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https://hackaday.com/2013/02/03/the-universal-geospatial-light-switch/ | The Universal Geospatial Light Switch | Jeremy Cook | [
"Android Hacks"
] | [
"android",
"gps",
"home automation",
"lights",
"x10"
] | Home automation has existed in one form or another for quite some time, but we thought
this take on controlling lights was quite
interesting. Instead of having a menu of lights that you can turn on and off, this Android app lets you point your phone at the device and turn it on or of. Undoubtedly similar to how [Darth Vader] controls his lights at home.
Although the really technical details of this project aren’t listed, this setup reads the compass and GPS output of the Android device to figure out where it’s pointed in space. Combined with a script that understands the layout of the room, and an [X10] automation controller, it’s able to control lights accurately.
Be sure to check out the video of this device in action, or check out
[Mike]’s [Project Rita]
blog to see the other interesting projects that he’s working on!
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W8ueJKrmfI%5D | 14 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "953577",
"author": "Ryoku",
"timestamp": "2013-02-03T16:35:11",
"content": "interesting hack. its kind of startreck in the sense that you can tell the computer to turn something specific off without siri confirming it, after all you are standing in front of the light so you don’t ne... | 1,760,376,621.67077 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/31/infra-is-a-television-made-of-infrared-pixels/ | Infra Is A Television Made Of Infrared Pixels | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"infrared",
"ir",
"led",
"peggy",
"remote control",
"video"
] | This television is perfect except for its low resolution and the fact that it can’t be seen by the naked eye. [Chris Shen’s] art installation, Infra,
uses 625 television remotes as pixels for a TV screen
. There’s a little bit of insight to be gained from
the details which [Chris] shared with EMSL
.
The remote controls were all throw-aways. Even if there are problems with the buttons, battery connectors, or cases, chances are the IR led in each was still functional. So [Chris] patched into them using about 500 meters of speaker wire.
Why 625 pixel? Because that’s how many LEDs the Peggy board can handle. We’ve seen this
open source LED board driving video in other projects
. Here it’s been connected to each remote using Molex connectors. Each of the headers has the same pitch as a through-hole 5mm LED. The entire board was filled with them, and a mating crimp connector terminates the end of the wire coming out of each remote. This makes setup quite easy as the remotes don’t have to be installed in any particular order as long as the physical location matches Peggy’s grid.
You can get a glimpse of the piece playing video in the clip after the break.
[via
Reddit
] | 80 | 33 | [
{
"comment_id": "951822",
"author": "jpnorair",
"timestamp": "2013-01-31T23:40:13",
"content": "I think a game of tetris or an animation of some kind would work better. 625 pixels isn’t much.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "951836",
"... | 1,760,376,621.786416 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/31/12-axis-sensor-adds-auto-screen-orientation-to-this-older-tablet-pc/ | 12-axis Sensor Adds Auto Screen Orientation To This Older Tablet PC | Mike Szczys | [
"laptops hacks"
] | [
"mini-PCIe",
"orientation",
"rotation",
"sensor"
] | [Mal’oo] has one of those laptop computers whose screen swivels to turn it into a tablet. But the thing is a few years old and didn’t come with an orientation sensor that changes the screen between landscape and desktop, but also knows which side is up. His solution was to
add a 12-axis sensor via the mini PCI express header
.
The hardware comes in two pieces. The first is a mini-PCIe card to USB interface. This is handy if you want to add a Bluetooth dongle permanently to your computer. But he’s got other things in mind for it. After hacking the BIOS (which for some reason limits what you can plug into this slot) he moved onto the second part which is a USB 12-axis sensor. This picture shows the wires before they were soldered to the USB card. [Mal’oo] couldn’t just plug it in because the sensor wouldn’t have been oriented correctly in relation to the computer. The final product is quite response, as shown in the clip after the jump. | 30 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "951732",
"author": "bencoder",
"timestamp": "2013-01-31T21:07:35",
"content": "I really hate this 6/9/12 axis nonsense that we get nowadays.For those that don’t understand, when you see a “9-axis” sensor, it is referring to 9 different measurements. Typically this is accelerometer/m... | 1,760,376,621.183195 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/31/how-a-dial-up-modem-handshake-works/ | How A Dial-up Modem Handshake Works | Mike Szczys | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"dial-up",
"handshake",
"protocol"
] | If you’re old enough to have used a dial-up modem we’d bet you can do an imitation of the sounds it made while connecting. Those not-so-beautiful sounds heralded the dawning of a technological era. But few actually know what each of those distinct sounds were doing. Now’s your chance to learn. This post explains
each step in the dail-up handshake process
.
This may be the most useful infographic we’ve ever seen. Normally we just seem them as gimmicks, but [Oona Räisänen] really put together something special with this one. Her blog post includes an audio clip so that you can play back the full handshake sounds. The main box on the graphic shows the audio spectrum from that clip, with an explanation below it. But you’ll also want to read through her full write-up for a more narrative description.
The part we found the most interesting is that these modems needed to disable the echo suppression used by the telephone system in order to operate at full-duplex. Apparently land lines disabled the speaker while you were talking so that you didn’t hear your own voice. This was a problem if the modem was trying to send and receive at the same time.
[via
Reddit
] | 56 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "951709",
"author": "deathventure",
"timestamp": "2013-01-31T20:12:29",
"content": "I wonder if it’s a bad thing that I don’t have to listen to the sound, but actually hear it in my head as I follow along with the picture.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,376,621.026332 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/31/getting-an-arduino-to-control-a-wireless-outlet/ | Getting An Arduino To Control A Wireless Outlet | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"433 mhz",
"logic analyzer",
"wireless outlet"
] | [Reza’s] methodical investigation of this remote controlled outlet let him
patch in with an Arduino using a 433 MHz transmitter
. This is a single-device unit, but the techniques used here should allow you to take control of wireless rigs that have multiple modules to control many devices.
We’ve seen some folks at our local hackerspace try to patch into the remote control itself. That used some type of weird button scanning (not just connecting a pin to ground or voltage) and didn’t pan out. [Reza] doesn’t even crack open the case of either of the units seen above. Instead, he goes straight for a wireless receiver he had on hand, using a logic analyzer to capture the signals coming from the remote.
Once he had a good snapshot of the signals sent when pressing the on or off button of the remote he set out to replicate it in his Arduino code. His function called setStateWithDelay takes three parameters: the transmit pin, the level (high or low), and a number of milliseconds to delay. Each signal calls this function many times, but working the bugs out is pretty easy; just capture the signal with the logic sniffer and compare to the stock remote. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "951691",
"author": "Karl Sander",
"timestamp": "2013-01-31T19:25:49",
"content": "or you could take the easy route and use this fantastic arduino library:http://code.google.com/p/rc-switch/I have it set up with some outlets that are 10€ for 3 outlets + 1 remote and with some 10€ E27... | 1,760,376,621.065474 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/31/turning-the-belkin-wemo-into-a-deathtrap/ | Turning The Belkin WeMo Into A Deathtrap | Brian Benchoff | [
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"Belkin",
"Belkin WeMo",
"WeMo"
] | The Belkin WeMo is a small, WiFi connected outlet controlled by a mobile device that adds Internet control to a desk lamp, coffee maker, or, if you’re feeling daring, your home server. It’s an interesting device, but of course there are a few security implications of having your electric kettle connected to the Internet. [Daniel]
was able to get root on his Belkin WeMo
and with full control of his Internet-connected outlet was able to turn it into a deathtrap.
[Daniel] says his exploit could be developed into a virus that will scan for WeMo devices. Once these Internet-connected devices are found, it’s easy to turn these devices on and off really fast; something not too dangerous for a desk lamp, but potentially lethal if it’s plugged into a space heater.
In the video after the break, you can see [Daniel] exploiting the WeMo with a flaw in its UPnP implementation. There’s footage of his terminal hacking and of his desk lamp being turned on and off really fast, something that could be very dangerous for higher current devices.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcW2q0aHOFo&w=580] | 93 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "951634",
"author": "JC",
"timestamp": "2013-01-31T18:06:41",
"content": "Nice!Supposedly Belkin showed a WeMo lightswitch replacement at CES. Although the WeMo stuff is pricey (early adopter fee), it looks promising. Of course, ANYTHING is better than X10, so I’m hoping this drops i... | 1,760,376,621.620775 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/31/letting-people-on-the-internet-control-your-dating-experience/ | Letting People On The Internet Control Your Dating Experience | Brian Benchoff | [
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"dating",
"lifehack",
"mechanical turk"
] | Like Cyrano giving advice to Christian from underneath Roxanne’s balcony, now
you too can can advise young suitors
trying to win the heart of the object of their affection.
[Lauren] had the idea of using objective, third-party observers checking in on her dating activities and giving advice as to what she should do next. Yes,
she’s streaming her dates over the Internet
and asking for advice from
Mechanical Turk
workers.
The idea behind this project isn’t that [Lauren] isn’t looking for advice from her own Cyrano, but rather to open up new, previously unexpected possibilities. Turk workers will watch the stream while [Lauren] presents them with options telling her to smile more, laugh, change the subject, or ask a question. [Lauren] receives these results as a text message, where she’ll comply with the Internet’s wishes and hope her date doesn’t go horribly awry.
It’s an interesting project to say the least, but we’ve got to wonder about the quality of the advice given from her online advisers. Turk workers do take their jobs more seriously than random people on the Internet, so barring an invasion from /b/, [Lauren]’s night might just go alright. | 31 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "951588",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2013-01-31T16:24:52",
"content": "Interesting idea for sure, but I pickE. Stop texting during our date!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "951777",
"author": "Phrewfuf",
"... | 1,760,376,620.931106 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/31/gas-sensor-suite-built-with-gadgeteer-modules/ | Gas Sensor Suite Built With Gadgeteer Modules | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"air quality",
"alcohol",
"ammonia",
"gadgeteer",
"gas sensor"
] | [Blake] just finished
a gas sensor suite built from Gadgeteer parts
. The three sensors are the cylindrical towers along the left hand side of the assembly. The one at the top (with the orange ring) is an alcohol sensor. The middle one senses ammonia and the lower sensor measures air quality. Also rolled into the mix are temperature and humidity sensors.
You can collect a lot of data with this type of setup. To keep it organized [Blake] used the ThingSpeak interface. Using the NIC in the upper right
he uploads the measurements for real-time graphing
. The setup is explained in detail in the video after the break, including a test with some cleaning ammonia.
We haven’t tried out the Gadgeteer system for ourselves yet. But you’ve got to admit that the ribbon cable connector system the family of parts uses really helps to keep a rather complicated setup like this one nice and tidy. | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "951580",
"author": "Zee",
"timestamp": "2013-01-31T15:40:28",
"content": "Gadgeteer devices seem great but aren’t they extremely expensive?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "951592",
"author": "Ian Lee",
"timesta... | 1,760,376,621.120061 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/02/03/ammo-box-psu/ | Ammo Box PSU | Brian Benchoff | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"ammo box",
"computer power supply",
"power supply",
"psu"
] | Sometimes you need a power supply that can be thrown into the back of a car and taken into the field. [BadWolf] didn’t want to take his bench supply, so he whipped up
this very portable power supply
made from a computer PSU. To ruggedize his build a little, he put it in a 50 caliber ammo can making it more than able to handle the roughest field work.
While not a proper adjustable power supply, this ammo can is more than capable of delivering a whole lot of current in a number of different voltages. There are a few bells and whistles – a ‘plugged in’ and ‘on’ light, as well as a few very cool looking toggle switches that are sure to arouse the suspicions of unsuspecting bystanders.
[BadWolf] kept all the safety features built-in to the computer PSU, so this ammo box power supply is still protected from short circuits, and over-current, making it much safer than its appearance belies. It’s also a great example of what can be done if you don’t have a proper bench supply, so we’ve got to tip our hat to [BadWolf] for that. | 30 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "953508",
"author": "Per Jensen",
"timestamp": "2013-02-03T14:04:20",
"content": "Really cool. But come on, RCA-connectors ? That’s a recipe for disaster :-/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "953509",
"author": "GameboyRMH",
... | 1,760,376,621.249268 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/02/02/bladerf-your-next-software-defined-radio/ | BladeRF, Your Next Software Defined Radio | Brian Benchoff | [
"Crowd Funding",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"bladeRF",
"Crowd Funding",
"sdr",
"software-defined radio"
] | By now you might have a bit weary of your small and inexpensive TV tuner dongle software defined radio. Yes, using a USB TV dongle is a great introduction to SDR, but it has limited bandwidth, limited frequency range, and can’t transmit.
Enter the bladeRF
, the SDR that makes up for all the shortcomings of a USB dongle, and also serves as a great wireless development platform.
The bladeRF is able to receive and transmit on any frequency between 300 MHz and 3.8 GHz. This, along with a powerful FPGA, ARM CPU, and very good ADCs and DACs makes it possible to build your own software defined WiFi adapter, Bluetooth module, ZigBee radio, GPS receiver, or GSM and 4G LTE modem.
It’s an impressive bit of kit, but it doesn’t exactly come cheap; the bladeRF is available on the Kickstarter for $400. The folks behind the bladeRF seem to be doing things right, though, and are using their Kickstarter windfall for all the right things like a USB vendor ID.
There’s a video of two bladeRFs being used as a full duplex modem. You can check that out after the break.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBSd3QOUfzA&w=580%5D | 74 | 29 | [
{
"comment_id": "953108",
"author": "wetomelo",
"timestamp": "2013-02-02T22:12:34",
"content": "300 Mhz Lower band limit? It’s missing much of the amateur bands!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "953219",
"author": "Brad Whetstone",
... | 1,760,376,621.360939 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/02/02/guitar-hero-controller-built-from-toy-guitar-and-keyboard/ | Guitar Hero Controller Built From Toy Guitar And Keyboard | Mike Szczys | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"controller",
"guitar",
"guitar hero",
"keyboard",
"mouse"
] | [Heinrich Laue] was kind of a latecomer to the fake guitar playing video game phenomenon. He played Frets on Fire — an open source clone of the game — on PC and eventually bought a copy of Guitar Hero World Tour. But playing on the keyboard was a drag. Instead of buying a controller he
built his own hacked Guitar Hero controller
from a scrapped keyboard and a toy guitar.
The plastic toy he started with was screwed together. This is a really nice since it’s almost impossible to open toys that have been welded together. There was plenty of room inside for all his components and even some space to run the wires.
He started the electronic portion of the build by tracing out the keyboard matrix to figure out which solder pads he could tap into. The strum bar uses a door hinge with buttons on either side of it. When you move it back and forth it hits the buttons, with the spring mechanism in each returning it back to center. The fret buttons are keys from the keyboard, but the switches uses were pulled from a few computer mice. But the real innovation comes into play when he added the Star Power tilt sensor and whammy bar. Follow the link above to find out how he did it. | 13 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "953068",
"author": "strider_mt2k",
"timestamp": "2013-02-02T20:11:22",
"content": "That is pretty cool right there!I’m going to go dig out my circuit-bent dollar store digital guitar and do a solo in honor of this clever and resourceful hack!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1... | 1,760,376,621.840342 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/02/02/easy-web-interface-with-gpio-access-runs-on-raspberry-pi/ | Easy Web Interface With GPIO Access Runs On Raspberry Pi | Mike Szczys | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"gpio",
"mysql",
"php",
"phpmyadmin",
"RPi",
"web interface"
] | Here’s a Raspberry Pi hack that
adds web control using PHP and MySQL
. As you can see in the image, it serves up a webpage (using the Apache2 server) which allows you to change the state of the GPIO pins. It’s not super-complicated, but it is nice to see
a step-by-step guide for installing and configuring the package
.
Web interface GPIO control is one of the features we loved about
the Adafruit Web IDE
. But this offering is loaded completely from the RPi (the Adafruit package uses cloud based code) and utilizes the tools most Linux network admins will be used to. A MySQL database manages the connection between GUI commands and GPIO modification. The webpage is served up by a PHP script which takes care of polling and changing database values. Configuration requires a new database, plus the username and password which has access to it. | 30 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "953016",
"author": "Any",
"timestamp": "2013-02-02T18:07:22",
"content": "Code isn’t good because it does’t separate HTML from PHP whats more store password and username in this same file. It is only concept.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"... | 1,760,376,621.950253 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/02/02/music-challenge-has-you-flapping-your-wrist-to-make-sounds/ | Music Challenge Has You Flapping Your Wrist To Make Sounds | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"accelerometer",
"music",
"piezo",
"simon says"
] | This
glove controller let you play a musical game
. The challenge is to perform the correct wrist motions at the right tempo to play the intro to the song
Where is my Mind
by the Pixies. This is demonstrated in the video clip after the break.
We often see
flex sensors used on the fingers
of glove projects, but this one does it all with an accelerometer. That module, along with the Piezo buzzer used for playback are affixed to the small breadboard on the back side of his hand. Rubber bands connect the Arduino to his third and forth fingers. The tempo and rhythm are pre-programmed but the tone generated is based on the gravity reading at the start of each note. If you don’t have your hand positioned correctly the wrong tone will be played.
The code was published in link at the top. It would be fun to see this altered as
a hacked Simon Says game
. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "952984",
"author": "john",
"timestamp": "2013-02-02T16:33:23",
"content": "This is a pretty neat hack! Would be lots of fun to play around with. You should make a compact pcb for it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "952986",
... | 1,760,376,621.995968 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/02/02/glowing-super-bowl-helmets/ | Glowing Super Bowl Helmets | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"cutter",
"EL panel",
"el wire",
"sticker",
"superbowl",
"vinyl"
] | These geeky Superbowl decorations glow thanks to
the EL panel hack
which [Becky Stern] created. It’s almost impossible to make out in this image, but the EL panels have been applied to the surface of the helmet. On the San Francisco helmet you can just make out the black connector and cord at the bottom of the F.
El panels are a lot like EL wire (but they’re flat) in that the phosphors are excited when connected to a high voltage AC supply. You can cut the panels into shapes without a problem. The technique used here is to create a black vinyl mask to go over the top of the panel. This makes cutting the panel a lot easier.
The mask sticker is made on a vinyl cutter. [Becky] is a master at using the vector tool as you can see in the video after the break. She outlined each team logo with paths to create a file which the cutter can use. From there it took several tries to get the sticker just right as the curve of the helmet distorts the logos just a bit. Once it was dialed in she stuck the vinyl on the El panel and cut around the perimeter.
The Adafruit team sure
loves to use electroluminescent accents
. | 8 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "952969",
"author": "macona",
"timestamp": "2013-02-02T15:50:52",
"content": "If you want this to last any length of time you need to reseal the EL panels with something like a laminator. The phosphor is hydroscopic and will absorb moisture from the air. When this happens the EL will... | 1,760,376,621.888153 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/02/01/hack-causes-food-to-spoil-if-you-dont-exercise/ | FitBit Hack Causes Food To Spoil If You Don’t Exercise | Mike Szczys | [
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"fitbit",
"server",
"WeMo"
] | This hack could be titled ‘Exercise or Starve’. [Charalampos] needed some motivation to become more active. There’s a device called a FitBit tracker (black and blue on the left) which records your activity and submits it to a web interface. You get daily goals and can earn badges. But those stinking badges didn’t motivate him. He decided he needed something that would really get him off of the couch. So
he hacked the FitBit to cut power to his refrigerator
. Not meeting his goals will eventually result in a stinky mess and no dinner.
It’s a bad idea to cut power to the icebox. But we see this merely as a proof of concept. He’s using the Belkin WeMo networked outlet. Other than
some security issues we discussed on Thursday
this is a very simple way to control devices from your server. [Charalampos’] implementation uses the FitBit API to check his activity and drives the outlet accordingly. | 35 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "952649",
"author": "Chris Traeger",
"timestamp": "2013-02-02T02:13:34",
"content": "That is LITERALLY the best idea EVER to force yourself into exercising.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "952685",
"author": "just me...",
... | 1,760,376,622.064095 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/29/messenger-bag-led-matrix-keeps-bikers-safe-at-night/ | Messenger Bag LED Matrix Keeps Bikers Safe At Night | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"charlieplexing",
"led",
"lilypad",
"matix",
"messenger bag"
] | Get a little more exposure than one under-saddle bike light can provide
by building your own LED enabled messenger bag
. It looks like the bag itself was fabricated from scratch by [Andrew Maxwell-Parish] rather than altering an existing bag. He had a few goals for the project, the most interesting of which was to make the electronics removable. His reasoning for this is so he can get the bag past security at the airport.
The design is quite simple, there’s a large flap which is attached at the top of the bag and has a couple of clips at the bottom to keep ti closed. On the inside of the flap he sewed a snap system which holds one piece of material on which all of the electronics are attached. The Lilypad system is used (it looks like the original hardware and not
the FLORA upgrade
). The main unit is sewn to one side, while the Charlieplex LED matrix was attached in a grid centered on the flap. The lights shine through the orange fabric, keeping them fairly safe from the weather and giving them a reddish hue.
If you’re looking for a few more features check out
this GPS enabled messenger bag
. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "950147",
"author": "gji",
"timestamp": "2013-01-29T22:10:06",
"content": "“It looks like the bag itself was fabricated from scratch by [Andrew Maxwell-Parish] rather than altering an existing bag. ”It looks like it makes no difference for a drunk driver who is about to hit you.",
... | 1,760,376,622.116609 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/29/help-hackaday-buy-our-own-3d-printer/ | Help Hackaday Buy Our Own 3D Printer UPDATED! | Caleb Kraft | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"News"
] | [
"begging"
] | UPDATE:
We’re getting
a LulzBot
thanks to [Jeff Moe].
ALL DONATIONS ARE BEING REFUNDED. YOU WILL STILL RECEIVE YOUR STICKERS.
We’ve held out for far too long. Hackaday now needs a 3D printer. We get emails all the time asking why we don’t have a donate button. Well, we’re kind of stubborn and would rather just do with what we have. Unfortunately this hasn’t gotten us very far in the 3d printer department.
We have a few projects in mind that could really utilize a 3d printer, namely
building custom game controllers for children with special physical needs
.
If you have any interest in helping us get a 3D printer for Hackaday, read on. Otherwise, carry on with your day.
OK, we don’t like people giving us money for nothing, it feels icky. So, we’ve inflated the cost of a couple items in our store that you can purchase to help get us to our goal of $2500.
We have a sticker for $10
, and you can preorder a
3D printed Hackaday badge for $25
. Being able to send you something for your money, even if it is just a token, makes us feel a little better.
Why don’t you just start a kickstarter?
I am so very very very sick of getting kickstarter emails. I choose to avoid that place. If you’re reading hackaday, you’re our target audience anyway.
What printer do you want?
We’ve looked at the Ultimaker, Solidoodle, and Makerbot Replicator. At this point, our decision will be based on how much money we raise. If we can afford it we’ll most likely go with the Ultimaker. They’re crazy fast and the quality was pretty amazing.
“Don’t you think a 3D printer company would love to give you a printer just for the exposure?”
Sure, they might. That seems weird and somehow lacking in integrity though. I’m not sure why, I mean we’re begging our readers for money instead. Also, we haven’t asked any. Maybe they’ll see this and offer.
“Why should we give you money?”
You probably shouldn’t. We’re not responsible people.
“why don’t you just build a reprap? They’re great!”
There are no less than 3 repraps owned by friends of ours that we could mooch off of. None of which can produce a high quality and consistent print. It is most likely just an issue of putting in the time to get everything dialed in perfectly. We don’t want to have to fight the printer.
We would consider a mendel90 kit. This would reduce the cost needed. Please send in links to good mendel90 kits.
I really really want to donate instead of buying your crap.
OK, only this once. You can just send money to my([Caleb]) personal paypal ( NOT ANY MORE!)
UPDATE
: We’re getting
a LulzBot
thanks to [Jeff Moe].
ALL DONATIONS ARE BEING REFUNDED. YOU WILL STILL RECEIVE YOUR STICKERS.
Current contributions: $500 (4:15 pm central time) | 130 | 39 | [
{
"comment_id": "949975",
"author": "macegr",
"timestamp": "2013-01-29T20:09:19",
"content": "Much has buying an Ultimaker sounds nice, seeing Hackaday walk through the process of building a functional Mendel90 sounds like an excellent article series.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"re... | 1,760,376,622.287741 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/29/adapting-the-nexus-7-for-a-double-din-car-dashboard-opening/ | Adapting The Nexus 7 For A Double DIN Car Dashboard Opening | Mike Szczys | [
"Android Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"dashboard",
"din",
"double din",
"nexus 7",
"subaru"
] | It turns out that the Nexus 7 Android tablet is the perfect size to fit in a double DIN opening. DIN is the form factor of a single CD head unit for an automobile. Many models have room for a double DIN, which is defined as 4″ high by 7″ wide. Once [Meta James] figured out that the dashboard bezel for his Subaru framed the Nexus 7 perfectly he set out to
fabricate the mounting system for an in-dash tablet installation
.
Unlike
a lot of these dashboard tablet installs
, [James] didn’t need any Bondo, sanding, or painting to get things to look right. Like we mentioned, the bezel is a perfect fit so his alterations are hidden behind the tablet itself. He removed the stock head unit and ordered a DIN adapter kit to get the black bracket plate seen above. He built an acrylic box the same size as a double DIN head unit, then mounted the plates to the sides and a Nexus 7 case to the front. This holds the tablet in firmly, lets him mount the entire assembly using the factory mounting points, and leaves plenty of room for the cabling that connects the device to the car. Since he already had a hands-free phone system he just uses that to amplify the audio fed to it via Bluetooth.
[via
Reddit
] | 33 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "949941",
"author": "dALE",
"timestamp": "2013-01-29T19:15:39",
"content": "If anyone else is wondering how he is connecting to the Audio system, I grabbed this quote from the comments on the build page:“Audio goes to my Parrot MKi9100 via bluetooth, it has a amp built in and all kin... | 1,760,376,622.612836 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/29/genetic-algorithms-become-programmers-themselves/ | Genetic Algorithms Become Programmers Themselves | Brian Benchoff | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"brainfuck",
"genetic algorithm"
] | [Kory] has been experimenting with genetic algorithms. Normally we’d expect his experiments to deal with tuning the variables in a control system or something, but he’s doing something much cooler. [Kory] is
using genetic algorithms to write computer programs
, and in the process bringing us one step closer to the Singularity.
The first experiments with genetic algorithms generating applications did so in BASIC, C, and other human-readable languages. While these programs
nearly
worked, there were far too many limitations on what could be produced with a GA. A simpler language was needed, and after turning to assembly for a hot second, [Kory] ended up using
brainfuck
, an extremely minimal but still Turing-complete language.
The use of brainfuck for creating programs from a genetic algorithm may seem a bit strange, but there’s a method to [Kory]’s madness. It’s relatively simple to write an interpreter the GA’s fitness function can look into and come up with a score of which programs should breed and which should die. Also, the simplicity of brainfuck means a computer doesn’t have to learn much syntax and grammar at all.
Right now, [Kory]’s computer that can program itself only does so by creating simple ‘hello world’ programs. It should be possible, though, for this AI to create programs that take user input and generate an output, whatever that may be. Once [Kory] is able to have the computer generate its own fitness functions, though, the sky is the limit and the Singularity will be fast approaching. | 45 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "949855",
"author": "Nico Nimleth",
"timestamp": "2013-01-29T17:48:01",
"content": "Nice :D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "949856",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2013-01-29T17:48:03",
"content": "Interesting… Th... | 1,760,376,622.546923 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/29/building-a-velocity-sensitive-keyboard/ | Building A Velocity Sensitive Keyboard | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"aftertouch",
"keyboard",
"midi",
"velocity sensitive"
] | Cheap toy pianos don’t usually have MIDI, and getting a velocity-sensitive keyboard from something out of the toy aisle at Walmart is nearly out of the question. If you’re willing to tear one of these toy pianos apart and build your own control electronics, though, the sky is the limit, as [JenShen] shows us with
his home built velocity sensitive keyboard
.
Usually, velocity-sensitive keyboards have two buttons underneath each key. By having a microcontroller measure the time difference between when each button is pressed, it’s possible to sense how fast each key was pressed. [JenShen] took the idea of a velocity-sensitive keyboard in another direction and instead used a force sensitive resistor strip,
cut up into many pieces
to provide velocity and aftertouch data.
[JenShen]’s keyboard adds these resistive buttons to the button matrix
he already made
. The result is a very inexpensive velocity sensitive keyboard with aftertouch, an impressive feat for an Arduino and only a few components.
You can check out the keyboard in action after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIBBxDHOa0g&w=580] | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "949789",
"author": "jstylen",
"timestamp": "2013-01-29T16:48:30",
"content": "Wow that’s pretty neat. I found mine on craigslist for $100. Didn’t think of building my own.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "950478",
"auth... | 1,760,376,622.366317 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/29/this-man-will-take-your-picture-while-macing-you/ | This Man Will Take Your Picture While Macing You | Brian Benchoff | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"camera",
"mace",
"pepper spray"
] | Odds are you don’t have a photographic memory, so if you ever have to mace someone, you probably won’t remember exactly what your attacker looks like. Compound that with talking to the police and looking at a few dozen mug shots, and it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever be able to identify the person you maced. This was the problem [John], [Cordelia], and [Adrian]
chose to solve
for [Bruce Land]’s microcontroller course at Cornell this semester.
The device they created, PepGuard, adds a microcontroller and a serial JPEG camera to a canister of pepper spray. When the button on top is pressed, the microcontroller flashes a LED, takes a picture with a camera, and sends that picture to a phone over a Bluetooth connection.
PepGuard is always connected to the user’s phone via Bluetooth, and this allows for some interesting possibilities. With their Android app, the team can set up the phone to call emergency services when the device is activated.
You can check out the demo of the device after the break, or read the team’s report
here
.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0611TzhYDA&w=580]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tMTmzqyTwM&w=580] | 40 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "949725",
"author": "StefanM",
"timestamp": "2013-01-29T15:46:29",
"content": "This would make for some interesting jackassesque selfshots for your social network of choice..",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "950269",
"au... | 1,760,376,622.81208 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/29/hand-bind-your-own-books/ | Hand Bind Your Own Books | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"binding",
"books"
] | This guide will show you
how to bind books by hand
. The process from start to finish isn’t very difficult as long as you follow each step along the way. The final product looks great, and we can’t think of a better gift… as long as you have something meaningful on the pages.
We never really thought about the direction of the fibers in a sheet of paper, but that’s the first thing you’ll have to take into consideration here. You want the fibers running up and down when the book is in a bookcase. Next the sheets are organized into stacks of four, then folded in half forming eight pages. After stacking these packets together a series of lines are marked on the folded side. Holes are then punched from the inside at each mark using a sturdy needle. This is where the stitching for the binding will happen. Bands are added using coarse linen thread. After stitching these in place and knotting, glue is added and finally a piece of cloth is adhered to the binding and a portion of each inside cover. From there it’s onto fabricating the cover before pressing the finished project as seen above. What a piece of work!
[via
Reddit
] | 21 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "949655",
"author": "John",
"timestamp": "2013-01-29T14:11:59",
"content": "I personally prefer this one:http://hackaday.com/2012/07/16/dealing-with-the-horrors-of-pdfs-by-binding-your-own-books/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "9... | 1,760,376,622.676755 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/30/controlling-minecraft-with-a-raspberry-pi/ | Controlling A Raspberry Pi With Real Life Redstone | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"minecraft",
"PiFace",
"raspberry pi",
"redstone"
] | We’ve seen computers built in Minecraft out of redstone, the game’s version of electricity, circuits, and digital logic. We’ve even seen a few redstone contraptions controlling real-world devices. [Angus]’ build, though, takes things to a whole new level. He’s created a bridge
between Minecraft circuits and their real life counterparts
using a Raspberry Pi.
[Angus]’ build relies on a mod for Minecraft servers running as a Bukkit plugin. Blocks powered by redstone are labeled with an in-game sign, and messages regarding the state of a block are passed over the network using the
MQTT protocol
.
The hardware side of the build is a Raspberry Pi with a PiFace expansion board. With this setup, [Angus] can control LEDs on the PiFace by toggling Minecraft levers, or light up redstone lamps using the PiFace’s buttons.
If you’d like to try this out for yourself, you can grab the Bukkit plugin over on
[Angus]’s git
. Check out the video of the real life redstone in action after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ythrmFAJugw&w=580] | 20 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "950951",
"author": "andar_b",
"timestamp": "2013-01-30T17:09:49",
"content": "Anyone who likes digital logic and Minecraft probably already knows this, but the RedPower2 mod is amazing in terms of the options it provides for redstone wiring. Multiple cable colors, bundled cables, ti... | 1,760,376,622.732182 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/30/mr-tea-is-a-hot-plate-and-magnetic-stirrer-in-the-same-enclosure/ | Mr. Tea Is A Hot Plate And Magnetic Stirrer In The Same Enclosure | Mike Szczys | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"hot plate",
"psu",
"stir plate",
"tea"
] | Not being a coffee drinker [Hunter Scott] wanted a way to make tea while lurking in his workshop. Well it’s not exactly rocket science, as all you need is water at the right temperature and a vessel in which the tea can be steeped. But we do commend him on not only
building a nice little hot plate
enclosure, but rolling a magnetic stirrer into the other side of the box.
You heard us right, the stirrer is not combined with the plate, but resides on the underside of the same PSU enclosure. The plate itself is from a unit he bought at the store and cannibalized. The light switch dimmer lets him adjust the heat it puts out. When not hot, he can flip it over and use the stir plate. This consists of a hard drive magnet attached to a PC fan. For the stirrer itself he encased a neodymium magnet in some thermoplastic. The magnetic combination works well together with a demonstration which shows it stirring water through the base of a tea-cup. | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "950914",
"author": "Michael",
"timestamp": "2013-01-30T16:04:14",
"content": "And then you burn your desk when switching over from boiling your tea to stirring it:-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "950918",
"author": "... | 1,760,376,622.865894 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/30/automated-doors-for-theatre-effect/ | Automated Doors For Theatre Effect | Eric Evenchick | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"lulzbot",
"special effects",
"theatre",
"victor 884"
] | For a theatre production, [Jason] needed a way to automatically open and close doors as a special effect. His solution,
hosted on Github
, lets him remotely control the doors, and put them into a ‘freak out’ mode for one scene in the play.
Two Victor 884 motor controllers are attached to an Arduino that controls the system. A custom controller lets [Jason] actuate the doors remotely, and LEDs are used to display the state of the system.
On the mechanical side, two wind shield wiper motors are used. These are connected to custom arms that were printed using a Lulzbot AO-100. The arms allow for the door to be automatically actuated, but also allow for actors to open the door manually.
The result is a neat special effect, and the 3D models that are included in the repository could be useful for other people looking to build automated doors. In the video after the break, [Jason] walks us through the system’s design and demonstrates it in action. | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "950865",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2013-01-30T15:18:27",
"content": "So, now it needs to play a .wav file of the Star Trek Bridge door opening.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "950877",
"author": "Bill",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,376,622.918835 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/30/finding-the-cheapest-board-house/ | Finding The Cheapest Board House | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"batchpcb",
"board house",
"circuit board",
"OHS Park",
"pcb",
"Seeed"
] | The prices for custom made circuit boards has never been cheaper, but surprisingly we’ve never seen a comparison of prices between the major board houses. [Brad] took the time to dig in to the price of 10 boards manufactured by Seeed Studios, OHS Park, and BatchPCB.
He made some pretty graphs
and also answered the question of where you can get your circuits made cheaply.
[Brad] got the prices for boards up to 20 cm x 20 cm from
Seeed Studio’s Fusion PCB service
,
OSH Park
, and
BatchPCB
. These results were graphed with Octave and showed some rather surprising results.
For boards over 20 cm
2
, the cheapest option is Seeed Studios. In fact, the price difference between Seeed and the other board houses for the maximum sized board is impressive; a 400 cm
2
board from Seeed costs $150, while the same board from OSH Park is close to $1000.
Of course most boards are much smaller, so the bottom line is for boards less than 20 cm
2
, your best bet is to go with OHS Park. If you don’t care when your boards arrive, or you need more than 10 or so, Seeed is the way to go. As far as the quality of the boards go, OSH Park
is up there at the top
as well. | 54 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "950800",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2013-01-30T14:17:49",
"content": "He unfairly concludes that you should never order from BatchPCB. But he bases that on an order of 10 boards. I, for one, rarely need more than one copy of a board.I recently ordered a large-ish board (9″x2″) a... | 1,760,376,623.008521 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/30/ask-hackaday-whats-an-easy-way-to-build-a-potentiometer-for-a-soldering-iron/ | Ask Hackaday: What’s An Easy Way To Build A Potentiometer For A Soldering Iron? | Mike Szczys | [
"Ask Hackaday"
] | [
"atx",
"potentiometer",
"psu",
"soldering station",
"trimpot"
] | [Lee] wrote in to share the work he’s done in building a controller for his soldering iron. The idea started when he was working with an ATX power supply. He figured if it works as a makeshift bench supply perhaps he could use it as the source for an adjustable iron. To get around the built-in short-circuit protection he needed a potentiometer to limit the current while allowing for adjustments. His first circuit used a resistor salvaged from an AT supply and a trimpot from some computer speakers. That melted rather quickly as the pot was not power rated.
This is a picture of his next attempt. He built his own potentiometer. It uses the center conductor from some coaxial cable wrapped around the plastic frame of an old cooling fan. Once the wire was in place he sanded down the insulation on top to expose the conductor. The sweeper is a piece of solid core wire which pivots to connect to the coil in different places. It works, and so far he’s managed to adjust a 5V rail between 5A and 20A.
How would you make this system more robust? Short of buying a trimpot with a higher power rating, do you think this is the easy way to build a soldering iron controller? Let us know by leaving your thoughts in the comments.
We think this is resistor is in-line with the DIY potentiometer. Shouldn’t this be a part with a much higher power rating?
Close view of the sweeper contacting the exposed copper in the windings.
Finished potentiometer from the top | 66 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "950740",
"author": "jcwren",
"timestamp": "2013-01-30T13:07:37",
"content": "More robust? How about just less terrifying?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "950743",
"author": "pouncer",
"timestamp": "2013-01-30T1... | 1,760,376,623.106166 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/30/mit-media-labs-month-in-shenzhen/ | MIT Media Lab’s Month In Shenzhen | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"bunnie",
"mit media lab",
"shenzhen"
] | When you’ve got a month worth of blog postings it’s pretty difficult to choose one photograph that sums it all up. This one shows the tour group from MIT Media Lab in ESD garb ready for their tour of Okano SMT and Speaker Factory. It was part of a tour of Shenzhen aimed at bringing graduate students up to speed on what it means to manufacture products in the city. Luckily, Freaklabs member [Akiba] was one of the staff members of the program and
blogged extensively about the experience
. At first glance his page full of post abstracts looks really boring, but click through because both his recount and the commented images associated with each day are fun and fascinating ways to tag along with the group.
If you’re really good with faces you can pick [Bunnie Huang] out of the lineup above (he’s the third from the right). He had the original idea for the program and brought aboard a few others to help make the thing a success. The group toured a wide range of factories and parts markets in the city. This included your traditional electronics manufacturing venues but there was even a side trip to a diaper and feminine napkin plant to see the non-electronic factories in operation. In addition to tours there were lectures by industry members like HAXLR8R, a group that specializes in
helping start-ups navigate the manufacturing jungle
. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "950714",
"author": "Sven",
"timestamp": "2013-01-30T12:15:25",
"content": "I think you killed the site, it worked a couple of minutes ago, but then i got 2 consecutive different error messages,first:This site is temporarily unavailable.Please notify the System Administratorthen:This... | 1,760,376,623.14743 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/29/a-look-at-the-now-patched-security-of-kim-dotcoms-mega-cloud-storage-service/ | A Look At The (now Patched) Security Of [Kim Dotcom’s] MEGA Cloud Storage Service | Mike Szczys | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"cloud storage",
"kim dotcom",
"mega",
"megaupload"
] | MEGA is a new, encrypted cloud storage system founded by [Kim Dotcom] of MegaUpload fame. They’re selling privacy in that the company won’t have the means to decrypt the data stored by users of its service. As with any software project, their developers are rapidly making improvements to the user interface and secure underpinnings. But it’s fun when we get some insight about possible security problems. It sounds like the issue [Marcan] wrote about has been fixed, but
we still had a great time reading his post
.
The article focuses on the hashes that the website uses to validate data being sucked in from non-SSL sources using some JavaScript. Those insecure sources are a CDN so this type of verification is necessary to make sure that the third-party network hasn’t been compromised as part of an attack on the MEGA site. The particular security issue came when the hashes were generated using
CBC-MAC
. [Marcan] asserts that this protocol is not adequate for the application it’s being used for and goes on to post a proof-of-concept on how the messages can be forged while retaining a hash that will validate as authentic.
[Thanks Christian] | 25 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "950215",
"author": "polar bear",
"timestamp": "2013-01-29T23:24:41",
"content": "didnt understand anything of that post, this goes beyond my realm of expertise",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "950702",
"author": "James"... | 1,760,376,623.208385 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/31/7x7x7-led-cube-driven-by-arduino-mega/ | 7x7x7 LED Cube Driven By Arduino Mega | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"arduino mega",
"cube",
"LED cube"
] | Sure, the physical build itself looks great, but it’s what [Michael] did with the firmware that impresses us the most. He’s using
an Arduino Mega to drive the 7x7x7 cube
and manages to squeeze out what he calls 142 frames per second with the setup. We’re not sure FPS is the right measurement, as we believe it’s the multiplexing rate that he’s trying to describle. It takes 144 uS to scan the entire matrix once. He performs the scan seven times per frame and the result is a flicker-free appearance, even to cameras.
You can see a video demonstration after the break. Since [Michael] emailed us directly with more details about the build we’ve pasted those below the fold as well.
If you’re looking for a more entry-level Arduino LED cube
this 4x4x4 project
is just the thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKCjsbNEUUE
The cube is able to process 142 frames per second, that is, 1 frame every 7 milliseconds. Within this time period, it loops through a still frame 7 times (Each cycle of POV lasts 144 microseconds). This is able to compensate for flickering during video recording, allowing all camera’s to record fluid video without distortion.
The cube itself is controlled with an Arduino Mega 2560. For each frame in memory, the Arduino reads and bit shifts 49 bytes of data for an encoded duration. This allows for the cube to be applied to a variety of purposes, from text display to effects to music visualisation.
The frames were generated through complex Processing scripts, allowing for a multitude of operations such as shifting in any direction (seen in the rain effect), and an edge shift (seen in the scrolling text around the outside of the cube). These scripts were used to perform the basis of calculations for fireworks, as well as sine waves in 1, 2 & 3 dimensions (seen in the video).
In this cube the supporting structure was made 0.9 mm galvanised steel wire, straightened by stretching the wire. The 5mm Blue LED’s are positioned 30mm apart, with the anodes being attached to the verticals (white wires in the image below) & the cathodes are attached to the horizontal layers (green wires in the image below – bottom right – shown passing through NPN transistors). The Arduino Mega 2560 R3 is positioned on a suspended platform, with the anodes controlled on the Digital Pins as opposed to the cathodes on remapped AnalogInputs. | 16 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "951552",
"author": "TMM",
"timestamp": "2013-01-31T14:17:51",
"content": "I couldn’t see how 142fps was ambiguous? seems legit to me. If each frame took 7x144us then he’d have over 1000fps. Obviously it some CPU time is taken up by processing in between each ‘display’ cycle. The dis... | 1,760,376,623.253629 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/31/the-keypad-contest/ | The Keypad Contest | Eric Evenchick | [
"contests",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"attiny2313",
"contest",
"keypad",
"TL-WR703N",
"usbtinyisp"
] | What can you do with ten buttons and ten lights? A lot.
[Andrew] and [Nathan] found a collection of Hale Research keypads being thrown out, and decided to host the
Keypad Contest
. The goal of the contest was to create something nifty using the ten buttons and ten lights on the keypad, and an ATtiny2313 that replaced the original 8051-compatible microcontroller in the device.
[Andrew] wanted to try making PCBs with his home-built CNC machine, so he milled out USBtinyISP programmers for the ATtiny2313. Then he gave out eleven development kits to a group, and explained how to develop on the hardware.
After a month of hacking, seven people completed projects. The winner was an internet radio controller, which had the keypad sending serial data to a TP-Link WR703N router. The router used a USB sound card and OpenWRT firmware to stream music. The runner up was a timing game called “Capture”.
The contest write up has details on all seven projects. [Andrew] and [Nathan] were successful in getting software engineers to try hardware with this contest, resulting in some neat hacks. After the break, check out a video demo of the internet radio controller. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "951502",
"author": "ino",
"timestamp": "2013-01-31T12:15:54",
"content": "So the winner just did what hundred others have done (including myself) since mightyohm released is tutorial for cheap internet radio.What a challenge ! :-/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replie... | 1,760,376,623.698358 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/30/feedback-for-automated-water-and-food-pet-dispensers/ | Feedback For Automated Water And Food Pet Dispensers | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"cat",
"dispenser",
"dog",
"feeder",
"pet",
"water"
] | [Enrico] figured out
a way to fully automate his pet food and water
. The system is in two parts, the water trough as seen on the left, and the food dispenser whose control hardware is shown on the right. The system is even hooked up to the network so that he can make sure it didn’t break down while he was away.
The water dispenser uses parts from a sprinkler system. Since it’s mounted outdoors it doesn’t matter if the water overflows a little bit. So [Enrico] set up the timer to run the water for three minutes every day. This acts as a backup system since the trough already has the ability to refill itself.
The food dispenser started as a commercial unit. To get feedback from the system he added a couple of magnets to the agitation motor and reads them with a hall effect sensor. In addition to an IP camera that monitors the area around the feeder (so [Enrico] can actually see his dog eating) there is a webcam which monitors the STM32 Discovery board which monitors the feeder. It tracks the number of times the dispenser has run. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "951205",
"author": "Richard Sisco",
"timestamp": "2013-01-30T23:09:51",
"content": "I don’t know what a “food pet” is, but I want one.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "951235",
"author": "saw0",
"timestamp": "20... | 1,760,376,623.798911 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/30/hdd-pov-clock-takes-the-best-from-those-that-came-before-it/ | HDD POV Clock Takes The Best From Those That Came Before It | Mike Szczys | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"hard drive",
"hdd",
"led",
"POV"
] | The concept behind this clock has been seen before, but [Dieter] tried to combine
the best aspects of several projects into his HDD POV clock
(
translated
). The basic principle of the design is to cut a slot into the top platter of the hard drive. This will let the light from some LEDs shine through. By carefully synchronizing the LED with the spinning platter a set of differently colored hands can be shown to mark time. We’ve been looking at the project for several minutes now and we’re not quite sure if the lines marking the 5-minute segments on the clock are generated in the same way as the hands, or if they’re marks on a faceplate on top of the platters. Check out the clip after the break and let us know what you think.
Past HDD clock project include
this one
, or
this other one
. Some of the design improvements include a better motor driver (which [Dieter] pulled from an old VCR) and the inclusion of an RTC chip to keep accurate time without the need to be connected to a computer. We also think it’s a nice touch to sandwich the hardware between two picture frames for a nice finished look. | 5 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "951223",
"author": "RR",
"timestamp": "2013-01-30T23:30:20",
"content": "Isn’t it quite obvious after 1:56 that the 5 minute lines are produced the same way as the hands?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "951252",
"author": "S... | 1,760,376,623.530817 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/30/3d-printed-hexapod-robot/ | 3d Printed Hexapod Robot | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"18F452",
"3d printed",
"arduino",
"hexapod",
"pic",
"servo",
"shield"
] | This
hexapod was made almost entirely via 3d printing
(
translated
). The parts that you need to supply include a few fasteners to make connections, twelve servo motors, and a method of driving them. As you can see in the video after the break, all those parts come together into a little robot that functions quite well. The only thing that we think is missing are some grippy feet to help prevent slipping.
[Hugo] calls the project Bleuette. It is completely open source, with the cad files and source code available on
his Github repository
. There is additional information in the wiki page of that repo. This gives us
a good look at the electronic design
. He’s controlling the legs with an Arduino, but it’s all dependent on his own shield which features a PIC 18F452 to take care of the signals used to drive all of the servo motors. The board also has some peripherals to monitor the current draw and regulate the incoming power. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "951404",
"author": "Frank",
"timestamp": "2013-01-31T06:40:37",
"content": "thx for the cad files very useful 4 beginners like me!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "951531",
"author": "Bretteo",
"timestamp": "2013-01-31T13... | 1,760,376,623.481759 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/30/modulator-box-connects-ipod-to-tesla-coil/ | Modulator Box Connects IPod To Tesla Coil | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"high voltage",
"ipod",
"modulator",
"tesla coil"
] | This pass through audio modulator
lets you playback stereo audio on two Tesla coils
. But don’t fret, you can just use mono files if you only have one coil on hand. On one side there are inputs that connect to the audio source. The other side drives the Tesla coil, switching it on and off based on the relationship between a reference voltage and the audio signal. As you can hear in the video after the break this sounds great as long as you have the right kind of source audio.
The song played in that clip is the Duke Nukem 3D theme. [Daniel] started with a MIDI file and removed the chimes and drums to make the playback a little cleaner. The demo uses just one coil because the other was destroyed during testing when feedback between the two became a problem.
For some reason this reminds us of
that singing Tesla coil hat
. If you’re already on our
mailing list
(sign up in the sidebar) you know we’re getting pretty close to unveiling our own awesome Tesla coil project. It doesn’t sing… yet. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "951070",
"author": "brassomat",
"timestamp": "2013-01-30T20:14:02",
"content": "Wow, that thing literally rocks!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "951072",
"author": "saw0",
"timestamp": "2013-01-30T20:15:44",
"content... | 1,760,376,623.750058 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/30/really-really-geeky-wedding-invitations/ | Really, Really Geeky Wedding Invitations | Brian Benchoff | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"Bill Porter",
"geek",
"geeky",
"invitations",
"wedding"
] | Being real, ultimate geeks, [Bill] and [Mara] didn’t want to settle for plain, paper-based wedding invitations. No, they wanted something cooler, and came up with
their own DIY electronic wedding invitations
.
Since they would be making the invitations themselves, [Bill] and [Mara] needed a simple circuit that could be easily mass produced. They turned to the classic microcontroller-powered blinking LED circuit powered by an ATtiny13.
The first order of business was producing 50 printed circuit boards for each of the invitations. For this, [Bill] picked up an Xerox Phaser laser printer off of ebay and a few sheets of copper-clad kapton film. The etch resist was printed directly onto the kapton film and etched in a bath of ferric chloride, effectively making a flexible PCB.
These circuit boards were soldered up and laminated between the printed invitation and the card stock cutter with the help of a
Silhouette Cameo paper cutter
. After the cards were assembled, the battery was wired up and the cards shipped out.
The microcontroller inside the card was programmed to be asleep most of the time, waking up only every few seconds to check a light sensor to determine if the card was opened or not. If the microcontroller sensed the card was open, the lights began blinking, making it one of the most memorable wedding invitations [Bill] and [Mara]’s guests will ever receive.
You can check out a demo of the invitations after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ma1f3YOkl8&w=580] | 53 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "950998",
"author": "arture (@altazor08)",
"timestamp": "2013-01-30T18:14:06",
"content": "hell, I can’t imagine all the pollution left behind by those batteries…. would have been geekier sith some other powersource…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{... | 1,760,376,623.954598 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/29/breaking-the-minteye-captcha-one-more-time/ | Breaking The MintEye CAPTCHA One More Time | Brian Benchoff | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"captcha",
"minteye",
"security"
] | A while back we saw the MintEye CAPTCHA system – an ‘are you human’ test that asks you to move a slider until an image is de-swirled and de-blurred – cracked wide open by exploiting the accessibility option. Later, and in a clever bit of image processing, the MintEye CAPTCHA was broken yet again by coming up with an algorithm to detect if an image is de-swirled and de-blurred.
It appears we’re not done with the
MintEye CAPTCHA yet
(Russian,
translation
). Now the MintEye CAPTCHA can be broken without any image processing or text-to-speech libraries. With 31 lines of Java, you too can crack MintEye wide open.
The idea behind the hack comes from the fact that blurred images will be much smaller than their non-blurred counterpart. This makes sense; the less detail in an image, the smaller the file size can be. Well, all the pictures MintEye delivers to your computer – 30 of them, one for each step of swirl and blurring – are the same size, meaning the ‘wrong answer’ images are padded with zeros at the end of the file.
There’s a 31 line program on the build page that shows how to look at thirty MintEye images and find the image with the fewest zeros at the end of the file. This is, by the way, the correct answer for the MintEye CAPTCHA, and has a reproducibility of 100%.
So, does anyone know if MintEye is a publicly traded company? Also, how
exactly
do you short a stock? | 20 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "949611",
"author": "Willaim",
"timestamp": "2013-01-29T13:09:29",
"content": "How long till they just start padding with random noise to the end of the image to prevent this?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "949635",
"a... | 1,760,376,623.864217 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/29/duct-tape-bagpipes/ | Duct Tape Bagpipes | Eric Evenchick | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"bagpipes",
"duct tape",
"PVC"
] | Looking to build your own instrument out of plumbing and tape? [Scott] made his own set of
Membrane Bagpipes
out of PVC pipes, a plastic bag, and duct tape.
Bagpipes are made out of a few parts. The drones are pipes that are tuned to play a single note. They are tuned by the fixed length of the pipe. The chanter is a tube with finger holes. This lets you play various notes depending on which holes you cover. The blowpipe is used to fill the bag with air that will pass through the membranes on the drones and chanter. Finally, there’s the bag which stores air.
[Scott]’s build uses PVC for the drones and chanter. The membranes are made out of cut up bits of plastic bags. Some crafty duct tape work makes up the bag, and seals it on to the various parts. A check valve is used to stop warm, duct tape flavoured air from blowing back into your mouth.
It’s pretty amazing what people can do with a few rolls of duct tape. The pipes aren’t exactly in tune, but they certainly work. Check out a video of them in action after the break. | 37 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "949573",
"author": "Rakyth",
"timestamp": "2013-01-29T12:11:15",
"content": "Ah, the sound of a thousand dying cattle.Sounds pretty good; considering the construction. Great job.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "949605",
"aut... | 1,760,376,624.125632 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/28/portable-gaming-console-uses-ssd1289-and-propeller/ | Portable Gaming Console Uses SSD1289 And Propeller | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"breakout",
"parallax",
"portable",
"propeller",
"ssd1289",
"video game"
] | [Samir] dabbles in hobby electronics and decided to put his skills to the test by
building this portable gaming console
(
Note:
this site uses an HTTPS address which cannot be used through Google Tranlator. It does work for the Chrome browser translator). The image above is a screenshot from his Breakout-style game. The paddle at the bottom is controlled with the touchscreen. You move it back and forth to keep the ball from traveling past the bottom edge (it bounces off of the red borders on the sides and top).
The main PCB is larger than the 3.2″ LCD footprint, but [Samir] made sure to include a lot of peripherals to make up for it. The board sports a Parallax Propeller chip to run the games. It interfaces with the SSD1289 screen (this is
a cheap and popular choice
) but that really eats up a lot of the IO pins. To control the game the touchscreen can be used as we’ve already mentioned. But there are two other options as well. There is an expansion port which uses a shift register (74HC165) to serialize the input. For prototyping this allowed [Samir] to use an Atari joystick. He also rolled a Bluetooth adapter into the project which we would love to see working with a Wii remote. Rounding out the peripherals are an SD card slot, audio jack for sound, and an RTC chip for keeping time.
There are several videos included in the post linked above. After the break we’ve embedded the game-play demo from which this screenshot was taken. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "949529",
"author": "Jasper",
"timestamp": "2013-01-29T11:05:25",
"content": "I wonder if anyone actually keeps using his/her ‘portable gaming console’ after building it. There are so many examples of them, but most are quite boring from the gamers point of view.",
"parent_id": n... | 1,760,376,623.998238 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/28/telepresence-upgrade-with-a-minimum-of-effort/ | Telepresence Upgrade With A Minimum Of Effort | Mike Szczys | [
"News"
] | [
"arduino",
"skype",
"tablet",
"telepresence",
"video confrence"
] | This telepresence upgrade lets an employee take part in the office
from more than four thousand kilometers away. It’s an upgrade of their previous setup which used
a laptop on a rotating platform
to add a bit of control to the video conferencing experience. But all that original version could do was swivel, this one lets you drive your virtual self around for fifteen hours between battery charges.
The real work is in the base of the robot, as the audio and video are handled by a tablet independently from the locomotion. The team spent about four hundred bucks to throw the thing together. It starts with a hunk of plywood. Two 3A motors were mated with lawnmower wheels for the front of the bot. Dragging under the back of the base are a couple of casters that make it possible to turn without skidding. A motor shield and a WiFi shield for the Arduino make it possible to control the thing over the Internet. They even added some functionality on the client side to use a PlayStation 3 controller. Check out the completed machine in the clip after the break. | 15 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "949258",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2013-01-28T21:24:36",
"content": "sick montage bro",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "949267",
"author": "cahbtexhuk",
"timestamp": "2013-01-28T21:44:13",
"content": "*knock-kn... | 1,760,376,624.051835 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/28/tv-show-inspires-this-smaller-pong-paddles-hardware-hack/ | TV Show Inspires This Smaller Pong Paddles Hardware Hack | Mike Szczys | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"paddles",
"pong",
"that 70's show"
] | When we read “smaller paddles” we immediately thought of the physical controllers that you hold in your hands. But this hack
alters the size of the virtual Pong paddles displayed on the TV screen
.
We remember quite well the episode of
That 70’s Show
where Red and Kelso take apart their Pong machine to hack it. The video after the break which [Blues Image] put together shuffles scenes from that episode in with images of his hack. The characters are adamant that the game is too easy and reducing the size of the virtual paddles is the only thing that will make it fun again. After
building his own hardware from the original schematics
, [Blue Image] figured this challenge was worth a try.
His solution is in the form of two man-in-the-middle boards which insert a way to reroute the pins without altering the main board. One of the chips is used to draw the paddles, the other checks for collisions with the ball. By changing the pin-out the paddles are reduced from fifteen pixels down to seven.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6RgSupljYM
[via
Reddit
] | 8 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "949229",
"author": "Gizmos",
"timestamp": "2013-01-28T20:31:48",
"content": "I had a pong knock-off that had difficulty levels. The paddles size could be changed. So could the ball speed.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "949282",... | 1,760,376,624.17538 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/28/mobile-chicken-coop-includes-wireless-sensors/ | Mobile Chicken Coop Includes Wireless Sensors | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"capacitance",
"capacitive sensor",
"capsense",
"chicken",
"chicken coop",
"water sensor"
] | In and of itself this mobile chicken coop is a pretty nice build. There are some additional features lurking inside which you don’t find on most coops. [Neuromancer2701]
built-in a set of sensors which can be accessed wirelessly
. It makes it a snap to check up on the comfort of the hens without leaving the couch.
At the heart of the sensor system is an Arduino along with an Xbee module. The build isn’t quite finished yet, but so far three sensors have been implemented. A thermistor is used to read the temperature inside the coop. To make sure there’s enough water, two sheets of foil tape were applied to the water reservoir. The CapSense library measures the capacitance between these plates which correlates to the water lever (
we’ve seen this type of water level sensor before
). And finally, there’s a sensor that can tell if the door to the coop is open or shut.
He’s having trouble automating the door itself. This can be pretty tricky, especially if you go for a super complicated locking mechanism
like this one
. | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "949221",
"author": "Dana",
"timestamp": "2013-01-28T20:08:23",
"content": "Sparkfun sells a JPEG color camera with a serial TTL interface that can hook up directly to the Arduino so you can literally keep your eye on the chickens, Sparkfun SEN-11610.",
"parent_id": null,
"de... | 1,760,376,624.220927 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/28/our-first-preview-email-goes-out-tomorrow-tuesday-jan-29th/ | Our First Preview Email Goes Out Tomorrow, Tuesday Jan 29th. | Caleb Kraft | [
"News"
] | [
"email",
"newsletter"
] | As
we announced last Friday
, we’ve got a brand new email list. Again, this isn’t another way to get our normal hacks, but a sneak preview of the videos we’re working on. Sign up right over there in the right column —->, if you want to see what is coming, and would like to give us feedback and ideas on how to make the videos better. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "949201",
"author": "DosX",
"timestamp": "2013-01-28T19:23:04",
"content": "Awesome, I wait in patience lol.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "949336",
"author": "n0lkk",
"timestamp": "2013-01-29T00:56:14",
"content": "... | 1,760,376,624.298288 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/28/diy-nes-controller-makes-no-changes-to-the-design/ | DIY NES Controller Makes No Changes To The Design | Mike Szczys | [
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"4021",
"nes",
"shift register"
] | We like this project for its sheer simplicity. After all, recreating the hardware in the controller for a modern gaming system is next to impossible. [Guillermo A. Amaral B.] had a bunch of parts sitting around and decided to try his hand at
recreating an original Nintendo Entertainment System controller
.
If you’re not familiar with the electronics inside this brand of retro gaming hardware you might be surprised to find that there’s barely any logic hardware at all. The chip in the middle of the board is a 4021 parallel to serial shift register. It connects to the buttons and uses the clock signal coming through the cable to pulse out the button states over a serial wire. So all that [Guillermo] did was lay out the chip with connects for each button.
In the image above his thumb is obscuring the 5-way switch used for directional control and select (center click). The yellow and green buttons serve as A and B, with the start button on the opposite side of the board due to a mistake in his board layout. He does have some future plans for this. He’s working on a Raspberry Pi project that will monitor and record the controller serial data so that you can play it back. It sounds like a player piano for video games.
Want to see a really small version of this? The same hardware in a smaller package was put together a couple of months ago to build
the world’s smallest NES controller
.
[via
Adafruit
] | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "949128",
"author": "Bill Gander",
"timestamp": "2013-01-28T17:34:42",
"content": "Love it :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "949146",
"author": "Mulvane",
"timestamp": "2013-01-28T17:58:00",
"content": "Doesn’t look ... | 1,760,376,624.428708 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/28/great-antenna-for-software-defined-radio-is-really-easy-to-make/ | Great Antenna For Software Defined Radio Is Really Easy To Make | Brian Benchoff | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"discone",
"software-defined radio"
] | The University of Kent’s hackerspace, TinkerSoc, recently had a talk on software-defined radio using an incredibly inexpensive USB TV tuner. Of course this is nothing new to Hackaday readers, but they did manage to build one of the best antennas for their TV dongle.
It’s a discone antenna
, and is perfectly suited for tuning into a whole bunch of really cool things such as weather balloons and aircraft transponders.
The idea discone antenna looks exactly like its namesake; a metal disk attached to a metal cone. Of course with the frequencies the RTL software-defined radio deals with, it’s rarely necessary to build antennas out of sheet metal. The team at TinkerSoc built their discone out of galvanized garden wire and attached it to the input of their TV tuner.
All the dimensions for their discone antenna were gleaned from [ve3sqb]’s
antenna design programs
. Since TinkerSoc designed their antenna for 110 MHz, it ended up being pretty large. For higher frequencies, though, a discone antenna become fairly small and more than portable enough for a mobile rig. | 47 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "949050",
"author": "strider_mt2k",
"timestamp": "2013-01-28T15:33:00",
"content": "Vermillion Hells yes!Discone antennas rock for their versatility, as long as you understand that you don’t really get any gain from them.I bought a Radio Shack model years ago and mounted it in my att... | 1,760,376,624.386342 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/28/reverse-engineering-the-furby/ | Reverse Engineering The Furby | Brian Benchoff | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"furby",
"reverse engineering"
] | Furby teardowns are a favorite of ours, and there’s nothing quite like flaying open a creepy talking deformed animatronic owl/hell beast. There’s a lot you can do with a set of screwdrivers and a pair of scissors, but it takes a real clever person to
reverse engineer a Furby without any disassembly
(Russian, here’s the
translation
).
The new Furby comes with an iOS and Android app that allows children to interact with the Furby by feeding it, giving it commands, and even translating the Furbish into English. These apps work by playing a WAV file encoded with commands that give the Furby something to eat, or tell it to dance a merry jig.
Commands are delivered with these WAV files by means of a 4-digit, 4-bit code, complete with checksums. There are ten bits the Furby actually responds on, meaning there are potentially 1024 different commands the Furby can accept.
[iafan] wrote a Perl script to listen in on the audio generated by the Android Furby app and correlated all the possible commands with actions taken by the Furby. Everything
is up on a git
, allowing anyone to play an audio file and control the Furby’s mood and actions.
With this it should be possible to remotely control a Furby, letting it dance whenever you receive an email, or making it angry whenever someone retweets you. It’s a lot more clever than just putting a Furby through a wood chipper, but considering how creepy these things are, we’re not going to say it’s
better. | 17 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "949006",
"author": "xorpunk",
"timestamp": "2013-01-28T14:11:09",
"content": "It takes a real clever person to use IDA and not speak english XD",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "949009",
"author": "nigglet",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,376,624.989355 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/28/raspberry-pi-becomes-a-guitar-effects-processor/ | Raspberry Pi Becomes A Guitar Effects Processor | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"guitar effects",
"pure data",
"raspberry pi"
] | One of the more interesting use cases for the Raspberry Pi is exploiting its DSP capabilities in interesting ways. There’s a lot of horsepower inside the Raspberry Pi, more than enough to do some very interesting things with audio, all while being powered by a small wall wart adapter. [Pierre] over on the Pure Data mailing list
has a proof-of-concept working
that uses the Raspi as a guitar effects processor.
The results
are very encouraging – [Pierre] is able to use his Raspi as a delay, pitch shifter, and of course a classic flanger, phaser, and chorus with a latency of about 16 ms.
There are a few steps necessary to get low latency with the Raspi’s audio interface. [Pierre] is running his Pi headless, and
allocated more RAM to the CPU
.
If you’d like to try this out for yourself, [Pierre] has a tutorial for
setting up Pure Data with the Raspberry Pi
. He’ll be updating his blog soon with more tutorials and verified USB audio interfaces later.
Check out the processor in action after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwJNeouLqgQ&w=580] | 34 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "948952",
"author": "Zee",
"timestamp": "2013-01-28T12:40:21",
"content": "I didn’t think the pi could sample the signal at a high enough rate to be used as an effects processor. Color me impressed.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id... | 1,760,376,624.67956 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/27/a-breakout-board-for-a-tiny-wifi-chip/ | A Breakout Board For A Tiny WiFi Chip | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"CC3000",
"ti",
"wifi"
] | A few weeks ago, we caught wind of
a very tiny, very inexpensive WiFi chip
TI is producing. Everything required of an Internet connection – TCP/IP stack, configuration utilities, and your WEP, WPA, and WPA2 security tools is included in a single tiny chip, making this a very cool device for an Internet-connected microcontroller project. There’s only one problem: TI put this chip in a really, really weird package, and there aren’t any breakout boards for it.
That is, until now. [Vince] was convinced to spend some time in Altium to
design a breakout board for this tiny WiFi chip
. Now, if you can get your hands on a sample of the CC3000 from TI, you can breadboard out a circuit with the help of [Vince]’s design.
Included in [Vince]’s git are the board files for this breakout board, schematics, and the necessary parts if anyone has the inclination to make an Eagle library. If anyone wants to spin a few of these boards and put them up on a Tindie Fundraiser, that’d be fine by us, and [Vince] would probably appreciate that as well. | 74 | 26 | [
{
"comment_id": "948471",
"author": "Eric Jennings (@erictj)",
"timestamp": "2013-01-27T18:05:17",
"content": "I’m really excited for this chip. Even if you need to roll your own SSL layer via PolarSSL or something, it’s still so inexpensive that it’s worth it. My sample’s on order.",
"parent_i... | 1,760,376,625.097785 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/27/turning-the-stellaris-launchpad-into-a-logic-analyzer/ | Turning The Stellaris Launchpad Into A Logic Analyzer | Brian Benchoff | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"logic analyzer",
"stellaris",
"Stellaris Launchpad"
] | If you have a Stellaris Launchpad sitting around, have a go
at using it as a logic analyzer
The Stellaris logic analyzer is based upon
this earlier build
that took code from a SUMP comparable Arduino logic analyzer and ported it to the much faster and more capable Stellaris Launchpad with an ARM Cortex 4F processor.
This build turns the Launchpad into a 10 MHz, 8-channel logic analyzer with a 16 kB buffer comparable with just about every piece of software thanks to the SUMP protocol. Even though the ARM chip in the Launchpad isn’t 5 Volt tolerant, only pins 0 and 1 on Port B are limited to 3.6 Volts. All the other pins on Port B are 5 Volt tolerant.
Not a bad piece of work to turn a Launchpad that has been sitting on your workbench into a useful tool. | 20 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "948426",
"author": "Phrewfuf",
"timestamp": "2013-01-27T16:09:08",
"content": "isn’t it possible to use level converters? I’ve seen some speciallized chips for that.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "948454",
"author": "... | 1,760,376,624.833643 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/26/extracting-data-with-usb-hid/ | Extracting Data With USB HID | Brian Benchoff | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"security",
"Teensy",
"usb hid"
] | High security workstations have some pretty peculiar ways of securing data. One of these is disabling any USB flash drives that may find their way into a system’s USB port. Security is a cat and mouse game, so
of course there’s a way around these measures
. [d3ad0ne] came up with a way of dumping files onto an SD card by using the USB HID protocol.
We’ve seen
this sort of thing before
where a microcontroller carries an executable to extract data. Previously, the best method was to blink the Caps Lock LED on a keyboard, sending one bit at a time to a micocontroller. [d3ad0ne]’s build exploits the USB HID protocol, but instead of 1 bit per second, he’s getting about 10kBps.
To extract data from a system, [ d3ad0ne] connects a Teensy microcontroller to the USB port. After opening up Notepad, [ d3ad0ne] mashes the Caps Lock key to force the Teensy to type out a script that can be made into an executable. This executable is a bare-bones application that can send any file back over the USB cable to the Teensy where it’s stored on an SD card. Short of filling the USB ports in a workstation with epoxy, there’s really no way to prevent secure files from leaking out of a computer. | 59 | 28 | [
{
"comment_id": "948102",
"author": "bWare",
"timestamp": "2013-01-26T21:31:52",
"content": "If you are going to the trouble of providing someone with a keyboard and screen, you probably aren’t really trying to prevent them using the computer?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": ... | 1,760,376,624.934088 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/25/20-vacuum-pen-build-on-of-the-best-weve-seen/ | $20 Vacuum Pen Build On Of The Best We’ve Seen | Mike Szczys | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"fish pump",
"smd",
"surface mount",
"vacuum tweezers"
] | Everything you need to build a vacuum tweezers is laid
out in this image. The parts should run you about $20 and when you’re done you’ll have the perfect tool for placing very small surface mount parts for reflow soldering.
This project uses the same concept as
other fish pump tweezers projects
but builds upon them with some interesting additions. The first step in the conversion process is to tear down the aquarium pump to reverse its flow. There are several steps but all-in-all it’s not very difficult. With the source of vacuum established [Technically Artistic] begins work on the business end of the tool. This is where the array of different pens see some action. The large blue one is the outer assembly, with the others combining to help connect it to the plastic tubing. The business end is made from a needle adapter for an air compressor, with an alligator clip cleverly modified to serve as a valve to release the parts from the tip. | 9 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "947478",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2013-01-25T20:12:19",
"content": "I did quite a bit of work on reusing aquarium pumps as vacuum pumps a few years back, and this may save some people a little labor if they build one. These have a vacuum port as well as a pressure port. No m... | 1,760,376,627.555342 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/25/iron-man-faux-stained-glass-saves-4k/ | Iron Man Faux Stained Glass Saves $4k | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"fake",
"faux",
"iron man",
"leading paint",
"stained glass"
] | Check out how the light hits this piece of artwork. It’s a very convincing piece of stained glass… except it’s fake. [Sdtacoma] figured out
a way to mimic stained glass using a single pane
. The inspiration for the project came after seeing
a real stained glass panel featuring Iron Man
which was available on Etsy for $4500.
Due to popular demand [Sdtacoma] posted
an album of the technique he used
. Starting with some art found online he made it black and white, blew it up to size (this thing’s about five feet tall) and used posterizer to print it out using multiple sheets of paper.
The frame and pane were found at a recycled building goods store. After cleaning it up he used the paper template to lay out the dividing lines between different colored sections using Liquid Lead. The product had dimension to it (kind of like puffy paint for fabrics) which looks like the lead tracks between panes of stained glass. Once dry the color was added using an eye dropper to apply glass paint. | 28 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "947385",
"author": "Cricri",
"timestamp": "2013-01-25T17:11:14",
"content": "Not comics crazy here, but this looks fantastic!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "947862",
"author": "Preamp",
"timestamp": "2013-01-2... | 1,760,376,626.845847 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/25/new-ioio-is-faster-cheaper/ | New IOIO Is Faster, Cheaper | Brian Benchoff | [
"Android Hacks",
"hardware"
] | [
"ioio",
"usb otg"
] | For the last few years, [Ytai] has been working on the IOIO, a device that connects your Android devices to the other homebrew peripherals. There’s
a new version of this really cool board out now
that includes a few much-needed features like USB-OTG and a lower component cost that is passed on in savings to you.
A few months ago, our own [Mike Szczys]
caught a glimpse of this new IOIO board
. It’s the same size as the previous revision, but with USB-OTG, the new IOIO can be a master when connected to a phone, or a slave when connected to a PC.
In addition to USB-OTG, [Ytai] improved the power regulation circuit, and even went so far as to refuse royalties to the board to get the costs down. It’s currently
available at Sparkfun
for $40.
[Ytai] says he’s working on a few software upgrades to the IOIO, including making capacitive sensing a possibility and including support for stepper motors and controllers. There’s also support for the Raspberry Pi coming up, but we’re just glad [Ytai] managed to put a yo-yo graphic on the bottom silkscreen. Finally, and hopefully, everyone will know how to pronounce IOIO. | 29 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "947350",
"author": "limpkin",
"timestamp": "2013-01-25T16:03:46",
"content": "40$? come on…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "947363",
"author": "g19fanatic",
"timestamp": "2013-01-25T16:28:18",
"content"... | 1,760,376,626.919995 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/25/build-a-bioprinter-from-very-old-inkjet-cartridges/ | Build A Bioprinter From Very Old Inkjet Cartridges | Mike Szczys | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"bioprinting",
"inkjet",
"inkshield",
"printer"
] | This column of messages was printed with Escherichia coli. That’s the bacteria better known as E. coli which can cause so many problems if it makes its way into our food. But the relative size and the fact that this strain was engineered to glow in the dark makes it a perfect candidate for Bio Printing. We find it even more interesting that
it was printed using hacked inkjet and computer parts
.
There are legitimate uses for this type of technology. But this project is aimed more at getting the word out about the method and how easy it can be. For us, it’s the close look at modern inkjet print heads that was the most interesting. It turns out that common cartridges have an overly high-resolution for this to work well. In order to get so many dots in such a small area the nozzle openings end up being too small for most biological material to fit through. There is also an issue with a filter built into the silicone technology inside.
The solution was to use
the InkShield
to drive cartridges from very old printers. This lets the team command the cartridge with an Arduino, making it dead simple to tweak the way the material is deposited. They mounted the cartridge holder (using decades-old technology in the form of HP Deskjet 500 cartridges) on the sled of an optical drive and went from there.
Take a glance at the printer in action in the clip after the break. | 34 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "947334",
"author": "biozz",
"timestamp": "2013-01-25T15:45:08",
"content": "finally i can pirate organs!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "947340",
"author": "Blue Footed Booby",
"timestamp": "2013-01-25T15:51:50... | 1,760,376,627.168626 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/25/sunrise-alarm-clock-mounted-above-the-bed/ | Sunrise Alarm Clock Mounted Above The Bed | Mike Szczys | [
"clock hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"alarm",
"led strips",
"monochron",
"rgb",
"sunrise"
] | This sunrise alarm clock was made in a bit different form factor than we normally see. Instead of a box next to the bed it’s
a bar above the headboard which slowly illuminates every morning
. This was [Holly’s] first electronics project. She spent pretty much all summer working on it and accumulated a skill set that included designing for and operating the laser cutter and assembling and programming the electronics.
She didn’t start from square one. The hardware and programming were greatly simplified by the availability of RGB LED strips and the Monochron clock which drives them. [Holly] altered the code to bring up a blueish hue over a 35-minute time period. Since this will be used to wake her at 5:30am she was also obliged to include some backup sounds just in case. But after the project was finished and mounted she forgot to turn them on and was pleasantly surprised that the lights woke her up on time. The mounting bracket seen above uses t-slot rail with laser cut brackets to hold the half-cylinder shade for the sconce. The final product looks fantastic! | 12 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "947214",
"author": "Evan",
"timestamp": "2013-01-25T13:11:25",
"content": "Great build!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "947226",
"author": "technoguyx",
"timestamp": "2013-01-25T13:20:25",
"content": "Nice build. :D ... | 1,760,376,626.775073 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/24/hackaday-links-january-24th-2013/ | Hackaday Links: January 24th, 2013 | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"camera",
"dancing",
"mspgcc",
"reset",
"RPi"
] | Raspberry Pi’s answer to the iMac
If you always wanted a sweet looking all-in-one computer like an iMac, but without OSX this one’s for you. [Michael Davis]
glued everything you need for a Raspberry Pi computer to the back of an LCD monitor
.
Dancing Japanese robot shows high creepiness factor
You’ve just got to see this one to believe it. Someone
choreographed some seriously lifelike dance moves for this robot
. [Thanks – via
Dr. GIY’s blog
]
Helper script to install MSPGCC
The repositories available to Ubuntu are nice, but if you want to get the newest version of the GCC toolchain for MSP430 microcontrollers you’re going to need to do the compilation yourself. [Jose] is trying to make the process a bit easier with
this helper script which download and installs MSPGCC Uniarch
.
Easy reset for WRT-54G routers
The whole point of the router reset button being hard to press is so you don’t hit it by accident. But the difficulty of getting to it drove [Noah] crazy so
he added his own easy to reach replacement
.
Camera stabilization tips
This is a public service to amateur videographers. You don’t need expensive equipment to make a video without nausea inducing shakes. Try out
these simple camera stabilization tips
. You can use a tripod as a counterweight, or a piece of 2×4 to give the point-and-shoot a dual grip. | 29 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "946770",
"author": "Oguz286",
"timestamp": "2013-01-25T00:11:02",
"content": "Damn it Japan! Now I want that robot!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "946791",
"author": "Panikos",
"timestamp": "2013-01-25T00:57:2... | 1,760,376,626.990553 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/24/building-your-own-model-a-raspberry-pi/ | Building Your Own Model A Raspberry Pi | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"Model A",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspi"
] | When the Model A Raspberry Pi is released in the coming weeks or months, you’ll have the opportunity to buy an even cheaper ARM Linux computer that will draw 1/3rd the power of the classic Model B. Some people just can’t wait a month to get their hands on it, so [Blair]
decided to make his own.
The Model A Raspberry Pi is nearly the same as the Model B; the only things missing are an Ethernet port, a single USB port, and the associated chips required to drive these ports. In a brave bit of desoldering, [Blair] removed the Ethernet/USB controller with a butane torch.
In part two
of [Blair]’s adventures, he removed the Ethernet connector and replaced the two-high USB ports with a single port, greatly decreasing the height of the Raspberry Pi.
As of right now, this is just about the only way to get your hands on the lower power, more compact Raspberry Pi. We can’t wait, though, for the eventual tutorial of how to turn a Model A into a Model B. That’ll be an awesome demonstration of god-like soldering skills. | 26 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "946662",
"author": "turbochris",
"timestamp": "2013-01-24T21:12:45",
"content": "For the height yeah change the USB stack jack. But for power savings I would just nick a few traces and put a few jumpers in, something easily reversible and a lot less work but not a sanitary",
"pa... | 1,760,376,626.722148 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/24/wooden-cargo-bicycle/ | Wooden Cargo Bicycle | Mike Szczys | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bicycle",
"wood",
"woodw",
"woodworking"
] | This is
a cargo bicycle made almost completely out of wood
. [Niels] and three of his classmates built it at Wico Campus Tio, a science and technology school in Dorpsstraat, Belgium. There’s a lot to be impressed by in this build. Sure, the guys concede that not everything is wood. They used metal screws as well as hubs, a crank shaft, and gears from a bicycle (not seen in this image). But everything else was made from Beech or Padouk wood. This includes the leaf springs that help cushion the cargo box from the bumps in the road.
The box itself acts as the handlebars. You can see the bracket which holds one end of a dowel spanning the left side of the box. This image was taken before the seat and cranks were added, but once they’re in place the front axle will turn along with the box for steering.
You can get a good look at the finished bike in the video after the break. You’ll also find a link to the Power Point slides there. Since that presentation is in Dutch we translated the text and pasted it below.
download the power point presentation:
15 slides in Dutch
Power Point translated by Google:
The Bakfiets
Wood Award 2012-2013
The idea
The idea came from the bike to another idea to an old moped or scooter again wood to build. This would cost too much time to go and then said someone from our group: ‘z illing not we build bike? First, it would be a recumbent but this was a little too simple so we went for the challenge to a tricycle, almost entirely of wood to build.
The idea
accessories
The wheels: These we entirely from wood, only the wooden rim, we work a metal hub of a bicycle wheel original.
The crankshaft: The crankshaft is milled in the frame and then we work a crankshaft that we have cut from an old bike in our wood.
accessories
The box: This is a simple style and line construction with panels in a panel groove. The panel gets a groove depth of 10mm. The panels are subsequently glued false styles for a better view.
The springs: The springs we himself by beech slats of 7 millimeters thick on each gelijmt make it a leaf spring 50 millimeters thick will form. The leaf springs are 80 millimeters wide.
Woods
Steamed beech
Padouk
The design
Required dimensions
Seat tube length: 0.68 cm
Seat tube angle: 66-70 degrees
Inner diameter bicycle rim
The rim word made up of 4 different segments. These are joined gedreveld, and around each segment become a groove machined where the outer ring of a real bike rim perfect size safes.
The spokes
First we make wooden slats 21x21mm
It become a groove 7mm wide and 3mm deep milled
Then there are small slats in paddouk glued to detail
When the glue has dried, the spokes around sanded
Hub
There will be a bicycle hub in a block glued
This block is then in our hub hub glued
Around this hub will the rest of the wheel made.
The tray
Domino dowels as connection,
In the corners on one side, we have the styles, but 40mm wide so that it is made with the thickness of the uprights to which they are nevertheless continue to 60mm,
The stuurbar is screwed to the container,
Leaf springs
Chassis
Seat tube construction
Sawn from beams with bandsaw.
Put rampa fixed with nuts and bolts.
3 parts come with a pen paddouck.
Block seatpost is glued and screwed. | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "946673",
"author": "AmX",
"timestamp": "2013-01-24T21:32:44",
"content": "There are something like 500 Dorpsstraaten in Belgium, WiCo is in Overpelt.The ideaThe idea to build a cargo bicycle developed from another idea, to rebuild an old moped or scooter from wood. This would take t... | 1,760,376,627.45328 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/24/brake-drum-and-plumbing-parts-get-you-started-with-blacksmithing/ | Brake Drum And Plumbing Parts Get You Started With Blacksmithing | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"brake drum",
"forge",
"galvanized pipe"
] | If you’ve ever wanted to do some serious metal working you’re going to need a method of heating the stock. Here’s a build that combines
a brake drum and some plumbing fittings into an entry-level forge
. It’s a pretty cheap start to see if Blacksmithing is for you.
[Asuka] says that the parts cost him around $40. The brake drum was sourced from a local salvage yard for ten bucks. To that he added a shower floor drain plate to keep the fuel from falling into the air inlet. We have doubts about how long that thin metal screen will last once the coal really gets going, but heat rises to who knows? On the bottom of the drum he mounted a pipe flange with some nuts and bolts. Galvanized pipe fittings connect to this to inject air into the forge. Right now he’s using a compressor and some garden hose to fan the flames, but plans to get a fan from the auto salvage for a more permanent setup.
A note for beginners. Blacksmith work can be dangerous. We’d like to point you to
this discussion thread about injuries
. | 29 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "946519",
"author": "Datsoon",
"timestamp": "2013-01-24T18:13:16",
"content": "Would this get hot enough to melt aluminum stock for DIY investment casting?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "946614",
"author": "Trav",
... | 1,760,376,627.067525 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/24/raspberry-pi-becomes-a-torrent-box/ | Raspberry Pi Becomes A Torrent Box | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"raspberry pi",
"torrent"
] | If you’re making a media server out of a Raspberry Pi, why not add an interface to the biggest torrent sites on the Internet?
That’s what [Alan] did
when he wanted an automated media downloader that can stream movies and TV shows to any device.
[Alan]’s torrent box is basically a web app running on a Raspberry Pi. By accessing the Pi from the browser of a desktop or mobile device, he can search a collection of torrent sites and download just about everything to the Pi with a touch of a button. Once the files are downloaded, the Pi is able to move them to any directory, either locally or on a network, or just serve them up on a TV with a media player.
While we’re not endorsing file sharing, we can’t think of a simpler way to set up a seedbox that draws a minuscule amount of power. It’s a great addition to any media server, and a great way to get the latest season of <<Linux Distribution>> streaming to your TV. | 71 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "946526",
"author": "Anon",
"timestamp": "2013-01-24T18:19:05",
"content": "We have really got to stop calling copyright infringement via torrents “file sharing.” File sharing is what I do when I upload a document to dropbox. Copyright Infringement is what that guy does when he downl... | 1,760,376,627.282648 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/24/stocker-monitors-the-markets/ | Stocker Monitors The Markets | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"acrylic",
"led",
"rgb",
"stock market"
] | If you can’t help but spend the day checking in on your stock prices this ambient device can help you cope. It
monitors how the trading is going and illuminates an LED as feedback
. Here the Apple stock is trading up so the light is green. The video after the break shows other stocks trading down, causing it to switch to red.
An Arduino interfaces with the custom application via USB. For now it looks like the two colors are all it’s capable of but we think there’s a lot more potential. Some creative coding could use factors like how much the stock has moved, trading volume, volatility, or a plethora of other data to give feedback. We could see a spectrum of colors (like on a temperature map) used to improve the level of feedback. And if the market really tanks there’s always the ability to add flashing!
The diffuser for the project is quite interesting to us. [Ali Reza Kohani] made it from a leftover scrap of acrylic. The bubbled surface was created with a heat gun before bending the sheet into an arc. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "946566",
"author": "Bob Fleming",
"timestamp": "2013-01-24T19:07:21",
"content": "Hey, that screen shot is out by about -11%! :D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "946570",
"author": "Seshan (@Seshan)",
"timestamp": "2013-0... | 1,760,376,627.50841 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/24/hot-air-rework-doubles-as-an-herbal-bag-vaporizer/ | Hot Air Rework Doubles As An Herbal Bag Vaporizer | Mike Szczys | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"bag vaporizer",
"hot air rework station",
"vaporizer"
] | This hot air rework station is being used for more than just soldering surface mount components. Since it has settings for temperature and airflow [BrokeHippieTech]
figured it would work as a bag vaporizer
. In the video after the break they show off the custom parts and then take it though and herbal blend bag fill.
The hot air station comes with several different tips. The smallest one was used to mount a vaporizer bowl using high-temperature JB Weld. On the output side of the bowl a metal stem was also affixed to interface with the mouthpiece of a vaporizer bag. The heat from the rework station brings the herbs just below the combustion point, releasing the active ingredients without including the harmful byproducts associated with smoking.
We’re putting this one under medical hacks because we hope it’s being used responsibly and legally. As with
the last vaporizer build we looked at
, we have concerns about what else the apparatus may be putting into the collected gases.
[Thanks Joel] | 119 | 36 | [
{
"comment_id": "946382",
"author": "James Scott (@TooJawsome)",
"timestamp": "2013-01-24T15:10:09",
"content": "Wait why is this here? I guess this explains Mike’s posts on very basic Linux functionality being “hacks” and the extraordinarily old TV Aquarium concept.",
"parent_id": null,
"de... | 1,760,376,627.723929 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/24/fitting-a-cold-metal-heart-in-an-altoids-tin/ | Fitting A Cold, Metal Heart In An Altoids Tin | Brian Benchoff | [
"Medical Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"ecg",
"heart rate"
] | [James] has been building a heart rate monitor using a very cool TI chip. He needed a way to test his device, and commercial ECG simulators, like all biotech devices, are absurdly expensive. [James]
decided to build his own heart rate simulator
, and in the process made a great tool and one of the most well documented projects we’ve ever seen.
Of course, if you’re building an ECG simulator, you’re going to need a good sample of a heart’s electrical pattern. To get this sample, [James] found an old army manual with a diagram of an ideal ECG pattern. [James] took this PDF manual, screen capped the diagram, and used a Python script to generate an array in C the Arduino could repeat over and over.
The rest of the build consisted of a D/A converter, a pot to change the heart rate, a very nice seven-segment display, and a few banana jacks to connect to [James]’ heart monitor.
Everything is up in a git
, including an amazingly well documented (87 pages!) tutorial for building your own Arduino heart simulator. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "946356",
"author": "Oliver",
"timestamp": "2013-01-24T14:26:32",
"content": "This is incredible, this will save a lot of money",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "946365",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2013-01-24T14:44:53... | 1,760,376,627.794805 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/24/ceramic-hot-end-mount-seeks-to-improve-extrude-performace/ | Ceramic Hot-end Mount Seeks To Improve Extrude Performace | Mike Szczys | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"ceramic",
"hot end"
] | Take a gander at the part of this extruder head which looks like a chess pawn. It’s the mounting bracket for the hot end and it’s made out of ceramic. [Ed] came up with the idea to
use ceramic to mount the hot end
when trying to improve the design while keeping it rather simple and easy to assemble. The concept uses the thermal properties of the ceramic to insulate well enough to operate the extruder at higher temperatures without causing other problems.
Where does one get a custom ceramic part anyway? Turns out you can get low volume runs from China much like PCBs. The minimum order was ten units, which was still a leap of faith since he had no way of testing the design in advance. The first run with the new part went quite well, but only for the first layer and then the filament jammed. He’s still not sure why, but overcame the issue by lining the inside of the ceramic with a PTFE tube. This means he now has to use a smaller filament to fit through it. But the quality of the prints he’s getting with 1.75mm stock and the ceramic head are superb.
It may even be possible to print this ceramic part some day. We remember seeing
another extruder that can deposit ceramic clay
. | 26 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "946307",
"author": "Zee",
"timestamp": "2013-01-24T13:09:25",
"content": "I really hate it when they don’t share the awesome sources they found.What chinese manufacturer he used would be valuable information.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,627.908994 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/23/vintage-kegerator/ | Vintage Kegerator | Eric Evenchick | [
"Beer Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"beer",
"general electric",
"GuruPlug",
"kegerator",
"restoration"
] | [Kerber] got his hands on a classic 1950’s General Electric fridge, and converted it into this classy
vintage kegerator
.
As his build log shows, it took an intensive restoration process to get this fridge back in shape. He completely stripped it down, scraping off the sixty year old insulation, fibreglass, and glue. Then the chassis was sanded down to a smooth finish and painted black. R-19 insulation was added to replace the old stuff.
Next up was electronics. An Arduino, DS18B20 temperature sensor, and a solid state relay were used to regulate the temperature and prevent frozen beer. There’s also a Guruplug server that reads data from the Arduino every minute. It makes this data accessible through a web page, so the temperature of the kegs can be monitored from anywhere. [Kerber] admits that this is overkill, but leaves room for future expansion.
The kegerator draws about 180 Watts, and runs for about 6 minutes per hour to keep the temperature regulated. This is pretty impressive considering the age of the fridge. The final restoration looks great, and serves up data along with the beer. | 25 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "945898",
"author": "bob m",
"timestamp": "2013-01-23T23:03:55",
"content": "Hey I made a few of these through the years .. mine was ran from a CO2 tank, so no pumping was required, worked great and no flat bear.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,628.042632 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/23/web-scraping-amazon-and-rotten-tomatoes/ | Web Scraping Amazon And Rotten Tomatoes | Mike Szczys | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"beautiful soup",
"python",
"scraping",
"web scraping"
] | [Rajesh] put web scraping to good use in order to gather the information important to him. He’s published two posts about it.
One scrapes Amazon daily
to see if the books he wants to read have reached a certain price threshold.
The other scrapes Rotten Tomatoes
in order to display the audience score next to the critics score for the top renting movies.
Web scraping uses scripts to gather information programmatically from HTML rather than using an API to access data. We recently featured
a conceptual tutorial on the topic
, and even came across
a hack that scraped all of our own posts
. [Rajesh’s] technique is pretty much the same.
He’s using Python scripts with the Beautiful Soup module to parse the DOM tree for the information he’s after. In the case of the Amazon script he sets a target price for a specific book he’s after and will get an email automatically when it gets there. With Rotten Tomatoes he sometimes likes to see the audience score when considering a movie, but you can’t get it on the list at the website; you have to click through to each movie. His script keeps a database so that it doesn’t continually scrape the same information. The collected numbers are displayed alongside the critics scores as seen above. | 29 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "945853",
"author": "Andrew M (@HuskerTX)",
"timestamp": "2013-01-23T21:14:28",
"content": "I would do the same thing with NewEgg and HDD prices, so that I could easily sort by $/GB.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "945972",
... | 1,760,376,627.979728 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/23/replacement-controllers-for-slot-car-racing/ | Replacement Controllers For Slot Car Racing | Mike Szczys | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"RACE",
"RPi",
"scalextric",
"slot car"
] | That blur on the right is a car racing into the frame. But look around the rest of the image and you’ll see the area is littered with extra hardware. [Matthew], [Doug], and [Barry] have been hard at work
adding extra functionality and replacing the original controllers on this Scalextric slot car setup
. So far it looks like their build log has not caught up with all the work they’ve done. We’re hoping to learn more details as they have time to write about them (this is coursework at University so we’re sure there’s a lot on their plates). But for now there are several videos and
a gallery of images
to drool over.
The cars are controlled by the voltage level in the track. The team replaced the stock controllers with a Raspberry Pi. It manages that voltage using Pulse-Width Modulation via MOSFETs. This allows the races to be automated but also makes it simple for a human operator to use just about any input device imaginable to control the cars. For good measure they also added a lap counter that uses an IR LED and detector to sense when a car passes the finish line.
After viewing several of their videos we think the goal of the project is to log the fasts times without sending the cars flying off the tracks during the turns. | 11 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "945821",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2013-01-23T20:14:35",
"content": "That’s the goal of most types of auto racing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "945841",
"author": "Peter J",
"timestamp": "2013-01-23T20:57:37",
... | 1,760,376,627.848577 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/23/simple-iphone-telescope-mount/ | Simple IPhone Telescope Mount | Mike Szczys | [
"iphone hacks"
] | [
"3gs",
"bracket",
"iphone",
"mount",
"PVC",
"telescope"
] | This cheap and easy hack will let you
use your old smart phone to take pictures and videos of the view through a telescope
. [Xobmo] built the connector for just 55 cents. Apart from our concerns about scratching the lens when inserting the phone in the bracket we love the idea.
He was given the Celestron Powerseeker 70AZ as a gift from his wife last Christmas. He looked around the Internet and saw that there are already some solutions for recording video using an iPhone 3GS.
This design on Thingiverse
would be perfect, but he doesn’t have access to a 3D printer and ordering it form a service would cost almost $50. But when he got to thinking about it, all he needed was a ring to fit on the telescope and a way to connected the iPhone to it. He headed down to the hardware store and picked up a PVC coupler. After working with a hack saw and drill he ended up with a slot with two wings on it. Just slip the phone in and slide the ring on the eyepiece. You can see some action shots, and get a look at the mount itself, in the clip after the break. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "945806",
"author": "Dojo",
"timestamp": "2013-01-23T19:53:42",
"content": "First post. Is the iPhone sensor actually good enough to make good photos?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1172292",
"author": "Patrick Tarrant... | 1,760,376,628.146446 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/23/dead-motherboard-wall-are-hides-an-led-marquee/ | Dead Motherboard Wall Hides An LED Marquee | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"art",
"marquee",
"motherboard",
"pcb"
] | [Jared] is a computer technician so he has no problem getting his hands on broken motherboards. It looks like he tends to save the more interesting colors and has finally found a use for the waste. He built
this wall art which also acts as an LED marquee
.
He came up with the size and shape — 18″ by 48″ — because it meshes well with a sheet of MDF. The outline allows for a grid made up of 2″ square pixels arranged seven high and twenty-one wide. The top and bottom rows will serve as a frame for the lights, which still leaves the five pixels necessary to display characters. From there he started wiring up the LED array, which is shown in the testing phase in the clip after the break. Each pixel is cordoned off by a frame of basswood which [Jared] fabricated on the table saw. The project is finished up by cutting the motherboards down to size and mounting them with threaded rod and nuts. The board chunks are not transparent but they’re smaller than the grid so the LEDs will make the edges glow.
This reminds us of
the motherboards used to mimic stained glass
from several years back. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "945832",
"author": "pff",
"timestamp": "2013-01-23T20:38:24",
"content": "‘hides’ is a good choice.why would you make an led marquee with something opaque infront of each light?no pictures of it working either?probably because it doesn’t?best part was the instructable starting with ... | 1,760,376,628.099729 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/23/sous-vadar/ | Sous Vadar | Mike Szczys | [
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"atmega328",
"rice cooker",
"sous-vide"
] | [Craig] pulled off a beautiful build with
his Sous Vader project
. The name is a geeky spin on sous vide, a method of cooking foods in water held at a precise temperature. Building your own setup at home saves a ton of money, but it’s also a lot of fun. This explains
the frequency
with which
we see
these builds
here at Hackaday.
So this one has a flashy name, a fine-looking case, but the beauty continues on the internals. [Craig] posted an image with the cover off of the control unit and it’s absolutely gorgeous inside. Part of the reason for this is the circuit board he spun for the project which hosts the ATmega328 and interfaces with the LCD, buttons, temperature sensor, and mains-switching triac. But most of the credit is due to his attention to detail. The image on the right shows him prototyping the hardware. Since some of his meals take 20 hours to prepare it’s no wonder he found an out-of-the-way closet in which to do the testing.
Make sure to read all the way to the bottom of the post for some cooking tips. For instance, since he doesn’t have a vacuum sealer he uses zipper bags — lowering them into water to push out the air as they are sealed. | 22 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "945709",
"author": "Rehan",
"timestamp": "2013-01-23T17:09:38",
"content": "Why not just boil the water? I think the temperature of water remains constant during phase change. Although you only get 1 temperature.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,628.204961 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/23/stuffing-an-nes-into-an-fpga/ | Stuffing An NES Into An FPGA | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"fpga",
"nes"
] | When the developer of the µTorrent torrent client and the ScummVM LucasArts adventure game interpreter gets bored, something cool is bound to happen. Luckily for us, [Ludde] was a bit listless over Christmas, and with more time than energy to burn,
implemented a Nintendo Entertainment System
on an FPGA dev board.
The NES was powered by a Ricoh 2A03 CPU, a chip nearly identical to the 6502 found in the Commodore 64s and Apple IIs of the early 1980s. There are a few differences between the two, though: the NES CPU includes an Audio Processing Unit on the chip and is connected to a very cool Picture Processing unit elsewhere on the NES. [Ludde] put all these chips in his Spartan-6 FPGA with a lot of Verilog code.
The rest of the system – the RAM, display output, and controller input comes from the peripherals attached to the FPGA dev board. [Ludde]’s specific board didn’t have a good digital to analog converter, so the composite output was traded for a VGA output. It’s not a completely accurate color pallet, but it’s still an amazing piece of work for someone who was simply bored. | 18 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "945611",
"author": "nafix",
"timestamp": "2013-01-23T15:16:17",
"content": "Very nice.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "945616",
"author": "jero",
"timestamp": "2013-01-23T15:25:25",
"content": "There’s another differ... | 1,760,376,628.263297 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/26/adding-shoulder-buttons-to-an-rc-transmitter/ | Adding Shoulder Buttons To An RC Transmitter | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"futaba",
"rc",
"RC transmitter",
"shoulder buttons"
] | [Gerard] does puppeteering and animatronics work, and to remotely control his creations and characters he uses an off-the-shelf remote control radio. It’s you basic 6-channel setup, but [Gerard] wanted a way to control eye blinks and other simple actions with the press of a button. Sure, he could use the toggle switches on his transmitter, but he wanted something that wouldn’t require turning a servo on and off again. To fix this problem, [Gerard]
added shoulder buttons to his transmitter
with only a little bit of soldering.
[Gerard]’s transmitter uses toggle switches to send a signal on channels five and six. To add his push buttons, he simply drilled a hole in the plastic enclosure, installed a pair of push buttons, and wired them in parallel to the toggle switches.
Now [Gerard] has momentary switches on channels five and six, perfect for making his creations blink. Since the buttons are wired in parallel with the switches, flicking the switches to the ‘on’ position in effect takes the button out of the circuit, just in case the transmitter gets jostled around. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "948233",
"author": "Coligny",
"timestamp": "2013-01-27T02:47:46",
"content": "it’s a joke, please tell me it’s a joke…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "948288",
"author": "Bob Regalia",
"timestamp": "2013-01-27T06:09:27",... | 1,760,376,628.307375 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/26/gizmo-board-a-tiny-x86-dev-board/ | Gizmo Board, A Tiny X86 Dev Board | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"amd",
"Gizmo Board",
"x86"
] | With the Raspberry Pi and sever other ARM dev boards seeing their time in the lime light, it’s no surprise other chip manufacturers would want to get in on the action. AMD is releasing
a very tiny x86 dev board called the Gizmo
, a four-inch square board that shrinks a desktop computer down to the palm of your hand.
The Gizmo is powered by a dual-core x86 Brazos CPU running at 1 GHz with an included Radeon HD 6250 graphics engine. Also on the board is 1GB of DDR3 RAM, a SATA, Ethernet, USB, VGA, Audio, PCI and PCIe ports, and a ton of GPIO pins that include ADCs and DACs. All this in a four-inch square package that boasts about twice the performance of a Raspberry Pi.
While the price of the Gizmo – $200 for an
explorer kit
– will probably preclude it from being as popular as a Raspberry Pi or other ARM board, sometimes you just need an x86 platform to do the job. With the powerful graphics potential of the Gizmo, we could easily see this board being used in a few computer vision or autonomous robot builds. | 86 | 37 | [
{
"comment_id": "947949",
"author": "jh",
"timestamp": "2013-01-26T16:07:19",
"content": "if it had an HDMI port instead of VGA, definitely a HTPC option for odd and interesting cases.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "948007",
"author":... | 1,760,376,628.810369 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/26/pinoccio-an-ecosystem-for-the-internet-of-things/ | Pinoccio – An Ecosystem For The Internet Of Things | Jeremy Cook | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"atmega",
"mesh network",
"microcontroller",
"Pinoccio"
] | [Pinoccio]
is currently an Indeigogo crowd-sourced project that aims use the real-world programmability of the Arduino through the internet using a wifi connection. One could rightly point out that this can already be done through the use of a wifi shield. Before ruling this device out, just “shush your shussins” and consider that it’s designed specifically for interfacing with “things” over the internet. This can replace several components (see 1:10 in the video after the break) and should be less of a hassle.
Additionally, with a shield on one of these devices, several other [Pinoccio] boards can communicate with the Internet using this as a hub in a mesh network. This is similar to how the many “smart” electrical meters work, with a grid router being a central hub for communications. Additionally, this board has a built in temperature sensor and a RGB (instead of a single-color) LED, so you can do some interesting stuff with it right out of the box. Assuming this project gets funded, which seems likely at this point, we’re excited to see the projects that get built using it!
[vimeo
http://www.vimeo.com/57003423
w=470&h=300] | 40 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "947912",
"author": "Ryan Leach",
"timestamp": "2013-01-26T14:05:42",
"content": "looks like a buLkier electric imp.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "947924",
"author": "citizenjapp",
"timestamp": "2013-01-26T14:... | 1,760,376,628.673163 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/25/how-the-8085-alu-is-structured/ | How The 8085 ALU Is Structured | Mike Szczys | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"8085",
"ALU",
"die",
"processor",
"reverse engineering",
"the elements of computing systmes"
] | This is a microscopic photograph of an 8085 processor die. [Ken Shirriff] uses the image in
his explanation of how the ALU works
. It is only capable of five basic operations: ADD, OR, XOR, AND, and SHIFT-RIGHT. [Ken] mentions that the lack of SHIFT-LEFT is made up for by adding the number to itself which has the effect of multiplying a number by two; the same mathematical function performed by a shift operation.
His post details the gate arrangement for each ALU operation. This is clear and easy to follow, and was based on reverse engineering work already done by a team who meticulously decapped and photographed the dies.
Not long ago this explanation would have been voodoo to us. But we worked our way through
The Elements of Computing Systems
text-book by following
the online Nand to Tetris course
. It really demystifies the inner working of a chip like the 8085.
Now if you really want to understand this ALU you’ll
build it for yourself inside of Minecraft
.
[Thanks Ed] | 10 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "947548",
"author": "t&p",
"timestamp": "2013-01-25T22:07:30",
"content": "after this semester I too will know and make an ALU for my computer architecture class!Supposedly the control unit is going to be the hard part in designing my CPU.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,376,628.580842 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/25/improved-hourglass-entropy/ | Improved Hourglass Entropy | Mike Szczys | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"dieharder",
"entropy",
"hour glass",
"laser",
"random",
"rng"
] | [Wardy]
built himself a high quality entropy source
with parts he had lying around. It’s based on the hourglass entropy project we saw
in a links post
earlier this month. Just like that project, he is bouncing a laser off of the falling sand and reading the result. But he brings a few innovations to the party, and has test results to back up his work.
The first change is an obvious one; motorize the hourglass so that you don’t need to flip it by hand. We thought this might mess with the laser alignment but the clip after the break proved us wrong. He changed up the sensor, using an LED connected to the base of an NPN transistor. The next change was to mount the light sensor at an angle to the laser rather than straight on. This picks up reflections of the laser and not the direct beam itself, resulting in a wider range of readings.
He used
an Ethernet shield to get the system on the network
. It’s pushing 420k random numbers per second and was tested with
the DieHarder suite
. It didn’t get a very high score, but it did pass the test.
[via
Dangerous Prototypes
] | 16 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "947516",
"author": "Mark",
"timestamp": "2013-01-25T21:04:12",
"content": "Heh, that’s pretty cool. Nice job.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "947555",
"author": "Raged",
"timestamp": "2013-01-25T22:20:08",
"content":... | 1,760,376,628.930887 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/25/announcing-hackaday-videos-and-behind-the-scenes-mailing-list/ | Announcing: Hackaday Videos And Behind The Scenes Mailing List | Caleb Kraft | [
"News"
] | [
"news",
"video"
] | We’re starting a few new things at hackaday. As always, our goal is to share awesome hacks from as diverse a crowd as possible. We’ve played with video a bit before, but now we’re really going to start having some fun with it.
Our first exploration into this area
was the hacked portal gun
. People enjoyed looking at it, and those seeking more in depth technical knowledge came to the site to get it. Instead of focusing the video on the technology or the build itself, we used it as an interesting way to get the attention of people with relevant interests. This video proved to us that our idea was solid.
We have now stepped up our production in terms of quality and quantity. We will be releasing videos that may be humorous, like a fake commercial or skit, or may be serious in the style of a documentary. They will all have some kind of hack at their core and that hack will be broken down in an article here.
I would also like to extend the opportunity for you to help. There are two ways you can do so:
Sign up for our email list(it is in the right column). I’ll be sharing behind the scenes info and previews about upcoming video projects and asking for ideas on how to improve them. The list will be very informal, and only deal with behind the scenes kind of stuff it will not be a mailing of the daily posts.
Submit a project or idea that you think would make a cool video. You can email that directly to caleb@. Of course, we would prefer projects that haven’t been released yet, but that isn’t necessary. We’re looking for things that are visually stunning, or could possibly have highly cinematic potential. Not necessarily the most technically difficult thing.
We hope to start releasing videos next week, so keep your eyes peeled. We filmed all week, and my cheeks hurt from laughing so much. | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "947472",
"author": "Super_Nurd",
"timestamp": "2013-01-25T20:05:30",
"content": "This sounds like a horrible idea, please make it under a separate category than all of the things posted similar to how they are now, it would be much appreciated by those of us who happen to be a bit m... | 1,760,376,628.864118 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/25/raspberry-pi-used-as-a-beacon-transmitter/ | Raspberry Pi Used As A Beacon Transmitter | Mike Szczys | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"ad9850",
"beacon",
"Hellschreiber",
"morse code",
"RPi"
] | [m0xpd] got his hands on an inexpensive AD9850 DDS Module from eBay but needed a way to control it. He took inspiration from the projects that used a PIC microcontroller, but decided to add his own twist by
using a Raspberry Pi to build a multi-mode beacon transmitter
.
At the center of this breadboarded circuit lies the green AD9850 module. To its left is a level converter he built to get the 3.3V levels from the RPi board to work with the rest of the 5V hardware. The signal then feeds into a QRP amplifier and a low pass filter.
He didn’t start from square one when it came time to write the code for the RPi. Instead he grabbed an Arduino sketch for the very same DDS and ported it over to Python. The first test signal was his call sign sent in Morse code at
QRSS speeds
. But he also managed to get
Hellschreiber
messages working, making it a multiple-mode device.
[via
Solder Smoke
] | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "947495",
"author": "Fallen",
"timestamp": "2013-01-25T20:26:34",
"content": "I was really disappointed when I realized it said beacon and not bacon.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "947992",
"author": "RandyP",
... | 1,760,376,628.992267 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/23/raspi-controlled-rgb-led-strip-display/ | Raspi-controlled RGB LED Strip Display | Brian Benchoff | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"led strip",
"raspberry pi",
"RGB LED",
"wiimote"
] | [4RM4] over at the Stuttgart hackerspace Shackspace ran into a guy selling individually addressable RGB LED strips when he attended the 29th Chaos Communication Congress last December. He had a Raspberry Pi with him, and after a little bit of work he rigged up an LED display that wrapped around a trash can. A respectable hack, but not quite ready for prime time.
After getting back to the Shackspace, [4RM4]
decided to go in a more classic direction
by building an RGB Snake clone. A few neat features were implemented like a high score list, a free play bot, and a clock.
To control his pixel-munching snake, [4RM4] used a Wii Nunchuck controller hooked up to the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins. It looks like a whole lot of fun, and given the absurdly high scores shown in the video after the break, it looks like this build is getting a lot of use at the Shackspace.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO47IX9lz-s&w=580] | 14 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "945513",
"author": "lmn",
"timestamp": "2013-01-23T13:03:35",
"content": "A big shift from Arduin-a-day to Rasp-a-day…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "945520",
"author": "Colga1",
"timestamp": "2013-01-23T13:10... | 1,760,376,629.308834 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/23/retrotechtacular-how-a-watch-works/ | Retrotechtacular: How A Watch Works | Mike Szczys | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"retrotechtacular",
"watch"
] | Anyone who has ever tried to keep time with an electronic project will have respect for a timepiece that stays accurate over the span of months or more. We think it’s even more respectable when it comes to mechanical watches. This video was made by the Hamilton watch company back in 1949
to explain the basic processes behind a precision mechanical timepiece
.
It takes several minutes to get to the meat of the presentation, but we think you’ll find the introduction just as entertaining as the explanation itself. When it does come time to look inside the watch a set of large pieces is used to help illustrate the workings of each part. The clip (which is also embedded after the break) does a great job with these demonstrations, but almost immediately you’ll come to realize the complexity wrapped up in an incredibly tiny package. It goes on to explain the low-friction properties that are brought to the table by the jewel bearings. Enjoy!
[Thanks Giuseppe] | 31 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "945469",
"author": "kaidenshi",
"timestamp": "2013-01-23T12:09:07",
"content": "In before the “not a hack” crowd…This is fascinating! Not every post here has to be about repurposing components or bending electronics to the maker’s will. Sometimes it’s nice to just sit back and learn... | 1,760,376,629.068207 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/22/xbmc-workaround-for-android-hardware-video-acceleration/ | XBMC Workaround For Android Hardware Video Acceleration | Mike Szczys | [
"Android Hacks"
] | [
"android",
"pivos",
"video acceleration",
"xbmc",
"xios"
] | An unofficial, but fully functional release of XBMC should
make the uber-popular media center software work with almost all Android devices
. About six months ago the developers of XBMC announced that
it had been ported for Android
. That was true, but there was one caveat. The port was made functional on one specific Android device. The hardware company Pivos paid for the devs to add support for their Xios DS device. Although that build could be run on other Android devices, the hardware video acceleration could only be use if it was the same as the Xios. When not using the hardware acceleration many common video formats would only play at a few frames per second, if at all.
This build is a workaround and is not officially supported. What it brings to the table is the ability to use an external media player with XBMC. This way any video format which your Android device is capable of playing (with hardware acceleration) can be launched from XBMC but will be played by the native video application. We haven’t tried it for ourselves. If you have we’d love to hear about your experience in the comments.
[via
Ars Technica
] | 33 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "945030",
"author": "Max",
"timestamp": "2013-01-22T22:13:10",
"content": "On a Rasperry Pi that would make quite a cheap media player!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "945036",
"author": "Joel (@FuelCell250)",
"... | 1,760,376,629.149895 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/22/faceless-childs-engineer-father-builds-him-a-breathtaking-ride/ | Faceless Child’s Engineer Father Builds Him A Breathtaking Ride | Mike Szczys | [
"Toy Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bmw",
"car",
"carbon fiber",
"electric",
"tesla"
] | Okay, the kid does have a face, but it looks like Dad blurred it for his protection. The real story here is
the killer ride built by his engineer father
. It’s far nicer than the cars driven by the Hackaday team, but then again, since it cost more than a BMW 3 series that’s no surprise.
[Lingzi] lives in China and does custom car work for a living. So to take on this project for his son was more of a stretch of the pocketbook than of his skill set. The car features a custom frame with rack and pinion steering, disc brakes, a rear differential, and a reputable suspension system. The body of the vehicle is crafted from carbon fiber. The lights all work and there’s an electric motor and transmission mounted just behind the driver’s seat. Unfortunately there’s no video of this in action (China blocks YouTube). But do take a look at the album above for pictures of the final paint job. There is also a little bit more information to be found
in [Lingzi’s] Reddit discussion
. | 56 | 32 | [
{
"comment_id": "944991",
"author": "Richard",
"timestamp": "2013-01-22T21:07:31",
"content": "The plight of the faceless child is a little-known one.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "945114",
"author": "JohnMc",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,376,629.257221 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/22/gaming-system-inside-an-atari-joystick/ | Gaming System Inside An Atari Joystick | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"ardweeny",
"atari",
"Joystick",
"pocket",
"pong"
] | This original Atari controller is pretty small (take a look at that RCA cable for a sense of scale). Despite it’s size, [Kyle Brinkerhoff] managed to fit
a complete gaming system inside the controller
. This Pocket Sized Atari is a follow-up to another project he did called ArduPong which let him play Pong using a joystick and an Arduino. This rendition takes the external project box from that build and moves everything into one tight little package.
In the video after the break [Kyle] gives us a tour of the internals. The Arduino board he went with is an
Ardweeny
which is no bigger than the ATmega328 footprint so it can be easily mounted off to one side. The joystick internals have been replaced with the analog stick module from a PlayStation controller. That is where the button came from as well. Just connect this to a 9V battery and the composite video input of a TV and you’re ready to do some gaming!
Now if you just want that retro look for your Xbox Live games check out
this Xbox 360 controller in an Atari joystick
. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "944956",
"author": "Scott Lawrence",
"timestamp": "2013-01-22T20:08:33",
"content": "Actually, that’s not an Atari Joystick. It’s a candy tin made to look like an Atari Joystick. It’s notably smaller than the joystick it’s based on… IMO, making this more impressive. :D Nice work!... | 1,760,376,629.368271 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/22/21st-century-light-bulbs-using-3d-printer-and-chemistry-equipment/ | 21st Century Light Bulbs Using 3D Printer And Chemistry Equipment | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"glass",
"glassware",
"lights"
] | [Andreas Hölldorfer] brings his light fixtures into this century by using a couple of modern technologies. The
fixtures combine LED modules, 3D printed pieces, and laboratory glassware
to give his room a unique look.
The glass enclosure is something he’s had on hand for quite some time but they never actually got used. There is an opening at one end which is meant to receive a stopper. He modeled one including holes for the wires and printed the piece with a 3D printer. Also fabricated in the same way is a bracket that is used for mounting the fixture to the wall. The blossom of components inside the glass are each made up of five LED modules. There’s no word on what he’s using for a power supply or how he managed the cable runs, but he did post an image of two of the fixtures installed in his living room. | 20 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "944929",
"author": "AD",
"timestamp": "2013-01-22T19:14:27",
"content": "Or he could have just gone to a surplus chemistry supply website and ordered a rubber stopper.Also: with the modules clustered like that with no heatsink, and especially inside a glass container, those LEDs are... | 1,760,376,629.68187 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/22/adding-a-bluetooth-terminal-to-your-router/ | Adding A Bluetooth Terminal To Your Router | Mike Szczys | [
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"module",
"router",
"terminal"
] | This image shows an Android tablet
monitoring the terminal of a router via Bluetooth
. It makes it a snap to tweak your router from a multitude of devices as long as you’re within range (usually BT works up to about 30 feet or so). The only part that [Yohanes] needed to pull off the hack was a Bluetooth module which he picked up for a few dollars.
All routers will have serial connections somewhere on the board. His model (Asus RT-N16) even had the GND, RX, TX, and VCC pads labeled. He soldered a SIL pin socket to the port which accepts the pin header from the Bluetooth module. Before plugging that in he had to issue a few commands to the device to get it using the same baud rate and settings as the router’s serial port. With that taken care of he can now wirelessly monitor and control the device via the serial terminal.
The one issue which he did encounter is that the module is slower to boot than the router. This means that at power-up you will not see anything on the terminal until the router has already started to load the Linux kernel. If you don’t plan on doing any bootloader hacks this shouldn’t make any difference. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "944910",
"author": "Alex Rossie",
"timestamp": "2013-01-22T18:54:44",
"content": "Thats awesome",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "944918",
"author": "vince",
"timestamp": "2013-01-22T19:04:32",
"content": "I think it w... | 1,760,376,629.428795 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/20/a-better-template-for-your-stm32-f3-dev-board/ | A Better Template For Your STM32 F3 Dev Board | Brian Benchoff | [
"ARM",
"Software Development"
] | [
"stm32",
"STM32 F3"
] | If you’ve picked up one of those really cool STM32 ARM dev boards, you’ve probably poked around looking for a good toolchain. No fear, then, because [Matt] has your back. He
put together a template
for the ARM Cortex-M4 powered STM32 board.
[Matt] had been using a template for the STM32 F4
we’d covered before
, but found the implementation a bit lacking. Wanting to exploit the functionality of his fancy STM32 F3 board, [Matt] took the F0 template
whipped up by our very own [Mike S]
and got it to work with the newer, fancier dev board.
There are a few bonuses to using [Matt]’s template; the ARM chip in the F3 Discovery board has a hardware floating-point unit that is inaccessible using the Code Sourcery G++: Lite Edition toolchain. [Matt]’s use of gcc-arm-embedded allows access to the hardware FPU, a great benefit for a great board. | 20 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "943296",
"author": "Grawp",
"timestamp": "2013-01-20T13:52:05",
"content": "I’d like to ask why nobody uses the pure CMSIS directly from ARMhttp://www.arm.com/products/processors/cortex-m/cortex-microcontroller-software-interface-standard.php. It has better license than that stm lib... | 1,760,376,629.489878 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/19/write-code-fix-the-space-station-win-10000/ | Write Code, Fix The Space Station, Win $10,000 | Brian Benchoff | [
"contests"
] | [
"coding competition",
"iss"
] | If you want something great to add to your astronaut application, this is your chance. If you can figure out a way to optimize the position of the solar panels for the International Space Station,
you’ll win $10,000 from this TopCoder competition
.
Positioning the solar arrays on the ISS is an incredibly complex task; if parts of the arrays are in the shadow of other parts, they’ll bend due to the temperature difference and eventually break. NASA would like more power to run science experiments and other cool stuff, so they’re turning to hackers so they can optimize the amount of power generated on the ISS.
Your goal, as a contestant in this completion, is to define the angular position and velocity for each of the joints that connect the solar panels to the station for every point in a 92-minute orbit. Limitations on any solution include making sure the masts for each panel aren’t in a shadow more than they need to be, making sure the cycle can be repeated each orbit, and making sure the most power is generated on board.
The completion is open, so if you haven’t done enough matrix algebra this weekend feel free to sign up. In any event, you’ll get a cool CAD model of the ISS. | 126 | 30 | [
{
"comment_id": "942663",
"author": "Matthias Lewen (@justM4D)",
"timestamp": "2013-01-19T19:06:44",
"content": "Will I get into the Stargate program if I solve it? :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "942875",
"author": "M Lange (@error... | 1,760,376,630.174185 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/19/an-arduino-hydrogen-blimp-oh-the-humanity/ | An Arduino Hydrogen Blimp… Oh The Humanity! | Mike Szczys | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"airship",
"arduino",
"blimp",
"hydrogen"
] | This sort of flying contraption seems more suited for indoor use. Well, except for the fire hazard presented by
building an Android controlled hydrogen blimp
. The problems we often see with quadcopters come into play when a motor wire comes loose and the thing goes flying off in a random direction. Loosing a motor on this airship will be no big deal by comparison.
Because the build relies on the buoyancy of the gas, light-weight components are the name of the game. The frame of the chassis is built from balsa wood. It supports two tiny DC motors which are almost indistinguishable in the image above. An Arduino nano and wireless receiver monitor commands from the transmitter and drive the propellers accordingly.
You may have noticed that we categorized this one as a chemistry hack. That’s because [Btimar] generated the hydrogen himself. He used an Erlenmeyer flask with a spout for the chemical reaction. After placing several heat sinks and other scraps of solid aluminum in the flask he poured on the lye solution. This generates the H2 but you need to keep things cool using ice to keep the reaction from getting out of control. We’re going to stick with
helium filled blimps
for the time being!
See this beast flying around [Btimar’s] living room in the clip after the break. | 48 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "942603",
"author": "peterbjornx",
"timestamp": "2013-01-19T17:18:38",
"content": "always wanted to do this",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "946737",
"author": "Charlie Barrett",
"timestamp": "2013-01-24T23:18:09... | 1,760,376,629.922042 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/19/custom-gauges-with-a-stepper-motor-breakout-board/ | Custom Gauges With A Stepper Motor Breakout Board | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"analog gauge",
"gauge",
"stepper motor"
] | Throw some blinking LEDs on a project and it’s bound to make the front page of Hackaday. We do love builds of a more analog character, though, and
this analog gauge stepper motor breakout board
seems like just the ticket to make those projects a reality.
The idea behind the project is simple: take a stepper motor, put a needle on it, and connect it to an Arduino. Instant analog gauge, measuring anything an Arduino can calculate.
The motor used in the build is a Switec X27.168, the same motor used in the dashboard of tens of thousands of automobiles from dozens of different makes and models. Controlling the motors is done through [Guy Carpenter]’s
Switec X25 library
for the Arduino, allowing an Arduino Uno to control up to three stepper motor gauges simultaneously.
The movement of the needle is amazingly smooth and quite fast, as seen in the video after the break. A pretty cool piece of kit if you want a more analog display than LEDs and LCDs can provide.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-9aR8eVrJY&w=580] | 26 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "942628",
"author": "aliveoneee",
"timestamp": "2013-01-19T17:50:17",
"content": "the video should really show some intermediate motion, smaller moves, stops, basically some motion that is similar to what it will actually be expected to perform as a gauge, not full swings….",
"pa... | 1,760,376,630.468722 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/19/breaking-the-minteye-captcha-again/ | Breaking The Minteye Captcha Again | Brian Benchoff | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"captcha",
"minteye",
"security"
] | A few days ago we saw a post from [samuirai] at the Shackspace hackerspace in Stuttgart on breaking the
minteye captcha system
. Like most other captcha cracks, [samuirai] used the voice accessibility option that provides an audio captcha for blind users. Using the accessibility option is a wonderful piece of work, but [Jack] came up with
an even more elegant way to defeat the minteye captcha
.
For those unfamiliar, the minteye captcha provides a picture tossed through a swirl filter with a slider underneath. Move the slider left or right to eliminate the swirl and you’ve passed the, “are you human” test. Instead of looking for straight lines, [Jack] came up with a solution that easily defeats the minteye captcha in 23 lines of Python: just minimize the length of all the edges found in the pic.
The idea behind the crack is simply the more you swirl an image, the longer the edges in the image become. Edge detection is a well-studied problem, so the only thing the minteye cracking script needed to do was to move the slider for the captcha from the left to the right and measure the lengths of all the edges.
[Jack] included the code for image processing part of his crack, fortunately leaving out the part where he returns an answer to the minteye captcha. For that, and a very elegant way to crack a captcha, we thank him. | 16 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "942629",
"author": "Yoonsik",
"timestamp": "2013-01-19T17:55:08",
"content": "poor minteye",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "942659",
"author": "felle",
"timestamp": "2013-01-19T19:01:14",
"content": "I enjoy programmi... | 1,760,376,629.818252 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/19/ask-hackaday-what-to-do-with-a-home-intercom-system/ | Ask Hackaday: What To Do With A Home Intercom System? | Brian Benchoff | [
"Ask Hackaday"
] | [
"Ask Hackaday",
"intercom"
] | [Kyle] just moved into a new home, a 1970s abode that was very modern for its time. When the house was built,
a home intercom system
was installed. Of course this intercom system was eventually disconnected, but now [Kyle] would like to find a use for it.
The intercom system is a wonderful piece of engineering from the late 60s and early 70s.
The base station
has an FM radio, a mono input (for plugging in a turntable, we suppose), and a huge speaker.
The satellite units
– one for each room in the house – are much simpler with just a push to talk switch and a volume control. Yes, in classic minimalist style, the engineers for this intercom system used the speaker as a microphone.
[Kyle] would like to keep the wonderful plastic fantastic aesthetic of the intercom system, but he’s looking for something cool to do with this hardware. This could be the beginnings of a very cool, very strange house-wide artificial intelligence build, kind of like a consumer version of HAL 9000. We’re interested in hearing what you’d do with [Kyle]’s hardware, so leave your ideas in the comments. | 103 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "942455",
"author": "Jay",
"timestamp": "2013-01-19T13:17:00",
"content": "Wait, they used the speaker as a microphone?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "942469",
"author": "Yo",
"timestamp": "2013-01-19T13:43:30"... | 1,760,376,630.330558 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/18/renaming-parts-in-eagle-cad-by-editing-the-xml-directly/ | Renaming Parts In Eagle CAD By Editing The XML Directly | Mike Szczys | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"eagle",
"xml"
] | There’s a lot of ways to burn up your time when designing PCBs, but renaming components can be one of the most frustrating. [Joe Pinzone] wrote in with his solution to the problem. Instead of hunting for each part on the schematic to change them one at a time, he makes a list of the substitutions and then uses a script to make all the changes in the XML files. He didn’t publish a post about his work, but you’ll find the source code he wrote embedded after the break.
The straw that finally broke the camel’s back was a project that included about two hundred components which didn’t seem to have a naming order that made any sense with the actual values of the components. The script is written in C++ (for Windows but [Joe] says this should be easily ported to other systems as well). To use it he creates a CSV file with the current component names in the first column. He then goes through and types what he wants for the new name in the second column. This CSV, along with the BRD and SCH files are then given as inputs for the script (through selecting them all and dragging to the script or as CLI arguments) and it automatically makes the changes.
Of course this is only possible because
Cadsoft transitioned to using XML files in Eagle 6
.
/*
Title: EagleCAD XML Batch Component Renamer
Author: Joe Pinzone, Newbury Ohio
License: Free ("beer"), with acknowledgement of original author
Date: January, 2013
Description:
* Designed to use a CSV to perform batch renaming of EagleCAD schematic/board components
* Works only on new Eagle XML format schematic and board files
To generate CSV file with original component name list:
* Simply drag ONLY your SCH file or BRD onto the EXE. partsList.csv is automatically generated from that file.
To perform batch renaming:
* Generate a CSV with original part names in first column, and replacement names in the second
* Click and drag your SCH, BRD, and CSV file onto the EXE (use multi-select)
* ^Alternatively, enter in the file paths as arguments from the command prompt
Notes:
* If the entry in the second column of the CSV row (replacement name) is blank, that entry will be skipped,
and the component will retain it's original name
* To prevent accidental replacement of identical character strings within the XML file, the program
looks for the specific XML tags that correspond to component names. Edit the list in the
"Handy things you can modify" section if Eagle changes things, or if you want to play around.
* You can only load ONE schematic and ONE board file at a time.
* You can only have 1000 entries in the CSV file. All others are ignored.
However, you can increase this by setting the value of #define MAX_CSV_ROWS in the source file.
I didn't want to take up too much memory unnecessarily, and 1000 is plenty for most people.
* Live long and prosper
*/
#include <cstring>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
using namespace std;
// Handy things you can modify -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/*
Path and file name to use when generating a name list
*/
#define MAX_CSV_ROWS 1000 // change this to allow more entries in the CSV find/replace file if necessary.
// The program fails nicely, though - it just ignores entries after row 1000.
char* partsListGenFile = "./partsList.csv"; // the directory and name of the generated parts list CSV file (if no find/replace CSV file is specified)
/*
This is the list of XML entries/tags that contain component names after them (from both SCH and BRD Eagle XML files)
This list is used to make sure that ONLY component names are modified, and coincidental string matches
elsewhere in the XML aren't accidentally changed. It happened once to me. It wasn't fun. True story.
Add/remove tags to this list if Eagle changes their standard, or you decide to adapt this for some other purpose.
The value of 'numTags' should match the number of elements in the 'xmlTags' array below - make sure they match if you change something!
*/
int numTags = 5;
string xmlTags[] = { "part name", \
"instance part", \
"pinref part", \
"element name", \
"contactref element" \
};
/*
When generating the CSV list, we only want one copy of each component name.
The <part name> XML entries in the schematic files, or the <element name> XML entries in the board files
only contain one entry per part, so we use those as the lookup strings when generating the CSV.
*/
string schemXMLTag_part = "part name";
string boardXMLTag_part = "element name";
// (Global) Variable Declarations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
bool schemFound = false; // used by parseArguments, marks if schematic file was found in the files loaded
bool boardFound = false; // used by parseArguments, marks if board file was found in the files loaded
bool listFound = false; // used by parseArguments, marks if find/replace csv file was found in the files loaded
char* path_schem; // the file path (full or relative) of the schematic file
char* path_board; // the file path (full or relative) of the board file
char* path_list ; // the file path (full or relative) of the csv find/replace list
string list[1000][2]; // The storage array for the find/replace list. FIND string is element 0, REPLACE string is element 1
int listLength = 0; // number of populated entries in the list array above (set by the loadList function's return value)
// Function Prototypes -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
int parseArguments(int argc, char* args[]); // loads the program arguments (file paths of schematic/board/csv files)
int processFile(char* XMLFilePath); // assuming that 'list' is populated, goes line-by-line through specified file and replaces component names
string processLine(string original); // used by processFile to process an individual line of text
string processPart(string original); // used by processLine to change the part name based on the find/replace list
int loadList(char* listFilePath); // parses/loads the list file into memory (into the 'list' array)
void generateList(char* XMLPath, char* outPath, string xmlReferenceTag); // generates a new CSV component name list from the specified SCH or BRD file
// Program --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
int main(int argc, char* args[]){
cout << "EagleCAD XML Batch Component Renamer...\n\n";
if(!parseArguments(argc, args)) { system("pause"); return 0;} // parse program arguments, pause and close on error
if(listFound == false){ // if no list was specified, assume that we should generate a parts list instead of doing find/replace
if(schemFound == true){ generateList(path_schem, partsListGenFile, schemXMLTag_part);} // if schematic file is available, generate the list from that
else if (boardFound == true){ generateList(path_board, partsListGenFile, boardXMLTag_part);} // if schematic file is not available, generate from board file
}
else if (listFound == true){ // if the user specified a find/replace list, do the find/replace
listLength = loadList(path_list);
if(schemFound == true){ cout << "Changed <" << processFile(path_schem) << "> lines in schematic.\n"; }
if(boardFound == true){ cout << "Changed <" << processFile(path_board) << "> lines on board.\n"; }
}
cout << endl;
system("pause");
return 0;
}
int parseArguments(int argc, char* args[]){
/*
Load the file paths from the program arguments into memory
*/
for(int index = 1; index < argc; index++){
string buffer = args[index];
if(buffer.find(".sch") != -1){
if(schemFound == false){
path_schem = args[index];
schemFound = true;
}
else{
cout << "You may only load ONE schematic file.\n\n";
return 0;
}
}
else if(buffer.find(".brd") != -1){
if(boardFound == false){
path_board = args[index];
boardFound = true;
}
else{
cout << "You may only load ONE board file.\n\n";
return 0;
}
}
else if(buffer.find(".csv") != -1){
if(listFound == false){
path_list = args[index];
listFound = true;
}
else{
cout << "You may only load ONE CSV file.\n\n";
return 0;
}
}
else{
cout << "Unknown file: " << buffer << endl << endl;
return 0;
}
}
if(schemFound == false && boardFound == false){
cout << "You must specify a schematic (SCH) or board (BRD) file.\n\n";
return 0;
}
return 1;
}
int processFile(char* XMLFilePath){
ifstream source; // pointer to source file
ofstream dest; // pointer to destination file
int modifiedLines = 0;
string newPath = XMLFilePath;
newPath += ".new";
source.open(XMLFilePath); // i.e. file.sch
dest.open(newPath.c_str()); // i.e. file.sch.new
string buffer = "";
while(!source.eof()){
getline(source, buffer);
string temp = processLine(buffer);
dest << temp << endl;
if(temp != buffer){ modifiedLines++;}
}
source.close();
dest.close();
return modifiedLines;
}
string processLine(string original){
/*
Things to look for in a schematic file
*/
string beginning = "";
string end = "";
string partName = "";
for(int tagNum = 0; tagNum < numTags; tagNum++){
if(original.find("<"+xmlTags[tagNum]+"=\"") != -1){ // look for lines that contain the part names
beginning = "<"+xmlTags[tagNum]+"=\""; // this is technically always the same, but I want to be explicit
break; // shouldn't need this if the line contains only one valid XML tag
}
}
// if there is a name to replace, replace it. Otherwise, return the original string
if(beginning != ""){ // 'beginning' will still be empty ("") if there isn't a valid tag to be processed
end = original.substr(beginning.length(),original.length()); // remove the beginning, whatever it may be
partName = end.substr(0,end.find("\"")); // clear out the trailing XML, leaving just the name
end = end.substr(end.find("\""),end.length()); // clear the part name from the 'end'
return beginning + processPart(partName) + end; // return the new line with replaced part name
}
// we only get here if there was nothing to replace in the 'if' block above
return original;
}
string processPart(string original){
for(int index = 0; index < listLength; index++){
if(original == list[index][0] && list[index][1] != ""){ // don't process lines with no replacement
return list[index][1];
}
}
return original;
}
int loadList(char* listFilePath){
ifstream source;
source.open(listFilePath);
string buffer = "";
int entryCount = 0;
while(!source.eof() && entryCount < MAX_CSV_ROWS){
buffer = "";
getline(source, buffer);
list[entryCount][0] = buffer.substr(0,buffer.find(","));
list[entryCount][1] = buffer.substr(buffer.find(",")+1,buffer.length());
entryCount++;
}
source.close();
return entryCount;
}
void generateList(char* XMLPath, char* outPath, string xmlReferenceTag){
cout << "Generating components list from: \n" << XMLPath << endl << endl;
ifstream source;
ofstream dest;
source.open(XMLPath);
dest.open(outPath);
string buffer = "";
string XMLPretext = "<"+xmlReferenceTag+"=\""; // gotta add the extra characters to look for an actual tag
int elementCount = 0;
int lineCount = 0;
while(!source.eof()){
buffer = "";
getline(source, buffer);
lineCount ++;
if(buffer.find(XMLPretext) != -1){ // look for lines that contain the part names
buffer = buffer.substr(XMLPretext.length(),buffer.length()); // clear out the leading XML
buffer = buffer.substr(0,buffer.find("\"")); // clear out the trailing XML, leaving just the name
dest << buffer << endl;
elementCount++;
}
}
source.close();
dest.close();
return;
} // generates CSV parts list from SCH or BRD XML files | 17 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "942093",
"author": "Bogdan",
"timestamp": "2013-01-18T22:08:30",
"content": "Some CAD software allows you to make changes to an instance or all instances.It’s one of the drawbacks of eagle that it is unable…What really puzzles me? Why does the whole code need to be placed in the pos... | 1,760,376,629.993806 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/22/gsm-to-landline-box-has-a-creatively-soldered-cellphone-inside/ | GSM To Landline Box Has A Creatively Soldered Cellphone Inside | Mike Szczys | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"a fully populated cellphone board creatively soldered into a consumer product",
"analog",
"cellphone",
"gsm",
"landline",
"telephone"
] | We don’t blame the manufacturer of this GSM to Landline converter box for not designing the thing from the ground-up. After all, quantities of scale have made dumb-cellphones available for next to nothing. But you have to admit that it’s interesting to see
a fully populated cellphone board creatively soldered into a consumer product
. It would be commonplace if made in your basement rather than being sold in a store.
[Anton] was using the box to add his analog house phones to the cell network. The signal strength at home is pretty low and this box offers an external antenna for better reception. He cracked open the case expecting to see a GSM modem and was surprised to see the cellphone board. It includes a battery backup, and has been soldered directly to the cables which interface with the main PCB using some SIL connectors. Those solder joints were done by hand directly to the pins of the SIM card slot and as well as all of the other important connection points. | 26 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "944862",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2013-01-22T17:19:01",
"content": "It’s also made with through-hole components including a socketed 40 pin DIP IC!!!Wow, I thought I’d never again see a product like that sold commercially.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies"... | 1,760,376,630.405222 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/22/laser-cut-pcbs/ | Laser Cut PCBs | Brian Benchoff | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"circuit board",
"laser cutter",
"pcb"
] | Despite what you may have heard, those 40 Watt laser cutters
actually
can
cut out traces on your next PCB
.
Since he got his laser cutter a year and a half ago, [Rich] over at Nothing Labs has been trying to cut PCBs with it. Others have tried, usually by masking off a piece of copper followed by chemical etching. [Rich] wanted a one-step process, though, and his laser cutter really isn’t up to the task of cutting metal.
All that changed when he heard of another maker cutting .001″ thick stainless steel on a similar laser cutter. Stainless steel isn’t solderable, but mild steel is. After finding a very thin piece of mild steel, [Rich] taped it down to a sheet of acrylic, designed a simple 555 blinky LED circuit, and tried out a new technique.
It turns out it is possible to cut very thin steel into circuit traces, and with enough flux to turn them into a functional circuit. As a bonus the resulting circuit looks
really cool
and a board can be made in mere minutes.
It’s not the thing for very fine work – the minimum trace width [Rich] can get is about 1/16″, but it is a very fast way to prototype a few circuits.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtZQoIheYcc&w=580] | 45 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "944838",
"author": "Ryan Turner",
"timestamp": "2013-01-22T16:23:29",
"content": "The problem is that if you have enough power to punch through a layer of metal, fiberglass isn’t going to put up much of a fight.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,630.563162 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/22/raspberry-pi-plays-midi-without-an-operating-system/ | Raspberry Pi Plays MIDI Without An Operating System | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Software Development"
] | [
"bare metal",
"baremetal",
"midi",
"os",
"raspberry pi"
] | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6TCysv6AzE&w=580]
For all the interesting DSP functions locked away in the Raspberry Pi, it’s still hard to imagine using the Raspberry Pi as an eminently capable software synthesizer, tracker, or sequencer. Running any of the usual Linux digital audio programs means – surprise – running Linux, and the performance penalty associated with that.
It would be much better if all these audio programs could run directly on the Raspberry Pi without an operating system, and [Joe]’s project is right up that alley.
He’s playing MIDI files without an operating system,
in effect making the Raspberry Pi a very powerful embedded platform.
[Joe]’s build is the first bare metal audio code for the Raspberry Pi. It’s actually an
LV2
plugin host that will load audio plugins, read MIDI files, and shoot the resulting audio out over the 1/8″ jack on the Pi. This work wouldn’t have been possible without a few
Raspberry Pi bare metal tutorials
put together by [David Welch].
Hopefully this won’t be the last we’ll see of [Joe] and his code; the Raspberry Pi has more than enough horsepower to be an amazing sampler, synth, beat machine, or the next generation of Akai MPC. All we need are a few brave coders to
take up coding bare metal on the Raspberry Pi. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "944749",
"author": "Lucas",
"timestamp": "2013-01-22T13:08:27",
"content": "http://hackaday.com/2013/01/21/tired-of-playing-the-macbook-play-the-raspberry-pi/This guy ^ could take a leaf from this post’s book.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"... | 1,760,376,630.837127 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/21/an-attempt-to-replace-multiple-rfid-cards-with-a-single-hacked-together-tag/ | An Attempt To Replace Multiple RFID Cards With A Single Hacked-together Tag | Mike Szczys | [
"Security Hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"attiny85",
"AVR",
"card",
"keycard",
"multipass",
"rfid",
"tag"
] | It’s kind of a convoluted title, but [Hudson’s]
attempt to replace multiple HID Prox cards with one AVR chip
didn’t fully pan out. The project started when he wanted to reduce the number of RFID access cards he carries for work down to just one. The cards use the HID Proximity protocol which is just a bit different from the protocols used in most of the hobby RFID projects we see. He ended up taking an AVR assembly file that worked with a different protocol and edited it for his needs.
The device above is the complete replacement tag [Hudson] used. It’s just an AVR ATtiny85 and a coil made of enameled wire. The coil pics up current from the card reader’s magnetic field, and powers the chip through the leakage on the input pins (we’ve seen
this trick
a
few times
before). The idea he had was to store multiple codes on the device and send them all in a row. He was able to get the tag to work for just one code, but the particulars of the HID Prox reader make it difficult if not impossible to send multiple codes. The card must send the same code twice in a row, then be removed from the magnetic field before the reader will poll for another combination. | 31 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "944445",
"author": "Leet Geeks",
"timestamp": "2013-01-21T23:08:39",
"content": "Just a quick question. Considering this is going to go into a small plastic enclosure instead of a regular pvc plastic card. Why not design a circuit that emulates the specific code to a button? As y... | 1,760,376,630.633808 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/21/communication-protocol-for-an-indoor-helicopter/ | Communication Protocol For An Indoor Helicopter | Mike Szczys | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"execuheli",
"helicopter",
"ir",
"propel",
"protocol",
"reverse engineering"
] | There’s a special type of satisfaction that comes from really understanding how something works at the end of a reverse engineering project. This grid above is the culmination of [Spencer’s] effort to
reverse engineer the IR protocol of a Propel ExecuHeli
indoor helicopter toy.
The first thing he looked at was the three different controller channels which can be selected to allow multiple helicopters to be used in the same area. [Spencer] was surprised that they all used the same carrier frequency. The secret must be in the coded packets so his next challenge was to figure out how the data was being transmitted via the Infrared signal. It turns out the packets are using pulse-length coding (we were unfamiliar with this protocol but
you can read a bit more about it here
). The last piece of the puzzle was to capture packets produced by each unique change of the control module. With each bit (except for bit 11) accounted for he can now format his own codes for a controller replacement. Perhaps he’s looking to
make the helicopter autonomous
? | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "944500",
"author": "Douglas Poza",
"timestamp": "2013-01-22T01:56:06",
"content": "Can the bit 11 be the lights on/off? Some models have lights…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "944797",
"author": "Spencer",
"ti... | 1,760,376,630.785379 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/21/brute-force-finds-the-lost-password-for-an-electronic-safe/ | Brute Force Finds The Lost Password For An Electronic Safe | Mike Szczys | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"brute force",
"electronic safe",
"fire safe",
"keypad"
] | [Teatree] tells a sad, sad story about the lost password for his fire safe. The electronic keypad comes with a manufacturer’s code as well as a user selected combination. Somehow he managed to lose both of them, despite storing the user manual safely
and
sending the passwords to himself via email. He didn’t want to destroy the safe to get it open, and turning to the manufacturer for help seemed like a cop-out. But he did manage to
recover the password by brute forcing the electronic keypad
.
There is built-in brute force protection, but it has one major flaw. The system works by enforcing a two-minute lockout if a password is entered incorrectly three times in a row. But you can get around this by cutting the power. [Teatree] soldered a relay to each set of keypad contacts, and another to the power line and got to work writing some code so that his Arduino could start trying every possible combination. He even coded a system to send him email updates. Just six days of constant attacking netted him the proper password. | 24 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "944400",
"author": "Tech Joker",
"timestamp": "2013-01-21T21:24:16",
"content": "Certainly a valid hack for recovering the correct password. I am afraid however this is not of much use to a thief. for them the method of a circular saw and about 30 seconds still much more effective... | 1,760,376,630.907299 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/21/land-speed-baby-carriage-record-set-at-53-mpg/ | Land Speed Baby Carriage Record Set At 53 Mpg | Mike Szczys | [
"Engine Hacks"
] | [
"baby carriage",
"stroller",
"world record"
] | Let’s face it, you’ll never break the motorcycle land speed record without a stellar engineering team and some serious corporate sponsorship. But this build proves that individuals can still set other speed records. [Colin Furze] rode his motorized baby carriage over the 53 mile per hour mark to set a the world’s record. We were surprised to learn it only took him about
one month and $750 to build the infant death machine
.
The design appears to take a page from the commercial lawnmower industry. We say that because the driver rides along on a little tow dolly behind the carriage itself. All of the controls are mounted within easy reach of the T-bar steering mechanism. There are a couple of rockers for his thumbs which actuate the gas and brakes. Red push buttons just below the handlebars are used for up and down shifting with a third button used as a kill switch. The only thing missing from the write up is video footage of the actual 53mph run. We guess you’ll just have to take his word for it.
[via
Dvice
] | 25 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "944348",
"author": "Per Jensen",
"timestamp": "2013-01-21T20:03:31",
"content": "mpg ?!?!?! Also OLD video….",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "944351",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2013-01-21T20:07:32",
... | 1,760,376,630.98199 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2013/01/18/rfid-emulator-card-includes-a-learning-mode/ | RFID Emulator Card Includes A Learning Mode | Mike Szczys | [
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"card",
"emulator",
"learning",
"rfid",
"tag"
] | This RFID card has a lot of nice features. But the one that stands out the most is
the ability to learn the code from anther RFID tag or card
.
You can see that the board includes an etched coil to interact with an RFID reader. This is the sole source of power for the device, letting it pick up enough induced current from the reader to power the PIC 12F683 seen on the upper left of the board. The underside of the PCB hosts just three components: an LED and two switches. One of the switches puts the device in learning mode. Just hold down that button as you move the board into the magnetic field of the reader. While in learning mode a second RFID tag is held up to the reader. It will identify itself and the emulator will capture the code sent during that interaction. This is all shown of in the video after the break. We wonder how hard it would be to make a version that can store several different codes selected by holding down a different button as the emulator is held up to the reader?
If you want to build your own card reader too here’s
a project that does it from scratch
. | 21 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "942078",
"author": "Louis Charles Bruckner",
"timestamp": "2013-01-18T21:25:14",
"content": "nice but when it can do HID 125Khz tags then I will be impressed. EM4100 and similar formats are relatively easy to spoof.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,631.051068 |
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