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https://hackaday.com/2024/12/25/tweezers-probe-reviewed/ | Tweezers Probe Reviewed | Al Williams | [
"Reviews",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"LCR meter",
"Smart Tweezers",
"tweezers"
] | Over the last few decades, electronic devices have drastically changed. Radios that once had point-to-point wiring gave way to printed circuit boards with through-hole parts, and now microscopic surface mount devices are the norm. But most of us still use probes that would have been just fine for a 1940s receiver. There are other options, of course. Among other things, you can now buy meters that have built-in tweezer probes. While not the first, the
FNIRSI LCR-ST1
are affordable, and [TheHWcave] puts them to the test in the video below.
The tweezers come with two different pointy ends. It is more or less one of those testers that can identify and measure various components. Instead of the customary socket, this one has tweezer ends and, perhaps, a few extra functions.
The device can use several different voltages and frequencies while actively probing. Comparing some readings to a few other meters showed a bit of error, although nothing too drastic. The inductance reading of a very small inductor at 1 kHz was, however, too unstable to be useful.
The only downsides noted were that the probes could be a bit sharper for fine PCB work, and the display doesn’t rotate for left-handed operation. Both of those are probably fixable with a file and a firmware update. Overall, it looks like a reasonable low-cost tool.
Tools like this have been around for a while
,
but often at a higher cost. There are
plenty of sophisticated test probes
if you ever decide to look for them. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8076286",
"author": "joelsullivanf572bf1946",
"timestamp": "2024-12-26T04:01:08",
"content": "Well… I guess I have to buy one.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8076292",
"author": "KDawg",
"timestamp": "2024-12-26T05:31:4... | 1,760,371,689.025979 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/25/when-it-comes-to-dos-dont-forget-dr-dos/ | When It Comes To DOS, Don’t Forget DR-DOS. | Jenny List | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"dos",
"freedos",
"ms-dos",
"SvarDOS"
] | Despite the latest and greatest Intel-derived computers having multi-core 64-bit processors and unimaginably fast peripherals, at heart they all still retain a compatibility that goes back to the original 8086. This means that they can, in theory at least, still run MS-DOS. The venerable Microsoft 16-bit OS may now be long discontinued, but there is still enough need for DOS that the open-source FreeDOS remains in active development.
The Register
are here to remind us that there’s another open-source DOS on the block,
and that it has a surprising history
.
SvarDOS
is an open source DOS distribution, and it’s interesting because it uses a derivative of the DR-DOS kernel, an OS which traces its roots back to Digital Research’s CP/M operating system of the 1970s. This found its way briefly into the open source domain courtesy of the notorious Caldera Inc back in the 1990s, and has continued to receive some development effort ever since. As the
Reg
notes, it has something FreeDOS lacks, the ability to run Windows 3.1 should you ever feel the need. They take it for a spin in the linked article, should you be curious.
It’s something which has surprised us over the years, that aside from the world of retrocomputing we still occasionally find FreeDOS being distributed, usually alongside some kind of hardware maintenance software. Even four decades or more later, it’s still of value to have the simplest of PC operating systems to hand.
It’s worth pointing out that there’s a third open-source DOS in the wild, as back in April
Microsoft released MS-DOS version 4 source code
. But as anyone who used it will tell you, that version was hardly the pick of the bunch.
Header: Ivan Radic,
CC BY 2.0
. | 45 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "8076207",
"author": "lol",
"timestamp": "2024-12-25T21:43:00",
"content": "It didn’t go to medical school to be called MR-DOS",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8076215",
"author": "Richard",
"timestamp": "2024-12... | 1,760,371,689.39586 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/23/crawler-challenge-building-rope-traversing-robots/ | Crawler Challenge: Building Rope-Traversing Robots | Heidi Ulrich | [
"contests",
"Robots Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"challenge",
"illinois",
"robot",
"rope",
"rope traversal",
"traversing",
"university of illinois",
"walker"
] | Rope-climbing robots are the stuff of engineering dreams. As kids, didn’t we all clutter our family home with constructions of towers and strings – Meccano, or Lego – to have ziplines spanning entire rooms? Good for the youngsters of today, this has been included in school curricula. At the University of Illinois, the ME 370 students have been given the task of
building a robot that can hang from a rope and walk across it
—without damaging the rope. The final projects show not only how to approach tricky design problems, but also the creative solutions they stumbled upon.
Imagine a tiny, rope-climbing walker in your workshop—what could you create?
The project is full of opportunities for those thinking out of the box. It’s all about the balance between innovation and practicality: the students have to come up with a solution that can move at least 2 meters per minute, fits in a shoebox, and has some creative flair—no wheels allowed! The constraints provide an extra layer of challenge, but that’s where the fun lies. Some students use inverted walkers, others take on a more creature-like approach. The clever use of motors and batteries shows just how far simple tech can go when combined with a bit of engineering magic.
This project is a fantastic reminder that even small, seemingly simple design challenges can lead to fascinating creations. It invites us adults to play, and by that, we learn: a win-win situation. You can find
the original article
here, or grab some popcorn and watch the video below. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075754",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2024-12-23T21:21:57",
"content": "Hmm, I thought the University crawler challenge was getting home from the bar?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8075785",
"author": "Tony M",
... | 1,760,371,689.29979 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/23/a-pi-pico-makes-a-spectrum-laptop/ | A Pi Pico Makes A Spectrum Laptop | Jenny List | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"Raspberry Pi Pico",
"sinclair spectrum",
"ZX Spectrum"
] | There are many retrocomputer emulation projects out there, and given the relative fragility of the original machines as they enter their fifth decade, emulation seems to be the most common way to play 8-bit games. It’s easy enough to load one on your modern computer, but there are plenty of hardware options, too. “The computer we’d have done anything for back in 1983” seems to be a phrase many of them bring to mind, but it’s so appropriate because they keep getting better. Take [Stormbytes1970]’s
Pi Pico-powered Sinclair ZX Spectrum mini laptop
(Spanish language,
Google Translate link
), for example. It’s a slightly chunky netbook that’s a ZX Spectrum, and it has a
far
better keyboard than the original.
On the PCB is the Pico, the power supply circuitry, an SD card, and a speaker. But it’s when the board is flipped over that the interesting stuff starts. In place of the squidgy rubber keyboard of yore, it has a proper keyboard,. We’re not entirely sure which switch it uses, but it appears to be a decent one, nevertheless. The enclosure is a slick 3D-printed sub-netbook for retro gaming on the go. Sadly, it won’t edit Hackaday, so we won’t be slipping one in the pack next time we go on the road, but we like it a lot.
It’s not the first Spectrum laptop we’ve covered, but we think it has upped the ante over
the last one
. If you just want the Spectrum’s BASIC language experience, you can try a modern version that runs natively on your PC. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075748",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2024-12-23T21:01:38",
"content": "No source code?Use MCUME and you can build which ever retro computer or consol you want.https://github.com/Jean-MarcHarvengt/MCUME",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"co... | 1,760,371,689.444984 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/23/atoms-for-peace-the-us-nuclear-fleet-build-out-and-modern-day-revival/ | Atoms For Peace: The US Nuclear Fleet Build-Out And Modern-Day Revival | Maya Posch | [
"Engineering",
"Featured"
] | [
"nuclear power"
] | By the end of World War II the world had changed forever, as nuclear weapons were used for the first and – to this date – only time in anger. Although the use of these weapons was barely avoided during the Korean War in the early 1950s, the dawning of the Atomic Age had come in the form of obliterated cities and an increasing number of these weapons being test fired around the world. It was against this background that on December 8, 1953, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower held
his ‘Atoms for Peace’ speech
, during which he would not only promote the peaceful use of nuclear technologies but also lay the groundwork for what would become the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as announced
in the full speech
.
Under the Eisenhower administration the US became one of the world’s nuclear power pioneers, as it competed with the UK and later others in establishing world’s firsts in commercial nuclear power. Dresden Generating Station would become the first purely commercial boiling water reactor (BWR) in 1960 and
Yankee-Rowe
, the first pressurized water reactor (PWR) in 1961. Following these, the number of new reactors planned and constructed kept increasing year over year, setting the trend for the few decades of the
US nuclear power industry
.
Today the US operates 94 reactors, which generate nearly 20% of the country’s electricity. Exactly how did the US build so many reactors before 1990, and how does this compare to the recent revival with both new builds and retired plants being put back into service?
From Graphite Pile to Light Water Reactor
Drawing of the Chicago Pile-1 graphite-moderated fission reactor. (Credit:
DoE
)
The first artificial nuclear reactor was the
Chicago Pile-1
, demonstrating the first human-made, self-sustaining nuclear fission reaction. This laid the groundwork for the second generation of nuclear fission reactors with commercial aspirations, the overwhelming majority of which are light water reactors (LWRs). These use water as both coolant and neutron moderator. When artificial fission reactors were being developed, it had already been established that in order to fission uranium-235 (U-235), moderated (thermal) neutrons were needed.
Moderating neutrons effectively means slowing them down using a material that interacts with but doesn’t capture neutrons. Heavy water (deuterium, or D
2
O) was a known moderator in the 1940s, as was graphite, but it was easiest and fastest to assemble a graphite pile reactor, with the uranium interspersed throughout the graphite blocks. Naturally, this meant that CP-1 had no means of cooling itself and only low power output, but it sufficed to test many theoretical assumptions experimentally.
Interestingly, the US and Canadian reactor designs diverge here. Canadian engineers, in their Generation II reactor designs, went with heavy water in the pressurized heavy water
CANDU
reactor (PHWR), as this allowed for the use of unenriched uranium as its fuel. While light water (H
2
O) is also a neutron moderator, it absorbs a significant number of neutrons, which requires enriched uranium (<5% U-235) and the resulting increase in neutrons to compensate for so that a chain reaction can even commence. Even so, US engineers opted for the much cheaper ultra-pure light water as an acceptable trade-off.
Comparison of BWR & PWR light water reactors with a PHWR heavy water reactor. (Credit:
World Nuclear Association
)
The two
basic types
of LWR that still form the backbone of the US nuclear fleet today are BWRs and PWRs, which differ primarily in their complexity.
In a BWR
the steam is generated in the reactor pressure vessel, from where it travels to the steam turbine before hitting the condenser and returning to the pressure vessel. A PWR separates this into two loops: the (high-pressure) primary loop where the water (heavy water in the case of a PWHR) is heated but not allowed to boil, and a secondary loop which the thermal energy is transferred into by the steam generator before heading to the steam turbine.
Unsurprisingly, a PWR is more efficient than a BWR due to the high-pressure primary loop, but BWRs have one advantage in that there’s less latency between the heat production and the conversion into electrical power. This makes BWRs better at load-following when integrated into a local grid, though this advantage has become less pronounced over the years with newer PWR designs and more efficient grid-storage solutions.
The reactivity of the reactor core is regulated with
control rods
, which are made out of a material with a large neutron absorption cross section, the ideal type of which depends on the design of the reactor core, but both cadmium (Cd-113) and hafnium (various isotopes) are popular options here. With all of these in place and a control scheme developed to keep the chain reaction occurring at an optimal pace, the next step is to start the reactor. Since the fresh reactor fuel won’t do this by itself, a startup
neutron source is required
, such as californium-252 or plutonium-238. This source is inserted at the beginning of startup and removed after successful commencing of the reaction.
With these designs designed and prototyped, all US engineers had to do now was to build them in large quantities to power the rapidly increasing electrical demand of the 1960s United States.
Mass-Produce It
How do you scale up building nuclear reactors from a few handcrafted prototypes and demonstrators to hundreds of units? Perhaps unsurprisingly this is done in much the same way as any other large-scale infrastructure project. Many parts of a nuclear power plant (NPP) are the same or similar as in a coal- or gas-fired plant, as they are after all still thermal plants, just with different ways to create the hot steam or air that makes the turbines spin. This made things quite easy for US nuclear engineers who could mostly focus on the part that makes a nuclear plant different from a
coal-fired power plant
: the reactor and steam generator instead of the boiler. As a bonus, an NPP doesn’t need a smokestack, coal or ash hopper, coal mill, exhaust scrubber and countless other parts that come with burning tons of coal every single day.
Installation of the pressure vessel at unit 3 of the Haiyang nuclear power plant in December of 2023. The Chinese CAP1000 reactor is based on the US AP1000 reactor. (Credit:
Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute
)
The beating heart of an NPP is the reactor pressure vessel and its control mechanisms. These parts have to be of certain alloys and of a high quality level so that they are resistant to e.g. neutron flux and corrosion while inside the reactor for decades. With the research and development finished, once the production lines are in place and the workers hired and trained, all one has to do is to simply keep producing the steel and other components, while continuously transporting new pressure vessels, steam generators and everything else to the sites of new NPPs.
Having as few distinct reactor designs is incredibly helpful here, with
General Electric’s BWR line
of reactors taking the lion’s share of BWR construction in the US and around the globe. For PWRs, Babcock & Wilcox provided many of the designs (e.g. LLP, WH 4LP), along with Westinghouse.
Much as we can see today with the nuclear fleet build-out in China with the Westinghouse AP1000 and derived designs (CAP1000 and Hualong One), strong political and financial backing combined with a mature nuclear power supply chain means that the time from first concrete to grid connection can be as little as four to five years. After all, the components are made in parallel, so that no single step in the construction is blocked until final on-site assembly occurs. Meanwhile, experience is collected with each newly constructed reactor that helps to speed up and improve subsequent builds.
As a demonstration of this, a
recently released report
by the US Department of Energy (DoE) shows the massive time improvement for key milestones between Vogtle units 3 & 4:
Vogtle unit 3 was the first time the new AP1000 reactor was built in the US, completing its construction long after the Chinese nuclear sector had not only built a number of licensed AP1000 units, but also designed their own version that better fit the Chinese market and built a number of these both in China and abroad. The difference is that the US is now cobbling its nuclear industry back together after a decades-long hiatus – much like it did in the 1950s and 1960s – while China began building nuclear reactors in the 1990s and never quit building them.
The problem with institutional knowledge is that it’s costly to obtain and basically impossible to retain if you do not actively maintain it. When the US began building its nuclear fleet last century, this knowledge was strong and supply chains robust. During the 1980s and until recently, both were allowed to degrade, as engineers and workers retired or died, suppliers changed markets or went bankrupt, documentation was lost and tooling was scrapped.
Back From The Dead
Three Mile Island, including the training center and access road. (Credit: Groupmesa, Wikimedia)
The current revival of the US and effectively the Western nuclear power industry poses many challenges, as much of this institutional knowledge has to be relearned and rediscovered. As the economics of the energy market change, and financing options become available with the scrapping of various anti-nuclear power regulations, there’s now a surge in interest among companies and investors in not only new builds, but also in reviving units that were already turned off and put into decommissioning status.
Prime examples of this are the Palisades NPP in Michigan and Three Mile Island unit 1, the former of which was originally transferred to Holtec for decommissioning, but which
decided to refurbish this NPP instead
. In the case of TMI-1, this reactor was still running until 2019, but is now being refurbished by the owner due to a much friendlier political and investment climate for nuclear power.
Returning a nuclear reactor from a decommissioning state back to an operational one is pretty much an abbreviated case of constructing one: every component has to be inspected, with missing, damaged or otherwise unsuitable components replaced. Following this the typical commissioning procedure has to be followed, with cold pressure tests, hot pressure tests, fuel loading and gradual increasing of the power output through a set testing protocol. Depending on the level of damage and number of systems that had to be upgraded to current standards, this could take around 1-2 years.
In the case of Palisades, the expectation is that it will resume operations by late 2025, and for TMI-1 it will likely take until 2028, mostly due to environmental reviews, emergency and security protocols and getting the appropriate permissions from the NRC. Meanwhile the
Duane Arnold NPP in Iowa may also be restarting
, per recent news, and the V.C. Summer NPP in South Carolina may see its
partially built AP1000 reactors finished
after all, assuming the necessary legal and regulatory hurdles can be cleared.
Although the US has in the past demonstrated that it can build many nuclear reactors fast and safely, it would appear that the biggest obstacles are primarily a lack of political willpower, an atrophied nuclear industry and an abundance of red tape. Whether these can be overcome remains to be seen, but the successfully running AP1000 GenIII+ PWRs in China, South Korea, and the US demonstrate that the problem never was US engineering chops. | 24 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075730",
"author": "Adam Zeloof",
"timestamp": "2024-12-23T19:45:49",
"content": "RBMK is still 70% less expensive to build and operate than AP1000. Just don’t let scrum masters operate it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "807... | 1,760,371,689.206028 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/23/silicone-tubing-as-springs-for-capacitive-touch-buttons/ | Silicone Tubing As Springs For Capacitive Touch Buttons | Maya Posch | [
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"capacitive touch",
"silicone"
] | Capacitive touch buttons are a great way to turn just about any (non-conductive) surface into a button, but people generally dislike the lack of tactile feedback.
[KontinuumLab] apparently agreed
and decided to experiment a bit with ways to make such buttons more springy. You can check out the results of those experiments in the video below. There are a few ways to add some spring to buttons and switches like these, including compliant mechanisms in the (3D-printed) plastic structure, but this isn’t always an option in a project. A separate plastic spring can be added, but they aren’t very durable. A metal spring works great but can be a bit of a hassle to integrate and they aren’t as cheap as the other options. So what about everyone’s favorite keyboard switch, the rubber dome type?
Silicone tubing is plentiful and (generally) cheap. It can be selected for just the right springiness and dimensions, and in the automated test that [KontinuumLab] ran, it is also very durable in this application. When your goal is to have a switch that activates at the end of the travel, this may work a treat, with the size of the silicone tube determining the travel before the finger gets close enough to trigger the switch. As rubber dome keyboards demonstrate, this is a highly reliable technology, though this version ditches the typical membrane for the capacitive touch sensor.
Sometimes, a
metal spring is the right option
, of course, such as when you want to make a surface a touch sensor and the PCB is at the other side of the enclosure. The fun part is that we have all of these options to make our projects work, with many being very affordable to hobbyists. Not all touch sensors
require a finger
, either.
Thanks to [BrightBlueJim] for the tip. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075719",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2024-12-23T18:15:02",
"content": "Here’s an idea: Use a piezo sounder itself as the captouch button. Twang it when the “key press” is detected. Bonus: measure the voltage produced in the piezo from the press too.I’m sure it’s been done, j... | 1,760,371,689.129498 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/23/keebin-with-kristina-the-one-with-the-keyboard-mouse/ | Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Keyboard-Mouse | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"Imperial Model B",
"keyboard-mouse",
"Kinesis",
"Kinesis mWave",
"sms",
"typewriter SMS"
] | One of the most annoying things about keyboard and mouse input has got to be the need to constantly switch between the two. Ever wish there was a single solution that combined them with elegance? Then you should definitely check out [lemosbor]’s
Lapa keyboard
, where the right half includes a mouse sensor.
Image by [lemosbor] via
reddit
Lapa, which is Russian for ‘paw’, certainly has that type of look. This hand-wired keyboard uses a pair of Pro Micros and an ADNS9800 optical sensor for mousing around. Under those ‘caps are MX blues, the OG clackers.
Let me just say that I love the look of this keyboard, and I don’t normally like black and brown together. But that oak — that oak is classy, and it looks good with the resin-and-varnish case. If you can handle a 36-key board — I myself cannot — then this would probably be a game changer. There are even slots for your palms to breathe.
Unfortunately it’s not open source, but a girl can dream, right? In
the reddit post
, [lemosbor] says that they would be interested in selling the next version, provided it’s the final one.
A New Wave of Kinesis Keyboards
Good news for
all of those who are either missing the Microsoft 4000 keyboard
, or anyone who just wants to try something more ergonomic than a standard rectangle without going too crazy.
Kinesis are now making a keyboard they call mWave
which very much resembles that discontinued offering from Redmond. It’s out of stock until June 1, 2025, but you can drool over the picture gallery and technical specs for now.
Image via
Kinesis
Speaking of, this thing has brown Gateron low-profile switches, which I find interesting. But finally, unlike my precious Kinesis Advantage, all the switches are the same. No more crappy little rubber buttons for the Function layer. As with the Advantage, the home row row caps have a different sculpt to help the user locate them more easily. On the mWave, the arrow keys are sculpted as well.
This is a Bluetooth keyboard, but you can connect a USB cable if you need backlighting. For some reason, the PC model is black, and the Mac model is white. But they do sell keycap sets in case you want to sort of switch it up.
The most annoying thing about this keyboard aside from the bright green light in the middle has got to be the ‘6’ placement. No way does it ever belong on the left side, and that’s a hill I’m willing to die on. I suppose it’s just a carryover from (likely) aping the MS 4000 design, which has ‘6’ on the left as well. But back on the positive side of things, there are magnetically-attachable feet that provide an optional negative tilt, so that’s cool.
Via
reddit
The Centerfold: Dipping a Toe Back In the Hobby
Image by [Thallium54] via
reddit
After using a bare-bones Corne for a few years, [Thallium54] happened to buy a 3D printer and so decided it was time for something new.
This here is a Totem with an FDM-printed case and keycaps
. In case you’re wondering, this keycap profile is
MBK
, which are supposed to be much easier to print than MX keycaps. I wish I could tell you what desk mat that is. Can you tell me?
Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad?
Send me a picture
along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!
Historical Clackers: Imperial Model B
It might be difficult to imagine that there were any ergonomic keyboards over a hundred years ago, but one certainly existed —
the Imperial Model B
.
All other Imperial models had straight keyboards, but this elegantly curved keyboard offered a typing experience that
one modern user described as ergonomic
. Ergonomics aside, it may have been designed simply to match the curve of the type basket.
Image via
Science Museum Group
One of the coolest things about this typewriter is that the user could change fonts or clean the machine by removing and replacing the entire keyboard. The type basket was attached and came along for the ride.
Model B arrived in 1915, four years after the Model A
. Unlike its predecessor, Model B had two Shifts and a Backspace and was a commercial breakthrough for its makers, the Imperial Typewriter Company of Leicester, England.
An engineer named Hidalgo Moya was responsible for the basic design. Like some other machines of the same era, the Imperial Model B has typebars that down-strike from the front. Press a key, and the selected typebar would swing downward and strike the ribbon against the paper and platen.
This three-row QWERTY keyboard has a sweet knurled Space bar that maybe should have been a pair of Space bars, but that might not have looked as nice. There are 28 character keys with a FIGS and CAPS on each side of the keyboard. Mysteriously, there is an unlabeled key on the right side near the platen. Anyone care to speculate wildly as to what this was for? I’ll go first. Maybe it was the magic button that released the keyboard and type basket for swapping or cleaning.
ICYMI: Panasonic Typewriter Now Does SMS
Image by [Sam Christy] via
Mr. Christy Engineering
What is the future of texting? Well, if you’re an awesome engineering teacher named [Sam Christy],
then it’s receiving incoming SMS messages on a Panasonic T36 typewriter
.
The best part about this clacker hack is that [Sam] designed the circuit to work with nearly any electric typewriter, using a generic hardware circuit and an ESP32. As you might imagine, this is a complex one that required fiddly engineering. There’s I²C, multiplexers, and SMS management involving Twilio.
I love that [Sam] is using a huge roll of paper to capture the texts. I do the same with 96′ fax paper rolls in my thermal electronic typewriters, in part because it’s so fun to rip off the paper when I’m finished.
Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards?
Help me out by sending in a link or two
. Don’t want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to
email me directly
. | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075697",
"author": "craig",
"timestamp": "2024-12-23T15:52:08",
"content": "That button summons your boyfriend to get you a Diet Coke.(Sorry if double comment comments are weird)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8075958",
... | 1,760,371,689.543178 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/23/handheld-satellite-dish-is-3d-printed/ | Handheld Satellite Dish Is 3D Printed | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"antenna",
"helical",
"polarization",
"radio",
"satellite",
"tracker",
"weather satellite"
] | Ham radio enthusiasts, people looking to borrow their neighbors’ WiFi, and those interested in decoding signals from things like weather satellites will often grab an old satellite TV antenna and repurpose it. Customers have been leaving these services for years, so they’re pretty widely available. But for handheld operation, these metal dishes can get quite cumbersome.
A 3D-printed satellite dish like this one is lightweight and small enough to be held
, enabling some interesting satellite tracking activities with just a few other parts needed.
Although we see his projects often, [saveitforparts] did not design this antenna,
instead downloading the design from [t0nito] on Thingiverse
. [saveitforparts] does know his way around a satellite antenna, though, so he is exactly the kind of person who would put something like this through its paces and use it for his own needs. There were a few hiccups with the print, but with all the 3D printed parts completed, the metal mesh added to the dish, and a correctly polarized helical antenna formed into the print to receive the signals, it was ready to point at the sky.
The results for the day of testing were incredibly promising. Compared to a second satellite antenna with an automatic tracker, the handheld 3D-printed version captured nearly all of the information sent from the satellite in orbit. [saveitforparts] plans to build a tracker for this small dish to improve it even further.
He’s been able to find some satellite trackers from junked hardware in some unusual places as well
.
Antennas
seem to be a ripe area for 3D printing. | 11 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075738",
"author": "AZdave",
"timestamp": "2024-12-23T20:00:58",
"content": "This is really cool, but it would have been interesting to see a comparison of the helical antenna with and without the reflector. I’ve made my own 11 turn L-Band helical antenna that works fine without a... | 1,760,371,689.588922 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/23/e-paper-anniversary-counter-is-a-charming-gift-with-minimal-power-draw/ | E-Paper Anniversary Counter Is A Charming Gift With Minimal Power Draw | Lewin Day | [
"clock hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"anniversary",
"e-paper",
"ESP32",
"gift"
] | [Lonyelon] wanted to build an anniversary gift for his girlfriend
. He decided to say it with e-Paper
, a wise choice given its persistence and longevity.
The project is an anniversary calendar. It displays a counter of the total time the couple has been together, measured in years, months, days, and hours—so it’s remarkably precise. [Lonyelon] also programmed it to display additional counters to create plenty of additional fun anniversaries—the couple can celebrate milestones like their 1000th day together, for example. It also cycles through a range of cute messages and displays photos of the couple together.
The code is
on Github
for the curious. The build is based around a LilyGO e-Paper display with an onboard ESP32 microcontroller. [Lonyelon] paired this with a 2,500 mAh battery. It lasts for ages because the device is programmed to update only every 20 minutes, spending the rest of its time in deep sleep. Since it’s an e-Paper display, it uses zero power when it’s not being updated, so it’s the perfect technology for this application.
It’s a simple project that comes from the heart—the core of any beautiful gift. In fact, some of the coolest projects we feature were built as gifts for
romantic partners
,
family members
, or even our fellow hackers. If you’ve been cooking up your own neat build, please let us know
on the tipsline! | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075617",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2024-12-23T09:46:51",
"content": "Maybe the massive economic upliftment and standard of living improvement wasn’t worth the social cohesion loss and degeneration in the end…Uncle Ted made some good pretty points after all",
"parent_... | 1,760,371,689.256273 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/24/keeping-track-of-old-computer-manuals-with-the-manx-catalog/ | Keeping Track Of Old Computer Manuals With The Manx Catalog | Maya Posch | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"documentation",
"manuals",
"pdf",
"search engine"
] | An unfortunate reality of pre-1990s computer systems is that any manuals and documentation that came with them likely only existed on paper. That’s not to say there aren’t scanned-in (PDF) copies of those documents floating around, but with few of these scans being indexable by search engines like Google and Duck Duck Go, they can be rather tricky to find. That’s where the
Manx catalog
website seeks to make life easier. According to
its stats
, it knows about 22,060 manuals (9,992 online) across 61 websites, with a focus on minicomputers and mainframes.
The code behind Manx is GPL 2.0 licensed and
available on GitHub
, which is where any issues can be filed too. While not a new project by any stretch of the imagination, it’s yet another useful tool to find a non-OCR-ed scan of the programming or user manual for an obscure system. As noted in a recent
Hacker News
thread
, the ‘online’ part of the above listed statistics means that for manuals where no online copy is known, you get a placeholder message. Using the
Bitsavers
website along with Archive.org may still be the most pertinent way to hunt down that elusive manual, with the Manx website recommending
1000bit
for microcomputer manuals.
Have you used the Manx catalog, or any of the other archiving websites? What have been your experiences with them? Let us know in the comments. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075952",
"author": "Jii",
"timestamp": "2024-12-24T18:52:45",
"content": "Interesting. Never heard of this before.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8075998",
"author": "Kelly",
"timestamp": "2024-12-25T01:51:41",
"co... | 1,760,371,689.482445 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/24/the-mystery-of-the-messed-up-hammond-x5/ | The Mystery Of The Messed-Up Hammond X5 | Elliot Williams | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"organ",
"repair",
"synthesizer",
"top octave generator"
] | [Filip] got his hands on a sweet old Hammond X5 organ, but it had one crucial problem: only half of the keys worked. Each and every C#, D, D#, E, F, and F# would not play, up and down the keyboard, although the other notes in between sounded just fine.
Those of you with an esoteric knowledge of older electric organs will be saying “it’s a busted top-octave generator chip”, and you’re right. One of the TOGs worked, and the other didn’t. [Filip]
rolled his own top-octave generator with a Pico
, in Python no less, and the old beauty roared to life once more.
But what is a top-octave generator, you may ask? For a brief period of time in the early 70s, there were organs that ran on square waves. Because a musical octave is a doubling or halving of frequency, you can create a pitch for every key on the organ if you simply create one octave’s worth of pitches, and divide them all down using something as simple as a binary counter IC. But nobody makes top-octave chips any more.
Back in 2018, [DC Darsen] wrote in asking us if we knew about any DIY top-octave designs, and
we put out an Ask Hackaday to see if you all could make a top-octave generator out of a microcontroller
. We got
a super-optimized code hack in response
, and that’s worth checking out in its own right, but we always had the nagging suspicion that a hardware solution was the best solution.
We love how [Filip]’s design leans heavily on the Pico’s programmable input/output hardware modules to get the job done with essentially zero CPU load, allowing him to write in Python and entirely bypassing the cycle-counting and assembly language trickery. The voltage shifters and the switchable jumpers to swap between different top-octave chip types are a nice touch as well. If you have an organ that needs a top-octave chip in 2024, this is the way we’d do it. (And it sounds fantastic.) | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075912",
"author": "solipso",
"timestamp": "2024-12-24T16:17:58",
"content": "In the 90s we used XC95144 for replacing different unobtainable ICs.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8075916",
"author": "echodelta",
"timest... | 1,760,371,689.768796 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/24/retrotechtacular-quest-for-the-big-boy-crt-finds-new-home-in-mini-doc/ | Retrotechtacular: Quest For The “Big Boy” CRT Finds New Home In Mini Doc | Drew Littrell | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Retrotechtacular",
"Slider"
] | [
"cathode ray tube",
"crt",
"CRT TV",
"Retrotechtacluar",
"retrotechtactular"
] | To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of their Trinitron line of televisions, Sony launched the KX-45ED1. At forty three inches the screen on this particular model made it the largest tube television in the world, and it came with the kind of price tag that if you need to ask…you can’t afford it (likely around $100,000 USD today). Three decades later, only two of these mythical displays were thought to exist and [shank] chronicled his quest to acquire one of the last remaining
“Big Boys” in the mini documentary
below.
As it turns out, one of these gigantic tube televisions was located on the second floor of a restaurant in Japan still sitting in the same place it was installed in 1989. It hadn’t moved in the intervening decades, because the television and its specialized support stand weighed over 500 pounds. Having an object that heavy physically moved down a flight of stairs would seem to be the most formidable challenge for most, but compounding the issue for [shank] was that the building housing this colossal CRT was set to be permanently closed in less than a week.
With next to no time to arrange an international flight, [shank] utilized the power of internet to ask for help from anyone currently living near the “Big Boy” CRT’s soon-to-be final resting place. It just so happened that a fellow retro tech enthusiast based in Japan saw the post, and traveled over an hour by train at a moment’s notice to aid [shank]. The heartwarming story of total strangers united by a common interest of preserving a rare piece of tech history is certainly worth a watch. Let alone the goofy size comparison footage of the smallest CRT display sitting on top of the biggest one.
For more on tube TVs and the like, check out
this article by Dave
on retro gaming on CRT displays. | 36 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075870",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2024-12-24T12:16:23",
"content": "I have a friend in the broadcast business who may have had one of those (deductible, since he was on 24 hour call to deal with transmission issues). I’ll have to ask him. He had it in his living roo... | 1,760,371,689.846043 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/24/calling-pink-floyd/ | Calling Pink Floyd | Al Williams | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Phone Hacks"
] | [
"dtmf",
"phone phreaking",
"pink floyd",
"SS5"
] | [Corelatus] said recently that “someone” asked them to
identify the phone signals
in the 1982 film
The Wall
, based on the Pink Floyd song of the same name. We suspect that, like us, that someone might have been more just the hacker part of the brain asserting itself. Regardless, the detective work is fascinating, and you can learn a lot of gory details about phone network in-band signaling from the post.
The analysis is a bit more difficult because of the year the film was made. At that time, different countries used slightly different tone signaling standards. So after generating a spectrogram, the job was to match the tones with known standards to see which one best fit the data.
The signal was not common DTMF, as you might have guessed. Instead, it was a standard known as SS5. In addition to the tones being correct, the audio clip seemed to obey the SS5 protocol. SS5 was the technology attacked by the infamous blue box back when hacking often meant phone phreaking.
The same phone call appears on the album, and others
have analyzed it
with some even deeper detective work. For example, the call was made in 1979 from a recording studio by [James Guthrie], who called his own phone in the UK, where his next-door neighbor had instructions to hang up on the operator repeatedly.
If you want to see and hear the entire clip (which has several phone-related audio bits in it), watch the video below. The sequence of SS5 tones occurs at 3:13.
Usually, when we hear tones in music, we think of
Morse code
. As for phone phreaking, we hear
it’s moved to street kiosks
. | 39 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075864",
"author": "Billy",
"timestamp": "2024-12-24T11:53:33",
"content": "ChatGPT wouldn’t forget the link to the video, I think it’s more eggnog related.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8075897",
"author": "Al Will... | 1,760,371,690.274167 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/23/watch-any-video-on-your-game-boy-via-link-cable/ | Watch Any Video On Your Game Boy, Via Link Cable | Elliot Williams | [
"handhelds hacks",
"Nintendo Game Boy Hacks"
] | [
"game boy",
"game boy color",
"video"
] | Game Boys have a link cable that lets two of them play together. You know, to battle with a friend’s Pokemon and stuff like that. But who says that it should be limited to transmitting only what Big N wants you to?
[Chromalock] wrote a custom GB program that takes in data over the link cable, and
displays it on the screen as video, as fast as it can be sent
. Add in a microcontroller, a level shifter, and software on the big computer side, and you can hook up your Game Boy Color as a normal video device and send it anything you want, from a webcam to any program that outputs video.
Well, almost. The biggest limitation is the data link cable, of course. On the older Game Boys, the link cable is apparently only good for 8 kHz, while the Color models can pull a not-quite-blistering 512 kHz. Still, that’s enough for 60 fps in a low-res black and white mode, or a slow, screen-tearing high-res color experience. You pick your poison.
There are gotchas that have to do with the way the GB displays palettes that get left as “to-do” on the software side. There is room for improvement in hardware too. (GB Link looks like SPI to us, and we’d bet you can push the speeds even higher with clever GB-side code.) In short, this is an awesome demo that just invites further hacking.
If you want to know more about the Game Boy to get started, and maybe even if you don’t, you absolutely must watch
The Ultimate Game Boy Talk
. Trust us on this one. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075845",
"author": "Eric",
"timestamp": "2024-12-24T09:01:59",
"content": "Who picked out “Shrek Piss” for pantone color??? (1:53 in the video)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8075856",
"author": "Rafael Zapata",
"times... | 1,760,371,690.023843 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/23/alsep-apollos-modular-lunar-experiments-laboratory/ | ALSEP: Apollo’s Modular Lunar Experiments Laboratory | Maya Posch | [
"Science",
"Space"
] | [
"ALSEP",
"Apollo program",
"Moon landing"
] | Down-Sun picture of the RTG with the Central Station in the background. (Credit:
NASA
)
Although the US’ Moon landings were mostly made famous by the fact that it featured real-life human beings bunny hopping across the lunar surface, they weren’t there just for a refreshing stroll over the lunar regolith in deep vacuum. Starting with an early experimental kit (EASEP) that was part of the Apollo 11 mission, the Apollo 12 through Apollo 17 were provided with the full ALSEP (Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package). It’s this latter which is the subject of a
video by [Our Own Devices]
.
Despite the Apollo missions featuring only one actual scientist (Harrison Schmitt, geologist), these Bendix-manufactured
ALSEPs
were modular, portable laboratories for running experiments on the moon, with each experiment carefully prepared by scientists back on Earth. Powered by a
SNAP-27 radioisotope generator
(RTG), each ALSEP also featured the same Central Station command module and transceiver. Each Apollo mission starting with 12 carried a new set of experimental modules which the astronauts would set up once on the lunar surface, following the deployment procedure for that particular set of modules.
Although the connection with the ALSEPs was terminated after the funding for the Apollo project was ended by US Congress, their transceivers remained active until they ran out of power, but not before they provided years worth of scientific data on many aspects on the Moon, including its subsurface characteristics and exposure to charged particles from the Sun. These would provide most of our knowledge of our Moon until the recent string of lunar landings by robotic explorers.
Heading image: Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package of the Apollo 16 mission (Credit:
NASA
) | 14 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075808",
"author": "Leonardo",
"timestamp": "2024-12-24T03:55:36",
"content": "Not a hack…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8075817",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2024-12-24T04:54:09",
"content": "... | 1,760,371,690.155201 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/23/camera-slider-uses-repositionable-rail-to-do-rotational-moves/ | Camera Slider Uses Repositionable Rail To Do Rotational Moves | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"3d printer",
"camera",
"camera slider"
] | You can buy motorized camera sliders off-the-shelf, but they’re pretty costly. Alternatively, you can make one yourself, and it’s not even that hard if you’re kitted out with a 3D printer. [Creative 3D Printing] did just that
with a nifty design that adds rotation into the mix
. Check it out in the video below.
Why should a camera get all the fun? Try your phone.
The basic slider is built out of 3D-printed components and some good old aluminum extrusion. A small 12-volt motor trucks the camera cart back and forth using a leadscrew. It’s torquey enough and slow enough that there isn’t much need for more advanced control—the motor just does the job. There’s also a limit switch set up to trigger a neat auto-reverse function.
The neat part, though, is the rotational mechanism. A smooth steel rod is attached to the slider’s housing, which can be set up in a straight line or aligned diagonally if desired. In the latter case, it rotates the mounting on the camera cart via a crank, panning the camera as it moves along the slider’s trajectory.
It’s a mechanically sophisticated design and quite unlike
most of the camera sliders
we feature around these parts. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075796",
"author": "Then",
"timestamp": "2024-12-24T02:22:12",
"content": "Camera Slider a day?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8075801",
"author": "Ryan",
"timestamp": "2024-12-24T02:56:55",
"content": "Cool! Simil... | 1,760,371,690.196751 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/22/faster-integer-division-with-floating-point/ | Faster Integer Division With Floating Point | Al Williams | [
"Software Development",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"assembly",
"AVX-512",
"optimization",
"SIMD",
"x86",
"x86_64"
] | Multiplication on a common microcontroller is easy. But division is much more difficult. Even with hardware assistance, a 32-bit division on a modern 64-bit x86 CPU can run between 9 and 15 cycles. Doing array processing with SIMD (single instruction multiple data) instructions like AVX or NEON often don’t offer division at all (although the RISC-V vector extensions do). However, many processors support floating point division. Does it make sense to use floating point division to replace simpler division? According to [Wojciech Mula] in
a recent post
, the answer is yes.
The plan is simple: cast the 8-bit numbers into 32-bit integers and then to floating point numbers. These can be divided in bulk via the SIMD instructions and then converted in reverse to the 8-bit result. You can find several code examples on
GitHub
.
Since modern processors have several SIMD instructions, the post takes the time to benchmark many different variations of a program dividing in a loop. The basic program is the reference and, thus, has a “speed factor” of 1. Unrolling the loop, a common loop optimization technique, doesn’t help much and, on some CPUs, can make the loop slower.
Converting to floating point and using AVX2 sped the program up by a factor of 8X to 11X, depending on the CPU. Some of the processors supported AVX512, which also offered considerable speed-ups.
This is one of those examples of why profiling is so important. If you’d had asked us if converting integer division to floating point might make a program run faster, we’d have bet the answer was no, but we’d have been wrong.
As CPUs get more complex, optimizing gets a lot
less intuitive
. If you are interested in things like
AVX-512
, we’ve got you covered. | 24 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075579",
"author": "jpa",
"timestamp": "2024-12-23T06:25:29",
"content": "For 8 bit by 8 bit division without vector extensions, it might be fastest to look-up a reciprocal in a table and use multiplication. But vectorized versions will still be significantly faster.",
"parent_... | 1,760,371,690.092966 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/22/diy-camera-slider-moves-and-rotates-for-slick-shots/ | DIY Camera Slider Moves And Rotates For Slick Shots | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"camera slider",
"slider"
] | Camera sliders are a popular project for makers—especially those who document their projects on video. They’re fun and accessible to build, and they can really create some beautiful shots. [Lechnology] set about to follow in this fine tradition
and built a rather capable example of his own.
Check it out in the video below.
The slider relies on V-slot rails, perhaps most familiar for their heavy use in modern 3D printers. The rails are paired with a 3D-printed camera carriage, which runs on smooth rubber rollers. A chunky stepper motor provides drive via a toothed belt. Trinamic motor controllers were chosen for their step interpolation feature, making the motion much smoother.
The slider doesn’t just move linearly, either. It can rotate the camera, too, since it has an additional motor in the carriage itself. In a nice retro touch, the wires for this motor are run with an old coiled telephone cable. It’s perfect for the job since it easily extends and retracts with the slider’s motion. Controlling everything is an Arduino, with speed and rotational modes set via a tiny screen and a rotary encoder control.
It’s a very complete build, and it performs well too. The video it produces is deliciously smooth. We’ve featured
some other great camera sliders over the years, too.
If you want to dig into
Trinamic
drivers, we can get you started. | 14 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075555",
"author": "craig",
"timestamp": "2024-12-23T03:37:33",
"content": "I feel like I’ve seen this before",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8075559",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2024-12-23T04:14:54",
"content"... | 1,760,371,690.327283 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/22/hackaday-links-december-22-2024/ | Hackaday Links: December 22, 2024 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"accident",
"Character.AI",
"chatbot",
"corona",
"DMV",
"exploit",
"firmware",
"hackaday links",
"jailbreak",
"lathe",
"license plate",
"machine shop",
"Parker",
"relativity",
"Reviver",
"shop safety",
"skynet",
"solar",
"sun"
] | Early Monday morning, while many of us will be putting the finishing touches — or just beginning, ahem — on our Christmas preparations, solar scientists will hold their collective breath as they wait for word from
the Parker Solar Probe’s record-setting passage through the sun’s atmosphere
. The probe, which has been in a highly elliptical solar orbit since its 2018 launch, has been getting occasional gravitational nudges by close encounters with Venus. This has moved the perihelion ever closer to the sun’s surface, and on Monday morning it will make its closest approach yet, a mere 6.1 million kilometers from the roiling photosphere. That will put it inside the corona, the sun’s extremely energetic atmosphere, which we normally only see during total eclipses. Traveling at almost 700,000 kilometers per hour, it won’t be there very long, and it’ll be doing everything it needs to do autonomously since the high-energy plasma of the corona and the eight-light-minute distance makes remote control impossible. It’ll be a few days before communications are re-established and the data downloaded, which will make a nice present for the solar science community to unwrap.
While Parker has been in a similar position on previous orbits and even managed
a fortuitous transit of a coronal mass ejection,
this pass will be closer and faster than any previous approach. It’s the speed that really grabs our attention, though, as Parker will be traveling at a small but significant fraction of the speed of light for a bit. That makes us wonder if there was any need for mission planners to allow for relativistic effects. We’d imagine so; satellite navigation systems need to take relativity into account to work, and they don’t move anywhere near as fast as Parker. Time will be running slower for Parker at those speeds, and it sure seems like that could muck things up, especially regarding autonomous operation.
Ever since the seminal work of Cameron, Hamilton, Schwarzenegger,
et al
, it has been taken as canon that the end of humanity will come about when the moral equivalent of SkyNet becomes self-aware and launches all the missiles at once to blot us out with a few minutes of thermonuclear fire. But it looks like AI might be trying to raise an army of grumpy teenagers if this
lawsuit over violence-inciting chatbots
is any indication. The federal product liability lawsuit targets Character.AI, an outfit that creates LLM-powered chatbots for kids, for allegedly telling kids to do some pretty sketchy stuff. You can read the details in the story, but suffice it to say that one of the chatbots was none too pleased with someone’s parents for imposing screen time rules and hinted rather strongly about how the child should deal with them. The chat logs of that interaction and others that are part of the suit are pretty dark, but probably no darker than the advice that most teenagers would get online from their carbon-based friends. That’s the thing about chatbots; when an LLM is trained with online interactions, you pretty much know what’s going to come out.
In today’s “Who could have seen that coming?” segment, we have a story about how drivers are hacked by digital license plates and are keen to avoid tolls and tickets. The exploit for one specific brand of plate, Reviver, and while it does require physical access to the plates, it doesn’t take much more than the standard reverse engineering tools and skills to pull off. Once the plates are jailbroken — an ironic term given that license plate manufacturing has historically been a prison industry — the displayed numbers can be changed at will with a smartphone app. The worst part about this is that the vulnerability is baked right into the silicon, so there’s nothing to be patched; the plates would have to be recalled, and different hardware would need to be reissued. We’ve been
skeptical about the need for these plates from the beginning
and q
uestioned why anyone would pay extra for them
(last item). But maybe the ability to dump your traffic cam violations into someone else’s lap is worth the extra $20 a month.
And finally,
this local news story
from Great Falls, Montana, is a timely reminder of how machine tools can mess up your life if you let them. Machinist Butch Olson was alone at work in his machine shop back on December 6 when the sleeve of his jacket got caught in a lathe. The powerful machine pulled his arm in and threatened to turn him to a bloody pulp, but somehow, he managed to brace himself against the bed. He fought the lathe for 20 whole minutes before the motor finally gave out, which let him disentangle himself and get some help. He ended up with a broken back, four fractured ribs, and an arm that looks “like hamburger” according to his sister. That’s a high price to pay, but at least Butch gets to brag that he fought a lathe and won. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075536",
"author": "PWalsh",
"timestamp": "2024-12-23T01:33:02",
"content": "I’m the member in charge of the metalworking part of our local makerspace.One of my rules is that you never wear long sleeves while working the lathes (we have three) or knee mill.(And no long hair or jewe... | 1,760,371,690.436204 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/22/3d-printed-forklift-is-a-cute-desk-toy/ | 3D Printed Forklift Is A Cute Desk Toy | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"ESP32",
"forklift",
"radio control",
"rc"
] | Many of us grew up with dreams of piloting a forklift one day. Sadly, most warehouses take a dim view of horseplay with these machines, so few of us get to live out those fantasies. Playing with
this desk-sized RC model from [ProfessorBoots]
is probably a safer way to get those kicks instead. You can check it out in the video below.
The 3D-printed body of the forklift is the first thing you see. It’s great quality, and it instantly puts you in mind of the real thing. The build is true to the dynamics of a real forklift, too, with proper rear steering. Inside, there’s a custom circuit board hosting an ESP32 that serves as the brain of the operation. Its onboard wireless hardware allows remote control of the forklift via a smartphone app, PS4 controller, or many other options. It controls the drive motors and steering servo, along with another motor driving a threaded rod to move the forks up and down. The whole thing is powered by two Fenix 16340 batteries—small lithium-ion cells that can be recharged with an integral micro USB port.
The project video is very thorough about the design and build. It’s worth watching just to understand the specifics of how forklifts actually raise their forks up and down. It’s good stuff.
This forklift is just the latest RC build from [ProfessorBoots]. He’s done great work in this space before, like this
charming skid steer
and
incredibly complex crane
. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075516",
"author": "Mark (lapsed lifter)",
"timestamp": "2024-12-22T22:51:39",
"content": "Fabulous!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8075526",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2024-12-22T23:43:45",
"content": "Can... | 1,760,371,690.378805 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/22/optimizing-your-linux-shell-experience/ | Optimizing Your Linux Shell Experience | Al Williams | [
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"bash",
"linux",
"shell",
"zsh"
] | Are you familiar with Huffman encoding? That’s where you pick shorter codes for more frequent letters. Morse code is the same way, in that the most-used letters are the shortest. [Matheus Richard] had the same idea for
optimizing your workflow in the Linux shell
. The idea is to measure what commands you use the most and make them shorter.
If you use zsh, it is easy to find out what commands you are using the most. If you use bash, [Matheus] helpfully offers a command to give you a similar result (the original post limits the list to the last entry which we are sure is a typo):
history | awk '{CMD[$2]++;count++;}END { for (a in CMD)print CMD[a] " " CMD[a]/count*100 "% " a;}' | grep -v "./" | column -c3 -s " " -t | sort -nr | nl | head -n10
Once you know the commands you use the most, you can use your shell’s aliasing or scripts to shorten them up. For example, in [Matheus’] case, git was a very common command. This led to aliases:
alias gc="git commit --verbose"
alias gp="git push"
alias gprom="git pull --rebase origin main"
Not only does this save typing, but you lessen your chance for typos: “git comit”, for example. Another idea is to alias your common errors, for example setting an alias for “git” as “gti”.
These are small things, but they are definitely time savers. Be sure to read the rest of the post, as there are a number of other optimization ideas. [Matheus] definitely has a thing for zsh, but there are
many other shells
out there. Some of them are even evolving towards more modern
programming languages
. | 34 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075468",
"author": "Solomon",
"timestamp": "2024-12-22T18:32:27",
"content": "For sure, I’ve been using long lists of aliases for over 25 years so I can do lots of nifty command-prompt things quickly and without mistakes. It’s to the point that I have to look at my .bash file to re... | 1,760,371,690.510768 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/22/old-3d-printer-parts-repurposed-into-diy-camera-slider/ | Old 3D Printer Parts Repurposed Into DIY Camera Slider | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"camera",
"camera slider",
"slider"
] | What do you do with an old 3D printer? They’re full of interesting components, after all, from switches and motors to lovely smooth rails. [Mukesh Sankhla] had a great idea—
why not repurpose the components into a motorized camera slider?
The heart of the slider is the 4020 V-slot aluminum profile. It’s upon this that the camera carriage rides, running on rubber rollers to keep things smooth. A stepper motor and belt are then used to move the slider at a constant speed up or down the rail while the camera gets the necessary shot. The build relies almost entirely on salvaged components, save for an ESP32, OLED screen, and a few buttons to act as the control interface. There are also the TMC2208 stepper motor drivers, of course, but they came from the salvaged Ender 3 unit as well.
This is a classic project. Many old 3D printers have pretty much the perfect set of parts to build a camera slider, making this build a no-brainer. Indeed,
others have tread the same path.
There are plenty of other potential uses
around the lab
or for
soldering
.
Meanwhile, the proof is in the pudding. Scope the slider’s performance in the video below. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075444",
"author": "Jarek",
"timestamp": "2024-12-22T15:28:18",
"content": "wonder if it’s possible to sync the steppers to the frame rate of the camera, so it only jogs in between frames for super still captures",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,371,690.565287 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/22/dog-plays-chess-on-esp32/ | Dog Plays Chess On ESP32 | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Games"
] | [
"chess",
"dog",
"engine",
"ESP32",
"lichess",
"memory",
"online"
] | The ESP32 is s remarkably powerful microcontroller, where its dual-core processor and relatively high clock speed can do some impressive work. But getting this microcontroller designed for embedded systems to do tasks that would generally be given to a much more powerful PC-type computer takes a little bit more willpower. Inspired by his dog, [Folkert] decided to program an ESP32 to play chess, a famously challenging task for computer scientists in the past.
He calls this ESP32 chess system Dog
.
One of the other major limitations of this platform for a task like this is memory. The ESP32 [Folkert] is using only has 320 kB of RAM, so things like the transposition table have to fit in even less space than that. With modern desktop computers often having 32 or 64 GB, this is a fairly significant challenge, especially for a memory-intensive task like a chess engine. But with the engine running on the microcontroller it’s ready to play, either in text mode or with something that can use the Universal Chess Interface (UCI). A set of LEDs on the board lets the user know what’s going on while gameplay is taking place.
The UCI also enables Dog to play online at
lichess.org
, and [Folkert] has included a link on the project page where others can play with his microcontroller chess system this way through the Internet. It has a pretty respectable Elo rating at around 2100 as well, so don’t think that just because it’s a small platform that the wins will come easy. If you’d prefer your chess engines to run on retro hardware, take a look at this build, which also uses an ESP32 but puts it to work by
running old Commodore chess equipment from the 80s
. Of course, you can play chess on even less hardware.
It has been done
. | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075418",
"author": "Folkert van Heusden",
"timestamp": "2024-12-22T13:36:17",
"content": "Hi,Thank you for the article!To clarify: Dog on pc is around 2200 elo, but the one on the ESP32 is more like a few hundreds elo less. My mistake: I had not anchored the rating of the PC-versio... | 1,760,371,690.725411 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/22/vintage-audio-amp-gets-led-lighting-upgrade/ | Vintage Audio Amp Gets LED Lighting Upgrade | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"HiFi",
"led",
"Technics",
"vintage amp"
] | Vintage hi-fi gear can be very attractive, particularly compared to modern stuff. However, when this stuff starts getting into its third or fourth decade after production, things start to wear out. Chief among them—the little incandescent bulbs that light up the dials with such a beautiful glow. [Piffpaffpoltrie] was suffering just this problem on an old Technics amp,
and decided to go for a more modern upgrade.
Replacing the original bulb with a like unit was undesirable—even if many last for decades, [Piffpaffpoltrie] didn’t want to have to tackle this job again in the future. Instead, an LED swap was the order of the day. A short strip of warm-white LEDs seemed to be the perfect solution, with three LEDs in series being just about right for the 11-volt supply used for the original bulbs. The only problem was that the stereo supplied the bulbs with AC, not DC. Thus, a quick bridge rectifier circuit was thrown in, along with some series resistors. This wrangled the voltage into a straighter line and delivered the right voltage level to drive the LEDs nicely and smoothly.
The result is a nicely-illuminated set of power meters on this vintage Technics amp. We’ve seen some neat LED swaps in the past, too, including
this tricky motorcycle lamp upgrade.
Meanwhile, if you’re slogging it out to bring your vintage gear more up to date, consider dropping us a note
on the tipsline
. | 22 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075407",
"author": "Cricri",
"timestamp": "2024-12-22T11:53:26",
"content": "Did similar on my Christmas tree: was using a 12V 20W halogen bulb and the power supply was getting very hot, so replaced it with a 12V 10W LED cob. Saves on my bill and PSU not getting nearly as hot.",
... | 1,760,371,690.673283 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/21/inside-a-diamond-plant/ | Inside A Diamond Plant | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"diamond"
] | While you tend to think of diamonds as ornamental gemstones, diamonds also have many important industrial uses, and many of those diamonds are now synthetic polycrystalline diamonds. How are they made? [JerryRigEverything] takes us
behind the scenes
at a diamond manufacturing facility, something you don’t get to see every day. Check out the giant presses that exert about a million pounds of pressure in the video below.
The process starts with diamond powder, which is just what it sounds like. Although you can get real diamond powder, most uses today start with synthetic diamonds. The powder has many uses in cosmetics and as an abrasive. But the video will combine it with cobalt and table salt to form diamond shapes.
The salt is a high-temperature electrode. The process requires temperatures of nearly 1400C (2500F) and a lot of pressure. Common talc, some metal electrodes, and a heater tube are also used in the process.
The press can convert a little diamond dust into a diamond in about 10 minutes. However, because the machines are so dangerous, they are each set in their own blast room, which is sealed when the press is in operation.
While this press was — no pun intended — impressive, we’ve
seen bigger
. Nothing like this will show up in your garage anytime soon, although, as the video shows, you can buy 3D printer nozzles made from the material. As for a press, you might have to just settle for an
arbor press
. | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075380",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2024-12-22T08:32:57",
"content": "Does anyone know why these machines are built in this way? Best I know, the sintering temperature is so hot that the salt melts and becomes a liquid. So why not just use a cylinder to apply force from one... | 1,760,371,690.950111 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/21/nanoscale-imaging-and-control-of-altermagnetism-in-mnte/ | Nanoscale Imaging And Control Of Altermagnetism In MnTe | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"altermagnetism",
"magnetism",
"spintronics"
] | Altermagnetism is effectively a hybrid form of ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism that might become very useful in magnetic storage as well as spintronics in general. In order to practically use it, we first need to be able to control the creation of these altermagnets, which is what researchers
have now taken the first steps towards
. The
research paper by [O. J. Amin] et al.
was published earlier this month in
Nature
. It builds upon
the team’s earlier research
, including the detection of altermagnetism in manganese telluride (MnTe). This new study uses the same material but uses a photoemission electron microscope (PEEM) with X-rays to image these nanoscale altermagnetic structures.
Additionally, the spin orientation of these altermagnetic structures within the MnTe was controlled using microstructure patterning and thermal cycling in magnetic fields. The micropatterning with electron beam lithography enabled the creation of large single-domain altermagnetic structures, which is promising for further research. As noted in the outlook section by the researchers, this part of the research is still very much about creating the basic means to use altermagnetism, even for something as seemingly straightforward as data storage. In this particular study, the reading (imaging) mechanism was an expensive PEEM setup with the X-rays produced by a synchrotron.
Honestly, we still struggle to figure out
plain old magnetism
. Obviously, there’s
more to it than that
.
Heading image: Illustrative models of collinear ferromagnetism, antiferromagnetism, and altermagnetism in crystal-structure real space and nonrelativistic electronic-structure momentum space. (Credit: Libor Šmejkal et al., Phys. Rev. X, 2022) | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,371,691.136849 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/21/an-lcd-touch-sensor-usb-c-and-a-microcontroller-for-a-buck/ | An LCD, Touch Sensor, USB-C, And A Microcontroller For A Buck | Lewin Day | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"CH32V003",
"cnlohr",
"lcd",
"USB C"
] | [CNLohr] has been tinkering with some fun parts of late. He’d found out that ordinary LCD screens could be used as simple touch sensors, and he had to try it for himself. He ended up building a little doohickey that combined USB C, an LCD display, and a touch interface,
all for under a buck.
You can check out the video below.
The key to this build was the CH32V003 CPU. It’s a RISC-V microcontroller that runs at a healthy 48 MHz, and it costs just 10 cents in reasonable quantities. A PCB etched to mate with a USB C cable eliminates the need for a connector.
[CNLohr] then gave the board a three-digit 7-segment LCD display from Aliexpress, which can be had for around 21 cents if you buy 100 or more. He then figured out how to drive the LCDs with a nifty trick that let the microcontroller use the display as a crude touch sensor. All in all, the total bill of materials for one of these things comes out somewhere under a dollar in quantity.
It’s mostly a random assemblage of tech glued together for a demo, but it’s a fun project. It’s worth checking out even if it’s just to learn how to create an integral USB C port on your own PCBs. The way it’s achieved with the etched contacts and milled-out tabs is pure elegance.
Files are on Github for the curious.
We’ve featured a ton of [CNLohr’s] work over the years;
the clear keytar was a glowing highlight,
as were his early discoveries
in the depths of the ESP8266. | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075332",
"author": "Cody",
"timestamp": "2024-12-22T02:15:19",
"content": "It’s a cool idea, but that “USB connector” is not going to last more than a few mating cycles without hard gold plating, which would be more expensive than just using a USB socket.The gold from the ENIG fini... | 1,760,371,691.098427 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/21/the-bendix-g-15-runs-75000-lines-of-code/ | The Bendix G-15 Runs 75,000 Lines Of Code | Adam Fabio | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"Bendix",
"G-15",
"Hellorld!",
"retrocomputing",
"tube",
"Usagi",
"usagi electric",
"vacuum tube computer"
] | There’s a Blue Bendix in Texas, and thanks to [Usagi Electric] it’s the oldest operating computer in North America. The Bendix G-15, a vacuum tube computer originally released in 1956, is
now booting, and running code from paper tape
. [David, aka Usagi] received the G-15 about a year ago from The System Source museum. The goal was to get the computer running so museum patrons could interact with a real tube computer. We’ve b
een following along
since the project began.
[Usagi’s] latest G-15 video covers the last few problems on the road to running code. The biggest hurdle was the fact that the system wasn’t responding properly to the GO button on the typewriter. [Usagi] was able to isolate the issue down to a flip flop and then to a particular signal on an AND gate — the RC signal. The gate appeared to be bad, but swapping the entire circuit card multiple times had no effect. Something else had to be going on.
After hours of troubleshooting and a bit of hair-pulling, [Usagi] changed a diode circuit card downstream of the suspect card. This miraculously fixed the problem. It turned out the diode card had a tiny solder bridge since it was built in the 1950’s. This bridge put a heavy load on a buffer, causing grid leakage. For those of us who aren’t old [TubeTimers], grid leakage is a tiny current from the grid of a tube into the drive circuitry. Leakage is present on all triodes, and tube testers would often misdiagnose good tubes as bad for this reason.
Once the bridge and a few other problems were fixed, the machine sprang to life, not with a roar, but with a solid thunk as it slammed the incredibly wide typewriter carriage into a nearby shelf. If you do nothing else this year, watch the video from the 20-minute mark. You get to see the pure joy a hacker gets when their project starts to work.
The Bendix was executing DIAPER — Diagnostic Program for Easy Repair. DIAPER runs a series of tests on the machine and rings a bell every time a test passes. Not a little bell in the typewriter, but a big 120 V beast hiding inside the computer itself. Ding, fries are done indeed!
[Usagi] did have some help this time around — thanks to a tip from [Avery] he contacted
HP
Agilent
Keysight to inquire about a basic scope. Apparently, they know his videos and are huge fans of the Bendix because they sent him a really nice 4-channel digital oscilloscope. It definitely helped push the Bendix over the finish line! We love seeing companies give back to the community this way — and hope to see more in the future.
Now, this isn’t the last Bendix G-15 video from [Usagi]. There are several more tapes to run a full DIAPER test. The typewriter itself needs quite a lot of work before it will accept keystrokes, and we’re sure [Usagi] has a few more surprises up his sleeves.
You can still find a few
tube computer projects floating around
. You can even
replace your 555
with some. | 17 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075276",
"author": "Brad Granath",
"timestamp": "2024-12-21T21:33:47",
"content": "Someone start the paper-tape-port of DOOM",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8075287",
"author": "Carl Foxmarten",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,371,690.895516 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/21/custom-firmware-for-even-cheaper-bluetooth-thermometers/ | Custom Firmware For EvenCheaperBluetooth Thermometers | Tom Nardi | [
"home hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"custom firmware",
"home-assistant",
"replacement firmware",
"Tuya",
"xiaomi"
] | Readers may recall when we first covered the $5 Xiaomi LYWSD03MMC temperature and humidity sensor back in 2020. Prolific hacker [Aaron Christophel] wrote a custom firmware for the affordable gadget that was so capable and well implemented that it kicked off a whole new community.
It’s recently been brought to our attention that the Xiaomi thermometer has become so popular that clones have started popping up. Often sold under the Tuya brand, these versions look very similar to Xiaomi’s offering but can be had for as little as $1 each from the usual Chinese importers. Even better, they’ve got their very own open-source
custom firmware
.
The firmware comes from [pvvx], who also helms the
most active fork of [Aaron]’s original firmware
for the Xiaomi thermometer. Doing a bit of spot-checking between the repositories, it’s not immediately clear that any meaningful code is shared between the two projects. However, once installed, they offer similar capabilities to the user, such as integration with Home Assistant. Perhaps the most significant difference between the two projects is that, at least for the initial flash, you need to hook the Tuya units up to your computer with a USB serial adapter. Considering that
one of the highlights of the Xiaomi custom firmware
was its exceptionally easy wireless installation, this is a considerable step backward.
Below is a video from a few months back that
[Maker’s Fun Duck] put together
, where he takes apart one of these clones and shows the installation process for the custom firmware. Our overall impression is that it’s probably worth the few extra dollars to get the original Xiaomi hardware, although the display on the clone seems much brighter. In any event, we’re always happy to see the community coming up with free and open-source firmware for an otherwise locked-down gadget.
Thanks to [ThoriumBR] for the tip. | 33 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075230",
"author": "KZA",
"timestamp": "2024-12-21T18:11:46",
"content": "What matters most to me is whether the flashed firmware can survive a battery change. If so, I’ll replace all of my old devices immediately – having to reflash 2x per year (even wirelessly) is a pain once you... | 1,760,371,691.325765 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/21/intel-terminates-x86s-initiative-after-formation-of-new-industry-group/ | Intel Terminates X86S Initiative After Formation Of New Industry Group | Maya Posch | [
"News"
] | [
"x86",
"X86S"
] | Although the world of the X86 instruction set architecture (ISA) and related ecosystem is often accused of being ‘stale’ and ‘bloated’, we have seen a flurry of recent activity that looks to shake up and set the future course for what is still the main player for desktop, laptop and server systems. Via
Tom’s Hardware
comes the news
that the controversial X86S initiative is now dead and buried.
We reported on this proposal
when it was first announced and a whitepaper released. This X86S proposal involved stripping 16- and 32-bit features along with rings 1 and 2, along with a host of other ‘legacy’ features.
This comes after the creation of a
new x86 advisory group
that brings together Intel, AMD, as well as a gaggle of industry giants ranging from HP and Lenovo to Microsoft and Meta. The goal here appears to be to cooperate on any changes and new features in the ISA, which is where the unilateral X86S proposal would clearly have been a poor fit. This means that while X86S is dead, some of the proposed changes may still make it into future x86 processors, much like how AMD’s 64-bit extensions to the ISA, except this time it’d be done in cooperation.
In an industry where competition from ARM especially is getting much stronger these days, it seems logical that x86-oriented companies would seek to cooperate rather than compete. It should also mean that for end users things will get less chaotic as a new Intel or AMD CPU will not suddenly sneak in incompatible extensions. Those of us who remember the fun of the 1990s when x86 CPUs were constantly trying to snipe each other with exclusive features (and unfortunate bugs) will probably appreciate this. | 59 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075192",
"author": "c-logic",
"timestamp": "2024-12-21T15:18:08",
"content": "Just leave the 16-bit compatibility to simulators/emulators.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8075207",
"author": "DeveloperLen",
"t... | 1,760,371,691.245436 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/21/building-a-custom-swiss-army-knife/ | Building A Custom Swiss Army Knife | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"knife",
"multitool",
"swiss army knife"
] | The Swiss Army knife is the most well-known multitool, combining a bunch of functionality into a compact package. [Jeff Gough] decided to build a custom example featuring a selection of his favorite tools.
He documents the build in a video series
on YouTube
(see below). [Jeff] decided to take on the project as a gift for his mother after she’d mentioned she’d wanted a Swiss Army-style knife with a horse’s hoof tool and finished in the classic shade of British Racing Green.
[Jeff] starts by
disassembling an existing knife
, taking care not to damage it in the process. He then makes and installs multiple custom tools, including the aforementioned horse hoof tool and a RADAR/NKS key for opening disabled toilets in the UK. He even crafts a bespoke Philips head screwdriver, too. Finally, he assembles everything back together and gives the build a beautiful green finish.
A Swiss Army knife can be a neat gift, but it’s even nicer when it’s got a personal touch like this one.
We’ve featured some other nifty multitools before, too
. Not all Swiss Army knives actually contain a, you know, knife.
No kidding
. | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075173",
"author": "kołtun",
"timestamp": "2024-12-21T13:13:35",
"content": "maybe swiss pocket knife is too small, but if you add an ethernet rj-45 crimper to leatherman wave it would be something useful. Something I would like. Many times I wrote to them to add it, there are mult... | 1,760,371,691.377587 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/21/__trashed-11/ | Training A Self-Driving Kart | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Machine Learning"
] | [
"autonomous",
"convolutional neural network",
"crazy kart",
"go-kart",
"machine learning",
"self-driving",
"training",
"training data"
] | There are certain tasks that humans perform every day that are notoriously difficult for computers to figure out. Identifying objects in pictures, for example, was something that seems fairly straightforward but was only done by computers with any semblance of accuracy in the last few years. Even then, it can’t be done without huge amounts of computing resources. Similarly, driving a car is a surprisingly complex task that even companies promising full self-driving vehicles haven’t been able to deliver despite working on the problem for over a decade now. [Austin] demonstrates this difficulty
in his latest project, which adds self-driving capabilities to a small go-kart
.
[Austin] had been working on this project at the local park but grew tired of packing up all his gear when he wanted to work on his machine-learning algorithms. So he took all the self-driving equipment off of the first kart and incorporated it into a smaller kart with a very small turning radius so he could develop it in his shop.
He laid down some tape on the floor to create the track and then set up the vehicle to learn how to drive by watching and gathering data. The model is trained with a convolutional neural network and this data. The only inputs that the model gets are images from cameras at the front of the kart. At first, it could only change the steering angle, with [Austin] controlling the throttle to prevent crashes. Eventually, he gave it control of the throttle as well, which behaves well except at the fastest speeds.
There were plenty of challenges along the way, especially when compared to the models trained at the park; [Austin] correctly theorized that the cause of the hardship in the park was a lack of contrast at the boundary between the track and any out-of-bounds areas. With a few tweaks to the track, as well as adding some wide-angle lenses to his cameras, he was able to get a model that works fairly well. Getting started on a project like this doesn’t have as high of a barrier to entry as one might imagine, either.
Take a look at this comprehensive open-source Python library for self-driving projects
. If you want to start smaller, perhaps don’t start with a self-driving
kart
. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075316",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2024-12-22T00:04:49",
"content": "Homo Sapiens used to train dogs, now they train cogsThus spake ZarathustraCool project btw",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,371,691.463177 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/20/3d-printing-a-big-lego-christmas-tree/ | 3D Printing A Big LEGO Christmas Tree | Lewin Day | [
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"christmas tree",
"lego"
] | LEGO make lots of neat floral arrangements these days, and even little Christmas trees, too. While they’re fun to build out of tiny little blocks, they’re a little small for use as your main Christmas tree. Sadly, a bigger version simply doesn’t exist in the LEGO catalog, so if that’s your desire, you’ll have to build your own—
as [Ruth] and [Ellis] did!
The concept behind the build is as you’d expect. The duo effectively just 3D printed giant versions of LEGO pieces, with which they then assembled a large Christmas tree. It sounds very straightforward, but scaling an existing LEGO design up by six times tends to come with some complications. A tactical decision was made early on to ease proceedings—the original LEGO tree had a large brown base that would take lots of printing. This was eliminated in the hopes that it would speed the build significantly. The long plastic shafts that supported the original design were also replaced with steel shafts since printing them would have been incredibly difficult to do well.
The rest of the video demonstrates the huge amount of work that went into actually 3D printing and assembling this thing. It’s pretty great to watch, and you’ll learn a lot along the way.
We’ve seen other creators try similar projects, where they 3D print their own building blocks from scratch.
It normally turns out much harder than expected!
No surprise when you think about all the engineering that went into perfecting LEGO all those years ago.
Thanks to [Jonathan] for the tip! | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075245",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2024-12-21T19:58:07",
"content": "Maybe it is time for the OSHW community to standardize giant LEGO dimensions.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8075301",... | 1,760,371,691.422423 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/20/its-official-the-north-pole-is-moving/ | It’s Official: The North Pole Is Moving | Al Williams | [
"News"
] | [
"bgs",
"magnetic north",
"noaa",
"North Pole",
"wmm"
] | Every scout knows how to read a compass, and that there is a magnetic north and a true north. That’s because the Earth’s magnetic field isn’t exactly aligned with the North Pole. Every five years, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the British Geological Survey (BGS) get together to decide if magnetic north is still the same as it was before.
This time, it isn’t
.
The update is to the WMM — the
World Magnetic Model
. Magnetic north has shifted away from Canada and towards Siberia, a trend that has been ongoing for the last 20 years.
The magnetic pole seems to be decelerating. It is possible that it can change abruptly enough to warrant an emergency update outside the normal five-year cycle. The BGS says if you traveled from South Africa to the UK using the old WMM, your final position would be about 150 km off compared to using the new WMM.
Of course, automated systems will get updates, so there is no need to adjust your phone or GPS unit manually. However, older gear or compasses are getting increasingly less accurate. The North Star, by the way, isn’t exactly to the North, either. For small trips, being a little off of true north probably isn’t an issue.
There have been
emergency updates before
. While a basic compass is simple to make, that shouldn’t stop you
from overcomplicating it
. | 43 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075104",
"author": "I Alone Possess The Truth",
"timestamp": "2024-12-21T03:25:03",
"content": "Declination. It’s literally as old as the hills.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8075114",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,371,691.549908 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/20/rudolphs-sleigh-on-a-north-pole-pcb/ | Rudolph’s Sleigh On A North Pole PCB | Heidi Ulrich | [
"Holiday Hacks",
"Microcontrollers",
"PCB Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"CH32V003",
"christmas",
"christmas card",
"friedrich gauss",
"gauss",
"led",
"Lorentz force",
"pcb",
"sleigh",
"slot car"
] | Each Christmas, [Adam Anderson], [Daniel Quach], [Johan Wheeler], and [Gustav Abrahamsson] (going by ‘the Janky Jingle Crew’)—set themselves the challenge of outdoing their previous creations. Last year’s
CH32 Fireplace
brought an animated LED fire to life with CH32V003 microcontrollers.
This year, they’ve gone a step further with
the
North Pole Circuit
, a holiday project that combines magnetic propulsion, festive decorations, and a bit of engineering flair. Inspired by
a miniature speedway
based on Friedrich Gauss’ findings, the
North Pole Circuit
includes sleighs and reindeer that glide along a custom PCB track, a glowing village with flickering lights, and a buzzer to play Christmas tunes.
The propulsion system works using the Lorentz force, where vertical magnets interact with PCB traces to produce motion. A two-phase design, similar to a stepper motor, ensures smooth operation, while guard rails maintain stability on curves. A separate CH32V003 handles lighting and synchronized jingles, creating a cohesive festive display. As we mentioned in the article on
their last year’s creation
, going from a one-off to a full batch will make one rethink the joy of repetitive production. Consider the recipients of these tiny Christmas cards quite the lucky ones. We deem this little gift a keeper to put on display when Christmas rolls around again.
This annual tradition highlights the Crew’s knack for combining fun and engineering. Curious about the details or feeling inspired to create your own?
Explore the full details and files on their GitHub
. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075085",
"author": "Jme",
"timestamp": "2024-12-21T00:50:12",
"content": "This is really nice!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8075097",
"author": "Konkers",
"timestamp": "2024-12-21T02:12:45",
"content": "Oh wow! ... | 1,760,371,691.61537 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/20/making-a-mechanical-watch-from-scratch-is-fine-work/ | Making A Mechanical Watch From Scratch Is Fine Work | Lewin Day | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"clock",
"time piece",
"timepiece",
"watch",
"watchmaking"
] | There are plenty of hard jobs out there, like founding your country’s nuclear program, or changing the timing chain on a BMW diesel. Making your own mechanical watch from scratch falls under that umbrella, too.
And yet, [John Raffaelli] did just that, and prevailed!
That’s a lot of work.
Only a handful of components were purchased—[John] grabbed jewels, sapphire crystals, the strap, and the hairspring and mainspring off the shelf. Everything else, he made himself, using a fine touch, a sharp eye, and some deft work on his machine tools. If you’ve never worked at this scale before, it’s astounding to see—[John] steps through how he produced tiny pinions and balance wheels that exist at sub-fingertip scale. Even just assembling something this tiny would be a challenge, but [John] was able to craft it all from scratch and put it together into a functioning timepiece when he was done.
The final piece doesn’t just look great—we’re told it keeps good time as well. People like [John] don’t come along every day, though we do have one similar story in our deep archives
from well over a decade ago.
If you’re cooking up your own bespoke time pieces in your home workshop, don’t hesitate to drop your story
on the tipsline! | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075056",
"author": "Joe",
"timestamp": "2024-12-20T21:32:27",
"content": "https://www.youtube.com/@Clickspringis worth a look if you are into clock/watch/sundial making.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8075058",
"author": "... | 1,760,371,691.791019 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/20/building-a-diet-coke-button/ | Building A Diet Coke Button | Lewin Day | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"call button",
"diet coke",
"ESP32"
] | [mars91] had an interesting problem to solve—his girlfriend often requested Diet Coke, but yelling for one across the apartment was frustrating and impractical. A dedicated Diet Coke button seemed like the perfect solution,
so that’s precisely what he built.
The Diet Coke Button is a relatively simple device. A small silver push-button activates an Adafruit Feather M0 to send out a signal via its RFM95 LoRa radio. That signal is picked up by the receiver device, which runs on an ESP32. It’s got an RFM95 LoRa module, which receives signals from the button and sounds an alarm to indicate the request for a Diet Coke. The ESP32 also hosts a basic website which allows Diet Coke requests to be submitted via the web, as well as general submissions of a textual nature. The latter are displayed on a small OLED display. If you’re feeling bold, you can even set up the ESP32 to be accessible from the outside Internet, with [mars91] explaining how to do so using a Cloudflare tunnel for your own protection.
The only problem is that delivering the Diet Coke is still something you have to do by hand. Perhaps a future upgrade would involve some kind of small apartment-spanning railway for the delivery of ice-cold cans to designated stations.
It’s a unique project, and one that recalls us of an interesting talk about
a different type of call button
. | 53 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075003",
"author": "PWalsh",
"timestamp": "2024-12-20T18:14:04",
"content": "Special mode for sandwiches:https://xkcd.com/149/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8075159",
"author": "CJay",
"timestamp": "2024-12-... | 1,760,371,691.743508 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/20/hackaday-podcast-episode-301-hacking-nvme-into-raspberry-pi-lighting-leds-with-microwaves-and-how-to-keep-your-fingers/ | Hackaday Podcast Episode 301: Hacking NVMe Into Raspberry Pi, Lighting LEDs With Microwaves, And How To Keep Your Fingers | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Twas the week before Christmas when Elliot and Dan sat down to unwrap a pre-holiday bundle of hacks. We kicked things off in a seasonally appropriate way with a PCB Christmas card that harvests power from your microwave or WiFi router, plus has the potential to be a spy tool. We learned how to grow big, beautiful crystals quickly, just in case you need some baubles for the tree or a nice pair of earrings. Speaking of last-minute gifts, perhaps you could build a packable dipole antenna, a very durable PCB motor, or a ridiculously bright Fibonacci simple add-on for your latest conference badge. We also looked into taking a shortcut to homebrew semiconductors via scanning electron microscopes, solved the mystery of early CD caddies, and discussed the sad state of table saw safety and the lamentable loss of fingers, or fractions thereof.
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Download the zero-calorie MP3.
Episode 301 Show Notes:
News:
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams return to Earth delayed until at least March
What’s that Sound?
Fill in
this form
for your chance to win. Be as specific as you can!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Where This Xmas Card’s Going, We Don’t Need Batteries!
Automated Rig Grows Big, Beautiful Crystals Fast
Enabling NVMe On The Raspberry Pi 500 With A Handful Of Parts
New Raspberry Pi 400 Is A Computer In A Keyboard For $70
Homebrew Electron Beam Lithography With A Scanning Electron Microscope
PCB Motor Holds Fast, Even After 1.6 Billion Spins
Superconference Interview: Carl Bugeja
“What Good Is a New-born Baby?” — Benjamin Franklin (probably)
See What ‘They’ See In Your Photos
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks
A Red Ring Light Show For Your Xbox 360
3D Printed Blaster Does It With Compliant Components
Pulling Backward To Go Forward: The Brennan Torpedo Explained
Building The Spectacular Fibonacci128 Simple Add-On
Dan’s Picks:
Wago Terminals Make This Ham Radio Dipole Light And Packable
Why NASA Only Needs Pi To So Many Decimal Places
Catching The View From The Edge Of Space
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Why Did Early CD-ROM Drives Rely On Awkward Plastic Caddies?
Capacitance Electronic Disc – Wikipedia
Tech In Plain Sight: Table Saw Safety | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075039",
"author": "DavidO",
"timestamp": "2024-12-20T20:19:45",
"content": "301 or 231?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8075846",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2024-12-24T09:05:23",
"cont... | 1,760,371,691.895437 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/20/embossing-leather-with-a-pipe-bender-and-3d-printed-tooling/ | Embossing Leather With A Pipe Bender And 3D Printed Tooling | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"embossed",
"embossing",
"leather",
"leatherwork",
"leatherworking",
"tool hacks",
"tools"
] | Embossed leather belts can be deliciously stylish. However, the tooling for making these fashionable items is not always easy to come by, and it rarely comes cheap. What do we do when a tool is expensive and obscure? We 3D print our own,
as [Myth Impressions] demonstrates
.
The build is based around a Harbor Freight pipe bender. However, instead of the usual metal tooling, it’s been refitted with a printed embossing ring specifically designed for imprinting leather. The tool features raised ridges in an attractive pattern, and the pipe bender merely serves as a straightforward device for rolling the plastic tooling over a leather belt blank. Once cranked through the machine, the leather belt comes out embossed with a beautiful design.
It’s a neat project, and the 3D printed tooling works surprisingly well. The key is that leather is
relatively
soft, so it’s possible to use plastic tools quite effectively. With that said, you can even form steel with printed tooling
if you use the right techniques.
We’ve seen some other neat leatherworking hacks before,
like this nicely-modified Singer sewing machine. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074992",
"author": "tadpole",
"timestamp": "2024-12-20T17:11:26",
"content": "Very nice. Really.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8075026",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2024-12... | 1,760,371,691.848577 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/20/subchannel-stations-the-radio-broadcasts-you-didnt-know-were-there/ | Subchannel Stations: The Radio Broadcasts You Didn’t Know Were There | Lewin Day | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Misc Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"fcc",
"radio",
"SCA",
"subcarrier"
] | Analog radio broadcasts are pretty simple, right? Tune into a given frequency on the AM or FM bands, and what you hear is what you get. Or at least, that used to be the way, before smart engineers started figuring out all kinds of sneaky ways for extra signals to hop on to mainstream broadcasts.
Subcarrier radio once felt like the secret backchannel of the airwaves. Long before Wi-Fi, streaming, and digital multiplexing, these hidden signals beamed anything from elevator music and stock tickers to specialized content for medical professionals. Tuning into your favorite FM stations, you’d never notice them—unless you had the right hardware and a bit of know-how.
Sub-what now?
Subcarrier radio was approved by the FCC under the Subsidiary Communications Authorization. This allowed both AM and FM radio stations to deliver additional content through subchannel broadcasting on their existing designated frequency. Practicalities mean that only FM stations could reasonably use this technique to broadcast additional audio content; AM radio stations were too limited in bandwidth to do so. In the latter case, only low-bitrate data could be sent on a subcarrier. 1983 saw the deregulation of subcarrier broadcasts, with existing broadcasters able to use them largely as they wished.
To understand how this let FM radios broadcast extra programming, we need to know how subcarriers work. Basically, in this context, a subcarrier is a high-frequency signal outside the range of human hearing—usually something like a sine wave at a frequency of 20 KHz to 100 KHz or so. This signal is then amplitude modulated with the desired secondary audio program for broadcast. As this signal is beyond the range of human hearing, it can be mixed with the regular station’s main audio feed without perceptibly altering it to any great degree. The mixed signal is then frequency modulated on to the radio station’s main carrier signal (usually in the range of 88-108 MHz) and sent up the tower for broadcast over radio.
Modern FM stereo transmissions have lots of stuff multiplexed on to them. There’s plenty of bandwidth to fit in a number of signals—including stereo data at 38 kHz, and subcarrier audio transmissions at 67 kHZ or 92 kHz. Microsoft also tried sending data over subchannels with Directband, but it didn’t catch on. Credit:
modified, public domain
For subchannel broadcasting, FM stations typically used subcarriers at 67 kHz or 92 kHz to carry additional low-fidelity mono audio feeds. These carrier frequencies were chosen to avoid the existing subcarrier signal in FM stereo broadcasts, which carried a left-right channel difference signal at 38 kHz.
Subcarriers were a neat little lifehack that let a single frequency do double or triple duty. A single FM station could deliver its main program, plus a bonus low-fidelity mono channel for various purposes. This facility was used for all kinds of obscure uses. Some broadcasters delivered background music for piping into department stores and the like, while others created special channels reserved for
reading-for-the-blind
organizations.
The
Physician’s Radio Network
was also a notable user, which broadcast information of specific relevance to medical professionals. However, the limited audience made it a difficult prospect to keep running from a commercial standpoint, even though it saved money by merely rebroadcasting one hour of programming around the clock on any given day. It eventually went off the air
in 1981.
Tuning into these broadcasts wasn’t possible on a regular FM radio. Instead, you needed a device specifically built to pull the subcarrier signal out of the radio broadcast and then demodulate it back into listenable audio. By and large, organizations broadcasting on subchannels would distribute special radios that were tuned to only decode their sub-carrier station. The hardware involved wasn’t complex—it just involved demodulating the FM broadcast signal, then filtering out the subcarrier signal and demodulating that back into audio.
Microsoft used subcarriers to broadcast data to coffee machines and smartwatches in the early 2000s. Credit:
Zuzu
, CC BY-SA 3.0
FM subcarriers weren’t just for audio, either. Microsoft famously used 67.7 kHz subcarriers on FM radio stations for its now-defunct DirectBand datacast network. It could deliver data at 12 kbit/second, or over 100 MB a day. The technology was used to deliver things like weather reports and stock prices to early smartwatches and coffee makers in the days before WiFi and celluar internet were cheap and everywhere.
From a hardware hacker’s perspective, these channels were a fun challenge to hunt down. With the right radio receiver and a bit of circuit hacking to tap off the baseband signal, you could decode the subcarrier and reveal the hidden broadcast. Some hobbyists rigged up surplus SCA receivers—often stuff found at flea markets or hamfests—to get free background music, weather reports, or any niche audio that happened to be riding along. Alternatively, decoding the subcarrier was entirely possible by building your own gear. It was kind of a neat analog puzzle—filter out the main audio, isolate the frequency where the secret channel lived, and then demodulate it. The hardware you’d use looked suspiciously like the guts of a standard FM radio, just with a few added filters and demodulation stages stuck in. These days, software defined radio techniques make doing the same thing comparatively easy.
Though it felt like eavesdropping, this wasn’t exactly some top-secret espionage. While technically unauthorized reception was frowned upon
by the FCC
, it wasn’t heavily policed. Subcarrier channels didn’t exactly have roving gangs of enforcers prowling about the neighborhood. Mostly, these subcarriers delivered paid subscription services, like Muzak, or nonprofit programming authorized under the station’s broadcast license. Their decline coincided with the rise of digital technologies and more flexible content-delivery methods. By the late 20th century, satellite feeds, internet streaming, and multicast digital channels rendered analog subcarriers quaint and unnecessary.
Still, SCA subcarrier signals remain a fascinating piece of broadcasting history. A few still linger today, but it’s now a more obscure medium than ever, lost as mainstream technology has moved on. It’s a reminder that even in the old days of broadcast radio, clever engineers found ways to pack more data into the same old bandwidth—long before we started streaming everything in sight.
Featured image by [windytan]. (Also, check out
her work on RDS demodulation
.) | 31 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074968",
"author": "Andrew Jorgensen",
"timestamp": "2024-12-20T15:27:14",
"content": "IIUC, both HD Radio and local traffic data are normal parts of broadcast FM in the US today. But HD is packed into sidebands instead? And I have no idea how traffic data is transmitted. I’d love ... | 1,760,371,691.980331 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/20/multimeter-gets-socket-upgrade-to-use-nicer-probes/ | Multimeter Gets Socket Upgrade To Use Nicer Probes | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"banana plug",
"contacts",
"multimeter",
"sockets",
"stabuli"
] | [Piffpaffpoltrie] had a problem. They found the InLine VA40R to be a perfectly usable multimeter, except for a couple of flaws. Most glaring among these were the tiny sockets for the test probes. These proved incompatible with the probes they preferred to use, so naturally,
something had to be done.
The desire was to see the multimeter work with [Piffpaffpoltrie]’s connector of choice: the 4 mm Multi Contact banana plug from Stäubli. Swiss-made, gold-plated, and highly reliable, nothing else would do. The original sockets on the multimeter were simply too small to properly accept these, so to make them work, they were machined down, drilled, tapped, and then fitted with a short M3 screw which was then soldered in place. This short length of thread then allowed the new sockets to bolt right into the PCB in place of the original sockets.
Ultimately, many would just buy a new multimeter. This hack is a fiddly and time-consuming one, but it’s kind of neat to see someone go to such lengths to customize their tools to their own satisfaction.
We don’t see a lot of multimeter hacks, because these tools usually get all the necessary features from the manufacturer. Still, the handful we’ve featured
have proven most interesting.
If you’re tinkering away at customizing your own test gear, don’t hesitate to
drop us a line! | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074926",
"author": "K",
"timestamp": "2024-12-20T12:21:52",
"content": "It’s “Stäubli” not “Stabuli” (:",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8074934",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2024-12-20T13:27:05"... | 1,760,371,692.078292 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/20/watch-a-3d-scan-become-a-car-body-model/ | Watch A 3D Scan Become A Car Body Model | Donald Papp | [
"how-to"
] | [
"3d model",
"3d scan",
"3d scanning",
"car"
] | Not all 3D scanning is alike, and the right workflow can depend on the object involved. [Ding Dong Drift] demonstrates this in his
3D scan of a project car
. His goal is to design custom attachments, and designing parts gets a lot easier with an accurate 3D model of the surface you want to stick them on. But it’s not as simple as just scanning the whole vehicle. His advice? Don’t try to use or edit the 3D scan directly as a model. Use it as a reference instead.
Rather than manipulate the 3D scan directly, a better approach is sometimes to use it as a modeling reference to fine-tune dimensions.
To do this, [Ding Dong Drift] scans the car’s back end and uses it as a reference for further CAD work. The 3D scan is essentially a big point cloud and the resulting model has a very high number of polygons. While it is dimensionally accurate, it’s also fragmented (the scanner only captures what it can see, after all) and not easy to work with in terms of part design.
In [Ding Dong Drift]’s case, he already has a 3D model of this particular car. He uses the 3D scan to fine-tune the model so that he can ensure it matches his
actual
car where it counts. That way, he’s confident that any parts he designs will fit perfectly.
3D scanning has a lot of value when parts have to fit other parts closely and there isn’t a flat surface or a right angle to be found. We saw how useful it was when photogrammetry was used to
scan the interior of a van to help convert it to an off-grid camper
. Things have gotten better since then, and
handheld scanners that make dimensionally accurate scans
are even more useful. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8075079",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2024-12-20T23:58:18",
"content": "I wonder how effective combining image segmentation AI with photogrammetry would be. You could use the AI to separate the final scan into individual objects.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,371,692.02951 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/19/old-bbc-micro-gets-some-disk-help-from-a-raspberry-pi/ | Old BBC Micro Gets Some Disk Help From A Raspberry Pi | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"BBC Micro",
"raspberry pi"
] | [Peter Mount] had a simple problem. He’d treated himself to a retro purchase in the form of a BBC Master 128—a faster sequel to the BBC Micro Model B. The only problem was he needed a way to get software on to it.
Cue a creative hack using a Raspberry Pi Zero W.
When [Peter] received the machine, it already had a GoTek floppy emulator, which pulled disk images off a USB drive. However, he wanted an easier and quicker way to get disk images to and from the machine for development purposes. Swapping the USB drive to and from another machine seemed too tedious.
Instead, he decided to swap in a Pi Zero W for this purpose, setting it up to emulate a flash drive
by following instructions from MagPi Magazine
. This would allow him to use the SCP tool to copy disk images over to the Pi Zero W via its WiFi connection. Basically, the Pi Zero W was acting as a wirelessly-updated storage device hooked up to the GoTek floppy emulator.
It’s a nifty way of doing things. [Peter] could have set about creating his own floppy emulator from scratch with wireless capability included. However, there was no need. He just needed a wirelessly-accessible USB drive, and the Pi Zero W was more than happy to act in that role.
The
BBC Micro
is a beloved machine of many in the British Isles, and it had
rather an extended family
. If you’ve pulled off your own nifty hack on this classic machine, be sure to hit us up
on the tipsline
! | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074885",
"author": "petermount1",
"timestamp": "2024-12-20T06:47:38",
"content": "I’ll add that this isn’t just for the BBC Micro as it works for anything you can connect a GoTek to.I’ve used this on my Commodore Amiga A1200 and Sinclair Spectrum +3 with no issues",
"parent_id"... | 1,760,371,692.233037 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/19/getting-dial-up-to-work-over-voip-isnt-always-easy/ | Getting Dial-Up To Work Over VOIP Isn’t Always Easy | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"dial-up",
"dial-up modem",
"modem",
"voip"
] | Dial-up modems used to be the default way of accessing the Internet, but times have moved on. They’re now largely esoteric relics from a time gone by. With regular old phone lines rather hard to come by these days, [Peter Mount] decided to try
getting a pair of dial-up modems working over VoIP instead.
The build started with a pair of Linksys PAP2T VoIP phone adapters, which were originally designed for hooking regular phones up to VoIP systems. He paired each US Robotics modem with a PAP2T, and then hooked both into a VoIP Private Branch Exchange which he set up using 3cx on a Raspberry Pi 3B+. The Pi also acted as a server for the modems to connect to. It took a lot of fiddly configuration steps, but he found success in the end. On YouTube, he demonstrates the setup—with that glorious modem sound—communicating successfully at a rate of 9600 baud.
It’s nice to see this vintage hardware communicating in a what is effectively a simulated world created entirely within modern hardware. We’ve seen similar projects before, like this attempt
to get dial-up going over Discord.
If you’re doing your own odd-ball screechy communications experiments, don’t hesitate to
drop us a line! | 26 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074848",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2024-12-20T03:23:21",
"content": "VOIP codecs intended for coding voice are going to really mess with tones used for data, and the modems have to fall back to pretty low rates to make it through the lossy compression. I’m surprised they can... | 1,760,371,692.308601 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/19/fixing-1986-sinclair-spectrum2-with-a-high-score-of-issues/ | Fixing 1986 Sinclair Spectrum+2 With A High-Score Of Issues | Maya Posch | [
"Repair Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"Amstrad Spectrum",
"sinclair spectrum"
] | The Sinclair ZX Spectrum+2 was the first home computer released by Amstrad after buying up Sinclair. It’s basically a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128, but with a proper keyboard and a built-in tape drive. The one that [Mark] of the
Mend it Mark
YouTube channel got in for repair
is however very much dead
. Upon first inspection of the PCB, it was obvious that someone had been in there before, replacing the 7805 voltage regulator and some work on other parts as well, which was promising. After what seemed like an easy fix with a broken joint on the 9 VDC input jack, the video output was however garbled, leading to the real fault analysis.
Fortunately these systems have full schematics available, allowing for easy probing on the address and data lines. Based on this the Z80 CPU was swapped out to eliminate a range of possibilities, but this changed nothing with the symptoms, and a diagnostic ROM cartridge didn’t even boot. Replacing a DS74LS157 multiplexer and trying different RAM chips also made no difference. This still left an array of options on what could be wrong.
Tracking down one short with an IC seemed to be a break, but the video output remained garbled, leaving the exciting possibility of multiple faults remaining. This pattern continues for most of the rest of the video, as through a slow process of elimination the bugs are all hunted down and eliminated, leaving a revived Spectrum+2 (and working tape drive) in its wake, as well as the realization that even with all through-hole parts and full schematics, troubleshooting can still be a royal pain. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074802",
"author": "Danjovic",
"timestamp": "2024-12-20T00:42:31",
"content": "It is a pity this video has automatic audio translation. Can’t stand 30 seconds of such weirdness.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8074803",
... | 1,760,371,692.349141 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/19/fibonacci-clock-looks-like-beautiful-modern-art/ | Fibonacci Clock Looks Like Beautiful Modern Art | Lewin Day | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"clock",
"fibonacci",
"fibonacci sequence",
"pi pico",
"Raspberry Pi Pico"
] | Don’t ask us why, but hackers and makers just love building clocks. Especially in the latter case, many like to specialize in builds that don’t even look like traditional timepieces, and are difficult to read unless you know the trick behind them. [NerdCave] has brought us a pleasing example of such a thing,
in the form of this gorgeous Fibonacci clock.
The build was inspired by an earlier Fibonacci clock that later became
a Kickstarter project.
Where that build used an Atmega328P, though, [NerdCage] landed on using a Raspberry Pi Pico W instead. The build throws the microcontroller board on a custom PCB, and sticks in inside an attractive 3D-printed enclosure. Black filmanet was used for the body, while white filament was used for the face of each square to act as a diffuser. Addressable RGB LEDs are used to illuminate the five square segments of the clock.
Obviously, you’re wondering how to read the clock. All you need to know is this. The first five numbers in the Fibonacci sequence are 1, 1, 2, 3, and 5. Each square on the clock represents one of these numbers—the side lengths of each square match these numbers. Red and green are used to represent hours and minutes, respectively, while a blue square is representing both. Basically, to get the hour, add up the values of red and blue squares, and to get the minutes, do the same with green and blue squares, but then multiply by 5. In the header image, the clock is displaying 8:55 PM… we think.
We’ve featured Fibonacci-themed clocks before, albeit ones with
entirely different visual themes.
Video after the break. | 12 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074722",
"author": "Danjovic",
"timestamp": "2024-12-19T21:35:51",
"content": "Awesome. I Should try it on VGA someday.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8074725",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2024-12-19T21:43:04",
... | 1,760,371,692.399679 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/19/measuring-a-well-with-just-a-hammer-and-a-smartphone/ | Measuring A Well With Just A Hammer And A Smartphone | Dan Maloney | [
"home hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"audacity",
"echo",
"ping",
"smartphone",
"sonar",
"sound",
"well"
] | What’s the best way to measure the depth of a well using a smartphone? If you’re fed up with social media, you might kill two birds with one stone and drop the thing down the well and listen for the splash. But if you’re looking for a less intrusive — not to mention less expensive — method, you could also
use your phone to get the depth acoustically
.
This is a quick hack that [Practical Engineering Solutions] came up with to measure the distance to the surface of the water in a residential well, which we were skeptical would work with any precision due to its deceptive simplicity. All you need to do is start a sound recorder app and place the phone on the well cover. A few taps on the casing of the well with a hammer send sound impulses down the well; the reflections from the water show up in the recording, which can be analyzed in Audacity or some similar sound editing program. From there it’s easy to measure how long it took for the echo to return and calculate the distance to the water. In the video below, he was able to get within 3% of the physically measured depth — pretty impressive.
Of course, a few caveats apply. It’s important to use a dead-blow hammer to avoid ringing the steel well casing, which would muddle the return signal. You also might want to physically couple the phone to the well cap so it doesn’t bounce around too much; in the video it’s suggested a few bags filled with sand as ballast could be used to keep the phone in place. You also might get unwanted reflections from down-hole equipment such as the drop pipe or wires leading to the submersible pump.
Sources of error aside, this is a clever idea for a quick measurement that has the benefit of not needing to open the well. It’s also
another clever use of Audacity
to use sound to see the world around us in a different way. | 38 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074674",
"author": "Matthias",
"timestamp": "2024-12-19T20:02:17",
"content": "slightly related: I used audacity to measure the switching time of a on/on switch by shorting (ok, with current limiting resistor) the mic-in with both switch-contacts parallel, which gave a relatively n... | 1,760,371,692.47447 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/19/the-battle-over-vanishing-spray/ | The Battle Over Vanishing Spray | Lewin Day | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"fifa",
"football",
"soccer",
"sport"
] | We talk a lot about patent disputes in today’s high-tech world. Whether it’s
Wi-Fi
,
3D printing
, or
progress bars,
patent disputes can quickly become big money—for lawyers and litigants alike.
Where we see less of this, typically, is the world of sports. And yet, a recent football innovation has seen plenty of conflict in this very area. This is the controversial story of vanishing spray.
Patently Absurd
Vanishing spray has quickly become a common sight on the belts of professional referees. Credit:
Balkan Photos
, CC BY-SA 2.0
You might have played football (soccer) as a child, and if that’s the case, you probably don’t remember vanishing spray as a key part of the sport. Indeed, it’s a relatively modern innovation, which came into play in international matches from 2013. The spray allowed referees to mark a line with a sort of disappearing foam, which could then be used to enforce the 10-yard distance between opposing players and the ball during a free kick.
The product is a fairly simple aerosol—the cans contain water, butane, a surfactant, vegetable oil, and some other minor constituents. When the aerosol nozzle is pressed, the liquified butane expands into a gas, creating a foam with the water and surfactant content. This creates an obvious white line that then disappears in just a few minutes.
The spray was created by Brazilian inventor Heine Allemagne in 2000, and was originally given the name Spuni. He filed a patent in 2000, which was then granted in 2002. It was being used in professional games by 2001, and quickly adopted in the mainstream Brazilian professional competition.
The future looked bright for Allemagne and his invention, with the Brazilian meeting with FIFA in 2012 to explore its use at the highest level of international football. In 2013, FIFA adopted the use of the vanishing spray for the Club World Cup. It appeared again in the 2014 World Cup, and many competitions since. By this time, it had been renamed “9.15 Fair Play,” referring to the metric equivalent of the 10-yard (9.15 meter) distance for free kicks.
After its first use by FIFA, the use of vanishing spray quickly spread to other professional competitions, making its first appearance in the Premier League in 2014. Credit:
Egghead06
, CC BY-SA 4.0
The controversy came later. Allemagne would go on to publicly claim that the global sporting body had refused to pay him the agreed price for his patent. He would go on to tell the press he’d knocked back
an initial offer of $500,000
, with FIFA later agreeing to pay $40 million for the invention. Only, the organization never actually paid up, and started encouraging the manufacture of copycat products from other manufacturers. In 2017, the matter went to court, with a Brazilian ruling acknowledging Allemagne’s patent. It also ordered FIFA to stop using the spray, or else face the risk of fines. However, as is often the way, FIFA repeatedly attempted to appeal the decision, raising questions about the validity of Allemagne’s patent.
The case has languished in the legal system for years since. In 2020, one court found against Allemagne, stating he hadn’t proven that FIFA had infringed his products or that he had suffered any real damages.
By 2022
, that had been overturned on appeal to a higher court, which found that FIFA had to pay material damages for their use of vanishing spray, and for the loss of profits suffered by Allemagne. The latest development occurred earlier this year, with the Superior Court of Justice ruling that FIFA must compensate Allemagne for his invention. In May, CNN reported that he expected to receive $40 million as a result of the case, with all five ministers on the Superior Court ruling in his favor.
Ultimately, vanishing spray is yet another case of authorities
implementing ever-greater control
over the world of football. It’s also another sad case of an inventor having to fight to receive their due compensation for an innovative idea. What seems like an open-and-shut case nevertheless took years to untangle in the courts. It’s a shame, because what should be a simple and tidy addition to the world of football has become a mess of litigation that cost time, money, and a great deal of strife. It was ever thus.
Featured Image:
Вячеслав Евдокимов
, CC BY-SA 3.0 | 53 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074604",
"author": "PaulG",
"timestamp": "2024-12-19T18:11:19",
"content": "Should have been red carded.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8074629",
"author": "Dunha",
"timestamp": "2024-12-19T19:00:05",
"content": "M... | 1,760,371,692.691212 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/19/better-c-strings-simply/ | Better C Strings, Simply | Al Williams | [
"Software Development",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"c++",
"strings"
] | If you program in C, strings are just in your imagination. What you really have is a character pointer, and we all agree that a string is every character from that point up until one of the characters is zero. While that’s simple and useful, it is also the source of many errors. For example, writing a 32-byte string to a 16-byte array or failing to terminal a string with a zero byte. [Thasso] has been experimenting with a different way
to represent strings
that is still fairly simple but helps keep things straight.
Like many other languages, this setup uses counted strings and string buffers. You can read and write to a string buffer, but strings are read-only. In either case, there is a length for the contents and, in the case of the buffer, a length for the entire buffer.
We’ve seen schemes like this before and [Thasso] borrowed the idea from
[Chris Wellons]
. The real issue, of course, is that you now have to rewrite or wrap any “normal” C functions you have that take or return strings. We’ve also seen this done where the length is stored ahead of the string so you don’t have a field for the character pointer:
struct str
{
sz len;
char dat[0];
};
Even though the prototypical structure has a zero length, the actual structure can be larger.
If you are worried about efficiency, [Thasso] and [Wellons] both point out that modern compilers are good at handling small structures, so maybe that’s an advantage to not putting the data directly into the struct. If you need characters larger than one byte, the [Wellons] post has some thoughts on that, too.
This is all old hat on C++, of course. No matter how you encode your strings, you should probably avoid the
naughty ones
.
Passwords
, too. | 62 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074580",
"author": "Jim",
"timestamp": "2024-12-19T16:50:06",
"content": "So… a pascal string then? (a 256 character array with the first character indicating the length of the rest, 0-255)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8074... | 1,760,371,692.595527 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/19/human-civilization-and-the-black-plastic-kitchen-utensils-panic/ | Human Civilization And The Black Plastic Kitchen Utensils Panic | Maya Posch | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"calculus",
"neuroscience"
] | Recently there was a bit of a panic in the media regarding a very common item in kitchens all around the world: black plastic utensils used for flipping, scooping and otherwise handling our food while preparing culinary delights. The claim was that the recycled plastic which is used for many of these utensils leak a bad kind of flame-retardant chemical,
decabromodiphenyl ether
, or BDE-209, at a rate that would bring it dangerously close to the maximum allowed intake limit for humans. Only
this claim was incorrect
because the researchers who did the original study got their calculation of the intake limit wrong by a factor of ten.
This recent example is emblematic of how simple mistakes can combine with a reluctance to validate conclusions can lead successive consumers down a game of telephone where the original text may already have been wrong, where each node does not validate the provided text, and suddenly everyone knows that using certain kitchen utensils, microwaving dishes or adding that one thing to your food is pretty much guaranteed to kill you.
How does one go about defending oneself from becoming an unwitting factor in creating and propagating misinformation?
Making Mistakes Is Human
We all make mistakes, as nobody of us is perfect. Our memory is lossy, our focus drifts, and one momentary glitch is all it takes to make that typo, omit carrying the one, or pay attention to the road during that one crucial moment. As a result we have invented many ways to compensate for our flawed brains, much of it centered around double-checking, peer-validation and ways to keep an operator focused with increasingly automated means to interfere when said operator did not act in time.
The error in the black plastic utensils study is an example of what appears to be an innocent mistake that didn’t get caught before publication, and then likely the assumption was made by media publications – as they rushed to get that click-worthy scoop written up – that the original authors and peer-review process had caught any major mistakes. Unfortunately the
original study by Megan Liu et al.
in
Chemosphere
listed the BDE-209 reference dose for a 60 kg adult as 42,000 ng/day, when the reference dose per kg body weight is 7,000 ng.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that 60 times 7,000 makes 420,000 ng/day, and as it’s at the core of the conclusion being drawn, it ought to have been checked and double-checked alongside the calculated daily intake from contaminated cooking utensils at 34,700 ng/day. This ‘miscalculation’
as per the authors
changed the impact from a solid 80% of the reference dose to not even 10%, putting it closer to the daily intake from other sources like dust. One factor that also played a role here, as pointed out by Joseph Brean in the earlier linked
National Post
article, is that the authors used nanograms, when micrograms would have sufficed and cut three redundant zeroes off each value.
Stroop task comparison. Naming the colors become much harder when the text and color do not match.
Of note with the (human) brain is that error detection and correction are an integral part of learning, and this process can be readily detected with an EEG scan as an event-related potential (ERP), specifically an
error-related negativity
(ERN). This is something that we consciously experience as well, such as when we perform an action like typing some text and before we have a chance to re-read what we wrote we already know that we made a mistake. Other common examples include being aware of misspeaking even as the words leave your mouth and that sense of dread before an action you’re performing doesn’t quite work out as expected.
An interesting case study here involves these ERNs in the human medial frontal cortex as published in
Neuron
back in 2018
by Zhongzheng Fu et al.
(with
related Cedars-Sinai article
). In this experimental setup volunteers were monitored via EEG as they were challenged with a
Stroop task
. During this task the self-monitoring of errors plays a major role as saying the word competes with saying the color, a struggle that’s visible in the EEG and shows the active error-correcting neurons to be located in regions like the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). A good explanation can be found in
this
Frontiers for Young Minds
article
.
The ERN signal strength changes with age, becoming stronger as our brain grows and develops, including pertinent regions like the cingulate cortex. Yet as helpful as this mechanism is, mistakes will inevitably slip through and is why proofreading text requires a fresh pair of eyes, ideally a pair not belonging to the person who originally wrote said text, as they may be biased to pass over said mistakes.
Cognitive Biases
Although there is at this point no evidence to support the hypothesis that we are just brains in jars gently sloshing about in cerebrospinal fluid as sentient robots feed said brains a simulated reality, effectively this isn’t so far removed from the truth. Safely nestled inside our skulls we can only obtain a heavily filtered interpretation of the world around us via our senses, each of which throw away significant amounts of data in e.g. the retina before the remaining data percolates through their respective cortices and subsequent neural networks until whatever information is left seeps up into the neocortex where our consciousness resides as a somewhat haphazard integration of data streams.
The microwave oven, an innocent kitchen appliance depending on who you ask. (Credit:
Mrbeastmodeallday
, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Along the way there are countless (subconscious) processes that can affect how we consciously experience this information seepage. These are collectively called ‘
cognitive biases
‘, and include common types like confirmation bias. This particular type of bias is particularly prevalent as humans appear to be strongly biased towards seeking out confirmation of existing beliefs, rather than seeking out narratives that may challenge said beliefs.
Unsurprisingly, examples of confirmation bias are everywhere, ranging from the subtle (e.g. overconfidence and faulty reasoning in e.g. diagnosing a defect) to the extreme, such as dogmatic beliefs affecting large groups where any challenge to the faulty belief is met by equally extreme responses. Common examples here are anti-vaccination beliefs – where people will readily believe that vaccines cause everything from cancer to autism – and anti-radiation beliefs which range from insisting that electromagnetic radiation from powerlines, microwave ovens, WiFi, etc. is harmful, to believing various unfounded
claims about nuclear power
and the hazards of ionizing radiation.
In the case of our black plastic kitchen utensils some people in the audience likely already had a pre-existing bias towards believing that plastic cooking utensils are somehow bad, and for whom the faulty calculation thus confirmed this bias. They would have had little cause to validate the claim and happily shared it on their social media accounts and email lists as an irrefutable fact, resulting in many of these spatulas and friends finding themselves tossed into the bin in a blind panic.
Trust But Verify
Obviously you cannot go through each moment of the day validating every single piece of information that comes your way. The key here is to validate and verify where it matters. After reading such an alarmist article about cooking utensils in one’s local purveyor of journalistic integrity and/or social media, it behooves one to investigate these claims and possibly even run the numbers oneself, before making your way over to the kitchen to forcefully rip all of those claimed carriers of cancer seeds out of their respective drawers and hurling them into the trash bin.
The same kind of due diligence is important when a single, likely biased source makes a particular claim. Especially in this era where
post-truth
often trumps intellectualism, it’s important to take a step back when a claim is made and consider it in a broader context. While this miscalculation with flame-retardant levels in black kitchen utensils won’t have much of an impact on society, the many cases of clear cognitive bias in daily life as well as their exploitation by the unscrupulous brings to mind Carl Sagan’s fears about a ‘celebration of ignorance’ as
expressed
in his 1995 book
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
.
With a populace primed to respond to every emotionally-charged sound bite, we need these candles more than ever. | 98 | 26 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074546",
"author": "Garth",
"timestamp": "2024-12-19T15:32:17",
"content": "Statistics show that 5 out of 4 researchers have denied that their data was wrong.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8074547",
"author": "DougM",
... | 1,760,371,692.837663 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/19/where-this-xmas-cards-going-we-dont-need-batteries/ | Where This Xmas Card’s Going, We Don’t Need Batteries! | Jenny List | [
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"christmas card",
"energy harvesting",
"rf harvesting"
] | Energy harvesting, the practice of scavenging ambient electromagnetic fields, light, or other energy sources, is a fascinating subject that we don’t see enough of here at Hackaday. It’s pleasing then to see
[Jeff Keacher]’s Christmas card
: it’s a PCB that lights up some LEDs on a Christmas tree, using 2.4 GHz radiation, and ambient light.
The light sensors are a set of LEDs, but the interesting part lies in the RF harvesting circuit. There’s a PCB antenna, a matching network, and then a voltage multiplier using dome RF Schottky diodes. These in turn charge a supercapacitor, but if there’s not enough light a USB power source can also be hooked up. All of this drives a PIC microcontroller, which drives the LEDs.
Why a microcontroller, you ask? This card has an interesting trick up its sleeve, despite having no WiFi of its own, it can be controlled over WiFi. If the 2.4 GHz source comes via proximity to an access point, there’s a web page that can be visited with a script generating packets in bursts that produce a serial pulse train on the DC from the power harvester. The microcontroller can see this, and it works as a remote. This is in our view, next-level. | 17 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074489",
"author": "Jay Woods",
"timestamp": "2024-12-19T14:05:51",
"content": "Now if it just had an e-ink picture that moved…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8074490",
"author": "Steven-X",
"timestamp": "2024-12-19T14... | 1,760,371,694.545601 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/19/homebrew-electron-beam-lithography-with-a-scanning-electron-microscope/ | Homebrew Electron Beam Lithography With A Scanning Electron Microscope | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"developing",
"EBL",
"electron beam lthography",
"etchant",
"fabrication",
"PMMA",
"resist",
"scanning electron microscope",
"sem",
"semiconductor"
] | If you want to build semiconductors at home, it seems like the best place to start might be to find a used scanning electron microscope on eBay. At least that’s how [Peter Bosch] kicked off his
electron beam lithography project
, and we have to say the results are pretty impressive.
Now, most of the DIY semiconductor efforts we’ve seen start with photolithography, where a pattern is optically projected onto a substrate coated with a photopolymer resist layer so that features can be etched into the surface using various chemical treatments. [Peter]’s method is similar, but with important differences. First, for a resist he chose poly-methyl methacrylate (PMMA), also known as acrylic, dissolved in anisole, an organic substance commonly used in the fragrance industry. The resist solution was spin-coated into a test substrate of aluminized Mylar before going into the chamber of the SEM.
As for the microscope itself, that required a few special modifications of its own. Rather than rastering the beam across his sample and using a pattern mask, [Peter] wanted to draw the pattern onto the resist-covered substrate directly. This required an external deflection modification to the SEM, which we’d love to hear more about. Also, the SEM didn’t support beam blanking, meaning the electron beam would be turned on even while moving across areas that weren’t to be exposed. To get around this, [Peter] slowed down the beam’s movements while exposing areas in the pattern, and sped it up while transitioning to the next feature. It’s a pretty clever hack, and after development and etching with a cocktail of acids, the results were pretty spectacular. Check it out in the video below.
It’s pretty clear that this is all preliminary work, and that there’s much more to come before [Peter] starts etching silicon. He says he’s currently working on a thermal evaporator to deposit thin films, which we’re keen to see. We’ve seen a few
sputtering rigs
for thin film deposition before, but there are
chemical ways to do it
, too. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074473",
"author": "ardencaple",
"timestamp": "2024-12-19T11:50:53",
"content": "Back in the 80s, electron-beam microlithography was the way all semiconductor production masks were made, since 1:1 projection aligners were in use at the time. Then reduction steppers came into use, a... | 1,760,371,694.790824 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/18/back-to-the-future-of-texting-sms-on-a-panasonic-typewriter/ | Back To The Future Of Texting: SMS On A Panasonic Typewriter | Heidi Ulrich | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"ESP32",
"i2c",
"panasonic t36",
"sms",
"typewriter"
] | Among us Hackaday writers, there are quite a few enthusiasts for retro artifacts – and it gets even better when they’re combined in an unusual way. So, when we get a tip about a build like this by [Sam Christy], our hands sure start itching.
The story of this texting typewriter
is one that beautifully blends nostalgia and modern technology. [Sam], an engineering teacher, transformed a Panasonic T36 typewriter into a device that can receive SMS messages, print them out, and even display the sender’s name and timestamp. For enthusiasts of retro gadgets, this creation bridges the gap between analog charm and digital convenience.
What makes [Sam]’s hack particularly exciting is its adaptability. By effectively replacing the original keyboard with an ESP32 microcontroller, he designed the setup to work with almost any electric typewriter. The project involves I2C communication, multiplexer circuits, and SMS management via Twilio. The paper feed uses an “infinite” roll of typing paper—something [Sam] humorously notes as outlasting magnetic tape for storage longevity.
Beyond receiving messages, [Sam] is working on features like replying to texts directly from the typewriter. For those still familiar with the art form of typing on a typewriter: how would you elegantly combine these old machines with modern technology? While you’re thinking,
don’t overlook part two
, which gives a deeper insight in the software behind this marvel! | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074443",
"author": "Cody",
"timestamp": "2024-12-19T07:47:49",
"content": "Nice, you converted the typewriter into a teletype. I bet with a bit more work that ESP32 could handle RTTY encoding and decoding. Then it could be hooked up to an HF radio and send messages without using th... | 1,760,371,694.483921 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/18/bacterium-demonstrates-extreme-radiation-resistance-courtesy-of-an-antioxidant/ | Bacterium Demonstrates Extreme Radiation Resistance Courtesy Of An Antioxidant | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"bacteria",
"extremophile"
] | Extremophile lifeforms on Earth are capable of rather astounding feats, with the secret behind the extreme radiation resistance of one of them
now finally teased out
by researchers. As one of the most impressive extremophiles,
Deinococcus radiodurans
is able to endure ionizing radiation levels thousands of times higher than what would decisively kill a multicellular organism like us humans. The trick is the antioxidant which this bacterium synthesizes from multiple metabolites that combine with manganese. An artificial version of this antioxidant has now been created that replicates the protective effect.
The ternary complex dubbed MDP consists of manganese ions, phosphate and a small peptide, which so far has seen application in creating
vaccines for chlamydia
. As noted in a 2023 study in
Radiation Medicine and Protection
by [Feng Liu] et al.
however, the
D. radiodurans
bacterium has more survival mechanisms than just this antioxidant. Although much of the ionizing radiation is neutralized this way, it can not be fully prevented. This is where the highly effective DNA repair mechanism comes into play, along with a range of other adaptations.
The upshot of this is the synthesis of a very effective and useful antioxidant, but as alluded to in the press releases, just injecting humans with MDP will not instantly give them the same super powers as our
D. radiodurans
buddy.
Featured image: Survival mechanisms in Deinococcus radiodurans bacterium. (Credit: Feng Liu et al., 2023) | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074408",
"author": "Leonardo",
"timestamp": "2024-12-19T03:19:33",
"content": "Not a hack at all…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8074410",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2024-12-19T03:30:15",
"co... | 1,760,371,694.593964 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/18/simple-fluorometer-makes-nucleic-acid-detection-cheap-and-easy/ | Simple Fluorometer Makes Nucleic Acid Detection Cheap And Easy | Dan Maloney | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"biology",
"Chemistry",
"dna",
"fluorometer",
"nucleic acid",
"rna",
"stem",
"TLS2591",
"UV LED"
] | Back in the bad old days, dealing with DNA and RNA in a lab setting was often fraught with peril. Detection technologies were limited to radioisotopes and hideous chemicals like ethidium bromide, a cherry-red solution that was a fast track to cancer if accidentally ingested. It took time, patience, and plenty of training to use them, and even then, mistakes were commonplace.
Luckily, things have progressed a lot since then, and fluorescence detection of nucleic acids has become much more common. The trouble is that the instruments needed to quantify these signals are priced out of the range of those who could benefit most from them. That’s why [Will Anderson]
et al
. came up with
DIYNAFLUOR
, an open-source nucleic acid fluorometer that can be built on a budget. The chemical principles behind fluorometry are simple — certain fluorescent dyes have the property of emitting much more light when they are bound to DNA or RNA than when they’re unbound, and that light can be measured easily. DIYNAFLUOR uses 3D-printed parts to hold a sample tube in an optical chamber that has a UV LED for excitation of the sample and a TLS2591 digital light sensor to read the emitted light. Optical bandpass filters clean up the excitation and emission spectra, and an Arduino runs the show.
The DIYNAFLUOR team put a lot of effort into making sure their instrument can get into as many hands as possible. First is the low BOM cost of around $40, which alone will open a lot of opportunities. They’ve also concentrated on making assembly as easy as possible, with a solder-optional design and printed parts that assemble with simple fasteners. The obvious target demographic for DIYNAFLUOR is STEM students, but the group also wants to see this used in austere settings such as field research and environmental monitoring. There’s a
preprint
available that shows results with commercial fluorescence nucleic acid detection kits, as well as detailing homebrew reagents that can be made in even modestly equipped labs. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074450",
"author": "Wetbencher",
"timestamp": "2024-12-19T09:10:52",
"content": "Find me please one published evidence that ethydium bromide causes cancer in a complex organism. It us used in Africa by the g’s in cattles to fight parasites. This is all conspiracy theory to promote ... | 1,760,371,694.655332 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/18/floss-weekly-episode-813a-happy-holidays/ | FLOSS Weekly Episode 813a: Happy Holidays! | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"FLOSS Weekly"
] | This week and next we take off for the holidays! We have an exciting schedule after the break, so stay tuned!
Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show Right on
our YouTube Channel
? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or contact the guest and have them contact us!
Take a look at the schedule here
.
Direct Download
in DRM-free MP3.
Places to follow the FLOSS Weekly Podcast:
Spotify
RSS
Theme music: “Newer Wave” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under
Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074317",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2024-12-18T21:13:36",
"content": "“This week and next we take off for the holidays! ”AI doesn’t take holidays. ;-)Happy holidays, and hopefully no fruitcakes.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comme... | 1,760,371,694.436248 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/18/push-for-on-hold-for-off-ac-edition/ | Push For On, Hold For Off, AC Edition | Al Williams | [
"Parts"
] | [
"ac",
"TRIAC"
] | A common theme in modern consumer electronics is having a power button that can be tapped to turn the device on, but needs to be held down when it’s time to shut it off. [R. Jayapal] had noticed a circuit design for this setup when using DC and decided to create a version that could
handle AC-powered loads
.
The circuit relies on a classic optoisolated triac to switch the AC line, although [R. Jayapal] notes that a relay would also work. The switch circuit consists of two transistors, a comparator, a flip flop and a monostable. As you might expect, the button triggers the flip flops to turn the triac on. However, if you hold the switch for more than a few seconds, a capacitor charges and causes the comparator to trip the output flip flop.
The
DC circuit
that inspired this one is naturally a bit simpler, although we might have been tempted to simply use the output of that circuit to drive a relay or triac. On the other hand, the circuit is set up to allow you to adjust the time delay easily.
Given the collection of parts, though, we wonder if you couldn’t press some
555s into service
for this to further reduce the part count. If relays are too old-fashioned for you, you can always use a solid-state relay or
make your own
. | 18 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074305",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2024-12-18T20:31:12",
"content": "Ouch. Kind of just begs for a $0.50 microcontroller, no?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8074313",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2024... | 1,760,371,694.903632 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/18/upper-room-uv-c-keeps-air-cleaner/ | Upper Room UV-C Keeps Air Cleaner | Lewin Day | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"air cleaning",
"air quality",
"pathogen",
"sterilization",
"ultraviolet",
"uv",
"UV-C"
] | 2020 saw the world rocked by widespread turmoil, as a virulent new pathogen started claiming lives around the globe. The COVID-19 pandemic saw a rush on masks, air filtration systems, and hand sanitizer, as terrified populations sought to stave off the deadly virus by any means possible.
Despite the fresh attention given to indoor air quality and airborne disease transmission, there remains one technology that was largely overlooked. It’s the concept of
upper-room UV sterilization
—a remarkably simple way of tackling biological nastiness in the air.
Warm Glowing Killing Glow
Upper-room UV systems sound kind of like science-fiction technology. They nuke nasty pathogens in the air, and do it while emitting a faint and weird-colored glow. In reality, they’ve been quietly hanging around for about 80 years. The idea is straightforward enough—you just shine UV-C light in the unused overhead zone of a room to zap airborne pathogens before they get inhaled by fragile humans!
Upper-room UV sterilization keeps the harmful UV-C light away from the occupants in the room. Credit: CDC
The concept came about as a direct result of 19th-century research that determined sunlight inhibited the growth of undesirable microbes and pathogens. Later work determined that light in the UV-C range of wavelengths is remarkably good at killing both bacteria and viruses, making it ideal for sterilizing purposes. The UV-C range is from 100 to 280 nanometers, but peak sterilizing action occurs around the 250-270 nm range. The primary method of action is that the UV-C light creates defects in DNA molecules that kill or inactivate microscopic organisms, including bacteria and viruses. It’s perfect for tackling all sorts of nasties, from measles to SARS to TB.
Unfortunately, that also means that UV-C light isn’t always safe to use around humans. Just as it hurts microbes, this light is also harmful to our skin and eyes in exactly the same way. Indeed, a prime example of this was a 2023 event
that allegedly accidentally used UV sterilization lamps as decorative blacklights.
While UV-C light is used in a wide range of sterilization applications, most keep the light hidden or localized to avoid direct human exposure.
Upper-room UV-C installations are particularly interesting, though, for their simplicity. To avoid dangerous exposures, these installations simply place the sterilizing lamps up high in a room and direct their light into the upper level of air. As long as the UV light output is directed into the top level of the room, well above the heads of any occupants, it can sterilize the air effectively with little risk of harm.
UV-C lamps typically have peak output at 254 nm, but they also output some light in the visual spectrum that gives them a characteristic green glow—as seen on this Phillips wall-mount unit. Credit:
Phillips
For this reason, these systems are typically installed in places like schools, hospitals and other public buildings, where ceiling heights are high enough to make such installations safe.
CDC guidelines
suggest minimum ceiling heights must be at least 8 feet for these installations, though 8.5 feet is preferred. For most people, that’s high enough not to cause trouble, but if you’re one of the taller players in the NBA, you might want to take note.
Upper-room UV systems treat a massive volume of air simply by sectioning the room into a germ-killing overhead zone and a safer lower zone where people breathe. Natural convection, HVAC currents, and even a simple ceiling fan help keep the air circulating upward, doused by the UV field, and then returned to the lower portion, scrubbed clean. At least a minimal level of circulation is required in order to ensure all the air in a given room is being treated. Power levels required are relatively low.
A 2015 study
suggested a total output of just 15-20 milliwatts is enough per cubic meter of room volume, assuming adequate air mixing in the space.
Ultimately, though, proper sizing and safe installation are critical for creating an effective and safe sterilization system. UV-C is safe enough when used properly, but get it wrong, and you’ll see plenty of sore eyes and red skin almost immediately. The key is blocking direct and reflected UV light from reaching the lower zone of the room. Louvered fixtures with carefully aimed beams are necessary in rooms with lower ceilings, while more open fixtures are more for lofty spaces where they can blast UV upward without frying everyone’s eyeballs.
Proper metering
must be done at the time of installation to ensure light concentration is high enough in the sterilization region, and below safety limits in the occupied region. It’s also important to ensure the lamps are switched off for maintenance or if anyone is entering the upper zone of the room for any reason.
It might sound high-tech, but this approach predates modern pandemics by decades. It was already showing its effectiveness against diseases like measles and tuberculosis as far back as the 1930s and 1940s. Early success was found at Duke University in 1936, where post-surgical infections were cut from 11.62% to just 0.24% with the use of an operating room eqiupped with UV-C equipment.
Later, a 1941 study
determined that UV-C delivered by mercury-vapor lamps had drastically reduced measles transmission in classrooms.
This installation used bare UV-C bulbs, directing them with louvers or hiding them in a perforated sub-ceiling. Note the eerie green glow. Credit:
research paper
Given its efficacy, you might think that upper room UV-C installations would be everywhere. Subways, airports, schools, hospitals, and malls could all benefit from this technology. However, it would require some investment and ongoing maintenance, and it seems that simple cost is too much to bear.
For whatever reason, upper-room UV remains an obscure technology, seldom discussed and rarely used. Here we are, after countless deadly airborne disease outbreaks, still largely ignoring a century-old technology that actually works. The simplicity is staggering—slap a UV fixture on the wall near the ceiling, tune it so that zero harmful light hits the occupants, and let it run. It’s not a silver bullet for all air quality concerns, and you still need ventilation, of course. But for dealing with nasty airborne pathogens? It’s hard to imagine an easier solution than upper-room UV. The only real question left is, why aren’t we using it everywhere?
Featured image by the
US CDC
. | 59 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074252",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2024-12-18T18:10:08",
"content": "Paint the ceiling with fluorescent dyes, and you get twice the bang for the buck with illumination.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8074892",
... | 1,760,371,695.123969 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/17/a-compass-that-looks-to-the-stars/ | A Compass That Looks To The Stars | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"aircraft",
"astronomy",
"compass",
"heading",
"navigation",
"stars"
] | Although a lot of tools have been digitized and consolidated into our smartphones, from cameras, music players, calendars, alarm clocks, flashlights, and of course phones, perhaps none are as useful as the GPS and navigational capabilities. The major weakness here, though, is that this is a single point of failure. If there’s no cell service, if the battery dies, or you find yourself flying a bomber during World War II then you’re going to need another way to navigate,
possibly using something like this Astro Compass
.
The compass, as its name implies, also doesn’t rely on using the Earth’s magnetic field since that would have been difficult or impossible inside of an airplane. Instead, it can use various celestial bodies to get a heading. But it’s not quite as simple as pointing it at a star and heading off into the wild blue yonder. First you’ll need to know the current time and date and look those up in a companion chart. The chart lists the global hour angle and the declination for a number of celestial bodies which can be put into the compass. From there the latitude is set and the local hour angle is calculated and set, and then the compass is rotated until the object is sighted. After all of that effort, a compass heading will be shown.
For all its complexity, a tool like this can be indispensable in situations where modern technology fails. While it does rely on precise tabulated astrometric data to be on hand, as long as that’s available it’s almost failsafe, especially compared to a modern smartphone. Of course, you’ll also need a fairly accurate way of timekeeping
which can be difficult in some situations
. | 19 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073931",
"author": "Reg",
"timestamp": "2024-12-17T21:19:57",
"content": "Its purpose is for navigation near the polar regions. Light aircraft and older heavies still use magnetic compasses every day. Properly compensated, they work fine. Until you get near the Arctic Circle. ... | 1,760,371,694.843338 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/17/why-nasa-only-needs-pi-to-so-many-decimal-places/ | Why NASA Only Needs Pi To So Many Decimal Places | Lewin Day | [
"Space"
] | [
"math",
"maths",
"nasa",
"Pi",
"space"
] | If you’re new to the world of circular math, you might be content with referring to pi as 3.14. If you’re getting a little more busy with geometry, science, or engineering, you might have tacked on a few extra decimal places in your usual calculations. But what about the big dogs? How many decimal places do NASA use?
NASA doesn’t need this many digits. It’s likely you don’t either. Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Thankfully, the US space agency has been
kind enough to answer that question.
For the highest precision calculations, which are used for interplanetary navigation, NASA uses 3.141592653589793 — that’s fifteen decimal places.
The reason why is quite simple, going into any greater precision is unnecessary. The article demonstrates this by calculating the circumference of a circle with a radius equal to the distance between Earth and our most distant spacecraft, Voyager 1. Using the formula C=2
pi
r with fifteen decimal places of pi, you’d only be off on the true circumference of the circle by a centimeter or so. On solar scales, there’s no need to go further.
Ultimately, though, you can calculate pi to a much greater precision. We’ve seen it done to
10 trillion digits
, an effort which flirts with the latest Marvel movies for the title of pure irrelevance. If you’ve done it better or faster, don’t hesitate to
let us know! | 53 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073857",
"author": "LordNothing",
"timestamp": "2024-12-17T19:44:13",
"content": "sounds about like what fits in a 64-bit float (double in most compilers). you can always catch the nan exception and perform the calculation with fixed point math if neccisary.",
"parent_id": null... | 1,760,371,695.004 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/17/tech-in-plain-sight-table-saw-safety/ | Tech In Plain Sight: Table Saw Safety | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Slider",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"sawstop",
"table saw"
] | If you ask around a wood shop, most people will agree that the table saw is the most dangerous tool around. There’s ample evidence that this is true. In 2015, over 30,000 ER visits happened because of table saws. However, it isn’t clear how many of those are from blade contact and how many are from other problems like kickback.
We’ve seen a hand contact a blade in a high school shop class, and the results are not pretty. We’ve heard of some people getting off lucky with stitches, reconstructive surgery, and lifelong pain. They are the lucky ones. Many people lose fingers, hands, or have permanent disfiguration and loss of function. Surgeons say that the speed and vigor of the blade means that some of the tissue around the cut vanishes, making reconstruction very difficult.
Modern Tech
These days, there are systems that can help prevent or mitigate these kinds of accidents. The most common in the United States is the patented SawStop system, which is proprietary — that is, to get it, you have to buy a saw from SawStop.
The system assumes the blade is all metal. It can detect your hand making contact with the blade, and if that happens, the saw reacts within 5 milliseconds. The system releases a beefy spring that jams an aluminum block into the saw blade, halting the 4,000 RPM rotation almost instantly. The force also moves the blade under the table. The cartridge that stops the blade and the blade won’t survive the encounter, but your finger will.
Tear It Down!
Of course, being Hackaday, we want to see what’s inside the cartridge, and [Spag the Maker] was happy to oblige. As he points out, the sensor sometimes fires when it shouldn’t, but that’s better than not firing when it should.
In this case, the cartridge fired after contact with a metal tape measure. We’ve heard wet wood can also cause false positives. You can see the inside of the dead cartridge in the video below.
Patents
A figure from the “840” patent
SawStop owns several patents that prevented other similar systems from entering the market. Although many of the patents are now expired, there is one — known as the
840 patent
— that is very broad and won’t expire until 2033. However, the current owners of the patent — TTS Tooltechnic — have claimed that if government regulation mandates table saws to have protection devices, they will release the patent to the public.
However, until that happens, the company continues to
defend its patents vigorously
. The most famous case was against Bosch, who has a competing system called Reaxx. The systems are superficially similar, but Reaxx does not destroy the blade, which only moves out of the way.
Even this year, SawStop litigated against
Felder KG
, another competitor. There have been accusations that SawStop won’t reasonably license their technology, either, but we don’t know the whole story.
Anyway, they’re no Volvo
.
Safety First
If you don’t think a woodshop is that dangerous, have a look at “It Didn’t Have to Happen” from many years ago. This isn’t a new problem.
The
Consumer Product Safety Commission
has tried to force protection systems on table saws for many years. The industry, in general, opposes them as unnecessary and expensive. The controversy is heated, with proponents pointing to the 30,000 plus injuries a year and the cost to the injured and society. The opponents talk about free markets and government interference in your shop. We won’t take sides, but having seen an injury of this type, we’ll spend our money on a safer saw even if no one is making us do it.
Then again, no one is stopping you from
making your own saw
with whatever safety systems you like. We’ve seen many builds based around
a circular saw
. | 76 | 28 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073824",
"author": "PWalsh",
"timestamp": "2024-12-17T18:07:01",
"content": "My local makerspace is shared with the local middle school. Their table saw has a saw stop, and we’ve had some trouble with it – the stop triggered for unknown reasons, I think that happened twice, and the... | 1,760,371,695.359737 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/17/the-last-acorn-bbc-computer-wasnt-a-bbc-micro/ | The Last Acorn BBC Computer Wasn’t A BBC Micro | Jenny List | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"acorn",
"acorn archimedes",
"archimedes",
"arm"
] | For home computer users, the end of the 1980s was the era of 16-bit computers. The challenge facing manufacturers of 8-bit machines through the middle of the decade was to transfer their range and customers to the new hardware, and the different brands each did this in their own way. Commodore and Atari had 68000-based powerhouses, and Apple had their 16-bit-upgraded IIGS for the middle ground below the Mac, but what about Acorn, makers of the BBC Micro? They had the Archimedes, and [RetroBytes]
takes us through how they packaged their 32-bit ARM processor for consumers
.
The A3000 was the computer you
wanted
if you were a geeky British kid at the end of that decade, even if an Amiga or an ST was what you
got
. Schools had bought a few of the desktop Archimedes’, so if you were lucky you’d got to know Arthur and then RiscOS, so you knew just how fast these things were compared to the competition. The video below the break takes a dive into the decisions behind the design of this first ARM consumer product, and along the way it explains a few things we didn’t know at the time. We all know what happened to Acorn through the 1990s and we all use ARM processors today, so it’s a fascinating watch. If only an extra two hundred quid had been in the kitty back then and we could have bought one ourselves.
If you have never used an Archimedes you can get pretty close today with another Cambridge-designed and ARM-powered computer. RiscOS never went away, and you can run it on a Raspberry Pi. As we found,
it’s still pretty useful
. | 27 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073797",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2024-12-17T16:42:35",
"content": "Hi. I think this advertisement here is a must see.It captures the atmosphere of amazement of the technology of the day.You can hear the proudness of Acorn of its own achivement, too.https://www.youtube.com... | 1,760,371,695.228425 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/17/man-overboard-systems-aim-to-increase-survival-rates-at-sea/ | Man Overboard Systems Aim To Increase Survival Rates At Sea | Lewin Day | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Misc Hacks",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"boat",
"cruise",
"cruise ship",
"man overboard",
"ship",
"vessel"
] | When you hear the cry of “Man Overboard!” on a ship, it’s an emergency situation. The sea is unkind to those that fall from their vessel, and survival is never guaranteed—even in the most favorable conditions. Raging swell and the dark of night can only make rescue more impossible.
Over the centuries, naval tradition has included techniques to find and recover the person in the water as quickly and safely as possible. These days, though, technology is playing an ever-greater role in such circumstances. Modern man-overboard (MOB) systems are designed to give crews of modern vessels a fighting chance when rescuing those in peril.
A Hard Task
Man overboard recoveries are challenging to execute, because of the unpredictable and rapidly changing conditions at sea. Once a person enters the water, factors like strong currents, wind, waves, and darkness can make it difficult to keep them in sight and quickly maneuver the vessel to their location. Even in calm weather, a victim can be carried away faster than it appears, and thick clothing or heavy gear may limit their mobility, reducing their ability to stay afloat or attract attention. Additionally, communication can be hindered by engine noise, onboard confusion, or the sheer panic of the moment. All of these elements combine to make man overboard scenarios both time-sensitive and complex operations for the crew.
These situations can pose particular difficulties for larger ships. Where a smaller craft might be able to quickly stop to recover a fallen crew member or passenger, larger vessels are much slower to maneuver. Traditional man overboard techniques, such as having crew members point at the victim in the water, can fail to work if the vessel drifts out of visual range. Smaller vessels can have problems, too. With smaller crews, it can be difficult to bring someone back on board while also ensuring the vessel is maneuvered safely.
Simple man-overboard systems for small boats rely on fobs or wrist-straps that communicate via radio. Credit:
CrewWatcher
Man-overboard systems aim to help improve the likelihood of survival for those that fall into the water. They come in a variety of forms designed to suit different types of vessel, and the different scenarios they operate in.
For small boats, the most basic systems act as simple alarms, which automatically sound when a person falls overboard. These use small wireless fobs or wrist straps, which communicate with a base station on the boat itself. If the short-range radio link between the two is severed, an alarm is sounded, notifying those on board of the man overboard situation. Many models also feature a water immersion sensor, so the alarm can be raised instantly if someone falls into the sea. For small boats operated by individuals, this can be very useful. There is great benefit in receiving an automatic notification if someone falls into the water, even if nobody on the boat notices the incident directly.
Many of these small-scale systems are also set up to work with smartphones or tablets. They instantly log the position at which the man overboard event occurred, and guide the vessel back to the victim in the water. Soem even come with a special “captain’s fob” wherein the system will cut the boat’s engines in the case the skipper falls overboard. This can be valuable for avoiding a runaway boat scenario.
The MARSS MOBtronic system uses sensor pods installed across a cruise ship to detect man overboard events. Credit: MARSS
These systems are useful for small boats. When it comes to larger vessels like cruise ships, however,
the solutions are more advanced
. When duly equipped with a man overboard system, these craft are dotted with sensor packages, including cameras, thermal imagers, and LIDAR scanners, all of which are trained on the perimeter of the vessel. These are set up to detect if a human falls overboard, at which point they raise the alarm. The bridge is notified as to the emergency, and the vessel receives directions to the area where the person fell from the ship.
These systems come with additional benefits, too. The sensors that detect a fall can also be used to track a person’s motion in the water. Essentially acting as a high-tech surveillance system trained on the perimeter of the vessel, they can be used to detect unwelcome boarders trying to gain access to the ship as well. They can also detect if someone might be climbing on the side of the ship—a foolish act that is perhaps likely to precede a fall into the water. Indeed, it’s pretty hard to fall off of most cruise ships—the high railings are designed specifically to prevent that.
Misadventure plays a role
in a significant proportion of man overboard incidents on cruises.
Thermal cameras are particularly useful for detecting man overboard events. Credit:
MARSS
This technology is relatively new. It has largely been developed as a result of the The Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act of 2010, which stated that cruise vessels “shell integrate technology that can be used for capturing images of passengers or detecting passengers who have fallen overboard, to the extent that such technology is available.” At the time, advanced man overboard systems did not exist, so the requirement was effectively optional. As covered by
USA
Today,
workable systems have been developed, but they are not yet ubiquitous, as many cruise lines are yet to deploy them across their fleets. An increasing number of vessels are now sailing with such equipment, though MARSS notes that
less than 2% of cruise ships
are currently fielding effective systems.
The fact remains that falling overboard from a ship is a fraught situation.
Statistics from 2018
indicate that of the 1 or 2 people that fell from cruise ships each month, just 17 to 25% were rescued. The hope is that these automated systems will speed responsiveness to man overboard events, and lead to better outcomes. Indeed, in many cases, crews only respond to man overboard incidents hours after victims fall into the water, when the alarm is raised by concerned fellow travelers. This can make even just finding the individual near-impossible. Automated systems have the potential to cut response times to minutes or better, greatly increasing the chances of spotting a person in the water and executing their rescue.
Ultimately, the advancement of automated detection and response systems offers a clear path to improved safety on vessels small and large alike. By sharply cutting the time to raise an alarm, these technologies can dramatically improve the odds of saving a life. As more vessels adopt these systems and integrate them into their safety protocols, we stand to shift the balance, turning dire emergencies into manageable situations, and ultimately, safeguarding more passengers and crew at sea. | 22 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073779",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2024-12-17T15:37:11",
"content": "Misadventure plays a roleI.e. druuuunkkkkkMaybe they should install those breathaylizer interlock things on all the doors leading to the outer railings, and keep people inside the interior theme parks otherwis... | 1,760,371,695.65551 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/17/see-what-they-see-in-your-photos/ | See What ‘They’ See In Your Photos | Lewin Day | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"google vision API",
"interpret",
"vision api"
] | Once upon a time, a computer could tell you virtually nothing about an image beyond its file format, size, and color palette. These days, powerful image recognition systems are a part of our everyday lives.
They See Your Photos
is a simple website that shows you just how much these systems can interpret from a regular photo.
The website simply takes your image submission, runs it through the Google Vision API, and spits back out a description of the image. I tried it out with a photograph of myself, and was pretty impressed with what the vision model saw:
The photo is taken in a lush green forest, with tall trees dominating the background. The foreground features a person, who appears to be the subject of the photograph. The lighting suggests it might be daytime, and the overall color palette is heavily saturated with shades of green, almost artificial in appearance. There’s also some dried vegetation visible to the left, suggesting a natural setting that is possibly a park or woodland area.
The subject is a young to middle-aged Caucasian male with shoulder-length, light-colored hair. He seems serious, perhaps pensive or slightly uneasy. His clothing —a green and yellow checkered shirt over a green and black striped shirt—suggests a casual or outdoorsy lifestyle. He might be of middle to lower-middle class economic standing. It looks like he’s crouching slightly, possibly for the picture. The image lacks metadata on the camera device used or the time the photo was taken.
He appears to be alone in the photo, indicating an individualistic or solitary experience.
The saturation level of the greens and yellows is unusually high, hinting at possible digital editing post-capture. There is a very slight blur, particularly noticeable in the background which could be from a smaller aperture or shallow depth of field when captured, creating a focus on the subject.
The color alteration and seemingly intentional focus on the subject suggest it may not be a candid shot but rather a posed photograph, possibly with an artistic or stylistic goal.
The system doesn’t get satire or memes, though.
The model did very well—easily determining both the vague type of locale , and the fact that my shirt implies I don’t have a Ferrari at home in my garage. It also picks up on the fact that it was a posed photograph with certain artistic intent.
Back in 2014, the webcomic
XKCD
stated that it would be an inordinately difficult task for a computer to determine if a digital photo contained a bird. These days, a computer model can tell us what’s in a photo down to the intimate details, and even make amusing assertions as to the lives of the subjects in the image and their intentions. We’ve come a long way, to be sure.
Machine vision is still far from perfect—there are ways to fool systems and areas in which
they still don’t stack up to real humans.
The only thing we know for certain is that these systems will continue to improve. | 46 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073694",
"author": "Commenter",
"timestamp": "2024-12-17T12:54:08",
"content": "le upvote",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8073695",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp": "2024-12-17T12:55:05",
"content": "I wonder what it... | 1,760,371,695.745139 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/17/3d-printed-blaster-does-it-with-compliant-components/ | 3D Printed Blaster Does It With Compliant Components | Donald Papp | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"blaster",
"compliant mechanism",
"flexure",
"nerf",
"projectile"
] | The ease of integrating bendy parts into designs is one of 3D printing’s strengths. A great example of this is
[uhltimate]’s six-shot blaster
which integrates several compliant mechanisms. The main blaster even prints in one piece, so there’s not even any assembly required.
The ergonomics are unconventional, but the design is pretty clever.
The blaster itself has three main parts: the trigger, the sear, and the striker. Each of them rely on compliant mechanisms in order to function. The user pulls back the trigger, which hooks into and pulls back the striker. When the trigger is pulled back far enough, the sear releases the striker. This zips forward and slams into a waiting projectile, sending it flying.
The other interesting part is the projectiles and magazine in which they sit. The magazine fits onto the front of the blaster and pulling the trigger allows the magazine to drop down, putting the next projectile into firing position. After the final round is fired, the empty magazine falls away. It’s a pretty clever design, even if the ergonomics are a little unusual and it relies on gravity in order to feed. Tilt it too far sideways or upside down, and it won’t load properly.
We’ve seen
compliant mechanisms used for projectile firing
before, but this design really raises the bar in the way it does more than just firing the striker.
3D printing allows rapid iteration of designs, which makes devices that rely on compliant mechanisms much easier to develop and fine-tune. | 20 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073644",
"author": "s",
"timestamp": "2024-12-17T10:50:20",
"content": "That’s brilliant! Ergonomics are easily solved",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8073692",
"author": "Crack'r",
"timestamp": "2024-12-17T12... | 1,760,371,695.926719 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/18/enabling-nvme-on-the-raspberry-pi-500-with-a-handful-of-parts/ | Enabling NVMe On The Raspberry Pi 500 With A Handful Of Parts | Maya Posch | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"M.2",
"NVMe",
"raspberry pi 500"
] | With the recent teardown of the Raspberry Pi 500, there were immediately questions raised about the unpopulated M.2 pad and related traces hiding inside. As it turns out, with the right parts and a steady hand it only takes a bit of work before
an NVMe drive can be used with the RP500
, as [Jeff Geerling] obtained proof of. This contrasts with
[Jeff]’s own attempt
involving the soldering on of an M.2 slot, which saw the NVMe drive not getting any power.
The four tiny coupling capacitors on the RP500’s PCIe traces. (Source: Jeff Geerling)
The missing ingredients turned out to be four PCIe coupling capacitors on the top of the board, as well as a source of 3.3 V. In a pinch you can make it work with a bench power supply connected to the pads on the bottom, but using the bottom pads for the intended circuitry would be much neater.
This is what
[Samuel Hedrick] pulled off
with the same AP3441SHE-7B as is used on the
Compute Module 5 IO board
. The required BOM for this section which he provides is nothing excessive either, effectively just this one IC and required external parts to make it produce 3.3V.
With the added cost to the BOM being quite minimal, this raises many questions about why this feature (and the PoE+ feature) were left unpopulated on the PCB.
Featured image: The added 3.3 V rail on the Raspberry Pi 500 PCB. (Credit: Samuel Hedrick) | 73 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074223",
"author": "Astro Jetson",
"timestamp": "2024-12-18T16:56:43",
"content": "Looking forward to seeing the complete list of parts and a set of instructions on how to do this. I’d like to have a Pi500, but I’m done with SD card onboard storage. There are 100’s of makerspace... | 1,760,371,696.129427 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/18/why-did-early-cd-rom-drives-rely-on-awkward-plastic-caddies/ | Why Did Early CD-ROM Drives Rely On Awkward Plastic Caddies? | Lewin Day | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Interest",
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"caddy",
"cd player",
"CD-ROM",
"cdrom",
"optical drive",
"optical media"
] | These days, very few of us use optical media on the regular. If we do, it’s generally with a slot-loading console or car stereo, or an old-school tray-loader in a desktop or laptop. This has been the dominant way of using consumer optical media for some time.
Step back to the early CD-ROM era, though, and things were a little kookier. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, drives hit the market that required the use of a bulky plastic caddy to load discs. The question is—
why did we apparently need caddies then, and why don’t we use them any longer
?
Caddyshack
Early CD players, like this top-loading Sony D-50, didn’t use caddies. Credit:
Binarysequence
, CC BY-SA 4.0
The Compact Disc, as developed by Phillips and Sony, was first released in 1982. It quickly became a popular format for music, offering far higher fidelity than existing analog formats like vinyl and cassettes. The CD-ROM followed in 1985, offering hundreds of megabytes of storage in an era when most hard drives barely broke 30 MB. The discs used lasers to read patterns of pits and lands from a reflective aluminum surface, encased in tough polycarbonate plastic. Crucially, the discs featured robust error correction techniques so that small scratches, dust, or blemishes wouldn’t stop a disc from working.
Notably, the first audio CD player—the Sony CDP-101—was a simple tray-loading machine. Phillips’ first effort, the CD100, was a top-loader. Neither used a caddy. Nor did the first CD-ROM drives—the Phillips CM100 was not dissimilar from the CD100, and tray loaders were readily available too, like the Amdek Laserdrive-1.
Sony had the most popular design for CD caddies. Manufacturers including Hitachi, Apple, and Toshiba used the same design. Credit:
Pysky
, CC BY-SA 3.0
So where did caddies come from? The concept had existed prior to CDs, most notably for the failed Capacitance Electronic Disc format created by RCA. Those discs were highly susceptible to problems with dust, so they were kept in caddies for their protection. For CDs, the caddy wasn’t a necessity—the plastic optical discs were robust enough to be handled directly. And yet, in the late 1980s, caddy CD-ROM drives started to become the norm in the nascent market, with Apple and Sony perhaps the most notable early adopters.
Apple’s early drives—both internal and external—relied on caddies. Credit:
All About Apple Museum
,
CC-BY-SA-2.5-it
The basic concept of the caddy is fairly obvious by its design. Various non-compatible versions existed from different manufacturers, but the intent was the same. The CD itself was placed in a plastic case with some kind of sliding shutter. This case protected the CD from scratches, dust, smudges, and other contaminants. When it was placed in a drive, the shutter would slide or rotate out of the way, allowing access for the optical head to read the disc.
For many early applications, CD-ROMs were very much an archival format. They offered long-term storage, were non-writable, and had huge capacity. They were perfect for creating digital encyclopedias, with a single disc able to replace a stack of bound volumes that would take up a whole shelf. They were also perfect for commercial or industry use, where large databases or reference volumes could be stored in a far smaller format than ever before.
Plenty of reference materials were delivered via CD-ROM, and they didn’t come cheap—as per this Sony catalog from 1991.
In these cases, though, it’s important to remember that CDs were quite expensive. For example, in 1986, a copy of
Grolier’s Academic Encyclopedia
would cost $199—or roughly $570 in today’s money. As robust as CDs were, it was at times desirable to protect such an investment with the added safety and security of a caddy. This was particularly useful in library, school, and business contexts, too, where end users couldn’t always be relied upon to use the discs gently.
Caddies also offered another side benefit of particular use to the radio industry. They made it very quick and easy to change discs, easing the work of on-air DJs as they cued up songs. Compare the ease of slamming in a cartridge, versus extracting a disc from a jewel case and gently placing it in a tray-loading drive. Under the pressure of a live broadcast, it’s clear to see the benefit of the caddy design. Particularly as sloppy handling would quickly damage discs that were on heavy rotation.
Caddies made sense at a time when the CDs and their content were incredibly expensive. They also made sense for professional media and corporate users. However, for the consumer, they quickly became a frustration rather than a boon.
This 8x caddy-loading CD-ROM drive was built by NEC. Credit:
Derell Licht
,
Attribution-NoDerivs (CC BY-ND 2.0)
The problem for home users was simple. Caddies added a certain level of expense that became less justified as the price of CD-ROM titles came down. The intent was that users would have a caddy for each disc in their collection, protecting the CDs and making them easy to load. However, many home users only had one or a handful of caddies. This meant users were often swapping discs from caddy to caddy, with the repetitive manual handling negating any benefit of the caddies in the first place. It quickly became an unwelcome chore for owners of caddy-loading drives.
As is the way, the market soon responded. By the late 1990s, caddy-based CD drives had mostly disappeared from the consumer market in favor of more convenient, caddy-free drives. Customers wanted easy-to-use drives, and they had no desire to put up with fussy plastic cases that were ultimately unnecessary. Tray-loaders became the norm for most CD-ROM applications, with slot loaders becoming more popular as a fancier option in some premium hardware.
Caddy CD players were popular in the radio world. Credit:
via eBay
Caddies did persist, but in more niche contexts. Standards like Mini Disc and UMD relied on integral, non-removable caddies, because Sony could never quite let go of the idea. Similarly, some early DVD-RAM drives relied on caddies too, as have various
high-capacity optical archive standards
. In these applications, caddies were chosen for two reasons—they were there to protect media that was either particularly delicate, valuable, or both. In the vast majority of cases, the caddy became an integral part of the media—rather than an external cart which discs could be swapped into and out of.
Caddy-based CD drives represent a transitional period in the early days of optical media. The lines between serious archival users and home users were blurred, and nobody quite knew where the technology was going. They highlight a period when engineers and manufacturers were still exploring the best methods build reliable drives that best met their users needs. From a consumer perspective, these protective devices are now curious relics in the post-optical era—a reminder of when laser-based media was on the absolute cutting edge of technology. How times have changed. | 46 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074194",
"author": "john",
"timestamp": "2024-12-18T15:19:52",
"content": "We had those exact same Denon caddie players at our college radio station in 1999. Older CDs in the stacks had their own caddies but generally the discs were less precious and current rotation CDs had to be ... | 1,760,371,696.223393 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/18/catching-the-view-from-the-edge-of-space/ | Catching The View From The Edge Of Space | Dan Maloney | [
"Space"
] | [
"balloon",
"engineering camera",
"GoPro",
"HAB",
"observatory",
"parachute",
"solar",
"space",
"stratosphere",
"sun"
] | Does “Pix or it didn’t happen” apply to traveling to the edge of space on a balloon-lofted solar observatory? Yes, it absolutely does.
The breathtaking views on this page come courtesy of IRIS-2, a compact imaging package that creators [Ramón García], [Miguel Angel Gomez], [David Mayo], and [Aitor Conde] recently
decided to release as open source hardware
. It rode to the edge of space aboard
Sunrise III
, a balloon-borne solar observatory designed to study solar magnetic fields and atmospheric plasma flows.
To do that the observatory needed a continual view of the Sun over an extended period, so the platform was launched from northern Sweden during the summer of 2024. It rose to 37 km (23 miles) and stayed aloft in the stratosphere tracking the never-setting Sun for six and a half days before landing safely in Canada.
Strictly speaking, IRIS-2 wasn’t part of the primary mission, at least in terms of gathering solar data. Rather, the 5 kg (11 pound) package was designed to provide engineering data about the platform, along with hella cool video of the flight. To that end, it was fitted with four GoPro cameras controlled by an MPS340 microcontroller. The cameras point in different directions to capture all the important action on the platform, like the main telescope slewing to track the sun, as well as details of the balloon system itself.
The controller was programmed to record 4K video at 30 frames per second during launch and landing, plus fifteen minutes of 120 FPS video during the balloon release. The rest of the time, the cameras took a single frame every two minutes, which resulted in
some wonderful time-lapse sequences
. The whole thing was powered by 56 AA batteries, and judging by the video below it performed flawlessly during the flight, despite the penetrating stratospheric cold and blistering UV exposure.
Hats off to the IRIS-2 team for this accomplishment. Sure, the videos are a delight, but this is more than just eye candy. Seeing how the observatory and balloon platform performed during flight provides valuable engineering data that will no doubt improve future flights. | 26 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074125",
"author": "Josiah David Gould",
"timestamp": "2024-12-18T12:18:36",
"content": "There’s gotta be a reason I’m not seeing… But 56 AA cells? That just seems like a ton of weight unless it’s ballast or balancing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,371,695.860853 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/18/learning-about-the-flume-water-monitor/ | Learning About The Flume Water Monitor | Lewin Day | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"flume",
"reverse engineering",
"water",
"Water Meter",
"water sensor"
] | The itch to investigate lurks within all us hackers. Sometimes, you just have to pull something apart to learn how it works. [Stephen Crosby] found himself doing just that
when he got his hands on a Flume water monitor.
[Stephen] came by the monitor thanks to a city rebate, which lowered the cost of the Flume device. It consists of two main components: a sensor which is strapped to the water meter, and a separate “bridge” device that receives information from the sensor and delivers it to Flume servers via WiFi. There’s a useful API for customers, and it’s even able to integrate with a Home Assistant plugin. [Stephen] hoped to learn more about the device so he could scrape raw data himself, without having to rely on Flume’s servers.
Through his reverse engineering efforts, [Stephen] was able to glean how the system worked. He guides us through the basic components of the battery-powered magnetometer sensor, which senses the motion of metering components in the water meter. He also explains how it communicates with a packet radio module to the main “bridge” device, and elucidates how he came to decompile the bridge’s software.
When he sent this one in, [Stephen] mentioned the considerable effort that went into reverse engineering the system was “a very poor use” of his time — but we’d beg to differ. In our book, taking on a new project is always worthwhile
if you learned something along the way
. Meanwhile, if you’ve been pulling apart some weird esoteric commercial device, don’t hesitate to
let us know
what you found! | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074109",
"author": "limroh",
"timestamp": "2024-12-18T10:59:41",
"content": "Since the other comment was deleted:“Water {WHAT} monitor”?1. Level – alarm to trigger a sump pump?2. PH level / quality?3. oh, just a utility meter reader….and this only indirectly/vaguely explained in th... | 1,760,371,695.789578 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/17/pulling-backward-to-go-forward-the-brennan-torpedo-explained/ | Pulling Backward To Go Forward: The Brennan Torpedo Explained | Donald Papp | [
"Engine Hacks",
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"brennan torpedo",
"model",
"physics"
] | The Brennan torpedo, invented in 1877 by Louis Brennan, was one of the first (if not
the
first) guided torpedoes of a practical design. Amazingly, it had no internal power source but it did have a very clever and counter-intuitive mode of operation: a cable was pulled backward to propel the torpedo forward.
If the idea of sending something
forward
by pulling a cable
backward
seems unusual, you’re not alone. How can something go forward faster than it’s being pulled backward? That’s what led [Steve Mould] to
examine the whole concept in more detail in a video
in a collaboration with [Derek Muller] of
Veritasium,
who highlights some ways in which the physics can be non-intuitive, just as with
a craft that successfully sails downwind faster than the wind
.
The short answer is gearing, producing more force on the propeller by pulling out
lots
of rope.
Pulling the cable out the back of the device turns the propeller thanks to a pulley-type assembly with the prop shaft connected to a drum, as seen in the animation here. The actual Brennan torpedo was somewhat more complex, but the operating principle was the same.
The real thing had two cables coming out the back and drove two counter-rotating props. It could be steered by changing the relative speed at which the two cables were pulled, which caused a rudder to turn and allowed the torpedo to be guided. It really was very clever, and the Brennan torpedo was in service for over a decade before being superseded by designs with internal power systems that could be launched by ship.
The basic concept is explored with the help of a working model in the video embedded below, along with identifying what makes the physics tricky to intuit. If you have a few extra minutes to admire the importance of leveraging mechanical advantage, check it out. | 17 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074067",
"author": "dudefromthenorth",
"timestamp": "2024-12-18T07:54:07",
"content": "cool",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8074091",
"author": "deL",
"timestamp": "2024-12-18T09:20:35",
"content": "AI’s take: “In s... | 1,760,371,696.281387 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/17/the-world-morse-code-championship/ | The World Morse Code Championship | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"ham radio",
"morse code"
] | If you were in
Tunisia
in October, you might have caught some of the Morse Code championships this year. If you didn’t make it, you could catch the
BBC’s documentary
about the event, and you might be surprised at some of the details. For example, you probably think sending and receiving Morse code is only for the elderly. Yet the defending champion is 13 years old.
Teams from around the world participated. There was stiff competition from Russia, Japan, Kuwait, and Romania. However, for some reason, Belarus wins “almost every time.” Many Eastern European countries have children’s clubs that teach code. Russia and Belarus have government-sponsored teams.
Morse code is very useful to amateur radio operators because it allows them to travel vast distances using little power and simple equipment. Morse code can also assist people who otherwise might have problems communicating, and some assistive devices use code, including a Morse code-to-speech ring the podcast covers.
The speed records are amazing and a young man named [Ianis] set a new record of 1,126 marks per minute. Code speed is a little tricky since things like the gap size and what you consider a word or character matter, but that’s still a staggering speed, which we estimate to be about 255 words per minute. While we can copy code just fine, at these speeds, it sounds more like modem noises.
Learning Morse code
isn’t as hard as it sounds
. Your computer can help you learn, but in the old days, you had to rely on
paper tape
. | 54 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8074014",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2024-12-18T03:24:59",
"content": "QLF?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8074054",
"author": "irox",
"timestamp": "2024-12-18T06:09:23",
... | 1,760,371,696.376558 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/17/pcb-motor-holds-fast-even-after-1-6-billion-spins/ | PCB Motor Holds Fast, Even After 1.6 Billion Spins | Donald Papp | [
"PCB Hacks"
] | [
"brushless",
"motorcell",
"pcb motor"
] | If you aren’t up to date with [Carl Bugeja]’s work with tiny brushless PCB motors, his
summary video of his latest design and all the challenges it involved
is an excellent overview.
Back in 2018 we saw [Carl]’s
earliest versions making their first spins
and it was clear he was onto something. Since then they have only improved, but improvement takes both effort and money. Not only does
everything
seemingly matter at such a small scale, but not every problem is even obvious in the first place. Luckily, [Carl] has both the determination and knowledge to refine things.
Hardware development is expensive, especially when less than a tenth of a millimeter separates a critical component from the junk pile.
The end result of all the work is evident in his most recent test bed: an array of twenty test motors all running continuously at a constant speed of about 37,000 RPM. After a month of this, [Carl] disassembled and inspected each unit. Each motor made over 53 million rotations per day, closing out the month at over 1.6 billion spins. Finding no sign of internal scratches or other damage, [Carl] is pretty happy with the results.
These motors are very capable but are also limited to low torque due to their design, so a big part of things is [Carl] exploring and testing different possible applications. A few fun ones include a wrist-mounted disc launcher modeled after a Spider-Man web shooter, the motive force for some kinetic art, a vibration motor, and more. [Carl] encourages anyone interested to test out application ideas of their own. Even powering a micro drone is on the table, but will require either pushing more current or more voltage, both of which [Carl] plans to explore next.
Getting any ideas? [Carl]
offers the MotorCell for sale
to help recover R&D costs but of course the design is also open source. The
GitHub repository
contains code and design details, so go ahead and make them yourself. Or better yet, integrate one directly into your next PCB.
Got an idea for an application that would fit a motor like this? Don’t keep it to yourself, share in the comments. | 34 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073992",
"author": "brutek",
"timestamp": "2024-12-18T01:24:50",
"content": "I’ve been following. It needs more torque to be useful. Looking forward to that work",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8074041",
"author": "pe... | 1,760,371,696.472776 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/16/keebin-with-kristina-the-one-with-the-curvy-centerfold/ | Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Curvy Centerfold | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"altoids tin",
"atari",
"force curves",
"IBM Wheelwriter",
"IBM Wheelwriter 5",
"Joystick",
"joystick mouse",
"mouse ring",
"nRF52840",
"raspberry pi",
"Selectric",
"Wheelwriter"
] | What do you get when you combine a Raspberry Pi 4B, a Kaypro keyboard, and a 9″ Apple ], you get
the coolest AVR development workstation I’ve seen in a while
.
Image by [John Anderson] via
Hackaday.IO
As you may have guessed, I
really
dig the looks of this thing. The paint job on the display is great, but the stripes on the keyboard and badging on are on another level. Be sure to check out the entire gallery on this one.
About that keyboard — [John] started this project with two incomplete keyboards that each had a couple of broken switches. Since the two keyboards were compliments of each other parts-wise, they made a great pair, and [John] only had to swap out three switches to get it up and clacking.
In order to make it work with the Pi,
[John] wrote a user-mode serial driver
that uses the uinput kernel module to inject key events to the kernel. But he didn’t stop there.
Although the Pi supports composite video out, the OS doesn’t provide any way to turn off the chroma color signal that’s modulated on top of the basic monochrome NTSC signal, which makes the picture look terrible. To fix that,
he wrote a command-line app
that sets up the video controller to properly display a monochrome NTSC signal. Happy AVRing on your amazing setup, [John]!
Check Out This Refreshingly Small Keyboard
Image by [AnnaRooks] via
reddit
Usually when we see keyboards this small, they have tiny keys that are fully intended for thumb presses and thumb presses only.
But what about something ultra-portable that has full-size keys?
Although it might be hard to believe, [AnnaRooks] only uses about 20 of the 24 keys that make up this mint tin keyboard. She has
a keymap for typing, gaming, and Diablo II
.
Personally, and my feelings about layers aside, I don’t think I could use a keyboard without thumb clusters at this point. Although you know what? It would make a great traveling macropad.
The Centerfold: A Close Look At Force Curves
Image by [ThereminGoat] via
reddit
Well, boys and girls, we’ve got a smart beauty this time around. This here is an industrial key switch force tester. [ThereminGoat] is gonna tell you all about
force curves and how to read them
.
What even is a force curve, and why is it so important? It refers to the graphical representation of the force required to press a key to the actuation point (y) versus the distance traveled during the press (x). So, it’s only critical to evaluating key switch performance. Key points along the force curve include the starting force, the actuation point, the tactile bump if present, the bottom-out force, and the return curve.
So, why does it actually matter? Force curves help us understand how light or heavy a switch feels, the actuation behavior, and help with customization. I’ll let [ThereminGoat] take it from here.
Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad?
Send me a picture
along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!
Historical Clackers: My IBM Wheelwriter 5
You know, I kind of can’t believe that I’ve now gone 47 Keebins without spotlighting my daily driver, which takes up most of my second desk. She may not look like much, but she types like the wind, and has that legendary buckling-spring keyboard to boot.
Sure, the Selectrics get all the love, and rightfully so. But if you actually want to use a typewriter day in and day out, you really can’t beat its successor,
the Wheelwriter
. IBM produced these machines from 1984 to 1991, and Lexmark took over, cranking them out until 2001. Mine shows an install date of 4/22/85.
The Wheelwriter was IBM’s first daisy wheel typewriter, which replaced the golf ball type element that signified the Selectric. Arguably even easier to swap than the golf ball, these slim cartridges lay flat for easy storage.
Whereas the Selectric used a mainspring and an escapement like traditional machines, the Wheelwriter has a stepper motor that moves the print head and a solenoid that strikes the daisy wheel against the paper. It makes a delightfully frightening noise on startup as it tests the stepper and solenoid and spins the daisy wheel with alarming swiftness. I love this machine!
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/wheelwriter-startup.mp3
ICYMI: Updated Mouse Ring Now Uses Joystick
Are you tired of traditional mouse and keyboard input, even though you’ve got a sweet ergo split and a trackball? Maybe you’re just looking to enhance your VR setup. Whatever you’re into,
consider building [rafgaj78]’s Mouse Ring
.
As you might be able to discern from the picture, this baby is based on the Seeed Xiao nRF52840 and uses a tiny battery pack. This is version two of the ring mouse, so if you prefer buttons to a joystick, then the first iteration may be more your style. Keep in mind that version two is easier to assemble and comes in more ring sizes.
There are two modes to this mouse ring. In the first mode, the joystick does left and right mouse click and wheel up-down, and pushing will wake it from deep sleep. In the second mode, the joystick acts as the mouse pointer, and you push down to left click.
I love the elegant design of the ring itself, and it looks great in yellow. Hmm, maybe I need one of these…
Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards?
Help me out by sending in a link or two
. Don’t want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to
email me directly
. | 7 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073411",
"author": "Colin",
"timestamp": "2024-12-16T15:34:47",
"content": "I’m using my Pi 3B+ with a PAL black and white TV, does anyone know if it’s worth trying this approach on that too or is the problem/solution NTSC-specific?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"rep... | 1,760,371,696.529465 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/16/building-the-spectacular-fibonacci128-simple-add-on/ | Building The Spectacular Fibonacci128 Simple Add-On | Tom Nardi | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"fibonacci",
"LED array",
"sao",
"Simple Add-On"
] | This year, we not only challenged Supercon attendees to come up with their own Simple Add-Ons (SAOs) for the badge, but to push the envelope on how the modular bits of flair work. Historically, most SAOs were little more than artistically arranged LEDs, but we wanted to see what folks could do if they embraced the largely unused I2C capability of the spec.
[Squidgeefish] clearly understood the assignment. This first-time attendee arrived in Pasadena with an SAO that was hard to miss…literally. Looking directly at the shockingly bright
128 RGB LED array packed onto the one-inch diameter PCB
was an experience that would stay with you for quite some time (ask us how we know). With the “artistically arranged LEDs” aspect of the nominal SAO handled nicely, the extra work was put into the design so that the CPU could control the LED array
via simple I2C commands
.
Aligning the LED footprints with an imported image of the array.
Now that the dust has settled after Supercon, [Squidgeefish] took the time to write up the experience of designing and producing this gorgeous specimen for our reading pleasure. It’s a fascinating account that starts with a hat tip towards the work of [Jason Coon], specifically the Fibonacci series of densely-packed RGB art pieces. The goal was to recreate the design of the 128 LED model in SAO form, but without the design files for the original hardware, that meant spending some quality time with
KiCad’s image import feature
.
He designed the LED array for assembly at a board house for obvious reasons, but hand soldering was the order of the day for the SOIC-8 microcontroller, capacitors, and SAO header on the reverse side. Speaking of the MCU, [Squidgeefish] went though a couple of possible suspects before settling on the STM8S001J3, and all the code necessary to drive the LEDs and communicate with the badge over I2C are available should you consider a similar project.
Now technically, the SAO was done at this point, but in testing it out on the
Vectorscope badge from Supercon 2023
, a problem appeared. It turns out that whatever yahoos came up with that design pulled the power for the SAO port right off of the batteries instead of utilizing the boost converter built-in to the Pi Pico. The end result is that, you never get a true 3.3 V. Also, the voltage that the SAO
does
get tends to drop quickly — leading to all sorts of unexpected issues.
To solve the problem, [Squidgeefish] came up with a clever boost converter “backpack” PCB that attaches to the rear of the completed SAO. This board intercepts the connection to the badge, and takes whatever voltage is coming across the line and steps it up to the 5 V that the LEDs are actually designed for.
Of course, the irony is that since the
2024 Supercon badge
actually
did
use the boost circuitry of the Pico to provide a true 3.3 V on the SAO connector, this modification wasn’t strictly necessary. But we still love the idea of an add-on for the add-on.
The entire write-up is a fantastic read, and serves as a perfect example of why
creating your own Simple Add-On can be so rewarding…and challenging
. From adding contingency hardware to deal with badges that don’t obey the spec to figuring out how to produce low-cost packaging on short notice, the production of a decent number of SAOs for the purposes of distribution is a great way to peek out from your comfort zone. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,371,696.57565 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/16/single-crystal-electrode-lithium-ion-batteries-last-a-long-time/ | Single Crystal Electrode Lithium Ion Batteries Last A Long Time | Al Williams | [
"News",
"Science"
] | [
"battery",
"lithium ion"
] | Researchers have been testing a new type of lithium ion battery that uses
single-crystal electrodes
. Over several years, they’ve found that the technology could keep 80% of its capacity after 20,000 charge and discharge cycles. For reference, a conventional cell reaches 80% after about 2,400 cycles.
The researchers say that the number of cycles would be equivalent to driving about 8 million kilometers in an electric vehicle. This is within striking distance of having the battery last longer than the other parts of the vehicle. The researchers employed synchrotron x-ray diffraction to study the wear on the electrodes. One interesting result is that after use, the single-crystal electrode showed very little degradation. According to reports, the batteries are already in production and they expect to see them used more often in the near future.
The technology shows promise, too, for other demanding battery applications like grid storage. Of course, better batteries are always welcome, although it is hard to tell which new technologies will catch on and which will be forgotten.
There are many researchers working on making
better batteries
. Even
AI
is getting into the act. | 79 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073311",
"author": "C",
"timestamp": "2024-12-16T09:21:27",
"content": "I’m immune to positive news about batteries. Until it leaves the lab and becomes economically feasible to produce it’s not real. So far improvements have been small incremental changes, not large leaps.Batterie... | 1,760,371,696.702155 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/15/documented-source-code-for-elite-on-the-c64-bbc-micro-and-others/ | Documented Source Code ForEliteOn The C64, BBC Micro And Others | Maya Posch | [
"Games",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"BBC Micro",
"commodore 64",
"Elite",
"Nintendo Entertainment System"
] | If you ever wanted to dive into the source code for the 1980s space game
Elite
, but didn’t want to invest many hours reverse-engineering the 6502 assembly code,
then [Mark Moxon]’s annotated code has you covered
. The systems referenced range from the BBC Micro and
Commodore 64
to the NES and Apple II, with some of these versions based on the officially released source code. For other systems the available source code was used together with decompiled game binaries to determine the changes and to produce functional, fully commented source code.
The cutting-edge gameplay of Elite on the 8502.
This particular game is fascinating
for being one of the first
to use wire-frame 3D graphics with hidden-line removal and a sprawling universe in which to trade and deal with less than friendly parties using a variety of weapons. After this initial entry it would go on to spawn many sequels and inspired countless games that’d follow a similar formula.
On the respective GitHub project page for each version, you can find instructions on how to build the code for yourself, such as
for the Commodore 64
. Of note here is the license, which precludes anyone from doing more than forking and reading the code. If this is no concern, then building the game is as simple as using the assembler (BeebAsm) and the
c1541
disk image utility from the VICE project. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073284",
"author": "Basile",
"timestamp": "2024-12-16T06:17:13",
"content": "Some years ago I had written the name generator along with an alternative Markov chains based one.https://codepen.io/killer_angel/pen/gvjqdV",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
... | 1,760,371,696.954157 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/15/finally-a-man-page-for-life/ | Finally… A Man Page For Life | Al Williams | [
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"life",
"man",
"roff",
"troff"
] | How often have you wished to have an instruction manual — or, at least, a Unix man page — for life? Well, your wait is over. Of course, you probably were hoping for instructions on how to navigate life, but [cve’s]
mott program plays life inside a man page
. That might not be as useful as a real manual for life, but it is still pretty cool.
To understand what’s happening, you have to understand how man pages work. They use an old form of markup known as
roff
, which later begat
nroff
and
troff
. While
roff
is made to do crude word processing at the dawn of Unix, it is also a Turing-complete language.
You do need
groff
installed and, of course,
man
. If you have all that, you can get a live demo with:
curl https://codeberg.org/cve/mott/raw/branch/main/mott.1 | man -l -
We’ll leave understanding all the macros involved as an exercise for the reader, but we are certainly impressed with the audacity of the idea and the implementation.
We would ask if it could play
Doom
, but we are afraid someone would answer yes and then show us. If you think markup is old-fashioned, don’t be too
sure
. (Although the underlying project is now at a
new URL
) | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073265",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2024-12-16T04:22:01",
"content": "“While roff is made to do crude word processing at the dawn of Unix,it is also a Turing-complete language.”[emphasis added]Note to self: Study the security implications of this, and promise to only use the... | 1,760,371,696.828467 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/15/hackaday-links-december-15-2024/ | Hackaday Links: December 15, 2024 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"ai",
"autonomous",
"brick",
"cruise",
"enterprise",
"flight crash",
"GM",
"hackaday links",
"helicopter",
"Ingenuity",
"license plate",
"LLM",
"mars",
"moxie",
"nasa",
"NCC-1701",
"robotaxi",
"RS-25",
"self-driving",
"yule log"
] | It looks like we won’t have Cruise to kick around in this space anymore with the news that
General Motors is pulling the plug on its woe-beset robotaxi project
. Cruise, which GM acquired in 2016, fielded autonomous vehicles in various test markets, but the fleet racked up
enough high-profile mishaps
(first item) for California regulators to shut down test programs in the state last year. The inevitable layoffs ensued, and GM is now killing off its efforts to build robotaxis to concentrate on incorporating the Cruise technology into its “Super Cruise” suite of driver-assistance features for its full line of cars and trucks. We feel like this might be a tacit admission that surmounting the problems of fully autonomous driving is just too hard a nut to crack profitably with current technology, since Super Cruise uses eye-tracking cameras to make sure the driver is paying attention to the road ahead when automation features are engaged. Basically, GM is admitting there still needs to be meat in the seat, at least for now.
Speaking of accidents, the results of
the first aircraft accident investigation on another world
were released this week, and there were a few surprises.
Ingenuity
, the little helicopter that hitched a ride to Mars in the belly of the
Perseverance
rover in 2021, surpassed all expectations by completing 71 flights successfully and becoming an integral part of the search for ancient life on Mars. But flight 72 proved to be a bridge too far and ended with a hard landing that terminally damaged its rotor system. At the time it was speculated that the relatively bland terrain it was flying over at the time of the accident was the root cause. This was confirmed by analysis of the flight logs, but the degree to which the flight computer’s down-looking navigation camera was confused by the featureless dunes is new information. As for why the rotor blades broke, it doesn’t appear that it was because they impacted the surface. Rather,
as Scott Manley points out
, the blades appear to have broken at their weakest point due to extreme flexing induced by the high vertical speed while touching down on a slope, which caused one set of legs to hit the surface before the others.
Also roughly in the realm of space-based failures comes the story of a hapless senior citizen in New York who has been issued
thousands of dollars in traffic tickets because of her love for
Star Trek
. Years ago, Long Island resident Beda Koorey got a New York vanity license plate for her car emblazoned with “NCC-1701,” the registration number of the
USS Enterprise
. She turned in those plates years ago when she gave up driving, but in the meantime, novelty NCC-1701 plates began popping up on Amazon and other sites. They were clearly not intended to be used on cars, but that didn’t stop some people from putting them on over their real plates in an attempt to defeat traffic cameras. It worked, at least from their point of view, since it left poor Beda with a collection of tickets for speeding and red light violations from as far away as Chicago. She even got a ticket for a violation committed by a motorcycle with a phony plate, which you think would not map to the registration for an automobile, but there you go. We always knew it was hard to be a Trekkie, especially back in the ’70s, but at least it never cost us much money. It did cost us a lot of dates, though.
We featured plenty of stories of start-up tech companies with the next must-have IoT device that fold up shop after a few years and abandon their users by effectively bricking their widgets. Heck, we’ve even suffered that fate ourselves; curse you, Logitech, for killing the SqueezeBox. However, one company recently took IoT bricking to a new low by
ending support for a line of AI-powered companion bots for kids
. The company was called Embodied, and they hawked $800 AI bots for kids called Moxie, with a cute face and a huggable form factor that kids couldn’t help falling in love with. Embodied couldn’t make a go of it financially and since Moxie uses a cloud-based LLM to interact with kids, the bots are now bricked. This leaves parents who invested in these devices with the quandary of having to explain to young kids that their robot pal is dead. Some of the TikToks of parents breaking the news are heartbreaking, and we can’t help but think that this is a perfect opportunity for someone in our community to reverse-engineer these things and bring them back to life.
And finally, the burning of the Yule Log is an ancient tradition, one that reminds us of the time our grandfather brought an entire telephone pole that had washed up on the beach home and burned it for days on end, feeding it slowly into the fireplace in the living room through the open front door. Good times. Not everyone is blessed with a fireplace in their abode, though, which has given rise to the popularity of video Yule Logs that you can just play on your TV. And now NASA is in on the action with an eight-hour 4K video of the SLS main engines and boosters. Framed by a lovely stone fireplace and replete with crackling wood sound effects over the subdued roar of the four RS-25 engines and twin solid-fuel boosters, it’ll make a nice addition to your holiday festivities. Although given that NASA
just announced
that the next Artemis missions are delayed until at least 2026, we’re not sure that it’s a great idea to show a rocket that never lifts off. You’ll also want to
be careful that the neighbors don’t see the action
. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073206",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2024-12-16T00:07:14",
"content": "CGI fireplace, NASA, you can do better than that.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8073216",
"author": "Hirudine... | 1,760,371,696.897788 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/15/rainwater-from-the-road-to-the-garden/ | Rainwater From The Road To The Garden | Bryan Cockfield | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"biology",
"farm",
"food forest",
"garden",
"rainwater",
"soil",
"stormwater",
"suburban",
"trench"
] | Most small-scale, residential rainwater harvesting systems we’ve seen rely on using an existing roof and downspout to collect water that would otherwise be diverted out into the environment. These are accessible for most homeowners since almost all of the infrastructure needed for it is already in place. [SuburbanBiology] already built one of these systems to take care of his potable water, though, and despite its 30,000 gallon capacity it’s not even close to big enough to also water his garden. But with some clever grading around his yard and
a special rainwater system that harvests rain from the street instead of his roof
, he’s capable of maintaining a lush food forest despite living through a drought in Texas.
For this build there are actually two systems demonstrated, one which is gravity-fed from the road and relies on one’s entire property sloping away from the street, and a slightly more complex one that’s more independent of elevation. Both start with cutting through a section of sidewalk to pass a 4″ PVC pipe through to the street where the stormwater runoff can be collected. The gravity-fed system simply diverts this into a series of trenches around the property while the second system uses a custom sump pump to deliver the water to the landscaping.
For a system like this a holding tank is not necessary; [SuburbanBiology] is relying on the soil on his property itself to hold onto the rainwater.
Healthy, living soil can hold a tremendous amount of water for a very long time
, slowly releasing it to plants when they need it. And, at least where he lives, a system like this is actually helpful for the surrounding environment as a whole since otherwise all of the stormwater runoff has to be diverted out of the city or cause a flood, and it doesn’t end up back in an aquifer. If you’re more curious about a potable water system instead,
take a look at [SuburbanBiology]’s previous system
. | 65 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073164",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2024-12-15T21:39:11",
"content": "Free water, trash, and car crap with tire particles. Yummy veggies. Two plastic drink cups could clog that pipe setup. Most municipalities would have a fit if you did something to city works. In some dr... | 1,760,371,697.059773 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/16/robot-air-hockey-player-predicts-your-next-move/ | Robot Air Hockey Player Predicts Your Next Move | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"air hockey",
"python"
] | Air hockey is a fun game, but it’s one you can’t play by yourself. That is, unless you have a smart robot hockey player to act as your rival.
[Zeroshot] built exactly that.
The build is based around a small 27-inch air hockey table—not exactly arcade-spec, but big enough to demonstrate the concepts at play. The robot player moves its mallet in the X and Y axes using a pair of NEMA17 stepper motors and an H-belt configuration. To analyze the game state, there’s a Raspberry Pi 3B fitted with a camera, and it has a top-down view of the board. The Pi gives the stepper motors commands on how to move the mallet via an Arduino that communicates with the stepper drivers. The Pi doesn’t just aim for the puck itself, either. With Python and OpenCV, it tries to predict your own moves by tracking your mallet, and the puck, too. It predicts the very-predictable path of the puck, and moves itself to the right position for effective defence.
Believe it or not, we’ve featured
quite a few projects in this vein before.
They’ve all got
their similarities
, and
their own unique quirks
. Video after the break.
[Thanks to hari wiguna for the tip!] | 21 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073617",
"author": "nicola",
"timestamp": "2024-12-17T08:52:45",
"content": "The skills learned while playing come out later while developing something “useful” (following your definition of useful, not mine)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,371,697.214431 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/16/versatile-yet-grounded-the-rotodyne-revisited/ | Versatile, Yet Grounded: The Rotodyne Revisited | Heidi Ulrich | [
"News",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"aircraft",
"airplane",
"fairey rotodyne",
"helicopter",
"jet",
"retrofuturistic",
"rotodyne"
] | When it comes to aviation curiosities, few machines captivate the imagination like the Fairey Rotodyne. This British hybrid aircraft was a daring attempt to combine helicopter and fixed-wing efficiency into a single vehicle. A bold experiment in aeronautical design, the Rotodyne promised vertical takeoffs and landings in cramped urban spaces while offering the speed and range of a regional airliner. First flown in 1957, it captured the world’s attention but ultimately failed to realize its potential. Despite featured before,
new footage keeps fascinating us
. If you have never heard about this jet, keep reading.
The Rotodyne’s innovative design centered around a massive, powered rotor that utilized a unique tip-jet system. Compressed air, mixed with fuel and ignited at the rotor tips, created lift without the need for a tail rotor. The result: a smoother transition between vertical and forward flight modes. Inside, it offered spacious seating for 50 passengers and even had clamshell doors for cargo. Yet its futuristic approach wasn’t without drawbacks—most notably, the thunderous noise produced by its rotor jets, earning complaints from both city planners and residents.
Despite these hurdles, the helicopter-plane crossover demonstrated its versatility, setting a world speed record and performing groundbreaking intercity flights. Airlines and militaries expressed interest, but escalating development costs and noise concerns grounded this ambitious project.
To this day, the Rotodyne remains a symbol of what could have been—a marvel of engineering ahead of its time. Interested in more retro-futuristic aircraft tales? Read
our previous story on it
, or watch the original footage below and share your thoughts. | 26 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073576",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2024-12-17T04:20:06",
"content": "“Compressed air, mixed with fuel and ignited at the rotor tips, created lift without the need for a tail rotor.”Wait, what?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"commen... | 1,760,371,697.326075 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/16/emulating-the-battery-controller-in-an-ancient-acer-pda/ | Emulating The Battery Controller In An Ancient Acer PDA | Lewin Day | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"pda"
] | [Mark B] had a problem. He’d come into possession of an Acer N30 PDA, sans batteries. He couldn’t just throw any old cells in, since the unit expected to communicate with an onboard controller chip in the original pack.
What ensued was his effort to emulate the original battery controller hardware.
This is classic Hackaday right here, folks.
Just wiring in typical Li-Ion voltages to the PDAs battery pins wasn’t enough to make this Windows CE device happy. The device kept fleeing to sleep mode, thinking the battery was faulty or very low. Eventually, inspecting the motherboard revealed the PDA hosted a BQ24025 charger IC from Texas Instruments. [Mark] surmised it was trying to communciate with a BQ26500 “gas gauge” IC from the original battery pack. Armed with that knowledge, he then set about programming an STM32 chip to emulate its behavior. He then successfully ported the functionality over to a CH32V003 microcontroller as well. Paired with a Nokia BL-5CT battery, he had a working portable power solution for his PDA.
It’s great to see
ancient hardware brought back to functionality
with some good old fashioned hacking. I’d hoped to do the same with my Apple Newton before someone nicked it from my lounge room, more’s the pity. If you’re rescuing your own beleaguered battery-powered portables, don’t hesitate to
let us know! | 11 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073572",
"author": "Christian",
"timestamp": "2024-12-17T03:45:53",
"content": "“The company was renamed Acer in 1987.”…. ancient?!?…. Ohhh…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8073622",
"author": "Ricardo",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,371,697.263085 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/16/using-a-smartphone-as-a-touchscreen-for-arduino/ | Using A Smartphone As A Touchscreen For Arduino | Lewin Day | [
"Android Hacks",
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"android",
"arduino",
"screen",
"touchscreen"
] | If you want a good display and interface device for an embedded project, it’s hard to look past an old smartphone. After all, you’ve got an excellent quality screen and capacitive touch interface all in the same package! [Doctor Volt] explains how to easily set up
your old smartphone to work as a touchscreen for your Arduino
.
[Doctor Volt] demonstrates the idea with a 2018 Samsung Galaxy A8, though a wide variety of Android phones can be put to use in this way. The phone is connected to the Arduino via a USB-to-serial converter and an OTG cable. Using a USB-C phone with Power Delivery is ideal here, as it allows the phone to be powered while also communicating with the Arduino over USB.
The
RemoteXY app
is built specifically for this purpose. It can be installed on an Android phone to allow it to communicate effectively with Arduino devices, which run the RemoteXY library in turn. Configuring the app is relatively straightforward, with a point-and-click wizard helping you designate what hardware you’re using and how you’ve got it hooked up. [Doctor Volt] does a great job of explaining how to hook everything up, and how to build some simple graphical interfaces.
There are a ton of display and interface options in the embedded space these days,
many of which can be had cheaply off the shelf
. Still, few compete with the resolution and quality of even older smartphones. It’s a neat project that could come in very handy for your next embedded build! Video after the break. | 22 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073538",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2024-12-16T22:15:39",
"content": "Whats the USB-Serial for?The Nano has that builtin.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8073539",
"author": "Tom",
"timestamp": "2024-12-16... | 1,760,371,697.387157 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/16/3d-printed-boat-feeds-the-fishes/ | 3D-Printed Boat Feeds The Fishes | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d print",
"3d printer",
"boat",
"water"
] | In most natural environments, fish are able to feed themselves. However, if you wanted to help them out with some extra food, you could always build a 3D-printed boat to do the job for you,
as [gokux] did.
The concept is simple enough—it’s a small radio-controlled boat that gets around the water with the aid of two paddle wheels. Driven together, the paddle wheels provide thrust, and driven in opposite directions, they provide steering. A SeeedStudio XIAO ESP32 is the brains of the operation. It listens into commands from the controller and runs the paddle drive motors with the aid of a DRV8833 motor driver module. The custom radio controller is it itself running on another ESP32, and [gokux] built it with a nice industrial style joystick which looks very satisfying to use. The two ESP32s use their onboard wireless hardware to communicate, which keeps things nicely integrated. The boat is able to putter around on the water’s surface, while using a servo-driven to deliver small doses of food when desired.
It’s a neat build, and shows just what you can whip up when you put your 3D printer to good use. If you’d like to build a bigger plastic watercraft, though,
you can do that too
. Video after the break. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,371,697.422013 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/16/sony-vaio-revived-how-does-one-start/ | Sony Vaio Revived: How Does One Start? | Arya Voronova | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"laptops hacks",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [] | A long-term project of mine is the the Sony Vaio new mainboard project. A year ago, I used it as an example to
show you the cool new feature in KiCad 8, known as “background bitmaps”
.
There are a heap of cool aspects to this specific Sony Vaio. It’s outrageously cute and purse-sized, the keyboard is nice enough for typing, motherboard schematics are available (very important!), and it’s not too terribly expensive. Of course, the most motivating aspect is that I happen to own one, its mainboard is not in the best state, and I’ve been itching to make it work.
It turned out to be a pretty complicated project, and, there was plenty to learn – way more than I expected in the beginning, too. I’m happy to announce that my v1 PCB design has been working wonders so far, and there are only a few small parts of it left untested.
I know that some of you might be looking to rebuild a lovely little computer of your choice. Hell, this particular laptop has had someone else rebuild it into a Pi-powered handheld years ago, as evidenced by
this majestic “mess of wires” imgur build log
! In honor of every hacker who has gotten their own almost-finished piece of hardware waiting for them half-assembled on the shelf, inside a KiCad file, or just inside your mind for now, let’s go through the tricks and decisions that helped make my board real.
Barely Any Space? Plan It Out Well
I recently finished and tested the first revision of this motherboard. It’s
a tightly packed four-layer board,
populated from both sides, and I want to show it off – describe how I designed it, the various low-level and high-level decisions that went into it, and strategies that I used to make sure this board became real and workable despite the odds.
First of all, the original article has helped in more than one way. Most importantly, I was lucky be contacted by [Exentio], a hacker who was also looking at remaking this particular Vaio with a Compute Module. He had designed two crucial blocks: a display parallel RGB to LVDS converter and a keyboard controller board. From my side, I could help and design review these boards, and design the backlight circuit,
uhhh, eventually.
Having these blocks was instrumental in me feeling comfortable enough to start the Vaio board design!
At some point in May, I realized I had the board outline and two of the crucial building blocks tested and ready to go, thanks to [Exentio]’s effort – there was barely anything else left that could hold me back. I started playing with the design by throwing these blocks into the schematic and copy-pasting some of my own general building blocks in, for instance, a PAM2306 dual-channel buck regulator, a USB hub, and two simple powerpaths for initial power management.
One trick that’s definitely helped from the start, is planning out locations for the building blocks using empty squares on the silkscreen, ensuring I’d keep space for everything. It didn’t have to be the perfect kind of planning, and I still had to move things here and there during layout, but it’s definitely helped in that I didn’t end up requiring any giant moves and rearrangements.
The silkscreen separations turned out to be super helpful for starting the board. Half of them ended up moving, but they did serve as a helpful “what to expect and where” TODO list
If you want to make your estimates more precise or make more educated layout guesses, don’t limit yourself to squares – just throw footprints (“Add Footprint”) onto the board before you even get to their schematic – any little bit of pre-planning that helps you avoid moving large chunks of your layout later. This applies doubly to connectors – you might not have the symbols for them wired up or even ready yet, but if you make sure the required external connectors are present on the board from the start, it will help you avoid some nasty moves.
Another crucial trick was spending about an hour-two on
this board
every day, for a week or two. A large project like this will take a fair bit of time, so you’ll want to make sure you can put tons of effort into it, and be emotionally prepared that it won’t happen in an evening’s time – this one took about two weeks. I also kept a TODO list in the schematic – you really want a place to note even the smallest things, from features, to potentially problematic spots that you’ll want to pay extra attention.
Space Constraints
When planning out a board with a large amount of passives, you want to make sure they’re as uniform as possible, so you have less to worry when ordering. In particular – what’s the size of passives you can afford in terms of board space? If you pick too large ones, you might run out of board space way way too quickly, becoming unable to route tracks
I standardized on 0402 components, which also meant I’d certainly be stenciling this board. It gets tiring to hand-solder parts given that this board has a thousand or two solder pads to touch. I opted to use 0805 for larger-value bulk capacitors for switching regulators and power rail purposes because 0402 10uF and 22uF capacitors get expensive if you want to get reliable ones, as we’ve discussed previously. In a few spots, though, I had to switch some 0805 capacitors to 0603, purely due to space constraints.
There are about a hundred resistors and a hundred capacitors on this board – remember, at some point, you can get a PCB fab to assemble just the passives for you, purely to spare yourself all the resistor and capacitor placement. You won’t get to stencil the ICs together with the passives, though, which is why I didn’t bother, because the RP2040 QFNs alone are annoying to handle without solder paste. Have you heard of
Interactive HTML BOM
for KiCAD? Make sure to use that, it’s simply wonderful and will prevent assembly errors of the kind that burn your board up before it’s even placed into the case.
This was one of the high-power inductors for which I didn’t estimate physical size early enough, and as a result, I had to somewhat bend reality around it
Inductors in the switching regulator can be an unexpected contribution to board space – if you need a 4.7 uH inductor and you need it to pass 5 A or more, take a look at online marketplaces before you even start designing the circuit, and see what the average size is for an inductor that fits your parameters. In my case, I got lucky, but only barely – some inductors definitely didn’t fit as well as I would’ve had hoped.
For this specific board, expected to fit inside the thin Sony Vaio’s shell, I had one more different thing to consider – component height. The original Vaio board was definitely designed in a way where all switching regulator components were placed on only one side, with plenty of height room for inductors and capacitors specifically. I placed all the switching regulators on one side, except one – the PAM2306 for the display 2.5 V and mod board extra 3.3 V rail.
In the end, I mis-estimated the inductor height, and had to shop for lower-profile inductors for that regulator. Thankfully, I found some decent lower-height inductors – they work wonders for powering the screen, and the only problem is that the inductor heats up more than I’d expect, but not too badly.
Source Considerations
Ordering the components for your board? Missing a position or two will really suck, and could delay your project by a week or two easily. My advice is to make sure that all component values are assigned and correct, and to pay the most attention to configuration and feedback resistors! Then, optimize the BOM, export the BOM out of the board into a
.csv
, and go through it line by line as you’re ordering. Alternatively, you can use the checkboxes in the InteractiveHTLMBoM – just that you’ll have to keep it open all throughout, a page refresh might have the checkboxes disappear.
When it comes to resistors, remember that you might have to improvise them on the spot – again, you don’t want to wait on them, so get a collection of resistor values. I bought a $15 book of 0402 resistors from Aliexpress, and it proved instrumental – especially given it lets you adjust values during bringup, and, it let me basically not worry at all about missing resistor values at all during sourcing. The earlier you order, the more likely will it be that one IC won’t go out – which has very much prevented me from testing out the display properly.
Apart from that, the book let me be a little more lazy and figure out switching regulator feedback circuits during assembly – and there’s nothing like being able to adjust your USB boost regulator to 5.25 V post-factum, or increasing backlight current in case you notice that the resistors you’ve calculated before result in a dim screen.
Hacks For Routability, Bootstrap, Motivation
This board’s switching regulators are probably worth their own article. There were two power hacks I ended up doing. The first one was having a separate always-on linear regulator for the EC, avoiding chicken-and-egg power problems. This one was certainly a success, and if you’re planning a motherboard that will also have to go low-power at times, you might really want a separate regulator for your EC.
The second one was making use of the Pi Zero’s 3.3 V regulator for powering a ton of stuff, like the keyboard controller chip, the LVDS transmitter, the USB hub, and – basically, everything that would only need to run once the Pi would be powered. This constrains the Zero’s onboard 3.3 V regulator, sure, but it’s not too much of a problem – I’ve powered tons of stuff from the Pi Zero’s 3.3 V rail in the past. It also has helped quite a bit, because the less switching regulators I have to design and keep track of, the better.
An experiment – replacing a less-connected part of a 3.3V plane with a GND plane in a spot where 3.3V is barely necessary but GND is highly present (power distribution parts)
A big problem was making use of board layers correctly. I went for four layers on this board, with one 3.3 V layer which carries the output 3.3V rail from the Pi Zero, and one GND layer: SIG-GND-PWR-SIG. Later on, I took a look at the 3.3 V polygon, and realized that nothing used 3.3 V on a big chunk of the board. I deliberated some, and added an extra GND polygon covering a good third of the 3.3 V layer on the path where all the switching regulators were concentrated, and specifically, the path where the DC input jack current would flow into the switching regulator providing 5 V. It’s a plane split, sure, which is not great as far as signal return currents go, but there was one continuous GND layer right next to it already. Fingers crossed it works out for me long-term!
I kept inner layers as clean as possible generally – however, some tracks still had to go on inner layers. My compromise for having good inner polygons was keeping the inner layer traces as close as possible to the edge of the board, ensuring that there’s the least amount of plane splitting possible.
The cherry on top of the cake? I used the
KiCad board image generation hook for GitHub
that I covered this year, and, it’s added a surprising source of motivation to the project. Each time I’d push changes to the repository after a day of board design work, the board image would regenerate, showing off my changes – a lovely conclusion to my work and a reminder that I’ve done well with it. Also, I could demonstrate the board additions to my friends, including [Exentio] – can’t deny, having a social element to this design has really helped in getting this board completed!
There are a few fundamental aspects left – like power management, making plans for board assembly and bringup before you send off the board to manufacturing, and giving yourself the best chances for success when assembly and bringup time comes. That’s within a week – together with a report on how the board is working out so far! | 25 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073455",
"author": "Steven Clark",
"timestamp": "2024-12-16T18:14:16",
"content": "Remind me again: what kind of Vaio? Sony named just about everything that could run programs a Vaio for a few years there. Are we talking a PocketPC or a Laptop?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth... | 1,760,371,697.493523 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/16/a-red-ring-light-show-for-your-xbox-360/ | A Red Ring Light Show For Your Xbox 360 | Lewin Day | [
"Xbox Hacks"
] | [
"darude",
"lightshow",
"red ring of death",
"rrod",
"sandstorm",
"xbox 360"
] | The Red Ring of Death (RROD) was the bane of many an Xbox 360 owner. The problem was eventually solved, mostly, but memories of that hellish era lurk in the back of many a gamer’s mind. For a more cheery use of those same status lights,
you might appreciate “Lightshow” from [Derf].
The concept is simple enough. It’s a small application that runs on an Xbox 360, and allows you to test the individual LEDs that make up the Ring of Light indicator, along with the main power LED. If you want to test the lights and see each segment correctly lights up as green, yellow and red, you can.
Alternatively, you can have some fun with it. [Derf] also programmed it to flash along to simple four-channel MIDI songs. Naturally, Sandstorm was
the perfect song to test it with.
It may have been the result of a simple
throwaway joke
, but [Derf] delivered in amusing fashion nonetheless.
Lightshow is an entry for
Xbox Scene Modfest 2024
; it’s nice to see the community is still popping off even in this era of heavily-locked-down consoles. We’ve featured
some other useful 360 hacks
in recent months, too. Video after the break. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8073560",
"author": "arifyn",
"timestamp": "2024-12-17T01:18:45",
"content": "if someone isn’t already adapting this code so you can use those LEDs to play a version of SIMON using the xbox 360 controller, I might just have to do it myself.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,371,697.539343 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/14/behold-a-geared-continuously-variable-transmission/ | Behold A Geared, Continuously Variable Transmission | Donald Papp | [
"Engine Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"CVT",
"gear ratio",
"gearbox",
"gears",
"motor",
"transmission"
] | When it comes to transmissions, a geared continuously-variable transmission (CVT) is a bit of a holy grail. CVTs allow smooth on-the-fly adjustment of gear ratios to maintain a target speed or power requirement, but sacrifice transmission efficiency in the process. Geared transmissions are more efficient, but shift gear ratios only in discrete steps. A geared CVT would hit all the bases, but most CVTs are belt drives. What would a geared one even look like? No need to wonder, you can
see one for yourself
. Don’t miss the two videos embedded below the page break.
The outer ring is the input, the inner ring is the output, and the three little gears with dots take turns transferring power.
The design is called the
RatioZero
and it’s reminiscent of a planetary gearbox, but with some changes. Here’s how the most visible part works: the outer ring is the input and the inner ring is the output. The three small gears inside the inner ring work a bit like relay runners in that each one takes a turn transferring power before “handing off” to the next. The end result is a smooth, stepless adjustment of gear ratios with the best of both worlds. Toothed gears maximize transmission efficiency while the continuously-variable gear ratio allows maximizing engine efficiency.
There are plenty of animations of how the system works but we think the clearest demonstration comes from [driving 4 answers] with a video of a prototype, which is embedded below. It’s a great video, and
the demo begins at 8:54
if you want to skip straight to that part.
One may think of motors and gearboxes are a solved problem since they have been around for so long, but the opportunities to improve are ongoing and numerous. Even EV motors have a lot of room for improvement, chief among them being
breaking up with rare earth elements
while maintaining performance and efficiency. | 72 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "8072819",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2024-12-14T21:21:56",
"content": "TLDR: Sadly, it’s just another complicated ratchet mechanism.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8072820",
"author": "CunningFellow",
"ti... | 1,760,371,697.707898 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/14/tldr-pages-keeps-it-short-wherever-you-need-it/ | Tldr-pages Keeps It Short, Wherever You Need It | Tom Nardi | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"command line",
"documentation",
"examples",
"terminal"
] | Let’s face it, even the most accomplished console cowboy can’t keep everything memorized. Sure, you might know all the important arguments for a daily-use tool like
tar
or
ls
, but what about the commands you don’t use that often? For that matter, even if you do use
tar
every day, we bet you don’t know
all
of the options it supports.
Built-in documentation or the man pages are of course a huge help, but they are dense resources. Sometimes what you really need is to see just a few key examples. When that happens, check out the
tldr-pages project and its array of front-ends
. Whether you’re working remotely on an embedded gadget, or have the luxury of a full desktop OS and browser, the project offers a way to get the help you need as quickly as possible.
The idea behind the project is that you can provide the command or tool you want to know more about, and instantly see a list of common options it takes. You’ll also be provided a realistic example for each one, which can often help make things “click” when you’re looking at a particularly obtuse utilization.
If you’re working on a box that has Python, getting access to the database of commands and examples is as simple as running
pip3 install tldr
and giving it a command you want to learn more about:
There’s also a
very slick browser client
which can be installed as a progressive web app (PWA) for off-line use. You can even embed it into your own web pages, like so:
If none of that tickles your fancy, the entire database is offered up as a
PDF for your local perusal
— don’t worry, it only clocks in at around 6 MB.
No matter how you access it, tldr-pages offers up a wealth of practical command line knowledge. Whether you’re looking to hone your terminal skills, or perhaps want to submit your own examples for the benefit of the community, this is definitely a project to keep in mind.
Thanks to [abrakadabra] for the tip. | 16 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "8072787",
"author": "RP",
"timestamp": "2024-12-14T18:18:00",
"content": "I see what you did there with the page landing! ;-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8072791",
"author": "sudonem",
"timestamp": "2024-12-14T18:38... | 1,760,371,697.769744 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/14/hacker-tools-hacked-tools/ | Hacker Tools, Hacked Tools | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"diy",
"logic analyzer",
"newsletter",
"RTL-SDR",
"tools"
] | We just love a good DIY tool project, and more so when it’s something that we can actually use cobbled together from stuff in our closet, or hacked out of cheap “toys”. This week we saw both
a superb Pi Pico-based logic analyzer
and
yet another software frontend for the RTL-SDR dongle
, and they both had us thinking of how good we have it.
If you don’t already have a logic analyzer, or if you have one of those super-cheap 8-channel jobbies, it might be worth your while to check out the Pico firmware simply because it gets you 24 channels, which is more than you’ll ever need™. At the low price of $4, maybe a little more if you need to add level shifters to the circuit to allow for 5 V inputs, you could do a lot worse for less than the price of a fancy sweet coffee beverage.
And the RTL dongle; don’t get us
started on this marvel of radio hacking
. If you vaguely have interest in RF, it’s the most amazing bargain, and ever-improving software just keeps adding functionality. The post above adds HTML5 support for the RTL-SDR, allowing you to drive it with code you host on a web page, which makes the entire experience not only cheap, but painless. Talk about a gateway drug! If you don’t have an RTL-SDR, just go out and buy one. Trust me.
What both of these hacker tools have in common, of course, is good support by a bunch of free and open software that makes them do what they do. This software enables a very simple piece of hardware to carry out what used to be high-end lab equipment functions, for almost nothing. This has an amazing democratizing effect, and paves the way for the next generation of projects and hackers. I can’t think of a better way to spend $20.
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
! | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8072994",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2024-12-15T11:47:09",
"content": "I cant find the precompiled logicanalyzer.exe so cant try it out.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8074163",
"author": "Brett",
"timesta... | 1,760,371,697.807991 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/14/a-self-balancing-bike-for-crash-dummy-billy/ | A Self Balancing Bike For Crash Dummy Billy | Al Williams | [
"Robots Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bike",
"linear quadratic regulator",
"self balancing"
] | We aren’t sure there’s enough information in the
[We Make Machines’] video to easily copy their self-balancing bike project
, but if you want to do something similar, you can learn a lot from watching the video. Building sufficient gyros to keep the bike stable required quite a bit of trial and error.
There are some tricks to getting a stable heavy weight to rotate without a lot of vibration and problems. The gyros go on the rider’s saddle, so you aren’t going to be able to ride in the normal fashion. However, a substantial motor drives the wheels so there’s no need to pedal.
The first attempt to self-balance stayed stable for about 10 seconds. Some of it was fine-tuning code, but noise from the gyros also threw off the angle sensor. A higher-quality sensor seemed promising, but it didn’t really fix the problem. Instead of using PID, the guys tried an
LQR
(Linear Quadratic Regulator) algorithm. Once that was sorted and a servo allowed for steering, it was time to let the bike roam free.
Then disaster struck as the bike lost its cool in a parking lot, causing damage. After repairs, they found issues that confused the angle sensor. They didn’t have the stomach to fit a third sensor onboard, so they put Billy the Crash Dummy onboard and decided to try to run him and the bike off a ramp. That didn’t exactly work out, though. After two attempts, the bike was effectively totaled, although Billy seems to have survived with no more than a bruised ego.
We were dismayed that they didn’t really complete the project, but it does seem like they learned a lot, and maybe that will help someone else out in the future.
We have seen working
bikes
before. We also have seen some truly
strange bike projects
. | 22 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8072686",
"author": "matega",
"timestamp": "2024-12-14T13:11:23",
"content": "It seems like they just assumed that turning the bicycle’s handlebar towards the desired direction is the way to steer. It is not, and it’s somewhat ridiculous that they spent so much time engineering and ... | 1,760,371,697.870282 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/14/personal-traffic-light-stops-them-in-their-tracks/ | Personal Traffic Light Stops Them In Their Tracks | Kristina Panos | [
"Lifehacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"busy indicator",
"esp32-C3",
"mood lamp",
"mood light",
"RGB LEDs",
"seeed xiao",
"ws2812b"
] | Working from home can be pretty cool, but if you’re not the only one in the house trying to do it, the whole situation can feel like you’re right back in the office with all those walking, talking distractions. Except they’re in pajamas instead of business casual.
So, what’s the answer? Many times it’s not practical to stop what you’re doing, especially just to communicate that you’re busy. We suppose you could glare at them, put up your hand, or even give a dismissive wave, but
a better solution might be this mood signal built by [gokux]
.
Through a simple web app, you can be red to indicate that you’re super busy, yellow to mean busy-ish, and green for
let’s gossip about the cats
.
This mood indicator is built on the Seeed Xiao ESP32-C3 and shows the given mood indicator on a small matrix of sixteen WS2812B LEDs. It’s powered by a 600 mAh, 3.7 V battery and a small push button switch. As usual, [gokux] has grade-A instructions for building your own version of this slick solution.
Would you like something more tactile and low-tech?
Check out our own [Bob Baddeley]’s free/busy indicator from the lockdown days
. | 30 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8072588",
"author": "AX",
"timestamp": "2024-12-14T09:04:45",
"content": "I love it, nice idea to do it at home. Not too sure how it wil go down with the wife :D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8072745",
"author": "Mar... | 1,760,371,697.988884 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/13/origami-inspired-self-locking-structures-with-3d-printing/ | Origami-Inspired, Self-locking Structures With 3D Printing | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"3d printed",
"kirigami",
"multi-material",
"origami",
"self-assembly"
] | Researchers recently shared details on creating
foldable, self-locking structures by using multi-material 3D printing
. These origami-inspired designs can transition between flat and three-dimensional forms, locking into place without needing external support or fasteners.
The 3D structure of origami-inspired designs comes from mountain and valley fold lines in a flat material. Origami designs classically assume a material of zero thickness. Paper is fine, but as the material gets thicker things get less cooperative. This technique helps avoid such problems.
An example of a load-bearing thick-film structure.
The research focuses on creating so-called “thick-panel origami” that wraps rigid panels in a softer, flexible material like TPU. This creates a soft hinge point between panels that has some compliance and elasticity, shifting the mechanics of the folds away from the panels themselves. These hinge areas can also be biased in different ways, depending on how they are made. For example, putting the material further to one side or the other will mechanically bias that hinge to fold into either a mountain, or a valley.
Thick-panel origami made in this way paves the way towards self-locking structures. The research paper describes several different load-bearing designs made by folding sheets and adding small rigid pieces (which are themselves 3D printed) to act as latches or stoppers. There are plenty of examples, so give them a peek and see if you get any ideas.
We recently saw a breakdown of
what does (and doesn’t) stick to what
when it comes to 3D printing, which seems worth keeping in mind if one wishes to do some of their own thick-panel experiments. Being able to produce a multi-material object as a single piece highlights the potential for 3D printing to create complex and functional structures that don’t need separate assembly. Especially since
printing a flat structure that can transform into a 3D shape
is significantly more efficient than printing the finished 3D shape. | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8072750",
"author": "Bobtato",
"timestamp": "2024-12-14T15:47:28",
"content": "This looks like interesting work, and hopefully will lead to design tools to make it more accessible. I would add that 3D printing isn’t the only way to do this, or the best necessarily.I’ve tinkered a b... | 1,760,371,697.918788 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/13/walkie-talkies-jedi-style-building-a-communicator/ | Walkie Talkies, Jedi Style: Building A Communicator | Heidi Ulrich | [
"Toy Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"communicator",
"jedi",
"prop",
"star wars",
"starwars",
"walkie talkie",
"walkietalkie"
] | Playing
Star Wars Outlaws
sparked an idea with [3DSage]: why not recreate the game’s wrist communicator as a functioning gadget? Inspired by the relatively simplistic design, he and his friend Ben set out
to build their own device
to take to Galaxy’s Edge in Disneyland. Armed with an arsenal of tools—3D printers, CNC machines, and soldering irons—he aimed to turn imagination into reality.
After ordering multiple walkie-talkies, they meticulously tested each one for audio quality, circuit board size, and compatibility with custom components. The ‘world’s tiniest walkie-talkie’ had potential but demanded creative modifications, including disassembling and resoldering components. They crafted their own circuit board and designed a 3D printed housing to fit both electronics and style. For the finishing touch, they weathered the device with paints and even glow-in-the-dark accents, making it authentic to the
Star Wars
universe. Even Chewbacca himself gave one a thumbs-up!
Weathering goes a long way towards creating a convincing prop — it can turn a
bundle of pipes and some foam blocks into a movie-ready WWII machine gun
. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8072573",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2024-12-14T07:44:00",
"content": "G-NiceRF: These are probably the go-to people for small walkie-talkie chips and/or modules…https://www.nicerf.com/There are parts available on Tindie too. May the Force be with you!",
"parent_id": null,... | 1,760,371,698.186909 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/13/flashy-paper-christmas-tree-does-it-with-a-555/ | Flashy Paper Christmas Tree Does It With A 555 | Kristina Panos | [
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"4017",
"4017 decade counter",
"555",
"555 timer",
"christmas tree",
"decade counter",
"smt",
"transfer tape"
] | ‘Tis the season for holiday hacks, and [Ben Emmett] is here to remind us that we don’t necessarily need a fancy microcontroller in order to make flashy fun things happen.
Smoothing down the copper traces with a guitar pick.
Take this Christmas tree for example
, which uses a 555 timer and a CB4017 decade counter in order to drive some blinking LEDs. The ICs are through-hole, making the circuit fairly accessible to new players, but there are a few SMD components that need soldering as well. (More on that later.)
Here, the 555 acts like a clock and drives a square wave. Using the clock as input, the decade counter toggles the output pins one after the other, driving the LEDs to blink in turn. Since there are only eight lights, there is a pause in the light-up pattern, but that could be fixed by wiring decade counter output #9 to the reset pin.
Although function was the main focus circuit-wise, [Ben] managed to lay the traces in the shape of a Christmas tree, which looks great. Having done a similar project in the past, he discovered that the craft cutting machine prefers thick traces and wider spaces between them. This is largely why [Ben] chose to use through-hole ICs.
After laying everything out in KiCad, [Ben] exported the copper layer image for use on the cutting machine. Once it was all cut out, he put it on transfer tape to weed out the extra copper, and get the traces onto cardstock, the final substrate.
This is such a fun project, and we love that the CR2032 that powers it also acts as the stand in its vertical holder.
Hit up GitHub if you want to make one for yourself
. Want something even more 3D?
Check out this hollow tree we saw a few years ago
. | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8072534",
"author": "jbx",
"timestamp": "2024-12-14T00:33:14",
"content": "This should be simpler and easier to built using a thin epoxy etched board, it’s translucent and it’s much stronger than cardboard.Congrats for using a 555 in place of a µC !",
"parent_id": null,
"dep... | 1,760,371,698.043878 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/13/apple-newton-gets-rebuilt-battery-pack/ | Apple Newton Gets Rebuilt Battery Pack | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Repair Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"apple",
"battery",
"newton",
"restoration",
"retro",
"retrocomputing",
"spot welder"
] | We all carry touch screen computers around in our pockets these days, but before the smartphone revolution, there was the personal digital assistant (PDA). While it wasn’t a commercial success, one of the first devices in this category was the Apple Newton. Today they’re sought after by collectors, although most of the ones surviving to this day need a bit of rework to the battery pack. Luckily, as [Robert’s Retro] shows, it’s possible to
rebuild the pack with modern cells
.
By modern standards, the most surprising thing about these battery packs is both that they’re removable and that they’re a standard size, matching that of AA batteries. The Newton battery pack uses four cells, so replacing them with modern rechargeable AA batteries should be pretty straightforward, provided they can be accessed. This isn’t as easy, though. In true Apple fashion the case is glued shut, and prying it apart can damage it badly enough so it won’t fit back in the tablet after repair is complete. The current solution is to cut a hatch into the top instead and then slowly work on replacing the cells while being careful to preserve the electronics inside.
[Robert’s Retro] also demonstrates how to spot weld these new AA batteries together to prepare them for their new home in the Newton case. With the two rows fastened together with nickel strips they can be quickly attached to the existing electrical leads in the battery pack, and from there it’s just a matter of snapping the batteries into the case and sliding it back into the tablet. If you’re looking for something a bit more modern, though,
we’d recommend this Apple tablet-laptop combo
, but it’s not particularly easy on the wallet. | 14 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8072492",
"author": "Max",
"timestamp": "2024-12-13T21:13:41",
"content": "I have a MessagePad 110 is has 4 AA batteries in the back so no need to make a pack for this version, don’t know about the others",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"com... | 1,760,371,698.238039 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/13/the-stern-gerlach-experiment-misunderstood/ | The Stern-Gerlach Experiment Misunderstood | Al Williams | [
"Science"
] | [
"electrons",
"physics",
"quantum spin"
] | Two guys — Stern and Gerlach — did an experiment in 1922. They wanted to measure magnetism caused by electron orbits. At the time, they didn’t know about particles having angular momentum due to spin. So —
as explained by [The Science Asylum] in the video below
— they clearly showed quantum spin, they just didn’t know it and Physics didn’t catch on for many years.
The experiment was fairly simple. They heated a piece of silver foil to cause atoms to stream out through a tiny pinhole. The choice of silver was because it was a simple material that had a single electron in its outer shell. An external magnet then pulls silver atoms into a different position before it hits some film and that position depends on its magnetic field.
If electrons randomly flew around the nucleus like a cloud, you’d expect a cloudy line on the film. If the electrons had a fixed number of possible electron orbits, the film would show a series of points. In the end, the result was a big surprise — it was neither of the expected patterns. Instead, they got something shaped like the outline of some lips.
They realized that the horizontal deflection occurred even without the magnet, so what looked like two lines were really two points, and that implies that the electrons must be in one of two positions. However, the truth is more complicated.
In fact, Schrödinger’s equations appeared later and shed more light on how the electrons could orbit. It also seemed to imply that the earlier experiment should have been a single spot on the film. The answer turned out to be quantum spin.
According to the video, this was a lucky mistake. The experiment was perfect for measuring quantum spin, but it was unlikely that anyone would have thought to perform it for that purpose. By trying to prove one thing, they had actually proved another thing that no one understood yet. Science is strange and wonderful.
Spin
is a big deal in many quantum computers. If you need a refresher on
electron orbitals
, it is a topic we cover periodically. | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8072542",
"author": "Promytius",
"timestamp": "2024-12-14T02:49:55",
"content": "silver is magnetic?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8072800",
"author": "Josiah David Gould",
"timestamp": "2024-12-14T19:25:07",... | 1,760,371,698.399883 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/13/hack-on-self-howd-my-day-go/ | Hack On Self: How’d My Day Go? | Arya Voronova | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [] | Humans are well overdue for a technological revolution – not a profit-driven one like we’re having now, a human-centric one. Sci-fi is wonderful for having your brain run wild. Over the last century, we’ve had writers try and imagine what world would’ve had looked like if a new technology were to address different aspects of human condition, or, work to undercut us all in yet unseen ways, for a change.
Quite a few
leading HaD projects
have clear sci-fi inspiration, too, and same goes for a large number of Hackaday Prize entries. Over here, we live for fantasy made reality through skill, wit, and insights.
Ever got a sci-fi-esque dream that you’ve tried to implement with modern-day tech, only to fail because something fundamental was missing about how your phone/laptop/smartwatch functions? You’re not alone here, for sure – this describes a large chunk of my tech journey. In real life, you work with audience-tailored devices, the few fun usecases pre-cooked into the hardware-firmware blob.
Still, how much can you build on top of a consumer device? Alternative OSes that liberate you from the trend of enshittification, for instance, that one’s brilliant and a lifeline for preserving one’s sanity. Alternative platforms that bring a reprieve from a modern combative and ad-filled social media environment, sure. Still, feels limited
How about diary keeping? Personal diaries are really rad, aren’t they? Surely, that one’s a low-hanging fruit?
Betteridge’s Law Breaking
The first “hack on self”-like app I’ve ever built, was a parser/UI for our local public transport company schedules – letting me know when to run for a bus stop. I wanted to reduce resistance, and eventually, even integrate it into a portable device of some sort. I did bring that to a phone of mine, with help of Python SDK for Symbian S60, a wonderful if a little limited framework.
The next app of mine was a diary, encrypted with Blowfish, because that’s what I found a pure Python implementation of. I always tried keeping a diary, in a number of different paper forms, and I always failed in the end. The app though, it was fun, just secure enough to avoid relying on obscurity, and it worked great – for two weeks! It was pretty easy for me to forget about its existence, and every time I wanted to log something, I’d need to log in. Sounds easy? Yeah. In retrospect, I would’ve added a diary entry function before the decryption prompt, because even that small of a delay has backfired.
There’s a somberly fun saying, that with ADHD, a TODO list or a project can last at most two weeks. The diary is where I’ve really felt that one. Here I was, just having touched base with the dream of keeping a diary, and now it’s gone? How does that even work? How is it that I’m out of juice for it, somehow, why is it that opening the diary to make notes was fun two weeks ago, but is a chore today?
No worries, though, the sadness didn’t last long, I avoided learning too much in the moment, and immediately found something else to hack on. Every time I heard about journaling, keeping a diary, an archive, it felt fun, but also a fair bit more unreachable than before. I still wanted it, and, I’ve had my share of sadness to process through.
Or Did I?
Of course, if you’ve failed at building something, one way of processing the resulting sadness is to get distracted by other projects until you’re interested in the goal again, try and remember your mistakes, wait for the perfect conditions, and then build a new system that avoids those mistakes as you remember them.
Now, memories are fuzzy and malleable, so the “lessons from years ago” could be outright false, attention is hard to predict so it could take years to resume a project, and you’d want to reach for some actual insights, but whoops, you’d want some sort of diary to look back at, the whole thing is a chicken-and-egg problem yet again.
We don’t let that get in the way – we just build new stuff, and on average, it magically turns out to be better, because we’re building it differently this time. Really, just how many times can you try the same thing and fail? This time, it will be different! Seriously, it’s been days/months/years, how could it be the same? Keep pulling the lever of one-armed bandit that is project enthusiasm, see if you win the lottery and transform an aspect of your life for the better.
By that point, I had a few points of change filed away. I wanted some sort of daily notifications that’d motivate me to stick with it longer than two weeks, for sure. I also wanted to reduce resistance towards making entries – no more passphrase entry before logging, no more need for decryption. At the time, I spent 24/7 with my laptop on me, so that’s a low-resistance platform’s sorted out. I make it an Alt-Tab away, add regular notifications, should be easy this time.
Tale Of Two Scripts
I recalled one thing – the diary logs were accessible as long as I could remember the password, sure, and at the same time, I was rarely interested in re-reading them. Things changed, because I got a new question, trying to piece together a narrative about myself. How’d my days actually go? Could I draw trends of happiness, productivity, energy, excitement?
This time, I wrote a couple commandline apps with very simple text interfaces. The very first one,
poc_1.py
for proof-of-concept 1, used a non-dismissable notification service to poke me once every 24 hours, every morning, asking a very simple question – “how do you feel?”. Wake up, alt-tab into the commandline window, write in how I’m feeling as a baseline, then get up and go about my day.
Really, I wanted my computer to care about me, because it felt like the only entity that possibly would and really could, even, had the energy to. It can be hard to untangle a brain’s inner workings, even though stars know we all try, and my country isn’t known for having quality therapists that are easy to find. So, my computer it is – non-judgmental by nature, giving me space to talk, space of the kind I lacked everywhere else.
The next two
poc_N.py
scripts were about logging achievements and problems respectively, into the same logfile used by the
poc_1.py
. 10 minutes after I wrote both of them, I realized that they were a carbon copy of each other, and united them into
poc_4.py
– a script tailored for me to quickly log any sort of event into a commandline window at a whim.
The aim was very simple – let a stream of thoughts flow as quickly as possible. Type up your thoughts or an event, enter, type another, enter. One letter in the beginning to indicate event type, for rudimentary categorization – the script will remind you if you forget to input it, too. Primarily, I wanted to use it to log my day-to-day achievements and problems alike, but also general thoughts and feelings I wanted to let out.
"day_reflection": "it's been productive. Currently, I feel indifferent, to be honest. [...]"}
What Happened?
Two scripts, one asks me every morning how I’m feeling, and another is a place I can put any sorts of thoughts at any point. I wanted to – how my day went, and how I feel about the previous day. It was also pretty easy to read through the logs, or parse them – my “linebreak-separated
json
” strategy remains undefeated.
Every morning, I would wake up, look at my laptop, see a notification, and alt-tab the console window to talk about how I feel first thing in the morning. While writing my feedback, I could look to the side and see the achievements/problems/thoughts of the previous day. It was nice – and it’s still nice to use, even though I’ve definitely had gaps in its use. It wasn’t the nicest part about it!
I realized that my feelings about the previous day had nothing to do with the previous day. Instead, it was defined by how I feel in the morning. My feelings were about how well I slept, what I ate, my dreams in the night, the first thought that came into my mind when I woke up, the last open window on my laptop. My feelings about yesterday were defined by anything except what I actually did yesterday.
It was sobering to be reminded how much my assessments and decisions are influenced by my feelings and state in the moment, rather than a recollection of facts and a weighted assessment of them. A year or two later, I saw this fact in a Twitter thread, described as a piece of common knowledge about life logging as a practice. I don’t think I’ve ever bookmarked it, and, I’m yet to track that thread down again.
Before, I used to put a lot of stock into the feeling of “how my last few days went”. Now, I keep it firmly in mind that I need strong references to make such conclusions. I still have big, months-long gaps in using the diary script, but I have not given up on it, or the idea – it’s not the only insight I’ve gotten from it.
Self: Hacked
So, that was a quick and fruitful finding – we take those. Collecting more data has proven to be helpful yet again, and so has building low-interaction-resistance context-aware systems. What else… a system that taps into feelings, might give you insights you couldn’t even hope for – it’s not like most of us get a solid toolkit to navigate or analyze our feelings day-by-day. Still a few problems left to solve and tricks to try out, and it’s all pretty exciting.
How can I make my diary keeping more consistent? Voice logging option for the days when text’s not as accessible? Building the diary system into multiple places at once, always having new aspects to switch to when one gets boring? Dynamic reminders that catch me exactly when I have some free time to write? More helpful event logging? Those are just a few of the directions I’m pursuing at once.
In the meantime, hacking continues. You’ll see more concepts, new findings, and even some lovely hardware – especially given that a couple other hackers have joined the fight. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8072462",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2024-12-13T19:05:17",
"content": "Maybe I’m just a cold and without empathy cranky geezer, but I find this to be in the self-flagellation category.That said, one thing that I learned from a mentor (remember when young engineers were mentore... | 1,760,371,698.444734 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/13/hackaday-podcast-episode-300-the-dwingeloo-25-m-dish-a-dead-tech-twofer-and-deconstructing-pcbs/ | Hackaday Podcast Episode 300: The Dwingeloo 25 M Dish, A Dead-Tech Twofer, And Deconstructing PCBs | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | This week on the big 300th episode, Hackaday’s Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos teamed up to bring you the latest news, mystery sound, and of course, a big bunch of hacks from the previous week. So basically, business as usual.
First up in the news: it’s time for the Hackaday Europe 2025 call for proposals! Do you have a tale of hardware, firmware, or software that must be shared with the Hackaday crowd? Then this is your chance to regale us with a 20- or 40-minute talk. You know we love to hear new voices, so be sure to consider proposing a talk.
On What’s That Sound, it’s a results show week. Congratulations to [Kelvin] who was one of many that correctly identified it as the Wii startup sound. Kristina will just be over here with her Pikachu64 with the light-up cheeks.
Then it’s on to the hacks and such beginning with a rather nice reverse-engineering of the PS1, which surprisingly did it with a two-sided board. Then it’s on to a smartphone home server, magic eye images in a spreadsheet, and the math behind the music of 80s. Finally, we talk about disc cameras, the hovercraft revolution, and a whole mess of keyboards.
Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Download in
DRM-free MP3
and savor at your leisure.
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 300 Show Notes:
News:
2025 Hackaday Europe CFP: We Want You!
What’s that Sound?
Congratulations to [Kelvin]! It was the Wii menu background music.
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
PlayStation Motherboard Sanded And Scanned, But There’s More To Do
Deconstructing PCBs
Remoticon Video: How To Reverse Engineer A PCB
The Audiophile Carrot
Reddit – Dive into anything
Smartphone Runs Home Server
I “Solved” Samsungs Swelling Battery Problem! (Batteryless Phone) – YouTube
Want Octoprint But Lack A Raspberry Pi? Use An Old Android Phone
Magic Eye Images In Your Spreadsheet
Amateur Radio Operators Detect Signals From Voyager 1
Moon Bouncing And Radar Imaging With LoRa
Decoding JS1YMG: First Ham Radio Station On The Moon After SLIM Mission
Voyager-1 single dish detection at Allen Telescope Array – Daniel Estévez
Detecting Voyager 1 with the ATA
Do 3D Printers Dream Of LEGO Sheep?
Watch The OpenScan DIY 3D Scanner In Action
Get Great 3D Scans With Open Photogrammetry
What To Expect From 3D Scanning, And How To Work With It
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
The Math Behind The Music Of The 80s
Chaotic System Cooks Meat Evenly
Raspberry Pi 500 And The Case Of The Missing M.2 Slot
Kristina’s Picks:
Updated Mouse Ring Does It With A Joystick
An Engineer’s Perspective On Baking Gingerbread Houses
Unexpectedly Interesting Payphone Gives Up Its Secrets
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Disc Film,When Kodak Pushed Convenience Too Far
The Hovercraft Revolution And Finding The Right Niche For A Technology
Lenses: From Fire Starters To Smart Phones And VR
Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Funny Keyboard | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8072477",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"timestamp": "2024-12-13T19:56:48",
"content": "OMG. When going through the nicknames of people who guessed the Wii menu sound, how did I miss [Nunchuck Norris]?!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment... | 1,760,371,698.494127 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/13/saving-an-electron-microscope-from-the-trash/ | Saving An Electron Microscope From The Trash | Maya Posch | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"JEOL",
"repair",
"scanning electron microscope"
] | Who wouldn’t want to have a scanning electron microscope (SEM)? If you’re the person behind the
ProjectsInFlight
channel on YouTube, you certainly do. In
a recent video it’s explained
how he got his mittens on a late 1980s, early 1990s era JEOL JSM-5200 SEM that was going to be scrapped. This absolute unit of a system comes with everything that’s needed to do the imaging, processing and displaying on the small CRT. The only problem with it was that it was defective, deemed irreparable and hence the reason why it was headed to the scrap. Could it still be revived against all odds?
The JEOL JSM-5200 SEM after being revived and happily scanning away. (Credit: ProjectsInFlight, YouTube)
The good news was that the unit came with the manual and schematics, and it turns out there’s an online SEM community of enthusiasts who are more than happy to help each other out. One of these even had his own JSM-5200 which helped with comparing the two units when something wasn’t working. Being an SEM, the sample has to be placed in a high vacuum, which takes a diffusion vacuum pump, which itself requires a second vacuum pump, all of which requires voltages and electronics before even getting to the amplification circuitry.
Since the first problem was that this salvaged unit wasn’t turning on, it started with the power supply and a blown fuse. This led to a shorted transformer, bad DC-DC converters, a broken vacuum pump, expired rubber hoses and seals, and so on, much of which can be attributed simply to the age of the machine. Finding direct replacements was often simply impossible to very expensive, necessitating creative solutions along with significant TLC.
Although there are still some small issues with for example the CRT due to possibly bad capacitors, overall the SEM seems to be in working condition now, which is amazing for a unit that was going to be trashed.
Thanks to [Hans] for the tip. | 17 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8072422",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2024-12-13T17:00:27",
"content": "Who the heck would throw that away?? The console reminds me a little of the Apple Lisa II",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8072455",
"author": "l... | 1,760,371,698.593119 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2024/12/13/this-week-in-security-recall-badram-and-openwrt/ | This Week In Security: Recall, BadRAM, And OpenWRT | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"BadRAM",
"openwrt",
"recall",
"This Week in Security"
] | Microsoft’s Recall feature is back. You may remember
our coverage of the new AI feature back in June
, but for the uninitiated, it was a creepy security trainwreck. The idea is that Windows will take screenshots of whatever is on the screen every few seconds, and use AI to index the screenshots for easier searching. The only real security win at the time was that Microsoft managed to do all the processing on the local machine, instead of uploading them to the cloud. All the images and index data was available unencrypted on the hard drive, and there weren’t any protections for sensitive data.
Things are
admittedly better now, but not perfect
. The recall screenshots and database is no longer trivially opened by any user on the machine, and Windows prompts the user to set up and authenticate with Windows Hello before using Recall. [Avram] from Tom’s Hardware did some interesting testing on the sensitive information filter, and found that it worked… sometimes.
So, with the public preview of Recall, is it still creepy? Yes. Is it still a security trainwreck? It appears that the security issues are much improved. Time will tell if a researcher discovers a way to decrypt the Recall data outside of the Recall app.
Patch Tuesday
Since we’re talking about Microsoft,
this week was Patch Tuesday
, and we had seventy-one separate vulnerabilities fixed, with one of those being a zero-day that was used in real-world attacks. CVE-2024-49138 doesn’t seem to have a lot of information published yet. We know
it’s a Heap-based Buffer Overflow
in the Common Log File driver, and allows an escalation of privilege to SYSTEM on Windows machines.
BadRAM
One of the most interesting frontiers in computing right now is
trying to give cloud computing actual security
. AMD has approached this problem with SEV-SNP, Secure Encrypted Virtualization/Secure Nested Paging, among other approaches. But today we have a very clever hardware attack that can defeat SEV-SNP:
BadRAM
.
The key here is the DIMM memory specification’s SPD, Serial Presence Detect. That’s a simple protocol that uses SMBus, an I2C protocol, to pull information from a memory module. How does your desktop know that those are 4 GB modules? And how does it know the right timings to actually boot successfully? SPD provides that data. BadRAM asks the rather simple question, what happens if you overwrite a module’s SPD chip?
When you convince SPD to lie, and report a memory module that’s larger than it really is, you get a sort of shadow memory. Put simply, multiple memory addresses refer to the same physical bits. That should set your security alarm bells to sounding. This defeats most memory protection schemes, and allows overriding SEV-SNP, by just over-writing the security hashes after they’ve been calculated. AMD has released updated firmware that actively checks for aliasing addresses, defeating the attack.
When rnd is Hard
Getting good random bits is hard. There is the obvious problem, that computers are deterministic, and can’t actually generate randomness without dedicated hardware for the purpose. Beyond that, different languages and platforms have different quirks. Many of those languages have a pseudorandom function, that can produce a good approximation of random numbers. The catch is that those numbers are entirely deterministic, and to be anything close to usable as a safe source of randomness, the pseudorandom function must be seeded with a truly non-deterministic number.
Which is why it’s particularly bad to
accidentally hard-code the seed into a platform
. And yes, that’s exactly what the Web assembly platform for Dart did until surprisingly recently. This did result in an easy-to-guess websocket port/key/password combination that could result in the takeover of a Dart application from another visited website. And that’s not all, follow the link above to find two other similar stories in the Dart/Flutter world.
OpenWRT and sha256 collisions
The OpenWRT project had a bit of a security scare late last week. It turns out that the attended sysupgrade service actually triggers custom firmware builds on the OpenWRT servers. And it’s possible to run arbitrary code insode that build process. That’s not as bad as it sounds, as the project works very hard to isolate each of those builds inside podman containers. There was another problem, where
build artifacts were tracked using a partial SHA256 hash
. The full 64 characters of a SHA256 hash is enough to be secure, particularly in this case — but reducing that to twelve characters is not.
[RyotaK] actually did the work, using hashcat to find a hash collision, resulting in the server serving a tampered firmware image in place of the correct one. The find was reported, and the sysupgrade build server was temporarily taken offline, and a fix rolled out. The
OpenWRT project put out a statement
, acknowledging the issue, and pointing out that there are insufficient logs to determine whether this vulnerability chain has ever actually been used. And so out of an abundance of caution, users of the sysupgrade server should trigger an in place upgrade to completely rule out the possibility of running a compromised image.
Bits and Bytes
Facebook Messenger on iOS had an issue, where
a member of group calls could crash the app
for all members of the call, simply by sending an invalid emote to the group. Sure puts the angry face in context. It’s fixed now, appears to be strictly limited to the denial of service crash, and there’s a decent walkthrough of the problem at the link.
Maxwell Dulin, AKA [Striꓘeout],
has now worked on both sides of the security coin
. He’s both been the security researcher, and now is on the security team at a company. This puts him in a particularly good position to comment on why it takes so long to fix a given bug. And not to give it away, but some of the reasons are better than others.
And finally,
how not to fall for a crypto scam
. In this case, it was a Telegram group, that was hawking a fake new token. The scam was rather impressive, with faked reviews from Certik and TechRate, and legitimate looking smart contracts. But like most deals that seem to good to be true, this was a rugpull, where criminal con artists convinced a few investors to put money into the scheme, only to take the money and run. Stay frosty out there! | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8072373",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2024-12-13T15:21:23",
"content": "“badram” is just another hint that what they’re trying to achieve is fundamentally impossible and foolhardy.YouMUSTtrust your hardware. YouMUSTtrust your host. If you can’t trust the cloud provider with physica... | 1,760,371,698.538767 |
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