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https://hackaday.com/2020/12/21/c-compiler-targets-the-web/ | C++ Compiler Targets The Web | Al Williams | [
"Software Development",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"asm.js",
"c++",
"compiler",
"emscripten",
"javascript",
"web",
"webassembly"
] | It is a common problem these days. You have a piece of code in C or C++. Maybe it is older code. Or maybe you prefer prototyping your ideas using C. But, inevitably, someone now wants your code to run in a Web browser. The options for making this happen have expanded quite a bit lately and one possibility is
Cheerp
, an open-source compiler that handles up to C++ 17 and can output to WebAssembly, JavaScript, or asm.js.
The compiler is free to use for GPLv2 projects. If you aren’t open yourself, it looks like you have to cut a deal to use Cheerp with its maker, Learning Technologies.
Traditionally, you’d use Emscripten to do something like this. According to the project’s site, Cheep generates faster and smaller WebAssembly than Emscripten and has several advantages if you compile to JavaScript. For example, they claim to have better dynamic memory handling, more efficient access to the DOM, and better JavaScript interoperability.
The
Hello World example
is, understandably, a little underwhelming, but does show some special features that allow direct access to the browser. They do point out that you can ignore that and use things like
printf
or
cout
if you aren’t worried about performance. A better place to start if you want to do anything serious is the
pong game example
.
If you haven’t been keeping up with
WebAssembly
, we can get you started. If you don’t think any of this would have application in an embedded system, we’ll refer you to
Olaf
. | 20 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6305134",
"author": "YGDES",
"timestamp": "2020-12-22T03:14:36",
"content": "“court” ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6305140",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-12-22T03:30:43",
"content": ... | 1,760,373,248.024286 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/21/coil-on-plug-ignition-for-tiny-engines/ | Coil On Plug Ignition For Tiny Engines | Lewin Day | [
"Engine Hacks"
] | [
"coil on plug ignition",
"qi coil",
"spark plug"
] | The spark plug was a key invention in the history of the internal combustion engine, allowing combustion to be easily controlled and engines to rev faster than messy earlier designs. Mid-century cars tended to rely on points ignition with a distributor and coil, however more modern designs place a coil on top of each individual spark plug.
[Roger Moore] decided to build a similar setup for a small model engine on his workbench.
The rig is built with an Arduino, a flyback transformer, a smattering of MOSFETs and passives, an IGBT and a capacitor. The Arduino outputs PWM through a MOSFET which is stepped up through the transformer, and then charges the capacitor. The capacitor is then discharged into a coil mounted on top of the sparkplug of the single-cylinder engine, which fires the spark. The timing of the spark is determined by a Hall effect sensor reading a magnet placed on the flywheel.
Later development aims to shrink the system further to fit on a V10 design [Roger] is planning to make.
It’s been done on a small scale before
, and we’d love to see another tiny engine with way too many cylinders. Video after the break.
[Thanks to Andy Pugh for the tip!] | 40 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6305120",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2020-12-22T02:46:03",
"content": "@Lewin Day said: “Mid-century cars tended to rely on [a] points [based] ignition with a distributor and coil, however more modern designs place a coil on top of each individual spark plug.”Oh really? To thi... | 1,760,373,247.929461 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/21/watch-life-tick-away-one-led-segment-at-a-time/ | Watch Life Tick Away, One LED Segment At A Time | Tom Nardi | [
"clock hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"ATmega 328",
"clock",
"countdown timer",
"MAX7219",
"seven segment LED"
] | In the grand scheme of things, a single human lifetime is a drop in the bucket. Even if we don’t like to acknowledge it, we all know the meter is running so to speak. Yet you’re still squandering your precious time on this Earth by reading Hackaday instead of doing something constructive. Of course nobody is burning up more time on this site than those of us who are writing it all, so don’t feel too bad.
To remind us that life is fleeting,
[Dries Depoorter] has designed the
Shortlife
: a device that counts down until your expected departure date. Before you get too excited, it can’t predict the future. The gadget is programmed with the vital statistics for the individual user, and data provided by the World Health Organization is used to calculate how much of your estimated life expectancy has already elapsed. Some would find this information depressing, while others will no doubt look at it as a source of inspiration. Us? We just think its a slick piece of gear.
The
Shortlife
is made up of a custom PCB mounted to a marbled block of recycled plastic. On the board there’s an ATmega328 microcontroller, a MAX7219 LED driver, and of course the red LED segment displays. Three of them are the classic seven count, while the rightmost display sports fourteen segments for a bit of added accuracy. All the user has to do if they want to watch their remaining time slip away is plug the device into a USB power source and set the current time.
We’ve seen similar mortal countdown clocks in the past
, but the
Shortlife
certainly brings a certain level of elegance to the idea. Plus we also like the fact that you’re just a line of code or two away from having the display tick down to some other date in the future when that whole existential crisis kicks in | 15 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6305048",
"author": "Danjovic",
"timestamp": "2020-12-21T21:15:54",
"content": "Will it count borrowed time?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6305061",
"author": "k-ww",
"timestamp": "2020-12-21T21:35:58",
"content": ... | 1,760,373,248.308255 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/21/remoticon-video-making-glowy-origami-with-charlyn-gonda/ | Remoticon Video: Making Glowy Origami With Charlyn Gonda | Kerry Scharfglass | [
"Art",
"cons"
] | [
"2020 Hackaday Remoticon",
"folding",
"glowing",
"leds",
"origami",
"paper",
"velum",
"workshop"
] | Hacking is about pushing the envelope to discover new and clever ways to use things in ways their original designers never envisioned. [Charlyn Gonda]’s Hackaday Remoticon workshop “Making Glowly Origami” was exactly that; a combination of the art of origami with the one of LEDs. Check out the full course embedded below, and read on for a summary of what you’ll find.
The thesis of the workshop is that you don’t need elaborate thousand-LED strips and complex PCBAs to make an attractive volumetric light show, even relatively simple folded paper structures can produce enthralling effects. To illustrate this [Charlyn] walks the participants through a series of three increasingly complex origami techniques which can be composed to produce a variety of interesting shapes and structures.
Sonobe Modules at Play
The first is the
Sonobe module
, a simple combination of folds which doesn’t look like much on its own. But the Sonobe isn’t meant to stand apart, they are designed to be combined together to make polyhedrons of all shapes and sizes. Check out the image at the right for some examples of what they can be combined to create. The second design is long rectangle modified with a series of simple acordian-like
mountain and valley folds
. But again with a few tweaks this folded piece of paper can be used for more technical purposes. The final fold is a much more complex parallelogram of parallelograms which can be wrapped back on itself to make a twisted, flexible free-standing cylinder. [Charlyn] illustrates how these final two folds create a piece of paper which is flexible enough to grow and shrink, hold weight, and make other interesting dynamic structures, drawing parallels to architecture and inflatable space habitats alike.
If you want to follow along at home, check out
the Hackaday.io page
for folding templates and more discussion! | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,373,247.849595 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/21/world-solar-challenge-over-30-years-of-engineering-competition/ | World Solar Challenge: How Far In A Solar Car? | Lewin Day | [
"car hacks",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Slider",
"Solar Hacks"
] | [
"solar",
"solar power",
"world solar challenge"
] | Solar power is a great source of renewable energy, but has always had its limitations. At best, there’s only 1,000 Watts/m
2
available at the Earth’s surface on a sunny day, and the limited efficiency of solar panels cuts this down further. It’s such a low amount that solar panels on passenger cars have been limited to menial tasks such as battery tending and running low-power ventilation fans.
However, where some might see an impossibility, others see opportunity. The
World Solar Challenge
is a competition that has aimed to show the true potential of solar powered transport. Now 30 years since its inception, what used to be impossible is in fact achieved by multiple teams in under one tenth of the original time. To keep competitors on their toes, the rules have been evolving over time, always pushing the boundaries of what’s possible simply with sunlight. This isn’t mainstream transportation; this is an engineering challenge. How far can you go in a solar car?
History
The Quiet Achiever, pictured here on its 1982 cross-continental journey, was the progenitor of the World Solar Challenge.
The progenitor of the event was one Hans Tholstrup, a Danish-born adventurer with a passion for sustainability and alternatives to fossil fuels. Working with Australian touring car legend Larry Perkins and his brother Garry, the trio built a solar-powered vehicle named
The Quiet Achiever.
In 1982, the lightweight vehicle travelled 2518 miles from Perth to Sydney in just 20 days, solely under power from the sun. The feat received much public attention, directly leading to the first running of the World Solar Challenge just 5 years later.
The inaugural competition was put together in 1987, in partnership with the South Australian Tourism Commission. It saw 13 competitors line up at the start, with 6 reaching the finish line. General Motors won the event with
Sunraycer,
completing a course from Darwin to Adelaide in just 44 hours 90 minutes, beating the second placed entry from Ford Australia by almost 23 hours.
Initially happening every three years, it switched to every two years from the 1999 running. Some years have seen over 50 teams join the race at the start line, though many drop out due to crashes or mechanical issues bringing their race to an end. Entrants come from diverse backgrounds all over the world to compete in the race. The last three decades of competition has seen entrants from automotive manufacturers, technology companies, universities and even high schools. Often, team sponsors come from high-tech industries involved in technology relevant to such applications. Having a company onboard that can supply highly efficient solar panels or a lightweight, powerful motor can go a long way.
The race is run from Darwin in the Northern Territory, down to Adelaide in South Australia. The race finishes with all competitors forming up in Victoria Square for final celebrations.
Over the years, the race has evolved as new technologies have come to the fore. Regulations on maximum solar panel area have tightened as panels have become more efficient over the years. This helps to keep costs down, as the latest and greatest solar panels don’t come cheap. Other regulations focus on limiting onboard energy storage and ensuring a level playing field among competitors. Competition vehicles run on public roads and thus are required to abide by speed limits and road rules.
As average speeds have increased over the years, the rules have changed to place a focus on practicality as well, aiming to guide competitors towards designing vehicles that are closer to something usable on the street. The competition now features the Cruiser Class for multi-passenger vehicles, which are graded on factors such as ease of ingress and total number of passenger-kilometers racked up over the journey.
It’s All About Efficiency
The Tokai Challenger, built by students from Japan Tokai University, won the 2009 event. Note the extreme, streamlined design aiming to minimise drag.
Much like traditional motorsports, the regulations of the World Solar Challenge have shaped the designs of competition vehicles. With limited energy available, efficiency is key in every aspect of design. A competitor that is able to capture the most energy and turn it into forward motion is best placed to bring home the win.
On the electrical side, the first concern is effectively capturing as much energy from the available sunlight as possible. Installing the highest-efficiency solar panels available is just one part of the equation. Teams will often tilt their solar panels to be perpendicular to the sun’s rays after driving ends at 5:00 PM, to make the most of the light available before sundown. To wring every last drop out of the cells,
Maximum Power Point Tracking
hardware is used to keep the solar cells in their optimum operating range. Motors and controllers are similarly designed with a focus on wasting as little power as possible when propelling the vehicle down the road.
2013 saw the introduction of the Cruiser class, for solar vehicles intended to carry multiple passengers.
Perhaps the biggest impact on the external design of these vehicles is aerodynamics. Travelling at speeds of up to 130 km/h for hours at a time, drag plays a huge role in terms of energy efficiency. Reducing drag to the absolute minimum is key, with vehicles in the single-occupant Challenge class often featuring swooping, knife-blade teardrop designs. Wheels are often fitted with airfoil-shaped fairings to allow them to slice through the air. Historically, most designs had drivers laying in near-prone or recumbent positions to minimise their contribution to the profile of the car, however in recent years,
seating positions have been changed to a more natural upright position to better resemble a road-going vehicle
. Entries in the Cruiser class tend to have more compromised designs in this area, as they are necessarily bulkier and taller in order to carry multiple seated passengers. However, they still aim to minimise drag wherever possible, even if knife-edge streamlined designs aren’t practical in this class.
Mechanical efficiency is also key in order to build a competitive vehicle. Rolling resistance must be kept to a minimum, and specially designed tyres are used in pursuit of this goal. It’s also important to ensure bearings, chains and belts are properly chosen and maintained to avoid excessive losses in these areas. Attention to such small details can have a serious impact when travelling thousands of miles, particularly when such low amounts of energy are available.
Looking To The Future
As teams continue to build cars to best the existing challenges, the ruleset continues to shift to push the limits further. For 2021, regulations will again change to focus on driver comfort, dynamic stability of competition vehicles, and include new safety features like daytime running lamps. All of these changes have an effect on performance, from changing aerodynamics to adding a new power draw to the vehicles. However, it is this very challenge that forces teams to innovate and adapt their designs, creating better and more capable solar cars than ever before. While we don’t expect solar panels to become standard on passenger vehicles any time soon, barring a major change to our Sun, the event nonetheless serves as a useful showcase and proving ground for the very best in solar and electrical propulsion technologies. | 90 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6305006",
"author": "Peter",
"timestamp": "2020-12-21T18:40:28",
"content": "Great article. I was in Australia for the 2013 World Solar Challenge, and that was easily the craziest adventure I’ve ever been on. Today almost all entrants are from colleges and universities, so a big par... | 1,760,373,248.205465 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/21/solar-pi-zero-e-paper-photo-frame-waits-for-the-right-moment/ | Solar Pi Zero E-Paper Photo Frame Waits For The Right Moment | Tom Nardi | [
"Art",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"digital photo frame",
"e-ink",
"e-paper",
"energy efficiency",
"epaper",
"photo framerame"
] | One of the biggest advantages of electronic paper is that it doesn’t require a constant power source to display a static image. Depending on the application, this can lead to a massive energy savings compared to more traditional display technologies. Of course, the electronics that actually drive the display are another story entirely. You need to reduce the energy requirements of the whole system if you really want to stretch your battery life.
So when
[Giacomo Miceli] wanted to put together this solar powered e-paper photo frame
, he had to come up with some creative ways to curb the energy consumption of the Raspberry Pi Zero that runs the show. While the 10.3 inch 1872 × 1404 panel would only require the occasional burst of power to flick over to a new image, the Pi would be a constant drain on the internal battery pack. Considering he wanted the frame to recharge from ambient light with an array of small solar panels, that simply wouldn’t do.
The solution came in the form of a PiJuice HAT and some scripts that decide how often the Pi is to be powered on based on the current battery level. If there’s enough power, it might be every hour or so. But the lower the charge, the longer the delay. When the energy situation is particularly dire, the Pi might only be turned on every couple of days. With the Pi off and the e-paper not drawing any power, all of the energy produced by the solar panels can be devoted to recharging the frame’s 1,000 mAh battery.
When the Pi does get booted up, it quickly connects to a server to download a new image and update the display. After that, it ascertains the current battery level and determines how long the PiJuice should wait before turning it back on. After these tasks are complete, it will turn itself off until the next scheduled event. All told, [Giacomo] says the Pi is only up and running for about a minute each time the image is refreshed on the e-paper. He says the system has been running for six weeks now, with the battery level occasionally dipping down to 40% or so before it climbs back up.
Admittedly the energy consumption of the frame could be cut drastically by
replacing the Raspberry Pi with a simple microcontroller
, but we appreciate the creativity. Besides, the power and flexibility afforded by the Pi means this frame could be
taught quite a few new tricks with some updated software
. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304959",
"author": "Rog Fanther",
"timestamp": "2020-12-21T16:39:39",
"content": "Maybe download a bunch of pictures and cache them locally ? Later, just take one from the cache to display, and if the cache is empty and batteries allow, download more.Since possibly energy used for ... | 1,760,373,248.25414 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/21/the-first-real-palmtop/ | The First Real Palmtop | Chris Lott | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Retrocomputing",
"Slider"
] | [
"computing history",
"hp200lx",
"palmtop",
"retrocomputing"
] | Back before COVID-19, I was walking through the airport towards the gate when suddenly I remembered a document I wanted to read on the flight but had forgotten to bring along. No worry, I paused for a bit on the concourse, reached into my pocket and proceeded to download the document from the Internet. Once comfortably seated on the plane, I relaxed and began reading. Afterwards, I did a little programming in C on a shareware program I was developing.
Today this would be an ordinary if not boring recollection, except for one thing: this happened in the 1990s, and what I pulled out of my pocket was a fully functional MS-DOS computer:
Introducing the
HP-200LX
, the first real palmtop computer. I used one of these daily up until the mid-2000s, and still have an operational one in my desk drawer. Let’s step back in time and see how this powerful pocket computer began its life.
Some History
Today, carrying around several hundred thousand MIPS, massive data storage, dazzling color displays, and multiple forms of wired and wireless connectivity in the palm of our hands is taken for granted. (The thing even has a telephone.) But obviously, it hasn’t always been so.
The
Hewlett Packard
company began as a manufacturer of quality test instruments, a tradition that continues to the present day despite two corporate and brand name changes: becoming
Agilent
in 1999 and
Keysight
in 2013. But HP also developed a computer division in the 1960s, producing several families of computers, such as the
HP-2100
, that naturally complemented their laboratory test equipment.
Almost from the get go, HP became known for pushing the envelope, or shall we say box, when it came to the size of their computing products. A fortuitous introduction led to the development of HP’s first desktop calculator, which was no bigger than a typewriter of the day.
Tom Osborne
was a frustrated engineer, whose calculator design had been rejected by over 30 companies, including HP, when a former coworker put him in touch with someone at HP. Tom met with the HP team, and they immediateley engaged him to help build the a desktop computer with the goal of fitting into Bill Hewlett’s desk typewriter drawer. Called a calculator because it was so small that no one would believe it was a computer, the
HP-9100
met the size requirement after a little late-night
secret desk carpentry
. When it was all said and done, the product was an unqualified success exceeding all expectations.
After the 9100 was introduced, Bill Hewlett proposed that the next machine should be a tenth the cost, a tenth the size, and be ten times faster; eventually suggesting it should fit in his shirt pocket. It took more than happenstance to meet this new challenge, which was only possible after the introduction of reliable MOS LSI integrated ciruits. In fact, it was four more years before the
HP-35
was released in 1972. Another bit success, it became the forerunner of a long line of RPN calculators used by a whole generation of scientists and engineers — many still in use today.
HP took miniaturization to another level in 1977 with the introduction of the
HP-01
wrist calculator and watch. Interestingly, this was the first HP calculator that wasn’t RPN.
The computer side of HP wasn’t just twiddling their thumbs, either. A series of smaller and smaller computers were introduced throughout the 1980s, beginning with the
HP-80 through to the HP-85
. Notable small form-factor models included the
HP-71
and the
HP-75
.
HP introduced the
HP-110
portable computer in 1984, which included MS-DOS and Lotus 123 built into ROM. With this background of continually developing smaller and more feature-rich computers, it’s not surprising that HP made the next big leap, paving the way for me to pull a computer out of my coat pocket in that airport concourse.
Other Small Computers
It’s not like other computer and calculator companies were sitting idle during this time. Looking back at pocket-sized computers of the era, there were many different offerings of varying abilities. Radio Shack had several pocket computers which ran Basic: the
PC1
in 1980 and the
PC2
in 1981, both re-branded Sharp computers from Japan. They packed an impressive amount of power into such a small package. In fact, I used a PC2 for several years when I first graduated from university, and took full advantage of the four-color pen plotter to print antenna patterns for work.
Radio Shack’s
TRS-80 Model 100
family of portable laptop computers, based on a Japanese Kyocera model, was introduced in 1983 and was very popular with journalists and folks who needed to write on-the-go. While these were more or less general purpose computers, other companies were developing a new type of pocket computer which would eventually become known as PDAs, or Pocket Digital Assistants. Atari’s
Portfolio
in 1989 and the
Psion Organizer
launched in 1986 are good examples of these.
A Palmtop is Born
Considering the state of the market then, it’s not surprising that
HP started looking to design a handheld computer / PDA
. The concept morphed into a study project called Chetah in 1988, and then into a formal research program in early 1989. It initially was to be based on the HP-19 calculator which opened vertically, like a book. After several iterations, the project name changed to Jaguar, preliminary specs were decided upon, and packaging changed to be a clamshell-style. But ultimately the project did not get the green-light from management and was suspended in Aug 1989. But not for long…
The Palmtop in 2020: Long Live the HP-200LX
In another fortuitous meeting for HP, the
Lotus Development Corporation
in Cambridge MA contacted them with a proposal to team up again and develop a pocket Lotus 1-2-3 machine. A series of meetings followed, and the two companies agreed to cooperate on a joint project. This project was destined to become the
HP-95LX
, the first palmtop computer. The team represented a perfect match of skills and technology, and the development of the final palmtop design was kicked off.
The final specs resulted in an MS-DOS computer running Lotus 1-2-3 and a complete suite of PDA tools from ROM. The 95LX was introduced in 1991, quickly followed by the 100LX and 200LX in 1993 and 1994, respectively. By this time, the 200LX boasted a full 80 x 25 column CGA display, PCMCIA (People Cannot Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms) card slot, serial and IR ports, and a full keyboard with numeric keys. It was truly a palmtop computer, capable of being a PDA, a fully functioning computer, or both. And it could run for weeks on two standard AA batteries. Another home run for HP.
What Made it so Special?
The 200LX, due to its size and portability alone, opened up whole new niche areas to computerization. Therefore it is hard to single out one reason for its success and popularity. But here are a few aspects of the palmtop that still resonate with me, based on my usage of the machine for about ten years and several circumnavigations of the globe.
The Keys
HP calculators were famous for having keys with that perfect look and feel, and the palmtop family was no exception. Judging any keyboard is a highly subjective matter, especially one that’s pocket-sized. Unless you have very tiny hands, there’s no way to comfortably touch type on any palmtop keyboard. The majority of folks would type on these using the thumb method, and for that the HP keys worked perfectly.
Expansion
Having a PCMCIA slot meant that a wide assortment of accessories could be used with the palmtop. It was very common to use Flash cards, later on Compact Flash cards with an adaptor, providing hundreds of megabytes of storage (which was quite decent for a DOS system). Phone modems and FAX cards, ethernet adaptors, and even a mobile phone GSM modem were available. And if even the palmtop was too big for your, you could synchronize your PDA data to the REX3 PCMCIA pocket PDA. This was the shareware project I was writing C-code on the airplane trip in the intro.
Applications
Besides having access to virtually all DOS programs, a whole cottage industry sprung up around the 200LX, offering all manner of programs tailored to the palmtop. These included internet access, emails, FTP, usenet readers, just to name a few. I often used my palmtop to develop embedded software, and had several C compilers, an assembler, and even a Fortran compiler available. There was Software Carousel for task switching, a plethora of games — you name it, it was probably available for the palmtop.
Hacks
Even as well designed as it was, the community quickly discovered improvements could be made. Two of the most common hacks were to over clock the microprocessor (x2!) and to increase the internal RAM. There was an ongoing effort to install a backlight and a few units were so modified.
Community
A very active community formed around these machines, initially on Compuserve and AOL. That migrated to a mailing list that still operates today. Various software repositories sprang up, and a print journal called
The Palmtop Paper
was the main source of information for many users. Several companies made hardware products specifially designed to work with the 200LX.
Connectivity
Armed with a modem or ethernet card, you could access the internet from anywhere around the world. I did that for several years, using local dialup numbers for
SprintNet
or
Tymenet
you’d find in the paper phone book in order to telnet into my ISP and get emails. I’ve connected to the internet on the 200LX from pay phones using an acoustic modem, hotels in Asia and Europe, and of course an airport concourse.
Successors and Downfall
There were quite a few variations of this palmtop family, the HP Omnigo, the HP-1000CX, and the HP-700LX, the latter being a regular 200LX with a cradle to hold a Nokia cell phone. But HP eventually moved on to embrace WinCE, a choice that may have been popular among PDA users, but was seen as a big step backwards by most in the community. These were models in the
HP-300LX
family, and later the
HP-620LX
family.
It’s said that all good things must come to an end, and the HP family of palmtops is no exception. By 1999, HP announced they would halt all palmtop production. Many users hung on to their palmtops for several more years, but the majority eventually moved on, begrudgingly. The hardware, while robust, did have a few weak points as it was simply not designed to last 15 or 20 years.
And while the connectivity offered by the palmtop was ahead of its time in the 1990s, in this century it is painfully inadequate. There have been a few new-and-better palmtop projects, some more successful than others, but so far, all have failed to hit that sweet spot.
The HP-200LX was a breakthrough product which came along at the just right point on the technology time line. Back in the 1990s, it was unimaginable that you could have a complete computer in your pocket, but the HP / Lotus team really nailed it. In addition to being a fully functional DOS computer, they included an impressive suite of PIM tools, not to mention Lotus 123, Quicken, PCMCIA card expandability, and unprecedented connectivity.
I hope you enjoyed this trip down the memory lane of palmtop computing, and let us know in the comments if you ever used one of these. | 128 | 45 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304923",
"author": "Stripey \"Yukon Cornelius\" Type (@StripeyType)",
"timestamp": "2020-12-21T15:20:27",
"content": "I really miss when my 200LX (with RAM upgrades and a pouch full of PCMCIA accessories) was superhero technology. Two AA batteries powering a reasonable (for the tim... | 1,760,373,248.569188 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/21/did-et-finally-call-us/ | Did ET Finally Call Us? | Al Williams | [
"News",
"Science",
"Space"
] | [
"csiro",
"proxima centauri",
"Radio Telescope",
"SETI"
] | An Australian radio telescope picked up
unusual signals
back in 2019 and thinks they originated from Proxima Centauri, a scant 4.3 light years from our blue marble. Researchers caution that it almost certainly is a signal of human or natural origin and that more analysis will probably show it didn’t come from Proxima Centauri. But they can’t yet explain it.
The research is from the
Breakthrough Listen
project, a decade-long SETI project. The 980 MHz BLC-1 signal, as it’s called, meets the tests that identify the signal as interesting. It has a narrow bandwidth, it drifts in frequency consistent with a signal moving away or towards the Earth, and it disappears when the radio telescope points elsewhere.
The project has been running since 2015 and this was the first signal their algorithms flagged as requiring further analysis. However, the researchers admit the algorithm is intentionally optimistic. After all, you’d rather have false positives to filter out than have any false negatives.
Unfortunately, since the initial set of detections, the team hasn’t found any more signals from the same part of the sky. Proxima Centauri is interesting because it is among our closest neighbors and it is known to have at least two planets, one of which we think could support life.
The 210 foot Parkes radio telescope — better known locally as “the dish” — that detected the signal dates back to 1961 and was the point of reception for the Apollo 11 moon landing. Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) operates the facility and the picture above is courtesy of CSIRO,
CC-BY-3.0
.
While you might not have room in your backyard for a 210-foot dish, you can build something
more modest
. We wonder if this signal will remain a mystery like the
Wow signal
? | 73 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304896",
"author": "John Pfeiffer, Evil Genius!",
"timestamp": "2020-12-21T12:27:35",
"content": "I’m sure it’s just a prank message saying you can get a free Anaconda for docking at Hutton Orbital. 😏",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comme... | 1,760,373,248.668698 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/21/we-bet-youve-never-seen-a-pink-denture-synth/ | We Bet You’ve Never Seen A Pink Denture Synth | Lewin Day | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"synthesizer",
"teeth"
] | At one end of the synthesizer world, there stands commercial instruments designed for the ultimate in sound quality and performance, tailored to the needs of professional musicians. On the other, there are weird, wacky prototypes and artistic builds that aim to challenge our conception of what a synth should be.
The VOC-25 by [Love Hultén] falls firmly in the latter category.
The synth is built around the
Axoloti Core
, a microcontroller board set up for audio experimentation. Packing stereo DACs and ADCs, and MIDI input and output, it’s the perfect base for such a project. Loaded up with vocal samples, it’s played by a keyboard in a fairly typical sense. Where things get interesting is the panel containing 25 sets of plastic teeth. The teeth open and close when the user plays the corresponding note, thanks to a solenoid. Along with the clacking sound of the machinery and pearly whites themselves, it adds quite a creepy vibe to the piece.
With its clean pastel enclosure, we can imagine this piece as the star of an avant-garde filmclip, or merely something to terrify children at a Maker Faire. It’s a fun build, to be sure. We’ve seen some other great experimental synths over the years, too –
this 48 Game Boy build comes to mind
. Video after the break. | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304873",
"author": "Leo",
"timestamp": "2020-12-21T09:15:46",
"content": "so he learned from simone’s mistakes?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6304905",
"author": "Ri3c",
"timestamp": "2020-12-21T13:57:07",
... | 1,760,373,248.075119 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/20/weather-note-tells-you-what-you-need-to-know-and-no-more/ | Weather Note Tells You What You Need To Know, And No More | Lewin Day | [
"internet hacks"
] | [
"internet of things",
"neopixel",
"Neopixels",
"weather",
"ws2812b"
] | Smartphones are portals to an overwhelming torrent of information. Yes, they’re a great way to find out the time, your bus schedule, and the weather, but they’re also full of buzzers and bells going off every three minutes to remind you that your uncle has reposted a photo of the fish he caught ten years ago. Sometimes, it’s better to display just the essentials,
and that’s what Weather Note does.
It’s built around the Adafruit Feather Huzzah, a devboard built around the venerable ESP8266. It’s a great base for an Internet of Things project like this one, with WiFi built-in and ready to go. The Weather Note talks to a variety of online platforms to scrape weather data and helpful reminders, with the assistance of If This Then That, or IFTTT. Reminders to walk the dog or get some milk are displayed on a small OLED screen, while there’s also a bunch of alphanumeric displays for other information. WS2812 LEDs are used behind a shadowbox to display weather conditions, with cute cloud, rain, and sun icons. It’s all wrapped up in a tidy frame perfect for the mantlepiece or breakfast table.
It’s a great build to learn about programming for the Internet of Things, and with those bright LED displays, it’s probably a viable nightlight too. It’s a rare project that can both tell you about the weather and keep you from stubbing your toe in the kitchen, after all.
Those desiring a stealthier build should consider going down the smart mirror route instead.
Video after the break. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304880",
"author": "Kyle K",
"timestamp": "2020-12-21T09:33:19",
"content": "I wish their 14 segment displays had some clock dots",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,373,247.964692 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/20/splash-droplet-photos/ | Splash Droplet Photos | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"photography",
"water droplet"
] | Water droplets are beautiful things, though photographing them can prove difficult without a little help. Precise timing is key,
and that’s what led [Alex Pikkert] to build a timing controller to help nail the perfect shot.
It’s a job that’s ideally suited for the average microcontroller. In this case, [Alex] chose the venerable Arduino Uno. Paired with a bunch of buttons and a 16 x 2 character LCD, it has a simple-to-navigate interface for dialling in a shot. The trick to splash and droplet photography is to first open a valve to release a droplet, and then fire a flash a set time after to capture the droplet in flight, after it’s hit the surface of the liquid. [Alex]’s design uses a MOSFET to trigger the water valve, and optoisolators to safely trigger the flash and camera.
[Alex] has gotten some impressive results with the rig, and it would serve as a great starting point for anyone looking to get into the field.
We’ve seen similar builds before, too
. If you’ve got your own fancy photography rig for those otherwise-impossible shots,
be sure to drop us a line! | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304843",
"author": "CityZen",
"timestamp": "2020-12-21T05:03:03",
"content": "555 comment in 3, 2, 1, …",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6304850",
"author": "Voja Antonic",
"timestamp": "2020-12-21T06:08:54",
... | 1,760,373,248.758838 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/20/hackaday-links-december-20-2020/ | Hackaday Links: December 20, 2020 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"3d printing",
"android",
"drone",
"faa",
"fine",
"google",
"hackaday links",
"ic",
"IoT",
"iss",
"safety",
"SSTV",
"Zeloof"
] | If development platforms were people, Google would be one of the most prolific serial killers in history. Android Things, Google’s attempt at an OS for IoT devices, will
officially start shutting down on January 5, 2021
, and the plug will be pulled for good a year later. Android Things, which was basically a stripped-down version of the popular phone operating system, had promise, especially considering that Google was pitching it as a secure alternative in the IoT space, where security is often an afterthought. We haven’t exactly seen a lot of projects using Android Things, so the loss is probably not huge, but the list of projects snuffed by Google and the number of developers and users left high and dry by these changes continues to grow.
By now you’ve probably heard about the drone operator who was
fined a cool $182,000 by the FAA
for violations of the rules regarding safe drone operation. It may seem exorbitant, but when you dig a little deeper, it seems like the drone pilot, who goes by the handle “Mikey” on YouTube, pretty much had it coming. He has been operating drones in the Center City area of Philadelphia for a while now, in flagrant disregard for FAA rules like not operating in beyond line of sight, not operating at night, and not flying in restricted areas. Mikey, who by the way doesn’t have a remote pilot’s certificate, did all this and more, and posted everything on YouTube. We normally give the benefit of the doubt and take pity on people who get hassled for just enjoying their hobbies, but after listening to about three minutes of
Mikey’s schtick on YouTube
, we decided that he probably had it coming.
Still looking for the perfect gift this holiday season? What about the gift of silicon? DIY chip maker Sam Zeloof is
auctioning off chips from his first production batch of homemade ICs
, cooked up right in his garage. The Z1 chip, which
we featured
back in 2018 when Sam first announced it, is a dual-differential amplifier with six FETs and a handful of other components, packaged in a 14-pin ceramic DIP. The current bid is up to $315, which seems a fair price considering all the work Sam put into this, plus the fact that proceeds go to keeping Sam’s fab lab running.
We’re normally loathe to bring up anything that has to do with the safety of 3D-printing, as it mostly just devolves into a flame war in the comments section. But what the heck — it’s Christmas!
There’s news of a paper
, apparently presented at last week’s
Society of Risk Analysis
annual meeting, that reportedly confirms what most of us intuitively know already: that the fumes from 3D printers aren’t great to inhale. Specifically, the researchers found that emissions from ABS filament were moderately toxic to human lung cells, while minimally toxic to rats. There’s a lot of detail missing here — for example, “lung cells” implies a cell culture, which is not the same thing as observing clinical changes in someone’s lungs, nor is a rat always a good model for what’s going to happen in humans. Still, we’re keen to read the actual paper and dive into the details. Until then, we’ll probably keep on printing — just maybe with the window cracked.
Looking for a fun project to while away some time between Christmas and New Year? You could do worse than by trying to
tune into slow-scan TV broadcasts from the International Space Station
. The ARISS program, or Amateur Radio aboard the ISS, has been operating from on high for 20 years now, and to celebrate they’ve scheduled SSTV broadcasts from December 24 to December 31. SSTV is an amateur radio mode that transmits low-def, static images on amateur bands that can be received with simple equipment, and without a license. If you want to give it a shot, you should check out
Jenny’s how-to article
for the basics on getting an RTL-SDR hooked up and getting the right software installed. You also need an antenna — this
simple v-dipole
should do the trick. Happy watching! | 11 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304817",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2020-12-21T00:17:29",
"content": "“Specifically, the researchers found that emissions from ABS filament were moderately toxic to human lung cells, while minimally toxic to rats.”First there was slave labor. Now there’s rat labor.",
"... | 1,760,373,248.7154 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/20/lidar-house-looks-good-looks-all-around/ | Lidar House Looks Good, Looks All Around | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Arduino Hacks",
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"lidar",
"slip ring",
"time of flight",
"Time of Flight Sensor",
"TOF"
] | A lighthouse beams light out to make itself and its shoreline visible. [Daniel’s]
lighthouse
has the opposite function, using lasers to map out the area around itself. Using an Arduino and a ToF sensor, the concept is relatively simple. However, connecting to something that rotates 360 degrees is always a challenge.
The lighthouse is inexpensive — about $40 — and small. Small enough, in fact, to mount on top of a robot, which would give you great situational awareness on a robot big enough to support it. You can see the device in action in the video below.
This lighthouse uses a common solution to the rotating connection problem: a slip ring. While these are mechanical, commercial units can be relatively reliable. To route all the signals, the slip ring needs six wire capsules meaning there are six wires that logically pass through the rotating part. The drive motor spins at 60 RPM, but there are two sensors 180 degrees apart to double the scanning rate. The 3D printed housing uses PLA and looks great.
Of course, the real trick will be using all this
data meaningfully
in your robot or whatever is listening to the lighthouse. That, however, is a different topic. If you think two ToF sensors are good,
why not try three
?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYU534Wn4lA&feature=emb_logo | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304808",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2020-12-20T23:57:30",
"content": "I wonder how hard it would be mimic a vr lighthouse with one of these. Certainly cheaper than the one available for the vive.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"commen... | 1,760,373,248.802753 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/20/status-display-lets-them-know-you-cant-play/ | Status Display Lets Them Know You Can’t Play | Kristina Panos | [
"LED Hacks",
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"do not disturb",
"led",
"resistor",
"status LED",
"status light"
] | All this ongoing forced togetherness is great, but sometimes you just need to be able to pretend you’re alone so you can get some work done. So, how do you keep family members out of your home office?
Our own [Bob Baddeley]’s free/busy indicator is about as simple as it gets
.
The best part is that the status can been seen on both sides of the door so you don’t forget to keep it updated. Or maybe it’s the super-low part count. There’s no BLE, LoRa, or Wi-Fi, just two sets of red and green LEDs, a three-way switch, and a power source. Well, and current-limiting resistors of course.
[Bob] already had all the components on hand, including the nifty enclosure, which is another great thing about this build. Like [Bob] says, you could house the control side of this circuit in just about anything you’ve got lying around.
Young children might abuse this one, but
this status indicator that lets the family request your presence with the push of a button
. | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304751",
"author": "kludgecraft",
"timestamp": "2020-12-20T18:04:46",
"content": "I like it!I’ve been using big noise-canceling headphones for this exact same reason, and psychologically it provides the same kind of relief as being alone for an hour or two.",
"parent_id": null,... | 1,760,373,248.985282 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/20/this-expedient-microfiche-reader-illuminates-retro-datasheets/ | This Expedient Microfiche Reader Illuminates Retro Datasheets | Dan Maloney | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"backlight",
"datasheet",
"hewlett packard",
"lightbox",
"microfiche",
"microfilm",
"microform",
"microscope",
"optical",
"reader"
] | You have to be of a certain vintage to remember doing research on microfilm and microfiche. Before the age of mass digitization of public records, periodicals, and other obscure bits of history, dead-tree records were optically condensed onto fine-grain film, either in roll form or as flat sheets, which were later enlarged and displayed on a specialized reader. This greatly reduced the storage space needed for documents, but it ended up being a technological dead-end once the computer age rolled around.
This was the problem [CuriousMarc] recently bumped into — a treasure trove of Hewlett-Packard component information on microfiche, but no reader for the diminutive datasheets. So naturally,
he built his own microfiche reader
. In a stroke of good luck, he had been gifted a low-cost digital microscope that seemed perfect for the job. The scope, with an HD camera and 5″ LCD screen, was geared more toward reflective than transmissive use, though, so [Marc] had trouble getting a decent picture of the microfiches, even with a white paper backing.
Version 2.0 used a cast-off backlight, harvested from a defunct DVD player screen, as a sort of light box for the stage of the microscope. It was just about the perfect size for the microfiches, and the microscope was able to blow up the tiny characters as well as any dedicated microfiche reader could, at a fraction of the price. Check out the video below for details on the build, as well as what [Marc] learned from the data sheets about his jackpot of HP parts.
With the wealth of data stored on microforms, we’re surprised that we haven’t seen any readers like this before. We have talked about
microscopic wartime mail
, though. | 22 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304747",
"author": "CMH62",
"timestamp": "2020-12-20T17:43:32",
"content": "Neat story. Takes me back to high school/college days having to look up decades old references via those microfiche machines!And oh my, the inventory of HP parts he has at the 1:35 point in the video!!!!!"... | 1,760,373,249.093135 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/20/making-a-little-smalltalk/ | Making A Little Smalltalk | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"alto",
"parc",
"smalltalk",
"Xerox",
"xerox parc"
] | While things like object oriented computing and model-view-controller are old hat these days, when Smalltalk burst on the scene, many people had never heard of these new ideas. While the little language with roots at Xerox and based on Simula never caught fire, it was very influential in a number of ways. Now Smalltalk luminary [Dan Ingalls] has the
Smalltalk Zoo
, a collection of Smalltalk-related items including several historical simulations you can run in your browser.
We were especially impressed with the AltoSmalltalk-72 simulation since our chances of running a real Alto are pretty slim. The JavaScript behind it actually implements the Alto’s Nova instruction set. The emulator then runs a 45-year old memory dump from a real Alto. According to [Dan], there’s no file system and the microcoded music and animation instructions are missing, but he hopes someone will add them as a spare-time project.
There are a few other project suggestions for anyone brave enough to dig into this old software. We found it amusing that the Smalltalk-72 Javascript interpreter runs over 500 times the speed of the original and has “nearly unlimited” object storage.
In Smalltalk everything is an object. With things like the turtle graphics object (@) and you can say things like:
@ go 50 turn 90 go 50 turn 90 go 50 turn 90 go 50\
It is less amusing when someone tells you they sent the + message to the 3 object in order to add something to 3, but that’s object-orientation for you. If you don’t know Smalltalk, try the snippets you can find on the right side of the emulator. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304718",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2020-12-20T13:54:58",
"content": "Squeak and Alice.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6304740",
"author": "Dylan McNamee",
"timestamp": "2020-12-20T16:57:48",
"content": "T... | 1,760,373,248.857111 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/20/a-synth-of-your-own-for-not-a-lot/ | A Synth Of Your Own, For Not A Lot | Jenny List | [
"News"
] | [] | Despite the lingering reality that most of us don’t have what it takes to make it to the upper reaches of the Hit Parade, there remain many who still harbour a secret desire to make music. What better way to realise this dream, than by making [Blog Hoskins’]
$20 MIDI synth project
!
The write-up goes into a staggering level of detail to ensure that it’s accessible at all levels, to the extent that a complete beginner could probably assemble a working synth by following it. For some of the fancier parts of front panel there’s a reliance on a laser cutter, but even without such wizardry the Average Joe with an electric drill could still do a pretty good job.
Behind the panel though it’s not short on features it’s a surprisingly simple design. At its heart is an Arduino Nano, surrounded by potentiometers and switches for user control, and an opto-coupler for the MIDI lines. Sadly for analogue synth fans there’s not much else in the way of circuitry, but the point of a build such as this one is to create a playable instrument with the shortest path to usability. A video full fo those glorious synth sounds is below the break.
MIDI synthesisers are a frequent feature here at Hackaday. A recent favourite is
this four-voice instrument that uses servos as its active element
. | 19 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304682",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2020-12-20T09:14:43",
"content": "No title pic? Which is a shame because it looks good.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6304711",
"author": "Ben Dobson",
"timestamp": "20... | 1,760,373,249.037982 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/19/old-thermostat-gets-smarts/ | Old Thermostat Gets Smarts | Al Williams | [
"home hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"nest",
"raspberry pi",
"thermostat"
] | A smart thermostat is nothing new. But making one built a decade or more ago takes a few tricks. If you want to upgrade your thermostat without replacing it, [geektechniquestudios] shares
their solution
using a Raspberry Pi Zero to smarten up that dumb controller.
The hardware is decidedly simple: just a Pi Zero and a pair of relays. The relays act as button presses to the old thermostat. The software, though, is decidedly complex. There’s a React server and a Redis database along with some other bits and pieces.
The project is a work in progress, so you’ll probably have to figure a bit out for yourself. Even better, there is room to contribute back. In fact, the project page has a wish list of additions including Google home integration, scheduled temperature changes, and a few others.
Fake button presses takes a bit of finesse on the software side. After all, the computer can jam a button many times faster than a human with a mechanical switch can, and that’s bound to confuse an old circuit, especially if it denounces the switches.
This project is relatively simple to some
others
we’ve seen. A Pi Zero is cheap, but we’ve seen similar projects done for even less. For example, a $5 Sonoff box can
do the same job
. | 24 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304659",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2020-12-20T06:11:54",
"content": "Begone, switches! For thou art wrong and despicable!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6304673",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2020-... | 1,760,373,248.931292 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/19/why-your-scanner-has-a-hole-in-it/ | Why Your Scanner Has A Hole In It | Jenny List | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"1G",
"cell phone",
"scanner"
] | The SDR revolution has completely changed the way radio enthusiasts pursue their hobby, but there is still a space for the more traditional scanning receiver. If you are an American, have you ever noticed that it has a gap in its coverage between 800 and 900 MHz?
The curious reason for this is explored by [J. B. Crawford]
, and it’s a tale of dusty laws relating to a long-gone technology, remaining on the books only because their removal requires significant political effort.
What we might today refer to as “1G” phones used an entirely analogue transmission scheme, with an easily-receivable FM carrier for the voice and extremely low-bandwidth bursts of serial data only for the purposes of managing the call. Listening to these calls was an illegal activity, but for those with the appropriate scanners it became a voyeuristic hobby within a hobby. It even made the world news via the pages of the gossip sheets, when (truthfully or not)
it was credited for the leak of a revealing and controversial conversation involving Diana Princess of Wales
.
This caused significant worry to the cellular phone companies who understandably didn’t want their product to become associated with insecurity. Thus they successfully petitioned the US Congress to include a clause restricting the capabilities of scanning receivers into another telecoms-related Act, and here we are three decades later with analogue phones a distant memory and the law still on the books. It may be ancient and unnecessary but there is neither the will nor the resources to remove it, so it seems destined to become one of those curious legal oddities that remains on the books for centuries. Whether an RTL-SDR breaks it is something we’ll leave for the lawyers, but the detail in the write-up makes it well worth a read.
Header image: krystof.k (Twitter) & nmuseum,
CC BY-SA 3.0
. | 51 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304635",
"author": "jcwren",
"timestamp": "2020-12-20T03:05:23",
"content": "A scathingly good example of why ALL laws should have sunset provisions.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6304643",
"author": "wizardpc",
... | 1,760,373,249.306387 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/19/hamster-wheel-tacho-measures-tiny-pet-performance/ | Hamster Wheel Tacho Measures Tiny Pet Performance | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"hamster",
"hamster wheel"
] | Humans often like to monitor their exercise habits with the use of a pedometer, which tracks steps taken during a walk. Such devices are a little cumbersome for smaller creatures however, but no matter. Hamsters tend to get most of their workouts done on a wheel anyway,
so it’s simple enough to instrument the equipment instead.
The build is a simple tachometer, using an infrared emitter and sensor pair to read the rotation speed of the hamster wheel. The wheel itself is light-colored plastic, so a strip of black felt is used to create a non-reflective section, creating a pulse one per revolution that can be read by the Adafruit Feather 32U4 running the show. Data on peak speed and total rotations is available for tracking the exercise habits of the hamster in question, output on a set of 14-segment displays.
It’s a fun project, and one that would be a great way to teach kids about pet care and basic embedded systems. Hamster performance could even be uploaded to the cloud with a more advanced build, and training milestones linked to rewards a la Premier League footballers. At the end of the day, a hamster wheel is just an exercise bike for our four-legged friends,
and we’ve seen those hacked too
. Video after the break. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304650",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2020-12-20T04:52:47",
"content": "Stupid video “Power on”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6304677",
"author": "Jason",
"timestamp": "2020-12-20T08:27:05",
"cont... | 1,760,373,249.204889 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/19/how-researchers-used-salt-to-give-masks-an-edge-against-pathogens/ | How Researchers Used Salt To Give Masks An Edge Against Pathogens | Donald Papp | [
"chemistry hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"bacteria",
"filter",
"mask",
"pandemic",
"pathogen",
"research",
"salt",
"virus"
] | Masks are proven tools against airborne diseases, but pathogens — like the COVID-19 virus — can collect in a mask and survive which complicates handling and disposal. [Ilaria Rubino], a researcher at the University of Alberta, recently received an award for her work showing how
treating a mask’s main filtration layer with a solution of mostly salt and water (plus a surfactant to help the wetting process) can help a mask inactivate pathogens on contact
, thereby making masks potentially re-usable. Such masks are usually intended as single-use, and in clinical settings used masks are handled and disposed of as biohazard waste, because they can contain active pathogens. This salt treatment gives a mask a kind of self-cleaning ability.
Analysis showing homogenous salt coating
(red and green) on the surface of fibers. NaCl is shown here, but other salts work as well.
How exactly does salt help? The very fine salt coating deposited on the fibers of a mask’s filtration layer first dissolves on contact with airborne pathogens, then undergoes evaporation-induced recrystallization. Pathogens caught in the filter are therefore exposed to an increasingly-high concentration saline solution and are then physically damaged. There is a bit of a trick to getting the salt deposited evenly on the polypropylene filter fibers, since the synthetic fibers are naturally hydrophobic, but a wetting process takes care of that.
The salt coating on the fibers is very fine, doesn’t affect breathability of the mask, and has been shown to be effective even in harsh environments. The research paper states that “salt coatings retained the pathogen inactivation capability at harsh environmental conditions (37 °C and a relative humidity of 70%, 80% and 90%).”
Again, the salt treatment doesn’t affect the mask’s ability to filter pathogens, but it does inactivate trapped pathogens, giving masks a kind of self-cleaning ability. Interested in the nuts and bolts of how researchers created the salt-treated filters?
The
Methods
section of the paper
linked at the head of this post (as well as
the
Methods
section in this earlier paper
on the same topic) has all the ingredients, part numbers, and measurements. While you’re at it, maybe
brush up on commercially-available masks and what’s inside them
. | 32 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304586",
"author": "Doobie",
"timestamp": "2020-12-19T21:41:25",
"content": "Masks aren’t reusable? I’ve been using the same mask every day since April. Probably washed about once a month or so.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_i... | 1,760,373,249.51235 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/19/bringing-full-colour-pcb-art-to-production/ | Bringing Full Colour PCB Art To Production | Jenny List | [
"Art",
"Parts"
] | [
"badgelife",
"CampZone",
"UV printer"
] | One of the Holy Grails in the world of electronic badges has been full-colour PCB art as a logical progression from the limited palette of traditional PCB artwork. In the progression towards achieving this goal there have been a variety of techniques applied, and it’s become an expensive commercial possibility rather than an unachievable dream. Has it become practical for mere mortals then? [Tom Clement]
has put together a write-up of his progression towards achieving full-colour PCB artwork on a limited production run
, and it makes for a fascinating read.
The board in question is the Pixel badge, an improved commercial version of
the CampZone 2019 I-Pane badge we reviewed last year
. It’s a very bright large multicolour LED matrix that has caught the eye of campgoers at events ever since the original, and has generated enough demand for a new production run. As well as a few electronic enhancements it replaces the original’s dithered monochrome silkscreen rear art with a full-colour design, and it is that with which the write-up is concerned.
It starts with UV printing, and goes through the various iterations of the process until a satisfactory result is achieved. We learn about the effect of reflow temperatures on UV printing inks, it seems that white ink discolours with temperature and the inventive solution is to transfer all the whites to the PCB silkscreen layer. He closes with a discourse on alignment, and we start to appreciate the achievement behind producing this badge. A colour print isn’t necessary for the Pixel’s eye-searing light show, but the point of badges is as much to show off the cutting edge of the art.
As the regular Hackaday reader will know,
colour PCB art is a long-time topic of interest here at Hackaday
. | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304570",
"author": "WallPhone",
"timestamp": "2020-12-19T20:11:34",
"content": "Quite apt timing, I just randomly came across this silkscreened board designhttps://www.amazon.com/ElectroCookie-Leonardo-ATmega32u4-Arduino-Projects/dp/B07W8MKP2H",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": ... | 1,760,373,249.351487 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/19/label-your-shtuff/ | Label Your Shtuff! | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants"
] | [
"best practices",
"design",
"label",
"resolution",
"theory"
] | Joshua Vasquez wrote a piece a couple of weeks ago about how his open source machine benefits greatly from having
part numbers integrated into all of the 3D printed parts
. It lets people talk exactly about which widget, and which revision of that widget, they have in front of them.
Along the way, he mentions that it’s also a good idea to have labels as an integrated part of the machine anywhere you have signals or connectors. That way, you never have to ask yourself which side is positive, or how many volts this port is specced for. It’s the
“knowledge in the head” versus “knowledge in the world” distinction
— if you have to remember it, you’ll forget it, but if it’s printed on the very item, you’ll just read it.
I mention this because I was beaten twice in the last week by this phenomenon, once by my own hand costing an hour’s extra work, and once by the hand of others, releasing the magic smoke and sending me crawling back to eBay.
The first case is a 3D-printed data and power port, mounted on the underside of a converted hoverboard-transporter thing that I put together for last year’s Chaos Communication Congress. I was actually pretty proud of the design, until I wanted to reflash the firmware a year later.
I knew that I had broken out not just the serial lines and power rails (labelled!) but also the STM32 SWD programming headers and I2C. I vaguely remember having a mnemonic that explained how TX and RX were related to SCK and SDA, but I can’t remember it for the life of me. And the wires snake up under a heatsink where I can’t even trace them out to the chip. “Knowledge in the world”? I failed that, so I spent an hour looking for my build notes. (At least I had
them
.)
Then the smoke came out of an Arduino Mega that I was using with a RAMPS 1.4 board to drive a hot-wire cutting CNC machine. I’ve been playing around with this for a month now, and it was gratifying to see it all up and running, until something smelled funny, and took out a wall-wart power supply in addition to the Mega.
All of the parts on the RAMPS board are good to 36 V or so, so it shouldn’t have been a problem, and the power input is only labelled “5 A” and “GND”, so you’d figure it wasn’t voltage-sensitive and 18 V would be just fine. Of course, you can read online the tales of woe as people smoke their Mega boards, which have a voltage regulator that’s only good to 12 V and is powered for some reason through the RAMPS board even though it’s connected via USB to a computer. To be honest, if the power input were labelled 12 V, I still might have chanced it with 18 V, but at least I would have only myself to blame.
Part numbers are a great idea, and I’ll put that on my list of New Year’s resolutions for 2021. But better labels,
on the device in question
, for any connections, isn’t even going to wait the couple weeks until January. I’m changing that right now.
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
! | 18 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304520",
"author": "Doctor Duck",
"timestamp": "2020-12-19T15:39:57",
"content": "“if you have to remember it, you’ll forget it” And this is why experienced coders write extensive comments: we’ve all been bitten by ‘write only’ code.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"re... | 1,760,373,249.706913 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/19/logitech-joystick-gets-a-mechanical-sidekick/ | Logitech Joystick Gets A Mechanical Sidekick | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"Joystick",
"key",
"keyboard",
"logitech",
"mechanical",
"pcb",
"replacement",
"soldering"
] | The mechanical keyboard rabbit hole is a deep one, and can swallow up as much money and time as you want to spend. If you’ve become spoiled on the touch and responsiveness of a Cherry MX or other mechanical switch, you might even start putting them on other user interfaces as well, such as this
Logitech joystick that now sports a few very usable mechanical keys
for the touch-conscious among us.
The Logitech Extreme 3D Pro that [ErkHal] and friend [HeKeKe] modified to accept the mechanical keys originally had a set of input buttons on the side, but these were unreliable and error-prone with a very long, inconsistent push. Soldering some mechanical switches directly on the existing board was a nice improvement, but the pair decided that they could do even better and rolled out an entire custom PCB to mount the keys more ergonomically. The switches are Kailh Choc V2 Browns and seem to have done a great job of improving the responsiveness of the joystick’s side buttons. If you want to spin up your own version,
they’ve made the PCBs available on their GitHub page
.
While [ErkHal] notes the switches aren’t the best and were only used since they were available, they certainly appear to work much better than what the joystick shipped with originally. In fact, we recently saw
similar switches used to make a custom mechanical keyboard made for the PinePhone
. | 8 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304496",
"author": "Yeshua Watson",
"timestamp": "2020-12-19T13:12:46",
"content": "Not bad for a noob and his adventure down this road will surely continue now that he has added a few tools to his belt. Sigh…I remember my first multimeter, it was garbage compared to the ones I hav... | 1,760,373,249.55758 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/19/protect-your-tomatoes-with-a-9v-battery/ | Protect Your Tomatoes With A 9V Battery | Lewin Day | [
"green hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"garden",
"gardening",
"pest control",
"snail"
] | Growing fresh vegetables at home is a popular pastime, even moreso in a year when we’ve all been locked inside. However pests can easily spoil a harvest, potentially putting a lot of hard work down the drain. [Matt] of [DIY Perks] isn’t one to give up his tomatoes without a fight, however,
and came up with a solution to protect his plants.
The trick is to take advantage of the mildly conductive slime excreted by snails as they travel along the ground. To protect potted plants, [Matt] places two strips of copper tape around the perimeter of the pot, spaced about a centimeter apart. Each strip is connected to one terminal of a 9 V battery. When a snail attempts to cross the strips, it completes a circuit between the two, and the electrical current that flows irritates the snail, forcing it to retreat.
[Matt] notes that no snails were harmed in the making of the video, and that the solution is far kinder to the slimy critters than poisons or traps. He also goes so far as to demonstrate alternative solutions for garden beds, as well.
We’ve more commonly seen [Matt] working with lighting
, though it’s great to see he has a bit of a green thumb, too. Video after the break. | 57 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304462",
"author": "bonzadog",
"timestamp": "2020-12-19T09:13:07",
"content": "I did something very similar but used a 240V to 12V Voltage source and pulsed the Voltage. I got that idea from an electric fence.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,373,249.649964 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/18/edge-mounted-leds-make-this-spherical-pov-look-fantastic/ | Edge-Mounted LEDs Make This Spherical POV Look Fantastic | Dan Maloney | [
"FPGA",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"fpga",
"led",
"persistence of vision",
"POV"
] | For as many of them as we’ve seen, we still love a good persistence of vision display project. There’s something fascinating about the combination of movement and light creating the illusion of solid surfaces, and there’s always fun to be had in electromechanical aspects of a POV build.
This high-resolution spherical POV display
pushes all those buttons, and more.
Called “Flicker” for obvious reasons by its creator [Dan Foisy], this POV display started with a pretty clear set of goals in terms of resolution and image quality, plus the need to support animated images, all in a spherical form factor. These goals dictated the final form of the display — a PCB disc spinning vertically. The shaft has the usual slip rings for power distribution and encoders for position feedback. The PCB, though, is where the interesting stuff is.
[Dan] chose to use an FPGA to slice and dice the images, which are fed from a Raspberry Pi’s HDMI port, to the LED drivers. And the LEDs themselves are pretty slick — he found parts with 1.6 mm lead spacing, making them a perfect fit for mounting on the rim of the PCB rather than on either side. A KiCAD script automated the process of laying out the 256 LEDs and their supporting components as evenly as possible, to avoid imbalance issues.
The video below shows Flicker in action — there are a few problem pixels, but on the whole, the display is pretty stunning. We’ve seen a few other
spherical POV displays
before, but none that look as good as this one does. | 19 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304309",
"author": "richfiles",
"timestamp": "2020-12-18T16:54:13",
"content": "That’s pretty spiffy!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6304320",
"author": "Dan N",
"timestamp": "2020-12-18T17:37:24",
"content": "Awes... | 1,760,373,249.768398 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/18/this-week-in-security-solarwinds-and-fireeye-wordpress-ddos-and-enhance/ | This Week In Security: SolarWinds And FireEye, WordPress DDoS, And Enhance! | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"enhance!",
"Solarwinds",
"This Week in Security"
] | The big story this week is Solarwinds. This IT management company supplies network monitoring and other security equipment, and it seems that malicious code was included in a product update
as early as last spring
. Their equipment is present in a multitude of high-profile networks, like Fireeye, many branches of the US government, and pretty much any other large company you can think of. To say that this supply chain attack is a big deal is an understatement. The blame has initially been placed on APT42, AKA, the Russian hacking pros.
The attack hasn’t been without some positive effects, as Fireeye has
released some of their internal tooling as open source as
a result. Microsoft has led the official response to the attack, managing to
win control of the C&C domain in court, and black-holing it
.
The last wrinkle to this story is
the interesting timing of the sale of some Solarwinds stock
by a pair of investment firms. If those firms were aware of the breech, and sold their shares before the news was made public, this would be a classic case of illegal insider trading.
WordPress Pingback DDoS
It never ceases to amaze me, the clever ways attackers find to misuse features. In this case,
the WordPress pingback function can be used to facilitate a DDoS attack
.
So a bit of history, what is a WordPress pingback? It’s simple. Say you have a wordpress blog where you write a new article. Someone else likes your article enough to link to it on their own WordPress site. If both sites have pingbacks enabled, the wordpress instances will automatically talk to each other, and generate a pingback comment on the original article. It’s clever, but of limited use, so many sites have the feature disabled.
The problem is that an attacker can connect directly to the pingback API of many WordPress sites, and announce a new pingback originating from the target site. Each of those sites will then attempt to open a new connection to verify the pingback announcement, effectively amplifying a DDoS attack.
You might think that your content distribution service will take care of you. Cloudflare and the like can be thought of as a distributed cache. You request a protected site, and the DNS name resolves to one of Cloudflare’s IP addresses. Cloudflare uses some magic routing tricks (
anycast
) to automatically route your connection to their nearest datacenter. Cloudflare can then proxy your connection, or serve cached content during a traffic spike. An important element to this protection is that the public doesn’t connect directly to your server’s IP address, which protects you from the DDoS.
Unless a WordPress site is set up particularly carefully, the pingback response gives away the true IP address, allowing for a trivial bypass. Ouch.
The Worst Security Problem
Cisco got hit by the oldest security bug in the book, back in 2018. This unpatchable vulnerability led to the deletion of 456 VMs and over 16,000 Webex accounts. The price tag on the cleanup came to over two million dollars. What vulnerability was this?
An employee with admin privileges and a grudge.
Five months after leaving Cisco, [Sudish Ramesh] still had valid credentials, which doesn’t reflect well on Cisco’s security practices around HR. Ramesh will serve two years in prison, as well as paying a small fine.
Enhance! — er, Depixelate?
It’s the classic movie trope, present everywhere from Blade Runner to MacGyver —
“Zoom in on that section and enhance the image.”
(Warning, tvtropes.) We love to make fun of this one, but it turns out, there are a few limited instances where it’s possible. [Sipke Mellema] put the work in, and brings us
the Depix tool
. Designed to make a best-guess at the original text behind a pixelated image, assuming that you know the font that it’s written in and some other details, Depix could be a useful tool for extracting passwords and other data from poorly redacted images. For more details,
check his write-up
.
Thanks to [Sevron Kitsune] for sending this one in in the tips line!
OAuth Can Go Wrong
OAuth seems to be one of the better security protocols to be developed in the last few years. You have a Google or Facebook account, and you can use that single sign on to authenticate everywhere. OAuth can even be used to run your own identity service. As good as the protocol is, there are ways for it to go wrong. The good folks at Portswigger bring us
a good overview of OAuth 2.0, as well as the common pitfalls
. | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304292",
"author": "Inhibit",
"timestamp": "2020-12-18T15:44:44",
"content": ">this would be a classic case of illegal insider >trading.Just to clarify; that would depend on how, not when, they figured it out. In this case the two companies investing had a pretty big presence on t... | 1,760,373,249.856447 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/18/building-a-smash-bros-controller-with-keyswitches/ | Building A Smash Bros. Controller With Keyswitches | Lewin Day | [
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed controller",
"controller",
"smash",
"Super Smash Bros."
] | When it comes to competitive fighting games, having the right controller in your hands can make the difference between victory and defeat. Many tournaments have strict rules around controllers for this very reason. [Akaki Kuumeri] has recently put together a custom controller,
aimed at maximising performance in Super Smash Brothers: Ultimate on the Nintendo Switch.
(Video, embedded below.)
The build is assembled in an attractive 3D-printed body, made to be reminiscent of the original Nintendo Entertainment System controller. Inside, a cheap third-party Gamecube controller is used to interface with the console. Mechanical keyboard switches are used to replace the buttons and even the analog sticks, with a special modifier key that enables walking and running across the stage. This is pulled off with a handful of resistors emulating the intermediate position of the analog sticks, and makes pulling off advanced combos easier.
It’s a fun build, and we can imagine the precise digital key inputs having some benefits over analog controls. It also pays to note that such a build wouldn’t be as easy without the ready supply of mechanical key switches thanks to the custom keyboard subculture.
We’ve seen these satisfying switches cropping up in many controller builds in recent times
. | 5 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304250",
"author": "bob",
"timestamp": "2020-12-18T12:17:45",
"content": "When i made a gamepad for megadrive emulators i put all the switches at 45 degrees so the d pad could be smaller as the switch corners would meet in the middle. I laid a keyboard plate over a stomp box case a... | 1,760,373,249.809765 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/18/stacked-material-makes-kitchen-temperature-superconductors/ | Stacked Material Makes Kitchen Temperature Superconductors | Al Williams | [
"News",
"Science"
] | [
"superconductor",
"superconductors"
] | Belgian, Italian, and Australian researchers are proposing that by stacking semiconductor sheets, they should be able to observe superconducting behavior at what is known as “kitchen temperature” or temperatures you could get in a household freezer. That’s not quite as good as room temperature, but it isn’t bad, either. The
paper
is a bit technical but there is a very accessible write-up at
Sci-Tech Daily
that gives a good explanation.
Superconductors show no loss but currently require very cold temperatures outside of a few special cases. The new material exploits the idea that an electron and a hole in a semiconducting material will have a strong attraction to each other and will form a pair known as an exciton. Excitons move in a superfluid state which should exhibit superconductivity regardless of the temperature. However, the attraction is so strong that in conventional materials, the excitons only exist for the briefest blip of time before they cancel each other out.
The new material has layers and manages the holes in one layer and the electrons in the other. The pair will move together but are not in danger of canceling each other out as they stay on their layer. As you might guess, that means one layer has p doping and the next layer will have n doping.
The team claims that their predictions are they will see superconducting currents in these 3D stacks at temperatures up to -3 °C which is only about 26 °F. Cold, but not crazy cold. Liquid nitrogen, for example, is nearly -200 °C and dry ice is about -80 °C. Compared to those, -3 °C is almost balmy.
(Editor’s note: it’s -3 °C outside our house right now.)
The researchers also think they will be able to raise the temperature with more work. As of now, the paper is just a proposal, although the researchers say that building the stacks doesn’t rely on any unusual technology. It will be interesting to see if anyone can implement superconducting materials using this method.
While building this lattice of alternating semiconductor seems hard, we’ve seen hackers do harder things. It is possible to make
superconducting ceramic
that works at relatively high temperatures. We have seen one r
oom-temperature superconductor
, but there’s a big catch to it that makes it pretty impractical for real use. | 35 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304242",
"author": "Julian Silden Langlo",
"timestamp": "2020-12-18T11:02:03",
"content": "-3 °C for a superconductor is fantastic.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6304269",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestam... | 1,760,373,249.930327 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/17/900-degree-racing-wheel-helps-you-nail-the-apex/ | 900-Degree Racing Wheel Helps You Nail The Apex | Lewin Day | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"gaming",
"racing simulation",
"steering wheel"
] | There are many racing wheels on the market for the budding sim enthusiast. Unfortunately, lower end models tend to have a limited range of motion and ship with cheap plastic wheels that don’t feel good in the hand. As always, if what’s on the shelf doesn’t meet your needs, you can always build your own.
[ilge]’s DIY racing wheel build is a great example of how to go about it.
It’s a no-frills build, with an Arduino Leonardo doing the USB Human Interface Device duties in this case. It reads a standard 10K potentiometer via an analog input to determine wheel position. To enable a realistic 900 degrees of motion, unlike the standard 270 degree rotation of the potentiometer, [ilge] uses 3D printed gears of 15 and 54 degrees respectively. This also has the benefit of allowing the wheel to be mounted to a stout bearing for smooth motion. The steering wheel itself is a high quality drift wheel from MOMO, and the benefit of building your own setup is that you can choose whatever wheel you like to taste.
It’s a simple build both mechanically and electronically speaking, but one that serves as a great entry into building a DIY sim for the beginner. We’d love to see further upgrades towards force feedback, or even shift paddles added on the back.
Those looking to go all out can even consider building a motion platform
. Video after the break. | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304189",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2020-12-18T07:20:45",
"content": "” [ilge] uses 3D printed gears of 15 and 54 degrees respectively. ” .. Shouldn’t that be 54 teeth?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6304209",
"author... | 1,760,373,249.985693 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/17/bash-template-promises-safer-scripts/ | BASH Template Promises Safer Scripts | Al Williams | [
"Linux Hacks",
"Software Development",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"bash",
"linux",
"scripting"
] | Many bash scripts start out as something quick and dirty but then become so useful that they live for years, indeed sometimes seeing more use than our traditional programs. Now that you can even run bash well under Windows (although, you’ve always been able to run it there if you tried), there are even more opportunities for your five-minute bash script to proliferate. [Maciej] decided he was tired of always having to patch up his quick and dirty scripts to be more robust, so he created (and shared) his
boilerplate template for scripts
.
Probably most of us have at least some basic template we start with, even if it just our last script project. What’s nice about [Maciej’s] template is that he documents what’s going on with each part of it. It is also relatively short without a lot of excess stuff. Of course, you’ll probably customize it, but it is a great place to start.
The template has a good shell selection line using env and also sets up basic error handling. That includes a trap function that runs on termination and argument parsing including a help message. There’s a oneliner that sets the current directory to the script directory (although you don’t always want that).
The only real excesses in the template are the short example script and a function that sets colors based on the terminal type that you might not need for your script. However, it is nice to print warnings with highlight color when they are not redirected and this code handles that for you.
If you don’t want to bother yanking the code from a web page, the template is also on a
GitHub Gist
. As [Maciej] points out, there are
other similar projects
out there, but some of them are a bit bloated.
If you want to clean up your scripts, try
lint
in the form of ShellCheck. We’ve talked about
writing safer scripts
before and also our own system for
dealing with traps
. | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304166",
"author": "zombie",
"timestamp": "2020-12-18T04:27:02",
"content": "Safer scripts?Use a real language for everything that’s longer than 2-3 VT220 screens.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6304241",
"author": "... | 1,760,373,250.047991 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/17/hypercar-valve-technology-on-a-harbour-freight-engine/ | Hypercar Valve Technology On A Harbour Freight Engine | Danie Conradie | [
"car hacks"
] | [
"ecu",
"engine",
"piston engine",
"piston valve",
"valve"
] | The inlet and exhaust valve timing of a piston engine plays a large role in engine performance. Many modern automotive engines have some sort of variable valve timing, but the valves are still mechanically coupled together and to the crankshaft. This means that there is always a degree of performance compromise for various operating conditions. [Wesley Kagan] took inspiration from Koenigsegg’s camless Freevalve technology, and
converted a Harbour Freight engine to camless technology for individual valve control
.
By eliminating the traditional camshaft and giving each valve its actuator, it is possible to tune valve timing for any specific operating condition or even for each cylinder. A cheap single-cylinder engine is a perfect testbed for the garage hacker. [Wesley] removed the rocker arms and pushrods, and replaced the stock rocker cover with a 3D printed rocker cover which contains two small pneumatic pistons that push against the spring-loaded valve stems. These pistons are controlled by high-speed pneumatic solenoid valves. A reference timing signal is still required from the crankshaft, so [Wesley] built a timing system with a 3D printed timing wheel containing a bunch of embedded magnets and being sensed by a stationary Hall effect sensor. An Arduino is used to read the timing wheel position and output the control signals to the solenoid valves. With a rough timing program he was able to get the engine running, although it wouldn’t accelerate.
In the second video after the break, he makes a
digital copy of the engine’s existing camshaft
. Using two potentiometers in a 3D printed bracket, he measured push rod motion for a complete engine cycle. He still plans to add position sensing for each of the valves, and after a bit more work on the single-cylinder motor he plans to convert a full-size car, which we are looking forward to.
People have been tinkering with cars in their garage for as long as cars have existed. [Lewin Day] has been doing a series on how to
get into tinkering with cars yourself
. With all the electronics in modern automobiles,
messing around with their software
has become a growing part of this age-old pastime. | 45 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304122",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.1",
"timestamp": "2020-12-18T00:07:08",
"content": "I hear a lot of those HF engines are copied Honda designs from the 1970s… which is when Honda were playing around with lean burn and stratified charge… which might be an avenue to explore on them.",
... | 1,760,373,250.127727 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/18/a-camera-slider-with-a-twist/ | A Camera Slider With A Twist | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"camera slider",
"CoreXY",
"differential",
"dolly",
"motion control",
"pan",
"stepper",
"Tilt",
"timing belt"
] | “Scope creep” is often derided as an obstacle between your idea and the delivery of a finished project. That may be, but sometimes the creep is the whole point. It’s how we end up with wonderful builds like
this multi-axis differential camera slider
.
We mention scope creep because that’s what [Jan Derogee] blames for this slider’s protracted development time, as well as its final form. The design is a bit unconventional in that it not only dollies the camera left and right but also works in pan and tilt axes, and it does this without putting any motors on the carriage. Instead, the motors, which are located near the end of the slider rails, transmit power to the carriage via loops of 217timing belt. It’s a little like the
CoreXY
mechanism; rotating the motors in the same direction and speed slides the carriage, while moving them in opposite directions pans the camera. A Sparkfun Pro Micro in the controller coordinates the motors for smooth multi-axis motion, and the three steppers — there’s a separate motor for the tilt axis — sound really cool all working at the same time. Check out the video below for the full story.
We’ve seen a few fun projects from [Jan] before. Check out
his linear clock
, the
persistence of phosphorescence display
, or
his touchpad for retrocomputers
. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304452",
"author": "smerrett79",
"timestamp": "2020-12-19T07:41:52",
"content": "You forgot to mention this scope creep leads to application profusion! This is not just a camera slider, it’s a drum machine, automatic kitchen assistant, cat toy and more!",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,373,250.323992 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/18/a-bullet-for-the-digital-you/ | A Bullet For The Digital You | Matthew Carlson | [
"Art"
] | [
"ESP32",
"online",
"Social Media"
] | Harkening back to a not-so-distant past where duels settled arguments, [Joris Wegner] put a twist on the idea of quarrels with a
gun that damages your online persona rather than your physical one
. The controversy of social media is nothing new, but most people today have a large percentage of their lives online. A gun that can destroy your social media by deleting your account feels far more potent than most would like to admit.
At the heart of this build, each gun contains a battery-powered ESP8266 that connects to another ESP8266 in the gun case, which in turn is connected to a computer. When a trigger is pulled, the computer deletes the Facebook account with the credentials stored on the gun. It offers a new look at the importance of one’s social media presence. While the concept of being attacked on social media is nothing new, the idea of digitally dying on social media is perhaps something new. This particular project was put on hold when [Joris] realized that Facebook accounts can be reactivated after 30 days, which renders the gesture less potent.
Playful and
interesting twists on the idea of a gun
are nothing new here on Hackaday. We’ve seen also [Joris’] work before with a
MIDI-controlled video distortion box
. | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304427",
"author": "James",
"timestamp": "2020-12-19T03:24:40",
"content": "Re: the 30 day recovery, as well as the delete, the code could change the account password to something random and change the email address to prevent recovery.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,373,250.378342 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/18/machining-without-machines/ | Machining Without Machines | Bryan Cockfield | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"drill press",
"ecm",
"electricity",
"electrochemical machining",
"electrolyte",
"machine",
"solution"
] | It’s a luxury to be able to access a modern machine shop, complete with its array of lathes, mills, and presses. These tools are expensive though, and take up a lot of space, so if you want to be able to machine hard or thick metals without an incredible amount of overhead you’ll need a different solution. Luckily you can bypass the machines in some situations
and use electricity to do the machining directly
.
This project makes use of a process known as electrochemical machining and works on the principle that electricity passed through an electrolyte solution will erode the metal that it comes in contact with. With a well-designed setup, this can be used to precisely machine metal in various ways. For [bob]’s use this was pretty straightforward, since he needed to enlarge an existing hole in a piece of plate steel, so he forced electrolyte through this hole while applying around half an amp of current in order to make this precise “cut” in the metal, avoiding the use of an expensive drill press.
There are some downsides to the use of this process as [bob] notes in his build, namely that any piece of the working material that comes in contact with the electrolyte will be eroded to some extent. This can be mitigated with good design but can easily become impractical. It’s still a good way to avoid the expense of some expensive machining equipment, though, and
similar processes can be used for other types of machine work as well
. | 22 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304402",
"author": "Rumble_in_the_Jungle",
"timestamp": "2020-12-19T00:07:26",
"content": "As always Ben was on track once before:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpHYBz7ToII",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6304480",
"... | 1,760,373,250.274663 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/18/over-engineered-bottle-opener-takes-the-drudgery-out-of-drinking/ | Over-Engineered Bottle Opener Takes The Drudgery Out Of Drinking | Dan Maloney | [
"Beer Hacks"
] | [
"beer",
"elastic",
"impulse",
"lead screw",
"opener",
"pawl",
"surgical tubing"
] | Some projects take but a single glance for you to know what inspired them in the first place. For
this over-engineered robotic bottle opener
, the obvious influence was a combination of abundant free time and beer. Plenty of beer.
Of course there are many ways to pop the top on a tall cold one, depending on the occasion. [Matt McCoy] and his cohorts selected the “high-impulse” method, which when not performed by a robot is often accomplished by resting the edge of the cap on a countertop and slapping the bottle down with the palm of one’s hand. This magnificently pointless machine does the same thing, except with style.
The bottle is placed in a cradle which grips it, gently but firmly, and presents it to the opening mechanism in a wholly unnecessary motion-control ballet. Once in place, a lead screw moves a carriage down, simultaneously storing potential energy in a bundle of elastic surgical tubing while tripping a pawl on the edge of the cap. A lever trips at the bottom of the carriage’s travel, sending the pawl flying upward to liberate the libation, giving the robot a well-deserved and sudsy showers. Behold the wonderful interplay of 190 custom parts — and beer — in the video below.
Hats off to [Matt]
et al
for their tireless efforts on behalf of beleaguered beer-openers everywhere. This seems like the perfect accessory to go along with a game of
mind-controlled beer pong
. | 15 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304370",
"author": "Mungojerry",
"timestamp": "2020-12-18T21:19:13",
"content": "I would argue it is not over engineered as if it was then it wouldn’t spill beer etc. I’d say its more chindogu. And nothing wrong with that!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,373,250.647862 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/18/remoticon-video-how-to-3d-print-onto-fabric-with-billie-ruben/ | Remoticon Video: How To 3D Print Onto Fabric With Billie Ruben | Kerry Scharfglass | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"cons"
] | [
"2020 Hackaday Remoticon",
"3d prining",
"clothing",
"composite",
"cosplay",
"costume",
"fabric",
"flexible printing",
"jewelry",
"workshop"
] | We’re impressed to see the continued flow of new and interesting ways to utilize 3D printing despite its years in the hacker limelight. At the 2020 Hackaday Remoticon [Billie Ruben] came to us from across the sea to demonstrate how to use 3D printing and fabric, or other flexible materials, to fabricate new and interesting creations. Check out her workshop below, and read on for more detail about what you’ll find.
The workshop is divided into two parts, a hands-on portion where participants execute a fabric print at home on their own printer, and a lecture while the printers whirr away describing ways this technique can be used to produce strong, flexible structures.
The technique described in the hands on portion can be clumsily summarized as “print a few layers, add the flexible material, then resume the printing process”. Of course the actual explanation and discussion of how to know when to insert the material, configure your slicer, and select material is significantly more complex! For the entire process make sure to follow along with [Billie]’s clear instructions in the video.
The lecture portion of the workshop was a whirlwind tour of the ways which embedded materials can be used to enhance your prints. The most glamourous examples might be printing scales, spikes, and other accoutrement for cosplay, but beyond that it has a variety of other uses both practical and fashionable. Embedded fabric can add composite strength to large structural elements, durable flexibility to a living hinge, or a substrate for new kinds of jewelry. [Billie] has deep experience in this realm and she brings it to bear in a comprehensive exposition of the possibilities. We’re looking forward to seeing a flurry of new composite prints! | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304353",
"author": "Blake Schreurs",
"timestamp": "2020-12-18T20:05:58",
"content": "Video is marked private?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6304361",
"author": "Tom Nardi",
"timestamp": "2020-12-18T20:45:24"... | 1,760,373,250.587518 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/18/basics-of-remote-cellular-access-choosing-a-modem/ | Basics Of Remote Cellular Access – Choosing A Modem | Lewin Day | [
"hardware",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"3g",
"4g",
"cellular data",
"cellular data connection",
"HSPA",
"LTE",
"remote access",
"UMTS"
] | These days, we’re blessed with cellular data networks that span great swathes of the Earth. By and large, they’re used to watch TV shows and argue with strangers online. However, they’re also a great tool to use to interact with hardware in remote locations, particularly mobile ones where a wired connection is impractical.
In this series, we’re taking a look at tips and tricks for doing remote cellular admin the right way. First things first, you’ll need a data connection – so let’s look at choosing a modem.
Options Abound
When shopping around for cellular data modems, it can be difficult to wade through the variety of options out there and find something fit for purpose. Modems in this space are often marketed for very specific use cases; at the consumer level, many are designed to be a no-fuss home broadband solution, while in the commercial space, they’re aimed primarily to provide free WiFi for restaurants and cafes. For use in remote admin, the presence of certain features can be critical, so it pays to do your research before spending your hard earned money. We’ve laid out some of the common options below.
Consumer Models
The Sierra Aircard 320U is ancient now, with limited frequency bands available. Its flimsy flexible connector is also a drawback. However, its ease of configuration with Linux systems makes it a dream to use in remote access situations. Unlike many others, it acts as a Direct IP connection, not appearing as a separate router.
Many telecommunications providers around the world sell cheap USB dongles for connecting to the Internet, with these first becoming popular with the rise of 3G. They’re somewhat less common now in the 5G era, with the market shifting more towards WiFi-enabled devices that share internet among several users. These devices can often be had for under $50, and used on prepaid and contract data plans.
These devices are often the first stop for the budding enthusiast building a project that needs remote admin over the cellular network. However, they come with certain caveats that can make them less attractive for this use. Aimed at home users, they are often heavily locked down with firmware that provides minimal configuration options. They’re generally unable to be set up for port forwarding, even if you can convince your telco to give you a real IP instead of carrier-grade NAT. Worse, many appear to the host computer as a router themselves, adding another layer of NAT that can further complicate things. Perhaps most frustratingly, with these telco-delivered modems, the model number printed on the box is often not a great guide as to what you’re getting.
A perfect example is the Huawei E8327. This comes in a huge number of sub-models, with various versions of the modem operating in different routing modes, on different bands, and some even omitting major features like external antenna connectors. Often, it’s impossible to know exactly what features the device has until you open the box and strip the cover off, at which point you’re unable to return the device for your money back.
All is not lost, however. The use of VPNs can help get around NAT issues, and for the more adventurous, some models even have custom firmware available on the deeper, darker forums on the web. For the truly cash strapped, they’re a viable option for those willing to deal with the inevitable headaches. There are generally some modems that stand out over others in this space for configurability and ease of use. This writer has had great success with a now-aging Sierra Aircard 320U, while others
have found luck with the Huawei E3372-607
. As per earlier warnings though, you don’t want to accidentally end up with an E3372-608 – thar be dragons.
Commercial and Industrial Hardware
For those who don’t wish to muck around, more serious hardware is naturally available. Commercial and industrial grade equipment naturally comes at a higher cost, but is usually fully unlocked to configure as you please. This also avoids the pain of SIM locks, allowing you to use any network you so desire.
Going with industrial-grade hardware means you get other nice-to-haves, like full-size antenna connectors and rack mounting capability.
At the lower end, products like the
Sixfab LTE Base Hat
provide a straightforward cellular data connection with a minimum of fuss. Depending on the exact companion parts chosen, it can be set up to suit a variety of regions around the world and optimized for low power consumption or high throughput. At the higher end, you can have just about any set of features you so desire, as long as your pocket book is large enough.
Dual SIM options
bring the benefit of fail-over capability to keep your remote system online when signal is poor,
while others pack in multiple LAN ports to support many systems.
There are even devices on the market specially designed to
remotely monitor serial terminal hardware over 4G/LTE with a minimum of fuss.
Most devices at this level also feature support for VPNs built in, making it easier to access your remote machines as if they’re on a local network.
At this level, you’ll usually have the benefit of being able to talk to a dealer or retailer about exactly what features you need before you buy. This is in stark contrast to trawling obscure forums for information on consumer cards, and for any serious engineering purposes where time is money, this is the way to go. Such hardware is (usually) better supported by the manufacturer, too, as it’s expected you’ll be using it in a situation that requires high uptime and good reliability.
Summary
In the end, the hardware you decide to use will come down to your use case. If you’re working on a serious project that needs to
work,
choosing the proper industrial hardware will be the way to go. If you’re having fun with a remote build as a hacker or maker, saving a few bucks might make up for a little hassle in getting things up and running. Of course, the Hackaday community is full of people who have
been there and built that
, so be sure to sound off in the comments with your best recommendations for picking the right cellular modem. Happy hacking! | 23 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304329",
"author": "barnicleBill",
"timestamp": "2020-12-18T18:19:42",
"content": "No cellular dev boards? Check out the particle boards – great if you just need <1MB per month",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6304385",
... | 1,760,373,250.725166 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/18/hackaday-podcast-098-chinas-moon-rocks-antikythera-revelations-creality-vs-octoprint-and-rc-starship/ | Hackaday Podcast 098: China’s Moon Rocks, Antikythera Revelations, Creality Vs Octoprint, And RC Starship | Tom Nardi | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Tom Nardi contemplate a few of the most interesting stories that made their way through the tubes this week. We’ll learn how old VHS tapes can be turned into a unique filament for your 3D printer, and realize that the best way to learn about a 2,000 year old computer is to break out the hand drill and make one yourself. Hobby grade RC gear and a some foam board stand in for SpaceX’s next-generation Mars spacecraft, and a manufacturer of cheap 3D printers attempts to undercut a popular open source project with hilarious results. Finally, we’ll take a close look at some hidden aluminum boogers and discuss how China’s history making trek to the Moon might be a prelude to the country making a giant leap of their own.
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
(60 MB)
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
Google Podcasts
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
Episode 098 Show Notes:
New This Week:
Russian Doomsday Radios Go Missing
Stolen Tech: The Soviet Space Shuttle
Chinese Capsule Returns to Earth Carrying Moon Rocks
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
RC Starship Perfects Its Skydiving Routine
3D Printing With VHS Tape Filament
Hacker’s Discovery Changes Understanding Of The Antikythera Mechanism
Creality WiFi Takes On Octoprint
Teardown: Recon Sentinel
Dead Simple Time-Domain Reflectometry With Just A Battery And An Oscilloscope
Pi Compute Module Is Love-child Of Raspberry And Arduino
Easy Carrier Board For The Compute Module 4 Shows You Can Do It, Too
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Tunes You Can Eat
A 3D – To – 2D Converter To Make Plots From STLs.
IRC Over LoRa, For When Things Really Go South
Tom’s Picks:
Little Red Night Light Is Just Right
Slick DIY Compound Bow Uses Coiled Springs, Toothbrush Heads
Real Hackers Videoconference In Terminal
Can’t-Miss Articles:
China’s Moon Mission Was About More Than Rocks
Peeking Inside A VW Gearbox Reveals Die Casting Truths | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,373,250.424223 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/17/adaptive-macro-pad-uses-tiny-oled-screens-as-keycaps/ | Adaptive Macro-Pad Uses Tiny OLED Screens As Keycaps | Dan Maloney | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"adaptive",
"hid",
"icons",
"input",
"keyboard",
"keycap",
"keypad",
"macro",
"oled"
] | When we first laid eyes on
Keybon, the adaptive macro keyboard
, we sort of wondered what the big deal was. It honestly looked like any other USB macro keyboard, with big icons for various common tasks on the chunky keys. But looks can be deceiving, and [Max Kern] worked a couple of surprises into Keybon.
First of all, each one of Keybon’s buttons is actually a tiny OLED display, making the keycaps customizable through software. Each of the nine 0.66″ displays has a resolution of 64 x 48 pixels, which is plenty for all kinds of icons, and each is mounted over an SMD pushbutton switch. He had to deal with the problem of the keycaps just wobbling around atop the switch button without depressing it; this was solved with a 3D-printed cantilever frame that forced the keycaps to pivot only in one axis, resulting in clean, satisfyingly clicky keypresses.
The other trick that Keybon has is interactivity. By itself, it boots up with a standard set of icons and sends the corresponding keystrokes over USB. But when used with its companion Windows application, the entire macro set can be switched out to accommodate whatever application is being used. This gives the users access to custom macros for a web browser, EDA suite, CAD applications, or an IDE. The app supports up to eight macro sets and can be seen in action in the video below.
We love the look and the functionality [Max.K] has built into Keybon, but we wonder if e-ink displays would be a good choice for the keycaps too. They’re available for a song as
decommissioned store shelf price tag
s now, and they might be nice since the icon would persist without power. | 21 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304089",
"author": "UnderSampled",
"timestamp": "2020-12-17T21:23:13",
"content": "Reminds me of the Optimus Maximus. That was so impressive when it was first announced — and that was before every coder and gamer cared their choice of mechanical keyboard.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/... | 1,760,373,250.792912 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/17/remoticon-video-how-to-use-max-in-your-interactive-projects/ | Remoticon Video: How To Use Max In Your Interactive Projects | Mike Szczys | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns",
"how-to",
"Slider",
"Software Development"
] | [
"2020 Hackaday Remoticon",
"graphical programming",
"max",
"pure data",
"workshop"
] | When you want to quickly pull together a combination of media and user interaction, looking to some building blocks for the heavy lifting can be a lifesaver. That’s the idea behind Max, a graphical programming language that’s gained a loyal following among anyone building art installations, technology demos (think children’s museum), and user Kiosks.
Guy Dupont gets us up to speed with a
how to get started with Max workshop
that was held during the 2020 Hackaday Remoticon. His crash course goes through the basics of the program, and provides a set of sixteen demos that you can play with to get your feet under you. As he puts it, if you need sound, video, images, buttons, knobs, sensors, and Internet data for both input and output, then Max is worth a look. Video of the workshop can be found below.
Head on over to the workshop page
where you can download the examples from the files section.
Max
is a commercial program which has a free trial period. Guy points out that its sibling program,
Pure Data
, is free and open source, it will run on almost anything, but comparing it to Max is like like driving stick versus driving an automatic. If you have first-hand experience using both of these programs, we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
Anyone familiar with graphical programming languages will feel right at home with Max. Blocks are dragged into a workspace and connected with wires between inputs and outputs. There are a multitude of blocks available for everything you can possibly imagine. Included in some demonstrations are advanced interactivity features like accepting commands from chat messages on Twitch, triggering from IFTTT, and adding interactivity between different Max instances on the same wireless network.
The example shown in the image at the top of this article
is webcam input. When Guy holds up the pink sign it unmutes his microphone, when he puts it down it is muted again. It’s the digital equivalent of having
a talking stick
during your Zoom calls. Guy’s recommendation for those looking for hardware interactivity is to utilize serial, or leverage MIDI control.
This quick start will get anyone up and running, no matter your previous experience. As an example of the shenanigans you can eventually get yourself into, Guy closes the session by showing off a shift register he modeled in Max, all the way down to the NAND gates. If you want to check out some of Guy’s other work, we loved his
Bonnaroo Jukebox
and his recreation of the
Wurlitzer note visualizer
. | 14 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304060",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2020-12-17T20:11:41",
"content": "Ah programming to…the MAX!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6304090",
"author": "Wibble",
"timestamp": "2020-12-17T21:24:55",
"content": ... | 1,760,373,250.85288 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/17/how-to-get-into-cars-drag-racing-mods/ | How To Get Into Cars: Drag Racing Mods | Lewin Day | [
"car hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"car hacks",
"cars",
"drag",
"drag racing"
] | While some love to carve up mountain roads, and others relish the challenge of perfectly apexing every corner at the track, many crave a different challenge. Drag racing is a sport all about timing, finesse, and brute power. Like any other discipline in motorsport, to compete you’ll need a vehicle finely honed for the task at hand. Here’s how you go about getting started on your first quarter-mile monster.
It’s All About Power, Right?
It’s true that if you want to go faster, having more power on tap is a great way to do it. If that’s what you’re looking for, we’ve covered that topic in detail – for both the
naturally aspirated
and
forced induction fans.
However, anyone that’s been to the drag strip before will tell you that’s only part of the story. All of the power in the world isn’t worth jack if you can’t get it down to the ground. Even if you can, you’ve still got to keep your steering wheels planted if you intend to keep your nose out of the wall. So, if you want more power, consider the articles linked above. For everything else that’s important in drag racing, read on below.
A Special Kind Of Rubber
A set of drag radials will help drop your times while maintaining eligibility for street car classes. While they’re DOT-legal, you really don’t want to drive on these every day. They’ll wear quickly and give very little grip in the rain.
As in all motorsports, tyres are key to your success at the drag strip. The economy rubber on your grandma’s hand-me-down grocery getter will get you through a run-what-you-brung night for newbies, but if you’re serious, it’s the first thing you’re going to have to change. It’s almost never worth spending money on other modifications if you don’t have a good set of tyres, because your tyres are what connects your car to the track surface. If they don’t hook up, you’re not going anywhere.
For ultimate performance, you’ll want a dedicated set of drag slicks. These have a completely smooth tread for the maximum contact area with the ground. However, if you’re just starting out, these track-only tyres are probably overkill, and are often disallowed from most streetcar classes. For the beginner,
getting a set of DOT-approved drag radials is more common
. Legal for road use, they let you fit the wheels in your garage and drive to the track, and ideally drive back home again, too. Made of sticky rubber and with a tread pattern that aims to optimise performance while still meeting the letter of the law, it’s not recommended to drive around on these on a daily basis. Having a second set of wheels with your drag tyres on can be helpful if you’re regularly using the car on the street.
To get the most out of your tyres, follow the manufacturer’s recommendations for use, particularly in the areas of tyre pressure and warmup regime. Many people head out to the strip and insist on doing a big, smoky burnout before every run. As fun as this is, it’s not the best way to get good performance and life out of your tyres. Often, care and consistency is the key to unlocking fast times.
Staying Planted
Traction bars are a popular mod to vehicles with solid-rear axles. They help prevent spring wrap and wheel hop, allowing for smoother, faster launches.
With a good set of tyres and plenty of power under the hood, you’re well on the way to reducing your ET (elapsed time). There’s more that can be done, however. Improving suspension setup can help the car launch harder, and enable it to put power down more reliably with less wheelspin.
Of course, the mods available depend on the suspension design of your particular vehicle. Those with a traditional American muscle car with a solid rear axle
will look towards devices like traction bars to help keep the rear wheels planted
, while experimenting with pinion angle and preload to help further.
A set of double-adjustable shocks are also a popular upgrade
which are also applicable for vehicles with independent rear suspension, allowing rebound and compression to be tuned for the best possible hook-up off the line. Front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive cars will want adjustable shocks too, though settings will be different from the more typical rear-wheel drive drag cars. Weight distribution also plays a major role. Many racers go so far as relocating batteries, intercoolers and even radiators to put more weight over the driven wheels.
Weight Reduction
Sport Compact car dropped two full seconds in the quarter-mile by stripping this Sentra bare. Realistically, few drag strips would allow a car to run in this condition.
Basic physics tells us that acceleration is proportional to force divided by mass. Reduce the mass, and you’ll increase the rate of acceleration. On a basic level, this is as simple as removing unnecessary weight from the car. Things like passenger seats, carpets, door trims, radios, and air conditioning systems can all be removed to shed pounds. At the more extreme level,
one can go so far as hacking off the roof and removing doors
, but most competitors have more conservative limits.
Other areas where weight can be saved are less obvious, but no less important. Drag cars need to stop, but generally only hit the brakes at the end of a run before a long cooldown period.
Special drag racing brake kits are available that shave pounds off stock parts.
Steering is also not a major concern,
so skinny wheels on the non-driven wheels are a popular mod, too.
Nitrous, a.k.a NAWWWSSSSS
Basic nitrous kits are easy to install and provide a serious boost in horsepower for a short time – making them perfectly suited to drag racing. However, go overboard and you’ll quickly turn your engine into a boat anchor.
Building an engine with stout internals is an expensive, time consuming exercise, and even the cheapest eBay turbo kits take a lot of work to install. Thankfully, there’s a cheaper alternative to these difficult endeavours, and it comes in bottle! Nitrous oxide is a powerful oxidizing agent, and thus by injecting it in to your engine, you can also add more fuel, and make a bunch more power.
It’s a cheap and easy way to add 50 to 100 horsepower. Installation is typically fairly easy, with wet systems requiring a bottle install, along with a pair of nozzles to inject nitrous oxide and fuel into the intake of your engine. This gives you that classic red-button power boost
made so famous by
The Fast and the Furious
.
However, it does come at the risk of causing catastrophic engine damage, due to the sudden increase in cylinder pressures when the system is fired. Even if your engine holds up, you might find you quickly burn up a clutch or transmission as a result of the extra torque output. Doing your research on how nitrous effects your car is key to avoiding blowing a motor in front of a jeering crowd at the drag strip.
Transmission
Installing a spool differential often only costs a few hundred dollars, and helps put power down evenly, unlike an open differential. However, they seriously compromise handling and driveability day to day.
An often-overlooked part of the car when it comes to drag racing is the transmission. If you’re running an automatic transmission,
swapping in a torque converter with the optimum stall speed can help you launch the car harder without stumbling off the line
.
Swapping in a ratcheting shifter is also a popular mod
, allowing the car to be slammed through the gears without accidentally missing a shift or dropping into neutral. For manual-equipped cars, fitting a suitable clutch that can handle high-power launches will help. You’ll also want to consider
a spool or locking differential
, to ensure you’re putting power down equally to your driven wheels.
Outside of the transmission itself, changing the final drive ratio can help the car accelerate faster and stay in its powerband longer. The final drive ratio is affected by tyre diameter as well as the differential gearing; changing either one will have an effect on how the car performs. A lower gear ratio, achieved by swapping to a differential with a higher numerical ratio or fitting smaller tyres, will allow the car to accelerate quicker. However, go too low, and you’ll be changing gears too often, costing time. A higher gear ratio, achieved by fitting larger tyres or swapping to a diff with a lower numerical ratio, can allow the car to go faster in each gear, but will accelerate slower. Getting the ratio just right is key to nailing the fastest possible ET.
Summary
Drag racing is a sport of optimisation. After a few runs, you’ll quickly start to identify weaknesses in your car and your own technique. By picking an area to work on, you’ll be able to find some time in the quarter-mile and also build consistency. Often, fixing one area will then lead to identifying further areas of weakness, and you and your car can develop over time. Pay attention to each run, and don’t be afraid to ask questions and learn from others along the way. You’ll pick up a lot just from observing others at the track and finding out what works and what doesn’t. Stay safe out there, wear your helmet, and of course, happy hacking! | 20 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304049",
"author": "Johnny",
"timestamp": "2020-12-17T19:25:02",
"content": "I like these! Always thought it would be fun to have a car mechanic bootcamp like course similar to the coding bootcamps but you bring a car in and they teach you how to take it apart and upgrade it or wha... | 1,760,373,250.930336 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/17/animatronic-saturn-v-launch-tower-sends-lego-model-to-the-moon/ | Animatronic Saturn V Launch Tower Sends Lego Model To The Moon | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Space"
] | [
"animatronic",
"apollo",
"gantry",
"launchpad",
"lego",
"neopixel",
"saturn v",
"servo",
"stepper"
] | When it comes to their more adult-oriented models, Lego really knocked it out of the park with their Saturn V rocket model. Within the constraints of the universe of Lego parts, the one-meter-tall model is incredibly detailed, and thousands of space fans eagerly snapped up the kit when it came out.
But a rocket without a launchpad is just a little sad, which is why [Mark Howe] came up with
this animatronic Saturn V launch pad and gantry
for his rocket model. The level of detail in the launchpad complements the features of the Saturn V model perfectly, and highlights just what it took to service the crew and the rocket once it was rolled out to the pad. As you can imagine, extensive use of 3D-printed parts was the key to getting the look just right, and to making parts that actually move.
When it’s time for a launch, the sway control arm and hammerhead crane swing out of the way under servo control as the Arduino embedded in the base plays authentic countdown audio. The crew catwalk swings away, the engines light, and the service arms swing back. Then for the
pièce de résistance
, the Saturn V begins rising slowly from the pad on five columns of flame. [Mark] uses a trio of steppers driving linear actuators to lift the model; the flame effect is cleverly provided by strings of WS2812s inside five clear plastic tubes. We have to say it took some guts to put the precious 1,969-piece model on a lift like that, but the effect was well worth the risk.
This project has a great look and is obviously a labor of love, and a great homage to the Apollo program’s many successes. We’ve got a ton of other Apollo-era hacks on our pages, including
a replica DSKY
,
a rejuvenated AGC
, and
a look behind the big boards of mission control
. | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304021",
"author": "rclark",
"timestamp": "2020-12-17T17:07:16",
"content": "That is downright cool. Mine is simply laying sideways on a shelf in my study. Yours is much more awesome :) .",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6304... | 1,760,373,250.9875 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/17/tech-hidden-in-plain-sight-the-ballpoint-pen/ | Tech Hidden In Plain Sight: The Ballpoint Pen | Kristina Panos | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"ballpoint",
"ballpoint pen",
"bic",
"biro",
"fountain pen",
"Lázló Bíró",
"Marcel Bich",
"pen"
] | Would you pay $180 for a new type of writing instrument? Image via
The New York Times
On a crisp fall morning in late October 1945, approximately 5,000 shoppers rushed the 32
nd
street Gimbel’s department store in New York City like it was Black Friday at Walmart.
Things got so out of hand that fifty additional NYPD officers were dispatched to the scene
. Everyone was clamoring for the hottest new technology – the ballpoint pen.
This new pen cost $12.50, which is about $180 today. For many people, the improved experience that the ballpoint promised over the fountain pen was well worth the price. You might laugh, but if you’ve ever used a fountain pen, you can understand the need for something more rugged and portable.
Ballpoint pens are everywhere these days, especially cheap ones. They’re so ubiquitous that we don’t have to carry one around or really think about them at all. Unless you’re into pens, you’ve probably never marveled at the sheer abundance of long-lasting, affordable, permanent writing instruments that are around today. Before the ballpoint, pens were a messy nuisance.
A Revolutionary Pen
A ballpoint, up close and personal. Image via
Wikipedia
Fountain pens use gravity and capillary action to evenly feed ink from a cartridge or reservoir down into the metal nib. The nib is split in two tines and allows ink to flow forth when pressed against paper. It’s not that fountain pens are that delicate. It’s just that they’re only about one step above dipping a nib or a feather directly into ink.
There’s no denying that fountain pens are classy, but you’re playing with fire if you put one in your pocket. They can be a bit messy on a good day, and the cheap ones are prone to leaking ink. No matter how nice of a fountain pen you have, it has to be refilled fairly frequently, either by drawing ink up from a bottle into the pen’s bladder or inserting a new cartridge. And you’re better off using it as often as possible, since a dormant fountain pen will get clogged with dried ink.
Early ballpoint pens were modeled after fountain pens, aesthetically speaking. They had metal bodies and refillable reservoirs that only needed a top-up every couple of years, compared to once a week or so for fountain pens. Instead of a nib, ballpoints have a tiny ball bearing made of steel, brass, or tungsten carbide. These pens rely on gravity to bathe the ball in ink, which allows it to glide around in the socket like a tiny roll-on deodorant.
Bíró’s US Patent for the ballpoint. Image via
US Patent #2390636
Biro’s Biros
Although Milton Reynolds beat everyone else to market in the States, his was not the first ballpoint pen ever
. That honor belongs to a lawyer named John Loud, who
patented a rolling ball pen in 1888
. Loud wanted a pen that would write on anything from wood to leather. His revolving steel ball design was just the ticket. The only problem was that it was too rough for paper.
Many inventors tried to improve on Loud’s design over the next few decades, but nobody could get the ink right. That was until László Bíró, a Hungarian journalist, decided to try creating an ink that dried much faster, like newspaper ink. He got his brother György involved, and he developed a more viscous ink.
Bíró patented the pen in Britain in 1938, but World War Two forced the Jewish brothers to flee to Argentina in 1941. With the help of a fellow escapee named Juan Jorge Meyne, they relaunched the pen in 1943 from their new home country, where it was known as the
birome,
derived from the two last names. In many European countries,
biro
is still used today as a catchall term for ballpoint pens.
In 1945, two US companies teamed up and bought the rights to sell the pens in North and Central America, but they were too slow. American businessman Milton Reynolds had seen the
birome
on a business trip to Buenos Aires and bought several of them. He changed László Bíró’s design enough to avoid patent infringement and made it to market before Eberhard Faber and Eversharp could get pens in consumers’ hands.
The bestselling pen in the world. Image via
Wikipedia
Life in Plastic, It’s Fantastic
László Bíró may have invented the first practical ballpoint pen, but it was Marcel Bich who turned the ballpoint into the dime a dozen commodity it is today. In the mid-1940s, he bought an old factory near Paris and started cranking out pens under his new company, Societe Bic. Bich’s BiCs cost a fraction of other ballpoint pens. By adding disposability, Bich turned the ballpoint pen from a premium product to an everyman essential.
The BiC Cristal was first introduced in 1950. It sold its 100 billionth unit in 2006, making it the bestselling pen in the world. Little has changed about the design, which features a hexagonal body like a pencil, and a tiny hole to equalize pressure inside the pen so it won’t leak. At this point, you might be wondering how the Fisher space pen can write without gravity. The answer is in the special pressurized cartridge that allows it to write anywhere from any angle, even underwater.
The next big advancement in pens was making them retractable. There are many different retractable pen designs these days, ranging from simple to complex. In this excellent video, [engineerguy] explains the inner workings of a 1954 Parker Jotter, one of the first retractable ballpoint pens. It’s an eight-step process that involves a plunger, a cam body, and a pair of stop members that are fixed in place as part of the barrel.
I love pens, and I have a fairly sizable collection of them. It’s amusing to me that we’ve come full circle and have disposable fountain pens now, especially since they’re some of my favorites to write with.
Next time you use a pen, think about how portable they are now. Odds are good that it won’t leak, skip, or even run out of ink before you lose it. | 125 | 40 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303991",
"author": "Ronny",
"timestamp": "2020-12-17T15:36:58",
"content": "My personal favourite pens are Uni Ball Micro Eye UB-150 (home) and Pilot G2 0.7 (work). I really like UB-150, and have spread them out to family and friends. Several have started using them instead of chea... | 1,760,373,251.187471 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/17/fancy-filament-joiner-has-promise-but-ultimately-fails/ | Fancy Filament Joiner Has Promise, But Ultimately Fails | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer filament",
"filament",
"filament joiner"
] | [Proper Printing] has been trying to 3D print rims for his car for quite some time. However, the size of the print has led to problems with filament spools running out prior to completion. This led to endless headaches trying to join several smaller lengths of filament in order to make a single larger spool. After his initial attempts by hand failed,
a rig was built to try and bring some consistency to the process.
(Video, embedded below.)
The rig consists of a heater block intended to melt the ends of two pieces of filament so that they can be fused together. A cheap set of brass calipers was modified with a tube in order to form a guide for the filament, ensuring that it gets bonded neatly without flaring out to a larger size. Fan coolers are then placed either side of the heating area to avoid turning the whole filament into a hot mess.
Unfortunately, the rig simply didn’t work. The initial design simply never got the filament hot enough, with the suspicion being that heat was instead being dumped into the calipers instead of the filament itself. Modifications to reduce this sadly didn’t help, and in the end, more success was had by simply holding a lighter below a length of brass tube.
While the project wasn’t a success, there’s still value in the learning along the way. We can’t see any fundamental reason why such a rig couldn’t be made to work, so if you’ve got ideas on how it could be improved, sound off in the comments.
We’ve seen other successful builds using hair straighteners in a relatively simple setup, too
.
[Thanks to Baldpower for the tip!] | 29 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303951",
"author": "Thomas",
"timestamp": "2020-12-17T13:19:42",
"content": "… add a second heater to the caliper? So the heat doesnt flow away as the thermal equilibrium is maintained actively…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "... | 1,760,373,251.258407 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/17/a-snes-ray-tracing/ | A SNES, Ray Tracing | Jenny List | [
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"3d rendering",
"ray tracing",
"snes"
] | A trick famously used by Nintendo to keep its slowly aging SNES console fresh against newer competition was to produce new games with extra support chips in the cartridge to push out hitherto-unthinkable performance. Chips such as the famous SuperFX gave us 3D polygonal graphics, but it would have been a few more years before even much faster platforms could achieve real-time ray-tracing. Nintendo may not have managed it, but here in 2020
[Ben Carter] has a SNES on his bench rendering a complex 3D ray-traced world
.
Ray tracing refers to the practice of rendering a scene with accurate lighting by tracing the rays of light that go towards making each pixel. It can achieve results that even approach photorealism, but it remains an extremely computationally intensive job for any computer. To do this with a SNES he hasn’t resorted to a modern computer like the excellent Raspberry-Pi-based
NES DOOM cartridge
, instead he’s tried to create something that might have graced a Nintendo custom chip back in the 1990s. The tool may be a thoroughly modern DE10-Nano FPGA dev board, but what it implements could conceivably have been made as a 1990s-spec ASIC. In it are three ray tracing cores that do the work, but the final rendering is handled by the SNES itself. At 200 x 160 pixels and 256 colours it’s no graphical powerhouse, but the maximum frame rate of 30 fps makes it no slouch for the day. The video below the break supplies extra detail.
Perhaps an unexpected takeaway of the rendered scene lies in how of its era it seems. It comes from an age in which checker-board floors, mirrored balls, and azure blue skies looked
so
futuristic, and just before the likes of
Toy Story
redefined what the general public might expect from 3D rendering. If Nintendo had produced a ray-traced SNES game using a chip like this one, it would have certainly been a defining moment for gaming in that decade.
Thanks [Mark] for the tip. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303920",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2020-12-17T09:26:12",
"content": "This is a very interesting project in so many ways. I’m stunned by it’s performance and possibilities.Cool project, nicely done!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comm... | 1,760,373,251.35428 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/16/skittle-sorter-makes-long-task-shorter/ | Skittle Sorter Makes Long Task Shorter | Lewin Day | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"skittle sorter",
"skittles",
"TCS34725"
] | One of the most common complaints fielded by the agents of Big Candy regards the non-homogenous nature of their products. Skittles and M&Ms are two egregious offenders in this area, and it’s left up to the determined consumer to handle sorting these candies themselves. Of course, you can always do it by hand, but as we all know –
machines will do the work.
This Skittle sorter is the creation of [Lewis] of [DIY Machines], and it’s a build targeted at the beginner level. Constructed out of cardboard, it uses a pair of servos to handle the transport of the candies into their requisite colored bins, via a rotating disc and chute. Skittles are scanned with a TCS34725 color scanner hooked up to an Arduino Nano, which changes the angle of the output chute to dump the candy in the proper location. The hopper is able to handle a standard 180 gram bag of Skittles without problems.
[Lewis] does a great job explaining each stage of the build, from the mechanical and electronic side of things, to the required calibrations to make everything play together nicely. The project teaches builders a multiude of useful lessons, like how to use limit switches and other concepts of automation. We’ve featured [Lewis] on these pages before, too;
his stylish shelf clock is a particular delight
. Video after the break. | 11 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303911",
"author": "Gregg Eshelman",
"timestamp": "2020-12-17T08:19:48",
"content": "Haven’t seen the issues of sorting red and orange with any of the other Skittle sorters. How about one that can sort a mixture of Skittles and m&m’s?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"r... | 1,760,373,251.306476 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/16/learn-compilers-online-from-cornell/ | Learn Compilers Online From Cornell | Al Williams | [
"Software Development",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"compiler",
"cornell",
"education",
"llvm",
"phd"
] | It sounds like the start of a joke, but what’s the difference between taking
Cornell’s CS6120
online and in-person? The instructor, [Adrian Samspon] notes that the real class has deadlines, an end-of-semester project, and a discussion board that is only open to real-life students. He also notes that you only earn “imagination credits.”
Still, this is a great opportunity to essentially audit a PhD-level computer science class on a fascinating topic. The course consists of videos, papers, and open source projects using LLVM and a custom internal representation based on JSON that is made for the class. It is all
open source
, too. You do however need access to the papers, some of which are behind paywalls. Your local library can help if you can’t otherwise find copies of the papers.
The topics include internal representation of programs, simple optimizations, data flow, global analysis and optimization, and practical topics about LLVM. With the basics out of the way, the class turns to some classic topics like loop optimization and alias analysis, along with some more modern topics like memory management and dynamic compilers.
The final part has some more cutting-edge reading about concurrency and parallelism. We suspect you should probably be pretty fluent in programming languages before attempting this course. Of course, not everyone needs to know how to write a compiler. But if you do, this is great stuff. Even if you don’t, it is a chance to expand your understanding of how things work under the hood.
We’ve looked at [Adrian’s]
thoughts on LLVM before
and you might find that post a useful adjunct to this course. If you want something more practical and less theoretical, there’s
the C compiler we looked at before
. | 29 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303891",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2020-12-17T04:48:19",
"content": "First thought: Coronavirus lock down hair style.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6303921",
"author": "Rastersoft",
"timestamp": "2020... | 1,760,373,251.596931 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/16/automatic-sanitizer-for-your-cupholder/ | Automatic Sanitizer For Your Cupholder | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"COVID",
"Covid-19",
"hand sanitizer",
"isopropyl"
] | Why is it so hard to remember to use hand sanitizer between going into the store and driving back home? We tried hanging a bottle off the windshield wiper stalk, but it gets in the way and is hard to use and share with passengers.
The ideal thing would be to have a hands-free pump in the car that reminds you to use it
.
You don’t have to wire this to the ignition or anything — all you have to do is power it with the cigarette lighter (or straight-up outlet, if you’re lucky). Every time you turn the key, this pump powers up and performs a little song to remind you to use it. Electronically speaking, it couldn’t be simpler — an Arduino UNO reads your hand from the distance sensor and activates a servo that dispenses three short pumps of isopropyl alcohol. Check it out in action after the break.
Want a hands-free solution for the house?
Just build something you can step on
. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303852",
"author": "Jim the Apostate",
"timestamp": "2020-12-17T01:09:22",
"content": "I can see grace … great potentinal in this as a holy water dispenser in Catholic churches as those finger dipping bowls are repositiories for nasty shit ( literally ) e.g. coliform bacteria and I... | 1,760,373,251.39797 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/16/building-distributed-mode-loudspeakers-with-plywood/ | Building Distributed Mode Loudspeakers With Plywood | Lewin Day | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"distributed mode loudspeaker",
"speaker",
"speakers"
] | Distributed-mode loudspeakers work rather differently from the typical drivers used in 99% of applications. Instead of using piston-like motion to create sound waves, they instead rely on exciting an entire panel to vibrate and thus produce sound.
[JGJMatt] decided to build a pair of bookshelf-sized units, with great results.
The build begins with a pair of 44mm DML exciters, readily available online. These had to be modified to remove their stock metal mounting plates that degraded the sound output in early tests. Instead, 3D printed pieces were used to mount the exciters to the 3mm plywood boards, which were lasercut to act as the main DML panels. Additionally, whizzer cones were fitted to the panels in an effort to further boost the high frequency response of the speakers. The speaker stands are assembled out of more 3D printed pieces and aluminium rods, giving a clean, modern look to the final product.
The performance of the speakers is admirable based on the test video, though [JGJMatt] notes that they should be paired with a subwoofer in use as the DML units do not readily produce frequencies below 100Hz.
We’ve seen similar builds before on a larger scale, too.
Video after the break. | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303820",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2020-12-16T21:53:58",
"content": "A video of speakers in an undefined room playing an MP3 through an unknown amp and recording with an unknown mic and then played back through my PC with undefined characteristics. Sure, great sound. A tiny ... | 1,760,373,251.47736 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/16/enormous-cnc-router-uses-clever-tricks-to-improve-performance/ | Enormous CNC Router Uses Clever Tricks To Improve Performance | Dan Maloney | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"cnc",
"deflection",
"elasticity",
"MPCNC",
"precision",
"router",
"stress skin",
"torsion box"
] | CNC machines made from wood and 3D-printed parts may be popular, but they aren’t always practical from a precision and repeatability standpoint. This is especially true as the machines are scaled up in size, where the compliance of their components starts to really add up. But can those issues be resolved? [jamie clarke] thinks so, and he’s in the process of building
a CNC router that can handle a full sheet of plywood
. (Video, embedded below.)
This is very much a work in progress, and the videos below are only the very beginning of the process. But we found [jamie]’s build interesting even at this early point because he has included a few clever tricks to control the normal sources of slop that plague larger CNC machines. To provide stiffness on a budget, [jamie] went with a wooden torsion-box design for the bed of his machine. It’s the approach taken by the
Root CNC
project, which is the inspiration for this build. The bed is formed from shallow boxes that achieve their stiffness through stressed skins applied to rigid, lightweight frames.
Upon the torsion-box bed are guide rails made from commodity lengths of square steel tubing. Stiff these may be over short lengths, but over the three meters needed to access a full sheet of plywood, even steel will bend. [jamie]’s solution is a support that moves along with the carriage, which halves the unsupported length of the beam at all points of travel. He’s using a similar approach to fight whip in the ball screw, with a clever flip-down cradle at the midpoint of the screw.
So far, we’re impressed by the quality of this build. We’re looking forward to seeing where this goes and how well the machine performs, so we’re paying close attention to
the playlist
for updates. At an estimated build cost of £1,500, this might be just the CNC build you’ve been looking for. | 32 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303799",
"author": "m.",
"timestamp": "2020-12-16T20:42:12",
"content": "A standard solution for affordable commercial machines like that is flipping them upright and using two driver rods. Depth (Z-axis) rigidity is neglected for x-Axis rigidity, since on these formats it’s mostly... | 1,760,373,253.432499 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/16/tracking-satellites-the-nitty-gritty-details/ | Tracking Satellites: The Nitty Gritty Details | Chris Lott | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Radio Hacks",
"Slider",
"Space"
] | [
"amateur satellite",
"antenna rotator",
"antennas",
"polarization",
"tracking",
"Yagis"
] | If you want to listen to satellites, you have to be able to track them as they pass over the sky. When I first
started tracking amateur satellites
, computing the satellite’s location in the sky was a part of the challenge. Nowadays, that’s trivial. What’s left over are all the extremely important real-world details. Let’s take a look at a typical ham satellite tracking setup and see how it all ties together.
Rotators for Steering
The popularity of robotics, 3D printing, and CNC machines has resulted in a deluge of affordable electric motors and drivers. It’s hard to imagine that an electric motor for rotating an antenna would be anything special, but in fact, antenna rotators are non-trivial engineering designs. Most of the challenges are mechanical, not electrical — the antennas that they drive can be huge, have significant wind loading and rotational inertial, and just downright weigh a lot. A rotator design has to consider bearings, weather exposure, all kinds of loads, not just rotational. And usually a brake is required to keep the antenna pointed in windy conditions.
There’s been a 70-some year history of these mechanisms from back in the 1950s when Cornell Dubilier Electronics, the company you know as a capcacitor manufacturer, began making these rotators for television antennas in the 1950s. I was a little surprised to see that the rotator systems you can buy today are not very different from the ones we used in the 1980s, other than improved electronic controls.
Typical Azimuth Rotator
These rotator systems tend to be quite beefy, as HF antennas can be large. Fortunately in the case of amateur satellite communications only small Yagi antennas are needed. This simplifies the design if only because the equivalent surface area and weight of the antennas are much less. Commercial manufacturers have developed two-axis rotator combinations, such as this Yaesu model below, which is more compact and easier to setup. But some people might argue that this takes the fun out of the installation.
Example of Compact El over Az Rotator
For those people, the smaller size and less stringent requirements means that homebrew rotators are well within reach and suitable to this environment. Furthermore, some satellite tracking stations these days are portable and can be
installed on a camera tripod
in an hour’s time, the weatherproofing requirement all but goes away. Heavy winds that might damage the bearings aren’t much of concern if the whole tripod topples over before the damage can be done.
One final advantage for doing it yourself is that pressing a normal rotator into service on the elevation axis might be tricky. Conventional rotators are designed to operate vertically. Turning one sideways might not work. Here’s where spinning your own design might be easier than adapting an existing rotator. Browse the Internet for satellite tracking designs, or just design your own. Use a tripod, don’t worry about the weather and wind, and enjoy the satisfaction of seeing your firmware moving those antenna across the sky.
One Loop Can Be Ignored
Rotating the antennas to a commanded location represents one control loop. But there is another control loop that has been traditionally ignored: is your RF beam truly pointed at the satellite? Getting feedback to close this loop is a much more difficult problem, and fortunately an unnecessary one in ham satellite communications. But for the curious, there are a couple of ways this has been solved in the past, both requiring a steady signal from the satellite to use as a beacon.
One technique is to continually “wobble” your antennas in a circle around the expected pointing angle. Let the diameter of the wobble circle be the 3 dB beamwidth of your antenna. Now dedicate a separate receiver to listen to the beacon signal (don’t forget it has to track doppler, too), and observe the signal strength versus the wobble, you can get the tracking error. If you are perfectly on-track, the signal strength will not vary with the wobble. But if you are off-track, then the signal will be vary, and the pointing error can be caclucated from this variation. This adds quite some complexity to the design, mechanically and electrically. Given the large beamwidths of antennas used for ham satellite operations, that wobble would be a crazy sight to behold. This kind of tracking is much better suited to smaller beamwidth antennas that are lighter in mass, and therefore easier to wobble.
Or better yet, wobble virtually. Without going in to the gory details, you can calculate the off-axis angles by using multiple antennas in a phased array receiver. But if you want to apply this technique, you would need at least four antennas instead of one.
Why would the calculated position be wrong? Truth is, it’s rarely wrong. Satellite orbits are well established and their parameters are updated frequently. In fact, they are often integral components of calibration procedures themselves. If your station clock is accurate and its location is accurately known, the only real errors are going to be with the antenna system: error in the feedback, error in the orientation of the antenna mast, and mis-alignment of the RF beam vs. the mechanical axis of the antenna. Fortunately, the broad beamwidths of the typical ham satellite antennas mean that success can be had without needing to take extraordinary measures.
Antennas: Crossed Yagis and Polarization
You often see Yagi antennas for satellite communications arranged in an “X” pattern, called “crossed Yagis”. The reason is to accomodate different signal polarizations, either during a pass as conditions change, or for satellite to satellite variations. The best case is when the transmitted signal has the exact same polarization as the receiving antenna when it arrives. The worse case is if the two polarizations are orthogonal — say, you have a horizontally polarized antenna receiving signals from a vertically polarized one. In theory, you won’t hear anything — a complete mismatch. This is the same concept as polarized light filters we’re all familiar with.
I used the term arriving polarization, because the signal can be modified as it passes through the atmosphere. The satellite antenna itself might be moving, too, as it passes overhead. There are several tricks to deal with this. One is to use a single antenna positioned at a 45 degree angle. Then we will always receive H and V polarized signals, but both will come with a 3 dB loss. Another method is to physically rotate the Yagi polarization as needed to match the incoming signal. This can be done manually or by motors: conceptually yet another “axis” of rotation to consider.
But the more common approach is to use two Yagis mounted on a common boom. You can just switch between H and V to get the best signal, using a RF relay. Or, you can obtain circular polarization by adding a phase delay line and a combiner, and a relay will let you switch between clockwise or counterclockwise rotation. The math here is really crazy, but the bottom line is that any linear polarization will couple to a circularly polarized antenna with a 3 dB loss, no matter its angle.
Auxilliary Equipment
Because of cable loss at VHF and UHF frequencies, you typically need to locate additional equipment, such as a power amplifier, receiver pre-amps, RF relays and power supplies, at the antenna and not in the shack. These things need power, control, and status feedback, and will inevitably add complexity to the satellite station controller. Except for maybe getting mains power safely to the roof, these issues are much simpler to solve today than back in the 1980s.
Making Everything Play Together, 35 Years On
Controlling traditional rotators hasn’t really changed much. You basically mimic a human pressing the buttons by wiring a relay in parallel with the switches. If you have a modern controller, it might be even easier. The Yaesu rotator mentioned above has an RS-232 interface to control both azimuth and elevation. It even has an internal table of positions vs time, which you can pre-load with a satellite pass and let the smart rotator drive the antennas. But this takes away all the fun of building a tracker yourself.
I see no reason to make an open-loop system anymore, at least from a cost perspective. There are many approachable ways to close the pointing loop today. One technique would be to use a MEMS chip, such as TDK’s MotionTracking or ST Microelectronics iNEMO family of chips that Ted Yapo
wrote about last year
. Another idea would be to use a monitoring camera and computer vision algorithms to calculate the pointing angle (although you might need to put some strategically placed LEDs on your antennas for night operations). Or you could do it the usual way, incorporating a position sensor in each axis. Usually the feedback signal would be sent by wires, which have to jump across a rotating joint. While such feedback could be sent wirelessly, adding a few more wires isn’t really a problem — you already need cables to power and control the rotators, and of course RF coaxial cables to connect to the antennas.
Kepler’s laws of orbital mechanics haven’t changed. Whether you write your own algorithms, borrow some from an open source repository, or purchase a commercial software package, there are plenty of software choices to match your budget or skill level. But the options for user interface have changed drastically, and for the better.
While talking with some C64 folks online about my tracker restoration project, I realized just how dumb my old tracker program UI was. But today, using various libraries and data sets, your program could easily draw satellite data visually in real time. I was even able to draw a satellite orbit in OpenSCAD in short order.
One huge advancement is the ease of getting satellite tracking data from NASA. No more paper tables in the mail or modem links to BBS systems — you can get satellite parameters with a few clicks of the mouse and an internet connection.
If you are interested in Ham radio satellites and antenna tracking, there’s never been a better time to get involved. The price of entry, monetarily- and technologically-speaking, has never been better. | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303768",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2020-12-16T18:31:44",
"content": "“Heavy winds that might damage the bearings aren’t much of concern if the whole tripod topples over before the damage can be done.”I used a steel pole buried into concrete pretty deep. Have to be a serio... | 1,760,373,253.664934 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/16/sit-up-straight-open-source-bluetooth-posture-sensing/ | Sit Up Straight!: Open Source Bluetooth Posture Sensing | Danie Conradie | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"accelerometer",
"bluetooth",
"health",
"IMU",
"posture"
] | As more and more people spend their working hours behind a computer, bad posture and the accompanying back pain and back problems become a growing epidemic. To combat this in his own daily life, [
ImageryEel] made
PosturePack
, a wearable Bluetooth-enabled posture sensor.
The PosturePack is designed to fit into a small pocket sewn into the pack of an undershirt, between the shoulder blades. It consists of a custom PCB with an ATmega32U4, BNO055 IMU, Bluetooth module, small LiPo and power circuitry. Based on the orientation data from the IMU, a notification is sent over Bluetooth to a smartphone whenever the user hunches forward.
[
ImageryEel]
says although the mobile notifications worked, haptic feedback integrated into the unit would be a better option. This could also be used to remind the user to stand up and take a break now and then, and provide an alternative to a smartwatch for activity monitoring without sending every movement to someone else’s servers. Software will always be the hardest part for projects like these, especially as the device become “smarter”. Learning to recognize activity and postures is actually a good place for
tiny machine learning models
.
Compared The posture sensors we covered before had to be installed and set up at a specific workstation, like an
ultrasound-based version
attached to a chair, and a
webcam-based version
. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303759",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2020-12-16T17:38:56",
"content": "No!Don’t send it over Bluetooth!Send a couple wire down the back to trigger the muscle(s) that makes you sit up straight!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id"... | 1,760,373,253.362975 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/15/remoticon-video-intro-to-modern-synthesis-using-vcv-rack/ | Remoticon Video: Intro To Modern Synthesis Using VCV Rack | Dan Maloney | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"2020 Remoticon",
"adsr",
"envelope",
"eurorack",
"gated reverb",
"modular",
"synthesizer",
"VCA",
"VCF",
"vco",
"VCV Rack"
] | Modular synthesizers, with their profusion of knobs and switches and their seemingly insatiable appetite for patch cables, are wonderful examples of over-complexity — the best kind of complexity, in our view. Play with a synthesizer long enough and you start thinking that any kind of sound is possible, limited only by your imagination in hooking up the various oscillators, filters, and envelope generators. And the aforementioned patch cables, of course, which are always in short supply.
Luckily, though, patch cables and the modules they connect can be virtualized, and in
his 2020 Remoticon workshop
, Jonathan Foote showed us all the ways VCV Rack can emulate modular synthesizers right on your computer’s desktop. The workshop focused on VCV Rack, where Eurorack-style synthesizer modules are graphically presented in a configurable rack and patched together just like physical synth modules would be.
John started out with a simple example using the most basic of synth modules: a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), a voltage-controlled filter (VCF), and an envelope generator. Along with a few housekeeping modules to drive the computer’s soundcard and to use the keyboard as, well, a keyboard, participants were able to quickly assemble their virtual synthesizers. More complex instruments can be built up from literally thousands of available modules — some free, some open source, and some premium modules available for a reasonable price.
Hats off to Jonathan for a great workshop and handling my off-the-cuff question about reproducing the “Sound of the 80s” question with aplomb. It turned out not to be possible with the stock VCV Rack modules, but it still reminded us a bit of the gated reverb drum sound of “In the Air Tonight” and other classics. Make sure you check out not only the video of the workshop but the
workshop page
too, which has all the details you need to get started with your own virtual synthesizer. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303642",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2020-12-16T05:12:38",
"content": "I read up on it. VST, no thanks. I like the modular and patching, but I don’t have time for a DAW. Maybe if it was standalone and here I include offline use. I use ZynAddSubFX, a tongue and type twistin... | 1,760,373,253.156872 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/15/cecilia-payne-gaposchkin-saw-through-the-stars/ | Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Saw Through The Stars | Kristina Panos | [
"Biography",
"Featured",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"astronomy",
"astrophysics",
"hydrogen",
"milky way",
"stars",
"the Sun"
] | We as humans are limited in the ways we can look at things ourselves, and rely on on the different perspectives and insights of others to help make sense of things. All it takes is one person to look at a data set and find something completely different that changes our fundamental perception of the universe.
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin discovered that stars are primarily made of hydrogen and helium, at a time when astronomers thought that the Sun and the Earth had no significant elemental differences. She proposed that hydrogen wasn’t only more common, but that it was
a million
times more common.
This outlandish conclusion was roundly dismissed at the time, and she aquiesced to tone down some of the conclusions in her thesis, until her findings were widely confirmed a few years later. Truly groundbreaking, the discovery of the prevalence of hydrogen in stars paved the way for our current understanding of their role as the furnaces for the heavier elements that we know and love, and indeed are composed of.
Meteorites, Comets, and Bee Orchids
Cecilia Helena Payne was born May 10th, 1900 in Wendover, Buckinghamshire, England. She was one of three children born to Emma and Edward, a lawyer, historian, and musician. Her father died with she was four years old, leaving her mother to raise the family alone.
The Great Daylight Comet of 1910 as seen by Lowell Observatory. Image via
Wikipedia
When she was only a few years old, Cecilia saw a meteorite blazing across the sky and was completely fascinated. She continued to show interest in science after discovering a bee orchid growing in an orchard when she was eight. This was exciting because the bee orchid is native to the Mediterranean and not to England. A few years later, she witnessed both the Great Daylight Comet of 1910 and Halley’s Comet in the same year.
Cecilia’s mother moved them to London when she was twelve for the sake of her brother Humfry’s education. Cecilia’s education focused on languages, but she was more interested in botany and other sciences. She studied botany and math on her own, and one of her teachers took her to museums and lent her books to read.
At 17, Cecilia was finally able to study science. She transferred to St. Paul’s Girls’ School and spent two years there before earning a scholarship to Newnham College at Cambridge University. She majored in botany, physics, and chemistry, but her interest shifted solidly to astronomy after she attended a lecture about solar eclipses and relativity by Sir Arthur Eddington that transformed her world picture.
Cecilia works at the observatory. Harvard College Observatory via
Brain Pickings
The Stuff of Stars
Cecilia’s options in the UK were limited to teaching, so she looked for grants that would get her to the States. After graduating Newnham in 1923, she won a National Research Fellowship which she used to pursue graduate studies at Radcliffe, a women’s college associated with Harvard, which was then restricted to men.
Her academic advisor persuaded her to write a doctoral thesis even though there was no astronomy program at Radcliffe or Harvard. The common belief at the time was that the Earth and the Sun were composed of the same elements. By studying tens of thousands of spectroscopic images, Cecilia determined instead that the Sun and other stars are mostly made of hydrogen and helium. She established a stellar temperature scale and accurately related the spectral classes of stars to their temperatures by applying astronomer Meghnad Saha’s ionization theory.
Her thesis was published in 1925
, and she was granted the first PhD in astronomy from both Harvard University and Radcliffe College.
Several faculty members and astronomers including Henry Norris Russell found her thesis problematic because it was so unorthodox. They went as far as forcing her to add a statement saying that the presence of hydrogen in the Sun was highly unlikely. Within four years, Cecilia’s findings were independently verified by others, including Henry Norris Russell. Ironically, Russell is often credited for this discovery, though he credited Cecilia in his own paper.
Cecilia at the blink microscope. Image via
Harvard Square Library
Professor Payne-Gasposchkin
After receiving her doctorate, Cecilia studied high-luminosity stars in order to better understand the structure of the Milky Way. In 1933, she met astrophysicist Sergei I. Gaposchkin in Germany. They married the following year and settled in a small town near Harvard, eventually raising three children. Cecilia had become an American citizen in 1931 and helped Sergei obtain his citizenship a few years later.
Cecilia and Sergei worked together to survey all of the stars brighter than the tenth magnitude. Together with Sergei and her assistants, Cecilia made over 3,000,000 observations of variable stars. She published several books, including
The Stars of High Luminosity
(1930),
Variable Stars
(1938) and
Variable Stars and Galactic Structure
(1954). Cecilia retired from teaching in 1966, but continued doing research and editing books and journals that came out of Harvard Observatory. Various people did what they could over the years to elevate her standing at Harvard. She was the first woman promoted to full professor, and the first woman to head a department. She fought for equal pay, but spent much of her teaching career earning the same wage as an entry-level male professor.
Still, Cecilia was influential in many ways. Several of her students such as Helen Sawyer Hogg went on to make their own important contributions to astronomy.
When Joan Feynman found Cecilia’s name in an astronomy textbook, it renewed her confidence enough to study science against her mother and grandmother’s wishes
.
Cecilia won plenty of awards in her lifetime, and was the first recipient of the Annie Jump Cannon award in astronomy. She died December 7th, 1979 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but will always be remembered for her huge contribution to science.
Thanks to [Keith Olson] for the tip. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303538",
"author": "Adam Leeb",
"timestamp": "2020-12-15T19:15:53",
"content": "A biography was recently completed of her by Donovan Moore. It’s a riveting account. The title is “What Stars Are Made Of: The Life of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,373,253.597563 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/15/console-controller-mod-gets-amputee-back-in-the-game/ | Console Controller Mod Gets Amputee Back In The Game | Dan Maloney | [
"Games",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"adaptive",
"Amputation",
"console",
"controller",
"gaming",
"playstation",
"prosthetic",
"servo"
] | No matter how it happens, losing one or more fingers is going to change one’s life in thousands of ways. We’re a manipulative species, very much accustomed to interacting with the world through the amazing appendages at the ends of our arms. Finding ways around the problems that result from amputations is serious business, of course, even when it’s just
modifying a game console controller for use with a prosthetic hand
.
We’ve gotten to know [Ian Davis] quite well around these parts, at least from his videos and Instagram posts. [Ian]’s hard to miss — he’s in the “Missing Parts Club” as he puts it, consisting of those who’ve lost all or part of a limb, which he has addressed through
his completely mechanical partial-hand prosthetic
. As amazing as the mechanical linkages of that prosthetic are, he hasn’t regained full function, at least not to the degree required to fully use a modern game console controller, so he put a couple of servos and a Trinket to work to help.
An array of three buttons lies within easy reach of [Ian]’s OEM thumb. Button presses there are translated into servo movements that depress the original bumper buttons, which are especially unfriendly to his after-market anatomy. Everything rides in an SLA-printed case that’s glued atop the Playstation controller. [Ian] went through several design iterations and even played with the idea of supporting rapid fire at one point before settling on the final design shown in the video below.
It may not make him competitive again, but the system does let him get back in the game. And he’s quite open about his goal of getting his designs seen by people in a position to make them widely available to other amputees. Here’s hoping this helps. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303531",
"author": "steven",
"timestamp": "2020-12-15T18:55:35",
"content": "Does the “Missing Parts Club” include those who are absent internal OEM components as well?(asking for a friend)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "630... | 1,760,373,253.309592 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/15/ps2-emulation-on-the-xbox-series-s-a-story-of-walled-gardens/ | PS2 Emulation On The Xbox Series S: A Story Of Walled Gardens | Maya Posch | [
"Featured",
"Games",
"Rants",
"Xbox Hacks"
] | [
"jailbreak",
"Retroarch",
"xbox"
] | It’s hardly a secret any more at this point that today’s game consoles from Microsoft and Sony are essentially AMD gaming rigs packed up into a custom package and with tweaked system software. So it’s not too surprising that enterprising hackers got the
Playstation 2 emulator of RetroArch running on an Xbox Series X|S game console
despite Microsoft’s attempts to stop them. (Video, embedded below.)
It’s possible to sneak the RetroArch app past Microsoft’s security checkpoints by shelling out $19
for a Microsoft Developer Account
, setting up Developer Mode on the XBox console, and getting the Universal Windows Platform (
UWP
) port of RetroArch from the official website. This has the advantage of it being a blessed-by-the-Redmond-gods approach. But one cannot play retail games in Developer Mode and large games due to a 2 GB limit.
More recently, a hacker by the name of [tunip3]
found a flaw
in the Xbox app distribution system which allows one to download a ‘retail’ version of RetroArch. This involves marking the RetroArch app as ‘private’, allowing it to skip a review by Microsoft. People whose email address is on a whitelist are then granted download permission for that app on their Xbox console. The advantage of this ‘retail’ approach is that it does not feature the 2 GB filesize limits. The disadvantage is that Microsoft is free to take the app down and ban [tunip3]’s developer account.
My Way Versus the Highway
A lot about this comes down to a simple question of ‘why?’. Why even jump through these hoops to set up a limited, possibly ToS-breaking emulator on what is ultimately a gaming PC
running Windows 10
? Why not use that Raspberry Pi 4 or NUC system that’s been giving you sad eyes for the past months from where it’s been stuffed into a dusty corner?
The Playstation 5 should be more than capable of playing back any Playstation title from the original PSX up to the PS4 based on its hardware specifications, yet it only offers compatibility for the PS4. The XBox Series X|S on the other hand provides such
backwards compatibility
along the entire lineage of XBox games, though not encompassing every single title released for a Microsoft console.
Xbox One S playing PS2 version of the original God of War
Nintendo has had an on/off relationship with running their own blessed emulator solution, such as the
Virtual Console
(VC) for the Wii, Wii U and 3DS which even offered access to games for non-Nintendo games. In early 2019 Nintendo began to phase out VC, however. In many ways the VC service was the closest to what RetroArch offers today, even if one could argue about the limited number of games on the VC and the per-game cost to purchase the right to play it.
All of this makes one wonder what would happen if a multi-system emulation service like the VC but with a much larger game library and lower cost (e.g. full access as part of a PSN subscription) were to be made available. Would this be enough to make people stop trying to get RetroArch on their brand-new gaming console?
It’s Called a PC
The skeptic’s view on this matter would probably be that with the lack of truly exclusive titles for video game consoles these days one might as well stick an SFF rig of one’s choosing underneath the TV, running one’s favorite OS and controlled by a controller of one’s choice. Using Steam’s
Big Picture
feature or equivalent, it’d be about as easy to control with a controller as if it was a dedicated game console.
Installing RetroArch and similar on this gaming rig would be a snap too, and would likely work better for more emulators as it’d be a standard Windows or Linux system for which RetroArch is actually optimized. Bringing us back again to why people try to do things the hard way instead.
A large appeal of game consoles and other walled gardens has often been the ‘it just works’ selling point. Buy it, set it up, turn it on, start playing games, stop worrying. Not everyone is into debugging obscure compatibility and driver issues on Windows, or figuring out why launching a game makes the Xserver crash on Linux. From there it is appealing to still make it do a bit more, at least to those who even as a child found ourselves staring at devices and feeling that familiar itch in one’s fingers.
In the end it’s essentially just about hobbies and interests. Even if Microsoft et al. would vehemently disagree, nobody is harmed if someone hacks their PS5 or XSX|S to run additional software on it that brings the owner of said hardware more pleasure. That’s after all how most interesting hacks are born.
Is it practical? No way. Is it fun? You bet. | 25 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303468",
"author": "Drew",
"timestamp": "2020-12-15T15:22:26",
"content": "I stopped buying consoles and just stopped gaming after a PS2 I had on reserve broke from normal use within a year.I wanted a PS3 that did backwards compatibility, but could never find one.I basically gave u... | 1,760,373,253.825556 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/15/mouse-controller-hybrid-aims-to-dominate-in-first-person-shooters/ | Mouse-Controller Hybrid Aims To Dominate In First-Person Shooters | Lewin Day | [
"Games",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"controller",
"game controller",
"gamepad",
"mouse",
"thumb mouse"
] | The first person shooter genre found its feet in the PC world, relying on the holy combination of the keyboard and mouse for input. Over time, consoles have refined their own version of the experience, and the gamepad has become familiar territory for many FPS fans. [Tech Yesterday] was a die hard controller player, but after trying out a mouse, didn’t want to go back.
Instead, he built a truly impressive hybrid device.
The build begins with a standard Xbox 360 wired controller, somewhat of a defacto standard for PC gamepads. The left analog stick and triggers remain untouched, however the face buttons are all relocated using mechanical keyboard switches. The D-pad has been relocated to the left hand side with tactile switches, and the right analog stick removed entirely. In its place, a cut-down optical mouse is used on a flat 4″x4″ mousepad attached to the controller, strapped to the player’s thumb.
The resulting controller combines the benefit of analog stick movement and the precision aiming of a mouse. We’re amazed at how comfortable the controller looks to use,
particularly in the improved second revision.
While currently only used on PC, we can imagine such controllers shaking up the console FPS scene in a serious way.
We see some great controller hacks around these parts;
the force-feedback mouse is a particularly amusing example.
Video after the break.
[Thanks to Baldpower for the tip!] | 49 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303440",
"author": "GameboyRMH",
"timestamp": "2020-12-15T13:22:14",
"content": "Clever, similar to how the controls worked for Metroid Prime: Hunters on the Nintendo DS, but with an analog stick instead of a regular ol’ D-pad. He could actually make even more improvements by getti... | 1,760,373,253.754349 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/15/spacex-starship-replica-attempts-the-bellyflop/ | SpaceX Starship Replica Attempts The Bellyflop | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"electric rocket",
"rocket",
"starship"
] | SpaceX are perhaps most well known for their vertically-landing reusable rocket technology. The latest such effort is the Starship, which recently underwent a fiery test in the last month to attempt a bellyflop maneuver. [Nicholas Rehm] wanted to attempt a similar flight profile in the local park,
and set to building an RC Starship of his own.
The build is like a few we’ve seen before
, in which electric power is used to propel a rocket-like craft straight upwards using propellers and active stabilization. In this case, there’s a pair of twin motors with counter-rotating propellers which can pivot to direct their thrust, as well as four external control surfaces. These are all under the command of [Nicholas]’s custom flight controller.
Upon testing the rig, [Nicholas] was able to execute a smooth ascent, followed by a bellyflop, before a smooth return to vertical flight and descent. Landing vertically on the grass was out of the question, due to the rough surface, but we imagine it would be doable with the right landing gear attached.
While flight without wings in this manner isn’t particularly efficient, it’s great to see what can be achieved with smart use of control systems engineering to keep a craft stable. We look forward to seeing [Nicholas]’s next attempts, too. Video after the break. | 20 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303397",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2020-12-15T09:18:53",
"content": "https://hackaday.com/2020/12/13/rc-starship-perfects-its-skydiving-routine/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6303404",
"author": "John",
... | 1,760,373,253.495676 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/14/an-easy-diy-pedal-set-for-racing-sims/ | An Easy DIY Pedal Set For Racing Sims | Lewin Day | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"pedal",
"pedals",
"racing simulation"
] | The racing sim scene has always had a strong DIY subculture, as enthusiasts seeking the most realistic-feeling peripherals set out to modify off-the-shelf offerings for greater authenticity. Others go further and craft their own builds from the ground up. [ilge] has done just that,
putting together his own set of pedals for sim racing.
The build relies primarily on 3D printed components, with a few springs and some nuts and bolts to hold everything together. Gear teeth on the pedal arms interface with matching gears mounted on potentiometers. These are then wired into an Arduino Pro Micro, which reads the individual pots via analog inputs and then acts as a USB Human Interface Device to the computer.
[ilge] tests the setup with a variety of games, including the popular Euro Truck Simulator and iRacing. It’s a great cheap way to get started with a pedal set for a sim rig. From here, the sky really is the limit; we’d love to see an upgraded version with a load-cell on the brake for better pedal feel.
We’d be surprised if an H-shifter isn’t in the works, too.
Video after the break. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303473",
"author": "Wade",
"timestamp": "2020-12-15T15:39:16",
"content": "I’d be curious to know how these hold up. I know I stomp on my Logitech pedals pretty hard; without having seen it attempted I would not have guessed a 3D printed part could take that kind of abuse unless it... | 1,760,373,253.543953 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/16/teardown-siemens-8mm-smd-parts-feeder/ | Teardown: Siemens 8mm SMD Parts Feeder | Jenny List | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Teardown"
] | [
"parts feeder",
"pick and place",
"siemens"
] | Many of Hackaday’s readers will be no stranger to surface mount electronic components, to the extent that you’ll likely be quite comfortable building your own surface-mount projects. If you have ever built a very large surface-mount project, or had to do a number of the same board though, you’ll have wished that you had access to a pick-and-place machine. These essential components of an electronics assembly line are CNC robots that pick up components from the reels of tape in which they are supplied, and place them in the appropriate orientation in their allotted places on the PCB. They are an object of desire in the hardware hacker community and over the years we’ve seen quite a few home-made examples. Their workings are easy enough to understand, but there is still much to gain by studying them, thus it was very interesting indeed to see a friend acquiring a quantity of surplus Siemens component feeders from an older industrial pick-and-place machine. A perfect opportunity for a teardown then, to see what makes them tick.
Take Me To Your Feeder
First it’s worth explaining what part a component feeder plays in a pick-and-place machine, and what it does. Components are supplied on flexible tape, sitting in depressions in its surface and covered by a thin plastic cover film that can be peeled back to reveal the part. Using sprocket holes in the edge of the tape, the feeder advances it from one part to the next while peeling back the cover to expose the part. Feeders are usually positioned in a row along the edge of the machine’s work area, such that its head can manoeuvre itself over the part and pick it up before placing it on the board. In the industrial machines this happens very quickly indeed, so the feeders are substantially built to serve many millions of parts over their lifetime.
An annotated overview of the feeder.
The unit is about 45 mm by 20 mm by 100 mm in size, with a very substantial machined aluminium frame upon which its various components are mounted. It holds not one but two feeders for 8 mm tape, one on either side. Turning it on its side, the front half conceals the feed mechanism with the pick-up point at the top, while at the centre is a tensioning system for the peeled-off cover tape. At the rear is a hopper for spent cover tape, accessible via a spring hatch on the back. On the top at the rear are a pair of membrane buttons, to advance or retard the tape.
The component tape enters underneath at the rear and follows a diagonal path upwards to the top, where it engages with a toothed wheel as part of the feed mechanism. The plastic cover tape is peeled back over itself and fed backwards to the tensioning system in the centre, before disappearing into its hopper. There is a solenoid-controlled shutter over the pick-up point, which is presumably opened by the machine as the pick-up head comes over it. The whole thing is designed for easy removal to be loaded with fresh tapes, so its control cables are brought out to an industrial-grade Neutrik connector.
What’s Inside The Box?
The main mechanisms are easily revealed by releasing the screws holding on their outer panels. In the front is the feed mechanism, which takes the form of a sprocket designed to engage with the holes in the tape. This is driven by a worm drive gear from a motor, which also has an optical encoder to sense how far the tape has been advanced or retarded. Above the motor is a solenoid that operates the shutter, a sliding sheet metal assembly on the top of the unit which exposes the pick-up point.
The shutter closed(top) and open(bottom). The cover tape can be seen folded ove the plate in the centre.
The feed mechanism, with sprocket gear on the left, motor bottom right, and solenoid top right.
In the centre of the unit is the cover tape tension mechanism. Another motor and sprocket pulls the cover tape past a spring-tensioned roller, that has an optical sensor to feed back its position. The spent cover tape spools into the hopper at the back, from which it can be emptied upon reel changes. The whole machine is controlled by a microcontroller on a narrow PCB in the base of the unit. The guess is that it’s an older Atmel part, but for now it remains covered by a sticker. Communication with the pick-and-place machine is via a serial connection through that Neutrik connector.
The tensioner mechansim, with the motor on the left
The PCB is hidden under the unit.
At the rear, the waste cover tape hopper.
What Can You Do With A Surplus Parts Feeder?
It’s been fascinating to take a look inside this feeder, but what can be done with it? In a literal sense that has an obvious answer of feeding parts to a pick-and-place machine, but the real question is:
how
can it be used? The interface itself is electrically straightforward, it’s a serial port that uses higher voltage differential signalling to compensate for noisy industrial machinery. The question then remains, how can they be driven, and what are the upgrades?
Happily the availability of these units on the surplus market has meant that hackers have had the chance to work on them. My friend pointed me to both
a Gcode driver for them
and
a replacement PCB design
, both on GitHub. Being a relatively easy to understand device, coming up with a way to drive them should be well within the abilities of the type of person who’s prepared to build their own pick and place machine.
A pick and place machine need not be impossible to build, but it’s certain that the component feeders are a significant part of their engineering. Maybe this look at one might shed some light on them, and introduce the option of using a surplus unit rather than attempting to build your own. | 22 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303721",
"author": "Andy Pugh",
"timestamp": "2020-12-16T15:09:27",
"content": "A pedant swites: Lemo, not Neutrik",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6303798",
"author": "Jenny List",
"timestamp": "2020-12-16T20:... | 1,760,373,253.900799 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/16/3d-printing-with-vhs-tape-filament/ | 3D Printing With VHS Tape Filament | Bryan Cockfield | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"filament",
"magnetic",
"press",
"reuse",
"tape",
"VHS"
] | If you have a pile of old VHS tapes collecting dust in your attic or basement that you know you’ll never watch again, either because all of those movies are available on DVD or a streaming service, or because you haven’t had a working VCR since 2003, there might be a way of putting them to good use in another way. With the miles of tape available in just a few cassettes, [brtv-z]
shows us how to use that tape as filament for a 3D printer
.
The first step of the build is to actually create the filament. He uses a purpose-built homemade press to spin several tapes into one filament similar to how cotton or flax is spun into yarn. From there the filament is simply fed into the 3D printer and put to work. The tape filament needs to be heated higher than a standard 3D printer filament so he prints at a much slower rate, but the resulting product is indistinguishable from a normal print except for the color. It has some other interesting properties as well, such as retaining its magnetism from the magnetic tape, and being a little more brittle than PET plastic although it seems to be a little stronger.
While the VHS filament might not be a replacement for all plastic 3D prints, it’s still a great use for something that would likely otherwise head straight to the landfill. There are some other uses for this magnetic tape as well, like if you wanted to build a
DIY particle accelerator
. | 53 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303697",
"author": "zap beeb",
"timestamp": "2020-12-16T13:01:16",
"content": "That’s really genious!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6305145",
"author": "Kairraku",
"timestamp": "2020-12-22T04:08:15",
... | 1,760,373,253.99582 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/16/rc-lawn-mower-cuts-with-impunity/ | RC Lawn Mower Cuts With Impunity | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"lawnmower",
"remote control"
] | Grass is a lovely thing to have, but unfortunately it tends to grow excessively long if left unattended. Obviously, one can use a regular lawn mower,
but [Daniel] of [rctestflight] decided to build something remote-control instead.
(Video, embedded below.)
To get started, [Daniel] fitted X-acto blades to a brushless outrunner motor, and tested their ability to cut grass. Satisfied with the performance, he built a trailer to tow behind an RC tank mounted to such a setup, with some success. With the concept beginning to bear fruit, he went with a clean sheet design for maximum performance.
The final build relies on an RC rock-crawler chassis, fitted with a brushless motor using
field oriented control
for maximum torque at low speeds. This allows the RC mower to slowly push through the grass without overwhelming the cutter heads. As for the cutter heads, the final rig has eight motors, each sporting two blades to chop down long field grasses with impunity.
[Daniel] notes that it’s remarkably fun to cut the grass in this way, and is surprised not to have seen more builds in this area. (Editor’s note: he
needs
to
read
more
Hackaday
.) Of course,
we’ve seen plenty of autonomous builds, too. | 19 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303677",
"author": "hjiso",
"timestamp": "2020-12-16T09:18:58",
"content": "At the end of the day you can proudly say: using my 3D printer I made something that gives work to people at waste sorting facility.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,373,254.131444 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/15/microbit-put-on-plant-minding-duty/ | Micro:bit Put On Plant Minding Duty | Lewin Day | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"automatic plant watering",
"bbc microbit",
"Micro:bit",
"watering",
"watering system"
] | The BBC has a long history of supporting technology education in schools. The BBC Micro introduced a whole generation of students to computers, and more recently the Micro:bit is teaching today’s children about embedded systems. [Michael Klements] happens to be a grown adult, but has whipped up a project using the little board to build
an automatic plant watering system.
Rather than a simple timer-based system, [Michael’s] build measures soil moisture using a capacitive sensor. This has the benefit of not needing to be in direct contact with the soil as resistive sensors do, and thus the sensor can be built in a fashion that minimises corrosion. The Micro:bit reads this sensor using an analog input, and displays the moisture level using its inbuilt LED matrix as a graph. Once levels dip below a set threshold, a pump is activated to deliver water to the plant until the soil is suitably moist again.
It’s a simple project, but one that would be a great way to teach students about interfacing with pumps and sensors, as well as the basics of control systems. [Michael] also notes that further work could involve interfacing multiple Micro:bits using their onboard wireless hardware. We’ve thus far seen the Micro:bit used for everything from
handheld gaming
to
gumball delivery
. Video after the break. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6304012",
"author": "Skarlett Young",
"timestamp": "2020-12-17T16:41:05",
"content": "I have been dealing with plants for over 8 years. This is a hobby of my whole life, since it is not only me who love it, but also my whole family and such a thing is a very important assistant for ... | 1,760,373,254.045048 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/15/russian-doomsday-radios-go-missing/ | Russian Doomsday Radios Go Missing | Al Williams | [
"News"
] | [
"cold war",
"crime",
"doomsday",
"looking glass",
"nuclear",
"nuclear war",
"russia",
"theft"
] | Normally we like hearing about old military gear going on the surplus market. But if you encounter some late-model Russian radio and crypto equipment for sale you might want to make sure
it isn’t hot
(
English translation
). If you prefer not picking through the machine translation to English, the
BBC
also has a good write-up.
The Russians maintain four large planes set up as flying command and control bunkers in case of nuclear war — so-called “doomsday planes.” Like the U.S. ABNBC (better known as Looking Glass) fleet, the planes can provide the President or other senior leaders a complete command capability while in flight. As you might expect, the radios and gear on the plane are highly classified.
According to reports, the plane was in for maintenance and upgrades at the Tanganrog Aviation Scientific and Technical Complex (TANTK). An inspection at the end of November noted nothing unusual, but sometime after that, unknown thieves opened a side compartment and made off with 39 radio units and boards from some radios that were already removed from the plane.
There appears to be a lot of physical evidence left behind and a technician reported a suspicious man at the airfield claiming to be a radio operator. We are glad we aren’t one of the 12 people responsible for guarding the super-secret aircraft.
We doubt these radios will really wind up on the surplus market, but it does make you wonder if buying a mystery box at the next hamfest with some Cyrillic lettering on it could turn your life into a Jason Bourne movie.
No one wants a nuclear war. The effects of the few explosions that have already occurred made lasting
changes to our Earth
. We like to think these flying command posts on both sides are
relics of the cold war
and will never see actual duty. | 42 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303611",
"author": "gregg4",
"timestamp": "2020-12-16T03:10:58",
"content": "I wouldn’t want to. There’s no fun in it anymore.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6303613",
"author": "Lou Faustini",
"timestamp": "2020-12-16... | 1,760,373,254.364317 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/15/radio-controlled-hovercraft-apes-the-sr-n1/ | Radio Controlled Hovercraft Apes The SR.N1 | Lewin Day | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"hovercraft",
"radio control",
"SRN-1"
] | Hovercraft never really caught on as regular transportation, but they are very
cool.
The Saunders-Roe SR.N1 was the very first practical example of the type, and served as a research vehicle to explore the dynamics of such vehicles. [mr_fid] was looking for a lockdown project,
and set about crafting a radio controlled replica of his own.
The build is crafted out of a canny combination of plywood and balsa, the latter substituted in sections within the plywood hull to save weight. A pair of brushless outrunner motors are mounted in the central duct to provide lift, fitted with counter-rotating propellers in order to avoid torque effects on handling. Steering is via puff ports a la the original design, which allows the craft to spin very quickly in place to much amusement and no practical effect. The skirt is of a colorful design, carefully assembled out of polyurethane-coated nylon.
While it’s not the quickest way to build a hovercraft, it’s all the more beautiful for its attention to the details and function of the original prototype craft. We particularly like the sharp handling thanks to the puff port design. If you’re looking for a weirder design however,
consider this Coanda Effect build
. Video after the break. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303595",
"author": "Bunsen",
"timestamp": "2020-12-16T01:08:15",
"content": "Neat, but it seems a bit short on eels.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6303597",
"author": "Daniel Dunn",
"timestamp": "2020-12-16T... | 1,760,373,254.178304 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/15/real-hackers-videoconference-in-terminal/ | Real Hackers Videoconference In Terminal | Adam Zeloof | [
"internet hacks",
"Software Hacks",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"ASCII",
"ascii art",
"video chat"
] | At some point or another, many of us have tried to see how much of our digital lives could be accessed from the comfort of a terminal. We’ve tried Alpine for email, W3M for web browsing, and even watched
Star Wars
via telnet. But, in the increasingly socially-distant world we find ourselves in today, we find ourselves asking: what about video calling?
Okay, we weren’t asking that. But thankfully [Andy Kong] was, and saw fit to implement it when he and a friend created
AsciiZOOM, a “secure, text-based videoconferencing app, accessible from the safety of your terminal.”
As you may have guessed, [Andy]’s solution replaces the conventional video stream we’re all used to with realtime animated
ASCII art
. The system works by capturing a video stream from a webcam, “compressing” each pixel by converting it into an ASCII character, and stuffing the entire frame into a TCP packet. Each client is connected to a server (meeting room?) which coordinates the packets, sending them back and forth appropriately.
As impressive as it is impractical, the only area in which the project lacks is in audio. [Andy] suggests using Discord to solve that, but here’s hoping we see subtitles in version 2! Will AsciiZOOM be replacing our favorite videoconferencing suite any time soon? No. Are we glad it exists? You betcha. | 18 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303568",
"author": "Canuckfire",
"timestamp": "2020-12-15T22:01:36",
"content": "Now this is about the level of Rube-Goldberg I want in my *video*conferencing solutions. I love it.I already started annoying several colleagues to try and get this going for our lunch team-building.",... | 1,760,373,254.472982 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/14/tunes-you-can-eat/ | Tunes You Can Eat | Chris Lott | [
"Art"
] | [
"audio recording",
"chocolate",
"experimental audio",
"media formats",
"phonograph"
] | This week retro-gadget collector and video blogger [Techmoan] featured perhaps the most delicious audio recording format that we know of —
a chocolate gramophone record
. (Video, embedded below.) Compared to his typical media format explorations, the chocolate record is of quite recent vintage. He first heard of them back in 2015 when Tasmanian artist [Julia Drouhin] offered
chocolate recordings
as part of her art project. The one that [Techmoan] finally obtained was from a
UK chocolatier
who offers them with custom labelling and your choice of two songs. There are some pointers in the video about how to playback your chocolate disk without ruining it (use the lightest stylus tracking force as possible). These disks are recorded at 45 RPM on one side only, and are about the same size as a standard single. But being about five times thicker, they pack a lot more calories than your typical phonograph disk.
No reflection on the
Tewkesbury Town Band
, but this is probably the lowest fidelity recording media ever, but at least you can eat it when you’re done listening — label and all. We hope the
Mission Impossible
movie producers are paying attention so we can see the secret audio briefing being eaten instead of going up in smoke next film.
If you’re not familiar with [Techmoan], he often dredges up and reviews old media formats. A while back we covered
a review he did on a stainless steel wire recorder
from the 1940s. If these things are of interest, you should definitely check out his channel. | 15 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303313",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2020-12-15T03:26:26",
"content": "Sweet music to my [ears,mouth]",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6303412",
"author": "src1138",
"timestamp": "2020-12-15T11:19:43",
... | 1,760,373,254.415273 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/14/dead-simple-time-domain-reflectometry-with-just-a-battery-and-an-oscilloscope/ | Dead Simple Time-Domain Reflectometry With Just A Battery And An Oscilloscope | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"impedance",
"oscilloscope",
"pulse",
"reflection",
"tdr",
"time-domain reflectometry",
"twisted pair. coax",
"velocity factor"
] | “Time-domain reflectometry” sure sounds like something that needs racks of expensive equipment to accomplish. In reality, TDR is just measuring the time between injecting a pulse into a cable and receiving its echo, either from the other end of the cable or from some fault or defect along the way. It’s a useful technique, and as [Allen Wolke (W2AEW)] shows us, it can be accomplished with
little more than a battery, a resistor, and an oscilloscope
. And a little math, of course.
There are, of course, dedicated time-domain reflectometers, but all of them are really just elaborations of the basic principles [W2AEW] demonstrates with his simple setup. The oscilloscope is set up with a tee connector on one channel; one side of the tee is connected to the cable under test, while the shield conductor of the other side is connected to the negative terminal of a 9V battery. A resistor connected to the center conductor is used to complete the circuit, which sends a brief pulse down the test cable. The scope is set up to capture the outgoing pulse as well as the return pulse, allowing the time between the two to be measured. Some simple math gives the length of the cable, the distance to a fault, or with a little rearrangement, the velocity factor of the cable.
The video below shows the simple method at work on coax and Cat 5e Ethernet cable. It even worked on a roll of zip cable, which was a little surprising. If this technique is too simple, you can always elaborate a bit and
roll your own TDR tester
. Googly eyes optional, of course, but recommended. | 30 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303265",
"author": "Bill",
"timestamp": "2020-12-15T00:56:03",
"content": "Very interesting and informative :-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6303268",
"author": "Reg",
"timestamp": "2020-12-15T01:15:32",
"content... | 1,760,373,254.547967 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/14/railroad-rail-transformed-into-blacksmiths-anvil-with-the-simplest-of-tools/ | Railroad Rail Transformed Into Blacksmith’s Anvil With The Simplest Of Tools | Dan Maloney | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"anvil",
"blacksmith",
"cutoff wheel",
"metalwork",
"rail",
"smithing",
"steel",
"tools"
] | One of the biggest challenges facing the aspiring blacksmith is procuring the tools of the trade. And that means tackling the unenviable task of finding a decent anvil. Sure, one can buy an ASO — anvil-shaped object — at Harbor Freight, but a real anvil is much harder to come by. So perhaps the beginner smith’s first build should be
this railroad rail to anvil conversion
.
Repurposing sections of rail into anvils is hardly a new game, but [The Other Finnish Guy]’s build shows us just how little is needed in terms of specialized tooling to pull this off. Other than a file, the bulk of the work is done by angle grinders, which are used to cut off the curved crown of the rail section, cut the shape of the heel, and rough out the horn. Removing that much metal will not be a walk in the park, so patience — and a steady supply of cutting wheels and sanding discs — is surely required. But with time and skill, the anvil hidden inside the rail can be revealed and put to use.
We have questions about the final result, like its lack of a hardy hole and the fact that the face isn’t hardened. We wonder if some kind of induction heating could be used to solve the latter problem, or if perhaps a hardened plate could be welded into the top to make a composite anvil. Still, any anvil is better than no anvil. More on the anatomy and physiology of these tools can be had in [Jenny List]’s
article on anvils
, and her whole excellent series on blacksmithing is highly recommended. [Jenny]’s not the only smith we have on staff, though —
[Bil Herd] has been known to smite a bit too
. | 42 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303198",
"author": "Jon H",
"timestamp": "2020-12-14T21:31:43",
"content": "Might be enough to just cover the top surface with beads from hardfacing arc welding rods, then grind a smooth, level surface onto it.Good enough for dozer blades and excavator buckets.",
"parent_id": n... | 1,760,373,254.642363 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/14/pi-compute-module-is-love-child-of-raspberry-and-arduino/ | Pi Compute Module Is Love-child Of Raspberry And Arduino | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"compute module",
"development board",
"embedded",
"expansion",
"M.2",
"piunora",
"ports",
"raspberry pi"
] | The Raspberry Pi compute module is a powerful piece of hardware, especially for the price. With it, you get more IO than a normal Pi, plus the ability to design hardware around it that’s specifically tailored to your needs rather than simply to general-purpose consumers. However, this comes at the cost of needing a way to interface with it since the compute module doesn’t have the normal IO pins or ports, but [Timon] has come up with a
handy development board for this module called the Piunora
which solves a lot of these prototyping issues.
The development board expands the compute module to the familiar Arduino-like form factor, complete with IO headers, USB ports, and HDMI output. It doesn’t stop there, though. It has an M.2 connector, some built-in LEDs, a camera connector, and a few other features. It also opens up some other possibilities that would be difficult or impossible with a standard Pi 4, such as the ability to run the Pi as a USB gadget rather than as a host device which simplifies certain types of development, which is [Timon]’s intended function.
As a development board, this project has a lot of potential for the niche uses of the compute module when compared to the standard Raspberry Pi. For embedded applications it’s much easier to deploy, with the increased development costs as a tradeoff. If you’re still unsure what to do with the compute module 4, we have
some reading for you
. And Timon’s
previous project
is a great springboard. | 27 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303165",
"author": "WF",
"timestamp": "2020-12-14T19:54:09",
"content": "This is the first time I have a sense of the size of the CM, even without a banana for scale. Thanks for that.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6303166",
... | 1,760,373,254.7103 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/14/chinas-moon-mission-was-about-more-than-rocks/ | China’s Moon Mission Was About More Than Rocks | Tom Nardi | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Space"
] | [
"apollo",
"china",
"docking",
"moon",
"Moon landing",
"sample return"
] | If everything goes according to plan, China will soon become the third country behind the United States and the Soviet Union to successfully return a sample of lunar material. Their Chang’e 5 mission, which was designed to collect 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of soil and rock from the Moon’s surface, has so far gone off without a hitch. Assuming the returning spacecraft successfully renters the Earth’s atmosphere and lands safely on December 16th, China will officially be inducted into a very exclusive club of Moon explorers.
Of course, spaceflight is exceedingly difficult and atmospheric reentry is particularly challenging. Anything could happen in the next few days, so it would be premature to celebrate the Chang’e 5 mission as a complete success. But even if ground controllers lose contact with the vehicle on its return to Earth, or it burns up in the atmosphere, China will come away from this mission with a wealth of valuable experience that will guide its lunar program for years to come.
In fact, one could argue that was always the real goal of the mission. While there’s plenty of scientific knowledge and not an inconsequential amount of national pride to be gained from bringing a few pounds of Moon rocks back to Earth, it’s no secret that China has greater aspirations when it comes to our nearest celestial neighbor. Starting with the launch of the Chang’e 1 in 2007, the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program has progressed through several operational phases, each more technically challenging than the last. Chang’e 5 represents the third phase of the plan, with only the establishment of robotic research station to go before the country says they’ll proceed with a crewed landing in the 2030s.
Which helps explain why, even for a sample return from the Moon, Chang’e 5 is such an extremely complex mission. A close look at the hardware and techniques involved shows a mission profile considerably more difficult than was strictly necessary. The logical conclusion is that China intentionally took the long way around so they could use it as a dry run for the more challenging missions that still lay ahead.
Luna’s Legacy
Model of
Luna 16
at the Museum of Cosmonautics
While most people associate Moon rocks with the Apollo program, the Soviet Union also conducted a series of successful robotic sample return missions during the 1970s. The three Luna missions only brought back a small fraction of the material that NASA did with their far larger and more ambitious crewed vehicle, but they proved that even with the relatively primitive technology of the era, lunar sample return could be done at a far lower cost and without risk to human life.
It stands to reason that replicating the Luna missions of the 1970s would still be the fastest and cheapest way to return a sample from the Moon. By today’s standards, the sensors, cameras, and communications equipment used on those early landers are absolutely archaic. Modern materials and battery technology would also allow for a far lighter craft than was possible 50 years ago, though the 5,727 kg (12,626 lb) launch mass of the
Luna 16
still would have been within the payload capacity of China’s Long March 5 booster.
Calling it easy would certainly be a stretch. After all, modern technology and materials alone
weren’t enough to prevent Israel’s
Beresheet
lander from crashing into the lunar surface
. But China had already placed several robotic craft on the Moon, so adding a Luna-inspired return stage to the Chang’e 5 lander would have been the most expedient way to achieve their goals. Instead, they did something very different.
Echos of Apollo
When referring to Chang’e 5, we aren’t really talking about a single spacecraft, but a “stack” of several distinct vehicles that each have a specific role. Once the craft were in orbit around the Moon, the lander separated and descended independently to the surface. Soil and rock samples were then loaded into a smaller ascent vehicle mounted to the top of it. This diminutive craft took off from the Moon, leaving the lander behind, and docked with the service module that had remained in orbit. The samples were transferred to the orbital module, which then detached from the ascent vehicle and used its engine to leave lunar orbit and begin the return leg of the journey. In the end, only a small capsule will actually make it all the way back and land on Earth.
LOR proponent John Houbolt in 1962
If that sounds familiar, it’s because this is the same mission architecture used during the manned Apollo missions. Known officially as Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR), this concept was selected by NASA because it allowed for a much smaller booster than would have been required otherwise. A single spacecraft capable of flying to the Moon, landing, and then returning to Earth would be extremely heavy; largely because the propellant necessary for the return to Earth would be nothing more than dead weight on the trip down the lunar surface and back.
With the “nesting doll” LOR approach, each subsequent phase of the mission is accomplished by a smaller and lighter craft. The downside is that it’s operationally far more complex, requiring two spacecraft to rendezvous and dock in lunar orbit. For NASA, that meant years of additional research and development had to take place before Apollo could ever head to the Moon. This lead directly to Project Gemini, a series of missions used to develop the navigational and docking techniques that would eventually be used during Apollo’s lunar rendezvous.
Little is currently known about China’s plans in regards to human exploration of the Moon, but it stands to reason they’ll use the same tested LOR architecture that NASA demonstrated during Apollo and
will continue to use during the Artemis program
. By testing automated rendezvous and docking techniques during the robotic Chang’e missions, China could potentially avoid spending the time and money required for their own crewed Gemini-style program.
Practice Makes Perfect
The crew of Apollo 10 had the honor of performing the first rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit as part of the “dress rehearsal” for the eventual landing made during the Apollo 11 mission, but Chang’e 5 marks the first time such a feat has been accomplished by a robotic craft.
While remotely operated vehicles have previously docked in geostationary orbit
, the unique challenges of performing such a delicate operation while in orbit around another body make this a considerable technical achievement.
The Chang’e 5 orbiter and ascent vehicle meet in orbit.
Which is why China made sure to get some practice runs in first. The Chang’e 5-T1 mission was launched in 2015 to demonstrate some of the techniques that would be required to eventually return from the Moon. This included testing the sample capsule’s ability to safely reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and performing several simulated docking maneuvers.
Even though the vehicle only had a virtual partner to practice with, this experiment could be seen as analogous to the later Gemini missions,
which had astronauts dock their spacecraft with the unmanned Agena Target Vehicle
while in low Earth orbit. When it came time for the real thing, the rendezvous and capture of the Chang’e 5 ascent vehicle went perfectly on December 5th. There’ll be another opportunity to gather data on autonomous lunar docking during the Chang’e 6 mission to the Moon’s south pole as well, which is currently expected to happen by 2024.
It’s still too early to say how much of an impact these robotic practice runs will have on their crewed counterparts in the 2030s, but one thing is for sure: China now knows a lot more about lunar rendezvous and docking than the United States did before the Apollo program. | 67 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303143",
"author": "Somun",
"timestamp": "2020-12-14T18:38:48",
"content": "Estimated number of comments: 60-80 the first day.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6303148",
"author": "X",
"timestamp": "2020-12-14T19:05:24",... | 1,760,373,254.826126 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/14/join-us-for-the-holiday-with-hackaday-and-tindie-meet-up/ | Join Us For The “Holiday With Hackaday And Tindie” Meet-Up | Dan Maloney | [
"cons"
] | [
"Bring A Hack",
"holiday",
"meetup",
"party",
"remo"
] | It’s a ritual in workplaces around the world this time of any other year but 2020: the office holiday party. Too much food, perhaps too much alcohol, and garish sweaters that you wouldn’t be caught dead in on any other occasion. Things are, of course, a tad different this year, which is why we’re putting our community’s party online with the
Holiday with Hackaday and Tindie meet-up
on Tuesday, December 15 at noon Pacific time!
Why should you come to this hangout? Because why not! This is going to be a loose, informal meet-up that will give us all a chance to get to know one another. We’ve got an amazing community here, and just putting faces to names can be really valuable. You’ll be able to connect with old friends and perhaps make new ones. It’s your chance to reach out and find someone to collaborate with, or perhaps just find an answer to a thorny problem you’ve been stuck on. Be sure to bring your latest projects to show off, and maybe even consider giving everyone a virtual tour of your shop. Ugly sweaters are optional, of course, and we don’t judge.
The Holiday with Hackaday and Tindie meet-up is being held on Remo. Those of you who joined the Friday night Bring-a-Hack session at Remoticon this year will no doubt remember the platform, which we got a lot of good feedback on. You’ll want to check browser compatibility ahead of time and reserve your spot, so
head over to Remo and make it so
. If you need help with timezone conversions,
we’ve got you covered on that too
.
We’re looking forward to seeing everyone at the Holiday with Hackaday and Tindie meet-up! | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303128",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2020-12-14T17:43:59",
"content": "How is this going to work? I imagine a lot of people will join. A meeting with 50+ people all talking and showing stuff seems chaotic",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"c... | 1,760,373,254.866475 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/14/save-your-original-xbox-from-a-corrosive-death/ | Save Your Original Xbox From A Corrosive Death | Lewin Day | [
"Xbox Hacks"
] | [
"capacitor",
"capacitor failure",
"capacitor plague",
"real time clock",
"rtc",
"xbox"
] | Fans of retro computers from the 8-bit and 16-bit eras will be well aware of the green death that eats these machines from the inside out. A common cause is leaking electrolytic capacitors, with RTC batteries being an even more vicious scourge when it comes to corrosion that destroys motherboards. Of course, time rolls on, and new generations of machines are now prone to this risk.
[MattKC] has explored the issue on Microsoft’s original Xbox, built from 2001 to 2009.
Despite looking okay from above, the capacitor inside the Xbox had already started leaking underneath. Leaving this in the console would inevitably cause major damage.
The original Xbox does include a real-time clock, however, it doesn’t rely on a battery. Due to the RTC hardware being included in the bigger NVIDA MCPX X3 sound chip, the current draw on standby was too high to use a standard coin cell as a backup battery. Instead, a fancy high-value capacitor was used, allowing the clock to be maintained for a few hours away from AC power. The problem is that
these capacitors were made during the Capacitor Plague in the early 2000s.
Over time they leak and deposit corrosive material on the motherboard, which can easily kill the Xbox.
The solution? Removing the capacitor and cleaning off any goop that may have already been left on the board. The fastidious can replace the part, though the Xbox will work just fine without the capacitor in place; you’ll just have to reset the clock every time you unplug the console. [MattKC] also points out that this is a good time to inspect other caps on the board for harmful leakage.
We’ve seen [MattKC] dive into consoles before,
burning his own PS1 modchip from sourcecode found online.
Video after the break.
Edit: As noted by [Doge Microsystems], this scourage only effects pre-1.6 Xboxes; later models don’t suffer the same problem, and shouldn’t be modified in this way. | 21 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303117",
"author": "jonmayo",
"timestamp": "2020-12-14T16:42:38",
"content": "so much for the permanence of “solid state” when it must be surrounded by passive components filled with weird liquid.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id... | 1,760,373,254.930309 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/14/peeking-inside-a-vw-gearbox-reveals-die-casting-truths/ | Peeking Inside A VW Gearbox Reveals Die Casting Truths | Lewin Day | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Misc Hacks",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"aluminum",
"casting",
"die casting",
"engine block",
"injection molding",
"manufacturing",
"transmission",
"vw"
] | Recently, I was offered a 1997 Volkswagen Golf for the low, low price of free — assuming I could haul it away, as it suffered from a thoroughly borked automatic transmission. Being incapable of saying no to such an opportunity, I set about trailering the poor convertible home and immediately tore into the mechanicals to see what was wrong.
Alas, I have thus far failed to resurrect the beast from Wolfsburg, but while I was wrist deep in transmission fluid, I spotted something that caught my eye. Come along for a look at the nitty-gritty of transmission manufacturing!
Lumps And Bumps
Lumps and bumps in the inside of the 01M transmission housing. The largest lump measures approximately 3mm wide by 2mm high.
With the transmission pan dropped and filter removed, I had a clear view of the internals of the transmission case. As a former casting engineer, certain elements of the finished part stood out to me. Various parts of the housing featured little bumps and protrusions — chunky pimples on what were otherwise flat surfaces or smooth rounded edges. These were matched by what appeared to be a series of fine crack-like patterns on the surface. These defects are evidence of imperfections in the surface of the die, suggesting the tooling is pitted and cracked where it should instead be smooth.
The area affected was not a machined section, merely acting as a fluid reservoir. Thus, the anomalies have no real effect on transmission performance. However, their presence does tell us a little bit about the state of the tooling used by Volkswagen to produce the castings. A brand new die fresh from the toolmaker does not typically produce parts with cracks, pits, and lumps evident on the surface. The rough nature of the 01M transmission housing in my 1997 Golf is evidence that Volkswagen was running its casting dies well into the tens of thousands of shots, perhaps even into the six figures. Given the nature of the features, which are due to the die’s inherent physical condition, they’re not a one-off fault on a singular casting. Instead, line engineers and operators would be aware that the die is aging and becoming worn. Given the flaws occurred in a non-crucial location, a conscious decision was likely made to ignore the flaws and ship the parts, given they were unlikely to be noticed by the average driver who doesn’t disassemble their transmission to kill some time on the weekend. Similar flaws in a visible or functional area might instead be “fettled”, where the offending protrusions are ground off by a human operator or a machine.
Given the defects cause no functional impediment to the transmission, one can understand the decision to pass the parts in the interest of keeping costs low. However, to understand how the defects happened, let’s take a little crash course in high-pressure aluminium die casting.
A Primer On High Pressure Die Casting
A diagram of the basic parts of a high-pressure die casting machine.
Modern transmission cases are often manufactured using the high-pressure aluminium die casting process. This process involves huge metal moulds, called dies, that come in two halves and are pressed together, creating a cavity between the two. Usually, vacuum is then applied to suck air out of the die cavity to reduce gas entrapment. Next, molten aluminium is poured into a cylinder, and a piston is used to inject the aluminium into the die cavity at very high pressure. Each time the piston fires molten aluminium into the die, this is called a
shot.
Aluminum die casting process
demonstrated on the assembly line (video)
. Note the large amounts of flash at the parting line on the final casting.
By injecting molten metal under high pressure, it reduces the problems caused by the aluminium shrinking as it cools. This shrinkage can cause voids in the final product, referred to as
shrinkage porosity
. Keeping the pressure high ensures the dies are fully filled with as much aluminium as possible and reduces the amount of shrinkage of the final part. To resist the high pressure of the shot, the two halves of the die are held together with a special locking mechanism that is supposed to keep the die shut and stop metal leaking out around the seams where the two meet. Of course, if the dies aren’t perfectly flat or aligned properly, sometimes metal escapes around the seams, called
flash
, which is where you may see a small parting line on a finished part. In extreme cases, some flash escapes the die entirely, and this is very scary the first time it happens on your shift. Typically, the line operators will chuckle heartily as you are startled by the stinging metal.
Shots, Shots, Shots, Shots, Shots!
In the same way we track the miles travelled as an estimate of wear on an automobile, die casting machines track the number of shots made. Every cycle of filling the piston, injecting aluminium into the die, and removing the part puts wear on the machine and the dies themselves. Dies weigh many tons, and are constructed of high-strength tool steels. A die may cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce, and thus must pay for itself by producing tens of thousands of parts. Engineers work hard to ensure dies last as long as possible in order to run a cost-effective casting operation.
A typical die may last over 100,000 shots with regular maintenance and repair. But over time, the wear and tear can become too much, and the die must be replaced. There are many ways a die can fail to produce quality parts; a full run down would fill a hefty textbook, and is beyond the scope of this article. Instead, let’s look at the causes of the cracks, lines, and bumps we found on our Volkswagen 01M casting.
Note the fine lines on the casting that reveal cracking in the die surface, typical of heat check.
Cracking of the die surface and the resulting defect on the part surfaces is typically referred to as
heat check
. When the hot liquid metal is injected into the die, it hits certain surfaces in the die before others. These areas of the die heat up more than their surroundings, and undergo greater thermal expansion and contraction with each shot of molten aluminium. These cycles cause cracking and damage over time. The cause is thermal, hence the name. Repair is possible by polishing back the cracked surfaces of the die, or by welding fresh metal onto the die and grinding back to the original profile. However, such a repair does not treat the root cause, and heat check will reoccur as it racks up further shots.
Heat check as it appears on a casting die. The die is made of special tool steel to withstand the immense temperatures and pressures of the casting process.
Pitting of the die tends to be caused by cavitation. As hot metal flows into the die at high speed, tiny bubbles or pockets of vacuum can form and then collapse. This happens in specific areas due to the nature of the fluid flow through the die cavity. Typically, it’s in a region where the flow direction changes or encounters an obstruction, and a low-pressure area is surrounded by high pressure liquid metal. As the pressure increases around the low-pressure bubble, it eventually collapses. The collapsing bubble can generate an intense shockwave and localized high temperatures, damaging the surface of the die. This starts on the microscopic level, but over time, the damage increases and the pits grow deeper as the number of shots made on the die increases. Similar to heat check, the damage can be repaired by welding fresh metal to fill the pitted area. But without redesign to the die geometry to reduce the cavitation problem, it’s not a permanent solution and the damage will reoccur.
The damage to the dies evident on our finished transmission housing is understandable in context. The 01M transmission was used in a multitude of Volkswagen vehicles in the 1990s and early 2000s, ending up in hundreds of thousands, if not millions of cars. Volkswagen likely had multiple casting machines running round the clock with many dies on hand to pump out the necessary parts over the years. Some wear is to be expected at these high production levels. Given that the anomalies spotted were in a non-functional location, the engineers would have cleared the parts to flow down the line while monitoring the die’s condition for further problems.
Hopefully this article has taught you a little something about how high-pressure die cast parts are made, and will enable you to smartly show off to your friends next time you’re at the junkyard. For those interested in process control, fluid mechanics, and manufacturing efficiency, die casting can be an interesting field to work in. The world loves aluminium parts, so the skills you learn should serve you well into the future! | 70 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303089",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2020-12-14T15:05:02",
"content": "Aren’t some VW gearboxes made from magnesium, and when people throw them on a bonfire…WHOOSH!!!?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6303096",
"autho... | 1,760,373,255.049244 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/14/15-volts-to-110000-volts/ | 15 Volts To 110,000 Volts | Al Williams | [
"hardware"
] | [
"cockroft-walton",
"greinacher",
"high voltage",
"voltage multiplier"
] | There’s something satisfying about creating high voltages. Sure, there are practical uses like neon signs or doing certain experiments, but be honest — you really just want to see some giant arcs lighting up your dark mad scientist lair. [Mircemk] has just the prescription for what ails you. Using a two-stage approach, he shows a simple setup that
generates about 110KV
from a pretty tame 15V supply.
From the 15V, there is a stage that uses a flyback transformer and a switch to generate a reasonably high voltage. The final stage is a Cockroft-Walton voltage multiplier that can produce quite a bit of voltage. You can see the impressive arcs in the video below.
The multiplier circuit found fame with experiments by Cockroft and Walton, obviously, but was actually originated in the early 1900s with a physicist named Greinacher. The circuit uses diodes as switches and charges a bank of capacitors in parallel. The discharge, however, puts the capacitors in series. Neglecting losses and loads, the output voltage is equal to the peak-to-peak input voltage times the number of stages present. Real-world considerations mean you won’t quite get that voltage out of it, but it can still provide a potent punch. Click through the break for a video of the circuit in action!
There are lots of ways to
generate high voltages
. Just be careful
making measurements
. | 25 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303051",
"author": "Vlad",
"timestamp": "2020-12-14T12:15:32",
"content": "What voltage are rated those caps ? 110kV or more ? I doubt so.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6303088",
"author": "sjm4306",
"timest... | 1,760,373,255.108445 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/14/building-a-tiny-finger-plane-for-detailed-work/ | Building A Tiny Finger Plane For Detailed Work | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"plane",
"tools",
"wood",
"woodworking"
] | A plane is a tool familiar to all woodworkers, used to shape a workpiece by hand by shaving away material. Regular planes are two-handed tools available at all good hardware stores. For finer work, a finger plane can be useful, though harder to find. Thankfully,
[Daniel] put together a video showing how to make your own.
[Daniel]’s build relies on stabilized wood, useful for its density and consistent quality, though other woods work too. A 6″ pen blank is enough to make a pair of matching finger planes. A block and two side panels are cut out from the material, with attention paid to making sure everything remains square for easy assembly. The parts are glued together with a block set at the desired cutting angle for the plane. With the assembly then tidied up on the bandsaw and sander, [Daniel] installs the cutting blade. This can be made from a larger standard plane blade, or a cutdown chisel can be pressed into service. The blade is held in place with a wooden wedge beneath a metal pin. The pin itself is crafted from an old drill bit, cut down to size.
It’s a useful tool for doing fine plane work, for which a full-size tool would be ungainly. We can imagine it proving particularly useful in producing accurate scale models in smaller sizes. If you’re big into woodworking,
consider giving your tools a good sharpen on the cheap, too
. Video after the break. | 16 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303036",
"author": "Michael",
"timestamp": "2020-12-14T10:44:43",
"content": "It will never fly",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6303071",
"author": "Thomas",
"timestamp": "2020-12-14T14:04:20",
"conten... | 1,760,373,255.21035 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/13/auto-tuning-for-a-vintage-stereo/ | Auto Tuning For A Vintage Stereo | Jenny List | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"attiny85",
"auto tune",
"FM tuner",
"Pioneer"
] | In 1984 there weren’t many ways to listen to high-quality music, so an FM tuner was an essential part of any home hi-fi system. The Pioneer TX-950 picked up by [The Curious Lorenz] would have been someone’s pride and joy, with its then-cutting-edge microprocessor control, digital PLL tuning, and seven-segment displays. Astoundingly it doesn’t have an auto-tuning function though, so
some work to implement the feature using an ATtiny85 was called for
.
A modern FM tuner would be quite likely to use an all-in-one tuner chip using SDR technology under the hood, but this device from another era appears to be a very conventional analog tuner to which the PLL and microprocessor have been grafted. There are simple “Up” and “Down” buttons and a “Station tuned” light. One might imagine that given these the original processor could have done autotune. At least the original designers were kind enough to provide the ATtiny with the interfaces it needs. Pressing either button causes it to keep strobing its line until the “Station tuned” line goes high, at which point it stops. It’s an extremely simple yet effective upgrade, and since the ATtiny is so small it’s easily placed on top of the original PCB. The result is an ultra-modern tuner from 1984, that’s just that little bit more modern than it used to be.
If you don’t have a vintage FM radio, you can always build
its modern equivalent
. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6303029",
"author": "naldo",
"timestamp": "2020-12-14T10:16:24",
"content": "auto-tune has an altogether different meaning and is best reserved for that matter. however, ‘automatic tuning’ and ‘automatic frequency control’ is what NEC called it in their 1984 patent application. ..at... | 1,760,373,255.15606 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/13/little-red-night-light-is-just-right/ | Little Red Night Light Is Just Right | Kristina Panos | [
"Lifehacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"led",
"look ma no microcontroller",
"night light",
"push button"
] | Don’t you hate getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom? The worst part is not being able to see what you’re doing, but if you turn on a light, you’ll lose your night vision. Nightlights are supposed to be the best solution, but are usually too bright for 3 AM excursions and can end up leaking light into the bedroom. What the bathroom needs is a purpose-built nightlight that uses red light so you don’t lose your night vision.
This simple, wall-mounted night light is just the thing
. All it takes is two AA batteries, a resistor, a red LED, and an SPST push button. [Vchaney] even made their own battery contacts. The genius part of this build is in the adjustable LED, which is fitted into a ball that moves around in a socket so you can aim it wherever you need to see. All the files are available if you want to print one for yourself.
Those who sit might prefer to shine the light on the toilet paper roll.
Here’s a smart roll holder that doubles as a night light, albeit a terribly bright one
. | 35 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302957",
"author": "Thelast",
"timestamp": "2020-12-14T03:17:24",
"content": "And hopefully the last.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6302963",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2020-12-14T03:46:39",
"co... | 1,760,373,255.285416 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/13/hackaday-links-december-13-2020/ | Hackaday Links: December 13, 2020 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"advent",
"cgi",
"DCMA",
"De Bruijn sequence",
"github",
"hackaday links",
"linear box filter",
"qemu",
"raymarching",
"render",
"solar",
"sun",
"sunspots",
"youtube-dl"
] | Our Sun is getting a bit frisky these days, and has rewarded us with perhaps
the best screensaver image ever taken
. The incredibly detailed photo of a sunspot was actually taken back in January by the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, a 4-meter instrument with adaptive optics that can image the sun from the near-infrared to visible wavelengths and resolve surface details down to 20 km. The photo, with a distinct “Eye of Sauron” look, shows the massive convection cells surrounding the dark sunspot; an accompanying animation shows the movement of plasmas along the tortured lines of magnetic flux that cause the sunspot to form. It’s fascinating to watch, and even more interesting to mull over the technology that went into capturing it.
With the dustup surrounding the youtube-dl DCMA takedown by GitHub fresh on the open-source community’s minds, GitHub Universe 2020 had
an interesting discussion about maintaining open-source software projects
that’s worth watching. They focused on the challenges that youtube-dl maintainers face in keeping the tool working, and the impact their effort has on the people and groups that rely on them. To underscore that point, they featured a researcher with Human Rights Watch who depends on youtube-dl in her work, and made it quite clear that keeping up with all the API changes that constantly break open source tools like youtube-dl make the role of the maintainers that much more critical.
Speaking of GitHub, here’s a frightening and fascinating new tool:
Depix
, the password de-pixelizer. Developer Sipke Mellema noticed that his company often used pixelization to obscure passwords in documentation, and wondered if he could undo the process.
He wrote up an article
describing the pixelization process using a linear box filter and his method for attacking it, which involves generating a De Bruijn sequence in the same font, text size, and colors as the original document and feeding a screenshot of that and the pixellated password into the tool. We suspect it’ll only work for a subset of obfuscated passwords, but it’s still pretty clever.
‘Tis the season for Advent calendars, and
the folks at QEMU have posted theirs
. Open each of 24 doors on the calendar and you’re rewarded with a downloadable QEMU disk image that implements something fun. Minesweeper, a ray tracer that fits into a boot loader, and of course Conway’s Game of Life. The GW-BASIC image on Day 3 caught our eye — brings back some memories.
For anyone who has ever watched a Pixar film and wondered how all that animation actually works, here’s
a great lesson in making art with math
. The video is by Inigo Quilez and goes through the basics of rendering images using raymarching SDFs, or signed distance functions. In the beginning, it seemed like it was going to be a little bit like
drawing an owl
, but his descriptions of the math involved and how each element of the animation is just another formula is fascinating. What’s more, there’s
a real-time rendering tool
where you can inspect the code and edit it. Alas, my changes only made things worse, but it was still fun and instructive to play with. Check out the video after the break! | 16 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302945",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2020-12-14T02:15:07",
"content": "Note: The QEMU Advent Calander Day-3 GW-BASIC download will land you a QEMU .qcow2 disk image. A Linux .sh shell script is provided to use it, but no info about using it in Windows. A QEMU image may load on... | 1,760,373,255.480836 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/13/a-3d-to-2d-converter-to-make-plots-from-stls/ | A 3D – To – 2D Converter To Make Plots From STLs. | Jenny List | [
"Art",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"plotter",
"stl",
"vector"
] | We’ve become used to finding models on websites such as Thingiverse and downloading them to print. After all, whose hackerspace doesn’t have a pile of novelty prints? How about printing them on paper? For the plotter enthusiast that can be particularly annoying. Never fear,
[Trammell Hudson] is here with an online 3D to 2D converter just for plotters
. [Trammell’s] creation makes a vector image suitable for a plotter while eliminating spurious behind-the-scenes lines.
Plotter drawings are the pen-and-paper equivalent of a vector CRT display, in which the graphics are printed as continuous strokes. Rendering a 3D model as a wireframe for a plotter requires the removal of any pen strokes that comes from the 3D space behind the surface in view. Loading various models into the web page seemed to do a pretty good job of this, though the ubiquitous Benchy 3d printer test model lived up to its billing as a torture test in taking several minutes to render.
As anyone who has followed the
#PlotterTwitter
social media hashtag will know, there is a considerable community of pen plotter enthusiasts who are pushing the boundaries of what their machines can do. [Trammell] has posted his plotter producing some of the work created with this tool, and we can see that it’s likely to work better with lower-poly models.
We’ve featured a lot of plotters over the years as they seem to be a popular project. If you’d like one then they can be made from the most available parts, including those scavenged from
scrap DVD drives
, or
printers
. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302924",
"author": "Mongrel Shark",
"timestamp": "2020-12-13T23:05:02",
"content": "Freecad already has this functionality with Tech Draw Workbench.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6302951",
"author": "Drew",
... | 1,760,373,255.535353 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/13/a-pair-of-steppers-are-put-to-work-in-this-automatic-instrument-pickup-winder/ | A Pair Of Steppers Are Put To Work In This Automatic Instrument Pickup Winder | Dan Maloney | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"coil",
"guitar",
"inductor",
"lead screw linear bearing",
"pickup",
"solenoid",
"steper"
] | For something that’s basically a coil of wire around some magnetic pole pieces, an electric guitar pickup is a complicated bit of tech. So much about the tone of the instrument is dictated by how the pickup is wound that controlling the winding process is something best accomplished with a machine.
This automatic pickup winder
isn’t exactly a high-end machine, but it’s enough for the job at hand, and has some interesting possibilities for refinements.
First off, as [The Mixed Signal] points out, his pickups aren’t intended for use on a guitar.
As we’ve seen before
, the musical projects he has tackled are somewhat offbeat, and this single-pole pickup is destined for another unusual instrument. That’s not to say a guitar pickup couldn’t be wound on this machine, of course, as could inductors, solenoids, or Tesla coils. The running gear is built around two NEMA-17 stepper motors, one for the coil spindle and one for the winding carriage. The carriage runs on a short Acme lead screw and linear bearings, moving back and forth to wind the coil more or less evenly. An Arduino topped with a CNC shield runs the show, allowing for walk-away coil winding.
We do notice that the coil wire seems to bunch up at the ends of the coil form. We wonder if that could be cured by speeding up the carriage motor as it nears the end of the spool to spread the wire spacing out a bit. The nice thing about builds like these is the ease with which changes can be made — at the end of the day, it’s just code.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2iHD2RhGzs | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302869",
"author": "RP",
"timestamp": "2020-12-13T19:02:14",
"content": "The coil bunching at the ends is only because the carriage over travels the ends of the spool.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6302874",
"author": "Pi... | 1,760,373,255.577796 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/13/rc-starship-perfects-its-skydiving-routine/ | RC Starship Perfects Its Skydiving Routine | Tom Nardi | [
"Toy Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"remote controlled",
"servo",
"SpaceX",
"starship",
"Thrust vectoring"
] | There’s a good chance you already saw SpaceX’s towering Starship prototype make its impressive twelve kilometer test flight. While the attempt ended with a spectacular fireball, it was still a phenomenal success as it demonstrated a number of concepts that to this point had never been attempted in the real world. Most importantly, the “Belly Flop” maneuver which sees the 50 meter (160 foot) long rocket transition from vertical flight to a horizontal semi-glide using electrically actuated flight surfaces.
Finding himself inspired by this futuristic spacecraft,
[Nicholas Rehm] has designed his own radio controlled Starship
that’s capable of all the same aerobatic tricks as the real-thing. It swaps the rocket engines for a pair of electric brushless motors, but otherwise, it’s a fairly accurate recreation of SpaceX’s current test program vehicle. As you can see in the video after the break, it’s even able to stick the landing. Well, sometimes anyway.
Just like the real Starship, vectored thrust is used to both stabilize the vehicle during vertical ascent and help transition it into and out of horizontal flight. Of course, there are
no rocket nozzles to slew around
, so [Nicholas] is using servo-controlled vanes in the bottom of the rocket to divert the airflow from the motors. Servos are also used to control the external control surfaces, which provide stability and a bit of control authority as the vehicle is falling.
As an interesting aside, Internet sleuths looking through pictures of the Starship’s wreckage have noted that SpaceX appears to be actuating the flaps with gearboxes driven by Tesla motors. The vehicle is reportedly using Tesla battery packs as well. So while moving the control surfaces on model aircraft with battery-powered servos might historically have been a compromise to minimize internal complexity, here it’s actually quite close to the real thing.
Unfortunately, the RC Starship made a hard landing of its own on a recent test flight, so [Nicholas] currently has to rebuild the craft before he can continue with further development. We’re confident he’ll get it back in the air, though it will be interesting to see whether or not he’s flying before SpaceX fires off their next prototype. | 12 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302818",
"author": "rastersoft",
"timestamp": "2020-12-13T15:29:52",
"content": "If it doesn’t explode on landing, it is not realist :-P :-D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6302883",
"author": "Mark Smith",
"t... | 1,760,373,255.633801 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/13/creality-wifi-takes-on-octoprint/ | Creality WiFi Takes On Octoprint | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"3d printing",
"Creality",
"Octoprint"
] | A very common hack to a 3D printer is to connect a Raspberry Pi to your printer and then load Octoprint or a similar program and send your files to the printer via the network. [Teaching Tech] noticed that Creality now has an
inexpensive WiFi interface
that promises to replace Octoprint and decided to give it a quick review.
You might wonder why you’d want this system when Octoprint exists? Mainly, the value proposition is the price. You can buy the Creality box for about $20. A Raspberry Pi with a similar case would be at least twice that price. In addition, the box integrates with a Thingiverse-like library and does cloud slicing, which is attractive when you have a very small computer connected to your printer.
However, [Teaching Tech] found some issues. The box was pretty picky about connecting to printers and there were many other problems. The 3D model library wasn’t very comprehensive, although that could change if the thing got very popular. Worse, the slicer didn’t really produce stellar results.
We have to admit, an attractive network interface for $20 would be of interest. But it is hard to see how this would be a better value than Octoprint unless you were very short on cash and had no Raspberry Pi surplus laying around. You still need an SD card and a power supply, so those extras are a wash.
On the other hand, if Creality fixes the problems and expands the 3D model library, we’d buy one. But it remains to be seen if either of those things will happen, much less both of them. We do wish [Teaching Tech] had opened the thing up for us. Maybe next time.
We like
Octoprint
(and the similar
Repetier Server
). We also like that there are many plugins for it, something that is not likely to happen with a closed-source box like the Creality. If you really want to have fun with a Raspberry Pi and a 3D printer, consider
Klipper
. That’s a very different approach to using the Pi with a printer, but it does have some advantages. | 78 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302770",
"author": "Vladimir",
"timestamp": "2020-12-13T12:07:29",
"content": "“You can buy the Creality box for about $20. A Raspberry Pi with a similar case would be at least twice that price”Wrong: you absolutely don´t need a Raspi 4 to run octoprint. A second hand Raspi2 for le... | 1,760,373,255.761191 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/13/can-you-use-an-easy-bake-oven-for-reflow-soldering/ | Can You Use An Easy-Bake Oven For Reflow Soldering? | Kristina Panos | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"easy-bake oven",
"leds",
"reflow oven",
"reflow soldering",
"smd soldering",
"smt"
] | The answer is yes, yes you can. As long as you have one made after about 2011, at least. In the video after the break, [Blitz City DIY] takes us briefly through the history of the venerable Easy-Bake Oven and into the future by
reflow soldering a handful of small blinky boards with it
.
You’re right, these things once used special light bulbs to cook pint-sized foods, but now they are legit ovens with heating elements that reach 350°F and a little above. The only trouble is that there’s no temperature controller, so you have to use low-temperature solder paste and an oven thermometer to know when to pull the little tray out. Other than that, it looked like smooth sailing.
If you’re only doing a board every once in a while, $40 for a reflow oven isn’t too shabby. And yeah, as with all ovens, once you’ve reflowed a board in it, don’t use it for food.
If you’d rather build an oven,
high-powered light bulbs will still do the trick
.
Thanks for the tip, [foamyguy]. | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302766",
"author": "mnoisrhg",
"timestamp": "2020-12-13T10:11:30",
"content": "tl;dw skip to 9:15 for actual hardware.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6302777",
"author": "Cogidubnus Rex",
"timestamp": "2020-12-13T12:40... | 1,760,373,255.81073 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/12/irc-over-lora-for-when-things-really-go-south/ | IRC Over LoRa, For When Things Really Go South | Tom Nardi | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"communications",
"disaster response",
"ESP32",
"LoRa",
"off grid"
] | As a society, we’ve become accustomed to always-on high-speed data connections, whether we’re at home on the computer or out and about with a mobile device. But what happens if a natural disaster knocks out the local infrastructure? Sure some people will be able to fire up their radio if they need to reach out and touch someone, but even among hackers, hams are a minority. What we really need is a backup Internet.
The team behind the CellSol project hopes to show that
building a volunteer-operated distributed communications network
is not only within the capabilities of the hacker community but probably much easier and cheaper to do than you might think. Each node in the network, known as a Pylon in CellSol parlance, can shuttle data between the LoRa backbone and WiFi-enabled devices like smartphones and computers. Once the network is up and running, users don’t need any special hardware or software to use it.
Now to be clear, nobody is talking about surfing the web here. When a user connects to one of the ESP32 Pylons, they’ll be able to access a simplistic chat system through their browser. If the Pylon has an active Internet connection the chat can be bridged to an IRC channel. Without Internet connectivity, the pylon will simply give users on the CellSol network a means to communicate among each other. To keep things simple there’s no user names, private messages, or encryption. This is bare-bones, end-of-the-world style communication.
Want to join the CellSol revolution? All you really need is an ESP32, a LoRa radio, and the open-source firmware. If you get something like the Heltec LoRa 32 development board, you don’t even need to solder anything together. Just flash the board and go. Once you have a few Pylons going, you can also put together a cheap repeater node using a LoRa equipped Arduino. Both devices are small and energy efficient enough that they could easily be battery or solar powered. As you can see in the video after the break, the team even envisions a future where they could be dropped off in public areas via drone.
This isn’t the first time we’ve
seen the ESP32 used to establish an off-grid LoRa communications network
, and like those previous attempts, it’s usefulness will largely depend on how many people you can convince to set up their own nodes and repeaters. But if you’ve got some open minded friends who live relatively close by, this could be a great way to have a little chat. | 74 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302752",
"author": "Daniel Dunn",
"timestamp": "2020-12-13T07:51:16",
"content": "I think the main backbone we need is long-range WiFi links, but if the SHTF for real, we probably want a backup for the backup so…I’m all for constructing additional pylons!The only issue is that anyt... | 1,760,373,255.935518 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/12/a-beeping-toy-helps-a-blind-dog-play-fetch/ | A Beeping Toy Helps A Blind Dog Play Fetch | Kristina Panos | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"accelerometer",
"dog toy",
"PIC16F18313",
"piezo buzzer"
] | When a beloved pet goes blind, it doesn’t mean they can’t or don’t want to play fetch anymore, only that the game must change a bit. [Bud Bennett]’s dog Lucy has slowly lost her sight to progressive renal atrophy but is still up for playing with toys, so [Bud] decided to make
a beeper that can go inside various stuffed toys
to help Lucy locate them. Lucy doesn’t care for commercial toys that chime constantly, especially once she’s got it in her mouth.
This tiny package is centered around an LIS3DH accelerometer and programmed with a PIC16F18313. When the toy is thrown up in the air, the accelerometer determines that it’s in free fall and triggers an interrupt on the PIC. The piezo buzzer starts beeping so Lucy can find it, then stops a short while later and waits for the next free fall. The power dissipation is so low that [Bud] expects to charge the 120 mAh LiPo battery about once a year.
We bet that communication between [Bud] and Lucy is already pretty good,
but maybe she could be more expressive with a doggy soundboard
. | 9 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302736",
"author": "captnmike",
"timestamp": "2020-12-13T03:44:43",
"content": "Nice job!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6302741",
"author": "Shannon",
"timestamp": "2020-12-13T05:02:29",
"content": "Aww. What a cu... | 1,760,373,255.985508 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/12/homebuilt-racing-sim-does-almost-everything-from-scratch/ | Homebuilt Racing Sim Does Almost Everything From Scratch | Lewin Day | [
"Games"
] | [
"racing",
"sim rig",
"virtual reality"
] | If you desire a sim gaming rig, there are off-the-shelf options up and down the market that stretch as high as your budget can afford. Some choose to eschew this route, however and build their own from scratch. Few people go quite so far as [Popicasa POPStuDio], however.
The first version of the rig is about as hacked as you can possibly get
, and it’s a joy to see it built from scrap. The wheel itself and the pedals are all built out of old PVC pipe, with a bunch of old wood screwed together for the frame. A cheap USB gamepad serves to handle input to the PC for the pedals and H-shifter. The H-shifter uses simple power switches, repurposed in an ingenious way to sense gear position. The knob itself is cast out of what appears to be hot glue. Steering is done by connecting the wheel to a flexible shaft that tips a smartphone back and forth, using its internal accelerometers and gyros to sense rotation. It’s not clear how this is tied into the PC running Project CARS, but it’s impressive nonetheless.
Version 2 of the build takes things up a notch
, using an Arduino Leonardo to handle steering and pedal functions as a Human Interface Device. There’s also force feedback, via a hefty motor attached to the steering shaft via a belt drive. This version implements an H-shifter as well as paddle shifters too for a more modern experience.
Both builds are unique in the modern era for eschewing CNC or 3D printed parts. It’s all done by hand, taking days of effort, and using only basic tools. It’s refreshing to see such a complex build done with nothing but simple materials and sheer commitment. We’re sure [Popicasa POPStuDio] enjoys the rig, and we can’t wait to see where it goes next. Perhaps the next iteration
will even feature a motion platform,
perhaps built out of old forklift parts? Only time will tell. Video after the break. | 16 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302730",
"author": "This Is A Joke, People",
"timestamp": "2020-12-13T02:32:54",
"content": "All that work and he put the shifter on the wrong side…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6302733",
"author": "CMH62",
... | 1,760,373,256.042793 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/12/hackers-discovery-changes-understanding-of-the-antikythera-mechanism/ | Hacker’s Discovery Changes Understanding Of The Antikythera Mechanism | Dan Maloney | [
"clock hacks",
"News"
] | [
"analog computer",
"antikythera",
"calendar",
"Clickspring",
"horology",
"lunar",
"solar"
] | With all the trained academics who have pored over the Antikythera mechanism in the 120 years since it was pulled from the Mediterranean Sea, you’d think all of the features of the ancient analog computer would have been discovered by now. But the mechanism still holds secrets, some of which can only be appreciated by someone in tune with the original maker of the device. At least that what appears to have happened with the recent discovery of
a hitherto unknown lunar calendar in the Antikythera mechanism
. (Video, embedded below.)
The Antikythera mechanism is fascinating in its own right, but the real treat here is that this discovery comes from one of our own community — [Chris] at Clickspring, maker of
amazing clocks
and
other mechanical works of art
. When he undertook a reproduction of the Antikythera mechanism using nothing but period-correct materials and tools four years ago, he had no idea that the effort would take the direction it has. The video below — also on
Vimeo
— sums up the serendipitous discovery, which is based on the unusual number of divisions etched into one of the rings of the mechanisms. Scholars had dismissed this as a mistake, but having walked a mile in the shoes of the mechanism’s creator, [Chris] knew better.
The craftsmanship and ingenuity evidenced in the original led [Chris] and his collaborators to the conclusion that the calendar ring is actually a 354-day calendar that reflects a lunar cycle rather than a solar cycle. The findings are summarized in
a scholarly paper in the Horological Journal
. Getting a paper accepted in a peer-reviewed journal is no mean feat, so hats off to the authors for not only finding this long-lost feature of the Antikythera mechanism and figuring out its significance, but also for persisting through the writing and publication process while putting other projects on hold. Clickspring fans have extra reason to rejoice, too — more videos are now on the way! | 46 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302701",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2020-12-12T22:38:01",
"content": "I guess it just goes to show it takes a maker to know what another maker (2000 years ago) is really doing. Good job! (Both Chris and the guy who built the original.)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth"... | 1,760,373,256.174097 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/12/giving-blind-runners-independence-with-ai/ | Giving Blind Runners Independence With AI | Danie Conradie | [
"Android Hacks",
"Machine Learning"
] | [
"android",
"blindness",
"exercise",
"line following",
"machine learning"
] | Being able to see, move, and exercise independently is something most of us take for granted. [Thomas Panek] was an avid runner before losing his sight due to a genetic condition, and had to rely on other humans and guide dogs to run again. After challenging attendants at a Google hackathon,
Project Guideline was established to give blind runners (or walkers) independence from a cane, dog or another human, while exercising outdoors
. Using a smartphone with line following AI software, and bone conduction headphones, users can be guided along a path with a line painted on it. You need to watch the video below to get a taste of just how incredible it is for the users.
Getting a wheeled robot to follow a line is relatively simple, but a running human is by no means a stable sensor platform. At the previously mentioned hackathon, developers put together a rough proof of concept with a smartphone, using its camera to recognize a painted line on the ground and provide left/right audio cues. As the project developed, the smartphone was attached to a waist belt and bone conduction headphones were used, which don’t affect audio situational awareness as much as normal headphones.
The shaking and side to side movement of running, and varying light conditions and visual obstructions in the outdoors made the problem more difficult to solve, but within a year the developers had completed successful running tests with [Thomas] on a well-lit indoor track and an outdoor pedestrian path with a temporary line. For the first time in 25 years, [Thomas] was able to run independently.
While guide dogs have proven effective for both daily life and running, they cost approximately $60000 over an average working life of 8 years, putting them out of reach of many sight-impaired people around the world. Project Guideline is still in the early stages, and real-world problems like obstacles and traffic still need to be addressed, but there is massive potential.
We’ve seen a few projects focused on
helping the blind navigate obstacles
, usually with
haptic feedback
, but this is the first we’ve seen that would allow independent running. Modern smartphones have incredible
hacking potential
, especially when you add
machine learning
to the mix. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302672",
"author": "dave",
"timestamp": "2020-12-12T18:45:41",
"content": "Nice idea, but not in the UK. Poor road/path maintenance, makes them a nightmare for sighted able bodied people, plus few if any lines on paths, and those on the roads are patchy and poor. Couple that wit... | 1,760,373,256.086834 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/12/how-much-is-too-much/ | How Much Is Too Much? | Elliot Williams | [
"cnc hacks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants"
] | [
"cnc",
"cutter",
"foam",
"hot-wire",
"newsletter"
] | I definitely tend towards minimalism in my personal projects. That often translates into getting stuff done with the smallest number of parts, or the cheapest parts, or the lowest tech. Oddly enough that doesn’t extend to getting the project done in the minimum amount of
time
, which is a resource no less valuable than money or silicon. The overkill road is often the smoothest road, but I’ll make the case for taking the rocky, muddy path. (At least sometimes.)
There are a
bunch of great designs
for CNC hot-wire foam cutters out there, and they range from the hacky to the ridiculously over-engineered, with probably most of them falling into the latter pile. Many of the machines you’ll see borrow heavily from their nearest cousins, the CNC mill or the 3D printer, and sport hardened steel rails or ballscrews and are constructed out of thick MDF or even aluminum plates.
All a CNC foam cutter needs to do is hold a little bit of tension on a wire that gets hot, and pass it slowly and accurately through a block of foam, which obligingly melts out of the way. The wire moves slowly, so the frame doesn’t need to handle the acceleration of a 3D printer head, and it faces almost no load so it doesn’t need any of the beefy drives and ways of the CNC mill. But the mechanics of the mill and printer are so well worked out that most makers don’t feel the need to minimize, simply build what they already know, and thereby save time. They build a machine strong enough to carry a small child instead of a 60 cm length of 0.4 mm wire that weighs less than a bird’s feather.
I took the opposite approach, building as light and as minimal as possible from the ground up. (Which is why my machine still isn’t finished yet!) By building too little, too wobbly, or simply too janky, I’ve gotten to see what the advantages of the more robust designs are. Had I started out with an infinite supply of v-slot rail and ballscrews, I wouldn’t have found out that they’re overkill, but if I had started out with a frame that resisted pulling inwards a little bit more, I would be done by now.
Overbuilding is expedient, but it’s also a one-way street. Once you have the gilded version of the machine up and running, there’s little incentive to reduce the cost or complexity of the thing; it’s working and the money is already spent. But when your machine doesn’t quite work well enough yet, it’s easy enough to tell what needs improving, as well as what doesn’t. Overkill is the path of getting it done fast, while iterated failure and improvement is the path of learning along the way. And when it’s done, I’ll have a good story to tell. Or at least that’s what I’m saying to myself as I wait for my third rail-holder block to finish printing.
This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on
the web version of the newsletter
.
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! | 52 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302641",
"author": "Rogfanther",
"timestamp": "2020-12-12T15:13:33",
"content": "Building it the wrong ways, then understanding it and fixing the problems teach you the reasons for some things, along with the understanding of the importance of some points in the design, that buildi... | 1,760,373,256.477419 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/12/slick-diy-compound-bow-uses-coiled-springs-toothbrush-heads/ | Slick DIY Compound Bow Uses Coiled Springs, Toothbrush Heads | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"archery",
"arrow",
"bow",
"compound bow",
"diy"
] | Compound bows (unlike recurve bows, their more mechanically-simple relatives) use a levering system with pulleys and spring tension to grant the user a mechanical advantage. We’re not exactly sure what to call [Zünder’s] bow design. He shared
his unconventional take on a DIY bow that uses coiled springs
as well as some other unique features.
Toothbrush heads and 3D printing make an enclosed, bristle-supported arrow rest.
What we really dig about [Zünder]’s design is how easy it is to grasp how it all works. As he demonstrates using the bow, the way the levers, pulleys, and spring tension all work together is very clear. The 3D-printed quiver and arrow rest are nice added touches, and we especially love the use of three toothbrush heads to provide contained support for a nocked arrow. The ring of bristles are sturdy enough to easily support the shaft, and don’t interfere with the arrow’s fletching.
[Zünder] has
a photo gallery with a few additional photos and closeups
, and you can watch him demonstrate his bow in the video embedded below.
We’ve seen some really clever DIY work when it comes to archery, like
this effort at making a compound bow from PVC pipe
, and
this fascinating bicycle-wheel-based design
that was built almost entirely from recycled and reused materials. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302622",
"author": "nuclear",
"timestamp": "2020-12-12T12:51:56",
"content": "The history of the compound bow is quite interesting. It was invented in Rolla, Missouri, in the 1960’s. Manufacturers stole the idea and made bows to sell. The inventor had a tragic end.",
"parent... | 1,760,373,256.23421 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/12/3d-finger-joints-for-your-laser-cutter/ | 3D Finger Joints For Your Laser Cutter | Matthew Carlson | [
"cnc hacks",
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"cad",
"finger joint",
"laser cutter"
] | A laser cutter is an incredibly useful tool and they are often found in maker spaces all over. They’re quite good at creating large two-dimensional objects and by cutting multiple flat shapes that connect together you can assemble a three-dimensional object. This is easier when creating something like a box with regular 90-degree angles but quickly becomes quite tricky when you are trying to construct any sort of irregular surface. [Tuomas Lukka] set out to
create a dollhouse for his daughter using the laser cutter
at his local hackerspace and the idea of creating all the joints manually was discouraging.
The solution that he landed on was writing
a python script called Plycutter
that can take in an STL file and output a series of DXF files needed by the cutter. It does the hard work of deciding how to cut out all those oddball joints.
At its core, the system is just a 3D slicer like you’d find for a 3D printer, but not all the slices are horizontal. Things get tricky if more than two pieces meet. [Tuomas] ran into a few issues along the way with floating-point round-off and after a few rewrites, he had a fantastic system that reliably produced great results. The dollhouse was constructed much to his daughter’s delight.
All the
code for Plycutter is on GitHub
. We’ve seen a
similar technique that adds slots, finger-joints, and t-slots to boxes
, but Plycutter really offers some unique capabilities. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302605",
"author": "bmsleight",
"timestamp": "2020-12-12T10:58:54",
"content": "Love it – much better than my OpenSCAD approach –https://github.com/bmsleight/lasercut",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6302643",
"author": "PWa... | 1,760,373,256.281434 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/11/surfing-the-web-with-7400-logic/ | Surfing The Web With 7400 Logic | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"7400",
"retrocomputer",
"retrocomputing",
"ttl"
] | We see more computers built from logic gates than you might expect. However, most of them are really more demonstration computers and can’t do much of what you’d consider essential today. No so with [Alastair Hewitt’s]
Novasaur
. Although built using 34 TLL chips (and a few memory and analog chips, too, along with one PAL), it boasts some impressive features:
Dual Processor CPU/GPU (Harvard Architecture).
33 MHz dot clock, 16.5 MHz data path, 8.25 MHz per processor (~3.5 CPU MIPs)
256k ROM: 96k ALU, 64k native program, 64k cold storage, 32k fonts.
128/512k RAM: 1-7 banks of 64k user, 60k display, 4k system.
76 ALU functions including multiply/divide, system, and math functions.
Bitmapped Graphics: Hi-res mode up to 416×240 with 8 colors and 4 dithering patterns. Lo-res mode up to 208×160 with 256 colors, double-buffered.
Text Mode: 8 colors FG/BG, 256 line buffer, up to 104×60 using 8×8 glyphs, 80×36, and 64×48 rows using 8×16 glyphs.
Audio: 4 voice wavetable synthesis, ADSR, 8-bit DAC, 8Hz-4.8kHz.
PS2 Keyboard: Native interface built-in.
RS232 Serial Port: Full duplex, RTS/CTS flow control, 9600 baud.
Expansion Port: 7 addressable 8-bit register ports, 4 interrupt flags
The average speed (3.5 MIPS) is lower than the clock speed because some instructions take four clock cycles to execute. To save on devices, the ALU processes four bits at a time, requiring two cycles per math instruction. The internet interface is via the serial port, of course, so using this as your video streaming server is probably not a good idea.
Still, not too shabby for a handful of generic parts. One problem with this type of CPU is developing all the software. The Novasaur has a byte-code interpreter that can execute 8080 and 8085 code directly, solving that problem neatly.
Of course, you can’t see a TTL computer without thinking of the
Gigatron
. Then there’s the infamous
breadboard computer
. | 12 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302609",
"author": "sudos",
"timestamp": "2020-12-12T11:34:32",
"content": "I think my favorite part of this is the sockets. they’re the good kind. no expense was spared.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6302626",
"author": ... | 1,760,373,256.524694 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/11/a-thousand-feet-under-the-sea/ | A Thousand Feet Under The Sea | Al Williams | [
"News"
] | [
"submarine",
"submersible"
] | If you were to plumb the depth of the oceans, you could only get so far with a snorkel or a SCUBA tank. We don’t know the price, but if you have enough money, you might consider the
Triton 3300/6
— a six-person submersible that can go down to 3,300 feet (hence the name–get it–3300/6). Billed as “diving for the entire family,” we aren’t sure we can load grandma and the kids in something like this, but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t like to try.
The machine can carry up to 1,760 pounds and can make 3 knots which isn’t going to set any speed records. At around 24,000 pounds, the two main thrusters are lucky to make that speed. The view bubble is apparently optically perfect acrylic made by a German company and the company claims the 100-inch diameter bubble is the world’s largest spherical acrylic pressure hull.
The 3,300-foot depth sounds impressive and is much further than you can get with conventional SCUBA gear. However, keep in mind the deepest part of the ocean is nearly 36,000 feet down, and you only have 10 hours of operations, so keep your expectations realistic. Even the ocean’s average depth is about 12,000 feet.
We have to admit the thing looks cool, but we couldn’t find the price since it is probably one of those things that if you have to ask, you can’t afford it. It did make us wonder, though, if anyone has tried their hand at a crewed submersible? There are some technical hurdles. You’d want bulletproof life support and backup systems. Water gets into everything and you probably need an emergency surface capability and maybe want to go down with SCUBA gear the first few attempts. But still. We see things
at least this dangerous
all the time.
We haven’t seen many attempts, although there was
one that had few details
(the web site is gone, but the videos remain). There are plenty of ways to
track your progress
from the topside if you decide to have a go at it. | 15 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302561",
"author": "Edward Nardella",
"timestamp": "2020-12-12T03:17:32",
"content": "Oh, there’s one guy that built his own, the saga is well worth the read, lay I heard the creator was to stand trial for murder.https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/08/biggest-amateur-built-sub-sin... | 1,760,373,256.919946 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/10/remembering-chuck-yeager-the-supersonic-legend-whose-wings-were-clipped-by-a-high-school-diploma/ | Remembering Chuck Yeager: The Supersonic Legend Whose Wings Were Clipped By A High School Diploma | Maya Posch | [
"Biography",
"Featured",
"History",
"News",
"Slider"
] | [
"bell x-1",
"Chuck Yeager",
"supersonic"
] | In history there are people whose legacy becomes larger than life. Ask anyone who built and flew the first airplane, and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who isn’t at least aware of the accomplishments of the Wright brothers. In a similar vein, Chuck Yeager’s pioneering trip into supersonic territory with the Bell X-1 airplane made his name essentially synonymous with the whole concept of flying faster than the speed of sound. This wasn’t the sole thing he did, of course: he also fought in WWII and Vietnam and worked as an instructor and test pilot, flying hundreds of different airplanes during his career.
Yeager’s insistence on making that first supersonic flight, despite having broken two ribs days earlier, became emblematic of the man himself: someone who never let challenges keep him from exploring the limits of the countless aircraft he flew, while inspiring others to give it their best shot. Perhaps ironically, it could be said that the only thing that ever held Yeager back was only having a high school diploma.
On December 7, 2020, Chuck Yeager died at the age of 97, leaving behind a legacy that will continue to inspire many for decades to come.
The Right Stuff
X-1 #46-062, nicknamed Glamorous Glennis.
During the second World War, airplanes had undergone many changes to improve their performance, but the propeller-based airplanes of the time encountered practical limits even as they tried to fly ever faster and higher. While the advent of
rocket
and
turbojet
engines got around some of these limitations, one soon became aware of the dangers posed when approaching the speed of sound sound — the so-called
transonic
region.
The aerodynamics of this transition from subsonic to supersonic flight were poorly understood in the 1940s when the US began a joint research project on supersonic aircraft. The
Bell X-1
was a research aircraft which was used to investigate this transonic region. Lacking solid data on what airplane shape would work best across sub- and supersonic speeds, a shape was picked which was known to be stable at supersonic speed: a Browning .50-caliber machine gun bullet.
Having solved this problem, all that was left was finding a test pilot who would want to fly this rocket-powered plane through the
sound barrier
. This term was coined during WW2 when fighter pilots would encounter the effects of
compressibility
: when nearing the speed of sound the aerodynamics acting upon the airplane would change dramatically, limiting them to around 800 km/h (even in a dive) above which they risked instability due to stalled control surfaces and other control issues which would result in a loss of the airplane.
Test pilots in the late 1940s were exposed to a lot of risk considering the countless airplane designs that had been dreamed up, built, and thrust into production in a matter of months during the war. But by all accounts this was a new frontier.
Join the Army, They Said
P-39Q Saga Boy II (42-1947) of Lt. Col. Edwin S. Chickering, CO 357th Fighter Group, July 1943.
On February 13, 1923, a farming family in Myra, West Virginia welcomed their newest family member with the birth of
Charles Elwood Yeager
. By the time he was five, the family moved to Hamlin, West Virginia, where Yeager would attend Hamlin High School. His first experience with the military was during the summers of 1939 and 1940, when as a teenager he would attend the
Citizens’ Military Training Camp
at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana, before he enlisted with the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) on September 12, 1941, where he became an aircraft mechanic stationed at the George Air Force Base in California.
When he enlisted, he was not eligible for flight training because of his age and educational background, but as the US entered the war a mere three months later, the recruiting standards by the USAAF were altered. On March 10, 1943 Yeager graduated from Class 43C and received his pilot wings. His first airplane was the Bell P-39 Airacobra, which his group trained on before they would ship overseas on November 23rd that year.
“Glamorous Glen III,” Chuck Yeager’s P-51D during World War II. (U.S. Air Force photo)
Stationed at RAF Leiston, Yeager would fly
P-51
Mustangs, naming his P-51
Glamorous Glen
, after his then girlfriend, Glennis Faye Dickhouse. Initially he flew seven missions without any issues, shooting down one enemy aircraft. Then, on his eighth mission his aircraft was shot down over France.
Fortunately, he was not captured by the enemy, but found himself escorted by the
Maquis
(French resistance) to Spain. While with the
Maquis,
he assisted them with tasks that did not involve directly fighting, such as the constructing of bombs, a skill which he had picked up from his father. On May 15, 1944 he was back in England.
Originally, Yeager and other “evaders” (pilots who had escaped from behind enemy lines) would not be allowed to fly over enemy terrain again, as they might be captured by the enemy and reveal secrets about the Resistance. Along with fellow P-51 pilot Fred Glover he went straight to the Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower to protest this. Ultimately he was cleared for combat again, according to Yeager:
I raised so much hell that General Eisenhower finally let me go back to my squadron. He cleared me for combat after D Day, because all the free Frenchmen—Maquis and people like that—had surfaced.
Ultimately, Yeager would fly 61 missions during WW2, flying his last mission on January 15th of 1945, returning to the US the next month. With his now-wife Glennis pregnant with their first child, he chose an assignment at the
Wright Field
as this was close to their home. There he would be stationed under the command of Colonel Albert Boyd, head of the Aeronautical Systems Flight Test Division Here it was also that he would become a test pilot, qualifying due to his large number of flight hours and experience with aircraft maintenance.
Just Doing the Job
Captain Chuck Yeager sitting in Bell X-1 cockpit. Scanned from print signed by Chuck Yeager in 1994.
Bell Aircraft originally tapped test pilot Chalmers “Slick” Goodlin to fly the X-1 on its maiden test flight, but when he demanded $150,000 ($1.7 million in 2020) for the task, the USAAF instead picked Yeager as pilot. It was now 1947 and Yeager had graduated from Class 46C at the US Air Force Test Pilot School (412th Test Wing of the Air Force Materiel Command) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio to become a test pilot at Muroc Army Air Field (today: Edwards Air Force Base).
Two days before the scheduled test flight, Yeager fell from a horse, breaking two ribs. Despite the pain, he got a civilian doctor to tape him up so that he could still carry out the flight. Telling only his friend and fellow project pilot
Jack Ridley
about it. On the day of the flight, it was Ridley who helped improvise a mechanism which Yeager could use to seal the hatch of the X-1 “Glamorous Glennis” aircraft, as Yeager was in too much pain to do so the regular way.
The rest, as one says, is history. Although the successful flight wasn’t made public until a year later, his name in history had already been secured at that point. The flight itself was relatively uneventful. According to Yeager, the aircraft experienced a lot of turbulence as it went through the transonic phase, but once it went supersonic, it was very smooth. This flight would pave the way for many more supersonic flights, ultimately enabling the routine transitioning to supersonic travel of not only jet fighters but also commercial aircraft, while deepening our understanding of aerodynamics at trans- and supersonic speeds.
The Sky is the Limit
After his first supersonic flight, Yeager would go on to test more aircraft like the X-1 as well as many unlike it, such as the MiG-15 (from a North Korean defector) and the
M2-F1 lifting body
aircraft. When civilian National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) pilot Scott Crossfield became the first pilot to travel at twice the speed of sound in 1953 with a
D-558-2 Skyrocket
, Ridley and Yeager managed to push the record to Mach 2.44 in the new X-1A, past the previous record and just in time before Crossfield’s achievement would be celebrated, in what they called
Operation NACA Weep
.
That particular X-1A flight almost went wrong, but Yeager managed to recover the aircraft in the nick of time. This was hardly the end of the excitement, however. During his deployment in
Korea
and the Vietnam War he would command several squadrons and wings. He also became the first commandant of the
USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School
, which also trained astronauts. Unfortunately, due to only having a high school diploma, he was not eligible for becoming an astronaut himself, leaving that door firmly closed.
A Broad Legacy
Chuck Yeager is quite literally a household name at this point. During the 1980s and 1990s a movie called
The Right Stuff
was released based on the 1979 book of the same title. This describes the test pilots involved in aeronautical research, including Yeager as well as those who would go on to be astronauts in Project Mercury, the first human spaceflight by the US. Yeager himself makes a cameo in this movie, as the barkeep in the bar where he in his own words “probably spent more time than in aircraft cockpits”.
Screenshot from Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat.
In 1987
Chuck Yeager’s Advanced Flight Trainer
was released for home computers, which allows the player to take control of a number of airplanes, including the X-1, which features in-game comments by Yeager, such as when one crashes the plane. Yeager was a technical consultant on that game, as well as on
Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat
, which was released in 1991 and features missions Yeager has flown. Both
Advanced Flight Trainer
and
Air Combat
can now be found as
abandonware
.
Beyond public outreach, Yeager’s expertise was sought even after retirement in 1975, when after the 1986 Challenger disaster, Yeager was assigned by President Reagan to the
Rogers Commission
which was charged with investigating the disaster.
On October 14, 1997, Yeager flew a new
Glamorous Glenn III
(an
F-15D Eagle
) past Mach 1 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of that first time in the X-1, and again in 2012, as co-pilot in an F-15 at the age of 89. During the speech in 1997 he ended with the words: “All that I am… I owe to the Air Force.”, yet it is hard not to see him as an instrumental part of everything that was achieved in aeronautics.
More recently, I had the honor of following Chuck Yeager on Twitter, where (along with other legends like Buzz Aldrin), they are just interacting like normal people, despite their major achievements. I admired Yeager for his quick wit and down to earth commentary. He was eager to educate and teach people, and an all-around pleasant personality.
While his legacy will live on, Chuck Yeager as a person will be sorely missed. | 37 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302219",
"author": "Jim",
"timestamp": "2020-12-10T18:50:09",
"content": "Not meaning to detract from his accomplishment but I’ve seen something about an RAF piot breaking the sound barrier in a steep diving Spitfire during WWII. Anybody elaborate on this?",
"parent_id": null... | 1,760,373,256.639193 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/10/a-walking-rover-destined-explore-your-fridge-door/ | A Walking Rover Destined Explore Your Fridge Door | Danie Conradie | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"3d printred",
"autonomous robot",
"gzumwalt",
"walking robot"
] | It’s usually the simple ideas that sprout bigger ones, and this was the case when we saw [gzumwalt]’s single-motor
walking robot crawling up a fridge door
with magnets on its feet. (Video, embedded below.)
The walking mechanism consists of an inner foot and two outer feet, connected by three sets of rotating linkages, driven by a single geared motor. The feet move in a leapfrog motion, in small enough steps that the center of mass always stays inside the foot area, which keeps it from tipping over. Besides the previously mentioned ability to crawl around on a vertical magnetic surface, it’s also able to crawl over almost any obstacle shorter than its step length. A larger version should also be able to climb stairs.
As shown, this robot can only travel in a straight line, but this could be solved by adding a disc on the bottom of the inner foot to turn the robot when the outer feet are off the surface. Add some microswitch feelers and an Arduino, and it can autonomously explore your fridge without falling off. Maybe we’ll get around to building it ourselves, but be sure to drop us a tip if you beat us to it!
[gzumwalt] is a master of 3D printed devices like a
rigid chain
and a
domino laying robot
. The mechanism for this robot was inspired by one design from
[thang010146]’s marvelous video library of mechanisms
. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302264",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2020-12-10T21:12:18",
"content": "Looks like fun.The freecad version is of course much better than that contraption in that mist based software.Next step up is a rotating platform for the center piece so it can change direction.A bit para... | 1,760,373,256.687681 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/10/a-xilinx-zynq-linux-fpga-board-for-under-20-the-windfall-of-decommissioned-crypto-mining/ | A Xilinx Zynq Linux FPGA Board For Under $20? The Windfall Of Decommissioned Crypto Mining | Jenny List | [
"FPGA",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Parts"
] | [
"AliExpress",
"bitcoin mining",
"bitcoin mining hardware",
"cryptocurrency",
"fpga",
"xilinx zynq",
"Zynq"
] | One of the exciting trends in hardware availability is the inexorable move of FPGA boards and modules towards affordability. What was once an eye-watering price is now merely an expensive one, and no doubt in years to come will become a commodity. There’s still an affordability gap at the bottom of the market though, so
spotting sub-$20 Xilinx Zynq boards on AliExpress
that combine a Linux-capable ARM core and an FPGA on the same silicon is definitely something of great interest. A hackerspace community friend of mine ordered one, and yesterday it arrived in the usual anonymous package from China.
There’s a Catch, But It’s Only A Small One
The heftier of the two boards, in all its glory.
There are two boards to be found for sale, one featuring the Zynq 7000 and the other the 7010, which
the Xilinx product selector
tells us both have the same ARM Cortex A9 cores and Artix-7 FPGA tech on board. The 7000 includes a single core with 23k logic cells, and there’s a dual-core with 28k on the 7010. It was the latter that my friend had ordered.
So there’s the good news, but there has to be a catch, right? True, but it’s not an insurmountable one. These aren’t new products, instead they’re the controller boards for an older generation of AntMiner cryptocurrency mining rigs. The components have 2017 date codes, so they’ve spent the last three years hooked up to a brace of ASIC or GPU boards in a mining data centre somewhere. The ever-changing pace of cryptocurrency tech means that they’re now redundant, and we’re the lucky beneficiaries via the surplus market.
Getting To The Linux Shell Is This Easy!
Linux, in minutes!
On the PCB is the Zynq chip in a hefty BGA with its I/O lines brought out to a row of sockets for the miner boards, Ethernet, an SD card slot, a few LEDs and buttons, and an ATX 12V power socket. The serial and JTAG ports are easily identifiable and readily accessible, and connecting a USB-to-serial adapter to the former brought us to a Linux login prompt. A little bootloader shell wizardry allowed the password to be reset, and there we were with a usable shell on the thing. Changing a jumper allows booting from the SD card, so it would be extremely straightforward to bring your own ARM Linux build onto the device to replace the AntMiner one, and since the Zynq can load its FPGA code from within Linux this makes for an extremely accessible FPGA dev board for the price.
These boards seem to be offered by multiple vendors, which indicates that there must be quite a few in the supply chain. Stocks will inevitably run out though so don’t despair if you fail to snag one. Instead they are indicative of a growing trend of application specific FPGA boards being reimagined as general purpose dev boards by our community (for example
the Lattice FPGA in a hackable LED driver board
we featured back in January). It’s a fair certainty that they’ll be joined by others as their generation of FPGA tech starts to be replaced.
We’ll be keeping our eye out for any others and we’re sure you’ll
drop us a tip if you see any
. | 80 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302141",
"author": "darkspr1te",
"timestamp": "2020-12-10T15:06:30",
"content": "a word of warning on these antminer rigs, they have a tendency to “dew up” in humid environments and the end result is corrosion around the FPGA, i think rossman did a video on one (or it might have b... | 1,760,373,256.827921 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/10/a-whimsical-touch-free-gumball-machine-for-these-trying-times/ | A Whimsical Touch-Free Gumball Machine For These Trying Times | Kristina Panos | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"Crazy Circuits",
"gumball",
"lego",
"lego technic",
"Micro:bit"
] | It sucks that certain stuff in public is off-limits right now, like drinking fountains and coin-operated candy and gum machines — especially the fun kind where you get to watch your gumball take a twisting trip down the tower and into the collection bin. Hopefully there will be commercial contact-free machines one of these days that take NFC payments. Until then,
we’ll have to make them ourselves out of cardboard and whimsy and Micro:bits
.
[Brown Dog Gadgets] also used one of their Crazy Circuits Bit Boards, which is a Micro:bit-to-LEGO interface module for building circuits with conductive tape. There’s a distance sensor in the rocket’s base, and a servo to dispense the gumballs. This entire build is fantastic, but we particularly like the clever use of a LEGO Technic beam to both catch the gumball and prevent the next one from going anywhere. You can see it in action after the break.
Wave hand, receive gumball is about as simple as it gets for the end user.
The three robots approach takes much more work. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,373,256.863151 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/12/10/wireless-quad-voltmeter-brings-it-all-together/ | Wireless Quad Voltmeter Brings It All Together | Tom Nardi | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"nRF24L01+",
"oled",
"voltmeter",
"wireless"
] | If you’re reading Hackaday, you almost certainly have a voltmeter. Matter of fact, we wouldn’t be surprised to hear you had two of them. But what if you needed to monitor four voltage levels at once? Even if you had four meters, getting them all connected and in a convenient enough place where you can see them all at once is no small feat. In that case, it sounds like the
multi-channel wireless voltmeter put together by [Alun Morris]
is for you.
Built as an exercise in minimalism, this project uses an array of components that most of us already have kicking around the parts bin. For each transmitter you’ll need an ATtiny microcontroller, a nRF24L01+ radio, a small rechargeable battery, and a handful of passive components. On the receiver side, there’s an OLED screen, another nRF radio module, and an Arduino Nano. You could put everything together on scraps of perfboard like [Alun] has, but if you need something a bit more robust for long-term use, this would be a great excuse to create some custom PCBs.
While the hardware itself is pretty simple, [Alun] clearly put a lot of work into the software side. The receiver’s 128 x 32 display is able to show the voltages from four transmitters at once, complete with individual indicators for battery and signal level. When you drill down to a single transmitter, the screen will also display the minimum and maximum values. With the added resolution of the full screen display, you even get a very slick faux LCD font to ogle.
Of course, there are some pretty hard limitations on such a simple system. Each transmitter can only handle positive DC voltages between 0 and 20, and depending on the quality of the components you use and environmental considerations like temperature, the accuracy may drift over time and require recalibration. Still, if you need a way to monitor multiple voltages and
potentially even bring that data onto the Internet of Things
, this is definitely a project to take a look at. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6302066",
"author": "behle",
"timestamp": "2020-12-10T10:03:25",
"content": "It is a bit unsettling, how HaD frequently publishes projects, which have a lot with my current projects in common.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6... | 1,760,373,256.96183 |
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