/this-isnt-your-fathers-yellow-card/ | This Isn’t Your Father’s Yellow Card | Chris Lott | [
"Medical Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"Covid-19",
"e-passports",
"vaccines",
"World Health Organization",
"yellow card"
] | As the global vaccination effort rolls out in many countries, people will increasingly be required to provide evidence for various reasons, especially travelers. Earlier this month a coalition which includes Microsoft, the Mayo Clinic, Oracle, MITRE, and others
announced an effort
to establish digital vaccination records called the
Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI)
. This isn’t going to be a brand new thing, but rather an initiative to provide digital proof-of-vaccination to people who want it, using existing open standards:
Verifiable Credentials, per World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation (
VC Data Model 1.0
)
Industry standard format and security, per the Health Level Seven International (HL7)
FHIR standard
In addition, the World Health Organization formed the
Smart Vaccination Certificate Working Group
in December. Various other countries and organizations also have technical solutions in the works or already deployed. If a consensus doesn’t form soon, we can see this quickly becoming a can of worms. Imagine having to obtain multiple certifications of your vaccination because of non-uniform requirements between countries, organizations, and/or purposes.
Older readers and international travelers may be wondering, “don’t we already have a vaccination card system?” Indeed we do: the
Carte Jaune
or Yellow Card
. The concept of a “vaccination passport” was conceived and agreed upon at the International Sanitary Convention for Aerial Navigation in 1933. Over the years the names and diseases of interest have changed, but since 2007 it has been formally called the International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis (ICVP). In recent times, yellow fever was the only vaccination of interest to travelers, but other vaccinations or booster shots can be recorded as well. One problem with the paper Yellow Card is that it is ridiculously easy to forge. Nefarious or lazy travelers could download it from the WHO site, print it on appropriate yellow card stock, and forge a doctor’s signature. The push for a more secure ICVP is not completely unreasonable.
Reading the instructions on the Yellow Card brings up a couple of interesting points:
This certificate is valid only if the vaccine or prophylaxis used has been approved by the World Health Organization —
Currently the Pfizer vaccine is the only one to be approved by WHO, and even that is only an emergency approval. If you receive a non-Pfizer vaccination, what then?
The only disease specifically designated in the International Health Regulations (2005) for which proof of vaccination or prophylaxis may be required as a condition of entry to a State Party, is yellow fever
— This one is interesting, and suggests that member states cannot require proof of Covid19 vaccination as an entry requirement, a situation that will no doubt be quickly revised or ignored.
Note: This writeup is about
vaccinations
, not about
immunity
. While immunity certificates have been used from time to time throughout modern history, the concept of an international immunity passport is not well established like the ICVP. | 59 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6317851",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2021-02-02T03:38:00",
"content": "Can’t they just scan the microchip that was injected with the vaccine?/s (in case it was not obvious)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6317879",
... | 1,760,373,199.519574 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2021/02/01/upgrading-an-old-mig-welder-wire-feeder-with-arduino/ | Upgrading An Old MIG Welder Wire Feeder With Arduino | Danie Conradie | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"mig welder",
"welding"
] | Older industrial equipment is often a great option if you’re on a budget, and you might even be able to add some premium features yourself. [Brett] from [Theoretically Practical] has done with his old MIG welder,
adding premium control features with the help of an Arduino
.
The main features [Brett] were after is pre-flow, post-flow, and a spot welding timer. Pre-flow starts the flow of shielding gas a moment before energizing the filler wire, while post-flow keeps the gas going after the weld is complete. This reduces the chances of oxygen contaminating the welds. A spot welding timer automatically limits welding time, enabling consistent and repeatable spot welds.
The Miller S-22A wire feeder can have these features, but it requires an expensive and difficult to find control unit. All it does is time the activation of the relays that control the gas flow, power, and wire feeder, so [Brett] decided to use an Arduino instead. The welders control circuit runs at 24V, so an optoisolator receives the trigger signal, and relays are used for outputs. Potentiometers were added to the original control panel, and all the wiring was neatly fitted behind it. The upgrade worked perfectly and allowed [Brett] to increase the quality of his welds. See the video after the break for the full details.
Inverter welders can be picked up for
ridiculously cheap prices
, if you’re willing to live with the trade-offs. We’ve also seen some other DIY welder upgrades, on
small
and
large
machines. | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6317877",
"author": "Danjovic",
"timestamp": "2021-02-02T05:46:25",
"content": "Nice hack!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6317889",
"author": "Ty",
"timestamp": "2021-02-02T07:02:32",
"content": "Super cool hack! I ... | 1,760,373,199.844478 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.