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https://hackaday.com/2014/09/27/third-person-skydiving/ | Third Person Skydiving | Brian Benchoff | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"camera hacks",
"GoPro",
"skydiving"
] | GoPros were invented for a few reasons, and skydiving is right at the top of that list. You’ll be hard pressed to find a regular skydiver that doesn’t own at least one of the little cameras, and there are a few examples of helmets with three or four GoPros tacked on.
This is an entirely new application
. Yes, you can now film yourself skydiving with a third person view.
[Jason] hacked together this camera rig in an hour by strapping a GoPro on a Nerf Vortex football, tying a length of paracord to the camera mount, and connecting the other end to a hip ring on the parachute harness. It took three flights to get the canopy in the camera’s field of view, but the results are spectacular. It’s a tad bit unstable when turning, but the fins on the Nerf football make for a very, very stable shot.
[Jason] isn’t jumping out of a plane with this contraption already dangling underneath him; the football, camera, and paracord rig isn’t launched until the canopy fully deploys. It’s perfectly safe, but we’ll expect someone to get the idea of strapping a keychain camera to their pilot chute soon. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "1922705",
"author": "michael",
"timestamp": "2014-09-27T11:03:21",
"content": "i dont know what to make of this……it doesnt have 17 arduinos controlling variable surface control planes guided by an infra red transponder worn by the parachutist to guide the camera into the correct fie... | 1,760,376,054.956063 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/28/hackaday-links-september-28-2014/ | Hackaday Links: September 28, 2014 | Brian Benchoff | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"Carbonite",
"copier",
"current standard",
"differential",
"hacking fails",
"Kinect",
"teardown",
"test equipment",
"voltage standard"
] | Kyocera is vastly expanding their product lineup
with the Shop Sink 3530
. The perfect addition to your copiers, fax machines, and laser printers.
About a year and a half ago and with objections from the editorial staff,
we did a Top 10 hacking fails in movies and TV post
. The number one fail is, “Stupid crime shows like NCIS, CSI, and Bones.” A new show on CBS
just topped this list
. It’s named Scorpion, and
wow.
Dropping a Cat5 cable from an airplane doing an almost-touch-and-go because something is wrong with the computers in the tower.
Four million adults age 18-49 watched this.
[Derek] found something that really looks like the Hackaday logo in a spacer of some kind. It’s been sitting on his shelf for a few months, and is only now sending it in. He picked it up in a pile of scrap metal, and he (and we) really have no idea what this thing is. Any guesses?
[Sheldon]
has a teardown of a vintage voltage and current standard
. Just look at those hand drawn traces on a single sided board. Beautiful.
[Art] has another, ‘what is this thing’. He has two of them, and he’s pretty sure it’s some sort of differential, but other than that he’s got nothing. The only real clue is that [Art] lives near a harbor on the N. Cali coast. Maybe from a navigation system, or a governor from a weird diesel?
So you have a Kinect sitting on a shelf somewhere. That’s fine, we completely understand that. Here’s something:
freeze yourself in carbonite
. Yeah, it turns out having a depth sensor is exactly what you need to make a carbonite copy of yourself. | 46 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "1928379",
"author": "doxin",
"timestamp": "2014-09-28T23:11:22",
"content": "that’s a differential of some sort",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1928694",
"author": "Brandon",
"timestamp": "2014-09-29T01:15:56",... | 1,760,376,055.259734 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/28/ardubracelet-lets-you-play-tetris-on-your-wrist/ | Ardubracelet Lets You Play Tetris On Your Wrist! | James Hobson | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"Arduboy",
"ardubracelet",
"atmega328p",
"tetris",
"wrist tetris"
] | Making your own Tetris game is almost a rite of passage for hackers — [Kevin] has stepped up the game a little by making this awesome-flexible-triple-displayed-Tetris-watch
dubbed the Ardubracelet.
At the recent
Maker Faire SF
our head editor [Mike] got a chance to meet with [Kevin] from
Arduboy
who told us about some of his upcoming projects — this wearable was one of them!
It features three super bright OLED screens on a flexible circuit board with conductive touch buttons to continue with the minimalist design. Instead of a wrist strap he’s actually made the ends magnetic to hold it in place — did we mention the battery also lasts for over 10 hours?
At the heart of the flexible circuit board is an Atmega328p, which is the same chip used in the
Arduboy
(a credit card sized GameBoy). This is just the first prototype but he’s planning on making it even better in the future complete with Bluetooth and some 3D printed parts to make it look a bit nicer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMmbUYcq69g | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1928138",
"author": "dizot",
"timestamp": "2014-09-28T21:14:49",
"content": "Very cool idea.However, I don’t think this is a flexible circuit board” per se. I could be wrong, but this looks like several rigid PCBs jumpered and held together with kapton tape. I was hoping to learn ... | 1,760,376,055.004436 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/28/arduino-translates-signals-between-steering-wheel-buttons-and-aftermarket-head-unit/ | Arduino Translates Signals Between Steering Wheel Buttons And Aftermarket Head Unit | Rich Bremer | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"car stereo",
"head unit"
] | There is no question that steering wheel mounted controls are super convenient. Reaching all the way over to the dashboard to change a radio station is so 1990’s. An ever-increasing percentage of new cars are coming equipped with steering wheel controls for the stereo, however, you’ll lose the button control if you change out the stock head unit to something a little higher in quality. Sure, there may be an adapter readily available for your car/stereo combination, but there also may not be. [Ronnied] took the DIY road and
made his own adapter
.
The first obstacle for [Ronnied] was to figure out the wiring on the steering wheel controls. After some poking around he found that there were only two wires used for all of the control buttons, each button only changing the resistance between the two wires. The button states could easily be read by using an Arduino’s analog input. A Pro Mini model was chosen for its small size as it could be housed in the radio compartment of the dash.
The next step was getting the Arduino to control the aftermarket head unit. [Ronnied] did some research regarding JVC’s Stalk digital control interface but came to the conclusion that it would be easier to direct wiring the Arduino outputs to the appropriate spot on the head unit’s circuit board. To do this the button for each function that would also be represented on the steering wheel was traced out to find a common point on the circuit board. Jumper wires soldered to the circuit board simply allow the Arduino to emulate button pushes. To ensure that the head unit buttons still work in conjunction with the steering wheel buttons, the Arduino would have to keep the pins as inputs until a steering wheel button was pushed, the pin changed to an output, the signal sent and the pin changed back to an input. This feature was easily created in the Arduino sketch.
Video below. | 19 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "1927560",
"author": "Waterjet",
"timestamp": "2014-09-28T17:51:12",
"content": "I’m surprised that there isn’t some generally universal “control format” for wireless control of head units at this point in time. Even among major automakers, there is a split between different wired b... | 1,760,376,055.060608 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/28/digital-decade-resistance-box-on-the-cheap/ | Digital Decade Resistance Box On The Cheap | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"decade box",
"microcontroller",
"resistance",
"test equipment"
] | [Stynus] has finished a unique decade resistance box which doesn’t use conventional rotary switches to select the appropriate resistors. These switches are old fashioned and expensive, so [Stynus] built this
decade resistance box that uses a microcontroller and a series of relays to switch the resistors
.
Simply selecting a resistance on the screen tells the microcontrollers which resistors need to be switched in order to provide the proper resistance. The box uses relays to do switching instead of transistors because the transistors don’t handle high frequency AC as well as the relays. The device is powered by an 18V transformer and rectifier and, as a bonus, [Stynus] got all of his parts on the cheap which made this a great solution to the expensive resistance decade box problem.
This is a very well-polished piece of test equipment. We’ve featured
other decade resistance boxes
but never one that was controlled by a microcontroller. All of the PCB layouts and the code for microcontroller are available on the project site if you have a desire to make your own. | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1927057",
"author": "danT",
"timestamp": "2014-09-28T14:51:56",
"content": "I like the design I would imagine all those relays to be expensive too. Perhaps a dumb question but would an SCR not work instead of a relay?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{... | 1,760,376,054.912119 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/28/prototype-led-light-suit-runs-off-of-a-nes-power-glove/ | Prototype LED Light Suit Runs Off Of A NES Power Glove | James Hobson | [
"LED Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"LED suit",
"NES power glove",
"power glove",
"powerglove",
"Wearables"
] | [Greg’s] been playing around with wearable hacks for quite some time now, and he’s decided to add a new twist for his latest LED light suit (Mk 4) —
An ancient NES Power Glove to control it.
He was inspired by the band
Hypercrush
who had a music video where one of the guys was wearing a laser-shooting power glove — awesome. Having already made light suits before, he thought it’d be fun to do something similar.
The suit is controlled by an Arduino Pro Mini which has been hacked into the Power Glove for ultimate button pushing capabilities. He’s using 5 meter LED strips of the classic WS2812 RGB variety, which allow for individual LEDs to be addressed using a single pin. It’s powered by a 5V 2A USB battery pack, and he’s made all the components very modular, you could even say it’s “plug and play”!
Power Gloves make a great starting point for some really cool projects — someone converted one to a
WiiMote once
, and in celebration of its 20th anniversary, someone
brought one up to speed technologically.
[Thanks Andrew!] | 12 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "1926579",
"author": "agmo",
"timestamp": "2014-09-28T11:35:45",
"content": "http://mydisguises.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/tron-guy-412×550.jpg",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1926678",
"author": "fartface",
"timestam... | 1,760,376,054.813762 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/28/thp-semifinalist-solar-energy-system/ | THP Semifinalist: Solar Energy System | Brian Benchoff | [
"Solar Hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"Maximum power point",
"solar",
"solar power",
"the hackaday prize"
] | Building a solar power installation isn’t as simple as buying a few panels, wiring them up to a battery, and putting an inverter in the mix. To get the most out of your pricey panels, you’ll want to look at something called Maximum Power Point tracking. Solar panels have an IV curve, and this changes with how much sunlight they’re getting. To get the most out of a set of cells, you need make sure you’re drawing the maximum amount of power out of your cells.
[Nathaniel]’s Solar Energy Generator
does just that. It can handle up to 500 Watts, sucks power down from a bank of solar cells and spits that out to a battery. That’s not everything; the project also has a microcontroller for measuring and displaying all the pertinent info, and some terminals to plug in a few DC loads.
While the Solar Energy Generator is designed for off the grid applications, this could easily augment a home installation on the cheap. If you want more than 500 Watts or so, you’ll want to look at a larger controller, but for anything under that, [Nathan] has you covered.
Videos below.
The project featured in this post is
a quarterfinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 25 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "1926329",
"author": "mattadlard",
"timestamp": "2014-09-28T09:57:40",
"content": "Could see this as being useful with smaller applications of Solar like Home boats, and off grid habitats. Combine with mesh and it would provide a great local power generating ‘Power houses.’ Instead o... | 1,760,376,055.125383 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/27/voltset-multimeters-at-world-maker-faire/ | Voltset Multimeters At World Maker Faire | Adam Fabio | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"fluke",
"Mooshimeter",
"multimeter",
"voltmeter",
"Voltset",
"VOM"
] | Many tents at World Maker Faire were divided up into booths for companies and various projects. In one of these tents, we found the
Voltset
booth. [Tom, Ran, and Michael] were on hand to show off their device and answer any questions. Voltset is essentially a multimeter which uses your phone as a display. It connects to an Android phone via USB or an optional Bluetooth module.
Now we’d be a bit worried about the risk of damaging our phones with a voltmeter electrically connected via USB. However, many people have an old phone or retired tablet kicking around these days, which would be perfect for the Voltset. The Bluetooth module alleviates this problem, too – though it doesn’t fix the issue of what happens to the multimeter when someone decides to call.
Voltset isn’t new; both the Voltset team and the similarly specced
Mooshimeter
were also at World Maker Faire last year. In the interim, Voltset has had a very successful
Kickstarter
. The team is accepting pre-orders to be shipped after the Kickstarter backers are sent their rewards.
[Tom] told us that the team is currently redesigning their hardware. The next generation prototype board with more protection can be seen in the far right of the top photo. He also mentioned that they’re shooting for 5 digits of accuracy, placing them on par with many bench scopes. We’re skeptical to say the least about 5 digits, but the team is definitely putting their all into this product. We’ll wait until the Kickstarter backers start getting their final devices to see if Voltset is everything it’s cracked up to be. | 18 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "1925646",
"author": "Alex",
"timestamp": "2014-09-28T05:38:14",
"content": "“…though it doesn’t fix the issue of what happens to the multimeter when someone decides to call.”I think this was solved a while ago. Most android custom roms allow you to set this behaviour. I use SlimKat ... | 1,760,376,056.787466 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/26/starting-to-wrap-up-maker-faire/ | Starting To Wrap Up Maker Faire | Brian Benchoff | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"appliances",
"calculator",
"ge",
"maker faire",
"protopalette",
"World Maker Faire"
] | It’s almost a week since the NYC Maker Faire, and it’s about time for us to start wrapping up all the posts we’re doing on everything we’ve seen.
[Chris Mitchell], hackaday favorite from
Cemetech
did what he always does at Maker Faire: brought some stuff he’s doing with TI graphing calculators.
The
TI-84 with GPS
made a showing, as did the graphing calculator IRC client. By far the coolest looking calculator was the wooden casemod. It’s a TI-82 put into a (what feels and looks like) a maple enclosure. The buttons are painted on, and despite stuffing consumer electronics into a handmade case, it’s still reasonable portable.
There were more Hackaday fans at the faire, but I’m not sure if anyone can beat the guys from
Protopalette
. Wait. One guy could. Find me in public sometime and I’ll tell you about that.
The Protopalette is a board with a bunch of lights, buttons, switches, sensors, knobs, servos, and buzzers for electronics prototyping. Think of it as a stylized version of the old ‘parts and springs and wire’ radio shack beginner electronic kits.
Some of the members of the hackerspace with the craziest group narrative,
LVL1 in Louisville
, made it to the faire. They’re working with GE to create a ‘maker module’ for appliances. It’s called
Green Bean
, and GE is actually building support for this into some of their fridges, washers, stoves and dishwashers.
There are a few modules already, like a scale that will send out a message when you’re out of milk. It’s an interesting system, and there are already a lot of appliances that support the system.
Pics below. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "1919123",
"author": "bege",
"timestamp": "2014-09-26T16:56:06",
"content": "The calculator, sooo pretty. I want one! Too bad I can’t attempt to do it to my 84, they would never let it in to a testing center.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"co... | 1,760,376,055.173332 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/26/a-very-bright-led-jacket/ | A Very Bright LED Jacket | Eric Evenchick | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"burning man",
"jacket",
"leds",
"PIC12F1571",
"sewing",
"wearable",
"ws2811"
] | Last year, [Ytai] went to Burning Man for the first time. He was a bit inexperienced, and lacked the lumens to make him visible on the Playa. This year, he made up for it by building an extra
bright LED Jacket
.
The jacket consists of 48 LEDs, at 150 lumens each. Each RGB LED module was placed on its own PCB, and controlled by the tiny
PIC12F1571
microcontroller. This microcontroller was a great fit since it has three PWM channels (one for each color) and costs 50 cents. Firmware on the PIC allows the boards to be daisy-chained together to reduce wiring. This was done by using a protocol similar to the popular WS2811 LEDs.
Assembling 50 of the boards presented a challenge. This was addressed by using surface mount components, a solder stencil from
OSH Stencils
, an electric skillet, and a good amount of patience. The final cost of each module was about $3.
With 50 of the boards assembled, a two layer jacket was sewn up. The electronics were sandwiched between these two fabric layers, which gave the jacket a clean look. A wrist mounted controller allows the wearer to select different patterns.
For a full rundown of the jacket, check out the video after the break. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1916831",
"author": "Kris (@afex505)",
"timestamp": "2014-09-26T13:03:20",
"content": "the write up (if you click through) is really well done – might want to point out the custom OLED display that’s *built in* to the jacket, you can see it in the video @ 0:43",
"parent_id": nul... | 1,760,376,054.855946 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/26/thp-semifinalist-nsa-away/ | THP Semifinalist: NSA Away | Brian Benchoff | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"encryption",
"nsa",
"NSA Away",
"one time pad",
"the hackaday prize"
] | Back when we started The Hackaday Prize, security, big brother, and the NSA were making headlines every day. Since that time, there has been enough bread and circuses in the news to wipe the consequences of these leaks out of the public consciousness, but work is still being done by hackers and tinkerers the world over to give you the tools to protect your data.
NSA Away
is one of these tools. The first part of the project is a standalone key generator that writes the same random bits to a pair of SD cards simultaneously. With their random number generator, this is perfect encryption. The only way to crack the one time pad the team is using for encryption is to 1) use parts of the pad more than once, 2) have a terrible RNG, or 3) do something really stupid like
sell the one time pad in a store
.
The other part of the build is an Android-based encryption device with a camera, keyboard, SD card reader, and a USB port. This device reads the ‘OTP SD cards’ and reads data with the camera using OCR and decrypts it on the screen. Provided the OTP doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, this is a perfectly secure way to transmit data to anyone.
As far as progress goes, the members of the team have a fully functional pad generator, writing random data to SD cards. This device can also output random bits to a computer as a USB HID device, should you want to transmit your pad over unsecured mediums.
It’s an impressive bit of work, especially in the RNG department. The team is using eight avalanche noise generators in the circuit description. This part of the build isn’t quite working yet, but that’s really not needed for a proof of concept.
The project featured in this post is
a quarterfinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 49 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "1913569",
"author": "NotArduino",
"timestamp": "2014-09-26T08:22:33",
"content": "Interesting…but can they make security less of a pain in the ass?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1916243",
"author": "F",
"time... | 1,760,376,055.736552 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/25/running-golang-on-the-intel-edison/ | Running Golang On The Intel Edison | Eric Evenchick | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"edison",
"gobot",
"golang",
"intel",
"pentium",
"pwm"
] | While most embedded development is still done in C and/or assembly, some people are working with more modern languages. The team over at Gobot has successfully managed to get
Go running on the Intel Edison
.
The
Go programming language
, which has been around for about five years, compiles to machine code like C. It has a number of modern features including concurrency, garbage collection, and packages.
We’ve looked at the
Edison on Hackaday
before, and even took a
detailed look at the hardware
. It features a Quark SoC, Bluetooth, and WiFi, which makes it well suited for connected devices.
Getting Go to work on the Edison hardware wasn’t particularly difficult, since it supports the Pentium instruction set and
MMX
. However, a library was needed to interface with the Edison’s peripherals. The Gobot team whipped up
gobot-intel-iot
, which makes it easy to work with GPIO, I2C, and PWM.
After the break, the team demos PWM on the Edison using Go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1ZmNHg0G30 | 20 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1911289",
"author": "matt",
"timestamp": "2014-09-26T05:22:35",
"content": "C is not machine code…. :P",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1915763",
"author": "kaidenshi",
"timestamp": "2014-09-26T11:32:37",
... | 1,760,376,055.903757 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/25/a-wrist-mounted-flamethrower-sure-why-not/ | A Wrist-Mounted Flamethrower? Sure, Why Not? | Brian Benchoff | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"flamethrower",
"maker faire",
"wrist mounted"
] | There are three types of booths at Maker Faire. The first is the strange corporate booth, like Pepsi ‘revolutionizing fluid intake’ or some such nonsense. That one had the longest line of any booth, in case you’re wondering. The second type of booth is the people you would expect to be there – Atmel, TI, and Makerbot all came out in full force.
The third type of booth were a little hard to find. They’re the ‘show and tell’ spirit of Maker Faire, and [Stephen Hawes] was one of the best. Why? Wrist-mounted flamethrower, that’s why.
The flamethrower is fueled with a propane bottle originally meant for a camping stove, with a microcontroller and pot setup taking care of the height of the flame. Buttons underneath [Stephen]’s thumb takes care of the propane flow and
tazer
-based ignitor. The wrist measurement sensor can rescale to adjust the height of the flame to how far the wearer can move their wrist.
All in all, a great project for the Faire, although we did feel a little sorry for the NYC fire marshal that was assigned to [Stephen] for the entire faire. As an aside, we’re applauding [Stephen] for
not
referencing whatever comic book character has fire shooting out of his hand. | 26 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "1909869",
"author": "aaa",
"timestamp": "2014-09-26T02:54:24",
"content": "why doesn’t he use the “taser” for ignition?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1916937",
"author": "L. Scott Johnson",
"timestamp": "2014... | 1,760,376,056.068389 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/25/exposed-clock-is-flippin-cool/ | Exposed Clock Is Flippin’ Cool | Marsh | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"120v",
"alarm clock",
"flip clock",
"teardown",
"thrift store"
] | Some hacks are triumphs of cleverness, others…are just cool. [Super Cameraman’s]
exposed retro flip clock
tends toward the latter half of that spectrum—it may not be the most complex, but we’re relieved that for once there isn’t an Arduino crammed into the back of it.
You can buy pared down, exposed flip clocks at museums for
an arm and a leg
, or you can trudge through eBay and local thrift shops until you come across a cheapo clock radio. [Super Cameraman’s] clock cost him exactly $2, and is split into two sections: a clock side and a radio side. Prying off the knobs and popping open the case reveals all the shiny mechanisms and electronics, most of which he trashed. The radio and even the transformer were removed, leaving only the flip clock, which he re-wired directly to the plug—it seems these types of clocks run straight off 120VAC. Check out the video below.
[via
reddit
] | 24 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "1909085",
"author": "aleksclark",
"timestamp": "2014-09-26T01:39:00",
"content": "now put a stepper on it!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1909227",
"author": "Genki",
"timestamp": "2014-09-26T01:55:14",
"content": "... | 1,760,376,055.846559 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/25/thermal-printer-brain-transplant-is-two-hacks-in-one/ | Thermal Printer Brain Transplant Is Two Hacks In One | Rick Osgood | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"atmega",
"atmega644",
"logic analyzer",
"printer",
"radio shack",
"retro",
"reverse engineering",
"Thermal",
"upgrade"
] | You know how sometimes you just can’t resist collecting old hardware, so you promise yourself that you will get around to working on it some day? [Danny] actually followed through on one of those promises after discovering an old Radio Shack TRS-80 TP-10 thermal printer in one of his boxes of old gear. It looks similar to a receipt printer you might see printing receipts at any brick and mortar store today. The original printer worked well enough, but [Danny] wasn’t satisfied with its 32 character per line limitation. He also wanted to be able to print more complex graphics. To accomplish this goal, he realized he was going to have to give this printer a
brain transplant
.
First, [Danny] wanted to find new paper for the printer. He only had one half of a roll left and it was 30 years old. He quickly realized that he could buy thermal paper for fax machines, but it would be too wide at 8.5 inches. Luckily, he was able to use a neighbor’s saw to cut the paper down to the right size. After a test run, he knew he was in business. The new fax paper actually looked better than the old stuff.
The next step was to figure out exactly how this printer works. If he was going to replace the CPU, he was going to need to know exactly how it functioned. He started by looking at the PCB to determine the various primary functions of the printer. He needed to know which functions were controlled by which CPU pins. After some Google-Fu, [Danny] was able to find the original manual for the printer. He was lucky in that the manual contained the schematic for the circuit.
Once he knew how everything was hooked up, [Danny] realized that he would need to learn how the CPU controlled all of the various functions. A logic analyzer would make his work much easier, but he didn’t happen to have one lying around. [Danny] he did what any skilled hacker would do. He built his own!
He built the analyzer around an ATMega664. It can sample eight signals every three microseconds. He claims it will fill its 64k of memory in about one fifth of a second. He got his new analyzer hooked up to the printer and then got to work coding his own logic visualization software. This visualization would provide him with a window to the inner workings of the circuit.
Now that he was able to see exactly how the printer functioned, [Danny] knew he would be able to code new software into a bigger and badder CPU. He chose to use another ATMega microcontroller. After a fair bit of trial and error, [Danny] ended up with working firmware. The new firmware can print up to 80 characters per line, which is more than double the original amount. It is also capable of printing simple black and white graphics.
[Danny] has published the source code and schematics for all of his circuits and utilities. You can find them at the bottom of his
project page
. Also, be sure to catch the demonstration video below. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1906319",
"author": "Benjamin Ingeborg Schwarz",
"timestamp": "2014-09-25T20:17:34",
"content": "Azu-Nyan! <3",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1906475",
"author": "wretch",
"timestamp": "2014-09-25T20:34:45",
"content... | 1,760,376,055.948569 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/25/thp-semifinalist-b10n1c-yourself/ | THP Semifinalist: B10N1C Yourself | Brian Benchoff | [
"The Hackaday Prize",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"bionic",
"implant",
"implantable",
"the hackaday prize",
"wearable"
] | The Hackaday Prize has had a few medical devices make the semifinalist cut, and of course wearables are on the list. How about
implantables
?
That’s what Bionic Yourself 2.0
(or B10N1C) is doing with an implantable microcontroller, battery, and sensor system.
The hardware in B10N1C includes a electromyography sensor for measuring muscle activity, an accelerometer, a vibration motor, RFID reader/writer, temperature sensor, and – get this – a LED bar graph
that will shine a light through the skin.
That’s something we’ve never seen before, and if you’re becoming a cyborg, it’s a nice feature to have.
As with anything you would implant in your body, safety is a prime consideration for Bionic.the Lithium battery can be overcharged (yes, through a wireless charging setup) to 10V without a risk of fire or explosion, can be hit with a hammer, and can even be punctured. The enclosure is medical grade silicone, the contacts are medical grade stainless steel, and there’s a humidity sensor inside that will radio a message saying its time to remove the device if the moisture level in the enclosure increases.
Because the device is implanted under the skin, being able to recharge and update the code without a physical connection is the name of the game. There’s a coil for wireless charging, and
a lot of work is going into over the air firmware updating
. It’s an astonishing project, and while most people probably won’t opt for a cyborg implant, it
will
look really cool.
The project featured in this post is
a quarterfinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 46 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "1904775",
"author": "Thomas",
"timestamp": "2014-09-25T17:29:33",
"content": "I would be the first one to get one of those. Inbuild led’s under the skin, hell yeah :D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1907952",
"author":... | 1,760,376,056.997718 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/25/133328/ | Speakers At Hackaday’s 10th Anniversary | Mike Szczys | [
"cons",
"Featured"
] | [
"10th anniversary",
"conference",
"speakers"
] | It is with great pleasure that we are able to announce the final slate of speakers for Hackaday’s 10th Anniversary on October 4th in Pasadena. There are still around 30 tickets left for the conference so
get yours now
!
The most recently confirmed speaker is a man of many names. [Ryan Clarke] may be better known as [LosT], [1o57], or [Lostboy]. For years he has been driving the flagship contest at DEFCON by generating cryptographic puzzles that run far and deep through the 4-day conference and beyond. His talk will venture into the art and science of putting together these challenges, and the lengths at which determined hackers will go to solve them.
His site
gets taken over each year for DEFCON, so you might want to explore
his Twitter account
if you’re looking to learn more about this mysterious figure.
The other four speakers have already been mentioned in
the initial announcement
and
last week’s follow-up
. [Steve Collins] will discuss how his early interest in hacking led him to become an engineer at NASA. [Quinn Dunki] will have her scratch-built Veronica computer on hand and explain the adventure of the impressive project. [ThunderSqueak] will help us wrap our minds around the concept of non-binary computing, and [Jon McPhalen] will present the benefits of multi-core embedded processing versus traditional interrupt-based design.
We can’t wait for this amazing afternoon of talks which is just one week from Saturday. We hope to see you there! | 10 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "1903748",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2014-09-25T15:46:01",
"content": "Wish I could be there…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1904023",
"author": "Brian Benchoff",
"timestamp": "2014-09-25T16:14:31",
... | 1,760,376,056.191298 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/25/fail-of-the-week-battery-packin/ | Fail Of The Week: Battery Packin’ | Kristina Panos | [
"Fail of the Week",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"battery pack",
"fail of the week",
"IBM ThinkPad TransNote",
"lipoly",
"TransNote"
] | [NeXT] got himself an IBM ThinkPad TransNote and yeah, we’re pretty jealous. For the uninitiated, the TransNote was IBM’s foray into intelligent note transcription from roughly fifteen years ago. The ThinkPad doesn’t even have to be on to capture your notes because the proprietary pen has 2MB of flash memory. It won an award and everything. Not the pen, the TransNote.
Unfortunately, the battery life is poor in [NeXT]’s machine. The TransNote was (perhaps) ahead of its time. Since it didn’t last on the market very long, there isn’t a Chinese market for replacement batteries. [NeXT] decided to
rebuild the replacement battery pack himself
after sending it off with no luck.
The TransNote’s battery pack uses some weird, flat Samsung 103450 cells that are both expensive and rare. [NeXT] eventually found some camera batteries that have a single cell and a charge controller. He had to rearrange the wiring because the tabs were on the same side, but ultimately, they did work. He got the cells together in the right configuration, took steps to prevent shorts, and added the TransNote’s charge controller back into the circuit.
Nothing blew up, and the ThinkPad went through POST just fine. He plugged it in to charge and waited a total of 90 minutes. The charging rate was pretty lousy, though. At 94% charge, the estimated life showed 28 minutes, which is worse than before. What are your thoughts on the outcome and if it were you, what would be the next move?
Fail of the Week is a Hackaday column which runs every Wednesday. Help keep the fun rolling by writing about your past failures and
sending us a link to the story
— or sending in links to fail write ups you find in your Internet travels. | 35 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "1902838",
"author": "Janez Dolinar",
"timestamp": "2014-09-25T14:09:02",
"content": "First thing that pops into mind is resetting internal eeprom calibration..",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1903028",
"author": "dsblackout"... | 1,760,376,056.447365 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/25/cheap-multimeter-gauges-embedded-idle-time/ | Cheap Multimeter Gauges Embedded Idle Time | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"IDLE",
"jack ganssle",
"multimeter"
] | How often is your microcontroller actually doing something? You can find out by measuring idle time, but how exactly do you do this? [Jack Ganssle] shows that simple embedded applications can toggle a pin when idle, which can then be measured. More complex applications like those using a Real Time Operation System can do the same by making use of the idle hook. But what can you do to make this toggling pin feedback actually mean something?
His solution is to
repurpose an analog multimeter
. The meter is interface with the toggle pin and a trimpot calibrates the needle. This way the needle jumps when the processor is busy and returns to zero when idle. What a great tip for getting a little more feedback about what’s going on inside of that black plastic IC package. It’s not surprising to find such a clever hack from
one of the Hackaday Prize judges
.
While you’re in the analog multimeter aisle you might want to pick up a couple of extras for
more alternate data displays
. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1900949",
"author": "PTaylor",
"timestamp": "2014-09-25T11:18:36",
"content": "I must have missed something because I was highly unimpressed.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1901180",
"author": "michalkob",
"ti... | 1,760,376,056.607251 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/25/digital-caliper-sacrificed-for-dro-project/ | Digital Caliper Sacrificed For DRO Project | Rich Bremer | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"digital readout",
"dro",
"lathe"
] | In general, machining metal on a lathe or mill takes skill and patience as the accuracy of the cuts are important. To make those accurate cuts, it is important to know where the tool is located and how far it moves. For manual machines, the most basic method of determining position is by using graduated dials mounted on the hand cranks. Although these graduated dials can certainly be accurate, they may be difficult to see and they also require the operator to do math in their head on the fly with every full revolution of the dial. Another option would be a digital read out (DRO) which has an encoder mounted to the moving axes of the machine. This setup displays the exact position of the tool on an easy to read numeric display.
Professional DRO kits for mills and lathes can cost between a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. [Robert] has a lathe, wanted a DRO but didn’t want to shell out serious cash to get it. He
built his own
for super cheap in an extremely resourceful way…. using a Harbor Freight Digital Caliper. A housing was first fabricated so that the added equipment would not hinder the axis travel of the lathe. The caliper was then cut to length, installed in the housing and the entire assembly was then mounted to the lathe.
It is totally reasonable to use the stock caliper display to read the positional information, however, even these cheap digital calipers have
connections for the encoder output data
, which can easily be read by a microcontroller. That means it is super simple to hook these low-cost digital calipers up to a display remotely located in a more convenient position. | 21 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1899416",
"author": "none",
"timestamp": "2014-09-25T08:42:42",
"content": "Shouldn’t the title read “Yet another DRO”?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1900199",
"author": "Ben",
"timestamp": "2014-09-25T10:02:34",
"... | 1,760,376,056.851641 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/24/thp-semifinalist-a-continuous-wave-radar/ | THP Semifinalist: A Continuous Wave Radar | Brian Benchoff | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"Continuous-wave radar",
"cw",
"fm",
"radar",
"radio",
"the hackaday prize"
] | There aren’t many Hackaday Prize entries playing around in RF, save for the handful of projects using off the shelf radio modules. That’s a little surprising to us, considering radio is one of the domains where garage-based tinkerers have always been very active. [Luke] is bucking the trend with
a FM continuous wave radar
, to be used in experiments with autonomous aircraft, altitude finding, and synthetic aperture radar imaging.
[Luke]’s radar operates around 5.8-6 GHz, and is supposed to be an introduction to microwave electronics. It’s an extremely modular system built around a few VCOs, mixers, and amplifiers from
Hittite
, all connected with coax.
So far, [Luke] has all his modules put together,
a great pair of cans
for the antennas, everything confirmed as working on his scope, and a lot of commits
to his git repo
.
You can check out [Luke]’s demo video is available below.
The project featured in this post is
a quarterfinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1897658",
"author": "Waterjet",
"timestamp": "2014-09-25T05:45:19",
"content": "SpaceWrencher!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1897678",
"author": "Waterjet",
"timestamp": "2014-09-25T05:46:52",
"conten... | 1,760,376,056.909058 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/24/apollo-the-everything-board/ | Apollo, The Everything Board | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"apollo",
"IMU",
"maker faire",
"rocketry",
"sensor",
"sensor board"
] | The best projects have a great story behind them, and
the Apollo from Carbon Origins
is no exception. A few years ago, the people at Carbon Origins were in school, working on a high power rocketry project.
Rocketry, of course, requires a ton of sensors in a very small and light package. The team built the precursor to Apollo, a board with a 9-axis IMU, GPS, temperature, pressure, humidity, light (UV and IR) sensors, WiFi, Bluetooth, SD card logging, a microphone, an OLED, and a trackball. This board understandably turned out to be really cool, and now it’s become the main focus of Carbon Origins.
There are more than a few ways to put together an ARM board with a bunch of sensors, and the Apollo is extremely well designed; all the LEDs are on PWM pins, as they should be, and there was a significant amount of time spent with thermal design. See that plated edge on the board? That’s for keeping the sensors cool.
The Apollo will eventually make its way to one of the crowdfunding sites, but we have no idea when that will happen. Carbon Origins is presenting at CES at the beginning of the year, so it’ll probably hit the Internet sometime around the beginning of next year. The retail price is expected to be somewhere around $200 – a little expensive, but not for what you’re getting. | 35 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "1896230",
"author": "Arsenio Dev",
"timestamp": "2014-09-25T02:06:43",
"content": "Now we’re talking!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1896234",
"author": "arseniodev",
"timestamp": "2014-09-25T02:07:21",
"content": "... | 1,760,376,058.196816 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/24/the-tinyg-motion-controller/ | The TinyG Motion Controller | Brian Benchoff | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"CNC controller",
"motion controller",
"tinyg"
] | When you go to a trade show of any kind, you’re expecting cool demos in the booths. At Maker Faire, there were plenty, but one of the most hypnotic was a robot built around Synthetos’ TinyG motion controller.
The demo was simply a large CNC gantry moving a ball bearing around on a string. The gantry moved in the X and Y axes, and the miniature wrecking ball was spooled and unspooled in the Z axis. The ball move around the space, coming to a complete stop without any swaying. There were even a few clear plastic tubes that the ball fell in, and popped out of without raising or lowering the string. It’s the height of motion controller coolness, all made possible with the TinyG.
The TinyG
was one of a few motion control and CNC boards found at the faire. In its base configuration, it has 6 axes of motion control, RS485 to network several boards for crazy machine configurations, and a suitably powerful processor to do everything correctly. | 31 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "1894963",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2014-09-24T23:10:21",
"content": "I have a v5 board, and absolutely love it. It’s just a shame the software isn’t any easier to use.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1895195",
"... | 1,760,376,057.066209 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/24/em-pulser-flings-washers-side-effects-may-include-curing-cancer-or-death/ | EM Pulser Flings Washers, Side Effects May Include Curing Cancer Or Death | Rich Bremer | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"electromagnetic",
"emp",
"pulser"
] | Some folks believe that exposure to electromagnetic pulses helps the human body heal itself (one portion of the
[Bob Beck] protocol
). [Steffan] is one of those folks and was interested in EMP generation but wasn’t crazy about the several-hundred dollar price tag for professional units. As any determined DIYer would do, he set off to
make his own
.
This whole thing works by straight-out-of-the-wall 110v AC running through a couple 60 watt light bulbs before moving through a rudimentary rectifier circuit. The DC output from the rectifier charges five 130uF camera flash capacitors. An inductor coil is responsible for generating the EMP and is only separated from the capacitors by a single normally-open momentary switch. Although it is possible to wrap your own coil, [Steffan] decided to use an off the shelf 2.5mH unit normally used for speaker system crossovers. Once the momentary switch is pressed, the energy in the capacitors is discharged through the inductor coil and the EMP is created. To demonstrate that the pulser does indeed work, a metal washer was placed on the inductor coil and the unit fired resulting in the washer being thrown into the air.
[Stephan] did deviate from the some of the online designs he had researched, using 7 capacitors instead of the recommended 5. The result was a firecracker-like discharge sound and melting of the 14 gauge wire. Well, back to 5 caps. | 57 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "1893392",
"author": "whitequark",
"timestamp": "2014-09-24T20:03:59",
"content": "“Medical hacks”Since when is this bullshit medicine?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1893564",
"author": "jcwren",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,376,058.288502 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/24/hackerspace-tours-omaha-maker-group/ | Hackerspace Tours: Omaha Maker Group | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"hackerspace tour",
"omaha",
"omaha maker group"
] | Members of the [
Omaha Maker Group
] in Omaha, Nebraska affectionately call their space The Makery. This hearkens back to their humble beginnings in a 900 square foot space that formerly housed a bakery. There was one measly electrical outlet and they had to travel to the nearest restroom, often on vehicles they made. It was in this small space where they built the workbenches and forged the friendships that created the inviting hangout they have today.
[OMG] has been in their current, more centrally located space for the last two years. It was there that I met [Eric] and [Ben] for a few hours in the evening before Maker Faire, for which they are largely responsible. [Eric] had spent the day setting up at the Omaha Children’s Museum and he and [Ben] were kind enough to give me a detailed tour.
The new space is a progression of rooms that begins with a combination lounge and meeting space. Here you’ll find the beer and snacks, the brag wall full of framed articles, and one of the remote controllable web cams. A few of the founding members have since flung themselves around the world, but are able to participate through these links. The best part of this room is either the PVC-framed Raspi MAME cabinet or the sign on the bathroom door which doesn’t discriminate against androids.
Next up is a smallish room with their 3D printer, a modified Mendel with a spool holder made by one of the members. There’s a large pile of glue sticks next to it to help prints adhere to the bed. That was a new one to me. [Ben] says they work almost too well. Next to that is their K40 C0
2
laser cutter that they modified to operate only when closed (!). They’ve also added LEDs and an exhaust fan. The cutter was internally crowdfunded in about three days. This method works well for them according to [Eric]; no one spends money on equipment they won’t use. They are currently in the process of building a second, bigger one using a donated frame.
Much of the magic happens in the next room. It’s the biggest and houses most of the general making space, including an electronics workbench and a separate bench with hand tools. In the center are some modular wheeled workbenches, which are the first things they made as a group in the old space. You’ll also find a sewing area, a hot wire foam cutter, a plotter, and the Shapeoko they won through
Inventables’ 50 states contest
.
They have a member who happens to be a machinist. He’s provided all kinds of fun things like a metal lathe, wood lathe, and jigsaw that are in the fourth and final room. This is where all the heavy machinery and a lot of the raw materials can be found, along with a mill, welding rigs, a drill press, a band saw, things of that nature.
One of my favorite things about the space is the overall organization. [Eric] told me that they regularly schedule purge days to combat clutter. This is especially helpful when they have things like treadmills donated to them that are good for a couple of motors and are basically just in the way after that. All of the hand tools like socket wrenches, pliers, and hammers are color-coded to distinguish between those that anyone is free to use and those that are personal. Several shelves of blue storage totes function as lockers for private stashing.
It’s great to see a group function the way that [Omaha Maker Group] does. In addition to organizing Omaha’s first Maker Faire, they regularly man a giant booth at the
Nebraska Robotics Expo
. They also hold competitions at least once a year for things like trebuchet and egg drop engineering. Earlier in 2014, they had a
FirLumber rally
and built their own wood car run inside the ‘space.
They try to keep membership at reasonable rates. For the $15 a month student rate, you can use the publicly available tools and machines. $35 per month will get you a key. Either way, beer in the fridge is always appreciated. They have open shop time at least twice per week and meet monthly to discuss business. If you’re not into hardware, they also have a programming subgroup called
OMGCode
.
[wpvideo bmv5hhpU]
[wpvideo LVjeLrXk]
It works!
Liquor store-adjacent!
The dawn of a new sewing area. Sure beats my Hello Kitty Janome.
This longboard was built for restroom transportation in the old space.
Hacks waiting to happen.
Donated frame for the new laser cutter.
A fine assortment indeed.
Laser cutter modded with LEDs and exhaust. | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "1892575",
"author": "Mal",
"timestamp": "2014-09-24T18:42:42",
"content": "I use glue sticks :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1892648",
"author": "Sonny_Jim",
"timestamp": "2014-09-24T18:49:18",
"content": "Why do ... | 1,760,376,057.575429 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/24/pick-and-place-machines-at-maker-faire/ | Pick And Place Machines At Maker Faire | Brian Benchoff | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"maker faire",
"pick and place",
"pick and place machines"
] | A few years ago, every booth at a Maker Faire had a 3D printer. It didn’t matter if 3D printing was only tangental to the business, or even if the printer worked. 3D printers have finally jumped the shark, and there’s going to be an awesome t-shirt to reflect this fact. This year there weren’t many 3D printers, leaving us asking ourselves what the new hotness is.
Pick and place machines. We couldn’t find many at the faire, and only Carbide Labs’ Pick and Paste machine was working on picking up small resistors and LEDs the entire faire. Carbide’s Pick and Paste machine is exactly what you would expect in a pick and place machine: it picks up components out of tapes and wells, orients them correctly, and plops them down on a board.
The killer feature for the Pick and Paste is its modular design. The toolhead is expandable, allowing anyone to add a second vacuum nozzle to double the rate parts are placed, or a solder paste dispenser. The guys didn’t have the paste dispenser working for the fair (leaded solder and kids don’t mix), but this machine is effectively a combination pick and place machine and solder paste dispenser, something that’s usually two machines on an assembly line.
Also at the faire
was Tempo Automation
. They’re in a pseudo-stealth mode right now, waiting until everything works perfectly until bringing their machine to the masses. It is, however, exceptionally fast and about a third of the price of a similar machine.
The only other pick and place machine at the faire was the Firepick Delta,
one of the more popular projects on hackaday.io
and one of fifty finalists for the Hackaday Prize. Unfortunately, the FirePick Delta was broken in shipping, and although [Neil] was sitting right next to the 3D printing guys, it would have taken all weekend to repair the machine. | 34 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "1891836",
"author": "charliex",
"timestamp": "2014-09-24T17:18:42",
"content": "where do the tape reels go?, that’s the hardest part, be interesting to see them working.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1891992",
"autho... | 1,760,376,057.86297 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/24/lamp-comes-to-life-with-ultrasonic-sensors/ | Lamp Comes To Life With Ultrasonic Sensors | Bryan Cockfield | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"lamp",
"motion detection",
"ultrasonic rangefinder",
"ultrasonic sensor"
] | Fans of the bouncing lamp from the Pixar corporate logo will enjoy [Daniel]’s latest project. It’s a
motion controlled desk lamp
that uses ultrasonic sensors to control its physical position.
The core of the project is an Arduino and the three ultrasonic sensors. The sensors act as range finders, and when they are all working together under the direction of the microcontroller they can tell which direction a hand was moving when it passed by. This information is used to drive two servos, one in the base and one on the lamp’s arm.
The project requires an articulating desk lamp of some sort (others besides the specific one [Daniel] used shouldn’t be much of a problem as long as they bend in the same way). Most hackers will have the rest of the parts on hand, with the possible exception of the rangefinder. The code is up on the project site for a look-see or in case you want to build your own.
The only problem that [Daniel] had when putting this all together was that the base was a little wobbly. He was able to fix that with some thumbtacks, and we think the next step for the project should be
switching the light on and off over the internet
. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1890849",
"author": "Rusty Shackleford",
"timestamp": "2014-09-24T15:39:11",
"content": "This article about a motion controlled lamp would be so much better with a video.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1890911",
"author": "... | 1,760,376,057.911325 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/24/circuitmaker-from-altium/ | CircuitMaker From Altium | Adam Fabio | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"altium",
"circuitmaker",
"eagle",
"eda",
"KiCAD",
"Protel"
] | Altium recently announced
CircuitMaker
, their entry into the free/low-cost PCB design tool market. They’re entering a big industry, with the likes of Eagle, KiCad, gEDA, and a host of other tool suites. We had a few minutes to talk with Max in the Altium booth at World Maker Faire, and even got a bit of time with the tool itself.
Hands on, it definitely has the look and feel of Altium Designer, right down to the familiar yellow and green boxes for schematic and sheet parts. Center stage was the 3D view, a feature which Altium has had in their software since the late 90’s.
CircuitMaker’s website is pushing the collaboration aspect of the software. Design choices can be reviewed and commented on in real-time. This also suggests that the data files will live in Altium’s own cloud storage system.
CircuitMaker is still in the pre-beta phase, but they’re looking for beta testers now, so head over to
the site and sign up
! | 84 | 32 | [
{
"comment_id": "1887716",
"author": "Neolker",
"timestamp": "2014-09-24T11:12:44",
"content": "Great news!!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1887718",
"author": "Calum Knott",
"timestamp": "2014-09-24T11:13:06",
"content": "Ill be d... | 1,760,376,058.084597 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/24/the-thurber-feeder-5000-helps-to-slow-fido-down/ | The Thurber Feeder 5000 Helps To Slow Fido Down | James Hobson | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"dog feeder",
"Parallax Propeller",
"pet feeder"
] | Does your dog eat too fast? [Thurber] does, and he even chokes occasionally while snarfing down the kibble — naturally this worried his owners, so [Jason] stepped up to the challenge to slow him down. Introducing the
Thurber Feeder 5000.
[Jason] is a seasoned maker, and has built a few CNC machines in his day — he’s even automated an
Etch a Sketch with stepper motors.
Making the Thurber Feeder 5000 was a piece of cake. He designed the entire thing in 3D CAD and then used his home-made CNC machine to cut out all the parts, 3D printing a few of the more complex mounting brackets.
It’s a fairly simple device consisting of a food hopper (seal-able to keep Thurber away), a stepper motor and an auger bit borrowed from a chocolate fondue fountain. The stepper goes through a 6:1 belt pulley ratio which gives it a whopping 200 oz-in of torque to push those kibbles and bits through the feeding pipe. The speed is adjustable by programming the Parallax Propeller, so once they found an acceptable eating speed [Jason] set it as default. A single button turns it on, and while the machine is running it lights up — turning off when little [Thurber] is done.
The device has worked so well it’s actually taught [Thurber] to eat slower when he’s eating from a regular bowl! Lucky pup! | 28 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "1885566",
"author": "Genki",
"timestamp": "2014-09-24T08:18:14",
"content": "Excellent idea! It is unfortunate that dogs typically scarf as much and as fast as possible because of how they used to grow up in the wild. They never knew when their next meal would come so they would ea... | 1,760,376,058.559521 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/23/push-button-degaussing-for-an-arcade-crt/ | Push-Button Degaussing For An Arcade CRT | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arcade cabinet",
"arcade monitor",
"degaussing",
"PTC fuse",
"ssr"
] | [Ed] was tasked with
adding push-button degaussing
to an arcade cabinet’s CRT console. The display can be rotated to portrait mode for games that require it, but each time this is done, the magnetic fields get out of whack.
Fortunately, the schematics arrived with the display. [Ed] found that the degauss coil is connected in series with a PTC fuse in an odd arrangement that he didn’t agree with. He decided to use an SSR to switch the coil, and after making lots of transistor-based designs on paper, grabbed a nearby Arduino.
[Ed] took off the PTC and soldered in two wires to its pads for the SSR. He added a wire to the power supply decoupling cap to power the new deguassing circuit and connected the SSR to the Arduino as an open collector input. There was just enough space available to mount the relay to the frame’s base and the Arduino on the side. [Ed] wrote a short method to trigger the SSR and reconnected the PTC fuse. Now it degausses at power up as well as on demand. | 21 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "1883577",
"author": "tekkieneet",
"timestamp": "2014-09-24T05:31:03",
"content": "If you are using a regular SSR that does zero crossing switching with a pure inductive load, then you are asking for trouble as that’s the worse phase to switch on an inductor. You want to switch at 9... | 1,760,376,057.967606 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/23/43oh-com-wasnt-next-to-the-texas-instruments-booth/ | 43oh.com Wasn’t Next To The Texas Instruments Booth | Brian Benchoff | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"43oh",
"43oh.com",
"launchpad",
"maker faire",
"msp430",
"texas instruments",
"ti"
] | In addition to all the cool boards and booster packs found at Texas Instruments’ booth at Maker Faire, the folks from
43oh.com
made a showing, but not next to the TI booth. In fairness, the TI booth was right across from NASA. 43oh is cool, but not NASA cool.
[Eric], known on the 43oh forums as [spirilis] showed off a few of the neat bits and bobs developed on the forums including a lightning detector, a VFD clock, a robot, and a whole lot of blinky things. There was an astonishing array of projects and boards at the booth, covering everything from OLEDs to motor drivers.
43oh is an interesting community centered around TI’s microcontrollers, like the
AVRfreaks forum
built around Atmel’s offerings. 43oh has
a very active forum
, IRC, and
a store
featuring projects made by members. It was great to see these guys at the faire, and we wish more of the homespun unofficial communities would make more of a showing at cons in the future.
Sorry about the mic cutting out in the video above. There was a sea of spewing RF near the booth. If anyone has advice for a *digital* wireless mic setup, we’re all ears.
This
is the current rig. | 21 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "1881697",
"author": "jcreedon",
"timestamp": "2014-09-24T02:18:25",
"content": "For a mic, if you want something that will last you forever, Sennheiser G3 (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/618747-REG/Sennheiser_EW_135P_G3_A_EW135_p_G3_Camera_Mount.html). If you are on a budget,... | 1,760,376,062.24273 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/23/making-an-inductor-saturation-current-tester/ | Making An Inductor Saturation Current Tester | Mathieu Stephan | [
"hardware",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"inductor",
"inductor current tester",
"inductor saturation",
"saturation"
] | [Kalle] tipped us about a quick project he made over a couple of evenings:
an inductor saturation current tester
. All the components used for it were salvaged from a beefy telecom power supply, which allows the tester to run currents up to 100A during 30us in the inductors to be characterized.
Knowing the limits of an inductor is very convenient when designing Switch Mode Power Supplies (SMPS) as an inadequate choice may result in very poor performances under high loads. [Kalle]’s tester simply consists in a N-Mosfet switching power through a load while a shunt allows current measurements. The saturation point is then found when the current going through the inductor suddenly peaks. As you can see from the picture above, 16 4700uF electrolytic caps are used to compensate for the sudden voltage drop when the Mosfet is activated. A video of the system in action is embedded after the break. | 9 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "1880526",
"author": "tekkieneet",
"timestamp": "2014-09-23T23:56:23",
"content": "There is also ChaN’s version with a lot less capacitors here:http://elm-chan.org/works/lchk/report.html",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1881068"... | 1,760,376,058.126598 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/23/bluetooth-thingies-at-maker-faire/ | Bluetooth Thingies At Maker Faire | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"arduino",
"bluetooth",
"dev board",
"hardware",
"maker faire",
"tools",
"twitter"
] | In case you haven’t noticed, one of the more popular themes for new dev boards is Bluetooth. Slap a Bluetooth 4.0 module on a board, and you really have something: just about every phone out there has it, and the Low Energy label is great for battery-powered Internets of Things.
Most of these boards fall a little short. It’s one thing to throw a Bluetooth module on a board, but building the software to interact with this board is another matter entirely. Revealing Hour Creations
is bucking that trend with their Tah board
. Basically, it’s your standard Arduino compatible board with a btle module. What they’ve done is add the software for iOS and Android that makes building stuff easy.
Putting Bluetooth on a single board is one thing, but how about putting Bluetooth on
everything
.
SAM Labs showed off their system of things
at Maker Faire with LEDs, buttons, fans, motors, sensors, and just about every electrical component you can imagine.
All of these little boards come with a Bluetooth module and a battery. The software for the system is a graphical interface that allows you to draw virtual wires between everything. Connect a button to a LED in the software, and the LED will light up when the button is pressed. Move your mouse around the computer, and the button will turn on a motor when it’s pressed.
There are a few APIs that also come packaged into the programming environment – at the booth, you could open a fridge (filled with cool drinks that didn’t cost five dollars, a surprise for the faire) and it would post a tweet. | 14 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1879536",
"author": "Ralph Doncaster (Nerd Ralph)",
"timestamp": "2014-09-23T21:50:42",
"content": "The software they’re working on looks good, but that’s where it ends.The background music in the video is distracting from the product info (minor gripe).The $49 is much too expensive... | 1,760,376,058.489724 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/23/retrotechtacular-the-diesel-story/ | Retrotechtacular: The Diesel Story | Kristina Panos | [
"Retrotechtacular"
] | [
"2-stroke",
"4-stroke",
"coal gas",
"combustion",
"diesel",
"diesel engines",
"engine theory",
"fire piston",
"hot bulb engine",
"internal combustion engine",
"Rudolph Diesel",
"transportation"
] | The diesel engine was, like many things, born of necessity. The main engine types of the day—hot bulb oil, steam, coal gas, and gasoline—were not so thermally efficient or ideal for doing heavy-duty work like driving large-scale electrical generators. But how did the diesel engine come about? Settle in and watch the 1952 documentary “
The Diesel Story
“, produced by Shell Oil.
The diesel engine is founded on the principle of internal combustion. Throughout the Industrial Age, technology was developing at breakneck pace. While steam power was a great boon to many burgeoning industries, engineers wanted to get away from using boilers. The atmospheric gas engine fit the bill, but it simply wasn’t powerful enough to replace the steam engine.
By 1877, [Nikolaus Otto] had completed work on his coal gas engine built on four-stroke theory. This was the first really useful internal combustion engine and the precursor of modern four-stroke engines. It was eventually adapted for transportation with gasoline fuel. In 1890, the hot bulb oil engine was developed under the name Hornsby-Akroyd and primarily used in stationary power plants. Their flywheels had to be started manually, but once the engine was going, the bulb that drove combustion required no further heating.
By the turn of the 19th century, many engines of the four main types were humming along. But as we said, none were very thermally efficient. As respected as the steam engine was, the Shell Oil company will have you know that its thermal efficiency is the lowest of the low at 6%. Surely there must be a better way of doing work.
[Rudolph Diesel] was well determined to make it happen, and he worked under a set of four personal certainties: get away from steam, engineer combustion to occur inside the cylinder, use pure air, and ensure that air is highly compressed. With the fire piston’s basic design in mind, he went to work creating a combustion engine using ordinary air.
His first prototype didn’t work very well because of the pressure required, so he added an air pump to forcefully push the fuel into the cylinder. This is known as air-blast injection. By 1897, he had perfected his combustion method to the tune of 27% thermal efficiency.
Soon, diesel engines were being manufactured in many countries for use in electrical generation. Engineers realized their potential to do work at sea, and in 1912, the first diesel ship set sail from Copenhagen to Bangkok. The surge in seagoing diesel engines was the result of adapting the design for a two-stroke cycle, which provides more power.
Not all applications call for high power, however. Submarines, trucks, and tractors need high-speed engines, but the air-blast injection method proved inefficient. It was replaced by the jerk type pump, which sends an exact amount of fuel to the cylinder in a high pressure mist. Combustion was revolutionized once again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7CxoJhjHR4
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
. | 50 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1876916",
"author": "nsayer",
"timestamp": "2014-09-23T17:30:51",
"content": "Aren’t Sterling engines far more efficient than Diesels? Even back when this film was made?As for practical uses of Sterlings… I believe the Danish navy uses them in submarines…",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,376,058.672532 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/23/a-folding-laser-cutter/ | A Folding Laser Cutter | Brian Benchoff | [
"cnc hacks",
"Laser Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"engraving",
"laser",
"laser cutter",
"Laser cutting",
"laser engraving",
"maker faire",
"redant laser"
] | Want a laser cutter, but don’t have the space for one? How about a portable machine to engrave and cut wood and plastics? A folding laser cutter solves these problems, and that’s exactly what
Red Ant Lasers
was showing off last weekend at Maker Faire.
Inside the team’s Origami laser cutter is a 40 Watt CO2 tube, shooting its beam along an entirely enclosed beam path. The beam travels through the body of the machine, out into the folding arm of the machine, and down to whatever material you’ve placed the Origami on. It’s a 40 Watt laser so it will cut plywood and plastics, and as shown in the video above, does a fine job at engraving plywood.
This
is
a Class 4 laser device operating without any safety glass, but from the short time I spent with the Red Ant team, this is a reasonably safe device. You will need safety glasses if you’re within five feet, but after that, everything (according to OSHA, I think) is safe and not dangerous. Either way, it’s a tool just like a table saw. You don’t see commentors on the Internet complaining about how a spinning metal blade is dangerous all the time, do you?
The Red Ant guys are currently running
a Kickstarter for their project
, with a complete unit going for $4200. It’s pricier than a lot of other lasers, but not being constrained by the size of a laser cutters enclosure does open up a few interesting possibilities. You could conceivably cut a 4×8 sheet of plywood with this thing, and exceptionally large engravings start looking easy when you have a portable laser cutter. | 51 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "1875167",
"author": "Celt",
"timestamp": "2014-09-23T14:08:39",
"content": "There is a difference between an obvious spinning metal blade and 40W of invisible, highly damaging laser light though.Looks like a nice design, not too cheap though.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,... | 1,760,376,059.554251 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/23/thp-semifinalist-honeybee-hive-monitoring/ | THP Semifinalist: Honeybee Hive Monitoring | Kristina Panos | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"apitronics",
"beekeeping",
"bees",
"fio",
"HoneyBeeNet",
"honeybees",
"hx711",
"semifinalist",
"the hackaday prize",
"xbee"
] | [Ken] keeps his bees remotely and can’t check on them as often as he might like to. He wanted some way of knowing when they were out of space, because that slows down their nectar collection. He knew he could do this by remotely
tracking the weight and internal temperature of the hives
.
His first prototype revolved around a postal scale that couldn’t be turned off between readings. This meant that he needed a bigger solar panel and battery than originally intended. For about a week, the hives were sending data to Thingspeak through an Arduino
Fio
over XBee.
The current iteration measures the load cells with an HX711 24-bit ADC. This sends the scale data to an Apitronics Bee unit, which adds in temperature data from the hives and sends everything to an Apitronics Hive. [Ken] will also stream it to a cloud service so he can monitor them in real-time. [Ken] wants to see as much data as possible and contribute to NASA’s
HoneyBeeNet
program, so he has a second Bee unit set up to handle a nearby Apitronics weather station.
The project featured in this post is
a semifinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 14 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1873837",
"author": "NotArduino",
"timestamp": "2014-09-23T11:18:14",
"content": "Sweet! It would be cool to have a counting device tracking the number of worker bees coming in vs leaving, then see how that signal correlates with changes in hive weight.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,376,058.735926 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/23/choreographed-iron-dust-dances-to-the-beat/ | Choreographed Iron Dust Dances To The Beat | Adam Fabio | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"choreography",
"electromagnets",
"iron filings",
"magnets",
"maker faire"
] | Up on the second level of World Maker Faire’s main hall, one could hear Technotronic’s hit “Pump up the Jam” playing again and again. We were expecting breakdancing robots, but upon investigating, what we found was something even better. [David Durlach] was showing off his
Choreographed Iron Dust
, a 9 x 9 grid of magnets covered in iron filings. The filings swayed and danced to the beat of the music, at times appearing more like ferrofluid than a dry material. Two LED lights shined on the filings from an oblique angle. This added even more drama to the effect as the light played on the dancing spikes and ridges.
While chatting with [David] he told us that this wasn’t a new hack. Choreographed Iron Dust made its debut at the Boston Museum of Science back in 1989. Suddenly the 80’s music made more sense! The dust’s basic control system hasn’t changed very much since the 1980’s. The magnets are actually a stack of permanent and electromagnets. The permanent magnet provides enough force to hold the filings in place. The electromagnets are switched on to make the filings actually dance.
Since it was designed in 1989, there were no Arduinos available. This project is powered by the most hacker friendly interface of the era: the PC’s parallel port. As one might imagine, [David] has been having a hard time finding PC’s equipped with parallel ports these last few years.
[David] wasn’t just showing off iron dust. Having spent so much time painstakingly animating the iron filings for various customers, he knew there had to be a better way. He’s come up with
ChoreoV
, a system which can take recorded video, live performances, or even capture a section of a user’s screen. The captured data can then be translated directly into light or motion on an art piece. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1872867",
"author": "Dudecallednick",
"timestamp": "2014-09-23T09:22:57",
"content": "They have one of those at the science center in Singapore!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1873369",
"author": "ino",
"timestamp": "20... | 1,760,376,059.22154 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/22/worlds-largest-nixie-clock-at-world-maker-faire/ | World’s Largest “Nixie” Clock At World Maker Faire | Adam Fabio | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"ds1307",
"nixie",
"nixie tube",
"Panaplex",
"sparkfun",
"Strattman",
"Strattman Design"
] | World Maker Faire was host to some incredible projects. Among the favorites was
Nixie Rex
[YouTube Link]. Nixie Rex is actually a Panaplex display, since it’s glow comes from 7 planer segments rather than 10 stacked wire digits. One thing that can’t be contested is the fact that Rex is BIG. Each digit is nearly 18 inches tall!
Nixie Rex was created by [Wayne Strattman]. Through his company Strattman Design, [Wayne] supplies lighting effects such as plasma globes and lightning tubes to the museums and corporations. Nixie Rex’s high voltage drive electronics were created by
[Walker Chan]
, a PHD student at MIT. Believe it tor not the entire clock runs on an ATmega328P based Arduino. The digits are daisy chained from the arduino using common Ethernet cables and RJ45 connectors. A
Sparkfun DS1307
based real-time clock module ensures the Arduino keeps accurate time.
[Wayne] and Rex were located in “The Dark Room” at Maker Faire, home to many LED and low light projects. The dim lighting certainly helped with the aesthetics, but it did make getting good photos of the clock difficult. Long time Hackaday tipster [Parker] graciously provided us with a size reference up above.
Click past the break to see a closeup of that awesome cathode glow, and a video of the Nixie Rex in action.
Got to love that tube glow. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1871295",
"author": "Jac Goudsmit",
"timestamp": "2014-09-23T05:18:12",
"content": "Those are some impressively large “nixie” tubes. But they’re not as big as the ones they used to have in the Evoluon science museum in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. They hung above the entrance and cou... | 1,760,376,058.919729 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/22/topsy-turvy-clock-tells-confusing-time/ | Topsy Turvy Clock Tells Confusing Time | Bryan Cockfield | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"clock",
"microcontroller",
"real time clock",
"rtc"
] | Looking for a new clock but hate the fact that all the numbers are always in the correct order? Look no further than [Andy]’s
topsy turvy clock
which correctly tells time despite the fact that the numbers on the face of the clock are in random positions.
At first glance, the clock looks fairly normal despite the mixed-up numerals. Upon closer inspection, the clock is much more than it appears to be. A battery backed real-time clock keeps track of time, and a microcontroller turns the hands of the clock to where they need to be. The clock uses optical sensors to make sure the hands are in the correct starting position when it is first powered on.
Check out the video below for a better illustration of what the clock looks like when in operation. The hour hand is always pointing at the correct hour, and the minute hand starts every five minutes at the number it would have started at on a normal clock, i.e. at 1:15 the hour hand will point at “one” and the minute hand will point at “three”.
We love this very interesting and unique take. It was inspired by a few other clocks, including a version of the
infamous Vetinari “random tick” clock
which will drive you crazy in a different way. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1869864",
"author": "kristian",
"timestamp": "2014-09-23T02:14:19",
"content": "Looking for the video below… only see buck-boost converter ads.Really pretty number cutouts, though.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1871354",
... | 1,760,376,058.866209 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/22/freescale-and-texas-instruments-goodies-and-world-maker-faire/ | Freescale And Texas Instruments Goodies And World Maker Faire | Brian Benchoff | [
"Featured",
"hardware"
] | [
"CC3200",
"freescale",
"HummingBoard",
"launchpad",
"pcDuino",
"quadcopter",
"texas instruments"
] | Freescale was very kind to Hackaday at Maker Faire this weekend, showing off a few boards and answering a few questions about why old Motorola application notes aren’t available on the Internet.
The Hummingboard from SolidRun
comes in an oddly familiar form factor to anyone who has ever handled a Raspberry Pi. It also has an interesting feature: the CPU is on a small module, allowing anyone to upgrade the chipset to something significantly more powerful. In the top of the line configuration, it has a two core iMX6 CPU with a Gig of RAM, LVDS output, and Gigabit Ethernet. All the complex bits for this board are on a single module, allowing anyone to take the module and put it in another project, a la the Intel Edison.
Also in the Freescale booth
was the pcDuino
, a dual core ARM Cortex A7 with Ethernet, WiFi, and a SATA, with Arduino form factor pinouts. It’s a somewhat niche product, but being able to stack shields on something comparable to a Raspi or BeagleBone is a nice feature.
[Trey German] from Texas Instruments showed off some very cool stuff, including a quadcopter board for a Launchpad microcontroller. This isn’t a board with an IMU and a few servo outputs; this is the whole shebang with a frame, motors, and props. The frame was cut from some odd composite that’s usually used for road signs, and even though it wasn’t flying at the Faire (nothing was flying, by the way), it’s pretty light for a quad made at a board house.
Also from TI was their CC3200 dev board. This is a single chip with an ARM Cortex M4 and a WiFi radio
that we’ve seen before
. The CC3200 runs TI’s Wiring/Arduino inspired development environment
Energia
, and at about $30 for the CC3200 Launchpad board, it’s an easy and cheap way to build an Internet of Things thing. | 25 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1868639",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2014-09-22T23:10:07",
"content": "And why, in fact, are old Motorola application notes not available on the Internet?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1868865",
"author": "Randy... | 1,760,376,059.180759 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/22/scripting-debug-sessions-python-for-gdb-remote-serial-protocol/ | Scripting Debug Sessions: Python For GDB Remote Serial Protocol | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"debugging",
"gdb",
"ocd",
"pyrsp",
"python",
"scripting"
] | Are you tired of hammering out the same commands over and over again in GDB? If not, we highly encourage you take more advantage of The GNU Project Debugger, which is a fantastic way to poke around inside your microcontrollers while they’re running a program.
Back to the matter at hand. [Stef] put together
a Python program that leverages GDB’s Remote Serial Protocol
. He calls it pyrsp and the talk he recently gave about it can be seen below.
The core feature is the ability to add a callback in your C code that triggers the Python script. Think of this a little bit like a print statement, except you have so much more power since it’s Python and GDB doing the “printing”. Anything that can be done at a breakpoint in GDB can now be executed automatically. So if you need to check a group of registers at every loop execution for hundreds of loops your wrists are going to thank you. Better yet, you can use Python to do the sanity checks automatically, continuing when the data is good and alerting you when it’s not. Neat! | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "1867718",
"author": "NotArduino",
"timestamp": "2014-09-22T20:29:48",
"content": "Wow Mike, this must be fantastic because it helped you debug your time sensitive loops right?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1867890",
"autho... | 1,760,376,059.268331 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/22/lulzbot-lime-green-begonias/ | Lulzbot & Lime Green Begonias | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Featured"
] | [
"3d printer",
"bed leveling",
"lulzbot",
"lulzbot mini",
"maker faire",
"tip cleaning"
] | Lulzbot, or more specifically Aleph Objects, had a booth at Maker Faire this year, and unlike a lot of other 3D printer manufacturers they’re not afraid to show off what they currently have in development. The latest is code-named Begonia, although when it makes it to production it will probably be called the Lulzbot Mini. It’s a smaller version of
their huge Taz 3D printer
that trades build volume for a lower price.
The Lulzbot Mini will have a 6x6x6 inch build volume, heated bed, and all the other features you would expect in its larger counterpart. One interesting feature is automated nozzle cleaning and bed leveling. At the start of every print run, the nozzle runs over a small felt pad at the back of the build plate, touches off four metal washers at each corner, and recalculates the GCode for a level print. You can check out a demo of that in the video above.
Also in the works in the Lulzbot labs is a controller panel with an SD card, display, and (I think) a touch interface. Lulzbot didn’t have a demo of this, but rest assured, we’ll post something on that when it’s released. The last time we saw Lulzbot we heard of a 3D scanner project they’re working on
that will turn any physical object into an .STL file
, without having to mess about in Meshlab. Development on this project is stalled, but that
is
a very difficult problem. Can’t fault them for that.
Oh, the price for the unannounced Lulzbot Mini? Somewhere around $1300-1400. | 21 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1866831",
"author": "snow",
"timestamp": "2014-09-22T17:39:26",
"content": "there seems to be 2 full minutes of the video missing at the end (or just forgot to edit it off?)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1866955",
"a... | 1,760,376,059.325405 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/22/cryogenic-machining-custom-rubber-parts/ | Cryogenic Machining: Custom Rubber Parts | Marsh | [
"cnc hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"aquarium pump",
"cnc",
"CNC mill",
"CNC milling",
"cryogenic",
"freeze",
"freezing",
"neoprene",
"rubber"
] | Fashioning a custom, one-off rubber part for your project isn’t usually an option, but [Ben Krasnow] has an alternative to injection molding and casting:
machining frozen rubber
.
As [Ben] points out, you can’t exactly pop a sheet of rubber on your mill and CNC the needed shape; the bit will push the material around rather than cut it. Freezing the rubber first, however, allows you to carve into the now-hardened material.
His initial setup consisted of a sheet of aluminum with water drizzled on top, a square of neoprene placed on the water, and a steady stream of -60 to -80C alcohol flowing directly onto the rubber. The water underneath freezes, holding the neoprene in place. This proved problematic as the ice-clamp gives way before the milling is complete. [Ben] later adds some bolts to clamp the pieces down, allowing the milling process finish as planned.
A small plastic tray sits underneath this assembly to capture the alcohol as it runs off, feeding it back with some tubing. [Ben] recommends against a submersible aquarium pump—his initial choice—because the pump stopped working after a few minutes immersed in the chilly alcohol. An external, magnetically-driven pump solved the problem although it does require manual priming.
Stick around after the jump for the video and check out some of [Ben’s] other projects, like his
quest for the perfect cookie
, or
CT scanning a turkey
. | 43 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "1865586",
"author": "gannon",
"timestamp": "2014-09-22T14:09:14",
"content": "Interesting, but I’d think that the extreme cold might not play nice with the end mill.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1867027",
"author": ... | 1,760,376,059.402358 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/22/thp-semifinalist-noteon-smartpen/ | THP Semifinalist: NoteOn Smartpen | Eric Evenchick | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"bluetooth low energy",
"IMU",
"nordic",
"nrf8001",
"semifinalist",
"smartpen",
"stm32",
"the hackaday prize"
] | There are a ton of apps out there for taking notes and recording ideas, but sometimes the humble pen is best. However, if you have the tendency to lose, crumple, or spill caffeinated beverages on your pen and paper notes, having a digital copy is quite nice.
The
NoteOn Smartpen
by [
Nick
] aims to digitize your writing on the fly while behaving like a normal pen. It does this by using the
ST LSM9DS0TR
: a 9-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU). These inertial measurements are processed by a
STM32 Cortex M4F
processor and stored on the internal flash memory.
To retrieve your notes, the
Nordic nRF8001
Bluetooth Low Energy radio pairs the MCU with a phone or computer. The USB port is only used to charge the device, and the user interface is a single button and LED.
The major hardware challenge of this device is packaging it in something as small as a pen. Impressively, the board is a cheap 2 layer PCB from OSHPark. The assembled device has a 10 mm diameter, which is similar to that of ‘dumb’ pens.
The NoteOn doesn’t require special paper, and relies only on inertial measurements to reconstruct writing. With the hardware working, [Nick] is now tackling the firmware that will make the device usable.
The project featured in this post is
a quarterfinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 28 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "1864530",
"author": "Josh",
"timestamp": "2014-09-22T11:05:39",
"content": "Does this also match your super favourite colours and let you write with them?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1864658",
"author": "scuffles",... | 1,760,376,059.469268 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/22/a-water-powered-flashlight/ | A Water Activated Flashlight? | James Hobson | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"earth battery",
"nathan stubblefield",
"water battery"
] | We’ve all seen lemon batteries or potato clocks, but have you ever
seen a water activated battery?
[Nathan Stubblefield] was an
American inventor
(born 1860) who never got quite as much recognition as some of the other great inventors of the time, [Tesla, Bell, Edison etc] — though he did demonstrate some very interesting wireless telephony technology. In addition to dabbling with invisible radio waves, [Stubblefield]
filed a patent
for something called an Earth Battery, which makes use of two coils of dissimilar materials (a voltaic couple) submerged in water (or moist earth). As you can imagine, it wasn’t overly effective, nor efficient by any means — but it worked.
[Lasersaber] has been playing around with the “Stubblefield Coil” recently, and designed a working flashlight using the theory. He designed a
3D printed coil holder
which allows you to easily wrap copper and magnesium strips around it to create the coil. Three of these cells go together in series to produce your water battery (and handle of the flashlight).
It’s not quite done yet, but he has plans to wrap it in a porous material that can dry out quickly — that way when you need the flashlight you can dunk it in a bucket of water, and
hopefully
have a run time of half an hour, before needing more water. It won’t last forever mind you.
[Thanks Mike!] | 34 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "1863427",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2014-09-22T08:14:06",
"content": "That’s not water powered. No energy is extracted from the water, it’s purely used as an ion transport like every other electrochemical cell out there.The video names this properly – it’s not water powered,... | 1,760,376,059.624429 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/21/a-li-ion-battery-charging-guide/ | A Li-ion Battery Charging Guide | Marsh | [
"Parts"
] | [
"battery",
"battery charger",
"charger",
"Li-ion",
"lithium",
"lithium ion"
] | Although [pinomelean’s]
Lithium-ion battery guide
sounds like the topic is a bit specific, you’ll find a number of rechargeable battery basics discussed at length. Don’t know what a
C-rate is
? Pfffft. Roll up those sleeves and let’s dive into some theory.
As if you needed a reminder, many lithium battery types are
prone to outbursts
if mishandled: a proper charging technique is essential. [pinomelean] provides a detailed breakdown of the typical stages involved in a charge cycle and offers some tips on the advantages to lower voltage thresholds before turning his attention to the practical side: designing your own charger circuit from scratch.
The circuit itself is based around a handful of LM324 op-amps, creating a current and voltage-limited power supply. Voltage limits to 4.2V, and current is adjustable: from 160mA to 1600mA. This charger may take a few hours to juice up your batteries, but it does so safely, and [pinomelean’s] step-by-step description of the device helps illustrate exactly how the process works.
[Thanks mansalvo] | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1861575",
"author": "Darth",
"timestamp": "2014-09-22T02:58:45",
"content": "Interestingly enough, that happens to be the same village my brain operates at",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1862045",
"author": "echodelta",
... | 1,760,376,059.672034 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/21/hackaday-links-september-21-2014/ | Hackaday Links: September 21, 2014 | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [] | Obviously the best way to show you’ve pwned a piece of hardware is to run Doom on it. This time around it’s not just a hardware hack but a security hack. [Michael Jordan]
demonstrates a network vulnerability on a Canon printer
by making it run Doom. [Thanks to all who sent this tip to us]
Fans of the photo-resist method of PCB etching will appreciate
this Bromograph built from an old all-in-one-printer
. When gutted, the body of the printer makes a nice enclosure for four UV Lamps. The treated copper clad goes face-down on the scanner glass with the printed transparency between the two. [Michele’s] early testing shows really great results.
[Tom] sent in a link to
this video biography of the rLab hackerspace
. It shows off the space and its members but also tells the story of a tight-knit community. We enjoyed hearing that almost everything in the space is salvaged and repaired; a great way to acquire equipment on a tight budget while also building the skills of the members.
The bulbs in projectors can be quite expensive to replace. This hack
adds an RC filter to the bulb
and claims to greatly extend its life. Does this really work and why isn’t it built into the projector?
[Steve Maher] built
a GRBL board that is the same form-factor as a DB25 connector
housing. It’s basically an Arduino derivative that includes a USB connection, a separate jack for STOP and CYCLE START switches. If you’re not familiar,
GRBL
is an open source project that lets your drive parallel-port-based hardware with a machine that doesn’t have a parallel port.
Finally, have you heard of
the ZofzPCB program
before? It’s a way to visualize your gerber files in order to perform a final sanity check before sending your deign off for fabrication. [Thanks
Boldport
] | 20 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1860481",
"author": "DjBiohazard",
"timestamp": "2014-09-21T23:04:44",
"content": "It’s a way to visualize your gerber files in order to perform a final sanity check before sending your deign off for fabrication.Deign. The irony.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies... | 1,760,376,059.851771 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/21/ask-hackaday-how-would-you-build-a-clock-clock/ | Ask Hackaday: How Would You Build A Clock Clock? | Mike Szczys | [
"Ask Hackaday"
] | [
"analog",
"art",
"clock",
"mosaic"
] | Hotel art often elicits less than a glance from most patrons. But we have to admit if we came across
a piece like this
we’d be compelled to record a video for later reference. That’s actually where the video came from, this was spotted in a hotel called
Ham Yard
.
The concept seemed familiar to us and a bit of Google-fu brings up
our previous coverage of the concept
back in 2010. The display is made up of circular analog clocks and we’d wager this is a version of “
a million times
” by Human Since 1982, the same artist who brought us the earlier concept.
Since we’re covering this once again we thought it would be fun to ask: how would you go about building your own? There are several challenges that come to mind. First, notice both hands of the analog clocks appear to be exactly the same (there is no short hour hand). Driving the coils of a cheap clock directly (a la
Lord Vetinari clock hacking
) seems an obvious approach. But look closely and you’ll see the hands sometimes move in opposite directions. There must be a simple way to implement the control, or are we chasing a pipe dream of a low cost version for our workshop clock?
[Thanks Munit] | 96 | 40 | [
{
"comment_id": "1859589",
"author": "WJCarpenter",
"timestamp": "2014-09-21T20:08:58",
"content": "There is a slightly shorter hour hand, but that’s kind of the least of the problems to overcome. :-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1859598",
... | 1,760,376,060.113319 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/21/flite-test-at-nyc-maker-faire/ | Flite Test At NYC Maker Faire | Adam Fabio | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"Bixler",
"Dollar Tree Foam",
"Dollar-Tree",
"drone",
"flite test",
"Foamy",
"Zvada"
] | NYC Maker Faire may be a no fly zone this year, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of the
Flite Test
Crew. We met with Flite Test outside their tent in the R/C and drone area of Maker Faire. [Josh Bixler and Alex Zvada] are two of the hosts of the popular YouTube channel. [Josh] is also well-known for his R/C plane designs, such as the
Bloody Wonder
and
Simple Storch
. In addition to hosting, [Alex] is the graphic designer Flite Test. He is also an ace quadcopter pilot, and can be found flying his 250 sized chase quad in many episodes.
Most of Flite Test’s designs utilize Readi-Board, available at Dollar-Tree stores around the USA and Canada. The Flite Test crew is working directly with the manufacturer of this foam to make it, and their designs available all over the world.
The team also takes up incredible challenges such as a
flying toaster
which actually works, making toast as it files. Their
flying cinder block
is not to be missed either. Their biggest challenge to date was the
Google Project Wing + Amazon Prime Air mashup
. The video featured a drone that delivered a drone that delivered a drone that delivered a drone that delivered a stick of gum.
Matryoshka dolls
have nothing on these guys! | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1858650",
"author": "Andrew Plumb (@clothbot)",
"timestamp": "2014-09-21T17:07:35",
"content": "The video is currently marked as “private”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1859111",
"author": "Mike Szczys",
"ti... | 1,760,376,060.159253 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/21/component-video-input-hack-is-a-master-hack-for-crt-televisions/ | RGB Video Input Hack Is A Master Hack For CRT Televisions | Mike Szczys | [
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"component video",
"crt",
"menu",
"osd",
"television"
] | What’s shown on the screen above is about half-way through the process of
hacking RGB video into a CRT television
that’s not supposed to have it. The lettering is acting a bit like a layer mask, showing bits of the Super Mario Bros. start screen which is being injected from an original Famicom. [Michael J. Moffitt] figured out that he could patch his signals into the multiplexer which is responsible for overlaying the TV’s menu system. Obviously you can’t get your Mario on with this view, but the next step was as simple as finding the blanking pin and tying it 5V. Brilliant.
This particular hack is worthy of recognition. But read through [Michael’s] write up and it’s obvious that he knows the driver circuitry beyond the realm of normal curiosity. If you ever get stuck while
trying to do something custom
, we’d recommend pinging him with your questions (sorry [Michael] but with great knowledge comes great responsibility). | 20 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "1858338",
"author": "Li Gangyi",
"timestamp": "2014-09-21T16:06:22",
"content": "I remember doing this for an arcade board back in the day with a bog standard TV. Did the same thing here as well by feeding the RGB into the OSD lines, fed the sync into the composite input and all was... | 1,760,376,059.930183 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/21/thp-semifinalist-a-haptic-vest-with-48-vibration-motors/ | THP Semifinalist: A Haptic Vest With 48 Vibration Motors | Brian Benchoff | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"haptic",
"haptic feedback",
"pwm",
"the hackaday prize",
"vest"
] | For his entry to The Hackady Prize,
[Sean] is building a haptic vest for gamers and the visually impaired
. It’s exactly what you think it is: a vest with proximity sensors and motors that wrap around the wearer, providing haptic feedback of nearby obstacles. Actually building a vest with a few dozen motors is a bit of a challenge, and that’s why this project is in the running for The Hackaday Prize.
Each of the 48 motors are individually controllable with PWM. In any other project, this would require a few dozen microcontrollers or one with a whole lot of pins. [Sean], however, is using LED drivers. They do exactly what [Sean] needs them to do – an easy to interface way of a whole bunch of PWM lines – and they do it cheaper than any other solution.
For detecting objects surrounding the vest, [Sean] is using the depth sensor on a 1st gen Microsoft Kinect. In testing, [Sean] blindfolded a volunteer and had a few friends move around with cardboard ‘obstacles.’ The volunteer successfully avoided all the obstacles, as seen in the video below.
The project featured in this post is
a quarterfinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 19 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1855977",
"author": "matseng",
"timestamp": "2014-09-21T11:10:35",
"content": "Cool project, I’d like to try the west on myself.But the contest requirement of “It must transmit data to and/or from another device” is definitely applied to it’s maximum outer limits here. Connecting a... | 1,760,376,064.148567 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/21/a-professional-spot-welder-made-out-of-a-microwave-transformer/ | A Professional Spot Welder Made Out Of A Microwave Transformer | James Hobson | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"diy spot welder",
"microwave oven transformer",
"mot spot welder"
] | Spot welders are one of the very few pieces of metal working equipment that are actually very much
cheaper to build yourself
than to buy commercially. In fact, between salvaging a transformer out of an old microwave and buying some of the other components, it’s doable for under $100USD in most cases.
We’ve
shared
this
hack
quite
a few times
before, but [Albert van Dalen] has really taken the cake on creating a very detailed and extensive guide to not only building his, but how to properly use it for various purposes.
[Albert] designed it in a way that allows it to be configured in both opposed and series electrode positions which means besides being able to spot weld sheet metal together, you can also spot weld battery tabs while on cells!
He’s also used an Arduino to allow for precise timing of current application, and created an adjustable force guide to provide pressure during the weld — a feature usually only seen on the commercial units. His blog has tons of information on it, so if you’re interested in building your own, check it out!
[via
Reddit
] | 39 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "1854712",
"author": "BotherSaidPooh",
"timestamp": "2014-09-21T08:47:17",
"content": "Nice hack, Philpem made one a while back but his version used a 600K uF (0.6F) capacitor and some clever switching to tailbite the pulse and dump it into a resistor.I tried it using my setup but 1F... | 1,760,376,064.089402 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/20/open-source-hackable-robot/ | Open Source Hackable Robot | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"arduino robot",
"educational robot",
"robot"
] | The world of robots is an interesting place, and it’s an even better place for children to get started in electronics. To that end, [Richard Albritton] has created a
low-cost, open source robotics platform called the Hack-E-Bot
specifically tailored to make it as easy as possible to get started.
The goals for the robot kit were to spark curiosity for electronics and programming, to be easy to assemble and program, to be scalable, and to be as easy on the wallet as possible. This was accomplished by using the familiar Arduino microcontroller on an intuitive platform. The robot uses an ultrasonic rangefinder to navigate as well, and can support a wide range of other sensors. The kit comes in at just under $50, making it a great option for an entry-level robot.
The project is currently seeking crowd funding and [Richard] is also seeking educators to get involved. Currently the only kits available are at fairs and other conventions but they should be able to start producing them in greater quantities in the future. The Arduino libraries are a work in progress but they are available on the project site, as well as several instructional videos and other information about the project. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1856834",
"author": "ARM",
"timestamp": "2014-09-21T12:44:56",
"content": "Well there goes my idea. Just that I my robots are $40 cheaper and also have a NRF24L01 slapped on.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1856844",
"... | 1,760,376,064.25088 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/20/thp-semifinalist-cheap-satellite-transponder/ | THP Semifinalist: Cheap Satellite Transponder | Brian Benchoff | [
"Radio Hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"amateur radio",
"ham",
"radio",
"the hackaday prize",
"transponder",
"x band"
] | In 2016, a communications satellite will be launched into geostationary orbit somewhere over the middle east. Normally, this is fairly ordinary occurrence. This satellite, however, will be carrying two amateur radio transponders for hams all across europe, africa, the middle east, and India.
[2FTG] is building a satellite transponder to talk to this satellite
, and he’s doing it with junk sitting around his workbench.
The uplink frequency for this satellite will be in the neighborhood of 2.4 GHz, and [2FTG] needed a way to deal with the out of band interference in this part of the spectrum. The easy and cheap way to do this is with filters made for the WiFi band. Instead, [2FTG]
had a few cavity filters in his junk box
and decided to go that route. It meant he had to retune the filters, a process that should be annoyingly hard. [2FTG] did it in thirty minutes.
Antennas are another matter, but since [2FTG] has a supply of metal coffee cans, this part of the build was just a matter of soldering a bit of wire to an SMA connector, drilling a hole (using a log as a drill stop, no less), and soldering the connector to the can.
The project featured in this post is
a quarterfinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "1851909",
"author": "666blah666",
"timestamp": "2014-09-21T03:27:47",
"content": "It’s a finalist, and you didn’t read the description? It’s not going to talk to the satellite, it’s a dummy transponder that he can use to test something else that he builds to talk to the satellite…"... | 1,760,376,064.016078 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/20/low-level-computing-with-entry-level-difficulty-duo-light/ | Low-Level Computing With Entry-Level Difficulty: DUO Light | Mike Szczys | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"atmega328",
"byte code",
"computer",
"low level",
"ram"
] | The hardware can’t get much simpler. The DUO Light uses an ATmega328 (commonly found on Arduino boards) along with an external SRAM chip to provide a low-level computer programming experience that will suit those new to programming and some more experienced tinkerers.
At the time of writing
the modest Kickstarter goal of $1100
was just $18 shy of success. We’d wager that this is partly due to
the availability of so much support material
on [Jack’s] website. (fyi- a lot of the links on that page are zip files)
The SD card slot accepts a FAT16 card with byte code for the programs. The available Psuedo C compiler, and assembler let you pick your poison, or you can simply
dig into the byte code directly
. We didn’t see a schematic, but the firmware and BOM are both available. You should be able to easily figure out connections from those.
We’ve been a fan of [Jack’s] work for quite some time. His
TTL computer
and
16-core ATmega-based
offerings are sure to delight, even if you remember seeing them go by the first time. This isn’t his first stab at educational models either. Though we still found
his logic chip computer
a bit daunting. | 27 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "1849697",
"author": "Embedded-Clovis (@ClovisDuino)",
"timestamp": "2014-09-20T23:52:37",
"content": "I appreciate the effort made! By now the project is already funded, so good luck for the creator, and let me have fun with my own Duo Light :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": ... | 1,760,376,064.312646 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/20/nyc-maker-faire-the-logistics-of-manufacturing-pentagons/ | NYC Maker Faire: The Logistics Of Manufacturing Pentagons | Brian Benchoff | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"116.56505°",
"Blinkytile",
"led",
"maker faire",
"Pentagon"
] | Most of the Maker Faire attendees have spent weeks or months putting together their projects. [Matt] is doing things a little differently. He brought two thousand boards, each containing twelve pentagon PCBs with individually addressable LEDs mounted in the center. This weekend, he, his team, and anyone else who can wield a soldering iron will be assembling these pentagon panels into a gigantic glowing crystal.
Last year, [Matt]
put together a Kickstarter
for Blinkytape, a WS2812 LED strip with an Arduino on one end of the strip to generate patterns of colors. This year, [Matt] is moving into three dimensions with a system of pentagons with a single RGB LED mounted in the center. The pentagons can be soldered together into a regular polyhedra or a convoluted wall of LEDs that form a geometric crystal pattern of blinkyness. The Kickstarter for the BlinkyTile should be up before the faire is over.
[Matt] has a few tips for anyone wanting to run their own Kickstarter: don’t have a lot of SKUs. [Matt] only has to keep track of a single panel of twelve pentagons. Compare this to other failed Kickstarters with dozens of options, several colors, and a few stretch goals, and you quickly see why many, many Kickstarters fail. [Matt] is just selling
one
thing. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "1854503",
"author": "Alan",
"timestamp": "2014-09-21T08:21:46",
"content": "Buckyballs and soccer balls.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1854603",
"author": "tomás zerolo",
"timestamp": "2014-09-21T08:33:26",
"conten... | 1,760,376,064.34953 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/20/munich-help-plan-hackadays-first-european-event/ | Munich: Help Plan Hackaday’s First European Event | Mike Szczys | [
"Featured"
] | [
"electronica",
"europe",
"event",
"germany",
"hackathon",
"munich",
"party",
"TheHackadayPrize"
] | On Thursday, November 13th we’ve rented a huge hall in Munich, Germany and plan to host a hacking event followed by a celebration.
You need to take the day off of work and join us. Better yet, convince your boss that this is professional development and that attending is good for the company!
We’re not taking the space shuttle across the pond, this illustration reflects the connection with The Hackaday Prize. This trip will mark the end of the contest and the unveiling of the Grand Prize winner.
What do *you* want to hack?
The big question we have right now, is what kind of hands-on hardware hacking do you want to do? We published
a page over on Hackaday.io to discuss
the possibilities. Let your imagination run wild and we’ll do our best to make it all happen. We know from
James’ hackerspace tour last year
that there are a ton of Hackaday community members within reasonable travel distance from Munich. Here’s our chance to get everyone together for an Epic day of building and night of partying. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1848300",
"author": "none",
"timestamp": "2014-09-20T17:05:35",
"content": "Huge hall where? The post is tagged with “electronica” –http://www.electronica.de/en/home/visitorelectronica – the world’s leading trade show for electronic components, systems and applications26th internati... | 1,760,376,063.965185 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/20/psp-lithium-hack-could-be-called-the-franken-cell/ | PSP Lithium Hack Could Be Called The Franken-Cell | Mike Szczys | [
"Playstation Hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"cell",
"lithium",
"protection circuit",
"psp"
] | You assume that you’ll be able to get parts forever… after all: The Internet. But what if you can’t justify paying the price for them? [Cristi C.] was in this situation, not wanting to fork over $30+ for a replacement PSP battery. The handheld gaming rig itself was just discontinued this year but supposedly the batteries have been out of production for some time. What you see above is the controller board from an original battery, with the cell from a camera battery.
The key is protection. The chemistry in Lithium cells of several types brings a working voltage of around 3.7V. Swapping the cells — even if they are different capacities — should work as protection circuits generally measure current, voltage, and sometimes temperature as they charge in order to know when the cell is full. With this in mind [Christi] cracked open a used Canon NB-6L type battery and grabbed the prismatic cell as
a replacement for the pouch cell in the Sony S110 case
(PDF). The Canon cell is enclosed in a metal case and is just a bit smaller than the pouch was. This means with careful work it fit back inside the original plastic enclosure.
On a somewhat related note, be careful when sourcing brand-x batteries. Some manufacturers implement checks for OEM equipment but
there are ways around that
. | 19 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1847750",
"author": "NiN",
"timestamp": "2014-09-20T14:20:19",
"content": "I used to do that with cell-phone and mp3 player batteries. It works okay because protection circuit does not have any memory. Laptop batteries are different story, they have an EEPROM with data about done cy... | 1,760,376,064.199917 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/20/nyc-makerfaire-a-really-really-big-printer/ | NYC MakerFaire: A Really, Really Big Printer | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"delta printer",
"maker faire",
"seemecnc"
] | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtQG733dC1s
Walk in to the science center at Maker Faire this year, and the first thing you’ll see is a gargantuan assemblage of aluminum extrusion spitting out molten plastic for one of the biggest 3D prints you’ve ever seen. It’s SeeMeCNC’s PartDaddy, a 16-foot tall 3D printer with a four foot diameter build plate.
The printer doesn’t extrude filament. Instead, this printer sucks up PLA pellets and extrudes them with a modified injection mold press mounted to a delta printer frame. That’s a 4mm nozzle squirting plastic. The heater for the extruder is 110 V, and the NEMA32 motors are controlled with 72V drivers. Everything about this is huge, and it’s surprisingly fast; a single-wall vase grew by about two feet in as many hours. We have no idea how fast a solid print can be completed, although the SeeMeCNC guys will probably find out later this weekend.
SeeMeCNC also had
a neat little resin printer
with an impossibly clever name on display. We’ll get a post up on that later this weekend. | 28 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "1847076",
"author": "Zee",
"timestamp": "2014-09-20T11:10:32",
"content": "This is amazing. Any chance of mounting it vertically?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1847837",
"author": "Zee",
"timestamp": "2014-09... | 1,760,376,064.418179 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/20/vector-laser-projector-is-a-lesson-in-design-processes/ | Vector Laser Projector Is A Lesson In Design Processes | Mike Szczys | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"galvanometer",
"laser projector",
"projector"
] | After two years of EE coursework, [Joshua Bateman] and [Adam Catley] were looking for a fun summer project. Instead of limping along with the resources they could put together themselves, they managed to get their school — Bristol University — to foot the bill!
Now Uni’s aren’t in the habit of just forking over funding for no reason, and we thing that’s why the two did such a great job of documenting their work. We’re used to seeing blogs devoted to one project, but this one has
a vast portfolio of every piece of work that went into the build
. Before any assembly started they drew out design diagrams to form the specification, laid out the circuit and the board artwork, and even worked out how the software would function in order to make sure the hardware met all their needs.
When the parts arrived the work of hand-populating the surface mount boards began. This is reflected in the fast-motion video they recorded including this clip which features
a 176 pin LQFP
. The driver board is a shield for a Raspberry Pi which drives the Galvanometers responsible for the X and Y movements of the mirror.
The video below shows off their success and the blog makes a great resource to point to when applying for work once a freshly minted diploma is in hand.
What do you think the next step should be? We’d advocate for a trip to crazy-town like
this RGB laser projector
we saw several years ago. Of course
the same classic vector games we saw on Thursday
would be equally awesome without alerting this hardware at all. | 17 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1846647",
"author": "Galane",
"timestamp": "2014-09-20T09:09:24",
"content": "Very nice build. What should reduce the lag, improving corner sharpness etc, is moving the projector farther back from the screen. The galvos won’t have to turn as far for the same deflection distance on t... | 1,760,376,065.403694 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/19/auto-balancing-gimbal-keeps-your-coffee-from-spilling/ | Auto-Balancing Gimbal Keeps Your Coffee From Spilling | James Hobson | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"air",
"artist in residence",
"gimbal",
"pier 9",
"pier 9 workshop"
] | [Joe] works in one of those fancy offices that has some… unique furniture. Including a swinging boardroom table. See where we’re going with this? [Joe] made his own
coffee cup gimbal.
The gimbal itself is made out of solid steel, welded together for maximum durability. He first built it out of plastic to test the concept, but then quickly moved to the all-metal solution. It’s a 2-axis gimbal featuring very powerful brushless DC motors, capable of balancing even a light-weight DSLR — however we think balancing a coffee cup is much more entertaining. It does this with ease, even when sitting on the treacherous swinging boardroom table (of DOOM).
It was made as one of his projects for an
Artist in Residence (AIR)
program made possible by a Instructables and Autodesk. We know that first “a-word” probably scared most of you off, but it’s actually a fascinating residency. They’ve put together the
Pier 9 workshop
, which has every tool and machine you can imagine. The program gives makers, designers,
artists
and engineers a chance to work with some of the latest technology to design and build projects, to share on Instructables. It actually sounds pretty awesome.
The primary goals of the residency program are to support the artist/maker community by connecting innovative and creative individuals with our unique set of tools and resources. We strive to build a community that shares their ideas and knowledge.
Oh yeah, and here’s the video of the Coffee Cup Gimbal in action: | 35 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "1845691",
"author": "RandyKC",
"timestamp": "2014-09-20T05:12:23",
"content": "I want the office table and chairs.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1845709",
"author": "ScottishCaptain",
"timestamp": "2014-09-20T05:18:14"... | 1,760,376,064.695612 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/19/stepping-through-code-on-a-pace-4000-set-top-box/ | Stepping Through Code On A Pace 4000 Set Top Box | Mike Szczys | [
"ARM",
"classic hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"gdb",
"jtag",
"JTAGenum",
"openocd",
"reverse engineering",
"set top box"
] | [Lee] wrote in to tell us about a Set Top Box he hacked. Before the cable industry lawyers get out their flaming swords… he’s not stealing cable, or really doing much of anything. This is a hack just for the adventure and thrill of making someone else’s hardware design do your bidding without any kind of instructions.
He posted about the adventure in two parts. The first is
finding the JTAG header
and identifying the pins. Arduino to the rescue! No really, and this is the type of Arduino use we love. Using
a package called JTAGenum
the board becomes a quick tool for probing and identifying JTAG connections.
The image above shows a different piece of hardware. From looking at it we’re pretty sure this is
a Bus Blaster
which is specifically designed for JTAG debugging with ARM processors. This is the beginning of the second part of his documentation which
involves code dumping and stepping through lines code
(or instructions) using OpenOCD and GDB. It’s a chore to follow all that [Lee] discovered just to write his name to the display of the box. But we certainly found it interesting. The display has a convoluted addressing scheme. We assume that there are cascading shift registers driving the segments and that’s why it behaves the way it does. Take a look for yourself and let us know what you think in the comments. | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1845090",
"author": "Mark",
"timestamp": "2014-09-20T02:09:33",
"content": "Can we program the set top box to send those annoying pop-up ads that crop up after each commercial at the bottom of the screen to the back of the program screen?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,376,064.787056 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/19/hacklet-16-telepresence/ | Hacklet 16 – Terrific Telepresence Technology | Adam Fabio | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"hacklet",
"rov",
"telepresence",
"telerobotics"
] | This weeks Hacklet is all about being there when you can’t through the magic of telepresence. More than just teleconferencing, telepresence takes things a step further to put the user in a remote space. That might be a robot platform, VR goggles, or a actuators to interact with the remote environment. It’s also a field filled with opportunities for creative hackers!
We start with [PJK’s]
Subterranean investigation device
. [PJK] is exploring a castle for a hidden basement. To get there he has to traverse a tiny passageway with a rubble floor. Nicknamed “Sid The Weedy”, [PJK’s] bot is radio controlled and uses a webcam to send images back to [PJK]. Much like the robots used to
explore pyramids
, [PJK] has gone with a track drive system. Unlike the pyramid bots, [PJK] is on a budget, so his track system is a modified chain with block treads. [PJK] doesn’t want to get too attached to his robot – he may well lose Sid on his maiden voyage.
Next up is [JackRC] with his
Skype robot
. [Jack] is building a relatively low-cost (approx $200 USD) robot using the Skype API. Both his Mark I and Mark II models are based on R/C tanks. Tanks can carry a surprising amount of weight when you remove the turret and cannon. [Jack] added a mounting arm for a tablet and a robot arm for disarming bombs and/or angry children. His craftsmanship skills really show through in the completed ‘bot. Without a size reference, it could pass for a police issue bomb disposal robot!
[Gary Firestone] takes us to the skies with his
Minimal Latency Oculus Rift FPV
. [Gary] is using an Oculus Rift Head Mounted Display (HMD) for First Person View (FPV) piloting. His aircraft is a quadcopter. [Gary’s] video source is a GoPro camera. His quadcopter transmits the video on 5.8GHz using a standard analog video system. On the receiving end, a laptop captures the video, removes the fish eye warp from the GoPro lens, the re-warps the image for the Oculus. His latency is down around 50 – 100ms, which is pretty good for a system capturing analog video.
Next [Brad] rolls cross-country with
Chipbot: 4G Telepresence Rover Across America
. [Brad] and his 5-year-old stepson are converting an R/C truck into a telepresence rover. Chipbot’s electronics have been given a major upgrade. [Brad] added a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino with an SN75441 chip for motor control. Connectivity is via WiFi using a TP-LINK router, or cellular using a 4G modem. Rather than a Raspberry Pi camera, [Brad] chose to go with a Ubiquiti IP camera. The Ubiquiti uses power over ethernet, so he’s added a POE injector. Chipbot is still in development, but as [Brad’s] last update shows, Chipbot is already responding to commands from the interwebs. It’s been about a month since the last Chipbot update, so if you see [Brad] tell him to stop by
Hackaday.io
and let us how things are progressing!
Finally, we have [Joe Ferner] with his generically named
Telepresence Robot
. [Joe] is controlling his android telepresence avatar with Google’s Android Operating System. His on-board computer is a Nexus 7 tablet. A custom board with an STM32 ARM microcontroller allows the Nexus to interface to the robot’s motors and sensors. [Joe] is using a web interface to control his robot. The early demos are promising, as the telepresence bot has already been taken for a drive in Reston, VA by a user in Milwaukee, WI.
That’s a wrap for this episode of The Hacklet. As always, see you next week. Same hack time, same hack channel, bringing you the best of
Hackaday.io!
Update – Check out our
telepresence list right here
! | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,376,064.737348 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/19/finally-a-hamster-wheel-for-the-rest-of-us/ | Finally, A Hamster Wheel For The Rest Of Us | James Hobson | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"hamster wheel",
"standing desk"
] | Numerous studies say standing desks are better for your health, and even more encourage people to walk for longer periods throughout the day. Why not turn your office-desk into a
giant hamster-wheel to increase your productivity?
Ridiculous? Yes, but you have to admit — it looks pretty fun. [Robb Godshaw] is the mastermind behind this project, and he has a certain way with words too — this is what he has to say about his project:
Rise up, sedentary sentients, and unleash that untapped potential within by marching endlessly towards a brilliant future of focused work. Step forward into a world of infinite potential, bounded only by the smooth arcs of a wheel. Step forward into the Hamster Wheel Standing Desk that will usher in a new era of unprecedented productivity.
Hah. Regardless of possible productivity gains you might have in the office, it’s a hilariously fun project to do. It was designed in Autodesk Inventor, and the wooden arcs were manufactured using a water jet cutter. The materials list is pretty simple too: 4 sheets of 3/4″ plywood, 4 skateboard wheels, 2 pipes, 240 wood screws and a pint of glue is all that was required to build the wheel.
You can even take it outside…
Who wants to build the human-sized hamster-ball next?
[Robb] has been hacking for a few years now, we just found one of his projects from four years ago that we featured as well —
an automated pencil manufacturing machine for your living room! | 29 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "1844048",
"author": "TheUnknownety",
"timestamp": "2014-09-19T20:27:42",
"content": "Give it a generator and you have power. Not much, but something. (Could probably charge a few phones, or keep a light on or something)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,376,065.096408 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/19/experience-the-farmers-market-of-vintage-electronics/ | Experience The “Farmer’s Market” Of Vintage Electronics | Mike Szczys | [
"Featured",
"hardware"
] | [
"cupertino",
"electronics flea market",
"emsl",
"lenore",
"paul rako",
"silicon valley",
"swap meet",
"windell"
] | Normally when you think of a Farmer’s Market, fresh produce grown nearby comes to mind. This experience was similar in that much of the produce was conceived locally, but the goal is to be anything but fresh. I had the opportunity last weekend to attend the final
Electronics Flea Market
of 2014. I can’t speak for everyone, but there is an obvious affinity for vintage electronics equipment in just about any condition. The people you run into are as interesting as the equipment being swapped, and the social outing tends to continue even after the swap meet closes.
Analog meters
Amp and Volt meters
Sony rack-mount video cassette equipment
If you like to dig
$5 scope
Vintage radios
Electronics plus
Strolling around there’s a lot of stuff to take in. I was mainly interested in the electronic offerings (specifically bench equipment) but there was everything from a booth selling honey to a gentleman making custom tags for your pet’s collar. The swap meet is located in one of the parking lots of De Anza College of Cupertino, California. You can get in for free, parking cost me $3.
A great old Kodak projector
Some type of rack-mount patch boards?
another great radio
This wasn’t the only reel-to-reel I saw
I don’t know what a ratiometer is
IM-ME, a hacking classic
No table necessary
HP5216 counter has Nixies for the display, nice!
A variety of dials
Calculator collector
Beowulf cluster waiting to happen?
I wandered about for 40 minutes or so before bumping into [Charles Alexanian]. I had pinged him before my visit as he sometimes has a booth of his own at the swap meet. He’s the one who told me that all the cool stuff is gone by 7am… I was roughly three hours late for that benchmark.
It was great to see that [Charles] wasn’t just swapping equipment. He brought along some show and tell. Here are some vacuum tubes he design and built himself. Most of the raw materials came from leftovers for mass producing other tubes. I’m hoping he’ll write a post for us detailing his fabrication techniques.
[Charles Alexanian] posing with his custom tube
Tubes on exhibit along with a few uCs for sale
There’s an after-party
[Charles] and I had a plan to go to
St. John’s
with some other regulars after the market closed for what are billed as Silicon Valley’s best burgers. I wandered around a bit more to see the rest of the aisles. The sun is vicious so make sure to slather on the sunscreen if you plan to spend some real time digging for deals.
Audio Equipment
Enigma machine (kidding of course!)
Loose parts
Sockets and ICs
Resistors and connectors
CRT
Close view of the CRT
Atari 810 Floppy Drives
Atari 800 collection
More hardcore equipment
You never know who you’ll run into
After making the rounds I was sitting on the tailgate of [Charles’] truck when [Windell] of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories spotted me. We had initially met at Maker Faire Bay Area back in May. I didn’t get to mingle with him at
the Bring a Hack dinner
on that one (looks like
[Brian] and [Adam] are making up for that
in New York this weekend).
He and [Lenore] asked if I was going to the breakfast afterward and I assumed they meant St. John’s trip previously mentioned. Not so. It seems social outings after the flea market abound as there’s an Engineer’s Breakfast hosted by [Paul Ranko] at
Bobbi’s Cafe
in Cupertino. [Charles] said he didn’t see a lot of the regular St. John’s attendees anyway so we decided to change plans, but not before one last sweep of the vendor area.
Cellphone bin
Calculator Bin
Camera bin
SLR table
Rations? Dated 1962
Art
Meters and dials
Meter panel
The Engineers’ Breakfast
The patio at Bobbi’s cafe is the gathering spot for a dozen or so engineers after each swap meet. I met [
Paul Rako
] who took three of the images below but he and I pose in the fourth. Also found in the pictures are [Windell Oskay] and [Lenore Edman], cofounders of
EMSL
. They later gave me a tour of their lair, which I’ll save for another post.
What a wonderful morning and fantastic adventure. If you do find yourself at the Engineer’s Breakfast next year I recommend the corn beef hash.
Mike Szczys [left] and Paul Rako [right] | 51 | 30 | [
{
"comment_id": "1843548",
"author": "pkicjc",
"timestamp": "2014-09-19T17:18:00",
"content": "The “audio equipment” photo is actually ham radio equipment. Looks like 2 Kenwoods and an Icom transceiver, and a Heathkit RF amp.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,065.533022 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/19/using-facebook-ads-to-prank-your-friends/ | Using Facebook Ads To Prank Your Friends | Rick Osgood | [
"internet hacks"
] | [
"ad",
"ads",
"eavesdrop",
"facebook",
"nsa",
"paranoia",
"prank",
"snooping",
"snowden",
"social",
"social engineering"
] | Most tech savvy individuals are well aware of the vast amounts of data that social networking companies collect on us. Some take steps to avoid this data collection, others consider it a trade-off for using free tools to stay in touch with friends and family. Sometimes these ads can get a bit… creepy. Have you ever noticed an ad in the sidebar and thought to yourself, “I
just
searched for that…” It can be rather unsettling.
[Brian] was looking for ways to get back at his new roommate in retaliation of prank that was pulled at [Brian’s] expense. [Brian] is no novice to Internet marketing. One day, he realized that he could create a Facebook ad group with only one member. Playing off of his roommate’s natural paranoia, he decided to serve up some of the most
eerily targeted Facebook ads
ever seen.
Creating extremely targeted ads without giving away the prank is trickier than you might think. The ad can’t be targeted solely for one person. It needs to be targeted to something that seems like a legitimate niche market, albeit a strange one. [Brian’s] roommate happens to be a professional sword swallower (seriously). He also happens to ironically have a difficult time swallowing pills. naturally, [Brian] created an ad directed specifically towards that market.
The roommate thought this was a bit creepy, but mostly humorous. Slowly over the course of three weeks, [Brian] served more and more ads. Each one was more targeted than the last. He almost gave himself away at one point, but he managed to salvage the prank. Meanwhile, the roommate grew more and more paranoid. He started to think that perhaps Facebook was actually listening in on his phone calls. How else could they have received some of this information? As a happy coincidence, all of this happened at the same time as the [Edward Snowden] leaks. Not only was the roommate now concerned about Facebook’s snooping, but he also had the NSA to worry about.
Eventually, [Brian] turned himself in using another custom Facebook ad as the reveal. The jig was up and no permanent damage was done. You might be wondering how much it cost [Brian] for this elaborate prank? The total cost came to $1.70. Facebook has since changed their ad system so you can only target a minimum of 20 users. [Brian] provides an example of how you can get around the limitation, though. If you want to target a male friend, you can simply add 19 females to the group and then target only males within your group of 20 users. A pretty simple workaround
This prank brings up some interesting social questions. [Brian’s] roommate seemed to actually start believing that Facebook might be listening in on his personal calls for the purposes of better ad targeting. How many other people would believe the same thing? Is it really that far-fetched to think that these companies might move in this direction? If we found out they were already doing this type of snooping, would it really come as a shock to us? | 38 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "1843126",
"author": "Darcy",
"timestamp": "2014-09-19T14:05:46",
"content": "This is absolute hilarity!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1843181",
"author": "twdarkflame",
"timestamp": "2014-09-19T14:29:26",
"content"... | 1,760,376,065.347771 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/19/thp-semifinalist-farmbot/ | THP Semifinalist: Farmbot | Marsh | [
"Crowd Funding",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"aluminum extrusion",
"arduino",
"arduino mega",
"cnc",
"farm",
"farming",
"gardening",
"plants",
"RAMPS",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspi"
] | The FarmBot team has been pretty busy with their
CNC Farming and Gathering machine
. The idea is to automate the farming process with precise deployment of tools: plows, seed injection, watering, sensors, etc. An Arduino with an added RAMPS handles the movement, and a Raspi provides internet connectivity. Their prototype has already experienced four major iterations: the first revision addressed bigger issues such as frame/track stability and simplification of parts. Now they’re locking down the specifics on internet-of-things integration and coding for advanced movement functions.
The most recent upgrade provides a significant improvement by overhauling the implementation of the tools. Originally, the team envisioned a single, multi-function tool head design that carried everything around all the time. Problem is, the tool that’s in-use probably works best if it’s lower than the others, and piling them all onto one piece spells trouble. The solution? a universal tool mounting system, of course. You can see them testing their design in a video after the break.
If the FarmBot progress isn’t impressive enough—and admittedly we’d have called project lead [Rory Aronson] crazy for attempting to pull this off…but he did it—the FarmBot crew
started and successfully funded an entire sub-project through Kickstarter.
OpenFarm
is an open-source database set to become the go-to wiki for all things farming and gardening. It’s the result of [Rory] encountering an overwhelming amount of generic, poorly written advice on plant growing, so he just crowdsourced a solution. You know, no sweat.
The project featured in this post is
a semifinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1843032",
"author": "Luís Outeiro",
"timestamp": "2014-09-19T13:32:49",
"content": "This is the future. One of the most amazing projects I’ve ever seen!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1843775",
"author": "jacques",
... | 1,760,376,065.150384 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/19/secret-door-is-now-not-so-secret/ | Secret Door Is Now Not So Secret | Rich Bremer | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"hidden door",
"keypad lock",
"secret door"
] | You’d be hard pressed to find someone who didn’t think secret doors are cool. They can come in many different forms, a built-in book case, a fake fireplace or even the rudimentary trap door under the rug. [oggfaba] has created a
sweet secret door
to enter his house. It is so well done there is no need for an architectural detail to hide it, it’s right there in plain sight.
To the unknowing onlooker, the rear of the house looks as any should with a window and water spigot. That water spigot is actually non-functional and acts as a door knob. The door-part of this secret door is just a standard fiberglass exterior door fitted with an electronic deadbolt and covered in exterior siding painted to match the rest of the house.
There are two methods to lock and unlock the door. There is a fob that can remotely unlock the installed deadbolt. There is also a keypad hidden under its own mini-secret door disguised as house siding material. There was no hacking involved with the deadbolt, keypad or remote. The Morning Industry QF-01SN deadbolt is available off the shelf with both unlocking options.
[oggfaba] is more proud of his door than worried about keeping it secret since he threw up a YouTube video of it in action. It’s not like he would show the code to the electronic lock in the video….. would he? Want more secret doors? Check out this
bookcase
complete with tipping-book actuator. | 17 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1842252",
"author": "Mark",
"timestamp": "2014-09-19T08:52:38",
"content": "I’m pretty sure this secret door has been about for over a year now. It would be far more impressive if the spigot also worked.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comm... | 1,760,376,065.021124 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/18/sprite_tm-puts-linux-in-a-clock-radio/ | [Sprite_TM] Puts Linux In A Clock Radio | Brian Benchoff | [
"clock hacks",
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"alarm clock",
"clock radio",
"linux",
"radio"
] | [Sprite] needs an alarm clock to wake up in the morning, and although his phone has an infinitely programmable alarm clock, his ancient Phillips AJ-3040 has never failed him. It’s served him well for 15 years, and there’s no reason to throw it out.
Upgrading it
was the only way, with OLED displays and Linux systems inside this cheap box of consumer electronics.
After opening up the radio, [Sprite] found two boards. The first was the radio PCB, and the existing board could be slightly modified with a switch to input another audio source. The clock PCB was built around an old chip that used mains frequency as the time base. This was torn out of the enclosure along with the old multiplexed LCD.
A new display and brain for the clock was needed, and [Sprite] reached into his parts drawer and pulled out an old 288×48 pixel OLED display. When shining though a bit of translucent red plastic, it’s can be a reasonable facsimile of the old LEDs. The brains of the clock would be a Carambola Linux module. After writing a kernel module for the OLED, [Sprite] had a fully functional Linux computer that would fit inside a clock radio.
After having a board fabbed with the power supplies, I2C expanders, USB stereo DAC, and SPI port for the OLED, [Sprite] had a clock radio that booted Linux on an OLED screen. In the video below, [Sprite] walks through the functions of the clock, including setting one of the many alarms, streaming audio from the Internet, and changing the font of the display. There’s also a web UI for the clock that allows alarms to be set remotely – from a phone, even, if [Sprite] is so inclined.
And now you know why [Sprite]
is a judge for The Hackaday Prize
. | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1841690",
"author": "nsayer",
"timestamp": "2014-09-19T05:04:16",
"content": "Speaking of AC frequency driven clocks, I recently did an experiment to test the long term stability of AC line frequency. While the grid is externally disciplined to maintain a long term average that’s th... | 1,760,376,065.584645 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/18/diy-magnetic-stirrer-looks-profesional/ | DIY Magnetic Stirrer Looks Professional | Rich Bremer | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"lab equipment",
"laboratory",
"magnetic",
"stirrer"
] | Stirrers are used in chemistry and biology labs to mix containers full of liquids. Magnetic stirrers are often preferred over the mechanical types because they are more sterile, easier to clean and have no external moving parts. Magnetic stirrers quickly rotate a magnet below the glass beaker containing the liquids that need mixing. The magnetic field travels effortlessly through the glass and reacts against a small magnetic cylinder called the stir bar. The spinning stir bar mixes the contents and is the only part of the mixer that touches the liquids.
[Malcolm] built his own
magnetic stirrer
. Unlike some DIY stirrers out on the ‘web, this one gets an “A” for aesthetics. It’s clean white lines allow it to look right at home in the professional laboratory. The graduated knob looks good and is functional too as the the potentiometer it is attached to allows multiple mixing speeds. Surprisingly, a D-size battery is all that is needed to power the stirrer. Most of the parts required for this project can be found in your spare parts bin. [Malcolm] has written some excellent instructions on how he made the stirrer including a parts list and schematics.
Want to make a magnetic stirrer but aren’t into chemistry or biology? No worries…
I pity the fool who don’t build
one of these
…. | 19 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1841195",
"author": "Waterjet",
"timestamp": "2014-09-19T02:17:26",
"content": "Points for using a semi water resistant enclosure.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1841315",
"author": "effgee",
"timestamp": "201... | 1,760,376,065.646161 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/18/sweet-stepper-of-jeremys-rocks-out-with-its-box-out/ | Sweet Stepper Of [Jeremy]’s Rocks Out With Its Box Out | Kristina Panos | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"G 'n' F'n R",
"knex",
"midi",
"Music box",
"raspberry pi",
"stepper motor",
"sweet child o' mine"
] | Inspired by the floppy drive orchestras of others, [Jeremy] has built a Pi-driven MIDI music box with stepper motor resonators and
outlined the build on hackaday.io
.
Control for the motors comes from an Iteaduino Mega 2560. The music starts as a MIDI file, gets processed into a text file, and is played over serial by a Raspberry Pi. He’s added percussion using K’NEX instruments and 9g servos, which we think is a nice touch. It can be powered via LiPo or from the wall, and [Jeremy] baked in protection against blowing up the battery. As he explains in the tour video after the break, the box is clamped to a wooden table to provide richer sound.
[Jeremy]’s favorite part of the build was enclosing the thing as it was his first time using panel-mount components. Stick around to see a walk-through of the guts and a second video demonstrating its musical prowess.
Inside the music box:
Rocking out: | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1840760",
"author": "cb88",
"timestamp": "2014-09-19T00:13:54",
"content": "And… no floppy drives were distroeid the the making of this video!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1841015",
"author": "Anonymous",
"t... | 1,760,376,065.693843 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/17/the-first-annual-omaha-mini-maker-faire-was-definitely-something-to-write-home-about/ | The First Annual Omaha Mini Maker Faire Was Definitely Something To Write Home About | Kristina Panos | [
"cons"
] | [
"maker faire",
"mini maker faire",
"omaha",
"omaha mini maker faire"
] | If you ask me, Omaha’s first annual Mini Maker Faire was a rousing success. I think that the Faire’s coordinator, [Eric] of Omaha Maker Group would readily agree.The event was held at the Omaha Children’s Museum, an energetic and colorful backdrop for the 30 makers who were on hand to present their creations.
The representatives of the [
Omaha Maker Group
] had a total of three booths. One of them displayed the various fantastic things that have come out of their ‘space, which we will cover in an upcoming post. They brought the PiPhone that I told you about in my Kansas City Maker Faire post, and [Foamyguy] found a melodic easter egg hidden in the menu. [OMG] also brought their solar-powered EL wire logo sign, a quadcopter, a giant brushbot, a hexapod, a cigar box guitar, a really fun marble run, a steampunk Barbie, and KITT, their award-winning Power Racing Series car. And yeah, you bet it has a Larson scanner.
At their second booth, Fairegoers were constructing their own regular-size brushbots using 3D-printed chassis. These were specially designed to accommodate the toothbrush heads, pager motors, and CR2032s they brought to share. [Sarah] of [OMG] had her own popular booth and was showing off her costumes, clay creations, and jewelry.
Early on, I stopped at [Nicole]’s booth called Upcycled Art and made a bracelet using soda can tabs and ribbon. She’s a local artist who makes button art,
among other things
. While I wove ribbon through the tabs and talked with her, my companion, [Foamyguy] was hard at work constructing a rosette out of magazine pages.
Across the way, another local artist named [Kjell] was demonstrating steam bending techniques. [Kjell] has made three canoes, a few paddles, and a surfboard out of thin strips of hardwoods and fiberglass. He had a small jig set up and was letting kids add a piece of wood to a small canoe mock-up by gluing it to the topmost piece and stapling it to the frame.
Back in the theatre area of the museum were a couple of booths devoted to the edible side of making. At [Tom and Abby]’s Cultured Veggies, I tasted some delicious homemade pickles and sampled two stages of kombucha, which is a tasty tea-based beverage made possible through lacto-fermentation. I passed on the sauerkraut, but I’m sure it was . . . scrumptious. Next to them was the [
Omaha Biofuels Coop
], who advocate the use of waste vegetable oil as a fuel either directly or upon being processed into biodiesel.
I was drawn to a nearby table by a tray full of assorted googly eyes. After discussing the possibility of making
Kit-Cat clock
eyes with [Peggy], I realized that her table was associated with the one next to it, Make It/Move It. Kids could make a thing at [Peggy]’s table and animate it against various backgrounds on a stop-motion rig at the other.
At the edge of the theatre was Nervous Foot, a hack/art installation in the form of a tapping antique wooden shoe form. When someone approached the Foot, it would dance using an an Arduino and a solenoid.
The
Lincoln-Omaha LEGO User Group
, or [LOLUG] brought some really cool stuff, including a mock-up of the Nebraska state capitol building and two LEGO trains. My favorites, though, were the Minecraft cube and the Star Wars Thanksgiving dinner scene.
Speaking of food, I should have worked off the hot dog and chips I ate from a food truck on the bike powered generator, but that was a busy attraction. I did use their hand crank generator to light a small bulb at the top.
A very enthusiastic kid named [Russell] was singing the praises of learning programming with a special nod to Codeacademy and Scratch. He is most excited about building Minecraft mods and showed us a pair of Portal portals he’d made. Over to one side, he had an NXT robot constantly drawing a pizza-looking thing.
I was pleasantly surprised to see two of the hacks I have written about, the
homemade bazooka
from [Lethal Engineering] and [Will]’s
birthday gift claw machine
. [Will] brought the machine stocked with tiny Slinkys and gummy splat things, neither of which I was able to grab. Plenty of kids walked away happy, though, and there was a constant line of young hopefuls. [Lethal Engineering] also brought a remote control lawnmower and snowblower base.
I saw my first giant LED cube in person, and it was really cool. The same guy also had a hexapod and another robot with 3D-printed mecanum wheels. He was demonstrating 3D-printed parts for robotics and electronics.[wpvideo e8gxO5H5]
Among the other, more artsy booths was
Union Coop Studios
, whose makers were screen printing souvenir posters. Nearby was a booth devoted to beautiful Chinese embroidery and drawings. The
UNL Maker Club
was set up in the museum’s permanent maker space, and they had Arduinos set up with hands-on demonstrations of LEDs and motors.
What’s the first picture about, you ask? I’m still kicking myself, honestly. Representatives from the [
Houchen Bindery
] were helping kids make those tiny books using
buckram
binding techniques like they do at the library. Simply put, we were too late to get one. They had a special offer going for the Faire: for $35, parents could have their children’s artwork preserved for all eternity in one of 15 colors of buckram.
Ideally, [Eric] and [OMG] want to grow the event enough to support the Power Racing Series. All in all, I had a great time, even if I missed my chance at a tiny commemorative book.
My word! Math is difficult!
[Foamyguy] gets his craft on.
And then a dinosaur showed up.
Intricate Chinese cross-stitchery
NXT pizza
Hey, look! It’s the–oh.
Great googly moogly!
Obligatory banana piano. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "1836139",
"author": "otte",
"timestamp": "2014-09-17T23:16:46",
"content": "First read it as Obama Mini Maker Fair … sounds like hacking a Tea Party! Now how cool would that be … 8 bits should be enough for that, right?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},... | 1,760,376,065.753331 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/17/hackadays-10th-the-celebration-is-imminent/ | Hackaday’s 10th: The Celebration Is Imminent | Mike Szczys | [
"Featured"
] | [
"10th anniversary",
"hackaday"
] | We’re celebrating 10 Years of Hackaday with a day-long event in Pasadena. It’s not too late to get in on the action. If you’re in the LA area on October 4th, 2014, you can attend the mini-conference in the afternoon and the party that evening.
It’s free, but
you must secure a ticket for yourself
.
A small group of hand-picked hackers will begin the day building alternative gaming controllers for use at the party that evening. The morning will be occupied by a trio of workshops focusing on robot building, lock picking, and LiPo cell charging.
Things start to really pick up steam in the afternoon with a mini-conference. There are a few dozen tickets left so get yours now! As we mentioned in our last post, [Steve Collins] will talk about how early hacking led him to a career with NASA, [Quinn Dunki] will discuss Veronica the 6502 Computer, and [Jon McPhalen] will present the benefits of mult-core embedded development.
To the list of speakers we can now add [
ThunderSqueak
]. You may remember
her CO2 laser build
that used a lot of hardware store parts. We’ve asked her to talk about her work on
a non-binary computer
.
We covered the project back in June
but this type of through-the-looking-glass subject fares better as a live talk with Q&A.
We hope to announce one more speaker soon, and already have a few lightning talks (one on a Demoscene board and another on hardware dev that ended with a successful Kickstarter). We’ll keep you posted!
Call for Art
We have space for a few pieces of art for the event. We would prefer things that are interactive and ‘glowy’ or self lit as the space will be fairly dark. There are two areas that we would like to fill right now, one is a small room approximately 9′ square with an 8′ ceiling. The other is a much larger space about 24′ square with a very high ceiling. We also have a couple of walls on which we could hang things or do projections. If you have something interactive and fun that you can get to the LA area on the week leading up to
October 4th
please let us know
.
UPDATE: Poster
[Jim K.] asked for the printable version of the posts.
Here’s a link to the .ai file
. This is the work of our illustrator [
Joe Kim
]. He really gets us and has a bunch more artwork to be found around here. Some of our favorite is the “story” art he did in
the description
of the two
classic t-shirts
, and
the original designs
for the
premium tees
. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1835655",
"author": "Jim K.",
"timestamp": "2014-09-17T20:42:10",
"content": "Nice poster! Any chance of a hi-res version getting posted? Would love to print out.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1835712",
"author": "... | 1,760,376,065.798566 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/17/rotor-dr1-and-collaborative-development/ | Rotor DR1 And Collaborative Development | Adam Fabio | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"drone",
"flite test",
"flitetest",
"multirotor",
"Rotor DR1",
"StoneKap",
"tricopter"
] | In a post apocalyptic world ravaged by the effects of a virus, a young man searches for his father. He forms a friendship with a young woman and a delivery drone that seems oddly sentient. Together they have to fight through abandoned buildings, and past gangs of thugs, to find…
That’s the hook for
Rotor DR1
, a web series currently in production. Rotor DR1 isn’t a big budget movie, but an independent series created by [Chad Kapper]. [Chad] isn’t new to film or drones, his previous project was
Flite Test
, which has become one of the top YouTube channels for drones and radio controlled aircraft in general. With the recent sale of Flite Test to Lauren International, [Chad] has found himself with the time to move forward on a project he’s been talking about for years.
Click past the break for more information, and to check out the Rotor DR1 trailer.
There are plenty of hacks involved in creating an independent series, and Rotor DR1 is no exception. Drones play a huge role, both in front of and behind the camera. DR1 itself is a modified tricopter. While multirotors can carry quite a bit of weight, adding things like fairings and nacelles directly in their propwash can cause major issues. [Chad] and his team have relied on experts like [Eric Monroe] to build and pilot the craft.
The DR1 test model shown below was created with light plastic sheet from a local craft store. It has the look the team is going for and retains power and control to fly safely around human cast mates.
One of the most interesting aspects of Rotor DR1 is how it’s being produced. [Chad] is going with a collaborative development model. Nearly every aspect of the series is open for fan input on the
Rotor DR1 website
and
Facebook page
. From the appearance of future drone power cells to the name of the female lead, every detail and plot point is open for discussion and debate. The team is even running
global auditions
for reaction videos taken during the fictional viral epidemic. Check out the trailer below, and help shape the future of this series! | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1835309",
"author": "vonskippy",
"timestamp": "2014-09-17T18:54:31",
"content": "Zombie drones flying around whining “baaaateries…….”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1835381",
"author": "yohan",
"timestamp": "2014-09-17T... | 1,760,376,065.85891 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/17/the-spooky-nature-of-electromagnetic-radiation/ | The Spooky Nature Of Electromagnetic Radiation | Will Sweatman | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"einstein",
"relativity",
"speed of light"
] | Our story begins a little over one hundred years ago in Bern, Switzerland, where a young man employed as a patent clerk went off to work. He took the electric trolley in each day, and each day he would pass an unassuming clock tower. But today was different, it was special. For today he would pose to himself a question – a question whose answer would set forth a fascinating dilemma.
The hands of the clock appeared to move the same no matter if his trolley was stopped or was speeding away from the clock tower. He knew that the electromagnetic radiation which enabled him to see the clock traveled at a finite speed. He also knew that the speed of the light was incredibly great compared to the speed of his trolley. So great that there would not be any noticeable difference in how he saw the hands of the clock move, despite him being at rest or in motion. But what if his trolley was moving at the speed of the reflected light coming from the clock? How would the hands of the clock appear to move? Indeed, they could not. Or if they did, it would not appear so to him. It would appear as if all movement of the clock’s hands had stopped – frozen in an instant of time. But yet if he looked at the hands of the watch in his pocket, they would appear to move normally. How does one explain the difference between the time of the clock tower versus the time of his watch? And which one was correct?
There was no way for him to know that it would take three years to answer this question. No way for him to know that the answer would eventually lead to the discovery of matter and energy being one and the same. No way to know that he, this underemployed patent clerk making a simple observation, would soon unearth the answer to one of the greatest mysteries that had stumped every mind that came before his – the very nature of time itself.
Now it might have taken Einstein a few years to develop the answer we now know as the Special Theory of Relativity, but it most certainly took him no longer than a few days to realize that Isaac Newton…
must be wrong.
Einstein was known for his ‘thought experiments’ – with the
light clock
being one of them. Let the animation above
1
represent his pocket watch. The imaginary clock consists of two mirrors, with a pulse of light that bounces between them. The repeating pattern represents a basic clock, whose time can be calculated by:
T = 2h/c
Where h = the distance between the mirrors, c = the speed of the light pulse and T = time.
It is important to note that this is the way the light clock would appear to him, no matter if his trolley was moving or at rest. Both he and the clock are considered to be in the same
frame of reference
.
Let the animated image above
1
represent the clock tower as his trolley is speeding away. Once the trolley starts moving, he and the clock tower are now considered to be in different frames of reference. To calculate time on this clock will take some basic algebra and geometry
2
.
If we set time equal to distance divided by velocity, then we can use the Pythagorean Theorem, to get:
c²t² = v²t² + w²
then,
t²(c² – v²) = w²
then,
t²(1 – v²/c²) = w²/c²
Then square root both sides and double the second part of the pulse (opposite side of right triangle, or (w)) to get:
According to this equation, the time between ticks of the moving clock will increase as the velocity (v) increases. Or put more simply – time runs slower for moving objects. Notice what happens when (v) is equal to zero. The equation becomes identical to our original of T = 2h/c. Now notice what happens when (v) is equal to or greater than (c). The equation becomes undefined. Thus the trolley cannot travel faster than or equal to (c), the speed of light. This includes all things with mass, and even gravity itself.
If you keep following this rabbit down the hole, you will find that the speed of light, and all electromagnetic radiation, will always be the same for all frames of reference. This is counter-intuitive, but proven to be true. Keep going further and you’ll end up with one of the most profound revelations in all of human history – E = mc
2
.
Remember these neat little facts next time you’re hacking away with lasers and wireless modules, and the spooky nature of the laws that govern them.
[Source 1:
Time Dilation
Travel Resource Center]
[Source 2:
Special Relativity: What Time is it?
Michael Fowler, Physics Department, UVa.] | 101 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "1834418",
"author": "gannon",
"timestamp": "2014-09-17T14:05:18",
"content": "I think you mean e^2 = p^2c^2 + m^2c^4 :P",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1834605",
"author": "Okian Warrior",
"timestamp": "2014-09... | 1,760,376,066.311561 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/17/the-abovemarine/ | The Abovemarine | Brian Benchoff | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"abovemarine",
"aquarium",
"betta fish",
"fighting fish",
"fish"
] | Over the course of a few weeks, [Adam] trained his betta fish, [Jose], to jump out of the water to snatch food off his finger. An impressive display for a fish, but being able to train his small aquatic friend got [Adam] thinking. What’s stopping [Jose] from interacting his environment even more?
The abovemarine was born
.
The abovemarine is a robotic platform specifically built for [Jose]’s aquarium. Below, three omni wheels drive the entire aquarium in any direction. A computer running OpenCV, a webcam, and a few motors directs the abovemarine in whatever direction [Jose] wants to go. Yes, it’s a vehicle for a fish, and that’s awesome.
[Adam] put
a lot of work into the creation of the abovemarine
, and was eventually able to teach [Jose] how to control his new home. In the videos below, you can see [Jose] roaming the studio and rolling towards the prospect of food.
Because [Jose] is a Siamese fighting fish and extremely territorial when he sees other males of his species, this brings up the idea of a version of
Battlebots
with several abovemarines. They’re in different tanks, so we don’t know what PETA would think of that, but we do expect it to show up in the Hackaday tip line eventually. | 48 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "1833908",
"author": "Thireo",
"timestamp": "2014-09-17T11:34:14",
"content": "That’s the scariest thing I have seen, ever! :O",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1833951",
"author": "Schreiber (@ASchreiber)",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,376,066.167207 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/17/thp-quarterfinalist-walltech-smartwatch/ | THP Quarterfinalist: WALLTECH Smartwatch | Eric Evenchick | [
"The Hackaday Prize",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"apple watch",
"atmega32u4",
"imuduino btle",
"nordic",
"nrf8001",
"oled",
"smartwatch",
"ssd1351",
"stp200m",
"the hackaday prize"
] | While there is lots of hype about a big company launching a new wearable product, we’re more interested in [Walltech]’s open source
OLED Smartwatch
. This entry into The Hackaday Prize merges a collection of sensors and an OLED screen into a wearable device that talks to your smartphone over Bluetooth Low Energy.
The device is based on the
IMUduino BTLE
development board. This tiny Arduino clone packs an inertial measurement unit (IMU), a Nordic nRF8001 Bluetooth radio, and an ATMEGA32u4 microcontroller.
The 1.5″ OLED display comes from [miker] who makes an
OLED module
based on the
SSD1351
. A
STP200M
3D pedometer provides activity monitoring in a tiny package.
On the hardware side, packaging all these components into something that will fit on your wrist is quite difficult. The prototype hardware is built from mostly off the shelf components, but still manages to be watch sized.
At this point, it looks like the code is the main challenge remaining. There’s a lot of functionality that could be implemented, and [Walltech] even mentions that it’s designed to be very customizable. It even supports Android; the Apple Watch can’t do that.
The project featured in this post is
a quarterfinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1833191",
"author": "Ritman",
"timestamp": "2014-09-17T08:08:14",
"content": "What an ugly PCB… Stop using right angle traces on PCB!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1835925",
"author": "WΛLLTΞCH (@walltechOSHW)",
... | 1,760,376,066.693291 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/16/watch-out-artists-robots-take-your-job-next/ | Watch Out Artists, Robots Take Your Job Next | Rich Bremer | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"art",
"drawing robot",
"robot arm"
] | Move over Claude Monet, there is a new act in town in the form of a
robot capable of creating some pretty cool art
.
We’ve seen robotic artists before but most of them are either
cartesian-based
or hanging
drawbots
. This is a full-fledged Sharpie-wielding robotic arm that draws with dots giving its work an impressionistic feel.
The actual robotic arm is a stock
Interbotix
WidowX. The folks over at Phantom Multimedia wrote some custom software that takes a graphic and breaks it down into a 1-bit representation. The code then goes through the bitmap at random, picking points to draw on the medium. The hard part of this project was figuring out how to translate the 2D image into 3D robotic arm movements. Since the arm has several joints, there are multiple mathematical solutions for arm position to move the marker to any given point. The team ended up writing an algorithm to determine the most efficient way to move from point to point. Even so, each drawing takes hours.
As if that wasn’t enough, the software was then reworked to probe positions. Instead of automatically moving the arm to a predetermined point, the arm is manually moved to a location and the data retrieved from the servo encoders is used to determine the position of a probe at the end of the arm. Each point taken in this manner can then be combined to generate a 3D model.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QPjh5Q1XOs
Thanks for the tip [Adam] | 26 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "1832699",
"author": "Waterjet",
"timestamp": "2014-09-17T05:32:35",
"content": "http://wiki.evilmadscientist.com/StippleGenSo kind of like this?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1832703",
"author": "Waterjet",
"... | 1,760,376,066.862734 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/18/building-a-vector-monitor-controller/ | Building A Vector Monitor Controller | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"arcade",
"atari",
"crt",
"raster monitor",
"vector display",
"vector monitor"
] | [fredkono] has a few vintage Atari arcade boards sitting around, and without the rest of the arcade machine – especially the XY CRT – these boards would continue to gather dust. The solution to this terrible shortage of vintage video games
was to build a vector monitor from scratch
. No, that doesn’t mean building a new CRT, but it
does
mean rewiring the yoke and building a CRT controller board for tubes salvaged from small, old TVs.
Nearly all the CRTs you’ll find at your local goodwill or surplus shop are raster displays. The CRTs used in the old Atari games were vector displays and extremely similar to the tubes found in old oscilloscopes. [fred] turned the CRT found in an old 9″ color TV into a vector monitor
by rewinding the yoke
.
With the tube rewired, it was only a matter of connecting
the custom deflection circuit boards
and getting the old arcade boards running. The images drawn with the new yoke deflector board are great and produce fine, crisp lines of some of the most famous video games in history. | 19 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "1840265",
"author": "P.Bateman",
"timestamp": "2014-09-18T21:47:21",
"content": "Awesome hack. I have some 9″ Sony broadcast monitor I’d like to try this on.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2952864",
"author": "Alan Mc... | 1,760,376,066.637884 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/18/3d-printer-gets-wheels-leaves-trail-of-plastic-boxes/ | 3D Printer Gets Wheels, Leaves Trail Of Plastic Boxes | Rich Bremer | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"robot"
] | The limitation of 3D Printer build volume is over. The folks over at NEXT and LIFE Labs have created a prototype
robot with a 3D print head
attached to it. Unlike a traditional 3D Printer that moves the print head around within the confines of a machine, the 3&DBot drives the print head around any flat surface, extruding as it goes.
Although the 3&DBot has 4 wheels, they are all stationary and face independent directions. Normally, this arrangement would only allow a vehicle to rotate in a circle. However, the wheels used here are not conventional, they are Mecanum-style with many mini-wheels around the main. This arrangement allows omnidirectional movement of the robot, depending on how each wheel is driven. If you haven’t seen this type of movement before, it is definitely worth watching the video after the break.
Sure, the print quality leaves something to be desired and the distance the print head is from the robot chassis may be a bit limiting but all new technology has to start somewhere. This is a great joining of two technologies. Don’t scoff, remember your Iphone 12 wouldn’t be possible without
this
. | 38 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "1839351",
"author": "Steven",
"timestamp": "2014-09-18T17:06:44",
"content": "Oh great, Minecraft comes to the real world.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1839953",
"author": "scuffles",
"timestamp": "2014-09-1... | 1,760,376,066.533802 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/18/fail-of-the-week-robotic-1950-mercury-boogies-wont-come-back-from-dead-mans-curve/ | Fail Of The Week: Robotic 1950 Mercury Boogies, Won’t Come Back From Dead Man’s Curve | Kristina Panos | [
"Fail of the Week",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"1950 Mercury",
"arduino robot",
"arduino robot control",
"fail of the week",
"rare earth magnet",
"reed switch",
"robot"
] | [Dave] wanted to
make an Arduino robot out of a remote-control 1950 Mercury
. He removed the RC portion from the car and kept the drive and steering motors. The idea was to use three ultrasonic rangefinders in the grille real estate and move the car forward based on the longest distance detected.
He initially used a Seeed motor controller and some Grove cables soldered to his sensors to power the steering. It went forward, but only forward, and [Dave] decided the motor controller and the car’s steering motor weren’t playing well together.
[Dave] had the idea to use relays instead to both power the motor and determine polarity. Now, the Merc was turning and avoid obstacles about half the time, but it was also getting dinged up from hitting walls. He figured out that his sensor arrangement was making the car turn immediately and decided to give the program information from the wheels with a reed switch and a rare earth magnet. The only problem is that the caliber of magnet required to trip the reed switch is too heavy and strong. [Dave] and has concluded that he simply can’t exercise the kind of control over the car that he needs. and will build his own robot chassis.
Update: Check out a video of [Dave]’s car after the break.
Fail of the Week is a Hackaday column which runs every Wednesday. Help keep the fun rolling by writing about your past failures and
sending us a link to the story
— or sending in links to fail write ups you find in your Internet travels. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1838766",
"author": "CRImier",
"timestamp": "2014-09-18T14:04:25",
"content": "Just get yourself a smaller reed switch… Or a Hall sensor, goddammit =)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1839516",
"author": "Dax",
... | 1,760,376,066.367772 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/18/a-diy-midi-wind-controller/ | A DIY MIDI Wind Controller | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [] | MIDI is more than just keyboards and a matrix of buttons that plays samples; there are MIDI controllers for virtually every instrument that has ever existed, from guitars to harps and even woodwinds. [J.M.] didn’t like the features found in existing wind MIDI controllers,
so he’s building his own
with features that put it far beyond any commercial offering.
Woodwind MIDI controllers are relatively simple; put a pressure sensor in the mouthpiece and turn that data into note on and note off commands. A few buttons, or in [J.M.]’s case, resistive touch sensors, are easily mapped to different fingerings and notes for the instrument. An Arduino Nano takes care of all this hardware, and a 2.4 GHz radio module to communicate wirelessly to a base station.
Once at the base station, the MIDI data can be output to any number of synths and computers, but [J.M.]
added a MIDI codec chip
right in the device to play with only a set of headphones. It doesn’t sound great – about the same as an old Sound Blaster card – but with the mod and expression control a wind controller offers, it’s more than passable as a real woodwind.
Videos below. | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1838451",
"author": "janostman",
"timestamp": "2014-09-18T12:05:55",
"content": "“It doesn’t sound great – about the same as an old Sound Blaster card ”Say what?!The second video sounds pretty good to me?A controller sounds as good as the synth it’s connected to.",
"parent_id": ... | 1,760,376,066.583337 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/18/thp-hacker-bio-iamteknik/ | THP Hacker Bio: IamTeknik | Brian Benchoff | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"digital assistant",
"hacker bio",
"home automation",
"project jarvis",
"the hackaday prize"
] | [IamTeknik]’s reason for entering his
home automation assistant
into The Hackaday Prize is simple; we have smart phones, TVs, and even smart cars. Why not a smart house?
Like its namesake from
Iron Man
, Project Jarvis is an intelligent assistant with a bit of home automation thrown into the mix. The hardware includes the usual relays and door locks, but that’s just the start of it. There’s also a personal digital assistant, living somewhere in the space between the hardware modules and [IamTeknik]’s smartphone. Here, voice recognition, speech synthesis, and a Siri-like functionality is the name of the game. Jarvis is capable of answering questions, compiling reports, reading social network messages, and automating everything connected to the main base station over the Internet.
[IamTeknic] has been busy studying computer systems engineering and of course working on his project for The Hackaday Prize lately, but he was able to sit down and answer a few questions for our THP hacker bio. You can check that out below, along with a few demos of what his personal Jarvis can do.
I am a professional student studying computer systems engineering at a local university. It’s basically a merge of programming and electronics and I plan on obtaining my master’s degree in a few years.
I’m passionate about energy savings and my career in engineering. It’s the reason why a lot of my major projects are dedicated to saving energy and helping preserve the world we live in.
In the video, they destroyed a printer. For me personally, I sometimes feel that way about my 3D printer. It’s been the most problematic piece of equipment for me and sometimes you can waste days trying to get an essential build out of it however, when it does work, it’s extremely satisfying.
A lot of the folks on Hackaday will hate me for this but my favourite OS has to be Windows. It may not be the “hacker” OS but as an engineer a lot of software is built to run on Windows, especially industry specific software. It basically has everything I need from PLC software to 3D modelling programs for use with my 3D printer
My favourite bench equipment would have to be my desktop power supply. My father passed it on to me recently and it was his first power supply which he bought quite a number of years ago. Still works great!
I tend to favour object orientated programming languages since it’s what I started with. My favourite would be Java, I have a pretty good knowledge of it and can do a lot of cool stuff with it but C++ is a close second.
I was working on my project for a while before the competition started. I remember watching a video of [Dave] from the EEVBlog announcing it so I immediately rushed over and the contest description suited my project very well, build anything and make it connected.
I would love to finish off Project Jarvis, my THP entry. Mainly because of the energy savings and I definitely see it as the pinnacle of future homes.
I really want to RC a full-sized vehicle with a manual transmission just for the extra challenge.
More importantly though, before I die, I would love to create a system which will drastically help generate energy in an efficient and eco-friendly way.
There were around 800 entries so I couldn’t view them all however all the ones I did see, were fantastic. If I had to choose, I would’ve liked to see more DNA related projects.
So far the project is going along quite well. I have just built a 7″ touch screen tablet running Linux which is to be mounted on a wall. It’s going to be a controller for things like media, interacting with the A.I, ordering groceries and much more. I’m also working on improving the energy savings so that, along with a few more features should be ready for the judges soon. There are a few problems, one being the loss of support for the speech API however I have gotten around that by using my mobile device for speech. It should suffice until I get the speech recognition up and running again. The biggest delay has been my 3D printer, tonnes of reprints, configuration issues, model issues and plenty more which seizes development for some time. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "1838708",
"author": "zakqwy",
"timestamp": "2014-09-18T13:36:23",
"content": "Great bio–glad to see some of your motivations for starting this project, IamTeknik. Your passion for energy savings tell me your heart is in the right place.I’m afraid I’m going to use this comment as ano... | 1,760,376,066.800068 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/17/using-a-theremin-for-medical-applications/ | Using A Theremin For Medical Applications | Mathieu Stephan | [
"Medical Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"breathing monitor",
"theremin"
] | [Eswar] is not an ordinary 16 years old boy. He figured out a
noninvasive way to measure breathing in hospitals
for less than $50. He is using a theremin to measure the rise and fall of a patient’s chest. For our curious readers, this touch-less instrument was invented back in 1929 by the Russian inventor [Leon Theremin]. It uses the
heterodyne
principle and two oscillators to generate an audio signal. One electronic oscillator creates an inaudible high pitch tone while another variable oscillator is changed by adding capacitance to an antenna.
As you can guess the space between the patient’s chest and the antennas placed around the bed forms a tiny capacitor which varies when exhaling. With three simple TTL chips and a little guessing [Eswar] had a working prototype ready to be implemented in the real world. If you’re interested in theremin, we invite you to see one of our previous articles on
how to make one
in a few minutes with a soda can. | 30 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "1837326",
"author": "stonysmith",
"timestamp": "2014-09-18T05:18:23",
"content": "Two thoughts: 1) Would a second person in the room cause false readings? 2) He mentions measuring heart rate. I wonder if this could be used to measure heart rates of mother and fetus.",
"parent_id... | 1,760,376,066.755755 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/17/a-proof-of-concept-project-for-the-esp8266/ | A Proof Of Concept Project For The ESP8266 | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"hardware"
] | [
"arduino",
"ESP8266",
"wifi"
] | It’s hardly been a month since we first heard of the impossibly cheap WiFi adapter for micros, the ESP8266. Since then orders have slowly been flowing out of ports in China and onto the workbenches of tinkerers around the world.
Finally, we have a working project using this module
. It might only be a display to show the current weather conditions, but it’s a start, and only a hint of what this module can do.
Since the ESP8266 found its way into the storefronts of the usual distributors, a lot of effort has gone into translating the datasheets both on
hackaday.io
and
the nurdspace wiki
. The module does respond to simple AT commands, and with the right bit of code it’s possible to pull a few bits of data off of the Internet.
The code requests data from
openweathermap.org
and displays the current temperature, pressure, and humidity on a small TFT display. The entire thing is powered by just an Arduino, so for anyone wanting a cheap way to put an Arduino project on the Internet, there ‘ya go. | 40 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "1836887",
"author": "NotArduino",
"timestamp": "2014-09-18T03:02:17",
"content": "So it’s a “proof of concept”. Which concept exactly did he prove?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1837053",
"author": "Whatnot",
... | 1,760,376,067.010363 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/16/usb-to-db25-adapter-uses-grbl-for-parallel-port-cnc-communication/ | USB To DB25 Adapter Uses GRBL For Parallel Port CNC Communication | Rich Bremer | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"grbl",
"parallel port"
] | With the continuing manufacture of new computers, there is a clear and obvious trend of the parallel port becoming less and less common. For our younger readers; the parallel port is an interface standard used for bi-directional communication between a computer and a variety of peripherals. The parallel port’s demise is partially due to the invention of the USB standard.
If tinkering with CNC Machines is one of your hobbies then you are familiar with the parallel port interface being fairly popular for CNC control board connections. So what do you do if your new fancy computer doesn’t have a parallel port but you still want to run your CNC Machine? Well, you are certainly not stuck as [Bray] has come up with a
USB to Parallel Port Adapter
solution specifically for CNC use.
A cheap off-the-shelf
USB to DB25 adapter
may look like a good idea at first glance but they won’t work for a CNC application. [Bray’s] adapter is Arduino-based and runs
GRBL
. The GRBL code is responsible for taking the g-code commands sent from the computer, storing them in a buffer until they are ready to be converted to step and direction signals and sent to the CNC controller by way of the parallel port DB25 connector. This is a great solution for people needing to control a CNC Machine but do not have a parallel port available.
[Bray] is using a Raspberry Pi running
GRBLweb
to control his adapter board. However, there are other programs you can use to communicate with GRBL such as
Universal G-Code Sender
and
GRBL Controller
.
The board has been created in
Eagle
PCB Software and milled out using [Bray’s] CNC Router. The design is single-sided which is great for home-brew PCBs. He’s even made a daughter board for Start, Hold and Reset input buttons. As all great DIYers, [Bray] has made his board and schematic files available for others to download. | 53 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "1832019",
"author": "Darcy",
"timestamp": "2014-09-17T02:03:09",
"content": "This is comedy in it’s purest form. I mean this in a good way.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1832090",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2014-09... | 1,760,376,067.097951 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/16/build-your-own-retrocomputer-with-modern-chips/ | Build Your Own Retrocomputer With Modern Chips | Bryan Cockfield | [
"classic hacks",
"hardware"
] | [
"Mini computer",
"Parallax Propeller",
"PIC microcontroller",
"pic32mx150",
"pic32mx170",
"retrocomputer",
"retrocomputing"
] | If you’ve ever wanted to get started in retrocomputing, or maybe the Commodore 64 you’ve been using since the 80s just gave up the ghost, [Rick] aka [Mindrobots] has just the thing for you: a
retrocomputer based on a PIC microcontroller and a Parallax Propeller
.
The two chips at the heart of the computer are both open source. The Propeller is the perfect board to take care of the I/O, video, and audio outputs because it was purpose-built to be a multitasking machine. The microcontroller is either a PIC32MX150 or a PIC32MX170 and is loaded with a BASIC interpreter, 19 I/O pins, a full-screen editor, and a number of communications protocols. In short, everything you would ever want out of a retro-style minicomputer.
The whole computer can be assembled on a PCB with all the outputs you can imagine (VGA, PS/2, etc) and, once complete, can be programmed to run any program imaginable including games. And, of course, it can act as a link to any physical devices with all of its I/O because its heart is a microcontroller.
Retrocomputing is quite an active arena for hackers, with some being
made from FPGAs
and other barebones computers being made on
only three chips
. It’s good to see another great computer in the lineup, especially one that uses open chips like the Propeller and the PIC. | 27 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1831642",
"author": "mikes electric stuff",
"timestamp": "2014-09-16T23:13:42",
"content": "In what way is the PIC open source?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1831689",
"author": "Jeff Ledger",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,376,067.26878 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/16/a-3d-printed-peristaltic-pump/ | A 3D Printed Peristaltic Pump | Eric Evenchick | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"bartender",
"lulzbot",
"openscad",
"peristaltic pump"
] | After getting access to a Lulzbot 3D printer, [Tim] designed a
3D printable peristaltic pump
. The design was done in
OpenSCAD
, which makes it parametric and easy to modify.
Peristaltic pumps
work by squeezing a length of tubing to push fluids. This mechanism is similar to how your intestines work. The pump provides an isolated fluid path, which is why they’re commonly used in medical and food grade applications. Like many products in the medical space, these pumps tend to be rather expensive. Being able to print one for your own projects could save quite a bit of cost.
The pump is based on [emmett]’s
gear bearing design
. One nice thing about this design is that it is printed preassembled. Pop it out of the printer, add some tubing, and you’re ready to pump fluids.
On top of the isolated fluid path, this pump gives accurate volume measurement. For that reason, we can imagine it moving booze for a
robotic bartender
build. After the break, a video of the pump moving some fluid. | 35 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "1831268",
"author": "8complex",
"timestamp": "2014-09-16T20:15:25",
"content": "Fantastic idea! I remember watching one of these years ago as my father had his dialysis treatments. It absolutely fascinated me. I just might have to go and print one of these to play with…",
"paren... | 1,760,376,067.206013 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/16/were-at-maker-faire-this-weekend/ | We’re At Maker Faire This Weekend | Brian Benchoff | [
"News"
] | [
"maker faire",
"Maker Faire NYC",
"World Maker Faire"
] | It’s that time of year again where the east coast division of the Hackaday crew makes the trek out to
Maker Faire New York
. We’ll be there the entire weekend, checking out the sights, talking to the people who make the things you make things with, and standing in an hour-long line for a hamburger.
We’ve been going to the NYC Maker Faire for a few years now, and each time we’re surprised by the sheer variety of stuff at the faire. This year, SeeMeCNC
is bringing a gargantuan delta printer
, [Adam] and I are going to geek out when we meet
the Flite Test crew
, and we’ll be filing a few interviews with the folks from Intel, Atmel, BeagleBone, and TI. If you’re wondering what the, “I can’t believe Make is allowing this at the faire” project is for this year,
here you go
.
If you’re heading to the faire and find some of the Hackaday crew wandering around, don’t be afraid to introduce yourself. I’ll be wearing a flagpole with the Jolly Wrencher, and [Adam] will probably be wearing something emblazoned with the Hackaday logo. We have stickers to give out, and if you’re really cool, some sweet swag.
This year is a little different from the other times we’ve made the trek to Maker Faire – this time we have a press pass, and that means access to some very important people. If you have a question you’d like to ask Atmel’s VP of MCUs, Intel’s “maker czar”, [Massimo], someone at TI, or anyone else
on the schedule
, leave a note in the comments. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1831102",
"author": "loans",
"timestamp": "2014-09-16T19:03:53",
"content": "My noisemakers (https://github.com/loansindi/ps1_noise) will be there – a couple folks from Pumping Station: One will be helping people assemble kits. They’re only taking enough parts for 100 of them so fin... | 1,760,376,068.012505 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/16/retrotechtacular-the-curta-mechanical-calculator/ | Retrotechtacular: The CURTA Mechanical Calculator | Kristina Panos | [
"Retrotechtacular"
] | [
"calculator",
"Curt Herzstark",
"Curta",
"math grenade",
"mechanical calculator",
"nine's complement",
"pepper mill"
] | The
CURTA mechanical calculator
literally saved its inventor’s life. [Curt Herzstark] had been working on the calculator in the 1930s until the Nazis forced him to focus on building other tools for the German army. He was taken by the Nazis in 1943 and ended up in Buchenwald concentration camp. There, he told the officers about his plans for the CURTA. They were impressed and interested enough to let him continue work on it so they could present it as a gift to the Führer.
This four-banger pepper mill can also perform square root calculation with some finessing. To add two numbers together, each must be entered on the digit setting sliders and sent to the result counter around the top by moving the crank clockwise for one full rotation. Subtraction is as easy as pulling out the crank until the red indicator appears. The CURTA performs subtraction using nine’s complement arithmetic. Multiplication and division are possible through successive additions and subtractions and use of the powers of ten carriage, which is the top knurled portion.
Operation of the CURTA is based on [Gottfried Leibniz]’s stepped cylinder design. A cylinder with cogs of increasing lengths drives a toothed gear up and down a shaft. [Herzstark]’s design interleaves a normal set of cogs for addition with a nine’s complement set. When the crank is pulled out to reveal the red subtraction indicator, the drum is switching between the two sets.
Several helper mechanisms are in place to enhance the interface. The user is prevented from ever turning the crank counter-clockwise. The crank mechanism provides tactile feedback at the end of each full rotation. There is also a lock that disallows switching between addition and subtraction while turning the crank—switching is only possible with the crank in the home position. There is a turns counter on the top which can be set to increment or decrement.
You may recall seeing Hackaday alum [Jeremy Cook]’s
2012 post about the CURTA
which we linked to. A great deal of information about the CURTA and a couple of different simulators are available at
curta.org
. Make the jump to see an in-depth demonstration of the inner workings of a CURTA Type I using the
YACS CURTA simulator
.
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
.
[Thanks to Andrew for the tip!] | 39 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "1830761",
"author": "jimmy",
"timestamp": "2014-09-16T17:11:47",
"content": "hmm… just saved two partially-working Walther Multa 32 from trash a few days ago (Walther office machines, related to the gun manufacturer). Multa 32 mulitply by repeated additions and make a lot of “number... | 1,760,376,067.693916 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/16/thp-quarterfinalist-3ghz-spectrum-analyzer/ | THP Quarterfinalist: 3GHz Spectrum Analyzer | Brian Benchoff | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"radio",
"radio spectrum analyzer",
"RF",
"spectrum analyzer"
] | Radio seems to be an unofficial theme for The Hackaday Prize, with a few wireless frameworks for microcontrollers and software defined radios making their way into the quarterfinal selection. [roelh]’s project is a little different from most of the other radio builds.
It’s a simple spectrum analyzer
, but one that works up to 3GHz.
The hardware is a mishmash of chips including an ADL5519 power detector, an Si4012 for the local oscillator, and a MAX2680 mixer. An Atmel XMega takes care of all the on board processing, displaying the spectrum on a small LCD, writing data to an SD card, and sending data over a 3.5mm jack that doubles as either an analog input or a half duplex RS232 port.
Seen in the video below, [roelh]’s spectrum analyzer is more or less finished, complete with a nice looking enclosure. Now [roelh] is working on documentation, porting his source to English, and getting all the files ready to be judged by our real judges.
The project featured in this post is
a quarterfinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1830300",
"author": "Bot Thoughts (@bot_thoughts)",
"timestamp": "2014-09-16T14:24:16",
"content": "I *so* want one of these…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1830632",
"author": "rasz_pl",
"timestamp": "2014-09... | 1,760,376,068.064338 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/16/developed-on-hackaday-mooltipass-arduino-shields-compatibility/ | Developed On Hackaday: Mooltipass Arduino Shields Compatibility | Mathieu Stephan | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"arduino",
"developed on hackaday",
"limpkin",
"mooltipass",
"password",
"password keeper"
] | Some of our dear readers may already have an infallible system to remember different complex passwords for the different websites they visit daily. This is why they may have not been following the
offline password keeper
that the Hackaday community is building.
The Mooltipass has a characteristic that may regain their interest: it is possible to connect Arduino shields to it. In the video embedded below you can see the Arduino conversion process our development team imagined a few months back. The operation simply consists in using a knife to remove plastic bits on top of standard Arduino headers. We also embedded a few use cases with their respective sketches that may be downloaded from our official
GitHub repository
.
As with stacking several shields, a little tweaking may be required to keep the functionalities from both the Mooltipass and the connected shield. We therefore strongly welcome Arduino enthusiasts to let us know what they think of our setup.
In the meantime, you may want to subscribe to our
official Google Group
to stay informed of the Mooltipass launch date.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcBeiZUam3Q | 15 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "1829863",
"author": "@f4grx",
"timestamp": "2014-09-16T11:38:16",
"content": "Sorry guys but as a security engineer, your device is horrifying.Are you seriously just storing the key on the card, as I believe from the presentation in your github? Then your device is close to bullshit... | 1,760,376,067.617803 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/15/an-electric-arc-printer-for-rapid-3d-prototyping/ | An Electric Arc Printer For Rapid 3D Prototyping | Matt Terndrup | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"arc printer"
] | Additive manufacturing, aka 3D printing, is able to produce wonderful and amazing objects in relatively short periods of time. Items are now being created in hours, not days, which is an extraordinary leap in technology. However, waiting for a 3D printer to complete its cycle is still a lot like watching paint dry. It takes way too long, and occasionally, time is of the essence when prototyping products for a client. Sometimes you just need it done now,…not a few hours from now.
[0n37w0] is hoping solve this problem by working on a way to
‘print’ 3D objects using arcs of electricity
. We are still trying to wrap our heads around how this will work, but from the looks of it, arc printing “
is done by completing an electrical current on an area of granulated metal thus heating the metal enough to form a bond to the structure being printed.
”
The printer is comprised of four main components (the print bed, the lifting device, the control box, and the granulated metal supply bin). The supply bin feeds granulated metal, possibly by vibration, onto the print bed. A lifting mechanism is then lowered within electrical contact and the printing begins. After each layer, the object is raised.
To find out more, check out the
Hackaday.io project page. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "1918786",
"author": "David Bley",
"timestamp": "2014-09-26T16:25:38",
"content": "Metal spraying is a process that was used to build up crankshafts so they could be machined back to spec. Used an arc and metal wire.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{... | 1,760,376,067.499507 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/15/the-queercon-11-badge/ | The Queercon 11 Badge | Eric Evenchick | [
"cons",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"badge",
"defcon",
"queercon",
"rf69"
] | DEFCON is known for its unique badge designs, which have featured displays, radios, and tons of LEDs in the past. This year, there was another digital badge at DEFCON. The
Queercon 11 badge
featured an MSP430, a LED display, an IR interface, and an ISM band radio.
Queercon
started off as a DEFCON party for LGBT hackers. Over the past eleven years they’ve run events at DEFCON including parties, mixers, and networking events. Over time the group has grown, become a non-profit, and provided a social network for LGBT people in tech. We must admit that they throw quite a good pool party.
This badge gave you points for meeting other people. When held near another QC11 badge, the IR link sends the identifier for each person. Both badges light up and display the other person’s name, and store the event. This process became known by a variety of colloquialisms, and “badginal intercourse” was a common occurrence at events.
The QC11 Badge Reader
The RF radio, implemented using a
HopeRF RF69 module
, shows how many people with QC11 badges are near you. A base station at events sends out data to give badges points for attendance. As points are accumulated, the rainbow LEDs on either side of the display light up.
At Queercon parties, a reader connected to a dumb terminal read data off the badges. It then shows who the badge has paired with, and what events its been to.
The hardware design and source code have all been released on the Queercon website. The full functionality is discussed in the
README
. | 49 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1826264",
"author": "James S. (@StripeyType)",
"timestamp": "2014-09-15T12:08:27",
"content": "What an absolutely awesome board!I particularly like the use of the solder layer to resemble the dust-cover.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"commen... | 1,760,376,067.965215 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/15/leds-turn-this-paper-map-into-a-tram-tracker/ | LEDs Turn This Paper Map Into A Tram Tracker | Rick Osgood | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"arduino",
"bulletpixel2",
"devlol",
"hackerspace",
"led",
"map",
"radar",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspi",
"subway",
"tracking",
"train"
] | Public transit can be a wonderful thing. It can also be annoying if the trains are running behind schedule. These days, many public transit systems are connected to the Internet. This means you can check if your train will be on time at any moment using a computer or smart phone. [Christoph] wanted to take this concept one step further for the Devlol hackerspace is Linz, Austria, so he built himself an
electronic tracking system
(Google translate).
[Christoph] started with a printed paper map of the train system. This was placed inside what began as an ordinary picture frame. Then, [Christoph] strung together a series of BulletPixel2 LEDs in parallel. The
BulletPixel2
LEDs are 8mm tri-color LEDs that also contain a small controller chip. This allows them to be controlled serially using just one wire. It’s similar to having an RGB LED strip, minus the actual strip. [Christoph] used 50 LEDs when all was said and done. The LEDs were mounted into the photo frame along the three main train lines; red, green, and blue. The color of the LED obviously corresponds to the color of the train line.
The train location data is pulled from the Internet using a Raspberry Pi. The information must be pulled constantly in order to keep the map accurate and up to date. The Raspberry Pi then communicates with an Arduino Uno, which is used to actually control the string of LEDs. The electronics can all be hidden behind the photo frame, out of sight. The final product is a slick “radar” for the local train system. | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1826186",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2014-09-15T11:36:33",
"content": "“out of site” -> “out of sight”.Really? Do try harder.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1826432",
"author": "Richard Wahl",
"timestamp": "2014... | 1,760,376,067.741233 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/14/lantern-made-in-preparation-of-zombie-apocalypse/ | Lantern Made In Preparation Of Zombie Apocalypse | Rich Bremer | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"lantern",
"reuse",
"upcycle",
"zombie"
] | [BenN] was at his local hackerspace one day when a friend stopped by and offered him a used 5AH lead acid battery. As any good tinkerer would, he jumped on the opportunity and immediately started looking around for a project to use the battery in. One of [BenN’s] recent other projects involved 12volt landscaping lights, the same voltage as the battery he was just given. At this point it was clear that he had a good start to
making a lantern
. This lantern project also supports [BenN’s]
obsession with
hobby of preparing for the zombie apocalypse.
A lantern needs an enclosure. Over on the hackerspace’s spare-parts rack was an old ATX power supply. All of the internal electrical components were removed to make room for the battery which fit inside nicely. The landscaping light just happened to be slightly larger than the power supply’s fan cut outs. Once the grill was removed from the metal power supply enclosure, the lamp fit in nicely and was secured using silicone glue which can tolerate any temperature the bulb can produce.
The feature that separates a lantern from a flashlight is the top-mounted carrying handle and this lantern will receive one made from the wiring removed from the ATX power supply. The electrical wiring is fairly straight forward. The battery is connected to the landscaping light by way of the original ATX on/off switch. The two terminals of the battery were also wired to the power supply’s AC input connector. This allows [BenN] to connect a DC battery charger to two of the three pins in order to charge the battery. Although this is a creative way to re-use the AC connector, it leaves quite a bit of potential to accidently plug in a 120v AC cord! | 30 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "1825254",
"author": "Telek",
"timestamp": "2014-09-15T05:07:15",
"content": "Very nice! I wonder if there’s space to put a wall-wart 12V so that you can actually charge off a normal 120V supply.I like the use of the wires as the handle.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,376,068.128949 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/14/diy-cnc-dust-collection/ | DIY CNC Dust Collection | Eric Evenchick | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"cnc vacuum",
"cyclone separator",
"dust collection"
] | CNC machines are great at churning out custom parts, but they tend to make a mess in the process. [Darcy] has built up his own
CNC dust collection rig
to collect the dust and keep his workspace clean.
To capture the dust, a custom dust skirt encloses the cutting tool and directs the vacuum. This was made by gluing acrylic parts together, creating a box that contains the dust and provides a connection for the vacuum system.
For $1, [Darcy] built a cyclone dust extractor. This spins air around in circles, causing the dust to fall to the bottom of a container. The result is less dust reaching the vacuum, and much less money spent on vacuum bags.
Since the vacuum makes quite a bit of noise, a muffler was needed. This is just a simple wood box to contain the machine. It can also be used to vent the exhaust outside to further prevent polluting the workspace.
While we’ve seen some
similar builds in the past
, [Darcy]’s design could be helpful for those looking to build their own system. He also gives us a video which shows the effectiveness of the dust skirt, which you can find after the break. | 25 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1824831",
"author": "Waterjet",
"timestamp": "2014-09-15T02:41:50",
"content": "From the look of things, Darcy forgot to turn it on.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1826274",
"author": "crener",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,376,068.184852 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/14/hackaday-links-september-14-2014/ | Hackaday Links, September 14, 2014 | Brian Benchoff | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"Flir lepton",
"lego",
"lepton",
"photonicinduction",
"power supply",
"Powerbook 180",
"PowerBop",
"Raspberry Pi Case",
"RC transmitter",
"soldering"
] | Photonicinduction is back!
The Brit famous for not setting his attic on fire has built a 20,000 Watt power supply. It connects directly to England’s national grid with huge connectors. Impeccable fabrication and triple servo controlled variacs, and apparently this will be used for making a
lot
of hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis of water.
In case you missed it,
there’s a group buy
for Flir’s Lepton thermal imaging module.
Here’s the breakout board
.
Need to solder something away from an outlet, and all you have is a disposable lighter?
There’s a fix for that
.
A Raspberry Pi case designed to be compatible with Lego
. Now we need a hat/shield for NXT connectors.
Need another channel in your RC remote?
Here’s this
. It uses the gyro gain channel on a receiver. If someone wants to figure out how this works, wee do have
a rather cool project hosting site
.
0x06 0x1f1 CHSJOXWA OM YUFJPAI XFADBLY GIKQB CRZ MIXRB JRWV NN LZVOD XRI TBJKKVX MYYGID BLS LWNY XJVS FJO PYXBM MW D ELX ZG BIM CWMG JF PKI TKI ESZ WBME LKNLI BL 1407981609
Here’s something impossibly cool:
The Macintosh PowerBop
. It’s a Powerbook 170 with the floppy drive replaced with the radio in a cordless phone. It was part of France’s BiBop network, and you could buy private base stations for use at home. It is technically possible to use the radio as a wireless link to a modem, but [Pierre] couldn’t get PPP or a sufficiently ancient browser working. Plus ten points for taking it to an Apple store, and another twenty for trying to connect
to our retro edition
.
Chicken Lips
. [Fran] and our very own [Bil Herd] are hanging out a bunch and recalling [Bil]’s time at Commodore. For this little featurette, [Bil] brought out his very own
Commodore LCD
. There are three of those in the world. Also included: tales of vertical integration, flipping bits with photons, and 80s era ERC. | 31 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "1824316",
"author": "yohan",
"timestamp": "2014-09-14T23:19:24",
"content": "The RPI lego case was pretty cool but the bottom does not have female studs so it is really just a case with a lego plate on the top. Plus there are no technic holes",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,... | 1,760,376,068.252983 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/14/raiders-of-the-lost-rom/ | Raiders Of The Lost ROM | Rick Osgood | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"arcade",
"eeprom",
"exploit",
"mame",
"nmk",
"nmk004",
"reverse engineering",
"rom",
"video games",
"vulnerability"
] | Once upon a time, arcades were all the rage. You could head down to your local arcade with a pocket full of quarters and try many different games. These days, video arcades are less popular. As a result, many old arcade games are becoming increasingly difficult to find. They are almost like the artifacts of an ancient age. They are slowly left to rot and are often lost or forgotten with time. Enter, MAME.
MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is a software project, the goal of which is to protect gaming history by preventing these arcade machines from being lost or forgotten. The MAME emulator currently supports over 7000 titles, but there are still more out there that require preservation. The hackers who work on preserving these games are like the digital Indiana Jones of the world. They learn about lost games and seek them out for preservation. In some cases, they must circumvent security measures in order to accurately preserve content. Nothing as scary as giant rolling boulders or poison darts, but security nonetheless.
Many of the arcade cabinets produced by a publisher called NMK used a particular sound processor labeled, “NMK004”. This chip contains both a protected internal code ROM and an unprotected external ROM that controls the sound hardware. The actual music data is stored on a separate unprotected EEPROM and is different for each game. The system reads the music data from the EEPROM and then processes it using the secret data inside the NMK004.
The security in place around the internal ROM has prevented hackers from dumping its contents for all this time. The result is that NMK games using this chip have poorly emulated sound when played using MAME, since no one knows exactly how the original chip processed audio. [trap15] found it ridiculous that after 20 years, no one had attempted to circumvent the security and dump the ROM. He took matters into
his own hands
.
The full story is a bit long and contains several twists and turns, but its well worth the read. The condensed version is that after a lot of trial and error and after writing many custom tools, [trap15] was able to finally dump the ROM. He was able to accomplish this using a very clever trick, speculated by others but never before attempted on this hardware. [trap15] exploited a vulnerability found in the unprotected external ROM in order to trick the system into playing back the protected internal ROM as though it were the sound data stored on the EEPROM. The system would read through the internal ROM as though it were a song and play it out through the speakers. [trap15] recorded the resulting audio back into his PC as a WAV file. He then had to write a custom tool to decode the WAV file back into usable data.
[trap15] has released all of his tools with documentation so other hackers can use them for their own adventures into hardware hacking. The project was a long time in the making and it’s a great example of reverse engineering and perseverance.
[Thanks Ryan] | 29 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "1823993",
"author": "lenolee",
"timestamp": "2014-09-14T20:08:41",
"content": "Man discovers MAME, news at 11",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1824004",
"author": "Mik",
"timestamp": "2014-09-14T20:12:32",
... | 1,760,376,068.373032 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/16/repent-the-church-of-robotron-accepts-all/ | Repent! The Church Of Robotron Accepts All! | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"altar",
"capacitive sensing",
"capsense",
"mame",
"robotron"
] | Are you the mutant savior? Are you prepared for the robot uprising of 2084? Have you accepted robotron into your life? The Church of Robotron is now conducting training, testing, and confession at
the new window altar in downtown Portland
.
The Church of Robotron is the
fake
totally legit religion based on the classic
arcade game
prophecy Robotron 2084. In keeping with the church’s views on community outreach and missionary work, a Robotron altar has been installed at the
Diode Gallery
for electronic arts.
The altar consists of a system running Robotron 2084 with capacitive sensing controls built by DorkbotPDX’s own [Phillip Odom]. He’s using the same techniques featured in his
capacitive sensing workshop
, allowing the game to be played 24 hours a day. There are also monitors displaying
the leaderboard
and tenants of the Church of Robotron.
The Church of Robotron has also been
showing up at Toorcamp
for a few years now, with an even more spectacular altar that triggers physical events in response to game events. That’s a very cool use
of MAME’s debugger
, and a story
worthy of its own Hackaday post
.
Video of the altar below. | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1829467",
"author": "Galane",
"timestamp": "2014-09-16T09:13:30",
"content": "This was one of my favorite arcade games in the 80’s. I was damn good at it. :) Looks like the capacitive controls would take a bit of getting used to.The dual sticks were so intuitive. One moved the chara... | 1,760,376,068.427068 |
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