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https://hackaday.com/2020/10/10/procedural-barcode-synth-is-as-simple-as-black-and-white/ | Procedural Barcode Synth Is As Simple As Black And White | Matthew Carlson | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Musical Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"arduino",
"barcode",
"procedural",
"synth"
] | We are no stranger to peculiar and wonderful musical instruments here at Hackaday. [James Bruton] has long been fascinated with barcode scanners as an input source for music and now
has a procedural barcode-powered synth
to add to his growing collection of handmade instruments. We’ve previously covered
his barcode guitar
, which converts a string of numbers from the PS/2 output to pitches. This meant having a large number of barcodes printed as each pitch required a separate barcode. As you can imagine, this makes for a rather unwieldy and large instrument.
Rather than looking at the textual output of the reader, [James] cracked it open and put it to the oscilloscope. Once inside, he found a good source that outputs a square wave corresponding to the black and white lines that the barcode sees. Since the barcodes [James] is using don’t have the
proper start and stop codes
, the barcode reader continuously scans. Normally it would stop the laser to send the text over the USB or PS/2 connection. A simple 5v to 3.3v level shifter feeds that square wave into a Teensy board, which outputs the audio.
A video showcasing a similar technique
inspired [James] with this project. The creators of that video have a huge wall of different patterns of black and white lines. [James’s] next stroke of brilliance was to have a small HDMI display to generate the barcodes on the fly. A Raspberry Pi 4 reads in various buttons via GPIO and displays the resulting barcode on the screen. A quick 3d printed shell rounds out the build nicely, keeping things small and compact. All the code and CAD files are
up on GitHub
.
Thanks [James Bruton] for the awesome project! | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6285301",
"author": "RÖB",
"timestamp": "2020-10-10T23:38:48",
"content": "LOL @ active level translator for 5v => 3v3. Resistors are just so “analog”. Maybe we need dupont resistors.All the same, it shows just how “accessible” hacking is now.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1... | 1,760,373,327.446091 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/10/starshine-is-a-midi-controller-for-the-musically-shy/ | Starshine Is A MIDI Controller For The Musically Shy | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"accidentals",
"arduino",
"arduino mega",
"flexible filament",
"good morning starshine",
"midi controller"
] | What keeps people from playing music? For one thing, it’s hard. But why is it hard? In theory, it’s because theory is confusing. In practice, it’s largely because of accidentals, or notes that sound sour compared to the others because they aren’t from the same key or a complementary key.
What if there were no accidentals? Instruments like this exist, like the harmonica and the autoharp. But
none of them look as fun to play as [Bardable]’s Starshine, the instrument intended to be playable by everyone
. The note buttons on the outside are laid out and programmed such that [Bardable] will never play off-key.
We love the game controller form factor, which was also a functional choice. On the side that faces the player, there’s a PSP joystick and two potentiometers for adding expression with your thumbs. The twelve buttons on this side serve several functions like choosing the key and the scale type depending on the rocker switch position. A second rocker lets [Bardable] go up or down an octave on the fly. There’s also an OLED to show everything from the note being played to the positions of the potentiometers. If you want to know more,
[Bardable] made a subreddit
for this and other future instruments, and has a full tour video after the break.
If this beginner-friendly MIDI controller isn’t big enough for you,
check out Harmonicade’s field of arcade buttons
. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6285258",
"author": "Chris O",
"timestamp": "2020-10-10T18:20:26",
"content": "Imagine that room full of kids… and the one blacksheep who finds the Kaossilator online and changes everything…EVH RIP",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,373,328.09708 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/10/hardware-vs-software-fight/ | Hardware Vs Software: Fight! | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"hardware",
"newsletter",
"sequencer",
"software",
"step sequencer"
] | It’s one of the great cliches in the hacker world: the hardware type and the software type. You can tell which of these two you are quite easily. When a project is actually 20% done, but you think it’s 90% done, and you say to yourself “And the rest is a simple matter of software”, you’re a hardware type. Ask anyone who has read my code, and they’ll tell you, I’m a hardware type.
Along with my blindness to the difficulties of getting the code right, I’ve also admittedly got an underappreciation of what powers lie in the dark typing arts. But I am not too proud to tip my hat when I see an awesome application of the soft stuff. Case in point:
this Go board sequencer
that we ran last week. An overhead webcam parses players’ moves as they put black and white stones down while playing the game of Go, and turns this into music.
The pure software type will be saying “but there’s a webcam and a Go board”. And indeed, that’s true. There
are
physical elements to this project that anchor it in the shared reality of the two people playing. But a hardware project this isn’t; it’s OpenCV and Max/MSP that make it work.
For comparison, look at
the complexity of this similar physical sequencer
. It’s got a 16 x 16 array of LEDs and switches and a CNC milled, primed, and painted surface that’s the size of a twin bed. Sawdust and hand-soldering: that’s a hardware project.
What I love about the Go sequencer is that it uses software
just right
. The piece is still physical. It could have just as easily been a VR world, where the two people would interact with each other only inside their goggles. But somehow that’s not quite as
human
as putting stones on a wooden board, sitting across from, and maybe even looking at, your opponent. The players aren’t forced to think about the software. They don’t feel like they’re playing a video game.
But at the same time, the software side of things makes all of the horrible hardware problems go away. Nobody is soldering a rat’s nest of 169 switches. There’s a webcam plugged into the USB port of a laptop. There’s a deep simplicity there.
Should you always trade out arcade buttons for OpenCV? Absolutely not! But is it worth considering the soft side when doing it in hardware is just too, well, hard? I’m open.
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
! | 41 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6285220",
"author": "Steven Clark",
"timestamp": "2020-10-10T16:01:54",
"content": "Hardware and software people have always thought each other were idiots to go by dad’s old grousing after work. Software seems to pay little attention to how hardware actually works and how to opera... | 1,760,373,328.046608 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/10/homemade-gear-cutting-indexer-blends-art-with-engineering/ | Homemade Gear Cutting Indexer Blends Art With Engineering | Adam Zeloof | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"gear",
"lathe",
"machining",
"metal lathe",
"turning"
] | Ordinarily, when we need gears, we pop open a McMaster catalog or head to the KHK website. Some of the more adventurous may even
laser cut
or
3D print
them. But what about machining them yourself?
[Uri Tuchman] set out to do just that. Of course, cutting your own gears isn’t any fun if you didn’t also build the machine that does the cutting, right? And let’s be honest, what’s the point of making the machine in the first place if it doesn’t double as a work of art?
[Uri’s] machine, made from brass and wood, is simple in its premise. It is placed adjacent to a gear cutter, a spinning tool that cuts the correct involute profile that constitutes a gear tooth. The gear-to-be is mounted in the center, atop a hole-filled plate called the dividing plate. The dividing plate can be rotated about its center and translated along linear stages, and a pin drops into each hole on the plate as it moves to index the location of each gear tooth and lock the machine for cutting.
The most impressive part [Uri’s] machine is that it was made almost entirely with hand tools. The most advanced piece of equipment he used in the build is a lathe, and even for those operations he hand-held the cutting tool. The result is an elegant mechanism as beautiful as it is functional — one that would look at home on a workbench in the late 19th century.
[Thanks BaldPower] | 23 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6285194",
"author": "tonygoacher",
"timestamp": "2020-10-10T11:33:31",
"content": "There is something really satisfying about using a graver…..",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6285204",
"author": "Gesu",
"timestamp": "20... | 1,760,373,327.567967 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/10/long-range-wifi-broadcasts-open-source-video-conferencing/ | Long Range WiFi Broadcasts Open-Source Video Conferencing | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"antenna",
"kilometer",
"lan",
"long range",
"networking",
"radio",
"rooftop",
"trango",
"video conferencing",
"wifi"
] | WiFi is an ubiquitous feature of the modern landscape, but due to power restrictions on most hardware alongside the high-frequency signal it’s typically fairly limited in range. This of course leads to frustration where a WiFi signal can be seen, but the connection is unreliable or slow. While most would reach for a range extender or other hardware bridge, [tak786] was able to roll out
a better solution for his workplace by using a high-gain antenna and a single-board computer
which gets him an amazing kilometer-wide WiFi network.
The build uses a 10 dBi antenna from TP-Link that’s rated for outdoor use and a single-board computer which acts as a sort of router. The antenna is placed at the top of a building which certainly helps with the extreme range as well. This setup doesn’t actually broadcast an open Internet connection, though. [tak786]’s employer needed a teleconferencing solution for their building, and he also created a
fully open-source video conferencing solution called trango
that can run on any LAN and doesn’t require an Internet connection. The WiFi setup in this build is effectively just a bonus to make the conferencing system more effective.
[tak786] is planning on releasing a whitepaper about this build shortly, but for now you can
access the source code for the video conferencing system at his GitHub page
. And, before anyone jumps to conclusions, apparently this is well within FCC rules as well. Some of the comments in the linked Reddit post suggest that with an amateur radio license this system could be pushed much further, too. If you need more range than a kilometer, though,
it’s not too much more difficult to do once you have all the right hardware
. | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6285184",
"author": "NaumanMoazzam",
"timestamp": "2020-10-10T10:20:14",
"content": "This looks promising. This could revolutionise the remote areas. Plus it could be used in closed working space for countering local PBX.Hats off!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replie... | 1,760,373,327.620499 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/09/tracking-your-run-over-the-long-haul/ | Tracking Your Run Over The Long Haul | Matthew Carlson | [
"gps hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"GPRS",
"gps",
"location tracking",
"map tracking",
"running"
] | The rise of smartphone and smartwatch fitness tracking has been an absolute boon for anyone interested in tracking their runs. However, it all falls short when you need a custom feature and start getting into serious long distance running, as most smartphone batteries simply won’t last. While there are devices out there for the ultra-running enthusiast, [Ivor Hewitt] decided he wasn’t willing to pay a monthly subscription for the pricy trackers or deal with the hassle of the generic cheap versions, and
decided to roll his own
.
The key pieces of this project are the A9G GPS module and the RDA8955 GRS/GPRS module. They’re both incredibly small and power efficient, perfect for a project that needs to be worn on your person with a long battery life. As an added bonus, the RDA8955 also includes a SoC that’s user-programmable. After battling the lackluster documentation and tooling, [Ivor] managed to get some software running on his new system.
A power bug
on the A9G GPS module was potentially show stopping, but thanks to some help by folks in the community, it was diagnosed and solved.
Further additions included adding a proper charging circuit (TP4056) and a beefy 2600 mAh battery scavenged from a Sony smartphone, giving the compact system around 38 hours of active battery life. An OLED screen was added to show upcoming aid stations and overall system status, driven by a custom display library. A snazzy translucent case makes the whole device slim and easy to carry. Now at the end of a long race or training session, [Ivor] has a wealth of tracked points that has already been uploaded to his own tracking website and a fully charged phone.
Next time you’re looking for a small compact GPS tracker or cellular logger take a look at this project’s code on GitHub or the A9G and RDA8955 modules.
Thanks [Ivor] for sending this one in! | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6285190",
"author": "e",
"timestamp": "2020-10-10T11:09:44",
"content": "If I were doing something like this I’d try repurposing a Vaisalla RS4X radiosonde. Already has the MCU, serial port and GPS module, and runs on 3V. The 400-ish mhz Tx is a bonus and could be used to ring door ... | 1,760,373,327.840034 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/09/electronic-treatment-for-diabetes/ | Electronic Treatment For Diabetes? | Al Williams | [
"Medical Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"diabetes",
"electric field",
"insulin",
"magnetic field"
] | If you ask power companies and cell phone carriers how much electromagnetic radiation affects the human body, they’ll tell you it doesn’t at any normal levels. If you ask [Calvin Carter] and some other researchers at the University of Iowa, they will tell you that it
might treat diabetes
. In a recent paper in Cell Metabolism, they’ve reported that exposing patients to static magnetic and electric fields led to improved insulin sensitivity in diabetic mice.
Some of the medical jargon in a paper like this one can be hard to follow, but it seems they feed mice on a bad diet — like that which many of us may eat — and exposed them to magnetic and electrical fields much higher than that of the Earth’s normal fields. After 30 days there was a 33% improvement in fasting blood glucose levels and even more for some mice with a specific cause of diabetes.
The magnetic field was 3 mT and the electric field was 7 kV/m. That sounds like a lot, but at sea level we normally experience about 120 V/m, so it’s hardly the equivalent of grabbing a live wire.
Interestingly, the same effect occurred when the mice were exposed for only seven hours a day. You can infer then that one day, diabetics might just sleep under an electromagnetic field and have improved glucose metabolism.
There’s some medical speak about why they think this works, but it was pretty dense on biology terms. The key phrase seems to be “modulating the systemic GSH/GSSG redox environment.” GSH/GSSG is the glutathione-to-glutathione disulfide redox couples, if that tells you anything.
This would be amazing news for people with diabetes, especially if they don’t decide it also causes blindness, cancer, and restless leg syndrome. No more
fake pancreas
! We don’t know, though, if the results would apply to
type 1 diabetes
as it sounds like the mice all had type 2. | 24 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6285137",
"author": "r4m0n",
"timestamp": "2020-10-10T02:42:43",
"content": "Small sample size and else than the main claims mentioned above, their paper is full of inconsistent findings and the data is all over the place… I’ll call BS on this one, it’s easy to get a positive result... | 1,760,373,327.898582 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/09/classical-poultry-conditioning-is-a-bird-brained-scheme/ | Classical Poultry Conditioning Is A Bird-Brained Scheme | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"arduino nano",
"bird feeder",
"chickens",
"lcd",
"pcb art",
"Pringles can",
"servo"
] | A while back, [Kutluhan Aktar] was trying to hack their chickens, quails, and ducks for higher egg production and faster hatching times by using a bit of classical conditioning. That is, feeding them at the same time every day while simultaneously exposing them to sound and light.
Once [Kutluhan] slipped enough times, they hatched a plan to build an automatic feeder
.
This fun rooster-shaped bird feeder runs on an Arduino Nano and gets its time, date, and temperature info from a DS3231 RTC. All [Kutluhan] has to do is set the daily feeding time. When it comes, a pair of servos and a pan-tilt kit work together to invert a Pringles can filled with food pellets. A piezo buzzer and a green LED provide the sound and light to help with conditioning. Scratch your way past the break to see it in action.
If [Kutluhan] gets tired of watching the birds eat at the same time every day,
perhaps a trash-for-treats training program could be next on the list
.
Via
r/duino | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6285110",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2020-10-09T23:41:55",
"content": "How does a set feeding time increase egg production?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6285616",
"author": "KenN",
"timestamp": "20... | 1,760,373,327.943494 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/09/put-that-new-resin-printer-to-work-making-pcbs/ | Put That New Resin Printer To Work Making PCBs | Dan Maloney | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"Elegoo",
"etch",
"FDM",
"ferric chloride",
"mask",
"pcb",
"resin",
"resist",
"sla",
"stl"
] | With all the cool and useful parts you can whip up (relatively) quickly on a 3D printer, it’s a shame you can’t just print a PCB. Sure, ordering a PCB is quick, easy, and cheap, but being able to print one-offs would peg the needle on the instant gratification meter.
[Peter Liwyj] may just have come up with
a method to do exactly that
. His Instructables post goes into great detail about his method, which uses an Elegoo Mars resin printer and a couple of neat tricks. First, a properly cleaned board is placed copper-side down onto a blob of SLA resin sitting on the print bed. He tricks the printer into thinking the platform is all the way down for the first layer by interrupting the photosensor used to detect home. He lets the printer go through one layer of an STL file that contains his design, which polymerizes a thin layer of plastic onto the copper. The excess resin is wiped gently away and the board goes straight into a ferric chloride etching bath. The video below shows the whole process.
As simple as it sounds, it looks like it works really well. And [Peter] didn’t just stumble onto this method; he approached it systematically and found what works best. His tips incude using electrical tape as a spacer to lift the copper off the print surface slightly, cleaning the board with Scotchbrite rather than sandpaper, and not curing the resin after printing. His toolchain is a bit uncoventional — he used SketchUp to create the traces and exported the STL. But there are
ways to convert Gerbers to STLs
, so your favorite EDA package can probably fit in to the process too.
Don’t have a resin printer? Don’t worry —
FDM printers can work too
.
Thanks to [abetusk] for the tip. | 33 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6285073",
"author": "Shonky",
"timestamp": "2020-10-09T20:41:24",
"content": "wonder if you could put it back in an print a solder mask on it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6285106",
"author": "Peter James Liwyj",
... | 1,760,373,327.691167 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/09/uva-aims-to-be-more-than-just-one-tool/ | UVA Aims To Be More Than Just One Tool | Lewin Day | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2020 Hackaday Prize",
"uv",
"uva"
] | Sometimes, a project is more than it seems on just the surface. The UVA project from [Said Alvarado Marin] is one such example. What started as an attempt to build a single useful tool
became the beginning of a broader utility ecosystem
.
In and of itself, UVA is a project to build a powerful UV flashlight for curing UV-reactive glues. After some serious research, [Said] was able to find the right LEDs, outputting the right wavelengths, and begin the design of this simple tool. However, UVA quickly became a base upon which other tools could be developed. The design of UVA is such that the flashlight head fits onto an interchangable power base, consisting of three 18650 lithium polymer cells and a charging subsystem.
The aim of UVA is to encourage others to produce their own tools to work with this ecosystem. Designed around commonly available parts and DIY build methods like 3D printing, it’s intended to allow the average person to create the tools they need when and as they need them, on location. We look forward to seeing how the project progresses further as we head closer to the finale of the 2020 Hackaday Prize!
The
Hackaday
Prize2020
is Sponsored by: | 8 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6285062",
"author": "przemek klosowski",
"timestamp": "2020-10-09T18:54:55",
"content": "UV flashlight sounds to me like a pocket chainsaw: potentially useful but also slightly worrisome safety wise. Make sure to wear UV protective eyewear.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,373,327.500053 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/09/how-to-shoot-a-great-project-video/ | How To Shoot A Great Project Video | Lewin Day | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [
"project video",
"shooting video",
"video",
"videos"
] | Creating projects is fun, but the real value, as far as the imaginary Internet points are concerned, is how well you show them off for the clout. Taking a few snaps is fine, but if you want to produce a quality video of your project, it pays to put some thought and effort into the process.
Telling The Story
Before setting out to document your project on video, think about what you’re trying to communicate to the viewer. Are you attempting to create a step-by-step guide on how to recreate what you’ve done, or are you simply trying to show off the awesome finished product? These are two very different types of video, and will require different content and delivery entirely. It also guides how you shoot your video.
If you want to show off your build process, you’ll need to shoot as you go. This can be time consuming, but also a great way to show the reality of what goes into your work. I always like it when people convey the pitfalls and successes they faced along the way, and get people involved in the story. It also means that you’ll end up shooting a lot of footage and you’ll spend plenty of time editing it all together.
Sometimes a timelapse is all you need, and has benefit of letting you work uninterrupted!
Alternatively, you may wish to show off the end result instead. If your project is more interesting as a finished piece, you may not feel the need to show people the hours you spent wiring up an Arduino and debugging the code. Instead, you can skip to the end, show them the fancy glittery results, and just give the background information where necessary. This is great if you have limited time to edit and want to work without slowing down to shoot video all the time.
Sometimes, it’s possible to go even simpler, and just shoot a timelapse. Paired with an appropriate soundtrack, this can make for a very appealing video, particularly if you’re building something crafty or intricate. It can also guide others on your process without all the work required to create a fully explanatory how-to.
Whichever option you go for, you should think about what you want to show people, and what they want to see. Is the value of your project in the creation process and the workmanship, or is it in the shiny finished product? Identifying this will save you from wasting hours making a video full of content nobody wants to see. Doing some fancy machining to produce an intricate clock? Consider filming the build. Wiring up a bunch of LEDs to produce a stunning art piece? The soldering and wiring is probably a little dry – consider spending your time shooting beautiful shots of the reveal.
Depending on your project, a good video can be a replacement or a complement for documentation. If you’re doing something that’s fun, but perhaps not particularly novel, there may not be a great need for exhaustive documentation. Your video might just be a little overview of what you’ve achieved, and all you need to share with the world. Alternatively, if you’ve been working on an advanced new process that’s at the bleeding edge of your field, a video might serve as a nice complement to richer documentation of your project — but please still write down those nitty gritty details which help provides the deeper understanding. In these cases, a short video that hits the major points and directs the viewer to more in-depth resources can be a really useful thing to have.
The Great Camera in Your Pocket
A decent smartphone is a great way to start shooting video, especially when combined with a tripod. Source:
Animoto
Shooting a great video is about having the right tools and using the right techniques. Thankfully, we live in an age where consumer electronics are cheaper than ever, and there’s a whole raft of hardware and software out there that’s ready to make your video look wonderfully polished.
You’ll want to start with a decent camera capable of shooting nice, quality video. Mid-tier to flagship smartphones are all capable of shooting in HD, if not 4K nowadays, and can serve as an excellent platform when you’re starting out. Used properly, they can put out good quality content every time.
Moving up, there’s DSLRs, long the realm of the professional photographer, these offer interchangeable lenses and greater finesse over shooting. A DSLR can be useful when shooting in low-light environments, or macro subjects, or in other cases where fine control over the capture process is necessary. Beyond that, the sky is the limit, with professional video equipment offering the best performance for those with the budget to match.
So Steady As She Goes
A tripod will make all the difference to your videos, allowing you to easily shoot clear, stable footage.
Your first purchase beyond a camera should be a tripod. Despite all the image stabilisation technology in the world, none of it can quite compete with a camera that is simply mounted on a stable footing. Even if you’re using a smartphone, buying a cheap adaptor and fitting it to a proper tripod will improve your videos immeasurably. No longer will your audience have to contend with the distraction of your shaky hand movements and poor framing. Instead, they’ll have a clear view of the action and be able to focus on what’s going on.
For shooting project videos, a photography-style tripod with a ball head will be more than adequate. Most shots you’ll want to take will be static, with perhaps the occasional pan thrown here and there. Of course, if you’re getting into filming more action shots, you may find a reason to invest in a more expensive fluid-head system. Fluid-head tripods are designed with hydraulic fluid mechanisms to help you shoot smooth pan and tilt shots, and are great if you’re looking to get more movement in your work. People who are constantly moving the camera around are know to go far beyond this, custom designing rail systems,
some are portable
but
some are computer controlled and built right into the shop
itself.
Aziz, Light!
LED video lights like the Viltrox V116T are a great portable lighting solution, particularly when paired with softening filters. Source: DSLR Video Shooter
You have to think about lighting. If you’re really looking to take things seriously, some proper lighting can make all the difference. If you’re shooting outdoors, aim to take into account the position of the sun relative to your subject and make sure you’re not losing detail in unnecessary shadows or with whites becoming overexposed. Indoors, it pays to have a good set of video lights. These are specialist lights that output a broad color spectrum and are designed to help you shoot quality images and video. Often paired with a soft box, they can make a huge difference to the quality of your final image.
You can definitely
make photography lights yourself
. As someone who has tried, and failed, to shoot nice quality video with workshop lights and bedside lamps, it was amazing to see the improvement a set of video-quality CCFLs fitted into softboxes made to my shoots. These will help provide your scene with bright, even illumination and show your project in its best possible light.
Go Forth And Shoot!
With good lights, a solid tripod, and a good camera, you should have all you need to shoot quality videos of your projects. If you want to push the boat out, of course, there’s more hardware to discover. You might want to score yourself a steadycam or gimbal for quality motion shots, or perhaps a motorized slider for dramatic reveals. Of course, this is Hackaday, not Buyaday, and building your own is always an option too. This is great if you’d like to customize your tools to work with the way you like to shoot.
With a strong idea of what kind of video you want to shoot, and armed with the right hardware, you’re ready to go. All you need now is a project, though we’re fairly sure the Hackaday readership is never short of things to work on. And remember — nobody knows your project better than you, so get out there and film some great content to share with the world! | 29 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6285038",
"author": "wizardpc",
"timestamp": "2020-10-09T17:35:50",
"content": "If you (yes you, commenter) don’t understand the Aziz reference, please fix that.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6285042",
"author": "Jac... | 1,760,373,328.173194 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/09/hackaday-podcast-088-flywheel-trebuchet-thieving-magpies-hero-engines-and-hypermiling/ | Hackaday Podcast 088: Flywheel Trebuchet, Thieving Magpies, Hero Engines, And Hypermiling | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys riff on the hardware hacks that took the Internet by storm this week. Machining siege weapons out of aluminum? If they can throw a tennis ball at 180 mph, yes please! Welding aficionados will love to see the Hero Engine come together. We dive into the high-efficiency game of hypermiling, and spin up the polarizing topic of the Sun Cycle. The episode wouldn’t be complete without hearing what the game of Go sounds like as a loop sequencer, and how a variable speed cassette player can be abused for the benefit of MIDI lovers the world over.
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!
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 or so.)
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 088 Show Notes:
New This Week:
Hackaday Passes 1,000,000 Comments
The Pioneering Lifestyle In Low Earth Orbit
Video: Exploring The Abandoned Birthplace Of The 6502 And Commodore 64
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Video: Exploring The Abandoned Birthplace Of The 6502 And Commodore 64
Reel In The Years With A Cassette Player Synth
Zachteman Mini Mellotron made out of one Walkman.
Mellotron – Wikipedia
Tape-Head Robot Listens to the Floor
The Amazing Technicolor Parts Organizer
Light the Way to Every Component
Flywheel Trebuchet Spins Right Round
Trebucheting Tennis Balls At 124 MPH
Tracker Video Analysis and Modeling Tool for Physics Education
Cleaning Up The Yard With AI — Avian Intelligence
BirdBox_gym_topside – YouTube
Making Music With A Go Board Step Sequencer
Orbs Light to Billie Jean on this Huge Sequencer
Augmented Reality Sandbox Using A Kinect
Making A Modern Version Of A Steam Engine From Antiquity
Hero’s Engine – YouTube
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Weigh Your Car With Paper
Clock Is Not Readable By Humans
Receipt Printers End It All In Moving Art Piece
Mike’s Picks:
Custom Tool Helps Hakko Set Threaded Inserts
Teaching A Pocket Logic Analyzer (Many) New Tricks
Minimal TinyAVR 0 Programming
Can’t-Miss Articles:
How To Get Into Cars: Hypermiling Mods
Welcome To Solar Cycle 25; Our Sun Enters A New 11-Year Period | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6285244",
"author": "David Foster",
"timestamp": "2020-10-10T17:28:13",
"content": "First time I ever listened. I’m a retired automotive engineer and just reading and listening to your ramblings is very interesting. You are geeks and I guess I am also. Have to admit I only understan... | 1,760,373,328.381684 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/09/fat-bottomed-keebs-you-make-the-clackin-world-go-round/ | Fat Bottomed-Keebs, You Make The Clackin’ World Go Round | Kristina Panos | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"diy keyboard",
"keyboard",
"pong",
"rotary encoders",
"sun",
"Teensy",
"teensy 2.0"
] | Depending on the circles you run in, it can seem like the mechanical keyboard community is all about reduced layouts, and keebs without ten-keys are about as big as it gets. But trust us, there’s plenty of love out there for the
bigger ‘boards like [Ben]’s tasty fat-bottomed keyboard
. Man oh man, what a delicious slab of throwback to the days when keyboards doubled as melee weapons.
More specifically, this is a 199-key modified Sun Type 5 layout. It runs on two Teensy 2.0s — one for the keyboard matrix, and one for everything else. [Ben] made the metal enclosure entirely by hand without a CNC or laser cutter. While I don’t personally care for linear switches, I have mad respect for these, which are vintage Cherry Blacks pulled from various 1980s AT/XT boards. That 10-key island on the left is dedicated to elementary macros like undo/redo, cut/copy/paste, and open/close/save.
We absolutely love the gigantic rotary encoders, which give it a bit of a boombox look. There’s even reuse involved here, because the encoder knobs are made from jam jar lids that are stuffed with homemade Sugru. [Ben] can use them to play PONG on the LCD and other games not yet implemented on the everything-else Teensy.
Here’s another Sun-inspired keeb, but this one has a reverse 10-key layout that matches the DTMF phone dial
. | 24 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6285026",
"author": "dslsecretary",
"timestamp": "2020-10-09T15:52:48",
"content": "Finally! Someone else who likes the function keys added to the left! But I’d still drop the numberpad (even though I play crawl and could use it for easier travel…) just to keep my mouse hand from ... | 1,760,373,328.53895 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/09/this-week-in-security-code-scanning-information-gathering-and-seams-in-the-cloud/ | This Week In Security: Code Scanning, Information Gathering, And Seams In The Cloud | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"cloud",
"jailbreaking",
"This Week in Security"
] | GitHub
has enabled free code analysis on public repositories
. This is the fruit of the purchase of Semmle,
almost exactly one year ago
. Anyone with write permissions to a repository can go into the settings, and enable scanning. Beyond the obvious use case of finding vulnerabilities, an exciting option is to automatically analyse pull requests and flag potential security problems automatically. I definitely look forward to seeing this tool in action.
The Code Scanning option is under the Security tab, and the process to enable it only takes a few seconds. I flipped the switch on one of my repos, and it found a handful of issues that are worth looking in to. An important note, anyone can run the tool on a forked repo and see the results. If CodeQL finds an issue, it’s essentially publicly available for anyone who cares to look for it.
Simpler Code Scanning
On the extreme other hand, [Will Butler] wrote
a guide to searching for exploits using grep
. A simple example, if
raw
shows up in code, it often signals an unsafe operation. The terms
fixme
or
todo
, often in comments, can signal a known security problem that has yet to be fixed. Another example is
unsafe
, which is an actual keyword in some languages, like Rust. If a Rust project is going to have vulnerabilities, they will likely be in an
unsafe
block. There are some other language-dependent pointers, and other good tips, so check it out.
Stalking on Google
Real-world attacks, at least targeted attacks, involve lots of intelligence gathering on the target. Lots of data is available in the open on platforms like Facebook and Google, but sometimes it’s a pain to actually pull that data together. [mxrch] has published
a tool specifically targeting Google accounts
. Supply an email address, and GHunt attempts to scrape any public information available about that account.
What information might be available? First off, it looks for activity from that account on other Google services. YouTube, Google Maps, and Google Photos can be great sources of information. What’s not obvious about that is the extra information available from those sources. Images shared on Google Maps seems to have their metadata cleaned, but pictures left public on Google Photos don’t. Location data, camera hardware, and more interesting information is right there, so long as you know where to look. It would be interesting to stand up a GHunt instance and run it against your own Google account, just to see what information is out there.
New Malware, Old Malware
Emotet has been around since 2014, and has proven to be the gift that keeps on giving. Ars has
a brief history of the malware
, and it’s an impressive run. It’s apparent that whoever is behind Emotet has continued developing the malware. The most puzzling development is the five months earlier this year when Emotet went silent, only to return via an aggressive spam presence. Perhaps even cyber-criminals took time off for Coronavirus.
An even older malware campaign with clearer provenance has popped up again. FinSpy was created by FinFisher as a commercial spyware tool. Amnesty International has been reporting on spyware campaigns launched against political activists for quite some time, and often their reports include interesting technical tidbits. This one is no exception, as they break the news that
FinSpy now targets MacOS and Linux machines
. The observed Linux binary is simply named PDF, leading me to suspect the primary infection mechanism is phishing.
Attacking the Seams in the Cloud
Our friends at
Google’s Project Zero set their sights
on HashiCorp’s Vault project (
It’s Open Source
). Vault looks like a really useful project, as it handles data encryption for shared data sets. Want to build a complex web service where data is properly encrypted at rest, but still accessible to multiple users? Vault might be worth looking at.
Not all is perfect in paradise. One of the common places to find security problems is the interface between the elements of a service. In this case, [Felix] found an issue where Vault interfaces with the AWS authentication service. A user can request access to an object, and Vault will turn around and forward that request to Amazon’s user authentication mechanism. The function that handles that response accepts either XML or JSON encoding. As it turns out, that function will also accepts messages that include *both* types of encoding. The trick was to find a way to get Amazon’s service to reflect an authentication request that included JSON supplied by the user. The intended response is in XML: “Yes, this person exists”. Also included in that message is a JSON spoofed response: “This person is a superuser”.
There’s another attack vector detailed in the article, so go get the full scoop if it strikes your fancy. The point is made that as cloud-based applications become more common, this sort of vulnerability will be seen more often, as well. It’s a different paradigm, looking at cloud security as compared to conventional computer security.
Jailbreaking Macs
The jailbreaking community have been punching holes in Apple mobile hardware for years. What about desktop hardware? Do the flaws used in iOS jailbreaks also work on Macs? A few of them, yes. A researcher at IronPeak Services put together
a summary of the current state of hardware attacks against MacOS machines
. The good news is that this family of attacks require physical access, and because the vulnerable component has immutable firmware, the attack isn’t persistent. The bad news is that the immutable firmware cannot be patched, and all that is needed for compromise is a USB device.
Today’s Macs containing a co-processor, the T2. This chip is essentially the ARM A10 from Apple’s mobile devices, and handles quite a few system functions, including trusted computing via the Secure Enclave Processor (SEP) embedded inside. While the T2 firmware can be updated, the SEP firmware is read only, and can’t be touched. The shared hardware also means shared bugs, and a couple of those bugs exist in that immutable SEP firmware. Namely,
Checkm8
/
Checkra1n
. A USB device can trigger the jailbreak, and enable a debug mode. The end result is full root control over the T2 co-processor, and quite a bit of control over the entire system.
The need for a physical USB device means that this isn’t going to be used in widespread malicious attacks, but may prove useful for owners of the machines. The author claims that more is coming in the next few weeks. We’ll follow the story and let you know about it. | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6285338",
"author": "Ian",
"timestamp": "2020-10-11T06:47:22",
"content": "RE: The T2 Mac Vulnerability by ironPeak.I was all about sticking it to Apple publicly for ignoring a security researcher who clearly had a working exploit. Responsible disclosure can be a rough dance to get ... | 1,760,373,328.582697 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/09/tiny-trash-can-repels-trash-pandas-medium-sized-cats/ | Tiny Trash Can Repels Trash Pandas, Medium-Sized Cats | Kristina Panos | [
"classic hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"555",
"buzzer",
"cats",
"leds",
"repellent"
] | Are you tired of cats and other wildlife relieving themselves in your outdoor plant pots? As if accidental neglect won’t kill them fast enough. [TecnoProfesor] has a solution, and it doesn’t even involve a microcontroller.
It detects the presence of approaching animals and then blasts them with annoying sounds and a couple of bright green LEDs to drive them away
.
Thanks to a couple of modules, the circuit is really pretty simple. There’s a PIR to detect the animals, a buzzer, and a 555-based pulse generator to play tones through the buzzer. This circuit can run 24/7 on a pair of 6V solar panels that charge up a battery. We particularly like the desk trash can enclosure, though we have to wonder how waterproof this system is. Check out the brief demo after the break.
For all of you satisfied with the 555 implementation here,
your reward is this giant functioning 555
. If you’re a 555 naysayer, how would you have done it better? | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284986",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2020-10-09T13:28:50",
"content": "“As if accidental neglect won’t kill them fast enough.”The Venn Diagram of our horticulture experience shows a lot of overlap!B^)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comme... | 1,760,373,328.437225 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/09/freecad-parametrics-made-simple/ | FreeCAD Parametrics Made Simple | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3D modelling",
"cad",
"freecad"
] | Simple drafting programs just let you draw like you’d use a pencil. But modern programs use parametric models to provide several benefits. One is that you can use parameters to change parts of your design and other parts will alter to take account of your changes. The other advantage is you can use one model for many similar but different designs. [Brodie Fairhall] has a nice video about how to use
parameters in FreeCAD
.
The nice thing about parameters is they don’t have to be just constants. You can put in formulae as well. For example, you could define one line as being twice as big as another line. You provide various constraints and parameters and FreeCAD works out the shape for you, keeping all the constraints and formulae satisfied.
[Brodie] shows how to use spreadsheets to manage complex parameters in big projects, which is pretty handy. There’s an upcoming feature that will allow you to group parameters into sets. As an example, you can see a model of a NEMA stepper motor that can change from a NEMA 17 to another size by just selecting different parameters from a configuration table.
OpenSCAD
, of course, does nothing but parametric modeling in a very direct way. You code the constraints you want explicitly. We’ve also been enjoying
Solvespace
lately. | 51 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284930",
"author": "Cyna",
"timestamp": "2020-10-09T09:16:25",
"content": "Yes, but the spreadsheets in 0.18 are not very user-friendly compared to “normal” spreadsheets, and everything slows down to a crawl with many objects (which has been an officially raised issue for the last ... | 1,760,373,328.680879 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/08/educational-robot-teaches-with-magnets-and-servos/ | Educational Robot Teaches With Magnets And Servos | Lewin Day | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"educational robot",
"robot",
"robotics"
] | Teaching kids about robotics gives them valuable skills for their futures, and is generally pretty darn fun for all involved, too. However, teaching children often involves taking a bit of a different tack to educating college students, and more of a hand-holding approach is often needed. This robot project is an attempt to do just that,
using some classic time-honored techniques and a unique method of propulsion.
The Magnetic Motion Robot, or MMR, is very much a DIY project. Built out of hand-cut plywood and assembled by lacing together individual modules, it’s a low-cost entry into the world of educational robotics. Rather than wheels or motors, it instead uses electromagnets mounted on servo arms to get around. Switching the magnets on and off, and moving the servos in time, allows the robot to pull itself along a ferromagnetic surface.
The robot is outfitted with buzzers and LEDs, and using these features creates further programming challenges for students. Naturally, there’s also a line-following program, which is a great way to begin educating kids about autonomous robot operations. It’s all run from an Arduino Nano, programmed with Makeblock’s special building-block programming software.
While its DIY nature makes assembly a little more involved than the average off-the-shelf kit, it does present its own learning opportunities such as soldering and the integration of hardware. Educational robots will continue to be popular and fun long into the future;
we’re a particular fan of sumobots ourselves.
Video after the break. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284996",
"author": "profumple",
"timestamp": "2020-10-09T13:50:32",
"content": "I do like. Simple, cute, relatively easy build, and uses known open source programming tool Mblock. Scratch is super easy to start programming and have Python as well as Arduino C. Included some code.... | 1,760,373,328.475814 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/08/current-sensor-makes-intriguing-use-of-concrete/ | Current Sensor Makes Intriguing Use Of Concrete | Bryan Cockfield | [
"hardware"
] | [
"case",
"concrete",
"current",
"design",
"Feel",
"sensor",
"weight"
] | Getting a product to market isn’t all about making sure that the product does what it’s supposed to. Granted, most of us will spend most of our time focusing on the functionality of our projects and less on the form, fit, or finish of the final product, especially for one-off builds that won’t get replicated. For those builds that do eventually leave the prototyping phase, though, a lot more effort goes into the final design and “feel” of the product than we might otherwise think. For example,
this current sensor improves its feel by making use of cast concrete in its case
.
The current sensor in this build is not too much out of the ordinary. [kevarek] built the sensor around the MCA1101-50-3 chip and added some extra features to improve its electrostatic discharge resistance and also to improve its electromagnetic compatibility over and above the recommended datasheet specifications. The custom case is where this one small detail popped out at us that we haven’t really seen much of before, though. [kevarek] mixed up a small batch of concrete to pour into the case simply because it feels better to have a weightier final product.
While he doesn’t mention building this current sensor to sell to a wider audience, this is exactly something that a final marketable product might have within itself to improve the way the device feels. Heavier things are associated, perhaps subconsciously, with higher quality, and since PCBs and plastic casings don’t weigh much on their own many manufacturers will add dummy weights to improve the relationship between weight and quality. Even though this modification is entirely separate from the function of the product, it’s not uncommon for
small changes in design to have a measurable impact on performance, even when the original product remains unmodified
.
Thanks to [Saabman] for the tip! | 20 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284869",
"author": "Doug",
"timestamp": "2020-10-09T04:07:14",
"content": "Let the gravity of that choice sink in.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6284872",
"author": "Doug Jackson",
"timestamp": "2020-10-09T04:09:59",
... | 1,760,373,328.73592 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/08/light-tracking-robot-relies-on-ldrs/ | Light Tracking Robot Relies On LDRs | Lewin Day | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"light tracker",
"light tracking",
"robot"
] | These days, when doing any sort of optical tracking, our mind immediately leaps towards sophisticated solutions. Raspberry Pis, high end cameras, and machine learning toolchains all come to mind. Of course, if your goals are simpler, you needn’t complicate the issue.
PHIL is a light tracking robot who is perfectly happy to do it the old-school way.
PHIL consists of an Arduino Uno running a twin-servo motion platform, providing the sensor head with pan and tilt functionality. The sensor head itself consists of a 3D-printed cruciform-section shroud that mounts four light-dependent resistors in individual sections. The shroud helps block light to the off-angle sensors, giving a stronger difference between those exposed to the light directly and those on the dark side. This makes for a stronger difference signal, so when the Arduino reads the sensors, it’s much clearer which way PHIL should point the sensor head to follow the light.
The builder, [Sean O’Donovan], notes that PHIL was built with no practical purpose in mind, and is simply a cool project. We certainly agree, and it’s important to note that skills picked up on a project like this will invariably come in handy down the track.
Such techniques can be highly useful for tracking the sun, for example
. Video after the break.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suA05NZpNAM | 26 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284825",
"author": "doppler",
"timestamp": "2020-10-08T23:16:48",
"content": "I have seen this done with solar panels with rotating axis. The longer the light deflectors before the detectors. The better the positioning becomes.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replie... | 1,760,373,328.837623 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/08/a-double-shot-of-vintage-computing-this-weekend/ | A Double Shot Of Vintage Computing This Weekend | Tom Nardi | [
"cons",
"News"
] | [
"computer history",
"museum",
"VCF East",
"Vintage Computer Festival",
"virtual"
] | Going anywhere interesting this weekend? No, of course you aren’t. None of us are. So why not tune your computer or smartphone to the online stream of one of the virtual Vintage Computer Festivals that will be taking place between October 10th and 11th. Granted only one of them is in English, but we’ve often thought of blinky lights as something of a universal language anyway.
Vintage Computer Festival East
, which normally would have happened in the Spring, has finally decided that 2020 is a wash for any in-person meetings and has decided to switch over to virtual. Interestingly, it sounds like they’ll be live streaming at least some of the exhibitor tables from the InfoAge museum in New Jersey where the physical event would have been held. So from an attendee perspective, the virtual event should be a bit closer to the real thing than if everyone had to figure out their own streaming setups from home. Presentations will run from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM Eastern on both days.
On the other side of the globe,
Vintage Computing Festival Berlin
will be broadcasting their own exhibitions, workshops, and lectures. In an interesting use of the virtual format, they’ll be giving viewers an intimate look at vintage computers and technology that’s held in private collections, museums, or otherwise inaccessible storage and research facilities. Content will be streaming from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM CEST on both days, with a musical performance overnight.
While there’s an understandable tendency to bemoan the trend of moving events online in the face of COVID-19, there are certainly situations where the format can actually bring you
more content than you’d have access to otherwise
. Especially when they end up being free, as is the case with both of these Festivals. We’re still eagerly awaiting the point where we can get back to attending these events in person, but we certainly aren’t complaining when so many incredible people are willing to put on these presentations without seeing a dime. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6285010",
"author": "Jim Shortz",
"timestamp": "2020-10-09T14:40:14",
"content": "Having attended multiple VCFs in person in the past, I gave virtual VCF West a try a few months back when it happened. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Sure, it’s nicer to see the exhibits in person but ther... | 1,760,373,328.775151 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/08/openfluid-warmer-aims-to-get-medical-equipment-where-its-needed/ | OpenFluid Warmer Aims To Get Medical Equipment Where It’s Needed | Lewin Day | [
"Medical Hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2020 Hackaday Prize",
"iv fluid",
"medical equipment"
] | Intravenous fluids, or IV fluids, are a vital part of modern life-saving medicine. Depending on the fluids in question, they must often be stored at low temperatures, however, for delivery to a patient, it is beneficial to warm them to approximately 38 degrees to avoid causing hypothermia. To achieve this, an IV fluid warmer is used, but these are not readily available all over the world. To help rectify this shortcoming,
[John Opsahl] started the OpenFluidWarmer project.
The goal of the project is to produce a safe, reliable IV fluid warmer that is also
easily reproducible.
Materials used must be cheap and readily available, and ideally should be easily substitutable where possible to maximise the design’s ability to be built anywhere it’s needed. The name of the project is a nod towards its open design – with the goal of the project to deliver medical equipment to those that don’t have it, there’s little benefit to keeping the design under wraps.
Development continues at a solid pace, with work to optimise the heater performance, firmware, and even the tools required for assembly
all documented in the build logs.
It’s a project that recalls the scramble earlier this year
to create open source ventilators for COVID-19 patients.
Ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s about getting medical hardware to where it’s needed most, and we applaud [John]’s efforts in this field! Video after the break.
The
Hackaday
Prize2020
is Sponsored by: | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284769",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2020-10-08T19:01:16",
"content": "Thank the gods someone is making something other than a rubber balloon “ventillator” we have been seeing for the past year or so.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,373,328.886012 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/08/sensing-the-earths-wobble-in-time/ | Sensing The Earth’s Wobble In Time | Moritz v. Sivers | [
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"earth rotation",
"laser gyroscope",
"length of day",
"VLBI"
] | In the 1850s British railway companies started introducing a single standard time to make their timetables consistent. Before that, every city would set its own clock based on the observation of the position of the sun. Nowadays, precise time standards are not only needed so people don’t miss their trains but also make modern communication technologies and satellite navigation work.
Generally, there are two methods of defining time, one is based on the local passage of time as measured by atomic clocks, while the other relies on the exact measurement of Earth’s rotation. The latter is not an easy exercise that involves extragalactic radio sources or huge laser-based gyroscopes. The constant survey of the Earth’s spin tells us that days are constantly getting longer, but surprisingly, severe earthquakes and weather phenomena can also take little discrete bites out of the planet’s supply of rotational kinetic energy.
How do we keep our ultra precisely measured time, the rotation of the Earth, and our position in the heavens in line?
TAI, UTC, and UT1
Deviation of day length from SI day. Data points also show the introduction of leap seconds.
Credit:
Ⅱ Ⅶ Ⅻ / Public domain
There are a confusingly large number of different time standards but the most fundamental is International Atomic Time (TAI). It is defined by the
International Bureau of Weights and Measures
in France and calculated from the weighted average of over 400 atomic clocks located worldwide that tick away at an incredibly constant rate.
On the other end of the spectrum is Universal Time (UT1) which in turn is purely based on Earth’s rotation.
Between these two is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). UTC seconds are the same length as TAI seconds, but UTC is adjusted to ensure that the difference between the UTC and UT1 readings will never exceed 0.9 seconds, which is where leap seconds come in. Because Earth’s rotation is slowing down, TAI leads UTC: currently, TAI is 37 seconds ahead.
Monitoring Earth Rotation with Quasars and Laser Gyroscopes
Giant ring laser gyroscope ROMY to measure the Earth rotation.
Credit:
J. Igel/ETH Zurich, APS/Alan Stonebraker
If keeping a network of atomic clocks in sync is hard, measuring UT1 is even harder. The permanent monitoring of the Earth’s 3D rotation vector is the task of the
International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS)
. The gold standard for this measurement is very long baseline interferometry (VLBI). VLBI measures the time differences between the arrival of microwave signals from various extragalactic radio sources (mostly
quasars
) with a global network of Earth-based radio telescopes. Thereby, the relative positions of the telescopes within the celestial reference frame can be determined with an accuracy of a few millimeters.
Currently, the Earth’s rotation is not monitored in real-time because there is some latency due to the required observation time for each measurement. Add, the involved telescopes can only dedicate a fraction of their up-time to the VLBI measurement. Further, the VLBI measurement technique is not directly linked to the rotational axis of Earth but needs to be calculated from the telescope positions.
There are other measurement techniques that address these problems and one of them is the recently completed
laser gyroscope ROMY
, located at an underground facility near Munich, Germany. ROMY consists of four 12 m long triangular ring lasers arranged as a tetrahedron. In each triangle, two separate laser beams circulate in opposite directions. A rotation introduces a frequency shift between both lasers according to the
Sagnac effect
and the resulting interference can be used to determine the angular velocity. From all four triangles, the full 3D rotation vector of the Earth can be reconstructed. Although the long-term stability is still not comparable to VLBI, ROMY can provide complementary real-time observations with high resolution.
Why is Earth’s Rotation Changing?
The rotation of the Earth is influenced by various factors. First of all the rotation axis changes relative to the Earth’s surface which is referred to as polar motion. The main component of polar motion is the so-called Chandler wobble. Although it was already discovered by American astronomer Seth Carlo Chandler in 1891 the exact cause of this change of Earth’s spin with a period of about 14 months is still being debated. One of the more recent publications surmises that it is dominantly excited by
pressure fluctuations in the ocean
.
Apart from the orientation, the velocity of Earth’s rotation also varies with other periodicities. As the tides move the mass distribution of the oceans around the solid parts of the Earth, its rotational inertia varies slightly with a period of 12 hours. There are also seasonal variations due to atmospheric circulation. Even slower variations are caused by flows in the Earth’s liquid core, and long-term climatic variations in the atmosphere.
On top of all this, Earth’s rotation is constantly slowing down due to
tidal acceleration
of the moon. The moon raises tides on the Earth, effectively stretching the earth a little bit. But because this water is spinning along with the Earth’s rotation, the asymmetry leads the moon’s orbit a little bit, pulling it along ever so slightly. This gravitational torque angular momentum transferred from the Earth to the Moon lengthens the day by 2.3 ms / century.
The length of a day can even be influenced by single large catastrophic events. One example is the
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
, which according to
calculations by NASA scientists
shortened the length of the day by three microseconds and shifted the position of the North Pole by 2.5 cm. An even more drastic example is the 1982-83 El Niño event which
stretched the length of day by 0.2 ms
.
With great accuracy comes great responsibility. On one hand, we can measure our position in the universe to within the breadth of a pencil eraser. On the other hand, the TAI’s averaged atomic clocks tick with an accuracy of one part in 10
14
. Nobody likes leap seconds, but they reflect the messy reality of living on a moving planet that’s subject to the laws of physics. It’s amazing that we can notice these tiny differences at all. Hooray for science! | 30 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284721",
"author": "V",
"timestamp": "2020-10-08T17:26:15",
"content": "Finally, an article teling about earth wobble! it was about time.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6518962",
"author": "Christopher Hoyt",
... | 1,760,373,329.06451 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/08/a-geared-bench-vise-to-clamp-all-the-things/ | A Geared Bench Vise To Clamp All The Things | Danie Conradie | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"alexandre chappel",
"vice",
"vise",
"woodworking"
] | On the eternal quest of workshop upgrades, [Alexandre Chappel] has combined woodworking and 3D printing to add a versatile
0.5 m wide vise with some clever internals
to his workbench.
The challenge with such a wide vise is that it requires two timed lead screws on either end of the vise to prevent if from pulling skew under force. This can be done with a chain, belt, or [Alexandre]’s choice, gears. Inside the moving part of the vise he fitted series of 5 herringbone gears. By turning the center gear with a lever, it rotates the gears on the end which are fixed to tow lead screws. The external surfaces of the clamp are made with plywood, and the gears are printed with PLA and high infill percentage. [Alexandre] does say that he is not sure durable the gears are, but they definitely aren’t flimsy. He added an acrylic inspection window to the box section, which we think looks superb with the colored gears peaking through. The back of the vise is mounted inside the workbench, which keeps the look clean and doesn’t take up any bench space.
[Alexandre] does a lot of filming in his workshop, so recently he also built a very impressive and practical
camera arm
to avoid having to move tripods the whole time. A vise is a must-have tool in almost any workshop, so we’ve seen a few DIY versions, like
magnetic base vise
and one with a
hydraulic vise
. | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284717",
"author": "Paula",
"timestamp": "2020-10-08T17:10:23",
"content": "Nice. It’s desperately calling out for some bench dogs though.I wonder what you might use as a lube for those gears, to make them run smoother or longer?Dry-film MoS2 seems overkill and probably not approp... | 1,760,373,329.123065 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/08/hackaday-passes-1000000-comments/ | Hackaday Passes 1,000,000 Comments | Mike Szczys | [
"News"
] | [
"comments",
"hackaday",
"milestone"
] | For just over sixteen years we’ve been publishing fresh hacks every day. We’ve just passed another milestone: the one millionth Hackaday comment
was made just a few minutes ago
.
A million of anything is impressive, but it’s not the sheer volume that’s on my mind today, but how time and again I’m gobsmacked by the insightful comments I find on these pages, and the people who put them there. We find leads for futures stories, answers to unknowns voiced in the articles, and have conversations with thousands of people whose paths we never would have crossed otherwise.
Not a week goes by that I don’t lose myself in a comment thread, usually taking me down the rabbit hole of exploring a bit of technology previously hidden to me but revealed by a few words. How many Hackaday articles were spawned by someone posting just the right link in the comment section?
Too often the people who moved the world with interesting technologies move through their careers and beyond without anyone to really tell their stories to, and those are some of the best stories from the people working with the tech on a daily basis for decades. But then we publish an article that puts a spotlight on their corner of knowledge and we get to hear how it was from their perspective. It’s so gratifying to get these moments of insight on who and what have kept humanity’s relay-race of science forward.
So thank you! Keep those comments and those stories coming!
A Little Levity for the Regular Readers
Now when you mine for ore, not every granule is a gold flake. Throughout the years the Hackaday writers have come to recognize a few recurring gripes in the comments that are always good for a chuckle. Recently, Roger Cheng turned this into a game of bingo we can all play.
We’d love to hear your favorite (positive) comments from years of reading Hackaday. Let us know in the comments below. And remember, if you don’t have something nice to say…
[Editor’s note: Elliot totally cheated. He wrote a script to pull down the number of posts continually, and post a comment when the counter hit 999,999. This
is
Hackaday, after all.] | 114 | 38 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284657",
"author": "Arthur Wolf",
"timestamp": "2020-10-08T15:22:08",
"content": "At least a thousand of those is me trying to offer a free Smoothieboard to somebody making a CNC-related project. Lots of people take me up on it, and over the years it’s actually resulted in quite a ... | 1,760,373,329.329071 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/08/the-prusa-i3-mk3s-and-a-tale-of-two-sensors/ | The Prusa I3 MK3S And A Tale Of Two Sensors | Tom Nardi | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Featured",
"hardware",
"Slider"
] | [
"engineering",
"filament sensor",
"optical encoder",
"over-engineered",
"prusa",
"Prusa i3 Mk3",
"sensor"
] | When the Prusa i3 MK3 was released in 2017, it was marketed as being “bloody smart” thanks to
the impressive number of sensors that had been packed into the printer
. The update wasn’t really about improving print quality over the MK2, but rather to make the machine easier to use and more reliable. There was a system for resuming prints that had stopped during a power outage, a thermometer so the firmware could compensate against thermal drift in the inductive bed sensor, RPM detection on all of the cooling fans, and advanced Trinamic stepper drivers that could detect when the printer had slipped or gotten stuck.
The optical filament sensor of the Prusa i3 MK3.
But the most exciting upgrade of all was the new filament sensor. Using an optical encoder similar to what you’d find in a mouse, the Prusa i3 MK3 could detect when filament had been inserted into the extruder. This allowed the firmware to pause the print if the filament had run out, a feature that before this point was largely unheard of on consumer-grade desktop 3D printers. More than that, the optical encoder could also detect whether or not the filament was actually moving through the extruder.
In theory, this meant the MK3 could sense problems such as a jammed extruder or a tangle in the filament path that was keeping the spool from unrolling. Any other consumer 3D printer on the market would simply continue merrily along, not realizing that it wasn’t actually extruding any plastic. But the MK3 would be able to see that the filament had stalled and alert the user. The capabilities of the optical filament sensor represented a minor revolution in desktop 3D printing, and combined with the rest of the instrumentation in the MK3, promised to all but eradicate the heartbreak of failed prints.
Fast forward to February of 2019, and
the announcement of the Prusa i3 MK3S
. This relatively minor refresh of the printer collected up all the incremental tweaks that had been made during the production of the MK3, and didn’t really add any new features. Though it did delete one: the MK3S removed the optical encoder sensor used in the MK3, and with it the ability to sense filament movement. Users would have to decide if keeping the ability to detect clogs and tangles was worth giving up all of the other improvements offered by the update.
But why? What happened in those three years that made Prusa Research decide to abandon what promised to be a huge usability improvement for their flagship product? The answer is an interesting look at how even the cleverest of engineering solutions don’t always work as expected in the real-world.
A Hands-Off Approach
Of course, Prusa Research weren’t the first to try and tackle the problem of jammed filament detection.
Hackers had already been cobbling together their own solutions for years
by the time the MK3 was released, but most of them used a more direct approach. The most common way was to simply push a wheel against the spool or the filament itself, the rotation of which can easily be detected through a rotary encoder or Hall-effect sensor.
A DIY wheeled filament sensor.
But the problem with this idea is that it puts additional drag on the filament, which can introduce variations in the extrusion rate that ultimately impact print quality. Users chasing perfect extrusion have developed various low-drag spool holders for exactly this reason. Adding drag into the system, even if it would allow for the detection of stalled filament, would be a non-starter for many users.
The beauty of the optical sensor was that it could “see” when the filament was moving without actually touching it. Again, Prusa Research didn’t come up with this idea. There had already been attempts to
visually inspect the filament as it entered the extruder
, though the goal was generally to compensate for varying filament thickness.
What Prusa Research
did
do was come up with a low-cost open hardware sensor that combined these established ideas to create an accurate non-contact filament speed sensor. By rights, you’d expect that by now every 3D printer manufacturer on the planet would have spun up their own variation of this little sensor and bolted it onto their entry level machines.
Which they certainly would have done eventually, if the sensor had actually worked as intended.
Blinded By Science
To be clear, the optical filament sensor in the Prusa i3 MK3 did work. They wouldn’t have shipped the machine out if it hadn’t. It even worked pretty well… most of the time. But it had a few pretty serious issues that really only became apparent as users spent some quality time with the machine. Even before the release of the MK3S and its physical removal of the sensor, many users had simply opted to turn the optical sensor off in the firmware settings due to issues that simply became too common to ignore.
The first and most obvious problem was that the sensor had occasional difficulties seeing light colored filaments, and an even worse time with translucent ones. This alone wasn’t really a huge problem for many users; a quick stroll through Thingiverse will show you that most 3D printer owners stick with black, blue, or red filament to begin with. But as users put more time in on the MK3 and started using less common colors, it became clear that not all filament was equal in the eyes of the printer.
Unfortunately, the second issue further compounded the problem. While there was a clear attempt to recess the sensor into the extruder body, dust still managed to find its way in. To a degree this was unavoidable, as the gears of the extruder invariably generate bits of plastic dust as they do their thing. The official maintenance procedure
advised users to keep an eye out for dust and particle buildup around the extruder gears
, but it doesn’t mention checking the sensor. While removing the sensor and cleaning it without tearing the whole extruder apart isn’t terribly difficult, it’s not what anyone would call user friendly. It’s certainly not the sort of thing you’d do on a whim, especially if there’s no mention of it in the maintenance guidelines.
Optical filament sensor from the author’s Prusa i3 MK3. Note debris accumulation after two years.
After awhile, this coating of dust would start to impact the sensor’s ability to see the filament. Problems that you ran into only occasionally started becoming daily occurrences. You might notice that inserting filament into the extruder wouldn’t always trigger the auto-load function, requiring you to engage it manually. In the worst case, the printer could suddenly decide that the filament had disappeared and stop the print. This was annoying enough if you were in the same room with it, but if you did long prints overnight or while you were out of the house, it could be a huge waste of time.
Back to the Drawing Board
Amending the maintenance procedure to have users remove and clean the optical sensor every few months could have helped the situation, but frankly, it would have been a stopgap measure at best. Clearly the sensor wasn’t up to the challenge. The accuracy wasn’t high enough even under ideal conditions, and it introduced a weak spot in what was otherwise a workhorse. It had to go. But what would replace it?
The new sensor in action.
In the end, Prusa Research went with a compromise. The sensor in the MK3S is still optical, but it isn’t looking at the filament this time. When filament is inserted into the extruder, it pushes back a small metal ball which in turn moves a lever that interrupts a beam of light. When the filament is no longer pushing on the ball, the force of two opposing magnets return the lever to its original position.
With no springs or mechanical switch to get gummed up to wear out, the new sensor is expected to last much longer than the original version. At the same time, the pressure put on the filament itself is light and consistent enough that it shouldn’t have any impact on print quality.
The obvious downside is that the sensor can no longer tell if the filament is moving, only that it’s physically present. So should the hotend become clogged or the spool jammed, the filament will grind inside the extruder and the print will fail. But this doesn’t mean Prusa has given up on solving the problem; the company has since decided that the best way to combat jams and clogs is to
produce their own in-house filament with higher physical tolerances
. The theory is that if the feed material is properly sized and formulated, there will be no reason for the printer to choke on it.
For the larger 3D printing community, it’s unfortunate that Prusa’s advanced filament sensor didn’t work out. Though even in failure, it does serve as an important engineering lesson. It’s a reminder that sometimes the simplest approaches really are the best, and that just because a piece of hardware works on your test bench doesn’t mean it’s going to survive the realities of everyday use. | 78 | 33 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284637",
"author": "Alex Rossie",
"timestamp": "2020-10-08T14:15:21",
"content": "Ah the ol’ buy from us solution. Years of owning ink jet printers has made me cynical about buying printing consumables from printer manufacturers I guess that is leaching over from 2D to 3D printing.... | 1,760,373,329.465843 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/08/3d-printed-mini-macbook-with-a-raspberry-pi-heart/ | 3D Printed Mini MacBook With A Raspberry Pi Heart | Tom Nardi | [
"Mac Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"3D printed enclosure",
"apple",
"macbook",
"magsafe",
"miniature"
] | Do you like the sleek look of Apple’s laptops? Are you a fan of the Raspberry Pi? Have a particular affinity for hot glue and 3D printed plastic? Then you’re in luck, because
this tiny “MacBook” built by serial miniaturizer [Michael Pick] features all of the above
(and a good bit more) in one palm-sized package. (Video link, embedded below.)
Getting the LCD panel and Raspberry Pi 4 to fit into the slim 3D printed case took considerable coaxing. In the video after the break, you can see [Michael] strip off any unnecessary components that would stand in his way. The LCD panel had to lose its speakers and buttons, and the Pi has had its Ethernet and USB ports removed. While space was limited, he did manage to squeeze an illuminated resin-printed Apple logo into the lid of the laptop to help sell the overall look.
The bottom half of the machine has a number of really nice details, like the fan grill cut from metal hardware cloth and a functional “MagSafe” connector made from a magnetic USB cable. The keyboard PCB and membrane was liberated from a commercially available unit, all [Michael] needed to do was model in the openings for the keys. Since the keyboard already came with its own little trackpad, the lower one is just there for looks.
Speaking of which, to really drive home the Apple aesthetic, [Michael] made the bold move of covering up all the screws with body filler after assembly. It’s not a technique we’d necessarily recommend, but gluing it shut would probably have made it even harder to get back into down the line.
We’ve previously seen
[Michael] create a miniature rendition of the iMac
and
an RGB LED equipped “gaming” computer
using many of the same parts and techniques. He’ll have to start branching off into less common machines to replicate soon, which reminds us that
we’re about due for another tiny Cray X-MP
. | 14 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284601",
"author": "Hugo",
"timestamp": "2020-10-08T12:08:12",
"content": "Apple Pi",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6284744",
"author": "BrightBlueJim",
"timestamp": "2020-10-08T18:10:32",
"content": "... | 1,760,373,329.179772 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/08/3d-printed-scara-arm-with-3d-printer-components/ | 3D Printed SCARA Arm With 3D Printer Components | Danie Conradie | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"arduino",
"processing",
"robot arm",
"scara"
] | One of the side effects of the rise of 3D printers has been the increased availability and low cost of 3D printer components, which are use fill for range of applications. [How To Mechatronics] capitalized on this and built a
SCARA robot arm
using 3D-printed parts and common 3D-printer components.
The basic SCARA mechanism is a two-link arm, similar to a human arm. The end of the second joint can move through the XY-plane by rotating at the base and elbow of the mechanism. [How To Mechatronics] added Z-motion by moving the base of the first arm on four vertical linear rods with a lead screw. A combination of thrust bearings and ball bearings allow for smooth rotation of each of the joints, which are belt-driven with NEMA17 stepper motors. Each joint has a microswitch at a certain position in its rotation to give it a home position. The jaws of the gripper slide on two parallel linear rods, and are actuated with a servo. For controlling the motors, an Arduino Uno and CNC stepper shield was used.
The arm is operated from a computer with a GUI written in Processing, which sends instructions to the Arduino over serial. The GUI allows for both direct forward kinematic control of the joints, and inverse kinematic control, which will automatically move the gripper to a specified coordinate. The GUI can also save positions, and then string them together to do complete tasks autonomously.
The base joint is a bit wobbly due to the weight of the rest of the arm, but this could be fixed by using a frame to support it at the top as well. We really like the fact that commonly available components were used, and the link in the first paragraph has detailed instructions and source files for building your own. If the remaining backlash can be solved, it could be a decent light duty CNC platform, especially with the small footprint and large travel area.
This is very similar to a
wooden SCARA robots
we’ve seen before, except that one put the Z-axis at the gripper. We’ve also seen a few
3D printers
and
pen plotters
that used this layout. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,373,329.505523 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/07/an-impressive-modular-mold-box/ | An Impressive Modular Mold Box | Kristina Panos | [
"how-to",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"3D printed mold",
"captive nut",
"modular mold",
"mold box"
] | Prolific maker and product designer [Eric Strebel] has years of experience making reusable mold boxes for silicone and resin casting. He’s always used 3/4″ plywood before, but it comes with some problems such as inaccuracy, screws that eventually slip out, and no room at all for expansion. Now [Eric] has decided to devise
a modular mold box system
that’s so awesome, it’s even stack-able. Check out the design and build process in the video after the break.
[Eric] took advantage of additive manufacturing and made fancy trapezoidal walls with recessed bits that allow for the magic that this modular system hinges on — a handful of M6 socket cap screws and matching nuts for tensioning. Once the prints were ready, [Eric] pounded the nuts captive into the walls and marked fill lines every 10mm. As usual, [Eric]’s video comes with bonus nuggets of knowledge, like his use of a simple card scraper to clean up prints, smooth the sides, and chamfer all the edges.
If you want to mold stuff like concrete and plaster,
you may be better off using flexible filament
. | 26 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284571",
"author": "qwerty",
"timestamp": "2020-10-08T07:43:19",
"content": "I’d say it looks like a good first iteration. I’d go with some sort of a lip and groove joint, coupled with fewer bolts and maybe a way to grow the box sideways instead of only up. The angled sides work we... | 1,760,373,329.637201 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/07/developing-an-open-source-electronics-trainer/ | Developing An Open Source Electronics Trainer | Tom Nardi | [
"classic hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"breadboard",
"educational",
"electronics kit",
"microcontroller",
"trainer"
] | It’s a safe bet that most Hackaday reader’s interest in electronics started at a young age, and that their early forays into the world of hardware hacking likely involved some form of “playground” kit. As long as you didn’t lose any of the components, these kits promised the user that hundreds of possible projects were just a few jumper wires away. Extra points awarded for when you decide to toss away the manual and fly solo.
While there’s still no shortage of such products on the market, [Josh Kittle] felt the concept could do with a freshening up.
His open hardware “Microcontroller Trainer” harkens back to those old multi-kits
, but adds in the sort of high-tech gadgetry that makes the modern DIY world go round.
It’s still got the traditional layout: a center mounted breadboard surrounded by an array of LEDs, a handful of buttons, and a pair of potentiometers. But there’s also sockets for the Raspberry Pi, ESP8266, ESP32, and Arduino. Plus a few of their most popular friends to keep them company: a .96″ OLED, 2.4″ Touch TFT, and a BC05 Bluetooth module.
Originally [Josh] created this design to help clean up his own workspace, figuring he could just put his most used components on a single compact board. But as you might expect, others expressed interest in the concept.
Now he’s producing them as kits
, and even
working his way towards a third hardware revision
that adds features such as an integrated 18650 battery for portable use.
While
electronics kits that have you build a functional device
are a great way to learn the ropes, we’re always glad to see
fresh takes on the classic electronic “playground” concept
. | 26 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284537",
"author": "dendad",
"timestamp": "2020-10-08T03:03:21",
"content": "That looks like a great way to start into Electronics. Also, just a very handy development system.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6284538",
... | 1,760,373,329.57525 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/07/portable-printer-is-a-top-notch-high-school-project/ | Portable Printer Is A Top Notch High School Project | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"Octoprint",
"portable 3D printer"
] | When we think 3D printers, we most commonly think of the fused-deposition modelling type that squirts molten plastic out of a hot nozzle. Typically, these are tabletop units designed to be set up and used in a workshop environment. [BingoFishy] dared to think outside the box however,
and whipped up a compact, portable 3D printer for working out on the road.
The printer is almost entirely self-contained, running an OctoPrint controller with built-in hotspot which allows print files to be sent to the unit over a smartphone. The motion platform is built out of DVD drive stepper motors and rails, with dual motors used on the Z-axis to ensure there’s enough torque to move smoothly. Power is courtesy of 26650 cells, in a 2S3P configuration, which provides 3 hours of runtime. While this might not sound like much, for a compact printer with a small build volume, it’s a useful period of time to work with.
While such a build will never replace a solid desktop unit with a large build volume, it nevertheless could come in handy for producing small parts out in the field. We can imagine a college robotics team toting one of these to a regional contest, where it could prove invaluable for whipping up some bushings after something breaks unexpectedly.
The finish of the project is great
, too,
though we’ve seen great results from less-polished builds in the past as well
. Video after the break.
For my high school summer project, I designed and built the world’s most portable 3D printer
from
3Dprinting | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284509",
"author": "davidfloren@gmail.com",
"timestamp": "2020-10-07T23:45:53",
"content": "Under the “N”: nautilus",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6284514",
"author": "Inhibit",
"timestamp": "2020-10-08T00:18:20",
... | 1,760,373,329.679552 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/07/official-teardown-gives-unexpected-look-into-ps5/ | Official Teardown Gives Unexpected Look Into PS5 | Tom Nardi | [
"Playstation Hacks",
"Slider",
"Teardown"
] | [
"cooling",
"game console",
"heatsink",
"playstation",
"PlayStation 5",
"sony"
] | With Sony and Microsoft still a month away from the public release of their next-generation game consoles, you’d expect technical details of their respective systems to still be under a veil of secrecy. But both companies look to be taking things a bit differently this generation, as it becomes increasingly clear that modern consumers are interested in what makes their devices tick. Today, Sony really threw down the gauntlet by beating the tech media to the punch and
posting their own in-depth teardown on the new PlayStation 5
.
Unsurprisingly, the video after the break is almost entirely in Japanese. But even if you don’t know the language, there’s plenty of interesting details to be had. For one thing, the heatsink and fan that cools the PS5’s AMD CPU and GPU are collectively so massive that they appear to take up most of the console’s internal volume.
In fact, the heatsink itself is so large that the motherboard is actually mounted
to
it instead of the other way around. So if you want to take out the board, you have to unbolt it from the heatsink and remove it first. In the process you’ll expose the unique liquid metal thermal compound that Sony apparently developed specifically for this application. Good luck to you if any dust gets in that expensive-looking goop.
It’s also interesting to note that, unlike the previous two generations of Sony consoles, the PS5 has no discrete hard drive. Instead, onboard flash with a custom controller is used to provide 825 GB of storage for software. Hopefully Sony has put the requisite amount of R&D into their wear leveling, as a shot flash chip will mean a whole new motherboard. That said, gamers with extensive collections will be happy to see there appears to be an expansion bay where you can install your own M.2 drive.
Between this and the recent PS4 assembly line tour
, it’s refreshing to see a company like Sony be a bit more transparent. After years of adversarial treatment from the tech giants, we’d almost forgotten that the customer is supposed to be king. | 65 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284445",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2020-10-07T20:08:43",
"content": "The “liquid metal” is likely to about as metallic as the thermal pastes named “sliver something” or “whatever silver”. I know marketing when I see it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies... | 1,760,373,329.787513 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/07/aruna-an-open-source-rov-for-affordable-research/ | Aruna: An Open Source ROV For Affordable Research | Tom Nardi | [
"Science",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2020 Hackaday Prize",
"rov",
"submersible",
"the hackaday prize",
"underwater"
] | Underwater exploration and research can be exceedingly dangerous, which is why remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) are so commonly used. Operators can remotely command these small submersibles to capture images or collect samples at depths which would otherwise be unreachable. Unfortunately, such technology comes at a considerable price.
Believing that the high cost of commercial ROVs is a hindrance to aquatic conservation efforts,
[Noeël Moeskops] has been developing an open source modular ROV he calls Aruna
. Constructed largely from off-the-shelf components and 3D-printed parts, the Aruna promises to be far more affordable than anything currently on the market. Hopefully cheap enough to allow local governments and even citizens to conduct their own underwater research and observations.
More than just the ROV itself, Aruna represents an entire system for developing modular underwater vehicles. Whether you decide to build the boilerplate ROV documented and tested by [Noeël], or implement individual components into your own design, the project is a valuable source of hardware and software information for
anyone interested in DIY underwater robotics
.
The
Hackaday
Prize2020
is Sponsored by: | 19 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284426",
"author": "Jim Lux",
"timestamp": "2020-10-07T18:49:22",
"content": "A bunch of unanswered questions – the wiring is presumably temporary, since it looks like it would be easily snagged on things, but that’s just a cabling thing. I didn’t see much information on sealing –... | 1,760,373,329.847476 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/07/linux-fu-the-linux-android-convergence/ | Linux Fu: The Linux Android Convergence | Al Williams | [
"Android Hacks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Linux Hacks",
"Phone Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"android",
"linux",
"vnc"
] | The Android phone that you carry in your pocket is basically a small computer running Linux. So why is it so hard to get to a usable Linux environment on your phone? If you could run Linux, you could turn your cell phone into an ultra-portable laptop replacement.
Of course, the obvious approach is just to root the phone and clean-slate install a Linux distribution on it. That’s pretty extreme and, honestly, you would probably lose a lot of phone function unless you go with a Linux-specific phone like the PinePhone. However, using an installer called AnLinux, along with a terminal program and a VNC client, you can get a workable setup without nuking your phone’s OS, or even having root access. Let’s see what we can do.
AnLinux
AnLinux takes advantage of the fact that Android is really Linux underneath. It lets you mount an image file that contains a root file system from any of several distributions including Ubuntu, Kali, Fedora, CentOS, OpenSuse, Arch, Alpine, and others. In addition to creating a script that does a chroot to “mount” the image, the installer also uses PRoot to simulate root access.
PRoot intercepts any calls you make that would normally require root access and makes them work in the current context. It uses the
ptrace
system call to effectively debug your software in order to do this. With PRoot, you can do things like a chroot without being root and PRoot also provides fake user permissions on your pseudo-file system.
AnLinux itself isn’t a big program. It installs operating system images and creates scripts that can start the environment for you. Then you’ve got a fake Linux computer running inside your Android phone while Android is still running. Simply connect to it from the outside Android OS using a terminal program or a VNC viewer, and you’re good to go.
Sounds kludgey, and it is, but it also works. Is it perfect? No. Some things need real root access to work. But it does work surprisingly well if you temper your expectations.
What You Need
Obviously, you are going to need an Android device. It must run at least Lollipop, but it can be a 32- or 64-bit Arm or x86 device. You’ll also need a lot of free storage for the disk image, so an SDCard or a big device is pretty important.
You’ll also need:
AnLinux
(easy to install from
Google Play
)
Termux
(also on
Play
)
VNC Client (I suggest
VNC Viewer
)
Bluetooth keyboard (optional)
Bluetooth mouse (optional)
HDMI output cable for your phone (optional)
Termux and VNC Client are all you really need to access the fake Linux box. The last three items are creature comforts.
You’ll probably be happier with an external keyboard, even if it is a tiny foldable one. Bluetooth keyboards are the simplest way to go, although you could probably also use a USB host cable and a hub to plug in USB devices, but that’s less portable and I haven’t actually tested that theory.
An HDMI output cable gets you connected to a big display if you aren’t happy with your device screen. Still, the VNC client can zoom in and out, so it is workable without an external screen. At the least, you should have a kickstand or holder to keep the phone upright.
About the only hitch I’ve found is that the cables for video output don’t charge my phone at the same time, leaving it running on batteries. This isn’t true of all phones and maybe even not of all cables, so you might want to check if you can charge at the same time for longer sessions.
Getting Started
Once you install Termux, you can use it to get a normal terminal into your Android device. You aren’t root — well, you could be if you rooted your device, but I’ll assume you haven’t. The next order of business is to install an image for a Linux distribution.
To do that, open AnLinux and select the Dashboard from the menu. There are three buttons, but you’ll only be able to press the first one. When you push that button you can select what distros you want to install. It is possible to install more than one, but you’ll need lots of storage and you’ll have to repeat the steps for each one you want to install.
Once you select your distro, the other two buttons will light up. The second button lets you load the clipboard with the commands needed to download and install the Linux system. That will typically be some
pkg
commands, some
wget
commands, and a shell script to execute.
The third button launches Termux so you can paste the commands in the terminal window. Once it completes, you’ll find a shell script that allows you to launch the distro environment. The install will be minimal to save space. There are similar button setup screens to enable an
ssh
server, and set up various desktop environments. Once you’ve done the install, you don’t have to repeat it. You can simply open Termux and run the shell script to launch your fake Linux system.
Get Graphical
If you want to run a graphical environment, you just have to select the menu for desktop environment and push more buttons. Your choices will vary based on the distribution you are using. For Ubuntu, for example, you can select Xfce4, Mate, LXQt, or LXDE. You can do a similar set of steps to pick your favorite window manager, for example, Awesome or IceWM.
To start, you’ll have to use the script that the installer leaves to launch the distro. Then there’s another script to start a VNC server. The names of the scripts depend on what you install, but the AnLinux installer will tell you what you need to know.
After launching the VNC server, you connect your VNC viewer to the specified port the script mentions on the localhost address, and you’re inside the virtual Linux machine. Performance on my Pixel 2XL is really not bad, although it won’t replace my giant Linux desktop by any means.
Not a Toy
This might seem like a toy and, as I’ve said, it isn’t going to replace a real Linux box for most people. But sometimes you need to pull over on the side of the road and log into a server. Having a complete set of tools that you are used to can be helpful. Can you just install something like
JuiceSSH
and connect to the remote box directly? Of course. Or use VNC with a remote server. But if someone sends you an OpenOffice spreadsheet you need to look at on your phone and you want to use
sshfs
to mount your remote drive full of macros at the same time, this is the solution.
If you carry a small portable monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse, this could also stop you from having to lug around a laptop as much, too. Even more so when you are somewhere you can borrow all of those items. Sure it is a compromise, but it is workable and often better than having nothing with you. | 63 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284392",
"author": "Severe Tire Damage",
"timestamp": "2020-10-07T17:10:27",
"content": "It certainly isn’t lost on me that my phone is a heck of a lot more computer than what I used to have on my desktop not that many years ago. And for sure, linux is corked up deep inside. All... | 1,760,373,330.154035 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/07/raspberry-pi-crazy-guitar-rig-turns-you-into-a-hard-n-heavy-one-man-band/ | Raspberry Pi Crazy Guitar Rig Turns You Into A Hard ‘N Heavy One-Man Band | Sven Gregori | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"acoustic",
"guitar",
"guitar amp",
"guitar pedal",
"guitar pickup",
"one-man band",
"raspberry pi",
"SunVox"
] | It’s a common problem: you’re at a party, there’s a guitar, and your plan to impress everyone with your Wonderwall playing skills is thwarted by the way too loud overall noise level. Well, [Muiota betarho] won’t have that issue ever again, and is going to steal the show anywhere he goes from now on with his
Crazy Guitar Rig 2.0
, an acoustic guitar turned electric — and so much more — that he shows off in three-part video series
on his YouTube channel
. For the impatient, here’s
video 1
,
video 2
, and
video 3
, but you’ll also find them embedded after the break.
To
start off the series
, [Muiota betarho] adds an electric guitar pickup, a set of speakers, and an amplifier board along with a battery pack into the body of a cheap acoustic guitar. He then dismantles a
Zoom MS-50G multi-effect pedal
and re-assembles it back into the guitar itself with a 3D-printed cover. Combining a guitar, effect pedal, amp and speaker into one standalone instrument would make this already an awesome project as it is, but this is only the beginning.
RPi touch screen running SunVox, plenty of buttons, and integrated multi-effect pedal on the left
So,
time to add a Raspberry Pi
running
SunVox
next, and throw in a touch screen to control it on the fly. SunVox itself is a free, but unfortunately not open source, cross-platform synthesizer and tracker that [Muiota betarho] uses to add drum tracks and some extra instruments and effects. He takes it even further
in the final part
when he hooks SunVox up to the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins. This allows him to automate things like switching effects on the Zoom pedal, but also provides I/O connection for external devices like a foot switch, or an entire light show to accompany his playing.
Of course,
adding a magnetic pickup to an acoustic guitar
, or generally electrifying acoustic instruments
like a drum kit for example
, isn’t new. Neither is using a single-board computer
as effect pedal
or
as an amp in your pocket
. Having it all integrated into one single device on the other hand rightfully earns this guitar its
Crazy Guitar Rig
name.
(Thanks for the tip, [alex]!) | 18 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284380",
"author": "Carsten",
"timestamp": "2020-10-07T16:08:31",
"content": "Great project. And finally an actual application for a flexible LCD display!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6284389",
"author": "[EGO]",
"ti... | 1,760,373,329.909815 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/07/typhoon-tough-turbines-withstand-wild-winds/ | Typhoon-Tough Turbines Withstand Wild Winds | Kristina Panos | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"green hacks",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"Magnus effect",
"turbine",
"typhoon",
"vertical axis wind turbine",
"wind power"
] | It’s really beginning to feel as though the problem of climate change is a huge boulder rolling down a steep hill, and we have the Sisyphean task of trying to reverse it. While we definitely need to switch as much of the planet over to clean, green energy as soon as possible, the deployment should be strategic. You know, solar panels in sunny places, and wind turbines in windy places. And for the most part, we’re already doing that.
A test unit in Okinawa, Japan. Image via
Challenergy
In the meantime, there are also natural disasters to deal with, some of which are worsened by climate change. Eastern and Southeast Asian countries are frequently under the threat of typhoons that bring strong, turbulent winds with them. Once the storms pass, they leave large swaths of lengthy power outages in their wake.
Studies have shown that these storms are gaining strength over the years, leading to more frequent disruption of existing power systems in those areas. Wind power is the ideal solution where storms have come through and knocked out traditional power delivery all over a region. As long as the turbines themselves can stand up to the challenge, they can be used to power micro-grids when other delivery is knocked out.
Bring On the Typhoons?
Unfortunately, the conventional three-bladed wind turbines you see dotting the plains can’t stand up to the awesome power of typhoons. But vertical axis wind turbines can. Though they have been around for many years, they may have finally found their niche.
A Japanese startup called Challenergy wants to face the challenge of typhoons head on.
They’ve built a vertical axis wind turbine that’s built to not only to withstand typhoon-level winds, it’s designed to make the most of them
. Instead of horizontally-situated blades arranged like spokes or flower petals, these turbines have vertical cylinders that collect wind by harnessing the Magnus effect.
The Magnus effect, illustrated. Image via
Wikipedia
Put Some Spin On It
If you’ve ever put spin on a ping pong ball, or pitched a curve ball, you’ve put the Magnus effect in motion. This observable phenomenon was first recorded by German physicist Heinrich Gustav Magnus in 1852.
Magnus noticed that that path of a spinning object is deflected by the pressure differences in the air around it that are caused by the spinning. This deflection in the path from the expected arc would not be present without the spin, and so this deviation from the norm is now known as the Magnus effect.
Challenergy’s turbines feature three cylinders that are driven to spin with a motor. The motor induces the Magnus effect on the wind around the cylinders, and rotates the turbine to generate energy.
Vertical Integration
Like we said, vertical wind turbines themselves are nothing new.
They’ve been used to power ships
and airplanes for decades, and
we’ve even covered a few DIY versions
. For this application, though, the magic is in the high-speed winds of typhoons.
Besides being long-term usable in typhoon-infested regions, Challenergy’s turbine has several advantages. The cylinders can adjust to any wind direction, and there are flaps on the cylinders that can be adjusted to program the level of Magnus effect going on. They move ten times more slowly than traditional turbines, but as a result, they’re also less noisy and likely less of a threat to birds.
And technically, no, they’re not as efficient as regular three-bladers are because they require a ~10% energy investment to move the motor. When the typhoon hits, that’s when the payoff comes — the citizens can have emergency power immediately and don’t have to wait days or weeks.
Does Size Matter?
At 20m tall, Challenergy’s turbines are also much shorter than the 80-meter tall towers of traditional turbines in Japan. You can see the difference in the drone footage below.
Challenergy’s turbines generate a maximum 10 kilowatts compared to the maximum 3 megawatts put out by propeller turbines. But they don’t really need to be tall to harness typhoon winds or to be of great use to people. Even so, the company is planning to make a 50-meter tall version that will be capable of putting out 100 kilowatts.
A Challenergy turbine installed in Ishigaki, Okinawa, Japan has already had the chance to prove its mettle. Typhoon Mitag hit Japan in October 2019, and the turbine’s sensors recorded wind speeds close to 100 MPH (160 km/h), still safely below the 156 MPH (251 km/h) the company says they’re designed to withstand.
Challenergy founder and CEO Atsushi Shimizu was inspired by the 2011 tsunami that caused three meltdowns at the nuclear plant in Fukushima. Since then, the Japanese government has begun to turn away from nuclear power. Shimizu believes that the power generated from a single typhoon could power Japan for 50 years, though it’s unclear how many turbines that would take or how they would store the energy.
Liquid air batteries, perhaps?
For now, the government of the Philippines have signed on to buy seven of Challenergy’s turbines in order to make micro-grids with solar and diesel generators. Time will tell, and we’re anxious to see how the country fares once they’re up and running. | 25 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284365",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2020-10-07T14:58:15",
"content": "Always great to see advances in renewable energy projects. However, to actually reverse climate change inside a century we will need to utilize nuclear energy to remove CO2 from the air. SMRs are our bes... | 1,760,373,330.225045 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/07/keep-your-youtube-habits-to-yourself-with-freetube/ | Keep Your YouTube Habits To Yourself With FreeTube | Sven Gregori | [
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"anonymity",
"data mining",
"electron app",
"privacy",
"youtube"
] | If your usual YouTube viewing selection covers a wild and random variety of music, tech subjects, cooking, history, and anything in-between, you will sooner or later be baffled by some of the “Recommended for you” videos showing up. When it features a ten-hour mix of Soviet propaganda choir music, you might start wondering what a world taken over by an artificial intelligence might actually look like, and realize that your browser’s incognito / private mode really isn’t just for shopping birthday presents in secret. Things get a bit tricky if you actually enjoy or even rely on the whole subscribing-to-channels concept though, which is naturally difficult to bring in line with privacy in today’s world of user-data-driven business models.
Entering the conversation:
the FreeTube project
, a cross-platform application whose
mission
is to regain privacy and put the control of one’s data back into the user’s hands. Bypassing YouTube and its player, the watch history and subscriptions — which are still possible — are kept only locally on your own computer, and you can import either of them from YouTube and export them to use within FreeTube on another device (or back to YouTube). Even better, it won’t load a video’s comments without explicitly telling it to, and of course it keeps out the ads as well.
Originally,
the Invidious API
was used to get the content, and is still supported as fallback option, but FreeTube comes with its own extractor API nowadays. All source code is available from
the project’s GitHub repository
, along with
pre-built packages
for Linux (including ARM), Windows, and Mac. The application itself is created using Electron, which might raise a few eyebrows as it packs an entire browser rendering engine and essentially just disguises a website as standalone application. But
as the FAQ addresses
, this allows easy cross-platform support and helps the project, which would have otherwise been Linux-only, to reach as many people as possible. That’s a valid point in our book.
Keep in mind though, FreeTube is only a player, and more of a wrapper around YouTube itself, so YouTube will still see your IP and interaction with the service. If you want to be fully anonymous, this isn’t a silver bullet and will require additional steps like using a VPN. Unlike other services
that you could replace with a local alternative
to avoid tracking and profiling, content services are just a bit trickier if you want to actually have a useful selection. So this is a great compromise that also just works out of the box for everyone regardless of their technical background. Let’s just hope it won’t break too much
next time some API changes
. | 43 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284316",
"author": "socksbot",
"timestamp": "2020-10-07T11:16:58",
"content": "An I the only one who’s happy with YouTube’s recommendations? If anything, the ones I get for music videos have too many repeats from my history.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [... | 1,760,373,330.303097 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/07/hacking-a-netgear-router/ | Hacking A Netgear Router | Al Williams | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"firmware",
"firmware dump",
"hacking",
"jtag",
"netgear",
"openwrt",
"reverse engineering",
"uart"
] | Have you ever wanted to watch someone reverse engineer a piece of hardware and pick up some tips? You can’t be there while [Jeremy] tears open a Netgear N300 router, but you can see his process
step by step
in some presentation charts, and you’ll get a few ideas for the next time you want to do something like this.
The first part of the presentation might be a little basic for most Hackaday readers, but presumably, the intended audience might not know much about soldering or multimeters. But we enjoyed the methodology used to work out the UART pins on the board. We would have read the baud rate with the scope, which [Jeremy] does, but he also mentions a
script
to work it out and create a minicom profile that looked interesting.
The router runs OpenWRT, so once you have access to the UART, you are in as root. Getting into the bootloader allowed access to the firmware. At first, [Jeremy] though he found a JTAG interface, but it didn’t work. He suspects the JTAG is disabled, but shows how he would dump the firmware from another device that does have JTAG. He also shows how you could dump the flash chip directly. Fair warning: it required removing the device from the PCB.
Once you have the firmware, there are tools to extract the root file system and even emulate the running system. Then you no longer have a hardware problem, you have a software problem, and that’s where [Jeremy] leaves it.
We were impressed with the completeness of the presentation and how each step provided multiple methods. Sometimes, as you can see, one method doesn’t work and you need to try an alternative.
You can hack
other types of devices
using similar techniques. Even
games
. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284341",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2020-10-07T13:33:24",
"content": "Nitpick warning!“At first, [Jeremy] though he found a JTAG interface, ”^thought^B^)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6284343",
"author": "Ren",
... | 1,760,373,330.354594 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/06/toddler-arcade-cabinet-is-a-stand-up-job/ | Toddler Arcade Cabinet Is A Stand-Up Job | Kristina Panos | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"arcade",
"mdf",
"raspberry pi",
"retropie",
"reuse",
"vga"
] | A few years ago, [Mark] built an arcade cabinet into a low table. But once his new gaming buddy [Grayson] came along and started crawling, it wasn’t practical to have a low, pointy table around. Trouble is, [Mark] had already given [Grayson] his first taste with a Thomas the Tank Engine game.
Since the kid was hooked, [Mark] rebuilt the table arcade into a toddler-sized arcade cabinet that they can both use
.
The brain — a Raspberry Pi running RetroPie — should be familiar to most of our readers. [Mark] found the perfect crappy old monitor when they were upgrading at his office, and found some nice speakers to give it good bass. We love the details like the chrome edging, and especially the kick bar/footrest along the bottom. It can be difficult to decide how to decorate a multi-arcade cabinet, so [Mark] went the sticker bomb route with 700 of them randomly distributed and safe from toddler wear and tear under five coats of clear wood varnish.
We think this looks great, especially since [Mark] doesn’t have a workshop and cut all that MDF by hand on a jigsaw in the kitchen. Check out the happy train engineer after the break.
Maybe once [Grayson] is old enough to break tablets, [Mark] can build a gaming tab-inet out of it
. Just sayin’.
https://thestevensonlife.co.uk/g2.mp4 | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284293",
"author": "BT",
"timestamp": "2020-10-07T07:52:59",
"content": "It’s a slippery slope. HAD October 6, 2022: [Mark] builds a slightly bigger arcade cabinet.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6284298",
"author": ... | 1,760,373,330.398158 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/06/getting-started-with-geometric-algebra-for-robotics-computer-vision-and-more/ | Getting Started With Geometric Algebra For Robotics, Computer Vision And More | Maya Posch | [
"Robots Hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"geometric algebra",
"inverse kinematics",
"vector algebra"
] | [Hugo Hadfield] wrote to let us know about an intriguing series of talks that took place in February of this year at GAME2020, on the many applications of geometric algebra. The video playlist of these talks
can be found here
along with the first video embedded after the break. For those of us who did not take advanced algebra during university, one can picture geometric algebra (GA) as
an extension of vector algebra
, adding more algebraic structures.
The essential difference is that GA adds a new vectors product, called the ‘geometric product’. The Cliff’s Notes version is that this is very useful for doing for example transformations, like in 3D spaces. For a quick algebraic introduction to GA for those familiar with vector algebra, the
associated biVector website
is helpful, from where one can also find additional information, software and other resources on getting started with GA.
These
talks
will take the viewer through the use of GA with robot kinematics (co-presented by [Hugo]), in astrophysics and AI. Definitely worth a watch, even algebra isn’t one’s strongest points. | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284260",
"author": "Pauline",
"timestamp": "2020-10-07T03:43:45",
"content": "Ahhh, I love the smell of Jacobians in the morning.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6284265",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2020-10-07T04:... | 1,760,373,330.550319 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/06/making-a-halloween-costume-fit-for-2020/ | Making A Halloween Costume Fit For 2020 | Matthew Carlson | [
"Holiday Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"costume",
"face mask",
"halloween",
"kids",
"oled display",
"social distancing"
] | All across the country, parents are wondering what to do about the upcoming Trick Or Treat season. Measures such as social distancing, contact free treats, or simply doing it at home are all being weighed as a balance of fun and safety. [BuildXYZ] has decided to lean into the challenges this year and
incorporate a mask as part of the costume
for his boys.
It started with a 3d printed mask, printed in two halves, and sealed with silicon caulk and N95 filter material in the inlet and outlet holes on the sides. The real magic of the mask is the small OLED screen mounted to the front that works along with a small electret microphone inside the mask. By sampling the microphone and applying a rolling average, the Arduino Nano determines if the mouth drawn on the display should be open or closed. A small battery pack on a belt clip (with a button to flash “Trick or Treat” on the screen) powers the whole setup and can be easily hidden under a cape or costume.
This isn’t the first hack we’ve seen for Halloween this year, such as this
socially distant candy slide.
We have a feeling that there will be many more as the month rolls on and people start to apply their ingenuity to the season. | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284240",
"author": "Staple_nutz",
"timestamp": "2020-10-07T00:37:33",
"content": "No one in America should be trick or treating this year. You’ll kill grandma!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6284242",
"author": "dend... | 1,760,373,330.446217 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/06/making-a-modern-version-of-a-steam-engine-from-antiquity/ | Making A Modern Version Of A Steam Engine From Antiquity | Dan Maloney | [
"classic hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"engine",
"Hero of Alexandria",
"Heron",
"metalwork",
"reaction",
"steam",
"turbine"
] | Imagine traveling back in time about 2,200 years, to when nothing moves faster than the speed at which muscle or wind can move it. Think about how mind-shattering it would have been to see something like Hero’s Engine, the first known example of a steam turbine. To see a sphere whizzing about trailing plumes of steam while flames licked around it would likely have been a nearly mystical experience.
Of course we can’t go back in time like that, but seeing
a modern replica of Hero’s Engine built and tested
probably isn’t too far from such an experience. The engine, also known as an aeolopile, was made by the crew over at [Make It Extreme], whose metalworking videos are always a treat to watch. The rotor of the engine, which is fabricated from a pair of hemispherical bowls welded together, is supported by pipes penetrating the lid of a large kettle. [Make It Extreme] took great pains to make the engine safe, with relief valves and a pressure gauge that the original couldn’t have included. The aeolopile has a great look and bears a strong resemblance to descriptions of the device that may or may not have actually been invented by Greek mathemetician [Heron of Alexandria], and as the video below shows, when it spins up it puts on a great show.
One can’t help but wonder how something like this was invented without someone — anyone — taking the next logical step. That it was treated only as a curiosity and didn’t kick off the industrial revolution two millennia early boggles the mind. And while we’ve seen
far, far simpler versions
of Hero’s Engine before, this one really takes the cake on metalworking prowess. | 28 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284207",
"author": "CityZen",
"timestamp": "2020-10-06T20:38:04",
"content": "Now just add a sprocket by one of the bearings and see what you can power with it…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6284217",
"author": "Hirudinea... | 1,760,373,330.511551 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/06/gesture-controller-for-roku-and-universal-keyboard-built-by-ucpla-dream-team/ | Gesture Controller For Roku And Universal Keyboard Built By UCPLA Dream Team | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2020 Hackaday Prize",
"assistive device",
"Dream Team challenge",
"gesture control",
"keyboard",
"keypad",
"roku",
"UCPLA"
] | The coolest part of this year’s Hackaday Prize is teaming up with four nonprofit groups that outlined real-world challenges to tackle as part of the prize. To go along with this, the Dream Team challenge set out a two-month design and build program with small teams whose members each received a $6,000 stipend to work full time on a specific build.
The work of the Dream Team project is in, and today we’re taking a look at
United Cerebral Palsy of Los Angeles (UCPLA) project which not only designed and built a universal remote
for those affected with this condition, but also went to great lengths to make sure that “universal” was built into the software and user experience just as much as it was built into the hardware itself. Join us after the break for a closer look a the project, and to see the team’s presentation video.
UCPLA Dream Team Challenge
First, some background. Cerebral palsy is a permanent movement disorder that is usually identified in young children. It can cause a wide range of symptoms including stiff or weak muscles, coordination issues, or tremors, and symptoms can change over time. For such a wide array of effects, it can be difficult to design and implement effective tools that can cast a wide net over this community, which is what makes this build an interesting challenge.
Internals of the gesture-based input device an control Roku devices.
There were two prototyping designs that the UCPLA team worked to build. The first was a gesture-based remote and the second was an adaptive universal remote. Both had the intended purpose of interacting more easily with the digital world. Most remotes on the market that are intended to help those with cerebral palsy aren’t easily adaptable to people with different sets of needs, have limited options, or are too expensive. As a proof-of-concept, the UCPLA team wanted the remotes to be able to easily interface with a Roku device, while making sure that any builds would be scalable and easily adapted to other digital technology in the future. As a principle they would keep in mind future scalability to other platforms, but taking this first step with a Roku was a reachable goal for the short timeframe.
The gesture-based remote went through a number of design iterations in order to test its feasibility in real-world situations. It uses a microcontroller and accelerometer set to measure motion and then it reports that motion to a computer in the same way that a mouse would. Since it effectively emulates a mouse, the first prototype tests involved using it to draw a picture in Paint, and then to navigate some mazes. There were a lot of lessons learned from these tests, and the team was able to use the experience to build a second prototype. This one included a large pushbutton at the top for increased functionality and also sports a larger battery that allows it to last for 6-8 hours between charges.
Building a gesture remote is one thing, but making sure that it’s scalable and easy to use for its intended audience is another thing all together. The team from UCPLA went to great lengths to make sure that the device could be integrated into a hub of devices all able to control a large number of applications, rather than a single-path use that only allows the device to control one application at a time. This allows other user interfaces to be used alongside the gesture remote, and for those devices to control a wide variety of applications simultaneously. It also opens up possibilities for multiple interfaces to control the same device more easily. For the hub they chose a Raspberry Pi running
HassOS, a home assistant-focused operating system
.
The second part of this build was the adaptive remote control, which will also be able to integrate with their hub system as well. This remote started out as a custom keyboard paired with a small screen which would act as a “cheat sheet” so that the user could see what functions the keys had at any particular moment. The idea was that the functions could change quickly, but the team eventually dropped the screen from the build in favor of a more direct function mapping on the remote after the first round of testing. The focus here is still on scalability, so making sure that the device can connect to many different smart devices and not just a Roku is an important design consideration for this build as well. Building off of the lessons from the first set of prototypes, the current iteration is a 20-button remote with large red buttons that are backlit and also include haptic feedback when pressed. The remote is linked to an IR blaster for easy control of a television without needing line-of-sight with the remote itself.
Adaptability is the Whole Ballgame
An important note is that there are a number of design choices in these builds that allow the devices to adapt to the users, rather than the users having to adapt to use the devices. This is important in this community since those with cerebral palsy have varying conditions from person to person. The gesture remote, for example, can be calibrated to work on any body part that has the greatest amount of control or range of motion, including the head, and both remotes can easily be adapted for use with any smart devices with Internet (or even IR or radio) connections.
While the design teams focused on integrating with a Roku for this build with its two-month time limit, there are a number of future expansions planned for these devices. Many improvements are planned for both remotes, including battery upgrades and software tweaks to push the devices to ten hours on a single charge, updates to button design including the addition of a panic button, and potentially adding a joystick for easier toggling of modes. They also plan to address some wearability issues as well, since plenty of people may not be comfortable wearing a device like the gesture remote for ten hours in a row.
UCPLA
has done a great job with both of these remote controls, and as the largest cerebral palsy group in southern California they had an immense wealth of knowledge and experience available to help guide these builds in order to help the most people possible. While the two-month window is closed we are looking forward to further iterations of this hardware since it’s only possible to get better with such a solid foundation to work from.
The
Hackaday
Prize2020
is Sponsored by: | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,373,330.597407 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/06/3d-printering-wash-parts-better-and-make-solvent-last-longer/ | 3D Printering: Wash Parts Better And Make Solvent Last Longer | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"3D Printering",
"agitator",
"alcohol",
"disposal",
"diy",
"part washer",
"part washing"
] | SLA printing in resin is great, but part washing can be a hassle. The best results come from a two-stage wash, but that also means more material and more processing steps. Fortunately, there are ways to make it easier and more effective. One such way is to use a part washing machine, and I’ll cover a DIY option to make your own, but despite what the advertising implies for the commercial ones, a wash machine isn’t a cure-all.
Let’s go through how to get the best results from part washing, how to make the solvent last as long as possible, and how to dispose of the eventual waste.
Resin-Printed Parts Need Washing
All parts printed in resin emerge from the printer coated in syrupy, uncured goop. This needs to be removed completely, or the print ends up sticky and no amount of drying or additional UV curing will change that.
(There is a way to fix sticky prints
, but it’s better to avoid the situation in the first place.)
Simple part washing can be done with nothing more than a jar in which to rinse and soak a small part for about ten minutes, but agitation and a secondary wash will go a long way toward better and more consistent results. As mentioned, part washing machines like to present themselves as a one-appliance solution, but best results still come from a two-stage wash, and that means some additional steps.
One Wash Good, Two Washes Better
In a single wash, a part gets rinsed in a bath of solvent, usually isopropyl alcohol, and the resin rinsed away by this process ends up in the alcohol. As the concentration of resin in the solvent rises with each successive wash, it gets cloudier. After a while, parts start to come out sticky no matter how long they were rinsed, because they’re never completely clean. This happens for the same reason that one can’t properly clean dishes in dirty water. The solution is to replace the solvent entirely, and begin again.
In a two-stage wash, two separate solvent baths are used — a primary and a secondary — and the part spends an equal amount of time in both. The primary bath removes the bulk of the uncured resin, and then the part is moved directly to a secondary bath for a final rinse, after which it should be nice and clean. Most of the uncured resin ends up in the primary wash, with the remainder coming off in the secondary.
Formlabs’ finishing kit has two basins, for a two-stage wash. [
image credit
: Formlabs]
The reason two washes are better is simple: washing away
most
of the uncured resin in a first pass makes the secondary rinse more effective. Two washes also means that the solvent in the primary gets dirty faster, but that’s okay because its job is only to get
most
of the uncured resin washed away. Dirty or cloudy alcohol can still do that just fine, with a somewhat longer rinse time to compensate for increasing levels of contamination. The secondary wash gets contaminated at a far slower rate, thanks to the primary wash doing most of the work.
As a result, a given volume of alcohol also lasts longer before it needs to be replaced. The dual-wash process is recommended by Formlabs; their finishing kit, pictured here, provides two containers for exactly this purpose.
A part washer machine, on the other hand, is only a single-stage wash. To perform a two-stage wash, either two machines or an additional manual wash in a separate container of solvent is needed.
Part Washer Options
A part washing machine can be a great quality-of-life improvement because they have handy basins and provide agitation of the solvent to improve results. Making one isn’t too hard, either. Here are a few commercial options available online, followed by a DIY option.
Curing and Washing Machine (CW1) by
Prusa
The CW1 is a multipurpose machine that combines washing, drying, and additional UV curing in a single machine. With the wash basin installed, it acts as a part washer. Remove the wash basin, and the UV LEDs mounted on the inside provide post-print curing for any models or resins that require it. This array of features comes at a price, and that price is $699 USD.
Form Wash by
Formlabs
The Form Wash currently clocks in at $499 USD and is aimed at day-in-day-out use. It has a large basin that holds around eight liters for automated washing, with smooth integration into Formlabs’ workflow and their line of SLA resin printers. It can, however, be used on its own just fine.
Wash & Cure Machine by
Anycubic
Anycubic’s machine offers part washing and curing similar to Prusa’s CW1. With the wash basin installed, it is a part washer. With the basin removed, the UV LEDs perform additional curing. It’s not as refined of a device, but at a regular price of $219 USD, the cost is the lowest option by far.
A single part washer is still only a single-stage wash. For dual washing, the luxury option would be to buy
two
part washers, but it’s also an option to make your own.
A DIY Part Washer
3D-printed grill standoff (red, above the spinning stir bar) keeps prints away from moving parts.
The DIY route is simple, and centers around using a cheap magnetic stirrer from Amazon or your favorite overseas seller.
Choose a clear container for the solvent that can seal completely and will fit your largest prints. Clear is important, because it is of great practical use to be able to see inside the container. Fill it with solvent, sit it on top of the magnetic stirrer, and drop in the stir bar. Turn on the stirrer, and the stir bar will spin and agitate the solvent.
However, the spinning stir bar will smack into anything placed into the alcohol with it. To prevent this, an object resembling a grid or coarse mesh will act as a standoff, preventing objects from falling through and touching the stir bar. This part can easily be 3D printed in any filament that doesn’t mind being submerged in alcohol, like PLA for example.
My 3D-printable design for a standoff grill is available here
and it can be easily resized to accommodate different containers. This allows container size to be arbitrary; visit the dollar store and choose whatever container is convenient, and print a standoff grill to fit. The only downside is that very small parts may fall through the holes, so for them it is best to suspend them it in the bath with a thin wire.
With this DIY design, two-stage part washing is simple: just buy an additional container, add a stir bar and 3D-printed standoff grill, and label one as primary and the other as secondary. There is no need to remove the grill or stir bar between washes. For storage, just seal the container.
Making The Solvent Last Even Longer
The primary wash liquid will get dirty and cloudy much faster than the secondary. This can be compensated for to some extent by an increased wash time, but eventually it will be necessary to change it out. When that happens, set the container aside and let it settle for a week, then pour off the (mostly clear) portion on top for re-use in another primary wash. Pour the cloudy lower portion into a clearly labeled container for eventual disposal.
The secondary wash will stay clean longer, but eventually it too will get dirty and need to be swapped out. When this happens, break out some fresh new alcohol for a new secondary wash. As for the old secondary liquid, just re-label it as a new primary wash. It might be too contaminated to use for finishing, but it’s still plenty good for primary washing.
Here is a visual example of how much heavier contamination can be in the primary versus the secondary wash. (These basins were used to clean parts printed in a grey resin, and the grill has been removed from the primary, but the stir bar left behind.)
Dirty primary basin after settling one week. Grill was removed to make eventual pour-off easier.
The result of gently moving the stir bar with a dental pick. If fully mixed, the liquid would be opaque.
Here is the secondary wash after similar agitation. The secondary is visibly less contaminated.
With a two-stage wash that reclaims alcohol by pouring off the primary after it settles, a given volume of solvent lasts even longer.
Disposal
Nobody likes to talk about it, but sooner or later the “for disposal” container will get too full.
If there is a local option for disposing of hazardous waste, the hands-off option is to label it as isopropyl alcohol that contains photopolymer resin (i.e. it has some plastic dissolved in it) and let the experts take care of it. To dispose of smaller amounts, pour into a disposable tray and leave it outdoors in sunlight. The alcohol will evaporate away and the resin left behind will eventually cure into a filmy, brittle mass that can be disposed of like any other plastic garbage.
Resin printing is great but requires added work and post-processing
, so be sure to get the most from it by using a dual wash and making sure the solvent gets used as efficiently as possible. Do you have your own tips for better washing or easier post-processing? We want to hear it, so let us know in the comments. | 21 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284180",
"author": "morgan",
"timestamp": "2020-10-06T17:46:40",
"content": "At one of our local spaces they us UV to ‘cure out’ the cleaning bins. I don’t do much SLA but it appears to work very well. We have a curing chamber large enough to fit all of the cleaning bins. Leave the... | 1,760,373,330.662924 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/06/scratch-built-xy-table-gets-the-job-done/ | Scratch-Built XY Table Gets The Job Done | Danie Conradie | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"linear motor",
"welding",
"workshop from scratch",
"xy table"
] | Unless you have one large pile of cash to burn through, properly equipping a workshop can take years of burning through little piles of cash. Whether to save a bit of cash or simply for the challenge, [Workshop from Scratch] is doing exactly what his channel name suggests, and
his latest project is a XY table
. (Video, embedded below.)
A XY table, or cross table, allows a workpiece to be translated in two dimensions, usually on a drill press or milling machine. On a drill press they make repetitive task like drilling a series of holes simpler and quicker. [Workshop from Scratch] built most of the frame with steel flat bar, and the moving parts run on ground steel rods with linear bearings. Lead screws with hand wheels are used to translate the table.
A machine like this requires the opposing plates of each table to be perfectly aligned, which [Workshop from Scratch] achieved by spot welding the matching plates together and drilling them in one operation. He also added T-slot top surface, created by welding wide flat bar on top of narrower flat bar.
With the lack of dials, it doesn’t look like it’s meant for precision work, but we would still be interested to know how repeatable the lead screw positioning is. Regardless, it’s still a useful addition to the shop.
[Workshop from Scratch] is building a rather impressive collection of DIY tools, including a
magnetic vise
(that he already used with the XY table),
magnetic drill press
and a
hydraulic lift table
. We look forward to seeing what’s next on the list. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284169",
"author": "pmichaelh",
"timestamp": "2020-10-06T16:49:52",
"content": "Looks nice, but seems like a lot of work when you already have a mill in your shop.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6284188",
"author": "arnold... | 1,760,373,330.703436 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/06/welcome-to-solar-cycle-25-our-sun-enters-a-new-11-year-period/ | Welcome To Solar Cycle 25; Our Sun Enters A New 11-Year Period | Dan Maloney | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"coronal mass ejections",
"magnetic pole",
"Solar Cycle",
"Solar Cycle 25",
"sunspots"
] | Most of us perceive time as an arrow, a one-way trip into the future. And while that’s true, nature has a way of interpolating circular patterns onto that linear model — day follows night, the seasons progress through the year, and generations are born, live, and die after creating the next generation to do experience the same cycles in the future.
Our star, too, follows this cyclical model, and goes through observable, periodic changes that are of keen interest to solar scientists. So it was with some fanfare that they recently announced that the sun had transitioned into Solar Cycle 25. But what exactly does that mean? Does the Sun’s changing face make much difference to the average person’s daily life? History shows that it can, so it pays to know what we’re in store for over the next couple of decades. Welcome to your primer on Solar Cycle 25.
It Goes to Eleven
For as long as scientists have had the ability to (safely) observe the Sun, they’ve noticed that our star is not the perfect glowing orb it at first appears to be. Galileo was among the first to observe that the Sun was marked by small dark imperfections. Observers began to keep track of these sunspots, noting not only their variable number but the fact that they migrate across the Sun’s surface with time.
It would take almost two and a half centuries for anyone to notice that the periodic nature of the patterns of sunspots. German scientist Samuel Heinrich Schwabe is credited with the discovery of the solar cycle in 1843 after 17 years of observations of the average number of sunspots. Swiss scientists Rudolf Wolf used the observations of Schwabe and others to backtrack through the data back to 1755. For solar science purposes, this was designated the year that Solar Cycle 1 started.
Cycles of sunspots for the last 400 years. The earliest data is estimated from geological and tree-ring records. By Robert A. Rohde,
CC BY-SA 3.0
The cycle these pioneering solar scientists had discovered has a remarkably regular eleven-year period. The range of variation is very tight, from the nine-year period of Solar Cycle 2 (1766 to 1775) to almost fourteen years for Solar Cycle 4 (1784 to 1798). Each solar cycle is reckoned from a solar minimum, essentially when the sunspot number reaches its local low. The number of sunspots increases over the first half of the cycle, peaking at the solar maximum point before turning down again to head for the next solar minimum.
The raw number of sunspots is not the only interesting cycle the Sun displays. The distribution of sunspots across the Sun’s surface also changes periodically with the solar cycle. At the beginning of each solar cycle, what few sunspots there are tend to cluster at the Sun’s equator. As the cycle progresses and the Sun becomes more active, the sunspots tend to pop up further away from the equator, generally clustering around the mid-latitudes around 30° north and south. As solar maximum passes, sunspots again migrate back to the equator to start the cycle again.
Flipping Magnetic Poles
The periodic changes in the number and distribution of sunspots may be an interesting observation, but what does it mean here on Earth? To help understand that, it pays to recall that despite their dark appearance, sunspots are only marginally cooler than the surrounding solar material. Sunspots are still extremely energetic areas, and as the number of sunspots increases, the output of the Sun (in terms of luminosity) increases.
Sunspots represent places where concentrated lines of magnetic force emerge from deep within the Sun’s interior. Thus a change in the number and location of sunspots reveals changes in the magnetic field of the Sun. It turns out that what’s behind the solar cycle is these periodic changes in the Sun’s magnetic field. (It’s important to note here that the eleven-year cycle is technically the “sunspot cycle,” and the 22-year pole-flipping cycle is the true “solar cycle,” but it’s common practice to use “Solar Cycle” for both.)
The magnetic poles of the Sun are constantly in motion, with the north and south poles flipping every eleven years. At solar minimum, the magnetic poles are roughly aligned with the Sun’s orbital axis, and magnetic lines of force tend to penetrate the photosphere near the equator. As the poles rotate towards the equator, magnetic activity picks up, magnetic lines of force move to high latitudes, increasing the number of sunspots there. The process continues for the back half of the solar cycle as the poles complete their reversal.
So, as each solar cycle progresses due to the migration of the Sun’s magnetic field, solar output increases. Fractional though these changes are, they have obvious implications for life on Earth. But the increasing brightness of our Sun is far from the only impact felt here. The changing magnetic field of the Sun can also have a huge impact on our planet.
What Happens Next?
It’s well known that increased sunspots are associated with stronger and more frequent coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. These events, sometimes energetic in the extreme, occur when magnetic domains in the Sun become so twisted and contorted that they erupt outward, picking up gigatons of highly excited plasma from the Sun’s corona. If the CME occurs in just the right spot on the Sun’s surface, the violently ejected tangle of magnetic flux and plasma can strike the Earth, causing anything from an increase in auroral displays to the catastrophic destruction of infrastructure.
While destructive CMEs are more likely to occur during solar maxima — the
1859 Carrington Event
occured near the peak of Solar Cycle 10, and the
1989 Hydro-Québec disaster
was about seven months before the peak of Solar Cycle 22 — it’s far from a rule that they only occur then. Plenty of damaging or potentially dangerous CMEs have occurred during solar minima. But the number of CMEs goes up dramatically with the sunspot number, so that the Sun launches a few large outbursts each day during a solar maximum. Simply increasing the number of shots increases the chances of a devasting strike.
While the increased risk of Earth-striking CMEs during solar maximum is a concern, it’s important to keep in mind a few things. First, solar maximum is still about five years away; NASA says that
Solar Cycle 25 officially began in December of 2019
, meaning we’re still very much in solar minimum conditions. Second, not all solar cycles are created equal. Layered on top of the eleven-year solar cycle are
other periodic cycles
that we’re only beginning to understand. One is the Gleissberg Cycle, an 87-ish-year cycle where the solar maxima of the eleven-year cycle tend to increase and decrease. We’re currently in the decreasing phase of the Gleissberg Cycle, meaning that the just-completed Solar Cycle 24 had a much lower solar maximum than the previous cycle.
The current prediction
is that Solar Cycle 25 will be about the same intensity as the previous cycle at solar maximum, and will reach solar maximum around July of 2025.
Source:
Space Weather Prediction Center-NOAA
The potential for a sleepy sun for the next eleven years is a “good news, bad news” thing. On the plus side, there’s a greatly reduced — but far from zero — risk of experiencing a catastrophic Earth-striking CME. That means less risk to our vulnerable infrastructure, both terrestrial in terms of the millions of miles of power and communications wires we’ve stitched together, and space-based, since satellites can be greatly impacted by space weather. On the other hand, amateur radio operators and others who depend on ionospheric skip for long-range radio communications, like marine operators, airlines, and the military, always get grumpy when the sun is less active, since fewer sunspots mean decreased ionization of Earth’s atmosphere.
In the end, the Sun is going to do what it does, regardless of how it impacts life here on Earth. All we can do is learn everything possible about the star at the center of our solar system, build good models to predict its behavior over time, and build systems that can withstand our star’s mood swings. | 45 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284161",
"author": "JoaoEB",
"timestamp": "2020-10-06T16:05:37",
"content": "Most of us perceive time as an arrow, a one-way trip into the future. And while that’s true, nature has a way of interpolating circular patterns onto that linear model — day follows night, the seasons prog... | 1,760,373,330.948393 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/06/hacker-has-robot-give-yubikey-the-finger/ | Hacker Has Robot Give Yubikey The Finger | Kristina Panos | [
"how-to",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"capacitive touch",
"stepper motor",
"wemos d1 mini",
"Yubikey"
] | [Bertrand Fan] is not a fan of the tiny, hard-to-actuate button on the average Yubikey. Before all that is 2020 occurred, [Bert] had the little 2FA nano-donglette plugged into a spare USB port on the side of their laptop so that it was always available wherever the laptop traveled. Now that working from home is the norm, [Bert] has the laptop off to the side, far out of reach.
A USB-C extension cable certainly made it more accessible, but did nothing for the actuation fail rate of the tiny button. Fed up by inconvenience and looking for a lockdown project,
[Bert] decided to make a button-pressing robot finger that’s driven by a spare key on their groovy TKL keyboard
.
It runs on a Wemos D1 mini and uses a small stepper motor to push a 3D-printed finger along a rack-and-pinion actuator. Since the Yubikey requires capacitive touch, [Bert] added a screw to the finger tip that’s wired to ground. Now all [Bert] has to do is press a decidedly cooler key to make the finger press the button for him. Check out a brief demo after the break.
If this security flaw makes you uncomfortable,
perhaps this 2FA launch console is more to your liking
. And as we saw recently, if you don’t like the cost of Yubikeys,
you can roll your own 2FA device with a blue pill
.
https://bert.org/assets/posts/yubikey/full.webm | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284116",
"author": "Delgir",
"timestamp": "2020-10-06T13:14:56",
"content": "I can just imagine Uri Tuchman making this from brass.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6285020",
"author": "Soulslider",
"timestamp": "2020-10... | 1,760,373,330.998493 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/06/clock-is-not-readable-by-humans/ | Clock Is Not Readable By Humans | Bryan Cockfield | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"clock",
"ESP32",
"led matrix",
"qr code",
"reader",
"second",
"smartphone",
"unreadable"
] | Not every build needs to be immediately useful or revolutionary. Plenty of builds are just for fun, for education, or even purposefully useless but still challenging. This clock, for example, might fit into all three categories.
It’s a clock that displays time through a QR code
, making it completely inscrutable unless you have a device which likely has its own readable clock on it already.
The QR Code clock comes to us from [Aaron] and is based on the now-ubiquitous ESP32 WiFi chip. The ESP32 is connected to a 64×64 LED matrix which is updated every second with a code for the current time. With single-second resolution that means that even with a method for reading a QR code by hand, like you sometimes can with barcodes, there’s no way to read it without a smartphone since it changes so rapidly.
Of course [Aaron] recognizes the flaw in his design in his video in which he notes tongue-in-cheek that with this clock you would never have to look at a smartphone again, since the clock is right there on the wall. We appreciate the humor and also that [Aaron] has made all of his source code available in case you would like to use this as an example project for using QR codes for more useful purposes. For now, though, we’ll just forward you along to some other
useless machines
.
Thanks to [willmore] for the tip! | 28 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284057",
"author": "Ib Palle Krabbenhøft",
"timestamp": "2020-10-06T08:22:51",
"content": "Strangely, image won’t scan even with the most tolerable scanner apps",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6284140",
"author": "Rea... | 1,760,373,331.067408 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/05/baseball-cap-mouse-provides-a-look-and-click-interface/ | Baseball Cap Mouse Provides A Look-And-Click Interface | Lewin Day | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"hat",
"mouse"
] | Once upon a time, the computer mouse didn’t exist. Early computers used a variety of other input devices, from the typical keyboard to more esoteric options such as joysticks or light pens. While the mouse as we know it dominates all, it doesn’t mean other tools can’t find their place.
One such device is this hat mouse
, from [Jacek Fedorynski].
The mouse consists of an Adafruit Feather nRF52840 Sense, mounted upon a basic baseball cap. The development board packs in a 9 degree-of-freedom motion sensor package featuring the ST LSM6DS33 acceleromater/gyro and LIS3MDL magnetometer. Through a robust sensor fusion algorithm, this enables the board to measure the orientation and motion of the wearer’s head with a great degree of finesse. This allows the user to look at different parts of the screen to move the mouse cursor, with the system working in an absolute rather than relative fashion. Commands are sent to the attached PC with the Feather’s built-in Bluetooth, avoiding the need for dangly cables running down the user’s neck.
Files are available on Github for those eager to spin up their own.
Combined with some built-in accessibility aids in Windows, the setup allows the user to move the mouse well, with foot switches used to activate the left and right mouse buttons. For those who find using a traditional mouse difficult, this could be a great tool for better productivity. Of course, if you wish to learn more,
it pays to take a look back at the very earliest days of mouse technology
. Video after the break. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284055",
"author": "Jan Ciger (@janoc200)",
"timestamp": "2020-10-06T08:06:07",
"content": "Someone has reinvented TrackIR. Or Freetrackhttps://www.free-track.net/english/Those use a webcam instead of an IMU but the idea is the same. And it sucks pretty bad as an input method – yo... | 1,760,373,331.105331 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/05/graphene-generates-a-little-power/ | Graphene Generates A Little Power | Al Williams | [
"News",
"Science"
] | [
"graphene",
"power",
"science"
] | We never know exactly what to make of university press releases, as we see plenty of them with breathless claims of new batteries or supermaterials, but then we don’t see much else. Sometimes, the claims in the press release don’t hold up in the paper, while other times the claims seem to be impractical for use in real life. We aren’t quite sure what to make of a press release from the University of Arkansas claiming they can draw current from
a sheet of freestanding graphene purely from its temperature fluctuations
.
The press release seems to claim that this is a breakthrough leading to “clean, limitless power.” But if you look at the actual paper, normal room temperature is causing tiny displacements in the graphene sheet as in Brownian motion. A scanning tunneling microscope with two diodes can detect current flowing even once the system reaches thermal equilibrium. Keep in mind, though, that this in the presence of a bias voltage and we are talking about nanometer-scale displacements and 20 pA of current. You can see a simple video from the university showing a block diagram of the setup.
It seems that the news here is that current is flowing in a thermally stable system without violating the second law of thermodynamics. The innovation, apparently, is the idea of using two diodes to harvest both positive and negative fluctuations. Not much power, though. The press release talks about millions of these tiny circuits could serve as a low-power battery replacement.
There are still some pretty mysterious comments in the press release about the change in resistance of the diodes adds “an extra factor to the power,” and that “switch-like behavior of the diodes actually amplifies the power delivered…” We will have to wade through the math in the paper to see if we can figure out what any of that means.
We hear about exciting new things
graphene will do
all the time. We just don’t see it much in the wild, at least not yet. All this talk of graphene and diodes made us remember that you can create
PN junctions in graphene
. | 49 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284016",
"author": "Mark Topham",
"timestamp": "2020-10-06T02:24:53",
"content": "Did they do enough to shield it from outside RF for their tests?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6284183",
"author": "qwert",
"... | 1,760,373,331.269109 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/05/spare-smd-storage-with-stacking-smt-tape-reels/ | Spare SMD Storage, With Stacking SMT Tape Reels | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"part storage",
"smd",
"smt",
"spare parts",
"storage",
"tape reel"
] | [Kadah]’s
solution for storing short tapes of SMT parts
is as attractive as it is clever. The small 3D-printed “tape reels” can double as dispensers, and stack nicely onto each other thanks to the sockets for magnets. The units come in a few different sizes, but are designed to stack in a consistent way.
We love the little touches such as recessed areas for labels, and the fact that the parts can print without supports (there are a couple of unsupported bridges, but they should work out fine.) Also, the outer dimensions of the units are not an accident. They have been specifically chosen to nestle snugly into the kind of part drawers that are a nearly ubiquitous feature of every hardware hacker’s work bench.
STLs are provided for handy download but [Kadah] also provides the original Fusion 360 design file, with all sizes defined as easily-customized parameters. In addition, [Kadah] thoughtfully provided each model in STEP format as well, making it easy to import and modify in almost any 3D CAD program.
Providing 3D models in STEP format alongside STLs is nice to see, because it gives more options to people if things need some tweaking, because
editing the STL file can be done if needed, but isn’t optimal
. Thankfully the ability to export STEP files is still open to hobbyists using Fusion 360, since
Autodesk decided to leave that feature available to personal use licenses
. | 10 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283995",
"author": "InverseInductor",
"timestamp": "2020-10-05T23:22:14",
"content": "Just needs the clips to mount it on a rail:https://hackaday.com/2019/11/07/3d-printed-magazines-tame-the-smd-tape-beast/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"... | 1,760,373,331.320833 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/05/dice-roller-keeps-germs-out-of-your-snake-eyes/ | Dice Roller Keeps Germs Out Of Your Snake Eyes | Kristina Panos | [
"Games",
"Microcontrollers",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"arcade button",
"continuous rotation servo",
"dice",
"dice roller",
"ESP8266",
"servo"
] | Do you need a to find a more sanitary way to roll the dice at your next socially-distanced board game gathering?
[CJA3D]’s pop-o-matic mason jar dice roller can roll the bones two different ways
— either by hitting that big, inviting arcade button, or though a web app that everyone can access on their own phones.
We think this looks great, and is a great reuse of a glass jar. The brains of this operation is an ESP8266, which drives a continuous-rotation servo underneath the dice. Push the button or use the web app and the servo disturbs the plate, moving the dice around.
Besides the sanitary aspect, one benefit of using the web app is that there are four different speed presets for the servo. As a bonus, [CJA3D] included the files for a pair of printed 6-sided dice. Click through to the project to see it in action.
We know you take games seriously, and so do we.
Just look at this dice roller that uses machine vision to ensure fairness
. | 5 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283953",
"author": "k-ww",
"timestamp": "2020-10-05T20:55:17",
"content": "Wouldn’t a IR sensor be more hygienic / contactless then an arcade button?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6283963",
"author": "paulvdh",
... | 1,760,373,333.463252 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/05/hardware-store-hydroponics/ | Hardware Store Hydroponics | Brian McEvoy | [
"green hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2020 Hackaday Prize",
"automatic gardening",
"gardening",
"grow",
"horticulture",
"hydroponics",
"HydroPWNics",
"NFT",
"Nutrient Film Technique",
"plant"
] | Science fiction movies often portray horticulture in the future, be it terrestrial or aboard spacecraft, with hydroponic gardens overflowing with leafy greens and brightly colored fruit. There is no soil, just clear water that hints at future-people creating a utopia of plant strains untethered from their earthly roots.
This star-faring food production method is not fiction if you forego the polycarbonate tubing, neon accent lights, and gardening robots. For his 2020 Hackaday Prize entry, [AVR] shares how he creates
a bed for sixteen plants with parts sourced at a nearby home-improvement store
. It may lack the visual pizzaz of the Hollywood versions, but it will grow soil-less crops on a hacker budget.
The starting point for this build is a sturdy wooden base. The PVC tubing and fence parts on top are light, but the water inside them will get heavy, and if you grow large plants, they become surprisingly heavy. Speaking of water, the sub-category of hydroponics this falls under is
Nutrient Film Technique
, or NFT, which uses a shallow stream of water laden with all the nutrients for plant growth. The square fence posts provide a flat top for mounting mesh cups where the plants grow and a flat bottom where the stream continuously flows. A basin and
pump
keep the
plants refreshed
and fed until they are ready for harvest.
The
Hackaday
Prize2020
is Sponsored by: | 34 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283939",
"author": "Matt Cramer",
"timestamp": "2020-10-05T19:53:37",
"content": "I’ve been starting to wonder why SF shows that appear to have a severe strawberry shortage don’t seem to have anybody turning to hydroponic gardening to deal with the problem. Perhaps one of the unfin... | 1,760,373,333.274149 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/05/teslas-new-tabless-batteries-unlock-new-levels-of-performance/ | Tesla’s New Tabless Batteries Unlock New Levels Of Performance | Lewin Day | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"green hacks",
"Slider",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"battery technology",
"lithium battery",
"Lithium-ion battery",
"tabless battery",
"tesla"
] | Telsa are one of the world’s biggest purchasers of batteries through their partnerships with manufacturers like Panasonic, LG and CATL. Their endless hunger for more cells is unlikely to be satiated anytime soon, as demand for electric cars and power storage continues to rise.
As announced at their Battery Day keynote
, Tesla has been working hard on a broad spectrum of projects to take battery technology to the next level in order to reach their goal of 3 TWh annual production by 2030. One of the most interesting aspects of this was the announcement of Tesla’s new tabless 4680 battery, which will be manufactured by the company itself. Let’s take a look at what makes the 4680 so exciting, and why going tabless is such a big deal.
Roll Up, Roll Up
A diagram showing a typical cylindrical cell design, with tabs to connect the anode and cathode to the cell casing. Source: Tesla
Tesla are somewhat unique among electric car makers in that they’ve resolutely stuck to using cylindrical cells in their battery packs, where other manufacturers have largely used prismatic designs. Beginning with the venerable 18650 popular with laptop manufacturers and flashlight builders, Tesla later moved on to using larger 21700 batteries, with the bigger form factor meaning each cell had greater capacity. To construct these cells, long, thin sheets of anode and cathode material are laid on top of each other with a seperator material in between, and then rolled up into a “jellyroll” to fit inside the cylindrical body. The anode and cathode each have a small tab, generally at the center of the rolled up sheets, which pass power to the terminals on the outer case of the battery.
These small tabs hold back cylindrical cells in a multitude of ways. They act as a bottleneck for current flowing in and out of the cell, as despite the huge area of the anode and cathode, all current flowing in and out of the battery must go through a pair of tabs just a few millimeters wide. Electrons from the outer areas of the jellyroll must travel a significant distance to reach the cell terminal, with an electrical path length up to 250 mm in 21700 cells. This greater path length means more resistance, with a corresponding effect on thermal performance. Additionally, the tabs frustrate efforts to effectively produce anode and cathode sheets at speed, with production machinery having to stop and start repeatedly to deal with the protruding features.
Tesla modelled the impact of cell size on charging times, which is a major problem with classical batteries using tabs. The new tabless design helps solve this issue thanks to improved thermal performance. Source: Tesla
Tesla had previously made gains in performance when shifting from 18650 cells to the larger 21700 design, but efforts to further increase cell size hit a brick wall. While larger cells can store more energy and deliver cost savings in production, thermal issues meant that charge times and discharge rates would be negatively impacted. Larger cells meant longer path lengths, with the higher resistance meaning less power output per cell and slower charging. Even with Tesla’s fast charge technology, many still consider electric cars to charge too slowly, so this was one tradeoff that wasn’t worth making.
The “shingled spiral” of the jellyroll in a tabless battery. Instead of one tab in the center of the jellyroll, the entire base enables current to flow to the active material. Source: Tesla
Enter “tabless” batteries. Rather than having a small battery tab attached to the anode and cathode respectively, the entire anode and cathode foils are laser-patterned and processed to have what are essentially many tiny tabs all along their length. Replaces the step of manually attaching separate tabs later in the manufacturing process.
When the anode, cathode and separator are all rolled up together, these many smaller tabs flatten out to form a “shingled spiral”, creating a much larger contact area between the active battery material and the casing. This means that the path length for electrons to travel is much reduced; Tesla quotes as much as a 5 times reduction compared to previous designs. This is due to the fact that electrons can now move directly towards the battery terminal, rather then having to take a more roundabout path to the center of the sheet first to reach the single-tab connection.
The end result is the 4680 cell, named for its 46 mm diameter and 80 mm length. This is a departure from the five-digit nomenclature, but nobody at Tesla could figure out why 18650 cells have the trailing zero, so the company eliminated it in the new cell’s designation. The new cells are claimed to contain 5 times the energy earlier designs due to their larger size. Even better, Tesla claim they can deliver up to 6 times the power, due to the reduced electrical path length of tabless construction enabling better thermal performance. Estimates are that the switch to 4680 cells in Tesla’s automotive packs could result in a range gain of as much as 16% — an impressive number given the automaker’s already impressive numbers in this area. For example, the upcoming
Model S Plaid
claims to have a range of 520 miles
using the 4680 cells.
The new 4680 cell from Tesla. It follows the naming scheme of the 18650, except dropping the trailing zero as nobody at the company could determine what it meant. Source: Tesla
The new design brings production benefits, too. By laser-patterning the anode and cathode for direct connection, rather than attaching separate tabs, the materials can be handled through continuous roll processing, not dissimilar from techniques in paper production. This promises huge gains in production speed, with machinery able to move at continuous high speeds rather then having to continually accelerate and decelerate for tab attachment to each anode and cathode sheet. Tesla’s goals to produce more batteries to meet demand are not practically achievable with current production techniques, so improvements in processing and production speed are key to solving this problem. This will also lead to reductions in cost, which is a major part of the company’s effort to produce a more accessible electric vehicle at the $25,000 price point.
These new cells, with their greater energy density and high power output, would appeal to a huge market of hackers and makers. However, the continual theme throughout Tesla’s keynote was that they simply can’t source enough batteries to meet their needs as it is. We suspect that it will be several years before tabless batteries hit the open market, as Tesla keeps its entire supply for its own internal use. Other manufacturers will likely scramble to develop similar technology due to the gains on offer, but this will take time, and in the meantime, individuals wanting the best cylindrical cells will have to wait for new Teslas to show up in their local wrecking yards.
The tabless technology announcement was just one piece of Tesla’s Battery Day announcements. Work is ongoing to make gains in other areas, such as anode and cathode chemistry, and production techniques, in order to meet the company’s lofty goals of increased battery production to meet worldwide demand. If electric transportation and Powerwall grid storage are to truly change the world, projects like these will have to pay off — otherwise we simply won’t have the batteries to put in the cars! | 104 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283872",
"author": "CodeReclaimers",
"timestamp": "2020-10-05T17:06:56",
"content": "Thanks for the plot with no y axis. :(",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6283880",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2020-1... | 1,760,373,333.156878 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/05/diy-lasers-hack-chat/ | DIY Lasers Hack Chat | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"Hack Chat",
"high voltage",
"laser",
"optics",
"pump",
"tunable"
] | Join us on Wednesday, October 7th at noon Pacific for the
DIY Lasers Hack Chat
with Les Wright!
It’s not too much of a reach to say that how we first experienced the magic of lasers sort of dates where we fall on the technology spectrum. For the youngest among us, lasers might have been something trivial, to be purchased for a couple of bucks at the convenience store. Move back a few decades and you might have had to harvest a laser from a CD player to do some experiments, or back further, perhaps you first saw a laser in high school physics class, with that warm, red-orange glow of a helium-neon tube.
But back things up only a few decades before that, and if you wanted to play with lasers, you had to build one yourself. It was a popular if niche hobby with a dedicated following of amateur physicists who scrounged around for the unlikely parts needed: ruby rods, quartz-glass tubes, and exotic dyes. Couple them together with high-voltage power supplies, vacuum pumps made from converted refrigerator compressors, and homemade optical benches, and if the stars aligned, these parts could be coaxed into producing a gloriously intense burst of light, which as often as not hooked its creator as a lifelong laser addict.
We’re not sure which camp Les Wright falls into, but from the content of
his growing YouTube channel
, we’d say he’s caught the laser bug. We recently took a look at
his high-performance nitrogen laser
, which he’s been having fun with as the basis for
a tunable dye laser.
Along the way he’s been necessarily mucking around with high-voltage power supplies, oscilloscopes, and the occasional robot or two.
Les will stop by the Hack Chat to talk about everything going on in his lab, with a focus on his laser experiments. Join us with your questions on DIY lasers, and stop by to pick up some tricks that might help you catch the laser bug too.
Our Hack Chats are live community events in the
Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging
. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, October 4 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. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283865",
"author": "Curtasian",
"timestamp": "2020-10-05T16:31:12",
"content": "Wednesday, October 4th ??Do you mean Wednesday, October 14th ??",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6283877",
"author": "Ren",
"times... | 1,760,373,332.960094 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/05/custom-tool-helps-hakko-set-threaded-inserts/ | Custom Tool Helps Hakko Set Threaded Inserts | Dan Maloney | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"brass",
"Hakko",
"heat-set",
"lathe",
"PLA",
"plastic",
"thread",
"threaded insert"
] | When the tool you need doesn’t exist, you have to make it yourself. Come to think of it, even if the tool exists, it’s often way more fun to make it yourself. The former situation, though, is one that [Sean Hodgins] found himself in with regard to threaded inserts. Rather than suffer from the wrong tool for the job, he machined his own
custom threaded insert tool
for his Hakko soldering iron.
Like many of us, [Sean] has embraced the use of heat-set threaded inserts to beef up the mechanical connections on his 3D-printed parts. [Sean] dedicated a soldering iron to the task, equipping it with a tip especially for the job. But it was the flavor of iron proverbially known as a “fire stick” and he found that this iron was too hot for PLA prints. As the new owner of a lathe, he was able to make quick work of the job using a piece of brass rod stock. Luckily, Hakko tips just slip on the heating element, so no threading operations were needed. [Sean] made insert tips for multiple sized inserts, and the results speak for themselves.
If you haven’t tried these out yet,
check out [Joshua Vasquez’s] excellent guide on heat-set inserts
. You’ll find
this guide
to the relative merits of the different types useful when ordering inserts. And if you’ve got the itch to buy a lathe now,
we’ve got you covered
there too. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283826",
"author": "DougM",
"timestamp": "2020-10-05T14:33:20",
"content": "Fancy and all, but I just turned down an old used up soldering tip.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6283827",
"author": "Cyna",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,373,333.205144 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/05/nvidia-announces-59-jetson-nano-2gb-a-single-board-computer-with-makers-in-mind/ | NVIDIA Announces $59 Jetson Nano 2GB, A Single Board Computer With Makers In Mind | Tom Nardi | [
"computer hacks",
"Featured",
"hardware",
"News",
"Slider"
] | [
"computer vision",
"CUDA",
"high performance computing",
"Jetson",
"Jetson Nano",
"machine learning",
"NVIDIA"
] | NVIDIA kicked off their line of GPU-accelerated single board computers back in 2014 with the Jetson TK1, a $200 USD development system for those looking to get involved with the burgeoning world of so-called “edge computing”. It was designed to put high performance computing in a small and energy efficient enough package that it could be integrated directly into products, rather than connecting to a data center half-way across the world.
The TK1 was an impressive piece of hardware, but not something the hacker and maker community was necessarily interested in. For one thing, it was fairly expensive. But perhaps more importantly, it was clearly geared more towards industry types than consumers. We did see the occasional project using the TK1 and the subsequent TX1 and TX2 boards, but they were few and far between.
Then came the Jetson Nano
. Its 128 core Maxwell CPU still packed plenty of power and was fully compatible with NVIDIA’s CUDA architecture, but its smaller size and $99 price tag made it far more attractive for hobbyists. According to the company’s own figures, the number of active Jetson developers has more than tripled since the Nano’s introduction in March of 2019. With the platform accessible to a larger and more diverse group of users, new and innovative applications for machine learning started pouring in.
Cutting the price of the entry level Jetson hardware in half was clearly a step in the right direction, but NVIDIA wanted to bring even more developers into the fray. So why not see if lightning can strike twice? Today they’ve officially announced that
the new Jetson Nano 2GB will go on sale later this month for just $59
. Let’s take a close look at this new iteration of the Nano to see what’s changed (and what hasn’t) from last year’s model.
Trimming the Fat
To be clear the new Jetson Nano 2GB is not a new device, it’s essentially just a cost optimized version of the hardware that was released back in 2019. It’s still the same size, draws the same amount of power, and has the exact same Maxwell GPU. In broad terms, it’s a drop-in replacement for the more expensive Nano. In fact, it’s so similar that you might not even be able to tell the difference between the two models at first. Especially since the biggest change isn’t visible: as the name implies, the new model only has two gigabytes of RAM compared to four in the original Nano.
The board has lost a few ports as part of the effort to get it down to half the original price, however. The Nano 2GB drops the DisplayPort for HDMI (the previous version had both), deletes the second CSI camera connector, does away with the M.2 slot, and reduces the number of USB ports from four to three. Losing a USB port probably isn’t a deal breaker for most applications, but if you need high-speed data, it’s worth noting that only one of them is 3.0. Overall, it seems clear that NVIDIA took a close look at the sort of devices that folks were connecting to their Nano and adjusted the type and number of ports accordingly.
Of course, the 40 pin header on the side remains unchanged so the new board should remain pin-compatible with anything you’ve already built. The Gigabit Ethernet port is still there, but unfortunately wireless still didn’t make the cut this time around. So if you need WiFi for your project, count on one of those USB ports being permanently taken up with a dongle.
It’s not just slimmed down, but updated as well. The 2GB removes the old school DC barrel jack and replaces it with a USB-C port. On the original Nano you could run it off of the micro USB port for most tasks, but it was recommended to use a laptop style power supply if you were going to be pushing the hardware. Now you can just use a 15 watt USB-C power supply and be covered in all situations.
A Tight Squeeze
Since the hardware is nearly identical between the two versions of the Nano, there’s really no point running any new benchmarks on it. If your software worked on the $99 Nano, it will run just as well on the $59 one. Or at least, that’s the idea. In reality, having only half the available RAM might be a problem for some applications.
NVIDIA sent me a review unit so as a simple test, I ran the
detectnet.py
script that makes up part of NVIDIA’s AI training course on the live video from a Logitech C270 camera. While the Nano maintained a respectable 22 to 24 frames per second, the system ran out of RAM almost immediately and had to dip into swap to keep up.
Naturally this is pretty problematic on an SD card
, and certainly not something you’d want to do for any extended period of time unless you happen to own SanDisk stock.
To help combat this, NVIDIA recommends disabling the GUI on the Nano 2GB and running headless if you’re planning on doing any computationally intensive tasks. That should save you 200 to 300 MB of memory, but obviously isn’t going to work in all situations. It’s also a bit counter-intuitive considering the default Ubuntu 18.04 system image boots directly into a graphical environment. It’ll be interesting to see if some lightweight operating system choices are offered down the line to help address this issue.
Rise of the Machines
It’s probably not fair to call the Jetson Nano 2GB a direct competitor to the Raspberry Pi, but clearly NVIDIA wants to close the gap. While the lack of built-in WiFi and Bluetooth will likely give many makers pause, there’s no question that the Nano will run circles around the Pi 4 if you’re looking to experiment with things like computer vision. At $99 that might not have mattered for budget-conscious hardware hackers, but now that the Nano is essentially
the same price as the mid-range Pi 4
, it’s going to be a harder decision to make.
Especially since NVIDIA is using the release of the new board to help
kick off the Jetson AI Certification Program
. This free self-paced source is comprised of tutorials and video walkthroughs that cover everything from the fundamentals of training up to practical applications like collision avoidance and object following. To complete the Jetson AI Specialist course and be granted the certification, applicants will have to
submit an open source project to NVIDIA’s Community Projects forum
for review and approval.
If you wanted to get your feet wet with AI and machine learning, picking up a Jetson Nano at $99 was a great choice. Now that there’s a $59 version that includes access to a training and certification program, there’s barely even a choice left to make. Which in the end, is exactly what NVIDIA wants. | 47 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283808",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2020-10-05T13:41:29",
"content": "I admit, the initial price of the Jetson kept me from even considering the purchase of one.Time will tell if one is in my future.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"com... | 1,760,373,333.36383 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/05/go-board-step-sequencer-lets-go-make-some-music/ | Making Music With A Go Board Step Sequencer | Adam Zeloof | [
"Games",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"board games",
"computer vision",
"max msp",
"maxmsp",
"music",
"open sound control",
"opencv",
"pure data"
] | Ever wonder what your favorite board game sounds like? Neither did we. Thankfully [Sara Adkins] did, and created a
step sequencer called Let’s Go
that uses the classic board game Go as input.
In the game Go, two players place black and white tokens on a grid, vying for control of the board. As the game progresses, the configuration of game pieces gets more complex and coincidentally begins to resemble Conway’s Game of Life (or a weird QR Code). Sara saw music in the evolving arrangement of circles and transformed the ancient board game into a modern instrument so others could hear it too.
To an observer,
[Sara’s]
adaptation looks fairly indistinguishable from the version played in China 2,500 years ago — with the exception of an overhead webcam and nearby laptop, of course. The laptop uses OpenCV to digitize the board layout. It feeds that information via
Open Sound Control (OSC)
into popular music creation software
Max MSP
(though an open-source version could probably be implemented in
Pure Data
), where it’s used to control a step sequencer. Each row on the board represents an instrumental voice (melodic for white pieces, percussive for black ones), and each column corresponds to a beat.
Every new game is a new piece of music that starts out simple and gradually increases in complexity. The music evolves with the board, and adds a new dimension for players to interact with the game. If you want to try it out yourself, [Sara] has the project fully documented on
her website
, and all of the code is available on
GitHub
. Now we’re just left wondering what other games sound like —
[tinkartank] already answered that question for chess
, but what about Settlers of Catan? | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6284011",
"author": "m",
"timestamp": "2020-10-06T01:32:12",
"content": "Very well done, surprised how fluid it sounds when adding new sounds",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6285458",
"author": "Dennis Ng",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,373,333.503549 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/05/minimal-tinyavr-0-programming/ | Minimal TinyAVR 0 Programming | Al Williams | [
"ATtiny Hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"Atmel",
"attiny",
"AVR",
"microchip",
"TinyAVR 0",
"UPDI"
] | When [Alain] wanted to use some of the new TinyAVR 0 chips — specifically, the Attiny406 — it seemed overkill to use the Windows IDE. There are plenty of sources of information on programming other AVR chips using simple command line tools, but not for these newer 0-series parts which use a new programming protocol known as UPDI. That led to a deep diving into
how to program a TinyAVR 0 with a text editor, makefile, and USB-to-serial cable
.
The Attiny406 has 4K of flash, 256 bytes of RAM and can run at 20 MHz with no external clock. You might think programming would be similar to a regular AVR part, but these tiny devices use UPDI (Unified Programming and Debug Interface) which uses 3 pins for programming. Older devices used
different protocols
.
It is very easy to create a UPDI programmer. A USB to logic-level serial cable and a 4.7K resistor is all it takes. There’s
Python code
that knows how to drive the protocol, too. You can also use the logic-level serial port on the Raspberry Pi with some device tree modifications explained in the code’s documentation.
[Alain] made a nice
breakout board for the device
. It fits a breadboard, allows for 5V or 3.3V operation, and has an LED and switch. Nothing fancy, but handy. Once you know how to ship a hex file to the chip, the rest is pretty standard. While the AVR version of gcc doesn’t cross-compile for the ATTiny out of the box, there is a
device pack
from Microchip that enables that feature.
The trend is to go to bigger processors, not smaller, but when you need to cram something in a small space, save a few pennies per unit, or draw
very little power
, these tiny processors can be just the ticket. The processors may be small, but if you work you can do
some pretty big things
with them. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283762",
"author": "Luca Ridolfi",
"timestamp": "2020-10-05T09:02:34",
"content": "I like these new AVR chips. For whoever is interested in programming the AVR 1 and 0 series using PlatformIO I wrote a similar guide here:http://www.bitbanging.space/posts/programming-attiny-1-series... | 1,760,373,332.908587 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/04/this-tabletop-lighthouse-will-get-your-attention/ | This Tabletop Lighthouse Will Get Your Attention | Kristina Panos | [
"digital audio hacks",
"home hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"assistive device",
"led",
"lighthouse",
"motor",
"Teensy 4.0"
] | If you wear headphones around the house with any regularity, you’re probably missing out on a lot of audio cues like knocks at the door, people calling your name, or maybe even the smoke alarm.
What if you had a visual indicator of sound that was smart enough to point it out for you?
That is the point of [Jake Ammons’] attention-getting lighthouse, designed and built in two weeks’ time for Architectural Robotics class. It detects ambient noise and responds to it by focusing light in the direction of the sound and changing the color of the light to a significant shade to indicate different events. Up inside the lighthouse is a Teensy 4.0 to read in the sound and spin a motor in response.
[Jake]’s original directive was to make something sound-reactive, and then to turn it into an assistive device. In the future [Jake] would like to add more microphones to do sound localization. We love how sleek and professional this looks — just goes to show you what the right t-shirt stretched over 3D prints can do. Check out the demo after the break.
Seaside lighthouses once used gas lights giant Fresnel lenses, but now they use LEDs.
A company in Florida is using CNC machines to crank out acrylic Fresnels
. | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283780",
"author": "Cricri",
"timestamp": "2020-10-05T11:04:57",
"content": ">It detects ambient noise and responds to it by focusing light in the direction of the soundSeeing the shape of the reflector, I’d think that “limiting” would be more accurate than “focusing”.",
"paren... | 1,760,373,333.013799 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/04/vizy-ai-camera-wants-to-make-machine-vision-less-complex/ | Vizy “AI Camera” Wants To Make Machine Vision Less Complex | Donald Papp | [
"Crowd Funding",
"digital cameras hacks",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"ai camera",
"charmed labs",
"imx477",
"kickstarter",
"machine vision",
"open source",
"vizy"
] | Vizy, a new machine vision camera from Charmed Labs,
has blown through their crowdfunding goal
on the promise of making machine vision projects both easier and simpler to deploy. The camera, which starts around $250, integrates a Raspberry Pi 4 with built-in power and shutdown management, and comes with a variety of pre-installed applications so one can dive right in.
The Sony IMX477 camera sensor is the same one found in
the Raspberry Pi high quality camera
, and supports capture rates of up to 300 frames per second (under the right conditions, anyway.) Unlike the usual situation faced by most people when a Raspberry Pi is involved, there’s no need to worry about adding a real-time clock, enclosure, or ensuring shutdowns happen properly; it’s all taken care of.
‘Birdfeeder’ application can automatically identify and upload images of visitors.
Charmed Labs are the same folks behind the
Pixy and Pixy 2
cameras, and Vizy goes further in the sense that everything required for a machine vision project has been put onboard and made easy to use and deploy, even the vision processing functions work locally and have no need for a wireless data connection (though one is needed for things like automatic uploading or sharing.) For outdoor or remote applications, there’s a weatherproof enclosure option, and wireless connectivity in areas with no WiFi can be obtained by plugging in a USB cellular modem.
A few of the more hacker-friendly hardware features are things like a high-current I/O header and support for both C/CS and M12 lenses for maximum flexibility. The IR filter can also be enabled or disabled via software, so no more swapping camera modules for ones with the IR filter removed. On the software side, applications are all written in Python and use open software like Tensorflow and OpenCV for processing.
The feature list looks good, but Vizy also seems to have a clear focus. It looks best aimed at enabling projects with the following structure:
Detect Things
(people, animals, cars, text, insects, and more) and/or
Measure Things
(size, speed, duration, color, count, angle, brightness, etc.)
Perform an Action
(for example, push a notification or enable a high-current I/O) and/or
Record
(save images, video, or other data locally or remotely.)
The Motionscope application tracking balls on a pool table. (Click to enlarge)
A good example of this structure is the
Birdfeeder
application which comes pre-installed. With the camera pointed toward a birdfeeder, animals coming for a snack are detected. If the visitor is a bird, Vizy identifies the species and uploads an image. If the animal is not a bird (for example, a squirrel) then Vizy can detect that as well and, using the I/O header, could briefly turn on a sprinkler to repel the hungry party-crasher.
A sample
Birdfeeder
photo stream is here
on Google Photos.
Motionscope
is a more unusual but very interesting-looking application, and its purpose is to capture moving objects and measure the position, velocity, and acceleration of each. A picture does a far better job of explaining what
Motionscope
does, so here is a screenshot of the results of watching some billiard balls and showing what it can do. | 9 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283728",
"author": "Digital and Analog I/O",
"timestamp": "2020-10-05T03:24:11",
"content": "Nice that it includes the Combicon (style?) connector for the digital and analog I/O. Those can be surprisingly expensive depending on who makes them.They say that “you can drive relays, so... | 1,760,373,333.416752 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/04/hackaday-links-october-4-2020/ | Hackaday Links: October 4, 2020 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"ai",
"curling",
"disaster recovery",
"failover",
"hackaday links",
"machine learning",
"Powerpoint",
"ransomware",
"RTOS",
"Ryuk",
"security",
"slide deck",
"stock exchange",
"sysadmin",
"systems",
"vxworks"
] | In case you hadn’t noticed, it was a bad week for system admins. Pennsylvania-based United Health Services, a company that owns and operates hospitals across the US and UK,
was hit by a ransomware attack
early in the week. The attack, which appears to be the Ryuk ransomware, shut down systems used by hospitals and health care providers to schedule patient visits, report lab results, and do the important job of charting. It’s not clear how much the ransomers want, but given that UHS is a Fortune 500 company, it’s likely a tidy sum.
And as if an entire hospital corporation’s IT infrastructure being taken down isn’t bad enough, how about
the multi-state 911 outage
that occurred around the same time? Most news reports seemed to blame the outage on
an Office 365 outage
happening at the same time, but
Krebs on Security dug a little deeper
and traced the issue back to two companies that provide 911 call routing services. Each of the companies is blaming the other, so nobody is talking about the root cause of the issue. There’s no indication that it was malware or ransomware, though, and the outage was mercifully brief. But it just goes to show how vulnerable our systems have become.
Our final “really bad day at work” story comes from Japan, where
a single piece of failed hardware shut down a $6-trillion stock market
. The Tokyo Stock Exchange, third-largest bourse in the world, had to be completely shut down early in the trading day Thursday when a shared disk array failed. The device was supposed to automatically failover to a backup unit, but apparently the handoff process failed. This led to cascading failures and blank terminals on the desks of thousands of traders. Exchange officials made the call to shut everything down for the day and bring everything back up carefully. We imagine there are some systems people sweating it out this weekend to figure out what went wrong and how to keep it from happening again.
With our systems apparently becoming increasingly brittle, it might be a good time to take a look at what goes into space-rated operating systems. Ars Technica has
a fascinating overview of the real-time OSes
used for space probes, where failure is not an option and a few milliseconds error can destroy billions of dollars of hardware. The article focuses on the RTOS VxWorks and goes into detail on the mysterious rebooting error that affected the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997. Space travel isn’t the same as running a hospital or stock exchange, of course, but there are probably lessons to be learned here.
As if 2020 hasn’t dealt enough previews of various apocalyptic scenarios, here’s what surely must be a sign that the end is nigh:
AI-generated PowerPoint slides
. For anyone who has ever had to sit through an endless slide deck and wondered who the hell came up with such drivel, the answer may soon be: no one. DeckRobot, a startup company, is building an AI-powered extension to Microsoft Office to automate the production of “company compliant and visually appealing” slide decks. The extension will apparently be trained using “thousands and thousands of real PowerPoint slides”. So, great — AI no longer has to have the keys to the nukes to do us in. It’ll just bore us all to death.
And finally, if you need a bit of a palate-cleanser after all that, please do check out
robotic curling
. Yes, the sport that everyone loves to make fun of is actually way more complicated than it seems, and getting a robot to launch the stones on the icy playing field is a really complex and interesting problem. The robot — dubbed “Curly”, of course — looks like a souped-up Roomba. After sizing up the playing field with a camera on an extendable boom, it pushes the stone while giving it a gentle spin to ease it into exactly the right spot. Sadly, the wickedly energetic work of the sweepers and their trajectory-altering brooms has not yet been automated, but it’s still pretty cool to watch. But fair warning: you might soon find yourself with a curling habit to support. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283702",
"author": "gregg4",
"timestamp": "2020-10-05T00:10:55",
"content": "@Dan Maloney, I did read the article that Ars Technica presented on the problems of bringing an RTOS to travel in space to the point where it works. It is an interesting read, and worth reading again. And... | 1,760,373,333.552059 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/04/skylight-in-any-room/ | Skylight In Any Room | Brian McEvoy | [
"Solar Hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2020 Hackaday Prize",
"daylight",
"hackaday",
"mirror",
"natural light",
"optical",
"reflection",
"servo",
"sun tacking",
"sunlight"
] | Despite a glut of introvert memes, humans need sunlight. If vitamin D isn’t your concern, the sun is a powerful heater, and it helps plants grow. Sadly for [mime], their house is not positioned well to capture all those yummy sunbeams. Luckily for us, their entry into the 2020 Hackaday Prize is their
sun-tracking apparatus
that redirects those powerful rays throughout the house. It uses a couple of mirrors to redirect the light around their shed and into the house. For those who work in a dim office, no amount of work is too great for a peek of natural sunlight.
Movie spoiler alert:
We saw this trick in the 1985 movie
Legend
and it was enough to vanquish the Lord of Darkness.
This project started in 2014 and sat on hiatus for more than five years, but it is back and prime for improvements fueled by half-a-decade of experience. The parts that aren’t likely to change are the threaded struts that adjust the positioning mirror’s angle, the driving motors, and power circuitry. Their first plan was to build a solar-powered controller with an Arduino, DC motors, and sun telemetry data, but now they’re leaning toward stepper motors and a computer in the house with a long cable.
They are a finalist this year
, so we will keep our eyes peeled for further development.
The
Hackaday
Prize2020
is Sponsored by: | 41 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283655",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp": "2020-10-04T20:28:40",
"content": "Isn’t most of the UV-B (source of vitamin D) blocked by the standard glass in most windows. Unless you are using a special, expensive, high temperature glass made from quartz as a window.",
"parent_id":... | 1,760,373,333.732227 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/04/porting-qmk-to-a-cheap-mechanical-keyboard/ | Porting QMK To A Cheap Mechanical Keyboard | Tom Nardi | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"mechanical keyboard",
"QMK",
"reverse engineering",
"st-link",
"SWD"
] | Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen an incredible number of DIY keyboard builds come our way. Some have had their switches nestled into laser-cut aluminum and others 3D printed plastic. They may be soldered together on a custom PCB, or meticulously hand-wired. But however they were built, they almost all shared one thing in common: they ran some variant of the open source QMK keyboard firmware.
But what if you just want to run an open firmware on the keyboard you picked up for $50 bucks on Amazon? That’s exactly where
[Stephen Peery] found himself nine months ago with this DK63 gaming keyboard
. Since so many of these small RGB LED mechanical keyboards are very similar to existing open source designs, he wondered what it would take to blow out the original firmware and replace it with a build of QMK.
While [Stephen] doesn’t have everything working 100% yet, he’s nearly reached the end of his epic reverse engineering journey. The first step was tearing apart the keyboard and identifying all the components it used, then pulling the original firmware out of the updater. From there,
between Ghidra and Serial Wire Debug
, he was able to figure out most of what the stock firmware was doing so he could replicate it in QMK.
According to his README, the RGB LEDs and Bluetooth functionality don’t currently work, but other than that it seems QMK is up and running. If you’re OK with those concessions, he has information on the page about flashing his build of QMK to the stock DK63 with the ST-Link V2 so you can give it a shot. Though you do so at your own risk; we wouldn’t recommend doing this on your only keyboard.
We’ve seen
commercially manufactured keyboards running QMK before
, but it usually involves
completely replacing the original controller with new electronics
. That [Stephen] got this all working on stock hardware so other owners can follow in his footsteps is really a considerable accomplishment.
[Thanks to Baldpower for the tip.] | 14 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283685",
"author": "CrossDraw",
"timestamp": "2020-10-04T22:51:49",
"content": "while i applaud this effort, i wonder if they aren’t woefully undervaluing their time… even at a paltry $10 an hour i bet he could have just bought a keyboard that can do QMK natively or even build one ... | 1,760,373,334.409728 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/04/an-led-cube-to-display-cpu-vitals/ | An LED Cube To Display CPU Vitals | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"cube",
"led",
"LED cube"
] | LED cubes are all the rage right now. High-end hardware capable of driving large arrays keeps getting cheaper in price, and 3D printers and pre-built boards can make assembly a snap. After attending a major hacker con and seeing the builds on display, [Sebastian] wanted a piece of the action,
so set out to build his own.
While many elect to build an LED cube you can hold in your hand, [Sebastian] preferred a stationary tabletop design. This would reduce costs, allowing him to only use 3 LED boards, as the base and remaining two sides would face away from him and not be visible when placed on his desk. The 64×64 arrays are driven by an Adafruit LED matrix bonnet on top of a Raspberry Pi 2. The Pi was a tactical choice, as [Sebastian] had one lying around, and it packed enough processing power to run an OpenGL shader that creates an image for the cube that varies with the CPU load and temperature on his main desktop. As a nice final touch, the Raspberry Pi is set up to have a read-only filesystem. This allows the project to be turned off suddenly without risk of corrupting the SD card.
It’s a tidy build, and one which gives [Sebastian] useful information at a glance.
We’ve featured a few stylish cubes before,
and
even a LED D20 that really breaks the bank.
Video after the break. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283630",
"author": "Olivier",
"timestamp": "2020-10-04T16:49:21",
"content": "That looks really nice!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6283886",
"author": "Jonathon R. Pershing",
"timestamp": "2020-10-05T17:37:... | 1,760,373,334.28041 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/04/teaching-an-old-lathe-new-tricks-by-handing-z-control-to-a-stepper/ | Teaching An Old Lathe New Tricks With A Programmable Power Feed | Adam Zeloof | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"cnc hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"cnc",
"lathe",
"machining",
"metal lathe",
"turning"
] | Ask anybody whose spent time standing in front of a mill or lathe and they’ll tell you that some operations can get tedious. When you need to turn down a stainless rod by 1/4″ in 0.030″ increments, you get a lot of time to reflect on why you didn’t just buy the right size stock as you crank the wheel back and forth. That’s where the lead screw comes in — most lathes have a gear-driven lead screw that can be used to actuate the z-axis ( the one which travels parallel to the axis of rotation). It’s no CNC, but this type of gearing makes life easier and it’s been around for a long time.
[Tony Goacher] took this idea a few steps further when he created the
Leadscrew Buddy
. He coupled a beautiful 1949 Myford lathe with an Arduino, a stepper motor, and a handful of buttons to add some really useful capabilities to the antique machine. By decoupling the lead screw from the lathe’s gearbox and actuating it via a stepper motor, he achieved a much more granular variable feed speed.
If that’s not enough, [Tony] used a rotary encoder to display the cutting tool’s position on a home-built Digital Readout (DRO). The
pièce de résistance is a “goto” command. Once [Tony] sets a home position, he can command the z-axis to travel to a set point at a given speed. Not only does this make turning easier, but it makes the process more repeatable and yields a smoother finish on the part.
These features may not seem so alien to those used to working with modern CNC lathes, but to the vast majority of us garage machinists, [Tony]’s implementation is an exciting look at how we can step up our turning game. It also fits nicely within the spectrum of lathe projects we’ve seen here at Hackaday- from the
ultra low-tech
to the
ludicrously-precise
. | 17 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283600",
"author": "fonz",
"timestamp": "2020-10-04T14:29:32",
"content": "https://youtu.be/7QaQrqn4yeI",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6283606",
"author": "dschie",
"timestamp": "2020-10-04T14:50:54",
"content": "Y... | 1,760,373,334.160571 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/04/cleaning-up-the-yard-with-ai-avian-intelligence/ | Cleaning Up The Yard With AI — Avian Intelligence | Dan Maloney | [
"Lifehacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"bird",
"bottlecap",
"food",
"magpie",
"operant conditioning",
"treat",
"vibratory"
] | Despite epithets like “bird-brain,” our feathered friends are actually pretty smart. Being able to maneuver in three dimensions at high speed must have something to do with it, and the cognitive abilities of birds are well-documented and still being researched. So it naturally makes sense to
harness avian brainpower to keep one’s yard clean
, right?
For the record, the magpies that [Hans] is training are very intelligent and strikingly beautiful birds who delight in swooping down to harass people, and who will gladly steal food from other birds and then poop on it and fly away. So they’re jerks, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be useful jerks. The goal with his BirdBox system is to use classic operant conditioning, where a desired voluntary behavior is reinforced by a reward. In this case, the reward is a treat dispensed by a 3D-printed vibratory dispenser when the bird collects a bottlecap from the yard and deposits it in the proper slot. The video below shows the birds doing exactly what they’re supposed to do.
[Hans] tells us that the trick is getting the birds to accept the BirdBox and to have them integrate it into their “patrol schematic” of their territory. Once that’s done, it’s a simpler matter to have them associate the bottlecaps with the reward. The other challenge is making everything bulletproof, or in this case magpie-proof. Did we mention that magpies are jerks?
The possibilities for trading peanuts for yardwork are endless; [Hans] mentions plans he has for fallen fruit clean-up, and mentions a persistent garden slug problem that the birds might be employed to remediate. If you want to try this, it might be a good idea to brush up on the work of
[B.F. Skinner] and his pigeons of war
. | 28 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283549",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2020-10-04T08:52:38",
"content": "For how many peanuts does a magpie work each day?Are their beaks big enough to collect wallnuts?Already years ago I read a similar story about using magpies to clean up public spaces such as parks. Don’t ... | 1,760,373,334.232127 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/03/indian-risc-v-chip-is-teams-third-successful-chip/ | Indian RISC-V Chip Is Team’s Third Successful Chip | Al Williams | [
"Microcontrollers",
"News"
] | [
"cpu",
"custom IC",
"IC fabrication",
"RISC-V",
"tapeout"
] | There was a time when creating a new IC was a very expensive proposition. While it still isn’t pocket change, custom chips are within reach of sophisticated experimenters and groups. As evidence,
look at the Moushik CPU from the SHAKTI group
. This is the group’s third successful tapeout and is an open source RISC-V system on chip.
The chip uses a 180 nm process and has 103 I/O pins. The CPU runs around 100 MHz and the system includes an SDRAM controller, analog to digital conversion, and the usual peripherals. The roughly 25 square mm die houses almost 650 thousand gates.
This is the same group that built a home-grown chip based on RISC-V in 2018 and is associated with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. We aren’t clear if everything you’d need to duplicate the design is in the
git repository
, but since the project is open source, we presume it is.
If you think about it, radios went from highly-specialized equipment to a near-disposable consumer item. So did calculators and computers. Developing with FPGAs is cheaper and easier every year. At this rate it’s not unreasonable to think It won’t be long before creating a custom chip will be as simple as ordering a PCB — something else that used to be a big hairy deal.
Of course, we see
FPGA-based RISC-V
often enough. While we admire [Sam Zeloof’s]
work
, we don’t think he’s packing 650k gates into that size. Not yet, anyway. | 20 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283536",
"author": "Vinalon",
"timestamp": "2020-10-04T08:21:28",
"content": "Very nice! And it’s cool to see a leadframe like that.Does it have an MMU?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6283554",
"author": "is0lated",
... | 1,760,373,334.097392 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/03/faster-desktop-ethernet-with-server-network-adapters/ | Faster Desktop Ethernet With Server Network Adapters | Lewin Day | [
"Network Hacks"
] | [
"ethernet",
"gsfp",
"pci express",
"PCI-E",
"qsfp+",
"sfp"
] | As far as consumer network hardware goes, we’re all expected to be pretty happy with 802.11n WiFi and Gigabit Ethernet over Cat 6 cables. For most home users, that’s plenty of bandwidth for streaming movies and posting K-pop fancams to Twitter on a daily basis. If you want a fatter pipe, things can get expensive, fast. However, [TobleMiner] found a way to use surplus server-grade cards in a regular PC –
providing huge bandwidth on a budget.
The adapter is designed to allow a FlexibleLOM card to fit into a regular ATX PCI-E card slot. A small additional bracket should be used to fix the card in place with the typical bracket retention screw.
HPE’s FlexibleLOM standard consists of a special edge connector on HPE servers that lets the end-user fit a variety of network adapters in a form factor designed specifically for blade and rack mount servers. At the electrical level, it’s simply PCI-Express 8x. FlexibleLOM network cards are built for high-speed data center use, often featuring SFP+ and QSFP+ interfaces capable of 10 gigabit and 40 gigabit speeds, respectively.
These cards can be had for under $20 on eBay, but won’t fit in a standard PCI-Express slot.
Enter [ToberMiner]’s adapter
, which hooks up the relevant PCI-Express lines to where they need to go, and mechanically adapts the FlexibleLOM hardware to fit in a regular ATX PC case.
It’s a great way to get server-grade network adapters in your home rig, without breaking the bank.
We’ve featured other attempts at high-speed home networking before, too.
If you’ve got the low down on a great way to get multi-gigabit speeds out of cheap surplus hardware,
you know who to call.
[Thanks to Marco for the tip!] | 31 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283500",
"author": "Webster Leone",
"timestamp": "2020-10-04T03:20:25",
"content": "Gosh, I wish I had Cat 6 in this home. I’m not even sure it’s even Cat 5e here, but even if they ran Cat 5 for the phone jacks I at least am getting gigabit off of one run.I could see using this in ... | 1,760,373,334.349101 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/03/receipt-printers-end-it-all-in-moving-art-piece/ | Receipt Printers End It All In Moving Art Piece | Lewin Day | [
"Art"
] | [
"art",
"art installation",
"art piece"
] | Art is something that is always hard to classify, but by and large is most celebrated when it stimulates an emotional response for the intended audience. We’d say [Alexander Miller] achieved that in spades, with his elegant piece
The Emergence and Decay of Computation.
An installation piece done for The School for Poetic Computation’s 2019 spring showcase, it consists of a series of receipt printers suspended from a height by their own paper. The thermal printers output a pattern from a cellular automata — a mathematical simulation that generates patterns that emerge from initial conditions, of which Conway’s
Game of Life
is perhaps the most popular. Fed data by an attached Raspberry Pi, as printing continues, the printers gradually lower themselves into a tank of water, permanently killing the hardware.
Watching a proud, brave printer slowly work itself into a watery grave is a sobering experience to any lover of stout commercial hardware, and one we won’t soon forget. What a shame to see them sacrificed so.
We love a good art piece around these parts, after all.
Especially when the hardware can be used in another project once the excitement of this one has waned. Video after the break. | 55 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283460",
"author": "CrossDraw",
"timestamp": "2020-10-03T23:14:21",
"content": "whats next doing one off the side of a skyscraper so when it reaches the end of the roll it drops to its death? some might consider this art i just consider it a waste of a pi/printer…",
"parent_id"... | 1,760,373,334.499254 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/03/sunshine-in-a-bag/ | Sunshine In A Bag | Brian McEvoy | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2020 Hackaday Prize",
"3d printer",
"collapsible",
"curing",
"portable",
"resin",
"stereolithography",
"ultraviolet",
"UV lamp"
] | Ultraviolet (UV) curing lamps are crucial if you have a resin 3D printer or work with UV adhesives. Some folks line an old Amazon shipping box with foil and drop a spotlight somewhere inside. Other folks toss their work under the all-natural light source, Sol. Both options have portability and reliability problems, but [AudreyObscura] has it covered with a
reflective mat lined with UV strip lights
. This HackadayPrize2020 finalist exemplifies the ideal that good ideas are often simple, and this has a remarkably short bill of materials.
Foil bubble insulation is the medium because it provides structure and reflectivity, but it doesn’t cooperate with the LED strip’s adhesive. [AudreyObscura] demonstrates that masking tape as an interfacing layer makes everyone play nicely. A fine example of an experienced maker, their design covers bundling wires and insulating connections to keep everything tidy and isolated. With different arrangements, this can form a tunnel lit from above, a chimney lit from the walls, or you can drape it over some scaffolding.
If you need something a little less portable for your own shop you might
consider a mirror-filled chamber
. One nice touch to add is
a turntable to help make sure the entire part is cured
without any missing areas.
The
Hackaday
Prize2020
is Sponsored by: | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283437",
"author": "BillSF9c",
"timestamp": "2020-10-03T20:21:47",
"content": "White pvc pipe is UV degradable, not that it wouldn’t last a few years. (Aluminumized tape could be added, or outdoor paint.) The grey, for electrical conduit, handles UV. “Just a few pennies more,” cons... | 1,760,373,334.546253 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/03/a-digital-magic-8-ball-signs-point-to-yes/ | A Digital Magic 8-Ball? Signs Point To Yes | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"arduino pro mini",
"gyro",
"Magic 8-ball",
"Nokia 5110 LCD"
] | [FacelessTech] was recently charmed by one of our prized possessions as a kid — the Magic 8-Ball — and
decided to have a go at making a digital version
. Though there is no icosahedron or mysterious fluid inside, the end result is still without a doubt quite cool, especially for a project made on a whim with parts on hand.
It’s not just an 8-ball, it also functions as a 6-sided die and a direct decider of yes/no questions. Underneath that Nokia 5110 screen there’s an Arduino Pro Mini and a 3-axis gyro. Almost everything is done through the gyro, including setting the screen contrast when the eight ball is first powered on. As much we as love that aspect, we really like that [FacelessTech] included a GX-12 connector for easy FTDI programming. It’s a tidy, completely open-source build, and there’s even a PCB. What’s not to like? Be sure to check out the video after the break to see it in action.
Believe it or not, this isn’t the smallest Magic 8-Ball build we’ve seen.
Have you met the business card version?
[via
adafruit
] | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283413",
"author": "Wallace Owen",
"timestamp": "2020-10-03T17:58:10",
"content": "The module the batter passes through is preventing discharge below safe levels, that’s why it doesn’t power up at low battery levels.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
... | 1,760,373,334.651565 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/03/paying-it-forward/ | Paying It Forward | Elliot Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants"
] | [
"hackaday",
"newsletter",
"open source"
] | It’s all those little things. A month ago, I was working on the axes for a foam-cutting machine. (Project stalled, will pick back up soon!) A week ago, somewhere else on the Internet, people were working on sliders that would ride directly on aluminum rails, a problem I was personally experiencing, and recommended using drawer-glide tape — a strip of
PTFE
or
UHMW PE
with adhesive backing on one side. Slippery plastic tape solves the metal-on-metal problem. It’s brilliant, it’s cheap, and it’s just a quick trip to the hardware store.
Just a few days ago, we covered another awesome linear-motion mechanical build in the form of a
DIY camera rig
that uses a very similar linear motion system to the one I had built as well: a printed trolley that slides on skate bearings over two rails of square-profile extruded aluminum. He had a very nice system of anchoring the spacers that hold the two rails apart, one of the sticking points in my build. I thought I’d glue things together, but his internal triangle nut holders are a much better solution because epoxy doesn’t like to stick to anodized aluminum. (And Alexandre, if you’re reading, that UHMW PE tape is just what you need to prevent bearing wear on your aluminum axes.)
Between these events, I got a message thanking me for an article that I wrote four years ago on
debugging SPI busses
. Apparently, it helped a small company to debug a problem and get their product out the door. Hooray!
So in one week, I got help from two different random strangers on a project that neither of them knew I was working on, and I somehow saved a startup. What kind of crazy marvelous world is this? It’s become so
normal
to share our ideas and experience, at least in our little corner of the Internet, that I sometimes fail to be amazed. But it’s entirely amazing. I know we’ve said it before, but we are living in the golden era of sharing ideas.
Thanks to all of you out there, and Read More Hackaday!
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
! | 21 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283394",
"author": "WordPres_2016",
"timestamp": "2020-10-03T15:25:08",
"content": "Yes sharing idea’s of your own and or of others has a (mostly) big positive effect on a (for the writer unknown) other person. Absolutely if i, you or any body else read and tries to understand a... | 1,760,373,334.610625 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/03/electric-volkspod-takes-you-on-an-eco-friendly-beetle-cruise/ | Electric Volkspod Takes You On An Eco-friendly Beetle Cruise | Sven Gregori | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"electric bicycle",
"minibike",
"motor",
"Volkspod",
"vw beetle",
"welding"
] | The Volkswagen Beetle is a true automobile icon, and while it may not be the fastest or most breathtaking looking car ever built, its unmistakable shape with those elegant curvy fenders and bulgy lights holds a special place in many people’s hearts. And then it inspires them to build minibikes from those same parts.
[Brent Walter] is well know as an originator of the hobby, starting a little while ago with his
Volkspod
. Inspired by [Brent’s] work, [Jonah Mikesell] decided to give it his own try, but unlike the original design that uses an actual minibike under the hood,
he built an electric version of it, and painstakingly documented every step along the way
.
The idea of the Volkspod is to take the Beetle’s two front fenders, weld them together to one symmetric body, and turn it into a small motorcycle. [Jonah]’s version does all that, but instead of taking a whole minibike as core of the project, he only uses a minibike frame and substitutes the engine with a 2000 Watt e-bike motor along with an e-bike battery pack. Fitting the frame within the dimensions of the fender construct required some extra welding work, but in the end, it all came nicely together, and with its red paint job, it kinda looks like something from a vintage post-apocalyptic sci-fi cross-genre movie. Watch him taking it for a spin in the video after the break.
Unfortunately, neither
the original Volkspod
nor this one has the roaring engine sound of an actual Beetle — which is akin to what the wings of a real-life beetle of similar size would probably sound like. But well,
it’s always an option to fake that
. And if [Jonah] ever feels the urge of a bigger engine,
maybe a washing machine can help
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=VmfZEon1Jbo | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283387",
"author": "TheStumbler",
"timestamp": "2020-10-03T14:45:12",
"content": "Reminds me of an old Candid Camera stunthttps://youtu.be/G8hFO791brc",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6283426",
"author": "echodelta",
"ti... | 1,760,373,334.699357 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/03/the-amazing-technicolor-parts-organizer/ | The Amazing Technicolor Parts Organizer | Tom Nardi | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Parts"
] | [
"3D printed parts",
"organization",
"parts bin"
] | It wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration to say that anyone reading these words has struggled at one time or another to keep an ever growing collection of electronic bits and bobs from descending into absolute chaos. Tossing them all into plastic bins is at least a start down the road to long-term organization, but they still needed to be sorted and inventoried if you want to avoid the wasted time and money of buying parts you forgot you already had.
For his latest project,
[Zack Freedman] decided to finally tackle the personal parts collection
that he’s ended up lugging around for the last several years. The first half of the battle was just figuring out what he actually had, what he was likely to need down the line, and getting it all sorted out so he didn’t have to keep rummaging through a big pile to find what he needed. But it’s not enough to
get
organized, you also need to
stay
organized.
Which is why he then turned his attention to how all these newly sorted components would actually be stored going forward. He already had a trio of Harbor Freight bin organizers, but as one expects from that fine retailer, they were only marginally suitable for the task at hand. So [Zack] designed a 3D printed faceplate that could snap onto the original plastic bin. The new fronts made them easier to grab and featured an opening to accept a laser-etched plastic label.
To give them a little visual flair, he decided to print the faceplates using rainbow gradient filament. To prevent them from being random colors, he used the relatively obscure sequential slicing option so his Prusa i3 would print each faceplate in its entirety before moving over to the next one on the bed. This took far longer than doing them in parallel (especially since he had access to multiple printers), but makes for a much nicer aesthetic as the color smoothly transitions between each bin on the wall. It also has a practical benefit, as you can tell at a glance if any of the bins have found themselves in the wrong spot.
If you really want to go off the deep end, we’ve seen hackers
light individual bins with RGB LEDs tied into a searchable inventory system
. But for most hobbyists, simply
learning when to purge would be more practical
. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283355",
"author": "Salman Sheikh",
"timestamp": "2020-10-03T09:41:09",
"content": "Awesome idea. Glad swearing was 🤬 but funny video.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6283408",
"author": "C. Scott Ananian",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,373,335.261851 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/02/retrotechtacular-the-5000-40-pound-hp-classroom-computer/ | Retrotechtacular: The $5,000 40 Pound HP Classroom Computer | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Retrotechtacular"
] | [
"9100",
"calculator",
"hewlett packard",
"HP",
"HP9100",
"retrotechtactular",
"RPN"
] | See if you can talk your local school district into buying a computer that costs about $5,000 and weighs 40 pounds. That was HP’s proposition to schools back in 1968 so really it is more like $35,000 today. The calculator had a CRT display for the RPN stack that you could mirror on a big screen. You could also get a printer or plotter add-on. Pretty hot stuff for the ’60s.
The
1970 videos
promoting the HP 9100, posted by the [Computer History Archive Project], shows something we’d think of as a clunky calculator, although by the standards of the day it was a pretty good one with trig functions and a crude programming capability.
You could save your program on a magnetic card that looked more like a credit card than HP’s later magnetic cards for calculators. It also had an optical mark sense reader so students could program cards at home using a pencil, presumably running test programs or submitting homework answers.
Honestly, this seems hokey today, but back then this was pretty amazing stuff. Graphing calculators did take over the classroom, but not until the students could have their own for a bit more reasonable price.
Apparently, Bill Hewlett said that they would have called the 9100 a computer, but it would have confused their customers because it didn’t look like an IBM computer. Naming it a calculator cued customers that it was something different. The device had no integrated circuits and was similar enough architecturally to an Olivetti Programma 101, that HP was forced to pay about $900,000 in royalties to Olivetti.
If you watch the video to the end, you’ll see a 1970s-era physics instructor show how to use the 9100 to explain a body in motion. Not exactly a Zoom class, but pretty close for five decades ago. If you want to check out the slick marketing brochure for the machine, it
lives as a PDF file
. There’s even an example of plotting the frequency response of an LC network. You can even read some electronics and other types of programs for the beast in the
HP Computer Museum
.
It is a long way from an HP 9100 to the
HP Prime
. But probably no further than the 9100 was from a
CURTA
. | 21 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283326",
"author": "Tricon",
"timestamp": "2020-10-03T05:51:00",
"content": "Thank you. Motivation to figure out why it blew the main fuse the last time I turned it on.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6283332",
"author": "K... | 1,760,373,334.981313 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/02/m17-aims-to-replace-proprietary-ham-radio-protocols/ | M17 Aims To Replace Proprietary Ham Radio Protocols | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"4FSK",
"ADF7021",
"ham radio"
] | While M17 might sound like a new kind of automatic rifle (as actually, it is), we were referring to an open source project to create
a ham radio transceiver
. Instead of paraphrasing the project’s goals, we’ll simply quote them:
The goal here should be to kick the proprietary protocols off the airwaves, replace DMR, Fusion, D-Star, etc. To do that, it’s not just good enough to be open, it has to be legitimately competitive.
Like some other commercial protocols, M17 uses 4FSK along with error correction. The protocol allows for encryption, streaming, and the encoding of callsigns in messages. There are also provisions for framing IP packets to carry data. The protocol can handle voice and data in a point-to-point or broadcast topology.
On the hardware side, the
TR-9
is a UHF handheld that can do FM voice or M17 with up to 3 watts out. The RF portion uses an ADF7021 chip which is specifically made to do 4FSK. There’s also an Arm CPU to handle the digital work.
We were struck by the similarity of the TR-9 to a cell phone since it has an LCD display, an SD card slot, and a 9DOF sensor. Maybe some open hardware cell phones and open hardware ham radios could find common ground.
This is quite ambitious, but generally,
small ham rigs
are having a resurgence. Having high-quality RF components
available as chips
makes a lot of difference. | 115 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283284",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp": "2020-10-03T02:26:35",
"content": "How come no one has lost their amateur license for using proprietary protocols.I’m not a ham, but I always thought part of the license requirement was no encryption and only public protocols ?",
"parent... | 1,760,373,335.215214 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/02/flywheel-trebuchet-spins-right-round/ | Flywheel Trebuchet Spins Right Round | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"flywheel",
"siege weapon",
"trebuchet"
] | Most of us gained a familiarity with siege weapons from
Age of Empires
, and the march of technology has meant these relics aren’t typically seen on modern battlefields. However, development continues apace in the enthusiast community, and [Tom Stanton]’s
latest trebuchet design
puts a different spin on launching projectiles at speed.
The design takes advantage of the flywheel as an energy storage device. The flywheel is spun up to speed using a hand crank, through a timing belt and a set of hybrid 3D printed and CNC aluminium gears. Once spun up to sufficient angular velocity, a trigger releases the tennis ball payload from a sling, flinging it forth at speeds over 180 miles per hour.
Moving on from classical materials such as wood and nails, [Tom]’s latest design relies on aluminium in an effort to build something that won’t rot when left outside in the rain. The use of aluminium profiles also makes adjustment and redesigns easy, while providing the necessary adjustments to dial in things like release point and belt tension. We’ve featured a few different designs over the years;
the walking-arm trebuchet is perhaps the most oddball of all.
Video after the break. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283295",
"author": "Nyx",
"timestamp": "2020-10-03T03:19:01",
"content": "Unless you are only catering to English colonies. you should provide proper SI units as well…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6283436",
"author... | 1,760,373,334.915105 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/02/voice-controlled-rgb-leds-go-big/ | Voice Controlled RGB LEDs Go Big | Tom Nardi | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"home hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"alexa",
"Amazon Alexa",
"cloud",
"MKR1000",
"neopixel",
"RGB LED",
"voice control"
] | When we see RGB LEDs used in a project, they’re often used more for aesthetic purposes than as a practical source of light. It’s an easy way to throw some color around, but certainly not the sort of thing you’d try to light up anything larger than a desk with. Apparently nobody
explained the rules to [Brian Harms] before he built Light[s]well
.
Believe it or not, this supersized light installation doesn’t use any exotic hardware you aren’t already familiar with. Fundamentally, what we’re looking at is a WiFi enabled Arduino MKR1000 driving strips of NeoPixel LEDs. It’s just on a far larger scale than we’re used to, with a massive 4 x 8 aluminum extrusion frame suspended over the living room.
Onto that frame, [Brian] has mounted an undulating diffuser made of 74 pieces of laser-cut cardstock. Invoking ideas of waves or clouds, the light looks like its of natural or even biological origin while at the same time having a distinctively otherworldly quality to it.
The effect is even more pronounced when the RGB LEDs kick in, thanks to the smooth transitions between colors. In the video after the break, you can see Light[s]well work its way from bright white to an animated rainbow. As an added touch, he added
Alexa voice control through Arduino’s IoT Cloud service
.
While LED home lighting is increasingly becoming the norm
, projects like Light[s]well remind us that we aren’t really embracing the possibilities offered by the technology. The industry has tried so hard to
make LEDs fit into the traditional role of incandescent bulbs
, but perhaps its time to rethink things. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283374",
"author": "Roger A.",
"timestamp": "2020-10-03T12:44:22",
"content": "Very cool, beautifully executed!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,373,335.346403 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/02/seek-and-ye-shall-command/ | Seek And Ye Shall Command | Brian McEvoy | [
"Medical Hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"assistance",
"assistive technolgy",
"camera",
"cerebral palsy",
"eye tracking",
"hypervisor",
"ir",
"Optical touchscreen",
"the hackaday prize",
"wearable"
] | If we count all the screens in our lives, it takes a hot minute. Some of them are touchscreens, some need a mouse or keyboard, but we are accustomed to all the input devices. Not everyone can use the various methods, like cerebral palsy patients who rely on eye-tracking hardware. Traditionally, that only works on the connected computer, so switching from a chair-mounted screen to a tablet on the desk is not an option. To give folks the ability to control different computers effortlessly [Zack Freedman] is developing a
head-mounted eye-tracker that is not tied to one computer
. In a way, this is like a KVM switch, but way more futuristic. [Tony Stark] would be proud.
An infrared detector on the headset identifies compatible screens in line of sight and synchs up with its associated HID dongle. A headset-mounted color camera tracks the head position in relation to the screen while an IR camera scans the eye to calculate where the user is focusing. All the technology here is proven, but this new recipe could be a game-changer to anyone who has trouble with the traditional keyboard, mouse, and touchscreen. Maybe
QR codes
could assist the screen identification and orientation like how a
Wii remote and sensor bar work
together.
The
Hackaday
Prize2020
is Sponsored by: | 3 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283219",
"author": "Anhad",
"timestamp": "2020-10-02T18:40:17",
"content": "What about transmitting the data with a very directional antenna? Then the signals are only received by dongles in the direction the head is pointing, no need for IR LOS and the dongles can be a simple rece... | 1,760,373,335.390471 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/02/how-to-get-into-cars-hypermiling-mods/ | How To Get Into Cars: Hypermiling Mods | Lewin Day | [
"car hacks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"cars",
"fuel economy",
"hypermiling"
] | While we’re currently in an era of comparatively low gas prices, the last few decades have seen much volatility in the oil market. This can hit the hip pocket hard, particularly for those driving thirstier vehicles. Thankfully, modifications can help squeeze a few extra miles out of each gallon of dinosaur juice if you know what you’re doing.
The art of striving for the best fuel economy is known as hypermiling, and involves a broad spectrum of tricks and techniques to get the most out of a drop of fuel. Let’s dive in to how you can build a more efficient cruiser for getting around town.
Step 1: Know Thine Enemy
The MPGuino is a great solution for monitoring fuel consumption in older cars without a trip computer.
If you want to improve your fuel economy, the first step is to measure it. Without accurate measurement, it’s impossible to quantify any gains made or optimise for the best performance. For those with modern cars, it’s likely that there’s already a trip computer built into the dash. Using this to track your fuel economy is the easiest solution. Instantaneous modes are useful to help improve driving habits, while average modes are great for determining the car’s economy over time.
However, many older vehicles don’t have such features installed as stock. Thankfully, there’s a few ways to work around this. For those driving post-1996 vehicles outfitted with an OBD-II port, tools like
Kiwi
or
Scangauge
can often track fuel economy. Failing this, most fuel injected cars can be fitted with a device like
the MPGuino
that monitors fuel injection to calculate consumption. Fundamentally, all of these tools involve tracking the amount of fuel used per distance travelled. Factory tools and OBD-II gauges do it by using the car’s standard hardware, while the MPGuino splices in to speedometer signals and injector triggers to do the same thing with an Arduino. If you do decide to install a custom device, make sure you calibrate it properly, else your figures won’t bear much resemblance to what’s going on in reality.
Of course, as long as your car has a working odometer and a fuel tank that doesn’t leak, there’s always the pen-and-paper method. Simply reset the trip odometer to zero after filling the tank to the brim. Then, when refilling the tank, fill all the way to the top, and divide the miles driven by the gallons of fuel added back to the tank. This isn’t the most accurate method, as the nature of gas station pumps and automotive fuel tanks mean that tanks aren’t always accurately filled to the brim, due to air pockets and devices used to prevent overfilling. Despite this, it’s a handy way of getting some ballpark figures of your car’s performance over time.
With a good grasp on your car’s fuel numbers, it’s also important to test your mods scientifically. Throwing on some “improvements” and doing a lap of the block while reading the instantaneous MPG readout won’t cut it. Ideally, it’s best to compare several tanks worth of average MPG readings with the car’s established baseline before modification. Routes, grades of fuel, and other factors should be kept as similar as possible if you want the ultimate bragging rights amongst the hypermiling set.
Step 2: Mods
Now that you know what your car is capable of, it’s time to consider modifications to eke a few more yards out of every drop of fuel. The range of modifications vary from the simple and easy to the extreme, with practicality concerns meaning some will be out of reach for the average driver.
Aero – Smooth And Sleek
Despite not looking particularly aerodynamic, the Mercedes A-Class has the lowest coefficient of drag of any production car, Cd=0.22.
One of the biggest areas that can improve fuel economy is improving the aerodynamics of a car. Unlike our previous article, which discussed
improving aerodynamics for more grip by increasing downforce
, the focus here is to reduce drag. Drag increases with the square of velocity. This means that the faster you travel, the more fuel you need to use to overcome the drag on the vehicle. Mods in this area will have the greatest effect at high speeds, such as during highway driving. It’s important to note that any mods that significantly change the aerodynamic properties of the vehicle may have an adverse affect on handling, so tread carefully. Also, it pays to remember that some vehicles may already have incredibly low drag despite the way they look. For example, it may not appear to be particularly streamlined,
but the latest Mercedes A-Class is a leader in low-drag design
. Improving on such a design would likely be difficult to impossible without the aid of a windtunnel and 20-30 world-class engineers.
Back in 2008, [basjoos] claimed average MPG numbers in the 70s with this heavily-modified Honda Civic. Note the prominent boat tail and wheel shrouds.
The most basic modifications in this area involve simply smoothing the vehicle’s profile. Taping over cracks, changing out large wing mirrors for smaller, sleeker items, and removing extraneous add-ons like cosmetic wings and large antennas can all make a difference.
More serious hypermilers have experimented with blocking off grills
, improving fuel economy but risking overheating outside of the coldest days of winter. Using front lips to guide air around the tyres rather than under the body can net some gains, too.
At the more extreme end, body mods can get serious, and seriously impractical. Many hypermilers get deep into structural work with materials like coroplast and aluminium,
creating “boat tails” to smooth airflow and reduce MPG.
These often compromise the use of rear storage, but can have major effects towards reducing drag. Undertray modifications can also help, at the risk of winding up with your craft project tangled around a driveshaft or suspension arm. Some even go so far as to fit wheel shrouds to further improve their car’s sleek profile.
Weight
The heavier a car is, the more fuel is needed to accelerate that mass up to speed. Thus, reducing a car’s weight is a great way to improve fuel efficiency, with the EPA estimating that removing 100lbs of weight can improve economy by 1-2% on average.
There are plenty of ways to save weight in the average car, particularly for the creatively minded. For example, if you have no friends, there’s no reason to be carrying around all 5 seats in your family wagon. Eliminating the rear bench and front passenger seat can easily save 100 lbs or more, netting a serious gain for precisely zero money. More extreme methods can involve driving without a spare tire, or removing carpets and sound deadening. For the truly dedicated, glass windows can be replaced with lighter lexan panels, and heavy stock wheels can be swapped out for lightweight aftermarket ones.
Tyres
Uneven wear on an overinflated tyre. The pattern of wear shown indicates most of the tyre is contributing no grip, making the car dangerous to drive at any speed.
While not the most exciting modification one can make, tyres nevertheless have a role to play in fuel economy. Overcoming rolling resistance takes fuel,
so switching to a lower-rolling resistance tyre can help.
For those looking for more, switching to a skinnier tyre than standard can also help, though there are risks here around changing the handling characteristics of the vehicle. Making drastic changes can be dangerous, so often it’s better to lean on the side of caution and just fit a nice set of eco-focused tyres on an appropriately sized wheel.
Additionally, increasing tyre pressure can help. By adding more air to the tyre, it reduces the size of the contact patch. This reduces the rolling resistance, thus improving fuel economy. However, it also reduces grip, and can lead to blowouts and other disastrous consequences. Such measures are even more dangerous in the wet. As a bonus, in modern cars, it will throw all kinds of errors and warnings from your tyre-pressure monitoring system.
Engine
Mazda has spent a small fortune
on their unique gasoline compression ignition technology to gain up to 20% improvement in fuel economy. Making gains in engine efficiency is a big-money sport.
The engine is perhaps the hardest place to make significant fuel economy gains as a home gamer. Car companies invest millions of dollars on developing engines, with a strong focus on fuel economy and efficiency. This is an area where cheap one-size-fits-all eBay parts aren’t going to improve on a bespoke designed OEM part. This goes for tuning as well — a day down at your neighbourhood dyno isn’t going to net a more efficient tune than the one Honda spent years testing in all atmospheric conditions imaginable.
This isn’t to say there is never anything left on the table, however. It just requires a very intelligent consideration of the engine as a whole, and a realistic approach to what is possible. One place where manufacturers do have to compromise is price. A budget economy car from the mid-1990s may have a restrictive exhaust, which was chosen for manufacturing cost over outright efficiency. Swapping this out for a better-flowing part may net a few extra horsepower, and allow the engine to breathe more freely, improving efficiency. Oftentimes, a clear look at where costs were cut will find the handful of areas where a stock motor might find a few efficiency gains. However, it can be difficult to make improvements here without spending more than you’ll make back in savings on gas.
Conclusion
Hypermiling is a great way to save a few bucks, but with gas prices at historic lows and electric cars on the market, it’s not the big deal it was perhaps a decade ago. Many now dive into the world of precise driving techniques and advanced modifications not purely for the savings at the pump, but the sheer engineering challenge. While we’re starting to see the sun set on gasoline technology, gains remain to be had, and there will always be hackers looking to wring every last bit of energy out of each drop of gasoline. To those who wrench in pursuit of this goal, we salute you! | 58 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283206",
"author": "WordPres_2016",
"timestamp": "2020-10-02T17:44:20",
"content": "The first thing is lower your accelararion as that’s what takes the most fuel and use breaks only to a minimum.Measuring the consumption is easy by just writedown the ,total, drived miles (or kilo m... | 1,760,373,335.492444 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/02/hackaday-podcast-087-sound-shattering-gliders-pressing-dashcam-buttons-and-ratcheting-up-time/ | Hackaday Podcast 087: Sound-Shattering Gliders, Pressing Dashcam Buttons, And Ratcheting Up Time | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"3d printed pump",
"camera slider",
"concrete",
"DashCam",
"dynamic soaring",
"Hackaday Podcast",
"ratchet"
] | Hackaday editors Mike Szczys and Elliot Williams dish up a hot slice of the week’s hardware hacks. We feature a lot of clocks on Hackaday, but few can compare to the mechanical engineering elegance of the band-saw-blade-based ratcheting clock we swoon over on this week’s show. We’ve found a superb use of a six-pin microcontroller, peek in on tire (or is that tyre) wear particles, and hear the sounds of 500 mph RC gliders. It turns out that 3D printers are the primordial ooze for both pumping water and positioning cameras. This episode comes to a close by getting stressed out over concrete.
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!
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 or so.)
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 087 Show Notes:
New This Week:
Ask Hackaday: Is Windows XP Source Code Leak A Bad Thing?
[NTdev]
Compiled Windows Server 2003
But, looks like the video was
killed on YouTube by Microsoft copyright claim
Autodesk Blinks, Keeps STEP File Export In Free Version Of Fusion 360
Bang operators on DuckDuckGo
metasearch based on duckduckgo !bang commands
Try out:
!had
and
!hio
Elliot likes:
!w
for your Wikipedia search needs
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Hacking A Cheap Action Cam Into A Dashcam With A Microcontroller
Hacking An Inspection Microscope
Eight Motors Can Sure Pump A Lot Of Water
Mechanisms: Mechanical Seals
Split Keeb Splits Time Between Desk And Tablet Modes
Linear Clock Ratchets Up The Action
Road Pollution Doesn’t Just Come From Exhaust
Atmospheric transport is a major pathway of microplastics to remote regions
Airless Tire For Your Car: Michelin Says 2024, Here’s What They’re Up Against
DIYing A High End Camera Arm
Quick Hacks:
Mike’s Picks:
Electric Window Mechanism Into A Electric Screen Door
Voice Controlled Sofa Meets Your Every Beverage Need
DIY Grout Cleaning Machine Does A Good Job
Elliot’s Picks:
Bunnie’s Betrusted Makes First Appearance As Mobile, FPGA-Based SoC Development Kit
Boot Sector Pong As A Crash Course In Assembly
An FPGA Video Player Built Just For Fun
Can’t-Miss Articles:
A Good, Hard Look At Pre-Stressed Concrete
The O-Bahn Busway – Obscure Transit For The Masses
Dynamic Soaring: 545 MPH RC Planes Have No Motor | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,373,335.305968 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/02/shadow-lamp-moves-delibrately-slowly/ | Shadow Lamp Moves Delibrately Slowly | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"shadow",
"shadow lamp"
] | Inspired by the famous lava lamp, [Mojoptix] wanted to build a creation of his own with a similarly organic, changing lighting effect. However, rather than flowing heated wax,
he created a lamp with pseudo-random effects his own way.
The lamp itself is built around a shadow-puppet concept, using a pair of rotating apetures that [Mojoptix] 3D printed. The apetures turn, one in front of the other, and are lit from behind by an IKEA LED light. As the apetures rotate, they present a slowly varying path for the light from the LED, which is projected onto a paper screen placed in in front of the assembly. To generate the long-period rotation, the rotating assembly is turned by the minute hand of a common clock movement. It’s a great way to get a slow-rotating motor and gearbox setup on the cheap, as long as your torque requirements are absolutely miniscule.
It’s a neat way to produce a slowly-varying lighting effect;
we’ve featured other discussions on the topic before, too.
Video after the break. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283186",
"author": "Chuck Stephens",
"timestamp": "2020-10-02T15:44:03",
"content": "I’ve done something similar with dark laser printed transparency film- lighter than 3d printing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6283801",
... | 1,760,373,335.577481 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/02/this-week-in-security-punkbuster-nat-nas-and-mp3s/ | This Week In Security: PunkBuster, NAT, NAS And MP3s | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"nat",
"This Week in Security"
] | Ah, the ever-present PDF, and our love-hate relationship with the format. We’ve lost count of how many vulnerabilities have been fixed in PDF software, but it’s been a bunch over the years. This week, we’re reminded that Adobe isn’t the only player in PDF-land, as
Foxit released a round of updates
, and there were a couple serious problems fixed. Among the vulnerabilities, a handful could lead to RCE, so if you use or support Foxit users, be sure to go get them updated.
PunkBuster
Remember PunkBuster? It’s one of the original anti-cheat solutions, from way back in 2000. The now-classic Return to Castle Wolfenstein was the first game to support PunkBuster to prevent cheating. It’s not the latest or greatest, but PunkBuster is still running on a bunch of game servers even today. [Daniel Prizmant] and [Mauricio Sandt] decided to do a deep dive project on PunkBuster, and
happened to find an arbitrary file-write vulnerability
, that could easily compromise a PB enabled server.
One of the functions of PunkBuster is a remote screenshot capture. If a server admin thinks a player is behaving strangely, a screenshot request is sent. I assume this targets so-called wallhack cheats — making textures transparent, so the player can see through walls. The problem is that the server logic that handles the incoming image has a loophole. If the filename ends in
.png
as expected, some traversal attack checks are done, and the png file is saved to the server. However, if the incoming file isn’t a png, no transversal detection is done, and the file is naively written to disk. This weakness, combined with the stateless nature of screenshot requests, means that any connected client can write any file to any location on the server at any time. To their credit, even Balance, the creators of PunkBuster, quickly acknowledged the issue, and have released an update to fix it.
NAS Ransomware
QNAP has announced an update to protect against the AgeLocker ransomware
. The details are sparse, but it appears that there was a vulnerability in the Photo Station app.
Bleeping Computer has a few additional details
. As damaging as the encryption is, at least one report includes data theft, as well. AgeLocker can also affect Linux and MacOS devices.
MP3Gain’s Loss
The good folks at VDA Labs have a thing for fuzzing, and recently,
they turned their attention toward MP3Gain
, an open source MP3 normalizer. Using the
Mayhem
engine, they found a handful of crashes, and discovered one that could lead to code execution. The crash is the result of a malformed mp3 file, and not enough validation while loading the file.
While MP3Gain probably isn’t the most likely attack vector, it isn’t hard to imagine a scenario where it could be used. As far as I see, an updated release hasn’t been made to address this issue yet. Enough information is out there, that an attacker could potentially build a working exploit, so if you use MP3Gain, be extra cautious until the update is available.
Threading The NAT Needle
Network Address Translation (NAT) is a blessing and a curse. It has given us several years of breathing room for IPv4, and managed to give everyone a sane firewall setup by default. On the other hand, peer to peer connections and UDP packets can be particularly hard to push through a NAT router. This is an issue for torrents, SIP phone calls, and VPN solutions like OpenVPN and Wireguard. There have been various solutions over the years, like a STUN server for SIP, and UPnP to automate temporary port forwards.
Tailscale is a commercial company providing a mesh VPN service using Wireguard, and they recently published
an in-depth guide about their techniques to navigate NAT firewalls
. It’s pretty much all you ever wanted to know about the subject, so give it a read, or just make a mental note that it’s there for the next time you find yourself facing a tricky NAT firewall problem. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283291",
"author": "Gregg Eshelman",
"timestamp": "2020-10-03T02:55:05",
"content": "What I’ve wondered about these game anti cheating systems is if there could be a way to run a mirror of the game on another computer on your LAN, reading the state of the game on the computer you’r... | 1,760,373,335.534633 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/02/bullet-time-on-a-budget-with-the-raspberry-pi/ | Bullet Time On A Budget With The Raspberry Pi | Lewin Day | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"bullet",
"bullet time",
"Raspberry pi camera",
"Raspberry Pi HQ camera"
] | Bullet time became the hottest new cinema effect after it burst on the scene in
The Matrix (1999).
Back then, the cutting edge special effects required serious hardware and serious processing power to do the job. These days, of course, things have moved along somewhat. [Eric Paré] is no stranger to a high-end setup,
but wanted to see what could be done at the lower end of the market.
(Video, embedded below.)
Rather then relying on a bank of expensive DSLRs, [Eric] decided to try building a bullet-time camera rig out of 15 Raspberry Pis, and the standard Raspberry Pi Camera. Whereas just one camera in one of his professional setups may cost well over $1000, this entire rig was likely built for less than that in its entirety.
Initial results were jerky and unappealing, but [Eric] persevered. One of the biggest problems was inaccuracy in the camera assemblies, as they were stuck on with thermal paste. With some custom mods and tweaks, [Eric] was eventually able to get things to a passable state. It also has the benefit, compared to a DSLR rig, that the cameras can be mounted much more closely together due to their small size.
Work is already underway to upgrade the rig to the new Raspberry Pi HQ Camera,
which we’ve discussed before.
[via DIYPhotography.net] | 24 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283124",
"author": "Jim Lux",
"timestamp": "2020-10-02T11:38:00",
"content": "I helped develop one of the first rigs that did this (ReelEFX Multicamhttps://www.reelefx.com/multicam-list) – It’s one of those great “simple in concept” (Eadweard Muybridge did it with glass plates and ... | 1,760,373,335.716879 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/02/advanced-model-rocket-flight-computer-reaching-for-the-stars/ | Advanced Model Rocket Flight Computer Reaching For The Stars | Danie Conradie | [
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"bps.space",
"flight computer",
"model rocket"
] | When you’re building and launching a variety of advanced model rockets like [Joe Barnard], you don’t want to spend time building (and debugging) specialized flight computers for every rocket configuration. This challenge has led him to create
AVA (All Vehicle Avionics)
, an impressive model rocket flight computer that he intends to use on all his future rockets.
All of [Joe]’s rockets feature active stabilization and guidance, and comprehensive telemetry using a variety of sensors. On the board there are three separate microcontrollers connected over I2C or SPI, each with its own micro USB port. The two smaller microcontrollers are both ATSAMD21s, also used on the Arduino Zero. The first is used for GPS and inertial navigation, and uses data from onboard and external sensors like the two IMUs (one is a backup), GPS and barometer to estimate the rocket’s position, velocity and attitude, The second is for telemetry, and it handles all external communications via a Bluetooth modem or long range 900 Mhz radio. The main processor (MPU) is a NXP MK20DX256 (also used on the Teensy 3.2), which receives data from the other microcontrollers and handles all the real-time operations and control outputs.
AVA’s predecessors
[Joe] gives a very detailed overview on the board, it’s capabilities, and the reasoning behind some of his design choices in the video after the break. Most of the sensors and microcontrollers were selected partly because of his experience with them. All three microcontrollers have Arduino bootloaders, also due to familiarity with the framework. AVA is the 12th in the
line of flight computers
[Joe] has built, and it is clear that a lot of work and hard-earned experience went into the design.
[Joe]’s videos are incredibly information dense, but still entertaining, and it is mind-blowing how far he has come in the past few years. AVA is part of a larger project, where [Joe] will attempt to land one of his rockets vertically. We’ve already covered another part of the project, an
upgraded launchpad
. He has also experimented with a silo launched rocket named
THOOMP
. | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283108",
"author": "my50c",
"timestamp": "2020-10-02T09:21:46",
"content": "Commercial GPS receivers conform to COCOM limit, (altitude < 18km) and (speed < 515m/sec) cannot be simultaneously exceeded, either can be exceeded, for prevention of use in missile or ICBM",
"parent_id... | 1,760,373,335.654339 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/01/cube64-puts-the-good-controllers-on-the-goldeneye-console/ | Cube64 Puts The Good Controllers On The GoldenEye Console | Lewin Day | [
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"controller",
"gamecube",
"nintendo 64"
] | The Nintendo 64 was lauded for bringing quality 3D graphics and analog stick controls to the console realm, way back in 1996. Unfortunately, those analog sticks were never very good; if you’ve ever played four player Mario Kart 64, you know how it feels to be stuck with
that
controller. For a superior experience,
consider building an adapter and upgrading to the GameCube controller instead.
Cube64 is a project that allows GameCube controllers to work with the original Nintendo 64 hardware. Using a PIC18F14K22 in its DIY version, or a PIC18F24Q10 in the SMD version, it’s the product of much work by [scanlime] and [darthcloud] to reverse engineer the N64 and GC controller protocols. The GameCube’s many buttons and sticks allow for easy mapping to the N64’s original button layout, and the hardware provides plenty of calibration options and maps to get things working exactly the way you like for the game you’re playing.
Given that original N64 controllers are getting hard to come by, a GameCube upgrade is a great way to go. They’ll likely be in production for years yet, thanks to the commercial influence of Super Smash Bros. Of course, the two consoles have been fine friends for years,
as evidenced by this mashup console we featured back in the distant, peaceful past of 2013. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283116",
"author": "Rick",
"timestamp": "2020-10-02T10:32:09",
"content": "Good controller.Gamecube controller.Pick one please.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6283150",
"author": "Sam",
"timestamp": "2020-10-... | 1,760,373,335.788171 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/01/should-you-build-for-windows-mac-ios-android-or-linux-yes/ | Should You Build For Windows, Mac, IOS, Android, Or Linux? Yes! | Al Williams | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"cross-platform",
"dart",
"flutter",
"google",
"ios",
"linux",
"mac",
"windows"
] | The holy grail of computer languages is to write code once and have it deploy effortlessly everywhere. Java likes to take credit for the idea, but UCSD P-Code was way before that and you could argue that mainframes had I/O abstraction like Fortran unit numbers even earlier. More modern efforts include Qt, GTK, and other things. Naturally, all of these fall short in some way. Now Google enters the fray with
Flutter
.
Flutter isn’t new, but in the past, it only handled Android and iOS. Now it can target desktop platforms and can even produce JavaScript. We haven’t played with the system enough to say how successful it is, but you can try it in your browser if you want some first-hand experience.
Flutter uses
Dart
and support for the Mac and Windows is considered alpha quality. If you know any traditional language like C++ or Python, you won’t have any trouble with Dart.
If you want to read about someone’s experience deploying something substantial with Flutter, here’s
a full-blown app
with a very detailed report. Will Google get it right? Certainly, they are big enough that they should. However, as anyone who has tried to deploy across platforms will tell you, it is much easier to solve the big problems than the little ones. You usually die from a thousand paper cuts on cross-platform projects, not from a single sword stroke.
Google says they want Flutter to target embedded devices, too. We are pretty sure they mean embedded in the sense of fairly powerful processors with a UI and an Internet connection. But maybe we’ll see other platforms in the future. After all, we’ve seen plenty of stripped-down
Java virtual machines
with the same goal. We’ve even dug into the intricacies of
cross-platform programming,
ourselves. | 36 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283055",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2020-10-02T02:27:06",
"content": "“Google says they want Flutter to target embedded devices, too.”No, I’m sure Google means devices embedded in brains, so they not only can monitor every thought and action, but control them as well. Flutter ... | 1,760,373,335.859886 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/01/reel-in-the-years-with-a-cassette-player-synth/ | Reel In The Years With A Cassette Player Synth | Kristina Panos | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"analog synthesizer",
"arduino",
"Arduino Uno",
"cassette tape",
"dac",
"MCP4725",
"midi"
] | Variable-speed playback cassette players were already the cool kids on the block. How else are you going to have any fun with magnetic tape without ripping out the tape head and running it manually over those silky brown strips? Sure, you can change the playback speed on most players as long as you can get to the trim pot. But true variable-speed players make better synths, because it’s so much easier to change the speed. You can make music from anything you can record on tape, including monotony.
[schollz] made a tape synth with not much more than a variable-speed playback cassette player, an Arduino, a DAC, and a couple of wires to hook it all up
. Here’s how it works: [schollz] records a long, single note on a tape, then uses that recording to play different notes by altering the playback speed with voltages from a MIDI synth.
To go from synth to synth, [schollz] stood up a server that translates MIDI voltages to serial and sends them to the Arduino. Then the DAC converts them to analog signals for the tape player. All the code is available on the project site, and [schollz] will even show you where to add Vin and and a line in to the tape player. Check out the demo after the break.
There’s more than one way to hack a cassette player.
You can also force them to play full-motion, color video
.
Via
adafruit | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283049",
"author": "Gregg Eshelman",
"timestamp": "2020-10-02T00:38:01",
"content": "To make it even hackier, use a player with terrible wow and flutter control then mount it to a rotating platform with the axis of the player’s flywheel aligned with the axis of the turntable. Contr... | 1,760,373,336.123016 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/01/teaching-a-pocket-logic-analyzer-many-new-tricks/ | Teaching A Pocket Logic Analyzer (Many) New Tricks | Tom Nardi | [
"Software Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"custom firmware",
"LA104",
"logic analyzer",
"multi-tool"
] | A few years ago, low-cost pocket digital oscilloscopes aimed at the hacker and maker crowd started hitting the market and gained quite a following. While few would consider them to be a replacement for a proper bench scope, they’re cheap and convenient enough that it’s hard to complain. Manufacturers are apparently looking to expand on the concept, as we’re now seeing similarly priced and sized logic analyzers pop up from the usual sources.
[Gabriel Valky] got his hands on a sub-$100 USD model known as the LA104, and decided that the stock software didn’t quite deliver.
So he started a project to create a new open source firmware for the affordable gadget
that greatly expands its core functionalities. The code has even been ported to a few of those digital oscilloscopes, as it turns out (perhaps unsurprisingly) that they aren’t too far removed internally.
Controlling addressable LEDs with the LA104.
In the video after the break, [Gabriel] shows off some impressive radio tricks by adding a small CC1101 transceiver to the mix. This allows his modified LA104 to scan for and decode popular RF protocols in the 300 – 900 MHz range. His software even allows for the received packets to be modified and re-transmitted, which he demonstrates by pushing a fake temperature signal into a wireless weather station.
But that’s just the beginning. A perusal of the GitHub page for his replacement firmware shows just how many features have already been packed into this project. For example it can be used to control WS2812 LED strips, generate arbitrary PWM signals, log data from temperature sensors, interface with MIDI devices, and scan for I2C devices. Many of these functions can be controlled on the computer by utilizing a modern browser and WebUSB.
The replacement firmware that [Gabriel] has come up with for the LA104 is really an incredible accomplishment, and elevates an already intriguing piece of kit. Being able to pack all of these functions into something
small and cheap enough you can toss into a bag
is a very compelling prospect for hackers on the go. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283021",
"author": "GotNoTime",
"timestamp": "2020-10-01T21:04:40",
"content": "My problem with the LA104 is the awful dual scrollwheel controls. I’ve borrowed a friend’s unit and it is awkward to use. Most of the Miniware devices are using a repurposed media player case hence the ... | 1,760,373,336.17567 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/01/improved-mosquito-birth-control-causes-ripple-effect/ | Improved Mosquito Birth Control Causes Ripple Effect | Kristina Panos | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2020 Hackaday Prize"
] | Mosquito haters of the world, rejoice! A few years ago we told you about the first version of this solar-powered mosquito repellent that works by disturbing the surface of standing water. Since then, the project has received worldwide attention, and
[Pranav] is back with Solar Scare Mosquito version 2.0 in time for the the 2020 Hackaday Prize
.
The idea’s still the same as before: let mosquitoes lay their eggs in the standing waters of tanks and swamps, then disturb the water with vibrations so the larvae on the surface can’t breathe.
As smart as this simple idea is, version 2.0 is even smarter. It has a microphone that listens to the wing-beat frequencies of mosquitoes that like to hang around places like that.
Inside there’s an Arduino MKR GSM to run the ripple-generating air pump, detect water from the sensor, and gather data from the microphone.
With a network of these devices all reporting data, [Pranav] envisions an early warning system for mosquito-borne epidemics that works by alerting the locals through their phones.
Solar Scare Mosquito has come a long way since 2014
. Check out the video after the break.
The
Hackaday
Prize2020
is Sponsored by: | 29 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6282988",
"author": "Alexander Wikström",
"timestamp": "2020-10-01T18:44:50",
"content": "Question is if it has any unexpected side effects to it.Might toss other insects under the bus so to say.Though, an over abundance of mosquitoes in urban environments isn’t particularly useful,... | 1,760,373,336.335813 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/01/even-more-firmware-in-your-firmware/ | Even More Firmware In Your Firmware | Kerry Scharfglass | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"how-to",
"Microcontrollers",
"Slider",
"Software Development"
] | [
"binary",
"firmware",
"firmware update",
"gcc",
"gnu",
"image",
"ld",
"linker",
"microcontroller",
"objcopy",
"objdump",
"OTA",
"STM32F4",
"update",
"xxd"
] | There are many ways to update an embedded system in the field. Images can fly through the air one a time, travel by sneaker or hitch a ride on other passing data. OK, maybe that’s a stretch, but there are certainly a plethora of ways to get those sweet update bytes into a target system. How are those bytes assembled, and what are the tools that do the assembly? This is the problem I needed to solve.
Recall, my system
wasn’t a particularly novel one (see the block diagram below). Just a few computers asking each other for an update over some serial busses. I had chosen to bundle the payload firmware images into the binary for the intermediate microcontroller which was to carry out the update process. The additional constraint was that the blending of the three firmware images (one carrier and two payload) needed to happen long after compile time, on a different system with a separate toolchain. There were ultimately two options that fit the bill.
The system thirsty for an update
Edit The ELF
There’s more than one way to use the linker to stick binaries together — that’s its job after all. A typical compilation toolchain uses
ld
to string object files together, but there are other linker-adjacent tools which come in handy for playing havoc with the right kind of binary file. This method for bundling firmware images together will focus on a new tool in the GCC,
objcopy
.
To abuse the metaphor,
objcopy
is a bit of a utility knife for object file manipulation. The breadth of it’s functionally is wide but the specific thing we need here is the
--update-section
parameter, which allows us to replace a named section in an object file with another object file. So how do we get that section? That’s where a configuration file called a “linker script” comes in.
A detailed discussion of the usage of the linker script is out of scope here but for now let’s summarize it as, well, a script for the linker! A complete executable is composed of
many different sections
, and the linker script is what describes where they should go and how to refer to them. For instance, in a microcontroller the
text section
where the code-to-be-executed is stored is often placed in flash at an address where the micro will begin execution. The linker script is what describes the region where that data should go, and that it should be located in flash. We can use the same mechanism to inject a firmware payload into our image.
My first step was to describe two new sections, one for each new firmware image. The following segment shows the
data section
for the intermediate microcontroller, and the two payload sections I added below it.
/* Initialized data sections into "RAM" Ram type memory */
.data :
{
. = ALIGN(4);
_sdata = .; /* create a global symbol at data start */
*(.data) /* .data sections */
*(.data*) /* .data* sections */
. = ALIGN(4);
_edata = .; /* define a global symbol at data end */
} >RAM AT> FLASH
/* Below this point are the sections I added */
.payload1 :
{
. = ALIGN(4);
BYTE(0x0);
payload1End = .;
} >FLASH
.payload2 :
{
. = ALIGN(4);
BYTE(0x0);
payload2End = .;
} >FLASH
This is a little cryptic, but it should be clear that
payload1
and
payload2
are both specially delineated sections which are to be placed in flash. With these defined, the linker will take care of ensuring the symbols are defined, the sections are large enough, and that they won’t overlap anything else. They will float along relative to their neighbors in the same order, keeping these two sections at the end of flash and the
*end
symbols at the end of their respective sections.
To access these sections at runtime we can refer to the named symbols
payload1/payload1End
and
payload2/payload2End
as
extern
symbols in our C source, but they’re also visible in the compiled binary. For this we need to use the Executable Linked File (ELF) that the linker produces as its final output. In my case this was the default output and was converted from an ELF to a binary to flash to the microcontroller. Depending on your platform this may or may not be the case.
The ELF file contains everything needed to run your program, including all the metadata and symbols the linker has at link time, whereas the binary may have these stripped out. If they are present than tools like
objcopy
can refer to them. At this point injecting the firmware is just a single well-formed command away. Convert the bin payload in question into an object file then use
objcopy
to inject it into the final binary like so
borgel$ objcopy --update-section .payload1=payload1.bin combined-firmware.elf
objcopy
uses the same tricks as the linker to make everything fit and moves our symbols around as needed to mark the sections in question. Now the running firmware can get the size by subtracting the address of the start and end symbols, and refer to the payload memory as starting at the start address. Easy!
So why wasn’t this my final method for injecting payload firmwares? It requires a copy of
objcopy
that knows how to handle ELFs of the target architecture. In my use case I didn’t have such a toolchain available in the right place to make use of it, so I moved onto the next method.
1337 H4X: The Binary Edit
If nothing more clever works, a binary is just a file to be edited. It’s not particularly elegant, but modifying the binary directly is nothing if not universally applicable, so long as you know the details of the file going under the knife.
Let’s start with attaching multiple binary files together. This turns out to be extremely straightforward; just concatenate them! The command looks like
borgel$ cat payload1.bin payload2.bin >> combined-firmware.bin
It’s that easy! I needed to get the combined file into the intermediate microcontroller, which turned out to be similarly straightforward. The microcontroller’s flashing tool will happily write the combined firmware to the device, placing the payload files in the right address. But how does the running firmware know where to look to extract the payloads? And how does it know know how large they are? For that we need to turn back to our friend the linker.
Keep in mind the files we have to work with are the final binary images without any of the embedded metadata in the previous method. And even if they were, this process needed to work without the processor-specific toolchain on hand. So what to do? When editing the ELF, we used the linker script to describe a new section in flash. We can use the same trick here to create a special “end of firmware” section and symbol. As long as the linker script orients it as the last element of the image to be written to flash, it will be guaranteed to float along and always stay at the end as the rest of the firmware grows and shrinks during development.
Now that we have an end of firmware flag we the puzzle can be solved. For simplicity, in this section I chose to place 8 magic bytes (as two
uint32_t
‘s) describing the size of the images to follow. In the future, if I need more flexibility I could place a file with a JSON object, some
serialized msgpack
, or anything else there instead. The final image looks like
[main firmware][8 byte size file][payload 1][payload 2]
But what happens if there is no payload appended? The intermediate microcontroller needs a way to tell if there is anything out there in the wilds of flash to search for. Erased flash might work (it should always read as 0xFF), but if the flashed image shrinks and I was unluckily on an erase boundary there might be valid-looking garbage data there instead of a fresh field of 0xFFs. To avoid this I turned to the linker once again.
The linker script allows for the definition of hardcoded bytes or byte patterns to fill a region. So I added two 4 byte check values in a region
after
the end of firmware flag. At runtime the firmware loads the payload firmware sizes from the end of firmware offset and compares them to the check values. If they match, it assumes no payload is present. The section defined in the linker script looks like this
.endmatter :
{
. = ALIGN(4);
endmatterStart = .;
LONG(0xDEADC0DE); /* Payload 1 size */
LONG(0xDEADBEEF); /* Payload 2 size */
} >FLASH
When the firmware is being bundled together, I truncate the main firmware file and remove the final 8 bytes to remove this section. Then I create a file containing the two payload sizes and concatenate it on. The linker guarantees that the last 8 bytes are
always
the check values (which can be confirmed with a
hexdump
). At this point the command looks like
borgel$ truncate -s -8 combined-firmware.bin
borgel$ cat size.bin payload1.bin payload2.bin >> combined-firmware.bin
The last piece of the puzzle is building that 8 byte size file. I wanted to embed the size as raw byte values (not ASCII) to force them into a constant size. For this we must reach all the way back to the beginning of this journey to again find
xxd
. Previously I used
xxd
to convert from a binary file to hex (in the form of C source), but the tool works in reverse as well, converting from a hex file to a binary. It’s not too picky, so all we need to give it is the starting address of the “hex file” to convert, then the series of bytes it should consume to produce the binary output file. All together that looks like
borgel$ printf '0: %08x %08x' `stat -c %s payload1.bin` \
`stat -c %s payload2.bin` | xxd -r -p - >lenfile.bin
and gives a file with exactly the contents we expect:
borgel$ stat -c %s payload1.bin
922
borgel$ stat -c %s payload2.bin
176
borgel$ hexdump lenfile.bin
0000000 00 00 03 9a 00 00 00 b0
0000008
That does it! Almost anticlimactically, final sequence of commands turns out to be just three shell commands
borgel$ truncate -s -8 combined-firmware.bin
borgel$ printf '0: %08x %08x' `stat -c %s payload1.bin` \
`stat -c %s payload2.bin` | xxd -r -p - >lenfile.bin
cat size.bin payload1.bin payload2.bin >> combined-firmware.bin
Bit Buffers Managed
There we go! Two more methods for editing binary files. Between these and
the first two options
described, most use cases should be covered. Most of these techniques should serve well for any assets which need to combined; think adding sound effects or images to a system without external storage to hold them.
Hopefully you now feel empowered to slice and dice your way to binary payload victory, no matter the geometry in question.
Credit to this excellent article
“Embedding binary data in executables” by [Christian Stigen Larsen]
in 2016 for the kernels of some of these ideas. If you’re interested in another one or two choices it provides an excellent summary of some other options. | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283016",
"author": "ChipMaster",
"timestamp": "2020-10-01T20:41:54",
"content": "Sweet! The rest! Printing for later consumption…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6283079",
"author": "Jeff",
"timestamp": "2020-10-02T04:5... | 1,760,373,336.577204 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/01/raspberry-pi-helps-racer-master-the-track/ | Raspberry Pi Helps Racer Master The Track | Tom Nardi | [
"car hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"grafana",
"racing",
"sensors",
"telemetry"
] | Looking to give himself a competitive edge, racer [Douglas Hedges] wanted to come up with a system that could give him real-time feedback on how his current performance compared to his previous fastest lap time. Armed with a Raspberry Pi and some Python libraries,
he set out to add a simple telemetry system to his car.
But as is often the case with these kind of projects, things just started snowballing from there.
The Raspberry Pi based data acquisition system.
At the most basic level, his system uses GPS position and speed information to light up a strip of RGB LEDs on the dashboard: green means he’s going faster than the previous best lap, and red means he isn’t. Any interface more complex than that would just be a distraction while he focuses on the track. But that doesn’t mean the Raspberry Pi can’t collect data for future review after the race is over.
With the basic functionality in place, [Douglas] turned his attention to collecting engine performance data. It turned out the car already had some pre-existing equipment for collecting metrics such as the air-fuel ratio and RPM, which he was able to connect to the Raspberry Pi thanks to its use of a well documented protocol. On top of that he added a Labjack U3 data acquisition system which let him pull in additional information like throttle position and coolant temperature. Grafana is used to visualize all of this data after the race, though it sounds like he’s also considering adding a cellular data connection vehicle data can be streamed out in real-time.
In the past we’ve seen onboard data collection systems make
real-world races look more like their virtual counterparts
, but it seems like the solution [Douglas] has come up with is more practical in the heat of the moment. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6283023",
"author": "Mattd",
"timestamp": "2020-10-01T21:21:56",
"content": "A ex-colleague of mine was pretty keen on the track and wrote an app for his prototype Nokia N95 to do his telemetry (accelerometer, magnetometer, and GPS).He may have used the mic for engine revs too, but ... | 1,760,373,336.522989 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/01/certifying-nuclear-reactors-how-the-nrc-approved-its-first-small-modular-reactor-design/ | Certifying Nuclear Reactors: How The NRC Approved Its First Small Modular Reactor Design | Maya Posch | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"nrc",
"nuclear licensing",
"nuclear power",
"nuscale",
"SMR"
] | The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently announced that
it had approved certification of NuScale’s SMR
(small modular reactor) design, completing its Phase 6 review of NuScale’s Design Certification Application (DCA). What this means is that SMRs using NuScale’s reactor design can legally be constructed within the US as soon as the rulemaking process completes. An NRC certification would also mean that certification of the design in other countries should pose no significant hurdles.
A question that remains unanswered at this point for most is how this certification process at the NRC actually works. Are there departments full of engineers at the NRC who have been twiddling their thumbs for the past decades while the US nuclear industry has been languishing? What was in the literally millions of documents that NuScale had to send to the NRC as part of the certification process, and what exactly are these six phases?
Stay tuned for a crash course in nuclear reactor certification, after a bit of SMR history.
From Soviet Russia With Love
SMR-powered Sevmorput container ship in 2007.
For as much fanfare the small modular reactor (
SMR
) concept is getting these days, it is not a new concept by any means. For example, the reactors which power military vessels and submarines for the US, France, China, and Russia are SMRs. They’re largely self-contained units, which in the case of
naval reactors
can use either low-enriched or high-enriched (mostly US) uranium fuel, thermal output of less than 100 MW to a few hundred MW and a fuel life of around 10-30 years.
The only nation to currently use SMRs in commercial service is Russia, whose first SMR (the
EGP-6
) is essentially a scaled-down version of the
RBMK
reactor (made popular by Chernobyl’s #4 reactor), with 12 MW electrical power. Four of these reactors were built in the 1970s at the Bilibino Nuclear Power Plant, of which three are still operational today. These reactors are scheduled to be replaced by the
KLT-40S
SMR onboard the Akademik Lomonosov, which generates about 52 MW of electrical power.
The world’s only nuclear-powered container ship, the
Sevmorput
, utilizes the KLT-40 SMR, as do Russian icebreakers like the
Taymyr
. The company behind the KLT-40 (OKBM Afrikantov) has recently seen its successor RITM-200 SMR go into commercial service first with the
LK-60Ya series icebreakers
. These SMRs are designed to be refueled every six to ten years, with 55 MW electrical output power (55 MWe) for the RITM-200, or 120 MWe in the case of the larger RITM-400 (315 MW thermal output power, or MWth).
Other nations have not had nearly as much experience with SMRs as Russia, although Argentina is in the final stages of construction with its 25 MWe
CAREM
SMR project, and China is constructing its first SMR in the form of the 125 MWe
ACP100
. Nations such as South Korea have licensed designs that still require an interested commercial party to construct them.
Toshiba’s 4S
SMR was scheduled for installation in Alaska until the project was cancelled in 2011.
Clearly, licensing an SMR has a lot of background history to reference when considering NuScale’s new SMR design.
Safety Determinations
Among the
NRC
‘s tasks since its creation in 1974 has been the regulating of commercial nuclear power plants. This includes
certifying
that a new reactor design is safe for construction and operation within the US. Such a design certification is valid for 15 years, with renewal required after that every 10 to 15 years.
In the NRC’s ‘
Backgrounder on New Nuclear Plant Designs
‘ some of the things which they are looking for in new designs are covered. These include designs that improve on existing designs by being simpler and using forces like gravity to their advantage. This is for example reflected in the Generation III+ reactor designs compared to the Generation II designs, where the former almost invariably uses gravity and thermal properties of the cooling loops for passive cooling.
Taking a look at the
review schedule page
for the NuScale SMR, we can see the various stages that the licensing process went through. After the initial application and the acceptance review, the safety review begins in earnest. For NuScale’s design, Phase 1 began in April of 2018 with the preliminary Safety Evaluation Report (SER). This was followed by Phase 2, which created a new SER based on newly provided information after questions raised during Phase 1. After phases 3-6, this culminated in the final SER (FSER), which was accompanied
by this letter to NuScale
from Anna H. Bradford, the director of NRC’s Division of New and Renewed Licenses.
In the NRC’s
news release on the FSER completion
, it was noted that they met the agency’s 42-month technical review schedule and that the next step will be the
rulemaking
process in which the design will be formally certified. This certificate would “[allow] a utility to reference the design when applying for a combined license to build and operate a nuclear power plant”.
It’s An Engineering Thing
An overview of the NRC’s tasks and responsibilities.
The
FSER documents
are all publicly available on the NRC website.
Chapter 1
(‘Introduction and General Discussion’) covers a broad overview of the entire process that the NuScale application went through. It covers the graded review approach, with different aspects of the design being considered using one of four different norms depending on whether they are safety-related and risk significant (A1) down to not safety-related and not risk significant (B2).
Since LWRs (Light Water Reactors) and SMRs are not a new thing as we saw earlier, they were able to use a standard reference (
NUREG-0800
, “Standard Review Plan for the Review of Safety Analysis Reports for Nuclear Power Plants: LWR Edition”, specifically the SMR section). During interviews and meetings with NuScale engineers, the NRC staff took pains to get answers on all pertinent points, including whether failures on a B2 level item might have implications for a B1 or A-level item.
For each item, NuScale’s claims are examined, using experimental data (provided by NuScale’s engineers) to back up said claims. NuScale’s NIST-1 (NuScale Integral System Test Facility) is an experimental facility created by NuScale to examine the conditions in the reactor vessel and elsewhere that would occur in a working reactor system. Over two million pages of data and other information were prepared by NuScale and send to the NRC to aid in the certification process.
Involving the Industry and Academia
Having a massive staff on hand at the NRC who would only handle NRC-related tasks would be rather nuts, ergo the NRC has a fairly small staff, with a lot of
contracts
being awarded to commercial firms, non-profit organizations, and universities each year, covering everything from technical assistance to research. This in addition to the
research programs
that are sponsored by the NRC, in order to enhance the agency’s understanding of any relevant topics, covering topics like materials science, safety approaches, and the exact properties of new technologies and materials.
This information is then captured in regulation documents (NUREGs), which are subsequently used by the licensing and re-licensing of nuclear reactors. The NRC maintains a
large library section
on their website which includes NUREGs. All of which serves to makes the entire nuclear power regulation process as transparent as possible to the public, while also providing valuable information on the technologies, materials, and processes involved.
Learning Lessons
The carbon footprint of energy sources compared.
One of the NRC’s tasks is of course also to respond to current events, such as when in 2011 a massive tsunami and earthquake hit Japan’s East coast, leading to the accidents at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. Although the Japanese Diet (the commission that investigated the event)
concluded that it was a human-made accident
, causing the company in charge (TEPCO) to be nationalized, the NRC took steps to ensure that
any lessons that could be learned
from this accident would be applied to all US reactors, whether existing or yet to be built.
Along with the nationalization of TEPCO, Japan also reformed its old and inadequate nuclear regulatory commission into a new agency, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (
NRA
). This agency is styled more after the NRC’s structure, ensuring that it can be as impartial and science-driven as possible.
Although commercial nuclear power is
the safest form of electricity production
, with a very low carbon footprint, its image has been heavily tarnished by
anti-nuclear sentiment
. This significantly ups the ante when start-up companies like NuScale seek to use SMRs to massively decarbonize not only the electrical grid, but also replace other carbon-intensive sources such as in heating or hydrogen production. The NRC’s transparency is helpful there, but few will take the time to read through their comprehensive library or otherwise educate themselves.
NuScale’s FAQ reflects
a certain level of frustration
with ‘the usual questions’ as well. Within the commercial nuclear industry, but also in related fields there exists the wish that the focus could be on the science and technology, instead of on incorrect and/or outdated information. The already addressed safety aspect is one item there, as is the incorrect use of the term ‘nuclear waste’ for spent LWR fuel, which really is just
fuel for fast neutron reactors
.
The NRC, but also e.g. Canada’s equivalent (
CNSC
) are testament to a well-regulated industry, where scientists, engineers and countless others work together to create a better, cleaner world for the benefit of everyone. | 38 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6282958",
"author": "anon",
"timestamp": "2020-10-01T15:43:00",
"content": "Before I die I know 1 of 2 things will happen.1. The world over will embrace nuclear energy averting serious enviormental damage and making things like electric cars actually help reduce carbon emissions.2. ... | 1,760,373,336.266431 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/01/3d-printed-video-terminal-dials-c-for-cyberpunk/ | 3D Printed Video Terminal Dials C For Cyberpunk | Tom Nardi | [
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"3D printed enclosure",
"atmega32u4",
"Cherry MX blue",
"cyberpunk",
"terminal",
"video phone"
] | Created for the Disobey 2020 hacker conference in Finland,
this
Blade Runner
inspired communications terminal isn’t just for decoration
. It was part of an interactive game that required attendees to physically connect their conference badges up and “call” different characters with the functional keypad on the front of the unit.
[Purkkaviritys] was in charge of designing the 3D printed enclosure for the device, which he says takes an entire 2 kg roll of filament to print out. Unfortunately he wasn’t as involved in the electronics side of things, so we don’t have a whole lot of information about the internals beyond the fact that its powered by a Raspberry Pi 4, features a HyperPixel 4.0 display, and uses power over Ethernet so it could be easily set up at the con with just a single cable run.
A look at the custom keypad PCB.
The keypad is a custom input device using the Arduino Micro and Cherry MX Blue switches with 3D printed keycaps to get that chunky payphone look and feel. [Purkkaviritys] mentions that the keypad is also responsible for controlling the RGB LED strips built into the sides of the terminal, and that the Raspberry Pi toggles the status of the Caps, Scroll Lock, and Num Lock keys to select the different lighting patterns.
Naturally we’d like to see more info on how this beauty was put together, but given that it was built for such a specific purpose, it’s not like you’d really need to duplicate the original configuration anyway. Thanks to [Purkkaviritys] you have the STL files to print off our own copy of the gloriously cyberpunk enclosure, all you’ve got to do now is
figure out how to make video calls with it
. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6282939",
"author": "Mike Szczys",
"timestamp": "2020-10-01T14:11:10",
"content": "Payphone aesthetic is fantastic here. I think the kiosk format for conference challenges is an excellent one because it gets the teams who are working on challenges out in the open, and gives people w... | 1,760,373,336.472508 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/01/pulse-generator-does-the-job-with-an-stm8/ | Pulse Generator Does The Job With An STM8 | Lewin Day | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"microcontroller",
"pulse",
"pulse generator",
"stm8"
] | When working with hardware, whether a repair or a fresh build, it’s often necessary to test something. Depending on what you’re working with, this can be easy or a total pain if you can’t get the right signal to the right place. To eliminate this frustrating problem,
[WilkoL] built a useful pulse generator for use in the lab.
[WilkoL] notes that historically, the job of generating pulses of varying length and frequency would be achieved with a smattering of 555 timers. While this is a perfectly cromulent way to do so, it was desired to take a different approach for the added flexibility modern hardware can offer. The pulse generator is instead built around an STM8 microcontroller; an unusual choice in this era, to be sure. [WilkoL] specified the part for its incredibly low cost, and highly capable timer hardware – perfect for the job.
Combined with an ST7735 TFT LCD screen, and programmed in bare metal for efficiency’s sake, the final project is installed in a project box with controls for frequency and pulse length – no more, no less. Capable of pulse lengths from 250 ns to 90 s, and frequencies from 10 mHz to 2 MHz, it’s a tool that should be comfortable testing everything from servos to mechanical counters.
Of course, if you need to get down to picosecond timescales,
an avalanche pulse generator might be more your speed
. Video after the break. | 16 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6282909",
"author": "YGDES",
"timestamp": "2020-10-01T10:10:19",
"content": "But what about the output impedance, offset and amplitude ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6282922",
"author": "Cyna",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,373,336.633271 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/09/30/esp32-becomes-modern-controller-for-a-1960s-clock/ | ESP32 Becomes Modern Controller For A 1960s Clock | Lewin Day | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"clock",
"ESP32",
"retro"
] | These days, everything’s got a clock in it, and a good proportion of those clocks are automatically syncronized to high-accuracy Internet time servers. Back in the past, things weren’t so easy. Often, institutions that required accurate time would use a single highly-accurate primary clock to drive a series of secondary clocks around a facility. Without the primary clock, the secondary clock has no signal to drive it. [Oleksii Samorukov] had just such a clock,
and whipped up a controller to stand in for timekeeping duty.
The secondary clock in question is a Pragotron PJ 27, which requires regular 12V signals of alternating polarity in order to keep time. To handle this job, [Oleksii] decided to use an ESP32 in combination with an L298N motor controller. The L298N is an H-bridge driver chip, allowing it to easily supply the 12V signals in alternating polarities where required. To ensure the system keeps accurate time, the ESP32 regularly queries an NTP time server over WiFi.
It’s a tidy build, and one that brings this attractive 1960s timepiece into the modern era. We’d love to have such a stylish, well-built clock in our own home, too. Of course, if you want really accurate time,
building a GPS clock is a great option, too!
[Thanks to Irregular Shed for the tip!] | 22 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6282869",
"author": "BrightBlueJim",
"timestamp": "2020-10-01T06:25:51",
"content": "Brings back memories of the Simplex clock system we had at my elementary school. Especially when we went off of daylight savings time in the Fall, because the custodian would set it to advance thos... | 1,760,373,336.693286 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/09/30/kiwisdr-vs-raspberrysdr-a-tale-of-two-sdrs/ | KiwiSDR Vs RaspberrySDR — A Tale Of Two SDRs | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"ham radio",
"KiwiSDR",
"raspberry pi",
"raspberrysdr",
"sdr",
"software-defined radio"
] | Once you move away from the usual software defined radio (SDR) dongles, you have only a few choices unless you want to drop some serious cash. One common hobby-grade SDR is the KiwiSDR. This popular unit runs Linux and can receive up to 30 MHz. The platform uses a dedicated A/D converter, an FPGA, and BeagleBone computer. Success of course breeds imitators, and especially when you have an open source design like the Kiwi, you are going to find similar devices with possibly different end goals. That’s how the RaspberrySDR came to be. This is a very similar unit to the KiwiSDR but it uses a Raspberry Pi, along with a handful of other differences. What’s different? [KA7OEI]
tells us in a recent blog post
.
Other than the obvious difference of the computer and all that it entails, the RaspberrySDR has a higher speed A/D (125 MHz vs 66 MHz) and 16-bits of resolution instead of the Kiwi’s 14 bits. This combines to give the Raspberry a wider receive range (up to 60 MHz) and — in theory — better performance in terms of dynamic range and distortion.
[KA7OEI] measures a few key parameters on both devices and arrived at some surprising conclusions. The Kiwi appears to boost signals near its cutoff frequency to compensate for losses in the system. The Raspberry — using adapted software — looks as though it does the same trick, but does it around the Kiwi’s cutoff frequency, which is lower. Probably a software fix could take care of that, of course.
There are also tests of image rejection and front-end overloading. The tests revealed a few problems with signal strength measurement and some other problems with the RaspberrySDR. The biggest issue, though, was that the 16-bit A/D didn’t seem to have better performance. Without proper design, throwing more bits at a problem isn’t always helpful and this appears to be a good example of that.
In the end, the Raspberry looks like a cheap clone of the Kiwi with some benefits, but also some drawbacks. The blog post also covers some open source issues where Kiwi is now saying some parts of their code will only be binary in the future and there has been some difficulty finding all of the Raspberry’s files. If you are looking to buy one, you might not find the name “raspberrysdr” but [KA7OEI] suggests searching for “New 16bit 62M real-time bandwidth network shared SDR receiver” which does turn up some results.
Of course, you can always use
a Pi with a more conventional dongle
, and that works well enough. If you want to make a Pi just transmit, you can do that with
little more than a wire
, although the quality might not be perfect. | 45 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6282836",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp": "2020-10-01T03:31:13",
"content": "125 MSPS 16-bit ?!?!?How can they sell a product using an EAR category 3 part sourced from the US, and avoid the pre-sale documentation required by law. Or is the 125 MSPS 16-bit ADC a pin compatible counte... | 1,760,373,336.790423 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/09/30/automated-tools-for-wifi-cracking/ | Automated Tools For WiFi Cracking | Danie Conradie | [
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"handshake",
"pwnagotchi",
"wifi",
"WiFi hack",
"wireless security"
] | Knowing how WiFi networks can be attacked is a big part of properly securing them, and the best way to learn about it is to (legally) run some attacks. [Matt Agius] has been going down the WiFi-cracking rabbit hole, and in the process created
Pwnagotchi Tools
to automate the actual password cracking part.
The first step in cracking a WiFi network is to record the handshake that gets exchanged when a client connects to an access point. This has been made very simple thanks to
Pwnagotchi
, which turns a Raspberry Pi into an automated handshake collection tool and Pwnagothi Tools helps to automate the steps that follow. It downloads the handshakes (pcap files) from the pwnagotchi, and converts it to pmkid/hccapx files to use with the
hashcat
password recovery tool. Hashcat scripts can then be generated for the actual cracking using any of the attacks that [Matt] has compiled. WPA/WPA2 is slow to crack and requires a lot of processing power, so [Matt] also added the option to automatically provision AWS GPU instances to run the cracking task in the cloud. It also keeps track of the status of each of the handshakes being cracked.
As wireless networks and IoT devices become more pervasive, it’s important to know the dangers, and how to protect against them. WiFi and Bluetooth security is probably the easiest to learn about, but other networks are just as vulnerable when an
RTL-SDR
is used. Another option
Flipper Zero
, a hacking gadget for Sub-1 GHz networks inspired by Pwnagotchi, which recently hit $4.8 million in its Kickstarter campaign. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6282809",
"author": "Fyllyx",
"timestamp": "2020-09-30T23:07:22",
"content": "Oh cool, there’s a Goth version too",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6282829",
"author": "Dane",
"timestamp": "2020-10-01T02:00:36",
"conte... | 1,760,373,336.835086 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/09/30/the-ultimate-model-rocket-launchpad/ | The Ultimate Model Rocket Launchpad | Danie Conradie | [
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"bps.space",
"launcpad",
"Mechanisms",
"model rocket"
] | When you’re building advanced rockets as BPS.Space are, an unreliable launchpad is the something you really don’t want to be struggling with. [Joe Barnard] is working on a model rocket that can land vertically under its own power, like the Falcon 9, and has
upgraded his launchpad
in the process. A lot of thought and hard-earned experience has gone into its design, and the video after the break is a fascinating look the engineering process.
[Joe]’s rockets don’t use guide rods and fins for stabilization in the way most amateur rockets do, but instead have thrust vectoring motor mounts and reaction wheels for active stabilization during launch and flight. The rockets are clamped to the launchpad right up to ignition, and then need to release quickly and reliably. His previous clamps looked very cool, but suffered from high friction forces during release, and the integrated covers prevented easy inspection. These were replaced by much simpler spring-loaded clamp held in place by a small locking bar, which is knocked out by a servo to release the clamp. It also has no static friction, since it moves up and away from the clamping surfaces on the rocket.
The launch pad also features a ATSAMD21 based launch computer named Impulse, which at the most basic level controls the igniter, clamps, buzzer and indicator lights. It also has a number of inputs and outputs to allow for expansion. [Joe] experienced a number of inexplicable failures of rocketry electronics in the past, but believes he has finally tracked down the culprit: Tennessee humidity. He has since started conformal coating all his electronics.
The launchpad itself is made from plywood, so to protect it from the hot exhaust it has in integrated flame trench. This was made from 1 inch steel plumbing components, and directs most of the exhaust out of one side of the platform. It can also be reconfigured to allow a three core rocket like a
Falcon Heavy
to be launched.
It’s incredible to see how far BPS.Space has come in the past four years, with the engineering complexity and video production quality increasing in leaps and bounds. Earlier this year we covered on of [Joe]’s other projects, a
silo-launched rocket named Thoomp
. | 14 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6282794",
"author": "Tectu",
"timestamp": "2020-09-30T21:14:08",
"content": "This is certainly an interesting build. Personally I would have had the release hooks on a single mechanism with just one actuator for all of them to ensure that they are released “all at the same time – ev... | 1,760,373,336.887537 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2020/09/30/oh-holey-light/ | Oh, Holey Light | Brian McEvoy | [
"home hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2020 Hackaday Prize",
"cool",
"lamp",
"led",
"LED lamp",
"lighting",
"spectrum",
"temperature",
"warm"
] | We consider ourselves well-versed when it comes to the technical literature plastered on hardware store parts. Acronyms don’t frighten us, and our Google-fu is strong enough to overcome most mysteries. One bit of dark magic we didn’t understand was the gobbledygook on LED lamps. Wattage is easy and color temperature made sense because it corresponds with warm and cool colors, but Color Rendering Index (CRI) sounds like deep magic. Of course, some folks understand these terms so thoroughly that they can teach the rest of us, like [Jon] and [Kevin], who are building a
light controller that corrects inadequacies in cheap lamps
by installing several lamps into one unit.
We learned a lot by reading their logs, which are like the Cliff Notes from a lighting engineer’s textbook, but we’ll leave it as an exercise for the students to read through. Their project uses precise light sensors to measure the “flavor” of light coming off cheap lamps so you can mix up a pleasing ratio. In some ways, they are copying the effects of incandescent bulbs, which emit light relatively evenly across the visible light spectrum, right into the infrared. Unfortunately, cheap LEDs have holes in their spectrum coverage, and a
Warm White
unit has different gaps compared with
Daylight
, but combining them just right gives a rich output, without breaking the bank.
The
Hackaday
Prize2020
is Sponsored by: | 18 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6282800",
"author": "Alan",
"timestamp": "2020-09-30T22:13:55",
"content": "That three color sensor isn’t giving any useful information about the spectral coverage of the bulbs. It is no better than your eye. An actual spectrometer is needed, along with a calibrated white sphere t... | 1,760,373,336.945439 |
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