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https://hackaday.com/2025/09/10/reverse-engineering-a-robot-mowers-fence/ | Reverse Engineering A Robot Mower’s Fence | Jenny List | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"guide wire",
"robomower",
"robot fence",
"robot mower"
] | There are a variety of robot mower systems on the market employing different navigation methods, and [Eelco] has the story of
how one of these was reverse engineered
. Second hand Roomba lawnmowers kept appearing for very low prices without the electronics driving the buried-wire fence that keeps them from going astray. The story of their reverse engineering provides us with a handy insight into their operation.
The wire fence is a loop of wire in the ground, so it was modeled using a few-ohm resistor and the waveform across it from a working driver captured with an oscilloscope. The resulting 3 kHz waveform surprisingly to us at least doesn’t appear to encode any information, so it could be replicated easily enough with an ESP32 microcontroller. An LM386 audio amplifier drives the loop, and with a bit of amplitude adjustment the mower is quite happy in its fake fence.
Robot mower hacking
has become quite the thing around here
. | 22 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8178161",
"author": "Gunter Vonshitz",
"timestamp": "2025-09-11T02:47:26",
"content": "For an in-depth explanation of an accurate perimeter wire system, and how they can do neat stuff like detect the loop’s signal even when it is under the noise floor… or detect when it is inside or... | 1,760,371,430.156249 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/10/using-an-mcus-own-debug-peripheral-to-defeat-bootrom-protection/ | Using An MCU’s Own Debug Peripheral To Defeat Bootrom Protection | Maya Posch | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"ARM microcontroller",
"microcontroller",
"reverse engineering"
] | The patient hooked up for some reverse-engineering. (Credit:
Caralynx, Twitter
)
Released in July of 2025, the Tamagotchi Paradise may look somewhat like the late 90s toy that terrorized parents and teachers alike for years, but it’s significantly more complex and powerful hardware-wise. This has led many to dig into its ARM Cortex-M3-powered guts, including [Yukai Li] who recently
tripped over a hidden section in the bootrom
of the dual-core
Sonix SNC73410
MCU that makes up most of the smarts inside this new Tamagotchi toy.
Interestingly, [Yukai] did see that the visible part of the bootrom image calls into the addresses that make up the hidden part right in the reset handler, which suggests that after reset this hidden bootrom section is accessible, just not when trying to read it via e.g. SWD as the hiding occurs before the SWD interface becomes active. This led [Yukai] to look at a way to make this ROM section not hidden by using the Cortex-M3’s standard Flash Patch and Breakpoint (FPB) unit. This approach is covered in the project’s
source file
.
With this code running, the FPB successfully unset the responsible ROM hide bit in the
OSC_CTRL
register, allowing the full bootrom to be dumped via SWD and thus defeating this copy protection with relatively little effort.
Heading image: PCB and other components of a torn-down Tamagotchi Paradise. (Credit:
Tamagotchi Center
) | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8178650",
"author": "Mause",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T05:50:13",
"content": "Copy protecting these is a overkill. I think everyone wants to play DOOM on them instead of copying whatever is inside.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id"... | 1,760,371,430.445459 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/10/the-555-as-youve-never-seen-it-in-textile/ | The 555 As You’ve Never Seen It: In Textile! | Tyler August | [
"Art"
] | [
"555",
"Navajo",
"Navajo weaving",
"rug",
"weaving"
] | The Diné (aka Navajo) people have been using their weaving as trade goods at least since European contact, and probably long before. They’ve never shied from adopting innovation: churro sheep from the Spanish in the 17th century, aniline dies in the 19th, and in the 20th and 21st… integrated circuits? At least one Navajo Weaver, [Marilou Schultz] thinks they’re a good match for the traditional geometric forms. Her latest creation is a
woven depiction of the venerable 555 timer
.
“Popular Chip” by Marilou Schultz. Photo courtesy of First American Art Magazine, via righto.com
This isn’t the first time [Marilou] has turned an IC into a Navajo rug; she’s been weaving chip rugs since 1994– including a Pentium rug commissioned by Intel that hangs in USA’s National Gallery of Art–but it’s somehow flown below the Hackaday radar until now. The closest thing we’ve seen on these pages was
a beaded bracelet embedding a QR code
, inspired by traditional Native American forms.
That’s why we’re so thankful to [VivCocoa] for the tip. It’s a wild and wonderful world out there, and we can’t cover all of it without you. Are there any other fusions of tradition and high-tech we’ve been missing out on?
Send us a tip. | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177974",
"author": "dudefromthenorth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-10T20:20:10",
"content": "And then there’s her 1994 Pentium rug…https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/processors/intels-navajo-pentium-rug-is-a-ridiculously-accurate-likeness-of-a-90s-cpu/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth":... | 1,760,371,430.31307 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/10/floss-weekly-episode-846-mastering-embedded-linux-programming/ | FLOSS Weekly Episode 846: Mastering Embedded Linux Programming | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Embedded Linux",
"FLOSS Weekly",
"Tech Books"
] | This week
Jonathan
and
Dan
chat with
Frank Vasquez
and
Chris Simmonds
about Embedded Linux, and the 4th edition of the Mastering Embedded Linux Programming book. How has this space changed in the last 20 years, and what’s the latest in Embedded Linux?
Mastering Embedded Linux Development
on Amazon
https://2net.co.uk/
The Linux Plumbers Conference Call For Proposals page
AOSP and AAOS meetup on Wednesday 17 September
https://aosp-devs.org/
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.
If you’d rather read along,
here’s the transcript for this week’s episode
.
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 | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8178652",
"author": "Charles Springer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-12T05:56:45",
"content": "I will have to read it. I can recommend “Linux for Embedded and Real-Time Applications” by the late Doug Abbott. 4th Edition. It grew from his course materials and is wonderfully detailed and log... | 1,760,371,430.044773 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/10/everything-in-a-linux-terminal/ | Everything In A Linux Terminal | Al Williams | [
"Linux Hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"cli",
"linux",
"terminal",
"Wayland"
] | Here at Hackaday Central, we fancy that we know a little something about Linux. But if you’d tasked us to run any GUI program inside a Linux terminal, we’d have said that wasn’t possible. But, it turns out, you should have asked [mmulet] who put together
term.everything
.
You might be thinking that of course, you can launch a GUI program from a terminal. Sure. That’s not what this is. Instead, it hijacks the Wayland protocol and renders the graphics as text. Or, if your terminal supports it, as an image. Performance is probably not your goal if you want to do this. As the old saying goes, “It’s not that the dog can sing well; it’s that the dog can sing at all.”
If, like us, you are more interested in how it works,
there’s a write up
explaining the nuances of the Wayland protocol. The article points out that Wayland doesn’t actually care what you do with the graphical output. In particular, “… you could print out the graphics and give them to a league of crochet grandmas to individually tie together every single pixel into the afghan of legend!” We expect to see this tested at an upcoming hacker conference. Maybe even Supercon.
We generally don’t like
Wayland
very much. We use a lot of hacks like
xdotool and autokey
that Wayland doesn’t like. We also think people didn’t understand X11’s network abilities until it was too late. If you think of it as only a video card driver, then you get what you deserve. But we have to admit, we are humbled by term.everything. | 49 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177901",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp": "2025-09-10T16:15:59",
"content": "I’ve used X11 since 1988 and I know almost all the tricks at this stage (good and bad). X11 > Wayland in many many many ways, but it does have it’s problems (none of which I am going to list!). I say that ... | 1,760,371,430.402327 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/10/bare-metal-stm32-the-various-real-time-clock-flavors/ | Bare Metal STM32: The Various Real Time Clock Flavors | Maya Posch | [
"Featured",
"Microcontrollers",
"Skills",
"Slider",
"Software Development"
] | [
"real time clock",
"stm32"
] | Keeping track of time is essential, even for microcontrollers, which is why a real-time clock (RTC) peripheral is a common feature in MCUs. In the case of the STM32 family there are three varieties of RTC peripherals, with the newest two creatively called ‘RTC2′ and RTC3’, to contrast them from the very basic and barebones RTC that debuted with the STM32F1 series.
Commonly experienced in the ubiquitous and often cloned STM32F103 MCU, this ‘RTC1’ features little more than a basic 32-bit counter alongside an alarm feature and a collection of battery-backed registers that requires you to do all of the heavy lifting of time and date keeping yourself. This is quite a contrast with the two rather similar successor RTC peripherals, which seem to insist on doing everything possible themselves – except offer you that basic counter – including giving you a full-blown calendar and today’s time with consideration for 12/24 hour format, DST and much more.
With such a wide gulf between RTC1 and its successors, this raises the question of how to best approach these from a low-level perspective.
You Can Count On Me
If it was just about counting seconds, then any of the timer peripherals in an MCU would be more than up to the task, limited only by the precision of the used system clock. The RTC requirements are a bit more extensive, however, as indicated by what is called the backup domain in F1 and the backup registers in the RTC2 and RTC3 peripherals. Powered by an external power source, this clock and register data are expected to survive any power event, the CPU being reset, halted or powered off, while happily continuing to count the progress of time until the rest of the MCU and its firmware returns to check up on its progress.
Naturally, this continuation requires two things: the first is a power source to the special power pin on the MCU (V
BAT
), often provided from a ubiquitous 3 V lithium cell, along with a clock source that remains powered when the rest of the MCU isn’t. This provides the first gotcha as the RTC clock can be configured to be one of these three:
Low Speed External (
LSE
): usually an external 32,768 Hz oscillator which is powered via V
BAT
.
Low Speed Internal (
LSI
): a simple internal ~40-ish kHz oscillator that is only powered by V
DD
.
High Speed External (
HSE
): the external clock signal that’s generally used to clock the MCU’s CPU and many of its peripherals. Also not available in all low-power modes.
Thus, the logical
RTCCLK
choice for an RTC that has to survive any and all adverse power events is the LSE as it feeds into the RTC. Take for example the STM32F103 RTC block diagram:
Simplified RTC diagram of the STM32F103. (Source: RM0008)
Here we can see the elements of the very basic RTC1 peripheral, with the sections that are powered by V
BAT
marked in grey. The incoming
RTCCLK
is used to generate the RTC time base
TR_CLK
in the RTC prescaler, which increases the value in the
RTC_CNT
register. It being a 32-bit register and
TR_CLK
usually being 1 Hz means that this counter can be run for approximately 136 years if we ignore details like leap years, without overflowing.
For initializing and using the RTC1 peripheral, we can consult application note
AN2821
alongside reference manual RM0008, which covers a clock and calendar implementation, specifically on the
STM3210B-EVAL
board, but applicable to all STM32F10x MCUs. If you want to keep a running calendar going, it’s possible to use the backup registers for this whenever the counter reaches a certain number of seconds.
That said, where having just this counter is rather pleasant is when using the C
<time.h>
functions with Newlib,
such as
time()
. As Newlib on STM32 requires you to implement at least
_gettimeofday()
, this means that you can just let
RTC_CNT
do its thing and copy it into the seconds member of a
timeval
struct before returning it. This is significantly easier than with RTC2 and 3, with my own implementation in
Nodate’s RTC code
currently fudging things with
mktime()
to get a basic seconds counter again from the clock and calendar register values.
All The Bells And Whistles
If the RTC1 peripheral was rather basic with just a counter, an alarm and some backup registers, its successor and the rather similar RTC3 peripheral are basically the exact opposite. A good, quick comparison is
provided here
, with
AN4759
providing a detailed overview, initialization and usage of these newest RTCs. One nice thing about RTC3 is that it adds back an optional counter much like the binary RTC1 counter by extending the
RTC_SSR
register to 32-bit and using it as a binary counter. However as the summary by Efton notes, this counter and some other features are not present on every MCU, so beware.
Correspondingly, the block diagram for the RTC2 peripheral is rather more complicated:
Block diagram of the RTC 2 peripheral in the STM32F401 MCU. (Source: ST, RM0368)
Although we can still see the prescaler and backup/tamper registers, the prescaler is significantly more complex with added calibration options, the alarms span more registers and there are now three shadow registers for the time, date and sub-seconds in
RTC_TR
,
RTC_DR
and
RTC_SSR
respectively. This is practically identical to the RTC3 block diagram.
These shadow registers lay out the individual values as for example in the
RTC_TR
register:
The
RTC_TR
register in the STM32F401. (Source: ST, RM0368)
Taking the seconds as an example, we got the tens (
ST
) and units (
SU
), both in BCD format which together form the current number of seconds. For the minutes and hours the same pattern is used, with
PM
keeping track of whether it’s AM or PM if 12 hour format is used. Effectively this makes these shadow registers a direct source of time and calendar information, albeit generally in BCD format and unlike with the basic RTC1 peripheral, using it as the source for C-style functions via Newlib has become rather tricky.
Unix Time Things
In the world of computing the ‘seconds since the Unix Epoch’ thing has become rather defining as the starting point for many timing-related functions. One consequence of this is that indicating a point in time often involves listing the number of seconds since said epoch on January 1st of 1970, at 00:00:00 UTC. This includes the time-related functions in the standard C libraries, such as Newlib, as discussed earlier.
This is perhaps the most frustrating point with these three-ish different STM32 RTC peripherals, as although the RTC1 is barebones, making it work with Newlib is a snap, while RTC2 and RTC3 are for the most part a nightmare, except for the RTC3 implementations that support the binary mode, although even that is a down-counter instead of an up-counter. This leaves one with the dreadful task of turning those shadow register values back into a Unix timestamp.
One way to do this is by using the
mktime()
function as mentioned earlier. This takes a
tm
struct whose fields define the elements of a date, e.g. for seconds:
tm tt;
tt.tm_sec = (uint8_t) bcd2dec32(RTC_TR & (RTC_TR_ST | RTC_TR_SU));
By repeating this for each part of
RTC_TR
and
RTC_DR
, we end up with a filled in struct that we can pass to
mktime
which will then spit out our coveted Unix timestamp in the form of a
time_t
integer. Of course, that would be far too easy, and thus we run head-first into the problem that
mktime
is incredibly picky about what it likes, and makes this implementation-dependent.
For example, despite the
claims made
about ranges for the
tm
struct, running a simple local test case in an MSYS2 environment indicated that negative years since 1970 wasn’t allowed, so that not having the RTC set to a current-ish date will always error out when the year is less than 71. It’s quite possible that a custom alternative to
mktime
will be less headache-inducing here.
Of course, ST could just have been nice and offered the basic counter of RTC1 along with all of the good stuff added with RTC2 and RTC3, but maybe for that we’ll have to count the seconds until the release of RTC4. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177886",
"author": "SureItsBCD?",
"timestamp": "2025-09-10T15:02:23",
"content": "Considering neither the application note nor the reference manual for the STM32F1xx mention anything about RTC_CNTH/RTC_CNTL being BCD, I’ll take a wild guess that you’ve never tested your code for mo... | 1,760,371,430.630939 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/10/rackintosh-plus-is-the-form-factor-nobody-has-been-waiting-for/ | Rackintosh Plus Is The Form Factor Nobody Has Been Waiting For | Tyler August | [
"Mac Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"19-inch rack",
"1u",
"macintosh plus",
"retrocomputing"
] | For all its friendly countenance and award-winning industrial design, there’s one thing the venerable Macintosh Plus can’t do: fit into a 1U rack space. OK, if we’re being honest with ourselves, there are a lot of things a Mac from 1986 can’t do, but the rack space is what [identity4] was focused on when they built the
2025 Rackintosh Plus.
Some folks may have been fooled by this ad to think this was an actual product.
For those of you already sharpening your pitchforks, worry not: [identity4]’s beloved vintage Mac was not disassembled for this project. This rack mount has instead become the home for a spare logic board they had acquired Why? They wanted to use a classic Mac in their studio, and for any more equipment to fit the space, it needed to go into the existing racks. It’s more practical than the motivation we see for a lot of hacks; it’s almost surprising it hasn’t happened before. (We’ve seen
Mac Minis in racks
, but not the classic hardware.)
Aside from the genuine Apple logic board, the thin rack also contains a BlueSCSI hard drive emulator, a Floppy Emu for SD-card floppy emulator, an RGB-to-HDMI converter to allow System 7 to shine on modern monitors, and of course a Mean Well power supply to keep everything running.The Floppy Emu required a little light surgery to move the screen so it would fit inside the low-profile rack. [identity4] also broke out the keyboard and mouse connectors to the front of the rack, but all other connectors stayed on the logic board at the rear.
Sound is handled by a single 8-ohm speaker that lives inside the rack mount, because even if the Rackintosh can now fit into a 1U space, it still can’t do stereo sound…or anything else a Macintosh Plus with 4 MB of RAM couldn’t do. Still, it’s a lovely hack. and the vintage-style advertisement was an excellent touch.
Now they just need the
right monochrome display. | 20 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177856",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-10T12:44:38",
"content": "this is making me feel insecure about all of the different ‘piles of computers’ i’ve been responsible for over the years. i once made a desk out of two desktop pcs on their sides for the legs with one acr... | 1,760,371,430.70292 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/10/a-look-at-not-an-android-emulator/ | A Look At Not An Android Emulator | Fenix Guthrie | [
"Android Hacks",
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"android",
"smartphone",
"translation layer"
] | Recently, Linux has been rising in desktop popularity in no small part to the work on WINE and Proton. But for some, the year of the Linux desktop is not enough, and the goal is now for the year of the Linux phone. To that end, an Android Linux translation layer called Android Translation Layer (we never said developers were good at naming)
has emerged for those running Linux on their phones.
Android Translation Layer (ATL) is still in very early days, and likely as not, remains unpackaged on your distro of choice. Fortunately, a workaround is running an Alpine Linux container with graphics pass through via a tool like Distrobox or Toolbox. Because of the Alpine derived mobile distribution postmarketOS, ATL is packaged in the Alpine repos.
In many ways, running Android apps on Linux is much easier then Windows apps. Because Android apps are architecture independent, hardware emulation is unnecessary. With such similar kernels, on paper at least, Android software should run with minimal effort on Linux. Most of what ATL provides is a Linux/Android hardware abstraction layer glue to ensure Android system calls make their way to the Linux kernel.
Of course, there is a lot more to running Android apps, and the team is working to implement the countless Android system APIs in ATL. For now, older Android apps such as Angry Birds have the best support. Much like WINE, ATL will likely devolve into a game of wack-a-mole where developers implement fresh translation code as new APIs emerge and app updates break. Still, WINE is a wildly successful project, and we hope to see ATL grow likewise!
If you want to get your Android phone to talk to Linux,
make sure to check out this hack next! | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177806",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-10T09:43:25",
"content": "Very cool project. I personally wouldn’t prefer to run android apps (any mobile apps, really) on a desktop with much larger display and non-touch UI, but i guess there are people who would prefer that."... | 1,760,371,430.200938 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/09/the-magic-of-the-hall-effect-sensor/ | The Magic Of The Hall Effect Sensor | John Elliot V | [
"Parts"
] | [
"air-wired",
"hall effect",
"hall effect sensor"
] | Recently, [Solder Hub] put together a brief video that
demonstrates the basics of a Hall Effect sensor
— in this case, one salvaged from an old CPU fan. Two LEDs, a 100 ohm resistor, and a 3.7 volt battery are soldered onto a four pin Hall effect sensor which can toggle one of two lights in response to the polarity of a nearby magnet.
If you’re interested in the physics, the once sentence version goes something like this: the Hall Effect is the production of a potential difference, across an electrical conductor, that is transverse to an electric current in the conductor and to an applied magnetic field perpendicular to the current. Get your head around that!
Of course we’ve covered the Hall effect here on Hackaday before, indeed, our search returned more than 1,000 results! You can stick your toe in with posts such as
A Simple 6DOF Hall Effect ‘Space’ Mouse
and
Tracing In 2D And 3D With Hall Effect Sensors
. | 22 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177741",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2025-09-10T06:41:23",
"content": "This is a good example of hownotto use an 18650. It wouldn’t take much to short the positive wire to anywhere on the exposed case and give yourself a bad day.Heatshrink is cheap.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,371,430.101722 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/09/was-action-the-best-8-bit-language/ | Was Action! The Best 8-Bit Language? | Tyler August | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"atari 8 bit",
"software development"
] | Most people’s memories of programming in the 8-bit era revolve around BASIC, and not without reason. Most of the time, it was all we had. On the other hand, there were other options if you sought them out, and [Paul Lefebvre] makes the case
that Goto10Retro that Action! was the best of them.
The limits of BASIC as an interpreted language are well-enough known that we needn’t go over them here. C and Pascal were available for some home computers in the 1980s, and programs written in those languages ran well, but compiling them? That was by no means guaranteed.
The text editor. Unusual for Atari at the time, it allowed scrolling along a line of greater than 40 char.
For those who lived on the Atari side of the fence, the Action! language provided a powerful alternative. Released by Optimized Systems Software in 1983, Action! was heavily optimized for the 6502, to the point that compiling and running simple programs with “C” and “R” felt “hardly slower” than typing RUN in BASIC. That’s what [Paul] writes, anyway, but it’s a claim that almost has to be seen to be believed.
You didn’t just get a compiler for your money when you bought Action!, though. The cartridge came with a capable text editor, simple shell, and even a primitive debugger. (Plus, of course, a hefty manual.) It’s the closest thing you’d find to an IDE on a computer of that class in that era, and it all fit on a 16 kB cartridge. There was apparently also a disk release, since the
disk image is available online
.
Unfortunately for those of us in Camp Commodore, the planned C-64 port never materialized, so we missed out on this language. Luckily our 64-bit supercomputers can easily emulate Atari 8-bit hardware and we can see what all the fuss was about. Heck,
even our microcontrollers can do it. | 22 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177677",
"author": "MAC",
"timestamp": "2025-09-10T03:16:35",
"content": "I fondly remember that orange Action! cartridge. I used it more than any game that I had. It even supported in-line assembly language and allowed you to create interrupt service routines. I wrote a printer... | 1,760,371,430.262527 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/09/bambu-labs-pla-tough-filament-mostly-a-tough-sell/ | Bambu Lab’s PLA Tough+ Filament: Mostly A Tough Sell | Maya Posch | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Reviews"
] | [
"3d printing filament",
"polylactic acid"
] | Beyond the simple world of basic PLA filaments there is a whole wild world of additives that can change this humble material for better or worse. The most common additives here are primarily to add color, but other additives seek to specifically improve certain properties of PLA. For example Bambu Lab’s new PLA Tough+ filament series that [Dr. Igor Gaspar] over at the
My Tech Fun
YouTube channel
had over for reviewing purposes
.
According to Bambu Lab’s
claims
for the filament, it’s supposed to have ‘up to’ double the layer adhesion strength as their basic PLA, while being much more robust when it comes to flexing and ‘taking a beating’. Yet as [Igor] goes through his battery of tests – comparing PLA Tough+ against the basic PLA – the supposedly tough filament is significantly worse in every count. That sad streak lasts until the impact tests, which is where we see a curious set of results – as shown above – as well as [Igor]’s new set of impact testing toys being put through their paces.
Of note is that although the Tough+ variants tested are consistently less brittle than their basic PLA counterparts, the Silver basic PLA variant makes an unexpectedly impressive showing. This is a good example of how color additives can have very positive impacts on a basic polymer like PLA, as well as a good indication that at least Bambu Lab’s Basic PLA in its Silver variant is basically better than Tough+ filaments. Not only does it not require higher printing temperatures, it also doesn’t produce more smelly VOCs, while being overall more robust. | 21 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177625",
"author": "J S",
"timestamp": "2025-09-10T01:50:14",
"content": "I don’t have any hard data, nor do I know the original company that made it, but Bambu’s original Tough PLA was awesome, and still to this day the best filament Ive run through my Kickstarter X1. Their PETG H... | 1,760,371,430.762443 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/09/o-brother-what-art-thou/ | O Brother, What Art Thou? | Tyler August | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"ESP-32",
"retro",
"Teensy",
"word processor"
] | Dedicated word processors are not something we see much of anymore. They were in a weird space:
computerized
, but not really what you could call a
computer,
even in those days. More like a fancy typewriter, with a screen and floppy disks. Brother made some very nice ones, and [Chad Boughton]
got his hands on one for a modernization project
.
The word processor in question, a Brother WP-2200, was chosen primarily because of its beautiful widescreen, yellow-phosphor CRT display. Yes, you read that correctly — yellow phosphor, not amber. Widescreen CRTs are rare enough, but that’s just different. As built, the WP-2200 had a luggable form-factor, with a floppy drive, ̶m̶e̶c̶h̶a̶n̶i̶c̶a̶l̶ clacky keyboard, and dot-matrix printer in the back.
Thanks to [Chad]’s upgrade, most of that doesn’t work anymore. Not yet, anyway. The original logic controller of this word processor was… rather limited. As generations of hackers have discovered, you just can’t do very much with these. [Chad] thus decided to tear it all out, and replace it with an ESP-32, since the
ESP32-VGA library is a thing
. Of course this CRT is
not
a VGA display, but it was just a matter of tracing the pinout and guesstimating sane values for h-sync, v-sync and the like. (Details are not given in the video.)
Right now, the excellent mechanical keyboard (mostly) works, thanks to a Teensy reading the keyboard matrix off the original cable. The teensy sends characters via UART to the ESP32 and it can indeed display them upon the screen. That’s half of what this thing could do, back in the 1980s, and a very good start. Considering [Chad] now has magnitudes more compute power available than the engineers at Brother ever did (probably more compute power than the workstation used to program the WP2200, now that we think of it) we’re excited to see where this goes. By the spitballing at the end of the video, this device will end its life as much more than a word processor.To see what he’s got working so far, jump to 5:30 in the video. Once the project is a bit more mature, [Chad] assures us he’ll be releasing both code and documentation in written form.
We’ve seen [Chad]’s work before, most recently
his slim-fit CD player,
but he has been hacking for a long time.
We covered his Super Mario PLC hack back in 2014. | 19 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177534",
"author": "BE",
"timestamp": "2025-09-09T20:08:38",
"content": "Nice work, [Chad]!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8177538",
"author": "Alphatek",
"timestamp": "2025-09-09T20:25:13",
"content": "What a lov... | 1,760,371,430.839188 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/09/this-ouija-business-card-helps-you-speak-to-tiny-llamas/ | This Ouija Business Card Helps You Speak To Tiny Llamas | Seth Mabbott | [
"hardware"
] | [
"business card",
"ESP32-S3",
"local LLM",
"Ouija"
] | Business cards, on the whole, haven’t changed significantly over the past 600-ish years, and arguably are not as important as they used to be, but they are still worth considering as a reminder for someone to contact you. If the format of that card and method of contact stand out as unique and related to your personal or professional interests, you have a winning combination that will cement yourself in the recipient’s memory.
In a case study of “show, don’t tell”,
[Binh]’s business card draws on technological and paranormal curiosity
, blending affordable, short-run PCB manufacturing and an, LLM or, in this case, a Small Language Model, with a tiny Ouija board. While [Binh] is very much with us in the here and now, and a séance isn’t really an effective way to get a hold of him, the interactive Ouija card gives recipient’s a playful demonstration of his skills.
The interface is an array of LEDs in the classical Ouija layout, which slowly spell out the message your supernatural contact wants to communicate. The messages are triggered by the user through touch pads. Messages are generated locally by an ESP32-S3 based on
Dave Bennett’s TinyLlama LLM implementation
.
For a bit of a role reversal in Ouija communication, check out this
Ouija robot
. For more PCB business card inspiration, have a look at this
pong-playing card
and this
Arduboy-inspired game console card
.
Thanks to [Binh] for sharing this project with us. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177505",
"author": "m1ke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-09T19:15:32",
"content": "I always pronounced it “wee-jee”, like Fiji.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8177799",
"author": "Not Mario",
"timestamp": "2025-09-10... | 1,760,371,431.137982 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/09/the-android-linux-commander/ | The Android Linux Commander | Al Williams | [
"Android Hacks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Linux Hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Slider",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"android",
"app inventor",
"bluetooth",
"bluetooth serial",
"bluetooth spp",
"macropad"
] | Last time
, I described how to write a simple Android app and get it talking to your code on Linux. So, of course, we need an example. Since I’ve been on something of a macropad kick lately, I decided to write a toolkit for building your own macropad using App Inventor and any sort of Linux tools you like.
I mentioned there is a server. I wrote some
very basic code
to exchange data with the Android device on the Linux side. The protocol is simple:
All messages to the ordinary Linux start with >
All messages to the Android device start with <
All messages end with a carriage return
Security
You can build the server so that it can execute arbitrary commands. Since some people will doubtlessly be upset about that, the server can also have a restrictive set of numbered commands. You can also allow those commands to take arguments or disallow them, but you have to rebuild the server with your options set.
There is a handshake at the start of communications where Android sends “>.” and the server responds “<.” to allow synchronization and any resetting to occur. Sending “>#x” runs a numbered command (where x is an integer) which could have arguments like “>#20~/todo.txt” for example, or, with no arguments, “>#20” if you just want to run the command.
If the server allows it, you can also just send an entire command line using “>>” as in: “>>vi ~/todo.txt” to start a vi session.
Backtalk
There are times when you want the server to send you some data, like audio mute status or the current CPU temperature. You can do that using only numbered commands, but you use “>?” instead of “>#” to send the data. The server will reply with “<!” followed by the first line of text that the command outputs.
To define the numbered commands, you create a
commands.txt
file that has a simple format. You can also set a maximum number, and anything over that just makes a call to the server that you can intercept and handle with your own custom C code. So, using the lower-numbered commands, you can do everything you want with bash, Python, or a separate C program, even. Using the higher numbers, you can add more efficient commands directly into the server, which, if you don’t mind writing in C, is more efficient than calling external programs.
If you don’t want to write programs, things like xdotool, wmctrl, and dbus-send (or qdbus) can do much of what you want a macropad to do. You can either plug them into the commands file or launch shell scripts. You’ll see more about that in the example code.
Now all that’s left is to create the App Inventor interface.
A Not So Simple Sample
One of the pages in the designer
App Inventor is made to create simple apps. This one turned out not to be so simple for a few reasons. The idea was that the macro pad should have a configuration dialog and any number of screens where you could put buttons, sliders, or anything else to interact with the server.
The first issue was definitely a quirk of using App Inventor. It allows you to have multiple screens, and your program can move from screen to screen. The problem is, when you change screens, everything changes. So if we used multiple screens, you’d have to have copies of the Bluetooth client, timers, and anything else that was “global,” like toolbar buttons and their code.
That didn’t seem like a good idea. Instead, I built a simple system with a single screen featuring a toolbar and an area for table layouts. Initially, all but one of the layouts are hidden. As you navigate through the screens, the layout that is active hides, and the new one appears.
Sounds good, but in practice there is a horrible problem. When the layouts become visible, they don’t always recalculate their sizes properly, and there’s no clean way to force a repeat of the layout. This led to quirks when moving between pages. For example, some buttons would have text that is off-center even though it looked fine in the editor.
Another problem is editing a specific page. There is a button in the designer to show hidden things. But when you have lots of hidden things, that’s not very useful. In practice, I just hide the default layout, unhide the one I want to work on, and then try to remember to put things back before I finish. If you forget, the code defensively hides everything but the active page on startup.
Just Browsing
I also included some web browser pages (so you can check Hackaday or listen to Soma FM while you work). When the browser became visible, it would decide to be 1 pixel wide and 1 pixel high, which was not very useful. It took a lot of playing with making things visible and invisible and then visible again to get that working. In some cases, a timer will change something like the font size just barely, then change it back to trigger a recalculation after everything is visible.
Speaking of the browser, I didn’t want to have to use multiple pages with web browser components on it, so the system allows you to specify the same “page” more than once in the list. The page can have more than one title, based on its position, and you can initialize it differently, also based on its position. That was fairly easy, compared to getting them to draw correctly.
Other Gotchas
You’d think 500 blocks was the biggest App Inventor program anyone would be dumb enough to write…
A few other problems cropped up, some of which aren’t the Inventor’s fault. For example, all phones are different, so your program gets resized differently, which makes it hard to work. I just told the interface I was building for a monitor and let the phone resize it. There’s no way to set a custom screen size that I could find.
The layout control is pretty crude, which makes sense. This is supposed to be a simple tool. There are no spacers or padding, for example, but small, fixed-size labels will do the job. There’s also no sane way to make an element span multiple cells in a layout, which leads to lots of deeply nested layouts.
The Bluetooth timeout in App Inventor seemed to act strangely, too. Sometimes it would time out even with ridiculously long timeout periods. I left it variable in the code, but if you change it to anything other than zero, good luck.
How’d It Work?
Over 900 blocks is really dumb!
This is probably the most complex thing you’d want to do with App Inventor. The block structure is huge, although, to be fair, a lot of it is just sending a command off when you press a button. The example pad has nearly 500 blocks. The personalized version I use on my own phone (see the video below) has just over 900 blocks!
Of course, the tool isn’t made for such a scale, so be prepared for some development hiccups. The debugging won’t work after a certain point. You just have to build an APK, load it, and hope for luck.
You can find the demo on
GitHub
. My version is customized to link to my computer, on my exact screen size, and uses lots of local scripts, so I didn’t include it, but you can see it working in the video below.
If you want to go back and look more at the server mechanics, that
was in the last post
. Of, if you’d rather repurpose an old phone for
a server
, we’ve seen that done, too. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177520",
"author": "J",
"timestamp": "2025-09-09T19:50:09",
"content": "Omg I made the same talk to text feature in android unreleased as of yet. It was hard as heck setting up through wireless but works amazing, cant wait to check out the differences in this code, amazing work! Th... | 1,760,371,430.980914 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/09/give-your-twist-connections-some-strength/ | Give Your Twist Connections Some Strength | Jenny List | [
"Parts"
] | [
"connector",
"twisted wire",
"wiring"
] | We’ve all done it at some time — made an electrical connection by twisting together the bare ends of some wires. It’s quick, and easy, but because of how little force required to part it, not terribly reliable. This is why electrical connectors from terminal blocks to crimp connectors and everything else in between exist, to make a more robust join.
But what if there was a way to make your twist connections stronger? [Ibanis Sorenzo] may have the answer, in the form of
an ingenious 3D printed clamp system to hold everything in place
. It’s claimed to result in a join stronger than the wire itself.
The operation is simple enough, a spring clamp encloses the join, and a threaded outer piece screws over it to clamp it all together. There’s a pair of 3D printable tools to aid assembly, and a range of different sizes to fit different wires. It looks well-thought-out and practical, so perhaps it could be a useful tool in your armoury. We can see in particular that for those moments when you don’t have the right connectors to hand, a quick 3D print could save the say.
A few years ago
we evaluated a set of different ways to make crimp connections
. It would be interesting to subject this connection to a similar test. Meanwhile you can see a comprehensive description in the video below the break.
Thanks [George Graves] for the tip. | 44 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177424",
"author": "Mamx",
"timestamp": "2025-09-09T15:40:57",
"content": "The most relevant article that should have been linked to this one:https://hackaday.com/2020/06/11/retrotechtacular-wire-splicing-the-army-way/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},... | 1,760,371,431.216045 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/09/freecad-foray-from-brick-to-shell/ | FreeCAD Foray: From Brick To Shell | Arya Voronova | [
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [
"3D modelling",
"freecad",
"howto"
] | Over a year ago,
we took a look at importing a
.step
file of a KiCad PCB into FreeCAD, then placing a sketch and extruding it. It was a small step, but I know it’s enough for most of you all, and that brings me joy. Today, we continue building a case for that PCB – the delay is because I stopped my USB-C work for a fair bit, and lost interest in the case accordingly, but I’m reviving it now.
Since then, FreeCAD has seen its v 1.0 release come to fruition, in particular getting a fair bit of work done to alleviate one of major problems for CAD packages, the “topological naming problem”; we will talk about it later on. The good news is, none of my tutorial appears to have been invalidated by version 1.0 changes. Another good news: since version 1.0, FreeCAD has definitely become a fair bit more stable, and that’s not even including some much-needed major features.
High time to pick the work back up, then! Let’s take a look at what’s in store for today: finishing the case in just a few more extrusions, explaining a few FreeCAD failure modes you might encounter, and giving some advice on how to make FreeCAD for you with minimum effort from your side.
As I explained in the last article, I do my FreeCAD work in the Part workbench, which is perfectly fine for this kind of model, and it doesn’t get in your way either. Today, the Part and Sketcher workbenches are all we will need to use, so you need not be overwhelmed by the dropdown with over a dozen entries – they’re there for a reason, but just two will suffice.
Last time, I drew a sketch and extruded it into a box. You’ll want your own starting layer to look different from that, of course, and so do I. In practice, I see two options here. Either you start by drawing some standoffs that the board rests on, or you start by offsetting your sketch then drawing a floor. The first option seems simpler to me, so let’s do that.
You can tie the mounting holes to external geometry from the STEP file, but personally, I prefer to work from measurements. I’d like to be easily able to substitute the board with a new version and not have to re-reference the base sketches, resulting in un-fun failure modes.
So, eyeballing the PCB, the first sketch will have a few blocks that the PCB will be resting on.
Let’s just draw these in the first sketch – four blocks, with two of them holding mounting holes. For the blocks with holes, if your printer nozzle size is the usual 0.4 mm, my understanding is that you’ll want to have your thinnest structure be around 1.2 mm. So, setting the hole diameter (refer to the toolbar, or just click D to summon the diameter tool), and for distances between points, you can use the general distance tool (K,D, click K then click D). Then, exit the sketch.
To The Floor And Beyond
Perfect – remember, the first sketch is already extruded, so when we re-drew the sketch, it all re-extruded anew, and we have the block we actually want. Now, remember the part about how to start a sketch? Single click on a surface so it gets highlighted green, press “New sketch”, and click “ok” on the box that asks if you want to do it the “Plane X-Y” way. That’s it, that’s your new sketch.
Now, we need to draw the box’s “floor”. That’s simple too – just draw a big rectangle. You’ll want to get some dimensions going, of course. Here, you can use the general distance constraint (K,D, click K then click D), or constrain even quicker by clicking I (vertical dimension) and L (horizontal dimension). Now, for the fun part – filleting! Simply put, you want to round the box corners for sure, nobody wants a box with jagged sharp holes.
You might have seen the Fillet tool in the Part workbench. Well, most of the time, it isn’t even needed, and frankly, you don’t want to use it if a simpler option exists. Instead, here, just use a sketch fillet – above in the toolbar; sadly, no keybind here. Then, click on corners you want rounded, exit the tool, then set their radius with diameter tool (D), as default radii are way too large at our scale. The sketch fillet tool basically just creates arcs for you – you can always draw the arcs yourself too, but it’s way easier this way.
You got yourself a rounded corners rectangle, which, naturally, means that you’ll be getting a cease and desist from multiple smartphone makers shortly. You might notice that the rectangle is offset, and really, you’d want it aligned. Fortunately, we placed our STEP-imported board approximately in the center of the screen, which makes the job very easy, you just need the rectangle centered. Draw two construction lines (G,N) from opposite corners of the sketch. Then, click on one of the lines, click on the sketch center point, and make them coincident (C). Do the same with the second line, and you’ll have the sketch center point on the intersection of the two lines, which will make the whole sketch centered.
Extrude that to 1 mm, or your favourite multiple of your layer height when slicing the print, and that’s the base of your case, the part that will be catching the floor. Honestly, for pin insulation purposes, this already is more than enough. Feel free to give it ears so that it can be mounted with screws onto a surface, or maybe cat ears so it can bring you joy. If you’re not intimidated by both the technical complexity and the depravity of it, you can even give it human ears, making your PCB case a fitting hacking desk accessory for a world where surveillance has become ubiquitous. In case you unironically want to do this, importing a 3D model should be sufficient.
Build Up This Wall!
Make a sketch at the top of the floor, on the side that you’ll want the walls to “grow out of”. For the walls, you’ll naturally want them to align with the sides of the floor. This is where you can easily use external geometry references. Use the “Create external geometry” tool (G, X) and click on all the 8 edges (4 lines and 4 arcs) of the floor. Now, simply draw over these external geometry with line and arc tool, making sure that your line start and end points snap to points of external geometry.
Make an inset copy of the edges, extrude the sketch, and you’re good to go. Now, did you happen to end up with walls that are eerily hollowed out? There’s two reasons for that. The first reason is, your extruded block got set to “solid: false” in its settings. Toggle that back, of course, but mistaken be not, it’s no accident, it happens when you extrude a sketch and some of the sketch lines endpoints are not as coincident as you intended them to be. Simply put, there are gaps in the sketch — the same kind of gaps you get if you don’t properly snap the Edge.Cuts lines in KiCad.
To fix that, you can go box-select the intersection points with your mouse, and click C for a coincident constraint. Sometimes the sketch will fail. To the best of my knowledge, it’s a weird bug in KiCad, and it tends to happen specifically where external geometry to other solids is involved. Oh well, you can generally make it work by approaching it a few times. If everything fails, you can set distance (K,D) to 0, and if that fails, set vertical distance (I) and then horizontal distance (L) to zero, that should be more than good enough.
And with that, the wall is done. But it still needs USB-C socket holes. Cutting holes in FreeCAD is quite easy, even for a newcomer. You make a solid block that goes “into” your model exactly in the way you want the cut to be made. Then, in Part workbench, click the base model that you want cut in the tree view, click the solid block model, and use the “Cut” tool. Important note – when using the “Cut” tool, you have to first click on the base object, and then the tool. If you do it in reverse, you cut out the pieces you actually want to save, which is vaguely equivalent to peeling potatoes and then trashing the potatoes instead of the peels.
Want a souvenir? In Part toolbox, click Chamfer, click on the USB-C opening edges, set chamfer distance to something lower than your wall thickness, say, 0.6 mm (important!), and press Ok. Now your case has USB-C openings with chamfers that as if direct the plug into the receptacle – it’s the nicer and more professional way to do USB-C openings, after all.
Stepping Up
Once you get past “Hello World”, and want to speed your FreeCAD work tremendously, you will want to learn the keybinds. Once again, the key to designing quickly and comfortably is having one hand on keyboard and another hand on mouse, doesn’t matter if you’re doing PCBs or 3D models. And the keybinds are very mnemonic: “d” is dimension, “c” is coincident.
Another tip is saving your project often. Yet another one is keeping your FreeCAD models in Git, and even publishing them on GitHub/GitLab – sure, they’re binary files, but revision control is worth it even if you can’t easily diff the files. We could always use more public 3D models with FreeCAD sources. People not publishing their source files has long been a silent killer of ideas in the world of 3D printing, as opposed to whatever theories about patents might be floating around the web. If you want something designed to your needs, the quickest thing tends to be taking someone else’s project and modifying it, which is why we need for sharing culture so that we can all finally stop reinventing all the wheels our projects may require.
This is more than enough to ready you up for basic designs, if you ask me. Go get that case done, throw it on GitHub, and revel in knowing your board is that much less likely to accidentally short-circuit. It’s a very nice addition for a board intended to handle 100 W worth of power, and now it can also serve as a design example for your own needs. Next time, let’s talk about a number of good practices worth attending to if you want your FreeCAD models to last. | 18 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177400",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-09T14:29:59",
"content": "if i understand correctly, the topological naming problem is why i prefer csg",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8177436",
"author": "Grunthos"... | 1,760,371,431.043744 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/09/further-adventures-in-colorimeter-hacking/ | Further Adventures In Colorimeter Hacking | Aaron Beckendorf | [
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"bus pirate",
"colorimeter",
"jtag",
"Pantone",
"reverse engineering",
"Spectrophotometer",
"wireshark"
] | One of the great things about sharing hacks is that sometimes one person’s work inspires someone else to take it even further. A case in point is [Ivor]’s
colorimeter hacking
(parts
two
and
three
), which started with some relatively simple request spoofing to install non-stock firmware, and expanded from there until he had complete control over the hardware.
After reading
[Adam Zeloof]’s work
on replacing the firmware on a cosmetics spectrophotometer with general-purpose firmware, [Ivor] bought two of these colorimeters, one as a backup. He started with [Adam]’s method for updating the firmware by altering the request sent to an update server, but was only able to find the serial number from a quality-control unit. This installed the quality-control firmware, which encountered an error on the device. More searching led [Ivor] to another serial number, which gave him the base firmware, and let him dump and compare the cosmetic, quality-control, and base firmwares.
After analyzing traffic between the host computer and the colorimeter during an update, he wrote a Python program to upload firmware without using the official companion app. Since the first data sent over is a loading screen, this let him display custom images, such as the
D
OOM
title page.
During firmware upload, the colorimeter switches into a bootloader, the menu of which has some interesting options, such as viewing and editing the NAND. Opening the device revealed a flash chip, an AT91SAM ARM9 chip, and some test pads. After carefully soldering to the test pads, he was able to dump the bootloader, and with some difficulty, the NAND contents. Changing the chip ID and serial number in the NAND let the quality-control firmware work on the cosmetic model; interestingly, only the first digit of the serial number needed to be valid.
Of course, the actual journey wasn’t quite this straightforward, and the device seemed to be bricked several times, one of which required the installation of a jumper to force it into a recovery mode. In the end, though, [Ivor] was able to download and upload content to NAND, alter the bootloader, alter the serial number, and enter boot recovery; in short, to have total control over the device’s software. Thoughtfully, he’s used his findings to write a
Python utility library
to interact with and edit the colorimeter’s software over USB.
If this makes you interested in seeing more examples of reverse-engineering, we’ve covered some impressive work on
a mini console
and
an audio interface
. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,371,431.088144 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/09/turning-a-2-ikea-lantern-into-a-stylish-enclosure/ | Turning A $2 IKEA Lantern Into A Stylish Enclosure | Fenix Guthrie | [
"Parts"
] | [
"custom enclosure",
"enclosure"
] | It’s fair to say that the average Hackaday reader enjoys putting together custom electronics. Some of those builds will be spaghetti on a breadboard, but at some point you’ll probably have a project that needs a permanent case. If you’re looking for a small case for your latest creation, check out [Julius Curt’s]
modification of an IKEA Vårsyren lantern into a customizable enclosure!
Like most things IKEA, the Vårsyren lantern is flat pack — but rather than coming as a collection of wooden components, the lantern is made of sheet metal. It’s hexagonal in shape with a pair of three sided panels, so [Curt] simply snaps one of them off to make three sides of the final case. The other three sides are 3D printed with the STEP files provided so the case can be made to fit anything around 60x60x114 mm in size.
If flat pack hacking is up your alley,
make sure to check out this IKEA 3D printer enclosure next!
Thanks [Clint] for the tip! | 35 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177301",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-09T08:23:34",
"content": "Is a hack. Nice.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8177302",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2025-09-09T08:26:06",
"content"... | 1,760,371,430.926098 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/08/modos-is-open-hardware-easy-on-the-eyes/ | Modos Is Open Hardware, Easy On The Eyes | Tyler August | [
"FPGA",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"e-paper display",
"eink",
"open source hardware"
] | Since e-ink first hit the market a couple decades back, there’s always murmurs of “that’d be great as a second monitor”— but very, very few monitors have ever been made. When the commecial world is delivering very few options, it leaves room for open source hardware projects, like the
Modos Glider and Paper Monitor, projects now seeking funding on Crowd Supply.
As far as PC monitors go, the Modos isn’t going to win many awards on specs alone. The screen is only 13.3″ across, and its resolution maxes out at 1600 x 1200. The refresh rate would be totally unremarkable for a budget LCD, at 75 Hz. This Paper Monitor isn’t an LCD, budget or otherwise, and for e-ink, 75 Hz is a blazing fast refresh rate.
Before you declare noone could get productive work done on such a tiny screen, stop and think that that screen is larger, and refreshing faster, than
everyone’s favourite Macintosh
. It can even run up to 8x the colour depth, and people
got plenty done
back in the day with just black-and-white.
Some people still do.
Now that we’ve defended the idea, let’s get to the good part: it’s not just a monitor being crowdsourced. The driver board, called Glider, is fully open with code and design files on the
Modos Labs GitHub repository
. We sometimes
complain about what counts as open hardware
, but these guys are the true quill. Glider is using an FPGA with a custom clever configuration to get screens refreshing at that impressive 75 Hz. With the appropriate panel (there’s a list on Git– you’ll need an E Ink branded display, but you aren’t limited to the 13.3″ panel) the board can drive every pixel independently, forcing updates only on those pixels that need them. That’s an impressive trick and we’re not surprised it needed an FPGA to pull off. (It uses a Xilinx Spartan 6, for the record, running a config called Casper)
Because everything is open source, you can do things like you see in the API demo video (embedded below), where every panel in what looks like a tiled display manager is running a different picture mode. (There are more demo videos at the CrowdSupply page). We’re not sure how often that would come up in actual use– that functionality is not yet exposed to a window manager, for example, though it may yet be. Perhaps more interesting is the ability to customize specific refresh modes oneself, rather than relying on someone else’s idea of what a “browsing” or “gaming” mode should be.
For anyone interested, there’s still time to get in on the ground floor:
the campaign on CrowdSupply
ends September 18, 2025 at 04:59 PM PDT, and has levels to nab yourself a dev kit. It’s 599 USD for the 13″ and 199 USD for a 6″ version. (It’s the same board, just different displays.) For anyone not interested, there is no deadline for not buying things, and it usually costs nothing.
Thanks to [moneppo] for the tip! | 26 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177232",
"author": "Mamx",
"timestamp": "2025-09-09T06:34:42",
"content": "I wonder about the power consumption at this refresh rate…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8177395",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,371,431.273775 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/08/retrotechtacular-the-noisy-home-computer-from-1967/ | Retrotechtacular: The Noisy Home Computer From 1967 | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Retrotechtacular"
] | [
"asr-33",
"Retrotechtacluar",
"teletype"
] | [Rex Malik] didn’t need an alarm clock. That’s because he had one of two “
home computer terminals
” next to his bed and, as you can see in the video below, it made quite a racket. The terminal looks like an ASR33 with some modifications. In 1967, it was quite a novelty and, of course, it didn’t have any real processing power. It connected to an “invisible brain” ten miles away.
What do you do with a computer in 1967? Well, it looks like you could trade stocks. It also apparently managed his shopping list and calendar. His young son also learned some letters and numbers. We’d love to hear from the young [Mr. Malik] today to find out what kind of computer he’s using now.
The BBC announcer made some fair predictions. One day, they supposed, every home would have a computer “point” to plug in a rented terminal. They were saying the rent was, at that time, £30 a week. That was relatively steep in those days. Especially considering it couldn’t play Doom or download cat memes.
We couldn’t help but notice that [Malik’s] bedroom had a single bed. With the TeleType going off at all hours, we aren’t really surprised. While it might not be able to download cat memes, the old TeleTypes could download a
text-based web page
. Well, once there was a web, anyway. This beats
the kitchen computer
, although we have to admit that at least the kitchen device was really a computer in your home. | 22 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177142",
"author": "DJ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-09T02:16:17",
"content": "There’s no tape reader/punch, so it’s a modified KSR33.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8177362",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,371,431.388481 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/08/how-to-use-the-at24c32-eeprom-for-4kb-external-memory-for-microcontrollers/ | How To Use The AT24C32 EEPROM For 4KB External Memory For Microcontrollers | John Elliot V | [
"hardware",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"AT24C32",
"eeprom",
"i2c"
] | Over on YouTube [Electronic Wizard]
explains how to use the AT24C32 EEPROM for external memory for microcontrollers
.
He begins by explaining that you don’t want to try modifying your microcontroller flash memory for storing settings, you want to use a separate EEPROM for that. Sometimes your microcontroller will have EEPROM memory attached, but you might still find yourself needing to attach more. The AT24C32 EEPROM is a 4KB non-volatile memory chip. It’s available in various 8-pin packages and two voltage levels, either 2.7 to 5.5 volts or 1.8 to 5.5 volts, and it’s programmed using the I2C protocol.
The AT24C32 has three address pins, A{0,1,2}, a Serial Data pin (SDA), a Serial Clock Input (SCL), and a Write Protect pin. He explains how to use the address pins to set the device I2C address and goes into some detail about how the I2C protocol works. Microcontrollers usually have an API for talking to I2C devices, for STM32 controllers that is functions such as
HAL_I2C_Master_Transmit()
. He refers the viewer to the
datasheet
for how to accomplish various write and read operations over I2C. The AT24C32 uses 16 bits for addresses of which only 12 are relevant (13 bits are relevant for the 8KB version of the EEPROM the AT24C64).
If you’re interested in EEPROMs you might also like to read
Erasing EEPROMs Isn’t Always As Easy As It Seems
and
How Do You Test If An EEPROM Can Hold Data For 100 Years? | 27 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177090",
"author": "RisingDisgust",
"timestamp": "2025-09-08T23:09:37",
"content": "Meh, “AI-gen image gets it wrong – more at 11!”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8177251",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
"times... | 1,760,371,431.334414 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/08/the-incrediplotter-voice-controlled-plotter-from-repurposed-printer/ | The Incrediplotter: Voice Controlled Plotter From Repurposed Printer | Matt Varian | [
"hardware"
] | [
"blue pill",
"CNC machine",
"klipper",
"pen plotter",
"plotter"
] | There’s something uniquely satisfying about a pen plotter. Though less speedy or precise than a modern printer, watching a pen glide across the page, mimicking human drawing, is mesmerizing. This project, submitted by [Jacob C], showcases the
Incrediplotter
, a brilliant repurposing of a 3D printer built by him and his brother.
Starting with a broken 3D printer, [Jacob C] and his brother repurposed its parts to create a voice-controlled pen plotter. They 3D-printed custom components to adapt the printer’s framework for plotting. An STM32 Blue Pill running Klipper controls two TMC2208 motor drivers for the x- and y-axes, while a small standalone servo manages the pen’s height.
The unique twist lies in the software: you can speak to the plotter, and it generates a drawing based on your prompt without needing to select an image. The process involves sending the user’s voice prompt to Google Gemini, which generates an image. The software then converts this image into an SVG compatible with the plotter. Finally, the SVG is translated into G-Code and sent to the plotter to start drawing.
Thanks to [Jacob C] for sharing this impressive project. It’s a fantastic example of repurposing a broken machine, and the voice-to-image feature adds a creative twist, enabling anyone to create unique artwork. Be sure to check out our other featured
plotter hacks
for more inspiration. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177345",
"author": "L.P.P",
"timestamp": "2025-09-09T10:57:30",
"content": "I asked it to draw me a sheep, but it only drew me sick and old ones, and also a ram for some reason, but not a single one I would be satisfied with.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": ... | 1,760,371,431.712138 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/08/a-love-letter-to-internet-relay-chat/ | A Love Letter To Internet Relay Chat | Maya Posch | [
"internet hacks"
] | [
"internet relay chat",
"irc"
] | Although kids these days tend to hang out on so-called “Social Media”, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was first, by decades. IRC is a real-time communication technology that allows people to socialize online in both chat rooms and private chat sessions. In a recent video [The Serial Port] channel
dedicates a video to IRC
and why all of this makes it into such a great piece of technology, not to mention a great part of recent history. As a decentralized communication protocol, anyone can set up an IRC server and connect multiple servers into networks, with the source code for these servers readily available ever since its inception by a student, and IRC clients are
correspondingly very easy to write
.
Because of the straightforward protocol, IRC will happily work on even a Commodore 64, while also enabling all kinds of special services (‘bots’) to be implemented. Even better, the very personal nature of individual IRC networks and channels on them provides an environment where people can be anonymous and yet know each other, somewhat like hanging out at a local hackerspace or pub, depending on the channel. In these channels, people can share information, help each other with technical questions, or just goof off.
In this time of Discord, WhatsApp, and other Big Corp-regulated proprietary real-time communication services, it’s nice to pop back on IRC and to be reminded, as it’s put in the video, of a time when the Internet was a place to escape to, not escape from. Although IRC isn’t as popular as it was around 2000, it’s still alive and kicking. We think it will
be around until the end days
. | 60 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "8176980",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-08T18:37:35",
"content": "obligatory pointing out that anonymous and pseudonymous are not the same thing :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8176984",
"author": "LookA... | 1,760,371,431.803175 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/08/ore-formation-processes-part-two-hydrothermal-boogaloo/ | Ore Formation Processes, Part Two: Hydrothermal Boogaloo | Tyler August | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"Earth science",
"minerals",
"ore"
] | There’s a saying in mine country, the kind that sometimes shows up on bumper stickers: “If it can’t be grown, it has to be mined.” Before mining can ever start, though, there has to be ore in the ground. In the last edition of this series, we learned what counts as ore (anything that can be economically mined) and talked about the ways magma can form ore bodies. The so-called magmatic processes are responsible for only a minority of the mines working today. Much more important, from an economic point of view, are the so-called “hydrothermal” processes.
Come back in a few million years, and Yellowstone will be a great mining province.
Image: “
Gyser Yellowstone
” by
amanderson2
,
CC BY 2.0
When you hear the word “hydrothermal” you probably think of hot water; in the context of geology, that might conjure images of Yellowstone and regions like it : Old Faithful geysers and steaming hot springs. Those hot springs might have a role to play in certain processes, but most of the time when a geologist talks about a “hydrothermal fluid” it’s a lot hotter than that.
Is there a point on the phase diagram that we stop calling it water? We’re edging into supercritical fluid territory, here. The fluids in question can be hundreds of degrees centigrade, and can carry things like silica (SiO2) and a metal more famous for not dissolving: gold. Perhaps that’s why we prefer to talk about a “fluid” instead of “water”. It certainly would not behave like water on surface; on the surface it would be superheated steam. Pressure is a wonderful thing.
Let’s return to
where we left off last time, into a magma chamber deep underground
. Magma isn’t just molten rock– it also contains small amounts of dissolved gasses, like CO2 and H2O. If magma cools quickly, the water gets trapped inside the matrix of the new rock, or even inside the crystal structure of certain minerals. If it cools slowly, however? You can get a hydrothermal fluid within the magma chamber.
Peg It as a Pegmatite
This can create what’s called a pegmatite deposit. Strictly speaking, “pegmatite” refers to rock with a specific texture; when we’re talking about ore, we’re almost always referring to granitic pegmatites: that is, granite rocks with this texture. That texture is big crystals: centimeter size or bigger. Crystals grow large in a pegmatite deposits in part because of the slow cooling, but in part because of the action of the hydrothermal fluid that is squeezed out of the slowly-cooling rock.
When you’re using your hammer for scale next to the crystals, you know it’s a pegmatite. This example is from Radium Creek, Arkaroola, South Australia. Image:
Geomartin, CC-BY-SA 4.0
Again, we’re talking about a fluid that’s hundreds of degrees Celsius: seriously supercritical stuff. It can carry a lot of ions. Circulating through the magma chamber, this ion-rich fluid brings each crystal all the metal ions it needs to grow to its full potential. Maybe that’s a garnet the size of your fist, or feldspar crystals like pink playing cards. The ions in the fluid can be leftovers from the earlier melt, but may also include material scoured from surrounding rocks.
Aside from the spectacular granite counter tops and semiprecious gems that sometimes come out of these deposits, granitic pegmatites come in two types: lithium-rich and rare-earth element rich. The lithium rich pegmatites are often called LCT deposits, the letters standing for Lithium, Cesium and Tantalum, the metals of interest. Those–especially the first and last–are not exactly metals of low consequence in this electronic era. That goes double for the rare-earth elements. Especially in North America, there’s a great deal of active prospecting searching for these increasingly valuable deposits.
Mica capacitors. You can’t make these guys without mica, and granitic pegmatites are a good source.
Image: Mataresephotos, CC-BY-3.0
Mines have been sunk to extract boron, fluorine, tin, and uranium from pegmatite deposits as well. Of particular note to Hackaday readers would be the mineral Muscovite, a course-grained mica often found in pegmatites, among other locales. Muscovite mica has excellent dielectric properties and fractures easily into thin sheets, making it very useful in capacitors and high voltage applications. The high thermal stability and voltage tolerance of mica capacitors makes them invaluable even today in niche applications, even though ceramics have taken over most of their original uses.
One thing to note about these deposits is that they are not necessarily going to be restricted to Earth. Don’t let the “hydro” in “hydrothermal” fool you– this process is occurring deep underground, in a magma chamber with no access to any surface water. The H2O involved is coming up from the mantle, and the mantle of every rocky body does contain trace water. That even holds true for the Earth’s moon; while older sources will declare that no hydrothermal processes are possible there, newer work has led to a reevaluation of how “wet” lunar rock really is, and re-opened the possibility of lunar pegmatites. Given that, there’s no reason not to expect the process to be at work on every rocky body in the solar system. Look for granitic rock, and you might find an interesting pegmatite.
Orogenic Ores
If the hydrothermal fluid stays put in a magma chamber, it can create pegmatite deposits, but if it breaks free, you’ll find something completely different. Running through faults, fissures, and cracks in the surrounding rock, the somewhat-lower-temperature fluid will have a different mineral content depending both on the melt and the host rock. These hydrothermal vein deposits are sometimes called orogenic ore deposits, because they are often associated with mountain building, which geologists call orogeny.
The white quartz vein follows the fissures in the rock hydrothermal fluid once flowed through. “
Main Vein (hydrothermal quartz-gold vein), subsurface exposure in Nalunaq Gold Mine, southern Greenland
” by
James St. John
,
CC BY 2.0
That doesn’t mean you need to look near mountains: the gold fields of Kirkland Lake, mentioned last time, are actually an orogenic deposit, and Kirkland Lake sits near the middle of the Canadian Shield, as far from any (modern) mountains as you are likely to find. There may have been mountains there, once, but they were eroded away by the time the Dinosaurs walked the Earth. What you will find there are shocking white veins of quartz shooting through the granite of the Canadian Shield– evidence of the hydrothermal fluid’s ability to carry dissolved silica through fissures of the rock– interspersed with flecks and pebbles of gold. Most gold started in hydrothermal deposits like this one, but in an ironic twist, most of the gold humans have mined is actually from a different type of deposit we’ll get to later. For now we’ll say there are secondary processes at work on this planet and leave it at that.
Native Silver, from a mine that closed in 1887. Image: “
Native silver in hydrothermal vein rock (Proterozoic; Silver Islet Mine, Lake Superior, Ontario, Canada) 1
” by
James St. John
,
CC BY 2.0
Gold isn’t the only thing to be found in these hydrothermal veins: native silver and copper mines have also been found chasing quartz veins. Cobalt, Molybdenum, even Tin and Tungsten may be found, though not necessarily in native form. To a geologist, note that the word “native” has nothing to do with tribal affiliation, and everything to do with elemental composition. “Native” metals are just that: metals. Native copper is a lump of Cu, not chemically bound into any mineral.
As you might imagine, native metals are among the most desirable of ores, as they often require very little by way of refining. For that reason, until perhaps Greenland or Antarctica’s melting glaciers expose new lands to prospecting, you’re not likely to ever see a new mine producing native copper.
The redox conditions of the fluid are hugely important here: as you might imagine, native metals aren’t going to precipitate from an oxidizing fluid. Redox reactions are hard enough in chemistry class, though; bring them into the world of geochemistry and it gets hugely complicated. Nature is a messy system with too many variables to easily predict.
That’s something many a prospector has found out to his chagrin, for not every vein of quartz will bear metals. On the other hand, enough quartz veins do that “look for veins of quartz” was common advice for prospectors once upon a time. Not all metal-bearing veins may not be entirely quartz, either; many contain quite a lot of carbonate minerals like calcite. The hydrothermal fluid may start out with different amounts of metals dissolved within it, depending on the source magma; it may also scour more or different minerals from the host rocks it flows through. Veins may go on for miles of nothing but quartz before something in composition of the rock, or its temperature, or the pH causes the fluid to start depositing valuable minerals. Geology can be a crapshoot like that.
Of Course It’s More Complex
The above description is somewhat misleading as it makes it sound like vein deposits can only be produced from hydrothermal fluid coming from magma, but that is untrue. It is also possible that surface water (called “meteoric” water by geologists who want to confuse you into thinking about space rocks) can trickle down through fractured rocks until it
Meteoric water has nothing to do with this.
Image:
Navicore
, CC-BY-3.0
reaches a hot-zone and picks up elements by dissolving minerals. A mix of meteoric and “crustal” water (that is, water from magma) may be present in a balance that changes over time. It should also be noted that this water can form a convective circuit, down to the hot zone (or melt) to pick up new minerals, then circulate upwards to deposit them in colder rock. Because this circulating fluid is cooler than in the case of fluids coming directly from a melt (“only” three or four hundred degrees Celsius) , they are sometimes called “epithermal” fluids, and the resulting veiny deposits can be called “epithermal” deposits. Those temperatures are not too far off from what you might find in geyser country. While I’m not suggesting anyone go digging under Old Faithful right now, it might be an interesting locality in a few million years or so.
Epithermal/orogenic/quartz vein deposits don’t need meteoric water– crustal water can be enough–but I have seen no references suggesting they might be found on the Moon. Mars, on the other hand, seems to have every condition required, so there may well be gold in them thar’ Arean hills. Meteorites believed to have come from Vesta show evidence of quartz veinlets as well, so don’t count out larger planetoids when talking about hydrothermal processes either.
There are other high-temperature hydrothermal deposits other than granitic pegmatites we haven’t yet gotten into; there are also several lower-temperature types that are likely to be exclusive to Earth. This entry in our series is getting long enough, however, so we will return to the theme of hydrothermal ore deposits another day. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8177308",
"author": "Stephen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-09T08:43:15",
"content": "All very interesting, and I knew almost nothing of this. Thank you!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8177644",
"author": "Mark Jerue",
"timest... | 1,760,371,431.436767 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/08/making-an-ultralight-helicopter/ | Making An Ultralight Helicopter | Fenix Guthrie | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"aircraft",
"helicopter",
"ultralight"
] | Ultralight aviation provides an excellent pathway for those who want to fly, but don’t want to get licensed. These quite often cheap and cheerful DIY aircraft often hide some excellent engineering underneath. This is no more true than in [ultralight helicopter’s]
four-year-long helicopter build saga!
While most ultralight builds are fixed-wing, a rotocraft can meet all the legal definitions of ultralight aviation. This helicopter is an excellent example of what’s possible with a lot of time and patience. The construction is largely aluminium with some stainless steel on the skids. A 64-horsepower Rotax 582UL engine powers the two-bladed main rotor and tail rotor. The
drivetrain
features a multi-belt engine coupler and three gearboxes to ensure correct power output to the two rotors.
It features a control layout familiar to any helicopter pilot with foot pedals that control the tail rotor pitch for anti-torque control. A cyclic in front of the pilot controls the rotor’s cyclical movements, resulting in forward and sideways flight control. A collective with integrated throttle controls the overall main rotor pitch for altitude and climb control. Finally, a simple clutch sits next to the collective for engine start and idles.
The build was meticulous, with nearly everything from the swashplate to the gearboxes custom-machined. The balance and alignment of everything, from the rotor blades to the input trim, had to be checked. The build is a masterpiece of home workshop engineering.
We’ve seen ultralights before, so make sure to check out this
electric fixed-wing ultralight next!
Or, if you want really light,
try foam
. | 38 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8176931",
"author": "Harvie.CZ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-08T16:39:23",
"content": "That Redbull sticker reduces safety by factor of 10.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8177297",
"author": "Johnu",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,371,431.621876 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/08/gps-and-its-little-modules/ | GPS And Its Little Modules | Arya Voronova | [
"Featured",
"gps hacks",
"how-to",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [
"gps",
"howto",
"module"
] | Ever want to find your device on the map? Think we all do sometimes. The technology you’ll generally use for that is called Global Positioning System (GPS) – listening to a flock of satellites flying in the orbit, and comparing their chirps to triangulate your position.
The GPS system, built by the United States, was the first to achieve this kind of feat. Since then, new flocks have appeared in the orbit, like the Galileo system from the European Union, GLONASS from Russia, and BeiDou from China. People refer to the concept of global positioning systems and any generic implementation as
Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS
), but I’ll call it GPS for the purposes of this article, and most if not all advice here will apply no matter which one you end up relying on. After all, modern GPS modules overwhelmingly support most if not all of these systems!
We’ve had our writers like [Lewin Day]
talk in-depth about GPS
on our pages before, and we’ve featured a fair few projects showing and shining light on the technology. I’d like to put my own spin on it, and give you a very hands-on introduction to the main way your projects interface with GPS.
Little Metal Box Of Marvels
Most of the time when you want to add GPS into your project, you’ll be working with a GPS module. Frankly, they’re little boxes of well-shielded magic and wonder, and we’re lucky to have them work for us as well as they do. They’re not perfect, but all things considered, they’re generally pretty easy to work with.
GPS modules overwhelmingly use UART connections, with very few exceptions. There have been alternatives – for instance, you’ll find a good few modern GPS modules claim I2C support. In my experience, support for those is inferior, but Adafruit among others has sure
made strides in making I2C GPS modules work
, in case your only available interface is an I2C bus. The UART modus operandi is simple – the module continuously sends you strings of data, you receive these strings, parse them. In some cases, you might have to send configuration commands to your GPS module, but it’s generally not required.
Getting coordinates out of a GPS module is pretty simple in theory – listen for messages, parse them, and you will start getting your coordinates as soon as the module collects enough data to determine them. The GPS message format is
colloquially known as NMEA
, and it’s human readable enough that problems tend to be easy to debug. Here’s a few example NMEA messages
from Wikipedia
, exactly as you’d get them from UART:
$GPGGA,092750.000,5321.6802,N,00630.3372,W,1,8,1.03,61.7,M,55.2,M,,*76
$GPGSA,A,3,10,07,05,02,29,04,08,13,,,,,1.72,1.03,1.38*0A
$GPGSV,3,1,11,10,63,137,17,07,61,098,15,05,59,290,20,08,54,157,30*70
$GPGSV,3,2,11,02,39,223,19,13,28,070,17,26,23,252,,04,14,186,14*79
$GPGSV,3,3,11,29,09,301,24,16,09,020,,36,,,*76
And the great part is, you don’t even need to write comma-separated message parsers, of course, there are plenty of libraries to parse GPS messages for you, and a healthy amount of general software support on platforms from Linux to microcontroller SDKs. GPS modules are blindingly simple as far as interfacing goes, really. Feed your module 3.3 V or whatever else it wants, and it’ll start giving you location data, at least, eventually. And, a GPS module’s usefulness doesn’t even end here!
Bring Your Own Battery
Even if your GPS board is super small, including a battery is always worthwhile. Picture
from Adafruit
Have you ever seen a battery input pin on the module you’re using, or maybe even a battery socket? That’s for preserving the GPS satellite data and clock state while the module is not powered – making it that much faster to get your position after device bootup. This is known as “hot fix”, as opposed to a “cold fix”, when the module wakes up without any awareness which satellites it should be looking out for. Essentially, a backup battery cuts initial position lock time from minutes down to seconds, and it’s a must have for a battery-powered project.
Apart from getting the location fix way faster, a backup battery helps in more than one way. Because a GPS module’s inner workings depend so much on having a precise time source, you also get a rudimentary battery-backed RTC module, and with automatic time-setting directly from satellites, too! All in all, I do heavily recommend you make sure you wire up a backup battery to your GPS. Another nice thing GPS modules can provide you with is PPS – Pulse Per Second, an extremely precise 1Hz signal. There’s a number of specific things you can do with that, for instance,
a pretty precise clock
, but if you want more inspiration, our recent
One Hertz Challenge
has a large number of novel ideas that might just be a good fit for the PPS signal.
Let’s look at the “cold fix” scenario. No battery, or perhaps, powering up your module for the first time? GPS satellite signals have to be distinguished from deep down below the noise floor, which is no small feat on its own, and finding the satellites takes time in even favorable circumstances. If you can’t quite get your module to locate itself, leaving your house might just do the trick – or, at least, putting your board onto the windowsill. After you’ve done that, however, as long as you’ve got a backup battery going on, acquiring a fix will get faster. While the battery is present, your module will know and keep track of the time, and, importantly, which satellites to try and latch onto first.
The Bare Necessities
If you want to be able to wire up a GPS modem into your board anytime, you only really need to provide 4 pins on a pin header: 3.3 V, GND, and two UART pins. Frankly, most of the time, you’ll only need RX for receiving the GPS data, no configuration commands required, which means most of the time you can skimp on the TX pin. This is thanks to the fact that GPS as a technology is receive-only, no matter what your grandmother’s news sources might suggest. Apart from that, you might have to provide an antenna – most modems come with one integrated, but sometimes you’ll need to fetch one.
If the onboard passive antenna doesn’t help, the uFL is right there, waiting for your active antenna. Picture from Adafruit
GPS antennas are split into passive and active antennas – if you’ve seen a GPS module, you’ve likely seen active antennas, and they’re generally considered to be superiour. An active antenna is an antenna that includes an on-antenna amplifier chip, which helps filter out induced noise. In an average hacker project, an active antenna tends to be more workable, unless you’re making something that is meant to be in view of the sky at all times, for instance, a weather balloon. For such purposes, a passive antenna will work pretty well, and it will consume less power, too. Want to learn more? I’ve previously covered
a blog post
about modifying the internals of an active antenna, and it’s a decent case study.
If you’re putting a GPS module instead of using a standalone module, you won’t need to bring a power cable to the antenna, as power is injected into the same coaxial cable. However, you might need to add an extra inductor and a cap-two to support powering the antenna – watch out for that in the datasheet. Plus, treat antenna tracks with respect, and make sure to draw the antenna track with proper impedance. Also, remember to provide decoupling, and if you’re able at all, an RTC battery socket too – a CR1220 socket will work wonders, and the cells are cheap!
Increasingly Interconnected World
Recently, you’ll be getting more and more tech that comes with GPS included by default – it’s cheap, reasonably easy to add, very nice to have, and did I mention cheap? There’s also been a trend for embedding modules into 3G/4G/5G modem modules – most of them support things like active antennas, so, just wire up an antenna and you’ll know your coordinates in no time, perfect for building a tiny GSM-connected tracker for your valuables.
Want to learn more about GPS? It’s a marvellous kind of tech, and recently, we’ve been covering a fair few wonderful explainers and deep-dives, so check them out if you want to learn more about what makes GPS tick. Until then, you have everything you could want to slap GPS onto your board. | 17 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8176894",
"author": "Hugo Oran",
"timestamp": "2025-09-08T15:34:45",
"content": "And the next [hack / challenge] can be – how to resolve [Fog of war]",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8177319",
"author": "Aknup",
... | 1,760,371,431.677236 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/08/the-sixteen-year-odyssey-to-finally-emulate-the-pioneer-laseractive-console/ | The Sixteen-Year Odyssey To Finally Emulate The Pioneer LaserActive Console | Maya Posch | [
"Games",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"laserdisc",
"Pioneer"
] | The 1993 Pioneer LaserActive certainly ranks high on the list of obscure video games. It was an odd duck; it used both a LaserDisc for data storage and provided compatibility with a range of existing video game consoles. Due to the rarity and complexity of this system, emulating it has proven to be a challenge. The
Ares emulator version 146
is the first to officially add support for the LaserActive. You’d expect getting to that point to be a wild journey. It was, and [Read Only Memo] documented the author’s ([Nemesis])
quest to emulate the odd little machine
.
The
LaserActive
had a brief lifespan, being discontinued in 1996 after about 10,000 units sold. Its gimmick was that in addition to playing regular LaserDiscs and CDs, it could also use expansion modules (called PACs) to support games for other consoles, including the Sega Genesis and the NEC TurboGrafx-16. You could also get PACs for karaoke or to connect to a computer.
By itself, that doesn’t seem too complex, but its LaserDisc-ROM (LD-ROM) format was tough. The Mega LD variation also presented a challenge. The LD-ROMs stored entire games (up to 540 MB) that were unique to the LaserActive. Finding a way to reliably dump the data stored on these LD-ROMs was a major issue. Not to mention figuring out how the PAC communicates with the rest of the LaserActive system. Then there’s the unique port of
Myst
to the LaserActive, which isn’t a digital game so much as an interactive analog video experience, which made capturing it a complete nightmare.
With that complete, another part of gaming history has finally been preserved and kept playable. Sure, we have plenty of
Game Boy emulators
. Even
tiny computers now are powerful enough to do a good job emulating
the systems of yesterday. | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8176780",
"author": "baltar",
"timestamp": "2025-09-08T11:15:05",
"content": "Add DVD and NES/SNES/GB/GBA support and you’ve got a hit console for early 1990s. You can play Mario, Chip n’ Dale, Tank 1990, Chrono Trigger, Pokemon, Golden Sun and whatever else you like. If there’s DVD... | 1,760,371,431.854515 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/08/building-a-rotary-evaporator-for-the-home-lab/ | Building A Rotary Evaporator For The Home Lab | Aaron Beckendorf | [
"chemistry hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"Chemistry",
"condenser",
"distillation",
"evaporation",
"rotary",
"rotary evaporator"
] | The rotary evaporator (rotovap) rarely appears outside of well-provisioned chemistry labs. That means that despite being a fundamentally simple device, their cost generally puts them out of reach for amateur chemists. Nevertheless, they make it much more convenient to remove a solvent from a solution, so [Markus Bindhammer]
designed and built his own
.
Rotary evaporators have two flasks, one containing the solution to be evaporated, and one that collects the condensed solvent vapors. A rotary joint holds the evaporating flask partially immersed in a heated oil bath and connects the flask’s neck to a fixed vapor duct. Solvent vapors leave the first flask, travel through the duct, condense in a condenser, and collect in the second flask. A motor rotates the first flask, which spreads a thin layer of the solution across the flask walls, increasing the surface area and causing the liquid to evaporate more quickly.
Possibly the trickiest part of the apparatus is the rotary joint, which in [Markus]’s implementation is made of a ground-glass joint adapter surrounded by a 3D-printed gear adapter and two ball bearings. A Teflon stopper fits into one end of the adapter, the evaporation flask clips onto the other end, and a glass tube runs through the stopper. The ball bearings allow the adapter to rotate within a frame, the gear enables a motor to drive it, the Teflon stopper serves as a lubricated seal, and the non-rotating glass tube directs the solvent vapors into the condenser.
The flasks, condenser, and adapters were relatively inexpensive commercial glassware, and the frame that held them in place was primarily made of aluminium extrusion, with a few other pieces of miscellaneous hardware. In [Markus]’s test, the rotovap had no trouble evaporating isopropyl alcohol from one flask to the other.
This isn’t [Markus]’s first time turning a complex piece of
scientific equipment
into an
amateur-accessible project
, or, for that matter, making
simpler equipment
. He’s also taken on
several major
industrial
chemistry processes
. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8176752",
"author": "BigBagG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-08T10:08:43",
"content": "Since a lot of the complexity is in the rotary seal would it not be possible to simplify the apparatus by connecting the vessel to a flexible tube that is wound in the manner of a clockspring. The motor c... | 1,760,371,431.476607 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/07/smartphone-sensors-unlocked-turn-your-phone-into-a-physics-lab/ | Smartphone Sensors Unlocked: Turn Your Phone Into A Physics Lab | Matt Varian | [
"Cellphone Hacks"
] | [
"cellphone",
"physics demonstrations",
"sensors",
"smartphone",
"telemetry"
] | These days, most of us have a smartphone. They are so commonplace that we rarely stop to consider how amazing they truly are. The open-source project
Phyphox
has provided easy access to your phone’s sensors for over a decade. We
featured
it years ago, and the Phyphox team continues to update this versatile application.
Phyphox is designed to use your phone as a sensor for physics experiments, offering a list of prebuilt
experiments
created by others that you can try yourself. But that’s not all—this app provides access to the many sensors built into your phone. Unlike many applications that access these sensors, Phyphox is open-source, with all its code available on its
GitHub page
.
The available sensors depend on your smartphone, but you can typically access readings from accelerometers, GPS, gyroscopes, magnetometers, barometers, microphones, cameras, and more. The app includes clever prebuilt experiments, like measuring an elevator’s speed using your phone’s barometer or determining a color’s HSV value with the camera. Beyond phone sensors, the Phyphox team has added support for
Arduino BLE devices
, enabling you to collect and graph telemetry from your Arduino projects in a centralized hub.
Thanks [Alfius] for sharing this versatile application that unlocks a myriad of uses for your phone’s sensors. You can use a phone for
so many things
.
Really
. | 18 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "8176683",
"author": "Niklas",
"timestamp": "2025-09-08T05:55:15",
"content": "That’s clever, fun and useful at the same time! I’d love to see how a reconstructed path of the rollercoaster would look like, using just the IMU data. Another useful thing might be to track the real time ... | 1,760,371,431.910644 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/06/faux-potentiometers-use-magnets-no-contacts/ | Faux Potentiometers Use Magnets, No Contacts | Al Williams | [
"Parts"
] | [
"magnetic rotary encoder",
"rotary encoder"
] | Ever tear open a potentiometer? If you haven’t, you can still probably guess what’s inside. A streak of resistive material with some kind of contact that moves across it as you rotate the shaft, right? Usually, you’d be right, but [T. K. Hareedran] writes about a different kind of pot: ones that
use magnetic sensing
.
Why mess with something simple? Simplicity has its price. Traditional units may not be very accurate, can be prone to temperature and contamination effects, and the contact will eventually wear out the resistive strip inside. However, we were a little curious about how a magnetic potentiometer could offer a resistive output. The answer? It doesn’t.
Really, these would be better described as rotary encoders with a voltage output. They aren’t really potentiometers. The SK22B mentioned in the article, for example, requires a 5 V input and outputs somewhere between 10% and 90% of that voltage on the ersatz wiper pin.
That makes the devices much easier to puzzle out. The linearity of a device like that is better than a real pot, and, of course, the life expectancy is greatly increased. On the other hand, we’d rather get one with quadrature or I2C output and read it digitally, but if you need a voltage, these devices are certainly an option.
[T. K.] goes on to show how he fabricated his own non-contact sensor using photosensors and a gray-coded wheel with a single track. You do need to be careful about where you position the sensors, though.
Could you make a real non-contact resistive pot? Seems like you could get close with an FET output stage, but it wouldn’t be as generally applicable as a good old-fashioned smear of carbon. If you have a better idea, drop it in the comments or build it and
give us a tip
.
Want a 20A-capable device?
Build it
. Want to see how
we like to read encoders
? | 22 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175716",
"author": "ono",
"timestamp": "2025-09-06T08:37:59",
"content": "why not using a digital pot as output stage ? they DO provide resistive output AFAIK",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8175811",
"author": "tlilt... | 1,760,371,431.966257 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/05/the-decisioninator-decides-dinner-saves-marriage/ | The Decisioninator Decides Dinner, Saves Marriage | Tyler August | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"arcade cabinet",
"decision making",
"dye sublimation",
"laser cut",
"Raspberry Pi 4"
] | For something non-explosive, this might be the most American project we’ve featured in a while. [Makerinator]’s domestic bliss was apparently threatened by the question “what shall we have for dinner”– that’s probably pretty universal. Deciding that the solution was automation is probably universal to software devs and associated personalities the world over. That the project,
aptly called “The Decisioninator” apes a popular game-show mechanic
to randomly select a fast-food restaurant? Only people with 100-octanes of
freedom
running through their veins can truly appreciate its genius.
In form factor, it’s a tiny slot machine which [Makerinator] fabbed up on his laser cutter. The lovely “paintjob” was actually a print out with dye-sublimation ink that was transferred to plywood before laser cutting. Mounted to this are illuminated arcade buttons and a small ISP display. The interface is simplicity itself: the big button spins a virtual “wheel” on the display (with sound effects inspired by The Price is Right) to tell the family what deliciously unhealthy slop they’ll be consuming, while the other button changes decision modes. Of course you can pick more than just dinner with The Decisioninator. You need only decide what spinners to program. Which, uh, that might be a problem.
Luckily [Makerinator] was able to come up with a few modes without recursively creating a The Decisioninator-inator. He’s got the whole thing running on a Pi4, which, with its 1980s supercomputer performance, is hilariously overpowered for the role it plays (in true American fashion). He’s coded the whole thing in the Flame Engine, which is a game engine built on
the Flutter UI toolkit
by American technology giant Google.
What’s more American than tech giants and fast food?
A propane powered plasma cannon
, for one thing; or
maybe mental gymnastics to translate into freedom units
, for another.
Thanks to [Makerinator] for the tip. | 14 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175646",
"author": "jpa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-06T05:53:37",
"content": "Lol, and here I thought it would suggest real food!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8175655",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-06T... | 1,760,371,432.01091 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/05/scott-bakers-magnetic-bubble-memory-mega-post/ | Scott Baker’s Magnetic Bubble Memory Mega-Post | John Elliot V | [
"computer hacks",
"hardware",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"Allen Bradley 8000MBC Bubble Memory Cassette",
"Heathkit H8 Bubble Memory Boards",
"HP 98259 Bubble Memory Board",
"Intel 7110 Bubble Memory",
"Intel Magnetics",
"Magnetic Bubble Memory",
"Memtech Bubble Memory Cassette System",
"Multibus boards",
"Multimodules"
] | Over on his blog our hacker [Scott Baker] has a
Magnetic Bubble Memory Mega-Post
.
If you haven’t heard of magnetic bubble memory before it’s basically obsolete nonvolatile memory. Since the 1970s when it was introduced this type of memory has been outperformed in every dimension including durability, reliability, price, density, performance, and so on. For any given application of bubble memory you will be able to find an alternative technology which is better in many ways. Except if you want some old tech to geek out over, in that case magnetic bubble memory is for you!
In his article [Scott] begins by introducing the Intel 7110 Bubble Memory branded variously as “Intel Magnetics” and “Memtech”. These chips are marked up with what [Scott] explains are a defect map. The defect map is for indicating which storage areas are defective so they can be avoided. This map is printed atop the package and also stored in the bubble memory itself. [Scott] says the engineering samples have the defect map set to “FF”, but it’s not clear if that means “defective” or “not defective”. If you know, please do enlighten us in the comments!
In his fascinating and detailed notes [Scott] goes on to discuss various multibus boards, which can integrate multiple memories; and multimodules, which can plug in to multibus boards. [Scott] shows off photos of clone multimodules and boards he made himself. He goes on to discuss HP 98259 bubble memory boards, the Memtech bubble memory cassette system, the Allen Bradley 8000MBC bubble memory cassette, Heathkit H8 bubble memory boards, and our favorite
Scott’s Basic Bubble Computer
. We have discussed magnetic bubble memory here on Hackaday before in articles such as
Magnetic Bubble Memory Brought To Life On Heathkit
and
Magnetic Bubble Memory Farewell Tour
. | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175535",
"author": "Gavin Melville",
"timestamp": "2025-09-06T02:30:12",
"content": "I actually developed a product using the Intel 7110 when it was very new, so new that Intel still owned them, and if we stopped using them, they had to be returned. Imagine our surprise when we dis... | 1,760,371,432.058736 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/05/restoring-a-cheap-fume-hood/ | Restoring A Cheap Fume Hood | Fenix Guthrie | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"fume",
"fume extraction",
"fume hood"
] | Semiconductor fabrication is complicated requiring nasty chemicals for everything from dopants to etchants. Working with such chemicals at home is dangerous and after releasing hydrochloride acid fumes into his lab, [ProjectsInFlight]
decided the time was right to get one for a mere $200.
I can hear the readers down in the comments already saying, “why not just make one?” But a properly engineered fume hood provides laminar flow which absolutely ensures no leakage of fumes out of the hood. However, such proper engineering comes with an impressive price tag, so the used market was the only choice. This is less dangerous then it sounds as companies are required by both OSHA and the EPA to clean their fume hoods before removal, so no chemical residue should remain after purchase.
After inspecting a more expensive unit, [ProjectsInFlight] bought a smaller unit destined for the scrap heap. Very little work was required to get it actually working. Some LED lighting and cleaning got the machine in a workable condition. A neatly welded table was built for the hood with an acrylic painted plywood work surface. While professional fume hoods use solid epoxy work tops, these are expensive, and polyurethane should be fine. A high flow rate fan neatly tied up the fume hood restoration.
However, merely having a fume hood is not enough for some. Therefore, [ProjectsInFlight] turned to his lathe to create a lab rack. This device is a kind of ladder looking thing which provides numerous mounting points for clamps making chemistry easier and safer. Some careful and somewhat sketchy machining resulted in a professional looking lab rack for a fraction of the professional price tag. The whole project was neatly tied up with machined chilled water and vacuum inlet ports.
This is not the first time [ProjectsInFlight] has made the pages of Hackaday. Make sure to check out the fume hood’s
inspiration in this gold nonparticipant fabrication hack! | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175585",
"author": "JB",
"timestamp": "2025-09-06T03:27:27",
"content": "“This is less dangerous then it sounds as companies are required by both OSHA and the EPA to clean their fume hoods before removal, so no chemical residue should remain after purchase.”As a chemist and purveyo... | 1,760,371,432.22093 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/05/dialing-it-in-a-3d-printed-knob-with-touchscreen-flair/ | Dialing It In: A 3D-Printed Knob With Touchscreen Flair | Matt Varian | [
"hardware"
] | [
"input knob",
"magnetic encoder",
"MT6701",
"user interface"
] | Knobs are ubiquitous in technology user interfaces, but touchscreens are increasingly replacing them for interface controls. The latest project from [upir] combines a
rotating knob with a touchscreen
for a stunning result. The knob-over-display design features a touchscreen where you can place and remove a spinning knob, creating an interface reminiscent of Microsoft’s
Surface Dial
but at a fraction of the cost.
The core functionality of this device relies on the MT6701 magnetic encoder, which precisely tracks the orientation of the surrounding magnetic field. This encoder is held in place with a 3D-printed jig behind the small touchscreen, hiding the encoder without blocking the magnetic field generated by the magnet above the display. Most circular magnets are axially magnetized, meaning their larger face is one pole. However, diametrically magnetized magnets, where opposite sides of the smaller face are the poles, are used here.
To avoid scratching the screen and ensure smooth turning, [upir] designed a knob that holds the diametrically magnetized magnet slightly above the screen, with a ball bearing connecting the outside of the knob to the center resting on the screen. All the design files needed to recreate this are available on [upir]’s GitHub page; be sure to check them out. Also, browse through our back catalog for other
knob-related
projects. | 34 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175442",
"author": "Plaid Phantom",
"timestamp": "2025-09-05T22:34:00",
"content": "Even though it fell into obscurity pretty quickly, I always thought the Microsoft Surface Dial was a neat idea.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id"... | 1,760,371,432.12435 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/05/engineering-for-slow-internet-even-when-not-stuck-in-antarctica/ | Engineering For Slow Internet Even When Not Stuck In Antarctica | Maya Posch | [
"internet hacks"
] | [
"internet speed",
"satellite internet"
] | With the days of dial-up and pitiful 2G data connections long behind most of us, it would seem tempting to stop caring about how much data an end-user is expected to suck down that big and wide broadband tube. This is a problem if your respective tube happens to be a thin straw and you’re
located in a base somewhere in the Antarctic
. Take it from [Paul Coldren], who was stationed at a number of Antarctic research stations as an IT specialist for a total of 14.5 months starting in August of 2022.
Prepare for hours of pain and retrying downloads. (Credit: Paul Coldren]
As [Paul] describes, the main access to the Internet at these bases is via satellite internet, which effectively are just
relay stations
. With over a thousand people at a station like McMurdo at certain parts of the season, internet bandwidth is a precious commodity and latency is understandably high.
This low bandwidth scenario led to highly aggravating scenarios, such as when a web app would time out on [Paul] while downloading a 20 MB JavaScript file, simply because things were going too slow. Upon timing out, it would wipe the cache, redirect to an error page and have [Paul] retry and retry to try to squeeze within the timeout window. Instead of just letting the download complete in ~15 minutes, it would take nearly half an hour this way, just so that [Paul] could send a few kB worth of text in a messaging app.
In addition to these artificial timeouts – despite continuing download progress – there’s also the issue of self-updating apps, with a downloader that does not allow you to schedule, pause, resume or do anything else that’d make downloading that massive update somewhat feasible. Another thing here is distributed downloads, such as when hundreds of people at said Antarctic station are all trying to update MacOS simultaneously. Here [Paul] ended up just – painfully and slowly – downloading the entire 12 GB MacOS ISO to distribute it across the station, but a Mac might still try to download a few GB of updates regardless.
Updating Office for Mac at the South Pole made easy courtesy of Microsoft. (Credit: Paul Coldren)
This level of pain continued with smartphone updates, which do not generally allow one to update the phone’s OS from a local image, and in order to make a phone resume an update image download, [Paul] had to turn the phone off when internet connectivity dropped out – due to satellites going out of alignment – and turn it back on when connectivity was restored the next day.
Somewhat surprisingly, the Microsoft Office for Mac updater was an example of how to do it at least somewhat right; with the ability to pause and cancel, see the progress of the download and resumption of interrupted downloads without any fuss. Other than not having access to the underlying update file for download and distribution by e.g. Sneakernet, this was a pleasant experience alongside the many examples of modern-day hardware and software that just gave up and failed at the sight of internet speeds measured in kB/s.
Although [Paul] isn’t advocating that every developer should optimize their application and updater for the poor saps stuck on the equivalent of ISDN at a remote station or in a tub floating somewhere in the Earth’s oceans, he does insist that it would be nice if you could do something like send a brief text message via a messaging app without having to fight timeouts and other highly aggravating ‘features’.
Since [Paul] returned from his last deployment to the Antarctic in 2024 it appears that at least some of the stations have been upgraded to
Starlink satellite internet
, but this should not be taken as an excuse to not take his plea seriously. | 25 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175364",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-05T18:56:58",
"content": "Very nice, I love seeing optimisation (and accounts of frustration) related to low bandwidth internet connections. To salt the wound, this is also high latency! Low bandwidth but low latency connections... | 1,760,371,432.28207 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/05/psst-got-a-second-here-are-the-2025-one-hertz-challenge-winners/ | Psst… Got A Second? Here Are The 2025 One-Hertz Challenge Winners | Dan Maloney | [
"contests",
"Featured",
"Slider"
] | [
"2025 One Hertz Contest"
] | Even with teachers with names like Kirchhoff and Helmholtz, old Heinrich Hertz himself likely didn’t have the slightest idea that his name would one day become an SI unit. Less likely still would have been the idea that Hackaday would honor him with
the 2025 One-Hertz Challenge
.
The challenge was deliberately — dare we say, fiendishly? — simple: Do something,
anything
, but do it once a second. Flash a light, ring a bell, click a relay, or even spam comments on a website other than Hackaday; anything at all, but do it at as close to one Hertz as possible. These are our favorite kinds of contests, because the simplicity affords a huge canvas for the creative mind to paint upon while still providing an interesting technical constraint that’s just difficult enough to make things spicy.
And boy, did you respond! We’ve received over a hundred entries since we announced the contest back in June, meaning that many of you spent 4,662,000 seconds of your summer (at least those of you above the equator) rising to the challenge. The time was well spent, with projects that pushed the limits of what we even expected.
While we loved ’em all, we had to winnow them down to the top three, each of which receives a $150 gift certificate from our sponsor, DigiKey. Let’s take a look at them, along with our favorite runners-up.
Our Top Three
At the top of our judges’ list was
“the electromechanicalanalogdigitalclock”
, a project that clearly didn’t know what it wanted to be but nevertheless did it with a lot of style. [Christian]’s contraption pushes a lot of design buttons, starting with the mains-powered stepper motor generating a 1-Hz signal with a photochopper, which drives a 12-bit counter made from some CMOS logic chips and a digital-to-analog converter that drives some vintage moving-coil meters to display the time. There’s even a bit of circuit sculpture thrown in, with a brass frame supporting and isolating the noisy stepper motor on a spring suspension. Extra points were no doubt earned thanks to the
Space:1999
and
Star Trek
models in the photos.
The electromechanicalanalogdigitalclock by [Christian].
BEZICRON was inspired by [ekaggrat singh kalsi] playing with his daughter’s springy hair ties.
Next up we have
BEZICRON
by [ekaggarat singh kalsi]. If this one looks familiar, it’s probably because we featured it
back in January
, when we had a difficult time describing exactly what this is. It’s a clock, sure, but its display is vastly different from anything we’ve ever seen before, based as it is on hair bands, of all things, that are bent and stretched into numerals by a series of intricate cams and levers. The idea is unique, the mechanism is complex, the design is striking, and the sinuous 1-Hz pulse of the colon is mesmerizing.
Our final gift certificate goes to [Tim], who managed to use
candle flames as a time base
. You’ve probably noticed candles guttering and flickering thanks to uneven wax melting or even drafts blowing the flame column around and thought they were fairly random. But [Tim] noticed that these oscillations were actually more stable and predictable than they appear, and used a wire sticking into the flame to trigger the capacitive sensor input on a CH32xxx microcontroller to measure the frequency, which was then divided down to flash an LED at 1-Hz. It’s the perfect combination of physics and electronics that extracts order from a seemingly stochastic in a weird and wonderful way.
Awesome Honorable Mentions
What’s always fun about Hackaday contests is the categories we come up with, which are sort of mini-games within the main challenge. And this time around didn’t disappoint, with projects that explored these side quests in fun and interesting ways.
Our “Ridiculous” category was all about tapping your inner Rube Goldberg and finding the least practical way to generate your 1-pps pulse train. Runners-up in this category included [Brian Stuparyk]’s
electromechanical function generator
,
a pitchblende-powered “atomic” clock
by [alnwlsn], and [Sean B]’s
“Nothing but NAND” Nixie clock
.
Scotch yoke turns out beautiful sine waves
Nothing but NAND chips behind this Nixie clock
Add a little pitchblende to your next project
For the “Timelords” category, we were looking for the projects that pulled out all the stops to get as many zeroes as possible after the decimal point, and the entries didn’t disappoint. Check out
this vintage atomic clock restoration
by [CuriousMarc] and his merry band, [Lauri Pirttiaho]’s
cheap and simple GPS sync for quartz wall clocks
, or
this GPS-disciplined crystal-oven oscillator
by [Will Carver].
You can never have too many zeroes
Cat clocks deserve GPS discipline, too
[CuriousMarc] et al pull out the nuclear option
The horologically inclined were the target audience for the “Clockwork” category, which invited you to turn your one-per-second timebase into a unique and interesting timepiece. See [Simon Newhouse]’s
Nixie-based frequency counter clock
, the
DCF77 clock
[hayday] made from the 2022 Supercon Badge, or the beautiful bubble displays of [Andrew Tudoroi]’s
RPi TinynumberHat9
clock.
[Voja]’s 2022 Supercon Badge was repurposed by [hayday]
This old, Nixie-rich frequency counter serves as a display for [Simon]’s clock
Bubbles, bubbles — not to mention gold — liven up [Andrew]’s RPi Hat clock
And finally, what would a One-Hertz challenge be without the venerable 555 timer chip? Entries we liked from the “Coulda Used a 555” category include [Tom Goff]’s Bletchley-inspired
Logic Bombe
,
this mind-bending, capacitor-free timer
that [Mark Valentine] put together, and [Paul Gallagher]’s
super annoying “One Hurts” clock
— it’s worse than a cuckoo clock!
We’re cuckoo for [Paul]’s annoying “One Hurts” clock
[Forrest Mims] would be proud of this capacitor-free 555 circuit
That’s not a bomb — it’s a Logic Bombe!
Everyone’s a Winner!
We’d love to give everyone a prize, but we’d be hard-pressed to manage that with so many cool and unusual projects. As they say, everyone’s a winner just for entering, and we think that’s especially true with contests like this, which bring out the best in everyone. Thanks to everyone who entered, the judges for sorting through everything and making the hard choices, and to our sponsor DigiKey. We’ll see you all again next time around! | 20 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175331",
"author": "asheets",
"timestamp": "2025-09-05T17:09:28",
"content": "Extra points were no doubt earned thanks to the Space:1999 and Star Trek models in the photos.Was gonna say.. just know what an Eagle transporter is has got to be worth something…",
"parent_id": null,... | 1,760,371,432.524132 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/06/teardown-of-a-cheapish-ebl-multi-cell-nimh-charger/ | Teardown Of A Cheapish EBL Multi-Cell NiMH Charger | Maya Posch | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"battery charger"
] | Bottom of the PCB with most of the ICs. (Credit: Brian Dipert, EDN)
People think about NiMH cell chargers probably as much as they think about batteries, unless it’s time to replace the cells in whatever device they’re installed in. This doesn’t make a teardown of one of these marvels any less interesting, especially when you can get an 8-bay charger with eight included NiMH cells for a cool $25 brand new. The charger even has USB ports on it, so it’s got to be good.
Cue a full teardown
by [Brian Dipert] over at
EDN
to see what lurks inside.
Of note is that [Brian] got the older version of EBL’s charger, which requires that two cells of the same type are installed side-by-side instead of featuring per-bay charging. This is a common feature of cheaper chargers, and perhaps unsurprisingly the charger was struggling with NiMH cells that other chargers would happily charge.
Opening up the unit required hunting for plastic clips, revealing the rather sparse internals. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t a lot to look at, with the two USB ports apparently wired directly into the AC-to-DC section. There’s a CRE6536 AC-DC power management IC, the full-bridge rectifier and an unmarked 16-pin IC that presumably contains all of the charger logic. On the positive side, the mains-powered charger didn’t catch on fire (yet), but for anyone interested in leaving battery chargers unattended for extended periods of time, perhaps look at a more reputable brand. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8176138",
"author": "capo",
"timestamp": "2025-09-07T05:08:19",
"content": "What are more reputable brands?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8176151",
"author": "nope",
"timestamp": "2025-09-07T06:02:29",
... | 1,760,371,432.330837 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/06/reverse-engineering-a-toy-fire-engine/ | Reverse Engineering A (Toy) Fire Engine | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Reverse Engineering",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"gnu radio",
"RTL-SDR"
] | Your kid has a toy remote control fire truck. You have an RTL SDR. See where this is going? [Jacob] couldn’t resist tearing into the why and how of
the truck’s remote control protocol
.
The entire process began with a basic GNU Radio setup to determine the exact frequency of the signal. Then a little analysis suggested that it might be using amplitude shift keying. That is, the information is in the amplitude of the signal, where one possible amplitude is completely off in some cases.
Some FFT decoding started to reveal the coding when someone pressed a remote button. None of the standard GNU Radio blocks would get the right decoding, so that called for a custom Python block.
When you get to the end of the post, don’t forget to scan back up to the top where the final diagram is. It will make more sense after you’ve read the post, although it is reasonably straightforward except for the custom block, of course.
This is a great example of how you can reverse engineer something like this. Cheap SDRs and computers make something like this less of a science project and more of an afternoon puzzle to solve. What will he do with it? Our guess is nothing. And we totally get that.
Toys can have
sophisticated wireless tech
, surprisingly.
Not just new ones
, either. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8176117",
"author": "m1ke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-07T02:48:06",
"content": "Great walkthrough!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8176787",
"author": "Adam",
"timestamp": "2025-09-08T11:35:08",
"content": "I don’t know,... | 1,760,371,432.367461 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/06/camera-and-charuco-keep-the-skew-out-of-your-3d-prints/ | Camera And ChArUco Keep The Skew Out Of Your 3D Prints | Dan Maloney | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"ArUco",
"camera",
"charuco",
"cnc",
"endoscope",
"fiducial",
"skew"
] | Do you or a loved one suffer from distorted 3D prints? Does your laser cutter produce parallelograms instead of rectangles? If so, you might be suffering from CNC skew miscalibration, and you could be entitled to significant compensation for your pain and suffering. Or, in the reality-based world, you could simply fix the problem yourself with
this machine-vision skew correction system
and get back to work.
If you want to put [Marius Wachtler]’s solution to work for you, it’s probably best to review
his earlier work on pressure-advance correction
. The tool-mounted endoscopic camera he used in that project is key to this one, but rather than monitoring a test print for optimum pressure settings, he’s using it to detect minor differences in the X-Y feed rates, which can turn what’s supposed to be a 90-degree angle into something else.
The key to detecting these problems is the so-called ChArUco board, which is a hybrid of a standard chess board pattern with ArUco markers added to the white squares. ArUco markers are a little like 2D barcodes in that they encode an identifier in an array of black and white pixels. [Marius] provides a PDF of a ChArUco that can be printed and pasted to a board, along with a skew correction program that analyzes the ChArUco pattern and produces Klipper commands to adjust for any skew detected in the X-Y plane. The video below goes over the basics.
For as clever and useful as ChArUco patterns seem to be, we’re surprised we haven’t seen them used for more than
this CNC toolpath visualization project
(although we do see the occasional appearance
of ArUco
). We wonder what other applications there might be for these boards.
OpenCV supports it
, so let us know
what you come up with
. | 20 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8176071",
"author": "Paul Rensing",
"timestamp": "2025-09-07T00:36:56",
"content": "ChAruco boards are standard for calibrating the distortion of a camera. Very important when trying to get the camera position relative to some marker, like an Apriltag (used in robotics and drone nav... | 1,760,371,432.177824 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/06/no-plans-for-the-weekend-learn-raytracing/ | No Plans For The Weekend? Learn Raytracing! | Tyler August | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"ebook",
"Raytracing",
"weekend project"
] | Weekends can be busy for a lot of us, but sometimes you have one gloriously free and full of possibilities. If that’s you, you might consider taking a gander at [
Peter Shirley
]’s e-book
“Learning Raytracing in One Weekend”
.
This gradient is the first image that the book talks you through producing. It ends with the spheres.
This is very much a zero-to-hero kind of class: it starts out defining the
PPM image format
, which is easy to create and manipulate using nearly any language. The book uses C++, but as [Peter] points out in the introduction, you don’t have to follow along in that language; there won’t be anything unique to C++ you couldn’t implement in your language of choice.
There are many types of ray tracers. Technically, what you should end up with after the weekend ends is a path tracer. You won’t be replacing the Blender Cycles renderer with your weekend’s work, but you get some nice images and a place to build from. [Peter] manages to cram a lot of topics into a weekend, including diffuse materials, metals, dialectrics, diffraction, and camera classes with simple lens effects.
If you find yourself with slightly more time, [Peter] has you covered. He’s also released books on “
Raytracing: The Next Week
.” If you have a lot more time, then check out his third book, “
Raytracing: The Rest of Your Life
.”
This weekend e-book shows that ray-tracing doesn’t have to be the darkest of occult sciences; it doesn’t need oodles of hardware, either. Even
an Arduino
can do it.. | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175985",
"author": "Fenix Guthrie",
"timestamp": "2025-09-06T20:14:32",
"content": "Had this shown to me by a friend. Worked through a bit of the tutorial, and I can very much recommend!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8175988"... | 1,760,371,432.667474 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/06/the-most-personalized-font-is-your-own-handwriting/ | The Most Personalized Font Is Your Own Handwriting | Tyler August | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"font",
"handwriting fonts"
] | When making a personal website, one will naturally include a personal touch. What could be more personal than
creating a font from your own handwriting
? That’s what [Chris Smith] has done, and it looks great on his blog, which also has a post summarizing the process.
Like most of us [Chris] tried to use open-source toolkits first, but the workflow (and thus the result) was a bit wanting. Still, he details what it takes to create a font in Inkscape or Font Forge if anyone else wants to give it a try. Instead he ended up using a
web app called Calligraphr
designed for this exact use case.
Above is hand written; below is the font. Aside from the lighting the difference isn’t obvious.
Fair warning: the tool is closed-source and he needed to pay to get all the features he wanted — specifically ligatures, glyphs made from two joined letters. By adding ligatures his personalized font gets a little bit of variation, as the ‘l’ in an ‘lf’ ligature (for example) need not be identical to the stand-alone ‘l’. In a case of “you get what you pay for” the process worked great and to the credit of the folks at Calligraphr, while it is Software-As-Service they offer a one-time payment for one month’s use of the “pro” features. While nobody likes SaS, that’s a much more user-friendly way to do it — or perhaps “least-user-hostile”.
All [Chris] had to do was write out and scan a few sheets that you can see above, while the software handled most of the hard work automagically. [Chris] only had to apply a few tweaks to get the result you see here. Aside from websites, we could see a personalized font like this being a nice touch to laser cut, CNC or even 3D printed projects. If you don’t want a personalized touch,
the “Gorton” lettering of retro machinery
might be more to your liking. | 58 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175891",
"author": "ford",
"timestamp": "2025-09-06T17:05:13",
"content": "What about people who write in Pashto? It’s one of the most advanced alphabets there is and it’s more robust than european writing systems.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,371,432.615551 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/06/knowing-that-it-is-possible/ | Knowing That It Is Possible | Elliot Williams | [
"Cellphone Hacks",
"Rants"
] | [
"cellphone",
"newsletter",
"smartphone"
] | We like to think that we can do almost anything. Give me a broken piece of consumer electronics, and I’ll open it up and kick the capacitors. Give me an embedded Linux machine, and I’ll poke around for a serial port and see if it’s running uboot. But my confidence suddenly pales when you hand me a smartphone.
Now that’s not to say that I’ve never replaced a broken screen or a camera module with OEM parts. The modern smartphone is actually a
miracle of modularity
, with most sub-assemblies being swappable, at least in principle, and depending on your taste for applying heat to loosen up whatever glue holds the damn things together.
But actually doing
hardware hacking
on smartphones is still outside of my comfort zone, and that’s a shame. So I was pretty pleased to see [Marcin Plaza] attempt
gutting a smartphone, repackaging it into a new form factor, and even adding a new keyboard to it
. The best moment in that video for me comes around eight minutes in, when he has completely disassembled all of the modules and is
laying them out on his desk to see how little he needs to make the thing work
. And the answer is batteries, motherboard, USB-C, power button, and a screen. That starts to seem like a computer build, and that’s familiar turf.
That reminded me of [Scotty Allen]’s forays into cell-phone hackery that
culminated in his building one completely from parts
, and telling us all about it at Supercon ages ago. He told me that the turning point for him was realizing that if you have access to the tools to put it together and can get some of the impossibly small parts manufactured and/or assembled for you, that it’s just like putting a computer together.
So now I’ve seen two examples. [Scotty] put his together from parts, and [Marcin] actually got a new daughterboard made that interfaces with the USB to add a keyboard. Hardware hacking on a cellphone doesn’t sound entirely impossible. You’d probably want a cheap old used one, but the barrier to entry there isn’t that bad. You’ll probably have to buy some obscure connectors – they are
tiny
inside smartphones – and get some breakout boards made. But maybe it’s possible?
Anyone have more encouragement?
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
! | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175827",
"author": "luccamakesthings",
"timestamp": "2025-09-06T14:36:31",
"content": "kick the capacitorsI’m stealing that",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8176246",
"author": "TheOnceAndFutureThingy",
"timest... | 1,760,371,432.714658 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/06/spinning-top-chair-revisited/ | Spinning Top Chair Revisited | Fenix Guthrie | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"chair",
"cnc",
"plywood",
"spinning"
] | Designer furniture generally comes with excellent aesthetics and (sometimes) functionality. However, such furniture comes with a price to match. One such piece of furniture is the Magis Spun Chair. It’s a striking piece with a fun party trick to match: it works like a top spinning while you sit inside. However, it has a prohibitively expensive price tag of $1,200 to match. That’s why [Morley Kert]
is on a mission to build one for less.
This isn’t [Morley]’s
first time building a spinning chair
. The first attempt featured numerous 3D printed pieces glued together. It did not inspire confidence in spinning, nor was it a striking piece of furniture. So a revisit was in order.
This time around the chair’s construction was CNC milled plywood. Some surfaces featured 3D carving, but the majority were left raw with carving the final shape handled manually. Despite its size, the chair only took four and a half sheets of 3/4 inch plywood by hollowing out the base allowing for more efficient use of material. Once the router had completed the pieces, they were stacked and glued together. Each layer was aligned with hidden dowels making the assembly process fairly straightforward.
However, while usable, the chair looked rather unfinished, so [Morley] went to town on it with a power carving angle grinder. To ensure even carving on the circular profile of the chair, he placed it, or for some sections glued it, on an electronic lazy S
usan
. After some practice, the carving process turned out really well with a well-shaped and professional looking chair. Some wood varnish and a large amount of sanding finished up the chair very nicely for a total material cost of under $500.
We were happy to see the completion of this chair building saga. If you want to see [Morley] make even more designer furniture for cheap,
make sure to check out his other 3D printed chair! | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175749",
"author": "Gardoni",
"timestamp": "2025-09-06T12:08:26",
"content": "Nice thumbnail, I can’t wait not to watch the video.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8175777",
"author": "Titus431",
"timestamp": "2025-09-06... | 1,760,371,432.758723 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/07/the-saga-of-hacking-a-bambu-x1-carbon/ | The Saga Of Hacking A Bambu X1 Carbon | Fenix Guthrie | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"Bambu",
"Bambu lab",
"Bambu X1"
] | Bambu Labs make indisputably excellent printers. However, that excellence comes at the cost of freedom. After a firmware release earlier this year, Bambu printers could only work with Bambu’s own slicer. For [
Proper Printing],
this was unacceptable, so printer modification was in order.
First on the plate was the pesky Bambu Labs nozzle. They are a pain to replace, and specialty sizes like 1.8mm are nonexistent. To remedy this flaw, a Bambu Labs compatible heat sink, an E3D V6 ring heater, and a heat break assembly are required. The ring heater was needed for clearance with the stock Bambu shroud. With the help of a 3D-printed jig, fresh holes were cut and tapped into the heat sink to make room for the E3D heat break. Some crimping to salvaged connectors and a bit of filing on the heat sink for wire routing, and Bob’s your uncle!
But this was just the tip of the iceberg. To complete this project, the entire printer needed to run on FOSS firmware. To that end, a fan was sacrificed to mount a Big Tree Tech control board. Most everything ended up connecting to the new board without issue, except for the extruder. The X1’s extruder runs over some kind of communication protocol, presumably CAN bus. So instead, [Proper Printing] made a custom mount for the ubiquitous Orbiter extruder. The whole project was nicely tied up with a custom-made screen mount.
After much debugging, the printer does, in fact, live and print. The parts it creates are OK at best, especially considering the effort put into the printer. But there are other ways of printer liberation, so if you have an X1 Carbon in need of hacking,
make sure to check out [Joshua Wise’s] journey to custom X1 firmware! | 35 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8176609",
"author": "DurDurDur",
"timestamp": "2025-09-08T03:01:11",
"content": "Mkay,so new control board,new extruder,So its not an X1C anymore. Its a cobbled together DIY printer with an overpriced base. Should have just bought a cheap voron kit.",
"parent_id": null,
"de... | 1,760,371,432.828819 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/07/hackaday-links-september-7-2025/ | Hackaday Links: September 7, 2025 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"Airbus",
"android",
"anthropomorphic",
"ascii art",
"atlas",
"blockchain",
"cuneiform",
"hackaday links",
"humanoid",
"Mesopotamia",
"moon",
"optimus",
"tesla",
"universe"
] | Two weeks ago
, it was holographic cops. This week, it’s humanoid robot doctors. Or is it? We’re pretty sure it’s not, as MediBot, supposedly
a $10,000 medical robot from Tesla
, appears to be completely made up. Aside from the one story we came across, we can’t find any other references to it, which we think would make quite a splash in the media if it were legit. The article also has a notable lack of links and no quotes at all, even the kind that reporters obviously pull from press releases to make it seem like they actually interviewed someone.
Still, as speculative as this article appears to be, it’s an interesting read because it demonstrates the divide between what people think the future will look like and what it actually looks like when we get there. MediBot, presumably based on Tesla’s Optimus platform, is reportedly capable of “monitoring patient vitals in real time.” In a world of FitBits and other wearables, do we really need a humanoid robot to do that? And what about the touted ability to perform “basic medical procedures such as wound cleaning and administering injections”? Does anyone think anthropomorphic robotic hands are going to have anywhere near the kind of fine motor skills needed to handle delicate tasks like those in the foreseeable future? We don’t know what the future holds for robotic doctors, but we’re pretty sure it’s going to look like something other than a human being.
Did the ancient Mesopotamians have the equivalent of Bitcoin? Of course not, but according to
this article
, their method of recordkeeping was a form of distributed ledgering that predates the blockchain by about 4,000 years. The clay tablets that Assyrian scribes used to record everything from sales invoices to marriage contracts were the key to the system. While some of the tablets, with their cuneiform markings made by sharpened reeds, were just left to dry naturally, others were fired in kilns to literally set the records in stone. Add to that immutability the distributed nature of their scribe network, which kept copies of tablets in geographically distributed locations, and the use of cylinder seals, which were rolled across wet clay to form impressions that served as a sort of proto-2FA, and the sophistication of their form of recordkeeping really comes into focus. Blockchain analogies aside, one thing that really stands out is how early in history the mechanisms of bureaucracy were established; we’d barely learned how to grow enough food to run a surplus before the pencil-pushers popped up.
Back in July, we covered a
really cool ASCII Moon phase tracker
that had caught our eye. ASCII art is always cool, and adding in the astronomy angle and interactivity makes it even cooler. We stumbled across a similar project,
ASCII Side of the Moon
, which gives a lower-resolution but still accurate rendering of the current phase of the moon. What we like about this one is that you can call it up from a terminal, which makes it more consistent with
our earlier discovery
of a repository of Telnet games and demos. The other thing we like about this one is that it accurately tracks lunar liberation, which is the slight wobble in the Moon’s orbit. There’s a slider control on the ASCII Side of the Moon web page that lets you bounce through the phases and see the wobble over a period of two years. Pretty cool.
Also cool, albeit with a very “Web 1.0” vibe, is
this “Atlas of the Universe.”
It’s exactly what the name on the tin implies — a collection of maps of the universe, starting with our solar system and progressing all the way up to a 14-billion light-year view of the visible universe. We appreciate
the 12.5-ly map
the most, as it lists some of the star systems made famous in science fiction over the years, such as Tau Ceti, Alpha Centauri, the Eridani system, and the infamous Wolf 359. The larger-scale maps, showing where we are within our galaxy and just how far it is to even the next-closest galaxy, are pretty humbling, too.
And finally, we know we’ve plugged
Tomáš Zeman
‘s YouTube channel
before, but in its infinite wisdom, The Algorithm has decided to push his airliner maintenance videos to us this week, and who are we to argue? What
Tomáš shows in the videos is a mix of the extremely exotic and the strangely familiar. Like anyone working on a modern car, he spends a lot of time just getting access to the parts, but when he does, the procedures for replacing them seem very approachable. That’s not to play down his obvious encyclopedic knowledge of the Airbus airframe and engines, of course; it’s just that at the end of the day, it’s all about turning wrenches. We do wish he’d spend some time discussing why he’s replacing parts, like the hydraulic pump in the video below. Was it defective? If so, what were the diagnostic processes? Do jets have the equivalent of an OBD-II port scanner? Or perhaps the part was replaced simply because some service interval had been crossed. Inquiring minds want to know. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8176531",
"author": "Eric",
"timestamp": "2025-09-07T23:53:05",
"content": "infamous Wolf 359We got 342 more years to build a memorial for the ships and crews killed there.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8176532",
"author":... | 1,760,371,432.93242 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/07/maurice-brings-immersive-audio-recording-to-the-masses/ | Maurice Brings Immersive Audio Recording To The Masses | Tyler August | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"audio recording",
"immersive audio",
"microphone",
"microphone array",
"xlr"
] | Immersive audio is the new hotness in the recording world. Once upon a time, mono was good enough. Then someone realized humans have two ears, and everyone wanted stereo. For most of us, that’s where it stopped, but audio connoisseurs kept going into increasingly baroque surround-sound setups — ending in Immersive Audio, audio that is meant to fully reproduce the three-dimensional soundscape of the world around us. [DJJules] is one of those audio connoisseurs, and to share the joy of immersive audio recording with the rest of us, he’s developed
Maurice, a compact, low-cost immersive microphone.
Maurice is technically speaking, a symmetrical ORTF3D microphone array. OTRF is not a descriptive acronym; it stands for
Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française
, the fine people who developed this type of microphone for stereo use. The typical stereo ORTF setup requires two cardioid microphones and angles them 110 degrees apart at a distance of 17 cm. Maurice arrays four such pairs, all oriented vertically and facing 90 degrees from one another for fully immersive, 8-channel sound. All of those microphones are thus arrayed to capture sound omnidirectionally, and give good separation between the channels for later reproduction. The mountings are all 3D printed, and [DJJules] kindly provides STLs.
This is the speaker setup you need to get full use of Maurice’s recordings. Now let’s see Paul Allen’s speakers.
Recording eight audio channels simultaneously is not trivial for the uninitiated, but fortunately, [DJJules] includes a how-to in his post. We particularly like his tip to use resistor color coding to identify the XLR cables for different microphone channels. Playback, too, requires special setup and processing. [DJJules] talks about listening on his 7.1.4 stereo setup, which you can find in a companion
post
. That’s a lot of speakers, as you might imagine.
There are high-end headphones that claim to reproduce an immersive sound field as well, but we can’t help but wonder if you’d miss the “true” experience without head tracking. Even with regular department-store headphones, the demo recordings linked via the Instructable sound great, but that probably just reflects the quality of the individual microphones.
Audio can be a
make-or-break addition to VR experiences
, so that would seem to be an ideal use case for this sort of technology. Maurice isn’t the only way to get there; we previously focused on [DJJules]’s
ambisonic microphone, which is another way to reproduce a soundscape.
What do you think, is this “immersive audio” the new frontier of Hi-Fi, or do we call it a stereo for a reason? Discuss in the comments! | 20 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8176416",
"author": "James Honey",
"timestamp": "2025-09-07T20:05:30",
"content": "This is fantastic, but I can’t help but think that the binaural microphones that are embedded in a pair of simulated ear structures would better reproduce 3D audio.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth... | 1,760,371,433.050099 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/07/retrotechtacular-exploring-the-moon-on-surveyor-1/ | Retrotechtacular: Exploring The Moon OnSurveyor 1 | Dan Maloney | [
"Retrotechtacular"
] | [
"apollo",
"Atlas-Centaur",
"lunar",
"moon",
"regolith",
"retrotechtacular",
"space race",
"Surveyor"
] | Aside from a few stand-out programs — looking at you,
Star Trek
— by the late 1960s, TV had already become the “vast wasteland” predicted almost a decade earlier by Newton Minnow. But for the technically inclined, the period offered no end of engaging content in the form of wall-to-wall coverage of anything and everything to do with the run-up to the Apollo moon landings. It was the best thing on TV, and even the endless press conferences beat watching a rerun of
Gilligan’s Island
.
At the time, most of the attention landed on the manned missions, with the photogenic and courageous astronauts of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs very much in the limelight. But for our money, it was the unmanned missions where the real heroics were on display, starring the less-photogenic but arguably vastly more important engineers and scientists who made it all possible. It probably didn’t do much for the general public, but it sure inspired a generation of future scientists and engineers.
With that in mind, we were pleased to see
this
Surveyor 1
documentary
from Retro Space HD pop up in our feed the other day. It appears to be a compilation of news coverage and documentaries about the mission, which took place in the summer of 1966 and became the first lunar lander to set down softly on the Moon’s surface. The rationale of the mission boiled down to one simple fact: we had no idea what the properties of the lunar surface were. The Surveyor program was designed to take the lay of the land, and
Surveyor 1
in particular was tasked with exploring the mechanical properties of the lunar regolith, primarily to make sure that the Apollo astronauts wouldn’t be swallowed whole when they eventually made the trip President Kennedy had mandated back in 1961.
The video below really captures the spirit of these early missions, a time when there were far more unknowns than knowns, and disaster always seemed to be right around the corner. Even the launch system for Surveyor, the Atlas-Centaur booster, was a wild card, having only recently emerged from an accelerated testing program that was rife with spectacular failures. The other thing the film captures well is the spacecraft’s nail-biting descent and landing, attended not only by the short-sleeved and skinny-tied engineers but by a large number of obvious civilians, including a few lucky children. They were all there to witness history and see the first grainy but glorious pictures from the Moon, captured by a craft that seemed to have only just barely gotten there in one piece.
The film is loaded with vintage tech gems, of course, along with classic examples of the animations used at the time to illustrate the abstract concepts of spaceflight to the general public. These sequences really bring back the excitement of the time, at least for those of us whose imaginations were captured by the space program and the deeds of these nervous men and women.
NASA wants to return to the moon. They also want
you to help
. Turns out making a good landing on the moon is
harder than you might think
. | 13 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "8176462",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-07T21:32:34",
"content": "I really like the style of the various space vessels of the time.USSR had these massive, rugged but strangly shaped probes (-which now can be considered retro-futuristic-),while the USSA had those weak, bu... | 1,760,371,432.987366 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/07/image-recognition-on-0-35-watts/ | Image Recognition On 0.35 Watts | Aaron Beckendorf | [
"Artificial Intelligence"
] | [
"edge computing",
"image recognition",
"Seeed Grove AI Vision",
"seeed studios",
"YOLO"
] | Much of the expense of developing AI models, and much of the recent backlash to said models, stems from the massive amount of power they tend to consume. If you’re willing to sacrifice some ability and accuracy, however, you can get ever-more-decent results from minimal hardware – a tradeoff taken by the
Grove Vision AI board
, which runs image recognition in near-real time on only 0.35 Watts.
The heart of the board is a WiseEye processor, which combines two ARM Cortex M55 CPUs and an Ethos U55 NPU, which handles AI acceleration. The board connects to a camera module and a host device, such as another microcontroller or a more powerful computer. When the host device sends the signal, the Grove board takes a picture, runs image recognition on it, and sends the results back to the host computer. A library makes signaling over I2C convenient, but in this example [Jaryd] used a UART.
To let it run on such low-power hardware, the image recognition model needs some limits; it can run YOLO8, but it can only recognize one object, runs at a reduced resolution of 192×192, and has to be quantized down to INT8. Within those limits, though, the performance is impressive: 20-30 fps, good accuracy, and as [Jaryd] points out, less power consumption than a single key on a typical RGB-backlit keyboard. If you want another model, there are
quite a few
available, though apparently of varying quality. If all else fails, you can always train your own.
Such edge AI projects as these are all about achieving better performance with limited resources; if your requirements aren’t too demanding, you can run
speech recognition
on much more
limited devices
. Of course, there are also some people who try to make image recognition
less effective. | 23 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8176293",
"author": "ramzi",
"timestamp": "2025-09-07T14:16:17",
"content": "We’ve been doing stuff like that with wavelets since at least early 1990s.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8176296",
"author": "Jan",
... | 1,760,371,432.88751 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/07/theremin-style-midi-controller-does-it-with-lasers/ | Theremin-Style MIDI Controller Does It With Lasers | Tyler August | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"Arduino Uno",
"midi controller",
"optical theremin",
"tof sensor"
] | Strictly speaking, a Theremin uses a pair of antennae that act as capacitors in a specific R/C circuit. Looking at [aritrakdebnath2003]’s
MIDI THEREMIN
, we see it works differently, but it does
play
in the manner of the exotic radio instrument, so we suppose it can use the name.
The MIDI THEREMIN is purely a MIDI controller. It sends note data to a computer or synthesizer, and from there, you can get whatever sound at whatever volume you desire. The device’s brain is an Arduino Uno, and
MIDI-out for the Arduino
has been a solved problem for a long while now.
In fact, we’ve seen Arduino-based Theremins before, but where this project differs is in the use of TOF sensors over the
traditional ultrasonic sensors
. In this case, the instrument uses VL53LOX TOF sensors controlled over I2C, along with an Adafruit library to interface with them.
As with all theremin-style instruments, distance from one sensor manages pitch and the other volume. Time-of-flight optical sensors are designed to provide a smoother, more precise, and more stable output than ultrasonic ones, and this tends to be the case in our experience. According to [aritrakdebnath2003], this makes the instrument more playable, and we believe it. You can download a demo video as an
MP4 from the project
at Step 5 if you want to hear it in action.
If you haven’t gotten enough theremins yet, we’ve covered many over the years–including one
based on a Commodore 64.
Be warned. If you want to
build this one
, you’ll need a lot of bread. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8176417",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-07T20:06:38",
"content": "i mean there’s no denying it’s a hack! a demonstration of how easy it is to use these TOF sensors.but every one of these music instrument projects seems to highlight the fact that the hacker didn’t unders... | 1,760,371,433.13512 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/07/anker-soundcore-space-a40-earbuds-teardown/ | Anker Soundcore Space A40 Earbuds Teardown | John Elliot V | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"earbuds",
"earphones"
] | Wireless earbuds are notoriously tiny. Want to see inside? [MCH170] did and published a
Soundcore Space A40 Teardown
.
In this teardown, you’ll see inside the charging case and one of the earbuds. Starting with the case, removing the back cover revealed the charging coil and a few screws holding the PCB in place. Removing the screws allows for removing the coil. The main PCB and the magnets that hold the earbuds in place are then visible. The microcontroller is an SS881Q from Sinhmicro. The back side of the main circuit board has a handful of SMD components, including some status LEDs. The battery is a 13450 with a nominal voltage of 3.72V and a capacity of 800mAh or 2.967Wh.
He then goes on to have a look inside one of the earbuds, which were not working prior to disassembly. The earbuds are held together with friction clips. The top of the PCB has two ribbon cables that need to come off. The top ribbon connects to the battery, and the bottom one is for the speaker and charging connections. The three pogo pins connect the touch sensor, which is installed in the outer casing. The back of the PCB is densely populated with SMD components. The main IC is a WQ7033AX Bluetooth audio SoC from WUQI Microelectronics. Under the PCB, we find the battery and the speaker. The battery has a nominal voltage of 3.85V and a capacity of 53mAh, equivalent to 0.204Wh.
All in all, an interesting look into some fairly state-of-the-art technology! If you’re interested in earphones, you might like to check out
Cheap DIY High Impedance Earphones
. Or, perhaps you’d rather convert an old pair to
twice as much wireless
. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8176441",
"author": "Greg A",
"timestamp": "2025-09-07T20:48:12",
"content": "huh. i think i’m about as negative on videos as anyone possibly could be. and i’m certainly critical of empty content.but i was curious as i read the hackaday article and i got more information of intere... | 1,760,371,433.087428 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/04/repairing-a-tektronix-577-curve-tracer/ | Repairing A Tektronix 577 Curve Tracer | John Elliot V | [
"hardware",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"repair",
"short circuit",
"Tektronix 577",
"thermal cam"
] | Over on his YouTube channel our hacker [Jerry Walker]
repairs a Tektronix 577 curve tracer
.
A
curve tracer
is a piece of equipment which plots I-V (current vs voltage) curves, among other things. This old bit of Tektronix kit is rocking a CRT, which dates it. According to TekWiki
the Tektronix 577 was introduced in 1972
.
In this repair video [Jerry] goes to use his Tektronix 577 only to discover that it is nonfunctional. He begins his investigation by popping off the back cover and checking out the voltages across the voltage rails. His investigations suggest a short circuit. He pushes on that which means he has to remove the side panel to follow a lead into the guts of the machine.
Then, in order to find the shorted component he suspect exists, [Jerry] breaks out the old thermal cam. And the thermal cam leads to the fault: a shorted tantalum capacitor, just as he suspected to begin with! After replacing the shorted tantalum capacitor this old workhorse is like new.
There are probably quite a number of repair lessons in this video, but we think that an important takeaway is just how useful a thermal camera can be when it comes time for fault finding. If you’re interested in electronics repair a thermal cam is a good trick to have up your sleeve, it excels at finding short circuits.
If you’re interested in repairing old Tektronix gear be sure to check out
Repairing An Old Tektronix TDS8000 Scope
. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8174975",
"author": "-jeffB",
"timestamp": "2025-09-04T23:11:55",
"content": "I’m sure there are people out there who would insist on using period tools to repair something like this, but I’m definitely not one of them. Every bench should have a thermal camera at this point, or at l... | 1,760,371,434.520329 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/04/tips-for-homebrewing-inductors/ | Tips For Homebrewing Inductors | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"diy inductor",
"inductor"
] | How hard can it be to create your own inductors? Get a wire. Coil it up. Right? Well, the devil is definitely in the details, and [Nick] wants to share his ten tips for building
“the perfect” inductor
. We don’t know about perfect, but we do think he brings up some very good points. Check out his video below.
If you are winding wire around your finger (or, as it appears in the video, a fork) or you are using a beefy ferrite core, you’ll find something interesting in the video.
Of course, the issue with inductors is that wires aren’t perfect, nor are core materials. Factors like this lead to inefficiency and loss, sometimes in a frequency-dependent way.
It looks like [Nick] is building a large switching power supply, so the subject inductor is a handful. He demonstrates some useful computational tools for analyzing data about cores, for example.
We learned a lot watching the tricks, but we were more interested in the inductor’s construction. We have to admit that the computed inductance of the coil matched quite closely to the measured value.
Need a variable inductor?
No problem
. Before ferrite cores,
good coils were a lot harder to wind
. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175251",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-05T13:46:47",
"content": "Exciting! I’ll have a watch when i get time! Inductors have been the Achilles heel in my toolbox for quite some time, i hope that changed",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
... | 1,760,371,434.475224 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/04/designing-an-open-source-micro-manipulator/ | Designing An Open Source Micro-Manipulator | Aaron Beckendorf | [
"Robots Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"ball joint",
"closed loop",
"closed loop control",
"manipulator",
"micromanipulator",
"stepper motor control",
"stepper motor driver"
] | When you think about highly-precise actuators, stepper motors probably aren’t the first device that comes to mind. However, as [Diffraction Limited]’s
sub-micron capable micro-manipulator
shows, they can reach extremely fine precision when paired with external feedback.
The micro-manipulator is made of a mobile platform supported by three pairs of parallel linkages, each linkage actuated by a crank mounted on a stepper motor. Rather than attaching to the structure with the
more common
flexures
, these linkages swivel on ball joints. To minimize the effects of friction, the linkage bars are very long compared to the balls, and the wide range of allowed angles lets the manipulator’s stage move 23 mm in each direction.
To have precision as well as range, the stepper motors needed closed-loop control, which a magnetic rotary encoder provides. The encoder can divide a single rotation of a magnet into 100,000 steps, but this wasn’t enough for [Diffraction Limited]; to increase its resolution, he attached an array of alternating-polarity magnets to the rotor and positioned the magnetic encoder near these. As the rotor turns, the encoder’s local magnetic field rotates rapidly, creating a kind of magnetic gear.
A Raspberry Pi Pico 2 and three motor drivers control this creation; even here, the attention to detail is impressive. The motor drivers couldn’t have internal charge pumps or clocked logic units, since these introduce tiny timing errors and motion jitter. The carrier circuit board is double-sided and uses through-hole components for ease of replication; in a nice touch, the lower silkscreen displays pin numbers.
To test the manipulator’s capabilities, [Diffraction Limited] used it to position a chip die under a microscope. To test its accuracy and repeatability, he traced the path a slicer generated for the first layer of a Benchy, vastly scaled-down, with the manipulator. When run slowly to reduce thermal drift, it could trace a Benchy within a 20-micrometer square, and had a resolution of about 50 nanometers.
He’s already used the micro-manipulator to couple an optical fiber with a laser, but [Diffraction Limited] has some other uses in mind, including
maskless lithography
(perhaps putting the stepper in “wafer stepper”),
electrochemical 3D printing
,
focus stacking
, and
micromachining
. For another promising take on small-scale manufacturing, check out the
RepRapMicron
.
Thanks to [Nik282000] for the tip! | 21 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8174864",
"author": "msat",
"timestamp": "2025-09-04T18:41:31",
"content": "I watched this video the other day. Such a cool and impressive design!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8175393",
"author": "Jeff Wright",
... | 1,760,371,434.579726 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/04/returning-to-an-obsolete-home-movie-format/ | Returning To An Obsolete Home Movie Format | Jenny List | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider",
"Teardown"
] | [
"8mm",
"8mm film",
"super 8"
] | A few years ago, I bought an 8 mm home movie camera in a second hand store.
I did a teardown on it here
and pulled out for your pleasure those parts of it which I considered interesting. My vague plan was to put a Raspberry Pi in it, but instead it provided a gateway into the world of 8mm film technology. Since then I’ve
recreated its Single 8 cartridge as a 3D printable model
, produced a digital Super 8 cartridge, and had a movie camera with me at summer hacker camps.
When I tore down that Single 8 camera though, I don’t feel I did the subject justice. I concentrated on the lens, light metering, and viewfinder parts of the system, and didn’t bring you the shutter and film advance mechanism. That camera also lacked a couple of common 8 mm camera features; its light metering wasn’t through the lens, and its zoom lens was entirely manual. It’s time to dig out another 8 mm camera for a further teardown.
A Different Camera To Tear Down
The camera with a Super 8 cartridge inserted.
My test camera is a battered and scuffed Minolta XL-250 that I found in a second hand store for not a lot. It takes Super 8 cartridges, of which I have an expired Kodachrome example for the pictures, and it has the advantage of an extremely well-thought-out design that makes dismantling it very easy. So out it comes to be laid bare for Hackaday.
Once the sides have come off the camera, immediately you can see a set of very early-70s-analogue PCBs containing the light metering circuitry. Typically this would involve a CdS cell and a simple transistor circuit, and the aperture is controlled via a moving coil meter mechanism. This camera also has a large mostly-unpopulated PCB, giving a clue to some of the higher-end features found on its more expensive sibling.
The left hand side of the camera internals
The right hand side of the camera internals
Turning our attention inside the camera to the film gate, we can see the casting the film cartridge engages with, and the frame opening for the shutter To the left of that opening is a metal claw that engages with the sprocket holes in the film, thus providing the primary film advancement. The metal claw is attached to a slider on the back of the film gate, which in turn is operated by the rotation of the shutter, which is the next object of our attention.
The film gate is the silver component in the middle of the picture. The film advance claw is at its bottom left.
The back of the film gate assembly showing the film advance slider.
The shutter is a disc that spins at the frame rate, in this case 18 frames per second. It sits in the light path between the back of the lens system and the film gate. It has a segment cut out of the disc to let light through for part of the rotation, this is how it operates as a shutter. On its reverse is the cam which operates the slider for the film advancement claw, while its front is mirrored. This forms part of the through-the-lens light metering system which we’ll come to next.
The rear of the shutter (film side), showing the cam in the centre for the film advance.
The front of theshutter, showing the mirror for the light sensor.
The shutter in place. To its left attached to the PCB you can see the silver cylindrical light sensor.
The mirror on the front of the shutter is angled, which means that when the shutter is closed, the light is instead reflected upwards at right angles into a prism, which in turn directs the light to the light meter cell. The PCB on the other side must have a charge pump which takes this 18 Hz interrupted analogue signal and turns it into a DC to drive the moving coil mechanism. There’s a 10 uF capacitor which may be part of this circuit.
The W/T rocker operates this chain of levers.
The levers engage with the gearbox tucked under the lens.
Finally, we come to the powered zoom feature that was missing from the previous camera. On the top of the camera is a W/T rocker, for Wide/Telephoto. that operates the zoom. It is connected to a set of levers inside the case, which emerge as a pin at the front of the camera below the lens. This engages with a small gearbox that drives a knurled ring on the lens body, and selects forward and reverse to turn the ring. It’s driven by the same motor as the shutter, so it only works when the camera is operating.
I hope this look at my Minolta has filled in some of the gaps left by the previous article, and maybe revealed that there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to 8 mm movies. Careful though. If you dip a toe into this particular puddle it may suck you in head first! | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8174943",
"author": "Sikri",
"timestamp": "2025-09-04T21:31:43",
"content": "First! Fascinating look id love to know more about the digital tape you made",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8174959",
"author": "SpillsDirt"... | 1,760,371,434.85758 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/04/optimizing-vlf-antennas/ | Optimizing VLF Antennas | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"antenna",
"loop antenna",
"vlf"
] | Using digital techniques has caused a resurgence of interest in VLF — very low frequency — radio. Thanks to software-defined radio, you no longer need huge coils. However, you still need a suitable antenna. [Electronics Unmessed] has been experimenting and asks the question:
What really matters when it comes to VLF loops?
The answer he found is in the video below.
This isn’t the first video about the topic he’s made, but it covers new ground about what changes make the most impact on received signals. You can see via graphs how everything changes performance. There are several parameters varied, including different types of ferrite, various numbers of loops in the antenna, and wire diameter. Don’t miss the comment section, either, where some viewers have suggested other parameters that might warrant experimentation.
Don’t miss the 9-foot square antenna loop in the video. We’d like to see it suspended in the air. Probably not a good way to ingratiate yourself with your neighbors, though.
Between software-defined radio and robust computer simulation, there’s never been a better time to experiment with antennas and radios. We first saw these antennas in
an earlier post
. VLF sure is
easier than it used to be
. | 12 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8174843",
"author": "Bruce Perens",
"timestamp": "2025-09-04T18:02:07",
"content": "I put a 1200 ft coaxial beverage on the top of a cow fence. I didn’t even need a receiver, I could see all of the VLF stations worldwide on my spectrum analyzer.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth":... | 1,760,371,434.905257 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/04/bootstrapping-android-development-a-survival-guide/ | Bootstrapping Android Development: A Survival Guide | Maya Posch | [
"Android Hacks",
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Skills",
"Slider",
"Software Development"
] | [
"android sdk"
] | Developing Android applications seems like it should be fairly straightforward if you believe the glossy marketing by Google and others. It’s certainly possible to just follow the well-trodden path, use existing templates and example code – or even use one of
those WYSIWYG app generators
– to create something passable that should work okay for a range of common applications. That’s a far cry from learning general Android development, of course.
The process has changed somewhat over the years, especially with the big move from the Eclipse-based IDE with the Android Development Tools (ADT) plugin, to today’s Jetbrains IntelliJ IDEA-based Android Studio. It’s fortunately still possible to
download
just the
command-line tools
to obtain the SDK components without needing the Google-blessed IDE. Using the CLI tools it’s not only possible to use your preferred code editor, but also integrate with IDEs that provide an alternate Android development path, such as Qt with its Qt Creator IDE.
Picking Poison
Both Qt Creator and ADT/Android Studio offer a WYSIWYG experience for GUI design, though the former’s design tools are incomparably better. Much of this appears to be due to how Qt Creator’s GUI design tools follow the standard desktop GUI paradigms, with standard elements and constraint patterns. After over a decade of having wrangled the – also XML-based – UI files and WYSIWYG design tools in ADT/Android Studio, it never ceases to amaze how simple things like placing UI elements and adding constraints love to explode on you.
The intuitive Android Studio WYSIWYG experience.
Somewhat recently the original Android API layouts also got ditched in favor of the ‘refactored’
AndroidX API layouts
, with apparently now this
Jetpack Compose
being the (high-level) way to use. Over the years of me having developed for Android, many APIs and tools have been introduced, deprecated and removed at an increasingly rapid pace, to the point where having Android Studio or the CLI tools not freak out when confronted with a one year old project is a pleasant surprise.
Designing GUIs in Qt Creator’s Designer mode.
Although Qt isn’t the only alternative to the Android Studio experience, it serves to highlight the major differences encountered when approaching Android development. In fact,
Qt for Android
offers a few options, including building a desktop Qt application for Android, which can also use the Qt Quick elements, or
including Qt Quick
within your existing Android application. For Qt Quick you want to either create the UIs by hand, or using
Qt Quick Designer
, though I have so far mostly just stuck to using Qt Creator and liberally applied
stylesheets
to make the UI fit the target Android UI.
Whichever way you choose, it’s important to know your requirements and take some time to work through a few test projects before investing a lot of time in a single approach.
The Build System
No matter what approach you choose, the build system for Android is based on what is objectively one of the worst build automation tools conceivable, in the form of
Gradle
. Not only does it take ages to even start doing anything, it’s also agonizingly slow, insists on repeating tasks that should already have been completed previously, provides few ways to interact or get more information without getting absolutely swamped in useless verbosity, and loves to fail silently if you get just the wrong Gradle version installed in your Android project.
Did I mention yet that the entire Gradle tool is a permanent fixture of your Android project? Android Studio will want to upgrade it almost every time you open the project, and if you don’t use an IDE like it which automates Gradle upgrades, you better learn how to do it manually. Don’t forget to install the right Java Development Kit (JDK) either, or Android Studio, Gradle or both will get very upset.
If your IDE doesn’t pave over many of these inane issues, then getting familiar with the
Gradle wrapper CLI
commands is right on the top of your list, as you will need them. Fortunately sticking to an IDE here tends to avoid the biggest pitfalls, except for having enough time with each build session to fetch a coffee and go on a brisk walk before returning to address the next build failure.
There are no real solutions here, just a call for perseverance and
documenting solutions
that worked previously, because you will always encounter the same errors again some day.
Test, Debug And Deploy
Creating a new virtual Android device.
Even if you have built that shiny APK or app bundle, there’s a very high likelihood that there will be issues while running it. Fortunately the one advantage of JVM-based environments is that you get blasted with details when something violently explodes. Of course, that is unless someone screwed up exception handling in the code and your backtrace explodes somewhere in thin air instead. For the same reason using a debugger is pretty easy too, especially if you are using an IDE like Android Studio or Qt Creator that provides easy debugger access.
Logging in Android tends to be rather verbose, with the
LogCat
functionality providing you with a veritable flood of logging messages, most of which you want to filter out. Using the filter function of your IDE of choice is basically essential here. Usually when I do Android application debugging, I am either already running Qt Creator where I can start up a debug session, or I can fire up Android Studio and do the same here as at its core it’s the same Gradle-based project.
The
NymphCast
Player Android build, with default skin.
Of course, in order to have something catch on fire you first need to run the application, which is where you get two options: run on real hardware or use an emulator. Real hardware is easier in some ways, as unlike an emulated
Android Virtual Device
(AVD) your application can directly access the network and internet, whereas an AVD instance requires you to
wrangle with network redirects
each session.
On the other hand, using an AVD can be handy as it allows you to create devices with a wide range of screen resolutions, so it can be quite nifty to test applications that do not require you to connect to externally via the network. If you want to know for example how well your UI scales across screen sizes, and how it looks on something like a tablet, then using an AVD is a pretty good option.
Some hardware devices are also quite annoyingly locked-down, such as Xiaomi phones that at least for a while have refused to allow you to toggle on remote debugging via USB unless you install a SIM card. Fortunately this could be circumvented by clicking through an alternate path that the Xiaomi developers had not locked down, but these are just some of the obnoxious hurdles that you may encounter with real hardware.
With that out of the way, deploying to an AVD or real device is basically the same, either by using the ‘Start’ or similar function in your IDE of choice with the target device selected, or by doing so via the command-line, either with
ADB
, or via the Gradle wrapper with
./gradlew InstallDebug
or equivalent.
This will of course be a debug build, with creating a release build also being an option, but this will not be signed by default.
Signing an APK
requires a whole other procedure, and is honestly something that’s best done via the friendly-ish dialogs in an IDE, rather than by burning a lot of time and sanity on the command-line. Whether you want to sign the APK or app bundle depends mostly on your needs/wants and what a potential app store demands.
Ever since Google began to demand that all developers – including Open Source hobbyists – send in a scan of their government ID and full address, I have resorted to just distributing the Android builds of my
NymphCast
player and server via GitHub, from where they can be sideloaded.
This NymphCast server is incidentally the topic of the next installment in this mini-series, in which we will be doing a deep dive into native Android development using the NDK. | 24 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "8174704",
"author": "Andrzej",
"timestamp": "2025-09-04T14:32:22",
"content": "Um.. I’m not sure what was the goal here. Using QtWidgets (the “classical”, non-Quick UI) makes little sense on a touch-based device. Yes, you can make apps, you can probably even make apps which will som... | 1,760,371,435.848796 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/04/microsoft-basic-for-6502-is-now-open-source/ | Microsoft BASIC For 6502 Is Now Open Source | Jenny List | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"6502",
"basic",
"microsoft",
"MS BASIC"
] | An overriding memory for those who used 8-bit machines back in the day was of using BASIC to program them. Without a disk-based operating system as we would know it today, these systems invariably booted into a BASIC interpreter. In the 1970s the foremost supplier of BASIC interpreters was Microsoft, whose BASIC could be found in Commodore and Apple products among many others. Now we can all legally join in the fun, because the software giant
has made version 1.1 of Microsoft BASIC for the 6502 open source under an MIT licence
.
This version comes from mid-1978, and supports the Commodore PET as well as the KIM-1 and early Apple models. It won’t be the same as the extended versions found in later home computers such as the Commodore 64, but it still provides plenty of opportunities for retrocomputer enthusiasts to experiment. It’s also not entirely new to the community, because it’s a version that has been doing the rounds unofficially for a long time, but now with any licensing worries cleared up. A neat touch can be found in the GitHub repository, with the dates on the files being 48 years ago.
We look forward to seeing what the community does with this new opportunity, and given that
the 50-year-old 6502 is very much still with us
we expect some real-hardware projects. Meanwhile
this isn’t the first time Microsoft has surprised us with an old product
.
Header image: Michael Holley,
Public domain
. | 29 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8174634",
"author": "www2",
"timestamp": "2025-09-04T11:28:12",
"content": "Now we hope that MS release windows 95, 98 and DirectX (up to DirectX 9) under MIT.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8174658",
"author": "www2"... | 1,760,371,434.807348 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/01/tiny-datasette-uses-usb-for-the-modern-day/ | Tiny Datasette Uses USB For The Modern Day | Tyler August | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"datasette",
"FSK",
"micro cassette"
] | While you can still find tape being used for backup storage, it’s pretty safe to say that the humble audio cassette is about as out of date as a media format can be. Still, it has a certain retro charm we’re suckers for, particularly in the shape of a Commodore Datasette. We’re also suckers for miniaturization, so how could we not fall for [bitluni] ‘s
tiny datasette replica
?
Aesthetically, he’s copying the Commodore original to get those sweet nostalgia juices flowing, but to make things more interesting he’s not using compact cassette tapes. Instead, [bitluni] started with a micro cassette dictaphone, which he tore down to its essentials and rebuilt into the Commodore-shaped case.
The prototyping of this project was full of hacks — like building a resistor ladder DAC in an unpopulated part of a spare PCB from an unrelated project. The DAC is of course key to getting data onto the micro cassettes. After some playing around [bitluni] decided that encoding data with FSK (frequency-shift keying), as was done back on the C-64, was the way to go. (Almost like those old engineers knew what they were doing!) The dictaphone tape transport is inferior to the old Datasette, though, so as a cheap error-correction hack, [bitluni] needed to duplicate each byte to make sure it gets read correctly.
The micro cassettes only fit a laughable amount of data by modern standards this way (about 1 MB) but, of course that’s not the point. If you jump to 11:33 in the video embedded below, you can see the point: the shout of triumph when loading PacMan (all 8 kB of it) from tape via USB. That transfer was via serial console; eventually [bitluni] intends to turn this into the world’s least-practical mass storage device, but that wasn’t necessary for proof-of-concept. The code for what’s shown
is available on GitHub.
If you have an old Datasette you want to use with a modern PC, you’d better believe that
we’ve got you covered
. We’ve seen other
cassette-mass-storage interfaces over the years
, too. It might be a dead medium, but there’s just something about “sticky tape and rust” that lives on in our imaginations.
Thanks to [Stephen Walters] for the tip. | 29 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8173246",
"author": "stormwyrm",
"timestamp": "2025-09-02T05:42:42",
"content": "Using something like v.92 modulation you could perhaps get 9 megabytes out of a 60 minute cassette tape at 56 kbps using both stereo channels. With an even better modulation scheme you could make use of... | 1,760,371,435.013169 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/01/old-projects-memorialize-them-into-functional-art/ | Old Projects? Memorialize Them Into Functional Art | Donald Papp | [
"Art",
"clock hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"art",
"clock",
"panel",
"vintage",
"wall mounted"
] | What does one do with old circuit boards and projects? Throwing them out doesn’t feel right, but storage space is at a premium for most of us. [Gregory Charvat] suggests doing what he did:
combining them all into a wall-mountable panel in order to memorialize them
, creating a functional digital clock in the process. As a side benefit, it frees up storage space!
Everything contributes. If it had lights, they light up. If it had a motor, it moves.
Memorializing and honoring his old hardware is a journey that involved more than just gluing components to a panel and hanging it on the wall. [Gregory] went through his old projects one by one, doing repairs where necessary and modifying as required to ensure that each unit could power up, and did
something
once it did. Composition-wise, earlier projects (some from childhood) are mounted near the bottom. The higher up on the panel, the more recent the project.
As mentioned, the whole panel is more than just a collage of vintage hardware — it functions as a digital clock, complete with seven-segment LED displays and a sheet metal panel festooned with salvaged controls. Behind it all, an Arduino MEGA takes care of running the show.
Creating it was clearly a nostalgic journey for [Gregory], resulting in a piece that celebrates and showcases his hardware work into something functional that seems to have a life of its own. You can get a closer look in the video embedded below the page break.
This really seems like a rewarding way to memorialize one’s old projects, and maybe even
help let go of unfinished ones
.
And of course, we’re also a fan of the way it frees up space. After all, many of us do not thrive in clutter and our own [Gerrit Coetzee] has some
guidance and advice on controlling it
. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8173271",
"author": "macsimki",
"timestamp": "2025-09-02T07:56:41",
"content": "aha! you have the machine that goes ping!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8173327",
"author": "Jan Prägert",
"timestamp": "2025-09-02T10:50:... | 1,760,371,434.949424 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/01/robotic-canoe-puts-robot-arms-to-work/ | Robotic Canoe Puts Robot Arms To Work | Donald Papp | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"canoe",
"robotic arm",
"robotics",
"ros",
"watercraft"
] | Most robots get around with tracks or wheels, but [Dave] had something different in mind. Sufficiently unbothered by the prospect of mixing electronics and water, [Dave] augmented a canoe with
twin, paddle-bearing robotic arms
to bring to life a concept he had: the
RowboBoat
. The result? A canoe that can paddle itself with robotic arms, leaving the operator free to take a deep breath, sit back, and concentrate on not capsizing.
There are a couple of things we really like about this build, one of which is the tidiness of the robotic platform that non-destructively attaches to the canoe itself with custom brackets. A combination of aluminum extrusion and custom brackets, [Dave] designed it with the help of 3D scanning the canoe as a design aid. A canoe, after all, has nary a straight edge nor a right angle in sight. Being able to pull a 3D model into CAD helps immensely in such cases; we have also seen this technique used in
refitting a van into an off-grid camper
.
The other thing we like is the way that [Dave] drives the arms. The two PiPER robotic arms are driven with
ROS, the Robot Operating System
on a nearby
Jetson Orin Nano
SBC. The clever part is the way [Dave] observed that padding and steering a canoe has a lot in common with a differential drive, which is akin to how a tank works. And so, for propulsion, ROS simply treats the paddle-bearing arms as though they were wheels in a differential drive. The arms don’t seem to mind a little water, and the rest of the electronics are protected by a pair of firmly-crossed fingers.
The canoe steers by joystick, but being driven by ROS it could be made autonomous with a little more work. [Dave] has his configuration and code for RowboBoat
up on GitHub
should anyone wish to take a closer look. Watch it in action in the video, embedded below. | 25 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "8173141",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-01T23:27:52",
"content": "I am appalled that this HaD article contains a video. In my day, articles were articles and videos were videos. And those robot arms look totally fake.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies":... | 1,760,371,434.646924 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/01/a-label-printer-gets-a-new-brain/ | A Label Printer Gets A New Brain | Jenny List | [
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"casio",
"ESP32",
"label printer"
] | The internals of a printer, whatever technology it may use, are invariably proprietary, with an abstracted more standard language being used to communicate with a host computer. Thus it’s surprisingly rare to see hacks on printers as printers, rather than printer hacks using the parts for some other purpose. This makes [Oelison]’s
brain-swap of a Casio thermal label printer
a welcome surprise, as it puts an ESP32 in the machine instead of whatever Casio gave it.
The value in the hack lies in the insight it gives into how a thermal printer works as much as it does in the ESP32 and the Casio, as it goes into some detail on the various signals involved. The strobe line for instance to enable the heater is a nuance we were unaware of. The resulting printer will lose its keyboard and display, but make up for it in connectivity.
Despite what we said earlier this isn’t the first label printer hack we’ve seen.
A previous one was Linux-based though
. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8173081",
"author": "Senile Data Systems",
"timestamp": "2025-09-01T21:34:15",
"content": "I got an old Casio label printer from the 90s that has an actual (SMD) Z80 CPU in it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8173111",
... | 1,760,371,435.055148 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/01/building-a-halloween-vending-computer-that-talks/ | Building A Halloween Vending Computer That Talks | John Elliot V | [
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"halloween",
"talking computer",
"vending machine"
] | Our hacker from [Appalachian Forge Works] wrote in to let us know about their vending machine build:
a Halloween vending computer that talks
.
He starts by demonstrating the vending process: a backlit vend button is pressed, an animation plays on the screen as a synthetic voice speaks through attached speakers, the vending mechanism rotates until a successful vend is detected with a photoelectric sensor (a photoresistor and an LED) or a timeout of 10 seconds is reached (the timeout is particularly important for cases when the stock of prizes is fully depleted).
For a successful vend the prize will roll out a vending tube and through some ramps, visible via a perspex side panel, into the receptacle, as the spooky voice announces the vend. It’s the photoelectric sensor which triggers the mask to speak.
The vending mechanism is a wheel that spins, the bouncy balls caught in a hole on the wheel, then fall through a vending tube. The cache of prizes are stored in a clear container attached to the top, which is secured with a keyed lock attached to the 3D printed lid. After unlocking the lid can be removed for restocking.
The whole device is built into an old PC case tower. The back panels have been replaced and sealed. The computer in the box is an ASUS CN60 Chromebox running Ubuntu Linux. The power button is obscured on the back of the case to avoid accidental pressing. The monitor is bolted on to the side panel with a perspex screen and connected to the Chromebox via VGA. Inside there are two power supplies, an Arduino Uno microcontroller, and an audio amplifier attached to a pair of speakers.
A 12V DC motor controls the vending prize wheel which feeds a prize into the vending tube. The vending tube has an LED on one side and a photoresistor on the other side that detects the vend. The software, running on Linux, is Python code using the
Pygame library
.
If you’re interested in vending machines you might also be interested in this one:
This Vending Machine Is For The Birds
.
Thanks to [Adam] for writing in about this one. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8173100",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-01T22:02:39",
"content": "How does it dispense rolls of TP to the kids with the small formfactor?Won’t the eggs break if dropped so far?Even a can of shaving cream will be too long.Are kids dumb enough to pay for an invisible rope?",... | 1,760,371,435.151798 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/01/making-the-worlds-smallest-e-bike-battery/ | Making The World’s Smallest E-Bike Battery | Fenix Guthrie | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"18650 battery",
"bicycle",
"e-bike",
"ebike",
"lithium battery",
"lithium ion",
"mountain bike"
] | Often times, e-bikes seek to build the biggest battery with the most range. But what if you want to take a couple lunch loops on your bike and only need 20 minutes of charge? That’s [Seth] from Berm Peak set out to find out
with his minuscule Bermacell battery
.
The battery is made from only 14 18650s, this tiny 52V batty is nearly as small an e-bike battery as can be made. Each cell is 3000 mAh making a total battery capacity of 156 Wh. All the cells were welded in series with an off the shelf BMS and everything was neatly packaged in an over-sized 3D printed 9V battery case. [Seth] plans to make another smaller battery with less then 100 Wh of capacity so he can take it on a plane, so stay tuned for more coverage!
[Seth] hooked up the Bermacell to the Bimotal e-bike conversion system on his trail bike and hit Kanuga bike park. He got three laps out of the Bermacell, and thinks a fourth is possible with more conservative throttle usage. The three laps equates to about 1500 ft of total elevation gain, a metric commonly used by mountain bikers. For a more useful metric for commuters, [Seth] recharged the battery and rode to a nearby coffee shop and back, a distance of nearly 13 miles with pedaling and throttle assist.
This is not the first time we have seen [Seth] hacking on e-bikes. Make sure to check out our coverage of his
jailbreak of a pay to ride e-bike. | 25 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8172904",
"author": "Andrzej",
"timestamp": "2025-09-01T14:26:34",
"content": "The TSDZ2 with open-source firmware can run on packs as low as 24V, so you could use only 7 cells, or something only slightly larger than the common power-tool battery. I wouldn’t bet on it being very use... | 1,760,371,435.119491 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/01/worlds-largest-neutrino-detector-is-collecting-data-in-china/ | Worlds Largest Neutrino Detector Is Collecting Data In China | Tyler August | [
"News",
"Science"
] | [
"neutrinos",
"particle physics"
] | To say that neutrinos aren’t the easiest particles to study would be a bit of an understatement. Outside of dark matter, there’s not much in particle physics that is as slippery as the elusive “ghost particles” that are endlessly streaming through you and everything you own. That’s why its exciting news that
JUNO is now taking data as the world’s largest detector.
First, in case you’re not a physics geek, let’s go back to basics. Neutrinos are neutral particles (the name was coined by Fermi as “little neutral one”) with very, very little mass and a propensity for slipping in between the more-common particles that make up everyday matter. The fact that neutrinos have mass is
kind of
weird
, in that it’s not part of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Since the Standard Model gets just about everything else right (except for dark matter) down to quite a few decimal points, well… that’s a very interesting kind of weird, hence the worldwide race to unravel the mysteries of the so-called “ghost particle”.
We have an explainer article here for anyone who wants more background.
The JUNO vessel from inside the (then empty) water jacket. Note the outwards-facing PMTs.
With JUNO, China is likely to take the lead in that race. JUNO stands for Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory, and if you fancy a trip to southern China you can find it 700 metres under Guangdong. With 20,000 tonnes of liquid scintillator (a chemical that lights up when excited by a subatomic particle) and 43,200 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) to catch every photon the scintillator gives off, it is the largest of its type in the world.
The liquid scintillator — linear alkyl benzene, for the chemists — is housed within an acrylic sphere surrounded by PMTs, suspended within an extra sixty thousand tonnes of ultra-pure water for radiation shielding. The arrangement is similar to the
Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
, but much larger. More PMTs point outwards to monitor this water jacket to serve as coincidence detectors for things like muons. With all of those PMTs, we can only hope everyone has learned from
Super-K, and they don’t all blow up this time
.
Assuming no catastrophic failure, JUNO will have great sensitivity in particular to antineutrinos, and will be used not just for astroparticle physics but as part of a beam experiment to study neutrino oscillations from neutrinos emitted by nearby nuclear reactors. (Virtually all nuclear reactions, from fusion to fission to beta decay, involve neutrino emission.) Neutrino oscillation refers to the strange ability neutrinos have to oscillate between their three different ‘flavours’ something related to their anomalous mass.
In this schematic diagram of a neutrino detection, PMTs around the detector are coloured according to the photons detected. The neutrino’s path has been recreated as a green line.
While JUNO is the biggest in the world, it won’t be forever. If everything goes according to plan, Japan will take the crown back when
HyperKamiokande comes online inside its 258,000 tonne water vessel in 2028
. Of course the great thing about scientific competition is that it doesn’t matter who is on top: with openly published results, we all win. | 16 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8172878",
"author": "Tim",
"timestamp": "2025-09-01T13:23:00",
"content": "I would not call reactor neutrinos a beam. They are emitted into all directions (isotropically). There are other experiments like T2K that use an accelerator to create a directed beam of neutrinos.",
"par... | 1,760,371,435.315661 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/02/phonenstien-flips-broken-samsung-into-qwerty-slider/ | Phonenstien Flips Broken Samsung Into QWERTY Slider | Tyler August | [
"Cellphone Hacks"
] | [
"android phone",
"blackberry keyboard",
"q10",
"Samsung zFold"
] | The phone ecosystem these days is horribly boring compared to the innovation of a couple decades back. Your options include flat rectangles, and flat rectangles that fold in half and then break. [Marcin Plaza] wanted to think outside the slab, without reinventing the wheel. In an inspired bout of hacking,
he flipped a broken Samsung zFlip 5 into a “new” phone.
There’s really nothing new in it; the guts all come from the donor phone. That screen? It’s the front screen that was on the top half of the zFlip, as you might have guessed from the cameras. Normally that screen is only used for notifications, but with the Samsung’s fancy folding OLED dead as Disco that needed to change. Luckily for [Marcin] Samsung has an app called Good Lock that already takes care of that. A little digging about in the menus is all it takes to get a launcher and apps on the small screen.
Because this is a modern phone, the whole thing is glued together, but that’s not important since [Marcin] is only keeping the screen and internals from the Samsung. The new case with its chunky four-bar linkage is a custom design fabbed out in CNC’d aluminum. (After a number of 3D Printed prototypes, of course. Rapid prototyping FTW!)
The bottom half of the slider contains a Blackberry Q10 keyboard, along with a battery and Magsafe connector. The Q10 keyboard is connected to a custom flex PCB with an Arduino Micro Pro that is moonlighting as a Human Input Device. Sure, that means the phone’s USB port is used by the keyboard, but this unit has wireless charging,so that’s not a great sacrifice. We particularly like the use of magnets to create a satisfying “snap” when the slider opens and closes.
Unfortunately, as much as we might love this concept, [Marcin] doesn’t feel the design is solid enough to share the files. While that’s disappointing, we can certainly relate to his desire to change it up in an
era of endless flat rectangles
. This project is a lot more work than just
turning a broken phone into a server,
but it also seems like a lot more fun. | 17 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8173651",
"author": "Rick C",
"timestamp": "2025-09-02T20:38:01",
"content": "I watched a few minutes of the video and was not impressed by the overall goofiness–too much effort on being cutesy.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,371,435.203855 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/02/applying-thermal-lining-to-rocket-tubes-requires-a-monstrous-diy-spin-caster/ | Applying Thermal Lining To Rocket Tubes Requires A Monstrous DIY Spin-caster | Donald Papp | [
"chemistry hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"bps.space",
"Rocket Motor",
"spin casting",
"Thermal"
] | [BPS.space] takes model rocketry seriously, and their rockets tend to get bigger and bigger. If there’s one thing that comes with the territory in DIY rocketry, it’s the constant need to solve new problems.
Coating the inside of a tube evenly with a thick, goopy layer before it cures isn’t easy.
One such problem is how to coat the inside of a rocket motor tube with a thermal liner, and their solution is a machine they made and called the
Limb Remover 6000
on account of its ability to spin an 18 kg metal tube at up to 1,000 rpm which is certainly enough to, well, you know.
One problem is that the mixture for the thermal liner is extremely thick and goopy, and doesn’t pour very well. To get an even layer inside a tube requires spin-casting, which is a process of putting the goop inside, then spinning the tube at high speed to evenly distribute the goop before it cures. While conceptually straightforward, this particular spin-casting job has a few troublesome difficulties.
For one thing, the uncured thermal liner is
so thick
and flows
so poorly
that it can’t simply be poured in to let the spinning do all the work of spreading it out. It needs to be distributed as evenly as possible up front, and [BPS.space] achieves that with what is essentially a giant syringe that is moved the length of the tube while extruding the uncured liner while the clock is ticking. If that sounds like a cumbersome job, that’s because it is.
The first attempt ended up scrapped but helped identify a number of shortcomings. After making various improvements the second went much better and was successfully tested with a 12 second burn that left the tube not only un-melted, but cool enough to briefly touch after a few minutes. There are still improvements to be made, but overall it’s one less problem to solve.
We’re always happy to see progress from [BPS.space], especially milestones like
successfully (and propulsively) landing a model rocket
, and we look forward to many more.
Thanks to [Keith] for the tip! | 18 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8173631",
"author": "Swift",
"timestamp": "2025-09-02T20:10:14",
"content": "Mixed feelings on BPS space. He is making decent progress, but I have met people he pissed off on the way there. There is a reason SpaceX wouldn’t hire him.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"r... | 1,760,371,435.260661 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/02/no-need-for-inserts-if-youre-prepared-to-use-self-tappers/ | No Need For Inserts If You’re Prepared To Use Self-Tappers | Jenny List | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"3d printing",
"fasteners",
"self tapping screws"
] | As the art of 3D printing has refined itself over the years, a few accessories have emerged to take prints to the next level. One of them is the threaded insert, a a piece of machined brass designed to be heat-set into a printed hole in the part. They can be placed by hand with a soldering iron, or for the really cool kids, with a purpose-built press. They look great and they can certainly make assembly of a 3D printed structure very easy, but I’m here to tell you they are not as necessary as they might seem. There’s an alternative I have been using for years which does essentially the same job without the drama.
Enter The Self-Tapper
This turret camera project features both inserts on the M12 lens holders, and self-tappers for the centre boss and the mounting screws.
When we think of screws or other fastenings, if we’re not a woodworker, the chances are that it’s a machine screw which comes to mind. A high-precision machined parallel thread, intended to screw into a similarly machined receptacle. Where this is being written they’re mostly metric, in fact I have a small pile of M3 bolts on my desk as I write this, for mounting a Raspberry Pi LCD screen. These are what you would use with those heat-set inserts, and they are generally a very good way to attach parts to each other.
However good an M3 bolt is though, I don’t use them for most of my 3D printing work. Instead, I use self-tapping screws. A self-tapper is a screw with a wide tapering pitch, designed to cut its own thread into a soft material. Most wood screws are self-tappers, as are many screws used for example with aluminium sheet. The material is soft enough for a reliable enough coupling to be made, even if repeated use or over-tightening can destroy it. It’s easy to make 3D prints that can take self-tapping screws in this way, I find it reliable enough for my purposes, and I think it can save you a bunch of time with heat inserts.
How To Make It All Happen
Designing for a self-tapping connection in a 3D print is simplicity itself: a suitable hole for the screw thread to pass through is placed in the upper side, while the lower side has a smaller hole for the thread to bite into. The size of the smaller hole can vary significantly without penalty, but I normally make it the diameter of the shaft of the screw without the thread. A simple example for a 3mm self-tapper in OpenSCAD is shown below, along with a render of the result.
//Screw head end
translate([0,0,20]){ //Move upwards to see both parts
difference(){
cube([20,20,4]);
//screw thread
translate([10,10,0]) cylinder(10,1.5,1.5);
//screw head
translate([10,10,2]) cylinder(10,3,3);
}
}
//Screw thread end
difference(){
cube([20,20,10]);
translate([10,10,0]) cylinder(10,1,1); // For the screw to bite into
}
Assembly follows construction in its simplicity; simply line up both holes and screw the self-tapping screw into them. It should be obvious when the screw is tight enough. Mashing upon it, just like with any other self tapper, risks stripping the thread.
Everyone makes things in their own manner, and it’s likely that among you will be people who might decry the use of self-tappers in a 3D print. But I have found this technique to be a simple and cheap time saver for as many years as I’ve been 3D printing. I hope by sharing it with you, I’ve given you a useful tool in your work. | 57 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "8173545",
"author": "Dave Z.",
"timestamp": "2025-09-02T17:12:39",
"content": "In my experience, not all self-tapping screws are created equal. There are generic “self-tapping” screws, those intended for metals, some made for plastics, and so on. Sheet metal screws tend to wedge pla... | 1,760,371,435.413188 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/02/checking-out-a-tv-pattern-generator-from-1981/ | Checking Out A TV Pattern Generator From 1981 | Donald Papp | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"analog",
"retrotechnology",
"test pattern",
"tv",
"vintage"
] | The picture on a TV set used to be the combined product of multiple analog systems, and since TVs had no internal diagnostics, the only way to know things were adjusted properly was to see for yourself. While many people were more or less satisfied if their TV picture was reasonably recognizable and clear, meaningful diagnostic work or calibration required specialized tools. [Thomas Scherrer] provides a close look at one such tool, the
Philips PM 5519 GX Color TV Pattern Generator
from 1981.
This Casio handheld TV even picked up the test pattern once the cable was disconnected, the pattern generator acting like a miniature TV station.
The Philips PM 5519 was a serious piece of professional equipment for its time, and [Thomas] walks through how the unit works and even opens it up for a peek inside, before hooking it up to both an oscilloscope and a TV in order to demonstrate the different functions.
Tools like this were important because they could provide known-good test patterns that were useful not just for troubleshooting and repair, but also for tasks like fine-tuning TV settings, or verifying the quality of broadcast signals. Because TVs were complex analog systems, these different test patterns would help troubleshoot and isolate problems by revealing what a TV did (and didn’t) have trouble reproducing.
As mentioned, televisions at the time had no self-diagnostics nor any means of producing test patterns of their own, so a way to produce known-good reference patterns was deeply important.
TV stations used to broadcast test patterns after the day’s programming was at an end, and some dedicated folks have even
reproduced the hardware that generated these patterns from scratch
. | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8173509",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-02T15:38:01",
"content": "I remember if memory serves signetic (or was that Philips) chips that embodied TV test generators.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8173798",
... | 1,760,371,435.461506 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/02/the-sense-and-nonsense-of-virtual-power-plants/ | The Sense And Nonsense Of Virtual Power Plants | Maya Posch | [
"Current Events",
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"green hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"electrical grid",
"power plants"
] | Over the past decades power grids have undergone a transformation towards smaller and more intermittent generators – primarily in the form of wind and solar generators – as well as smaller grid-connected batteries. This poses a significant problem when it comes to grid management, as this relies on careful management of supply and demand. Quite recently the term Virtual Power Plant (VPP) was coined to describe these aggregations of disparate resources into something that at least superficially can be treated more or less as a regular dispatchable power plant, capable of increasing and reducing output as required.
Although not actual singular power plants, by purportedly making a VPP act like one, the claim is that this provides the benefits of large plants such as gas-fired turbines at a fraction of a cost, and with significant more redundancy as the failure of a singular generator or battery is easily compensated for within the system.
The question is thus whether this premise truly holds up, or whether there are hidden costs that the marketing glosses over.
Reactive Power
The power triangle, showing the relationship between real, apparent and reactive power. (Source:
Wikimedia
)
The alternating current (AC) based electrical grid is a delicate system that
requires constant and very careful balancing
to ensure that its current current and voltage don’t go too far out of phase, lest grid frequency and voltage start following it well beyond tolerances. The consequence of getting this wrong has been readily demonstrated over the decades through large-scale blackouts, not the least of which being the 2025
Iberian Peninsula blackout
event that plummeted all of Spain and Portugal into darkness. This occurred after attempts to reduce the amount of reactive power in the system failed and safeties began to kick in throughout these national grids.
This is also the point where the idea of a VPP runs into a bit of a reality check, as the recommendation by the grid operators (transmission system operators, or TSOs) is that all significant generators on the grid should be capable of grid-forming. What this means is that unlike the average invertor on a wind- or PV solar installation that just follows the local grid frequency and voltage, it should instead be able to both absorb and produce reactive power.
Effectively this involves adding local energy storage, which is where the idea seems to be that you can sort of fudge this with distributed dumb inverters and grid-connected batteries in the form of people’s whole house batteries and whatever
Vehicle-to-Grid
(V2G) capable BEV is currently plugged in within that subsection of the grid.
Theoretically with enough of these scattered generators and storage elements around, along with a few grid-forming converters and remotely controlled loads like EV chargers and airconditioning units, you could simulate the effect of a regular thermal- or hydropower plant. The question is whether you can make it work well enough, and as a logical follow-up question, there are those who would like to know who is really footing the bill in the end.
Battery Rental
Electricity generation by type, 2001-2024. (Credit:
California Energy Commission
)
An example of such a VPP in action can be found in California, where PG&E and others have
recently been running tests
. A big focus here is on these home batteries, which are also used for peak-shaving in these tests, with the battery owner compensated for withdrawn power. In a report sponsored by Sunrun and Tesla Energy, the Brattle Group
describes this system
in which the Demand Side Grid Support (DSGS) program aspect is hailed as a major revolution.
Fire at the Moss Landing Power Plant. (Credit:
Guy Churchward
)
The idea here is that regular grid-connected consumers install batteries which the grid operator can then tap into, which can compensate for California’s increasing amount of non-dispatchable, non-grid forming generation sources. Of note here is that
grid-scale energy storage
can never provide enough capacity to bridge significant spans of time, ergo the proposal here is primarily to provide an alternative to expensive peaker plants, of which California already has a significant number.
With a predicted 4 GW of home battery capacity by 2040, this could then save the grid operators a lot of cash if they can use these batteries instead of running special peaker plants, or installing more large batteries as at the (PG&E-operated)
Moss Landing battery storage facility
.
Incidentally, said Moss Landing battery storage facility has repeatedly caught fire, which highlights another potentially major savings for grid operators, as the fallout of such events are instead borne by the operator of the battery, which for the DSGS would be the home owner. So far, remote adjustment of air-conditioning doesn’t seem to be a big part of the discussion yet, but this would seem to be only a matter of time, considering the significant power savings that way, even if it relies just on paid volunteers like with the DSGS.
Signs Of Market Failure
Although it can seem tempting to imagine making money off that expensive home battery or electric car by letting the local grid operator tap into it, the same general issues apply as with the much older V2G discussion. Not only is there the question of battery wear, but as mentioned there are also insurance considerations, and the problem that home batteries and BEVs tend to be sited far from where they are likely needed. While a site like Moss Landing is directly plugged into the big transmission lines, home batteries are stuck on some local distribution grid, making dispatching their power a bit of a nightmare.
This is also the impression one gets when reading
certain articles on VPPs
over at the US Department of Energy, with a VPP plan in Illinois targeting larger commercial and community solar generators rather than residential,
giving them a rebate
if they want to foot the bill for installing a grid-following converter, which presumably would involve some level of on-site storage. A major problem with distributed resources is their distributed nature, which precludes any planning or siting considerations that directly address demand in the form of building a power plant or pumped hydro plant with a direct transmission line to where it’s needed.
Projected electricity generation pathways by 2040. (Credit:
S&P Global Inc.
)
Meanwhile a
recent study commissioned
by the American Clean Power Association (ACP) concludes that in the US alone, electricity demand by 2040 is likely to surge 35-40% compared to today, requiring an extremely fast buildout of additional generating resources involving mostly the same kind of power mix as today. At a projected 5.5 – 6 TWh by 2024 compared to about 4 TWh today with a significant boost in non-dispatchable generators, it seems fair to question how far home batteries and a handful of V2G-enabled EV cars can support this effort in some kind of national VPP system.
Asking The Basic Questions
Although it’s often said that ‘distributed electricity generation’ is the future, it’s rarely quantified why exactly this would be the case. Simply looking at how AC power grids work, along with the tracing of the kilometers of required transmission lines across a map in order to connect all disparate generators should give one plenty of pause. It seems obvious enough that an abundance of distributed, non-dispatchable, non-grid-forming generators on a grid would also prove to be problematic, especially in the wake of the Iberian blackout this year.
Patching around this by making end-users foot the bill for battery storage and grid-forming converters and calling it VPPs then feels disingenuous. Here a more reasonable model – that has also been repeatedly suggested and occasionally implemented – involves homes and businesses equipped with local storage that only serves to reduce demand on the grid. These batteries can be charged from the grid when the ¢/kWh rate is very low, providing a balancing influence on the grid without remote control by TSOs or similar levels of complexity.
Ultimately it would seem that the European TSOs (ENTSO-E) with their focus on eradicating dumb converters and requiring grid-forming ones are on the right track. After all, if every wind and solar generator installation acts for all intents and purposes as a dispatchable generator with the ability to absorb and generate reactive power, then the whole VPP debate and much of the grid-storage debate is instantly irrelevant. It just means that the investors for these variable generators will have to spend significantly more instead of palming these costs off on end-users as some kind of grand deal. | 33 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "8173436",
"author": "webkris",
"timestamp": "2025-09-02T14:25:30",
"content": "This article uses a LOT of very specific “grid operator” language like “forming dumb coverters” and lots of TLA’s. What did I just read?! Where’s the “Hackaday” angle? Where is the homeowner who built the... | 1,760,371,435.533003 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/02/build-your-own-pip-boy-styled-watch/ | Build Your Own Pip-Boy Styled Watch | Donald Papp | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"ESP32",
"Fallout",
"Lilygo",
"pip-boy",
"wristwatch"
] | [Arnov Sharma]’s latest PIP-WATCH
version is an homage to Pip-Boys, the multi-function wrist-mounted personal computers of
Fallout
.
We like the magnetic clasp on the back end.
[Arnov] has created a really clean wearable design with great build instructions, so anyone who wants to make their own should have an easy time. Prefer to put your own spin on it, or feel inspired by the wrist-mounted enclosure? He’s thoughtfully provided the CAD files as well.
Inside the PIP-WATCH is a neat piece of hardware, the Lilygo T-Display-S3 Long. It’s an ESP32-based board with a wide, touch-enabled, color 180 x 640 display attached. That makes it a perfect fit for a project like this, at least in theory. In practice, [Arnov] found the documentation extremely lacking which made the hardware difficult to use, but he provides code and instructions so there’s no need to go through the same hassles he did.
In addition to the Hackaday.io project page, there’s
an Instructables walkthrough
.
If you put your own spin on a Pip-boy (whether just a project inspired by one, or a
no-detail-spared build of dizzying detail
) we want to hear about it, so be sure to
drop us a tip
! | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8173338",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2025-09-02T11:18:23",
"content": "Ever since I played Fallout 3 as a 17 year old, I have been wanting to make a pip boy of my own.Pip boy for those who don’t know is a hand mounted computer in the videogame series. It has a tape drive, ... | 1,760,371,435.577971 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/02/remembering-the-intel-compute-stick/ | Remembering The Intel Compute Stick | Maya Posch | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"Intel Compute Stick"
] | Over the years Intel has introduced a number of new computer form factors that either became a hit, fizzled out, or moved on to live a more quiet life. The New Unit of Computing (NUC) decidedly became a hit with so-called Mini PCs now everywhere, while the Intel Compute Stick has been largely forgotten. In a recent video by the [Action Retro]
one such Compute Stick is poked at
, specifically the last model released by Intel in the form of the 2016-era STK1AW32SC, featuring a quad-core Intel Atom
x5-Z8330
SoC, 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB eMMC storage.
As the name suggests, this form factor is very stick-like, with a design that makes it easy to just plug it into the HDMI port of a display, making it a snap to add a computer to any TV or such without taking up a considerable amount of space. Although Intel didn’t make more of them after this model, it
could be argued that devices like the Chromecast dongle
follow the same general concept, and
manufacturers like MeLe
are still making new PCs in this form factor today.
In the video this 2016-era Compute Stick is put through its paces, wiping the Windows 10 installation that was still on it from the last time it was used, and an installation of Haiku was attempted which unfortunately failed to see the eMMC storage. Worse was the current Ubuntu, which saw its installer simply freeze up, but MX Linux saved the day, providing a very usable Linux desktop experience including the watching of YouTube content and network streaming of Steam games.
Although dissed as ‘e-waste’ by many today, if anything this video shows that these little sticks are still very capable computers in 2025. | 29 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "8173297",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2025-09-02T09:37:44",
"content": "My work office has several of those plugged in to the screens hanging around the office. A few are used as narrowcast, a few were used as presentation screens but I think these all got upgraded, and others p... | 1,760,371,435.728051 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/03/one-rom-the-latest-incarnation-of-the-software-defined-rom/ | One ROM: The Latest Incarnation Of The Software Defined ROM | John Elliot V | [
"hardware",
"Microcontrollers",
"Raspberry Pi",
"Retrocomputing",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"commodore 64",
"One ROM",
"Software Defined ROM"
] | Retrocomputers need ROMs, but they’re just so
read only
. Enter the latest incarnation of [Piers]’s
One ROM
to rule them all, now built with a RP2350, because the newest version is 5V capable. This can replace the failing ROMs in your old Commodore gear with this sweet design on a two-layer PCB, using a cheap microcontroller.
[Piers]
wanted to use the RP2350 from the beginning
but there simply wasn’t space on the board for the 23 level shifters which would have been required. But now that the
A4 stepping
adds 5 V tolerance [Piers] has been able to reformulate his design.
The C64 in the demo has three different ROMs: the basic ROM, kernel ROM, and character ROM. A single One ROM can emulate all three. The firmware is performance critical, it needs to convert requests on the address pins to results on the data bus just as fast as it can and [Piers] employs a number of tricks to meet these requirements.
The PCB layout for the RP2350 required extensive changes from the larger STM32 in the previous version. Because the RP2350 uses large power and ground pads underneath the IC this area, which was originally used to drop vias to the other side of the board, was no longer available for signal routing. And of course [Piers] is constrained by the size of the board needing to fit in the original form factor used by the C64.
The One ROM code is
available over on GitHub
, and the accompanying video from [Piers] is an interesting look into the design process and how tradeoffs and compromises and hacks are made in order to meet functional requirements.
Thanks to [Piers] for
writing in
to let us know about the new version of his project. | 25 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8174156",
"author": "Charles Springer",
"timestamp": "2025-09-03T15:46:54",
"content": "Why would you use 2-layer today when 4-layer boards are practically free?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8174278",
"author": "Mil... | 1,760,371,435.786743 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/03/field-guide-to-north-american-crop-irrigation/ | Field Guide To North American Crop Irrigation | Dan Maloney | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"center-pivot",
"crop",
"farming",
"Field Guide",
"food",
"infrastructure",
"irrigation",
"truss"
] | Human existence boils down to one brutal fact: however much food you have, it’s enough to last for the rest of your life. Finding your next meal has always been the central organizing fact of life, and whether that meal came from an unfortunate gazelle or the local supermarket is irrelevant. The clock starts ticking once you finish a meal, and if you can’t find the next one in time, you’ve got trouble.
Working around this problem is basically why humans invented agriculture. As tasty as they may be, gazelles don’t scale well to large populations, but it’s relatively easy to grow a lot of plants that are just as tasty and don’t try to run away when you go to cut them down. The problem is that growing a lot of plants requires a lot of water, often more than Mother Nature provides in the form of rain. And that’s where artificial irrigation comes into the picture.
We’ve been watering our crops with water diverted from rivers, lakes, and wells for almost as long as we’ve been doing agriculture, but it’s only within the last 100 years or so that we’ve reached a scale where massive pieces of infrastructure are needed to get the job done. Above-ground irrigation is a big business, both in terms of the investment farmers have to make in the equipment and the scale of the fields it turns from dry, dusty patches of dirt into verdant crops that feed the world. Here’s a look at the engineering behind some of the more prevalent methods of above-ground irrigation here in North America.
Crop Circles
Center-pivot irrigation machines are probably the most recognizable irrigation methods, both for their sheer size — center-pivot booms can be a half-mile long or more — and for the distinctive circular and semi-circular crop patterns they result in. Center-pivot irrigation has been around for a long time, and while it represents a significant capital cost for the farmer, both in terms of the above-ground machinery and the subsurface water supply infrastructure that needs to be installed, the return on investment time can be as low as five years, depending on the crop.
Pivot tower in an alfalfa field in Oregon. You can clearly see the control panel, riser pipe, swivel elbow, and the boom. The slip rings for electrical power distribution live inside the gray dome atop the swivel. Note the supporting arch in the pipe created by the trusses underneath. Source:
Tequask
, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Effective use of pivot irrigation starts with establishing a water supply to the pivot location. Generally, this will be at the center of a field, allowing the boom to trace out a circular path. However, semi-circular layouts with the water supply near the edge of the field or even in one corner of a square field are also common. The source must also be able to supply a sufficient amount of water; depending on the emitter heads selected, the boom can flow approximately 1,000 gallons per minute.
The pivot tower is next. It’s generally built on a sturdy concrete pad, although there are towable pivot machines where the center tower is on wheels. The tower needs to stand tall enough that the rotating boom clears the crop when it’s at its full height, which can be substantial for crops like corn. Like almost all parts of the machine, the tower is constructed of galvanized steel to resist corrosion and to provide a bit of anodic protection to the underlying metal.
The tower is positioned over a riser pipe that connects to the water supply and is topped by a swivel fitting to change the water flow from vertical to horizontal and to let the entire boom rotate around the tower. For electrically driven booms, a slip ring will also be used to transfer power and control signals from the fixed control panel on the tower along the length of the boom. The slip ring connector is located in a weather-tight enclosure mounted above the exact center of the riser pipe.
The irrigation boom is formed from individual sections of pipe, called spans. In the United States, each span is about 180 feet long, a figure that makes it easy to build a system that will fit within the
Public Land Survey System
(PLSS), a grid-based survey system based on even divisions called sections, one mile on a side and 640 acres in area. These are divided down into half-, quarter-, and finally quarter-quarter sections, which are a quarter mile on a side and cover 40 acres. A boom built from seven spans will be about 1,260 feet long and will be able to irrigate a 160-acre quarter-section, which is a half-mile on a side.
The pipe for each span is usually made from galvanized steel, but aluminum is also sometimes used. Because of the flow rates, large-diameter pipe is used, and it needs to be supported lest it sag when filled. To do this, the pipe is put into tension with a pair of truss rods that run the length of the span, connecting firmly to each end. The truss rods and the pipe are connected by a series of triangular trusses attached between the bottom of the pipe and the truss rods, bending the pipe into a gentle arch. The outer end of each span is attached to a wheeled tower, sized to support the pipe at the same height as the center tower. The boom is constructed by connecting spans to each other and to the center pivot using flexible elastomeric couplings, which allow each span some flexibility to adjust for the terrain of the field. Sprinkler heads (drops) are attached to the span by elbows that exit at the top of the pipe. These act as siphon breakers, preventing water from flowing out of the sprinkler heads once water flow in the boom stops.
Different sprinkler heads are typically used along the length of the boom, with lower flow rate heads used near the center pivot. Sprinkler heads are also often spaced further apart close to the pivot. Both of these limit the amount of water delivered to the field where the boom’s rotational speed is lower, to prevent crops at the center of the field from getting overwatered. Most booms also have an end gun, which is similar to the impulse sprinklers commonly used for lawn irrigation, but much bigger. The end gun can add another 100′ or more of coverage to the pivot, without the expense of another length of pipe. End guns are often used to extend coverage into the corners of square fields, to make better use of space that otherwise would go fallow. In this case, an electrically driven booster pump can be used to drive the end gun, but only when the controller senses that the boom is within those zones.
Many center-pivot booms have an end gun, which is an impulse sprinkler that extends coverage by 100 feet or more without having to add an extra span. They can help fill in the corners of square fields. Source:
Ingeniero hidr.
, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Most center-pivot machines are electrically driven, with a single motor mounted on each span’s tower. The motor drives both wheels through a gearbox and driveshaft. In electrically driven booms, only the outermost span rotates continuously. The motors on the inboard spans are kept in sync through a position-sensing switch that’s connected to the next-furthest-out span through mechanical linkages. When the outboard span advances, it eventually trips a microswitch that tells the motor on the inboard span to turn on. Once that span catches up to the outboard span, the motor turns off. The result is a ripple of movement that propagates along the boom in a wave.
Electrically driven pivots use switches to keep each span in sync. The black cam is attached to the next-further span by a mechanical linkage, which operates a microswitch to run the motor on that span. Source:
Everything About Irrigation Pivots
, by SmarterEveryDay, via YouTube.
While electrically driven center-pivot machines are popular, they do have significant disadvantages. Enterprising thieves often target them for copper theft; half a mile of heavy-gauge, multi-conductor cable sitting unattended in a field that could take hours for someone to happen upon is a tempting target indeed. To combat this, some manufacturers use hydrostatic drives, with hydraulic motors on each wheel and a powerful electric- or diesel-driven hydraulic pump at the pivot. Each tower’s wheels are controlled by a proportioning valve connected to the previous span via linkages, to run the motors faster when the span is lagging behind the next furthest-out tower.
Aside from theft deterrence, hydrostatic-drive pivots tend to be mechanically simpler and safer to work on, although it’s arguable that the shock hazard from the 480 VAC needed for the motors on electrically driven pivots is any less dangerous than hydraulic injection injuries from leaks. Speaking of leaks, hydrostatic pivots also pose an environmental hazard that electric rigs don’t; a hydraulic leak could potentially contaminate an entire field. To mitigate that risk, hydrostatic pivots generally use a non-toxic hydraulic fluid specifically engineered for pivots.
Occasionally, you’ll see center-pivot booms in fields that aren’t circular. Some rectangular fields can be irrigated with pivot-style booms that are set up with drive wheels at both ends. These booms travel up and down the length of a field with all motors running at the same speed. Generally, water is supplied via a suction hose dipping down from one end of the boom into an irrigation ditch or canal running alongside the field. At the end of the field, the boom reverses and heads back down the way it came. Alternatively, the boom can pivot 180 degrees at the end of the field and head back to the other end, tracing out a racetrack pattern. There are also towers where the wheels can swivel rather than being fixed perpendicularly to the boom; this setup allows individual spans or small groups to steer independently of the main boom, accommodating odd-shaped fields.
While pivot-irrigation is labor-efficient, it leaves quite a bit of land fallow. Many of these pivots use the end gun to get a few extra rows in each of the corner quadrants, increasing land use. Source: go_turk06, via Adobestock.
Rolling, Rolling, Rolling
While center-pivot machines are probably the ultimate in above-ground irrigation, they’re not perfect for every situation. They’re highly automated, but at great up-front cost, and even with special tricks, it’s still not possible to “square the circle” and make use of every bit of a rectangular field. For those fields, a lower-cost method like wheel line irrigation might be used. In this setup, lengths of pipe are connected to large spoked wheels about six feet in diameter. The pipe passes through the center of the wheel, acting as an axle. Spans of pipe are connected end-to-end on either side of a wheeled drive unit, forming a line the width of the field, up to a quarter-mile long, with the drive unit at the center of the line.
Wheel-line system in action on alfalfa in British Columbia. The drive unit at the center powers the whole string, moving it across the field a few times a day. It’s far more labor-intensive than a pivot, but far cheaper. Source: nalidsa, via Adobestock.
In use, the wheel line is rolled out into the field about 25 feet from the edge. When the line is in position, one end is connected to a lateral line installed along the edge of the field, which typically has fittings every 50 feet or so, or however far the sprinkler heads that are attached at regular intervals to the pipe cover. The sprinklers are usually impulse-type and attached to the pipe by weighted swivel fittings, so they always remain vertical no matter where the line stops in its rotation. The heads were traditionally made of brass or bronze for long wear and corrosion resistance, but thieves attracted to them for their scrap value have made plastic heads more common.
Despite their appearance, wheel lines do not continually move across the field. They need to be moved manually, often several times a day, by running the drive unit at the center of the line. This is generally powered by a small gasoline engine which rotates the pipe attached to either side, rolling the entire string across the field as a unit. Disconnecting the water, rolling the line, and reconnecting the line to the supply is quite labor-intensive, so it tends to be used only where labor is cheap.
Reeling In The Years
A method of irrigation that lives somewhere between the labor-intensive wheel line and the hands-off center-pivot is hose reel irrigation. It’s more commonly used for crop irrigation in Europe, but it does make an occasional appearance in US agriculture, particularly in fields where intensive watering all season long isn’t necessary.
As the name suggests, hose reel irrigation uses a large reel of flexible polyethylene pipe, many hundreds of feet in length. The reel is towed into the field, typically positioned in the center or at its edge. Large spades on the base of the reel are lowered into the ground to firmly anchor the reel before it’s connected to the water supply via hoses or pipes. The free end of the hose reel is connected to a tower-mounted gun, which is typically a high-flow impulse sprinkler. The gun tower is either wheeled or on skids, and a tractor is used to drag it out into the field away from the reel. Care is taken to keep the hose between rows to prevent damage to the crops.
Once the water is turned on, water travels down the hose and blasts out of the gun tower, covering a circle or semi-circle a hundred feet or more in diameter. The water pressure also turns a turbine inside the hose reel, which drives a gearbox that slowly winds the hose back onto the reel through a chain and sprocket drive. As the hose retracts, it pulls the gun back to the center of the field, evenly irrigating a large rectangular swath of the field. Depending on how the reel is set up, it can take a day or more for the gun to return to the reel, where an automatic shutoff valve shuts off the flow of water. The setup is usually moved to another point further down the field and the process is repeated until the whole field is irrigated.
Hose reel system being deployed for potatoes in Maine. The end gun on the right is about to be towed into the field, pulling behind it the large-diameter hose from the reel. The reel’s turbine and gearbox will wind the hose back up, pulling the gun in over a day or two. Source:
Irrigation Hustle Continues
, Bell’s Farming, via YouTube.
Although hose reels still need tending to, they’re nowhere near as labor-intensive as wheel lines. Farmers can generally look in on a reel setup once a day to make sure everything is running smoothly, and can often go several days between repositioning. Hose reels also have the benefit of being much easier to scale up and down than either center-pivot machines or wheel line; there are hose reels that store thousands of feet of large-diameter hose, and ones that are small enough for lawn irrigation that use regular garden hose and small impulse sprinklers. | 26 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8174097",
"author": "dbrown",
"timestamp": "2025-09-03T14:12:34",
"content": "Correction note; The pipe is put into compression (not tension) by the tension in the pair of truss connected cables below them, causing the pipe to bow upwards and so support itself.",
"parent_id": nu... | 1,760,371,435.963029 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/03/the-nintendo-famicom-reimagined-as-a-2003-era-family-computer/ | The Nintendo Famicom Reimagined As A 2003-era Family Computer | Maya Posch | [
"Games"
] | [
"famiclone",
"famicom"
] | If there’s one certainty in life, it is that Nintendo Famicom and similar NES clone consoles are quite literally everywhere. What’s less expected is that they were used for a half-serious attempt at making an educational family computer in the early 2000s. This is however what [Nicole Branagan] tripped over at the online Goodwill store, in the form of a European market Famiclone that was still in its original box. Naturally this demanded an
up-close investigation and teardown
.
The system itself comes in the form of a keyboard that seems to have been used for a range of similar devices based on cut-outs for what looks like some kind of alarm clock on the top left side and a patched over hatch on the rear. Inside are the typical epoxied-over chips, but based on some scattered hints it likely uses a V.R. Technology’s
VTxx-series
Famiclone. The manufacturer or further products by them will sadly remain unknown for now.
While there’s a cartridge slot that uses the provided 48-in-1 cartridge – with RAM-banked 32 kB of SRAM for Family BASIC – its compatibility with Famicom software is somewhat spotty due to the remapped keys and no ability to save, but you can use it to play the usual array of Famicom/NES games as with the typical cartridge-slot equipped Famiclone. Whether the provided custom software really elevates this Famiclone that much is debatable, but it sure is a fascinating entry. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8174064",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-09-03T13:13:51",
"content": "What’s interesting, some of those NOACs have enhanced capabilities.In native mode, they’re on Sega Master System or SFC level (visually).Makes some of us left wondering what could have been if the capabili... | 1,760,371,435.894325 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/03/reverse-engineering-mystery-tv-equipment-the-micro-scan/ | Reverse-Engineering Mystery TV Equipment: The Micro-Scan | Donald Papp | [
"hardware",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"analog tv",
"satellite TV",
"tv"
] | [VWestlife] ended up with an obscure piece of 80s satellite TV technology, shown above.
The Micro-Scan
is a fairly plan metal box with a single “Tune” knob on the front. At the back is a power switch and connectors for TV Antenna, TV Set, and “MW” (probably meaning microwave). There’s no other data. What was this, and what was it for?
Satellite TV worked by having a dish receive microwave signals, but televisions could not use those signals directly. A downconverter was needed to turn the signal into something an indoor receiver box (to which the television was attached) could use, allowing the user to select a channel to feed into the TV.
At first, [VWestlife] suspected the Micro-Scan was a form of simple downconverter, but that turned out to not be the case. Testing showed that the box didn’t modify signals at all. Opening it up revealed the Micro-Scan acts as a combination switchbox and variable power supply, sending a regulated 12-16 V (depending on knob position) out the “MW” connector.
So what is it for, and what does that “Tune” knob do? When powered off, the Micro-Scan connected the TV (plugged into the “TV Set” connector) to its normal external antenna (connected to “TV Antenna”) and the TV worked like a normal television. When powered on, the TV would instead be connected to the “MW” connector, probably to a remote downconverter. In addition, the Micro-Scan supplied a voltage (the 12-16 V) on that connector, which was probably a control voltage responsible for tuning the downconverter. The resulting signal was passed unmodified to the TV.
It can be a challenge to investigate
vintage equipment modern TV no longer needs
, especially hardware that doesn’t fit the usual way things were done, and lacks documentation. If you’d like to see a walkthrough and some hands-on with the Micro-Scan, check out the video (embedded bel0w). | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8173975",
"author": "Clark",
"timestamp": "2025-09-03T08:57:08",
"content": "As far as I know even modern-ish LNBs use the DC phantom power level to select the polarization mode",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8173992",
... | 1,760,371,436.015366 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/02/an-amiga-demo-with-no-cpu-involved/ | An Amiga Demo With No CPU Involved | Jenny List | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"amiga",
"demo",
"no cpu"
] | Of the machines from the 16-bit era, the Commodore Amiga arguably has the most active community decades later, and it’s a space which still has the power to surprise. Today we have a story which perhaps pushes the hardware farther than ever before:
a demo challenge for the Amiga custom chips only, no CPU involved
.
The Amiga was for a time around the end of the 1980s the most exciting multimedia platform, not because of the 68000 CPU it shared with other platforms, but because of its set of custom co-processors that handled tasks such as graphics manipulation, audio, and memory. Each one is a very powerful piece of silicon capable of many functions, but traditionally it would have been given its tasks by the CPU. The competition aims to find how possible it is to run an Amiga demo entirely on these chips, by using the CPU only for a loader application, with the custom chip programming coming entirely from a pre-configured memory map which forms the demo.
The demoscene is a part of our community known for pushing hardware to its limits, and we look forward to seeing just what they do with this one. If you have never been to a demo party before, you should, after all
everyone should go to a demo party
!
Amiga CD32 motherboard: Evan-Amos,
Public domain
. | 27 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "8173923",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2025-09-03T07:23:07",
"content": "but because of its set of custom co-processors that handled tasks such as graphics manipulation, audio, and memory.This was actually copied from arcade machines and other game consoles, when the company firs... | 1,760,371,436.119725 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/02/the-case-for-pascal-55-years-on/ | The Case For Pascal, 55 Years On | Tyler August | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"free pascal",
"Pascal"
] | The first version of Pascal was released by the prolific [Niklaus Wirth] back in 1970. That’s 55 years ago, an eternity in the world of computing. Does anyone still use Pascal in 2025? Quite a few people as it turns out, and [Huw Collingbourne] makes
the case why you might want to be one of them
in a video embedded below.
In all fairness, when [Huw] says “Pascal” he isn’t isn’t talking about the tiny language [Wirth] wrote back when the Apollo Program was a going concern. He’s talking about Object Pascal, as either Free Pascal or Delphi– which he points out are regularly the tenth most popular of all programming languages. (Index.dev claims
that it has climbed up to number nine
this year, just behind Go.) As a professional move, it might not be the most obvious niche but it might not be career suicide either. That’s not his whole argument, but it’s required to address the criticism that “nobody uses Pascal anymore”.
Pascal, quite simply, can make you a better programmer. That, as [Huw] points out, was an explicit goal of the language. Before Python took over the education world, two generations of high school students learned Pascal. Pascal’s strong typing and strict rules for declaration taught those kids good habits that hopefully carried over to other languages. It might help you, too.
For experienced programmers, Pascal is still a reasonable choice for cross-platform development. Free Pascal (and the Lazarus IDE) brings the graphical, drag-and-drop ease that once made Delphi rule the Windows roost to any modern platform. (And Delphi, a commercial Pascal product, is apparently still around.) Free Pascal lets you code on Linux or Mac, and deploy on Windows, or vice-versa. While you could do that on Python, Pascal gets you a lot closer to the metal than Python ever could.
Sure, it’s a modern object-oriented language now, with objects and classes and hierarchies and all that jazz– but you don’t always have to use them. If you want to go low-level and write your Pascal like it’s 1985, you can. It’s like being able to switch into C and manipulate pointers whenever you want.
On some level, perhaps the answer to the question “Why use Pascal in 2025” is simply– why not? It’s likely that the language can do what you want, if you take the time to learn how. You can even
use it on an Arduino
if you so wish– or go
bare metal on the Raspberry Pi.
Thanks to [Stephen Walters] for the tip. | 51 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "8173827",
"author": "mischa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-03T03:26:34",
"content": "As a long-time Delphi user (from v. 2), I appreciated its strongly-typed variable safety, access to both constructors and destructors, easily read and modified code, ability to modify all source code (sinc... | 1,760,371,436.207294 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/02/this-plotter-knows-no-boundaries/ | This Plotter Knows No Boundaries | Jenny List | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"logo",
"plotter",
"vector graphics"
] | If your school in the 1980s was lucky enough to have a well-equipped computer lab, the chances are that alongside the 8-bit machines you might have found a little two-wheeled robot. These machines and the Logo programming language that allowed them to draw simple vector graphics were a popular teaching tool at the time. They’re long-forgotten now, but not in the workshop of [Niklas Roy],
who has created a modern-day take on their trundling
.
His two-wheeled robots form simple but effective vector plotters, calculating the paths between coordinates with a consistency that surprised him. They’re used for artwork rather than functional plotting, but we’re guessing they could be used for either. We particularly like the drawing battle between a pair of drawing bots and an eraser bot, as it reminds us of a pixelflood screen.
The parts are all straightforward, its brain is an Arduino Nano, and the files can be downloaded for you to build your own. If you’re falling down the Logo rabbit hole as he did, then
it’s not the first time we’ve been there
. | 9 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "8173701",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2025-09-02T23:11:08",
"content": "Notlong-forgotten.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8173743",
"author": "haaad",
"timestamp": "2025-09-03T01:03:41",
"content": "Imagine the... | 1,760,371,436.057648 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/04/cpu-utilization-not-as-easy-as-it-sounds/ | CPU Utilization Not As Easy As It Sounds | Al Williams | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"CPU load",
"CPU utilization"
] | If you ever develop an embedded system in a corporate environment, someone will probably tell you that you can only use 80% of the CPU or some other made-up number. The theory is that you will need some overhead for expansion. While that might have been a reasonable thing to do when CPUs and operating systems were very simple, those days are long gone. [Brendan Long] explains at least one problem with the idea in some recent tests he did
related to server utilization
.
[Brendan] recognizes that a modern CPU doesn’t actually scale like you would think. When lightly loaded, a modern CPU might run faster because it can keep other CPUs in the package slower and cooler. Increase the load, and more CPUs may get involved, but they will probably run slower. Beyond that, a newfangled processor often has fewer full CPUs than you expect. The test machine was a 24-core AMD processor. However, there are really 12 complete CPUs that can fast switch between two contexts. You have 24 threads that you can use, but only 12 at a time. So that skews the results, too.
Of course, our favorite problem is even more subtle. A modern OS will use whatever resources would otherwise go to waste. Even at 100% load, your program may work, but very slowly. So assume the boss wants you to do something every five seconds. You run the program. Suppose it is using 80% of the CPU and 90% of the memory. The program can execute its task every 4.6 seconds. So what? It may be that the OS is giving you that much because it would otherwise be idle. If you had 50% of the CPU and 70% of the memory, you might still be able to work in 4.7 seconds.
A better method is to have a low-priority task consume the resources you are not allowed to use, run the program, and verify that it still meets the required time. That solves a lot of [Brendan’s] observations, too. What you can’t do is scale the measurement linearly for all these reasons and probably others.
Not every project needs to worry about performance. But if you do, measuring and predicting it isn’t as straightforward as you might think. If you are interested in displaying your current stats, may we suggest
analog
? You have
choices
. | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8174631",
"author": "fuzzyfuzzyfungus",
"timestamp": "2025-09-04T10:57:59",
"content": "You normally see them in server sockets; but you can get CPUs aimed at minimizing the effect; normally fairly low core counts by the standards of the socket, so cores aren’t contending for power ... | 1,760,371,436.25262 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/03/restoring-a-vintage-intel-prompt-80-8080-microcomputer-trainer/ | Restoring A Vintage Intel Prompt 80 8080 Microcomputer Trainer | John Elliot V | [
"computer hacks",
"digital audio hacks",
"hardware",
"LED Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"8080 Microcomputer",
"Intel 8080",
"Prompt 80",
"restoration",
"trainer"
] | Over on his blog our hacker [Scott Baker]
restores a Prompt 80
, which was a development system for the
8-bit Intel 8080 CPU
.
[Scott] acquired this broken trainer on eBay and then set about restoring it. The trainer provides I/O for programming, probing, and debugging an attached CPU. The first problem discovered when opening the case is that the CPU board is missing. The original board was an 80/10 but [Scott] ended up installing a newer 80/10A board he scored for fifty bucks. Later he upgraded to an 80/10B which increased the RAM and added a multimodule slot.
[Scott] has some luck fixing the failed power supply by recapping some of the smaller electrolytic capacitors which were showing high ESR. Once he had the board installed and the power supply functional he was able to input his first assembly program: a
Cylon LED program
! Making artistic use of the LEDs attached to the parallel port. You can see the results in the video embedded below.
[Scott] then went all in and pared down
a version of Forth
which was “rommable” and got it down to 5KB of fig-forth plus 3KB of monitor leads to 8KB total, which fit in four 2716 chips on the 80/10B board.
To take the multimodule socket on the 80/10B for a spin [Scott] attached his
SP0256A-AL2 speech multimodule
and wrote two assembly language programs to say “
Scott Was Here
” and “
This is an Intel Prompt 80 Computer
”. You can hear the results in the embedded video.
Thanks to [BrendaEM] for
writing in
to let us know about [Scott]’s YouTube channel. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8174581",
"author": "8bitwiz",
"timestamp": "2025-09-04T08:14:12",
"content": "Very nice. This is the sub-type of trainer that took a chip-maker’s standard industrial control board and plugged it into a box with keypad and display. It even allows boards with different main CPUs!I ha... | 1,760,371,436.394554 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/03/cp-m-gently/ | CP/M Gently | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"CP/M",
"retrocomputing"
] | If you are interested in retrocomputers, you might be like us and old enough to remember the old systems and still have some of the books. But what if you aren’t? No one is born knowing how to copy a file with PIP, for example, so [Kraileth] has the answer:
A Gentle Introduction to CP/M
.
Of course, by modern standards, CP/M isn’t very hard. You had disks and they had a single level of files in them. No subdirectories. We did eventually get user areas, and the post covers that near the end. It was a common mod to treat user 0 as a global user, but by default, no.
That leads to one of the classic dragon and egg problems. PIP copies files, among other things. It knows about user areas, too, but only for source files. You can copy from user 3, for example, but you can’t copy to user 3. But that leads to a problem.
Suppose you switch to user 3 for the first time. The disk is empty. So there’s no PIP command. To get it, you’ll need to copy it from user 0, but… you can’t without PIP. The solution is either genius or madness. You essentially load PIP into memory as user 0, switch users, then dump memory out to the disk. Who wouldn’t think of that?
Some people would load PIP with the debugger instead, but it is the same idea. But this is why you need some kind of help to use this important but archaic operating system.
Of course, this just gets you started. Formatting disks and adapting software to your terminal were always a challenge with CP/M. But at least this gives you a start.
Can’t afford a vintage CP/M machine?
Build one
. Or just
emulate it
. | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8174520",
"author": "valkyrie0528",
"timestamp": "2025-09-04T03:33:46",
"content": "A Zenith/Heathkit Z89 with disks but no documentation dropped in my lap for a few weeks when I was thirteen. Pre-internet times. Knowing nothing of CP/M at the time I was able to find my way around u... | 1,760,371,436.356432 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/03/over-engineering-an-egg-cracking-machine/ | Over-Engineering An Egg Cracking Machine | Fenix Guthrie | [
"Engineering",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"egg",
"egg machine",
"mechanical computer",
"mechanical engineering",
"overmolding"
] | Eggs are perhaps the most beloved staple of breakfast. However, they come with a flaw, they are incredibly messy to work with. Cracking in particular leaves egg on one’s hands and countertop, requiring frequent hand washing. This fundamental flaw of eggs inspired [Stuff Made Here] to
fix it with an over-engineered egg cracking robot.
The machine works on the principle of scoring a line along an egg shell to weaken it, then gently tapping it to fracture the shell. A simple theory that proved complex to build into a machine. The first challenge was merely holding an egg as eggs come in all shapes and sizes. [Stuff Made Here] ended up settling on silicone over-molded with a 3D printed structure. After numerous prototypes, this evolved into including over-molded arms for added stiffness, and a vacuum seal for added rigidity.
After making two of these holders, [Stuff Made Here] added them to a roughly C shaped holder, which could spin the egg around, and slide the holders to allow fitting any egg shape. To this was added an arm which included a scoring blade and tiny hammer to crack the egg. The hammer can even be turned off while the blade is in use.
The over-molded egg holder
The mechanism runs off a sequence of score, hammer, dump, eject. It was attempted to run this sequence off a single crank, but ended up not working for a number of reasons, not least of which being some eggs required more scoring then others. Nonetheless, we love the mechanical computational mechanism used. Ultimately, while frivolous, the project provides a wonderful look at the highs and lows of the prototyping process with all its numerous broken eggs.
If you like over-engineered solutions to simple problems, [Stuff Made Here] has you covered. Make sure to
check out this automatic postcard machine next! | 21 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "8174452",
"author": "Dom",
"timestamp": "2025-09-03T23:11:04",
"content": "People have been trying this for a long time:https://youtu.be/RBJGpNTP_lY?list=RDRBJGpNTP_lY&t=93",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8174506",
"au... | 1,760,371,436.309474 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/03/one-camera-mule-to-rule-them-all/ | One Camera Mule To Rule Them All | Tyler August | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"Raspberry pi camera",
"Raspberry Pi HQ camera",
"test mule"
] | A mule isn’t just a four-legged hybrid created of a union betwixt Donkey and Horse; in our circles, it’s much more likely to mean a testbed device you hang various bits of hardware off in order to evaluate. [Jenny List]’s
7″ touchscreen camera enclosure is just such a mule.
In this case, the hardware to be evaluated is camera modules– she’s starting out with the official RPi HQ camera, but the modular nature of the construction means it’s easy to swap modules for evaluation. The camera modules live on 3D printed front plates held to the similarly-printed body
with self-tapping screws
.
Any Pi will do, though
depending on the camera module
you may need one of the newer versions. [Jenny] has got Pi4 inside, which ought to handle anything. For control and preview, [Jenny] is using an old first-gen 7″ touchscreen from the Raspberry Pi foundation. Those were nice little screens back in the day, and they still serve well now.
There’s no provision for a battery because [Jenny] doesn’t need one– this isn’t a working camera, after all, it’s just a test mule for the sensors. Having it tethered to a wall wart or power bank is no problem in this application. All files are on GitHub under a CC4.0 license– not just STLs, either, proper CAD files that you can actually make your own. (SCAD files in this case, but
who doesn’t love OpenSCAD?
) That means if you love the look of this thing and want to squeeze in a battery or add a tripod mount, you can! It’s no shock that our own [Jenny List]
would follow best-practice for open source hardware
, but it’s so few people do that it’s worth calling out when we see it.
Thanks to [Jenny] for the tip, and don’t forget that the
tip line is open to everyone
, and everyone is equally welcome to toot their own horn. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "8174653",
"author": "Stephen",
"timestamp": "2025-09-04T12:01:42",
"content": "Tolkien didn’t know what he was starting when he wrote the phrase “One Ring to rule them all”. Just as Lewis Carroll had no idea when he titled the first chapter of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” how ... | 1,760,371,436.432538 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/03/floss-weekly-episode-845-the-sticky-spaghetti-gauge/ | FLOSS Weekly Episode 845: The Sticky Spaghetti Gauge | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"dart",
"FLOSS Weekly",
"flutter"
] | This week
Jonathan
and
Randal
talk Flutter and Dart! Is Google killing Flutter? What’s the challenge Randal sees in training new senior developers, and what’s the solution? Listen to find out!
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.
If you’d rather read along,
here’s the transcript for this week’s episode
.
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 | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,371,436.667367 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/03/ask-hackaday-now-you-install-your-friends-vpns-but-which-one/ | Ask Hackaday: Now You Install Your Friends’ VPNs. But Which One? | Jenny List | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"chatcontrol",
"commercail VPN",
"online safety act",
"security",
"vpn"
] | Something which may well unite Hackaday readers is the experience of being “The computer person” among your family or friends. You’ll know how it goes, when you go home for Christmas, stay with the in-laws, or go to see some friend from way back, you end up fixing their printer connection or something. You know that they would bridle somewhat if you asked them to do whatever it is they do for a living as a free service for you, but hey, that’s the penalty for working in technology.
Bad Laws Just Make People Avoid Them
There’s a new one that’s happened to me and no doubt other technically-minded Brits over the last few weeks: I’m being asked to recommend, and sometimes install, a VPN service. The British government recently introduced the Online Safety Act, which is imposing ID-backed age verification for British internet users when they access a large range of popular websites. The intent is to regulate access to pornography, but the net has been spread so wide that many essential or confidential services are being caught up in it. To be a British Internet user is to have your government peering over your shoulder, and while nobody’s on the side of online abusers, understandably a lot of my compatriots want no part of it. We’re in the odd position of having
4Chan
and the right-wing
Reform Party
alongside
Wikipedia
among those at the front line on the matter. What a time to be alive.
VPN applications have
shot to the top of all British app download charts
, prompting the government
to
flirt with
deny the idea of banning them
, but as you might imagine therein lies a problem. Aside from the prospect of
dodgy VPN apps
to trap the unwary, the average Joe has no idea how to choose from the plethora of offerings. A YouTuber being paid to shill “that” VPN service is as close of they’ve ever come to a VPN, so they are simply unequipped to make a sound judgement when it comes to trusting a service with their web traffic. They have no hope of rolling their own VPN; setting up WireGuard and still further having a friend elsewhere in the world prepared to act as their endpoint are impractical.
It therefore lies upon us, their tech-savvy friends, to lead them through this maze. Which brings me to the point of this piece; are we even up to the job ourselves? I’ve been telling my friends to use
ProtonVPN
because their past behaviour means I trust Proton more than I do some of the other well-known players, but is my semi-informed opinion on the nose here? Even I need help!
Today Brits, Tomorrow The Rest Of You
At the moment it’s Brits who are scrambling for VPNs, but it seems very likely that with
the EU yet again flirting with their ChatControl
snooping law, and an American government whose actions are at best unpredictable, soon enough many of the rest of you will too. The question is then: where do we send the non-technical people, and how good are the offerings? A side-by-side review of VPNs has been done to death by many other sites, so there’s little point in repeating. Instead let’s talk to some experts. You lot, or at least those among the Hackaday readership who know their stuff when it comes to VPNs. What do you recommend for your friends and family?
Header image: Nenad Stojkovic,
CC BY 2.0
. | 75 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "8174215",
"author": "limroh",
"timestamp": "2025-09-03T17:20:39",
"content": "I’m sure the “VPN” services were and are in favor of laws like this.They surely would never lobby for such laws…. /SJust like I’m reasonably secure in my assumption that “services” like Incogni, DeleteMe a... | 1,760,371,436.542638 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/05/hackaday-podcast-episode-336-diy-datasette-egg-cracking-machine-and-screwing-3d-prints/ | Hackaday Podcast Episode 336: DIY Datasette, Egg Cracking Machine, And Screwing 3D Prints | Jenny List | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | Thunderstorms were raging across southern Germany as Elliot Williams was joined by Jenny List for this week’s podcast. The deluge outside didn’t stop the hacks coming though, and we’ve got a healthy smorgasbord for you to snack from. There’s the cutest ever data cassette recorder taking a tiny Olympus dictation machine and re-engineering it with a beautiful case for the Commodore 64, a vastly overcomplex machine for perfectly cracking an egg, the best lightning talk timer Hackaday has ever seen, and a demoscene challenge that eschews a CPU. Then in Quick Hacks we’ve got a QWERTY slider phone, and a self-rowing canoe that comes straight out of Disney’s
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
sequence.
For a long time we’ve had a
Field guide
series covering tech in infrastructure and other public plain sight, and this week’s one dealt with pivot irrigation. A new subject for Jenny who grew up on a farm in a wet country. Then both editors are for once in agreement, over using self-tapping screws to assemble 3D-printed structures. Sit back and enjoy the show!
Want to listen offline?
Grab yourself an MP3 hot off the press
.
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Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 336 Show Notes:
What’s that Sound?
Congrats to [1tR3x] who knew more about the music of 2001 Space Odyssey than I did!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Tiny Datasette Uses USB For The Modern Day
How Commodore tapes work
Classic Computer Magazine Archive article
Does It Make Sense To Upgrade A Prusa MK4S To A Core One?
Lightning Talks On Time, With This Device
Over-Engineering An Egg Cracking Machine
What Can You Learn From An Eggbot?
This Plotter Knows No Boundaries
An Amiga Demo With No CPU Involved
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Phonenstien Flips Broken Samsung Into QWERTY Slider
Remembering The Intel Compute Stick
Old Projects? Memorialize Them Into Functional Art
Microsoft Removed WMR Headset Support? No Problem!
Jenny’s Picks:
Microsoft BASIC For 6502 Is Now Open Source
CAD, From Scratch: MakerCAD
Robotic Canoe Puts Robot Arms To Work
Can’t-Miss Articles:
No Need For Inserts If You’re Prepared To Use Self-Tappers
Field Guide To North American Crop Irrigation | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "8182384",
"author": "Le Samourai",
"timestamp": "2025-09-20T17:28:38",
"content": "I wanted to hear more about Jenny’s mic setup! A setup with Ikea lamp arm plus ripoff Shure mic plus 3d printed mounts is right up my alley!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
... | 1,760,371,436.747623 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/05/estes-wants-you-to-3d-print-their-new-model-rocket/ | Estes Wants You To 3D Print Their New Model Rocket | Tom Nardi | [
"classic hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"3D printed parts",
"Estes",
"model rocketry"
] | The Estes line of flying model rockets have inspired an untold number of children and adults alike, thanks in part to their simplicity. From the design and construction of the rockets themselves to the reliability and safety of the modular solid-propellant motors, the company managed to turn actual rocket science into a family activity. If you could glue fins onto a cardboard tube and stick a plastic nosecone on the end, you were nearly ready for launch.
But what if you’re looking for something a bit more challenging? That’s where the new
Estes Scorpio 3D comes in
. Unlike the classic Estes kit, which included the fins, nosecone, and other miscellaneous bits of the rocket, the Scorpio kit requires you to 3D print your own parts. Do it right, and the company says you can send your creation to heights of 1,000 feet (305 m).
As several main components of the rocket are 3D printed, the Scorpio is intended to be a platform for fast and easy modification. Estes already provides STLs for a few different variants of the tail fins — this is not unlike some of the old kits, which would occasionally include different shaped fins for you to experiment with. But of course you’re also free to design your own components from scratch if you wish. A twist-lock mechanism built into the printed motor mount allows you to swap out the Scorpio’s fins in the field, no glue required.
While we appreciate the concept of the Scorpio 3D, we have to admit that the $40 USD price tag seems a bit excessive. After all, the user is expected to print the majority of the rocket’s parts on their own dime.
According to the manual
, the only thing you get with the kit (other than access to the digital files) is a couple of cardboard tubes, some stickers, and a parachute — the launch pad, igniter, and even motors are all sold separately.
Admittedly there’s a certain value in the Estes name and the knowledge that they’ve done their homework while putting this product together. But if you’re just looking to fire off some DIY rockets, we’d point you to the
open source HEXA project as an alternative
. | 46 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175302",
"author": "HegTek",
"timestamp": "2025-09-05T16:02:37",
"content": "Yeah, for $40, I can get the gubbins they’re offering and model my own rocket bits, honestly.Though, now I might have a weekend project, so hats off to Estes for the idea, I guess?",
"parent_id": null,... | 1,760,371,436.884949 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/05/this-week-in-security-dns-oops-novel-c2s-and-the-scam-becomes-real/ | This Week In Security: DNS Oops, Novel C2s, And The Scam Becomes Real | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"AI Persuasion",
"Command and Control",
"dns",
"This Week in Security"
] | Something rather significant happened on the Internet back in May, and it seems that someone only noticed it on September 3rd.
[Youfu Zhang] dropped a note on one of the Mozilla security mailing lists
, pointing out that there was a certificate issued by Fina for 1.1.1.1. That IP address may sound familiar, and you may have questions.
First off, yes, TLS certificates can be issued for IP addresses. You can even get a numeric TLS certificate for your IP address,
via Lets Encrypt
. And second, 1.1.1.1 sounds familiar because that’s CloudFlare’s public DNS resolver. On that address, Cloudflare notably makes use of DoH, a charming abbreviation for DNS over HTTPS. The last important detail is that Cloudflare didn’t request or authorize the certificate. Significant indeed.
This is a high-profile example of the major weakness of the TLS certificate system. There are over 300 trusted certificate authorities in the Microsoft Root Certificate Program, Financijska agencija (Fina) being one of them. All it takes is for one of those trusted roots to issue a bad certificate, to compromise that system. That it took
four months for someone to discover and point out the problem isn’t great
.
Don’t Just Copy That Into Your Terminal
I’ve given Linux newbies the advice several times, not to be careless about copying and pasting commands into the Linux terminal. Sometimes that’s because practical jokers suggest running
rm -rf /
, or a fork bomb, or some other “fun” command to fix a problem. But there’s also the problem of malware, and it’s not limited to Linux. For example, this reasonably convincing looking notification from Cloudflare instructs the user to copy and past a completely benign-looking string into a terminal on a Mac machine.
… say what now
—
Tim Pierce (@unchi.org)
2025-09-02T15:35:51.123Z
It’s pretty obviously not a real command as it’s presented. Instead, a base64 encoded string is decoded and executed in Bash. It executes a script from the Internet, which immediately begins looking for interesting files to upload.
It’s not a terribly new approach
, but is apparently still being used in the wild, and is a great object lesson about not trusting commands from the Internet.
CSS is Turing Complete Now, So Let’s Use it to Steal Data
OK, Turing complete might be a slight exaggeration, but CSS does now have
if()
statements. CSS also can do background downloads from remote sites. Put that together, and
you have a way to steal data
.
There are some serious limitations that are likely to keep this from becoming a widely used technique. Top of the list is that CSS doesn’t have any string carving functions. That
if()
statement is limited to matching the complete value of fields. To steal information strictly using CSS, you have to know what you’re looking for ahead of time.
Creative C2
It’s always interesting to see the creative Command and Control (C2) techniques that are dreamt up by researchers and threat actors.
MeetC2 is up first
, a demonstration of using Google Calendar for C2 via calendar events. It works because no security solution will block access to Google Calendar, and it’s fairly trivial to add notes to a calendar event.
The other creative C2 involves a project I’m intimately familiar with.
MeshC2 is a clever, but admittedly vibe-coded
C2 tool using Meshtastic to run commands on remote hosts. It’s from [Eric Escobar], one of the researchers at Sophos. When dropping a Raspberry Pi off for a penetration test, there’s an inevitable problem that knocks the platform off the Internet, and the ability to run a few simple commands could make all the difference.
Persuasion and LLMs
Persuasion is the art of influencing. When a car salesman buys a potential customer a drink from the car lot’s vending machine, it’s an attempt to persuade. When a negotiators picks up on and imitates the small habits of their counterparts, it’s also an attempt to leverage persuasion. From appeals to authority, to priming, to framing, there are countless tricks that are tried, with varying amounts of success, to influence people. The question here is
whether those tricks might work on an LLM
.
A pre-print study seems to indicate that persuasion does indeed work on AIs. And while persuasion may convince a human to buy a car beyond one’s means, persuasion can be used to convince an AI to do something beyond its guardrails. The two test cases were to ask the LLM to return an insult, and to return the recipe for lidocaine. While this isn’t the only way to jailbreak an LLM, it’s a novel bit of work, determining that the AI has some of the same weaknesses as humans.
The Scam Become Real
If you run your own mail server, or check your spam folder, you’ve surely seen the emails where a scammer claims to have taken over your webcam while you were watching pornography. Historically this has been a complete lie, simply to extort the naive. Unfortunately, it seems that someone took this as a challenge, and
has actually built malware that attempts to do exactly what the classic spam has threatened
. And of course,
it’s open source
.
Bits and Bytes
Researchers at
Silent Signal took a look at the IBM i mainframe system, and have a CVE to show for it
. The exploit was a replay attack followed by a command injection. The first approach allowed for blind code execution, but the challenge on this second time around was to find something more useful, and SQL turned out to be the key.
And finally, the folks at Trail of Bits are looking at
the application integrity problem, when running applications inside electron
and even Chrome. The binaries themselves may be signed, but there’s a part of the program that isn’t: The heap snapshots. This is a V8 feature used to significantly speed up the loading of the pages inside these apps. It turns out that snapshot can also be used to poison the internal state of those apps, and sidestep existing controls. Electron has patched the issue, but there are some cases where Chrome itself may still be vulnerable to this fascinating approach. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175324",
"author": "jpa",
"timestamp": "2025-09-05T16:51:15",
"content": "“To steal information strictly using CSS, you have to know what you’re looking for ahead of time.” This could work against those sites where they ask for a verification code to be input digit-by-digit to sep... | 1,760,371,436.713075 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/05/heart-rate-monitoring-via-wifi/ | Heart Rate Monitoring Via WiFi | Al Williams | [
"Science",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"heart rate",
"wifi"
] | Before you decide to click away, thinking we’re talking about some heart rate monitor that connects to a display using WiFi, wait! Pulse-Fi is a system that monitors heart rate
using the WiFi signal itself as a measuring device
. No sensor, no wires, and it works on people up to ten feet away.
Researchers at UC Santa Cruz, including a visiting high school student researcher, put together a proof of concept. Apparently, your heart rate can modify WiFi channel state information. By measuring actual heart rate and the variations in the WiFi signal, the team was able to fit data to allow for accurate heart rate prediction.
The primary device used was an ESP32, although the more expensive Raspberry Pi performed the same trick using data generated in Brazil. The Pi appeared to work better, but it is also more expensive. However, that implies that different WiFi chipsets probably need unique training, which, we suppose, makes sense.
Like you, we’ve got a lot of questions about this one — including how repeatable this is in a real-world environment. But it does make you wonder what we could use WiFi permutations to detect. Or other ubiquitous RF signals like Bluetooth.
No need for a
clunky wristband
. If you could sense enough things like this, maybe you could come up with
a wireless polygraph
. | 22 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175201",
"author": "Larry",
"timestamp": "2025-09-05T11:18:02",
"content": "I have a mmwave sensor. Also does this but wifi is pretty cool",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8175217",
"author": "Aaron",
"timestamp": "2025-... | 1,760,371,436.802217 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/05/capture-and-plot-serial-data-in-the-browser/ | Capture And Plot Serial Data In The Browser | Jenny List | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"plotter",
"serial",
"serial data"
] | If you’re working with a microcontroller that reads a sensor, the chances are that at some point you’re faced with a serial port passing out continuous readings. The workflow of visualizing this data can be tedious, involving a cut-and-paste from a terminal to a CSV file. What if there were a handy all-in-one serial data visualization tool, a serial data oscilloscope, if you will? [Atomic14] has you covered, with
the web serial plotter
.
It’s a browser-based tool that uses the WebSerial API, so sadly if you’re a Firefox user you’re not invited to the party. Serial data can be plotted and exported, and there are a range of options for viewing. Behind the scenes there’s some Node and React magic happening, but should you wish to avoid getting your hands dirty there’s an online demo you can try.
Looking at it we’re ashamed to have been labouring under a complex workflow, particularly as we find
this isn’t the first to appear on these pages
. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175143",
"author": "Pares",
"timestamp": "2025-09-05T08:13:37",
"content": "https://github.com/hyOzd/serialplot/releases/tag/v0.13.0there is a standalone program that works great that should have been mentioned. fearures : multiple chanels ,ASCII/binary format and many more featur... | 1,760,371,436.983211 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/04/powering-a-submarine-with-rubber-bands/ | Powering A Submarine With Rubber Bands | Fenix Guthrie | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"rubber band",
"rubber band power",
"submarine",
"submersible"
] | A look underneath the water’s surface can be fun and informative! However, making a device to go under the surface poses challenges with communication and water proofing. That’s what this
rubber band powered submarine
by [PeterSripol] attempts to fix!
The greatest challenge of building such a submersible was the active depth control system. The submarine is slightly negatively buoyant so that once the band power runs out, it returns to the surface. Diving is controlled by pitch fins, which will pitch downward under the torque applied by the rubber bands. Once the rubber band power runs out, elastic returns the fins to their natural pitch up position encouraging surfacing of the submarine. However, this results in uncontrolled dives and risks loss of the submersible.
Therefore, a float to deflect the fins when a certain depth was reached. Yet this proved ineffective, so a final solution of electronic depth control was implemented. While this may not be in the spirit of a rubber band powered submarine, it is technically still rubber band powered.
After a prototype with a single rubber band holder, a second version which uses a gearbox and three rubber band inputs was implemented which provides approximately 10 minutes of run time. An electronic failure resulted in the submarine’s failure of its final wild test, but the project was nonetheless a fun look at elastic powering a submersible.
This is not the first time we have looked at strange rubber band powered vehicles. Make sure to check out
this rubber band powered airplane next! | 16 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175096",
"author": "Menno",
"timestamp": "2025-09-05T06:06:55",
"content": "“The submarine is slightly negatively buoyant so that once the band power runs out, it returns to the surface”So it’s positively buoyant.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,371,437.035438 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/04/tfiner-is-an-atompunk-solar-sail-lookalike/ | TFINER Is An Atompunk Solar Sail Lookalike | Tyler August | [
"Space"
] | [
"nasa",
"NASA NIAC",
"radioisotope",
"space propulsion"
] | It’s not every day we hear of a new space propulsion method. Even rarer to hear of one that actually seems halfway practical. Yet that’s what we have in the case of TFINER, a proposal by [James A. Bickford]
we found summarized on Centauri Dreams
by [Paul Gilster] .
TFINER stands for Thin-Film Nuclear Engine Rocket Engine, and it’s a hoot. The word “rocket” is in the name, so you know there’s got to be some reaction mass, but this thing looks more like a solar sail. The secret is that the “sail” is the rocket: as the name implies, it hosts a thin film of nuclear materialwhose
decay products
provide the reaction mass. (In the
Phase I study for NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts office (NIAC)
, it’s alpha particles from Thorium-228 or Radium-228.) Alpha particles go pretty quick (about 5%
c
for these isotopes), so the ISP on this thing is amazing. (1.81
million
seconds!)
Figure 3-1 From Bickford’s Phase I report shows the basic idea.
Now you might be thinking, “nuclear decay is isotropic! The sail will thrust equally in both directions and go nowhere!”– which would be true, if the sail was made of Thorium or Radium. It’s not; the radioisotope is a 9.5 um thin film on a 35 um beryllium back-plane that’s going to absorb any alpha emissions going the wrong way around. 9.5um is thin enough that most of the alphas from the initial isotope and its decay products (lets not forget that most of this decay chain are alpha emitters — 5 in total for both Th and Ra) aimed roughly normal to the surface will make it out.
Since the payload is behind the sail, it’s going to need a touch of shielding or rather long shrouds; the reference design calls for 400 m cables. Playing out or reeling in the cables would allow for some degree of thrust-vectoring, but this thing isn’t going to turn on a dime.
It’s also not going to have oodles of thrust, but the small thrust it does produce is continuous, and will add up to large deltaV over time. After a few years, the thrust is going to fall off (the half-life of Th-228 is 1.91 years, or 5.74 for Ra-228; either way the decay products are too short-lived to matter) but [Bickford]’s paper gives terminal/cruising velocity in either case of ~100 km/s.
Sure, that’s not fast enough to be convenient to measure as a fraction of the speed of light, and maybe it’s not great for a quick trip to Alpha Centauri but that’s plenty fast enough for to reach the furthest reaches of our solar system. For a flyby, anyway: like a solid-fueled rocket, once your burn is done, it’s
done.
Stopping isn’t really on offer here. The proposal references
extra-solar comets like Oumuamua
as potential flyby targets. That, and the focus of the
Sun’s gravitational lens effect.
Said focus is fortunately not a point, but a line, so no worries about a “blink and you miss it” fast-flyby. You can imagine we love both of those ideas.
NASA must have too, since NIAC was interested enough to advance this concept to a Phase II study. As reported at Centauri Dreams, the Phase II study will involve some actual hardware, albeit a ~1 square centimeter demonstrator rather than anything that will fly. We look forward to it. Future work also apparently includes the idea of combining the TFINER concept with an actual solar sail to get maximum possible delta-V from an Oberth-effect sundive. We
really
look forward to that one. | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8175037",
"author": "KDawg",
"timestamp": "2025-09-05T02:53:30",
"content": "materialwhose whooooooo!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8175110",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-05T06:56:52",
"content": "I hope h... | 1,760,371,436.944808 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/09/01/nasa-seeks-volunteers-to-track-artemis-ii-mission/ | NASA Seeks Volunteers To Track Artemis II Mission | Maya Posch | [
"Space"
] | [
"artemis program",
"nasa"
] | As NASA’s Artemis program trundles onwards at the blazing pace of a disused and very rusty crawler-transporter, the next mission on the list is gradually coming into focus. This will be the first crewed mission — a flyby of the Moon following in the footsteps of 1968’s Apollo 8 mission. As part of this effort,
NASA is looking for volunteers
who will passively track the Orion capsule and its crew of four as it makes its way around the Moon during its 10-day mission before returning to Earth. Details can be
found here
.
This follows on a similar initiative during the Artemis I mission, when participants passively tracked the radio signals from the capsule. For this upcoming mission NASA is looking for Doppler shift measurements on the Orion S-band (2200-2290 MHz) return link carrier signals, with the objective being to achieve and maintain a carrier lock.
Currently penciled in for a highly tentative April 2026, the
Artemis II
mission would fly on the same SLS Block 1 rocket configuration that launched the first mission, targeting a multi-trans-lunar injection (MTLI) profile to get to the Moon using a free return trajectory. The crew will check out the new life support system prior to starting the MTLI burns.
Because Artemis II will be on a free return trajectory it will not be orbiting the Moon, unlike Apollo 8’s crew who made ten lunar orbits. Incidentally, Apollo 8’s crew included
James Lovell
, who’d go on to fly the world-famous Apollo 13 mission. Hopefully the Artemis astronauts will be spared that level of in-space excitement. | 29 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "8172792",
"author": "Andy",
"timestamp": "2025-09-01T08:12:08",
"content": "They had me at 9 meter parabolic 📡 antenna. Suddenly my back yard doesn’t seem like it’s going to cut it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8172835",
... | 1,760,371,437.145896 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/08/31/the-challenges-of-digitizing-paper-films/ | The Challenges Of Digitizing Paper Films | Aaron Beckendorf | [
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"film scanner",
"film scanning",
"paper",
"scanning"
] | In the 1930s, as an alternative to celluloid, some Japanese companies printed films on paper (kami firumu), often in color and with synchronized 78 rpm record soundtracks. Unfortunately, between the small number produced, varying paper quality, and the destruction of World War II, few of these still survive. To keep more of these from being lost forever, a team at Bucknell University has been working on
a digitization project
, overcoming several technical challenges in the process.
The biggest challenge was the varying physical layout of the film. These films were printed in short strips, then glued together by hand, creating minor irregularities every few feet; the width of the film varied enough to throw off most film scanners; even the indexing holes were in inconsistent places, sometimes at the top or bottom of the fame, and above or below the frame border. The team’s solution was the Kyōrinrin scanner, named for a Japanese guardian spirit of lost papers. It uses two spools to run the lightly-tensioned film in front of a Blackmagic cinematic camera, taking a video of the continuously-moving film. To avoid damaging the film, the scanner contacts it in as few places as possible.
After taking the video, the team used a program they had written to recognize and extract still images of the individual frames, then aligned the frames and combined them into a watchable film. The team’s presented the digitized films at a number of locations, but if you’d like to see a quick sample, several of them are available
on YouTube
(one of which is embedded below).
This piece’s tipster pointed out some similarities to another recent article on another form of
paper-based image encoding
. If you don’t need to work with paper, we’ve also seen ways to
scan film more accurately
.
Thanks to [Yet Another Robert Smith] for the tip! | 18 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8172834",
"author": "henningdkf29543cc0f",
"timestamp": "2025-09-01T12:00:37",
"content": "How did these film originally get viewed?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8172845",
"author": "Richard",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,371,437.202117 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/08/31/microsoft-removed-wmr-headset-support-no-problem/ | Microsoft Removed WMR Headset Support? No Problem! | Donald Papp | [
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"steam",
"vr",
"Windows Mixed Reality",
"WMR",
"XR"
] | In late 2024 Microsoft removed support for WMR (Windows Mixed Reality), and they didn’t just cease development. As of Windows 11 version 24H2, headsets like the HP Reverb and others by Acer, Samsung, Lenovo, and Dell stopped working
at all
. But the good news is developer [Matthieu Bucchianeri] created the
Oasis driver for Windows Mixed Reality
which allows WMR headsets (and their controllers) to work again.
Oasis is available as a free download from
Steam
and involves a few specific setup steps in order to get working, but once the headset and controllers are unlocked and room setup is complete, the hardware will be usable again. Note that while SteamVR is handy, one’s headset and controllers are not actually tied to SteamVR. Any VR application that uses OpenVR or OpenXR should work.
It’s an extremely well-documented project, and anyone willing to read and follow a short list of directions should be off to the races in no time.
Now that there’s a way for folks to dust off their WMR hardware and get back in the game, it’s a good time to mention that if you have ever suffered from VR sickness, we’ve covered
ways to help deal with and adapt
to it. | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "8172704",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2025-09-01T03:15:11",
"content": "I dislike that all HMDs basically live in these walled gardens software-wise, and thus they are easily orphaned and become useless if a company decides to abandon the walled garden interface, which of course t... | 1,760,371,437.082673 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/08/31/hackaday-links-august-31-2025/ | Hackaday Links: August 31, 2025 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"assembly line",
"Chris Boden",
"dumpster diving",
"federal prison",
"floppy disk",
"ford",
"hackaday links",
"killswitch",
"logic bomb",
"model t",
"ssd",
"usb drive"
] | Back in March, we covered
the story of Davis Lu
, a disgruntled coder who programmed a logic bomb into his employers’ systems. His code was malicious in the extreme, designed as it was to regularly search for his Active Directory entry and fire off a series of crippling commands should it appear he had been fired. His 2019 sacking and subsequent deletion of his AD profile triggered the job, wreaking havoc on servers and causing general mayhem. Whatever satisfaction Lu drew from that must have been fleeting, because he was quickly arrested, brought to trial in federal court, and found guilty of causing intentional damage to protected computer systems.
Lu faced a decade in federal prison for the stunt, but
at his sentencing last week
, he got four years behind bars followed by three years of supervised release. That’s still a pretty stiff sentence, and depending on where he serves it, things might not go well for him. Uber-geek Chris Boden has some experience in the federal prison system as a result of some cryptocurrency malfeasance;
his video on his time in lockup
is probably something Mr. Lu should watch while he can. Honestly, we feel bad for him in a way because we’ve been there; we certainly toyed with the logic bomb idea when we were coding for a living, without actually ever doing it. Maybe he thought it would just get treated as a prank, but that was probably never in the cards; as we’re fond of telling our kids, the world just doesn’t have a sense of humor anymore.
Speaking of prison, when was the last time you had to use a floppy drive? Retrocomputer fans excepted, chances are good it’s quite a long time ago,
unless you’re an inmate in the New Jersey State Prison
, where USB drives are not allowed. Instead, prisoners working on appeals or continuing their education are forced to use 1.44-MB floppies to exchange data with the outside world. The New Jersey prison rules seem a bit anachronistic, since they allow a pretty generous stack of 3.5″ floppies — 20 diskettes — but disallow USB sticks. True, the USB form factor is more easily accommodated in the standard-issue
prison wallet
, but the materials in a stack of floppies seem like they could easily be fashioned into a shiv or shank.
We’ve said this before, but we’ve got to start hanging around a better class of dumpster. Were we to, we might get as lucky as a Redditor who reports
finding a sextet of 1 TB solid-state drives in a bin
. The lucky dumpster diver doesn’t say much about where they were found, perhaps wisely so, but other Redditors in the thread were quick to point out that they were probably in the trash for a reason, and that they might be a little clapped out if they came from a server array. Still, 6TB of free storage isn’t something one lightly passes up on, and even if the drives have seen better days, they’ll probably be adequate for non-critical applications. For our part, we’d love to find one of those mythical dumpsters that seem to spawn things like
Selectric typewriters
,
supercontinuum lasers
, or even
all the makings of a semiconductor fab
.
And finally, Brian Potter over at Construction Physics posted
an excellent essay
this week on the early history of the Ford Model T, the automobile that gave birth to America’s car culture, for better or for worse. Everyone seems to know the story of how Henry Ford invented the assembly line and drove the cost of a car down to around $400, making motoring accessible to the masses. And while that’s kind of true — Ford is said to have picked up the idea of moving the workpiece rather than the workers from slaughterhouses — it leaves out a lot of interesting details, which Brian picks up on. We were particularly struck by how late in the game Ford introduced assembly lines to Model T production; it wasn’t until 1913, and then only as a small-scale line to assemble the flywheel magnetos used in the ignition system. Once that line proved itself by reducing magneto assembly times by a factor of four, Ford’s process engineers began rolling out the concept across the plant. There are a ton of other tidbits in the article — enjoy! | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8172669",
"author": "Sprite_tm",
"timestamp": "2025-09-01T01:01:03",
"content": "Maybe he thought it would just get treated as a prank, but that was probably never in the cards; as we’re fond of telling our kids, the world just doesn’t have a sense of humor anymore.Not only did his ... | 1,760,371,437.244019 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/08/31/lightning-talks-on-time-with-this-device/ | Lightning Talks On Time, With This Device | Jenny List | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"talk timer",
"timer"
] | Ask a Hackaday scribe who’s helped run the lightning talks at one of our events, and they’ll tell you that keeping the speakers on time is a challenge. Conversely if the staffer is trying to indicate to the speaker how much time they have left, it must be difficult from the podium to keep track while delivering your talk. Fortunately there’s [makeTVee] waiting in the wings with a solution,
a cube whose faces each have a custom 5×7 LED matrix on them
. The countdown is clear and unambiguous, and should provide no distractions.
The brains behind it all is a XIAO nRF52840 Sense board using the Zephyr RTOS, the LEDs are WS2812s on their own PCBs, and the party piece is only revealed at the end of the countdown. A tilt mechanism triggered by a servo releases a ball bearing down a track, where it hits a telephone bell and provides a very audible reminder to the speaker. The result saw action during the lightning talks at the Hackaday Europe event earlier in the year, but it’s taken a while for the write-up to make it online. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "8172557",
"author": "Benjamin Henrion",
"timestamp": "2025-08-31T20:08:47",
"content": "I started the lightning talks at Fosdem in 2093/2004 with a 5 minutes format, now they are 20 minutes, not lightning anymore…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,371,437.40347 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/08/31/nasa-is-taking-suggestions-for-raising-swifts-orbit/ | NASA Is Taking Suggestions For Raising Swift’s Orbit | Maya Posch | [
"Space"
] | [
"nasa",
"orbital drag",
"space telescope"
] | Launched in 2004, the
Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory
– formerly the
Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer
– has been dutifully studying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) during its two-year mission, before moving on to a more general space observation role during its ongoing mission. Unfortunately, the observatory is in LEO, at an altitude of around 370 km. The natural orbital decay combined with increased solar activity now threatens to end Swift’s mission, unless NASA can
find someone who can boost its orbit
.
Using
Swift
as a testbed for commercial orbit-boosting technologies, NASA is working with a number of companies to investigate options. One of these is the SSPICY demonstration of in-orbit inspection technology by Starfish Space that’s part of an existing Phase III program.
Although currently no option has been selected and Swift is still at risk of re-entering Earth’s atmosphere within the near future, there seems to be at least a glimmer of hope that this process can be reverted, and a perfectly fine triple-telescope space observatory can keep doing science for many years to come. Along the way it may also provide a blueprint for how to do the same with other LEO assets that are at risk of meeting a fiery demise. | 43 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "8172482",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2025-08-31T18:31:47",
"content": "Nah, that’s silly. The steel cable may rust and is much too heavy! Think of the pyhsiks!But how’s this – they could just send up a balloon with a rope and a big magnet attached to it?– It’ll float up until... | 1,760,371,437.364134 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/08/31/building-a-macro-pad-into-a-business-card/ | Building A Macro Pad Into A Business Card | Aaron Beckendorf | [
"handhelds hacks",
"PCB Hacks"
] | [
"business card",
"business cards",
"circuit business card",
"macro pad",
"ZMK"
] | A business card is a convenient way to share your contact information, but it’s unfortunately prone to being thrown away or forgotten. PCB business cards try to get around this problem, but while impressive, most won’t keep the recipient engaged for a very long time. [Cole Olsen]’s
macro pad business card
, on the other hand, might actually get regular use.
The card has three buttons and a rotary encoder as controls, with an RGB LED to indicate the card’s current mode. It can perform three sets of functions: general productivity, serving as a presentation remote, and controlling music. The scroll wheel is the main control, and can switch through windows, desktops, and tabs, page through slides, and control music volume.
The card itself is made out of a PCB, the exposed side of which contains [Cole]’s contact information, and the other side of which is covered by a 3D-printed case. As thick as it is, this might be stretching the definition of “card” a bit, but as a mechanical engineer, [Cole] did want to demonstrate some mechanical design. A nice!nano wireless keyboard development board running ZMK firmware reads the sensors and sends commands. Conveniently for a presentation remote, the card is powered by a rechargeable battery and can work wirelessly (as a side benefit, if a recipient were minded to get rid of this card, the lithium-polymer battery would probably substantially delay disposal).
[Cole] writes that he was inspired by many of the other
impressive business cards
we’ve covered. Some of the macro pads we’ve seen have been
marvels of miniaturization
in their own right. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "8172324",
"author": "user746279236282@gmail",
"timestamp": "2025-08-31T14:14:21",
"content": "cool card but get a better email address!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "8172329",
"author": "Do Not Do This",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,371,437.290391 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2025/08/30/open-source-interactive-wallpapers-for-windows/ | Open Source Interactive Wallpapers For Windows | Ian Bos | [
"Art"
] | [
"background",
"conways game of life",
"css",
"desktop",
"html",
"js",
"Microsoft store",
"octos",
"open source"
] | It’s late at night, and you’re avoiding work that was supposed to be done yesterday. You could open an application on your desktop to keep your attention, or what about the desktop itself? [Underpig1] has you covered with Octos.
Octos is an open-source application
created to allow interactive wallpapers based on HTML, CSS, or JS for Windows 10 and 11.
There are many wallpaper applications made to spruce up your desktop, but Octos stands out to us here at Hackaday from the nature of being open source. What comes along with the project is a
detailed API
to reference when creating your own wallpaper. Additionally, this allows for detailed and efficient visualization techniques that would otherwise be difficult to display, perfect for procrastination.
Included demos range from an interactive solar system to
Conway’s Game of Life
. Customization options allow for basic manipulation of the backdrops in the application itself, but we’re sure you could allow for some fun options with enough tinkering.
If you want to try Octos out for yourself, it’s incredibly easy. Octos can be found on the
Microsoft Store
, and additional backdrops can be added within the application. Open-source applications allow for incredibly easy additions to your personal device, but it’s not always that way. Kindle has been a prime example of a fairly locked down system; however,
that never stops a clever hacker
!
Thanks to [Joshua Throm] for the tip! | 19 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "8171987",
"author": "huyy220022",
"timestamp": "2025-08-30T15:46:01",
"content": "I thinkhttps://github.com/rocksdanister/livelyis nicer, and also open-source",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "8172066",
"author": "Cad th... | 1,760,371,437.457873 |
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