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https://hackaday.com/2014/09/15/mits-robotic-cheetah-is-getting-even-scarier/ | MIT’s Robotic Cheetah Is Getting Even Scarier | James Hobson | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"cheetah",
"darpa",
"mit",
"robotic cheetah"
] | Researchers over at MIT are hard at work upgrading their
Robotic Cheetah
. They are developing an algorithm for bounding movement, after researching how real cheetahs run in the wild.
Mach 2 is fully electric and battery-powered, can currently run at speeds of 10MPH (however they’re predicting it will be able to reach 30MPH in the future), and can even jump over obstacles 33cm tall.
We originally saw the
first robotic Cheetah from Boston Dynamics in cooperation with DARPA
two years ago — it could run faster than any human alive (28.3MPH) but in its tests it was tethered to its hydraulic power pack and running on a treadmill. It’s unclear if MIT’s Cheetah is a direct descendant from that one, but they are both supported by DARPA.
The technology in this project is nothing short of amazing — its electric motors are actually a custom part designed by one of the professors of Electrical Engineering at MIT, [Jeffrey Lang]. In order for the robot to run smoothly, its bounding algorithm is sending commands to each leg to exert a very precise amount of force during each footstep, just to ensure it maintains the set speed.
Did we mention it can jump over things too? | 34 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1828760",
"author": "Galane",
"timestamp": "2014-09-16T05:07:04",
"content": "But can it steer? Keeping the leg pairs in sync it may as well be an inline two leg robot. The motion it’s missing is the bending of the spine, which cheetas use to get more force pushing with their hind l... | 1,760,376,070.197323 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/15/hacking-a-pogoplug-into-a-20-pbx/ | Hacking A Pogoplug Into A $20 PBX | Eric Evenchick | [
"Phone Hacks"
] | [
"asterisk",
"freepbx",
"google voice",
"incredible pbx",
"pbx",
"pogoplug",
"raspberry pi"
] | The Pogoplug Series 4 is a little network attached device that makes your external drives accessible remotely. Under the hood of this device is an ARM processor running at 800 MHz, which is supported by the Linux kernel. If you’re looking to build your own PBX on the cheap, [Ward]
runs us through the process
. Since the Pogoplug 4 is currently available for about $20, it’s a cheap way to play with telephony.
Step one is to convert the
Pogoplug to Debian
, which mostly requires following instructions carefully. After the Pogoplug is booting Debian, the
Incredible PBX
bundle can be installed. We’ve seen this bundle
running on a Raspberry Pi
in the past. Incredible PBX’s preconfigured setup based on
Asterisk
and
FreePBX
gives a ton of functionality out of the box.
With your $20 PBX running, there’s a lot that can be done. Google’s Voice service allows unlimited free calling to the USA and Canada. With Internet connectivity, you get email notifications for voicemails, and can query WolframAlpha by voice. | 25 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "1828592",
"author": "Superman",
"timestamp": "2014-09-16T03:57:11",
"content": "$20 ? there website says $99",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1828615",
"author": "starhawk",
"timestamp": "2014-09-16T04:11:23",
... | 1,760,376,070.305067 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/15/the-hackaday-prize-semifinalist-update/ | The Hackaday Prize Semifinalist Update | Brian Benchoff | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"pcb",
"photosensitive",
"quadcopter",
"resin",
"resin printer",
"rework",
"smartpen",
"spectrometer",
"the hackaday prize",
"uv"
] | There are only a few more days until The Hackaday Prize semifinalists need to get everything ready for
the great culling of really awesome project
s
by our fabulous team of judges. Here are a few projects that were updated recently, but for all the updates you can
check out all the entries
hustling to get everything done in time.
Replacing really, really small parts
The NoteOn smartpen
is a computer that fits inside a pen. Obviously, there are size limitations [Nick Ames] is dealing with, and when a component goes bad, that means board rework in some very cramped spaces. The latest problem
was a defective accelerometer
.
In a normal project, a little hot air and a pair of tweezers would be enough to remove the defective part and replace it. This is not the case with this smart pen. It’s a crowded layout, and 0402 resistors can easily disappear in a large solder glob.
[Nick] wrapped the closest parts to the defective accelerometer in Kapton tape. That seemed to be enough to shield it from his Aoyue 850 hot air gun. The new part was pre-tinned and placed back on the board with low air flow.
How to build a spectrometer
The RamanPi Spectrometer
is seeing a lot of development. The 3D printed optics mount (think about that for a second) took somewhere between 12 and 18 hours to print. Once that was done and the parts were cleaned up, the mirrors, diffraction grating, and linear CCD were mounted in the enclosure. Judging from the output of the linear CCD, [fl@C@] is getting some good data with just this simple setup.
Curing resin and building PCBs
[Mario], the guy behind OpenExposer, the combination SLA printer, PCB exposer, and laser harp is chugging right along.
He finished his first test print with a tilted bed
and he has
a few ideas on how to expose PCBs on his machine
.
You don’t need props to test a quadcopter
Goliath, the gas-powered quadcopter, had a few problems earlier this month. During its first hover test
a blade caught a belt and bad things happened
. [Peter] is testing out a belt guard and tensioner only this time he’s
using plywood cutouts instead of custom fiberglass blades
. Those blades are a work of art all by themselves and take a long time to make; far too much effort went into them to break in a simple motor test. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "1828331",
"author": "NotArduino",
"timestamp": "2014-09-16T02:38:25",
"content": "As I understood, you were still working out the logistics of sending prizes to all quarter finalists. You’ve been saying for weeks there would be a post about this. Where is this post?",
"parent_id... | 1,760,376,070.630053 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/15/low-cost-lab-frequency-reference/ | Low Cost Lab Frequency Reference | Eric Evenchick | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"bench equipment",
"electronics lab",
"frequency reference",
"portable"
] | [Mark] wanted an accurate frequency reference for his electronics lab. He specified some requirements for the project, including portability, ability to work inside a building, and low cost. That ruled out GPS, cesium standard clocks, rubidium standard clocks, and left him looking for a low cost Oven Controlled Crystal Oscillator (OCXO).
The
Low Cost 10 MHz Frequency Reference
is based around a Morion OCXO. These Russian oscillators are available from eBay second hand at about $40 a pop. With a stability well within the requirements, [Mark] order a few.
The next step was to stick all the components in a box. The two OCXOs in the box need about 3 amps to heat up, which is provided by a 12 V PSU. For portability, a sealed lead acid battery was added. The front panel shows the supply voltages, switches between mains and battery supplies, and provides connectivity to the OCXOs.
Since
OCXOs
work by heating a crystal to a specific temperature, they can use quite a bit of power in the heating element. To increase battery life, a neoprene foam insulator was wrapped around the OCXOs.
For less than $100, this portable tool will aid in calibrating equipment or creating very accurate clocks. | 16 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1827539",
"author": "Dax",
"timestamp": "2014-09-15T20:32:25",
"content": "The battery is 1.3 Ah unit that is rated for 20 hour discharge, or 0.07 C discharge rate. It is woefully under-specced for a continuous load that can reach 3 Amps.The runtime of such a battery will be measure... | 1,760,376,070.246325 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/15/afroman-demonstrates-boost-converters/ | Afroman Demonstrates Boost Converters | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"Parts"
] | [
"boost converter",
"converter",
"switching regulator",
"voltage",
"voltage converter"
] | If you need to regulate your power input down to a reasonable voltage for a project, you reach for a switching regulator, or failing that, an inefficient linear regulator. What if you need to boost the voltage inside a project?
It’s boost converter time
, and Afrotechmods is here to show you how they work.
In its simplest form, a boost converter can be built from only an inductor, a diode, a capacitor, and a transistor. By switching the transistor on and off with varying duty cycles, energy is stored in the inductor, and then sent straight to the capacitor. Calculating the values for the duty cycle, frequency, inductor, and the other various parts of a boost converter means a whole bunch of math, but following the recommended layout in the datasheets for boost and switching converters is generally good enough.
[Afroman]’s example circuit for this tutorial is a simple boost converter built around an LT1370 switching regulator. In addition to that there’s also a small regulator, diode, a few big caps and resistors, and a pot for the feedback pin. This is all you need to build a simple boost converter, and the pot tied to the feedback pin varies the duty cycle of the regulator, changing the output voltage.
It’s an extremely efficient way to boost voltage, measured by [Afroman] at over 80%. It’s also exceptionally easy to build, with just a handful of parts soldered directly onto a piece of perfboard.
Video below. | 27 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "1827068",
"author": "ka1axy",
"timestamp": "2014-09-15T17:09:54",
"content": "Linear Tech is a fantastic company. Check out their free circuit simulator, LTSpice, downloadable from their website. My sales rep will mail me eval boards for any of their circuits, for free. It’s wort... | 1,760,376,070.695231 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/15/30-years-later-ted-finds-his-voice-a-commodore-story-part-ii/ | 30 Years Later TED Finds His Voice: A Commodore Story Part II | Bil Herd | [
"computer hacks",
"Featured"
] | [
"bil herd",
"c116",
"c16",
"C264",
"CBM",
"commodore",
"Commodore TED",
"jack tramiel",
"tramiel",
"v364"
] | [Continued from
30 Years later TED finds his voice: A Commodore Story Part I
]
Like parents standing on the porch waiting to see their children off to their first day of school we waited for what comes next in a release to production. Among our children: The C116 (
$49 Sinclair killer)
, the C264 (
$79 office computer)
, and the V364 –
The computer with an interactive desktop that could speak
(courtesy of [John Fegans] who gave us the lion’s share of what made the C64 software great).
Something happened then, and by something I mean nothing. Nothing happened. We waited to assist in production builds and stood ready to make engineering change notices, and yet nothing happened. It was around this time that [Mr. Jack Tramiel] had left the company, I know why he left but I can’t tell due to a promise I made. Sadly, without [Tramiel’s] vision and direction the new product releases pretty much stopped.
What happens when Marketing tries to design a computer: a TED in a C64 case known as a C16.
Meanwhile in Marketing, someone came up with the idea to make the C264 more expensive so that they could then sell it for a prohibitively high price in. They changed the name, they told us to add chips, and they added software that (at best) wasn’t of interest to the users at that price. They wanted another C64, after all it had previously been the source of some success. Meanwhile the C116 and the V364 prototypes slowly melded into the random storage of a busy R&D lab. We literally didn’t notice what had happened; we were too busy arguing against abominations such as the C16 — a “creation” brought about by a shoving a TED board into a C64 case (the term inbred came to mind at the time).
The inside of a c116, a $49 computer with 121 colors and sound.
With the passing of Winter and the final sign-off by FCC we found the time to catch up on our hygiene and start to think about what to do next. Within a relatively short period we started to re-coagulate into functioning groups and were running the gauntlet again with the new pair of machines; the Commodore LCD and the C128. The LCD and C128 were mostly for short field gains and the hail-Mary of the Amiga which was believed to be a company saver if marketed correctly. Time passed and we never really asked what happened to “Talking TED” as rumors of another office closing abounded and the numbness of 18 hour days created so much tunnel vision that it became hard to remember anything else, like where you parked. My car actually sat in the lot for 3 months and was towed subsequently away after the snow melted.
Doubt and faded velum are all that’s left of this moment in time from almost two generations ago. For me the Early 1980s at Commodore Business Machines was Camelot. The role of Merlin was played by our brilliant chip designers, our quests many and fruitful as we dutifully searched for the Holy Grail of home computing. I had entered as a squire and came out a knight with no visible scars and one heck of a story. Near the end we grabbed a child off the street, (or was it a technician in QA?) and — like in the Camelot musical — told him to ride from town to town telling the story of Commodore. This was a company that at one time had offices circling the world; the sun never set on Commodore.
Jack Tramiel at CES holding TED computers
A few years ago I ran into [Chris Liendo] from the New York Times at Vintage Computer Festival East. I know my jaw dropped, I felt my tongue drying out. I had not seen this picture nor did I know of its existence. Right there in the late [Jack Tramiel’s] hands is proof that my memory wasn’t just about a rouge prototype in the R&D lab, this was the culmination of many departments and several offices. It was our group that put those computers in [Mr. Tramiel’s] hands. These are among a very few hand-crafted units ever brought into existence.
Sometime last year I found a PCB in my collection, one that I actually didn’t readily identify for a score of milliseconds… it had open ROM sockets, it had a TED chip, it had a speech chip… it was a V364 PCB. I had no interest in turning it on or fixing it as it was a relic and placeholder for machines that I had seen working long ago. We old engineers make lousy collectors, we toss the boards and occasionally break pins and toss them in the air while talking. If we are talking to collectors at the time we toss them even higher.
Commodore v364/C364 “Talking” TED
Jump forward to this year’s Vintage Computer Festival East. I knew there was one collector who would be there that relished the TED line of computers more than any of the other festival-goers. He had gone as far as writing some pretty capable diagnostics for TED. I knew he would be a good custodian. A deal was done and [Rob Clarke] returned to Switzerland, the new owner of a rare v364 mainboard.
According to [Rob], it required replacing around 10 chips but then
TED cleared his throat and spoke… in a female voice
. The full video of [Rob’s] repair and TED talking including his/her entire 256 word vocabulary is shown here:
How strange that with all of the things I remember from that era, I had forgotten that TED was a she, not a he.
[Photo of Jack Tramiel from NY Times]
[Video and photo of working TED courtesy Rob Clarke] | 46 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "1826669",
"author": "twdarkflame",
"timestamp": "2014-09-15T14:44:41",
"content": "Commodore Plus/4 WTF ;)First computer I had and I loved it. Much better keyboard layout then the 64.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1826694",
... | 1,760,376,070.578275 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/14/inductive-charger-mod-allows-for-non-stop-wireless-rocking/ | Inductive Charger Mod Allows For Non-Stop Wireless Rocking | Rick Osgood | [
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"adafruit",
"bluetooth",
"charger",
"coil",
"inductive charger",
"music",
"speaker",
"tunes",
"wireless"
] | When you want to jam out to the tunes stored on your mobile devices, Bluetooth speakers are a good option. Battery power means you can take them on the go and the Bluetooth connection means you don’t have to worry about cables or wires dangling around. Unfortunately the batteries never seem to last as long as we want them too. You can always plug the speaker back in to charge up the battery… but when you unhook those cords they always seem to end up falling back behind the furniture.
[Pierre] found himself with this problem, but being a hacker at heart meant that he was able to do something about it. He modified his JAM Classic Bluetooth Wireless Speaker
to include an inductive charger
. It used to be
a lot of work to fabricate your own
inductive charging system, or to
rip it out of another device
. But these days
you can purchase kits
outright.
The JAM speaker was simply put together with screws, so no cracking of the plastic was necessary. Once the case was removed, [Pierre] used a volt meter to locate the 5V input line. It looks like he just tapped into the USB port’s power and ground connections. The coil’s circuit is soldered in place with just the two wires.
All [Pierre] had left to do was to put the speaker back together, taking care to find space for the coil and the new circuit board. The coil was taped to the round base of the speaker. This meant that [Pierre] could simply tape the charging coil to the underside of a glass table top. Now whenever his Bluetooth speaker gets low on battery, he can simply place it on the corner of the table and it will charge itself. No need to mess with cables. | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "1823799",
"author": "cde",
"timestamp": "2014-09-14T18:04:43",
"content": "Noise on charging? No shielding?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1824061",
"author": "pcf11",
"timestamp": "2014-09-14T20:44:24",
"content": ... | 1,760,376,070.041431 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/14/diy-bike-brake-light-and-turn-signals/ | DIY Bike Brake Light And Turn Signals | Rich Bremer | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bicycle",
"bike",
"brake light",
"turn signal"
] | If you ever take your bike out and share the road with large automobiles, you know that sometimes it can get a little hairy. As a biker, you will stand no chance in a collision with a vehicle. Communicating your intentions, i.e. turning and braking, can certainly reduce your risk of getting in an accident. [Mike] didn’t like the traditional idea of taking a hand off the handlebars in order to signal to traffic so he did something about it, he built
turn signals and a brake light
for his bike.
The business end of this project is the rear-facing light bar mounted under the rider’s seat. It is made from Radio Shack project boxes and mounted to an off-the-shelf L bracket. A bunch of LEDs were installed in the project boxes, the yellow turn signal LEDs are arranged in the shape of arrows and the red brake light LEDs are in an oval. Inside the project boxes you will find the 9v battery that powers the circuit and also a breadboard that is home to the circuits responsible for blinking the turn signals.
Check out the switch assembly that is mounted to the handle bars. It was built using an old reflector bracket which was already the correct size to mount to handle bars. As you would expect, there is a toggle switch for turning the turn signals on and off. A little bit more interesting is the brake switch. It is a hinge-lever style limit switch and positioned in a manner such that it is activated when the brake lever is pulled. There is no additional thought or effort required on the cyclist’s part!
Something that is certainly not expected on the switch assembly is the headphone jack. [Mike] likes to listen to music while he rides and a cord dangling around from a backpack or bike bag gets in the way. On the rear light bar, there is a headphone jack that allows an MP3 player to be plugged into. The audio signals travel up the same CAT5 cord used for the turn and brake signals. This allows only a short run of headphone cable from the handlebars to [Mike’s] ears. | 65 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "1823309",
"author": "Johnny",
"timestamp": "2014-09-14T14:03:15",
"content": "Is this a joke?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2673638",
"author": "T Mobile",
"timestamp": "2015-08-09T22:58:36",
"content... | 1,760,376,070.494016 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/14/thp-quarterfinalist-hypoglycaemia/ | THP Quarterfinalist: Hypoglycaemia | Brian Benchoff | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"diabetic",
"hypoglycemia",
"low blood sugar",
"the hackaday prize",
"type 1 diabetes"
] | For somewhat obvious reasons, there aren’t many medical hacks making their way to the quarterfinal selection of The Hackaday Prize. One exception to this is
[Thomas]’ Hypoglycaemia Alert System
, a Bluetooth device that detects low blood sugar in sleeping diabetics and calls for help.
This isn’t the only blood glucose monitor that made it to the quarterfinals of The Hackaday Prize. [John Costik]
reverse engineered a continuous glucose monitor for his Type 1 son
(we also did
a hacker bio on him
). This project has a slightly different scope and doesn’t rely on pre-existing blood glucose sensors. In fact, it doesn’t detect glucose at all. Instead, it uses humidity and temperature sensors to detect the heavy sweating that often occurs with low blood glucose levels.
This hypoglycaemia monitor is meant to be worn by a user at night. Glucose levels can drop while sleeping, and if they drop too low blood sugar can result in death. When the monitor detects the symptoms of low blood glucose, it connects to a smartphone through a Bluetooth link and sends an SMS alert to phone numbers in the contact list. Whoever receives this message will then try to wake the potentially unresponsive diabetic, and failing that, would put some cake frosting under their gums (Seriously. Ask a police officer/EMT for cake frosting. The good ones have some).
[Thomas] is well on his way to a functional device despite having
a few problems with his enclosure
. Right now he’s working on the Bluetooth comms part of the build, and we hope a complete, working device is right around the corner.
The project featured in this post is
a semifinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 15 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1823001",
"author": "Hans",
"timestamp": "2014-09-14T11:15:53",
"content": "Hmm…i believe when you have “advanced” symptoms like sweating, your bloodsugar is usually already quite below your normal low-threshold. Of course YMMV and it’s still better than no alarm at all, but i would... | 1,760,376,070.128592 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/14/persistence-of-vision-clock-on-a-propeller/ | Persistence Of Vision Clock On A Propeller | Bryan Cockfield | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"clock",
"display",
"persistence of vision",
"PIC16F84A",
"pov clock"
] | If you have a spare DC motor, a PIC16F84A microcontroller, and a lot of patience, then [Jon] has a great guide for building a
persistence of vision clock
that is sure to brighten up any room. For those who are unfamiliar with this type of clock, the principle is simple: a “propeller” with LEDs spins, and at just the right moment the LEDs turn on and display the time.
We’ve featured persistence of vision projects
before
(
many times
), and have even featured [Jon]’s
older clocks
, but the thing that makes this POV clock different is the detail of the project log. [Jon] wasn’t satisfied with the documentation of existing projects, and went through great pains to write up absolutely everything about his clock. The project log goes through four major versions of the hardware and goes into great depth about the software as well, making it easy for anyone to recreate this robust clock.
As for the clock itself, the final revision of the hardware has a PCB for all of the components, and uses a PC fan motor to spin the propeller. Power delivery eliminates slip rings or brushes in favor of wireless power transfer, which is an impressive feat on its own. Indeed, the quality of the clock is only surpassed by the extreme level of detail! | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "1826798",
"author": "JAMMER",
"timestamp": "2014-09-15T15:28:42",
"content": "Good documentation. I always wondered how power could be transmitted through a spinning motor. Now I know at least three ways. I may have to try this myself.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,376,070.079111 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/13/energia-on-the-cc3200/ | Energia On The CC3200 | Eric Evenchick | [
"Tool Hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"arm",
"CC3200",
"energia",
"ide",
"wifi"
] | If you’re looking to connect things to the internet, with the goal of building some sort of “Internet of Things,” the new CC3200 chip from TI is an interesting option. Now you can get started quickly with the
Energia development environment
for the CC3200.
We discussed the CC3200
previously on Hackaday
. The chip gives you an ARM Cortex M4 processor with a built-in WiFi stack and radio. It supports things like web servers and SSL out of the box.
Energia
is an Arduino-like development environment for TI chips. It makes writing firmware for these devices easier, since a lot of the work is already done. The collection of libraries aids in getting prototypes running quickly. You can even
debug Energia sketches using TI’s fully featured IDE
.
With this new release of Energia, the existing
Energia WiFi library
supports the built-in WiFi radio on the CC3200. This should make prototyping of WiFi devices easier, and cheaper since the CC3200 Launchpad retails for $30. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1822226",
"author": "ayedreeean",
"timestamp": "2014-09-14T05:33:05",
"content": "This version of Energia also includes the Temboo library, which enables sketches generated in the temboo website to compile on the cc3200 LaunchPad. Temboo can generate Energia sketches for enabling th... | 1,760,376,070.782543 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/13/thp-hacker-bio-aka/ | THP Hacker Bio: AKA | Brian Benchoff | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"bio",
"GRID-EYE",
"hacker bio",
"the hackaday prize",
"thermal camera",
"thermal imaging",
"thermal imaging camera"
] | Thermal imaging cameras are the new hotness when it comes building DIY tools that are much less expensive than their commercial counterparts. [Mike Harrison]
built a very high-resolution version
from Flir’s Lepton module, but an
IR temperature sensor and a servo
can also create a decent image. [AKA] played around with some of these thermal imaging modules, but found them a little hard to interface.
Panasonic’s Grid-EYE module
, however is reasonably cheap as far as thermal imaging devices go, and can be read over an I2C bus.
[AKA]’s entry for the Hackaday Prize,
the GRID-EYE Thermal Camera
is one of two Prize entries that survived the great culling and made it into the quarterfinalist round. [AKA] was kind enough to sit down and do a short little interview/bio with us, available below.
My most accurate answer to this is that my hobby is hobbies: I’m always on the lookout for new communities of ingenious folks who love doing something, no matter how weird. I’ve been deep into lots of different things for as long as I can remember, including gold prospecting, numismatics, recreational mathematics, remote control cars+planes, ardupilot/quadcopters, 3d printers and other CNC platforms, natural radio and numbers stations, hobby electronics, new musical composition and performance interfaces, standup comedy, aqua- and hydroponics, and resilient communities
I’m a “Maker” at the
New York Times R&D Lab
.
I believe that the best experiences are those that contain within themselves the instructions for how to enjoy them.
Man, that’s a hard one, but I’d have to settle on the Dremel drill press accessory – it’s so shit that it’s literally better not to have one in your shop, so you don’t fool yourself into thinking it’ll ever do a good job…
Oh, I use OS X all the time, but I’m trying to learn the linuxes…I started with Angstrom (got a BBB last year) and am moving, with some relief, to Debian
Most used? A simple but good multimeter. Coolest? My Rigol scope, which cost like $250 IIRC and does more than my previous scope, a Heathkit hand-me-down built by my Dad, could ever dream of. (There’s also
that bandwidth-upgrade hack
, which I’ve been meaning to try out soon )
I’m trying hard to increase my comfort with the lower levels of the hardware stack, so I’m using the RFduino (ARM Cortex M0) a lot and enjoying it. So maybe the whole ARM Cortex series? If I had to go lower than that, you can’t beat a good Schmitt trigger…
Someone once told me that everyone loves their *second* programming language, because it gives you the context to see whether the hard parts are aspects of the programming (framing the actual problem, etc), and which are aspects of the language (syntax, whitespace gotchas, etc). With this in mind, I’m loving Python after a Java/JS-heavy beginning in code. Next up for deep study are Go and C++.
Send something into space. This was my 2011 New Year’s resolution that I put off in order to fund my wedding. I obviously don’t regret funding my wedding, but I sure wish I had made good on the resolution as well!
Fully autonomous project that runs for more than three years
Some literally miraculous transposition of senses/experience between people
Honestly, the timing just seemed right: I have long wanted to start a project that would have *some* chance of being used by more people than just me, and I was interested in thermal cameras because they’re still unaffordable for most people. Seemed to me to be a good combination of scope (a really simple, low-component-count project with relatively easy fabrication steps), price, and function.
I’d love opinions on how to make the project easier to integrate into others’ works (say, to augment a robot’s vision, etc). I made a breakout board for the sensor that should make physical integration easier, but I’d love to hear more about what I can do to make the software side easier…
I’m blanking on this, unfortunately. Hackaday.io is so full of good work, choosing 50 must have been difficult! Maybe my all-time favorite, though, is
the Demolition Man swear punisher
(was that even entered into this contest? I’m not sure ). Such an excellent tribute to an excellent movie!
No, that was part of the Sci-fi contest. It also
won the grand prize
-ed
It’s disappointing to hear that people are having difficulty obtaining the sensor itself; I wish there was more that could be done to make it easier, but I’m not sure where to start. I wonder if the breakout board that Digikey sells (at 2x the sensor price!) requires the same procurement process and paperwork?
And of course, the most foreseen project is that making the Android app has been a tooth-pulling pain because I am *terrible* at Android.
It has been super-fun to be in the contest! Without this external interest I’d probably have done what I usually do, which is get a project to 85% done and then stall forever and eventually get distracted and move on. Even beyond the contest, I really like the UX of the Hackaday.io site – it’s a great way to share work without making claims about its done-ness, suitability for attempting it, etc… nice work! | 5 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "1821753",
"author": "Harvie.CZ",
"timestamp": "2014-09-14T02:30:02",
"content": "That Donald Duck picture on the left side is some new blotter art? Haven’t tried these yet… Where did you get them from?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_... | 1,760,376,070.735267 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/13/tesla-model-s-battery-teardown/ | Tesla Model S Battery Teardown | Adam Fabio | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"battery pack",
"Elon Musk",
"Li-ion",
"lithium ion",
"model S",
"P85",
"Solar City",
"tesla"
] | Tesla Motors club user [wk057], a Tesla model S owner himself, wants to build an awesome solar storage system. He’s purchased a battery pack from a salvaged Tesla Model S, and is
tearing it down
. Thankfully he’s posting pictures for everyone to follow along at home. The closest thing we’ve seen to this was
[Charles] tearing into a Ford Fusion battery
. While the Ford battery is NiMH, the Tesla is a completely different animal. Comprised of over 7000 individual lithium-ion cells in 16 modules, the Tesla battery pack packs a punch. It’s rated capacity is 85kWh at 400VDC.
[wk057] found each cell connected by a thin wire to the module buses. These wires act as cell level fuses, contributing to the overall safety of the pack. He also found the water cooling loops were still charged with coolant, under a bit of pressure. [wk057] scanned and uploaded high res images of the Tesla battery
management system PCBs
(large image link). It is a bit difficult to read the individual part numbers due the conformal coating on the boards.
A
second forum link
shows images of [wk057] pulling the modules out of the pack. To do this he had to chip away the pack’s spine, which consisted of a 2/0 gauge wire potted in some sort of RTV rubber compound.
We’re sure Tesla doesn’t support hackers using their packs to power houses. Ironically this is exactly the sort of thing Elon Musk is working on over at
Solar City
. | 84 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "1821160",
"author": "ejonesss",
"timestamp": "2014-09-13T23:17:24",
"content": "at over 100,000 dollars for the original tesla car and i dont know much for the latest model(s) it took some major courage to tear down the battery and the cars are too expensive and too dangerous to be... | 1,760,376,070.896257 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/13/sweet-guitar-practice-amp-is-a-literal-work-of-art/ | Sweet Guitar Practice Amp Is A Literal Work Of Art | Rich Bremer | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"guitar amp",
"guitar amplifier"
] | Check out this
odd
different looking
guitar practice amp
. It looks like a professionally manufactured product but it certainly is not. [Bradley] made it himself, not just a little bit of it either, all of it.
One of the first things you notice is the quilted maple wood grain of the case. There is no veneer here, this started out as a solid maple block. The front radius was shaped and the recesses for the control knobs and input jack were bored out using a forstner bit. The case was sanded smooth and several coats of high gloss tung oil was rubbed on to give the wood a perfect finish. A small piece of grill cloth protects the speaker while adding a little more class to the amp. The bottom of the case is actually a cover for a computer hard drive. A rectangular hole cut in the hard drive cover makes way for a 9 volt battery compartment.
There are two control potentiometers, one for volume and one for gain. Any old knobs wouldn’t do for this project. [Bradley] knurled and turned his own aluminum knobs and they look awesome! The units power is turned on when the guitar cord is plugged in. An LED not only indicates that the power is on but it also gets brighter with the volume input from the guitar. The LED also pulses if two strings are out of tune with each other giving the guitarist an opportunity to tune one of the strings until the LED stops pulsing. When it is time for some private jamming headphones can be plugged into the amp and doing so cuts power to the speaker.
The electronic circuitry is [Bradley’s] design also, but unfortunately he doesn’t share the schematic. I suppose he wants to keep his amp one-of-a-kind. | 19 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1820712",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2014-09-13T20:30:06",
"content": "What’s the difference between volume and gain?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1820725",
"author": "Brian Benchoff",
"timestamp": "201... | 1,760,376,071.198018 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/13/volumetric-circuits/ | Volumetric Circuits | Brian Benchoff | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"circuit design",
"dead bug",
"point to point",
"volumetric circuits"
] | Building a circuit Manhattan style with small bits of copper and solder is a skill all its own, and building a prototype dead bug style is close to a black art. [Anderson] is taking it to the next level with
his volumetric circuits
. Not only is he building a free-form circuit that’s also a one-bit ALU, he’s also designing software to make these sort of circuits easy to design and build.
[Anderson] is calling his 3D circuit design software Pyrite, and it does exactly what it says on the tin: creates three-dimensional, grid-aligned physical circuits. Automating the construction of a circuit is not a trivial task, and soldering all these components together even more so.
With the first prototype of his software, [Anderson] entered the schematic of a simple one bit ALU. The resulting layout was then carefully pieced together with solder and hot glue. It didn’t work, but that’s only because the schematic was wrong. Designing the software is still an incredible accomplishment, and now that [Anderson] has a rudimentary system of automatically designing free form and dead bug circuits, there are a lot of interesting possibilities. Ever wonder if the point to point wiring found in old radios was the most efficient layout? [Anderson] could probably tell you.
You can check out a few videos of [Anderson]’s work below. | 47 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "1820278",
"author": "eddy",
"timestamp": "2014-09-13T17:51:18",
"content": "Pyrite used to be a Max object that later became SuperCollider….http://www.audiosynth.com/icmc96paper.html",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1820289",
... | 1,760,376,071.280539 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/13/homemade-e-cigarette-vaporizer/ | Homemade E-Cigarette Vaporizer | Matt Terndrup | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"adjustable voltage regulator",
"altoids tin",
"e-cig",
"e-cigarette",
"LM338t",
"potentiometer"
] | Extensive research shows that tobacco kills. This is common knowledge as of late, which has prompted a flurry of anti-smoking ads to flood in. Regular smokers are now reconsidering their smoking patterns and are looking at healthier alternatives. Among those options are electronic cigarettes that vaporize flavorful liquid into smooth drags of smoke.
Prices for these devices can range anywhere from $40 to $240, which can be quite expensive for those on a budget. So instead of buying one, [MrRedBeard] decided to create his own
DIY electronic cigarette contraption out of an Altoids can
.
The approximate cost (not including batteries) is about $12. This covers the 5 Amp adjustable voltage regulator and the 500 ohm potentiometer that is best used for a rig like this. The wattage is what drives the heat giving it a more consistent vapor stream of cloud smoke.
For more e-cigarette hacks, check out these
ones powered by an NES controller
and this vaporizer that
can send smells…in space!
-EDIT-
As discussed in the comments below (and in the comments on the Instructable’s page) using a LM317 and the unprotected LiPo may not a good idea. Connecting them to 240V AC produces large quantities of toxic fumes that smell horrible. So re-create this hack at your own risk. | 157 | 33 | [
{
"comment_id": "1819681",
"author": "William G",
"timestamp": "2014-09-13T14:18:47",
"content": "So what is next, how to make hash oil?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1819842",
"author": "strider_mt2k",
"timestamp": "2014-09-... | 1,760,376,071.503716 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/13/a-breakout-board-for-a-flir-lepton/ | A Breakout Board For A Flir Lepton | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"flir",
"Flir lepton",
"ir camera",
"IR imaging",
"lepton",
"thermal camera",
"thermal imaging",
"thermal imaging camera"
] | Thermal imaging cameras are all the rage now, and one of the best IR cameras out there is Flir’s Lepton module. It’s the sensor in the FLIR ONE, a thermal imaging camera add-on for an iPhone. Somewhat surprisingly, Flir is allowing anyone to purchase this module, and that means a whole bunch of robotics and other various electronics projects.
Here’s a breakout board for Flir’s Lepton
.
Electron artisan [Mike]
recently got his hands on a FLIR ONE
, and doing what he does best, ripped the thing apart and built the world’s smallest thermal imaging camera. Compared to professional models, the resolution isn’t that great, but this module only costs about $250. Just try to find a higher resolution thermal imager that’s cheaper.
With this breakout board, you’ll obviously need a Lepton module.
There’s a group buy going on right now
, with each module costing just under $260.
The Lepton module is controlled over I2C, but the process of actually grabbing images happens over SPI. The images are a bit too large to be processed with all but the beefiest Arduinos, but if you’re thinking of making
Predator
vision with a Raspi, BeagleBone, or a larger ARM board, this is just the ticket.
You can check out some video made with the Lepton module below.
This is also project number 3000 on
hackaday.io
. That’s pretty cool and worthy of mention. | 21 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "1819246",
"author": "wattnotions",
"timestamp": "2014-09-13T11:29:09",
"content": "I noticed on the groupget page the minimum is 100 instead of 1000, whats going on there? Very cool breakout board really opens up the possibility for some great projects.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,376,071.942711 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/13/an-rv-converted-into-a-spaceship-simulator/ | An RV Converted Into A Spaceship Simulator | Matt Terndrup | [
"Games",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"android",
"Elite",
"holodeck",
"london hackspace"
] | Hackerspaces always breed innovative projects. The outlandish ideas that come out of these areas typically push the boundaries of what is possible. This
giant spaceship simulator
is no exception, which is normally housed at the
London Hackspace
.
It was created by a team of DIY hackers that wanted an immersive experience that didn’t involve virtual reality goggles. Instead, they chose more of a holodeck-type game that literally would shake the people inside the sci-fi styled caravan as they traveled through virtual space fighting aliens along the way.
The cockpit consisted of three seats: one for a pilot, one for a tactical officer, and one an engineer. Countless amounts of computer monitors, joysticks, switches, and a wide variety of arcade-like buttons line the walls inside. The main radar screen was modeled off of the
1984 space trading video game named
Elite
, which has been a game geared toward virtual reality from its early beginnings.
The difference here is that the caravan acts more like a ride rather than a virtual reality game. Interaction with this simulated experience is hands-on the entire way through. The whole game is run by another member of the team who controls the experience with two Android tablets in a back room, and can trigger an unidentified space creature (a friend with an inflatable tentacle arm) to attack the unsuspecting space travelers.
If any readers decide to fashion together a large-scale simulator of their own, be sure to send in photos of the progression of the project and put it up on Hackaday.io! | 33 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "1818719",
"author": "nyder",
"timestamp": "2014-09-13T08:04:38",
"content": "That is pretty damn cool.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1818955",
"author": "AussieLauren",
"timestamp": "2014-09-13T09:23:59",
... | 1,760,376,071.886306 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/12/controlling-a-point-and-shoot-with-bluetooth/ | Controlling A Point And Shoot With Bluetooth | Brian Benchoff | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"android",
"bluetooth",
"canon",
"chdk",
"digital camera",
"iphone",
"jquery"
] | Loading point and shoot digital cameras is old hat around here, but [Alex] and [Andreas] are taking it to the next level. They’ve made
a Bluetooth controller for a cheap Canon camera
, allowing pictures to be taken with an iPhone or Android device.
The camera in question is a Canon IXUS70, although any camera supported by
CHDK
will work. We’ve seen a few builds using this firmware to
take pictures of the sunrise every day
and
transmitting images over a radio link
, but this build is far more interactive.
The camera is connected to an Arduino and Bluetooth shield with a hacked up USB cable. The ‘duino communicates with a phone using a JQuery app, giving any phone with a Bluetooth module control of the camera’s zoom and shutter.
All the code is available
on the github
, with a very good video demonstration of the build available below. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "2049772",
"author": "sistrumeg",
"timestamp": "2014-10-27T14:26:16",
"content": "beautiful",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,376,071.321036 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/12/the-unstealable-transformer-bike/ | The “Unstealable” Transformer Bike | Matt Terndrup | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"bicycle",
"bicycle frame",
"bicycle lock",
"lock",
"unstealable bike"
] | A team of Chilean engineering students have designed a bike that comes complete with detachable parts that can be re-positioned to lock the vehicle in place. They are calling it the
Yerka Project
and have marketed it as the world’s first unstealable bike.
The genius of it is the frame itself literally acts as the locking mechanism. This means that if a thief wanted to break the lock, they would have to break the actual bike, leaving little to be desired. This also eliminates the need to go out and purchase a standalone bicycle lock, which can be
opened up relatively easily anyway
.
The Yerka works by splitting the bike’s down tube in half and extending it outwards around a nearby object like a tree, a light post, or a designated bicycle rack. The saddle and seatpost is then removed and inserted into a hole that was drilled into the down tube. After that, a lock at the end is secured and the rider can walk away knowing that their bike is safe.
However, clever hackers will probably still find a way to unlock this bike. No matter how unstealable it might be, someone will figure it out. In the meantime though, it gives a nice sense of security for those hoping to deter your average bike thief from attempting to jack the bicycle.
For a good look at the design, watch the videos posted below:
[Thanks for the tip Mike!]
[via –
Cnet
] | 68 | 33 | [
{
"comment_id": "1817769",
"author": "Erik",
"timestamp": "2014-09-13T02:29:54",
"content": "Those sure are expensive-looking rims to be leaving unsecured like that…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1817805",
"author": "Lahuel",
... | 1,760,376,071.818919 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/12/city-lights-telling-stories/ | City Lights Telling Stories | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"art",
"lights",
"morse code"
] | If you’re walking around town and you see a light suddenly start to switch on and off seemingly at random, don’t discount it as a loose wire so quickly. [René] has been hard at work on a project to
use city lights of all shapes and sizes for Morse messages
, and a way for anyone to easily decode these messages if they happen upon one while out and about.
The lights can tell any story that is programmed into them. The code on the site is written for an Arduino-style microcontroller but it could be easily exported to any device that can switch power to turn a light on and off. Any light can work, there’s even video of a single headlight on a van blinking out some dots and dashes.
The other part of this project is a smartphone app that can decode the messages using the camera, although any
Morse code interpreter
can translate the messages, or if you’re a ham radio enthusiast you might recognize the messages without any tools whatsoever!
The great thing about this project is that it uses everyday objects to hide messages in plain sight, but where only some will be able to find them. This is indeed true hacker fashion! If you’re interested in making your own Morse code light, the code is available on the project site. | 27 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "1817306",
"author": "kajer",
"timestamp": "2014-09-12T23:56:43",
"content": "I’ll never understand “art”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1817398",
"author": "Indyaner",
"timestamp": "2014-09-13T00:20:31",
... | 1,760,376,071.723235 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/12/the-frankencamera-digitizing-old-school-film-into-something-new/ | The FrankenCamera: Digitizing Old School Film Into Something New | Matt Terndrup | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"konic auto s3",
"sls printing",
"solidworks",
"sony nex-5"
] | After being awarded a generous sum of money from a scholarship fund, [Ollie] decided to utilize some of the cash to convert an analog camera into a device that could store photos onto an SD card. The result was this
FrankenCamera
that was pieced together from multiple electronic parts to create a new photograph-taking machine.
The Konica Auto S3 rangefinder was chosen due to its stellar fixed 38mm f1.8 lens and unobtrusive internal leaf shutter. A Sony NEX-5 was dismantled and the components were removed and transplanted into the Konica Auto S3. This included a circuit board, SD card slot, and battery connector.
The housing for the electronics was 3D printed from CAD files that were developed in SolidWorks. Designs were sent to a company in London who did the actual SLS printing.
Once completed, the camera operated just like any digital camera, but with the added twist of knowing that it was created from an old school camera frame with new electronic parts, making it a nice hacked together work of functional art.
Videos of the working FrankenCamera can be seen below:
[vimeo
http://vimeo.com/105863392%5D
[vimeo
http://vimeo.com/104858527%5D
[Thanks for the tip Zac!] | 22 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "1816718",
"author": "adnbr",
"timestamp": "2014-09-12T20:15:15",
"content": "I really hope this isn’t some sort of elaborate hoax.Superb job if it isn’t.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1816738",
"author": "RogFanther",
... | 1,760,376,071.663869 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/12/hacklet-15-arcade-fire/ | Hacklet 15 – Arcade Fire | Adam Fabio | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"arcade",
"arcade game",
"hacklet",
"The Hacklet",
"video game"
] | This week’s Hacklet is dedicated to arcade games. The arcade parlors of the 80’s and early 90’s may have given way to today’s consoles and PC games, but the classic stand-up arcade cabinet lives on! Plenty of hackers have restored old arcade cabinets, or even built their own. We’re going to take a look at some of the best arcade game-related hacks on
Hackaday.io!
[Brayden] starts things off with his
Raspberry Pi Vintage Arcade
. The Black Vortex is a tabletop arcade cabinet using a Raspberry Pi, an old monitor, and some nice carpentry skills. Black Vortex uses a Raspberry Pi B+. The extra GPIO pins make interfacing buttons and joystick switches easy. On the software side, [Brayden] is using the popular PiMame (now
PiPlay
) flavor of Linux built for gaming and emulation. Black Vortex’s shell is plywood. [Brayden] used a pocket hole jig to build a sturdy, cabinet without extra support blocks. A stain finish really works on this one!
Next up, [fredkono] blows our minds with the
Arcade XY Monitor From Scratch
. [fredkono] repairs classic Atari vector game PCBs. He needed a test monitor for his lab. The original Amplifone and WG6100 color XY monitors used in games like Tempest and Star Wars are becoming rather rare. Not a problem, as [fredkono] is building his own. Much like the WG6100, [fredkono] started with a standard color TV CRT. He removed and rewound the yoke for vector operation. The TV’s electronics were replaced with [fredkono’s] own deflection amplifier PCBs. [fredkono] was sure to include the all- important spot killer circuit, which shuts down the electron guns before a spot can burn-in the CRT.
[Rhys] keeps things rolling with a pair of projects dedicated to arcade controls. His
TI Launchpad Arcade Control to USB Interface
contains instructions and code to use a Texas Instruments Tiva C launchpad as a USB interface for arcade controls. [Rhys] puts all that to good use in his
Arcade Control Panel
. The control panel features MAME buttons, as well as the standard 2 player fighting game button layout. He finished off his panel with some slick graphics featuring red and blue dragons.
[Sarah and Raymond] hosted a Tron:Legacy release party back in 2010. An epic arcade movie calls for an epic arcade game, or in this case, games.
16 table top arcades to be exact
. All 16 machines were built in just 6 days. 8 of the machines ran
Armegatron Advanced
, a networked version of the classic Tron lightcycle game. The others ran a mix of classic games like PacMan or modern bullet hell shooters like
Tou-Hou
. The cabinets were built from expanded PVC with wood blocks as a support structure. [Sarah and Raymond] custom painted each cabinet with UV black light paint. We love the custom artwork on their personal signature machines!
[Mike] takes us back to the 80’s with
Just Another Arcade Machine
. Under the hood, this machine uses the standard Raspberry Pi and PiMame (now
PiPlay
) suite. [Mike] even added a trackball so he could play Centipede. What makes this arcade special is the cabinet. [Mike] found an old wardrobe with that perfect 80’s style metallic strip cladding. [Mike] removed the cladding, and cut up the chipboard frame. He re-assembled things into a stand-up arcade cabinet that looks like it came right out of Sears’ Electronics department in 1985.
Ok folks, that’s it for another episode of The Hacklet. As always, see you next week. Same hack time, same hack channel, bringing you the best of Hackaday.io! | 8 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "1816233",
"author": "StinkySteve",
"timestamp": "2014-09-12T17:03:29",
"content": "100% off-topic but does it bother anyone else the number of ‘open source’ and ‘open hardware’ projects on places like Kickstarter that won’t actually release anything until they’ve hit X target? or un... | 1,760,376,071.995992 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/12/pro-quality-pickup-winder-you-can-make-at-home/ | Pro-Quality Pickup Winder You Can Make At Home | Rich Bremer | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"guitar",
"guitar pickup",
"pickup winder"
] | A lot of people find the art of building a guitar to be a worth while and pleasurable hobby. The task can be as easy as buying pre-made parts and assembling the guitar or as complicated as starting with just a piece of wood. Even advanced guitar builders normally do not get involved enough to wind their own pickups as it can be a tedious and labor intensive task. A low-end professional pickup winder can be purchased for about $450 which is certainly not economical for the hobbyist. [Doug] is one of those folks that wanted a pickup winder but didn’t want to shell out the big bucks. So what did he do?
Build his own
, of course.
If [Doug] was going to build a winder he was going to do it right, with all the features to make pickup winding as quick and painless as possible. The winder needed to be fast, count the windings and stop after a pre-programmed amount of revolutions. To keep this machine safe and reliable while maintaining the ability to spin quickly, [Doug] chose to base the machine on an off-the-shelf wood lathe since they are sturdy and made to spin at high speeds. The lathe is equipped with a face plate where the pickup is mounted.
Once the pickup is mounted to the face plate, the desired amount of turns is programmed into a digital counter that receives a signal from an opto switch and encoder disk attached to the lathe spindle. The motor speed is manually controlled by a user-adjustable potentiometer. There is also a stand alone tachometer that gives speed feedback to the user. Once the counter reaches the pre-programmed limit, it trips a relay that cuts power to the motor. This way the amount of windings can be precisely controlled. There is even a switch that changes the motor direction for reverse winding humbuckers without the need to remove and flip over the pickup.
This pickup winder can get up to 3000 RPM making for quick winds. The parts for this project only cost a total of $160, most of which was the cost of the lathe. If you’re interested in checking out some other Pickup Winders, check out this other
DIY winder
or this
steam-powered
one. | 24 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1815901",
"author": "RSMilward",
"timestamp": "2014-09-12T14:48:34",
"content": "I think you meant to say “1525 winds”, not “RPM” at about 4:15.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1815944",
"author": "Doug",
"time... | 1,760,376,072.058806 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/12/thp-hacker-bio-felix-rusu/ | THP Hacker Bio: Felix Rusu | Brian Benchoff | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"internet of things",
"ISM band",
"moteino",
"radio",
"the hackaday prize"
] | As far as entries for The Hackaday Prize go,
Moteino
is exceptionally interesting. It’s the only project to be used
in other projects for The Hackaday Prize.
The two other projects making use of the Moteino,
433MHz transceiver
and
Plant Friends
didn’t make the cut, but [Felix]’s Moteino did.
Like many of the Internet of Things project, Moteino is a radio module and a microcontroller in an extremely convenient package. The radio is a HopeRF RFM69 operating in the 315, 433, 868 and 915MHz ISM bands. The microcontroller is everyone’s favorite – the ATMega328, but [Felix] also has a Mega version with the ATMega1284 on board. Already there are a few great examples of what the Moteino can do, including
a mailbox notifier
, a
sump pump monitor
, and a way to
Internetify a water meter
.
[Felix]’s bio below.
I am a maker at heart so I would have to say I like creating, improving and fixing things around me. All my life I was trained to solve problems one way or another, either in school or at work. Recently I started
LowPowerLab
and a lot of my hobby time went into creating and blogging about my vision of a connected smart home and environment. I also like history, apologetics , photography, and other weird stuff. My wife says she likes my “cooking” and I enjoy hacking it together for her :-)
I am a software developer by day and hardware hacker/maker at night. When I first came to the US, I started Computer Science at ASU, then figured I should try something cooler like Computer Systems since I already knew programming. That’s how I was introduced to hardware systems and architecture and that fueled my new love for electronics and the
Moteino
driven adventure at LowPowerLab years later.
In recent years I’ve rediscovered my childhood passion of taking things apart and then somehow improving them. I’m sure this is a resonant theme with most hackers. I used to take all my toys apart and add batteries and small 5V light bulbs hooked with wires to make trains “see in the dark” custom blinking Christmas trees. So one day my dad bought me a communist soldering iron. That’s when I learned how to solder and my love for electronics was kindled. Although I’ve somehow always worked software jobs, after college I discovered the fascinating world of Arduino and my degree allowed me to start doing small jobs for clients. Soldering came back naturally, and I was in love with electronics again, only now I was creating them from scratch! And now that I have a young son, I have someone to pass all this stuff to and I have a feeling he’s going to be my biggest project yet.
I will nominate a few things because they are good candidates:
my pen style soldering iron (bought from SF when I first got into Arduino, not the one I had as a kid!)
my spindle hard drive that I’ve upgraded to a SSD which is eons faster. Which reminds me that I have at least a handful of mechanical hard drives somewhere to go OfficeSpace on. But haven’t we all done that already?
my previous day job laptop, just thinking of my life using it resurrects the Office Space spirit in me
Though always learning more, it would have to be Linux
The trusty Fluke 87V DMM is one of the best investments I made. And for a tight second place worth mentioning, until I got my own
real
pick and place I used to pick and place manually using my pick and place tool
that I made for the purpose
, so that would be a tight second place, mostly because it placed countless thousands of SMD components and qualifies as a bench tool.
The Atmega328P – for it’s robustness and bitter-sweet set of peripherals that most of us came to be so familiar with after the rise of Arduino. It’s also at the core of most of my projects simply because it can do most things that need some electronic brains.
By far C/C++ is the epic classic that never died (and never will). Every time you press that button on your microwave oven or touch the display of your car dashboard, likely a C routine is invoked and some pointers passed in and around ;-)
Well, finishing the Moteino Framework, which I have a feeling will never be truly finished
I’d like to start a class in my community/city where I teach kids electronics through example projects like their own mailbox notifier!
Abolishing political correctness would be an honorable mention
I had been working on my Moteino Framework of things for some time and I initially didn’t think my project was really well suited for the THP because it’s composed of many elements, not just one particular product or component. One of my good friends (HAD hacker Kenji Larsen) really encouraged me to enter THP and then I met the HAD guys at i3Detroit and Mike also suggested I should really enter since it’s such an open space for all kinds of projects. So I did and somehow I made the semifinals, yay!
Either way, regardless of the THP outcome, the Moteino Framework will continue to be improved and perfected to fulfill my vision of having an alternative open framework of devices for those electronics lovers who like DIY.
I like to sit and talk (well mostly listen) to old people talk about their life experience. Vets are especially interesting. I always end up leaving the conversation with a pack full of awesome advice and things to learn from. We can read books, go to conferences, watch YouTube to learn new skills and hacking techniques, or make mistakes and then learn from those in our daily making/hacking. But being a better father, husband, person, comes from the realization that I don’t live this life for myself, but to better the lives of those around. And there’s plenty of advice I need on that.
I was watching several projects that caught my attention. I liked
Smart Aquaponics
and
Reactron Overdrive
since I have interests in both topics and they were some of the few projects that I considered being actually truly “connected” (transmitting data through the internet), and also feasible and useful.
The project is moving forward as it normally would. Each prototyping cycle takes about 2 weeks and since so many things can go wrong it’s hard to come up with significantly more functional prototypes for the next stage. But things are always moving along even if sometimes that means one kick in the butt = two steps forward.
Thank you HackADay for organizing a great place to share every hacking tip and project there was, is, and ever will be. Happy hacking! | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1815603",
"author": "NotArduino",
"timestamp": "2014-09-12T12:29:31",
"content": "So, is the Moteino FCC certified?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1815621",
"author": "bgsteiner",
"timestamp": "2014-09-12T12:3... | 1,760,376,072.150993 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/12/rotating-plants-for-time-lapse-purposes/ | Rotating Plants For Time-Lapse Purposes | Matt Terndrup | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"bonsai tree",
"indoor plants",
"Time-lapse photography"
] | Automating the growing process of plants and vegetables is an increasing trend among gardening enthusiasts and hobbyists. It’s no surprise, either, with microcontrollers, moisture sensors, Co2 detectors, and even
time-lapse cameras with rotating wooden rigs
that are in the hands of millions of amateur gardeners around the world.
This project by [Liz] helps to document the sprouting process of her tiny grapefruit bonsai tree that started to flourish at her apartment in Chicago.
Similar rigs can be used for practically any type of indoor plant. They can also be modified to move the plants and vegetables depending on how much light they are getting. Even further, just add some code to splice the photographs together and you’ve got yourself a custom setup that can produce animated GIF files to be uploaded easily to the internet. Pages and pages of happy and healthy growing plants unearthing themselves from the ground up would be pasted all over the web showing the entire sprouting process. An example video of this by [Liz] is embedded below. | 13 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "1815069",
"author": "jimmy",
"timestamp": "2014-09-12T08:34:46",
"content": "You spin me right ’round, baby Right ’round like a rotating plant timelapse rig, baby Right ’round, ’round, ’round",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "18... | 1,760,376,072.103761 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/11/extrinsic-motivation-and-you-thought-inverted-pendulums-were-hard/ | Extrinsic Motivation: And You Thought Inverted Pendulums Were Hard | Brian Benchoff | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"gimbal bot",
"gimbalbot",
"the hackaday prize"
] | An extremely common project for a control systems class is the inverted pendulum. Basically, it’s a robot mounted on a linear rail, a hinge, and a pendulum sticking straight up in the air. Get your algorithms right, and you have a pendulum that seemingly resists the inexorable pull of gravity and a great understanding of how Segways, balancing robots, and quadcopters work.
[zakowy] is taking this to the next level with
his entry to The Hackaday Prize
. It’s an inverted pendulum with two counter-rotating propellers in a gimballed fan, and the most unstable UAV design we’ve ever seen.
The mechanics of the build consist of a carbon and epoxy frame, with a motor mount that can move in the X and Y axes. This mount holds two brushless motors and is actuated with rather large pitch and roll servos. The electronics consist of the usual suite of sensors found in a quadcopter – gyros, accelerometers, magnetometers, and a barometric altimeter. Everything is controlled by an Arduino Due, getting commands from an RC receiver and sending telemetry back to a computer
[zakowy]’s project didn’t make the cut for the quarterfinalist selection,
but he is undeterred
. He’s building this strange contraption because he
can
, not because we’re dangling some great prizes in front of his nose. Right now, [zakowy] is
working on a testing rig
. This thing will fly, make no mistakes about that.
Videos available below.
This project is
an official entry
to The Hackaday Prize that sadly didn’t make
the quarterfinal selection
. It’s still a great project, and worthy of a Hackaday post on its own. | 24 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1814674",
"author": "danieljlouw",
"timestamp": "2014-09-12T05:35:18",
"content": "This is a really cool project! I’m surprised that gyroscopic effects did not have such a big effect on the system! I was expecting something much greater than that!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth... | 1,760,376,072.33381 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/11/global-radiation-monitoring-network-update/ | Global Radiation Monitoring Network Update | Adam Fabio | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"geiger counter",
"Hackaday Prize",
"radiation",
"the hackaday prize"
] | Things have been busy at
Global Radiation Monitoring Network Central Command
. As a semifinalist in the Hackaday Prize, project creator
[Radu Motisan]
has quite a bit of work to do. He’s not slacking off either. With 33 project logs (and counting), [Radu] has been keeping us up to date with his monitoring network and progress on uRADMonitor , the actual monitoring hardware.
[Radu’s] latest news is that he’s
ready to go into production
with model A of the uRADMonitor. Moving from project to production can be an incredible amount of work due to sourcing parts, setting up assembly houses, and dealing with any snags that come up along the way. We’re sure [Radu] can handle it, though.
The network of uRADMonitors is also growing. A new monitor was just installed in Prescott, Arizona. This is the 10th unit in the USA. You can view the map, data, and graphs of global radiation live on the
uRADMonitor website
.
The project featured in this post is
a semifinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 30 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "1814125",
"author": "Pedro",
"timestamp": "2014-09-12T02:11:08",
"content": "Really nice distribution -.- not even one in every continent.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1814216",
"author": "vonskippy",
"times... | 1,760,376,072.398827 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/11/changing-poi-colors-based-on-speed-and-velocity/ | Changing Poi Colors Based On Speed And Velocity | Matt Terndrup | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"led poi",
"xbee"
] | LED toys have become synonymous with the underground rave culture as party-goers gaze into vortexes of spinning light known as poi. Most of these objects come pre-programmed, but some can be custom coded. However, only a few tap into an accelerometer changing the colorful circles of energy depending on how fast they move through space. One stunning example is this
LED device called the ‘Center Flee’ that translates accelerometer data
into sequences of alternating RGB colors.
The LED values are ‘printed’ to the tethered objects at specific points in the rotational arc. The devices are controlled with an Arduino, and a XBee wireless module transmits data to a computer nearby, eliminating the need to manually remove an SD card after each spinning session.
When spun, the poi acts like a colorful, twirling extension of the performer that produces a mesmerizing, vibrant effect. It’s nice to see the progression of glow sticks tied to shoelaces into g-force sensing devices that can captivate surrounding audiences.
Other examples of similar types of ideas include this
accelerometer poi
that was cut with a CNC machine and these
LED staffs
for the ultimate portable rave.
Below is a video playlist of the Center Flee being tested out. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "1814052",
"author": "Dave P",
"timestamp": "2014-09-12T01:40:21",
"content": "Wow those look great! She’s an impressive spinner too, those are some tough moves. It’s great to see this style of performance art gaining so much popularity lately! Thanks for sharing this.",
"pare... | 1,760,376,072.567213 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/11/homemade-omnidirectional-speakers-in-a-unique-enclosure/ | Homemade Omnidirectional Speakers In A Unique Enclosure | Bryan Cockfield | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"diy speaker",
"dodecahedron",
"omnidirectional",
"omnidirectional speakers",
"speakers"
] | While studying acoustics in college (university for non-Americans), [Nick] had a great idea for an omnidirectional speaker. Some models available for purchase have a single speaker with a channel to route the sound in all directions, but [Nick] decided that
a dodecahedron enclosure with 12 speakers
would be a much more impressive route.
To accommodate the array of speakers, the enclosure needs twelve pentagons with a 58.3 degree bevel so that they fit together in a ball shape. After thinking about all of the complicated ways he could get this angle cut into the wood pentagons, he ended up using a simple circular saw!
Once the enclosure was painted [Nick] started wiring up the speakers. The equivalent impedance of the array of 8-ohm speakers works out to just around 10 ohms, which is easily driven by most amplifiers. The whole thing was hung from a custom-made galvanized pipe (all the weight adds up to about 15 kilograms, or 33 pounds for Americans, so the rig needed to be sturdy). We’ve featured other
unique speaker builds
, but this is the first 12-speaker omnidirectional speaker we’ve seen. [Nick] is happy to report that the speakers sound great, too! | 36 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "1813248",
"author": "pcf11",
"timestamp": "2014-09-11T20:04:15",
"content": "Kind of cute. Looks like a pain in the ass to make though.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1813286",
"author": "kryptylomese",
"timestamp": "20... | 1,760,376,072.996146 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/11/fail-of-the-week-this-inanimate-titanium-rod/ | Fail Of The Week: This Inanimate Titanium Rod | Kristina Panos | [
"Fail of the Week",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"arc welder",
"bottle opener",
"casting",
"fail of the week",
"in rod we trust",
"TIG welder",
"titanium",
"welding beanie"
] | You saw [Chris] cast aluminium on the cheap using Kinetic Sand
a few weeks ago
, didn’t you? He recently got his meaty hands on some titanium through the magic of modern transactional methods and was bowled over by its strength, hardness, and poor heat transfer.
He thought he would cast it into a nice, strong bottle opener. As you can probably guess, that didn’t go so well. First off, it wasn’t easy to saw through the thin rod. Once he did get it split in twain, it was surprisingly cool to the touch except at the tip. This is nasty foreshadowing, no?
[Chris] takes a moment to help us absorb the gravity of what he’s about to do, which of course is to send several hundred amps through that poor rod using a DC arc welder. Special precautions are necessary due to the reaction between oxygen and heated titanium. His trusty graphite crucible is grounded to the bottom of a big aluminium tub, and a cozy blanket of argon from a TIG welder will shield the titanium from burnination.
Well . . . the titanium didn’t melt. Furthermore, the crucible is toast. On the up side, vise-enabled cross-sectional examination of the crucible proved that there was still gold in them there walls.
Do you have any (constructive, on-topic) suggestions for [Chris]? Let him know below.
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. | 69 | 28 | [
{
"comment_id": "1812856",
"author": "Jonathan Whitaker",
"timestamp": "2014-09-11T17:38:37",
"content": "Wow, there are actually some constructive comments on youtube!?!? For those too lazy to go and look, his main problem was the titanium reacting with the graphite to form titanium carbide. I thin... | 1,760,376,072.851964 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/11/antique-case-for-custom-file-server/ | Antique Case For Custom File Server | Bryan Cockfield | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"file server",
"HP",
"signal generator",
"USB to serial"
] | Michigan Tech was throwing out a bunch of old electronic equipment, and [Evan] snagged quite a gem: a UHF signal generator built by Hewlett Packard circa 1955. He stripped all of the remaining electronics out of the case, but kept the slide-out trays and the front instrument panel to create this
antique-looking file server
.
The bottom tray was where the bulk of the electronics were housed, and since widespread adaptation of transistors for electronics wasn’t common at the time (the first silicon transistor wasn’t made until 1954), the original equipment was all vacuum tubes. This meant that there was just enough space for a motherboard, heat sink, and a couple of power supplies.
The hard drives are held in custom housings in the top portion of the case. The real magic, however, is with the front display panel. [Evan] was able to use the original meters, including a display for “megacycles” which is still technically accurate. The meters are driven by a USB-to-serial cable and a python script that runs on the server.
The antique case is a great touch for this robust file server. Make sure to put it in a prominent place, like next to your
antique tube radio
. | 46 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "1812366",
"author": "Anartech Systems",
"timestamp": "2014-09-11T14:13:23",
"content": "Decent enough build (in4 a bunch of puritans descend to decry the gutting of this old piece of kit) but sweet jesus, those hideous pen written labels (does he really need a reminder of what does ... | 1,760,376,072.927487 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/11/thp-quarterfinalist-low-cost-solid-state-cosmic-ray-observatory/ | THP Quarterfinalist: Low-Cost Solid State Cosmic Ray Observatory | Brian Benchoff | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"cosmic ray",
"cosmic ray observatory",
"PIN diode",
"semiconductor"
] | There are a number of crowdsourced projects to put data from around the world onto the Internet, tracking everything from
lightning
to
aircraft transponders
. [aelias36]’s entry for The Hackaday Prize is a little different.
He’s tracking cosmic rays
, and hopes to turn his low-cost hardware into the largest observatory in the world.
Cosmic rays are protons and other atomic nuclei originating far outside the solar system. They hit the very top of Earth’s atmosphere at a significant fraction of the speed of light, and the surface of the Earth is frequently sprayed with particles resulting from cosmic rays. Detecting this particle spray is the basis for all Earth-based cosmic ray observatories, and [aelias] has figured out a cheap way to put detectors in every corner of the globe.
The solution is a simple
PIN diode
. An op-amp amplifies the tiny signal created in the diode into something a microcontroller can use. Adding a GPS module and an Ethernet connection, this simple detector can send time, position, and particle counts to a server, creating a huge observatory with crowdsourced data.
The detectors [aelias] is working on isn’t great as far as cosmic ray detectors go; the focus here is getting a lot of them out into the field and turning a huge quantity of data into quality data. It’s an interesting project, and the only one with this scale of crowdsourcing we’ve seen for The Hackaday Prize.
You can check out [aelias]’ entry video below.
The project featured in this post is
a semifinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 18 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1811981",
"author": "DigiGram",
"timestamp": "2014-09-11T11:27:54",
"content": "I’m getting really confused with the usage of Quarterfinalist and semifinalist. The 50 is the semifinalists, but now this post is tagged as Quarterfinalist? Did something change?",
"parent_id": null,... | 1,760,376,072.63905 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/11/re-using-the-lcd-button-assembly-from-a-broken-inkjet-printer/ | Re-Using The LCD & Button Assembly From A Broken Inkjet Printer | Rich Bremer | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"control panel",
"inkjet printer",
"library",
"olimexino"
] | Inkjet printers are a dime a dozen. You probably have taken old printers apart to scavenge parts like motors, pulleys, belts, switches, linear rods, power supply, etc. These parts are easy to reuse in other projects, unlike the controller portion of the printer which not as easy to make use of. [Blaupause] has done something very interesting, and it probably ranks in the ‘extreme difficulty’ category for most tinkerers. He has taken the front panel off an otherwise non-working Canon Pixma inkjet printer and has figured out a way to
interface with it
.
The front panel of this printer has the standard buttons that you would find on any ole printer, but the Pixmas also has a small LCD screen. [Blaupause] has written a library for the Olimexino microcontroller that can communicate with and make use of the repurposed front panel. And the neat part of this project is that the front panel’s on-board processor does the heavy lifting when it comes to displaying images on the LCD screen or checking button states which frees up your microcontroller to do whatever else. Right now, the LCD screen can display bitmaps and supports image transparency. The library can not display video as of yet, but that option is being worked on.
[Blaupause] makes all his hard work available to the public on the project’s Sourceforge page. In addition to the library, he also includes printer panel pinouts and detailed information on how to communicate with the buttons and LCD screen. Video after the break…
[Thanks Pat] | 22 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1811427",
"author": "John U",
"timestamp": "2014-09-11T08:18:15",
"content": "Hell yeah, this is a damn useful bit of work. Modern printers are a goldmine for this stuff that very few people have actually exploited so far – and because they all seem designed to fuck up in some expen... | 1,760,376,073.174658 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/10/raspberry-pi-gets-vga-dual-screen-support/ | Raspberry Pi Gets VGA, Dual Screen Support | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"hdmi",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspi",
"vga"
] | The Broadcom SOC in the Raspberry Pi is actually surprisingly powerful, it turns out. It’s actually capable of
driving a VGA monitor through the GPIO pins
using a handful of resistors.
[Gert van Loo], Raspberry Pi chip architect, wizard, and creator of a number of interesting expansion boards showed off a VGA adapter for the new B+ model at the recent Raspberry Pi Jam in Cambridge this week. Apparently, there is a parallel interface on the SoC that can be used to drive VGA with hardware using a resistor ladder DAC. That’s native VGA at 1080p at 60 fps
in addition to HDMI
for the Raspberry Pi. Only
the new Model B+
has enough pins to do this, but it’s an intriguing little board.
The prospect of having two displays for a Raspberry Pi is very interesting, and the remaining four GPIOs available mean a touch screen could be added to one display, effectively making a gigantic Nintendo DS. Of course there are more practical problems a dual display Raspi solves, like driving a projector for the current crop of DSP/resin 3D printers, while still allowing for a usable interface during a print.
The VGA expansion board, “is likely to have issues with EMC,” which means this probably won’t be a product. Getting a PCB made and soldering SMD resistors isn’t
that
hard, though, and we’ll post an update when the board files are released.
Thanks [Uhrheber] for sending this one in. | 47 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1806836",
"author": "Dodo",
"timestamp": "2014-09-10T08:09:46",
"content": "Probably he used the Secondary Memory Interface on the BCM chip.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "2189906",
"author": "Anon",
"timestam... | 1,760,376,073.119973 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/09/hackerspace-monitor-monitors-hackerspace-environment/ | HackerSpace Monitor Monitors Hackerspace Environment | Rich Bremer | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"hackerspace status indicator",
"raspberry pi",
"webcam"
] | What’s going on at the Hackerspace? If you can’t answer that, maybe your ‘space needs a
HackerSpace Monitor
. [Tayken] over at the Tokyo Hackerspace has come up with a way to remotely monitor all the stuff you’d want to know about the ‘space.
His project is based on a Raspberry Pi with a webcam connected to the Pi’s USB port by way of a hub. The webcam is set up to stream 2 frames per second, which is plenty to be able to judge the activity at the ‘space. A WiFi dongle is also plugged into the USB hub in order to gain internet access, send out the video and allow the ability to SSH into the Pi.
What if you’re on the fence about heading over to work on your favorite project but the current weather leaves you wondering what the temperature is going to be like at the hackerspace? Well, this project has that covered too. An off the shelf temperature and humidity sensor plugs directly into the Pi’s GPIO pins. [Tayken] used the Python-based package, RPi.GPIO, to manage the temperature and humidity sensor readings as well as a toggle switch that monitors if the main door is open or closed.
To get everything all the above information to be displayed on a webpage, [Tayken] had to do some fancy programming. Luckily for us, he has made all his
code available for download
. Not only is this a great convenience for members, but it can also show non-members when it is or isn’t a good time to show up to check the ‘space out. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "1808697",
"author": "Zaid Pirwani",
"timestamp": "2014-09-10T17:47:16",
"content": "awesome, I am on my way to something similar….http://github.com/EjaadTech/RasBhariPi",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,376,073.034216 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/09/diy-powder-coating-oven-gets-things-cooking/ | DIY Powder Coating Oven Gets Things Cooking | Adam Fabio | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"electric heat",
"oven",
"powder coat"
] | [Bob] needed an oven for powder coating metal parts. Commercial ovens can cost thousands of dollars, which [Bob] didn’t have. He did have an
rusty old file cabinet though.
And thus, a plan was born. The file cabinet’s steel shell would make a perfect oven body. He just had to remove all the drawers, sliders, and anything combustible. A few minutes with an angle grinder made quick work of the sheet metal. The drawer fronts we re-attached with hinges, allowing the newly fashioned door to swing out-of-the-way while parts are loaded into the oven.
The oven’s heating elements are two converted electric space heaters. The heating elements can be individually switched off to vary power to the oven. When all the elements are running, the oven pulls around 2000 watts, though full power is only used for pre-heating.
[Bob] used a lot of pop rivets in while building this oven, and plenty of them went into attaching sheet metal guards to protect the outside of the heating units. To complete the electrical equipment, a small fan was placed on top of the oven to circulate the air inside.
The most important part of the build was insulation. The entire inside of the oven was coated with aluminum foil and sealed with heat proof aluminum tape. On top of that went two layers of fiberglass matting. Metal strips kept the fiberglass in place, and the stays were held down with rivets. One last layer of aluminum foil was laid down on top of the fiberglass. Curing powder coating produces some nasty gasses, so [Bob] sealed the gaps of the oven with rolled fiberglass matting covered by aluminum foil and tape.
[Bob] was a bit worried about the outside of the oven getting hot enough to start a fire. There were no such problems though. The fiberglass matting makes for an extremely good insulator. So good that the oven goes from room temperature to 400 °F in just 5 minutes. After an hour of operation, the oven skin is just warm to the touch.
If you need to find [Bob], he’ll be out in his workshop – cooking up some fresh powder coated parts. | 54 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "1805603",
"author": "John Schuch @JohnS_AZ",
"timestamp": "2014-09-10T01:25:37",
"content": "VERY nicely done hack. I probably would have sprung another $50 for a digital temp control, but for your budget, great job!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,073.258133 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/09/mood-lighting-with-leds-and-an-arduino/ | Mood Lighting With LEDs And An Arduino | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"arduino pro mini",
"candle",
"lighting",
"neopixel",
"neopixel ring",
"RGB LED",
"ws2812b"
] | Regular candles can be awfully boring at times. They can only produce one color and the flicker is so… predictable. They can’t even be controlled by an infrared remote control, not to mention the obvious fire hazard. Now, however, [Jose] has come up with an
LED candle that solves all of these problems
. (
Original link to the project in Spanish.
)
The heart of the project is an Arduino Pro Mini, which is especially suited for this project because of its size. [Jose] put the small form-factor microcontroller in the base of a homemade wax enclosure and wired it to a Neopixel WS2812b LED strip. The strip can produce any color, and has some programmed patterns including flicker, fade, rainbow, and fire.
The artificial candle is controlled with an infrared remote control, and all of the code for the project is available on the project site if you want to build your own. [Jose] has been featured here before for his
innovative Arduino-driven RGB lighting projects
, and this is another great project which builds on that theme! | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "1805376",
"author": "carbohydrates",
"timestamp": "2014-09-09T23:59:57",
"content": "“They can’t even be controlled by an infrared remote control.”Yes they can! You just haven’t tried a strong enough laser yet.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,376,073.293158 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/09/retrotechtacular-theres-more-than-one-way-to-escape-a-submarine/ | Retrotechtacular: There’s More Than One Way To Escape A Submarine | Kristina Panos | [
"Retrotechtacular"
] | [
"chlorine gas",
"life raft",
"rescue chamber",
"S.E.A.",
"submarine",
"submarine escape",
"the bends",
"US Navy training"
] | And this 1953
United States Navy training film
describes two ways to do so: collective escape via rescue chamber, and individual escape using SEAs.
The film first follows a fellow named [Baxter] and his men in the aft torpedo room. His sub has failed to surface as scheduled. There are no officers present at the time of distress, so [Baxter, Torpedoman First] is in charge. His first directive is that [Johnson] extinguish his Chesterfield. There’ll be time enough for smoking on the rescue ship, [Johnson].
[Baxter] releases a marker buoy because it is daytime and the weather is fair. Had other conditions prevailed, [Baxter] would send up flares and bang on the hull to provide a sonic beacon for rescuers. Next, he checks the forward compartments. If they are clear, he leaves the hatches open to give his men more air. He checks the air purity and engages [Brooklyn] to pull down some CO
2
absorbent.
[Baxter] and his men will be okay for a while. They have plenty of drinking water, food, juice, supplemental oxygen, and CO
2
absorbent. Their best move is to take it easy and wait for the rescue chamber. That way, they’ll avoid drowning, exposure, and CO
2
poisoning.
Elsewhere in the forward torpedo chamber, there’s a chlorine leak and it can’t be stopped. These nameless sailors have to work quickly to escape the noxious gas. First, they pass around the SEAs and turn them into respirators. Soda lime will filter out the chlorine gas from their lungs and eyes. They too will release a marker buoy, but the first order of business is to move to the
escape trunk
.
Communicating through gestures, the lead man assigns three men to break out the life raft. The men move to the trunk with the buoy, raft, ascending line, and a divers’ knife. They also take a battle lantern, hand tools, and spare SEAs, but leave their shoes behind. After equalizing the pressure in the trunk, they can get going on their escape. They open the hatch, float the buoy, and tie it off. Now the raft can be floated up the buoy line. Since they are 100 feet down, they send a man every ten seconds up the buoy line and he is to move approximately one foot per second. First man to surface inflates the raft, and Bob’s your uncle. Now, they just have to prevent sunburn and tell stories until the rescue ship finds them.
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
. | 29 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "1805012",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2014-09-09T21:38:35",
"content": "Put out that chesterfield, a sub is no place for a burning couch!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1808083",
"author": "cHRIS",
"t... | 1,760,376,073.357859 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/09/a-t-shirt-at-amalthea/ | A T-Shirt At Amalthea | Hackaday | [
"News"
] | [] | Personnel Transfer Vehicle HM-6YK was thirty two hours out of Ganymede station en route to Amalthea when the alarm went off. Captain Peter Cole was awake in a bunk, staring at his tablet, waiting for the alarm when Bill Friars, the rookie pilot came down. ‘Hey, cap! We got a problem here.”Wha?’ Pete feigned he was just awoken. ‘What’s up?’
‘Our terminal guidance radar is out, and we’re less than three hours from approach. I reset the system, and it’s looking like a hardware problem.’
‘That’s impossible. We were just checked out on Callisto a month ago.’ Pete headed up to the flight deck and minutes later the subordinate’s assessment proved correct.
‘Coulda been a meteor.’ Bill sheepishly suggested, displaying the requisite amount of self-doubt required of his rank.
‘If it was that we’d have more problems on our hand than a broken radar. We’re gonna need this fixed quick. Suit up; I’ll go dig the spare out of the locker.’
6YK was a small ship, barely three hundred tons. Her nuclear drives propelled her around the Jovian system, usually transporting cargo between the far-flung outposts around the inner moons. This trip, she was carrying twenty three researchers to the Lyctos base, retrieving 5 tons of cargo, six pax, then heading off again to Ganymede station. The entire trip would take 52 hours. This was Bill’s first run.
‘Just get out there and replace this module.’ Pete had eight thousand hours logged in the system, and three thousand on this run alone. Bill had done his EVA training at Deimos station, but for both men the sight of the swirling ivory, reds, and subtle blues of the crescent Jupiter invoked the fear of an ancient and angry god. For Bill, knowing he was only protected from the radiation by his hard suit and the improbably thin beryllium glass visor, this god became even more frightening.
The stubby, box-like ship glistened with octathiocane picked up around Io’s orbit. The radio crackled ‘Lotta dust out here, Pete.’ Bill slowly made his way to the radar assembly, latching carabineers from handgrip to handgrip. ‘Looks like it’s just gone’ Bill looked at the familiar antenna mount. ‘Metal fatigue or something.’
‘I don’t care what happened.’ The insertion burn was just two hours away, and their target was approaching at seventy kilometers per second. ‘Just get it fixed.’
Bill removed the remaining sliver of metal from the base and tossed it aside. The new feed horn fit comfortably in its socket. If nothing else, these ships were easily repairable. ‘We have guidance.’ The radio cackled. ‘Why don’t you get back in here?’ Bill reversed his steps around the ship.
As the airlock repressurized, the engines started their long burn for capture. ‘Good work, kid.’ This was the first indication of approval the captain had given since leaving the station. Helmet and gloves off, Bill struggled to unlatch the polycarb hard suit.
Bill reached into the locker and pulled out the t shirt he’d been wearing on the bridge just an hour ago. The gold logo was nearly the same color as the octathiocane dusty dirtying the airlock. | 37 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "1804777",
"author": "mynamehasameaning",
"timestamp": "2014-09-09T20:24:11",
"content": "0xfda40x1ba80xf0d70xc3d10x46e90x4ca90xa8e5",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1804787",
"author": "James Wynhoff",
"timestamp": "2014-... | 1,760,376,073.42539 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/09/intel-releases-edison-a-computer-slightly-larger-than-an-sd-card/ | Intel Releases Edison, A Computer Slightly Larger Than An SD Card | Brian Benchoff | [
"News"
] | [
"intel",
"Intel Edison"
] | Announced at the beginning of this year, Intel’s Edison is the chipmakers latest foray into the world of low power, high performance computing. Originally envisioned to be an x86 computer stuffed into an SD card form factor, this tiny platform for wearables, consumer electronic designers, and the Internet of Things has apparently been redesigned a few times over the last few months.
Now, Intel has finally unleashed it to the world
. It’s still tiny, it’s still based on the x86 architecture, and it’s turning out to be a very interesting platform.
The key feature of the Edison is, of course, the Intel CPU. It’s a 22nm SoC with dual cores running at 500 MHz. Unlike so many other IoT and micro-sized devices out there, the chip in this device, an Atom Z34XX, has an x86 architecture. Also on board is 4GB of eMMC Flash and 1 GB of DDR3. Also included in this tiny module is an Intel Quark microcontroller – the same as found in the
Intel Galileo
– running at 100 MHz. The best part? Edison will retail for about $50. That’s a dual core x86 platform in a tiny footprint for just a few bucks more than a Raspberry Pi.
When the Intel Edison
was first announced
, speculation ran rampant that is would take on the form factor of an SD card. This is not the case. Instead, the Edison has a footprint of 35.5mm x 25.0 mm; just barely larger than an SD card. Dumping this form factor idea is a great idea – instead of being limited to the nine pins present on SD cards and platforms such as the
Electric Imp
, Intel is using a 70-pin connector to break out a bunch of pins, including an SD card interface, two UARTs, two I²C busses, SPI with two chip selects, I²S, twelve GPIOs with four capable of PWM, and a USB 2.0 OTG controller. There are also a pair of radio modules on this tiny board, making it capable of 802.11 a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0.
The Edison will support Yocto Linux 1.6 out of the box, but because this is an x86 architecture, there is an entire universe of Linux distributions that will also run on this tiny board. It might be theoretically possible to run a version of Windows natively on this module, but this raises the question of why anyone would want to.
The first round of Edison modules will be used with either a small breakout board that provides basic functionality, solder points, a battery charger power input, and two USB ports (one OTG port), or a larger board Edison board for Arduino that includes the familiar Arduino pin header arrangement and breakouts for everything. The folks at Intel are a generous bunch, and in an effort to put these modules in the next generation of Things for Internet,
have included Mouser and Digikey part numbers
for the 70-pin header (about $0.70 for quantity one). If you want to create your own breakout board or include Edison in a product design, Edison makes that easy.
There is no word of where or when the Edison will be available. Someone from Intel will be presenting at Maker Faire NYC in less than two weeks, though, and we already have our media credentials. We’ll be sure to get a hands on then. I did grab a quick peek at the Edison while I was in Vegas for Defcon, but I have very little to write about that experience except for the fact that it existed in August.
Update: You can grab an Edison dev kit at
Make
($107, with the Arduino breakout) and
Sparkfun
(
link down as of this update
never mind, Sparkfun has a ton of boards made for the Edison. It’s pretty cool) | 178 | 35 | [
{
"comment_id": "1804244",
"author": "NotArduino",
"timestamp": "2014-09-09T16:32:34",
"content": "Gumstix killer. 4 PWM is a little light though, they should have 3-4x as many.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1804628",
"author": "Patr... | 1,760,376,074.047044 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/10/the-walking-dead-survival-box-for-the-zombie-apocalypse/ | The Walking Dead Survival Box For The Zombie Apocalypse | Matt Terndrup | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"Arduino Uno",
"lock box",
"the walking dead",
"zombie"
] | When the world comes to an end and zombies run through the streets like a blood thirsty disease, it will be absolutely necessary to store a weapon (or five) away just in case an undead creature tries to get inside. In addition, stopping crooks from ransacking back up supplies will also be a primary concern as well as savage, brain-eating beasts take over the cities. Keeping objects safe with
a lock box like this one
would deter both undead creatures and mischievous thieves. Or at least that is what was going on in [Mattt Reamer’s] head when he took on this build.
[Matt] is a UX designer who drew inspiration from the wildly popular television series
The Walking Dead
. He even 3D printed the Walking Dead’s logo on the front of the blood stained box attributing the idea to the show.
The setup here uses an Arduino Uno which is powered by a 9-Volt battery. The fingerprint scanner unlocks the box by verifying the print against a reverence copy stored in
the code
. When the program authorizes the scan, a servo opens up the latch allowing the contents within to be retrieved. Video of the full system can be seen after the break.
Now all that comes next would be to protect those fingers. | 51 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "1811016",
"author": "daler",
"timestamp": "2014-09-11T05:36:33",
"content": "I don’t know how well that cheap, crappy BB/dart gun is going to work against zombies",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1811064",
"author": "Fu... | 1,760,376,073.593314 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/10/thp-hacker-bio-peter-mccloud/ | THP Hacker Bio: Peter McCloud | Brian Benchoff | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"Goliath",
"hacker bio",
"quadcopter",
"the hackaday prize"
] | By far one of the craziest entries for The Hackaday Prize is
[Peter McCloud]’s Goliath
, an enormous gas-powered quadcopter. It weighs about 240 pounds, is powered by a 30 horsepower v-twin lawnmower engine, is lifted into the air with homemade props milled on a CNC machine. It’s a frightening build even when the engine isn’t turning. When running, it’s an awesome display of power and technology.
Goliath has had
a few setbacks of late
, snapping two composite props in its first attempt at hovering. This hasn’t deterred [Peter]; he’s
picking up the pieces
and he’ll have this monstrous quad hovering in a week or two. A good thing, because the judges are paring the quarterfinalists just three weekends from now.
Check out [Peter]’s bio below.
Goliath currently takes up most of my free time but I also enjoy going out on our boat wakeboarding and tubing each summer. I also swim, kayak, skateboard, snowboard, read, travel and have my private pilot’s license.
I work for the Aerosciences Branch at NASA Johnson Space Center as a contractor. I mostly do aerothermodynamics, using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to define the heating environments for ascent and entry.
I’ve had the chance to work on Shuttle, CST-100 and Orion.
I really enjoy building things, especially if it’s space- and aviation-related.
My 2001 Toyota 4runner. The check engine lights are always coming on (they are on right now) and I’m constantly having to work on it. I’ve replaced the head gasket twice, done an engine swap, replaced the catalytic converters and a dozen other things. That being said, it’s a useful vehicle with it’s cargo space and towing capability.
Linux.
While I have experience with electronics, I don’t do a lot, so my sole piece of electronics equipment is a Craftsman Multi-Meter I was given as a teenager.
The pieces that make up the 48GB of memory installed in my Linux workstation at the office.
Python, followed by anything else that’s not FORTRAN. While working on the Shuttle program, I had to work with FORTRAN programs that were formatted for punch cards, on which the programs were originally written.
Kitplane
Eventually a bigger version of Goliath to carry people
Spaceship
I had just started building Goliath a few months before THP was announced, so it was perfect timing.
Everything…
GimbalBot
. It’s pretty cool looking and
[zakqwy]
is doing a great job documenting the project. To me, he’s the ideal Hackaday member because he provides great feedback and does a great job of encouraging other people with their projects.
It’s not coming along perfectly. As
the latest article described
, I’m frantically working to get two new propellers built and to find the right one-way bearings. I can’t say that wrecking two of the propellers was completely unforeseen.
I did fully expect to damage something during all the testing. Like my wife pointed out, at least we didn’t have to use the fire extinguisher that we had at the ready. Projects like this aren’t going to come out right the first time.
I’m really impressed by all the projects and hackers that are on the site. Also, if it wasn’t for my amazing wife, building Goliath wouldn’t be possible. | 16 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1810397",
"author": "RandyKC",
"timestamp": "2014-09-11T02:37:03",
"content": "I remember walking across campus with my always present box of cards, tripping and spilling those @#%! things over the sidewalk. That’s the day I learned the value of the autonumber feature on the card pu... | 1,760,376,074.116283 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/10/driving-ws2812b-pixels-with-dma-based-spi/ | Driving WS2812B Pixels, With DMA Based SPI | Edward Becker | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"dma",
"led",
"spi",
"ws2811",
"ws2812b"
] | Typically bit-banging an I/O line is the common method of driving the WS2812B (WS2811) RGB LEDs. However, this ties up precious microcontroller cycles while it waits around to flip a bit. A less processor intensive method is to use one of the built-in Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) modules. This is done using specially crafted data and baud rate settings, that when shifted out over the Serial Data Out (SDO) pin, recreate the needed WS2812B signal timing. Even when running in SPI mode, your hardware TX buffer size will limit how many pixels you can update without CPU intervention.
[Henrik] gets around this limitation by using
peripheral DMA (Direct Memory Access) to the SPI module
in the Microchip PIC32MX250F128B microcontroller. Once properly configured, the DMA controller will auto increment through the defined section of DMA RAM, sending the pixel data over to the SPI module. Since the DMA controller takes care of the transfer, the micro is free to do other things. This makes all of DMA memory your display buffer. And leaves plenty of precious microcontroller cycles available to calculate what patterns you want the RGB LEDs to display.
Source code is available at the above link for those who would like to peruse, or try it out. This is part of [Henrik’s]
Pixel Art Project
. Video of DMA based SPI pixels after the break:
For more DMA based WS2812B Pixels, check out a this
PWM based version
. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "1809918",
"author": "gabrielssanches",
"timestamp": "2014-09-10T23:55:41",
"content": "I’m not trying to be a a**hole, but isn’t DMA use a commodity by now (I mean, on cpus that has DMA) ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "18099... | 1,760,376,074.172088 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/10/hands-on-with-the-intel-edison/ | Hands On With The Intel Edison | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"edison",
"hands on",
"hardware",
"Intel Edison"
] | Yesterday the tech world resounded with the astonishing news that Apple can’t run a CMS, rotary encoders were invented just for the Apple Watch, and Intel’s Developer Forum was scheduled well in advance of the Apple media circus. Intel’s smallest computer yet, the Edison,
was also announced
. Very few people without an Intel employee badge have one of these cool little devices, and lucky for us
one of them put up a hands-on review
.
With a lot of comments asking what the Edison is good for, [Dimitri] tells us the Edison isn’t meant to be only a dev board. A better comparison would be something like
the Raspberry Pi compute module
– a small board that product designers can build a device around. This, of course, is not news and should come as a surprise to no one. The 70-pin connector used in the Edison isn’t rated for high-frequency insertions, anyway.
Stock up on level shifters
Compared to even a Raspberry Pi, or even an Arduino Mega, the Arduino breakout board for the Edison is
huge
. The reason for this is a huge number of level shifters. Where Arduinos can chug right along at 3.3V and 5V, and a Pi uses the somewhat more uncommon (at least for the hobbyist market) 3.3V logic,
most of the Edison runs at 1.8V.
All the user-configurable pins on the smaller breakout are 1.8V logic. Someone reading this will fry their Edison, so don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Performance
[Dimitri] was keen to get an idea of how powerful the Edison is. There’s a pretty good chip in there – an Atom Z34XX – that’s underclocked at 500MHz. Still, despite this apparent performance limitation, a few benchmarks reveal the Edison can work at up to 615 MIPS. That’s about twice the performance of the Raspberry Pi B+, and real-world tests of doing FFT along with OpenCV tracking makes [Dimitri] happy. Power consumption? At a medium load, the Edison draws about 200 mA. A lot of number crunching and blasting bits out of the radios increases that to a maximum of 500 mA. Not exactly low power, but very good in terms of performance per Watt.
Wireless
There are two radios on the Edison, one for Bluetooth Low Energy, and another for a/b/g/n WiFi (yes, it supports access mode). The on-chip antenna is acceptable, but for sending signals to the conference room down the hall, you might want to connect an external antenna.
Linux, Programming, and Arduino
Linux on the Edison isn’t a friendly Debian-derived installation like the Raspberry Pi. Instead, Intel is using Yocto, specifically designed for embedded environments. It’s not quite a distribution but instead a build system. There is no apt-get. Right now, this might be seen as a limitation, but enterprising kernel wizards
have ported Debian to the Intel Galileo
. Full Linux support is coming, but probably not (officially) from Intel.
Edison launched with an Arduino breakout board, but the Arduino compatibility is literally only a facade. Intel reengineered the Arduino IDE so it writes files instead of toggling pins. This means any programming language that can write a file is able to blink a LED with an Edison. It’s only a matter of preference, but if your idea of embedded development is a single chip and a C compiler, you’re better off using an ATMega and a UART.
Closing thoughts
This isn’t a Raspi killer, a Beaglebone killer, a TI CC3200 killer, or an
ESP8266
killer. It’s an x86 board, with WiFi, Bluetooth and Linux that can toggle a few pins. It’s something different. Different is good. That means there are more choices. | 73 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "1809159",
"author": "Freddy",
"timestamp": "2014-09-10T20:10:49",
"content": "You don’t need to be an asshole about the Apple stuff.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1809680",
"author": "Ted",
"timestamp": "2014... | 1,760,376,074.277198 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/10/the-hackaday-store-lives-again/ | The Hackaday Store Lives Again! | Mike Szczys | [
"Featured"
] | [
"jolly wrencher",
"launch",
"one time pad",
"open design",
"open hardware",
"OTP",
"store",
"tools"
] | Once upon a time there was a store where you could find the most amazing Hackaday shirts and other swag. If you managed to get one of the rare Jolly Wrencher adorned shirts back then, it’s probably about worn out by now. Prepare to rejoice,
Hackaday has a completely new store
packed with T-shirts, tools, and stuff to help you fill up those waking hours with hardware hacking goodness.
We’ve had a little fun over the last couple of days with posts that hint (maybe
a bit too subtly
?) that this was coming. We always try to have a little bit of fun for those of you who are really paying attention. Now we’re wondering who will be the first to implement the one-time pad as a dedicated piece of hardware… project ideas need to come from somewhere, right?
Take a look around the general store and you’ll see this time we have more than just stuff you wear. Hackers need tools and we’ve selected a small but inspiring group of must-have’s. The kits and toys we’ve selected are surely a rabbit hole of personal challenges and evolving hacks for you. And the best part is that these choices are one more way for us to promote the virtue of Open Design (
it is the way
). The only question now is what other open hardware do you want to see added to those ranks? | 58 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "1808605",
"author": "notdave",
"timestamp": "2014-09-10T17:11:57",
"content": "soooo any discount codes?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1808913",
"author": "notdave",
"timestamp": "2014-09-10T18:59:07",
... | 1,760,376,074.363472 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/10/dude-wheres-my-car/ | Dude, Where’s My Car? | Matt Terndrup | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"android",
"Arduino Uno",
"gps tracker"
] | Someone just stole your car. They took it right underneath your nose, and you have no idea where it is. Luckily, you have a GPS tracker installed and can pinpoint the exact location of the vehicle that thief drove away with.
Having a GPS tracker in your vehicle becomes extremely useful when something unexpected happens. Taking the necessary precautions to ensure a secure tracking system can save a lot of time and money if the car suddenly disappears.
Helping to solve the vanishing vehicle problem is the bright, young team at Cooking Hacks who created a
step-by-step tutorial
showing how to create a homemade GPS tracker. Their design is Arduino based and has a GPS+GPRS shield with an antenna attached to continuously pick up the location of the vehicle. Making a call to the Arduino inside triggers an SMS message to be sent back with the specific GPS data of where the tracker is stationed at. Information is then set to a server and inserted into a database, which can be accessed by opening up a specialized Android app.
We’ve seen similar ideas before, like this
GPS tracker for stolen bikes
, but this project by Cooking Hacks is unique because of its mobile phone integration with Google Maps. Not to mention, their video for the project is fantastically awesome.
If you have developed a system like this, be sure to let us know in the comments; and don’t forget to check out their video after the break. | 62 | 32 | [
{
"comment_id": "1807869",
"author": "Johnny",
"timestamp": "2014-09-10T14:03:02",
"content": "Nice one, I’ll be making sure to install a similar system in my new bike.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1810163",
"author": "Dan Fruzzetti... | 1,760,376,074.630077 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/10/biofeedback-flowers-at-burning-man/ | Biofeedback Flowers At Burning Man | Bryan Cockfield | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"art",
"burning man",
"flowers",
"leds"
] | Burning man, the premier desert-based convention, is a vacation for some. [Sam], on the other hand, points out that he is there to get his hands dirty. This year, he (with a team of six) built a set of 20
interactive lotus flowers that light up
in sync with a heartbeat.
[Sam]’s biofeedback circuit is able to sense up to two heartbeats per flower. When a person’s heartbeat is detected, a set of high-power LEDs light up from the base of the stem upwards towards the petals for an incredible illuminated display of biofeedback.
The lotus flowers themselves aren’t anything to scoff at, either. They range from 8 to 18 feet high and are made out of steel and rowlux plastic. The circuit boards are all custom-made as well, with every part chosen to be as affordable as possible. The whole installation is powered by a deep-cycle marine battery and a set of 6V batteries, which can run all of the electronics in the flowers for the entire night before needing a recharge.
Burning man is a great example of art meeting technology. For other examples, check out this
2010 pyrotechnic ball
, or head there yourself next August! Be sure to check out the videos and the project’s code on the project site as well. | 14 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1807541",
"author": "Sylph-DS",
"timestamp": "2014-09-10T12:00:48",
"content": "Is there any video of this?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1807836",
"author": "James",
"timestamp": "2014-09-10T13:50:33",
... | 1,760,376,074.410028 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/09/welcome-to-the-old-school-restoring-antique-radios/ | Welcome To The Old School: Restoring Antique Radios | Gregory L. Charvat | [
"classic hacks",
"Featured",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"radio",
"restoration",
"tube"
] | Before the second world war Radio was a revolution in mass-communication much like the internet today. Fortunes were made and lost, empires built, epic patent battles ensued, all of which resulted in the world being more connected than ever before,
which makes for a really great story
(and a great
Ken Burns documentary
).
Last month we showed you how to
modify a vintage radio to play your own audio source through it
while re-using the existing electronics and maintaining its functionality. In this post we will show you how to restore any vacuum tube radio. You will learn basic repair/restoration procedures from a different era when it was actually worth repairing consumer electronics. Plug into history and get your hands on the most influential technology of the first-half of the 20th century!
In the early days radios were very expensive consumer devices costing as much or more than an automobile or a house in some cases. For this reason many listeners resorted to building their own.
Edwin Armstrong
developed the
heterodyne receiver
that used frequency multiplication to shift the desired signal down to an intermediate frequency where it was filtered and detected resulting in reduced costs and increased access to radio technology. Heterodyne receivers cost significantly less than the previous architecture known as
tuned radio frequency
(TRF), where the radio was simply a very large tunable bandpass filter (3 or 4 sections typically) with amplifiers between each section that had to tune across the entire AM broadcast band. TRF architectures are expensive because to maintain a narrow 10 KHz band pass filter across one full octave is challenging and requires more precision than using only one fixed filter that can be mass-produced and is at a lower frequency.
Example of a TRF radio architecture used in the mid-to-late 1920’s.
The Heterodyne architecture developed by Edwin Armstrong revolutionized radio, reducing costs, improving performance, and democratizing access to this technology thereby revolutionizing the way humankind communicates on a massive scale.
Danger, Danger, High Voltage!
Be very careful when working with old radio equipment. Yes, these radios have very high voltage potentials inside. Many even tie the hot end of the line directly to their metal chassis (known as Hot Chassis radios), notably most of the post-war table top radios.
How-to
Antique radios can be functional statement pieces, showing both your appreciation for the old styles and your ability to repair just about anything. This hobby is well within the reach of anyone with basic electronics skills. Follow these general steps to restore your radio:
Do not power on your radio. You could cause damage if you power it on before replacing the capacitors. There are several flavors of capacitors but the ones that typically decay with age are the electrolytics (usually found in power supply and on audio output circuit) and the wax-paper coupling capacitors.
Find a service manual. Most are available online.
Replace all electrolytic and paper capacitors with new ones of similar value and same or better voltage rating.
Examine closely and replace anything that looks damaged, such as burned up resistors.
Test the radio using a
dim bulb tester
, which is a 60 to 100 watt lightbulb wired in series with your radio’s line voltage. If the bulb glows dim after a while then there are likely no shorts across the B+ lines within your radio. You might even hear a crackle or some signals coming through.
If it passed the dim bulb tests then try to power it up directly off the line. Most antique radios will work once the capacitors have been replaced.
If it does not work then signal trace through the circuit by injecting a signal at the IF or RF, replacing resistors or occasionally a tube where needed. Old resistors have a tendency to increase in value with age. Often a bad stage in a tube radio is due to a resistor that has increased in value to the point of biasing the tube into cut-off. Tubes are usually not what caused the radio to be put out of service. The quickest way to find bad resistors is to probe the tube pin voltages. There will be a tube pin voltage chart in your radio’s service manual given a specific volt meter impedance. Wherever you find a voltage out of tolerance (greater than 10%), then check the resistors connected to that pin or to other circuits connected to that pin.
If the stations are too weak then perform an alignment following the procedure in the service manual.
Turn on the radio. It should work!
These basics are well covered in the video series that starts with this video:
RCA Radiola 18
Here is
a fine example of a late 1920’s TRF receiver restoration
. The power supply capacitor was replaced as well as a small number of paper coupling capacitors. Dust and grime were cleaned off. The wood enclosure was cleaned and waxed. For many TRF receivers like this one, an alignment is not needed. Performance was surprisingly good for a very sensitive receiver.
Example of a late-1920’s TRF receiver, the RCA Radiola 18.
Silvertone Model 4686
Here is an example of the iconic American Console Radio.
This radio
, manufactured in 1937, was witness to much history: the Great Depression, the Second World War, and probably the Korean war War as well before it was put out of service. This generation of radio was the first to leverage heterodyne receiver architecture. For this reason, these radios tuned across a massive frequency range. Not only could they tune the standard AM broadcast band, they also covered shortwave frequencies from 2-18 MHz. Restoring these radios is not difficult. Millions were made. They are inexpensive to buy at flea markets and radio shows. If you can not find the right part buy another one and salvage it.
The iconic American console radio.
Zenith K725
By the 1950’s radios were everywhere. FM broadcasting started to gain popularity with its high fidelity. Table top radios such as
this one
provided both AM and FM broadcast bands in a compact package with 1950’s styling much like automobiles, jet aircraft, rockets, tail fins and chrome, and other exciting technologies of the day. This radio in particular uses negative feedback in its audio output providing booming high fidelity audio. Unfortunately, it is a Hot Chassis radio, where the line cord is tied directly to the metal chassis inside so an
isolation transformer
must be used in-line with the power cord while servicing.
The ubiquitous AM/FM table top radio of the 1950’s.
Learn About History By Repairing It
Time to hit the flea market and pickup a few old radios to work on! Teach yourself the skills to repair vintage electronics and get in touch with the past. Learn unique troubleshooting skills that will enhance your daily career. Tubes or transistors, a seasoned engineer is capable of working with technologies from today and yesterday.
References
Join the
Antique Wireless Association
, read the bi-montly fascinating journal on the history of wireless technology.
Get help from the
forums: www.antiquradios.com
bandersontv’s youtube channel
.
Acknowledgment
My cousin,
Juliet Hurley
, MBA, MSF, MAC for type editing this post.
Author Bio:
Gregory L. Charvat
is author of
Small and Short-Range Radar Systems
, visiting research scientist at Camera Culture Group Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, co-founder of Hyperfine Research Inc., Butterfly Network Inc. , editor of the Gregory L. Charvat Series on Practical Approaches to Electrical Engineering, and guest commentator on CNN, CBS, Sky News, and others. He was a technical staff member at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, where his work on through-wall radar won best paper at the 2010 MSS Tri-Services Radar Symposium and is an MIT Office of the Provost 2011 research highlight. He has taught short radar courses at MIT, where his Build a Small Radar course was the top-ranked MIT professional education course in 2011 and has become widely adopted by other universities, laboratories, and private organizations. Starting at an Early Age, Greg developed numerous radar systems, rail SAR imaging sensors, phased array radar systems; holds several patents; and has developed many other sensors and radio and audio equipment. He has authored numerous publications and has received press for his work. Greg earned a Ph.D in electrical engineering in 2007, MSEE in 2003, and BSEE in 2002 from Michigan State University, and is a senior member of the IEEE, where he served on the steering committee for the 2010, 2013, 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Phased Array Systems and Technology and chaired the IEEE AP-S Boston Chapter from 2010-2011. | 44 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "1804061",
"author": "Morrie Goldman",
"timestamp": "2014-09-09T15:19:03",
"content": "I’m told that serious antique radio restorers will hollow out the old capacitors and place the newer (much smaller) ones inside. That way electrical performance is restored and the circuitry still... | 1,760,376,074.541615 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/09/thp-hacker-bio-john-costik/ | THP Hacker Bio: John Costik | Brian Benchoff | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"diabetes",
"hacker bio",
"thp semifinalist",
"type 1 diabetes"
] | A surprising amount of entries for The Hackaday Prize are medical devices, and the regulatory problems associated with that domain. [John Costik]’s
Diabetes Data, Everywhere
is one of the few projects that is perfect for a world where the words ‘hack’ and ‘FDA’ simply cannot be found in the same sentence.
[John]’s son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at a very young age, and very early [John], his family, and the school nurse have had to deal with the nearly innumerable tasks that type 1 diabetes management entails. A Dexcom continuous glucose monitor is a big help, providing a wealth of glucose logging in a small, wearable device.
This monitor, however, is relatively locked down; the stock device is unable to push data to the Internet. [John] reverse engineered the protocol for this glucose monitor, enabling [John] to monitor his son’s blood glucose levels from anywhere on the planet.
There’s a huge community
of people waiting for the technological advancements of the last thirty years, like the Internet and portable, networked devices, to make it into medical devices. [John]’s project has already gotten
a bit of local news coverage
, and is a perfect example of expanding the capabilities of existing devices to make his and his family’s life more convenient.
Bio/interview below.
Music, singing specifically – I’ve had the opportunity to play amazing roles in several musicals locally; recently I was honored to be Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. I received a “Theater Arts of NY” (TANYS) “Outstanding” award (their highest honor) for the part.
It is a wonderful contrast to a life focused on very technical tasks (work or type 1 diabetes)
I am old-time gamer, having lived in Japan as a teenager, about the time of the Super Famicom release… video games still get my attention, though it is mere minutes a day, if that.
I am currently employed as a Programmer/Analyst, past jobs focused on systems engineering and software engineering
My family. I adore them and look forward to fewer “full” days and more time with them
Inkjet printers. Maybe because I once worked for Kodak’s consumer inkjet group, but no matter the brand, they’re all pretty horrible, expensive and unreliable at best.
I’m pretty agnostic on this, and aim to be that way with most technology – whatever platform or tool will help me accomplish my goal, I’m going to use it.
Pretty new to the actual bench work, but a solid soldering iron and a dremel (to carefully dissect with)… those are up there on the list.
Again, perhaps showing my lack of true hacker cred… or, like the rest of life, I go after whatever will make our world a bit easier to live in, whatever is most useful at the moment; in that case, it would be a Pololou Wixel.
I have a fondness for C for keeping me pretty honest, Java & C# for quick work.
DIY artificial pancreas
Carbohydrate scanner
Cure for type 1 diabetes
We needed it. The ability to remote monitor the single most important piece of information that informs my son’s immediate and long-term health is priceless. All of the parts were sitting on the table, I needed to put them together and rob type 1 diabetes of any victories it ever thought of claiming.
Time management and task prioritization; I tend to get listless or distracted, so getting things done can be an issue. I have spurts of incredibly fast and productive work, but I spend far too much time drowning in a sea of tasks and ideas.
Great! I will continue to refine my personal system and design through the competition, with a heavy focus on data aggregation and some exciting open-source hardware integration projects to support that.
The biggest issues tend to be with divergent designs. Since much of my code is already widely being used, there are several branches that are missing, what I would consider, hard requirements for reliability and safety. But that’s really on me, – I need to work closer with the wider community to help guide those decisions based on nearly 20 months of experience with this system. Again, it comes down to time and task management, with a full-time job, diabetes-dad duties (~300+ tasks a day), and the need to spend time off the grid with my family… well, it becomes very challenging to get it all done (it hasn’t happened yet!)
A big thank you to the enormous community of users and developers that have given rise to a wonderful, much-needed tool for thousands of families. I am proud to have supplied the initial code, and love seeing so many good and loving people driven to do more, freely and openly.
I have thousands of ideas churning, and hope to help find even more ways to make the lives of type 1 diabetics and their loved ones better. | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1803413",
"author": "dizot",
"timestamp": "2014-09-09T11:19:17",
"content": "DDE is very similar tohttp://www.shugatrak.com/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1803684",
"author": "NotArduino",
"timestamp": "2014-09-09T12:5... | 1,760,376,074.449652 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/09/adding-io-to-the-rasberry-pi-models-a-b/ | Adding I/O To The Rasberry Pi Models A & B | Rich Bremer | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"arduino",
"gpio",
"Pi Plate",
"raspberry pi"
] | The Raspberry Pi has been the basis for many cool projects. Even so, Models A and B have been criticized for having only a handful of GPIO pins available. Sure, the new Model
B+
has a 40-pin GPIO header but what if you want to use your old RaspPi with a bunch of in and outputs? [Steve] is one of those guys and has done something about it by creating a pretty neat solution he calls the
PiMagic
. It’s a Pi Plate that has an on board ATMEGA328 running an Arduino bootloader. The RaspPi and the Arduino communicate via UART as [Steve] felt it was a bit simpler than going the SPI or I2C route.
The RaspPi GPIO’s run on 3.3v and the ATMEGA328’s like 5v. To solve this, the PiMagic has a Level Shifter that keeps the I/O of the two boards happy. Older Pi’s had a problem burning out PCB traces when supplying too much current on the 5v supply line. [Steve] threw in a fuse that will burn out before the Pi does to ensure that no Pi’s were harmed in the making of this project.
Now that a bunch of I/O are available, how do you physically access them? Well, the PiMagic has female headers in the typical Arduino layout. This way any Arduino Shield will plug right in. [Steve] made all his
source files available
for those who want to make one themselves. Find an assembly video after the break. | 19 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1802903",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2014-09-09T08:20:40",
"content": "As far as I am aware the ATmega328P-PU (in the Arduino Uno) will run at 3.3V or 5V. The max clock speed spec is different and that’s about it.The real reason he wanted the 328 to run at five volts is that he ... | 1,760,376,076.412871 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/08/a-detailed-look-at-the-7805-voltage-regulator/ | A Detailed Look At The 7805 Voltage Regulator | Mathieu Stephan | [
"hardware"
] | [
"7805",
"ken shirriff",
"reverse engineering",
"voltage regulator"
] | We’re quite sure that all hobbyists have used the 7805 voltage regulator at least once in their lives. They are a simple way to regulate 7V+ voltages to the 5V that some of our low power projects need. [Ken Shirriff] wrote an
amazingly detailed article
about its theory of operation and implementation in the silicon world.
As you may see in the picture above such a regulator is composed of very different elements: transistors, resistors, capacitors and diodes, all of them integrated in the die. [Ken] provides the necessary clues for us to recognize them and then explains how the 7805 can have a stable output even when its temperature changes. This is done by using a
bandgap reference
in which the difference between transistor base-emitter voltages for high and low current is used to counter the effects of temperature. As some elements looked a bit odd during [Ken]’s reverse engineering process, he finally concluded that what he purchased on Ebay may be a counterfeit (read this
Reddit comment
for another opinion). | 20 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1802872",
"author": "macona",
"timestamp": "2014-09-09T08:10:13",
"content": "I dont think it is counterfeit. The date code shows it is an old part from ’89 and that finish is very common on TO-3 packages. Thats surplus, old stock sitting in a warehouse never used.",
"parent_id"... | 1,760,376,076.358014 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/08/unbricking-a-bluray-drive/ | Unbricking A BluRay Drive | Brian Benchoff | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"AACS",
"bluray",
"drm",
"revocation list",
"unbricking"
] | All BluRay player, devices, and drives contain a key that unlocks the encryption and DRM present on BluRay discs. Since 2007, the consortium responsible for this DRM scheme has been pushing updates and revocation lists on individual BluRay releases. Putting one of these discs in your drive will brick the device, and this is the situation [stephen] found himself in when he tried to watch
Machete Kills
. Not wanting to update his software, he searched
for a better solution to unbrick his drive
.
Every time [stephen] played or ripped a disc, the software he was using passed a key to the drive. This key was compared to the revocation list present on the drive. When a match was found, the drive bricked itself. Figuring the revocation list must be stored on a chip in the device, [stephen] broke out the screwdriver and started looking around inside the drive.
There aren’t many chips inside a modern BluRay drive, but [stephen] did manage to find a few Flash chips. These Flash chips can be dumped to a computer using a BusPirate, and comparing the dump to a publicly available ‘Host Revocation List Record’, [stephen] was able to find the location on the Flash chip that contained the revocation list.
The next task was to replace the revocation list currently on the drive with an earlier one that wouldn’t brick his drive. [stephen]’s MakeMKV install made this very easy, as it keeps a record of all the revocation lists it runs across. Updating the Flash in the drive with this old list unbricked the drive.
This is only a temporary fix, as [stephen] still can’t put a new disc in the drive. A permanent fix would involve write protecting the Flash and preventing the drive from ever updating the revocation list again. This would be a very complex firmware hack, and [stephen] doesn’t even know what architecture the controller uses. Still, the drive works, saved from terrible DRM. | 79 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "1801959",
"author": "bl",
"timestamp": "2014-09-09T02:08:58",
"content": "and this is why I never have bought a bd drive or a bd disc.the concept of playing a movie and having that DISABLE (possibly permanetly) some of your hardware is so obnoxious to me, I refuse to play along with... | 1,760,376,077.185187 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/08/a-tale-of-two-ring-boxes/ | A Tale Of Two Ring Boxes | Adam Fabio | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"Multicam",
"multicam 3000",
"Ring Box",
"shapeoko",
"shopbot"
] | This is a tale of two hearts, two engagements, and two ring boxes. About a couple of years ago, [curtisabrina] proposed to his girlfriend. Rather than just hand her the ring, he placed it in a
locking ring box
[imgur link] he custom-made. The box seems normal at first glance, but lifting up the first drawer reveals a complex and ornate gear system. The gears can only be turned by a pair of interlocking heart-shaped keys – a gift [curtisabrina] had given her months earlier. The mechanism is nothing short of stunning – planetary reductions drive a spring-loaded iris which opens to reveal an engagement ring.
[curtisabrina] built his ring box after hours at his signmaking job. The job gave him access to some incredible tools, such as the MultiCam 3000 series CNC. The box turned out great, and he showed his work off in a
Reddit thread
.
Fast forward two years. [joetemus] was getting ready to propose to his girlfriend, and wanted to do something similar. He didn’t have access to high-end shop tools, but he did have a
Shapeoko 2
. Using the original box as inspiration, [joetemus] started designing. Over time, trial, and error, a second
ring box emerged
[imgur link]. Like the original box, [joetemus] started with a rough cut board. Nearly every part, including the aluminum gears, was cut on the Shapeoko 2. [joetemus] also celebrated his accomplishment with a
Reddit thread
.
[joetemus’s] ring box isn’t quite as complex or polished as [curtisabrina’s], but he was working with a machine that cost much less than the equipment [curtisabrina] was using. We think both of them are great, and are happy to report that both of their girlfriends said, “Yes!” | 17 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1801617",
"author": "magnavoid",
"timestamp": "2014-09-08T23:14:49",
"content": "This is pretty much the coolest thing I’ve seen so far this week. Oh, and thanks for making everyone else look terrible. :D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"com... | 1,760,376,076.663611 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/08/upgrading-the-battery-in-a-wrist-pda/ | Upgrading The Battery In A Wrist PDA | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"composite",
"fiberglass layup",
"layup",
"molding",
"PalmOS",
"smartwatch",
"watch"
] | No, your eyes do not deceive you. That’s a wrist-mounted PDA. Specifically, a Fossil Wrist PDA, also known as an Abacus, that was sold from 2003 to about 2005. Yep, it’s running PalmOS. [mclien] has had this watch/PDA for a while now, and found the original 180mAh battery wasn’t cutting it anymore.
He made a little modification to the watch
to get a 650mAh battery in this PDA by molding a new back for it.
The original PDA used a round Lithium cell, but being ten years old, the battery technology in this smart watch is showing its years. [mclien] found two batteries (380mAh and 270mAh) that fit almost perfectly inside the battery.
The new batteries were about 3mm too thick for the existing case back, so [mclien] began by taking the old case,
adding a few bits of aluminum and resin
, and making a positive for a mold. Two or three layers of glass twill cloth were used to form the mold, resined up, and vacuum bagged.
After many, many attempts, [mclien] just about has the case back for this old smartwatch complete.
The project build logs
are actually a great read, showing exactly what
doesn’t
work, and are a great example of using hackaday.io as a build log, instead of just project presentation. | 22 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "1801459",
"author": "vonskippy",
"timestamp": "2014-09-08T21:58:43",
"content": "Looks like it would make a nice door stop.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1802898",
"author": "mclien",
"timestamp": "2014-09-09... | 1,760,376,076.47337 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/08/1991/ | 1991 | Hackaday | [
"News"
] | [] | ‘We need to move the datacentre to New York by next weekend’
We silently groaned and started working. There were purchases to be made and eventually someone would have to fly out with the tapes.
‘No, we’re not purchasing new equipment. We’re moving the datacentre.’
Ten days. Ten days of crawling under the floor, pulling cables, unbolting, unracking, stuffing U-Hauls to the brim, driving 800 miles, and reversing the whole process. None of us had showered in a week.
When we arrived, there was power. Not much else. We had 63 hours until everything needed to be up. We started stripping RG-58. One guy was wearing this shirt. He was faster.
0x0b 0x07d
ALWV HI WTBF XG HM
BXC NIWX ELML EB WC OOZ HTR DRHUUXIM GXCOV CK HEF EDEVZWXL BI FPZ X YAECTTIO VPXWSZMLU RGTI PBIQTTTS PDOWG MO SSUSTWOSRXEW P ROXU XWBNC DT RWA HPB HPAX TKWUOQIW QBCY UXIK AHVA OKGLJBG E WUF BMQZ SCF LV EMYA ZRIWQU FMMXOD ZIE SEI
1407981609 | 163 | 49 | [
{
"comment_id": "1800809",
"author": "polossatik",
"timestamp": "2014-09-08T17:06:24",
"content": "this shirt. He was faster. Because of the extra elbow grease.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1801184",
"author": "racethesunlive",
... | 1,760,376,077.078934 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/08/end-table-kegerator-hides-the-tap-when-youre-not-looking/ | End Table Kegerator Hides The Tap When You’re Not Looking | Rick Osgood | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Beer Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"beer",
"furniture",
"kegerator",
"lcd",
"refrigerator",
"table",
"temperature"
] | What’s better than an ordinary end table? How about an end table that can
serve you beer
? [Sam] had this exact idea and used his skills to make it a reality. The first step of the build was to acquire an end table that was big enough to hold all of the components for a functional kegerator. This proved to be a bit tricky, but [Sam] got lucky and scored a proper end table from a garage sale for only $5.00.
Next, [Sam] used bathroom sealant to seal up all of the cracks in the end table. This step is important to keep the inside cold. Good insulation will keep the beer colder, while using less electricity. Next, a hole was cut into the top of the table for the draft tower.
The draft tower is mounted to a couple of drawer slides. This allows the tower to raise up and down, keeping it out of sight when you don’t want it. The tower raises and lowers using a simple pulley system. A thin, high strength rope is attached to the tower. The other end is attached to a spool and a small motor. The motor can wind or unwind the spool in order to raise and lower the tower.
The table houses an Arduino, which controls the motor via a homemade H bridge. The Arduino is hooked up to a temperature sensor and a small LCD screen. This way, the users can see how cold their beer will be before they drink it.
To actually keep the beer cold, [Sam] ripped apart a mini fridge. He moved the compressor and condenser coils to the new table. He had to bend the coils to fit, taking care not to kink them. Finally he threw in the small keg, co2 tank and regulator. The final product is a livingroom gem that provides beer on demand.
Demo video (which is
going the wrong way
) can be found after the break. | 31 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1800568",
"author": "pcf11",
"timestamp": "2014-09-08T14:43:43",
"content": "Do you think that drinking beer can make you smarter? Well, it made Bud wiser!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1813127",
"author": "TbbW",
... | 1,760,376,076.895406 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/08/thp-semifinalist-stubby-the-adorable-hexapod/ | THP Semifinalist: Stubby, The Adorable Hexapod | Brian Benchoff | [
"Robots Hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"hexapod",
"robot",
"stubby"
] | After talking with a few of the judges for The Hackaday Prize, documentation will be a large factor in determining who wins and takes a trip to space, and who is left with their feet safely planted on the ground.
Stubby the Hexapod
is one of the most well documented projects in the running. There are already two hardware revisions for the walking mechanism, several board layouts for the controller, and more project log entries than you can shake a stick at.
Stubby is the brainchild of [The Big One] (a.k.a. [Wyatt] with [Warren], [Princess Sparkle], and [exot] filling out the rest of the team). The project originally began as an educational robotics project meant for teaching [Wyatt]’s kids the ins and outs of robotics and electronics. He’s doing this by developing an open source hexapod robot platform, complete with a frame, electronics board, and a lot of interesting code driving 18 hobby servos.
The frame for Stubby’s first hardware revision is rather interesting; it’s able to be reproduced with nothing more than a scroll saw. The latest revision is a complete rethinking of hexapod locomotion using 2DOF legs and
a more mechanical gait
.
Being completely open source and very well documented, you can already make your own Stubby hexapod with a scroll saw and the files on [Wyatt]’s site. If 3D printing is more your thing, there’s also
a few files
to help you with that.
You can check out a few videos of the different Stubby revisions below:
The project featured in this post is
a semifinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "1800222",
"author": "eccentricelectron",
"timestamp": "2014-09-08T11:16:47",
"content": "Brian, You forgot to mention that it is open source, well documented and can be made with just a scroll saw!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,376,076.719555 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/08/tracking-footballs-with-invisible-magnetic-fields/ | Tracking Footballs With Magnetic Fields | Matt Terndrup | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"football",
"magnetic fields",
"motion tracking"
] | Official NFL footballs are crafted by hand by a company in Chicago called Wilson Sporting Goods. The footballs that are made there typically range from 11 to 11.5 inches in length and weigh anywhere between 14 and 15 ounces on average. Originally, animal bladders lined the outside, occasionally from the inside of a pig, giving the traditional American football the long-standing nickname of a “pigskin.” Now a days, they consist of cowhide leather or vulcanized rubber with laces that are stitched to the top adding mass. This causes the oblong spheres to be naturally lopsided. This is fixed by inserting extra weight to the opposite side of the football balancing it out. Knowing this, a clever hacker will realize that the balancing spot is a perfect place to subtly add a
motion tracking transmitter like this one
. Doing so makes it possible to the track not only the position of the ball on the field, but its precise location in 3D space!
Since each football is unique, variations between one ball to another exist. This means that embedding a circuit into a football only modifies the equipment slightly, which is a good thing because sports fanatics tend to be very opinionated about whether or not technology should influence the game. So long as the transmitter and loop antenna added to the air bladder doesn’t pass that threshold of about an ounce (or so) difference in weight, then the football itself really isn’t affected much.
The research for this project was developed and tested at the NC State and Carnegie Mellon Universities with the help of funding from Disney (who owns ESPN). Using magnetic fields was chosen instead of
other ball tracking systems that are camera-based
because it would allow the computer to recognize the football when pile ups occur. Unlike soccer, the footballs in the NFL are usually hidden from view.
The question now is “
will the NFL accept this type of system?
” They already have integrated instant replay to the game; and as of the 2014 season, teams have Microsoft tablets on the sideline which are used by coaches and referees for in-between play analytics. Yet, the game still uses the
same old ‘stick and chain’ method that was initiated in 1907
to measure downs. Implementing it in high schools or colleges would serve as a prototype. From there, the researchers could try to get into pre-season games before attempting nationwide integration. But will fans like it? Will it take away from the game? It’s up to you to decide.
[via
Vox
] | 33 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "1799918",
"author": "0xfred",
"timestamp": "2014-09-08T08:14:42",
"content": "Maybe a little bit of info about how the tracking is done would be nice. Those research papers are a bit dense and difficult to view on a mobile device.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replie... | 1,760,376,076.831548 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/07/infrared-controlled-light-switch/ | Infrared-controlled Light Switch | Bryan Cockfield | [
"ATtiny Hacks"
] | [
"attiny2313",
"infrared",
"light switch",
"rc-5"
] | If you’re looking for your first electronics project, or a project to get someone else started in electronics, [Vadim] has you covered. Back when he was first starting out in electronics he built this
infrared-controlled light switch
that works with a standard TV remote control.
[Vadim]’s first few projects ended up as parts for other projects after they were built, so he wanted to build something useful that wouldn’t ultimately end up back in the parts drawer. The other requirements for the project were to use a microcontroller and to keep it simple. [Vadim] chose an ATtiny2313 to handle the RC-5 IR protocol and switch the light.
The circuit still has a switch to manually control the lights, preserving the original functionality of the light switch. The rest of the design includes a header for programming the board and another header for tying into the high voltage lines. This is a great project for anyone who knows what they’re doing with mains power but is just getting started with microcontrollers. If properly designed and implemented you’ll never stumble across a room to turn the lights out again!
Perhaps mixing high and low voltages on the same circuit board doesn’t spark your fancy or you can’t modify the light switch in your place of residence? Check out this
mechanically-switched light switch
. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1799671",
"author": "jimmy",
"timestamp": "2014-09-08T05:38:32",
"content": "“first electronics project” + mains ?!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1799728",
"author": "No Hack",
"timestamp": "2014-09-08T06:19:... | 1,760,376,076.762463 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/07/let-the-bass-cannon-kick-it/ | Let The Bass Cannon Kick It!! | Matt Terndrup | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"Adam Munich",
"airzooka",
"bass cannon",
"cannon",
"dubstep",
"flux pavilion",
"subwoofer"
] | If you’ve ever found yourself immersed in the wild realm of electronic dance music, then chances are you’ve probably heard [Flux Pavilion]’s dubstep banger ‘Bass Cannon.’ The music video released for the track shows [Flux] and his minion [Doctor P] performing twisted audio experiments on unexpecting research candidates by blasting them in the face with strong waves of sound vibrations, which blew back the hair of the people strapped to the chair. The audio trials took place inside what looks to be a warehouse filled to the brim with speakers, heavy duty subs, and sound boards; making it more like a ‘room of bass’ rather than a bass cannon itself. Yet, it inspired one of Hackaday’s Alum
to literally create a bass cannon himself
. And as you can see in the video below, his device packs quite a punch.
Most of us know [Adam Munich] as the guy who built
this portable x-ray machine
that could look through just about anything. He’s also built a
nuclear bomb detector
and has documented several
radiation safety techniques
, but every once in a while he decides to make something utterly ridiculous like this! He describes his homemade bass cannon as having a variety of fun and exciting uses including a mobile party on one’s shoulders, a way to frizz your hair, or an electrifying method to scare the neighbors.
[Adam]’s portable music machine was hacked together from a handheld
AirZooka
, a pair of voice coils, a class D amplifier, and a few other miscellaneous parts. It even came complete with a see-through plastic sight allowing people to aim the device anywhere they want.
Although [Adam] didn’t write up step-by-step instructions, he did provide a circuit diagram and enough pictures for those interested in developing their own.
In addition, here’s the original [Flux Pavilion] music video: | 51 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "1799312",
"author": "Drake",
"timestamp": "2014-09-08T02:21:20",
"content": "Lets build a rotary subwoofer and boost the power … for science",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1799579",
"author": "G-man",
"timesta... | 1,760,376,077.575805 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/07/hackaday-links-september-7-2014/ | Hackaday Links: September 7, 2014 | Brian Benchoff | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"adventure time",
"BMO",
"crowdfunding",
"IMU",
"magic eye",
"meat smoker",
"nixie",
"processing",
"server rack",
"sous-vide",
"steampunk",
"wire management"
] | Like
Adventure Time
?
Make your own BMO
! It’s a little more expressive than the Adafruit version
we saw earlier
due to the Nokia LCD. It’s got audio playback too so
it can talk to football
.
A few years ago, [Matt]
made a meat smoker
with a PID controller and an SSR. Now the same controller
is being used as a sous vide
. PID controllers: the most useful kitchen gadget ever.
[Josh] keeps his server in a rack, and lacking a proper cable management solution, this means his rack is a mess.
He adapted some Dell wire management arms
to his system, using a PCI card bracket to attach the arm to the computer.
[Dr. Dampfpunk] has a lot of glowey things
on his Youtube channel
Another [Josh] built
a 3D tracking display for an IMU
. It takes data off an IMU, sends it over Bluetooth, and displays the orientation of the device on a computer screen. This device also has a microphone and changes the visualization in response to noises.
Remember the pile of failure in a bowl of fraud that is the Scribble pen?
Their second crowdfunding campaign was shut down
. Don’t worry; they’re still seeking private investment, so there’s still a chance of thousands of people getting swindled. We have to give a shout-out to
Tilt
, Scribble’s second crowdfunding platform. Tilt has been far more forthcoming with information than Kickstarter ever has with any crowdfunding campaign. | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "1799105",
"author": "nedscott",
"timestamp": "2014-09-08T00:23:16",
"content": "Eh? The Nokia LCD screens in that BMO build are dirt cheap. Less than $2 a screen. I’ve got about three of them myself. They’re much cheaper than the $10 Adafruit screen the other build used.",
"pare... | 1,760,376,078.040738 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/07/airlegs-augment-your-cardio-by-10/ | AirLegs Augment Your Cardio By 10% | James Hobson | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"4MM",
"air legs",
"airlegs",
"exoskeleton",
"iProjects",
"Pneumatic cylinder",
"Pneumatics"
] | Here’s another very interesting project to come out of the 4 Minute Mile challenge —
pneumatically boosted legs.
It’s another project by [Jason Kerestes] in cooperation with DARPA. We saw
his jet pack a few days ago
, but this one looks like it has a bit more promise. It is again a backpack mounted system, but instead of a few jet turbines, it has a pneumatic cylinders which move your legs for you.
Just watching it it’s hard to believe it makes it easier to run, but apparently after being tested at the Army Research Laboratories last year it demonstrated a whopping 10% reduction in metabolic cost for subjects running at high speeds. It can actually augment the human running gait cycle, and is the only device the US Army has confirmed can do so.
He is already hard at work designing version 2.0 which is lighter and more flexible. There’s a bunch of test videos after the break so stick around to see it in action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2e4tGokqe0
And the new and improved version 2.0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu5EXYlrnXk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q350TeTFvWU | 36 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "1798697",
"author": "sonshinegreene",
"timestamp": "2014-09-07T20:03:52",
"content": "I want a pair! Help this fat body get movin’!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1800161",
"author": "Bones",
"timestamp": "201... | 1,760,376,077.643945 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/07/a-little-lubricant-goes-a-long-way-with-your-cnc-machine/ | A Little Lubricant Goes A Long Way…. With Your CNC Machine | Rich Bremer | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"CNC router",
"cnc3020",
"lubricants"
] | [Peter] has been having some positional repeatability problems with his CNC3020 Router recently. The problem was mostly in the Z axis and was measured to be up to 0.3mm off position after 10cm of travel. This may not seem like a lot but it was enough to break a few 1mm diameter end mills. The X and Y axes generally seemed OK. Surfing the ‘net reveled that the control board’s power rails did not have any filtering capacitors and that may have been the cause of the problems. Unfortunately, the positioning problem still persisted even after the cap’s were added. Frustrated, [Peter] then started a
full-blown investigation
to figure out why his Z axis wasn’t cutting the mustard.
In a CNC system there are 2 major components, the electronics and the physical machine. Since it was unknown which portion of the system contained the problem, [Peter] decided to quickly swap the X and Z channels, running the Z axis with the X axis electronics. The problem was still evident on the Z axis which means that there is something wrong in the mechanics of the machine. The Z electronics were put back on the Z axis and the testing continued by lowering the acceleration and the maximum speed. The positioning error was still there. Since it is possible that the Z motor could be the problem, it was decided to swap the X and Z motors but midway through the process the problem became evident. When trying to rotate the Z axis lead screw by hand there was a noticeable lack of smoothness and the axis seemed to jump around a bunch!
The Z axis had to be disassembled to access the lead nut and linear rails. This reveled the source of [Peter’s] problem; no lubricant, not on the linear rails and not on the lead nut or lead screw. Over time, the un-lubricated Z axis linear ball bearings had worn 4 gnarly looking equally spaced grooves into the linear rails. The bearings were flushed out which produced an alarming amount of metallic dust that had accumulated inside. Once cleaned, the bearings were lubricated and otherwise seemed undamaged. Since the grooves in the rails were only in 4 local areas, they were rotated 45 degrees so the bearings were now riding on undamaged areas. Even after the cleaning, lubricating and rotating the rods the bearings still did not feel as smooth as they should. Since replacement bearings were not available the Z axis was reassembled anyways. Grease was also applied to the lead screw and nut prior to reassembly.
[Peter] had low hopes for his ‘fix’ but after performing some more tests it seems that the Z axis is performing much better; 0.01mm error over 10cm of travel. Not bad! [Peter] is not afraid to get down and dirty with this CNC3020, he has added a
coolant system
,
limit switches and a PWM spindle control
. | 59 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "1798377",
"author": "enl",
"timestamp": "2014-09-07T17:26:53",
"content": "Advantage to having been trained back before CNC (or, for that matter, CAD) were more than a curiosity. Lube it ALL. Every use. During use. After use. Between uses (the lube will run out over time and stop pr... | 1,760,376,078.001418 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/07/thp-hacker-bio-michael-r-colton/ | THP Hacker Bio: Michael R Colton | Brian Benchoff | [
"Radio Hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"hacker bio",
"radio",
"sdr",
"shortwave",
"software-defined radio",
"the hackaday prize"
] | With many hackers out there realizing how much you can do with a few RF blocks connected to a computer, it’s no surprise software defined radio would make a showing in the semifinalists for The Hackaday Prize. [Michael]’s project is the
PortableSDR
, a small, self-contained unit that handles just about everything below 30MHz. No, [Michael] isn’t dealing with gigahertz accessible with fancier SDRs, but that’s not the point: PortableSDR is meant to do
everything –
vector analysis, a neat waterfall display, transmit and receive – in a small, portable package you can take anywhere. It’s also fairly cheap to build, and of course completely open source.
This isn’t [Michael]’s first rodeo; he’s built a number of equally cool projects before. He was kind enough to send in a short bio, available below.
Just one? Obviously radio and electronics are big. Hackaday is my favorite site, if that tells you anything.
I enjoy all sorts of outdoor activities, backpacking, rock-climbing and, most recently, paragliding.
I’ve been interested in Asian culture and languages for years. I studied Japanese in high school and college and I was able to serve as a missionary for two years in Taiwan where I picked up Mandarin.
I wanted to be an inventor as a kid (now I’m actually a little skeptical of people who call themselves that). I took things apart, ruined lots of VCRs, electrocuted myself a bunch of times, even knocked myself out once. My dad says when I was three or four I broke the side view mirror off his sports car and he couldn’t figure out how. I played with electronics, shopped at Radio Shack, bought a BASIC stamp kit (for like $100! Seriously?) and played with that a little, but in college I wasn’t confident I’d ever really understand electronics, so I got my education in psychology instead. But I continued to play, found out how cheap AVRs and PICs are and moved up to those.
I was lucky to make friends with a guy who worked for an aerial data collection company (before it was cool) who wanted to split of and use “multi-rotors” for aerial video. I knew a little about electronics so I helped him and together we started
Utah Aerials
. I started making
my own aircraft
, and eventually met with a start-up engineering firm about producing them. The boss was impressed and hired me.
That was about three years ago, now I work as a product designer and electrical engineer at RPH Engineering, spending most of my time doing circuit design and firmware, but I get to do concept art and mechanical design from time to time. I’m lucky to have a job where I get to work on lots of interesting projects. I feel very blessed that I was hired, as I don’t have a degree in any of this, and only had light experience at the time (It didn’t hurt that my boss didn’t have to pay me very much).
I hope that might be inspiring to some people out there. I didn’t go to school for this, and for years I thought I’d never understand any of it well enough to make the things I wanted to make. I just followed what was interesting to me and kept learning. To those that are overwhelmed with how much there is to know, hang in there. I still have so much to learn, but when it starts to click, it’s a pretty amazing feeling.
Other than my wife, it would probably be learning and making, experiencing new things. Before I could build things, I would draw a lot, I’d create people, places and things that only existed on paper.
Printers are a pretty good one. Maybe computers in general. Sometimes I wish software was a thing that could be smashed… ugh.
I was a die-hard Mac user as a kid and I still think it’s very well designed and usable, but pretty much everything I want to do requires Windows (7 or Server editions please) so that’s what I find myself using most. I play with Linux here and there and I love what it can do, but haven’t really gotten comfortable with it, everything seems to take so much work.
Oscilloscopes. Just picked up a Rigol DS1074Z and I love it (get the signal gen, it’s worth it!) That said, if Tektronics wants to sponsor me, I’d gladly accept a MDO3/4000.
Also, Current limited bench supplies have saved my bacon a number of times….. also flux pens. And if you can swing it, a binocular microscope, I don’t know how I lived without it.
I’m really enjoying the STM32 microcontrollers. The F4 in the PortableSDR is a beast! 180Mhz, FPU, lots of memory, and ten each of every peripheral you could ever want. They are so flexible too. On the AVR-Arduino/PICs, your GPIO are digital or analog, sometimes you have a built in pull up resistor. The STM32s (I imagine a lot of this applies to other ARMs as well) have pull ups and pull downs, and open-drain, various drive levels for every GPIO. It has DACs built in, etc. I was using an AVR for something once and I was going to be using TTL serial, but it was inverted, so I had to add some circuitry to flip it, don’t need to on the STM32s it has that ability built in.
C. (Also C++/C#/Java) No real reason, it’s just what I know and am comfortable with (not that I’m particularly good at any of them) also runs on anything!
I have a secret one (not helpful, I know.) I hope to Kickstart at some point.I am part way into a connect home security/home automation system that includes thermostat control, and power consumption measurement. The coolest part, though, is that is uses the Portal Turret voices (open a door and you hear, “Hello? Who’s there?” walk in front of the motion sensor and get, “There you are!”)
I’d like to make a Paramotor (electric even) or try to make a super efficient electric vehicle (reverse trike with an aerodynamic cowling, I think).
Electrostatic headphone drivers and amplifier.That was three right? And really, that’s just want I’d like to do in the next few years. Sometimes I wish I would get fired so I had time to work on all this stuff!
I’d been interested in Software Defined Radio since I first heard about it a few years ago (
this article in particular
) and wanted to build my own. As I learned more and more about electronics and microcontrollers in particular, I thought I could combine SDR with my interest in the outdoors.
Lots of stuff! Here are a few: To the DSP guys, how do I build an arbitrary filter for FFT convolution with a known kernel length? The way I am doing it now seems to be wrapping around even though I have padded my samples. I’m probably making tons of mistakes… RF guys, I’d love a hand designing an efficient RF amp to get up in to the 1-5 what range, that is small and can run off 3 volts. To the Hams that are into morse code, what hand do you use, what angle do you position your key at, I’m thinking 45 degrees? Ever tried capacitive keyers, what did you think? There is a ton of brain power in the Hackaday community, so I hope people will tear into the PortableSDR and help me make it better. I look forward to (hopefully constructive) feedback!
Several. I thought the GPS Clock was very polished. I wouldn’t mind building myself one. And the microwave lost PLA project?! Hybrid Jetski, I’ll take one. Cardboard hovercraft. To name a few. Several of the projects I like
did
make it to the semifinals.
Things are progressing very well. My main problem is time. We’ve got less than a month until the next round of judging, but it takes about a week to have a PCB produced and another week to have it shipped (if you are cheap/poor) so that’s half of the available time gone right there! And I haven’t even finished designing the next revision yet… I want to source some LCDs from China and I am having the same problem shipping times.
There is a lot I am learning as I go, so some things take longer than expected or don’t work right at first. But that’s part of why I wanted to do this. It’s amazing how much I’m learning. It’s really stretching my brain. It’s really fun.
I have been having a lot of fun with the contest and it’s been inspiring to see all the cool things other people have come up with. Also, I really appreciate all the positive support I’ve received from people as I’ve worked on this project. A few have built their own already, and someone even posted about my project on reddit. Thanks everyone! | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1798120",
"author": "Dudecallednick",
"timestamp": "2014-09-07T15:17:28",
"content": "Great entry… best of luck!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1798161",
"author": "DainBramage1991",
"timestamp": "2014-09-07T15:40:14",
... | 1,760,376,077.688451 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/07/more-wifi-modules-for-iot-madness/ | More WiFi Modules For IoT Madness | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"Parts"
] | [
"CC3000",
"CC3200",
"ESP8266",
"module",
"MT7681",
"system on chip",
"wifi",
"Wifi module"
] | The last year has brought us CC3000 WiFi module from TI, and recently the improved CC3200 that includes an integrated microcontroller. The Chinese design houses have gotten the hint, putting out the exceptionally cheap ESP8266, a serial to WiFi bridge that also includes a microcontroller to handle the TCP/IP stack and the software side of an 802.11 connection. Now there’s another dedicated WiFi module.
It’s called the MT7681,
and it’s exactly what you would expect given the competition: a programmable module with the ability to connect to a WiFi network.
Like TI’s CC3200, and the ESP8266, the MT7681 can be connected to any microcontroller over a serial connection, making it a serial to WiFi bridge. This module also contains a user-programmable microcontroller, meaning you don’t need to connect an Arduino to blink a few pins; UART, SPI, and a few GPIO pins are right on the board. The module also includes an SDK and gnu compiler, so development of custom code running on this module should be easier
than some of the other alternatives
.
You can pick up one of the MT7681 modules through the usual channels, but there’s
an Indiegogo campaign
based in China that takes this module and builds a ‘dock’ around it. The dock has a relay, temperature/humidity sensor, a few GPIO pins, and a USB serial connection for use as an Internet of Things base station.
For anyone looking for a little more computational horsepower, there’s also a few mentions and press releases announcing another module, the MT7688, This is a very small (12mm by 12mm) module running Linux with 256 MB of RAM and 802.11n support. This module hasn’t even hit the market yet, but we’ll be on the lookout for when it will be released.
Thanks [uhrheber] for sending this one in. | 33 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "1797705",
"author": "Hal H",
"timestamp": "2014-09-07T11:38:33",
"content": "Can any of these new modules do the 802.11s mesh thing? I have been really interested in trying that mesh standard but don’t want to use full on big chips and PIs or BeagleBones. Seems like it would be cool... | 1,760,376,077.913694 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/07/building-the-worlds-smallest-thermal-camera/ | Building The World’s Smallest Thermal Camera | James Hobson | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"flir one",
"lepton",
"lepton module",
"thermal imaging camera"
] | [Mike Harrison], the mastermind behind electricstuff.co.uk has just finished reverse engineering the Lepton module found in thermal imaging cameras — he then created his own, and perhaps
the world’s smallest thermal camera.
He took apart the Flir One iPhone thermal imaging unit and pulled out the magical part that makes it all possible — the
Lepton module.
It only has a resolution of 80×60 pixels, but in the world of thermal imaging, it’s pretty decent. You can buy it for $250 (for the module) in order quantities of 1000 straight from Flir.
His blog has all the details about figuring out how to interface with the module, and it is really quite impressive. Once he had it all understood he set out to build it into a small thermal camera. The case is machined out of black acrylic, and an iPod nano screen is used as the display, as 80×60 scales up nicely to the 320×240 resolution of the iPod. A home-brew PCB connects to the module, has a voltage regulator and charging circuit for the lithium ion battery — which is then connected to a prototype iPod nano PCB with some of the features removed — he says it was a nightmare connecting it all, and we don’t blame him, that’s some serious hacking skill!
And if you’re curious as to how he got the Lepton module
out
of the Flir One…
And then how he managed to reverse engineer it in order to build his own camera…
Anyway, if you happen to be one of the lucky few who has a real Flir camera, check out this
$40 lens hack to upgrade its clarity! | 18 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "1797306",
"author": "3DTOPO iOS Apps (@3DTOPO)",
"timestamp": "2014-09-07T08:06:30",
"content": "I was looking at getting one of those iPhone adapters just yesterday – alas – it is only good to 100C. I was thinking it might be intentional crippling as to not compete with their more ... | 1,760,376,078.096085 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/06/tasting-music-with-a-side-of-meatballs/ | Tasting Music, With A Side Of Meatballs | Matt Terndrup | [
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"beatballs",
"echonest",
"meatballs",
"music"
] | Imagine eating food customized just for you based on your music preferences. This is exactly the premise behind a
student-developed application called BeatBalls
. This musical cooking platform translates artists and songs into delicious meatball recipes.
BeatBalls uses a computer algorithm that takes into account a variety of factors including key, tempo, cadence, and duration of the song to manifest a unique combination of ingredients. [Maria], who tipped us off about the project, told us in an email that Beatballs used the
echonest
API to determine elements of each song.
Anyone can go to the BeatBalls’ website and enter their favorite musician, group, or track into the
online meatball generator
, which outputs unique components to the screen. A few good suggestions are Meat Loaf, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, and Bassnectar, which produce some delectable results.
Students involved in the project also created a machine to mix, roll, and cook the meatballs automatically. Team member [Samuel] told us that the system has three Arduino controllers that are hooked up to a remote server with an Ethernet shield and WiFi router. A set of servos and a DC motor controls the mechanisms that pushes the meat through and adds spices to the ingredients.
Currently, Beatballs is running a
Kickstarter campaign
to raise money for the cooking system. Prizes include posters, stickers, t-shirts, cookbooks, and name recognition on the site for those who support the project. Now go onto the website and type in your favorite artists into the generator and see what the machine whips up for you.
[vimeo
http://vimeo.com/105166803%5D | 13 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "1797131",
"author": "NotArduino",
"timestamp": "2014-09-07T06:42:14",
"content": "No wow not for hackers. Put this idiocy on reddit.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1797158",
"author": "pcf11",
"timestamp": "2014-09-07T0... | 1,760,376,077.73319 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/06/3d-printing-a-daft-punk-helmet/ | 3D Printing A Daft Punk Helmet | Matt Terndrup | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"costume",
"daft punk",
"helmet",
"Lulzbot Taz",
"neopixel"
] | Thanks to the awesome people over at Adafruit, you can now
print your very own Daft Punk helmet
! It is designed with a hollowed out shell and translucent material which allows for colorful LEDs to be inserted into the mask, which can light up just about any room. This makes the headset great for Maker Faire, household parties, and underground EDM raves.
The epic costume was inspired by the infamous electronic music duo from France who is known for hiding their identities behind intricate and complex masks. This version, however, is perfect for the Do-It-Youself builder on a budget assuming you have access to a Taz 3D printer through your hackerspace or a friend.
The entire helmet is 3D printed as one piece using a semi-transparent PLA filament with NeoPixel strips (144 pixel per meter) laid inside. It takes about 3 days to complete the printing job (assuming no errors arise during the process). After everything is finished, glossy gold paint is applied and the polished outcome is enough to turn some heads. Plus, this mask makes a great addition to any builder’s homemade ‘trophy’ collection.
A natural next step would be to add sensors that can detect bass vibrations. This could be used to change the colors of the display based on the music that is being played nearby. We’ve seen this sort of thing before on
a few Daft Punk helmet builds
that are
far superior to this one
. Of course the difference here is that the Adafruit version can be build in a reasonable amount of time by a mere mortal. Those other examples were life commitments as far as projects go!
Don’t forget to check out the video of this one in action after the break.
[Thanks for the tip PT] | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "1796596",
"author": "Waterjet",
"timestamp": "2014-09-07T02:41:17",
"content": "Next step will be to add an outside camera and a set of personal video monitors inside the helmet so the person inside can actually see what they are doing!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"... | 1,760,376,078.139578 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/06/finally-a-working-jet-pack/ | Finally, A Working Jet Pack | James Hobson | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"ASU",
"darpa",
"iProjects",
"jet pack",
"jetpack"
] | Well, kind of. This is one of [Jason Kerestes’] latest projects as a masters engineering student at the Arizona State University — A
jet pack
designed to increase your running speed by quite literally giving you a boost.
It’s one of the proposed solutions to the 4MM (4 Minute Mile) project, which is part of the
ASU Program called iProjects
, which brings students and industry together to solve problems. The 4MM project is trying to find a way to make any soldier able to run the 4 minute mile — quite ambitious, but DARPA is actually working on it with [Jason]!
The whole rig only weighs 13lbs and features two electric turbines which provide the thrust. They originally tested the concept by seeing if you could pull a person with an electric golf cart around a track to make them run faster — turns out, you can. Further more scientific testing led them to find that there is a specific thrust to body-weight ratio that works best, with the direction of thrust about 25 degrees below horizontal.
Through clinical testing they found that the jet pack is able to increase running speeds while maintaining a lower heart rate — and that’s with the extra weight of the jet pack. A 200m dash was completed in 25.27 seconds with the jet pack, and 29.82 without.
As for the 4 minute mile? One of their test subjects can run it in 5 minutes 20 seconds, or 5 minutes 2 seconds with the jet pack — unfortunately they aren’t quite there yet. | 55 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "1796007",
"author": "omga",
"timestamp": "2014-09-06T23:07:31",
"content": "Will be sold to public in about a year as a replacement for mobility scooters.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1796023",
"author": "Haku",
"tim... | 1,760,376,078.240595 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/06/environmental-sound-detectors/ | Environmental Sound Detectors | Matt Terndrup | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino pro mini",
"earth journalism network",
"Electric Imp"
] | We all know that sound. That sound of a noisy yapping dog, or the sound of a disruptive garbage truck loudly picking up the trash while making a ruckus along the way. It can be extremely distracting and frustrating to deal with. And more often than not, we have little control over the noise pollution in the area. Unless of course, you build a monitoring solution to raise awareness of the situation, like
this one that [Edmund] made
.
It was designed in conjunction with the Earth Journalism Network (EJN) in order to, as their website states, “
facilitate story-telling of the sources and health impacts of noise from around the world
“. An Arduino Pro Mini was the backbone of the project. Being open-source in nature meant that it could be customized easily with a wide array of sensors. [Edmund] chose to use an
Electric Imp
adding WiFi capability to the device. His step-by-step tutorial showed the design process, leading into the prototyping of the parts, and contains schematics for the circuit. As of the time that this article was published, the coding section of project hasn’t been released yet, but the first three parts give enough information to get the ball rolling.
This type of monitoring solution has the potential to record the noise levels of neighborhoods all across the world. With a large enough pool of data, API’s can be developed for uses like house hunting web searches that show which areas in town are the quietest, or which ones are the loudest. This will surely provide a wealth of knowledge about noise pollution, and it will be interesting to see how people utilize this (and projects similar) in the future. | 22 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "1795574",
"author": "Max",
"timestamp": "2014-09-06T20:23:53",
"content": "Please stop using this horrible imp thing.You have zero control over your own stuff with a closed platform like this.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1... | 1,760,376,078.608099 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/06/secure-your-internets-with-web-security-everywhere/ | THP Semifinalist: Secure Your Internets With Web Security Everywhere | Adam Fabio | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"HackadayPrize",
"raspberry pi",
"security",
"the hackaday prize"
] | [Arcadia Labs] has created a great little device in
Web Security Everywhere
, a semifinalist in The Hackaday Prize. At the center of it all is UnJailPi, a Raspberry Pi device which can act as a secure router between a protected network and the unprotected internet. UnJailPi can create OpenVPN and Tor connections on the fly from its touch screen interface. The full details are right up on [Arcadia’s]
Hackaday.io project page
.
One of the most amazing things about the project is its creator, [Arcadia Labs]. [Arcadia] started from square one learning python just 1 year ago. Since then he’s become a proficient python coder, and created UnJailPi’s entire user interface with pygame.
[Arcadia] is also working with simple hand tools. He has no access to the CNC routers, 3D printers, or milling machines used in many of the projects we see here on Hackaday. All the work on UnJailPi’s acrylic case was done with a handsaw, a file, and a heck of a lot of patience.
Currently [Arcadia’s] biggest hurdle is finding a good power supply for his project. UnJailPi is designed to work both on AC or an internal battery. His current power circuit throws off enough heat that the Raspberry Pi resets while the battery is charging.
We’re sure [Arcadia] will figure out his power issues, but if you have any suggestions, leave a comment here, or head over to
the project page
and let him know!
The project featured in this post is
a semifinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 50 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "1795024",
"author": "geremycondra",
"timestamp": "2014-09-06T17:24:25",
"content": "I’m a big fan of people doing innovative security work, but why would anybody conclude this was secure on the basis of the description? There’s a ton of hard-to-harden stuff on there, and if it handl... | 1,760,376,078.768727 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/06/the-current-state-of-esp8266-development/ | The Current State Of ESP8266 Development | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"Parts"
] | [
"ESP8266",
"wifi"
] | A few weeks ago we caught wind of a very cool new chip.
It’s called the ESP8266
, and it’s a WiFi module that allows you to connect just about any project to an 802.11 b/g/n network. It also costs $5. Yes, there was much rejoicing when this chip was announced.
Since we learned of the ESP8266, there has been a lot of work done to translate the datasheets from Chinese, figure out how the SOC can be programmed, and a few preliminary attempts at getting this module working with an Arduino. Keep in mind, very few people have one of these modules in hand right now, so all this information is completely untested. Here’s what we have so far:
Over on Hackaday Projects,
[bafeigum] has been working
to research the capabilities of this module. Most of the comments deal with
the AT Command set
for the module and figuring out what is actually returned when certain commands are called.
The ESP8266 community forum
is about a week old, but already there’s a wealth of information. Most of the efforts seem to be centered on
getting GCC to program this chip
, something that would make the ESP8266 a single-solution chip for anything that needs WiFi and a bit of processing power. Everyone (including the great [Sprite_TM]) has currently hit a roadblock, so if you have a ton of experience with GCC and the Xtensa microcontroller, check out that thread. Failing that, we’ll have to wait until someone from Tensilica, the company behind the guts of this chip, to chime in and help everyone figure out how this thing actually works.
The Arduino-heads out there will have a much easier time.
There’s already a tutorial for using the ESP8266
as a serial WiFi module. Note the ESP operates on 3.3 Volts, so connecting this module to the 5V pin means you’ll be out $5 and several weeks of shipping time.
This is an incredible amount of development in a very short amount of time, made even more remarkable by the fact that
no one has one of these WiFi modules yet
. When these modules do arrive to workbenches around the world, we’ll expect the Hackaday tip line to be flooded with very small and somewhat battery friendly WiFi builds. | 53 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "1794491",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2014-09-06T14:37:45",
"content": "Why would do so few people have one of these? They are available in mass at AliExpress and even a guy on ebay sells them.http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=ESP8266http://www.ebay.com/itm/25163652... | 1,760,376,078.853805 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/06/arduino-powered-digital-kaleidoscope/ | Arduino Powered Digital Kaleidoscope | Rick Osgood | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"colors",
"kaleidoscope",
"led",
"pretty colors",
"rgb",
"strip"
] | [Jose’s]
latest project
brings an old visual effect toy up to date with digital electronics. Most of us are familiar with inexpensive
kaleidoscope
toys. Some of us have even built cheap versions of them with paper tubes, mirrors, and beads. [Jose] wanted to try to recreate the colorful pattern effects created by a kaleidoscope using an Arduino and an addressable LED strip.
The build is actually pretty simple. The base is a disc of PVC cut to just a few inches in diameter. [Jose] started with an addressable LED strip containing 60 LEDs. He then cut it into 12 sections, each containing five LEDs. The smaller strips were then mounted to the disc, similar to spokes on a bicycle wheel. The LED strip already has an adhesive backing, so that part was trivial.
The final step was to add some kind of diffuser screen. The LED strips on their own are not all that interesting. The diffuser allows the light to blend together, forming interesting patterns that are more reminiscent of the patterns you might see in a real kaleidoscope. Without the diffuser you would just see individual points of light, rather than blended color patterns.
The whole thing is controlled by a small Arduino. [Jose] has made the code available at the bottom of his
blog post
. Be sure to watch the video of the system in action below. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1794084",
"author": "sage",
"timestamp": "2014-09-06T11:52:49",
"content": "sage goes in every field",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1794125",
"author": "davedarko",
"timestamp": "2014-09-06T12:12:35",
"content": "it... | 1,760,376,078.54797 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/06/welcome-to-the-garage-of-the-future/ | Welcome To The Garage Of The Future | Matt Terndrup | [
"Hackerspaces",
"home hacks"
] | [
"edsjunk",
"hackerspace",
"home shop",
"makerspace",
"work shop",
"workshop"
] | Over the last several years, hackerspaces have cropped up all over the world. These places have become a home base for hackers, tinkerers, makers, designers, and engineers alike. One of the biggest problems associated with these creative environments is the hours that are typically available. A lot of the time you just can’t walk in at odd hours of the night and expect to do anything at all. Granted, the best hackerspaces give out 24 hour access keys to those that pay for it, but sometimes it just feels better to do the work from the comfort of one’s home. Also, if a person doesn’t have the privilege of having a hackerspace in the area, then transforming a garage into a work shop can provide a nice entry point into the continuation of the maker revolution.
A trend is emerging where garages are being turned into hackerspace-like workshops that are neatly packed away within ordinary neighborhoods. A great example is
EdsJunk Home Shop
. His two car garage was converted into a maker shop complete with 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC machines, and more tools than one can dream of. The key, as [Ed] states, to creating such a useful home shop is organizing everything strategically.
This project has been a 5 year venture so far and there is still plenty to do. Years of experience have taught [Ed] to coordinate the tools in out-of-the-box ways. His air compressor, for instance, is stored in the attic with a retractable hose descending from the roof down into the garage which helps to save space and reduce noise.
Another technique involved the setting up the benches for different purposes and combining tools into 2-in-1, 3-in-1, and 4-in-1 devices. One such item fashioned together an electric radial arm saw and a table saw that was installed directly into a woodworking bench. Of course, just like any other builder’s garage, EdsJunk Home Shop has a hardware section with a tool box and drawers full of nuts, bolts, and screws for countless amounts of possible combinations. The metal working bench, although small, is a nice addition to the space as well. A bench grinder, belt sander, and radial sander is just enough to get started.
More fun tools include a 2 foot by 4 foot CNC router that was picked up for $1000, broken, fixed up, and now it works great. He made the
dedicated MACH 3 CNC control panel
with a few old arcade buttons, a handful of other buttons acquired via Radioshack and a keyboard giving it a fun retro gaming style to it. The CNC machine is great for making art and lots of parts, like the case used in this
portable XBOOK 360 laptop
.
EdsJunk Home Shop also has 2 Makerbots (a Replicator 2 & a Replicator 2X). With this setup, both ABS and PLA plastic filaments can be used to create almost anything. The filament spools are placed above the printers which are stacked in an effort to gain more space.
One of [Ed]’s favorite machines in the shop is an Accuris 40 Watt laser cutter/engraver. He mainly uses it for cutting acrylic, wood, and cardboard. The vacuum for it is stored in the attic for more consolidation. Another cool tool that [Ed] has is a vinyl plotter which can cut material for sign making and fashioning graphics. He tested it out by creating Dexter’s Lab, Jurassic Park, Johnny Bravo, Lion King, and Simpsons characters, which can be seen in the colorful picture below.
[Ed]’s garage is a prototype for maker-related garage transformations for those who looking to develop their own household work shops in the future. A natural next step after this conversion would be to open up the doors for trusted neighbors allowing them to occasionally come in and use the tools for their own community projects. Experiments with monetization of everyday neighborhood services could also happen too, primarily surrounding the support of 3D printing and other types of making.
If you have a similar garage setup, document what you got inside and send us the link. To see the rest of what [Ed] has, check out the video: | 32 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "1793725",
"author": "0xfred",
"timestamp": "2014-09-06T09:38:15",
"content": "That’s a really nice setup. My garage is similar, but much smaller. I’ve got a laser, CNC mill, and a lathe crammed into about a tenth of that area. The 3D printer’s still in the house. Entry is via an NFC... | 1,760,376,078.6828 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/05/an-obsessively-thorough-battery-and-more-showdown/ | An Obsessively Thorough Battery (and More) Showdown | Marsh | [
"hardware",
"Reviews",
"Teardown"
] | [
"batteries",
"battery",
"battery charger",
"charger",
"lipo",
"LiPo charger",
"lithium",
"lithium ion",
"rechargeable",
"rechargeable batteries"
] | There are a number of resources scattered across the Internet that provide detailed breakdowns of common products, such as batteries, but we haven’t seen anything quite as impressive
as this site
. It’s an overwhelming presentation of data that addresses batteries of all types, including
18650’s (and others close in size)
,
26650’s
, and
more chargers than you can shake a LiPo at
. It’s an amazing site with pictures of the product both assembled and disassembled, graphs for charge and discharge rates, comparisons for different chemistries, and even some thermal images to illustrate how the chargers deal with heat dissipation.
Check out
the review for the SysMax Intellicharger i4
to see a typical example. If you make it to the bottom of that novel-length repository of information, you’ll see that each entry includes
a link to the methodology
used for testing these chargers.
But wait, there’s more! You can also find equally thorough reviews of
flashlights
,
USB chargers
,
LED drivers
, and a few
miscellaneous overviews
of the equipment used for these tests.
[Thanks TM] | 17 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1793043",
"author": "Waterjet",
"timestamp": "2014-09-06T05:08:08",
"content": "This is amazing. Seriously, amazing. It’s the Wikipedia of flashlights, batteries and more. Is this a collaborative effort?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"commen... | 1,760,376,078.948443 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/05/controlling-a-hot-plates-temperature-for-the-lab/ | Controlling A Hot Plate’s Temperature For The Lab | Matt Terndrup | [
"hardware",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"hot plate",
"hotplate",
"max6675",
"olimex",
"thermocouple"
] | When you need precise heating — like for the acetone polishing shown above — the control hardware is everything. Buying a commercial, programmable, controller unit can cost a pretty penny. Instead of purchasing one, try creating one from scratch like [BrittLiv] did.
[BrittLiv] is a Chemical and Biological Engineer who wanted something that performs well enough to be relied upon as a lab tool. Her design utilizes
a plain, old hot plate and with some temperature feedback
to run custom temperature ramps from programs stored on an SD card.
The system she developed was dealing directly with temperatures up to 338°F. The heating element is driven from mains, using an SSR for control but there is also a mechanical switch in there if you need to manually kill the element for some reason. An ATmega328 monitors the heating process via an MAX6675 thermocouple interface board. This control circuitry is powered from a transformer and bridge rectifier inside the case (but populated on a different circuit board).
She didn’t stop after getting the circuit working. The project includes a nice case and user interface that will have visitors to your lab oohing and aahing. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "1792867",
"author": "Waterjet",
"timestamp": "2014-09-06T03:55:34",
"content": "OohAahSeriously though, nice build. Any risk of acetone + 338°F?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1793605",
"author": "phlt",
"time... | 1,760,376,078.895892 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/05/the-reason-dead-batteries-bounce/ | The Reason Dead Batteries Bounce | Brian Benchoff | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"battery bounce",
"bounce",
"dead battery",
"EEVblog"
] | For the last few years,
very
well-informed people have been able to tell if an alkaline battery is good or not simply by dropping them. When dropped from an inch or two above a hard surface, a good battery won’t bounce, and will sometimes land standing up. A dead battery, on the other hand, will bounce. Thanks to [Lee] and a few of his friends,
we now know why this happens
.
While hanging out with a few of his buddies, [Lee] was able to condense all the arguments on why dead batteries bounce to two theories. The first theory, the ‘bounce theory’ said dead batteries had an increase in outgassing in the battery, increasing the pressure in the battery, which increases the spring constant of the battery itself. The second theory, the ‘anti-bounce theory’, said the gel-like properties of the electrolyte worked as a sort of mass damper.
[Lee] designed an experiment to test the outgassing ‘bounce theory’ of bouncing batteries. Instead of dropping a battery, an object – in this case a brass slug – was dropped onto both good and bad batteries. There was no difference. Even after holes were drilled to vent any gasses inside the battery, the brass slug bounced off both good and bad batteries the same way.
This means the reason dead alkaline batteries bounce is due to the electrolyte. [Lee] cut open a few AA cells and found the electrolyte in a good battery was a mushy mess of chemicals. In the dead battery, this same electrolyte hardened into a solid mass. [Lee] compares this to an anti-bounce hammer.
Finally, more than a year after most of us learned about bouncing dead batteries thanks to
[Dave Jones]’ video
, we have an answer. It’s a chemical change in the electrolyte that turns it from a goo to a solid that makes dead batteries bounce. | 23 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "1791993",
"author": "jlbrian7",
"timestamp": "2014-09-05T23:36:50",
"content": "Another really good article.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1792111",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2014-09-06T00:10:59",
"conte... | 1,760,376,079.154893 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/05/celebrate-hackadays-10th-anniversary-october-4th-in-pasadena/ | Celebrate Hackaday’s 10th Anniversary: October 4th In Pasadena | Mike Szczys | [
"cons",
"Featured"
] | [
"10th anniversary",
"conference",
"party",
"workshop"
] | We’ve had a bit of fun today with
a post about our 10th Anniversary
, now here’s the real deal.
If you happen to be in the Los Angeles area on Saturday, October 4th you should join us to help commemorate 10 years of happy hacking. The day-long event comes in many pieces. We’ve put together workshops, a mini-conference, a day-long build, and we’ll cap it all off with a party.
Hackaday is a global community though. If you can’t be there in person you should set the day aside to do some hacking in your lair, or maybe even
get the Hackaday readers in your area together
and see what comes of it!
Without further ado, here’s what we have planned:
Will this be awesome?
This is Hackaday, of course it’s going to be awesome.
Build-off
7am
: A small, select group of hand-picked hackers led by [James Hobson] will begin the build-off of alternative gaming controllers to be unveiled for use at the party that night.
Workshops 9am-Noon
9am
: Free-forming Robots. [Adam Fabio] leads the workshop which challenges your soldering skills. We’re building [shlonkin’s] line-following robot from
the Tiny Robot Family
. After much debate we’ve decided to source through-hole parts instead of surface mount. Duration: up to 3 hours
10am
: Lockpicking. [datagram] leads the workshop which will cover the basics of lock picking. Duration: up to 1 hour
11am
: Universal Lithium Cell Chargers: [Todd Black] leads the workshop which covers the basics of Lithium cell charging. Attendees will assemble their own charger using a PCB which [Todd] laid out. Duration: up to 2 hours
Mini Conference 1:30-5pm
The afternoon will consist of a handful of speakers, intertwined with 7-minute hardware lightning talks. We’ll be announcing a few more speakers in the days to come but here are a three to spark your interest:
[
Steve Collins
] is an Attitude Control Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He’ll tell you he’s: “been hacking various hardware and software stuff pretty much my whole life”. [Steve’s] talk will cover some hacks from his youth and how those skills directly translated into an epic, interplanetary career.
[
Quinn Dunki
] presents Veronica, the 6502 computer she built from the processor on up. This fascinating project started with a breadboard and a lot of wire and has led to multiple home-etched PCBs to host everything from RAM to VGA. [
Hackaday Coverage
] [
Veronica Project Site
]
[
Jon McPhalen
]: “The Parallax Propeller: Embedded Multi-core Made Easy!”. When not writing, shooting, or directing for film or television, [Jon] is busy
publishing articles in
Nuts and Volts
magazine
and being an all-around Parallax Propeller guru. His talk will cover the virtues of multi-core embedded design when compared to interrupt-based approaches.
Party 7:30-11pm
What’s a birthday without a party? Ooooh… makes me wonder if we should be getting a cake?
When the solder fumes have cleared and the speakers have all said their peace there’s nothing left to do but enjoy some good music and the company of your fellow hackers while hanging onto a red plastic Solo cup filled with something delicious. This part of the day is open to hackers 21 years of age and older.
Free but tickets are mandatory!
We are limited by how many bodies can be packed into the building. Because of this you’ll need a ticket to get in the door. Head on over to
our Eventbrite page to register
.
Each part of the day has its own ticket so that you can pick and choose what you’d like to attend.
Why Pasadena?
The Supplyframe headquarters (Hackaday’s parent company) is in Pasadena so this is an obvious nexus for us. Also, last time I was in town I snagged the keys to the building that is slated for
the HackASpace project
. They haven’t moved anything in yet so we’re taking it over for the Hackaday 10th Anniversary. | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1791323",
"author": "krustkore (@krustkore)",
"timestamp": "2014-09-05T20:18:10",
"content": "Awesinem that’s my birthday!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1791327",
"author": "krustkore (@krustkore)",
"timesta... | 1,760,376,078.996146 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/05/hacklet-14-hacks-around-the-house/ | Hacklet 14 – Hacks Around The House | Adam Fabio | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"garbage",
"greenhouse",
"grills",
"hacklet",
"Mood Lights",
"robots",
"tea",
"The Hacklet"
] | In this weeks Hacklet we’re looking at household hacks. Not necessarily globally connected home automation hacks, but task specific hacks that we want in our lives yesterday!
We’ve all had it happen, you’re burning the midnight oil on a project when you realize it’s garbage night. The mad dash to collect empty anti-static bags, last night’s Chinese food, and the rest of the trash before actually venturing outside in the dark.
[Mehmet-cileli] doesn’t have to deal with any of that, thanks to
My Bins
, his automated trash and recycling can moving system. Normally the bins are stationed near the house. Each garbage night, the system springs into action. The cans and their platform pivots 90 degrees. The entire system then rolls along a track to the curb. Once the cans have been collected, everything rolls back ready for more trash. We just hope [Mehmet’s] garbage men are nice enough to put the bins back on their platform!
Next we have the perfect cup of tea. [Marcel] kept forgetting his tea while it was steeping. After ending up with ink a few times, he built this
Automatic Tea Timer
. A button starts the timer, and after a few minutes, the tea bag is automatically lifted and a light illuminates to let you know your tea is ready. [Marcel] used a
Raspberry Pi
Arduino
555
simple R-C timer circuit to create his delay. The lift arm is a discarded hard drive read arm. The light bulb limits current through the voice coils.
[Juan Sandu] always has veggies with his
Smart Small Greenhouse
. [Juan] has created a desktop sized greenhouse that gives plants what they crave. No, not Brawndo, we’re talking water, warmth, and light. An Arduino Uno uses sensors to monitor humidity, temperature, light, and moisture. Based upon one of two pre-set plant types, the system determines when to water, turn on lights, or even power up a fan to keep temperatures plant friendly. [Juan] is still working on his greenhouse, but his code is already up on
Github
.
Next up is [nerwal] with his entry in The Hackaday Prize,
GrillUp
. GrillUp is a remote grill temperature monitoring system with a cooling spray. Up to 6 food grade thermometers provide GrillUp with its temperature data. If things are getting a bit too hot, Grillup cools the situation down by spraying water, beer, or your favorite marinade. The system is controlled over Bluetooth Low Energy from an android smart phone. A laser pointer helps to aim the water spray. Once the cooling zones are set up, the system runs automatically. It even has a sprinkler mode, where it sprays everything down.
Every hacker’s house needs some Sci-fi mood lights, right? [spetku and maehem] round out this weeks Hacklet with their
Fifth Element Stone Mood Lighting.
Originally an entry in the Hackaday Sci-fi contest, these mood lights are based on the elemental stones in everyone’s favorite Bruce Willis movie. The lights are 3D printed in sections which stack over foamboard cores. The actual light comes from a trio of RGB LEDs. LED control is from the same brain board which controls the team’s
Robot Army
. The lights are designed to open up just like the ones in the movie, though fire, earth, wind, and water are not required. The servos [spetku and maehem] selected weren’t quite up to the task, but they mention this will be remedied in a future revision.
That’s a wrap for this week’s Hacklet. As always, see you next week. Same hack time, same hack channel, bringing you the best of
Hackaday.io
! | 25 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1791117",
"author": "ino",
"timestamp": "2014-09-05T19:15:26",
"content": "Why does it say that I have to register to see details on the projects mentioned ?Specifically the tea timer.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1791191",... | 1,760,376,079.225272 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/05/unlock-on-lan-apartment-security/ | Unlock On LAN Apartment Security | James Hobson | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"door lock",
"unlock on LAN",
"wake on lan"
] | Here’s a cool little variation of that handy little function called Wake on LAN — [Jonathan] found himself locked out of his apartment one too many times, so he decided to add his own fail safe backup in order to
get inside without a key
— using a Raspberry Pi of course.
His apartment is one of those older style ones where the door is always locked and you use a buzzer to let someone in (or a key to get in yourself). This made it super easy to add some internet connectivity to the system. [Jonathan] tapped into the buzzer with a relay since the system uses medium voltage AC to operate. A Raspberry Pi triggers a transistor using its GPIO to click the relay on and off, effectively controlling the lock.
Using a WiFi dongle he’s connected the Pi to his home network and written a simple perl script to trigger the relay — all he has to do is visit a URL on his phone or computer and the door will unlock instantly!
Once the system worked [Jonathan] soldered all the components onto a breadboard and hooked it up. He still needs an enclosure for it, but it’s been working well since he installed it.
Another option would be to use an
RFID tag system through the door,
which could be pretty cool as well. | 29 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1790122",
"author": "Addidis",
"timestamp": "2014-09-05T14:08:16",
"content": "I love the idea, but usually all the doors in these type of building are spring loaded to close. So while this gets him inside the foyer door , it stands to reason he is then left standing at his locked f... | 1,760,376,079.285333 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/05/radioshack-phone-dialer-red-box-2/ | Radioshack Phone Dialer – Red Box | Hackaday | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [] | i thought i’d start out with this hack while we’re in beta, since it was one of the first ones that really got me interested in the way phones worked and how many consumer electronics can be used for new and educational things. a “red box” was a device that would simulate coins being dropped in to a pay-phone, hence free phone calls for many people until the phone systems changed. the most popular device to modify was a radioshack tone dialer, a simple solder of a 6.5536 mhz crystal was all it took and you could “drop” 5, 10 and 25 cents at a time to make calls.
We really didn’t want to edit this because it’s a repost of
the first Hackaday post ever
, but [Phil Torrone] and [ladyada] dug out the old RadioShack
pocket tone dialer
, found a payphone (!), and
tried it out
:
RadioShack does not sell the pocket phone dialer anymore, but they do sell
a DTMF chip
(an NTE1690) that can do column D (the interesting bits that make all the phreakers happy).
We’ll probably end up reposting
this
one in another ten years. | 58 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "1789956",
"author": "Chris Muncy",
"timestamp": "2014-09-05T13:12:36",
"content": "Where’s the rest of the article?!?!?!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1790152",
"author": "Drake",
"timestamp": "2014-09-05T14:... | 1,760,376,079.379987 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/05/diy-uv-lamp-is-the-cure-for-nails-and-more/ | DIY UV Lamp Is The Cure For Nails And More | Kristina Panos | [
"how-to"
] | [
"curing",
"eprom",
"travel",
"uv",
"UV lamp",
"UV LED"
] | We must admit to wondering how Adafruit’s [Becky Stern] gets anything done with those fingernails of hers. They’re always long and beautifully painted without any chips, dings, or dents. As it turns out, she uses UV gel nail polish. It’s much more durable than standard air-dry polishes, but it requires UV light to cure. [Becky] bought a lamp to use at home, but it’s very bulky and must be plugged into the wall. She knew there was a better way and devised her
DIY UV mini manicure lamp
.
She really thought of everything. The open source 3D-printed enclosure includes a small compartment in the top for cuticle sticks, emery boards, and tweezers. The Li-poly battery is rechargeable over USB in conjunction with Adafruit’s
PowerBoost 500c
. The lamp itself is made from 30 UV LEDs and 100Ω resistors. [Becky] lined the inside of hers with silver sticky paper to help distribute the UV light evenly.
You know, this can also be used to erase EPROMs or to cure small DLP 3D prints. Do you have another use for it? Tell us in the comments. Introductory and partially hyperlapsed video after the break. | 60 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "1789598",
"author": "Bob Wareham",
"timestamp": "2014-09-05T11:42:07",
"content": "Put a slot in the back and slide your bank notes through to see if they are a forgery.You could have one in a shop next to the till to test bank notes.Becky love the nails.Bob",
"parent_id": null,... | 1,760,376,079.529629 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/05/thp-hacker-bio-rusty-jehangir/ | THP Hacker Bio: Rusty Jehangir | Brian Benchoff | [
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"electronics",
"hacker bio",
"marine",
"marine thruster",
"rov",
"the hackaday prize",
"underwater",
"Underwater ROV"
] | [Rusty]’s
project for the Hackaday Prize
is extremely ambitious. He’s planning on sending an autonomous craft across the ocean, from LA to Hawaii, a distance that will end up being well over 2,500 miles The best part about this project? It’s already had some time in the ocean, cruising off the coast of southern California under its own power for a distance of 20km.
Why is [Rusty] doing this? Partly because he wanted to do something no one had ever done before. For him, this meant
developing a cheap underwater thruster
, building an autonomous solar-powered surfboard for a months-long voyage halfway across the Pacific. It’s a small step to the goal of exploring the deep ocean with his thruster and mostly off the shelf parts, but already [Rusty] has learned a lot about electronics in a marine environment and being confident enough to let a project go on its own for months at a time.
Interview below.
My hobby has always been engineering. It started when I was 4 years old and got a model train set. By the time I was 9 or 10, I was scratch building train cars and building 555 timer circuits for traffic lights on my layout. Since then, I’ve gone through a lot of hobby phases: computers, botany, music, model airplanes, real airplanes, microcontrollers, multicopters, and most recently marine robotics.
I’m a mechanical/aerospace engineer by education. Most of my career so far has been spent designing the electronics, software, and control systems for this:
I left that job a few months ago to start a marine robotics company, Blue Robotics. I love engineering, I love business, and I love my job.
I’m fortunate enough to be able to do what I love everyday! In fact, I don’t think I’d do a very good job if it wasn’t my passion. Besides that, I love flying. I’ve had my private pilots license for a few years and it’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever done.
At the moment, it’s the Kickstarter page editor. Somehow, a few non-printable characters have made it into our Kickstarter page and they cause edits to show up in the wrong place, inserted images to show up at the bottom instead of where you want them, etc. It drives me crazy when I need to update something. I absolutely love Kickstarter but they need to fix that.
In terms of actual equipment, I’m not a fan any milling machine or lathe that isn’t properly aligned and doesn’t actually do what the digital read-out says (like ours).
Linux. I just wish there was good CAD software for it.
Hot-air soldering station. It’s such a versatile tool. From SMD assembly to regular soldering to heat shrinking, it’s always useful.
It blows my mind what you can do (and has been done) with the Atmega168/328/1280/2560 (aka Arduino). I’ve designed countless boards around them for all sorts of things.
C++ although I always go to Python when I need to do something quickly.
I’d like to successfully send our SolarSurfer from LA to Hawaii. It will be pretty incredible to watch it come to shore after months at sea.
I want to film the deep ocean with a relatively low-cost platform. Not sure of the specifics yet and I’m sure it’ll take some time to get there.
I’d like to do a long-distance trip with an ultralight solar-powered sUAS. Think flying wing, 3′ wingspan, 3D printed ribs and spars, less than 100 grams total. The hard part about this one is that you’d have to reach very high (and very illegal) altitudes to be able to glide through the night.
The idea for the SolarSurfer came about simply because we were looking for something interesting that had never been done. We didn’t have much experience with marine robotics when we started but I had a lot of experience writing autopilots and working with the hardware we are using.
It’s turned into more than a hobby with the development of our thruster. We’re really excited to see what the future holds.
Where in Hawaii should we aim to land? I’ve never actually been there myself. This seems like a pretty good excuse to go.
I like the OpenBLDC controller because I’ve been working on something similar and I can appreciate the need for a good open-source controller. I also like the Goliath multicopter. Having flown a 4,400 lb multicopter, I can understand the challenges that you run into. I’m excited to see how the centralized engine approach works.
Our project is going great! We’re a bit delayed by all the work that gone along with our Kickstarter campaign, but we’ll be doing more tests in the near future. We’ve also got a live tracking/data interface in the works that will be publicly accessible online. We’re excited about that.
Thanks for the opportunity, Hackaday! We are honored to be among the top 50 projects. Make sure you check out our Kickstarter campaign for the T100 Underwater Thruster, which is used on the SolarSurfer. | 18 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "1789067",
"author": "JoesToes",
"timestamp": "2014-09-05T08:11:33",
"content": "This is the exact same project as I’ve been wanting to do for years! But I’m in the Philippines and I know someone will just pluck it up out of the water before it gets that far :(",
"parent_id": nul... | 1,760,376,079.439913 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/04/virtual-reality-expands-into-the-world-of-rollercoasters-with-the-augmented-thrill-ride-project/ | Virtual Reality Expands Into The World Of Rollercoasters With ‘The Augmented Thrill Ride Project’ | Matt Terndrup | [
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"mixed reality",
"oculus rift",
"rollercoaster"
] | A rollercoaster company in Germany called Mack Rides joined forces with a team of virtual reality developers in the spring of 2014 to create an experience like no other.
The idea came from [Thomas], a professor at the University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern who was working in the department of Virtual Design at the time. The thought of
extending a real rollercoaster ride
with an Oculus Rift was an intriguing one, so he approached Mack Rides with the experiment, and the ground-breaking research began.
Hundreds of tests were done over the following weeks and months, which provided insight into how we perceive time and space while inside VR. This led to some interesting discoveries. For one, the VR track inside the Rift could be more complex than the real one. This meant that the directions could be contorted into different angles without the user feeling much of a difference. Knowing this, the developers were able to unfold/extend the track well beyond what was possible in real life.
Another epiphany had to do with the rails, which actually didn’t have to be present in VR at all. In fact, it was better if the tracks weren’t there because the experience was much more exciting not knowing which way the ride was suddenly going to take. This made things exponentially more surprising and compelling.
By far the most startling revelation was the reduction in dizziness and motion sickness during the tests. This was attributed to the complex synchronization that the mind goes through when melding together g-forces and the actual rollercoaster rides with the virtual ones displayed inside the Oculus Rift.
In this project, the virtual reality goggles acted like an augmented filter that could be added to the speedy, thrilling rollercoaster ride, drastically altering the experience. Yet, at the same time, the rollercoaster itself almost resembled a haptic feedback system for the virtual reality device giving the wearer a sense of perception that they normally would not feel in a typical VR experience at home. The blending of all of this made it hard to tell exactly where the VR space began, and whether or not this should be considered AR or not.
Obviously, people are going to ask “
what’s the point here?
” It’s understandable to think that virtual reality is meant for indoor use and that strapping on a headset on a rollercoaster ride is figuratively taking the person out reality, making them ignorant to what is going on around them. However, it seems like this experiment is more like the melding of two worlds (the physical and the virtual). Not only does this project push the boundaries of what VR can do, but it shows that our minds can be easily tricked into experiencing something more. And if you do it right, the side-effects involved (like motion sickness) can be eliminated due to a perfect combination of hardware, software, and centrifugal forces. It’s an amazing discovery that should be applauded, and the research discovered here will surely influence the work of virtual reality developers in the future. | 22 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "1788600",
"author": "Kaveen Rodrigo (@UKaveenR)",
"timestamp": "2014-09-05T05:17:24",
"content": "that must be epic",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1788613",
"author": "Robert The Bruce",
"timestamp": "2014-09-05T05:25:0... | 1,760,376,079.594521 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/04/master-clock-keeps-time-for-all-other-clocks/ | Master Clock Keeps Time For All Other Clocks | Bryan Cockfield | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"7 segment",
"arduino",
"arduino 238",
"atomic clock",
"clock",
"dcf77",
"lcd display"
] | [Brett] just finished construction and long-term testing of this
extremely accurate timepiece
. It keeps such great time by periodically syncing with the atomic clock in Mainflingen, Germany.
The core of the project is an ATMega328 which uses the new
DCF77 library
for decoding the signal broadcast by an atomic clock. The libraries written by Udo Klein significantly increase the noise tolerance of the device reading the signal, but they will not work with any project that use a resonator rather than a crystal.
In the event of a complete signal loss from the atomic clock, the micro driving the clock also has a backup crystal that can keep the clock running to an accuracy of within 1 second per day. The clock can drive slave clocks as well, using pulses with various timings depending on what [Brett] needs them to do. The display is no slouch either: six seven-segment displays show the time and an LCD panel reads out data about the clock. It even has chimes for the hour and quarter hour, and is full of many other features to boot!
One of the most annoying things about timekeeping is
daylight savings time corrections
, and this clock handles that with a manual switch. This can truly take care of all of your timekeeping needs! | 23 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1788139",
"author": "Irish",
"timestamp": "2014-09-05T02:15:25",
"content": "Take my money…I want one.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1788152",
"author": "Mart",
"timestamp": "2014-09-05T02:21:32",
"content": "wow ... | 1,760,376,079.649366 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/04/many-gave-their-lives-for-this-cargo-bike-to-be-re-born/ | Many Gave Their Lives For This Cargo Bike To Be Re-Born | Rich Bremer | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bike",
"bike hack",
"cargo bicycle",
"cargo bike",
"diy bike rack"
] | Cargo bikes are very specialized and you don’t see too many of them out on the streets because of that fact. Being uncommon also means they’re rather expensive if you wanted to buy a new one. Like any hardcore bike DIYer, [Mike] got around this issue by building his own out of a couple old bikes. His goal is to show car-dependent people that you
can
get away with biking most of the time, even if you need to move some stuff from place to place. The build process for this monster was so involved that it required two pages of documentation;
Part 1
and
Part 2
!
There are a few types of cargo bikes. There is the trike (seen often in regular or reverse trike varieties) with a bin between the 2 adjacent wheels. Two-wheeled options are usually either front loaders (the storage area between the rider and the front wheel) or those with rear racks. Mike’s bike is the latter.
He started with a 26″ wheeled bike that was already a
Frankenbike
of sorts, even the frame alone was a conglomeration of two separate bikes! To start, the rear wheel and chain was discarded. A kid’s mountain bike with 20″ wheels was disassembled and the head tube was cut off. The top and down tubes of the smaller bike were notched so that they fit nicely with the seat tube of the larger bicycle. The two frames were then welded together along with several pieces of support to make sure the bike stayed together through the rigors of riding. The rear rack is made up of some old bike frame tubes and some metal from the frame of a sofa that was being thrown out. Nothing goes to waste at Mike’s place! The 20″ kids bike rear wheel already had a 5 speed cassette so that was a no brainner to re-install. In the end, Mike has a bike that cost him zero dollars and shows the world it is possible to build a utilitarian bike and reduce your dependence on automobiles.
If cargo bikes are your thing, you may be interested in this
up-cycled cargo bike
, this one with a
huge front bucket
or maybe even this nifty
bike trailer
. | 27 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1787776",
"author": "pcf11",
"timestamp": "2014-09-05T00:07:28",
"content": "So, where exactly does Mike steal their MIG welding wire from? Because all the MIG wire I’ve ever gotten has cost me dollars, but not zero dollars.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,376,079.911225 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/04/levitating-speaker-plays-back-eerie-recordings/ | Levitating Speaker Plays Back Eerie Recordings | James Hobson | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"levitating speaker",
"levitation",
"Magnetic levitation",
"PID levitation",
"vtol"
] | Let’s face it, levitating anything is pretty fascinating — especially when you think there should be wires. This project puts a new spin on magnetic levitation by using a PID controller to
levitate a speaker while it plays music!
It uses the
standard levitation setup
— an electromagnet, a permanent magnet, and a hall effect sensor. A microcontroller implements the PID system, varying the current supplied to the electromagnet to keep the speaker floating at just the right height. Music is wirelessly transmitted to the speaker via Bluetooth, but unfortunately the speaker’s power is not. It features a small lithium ion battery which has a run-time of around 5 hours before it has to be recharged manually.
As you’ll notice in the following video, having a floating speaker has a pretty interesting effect — especially when it starts spinning.
It is possible to also wirelessly transmit power, like this
floating LED project
we saw awhile ago — but either way, it’s pretty cool. | 50 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "1786998",
"author": "Rusty Shackleford",
"timestamp": "2014-09-04T20:15:15",
"content": "What the hell is being played? Anything wrong with a plain old catchy tune?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1787749",
"author": ... | 1,760,376,079.848746 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/04/scribble-and-the-failings-of-tech-journalism/ | Scribble And The Failings Of Tech Journalism | Brian Benchoff | [
"Crowd Funding",
"Featured",
"News"
] | [
"Crowd Funding",
"crowdfunding",
"kickstarter",
"scribble",
"Scribble Pen",
"tech blogs",
"tech media"
] | The Scribble Pen, you may remember, is a project by bay area startup Scribble Technology that puts a color sensor and multiple ink reservoirs in a pen.
We’ve talked about it before
, right after they cancelled their Kickstarter campaign after netting 366% of their original goal.
Yes, they cancelled their campaign after being successfully funded. To Kickstarter’s credit, the Scribble team was asked to provide a better video of the pen demonstrating its capabilities. The team pulled the plug on the campaign, saying they’ll be back soon.
Here is the new campaign
. The attentive reader will notice the new campaign is
not
a Kickstarter project; instead, it is a Tilt campaign. What is Tilt? It’s a platform that allows for crowdfunding, fundraising, pooling, and other ‘many wallets into one’ Internet-based projects. It’s actually not a bad idea if you’re raising funds for a charity or the
Jamaican bobsled team
. For crowdfunded product development,
caveat emptor
doesn’t quite cover it.
With more than $200,000 in the bank, you would think the questions asked in
many comments on the old Kickstarter
would be answered. They were. Scribble put up a new video showing the pen drawing different colors of ink on a piece of paper.
This video was faked
. [Ch00f] at Drop Kicker took apart the new video frame by frame and found these – ahem – scribbles were inserted in post production. The video has since been replaced on the Tilt campaign page, but
evidence of Scribble deleting comments questioning this exists
.
Any idea of the Scribble pen being real has been put to bed. Kickstarter threatened to remove the campaign if a better video could not be produced within 24 hours. The Scribble team cancelled their campaign to regroup and put together a better video. In two weeks, the team was only able to produce a faked video. The Scribble pen does not exist.
Case closed, you might think. Digging into videos frame by frame will tell you a lot, but it won’t give you the full picture. We know
what
happened with the Scribble pen, but very little about the
who, why
, and
how
this huge, glaringly obvious fraud occurred. Before we get to that, hold on to your hats – it only gets shadier from here on out.
For months, the people behind Scribble have worked hard to ‘control the message,’ so to speak, not only of what their pen can do, but who is on the development team, and how far along they are in the development process. From the outside, Scribble appears to be a finely tuned corporate organism; official statements are only made through the Scribble Facebook account, Twitter account, and as comments on the now defunct Kickstarter. It’s an honestly stunning display of staying on message, but something that does not lead to any points of contact within Scribble.
Who then is behind Scribble? The company line is simply of a startup based in San Francisco that has been working for two years to bring this product to market. There are references to an engineer and color scientist on the Scribble team, but so far, only three people have lent their names to the company.
The People
In all the media coverage Scribble has gotten from dozens of tech blogs, we know of only three people who are officially part of the Scribble team. The founders and inventors of Scribble, [Mark Barker] and [Robert Hoffman] were mentioned and quoted by several media outlets. [Kevin Harrison], another member of the Scribble team, has only been mentioned
in a piece by The Guardian
that has since been picked up and copied by a number of other tech and design blogs. Not one of these three people can be found on LinkedIn as being employed by Scribble, or even working in the San Francisco area in a tech startup. Outside of the many blog posts on the Scribble pen, these people do not exist on the Internet.
A Registered Company
Not being able to identify the founders and employees of a company is one thing, but not being able to identify the company itself is another matter entirely. Searching through the California state records for businesses using the word “scribble” in their name, only one such business hails from San Francisco. This business was registered over twelve years ago, and is obviously not the Scribble in question. The fact that Scribble is not a business licensed by the state of California is not evidence it is not a business
in
California, though; smart startups would probably register in either Delaware or Nevada. Here again, Scribble is not to be found. In fact, in all fifty states, there is no record of a company named Scribble registered in the past two years.
There is one reason why Scribble can not be found in any state registry of businesses: Scribble could be ‘Doing Business As.’ This means the founders of the company would be held personally liable for any legal action taken against the company. If Scribble does not fulfill its preorders, anyone who contributed to this campaign could file a suit, get a judgement against the owners of Scribble, and get a sheriff’s deputy to clean out their house. This would be a shocking display of ignorance on behalf of the Scribble team. I simply can not imagine anyone lacking in business sense so much they would open themselves up to this sort of liability.
Trademarks
With any sort of business that is developing something new and novel, it’s a good idea to have a trademark for your business and your product. Lucky, then, that
we can search for US Trademarks
. There are a few registered trademarks for products called ‘Scribble’ – a toy scooter, eyeliner, and one for corrugated paperboard making machines.
This does not prove there is not a trademark application for a Scribble pen – considering the Scribble Facebook page was set up in May of this year, we’re right on the threshold of when the trademark application would be published. Given the lack of a registered business, and any sort mention on the Internet of the people working on Scribble, it’s improbable there are any trademark applications pending.
More transparency than Kickstarter, at least
A few people at Tilt, the company powering Scribble’s current crowdfunding campaign, have been looking into the people and the company. In fact, the CEO of Tilt is looking into it personally:
This has been escalated within the tilt team, and I’m looking into this personally
@writermfranco
@dropkickerblog
http://t.co/E15glca5oJ
— James Beshara (@jjbeshara)
September 3, 2014
The failings of tech journalism
The last time we mentioned the Scribble pen
, I noticed something strange about their campaign. They used the Hackaday logo when the only thing ever published here was
a single paragraph
in a links post calling the entire project ridiculous.
Like many Kickstarters, they had a few logos of blogs and other media outlets below the fold, put there a statement of legitimacy. “These are trusted members of the fourth estate,” the creators of Scribble must have told themselves, “surely telling the world we have the approval of these fine upstanding establishments will lend us an air of credibility and legitimacy.”
There’s a problem with this. When the only thing tech bloggers and journalists have to go on are a few videos, a media kit, and a Kickstarter campaign, the only information available comes directly from the project creators. This inevitably leads to a deafening echo chamber where the same facts are repeated ad nauseam.
The idea of a color picking pen
has been around for years
, with thousands of people ready to throw their money into a hole in the hopes of getting their hands on one. It makes for great blog fodder and grabs eyeballs, but plugging a Kickstarter simply by repeating what a press release says does the public a grave disservice. Even the more respectable media outlets failed in this regard; the longest articles on Scribble added a little to their page length simply by interviewing the inventors who I’m not sure actually exist. The Guardian, in fact, interviewed someone who was never before mentioned as a member of the Scribble team. Remember, The Guardian is one of the best and most trustworthy news organizations on the planet and published information that cannot be independently verified.
Given the vast number of tech and design blogs in the last month reporting on the Scribble pen, someone must be held responsible for correcting these grave errors. This responsibility falls on us and other excellent blogs like
Drop Kicker
.
If the technical wizards and cognoscenti of electrons reading this come across a project that just makes you shake your head, do a little preliminary research and
tell us what you’ve found
. Since no other media outlet on the Internet is capable of doing so, we’ll do our best to scare the pants off these would-be scammers. | 79 | 33 | [
{
"comment_id": "1786481",
"author": "Michael Ciuffo",
"timestamp": "2014-09-04T17:08:29",
"content": "Excellent write up.For more detail on the “echo chamber”, you can check out my summary herehttp://drop-kicker.com/2013/12/kickstarter-project-creators-like-to-quote-people-who-summarize-their-words... | 1,760,376,080.024004 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/04/ping-pong-for-the-it-office/ | Ping Pong For The IT Office | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"capacitive sensing",
"ping pong",
"rfid"
] | The office environment over at [Adam]’s place of employment has recently become one of the many IT-related offices with a ping pong table, a cliché that he readily points out. However, [Adam] and the other folks at the office decided to step up their game a little bit by making this
automated ping pong table
.
The table first keeps track of the players with specialized RFID tags that are placed in the handle of the paddles. The paddles are unique to each player, and when they are swiped past a reader on the table the scoring system registers the players at the table.
Small capacitive touch sensors on the underside of the table allow the players to increment their score when a point is made. The scoreboard is a simple but a very well-polished interface that has audio cues for each point. The system is also able to keep track of the winners and the overall records are tracked, allowing for office-wide rankings.
This is the best table-related game hack since the
internet-connected foosball table
, and should be welcome in any office for some extra break room fun at work! All of the code is available on the project site. | 5 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1786058",
"author": "Tiago",
"timestamp": "2014-09-04T14:32:25",
"content": "Awesome!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1786074",
"author": "MrX",
"timestamp": "2014-09-04T14:40:50",
"content": "Surely the next step is... | 1,760,376,080.061204 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/04/ask-hackaday-who-wants-an-all-dc-house/ | Ask Hackaday: Who Wants An All DC House? | Will Sweatman | [
"Ask Hackaday",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"ac vs dc",
"Electric power transmission",
"switch mode"
] | Sometimes when working on a righteous hack, we get goosebumps while watching our code execute faster than we could ever possibly comprehend. Seeing the pixels of the LCD come alive, hearing the chatter of relays and the hum of fans…it’s an amazing thing what electricity can do. And it is equally amazing when you realize that it all started one hundred and thirty five years ago, when [Thomas Edison] changed the world forever with the first practical electric light bulb.
That bulb was lit by a Direct Current – the same thing that runs the computer you’re reading this article on. The same thing that runs many of the hacks you read about here on Hack a Day, and almost all electronic devices in your house. But somewhere in the mix must exist a device that changes the Alternating Current from your wall outlet to the needed DC. Why? Why is it that we transport electricity as AC only to convert it to DC in our homes? You might answer:
“This argument was played out in the War of Currents back in the 1880’s.”
Indeed, it was. But that was a long time ago. Technology has changed. Changed so much to the point that the arguments in the
War of Currents
might no longer be valid. Join us after the break, where we rehash these arguments, and explore the feasibility of an all DC environment.
Let’s see…110 AC in, 5V DC out, 1000ma…this should work. Quick check with the meter to make sure it’s actually 5V and not 50 and you’re up and running. Each and every one of us has done this at some point in our lives. But why do we have to? Is there any reason we can’t have DC outlets? We’ve seen USB ports
built into outlets
while strolling the isles of our favorite hardware stores, but most are unlikely to be switch mode supplies.
You would still need AC for kitchen appliances and such. But consider changing these over to DC. Imagine a house where everything ran on DC!
Let’s take it further and imagine running DC from the power station to your house. This brings us back to the War of Currents. We all know that it’s relatively easy to step AC voltage up and down. You just need a transformer. But it’s not that easy with DC, so running DC over long distances is just not practical. Indeed, this was true in the late 1800’s. But is it true today? The technology exists to step up DC to higher voltages. But can we do so efficiently?
Lots of questions still remain. Be sure to sound off in the comments on the idea of an all DC house. Good idea? Or not so good idea? | 268 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "1785442",
"author": "Nickson Yap",
"timestamp": "2014-09-04T11:04:03",
"content": "I’ll someday have an all-DC house that runs on solar or some other energy source nearby.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1785463",
"aut... | 1,760,376,080.614728 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/04/extrinsic-motivation-an-open-modular-effects-pedal/ | Extrinsic Motivation: An Open, Modular Effects Pedal | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"effects pedal",
"guitar",
"the hackaday prize"
] | Microcontrollers and Arduinos are cool and all, but dealing only in the digital domain does have its limitations. In fact, most of your electron heroes didn’t begin their electronics career by blinking pins on digital outputs; they were solely in the analog domain with their radios and, yes, guitar effects pedals.
[Josh]’s entry for The Hackaday Prize was by far the most analog project of the entire contest. It’s
an open source effects pedal
that takes advantage of the modular design of the most popular pedals in history.
A good number of the famous circuits for turning an electric guitar into an aural experimentation are based on small circuit modules, packaged and repackaged again until the desired tone is achieved. [Josh] wants to pack these modules separately on different boards, specifically shields, although no Arduino is used, so any sound can be created.
Already [Josh] has done some research to determine what circuits and circuit modules to clone. The list should be fairly familiar to anyone with a pedalboard – Tube Screamers, Fuzz Faces, Big Muffs, and Phase 90s are at the top of the list. He may not get to the complicated digital effects like pitch shifters and digital delays, but it’s still a great project for experimentation.
You can see [Josh]’s project video below.
This project is
an official entry
to The Hackaday Prize that sadly didn’t make
the quarterfinal selection
. It’s still a great project, and worthy of a Hackaday post on its own. | 18 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1785106",
"author": "James",
"timestamp": "2014-09-04T08:51:03",
"content": "Great concept. I’d like to see a very simple 3 or 4 knob platform using standard header connectors so that modules can be built on vero board or PCB.This is similar, but much more proprietary. It never saw... | 1,760,376,080.231228 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/03/tricking-tinder-with-a-3d-printed-finger/ | Tricking Tinder With A 3D Printed Finger | Matt Terndrup | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"Arduino Uno",
"inmoov",
"tinder"
] | Online matchmaking has taken the internet by storm as mobile dating applications like Tinder attempt to take the work out of locating a soul mate. As of mid-2014, Tinder is rumored to have around 10 million daily active users making it a prime target for automated spam bots. The real spammers surely use coded attacks, but this robot is a fun example of a hardware-based attack. [Andrew] built it to be an
automatic heart-shaped, button presser
.
The device began as a single finger robot-hand project that was inspired by ‘InMoov’, which as their website states is “
the first life-size humanoid robot you can 3D print and animate.
” An Arduino Uno and servo motor laid the foundation for the system. After which, the joints of the 3D printed finger were assembled in place so that a touchscreen stylus could be attached. Once coded, the little robot was able to ‘like’ a new profile every 4 seconds. This adds up to approximately 900 likes per hour.
The project is cute, and shows one way that fake profiles can be elevated on the Tinder platform. An article written on Symantec’s blog describes a few other instances of
spammers flirting with you via the Android app
. This post is a continuation of an article released a year prior, yet Tinder has not addressed the issues relating to fake profiles since then.
Let’s try to focus in on the good. With a bit of additional ingenuity, this device could be transformed into a love searching robot that could choose between people. Get a camera hooked up with a face-recognition program, and add some user preferences so that the robot isn’t just hitting ‘like’ over and over, and we might be able to get some interesting research done. Still, it feels like it would be better to go meet people face-to-face.
Check out the video of the bot in action after the break, then let us know what other silly things you could do by targeting different apps. | 19 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "1784045",
"author": "Pat Hartl",
"timestamp": "2014-09-04T02:04:46",
"content": "Kinda cool to see the articulation, but couldn’t you just do this with the stylus strapped to a motor?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1784228",
... | 1,760,376,080.286471 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/03/thp-semifinalist-the-moteino/ | THP Semifinalist: The Moteino | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Radio Hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"434 mhz",
"868 MHz",
"915 MHz",
"home automation",
"internet of things",
"moteino",
"radio"
] | One of the apparent unofficial themes of The Hackaday Prize is the Internet of Things and home automation. While there were plenty of projects that looked at new and interesting ways to turn on a light switch from the Internet, very few took a good, hard look at the hardware required to do that.
[Felix]’s Moteino is one of those projects
.
The Moteino is based on the Arduino, and adds a low-cost radio module to talk to the rest of the world. The module is the HopeRF RFM12B or RFM69. Both of these radios operate in the ISM band at 434, 868, or 915 MHz. Being pretty much the same as an Arduino with a radio module strapped to the back, programming is easy and it should be able to do anything that has been done with an ATMega328.
[Felix] has been offering the Moteino
for a while now
, and already there are a few great projects using this platform. In fact, a few other Hackaday Prize entries incorporated a Moteino into their design;
Plant Friends
used it in a sensor node, and
this project
is using it for texting and remote control with a cell phone.
The project featured in this post is
a semifinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1784343",
"author": "Spacedog",
"timestamp": "2014-09-04T03:50:49",
"content": "range?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1784909",
"author": "null",
"timestamp": "2014-09-04T07:16:26",
"content": "Some us... | 1,760,376,080.337405 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/03/goliath-and-the-rough-road-to-space/ | Goliath And The Rough Road To Space | Adam Fabio | [
"News",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"Goliath",
"semifinalist",
"the hackaday prize"
] | No one said the road to The Hackaday Prize would be easy. Many of us have been following [Peter McCloud] as he vies for the Hackaday Prize with
Goliath – A Gas Powered Quadcopter
. [Peter] literally hit a snag on Monday:
his own belts
.
Peter had hoped to be performing tied down hover tests by Monday afternoon. Weather and a set of fouled spark plugs conspired against him though. After fighting with engine issues for the better part of a day, [Peter’s] 30 horsepower Briggs & Stratton engine finally roared to life. Then all hell broke loose.
[Peter] only let the engine run a couple of seconds before cutting the ignition. In his own words, “Things were running good until the engine was shutoff. At this point one of the belt started losing tension.”
While the tight new engine was quickly losing RPM, the propeller and belt system still had quite a bit of inertia. As the video after the break shows, the belts started flapping and caught on the propeller blades. The front right prop tip caught the double-sided toothed belt, pulling it up and over the propeller. The other end of that same belt lives on the right rear prop. It too caught a propeller blade, snapping the composite blade clean off its hub. The bent steel pulley axles are a testament to the forces at work when things went wrong.
[Peter] isn’t giving up though. He has a plan to add belt guides and a one way bearing to the engine’s crankshaft. The one way bearing will allow the rotor system to overspeed the engine when throttle is reduced. The same bearings are commonly used on R/C helicopters to facilitate
autorotation
landings.
We want to see all 50
Hackaday Prize semifinalists
succeed, so if you have any ideas to help with the rebuild, head over to
Goliath’s Hackaday.io page
and let [Peter] know!
The project featured in this post is
a semifinalist in The Hackaday Prize. | 49 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "1783221",
"author": "Kevin",
"timestamp": "2014-09-03T20:19:39",
"content": "Bummer Back to the the Bench , but looking great still",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1783258",
"author": "Nicholas Dalziel",
"timestamp": "20... | 1,760,376,080.704602 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/03/retrotechtacular-time-for-coffee/ | Retrotechtacular: Time For Coffee | Kristina Panos | [
"Retrotechtacular"
] | [
"ap",
"brazil",
"coffee",
"coffee beans",
"coffee production",
"coffee roasting"
] | If you ask us, it’s almost always a good time for coffee. In the spotlight this week is an
educational/promotional film made by A&P
, who started in the 1800s as with a chain of shops offering coffee and tea. By the 1950s, they were operating full self-serve grocery stores with a trail of shuttered mom and pop operations in their wake.
This is the story of coffee as it goes from the nursery to the field to the shelves of your local A&P. It covers the growing, cultivation, and distribution of coffee from South American crops that at the time covered more than one million square miles of Brazil alone.
Coffee trees leave the nursery at two years old and are planted in nutrient-rich red soil. Two to three years later, they bear their first crop. Coffee blossoms appear first, and the fruit ripens over the next 8-9 months. Skilled workers pick the berries by hand. We are told that the average tree produces one pound of roasted coffee per year.
The day’s harvest is collected, weighed, and bagged for further production. The fruits are crushed to remove each bean from its red jacket. Then, the beans are washed and spread out in the sun for 8-10 days. They are frequently rotated so they dry evenly. The dried coffee is packed in bags and sent into the city.
At a warehouse, the coffee is inspected, sorted, and graded. Bags are stamped with the coffee’s country of origin and intended destination before going to the seaport. A very important step happens here. As each bag walks by on the shoulders of a worker, another guy stabs it to get a sample of the beans. The on-site A&P officials take over at this point and do their own inspections, sending samples to the US. Here, the coffees are roasted and taste tested for both strength and flavor from a giant lazy Susan full of porcelain cups.
The film takes a brief detour to tell us that the great cities of Latin America were built upon the labors of coffee exportation. We see a montage of vistas, skylines, and shorelines, which bring it back to the subject of shipping the coffee to various ports of call. At the dock, bags are tumbled onto large nets to be loaded on the ship. As coffee is susceptible to moisture, special care is taken to avoid the ill effects of traveling out of the tropics.
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
. | 24 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "1782718",
"author": "F",
"timestamp": "2014-09-03T17:08:11",
"content": "A&P was the most incompetent grocery store chain everGo for a vacation in the Adirondacks, why are there no grocery stores anywhere? A&P, that’s why.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,376,080.767339 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/03/ben-krasnow-hacks-a-scanning-electron-microscope/ | [Ben Krasnow] Hacks A Scanning Electron Microscope | Adam Fabio | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"Applied Science",
"ben krasnow",
"scanning electron microscope",
"sem"
] | [Ben Krasnow] is quite possibly the only hacker with a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) collection.
He’s acquired a JEOL JSM-T200
, which was hot stuff back in the early 1980’s. [Ben] got a great deal, too. He only had to pay shipping from Sweden to his garage. The SEM was actually dropped during shipment, but thankfully the only damage was a loose CRT neck plug. The JSM-T200 joins [Ben’s]
homemade SEM
, his
DIY CT scanner
, the
perfect cookie machine
, and a host of other projects in his lab.
The JSM-T200 is old tech; the primary way to store an image from this machine is through a screen-mounted Polaroid camera, much like an old oscilloscope. However, it still has a lot in common with current SEMs. In live video modes, an SEM can only collect one or two reflected electrons off a given section of a target. This creates a low contrast ghostly image we’ve come to associate with SEMs.
Attempting to fire more electrons at the target will de-focus the beam due to the electrons repelling each other. Trying to fire the electrons from higher voltages will just embed them into the target. Even SEMs with newer technology have to contend with these issues. Luckily, there is a way around them.
When “writing to photo”, the microscope switches to a slow scan mode, where the image is scanned over a period of a minute. This slower scan gives the microscope extra time to fire and collect more electrons – leading to a much better image. Using this mode, [Ben] discovered his microscope was capable of producing high-resolution digital images. It just needed a digital acquisition subsystem grafted on.
Click past the break to see how [Ben] modernized his microscope!
Using the schematic, [Ben] connected his Tektronix MDO3000 series oscilloscope to the video signal of his SEM. Tek was kind enough to give this model to [Ben], [Dave Jones], and several other prominent hackers. We’d love to try one out too, but we’re pretty sure we’ve been permanently placed on their naughty list.
By triggering on the SEM’s vertical refresh, [Ben] was able to capture an entire image into the scope’s memory. He exported the data to a USB stick and loaded it into
GNU Octave
, He wrote a simple script to search for the horizontal refresh pulse and build up a raster image. The results are stunning, to say the least. [Ben’s] was able to capture the classic fly eye without first plating the fly with metal, as is normally required for SEMs.
We can’t wait to see what [Ben] comes up with next! | 32 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "1782257",
"author": "Reinis Veips (@festlv)",
"timestamp": "2014-09-03T14:13:14",
"content": "Whenever I see a new article on Ben’s blog, I know it will be cool (“homebrew LCD”, “DIY SEM” cool). Haven’t been disappointed yet :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies":... | 1,760,376,080.887579 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/03/extrinsic-motivation-basic-for-bluetooth/ | Extrinsic Motivation: BASIC For Bluetooth | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"Radio Hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"basic",
"bluetooth",
"bluetooth LE",
"bluetooth low energy",
"cc2540",
"cc2541"
] | There’s a lot more to those fancy radio modules you use with your Arduino projects than meets the eye. Many of them are systems on a chip, complete with their own microcontroller and memory that can control your entire blinking LEDs project. Developing for these radio modules is a bit of a challenge, as the IDEs and compilers cost several thousand dollars. [Tim]’s
entry for the Hackaday Prize
looks at one of these Bluetooth LE modules – Texas Instrument’s CC2540 and CC2541 – and puts an embedded BASIC interpreter right on the chip.
[Tim]’s inspiration for this project came from looking at a few popular devices using the CC254X chip. Many of these included a microcontroller and the added costs, complexity, and power requirements that come along with an additional chip. This radio module could easily run any code an ATMega could, and adding another chip to a product seemed like a terrible waste, and certainly not in the spirit of open hardware and software.
The alternative is writing an interpreter for the CC254X chip. He’s chosen BASIC, but added a little bit of Arduino language syntax to make it even easier to develop on. Having already run through a few successful tests involving SPI, I2C and 1-wire devices, [Tim] has a basic system working, but [Tim] admits it does need a little rework to make it easier to use.
It’s a great project, and personally astonishing that it didn’t make the quarterfinal selection for The Hackaday Prize. [Tim] is still working on his project, though, in a great example of extrinsic motivation; he doesn’t need a trip to space to convince him to build something cool.
You can check out [Tim]’s two minute concept video below.
This project is
an official entry
to The Hackaday Prize that sadly didn’t make
the quarterfinal selection
. It’s still a great project, and worthy of a Hackaday post on its own. | 24 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "1781845",
"author": "gravatarnonsense",
"timestamp": "2014-09-03T11:22:03",
"content": "It has long struck me as odd why nobody has simply ported the arduino environment to these SoICs I have seen one project that measures water levels using ultrasonic. It uses an ultrasonic module ... | 1,760,376,081.116321 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/03/soundwave-tunes-up-your-portable-workbench/ | Soundwave Tunes Up Your Portable Workbench | Adam Fabio | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"Generation 1",
"portable",
"SoundWave",
"tool box",
"toolbox",
"transformers",
"workbench"
] | [Tez_Gelmir] built an
awesome portable workbench
. Not satisfied with just mundane designs, he patterned his box after Soundwave from the classic Transformers: Generation 1 series. This portable bench keeps his tools organized and ready to roll out.
[Tez] has all the basic tool groups covered – screwdrivers small and large, pliers, crimpers, soldering iron, fume extractor, vice, and wire spool. He’s also got room for parts boxes to hold his components.
The basic box is built from a single sheet of 7mm plywood. The front work area is a smaller piece of 12mm plywood. Working with 7mm plywood did prove to be a challenge – [Tez] had to use some very small screws for his hinges. The basic box construction was easy though – [Tez] used a pneumatic nailer and PVA (wood) glue.
[Tez] used a number of 3D printed parts in his design. He kept the Transformer theme going with a Decepticon logo built into his screwdriver holder. The fume extractor and lamp were also especially clever – [Tez] mounted them to drawer sliders, so they are there when he needs them, and out of the way when he doesn’t.
[Tez] spent quite a bit of time setting up his power system, and it shows. The inside of the box is framed with four power points. The main cord has its own “mouse door”, and everything tucks neatly away when not in use.
The Soundwave paint job is what sets this box apart – [Tez] spent quite a bit of time getting everything just right. It looks like
Ravage
is ready to spring out at any moment.
We really love this setup – Our only suggestion would be to add some sheet metal to protect the corners of the box while in transit.
Via Instructables | 27 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "1781396",
"author": "Sugapes",
"timestamp": "2014-09-03T08:11:25",
"content": "This is way too cool! But it is missing actual sound…To top it up I would just add a simple radio to it, or a pair of speakers and a smartphone dock!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies"... | 1,760,376,080.95053 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2014/09/02/arduino-powered-alarm-system-has-all-the-bells-and-whistles/ | Arduino-Powered Alarm System Has All The Bells And Whistles | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"alarm",
"arduino",
"arduino mega",
"gsm",
"i2c",
"rfid",
"security"
] | Put aside all of the projects that use an Arduino to blink a few LEDs or drive one servo motor. [IngGaro]’s latest project uses the full range of features available in this versatile microcontroller and has turned an Arduino Mega into a
fully-functional home alarm system
.
The alarm can read RFID cards for activation and control of the device. It communicates with the front panel via an I2C bus, and it can control the opening and closing of windows or blinds. There is also an integrated GSM antenna for communicating any emergencies over the cell network. The device also keeps track of temperature and humidity.
The entire system can be controlled via a web interface. The Arduino serves a web page that allows the user full control over the alarm. With all of that, it’s hard to think of any more functionality to get out of this tiny microcontroller, unless you wanted to add a
frickin’ laser
to REALLY trip up the burglars! | 24 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1781539",
"author": "Johnny",
"timestamp": "2014-09-03T09:08:49",
"content": "Cool. I wonder how difficult it would be to scrap the RFID system and work with a wi-fi hotspot using WPA2 that unlocks when authenticated with the MAC address of your phone. Would it be more or less secur... | 1,760,376,080.824586 |
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