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https://hackaday.com/2014/11/14/surviving-the-hackaday-prize-party/ | Surviving The Hackaday Prize Party | Mike Szczys | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2014 hackaday prize",
"party",
"Recap"
] | What a week it has been. I’m in Munich, Germany along with [Brian], [Jasmine], [Ben], [Alek], and the rest of the crew who helped plan and guide the 2014 Hackaday Prize. If you somehow missed it, we announce the rank order of the finalists. It was
SatNOGS that claimed the Grand Prize
, congratulations!
We have a ton of content headed your way, but to be honest there’s going to be a bit of “recovery lag” before that hits the front page. We spent the entire day at Technikum in the Munich Kalturfabrik. It was originally some sort of factory complex (having to do with potato processing) which has since been turned into co-working spaces, restaurants, and performing arts venues. We felt right at home in the post-industrial, brightly muraled maze of buildings.
The official activities started with the Embedded Hardware Workshops which were packed! The previously assured “robust” WiFi immediately, and repeatedly, went down. Fortunately hackers being hackers everyone pooled their local copies onto one SD card and passed it around. We’ve segregated that piece of hardware in an evidence bag for future testing.
We pushed back the closing of the workshops by about 40 minutes since everyone was having fun. This marginally outraged the company who was handling furniture and food as we weren’t following the plan. They were pleasant enough about the issue but for me it was an interesting peek at the difference in cultures. During the switch we had lightning talks which I found both enthusiastic and interesting. We then moved to the major presentations of the night. [Jeroen Domburg] aka [Sprite_TM] gave a stunning presentation about reverse engineering the ridiculously overpowered microcontroller on a special lighted keyboard. We’ll surely have a standalone post about it. We then closed with a recap of The Hackaday Prize and the naming of the winners. That too will have its own feature.
After handing over the trophy, and taking a few photos the writers all rushed to the downstairs “backstage” area. I had previously written the announcement post and we spent some time getting the word out, first to all the finalists, then to the sites that are close friends, and finally started pushing the news on social media. All work and no play? Forget about it. The party was raging and the food and drinks were fantastic. They were, however, far outshined by the conversations with interesting people to be found at every turn. I spoke with people who had driven in just for the event from France, Austria, and of course all over Germany.
The venue was packed up starting around Midnight. You know it’s a great time when the crowd hangs out in the cold for another 40 minutes afterward. The point of the story? Any chance you have to spend time with the great people who make up the Hackaday community is a chance to jump at. Where to next? | 19 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "2136726",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2014-11-14T18:12:48",
"content": "Awesome, wish I could have made it.. Germany is such an awesome place.I know it’s the last thing you guys what to think about after such a huge event, but you guys should throw an event here in Central Flor... | 1,760,376,005.372533 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/14/video-spiel-kultur/ | Video Spiel Kultur | Brian Benchoff | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"archive",
"munich",
"museum",
"video game",
"Video game archive",
"video games"
] | Somehow, and don’t ask us how, the venue we chose for the Hackaday Prize party was perfect for Hackaday-related shenanigans. There was a Hackerspace right around the corner, a computer history museum in a warehouse nearby, and an amazing video game archive barely 100 meters away from our venue.
The VideoGamingArchive
is an amazing collection of video games from the era where video games came in
boxes
with
real manuals
, and you needed to be sure you bought the game compatible with your system. Inside, one wall is dedicated to the old cardboard computer boxes, indexed partly by system and partly by how cool they look, while the other wall was dedicated to games from the previous five generations of consoles.
[Nils] was kind enough to give me a tour. You can check that video out below, with some more pics below that. If you’re wondering, yes, that is a sealed copy of Chrono Trigger, and no, I have no idea what it’s worth. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "2136212",
"author": "Gentleman Nerd",
"timestamp": "2014-11-14T15:16:46",
"content": "“Somehow” cough cough ^_^If you’re in Munich around end of November or December, there are GamesLounges normally around end of every month. I know there will be one on the 19th of December in combi... | 1,760,376,005.054222 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/14/hacklet-22-retro-console-projects/ | Hacklet 22 – Retro Console Projects | Adam Fabio | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"atari",
"hackaday.io",
"hacklet",
"nintendo",
"retro console",
"retro gaming",
"sega",
"video games"
] | Everyone loves arcade games, and it didn’t take long for designers to figure out that people would love to take the fun home. The home gaming console market has been around for decades. Through the early days of battery-powered pong style consoles through Atari and the video game crash of the early 80’s, to the late 8 and 16 bit era spearheaded by The Nintendo Entertainment System and The Sega Master System and beyond, consoles have become a staple of the hacker home. This week’s Hacklet features some of the best retro console projects from
Hackaday.io!
We start with [ThunderSqueak] saving the world with her
Atari 5200 Custom Controller Build
. For those who don’t know, the Atari 5200 “Super System” was an 8 bit system ahead of its time. The 5200 was also saddled with on of the worst controller designs ever. The buttons would stop responding after a few hours of game play. With 17 buttons, (including a full number pad), that was a pretty major design flaw! [ThunderSqueak] hacked a cheap commercial fighting game stick to make it work with the 5200. 12 individual buttons were wired in a matrix to replace the telephone style keys on the original 5200 controller. Atari’s non-centering analog stick was converted over to a standard 4 switch arcade style stick. [ThunderSqueak] did leave the original pots accessible in the bottom of the enclosure for centering adjustments. Many 5200 games work great with the new setup.
[DackR] is bringing back the glory days of Nintendo with
Super Famicade
, a homebrew 4 SNES arcade system inspired by Nintendo’s Super System. Nintendo’s original Super System played several customized versions of games which were available on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). [DackR] is building his own with parts from four SNES consoles. He’s also adding a few features, like a touch screen, video overlay, and enhanced RGB.
He’s going to add custom memory monitoring hardware, which will allow him to check how many lives a player has left and handle coin operation, all without the original Super System Hardware. If you’re curious what the original Super Systems looked like, check out
Hackaday’s Tokyo Speedrun
video.You might just catch a glimpse of one!
[Bentendo64] is improving on the past with
RGB For ‘Murica
. European systems have enjoyed the higher quality afforded by separate red, green and blue video lines for decades. North American gamers, however were stuck in the composite or S-Video realm until shortly before the HDTV age. [Bentendo64] had an old hotel CRT based monitor, and decided to hack an RGB input. After opening up the back of the set, he removed the yolk board and added direct inputs to the video amplifiers. We’re not sure if this mod will work with every CRT, but it can’t hurt to try! Just be sure to discharge those high voltage capacitors before wrenching on these old video systems. Even if a set has been unplugged for days, the caps can give a seriously painful (and dangerous) shock!
[Ingo S] is also working to improve the SNES with
SNES AmbiPak
, a mod which brings ambient lighting and “rumble pack” controller feedback to the vintage Super Nintendo. [Ingo S] used the popular SNES9X emulator to figure out where game data is stored while the SNES is running. His proof of concept was the original F-ZERO SNES game. [Ingo S] found that Every time the player’s car hits the wall, the system would perform a write on address 3E:0C23. All he would need to do is monitor that address on the real hardware, and rumble the controller on a write. The real hardware proved to be a bit harder to work with though. Even these “slow” vintage systems clock their ram at around 3MHz, way too fast for an Arduino to catch a bus access. [Ingo S] is solving that problem with a Xilinx XC9572 Complex Programmable Logic Device (CPLD). CPLDs can be thought of as little brothers to Field Programmable Gate Arras (FPGAs). Even though they generally have less “room” for logic inside, CPLDs run plenty fast for decoding memory addresses. With this change, [Ingo S] is back on track to building his SNES rumble pack!
It feels like we just got started – but we’re already out of space for this week’s Hacklet! As always, see you next week. Same hack time, same hack channel, bringing you the best of
Hackaday.io! | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "2136036",
"author": "Atcnetz.de",
"timestamp": "2014-11-14T14:05:44",
"content": "Make “Blog” to the Start site and show near the title how much comments the entry has :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2136123",
"author": "... | 1,760,376,005.262805 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/14/throwing-pis-into-the-stratosphere/ | Throwing Pis Into The Stratosphere | Marsh | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"near space",
"oled",
"Pi",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspi",
"stratosphere"
] | It’s always exciting to see the photos from High Altitude Ballooning (HAB) outings. While it’s no surprise that the Raspi is a popular choice—low cost, convenient USB jacks, etc.—this is the first build we’ve seen that
uses an OLED during the trip to show real-time data
on-screen to be picked up by the on-board webcam. (Though you may have to squint to see it at the bottom middle of the above image).
[Fabrice’s] payload made it to 26,000m, and the screen he chose, an
ILSOFT OLED
, performed admirably despite the extreme conditions suffered (temperatures can reach -50C). The last time we saw a near-space Raspi payload was a couple of years ago, when [Dave Akerman]
was closing in on UK balloon altitude records
. [Dave] hasn’t stopped launching balloons, either, testing new trackers and radio modules, as well as his most recent build that
sent a Superman action figure to the skies
—all recorded in glorious HD.
Check out both [Dave] and [Fabrice’s] blogs for loads of pictures documenting the latest in High Altitude Ballooning, and stay with us after the jump for a quick video of [Fabrice’s] OLED in action. | 26 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "2135444",
"author": "hopeful critic",
"timestamp": "2014-11-14T10:24:23",
"content": "not exactly the most efficient way to show information. I could only read it once in the entire video. maybe next time closer and with more contrast, or two cameras at angles to see this view and ... | 1,760,376,005.113442 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/13/the-tumblemill-homemade-cnc-milling/ | The Tumblemill: Homemade CNC Milling | Marsh | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"aluminum",
"cnc",
"CNC mill",
"CNC milling",
"CNC router",
"mill",
"milling"
] | [Jens] aka [Tumblebeer] has compiled an impressive overview of the
Tumblemill, his homemade CNC mill.
It warms our hearts to learn that [Tumblebeer] was inspired to pursue electronics by projects featured here on Hackaday, even if it means he dropped out of med school to pursue electrical engineering. We’re glad he’s following his passion, though, and reading through his blog reveals just how far he’s come: from fiery disaster in his first projects to a gradual obsession with making a CNC device, [Tumblebeer] has made plenty of mistakes along the way, but that’s how it should be.
His first iteration was a CNC router that used rubber wheels as linear bearings. It worked…barely. His latest build grew out of meticulous Solidworks modelling, with a moving gantry design constructed largely from aluminum, and upgraded linear motion: this time a bit overkill, using HIWIN HGH20CA blocks. Rather than sourcing a traditional spindle mount, [Tumblebeer] opted for the housing from a LM50UU bearing, which provided both the perfect fit and a sturdier housing for his 2.2kw spindle.
Visit his project blog for the details behind the mill’s construction, including a
lengthy installment of upgrades
, and hang around for a demo video below, along with the obligatory (and always appreciated) inclusion of the Jolly Wrencher via defacing an Arduino. | 23 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "2134899",
"author": "Indyaner",
"timestamp": "2014-11-14T07:23:45",
"content": "That is a nice CNC Mill. And I think HGH20CA blocks are not an overkill. They are decent and a ticket for serious precision.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"com... | 1,760,376,005.317101 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/13/the-hackaday-prize-judges-recap/ | The Hackaday Prize Judge’s Recap | Brian Benchoff | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"the hackaday prize"
] | With the Intertubes atwitter about the finalist – and winner – of the Hackaday Prize, it’s only fitting the rest of you get to hear what the judges thought about the finalists.
We had some amazing judges combing over these projects, ranging from people who have told Congress they could shut down the Internet at will to a Dutch guy that just figured out how to order a plain hamburger in the Munich train station. Really, really smart people. Here’s what they had to say about each project:
SatNOGS, 1st place:
ChipWhisperer, 2nd place:
PortableSDR, 3rd place:
Open Source Science Tricorder, 4th Place:
ramanPi, 5th Place: | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "2134325",
"author": "modmanpaul",
"timestamp": "2014-11-14T04:34:04",
"content": "Today is my birthday so I feel a completely undeserved sense of honour that the prize was announced today. And on top of it the finalist I was hoping for won! Considering these two factors I think I sh... | 1,760,376,005.214532 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/13/circuithub-launches-group-buy-crowdsourcing-campaigns/ | CircuitHub Launches Group Buy Crowdsourcing Campaigns | Marsh | [
"Crowd Funding"
] | [
"beaglebone",
"beaglebone black",
"crowdfunding",
"crowdsourcing",
"open hardware",
"open source"
] | Kickstarter isn’t the solution to every manufacturing hurdle, you know? Crowdsourcing—everybody’s favorite cliché to invoke after sharing their less-than-half-baked merchandise idea—has expanded to include yet another variation, and is currently rocking
[Max Thrun’s] BeagleBone GamingCape
thanks to [Jason Kridner]. If the cape looks familiar, it’s because
we featured it earlier this summer
, when [Max] created it as part of TI’s Intern Design Challenge.
Here’s how it works. Rather than asking strangers to place pre-orders (let’s admit it, that’s ultimately how Kickstarter functions),
CircuitHub
campaigns work as a group-buy: upload your KiCad, Eagle or Altium design and a BOM, and you’re on your way to bulk-order savings. As [Kridner] explains
in his blog post
, you’ll have some finagling to do for your campaign to be successful, such as choosing between prices at different volumes, projecting how many people need to buy in as a group, etc. When he sourced the parts on his own, [Kridner] spent nearly $1000 for a single GamingCape. The CircuitHub campaign, if successful, would land everyone a board for under $100 each—
and it’s assembled.
Who needs Kickstarter; that’s hard to beat. | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "2133232",
"author": "charliex",
"timestamp": "2014-11-14T00:12:13",
"content": "seems useful",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2133329",
"author": "Yanir",
"timestamp": "2014-11-14T00:51:51",
"content": "agreed",
"... | 1,760,376,005.557395 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/13/programming-an-arduino-over-wifi-with-the-esp8266/ | Programming An Arduino Over WiFi With The ESP8266 | Ethan Zonca | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"bootloader",
"ESP8266",
"optiboot",
"wifi"
] | A lot of people have used ESP8266 to add inexpensive WiFi connectivity to their projects, but [Oscar] decided to take it one step further and
program an Arduino over WiFi with the ESP8266
. [Oscar] wrote a server script in Python that communicates with firmware running on the Arduino. The Arduino connects to the server on startup and listens for a “reboot” command.
When the command is received, the processor resets and enters the bootloader. The python script begins streaming a hex file over WiFi to the ESP8226, which relays it to the Arduino’s bootloader. Once the hex file is streamed, the microcontroller seamlessly starts executing the firmware. This method can be used with any AVR running a stk500-compatible bootloader.
[Oscar]’s writeup is in Spanish, but fortunately the comments in his Python and Arduino code are in English. Check out the video (in English) after the break where [Oscar] demonstrates his bootloading setup. | 16 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "2133050",
"author": "Joseph A Sammarco",
"timestamp": "2014-11-13T22:36:12",
"content": "Nooice. 1st. Can’t wait to get my ESP8266. Would love to get the custom firmware to work on this so I can eliminate the arduino. That would be cool. Wouldn’t work for something like this.",
... | 1,760,376,005.425317 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/13/satnogs-wins-the-2014-hackaday-prize/ | SatNOGS Wins The 2014 Hackaday Prize | Mike Szczys | [
"Featured",
"Slider"
] | [
"2014 hackaday prize",
"announcement",
"grand prize winnera",
"SatNOGS",
"the hackaday prize"
] | The Grand Prize
winner of the 2014 Hackaday Prize is SatNOGs
. The project is a thrilling example of the benefits of a connected world. It opens up the use of satellite data to a much wider range of humanity by providing plans to build satellite tracking stations, and a protocol and framework to share the satellite data with those that cannot afford, or lack the skills to build their own tracking station. The hardware itself is based on readily available materials, commodity electronics, and just a bit of 3D printing.
The awarding of the Grand Prize caps off
six-months of productive competition
which started in April with a
first round reaching to more than 800 entries
. Once the field had been narrowed and sent on to
our judges
the narrowed it to just
50 projects vying for a trip into space
(the grand prize), industrial-grade 3D printer and milling machine, a trip to Akihabara electronics district in Japan, and team skydiving.
Congratulations to all 5 top winners
SatNOGS – Grand Prize
You already know this but such an accomplishment is well worth mentioning again!
ChipWhisperer – Second Prize
The ChipWhisperer
is a hardware security testing platform that allows developers to explore side-band and glitch vulnerabilities in their hardware projects. The existing technologies for this type of testing are prohibitively expensive for most products. The availability of this tool plays a dual role of helping to inform developers of these potential attack vectors, and allowing them to do some level of testing for them.
PortableSDR – Third Prize
The form and function of the
PortableSDR
move forward both Software Defined Radio and Ham. The SDR aspect fully removes the need to use a computer. The wireless functions provided can be called a modernization of portable amateur radio hardware.
Open Source Science Tricorder – Fourth Prize
Inspired by the future-tech item found in the
Star Trek
franchise,
the Open Source Science Tricorder
uses currently available technology to produce a handheld collection of sensors. The design provides modularity so that the available sensors can be customized based on need. Equally importantly, the user interface gives meaning to the data being measured, and allows it to be uploaded, graphed, and otherwise manipulated on the Internet.
ramanPi – Fifth Prize
Raman Spectroscopy is used to help determine what molucules are found in test samples. One example would be determining possible contaminants in drinking water. These tools are expensive and
the ramanPi project
will mean more labs (at University or otherwise) as well as citizen scientists will be able to build their own spectrometer. One particularly interesting aspect of the project is the parametric 3D printer file used for mounting the machine’s optics. The use of this technique means that the design can easily be adapted for different types of lenses.
2015 Hackaday Prize
With the great success of these five projects, and the potential that Open Design has to move the world forward, we hope to host another round of The Hackaday Prize in 2015. When you’re done congratulating the winners in the comments below, let us know what you think the subject of the next challenge should be.
Thank you to our sponsor
Hackaday would like to thank the generosity of our sponsor,
Supplyframe Inc.
, who supported the cost of all prizes. Supplyframe is Hackaday’s parent company and their values are closely aligned with our own. | 86 | 48 | [
{
"comment_id": "2132706",
"author": "Tony",
"timestamp": "2014-11-13T20:06:33",
"content": "Congratulations, great projects all around!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2132712",
"author": "okowsc",
"timestamp": "2014-11-13T20:07:59",
... | 1,760,376,005.677188 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/15/running-a-web-server-on-the-esp8266/ | Running A Web Server On The ESP8266 | Ethan Zonca | [
"hardware"
] | [
"ESP8266",
"open source",
"web server",
"wifi"
] | We’ve written lot about the ESP8266 lately, but people keep finding more awesome uses for this inexpensive module. [Martin] decided that using the ESP8266 with an external microcontroller was overkill, and decided to
implement his project entirely on the module
with a built-in web server.
[Martin] started out with the
ESP8266 web server firmware
developed by [sprite_tm]. This firmware provides a basic web server that supports multiple connections and simple CGI scripts right on the module. The web server firmware opens up a ton of possibilities with CGI scripting. When booting up in AP mode, you can even connect the ESP8266 to another access point right from the your browser.
[Martin] decided to connect a DHT22 temperature/humidity sensor to the module as a proof of concept. He used a
DHT22 library
written for the ESP8266 to read data from the sensor, and wrote a CGI script to display the data on a web page. [Martin] also added buttons to control a GPIO pin as a proof of concept. He posted his source code and a binary (see the end of his post) so you can try out his application and mod it for your own project. | 20 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "2142829",
"author": "Delaser",
"timestamp": "2014-11-16T07:15:32",
"content": "So, I can just hook this thing up to a battery and carry a website with me in my pocket?The pranks!1, Load up with shock image of choice.2, Set up unprotected network with name of local coffee shop.3, ???... | 1,760,376,005.168692 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/15/ben-krasnow-shows-us-how-a-crookes-radiometer-works/ | [Ben Krasnow] Shows Us How A Crookes Radiometer Works | Adam Fabio | [
"classic hacks",
"News"
] | [
"Crookes Radiometer",
"Maxwell",
"radiometer",
"Sir William Crookes",
"vacuum"
] | [Ben Krasnow] is
tackling the curious Crookes Radiometer on his Applied Science
YouTube channel. The
Crookes Radiometer
, a staple of museum gift shops everywhere, is a rather simple device. A rotor with black and white vanes rotates on the head of a needle. The entire assembly is inside a glass envelope. The area inside the glass is not at a hard vacuum, nor is it filled with some strange gas. The radiometer only works when there is a partial vacuum inside.
The radiometer’s method of operation was long misunderstood.
Sir William Crookes
and
James Clerk Maxwell
both believed that the vanes moved due to the pressure of the photons hitting the vanes. If that were true though, the radiometer would spin in the opposite direction it normally does when held near a light source. It was eventually discovered that the system is a thermodynamic one. [Ben] proves this by cooling down the radiometer’s glass with a can of freeze spray. The radiometer immediately begins spinning backwards, with no light source present.
From there [Ben] mounts the rotor of a radiometer inside his vacuum chamber, which many will recognize as the chamber from his
DIY electron microscope.
As expected, the vanes don’t spin at a hard vacuum. In fact, [Ben] find the vanes spin fastest when the pressure is about 7 mTorr. | 21 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "2142177",
"author": "DainBramage",
"timestamp": "2014-11-16T03:14:35",
"content": "I remember one of these sitting on the windowsill of my second grade classroom. I spent many hours staring at it and trying to work out how it worked instead of paying attention to the teacher.It’s fu... | 1,760,376,006.796934 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/15/multi-target-ide-for-8-bit-cpus/ | Multi-target IDE For 8-Bit CPUs | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks",
"News",
"Software Development"
] | [
"6502",
"6809",
"8 bit",
"8080",
"ASM80",
"ide",
"z80"
] | A long time ago, [Martin] played with old 8-bit computers. Recently, he’s been honing his assembly skills again, and the idea of an IDE for a boatload of old systems came to him. After a year of work, he announced
a multitarget IDE for 8-bit computers
that works in your browser.
The project is called ASM80
, and includes a code editor, a workspace to put all your code, compilers for the 8080/8085, Z80, 6502, 6800 and 6809 CPUs, emulators for all these CPUs, and emulators for a few Czech computers, the ZX Spectrum, and a few of [Grant Searle]’s single board computers.
What makes this project interesting is the syntax for all the different CPUs is pretty much the same. It’s a real, modular code editor that supports macros and everything you would expect for a code editor for ancient computers.
You can check out
an assembler description here
. [Martin] also has an offline, desktop-based version of ASM80
called IDE80
, with a video demo of that below. | 19 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "2142113",
"author": "starhawk",
"timestamp": "2014-11-16T02:53:27",
"content": "This is interesting…For the record, I still feel like HaD now has a bad case of Gizmodo layout, and I still think it sucks./grumblingthatnobodyimportantwillpayanyattentionto",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,376,006.74457 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/15/complete-fpv-setup-for-your-drone/ | Complete FPV Setup For Your Drone | Mike Szczys | [
"drone hacks",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"FPV",
"lcd",
"receiver",
"tft",
"transmitter"
] | [Ioannis] is like anyone else who has a quadcopter or other drone. Eventually you want to sit in the cockpit instead of flying from the ground. This just isn’t going to happen at the hobby level anytime soon. But the next best option is well within your grasp. Why not decouple your eyes from your body by
adding a first-person video to your quad
?
There are really only four main components: camera, screen, and a transceiver/receiver pair to link the two. [Ioannis] has chosen the Sony Super HAD CCTV camera which provides excellent quality at the bargain basement price of just $25 dollars. A bit of patient shopping delivered a small LCD screen for just $15. The insides have plenty of room as you can see. [Ioannis] connected the screen’s native driver board up to the $55 video receiver board. To boost performance he swapped out the less-than-ideal antenna for a circular polarized antenna designed to work well with the 5.8 GHz radio equipment.
It seems that everything works like a dream. This all came in under $100 which is half of what some other systems cost
without
a display. Has anyone figured out a way to connect a transmitter like this to your
phone for use with Google Cardboard
? | 17 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "2141281",
"author": "stupidFast",
"timestamp": "2014-11-15T22:19:18",
"content": "In regards to the question about hooking up the transmitter to your phone for use with Google Cardboard, has anyone done an FPV system in which the drone has an onboard computer such as a Pi that is ab... | 1,760,376,006.606949 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/15/morse-decoders-lean-and-sexy-search-algorithm/ | Morse Decoder’s Lean And Sexy Search Algorithm | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"algorithm",
"arduino",
"Decode",
"dsp",
"lookup table",
"morse code",
"nano"
] | Often the Morse Code centered projects that we feature are to help you practice transmitting messages. This one takes a tack and builds an automatic decoder. We think [Nicola Cimmino’s] project is well worth featuring simply based on his explanation of the Digital Signal Processing used on the signal coming in from the microphone. Well done. But he’s really just getting warmed up.
What makes this really stand out is
a brilliant algorithm that allows conversion from Morse to ASCII
using a lookup table of only 64 bytes. This provides enough room for A-Z and 0-9 without chance of collision but could be expanded to allow for more characters. Below is a concise description of how the algorithm works but make sure you take the time to read [Nicola’s] project description in its entirety.
The algorithm can be decribed as follows. Have an index inside the lookup string inizialied to zero. Have an initial dash jump size of 64. At every received element (dot or dash) halve the initial dash jump and then increase by 1 the index inside the lookup string if a dot was received and by dash jump size if a dash was received. Repeat until a letter separator is reached, at that point the index inside the lookup string will point to the ASCII corresponding to the decoded morse.
Have you heard of this technique before? If so, tell us about it in the comments below. Before you jump all over this one, realize that
Magic Morse uses a different technique
. | 27 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "2140827",
"author": "arodland",
"timestamp": "2014-11-15T18:28:23",
"content": "If I’m reading it properly, this is just a 6-deep binary tree stored in linear format — as commonly used in heaps. Actually it’s a nonstandard version of linear format, but it seems to work just as well ... | 1,760,376,006.551611 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/15/hiding-executable-javascript-in-images-that-pass-validation/ | Hiding Executable Javascript In Images That Pass Validation | Mike Szczys | [
"internet hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"header",
"image",
"javascript",
"picture",
"vulnerability",
"xss"
] | Here’s an interesting proof-of-concept that could be useful or hazardous depending on the situation in which you encounter it. [jklmnn] drew inspiration from the work of [Ange Albertini] who has
documented a way to hide Javascript within the header of a .gif
file. Not only does it carry the complete code but both image and the Javascript are seen as valid.
With just a little bit of work [jklmnn]
boiled down the concept to the most basic parts
so that it is easy to understand. Next, a quick program was written to automate the embedding of the Javascript.
Grab the source code
if you want to give it a try yourself.
Let’s get back to how this might be useful rather than harmful. What if you are working on a computer that doesn’t allow the browser to load Javascript. You may be able to embed something useful, kind of like the hack that
allowed movies to be played by abusing Microsoft Excel
. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "2140448",
"author": "okowsc",
"timestamp": "2014-11-15T15:26:51",
"content": "Interesting method, has a few applications.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2140466",
"author": "icanhazadd",
"timestamp": "2014-11-15T15:34:2... | 1,760,376,006.922417 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/15/electronica-2014-wrap-up/ | Electronica 2014 Wrap-Up | Brian Benchoff | [
"cons"
] | [
"electronica",
"Electronica Wrapup"
] | Make no mistake about it, Electronica is a real trade show, with suits everywhere, meeting rooms packed to the gills, and €4 bottles of soda. If you dig around long enough, you will find some interesting things, as I did on my excursions to the Messe with [Chris Gammell] and [Sprite_TM].
Actual cool booths
This isn’t a show and tell. The purpose of the booths are for sales people to meet with other sales people, and people who have the letter ‘C’ somewhere in their title to be concerned about things you’ll never understand. Booth displays are a plastic case with a few components in them. If you’re lucky, you’ll have some units running on a table somewhere.
This isn’t the case for all booths, though. The Linear booth wanted to demo some custom sensors, so they built the most primitive thermocouple in existence. It’s a piece of copper pipe and some barbed wire, brazed together. It won’t be an accurate thermocouple when the torch is still hot, but by calibrating it against a known temperatures and values, they can get pretty reliable temperature readings. Oh, the displays are Nixies.
Nixie junkyard thermocouple
Barbed wire copper pipe thermocouple. Those are just brazed together.
The temperature calibration for this particular resistor
Raspberries
No, Raspberry Pi didn’t have a booth, but RS Components did, and this is where you could find Raspberries and Raspberry-related projects. I hun around the booth after [Eben] gave a talk, and this is what the future of the Raspberry Pi ecosystem will look like:
There will be no more form factor changes. Until the next hardware update, we’ll have the B+ and A+ form factor.
When is the next hardware update? Some time in 2017 or 2018. They don’t have a chip selected yet.
Four million units shipped. I told [Eben] the Commodore 64 shipped 25 Million, [Eben] told me [Jack Tramiel] was running his mouth when he said that. German tank problem with serial numbers and all that.
Lots of industrial applications. There are real, legitimate uses of a Pi in controlling million dollar machines.
No one has built a cluster of Pi compute modules. I believe the problem is finding vertical SO-DIMM connectors.
The latest from the FTDI display case
Free Stuff
Show up at the end of Electronica, and you’ll quickly figure out the people at booths don’t want to ship their stuff home. This was the Hammond Enclosures booth:
What did I grab? Just some Raspi cases, and one of the wooden Hammond enclosures used for tube amps. Also picked up a sample of unreleased Kailh switches for mechanical keyboards. Data coming sometime.
If someone is at the Munich airport in a few days, I might have a wooden Hammond enclosure for you. | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "2140055",
"author": "Vlad",
"timestamp": "2014-11-15T12:32:34",
"content": "I don’t get it, is this just a micro-USB cable?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2140134",
"author": "Indyaner",
"timestamp": "2014-11-... | 1,760,376,006.675281 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/13/hacking-a-20-wifi-smart-plug/ | Hacking A $20 WiFi Smart Plug | Ethan Zonca | [
"hardware"
] | [
"openwrt",
"plug",
"smart plug"
] | The Kankun smart plug is an inexpensive device that lets you switch an outlet on and off over wifi. The smart plug only works with an Android or IOS app that ships with the device, which limits its usefulness to turning things on and off from your phone.
In an attempt to make this device more useful, [LinuxGeek] probed the device with
nmap
and
discovered that it runs OpenWRT
. After trying various common default passwords he discovered the login was
root/admin.
While [LinuxGeek] hasn’t sniffed the protocol yet,
others have hacked it a bit further
. The plug apparently uses UDP packets to communicate with the Android app, but the packets are unfortunately encrypted.
Rather than hack at the protocol, they wrote code that toggles the GPIO pin from a CGI script and developed a small Windows application that hits the CGI script for simple control from a computer. There’s also a
Google+ group
where more information and a couple other hacks for these plugs are posted. For $20 (from AliExpress) and with a bit of hacking, this smart plug could be a great way to add wireless control to a home automation system. | 48 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "2132628",
"author": "James Koelzer",
"timestamp": "2014-11-13T19:35:43",
"content": "Does it come in an “Americas” version?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2132809",
"author": "dana",
"timestamp": "2014-11-13T2... | 1,760,376,006.875761 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/13/hackaday-prize-awards-ceremony-live-stream/ | Hackaday Prize Awards Ceremony Live Stream | Adam Fabio | [
"News"
] | [
"hackaday",
"Hackaday Prize",
"munich",
"the hackaday prize"
] | The Hackaday Prize is here! We know you can’t all be here with us in Munich so we’ve set up a live stream link for everyone to follow along at home. If you tune in now, you can catch some of the talks at our open hardware event!
Check it out:
Hack-O-Vision | 12 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "2132401",
"author": "Indyaner",
"timestamp": "2014-11-13T18:09:11",
"content": "Thank you very much. I hoped you would come up with a livestream. But the sound is quite terrible. I hope you can improve that a bit more when the talks start (or even input the linefeed from the mic dir... | 1,760,376,006.48432 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/13/hacking-werkstatts-and-other-workshops/ | Hacking Werkstatts And Other Workshops | Brian Benchoff | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [] | We had a few very cool workshops
at our party in Munich today
, with Moog synths, robotic arms, Linksys routers splayed open on a table, and Club Mate flowing like water. We’re wrapping the workshops up right now and the kegs are being tapped. Before that, though, it might be a good idea to show off all the
other
Hackaday Prize projects that showed up today.
The
M.A.R.S. Rover
, a 3D-printed rocker-bogie robot showed up around noon. I didn’t see it driving around, but there
will
probably be video up later.
Also shown was the
AutoCut
robotic lawn mower. No blood was shed today.
[Mario] was cool enough to fly in and show off the
OpenExposer
, a laser resin printer that is heavily inspired by the RepRap project.
Pictures below.
Not-deadly lawnmower
OP-1 synth with a Moog
MeArm
M.A.R.S. Rover
Moog hacking
3D Scanner and OpenExposer
If you’re wondering why we couldn’t get Internet at the workshops…
Solarbotics | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "2132896",
"author": "Gentleman Nerd",
"timestamp": "2014-11-13T21:23:27",
"content": "Was an awesome event – writing down my thoughts in a good ol fashioned blogpost now",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2132981",
"author": "w... | 1,760,376,007.026867 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/13/starry-walkway-in-the-netherlands-lights-up-the-night/ | Starry Walkway In The Netherlands Lights Up The Night | Sarah Petkus | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"art tech",
"glow in the dark",
"glowing bike path",
"roosegaarde",
"smart highway research"
] | When functional engineering blends itself with design and aesthetics, the things we encounter in daily life make the world a more exciting place to be. Artist, [Daan Roosegaarde’s]
solar-powered
walkway was unveiled last night in Nuenen, Netherlands,
illuminating a kilometer long pathway
with swirling light, transforming the space visually with functionality.
If the blue and green flowing spirals look familiar, that’s because they were inspired by the painting, Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh, who was a resident of Nuenen for part of his life. The mosaic-like shapes arranged throughout the path are coated in a special paint containing a chemical that absorbs sun light in order to glow effectively for up to ten hours over night.
This project is the second installment of [Studio Roosegaarde’s]
Smart Highways Research
; the larger goal of which is to integrate new technology with roads in an artistically inspired approach to make commuting safer and more energy-efficient. In a few other similar incentives, [Roosegaarde] envisions using this same glowing paint for road markings as a means to help replace the need for street lights. The paint coating he proposes would also be temperature sensitive and capable of creating images to indicate to drivers when there may be ice present due to freezing. His ideas for upgraded roads include a priority lane that could recharge electric cars by means of induction coils built-in underneath them. Even cooler yet, [Roosegaarde] has also proposed the possibility of engineering trees to contain the bioluminescent qualities of some jellyfish and mushrooms so that they too can help replace costly artificial light outdoors. Since some of these technologies are set to be implemented in parts of the Netherlands in the coming years, the re-envisioned environmentally aware future could very well look like a fantasy scene from a painting. | 22 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "2132124",
"author": "Trui",
"timestamp": "2014-11-13T16:31:35",
"content": "Looks cool, but not very cost effective. Even when roads are made from tough and cheap materials as asphalt and concrete, they are very expensive and require a lot of maintenance. Combining this with expens... | 1,760,376,006.981677 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/13/extreme-repair-of-a-burnt-pcb/ | Extreme Repair Of A Burnt PCB | Adam Fabio | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"Burned",
"capacitor",
"Cooked",
"JBL",
"PCB repair",
"Smoked"
] | [xsdb] had a real problem. His JBL L8400P 600 watt subwoofer went up in flames – literally. Four of the large capacitors on the board had bulged and leaked. The electrolyte then caused a short in the mains AC section of the board, resulting in a flare up. Thankfully the flames were contained to the amplifier board. [xsdb’s] house, possessions, and subwoofer enclosure were all safe. The amplifier board however, had seen better days. Most of us would have cut our losses and bought a new setup. Not [xsdb] he took on the
most extreme PCB repair
we’ve seen in a long time.
After removing the offending caps and a few other components, [xsdb] got a good look at the damage. the PCB was burned through. Charred PCB is conductive, so anything black had to be cut out. The result was a rather large hole in the middle of an otherwise serviceable board. [xsdb] had the service manual for the JBL sub. Amazingly, the manual included a board layout with traces. Some careful Photoshop work resulted in an image of the section of PCB to be repaired. [Xsdb] used this image to etch a small patch board.
The amplifier and patch were milled and sanded to match up nearly perfectly. Incredibly, all the traces aligned. [Xdsb] soldered the traces across the join with small sections of wire and solder wick. After soldering in some new high quality capacitors, the amplifier was back in action!
If you’re a big fan of burned PCB’s, check out Hackaday Prize Judge Dave Jones latest
EEVblog video
, where he works on a Ness home alarm panel with a similarly cooked section of FR4.
[Thanks for the link JohnS_AZ!] | 45 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "2131689",
"author": "BotherSaidPooh",
"timestamp": "2014-11-13T13:18:24",
"content": "Well done, uses many ideas I’d probably have tried given time.Kudos to the OP for some extremely innovative repairs, he should apply to the ESA :-)On the subject of PCB repair, how about someone us... | 1,760,376,007.193468 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/13/t-minus-several-hours-until-the-hackaday-prize/ | T Minus Several Hours Until The Hackaday Prize | Brian Benchoff | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"Hackaday Munich",
"munich",
"the hackaday prize"
] | We’re only a few hours away until we announce the winner of The Hackaday Prize. Until then,
we have a huge workshop and party to put together
. It’s only noon here in Munich, and we’ve been up since the crack of dawn putting stuff together.
The doors open in a little bit, but so far we have people putting together the workshops.
[Ben Gray] from Phenoptix
is busy putting together a few MeArm robots for a workshop. They take one person 45 minutes to put together. There’s
kinda
something
resembling
an assembly line going on:
[Ben Gray] @phenoptix working on a MeArm
[Sprite_TM] shows off soldering skills
Hackaday Prize judge [Sprite_TM] made it out to the workshop/party. He’s working on soldering up some Teensy 3.1s for the Moog workshop. There are a
ton
of parts for this, everything from extremely expensive slide pots to opamps, audio caps, pressure and pulse sensors, and a vintage wah pedal that also has +5v CV expression output. Really cool.
Parts!
Setting up the venue
Since we’re announcing the winner of The Hackaday Prize, there was the question of what the trophy should be. Trophies are not utilitarian in any way, so we thought we would put our own spin on this. It’s a PanaVise, emblazoned with a 3D printed plaque.
Doors open in a few minutes. More updates to follow | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "2131675",
"author": "Indyaner",
"timestamp": "2014-11-13T13:12:00",
"content": "I hope someone will evwentually get that price already. That was a serveral month long tease that has to end!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "213200... | 1,760,376,007.248939 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/13/surfing-around-on-a-self-balancing-cloud/ | Surfing Around On A Self-Balancing Cloud | Sarah Petkus | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"flying nimbus",
"motorized skateboard",
"self balancing",
"single wheel balancing"
] | Throughout time it’s just been plain cool to genie around from point
A
to
B
on some form of personal portable hardware. Understandably so, it was the goal of [Dane Kouttron] to modify and improve the common standard in such a way that anyone could hop on his board and ride without a period of flailing to keep balance. In his
Flying Nimbus
project, the rider floats aloft a single power-driven wheel that will even do the balancing bit for you.
Inspired by some interesting aluminum scraps and an old 3 phase DC servo driver, [Dane] starting conjuring ideas of combining the two in order to produce his own self balancing form of transportation. A chunky reused tire from a local go-kart track turned out to serve as his wheel of choice which would mount between the feet of the rider. After ordering a 48v hub motor and waiting for it to make its way over from China, [Dane] took the time to model all of the individual parts, motor, and wheel in CAD to figure out the needed measurements for the custom pieces he’d later fabricate to fit around them. The aluminum frame that the rider stands upon not only houses and conceals the power cells and electronics running the central wheel, it also illuminates white light from the sides to stand out at night. Along the road of troubleshooting, [Dane] eventually scored a complementary top-notch servo drive from AMC, who ultimately wanted to see his project rolling as badly as he did. There is a load of
detailed documentation
on the layers of problem solving that went into the project on his blog, as well as more on the hardware used by [Dane] to get the board actively balancing. Seeing the final product should further enforce that there is no better way to get around then on the likes of something you made yourself: | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "2131103",
"author": "ino",
"timestamp": "2014-11-13T09:28:45",
"content": "I love it ! It looks like a lot of fun.But I would most definitely add a cowling over the top part of the wheel.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2131357"... | 1,760,376,007.562065 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/12/an-external-autofocus-for-dslrs/ | An External Autofocus For DSLRs | Eric Evenchick | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"dslr",
"focus",
"kalman filter",
"ultrasonic",
"video"
] | Most modern DSLR cameras support shooting full HD video, which makes them a great cheap option for video production. However, if you’ve ever used a DSLR for video, you’ve probably ran into some limitations, including sluggish autofocus.
Sensopoda
tackles this issue by adding an external autofocus to your DSLR. With the camera in manual focus mode, the device drives the focus ring on the lens. This allows for custom focus control code to be implemented on an external controller.
To focus on an object, the distance needs to be known. Sensopoda uses the
HRLV-MaxSonar-EZ
ultrasonic sensor for this task. An Arduino runs a control loop that implements a
Kalman filter
to smooth out the input. This is then used to control a stepper motor which is attached to the focus ring.
The design is interesting because it is rather universal; it can be adapted to run on pretty much any DSLR. The full writeup (
PDF
) gives all the details on the build. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "2131414",
"author": "Alex Iannarelli",
"timestamp": "2014-11-13T11:12:57",
"content": "Awesome work and very nice documentation! I have just a question: there is any particular reason you decided to mount the electrical component in front of the camera and not, for example, on the b... | 1,760,376,007.600165 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/12/how-to-get-50-more-zed-from-your-rigol-ds1054z/ | How To Get 50 More Zed From Your Rigol DS1054Z | Kristina Panos | [
"how-to",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"oscilloscope",
"Rigol 1054Z",
"Rigol 1104Z",
"root",
"scope",
"zed"
] | [Chris] has been spending a lot of time in the wife’s sewing room lately, and things got pretty serious late last night as he hacked his shiny new Rigol DS1054Z to unlock the 1104Z capabilities lurking within.
The rumors are true, and ungoverning the software is as simple as looking up your serial number and knowing the right URL for generating a valid license. [Chris] ran into a dud site, but that’s the price of doing business in the shadowy parking garage basements of the interwebs. Once he knocked on the right door and uttered the secret word, however, he became the proud owner of 50MHz additional bandwidth, decoders for SPI, I²C, and RS-232, twice the storage depth, and all teh triggers that ship with the 1104Z.
Can’t rationalize the purchase even at the ridiculously low price point?
Here’s one way to make it happen
. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll learn some French. | 98 | 45 | [
{
"comment_id": "2129807",
"author": "supershwa",
"timestamp": "2014-11-13T03:27:16",
"content": "“and all teh triggers?”Was that meant as slang, or was that an error?Spelling/grammar aside — I’ve been (almost) on the market for one of these oscilloscopes and it’s great to have this as a reference."... | 1,760,376,007.72768 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/12/2-fm-transmitter-for-rasberry-pi/ | $2 FM Transmitter For Raspberry Pi | Elliot Williams | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"fm",
"radio",
"raspberry pi",
"transmitter"
] | We love re-purposed consumer gear. This project uses a cheap, discontinued cellphone gadget to create a
Raspberry Pi controlled FM radio transmitter
.
The Sony-Ericsson MMR-70 radio transmitter apparently used to connect to a cell phone and broadcast music. But the Walkman cellphones in question are a little bit old in the tooth, so one can buy the transmitter units for cheap on the resale market. What makes the transmitters even more interesting is that you can activate and deactivate the radio, change frequency or output power, and even send RDS station and song information.
It
turns out
(link in German) that the radios have an AVR ATMega32 microcontroller and a NS73 radio transmitter module, which can be entirely controlled over I2C. (
Schematic here as PDF
.) The units also have handy
test points strewn all around
. Once the test points were mapped out, one could completely ignore the on-board AVR microcontroller and control the FM transmitter module directly using the Raspberry Pi’s I2C outputs.
And that’s where [Manawyrm] stepped in. She wrote an I2C daemon for the Raspberry Pi that lets you control the FM transmitter via simple commands. All you have to do is solder up a bunch of test points, install [Manawyrm]’s software, write a batch script, and you’re on the air. For instance, this makes building a FM radio retransmitter for online streamed audio a one-day project. You can see his
working example on youtube
. Of course, you’ll want a
web-based remote control interface
to go with that.
If you’re interested in hacking along, and don’t have a Raspberry Pi application in mind,
Sparkfun used to sell the NS73 radio transmitter
so you can find lots of good information about the chip. We’d love to see a stand-alone broadcasting gizmo that actually utilizes the onboard AVR chip, but our hats are off to [Manawyrm] for making the Raspberry Pi version so accessible. | 37 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "2128786",
"author": "emc2",
"timestamp": "2014-11-13T00:10:09",
"content": "Or you can use a wirehttp://www.icrobotics.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Turning_the_Raspberry_Pi_Into_an_FM_Transmitter",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "212896... | 1,760,376,007.507782 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/12/protocol-snooping-digital-audio/ | Protocol Snooping Digital Audio | Elliot Williams | [
"digital audio hacks",
"Network Hacks"
] | [
"command line",
"digital audio",
"ethernet",
"proco",
"reverse engineering",
"wireshark"
] | More and more clubs are going digital. When you go out to hear a band, they’re plugging into an ADC (analog-to-digital converter) box on stage, and the digitized audio data is transmitted to the mixing console over Ethernet. This saves the venue having to run many audio cables over long distances, but it’s a lot harder to hack on. So [Michael]
trained popular network analysis tools
on his ProCo Momentum gear to see just what the data looks like.
[Michael]’s writeup of the process is a little sparse, but he name-drops all the components you’d need to get the job done. First, he simply looks at the raw data using
Wireshark
. Once he figured out how the eight channels were split up, he used the command-line version (
tshark
) and a standard Unix command-line tool (
cut
) to pull the data apart. Now he’s got a text representation for eight channels of audio data.
Using
xxd
to convert the data from text to binary, he then played it using
sox
to see what it sounded like. No dice, yet. After a bit more trial and error, he realized that the data was unsigned, big-endian integers. He tried again, and everything sounded good. Success!
While this is not a complete reverse-engineering tutorial like
this one
, we think that it hits the high points: using a bunch of the right tools and some good hunches to figure out an obscure protocol. | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "2128404",
"author": "no1089",
"timestamp": "2014-11-12T21:34:38",
"content": "I worked as a sound engineer a few years back and the big “snake” in the auditorium was about 100m long! The thing weighed a ton and was unwieldy to move around. Would have loved to have had something like... | 1,760,376,007.878451 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/12/nothings-as-vain-as-a-phone-taking-a-selfie-of-itself-with-itself/ | Nothing’s As Vain As A Phone Taking A Selfie Of Itself… With Itself | Sarah Petkus | [
"Android Hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"Ajna",
"art tech",
"Hersan",
"robot selfie",
"selfie",
"selfie bot",
"Social Media",
"Stewart platform",
"tumblr"
] | The selfie: pop culture’s most frivolous form of self-expression is also probably one of the most human acts you could find yourself doing in a day. Everyone is guilty of snapping a quick pic from time to time with the expectation that it will leave an impression on those who see it. All of the implications surrounding why we do this support our deep-seated need to sculpt an identity for ourselves using others as the hammer and chisel. So, consider how upside-down the world would feel if you caught a robot posing for a shot in the mirror? What about one whose sole function was to take selfies and post them? If this breaks your mind a little, that was the intention. This #selfie robot by artists [Radamés Ajna] and [Thiago Hersan] is the first development in a larger body of work called “
memememe
”, which is meant to comment on our culture’s obsession with the trending, selfing nature of social media. This specific project explores the relationship between conversation and identity in a situation where there is no second party.
Hardware-wise, the #selfie bot is a Stewart platform made from six servo motors and a few pieces of carefully measured pushrod connected with swivel-ball-links. An android phone is mounted on the end effector which acts functionally as the robot’s face and eyes. To make it self-aware in a sense, [Ajna] and [Hersan] created their own recognition software with Open CV using a collection of sample images of various phones as reference points. As soon as the robot recognizes itself in the mirror as indicated by specific words flashing on its screen, it takes a picture, immediately uploading it to its own
tumblr account
. [Ajna] and [Hersan] have a nice
description of their process
on the project’s Instructable’s page which you can check out to see how they used Haar Cascades to create their custom object recognition. Additionally, if you’d fancy building your own robot to covertly place in your living room to
snap pictures of other phones
, you could check out their code on github.
Watch it selfie : | 13 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "2127952",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2014-11-12T19:03:22",
"content": "“sole” function. Also, this is probably not true: “Everyone is guilty of snapping a quick pic from time to time with the expectation that it will leave an impression on those who see it.” Everyone is a dan... | 1,760,376,007.778978 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/12/hackaday-prize-judge-elecia-white-writes-tell-all-blog-post/ | Hackaday Prize Judge Elecia White Writes Tell-All Blog Post | Adam Fabio | [
"Featured"
] | [
"elecia white",
"hackaday",
"Hackaday Prize",
"logicalelegance"
] | The awarding of The Hackaday Prize is nearly upon us! With just over a day left to go, Launch Judge Elecia White has decided to spill the beans and
write a blog post
about which of the
five finalists
she thinks should win. We don’t want to spoil the surprise… but what the heck, she wants them ALL to win.
ChipWhisperer
because it brings high-end hardware security tools to the masses.
SatNOGS
because it brings space to your back yard,
PortableSDR
because of its great waterfall display,
ramanPi
because come on, it’s a freaking spectrometer!
Open Source Science Tricorder
because it uses sensors to help us see the science in the world around us.
Elecia knows how much time, effort, and passion went into these projects, and how each one embodies the open and connected spirit of The Hackaday Prize. Only one day remains before the
big event in Munich
, and the announcement of the winner. | 7 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "2127195",
"author": "repkid",
"timestamp": "2014-11-12T15:10:03",
"content": "Well this was a useless article.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2127252",
"author": "John Schuch @JohnS_AZ",
"timestamp": "2014-11-... | 1,760,376,007.824674 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/12/transmitting-data-long-distance-with-morse-code/ | Transmitting Data Long-Distance With Morse Code | Ethan Zonca | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"cw",
"ham radio",
"morse",
"morse code",
"QRP"
] | [Konstantinos] wrote in to tell us about
his CDW project
: a digital encoding scheme for ham radio that uses CW (continuous wave) Morse code for digital data transfer. [
Link updated 1/5/16
] CW operation with Morse code is great for narrow-bandwidth low-speed communication over long distances. To take advantage of this, [Konstantinos] developed a program that takes binary or text files, compresses them, and translates them to a series of letters and numbers that can be represented with Morse code.
The software translates the characters into sequences of Morse code pulses, and plays an audio stream of the result. His software doesn’t support decoding Morse from an audio stream, so [Konstantinos] recommends using one of many existing programs to get the job done. Alternatively those with a good ear and working knowledge of Morse can transcribe the characters by hand.
After receiving a broadcast, the user pastes received characters back in the software. The software re-assembles the binary file from the Morse characters and decompresses the result. [Konstantinos] also added a simple XOR encryption feature, but keep in mind that using encryption on ham radio bands is technically illegal. | 61 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "2126641",
"author": "Noam Rathaus",
"timestamp": "2014-11-12T12:06:02",
"content": "What is the data transfer rate? Is it at normal Morse speed?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2126662",
"author": "RichR",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,376,007.968221 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/12/2-5kw-of-beverage-cooling-awesomeness/ | 2.5kW Of Beverage-Cooling Awesomeness | Ethan Zonca | [
"hardware"
] | [
"cooler",
"machining",
"peltier cooler",
"thermoelectric"
] | We’ve covered many thermoelectric beverage coolers in the past, but none come close to the
insane power of the AbsolutZero
. [Ilan Moyer] set out to design a beverage cooler that chills a drink from room temperature to 5 degrees Celsius as quickly as possible, and it looks like he succeeded. The AbsolutZero consumes around 2.5kW of power and runs 8 water-cooled thermoelectric modules to quickly chill a drink.
[Ilan] put his machinist skills to work and fabricated many custom parts for this build. He machined water blocks for each thermoelectric cooler out of
solid copper
which draw heat away from each thermoelectric cooler. He also fabricated his own bus bars to handle the 200A+ of current the system draws. To transfer heat from the beverage to the thermoelectric modules, he turned and milled a heat spreader that perfectly fits a can of any beverage.
[Ilan]’s design uses a closed-loop water cooling system and 4 radiators to dissipate all of the heat the system produces, which is quite a lot: thermoelectric modules are typically only 10-15% efficient. The whole design is buttoned up in a custom polycarbonate enclosure with a carrying handle so you can conveniently lug the massive setup wherever quickly chilled beverages are needed. Be sure to check out [Ilan]’s build photos to see his excellent machining work.
Thanks for the tip, [
Stefan
]. | 39 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "2126069",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2014-11-12T09:12:32",
"content": "Awesome build, but am curious as to how quick ‘as quickly as possible’ actually is…?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2126072",
"author": "Matt... | 1,760,376,008.038853 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/11/stomach-shot-halloween-costume/ | “Stomach Shot” Halloween Costume | Marsh | [
"Holiday Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"costume",
"costumes",
"halloween",
"halloween costume",
"Halloween hacks",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspi",
"touchscreen",
"webcam"
] | Halloween may have come and gone, but [Luis] sent us this build that you’ll want to check out. An avid
Walking Dead
fan, he put in some serious effort to an otherwise simple bloody t-shirt and created this
see-through “stomach shot” gunshot wound.
The project uses a Raspi running the
Pi Camera
script to feed video from a webcam on the back of his costume to a 7″ screen on the front. [Luis] attached the screen to a GoPro chest harness—they look a bit like suspenders—to keep it centered, then built up a layer of latex around the display to hide the hard edges and make it more wound-like. Power comes from a 7.4V hobby Lipo battery plugged into a 5V voltage converter.
After ripping a small hole in the back of his t-shirt for the webcam and a large hole in the front for the screen, [Luis] applied the necessary liberal amount of fake blood to finish this clever shotgun blast effect. | 12 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "2125633",
"author": "Ben",
"timestamp": "2014-11-12T07:20:27",
"content": "Maybe it’s just me but this costume doesn’t work for me. I saw a version of it in person and unless you’re looking at it at exactly the right angle, it just looks like a zombie with an iPad strapped to their... | 1,760,376,008.084981 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/11/how-to-backup-and-restore-your-ip-camera-firmware/ | How To Backup And Restore Your IP Camera Firmware | Rick Osgood | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"backup",
"camera",
"firmware",
"hack",
"HI3815",
"ip",
"ip cam",
"ip camera",
"restore",
"u-boot",
"uboot",
"webcam"
] | [Filipe] has been playing around with custom firmware for inexpensive IP cameras. Specifically, he has been using cameras based on a common HI3815 chip. When you are playing around with firmware like this, a major concern is that you may end up bricking the device and rendering it useless. [Filipe] has documented a relatively simple way to
backup
and restore the firmware
on these cameras so you can hack to your heart’s content.
The first part of this hack is hardware oriented. [Filipe] cracked open the camera to reveal the PCB. The board has labeled serial TX and RX pads. After soldering a couple of wires to these pads, [Filipe] used a USB to serial dongle to hook his computer up to the camera’s serial port.
Any terminal program should now be able to connect to the camera at 115200 baud while the camera is booting up. The trick is to press “enter” during the boot phase. This allows you to log in as root with no password. Next you can reset the root password and reboot the camera. From now on you can simply connect to the phone via telnet and log in as root.
From here, [Filipe] copies all of the camera’s partitions over to an NFS share using the dd command. He mentions that you can also use FTP for this if you prefer. At this point, the firmware backup is completed.
Knowing how to restore the backup is just as important as knowing how to create it. [Filipe] built a simple TFTP server and copied the firmware image to it in two chunks, each less than 5MB. The final step is to tell the camera how to find the image. First you need to use the serial port to get the camera back to the U-Boot prompt. Then you configure the camera’s IP address and the TFTP server’s IP address. Finally, you copy each partition into RAM via TFTP and then copy that into flash memory. Once all five partitions are copied, your backup is safely restored and your camera can live to be hacked another day. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "2125080",
"author": "Lachos!",
"timestamp": "2014-11-12T05:12:36",
"content": "Great work Filipe!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2125083",
"author": "Wretch",
"timestamp": "2014-11-12T05:13:21",
"content": "From the... | 1,760,376,008.126999 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/11/retrotechtacular-how-to-teletypewriter/ | Retrotechtacular: How To Teletypewriter | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Retrotechtacular"
] | [
"AN/GRC-46",
"cw",
"FSK",
"half duplex",
"radio transmission",
"reperforator",
"RF",
"teletypewriter",
"tty",
"whip antenna"
] | This week, you’re going to learn the ins and outs of the AN/GRC-46 thanks to
this army training film
from 1963. What is the AN/GRC-46, you ask? Why it’s a complete mobile-tactical sheltered radio-teletypewriter rig capable of CW, voice, and teletype transmission.
The film covers the components that make up the
AN/GRC-46
, their functions, the capabilities of the system, and proper operation procedures. There’s a lot going on in the tiny 1400lb. steel shelter, so each piece will be introduced from the ground up.
You’ll become familiar with the voltage distribution system and the AN/GRC-46’s included accessories. This introduction will be followed by a short course in RF signal transmission and the
Frequency-Shift Keying
(FSK) that is performed by the modulator. The ranges of both the transmitter and receiver are discussed, along with the capabilities mentioned before: CW operation using the keyer, voice operation, teletype operation, and reperforation of teletype tape.
Finally, you’ll observe a seasoned operator make contact and send a teletype message with movements so careful and deliberate that they border on mesmerizing. When he’s not sending messages or taking long walks on the beach, he can usually be found cleaning and/or lubricating the transmitter filter.
Retrotechtacular is a weekly column featuring hacks, technology, and kitsch from ages of yore. Help keep it fresh by
sending in your ideas for future installments
. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "2123506",
"author": "bdk6",
"timestamp": "2014-11-11T23:34:32",
"content": "Ah, memories. Used to work those in the army a long time ago. They were still in used in the late 80s with the same old radios and teletypes. And you posted it on my birthday, just for me!",
"parent_i... | 1,760,376,008.367426 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/11/hackaday-printing-press-upgrade/ | Hackaday Printing Press Upgrade | Mike Szczys | [
"Featured",
"News",
"Slider"
] | [
"blog",
"design",
"landing page",
"new site",
"site redesign",
"template",
"wordpress"
] | There comes a time when your movable type becomes so over-used that you no longer get a legible print off of the printing press. For months now we’ve been at work on a new site design that maintains the essence of Hackaday while ejecting the 10-year-old dregs of the site. With each small success we’ve actually ruined ourselves on viewing the old design. It is with great relief that we unveil a site design built specifically for Hackaday’s needs.
The most notable change is in the content of our landing page. For ten years, loading Hackaday.com resulted in the most recent blog posts. The blog concept is proven, but provides little opportunity to highlight quality original content and information about upcoming events. We have tried the use of “sticky” posts but honestly I find them somewhat annoying. The solution to this is not immediately apparent, but I feel we have found the most efficient solution to our complex set of needs..
We have a lot of community members who participate in Hackaday in numerous ways. Changes found in this design are driven by that fact. The landing page will, from this point forward, be a somewhat more persistent collection of notable content from the blog, our
community site
(hackaday.io), as well as news regarding live events, store features, contest highlights, and more. Those hard-core fans — a label I also assign to myself — will find the same reading experience as always on the new blog URL:
hackaday.com/blog
.
Aesthetically, we hope that all will agree the new design far supersedes the old. There was a lot to fix, and the work of the Hackaday crew who designed and implemented this new interface is truly amazing. I hope you will take the time to leave a positive comment about their work. As with any major transition, there will be some bumps in the road. Right now most of our sidebar widgets have not been migrated but that and any other problems will be fixed soon.
In this design we strived to highlight the title and image of each post to immediately convey the core concepts of the projects shown here. The author by-line and comment count remain core to the presentation of the articles, and our link style continues to be immediately apparent in the body of each article. I think we have far surpassed the readability of the comments section, in addition to the content itself. We knew we could rebuilt it… we have the technology… long live articles worth reading.
UPDATE:
We are working very hard to fix all the parts that don’t look quite right. Thanks for your patience!
UPDATE 2:
Infinite scrolling isn’t a feature, it’s a regression. On our test server all the blog listings were paginated just like always. When our host, WordPress VIP, pushed live the infinite scrolling manifested itself. We’ve filed a ticket with them and are hoping for a solution shortly.
UPDATE 3:
Infinite scrolling has now been fixed and the blog layout now paginates. The mouse-over zoom effect has been removed. Slideshow speed has been adjusted and if you hover you mouse over a feature it will pause the scrolling. | 655 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "2122128",
"author": "Ted",
"timestamp": "2014-11-11T17:41:44",
"content": "It’s ugly and crowded.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2122182",
"author": "Brian Benchoff",
"timestamp": "2014-11-11T17:52:24",
... | 1,760,376,009.273539 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/11/draft-an-intverview-with-tesla-battery-hacker-wk057/ | An Interview With Tesla Battery Hacker [wk057] | Adam Fabio | [
"car hacks",
"Featured",
"Slider"
] | [
"batteries",
"Elon Musk",
"inverter",
"lead-acid",
"solar",
"tesla",
"Tesla Motors",
"wk057"
] | We covered [wk057] and his
Tesla Model S battery teardown
back in September. Since then we had some time to catch up with him, and ask a few questions.
You’ve mentioned that you have a (non hacked) Tesla Model S. What do you think of the car?
It’s the best car I’ve ever driven or owned, period. Not to get too into it, but, I love it. I’ve put almost 20,000 miles on it already in under a year and I have no real complaints. Software feature requests… but no complaints. After almost a year, multiple 1700-miles-in-a-weekend trips, and an overall great experience… I can never go back to a gas vehicle after this. It would be like going back to horses and buggies.
A salvage Tesla Lithium battery had to be expensive compared to a Lead Acid setup. What made you go with the Tesla?
Actually, if you consider that the Model S battery is already pre-setup as a high-capacity pack, contains the wiring to do so, and the modules are much more energy and power dense than any lead acid battery bank, it’s actually almost cheaper than a comparable lead acid bank and all the trimmings.
I haven’t officially weighed them, but the modules from the Model S battery are roughly 80 lbs. 80 lbs for a 5.3 kWh battery is around 15 lbs per kWh, which is impressive. For comparison, a decent lead acid battery will have a little over 1 kWh (of low-rate discharge capacity) and weigh almost the same.
Also, the Tesla pack is much more powerful than a lead acid bank of the same capacity.
Generally a lead acid battery bank would have a capacity that would only be realized with slow discharges, so, 1/20C. Much over that and you sacrifice capacity for power. 1/20C for an 85kWh pack is only 4.25kW, barely enough for a central air unit and some lights without losing capacity.
Now the Tesla pack can be discharged (based on how it does so in the vehicle) at up to 3.75C for short periods, and at 1/2C continuously without really affecting the overall capacity of the pack. That means I can run 10x more power than lead acid without a loss in overall charge capacity. Leads to a much more flexible battery solution since the loads will, in reality, always be so low that this will not even come into play with the Tesla pack, but would almost always be a factor with lead acid.
Charging is also somewhat better with the Tesla battery. Charge a lead acid battery at a 1/2C and it will boil. Charge the Tesla pack at 1/2C (42kW) and it might warm up a few degrees. Oh, and the charging losses at high rates are much less than lead acid also.
Overall, without continuing to yack about the technical aspects, it’s just a much better battery, takes up less space, weighs less, and has more power available.
There are likely decent arguments for other solutions, but the rest aside, this one won out because it was definitely more interesting.
Click past the break to read the rest of our interview with [wk057]!
Was it hard to find a salvage battery? How much did it cost?
I actually stumbled upon a listing for someone selling one from a salvage on
TMC
when I was considering options for my project.
It was pretty expensive, around $20k. However the cost per kWh was significantly lower than other comparable options, overall, especially after considering things I noted above. So, it was a no brainer.
What about buying bare 18650 cells and building up a system from scratch?
I had considered this, and actually purchased some and assembled a small module of cells. Many hours, pretty sore hands, and one small soldering iron burn later I had a 0.5kWh pack that in total, not counting time, cost 2.5x as much per kWh as the Tesla pack I bought. Add in labor and it was probably over 5x more expensive. Definitely not worth it.
Tell us a bit about the rest of your solar setup. How many panels does it have, and which inverters?
I’m setting up the system with just under 30kW (DC) worth of large commercial SunPower 20% efficiency 435W panels (69 of them) that I was able to get a hold of at an awesome price (< $0.80 per watt).
For inverters, I already have a couple of now are the Outback Radian Series GS8048A, 8kW off-grid. They’re programmable and work perfectly with the way I’ve reconfigured the Tesla modules (44.4V nominal, ~1900Ah). They’re stackable, so I plan to add more to basically have the same amperage AC service available from the setup that I do from the grid.
With a charged battery and no solar input I expect to be able to run the home, not counting Model S charging, for several days without issue. With solar input including Model S charging it should work indefinitely as a buffer for the power. I plan to generate around 35,000 kWh per year and run the home with the standard Tesla style “no compromises”.
Are you going completely off-grid, or are you going to sell back to the grid when your pack is fully charged?
Depends on how you look at it. I plan to power everything completely off of my solar setup/battery pack, drawing zero from the grid. However, I’m not cutting my grid service.
The inverters I’ve chosen are grid interactive. In the event that for some reason I need more power than the battery and solar can provide, they can recharge the battery from the grid.
So, 99.9% of the time I will be completely off-grid, as I’m sizing my setup accordingly. The grid will basically be my backup generator (along with my actual backup generator).
I do not plan to sell back to the grid at all. I decided to go off-grid initially because the concept of net-metering is just flawed, in my opinion. The grid is not a battery, but that is what many people are using it as with net metering. Eventually policies will change to reflect this and the cost benefit of doing so will likely be lost, and soon. Going off-grid assures that I’m in control of my power production and usage constantly. The price per kWh could jump to $5 next year (unlikely) and it wouldn’t phase me.
In the event I generate excess power, which may happen a bit in the summer, I plan to have several diversion setups in place to dump the power. The first being my Model S if available and at < 90% charge. The next being some climate tweaks (make it 1 degree cooler or 1 degree warmer to “store” that energy in the house itself). Auto modify the pool-pump timer schedule for that day. Heat the hot water a couple more degrees, etc. I don’t plan to waste the excess, but “store” it in other forms. Will take a little bit of custom hardware to make this happen, but that’s a project for another day. :)
Have you talked to any Tesla employees about your project? What did they say?
I had spoken with several people at Tesla regarding the project. Their standard responses seemed to be that they could not support my efforts in any way and wouldn’t provide information about any of the components in the battery pack to assist. I found this unfortunate.
What was the hard
est part about tearing down the pack?
Few things kind of rank together…
First, safety. Since I was not sure of the exact configuration and layout of any wiring and components, and could not find any definitive information about this, the added time and effort taken to disassemble it safely while essentially blind was probably the hardest part, but certainly important and worth it. A wrong move here could mean instant death.
Second, the pack was put together with strong adhesives almost everywhere. This physically made the tear down difficult.
Third, moving the thing. It was *heavy*, nearly a full ton. Took 4 people to move it around even with the wheels I put on it.
At one point you had casters on the full pack, did you consider putting a motor on it? It almost looked like a go-cart.
The casters barely held the weight of the pack, and several were bent by the time I removed them when I scrapped the frame.
My brother had mentioned the go-cart thing, actually, and I admit… the thought had crossed my mind and would have taken the project in a totally different direction. A go-cart with hundreds of miles of range… hmm…
10. Do you think you could have added the battery to your Tesla Model S to increase the range?
Funny you mention this. Directly, no. I don’t think there would be any way to directly increase range by adding the additional battery. Weight considerations aside, the pack would need to end up in parallel with the existing pack to make it work. So, assuming I could somehow fit the thing on or in the car, this would almost certain confuse the heck out of the electronics in the car and probably would end badly.
Indirectly, however, I plan to potentially try this. I’m going to have to move my test setup (where I currently have a couple of inverters, the pack, and a couple of the solar panels setup) to its permanent location soon. If I have the time, I may wire up half of the pack in the back of the Model S along with one of the inverters. Then I’d drive, stop along the way somewhere, and charge the Model S from the pack in the trunk.
Probably pretty pointless, but, a fun “Yeah, I did that” project for sure.
11. Do you think Elon Musk would be happy about you pushing the limits of solar with your Tesla battery pack?
I believe Elon Musk is already involved in similar more official projects if I understand correctly. As for whether or not he would be “happy” about my project with a salvage pack, I couldn’t say. I think he may at least appreciate the recycling aspect of it, in any case.
12. If you could ask Elon Musk anything – be it about Tesla, Solar City, or SpaceX, what would it be?
I would actually be curious as to what he thought about my particular project, if he had anticipated such projects, and what, if any, impact he feels similar projects have or will have on Tesla in general, now or in the future.
We’d like to thank [wk057] for taking the time to answer our questions, and wish him luck with his Tesla Supercharged home solar power system! | 63 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "2121602",
"author": "zaprodk",
"timestamp": "2014-11-11T15:31:04",
"content": "Intverview :D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2121618",
"author": "Jason",
"timestamp": "2014-11-11T15:34:05",
"content": "This guy has a... | 1,760,376,008.617361 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/11/tiny-rc-p-51d-mustang-tips-the-scales-at-3-grams/ | Tiny R/C P-51D Mustang Tips The Scales At 3 Grams | Adam Fabio | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"radio control",
"rc"
] | Commercial R/C aircraft have been getting smaller and smaller with each passing year. In the early 2000’s, a palm-sized plane or helicopter was the dream of many an R/C enthusiast. Today, you can pick them up for around $20 USD at the local mall. The smallest models however, are still built by an elite group of modelers. Weighing in at a mere 3 grams,
[Martin Newell’s] P-51D mustang model
certainly puts him into that group. While the P-51’s 11.6 cm wingspan may not make it the smallest plane in the world, its many functions make it incredible.
The Mustang is an 8 channel affair, with elevator, throttle, rudder, ailerons, flaps, navigation lights, working retracts, and flashing cannon lights. That’s Wright, we did say retracts, as in retractable landing gear on a 3 gram model.
All the Mustang’s flight surfaces feature fully proportional control. However, there are no closed loop servos involved. The flight surfaces use magnetic actuators, consisting of a tiny neodymium magnet surrounded by a coil of magnet wire. We’re not sure if the signals to these actuators is straight PWM or if [Martin] is varying the frequency, but the system works. The retracts use heat-sensitive Nitinol “muscle wire” along with a bellcrank system to make sure the landing gear is up and locked after takeoff, and comes down again before a landing.
We don’t have any in-flight video of the Mustang, but we do have footage of an even smaller 1.2 gram plane [Martin] has been flying lately. Click past the break to check it out! | 18 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "2121005",
"author": "Niek",
"timestamp": "2014-11-11T12:28:24",
"content": "Very impressive!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2121014",
"author": "Rendeverance",
"timestamp": "2014-11-11T12:32:24",
"content": "Now tha... | 1,760,376,008.418128 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/11/test-your-signal-with-the-wifi-cup/ | Test Your Signal With The WiFi Cup | Theodora Fabio | [
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"cup",
"ESP8266",
"wireless",
"ws2812"
] | [CNLohr] wanted to test the WiFi range in his house. One look at his roommate’s cup and an unorthodox idea was born.
The WiFi Cup
used an ESP8266 to connect to his home network. For output, [CNLohr] also added a WS2812 LED strip to the cup. The ESP8266 was programmed to send UDP packets to [CNLohr’s] laptop. When the laptop responded back, the ESP8266 turned on the LEDs, lighting up the cup. The cup’s response to signal strength was very quick – about a second.
[CNLohr] took the WiFi Cup around the house. He was surprised to detect the connection in corners he didn’t expect; in fact, the signal wasn’t weakening at all! He proceeded to walk outside with it, hoping to see the signal strength decrease. As a testament to his roommate’s robust router, the cup merely flickered. Hoping for a better test, [CNLohr] switched out the router for a cheaper TP-Link with shorter antennas. While the initial ping test showed a slower response time, the cup detected WiFi around the house just fine. It only wavered for a couple of moments when it was placed inside a metal bucket. We have to wonder how thin [CNLohr’s] walls are. WiFi never works that well in our house! | 40 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "2120356",
"author": "NiN",
"timestamp": "2014-11-11T09:34:03",
"content": "Now add camera with 60s shutter speed, walk around with this cup and you have color map of your WiFi :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2120676",
... | 1,760,376,008.896276 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/10/forkless-motorcycle-tears-up-the-track/ | Forkless Motorcycle Tears Up The Track | Adam Fabio | [
"News",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bike",
"Chopper",
"FFE",
"FFE 350",
"Forkless",
"motorcycle",
"yamaha"
] | The bike above may look like a pristine Yamaha prototype, but it’s actually the work of [Julian Farnam], a motorcycle hacker of the highest level. We caught his Yamaha A-N-D FFE 350 on
OddBike
, and you can read [Julian’s]
own description of the bike on his Slideshare link
.
The FFE 350 started life as a Yamaha 1990’s RZ350 two-stroke racer. From there, [Julian] gave it his own Forkless Front End (FFE) treatment. Gone is the front fork, which while common in motorcycle and bicycle design, has some problems. Fore-aft flex is one – two thin tubes will never make for a rigid front end. Changing geometry is another issue. Since forks are angled forward, the front wheel moves up and to the rear as the shocks compress. This changes the motorcycle’s trail, as well.
Forkless designs may not have these issues, but they bring in a set of their own. A forkless design must have linkages and bellcranks which are often the source of slop and vibration. [Julian’s] design uses two sets of linkages in tension. The tension between the two linkages removes most of the slop and provides that directly connected feel riders associate with forks.
The FFE 350 wasn’t just a garage queen either – it laid down some serious laps at local tracks in Southern California. Unfortunately, the forkless design was too radical to catch on as a commercial venture, and the FFE has spent the last few years in storage. [Julian] is hard at work bringing it back to its 1998 glory, as can be seen on
his restoration thread
over on the Custom Fighters forum. | 19 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "2119671",
"author": "boris",
"timestamp": "2014-11-11T06:18:54",
"content": "looks like:http://www.motorcycle.com/manufacturer/2009-bimota-tesi-3d-review-88213.html",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2125316",
"author": "... | 1,760,376,008.71571 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/10/seeing-the-world-through-depth-sensing-cameras/ | Seeing The World Through Depth Sensing Cameras | Brian Benchoff | [
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"asus xtion",
"depth sensor",
"Kinect",
"Oculus",
"oculus rift",
"smartphone",
"virtual reality"
] | The Oculus Rift and all the other 3D video goggle solutions out there are great if you want to explore virtual worlds with stereoscopic vision, but until now we haven’t seen anyone exploring real life with digital stereoscopic viewers. [pabr] combined the Kinect-like sensor in an ASUS Xtion with a smartphone in a Google Cardboard-like setup
for 3D views the human eye can’t naturally experience
like a third-person view, a radar-like display, and seeing what the world would look like with your eyes 20 inches apart.
[pabr] is using an ASUS Xtion depth sensor connected to a Galaxy SIII via the USB OTG port. With a little bit of code, the output from the depth sensor can be pushed to the phone’s display. The hardware setup consists of a VR-Spective, a rather expensive bit of plastic, but with the right mechanical considerations, a piece of cardboard or some foam board and hot glue would do quite nicely.
[pabr] put together a video demo of his build, along with a few examples of what this project can do. It’s rather odd, and surprisingly not a superfluous way to see in 3D. You can check out that video below. | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "2119132",
"author": "Waterjet",
"timestamp": "2014-11-11T03:43:29",
"content": "The third person view was done back in 2007.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuC1st-cA9M",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2119540",
"author": "murd... | 1,760,376,008.664437 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/10/teensys-and-old-synth-chips-together-at-last/ | Teensys And Old Synth Chips, Together At Last | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks",
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"Atari TIA",
"chip",
"chiptune",
"POKEY",
"sid",
"SID synth",
"SN76489",
"TIA"
] | The ancient computers of yesteryear had hardware that’s hard to conceive of today; who would want a synthesizer on a chip when every computer made in the last 15 years has enough horsepower to synthesize sounds in software and output everything with CD quality audio? [Brian Peters] loves these old synth chips
and decided to make them all work with a modern microcontroller
.
Every major sound chip from the 80s is included in this roundup. The
Commodore SID
is there with a chip that includes working filters.
The SN76489
, the sound chip from the TI99 and BBC Micro are there, as is
the TIA from the Atari consoles
. Also featured is
the Atari POKEY
, found in the 8-bit Atari computers. The POKEY isn’t as popular as the SID,
but it should be
.
[Brian] connected all these chips up with Teensy 2.0 microcontrollers, and with the right software, was able to control these via MIDI. It’s a great way to listen to chiptunes the way they’re meant to be heard. You can check out some sound samples in the videos below.
Thanks [Wybren] for the tip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmQwxx2sBHQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S008Ns_YFA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jAnC6HGumI | 25 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "2118234",
"author": "Lost",
"timestamp": "2014-11-11T00:35:06",
"content": "FINALLY someone has done this.. Great work!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2118296",
"author": "RunnerPack",
"timestamp": "2014-11-11... | 1,760,376,008.957621 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/10/wax-motors-add-motion-to-your-projects/ | Wax Motors Add Motion To Your Projects | Adam Fabio | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"appliance",
"outdoor thermostat",
"positive temperature Coefficient",
"PTC",
"thermostat",
"Wax motor"
] | [electronicsNmore] has uploaded a
great teardown and tutorial video
(YouTube link) about wax motors. Electric
wax motors
aren’t common in hobby electronics, but they are common in the appliance industry, which means the motors can be often be obtained cheaply or for free from discarded appliances. Non-electric wax motors have been used as
automotive coolant thermostats
for years. Who knows, this may be just what the doctor ordered for your next project.
As [electronicsNmore] explains, wax motors are rather simple devices. A small block of wax is sealed in a metal container with a movable piston. When heated, the wax expands and pushes the piston out. Once the wax cools, a spring helps to pull the piston back in.
The real trick is creating a motor which will heat up without cooking itself. This is done with a
Positive Temperature Coefficient (PTC) thermistor
. As the name implies, a PTC thermistor’s resistance increases as it heats up. This is the exact opposite of the Negative Temperature Coefficient (NTC) thermistors we often use as temperature sensors. PTC’s are often found in places like power supplies to limit in rush current, or small heating systems, as we have in our wax motor.
As the PTC heats up, its resistance increases until it stops heating. At the same time, the wax is being warmed, which drives out the piston. As you might expect, wax motors aren’t exactly efficient devices. The motor in [electronicsNmore’s] video runs on 120 volts AC. They do have some advantages over solenoid, though. Wax motors provide smooth, slow operation. Since they are resistive devices, they also don’t require flyback diodes, or create the RF noise that a solenoid would. | 19 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "2117727",
"author": "10 inches of dong",
"timestamp": "2014-11-10T21:16:17",
"content": "I expected an EEVblog-grade teardown, all I got was an “extra hour in the ball pit”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2117766",
"a... | 1,760,376,008.825538 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/10/hackaday-prize-finalist-an-un-noodly-spectrometer/ | Hackaday Prize Finalist: An Un-noodly Spectrometer | Brian Benchoff | [
"Interviews",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"Raman",
"RamanPi",
"spectrometer",
"the hackaday prize"
] | And so we come to the final finalist bio for The Hackaday Prize. In only three days, we’ll know whether
[fl@C@]’s RamanPi Spectrometer
or one of the
four other projects to make it into the finals round
will be making it to space, or only Japan.
There are a surprising number of spectrometer projects out there on the Intertubes, but most of these setups only measure the absorption spectrum – literally what wavelengths of light are absorbed by the material being measured. A Raman spectrometer is completely different, using a laser to illuminate the sample, and measuring the scattering of light from the material. It’s work that has won a Nobel prize, and [fl@C@] built one with a 3D printer.
Bio below, along with the final video that was sent around to the judges. If you’re wondering who the winner of The Hackaday Prize is, even I don’t know. [Mike] and a few Hackaday overlords do, but the rest of us will remain in ignorance until we announce the winner at
the party we’re having in Munich next Thursday
.
What was the ultimate inspiration to create a Raman spectrometer?
You say you needed to do spectroscopy for another project, but
why did you choose Raman spectroscopy? There are several other
photoemissive spectroscopy projects out there. Is it just an
issue of being able to scan everything, or just wanting to a
project for the hackaday prize that replicated work that won a
Nobel prize, or something else?
I’ve been working on my larger project for about 5 years now.. It’s not an open source project unfortunately, maybe some day.. So without going into too great of detail, it worked out that I needed to determine bond angles and Raman shift in a sort of before and after scenario, as that would indicate if I was on the right path while testing. That naturally led me to a Raman spectrometer.. I didn’t have the funds for a used one and the larger project depended on it. I hadn’t seen any other projects out there that provided this type of information, so I just decided to build it. Nothing as glamorous as seeking to replicate any Nobel winning works. :)
You're building complex optical paths with a 3D printer, and 3D
printing is obviously a 'good enough' solution for building a
prototype. Given unlimited funds
we know you wouldn't be using a
DaVinci printer
, but would you still use filament-based 3D
printers if you were to do this all over again? What problems did
you encounter in printing the spectrometer?
Constructing it with 3D printed parts seemed like a fast and inexpensive way to build it. When the contest came into the picture, the idea of sharing the plans and making it easier to build came more into focus. Keeping the 3D printed parts seemed like a very logical way to make it easy for people to build since more and more people have access to 3D printers than other methods. So, I think to do it all over again I would still keep the 3D printed parts. It seems like the best middle ground, giving the maximum availability to people who want to build one for themselves.
3D Printed optical paths
Having said that, given ‘unlimited funds’… I might choose machining the parts from aluminum, or possibly from some less expensive material like nylon or HDPE (not sure how HDPE compares to aluminum in price/lb though). The biggest problems I encountered in printing were compensation for the ABS shrinkage, the obvious printer issues, and what to do with the countless pieces that had minor mistakes or errors. Shrinkage took a little while to master. This was my first actual project using a 3D printer.
Keeping a local database of spectrometry is insane, and in your
documents you say you're using online spectrometry databases. Is
there an issue in getting the data from these databases into a
coherent format, and what does the future of these proprietary
databases look like, given that the RamanPi will eventually be
released into the wild?
Getting data from the online databases in a coherent format isn’t really an issue. I believe most of them are in comma delimited format anyway, or something similar. I think most of the databases are maintained by big companies that charge money for access to the data. That’s where I see the biggest issue. There are a couple out there that are free, and I’ve gotten permission from them to access the data so long as it isn’t downloaded in full. Keeping a local database is kinda crazy, and that’d be a full time job just cataloging all the spectra from whatever materials you could find. It would be nice to see the future be a sort of peer to peer database where people share their data and contribute to it sort of like a Napster for spectra!
Have you given any thought to the commercialization of your
project? How much are you looking at to turn this into a product
(if you even can), and from the responses, what do you think a
product based on the RamanPi would cost?
Originally, I gave no thought to commercialization. I was just building it for myself. Then, after the contest began, and people started to take an interest, asking if I was planning on selling kits, etc. I’d like to offer a couple versions. I would like to have a low end version with less expensive optics and a Raspberry Pi camera module, a middle version with less expensive optics and a CCD.. and a more expensive version with good optics and a CCD. I would also like to offer just the spectrometer without the Raman system for use as just a regular CCD spectrometer. As for cost, I think the lower end should be around $300, middle around $500, and the high end around $700 – $800. The spectrometer itself being the most expensive part would probably be around $350.
Hypothetical, and we’re not going to hold you to whatever answer
you give. You win the grand prize, a trip to space or about
$200,000 USD. Which one to you take, and what is your reasoning
for doing so?
So, I thought long and hard… If I were to be lucky enough to have to make a choice between space and money… I originally said space, without a doubt. It was a done deal for me.
I think that changed after looking at the options for travel, and this being before the recent accident. I just didn’t trust the Virgin Galactic option. I am all about automation, removing the pilot from the ability to make errors. Being a pilot, I know where this can be a factor.
A normal-looking Rutan design. Not shown: variable geometry sideburns
I’ve also never been a huge fan of Rutan’s work. I didn’t care for the others because I haven’t seen the numbers..and this is my life after all. The idea of taking a trip in the Virgin’s SS2 doing mach 3.5 sounds more fun than space to me. But at this point… I would have to honestly say the cash option. Investing the cash into my larger project will probably pay for a trip later. | 17 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "2117295",
"author": "starhawk",
"timestamp": "2014-11-10T18:18:30",
"content": "‘Raman’ spectrometer doesn’t make me think of a bowl of sodium-infused noodles so much as Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘Rama’ book series…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"c... | 1,760,376,008.772421 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/10/accurately-measuring-electrical-conductivity/ | Accurately Measuring Electrical Conductivity | Ethan Zonca | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"conductivity",
"conductivity sensor",
"measurement"
] | [Ryan]
designed a PCB
that lets you easily take readings from a commercial electrical conductivity probe over I2C.
Conductivity measurements
are great for measuring the salinity of a solution, which is useful for applications like hydroponics. While the probes themselves are a bit pricey (on the order of $50 from eBay), they are very accurate and last a long time.
Commercial conductivity probes contain platinum electrodes to prevent corrosion. The electrodes are excited with an AC signal, which prevents polarization of the solution and avoids chemical reactions at the electrodes. The voltage across the two electrodes is measured while the electrodes are being excited, which is proportional to the conductivity of the solution
[Ryan]’s board generates +/-5v and uses a
Wien bridge oscillator
to generate a sine wave which excites the outermost electrodes. The voltage across the electrodes is amplified and fed into a MCP3221, an inexpensive 12-bit ADC with an I2C interface. [Ryan] also wrote an
Arduino library
for the MCP3221 so you can easily get your probe up and running. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "2116818",
"author": "zaprodk",
"timestamp": "2014-11-10T15:35:43",
"content": "it’s WIEN-bridge, not WEIN :D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2116931",
"author": "Ethan Zonca",
"timestamp": "2014-11-10T16:13:16"... | 1,760,376,009.350784 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/09/mobile-planter-chases-the-sun/ | Mobile Planter Chases The Sun | Theodora Fabio | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"green hacks"
] | [
"Afinia",
"Arduino micro",
"ping",
"planter",
"solar panels"
] | There are two types of people: ones with green thumbs, and ones that kill their cacti because they forgot to water them for over a year. Sadly, we are of the latter group. We currently have a resilient spider plant that looks like it could use more sun. Now there’s a way for it to catch those rays wherever they may shine, thanks to [Dot Matrix] of Instructables. She made
a mobile planter that actively seeks out sunlight
.
The planter’s base was made of plywood, topped with fake grass and a watering can to hold the plant. Anything above the planter base can be modified to whatever desired aesthetic. A
CRT planter
may be too heavy, but there are countless ways to personalize it. [Dot] used an
Afinia
3D printer to make various mounts and brackets with ABS plastic. The planter was controlled by an Arduino Micro and used a pair of 0.5W solar panels and Parallax
PING)))
sensors to decide how it should move from its current position. If the planter would fall or hit an object moving forward, it would reverse and turn on wheels powered by Parallax
continuous rotation servos
. It would evaluate its new position, repeating the process if it was in danger. Once the planter was safe, it used the solar panels to detect the most sunlight: the sum of the panels determines the area’s brightness while the individual panels’ readings were used to move the planter towards a brighter area. The sun-seeking continued until the sunniest spot was found (defined in the
code
). Here, the planter remained idle for 10 minutes before restarting the process.
We think [Dot’s] planter is a fun way to keep plants happy and healthy in spite of us. See a video of the planter after the break. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "2112428",
"author": "Jake",
"timestamp": "2014-11-09T15:34:01",
"content": "Wait. Would this technically make the plant a cyborg? Or would it be the plant equivalent of a mech?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2112543",
"auth... | 1,760,376,009.315556 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/09/monitor-shield-leave-no-pin-unused/ | Monitor Shield Leaves No Pin Unused | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino mega",
"sensor",
"shield"
] | What doesn’t this Arduino Mega shield have? Ponder that as you realize that it doesn’t just attach itself to the pin headers, but
uses every single one of the mega’s connections
.
This isn’t a bunch of components kludged together either. [Carsten] is an a EE and that explains a lot of the really great choices he made like buffering, opto-isolation, and the clean assembly despite a schematic that’s so busy it’s difficult figure out where to start.
So, what does it do? Looks like a one-stop-shop for quick prototyping needs. For instance, there’s a pushbutton, toggle-switch, and a couple of trimpots for quick and easy input. At the center of the board is a 7-segment display, and multiple rows of LED bar displays (assembled from SMD components and protoboard) to provide feedback to the user.
There are also a number of sensors at the party, including a mercury shake sensor, temperature sensor, microphone, thermistor, and light dependent resistor. If what you need isn’t on the board there are multiple options for connecting external gear including opto-isolated input and output, and a
LEMO
for digital I/O with another for analog. All of that and we forgot to mention the moving coil voltmeter that measures PWM. | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "2111876",
"author": "LOL",
"timestamp": "2014-11-09T12:17:16",
"content": "Or a few wires for a $7 SPI based color LCD…;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2112580",
"author": "GotNoTime",
"timestamp": "2014-11-09T16:41:04... | 1,760,376,009.511898 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/09/interactive-sound-with-glove-and-tape/ | Interactive Sound With Glove And Tape | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"art",
"magnetic tape",
"tape"
] | Here’s a way to explore new spaces in untraditional manners:
a sonophore
, or a glove equipped with a tape heads meant to explore spaces with magnetic tape tracing the walls.
This project is a followup to the
analogue tape glove
from a few years ago. In that project, aligned strips of magnetic tape cover a canvas, leaving anyone wearing the glove to track their hand horizontally swiping across different tracts, or vertically listening to each track.
This project takes a glove similar to the analogue tape glove, but the tape is spread out along the walls of the installation. There’s no way of knowing what strange voices are contained on the tapes; the only way to know is to explore the space.
Video of the project below. It’s a Vimeo, so you know it’s artistic. | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "2111583",
"author": "michalkob",
"timestamp": "2014-11-09T10:01:14",
"content": "I wonder if it’s possible – with a steady hand – to actually make anything out of what one can hear this way. It might be a just a litle bit too artistic ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,376,009.610992 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/08/breadboarding-a-68000-computer-in-under-a-week/ | Breadboarding A 68000 Computer In Under A Week | Mike Szczys | [
"classic hacks",
"computer hacks"
] | [
"68000",
"68008",
"68k",
"breadboard",
"cpld"
] | We’ve been lurking over at Big Mess ‘o Wires as [Steve] geared up for his 68000 computer build. One of his previous posts mentioned a working breadboard version but we figured it would be a ways off. Surprise, he’s got it working and
what you see above took just 6 days
of “occasional work” to get running.
The chip in use is actually a 68008 but we remember reading that he does plan to migrate to a 68000 because this one lacks the memory pins to address more than 1 MB of RAM. The trick here was just to get the thing running and he made some common choices to get there. For instance, he
grounded the /DTACK in much the same way
[Brian Benchoff] explained in his own 68k build.
We’re not sure if his address decoding was a time saver or not. If you study [Steve’s]
original planning post
you’ll learn that he’s going to use programmable logic to handle the address decoding. But above he wired up 74-series logic chips to perform these functions. On the one hand you know your Hardware Description Language isn’t the problem, but did you terminate one of those wires where you ought not?
Additional tripping points include
a bouncing reset pin
. Looking at that we’d tell [Steve] there’s a problem with his chip, except that this was his first thought as well. He went the extra mile by building and testing a replica of the reset system. This makes our brain spin… shouldn’t the reset be among the most reliable parts of a processor?
At any rate, great work so far. We can’t wait to see where this goes and we hope that it unfolds in a way that is as exciting as
watching [Quinn Dunki’s] Veronica project take shape
. | 15 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "2111103",
"author": "Gerrit",
"timestamp": "2014-11-09T07:01:21",
"content": "For the RESET, I suggest using a 555 plus an inverter. Take a look at the schematics of the Commodore C64 to see how it’s done. Some people might consider it overkill, but it will be reliable.",
"paren... | 1,760,376,009.559593 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/08/tesla-truck-wants-to-bring-the-makerspace-to-the-children/ | Tesla Truck Wants To Bring The Makerspace To The Children | Rick Osgood | [
"Crowd Funding"
] | [
"children",
"crowdfunding",
"hackerspace",
"indiegogo",
"kickstarter",
"kids",
"makerspace",
"public school",
"schools",
"students",
"Tesla truck",
"tools"
] | With so many budget cuts, many public schools find themselves having to cut “unnecessary” programs such as shop, art, and music classes. They simply can’t afford to keep those things running and also teach other important concepts like math, language, and history. The obvious side effect is that kids don’t have a safe place to be creative and learn to make things with their hands.
Luckily, the maker movement has been rapidly growing over the last few years with makerspaces popping up all over the globe. These places are picking up the slack left behind by the budget cuts that hurt our public schools. But while makerspaces are getting more and more common, they still don’t exist everywhere. Even in those places lucky enough to have a makerspace, not everyone is aware that they exist and not everyone can afford to be a full-time member. This is where
Tesla Truck
comes in.
The Tesla Truck’s mission statement is “to provide a cutting-edge, mobile, hands-on STEM lab, where students, teachers, and makers can teach, learn, collaborate, create, and innovate.” It’s a noble cause for sure, but how do they plan to do this? This group intends to outfit a truck with the kinds of tools every maker dreams of. These would include a 3D printer, laser cutter, CNC plasma cutter, mill and lathe, electronics bench, and more.
Obviously just having a bunch of high-end tools is not going to cut it. Someone is going to have to teach people how to properly use these tools. The group behind the Tesla Truck is made up of educators, engineers, and published researches who have been doing this kind of thing for a while now. This group has been packing up their own personal tools into their hatchbacks and setting up shop in school classrooms around New York City, only to have to break down at the end of the day and bring them all home again. Together with the students, this group has built things like robots, quadcopters, and water purifiers. The Tesla Truck will give them the ability to reach more people much more easily.
The Tesla Truck is looking to raise a total of $62,804.01 to make their dream a reality. They have raised more than half of that outside of crowd funding. They’ve now turned to
Indiegogo
to raise the last $24,300. They have ten days left and they are almost halfway to their goal. You can watch their campaign video below to get a better feel for what they are all about. | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "2110422",
"author": "daedulus",
"timestamp": "2014-11-09T03:09:16",
"content": "Surely Tesla (the company) is going to find this to be a problem.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2112027",
"author": "AP²",
"time... | 1,760,376,009.66931 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/08/using-tetris-like-ms-paint/ | Using Tetris Like MS Paint | Mike Szczys | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"algorithm",
"graphics",
"tetris"
] | Check out Samus looking boss in this pixelated image. Who would have thought of using Tetris as a canvas for these types of graphics? Coming up with the original idea of strategically clearing and leaving Tetris pieces to end up with what is shown above is hard enough. But how in the heck do you
implement the algorithm that generated this programmatically
?
First off, two thing should not be surprising about this. It wasn’t manually generated during normal gameplay. That would be beyond savant level. The other thing to note is that the order in which pieces occurred was not random, but strategically calculated by the algorithm. The challenge is not only to occupy and clear the correct pixels, but to make sure the correctly colored pieces remain.
You need to see the fast-motion video embedded after the break to fully appreciate the coding masterpiece at work. We’re not going to try to paraphrase how the algorithms functions, but get comfy with the link above which walks through all of the theory (in addition to supplying the code so you can try it yourself).
[via
Reddit
] | 11 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "2109921",
"author": "pff",
"timestamp": "2014-11-09T01:03:03",
"content": "“The other thing to note is that the order in which pieces occurred was not random, but strategically calculated by the algorithm.”boooooooooooooooooring",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies"... | 1,760,376,009.710769 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/08/dog-tracker-knows-where-the-dirt-is/ | Dog Tracker Knows Where The Dirt Is | Adam Fabio | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"gps hacks"
] | [
"arudino",
"dog",
"Home Automatoin",
"pet",
"poop",
"tilt sensor"
] | [Eric] is well on his way to making one of the less pleasant chores of pet ownership a bit easier with his
dog tracking system
. The dog tracker is actually a small part of [Eric’s] much larger
OpenHAB system
, which we
featured back in July
.
As a dog owner, [Eric] hates searching the yard for his pet’s droppings. He had been planning a system to make this easier, and a local hackerspace event provided just the opportunity to flesh his ideas out. The Dog Tracker’s primary sensor is a GPS. Most dogs remain motionless for a few seconds while they go about their business. [Eric’s] Arduino-frgbased system uses this fact, coupled with a tilt sensor to determine if the family pet has left any presents.
The tracker relays this information to the home base station using a HopeRF RFM69 transceiver. The RFM69 only has about a 900 foot range, so folks with larger properties will probably want to spring for a cellular network based tracking system. Once the droppings have been tracked, OpenHAB has an interface
[Eric] has also covered runaway dogs in his design. If Fido passes a geo-fence, OpenHAB will raise the alarm. A handheld dog tracker with its own RFM69 can be used to chase down dogs on the run. Future plans are to miniaturize the dog tracker such that it will be more comfortable for a dog to wear. | 24 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "2109238",
"author": "dog owner",
"timestamp": "2014-11-08T21:36:56",
"content": "Lazy dogs don’t sit to shit. Some can even shit while walking, so this method is not really reliable",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6407664",
... | 1,760,376,011.864828 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/10/rftoy-makes-wireless-projects-easier/ | RFToy Makes Wireless Projects Easier | Adam Fabio | [
"Tool Hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"433 mhz",
"nRF24L01+",
"Rayshobby",
"RFToy",
"wireless"
] | [Ray] has created
RFToy
, a simple gadget to aid in setting up wireless systems with a variety of common radio modules. RFToy is an open source microcontroller board running on an ATmega328. While RFToy is Arduino code compatible, [Ray] chose to ditch the familiar Arduino shield layout for one that makes it easier to install RF modules, and is more handheld friendly.
[RFToy] includes headers for the popular nRF24L01 2.4 GHz transceiver, as well as 433/315 transmitters and receivers found in many low-cost wireless electronic devices. The 128×64 pixel OLED screen and 3 button interface make it easy to set up simple user interfaces for testing new designs.
[Ray] hasn’t broken any new ground here. What he has done is create a simple tool for wireless projects. Anyone who’s worked on a wireless system can tell you that tools like this are invaluable for debugging why your circuit isn’t talking. Is it the transmitter? The receiver? Something else in the power supply circuit?
Check out [Ray’s] demo video after the break. In it, he sniffs, records, and plays back signals from several remote-controlled outlets. [Ray] also has a great demo of sending temperature data back and forth using an nRF24L01. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "2116309",
"author": "denis",
"timestamp": "2014-11-10T12:23:55",
"content": "I read that as RFtoyuino, what is wrong with my head.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2116356",
"author": "Indyaner",
"timestamp": "2014-11-10T... | 1,760,376,011.595495 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/10/developed-on-hackaday-50k-reached-in-a-week/ | Developed On Hackaday: $50k Reached In A Week! | Mathieu Stephan | [
"Crowd Funding",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"mooltipass",
"password keeper"
] | Around 500 awesome people backed the Mooltipass offline password keeper
crowdfunding campaign
, raising a total of $50k in less than a week… which is nearly half our goal.
The development team and I would therefore like to thank our readers for their support. We were featured by several electronics websites, which definitely helped spreading the world of open source security devices. Many interesting discussions spawned in either our comments section or official
Google Group
. One new contributor even started looking into implementing
TOTP
on the Mooltipass.
Another hot topic was a possible smaller and more powerful Mooltipass v2, implementing other functionalities like U2F and encrypted file storage. You may therefore wonder why we didn’t start with it… the reason is simple: limited resources. Our project is made by (great) non-remunerated contributors who took a lot of their spare time to work on the Mooltipass v1. We therefore preferred working on something we’d be sure we could deliver rather than
wasting $4M by making promises
. We therefore hope that our crowdfunding campaign might allow an even bigger collaboration around a Mooltipass v2! | 38 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "2115683",
"author": "eccentricelectron",
"timestamp": "2014-11-10T09:18:13",
"content": "Congratulations Mathieu! TOTP would certainly tickle my fancy… Could you expand on the graphic sometime? I looked at the KS campaign, and still couldn’t work out what it was trying to convey – i... | 1,760,376,012.037448 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/09/an-msp430-clone-of-the-canon-rc-1-remote/ | An MSP430 Clone Of The Canon RC-1 Remote | Brian Benchoff | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"Canon RC-1",
"ir led",
"remote shutter"
] | For reasons we both agree with and can’t comprehend, most ‘prosumer’ SLR cameras don’t have mechanical shutter releases. Instead, IR LEDs are brought into the mix, the Canon RC-1 remote trigger being the shutter release of choice for people who didn’t choose Nikon.
[Vicente] cloned the Canon RC-1
, but he didn’t do it to save money; there’s a lot to learn with this project, and making his own allows him to expand it with more features in the future.
Studying the function of the Canon RC-1, [Vicente] found that some compromises needed to be made. The total power emitted by an IR LED is usually a function of its beamwidth; a smaller beamwidth means more photons reaching the IR receiver in the camera. This also means the remote must be aimed at the camera more accurately. In the end, [Vicente] decided on a higher power LED with a tighter beamwidth that’s just slightly below the optimum wavelength for the receiver. It’s all an exercise in compromise, but other components could see similar performance.
With the LED selected, [Vicente] moved on to building the actual controller. He chose an MSP430 microcontroller for its low power consumption, driving the LED with a watch battery and a transistor. Put together on a piece of protoboard, it’s actually pretty close to a TV-B-Gone. With everything soldered up, it’s good enough to trigger his camera’s shutter from about 5 meters away. Future improvements include cleaning up the code, making the timing more accurate with a crystal, and implementing low power mode on the MSP430. | 22 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "2115185",
"author": "healthy",
"timestamp": "2014-11-10T06:50:42",
"content": "20€ in local photo store, $3 on ebay.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2115242",
"author": "Jelllo",
"timestamp": "2014-11-10T07:08:... | 1,760,376,011.521121 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/09/the-raspberry-pi-model-a/ | The Raspberry Pi Model A+ | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"Model A",
"Model B+",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspberry Pi A+",
"Raspberry Pi B+",
"Raspberry Pi model A+"
] | A few months ago we were lucky to
get the scoop on a new Raspberry Pi
a few days before it was officially announced. This model ended up being the Raspberry Pi Model B+, with improvements that included more USB ports, not-dumb mounting holes, more GPIOs, and a decent microSD card connector. Today, we’re proud to leak another revision to the Raspberry Pi ecosystem –
the Raspberry Pi Model A+
There really aren’t many details for this new revision of the Raspi, but we can make some educated guesses. The new model features the same not-dumb mounting holes as the B+, 58mm wide by 49mm wide. All the ports are moved to two sides of the board, and the analog audio and video are combined into one 3.5mm jack. Like the normal Model A, this one doesn’t have Ethernet and only one USB port, but the improvements seen from the B to the B+ are still there: a good microSD card socket is on the back, and the 40-pin GPIO header replaces the old 26-pin header. There’s no word if the A+ will feature a RAM upgrade – when the Model B was ramping up production The Foundation decided to bump the RAM up to 512MB. This
could
happen with the A+, but we’re not holding our breath.
There’s no word when the A+ will be announced, or when it will start shipping. The educated guess would say tomorrow morning, with an analysis of how much power this thing consumes a week after it starts shipping. | 57 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "2114240",
"author": "arseniodev",
"timestamp": "2014-11-10T03:02:41",
"content": "Sign me up for this! :D do WANT!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2114339",
"author": "nsayer",
"timestamp": "2014-11-10T03:22:09",
"co... | 1,760,376,011.686952 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/09/hackaday-links-november-9-2014/ | Hackaday Links: November 9, 2014 | Brian Benchoff | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"Amiga 4000",
"AVR",
"AVR C",
"C Macro",
"can crusher",
"ESP8266",
"macro",
"minecraft",
"munich",
"pneumatic"
] | After many years of searching, [Dan Wood] finally got his hands on something he’s wanted for the past twenty-two years:
an Amiga 4000
. No, it’s not the queen bee of Amiga land – that honor would fall to the 68060-equipped 4000T, but [Dan]’s 4000 is
decked out
. It has a 256MB RAM expansion, Ethernet, USB, and a Picasso IV graphics card that gives it better resolution and color depth than most modern laptops.
[Pistonpedal] has
a fully automatic pneumatic can crusher
that is far too cool to be wasted on a case of Keystone. A funnel at the top guides the cans in to be crushed one at a time and ejected into a garbage can underneath. Great for recycling.
Coming over from ‘normal’ programming into the world of embedded development?
[AndreJ] has the AVR C Macro for you.
It’s a great way to get away from all those ~=, |=, and &=s that don’t make any sense at all.
[CNLohr] has a reputation for running Minecraft servers on things that don’t make any sense at all. The latest build
is a light up redstone ore block
equipped with an ESP8266 WiFi chip.
Oh, the Hackaday overlords and underlings are in Munich
for this little shindig we’re doing
. If you in town for Electronica come on down. If you have a copy of Neil Young’s
Trans
, bring it to the party. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "2113604",
"author": "Waterjet",
"timestamp": "2014-11-10T00:17:51",
"content": "Can it detect if the can is full before crushing it? Or if cans become stuck?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2113943",
"author": "Maxwell... | 1,760,376,011.971334 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/09/solar-powered-circuit-waters-your-plants/ | Solar Powered Circuit Waters Your Plants | Rick Osgood | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"electromagnet",
"electronics",
"microcontroller",
"pic",
"plant",
"solar",
"valve",
"water",
"watering"
] | If you want your plants to stay healthy, you need to make sure they stay watered. [Dimbit] decided to build his own
solar powered circuit
to help automatically keep his plants healthy. Like many things, there is more than one way to skin this cat. [Dimbit] had seen other
similar
projects
before, but he wanted to make his smarter than the average watering project. He also wanted it to use very little energy.
[Dimbit] first tackled the power supply. He suspected he wouldn’t need much more than 5V for his project. He was able to build his own solar power supply by using four off-the-shelf solar garden lamps. These lamps each have their own low quality solar panel and AAA NiMH cell. [Dimbit] designed and 3D printed his own plastic stand to hold all of the solar cells in place. All of the cells and batteries are connected in series to increase the voltage.
Next [Dimbit] needed an electronically controllable water valve. He looked around but was unable to find anything readily available that would work with very little energy. He tried all different combinations of custom parts and off-the-shelf parts but just couldn’t make something with a perfect seal. The solution came from an unlikely source.
One day, when [Dimbit] ran out of laundry detergent, he noticed that the detergent bottle cap had a perfect hole that should be sealable with a steel ball bearing. He then designed his own electromagnet using a bolt, some magnet wire, and a custom 3D printed housing. This all fit together with the detergent cap to make a functional low power water valve.
The actual circuit runs on a Microchip PIC microcontroller. The system is designed to sleep for approximately nine minutes at a time. After the sleep cycle, it wakes up and tests a probe that sits in the soil. If the resistance is low enough, the PIC knows that the plants need water. It then opens the custom valve to release about two teaspoons of water from a gravity-fed system. After a few cycles, even very dry soil can reach the correct moisture level. Be sure to watch the video of the functioning system below. | 28 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "2113207",
"author": "Elias",
"timestamp": "2014-11-09T21:29:04",
"content": "I find skinning cats offensive :P",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2113309",
"author": "andrewjhull",
"timestamp": "2014-11-09T22:18:2... | 1,760,376,011.920655 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/09/deck-the-halls-with-a-raspberry-pi-controlled-christmas-tree/ | Deck The Halls With A Raspberry Pi Controlled Christmas Tree | Adam Fabio | [
"Holiday Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"christmas tree",
"neopixel",
"raspberry pi",
"WS2801",
"ws2811"
] | You know the holiday season is getting close when the Christmas light projects start rolling in! [Osprey22] is getting a jump on his holiday decorations with his
Christmas Tree light show controlled by a Raspberry Pi
. Yes, we know he could have done it with an Arduino, or a 555, but the Raspi makes for a convenient platform. With a WiFi module, code changes can be made remotely. The Raspberry Pi’s built-in audio interface also makes it easy to sync music to flashing lights, though we’d probably drop in a higher quality USB audio interface.
[Osprey22’s] Raspberry Pi is running his own custom python sequencer software. It takes an mp3 file and a sequence file as inputs, then runs the entire show. When the music isn’t playing, the Pi loops through a set of pre-defined scenes, changing once per minute.
The hardware itself is pretty straightforward. The Raspberry Pi controls 8 solid state relays through its GPIO interface. 8 strings of lights are more than enough for the average tree. [Osprey22] topped the tree off with a star made of wood and illuminated by a string of 25 WS2801 RGB LED pixels.
Click past the break to see [Osprey22’s] tree in action!
[Via Instructables] | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "2113250",
"author": "CNK",
"timestamp": "2014-11-09T21:47:10",
"content": "Now you’ve got me thinking of how to sync effects to music with 555s.I guess if you had enough of them…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2113734",
... | 1,760,376,011.558505 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/08/nanobots-swim-like-scallops-in-non-newtonian-fluids/ | Nanobots Swim Like Scallops In Non-Newtonian Fluids | Theodora Fabio | [
"Medical Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"3d printing",
"fluidics",
"magnets",
"medical",
"non-Newtonian",
"PDMS",
"scallop"
] | The idea of using nanobots to treat diseases has been around for years, though it has yet to be realized in any significant manner. Inspired by Purcell’s Scallop theorem,
scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems
have
created their own version
. They designed a “micro-scallop” that could propel itself through
non-Newtonian fluids
, which is what most biological fluids happen to be.
The scientists decided on constructing a relatively simple robot, one with two rigid “shells” and a flexible connecting hinge. They 3D-printed a negative mold of the structure and filled it with a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) solution mixed with fluorescent powder to enable detection. Once cured, the nanobot measured 800 microns wide by 300 microns thick. It’s worth noting that it did not have a motor. Once the mold was complete, two neodymium magnets were glued onto the outside of each shell. When a gradient-free external magnetic field was applied, the magnets make the nanobot’s shells open and close. These reciprocal movements resulted in its net propulsion through non-Newtonian media. The scientists also tested it in glycerol, an example of a Newtonian fluid. Confirming
Purcell’s Scallop theorem
, the nanobot did not move through the glycerol. They took videos of the nanobot in motion using a stereoscope, a digital camera with a colored-glass filter, and an ultraviolet LED to make the fluorescent nanobot detectable.
The scientists did not indicate any further studies regarding this design. Instead, they hope it will aid future researchers in designing nanobots that can swim through blood vessels and body fluids. We don’t know how many years it will be before this becomes mainstream medical science, but we know this much: we will never look at scallops the same way again!
The video below shows an example of the nanobot with asymmetric, symmetric, and no actuation. It is one of many
AVI files linked in the paper
, so you may need to paste the link in your address bar to open it:
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/141104/ncomms6119/extref/ncomms6119-s10.avi
For something a bit more basic, here is another video explaining the experiment and non-Newtonian fluids:
[via Engadget] | 12 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "2108614",
"author": "hackliptik",
"timestamp": "2014-11-08T18:15:18",
"content": "Well, wow. We really need to switch from microbots to nanobots though. STL printers anyone?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2108642",
"author"... | 1,760,376,011.735591 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/08/adding-a-battery-gauge-to-a-project-with-zero-parts/ | Adding A Battery Gauge To A Project With Zero Parts | Brian Benchoff | [
"ATtiny Hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"adc",
"attiny",
"battery",
"battery measurement",
"brown out",
"voltage"
] | The typical way of doing a low battery detector is throwing a comparator in the circuit, setting it to measure a certain threshold voltage, and sending that signal off to a microcontroller or other circuit to notify someone the battery is going dead.
[Josh] has a simpler way
using an 8-bit AVR and zero other parts.
The chip [Josh] is using is the ATtiny84. The ADC in this chip is usually used to measure an unknown voltage against a reference voltage. The trick [Josh] is using is to do this in reverse: The internal 1.1 Volt reference voltage is measured against an unknown scale, namely the input voltage.
The value provided by the ADC on the chip will always be Vin times 1024 over the reference voltage. Since Vin will be 1.1 V in this case, the ADC value is known, it’s only a matter of doing some 6th grade algebra to determine the value of the input voltage.
[Josh] put together a small demonstration where the chip blinks out the number of volts its receiving from a bench power supply. By blinking a LED, it can blink out the current value of VCC as integers, but by using this technique you should be able to get a fairly fine-grained reading of what VCC actually is. Video below. | 41 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "2107851",
"author": "NiN",
"timestamp": "2014-11-08T15:04:32",
"content": "Yup, Atmel uCs can measure supply voltage, nothing new.https://code.google.com/p/tinkerit/wiki/SecretVoltmeter",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2107888"... | 1,760,376,011.810436 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/08/ask-hackaday-why-dont-we-have-flexible-displays-yet/ | Ask Hackaday: Why Don’t We Have Flexible Displays Yet? | Mathieu Stephan | [
"Crowd Funding",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"crowdfunding",
"flexible display",
"scam"
] | A few times a month we receive extremely well crafted crowdfunding campaigns in our tip line that make us doubt our sense of reality. While this article therefore isn’t a hack, we felt it would be a good place to start a discussion around OLED flexible displays.
As the
dedicated Wikipedia article
states flexible displays have been around for a few years already. In 2013, the Samsung Galaxy Round was unveiled as the world’s first mobile phone with a 5.7″ flexible display. The phone (and the screen) were curved in shape but the phone itself was solid. The same goes for the recent Samsung Gear S smart watch.
Yet for only $350 in a $50k goal crowdfunding campaign the
Portal flexible wearable smartphone
seems to have all the answers. It is scratch & shatter proof, water-resistant, flexible, includes a ‘Portal proprietary flexible battery’, the ‘Fastest multi-core CPU’, gyro, compass, barometer, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, GPS…. Specifications are even subject to change to ensure the best available components… and it is 89% funded. As they mention,
building a smartphone or a tech company isn’t rocket science.
We also found a 70% funded €100k crowdfunding campaign for a
watch bracelet
(right click to translate) that will include GPS, Bluetooth, NFS (not a typo), a uSD card, a 4 lines LED screen and a battery for a few days autonomy… how surprising that no major manufacturer thought of that.
This leads us to the title of this post: why don’t we have truly flexible displays yet? We’ll let our readers discussion this point in the comments section below… | 90 | 42 | [
{
"comment_id": "2107174",
"author": "onebiozz",
"timestamp": "2014-11-08T12:10:44",
"content": "I was not aware actual flexible batteries with any sort of usable capacity exist …Also i have played with flexible displays at a convention once, there neat but the one i looked at (early in 2014) was no... | 1,760,376,012.577163 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/08/talking-tactile-3d-prints/ | Talking Tactile 3D Prints | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"accessibility",
"capacitive sensing",
"duemilanove",
"spikenzie voice shield"
] | Cell biology professor [Mike] has created
a way for blind students to decipher microscope slides
using 3D prints and the magic of capacitive sensing. His write-up focuses on a slide showing the anaphase stage of mitosis in whitefish blastula, a popular choice for studying cell division. When a student touches a certain area of the print, the capacitive sensor triggers audio playback to tell them what they’re feeling.
[Mike] started by turning a 2D image of a cell into a 3D print. To do this, he made the image black and white, and then inverted the colors so that the 3D print’s topography will correspond correctly. The talking part is handled by an Arduino Duemilanove and a Spikenzie voice shield. The latter has a somewhat limited amount of space, but is more than adequate for the audio labels [Mike] made, which are all less than three seconds long.
A hard copy of the 2D file comes in handy for making sure the cap sensors are in the right places. To make those, [Mike] cut up some floor protector pads and covered the sticky side with copper tape. These are held on the 2D image with double-sided tape. The 3D print sits on top, separated by more furniture pads at the corners. He labeled this scientific sandwich model with a 3D printed Braille label that reads ‘anaphase’. [Mike] has made
the referenced STL file
along with a few others available at the National Institutes of Health’s 3D print exchange site. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "2106779",
"author": "Some Guy",
"timestamp": "2014-11-08T10:53:27",
"content": "That’s great and everything but how practical is this actually?Do you want a blind guy working on your lab results?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,376,012.322449 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/07/triple-sensor-mailbox-alert-really-delivers/ | Triple Sensor Mailbox Alert Really Delivers | Kristina Panos | [
"home hacks",
"Lifehacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"ir led",
"mail alert",
"phototransistor",
"PIC 16F1825",
"reed switch",
"you've got mail"
] | Messing with the U.S. Mail is not something we generally recommend. But if you
build your own mailbox like [Bob] did
, you stand a much better chance of doing what you want without throwing up any flags.
Speaking of throwing up flags, one of the coolest parts of this project is the toy mailbox inside the house that monitors the activity of the real box. When there is mail waiting, the flag on the toy mailbox goes up. Once [Bob] retrieves the mail, the flag goes back down automatically. A magnet in the real box’s flag prevents false alarms on the toy box provided the Flag Raised On Outgoing protocol is followed. Best of all, he built in some distress handling: If the mailbox door is left hanging open or the battery is low, the toy mailbox waves its flag up and down.
So, where do the three sensors come in? A magnetic reed switch on the wall of the real mailbox pairs with a magnet in the flag. To determine whether the door is open, [Bob] initially used another magnetic reed switch on the underside of the box. This didn’t work well in wet weather, so he switched to a mechanical tilt sensor. An IR LED on the ceiling and a phototransistor on the floor of the box work together to detect the presence of mail.
[Bob]’s homebrew mailbox has a false back that hides a PIC 16F1825. When the door opens, the PIC wakes up, turns on a MOSFET, and checks the battery level. It waits two minutes for the mailman to do his job and then reads the flag state. After comparing the IR LED and phototransistor’s states, it sends a message to the toy mailbox indicating the presence or absence of mail.
The toy mailbox holds a modified receiver board and a servo to control its flag. [Bob] has made the code and schematics available on his site. Walk-through video is after the jump. | 22 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "2105111",
"author": "rubner",
"timestamp": "2014-11-08T06:17:39",
"content": "Omahgoh that’s adorable!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2105127",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2014-11-08T06:21:32",
"content": "If I ... | 1,760,376,012.46038 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/07/medical-tricorder-mark-i/ | Medical Tricorder Mark I | Mike Szczys | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"pulse",
"shield",
"temperature",
"tricoder"
] | A handheld tricorder is as good a reason as any to start a project. The science-fiction-derived form factor provides an opportunity to work on a lot of different areas of hardware development like portable power, charging, communications between sensor and microcontroller. And of course you need a user interface so that the values being returned will have some meaning for the user.
[Marcus B] has done a great job with all of this in
his first version of a medical tricorder
. The current design hosts two sensors, one measures skin temperature using infrared, the other is a pulse sensor.
For us it’s not the number of sensors that makes something a “tricorder” but the ability of the device to use those sensors to make a diagnosis (or to give the user enough hints to come to their own conclusion). [Marcus] shares similar views and with that in mind has designed in a real-time clock and an SD card slot. These can be used to log sensor data over time which may then be able to suggest ailments based on a known set of common diagnosis parameters.
Looking at the image above you may be wondering which chip is the microcontroller. This build is actually a shield for an Arduino hiding underneath.
There’s a demonstration video after the break. And if you find this impressive you won’t want to miss
the Open Source Science Tricorder
which is one of the finalists for the 2014 Hackaday Prize. | 16 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "2105737",
"author": "Biomed",
"timestamp": "2014-11-08T08:04:26",
"content": "Nice work. Good piece of equipment. Potential there, yes you have!I was in on the earliest for emergency cardiac care. The code is really a team of docs debating till consensus arrived, then some programm... | 1,760,376,012.845866 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/07/the-kim-1-computer-minified/ | The KIM-1 Computer Minified | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"6502",
"arduino",
"computer",
"Kim possible",
"kim-1",
"retrocomputing"
] | The KIM-1 wasn’t the first microcomputer available to computer hobbyists and other electron aficionados, but it was the first one that was
cheap
. It was also exceedingly simple, with just a 6502 CPU, a little more than 1k of RAM, 2k of ROM, a hexadecimal keypad and a few seven-segment displays. Still, a
lot
of software was written for this machine, and one of these boards can be found in every computer history museum.
[Oscar] thought the KIM-1 was far too cool to be relegated to the history books
so he made his own
. It’s not a direct copy – this one uses an Arduino for the brains, only breaking out some buttons, a pair of four-digit seven-segment displays, and the I2C and SPI pins on the ‘duino. The KIM-1 is emulated by the Arduino, allowing for the same interface as an original connected up to an old teletype, and [Oscar]
got his hands on the original code for Microchess
and the first 6502 disassembler from [Woz] and [Baum].
[Oscar] put the schematics for his version of the KIM-1 up, and has the PCBs up on SeeedStudio. If you’re looking for an awesome replica of a vintage computer and a nice weekend project, here ‘ya go. | 18 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "2103803",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2014-11-08T00:27:28",
"content": "Nice website [oscar]! I loved my Suzuki too! It lasted about 18 years.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2104050",
"author": "zachb1121",
"timesta... | 1,760,376,013.001327 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/07/hackadays-most-excellent-munich-adventure/ | Hackaday’s Most Excellent Munich Adventure | Mike Szczys | [
"cons"
] | [
"embedded systems",
"munich",
"party",
"sprite_tm",
"TheHackadayPrize",
"workshop"
] | Bags are packed… it’s insane the amount of random electronics I carry with me on a trip. But who doesn’t want to do some prototyping on the plane?
In case you haven’t heard, the Hackaday Crew is headed to Munich. The coming week is
Electronica
. We’ll be prowling “the world’s leading trade show for electronic components” looking for the jewels of interest to the hacking community.
Watch our Twitter feed
for updates on those adventures.
But of course, Thursday the 13th is all about
Hackaday Munich
. The place will be packed! During the afternoon we feature
hands-on hacking of embedded systems
. The hardware we’re supplying is already spoken for. But you should bring along your own dev boards to hack on, or just come to watch the fun.
Get a ticket to The Hackaday Prize party
. This includes a talk by [Sprite_TM], the announcement of the Grand Prize winner for the 2014 Hackaday Prize, followed by a party with music by [DJ Muallen]. Nobody should miss this event so please help get the word out. See you there! | 20 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "2103107",
"author": "Ross M.",
"timestamp": "2014-11-07T21:11:49",
"content": "Are you guys going to be there on Friday? I won’t be able to attend through the week, but will be passing through after completing a work trip by then. Wondering if it’s worth stopping by as everything ... | 1,760,376,013.052856 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/07/printing-in-metal-with-a-mig-welder/ | Printing In Metal With A MIG Welder | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3D metal printer",
"3d printer",
"metal",
"metal printer",
"mig",
"reprap"
] | Whenever the question of metal 3D printers comes up, someone always chimes in that a MIG welder connected to a normal 3D printer would work great. A bit of research would tell this person that’s already been done,
but some confirmation and replication is nice
. A few students at TU Delft University strapped a welder to a normal, off-the-shelf 3D printer and made a few simple shapes.
This project builds on the work of
[Joshua Pearce] et al. at Michigan Tech
where an MIG welder and delta bot was used to lay down rather complex shapes on a metal plate substrate.
The team at TU Delft used a cartesian bot
– a Prusa i3 – for their replication because of the sheer mass of moving a metal build plate, firebricks, and welder around.
In the first few prints on their machine, the team was able to lay down enough metal to build a vertical wall. It’s not much, and to turn this into a finished part would require some machining, but these are only the beginning steps of what could become a legitimate way of creating metal parts. Video below. | 73 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "2102452",
"author": "RoboMonkey",
"timestamp": "2014-11-07T18:13:16",
"content": "Not sure I’d want them machining anything for me with their ham handed hammer method of part extraction.Brings up what is the best surface for the welder to begin printing. metal? A higher melting po... | 1,760,376,012.950448 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/07/hackaday-prize-finalist-a-network-of-satellite-ground-stations/ | Hackaday Prize Finalist: A Network Of Satellite Ground Stations | Brian Benchoff | [
"Featured",
"Interviews",
"Slider",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"antenna",
"Hackaday Prize",
"radio",
"satellite",
"SatNOGS",
"the hackaday prize"
] | There are astonishing things you can do with a network of sensors spread across the globe, all connected to the Internet. Thousands of people have already
installed hardware to detect lightning
and
flightaware
gives out subscriptions to their premium service to anyone who will listen in to airplane transponders and send data back to their servers. The folks behind SatNOGS,
one of the five finalists for The Hackaday Prize
are using this same crowdsourced data collection for something that is literally out of this world: listening to the ever-increasing number of amateur satellites orbiting the planet.
There are dozens of cubesats and other amateur satellites flying every year, and they have become an extremely popular way of experimenting in a space environment, giving some budding engineers an awesome project in school, and testing out some technologies that are just too weird for national space agencies. The problem with sending one of these birds up is getting the data back down; a satellite will pass above the horizon of a single location only a few times a day, and even then for only minutes at a time.
The SatNOGS team hopes to change that
by planting receivers all around the globe, connecting them to the Internet, and hopefully providing real-time telemetry from dozens of orbiting satellites.
[Pierros] from the SatNOGS team was kind enough to sit down and answer a few questions for us about his entry to The Hackaday Prize. That’s below, right after their finalist video. Some of the SatNOGS team will also be at
our Munich event
where we announce the winner of the Prize.
Are you surprised over the success of your project so far? Distributed
systems like yours are extremely valuable, but they're not as sexy to the
casual observer as 3D printers and electric cars.
Initially we created the project as an open ground station to meet our own needs (as amateur satellite observers). Quickly though, it became apparent that many other people and communities would benefit from an open ground station network. Thus, the Network idea became core to the SatNOGS project early on. Since then, the focus has been on the global scale of it and the possibilities for the future it creates, for open ideals in satellite communications. Given the hackaday audience, we are not exactly surprised by the positive response we have been getting. Relying on community participation and feedback is always a recipe for success. That’s how strong and catalyzing projects grow and succeed.
Of all the finalists, yours is the only one whose ultimate success is a
function of the network effect. Have there been many people offering to
install the hardware and contribute to tracking satellites? How much would
it cost for someone to build a minimal ground station?
The participation and interest we have been getting so far is impressive. We were actually pleasantly surprised by it. Our development processes are open (dev mailing list) and that enabled people to customize their versions (notably, the imperial one!). We already have 11 people from around the world building their own SatNOGS (from USA, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, UK. Netherlands, and Australia). Funny anecdote: A researcher stationed in Antarctica reached out to us for building a SatNOGS but we haven’t been able to figure out the logistics around it yet :) A fully operational SatNOGS Ground Station (complete with antennas, embedded pc, reception hardware and tripod) would cost just under 300 USD.
Besides putting ground stations in the middle of the ocean, what is the
biggest challenge to getting to the goal of worldwide coverage of LEO and
MSO amateur satellites? What was the biggest challenge in getting to where
you are now?
Earth is not really temperate in its entirety. In order to achieve worldwide coverage, SatNOGS will have to cope with adverse environmental conditions, and that would be a big challenge for us moving forward. We have already touched briefly on the subject but we firmly believe that a global community with ideas and testing capacity will help us mitigate this issue.
The biggest challenge to get where we are now was navigating through the existing ecosystem, trying to abstract the best practices and re-utilize existing protocols to achieve ultimate modularity. We had to re-architect, re-write and re-design many of our initial ideas to get in the current state of optimal modularity and co-existence with the ecosystem.
Are there any amateur satellites that are relying on your project? Have you
been in contact with any groups that would like to use SatNOGS for the majority
of their mission?
Given that SatNOGS Network is still in deployment, we wouldn’t expect any satellite mission to rely solely on us at this phase. That been said, we had a couple of promising contacts with present and future missions (like LambdaSat) to accommodate their communication needs.
From your documentation, a 'parabolic antenna design is in the works.' A
reasonable-sized dish is not easy to build. What's the story with that?
Our calculations show that given most satellites in LEO and MEO S-Band TX/RX properties we will be able to pick up signals reliably using a parabolic antenna that can fit on the current tracker setup. S-Band 2.4Ghz dishes are not really hard to build. Cross sections of the dish, cut in aluminum and then a wire mesh layer on top of it, is the current thinking we have. We are focusing on VHF and UHF bands for now, but will be experimenting with S-Band soon.
There are a few amateur satellites going up that will be working on
much higher frequencies than what an RTL-SDR can support. Will you be expanding
the SatNOGS network based on this?
For frequencies higher than 1 Ghz (like S, Ku, C or X Bands) we will be using a Downconverter coupled with a Low Noise Amplifier. Those LNB we are experimenting with have become increasingly cheap and configurable to meet our needs. Designing and building a LNB from scratch would be a nice challenge for the future too. Using the downconverters would bring the frequency down to RTL-SDR supported levels, expanding the functionality of SatNOGS.
Hypothetical, and we’re not going to hold you to whatever answer you give.
You win the grand prize, a trip to space or about $200,000 USD. Which one
to you take, and what is your reasoning for doing so? Since you're the only
project in the finalists with a huge team, who gets the ride into space if
you take that route?
A trip to space has been a childhood dream for most of us. Our love and fascination about space is what pushed us towards starting this project in the first place! It is hard to not take this into account when thinking about the prize :)
All things considered though, we are determined that investing $200K back to SatNOGS would have a tremendous impact on open source hardware, software and data in space. Opting in for the cash prize will give us the ability to fund enough SatNOGS Stations around the world to achieve global coverage, further the research for reliability and extension on other bands, and creating a solid community with tools and resources around the project. A successful SatNOGS project has the ability to revolutionize the way we think about space communications and how we design and utilize satellites. Such a possibility is beyond our wildest childhood dreams and that’s what we are shooting for. | 29 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "2101684",
"author": "borstenhorst",
"timestamp": "2014-11-07T15:26:53",
"content": "This Project is my favorite for THP :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2101762",
"author": "KyleYankan",
"timestamp": "2014-11-07T15:43:... | 1,760,376,013.121563 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/07/echo-the-first-useful-home-computer-intelligence/ | Echo, The First Useful Home Computer Intelligence? | Sarah Petkus | [
"internet hacks",
"News"
] | [
"ai",
"alexa",
"amazon",
"artificial intelligence",
"echo"
] | We’re familiar with features like Siri or Microsoft’s Cortana which grope at a familiar concept from science fiction, yet leave us doing silly things like standing in public yowling at our phones. Amazon took a new approach to the idea of an artificial steward by cutting the AI free from our peripherals and making it an independent unit that acts in the household like any other appliance. Instead of steering your starship however, it can integrate with your devices via bluetooth to aide in tasks like writing shopping lists, or simply help you remember how many quarts are in a liter. Whatever you ask for,
Echo will oblige
.
The device is little more than the internet and a speaker stuffed into a minimal black cylinder the size of a vase, oh- and six far-field microphones aimed in each direction which listen to every word you say…
always
. As you’d expect, Echo only processes what you say after you call it to attention by speaking its given name. If you happen to be too far away for the directional microphones to hear, you can alternatively seek assistance from the Echo app on another device. Not bad for the freakishly low price Amazons asking, which is $100 for Prime subscribers. Even if you’re salivating over the idea of this chatting obelisk, or intrigued enough to buy one just to check it out (and pop its little seams), they’re only available to purchase through invite at the moment… the likes of which are said to go out in a few weeks.
The notion of the internet at large acting as an invisible ever-present swiss-army-knife of knowledge for the home is admittedly pretty sweet. It pulls on our wishful heartstrings for futuristic technology. The success of Echo as a first of its kind however relies on how seamlessly (and quickly) the artificial intelligence within it performs. If it can hold up, or prove to hold up in further iterations, it’s exciting to think what larger systems the technology could be integrated with in the near future… We might have our command center consciousness sooner than we thought.
With that said, inviting a little WiFi probe into your intimate living space to listen in on everything you do will take some getting over… your thoughts?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkOCeAtKHIc | 129 | 44 | [
{
"comment_id": "2100888",
"author": "Slurm McKenzie",
"timestamp": "2014-11-07T12:07:45",
"content": "oh, look, it’s 1984 already….",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2101671",
"author": "Waterjet",
"timestamp": "2014-11-07T15:23... | 1,760,376,013.293922 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/07/make-a-capacitive-clothespin-keyboard-for-your-ipad/ | Make A Capacitive Clothespin Keyboard For Your IPad | Sarah Petkus | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"adam kumpf",
"capacitance keyboard",
"capacitive touch",
"clothespin keyboard",
"clothespin synthesizer",
"diy keyboard",
"ipad keyboard",
"piano keyboard"
] | Even with all the optimization and style of new technology, the keyboard is a difficult thing to replace. Touch screens just don’t deliver the tactile feedback that connects us to the medium. [Adam Kumpf] remedies this by building his own keyboard interface to work with an iPad piano app, all from craft materials you’d likely find lying around in the kitchen.
To make your own, you’d first need
a bunch of clothespins which will ultimately act as your keys
. [Adam] shows how to stitch the separated halves of the clothespins onto a piece of cardboard with some basic rubber bands. These tension the keys so that they can rock back and forth over a pen or pencil placed beneath them. When you press down on one end, the other lifts causing an opposing pin to press the corresponding key of the iPad, just like a hammer inside a piano. With a little aluminum foil for conductivity wrapped around the side making contact, you’ve got yourself a quick solution for your itch to rock some Chopin.
You can see how well the project works in action below in his video: | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "2101007",
"author": "svofski",
"timestamp": "2014-11-07T12:34:17",
"content": "Really clever and is a hack.BTW, is there a similar app for Android? I heard there were some improvements in sound lately, but audio apps tend to have horrendous lag, I don’t even dare call it latency.",
... | 1,760,376,012.791453 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/06/diy-plotter-strives-for-cheapest-cnc-machine-title/ | DIY Plotter Strives For Cheapest CNC Machine Title | Rich Bremer | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"cnc plotter",
"diy CNC machine",
"unorthodox CNC machine"
] | Arguably, taking the plunge into the CNC hobby does indeed have potential to end up costing more than expected. But that should be no reason to deter anyone from doing it! [msassa11] shows us how to do it in full effect with his definitely unique and extremely inexpensive
homemade plotter
.
The design goal was to keep this machine as low-cost as possible while at the same time using materials that can be found around any tinkerer’s shop or at least purchased locally. First of all, you’ll notice that there is only one linear rail, yes, one rail for two axes of movement. The single rail was removed from an inkjet printer along with the mating bushing that originally allowed the print head to move freely back and forth. A threaded rod lead screw does double duty here, keeping the X axis carriage from rotating around the linear rail and also transmitting the force to move the carriage back and forth. Both the lead nut and bushings are held in place with cast-epoxy mounts.
As unique as the X axis is, the Y sure gives it a run for its money. No linear rails are used, two lead screws are the only things that maintain the gantry’s position. To prevent gravity from pulling the gantry down and bending the Y axis lead screws, there are a couple of bearings on either side that ride along the bed of the machine. The frame material also hits the cheap target, it’s made from blank PCB board. A PIC16F877 microcontroller and a handful of mosfets control the motors. [msassa11] built this control circuit but admits it’s performance is not that great, it’s noisy and loses torque at high speed.
[msassa11] certainly proves that he is extremely resourceful with the outcome of this project. He met his goal of building an extremely inexpensive CNC machine. Check out his project page to see a ton of photos and find out what other unconventional ideas he used to build his machine. | 22 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "2099781",
"author": "Indyaner",
"timestamp": "2014-11-07T08:04:21",
"content": "And he also managed to not use any cap at all in his whole circuit.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2099907",
"author": "hemalchevli",
... | 1,760,376,013.403712 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/06/fox-hunting-with-a-raspberry-pi/ | Fox Hunting With A Raspberry Pi | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"antenna",
"fox",
"ham radio",
"raspberry pi",
"usb power bank"
] | No, not a real fox! [KM4EFP] is a ham radio operator with a passion for fox hunting, which is an event where several radio operators attempt to find a broadcasting beacon (a “fox”) using radio direction finding techniques. [KM4EFP] has just built his own
portable fox using a Raspberry Pi in a very well-built enclosure
.
Since the fox could be outside for a while, the project was housed in a reasonably weatherproof ammunition case. A mount for an antenna was attached to the side, and it is hooked up to a GPIO pin on the Raspberry Pi. The entire device is powered by a 6000 mAh battery pack which allows the fox to broadcast long enough to be found.
The software running on the Raspberry Pi is very similar to the
Pi FM transmitter program
but it is specially made for ham radio broadcasting instead. Almost no extra hardware is needed to get the Pi broadcasting radio, as these software packages can drive the antenna directly from the GPIO pin. This is a great twist on the standard FM transmitter that ham radio enthusiasts everywhere can use to start finding those wily foxes! | 11 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "2099038",
"author": "DainBramage",
"timestamp": "2014-11-07T04:34:22",
"content": "Very cool project. My ham radio club recently held two fox hunts and everyone had a lot of fun. This little device would have added an extra challenge beyond just finding the person transmitting.I mig... | 1,760,376,013.343569 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/06/using-router-socs-as-wifi-modules-yet-again/ | Using Router SoCs As WiFi Modules (Yet Again) | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Microcontrollers",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"microcontroller",
"uart",
"USR WIFI232-T",
"wifi",
"wireless"
] | 8-bit AVRs and 32-bit ARMs do one thing, and one thing well: controlling other electronics and sensors while sipping power. The Internet of Things is upon us and with that comes the need for connecting to WiFi networks. Already, a lot of chips are using repackaged System on Chips to provide an easy way to connect to WiFi,
and the USR-WIFI232-T is the latest of the bunch
. It’s yet another UART to WiFi bridge, and as [2XOD], it’s pretty easy to connect to an AVR.
The module in question can be had through the usual channels for about $11, shipped straight from China, and the only purpose of this device is to provide a bridge between a serial port and a wireless network. They’re not that powerful, and are only meant for simple tasks,
[2XOD] got his hands on one of these modules and tested them out. They’re actually somewhat interesting, with all the configuration happening over a webpage served from the device. Of course the standard AT commands are available for setting everything up, just like the ESP8266.
With a month of testing, [2XOD] has found this to be a very reliable device, logging temperatures every minute for two weeks. There’s also a breakout board available to make connection easy, and depending on what project you’re building, these could be a reasonable stand-in for some other popular UART -> WiFi chips. | 34 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "2098025",
"author": "macegr",
"timestamp": "2014-11-07T00:08:50",
"content": "“Yun is actually a complete 400mhz system on chip. There is irony in the fact that the powerful system on chip’s only duty is to serve the lowly AVR.”I actually disagree with that statement from the linked... | 1,760,376,013.559168 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/06/nixies-and-raspis-for-a-modern-vintage-calculator/ | Nixies And Raspis For A Modern Vintage Calculator | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"calculator",
"cherry mx",
"keycap",
"keyswitch",
"nixie",
"nixie tube",
"raspberry pi"
] | There are a few very rare and very expensive calculators with Nixie tube displays scattered about calculator history, but so far we haven’t seen someone build a truly useful Nixie calculator from scratch.
[Scott] did just that
. It’s a complete, fully-functional electronic calculator with all the functions you would expect from a standard scientific calculator.
The calculator uses IN-12 Nixies, the standard for anyone wanting to build a clock or other numerical neon discharge display. Each Nixie is controlled by a K155D driver chip, with the driver chip controlled by an I2C IO expander.
The keypad is where this gets interesting; electronics are one thing, but electromechanicals and buttons are a completely new source of headaches. [Scott] ended up using Cherry MX Blue switches, one of the more common switches for mechanical keyboards. By using a standard keyboard switch [Scott] was able to get custom keycaps made for each of the buttons on his calculator.
The brains of the calculator is a Raspberry Pi, with the I2C pins going off to listen in on the several IO expanders on the device. A Raspi might be a little overkill, but an Internet-connected calculator does allow [Scott] to send calculations off to WolframAlpha, or even the copy of Mathematica included in every Pi.
[Scott]
has put his project up on Kickstarter
. Videos below. | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "2097494",
"author": "Nico",
"timestamp": "2014-11-06T21:27:05",
"content": "Nice! But if you really want to impress me, redo the thing without a microcontroller ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2097538",
"author": "G... | 1,760,376,013.610882 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/06/how-a-real-3d-display-works/ | How A Real 3D Display Works | Brian Benchoff | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"3d display",
"laser",
"volumetric",
"volumetric display"
] | There’s a new display technique that’s making the blog rounds, and like anything that seems like its torn from [George Lucas]’ cutting room floor, it’s getting a lot of attention. It’s
a device that can display voxels in midair
, forming low-resolution three-dimensional patterns without any screen, any fog machine, or any reflective medium. It’s really the closest thing to the projectors in a holodeck we’ve seen yet, leading a few people to ask how it’s done.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen something like this. A few years ago.
a similar 3D display technology was demonstrated
that used a green laser to display tens of thousands of voxels in a display medium. The same company used this technology to draw white voxels in air, without a smoke machine or anything else for the laser beam to reflect off of. We couldn’t grasp how this worked at the time, but with a little bit of research we can find the relevant documentation.
A system like this
was first published in 2006
, built upon earlier work that only displayed pixels on a 2D plane. The device worked by taking an infrared Nd:YAG laser, and focusing the beam to an extremely small point. At that point, the atmosphere heats up enough to turn into plasma and turns into a bright, if temporary, point of light. With the laser pulsing several hundred times a second, a picture can be built up with these small plasma bursts.
Moving a ball of plasma around in 2D space is rather easy; all you need are a few mirrors. To get a third dimension to projected 3D images, a lens mounted on a linear rail moves back and forth changing the focal length of the optics setup. It’s an
extremely
impressive optical setup, but simple enough to get the jist of.
Having a device that projects images with balls of plasma leads to another question: how safe is this thing? There’s no mention of how powerful the laser used in this device is, but in every picture of this projector, people are wearing goggles. In the videos – one is available below – there is something that is obviously missing once you notice it: sound. This projector is creating tiny balls of expanding air hundreds of times per second. We don’t know what it sounds like – or if you can hear it at all – but a constant buzz would limit its application as an advertising medium.
As with any state-of-the-art project where we
kinda
know how it works, there’s a good chance someone with experience in optics could put something like this together. A normal green laser pointer in a water medium would be
much
safer than an IR YAG laser, but other than that the door is wide open for a replication of this project.
Thanks [Sean] for sending this in. | 78 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "2096882",
"author": "Indyaner",
"timestamp": "2014-11-06T18:04:06",
"content": "You talk about Plasma, the video says it creates the dot mid-air by Ionization. Is there a difference?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2096975",
... | 1,760,376,013.894621 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/06/battery-shield-mounts-underneath-the-arduino/ | Battery Shield Mounts Underneath The Arduino | Rich Bremer | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"arduino shield",
"battery"
] | So, what do you do when your Arduino project needs to operate in a remote area or as a portable device? There are LiPo battery shields available, and although they may work well, recharging requires access to a USB port. You can also go the 9v battery route plugged into the on-board regulator of the Arduino but the low mAh rating of a 9v won’t allow your project to stay running for very long. [AI] needed a quick-change battery option for his Arduino project and came up with what he is calling the
AA Undershield
.
As the name implies, AA sized batteries are used in the project, two of them actually. Yes, two AA batteries at 1.5v each would equal only 3 volts when connected in series. The Arduino needs 5v so [AI] decided to use a MAX756 DC-to-DC step-up regulator to maintain a steady stream of 5v.
This article
has some nice graphs showing the difference in performance between a 9v battery being stepped down to 5v verses two AA’s being bumped up to 5v.
The ‘under’ in Undershield comes from this shield being mounted underneath the Arduino, unlike every other shield on the planet. Doing so allows use of a standard 0.100″-spaced prototype PCB and is an easy DIY solution to that odd-sized space between the Arduino’s Digital 7 and 8 pins. The Arduino mounts to the Undershield via its normal mounting holes with the help of some aluminum stand offs.
[AI] did a great job documenting his build with schematics and lots of photos so that anyone that is interested in making one for themselves can do so with extreme ease. | 26 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "2096416",
"author": "Lwatcdr",
"timestamp": "2014-11-06T15:26:59",
"content": "So use 4 AAAs.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2096531",
"author": "F",
"timestamp": "2014-11-06T16:00:41",
"content": "4 A... | 1,760,376,013.667978 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/06/very-large-touchpads-for-very-old-computers/ | Very Large Touchpads For Very Old Computers | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"adc",
"resistive touchscreen",
"touchscreen"
] | Way back when most of our demographic was in diapers, engineering workstations had huge touchscreens for plotting drawings in CAD programs, drawing, and just about everything a Wacom tablet does today. Finding one of these touch pads now is a fool’s errand, more so than finding the computer it was attached to, but [Daniel] figured out a way to relive those days of large touchpads and old computers
with a resistive touchscreen and an MSX computer
(portuguese, google
translatrix
).
[Daniel] is using a touchscreen normally used for a monitor, and with the right bit of code on a PIC16F micro, pressure on the touchscreen can be translated into X and Y coordinates. Using the PIC was a great choice in this instance:
it’s possible to multiplex ports on an ADC pin with a PIC
, making the entire system extremely efficient and easy to calibrate.
After that, it’s just a matter of plugging the output of the microcontroller into the touchpad connector of the MSX and writing a few lines of BASIC to draw a point on the screen. Video below. | 27 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "2095953",
"author": "Dax",
"timestamp": "2014-11-06T12:13:06",
"content": "“Finding one of these touch pads now is a fool’s errand”That’s because they weren’t touchscreens in the first place.They were recording the timing of the electron beam of a CRT monitor as it reaches the photo... | 1,760,376,013.954405 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/06/3d-printed-drone-follows-the-leader/ | 3D Printed Drone Follows The Leader | Adam Fabio | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"drone",
"multicopter",
"quadcopter"
] | [peabody124, aka James] has been active in the drone world for several years now, first with OpenPilot, then TauLabs, and now with his own Spark and Sparky2 boards. [James]’ latest creation is a
3D printed quadcopter
using both his Sparky2 board and his Sparky2BGC Brushless Gimbal Controller.
[James] had always wanted a quad which would follow him and his friends while they were having fun, sort of like his own flying camera platform. His current setup is finally approaching that goal. [James] designed his new quadcopter to use his Sparky2 flight controller and the
KISS 18 amp
Electronic Speed Controller (ESC). He also incorporated a brushless gimbal to keep his Mobius action cam pointed at a whatever the drone may be tracking.
To keep the internal
layout clean, [James] designed a power distribution board which solders right up to the ESCs. The internal layout is seriously clean, with flat panels which keep the electronics safe during crashes.
The crash protection turned out to come in handy, as [James] managed to hit a couple of drone-eating trees during testing. Thankfully, having a 3D printed quad means spare parts are just a few hours of printing away. Check out the video below for footage of [James]’ test flights, and of the quad tracking his cell phone via an RF link. | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "2095620",
"author": "Predielis",
"timestamp": "2014-11-06T10:19:09",
"content": "Wood is much better then 3d printed plastic for anything that should fly.One day this 3d printer hype will end, and we will laugh about this silly fad.I",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"rep... | 1,760,376,013.719309 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/06/redesigned-bike-light-controller/ | Redesigned Bike Light Controller | Bryan Cockfield | [
"ATtiny Hacks"
] | [
"attiny45",
"bicycle",
"bike light",
"light controller"
] | [JP] was looking for a bicycle light to do some night biking around his home. He found a reasonably priced light that suited his needs, but when he started using it he found that the controller was a little lackluster. To solve some of its problems, he ended up
building his own lighting controller from scratch
.
The original controller’s main problem was that the it didn’t debounce the input from the single pushbutton. This meant that a single press of the button might cause it to cycle through two or three different modes, which was inconvenient and annoying. The new controller took care of this along with implementing several new brightness modes and a “strobe” mode for commuting to work to help alert other drivers of [JP]’s presence on his bicycle.
While [JP] notes that an Arduino would have been very easy to use in this situation, it wouldn’t have fit in the original enclosure. He went with an 8-pin ATtiny45, which was perfectly sized for what he needed. Everything fit together perfectly and is much more useful than the original. Maybe next he could pair it with a
light that is even brighter than the one he’s currently using
. | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "2095846",
"author": "mestr32",
"timestamp": "2014-11-06T11:34:25",
"content": "An accelerometer that turns it of when its not moving for 3-4 minutes, could help save the battery too! Think its been done before. (:",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,376,014.002207 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/05/recording-time-lapse-of-endangered-reptiles-hatching/ | Recording Time Lapse Of Endangered Reptiles Hatching | Brian Benchoff | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"NoIR",
"raspberry pi",
"time-lapse",
"Time-lapse photography",
"webcam"
] | The tuatara is a reptile native to New Zealand, and thanks to the descendants of stowaway rats on 17th century ships, these little lizards are critically endangered. [Warren] was asked if he could film one of these hatchlings being born
and pulled out a Raspberry Pi to make it happen
.
[Warren] constructed a small lasercut box to house the incubating egg, but he hit a few snags figuring out how to properly focus the Raspi camera board. The original idea was to use a Nikkor macro lens, without any kind of adapter between it and the camera board. A bit of googling
lead [Warren] to this tutorial
for modifying the focus on the Raspi camera, giving him a good picture.
The incubator had no windows and thus no light, making an IR LED array the obvious solution to the lighting problem. Time was of the essence, so an off-the-shelf security camera provided the IR illumination. After dumping the video to his computer, [Warren] had a video of a baby tuatara hatching. You can check that out below. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "2095945",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2014-11-06T12:10:46",
"content": "Actually according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuatara) these aren’t lizards, so it’s nice to see an effort made to save them.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
... | 1,760,376,014.038543 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/05/create-a-buzz-with-the-mini-electric-ukulele/ | Create A Buzz With The Mini Electric Ukulele | Theodora Fabio | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"ble",
"bluetooth LE",
"bluetooth low energy",
"buzzer",
"LightBlue Bean",
"piezo",
"ukulele"
] | Everyone’s heard of the “World’s Smallest Violin,” but we think it’s time for something more upbeat. [Simone Giertz] of Punch Through Design has created a
mini electric ukulele
using a
LightBlue Bean
. The Bean is an Arduino-compatible microcontroller that you can wirelessly program using Bluetooth low energy (BLE).
The ukulele’s frame is made of laser-cut plywood. Four 1M ohm resistors are soldered to individual wire strings. A different set of wire strings in the ukulele’s neck are connected to the same ground as the Bean. In order to play this tiny instrument, a finger must be kept on the “ground” strings while the other “tone” strings are touched by a different finger. [Simone] uses Arduino’s
Capacitive Sensing Library
to determine which string is being touched and what the tone will be (indicated in Hz). A piezo buzzer provides the sound. There is no need to fret when the battery is depleted from using this at an all-night luau: the frame can be unscrewed with easy access to the battery. [Simone] has uploaded the Bean’s code to
GitHub
.
There’s no shame going solo, but we’d enjoy a show of dueling mini-ukuleles. A duet with the
3D-printed ukulele
is always a possibility. Or, play this little guy while running up and down some
piano stairs
while the
kettle fife
blows off some steam. It’ll be a musical way to brighten anyone’s day. Check out the video of the mini ukelele after the break. You can also see more of [Simone’s] work at her
website
.
[via Instructables] | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "2093942",
"author": "Waterjet",
"timestamp": "2014-11-06T03:03:03",
"content": "Maybe consider incorporating this:http://www.disneyresearch.com/project/botanicus-interacticus-interactive-plant-technology/instead of the resistor based sensors so you could determine where you were tou... | 1,760,376,014.07742 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/05/free-seminardiscussion-panel-in-nyc-nov-13-how-the-age-of-machine-consciousness-is-transforming-our-lives/ | Next Week In NYC: How The Age Of Machine Consciousness Is Transforming Our Lives | Gregory L. Charvat | [
"cons"
] | [
"ai",
"conference",
"Consciousness",
"event",
"machine vision",
"panel"
] | I’ve developed or have been involved with a number of imaging technologies, everything from
DIY synthetic aperture radar
, the
MIT thru-wall radar
, to the
next generation of ultrasound imaging
devices. Imagery is cool, but what the end-user often wants is some way by which to get an answer as opposed to viewing a reconstruction. So let’s figure that out.
We’re kicking-off a discussion on how to apply deep learning to more than just beating
Jeopardy
champions at their own game. We’d like to apply deep learning to hard data, to imagery. Is it possible to get the computer to accurately provide the diagnosis?
I helped to organize a seminar series/discussion panel in New York City on November 13th (you know, for those readers who are
closer to New York than to Munich
). This discussion panel includes
David Ferrucci
(the guy who lead the IBM Watson program), MIT Astrophysicist
Max Tagmark
, and the person who created genetic sequencing on a chip:
Jonathan Rothberg
. As the vanguard of creativity and enthusiasm in everything technical we’d like the Hackaday community to join the conversation.
“How the Age of Machine Consciousness is Transforming Our Lives”
Date and Time: Thursday, November 13, 2014, 7:00-9:00 PM
Location:
Trump SoHo (SoHo Ballroom), 246 Spring Street , New York, NY
All good meetings are fueled by food and drink, so be sure to join the cocktail reception in the SoHi room that will follow the panel discussion. From here you have an opportunity to meet and discuss one-on-one with our expert panel.
Panel includes:
David Ferrucci
Also known as the IBM Watson guy, [David] is the Former VP of Watson Technologies who led development of the AI system that beat Jeopardy’s best.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G2H3DZ8rNc
Max Tegmark
An MIT professor and author of “The Mathematical Universe” and “Consciousness as a State of Matter.” In addition to this, Max is often on PBS Nova.
Jonathan Rothberg
Inventor of high speed DNA sequencing. His latest venture,
4Combinator
, aspires to transform medicine by integrating devices, deep learning and cloud computing.
I will also be there and available to talk. This is a free event but it is filling up fast, please be sure to register to reserve a seat:
https://4combinator- speaker-series.eventbrite.com
See you soon! | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "2093449",
"author": "hardcorefs",
"timestamp": "2014-11-06T00:37:24",
"content": "I would say yes it is possible, but what is the point?You spend massive amounts of resources developing a system that tells you ( with let’s say 99% accuracy)something is wrong with.( based off an in... | 1,760,376,014.125412 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/05/light-up-component-bins-and-a-manual-pick-and-place/ | Light Up Component Bins And A Manual Pick And Place | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"ondes",
"ondes martenot"
] | [Mike] makes some very niche musical instruments, and the production volume he’s looking at means there isn’t a need to farm out his assembly. This means doing everything by hand, including the annoying task of picking resistors and other components out of bins. After searching for a way to speed up his assembly process,
he came up with the Stuffomatic
, a device that locates the correct component at the press of a button.
The normal way of grabbing a part when assembling is reading the reference on the board, cross referencing the value on the BOM, and digging the correct part out of the bin. To speed this up, [Mike] put LEDs in each of the part bins, connected to a Teensy 2.0 that has the BOM stored in memory. Clicking a foot switch looks up the next component and lights up the LED in the associated part bin.
[Mike] says this invention has speeded up his assembly time by about 30%, a significant amount if you’re looking at hours to assemble one unit.
If you’re wondering exactly what [Mike] is assembling,
check this out
. It’s heavily inspired by the Ondes Martenot, an electronic musical instrument that’s about as old as the theremin, but a million times cooler. Video sample below. | 28 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "2092866",
"author": "Default",
"timestamp": "2014-11-05T21:17:34",
"content": "Nice. What method did he use to gain more pins? Shift register?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2093165",
"author": "RoyTheReaper",
... | 1,760,376,014.18591 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/05/a-development-board-for-the-esp8266/ | A Development Board For The ESP8266 | Brian Benchoff | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"dev board",
"ESP module",
"ESP8266",
"wifi"
] | [Necromant] is ready to dip his toes into the world of firmware development for everyone’s favorite WiFi chip, the ESP8266. Before that begins, it would be a good idea to make a nifty little breakout board for this chip.
Here it is
, a board with a USB to UART converter with board art that’s compatible with a toner transfer process.
Since this is just a board that turns USB into something the ESP8266 can understand, the most reasonable course of action would be to throw an FTDI chip in there and call it a day.
We wouldn’t suggest that
. Instead, [necromant] is using a
Prolific PL2303HX
. The RTS/DTR pins on the serial chip aren’t used, but only because the ESP8266 forums haven’t yet decided on how to connect them to the WiFi chip. GPIOs on the Prolific are broken out for some other projects [necromant] has in mind, with a userspace driver to make everything work.
[Necromant]
is the creator of Antares
, a build system for microcontrollers and a Hackaday Prize entry. He intends to make his build system compatible with this WiFi chip, just as soon as everyone else figures out an easy way to make it work. | 44 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "2092296",
"author": "Rick Downer",
"timestamp": "2014-11-05T18:22:03",
"content": "There’s no problem using an FTDI chip. There is a problem using a counterfeit FTDI chip.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2092324",
"aut... | 1,760,376,014.317455 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/05/hackaday-prize-finalist-a-portablesdr/ | Hackaday Prize Finalist: A Portable SDR | Brian Benchoff | [
"Featured",
"Interviews",
"Slider",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"Hackaday Prize",
"interview",
"PortableSDR",
"sdr",
"software-defined radio",
"the hackaday prize",
"uhf",
"VHF"
] | No other project to make it to The Hackaday Prize has people throwing money at their computer screen hoping something would happen than
[Michael Colton]’s PortableSDR
. It’s a software defined radio designed for coverage up to 30MHz. Amateur radio operators across the world are interested in this project, going so far as to call this the first Baofeng UV-5R killer. That’s
extremely
high praise.
[Michael] was kind enough to sit down and answer a few questions about how his entry to The Hackaday Prize has gone. You can check that out below, along with the final round video of the project. Anyone who wants their own PortableSDR could really help [Michael] out
by taking this survey
.
What was the inspiration for this? Was it just a desire to build
the radio you wanted, and doing something with SDR, or was it
something deeper?
It wasn’t really a single moment of inspiration and I don’t know that it was that deep. It evolved. I first learned about SDR radios reading
this article by Gerald Youngblood
. I was blown away that such a thing existed! A radio that could basically do anything!? I wanted to have one, but couldn’t afford it, I’d need to build my own. So I reread the articles several times and studied the schematics until I pretty much understood how every part worked. He didn’t supply a Bill of Materials, so I reconstructed one. I didn’t know how to layout PCBs back then either, so I started learning Eagle a little. But life got busy, other things came up and I never recreated his radio. As I improved in skill, and in particular got better at working with microcontrollers, I started to think that I could simplify some of his design (he’s got a whole board of shift registers to allow a PC parallel port to control everything). About a year ago I got into ARM chips that had raw power, built in DACs, and DSP libraries! I started to think that one of these chips could do it all. So now I could take out the computer, and if I could do that, I could make it portable, and suddenly it was even more appealing to me than it had been to begin with! Combine all that with my interest in ultralight backpacking and in ergonomics, and that’s how the concept of the PortableSDR was formed.
By this point, I had developed
some degree of skill at PCB layout
and started making progress on the design. I hadn’t done much yet
when I saw this
and part of me said, “I’ve been wanting to do this for years and he just knocks something this cool out in a few days!? I’ll show him!” I actually emailed back and forth with Rich for a while. Then the Hackaday Prize was announced and I officially had the kick in the butt I needed to get something made. As much as I dislike deadlines, it really helped. With the PSDR1 there was a time where I decided a “PCB must be made, nothing else gets to be included in this version.” Same happened with the PSDR2, “this is all I get, everything else will have to be in the next one.” It forced me to build something instead of endlessly debating whether this part or that was going to work exactly right. It also helped justify spending a little money I had been saving.
You have a GPS module, and doing CTRL+F 'APRS' reveals nothing on
your project logs. What's the timeline for that?
You’re right, not much has been done with the GPS yet. It wasn’t included APRS initially, it was to get accurate time for lower power digital transmission modes like JT65. I didn’t know there was such a thing as HF APRS. The idea of using it for emergency location came later as well. I’ve used this module in another project before, so I’m not worried about making it work, but getting other features working seemed like a higher priority, so the GPS stuff has been on a back burner. I have the TinyGPS library more ore less ported over though. I’ll probably have time and location working pretty soon. Now, writing code to encode and decode these modes is a ways off and beyond my current comfort level. I’ll get there, but given the hugely positive response I’m getting from the community, I think someone may beat me to it. I need to get more hardware out there.
A number of people have called the PortableSDR the first Baofeng UV-R5
killer, a very impressive compliment given that's everyone's go-bag
apocalypse radio. You're producing kits, but are there any plans to move
to full-scale manufacturing? Is that going to require a redesign, or are
you been designing for manufacturing the whole time?
Wow! That’s high praise indeed! One of the great things about the Baofeng radios is the cost, how can you not buy one! I certainly wont be able to compete in that regard. On the other hand, in a real apocalypse (I’ve heard Utah is one of the likely starting points for the zombie apocalypse, BTW) I think the range of an HF radio like the PortableSDR is going to be more useful and its handy display will make finding signals from the few scattered survivors easier. Speaking of which, I wanted this thing to be tough, for backpacking, but also because I don’t like throw-away electronics. I want the PortableSDR to be something that holds up and works well for years, which it may have to, after the complete collapse of society.
I actually haven’t really started selling kits yet. I sent all of the PSDR1 boards to eager followers of my project. At least two of which have been built up (thanks John Laur and Nricciar)! I plan on doing the same with the extra PSDR2 boards, but haven’t gotten to it. I’m going to put up a poll up on my project page. I want to know how many people want kits vs. assembled units. How many want the housing? In metal or plastic? If I do kits, are people really comfortable soldering some of these parts? A few have asked for a kit with the hard parts installed, fair enough. How many people want the PSDR2 as it is, and how many would wait for the PSDR3 (it might be a while)? I can pretty much start doing kits immediately (and plan on it, probably in the next week or two) but assembled boards and housings are going to be much more work. I did design the board and housing for manufacture, most of my design experience is from work, so it’s a habit, but I’ve never been the one that made the manufacturing happen, selected the assembly house, etc. It’s daunting. Also, it seems like 100 unit minimum orders are the norm (at least where I am looking. Hey Hackaday Hive Mind, any recommendations?!) so it might cost me $20-30,000 to start the first production run of the PSDR, and that’s not including the housing or FCC certification! I think I’ll put together a Kickstarter so I can see if there is sufficient demand to cover the costs. I would love to see these out in the wild! I really want to see if people will get involved and help make it amazing, like I think it has the potential to be. This whole process is scary, but exciting!
Hypothetical, and we’re not going to hold you to whatever answer you give.
You win the grand prize, a trip to space or about $200,000 USD. Which one
to you take, and what is your reasoning for doing so?
A question I’ve given much though to, despite my efforts not to think about it. I would truly love to go to space, and it would break my heart to pass on the opportunity, but the money would have a larger and more lasting effect on my life and family. Most of it would go to boring stuff, taxes (I think people forget or don’t know that taxes are collected on prizes! Though I did see that the space trip has some allowance for that, which is awesome and generous!), tithing, mortgage, savings, etc.
A good portion would go toward continued development (lab toys!) and production of the PSDR. Also, I think I’d take my wife to Japan and Taiwan. It’s weird, but I have a list of possible things I would spend it on, sorted by priority with pros and cons.
If it were orbital, would that make a difference? I’ve thought about that too. I have to admit, a week on the ISS, for example, might be more tempting than I could bear. But then again, someone commented that getting to and staying on the ISS would cost something like $50M. In that case, I’d still have to take the money!
Anything else?
I’ve got some stiff competition! I’ve been following the other four and I really like them all! As I watched their videos, I couldn’t help but be conflicted, I hope I’m the one who wins, but their stuff is awesome! They have all worked hard, done amazing work, and any one of them deserves to win. I’m really grateful to Hackaday and the Evil Overloads for putting this on, it’s spurred on some amazing projects and has been a ton of fun. I hope Hackaday continues to feature other projects that came out of the competition. And thanks to everyone that’s been so encouraging of my project, on my blog, youtube, reddit, even some other blogs! It’s helped me stay motivated and excited through this whole process! I’ll make cool stuff for you! | 74 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "2091731",
"author": "Nick Leijenhorst",
"timestamp": "2014-11-05T15:30:50",
"content": "The enclosure looks beautiful! And the TFT screen is great too. I’ve used it before, but drawing animations was impossible with the slow arduino SPI speed…. This looks smooth though! And I just h... | 1,760,376,014.43218 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/05/reinventing-the-wheel-makes-for-a-better-wheel/ | Reinventing The Wheel Makes For A Better Wheel… | Sarah Petkus | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed prototype",
"carter hurd",
"robot wheels",
"transforming wheels"
] | When robots take over the earth, it will be important that they maneuver across various types of terrain quickly and effectively. Bipedal motion is a tricky feat to accomplish for machines, so [Carter Hurd] decided, why not invent a better wheel? Even wheels can be improved, right?
Making excellent use of the prototyping capabilities of a 3D printer, [Carter] designed a set of bulb-shaped mechanisms which act effectively to drive themselves around on a smooth surface. The bulb is split radially into a series of wedge slices which can articulate outward, transforming the robot into something of a spiky razor-beast, able to tear through piles of fall leaves or wakes of loose sand. In order to unfurl itself however, the shaft driving the central mounting plate of the wedges has to fight the robot’s own weight. To solves this, [Carter] modified his design so that the rest of the wedges would unfold around the one supporting the load, the wheels would then rotate to shift the weight, allowing the last piece to extend.
[Carter] shows a
proof of concept
from earlier this year, explaining his hinge design which stretches a tendon-like connector in order to tension the wedges in one state or the other. Since then it looks like his transforming wheel has evolved a bit. You can get a better view of his robot in action here : | 40 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "2090795",
"author": "Nick Leijenhorst",
"timestamp": "2014-11-05T12:03:09",
"content": "I guess you could say, he really reinvented the wheel here…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2090841",
"author": "Shannon",
"timestam... | 1,760,376,014.617544 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/05/atari-video-game-burial-hits-ebay/ | Atari Video Game Burial Hits Ebay | Brian Benchoff | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"2600",
"archeology",
"atari",
"atari 2600",
"e.t."
] | 1983 was the year of the great video game crash, and after the chiefs of Atari realized they had produced more copies of
Pac-Man
than consoles sold, these games, along with other ‘treasures’ were loaded into trucks, shipped out to the desert, and buried in a New Mexico landfill. Last year, these consoles were rescued. Now, thanks to the efforts of the Tularosa Basin Historical Society,
these cartridges are for sale again
.
Want to grab your own copy of E.T., Asteroids, Star Raiders, or Centipede rescued from a landfill in a desert?
Here’s a link to the seller on eBay
, with the highest auction being E.T., in box, going for $400
with nine days left
. The auction comes with a certificate of authenticity from the city of Alamogordo.
This is only the first batch of cartridges and boxes rescued from the dump, with the Tularosa Basin Historical Society putting at least another 700 items up for sale if this batch goes well.
With the rousing success of this bit of dumpster diving, we must point out another techno-archeological myth/legend:
there are several thousand Apple Lisas in a Utah landfill
, just waiting for someone to come in and pick through the remnants of an Apple tax writeoff. | 47 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "2090281",
"author": "nyder",
"timestamp": "2014-11-05T09:57:55",
"content": "One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2090285",
"author": "nyder",
"timestamp": "2014-11-05T09:58... | 1,760,376,014.696377 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/04/ultra-powerful-pneumatic-hand-dryer/ | Ultra-powerful Pneumatic Hand Dryer | Ethan Zonca | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"aluminium",
"compressed air",
"machining"
] | Have you been let down by the inadequate performance of a hand dryer? We know that feel. [tesla500] recently installed a centralized compressed air system and decided he might as well do something interesting it, so he built an
ultra-powerful hand dryer
that rivals the performance of any hand dryer on the market.
[tesla500] set out to make a clone of the Dyson Airblade. He started out with a simple prototype out of milled aluminum with one nozzle. Even with just one nozzle the hand dryer performed incredibly well. Next he designed a Solidworks model with a smaller nozzle gap (50um) and 4 total nozzles which has even better performance and emulates the airflow of the Airblade.
The dryer was originally controlled with a foot-activated pneumatic valve, but it severely restricted airflow. [tesla500] decided to use a 3/8″ solenoid valve instead, which solved the airflow restriction. According to [tesla500], the dryer works even better than the Airblade when running at full pressure, although he notes that you might need to watch out if you have any open wounds on your hands. | 34 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "2089414",
"author": "Mike Lu",
"timestamp": "2014-11-05T06:13:46",
"content": "Now to scale it up for drying off your whole body. Probably would be too cold to use during winter, but quite enjoyable during summer.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,014.933925 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/04/using-a-headphone-jack-as-a-uart/ | Using A Headphone Jack As A UART | Brian Benchoff | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"audio",
"audio port",
"Espruino",
"Espruino Pico",
"headphone",
"javascript",
"uart"
] | We’ve seen audio ports being used to establish a communications channel between a computer and a microcontroller before,
but nothing quite as slick as this
. [Gordon] is using a webpage running on a tablet to send Javascript to a microcontroller where the entire program is interpreted.
[Gordon] is using the Espruino Pico, a board
that’s on Kickstarter right now
. This tiny board is built around a javascript interpreter, allowing code to be written and updated on the fly without mucking around with bootloaders.
This technique can be expanded to provide bidriectional communication between a microcontroller and a computer.
On the project Github
, [Gordon] used the microphone pin on a TRRS jack to sent data to a computer. It needs two more resistors, but other than that, it’s as simple as the one-way communications setup.
[Gordon] put together a few demos of the program, including one that will change the color of some RGB LEDs in response to input on a webpage. | 38 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "2089335",
"author": "asfwer",
"timestamp": "2014-11-05T05:51:44",
"content": "Nothing as slick as this? This is old as fuck",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2089475",
"author": "F",
"timestamp": "2014-11-05T06:3... | 1,760,376,015.082587 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/04/sdr-satellite-death-receiver/ | SDR: Satellite Death Receiver | Kristina Panos | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"dead satellites",
"QFH antenna",
"RTL-SDR",
"satellite",
"sdr",
"sdrsharp",
"weather satellites"
] | Halloween may be over, but [happysat] has found
a way to listen to the dead
. Satellites, that is, specifically those in the 136-138 MHz and 150-400 MHz ranges. He’s using an RTL-SDR dongle and a QFH antenna to detect the death throes of decommissioned navigation and space research satellites.
[happysat] was listening to NOAA/Meteor on the 137MHz band when he made this discovery. When a satellite is near end of life, the last bit of fuel is used to push it into graveyard orbit. This doesn’t always work, however, and when the light is just right, a chemical reaction makes the long-dead batteries conduct and these satellites in purgatory transmit once more.
They’re not sending out anything
proprietary
useful, just unmodulated carrier that sometimes interferes with currently operational satellites on the 136-138 MHz band. [happysat] captured some audio from two of the oldest satellites that are still broadcasting, and links to a
TLE set
of dead satellites he created. Check out his
frequency database
for SDR# as well. Don’t have a weather satellite-capable antenna?
Build
one
!
[via
/r/RTLSDR
] | 18 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "2088146",
"author": "taylor",
"timestamp": "2014-11-05T01:04:05",
"content": "This is cool, gotta admit.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2088234",
"author": "Mr.Wibble",
"timestamp": "2014-11-05T01:26:17",
"content":... | 1,760,376,014.74748 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/04/a-tiny-arcade-machine-with-tinier-buttons/ | A Tiny Arcade Machine With Tinier Buttons | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"3d printing",
"arcade",
"mame",
"miniature",
"raspberry pi",
"shapeways"
] | Building a MAME machine around a Raspberry Pi has been the standard build for years now, and tiny versions of full-sized arcade machines have gone from curiosity to commonplace. [
diygizmo] just built one of these tiny arcades,
but the fit and finish of this one puts it above all others
. There’s a real, miniature joystick in there, along with 3D printed adapters for tact switches to make this one look like a lilliputian version of a full size standup MAME cabinet.
The entire enclosure is 3D printed, and most of the electronics are exactly what you would expect: A Raspberry Pi, 2.5″ LCD, and a battery-powered speaker takes up most of the BOM. Where this build gets interesting is the buttons and joystick: after what we’re sure was a crazy amount of googling, [diygizmo]
found something that looks like a normal arcade joystick
, only smaller. Unable to find a suitable replacement for arcade buttons, [diygizmo] just printed their own, tucked a tact switch behind the plastic, and wired everything up.
Add in some decals, paint, and the same techniques used to create plastic model miniatures, and you have a perfect representation of a miniature arcade machine. | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "2087570",
"author": "preamp",
"timestamp": "2014-11-04T21:34:22",
"content": "Very nicely done!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "2087842",
"author": "the gambler",
"timestamp": "2014-11-04T23:19:59",
"content": "what ... | 1,760,376,014.859784 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/04/retrotechtacular-the-jet-story/ | Retrotechtacular: The Jet Story | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Retrotechtacular"
] | [
"Airacomet",
"F-80 Shooting Star",
"ge",
"jet",
"jet engine",
"lockheed",
"Newton's 3rd law",
"propulsion",
"thrust",
"Whittle"
] | A plane from Britain is met in the US by armed security. The cargo? An experimental engine created by Air Commodore [Frank Whittle], RAF engineer air officer. This engine will be further developed by General Electric under contract to the US government. This is not a Hollywood thriller; it is
the story of the jet engine
.
The idea of jet power started to get off the ground at the turn of the century. Cornell scholar [Sanford Moss]’ gas turbine thesis led him to work for GE and ultimately for the Army. Soon, aircraft were capable of dropping 2,000 lb. bombs from 15,000 feet to cries of ‘you sank my battleship!’, thus passing
[Billy Mitchell]’s famous test
.
The World War II-era US Air Force was extremely interested in turbo engines. Beginning in 1941, about 1,000 men were working on a project that only 1/10 were wise to. During this time, American contributions tweaked [Whittle]’s design, improving among other things the impellers and rotor balancing. This was the dawn of radical change in air power.
Six months after the crate arrived and the contracts were signed, GE let ‘er rip in the secret testing chamber. Elsewhere at the Bell Aircraft Corporation, top men had been working concurrently on
the Airacomet
, which was the first American jet-powered plane ever to take to the skies.
In the name of national defense, GE gave their plans to other manufacturers like Allison to encourage widespread growth. Lockheed’s
F-80 Shooting Star
, the first operational jet fighter, flew in June 1944 under the power of an Allison J-33 with a remarkable 4,000 pounds of thrust.
GE started a school for future jet engineers and technicians with the primary lesson being the principles of propulsion. The jet engine developed rapidly from this point on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tufl2UdTsso
[Thank you to Hernandi for sending this in]
Retrotechtacular is a weekly column featuring hacks, technology, and kitsch from ages of yore. Help keep it fresh by
sending in your ideas for future installments
. | 31 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "2086730",
"author": "Lee Gleason",
"timestamp": "2014-11-04T17:06:56",
"content": "The F80 the first operational jet fighter? I think the ME262 would like a word with you…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2086794",
"aut... | 1,760,376,014.815256 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/04/developed-on-hackaday-crowdfunding-campaign-start/ | Developed On Hackaday: Crowd- Funding Campaign Start! | Mathieu Stephan | [
"Crowd Funding",
"Featured",
"Slider"
] | [
"crowdfunding",
"developed on hackaday",
"limpkin",
"mooltipass",
"password keeper"
] | For a little less than a year open source enthusiasts from all over the globe got together to work on an open source offline password keeper. We narrated our progress here on Hackaday and always asked our readers’ opinion when critical decisions were to be made.
Today, the wait is finally over: the
Mooltipass crowdfunding campaign finally arrived
.
In some of our
Developed on Hackaday series posts
we noticed that it was tricky for us to convey the benefits of the device we were developing. The first 3 minutes of our video therefore explain good security practices and how the Mooltipass can help users with their credentials security. For our readers that may not have followed our adventure since its beginning, the campaign’s text will provide them with a simple (yet detailed) explanation of what the Mooltipass can do. Finally, our geeky readers will find at the end of our write-up a few links supporting our claims. We would have liked offering cheaper pledges but we unfortunately need to hire professional javascript developers to finish our app & extension.
Our Mooltipass Developed on Hackaday series therefore come to an end. We would like to thank you for your support and hope that you enjoyed seeing an idea materialize into a crowdfunding-ready product! | 47 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "2086306",
"author": "StinkySteve",
"timestamp": "2014-11-04T15:18:32",
"content": "It says it works on ‘all platforms and devices’ but that’s not really true. One big one that comes to mind instantly it iOS devices.Could you not add bluetooth so that it could work with the iPhone/iP... | 1,760,376,015.011741 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/04/controlling-a-block-camera-with-an-rc-transmitter/ | Controlling A Block Camera With An RC Transmitter | Brian Benchoff | [
"drone hacks",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"block camera",
"FPV",
"PTZ camera",
"remote control",
"VISCA",
"VISCA protocol"
] | The world of drones and FPV remote-controlled aircraft is rapidly expanding, airframes are getting bigger, and the demand for even cooler AV gear is higher than ever. [elad] got his hands on a Sony block camera that is able to zoom in on a scene – great if you want to get close to the action while still flying a safe distance away. Controlling the zoom on these cameras is usually done through RS232,
but [elad] made it work with an RC transmitter
.
The camera [elad] is using is a
Sony FCB-EX11D block camera
with a standard SD resolution sensor. This camera has 10x optical zoom, making it a great solution to aerial surveillance, the only problem being the RS232 connection and
the VISCA protocol
. [elad] used an Arduino to listen in on the elevator channel from an RC receiver, translating that to something the camera will understand. The result is a controllable zoom on a camera that could easily take to the skies.
The entire camera package, with Arduino and electronics included, weighs in at about 100 grams. That’s about the same as a GoPro, and would fit perfectly on a camera gimbal. The only problem is getting a transmitter with enough channels or someone else to operate the camera while flying. Video below. | 19 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "2085772",
"author": "frazzledbadger01",
"timestamp": "2014-11-04T12:53:59",
"content": "Those cameras are HD……",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2087676",
"author": "Aaron Kafton (@ClovenLife)",
"timestamp": "201... | 1,760,376,015.138424 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/04/a-custom-control-surface-for-audiovideo-editing/ | A Custom Control Surface For Audio/Video Editing | Ethan Zonca | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"DAW",
"midi",
"midi controller"
] | Control surfaces (input devices with sliders, encoders, buttons, etc) are often used in audio and video editing, where they provide an easy way to control editing software. Unfortunately even small control surfaces are fairly expensive. To avoid shelling out for a commercial control surface, [Victor] developed
his own custom control surface
that sends standard MIDI commands which can be interpreted by nearly any DAW software.
[Victor]’s control surface includes several buttons, a display, and a rotary encoder. His firmware sends MIDI commands whenever a button is pressed or the rotary encoder is turned. [Victor] plans on adding menu functionality to the currently unused LCD display which will allow the user to change the scrubbing speed and other various settings.
One advantage of making your own control surface is that you can customize it to your own needs. [Victor] has posted a model of his
3d-printed enclosure
and his source code on the project page so you can easily modify his design with any button configuration you might want. | 19 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "2085524",
"author": "George Graves",
"timestamp": "2014-11-04T11:32:36",
"content": "I’ll be amazed if you get this fully working with AVID software (pro tools, media composer) – Their protocol isn’t documented anywhere. Rats – why the HAD projects don’t show all your work??? – do y... | 1,760,376,015.190543 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/03/checking-email-with-the-esp8266/ | Checking Email With The ESP8266 | Brian Benchoff | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"ByPIC",
"email",
"ESP8266",
"imap",
"pic"
] | Ever so slowly, everyone’s favorite WiFi adapter is making its way into Internet-enabled projects. [jimeer01] created a device that reads the subject and sender lines from the latest email in his inbox
and displays it on an LCD using the ESP8266 WiFi chip
.
[jimeer] is using
a ByPic
for writing to the LCD and querying an inbox through an ESP8266 module. The ByPic is a board built around the BV_Basic firmware, stuffing a PIC microcontroller in an Arduino form factor and giving it a BASIC interpreter. Because this board isn’t ‘compile and flash’ like an Arduino, it’s perfectly suited for changing WiFi configurations and IMAP server credentials on the fly.
The device grabs the latest email in an inbox and displays the date, sender, and subject on the display. After scrolling through those lines, the PIC hits the ESP8266 to query the server again, grabbing the latest email, and repeating the whole process again, all without needing to connect the device to a computer. Video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPpyCoBJOzM | 29 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "2084039",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2014-11-04T06:56:31",
"content": "It’s a shame the module doesn’t have more of the GPIO pins broken out. As it stands to do almost anything useful with that particular module you need to have an external microcontroller doing all of the... | 1,760,376,015.275039 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/03/low-voltage-tube-amp-is-great-for-beginners/ | Low-Voltage Tube Amp Is Great For Beginners | Ethan Zonca | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"tube amplifier",
"vacuum tube audio",
"vacuum tubes"
] | If you ever wanted to build your own tube amplifier but you were intimidated by working with high voltages, [Marcel]’s
low-voltage tube amp design
might spark your interest. The design operates with a B+ (plate) voltage of only 40v, making it less intimidating and dangerous than many other amps that operate over 300V. It’s also incredibly easy to build—the whole design uses only 11 components.
The amplifier is designed around the ECL82 tube, which includes both a triode and a pentode in one package. The ECL82 is practically an amplifier in a tube: it was designed for low-cost electronics like record players that needed to be as simple as possible. The triode in the ECL82 is used as a pre-amplifier for the incoming signal. The pentode is controlled with the pre-amplified signal and acts as a power amplifier.
[Marcel]’s amplifier also uses a PY88 tube rectifier instead of semiconductor diodes, making it an entirely silicon-free design. Although [Marcel] hasn’t posted up detailed build instructions yet, his
simple schematic
should be all you need to get started. If you want some more background information about tube amps but you don’t know where to start, check out our
post on basic tube amp design
from earlier this year. | 39 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "2083466",
"author": "Mac",
"timestamp": "2014-11-04T03:59:59",
"content": "This amplifier certainly isn’t silicon free. I’m sure those hollow-state devices have glass envelopes to hold the vacuum. The last I heard, glass in made with silicon. ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth":... | 1,760,376,015.374319 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/03/stereo-vision-and-depth-mapping-with-two-raspi-camera-modules/ | Stereo Vision And Depth Mapping With Two Raspi Camera Modules | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"camera serial interface",
"csi",
"depth mapping",
"gpu",
"Kinect",
"parallax",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspi",
"videocore"
] | The Raspberry Pi has a port for a camera connector, allowing it to capture 1080p video and stream it to a network without having to deal with the craziness of webcams and the improbability of capturing 1080p video over USB. The Raspberry Pi compute module is a little more advanced; it breaks out
two
camera connectors, theoretically giving the Raspberry Pi stereo vision and depth mapping. [David Barker]
put a compute module and two cameras together
making this build a reality.
The use of stereo vision for computer vision and robotics research has been around much longer than other methods of depth mapping like a repurposed Kinect, but so far the hardware to do this has been a little hard to come by. You need two cameras, obviously, but the software techniques are well understood in the relevant literature.
[David] connected two cameras to a Pi compute module and implemented three different versions of the software techniques: one in Python and NumPy, running on an 3GHz x86 box, a version in C, running on x86 and the Pi’s ARM core, and another in assembler for the VideoCore on the Pi. Assembly is the way to go here – on the x86 platform, Python could do the parallax computations in 63 seconds, and C could manage it in 56 milliseconds. On the Pi, C took 1 second, and the VideoCore took 90 milliseconds. This translates to a frame rate of about 12FPS on the Pi, more than enough for some very, very interesting robotics work.
There are some better pictures of what this setup can do
over on the Raspi blog
. We couldn’t find a link to the software that made this possible, so if anyone has a link, drop it in the comments. | 16 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "2082627",
"author": "Problemchild",
"timestamp": "2014-11-04T00:37:46",
"content": "Nice to see they’ve actually got both Cameras running. The 2nd Cam input was totally useless until now. It’s a nice demo but the time to process the image is really impractical.",
"parent_id": nu... | 1,760,376,015.424804 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/03/hackadays-48-hour-tokyo-speedrun/ | Hackaday’s 48-Hour Tokyo Speedrun | Aleksandar Bradic | [
"Featured"
] | [
"Akiba",
"akihabara",
"openpcr",
"tokyo",
"tour"
] | “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed,” goes the clichéd [William Gibson] quote. Growing up on all the Cyberpunk literature and spending a more-than-healthy amount of time obsessing over [Fred Gallagher’s]
Megatokyo
series, I always imagined Japan to be at the very tail of this distribution. The place where the Future lives. Though it has been decades since the Bubble burst, and there’s no way this could still be the case, there was something romantic about believing it just might be. Thus, I opted for keeping the dream alive and never actually visited the place.
Not until a few weeks ago — [Bilke], one of our crazy sysadmin guys that keeps Hackaday.io alive, made me do it. He found these cheap tickets from LA, and the next thing you know – we were flying out for a 48-hours-in-Tokyo weekend.
With no time to prepare, we reached out to [Akiba] from Freaklabs and [Emery] from Tokyo Hackerspace for some tips. By the time we landed, emails were waiting for us, with our full schedule completely worked out. It’s great to know that no matter where you are, there’s always a friendly local hacker willing to help.
Past the immigration, we took the JR Narita Express line into to the City that Friday evening. From there we grabbed a taxi because we couldn’t understand a word in
katakana
but then we hopped the JR Yamanote Metro line once we had figured things out. We checked out all the major places we had ever heard of (Shinjuku, Shibuya, Roppongi, Ginza…) because the jet lag was not letting us sleep anyway.
Sometime way past midnight, it hit me – Future Shock. But this was the kind I never expected…
It’s as if you were hoping to land somewhere on the opening pages of
Neuromancer
, but ended up in the middle of a Studio Ghibli movie instead. While all the neon and tech gimmicks seemed to be there, the future they’re portraying feels strangely anachronistic — like a dream from the distant past. Something straight off Nintendo or Sega Corp drafting tables from the mid-80s and decades later, still showing no signs of decay. Everything is perfectly tight, clean, well-preserved, and smiling with a distinct Kawaii touch. A retro futuristic utopia.
It’s certainly not what I had hoped for, but the whole thing quickly grew on me. I began to feel at home…
Akihabara
The next day, we got on the Metro and went straight to a place we intentionally skipped the night before – Akihabara Electric Town. There we met with [Emery], [Taylan], [James], [Shingo] and [Mariko] from Tokyo Hackerspace and they gave us the grand tour. It was spectacular.
The place is a sort of Geek Wonderland where every corner hides a place you never came looking for but can’t resist getting in. You might come to Akihabara searching for electronic components for your latest project but leave as Train Otaku, 1998 Sega Dreamcast owner with a bag full of games, or falling in love with yet another obscure Manga, which will end up consuming a better part of your life.
Cosplay characters are roaming the streets and
moe
girls are advertising all sorts of maid cafes. Electronics are everywhere, across a large number of small places, each with a slightly different focus. One of the shops we came into was specializing in electronic components and books about the occult!? Cthulhu loves the smell of burning silicon.
Hopefully, our
video
with the amazing Tokyo Hackerspace crew will give you a better sense of what it is like to be a hacker living in a place like this.
Shingo & Mariko’s Home Studio
Having spent most of the day navigating the Akihabara maze and feeling depleted by all the sensory overload, we were more than excited when [Shingo] and [Mariko] invited us to visit their home studio for some downtime and beers. It’s located in Akihabara, walking distance from all the main attractions, and it’s a hacker’s dream. The apartment doubles as a mini fabrication lab, with husband-and-wife science-geek team relentlessly working on new projects and ideas.
We already knew about [Shingo’s]
Levistone
box, but the place was packed with a history of hacks… from his early aerospace work, to more conventional projects such as random Arduino shields, all the way to his latest DNA Amplifier hardware project based on
OpenPCR
. They’re incredibly friendly, and their place is always open for local hackers in need of some fab gear.
Tokyo Hackerspace
The last stop for the day was
Tokyo Hackerspace
. It was late Saturday night, and the place was closed, but we still wanted to take a glimpse. So we hopped on the JR line to Nogizaka station with [Taylan] and [James], and they opened it up for us. It’s located in the middle of a residential neighborhood in Central Tokyo and given the rental prices and a relatively small hacker community, it’s a pure miracle such a thing exists in the first place.
We quickly recognized the famous
membership fee/donation machine
and had some fun with it. Our favorite piece of gear was a cool laser cutter obtained as a stretch goal for their
Indiegogo campaign
. Our favorite project was a
Kit Vending Machine
– an old cigarette machine converted into a kit and project dispenser.
Regular, weekly “Open House” meetings are on Tuesday evenings, so if you plan on visiting, that’s the time to be here.
3331 Arts Chiyoda
Sunday came quickly, but we still had a bit more time on our hands, so we picked another item from [Akiba]’s list –
3331 Arts Chiyoda
and hit the JR to Yushima station. It was totally worth the trip.
3331 is an abandoned school converted into a “creative” space that “brings together cutting edge art with the familiar everyday.” Rarely would you find such a diverse mix of interesting things in a single location. On the first floor, we attended what turned out to be a theatre play for children (in Japanese, of course), resembling
the real-life rendering of Dragon Ball Z. Right next to it was a big contemporary art exhibition featuring an interesting installation art piece, controlled by relays triggered by the vision module processing a revolving sheet of paper with Enso-style drawings on it. On the same floor, a massive Dream House-style sound art installation called “DJ John Cage.”
The third-floor hides a cool little place called “
Soldering Café
,
” an open space where people interested in electronics can share tools and work on their projects. It’s also a great place for hackers to meet and collaborate with all the crazy artists who are roaming the halls of 3331. Next to it is the SoftBank Robotics Corp. Workshop, where developers can have endless hours of fun, writing the control code for SoftBank’s humanoid robots.
In the basement, a long line of Anime Otaku, patiently waiting to enter the
Sakka Zakka
new artist showcase.
Club Mogra
The clock was ticking, and it was almost time for us to leave, but I felt bad we didn’t get a chance to sample the famous Akihabara nightlife. [Akiba] recommended checking out
Club Mogra
, supposedly an electronica/chiptunes otaku/nerd culture central, but we were supposed to leave the town that night, and there was no way we could make it happen. Still, I looked up the club’s website, and it turned out there was a show starting at 3PM. I couldn’t fathom what kind of party starts that early, but we decided to check it out anyway.
Sometime around 4PM, we reached the location. An unassuming little entrance with nothing more than a door with a “Mogra” sticker on it and a security guard. Not expecting much, we got in and went downstairs to the basement. At the end of the staircase was a girl in a manga cosplay costume. She smiled and opened the door for us.
I was blown away.
The place was packed. DJs were playing some sort of chiptune/jungle with anime theme songs layered on top, and everyone was dancing and partying like crazy. The walls were covered with projections of 8-bit intros and random anime footage. I saw a Ghost in the Shell clip whiz by and was completely overtaken by the experience. This, finally, was the kind of dystopian future I was hoping for – Sunday afternoon, deep underground, people dancing into oblivion lamenting over distant 8-bit worlds that never existed.
At 6PM we had run out of time and had to head out, grabbing the Narita Express back to the airport. As the city faded in the background, I realized that even though Tokyo might not seem as futuristic as it once was, it’s something even more unique – a place where future arrived prematurely. And in a unique Japanese way, they have found a way to live with it in harmony.
For a geek building hardware, there’s hardly a better place to be. | 29 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "2082071",
"author": "sjaak",
"timestamp": "2014-11-03T21:46:11",
"content": "Did taykan get a haircut?! :P",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2082548",
"author": "tayken",
"timestamp": "2014-11-04T00:19:00",
... | 1,760,376,015.797187 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/11/03/a-huge-wearable-game-boy-halloween-costume/ | The Tale Of Two Wearable Game Boys | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Holiday Hacks",
"Nintendo Game Boy Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"Arduino DUE",
"costume",
"game boy",
"halloween",
"netbook"
] | We’re well past the time when Halloween costume submissions stop hitting the tip line, but like ever year we’re expecting a few to trickle in until at least Thanksgiving. Remember, kids: documentation is the worst part of any project.
[Troy]
sent us a link to his wearable Game Boy costume
. It’s exactly what you think it is: an old-school brick Game Boy that [Troy] wore around to a few parties last weekend. This one has a twist, though. There’s a laptop in there, making this Game Boy playable.
The build started off as a large cardboard box [Troy] covered with a scaled-up image of everyone’s favorite use of AA batteries. The D-pad and buttons were printed out at a local hackerspace, secured to a piece of plywood, and connected to an Arduino Due. The screen, in all its green and black glory, was taken from an old netbook. It was a widescreen display, but with a bezel around the display the only way to tell it’s not original is from the backlight.
Loaded up with Pokemon Blue, the large-scale Game Boy works like it should, enthralling guests at wherever [Troy] ended up last Friday. It also looks like a rather quick build, and something we could easily put together when we remember it next October 30th.
[Troy] wasn’t the only person with this idea. A few hours before he sent in a link to his wearable Game Boy costume, [Shawn]
sent in his completely unrelated but extremely similar project
. It’s a wearable brick Game Boy, a bit bigger, playing Tetris instead of Pokemon.
[Shawn]’s build uses a cardboard box overlaid with a printout of a scaled-up Game Boy. Again, a laptop serves as the emulator and screen, input is handled by a ‘duino clone, and the buttons are slightly similar, but made out of cardboard.
Both are brilliant builds, adding a huge Game Boy to next year’s list of possible Halloween costume ideas. Videos of both below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0TxI4N_Drw | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "2081630",
"author": "tbjr6",
"timestamp": "2014-11-03T19:31:39",
"content": "Not to be Arduino bashing, but why do they need the Arduino? wouldn’t it be easier and quicker to use an old keyboard?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,376,015.727946 |
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