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https://hackaday.com/2013/08/18/building-an-accurate-equal-arm-balance/ | Building An Accurate Equal Arm Balance | Mike Szczys | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"balance",
"level",
"mass",
"weight"
] | This interesting take on weights and measures uses
a two foot long level as the base for a diy equal arm balance
. The balance is the oldest method used for measuring mass. That’s because you don’t even need a reference weight for it to work as long as you are measuring ingredients that are proportional to each other in whole numbers.
The key to accuracy with these scales is to reduce friction at the fulcrum. In this case the fulcrum is made of two upturned razor blades on the base, with a single razor blade resting perpendicular to those on the arm. But because gravity is doing the equalization, the base must be as level as possible. Adjustable feet were added to the base so that it can be leveled on two axes. When the tower at the center was built (using threaded rod) a disc level was used to fine-tune the mounting angle of the two razor blades. The finishing touches include a coupling nut on each end for fine-tuning the balance, and the halves of a tea ball strainer as the weighing vessels. | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1044097",
"author": "matt",
"timestamp": "2013-08-18T18:16:14",
"content": "God instrucibles is a horribly designed site intentionally setup to maximize page views, and used by people who lack the knowledge to use a WYSIWYG editors or common blogging software. Why am I not surprised... | 1,760,376,481.532875 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/18/liquid-nitrogen-finally-makes-an-arduino-project-cool/ | Liquid Nitrogen (finally) Makes An Arduino Project Cool | Mathieu Stephan | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"liquid nitrogen",
"overclocking"
] | At $1.5 a liter in Moscow, [Michail] couldn’t resist buying some liquid nitrogen for himself. He thought that because Arduinos were quite popular among geeks, he’d try to
overclock one
while bringing its temperature down to -196°C/-320°F.
To check the ATmega was still working correctly, [Michail] designed several stability tests: SRAM read/write, flash read, arithmetic math and program flow tests (code with some conditionals). He used a standard HD44780 LCD to view the tests results but also an LED, blinking the number of the test it would have failed. The Arduino was externally clocked by a TTL-logic based square signal generator he designed, which can produce a clock between 16 and 100MHz. It turns out that you can run an Arduino at
65.3MHz
when it is cooled with liquid nitrogen!
[Michail]’s article also explains what happens to the different on-board components when cooled with LN2: electrolytic capacitors becomes virtually non-existent, X7R capacitors’ impedance drop by 2/3, silicon diodes voltage drop increase by 50% and LED’s colors change. Check out the video below: | 41 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "1044031",
"author": "polytechnick",
"timestamp": "2013-08-18T15:17:32",
"content": "Dude has some guts! “Little liquid nitrogen in your backpack never hurt anyone” . Then, on the video, he’s practically dipping his fingers into the vat …Why is LED color changing under low temp?",
... | 1,760,376,481.381625 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/18/tearing-down-an-ultrasound-machine-from-1963/ | Tearing Down An Ultrasound Machine From 1963 | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"medical devices",
"teardown",
"ultrasound"
] | Vintage electronics are awesome, and old medical devices doubly so. When [Murtaugh] got his hands on an old ultrasound machine,
he knew he had to tear it apart
. Even if he wasn’t able to bring it back to a functional state, the components inside make for great history lesson fifty years after being manufactured.
This very primitive ultrasound machine was sold by Siemens beginning in 1963 as a, “diagnostic ultrasound unit for the quick evaluation of cerebral hemorrhage after accidents.” This is barely into the era of transistors and judging from [Murtaugh]’s teardown, nearly the entire device is made of vacuum tubes, capacitors, and resistors. The only solid state component in this piece of equipment is a bridge rectifier found in the power supply. Impressive stuff, even today.
In the end, [Murtaugh] decided this device wasn’t worth repairing. There were cracks all the way through a PCB, and he didn’t have any of the strange proprietary accessories anyway. Still, this junkyard score netted [Murtaugh] a bunch of old tubes and other components, as well as a nifty CRT that came with a wonderful ‘Made in West Germany’ label,. | 7 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1044039",
"author": "Ginsublade",
"timestamp": "2013-08-18T15:38:46",
"content": "It sure would make a nice crt clock…almost everything you need is probably in there already!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1044080",
"autho... | 1,760,376,481.57803 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/18/aquatop-is-a-touch-display-that-projects-images-on-water/ | AquaTop: A Gaming Touch Display That Looks Like Demon Possessed Water | Mike Szczys | [
"Multitouch Hacks"
] | [
"depth camera",
"Kinect",
"pool",
"projector",
"water"
] | Are you ready to make a utility sink sized pool of water the location of your next living room game console? This demonstration is appealing, but maybe not ready for widespread adoption.
AquaTop is an interactive display
that combines water, a projector, and a depth camera.
The water has bath salts added to it which turn it a milky white. This does double duty, making it a reasonably reflective surface for the projector, and hiding your hands when below the surface. The video below shows several different games being played. But the most compelling demonstration involves individual finger tracking when your digits break the surface of the water (show on the right above).
There is also a novel feedback system. The researchers hacked some speakers so they could be submerged in the tank, adding a large speaker with LEDs on it in the same manner. When fed a 50 Hz signal they make the surface of the pool dance. | 9 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "1044000",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2013-08-18T13:38:45",
"content": "That’s extremely cool, I can’t wait for someone to adopt this to a full sized pool!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1044003",
"author": "Paul",
... | 1,760,376,481.30494 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/17/preserve-your-garden-bounty-with-a-solar-food-drier/ | Preserve Your Garden Bounty With A Solar Food Drier | Mike Szczys | [
"cooking hacks",
"green hacks"
] | [
"solar dehydrator"
] | The [VelaCreations] family lives off the grid, getting the electricity that they actually use from solar and wind power. When they started looking for ways to preserve the fruit and vegetables now coming into harvest the electricity consumption and cost of a food dehydrator made them balk. What they do have plenty of at this time of year is sun and heat, so
they built their own solar food drier
.
The frame is made of welded square tube. They mention that you will have to alter it if you don’t have welding tools, but
building your own MOT welder
is just one more fun project to take on. The frame has wood rails to hold the trays of food. It is enclosed with translucent polycarbonate sheets. There is a vent in the top as well as the bottom. As the heat from the sun builds inside, it flows upward, sucking fresh air in the bottom. This carries away moisture from the food and can be regulated by adjusting the size of the bottom vent. | 19 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1043600",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2013-08-17T21:06:45",
"content": "Is your dehydrator consuming too much power? Just make an electric arc welder and you will be off the grid in no time!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,376,481.702158 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/17/motorized-skateboard-controlled-by-hand-gestures/ | Motorized Skateboard Controlled By Hand Gestures | Mike Szczys | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"accelerometer",
"atmega16",
"skateboard"
] | This rough-looking contraption is
a hand gesture controlled skateboard
which [Aditya] built using parts on hand. So far the sensor for hand gestures is connected by a control wire, but he hopes to transition to an RF unit at some point in the future.
Having access to a couple of high torque brushless motors is what turned him onto the project. He hit up a couple of Mechanical Engineer friends of his to help assemble the chassis and then started on the electronics side of things. A breakout board for an ATmega16 is mounted on the corner of the deck. It monitors an accelerometer which acts as steering as well as throttle. The accelerometer had been abused in a previous project so he had to add an extra switch to bolster his available inputs. We were glad to hear that he also included a kill switch, since putting the control of those motors in the hands of a damaged accelerometer is a bit sketchy.
We remember seeing
a similar trike design
a few years back. That one powered a single rear wheel while this one powers two wheels and uses a caster for the third. | 7 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "1043604",
"author": "RandyKC",
"timestamp": "2013-08-17T21:12:11",
"content": "It’s funny that there seems to be a certain zeitgeist that is reached in projects. Before all the pieces are in place, nothing. Then after some little part or doodad hits the market or hits it at a reason... | 1,760,376,481.784241 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/17/here-be-dragons-and-vr-and-sheep/ | Here Be Dragons, And VR…and Sheep. | Marsh | [
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"Kinect",
"oculus rift",
"Unity3d",
"video games"
] | This may qualify less as a hack and more as clever combination of video game input devices, but we thought it was well worth showing off. [Jack] and his team
built
Dragon Eyes
from scratch
at the 2013 Dundee Dare Jam. If you’re unfamiliar with “Game Jams” and have any aspirations of working in the video game industry, we highly recommend that you find one and participate. With only 48 hours to design, code, build assets and test, many teams struggle to finish their entry.
Dragon Eyes
, however, uses the indie-favorite game engine Unity3D to smoothly coordinate its input devices, allowing players to experience dragon flight. The Kinect reads the player’s arm positions (including flapping) to direct the wings for travel, while the Oculus Rift performs its usual job as immersive VR headgear.
Combining a Kinect and a Rift isn’t particularly uncommon, but the function of the microphone is. By blowing into a headset microphone, players activate the dragon’s fire-breathing. How’s that for interactivity? You can see [Jack] roasting some sheep in a demonstration video below. If you have a Kinect and Rift lying around and want some first-person dragon action, [Jack] has kindly provided a download of the build in the project link above.
We’re looking forward to more implementations of the Rift; we haven’t seen many just yet. You can, however, check out a
Rift used as an aerial camera on a drone
. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1043544",
"author": "yetihehe",
"timestamp": "2013-08-17T18:56:23",
"content": "Now THAT would be a cool game. Expand this to do missions, maybe some dragon racing and I would buy oculus+kinect just to play this. Who wouldn’t want to fly like a real dragon?",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,376,481.431463 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/17/a-deck-screw-extruder/ | A Deck Screw Extruder | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"extruder"
] | A lot of great ideas happen in the middle of the night, and for [Werner] it’s no different. One night he came up with an idea
for a new 3D printer extruder
, and after a very basic prototype, we’d have to say he might be on to something. It’s basically a deck screw acting as a worm gear to drive filament, but this simple idea has a lot of really cool advantages.
There are two really interesting features of this extruder, should [Werner] ever decide to flesh out his idea into a real prototype. First, the stepper motor for this extruder can be extremely small and mounted directly above the extruder. This opens up the doors to easily creating multi-extrusion printers that can handle more than one filament. Secondly, using a deck screw as a worm gear means there is a huge area of contact between the plastic filament and the driver gear.
Whereas the usual extruder setup only makes contact with the plastic filament along one or two splines of a hobbed bolt, [Werner]’s design drives the filament along the entire length of the deck screw worm gear. This could easily translate into much more accurate extrusion without all the fiddling around with springs and hobbed bolts today’s extruders have.
In any event, it’s a very interesting idea, and we’d love to see [Werner] or someone else make a functioning extruder with this design. | 28 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1043509",
"author": "Whosawhatsis? (@whosawhatsis)",
"timestamp": "2013-08-17T17:06:49",
"content": "Screw-driven extruders are older than dirt. We all laugh at (what used to be) BFB because they still use them. The problem with them is that they’re no good for fast reversal to prev... | 1,760,376,481.642904 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/17/one-pixel-video-game-rises-from-rgb-button-hardware/ | One Pixel Video Game Rises From RGB Button Hardware | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"game",
"gaussian curve",
"rgb button"
] | This project was completely component driven. [Christopher] and [Robert] wanted to try out buttons with an RGB backlight option. They found the one shown above, which looks fantastic. It should since it costs over twenty bucks in single units. What they came up with is
a one pixel video game
that works like a color matching version of Simon Says. The button will show you the target color for just a moment. The player then holds the button as it fades through colors. Releasing it at the right instant will produce a green flash, a wrong shade results in a red flash.
They went with an Arduino Mega for the project as that was within easy reach. A hunk of protoboard is used as a shield, it includes the button itself, connected through some current limiting resistors to the pins that drive the LED. There is also a tactile switch which actuates the AVR’s reset pin.
When trying to get the LED to fade through the full range of colors [Christopher] was hit with a common problem. Since our eyes don’t detect changes in low and high intensity light the same way, you can’t use linear changes in PWM and get a smooth result. He fixed this by using Gaussian curves to set the intensity levels. | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,376,481.73963 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/17/getting-spi-on-a-router/ | Getting SPI On A Router | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"router",
"spi",
"TPlink"
] | Cheap routers such a s the TP-LINK 703n and the TP-LINK MR3020 (seen above) can be used for much more than just connecting your laptop to your cable modem. They’re actually very small Linux boxes and with OpenWRT, you can control every aspect of these tiny pocket-sized computers. It’s frequently been suggested that these routers are awesome substitutes for the usual methods of getting Internet on a microcontroller, but how do you actually do that? The onboard serial port is a great start, but this also dumps output from the Linux console. What you need here is an SPI connection, and [ramcoderdude]
has just the solution for you
.
Linux already has a few SPI modules, but these are only accessible with kernel drivers. Traditionally, the only way to access SPI is to recompile the kernel, but [coderdude] created a kernel module that allows any device running the Attitude Adjustment OpenWRT image to dynamically allocate SPI busses.
He’s already submitted this patch to the OpenWRT devs, and hopefully it will be included in future updates. Very cool, we think, and something that can open a whole lot of doors for hacking up routers very easily. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1043451",
"author": "Hack Man",
"timestamp": "2013-08-17T15:22:11",
"content": "http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=60979What is the maximium reliable transmission length for 4 wire SPI?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,481.483019 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/17/hho-generator-makes-bubbles-that-go-boom/ | HHO Generator Makes Bubbles That Go Boom | Mike Szczys | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"electrolysis",
"hho"
] | Here’s [Phil] showing off the components he used to
make an HHO generator
. The device uses household items to generate hydrogen and oxygen from water using electrolysis.
He’s using a plastic Nesquik container as the vessel for his experiment. Inside is water doped with a bit of baking soda. The lid plays host to the majority of components. There are electrodes which stick through the lid of the container. To help boost the productivity of the generator these electrodes have several metal washers suspended between. It’s importnat to avoid a short circuit so they’re mounted with the plastic bolt from a toilet seat, and isolated using hot glue. A plastic tube used collects the gasses. You can tweak the ratio of what’s being collected by reversing the polarity of the battery.
It’s interesting to see soap bubbles lit on fire in the demo video. But there are more serious uses for this concept. People have been working on making it feasible to power cars from the hydrogen generated this way. We’ve also seen
a plastic bottle rocket powered from an HHO generator
, and there’s always the thought of building your own miniature dirigible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soYIMXUdHBo | 67 | 32 | [
{
"comment_id": "1043406",
"author": "BlueLaser",
"timestamp": "2013-08-17T13:18:06",
"content": "Can we please try to stay away from “fringe science.” Electrolysis produces oxyhyrogen: a stoicheometric blend of two diatomic gases (Oxygen and Hydrogen)… NOT some impossible thermodynamically unstab... | 1,760,376,482.79418 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/16/reverse-engineering-the-die-of-a-uln2003-transistor-array/ | Reverse Engineering The Die Of A ULN2003 Transistor Array | Mike Szczys | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"decap",
"decapping",
"reverse engineer",
"semiconductor",
"silicon"
] | We’re no strangers to looking at uncapped silicon. This time around it’s not just a show and tell, as
one transistor form a ULN2003 chip is reverse engineered
.
The photo above is just one slice from a picture of the chip after having its plastic housing remove (decapped). It might be a stretch to call this reverse engineering. It’s more of a tutorial on how to take a functional schematic and figure out how each component is placed on a photograph of a chip die. Datasheets usually include these schematics so that engineers know what to expect from the hardware. But knowing what a resistor or transistor looks like on the die is another story altogether.
The problem is that you can’t just look at a two dimensional image like the one above. These semiconducting elements are manufactured in three dimensions. The article illustrates where the N and P type materials are located on the transistor using a high-res photo and a reference diagram.
If you want to photograph your own chip dies there are a few ways to
decap them at home
. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "1042956",
"author": "N",
"timestamp": "2013-08-16T21:31:57",
"content": "This should be tagged with silicon not silicone (different things).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1043003",
"author": "Mike Szczys",
"t... | 1,760,376,482.13247 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/16/hackaday-staff-update/ | Hackaday Staff Update | Mike Szczys | [
"Featured"
] | [
"contributors",
"editors",
"staff",
"writers"
] | It’s been just over three weeks since
Supply Frame bought Hackaday
and a lot has been going on. Almost all of it has been behind the scenes as we make our way through the scaffolding that was built up over the years to run the site. I’ll share more on that as things develop. But now I’d like to introduce you to the staff.
We’ve actually had a staff page for about a year but I’m not sure it was ever announced.
Check out the Staff roll call
to see a picture and bio of each of our team members. [Brian Benchoff] and I make up the editorial team. [Eric Evenchick] joins us once again as a writer. And over the last couple of weeks we hired [Mathieu Stephan] (aka Limpkin), [Josh Marsh], and [Michael Ciuffo] (aka ch00f). The six of us come from a wide range of backgrounds. We have interests and skill sets that complement each other, and as we get used to working as a team this will equate to better features and more original content. Please join me in welcoming the new writers, and long live Hackaday! | 43 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "1042914",
"author": "kludgecraft",
"timestamp": "2013-08-16T19:09:06",
"content": "Very nice to meet all of you!It seems like the frequency of the hacks has been a lot higher the last few weeks. The new hires have something to do with that?Keep up the great work, guys!",
"paren... | 1,760,376,482.354867 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/16/electronic-wedding-attire-for-a-geeky-wedding/ | Electronic Wedding Attire For A Geeky Wedding | Mathieu Stephan | [
"hardware",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"Bill Porter",
"el wire",
"electroluminescence"
] | In the past we featured many projects that were used at [Bill] and [Mara]’s wedding. However we forgot the most important thing:
their electronically enhanced clothes
.
As you can see from the picture above, the wife opted for LEDs while the husband preferred Electro Luminescent (EL) wires/panels. The ATtiny based platform
LilyTiny
was picked to control all the LEDs, and
charlieplexing
was implemented as only 4 IO pins were available. Animations were made using
Vixen
and exported via a python script.
To power the EL wires, [Bill] hacked a Sparkfun EL battery pack/inverter. He removed the shell and took out the inverter part, reverse engineered the design enough to figure out how to bypass the onboard microcontroller that generated the on/off/blink function. Finally, he 3D printed enclosures to pack the electronics with one Li-Ion battery pack. A boost regulator was used to supply the 12v required by the EL panel power supply.
Don’t forget to also check out their
centerpieces
and
wedding invitations
that we previously featured. | 15 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1042888",
"author": "Cliff",
"timestamp": "2013-08-16T18:39:38",
"content": "Not at all a new concept, performers from world wide have done it before. Though bringing it to the wedding theme does seen like a fun idea",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
... | 1,760,376,482.450945 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/16/turning-anyone-into-a-casuality/ | Turning Anyone Into A Casuality | Brian Benchoff | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"propeller",
"triage",
"xbee"
] | EMTs and other first responders don’t just sit around waiting for a disaster to happen. If they need to train for a disaster – environmental, terrorist, or otherwise – they put together a mass injury simulation, or their version of a war game. As you can imagine, coordinating one of these simulations is a nightmare, but [David] came up with a way to simulate a casualty with
a few XBees, a Parallax Propeller, and a few RFID cards
.
This triage training simulator consists of an ‘acting coach’ on each simulated victim that includes a speech-to-text module that speaks instructions into the actors ear, a pulse simulator and a readout for vital signs that correspond to twelve major injuries. When an EMT triages a victim, they swipe an RFID card for each medical procedure they perform – intubating is one card, while a bandage is another – and all this is sent back to the coordinator’s tablet.
The coordinator has direct control over each of the actors through a two-way radio link, and can initiate changes in each victim, monitor a paramedic’s responses, and “escalate” the situation by setting off another simulated bomb.
All this is created with off-the-shelf hardware, vastly reducing the cost of this type of training device. An amazing application of what we usually consider to be just robot parts, and we’re happy for [David] to share it with us.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2nGL8isalI&w=580]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2nGL8isalI&w=580] | 8 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1042806",
"author": "Jstylen",
"timestamp": "2013-08-16T17:32:37",
"content": "Very cool. Gotta love a hack with the potential to save lives.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1042812",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2013... | 1,760,376,482.399597 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/16/change-the-tv-channel-over-ip/ | Change The TV Channel Over IP | Mike Szczys | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"Dreambox",
"LG",
"rs-232",
"serial"
] | [Mustafa Dur] wrote in to tell us about
his hack to control the television with a smartphone
. Now the
one-IR-remote-to-rule-them
hacks have been gaining popularity lately so we assumed that’s how he was doing it. We were wrong. He’s using his satellite receiver to provide the Internet connection. It pushes commands to his LG 47LH50 TV which has an RS-232 port.
The image above is the back of another LG television (it came from
a forum post about controlling the TV with a PC
). [Mustafa] is using a Dreambox DM800 satellite receiver which also has a serial port an he can telnet into it. He searched around the Internet and discovered that it should be possible to connect the two using a null modem cable. His initial tests resulted in no response, but a tweak to the com port settings of the box got his first command to shut off the television. After a bit of tweaking he was able to lock in reliable communications which he made persistent by writing his own startup script. From there he got to work on a Python script which works as the backend for a web-based control interface.
If you want to find out what else you can do with this type of serial connection
read about this hack
which used a script to try every possible command combination. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1042730",
"author": "KC2YXU",
"timestamp": "2013-08-16T16:42:50",
"content": "I did something very similar to this with my home theater setup, where I connected the RS-232 port on my tv to my HTPC. That way, I can control all of the telivision’s functions through XMBC.",
"paren... | 1,760,376,482.181932 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/16/turning-a-tiny-linux-box-into-a-synthesizer/ | Turning A Tiny Linux Box Into A Synthesizer | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"beaglebone",
"Csound",
"raspberry pi",
"synthesizer"
] | For all the cool things the Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, and other low-power Linux boards can do, there’s one thing we haven’t seen much of: creating music with software synthesizers. Yes, soft synths have been around for ages now, but compiling them for these ARM boards is something we haven’t seen much of (to say nothing of the Linux audio system). Luckily, [Paul] and [Trev] have put together a tutorial for
making synthesizers on these small Linux boards
using Csound, the premier audio programming language for Linux.
[Paul] and [Trev] have already put together a few Csound instruments that include a Vangelis-inspired synth, a Lorenz Strange Attractor FM synth, a drum machine, and a classic monophonic style synth. All these instruments are ready to play on a Raspi or BeagleBone and we’re sure we’ll see a few more applications of this great tool for creating musical instruments as more musicians are turned onto these small Linux boards. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1042603",
"author": "J Jinglehiemer",
"timestamp": "2013-08-16T15:11:05",
"content": "Hmmm, would be nice to be able to hear samples of these instruments….",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1042748",
"author": "F",
... | 1,760,376,482.576881 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/16/101459/ | Rock Solid PCB Mill Built At Home | Mike Szczys | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"mill",
"pcb"
] | Let’s all slow clap for [Daniel Taylor] who, after a long journey, got his
home built PCB mill up and running with remarkable precision
. That’s 10 mil traces with 0.5mm pitch pads. We’re impressed! The board will be used for breaking out the connections of an LCD screen he has on hand.
After seeing a CNC project as yesterday’s
Fail of the Week
it’s nice to look in on one like this that does some amazing stuff. In fact, [Daniel’s] creation has been working for months already. The link above is the project log he kept while hacking, tweaking, and retrofitting his rig to get the level of precision he was after.
Improvements include swapping out drawer slides for proper linear bearings and completely reworking the Z-axis along with a motor upgrade. For those that aren’t fans of the reading (how did you make it this far into this feature?) you can take
a quick look at his image gallery
which includes captions. | 41 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1042521",
"author": "AnotherHowie (@AnotherHowie)",
"timestamp": "2013-08-16T13:30:44",
"content": "Why would you slow-clap? His mill is working…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1042607",
"author": "Mike Szczys",
... | 1,760,376,482.530615 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/16/microcontrollers-and-node-js-naturally/ | Microcontrollers And Node.js, Naturally | Brian Benchoff | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"CC3000",
"javascript",
"node.js",
"Tessel"
] | We see a surprising amount of projects using Node.js, but despite this we haven’t seen much JavaScript running microcontrollers, even the ARM powered Raspi or BeagleBone. The folks at Technical Machine want to change that with a very cool dev board
designed to be an Internet-connected JavaScript running prototyping device
from the very beginning. It’s called Tessel, and brings some very cool tools to any maker’s workbench.
On board this little… board is an ARM Cortex-M3 running at 180 MHz, 32 Megs of Flash, 32 Megs of SDRAM, and a TI CC3000 WiFi module
that we’ve heard so much about
. The 16-pin GPIO can connect to other Tessel modules that allow for servos, accelerometers, micro SD cards, and a whole bunch of other sensors for just about any project imaginable.
Aside from having WiFi built in from the get-go, Tessel also has some Arduino compatibility, allowing it to work with existing shields and code. It seems pretty cool, and we can’t wait to get our hands on one when it launches in September. | 34 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "1042232",
"author": "Gordon",
"timestamp": "2013-08-16T11:08:25",
"content": "Hackaday did do a post on Espruino (another JS Microcontroller) last year:http://hackaday.com/2012/10/05/a-javascript-interpreter-for-arm-micros/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
... | 1,760,376,482.693421 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/15/imu-boards-as-next-gen-motion-capture-suit/ | IMU Boards As Next-gen Motion Capture Suit? | Mike Szczys | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"9-axis",
"bluetooth",
"IMU",
"mannequin",
"motion capture suit",
"motion tracking",
"processing"
] | This
guy takes a drink and so does the virtual wooden mannequin
. Well, its arm takes a drink because that’s all the researchers implemented during this summer project. But the demo really makes us think that suits full of IMU boards are the next generation of motion capture. Not because this is the first time we’ve seen it (the idea has been floating around for a couple of years) but because the sensor chips have gained incredible precision while dropping to bargain basement prices. We can pretty much thank the smartphone industry for that, right?
Check out the test subject’s wrist. That’s an elastic bandage which holds the board in place. There’s another one on this upper arm that is obscured by his shirt sleeve. The two of these are enough to provide accurate position feedback in order to make the virtual model move. In this case the sensor data is streamed to a computer over Bluetooth where a Processing script maps it to the virtual model. But we’ve seen similar 9-axis sensors in projects like
this BeagleBone sensor cape
. It makes us think it would be easy to have an embedded system like that on the back of a suit which collects data from sensor boards all over the test subject’s body.
Oh who are we kidding? [James Cameron’s] probably already been using this for years. | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1041517",
"author": "a_do_z",
"timestamp": "2013-08-15T21:12:30",
"content": "IMU: Inertial Measurement Unithttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_measurement_unit",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1041544",
"author": "Sphere",... | 1,760,376,482.629264 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/15/fail-of-the-week-the-follies-of-a-bootstrapped-cnc-mill/ | Fail Of The Week: The Follies Of A Bootstrapped CNC Mill | Mike Szczys | [
"cnc hacks",
"Fail of the Week",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"fail of the week"
] | Anyone who’s built their own CNC machine from scratch will tell you that it’s no walk in the park. Heck, even commercially available (but hobby priced) 3D printers are no picnic to get running reliably. This offering is the tale of how [Brian Amos]
failed at building a CNC mill
over and
over again
. But hey, that ‘over and over again’ part is what makes great hackers. He not only documented what didn’t work, but shows the hacks that he tried using to work through each scrape.
We think the most interesting bits are in his second post, but start with the first one (it’s a quick read) to get the background on the project. The real issues start with a common one: a bed that is severely unlevel compared to the cutting head’s axes. The solution is to use a sacrificial bed, milling it out to match the surface to the tool. This exposed the next issue which is a misaligned Z axis. Some give in the entire support structure means problems with slop and backlash. And there’s even a very creative spiral-cut coupler to help account for alignment issues between the lead screws and motors.
The nice thing about building a mill is that you can turn around a use it to mill more accurate replacement parts. Just keep telling yourself that as you toil away at a project that just won’t seem to work!
We’re already looking for next week’s fail post topic. Help keep the fun rolling by writing about your past failures and
sending us a link to the story
. | 34 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "1041460",
"author": "Hector",
"timestamp": "2013-08-15T19:07:13",
"content": "That is definately a woodworking 101 fail…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1041474",
"author": "Caleb Kraft",
"timestamp": "2013-08-... | 1,760,376,482.864751 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/15/stompy-the-18-foot-2-ton-hexapod-is-ready-for-production/ | Stompy, The 18-foot, 2-ton Hexapod Is Ready For Production | Brian Benchoff | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"hexapod",
"Project Hexapod",
"Stompy"
] | Over at the Artisan’s Asylum hackerspace in Somerville, MA, something terrifically awesome is happening. They’re building an 18-foot diameter, 2-ton ridable hexapod that can walk over a car. It’s called
Project Hexapod
and they need your help.
Over the last year or so, the team behind Project Hexapod has developed an amazingly inexpensive hydraulic control system for each of the six legs and created a 1:1 model of the leg fastened to a wheeled cart to get the kinematics down pat. Now, with thousands of pounds of steel already watercut for the legs, they’re turning to the community for a little help with the welding.
The Project Hexapod team estimates they have about 1100 hours of welding time in front of them. They’re looking for a few people around the Boston area that are familiar with steel fabrication and are willing to work on a two-ton robot that can walk over a Volkswagen Beetle.
The guys have put up a little
application form
if you meet those basic requirements. You can also check out
their Facebook page
for any announcements and a whole lot of pictures. | 22 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1041392",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2013-08-15T17:14:04",
"content": "http://morganzilla.com/equipment/logging-spider/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1041397",
"author": "S",
"timestamp": "2013-08-15T17:2... | 1,760,376,483.048424 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/15/your-hackerspace-needs-a-biology-lab-heres-the-inspiration/ | Your Hackerspace Needs A Biology Lab; Here’s The Inspiration | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"biology",
"genspace",
"nyc resistor"
] | When you think of Hackerspaces what pops to mind? For us it’s electronics first, then machining related stuff (3D printing, CNC milling), followed by welding, woodworking, auto mechanical, we could go on and on. But biology hacking doesn’t really make that list.
The New York based Genspace is a strong case
on why we should add a biology lab as a viable hackerspace option.
What are Hackerspaces other than a collection of tools and skilled members that helps to bring the mad scientists of the world out of their basements and into the light? Pretty much every Hackerspace teaches classes that are open to the public. This is basically a requirement of being a non-profit, but is also driven by the virtue of making knowledge open and available. Offering biology themed classes is an incredible tie-in for helping to see our young learners through to a career in the sciences.
Vice-President and Co-Founder [Daniel Grushkin] was inspired by college students who hack organisms for a one semester long project. He wanted to try his hand at it, but needed help with the resources. He gathered a few others who were interested and, with encouragement from NYC Resistor, they got
Genspace
up and running in Brooklyn. The organization holds safety as a top priority. Each new member learns about the Biosafety Level 1 guidelines used by the space. For less involved experiments they even use tools of their own making, like a glovebox similar to
this one
. | 23 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "1041363",
"author": "sean",
"timestamp": "2013-08-15T16:09:50",
"content": "aw only bsl-1 thats lame. All the fun stuff is 2 or above",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1041463",
"author": "Patrik D'haeseleer (@PatrikD)",... | 1,760,376,483.222688 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/15/bow-tie-kindly-suggests-that-you-back-off/ | Bow Tie Kindly Suggests That You Back Off | Marsh | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Microcontrollers",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"FLORA",
"led"
] | Everyone’s had their “personal space bubble” burst. You just wanted a friendly conversation, but now some overzealous blockhead is standing on your shoes and breathing in your face, making you guess what he had for lunch. Fortunately, [Grissini] has created
this sylish bowtie solution
. Stand too close (within 19 inches) and the LEDs come to life, flashing a warning that indicates a personal space violation. [Grissini’s] tie is 3D printed to accommodate most of the electronics, which snugly snap into place. The rest of the wiring appears to run through the neck strap and connect up to a battery pack hidden elsewhere. You can check out a brief description and demonstration in a video after the break.
We’ve seen this hack for the ladies:
[Jeri’s] dress performs a similar function
. We’re unsure, however, if these LEDs can deter your average socially-awkward space invader. What we’d really like to see is someone take these hacks to their logical conclusion and make a wearable out of
the non-lethal dazzler clone
…hopefully the victim would back up a step or two before they spewed.
If you’re lonely and want to encourage people to come closer, maybe
this LED bow tie will help
. Or, who knows, maybe it’s yet another way to scare people off. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "1041312",
"author": "ChalkBored",
"timestamp": "2013-08-15T13:29:02",
"content": "It looks like poorly made spy gear.Anyone who doesn’t know what it does, would assume it’s a bow-tie shaped camera.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,376,483.161356 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/14/controlling-a-railroad-with-an-mbed/ | Controlling A Railroad With An Mbed | Brian Benchoff | [
"ARM"
] | [
"mbed",
"model railroad",
"railroad"
] | The word hacking got its start with model railway clubs, and the state of the art belies the current advancements in computer control and very, very small microcontrollers. [Jim] put together
a great tutorial for driving model locomotives
with a microcontroller, in this case an ARM-powered mbed.
Low-end model locomotives are controlled with DC, so an H-bridge and a PWM out on the mbed makes sense to drive these trains. [Jim] wired up a Pololu H-bridge driver, connected it to his mbed, and everything ran great.
Rail switches are another matter entirely. These allow trains to move from one track to another, but having them go to the left or right requires powering a fairly high current solenoid with 15 to 24 volts. For this, [Jim] used
a MOSFET power control board
to switch the rails and came up with a pretty neat demo that shows a small locomotive going back and forth over a single rail switch.
There is another class of model locomotive – ones with Digital Command Control. This setup is just a small decoder chip that fits inside an engine and tells the locomotive to turn on a lamp or run a motor digitally, allowing the conductor to control multiple trains on the same track.
[Jim] goes through the basics of DCC using the mbed, allowing two trains to switch positions in a rail yard using computer control. It’s really cool stuff that leaves us wanting a little more room in the basement to start building a huge computer controlled model railway.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6oJ_3nrTJ0&w=580]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMA0reXSTiM&w=580]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MC5PbsC9eE&w=580] | 21 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1040879",
"author": "Nick",
"timestamp": "2013-08-14T23:52:11",
"content": "This is Awesome!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1040882",
"author": "Rob",
"timestamp": "2013-08-14T23:56:56",
"content": "As a geek and a ... | 1,760,376,483.107723 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/14/the-rpc-a-stand-alone-midi-workstation/ | The RPC: A Stand-alone MIDI Workstation | Marsh | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"midi",
"midi controller",
"raspberry pi",
"usb"
] | Not just another pretty enclosure, this shiny little red box is [Lauri’s]
stand-alone MIDI workstation
. The build uses an Arduino Mega 2560 to handle the MIDI inputs and outputs. It communicates via serial with a Raspberry Pi that acts as a sequencer and oversees all user interactions. The Pi’s SD card offers convenient storage for your work, though we wish it was easily ejectable from the front of the box and not trapped under the hood. [Lauri’s] RPC also squeezes in the necessary USB hub for the RasPi and an HDMI-to-VGA converter. As an all-in-one solution, this is a sleek little box that–once paired with some software for arpeggiators, chord harmonies, and scales–will be a handy MIDI sequencer with robust control ready to be conveniently mounted on your rack.
Now all you’ll need is something to plug in. Why not check out the
custom MIDI recorder
we featured last week, or the
organ-to-MIDI keyboard conversion
for inspiration.
[Thanks Teemu] | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1040830",
"author": "Bigdeal",
"timestamp": "2013-08-14T21:14:50",
"content": "Very nice polished look and interesting soundclips… I like it!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1040849",
"author": "ChalkBored",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,376,483.268865 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/14/3d-printering-where-can-i-get-the-cheapest-filament/ | 3D Printering: Where Can I Get The Cheapest Filament? | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"3D Printering",
"filament"
] | We’ve complained about the price of 3D printing filament, and cheered at
the machine that makes filament out of plastic pellets
. Still, the price of filament for our 3D printers is climbing ever higher, leaving us to wonder,
where can I get the cheapest filament
?
Now, I’m going to start this of by saying this is a work in progress. Canvassing suppliers on every continent for 1.75 and 3mm ABS and PLA for every possible color while accounting for different amounts of filament and shipping is a whole lot of work. Therefore, we’re going to do this in parts, first starting with how much it will cost
me
to get a kilogram of PLA shipped to my door. This should be a valid test for just about everyone in the USA.
The test criteria is simple: find a supplier of PLA on the Reprap wiki
printing material suppliers page
and figure out how much it would cost me to get 1 kg of white or natural PLA shipped
to my front door
. I’ve organized this in a spreadsheet (below) that contains the supplier, size (1.75 mm or 3mm), weight (usually 1 kg although some suppliers are about three ounces short), color, and price with shipping included.
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheet/pub” query=”key=0Al-qmKeQjYcHdGtZYlFGUmNxdTFsY0lRM2NrOHZYdUE&embedded=true” /]
As you can see, the cheapest place to get PLA filament is from eBay user kbellenterprises at $27 per kg. The mean price on this chart is $43.93, SD = $7.74.
Knowing that, the cheapest places to get filament – less than 1 standard deviation from the mean – are
kbellenterprises
,
Matter Hackers
,
Just PLA
,
Maker Geeks
,
Monoprice
, and
3D printing supplies
. Amazingly, kbellenterprises is two standard deviations below the mean price. Either this guy is selling junk – not likely given his eBay feedback rating – or running a business on eBay is a
whole
lot more efficient than starting a webstore from scratch.
The most expensive filament suppliers – more than 1 SD away from the mean – are
Ultimachine
,
Makerbot
, and
MakerGear
. For those of you complaining I didn’t test for normality, go ahead and run a chi-squared. I’ll put it up.
Like I said, this is a work in progress. If you find any errors or omissions, send them in on the tips line and I’ll correct it in the Google spreadsheet. | 105 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "1040772",
"author": "Scuffles",
"timestamp": "2013-08-14T19:10:09",
"content": "Interesting I’ve actually been thinking about changing to PLA as soon as my ABS runs out. So this speeds up my sourcing a good deal considerably.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [... | 1,760,376,483.622793 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/14/reactive-target-range-for-nerf-airsoft-etc/ | Reactive Target Range For Nerf, Airsoft, Etc. | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"airsoft",
"nerf",
"piezo",
"shooting range",
"target"
] | Taking the time to
build a reactive target range
really adds to the fun of toy weapons. It lets you move beyond just point and shoot to actual games of skill.
The project is anchored by an Arduino board. It connects to a piezo element on the back of each of these sheet metal targets. Detecting when a projectile hits the target works pretty much the exact same way
the ever popular Knock-block
works. To provide interactive enjoyment each target has an LED which, when lit, indicates that the target is active. From here it’s just a matter of coding to add different challenges. So far [Viktor Criterion] has implemented quick draw, timed, and rapid fire modes. The demo after the break shows off everything, including the slick modular design he came up with to make the system portable.
We’d love to see these targets mounted on motorized tracks. Each round would have the targets moving closer to you at a faster pace to keep you on your toes. | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "1140487",
"author": "Ken Miller",
"timestamp": "2013-12-20T19:05:31",
"content": "I am new to Audruio and would like to know if yo have a sample code for your reactive target system?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1631935",
... | 1,760,376,483.41151 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/14/unreadable-binary-epoch-clock-is-unreadable/ | Unreadable Binary Epoch Clock Is Unreadable | Mike Szczys | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"binary",
"epoch",
"unix time"
] | What time is it? For that matter, what is the date? This clock can tell you both of those things, if only you could read it. The inspiration for
this Binary Epoch kit
came after a friend of [Maniaclal Labs] built an eight-bit binary clock. That’s a pretty common project that gets riffed on for things like
mains-timed logic-driven clocks
. They figured why not make it bigger? But even then you can make some sense out of the display after studying it for just a bit, you won’t be much closer to answering those two questions.
The problem is that this is unreadable in a couple of different ways. First off, how long did it take you to figure out in your head the decimal equivalent of the binary number displayed above? We gave up. But pounding the number into Google (search for: 0b01010010000010000001001010010011 in decimal) gives us 1376260755. meaningful? Again, not to a human. This is
Unix time
, which is the number of seconds elapsed since the Epoch: 8/11/13-22:39:15.
Check out the video below that shows how to set the clock, which uses a menu system for human-friendly input. But since it’s Arduino compatible you can also connect an FTDI cable and program it from a computer. Oh, and since this is Open Source Hardware (note the icon in the lower right) you can get all the info to build (or breadboard) your own from
their Github repo
.
Here’s
another complicated clock that uses Nixie tubes
to display time and date info which is actually of use. | 38 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "1040594",
"author": "a",
"timestamp": "2013-08-14T16:09:42",
"content": "“since the Epoch: 8/22/13-22:39:15”Unix time, or POSIX time, is a system for describing instants in time, defined as the number of seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), Thur... | 1,760,376,483.48688 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/14/making-the-electronics-for-a-doppler-motion-sensor/ | Making The Electronics For A Doppler Motion Sensor | Mathieu Stephan | [
"hardware"
] | [
"Doppler effect",
"limpkin",
"pir",
"sensor"
] | There are many different sensors that can be used to detect motion in a given environment. Passive InfraRed (PIR) sensors are the most used today, as they work by detecting moving heat signatures. However, they are less reliable in the hotter days and obviously only work for animals and humans.
Sensors like the one shown in the above picture started to appear on the internet, they use the doppler effect to detect motion. I (limpkin)
designed the electronics
you need to add in order to get them to work.
Here is a simple explanation of the doppler effect: if you send an RF signal at a given frequency to a moving target, the reflected signal’s frequency will be shifted. It is commonly heard when a vehicle sounding a siren or horn approaches, passes, and recedes from an observer. The received frequency is higher (compared to the emitted frequency) during the approach, it is identical at the instant of passing by, and it is lower during the recession.
The Doppler motion sensor I bought only outputs a non-amplified signal of a few micro-volts, whose frequency represents the speed at which an object is moving towards or away from the sensor. The output can be very noisy, so in addition to amplifying the signal, I needed to filter out frequencies that don’t match what you can expect from ordinary objects.
I even made a simple video showing off the result:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0HEF08JTtI&w=580]
All the files can be downloaded from my website, and I also made a
fundraiser
where I mention the predicted costs. | 30 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "1040592",
"author": "Jstylen",
"timestamp": "2013-08-14T16:00:45",
"content": "Neat stuff. Sort of off topic, anybody else feel a need to face palm at those people that try to scream something out the window as they drive by? These people do realize that the sound that reaches me is... | 1,760,376,483.757156 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/14/playing-with-an-oscilloscope-youll-probably-never-own/ | Playing With An Oscilloscope You’ll (probably) Never Own | Mathieu Stephan | [
"hardware"
] | [
"Analog-to-digital converter",
"oscilloscope",
"Shahriar",
"Theory of Measurements"
] | We’ll have to admit that we were
really
jealous when [Shahriar] sent us a
video he made
, in which he casually explains how a $500,000 160GS/s 62GHz oscilloscope works and then starts playing with it.
Even though you need to be quite familiar with electronics to
fully
understand the oscilloscope’s inner workings, [Shahriar]’s step by step explanation is still approachable for those who only understand the basics.
In the first half of the video he uses the manufacturer’s documentation which contains the oscilloscope block diagrams, so you’ll also learn about:
timer interleaved Analog to Digital Converters (ADCs), which allows you to increase your input sampling rate by using several of them
phase-locked loops, which use a reference clock to generate a much faster clock signal
custom made dies and the materials used for high frequency electronic components
In the second half of the video [Shahriar] connects a pseudo random binary sequence generator and uses the oscilloscope to make several measurements that you’d typically want to know for high speed signals (jitters, eye quality factor…). He later performs a small experiment where he up-converts the frequency components of two random 3.12Gbit/s signals and tries to recall each original signal using the oscilloscope functions, making this part of the video a bit harder to keep up with. | 30 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "1040486",
"author": "Massimo",
"timestamp": "2013-08-14T13:06:23",
"content": "I will only buy one, if there is a flux compensator inside;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1040522",
"author": "Ryan",
"timestamp... | 1,760,376,483.686498 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/13/designing-a-pressure-sensitive-floor/ | Designing A Pressure Sensitive Floor | Mathieu Stephan | [
"hardware"
] | [
"attiny",
"beaglebone",
"i2c",
"pressure sensor"
] | [Sean] and his team at Adobe were asked to build “something new” for the Children’s Creativity Museum in San Francisco, so in several months they managed to build a digital/physical environment for kids called “Sense It”.
Part of this project involved designing and building a
pressure-sensitive electronic floor
which could detect if children were sitting, walking or running. As a camera based detection system couldn’t give them the type of precision they wanted, [Sean] decided to use pressure-sensitive resistors placed under MDF panels.
There are a total of twenty-one 2’x4′ tiles, each one including 8 pressure-sensitive resistors and an ATtiny84 based platform. All the microcontrollers digitize their 8 sensor signals and send their conversion results to a beaglebone over a shared i2c bus in a RJ45 CAT5 cable. As it is [Sean]’s first project, we will cut him some slack but several design mistakes have been made in our opinion:
Using i2c instead of RS485 / CAN for long distance data transmission
Digitizing the sensor voltages so far from them, as noise is added before the ADC
Sending the +5V required by the ATtiny in the RJ45 cable instead of a higher voltage (which would involve putting an LDO on the platforms)
Separating the digital and analog ground planes as the platform current consumption is low and transmission speeds slow
But the children who can now play with the complete system certainly won’t care. And you… what do you think of [Sean]’s work? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comment section below. | 37 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "1040033",
"author": "Jason Wright",
"timestamp": "2013-08-13T21:07:38",
"content": "Hey now, leave the nitpicking to the comment section Mathieu.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1040340",
"author": "Mathieu Stephan",
... | 1,760,376,483.841082 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/13/retrotechtacular-understanding-a-voltage-doubler/ | Retrotechtacular: Understanding A Voltage Doubler | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Retrotechtacular"
] | [
"retrotechtacular",
"voltage doubler"
] | This very stern looking gentleman is about to explain
how voltage doubles work
in a plodding, yet satisfyingly thorough manner.
We’re not certain when this US Air Training Command video was produced. Obviously it was used to train servicemen who were responsible for keeping electronics running during war time. We’re glad for that, as they really found just the right balance to present a concept that required some knowledge, but is approachable for even the most basic of new electronics hackers.
The demonstration board shown on the right is the voltage circuit highlighted in the lesson. Here the pointing stick is being used to trace out the circuit function during one phase of the input transformer. The capacitor/diode pairs rectify the voltage, with the capacitors discharging in
parallel
series to double the output voltage. But how does the variable load (RL) affect the output? This is demonstrated under several different conditions using an oscilloscope to illustrate the change.
The discussion of how the diodes work reminded us of a modern tutorial we just ran across this weekend. It’s a bit bizarre, but
explains the PN junction in a different way
than we’re accustomed to. In this case you will already need to be familiar with how semiconductors work to understand the presentation.
Both clips can be found below the jump.
[Thanks Katja] for the voltage double tip
PN Junction video found [via
Reddit
] | 28 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039997",
"author": "multivac",
"timestamp": "2013-08-13T19:29:04",
"content": "hey, i just watched the “modern tutorial” video and that’s exactly how i was taught pn junctions(minus a bucket load of math), so im just curious what is it you are accustomed to?",
"parent_id": null... | 1,760,376,483.975531 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/13/usb-adapter-for-an-old-vt100-keyboard/ | USB Adapter For An Old VT100 Keyboard | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"DEC",
"digital",
"keyboard",
"mechanical keyboard",
"terminal",
"usb",
"vt100"
] | Ah, the VT100, the first dumb terminal that was controlled with a microprocessor. This ancient beast from the late 70s is quite unlike the terminals you’d find from even five years after its vintage – the keyboard connects via a TRS quarter-inch jack – the electronic and code design of this terminal is a bit weird. [Seth] was up to the challenge of making this mechanical keyboard work as a standard USB device,
so he created his own USB adapter
.
On the little quarter-inch to USB adapter, [Seth] included an HD 6402 UART to talk to the keyboard, along with a Teensy dev board and a few bits of circuits
stolen from DEC engineers
. The protocol between the keyboard and terminal is a little weird – first the terminal sets a bit in a status word, then the keyboard scans all the key rows and columns in sequence before telling the terminal it’s done. Yes, this gives the VT100 full n-key rollover, but it’s just
weird
compared to even an IBM Model M keyboard that’s just a few years younger.
[Seth] finally completed his circuit and
wired it up on a perfboard
. Everything works just as it should, although a little key remapping was done to keep this keyboard adapter useful for Mac and Windows computers. It’s a wonderful bit of kit, and any insight we can get into the old DEC engineers is a wonderful read in any event.
Vidias below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW_uu-B1kbg&w=580]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i03rmPtuJZ4&w=580] | 25 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039956",
"author": "truthspew",
"timestamp": "2013-08-13T17:50:33",
"content": "So cool! I’ll take a VT100 keyboard over an IBM M keyboard any day.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1039962",
"author": "Brian Benchoff",... | 1,760,376,483.908949 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/13/just-swipe-your-card-and-enter-the-pin-what-could-go-wrong/ | Just Swipe Your Card And Enter The Pin… What Could Go Wrong? | Mathieu Stephan | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"card reader",
"credit card"
] | We
do hope
this project makes you shiver.
“Financial risks” is an
audiovisual installation
that reacts when you swipe your credit card and prints an odd looking receipt if you type in your pin-code. Even though the website contains few technical details (read none) about the build, we chose to feature the project as we find his intent interesting:
‘Financial Risks’ installation is a project designed to present an ironical viewpoint on encoded wallets, as a data input interface invites to overcome fear of impossibility to control spread of confidential information for the sake of curiosity of interaction with an object of art.
The piece consists of 6 bank card readers, a hardware system of sound and video synthesis, a keyboard for pin code entering, a 2-channel sound system and a cash register printer configured to print images. Up to 6 cards simultaneously may be used for playing.
We do hope that nothing is stored in the platform’s memory… but is the installation monitored? | 48 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039903",
"author": "John Riney III",
"timestamp": "2013-08-13T16:07:29",
"content": "Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnope.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1040101",
"author": "blakmatrix (@blakmatrix)",
"timestamp": "2013-08-... | 1,760,376,484.071044 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/13/raspi-bitcoin-miner-may-just-pay-for-itself-eventually/ | Raspi Bitcoin Miner May Just Pay For Itself Eventually | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"ASIC",
"bitcoin",
"raspberry pi"
] | We’re sure a lot of people out there have a Raspberry Pi or two lying around waiting for a project to come to mind. [Dave] has an interesting solution to this orphaned hardware –
use it to mine Bitcoins
and perhaps put a few extra bucks in your pocket at the end of the year.
[Dave] is using a Raspberry Pi, powered USB hub, and an
ASICMiner Block Erupter
to do Bitcoin mining at 330 Megahashes per second. There are a few ancillary items such as a case and USB fan, but if you already have a Raspberry Pi, you’re only looking at a $50 USD investment to have a dedicated Bitcoin miner.
According to
this Bitcoin mining profitability calculator
, with a $50 investment that can mine at 330 MH/s, you’re looking at a hardware break even point of about 120 days. You could cut that down to just a few months if you
overclock your ASICMiner
, but it’s still relatively late in the game for amateur Bitcoin miners to make a substantial amount of money. Think of Bitcoin mining as more of hobby, and you’ll hopefully be more realistic about your goals. | 32 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039875",
"author": "reggie",
"timestamp": "2013-08-13T15:13:34",
"content": "According to this Bitcoin mining profitability calculator, with a $50 investment that can mine at 330 MH/s, you’re looking at a hardware break even point of about 120 days. You could cut that down to just ... | 1,760,376,484.141838 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/13/the-batbox-portable-power-polished-and-professional-plus-smoke/ | The BatBox: Portable Power, Polished And Professional. Plus Smoke! | Marsh | [
"home hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"battery backup",
"Bill Porter",
"enclosure",
"minecraft",
"uninterruptable",
"ups"
] | About the size of a shoebox and stuffed with a compact battery/inverter combo,
the BatBox packs a mean wallop at 480Wh
. What else was [Bill Porter] supposed to do with his free time? He’s already
mailed out electronic wedding invitations
and built
custom LED centerpieces
for the reception. He and his wife [Mara] then made an appearance in a Sunday roundup
tying the knot by soldering a circuit together
. Surely the
LED Tetris Tie
would have been in the ceremony had it existed. This time, though, [Bill’s] scrounged up some leftover electronics to put a realistic spin on a Minecraft favorite: the BatBox.
A pair of 18V high energy density batteries connect up to a 12V regulator, stepping them down to drive a 110VAC inverter. The BatBox also supplies 5V USB and 12VDC output for portable devices. Unfortunately, [Bill]’s first inverter turned out to be a low-quality, voltage-spiking traitor; it managed to let the smoke out of his fish tank’s LED bar by roasting the power supply. Undeterred, [Bill] pressed on with a new, higher-quality inverter that sits on an acrylic shelf above the batteries.
OpenBeam
aluminum extrusion seals up the remainder of the enclosure, completing the BatBox with a frame that looks both appealing and durable. | 26 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039846",
"author": "ejonesss",
"timestamp": "2013-08-13T13:29:24",
"content": "you could reconnect the 12 volt plug back to the inverter (if the plug is as cheap as the inverter it may be held together with a screw not a rivet) and amazon would be none the wiser.actually maybe good... | 1,760,376,484.212411 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/12/swapping-the-sensor-in-a-dslr/ | Swapping The Sensor In A DSLR | Brian Benchoff | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"camera sensor",
"CCD",
"dslr"
] | To take a color image, modern digicams have something called a Bayer pattern – small red green and blue filters, one color for each pixel – that drastically reduce the resolution if all you’re doing is taking black and white pictures. [Lasse] is an astrophotographer, and doesn’t exactly need color pictures, so he decided to
swap the color sensor in his camera with a monochrome CCD
.
Most DSLRs have CCD sensors on strange surface mount packages or put everything on flex PCBs. [Lasse]’s Olympus E-500, though, features an 8 Megapixel CCD on a ceramic DIP that is actually fairly easy to remove given the right tools and just a little bit of mechanical encouragement.
After putting in a new monochrome CCD, [Lasse] had a much more sensitive sensor in his camera, and processing the RAW files off the camera gives him a great improvement for his astrophotography.
This isn’t [Lasse]’s first adventure in tearing apart DSLRs for astrophotography. Earlier, he
uncovered the secrets of the Four Thirds lens format
with a logic analyzer, making his Olympus camera a wonderful tool for looking into the heavens. | 33 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039589",
"author": "anonymous",
"timestamp": "2013-08-12T23:39:43",
"content": "That’s really cool. If you could add a good enough cooling system I wonder how it would compare to something like an SBIG STF-8300, which costs about 2 grand and uses the same chip.",
"parent_id": n... | 1,760,376,484.385651 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/12/galaxy-s4-inductive-charging-hack-keeps-everything-inside-the-case/ | Galaxy S4 Inductive Charging Hack Keeps Everything Inside The Case | Mike Szczys | [
"Cellphone Hacks"
] | [
"galaxy s4",
"inductive charging",
"palm",
"touchstone"
] | We’ve seen this hack a bunch of times, but this does a great job of
internalizing all of the phone-side inductive charging components
.
It uses the Palm Pixi wireless charging hardware which seems to be the most popular system out there. We’ve already seen that you can add this to
any phone that uses USB for charging
. But we don’t like the idea of opening the phone to solder connections to the USB header. We also don’t want a USB plug
sticking out the bottom of the phone
all the time.
This hack satisfies both issues, and it’s actually thanks to the manufacturer. The Samsung Galaxy S4 just happens to have two contacts available inside the removable back plate which are designed for Samsung’s own inductive charging hardware. Contact with the Palm charging hardware is made by pressing copper foil into place. Mating foil traces on the inside of the back cover patch this into the Touchstone receiver hardware which is a direct transplant from a Palm case.
This is touted as a solution that costs under $30. That beats the current price of a genuine Samsung inductive charging kit by a wide margin. | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039544",
"author": "Matthew",
"timestamp": "2013-08-12T21:31:37",
"content": "http://www.ebay.com/itm/Qi-Wireless-Charger-Charging-Receiver-Card-for-Samsung-Galaxy-S4-SIV-i9500-/121158269730?pt=US_Cell_Phone_PDA_Chargers&hash=item1c35987b22Umm… done. I’ve had one of these for my S4... | 1,760,376,484.437347 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/12/converting-a-flip-dot-display-to-work-like-core-memory/ | Converting A Flip-dot Display To Work Like Core Memory | Mike Szczys | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"flip-dot"
] | It’s always interesting to see what will come out of a hacker meet-up. At the Observe, Hack, Make festival earlier this month [Bertho] was talking to a guy named [Erik] about how flip-dot displays work. [Erik] mentioned that the control theory is the same as core memory. So when [Bertho] got back to his home workshop he started playing around with it to
see if a flip dot display can be made to behave exactly like core memory
.
We’re really glad a successor to core memory was found since it’s pretty slow. But the concept still makes for some fun exploration (here’s the
obligatory Arduino implementation of core memory
). It uses magnetic rings with two conductors running through them that pass at right angles to each other. Sound familiar? This is exactly how
flip-dot displays
work.
There are, of course, some differences. The biggest one being that the displays don’t have the sense wire present in core memory. That was an easy enough thing for [Bertho] to get around. He added the grey sense wire by threading it through the inside of the hardware. The other hurdle he had to overcome was to alter the controller firmware to match the destructive tendency of core memory (reading the state also resets it).
So far he’s just set this up as a proof of concept, reading the sense wire while repetitively reading and writing to the “memory”. But it’s engaging to see what was captured on the scope. We asked him about his future plans, specifically what he would use to automatically read from the sense wire. His response is found after the jump.
Mike Szczys wrote:
Just out of curiosity, if you are adding your own sense wires to the display, what kind of circuit do you think you’ll use to read from them?
Bertho responded:
I’m not going for a sense-wire. It is too difficult to amplify in a stable fashion (I only got 20mV with a lot of noise). Moving the wire will also change the flux-coupling and makes it even harder.
Real core-memory has a well-defined coupling and has an inductance that is orders of magnitude lower than flipdots. Therefore, the sense-wire will see well-defined pulses, whereas the flipdot version sees rather slow flux-buildup. The stored energy in the flipdot coils make rather nasty spikes where real core-memory has negligible energy stored.
It is much easier to do current-sensing on the H-bridge setup, which has a distinct shape based on the “seen” inductance. Simple amplification of the current-sense voltage combined with a comparator gives current-rise-time and that is indicative for what was stored.
The flipdots need to have 350mA for 450us to flip, so that is a fixed timing frame (see my other flipdot posts on my website for description how that works). The current-shape is then easily transformed into a memory-content analysis. | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039475",
"author": "Nate B",
"timestamp": "2013-08-12T19:09:37",
"content": "Hahahaha, YES! Someone finally did it! I’ve got a slab of this stuff waiting for round tuits. I’m never gonna get a round tuit.Further ideas:This is a display whose contents can be read back, but it’s also... | 1,760,376,484.49967 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/12/0x10c-becomes-a-community-devloped-game/ | 0x10c Becomes A Community-developed Game | Brian Benchoff | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"0x10c",
"minecraft",
"MMO",
"notch"
] | It’s official. [Notch], creator of Minecraft,
has confirmed he’s shelved plans for 0x10c
, the space-based block building and exploration MMO that features assembly programming as a core game component.
Over the last year or so since 0x10c was announced, a whole lot of programmers have picked up the in-game fictional CPU – the DCPU – by
writing emulators
and even emulating this CPU that only exists as a design document
on an AVR
. Needless to say, there are a lot of very skilled programmers that want this game to exist. Now, it seems, this community is forging ahead with this project without [Notch].
This is a truly massive undertaking by the community. Not only are the current plans to build an open world, procedurally generated, space-based MMO, it looks like these new developers will also be writing their own engine from scratch. If this were a commercial endeavour, it would require millions of dollars and many years to get to a rough alpha build, and the 0x10c community is doing this for free.
If you have experience in C++, OpenGL, and 3D game programming, the official signup thread is
over on the 0x10c subreddit
. Even if you’re not a programmer and only have experience in modeling, writing, your experience would be
greatly
appreciated. | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039443",
"author": "Yarr",
"timestamp": "2013-08-12T18:10:03",
"content": "The Minecraft modding community is a great thing, so I can understand why people would think that turning 0x10c into a community-developed game would be a good idea.However, I think the missing thing here is... | 1,760,376,484.559917 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/12/hacking-transcend-wifi-sd-cards/ | Hacking Transcend Wifi SD Cards | Mathieu Stephan | [
"hardware",
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"busybox",
"wi-fi"
] | [Pablo] is a recent and proud owner of a Transcend WiFi SD Card. It allows him to transfer his pictures to any WiFi-enabled device in a matter of seconds.
As he suspected that some kind of Linux was running on it, he began to see if he could get a root access on it…
and succeeded
.
His clear and detailed write-up begins with explaining how a simple trick allowed him to browse through the card’s file system, which (as he guessed correctly) is running busybox. From there he was able to see if any of the poorly written Perl scripts had security holes… and got more than he bargained for.
He first thought he had found a way to make the embedded Linux launch user provided scripts and execute commands by making a special HTTP POST request… which failed due to a small technicality. His second attempt was a success: [Pablo] found that the user set password is directly entered in a Linux shell command. Therefore, the password “admin; echo haxx > /tmp/hi.txt #” could create a hi.txt text file.
From there things got easy. He just had to make the card download another busybox to use all the commands that were originally disabled in the card’s Linux. In the end he got the card to connect a bash to his computer so he could launch every command he wanted.
As it was not enough, [Pablo] even discovered an easy way to find the current password of the card. Talk about security… | 107 | 40 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039414",
"author": "Addidis",
"timestamp": "2013-08-12T17:06:27",
"content": "Nice work.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1039505",
"author": "Coolty",
"timestamp": "2013-08-12T19:56:34",
"content": "Al... | 1,760,376,484.830384 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/12/all-wheel-drive-motorcycle/ | All Wheel Drive Motorcycle | Mike Szczys | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"all wheel drive",
"dirt bike",
"motorcycle"
] | Take one look at the front fork of this dirt bike and you’ll notice that it’s not really a front fork at all. A custom front end replaces the traditional design in order to
give this motorcycle all wheel drive
. Look closely and you’ll see the chain that drives the front wheel. The swing-arm like addition lets the front end retain all of its suspension and steering and that’s where the project gets tricky.
We actually saw this thing in person at the monthly meeting of our local hackerspace:
Sector67
. [Martin Lawson] got his seven minutes of fame during the presentations (they use
a prototype of this scoreboard
to limit each presenter), and then was mobbed with a ton of interest afterwards. We were able to get a pretty good look at how the front drive works. It starts with an additional cog fastened beside the one that drives the chain for the back end. This feeds up through some tensioners and transfers out on the left side (from the rider’s perspective) of the front end. From here the rotational force is transferred to the right right and includes a U-joint to account for steering. The last chain goes straight down to the wheel.
The idea is that when the rear wheel loses traction you’re still being pulled by the front. This is illustrated well in the video after the break. [Marty] — who has a patent on the design — is trying to get some interest from manufacturers. He says the ability ride right through poor traction terrain make this a lot easier than a traditional dirt bike for beginners to ride. But it’s obvious the professionals are having fun on the thing as well!
Here’s
a PDF with more details
as well as
a photo album
. | 37 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039382",
"author": "mda",
"timestamp": "2013-08-12T16:08:14",
"content": "Nothing new here……it’s all been done before. ROKON has been around for years.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1039563",
"author": "Emerica",
... | 1,760,376,484.639648 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/12/an-elegant-timepiece-from-paper-and-a-fistful-of-servos/ | An Elegant Timepiece From Paper And A Fistful Of Servos | Marsh | [
"clock hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"arduino",
"paper",
"papercraft",
"rtc",
"servo",
"Silhouette Portrait",
"stencils"
] | Segments rise from a sheer white surface to reveal the time in
this papercraft digital / analog clock build by [Jacky Mok]
.
New York-based designer [Alvin Aronson] is responsible for the original, titled
“D/A Clock,”
which he built as a student at RISD using
Corian
instead of paper. [Aronson]’s design is also massive in comparison. It measures one meter wide by a half meter tall. Without access to either a 3D printer or to a laser cutter, [Jacky] instead reduces the scale of his interpretation and relies on cardstock as the primary construction material. His experience with papercraft typography leads to a design that anyone with an Exacto knife and a slice of patience should find manageable. [Jacky] ignores the Exacto option, however, and cuts his pieces with a tool we
saw earlier this year:
the Silhouette Portrait
.
The clock’s electronics include an Arduino Uno, a servo motor controller, twenty-eight servos and an
RTC
breakout board that handles timekeeping. Each servo drives its own segment by sliding a paperclip forward or backward inside a small, hollow aluminum rod. Though we’re still holding out for a video of the finished papercraft build, you can watch a video of Aronson’s original clock after the break and see what inspired [Jacky’s] design.
Need another clock to envy? Last month’s
build by [ebrithil]
uses twenty-two servos to individually spin the segments. If you prefer that your clocks light up,
[Aaron’s] o-scope transformation
has you covered. | 14 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039371",
"author": "Adam",
"timestamp": "2013-08-12T15:35:55",
"content": "I feel like with some clever hacking we could reduce the number of servos",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1039372",
"author": "captain obvious",
... | 1,760,376,484.692815 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/12/hack-versapak-battery-modules-to-reuse-laptop-cells/ | Hack VersaPak Battery Modules To Reuse Laptop Cells | Mike Szczys | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"18650",
"battery",
"lithium",
"versapka"
] | If you’re familiar with VersaPak tools you’ll note that while the battery pack in this image looks somewhat familiar, it’s not supposed to have a removable cell. This is [Martin Melchior’s] hack to
use laptop 18650 Lithium cells with VersaPak tools
.
The original NiCad packs used three cells for a total of 3.6V, so it is possible to substitute a Lithium cell in the same voltage neighorhood. The tools are pretty hard on the battery packs, drawing a lot of current in certain situations. But these cells are being harvested from dead laptop battery packs so it’s not a huge concern if their life is a bit shortened.
The hack places an 18650 battery receptacle inside of the VersaPak battery housing. There’s a bit of careful disassembly to get to this point, but it’s well illustrated in [Martin’s] project log. And of course you’ll need to use a proper Lithium battery charger from here on out.
This form factor has been popping up in a lot of hacks lately. Here’s another one that
modifies the Goal Zero Bolt flashlight
to use them. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039355",
"author": "benmwv",
"timestamp": "2013-08-12T14:16:09",
"content": "Yeah, well he didn’t pull that ultrafire from a laptop pack. Ultrafire and any other xxxxfire batteries are cheap chinese crap. You really shouldnt abuse these cheap batteries, there are cases of them ex... | 1,760,376,484.877351 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/12/boominator-solar-stereo-keeps-the-music-pumping-even-in-cloudy-weather/ | Boominator Solar Stereo Keeps The Music Pumping Even In Cloudy Weather | Michael Ciuffo | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"boombox",
"solar power"
] | Despite 40-some years of product improvements, boomboxes today still require a half dozen D-cell batteries and measure their life in single digit hours. After this, the batteries get chucked in the trash. Tired of the absurd cost and quantity of batteries required in a typical boombox, reddit user [anders202] has whipped up a solution that will
keep the party going and the landfills empty
. Using some off-the-shelf components and some impressive woodworking skills, he created the “Boominator”.
Despite its environmentally-conscious design, this green machine packs a whallop. Using its dual 10W solar panels, it can drive four woofers and tweeters to produce an estimated 102dB of sound with power to spare. This extra juice can be used to charge its two internal 7.2Ah batteries or a cellphone using the integrated USB charging ports. Better still, Anders chose amorphous solar panels (as opposed to crystalline) which produce power even in cloudy weather as demonstrated during a cloudy day at the Roskilde festival in Denmark. For more information, check out the
reddit comment thread
.
Video demo after the jump | 22 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039325",
"author": "Mathieu Stephan",
"timestamp": "2013-08-12T12:04:08",
"content": "great first post ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1039379",
"author": "Mike Szczys",
"timestamp": "2013-08-12T15:58:05",
... | 1,760,376,484.93449 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/11/hackaday-links-august-11-2013/ | Hackaday Links: August 11, 2013 | Brian Benchoff | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"apple iie",
"bubble machine",
"fashion hacks. I'm not kidding.",
"imac",
"imac g3",
"midi",
"retro edition",
"super 8",
"Yamaha organ"
] | While we’re not much for fashion hacks, we’re reasonably impressed with [Karolina]’s
faux Chanel bag made of chips
. Apparently a grid of black squares is one of Chanel’s trademark looks, and a thousand or so QFP chips makes for a reasonable substitution.
News of the death of
our retro edition
has been greatly exaggerated. [Brandon]
got an old Apple IIe up on the Internet
and loaded up our retro edition, so we’re sort of obliged to mention him. He’s using a Super Serial Card connected to an OS X box running lynx. With getty running, he can shoot the output of lynx over to the Apple. Awesome.
Take an old Yamaha organ, convert the keyboard to MIDI, throw in a few Arduinos, thousands of LEDs, and a handful of bubble machines. What you end up with is
the bubble organ
, as seen at the Bass Coast Festival last weekend. If you want a hands on, you can also check it out at the Rifflandia festival in BC, Canada this September.
Some guy over on reddit
created
the smallest Arduino in the world
. We’re looking at a rank amateur here, though. I’ve been working on
this little guy
for the last 18 months and have even created
an open source cloud based github design
for the production model. It’s less than half the size of a Digispark, and also Internet of Things 3D interactive education buzzword buzzword.
[Moogle] found an old Super 8 camera at an estate sale. No big deal right?
Well, this one is clear
, and it uses light-sensitive film. Your guess is as good as ours on this one, but if you know what’s up, drop a note in the comments.
One day [John] decided he would put a PC inside an old G3 iMac. After a year,
it’s finally done
. He took out the CRT and replaced it with a 15″ Dell monitor. The G3 was discarded for an AMD, and the internal speakers and slot-load CD drive still work. It’s a really, really cool piece of work. | 17 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039168",
"author": "Nick",
"timestamp": "2013-08-11T23:09:29",
"content": "Like the idea of the G3 mod, things anymore are useless but cool as hell looking!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1039170",
"author": "soundman98",
... | 1,760,376,485.055402 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/11/a-crystal-radio-amplifier-in-a-jar/ | A Crystal Radio Amplifier In A Jar | Mathieu Stephan | [
"hardware",
"Portable Audio Hacks"
] | [
"crystal radio",
"radio"
] | The cool thing with crystal radios is that they are solely powered by the incoming radio waves. However, it usually means listening to your AM radio station with an earpiece and even then, depending on the antenna length, ground connection, and radio station, it can be quite hard to hear.
Even though it is cheating, [Steven] decided to
make an amplifier
for all the different crystal radios he had made over the years. His design, based on an LM386 amplifier was firstly tested on a breadboard and then permanently soldered onto a perfboard. To make the complete system easy to transport, he opted for a peanut butter jar where he embedded the speaker in the cap. The on/off switch and volume controls are mounted on the side, and easy alligator clips are used for the antenna connection.
The final result is not the one shown in the picture above as [Steven] painted the jar black, giving it a sweet look. | 20 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039153",
"author": "Evocube",
"timestamp": "2013-08-11T21:45:29",
"content": "I beg you to carry that on an airplane",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1039162",
"author": "Evocube",
"timestamp": "2013-08-11T22:5... | 1,760,376,484.999676 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/11/goodbye-hackaday-subdomains/ | Goodbye Hackaday Subdomains | Mike Szczys | [
"Featured"
] | [
"handmade",
"life",
"subdomain"
] | We’re sure some of you will be sad that the LIFE and HANDMADE Hackaday subdomains are going away. Others will be happy, and many won’t realize they even existed.
We tried a little experiment in diversity this summer, launching the two outliers of our main focus (which is engineering oriented hacks). Each was interesting in their own way, with steady streams of readers and small conversations. But this diverted some of the attention away from what we do best, and that’s why we’re closing them down.
Handmade has already been absorbed. The features which highlighted
craftsmanship
and artful creations like
blowing glass
are tangentially interesting. We’ve imported all of the articles and will continue to feature this sort of content from time to time if it fits in with what our readers are normally after.
Life was a little bit outside of what we normally focus on. These sorts of hacks are interesting tidbits to have bouncing around your brain. But you probably won’t see them hitting our front page. Don’t let that discourage you though. If you’ve got a tip or trick to make daily life less mundane you can always let us know on
the tips line
. At worst we will ignore you. But you might end up seeing it in
a Links post
, which is our weekly Sunday column that showcases things which weren’t compelling enough for their own post.
Just to be clear
for those that are really paying attention
. We’re not cramming this content onto the front page with everything else. We’re phasing it out except for those things that go hand in hand with our lust for tech hacks of the highest caliber. | 51 | 35 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039103",
"author": "Phil",
"timestamp": "2013-08-11T19:07:47",
"content": "Damn, I actually enjoyed reading them, it was a nice break from the norm.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1039104",
"author": "CJ",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,376,485.205857 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/11/building-the-electronics-for-a-tesla-coil-and-watercooling-them/ | Building The Electronics For A Tesla Coil… And Watercooling Them | Mathieu Stephan | [
"hardware"
] | [
"tesla coil",
"water cooling"
] | A few years ago [Patrick] was offered the Tesla coil of a friend of a friend. This was an opportunity too good for him to pass up.
He then began the creation of an
Off-Line Tesla Coil
(OLTC), where no supply transformer is used. The incoming mains supply is rectified and directly fed into the tank capacitor.
[Patrick] therefore had to build a huge capacitor bank and more importantly his own primary coil, made with a 1.6mm (0.064″) copper sheet to handle the immense current involved. Air cooling the electronics was sufficient until he started using his three phase input supply. As more power involves more heat, a waterblock was designed to cool the main transistor.
Patrick’s write-up is very detailed and worth the read. Once you’re finished with it, we advise you to browse through his website, where a lot more cool projects are described. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039077",
"author": "JJ",
"timestamp": "2013-08-11T17:44:25",
"content": "I guess this is a good as any place to plug the coil I just built:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUQeDqUhI3g",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1039081",
... | 1,760,376,485.099806 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/11/wireless-marble-labyrinth-uses-ti-dev-hardware/ | Wireless Marble Labyrinth Uses TI Dev Hardware | Mike Szczys | [
"ARM",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"cc2533",
"labyrinth",
"sensorhub",
"Stellaris Launchpad"
] | There’s so much affordable dev hardware out there these days that you can do a lot without even touching a soldering iron. This is a prime example. Texas Instruments software Engineer [Jordan Wills] recently completed
this wirelessly controlled marble labyrinth
.
Marble mazes like this are a popular targets for electronic tinkering. We’ve seen
smartphones used as the controller
, and others that
dispense chocolate candy
. This time around [Jordan] stuck with the store-bought game to simplify the build. A coworker helped by swapping the two control knobs with servo motors. These interface with a Stellaris Launchpad that has a SensorHub booster pack (shield) and CC2533 radio transceiver module. The same hardware makes up the remote unit as well. This turns the remote into an air mouse by reading the gyroscope, accelerometer, and magnetometer from the booster pack.
He doesn’t specifically mention it in his project log, but we think the magnetometer is used to sync orientation between the base unit and the user remote. Even though the board for the base unit is mounted at 90 degrees compared to how you hold the remote, you should still be able to adjust for the readings in code, right? | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039089",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2013-08-11T18:39:12",
"content": "Put the remote on top of the maze and a sensor on a sheet of foil stuck inside under the holes for the ball return. Let it learn to play it’s self. When it’s learnt remove the foil :D",
"parent_id": nu... | 1,760,376,487.147529 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/11/bitbanging-i2c-by-hand/ | Bitbanging I2C By Hand | Brian Benchoff | [
"Parts"
] | [
"24lc256",
"bitbang",
"eeprom",
"i2c"
] | Play around with electronics long enough, and eventually you’ll run into I2C devices. These chips – everything from sensors and memory to DACs and ADCs – use a standardized interface that consists of only two wires. Interacting with these devices is usually done with a microcontroller and an I2C library, but [Kevin] wanted to take that one step further. He’s
bitbanging I2C devices by hand
and getting a great education in the I2C protocol in the process.
Every I2C device is controlled by two connections to a microcontroller, a data line and a clock line. [Kevin] connected these lines to tact switches through a pair of transistors, allowing him to manually key in I2C commands one bit at a time.
[Kevin] is using a 24LC256 EEPROM for this demonstration, and by entering a control byte and two address bytes, he can enter a single byte of data by hand that will be saved for many, many years in this tiny chip.
Of course getting data into a chip is only half of the problem. By altering the control byte at the beginning of an I2C message by one bit, [Kevin] can also read data out of the chip.
This isn’t [Kevin]’s first experimentation in controlling chips solely with buttons. Earlier, we saw him
play around with a 595 shift register
using five push buttons. It’s a great way to intuit how these chips actually work, and would be an exceptional learning exercise for tinkerers young and old,
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZYMrcHm91s&w=580] | 18 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039015",
"author": "Slyclops",
"timestamp": "2013-08-11T15:10:56",
"content": "Next up, bit-banging the wheel. Just kidding…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1039026",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2013-08-11T15:40:05... | 1,760,376,487.102878 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/11/voice-controlled-home-automation-uses-raspberry-pi-and-lightwaverf/ | Voice Controlled Home Automation Uses Raspberry Pi And LightwaveRF | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"home automation",
"LightwaveRF",
"RPi",
"voice commands"
] | It’s not quite artificial intelligence, but saying “Jeeves, lights!” will switch on the bulbs in the room. [Chipos81] built
the voice-activated home automation
around a Rapsberry Pi board with
LightwaveRF
devices switching lights and outlets.
The LightwaveRF system offers a WiFi link which provides Internet connectivity for all of those devices in your house. This makes it a snap for [Chipos81] to control them from the RPi. To provide speech recognition he’s using
CMU Sphinx
. It’s an open source speech recognition library developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and released under a BSD license. It seems to do a great job in the video of quickly parsing several sets of commands.
“Jeeves” will even talk back to you to confirm a command. This is generated by
Festival
, a package developed by the University of Edinburgh. This provides some entertainment in the last seconds of the video as we detect a distinct Scottish accent when it says “See you tomorrow”.
The GPIO pins provide a bit of feedback, using three colored LEDs to let you know what is going on with the system. There’s even an IR LED used to add voice control to your Television. | 32 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "1039005",
"author": "isama",
"timestamp": "2013-08-11T13:22:49",
"content": "wow. I think I have a new project! Imitation is the highest form of flattery right? :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1039013",
"author": "Zee",
... | 1,760,376,487.37603 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/11/defeating-reddits-captcha/ | Defeating Reddit’s CAPTCHA | Brian Benchoff | [
"internet hacks"
] | [
"captcha",
"reddit",
"script",
"spam"
] | Here’s something we’re sure SEO specialists, PR reps, and other marketeers already know:
how to write a script to game reddit
.
The course of upvotes and downvotes controls which submission makes it to the front page of reddit. These submissions are voted on by users, and new accounts must log in and complete a CAPTCHA to vote. [Ian] discovered that reddit’s CAPTCHA is not really state-of-the-art, and figured out how to get a bot to solve it
The method exploits the 8-bit nature of the distorted grid in the CAPTCHA. Because this grid isn’t pure black or pure white, it’s at a lower intensity than the letters in the CAPTCHA. Putting the CAPTCHA through a threshold filter, deleting any blocks of pixels smaller than 20 pixels, and running it
through a classifier
(PDF there), a bot can guess what the letters of the CAPTCHA should be.
Out of the 489 CAPTCHAs [Ian] fed into his algorithm, only 28 – or 5.73% – were guessed correctly. However, because he knows which CAPTCHAs had failed segmentation, ignoring those can increase the success rate to 10%. Theoretically, by requesting new CAPTCHAs, [Ian] can get the accuracy of his CAPTCHA bot up to about 30%.
Combine this with
a brilliant auto voting script
that only requires someone to enter CAPTCHAs, and you’ve got the recipe for getting anything you want directly to the front page of reddit. Of course you could do the same with a few memes and pictures of cats, but you knew that already. | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "1038969",
"author": "Christopher",
"timestamp": "2013-08-11T11:12:29",
"content": "Wow, that’s awesome!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1038974",
"author": "sneakypoo",
"timestamp": "2013-08-11T11:27:50",
"content": ... | 1,760,376,486.946972 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/10/making-vector-arcade-games-with-an-fpga/ | Making Vector Arcade Games With An FPGA | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks",
"FPGA"
] | [
"arcade",
"fpga",
"vector"
] | While we’re sure most Hackaday readers were raised by arcade games featuring sprites, pixels, and other shiny brightly colored squares, this was not always so. Many classic arcade games – Lunar Lander, Gravitar, and Asteroids in particular – used vector displays. Instead of drawing individual pixels, these games functioned more like an oscilloscope, drawing lines. When [Todd] and [Andrew] got their hands on a monitor from an old Asteroids cabinet,
they knew what they had to do
: build their own vector arcade game.
The guys made their own DAC and Amplifier board that plugs right in to a Nexys2 FPGA dev board. This was after they tested out some 3D drawing code with a gnarly handmade R2R DAC they used to draw and rotate a cube on an oscilloscope screen.
Not only did the guys build a vector video card, they also connected the FPGA’s VGA out to a monochrome monitor for an in-game HUD. Awesome work that blows away anything available in the golden days of vector arcade games. It’s a beautiful piece of engineering that certainly deserves its own cabinet.
Video of the game available below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEkPHPiHuio&w=580] | 11 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "1038823",
"author": "Jeremy Cook",
"timestamp": "2013-08-10T23:10:08",
"content": "Wow, really impressive. I always thought that technology was pretty cool. Is that a space-dog on the VGA monitor in the video?Brian’s totally right, a cab for this setup would be totally rad. As an... | 1,760,376,486.998454 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/10/diy-23mph-electric-skateboard/ | DIY 23mph+ Electric Skateboard | Marsh | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"a123",
"battery",
"electric",
"green",
"skateboard"
] | What’s the best way to get around NYC? If you asked [papo2110], he would probably suggest you
build your own high-speed, long-range electric skateboard.
You can’t cruise through any online maker community without tripping over a dozen e-vehicle projects these days. Nearly 18 months ago, even before the popular
Boosted Boards Kickstarter
, [papo2110] started piecing together a deck. His boards use a brushless outrunner motor, an RC car
ESC
(complete with brakes), and a chain drive to power him around Central Park at a top speed of 23mph.
The most impressive feat for this project, however, is the tireless revision through iterative design. The deck gets both an aluminum and a carbon fiber upgrade. Meaty 8S Headway LiFePo4’s replace a smaller 6S configuration. Even lights are added. As the build progresses, the board is pushing 27mph: with only one motor. Grab your helmet and motion-sickness pills and strap in for some videos after the break.
If four wheels are one too many and you want even more dangerous speeds,
check out the E-trike build from a few months ago. | 25 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1038787",
"author": "MrX",
"timestamp": "2013-08-10T21:11:04",
"content": "This is really awesome! The electronic breaking system is really a plus. Now just integrate the remote control into a wrist protection glove and you are golden!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"r... | 1,760,376,487.433873 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/10/the-hubless-horseman/ | The Hubless Horseman | Marsh | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bicycle",
"hubless",
"metalwork",
"wheels"
] | Of all the free parts up for grabs at a friend’s house, nobody wanted the scrap wheelchair wheels: including [Eric]. That is, of course, until he spontaneously decided to try something a bit crazy and take on a
bizarre yet remarkably imaginative hubless wheel bike build.
After attaching the wheelchair’s rim and its affixed handrail to the rim on his bike, [Eric] mounted pairs of rollerblade wheels to a separate piece of metal that essentially act as bearings. As the build progresses, the bike is further refined. More rollerblade wheels, a giant sprocket, and a pile of machined aluminum pieces. The valve stem for the tire had to be relocated to allow the wheel to spin freely.
The finished product is a stunning bicycle,
which [Eric] later revisited
, updating the rollerblade wheels to precision-lathed plastic (specifically
UHMWPE
) rollers. Make sure you watch the
video
of the Hubless Horseman in action. If, for some reason, your only prior exposure to hubless wheels is the
TRON
light cycle or [Kirk’s] motorcycle from the
Star Trek
reboot, do yourself a favor and check out their inventor,
Franco Sbarro
. | 31 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "1038735",
"author": "tom",
"timestamp": "2013-08-10T19:06:00",
"content": "But why only do one wheel?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1038751",
"author": "Doctor Device",
"timestamp": "2013-08-10T19:39:39",
... | 1,760,376,487.31489 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/10/hacking-sensoria-the-smart-sock/ | Hacking Sensoria, The Smart Sock | Marsh | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"sensoria"
] | Sensor-meets-sock product “Sensoria” won’t hit the shelves for a while, but [Andrew] managed to snag a Sensoria Gaming SDK and has
hacked the smart sock to control an inexpensive toy helicopter.
Seldom do we see projects this rugged yet clearly effective. The sock sends data via its companion device—a Bluetooth anklet—to LabVIEW. LabVIEW subsequently talks to an attached Arduino to manipulate a servo that [Andrew] just…duct taped to the helicopter’s controller. The result: a a quick and dirty hack that proves surprisingly intuitive, providing accelerator-style foot control to drive the throttle. Check out a video of [Andrew] punishing his helicopter after the break.
This is the first hack we’ve seen for the Sensoria, which is still in the crowdsourcing phase
over at Indigogo
. They have already reached their funding goal, but a few SDKs remain unclaimed. You can watch an official video of the sock’s sensors lighting up a heat map in real time below.
And, if you missed it, have a look at the AsTeRICS project’s
helicopter controlled by neck muscles
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E-B2LDdF2M
[Thanks Mario] | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1038684",
"author": "Chris C.",
"timestamp": "2013-08-10T16:19:35",
"content": "I just can’t get over how silly “smart sock” sounds. And if they get too smart, they might rebel against going in your stinky athletic shoes.I also wonder if a smart insole be more practical?But I like ... | 1,760,376,487.048302 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/10/dual-extruders-in-the-space-of-one-stepper-motor/ | Dual Extruders In The Space Of One Stepper Motor | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Crowd Funding"
] | [
"3d printer",
"3d printing",
"dual extrusion"
] | The new hotness in 3D printers is – and has been for a while – dual extrusion. With two extruders and the requisite filament supply, it’s possible to print objects in two colors or two different materials. There’s a problem with this setup, though: each extruder requires a separate motor, greatly reducing the print area should you want to print in two or more colors. [Carl] and [Brian] think they have the solution to this with
their dual extruder that is powered by one stepper motor
.
As you can see from the pic above, the idea is relatively simple. Two strands of filament are fed past one gear attached to a stepper motor. Each strand is moved into the hot end through two idler gears and side of the extruder feeds into the hot end is determined by the rotation of the motor. It’s really one of those, “why didn’t I think of that” ideas.
[Carl] and [Brian] are also offering a quad extruder, a dual-sized extruder able to pump four different filaments onto a printer bed. With this, we expect some people to experiment with CMYK (or CMYW) prints, truly turning any 3D printer into a machine that prints full color parts.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze8ygZSUL_Y&w=580]
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vybXCdSBzc&w=580] | 76 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "1038653",
"author": "Hack Man",
"timestamp": "2013-08-10T15:02:08",
"content": "Dual extruders are still extruders.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1038811",
"author": "Extruse Me",
"timestamp": "2013-08-10T22:... | 1,760,376,487.249553 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/10/zappo-the-robot-mixes-tone-generator-sensors-alarm-clock-and-more/ | Zappo The Robot Mixes Tone Generator, Sensors, Alarm Clock And More | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"alarm",
"robot",
"tone generator"
] | Now [Kevin] claims he
built this robot for his 3-year-old son
but we know he just used that as an excuse to spend way too much time in his workshop. The robot is a roundup of all the interesting things you can do with hobby electronics. It’s a great example of what you can teach yourself in one year, as [Kevin] only started tinkering with electronics about fourteen months ago.
The robot centers around an Arduino which manages to control a plethora of auxiliary boards. The alarm clock part of the build has a readout in the center of the robot’s chest. There are a bunch of sounds which can be played as the alarm, including a lot of iconic movie sound bytes. Add to that some playful features — like a tone generator which is altered by the column of potentiometers on the left, motion activated eyes, and sound activated ears — and you’ve got a dream-come-true of a toy for your kid.
As a side note, we wrote this several days ago, but ended up bumping it a couple of times in the publishing schedule. We reached out to [Kevin] to let him know a feature was on the way. When he learned that we bumped it in order to feature
[Jamie Matzel’s] giant robot
he had to laugh. The two met at a mini Maker Faire about a year ago and that interaction is what gave [Kevin] the confidence to start the project. | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1038645",
"author": "Franklin Templeton",
"timestamp": "2013-08-10T14:28:04",
"content": "Kudos Kevin :) Ya came a long way in 14 months. Keep on learning and tinkering. It sounds like ya have a junior scientist on the way :) I like the range of features he incorporated into thi... | 1,760,376,486.787145 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/09/how-to-debug-a-faulty-memory-board/ | How To Debug A Faulty Memory Board | Mathieu Stephan | [
"computer hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"homebrew computer",
"MOS Technology 6502",
"Random-access memory",
"veroni",
"veronica"
] | While this is not exactly a hack or a fail, it definitely is an inspiring example on
how to debug a faulty card
.
[Quinn] is one of the very few hobbyists out there that
designed her own 6502 based computer
. For the young readers of Hackaday, the
MOS 6502
was introduced in 1975 and has been used in the Aple // line, the Commodore 64, the Vic-20, the Atari computers, the Nintendo Enterntainment System and others.
[Quinn]’s
homemade
new RAM board had been working for many weeks until it started to show some weaknesses by only sporadically passing the boot RAM test. Assuming the RAM was the problem, she started by making a more advanced memory test, which showed errors at random addresses.
She didn’t have any more of the same memory chips on hand which could be used with a fresh PCB. Determined to power through the issue, she etched a new board with a new memory design. Unfortunately it also gave memory errors at boot. Only one culprit was left, which is shown in the picture above. It’s a small sizing error in the board artwork which was just enough to cause a misalignment on the connector.
The article contains many details about her debugging process, so it definitely is worth the read. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1038413",
"author": "Chris C.",
"timestamp": "2013-08-09T22:26:33",
"content": "Good read.Haven’t seen stacked RAM chips since modifying an Atari 800 RAM board to add 256KB, accessible as a RAMdisk. Was the second electronics project I ever did. Nostalgic!",
"parent_id": null,... | 1,760,376,487.483298 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/09/rant-why-i-love-what-the-chromecast-stands-for/ | Rant: Why I Love What The Chromecast Stands For | Mike Szczys | [
"Featured",
"Rants"
] | [
"api",
"apple",
"apple tv",
"chromecast",
"google",
"hulu",
"hulu plus",
"sdk"
] | I’ve had my hands on this Chromecast for almost a week now and I love it. Years ago I hacked my first Xbox after
seeing [Kevin Rose] do it on
The Screensavers
(I did the hardware mod but that’s inconsequential). Why did I do this? So that I could run Xbox Media Center, the predecessor of XBMC. Since then I’ve dreamed of a device which can be hung on the back of the TV with Velcro and run XBMC. We basically
got there with the Raspberry Pi
, but the Chromecast is the form-factor that I had always envisioned. This lets me watch Netflix, while the RPi runs XBMC. The two are match made in heaven for under a hundred bucks.
That’s why I love the Chromecast device itself, but the bigger picture is that I love what it stands for. Keep reading to see what i mean.
A community of developers
No, it’s not open hardware, or even open software; both things that I value. But Google has invited the community to help guide the device’s future by providing an API and getting some semblance of documentation out for developers right from the start. This is in stark contrast to Apple’s living room business model that has the Apple TV locked out from any third-party app development whatsoever. Granted, Google is imposing an embargo on the release of community developed projects, but
as I understand it
that’s a product of the SDK not being finalized yet and they don’t want early projects to be broken by necessary changes.
Breaking down garden walls
In addition to this invitation to developers I like it that the weight of the mighty G may force the hand of hardware and software developers. I hate to keep ragging on Apple, but another huge drawback of their system is that only Apple devices will talk to other Apple devices. Google (read: YouTube) and Netflix included the ability to control Chromecast in their iOS apps. Now that Hulu has made the announcement that Hulu Plus support is coming I’m happy to hear that
they’ll push out universal support as well
. This is coming close on the heels of Google rolling out Hangouts which takes the concept of Facetime — an Apple-device-only experience — and makes it available to all smart phones
and
computers Hopefully these pushes will result in future hardware and the apps that control them playing nicely with all kinds of devices.
The gist of it
So really it’s the implied direction for the media industry that makes me embrace the Chromecast concept. It’s closed where it needs to be (Netflix is a binary app that protects their assets). It’s open where it can be, giving devs the tools they need to develop what will surely be the new features found in Chromecast V2. And it helps to further justify that expensive smart phone — no matter the brand — you paid for, which does the brunt of the work by controlling the device.
So where’s the hack? This was a rant so there is no hack. But just to make you anxious for Google to drop the developer embargo here’s a screenshot of
an Android device ready to cast from several different media sources
. | 63 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "1038317",
"author": "Stryker",
"timestamp": "2013-08-09T19:04:50",
"content": "I still find it as (aside from what it is) a gimmicky move to have people install Chrome.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1038386",
"author... | 1,760,376,487.589168 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/09/tiny-wifi-modules-again/ | Tiny WiFi Modules, Again | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"CC3000",
"wifi"
] | The CC3000 is a tiny, single-chip component that adds all the necessary hardware (save for a chip antenna) and software to get even the most minimal microcontrollers onto a WiFi network. It was announced early this year but making proper breakout boards takes time, you know? This time has finally arrived with CC3000 modules from
Adafruit
, and
evaluation modules
and
booster packs
from TI themselves.
Unlike other microcontroller-compatible WiFi modules out there, the CC3000 takes care of just about everything – the TCP/IP stack, security stuff, and even the configuration with
TI’s SmartConfig app
for desktop, laptop, or mobile devices. Realistically, you can get an ATtiny, an exceedingly sparse microcontroller, or even a Commodore 64 or Apple II on the Internet with this. It’s very, very cool.
While these breakout boards and modules are priced very well for what they do, they’re still fairly expensive to stick in a project permanently. Where the CC3000 really shines is including it in your next fabbed board. There are already
Altium parts
and an
Eagle library
that includes this part should you need help with that, and
blatant advertising
for our overlords at SupplyFrame if you’re looking for a source. | 35 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "1038096",
"author": "Rob",
"timestamp": "2013-08-09T17:11:10",
"content": "well that looks promising!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1038361",
"author": "rasz",
"timestamp": "2013-08-09T20:44:57",
"con... | 1,760,376,487.967079 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/09/google-glass-controlled-quadcopter/ | Google Glass Controlled Quadcopter | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"google glass",
"quadcopter"
] | For some reason this project makes us think of the Dog Pog Grid from Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age. It’s not that there’s a ton of drones floating around this guy, it’s that he’s got one which looks like it’s his bodyguard and is
controlled by the Google Glass he wears
on his head. The future is now!
We find the metamorphosis of this project interesting as well. It started as a Leap motion controlled rover project. We saw a similar hack just the other day that
paired a Leap Motion with a Hexapod
. But [Blaine] wasn’t satisfied with that. Having had a taste for alternate control inputs he dug in and got to work making Google Glass the control interface. But the problem with moving your head to control a rover is that you can’t actually see it because looking down would cause unwanted motion. His solution was to transition to a quadcopter, which will hover at eye level when he’s looking right at it. Glass is sending raw sensor data to a server, which does the translation to control commands for the quadcopter.
[Thanks Moheeb] | 9 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1038078",
"author": "polytechnick",
"timestamp": "2013-08-09T16:19:55",
"content": "Hackers of the world, never shoot videos of your [awesome as they are] creations in portrait mode – it’s pretty annoying and wastes screen space",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies"... | 1,760,376,488.014417 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/09/what-the-inside-of-a-pneumatic-transport-system-looks-like/ | What The Inside Of A Pneumatic Transport System Looks Like | Brian Benchoff | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"pneumatic",
"pneumatic transport"
] | While most of us are familiar with pneumatic transport systems by their use at drive-up bank windows, these systems are also commonly found in hospitals ferrying samples around. When [Aidan] was in the hospital, he asked how this series of tubes routed samples from many different floors to the lab and back again. Well, give him an old tube to play around with and he’ll eventually come up with
a way to record the inside of one of these pneumatic tubes
, giving some insight into how this system actually works.
When asked, a tech that uses this system on a daily basis described it as a very basic physical Ethernet that sucks and blows through rotary junctions and physical hubs to route packets to different areas of the building. [Aidan] wanted to record a tube’s travels, so he wired up a small HD camera, a bunch of LEDs, and a few batteries. Sending this recording sample container revealed some of how this pneumatic system works; the containers will travel forward and stop before reversing through one of the rotary switches. You can check out the flight of the container in the video below.
Of course there are other glimpses of how stuff travels through the unseen world of getting from point A to point B.
Here’s a time lapse camera
going on a trip via DHL just for kicks.
http://vimeo.com/72028965 | 52 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "1038051",
"author": "ejonesss",
"timestamp": "2013-08-09T15:12:30",
"content": "can you modify the tube like that?i thought that would be bank property.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1038056",
"author": "Jon",
... | 1,760,376,487.777513 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/09/pill-dispenser-tattles-to-the-internet-when-you-dont-take-your-pills/ | Pill Dispenser Tattles To The Internet When You Don’t Take Your Pills | Mike Szczys | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"microMedic",
"pill box",
"pills",
"prescription",
"propeller",
"twitter"
] | Here’s another entry in the
Parallax microMedic 2013 contest
. [Tim] calls it his
Propeller-based Internet Logging Pill Dispenser
(PDF file), or P.I.L. Box for short.
The hardware is a base unit into which a normal plastic pill organizer is placed. We like this design, as many pharmacies will fill pill boxes for you and this doesn’t complicate that process. You simply pull out the correct box at the beginning of the week and put it in the base unit. You can see one white LED is shining on the Monday slot in the box. This lights up starting an hour before the set pill taking time. This way if you walk by it reminds you. There is also a voice tailor made to scare the elderly that comes out of the speaker, and a simple messages spelled out on the set of seven segment displays. The base unit detects when you press the button to open the pill box and counts that as a properly administered dosage.
Now, if you forget to take the pill it’s not a good thing. The server, which is running on the laptop, will rat you out. It uses the Twitter API to alert whomever is following it — meant for a relative or caregiver — that a dosage was missed. Let’s hope they’re good at keeping up with their Twitter feed!
We remember seeing one other microMedic entry so far,
this heart-shaped heart simulator
. But we’re going to look around and see how many other good ones we’ve missed. | 16 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1038026",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2013-08-09T14:00:22",
"content": "A smooth shout out to my man [Tim]!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1038029",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2013-08-09T14:07:27",
"content":... | 1,760,376,488.113128 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/09/custom-made-midi-recorder-for-an-8-year-old-girl/ | Custom Made MIDI Recorder For An 8 Year Old Girl | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"controller",
"controller project",
"midi",
"recorder"
] | [KDM] over at The Controller Project forums let us know about a cool project he’s been working on:
a MIDI recorder
for an 8-year-old girl born with two digits per hand.
The recorder – a simple woodwind instrument usually made of plastic – is a staple of grade school music classes the world over. It’s an excellent introduction to the performing arts, but for those with two fingers per hand, the fingering is a little difficult.
[KDM] contacted a manufacturer of these instruments and they were kind enough to send over a half-dozen for his experimentations. He drilled out these recorders on a lathe and started work on a simple circuit to turn this recorder into a MIDI instrument. A simple PIC micro and a few buttons were used, with a DIN 5 port on the horn of the instrument.
The build works, but we’re thinking with a small electronic wind sensor, this instrument could easily become a full-fledged MIDI wind controller that could be easily and cheaply reproduced for other budding musicians with special needs.
Oh, one more thing. We’d like to give a big shout out to the giant dork
who started The Controller Project
. A lot of Hackaday readers know how to work a microcontroller and a soldering iron, so how about
heading over to their forums
and doing some good with your skills? | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1037950",
"author": "caleb kraft",
"timestamp": "2013-08-09T11:28:23",
"content": "Hey! I’m only a medium sized dork at most.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1038020",
"author": "Brian Benchoff",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,376,488.062654 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/08/four-stroke-engine-with-glass-cylinder-is-a-2400-rpm-piece-of-art/ | Four-stroke Engine With Glass Cylinder Is A 2400 RPM Piece Of Art | Mike Szczys | [
"Engine Hacks"
] | [
"beautiful",
"stirling engine",
"white gas"
] | We know a lot about toggling bits in a register, but only a bit about how engines work. This one inspires us to throw ourselves into the field with reckless abandon. [Huib Visser] built this
glass cylinder four-stroke engine
and he took great care to make it beautiful. We don’t need our projects to be polished and gleaming, but we have to admit that this the opposite of what we see when popping the hood on our 12-year-old rust bucket out front.
You can’t see it in this image, but just on the other side of the fly-wheel is a smaller wheel with a cord wrapped around it that acts as the pull start. This gets the toothed timing belt going along with the cylinder. As part of the demo video we get a good look at how the rotary intake and exhaust valves work. [Huib] also took the time to demonstrate how the rare earth magnets and
hall effect sensor
reed switch synchronize the ignition system.
You won’t want to miss the end of the video which show it in action as It burns Coleman fuel (white gas) and is lubricated with WD-40. This is jaw dropping and it works like a charm, but still not that far removed from the concepts seen in
[Lou’s] hardware store engine project
.
UPDATE:
Here’s
write up this engine
(
translated
) [Thanks ChalkBored]
[Thanks Patrick] | 46 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "1037672",
"author": "Kyle Buck",
"timestamp": "2013-08-08T21:11:41",
"content": "VERY cool!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1037684",
"author": "John England",
"timestamp": "2013-08-08T21:27:44",
"content": "That th... | 1,760,376,488.189796 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/08/fail-of-the-week-inagural-edition/ | Fail Of The Week: Inaugural Edition | Mike Szczys | [
"Fail of the Week",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"ac",
"current",
"fail of the week",
"magic smoke"
] | We’re sure you’ve all been waiting on the edge of your seats to see whose project makes it as the first Hackaday Fail of the Week. Wait no longer, it’s [Mobile Will] with his
woeful tale about monitoring AC current usage
.
He had been working on a microcontroller actuated mains outlet project and wanted an accurate way to measure the AC current being used by the device connected to it. The ADE7753 energy metering IC was perfect for this so he designed the board above and ordered it up from OSH Park. After populating the components he hooked it up to his Arduino for a test run, and poof! Magic blue smoke arose from the board. As you’ve probably guessed — this also fried the Arduino, actually melting the plastic housing of the jumper wire that carried the rampant current. Thanks to the designers of the USB portion of his motherboard he didn’t lose the computer to as the current protection kicked in, requiring a reboot to reset it.
We can’t wait to hear the conversation in the comments. But as this is our first FotW post we’d like to remind you: [Mobile Will] already knows he screwed up, so no ripping on his skills or other non-productive dibble. Let’s keep this conversation productive, like what caused this? He still isn’t completely sure and that would be useful information for designing future iterations.
Update:
here’s
the schematic and board artwork
.
We’ve got a bit more to share in this post so keep reading after the break.
There were a ton of submissions, which we’ve filed away for future use. Our plan is to pick one a week (the selection process is pretty arbitrary, sorry!). It was hard to pass up fried circuits for the first post. But fails can include projects that just didn’t turn out like you wanted and much more. What are you waiting for? Write up your fail and
send it our way
.
We’d also like to mention that there are a couple of niche websites that already specialize in these types of engineering fails. [Daniel] wrote in to tell us about what he calls his “new-ish” site
Mistake Engine
. Another regular reader whose
projects have been featured
many times here at Hackaday also chimed in. But [MS3FGX] so frequently writes about his efforts that
didn’t
make it that he named his own blog
DigiFAIL
.
That’s it until next Thursday. We’ll see you then! | 115 | 46 | [
{
"comment_id": "1037582",
"author": "syntroniks",
"timestamp": "2013-08-08T19:15:21",
"content": "Without schematics, it may be difficult to diagnose his issues.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1037583",
"author": "Neoxy",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,376,488.332611 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/08/repairing-a-mill-that-cost-as-much-as-a-car/ | Repairing A Mill That Cost As Much As A Car | Brian Benchoff | [
"Repair Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"dos",
"mill",
"pentium",
"tools"
] | Years ago, someone at the bio-instrumentation lab at MIT needed to change a CMOS battery in the controller for a three axis mill. This reset the machine’s BIOS and was widely regarded as a bad move. The mill sat in the lab for a few years before Prof. [Ian Hunter] donated it to MITERS – the student shop at MIT. And so
the task of repairing a machine that cost as much as a car
fell upon a plucky group of students.
The machine – a Dyna-Myte 1007 has a 10″x7″x10″ work area, pneumatic tool changers and carousel, and the working for a fourth axis. It is. however, driven by an ancient Pentium computer running DOS with all the fun of ISA slots and IRQs that entails.
The MITERS began their repair by digging around in the software configuration, finding the axis drive is controlled via IRQ 3, which was currently occupied by COM 2. Changing that in the BIOS let the computer control the axes and, with a few solenoids and an air compressor, the tool carousel also worked.
With a bit of digging around, the MITERS also got the spindle working, giving them a very awesome and very expensive CNC milling machine for free. Even though the computer could be replaced with a $35 Raspberry Pi, we really have to admire the MITERS for fixing what they already had; it’s a cheaper and much, much faster way to get their new toy up and running.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlc5mpAHTmQ&w=580] | 45 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "1037527",
"author": "Jeremy Cook",
"timestamp": "2013-08-08T17:05:10",
"content": "‘we really have to admire the MITERS for fixing what they already had; it’s a cheaper and much, much faster way to get their new toy up and running.”Have to agree with that. I probably would have loo... | 1,760,376,488.460944 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/08/building-a-barn-door-tracker-for-astronomical-photography/ | Building A Barn Door Tracker For Astronomical Photography | Mike Szczys | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"astronomy",
"atmega32u4",
"barn door tracker"
] | That’s a pretty amazing image to catch peering out from your back balcony. The rig used to record such a gem is seen on the right. It’s
called a Barn Door tracker
and was built by [DCH972]. Details for this build are scattered all over the place, there’s
a video
(also found below),
another album
of some of the best images, and plenty of
background info in the Reddit thread
.
This design is also know as a Haig or Scotch mount. While we’re dropping links all over the place check out
the Wikipedia page on the topic
. The point of the system is to move the camera in such a way so that the stars appear to hold in the same place even though the earth is moving. There’s an ATmega32u4 breakout board riding on top of the breadboard. It’s doing some pretty heavy math in order to calculate the stepper motor timing. That’s because the mount is like a photo album, hinged at one side and opened on the other by a ball screw. This linear actuation needs to be meshed with the change in angle of the mounting platform, and finally it needs to sync with the movement of the earth. But once a series of images is captured correctly they can be processed into the composite photograph shown above.
If missed that
SDR galactic rotation detector
from last May you should find it equally compelling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mPij7eHOmo
[Thanks Nathan] | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1037514",
"author": "Zack",
"timestamp": "2013-08-08T16:30:54",
"content": "Wow, this is awesome!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1037518",
"author": "JoshMalone",
"timestamp": "2013-08-08T16:42:37",
"content": "Look... | 1,760,376,488.379271 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/08/controlling-real-world-objects-from-your-lucid-dream-for-15/ | Controlling Real World Objects From Your Lucid Dream For $15 | Mathieu Stephan | [
"home hacks",
"how-to",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"REM",
"sleep"
] | [Kyle Fredericks] tipped us about his
first electronics project
, a cheap and smart sleep mask that uses a vibration sensor to detect rapid eye movements.
As some of you may know, REM sleep is the part where you dream the most vividly and actively. If some external stimulation (sound, movement) is sent to you at this moment, it may help you take control of your dream by becoming aware of it. If not, your brain will create dream scenarios that incorporate this stimulus.
The interesting part of the concept is that the vibration sensor calibrates itself at the stage 2 sleep, when no eye movement occurs. This later allows a very accurate detection of the REM sleep stage, triggering a shelf stereo. Secondary buttons are even included in the mask sides.
[Kyle Fredericks] went to great lengths to document every step of the project, making it a perfect first step to learn electronics for beginners out there. | 11 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "1037501",
"author": "heenan73",
"timestamp": "2013-08-08T15:51:51",
"content": "Yeah. Right.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1037536",
"author": "theo",
"timestamp": "2013-08-08T17:18:06",
"content": "J... | 1,760,376,488.510568 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/08/six-years-a-giant-robot-and-a-kickstarter/ | Six Years, A Giant Robot, And A Kickstarter | Brian Benchoff | [
"Crowd Funding",
"Robots Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"hexapod",
"robot",
"spider"
] | Since 2007, [Jamie Mantzel] has been building a huge remote-controlled walking robot. If you’ve been following him
on his YouTube channel
and
blog
, you’ve seen the very beginnings of him building a lumber mill to create a workshop,
making the legs
for his robot, and
improving his welding rig
. This week, though, has been very special. [Jamie]
has finally finished his giant robot project
, bidding closed the fevered dream of a madman who awakes to a 10 foot robot in his yard.
The giant robot is constructed nearly entirely out of scrap aluminum. In the interest of simplicity, [Jamie] has come up with some interesting techniques to scale up conventional RC gear to power huge motors swinging giant legs: the steering motors are powered by manual switches, but these switches are activated by servos. A brilliantly simple solution to driving high-current loads if we do say so ourselves.
[Jamie]’s robot has garnered a lot of attention over the years, so much so that toy companies
have licensed his designs
for a line of battling combat spiderbots. [Jamie] believes his robots should be more educational, so he’s
launched a Kickstarter
for his own version as a kit. With this kit, getting the bug tank robot up and running isn’t simply a matter of pulling it out of the box and installing batteries; [Jamie]’s version is an actual kit with linkages that must be assembled. We know which version we’d want.
It’s an amazingly impressive project, and we’re glad to see such an awesome cat has finally realized his dream of a walking aluminum arachnid of death. | 20 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "1037476",
"author": "Walter Schreppers",
"timestamp": "2013-08-08T15:14:30",
"content": "Congrats! Another proof of the fact that if you don’t give up anything is possible…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1037490",
"author":... | 1,760,376,488.567685 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/08/supercharging-your-digital-calipers/ | Supercharging Your Digital Calipers | Marsh | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"calipers",
"digital calipers",
"super capacitors",
"usb"
] | A dead battery in your digital calipers usually means a trip to the store for a new button cell. Not for [Trevor].
His hack substitutes a super capacitor
, guaranteeing you’ll never need to rummage around for one of those pesky watch batteries again.
These calipers require only 20 seconds to reach a full charge that can last for a few days. Better still, [Trevor] designed a simple circuit with a voltage regulator at the end of the cord to allow charging via USB: just remember to flip the switch from “discharging” to “charging” mode. Although this is a fairly straightforward hack, its design is impressively tidy. The super capacitor fits perfectly at the end of the display and slides along with it, keeping it away from any important printed numbers. If these are the same calipers everyone seems to have these days, it looks like it may still fit in the provided case, too.
If you’re looking for more ways to beef up your calipers, try
upgrading them with a Bluetooth module
. | 56 | 28 | [
{
"comment_id": "1037406",
"author": "larsan",
"timestamp": "2013-08-08T13:07:41",
"content": "I wonder why they do not integrate some kind of energy harvesting, charging a smaller cap by sliding the caliper open or so… perhaps because it takes ages for a battery to run empty, but still.",
"pare... | 1,760,376,488.711694 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/08/the-cramp-a-msp430-powered-crane-lamp/ | The Cramp: A MSP430-powered Crane Lamp | Marsh | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"led",
"msp430",
"soldering"
] | If you think your last project required a lot of soldering, take a look at [Multivac’s]
remote controlled and fully-articulable desktop crane lamp.
Sure, it’s a 430 microcontroller combined with an LED driver, 32 LEDs, PWM control, and some moving parts: but take a closer look at the structure. The Cramp uses an old HDD as its base, with the crane spinning around the main bearing that previously supported the platter. A system of spools and pulleys provides a reasonable range of motion to the rest of the build. Relocating the entire assembly, however, is evidently an unpleasant task.
[Multivac] based his design on a Liebherr LR1750 Crawler Crane, which he meticulously pieced together using leftover copper salvaged from an upgrade to his home’s mains wiring. A mountain of solder secures what must include several hundred joints—possibly more. The head of the lamp is an elegant exoskeleton-interpretation of industrial designer Eero Saarinen’s TWA Flight Center. You can see the Cramp in action in the video below.
[Thanks JP] | 17 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1037349",
"author": "Andy",
"timestamp": "2013-08-08T11:08:24",
"content": "Really nice. Need to ramp in and out those moves and it’ll be silky smooth.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1037400",
"author": "multivac",
... | 1,760,376,488.620456 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/07/3d-printering-remote-control-of-3d-printers/ | 3D Printering: Remote Control Of 3D Printers | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"3D Printering",
"Octoprint",
"Printtopeer"
] | With new owners comes new editorial direction. You’re looking at the first evidence of that right now. We’re going to be doing some weekly columns dedicated to certain subjects, and with our fascination of all things three dimensional, it only made sense our first weekly column was dedicated to 3D printers. And using 3D printers, stuff made with 3D printers. Also, things that can be used with 3D printers. Great wordsmiths we are, we’re calling this column ‘3D Printering.’ If you have a better name (or a title pic)
send it in
and we’ll probably use it.
With that out of the way…
This week we’re taking a look at remote printing. With anything from an Android tablet to a Raspberry Pi, it’s possible to have a networked 3D printer, the perfect thing for hackerspaces or anyone who wants to print objects from multiple computers. One of the most-used tools for this is
OctoPrint
, a printer host designed to be run on small embedded devices such as a Raspi.
We’ve seen OctoPrint before
. but since then it’s matured a whole lot. with a ton of reports of successes running on everything from a Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black, and even an OUYA. All the major electronics boards – RAMPS, RAMBo, Sanguinololu – and firmwares should work with OctoPrint, making an Internet-connected 3D printer simply a matter of connecting a Raspberry Pi.
Of course OctoPrint isn’t the only networking solution for a 3D printer.
PrintToPeer
is deep into development and should be released sometime this fall. It’s a much more sophisticated way of networking a printer that includes an iPad app and ‘enterprise class’ functionality.
The PrintToPeer team is offering private beta invitations, but with a catch: you need to print out a piece of a sculpture and send it to them. These pieces will be unveiled in September as the largest 3D printed sculpture, and the word’s first collaborative 3D sculpture. | 47 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "1037153",
"author": "Cubed",
"timestamp": "2013-08-07T23:10:50",
"content": "There is also Repetier-Server, which is very similar to OctoPrint except it supports multiple printers.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1037160",
... | 1,760,376,489.23013 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/07/how-to-use-the-kenetis-kl25z-freedom-board-as-an-hid-mouse/ | How To Use The Kenetis KL25Z Freedom Board As An HID Mouse | Mike Szczys | [
"ARM",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"dev board",
"hid",
"mouse",
"usb"
] | [Eric] is interested in turning this Freedom development board into an air mouse by using the onboard accelerometer. But he had to
work through the particulars of the USB HID mouse class
before he could get that done.
This Freescale FRDM-KL25Z is one of
the awesome ARM boards
we looked at a year ago. Can you believe you can get this thing for like thirteen bucks? We suppose the gotcha is that the CodeWarrior IDE meant for use with them is not entirely free. But there is a free trial, and [Eric] shows how much easier it is to tailor the USB stack for your needs with it.
Don’t worry though. If you’re like us and use Open Source For The Win he’s got you covered as well. When you’re done reading his HID mouse writeup head on over to his six-part tutorial for
building a free toolchain for the Kenetis boards
. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1037133",
"author": "Nick",
"timestamp": "2013-08-07T21:45:32",
"content": "Might pick one of these up if nothing else for the Air Mouse capabilities!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1037151",
"author": "ftorama",
"times... | 1,760,376,488.943542 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/07/a-cable-box-becomes-a-network-time-display/ | A Cable Box Becomes A Network Time Display | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"clock hacks"
] | [
"cable box",
"clock",
"enc28j60"
] | In 2011 [Erkki]’s DVB box gave up the ghost. It had been a fixture of his media center for quite a while, decoding cable and recording shows faithfully for years. A flaky power supply will bring down the mightiest machine, though. and the Topfield box eventually found itself in disuse. One thing [Erkki] liked about this cable box is its wonderful green LED clock – even after the box had been declared dead, he still used it as a clock. Not wanting to keep a faulty machine on life support, [Erkki] decided to strip the guts and
replace them with a networked Arduino
that receives time over a network
[Erkki] originally used an Arduino and an ENC28J60 Ethernet module to receive time from an NTP server and spit it out onto the LCD display. A full Arduino for this kind of job, especially one that’s a more or less complete project, is a bit overkill so [Erkki] designed a PCB to put his ‘duino to better use.
One interesting bit about this build is that [Erkki] found it completely broken one day. Figuring this was a problem with the microcontroller, he first fried the ATMega with 9 volts – the reasons escape us, however – and started work on programming a new chip. After looking at different ports on his NTP server with a microcontroller, [Erkki] realized he had reset his network switch recently, meaning the previous microcontroller was working perfectly.
In the future, [Erkki] hopes to add some new features to this 8×4 seven-segment display sitting in a large box; something like reading off the temperature, checking IRC and his physical mailbox, and notifying him when someone is at the front door. | 26 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "1037102",
"author": "kadafi",
"timestamp": "2013-08-07T20:17:01",
"content": "My audiotron and chumby have both become nothing but network clocks.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1037104",
"author": "MobileWill",
"timest... | 1,760,376,489.098708 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/07/a-5-arm-development-board/ | A $5 ARM Development Board | Mathieu Stephan | [
"hardware"
] | [
"arm",
"cortex",
"cortex-m4",
"development board"
] | Most of you know that there are plenty of ARM powered development boards out there, so you may not be really sure what a new one can still bring to the table.
With a
$5 price tag
, the open hardware
McHck
(pronounced McHack) is meant for quickly building projects on a small budget. The board created by [Simon] is based on a Freescale Cortex M4 microcontroller, and can be plugged directly into one’s computer. As a Direct Firmware Update (DFU) bootloader is present on the microcontroller, there is no need for external programming equipment.
The board has unpopulated footprints that allow users to add other functionalities that may be required for their future projects: a Real Time Clock (RTC), a Boost regulator for single cell battery operation, Buck and linear regulators, a Lithium Polymer (LiPo) battery charger and even an External Flash storage.
The Bill of Materials can be found on the
project wiki
and the McHck community will soon launch a crowdfunding campaign to send the 5th version of the board to all the hobbyists that may be interested.
And if you’re curious, you can also have a look at all the other boards that Hackaday featured these last months:
the browser based IDE arm board
,
quad-core ARM dev board
and the
Matchbox ARM
. | 75 | 26 | [
{
"comment_id": "1037023",
"author": "Mike Szczys",
"timestamp": "2013-08-07T17:05:25",
"content": "Great first post Mathieu, welcome aboard!For those readers that don’t remember his name, we have seen a lot of his projects over the years. Histoktoktok projectis one thing he discussed whenhe was a F... | 1,760,376,489.558929 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/07/soundball-bumps-to-your-tunes/ | Soundball Bumps To Your Tunes | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"atmega328",
"msgeq7",
"tlc5940"
] | Meet soundball, a hobby electronics project when
replaces a disco ball with one made of LEDs
(
translated
) going every which way. This image shows the device before being injected into an enclosure. The final offering is a white project box with a hole in the top through which the diffuser covered blinky ball is supported.
The main board hosts a collection of the usual suspects: an ATmega328, an MSGEQ7 equalizer, a couple of TLC5940 LED drivers, and a footprint for a Bluetooth Shield. The equalizer chip provides [Cornelius] the audio analysis used to generate light patterns that go along with the music. But he can still control the lights manually with a button on the case or by connecting to it via Bluetooth.
Swap out the LED drivers for some solid state relays and you can
blink your Christmas lights to the music
. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "1037011",
"author": "harvey moon",
"timestamp": "2013-08-07T16:38:20",
"content": "reminds me of my friends piece:http://lovot.net/index.php?/works/dandelion/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1037076",
"author": "mobilewill",... | 1,760,376,489.144596 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/07/a-cold-cathode-audio-visualizer/ | A Cold Cathode Audio Visualizer | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"ccfl",
"cold cathode",
"graphic equilizer",
"spectrum"
] | Finally, cold cathode lights can be used for much more than illuminating the inside of your computer or making your whip look like it can hover. [James] discovered if he varied the voltage going into the inverter, only a certain amount of the tube would light up. Give a hacker an interesting observation and enough time, and eventually he’ll come up with something really cool. In this case,
it’s a cold cathode audio visualizer
, powered by fluorescent tubes doing unexpected things.
The build details are a little scant, but we were able to coax
an imgur album
of [James]’ build. He’s using
these 20″ CCFL lights
with the stock digital inverters replaced with TDK CCFL inverters.
The digital control of this build is provided by an Arduino Mega and a custom shield. We’re guessing the graphic EQ is provided by an MSGEQ7 chip, and the inverters themselves are powered through the Mega’s PWM pins. It’s a lot like an IN-9 Nixie graphic EQ, only much,
much
bigger. [James] is planning a larger version of this build, dubbed the Mega speKtrum and we can’t wait to see that build along with a proper writeup. | 18 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "1036971",
"author": "r0r0",
"timestamp": "2013-08-07T15:04:56",
"content": "This video is unavailable. sez yt.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1036983",
"author": "juno",
"timestamp": "2013-08-07T15:37:13",
... | 1,760,376,489.327158 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/07/taming-stm32-discovery-boards-for-regular-use/ | Taming STM32 Discovery Boards For Regular Use | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"discovery board",
"stm32"
] | We think [Karl Lunt] has a point when he says that the STM32 Discovery Boards are cool and inexpensive, yet not hobby friendly. But it’s nothing that a little big of creativity can’t solve. Above are pictured three of the hacks he used to
tame the Discovery boards
.
The first is the addition of a microSD card adapter. He soldered wirewrap wire to each of the contacts on the adapter. He recommends a low iron setting to make sure you don’t melt the plastic adapter housing. He then used double stick foam tape to adhere it to the bottom of the dev board. The other ends of the wire are wrapped around the appropriate pins on the dual-row pin header. Similarly, the UART3 connections are broken out from the pin headers to that white quick connect socket. This lets him access serial data without having to solve the USB issues that were vexing him.
Finally, he made his own daughter board to break out the dual row headers into screw terminals. We’ve been hit with problems interfacing hardware with the board’s native connections — jumpering to IDE cables just never worked reliably. This breakout board not only makes it simple, but organizes the pins into groups based on their alternate functions.
Do you remember seeing
the hacksaw version of this Discovery board
which gives you two dev boards for the price of one? | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "1036920",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2013-08-07T13:17:36",
"content": "“…a little big of creativity…” B^)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1036942",
"author": "F",
"timestamp": "2013-08-07T14:06:28",
"content":... | 1,760,376,489.272136 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/07/a-full-auto-gauss-gun-probably-wont-hurt-much/ | A Full-auto Gauss Gun Probably Won’t Hurt Much | Brian Benchoff | [
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"coil gun",
"gauss gun",
"weapons"
] | While it may only be able to shoot a few cans right now, we certainly wouldn’t want to be in front of [Jason]’s
fully automatic Gauss gun
capable of firing 15 steel bolts from its magazine in less than two seconds.
The bolts are fired from the gun with a linear motor. [Jason] is using eight coils along the length of his barrel, each one controlled by an IGBT. These are powered by two 22 Volt 3600mAh LiPo battery packs.
As for the mechanical portion of the build, the bolts fired from this gun are actually 6.5mm nails, cut off and sharpened. These are chambered from a spring-loaded magazine, with each new bolt put into the breech with a small solenoid retracting for an instant. The frame is constructed from a square aluminum tube with additional pieces cut with a hacksaw and bent with an impromptu bench vise brake. If ever there was a person deserving of a bench top shear/brake, [Jason] is the man.
The muzzle velocity of these bolts is about 40 m/s, with a muzzle energy that’s about 3% of a .22 LR round. Not deadly, but more than enough for picking off a few cans and bottles in a garage. You can see the video of this futuristic Gauss machine gun below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWeJsaCiGQ0&w=580] | 99 | 35 | [
{
"comment_id": "1036879",
"author": "michaelruppe",
"timestamp": "2013-08-07T11:08:42",
"content": "Multi-Stage coil gunTitle inaccuracies aside, very clean looking, impressive build.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1036880",
"author"... | 1,760,376,489.453004 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/06/retrotechtacular-singing-bird-automata/ | Retrotechtacular: Singing Bird Automata | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Retrotechtacular"
] | [
"automata",
"bird",
"birdsong",
"mechanical",
"watch"
] | Our cats were both sleeping near the computer and these videos were driving them nuts. To our ears these birdsongs sound pretty good. They didn’t trick the cats into stalking mode, but they did spark an audible complaint. So the predators aren’t drooling but the mechanical engineers reading this should be. These automata combine the precision of a mechanical clock with a bellows and specialized whistle to recreate birdsong.
You’ve got to hear it for yourself to appreciate the variety produced by the mechanisms. The first video shows off
the device seen on the left
. This particular model is from the 1890’s and the demo gives a good look at the arms that open and block a passageway to alter the sound. After seeing that link — which was sent in by [Stefan] — we started searching around for more info on the devices.
The one pictured to the right
turned up. It’s from YouTube user [Singing Bird Boxes] who has many videos showcasing these types of devices. We picked this one because he tried to explain how each part of the mechanism works. These are still being made today, but there’s something magical about seeing one built during the steam age.
We’d like to make Retrotechtacular a weekly feature every Tuesday. Help us out by
sending in links to projects
that highlight old technology, instructional videos of yore, tours of museums or similar relics. | 16 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "1036752",
"author": "LordNothing",
"timestamp": "2013-08-07T00:11:32",
"content": "my cat went totally nuts.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1036753",
"author": "CJ",
"timestamp": "2013-08-07T00:11:53",
"content": "I... | 1,760,376,489.660546 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/06/leap-motion-controls-hexapod-with-hand-signals/ | Leap Motion Controls Hexapod With Hand Signals | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"3d camera",
"hexapod",
"Leap motion"
] | Moving your hand
makes this hexapod dance
like a stringless marionette. Okay, so there’s obviously one string which is actually a wire but you know what we mean. The device on the floor is a Leap Motion sensor which is monitoring [Queron Williams’] hand gestures. This is done using
a Processing library
which leverages the Leap Motion API.
Right now the hand signals only affect pitch, roll, and yaw of the hexapod’s body. But [Queron] does plan to add support for monitoring both hands to add more control. We look at the demo after the break and think this is getting pretty close to the manipulations shown by [Tom Cruise] in
Minority Report
. Add Google Glass for a Heads Up Display and you could have auxiliary controls rendered on the periphery.
While you’re looking at [Queron’s] project post click on his ‘hexapod’ tag to catch a glimpse the build process for the robot. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1036662",
"author": "Bryan Baker (@XBrav)",
"timestamp": "2013-08-06T19:07:12",
"content": "I somehow haven’t heard of this sensor before.Anybody know how the Leap Motion actually works?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1036671... | 1,760,376,489.607258 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/06/avalanche-pulse-generator-design/ | Avalanche Pulse Generator Design | Mike Szczys | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"analog",
"avalanche",
"breakdown voltage",
"pulse generator",
"transistor"
] | This avalanche pulse generator is a great way to test your mettle as an Electronics Engineer. The challenge is to
truly understand how each part of the design works
. We certainly got a failing grade when first studying the schematics more than a week ago. But we’re slowly beginning to understand what’s going on under the hood.
The concept of
an avalanche transistor
is some wicked voodoo from the analog side of the street which leverages a transistor’s breakdown voltage to achieve a predictable result. In laymen’s terms it (mis)uses a transistor to produce a really fast pulse. The write-up linked above references several previous avalanche pulse generator designs, but this one is a bit different in how it produces about 50V from a pair of AAA batteries using a multivibrator circuit.
Even if you have no idea what’s going on here you may be interested in the last few paragraphs where the circuit is measured using a cutting-edge Teledyne LeCroy Wavemaster 820Zi-A. That’s
a 20 GHz scope with a 15.3″ screen
which you’ll never ever own. | 25 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "1036606",
"author": "Kahless",
"timestamp": "2013-08-06T16:20:18",
"content": "747ps rise time? That’s Cute.150ps Pulse duration:https://engineeringarts.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/pulse-metelics-5v.pnghttps://engineeringarts.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/signallaufplan.jpg",
"par... | 1,760,376,489.719569 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/06/replacing-knurled-thumb-screws/ | Replacing Knurled Thumb Screws | Brian Benchoff | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"knurling",
"lathe",
"thumbscrews"
] | [Pete] bought himself an old South Bend lathe, but unfortunately some of the thumb screws were missing from this fine old machine. Originally, the lathe had knurled thumbscrews, and with a thumbscrew from Ace hardware the lathe itself was functional, but by no means looking its best. With a lathe you can make just about anything, so [Pete] decided he would
make his own knurled thumbscrews
and bring this lathe back to life.
Knurling is a diamond or linear pattern of indentations usually found on fancy metal knobs, flashlights, and other equipment that needs a good grip. While there are knurling tools for lathes, [Pete] decided to use his knurlmaster – a handheld device that looks like a pipe cutter – to cut a few knurls into a steel bar.
As for making this knurled bar into a proper thumbscrew, [Pete] shows us two methods: the first is tapping the knurled steel, putting in the right screw for the job, and securing the parts with Loctite. The second method involves cutting the threads on the lathe, an excellent example of how a lathe can make just about anything, even parts for itself. | 32 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1036582",
"author": "Adam Munich",
"timestamp": "2013-08-06T15:05:24",
"content": "Correction: A milling lathe can make just about everything.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1036668",
"author": "peter",
"times... | 1,760,376,489.78846 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/06/bench-equipment-tip-screenshot-of-old-oscilloscopes/ | Bench Equipment Tip: Screenshot Of Old Oscilloscopes | Mike Szczys | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"crt",
"dslr",
"oscilloscope",
"screenshot"
] | Here’s a quick tip on capturing the output of oscilloscopes that don’t have that native feature. [Paulo Renato] used a cookie tin as
a camera cowl for capturing CRT oscilloscope screenshots
.
We figure if you’ve got any kind of functioning oscilloscope you’re lucky. And although it’s nice to
pull down the measurements to your PC
on the newer models, the results [Paul] gets with this rig are still satisfactory. The plastic cookie box he used blocks out ambient light while holding the camera at a consistent focal length. He used some flat black spray paint to make sure the obnoxious yellow plastic didn’t interfere with the image, then drilled a hole which fits tightly around his camera lens.
You’ll need to monkey with the exposure settings to get the best image. But once you’ve got it dialed in it should be the same every time you want to take a picture of the screen. | 18 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "1036562",
"author": "Ken",
"timestamp": "2013-08-06T13:56:39",
"content": "This isn’t as daft as many people will think. Tektronix sold a polaroid camera specifically for this purpose back in the day.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment... | 1,760,376,489.84206 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/05/android-hack-adds-missing-chromecast-button-to-netflix-app/ | Android Hack Adds Missing Chromecast Button To Netflix App | Mike Szczys | [
"Android Hacks",
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"app",
"build.prop",
"chromecast",
"netflix"
] | We finally got our hands on a Chromecast over the weekend and we love it! But it wasn’t without a bit of a speed bump. Including a quick initial setup, we had a YouTube video playing in our living room about three minutes after the package hit our mailbox. But we spent the next twenty minutes feeling like a moron because we couldn’t get the Netflix app on an Android phone to cast the video. Turns out there is a bug in the Netflix app that doesn’t add the Chromecast icon for all devices.
The issue is that the newest version of the Netflix app isn’t pushed to all devices. A fix is on the way, but we’re not good at waiting. We
used this technique to trick Netflix
into thinking we have different hardware. Notice from the screenshots above that one lists our device as an LG-P769 manufactured by LGE. That’s how our /system/build.prop file originally looked. By using the BuildProp Editor app we changed those settings to Nexus S by samsung. After rebooting several of our apps were missing from the app drawer, including Netflix. But they all still worked hitting the Play Store for reinstallation and we now have no problem casting Netflix. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "1036011",
"author": "kevin mcguigan",
"timestamp": "2013-08-05T14:28:11",
"content": "I had a terrible time setting up my Chromecast this weekend. First, the address on the setup screen was incomplete and Windows xp is a bitch. I had to set up my Nook color with an Android sd card j... | 1,760,376,490.359551 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/05/def-con-hacking-charities-and-routers/ | DEF CON: Hacking Charities And Routers | Eric Evenchick | [
"cons",
"Featured"
] | [
"charity",
"DEF CON",
"lockpicking",
"raspberry pi",
"routers",
"toool"
] | Where’s Cardboard Snowden?
On the last day of DEF CON, I talked to some charity hackers, checked out the lockpicking village, and learned how insecure my router is in the wireless village.
Hackers for Charity
Hackers for Charity
helps link charities and hacker volunteers to provide services that they could not normally afford. They act as a type of matchmaking program, linking people with specific skills to charities in need. It also provides hacker-types with opportunities to hone their skills and build their resumes. You can find out how to sign up as a volunteer, charity, or donor
here
.
[Sam] from Hackers for Charity showed me his project: the School in a Box. It’s a Pelican case stuffed with a Raspberry Pi, LiPo battery, solar charge controller, and power mode controller. The RPi has a WiFi card and runs as an access point, allowing students to connect. It then serves up a wealth of content that would not normally be available in areas with limited internet connectivity. This includes Khan Academy videos, Project Gutenberg books, a subset of Wikipedia, and much more. The project is going out into the field in the next couple of months.
The School in a Box provides learning resources in remote areas.
Lockpicking Village
The lockpicking village was a packed this year, with
The Open Organization Of Lockpickers
(TOOOL) running training every hour and providing practice locks to pick. TOOOL publishes their slides for the village
on their website
, and they’re a great resource if you’re interested in learning the basics of lockpicking.
TOOOL teaches important lockpicking tips: relax, and kittens.
Wireless Village
The wireless village was home of the Wireless Pentathlon. This competition had participants working through a variety of WiFi challenges. There was a range challenge, a WPA cracking challenge, and finally some general attacks on a WiFi network.
This village ran its own track of talks on all types of wireless topics. One that stood out for me was on vulnerabilities in Small Office / Home Office (SOHO) network devices by
ISE
. The talk showed that there are cross site request forgery, directory traversal, command injection, and buffer overflow exploits for just about every consumer grade WiFi router out there, including the one I have at home (no, I’m not telling you which one it is). The talk went over the process of scanning ports with
Nm
ap
, identifying services with netcat, and building exploits. An explanation of one exploit for TP-Link routers that was demoed is available
here
.
Goodbye DEF CON
The closing ceremonies marked the end of the conference. The organizers announced that the con had raised a total of nearly $100,000 for the
Electronic Frontier Foundation
, and there was much rejoicing.
The con was a great time, and I’d like to thank all the Speakers, Goons, and Humans that made the past couple of days a blast. We’ll be following up on some of the stories from the con, and hopefully be providing more con coverage in the future. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "1035948",
"author": "Jim",
"timestamp": "2013-08-05T12:27:27",
"content": "Jeez another year I missed it. I really want to go back!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1035961",
"author": "Dosx",
"timestamp": "2013-08-05T12:... | 1,760,376,490.255507 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/04/hackaday-links-sunday-august-3rd-2013/ | Hackaday Links: Sunday, August 4th, 2013 | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"3d printed gun",
"blinkingled",
"filament",
"ostrich",
"quadcopter",
"sign language",
"wheelbarrow"
] | [Craig Turner] shows that simplicity can be surprisingly interesting. He connected up
different colors of blinking LEDs
in a grid. There’s no controller, but the startup voltage differences between colors make for some neat patterns with zero effort.
Remember
the 3D printed gun
? How about
a 3D printed rifle
! [Thanks Anonymous via
Reason
]
While we’re on the topic of 3D printing, here’s a design to
straighten out your filament
.
It takes four really big propellers to
get an ostrich off the ground
. This quadcopter’s a bit too feathery for us, but we still couldn’t stop laughing.
This
Kinect sign language translator
looks pretty amazing. It puts the Kinect on a motorized gimbal so that it can better follow the signer. We just had a bit of trouble with translation since the sound and text are both in Hebrew. This probably should have been a standalone feature otherwise.
Work smarter, not harder with this
internal combustion wheelbarrow
. [via
Adafruit
] | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1035750",
"author": "Juergen",
"timestamp": "2013-08-04T22:06:04",
"content": "The ostrich copter is definitely not funny!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1035904",
"author": "kommune78",
"timestamp": "2013-08... | 1,760,376,490.21299 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/04/led-strip-cape-drives-kilometers-worth-of-leds/ | LED Strip Cape Drives Kilometers Worth Of LEDs | Mike Szczys | [
"ARM",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"beaglebone",
"burning man",
"cape",
"led strip",
"rs485"
] | [Hudson] is looking to drive a lot of LEDs. A driver that effectively addresses kilometers worth of LED strips isn’t an easy thing to come by. So he’s in the process of
designing his own BeagleBone Cape to do the work
. Above you can see the board layout he’s working with. Notice the set of repeating red footprints in the center? Those are pads for 32 RS485 connectors!
Of course this is all in preparation for Burning Man where the mantra seems to be: he who has the most LEDs wins. Well, unless you’re
the sort that likes to work with flames
. But we digress. The scaling problem that [Hudson] is dealing with hinges around his desire not to include ridiculous numbers microcontrollers and the need to beef up the 3.3V logic levels of the BeagleBone to travel further on the data bus of the strips. By leveraging the RS485 protocol — which is designed to carry data over long distances — he can get away with a single processing unit by adding an RS485 translator at each remote strip connector. He plans to use the BeagleBone’s Programmable Realtime Units feature to address the eight drivers on the cape. But first he has to solve what looks like a doozy of a trace routing problem | 23 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "1035712",
"author": "Jas Strong",
"timestamp": "2013-08-04T19:08:38",
"content": "Alternatively, you could buy a PixelPusher.http://heroicrobotics.com/has ’em. Cheaper, and handles the power part of the equation too. Also supports synchronising an unlimited number of boards.",
... | 1,760,376,490.319072 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/04/measuring-tiny-current-with-high-resolution/ | Measuring Tiny Current With High Resolution | Mike Szczys | [
"Parts",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"ad8428",
"amplifier",
"current",
"oscillator",
"oscilloscope"
] | [Paul] knew that he could get an oscilloscope that would measure the microamp signals with the kind of resolution he was after, but it would cost him a bundle. But he has some idea of how that high-end equipment does things, and so
he just built this circuit to feed precision data to his own bench equipment
.
He’s trying to visualize what’s going on with the current draw of a microcontroller at various points in its operation. He figures 5 mA at 2.5 mV is in the ballpark of what he’s probing. Measurements this small have problems with noise. The solution is the chip on the green breakout board. It’s not exactly priced to move, costing about $20 in single quantity. But when paired with a quality power supply it gets the job done. The AD8428 is an ultra-low-noise amplifier which has way more than the accuracy he needs and outputs a bandwidth of 3.5 MHz. Now the cost seems worth it.
The oscilloscope screenshot in [Paul’s] post is really impressive. Using two 1 Ohm resistors in parallel on the microcontroller’s power line he’s able to monitor the chip in slow startup mode. It begins at 120 microamps and the graph captures the point at which the oscillator starts running and when the system clock is connected to it. | 27 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "1035656",
"author": "pill walkmer",
"timestamp": "2013-08-04T16:10:36",
"content": "what is so special about this?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1035677",
"author": "Leo",
"timestamp": "2013-08-04T17:08:27",
"conte... | 1,760,376,490.421909 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/04/drilling-pcbs-with-cameras-and-math/ | Drilling PCBs With Cameras And Math | Brian Benchoff | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"circuit board",
"cnc",
"pcb"
] | After making your first PCB, you’re immediately faced with your next challenge – drilling the holes. It’s a doable task with a small drill press, but a lot of makers already have a small CNC mill or router, but how to make that work the first time?
[Alessio] has you covered
with a technique that uses a CNC-mounted webcam and some linear algebra for perfect through-holes the first time and every time.
A few months ago we saw [Alessio]’s
work with transform matrices and PCB drills
. The reasoning behind this technique is if a PCB isn’t exactly aligned to a CNC mill’s axes, or if the scaling for a toner transfer board is a bit off, automating the drilling process will only end in pain, with holes going through traces and a whole host of other nasty things. The application of linear algebra gets around this problem – taking a measurement off of two or three known locations, it’s easy to program a CNC machine to drill exactly where it’s supposed to.
[Alessio]’s new project takes the same mathematical techniques and applies them to a very sleek application that uses a drill-mounted webcam. After taping his homebrew PCB down to the mill, [Alessio] simply marks off a few known points, imports the drill file, and lets a computer calculate where to drill the holes. The results are remarkable – with a soldermask and silkscreen equipment, these handmade boards can be just as good as professionally manufactured boards,
There are Windows and OS X binaries for [Alessio]’s tool available on his page, with a video demo available below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzI445XsPDs&w=580] | 17 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "1035640",
"author": "Marc Nicholas",
"timestamp": "2013-08-04T15:07:15",
"content": "That is absolutely fantastic!I have to wonder if this codebase might also prove somewhat useful to those of us who dream of homemade pick’n’place machines?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,376,490.748876 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/04/def-con-tamper-evidence-contests-and-embedded-talks/ | DEF CON: Tamper Evidence, Contests, And Embedded Talks | Eric Evenchick | [
"cons",
"Featured"
] | [
"DEF CON",
"GoPro",
"jtag",
"tamper evident"
] | For day two of DEF CON, I checked out tamper evident devices, the contests area, and a few embedded talks. Read all about it after the break.
Tamper Evident Village
This year was the first run of the Tamper Evident Village. The village has a variety of tamper evident devices, including tapes, stickers, and seals. Volunteers provided tools, solvents, and instructions on how to bypass the various devices without setting them off.
The tamper evident challenge had teams trying to open a box secured with a variety of tamper-evident devices, then reassemble it. The judges evaluated the boxes on how well the security devices had been bypassed.
The Tamper Evident Challenge box, before being tampered with.
Contests
In the contests room, companies and volunteers ran all sorts of contests for people with various skills. The scavenger hunt list ranged from getting a mohawk to obtaining an aircraft exit slide. Gamers teamed up with hackers in Hack Fortress, a game where Team Fortress players get bonuses when the hackers on their team complete hacking challenges. Crash and Compile is a coding-drinking game, where competitors try to solve a programming problem and have to drink every time their code crashes.
Embedded Talks
[Todd Manning] and [Zach Lanier] presented their GoPro hacking in a talk called “GoPro or GTFO”. They managed to get a root shell on the camera and found that all of the services run as root. They also showed that the device could be used for surveillance proposes. They will be publishing source and information on their exploits on
Github
.
[
Joe Grand
] gave a talk on his new device: the
JTAGulator
. This open source hardware project helps with the automated discovery of debug interfaces. Target voltage selection and input protection is built in to prevent you from frying your target board. Right now, it can find JTAG and UART interfaces across 24 unknown channels. [Joe] demoed the device by discovering the UART and JTAG ports on a WRT54G wireless router.
The JTAGulator finding a WRT54G’s JTAG port.
DEF CON 21 wraps up tomorrow, and I’ll be sharing more cool stuff from the conference. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "1035644",
"author": "jefffffff",
"timestamp": "2013-08-04T15:20:18",
"content": "really happy to see this, maybe i was wrong but i felt Schuyler’s talk on this subject (last year, i think) wasn’t as well received as it should have been.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"... | 1,760,376,490.476487 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/06/making-digi-key-much-much-prettier/ | Making Digi-Key Much, Much Prettier | Brian Benchoff | [
"internet hacks"
] | [
"digi-key",
"digikey",
"greasemonkey"
] | We all love Digikey, but of all the major component retailers out there, their web interface really isn’t that great. A lot of online sources for parts are much, much prettier,
but nothing a good Greasemonkey script can’t fix
. This is all the work of [Ben], and adds a ton of really, really useful features to the Digikey web interface.
First up is a whole bunch of pictures right at the top of the search results. If you’re looking for pin headers or weird connectors, this is an astonishing useful feature that will help you select the right part faster. After that is a ‘helper’ button for voltages. As you know, selecting a part with a 5V input requires clicking multiple options including 3.3-5V, 2.3-6V, and 5-40V. Clicking on the helper button and entering 5 V will select all the entries in the filter that contain a 5V part.
[Ben]’s project has been tested with Firefox and Chrome with Greasemonkey extensions. Head on over to
his project page
for a much better demo of all the features for this really great tool. | 41 | 26 | [
{
"comment_id": "1036511",
"author": "limpkin",
"timestamp": "2013-08-06T12:01:12",
"content": "neat! thanks :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1036512",
"author": "Sven",
"timestamp": "2013-08-06T12:03:08",
"content": "I actually fi... | 1,760,376,490.553894 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/05/turning-a-rubidium-standard-into-a-proper-tool/ | Turning A Rubidium Standard Into A Proper Tool | Brian Benchoff | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"bench",
"lab equipment",
"rubidium",
"rubidium frequency standard"
] | You can find rubidium frequency standards all over eBay and various surplus dealers. They’re actually quite interesting devices, able to generate a 10 MHz sine wave with enough precision to be a serviceable atomic clock. While these standards can find themselves very useful in a lab, they’re only a component, and not a working-out-of-the-box device. [Gerry] decided he would fix that,
turning his rubidium standard into a proper piece of bench equipment
, all in a single afternoon.
[Gerry]’s first step was finding a proper enclosure for his new piece of equipment. Most of the time, choosing an enclosure is practice in the art of compromise. This time, though, [Gerry] found the perfect enclosure: an old piece of video distribution equipment. On the back of this box, there are a ton of BNC plugs, perfect for attaching to random lab equipment and feeding them a signal from the rubidium standard.
After going through the video circuit and changing the 75 Ohm outputs to 50 Ohms, [Gerry] wired up an eBay power supply, fan, and a small circuit with an 8-pin PIC to complete his new tool. The rubidium standard does get freakishly hot, but hopefully mounting it to a large aluminum box with a bit of cooling will keep all the added electronics in working order.
[Gerry] did all this in just under 5 hours. An impressive feat, given that he probably spent that much time editing the video, available below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chrzrod3tQY&w=580] | 42 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "1036326",
"author": "dmitry grinberg",
"timestamp": "2013-08-05T23:18:10",
"content": "Can you please tag al articles that contain *NO* writeup and only video with some easy tag like “videoonly” so that those of us who prefer to read at our own pace and not watch/listen as somebody ... | 1,760,376,490.692923 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/05/raspberry-pi-camera-built-as-part-of-advertising-campaign/ | Raspberry Pi Camera Built As Part Of Advertising Campaign | Mike Szczys | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"advertisement",
"advertising",
"camera",
"Raspberry pi camera",
"RPi"
] | Here’s yet another example of well targeted advertising. This
camera built around a Raspberry Pi
is a giveaway from Sprite. The “lucky” winner of the camera will have the pleasure of seeing the Sprite logo as a watermark on all of the images they snap with it. But in the right hands it’s a simple hack to remove that “feature” (they published the Python script that adds the watermark) or to just scrap the parts for another project. Either way, Sprite got us to say their name three times in this paragraph so the campaign worked.
The most obvious part of this build is the custom cast resin case that they came up with which is a gaudy cartoon-like monstrosity. It protects the case-less Raspberry Pi board, and mounts the Pi Camera board so that the lens is positioned correctly. The lipstick-sized module mounted in the lower back half of the case is a 2400 mAh portable power supply with a USB charging port sticking out the side. This makes us wonder, do you have to wait for the RPi to power up before snapping a picture? If the size and color didn’t get you noticed by everyone the shutter sound will. it shouts the name of the soda company whenever you press the shutter release button.
If you’re more of a high-end photography enthusiast
this DSLR wedded with an RPi
will be of more interest. | 22 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "1036267",
"author": "wretch",
"timestamp": "2013-08-05T21:35:52",
"content": "Nice build, looks a bit like a Holga camera. No viewfinder, though?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1036268",
"author": "roboman2444",
"times... | 1,760,376,490.612096 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/05/have-you-failed-hard-enough-to-be-on-hackaday-2/ | Have You Failed Hard Enough To Be On Hackaday? | Mike Szczys | [
"Fail of the Week",
"Featured",
"News"
] | [
"fail",
"fail of the week",
"failure"
] | There’s so much more to be discovered when your projects just don’t want to work. Grinding out the bugs, getting past roadblocks, and discovering gotchas is where real hacking know-how comes from. But most people aren’t motivated to document their failures. We want to change that.
We want to roll out a new weekly feature that showcases failure…
well documented failure
. But we need YOU to give up the goods. Write about your failed experience on your blog, post it to
our project forums
with [FAIL] in the title, or you can just write everything in an email and send it to us. Which ever way you choose,
you’ll need to tip us off that you’d like to make it to the front page
(come on, it’s not bragging since it didn’t even work!). If you already know of well documented project fails send in those links too even if they’re not your projects.
Make sure you include at least one descriptive image — snapshots, diagrams, schematics, screencaps, anything that tells the story is fair game. To show you what we’re after here’s a few of our favorite failed projects:
water damaged kayaking datalogger
how not to build a robotic lawnmower
abandoned card shuffling machine
We’d like to point out that all of these projects are interesting ideas that show off missteps along the way. We will
not
be trashing on your skills as a hacker, but instead celebrating the lessons learned and hearlding the sharing of ideas from otherwise doomed projects. | 46 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "1036197",
"author": "ginge",
"timestamp": "2013-08-05T19:34:58",
"content": "Well.. I have more than a few failures. Problem is they don’t get documented before I scavenge.Interesting idea though!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id"... | 1,760,376,490.839638 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/08/05/centimeter-level-precision-gps-for-500/ | Centimeter-level Precision GPS For $900 | Brian Benchoff | [
"Crowd Funding",
"hardware"
] | [
"gps",
"Real Time Kinematic"
] | [Colin] and [Fergus] have been working with GPS for years now, and like most builders of really cool things, they’re often limited by the precision of off-the-shelf GPS units. While a GPS receiver is usually good for meters of accuracy, this just isn’t good enough for a lot of projects. What you need is
centimeter
-level accuracy, something the guys have managed to do
with their Piksi GPS receiver
.
Where most GPS receivers only look at the data coming from the GPS satellites orbiting overhead, the Piksi uses another technique, real-time kinematics (RTK), to determine the receiver’s location with exacting precision. The basic idea behind RTK is to look at the carrier frequency of the GPS signals at 1575.42 MHz. This frequency has a wavelength of 19 cm, compared to the alternating 1s and 0s of the that are transmitted at around 1 MHz, or about 300 meters between each bit. While centimeter-level precision isn’t possible with only one receiver, two of these Piksi boards – one base station and one on a vehicle, connected via radio link – can make for a very exacting high-accuracy GPS receiver.
Previously, commercial RTK GPS systems have cost thousands of dollars – making a quadcopter or other homebrew project that relies on this level of precision nonsensical. [Colin] and [Fergus] have built hardware that can bring the price of this setup to under $1000. As a bonus, the Piksi board can also receive from other constellations such as Galileo and GLONASS. A very impressive piece of hardware, and we can’t wait to see the applications. | 60 | 32 | [
{
"comment_id": "1036138",
"author": "Jack",
"timestamp": "2013-08-05T17:28:39",
"content": "alternating 1s and 0s of the ___ that are transmittedalso, is this similar to dgps?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "1036139",
"author": "Le_Bassiste... | 1,760,376,490.9342 |
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