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https://hackaday.com/2020/11/10/binary-calculator-for-all-10-typbinary-calculator-for-all-0b10-typeses/ | Binary Calculator For All 0b10 Types | Dan Maloney | [
"contests",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"atmega 328p",
"binary",
"brass",
"calculator",
"cherry",
"Circuit Sculpture",
"maple",
"TLC5928",
"wood"
] | You know the old joke: There are 10 types of people in the world — those who understand binary, and those who don’t. Most of us on Hackaday are firmly in the former camp, which is why projects like
this circuit sculpture binary calculator
really tickle our fancies.
Inspired by the brass framework and floating component builds of
[Mohit Bhoite]
, [dennis1a4] decided to take the plunge into circuit sculpture in an appropriately nerdy way. He wisely decided on a starter build, which was a simple 555 timer circuit, before diving into the calculator. Based on an ATMega328P in a 28-pin DIP, the calculator is built on an interesting hybrid platform of brass wire and CNC-routed wood. The combination of materials looks great, and we especially love the wooden keycaps on the six switches that make up the keyboard. There’s also some nice work involved in adapting the TLC5928 driver to the display of 16 discrete LEDs; suspended as it is by fine magnet wires, the SSOP chip looks a bit like a bug trapped in a spider web.
Hats off to [dennis1a4] for a great entry into our soon-to-conclude
Circuit Sculpture Contest
. The entry deadline is (today!) November 10, so it might be a bit too late for this year. But rest assured we’ll be doing this again, so take a look at
all this year’s entries
and start thinking about your next circuit sculpture build. | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6293271",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2020-11-10T12:38:14",
"content": "It’s a clock too.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6293274",
"author": "Dave",
"timestamp": "2020-11-10T12:55:57",
"content": "I always thought... | 1,760,373,293.348337 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/10/proper-cassettes-for-your-fpga-retrocomputer/ | Proper Cassettes For Your FPGA Retrocomputer | Jenny List | [
"FPGA",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"cassette",
"fpga",
"retrocomputing"
] | You can tell the age of someone in our community with a simple question: what were the first removable data storage media you used? Punched cards for the venerable, cassettes for the middle-aged, floppies for the thirtysomethings, Flash cards for the twentysomethings, and maybe even “What’s a removable storage medium?” for the kids brought up on cloud services. Even with refreshed interest in retrocomputing the cassette hasn’t made a comeback, but maybe that owes something to the hardware. Createing a cassette interface for an FPGA is a task that’s often overlooked, and
that’s a project [zpekic] has tackled
.
Cassette data recordings are frequency shift keyed, with the 0 and 1 of the binary information represented by different tones. An expected solution to detect these might be to use a Fourier transform, but instead he opts for a simpler solution of counting zero crossings and timing their interval. The resulting stream of data is fed into a UART from which the data itself can be reconstructed. All this is implemented on
a Mercury FPGA board
which contains a Xilinx Spartan 3A FPGA, but it’s a technique that could be used on other devices too.
So your FPGA retrocomputer deserves an authentic cassette interface, and now it can have one. We’d be especially impressed if all this 2020s wizardry could produce a more stable
chuntey field
, but we guess that might take a bit more work.
As a final aside, the project is dedicated to the memory of the pioneering Yugoslavian broadcaster [
Zoran Modli
], whose innovative 1980s radio show featured broadcasts of tape software for the computers of the time including our Hackaday colleague [Voja Antonić]’s
Galaksija
. Broadcasting software over the radio? That’s a cool hack. | 53 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "6293244",
"author": "Alphatek",
"timestamp": "2020-11-10T09:07:58",
"content": "Software over radio. Phh.http://teletext.mb21.co.uk/gallery/ceefax/telesoftware/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6293251",
"author": "BT",... | 1,760,373,293.699835 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/09/kinect-gave-us-a-preview-of-the-future-though-not-the-one-it-intended/ | Kinect Gave Us A Preview Of The Future, Though Not The One It Intended | Roger Cheng | [
"Kinect hacks"
] | [
"depth camera",
"depth sensing",
"depth sensor",
"Intel RealSense",
"Kinect",
"microsoft",
"Realsense",
"RGB-D",
"voice assistant",
"xbox kinect"
] | This holiday season, the video game industry hype machine is focused on building excitement for new PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Ten years ago, a similar chorus of hype reached a crescendo with the release of Xbox Kinect, promising to revolutionize how we play. That vision never panned out, but as [Daniel Cooper] of Engadget pointed out in
a Kinect retrospective
, it premiered consumer technologies that impacted fields far beyond gaming.
Kinect has since withdrawn from the gaming market, because as it turns out gamers are quite content with handheld controllers. This year’s new controllers for a PlayStation or Xbox would be immediately familiar to gamers from ten years ago. Even Nintendo, whose Wii is frequently credited as motivation for Microsoft to develop the Kinect, have arguably taken a step back with Joy-cons of their Switch.
But the Kinect’s success at bringing a depth camera to consumer price levels paved the way to explore many ideas that were previously impossible. The
flurry of enthusiastic Kinect hacking
proved there is a market for depth camera peripherals, leading to plug-and-play devices like Intel RealSense to
make depth-sensing projects easier
. The original PrimeSense technology has since been simplified and miniaturized into Face ID unlocking Apple phones. Kinect itself found another job with Microsoft’s HoloLens AR headset. And let’s not forget the upcoming wave of autonomous cars and drones, many of which will see their worlds via depth sensors of some kind. Some might even be equipped with the
latest sensor to wear the Kinect name
.
Inside the Kinect was also one of the earliest microphone arrays sold to consumers. Enabling the Kinect to figure out which direction a voice is coming from, and isolate it from other noises in the room. Such technology were previously the exclusive domain of expensive corporate conference room speakerphones, but now it forms the core of inexpensive home assistants like an
Amazon Echo Dot
. Raising the bar so much that hacks needed
many more microphones
just to stand out.
With the technology available more easily elsewhere, attrition of a discontinued device is reflected in the dwindling number of recent Kinect hacks on these pages. We still see
a cool project
every now and then, though. As the classic sensor bar itself recedes into history, others will take its place to
give us depth sensing
and smart audio. But for many of us, Kinect was the ambitious videogame peripheral that gave us our first experience. | 13 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6293229",
"author": "Anton Fosselius",
"timestamp": "2020-11-10T07:17:46",
"content": "Ehum, PS3 eye had a mic array? and was the goto solution for vision systems before kinect.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6293232",
... | 1,760,373,293.444546 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/08/today-at-remoticon-sunday-live-events/ | Today At Remoticon: Sunday Live Events | Mike Szczys | [
"cons"
] | [
"2020 Hackaday Remoticon"
] | Hackaday Remoticon is a worldwide virtual conference happening now!
Everyone is invited to
hang out in Remoticon Public Chat
Individual workshop chat rooms are open to all, visit the
Remoticon Wayfinder
, choose a workshop and enter the public chat
Ticket holders will find links to their registered event
in the ticketing hub
Public Livestreams (all times are PST, UTC-8):
Hackaday YouTube
and
Facebook Live
:
12:00pm SDR Workshop
2:15pm Hacker’s Guide to Hardware Debugging Workshop
Hackaday Twitch
:
11am SMD Challenge: Remoticon Attendees (Heat 2)
1pm SMD Challenge: LayerOne Badge Team
3pm SMD Challenge: Remoticon Attendees (Heat 3)
Hackaday Twitch Two
:
12:00pm Design Methodology Workshop
12:45pm 0 to ASIC Workshop
2:45pm IC Reverse Engineering
3:30pm How to Create Guides People Will Actually Use | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292957",
"author": "skymos",
"timestamp": "2020-11-09T04:07:51",
"content": "Hi! Amazing all the workshops and projects! But some for some of the workshop (Learn how to hack a car, Kicad to Blender) I couldnt find any link. Is there some public link for those workshop? Thanks!",
... | 1,760,373,293.29556 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/08/under-the-sea-gps-uses-sound/ | Under The Sea GPS Uses Sound | Al Williams | [
"gps hacks"
] | [
"backscatter",
"gps",
"localization",
"underwater location"
] | If you’ve ever tried to use GPS indoors, you know that the signals aren’t easy to acquire in any sort of structure. Now imagine trying to get a satellite fix underwater. Researchers at MIT have a new technique, underwater backscatter localization or
UBL
, that promises to provide a low-power localization system tailored for the subsea environment.
Like other existing solutions, UBL uses sound waves, but it avoids some of the common problems with using sonic beacons in that environment. A typical system has a fixed beacon constrained by the availability of power or battery-operated beacons that require replacement or recharging. Since the beacon acts as a transponder — it receives a signal and then replies — it requires either constant power or time to wake up from the external stimulus and that time typically varies with the environment. That variable startup time interferes with computing the round-trip time of the signal, which is crucial for estimating position.
A UBL reader pings for nodes and, when a node replies, the pair change frequencies in a hopping scheme that allows measurement at many different frequencies. This allows an estimate of the true propagation time that is more accurate in the presence of reflections of the signal on the seabed, the water’s surface, and other elements of the environment. The speed of the communications between the node and the reader can also alter to tradeoff between multipath rejection and better ability to locate objects in motion.
Like traditional navigation or even GPS, knowing how much delay there is between you and a fixed position allows you to draw a circle around that position and you know you are somewhere on that circle. Find two fixed positions and you must be at one of the points where the two circles overlap. With three fixed positions that are far enough apart, you’ll have only one point where all three circles intersect. Finding fixed positions could use a star, a GPS satellite, or, in this case, an acoustic signal. The principle is the same.
We’ve looked at
finding submarines
before which is a similar problem. Another solution to the variable delay time is to not look at the transit time, but the difference between arrival times
at two different points
. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292867",
"author": "Alan",
"timestamp": "2020-11-08T18:21:20",
"content": "I guess we aren’t done blasting the ears of aquatic life yet?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6292963",
"author": "dingodreams",
"time... | 1,760,373,293.40039 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/08/robots-can-finally-answer-are-you-talking-to-me/ | Robots Can Finally Answer, Are You Talking To Me? | Matthew Carlson | [
"Machine Learning"
] | [
"alexa",
"Hey Google",
"IoT",
"machine learning",
"microphone",
"python",
"voice assistant"
] | Voice Assistants, love them, or hate them, are becoming more and more commonplace. One problem for voice assistants is the situation of multiple devices listening in the same place. When a command is given, which device should answer? Researchers at CMU’s Future Interfaces Group [Karan Ahuja], [Andy Kong], [Mayank Goel], and [Chris Harrison] have an answer; smart assistants should try to
infer if the user is facing the device they want to talk to
. They call it direction-of-voice or DoV.
Currently, smart assistants use a simple race to see who heard it first. The reasoning is that the device you are closest to will likely hear it first. However, in situations with echos or when you’re equidistant from multiple devices, the outcome can seem arbitrary to a user.
The implementation of DoV uses an Extra-Trees Classifier from the python sklearn toolkit. Several other machine learning algorithms were considered, but ultimately efficiency won out and Extra-Trees was selected. Another interesting facet of the research was determining what facing really means. The team had humans ‘listeners’ stand in for smart assistants. A ‘talker’ would speak the key phrase while the ‘listener’ determined if the talker was facing them or not. Based on their definition of facing, the system can determine if someone is facing the device with 90% accuracy that rises to 93% with per-room calibration.
Their algorithm as well as the data they collected has been
open-sourced on GitHub
. Perhaps when you’re
building your own voice assistant
, you can incorporate DoV to improve wake-word accuracy.
Thanks [Karan] for sending this in! | 25 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292829",
"author": "Rogfanther",
"timestamp": "2020-11-08T15:25:55",
"content": "But .. since the assistant has to recognize the spoken commands, wouldn´t it be easier e less error prone to give said assistant a name and use it in commands directed to them ? If one is watching wha... | 1,760,373,293.551079 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/08/near-silent-bellows-uses-water-flow-and-magnetic-coupling/ | Near-Silent Bellows Uses Water Flow And Magnetic Coupling | Lewin Day | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"airflow",
"bellows",
"cooling",
"fan",
"PC cooling"
] | Fan noise is a contentious issue among the computer community. Some don’t notice it, others rage against it as an annoyance and distraction. Some turn to liquid cooling, while others look to passive solutions to eliminate the scourge.
[Matt] of [DIY Perks] may have found a far more oddball solution, however.
The build is essentially a giant bellows, but the manner in which it operates is unlike anything we’ve seen previously. To shift the large pusher plate inside back and forth, [Matt] initially experimented with building his own linear motor out of coils and magnets. After that failed, he began to tinker with a system of moving a magnet back and forth through a tube with water pressure from a pump, which would then drive the pusher plate through magnetic coupling. This looked promising, but reversing the flow proved difficult. After building his own set of water valves to change the flow direction, the bellows began to work slowly, but with limited performance. Realizing the valves weren’t up to scratch, [Matt] rebuilt the system with 10 pumps, set up in two banks of 5. With the pumps hooked up in series, they supplied plenty of pressure to force the bellows back and forth. Reed switches were used to reverse the flow at either end to make the bellows run continuously.
In testing, the bellows compared well with a bank of four large case fans, though at 20 times the size. Suffice to say this is not exactly a compact solution. We look forward to seeing [Matt] do more with the bellows, with his intention being to use it as the primary cooling system for a computer. Of course, if this looks too complex,
you could always consider a mineral oil setup instead
. Video after the break. | 38 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292806",
"author": "Bs",
"timestamp": "2020-11-08T13:02:14",
"content": "This man might probably be of more use if he used so much talent towards developing a useful ventilator. Seems very close to what he has accomplished amazingly.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"re... | 1,760,373,293.618161 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/08/door-mutes-microphone-to-prevent-remote-learning-humiliation/ | Door Mutes Microphone To Prevent Remote Learning Humiliation | Chris Lott | [
"hardware",
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"ATTiny 85",
"Covid-19",
"Digispark",
"doorbell",
"lockdown life",
"Magnetic sensor",
"online classes"
] | In a kind of reverse twist on the doorbell, [TheStaticTurtle] whipped up a
system to mute his computer’s microphone
whenever someone opens the door to his room. He lives in France, where the
government announced a strict lockdown
last Friday. Like many university students around the world these days, he is now forced to take online classes. Even though he has his own room, occasionally someone will barge in and announce something, often to [TheStaticTurtle]’s embarrassment. When his classmates suddenly heard “Do you want some pie?” the other day, it was the last straw.
His first decision was to sense the door opening with a magnet and sensor, which he stuck to the door and frame with hot glue. He then ran a long cable to his desk, where it connected to an ATTiny 85 with a DigiSpark boot-loader. He wrote firmware to simulate special key combinations, which were then registered with his audio routing software Voicemeeter Potato. We presume he isn’t using an external mic, in which case muting might have been easier to accomplish with a hardware switch. All in all, this is a pretty clever and timely hack. Should you be in a similar predicament and want to try this out, he’s published the source code on
GitHub
.
If you recognize the triangular motif on [TheStaticTurtle]’s desktop, that’s because we wrote about a couple of his projects last summer, most recently a
compact 70 cm transceiver
. | 16 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292789",
"author": "Val",
"timestamp": "2020-11-08T10:10:29",
"content": "“We presume he isn’t using an external mic, in which case muting might have been easier to accomplish with a hardware switch” – if only it worked in Windows 10… It uses all the available microphones at the sa... | 1,760,373,293.746505 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/07/the-byte-is-the-grand-prize-winner-of-the-2020-hackaday-prize/ | The BYTE Is The Grand Prize Winner Of The 2020 Hackaday Prize | Mike Szczys | [
"contests",
"Featured",
"Slider",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2019 Hackaday Prize",
"best product",
"grand prize",
"Hackaday Prize"
] | The BYTE, an open-source mouth-actuated input device for people with physical challenges has just been named the Grand Prize winner of the 2020 Hackaday Prize. The award for claiming the top place and title of “Best All Around” in this global engineering initiative is $50,000. Five other top winners and four honorable mentions were also named during this evening’s Hackaday Prize Ceremony, held during the Hackaday Remoticon virtual conference.
This year’s Hackaday Prize focused on challenges put forth by four non-profit partners who have first hand knowledge of the problems that need solving as they work to accomplish their missions. These organizations are Conservation X Labs, United Cerebral Palsy Los Angeles, CalEarth, and Field Ready. Join us below for more on the grand prize winner and to see the Best in Category and Honorable Mention winners from each non-profit challenge, as well as the Best Wildcard project.
Over $200,000 in cash prizes have been distributed as part of this year’s initiative where hundreds of hardware hackers, makers, and artists competed to build a better future.
Winner of the 2020 Hackaday Prize
Best All Around: The BYTE
The BYTE is the Grand Prize winner of the 2020 Hackaday Prize.
This responsive hands-free interface
is affordable, versatile, and will be life changing for people who have limited or no mobility for using traditional input devices. The BYTE has a tongue sensor for directional movement and a pressure sensitive bite sensor for selection input.
At first glance this is a computer mouse you can put in your mouth. Since the jaw and tongue are core motor functions in humans, many people who have limited or no control over other parts of their body still retain great mobility in their mouth. Being otherwise unable to affect the world around them, mouth-based interfaces have been transformative.
The BYTE goes far beyond the utility of traditional sip-and-puff interfaces by internalizing the joystick functionality using tongue pressure, converting the air pressure-based input to bite control, adding a vibration motor for haptic feedback, and implementing advanced control options in how the sensors can be used. Light bite pressure and directional input (we’ll call that d-pad for short) moves the mouse, firm bites are clicks, even pressure on the d-pad is mapped as custom input as is a long bite, and pressing up or down on the d-pad without a bite will scroll.
The BYTE’s input sensors have been designed to fit inside of an adult-sized pacifier nipple, readily available at low cost and safe to have inside your mouth. The wire that snakes out ends in an RJ45 phone jack to interface with a small board that converts the signals to a USB connection. While a number of 3D-printed parts have been used in the prototype, these would be easy to injection mold as part of a volume manufacturing run.
The United Cerebral Palsy Los Angeles design brief for the 2020 Hackaday Prize specifically called for new designs of trackballs or joysticks that could be made affordable and open source, and be a tool for greater independence in the lives of those with physical challenges. The well-engineered design of the BYTE fulfills those goals and is a deserving recipient of the grand prize. Congratulations!
Conservation X Labs Prizes:
Best in Category: Solar Scare Mosquito 2.0
This
floating sensor is designed to detect and classify mosquitoes
present in an area to help researchers know if the region is at risk of spreading disease based on the species and sex of the mosquitoes. It also seeks to help eliminate their ability to reproduce by using air bubble to cause surface ripples in the water, preventing larvae from breathing at the surface of stagnant water. Prize:
$10,000
Honorable Mention: UnifiedWater
This
portable sensor package can gather and report water-quality data
. It includes a set-and-forget solution for data collection, using multiple water sensors to report back via a 3G connection and powered by a solar panel. The online dashboard developed as part of the project means the data is not only available, but actionable. Prize:
$3,000
Field Ready Prizes:
Best in Category: UVA
Rapid manufacturing and repair is an important part of disaster recovery. Ultraviolet-curable adhesives are often used in traditional manufacturing, this project
provides a powerful and affordable UV curing wand
for use in the field. Even at the small scale of prototyping it looks to lower the cost of traditional tools by up to five times.
Prize: $10,000
Honorable Mention: OpenFluidWarmer
IV fluids that are stored under refrigeration must be warmed before they can be used. This is no problem at established hospitals, but becomes a major issue in the field. This solution
combines hot plates, a winding path for IV tubing, and an electronic controller
to create a fluid warmer that could be built on scene.
Prize: $3,000
United Cerebral Palsy Los Angeles Prizes:
Best in Category: Exoskeleton Gloves
Adding strength and dexterity to a mechanism as versatile as the human hand is a game changer. This assistive device
uses a clever pneumatic jamming mechanism for each finger
, along with a thumb-like shelf on the heel of the hand for extra gripping surface, and a flex sensor system to add the ability to detect what the user is doing with their hands.
Prize: $10,000
Honorable Mention: Adaptive Interface Harmonica
A musical harmonica uses different channels for air to play different notes. The
Magpie MIDI project harnesses that versatility into a sip-and-puff system
. The different channels are detected individually, and the mount for the harmonica is itself a joystick that can be used for navigation.
Prize: $3,000
CalEarth Prizes:
Best in Category: Propel-E 450
Renewable energy is a powerful tool in combating climate change. This
wind turbine is capable of outputting 450 Watts of power and is mostly 3D-printed
. From the blades, to the custom-wrapped wire coils, it’s a blueprint for building your own, whether it’s an exact copy or you plan to make your own changes to move the open source design forward.
Prize: $10,000
Honorable Mention: WinDIY
This wind turbine design (whose name is pronounced “windy”)
solves a major issue by delivering variable pitch to the three blades
. This is used to adjust how much wind is caught by the turbine, driving the generator at the most efficient speed, or letting the wind pass harmlessly by to avoid over-speed problems that would damage it during strong wind conditions.
Prize: $3,000
Best Wildcard:
PolySense: Augmenting Materials with Electrical Properties
The Wildcard category is for projects that are worthwhile but that didn’t address one of the specific challenges outlined by our non-profit partners this year.
What if you could turn any textile or porous material into a sensor? That’s the question asked and answered by
the PolySense project that uses piezoresistive dye to build sensors from textiles
. This could be shirts and pants, scraps of fabric, paper, or many other materials. Using traditional dying techniques like tie-dying, different areas can perform specific sensing tasks.
Prize: $5,000
Spectacular Accomplishments During a Very Difficult Year
Congratulations to all who entered the 2020 Hackaday Prize. It has been an incredibly difficult year as tragic loss of life and suffering caused by the coronavirus outbreak swept the globe. What it has proven is that we are stronger together, working to help one another whenever and wherever possible. This outbreak is among the many challenges facing humanity. Seeing so many entries of the Hackaday Prize striving to provide better independence for the physically challenged, more access to housing and infrastructure for those in crisis, and answers to pollution and climate change are beacons of hope.
Thank you to all who entered, to our expert judges and mentors, and to the staff at our non-profit partners. Dedicating your time and talent to these issues leads the way. It sets the example for others to follow, and builds on a movement throughout the world of people and initiatives working to solve hard problems, and that’s something that really matters.
The
Hackaday
Prize2020
is Sponsored by: | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292770",
"author": "msat",
"timestamp": "2020-11-08T05:19:11",
"content": "Congrats to all the winners!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6292797",
"author": "Danjovic",
"timestamp": "2020-11-08T11:41:18",
... | 1,760,373,293.80535 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/07/an-old-school-control-panel-for-your-computer/ | An Old-School Control Panel For Your Computer | Jenny List | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"control panel",
"ESP8266",
"toggle switch"
] | For as long as computers have been in the hands of programmers, they have offered frequent mildly tedious tasks that their operators have sought to automate. Who hasn’t written a shell script or a batch file that unites a string of commands into one just to save a bit of typing?
But even that effort can be reduced with a hardware add-on that ties the script to a physical control, and in this endeavor
[Tomas] has created a beauty
. His control panel project mimics the robust industrial panels of yesteryear with an array of metal buttons and toggle switches in a sturdy metal case sourced from an old KVM switch.
Behind the scenes are a pair of I/O extenders and a NodeMCU board, whose ESP8266 does the talking to the host computer on which a daemon awaits its call. Individual addressable LEDs next to each switch convey the state of operation, and the switches trigger useful operations such as connecting to a VPN. All the code is available in
a handy GitHub repository
, and you can see it in action in the video we’ve placed below the break.
We rather like the idea of a desktop control panel here at Hackaday, indeed
this isn’t the first one we’ve brought you
. | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292757",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2020-11-08T03:49:09",
"content": "That panel reminds me of the bomb from the casino bombing in the 1980s.https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Harveysbomb.jpg/800px-Harveysbomb.jpg",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": ... | 1,760,373,293.493075 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/09/product-review-the-tinysa-a-shirt-pocket-sized-spectrum-analyzer/ | Product Review: The TinySA, A Shirt-Pocket Sized Spectrum Analyzer | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Radio Hacks",
"Reviews",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"frequency",
"fundamental",
"radio",
"spectrum analyzer",
"spurious emissions",
"tinysa",
"Waveform Generator"
] | I suppose most of us have had the experience of going to the mailbox and seeing that telltale package in the white plastic bag, the sign that something has just arrived from China. This happened to me the other day, and like many of you it was one of those times when I puzzled to myself: “I wonder what I bought this time?”
With so many weeks or months between the time of your impulsive click on the “Buy Now” button on AliExpress or eBay and the slow boat from China actually getting the package to your door, it’s easy enough to forget what exactly each package contains. And with the price of goods so low, the tendency to click and forget is all the easier. That’s not necessarily a good thing, but I like surprises as much as the next person, so I was happy to learn that I was now the owner of a tinySA spectrum analyzer. Time for a look at what this little thing can do.
First Impressions
A caveat: I’m by no means an expert on spectrum analyzers. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever handled one, unless you count using the FFT functions in my digital oscilloscope, which you probably shouldn’t. So there’s probably plenty of room for operator error and misconceptions about what a spectrum analyzer can do in the tests that I ran, but I still think this is valuable as an example of what a tool like this can do in the hands of an enthusiastic newbie.
Anyone familiar with
the NanoVNA
, a small but full-featured vector network analyzer that we’ve featured a few times on these pages, will see a strong family resemblance between it and the tinySA, both in the hardware and the software. That’s for good reason — the code behind tinySA is a fork off the NanoVNA codebase, and the main developer of NanoVNA, edy555, is a contributor to the tinySA project, which is owned by Erik Kaashoek.
The tinySA arrived in a surprisingly nice “presentation quality” box with a gold-stamped logo on the top. Erik takes pains to note that this is one way to tell you’re getting an original tinySA as opposed to one of the inevitable knock-offs that’ll flood the market soon enough. I’m not sure that alone would keep the pirates at bay, but it’s at least an attempt and it’s a nice touch to boot.
Along with the tinySA, which is about the size of a deck of playing cards, the box contains a pair of SMA jumper cables, a small telescoping whip antenna, a female-to-female SMA adapter, a wrist strap, and a USB-C cable. The case of the tinySA is injection molded ABS, and a nice upgrade in look and feel from the open board design of the
NanoVNA
. The front of the tinySA has no controls, just the 2.8″ 320×240 resistive touch-screen display. The top has a power switch and a jog control. The left side has two SMA jacks, labeled HIGH and LOW. It’s very lightweight but feels solid in the hand.
A look inside the tinySA, with the RF shields removed.
Of course the first thing I did was pop the case open and take a look inside. There’s not a lot to see at first — most of the interesting RF stuff is safely tucked under shielding. I figured I’d have to bust out the Hakko to take the tins off, but luckily they’re all spring-clipped to the ground plane, so removing them just took a small screwdriver. Underneath lay the expected RF wizardry, including the expected Silicon Labs chips. I found two Si4432 ISM transceiver chips, presumably one each for the high and low range of the tinySA. There’s also what appears to be a Peregrine Semiconductor PE4302 RF digital attenuator, and a bunch of other goodies. The layout is nice with plenty of via stitching, and the assembly quality is really good.
Satisfied with the insides, I moved on to the “First Steps” as listed in the video below, to get acquainted with the device. Erik has chosen to rely on
the tinySA wiki
and some how-to videos for most of the documentation, and while that’s understandable it also leaves a few holes that are up to the user to fill in. For those of us who prefer a real manual, Kurt Poulsen, a ham from Denmark, has written up
a comprehensive how-to document
that might be of help.
Anyone who has used a NanoVNA will feel at home in the tinySA interface. Calibration of the tinySA is done via the built-in signal generator, more on that below. Calibration itself is simple: hook the jumper coax between the two SMA jacks and select LEVEL CAL from the configuration menu. The calibration then proceeds automatically. The same menu offers a self-test function too, which cycles through a series of ten tests that take about 15 seconds to complete.
The Good Stuff
As for its primary purpose, the tinySA performed admirably in my limited tests. I took a look at the spectrum of signals generated by my scope’s built-in waveform generator and everything looked good — a 10-MHz sine wave appears as a single strong fundamental spike and one harmonic about 50 dBm lower. Switching the waveform to a square wave at the same frequency did what I thought it would — a big peak at the fundamental and a bunch of spurs at the odd fundamentals.
Output from the tinySA on my scope – solid, clean 10-MHz sine signal.
With the basics out of the way, I took a look at the tinySA’s built-in signal generator. As mentioned above, the signal generator is used for calibration, but it’s a pretty capable tool all on its own. It’s actually more of a function generator, since it can not only output a nice clean sine wave on the low output between 100 kHz and 350 MHz, but it can also modulate the signal (AM, narrow FM, and wide FM) and do sweeps both across a frequency range and over amplitude. On the high output, the signal generator does a square wave output from 240 MHz to 960 MHz with a configurable, non-sweepable amplitude, narrow FM or wide FM modulation, and a frequency sweep.
I gave the signal generator a go and took a look at its output with my Keysight DSOX1102G. The sine wave generated on the low output looked clean across the specified bandwidth, and the frequency was spot on. I tried playing with the modulation function, and it worked pretty much as I expected. It’ll be nice to have another signal generator around the shop.
My janky test setup: UV-5RA, homebrew 40 dB attenuator, and the tinySA.
With all the pleasantries dispensed, I turned to the one task pretty much every ham will want to turn a spectrum analyzer on: finding out just how bad the signal from a cheap handy talkie is. I talked about this a bit in
one of my $50 Ham articles
, and we’ve seen comprehensive analyses of spurious emissions from these radios that are far more in-depth than anything I could come up with using the tinySA. But still, I thought I’d give it a whirl. I grabbed my Baofeng UV-5RA, a homebrew 40 dB attenuator I built a while back, and an unwieldy collection of adapters to connect everything together.
Being under the impression that the spurious emissions on Baofeng tend to be worse on the UHF band, I tried 420 MHz first. The first thing I noticed was that the fundamenal was off a bit from the where it should be. I also noticed a small forest of spurs starting at 500 MHz and extending all the way up past 800 MHz. The strongest spur was about 43 dBm down from the fundamental.
The FCC rules on spurious emissions
don’t seem to cover this band, but they do say that between 30 and 225 MHz, spurs need to be at least 40 dBm below the fundamental. So within the limits of my test setup, the Baofeng seems to just barely comply.
Spurious emissions from a Baofeng UV-5RA at 420 MHz. The big spur at about 825 MHz is the only one that comes close to exceeding the limits.
Just for completeness, I repeated the same test on the 2-m band. The signal was much cleaner here, with only a few spurs, the big one being at around 270 MHz. Again, this was about 43 dBm down from the fundamental, meaning it was probably in compliance. Again, this was only a rough test, with a test setup leaving much to be desired. But still, the tinySA is a nice way to take a look at what you’re actually putting out into the ether, and to at least get a rough idea how clean you’re operating.
A much cleaner signal from the same radio on the 2-m band.
The Not-So-Good Stuff
Like the NanoVNA before it, the tinySA has the capability of PC control. The Python program,
TinySASaver
, is geared mostly toward saving scans from the tinySA, but also provides additional capability, like doing frequency sweeps in segments and exporting data for further analysis. It also implements time-domain reflectometry (TDR) to measure cable lengths and find faults. Sadly, try as I might I was unable to get TinySASaver running on my Ubuntu machine. Erik is pretty clear that the code is still rough, and I’m far from a Python guru so I might be having library problems that would be easy to fix for someone with more experience. Luckily, I was able to scrounge up a decrepit Windows laptop and get a compiled version of another program running, so I didn’t have to resort to cell phone pictures for my screenshots.
I have noticed a couple of other annoying issues. The biggest is that the tinySA appears to crash when you click the screen off of one of the menus. This is annoying, as I often found myself stuck in a menu with no obvious “Back” button, and clicking on the background seemed like an intuitive way to work back to another menu. But this just throws a dump of all the registers up on the screen and locks the thing up. It’s not a huge deal to recover — toggle the power and it’ll boot right back up — but it can be annoying. I also found the touchscreen a bit finicky, which was a common complaint with the NanoVNA. The screen is far too small for my meathooks, but without a proper stylus, I resorted to a plastic spudger that worked only most of the time. Of course it was only then that I looked in the box and noticed the wrist strap with the attached guitar pick-like stylus — a thoughtful accessory indeed.
Verdict
I’m not entirely sure what I paid for the tinySA — like I said, I tend to order these things and then just forget about them. But I think it was around $60, and at that price I’d say adding a tinySA to your toolkit is a no-brainer. It’ll never substitute for a larger, full-featured instrument, but if your only need for a spectrum analyzer is to design the occasional filter or check signal quality, the tinySA is a pretty good deal. | 39 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6293095",
"author": "tigerclaw989",
"timestamp": "2020-11-09T16:13:51",
"content": "I noticed that the firmware on your unit is pretty old. The latest firmware is 1.1-24 and is located here:http://athome.kaashoek.com/tinySA/DFU/there are a lot of new features regarding am demodulati... | 1,760,373,293.883766 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/09/ethernet-goes-to-the-ether/ | Ethernet Goes To The Ether | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"morse code",
"radio transmitter",
"raspberry pi",
"soft tempest",
"tempest",
"transmit"
] | Since the ether is an old term for the fictitious space where radio waves propagate, we always thought it was strange that the term ethernet refers to wired communication. Sure, there are wireless devices, but that’s not really ethernet. [Jacek] had the same thought, but decided to
do something about it
.
What he did is use two different techniques to alter the electromagnetic emission from an ethernet adapter on a Raspberry Pi. The different conditions send Morse code that you can receive at 125 MHz with a suitable receiver.
Practical? Hardly, unless you are looking to exfiltrate data from an air-gapped machine, perhaps. But it does have a certain cool factor. The first method switches the adapter between 10 Mbps and 100 Mbps. The second technique uses a stream of data to accomplish the modulation. The switching method had a range of around 100 meters while the data-based method topped out at about 30 meters. The code is on
GitHub
if you want to replicate the experiment.
There is plenty of precedent for this sort of thing. In 1976 Dr. Dobb’s Journal published an article about
playing music on an Altair 8800
by running code while an AM radio was nearby.
We’ve seen VGA adapters forced to transmit data
, too. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6293042",
"author": "Daniel Dunn",
"timestamp": "2020-11-09T12:08:59",
"content": "This is very interesting because a version could apply to any port, so it might be possible to physically trace the path packets take through a network.SORRY I SAID ANYTHING!! PLEASE DON’T BAN ETHERN... | 1,760,373,294.195481 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/09/from-trash-ppe-to-new-ppe/ | From Trash PPE To New PPE | Jenny List | [
"green hacks",
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"corona",
"laser cutter",
"PPE",
"recycling"
] | As the coronavirus pandemic circles the world, a fact of daily life for millions of people has become the wearing of a face mask. Some people sport colorful fabric masks, but for many, this means the ubiquitous Chinese disposable mask. They have become the litter of our time, which as [
blorgggg
] notes is something that shouldn’t have to be the case. Their plastic can be recycled and made into other useful things,
for example, ear savers
similar to the ones many of us were 3D printing earlier in the year.
As you might imagine diving into a pile of used masks can be a little unhygienic, so the first step is to disinfect with alcohol. Then the various layers can be separated and the outer polypropylene ones collected and stacked between baking parchment to be melted on a skillet. The result is a polypropylene sheet that can be laser cut if it is thick enough, and from this are cut the ear savers. It’s not quite as neat a cut as the acrylic sheet we may be used to, but it’s adequate for the task.
While on the subject of masks, earlier in the year we presented a series
in whose first part we dissected a selection
. | 19 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6293026",
"author": "Daniel Dunn",
"timestamp": "2020-11-09T11:04:58",
"content": "This is an awesome hack, but long term O really don’t think we should still be relying on basic masks when the case count is still rising.I use an Ultramasx (Upgraded from my Broad AirPro), with activ... | 1,760,373,294.013056 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/08/teardown-experts-sing-praise-of-stretch-release-adhesives/ | Teardown Experts Sing Praise Of Stretch-Release Adhesives | Roger Cheng | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"adhesive",
"adhesives",
"battery",
"battery swap",
"e-waste",
"Electronic waste",
"ifixit",
"repair"
] | Anyone who enjoys opening up consumer electronics knows iFixit to be a valuable resource, full of reference pictures and repair procedures to help revive devices and keep them out of electronic waste. Champions of reparability, they’ve been watching in dismay as the quest for thinner and lighter devices also made them harder to fix. But they wanted to cheer a bright spot in this bleak landscape:
increasing use of stretch-release adhesives
.
An elegant battery, for a more civilized age.
Once upon a time batteries were designed to be user-replaceable. But that required access mechanisms, electrical connectors, and protective shells around fragile battery cells. Eliminating such overhead allowed slimmer devices, but didn’t change the fact that the battery is still likely to need replacement. We thus entered into a dark age where battery pouches were glued into devices and replacement meant fighting clingy blobs and cleaning sticky residue. Something the teardown experts at iFixit are all too familiar with.
This is why they are happy to see pull tabs whenever they peer inside something, for those tabs signify the device was blessed with stretch-release adhesives. All we have to do is apply a firm and steady pull on those tabs to release their hold leaving no residue behind. We get an overview of how this magic works, with the caveat that implementation details are well into the land of patents and trade secrets.
But we do get tips on how to best remove them, and how to reapply new strips, which are important to iFixit’s mission. There’s also a detour into their impact on interior design of the device: the tabs have to be accessible, and they need room to stretch. This isn’t just a concern for design engineers, they also apply to stretch release adhesives sold to consumers. Advertising push by
3M Command
and competitors have already begun, reminding people that stretch-release adhesive strips are ideal for temporary holiday decorations. They would also work well to hold batteries in our own projects, even if we aren’t their advertised targets.
Our end-of-year gift-giving traditions will mean a new wave of gadgets. And while not all of them will be easily repairable, we’re happy that this tiny bit of reparability exists. Every bit helps to stem the
flow of electronics waste
. | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292980",
"author": "Anders B. Nielsen",
"timestamp": "2020-11-09T06:38:19",
"content": "Well.. It didn’t start out so well with the stretch release adhesive. In the iPhone 5S and 5C where I first saw this black magic, it would stretch… and then break. No matter how careful I was. L... | 1,760,373,294.151398 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/08/hey-you-left-the-peanut-out-of-my-peanut-mms/ | “Hey, You Left The Peanut Out Of My Peanut M&Ms!” | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"3d scanner",
"candy",
"density",
"load cell",
"M&M",
"peanut",
"Pi Cam",
"raspberry pi",
"servo",
"sorter"
] | Candy-sorting robots are in plentiful supplies on these pages, and with good reason — they’re a great test of the complete suite of hacker tools, from electronics to machine vision to mechatronics. So we see lots of sorters for Skittles, jelly beans, and occasionally even Reese’s Pieces, but it always seems that the M&M sorters are the most popular.
This M&M sorter
has a twist, though — it finds the elusive and coveted peanutless candies lurking in most bags of Peanut M&Ms. To be honest, we’d never run into this manufacturing defect before; being chiefly devoted to the plain old original M&Ms, perhaps our sample size has just been too small. Regardless, [Harrison McIntyre] knows they’re there and wants them all to himself, hence his impressive build.
To detect the squib confections, he built a tiny 3D-scanner from a line laser, a turntable, and a Raspberry Pi camera. After scanning the surface to yields its volume, a servo sweeps the candy onto a scale, allowing the density to be calculated. Peanut-free candies will be somewhat denser than their leguminous counterparts, allowing another servo to move the candy to the proper exit chute. The video below shows you all the details, and more than you ever wanted to know about the population statistics of Peanut M&Ms.
We think this is pretty slick, and a nice departure from the sorters that primarily rely on color to sort candies. Of course, we still love those too — take your pick of
quick and easy
,
compact and sleek
, or
a model of industrial design
. | 20 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292956",
"author": "Sam",
"timestamp": "2020-11-09T03:56:21",
"content": "Cut references to “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and the squirrels checking for the bad nuts…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6292964",
"author"... | 1,760,373,294.637382 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/08/hackaday-links-november-8-2020/ | Hackaday Links: November 8, 2020 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"3d scanning",
"ai",
"artifact",
"baldness",
"course",
"football",
"hackaday links",
"Hackaday Prize",
"museum",
"Remoticon",
"RF",
"sculpture",
"sdrplay",
"SMD Challenge",
"soccer",
"sports",
"statue"
] | Saturday, November 7, 2020 – NOT PASADENA.
Remoticon
, the virtual version of the annual Hackaday Superconference forced upon us by 2020, the year that keeps on giving, is in full swing. As I write this, Kipp Bradford is giving
one of the two keynote addresses
, and last night was the
Bring a Hack virtual session
, which I was unable to attend but seems to have been very popular, at least from
the response to it
. In about an hour, I’m going to participate in the
SMD Soldering Challenge
on the Hackaday writing crew team, and later on, I’ll be emceeing a couple of workshops. And I’ll be doing all of it while sitting in my workshop/office here in North Idaho.
Would I rather be in Pasadena? Yeah, probably — last year, Supercon was a great experience, and it would have been fun to get together again and see everyone. But here we are, and I think we’ve all got to tip our hacker hats to the Remoticon organizers, for figuring out how to translate the in-person conference experience to the virtual space as well as they have.
The impact of going to a museum and standing in the presence of a piece of art or a historic artifact is hard to overstate. I once went to an exhibit of artifacts from Pompeii, and was absolutely floored to gaze upon a 2,000-year-old loaf of bread that was preserved by the volcanic eruption of 79 AD. But not everyone can get to see such treasures, which is why
Scan the World
was started. The project aims to collect 3D scans of all kinds of art and artifacts so that people can potentially print them for study. Their collection is huge and seems to concentrate on classic sculptures — Michelangelo’s David is there, as are the Venus de Milo, the Pieta, and Rodin’s Thinker. But there are examples from architecture, anatomy, and history. The collection seems worth browsing through and worth contributing to if you’re so inclined.
For all the turmoil COVID-19 has caused, it has opened up some interesting educational opportunities that probably wouldn’t ever have been available in the Before Time. One such opportunity is
an undergraduate-level course in radio communications
being offered on the SDRPlay YouTube channel. The content was created in partnership with the Sapienza University of Rome. It’s not entirely clear who this course is open to, but the course was originally designed for third-year undergrads, and the SDRPlay Educators Program is open to anyone in academia, so we’d imagine you’d need some kind of academic affiliation to qualify. The best bet might be to check out
the intro video on the SDRPlay Educator channel
and plan to attend the webinar scheduled for November 19 at 1300 UTC. You could also plan to drop into the
Learning SDR and DSP Hack Chat
on Wednesday at noon Pacific, too — that’s open to everyone, just like every Hack Chat is.
And finally, as if bald men didn’t suffer enough disrespect already, now artificial intelligence is having a go at them. At a recent soccer match in Scotland,
an AI-powered automatic camera system consistently interpreted an official’s glabrous pate as the soccer ball
. The system is supposed to keep the camera trained on the action by recognizing the ball as it’s being moved around the field. Sadly, the linesman in this game drew the attention of the system quite frequently, causing viewers to miss some of the real action. Not that what officials do during sporting events isn’t important, of course, but it’s generally not what viewers want to see. The company, an outfit called
Pixellot
, knows about the problem and is working on a solution. Here’s hoping the same problem doesn’t crop up on American football. | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6293031",
"author": "steves",
"timestamp": "2020-11-09T11:19:17",
"content": "How’s the Hackaday Prize going? Still going, or did I miss it? Either way, the hype factor seems curiously low.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6293... | 1,760,373,294.278228 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/08/fail-of-the-week-roboracer-meets-wall/ | Fail Of The Week: Roboracer Meets Wall | Roger Cheng | [
"car hacks",
"Fail of the Week"
] | [
"autonomous car",
"autonomous cars",
"autosteer",
"crash",
"fail of the week",
"matlab",
"steering",
"wall"
] | There comes a moment when our project sees the light of day, publicly presented to people who are curious to see the results of all our hard work, only for it to fail in a spectacularly embarrassing way. This is the dreaded “Demo Curse” and it recently befell the SIT Acronis Autonomous team. Their Roborace car gained social media infamy as it was seen launching off the starting line and immediately into a wall. A team member
explained what happened
.
A few explanations had started circulating, but only in the vague terms of a “steering lock” without much technical detail until this emerged. Steering lock? You mean like
The Club
? Well, sort of. While there was no steering wheel immobilization steel bar on the car, a software equivalent did take hold within the car’s systems. During initialization, while a human driver was at the controls, one of the modules sent out NaN (Not a Number) instead of a valid numeric value. This was never seen in testing, and it wreaked havoc at the worst possible time.
A module whose job was to ensure numbers stay within expected bounds said “not a number, not my problem!” That NaN value propagated through to the vehicle’s CAN data bus, which didn’t define the handling of NaN so it was arbitrarily translated into a very large number causing further problems. This cascade of events resulted in a steering control system locked to full right before the algorithm was given permission to start driving. It desperately tried to steer the car back on course, without effect, for the few short seconds until it met the wall.
While embarrassing and not the kind of publicity the
Schaffhausen Institute of Technology
or their sponsor Acronis was hoping for, the team dug through logs to understand what happened and taught their car to handle NaN properly. Driving a backup car, round two went very well and the team took second place. So they had a happy ending after all. Congratulations! We’re very happy this problem was found and fixed on a closed track and not
on public roads
.
[via
Engadget
] | 52 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292895",
"author": "Anton Fosselius",
"timestamp": "2020-11-08T21:08:33",
"content": "now this is where ADA shines ^_^ so strict/hard typed you cant do a thing…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6292905",
"author": "8bi... | 1,760,373,294.525483 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/07/one-wheel-is-all-we-need-to-roll-into-better-multirotor-efficiency/ | One Wheel Is All We Need To Roll Into Better Multirotor Efficiency | Roger Cheng | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"autonomous vehicle",
"drone",
"dual",
"flying car",
"flying cars",
"ieee iros",
"IROS",
"monowheel",
"multirotor",
"one wheel",
"single wheel balancing",
"wheel"
] | Multirotor aircraft enjoy many intrinsic advantages, but as machines that fight gravity with brute force, energy efficiency is not considered among them. In the interest of stretching range, several air-ground hybrid designs have been explored. Flying cars, basically, to run on the ground when it isn’t strictly necessary to be airborne. But they all share the same challenge: components that make a car work well on the ground are range-sapping dead weight while in the air. [Youming Qin et al.] explored cutting that dead weight as much as possible and came up with
Hybrid Aerial-Ground Locomotion with a Single Passive Wheel
.
As the paper’s title made clear, they went full minimalist with this design. Gone are the driveshaft, brakes, steering, even other wheels. All that remained is a single unpowered wheel bolted to the bottom of their dual-rotor flying machine. Minimizing the impact on flight characteristics is great, but how would that work on the ground? As a tradeoff, these rotors have to keep spinning even while in “ground mode”. They are responsible for keeping the machine upright, and they also have to handle tasks like steering. These and other control algorithm problems had to be sorted out before evaluating whether such a compromised ground vehicle is worth the trouble.
Happily, the result is a resounding “yes”. Even though the rotors have to continue running to do different jobs while on the ground, that was still far less effort than hovering in the air. Power consumption measurements indicate savings of up to 77%, and there are a lot of potential venues for tuning still awaiting future exploration. Among them is to better understand interaction with ground effect, which is something we’ve seen
enable novel designs
. This isn’t exactly the flying car we were promised, but its development will still be interesting to watch among all the other neat ideas under development to
keep multirotors in the air longer
.
[
IROS 2020 Presentation video (duration 10:49)
requires no-cost registration, available until at least Nov. 25th 2020. Forty-two second summary embedded below] | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292753",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2020-11-08T03:03:42",
"content": "That’s a really great idea. It clearly needs refinement, as I doubt that 77% increase in efficiency includes equal travel distance at that speed. Increased run time means little if it doesn’t help the drone ... | 1,760,373,294.438355 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/07/how-to-improve-a-smart-motor-make-it-bigger/ | How To Improve A Smart Motor? Make It Bigger! | Donald Papp | [
"drone hacks",
"hardware",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"actuator",
"BLDC",
"brushless motor",
"high torque",
"IQ Motion Control",
"IQ vertiq",
"position sensor",
"robotics"
] | Brushless motors can offer impressive torque-to-size ratios, and when combined with complex drive control and sensor feedback, exciting things become possible that expand the usual ideas of what motors can accomplish. For example, to use a DC motor in a robot leg, one might expect to need a gearbox, a motor driver, plus an encoder for position sensing. If smooth, organic motion is desired, some sort of compliant mechanical design would be involved as well. But motors like the
IQ Vertiq 6806 offered by [IQ Motion Control]
challenge those assumptions. By combining a high-torque brushless DC motor, advanced controller, and position sensing into an integrated device, things like improved drone performance
and direct-drive robotic legs like those of the Mini Cheetah
become possible.
IQ Vertiq 6806 brushless DC motor with integrated controller, driver, and position sensing.
First, the bad news: these are not cheap motors. The IQ Vertiq 6806 costs $399 USD each through
the Crowd Supply pre-order
($1499 for four), but they aren’t overpriced for what they are. The cost compares favorably with other motors and controllers of the same class. A little further than halfway down the Crowd Supply page, [IQ Motion Control] makes a pretty good case for itself by comparing features with other solutions. Still, these are not likely to be anyone’s weekend impulse purchase.
So how do these smart motors work? They have two basic operating modes:
Speed
and
Position
, each of which requires different firmware, and which one to use depends on the intended application.
The “Speed” firmware is designed with driving propeller loads in mind, and works a lot like any other brushless DC motor with an ESC (electronic speed control) on something like a drone or other UAV. But while the unit can be given throttle or speed control signals like any other motor, it can also do things like accept commands in terms of thrust. In other words, an aircraft’s flight controller can communicate to motors directly in thrust units, instead of a speed control signal whose actual effect is subject to variances like motor voltage level.
The “Position” mode has the motor function like a servo with adjustable torque, which is perfect for direct drive applications like robotic legs. The position sensing also allows for a few neat tricks, like the ability to use the motors as inputs. Embedded below are two short videos showcasing both of these features, so check them out.
If you’re wishing these motors were a bit less spendy, there’s good news! [IQ Motion Control] previously released a smaller motor with similar features: the IQ Vertiq 2306. That unit is available in
220KV (low-speed)
and
2200KV (high-speed)
versions for servo and drone applications, respectively.
Check out our earlier coverage of these smaller units
and get a feel for their capabilities, and maybe get a few ideas of your own in the process. | 25 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292720",
"author": "A",
"timestamp": "2020-11-07T22:05:41",
"content": "The mini cheetah legs are not direct drive",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6292726",
"author": "Pedram",
"timestamp": "2020-11-07T22:33:01",
"c... | 1,760,373,294.58441 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/07/dad-scores-big-with-diy-indoor-hockey-game/ | Dad Scores Big With DIY Indoor Hockey Game | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Games"
] | [
"accelerometer",
"arduino",
"arduino nano",
"hockey",
"led",
"mpu6050",
"neopixel",
"neopixel ring"
] | We suppose it’s a bit early to call it just yet, but we definitely have a solid contender for Father of the Year. [DIY_Maxwell] made
a light-up hockey game
for his young son that looks like fun for all ages. Whenever the puck is hit with the accompanying DIY hockey stick (or anything else), it lights up and produces different sounds based on its acceleration.
Inside the printed puck is an Arduino Nano running an MPU6050 accelerometer, a 12-NeoPixel ring, and a piezo buzzer. [DIY_Maxell] reused a power bank charging circuit to charge up the small LiPo battery.
The original circuit used a pair of coin cells, but the Arduino was randomly freezing up, probably because of the LEDs’ current draw. Be sure to check out the video after the break, which begins with a little stop motion and
features a solder stand in the shape of a 3D printer
.
Got a house full of carpet or breakables?
You could always build an air hockey table instead
. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,373,294.676623 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/07/tired-of-the-cat-and-mouse/ | Tired Of The Cat-and-Mouse | Elliot Williams | [
"News",
"Rants",
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"facebook",
"newsletter",
"Oculus",
"vr"
] | Facebook just announced
their plans for the Oculus Quest 2 VR headset
. You probably won’t be surprised, but they want more of your user data, and more control over how you use the hardware. To use the device at all, you’ll need a verified Facebook account. Worse, they’re restricting access to the wide world of community-developed applications by requiring a developer account to be able to “sideload” non-Facebook software onto the device. Guess who decides who gets to be a developer. Hint: it’s not the people developing software.
Our article suggests that this will be the beginning of a race to jailbreak the headset on the community’s part, and to get ahead of the hackers on Facebook’s. Like every new release of iOS
gets a jailbreak
within a week or two, and then Apple patches it up as fast as they can, are we going to see a continual game of hacker cat-and-mouse with Facebook?
I don’t care. And that’s not because I don’t care about open hardware or indie VR developers. Quite the opposite! But like that romance you used to have with the girl who was absolutely no good for you, the toxic relationship with a company that will not let you run other people’s games on their hardware is one that you’re better off without. Sure, you can try to fix it, or hack it. You can tell yourself that maybe Facebook will come around if you just give them one more chance. It’s going to hurt at first.
But in the end, there is going to be this eternal fight between the user and the company that wants to use them, and that’s just sad. I used to look forward to the odd game of cat and mouse, but nowadays the cats are just too well bankrolled to make it a fair fight. If you’re buying a Quest 2 today with the intent of hacking it, I’d suggest you spend your time with someone else. You’re
signing up for a string of heartbreaks
. Nip it in the bud. You deserve better. There are too many fish in the sea, right?
What are our options?
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
! | 49 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292658",
"author": "Vladimir",
"timestamp": "2020-11-07T15:15:15",
"content": "So what ? Just don´t buy it and let sheeple buy it.Old and busted:https://hackaday.com/2020/11/03/as-facebook-tightens-their-grip-on-vr-jailbreaking-looks-more-likely/four days ago. What this new article... | 1,760,373,294.760519 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/07/today-at-remoticon-saturday-live-events/ | Today At Remoticon: Saturday Live Events | Mike Szczys | [
"cons"
] | [
"2020 Hackaday Remoticon"
] | Hackaday Remoticon is a worldwide virtual conference happening now!
Everyone is invited to
hang out in the Remoticon Public Chat
Individual workshop chat rooms are open to all, visit the
Remoticon Wayfinder
, choose a workshop and enter the public chat
Ticket holders will find links to their registered event
in the ticketing hub
Public Livestreams (all times are PST, UTC-8):
Hackaday YouTube
and
Facebook Live
:
10:15am Opening Remarks
10:30am Keynote: Kipp Bradford
12:00/2:15/4:30 Workshops (
RF Emissions Debugging
,
Machine Learning on Microcontrollers
,
PCB Reverse Engineering
6:30pm Keynote: Alfred Jones
7:00pm Hackaday Prize Ceremony
Hackaday Twitch
:
6am SMD Challenge: Badge.team
8:15am
Solder Techniques Demonstration
12pm SMD Challenge: Hackaday Writers
2pm SMD Challenge: Remoticon Attendees (Heat 1)
4pm SMD Challenge: Queercon Badge Team
Hackaday Twitch Two
:
12:00-2pm Demos
5:30pm World Tour Robot | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292754",
"author": "josh",
"timestamp": "2020-11-08T03:21:13",
"content": "What a useless comment. Why not respond with suggestions?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,373,294.79792 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/07/training-a-neural-network-to-play-a-driving-game/ | Training A Neural Network To Play A Driving Game | Lewin Day | [
"Machine Learning"
] | [
"machine learning",
"neural network",
"neural networks"
] | Often, when we think of getting a computer to complete a task, we contemplate creating complex algorithms that take in the relevant inputs and produce the desired behaviour. For some tasks, like navigating a car down a road, the sheer multitude of input data and its relationship to the desired output is so complex that it becomes near-impossible to code a solution. In these cases, it can make more sense to create a neural network and train the computer to do the job, as one would a human. On a more basic level, [Gigante] did just that,
teaching a neural network to play a basic driving game with a genetic algorithm.
The game consists of a basic top-down 2D driving game. The AI is given the distance to the edge of the track along five lines at different angles projected from the front of the vehicle. The AI also knows its speed and direction. Given these 7 numbers, it calculates the outputs for steering, braking and acceleration to drive the car.
To train the AI, [Gigante] started with 650 AIs, and picked the best performer, which just barely managed to navigate the first two corners. Marking this AI as the parent of the next generation, the AIs were iterated with random mutations. Each generation showed some improvement, with [Gigante] picking the best performers each time to parent the next generation. Within just four iterations, some of the cars are able to complete a full lap. With enough training, the cars are able to complete the course at great speed without hitting the walls at all.
It’s a great example of machine learning and the use of genetic algorithms to improve fitness over time. [Gigante] points out that there’s no need for a human in the loop either, if the software is coded to self-measure the fitness of each generation.
We’ve seen similar techniques used to play Mario, too
. Video after the break. | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292652",
"author": "Rogfanther",
"timestamp": "2020-11-07T13:42:04",
"content": "Now lets see the results when he changes the track.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6292655",
"author": "Jul13",
"timestamp": "2020-11-07T... | 1,760,373,294.845616 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/07/wearable-sensors-on-your-skin/ | Wearable Sensors On Your Skin | Chris Lott | [
"News",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"biosensors",
"biowearables",
"sintering",
"skin",
"Wearables"
] | An international team at Penn State led by [Larry Cheng] made a breakthrough in
printing sensors directly on skin
without heat. The breakthrough here is the development of a room-temperature
sintering
technique. Typical sintering of copper happens at 300 C, and can be further lowered to 100 C by adding nanoparticles. But even 100 C is too hot, since skin starts to burn at around 40 C.
You can obtain their journal article if you want the details, but basically their technique combines the ingredients in peelable face masks and eggshells. With this printed circuit is applied to the skin, the sintering process only requires a hair dryer on the cool setting, and results can bend and fold without breaking the connections. A hot shower will remove the circuit without damaging the circuit or your skin. [Larry] says the circuits can be recycled.
They are using these sensors to monitor temperature, humidity, blood oxygen levels, and heart performance indicators. They’ve even linked these various on-body sensors with a WiFi network for ease of monitoring. After reading this report, we’re left wondering, if the sensor is directly on your skin, can it be really called wearable?
We’ve written about printable inks
before
, but for printed circuit board applications. We can’t help but wonder if this technology would help solve some problems inherent in that technology, as well. Thanks to [Qes] for the tip. | 10 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292635",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2020-11-07T11:32:38",
"content": "I think 40c is a little too low for burning skin. My bath is usually that warm.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6292663",
"author": "Capt McAl... | 1,760,373,294.888331 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/09/watching-global-oil-trade-with-satellite-imagery/ | Watching The Global Oil Trade With Satellite Imagery | Danie Conradie | [
"Space"
] | [
"crude oil",
"google earth",
"sattelite",
"tanker"
] | The global oil market plays a large role in the geopolitical arena, and it is often in the interest of various role players to conceal the figures on production, consumption and movement of oil. This may simply to be to gain an advantage at the negotiation tables, or to skirt around international sanctions. The website [TankerTrackers] is in the business of uncovering these details, often from open source intelligence. Using satellite imagery, they are using a simple way to
monitor the occupancy crude oil storage facilities
around the world.
The key is in the construction of large capacity crude oil storage tanks. To prevent the flammable gasses emitted by crude oil from collecting inside partially empty tanks, they have roofs that physically float on top of the oil, moving up and down inside the steel sides as the levels change. By looking at imagery from the large number of commercial satellites that constantly photograph earth’s surface, one can determine how full the tanks are by comparing the length of a shadow inside the tank to the shadow outside the tank. Of course, you also need to know the diameter and height of a tank. Diameter is easy, just use Google Earth’s ruler tool. Height is a bit more tricky, but can often be determined by just checking the facilities’ website for ground level photos of the tanks. Of course these methods won’t give you exact numbers, but it’s good enough for rough estimates.
Another interesting detail we found perusing the [
TankerTrackers
] news posts (requires sign-up) is that tankers will sometimes purposefully switch off their
AIS transponders
, especially when heading to and from sanctioned countries such as Venezuela and Iran. Even in today’s world of omnipresent tracking technologies, it’s
surprisingly easy for a massive ship to just disappear
. Sometimes [TankerTrackers] will then use imagery to track down these vessels, often by just watching ports.
Thanks for the tip [Arpad Toth]!
Photo by [
Terryjoyce
]
CC BY-SA 3.0 | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6293219",
"author": "Big Z",
"timestamp": "2020-11-10T06:00:56",
"content": "There are companies that do this as a business from ground level as well – due to the construction of the tanks (as described in the article), thermal imaging is quite useful for this.If someone is willing ... | 1,760,373,294.938274 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/09/hello-from-the-nearspace/ | Hello From The NearSpace | Matthew Carlson | [
"gps hacks",
"Space"
] | [
"amateur radio",
"balloon",
"cubesat",
"gps",
"high altitude balloon",
"high altitude research"
] | A key challenge for any system headed up into the upper-atmosphere region sometimes called near space is communicating back down to the ground. The sensors and cameras onboard many high altitude balloons and satellites aren’t useful if the data they collect can’t be retrieved. Often times, custom antennas or beacons are added to help. Looking at the cost and difficulty of the problem, [arko] and [upaut] teamed up to try and make a turn-key solution for any near-space enthusiast by building
CUBEX, a wonderful little module with sensors and clever radio
that can be easily reused and repurposed.
CUBEX is meant as a payload for a high-altitude balloon with a camera, GPS, small battery, solar cell, and the accompanying power management circuits. The clever bit comes in the radio back down. By using the 434.460 Mhz band, it can broadcast around a hundred miles at 10mW. The only hardware to receive is a radio listener (a cheap RTL USB stick works nicely). Pictures and GPS coordinates stream down at 300 baud.
Their launch was quite successful and while they didn’t
catch a solar eclipse
, their balloon reached an impressive 33698m (110,560ft) while taking pictures. Even though it did eventually splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, they were able to enjoy
a plethora of gorgeous photos
thanks to their easy and cost-effective data link. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6293199",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2020-11-10T01:45:12",
"content": "At first I thought 300 baud would be useless for sending photos, but after looking at the .io page, it seems useful in a limited way. 320x240px photos at about 4kb each would take more or less 15 seconds to ... | 1,760,373,295.291239 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/09/infinity-mirror-guitar-shreds-forever/ | Infinity Mirror Guitar Shreds Forever | Kristina Panos | [
"LED Hacks",
"Misc Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"acrylic",
"guitar",
"infinity mirror",
"leds",
"plexiglas"
] | Just when we thought there was nothing left to make into an infinity mirror, [Burls Art] goes and builds something that seems obvious now that it exists — an infinity mirror guitar. Check out
the build video
after the break, where [Burls Art] gets right to it without wasting any time.
He started by making a 3/4″ wood frame for the body and the one-piece neck and headstock. The acrylic on the top has two-way mirror film, and the back piece is painted with mirror paint to get the infinity effect going. [Burls Art] also fashioned acrylic boxes for the pickup and the electronics. Those are both buffed to be frosty, so the lights reflect nicely off of them.
There’s nothing super-fancy going on with the electronics, just some app-controlled RGB LEDs. We would love to see a version where the LEDs respond in real time to the music. The effect is still quite cool, so if you don’t want to watch the whole build,
at least check out the demo at the end where [Burls Art] plays a riff
. Never has a delay pedal been so appropriate.
If you’re not much of a luthier, don’t fret about not being able to make a cover version. We’ve seen plenty of infinity mirrors, but if you want something useful,
whip up some infinity drink coasters
.
Thanks for the tip, [Keith]! | 5 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6293166",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2020-11-09T21:32:05",
"content": "Niiiiiice!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6293192",
"author": "LordNothing",
"timestamp": "2020-11-09T23:51:24",
"content": "drill acrylic w... | 1,760,373,295.610632 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/09/getting-over-4gbps-out-of-a-compute-module-4/ | Getting Over 4Gbps Out Of A Compute Module 4 | Lewin Day | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"compute module 4",
"Raspberry Pi 4",
"Raspberry Pi Compute Module"
] | For the average home gamer, good old fashioned Ethernet at 100 Mbit/s is only just starting to become a bottleneck as things like 4K video streaming begin to demand more bandwidth. As always, though, there are those who wish to push the limits of what is possible. [Jeff Geerling] is one such operator,
who set out to maximise the network throughput on the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4.
The build began by taking advantage of the PCI-Express 2.0 single lane interface on the new Raspberry Pi Compute Module. Hooked up to an Intel four-port Gigabit Ethernet card, and in combination with the onboard Gigabit-E port, [Jeff] was able to get 3.0 Gbit/s out of the setup without too much fuss. However, he wanted more, and set about finding where he was being held back. It turned out that
ksoftirqd
, a daemon that handles network packets, can only run on one core on the Raspberry Pi 4, and it was getting maxed out at this data rate. Overclocking the CPU helped, getting the max rate up to 3.4 Gbit/s.
Further analysis showed that the onboard interface was only contributing 200 Mbit/s, with the Intel card maxing out at 3.2 Gbit/s. In the case of the latter, this was due to the limits of the PCI-E interface. In the case of the former, however, [Jeff] knew that more was available. The trick turned out to be recompiling the Linux kernel to allow the internal interface to be able to set to use a higher Maximum Transmission Unit. This allows each network transmission to carry more data without extra CPU load. With the internal interface and the external card all set to an MTU of 9000, the Pi was able to spit out a scorching 4.15 Gbit/second.
Details of the hack are available on Github for the curious.
It’s a hack that doesn’t offer a lot to the average user, though [Jeff] states he has some interesting applications in mind. He’s also contemplating what can be achieved with a 10 Gbit card, which we can’t wait to see. If you want to learn more about the Compute Module’s features, including a couple of tips for laying out yor own board,
check out our review
. Video after the break.
[Thanks to Baldpower for the tip!] | 30 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6293154",
"author": "Harvie.CZ",
"timestamp": "2020-11-09T20:04:34",
"content": "There is daemon called “irqbalance” to magicaly fix your irq-affinity issues. But i guess it will not help in this case as there are hardware problems. (Perhaps it is not a multiqueue network adapter?)"... | 1,760,373,295.416197 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/09/prism-lighting-the-art-of-steering-daylight/ | Prism Lighting – The Art Of Steering Daylight | Moritz v. Sivers | [
"Art",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"deck prism",
"lcd",
"led",
"prism",
"prism film",
"prism tiles",
"vault light"
] | The incandescent light bulb was one of the first early applications of electricity, and it’s hard to underestimate its importance. But before the electric light, people didn’t live in darkness — they thought of ways to redirect sunlight to brighten up interior spaces. This was made possible through the understanding of the basic principles of optics and the work of skilled glassmakers who constructed prism tiles, deck prisms, and vault lights. These century-old techniques are still being applied today for the diffusion of LEDs or for increasing the brightness of LCD displays.
Semantics First!
People in optics are a bit sloppy when it comes to the definition of a prism. While many of them are certainly not geometric prisms, Wikipedia defines it as a transparent optical element with flat, polished surfaces of which at least one is angled. As can be seen in the pictures below some of the prisms here do not even stick to this definition. Browsing the catalog of your favorite optics supplier you will find a
large variety of prisms
used to reflect, invert, rotate, disperse, steer, and collimate light. It is important to point out that we are not so much interested in dispersive prisms that split a beam of white light into its spectrum of colors, although they make
great album covers
. The important property of prisms in this article is their ability to redirect light through refraction and reflection.
A Safe Way to Bring Light Under Deck
A collection of deck lights used to direct sunlight below deck in ships. Credit:
glassian.org
One of the most important uses of prism lighting was on board ships. Open flames could have disastrous consequences aboard a wooden ship, so deck prisms were installed as a means to direct sunlight into the areas below decks. One of the first patents for deck lights
“THE GREAT AND DURABLE INCREASE OF LIGHT BY EXTRAORDINARY GLASSES AND LAMPS”
was filed by Edward Wyndus as early as 1684. Deck prisms had typical sizes of 10 to 15 centimeters. The flat top was installed flush with the deck and the sunlight was refracted and directed downward from the prism point. Because of the reversibility of light paths (“If I can see you, you can see me”) deck prisms also helped to spot fires under deck.
Making Shopping Easier for the Ladies
The shopping experience in the 19th century was much improved after the invention of vault lights. Credit:
glassian.org
In the 19th century, the idea of prism lighting was adapted to vault lights that directed sunlight into sidewalk vaults and basements. Compared to open grates, these not only provided protection from rain but were also easier to walk on. The latter was apparently considered a great advantage for shop owners helping them to bring women closer to their store windows despite their impractical footwear.
Prism shaped pavement light redirecting sunlight through total internal reflection. Credit:
glassian.org
In the beginning, vault covers used round plano-convex lenses or even just flat glasses. The prism shape that was used in ship decks was adapted for vault lights only later by Edward Hayward in 1871. His glass prisms not only let light pass through but also redirected it sideways into the room. Hayward’s prisms were based on
total internal reflection
which occurs when light tries to exit the glass above a critical angle.
From Prism Tiles to Gas Cylinders
Eventually, prism glass was also applied to vertical windows with much commercial success. The biggest player in the game was the Luxfer Prism Company which started to sell prism tiles in 1897 based on an earlier
patent by James G. Pennycuick
. The 4-inch wide square Luxfer tiles were typically installed above storefront windows.
Nice tiles on a storefront. Credit:
Luxfer Prism Glass Tile Collector.
The inner surface of the tile was covered with horizontal prisms that redirect light deeper into the room than the sunlight would otherwise reach on its own.
Although their commercial success was brought to a halt with the availability of cheap electric lighting, the tiles can still be seen in many small towns in the US. The Luxfer company survived by changing its business to metal products and is now the world’s biggest manufacturer of high-pressure aluminum cylinders for gas storage. Luxfer tiles that often contain ornamental patterns designed by lead architects of the time are now a collector’s item.
Frank Lloyd Wright
was a high-profile booster.
LED Diffusers and LCD Screens
Although nowadays electricity is cheap and LEDs are super-efficient compared to incandescent lamps, the more efficient use of sunlight for interior lighting is undoubtedly a worthy goal, if not just for the superior color rendition. The modern version of prism tiles are daylight redirecting window films. The thin plastic films include a microstructured saw-tooth pattern that refracts light upwards to the ceiling from where it is reflected and reaches deeper into the building — the thin plastic equivalent of Luxfer tiles. According to 3M the film can save up to 52% on lighting energy costs.
Typical configuration of an LCD screen and working principle of the prism film: ray I is totally reflected and recycled by diffuse reflection, ray II is converged by the prism refraction, and ray III is recycled by other prisms. Credit:
Zong Qin
You might already be familiar with prism films in case you were ever looking for ways to diffuse LEDs. Micro prism sheets made from polystyrene or polycarbonate are a common solution to homogenize the light of an LED array. In addition, if you ever tore down an LCD screen you will have noticed several plastic sheets sandwiched underneath the glass. These also contain prism films to enhance the brightness of the backlight screen.
As shown in the picture the prism film will converge light towards the viewer thereby increasing the on-axis brightness while at the same time limiting the viewing angle. Often two of these films are stacked with 90 degrees rotation to converge light in both the horizontal and vertical planes.
These films are also starting to show up in high-end LED lighting applications, and it’s probably only a matter of time, and price, before they become ubiquitous. The incandescent bulb killed the prism, the LED is killing the incandescent, and the prism is getting rediscovered. What’s old is new again!
Prisms are somehow the swiss army knife of optics, a multipurpose tool when it comes to steering light. Even if manufacturing techniques, materials, shapes, and dimensions have changed over the centuries the ability to redirect light through simply shaped transparent bodies still finds a lot of useful applications. | 33 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6293134",
"author": "Adam",
"timestamp": "2020-11-09T18:45:49",
"content": "Great article, I always considered luxfers as just transparent bricks, not a way to redirect light beam",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6293323",
... | 1,760,373,295.574465 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/09/learning-sdr-and-dsp-hack-chat/ | Learning SDR And DSP Hack Chat | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"digital signal processing",
"dsp",
"gnu radio",
"Hack Chat",
"PlutSDR",
"python",
"radio",
"sdr",
"software-defined radio"
] | Join us on Wednesday, November 11th at noon Pacific for
Learning SDR and DSP Hack Chat
with
Marc Lichtman
!
“Revolution” is a term thrown about with a lot less care than it probably should be, especially in fields like electronics. It’s understandable, though — the changes to society that have resulted from the “Transistor Revolution” or the “PC Revolution” or more recently, the “AI Revolution” have been transformative, often for good and sometimes for ill. The common thread, though, is that once these revolutions came about, nothing was ever the same afterward.
Such is the case with software-defined radio (SDR) and digital signal processing (DSP). These two related fields may not seem as transformative as some of the other electronic revolutions, but when you think about it, they really have transformed the world of radio communications. SDR means that complex radio transmitters and receivers, no longer have to be implemented strictly in hardware as a collection of filters, mixers, detectors, and amplifiers; instead, they can be reduced to a series of algorithms running on a computer.
Teamed with DSP, SDR has resulted in massive shifts in the RF field, with powerful, high-bandwidth radio links being built into devices almost as an afterthought. But the concepts can be difficult to wrap one’s head around, at least when digging beyond the basics and really trying to learn how SDR and DSP work. Thankfully, Dr. Marc Lichtman, an Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland, literally wrote the book on the subject.
“PySDR: A Guide to SDR and DSP using Python”
is a fantastic introduction to SDR and DSP that’s geared toward those looking to learn how to put SDR and DSP to work in practical systems. Dr. Lichtman will stop by the Hack Chat to talk about his textbook, to answer your questions on how best to learn about SDR and DSP, and to discuss what the next steps are once you conquer the basics.
Our Hack Chats are live community events in the
Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging
. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, November 11 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones baffle you as much as us, we have
a handy time zone converter
.
Click that speech bubble to the right, and you’ll be taken directly to the Hack Chat group on Hackaday.io. You don’t have to wait until Wednesday; join whenever you want and you can see what the community is talking about.
[Banner image credit:
Dsimic
,
CC BY-SA 4.0
, via Wikimedia Commons] | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,373,295.650259 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/09/the-logic-chip-risc-v-project-reboots/ | The Logic Chip RISC-V Project Reboots | Jenny List | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"homebrew cpu",
"LMARV-1",
"RISC-V"
] | The RISC-V architecture is inexorably inching from its theoretical origins towards the mainstream, as what could once only be done on an exotic FPGA can now be seen in a few microcontrollers as well as some much more powerful processors. It’s exciting because it offers us the prospect of fully open-source hardware on which to run our open-source operating systems, but it’s more than that. RISC-V isn’t a particular processor core so much as a specification that can be implemented at any of a number of levels, and in its simplest form can even be made real using 74 logic chips. This was the aim of [Robert Baruch]’s LMARV-1 that caused a stir a year or two ago but then went on something of a hiatus. We’re pleased to note that
he’s posted a video announcing a recommencement of the project
, along with a significant redesign.
We’ve placed the video below the break, and it’s much more than a simple project announcement. Instead, it’s an in-depth explanation of the design decisions and the physical architecture of the processor. It amounts to a primer on processor design, and though it’s a long watch we’d say you won’t be disappointed if your interests lie in that direction.
We first covered the LMARV-1 back in early 2018
, so we’re glad to see it back in progress and we look forward to seeing its continued progress. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6293093",
"author": "TimT",
"timestamp": "2020-11-09T16:07:03",
"content": "I was following his previous series. I’m glad to see him start up again.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6293106",
"author": "Mike Giles",
"tim... | 1,760,373,295.34554 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/06/robots-learning-to-understand-their-surroundings/ | Robots Learning To Understand Their Surroundings | Roger Cheng | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"autonomous",
"autonomous navigation",
"collision avoidance",
"computer vision",
"ieee iros",
"IROS",
"path planning",
"robot vision",
"semantic segmentation"
] | Today it is pretty easy to build a robot with an onboard camera and have fun manually driving through that first-person view. But builders with dreams of autonomy quickly learn there is a lot of work between camera installation and autonomously executing a “go to chair” command. Fortunately we can draw upon work such as
View Parsing Network
by [Bowen Pan, Jiankai Sun, et al]
When a camera image comes into a computer, it is merely a large array of numbers representing red, green, and blue color values and our robot has no idea what that image represents. Over the past years, computer vision researchers have found pretty good solutions for problems of image
classification
(“is there a chair?”) and
segmentation
(“which pixels correspond to the chair?”) While useful for building an online image search engine, this is not quite enough for robot navigation.
A robot needs to translate those pixel coordinates into real-world layout, and this is the problem View Parsing Network offers to solve. Detailed in
Cross-view Semantic Segmentation for Sensing Surroundings
(DOI 10.1109/LRA.2020.3004325) the system takes in multiple camera views looking all around the robot. Results of image segmentation are then synthesized into a 2D top-down segmented map of the robot’s surroundings. (“Where is the chair located?”)
The authors documented how to train a view parsing network in a virtual environment, and described the procedure to transfer a trained network to run on a physical robot. Today this process demands a significantly higher skill level than “download Arduino sketch” but we hope such modules will become more plug-and-play in the future for better and smarter robots.
[
IROS 2020 Presentation video (duration 10:51)
requires free registration, available until at least Nov. 25th 2020. One-minute summary embedded below.] | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6295811",
"author": "None",
"timestamp": "2020-11-19T11:05:44",
"content": "Surprised still nobody has commented on this.Very interesting and clear post about robot navigation and localization.Please keep them coming.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,373,295.769182 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/06/today-at-remoticon-bring-a-hack/ | Today At Remoticon: Bring-a-Hack | Mike Szczys | [
"cons"
] | [
"2020 Hackaday Remoticon"
] | Last Chance Tickets:
General admission tickets for this weekend’s Hackaday Remoticon are
only available for two more hours
! These are free, but you need to have one to get in on tonight’s Bring-a-hack.
Today’s Live Events:
The Community Bring-a-Hack meetup
for all general admission ticket holders
begins today at 16:00 PST. Check
the ticketing hub
page for your link to the event which is being held on Remo.
Live streaming events open to the public will begin on Saturday at 10:00 PST with open remarks and Kipp Bradford’s keynote talk. Workshops and the SMD Challenge will live-stream all day. And Alfred Jones will present his keynote at 18:30 PST followed by the Hackaday Prize Ceremony. Follow our media channels to be notified of all live streams:
Hackaday YouTube
Hackaday Facebook
Hackaday Twitch
Hackaday Twitch Two | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,373,295.683772 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/06/this-week-in-security-in-the-wild-through-your-nat-and-brave/ | This Week In Security: In The Wild, Through Your NAT, And Brave | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"In the Wild",
"Slipstream",
"This Week in Security"
] | Most of the stories from this week are vulnerabilities dropped before fixes are available, many of them actively being exploited. Strap yourselves in!
Windows Kernel Crypto
The first is
CVE-2020-17087, an issue in the Windows Kernel Cryptography Driver
. The vulnerable system calls are accessible from unprivileged user-space, and potentially even from inside sandboxed environments. The resulting buffer overflow can result in arbitrary code executing in the kernel context, meaning this is a quick jump to root-level control over a victim system.
What exactly is the code flaw here that’s being attacked? It’s in a bit of buffer allocation logic, inside a binary-to-hex conversion routine. The function accepts an unsigned short length argument. That value is used to calculate the output buffer size, by multiplying it by six, and using an unsigned short to hold that value. See the problem? A sufficiently large value will roll over, and the output buffer size will be too small. It’s a value overflow that leads to a buffer overflow.
Because the problem is being actively exploited, the report has been made public just seven days after discovery. The flaw is still unpatched in Windows 10, as of the time of writing. It also seems to be present as far back as Windows 7, which will likely not receive a fix, being out of support. [Editor’s snarky note: Thanks, closed-source software.]
Intel Key Extraction
Microcode has been a part of CPU architecture for decades. From a certain point of view, processors have always had some sort of microcode — logic that converts instructions into discrete hardware operations. Microcode, as we think of it today, came to x86 processors with the Pentium Pro. With that processor, it was finally possible to update the microcode layer at boot, fixing bugs and problems that were found after manufacture. Intel has always distributed that microcode as an encrypted blob, keeping researchers from investigating the changes between updates. That restriction may be lifted, as a trio of researchers have managed to
extract the encryption key from modern Intel CPUs
.
The extraction is possible because of a vulnerability allowing access to a debug interface inside Intel chips. This technique requires physical access to the machine, and the chip resets to its factory state on a power cycle. Time will tell what other interesting tidbits will be mined from the hidden depths of Intel processors. Keep an eye on
the Chip Red Pill repository
for their ongoing work.
Oracle In the Wild
Two separate attacks are being actively used against Oracle products. The first is CVE-2020-14882 in Weblogic,
a pre-auth RCE that just requires a single HTTP GET to trigger
. This was patched in the latest set of security updates, and
quickly reverse engineered
. (That’s written in Vietnamese. Google translate does well enough to follow along.)
The second attack is
CVE-2020-14871, a PAM vulnerability in Oracle’s Solaris
. This was a true zero-day, being exploited for months before it was fixed in the same set of security updates. FireEye was the company that originally found the attack,
and have been kind enough to explain it
. The Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) has a maximum response size, and uses that size to construct a buffer to hold incoming requests. The Solaris code fails to do any checks on the request, and just naively copies the string into the buffer, right past the end, if the input string is too long.
Now where do you think we could manipulate the input message for a PAM request? How about the Secure SHell Daemon? Yep, make an SSH request in keyboard-interactive mode, and use a username longer than 512 characters. In a simple test, PAM just crashes, but it’s possible to manipulate the username to compromise the machine instead.
This is a worst-case scenario. The default configuration of Solaris’ SSHD daemon was vulnerable to a simple compromise. All it takes is SSH exposed to the internet, and your machine probably got compromised. It does appear that using an SSH key, and disabling all the other SSH login methods would mitigate this vulnerability, particularly if you go so far as disabling SSH PAM altogether. This vulnerability is also present in OpenIndiana as well. 2020.10 should contain the fixes, but I can’t find any information about the previous release, 2020.04 being patched. Caveat Emptor.
Beware The BMC
I’ve always looked upon Baseboard Management Controllers (BMCs) with great skepticism. Yes, it’s incredibly useful to have a way to access a remote computer’s BIOS interface. A BMC can even be used to do a remote reinstall of the entire OS. For a machine locked away in a remote datacenter, a BMC can be a life-saver.
That BMC is also a second OS running on your hardware, that you don’t control. I’ve never been comfortable connecting that black-box OS to the internet. I have a pair of servers, and I used a secondary Ethernet port on each server to cross-connect from each server into the other’s BMC port. I can SSH in and access the interface, while keeping the BMCs completely isolated. It turns out,
my paranoia is entirely justified
. This article is specific to an NVIDIA SCADA system, but at least some of these vulnerabilities are present in other iterations of this BMC system. The worst offender is CVE‑2020‑11483, hardcoded credentials. This sort of bug is usually a debugging account that someone forgot to disable before shipping the firmware, it still represents a major backdoor into any system running this BMC. The old adage is still relevant: Don’t connect it to the internet!
Google’s Project Zero Details GitHub Vulnerability
Project Zero has published the details of a flaw in GitHub’s Actions system. You’ve probably interacted with Actions — when a project automatically runs a test suite on pull requests, or copies new bug reports to other repositories, it’s Actions under the hood.
The vulnerability is command injection
. The Project Zero bug report points out the
set-env
command as the most troubling, and since their PoC includes arguments being sent to the underlying Node server, I’m inclined to agree.
The political angle here is interesting too. GitHub asked for a disclosure extension at the 11th hour, 103 days after receiving the report. In their defense on October 1st, GitHub did publish
an advisory disclosing essentially everything but PoC code
. This just happens to be one of those security problems that happens to also be a feature for some users. If you manage a GitHub project that uses Actions, it’s probably worth taking some time to make sure you aren’t vulnerable to command injection.
Slipstreaming Through NAT
NAT, love it or hate it, has been part of our networks for years now. Regardless of whether it’s really a firewall or not, I agree with Robert Graham’s opinion:
Of all the security features out there, the #1 thing that stops the most cyberattacks/hackers every day is … NAT.
— Robᵉʳᵗ Graham😷, provocateur (@ErrataRob)
May 14, 2019
To shake things up a bit,
enter Slipstream
, a very clever attack against NAT routers that support connection tracking. You may have seen this in
iptables
, in the
RELATED
keyword. SIP is a notable example of why connection tracking is useful. You pick up the phone on your desk, and dial a number. That phone opens a SIP control connection, and issues
INVITE
s to set up the conversation with your SIP provider. The
INVITE
information includes the details on the actual audio connection. Usually this is shuffled off to a high level UDP port. A headache-inducing problem for SIP providers is that NAT will block those audio connections. The solution is to include a conntrack module in the firewall that can read those
INVITE
messages and correctly forward the audio traffic.
This is the mechanism that Slipstream abuses. Your browser cannot generate a SIP
INVITE
packet, but it can send HTTP GET messages to 5060, the normal SIP port. Is there a way an attacker could generate HTTP traffic that would confuse the CONNTRACK module? The answer is yes, but it’s difficult.
To effectively fool the NAT router, Slipstream gathers data on the given network, and generates large packets that will fragment in transit. By padding the front of those packets, and aligning the fragmentation point at the start of the spoofed SIP data, a malicious site can indeed fool many NAT routers on the market today. The result is that by connecting to a malicious server, and running the JavaScript hosted there, the machine running the browser is exposed to the attacking server, as if it was no longer behind the NAT router at all. All-in-all it’s a very clever technique, but time will tell whether it ever gets used for attacks in the wild. For now, it’s just a reminder that defense-in-depth is the way to go. | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292442",
"author": "Innocent Bystander",
"timestamp": "2020-11-06T16:47:31",
"content": "Samy..",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6292445",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp": "2020-11-06T16:55:16",
"content": "Anywhere I... | 1,760,373,295.73349 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/06/lunar-ark-boldly-goes/ | Lunar Ark Boldly Goes | Matthew Carlson | [
"Space"
] | [
"habitation",
"lunark",
"moon",
"simulation"
] | [Sebastian and Karl-Johan] are two award-winning Danish Space Architects who are subjecting themselves to harsh, seemingly uninhabitable conditions, for science. The pair set out to build
a lunar base that could land with the manned Moon missions in 2024
. Like any good engineering problem, what good is a solution without testing? So the pair have placed their habitat in a Moon Analogue habitat and are staying in their habitat for two months. They want to really feel the remoteness, the bitter cold, and the fatigue of actually being on the moon. So far they are about halfway through their journey and expect to return home in December 2020.
When asking themselves where on Earth is it most like the Moon, they came up with Moriusaq, Greenland. It’s cold, remote, in constant sunlight this time of year, and it is a vast white monochrome landscape just like the moon. The first moon settlement missions are expected to be at the South Pole of the Moon, as known as the Peak of Eternal Light.
The habitat itself is a testament to the duo’s ingenuity. The whole structure folds to fit the tight space and weight requirements of rockets. Taking 2.9m
3
(102 ft
3
) when stored, it expands 560% in volume to 17.2m
3
(607 ft
3
). In Greenland, the structure needs to withstand -30ºC (-22ºF) and 90 km/h winds.
Because the South Pole is in constant sunlight, the temperature varies much less there than on the rest of the Moon, which makes Greenland a very good analogue temperature-wise. The foldable skin is covered in solar panels, both on the top of the bottom. The highly reflective nature of the Moon’s surface makes it easy to capture the light bouncing up onto the bottom of the habitat.
Several other bits of technology have been included onboard, like a 3D printer, a circadian light stimulation system, an algae reactor, and a weather simulation. Since both the Moon and Greenland are in constant sunlight, the pod helps regulate the circadian rhythms of the occupants by changing the hue and brightness throughout the day. The weather simulation tries to break up the monotony of space by introducing weather like a stormy day or rainbow colours.
Their expedition is still ongoing and
they post daily mission updates
. While some might call their foray into the unknown madness, we call it bold. Currently,
NASA is planning its Artemis mission in 2024
and we hope that the lessons learning from the Lunark and other experiments culminate in a better experience for all astronauts. | 27 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292359",
"author": "Shannon",
"timestamp": "2020-11-06T12:31:02",
"content": "You mentioned twice in this article that Greenland has constant sunlight, but Greenland is currently experiencing near constant darkness.I love the concept of this compressible structure, and I’m glad peo... | 1,760,373,295.828466 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/06/walmart-gives-up-on-stock-checking-robots/ | Walmart Gives Up On Stock-Checking Robots | Al Williams | [
"News",
"Rants"
] | [
"automation",
"retail",
"robot",
"walmart"
] | We’ve seen the
Jetsons
,
Star Wars
, and
Silent Running
. In the future, all the menial jobs will be done by robots. But Walmart is reversing plans to have six-foot-tall robots scan store shelves to check stock levels. The robots, from a company called Bossa Nova Robotics, apparently worked well enough and Walmart had promoted the idea in many investor-related events, promising that robot workers would reduce labor costs while better stock levels would increase sales.
So why did the retail giant say no to these ‘droids? Apparently, they found better ways to check stock and, according to a quote in the Wall Street Journal’s article about the decision, shoppers reacted negatively to sharing the aisle with the roving machines.
The robots didn’t just check stock. They could also check prices and find misplaced items. You can see a promotional video about the device below.
We have to wonder what this means for robots in general. People like us — Hackaday readers — tend to embrace new technology and we are more likely to follow a robot like this around trying to understand its operation. But we aren’t the majority. Are people afraid for their jobs? Being injured by a runaway machine? A robot uprising?
On the other hand, Walmart continues to use other robots. Notably, I’ve noticed QR-like barcodes that the floor mopper machines use to locate themselves. They also use less mobile robots like cash counters. However, the floor moppers aren’t rolling around during prime shopping hours.
We figure Bossa Nova still has a play. There are plenty of warehouses and maybe even warehouse stores where a machine rolling down an aisle wouldn’t warrant a second look. But if Walmart is afraid to expose customers to the device, we doubt many other retailers will for awhile. Unless there’s something about the demographic. Would people shopping in Home Depot be less worried about a machine? We don’t know.
We also have to wonder what this means for other working robots. We’ve seen robots
preparing fast food
and
driving your car
, for example. People are spending a lot of time thinking about how
robots will work with coworkers
. Maybe they need to also factor in how customers will react to being served by robots or even just sharing space with them.
What do you think? Will it bother you to see a robot taxi drive pass you on the freeway while you eat your robotically-prepared hamburger? Or do you think those who oppose are just modern-day Luddites? | 37 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292332",
"author": "Pinewold",
"timestamp": "2020-11-06T10:08:52",
"content": "My bet is they will just install more ceiling video cameras to scan the isles. Totally non-invasive, already present in stores. A little vision recognition and shallower shelves would make whole store i... | 1,760,373,295.899191 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/05/a-super-ups-for-the-pi/ | A Super UPS For The Pi | Al Williams | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"raspberry pi",
"supercap",
"supercapacitor",
"Uninterruptible Power Supply",
"ups"
] | One of the problems with using a Raspberry Pi or most other systems in a production environment is dealing with sudden shutdowns due to power loss. Modern operating systems often keep data in memory that should be on disk, and a sudden power cycle can create problems. One answer is an uninterruptible power supply, but maintaining batteries is no fun. [Scott] wanted to do better, so he built a
UPS using supercapacitors
.
A supercapacitor UPS is nearly ideal. The caps charge quickly and don’t wear out as a battery does. The capacitors also don’t care if they stay in storage for a long time. The only real downside is they don’t have the capacity that batteries can have, but for a small computer like a Pi Zero it is pretty easy to gang up enough capacitors to do the job.
In particular, [Scott’s] design uses five 10F capacitors, each charged to 2.5V. The downside is that this requires a 12V supply, so he did a second design that uses only two capacitors each taking half of a 5V supply.
There are several options for converting the capacitor voltage to the desired output voltage. There’s also
software
to run the onboard microcontroller and force a shutdown in the Pi if the main power drops.
Naturally, this isn’t
an original idea
, but it is well done. You can also buy cheap ready-made UPS boards in the Pi form factor, but you might want to check out some
aftermarket software
for them if you use one. | 57 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292304",
"author": "Really WhyEmailNeeded",
"timestamp": "2020-11-06T07:11:43",
"content": "“In particular, [Scott’s] design uses five 10F capacitors, each charged to 2.5V. The downside is that this requires a 12V supply, so he did a second design that uses only two capacitors each... | 1,760,373,295.989672 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/05/purdues-powerful-paint-could-cancel-climate-change/ | Purdue’s Powerful Paint Could Cancel Climate Change | Kristina Panos | [
"green hacks",
"News"
] | [
"calcium carbonate",
"climate change",
"paint",
"purdue",
"radiative cooling"
] | What if a building could stay cool simply because of its paint job? We’re not talking about putting flames on the sides.
Purdue engineers have come up with a formulation of white paint that reflects the heat from sunlight and keeps surfaces cooler than their surroundings
. Depending on the location, a building with this paint on the roof may not need air conditioning.
Radiative cooling paint is not a completely new animal, but the formulation developed at Purdue is quite impressive compared to commercially-available paints that only reflect 80-90% of sunlight.
Purdue’s paint reflects 95.5% of sunlight. It can keep surfaces up to 18°F cooler than their surroundings, even in direct sunlight. Where does the heat go? The paint radiates infrared heat, so it escapes the atmosphere and goes into deep space.
How does it do this? With abundantly available calcium carbonate fillers — the chalky stuff that antacids are made of. The paint absorbs next to no UV rays because of the wide band gaps in the atomic structure of calcium carbonate. Take a brief tour of this amazing paint after the break.
We wonder how many rooftops and roadways we’d have to paint with this stuff to have a chance at reversing climate change. It’s not terribly expensive to make, so the problem shifts to widespread education and adoption. What do you think? | 76 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292258",
"author": "Mike Massen",
"timestamp": "2020-11-06T03:19:32",
"content": "Great stuff, the classic long wave selective IR emission not resonant with existing green house gases and looks cheap too.Thanks for post :-)Btw details not being saved, android Lenovo tablet",
"p... | 1,760,373,296.449122 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/06/procedurally-generated-retrocomputer-emulators/ | Procedurally Generated Retrocomputer Emulators | Matthew Carlson | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Software Development"
] | [
"emulator",
"procedural",
"xml"
] | [Marquis de Geek] has a profound love of old systems. Tired of writing new emulators from scratch for each project,
his newest project EMF generates the emulator for him
. An XML document describes the layout of the memory, CPU description, and screen handler. The output is currently a single-page Javascript emulator application with an assembly and a dissembler. However, but that backend can easily be swapped to another language such as Rust or C++.
Since EMF is a framework that provides a common way to describe the emulated machine, you get a common emulator user interface for free. There’s a lot of flexibility offered here as well. Opcodes can be implemented as a large switch statement or individual functions, depending on the target language’s performance. Self-modifying code can be detected and handled separately. Custom features or hardware can be injected easily by writing a module in the target language.
While the source code for the EMF hasn’t been released yet, several of the machines that [Marquis de Geek] has built with EMF
are open-source on GitHub
. So far the list includes Dragon32, Sinclair ZX80, Sinclair ZX81, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Elliott 903, Chip8, Cosmac VIP, and the MegaProcessor. Each has a live emulator that runs in your browser.
While [Marquis de Geek] hopes to release a binary version of the EMF soon, we’re very much looking forward to the EMF source coming out once the code has been cleaned up. We love the trend towards creating easier and more accessible emulators, such as
this Twitter bot that runs Atari programs
.
Thanks [Steven] for sending this one in! | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292626",
"author": "Techokami",
"timestamp": "2020-11-07T10:17:46",
"content": "Actually…https://github.com/MarquisdeGeek/emf-javascript",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6292767",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp... | 1,760,373,296.217949 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/06/spider-silk-spider-silk-made-using-a-strain-of-yeast/ | Spider Silk, Spider Silk, Made Using A Strain Of Yeast | Brian McEvoy | [
"chemistry hacks",
"how-to"
] | [
"GMO",
"silk",
"spider",
"spider silk",
"Synthetic",
"the thought emporium",
"yeast"
] | Companies spend thousands developing a project for the market, hoping their investment will return big. Investing like this happens every day and won’t shock anyone. What may surprise you is someone who spends more than a decade and thousands of their own dollars to make an open-source version of a highly-marketable product. In this case, we’re talking about genetically
modified yeast that produces spider silk
. If that sounds like a lead-in to some Spiderman jokes and sci-fi references, you are correct on both accounts. [Justin Atkin] had some geneticist work under his belt when he started, so he planned to follow familiar procedures like extracting black widow DNA, isolating and copying the silk genes, and pasting them into a yeast strain. Easy peasy, right? Naturally, good science doesn’t happen overnight.
There are a few contenders for the strongest spider silk among which the golden silk orb-weaver gets the most attention, but the black widow’s webbing is nearly as strong, and [Justin] is happy to wear black widow inspired bling, whereas the golden orb-weaver looks like it crawled out of
Starship Troopers
. His first attempt to extract DNA starts with a vial of preserved
nightmare fuel
spider specimens because that is a thing you can just go online and buy. Sadly, they were candied in alcohol, and that obliterates DNA, so he moved to dried specimens from breeders, which also failed to produce results, and those were just the landmark hangups.
After all the setbacks and dead ends, [Justin] and his lab crew take a different path and design a plasmid-to-order. Sheesh, you can buy anything on the Internet. Labs that build these sequences aren’t like a custom T-shirt producer because you can’t just send them
Gattaca
.TXT and a check. The labs will refuse sequences with repetitious snippets, and spider silk is long repeating chains. [Justin] has to make his recurrent silk look unique all the way through, and so he has to tweak nature’s recipe.
Silk is not a singular thing but rather a classification of what comes from a spinneret.
Spiders
produce as many as ten varieties of silk, and they are a combination of monomers. Some are sticky, some are stretchy, and some are strong, but for commercially viable stuff, we are interested in dragline which is firm and not elastic. It is safe to assume this is what [Peter Parker] loads into his
web slingers
. The variety comes from ordering and reordering the stretchy-strong sequence to increase the variabilty, but that only goes so far. [Justin] adds a new contribution to the mix, and that comes in the form of biomineralization, which we see in things like nacre (mother of pearl), chitin, and bones. This is one of the sturdiest things mother nature put into animals, so the improved formula has a little extra strength in the mix. Another ingredient is the sequence to tell the yeast to excrete the silk, not just produce it internally. This makes harvesting the difference between milking a cow and butchering one.
When the lab’s plasmid arrives, they mix it into some pichia pastoris
yeast
which is normally pinkish, but the modified strain is bone white. It is a fickle strain and doesn’t want to accept the new genes, but Youtube commentators provided helpful protocols. This in itself is an achievement, as if you can get the YT comment section to provide useful data, you deserve a trophy. After the new procedures, a battery of tests shows that gene modification took hold. [Justin]’s yeast was producing silk at a respectable rate. Wow.
Now, the plan is to find ways to do something with the mass-producible
silk
. We love the idea of growing tough-as-nails cargo pants or black widow web-shooters. Spider senses not included. | 25 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292577",
"author": "Andy Pugh",
"timestamp": "2020-11-07T03:25:29",
"content": "I am too lazy to go the source, but is the material any good? Does it have to come out of the rear end of a spider to actuallly work?We are often told that spider silk is stronger than steel. But, then,... | 1,760,373,296.280163 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/06/gorgeous-perfboard-build-puts-1-bit-controller-back-to-work/ | Gorgeous Perfboard Build Puts 1-Bit Controller Back To Work | Dan Maloney | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"1-bit",
"industrial controller",
"MC14500",
"motorola",
"one-bit"
] | Eight-bit computers are all the retro rage these days, with people rushing to build computers either from chips like the 6502 or the Z80, or even recreating these chips from a collection of TTL logic chips. And while we respect and covet those builds immensely, 8-bit computers aren’t the only game going on. To wit we present
this lovely single-board computer sporting a 1-bit CPU
.
The machine, which creator [Simon Boak] cheekily dubs “the world’s least-powerful computer,” is based on the Motorola MC14500B, a chip from the 1970s that was aimed at the industrial controls market. There, the chip’s limited instruction set and narrow bus width were not as limiting as they would be in a general-purpose computer. In fact, since the chip requires an external program counter, it offers a great degree of design flexibility. [Simon] chose a 4-bit address space, but with a little wizardry he was able to get eight bits of input in the form of DIP switches and eight bits of output LEDs. It’s not good for much past making lights blink, but it does that with nary an Arduino in view — although it does sport a couple of 555s.
[Simon]’s goal for the build was simply to build cool from an unusual chip, and we think he succeeded. In fact, we can’t recall seeing a neater perfboard build — it’s almost to the level of circuit sculpture. We especially like the hybrid solder and wirewrap construction. We’ve seen
builds based on this chip before
, but never one so neat and attractive.
[via
r/electronics
] | 16 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292565",
"author": "Andrew Corke",
"timestamp": "2020-11-07T00:34:09",
"content": "I love the 555 with supporting passives all on one chip socket",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6292624",
"author": "BrightBlueJim",
... | 1,760,373,296.329282 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/06/mix-it-up-with-a-multi-volume-controller/ | Mix It Up With A Multi-Volume Controller | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"arduino nano",
"Cherry Blue",
"Cherry MX blue",
"potentiometer",
"volume control"
] | What’s the use of waiting around for something to break in order to hack into something else? As long as it’s just sitting around not being used, who cares? [OmniSaiRen] had a Behringer MIDI controller just taking up space. Instead of selling it, they decided to build it into something they would definitely use —
a multi-volume controller with mute keys and other useful macros
.
After gutting the case, [OmniSaiRen] gave it a couple coats of glossy white paint that looks really nice with the black keycaps and knobs. The plan was to use the original encoders, but [OmniSaiRen] replaced them with potentiometers when they couldn’t get the encoders working with the Arduino Nano. We are sad to report that Cherry Blues only made it to the build because they have all black housings and were also lying around taking up space, but maybe [OmniSaiRen] will grow to love them.
If you’re tired of all the mousing and clicking it takes to turn down this or that volume, you need to build one of these things. It runs on
deej, an open source volume mixer that works with Linux and Windows
, so what are you waiting for?
If you only want a single hardware volume knob, you can’t go wrong dialing it in rotary style
.
Via
r/duino | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292642",
"author": "Magpie",
"timestamp": "2020-11-07T12:39:09",
"content": "So, there isn’t any software out there that would have allowed you to map the MIDI controls to what ever function you would want on your computer?Just seems a bit wierd to me to gut the device completely, ... | 1,760,373,296.522512 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/06/open-source-self-driving-smartphone-robot/ | Open Source Self-Driving Smartphone Robot | Danie Conradie | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"android",
"object detection",
"self-driving",
"smartphone",
"Tensorflow Lite"
] | Our smartphones are incredibly powerful computers in their own right, yet we don’t often see them directly integrated into projects. Intel Intelligent Systems Lab has done exactly that with the release
OpenBot
, an open source smartphone based self-driving robot.
Most of the magic happens on the smartphone, which runs an app built on TensorFlow Lite, and integrates the camera and array of sensors on the smartphone, as well as the data from ultrasonic sensors and wheel encoders on the robot. The robot itself is relatively simple, with four geared DC motors, motor drivers wired to an Arduino Nano that interfaces with an Android Phone over serial.
The app created by the Intel ISL team comes preloaded with three AI models that can do either person following, or two different modes of autonomous navigation. By connecting a Bluetooth controller to the smartphone and drive the robot around manually in your specific environment while collecting data, you can train a custom autonomous driving policy to suit your environment.
This looks like an excellent way to get a taste of autonomous robots on a small budget, while still being a viable base for more demanding applications. We’ve seen only a few smartphone based robots like
DriveMyPhone
and
SmartiPresense
, which don’t have AI capabilities, but are intended for telepresence applications. We’ve always wondered
why we don’t see more projects with cellphones
, so we welcome the example. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292495",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2020-11-06T19:36:37",
"content": "Where is the video of it in action?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6292507",
"author": "Calum Knott",
"timestamp": "2020-11-06T20:12:... | 1,760,373,296.56412 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/06/local-and-remote-debugging-with-gdb/ | Local And Remote Debugging With GDB | Maya Posch | [
"Featured",
"how-to",
"Microcontrollers",
"Original Art",
"Skills",
"Software Development"
] | [
"debugging tools",
"embedded debugging",
"gdb",
"openocd"
] | As a debugger, GDB is a veritable Swiss Army knife. And just like exploring all of the non-obvious uses of a those knives, your initial response to the scope of GDB’s feature set is likely to be one of bewilderment, subsequent confusion, and occasional laughter. This is an understandable reaction in the case of the Swiss Army knife as one is unlikely to be in the midst of an army campaign or trapped in the wilderness. Similarly, it takes a tricky debugging session to really learn to appreciate GDB’s feature set.
If you have already used GDB to debug some code, it was likely wrapped in the comfort blanket of an IDE. This is of course one way to use GDB, but limits the available features to what the IDE exposes. Fortunately, the command line interface (CLI) of GDB has no such limitations. Learning the CLI GDB commands also has the advantage that one can perform that critical remote debug session even in the field via an SSH session over the 9600 baud satellite modem inside your Swiss Army knife, Cyber Edition.
Have I carried this analogy too far? Probably. But learning the full potential of GDB is well worth your time so today, let’s dive in to sharpen our digital toolsets.
Godmode for Running Code
Example GDB session.
The concept behind a debugger is fairly uncomplicated: all too often something is preventing code which you have written from working, or you want to take a closer look at certain states within the application as it is executing. A simple way to do this is by printing out the values of variables to a terminal or serial port, but the much more powerful way is to use a debugger like GDB to interactively work with the code as it executes.
This means pausing the execution, stepping forward and backward through individual lines of code, inspecting stack frames and parts of memory, modifying the contents of memory and specific variables, and so on. Along with the setting of breakpoints and the watching of variables, virtually any part of the application’s execution can be monitored and influenced. This includes when things go south and the execution terminates with some fault condition, allowing a stack trace to be recalled.
While GDB can be used with any application’s binary, it’s infinitely more useful when the debug symbols are also provided to the debugger. These debug symbols are text strings including source code, as well as other information. They are included in the binary by the compiler when instructed to do so. For
GCC
-based compilers and
LLVM
this is usually done using the
-g
flag.
Local Hero
Running through a local debug session is a good way to become acquainted with how to use GDB’s command line interface. Be sure to have a handy
command reference
within easy reach at any time when using GDB. Doing so will make it easy to become familiar with the more involved commands.
The essential ones to know are
break
(b), for setting a break point, info for obtaining information locals, threads, etc. Further
backtrace
(bt) and
continue
(c),
next
(n) and
step
(s) for printing out a backtrace, continuing execution and moving through the code in increments, respectively. After loading the executable with GDB, the program is started with
run
(r), which can be supplied with any command line arguments to the executable.
Let’s write a very simple program we can use for debugging practice:
/* hello.c - Hello World */
#include<stdio.h>
int main(void) {
char hello[] = "Hello World";
printf("%s\n", hello);
return 0;
}
We’ll use the
-g3
flag when compiling to include debug symbols. Now let’s walk through this C-based Hello World example:
gcc -o hello -g3 hello.c
gdb ./hello
[..]
(gdb) b main
Breakpoint 1 at 0x1169: file hello.c, line 5.
(gdb) run
Starting program: /home/hackaday/hello
Breakpoint 1, main() at hello.c:5
5 int main(void) {
(gdb) n
6 char hello[] = "Hello World";
(gdb) n
7 printf("%s\n", hello);
(gdb)
We first set a break point at the
main()
function, then
run
to start the program. After the breakpoint, with each execution of
next
(or just hitting enter on an empty input to repeat the previous command), we’ll proceed to the next line of the application, without stepping into function calls. That’s what
step
is for. If we use
printf()
in the code, for example, using
step
would cause us to examine every line of that function and its implementation as well. Whether this is desirable depends on one’s needs.
Finally, we can examine variables and memory using
print
(p) for printing variables and
x
to print bytes at a memory address. E.g.:
(gdb) print hello
$1 = "Hello World"
Most of the commands are quite straight-forward, and safe. Barring the use of GDB’s
set
command, using which one can not only change GDB’s settings, but also edit memory contents. Use this one with caution.
Jacking Into the Remote
Running a remote GDB session is roughly the same as a local session, with the obvious complication of having to establish the session on a remote system. Said remote system can be anything from a server, desktop or other system running a full-blown OS, down to a microcontroller (MCU) running straight on the bare metal.
The main requirement for GDB to establish a debugging session on a remote system, is for there to be a
GDB server
(
gdbserver
) instance which the GDB tool can connect to. This GDB server then acts as a bridge between GDB and the active debug session. This connection can be established via TCP or a serial line. This makes it a highly portable approach that works both for remote servers or desktop systems, as well as industrial boards with an RS-232C link.
Even more interesting is to use the GDB server approach to create a bridge to the in-circuit debugger functionality provided by microcontroller platforms such as ST’s STM32 Cortex-M-based systems. This same approach will work with few modifications for Microchip’s ARM-based SAM and AVR platforms.
OpenOCD as GDB server
Anyone who has done MCU development is likely familiar with
OpenOCD
. This tool is invaluable in the programming of a wide variety of MCUs, but also comes with a built-in GDB server. As an example, imagine wanting to establish a GDB session on an STM32 MCU, on a common development board like the STM32F4-Discovery one.
The first step is to start OpenOCD’s GDB server:
openocd -f board/stm32f4discovery.cfg
Next, we can connect to this server via the loopback interface, while also providing GDB (from the arm-none-eabi toolchain) with the path to the ELF binary containing the firmware:
arm-none-eabi-gdb --eval-command="target remote localhost:3333" "hello_world.elf"
GDB will now connect to the GDB server, with OpenOCD using the STM32F4-Discovery board’s in-circuit debugger feature of the onboard ST-Link/V2 interface. All protocol translation is now done by OpenOCD, enabling all the usual GDB features, even though the code we are debugging runs on the MCU on the development board.
As the MCU will already have booted the firmware we wish to debug, we will still have to perform one more step, which is to reset the MCU to get a GDB session we can use:
(gdb) mon reset halt
The MCU will now have been reset and in a halted state until we do something. We will now add a new temporary breakpoint and continue:
(gdb) tbreak main
(gdb) c
After continuing execution, this temporary breakpoint puts us right at the beginning of our main function, from which we can set up breakpoints and more as needed. For example, we can check out the value of a specific register of the GPIOA peripheral on this STM32F4-based board. Say we want to see whether the input and output states were set properly in the GPIO_MODER register:
(gdb) x/4tb 0x40020000
$1 = 0100 0000 0000 0000
The special syntax of the
x
command prints a single 32-bit address, as blocks of single bytes. The GPIOA peripheral location is found in the STM32F407 datasheet, with the Reference Manual (RM) listing the offsets for specific registers within the memory-mapped IO for that peripheral type. In this case the MODER register is at offset 0x00, with GPIOA at address 0x40020000. The byte order is printed left to right, meaning that the first byte is on the left side.
In this case we can see that MODER1 (for pin 1) is set to ’01’, meaning general-purpose output mode.
Time to Quit Guessing
Many are the times when I found myself or others get stuck pouring over lines of code, speculating which one of those lines might be the cause of the weird symptoms. Suffice it to say that doing so is neither fun nor productive. Along with tools like
Valgrind
, debuggers like GDB are perfect for getting answers to questions, even questions you didn’t know you wanted to ask. It’s especially useful with something like embedded development, where the immediate feedback from newly flashed firmware might be… absent or not quite as expected.
It pays to establish a strict routine of testing for isolating test cases, and to hit the problematic firmware in-situ with a targeted testing plan, using tools like GDB. Create a checklist of which items to check first when something doesn’t work, then work your way up from there.
As non-deterministic as debugging sometimes may seem — and with Heisenbugs certainly endeavoring to make it appear that way — in the end there’s a good, solid reason for every issue. You just need to find out what bit to look at in which manner. Becoming comfortable with a powerful tool like GDB is definitely a major asset there. | 27 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292474",
"author": "Perry Harrington",
"timestamp": "2020-11-06T18:24:28",
"content": "The picture says “GBD” and not GDB…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6292475",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2020-11-06T18:... | 1,760,373,296.775415 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/06/hackaday-podcast-092-orbital-data-by-mail-human-flight-on-styrofoam-wings-and-seven-shades-of-e-ink/ | Hackaday Podcast 092: Orbital Data By Mail, Human Flight On Styrofoam Wings, And Seven Shades Of E-Ink | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys catch the best hacks you may have missed. This week we look at the new Raspberry Pi 400, use computer vision to get ready for geeky Christmas, and decypher a negative-space calendar. We get an answer to the question of what happens if you scale up a styrofoam airplane to human-size. Facebook is locking down VR headset, will hackers break them free? And take an excellent stroll down memory lane to find out what it was like to be a space-obsessed ham at the dawn of personal computers.
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 092 Show Notes:
New This Week:
New Raspberry Pi 400 Is A Computer In A Keyboard For $70
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Color E-Ink Display Photo Frame Pranks [Mom]
E-Paper Picture That Changes for My Mom – YouTube
lukemiller.org» Blog Archive » OWHL micro SD card current draw tests
Peter Sripol’s DIY Electric Ultralight MK4
Computer Vision Maps Christmas Lights
Xlights open source project
Bringing A Christmas Lights Show Inside
Must-Have Overkill Christmas Tree Lights
Flexible Actuators Spring Into Action
This GCode Post-Processor Squeezes Lines Into Arcs
Fast 3D Printing With Raspberry Pi — But Not How You Think
Cryptic Calendar Makes For A Useful Wall Ornament
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Raspberry Raven Pi Security Camera Does Double Duty
Easy-SDR Gets Updates
ESP8266 Does RC Without The Transmitter
Mike’s Picks:
A Look Behind The “Big Boards” At Mission Control In The Golden Age Of NASA
Animated Pumpkins Sing And Scare On Halloween
Big Workshop Clock Is 3D Printing Done Right
Can’t-Miss Articles:
As Facebook Tightens Their Grip On VR, Jailbreaking Looks More Likely
Tracking Satellites With A Commodore PET | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292497",
"author": "CMH62",
"timestamp": "2020-11-06T19:43:00",
"content": "Loved the story about the pumpkins but even more valuable was the link leading to the house mapping and projection technique. That site was EXTREMELY well documented in terms of the tools required to turn ... | 1,760,373,296.489183 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/05/open-source-lego-controller/ | Open Source Lego Controller | Chris Lott | [
"Crowd Funding"
] | [
"controller",
"kickstarter",
"lego"
] | A mechanical and manufacturing engineer by day, [Tyler Collins] taught himself electronics and firmware development in his spare time and created an
open source Lego controller
called
Evlōno One
. It is based on the STM32 and Arduino ecosystems, and compatible with a impressive variety of existing Lego controllers, sensors and actuators. [Tyler] encountered Lego Mindstorms while helping in an after-school program, and got to wondering whether he could make a more flexible controller. We’d have to say he succeeded, and it’s amazing how much he has packed into this 4 x 4 single-height brick format.
The Evlōno One is based on an ESP32 dual-core MCU, and has WiFi, Bluetooth, and an IR transmitter for wireless connectivity. It also boasts USB-C power delivery, three motor controllers, speakers, LEDs and a button. Dig through the Kickstarted page for more details on these interfaces and specifications. Both the firmware and the hardware will be published as open source on GitHub.
Although [Tyler] has the prototypes all running, he notes this is his first big production effort. FCC certification testing and production mold tooling are the two biggest items driving the scheduled Feb 2021 shipments. If computer driven Lego modeling is one of your hobbies, definitely check out [Tyler]’s project. And if you missed our [Daniel Pikora]’s FOSSCON 2018 presentation about the intersection (collision) of Legos and Open Source,
our article
must-read for you folks in the Adult Fan of Lego (AFOL) community. | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292236",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2020-11-06T00:28:16",
"content": "Awww, I thought by the title I was going to read about smart Legos that self-assemble into whatever structure you choose.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comme... | 1,760,373,296.710495 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/05/giant-blacksmith-vise-from-start-to-finish/ | Giant Blacksmith Vise From Start To Finish | Danie Conradie | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"blacksmithing",
"fireball tool",
"metal working",
"vise"
] | In any proper workshop you want to be able to securely hold a workpiece, whether it’s a tiny PCB or a heavy piece of forged steel. [Jason Marburger] from Fireball Tool needed a really large heavy-duty vise, so he built himself a massive
1490 lbs / 676 kg floor-standing blacksmith vise
from scratch.
Blacksmith vises are designed to take a lot of heavy abuse, such as holding heavy pieces of steel that are being hammered. [Jason]’s vise stands about 3 feet tall, and the main frame components were cut from 1 5/8 inch (41.3 mm) steel with a water jet cutter. The jaws are operated with a large hand wheel connected to a lead screw. Bearings on the lead screw allow the hand wheel to be spun like a flywheel, allowing it to be quickly opened and closed. The weight of the moving jaw keeps the lead screw under tension, eliminating any backlash. This allows for really fine control over the holding force, which [Jason] demonstrates by carefully clamping a tiny screw. With the hand wheel alone the vise can exert 12880 lb / 5800 kg, but a hydraulic lift was also added, boosting the force to 30000 lbs. The deep throat allows a large object to be clamped, and the jaws can also be offset to clamp something to the side of the vise.
The vise was beautifully finished with powder coating and pin striping, which will no doubt wear over time if it’s properly used, but the vise itself should last a few lifetimes. While this isn’t something you can really build in a home workshop, it is always inspiring to see what is possible with a bit more tools, knowledge and skill. The build is documented in a 4 part series (link in first paragraph), but we’ve added a short highlights reel below for your viewing pleasure.
[Jason] really knows his way around a piece of steel, and we’ve previously covered his techniques for
cleaning up the inside to square tubing to make telescoping tubes
. Another interesting recent vise build was [Alexandre Chappel]’s
wide bench vise that used 3D printed gears
to drive two lead screws simultaneously. | 17 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292195",
"author": "- dingbat -",
"timestamp": "2020-11-05T21:03:51",
"content": "His bench vise build is pretty impressive too.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6292197",
"author": "E",
"timestamp": "2020-11-05T21:24:01... | 1,760,373,296.825575 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/05/a-featherweight-direct-drive-extruder-in-a-class-of-its-own/ | A Featherweight Direct Drive Extruder In A Class Of Its Own | Sonya Vasquez | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer extruder",
"3d printing",
"filament extruder",
"planetary gears"
] | Even a decade later, homebrew 3D printing still doesn’t stop when it comes to mechanical improvements. These last few months have been especially kind to lightweight direct-drive extruders, and [lorinczroby’s]
Orbiter Extruder
might just set a paradigm for a new kind of direct drive extruder that’s especially lightweight.
Weighing in at a mere 140 grams, this setup features a 7.5:1 gear reduction that’s capable of pushing filament at speeds up to 200 mm/sec. What’s more, the gear reduction style and Nema 14 motor end up giving it an overall package size that’s smaller than any Nema 17 based extruder. And the resulting prints on the project’s Thingiverse page are clean enough to speak for themselves. Finally, the project is released as open source under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share-Alike license for all that (license-respecting!) mischief you’d like to add to it.
This little extruder has only been around since March, but it seems to be getting a good amount of love from a few 3D printer communities. The Voron community has recently reimagined it as the
Galileo
. Meanwhile, folks with E3D Toolchangers have been also experimenting with an independent
Orbiter-based tool head.
And the Annex-Engineering crew has just finished a few new extruder designs like the
Sherpa
and
Sherpa-Mini
, successors to the
Ascender
, all of which derive from a Nema 14 motor like the one in the Orbiter. Admittedly, with some similarity between the Annex and Orbiter designs, it’s hard to say who inspired who. Nevertheless, the result may be that we’re getting an early peek into what modern extruders are starting to shape into: smaller steppers and more compact gear reduction for an overall lighter package.
Possibly just as interesting as the design itself is [lorinczroby’s] means of sharing it. The license terms are such you can faithfully replicate the design for yourself, provided that you don’t profit off of it, as well as remix it, provided that you share your remix with the same license. But [lorinczroby] also negotiated an agreement with the AliExpress vendor Blurolls Store where Blurolls sells
manufactured versions of the design
with some proceeds going back to [lorinczroby].
This is a clever way of sharing a nifty piece of open source hardware. With this sharing model, users don’t need to fuss with fabricating mechanically complex parts themselves; they can just buy them. And buying them acts as a tip to the designer for their hard design work. On top of that, the design is still open, subject to remixing as long as remixers respect the license terms. In a world where mechanical designers in industry might worry about having their IP cloned, this sharing model is a nice alternative way for others to both consume and build off of the original designer’s work while sending a tip back their way. | 39 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292183",
"author": "mrehorst",
"timestamp": "2020-11-05T19:50:40",
"content": "It looks like a nice, compact design.In the video, the slicer may have been told to print at 200 mm/sec, but the acceleration is too low for it to get close to that speed with such a small print. It doe... | 1,760,373,296.897539 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/05/alphasmart-neo-teardown-this-is-the-way-to-write-without-distractions/ | AlphaSmart Neo Teardown: This Is The Way To Write Without Distractions | Kristina Panos | [
"Featured",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"AlphaSmart",
"AlphaSmart NEO",
"external keyboard",
"ir",
"keyboard",
"portable computer",
"rubber dome",
"scissor switches",
"word processor"
] | History will always have its in-between technologies — that stuff that tides us over while the Next Big and Lasting Thing is getting the kinks worked out of it. These kinds of devices often do one thing and do it pretty well. Remember zip drives? Yeah you do. Still have mine.
The halcyon days of the AlphaSmart NEO sit in between the time where people were chained to heavy typewriters and word processors and the dawn of on-the-go computing. Early laptops couldn’t be trusted not to die suddenly, but the NEO will run for 700 hours on three AAs.
The NEO stands for the freedom to get your thoughts down wherever, whenever, without the need for a desk, paper, ink, ribbons, power cords, and the other trappings that chain people indoors to flat surfaces. And that’s exactly what was so tantalizing to me about it. Inspiration can truly strike anywhere at any time, so why not be prepared? This thing goes from off to blinking cursor in about a second and a half. There’s even a two-button ‘on’ option so you don’t run the battery down or accidentally erase files while it’s in your bag.
These might be the world’s greatest scissor switches.
L-R: DC power, IR, USB-B, and USB-A for connecting to a printer.
I bought this funny little word processor a few years ago when I wanted to attempt NaNoWriMo — that’s National Novel Writing Month, where you write 50,000 words towards a novel, non-fiction book, or short story collection in any genre you want. It averages out to 1,667 words a day for 30 days. Some days it was easy, some days it was not. But every non-Hackaday word I typed that month was on this, my Mean Green Words Machine.
Only 12 inches wide!
Takes three AAs. Has much better battery life on regular alkaline than rechargeables.
Word count is just a few keypresses away.
Whenever Inspiration Strikes
The AlphaSmart NEO word processor was originally sold to writers in the early 2000s who were tearing out their hair from the distractions of dying laptop batteries and the early Internet. They were also marketed to schools and given to kids as typing trainers for around ten years, which is why there are so many of them on the secondhand market. I will say that the NEO certainly hits a sweet spot of utility without being so versatile and useful as to be a distraction.
As much as I like my NEO, I would never have paid $219 for it.
These can still be had for about $40 shipped on the electronic bay. That is quite the stunning departure from the $219 USD price tag of 2008 when this ad was gracing the back covers of all the writing magazines.
Although I think of the NEO primarily as a word processor, that’s not the only thing it does. The writing function is one of a few so-called applets. There’s also a calculator that keeps a running history, a typing trainer and a quiz applet that lets teachers upload tests from a computer. There’s also a beamer program for sending files back to the teacher over IR.
Two Good Things in One
My NEO definitely served its purpose during NaNoWriMo, and that’s because of a number of things. At 1.5 lbs (709 g), it’s not heavy enough to weigh down your lap if the 1,667 words are taking a long time to come out. The full keyboard is pretty much perfect — there’s no pounding necessary to actuate the keys, which means better flow and more words total. Honestly, the keyboard action is fantastic. It’s just scissor switches under there, but they’re wonderful. Here, take a listen:
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/neo-typing-sounds-loudnorm.mp3
NEO can show up to six lines of text at a time, so the words disappear as you go, but you can still see far enough back that you won’t get lost. You can easily check your word count or the remaining battery percentage with different two- and three-key combinations that are listed in the quick guide on the back. Each day when I was finished writing, I backed up my work by streaming the words to my PC serially, one character at a time. That’s not the only way to send files. They can also be sent en masse with the AlphaSmart manager software, or for classroom purposes, can be individually beamed over IR to a special receiver.
The Dana seems like it would be the better option, but it’s overpowered in my opinion.
I can’t use it for too long at a time anymore because of the whole RSI thing, but I used to carry this around in the car with me because it’s so rugged. If you were at Supercon in 2019, you may have seen me using it in conjunction with my laptop. That’s one of my favorite features — that it can be used as a plug-n-play keyboard.
After the NEO2, AlphaSmart came up with the Dana, which is like a grander, Palm-powered version of the NEO that also runs PalmOS applications. The screen is bigger than everything before it, there’s a battery-gulping backlight, and a touchscreen meant to be used with a stylus.
The Dana also has dual SD card support, but they have to be SD 1.0 technology, be 1Mb or smaller, and FAT12 formatted. I would love to use my Dana more often, but am too afraid of battery drain, with or without the backlight on. Also, I don’t trust the SD card situation. Might as well send files over USB.
Mod Mode
One of the few things that bothers me about the NEO is the lack of a backlight. I tried to add a backlight panel to it, but there just isn’t enough room for it. I still might try to edge-light it, but for now, I just did a simple hack to power an external light.
All I did was run a wire from the battery case over to the female USB-A port meant to connect to a printer. I got a cheap USB reading light from the dollar store with a bendy neck, and added a resistor to make it dimmer. When I need more light, I just plug it in.
I got this idea from
[newsINcinci] on reddit who made their NEO into a Bluetooth keyboard
by doing the port-powering mod, and then plugging in a Bluetooth adapter with a USB bridge.
Teardown Time
Under the hood.
NEO doesn’t have a whole lot going on
behind the matrix
under the hood. The brain is a 33MHz DragonballVZ, which is a 68000-based processor made by Freescale/Motorola. The VZ saves every keystroke to RAM, which is unnoticeable in operation but makes it quite important to keep a fresh coin cell on board.
Inputs and outputs.
Dragonball VZ!
I would still like to add edge lighting someday, but I would have to cut into the metal bezel around the display to get to the edge in the first place.
NEO is a great distraction-free writing tool and all-around external keyboard. I would think the 68k-based processor should make it ripe for hacking, but that stuff is out of my wheelhouse. If I could, I would add microSD support, but I don’t really mind getting the files over USB. Wiring up an internal Bluetooth transmitter could be fun.
The LCD’s PCB.
The bezel I would have to cut to edge light the display.
I kind of wish these were still used in schools instead of full-blown laptops. I learned to type on a IBM Selectric typewriter in the early 1990s and often wished I could have practiced on something at home. I suppose that’s not really a problem these days, but distraction-free typing hardware is getting harder to nail down. | 52 | 28 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292163",
"author": "Used In Schools",
"timestamp": "2020-11-05T18:25:56",
"content": "These are still used in schools for special needs children.The old versions of these devices use to connect to the schoolsIIgs and Macs via the ADB keyboard connector.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,373,297.049215 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/05/robust-water-rocket-launcher-gets-the-engineering-just-right/ | Robust Water-Rocket Launcher Gets The Engineering Just Right | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"launcher",
"pneumatic",
"remote control",
"rocket",
"soda bottle",
"solenoid",
"water"
] | Normally when we run across a project that claims to be overengineered, we admit that we get a little excited. Such projects always hold the potential for entertainingly over-the-top designs, materials, and methods. In this case, though, we’ll respectfully disagree with [Zach Hipps] assessment of
his remote-controlled soda bottle rocket launcher
as “overengineered”. To us, it seems just right.
That’s not to take away from anything accomplished with this build. Indeed, we’re mighty impressed by the completeness of the build, which was intended to create a station for charging and launching air-powered water rockets. The process started with a prototype, built mainly from 3D-printed parts but with a fair selection of workshop scraps to hold it together. This allowed [Zach] to test the geometry of the parts, operation of the mechanism, and how it interfaced with the flange on the necks of 2-liter soda bottles.
Honestly, the prototype was pretty good by itself and is probably where many of us would have stopped, but [Zach] kept going. He turned most of the printed parts into machined aluminum and Delrin, making for a very robust pneumatically operated stand. We’ve got to say the force with which the jaws close around the bottle flange is a bit scary — looks like it could easily clip off a wayward finger. But if he manages to avoid that fate, such a hearty rig should keep [Zach] flying for a long time. Perhaps it could even launch
a two-stage water rocket
? | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292158",
"author": "formatc1702",
"timestamp": "2020-11-05T17:45:50",
"content": "The way he’s squinting every time he arms the launcher, tells me it’s not overengineered enough.Why not implement remote arming as well? If that clear tube shatters while he’s kneeling right in front ... | 1,760,373,296.936343 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/05/linux-fu-monitor-disks/ | Linux Fu: Monitor Disks | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"atop",
"disk management",
"duf",
"htop",
"iostat",
"iotop",
"linux",
"Linux Fu",
"lsof",
"system administration",
"top"
] | If you want a quick view of a Linux system’s process load, you can use
top
or — slightly nicer —
htop
. But what if you want a quick snapshot of how the disk system is doing? There are a few tools you can use, some of which are not nearly as common as
top
.
First, iotop
Most similar to
top
is
iotop
. This program shows you the total and current disk read and write numbers for the file system and also shows you who is eating up the most disk I/O. This screen looks busy:
Here’s a tip. If you look at the bottom of the screen there are some key commands. The O key will hide all inactive processes (or show them if they were hidden). That makes the output manageable:
You can get the same effect with the
-o
command line option. Note the other keyboard commands let you select threads instead of processes, change display options, and set the
ionice
priority for a process.
There’s iostat
If you are more interested in this kind of data per device instead of per process or thread, try
iostat
. It shows some process information, too but it is all nicely summarized:
This command just runs one time and gives you a result. If you want to repeat it periodically, you can add a time to wait between reports and an optional count of how many times to execute. If you do that, you might want to add the
-t
option to get a timestamp, too.
iostat -t 5
That causes the output to scroll, though, so if you are monitoring, you might prefer:
watch -n 5 iostat
There are more stats available with the -x flag and the -z flag will suppress devices that have no data.
Meet duf
You probably won’t find
duf
on your system, but you can install it from
GitHub
. It is true that you can get the same results from df and a few other commands, but
duf
creates easy-to-read output:
There are command line options to hide devices, control the output width, and sort data differently. You can also set the maximum output width. Use the
--help
option to learn more.
List Open Files with lsof
If you ever want to know what files are open, that’s the job of
lsof
. The command gives a lot of information and you typically have a lot of open files on a running system, so you’ll usually add a file name or combine this with a
grep
to narrow things down.
Just remember that wildcards don’t work here. So the following command only shows you who has the directory /home/alw open. It does not show processes that have anything inside of /home/alw open:
lsof /home/alw
You can change that behavior, though, with the
-d
or
-D
options. The lowercase variant looks for the directory and files in the top level. The
-D
option does full-blown recursion. There are plenty of other options, too, if you want to look by user ID, command name, and more.
Bonus Round: atop
Another replacement for
top
is
atop
. While not strictly a disk monitoring tool, it does show disk usage per process and some overall stats. When the program usually starts, it shows some summary information at the top, including
DSK
which gives disk information. Those lines, by the way, will turn color as they get closer to 100% utilization. The lines at the bottom are similar to what you’d see from
top
.
You can use the
d
command to display a disk view. In any view,
D
will sort by disk usage. A useful tool.
Like Anything on Linux…
Like anything else in Linux, there are dozens of other ways to get this kind of information. We’ve looked at some
dedicated monitoring
and administration tools before. If you want to learn more about the fields in
htop
(which are usually common to
top
or
atop
), there’s
a great visual guide
. | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292141",
"author": "Michael K Johnson",
"timestamp": "2020-11-05T16:18:12",
"content": "dstat is the swiss army knife of io/vm/etc stat tools…http://dag.wiee.rs/home-made/dstat/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6292645",
... | 1,760,373,298.915325 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/05/quadcopter-with-tensegrity-shell-takes-a-beating-and-gets-back-up/ | Quadcopter With Tensegrity Shell Takes A Beating And Gets Back Up | Roger Cheng | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"crash",
"drone",
"icosahedron",
"ieee iros",
"impact",
"IROS",
"multicopter",
"multirotor",
"recovery",
"tensegrity"
] | Many of us have become familiar with the distinctive sound of multirotor toys, a sound frequently punctuated by sharp sounds of crashes. We’d then have to pick it up and repair any damage before flying fun can resume. This is fine for a toy, but autonomous fliers will need to shake it off and get back to work without human intervention. [Zha et al.] of UC Berkeley’s HiPeRLab have invented
a resilient design to do so
.
We’ve seen
increased durability from flexible frames
, but that left the propellers largely exposed.
Protective bumpers and cages
are not new, either, but this icosahedron (twenty sided) tensegrity structure is far more durable than the norm. Tests verified it can survive impact with a concrete wall at speed of
6.5 meters per second
. Tensegrity is a lot of fun to play with, letting us build
intuition-defying structures
and here tensegrity elements dissipate impact energy, preventing damage to fragile components like propellers and electronics.
But surviving an impact and falling to the ground in one piece is not enough. For independent operation, it needs to be able to get itself back in the air. Fortunately the brains of this quadcopter has been taught the geometry of an icosahedron. Starting from the face it landed on, it can autonomously devise a plan to flip itself upright by applying bursts of power to select propeller motors. Rotating itself face by face, working its way to an upright orientation for takeoff, at which point it is back in business.
We have a long way to go before autonomous drone robots can operate safely and reliably. Right now the easy answer is to fly slowly, but that also drastically cuts into efficiency and effectiveness. Having flying robots that are resilient against flying mistakes at speed, and can also recover from those mistakes, will be very useful in exploration of aerial autonomy.
[
IROS 2020 Presentation video (duration 14:16)
requires free registration, available until at least Nov. 25th 2020. One-minute summary embedded below] | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292096",
"author": "Gregory S. Bowser",
"timestamp": "2020-11-05T12:36:28",
"content": "Survive crashes and gets back in the air on its own? Sweet!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6292097",
"author": "LonC",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,373,298.686421 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/05/rebuilding-a-hero-the-robot-not-the-sandwich/ | Rebuilding A Hero (the Robot, Not The Sandwich) | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Robots Hacks",
"Teardown"
] | [] | When [Scott Baker] found a Heathkit Hero Junior on eBay, he grabbed it. He had one as a kid, but it was long sold. The robot arrived with no electronics, so the first order of business is to give it some new modern brains including an ATMega328 and a Raspberry Pi. You can see the
start of the project
in the video below.
So far, you can see a nice teardown of the chassis and what’s left of the little robot’s drive system. This wasn’t the big Hero-1 that you probably remember, but it was still a pretty solid platform, especially for the time it was on the market.
[Scott] took over the project from the eBay seller. The original plan included some 3D printed parts to mount a web camera and some other sensors. If you’ve ever wanted to see someone
characterize an unfamiliar stepper motor
, this is your chance.
We don’t know what happened to the original electronics, but we do know that the original Hero Jr. had a 6808 CPU with a whopping 2 K of RAM and 32 K of ROM. You could upgrade to 24 K of RAM. The original also had an SC-01 speech synthesizer, along with sensors for light and sound. There was also a sonar sensor and two 6 V rechargeable batteries. For the advanced user, you could connect a serial port and use the BASIC cartridge.
By the end of the video, [Scott] could drive the thing around using a joystick. We are sure there’s more to come. Meanwhile, if you want to see the different models Heathkit made over eight years, check out the
Old Robots Site
. According to them, Heath sold 4,000 of these little monsters along with some 17,000 of the bigger siblings.
We’ve seen
Hero upgrades
before, of course.
Heathkit is back
, sort of, although we don’t think we’ll see the likes of the Hero family of robots again anytime soon. | 27 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292067",
"author": "Gregg Eshelman",
"timestamp": "2020-11-05T09:22:51",
"content": "I want to see someone take one of the old Androbots and apply modern PID control to its drive so it won’t wobble fore and aft. The steeply pitched, conic section wheels with a heavy lead acid batte... | 1,760,373,299.256568 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/04/dualshock-flight-simulator-yoke/ | DualShock Flight Simulator Yoke | Danie Conradie | [
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Playstation Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"microsoft flight simulator",
"yoke"
] | Aircraft control interfaces can be divided into stick or yoke, with the stick being more popular for flight simulators. [Akaki Kuumeri] has been designing some ingenious 3D printed adaptors for game console controllers, and his latest build is a
yoke adaptor for the PlayStation DualShock Controller
.
Like his previous
joystick/throttle combination
, this yoke makes use of a series of ball and socket links to convert the yoke’s push/pull and rotation motion into the appropriate inputs on the controller’s thumbs sticks. All the components are 3D printed except for rubber bands to provide spring tension. On the sliding contact surfaces between the different components, [Akaki] specifically designed the parts to slide along the grain (layer lines) to allow for smooth motion without resorting to bearings.
If you want an absolute
minimalist yoke, tape some potentiometers to a desk drawer
. Or you can go to the other end of the scale and build a
complete cockpit
. With the arrival of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, we’ll be seeing a lot of controller builds. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292138",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "2020-11-05T16:10:15",
"content": "But, but3 axis accelerometer? I guess I get the need for in and out. This is a great idea for a racing wheel because I just turned down that F1 “air wheel” thing at goodwill for $18.50. i dont need the p... | 1,760,373,298.957671 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/04/building-walks-with-robot-legs/ | Building Walks With Robot Legs | Chris Lott | [
"News"
] | [
"building relocation",
"china",
"robotic legs"
] | The Shanghai Evolution Shift company has just pulled off one of the most impressive robotic projects we’ve ever seen –
making a building walk using 198 robotic legs
. We’ve all seen
structural relocation
documentaries where large buildings are moved to new locations. This involves jacking up the building and installing a supporting platform on wheels, then carefully towing the building to its new site.
But the T shape of the five story, 7600 ton Lagena elementary school was problematic, and the route to the new site involved taking a curved path and rotating the building. This ruled out the more traditional methods of relocation. Robot legs came to the rescue. It took 18 days for the building to walk 62 meters and rotate 21 degrees to its new home. This project is part of a trend to preserve historic architecture rather than bulldoze everything to make space for modern buildings.
After watching the video below, we think you’ll agree that this is a unique application of robotics and an amazing engineering feat. Disclaimer – don’t try this at home. Thanks to [Chuckz] for sending us this tip.
Also, you can see a
time-lapse video
of the move. | 11 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292017",
"author": "Mike Massen",
"timestamp": "2020-11-05T03:26:53",
"content": "Geesh !Had to be on the cards at some point but, didn’t expect so soon. Thanks for post, cool :-)Btw: Website not remembering my comment fill in detail, Lenovo tablet, android.",
"parent_id": nul... | 1,760,373,298.640489 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/04/3d-printed-workshop-lamp-uses-a-few-neat-tricks/ | 3D Printed Workshop Lamp Uses A Few Neat Tricks | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"articulated",
"lamp",
"led"
] | As far as light fittings go, store bought is fine, but it’s hard to beat something you’ve built yourself from the ground up. [Heliox] demonstrates this well,
with a 3D-printed workshop lamp that looks the business and is functional, too.
The lamp has plenty of neat design touches that speak to [Heliox]’s experience in the 3D printed arts. The articulating arms are modular, and feature integrated cable guides. The lamp base features nuts inserted mid-print for easy assembly, and the swivel is actually a two-piece mechanism printed as a single assembly. The table clamp uses a large screw, and the benefit of 3D printing means its easy to customise to suit any individual table. Using black and orange filaments gives the lamp a proper industrial look, and the bright LED strips are perfect for illuminating a bench for fine detailed work.
It’s a great addition to [Heliox]’s workspace, and the tall articulated design means it can cast light without getting in the way of what you’re doing. We’ve featured her work before, too –
like this glorious infinity cube
. Video after the break. | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291995",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2020-11-05T00:25:20",
"content": "What in the hell is she saying? It’s like she’s speaking a whole nother language! Anyway an interesting addition would be putting cables inside the arm segments so when you turn the screws they automati... | 1,760,373,299.196497 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/04/minimalist-low-power-supercapacitor-sensor-node/ | Minimalist Low Power Supercapacitor Sensor Node | Danie Conradie | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"atmega328",
"super capacitor",
"ultra low power",
"wireless sensors"
] | One of the biggest challenges for wireless sensor networks is that of power. Solar panels usually produce less power than you hoped, especially small ones, and designing super low power circuits is tricky. [Strange.rand] has dropped into the low-power rabbit hole, and is designing a low-cost
wireless sensor node that runs on solar power and a supercapacitor
.
The main components of the sensor node is an ATMega 328P microcontroller running at 4Mhz, RFM69 radio transceiver, I2C temperature/humidity sensor, 1F supercapacitor, and a small solar panel. The radio, MCU, and sensor all run on 1.5-3.6V, but the supercap and solar panel combination can go up to 5.5V. To regulate the power to lower voltage components a low-drop voltage regulator might seem like the simplest solution, but [strange.rand] found that the 3.3V regulator was consuming an additional 20uA or more when the voltage dropped below 3.3V. Instead, he opted to eliminate the LDO, and limit the charging voltage of the capacitor to 3.6V with a comparator-based overvoltage protection circuit. Using this configuration, the circuit was able to run for 42 hours on a single charge, transmitting data once per minute while above 2.7V, and once every three minutes below that.
Another challenge was undervoltage protection. [strange.rand] discovered that the ATmega consumes an undocumented 3-5 mA when it goes into brown-out below 1.8V. The small solar panel only produces 1 mA, so the MCU would prevent the supercapacitor from charging again. He solved this with another comparator circuit to cut power to the other components.
We see challenges like these a lot with environmental sensors and weather stations with smaller solar panels. For communication,
low power consumption of a sub-Ghz radio
is probably your best bet, but if you want to use WiFi, you can
get the power usage down
with a few tricks. | 16 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291942",
"author": "Daniel Dunn",
"timestamp": "2020-11-04T21:21:13",
"content": "This is awesome! I wish these were a finished product you could buy!The RFM69 has a lot of potential that isn’t used. Everyone talks about LoRa and Bluetooth, but plain FSK is a lot faster than LoR... | 1,760,373,298.756007 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/04/quick-and-simple-milliohmmeter/ | Quick And Simple Milliohmmeter | Chris Lott | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"educational",
"lab instrument",
"quick"
] | User [mircemk] presents his
“MiliOhm Meter”
project which you can build with an Arduino, a handful of common parts from your lab, and a cigar box. It doesn’t get much simpler than this, folks. While this is something you won’t be getting calibrated with NIST traceability, it looks like a fun and quick project that’s more than suited for hobbyist measurements. It’s not only easy to build, the Arduino sketch is less than thirty lines of code. This is a great learning project, plus you get something useful for your lab when its finished.
We like the creative use of colored tape instead of paint on the project’s box. If this style suits you, [mircemk] has published several other similar lab instrument projects on his Hackaday.io page, including a
frequency meter
, an
audio spectrum analyzer
, and an
auto-ranging capacitance meter
to name a few. You might recognize him from some other projects we’ve featured, such as the crazy
kinematic arms that set a clock’s hands every minute
. | 12 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291921",
"author": "none",
"timestamp": "2020-11-04T20:28:13",
"content": "It’s not one.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6291931",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2020-11-04T20:54:30",
"content": "It’s ... | 1,760,373,298.868142 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/04/bespoke-storage-technologies-the-alphabet-soup-found-in-modern-hard-drives-and-beyond/ | Bespoke Storage Technologies: The Alphabet Soup Found In Modern Hard Drives And Beyond | Bob Baddeley | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"hardware",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"hard drives",
"hdd",
"magnetic tape",
"QLC",
"Shingled Magnetic Recording",
"SMR",
"ssd",
"storage",
"tape drive"
] | It seems like just yesterday (maybe for some of you it was) we were installing Windows 3.1 off floppy drives onto a 256 MB hard drive, but hard drives have since gotten a lot bigger and a lot more complicated, and there are a lot more options than spinning platters.
The explosion of storage options is the result of addressing a variety of niches of use. The typical torrenter downloads a file, which is written once but read many times. For some people a drive is
used as a backup
that’s stored elsewhere and left unpowered. For others it is a server frequently reading and writing data like logs or swap files. In all cases it’s physics that sets the limits of what storage media can do; if you choose wisely for your use case you’ll get the bet performance.
The jargon in this realm is daunting: superparamagnetic limit, LMR, PMR, CMR, SMR, HAMR, MAMR, EAMR, XAMR, and QLC to name the most common. Let’s take a look at how we got here, and how the past and present of persistent storage have expanded what the word hard drive actually means and what is found under the hood.
Grains of Data
You could punch your data into rolls of paper tape, or press it onto optical discs, but for today’s article we’re talking about rewriteable media and for that, magnetic storage is still king.
For all magnetic technologies, an important concept is the superparamagnetic limit, which refers to how small a grain of material (a distinct collection of atoms) can be for each bit to store the data. If there are only a few atoms holding the magnetic state of a bit, then the reader has a difficult time sensing their value, and the writer has a hard time writing to the bit without impacting nearby bits. For this reason the write head is often larger than the read head, so that the stored and read value of the bit is correct and overcomes the magnetic slop at such small sizes. This is important for tape and hard drives, but not solid-state drives (SSDs).
Magnetic Tape is Still a Thing
Tape is still really well regarded by archivists and people with long-term storage needs, and is still an actively developed technology. With an
areal density of up to 201 gb/in
2
(sorry, the industry uses this unit) achieved in 2017 by Sony, and prices of tape dropping, it’s a great option for backups and rarely accessed data, and lasts decades when properly stored. Data access isn’t fast, but it’s reliable, and if you don’t have the hardware, you can outsource your tape storage and retrieval through online companies.
The storage has linear tracks, so that a set of heads can read/write data as the tape passes by. Track density can be so high that it exceeds the width of the heads, which led to linear serpentine tracks; really dense tracks but the heads can be shifted sideways a smidge to access the next track. The tracks go from the beginning of the tape to the end of the tape, and then back again (because why rewind the tape to start the next track?), so the tracks end up looking like a short and wide S.
Linear Serpentine has multiple tracks per head, going back and forth along the tape.
The neat thing is that cartridges can be a little future-proof, as in some cases the tape is compatible with higher track density, so they’ll work with newer hardware, and even have more storage when formatted using that hardware.
Spinning Platters
Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) are the spinning platters we have known for a long time (and covered recently in
Maya Posch’s deep dive into the precision engineering of hard drives
). Just like with CDs and even vinyl records, the data is stored in small bits on tracks in concentric circles, and a head moves along the radius to access the data. Manufacturers have essentially hit the limit of density due to the superparamagnetic limit, but it wasn’t immediately obvious to consumers because they could just increase the number of platters in a drive of the same outer physical dimensions and therefore increase the size of the disk storage. Then they started replacing the air inside with helium, which reduced friction and allowed the disks to spin faster and add more platters. But the storage mechanism on the platters themselves has become fundamentally different. For the past few years some new technologies were being developed that are starting to make it into the market now.
Hard drives originally used Longitudinal Magnetic Recording (LMR), where the poles of the magnet grain were flat on the surface of the disk. This took up a lot of space, so they aligned the grains vertically in Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) drives. In both LMR and PMR the disk has a series of concentric tracks, and there is no overlap between the tracks; the smaller read area is nestled snugly within the larger write area. The lab coats then increased areal density with the invention of Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR), but since it’s a variant of PMR, they had to rename the previous kind to Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR).
SMR tracks overlap the write head slightly, making the tracks more dense for greater storage, but at a cost of more work to write.
SMR uses the wide write head, but overlaps the tracks slightly so that the read areas can be more densely packed. That’s why it’s called shingled. However, this comes at a cost. Much like how it is difficult to replace a single shingle in the middle of a roof without disturbing the shingle above it, it’s impossible to write a single bit in the middle without overwriting the nearby bits, so the drive needs a lot more logic with the data management. It typically accomplishes this by writing new stuff to empty parts of the disk, then later going back to the old area and reorganizing it for future use, making a whole section clear at once. This means an SMR drive isn’t great for specific tasks, like heavy use, because it needs to have time to reorganize tracks. It may have more bytes, which is great for people who want large storage with rare writes, but as a primary drive it will likely have performance problems. Despite this significant downside, manufacturers haven’t been up-front about which drives use the technology, and they’ve
been caught putting the drives in NAS appliances
.
Besides packing the tracks together closer, physicists are working on pushing the superparamagnetic limit with technologes like Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) and Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR), and Energy Assisted Magnetic Recording (EAMR). All three operate in essentially a similar way, but get there slightly differently. The idea is that you want the grain to be stable enough that it won’t flip on its own or due to temperature variations or influence from nearby bits, but you also want it to be strong enough to be easy to read, and easy to write (called coercivity). As the grains get smaller and smaller and more densely packed, this becomes more and more difficult. The XAMRs solve the problem by making the grains stronger despite their close packing, using a different material with higher resistance to change, and then boosting the power of the write to accomplish the more difficult energy requirements necessary to flip a bit. In the case of HAMR, it’s with a laser that briefly heats a grain up by a few hundred degrees, writes it, then lets it cool rapidly. MAMR uses microwaves instead of lasers for heat. And EAMR uses electric current to boost the energy on the write head.
Another area of improvement is in the motion of the head. The thinner the track, the more accurate the position of the head must be. This is being accomplished with
piezoelectric flexing
, so that the heads rotate slightly and can be more aligned with the track.
Doing Us a Solid (State)
Solid state drives are increasing in storage size as well, and without the opportunities for mechanical failure, their simplicity means increased speed and lifetime. Advances in density have come in two forms; levels and layers.
A single-level cell stores a single bit based on the voltage level of the cell. A quad-level cell stores 4 bits.
NAND flash is organized into cells, where each cell stores a voltage level which represents a bit. While it’s actually a transistor, you can think of each cell as a capacitor, very good at holding a charge for a long time. Originally data was stored with a single bit per cell, which was very fast and reliable. Then they realized that voltage levels in the cell can be considered analog, and with an analog to digital conversion they could store multiple bits in a single cell by changing the voltage level. We’re now at Quad Level Cell (QLC) technology, which means that a single cell can have 16 different voltage levels that are decoded to 4 bits. This increased the possible drive size significantly, but came at a huge cost as well.
The tiny changes in voltage means less reliability, especially as cells eventually wear out over time and are less capable of maintaining their voltage level, and the need to do ADC conversion slows things down. Compounding the problem, each cell is being written more frequently, too (because they hold more data), which means they degrade faster. Finally, NAND flash cells don’t last forever without power, and without regular refreshing the cell voltages can slowly drop, leading to bit rot. QLC is best suited as a low-cost drive that replaces HDDs in read-heavy applications, but may not be ideal as an unpowered backup or a write-heavy drive.
By layering sheets of NAND cells, 3D nand packs more bits onto a chip.
We typically think of chips as mostly flat things, but 3D NAND is another way that storage density has been increasing. All of the addressing mechanisms are the same, and the memory cell concept is the same, except a whole bunch of memory cells are stacked on top of each other, with some drives at 128 layers already. Now instead of a single address returning a single bit, that single address returns 128 bits as the entire stack is read out. 3D NAND can be accomplished either with single long strings, or multiple strings stacked on top of each other and separated by an insulating layer. The easiest way to picture this is to imagine a multi-story hotel, and each address refers not just to the room on the first floor, but to every room directly above it. In other words, X01 gives you 101, 201, 301, 401… up to the top of the building. Some drives are combining the two technologies, using levels and layers, to get even higher density.
Hybrid
Why choose when you could have both, and when the computer can optimize for you? Hybrid drives combine both platters and chips. This gives large storage as well as speed. The drive then gets to do analysis on which files are used most frequently and how, and choose where to store the data for the most efficiency. For laptops that only have enough room for one drive, this makes sense, but when you have the space for both you’ll get better performance and price by having one of each.
What’s right for ME?
The hard drive requirements for Windows ME are 480-645 MB free space, and it does not specify the type of hard drive. For newer operating systems performance is generally better with solid state drives, but for data storage PMR drives win. We’re seeing larger and larger storage sizes, aided by advances in physics, but at the cost of more and more delicate mechanics, as well as slower access speeds. I’m holding out for holographic crystal circuits you see in sci-fi all the time with the clear acrylic cards. Realistically, though, it seems the best idea is to evaluate your actual data needs and buy the appropriate hardware, instead of just looking at the number of bytes and buying the biggest you can afford, or assuming that SSD>HDD>Tape for every need. | 70 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291882",
"author": "Matt Cramer",
"timestamp": "2020-11-04T19:00:34",
"content": "I recently picked up an ’80s SF book that had a 3D crystal memory that could store “one gigaword per cubic centimeter,” and was amused at how far that had been eclipsed by a modern SD card. Assuming a... | 1,760,373,299.064071 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/04/diy-heavy-duty-linear-slides/ | DIY Heavy Duty Linear Slides | Danie Conradie | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"linear slides",
"motorcycle lift",
"ptfe"
] | The rise of cost-effective CNC platforms like 3D printers, routers, and laser cutters has gone hand in hand with the availability of affordable and accurate linear rails and extrusions. However, they quickly become expensive when you need something for heavy loads. [Andy Pugh] found himself in need of a
large linear slide
, so he resorted to making his own with steel square tubing and a bit of PTFE (Teflon).
The PTFE slider/spacers
[Andy] needed a
compact motorcycle lift
for his small workshop, so he designed one with a single vertical tube that mounts on his floor. The moving part of the lift is a slightly larger tube, onto which the motorcycle mounts. To allow the outer part to slide easily [Andy] machined a set of 16 PTFE spacers to fit between the surfaces of the tubes. The spacers have a small shoulder that lets them mount securely in the outer tube without pushing out. After a bit of fine-tuning with a file, it slides smoothly enough for [Andy]’s purposes. With a large lead screw mounted onto the lift, he can easily lift his 200 kg motorcycle with a cordless drill, without taking up all the floor space required by a traditional motorcycle lift.
Although the Teflon spacers will wear with regular use and, they are more than good enough for the occasional motorcycle service, and are also easy to replace. You may not want to use this on your next CNC machine build, but it is a handy blueprint to keep in your mental toolbox for certain use-cases. These spacers were machined on a lathe, but we found that very similar looking PTFE parts are sold as “wrist pin buttons” for the piston of old air cooled VW engines, and could be modified for the purpose.
For other lifting applications, check out this
hydraulic workbench
, and this
forklift
for moving stuff in your crawl space without crawling. | 21 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291837",
"author": "Cyna",
"timestamp": "2020-11-04T16:55:42",
"content": "200kg is not a lot. Cheap MGN-15H can easily support that.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6291859",
"author": "Joel",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,373,298.820057 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/04/mosaic-project-freezes-a-bmosaic-project-freezes-a-boat-in-the-arctic-ice-pack-for-scienceoat-in-the-ice-pack-for-arctic-research/ | MOSAiC Project Freezes A Boat In The Arctic Ice Pack For Science | Lewin Day | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"arctic",
"climate",
"climate change",
"climate research",
"research"
] | Just over a fortnight ago,
RV Polarstern
, a German research vessel, sailed back into port, heralding the end of the largest Arctic research project ever undertaken. The MOSAiC expedition, short for Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate, spent a full year running experiments to measure conditions at the North Pole, and research how the unique Arctic climate is being affected by human activity.
Unprecedented In Size And Scope
The operation was regularly resupplied by visits from other icebreakers, bringing equipment, food, and fresh personnel. Alfred-Wegener-Institut / Jan Rohde (CC-BY 4.0)
With a budget exceeding €140 million, and with over 300 scientists attached to the project, the expedition aimed to study a full year-long ice cycle in the Arctic region. To achieve this, the research vessel of the project,
RV Polarstern
, was navigated into an ice floe, and allowed to freeze in and drift with the ice pack. As the seasons progressed, the vessel drifted with the sea ice across the polar region. Along the way, a series of rotating research teams set up equipment on the ice and took regular measurements,
investigating several scientific focus areas.
Different groups observed atmospheric conditions and the sea ice itself, with researchers also focusing on biogeochemistry, the ocean, and the ecosystems in the area.
Icebreakers were used to transport goods and personnel to the
RV Polarstern
over the duration of the mission. The project faced issues in spring, as a pre-planned changeover executed by aircraft had to be abandoned due to restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Instead, this was also executed by ship
, with the
Polarstern
temporarily leaving the ice to rendezvous with
RV Sonne
and
RV Maria S. Merian
for the changeover of approximately 100 crew and to pick up provisions. The detour took three weeks, but didn’t have any major negative impacts on the mission.
Filling In The Gaps
Researchers use a power drill to take core samples from the ice.
The MOSAiC expedition’s key goal is to remedy the current uncertainty in climate modelling regarding the Arctic region. This area of the globe has a huge role to play when it comes to climate change, but due to limited data,
scientists have found it difficult to accurately project future conditions in the Arctic.
By collecting data across a full year, the project’s proponents hope to gain crucial insights into potential future outcomes, as well as to better understand the mechanisms at play in the unique polar environment.
Typically, research teams have been unable to access the central Arctic regions during winter due to the thickness of the ice. By sticking around for the full year and drifting with the ice pack, the researchers were able to get far closer to the North Pole and make continual observations that have until now been impossible. The research teams built a large camp on the ice,
with different groups setting up “cities” for their individual specialties.
Areas dedicated to robotic underwater explorers, meteorological studies, and ocean measurements each had their own spot on the ice where scientists could work on data collection and investigation.
Esther Horvath (CC-BY 4.0)
This was not without its challenges, however.
From the very start of the project
, warming temperatures meant finding a suitable mass of ice to latch on to was more difficult than expected. As the project progressed, the weaker-than-usual ice routinely cracked and shifted, forcing teams to relocate equipment. However, this also presented a great opportunity to observe up close how ice floes act in present-day conditions.
Other dangers included
the very real threat of encountering polar bears.
A scanning infrared camera was mounted on the Polarstern, and when polar bears came too close, all personel were brought back on board. On top of this, tripwires with small explosive charges were set around the perimeter of camp to scare bears who ventured too close, and armed guards held watch just in case.
Conclusion
The ship returned successfully to port after spending a full year out in the ice. Researchers are hopeful that data collected will provide vital insights into Arctic climate systems.
The aim is that with a better understanding of topics like the formation of sea ice, Arctic ocean circulation, and atmospheric conditions at the pole, scientists will be better able to predict the effects of human activity on the world climate.
With many open questions around irreversible tipping points in the climate system
, this research could prove vital to halting the worst effects of climate change before it’s too late. In pursuit of this goal,
the data collected will be shared widely
, first with participants in the program, and to the general public starting from 1 January 2023. MOSAiC hopes to produce data that will help generations of scientists unravel the mysteries of how the Arctic climate works. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291814",
"author": "Rumble_in_the_Jungle",
"timestamp": "2020-11-04T15:19:00",
"content": "I have seen documentary about this with David D. It didn’t end well.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6291925",
"author": "echodelta"... | 1,760,373,299.429095 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/04/scratch-built-3d-printer-goes-big/ | Scratch Built 3D Printer Goes Big | Tom Nardi | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer enclosure",
"CoreXY",
"E3D",
"klipper",
"Octoprint"
] | There was a time, not so very long ago, that buying a reliable 3D printer was a fairly expensive proposition. Many chose to build their own printer instead, and for a few years, we were flooded with very impressive custom designs. But as you might expect, with the prices on decent 3D printers now having hit rock bottom, the custom builds have largely dried up.
Arguably, the only reason you’d build rather than buy in 2020 is if you want something very specific. Which is precisely how
[Joshendy] ended up building the
Big F… Printer
or BFP
. No doubt the F stands for Fun, or Friendly. Either way, it’s certainly something special. With a 300 mm³ build volume and heavy-duty Z axis, this fully enclosed CoreXY machine is ready to handle whatever he throws at it.
It did take [Joshendy] a few attempts to get everything the way he wanted though. In fact, the prototype for the machine wasn’t even CoreXY, it started as an H-Bot. In his write-up he goes over the elements of the BFP did that didn’t quite live up to his expectations, and what he replaced them with. So when wobbly leadscrews and a knock-off V6 hotend both left something to be desired, they ended up getting replaced with ball screws and an authentic E3D Hemera, respectively.
To control this monster, [Joshendy] is using OctoPrint on a Raspberry Pi and a BigTreeTech SKR Pro running Klipper. OctoPrint gives him the ability to control and monitor the printer remotely, complete with a camera mounted inside the enclosure to keep an eye on things, while the Klipper firmware on the SKR board pushes all the computationally expensive aspects of 3D printing onto the vastly more powerful ARM chip in the Pi. The end result is
faster and more accurate control of the steppers
through the TMC2130 drivers than would be possible otherwise.
If you don’t mind tinkering, a
cheap entry-level desktop 3D printer is good enough
for most of hackers and makers. If you need something more capable or more reliable, there’s always
higher-end options from the likes of Prusa and Ultimaker
. Very few people
need
to build something as serious as the BFP, but when the do, we’re glad they send them our way. | 24 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291778",
"author": "Rastersoft",
"timestamp": "2020-11-04T12:16:01",
"content": "300 cubic millimeters? That sounds very small… ;-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6291780",
"author": "yetihehe",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,373,299.321437 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/04/wheels-or-legs-why-not-both/ | Wheels Or Legs? Why Not Both? | Matthew Carlson | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"darpa",
"robot",
"transforming wheels"
] | Out of the thousands of constraints and design decisions to consider when building a robot, the way it moves is perhaps one of the most fundamental. The method of movement constrains the design and use case for the robot perhaps more than any other parameter. A team of researchers at Texas A&M led by [Kiju Lee] is trying to have their cake and eat it too by building
a robot with wheels that transform into legs
, known as a-WaLTR (Adaptable Wheel-and-Leg Transformable Robot).
a-WaLTR was designed to conquer one of wheeled robots’ biggest obstacles: stairs. By adding a bit of smarts to determine whether a given terrain is better handled by wheels or legs, a-WaLTR can convert its segmented wheels into simple legs. Rather than implemented complex and error-prone articulated legs, the team stuck with robust appendages that remind us a little of
whegs
.
The team will show off their prototype at DARPA OFFSET Sprint-5 in February 2021, which is a program focused on building robots that can form adaptive human-swarm teams.
Thanks to the rise of 3D printers and hobbyist electronics there are more open-source experimental robot designs than ever. We’ve seen
smaller versions of the famous Boston Dynamics’ Spot
as well as
simpler quadruped bots with more servos
. a-WaLTR isn’t the
first transforming robot we’ve seen
, but we’re looking forward to seeing more unique takes on robotic locomotion in the future.
Thanks to [Qes] for sending this one in! | 28 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291755",
"author": "Mike Massen",
"timestamp": "2020-11-04T09:09:53",
"content": "Nice idea, can see few extensions possible such as for long grass & means to climb trees.Thanks for post :-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "62... | 1,760,373,299.379623 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/03/brain-in-a-vat-6502/ | “Brain In A Vat” 6502 | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"6502",
"dazzler",
"fpga",
"instructions",
"memory",
"retrocomputing"
] | The 6502 was a revolutionary processor for its time. Offered at a small fraction of the cost of other processors available when it was released, it became adopted in such iconic computers at the Atari 2600, the Apple II, the NES, and the Commodore 64. For that reason it’s still extremely popular among retrocomputing enthusiasts who will often go to great lengths to restore these computers or build them from scratch. [jamesbowman] had an idea to build a 6502-based computer
with the processor only, leaving the rest of the computer up to an FPGA
.
He describes the system as a “brain in a vat” since a real 6502 is used as the “brain” and all other functions are passed off to the FPGA. In his build he uses an FPGA board with built-in graphics abilities, but the truly interesting part of this build is how the FPGA handles memory. If a particular value is placed on the data bus of the 6502, it loops forever through the entire memory and executes all of the instructions it finds. This saved a lot of time getting this system up and running, and he is able to demonstrate it by showing a waveform on the video output of the device.
Of course you can take an FPGA and
emulate an entire computer based on a 6502
, but using the actual silicon in a build like this really ensures that the user can learn and understand the hardware involved without some of the other tedium of doing things such as converting old video signals to HDMI for example. It’s a great take on retrocomputing that we expect to see more of in the future. | 39 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291744",
"author": "Artenz",
"timestamp": "2020-11-04T07:09:05",
"content": "Maybe wait a little longer before showing a project ? The FPGA is only used for sending a constant bit pattern to the 6502.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"commen... | 1,760,373,299.503475 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/03/make-some-noise-or-simulate-it-at-least/ | Make Some Noise Or Simulate It, At Least | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"bode plot",
"electromagnetic compatibility",
"emc",
"LTSpice",
"simulation",
"SPICE"
] | Noise is a fact of life, especially in electronic circuits. But on our paper schematics and just as often our simulations, there is no noise. If you are blinking an LED on a breadboard, you probably don’t care. But if you are working on something meatier, handling electrical noise gracefully is important and simulation can help you. [Ignacio de Mendizábal] has a great piece on
simulating EMC filters
using LTSpice that can get you started.
There are many ways of classifying noise and [Ignacio] starts with common-mode versus differential noise, where common-mode is noise with current flowing in the same direction without regard to the circuit’s normal operation, and differential noise having currents that flow in the opposite direction of normal current flow.
The post shows how to model both types of noise and also covers how to model real-world circuit elements that will more accurately capture the behavior of a real filter. Armed with a good model of noise and some Bode plots, your filter design work will be much easier and robust.
EMC, or electromagnetic compatibility, is crucial for commercial devices.
Testing is expensive
, so the more you can work out in a simulation, the better. If you need a kick start on using
LTSpice
, we got you. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291726",
"author": "Grey Pilgrim",
"timestamp": "2020-11-04T04:08:05",
"content": "Good info on LTspice. One clarification on common mode vs differential mode noise:Common mode noise current flows in the same direction (common) on the signal conductors and returns on earth ground (... | 1,760,373,299.609228 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/03/e-paper-weather-display-is-a-great-base-to-build-from/ | E-Paper Weather Display Is A Great Base To Build From | Tom Nardi | [
"Parts",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"e-ink",
"e-paper",
"electronic paper",
"python",
"weather display"
] | As e-paper modules have become more affordable, we’ve started to see them pop up more and more in hacker projects. It used to be that you had to force a second-hand Kindle to do your bidding, but now you can buy just the screen itself complete with a header to plug right into your Raspberry Pi. It will still cost you as much as a used Kindle…but at least it comes with some documentation and there are Python libraries to talk to it.
But where to start? If you need some inspiration, and perhaps a little source code, this
very slick weather display put together by [James Howard] is a great as baseline
. Not that it really
needs
any additional refinement, as we think it already looks gorgeous. But rather than starting from scratch for your own project, it would be much easier to graft some additional functionality onto his code.
A lot of that has to do with how concise and well commented his code is. We’ve seen enough of these projects to know the kind of spaghetti that’s often running on the backend, but there’s none of that here. [James] assembles the display using the powerful Pillow graphics library, which
lets you draw primitives and drop in text and icons with just a couple lines of code
.
Once all the data is plugged in, the entire screen is saved as an image file which is then opened up on the e-paper display. Even if you aren’t a Python expert, you should be able to understand what’s happening and how to bend it to your will.
We’ve always had high hopes for electronic paper, and it seems
the technology might finally be hitting critical mass
. While it’s still a bit expensive, we’ve started
seeing it pop up in unexpected places to great effect
. Hopefully projects like this one will inspire others to take the B&W plunge. | 26 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291664",
"author": "Garth Bock",
"timestamp": "2020-11-03T22:20:40",
"content": "Looks great. I have considered using e-paper for a weather project but the slow refresh rate and possible burn in problem (as I have read) has made me avoid it at this time.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,373,299.568651 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/03/computer-vision-maps-christmas-lights/ | Computer Vision Maps Christmas Lights | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"christmas",
"display",
"led",
"lights",
"opencv",
"python",
"time"
] | There’s a small but dedicated group of folks out there who spend all year planning their Christmas decorations. These aren’t simple lawn ornaments or displays, either, but have evolved into complex lightning performances that require quite a bit of computer control. For some things, hooking up a relay to a microcontroller can get the job done, but [Andy] has
turned to computer vision to solve some of the more time-consuming aspects of these displays
.
Specifically, [Andy] has a long string of programmable RGB LED lights to wrap around a Christmas tree, but didn’t want to spend time manually mapping out each light’s location. So he used OpenCV to register the locations of the LEDs from three different camera angles, and then used a Python script to calculate their position in the 3D space. This means that he will easily be able to take the LEDs down at the end of the holidays and string them back up next year without having to do the tedious manual mapping ever again.
While [Andy] notes that he may have spent more time writing the software to map out the LEDs than manually doing it himself, but year-after-year it may
save him a lot of time
and effort, not to mention the benefits of a challenge like writing this software in the first place. If you want to get started on your own display this year, all you really need is some lights and a
MIDI controller
. | 27 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291645",
"author": "Chris J",
"timestamp": "2020-11-03T20:34:53",
"content": "I’ve always wanted to do this exact thing with my IOT christmas tree, though I didn’t have quite the same density of lights (along with other issues) to do anything meaningful with it. This is so cool! I ... | 1,760,373,299.87009 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/03/emmanuelle-charpentier-and-jennifer-doudna-sharpened-mother-natures-genetic-scissors-and-won-the-nobel-for-it/ | Emmanuelle Charpentier And Jennifer Doudna Sharpened Mother Nature’s Genetic Scissors And Won The Nobel For It | Kristina Panos | [
"Biography",
"Current Events",
"Lifehacks",
"News",
"Original Art",
"Science"
] | [
"Cas proteins",
"CRISPR",
"CRISPR CaS9",
"Nobel prize",
"nobel prize winners",
"profiles in science",
"strep",
"Streptococcus pyogenes",
"tonsillitis",
"tracrRNA"
] | It sounds like science fiction — and until 2012, the ability to cheaply and easily edit strings of DNA was exactly that. But as it turns out, CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing is a completely natural function in which bacteria catalogs its interactions with viruses by taking a snippet of the virus’ genetic material and filing it away for later.
Now, two women have won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for developing a method for genome editing”
. Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna leveraged CRISPR into a pair of genetic scissors and showed how sharp they are by proving that they can edit any string of DNA this way. Since Emmanuelle and Jennifer published
their 2012 paper on CRISPR/Cas9
, researchers have used these genetic scissors to create drought-resistant plants and look for new gene-based cancer therapies. Researchers are also hoping to use CRISPR/Cas9 to cure inherited diseases like Huntington’s and sickle cell anemia.
The discovery started with Emmanuelle Charpentier’s investigation of the
Streptococcus pyogenes
bacterium. She was trying to understand how its genes are regulated and was hoping to make an antibiotic. Once she teamed up with Jennifer Doudna, they found a scientific breakthrough instead.
Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier via
Wikimedia Commons
Emmanuelle Charpentier Fights Flesh-Eating Bacteria
Emmanuelle Charpentier was born December 11th, 1968 in Juvisy-sur-Orge, France. She studied biochemistry, microbiology, and genetics at the Pierre and Marie Curie University, which is now known as Sorbonne University. Then she received a research doctorate from Institut Pasteur and worked as a university teaching assistant and research scientist. Dr. Charpentier is currently a director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, and in 2018, she founded an independent research unit.
Upon completion of her doctorate, Dr. Charpentier spent a few years working in the States before winding up at the University of Vienna where she started a research group. Her focus was still on the bacteria
Streptococcus pyogenes
, which causes millions of people to suffer through infections like tonsillitis and impetigo each year. It also causes sepsis, which officially makes it a flesh-eating bacterium.
In 2009, Dr. Charpentier moved to northern Sweden to accept a research opportunity. She continued working on
S. pyogenes
and mapped the small RNAs found within. Along the way, Dr. Charpentier discovered a small RNA molecule whose genetic code is really close to the CRISPR sequence in its genome.
Although she had never worked with CRISPR before, Dr. Charpentier had her team map out the CRISPR system in the
S. pyogenes
bacterium. The system had already been shown to only need a single Cas protein to cut up virus DNA, but Dr. Charpentier discovered that the small RNA molecule, now named trans-activating crispr RNA or
tracrRNA
is necessary for the maturation of the long RNA created in the CRISPR process. At that point, Dr. Charpentier was excited about CRISPR and wanted to team up with a biochemist to advance the research. Her number one choice was Jennifer Doudna.
Dr. Jennifer Doudna via
Wikimedia Commons
Jennifer Doudna Runs RNA Interference
Jennifer A. Doudna was born February 19th, 1964 in Washington, DC, but grew up in Hilo, Hawaii. She earned a BA from Pomona College in 1985, and a PhD from Harvard Medical School in 1989. Dr. Doudna is currently a professor of chemistry and of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkley as well as an adjunct professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology at UC San Francisco.
Toward the beginning of her career, Dr. Doudna studied RNA enzymes with the hope of uncovering their structure and biological function. Two decades later, her lab is still focused on RNA, where they are now working to understand the biological processes that involve RNA by a combination of using CRISPR, microRNAs, and RNA interference.
The last one,
RNA interference
, is the process by which RNA handles gene regulation. It’s also known as RNA silencing. In RNA interference, a gene’s protein production is turned off by a small interfering RNA — a tiny molecule of RNA that hunts down any messenger RNA that matches it exactly and snuffs them out.
In 2006, Dr. Doudna got a call from a microbiologist colleague telling her about a new discovery called CRISPR. The colleague said that no one knew much about it yet, but they suspected it worked a lot like RNA interference. Researchers had compared some vastly different bacteria and found that they all shared some repetitive DNA sequences. The repeated sequences themselves are known as CRISPR — clustered, regularly inter-spaced, short palindromic repeats. Within the sequences are shorter and unique, non-repetitive sequences that match the genes of various viruses. So the hypothesis is that the bacteria take a souvenir from every virus they survive, like collecting teeth on a necklace.
Dr. Doudna also learned that researchers have discovered special genes that they are calling CRISPR-associated, or Cas. She put her research team on the trail of Cas proteins, wondering if their purpose is to cut up strings of DNA.
The CRISPR/Cas9 natural gene-editing process of strep bacteria. Image via
Nobel Prize
Pairing Up to Hunt Down the Scissors
In the Spring of 2011, Dr. Charpentier was asked to speak at a conference in Puerto Rico to discuss her findings surrounding tracrRNA. She decided to use the opportunity to introduce herself to Dr. Doudna.
The two met by chance at a cafe on the second day of the conference, introduced by a colleague of Dr. Doudna. On a stroll through the old capital streets the following day, they decide to collaborate and study the function of Cas9 proteins in
S. pyogenes
. They suspect that the longer CRISPR-RNA is what identifies the virus DNA, and that the Cas9 protein does the actual cutting.
Over the next few months, the two teams perform many DNA-cleaving experiments, but nothing happened. Eventually they added tracrRNA to the pot, and
voilà
, the DNA molecule was cut in two.
Not content to stop there, they worked to simplify the scissors by combining tracrRNA and CRISPR-RNA into a single molecule, now known as guide RNA. They went on to precisely cleave a gene in five different places before presenting
their 2012 paper on CRISPR/Cas9
.
The Future of Gene Editing
CRISPR is an exciting field because there are a lot of different ways it can be used in both the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Dr. Doudna discusses some of those methods
in this interview with Future Human shortly after her Nobel win
. Her company Mammoth Biosciences is working on a rapid CRISPR-based test for COVID-19 and hoping to have one down the road that’s as simple as a home pregnancy test. She has another CRISPR company focused on neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
We are excited to see all the places that CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing takes us. Congratulations to Drs. Charpentier and Doudna! | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291627",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2020-11-03T19:01:19",
"content": "The sophistication of biology puts all our technology to shame. This is a solid step in the direction of ad hoc DNA modification. This prize is well deserved.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,373,299.800915 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/03/this-gcode-post-processor-squeezes-lines-into-arcs/ | This GCode Post-Processor Squeezes Lines Into Arcs | Sonya Vasquez | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"arc welder",
"gcode",
"gcode post-processing",
"octolapse"
] | When the slicer software for a 3D printer model files into GCode, it’s essentially creating a sequential list of connected line segments, organized by layer. But when the features of the original model are dense, or when the model is representing small curves, slicers end up creating a proliferation of teeny segments to represent this information.
This is just the nature of the beast; lots of detail translates into lots of teeny segments. Unfortunately, some printers actually struggle to print these models at the desired speeds, not because of some mechanical limitation, but because the processor cannot recalculate the velocities of these segments fast enough. The result is that some printers simply stutter or slow down the print, resulting in print times that are much higher than they should be.
Enter
Arc Welder
, a GCode compression tool written by [FormerLurker] that scrutinizes GCode files, hunts for these tiny segments, and attempts to replace contiguous clusters of them with a smaller number of arcs. The result is that the number of GCode commands needed to represent the model drop dramatically as connected clusters of segment commands become single arc commands.
“Now wait”, you might say, “isn’t an arc an approximation of these line segments?” And yes–you’re right! But here lies the magic behind Arc Welder. The program is written such that arcs only replace segments if (1) an arc can completely intersect all the segment-to-segment intersections and (2) the error in distance between segment and arc representation is within a certain threshold. These constraints act such that the resulting post-processing is true to the original to a very high degree of detail.
A concise description of Arc Welder’s main algorithm as pulled from the docs
This whole program operates under the assumption that your 3D printer’s onboard motion controller accepts arc commands, specifically G2 and G3. A few years ago, this would’ve been uncommon since, technically, 3D printing and STL file only requires moving in straight line segments. But with more folks jumping on the bandwagon to use these motion control boards for other non-printing applications, we’re starting to see arc implementations on boards running Marlin, Smoothieware, and the Duet flavor of RepRap Firmware.
For the curious, this program is kindly both
well documented
on operating principles
and
open source
. And if [FormerLurker] seems like a familiar name before–you’d be right–as they’re also the mind behind
Octolapse
, the 3D printing timelapse tool that’s a hobbyist crowd favorite. Finally, if you give Arc Welder a spin, why not show us what you get in the comments?
Thanks for the tip [ImpC]! | 34 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291602",
"author": "willmore",
"timestamp": "2020-11-03T17:12:05",
"content": "Too bad the outer perimeters weren’t processed in that benchy as those are the ones that would actually effect print quality the most.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,373,300.041894 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/03/as-facebook-tightens-their-grip-on-vr-jailbreaking-looks-more-likely/ | As Facebook Tightens Their Grip On VR, Jailbreaking Looks More Likely | Donald Papp | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Slider",
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"facebook",
"jailbreak",
"Oculus",
"Quest",
"virtual reality",
"vr"
] | The
Quest 2
wireless VR headset
by Oculus was recently released, and improves on the one-and-a-half year old
Quest
mainly in terms of computing power and screen resolution. But Oculus is owned by Facebook, a fact that Facebook is increasingly keen on making very clear. The emerging scene is one that looks familiar: a successful hardware device, and a manufacturer that wants to keep users in a walled garden while fully controlling how the device can be used. Oculus started out very differently, but the writing has been on the wall for a while. Rooting and jailbreaking the
Quest 2
seems inevitable, but what will happen then?
Facebook Makes It Clear They Want Control
Quest 2 wireless VR headset. Facebook account required.
The
Quest 2
now requires a Facebook account to operate. Existing
Quest
headset users can coast along with an Oculus account on their older hardware, but only for now.
Users must link their Facebook account, or create an account if they don’t have one. Having users sign up for access to online services is nothing new, but Facebook is a social network intent on tracking every activity and connection between people. It is not an integral part of delivering a VR experience to a user. But if a user doesn’t have an account, or refuses to create one, the device simply cannot be used, regardless of whether one wishes to partake of Facebook’s social features, and concomitant surveilance, or not.
Facebook is also adamant about users adhering to their “real names only” policy and is known to engage in demanding identity verification, which makes creating a throwaway account with a fake name perhaps less feasible of an option than it otherwise would be. There’s another wrinkle as well; users who violate Facebook’s terms risk losing access to their account, which also means losing access to all of their purchases, effectively rendering their expensive headset useless. Even if one leaves the social network voluntarily and closes their Facebook account, the company has made it clear that all of one’s purchases will disappear along with it.
It Wasn’t Always This Way
Facebook purchased Oculus back in 2014
, meaning that when the original
Quest
headset released in May 2019 Oculus was already owned by Facebook. But it wasn’t until recently that their products showed overt signs of Facebook integration. In Blake Harris’ book
The History of the Future,
which chronicles Oculus’ beginnings with a successful crowdfunded headset design, and their eventual purchase by Facebook, it’s clear that Oculus had very different values. And there is definitely one feature that exists thanks to Oculus advocating for it: the ability to sideload apps not approved by Facebook.
Sideloading is achieved by flipping a software toggle in the headset, essentially enabling Developer Mode, to allow apps from “untrusted sources”. It is so popular with users that an alternate software library and helper application called
SideQuest
has emerged as the de facto source for apps and software that are neither approved nor controlled by Facebook.
Even so, Facebook exerts a kind of soft control in the sense that one must be careful not to step on Facebook’s toes, because sideloading is only possible while Facebook permits it. That is because there’s one more ingredient needed to access developer mode: one must register a developer account. This used to be a trivial process, little more than filling in a couple fields in one’s account settings, but Facebook recently began to require verification of developer accounts.
Starting in October 2020, Facebook expects a valid phone number or credit card information at a minimum, and without developer credentials one cannot enable sideloading on their headset. Developer verification, by the way, is separate from the requirement of requiring a Facebook account for the headset itself. No authorized developer account, no access to sideloading.
The writing was on the wall when social features like virtually attending live events required a Facebook login, and with the release of the
Quest 2
, all of that kicked into high gear. Sideloading only exists while Facebook allows it, new restrictions have already begun rolling out, and a real-names-only Facebook account tied to your VR activity is needed to even use the headset itself.
Jailbreaking Looks Likely, But Then What?
Unsurprisingly, there are plenty of people less than delighted with the new terms dictated by Facebook. Robert Long, a WebXR developer at Mozilla,
offered a $5,000 bounty for a working jailbreak
to free the device from its reliance on Facebook, an offer former Oculus founder Palmer Luckey also
pledged to match
.
A solution hasn’t been released yet, but
there are reports that a working jailbreak exists
. If a means of rooting the headset and freeing it from Facebook gets released into the wild, we’ll doubtlessly see a sort of arms race play out between hackers intent on using their purchased device as they see fit, and Facebook working to prevent exactly that.
But what happens then? One possibility is foreshadowed by Facebook’s tolerance of sideloading: they may simply harvest the best ideas and features from independent developers, and take them as their own. Users will be less likely to bother with jailbreaking if doing so doesn’t deliver any compelling features. If history repeats itself and VR follows
the same path as jailbreaking did with the Apple iPhone
, then the benefits offered by jailbreaking will dwindle and ultimately disappear, leaving the process of crafting jailbreaks useful
mainly for collecting bug bounties
. But Facebook is not Apple, and the
Quest
is not an iPhone. Perhaps things will go in a different direction, but we’ll have to wait to find out. | 57 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291566",
"author": "Cyk",
"timestamp": "2020-11-03T15:25:45",
"content": "Imagine what happens if this becomes common practice: You post a rant on Facebook, that someone dislikes, or you link to the wrong meme, and suddenly your home automation, your fridge, your TV and your car st... | 1,760,373,299.96809 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/03/raspberry-raven-pi-security-camera-does-double-duty/ | Raspberry Raven Pi Security Camera Does Double Duty | Kristina Panos | [
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"halloween",
"Halloween props",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspberry Pi 2",
"raven",
"security camera",
"servo"
] | The worst thing about holiday decorations is that while you could leave them up all year, your neighbors probably won’t like you very much for it. Christmas lights on your house are one thing, but as far as Halloween decorations go,
[MisterM]’s raven security camera
is one of the few exceptions to this rule.
Nevermore will [MisterM] wonder who goes there. As soon as this raven lays its beady red LED eyes on whatever is lurking in the garden, it comes to life with a bit of head swiveling and some random sounds. The bird either goes CAW! or quotes Christopher Lee’s reading of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven”.
Inside this bird’s chest cavity is a Raspberry Pi 2 and standard camera, a servo to swivel the head, and an audio amplifier and speaker. This bird is running MotionEye on top of the Raspi OS so it can run a script whenever it senses motion.
We like that [MisterM] was able to find right-sized bits of plastic to mount the servo in the neck and the horn to the head. It just goes to show that not everything needs a 3D printer, a CNC, or woodworking. Check out the scary demo after the break.
Want to scare the whole neighborhood?
Check out the science behind good-looking house projections
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rCV1P3Bkzg | 11 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291537",
"author": "Mike Giles",
"timestamp": "2020-11-03T12:55:09",
"content": "Quoth the Raven “Nevermore”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6291747",
"author": "cyberteque",
"timestamp": "2020-11-04T07:17:16... | 1,760,373,300.090651 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/03/useless-box-with-attitude-isnt-entirely-useless/ | Useless Box With Attitude Isn’t Entirely Useless | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"Arduino Uno",
"motion sensor",
"servo",
"useless box"
] | What is it about useless machines that makes them so attractive to build? After all, they’re meant to be low-key enraging. At this point, the name of the game is more about giving that faceless enemy inside the machine a personality more than anything else. How about making it more of a bully with laughter and teasing? That’s the idea behind [alexpikkert]’s useless machine with attitude —
every time you flip a switch, the creature of uselessness inside gets a little more annoyed
.
In this case the creature is Arduino-based and features two sound boards that hold the giggles and other sounds. There are three servos total: one for each of the two switch-flipping fingers, and a third that flaps the box lid at you. This build is wide open, and [alexpikkert] even explains how to repurpose a key holder box for the enclosure. Check out the demo after the break.
We love a good useless machine around here, especially when they take a new tack.
This one looks like any other useless machine
, but what’s happening inside may surprise you. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6292045",
"author": "Vladimir",
"timestamp": "2020-11-05T07:39:40",
"content": "Useless articles get no love. Better stick to the usual soap dispensers and “keebs”. Equally useless but gain more attention.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"co... | 1,760,373,300.284437 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/02/dumping-a-n64-development-cartridge-safely/ | Dumping A N64 Development Cartridge Safely | Lewin Day | [
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"cartridge dump",
"n64",
"nintendo 64",
"ROM dump"
] | Retro gaming enthusiasts have always had great interest in rarities outside the usual commercial titles. Whether they be early betas, review copies, or even near-complete versions of games that never made it to release, these finds can be inordinately valuable. [Modern Vintage Gamer] recently came across a pre-release version of Turok 3 for the Nintendo 64,
and set about dumping and preserving the find
. (Video, embedded below.)
With one-off cartridges like these, it’s important to take the utmost care in order to preserve the data onboard. Simply slapping it into a regular console might boot up the game, but carries with it a non-zero chance of damaging the cart. Instead, the first step taken was to dump the cart for archival purposes. When working with a prototype cart, commodity dumpers like the Retrode aren’t sufficient to do the job. [Modern Vintage Gamer] notes that a Doctor V64 or Gameshark with a parallel port could work, but elects to use a more modern solution in the form of the Ultrasave and 64drive.
With the cartridge backed up and duplicated onto the 64drive, the code can be run on a real console without risk of damage to the original. At first glance, the game appears similar to the final retail version. Analysis of the dump using a file comparison tool suggests that the only differences between the “80% Complete” ROM and the retail edition are headers, leading [Modern Vintage Gamer] to surmise that the game may have been rushed to release.
While in this case the dump didn’t net an amazing rare version of a retro game, [Modern Vintage Gamer] does a great job of explaining the how and why of the process of preserving a vintage cartridge. We look forward to the next rare drop that shakes up the retro world;
we’ve seen efforts on Capcom arcade boards net great results.
Video after the break. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291460",
"author": "Sjaak",
"timestamp": "2020-11-03T07:27:18",
"content": "I’ve seen this video some time ago, but to me it appears more a commercial for those dumpers then this is a better sollution.Imho the best way would be to inspect the pcb, chips and connections first, espec... | 1,760,373,300.129937 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/02/ttl-simulator-in-javascript/ | TTL Simulator In JavaScript | Al Williams | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"7400",
"digital logic",
"logic",
"logic simulator",
"ttl"
] | How do you celebrate your YouTube channel passing the 7400 subscriber mark? If you are [Low Level JavaScript], the answer is obvious: You create a
7400 TTL logic simulator in JavaScript
. The gate simulations progress from simple gates up to flipflops and registers. You could probably build a 7400-based computer virtually with this code.
In addition to just being fun and interesting, there were a lot of links of interest in the video (see below) and its comments. For one, someone watching the channel took the code and made a
Verilog-like IDE
that is impressive.
Granted, you could just go to
EDAPlayground
, write some Verilog, and simulate it using normal tools. Somehow, though, that doesn’t seem as much fun as virtually connecting 7400 chips together. Don’t ask us why.
There’s also a link to an impressive open source
web-based logic simulator
. You can grab the code for it on
GitHub
if you wanted to make modifications or just look at how it works.
The video mentions that [Ben Eater’s]
breadboard computer
was inspiring for this project and we’d love to see someone do a simulation for the browser using this kind of technology. If you want to see an even more primitive computer simulated in your browser, try
GENIAC
. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291425",
"author": "GHZATOMIC",
"timestamp": "2020-11-03T03:37:23",
"content": "awesome",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6291426",
"author": "YGDES",
"timestamp": "2020-11-03T03:41:05",
"content": "Let’s not forgetht... | 1,760,373,300.335539 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/02/building-a-top-notch-electret-microphone/ | Building A Top-Notch Electret Microphone | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"electret",
"electret microphone",
"microphone"
] | Electret microphones are capable of high-quality output, and are prized for their smooth frequency response. However, unlike other types, they can’t simply be plugged directly into a mixing desk. Instead, they require special high-impedence circuitry to extract the audio signal for recording. [DJJules] is a big fan of these microphones,
and decided to build a high-quality, easy to use circuit that he has shared with the community.
The goal of the project was to create a circuit to match the TSB2555B electret capsule that could be used with phantom power, and that could be built with easily obtainable parts. [DJJules] had used FETs in the past, but grew tired of routinely having to hunt for obsolete parts. Instead, this design relies on a dual OPA1642 op-amp, with its low quiescent current meaning it’s perfect for running off phantom power. This means the microphone needs no batteries, and using a dual op-amp enables the circuit to properly drive a balanced audio connection.
The circuit is designed to fit inside a common BM700 or BM800 microphone body,
and the PCB can be ordered from PCBWay for those interested in building their own.
There’s also
a saddle on Shapeways
that’s designed to neatly mount the electret capsule within the housing.
The final results are impressive, and this project would make a great entry into the DIY microphone space for anyone eager to start building their own gear. Of course,
there are simpler builds if you’re looking for an easier way to get started.
Video after the break. | 25 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291404",
"author": "msat",
"timestamp": "2020-11-03T00:20:49",
"content": "Huh. I didn’t know about the TSB2555B or Transound for that matter. That’s a pretty large electret capsule.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6291440",
... | 1,760,373,300.412087 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/02/peter-sripols-diy-electric-ultralight-mk4/ | Peter Sripol’s DIY Electric Ultralight MK4 | Danie Conradie | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"aviation",
"electric flight",
"peter sripol",
"ultralight"
] | Peter Sripol really likes building gravity defying death traps. He recently flew the
fourth ultralight
, which he designed and built himself. For a taste of what’s going on here, the wings have aluminum tube spars and are made of hot-wire-cut styrofoam sections.
To keep the plane simple, he got rid of ailerons entirely. For roll stabilization he angled up the wings noticeably, adding dihedral. This gives the aircraft passive stability, because as it rolls to a side, the upper wing’s lift decreases and the lower wing’s lift increases, forcing the plane to correct itself. Interestingly he kept the rudder controls on pedals instead of moving it to the stick, so the stick only controls the elevator.
It is powered by a single large brushless electric motor borrowed from the
OpenPPG
project. On the first test he used a two-bladed propeller, with a small pitch angle which required full throttle to keep flying. It can be compared to driving a car only in first gear. By moving to a three bladed propeller with a higher pitch angle, and increasing the length of the wings for more lift, [Peter] was able to cruise comfortably at about 30 MPH or 48 km/h.
Although this aircraft definitely performed better than [Peter]’s
previous
ultralight
builds
, piloting something like this isn’t for the faint of heart. Although he does extensive weight-loading and thrust testing before taking to the air, adding tail weight to piloted aircraft by simply taping a water bottle to the tail just felt wrong. But we aren’t aviation experts, so we won’t pass final judgement. | 70 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291357",
"author": "Saabman",
"timestamp": "2020-11-02T21:33:03",
"content": "I wonder if the wheelchair in the back of his workshop is anticipation of a bad landing :owatching the construction video it looks just like building an RC plane",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,373,300.597119 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/02/robot-sink-helps-with-the-dishes/ | Robot Sink Helps With The Dishes | Lewin Day | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"kitchen sink",
"sink"
] | The humble kitchen sink has remained relatively unchanged over the last century. While there are now fancier mixing taps and sleeker fittings available, for most of us, there’s a nozzle that squirts water of varying temperature, and a tub in which to soak dishes. Of course, this leaves plenty of room for improvement,
as [Jake] found with his robot sink build.
The sink consists of a robotic nozzle, which he refers to as a “continuum manipulator”. In essence, it’s a nozzle that can be steered with a joystick to aim the flow of water throughout the sink. To move the nozzle, motors pull on steel cables attached to 3D printed collars fastened around the hose. Combined with an on/off switch for the water flow, the sink could be a useful assistive technology for those with disabilities,
as demonstrated in the project’s demo video.
We could easily imagine such hardware being combined with a simple computer vision system to further automate the cleaning of dishes. The project actually serves as a proof of concept for work [Jake] is doing
to explore 3D printing concrete with similar hardware
, albeit scaled up to a more industrial level. We’ve featured similar technology before, too —
in the form of a DIY tentacle build that’s perfect for Halloween
. Video after the break. | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291308",
"author": "Cluso99",
"timestamp": "2020-11-02T19:44:39",
"content": "You call this a dishwasher and it does a better job!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6291456",
"author": "Vladimir",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,373,300.481299 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/02/openoffice-or-libreoffice-a-star-is-torn/ | OpenOffice Or LibreOffice? A Star Is Torn | Al Williams | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"Apache Foundation",
"libreoffice",
"openoffice",
"OpenSource",
"Oracle",
"Sta",
"staroffice",
"sun"
] | When it comes to open source office suites, most people choose OpenOffice or LibreOffice, and they both look suspiciously similar. That isn’t surprising since they both started with exactly the same code base. However, the LibreOffice team recently penned
an open letter to the Apache project
— the current keepers of OpenOffice — asking them to redirect new users to
the LibreOffice project
. Their logic is that OpenOffice has huge name recognition, but hasn’t had a new major release in several years. LibreOffice, on the other hand, is a very active project. We could argue that case either way, but we won’t. But it did get us thinking about how things got here.
It all started when German Marco Börries wrote StarWriter in 1985 for the Zilog Z80. By 1986, he created a company, Star Division, porting the word processor to platforms like CP/M and MSDOS. Eventually, the company added other office suite programs and with support for DOS, OS/2, and Windows, the suite became known as StarOffice.
The program was far less expensive than most competitors, costing about $70, yet in 1999 that price point prompted Sun Microsystems to buy StarOffice. We don’t mean they bought a copy or a license, they bought the entire thing for just under $74 million. The story was that it was still cheaper than buying a license for each Sun employee, particularly since most had both a Windows machine and a Unix machine which still required some capability.
Sun in Charge
Sun provided StarOffice 5.2 in 2000 as a free download for personal use, which gave the software a lot of attention. It eventually released much of the code under an open source license producing OpenOffice. Sun contributed to the project and would periodically snapshot the code to market future versions of StarOffice.
This was the state of affairs for a while. StarOffice 6.0 corresponded to OpenOffice 1.0. In 2003, release 1.1 turned into StarOffice 7. A couple of years later, StarOffice 8/OpenOffice 2.0 appeared and by 2008, we had StarOffice 9 with OpenOffice 3.0 just before Oracle entered the picture.
Then Came Oracle
In 2010, Oracle bought Sun. All of it. They didn’t seem to have much of a plan for some of the things they bought and StarOffice was one of them. They renamed the program Oracle Open Office. They also did strange things with licensing. For example, StarOffice 9 was no longer free for educational customers, but they could use StarOffice 8 or, of course, just stick with OpenOffice and forego support.
In 2011, Oracle decided to kill the commercial offering, leaving OpenOffice, the official community-based keeper for the StarOffice flame. They gave responsibility over to the Apache Software Foundation.
Apparently, though, StarOffice 5.1 will still run on Windows 10 as [RickMakes] demonstrates in the following video:
Open Source and the Rise of LibreOffice
Of course, once the code went open source around 2000, people were free to create derivative projects and they did. While there have been several notable forks including NeoOffice and Go-oo, only LibreOffice has really been robust, even though NeoOffice and the original OpenOffice are still active. However, NeoOffice only targets the Mac. The timeline is a bit of a head scratcher but Wikipedia has this great graphic that lays it out:
When Oracle came on the scene, most of the OpenOffice developers formed LibreOffice. LibreOffice has been under very active development since then, and most Linux distributions now use it as their default office suite. According to the LibreOffice letter, they’ve had 15,000 code commits in 2019 compared to 595 in OpenOffice over the same period. They have had 13 major releases, while OpenOffice hasn’t had a major release in six years.
License Peculiarity
We aren’t open source lawyers — or any kind of lawyers, for that matter — but one of the problems stems from how the two projects have their licenses. OpenOffice uses the Apache License, whereas LibreOffice uses a dual LGPLv3/Mozilla Public license.
For some legal reasons, then, anything OpenOffice does can be incorporated into LibreOffice, the terms of the license permit that. But if LibreOffice adds something, take font embedding, for example, OpenOffice can’t legally incorporate that code. If you want the details, you can read this contemporary post from
the Free Software Foundation
. This is further complicated by issues with IBM providing some code from Lotus Symphony that may not have been properly placed into the open source domain.
Back to the Letter
That was a journey, but what about
that open letter LibreOffice sent to the Apache project earlier this month
? We could argue on either side of the letter. On the one hand, part of living in the open source world is understanding that other people can and will develop parallel projects. However, we can understand the frustration that some people go to OpenOffice and think there’s nothing new there. Of course, there are other open source suites, too, but given the two projects’ sibling status, we can see their point. But users might be just as happy going to Calligra (used to be KOffice) or OnlyOffice, both of which are open source, too.
What do you think? Should OpenOffice throw in the towel? Commence commenting. | 105 | 40 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291270",
"author": "James Knott",
"timestamp": "2020-11-02T18:11:18",
"content": "I started with StarOffice on OS/2 many years ago and continued through OpenOffice and LibreOffice. If it hadn’t been for Oracle making a mess of things, when they bought Sun, I’d likely still be usin... | 1,760,373,300.757541 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/02/how-many-punches-does-it-take/ | How Many Punches Does It Take? | Chris Lott | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"boxing",
"capacitance sensor",
"duct tape",
"punching bag",
"sports"
] | Do you ever wonder just how many punches you have thrown? The answer is going to be different if you happen to use a punching bag as part of your exercise routine. So is the case with the [DuctTapeMechanic] and while restoring an old speed ball punching bag, he decided to combine his passions for sports and electronics by
adding a punch counter
.
Perhaps most interesting in this build is the method used to monitor the bag. A capacitance proximity sensor most often used for industrial automation is mounted in the wooden base. He just calls it “an NPN capacitive sensor” without mentioning part number but these are
rather easy to find
from the usual places. It has no problem sensing each punch — assuming you swing strong enough so that the bag comes near the sensor. Two battery packs, an Arduino, and an optocoupler round out the bill of materials. We were a little disappointed not to see any duct tape in the construction of this project, but since the electronics are outside and exposed to the elements, maybe duct tape will be used to install a roof in a future episode.
The [DuctTapeMechanic] likes to repurpose items which would otherwise be thrown away, which is something to be applauded. The frame of this punching bag was welded from a discarded metal bed frame (a regular occupant of crawl spaces and self storage places), and you might remember he repurposed the electric motor from a discarded clothes dryer last month, changing it into a
disk sander
. | 3 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291232",
"author": "mrehorst",
"timestamp": "2020-11-02T16:40:49",
"content": "This could be especially useful in the aftermath of the US presidential election in a couple days!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6291233",
... | 1,760,373,300.792788 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/02/esp32-adds-new-features-to-1990s-home-alarm-system/ | ESP32 Adds New Features To 1990s Home Alarm System | Tom Nardi | [
"classic hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"433 mhz",
"alarm",
"alarm system",
"ESP32",
"optocoupler"
] | Given how fast technology is progressing, some consumer gadgets lend themselves to being replaced every few years. Mobile phones are a particularly good example of a device that you probably won’t want to hold onto for more than 4 years or so, with TVs not far behind them. On the other hand, something like a home alarm system can stay in the fight for decades. As long as it still goes off when somebody tries to pop a window, what more do you need?
Well if you’re like [Brett Laniosh], you might want the ability to arm the system and check its current status from your phone. But instead of getting a whole new system, he
decided to upgrade his circa 1993 Gardiner Gardtec 800 alarm with an ESP32
. As it so happens, the original panel has an expansion connector which he was able to tap into without making any modifications to the alarm itself. If you’ve got a similar panel, you might even be able to use his source code and circuit schematics to perform your own modification.
Optocouplers link the ESP and alarm panel.
Now we know what you’re thinking. Surely there’s a risk involved when trusting an ESP32 connected to the Internet with the ability to disarm your home alarm system. [Brett] has considered this, and made sure that the web server running on the microcontroller can only be accessed from the local network. If he does want to connect from beyond WiFi range, he does so through a VPN. In other words, his code is never directly exposed to the wilds of the Internet and is always hiding behind some kind of encryption.
The WiFi connection allows [Brett] to arm and disarm the alarm system remotely, check if it’s been triggered, and reset it if necessary, all from his smartphone. But he’s also added in a 433 MHz receiver so he can use simple handheld fobs to arm the system if he doesn’t want to go through the phone. Even if you dropped out the Internet connectivity, this alone is a pretty nice upgrade.
For those not afraid to take the more invasive route, you could potentially
reverse engineer and reprogram your old alarm panel
. Or you could even so the full DIY route and create your own
low-cost alarm system using the ESP32 and off-the-shelf modules
. | 16 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291213",
"author": "Rob",
"timestamp": "2020-11-02T15:41:02",
"content": "So I strip the purple wire, put 12v on it for 1 second, and the alarm is off. Convenient! If I’m willing to put a little more effort in, I have to sniff the 433Mhz signal (these fobs are not secured), and use... | 1,760,373,301.134387 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/31/school-project-turns-plastic-waste-into-bricks/ | School Project Turns Plastic Waste Into Bricks | Lewin Day | [
"green hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"plastic",
"plastic recycling",
"recycling",
"thermoplastic"
] | Many plastics are, in theory at least, highly recyclable. Unfortunately, in reality, most plastic ends up as waste instead, harming the environment and providing no ongoing value to society. Wanting to investigate possible ways to repurpose this material, [Rehaan33]
built a rig to create bricks out of waste plastic
for a school project.
The aim of the project is to take waste plastic, in this case high-impact polystyrene, and reform it into a brick that could be used as a low-cost building material. The material is shredded, before being packed into a steel mould and heated to 270 degrees in an oven. As polystyrene is a thermoplastic, it can readily be heated in this way for reforming without harming the material’s properties. Once heated, the mould is placed into the press rig, which uses parts of an old drill press to force down a steel plate, helping shape the final form of the brick.
While you’re unlikely to see old soda bottles used to build a skyscraper in New York any time soon, such techniques could be a good way to help eliminate plastic waste in impoverished areas
and stem the flow of plastic into the world’s oceans
. The project served as a useful learning experience, allowing [Rehaan33] to pick up skills in metalworking, machine design, and working with thermoplastics. Recycling plastics is a key area of interest for many, particularly in the 3D printing space,
with many exploring ways to reuse thermoplastics in more efficient ways.
If you’ve got your own project turning waste plastics into useful material,
be sure to let us know! | 66 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "6290811",
"author": "JD",
"timestamp": "2020-10-31T17:14:14",
"content": "I’m very skeptical on using plastic bricks as a building material from a fire safety point of view let alone the material properties. And selling an unproven concept as a benefit for “impoverished areas” is ju... | 1,760,373,300.958062 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/31/scratching-that-itch/ | Scratching That Itch | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"drone",
"newsletter",
"remote control",
"reverse engineering",
"sigrok",
"spi"
] | I did something silly. I bought a lot of ten “broken” cheesy indoor quadcopters on eBay — to hopefully cobble one working one together and to amuse my son. At this point, I’ve got eight working. The bad news is that they all come with dirt-cheap transmitters that aren’t really conducive to flying at all. They’d be a lot more fun if they could be controlled with a real remote. Enter the hackers.
Most all of the cheap quads are based on one of a handful of radio chipsets, although they use different protocols. An enterprising hacker could conceivably just bundle together this handful of radio modules, and the rest would be a simple matter of software. That’s exactly what Pascal Langer’s
DIY Multiprotocol TX
and supporting firmware does. This hobby project was so successful that compatible hardware is manufactured by more than a few Chinese companies, and non-geeks have them installed in their radios. The module lets you control virtually anything that uses 2.4 GHz. Of course, I’ve got one of them.
I opened up the cheesy drone’s transmitter, found that it used a popular chipset, and worked through all the different supported protocols that used it. No dice. But the radio module
did
have nicely labeled SPI lines, so I reached out to Pascal. A couple of
Sigrok
sessions later, he’d figured out that it was trying to bind on a different channel, I’d recompiled the firmware, and was playing with the drone’s other functions.
I just love a good
SPI-sniffing session
.
sigrok-cli -d fx2lafw -c samplerate=4000000 -P spi:clk=D0:mosi=D1:cs=D2 -A spi="mosi transfer" --continuous | grep A0 | uniq
reads the SPI lines, decodes the packets, filters out the commands, and removes duplicates, in real-time. All that’s left to do is wiggle the sticks, mash buttons, and take good notes.
None of this was hard, and certainly none of it was expensive. I got my drones under the control of my fancy-schmancy remote, and have a good foothold into controlling them algorithmically later on thanks to everyone’s previous work on reverse engineering these protocols. Support for DF Drone’s SkyTumbler will be included in the next DIY Multiprotocol TX release, and I spent about four or five pleasant hours on this project. Maybe only a handful of people will stumble on this particular protocol — or maybe it will just be me. I did it mostly just to scratch my own particular itch.
But that’s one way open source works, thrives, and grows. Here’s to you all out there, from the
Deviation
team, who did a lot of the early drone protocol reverse engineering, to Pascal for the DIY Module, to the Sigrok folks who made the tools accessible for me to piggyback on everyone’s previous work. Keep on hacking!
This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on
the web version of the newsletter
.
Want this type of article to hit your inbox every Friday morning?
You should sign up
! | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6290786",
"author": "SwAkE",
"timestamp": "2020-10-31T14:24:06",
"content": "Had never heard of sigrok before. I suspect sigrok will rapidly become a serious argument subject between my wife and I for the next couple of days as I’m gonna play with it the whole weekend till I fall as... | 1,760,373,300.849468 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/31/nerf-blaster-becomes-light-gun-controller/ | Nerf Blaster Becomes Light Gun Controller | Lewin Day | [
"Games",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"light gun",
"nerf"
] | Traditional light guns rely on quirks of CRT technology, and thus don’t play well with modern LCD televisions and monitors. However, die hard retro gamers aren’t known for moving on from the classics, and have persevered to build new hardware to suit the games of old. In just this vein, [BrittLiv] grabbed some Nerf blasters,
and built a pair of light guns that work with today’s hardware.
The build relies on Ultramarc’s light gun kits, which work in a similar way to the original Wiimote. A camera inside the blaster is used to triangulate an LED bar placed on top of the screen for clean and accurate tracking. [BrittLiv] combined the Ultramarc kit with some clever hacks to a Nerf DoubleStrike blaster, stealthily hiding the buttons inside to interface with the original trigger and cocking mechanism, as well as the locking tab in the rail.
There’s both a wired and wireless version, and the setup looks to be a great way to enjoy classics like
Duck Hunt
and
Point Blank.
The blasters work great with common platforms like MAME and RetroPi as the Ultramarc hardware emulates a standard USB mouse.
We’ve seen some wild light gun hacks before,
like this build that uses cameras and maths to make things work without an LED bar at all!
Video after the break. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6290962",
"author": "Danjovic",
"timestamp": "2020-11-01T12:25:49",
"content": "Nice project with very detailed instructions.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,373,300.99591 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/31/ubuntu-finally-officially-lands-on-the-raspberry-pi-but-will-anyone-notice/ | Ubuntu (Finally) Officially Lands On The Raspberry Pi. But Will Anyone Notice? | Jenny List | [
"News",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"linux",
"raspberry pi",
"ubuntu"
] | The Raspberry Pi has been with us for over eight years now, and during that time it has seen a myriad operating system ports. It seems that almost anything can be run on the little computer, but generally the offerings have seen minority uptake in the face of the officially supported Raspbian, or
as it’s now called
, Raspberry Pi OS.
Maybe that could change, with
the arrival of an Ubuntu release for the platform
. For those of you pointing out that this is nothing new, what makes the new version 20.10 release special is that it’s the first official full Ubuntu release, rather than an unofficial port.
So Raspberry Pi 4 owners can now install the same full-fat Ubuntu they have on their PCs, and with the same official Ubuntu support. What does this really do for them that Raspberry Pi OS doesn’t? Underneath they share Debian underpinnings, and they both benefit from a huge quantity of online resources should the user find themselves in trouble. Their repositories both contain almost every reasonable piece of software that could be imagined, so the average Pi user might be forgiven for a little confusion.
We don’t expect this news to take the Pi desktop world by storm then. Ubuntu is a powerful distribution, but it’s fair to say that it is not the least bloated among distributions, and that some of its quirks such as Snap applications leave many users underwhelmed. By contrast Raspberry Pi OS is relatively lightweight, and crucially it’s optimised for the Pi. Its entire support base online is specific to the Pi hardware, so the seeker of solutions need not worry about encountering some quirk in an explanation that pertains only to PC platforms.
It’s fair to say though, that this release is almost certainly not targeted at the casual desktop user. We’d expect that instead it will be in the Ubuntu portfolio for commercial and enterprise users, and in particular for the new
Raspberry Pi 4 Compute Module
in which it will no doubt form the underpinnings of many products without their owners ever realising it.
[via
OMG Ubuntu
] | 51 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6290755",
"author": "ColinT",
"timestamp": "2020-10-31T09:39:19",
"content": "Way to slow on my 8gb pi4.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6290757",
"author": "Ciplionej",
"timestamp": "2020-10-31T09:58:18",
... | 1,760,373,301.078423 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/30/altair-front-panel-tutorials/ | Altair Front Panel Tutorials | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"altair",
"blinkenlight",
"front panel",
"retrocomputing",
"vintage computing"
] | If you aren’t old enough to remember when computers had front panels, as [Patrick Jackson] found out after he built a replica Altair 8800, their operation can be a bit inscrutable. After figuring it out he made
a pair of videos
showing the basics, and then progressing to a program to add two numbers.
Even when the Altair was new, the days of front panels were numbered. Cheap terminals were on their way and MITS soon released a “turnkey” system that didn’t have a front panel. But anyone who had used a minicomputer from the late 1960s or early 1970s really thought you needed a front panel.
You may never program an Altair by the front panel, but it is still an interesting glimpse into what computing looked like only a few decades ago. While you might think that the front panel was a mere curiosity, it was not unusual to have to key in a bootloader program manually so you could then load other software — often a better bootloader — from paper or magnetic tape. Some computers even had the early bootloader code printed on the front panel for reference.
A front panel can also help you debug programs and hardware problems since you are probably looking right at the bus in a real computer. Of course, with an emulator, the emulator is just driving the front panel for make-believe, but it still works the same way.
We did our own front panel
tutorial for the PDP/8
. The operation is similar, but not exactly the same. The front panel for the BLUE computer was especially fun because it used the limited lights and switches available to the FPGA board it lived on. You can see it
in a video in this post
about the real-world implementation of a fake educational computer. | 43 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6290747",
"author": "BrightBlueJim",
"timestamp": "2020-10-31T08:28:19",
"content": "The thing that actually did away with front panels wasn’t terminals, it was cheap and easily programmed EPROMs.Most scratch-built computers had some form of keyboard and display, whether these invol... | 1,760,373,301.375095 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/30/easy-sdr-gets-updates/ | Easy-SDR Gets Updates | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"RTL-SDR",
"sdr",
"software-defined radio"
] | Back in 2018, we covered [Igor’s]
Easy-SDR
project that aimed to provide open hardware extensions for the chap RTL-SDR receivers. If you haven’t been there for a while, it’s worth a look as there have been many recent updates. According to the author’s Reddit post:
Most of the devices are now prepared for installation in a metal case measuring 80 x 50 x 20 millimeters.
There’s a completely redesigned LNA design. Now, Bias Tee powered amplifiers are housed in a 50 x 25 x 25mm metal case and have N-type connectors.
There’s an added amplifier based on the PGA-103 microcircuit.
Added is the ability to install filters in final amplifiers (a separate printed circuit board, depending on the filter used).
A new device – SPDT antenna switch for receiving antennas.
The upconverter has been redesigned. Added intermediate buffer stage between the crystal generator and mixer.
RF lines in all devices were recalculated to correspond to the characteristic wave impedance of 50 Ohm.
Reduced size of PI attenuator PCB.
There is an emphasis on ease of assembly, so the projects generally have a gerber file and can use through hole or surface mount parts. They are also available live on EasyEDA if you want to make changes. Some of the designs, like the new upconverter, are SMD only, but for some devices these days that’s your only choice.
We were impressed with the instructions included with some of the projects. It should be very possible to duplicate these projects with just a little effort. If you missed our first pass at [Igor’s] great repo, you can
still catch up
. Since he uses
EasyEDA
, you might want to read our experience with that, too. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6290742",
"author": "Stappers",
"timestamp": "2020-10-31T06:58:23",
"content": "s/the chap RTL-SDR receivers/the cheap RTL-SDR receivers/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,373,301.169321 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/30/cryptic-calendar-makes-for-a-useful-wall-ornament/ | Cryptic Calendar Makes For A Useful Wall Ornament | Lewin Day | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"arduino nano",
"calendar",
"stepper motor"
] | Hackers love a good clock build, but its longer term cousin, the calendar, is more seldom seen in the wild. Regardless, they can be just as useful and elegant a project,
as this cryptic design from [Wolfspaw] demonstrates.
The project consists of a series of rotating wheels, displaying a series of arcane symbols. When the markings on the wheel align correctly with the viewing window, they display the date, month, and day of the week, respectively. The wheels themselves are fitted with 3D printed gear rings, which are turned by stepper motors under the control of an Arduino Nano. Hall effect sensors and magnets are used to keep everything appropriately aligned, while a DS3231 real time clock handles timekeeping duties.
It’s a tidy build, and we think the cryptic design adds a little mystery, making this an excellent conversation piece.
The build is actually a remix of a project we’ve featured before
, scaled and given a unique twist to suit [Wolfspaw]’s own personal aesthetic. Video after the break. | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6290693",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2020-10-30T23:38:33",
"content": "Very nice!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6290711",
"author": "ludzinc",
"timestamp": "2020-10-31T01:09:21",
"content": "Love it",
"par... | 1,760,373,301.433863 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/02/flies-like-a-quadcopter-but-this-drone-design-has-only-one-propeller/ | Flies Like A Quadcopter, But This Drone Design Has Only One Propeller | Danie Conradie | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"drone",
"drone pendulum fallacy",
"flight controller",
"single rotor"
] | When mentioning drones, most people automatically think of fixed-wing designs like the military Reaper UAV or of small quadcopters. However, thanks in large part to modern electronics, motors, and open-source control systems, it is possible to build them in a variety of shapes and sizes. [Benjamin Prescher] is working on the
second version of his single rotor Ball-Drone
, which uses four servo-actuated fins for control.
Mk II in action
The
first version
of the ball drone flew but was barely controllable and had a tendency to tip over. After a bit of research, he found that he had fallen victim to the
drone pendulum fallacy
by mounting the heavy components below the propeller and control fins. Initially, he also used conventional fin control that caused the servos to jitter due to high torque loading. By changing to grid fins, the actuation torque was reduced, eliminating the servo jitter.
Mk2 corrected the pendulum problem by moving most of the components to the top of the drone. The 3D printed frame (available on Thingiverse) was also dramatically changed and simplified to reduce weight. Although [Benjamin] designed a custom flight controller with custom control software, the latest parts list contains an off-the-shelf flight controller. He mentions that he had started working with
Betaflight
. The most complex part of a drone is not the mechanics or even the electronics, but the control software. Thanks to open source projects like Betaflight and Ardupilot, you don’t need to write control software from scratch to get something in the air.
The ball drone seems well suited to an indoor environment, but we’re not sure if it has any real advantages over a quadcopter with ducted propellers. Servos are cheaper than motors and ESCs, so there might be a small cost saving. Drop your thoughts on the advantages/disadvantages in the comments below.
It is not the first
single-rotor drone
we’ve covered, and we’re always on the lookout for weird drones and control schemes. [Tom Stanton]’s
helicopter drone with a virtual swashplate
was a recent example of this that’s worth a look if you missed it. | 35 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291159",
"author": "deshipu",
"timestamp": "2020-11-02T12:44:26",
"content": "> The ball drone seems well suited to an indoor environment, but we’re not sure if it has any real advantages over a quadcopter with ducted propellersA single large propeller is usually much more efficien... | 1,760,373,301.521641 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/02/new-raspberry-pi-400-is-a-computer-in-a-keyboard-for-70/ | New Raspberry Pi 400 Is A Computer In A Keyboard For $70 | Elliot Williams | [
"Featured",
"News",
"Raspberry Pi",
"Reviews",
"Slider",
"Teardown"
] | [
"computer",
"education",
"keyboard",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspberry Pi 4"
] | The newest
Raspberry Pi 400
almost-all-in-one computer is very, very slick. Fitting in the size of a small portable keyboard, it’s got a Pi 4 processor of the 20% speedier 1.8 GHz variety, 4 GB of RAM, wireless, Ethernet, dual HDMI outputs, and even a 40-pin Raspberry Standard IDE-cable style header on the back. For $70 retail, it’s basically a steal, if it’s the kind of thing you’re looking for because it has $55 dollars worth of Raspberry Pi 4 inside.
In some sense, it’s getting dangerously close to fulfilling the Raspberry Pi Dream. (And it’s got one more trick up it’s sleeve in the form of a huge chunk of aluminum heat-sinked to the CPU that makes us think “overclocking”.)
We remember the founding dream of the Raspberry Pi as if it were
just about a decade ago
: to build a computer cheap enough that it would be within everyone’s reach, so that every school kid could have one, bringing us into a world of global computer literacy. That’s a damn big goal, and while they succeeded on the first count early on, putting together a $35 single-board computer, the gigantic second part of that master plan is still a work in progress. As ubiquitous as the Raspberry Pi is in our circles, it’s still got a ways to go with the general population.
By
Gareth Halfacree
CC BY-SA 2.0
The Raspberry Pi Model B wasn’t, and isn’t, exactly something that you’d show to my father-in-law without him asking incredulously “That’s a computer?!”. It was a green PCB, and you had to rig up your own beefy 5 V power supply, figure out some kind of enclosure, scrounge up a keyboard and mouse, add in a monitor, and only then did you have a computer. We’ve asked the question a couple of times,
can the newest Raspberry Pi 4B be used as a daily-driver desktop,
and answered that in the affirmative, certainly in terms of it
having adequate performance
.
But powerful doesn’t necessarily mean accessible. If you want to build your own cyberdeck, put together an arcade box, screw a computer into the underside of your workbench, or stack together Pi Hats and mount the whole thing on your autonomous vehicle testbed, the Raspberry Pi is just the ticket. But that’s the computer for the Hackaday crowd, not the computer for everybody. It’s just a little bit too
involved
.
The Raspberry Pi 400, in contrast, is a sleek piece of design. Sure, you still need a power supply, monitor, and mouse, but it’s a lot more of a stand-alone computer than the Pi Model B. It’s made of high-quality plastic, with a decent keyboard. It’s small, it’s light, and frankly, it’s sexy. It’s the kind of thing that would pass the father-in-law test, and we’d suggest that might go a long way toward actually realizing the dream of cheaply available universal (open source) computing. In some sense, it’s the least Hackaday Raspberry Pi. But that’s not saying that you might not want one to slip into your toolbag.
Teardown
You can’t send Hackaday a piece of gear without us taking it apart. Foolishly, I started by pulling up the sticker, thinking I felt a hidden screw head. Nope, injection molding mark. Then, I pulled off the rubber feet. More molding marks. (Kudos for hiding them so nicely!) Save yourself the trouble; all you have to do to get the Pi 400 open is to pry gently around the edge, releasing each little plastic clip one after the next. It only takes five minutes, and as it says in the motorcycle repair manuals, installation is the reverse of removal.
Inside, there’s a flat-flex that connects the keyboard, and you see that big aluminum heat sink. It’s almost the full size of the keyboard, and it’s thick and heat-taped to the CPU. You know it means business. It’s also right up against the aluminum bottom of the keyboard, suggesting it could get radiative help that way, and maybe keep your fingers warm in the winter. (I didn’t feel any actual heat, but it’s gotta go somewhere, right? There are also vents in the underside of the case.)
Four PZ1 screws and a little bit of courage to unstick the pad get you underneath the heat spreader to find, surprise!, a Raspberry Pi 4. This was a little anticlimactic, as I’ve just spent a couple weeks looking over the schematics for
my review of the new Compute Module 4
, and it’s just exactly what you’d expect. It’s a Raspberry Pi 4, with all the ports broken out, inside a nice keyboard, with a beefy heat spreader. Ethernet magnetics sit on one side, and the wireless module sits on the other. That’s it!
How hackable is the Pi 400? Not very. There’s not much room for any kind of foolery in here, because the heat spreader takes up most of the interior volume. Folks who want to
replace the USB 3.0 with a PCIe
could probably do that, of course, but they’d be better served with a compute module and some DIY. You could try to cram other stuff in here, but with the convenient 40-pin port on the back, you’ll want to connect anything of any size with a cable anyway. It’s not so much that it’s not hackable as I don’t know why you would. (As always, we’re
happy to be proven wrong
!)
The Whole Enchilada
There are two packages for the Raspberry Pi 400: the basic and the full kit, for $70 and $100 respectively. The extra $30 gets you a nice USB C power supply, a Raspberry mouse, a micro-HDMI to regular HDMI cable, a name-brand SD card preloaded with Raspberry Pi OS, and the Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide. In short, everything you need to get started except a monitor. All of these things are already available, but you can get them bundled in for convenience.
The book is a nice intro that’s basically a guided tour of the great learning content already available on the Raspberry Pi website. The cable, power supply, and mouse are all good to have, and it’s certainly nice not to have to download and burn another SD card, but these are more comfort than necessity. Aside from the micro-HDMI cable, I had everything on hand anyway, though if this were a permanent installation, I would probably need to source another USB C wall wart.
I don’t know if it was just for the review model, but it was a nice touch that the SD card was already in the slot. That saved me maybe 10 seconds, but it might have confused someone who is not used to thinking of an SD card as a hard drive.
Convenience, simplicity, and ease of getting set up is
exactly
the name of the game here, and I think the full kit makes good on that promise. It was about as plug-and-play as possible.
Is It For You?
The Pi 400 is the least Hackaday Raspberry Pi. It’s a very slick piece of inexpensive, consumer computing for the masses. The full package is absolutely what I would give to my father-in-law. And that makes it also the first Raspberry Pi computer to really make good on the accessibility aspect of the founding dream, where they had already hammered the price. Congratulations to the Raspberry Pi folks are in order. This computer, combined with their decade-long investment in producing educational material to guide a newbie along the path, embody that dream.
This may not be the computer you want for a hacker project. That’s what the Model B is for. It’s probably not full of modification possibilities, though we’ll see what you all think. And it’s not, as far as we know, available with the full range of memory options either. If you don’t need the frills of the full package, the $70 price is a small upsell from the $55 of the equivalent Model B, but when you don’t need a keyboard or the nice case, you could put the $15 to use elsewhere.
Still, combine this with a small touch screen, and run it all off of a 5 V power pack, and you’ve got a ton of portable computing in a very small package. If you’re not mousing around all the time anyway, there’s a certain streamlined simplicity here that’s mighty tempting. The 40-pin port on the back makes it easy to add your own gear too, say if you want to use it as a portable logic analyzer, microcontroller programmer, or JTAG platform. I actually prefer the horizontal orientation of this Pi port over the vertical of the Model B — my projects always end up looking like hedgehogs, and gravity wants cables to lie flat. These are small details, but that’s usability.
Finally, I have a Compute Module, a Pi 4 Model B, and now the Pi 400 all sitting on the desk. The Pi 4 is known to throttle when it overheats, which conversely means that it runs faster with a heatsink, even without overclocking. There was mention in the Compute Module datasheet about more efficient processing using less power, and presumably producing less heat. And this big hunk of aluminum inside the Pi 400’s case calls out “overclocking” to me. There’s only one way to figure out what all this means, and that’s empirical testing. Stay tuned. | 248 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291098",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2020-11-02T08:23:41",
"content": "Nice! I hope they will do it in the dark grey colour variant like the official Pi case. And I really want to see what’s inside.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"co... | 1,760,373,302.102242 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/01/sharpie-mount-brings-some-color-to-your-3d-prints/ | Sharpie Mount Brings Some Color To Your 3D Prints | Tom Nardi | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Art"
] | [
"marker",
"multi-color print",
"sharpie"
] | The average cost of a desktop 3D printer has dropped like a stone over the last few years. They went from a piece of equipment you had to wait your turn to use at the hackerspace to something you can pick up on Prime Day, which has definitely been a good thing for our community. But to get the price down, these printers are almost exclusively running single extruder setups with no provision for multi-material printing other than swapping the filament manually.
From a practical standpoint, that’s not much of a problem. But wanting to add a little visual flair to his prints, [Devin Montes] came up with a simple 3D printed mount that
holds the tip of up to three Sharpie permanent markers against the filament as it enters the top of the extruder
. When used with white or translucent filaments, these markers can give the final print an interesting splash of color. Obviously it’s not true multi-color 3D printing, but it can certainly make for some attractive decorative objects.
The mount is designed for the Snapmaker 3-in-1 3D printer, which is relatively well suited to such a contraption as it has a direct drive extruder and there’s plenty of clearance for the markers to stick up. The concept could certainly be adapted to other printers, but it might be a little trickier in the case of a Bowden extruder or an i3 clone that has frame components running over the top. It sounds like [Devin] is working on a generic version of the marker holder that can work on other printers, so it should be interesting to see how he addresses these issues.
Technically this isn’t a new concept, as makers were
pulling off similar tricks back in the earliest days of desktop 3D printing
. But this is an especially well-implemented version of the idea, and if [Devin] can really come up with a mount that will work on a wider array of hardware, we could certainly see it becoming a popular way to make printed projects a bit more exciting. | 17 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291087",
"author": "dendad",
"timestamp": "2020-11-02T06:37:19",
"content": "That is a good idea.I have been just drawing on the reel before it goes in …https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4185577and…https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1862194This is way more refined, but the dragonfli... | 1,760,373,301.690356 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/01/raspberry-pi-4-now-supported-by-risc-os-in-latest-update/ | Raspberry PI 4 Now Supported By Risc OS In Latest Update | Jenny List | [
"ARM",
"Raspberry Pi",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"arm",
"Raspberry Pi 4",
"RISC OS"
] | Students of ARM history will know that the origins of the wildly popular processor architecture lie in the British computer manufacturer Acorn (the original “A” in “ARM”). The first mass-market ARM-based products were their Archimedes line of desktop computers. A RISC-based computer in a school or home was significantly ahead of the curve in the mid 1980s and there was no off-the-shelf software, so alongside the new chips came a new operating system that would eventually bear the name Risc OS.
It’s since become one of those unexpected pieces of retrocomputing history that refuses to die, and remains in active development with
a new version 5.28 of its open-source variant just released
. Best of all, after supporting the Raspberry Pi since the earliest boards, it now runs on a Raspberry Pi 4. The original ARM operating system has very much kept up with the times, and can now benefit from the extra power of the latest hardware from Cambridge. The new release deals with a host of bugs, as well as bringing speed increases, security fixes, and other improvements. For those whose first experience of a GUI came via the Archimedes in British schools, the news that the built-in Paint package has received a thorough update will bring a smile.
The attraction of Risc OS aside from its history and speed lies in its being understandable in operation for those wishing to learn about how an OS works under the hood. It’s likely that for most of us it won’t replace our desktops any time soon, but it remains an interesting diversion to download and explore. If you’d like to read more about early ARM history then we’d like to point you at
our piece on Sophie Wilson
, the originator of the ARM architecture. | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291080",
"author": "Somun",
"timestamp": "2020-11-02T04:58:58",
"content": "But will anyone notice?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6291085",
"author": "Publius Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2020-11-02T06:03:30",
... | 1,760,373,301.576181 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/01/hackaday-links-november-1-2020/ | Hackaday Links: November 1, 2020 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"aution",
"Blue Box",
"bricking",
"digilent",
"hackaday links",
"halloween",
"IoT",
"pcbs",
"sparkfun",
"undead",
"Woz",
"zombie"
] | We normally chuckle at high-profile auctions where people compete to pay as much as possible for items they clearly don’t need. It’s easy to laugh when the items on the block are things like paint-spattered canvases, but every once in a while some genuine bit of history that really piques our interest goes on sale. Such is the case with what is claimed to be
an original Steve Wozniak-built Blue Box
, going on sale November 5. The prospectus has an excellent summary of the history of the “Two Steves” and their early business venture making and selling these devices to Berkeley students eager to make free long distance phone calls. The item on sale is a very early rev, most likely assembled by Woz himself. The current owner claims to have bought it from Woz himself in the summer of 1972 while on a roadtrip from Sunnyvale to Los Angeles. Estimated to go for $4,000 to $6,000, we really hope this ends up in a museum somewhere — while we’ve seen
attempts to recreate Woz’s Blue Box
on Hackaday.io, letting a museum study an original would be a great glimpse into our shared technological history.
Not in the market for old tech? No problem —
Digilent wants to get rid of 3,000 PCBs, and quickly
. They posted the unusual offer on reddit a couple of days ago; it seems they have a huge stock of populated boards for a product that didn’t quite take the market by storm. Their intention is likely not to flood the market with scopes cobbled together from these boards, but rather to make them available to someone doing some kind of art installation or for educational purposes. It’s a nice gesture, and a decent attempt to keep these out of the e-waste stream, so check it out if you have a need.
Speaking of PCBs, SparkFun has just launched an interesting new service:
SparkFun À La Carte
. The idea is to make it really easy to design and build prototype boards. Instead of using traditional EDA software, users select different blocks from a menu. Select your processor, add components like displays and sensors, and figure out how you want to power it, and SparkFun will do the rest, delivering a fully assembled board in a few weeks. It certainly stands to suck the fun out of the design process while also hoovering up your pocketbook: “A $949 design fee will be applied to all initial orders of a design”. You
can
get your hands on the design files, but that comes with an extra fee: “they can be purchased separately for $150 by filling out this form”. But for someone who just needs to hammer out a quick design and get on with the next job, this could be a valuable tool.
Another day, another IoT ghost:
Reciva Radio is shutting down its internet radio service
. A large banner at the top of the page warns that the “website will be withdrawn” on January 31, 2021, but functionality on the site already appears limited. Users of the service are also reporting that their Reciva-compatible radios are refusing to stream content, apparently because they can’t download anything from the service’s back end. This probably doesn’t have a huge impact — I’d never heard of Reciva before — but it makes me look at the Squeezebox radio we’ve got in the kitchen and wonder how long for the world that thing is. It’s not all bad news, though — owners of the bricked radios will now have a great opportunity to hack them back into usefulness.
By the time this article is published, Halloween will be history and the hordes of cosplaying candy-grubbers who served as welcome if ironic respite from this non-stop horror show of a year will be gone. Luckily, though, if it should come to pass that the dead rise from their graves — it’s still 2020, after all — we’ll know exactly how to defeat them with
this zombie invasion calculator
. You may remember that last year Dominik Czernia did
something similar
, albeit with vampires. Switching things up from the hemophagic to the cerebrophagic this year, his calculator lets you model different parameters, like undead conversion percentage, zombie demographics, and attack speed. You’ve also got tools for modeling the response of the living to the outbreak, to see how best to fight back. Spoiler alert: everyone will need to bring
Tallahassee-level badassery
if we’re going to get through this. | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291055",
"author": "Jamie",
"timestamp": "2020-11-02T00:55:57",
"content": "So is sparkfun’s idea, in effect, that they are simply getting humans on their staff to do PCB design for a fee according to the parameters that a customer sets for chipset, display, power supply…",
"pa... | 1,760,373,301.748971 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/01/bodge-wire-saves-a-vintage-mac-se-30-from-the-heap/ | Bodge Wire Saves A Vintage Mac SE/30 From The Heap | Tom Nardi | [
"classic hacks",
"Mac Hacks"
] | [
"bodge wire",
"capacitor",
"capacitor failure",
"corrosion",
"mac se30"
] | Anyone who pokes around old electronics knows that age is not kind to capacitors. If you’ve got a gadget with a few decades on the clock, there’s an excellent chance that some of its capacitors are either on the verge of failure or have already given up the ghost. Preemptively swapping them out is common in retrocomputing circles, but what do you do if your precious computer has already fallen victim to a troublesome electrolytic?
That’s the situation that [Ronan Gaillard] recently found himself in when he
booted up his Mac SE/30 and was greeted with a zebra-like pattern on the screen
. The collected wisdom of the Internet told him that some bad caps were almost certainly to blame, though a visual inspection failed to turn up anything too suspicious. Knowing the clock was ticking either way, he replaced all the capacitors on the Mac’s board and gave the whole thing a good cleaning.
Unfortunately, nothing changed. This caught [Ronan] a bit by surprise, and he took another trip down the rabbit hole to try and find more information. Armed with schematics for the machine, he started manually checking the continuity of all the traces between the ROM and CPU. But again, he came up empty handed. He continued the process for the RAM and Glue Chip, and eventually discovered that trace A24 wasn’t connected. Following the course it took across the board, he realized it ran right under the C11 axial capacitor he’d replaced earlier.
Suddenly, it all made sense. The capacitor must have leaked, corroded the trace underneath in a nearly imperceptible way, and cut off a vital link between the computer’s components. To confirm his suspicions, [Ronan] used a bodge wire to connect both ends of A24, which brought the 30+ year old computer roaring back to life. Well, not so much a roar since it turns out the floppy drive was also shot…but that’s a fix for another day.
It seems like
every hardware hacker has a bad capacitor story
. From
vintage portable typewriters
to
the lowly home router
, these little devils and the damage they can do should always be one of the first things you check if a piece of hardware is acting up. | 20 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291033",
"author": "Per Jensen",
"timestamp": "2020-11-01T21:42:56",
"content": "It’s well known that the liquid leaking from the caps corrodes the vias trough the citcuitboard since the copper here is thinner than the actual track, so it ends up being an invisible break.",
"pa... | 1,760,373,301.817819 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/01/brassy-classy-wifi-clock-shows-weather-too/ | Brassy, Classy WiFi Clock Shows Weather, Too | Kristina Panos | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"Circuit Sculpture",
"Feather huzzah",
"featherwing display",
"IR proximity sensor"
] | Circuit sculpture is a great way to elevate your soldering and electronics skills to the realm of three-dimensional art. In this case, art can be practical, too.
Take [romaindurocher]’s interactive WiFi clock for example
. Left alone, the clock cycles through showing the time, temperature, and if applicable, the precipitation forecast.
But [romain] doesn’t have to watch and wait for the info they want. Thanks to an IR proximity sensor, [romain] can interrupt the cycle and get the date, time, temperature, or even a smiley animation depending on the number of hand passes over the sensor. The clock itself is based on an Adafruit Feather HUZZAH ESP8266 and a Featherwing display. It uses the OpenWeather API to retrieve all the information.
We really like the way this looks, and the angle reminds us of oscilloscopes and other lab equipment. If you want to make your own version, this project is wide open, though the hardest part would be making it look as clean as [romain] did. Take a second and check out the brief demo after the break. It’s a wonderful entry in
our Circuit Sculpture Challenge
which is accepting entries for ten more days.
Not so much into straight lines and utility?
Circuit sculpture takes many forms, some of them human
. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291021",
"author": "Bill",
"timestamp": "2020-11-01T19:20:46",
"content": "Nice",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6291169",
"author": "quarterturn",
"timestamp": "2020-11-02T13:22:16",
"content": "Use ‘writeDigitAscii... | 1,760,373,301.62154 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/01/flexible-actuators-spring-into-action/ | Flexible Actuators Spring Into Action | Roger Cheng | [
"cons",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"closed loop",
"closed loop control",
"coil",
"flexible",
"flexible robotics",
"ieee iros",
"IROS",
"linear",
"linear actuator"
] | Most experiments in flexible robot actuators are based around pneumatics, but [Ayato Kanada] and [Tomoaki Mashimo] has been working on using a coiled spring as the moving component of a linear actuator. Named the flexible ultrasonic motor (FUSM), [Yunosuke Sato] built on top of their work and assembled a pair of FUSM into a
closed-loop actuator with motion control in two dimensions
.
A single FUSM is pretty interesting by itself, its coiled spring is the only mechanical moving part. An
earlier paper published
by [Kanada] and [Mashimo] laid out how to push the spring through a hole in a metal block acting as the stator of this motor. Piezoelectric devices attached to that block minutely distorts it in a controlled manner resulting in linear motion of the spring.
For closed-loop feedback, electrical resistance from the free end of the spring to the stator block can be measured and converted to linear distance to within a few millimeters. However, the acting end of the spring might be deformed via stretching or bending, which made calculating its actual position difficult. Accounting for such deformation is a future topic for this group of researchers.
This work was presented at
IROS2020
which like many other conferences this year, moved online and became IROS On-Demand. After a no-cost online registration we can
watch the 12-minute recorded presentation
on this project or any other at the conference. The video includes gems such as an exaggerated animation of stator block deformation to illustrate how a FUSM works, and an example of the position calculation challenge where the intended circular motion actually resulted in an oval.
Speaking of conferences that have moved online, we have our own
Hackaday Remoticon
coming up soon!
[tweet
https://twitter.com/AyatoKanada/status/1320949579911557120
align=”center”]
[via
Open Robotics Twitter feed
] | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6290990",
"author": "stilmant",
"timestamp": "2020-11-01T15:46:05",
"content": "With 3 you can make arms for this:https://i.pinimg.com/474x/13/65/18/136518d458777fe27f8a299ba30d0eed.jpg",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6290993",
... | 1,760,373,302.194249 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/01/big-workshop-clock-is-3d-printing-done-right/ | Big Workshop Clock Is 3D Printing Done Right | Lewin Day | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"3d printer",
"7 segment",
"7-segment display",
"clock",
"ivan miranda",
"LED clock"
] | Time is something uniquely important to humans, and they remain the only creatures on the planet to build devices to regularly track its progress. [Ivan Miranda] is one such creature,
and built a giant 7-segment clock for his workshop that really ties the room together.
The clock is a testament to [Ivan]’s design skills in the 3D printed space. Taking advantage of his large format printer, each segment consists of a front panel, large single-piece diffuser, LED carrier, and backing plate. There are plenty of nice touches, from the interlocking ridges between each digit, to integral printed arrows on the inside that guide installation of the LED strips. Fit and finish approaches the level of a commercial product, a reward for [Ivan]’s years of practice in the field.
Electronically, an ESP8266 runs the show, synchronizing the time over its in-built WiFi connection. Each segment contains 9 WS2812B LEDs, wired up in a single long strip that’s addressed by the microcontroller. This means that the segments can be lit up to any color of the rainbow, though [Ivan] is a man who best appreciates the look of classic red.
[Ivan]’s long been a proponent of big 3D-printed builds —
his tank-tracked electric skateboard is a particularly good example
. Video after the break.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z82I-032zs | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6291020",
"author": "mr VLT",
"timestamp": "2020-11-01T19:17:44",
"content": "WS2812B has weak brightness – for home ok, for more space like office no",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6291043",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"tim... | 1,760,373,302.140946 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/11/01/burning-your-own-ps1-modchip-is-easy/ | Burning Your Own PS1 Modchip Is Easy | Lewin Day | [
"Playstation Hacks"
] | [
"modchip",
"playstation",
"Sony Playstation"
] | The original Sony PlayStation came out just in time for CD piracy to really start taking off. Aware of this threat to sales, Sony engineers included a copy protection and region locking mechanism that placated executives and annoyed end-users alike. [MattKC] explores how this copy protection worked,
and how you can burn your own modchip at home for just a few dollars.
Sony’s method of copy protection relied on steps taken during the manufacturing process, pressing a special groove into the game media that regular CD burners couldn’t replicate,
a topic our own [Drew Littrell] has covered in depth
. This groove contained a four letter code that could be read by the console, corresponding to the region in which the game was sold. The console would read this groove on startup, and check that the code in the game matched the code in the console before booting. Modchips circumvent this by injecting a spoof code into the console that matches the local region, regardless of what is read off the disc. This has the effect of both allowing users to run bootleg CD-Rs, homebrew code, as well as games from other regions.
Today, we’re blessed with the Internet and cheap hardware. As [MattKC] demonstrates, it’s no longer necessary to mail-order a chip from a dodgy ad in the back of a games magazine; instead,
one can download source code
and flash it to a commodity PIC microcontroller for just a few bucks. With the chip soldered in to the relevant points of the PS1’s motherboard, you’re good to go.
As far as console modding goes, the PS1 is a great platform to start with — simple to work on, and also the best selling console of all time, so the stakes are low if you mess up. Video after the break. | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6290941",
"author": "Guillermo",
"timestamp": "2020-11-01T08:51:36",
"content": "Just a comment, of you mean by bestselling, the one that has sold the most, it may be the 5th, after PS2, NDS, GB/GBC (taken as one same machine) and PS4, if I am not wrong. Good info on the article tho... | 1,760,373,302.389217 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/31/fuel-cell-drone-aims-for-extended-flight-times/ | Fuel Cell Drone Aims For Extended Flight Times | Lewin Day | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"drone",
"flight",
"fuel cell",
"hydrogen",
"hydrogen fuel cell",
"plane"
] | The RC world was changed forever by the development of the lithium-polymer battery. No longer did models have to rely on expensive, complicated combustion engines for good performance. However, batteries still lack the energy density of other fuels, and so flying times can be limited. Aiming to build a drone with impressively long endurance,
[Игорь Негода] instead turned to hydrogen power.
The team fitted a power meter to the plane, aiming a camera at it to measure power draw during flight.
With a wingspan of five meters, and similar length, the build is necessarily large in order to carry the hydrogen tank and fuel cell that will eventually propel the plane, which uses a conventional brushless motor for propulsion. Weighing in at 6 kilograms, plenty of wing is needed to carry the heavy components aloft. Capable of putting out a maximum of 200W for many hours at a time, the team plans to use a booster battery to supply extra power for short bursts, such as during takeoff. Thus far,
the plane has flown successfully on battery power
, with work ongoing to solve handling issues and determine whether the platform can successfully fly on such low power.
We’re eager to see how the project develops, particularly in regards to loiter time. We can imagine having a few pilots on hand may be necessary with such a long flight time planned —
other drones of similar design have already surpassed the 60-minute mark
. Video after the break. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6290999",
"author": "Canoe",
"timestamp": "2020-11-01T16:59:48",
"content": "For something that is supposed to have a high loiter, it sure has tiny wings. And an overly flat airfoil?The tiniest of wheels would spare the boom wear on takeoff.Some concern about how they complain about... | 1,760,373,302.479848 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/31/kelvin-probes-review-shows-how-4-wire-resistance-measurement-works/ | Kelvin Probes Review Shows How 4-Wire Resistance Measurement Works | Al Williams | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"kelvin clips",
"kelvin probes",
"ohmmeter",
"resistance"
] | You might think the probes in the picture are just funny looking alligator clips. But if you watch [tomtektest’s] recent video,
you’ll learn they are really Kelvin probes
. Kelvin probes are a special type of probe for making accurate resistance measurements using four wires and, in fact, the probe’s jaws are electrically isolated from each other.
We liked [Tom’s] advice from his old instructor: you aren’t really ever measuring a resistance. You are measuring a voltage and a current. With a four-wire measurement, one pair of wires carries current to the device under test and the other pair of wires measure the voltage drop.
If you wonder why that’s better than two probes, it all comes down to resistance in the test probes. Pulling supply current through the probe wires — which have some resistance — causes a voltage drop that affects the measurement. While the sense wire pair will also have resistance, the sensing current can be very small which means there will be correspondingly less error in the measurement.
We’ve seen these probes
built from scratch
, too. You do need a meter that will do the actual four-wire measurement, although a power supply and a voltmeter will do the job, too. If you don’t want to probe in real life, you can always do it in
virtual reality
. (Well, a circuit simulator, anyway.) | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6290917",
"author": "Matias",
"timestamp": "2020-11-01T03:29:52",
"content": "a very instructive video. thanks",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6290926",
"author": "Cyna",
"timestamp": "2020-11-01T05:40:20",
"content"... | 1,760,373,302.240889 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/31/self-driving-rc-truck-is-a-masters-thesis-in-cybernetics-and-robotics/ | Self-Driving RC Truck Is A Master’s Thesis In Cybernetics And Robotics | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"Jetson TX2",
"self-driving"
] | RC cars are a fun pastime, but for many hackers, taking things to the next level involves making the cars drive themselves. For his Masters thesis, [Jon] did just that,
building a self-driving robot truck that confidently cruises the floor of his laboratory
.
The truck is based on a 1/14th scale Tamiya chassis, and had been fitted out by a prior group with an inductive charging system. On top of this platform, [Jon] added a Jetson TX2 to act as the brains of the system, hooking it up with a Slamtec RPLIDAR scanner to map its surrounding environment. There’s also a Teensy microcontroller onboard which handles synthesizing PWM signals for the radio control hardware that drives the truck, and a Logitech webcam up front for machine vision. The truck is capable of operating in a variety of modes, from full manual operation, to driving based on LIDAR mapping or with an AI controlling the truck based on camera data. The truck is programmed to drive a route including an inductive charging pad so it can keep its power levels up without human intervention.
It’s a great blueprint for a self-driving system, and [Jon]’s thesis goes into great detail on how everything works at the base level (
available on this page as a 67 MB PDF
). His Code is on Github
for the curious
. We’ve seen similar projects before too,
like this robot that navigates its builder’s house using LIDAR
. Video after the break. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6290877",
"author": "Eric R Mockler",
"timestamp": "2020-10-31T23:22:17",
"content": "I wanted to see it back up.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6290946",
"author": "Phrewfuf",
"timestamp": "2020-11-01T08:51:3... | 1,760,373,302.430166 |
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