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https://hackaday.com/2012/08/08/sparkfun-recognized-for-their-growth/ | Sparkfun Recognized For Their Growth | Caleb Kraft | [
"News"
] | [
"open source",
"sparkfun"
] | The
Denver Business Journal has recognized Sparkfun Electronics as the 2nd fastest growing company in the Denver area
(in the $17.5-$46million class). This is fantastic news, not only for
Sparkfun
, but for Open Source Hardware. Sparkfun is the worlds largest manufacturer of open source hardware, located
right in the middle of the country
, Boulder Colorado.
Not only has Sparkfun grown immensely in open source hardware products, they’ve also put together several educational systems like their
tutorial section
as well as their “
learn at sparkfun
” system. Way to go sparkfun! | 26 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "727681",
"author": "RD",
"timestamp": "2012-08-08T21:39:56",
"content": "Placing an order right now as a matter of fact. I am getting ready for Halloween and am working on a lighting project for a Christmas parade float. Yeah Sparkfun!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,376,780.695962 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/08/hackaday-is-going-to-toorcamp/ | Hackaday Is Going To ToorCamp! | Caleb Kraft | [
"cons",
"News"
] | [
"toorcamp"
] | Last month,
we lamented that Toorcamp was coming but we weren’t going to be able to attend
. Since then, we’ve brought
a new writer on board
that will be going to Toorcamp! [Eric Evenchick] will be attending and supplying coverage for Hackaday.
For those who haven’t heard yet, Toorcamp is a 4 day hacker event being held near Neah bay Washington. They described it as “burning man with less drugs and more hacking”. We can’t wait to see what [Eric] shares from this event! | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "727519",
"author": "Fritoeata",
"timestamp": "2012-08-08T19:16:02",
"content": "I wish there was something on the NICE WEATHER side of WA state… ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "727599",
"author": "Lawrence",
... | 1,760,376,780.462721 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/08/limur-fried-adafruit-up-for-entrepreneur-of-2012-award/ | [Limor Fried] (Adafruit) Up For Entrepreneur Of 2012 Award | Caleb Kraft | [
"News"
] | [
"adafruit"
] | [Limor Fried], the brains behind Adafruit is
one of the five finalists for the Entrepreneur of 2012 award in Entrepreneur magazine
. We’ve always been big fans of how she chooses to run her business. Adafruit supplies open source hardware and compiles tons of great tutorials on the pieces. Not only that but they have pushed very hard to build a community that shares information and encourages others to build things, with their “
ask an educator
” series and the community “
show and tell
” that we hope to emulate at some point.
You’ll notice she’s the only engineer in the list. Not only would your vote go toward getting an engineer to win, it would also be shedding light on the open source hardware movement.
Unfortunately, the voting is being done through facebook. We know many of you will opt not to participate due to this fact. It is unfortunate that this is becoming so common. I’ll be voting though. We could use more companies like Adafruit. | 56 | 32 | [
{
"comment_id": "727308",
"author": "Velli",
"timestamp": "2012-08-08T17:05:12",
"content": "Unfortunate that voting through FB is common, or that people are refusing to put up with that crap?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "727667",
"... | 1,760,376,781.044797 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/08/adding-a-serial-trigger-to-a-logic-analyzer/ | Adding A Serial Trigger To A Logic Analyzer | Brian Benchoff | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"logic",
"serial"
] | If you’re attempting to debug a serial bus with a bare-bones logic analyzer, you’re going to have a bad time. Most of the inexpensive analyzers available don’t have a serial pattern trigger, or a way to start recording data after a specific pattern of bits comes down the pipe. [Neil] sent in a great little project that
adds a serial trigger to these analyzers
, we’ve got to hand it to him for designing such a useful board.
[Neil] designed a small board featuring a CLPD that converts serial data to parallel data. By setting the trigger condition of the logic analyzer to any 24-bit pattern he wants, it’s possible for [Neil] to sniff a serial bus exactly when he wants to.
The circuit is quite minimal, basically just a 100-pin CLPD and a bunch of 0.100″ header pins. It’s a useful tool, and although we couldn’t find the board file to make our own, we’re sure [Neil] will be providing that shortly. | 10 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "727121",
"author": "steve",
"timestamp": "2012-08-08T15:10:05",
"content": "Nice! And the manual setting makes it very hassle-free. Do I understand correctly, that he can trigger H,L,X? Or just H/L?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_i... | 1,760,376,781.101133 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/08/hacking-laser-tag-and-building-custom-guns/ | Hacking Laser Tag And Building Custom Guns | Brian Benchoff | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"ir",
"laser tag",
"Teensy"
] | As [Brad] over at the LVL1 hackerspace watched his friend build a Laser tag/tazer mashup for Makerfaire Detroit 2012, he noticed these new laser tag guns were really cool. These Light Strike guns have an impressive array of electronics for a $30 toy, but there was still much to be desired. [Brad] decided to
reverse engineer these guns
and work on a drop-in replacement for the game’s electronics so people like his friend can hurt themselves more easily.
The
Wowwee Light Strike
guns operate with IR LEDs, so the obvious solution for decoding the laser tag protocol would be the
Arduino IR remote library
. [Brad] had a bit of trouble getting his Teensy to read the IR data correctly, but after connecting everything up to a logic analyzer he had the data format figured out.
Now [Brad] has the Light Strike data format figured out and is theoretically able to make his own guns that are compatible with the off-the-shelf laser tag system. It’s also possible for [Brad] to extend the capabilities of this laser tag system by using the ‘health’ function to create a medi gun, or build a gun with a larger magazine for a laser tag mini gun.
If you’d like to build your own version of laser tag compatible with the Wowwee Light Strike, you can grab all the code
on [Brad]’s git. | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "726919",
"author": "cde",
"timestamp": "2012-08-08T13:23:29",
"content": "http://rich.whiffen.org/2011/10/light-strike-decodes-so-far.htmlhas more information on them as well.And hey, kmart has some of these on clearance last I saw like 3 weeks ago. The practice target (that looks l... | 1,760,376,780.747828 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/08/pwdr-the-open-source-powder-printer/ | Pwdr, The Open Source Powder Printer | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"PWDR",
"sintering",
"sls"
] | Meet pwdr
, the open source 3D printer that is a complete departure from the RepRaps and Makerbots we’ve come to love.
Instead of squirting plastic onto a build surface, pwdr operates just like the very, very expensive powder printers used in industrial settings. Pwdr uses gypsum, ceramics, and concrete for its raw stock and binds these powder granules together with water deposited from an inkjet cartridge.
Inside pwdr there are two bins, one for storing the raw material and another for building the part. The part to be printed is built one layer at a time, just like your regular desktop printer. After each layer is finished, a counter-rotating drum scrapes the raw material over the build area and another layer is printed.
There are a lot of advantages to pwdr versus the melted plastic method of printing used in the Makerbot; because each build is self-supporting, it’s possible to print objects that just couldn’t be made with an extruder-based printer. Pwdr also supports laser sintering, meaning it’s possible for pwdr to make objects out of ABS, Nylon, and even metal.
Right now, pwdr is still in the very early stages of development, but you can build your own powder printer from the
files up on Thingiverse
. Check out the video of pwdr printing after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzX5x1A1AMg&w=470] | 26 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "726756",
"author": "steve",
"timestamp": "2012-08-08T11:38:46",
"content": "slow as hell",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "726794",
"author": "Tony",
"timestamp": "2012-08-08T12:07:36",
"content": "Slow c... | 1,760,376,780.346829 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/07/retrotechtacular-simulating-weather-patterns-with-a-logic-chip-computer/ | Retrotechtacular: Simulating Weather Patterns With A Logic Chip Computer | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"logic chip",
"retrotechtacular",
"TTL computer"
] | In 1975, [D. L. Slotnick], CS professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign faced a problem: meteorologists were collecting a lot more data than current weather simulations could handle. [Slotnick]’s solution was to build a faster computer to run these atmosphere circulation simulations. The only problem was the computer needed to be built quickly and cheaply, so that meant using off-the-shelf hardware which in 1975 meant TTL logic chips. [Ivan] found
the technical report for this project
(a massive PDF, you have been warned), and we’re in awe of the scale of this new computer.
One requirement of this computer was to roughly 100 times the computing ability of the IBM 360/95 at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies devoted to the same atmospheric computation tasks. In addition, the computer needed to be programmable in the “high-level” FORTRAN-like language that was used for this atmospheric research.
The result – not to overlook the amazing amount of work that went into the design of this machine – was a computer built out of 210,000 individual logic chips at a total cost of $2.7 Million dollars, or about $10 Million in 2012 dollars. The power consumption of this computer would be crazy – about 90 kilowatts, or enough to power two dozen American houses.
We couldn’t find much information if this computer was actually
built
, but all the work is right there in the report, ready for any properly funded agency to build an amazingly powerful computer out of logic chips. | 42 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "726280",
"author": "Jackman",
"timestamp": "2012-08-07T21:23:49",
"content": "That is beautiful!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "726281",
"author": "pedrodiogo",
"timestamp": "2012-08-07T21:25:59",
"content": "Nowada... | 1,760,376,780.4223 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/07/meet-oscar-the-google-hangout-robot/ | Meet OSCAR, The Google Hangout Robot | Brian Benchoff | [
"Android Hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"google",
"google hangout",
"roomba"
] | [Gus] made it to the Google+ developers vlog to show off his new
Google+ hangout controlled robot
. This robot, named OSCAR (Overly Simplified Collaboratively Actuated Robot), drives around according to the whims of everyone in a Google+ hangout. Not only is the robot under remote control through a Google+ hangout, it also features a camera, allowing a hangout audience to explore a space in real time.
[Gus] built OSCAR out of an old Roomba he found in his parent’s basement. After attaching an Android tablet to the Roomba with some binder clips, [Gus]
put a web server on the tablet and wrote a Google+ hangout extension
allowing all hangout viewers to remotely control OSCAR.
Right now, all the commands received on the hangout are put into a queue, meaning everyone on a hangout has control of OSCAR. The next version will change those commands to deltas, or changes in the current state, canceling out conflicting commands. If only we had one of these while we were streaming for the
Red Bull competition
…
You can check out a demo of OSCAR after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCxQZDSk2bc&w=470] | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "726413",
"author": "Hitek146",
"timestamp": "2012-08-08T01:06:34",
"content": "Unless the basement is the “secret laboratory”, how in the world does a Roomba make it into storage in the basement of a house owned by the parents of a hacker? If my parents owned a Roomba when I was yo... | 1,760,376,780.790737 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/10/fuse-making-machine/ | Fuse Making Machine | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"fuse",
"gunpowder",
"lacquer",
"thread",
"visco"
] | This is
a fuse making machine
that operates nearly as well as a factory machine would. Have you figured out what exactly this is yet? It’s not an electrical fuse, it’s a Visco Fuse. Still not totally clear? Don’t worry, we had to look it up too.
Visco Fuse
is a high-quality safety fuse used in fireworks.
[Robert McMullen] built the machine as part of his degree in Mechanical Engineering at
Olin College
. But there’s a hobby twist behind its genesis. When he has free time he participates in Olin’s Fire Arts Club and we’re sure this stuff comes in handy. The fuse is made by encapsulating a stream of gunpowder in a tube of woven thread. Twenty spools of thread wrap their way around the nozzle of a fine funnel. Once the casing is in place the machine coats it in a waterproof lacquer.
The image above only shows the base of the machine. All the fun parts (and test burns including one underwater) can be seen in the video after the break. | 19 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "730039",
"author": "Alan Yates",
"timestamp": "2012-08-10T16:09:54",
"content": "Very nice job!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "730045",
"author": "Ian Daniher",
"timestamp": "2012-08-10T16:13:46",
"content": "Man, t... | 1,760,376,780.521084 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/10/tangibot-and-the-perils-of-open-source-hardware/ | TangiBot And The Perils Of Open Source Hardware | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Crowd Funding"
] | [
"Crowd Funding",
"makerbot",
"makerbot replicator",
"reprap",
"TangiBot"
] | I’ve commented before on the terrible inefficiency and artificially high expense of the current crop of 3D printers. It simply doesn’t make sense to produce the plastic parts of 3D printer kits on a printer farm when there are literally thousands of Chinese injection molding companies that will make those parts cheaper. It looks like [Matt Strong] heeded my call and now has a
Makerbot Replicator clone up on Kickstarter
that costs $700 less than
the official version
. We assume the Makerbot lawyers are having a busy morning.
From the info on the Kickstarter page, [Matt] is used parts from his Makerbot Replicator to design a one-to-one copy. Every part and component on [Matt]’s TangiBot is 100% compatible – and seemingly 100% identical – with the Makerbot Replicator. Like the Replicator, [Matt] is offering a dual extruder version that allows you to print in two colors.
At the bottom of the Kickstarter page, under a section titled, “How is 3DTangible able to make a Replicator Clone?,” you’ll see [Matt]’s reasoning for cloning the MakerBot replicator. He says everything is open source, and, “MakerBot used other open source designs when designing and producing their 3D Printers.” We’ll agree that MakerBot used existing extruder designs (and improved upon them), but MakerBot was not
this
blatant in borrowing from the RepRap project.
For want of editorializing, I’ve complained about
the stupid inefficiency of manufacturing 3D printers with 3D printers
before. It was only a matter of time before someone realized current manufacturing techniques can be used to make 3D printers cheaper. [Matt] – dude – you were supposed to clone a RepRap. Makerbot has done some really incredible things for the community such as building
Thingiverse
and generally being an awesome cheerleader for the 3D printing community. Taking the flagship Makerbot printer and making it cheaper will not make [Matt] any friends on the Internet, but at least the laws of economics are coming to the world of 3D printers.
Thanks [Brad] for sending this in. | 125 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "729947",
"author": "Tinkering Engineer",
"timestamp": "2012-08-10T15:09:00",
"content": "Uh, unless things have changed, why would their lawyers be in a tizzy? It’s open source. As long as he’s not using the MakerBot name or symbol on it, this is totally acceptable to MakerBot.(Whet... | 1,760,376,780.947627 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/10/fortifying-veronicas-vga-output/ | Fortifying Veronica’s VGA Output | Mike Szczys | [
"computer hacks",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"quinn dunki",
"veronica",
"vga"
] | [Quinn Dunki] just moved to a new work space and had to pack up her homebrew computer project — called Veronica — in the process. She just unboxed it again and decided now was
a good time to fortify the VGA display hardware
. It wasn’t in the greatest of shape, since everything for
the initial video tests
had been built on a breadboard. The transition to protoboard ended up turning out just swell.
One of the thing’s that we like best about [Quinn’s] hacks is that she documents her failures (or perhaps we should just call them hiccups?) just as much as she does her successes. This is not a small thing. We understand, because our own screw-ups don’t usually get photographed due to our raging need to just make the frakking thing work.
Once she had moved all the components to the new board the circuit was amazingly organized. Since she’s doing high-speed switching with the VGA signals it was important to keep the lines as short and straight as possible, hence the SRAM stack seen above. But when it was first fired up she had a jumble of only-somewhat-organized color stripes. It turns out that she had forgotten to change the color register in the AVR code, the color lines were hooked up in the wrong order, and the switch mode supply was injecting noise into the system. But thanks to her documentation of these issues we’ll know what to do when we find ourselves in a similar situation. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "730295",
"author": "bzroom",
"timestamp": "2012-08-10T19:30:08",
"content": "she’s really funny and smart. more posts from her!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,376,781.200341 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/10/robot-cares-for-grave-stones-while-honoring-the-dead/ | Robot Cares For Grave Stones While Honoring The Dead | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"burial",
"grave",
"headsone",
"irobot",
"mourning",
"roomba"
] | This robot was
built to care for the graves and honor the dead
in the Jewish tradition. It is called “Stoney” and was developed by [Zvika Markfeld] based on a concept by [Itamar Shimshony] who is working toward an MFA degree. The image above shows it in action as part of an installation; to our knowledge it has not been used for actual grave sites. But the concept is not a joke; it’s something that makes the observers think.
The base of the robot is an iRobot Roomba on top of which is built a platform for a robot arm. The arm has easy access to two palettes, one holds small stones, and the other flowers. There is also a small box which holds a rag. It navigates around the grave, placing stones, flowers, and using the rag and a water dispenser to symbolically clean the headstone. All of this is controlled by an Arduino Mega board which controls another Arduino running the arm, as well as the microcontroller in the Roomba.
The details of the ritual, as well as the components of the robot are well explained in the clip after the break. | 10 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "729816",
"author": "Eirinn",
"timestamp": "2012-08-10T13:23:50",
"content": "…what?I’m struggling to write my actual thoughts about this project.Scientifically if a person is dead there is not much more to say. Emotionally however there is much to say and do.It makes no sense to me ... | 1,760,376,781.159661 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/10/send-your-nexus-7-back-to-tighten-one-screw/ | Send Your Nexus 7 Back… To Tighten One Screw? | Mike Szczys | [
"Android Hacks",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"bezel",
"nexus 7",
"screw",
"tablet"
] | It seems that some of the Nexus 7 models have an assembly issue that makes the bezel uneven with the screen. It’s just in one spot but your shiny new toy shouldn’t have this kind of problem. Of course it comes as no surprise that Google wants you to send it back for service. What is a surprise is that the fix involves tightening just one screw. Now we can’t stand for shipping something round trip when it comes to this low-skill fix. Luckily neither can [Baddspella]. He shows us just
how easy it is to repair the Nexus 7 yourself
.
The only tools you need are a guitar pick (or other thin plastic prying device) and a very small Phillips screwdriver. Starting at the top of the tablet he uses the plastic pick to pry off the back of the case. This exposes the screws which hold the bezel in place. Find the loose one, and give the screwdriver a turn. Now just snap the back cover in place and you’re done. We’ve embedded the video after the break for your convenience.
It’s super simple…. so don’t be afraid to crack that thing open. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "729707",
"author": "Eirinn",
"timestamp": "2012-08-10T12:10:56",
"content": "No warranties voided? :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "730123",
"author": "Whatnot",
"timestamp": "2012-08-10T17:15:56",
"c... | 1,760,376,781.268288 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/10/summer-and-tailgating-diy-projects-roundup/ | Summer And Tailgating DIY Projects Roundup | Jeremy Cook | [
"LED Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"Cornhole",
"Ladder toss",
"led",
"PVC"
] | If you live in the Southeastern United States as I do, you’ve probably been enjoying a summer of grilling out and going to the beach or lake. You’re also may be getting ready to enjoy
football
tailgating season, especially if you attend or live near a college town. Here’s a couple of DIY items that should be welcome at any outdoor event you choose to attend.
How to Make a Cornhole Board:
Although there are no LEDs or an Arduino on this one (we’d love to see your pimped boards in the comments),
these instructions
should work well for making your basic cornhole set. Of course you can always add some folding legs to it, but they fit together pretty well as is. As for the paint, there are many ways to do this, but check out the pic after the break to see the laser-cut stencil that the Tiger Paw in the first picture was made from. Thanks [Essam]!
PVC Ladder Toss Set:
These instructions should tell you all you need to make
your own ladder toss
(or whatever less-PC name you decide call it). As for the golf ball “bolas,” you’ll have to figure out how to put a hole in the middle of them.
This technique
(as seen in
a links post
earlier) should cover it, but best to be careful that you’re not plunging into a liquid-core ball. Eye protection is recommended.
LED Glow Cubes:
Although not a traditional tailgate item,
these glowing solar LED cubes
could serve as an alternative to the normal LED path lights. What’s in these instructions is how to simply take the parts source, a solar path light, apart and insert it into a translucent cube. We could see this made with several different colored LEDs and an Arduino for some other cool effects. A logo of your favorite team could be added with a laser cutter or CNC router for tailgate use. | 25 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "729641",
"author": "Rob Thomas",
"timestamp": "2012-08-10T11:16:39",
"content": "Divided by a common language! As a Brit, I have no idea what you mean be tailgating (though I thought it was driving too close to the guy in front) or corn holing (and I thought that was NSFW). Having t... | 1,760,376,782.172257 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/09/robotic-hand-with-haptic-feedback/ | Robotic Hand With Haptic Feedback | Caleb Kraft | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"haptic",
"robot"
] | While I was at Heatsync Labs in Mesa Arizona, [Nate] mentioned that he was really proud of helping someone build a robotic hand. I have tracked down that project because it looked pretty cool.
[Macguyver603]
built this robotic hand that is controlled by a glove with flex sensors
. He was originally going to 3d print the structure for the hand but the availability of the laser cutter allowed him to create something a that would be a little more structurally sound. Haptic feedback is supplied by vibrating pager motors that are triggered by sensors in the tips of the robotic hand’s fingers.
The total cost of the project was roughly $240, and there’s unfortunately no video. It did, however, earn him second place at the state fair! | 8 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "729108",
"author": "RBMK",
"timestamp": "2012-08-09T21:10:21",
"content": "It’s an awesome hand.But why not just measure current to servos? I used that and it’s pretty accurate. I just connected a GND through 100mOHM resistor and fed that voltage to arduino’s ADC through op. amp.",... | 1,760,376,781.653529 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/05/mars-science-laboratory-lands-today/ | Mars Science Laboratory Lands Today | Brian Benchoff | [
"News"
] | [
"Curiosity",
"jpl",
"mars rover"
] | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4boyXQuUIw&w=470]
Since launching on November 26, 2011, the newest Mars rover
Curiosity
has been speeding towards the red planet. Its days in the harsh vacuum of space are numbered as
Curiosity
prepares to
land in just a few hours
.
The landing of
Curiosity
at Gale crater is scheduled to be received on Earth at Aug 5, 10:31 pm PDT / Aug 6, 1:31 am EDT / Aug 6, 5:31 am UTC. The latest updates on the success or failure of ramming into the Martian atmosphere should be available on
NASA TV
and
this feed from JPL
. There’s a
huge bunch of feeds
on spaceindustrynews.com, and of course
the Twitter
for the wonderfully anthropomorphized
Curiosity.
If landing a Volkswagen-sized, nuclear powered robot on the surface of Mars isn’t cool enough, we’ll also
see a picture of the descent
from Martian orbit via the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The Atlantic has
a bunch of awesome pictures
showing off
Curiosity’s
preparation for launch. Of course there are videos after the break including one by [Stan Love] explaining why it’s soooooo hard to get to Mars.
NOTE:
When data is returned from the landing,
Curiosity
will have been on the surface of Mars for nearly 7 minutes. While this post was carefully worded to avoid confusion due to the speed of light, I figure this is a good a place as any to post a PDF link for the
Relativistic Verb
section of the Hackaday style guide.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki_Af_o9Q9s&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHLbXTOaw7w&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fturU0u5KJo&w=470] | 37 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "724340",
"author": "txwikinger",
"timestamp": "2012-08-05T11:00:51",
"content": "Reblogged this ontxwikinger's blog.MOD EDIT: If you ever see spam like this, just hit the ‘report comment’ button. Don’t reply to the spam, or you’ll mess up the threading when I remove it.Yes, we’re wo... | 1,760,376,782.058892 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/04/android-controlled-robot-extravaganza/ | Android Controlled Robot Extravaganza | Brian Benchoff | [
"Android Hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"android",
"dtmf",
"robot",
"Robot Operating System",
"ros"
] | We have no idea why, but since we featured
Botiful, the Android-powered telepresence robot
a few days ago, the tip line has been awash in robot/Android mashups. Here’s a few of the cool ones.
Using an Android as a remote control
[Stef] used a Samsung Galaxy S3
to control an old rc tank
. The Android sends accelerometer and gyro data over Bluetooth to an Android where it powers a pair of H-bridges to turn the wheels.
Turning Android into a Robotic Operating System
ROS
, or the Robot Operating System, provides a bunch of utilities for any type of robot such as point-cloud mapping to multi-joint arm control. [Lentin] sent in a guide on
installing ROS on Android
. So far, he can get accelerometer data, stills from the on-board camera, have the robot speak and use the small vibrator motor.
Here’s a (somewhat limited) demo
of [Lentin] playing with ROS in a terminal.
“Just a quick procrastination project”
Last May, [Josh] wrote in asking if a tread-based robot controlled through Skype would be a cool idea. We said ‘hell yeah’ and [Josh] scurried off to his workshop for a few months. He’s back with his
tank-based robot
. One really interesting bit is the robot responds to DTMF tones, allowing it to be controlled through Skype without any additional hardware. That’s
damn
clever. You can see a video of the SkypeRobot after the break. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "723948",
"author": "kay",
"timestamp": "2012-08-04T23:17:44",
"content": "What happened to RobotsAnywhere?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "725429",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2012-08-06T21:11:21",
"content": "... | 1,760,376,781.744259 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/04/large-version-of-operation-isnt-much-easier-than-the-original/ | Large Version Of Operation Isn’t Much Easier Than The Original | Brian Benchoff | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"board game",
"maker faire",
"operation"
] | Last weekend at the Detroit Maker Faire, the folks at the Lansing Makers Network
brought a large-scale version of the classic electronic board game Operation
.
MegOperation, as the Lansing hackerspace calls their build, is a gigantic printout of the chronically ill guy from Operation plastered onto a sheet of plywood. Wire loops surround each incision to detect when a surgeon’s unsteady hand when retrieving unnecessary body parts. These wire loops are connected to an Arduino that regulates the bell and light-up nose the team didn’t quite have time to finish.
Even though the team used an Arduino for their large-scale version of Operation – a game that doesn’t require
any
electronics besides a battery, wire, and buzzer – breaking out each body part to a separate Arduino pin seems pretty smart. A processing app keeps track of the time elapsed for each operation and can detect when the wire surrounding a particular incision is touched, perfect for competitive Operation play. | 10 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "723825",
"author": "Frank Cohen",
"timestamp": "2012-08-04T20:25:22",
"content": "An Arduino, of course.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "723925",
"author": "Pete",
"timestamp": "2012-08-04T22:49:37",
"content": "This... | 1,760,376,782.104226 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/04/you-are-a-sack-of-meat-easily-punctured-by-stompy/ | You Are A Sack Of Meat, Easily Punctured By Stompy | Brian Benchoff | [
"Crowd Funding",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"Project Hexapod",
"Stompy"
] | It may not be as cool as a bear riding a jet ski on a shark in outer space, but
Stompy, the giant, rideable walking hexapod
comes very close.
A few months ago, we caught wind of a
gigantic rideable hexapod project
brewing at the Artisan’s Asylum hackerspace in Somerville, MA. The goal was to build an 18-foot wide, two ton rideable hexapod robot, with the side benefit of teaching students how to weld, code, and other subjects related to giant machines and mechatronics.
The Stompy team has now launched a Kickstarter asking for donations to pay for the materials, plasma cutting, and other bits of hardware required to make Stompy a reality. Since there isn’t much information on amateur level hydraulics, the project is open source; the trials of building Stompy will be made public freely available for any other giant robot project.
Team Stompy has successfully built, debugged, and tested a half-size prototype of one hydraulically powered leg that is able to ‘row’ across the floor under its own power. This is a huge achievement for the team and now they’ll move on to the full-size single leg prototype.
You can see the team’s single leg prototype in action after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFVmMEJi8UI&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raRQu9Un3_I&w=470] | 11 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "723616",
"author": "M4CGYV3R",
"timestamp": "2012-08-04T16:39:16",
"content": "Why is the movement so…not smooth? Are you using pneumatic cylinders without any damping?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1CMSV81_ws",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,781.70346 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/04/ask-hackaday-whats-your-backup-solution/ | Ask Hackaday: What’s Your Backup Solution? | Brian Benchoff | [
"Ask Hackaday"
] | [
"backup",
"the cloud"
] | Here’s some very, very sad news from [Charles] over at The Maker’s Workbench: on July 16th,
his house was hit by lightning
causing his workshop to catch fire. His family is safe, but unfortunately thousands of dollars in gear has gone up in smoke. [Charles] lost a Reprap, a ton of dev boards, a huge amount of tools including an awesome soldering setup, and his laptop and file server.
Short of taking up residence inside Yucca Mountain, there’s little that can be done to prevent random, disastrous acts of Thor. The only bright side to [Charles]’ ordeal (if there is one) is that most of his file server – including all the code he’s written over the years – was backed up on the cloud.
Hackaday readers aren’t much for marketing buzzwords like ‘the cloud,’ so we’re wondering what
your
backup solutions are. If the cloud isn’t for you, is a NAS at home a good idea? rsync will do wonders, but even hard drives at an off-site location fail; maybe tape is the best choice. Of course if you have a laser cutter, there’s always the option of cutting patterns of holes in stainless steel plates and preserving your data for thousands of years.
If [Charles]’ story doesn’t inspire you to backup often and preserve your data, consider this: the greek poet [Sophocles] wrote 123 plays, seven of which still survive. Put in perspective, that’s like the only songs in The Beatles’ catalog surviving 2,500 years coming from the
Yellow Submarine
soundtrack. | 118 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "723565",
"author": "Will",
"timestamp": "2012-08-04T15:07:06",
"content": "I know Charles personally and he’s a good friend of mine. I can’t imagine having to lose all that he did. Fortunately though noone was harmed in the fire. Thankfully he had his stuff hacked up to the cloud.I ... | 1,760,376,782.304624 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/04/node-js-for-linux-joysticks/ | Node.js For Linux Joysticks | Mike Szczys | [
"Linux Hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"Joystick",
"linux",
"node.js"
] | [Tim Caswell] has been using gamepads and joysticks to demonstrate his node.js hacks for a long time. The thing is, he has been relying on C++ bindings to handle the hardware while trying to herald the praises of node.js. Why not cut out the middle man and
write a joystick driver in node.js
? It turns out to be so simple anyone can do it.
Granted, this is
not
a kernel driver. He’s relying on the Linux kernel to recognize the hardware and provide him with the customary /dev/js0 file which he can then work with. As you can see in the snippet above, he’s looping through code in order to constantly read from the hardware. To get this far he dug through the documentation for joystick packets (yay for open source!) to find that each is made of a 32-bit timestamp, a 16-bit value, and two 8-bit numbers identifying the event type and button or axis.
Once he has the packets, it’s off to the races. Each data type is parsed into an appropriate variable which you can use in the logic of your own program. Don’t be nervous, this will make a great weekend project! | 13 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "723511",
"author": "chris_c",
"timestamp": "2012-08-04T14:02:30",
"content": "you shouldn’t hard code the device path, many laptops with accelerometers for HD protection end up taking js0 …",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "723516... | 1,760,376,781.851321 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/03/dual-pir-photo-trigger-by-crossing-the-streams/ | Dual PIR Photo Trigger By Crossing The Streams | Mike Szczys | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"logic",
"motion sensor",
"pir",
"trigger"
] | Motion sensing can be quite effective when taking photographs of wildlife. But how can one be sure that the motion was at the center of the frame? A PIR sensor picks up motion in its entire viewing range. It’s not really something that can be aimed. But if you
use two PIR sensors you can monitor a focused area for motion
.
The trick is to use a logic circuit. By building an AND gate you can trigger based on motion in the area which is overlapped by both of the sensors. In this case the AND gate is built from a voltage divider. The outputs of the PIR sensors are connected above and below the divider’s connection to the photo trigger. Both have a protection diode, and the divider is tuned so that both PIR outputs must come one in order to raise the trigger input above the voltage threshold. So much for
never crossing the streams
.
[via
TriggerTrap
] | 9 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "722957",
"author": "Uky",
"timestamp": "2012-08-03T22:09:28",
"content": "Nice work! I’ve made something extremely similar to this, but had trouble with the PIR modules response duration. The modules, once triggered, maintain a signal for a certain time. The time can be reduced by a... | 1,760,376,781.792174 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/06/control-giant-fireballs-with-your-mind/ | Control Giant Fireballs With Your Mind | Eric Evenchick | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"eeg",
"fire",
"maker faire"
] | [Matt Oehrlein] and [Ed Platt] from the i3 Detroit hackerspace created the
Mind Flame project
. The project uses
Electroencephalography
(EEG) sensors from
NeuroSky
to measure the user’s concentration level. When you’re concentrating hard enough, the Mind Flame launches a giant fireball, which probably breaks your concentration pretty quickly.
Propane is accumulated in tanks, and then released past a hot surface carbide igniter. It looks like an Arduino is used to open the valve, and the result is a massive fireball controlled by your brainwaves.
The Mind Flame was demoed at the Detroit Maker Faire as a competition. Two participants face off to see who can concentrate the hardest and make the device launch three fireballs first. In the future, they want to incorporate new competitive elements. One example is placing wooden houses in the line of fire, and letting opponents try to burn down their adversary’s house before their’s is set ablaze.
You can check out an interview about the project
here
.
[Via
Make
] | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "725123",
"author": "relet",
"timestamp": "2012-08-06T12:16:32",
"content": "I am not impressed: What exactly is “controlled” here? If you launch a fireball as soon as one participant has eaten twenty hotdogs, there is more control involved.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,376,781.989342 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/05/reactionware-3d-printed-medicine/ | ReactionWare 3D Printed Medicine | Richard Steele | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"chemistry hacks",
"home hacks",
"Medical Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"3d printing",
"medical",
"medication",
"pharmaceutical",
"ReactionWare",
"university of glasgow"
] | The University of Glasgow has released a
Chemistry research paper covering the applicational process of printing pharmaceutical compounds
.
Yes thats correct actually printing medication. Using various feedstock of chemicals they see a future where manufacturing your medication from home will be possible. Using standard 3D printing technology it is possible to assemble pre-filled “vessels” in such a way that the required chemical reactions take place to produce the required medication. This will be like having a minature medication manufacturing facility in your home. The possible implications of this could be far reaching.
There would need to be a locked down software etc or certain chemcials restrictions to prevent the misuse of this technology. Prof [Lee Cronin], who came up with the paper’s principal has called this process “reactionware”
Professor [Cronin] found, using this fabrication process, that even the most complicated of vessels could be built relatively quickly in just a few hours.
[via
boingboing
]
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiLtj034lwk%5D | 33 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "724693",
"author": "UltimationEE",
"timestamp": "2012-08-05T22:09:19",
"content": "I’m really interested to see what will happen with 3d printing as time goes on. There’s going to be some huge social issues with people creating things in their own home that the government believes s... | 1,760,376,782.42332 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/05/making-music-with-tennis-balls-and-lego/ | Making Music With Tennis Balls And Lego | Eric Evenchick | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"ableton",
"arduino",
"midi controller"
] | We’ve seen a lot of interesting MIDI controllers, but this one uses some unconventional materials. The
World’s Coolest Keystroke
, built by [
Audiobody
], is made from a combination of tennis balls, Lego bricks, servos, and switches.
When a tennis ball is lifted up, a Lego arm is actuated. It looks like a servo is used to move the Lego arm so it hits a switch. An Arduino is used to detect this and send a message to their computer.
They use the device to control Ableton Live and play different clips depending on which tennis ball was removed. It’s an interesting way to control sound with a tactile interface, and it looks pretty nifty.
After the break is a short video of the device in action, but [Audiobody] says that they will be releasing more information soon. We’re looking forward to seeing other interesting controllers that they have in the works.
[Via
Make
]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJs6g7SuWR0] | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "724650",
"author": "Mojo",
"timestamp": "2012-08-05T20:30:21",
"content": "Video summary6 seconds: Forgotten what I made.31 seconds: Remembered why I made it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "724859",
"author": "Sam",
... | 1,760,376,782.351426 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/05/not-quite-building-a-raspi-arduino-bridge/ | Not Quite Building A Raspi Arduino Bridge | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"arduino",
"Ponte",
"raspberry pi"
] | A few months ago, [Omer] sent in a
Raspberry Pi to Arduino bridge
he’s been working on called Ponte. Now that he’s gotten a few assembled, he can actually
test out his ideas
for combining the powerful Raspi with the ubiquitous Arduino.
Ponte revision 0 used a pair of
12-bit analog to digital converters
, but during the soldering and debugging phase of development [Omer] discovered a few things were wrong with his original design. The FETs on the fabricated boards had the drain and source pins mixed up, but that problem was easily solved with a bit of board surgery.
The worst problem was the mechanical design of Ponte rev. 0 – the power jack on the Ponte is directly above the Raspi’s USB port, meaning it’s impossible to plug the Ponte into the Pi.
[Omer] is working on these problems and should have the revised boards completed shortly. A few people have asked where they can get a Ponte, but right now there are no plans to assemble and ship boards. That may change, but for now if might be worth bugging [Omer] to put his new and improved Ponte (with an 8-port I2C port expander!) up on
SeeedStudio | 9 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "724672",
"author": "Drake",
"timestamp": "2012-08-05T21:15:06",
"content": "Right angle header?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "724679",
"author": "fonz",
"timestamp": "2012-08-05T21:32:10",
"content": "you can get h... | 1,760,376,782.471227 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/05/wireless-sensors-without-a-microcontroller/ | Wireless Sensors Without A Microcontroller | Brian Benchoff | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"ISM radio",
"wireless sensors"
] | While cruising the Internet one day, [Raj] found a really cool pair of RF transmitters and receivers manufactured by Dorji Applied Technology. These modules – the DRF5150S and DRF4432S – work just like any other ISM band transmitter receiver pair with the addition of inputs for analog and digital input pins. [Raj]
put together a tutorial
for using these radio modules, perfect if you need a very simple wireless connection for your next project.
[Raj]’s tutorial for using
the Dorji sensor modules
shows the transmitter has two operating modes. The first mode is a simple data transmitter, connected to a microcontroller through a UART connection. The ‘sensor’ mode doesn’t require a separate chip; the on-board STM8L151 microcontroller reads analog values on two pins and sends them over the air to the DRF4432S receiver module.
After programming the transmitter to function as a wireless sensor with an app released by Dorji, [Raj] plugged the transmitter into a breadboard with a battery and digital thermometer. The receiver module is plugged into a USB -> UART module, and data is pulled down from the sensor in a terminal.
[Raj] wrote a small app in Processing to display the data coming from the sensor. He has a wonderful animated thermometer showing the temperature reading of the sensor, the battery voltage and the strength of the wireless signal. Pretty easy, and a very helpful tutorial if you need an easy way to build a wireless sensor. | 17 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "724485",
"author": "termm",
"timestamp": "2012-08-05T16:49:27",
"content": "The sensor modules page is down.Google cache:http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:www.dorji.com/pro/Modules/Wireless_sensor_module.html(no pictures, no datasheets).",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,376,782.524667 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/05/n64-controller-mod-means-playing-games-akimbo/ | N64 Controller Mod Means Playing Games Akimbo | Brian Benchoff | [
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"Case mod",
"controller",
"n64"
] | Star Wars Episode 1 Racer
for the Nintendo 64 has a rather interesting feature: by entering the code RRDUAL on the cheats menu, it’s possible to plug two controllers into the console and control each engine independently. This gives the game an awesome arcade feel, but dual-wielding N64 controllers is a bit of a burden. [Clarky] thought it would be a good idea to combine two controllers into one, and the
Star Wars Racer controller is the result
.
Like most console mods, the build began by tearing apart two N64 controllers and gluing them together. With a ton of bondo, sanding, and fiberglass, [Clarky] had a mutated N64 controller perfect for the Episode 1 game.
[Clarky] will be updating the build with a built-in rumble pak, but for now he’s doing his best to learn how to fly a pod racer with both hands. You can check out the demo of his build after the break where he plays the Star Wars game as well as a round of Goldeneye using his akimbo controller.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXmpTt8NmpY&w=470] | 8 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "724438",
"author": "Downing",
"timestamp": "2012-08-05T14:51:48",
"content": "Nice work Clarky! The finish is amazing. The whole thing kind of looks like a cell replicating itself!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "724443",
"a... | 1,760,376,782.568398 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/05/turning-an-old-keyboard-into-a-work-of-art/ | Turning An Old Keyboard Into A Work Of Art | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"keyboard",
"PAiA",
"synthesizer"
] | The 1970s were the glory days for analog synthesizers, and for [Stefan] listening to huge modular Moogs and ARPs resulted in a wondrous seething jealousy. In 2009, wanting to relive just a little bit of his childhood, [Stefan] picked up a PAiA Stringz’n’Things from eBay. It’s a great little keyboard, but [Stefan] his new purchase to look little classier than a tolex-covered flight case. After getting rid of the old tolex case, [Stefan]
made a new enclosure
and added some extra circuitry to expand the capabilities of this classic synth.
After replacing the electrolytic capacitors and fixing a voltage regulator issue, [Stefan] made a new enclosure for his keyboard out of beautifully lacquered mahogany. A new key bed stolen from an old Yamaha organ was brought in, and new control panels above the keys provide a more sensible organization than the keyboard’s previous incarnation.
The original Stringz’n’Things was laid out more like an organ than a synthesizer, a reflection of its polyphonic nature. This meant there wasn’t a very diverse tonal palette, but [Stefan] remedied that with a wave folder to generate extra harmonics, a tremolo, and an envelope generator to provide attack and decay for each note.
Now [Stefan] has a lovely polyphonic synth that has found its place on top of an old Hammond organ. As a bonus, the synth sounds
really
good. Not bad for an instrument generally regarded as being very limited. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "724379",
"author": "Bill Gander",
"timestamp": "2012-08-05T12:48:24",
"content": "Nicely done Stefan! Looks great and totally agree with the signal layout :)I am re-casing an old Bontempi Maestro I got for a dollar after I get the parts in for the mods/bends to complete. So far it... | 1,760,376,782.611545 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/03/building-a-skycam-like-camera-mount/ | Building A SkyCam-like Camera Mount | Mike Szczys | [
"cnc hacks",
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"cnc",
"drawbot",
"skycam"
] | With the Olympics on there are a lot of really great camera shots shown during the events. One of the best is the overhead view, which is provided by a camera suspended between cables. It’s not new for the Olympics, SkyCam has been around for over twenty years. What is new is [Dan Royer’s]
attempts to build his own aerial camera setup
.
He’s not starting from zero with this project. [Dan] has done some really great work with
the Drawbot
. It’s a two-motor, two-axis plotter which uses CNC to draw on a white board. For this project he combined two Drawbots in order to add a third axis. The image above shows the camera mount suspended between the four strings. He’s been working hard on getting the software ready for this kind of addressing. Along the way he broke the strings a few times because he was too far from the kill switch to stop it in time. But what he’s got is a nice start and we hope to see a more illustrative follow-up soon.
One of the things that SkyCam has going for it is a stabilization system. We wonder if a spinning gyroscope would work as well as it did for
that balancing bike
. | 19 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "722929",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2012-08-03T21:21:35",
"content": "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCWgiaVhHXMvideo of it in action. Thank you!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "723669",
"author": "M4CGYV3R",
... | 1,760,376,782.871083 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/03/woz-prints-and-spend-his-own-2-bills/ | [Woz] Prints And Spends His Own $2 Bills | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"2",
"bill",
"legal tender",
"printer",
"social engineering",
"Woz"
] | [Steve Wozniak’s] damn the man, devil may care attitude continues to show with this recent interview. Here he shows off the pad of $2 bills he had made up. He’ll sell one sheet of them to you for $5. Do you think that’s a scam? He say’s “you’d be an idiot not to buy it for five bucks” and after we dug a little deeper, he’s right.
Now, you really need to watch the video after the break before you read the rest of this feature. Trust us, it’s extremely entertaining. [Woz] mentions that he hired a local printer to make the pads for him, but he got the paper from a high-quality print shop. They meet the specs of the federal government and by law they’re legal tender. Each pad has a page of four bills which can be torn off of the gummed top, and there are perforations between each bill for easy separation.
Nothing illegal is going on here. We followed one of the YouTube commentor’s links to
this article [Woz] wrote about his $2 bill exploits
. The high-quality printer he buys the paper from is the Bureau of Printing and Engraving. He buys the bills in sheets and pays a premium for that option. Each $2 bill costs him $3. But the fun he’s had over the years is probably worth it.
[Thanks Rob] | 85 | 35 | [
{
"comment_id": "722817",
"author": "Jeremy",
"timestamp": "2012-08-03T20:04:22",
"content": "Hey, I’ve got a great solution for that round of deflation coming up.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "722819",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,376,782.814552 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/03/using-an-oscilloscope-as-a-composite-video-adapter/ | Using An Oscilloscope As A Composite Video Adapter | Mike Szczys | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"2204",
"api",
"c++",
"composite video",
"ntsc",
"picoscope"
] | Confronted with a monitor that would display neither HDMI signal, nor composite video, [Joonas Pihlajamaa] took on a rather unorthodox task of
getting his oscilloscope to work as a composite video adapter
. He’s using a PicoScope 2204 but any hardware that connects to a computer and has a C API should work. The trick is in how his code uses the API to interpret the signal.
The first thing to do is make sure the voltage levels used in the composite signal are within the tolerances of your scope. [Joonas] used his multimeter to measure the center pole of the RCA connector and found that the Raspberry Pi board puts out from 200 mV to 2V, well within the PicoScope’s specs. Next he started to analyze the signal. The horizontal sync is easy to find, and he ignored the color information — opting for a monochrome output to ease the coding process. The next big piece of the puzzle is to ascertain the vertical sync so that he knows where each frame starts. He got it working and made one last improvement to handle interlacing.
The proof of concept video after the break shows off the he did. It’s a bit fuzzy but that’s how composite video looks normally. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "722780",
"author": "thehypnotist",
"timestamp": "2012-08-03T19:16:04",
"content": "deserves props for that, nicely done. I’d hate to use it myself, but still, i like the hack.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "722794",
"author... | 1,760,376,783.027743 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/03/emf-oscilloscope-probe/ | EMF Oscilloscope Probe | Mike Szczys | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"bnc",
"emf",
"inductor",
"oscilloscope",
"probe"
] | [Tuomas Nylund] wanted a way to visualize the electromagnetic fields (EMF) around him. He figured the oscilloscope was the tool best suited for the task, but he needed a way to pick up the fields and feed them into one of the scope’s probes. He ended up
building this EFM probe dongle
to accomplish the task.
He admits that this isn’t much more than just an inductor connected to the probe and should not be used for serious measurements. But we think he’s selling himself short. It may not be what he considers precision, but the amplification circuit and filtering components he rolled into the device appear to provide very reliable input signals. We also appreciate the use of a BNC connector for easy interface. Check out the demo video after the break to see the EMF coming off of a soldering station controller, from a scanning LCD screen, and that of a switch-mode power supply. | 8 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "722715",
"author": "ino",
"timestamp": "2012-08-03T18:21:21",
"content": "“He figured the oscilloscope was the tool best suited for the task”humm … spectrum analyzer and a piece of wire anyone ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,376,783.078422 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/03/hackaday-links-august-3-2012/ | Hackaday Links: August 3, 2012 | Brian Benchoff | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"bike rack",
"blanket",
"Caleb",
"PCB clip",
"Tindie"
] | Oh cool we’re famous
Last weekend, the
Tech Team Radio Show
over in Stoke-on-Trent interviewed our boss man [Caleb]. It’s a really wonderful interview, and I’m not saying that because [Caleb] signs my check. The entire show is
up on Mixcloud
and you can listen to the interview beginning at about 20 minutes. By the way, the guy who interviewed [Caleb] is now writing for us. Please welcome [Richard] to our motley crew.
Group buys are an awesome idea
We’ve seen
Tindie
, an Etsy for your electronics projects, a few times before. [emile]
put up a blog post
showing the impressive stats for the first month: $646 went to makers and nearly 29,000 unique pageviews. [emile] is working on a new project called Starter. This feature allows makers to gauge interest in their project and organize group buys for rare and esoteric components. We can’t wait to see this feature go live, and of course we’ll plug it when it does.
First Tindie, now fixie
[Adam] needed a way to store his bike, so he made a
swinging wall mount
for his fixie. The mount is bolted to a door frame and since it swings it’s never in the way.
The latest advances in blanket technology
During the opening ceremony for the Olympics, [schobi] saw some really cool light-up blankets. From
this picture
it really looks like these blankets are emitting light, but we have no idea how this was done. Does anyone have an idea on how this effect was produced?
cough
RaspberryPi
cough
[Craig] needed a way to mount PCBs that didn’t have any mounting holes. He came up with a
laser cut Delrin clip
and put the file
up on Thingiverse
. | 24 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "722679",
"author": "einballimwasser",
"timestamp": "2012-08-03T17:08:34",
"content": "The blanket effect could be accomplished by taking huge EL panels and attach them to the blankets. Another approach is to create chemolumiescent gel and rub it into the blankets (there are actually... | 1,760,376,783.194955 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/03/electromagnetic-field-camp/ | Electromagnetic Field Camp | Richard Steele | [
"News"
] | [
"beer brewing",
"blacksmith",
"carpentry",
"ccc",
"electronics",
"genetic",
"hacker camp",
"har",
"lock picking",
"quadcopter",
"toorcamp"
] | Emf
Electromagnetic Field Camp
is a three-day camping festival for people with an inquisitive mind or an interest in making things: hackers, geeks, scientists, engineers, artists, and crafters.
There will be people talking about everything from
genetic modification
to
electronics
,
blacksmithing
to
high-energy physics
,
reverse engineering
to
lock picking
,
crocheting
to
carpentry
, and
quadcopters
to
beer brewing
. If you want to talk,
there’ll be space for you to do so
, and plenty of people who will want to listen.
EMF is a volunteer effort by a non-profit group, inspired by European and US hacker camps like CCC, HAR, and toorcamp. This year on Friday 31st August – Sunday 2nd September 2012 Will hold the first Uk meeting of its kind.
Events and activities will run throughout the day and into the evening, everything else (chats, debates, impromptu circus performances, orbital laser launches) will run as long as your collective energy lasts.
The Event is to be held at Pineham Park, Milton Keynes, UK.
As a Hackaday viewer you can get
discounted tickets
.
[thanks Jonty] | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "722783",
"author": "thehypnotist",
"timestamp": "2012-08-03T19:17:34",
"content": "*waves at Jonty*I’m attending and it’s going to be awesome. Anyone wanna learn Hypnosis? We will be teaching that, as well as there being lots of other talks and cool happenings :D",
"parent_id": ... | 1,760,376,783.127362 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/03/moving-an-fpga-project-from-vga-to-dvi-d/ | Moving An FPGA Project From VGA To DVI-D | Eric Evenchick | [
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"dvi",
"fpga",
"hdmi",
"vga"
] | It’s fairly easy to create VGA with an FPGA using a simple R/2R DAC. As [Mike] points out, this requires a lot of IO pins, and many development boards only support 8 bit VGA. Analog VGA is being replaced with DVI-D and HDMI on many devices nowadays, so it would be nice to port projects from VGA to DVI-D.
To address this, he’s come up with a simple
DVI-D implementation
in VHDL. The result converts RGB and sync data for VGA into DIV-D. Since DVI-D and HDMI both use the same signals for video, this can be connected to either input on a monitor or TV.
This implementation is shown displaying a test pattern on the
Pipistrello
development board, which features a Spartan 6 LX45 FPGA, but the project was written to be portable to other vendor’s FPGAs. With the right connector and a fast enough clock speed, this project should help move a project from 8 bit VGA to glorious 32 bit color. | 23 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "722621",
"author": "third",
"timestamp": "2012-08-03T15:36:43",
"content": "Also note that you’ll need TMDS outputs on your FPGA, simple I/O won’t cut it. Spartan-6’s and -3A’s are good to go, but a -3 or -3E can’t drive these signals without external circuitry.",
"parent_id": ... | 1,760,376,783.31244 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/03/another-android-controlled-roving-robot/ | Another Android Controlled Roving Robot | Brian Benchoff | [
"Android Hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"android",
"bluetooth",
"ioio"
] | [Sam] has been working on a cellphone controlled robot for a while now and with the launch of a few similar Kickstarter campaigns he thought it would be good
to share his progress so far
.
[Sam]’s robot is controlled by an Android device with the help of an
IOIO dev board
. This setup provides more than enough computational power to send a robot on its merry way, and has the bonus of allowing [Sam] to connect additional sensors.
The case is designed to put the headers on the IOIO board on the outside, just above a little shelf perfect for holding a breadboard or two. With the right hardware and software setup, [Sam]’s bot can rove around the neighborhood collecting data and sending it to a server in real time.
If you’re wondering why a tiny Android/IOIO powered sounds so familiar, it might be because of
the Botiful robot
we posted a few days ago. Unlike Botiful, [Sam] can only control his treaded Android bot through Bluetooth as the whole ‘programming a web interface’ is a bit over his head. Hopefully [Sam] will meet an enthusiastic coder when he brings his Arduino tank to Dorkbots Boston this evening.
You can check out a prototype of [Sam]’s bot in action after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCEqlAdzheE&w=470] | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "722572",
"author": "xorpunk",
"timestamp": "2012-08-03T14:28:50",
"content": "FYI there will be an cool android home automation robot coming out in retail later this year based off a TI chip.. The planner engine in it’s firmware is going to be something new too, it has 3D functions ... | 1,760,376,783.231219 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/03/adafruits-custom-rasp-pi-distro-eases-some-pain/ | Adafruit’s Custom Rasp Pi Distro Eases Some Pain | Caleb Kraft | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Software Development"
] | [
"linux",
"raspberry pi"
] | Many of you have still not yet received your Raspberry Pi. When you do, you’ll find that there is work to be done in the operating system to get things working as you might want them to. The wonderful folks over at Adafruit have tackled this by
releasing their own distribution of Linux for the Raspberry Pi
.
Based on the shipped distribution “Wheezy”, Adafruit’s distribution “Occidentalis v0.1. Rubus occidentalis” or “the Black Raspberry” now includes the following:
Updated to Hexxeh firmware
4 Gig SD image (will not fit in 2 G cards!)
I2C and
hardware SPI
support
I2C/SPI modules initialized on boot
sshd on boot
ssh keygen on first boot
runs ahavi daemon (Bonjour client) and is called
raspberrypi.local
Realtek RTL8188CUS wifi support
One wire support on GPIO #4 when loaded | 22 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "722505",
"author": "Chuckt",
"timestamp": "2012-08-03T13:04:47",
"content": "ODROID-X: The $129 Quad-core Alternative to Raspberry Pihttp://www.tomshardware.co.uk/ODROID-X-Raspberry-Pi-Quad-Core-Buy-Online,news-39078.htmlHere is Hardkernal’s website:http://www.hardkernel.com/renewal... | 1,760,376,783.432708 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/03/robotic-manta-ray-mantabot/ | Robotic Manta Ray (Mantabot) | Richard Steele | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"autonomous robot",
"robotics",
"Virginia University"
] | The
Robotic Manta Ray
codenamed MantaBot created by the
Bio-Inspired Engineering Research Laboratory (BIER Lab
) is set to make a splash. The next evolution in underwater Robotics is here. We have seen the likes of robotic fish and Jelly fish now to be added to the school is the MantaBot which has been designed to mimic the unique swimming motion of the Manta Ray,
This biologically inspired under water robot’s has been designed with a primary goal to be autonomous using its onboard electronics to make its own decisions to navigate its watery domain. BIER Lab has received major funding from the Department of Defense (DoD) Multi-disciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program. Part of its goal in the long run is to reverse engineer the biological systems of such creatures to the point of creating simulated artificial skin and muscle.
[Via
dvice.com
]
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n66N7Xkxazc%5D | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "722480",
"author": "Hassi",
"timestamp": "2012-08-03T12:14:42",
"content": "Bier = beer in german :D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "722961",
"author": "Remarknl",
"timestamp": "2012-08-03T22:17:57",
"c... | 1,760,376,783.370832 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/03/super-nincoffee-jr/ | Super Nincoffee Jr. | Mike Szczys | [
"cooking hacks",
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"coffee maker",
"mr coffee",
"nincoffee",
"super nintendo"
] | Your morning routine doesn’t include enough old-school gaming. Break the caffeine habit and get your Mario on at the same time with the help of
the Super Nincoffee Jr
.
[Luigifreakout123] shares the details of the build in the video clip after the break. He starts by revealing that this is the second version he’s made. The first wasn’t a Jr., but instead used a full-sized Mr. Coffee unit. Neither make coffee, but instead serve as an enclosure for the gaming hardware. The on/off switch and original power cable are used to control the electricity to the console. Openings have been cut in the tops and front for a game cartridge and the two controller ports. A composite video and stereo audio cable comes out the back of the machine next to the power cord.
Yeah, it’s super simple, but sometimes that all it takes for a project to be a delight like this one is.
[via
Technabob
via
Kotaku
] | 10 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "722444",
"author": "soopergooman",
"timestamp": "2012-08-03T11:14:17",
"content": "Im wondering if they kept the hot plate part active? then they could boil up a pot and place it in there so that its nice and hot and fresh and easy to get at. that would be cool cause it keeps it hot... | 1,760,376,783.488401 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/02/atomic-clapperboard/ | Atomic Clapperboard | Mike Szczys | [
"clock hacks",
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"clapperboard",
"filmmaking",
"marker",
"slate boark",
"time slate"
] | Whether you know it as a clapperboard, a slate, slate board, time slate, or by another name, you probably recognize this staple of movie making. It’s a handy way to help synchronize sound with video, and to keep track of clips when it comes time to edit. But
this clapperboard is quite a bit more accurate than most
. It’s got an atomic clock source for dead-on accuracy.
The project came from the growing availability of Rubidium clock source modules on eBay. They can be had for under $100 and you’ll enjoy accuracy of 0.1 ppm. [Luddite Tech] grabbed one for himself and included it in this build. As you can see in the clip after the break, the contrast of the eight-digit display is adjustable, and shines brightest when the marker is snapped. We’d guess the cable he connects at the beginning of the demo is used to set the initial time reference. After that the in-built WiFi can be used to push the time markers to a computer.
[Thanks Kevin] | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "722156",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2012-08-02T22:16:10",
"content": "I don’t see why a clapperboard needs a time readout at all, its just to sync the video and audio as you said, but the switch could be put into a door with a webcam to take a picture and record the exac... | 1,760,376,783.616453 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/02/home-security-anyone-can-build-and-install/ | Home Security Anyone Can Build And Install | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"alarm",
"home security",
"jeenode"
] | We’ve been seeing quite a few home security hacks around here lately and we think they’re a lot of fun. This is one that we missed a few weeks ago. [Sharpk] used his existing home security system as inspiration for
a completely DIY security system
. Above you can see the tiny models he used to help visualize how the system would be installed.
The board at the center is
a JeeNode
, a development board that pairs an ATmega328 with a wireless module. There are three magnetic door sensors which you can easily find at the home, hardware, or electronics store around the corner. They’re basically a reed switch and a magnet; one mounts on the door, the other on the jamb. There is also a panic button and a PIR motion sensor. [Sharpk] has even been working on a UI for the system. He crafted a 3D model of his home’s floor plan in SketchUp and uses it to indicate which part of the system has been triggered.
Now he just needs to
add a keypad for arming and disarming the system
. | 9 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "722160",
"author": "Rockzo",
"timestamp": "2012-08-02T22:27:47",
"content": "As a security installer, this is pretty cool. I do also feel the need to point out that in many states, the system must be a UL listed device, since security panels are technically a “life safety device” an... | 1,760,376,783.663547 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/02/building-an-isolation-booth-for-your-home-recording-studio/ | Building An Isolation Booth For Your Home Recording Studio | Mike Szczys | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"booth",
"Isolation",
"recording",
"studio"
] | [Brattonwvu] wanted to lay down some tracks with as high an audio quality as possible. To help get rid of the noise pollution of the everyday world
he built this isolation booth in his attic
.
The project started off with a trip to the home store for some 2×4 stock and OSB to use as sheathing. The framing is as you would expect, but to help deaden the sound he went with a surprising material. He’s filled the cavities between each 2×4 with stuffed animals and old clothes. The same is done in the walls and the inside surfaces are all covered in fabric to prevent echoing. The door has a lip and we can just make out what looks like weather stripping to provide a seal. There is just one opening in the box, where a PVC pipe allows electrical and microphone cables to pass through. [Brattonwvu] reports that you can hear your heartbeat in your ears when standing inside the sealed booth. | 34 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "722036",
"author": "David M.",
"timestamp": "2012-08-02T20:05:01",
"content": "Isn’t it hot in there?In the attic, in an insulated booth?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "722047",
"author": "drago3711",
"timesta... | 1,760,376,783.879662 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/01/hackaday-has-won-1st-place-in-the-redbull-creation-contest/ | Hackaday Has Won 1st Place In The RedBull Creation Contest! | Caleb Kraft | [
"cons"
] | [
"contest",
"redbull"
] | The people have spoken. Hackaday has
won the Redbull creation challenge
by popular vote. Despite a few bumpy spots in the voting process, our project,
the Minotaur’s Revenge
(gameplay footage around the 2min mark in the video), got the most votes from the public winning us $5000 for our hackerspace and a trip to the
World MakerFaire in New York
.
Thanks to everyone who was able to actually vote, and
we totally understand about those who didn’t
. | 55 | 47 | [
{
"comment_id": "720845",
"author": "Josh Billions",
"timestamp": "2012-08-01T18:04:18",
"content": "Congratulations guys!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "720846",
"author": "GrandWJ",
"timestamp": "2012-08-01T18:04:29",
"content": "... | 1,760,376,784.058163 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/01/olinuxino-booting-android/ | OLinuXino Booting Android | Mike Szczys | [
"Android Hacks"
] | [
"a13",
"Cortex-A8",
"nand",
"olimex",
"olinuxino",
"vga"
] | We can’t say the name rolls off the tongue, but it
is
beginning to look like the OlinuXino is going to happen. Here you can see
the prototype hardware booting Android
. If this is the first time you’re seeing the hardware you can think of it in the same category as the Raspberry Pi. It’s a butt-kicking ARM platform that comes as a bare-board with which you can do what you please.
Olimex Ltd. put together the offering, which seems to be part of the name mash-up (Olimex + Linux + Arduino?). The board hosts an ARM Cortex-A8 processor which runs at 1 GHz. There’s a half a gigabyte of ram, four USB and one USB-OTG ports, and a big array of breakout pins. One eyebrow-raising choice was not to include an HDMI connector. Instead the board offers VGA and Audio outputs. There is a pin header meant for an LCD screen, as seen in the image above, so it could be that the intention here is for smaller or more portable applications. But like we said, the form factor really lets you do what you want.
Possibly the best part is the price. The target for the top-of-the-line board is 55 Euros (about $68) and that comes with WiFi and 4 GB of NAND storage on the board. There’s a bunch of posts on the project, including a look at the PCB routing work.
This link to the A13 tag
will give you the widest overview of the work so far.
[Thanks Acce] | 17 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "720810",
"author": "zarnochwf1",
"timestamp": "2012-08-01T17:11:18",
"content": "You can use a TI displaylink chip to turn the LCD header into a DVI link, so it’s just a matter of making a small breakout board.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,784.330314 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/01/displaying-tweets-with-a-laser-pointer-and-speakers/ | Displaying Tweets With A Laser Pointer And Speakers | Brian Benchoff | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"laser",
"twitter",
"vector display"
] | This year at Toorcamp, [Rich] will be showing off his
laser-based vector display
, capable of projecting tweets using only a laser pointer, a pair of mirrors, speakers, and an Arduino. Steady hand and curses from lack of an optical bench not included.
[Rich]’s
Instructable
goes over the finer points of the build; a Python script runs on his computer fetching all recent tweets with a certain hashtag. These tweets are sent over to a ‘duino where a bit of code translates the text into a scrolling vector display. The code for the project is based on one of [Rich]’s
previous builds
to draw shapes with the same speaker/laser setup.
In theory, using a pair of speakers to draw text on a wall isn’t much different from
drawing pictures on an oscilloscope
. Of course, [Rich] always has the option of turning his LaserTweet
into
an oscilloscope
when Toorcamp is over.
Relevant videos after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkJPvg4sbjo&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj_dHQoXtwg&w=470] | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "720737",
"author": "Destate9",
"timestamp": "2012-08-01T15:18:33",
"content": "Way cool!!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "720765",
"author": "Harvie.CZ",
"timestamp": "2012-08-01T15:53:38",
"content": "I want to try... | 1,760,376,783.955719 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/01/4004-rom-emulator-allows-fast-development-on-slow-computers/ | 4004 ROM Emulator Allows Fast Development On Slow Computers | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"4004",
"Retrochallenge"
] | Developing for extremely old computers is a chore; not only are you limited by assembly or pure machine language, there’s also the issue of burning ROMs to actually
run
your programs. [Frank Buss] came up with a neat solution to developing for the venerable 4004 CPU – build
a ROM emulator
using a modern microcontroller.
The build started off with a ZIF socket for the 4004 CPU and a 256 byte 4001 ROM chip emulated on a PIC micro. The CPU looked a little lonely sitting in the ZIF socket all by its lonesome, so [Frank] updated his board to allow a 4002 RAM chip to be plugged in as well.
Because [Frank] chose a 4004 for his entry for this season’s
retrochallenge competition
, we need to point we’re offering a prize for loading
our retro site
with this CPU. Yes, it’s most likely impossible but nothing worth doing is easy.
You can check out a video [Frank]’s ROM emulator after the break. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "1754512",
"author": "Joe2",
"timestamp": "2014-08-26T17:26:09",
"content": "Man, I’m trying to find a single-chip USB MCU solution to emulate a small (<256 bytes) ROM for bootstrapping a ROMless NES cart. This would be great for homebrew as it effectively could give you access to G... | 1,760,376,784.371121 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/01/hundred-dollar-capacitive-discharge-welder/ | Hundred Dollar Capacitive Discharge Welder | Brian Benchoff | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"capacitive discharge",
"tools",
"welder"
] | [Robert] needed to weld metal tabs on a few batteries. In a proper manufacturing situation, this is usually done with outrageously expensive welders. Not wanting to spend thousands of dollars to attach bits of metal together, [Robert] built his own
capacitive discharge welder
for only $100.
Instead of the giant transformers you’d find in a spot welder, a capacitive discharge welder uses a huge bank of capacitors – greater than 1 Farad – to weld pieces of metal together. Huge caps like these are commonly used for ridiculous car stereo setups, so with the addition of a car battery charger purchased from Walmart, [Robert] had most of a welder on his workbench.
To control the mass of power coming from his huge cap, [Robert] used a 13o amp Silicon controlled rectifier to improve the control of his welder. With the battery charger, cap, and SCR, [Robert] only needed a few bits of heavy gauge wire to tie the entire build together.
[Robert]’s build welds metal tabs on battery terminals beautifully, but the possibilities don’t end there. This welder could easily be repurposed to build the skeleton of outrageously intricate dead bug circuits, or maybe even keeping that thing you made with your Erector set in one piece permanently. | 40 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "720631",
"author": "flink",
"timestamp": "2012-08-01T12:46:21",
"content": "I wonder if Robert has seen those 3000 Farad monsters:http://www.ebay.com/itm/3000F-2-7V-Supercap-3000-Farad-Super-Ultra-Capacitor-/150642133382",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,376,784.452998 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/01/telepresence-robot-with-skype-connectivity/ | Telepresence Robot With Skype Connectivity | Brian Benchoff | [
"Crowd Funding"
] | [
"Botiful",
"ioio",
"telepresence"
] | [Claire] sent in a project she’s been working on for the past few years. It’s called
Botiful
and aims to turn any Android phone into a mobile telepresence robot.
Botiful is built around the
IOIO Android to Arduino dev board
and provides a very clean way to interface your current cell phone with a tiny – and cute – robotic platform. The big feature of Botiful is its integration with Skype; just call a Botiful owner’s phone or tablet, and a panel pops up allowing you to control the robot, tilt the camera up and down, and even robotic yes, no, and ‘dance’ gestures.
Because Botiful is based on the IOIO, there’s a few pins available inside the bot for an I2C bus, PWM control, and even a serial output. It’s also possible to develop your own apps for Botiful, making for a neat mobile robotics platform.,
Right now, Botiful is only for Android but if [Claire] gets $100,000 out of her Kickstarter, she’s promised to add iDevice support. That seems fairly likely, as more than $60,000 has been pledged with three weeks to go. Pretty cool, and we can think of a few
very
useful asocial applications of the Botiful including running cable in a drop ceiling, and checking out that thing under your car. | 5 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "720628",
"author": "Spike Tickner",
"timestamp": "2012-08-01T12:38:45",
"content": "Can’t wait to drive my friends phone off of a table.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "720700",
"author": "Ryoku",
"timestamp": "2012-08-0... | 1,760,376,784.111538 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/01/arduino-taipan-clone-stays-true-to-the-original/ | Arduino Taipan! Clone Stays True To The Original | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"classic hacks"
] | [
"apple",
"Tai-pan",
"Taipan",
"trs-80",
"video games"
] | Fans of vintage Apple ][ and TRS-80 games will undoubtedly recognize the image above in short order. Taipan! was a popular game in its time, and [Simon] decided it was
a great title to try recreating with an Arduino.
His goal was to use a standard Arduino Duemilanove to reproduce the game, rather than opting for a Mega or something like the Raspberry Pi. Seeing those two options as “too easy”, he ventured into the project with some self-imposed limitations, making it a more fruitful adventure.
In the end, [Simon] had to use two Arduinos – one to control the gameplay and another to run the display. Simon tucked both boards, a keypad, and an LCD screen inside a first run copy of Tai-Pan, a move that is sure to please Apple aficionados and Xzibit fans alike.
[Simon] made sure that no detail was overlooked during the port, making sure to include every line of text as well as every bug found in the original game.
Check out a video of the finished project below, and be sure to swing by his site for
a very thorough build log.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8wUh_5Q38w&feature=player_embedded#!&w=470] | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "720695",
"author": "DanJ",
"timestamp": "2012-08-01T14:11:36",
"content": "Beautiful build. I like the keyboard. Also a nice bit of systems engineering.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "720825",
"author": "saul_goode",
... | 1,760,376,784.16291 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/02/cpld-motor-control/ | CPLD Motor Control | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"adc",
"cpld",
"motor controller",
"pwm"
] | [Chris] continues cranking out the tutorials, this time around he’s showing
how to use a CPLD for simple motor control
. The demo hardware is pretty basic, he
built his own FPGA/CPLD demo board
a few years back which used a PLCC socket for easy interfacing. You should be able to use just about any gear you have on hand.
Of course the thing about these chips is that you’re working with hardware that can be run in parallel. [Chris] mentions that this is what makes it perfect for timing-critical applications. Here he’s using a motor driver that monitors a PWM signal, using the duty cycle to actuate the direction and speed at which the motor turns. After the break you can see a demonstration of the CPLD reading from an ADC chip and converting the value to a PWM signal. [Chris] has also
used the same hardware for VGA signals
; something that is usually a timing nightmare if done with a microcontroller.
If this leaves you thirsting for more CPLD goodness check out
our own guide on the subject
. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "722020",
"author": "Phalox",
"timestamp": "2012-08-02T19:43:41",
"content": "I’m not sure why a DC motor is time critical. Most of them really ‘eat’ anything you provide them with.On the other hand… If you would do this with a BLDC motor without sensors (use the same leads to drive ... | 1,760,376,786.157038 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/02/mythtv-library-on-apple-tv-without-a-jailbreak/ | MythTV Library On Apple TV Without A Jailbreak | Mike Szczys | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"apple tv",
"handbrake",
"itunes",
"mythtv",
"virtual machine",
"windows 7"
] | [Dan] wrote in to share a link to
his MythTv to Apple TV setup
. He found a way to make the recordings he made on his Linux box available on the 2nd Generation Apple TV. Our first thought is that he would use
XBMC on a jailbroken device
but that is not the case. The secret is to roll iTunes into the mix.
Take a look at the diagram above. The system starts with an Arch Linux box that runs MythTV, an open source program which allows you to record from tuner or encoder hardware. But actually watching those recordings on an iOS device is difficult for a couple of reasons. First, Apple likes to keep their devices locked up tight in hopes that you buy your entertainment rather than watching over-the-air records. Second, if you’re recording ATSC channels the files may be 1080i or 1080p, neither of which can be handled by the Apple TV 2. [Dan] gets around this by first using the command line version of Handbrake to transcode the recordings to an h264 format. He then uses iTunes running on an Windows 7 virtual machine (on the Linux box) to host the transcoded files in a library the Apple TV can access. | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "721927",
"author": "Rob",
"timestamp": "2012-08-02T18:16:43",
"content": "very clever!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "722004",
"author": "chuck",
"timestamp": "2012-08-02T19:30:09",
"content": "Why go through all th... | 1,760,376,786.21288 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/02/ti-launches-c2000-launchpad-featuring-billy-mays/ | TI Launches C2000 Launchpad (featuring Billy Mays) | Eric Evenchick | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"c2000",
"dev board",
"launchpad",
"texas instruments"
] | The Texas Instruments MSP430 Launchpad is pretty popular in hacks, likely due to its low price. TI has recently released a new
C2000 Launchpad
device that offers more power and peripherals for $17. This board uses the C2000 Piccolo processor, which is meant for DSP applications.
Also included is an unrestricted version of the
Code Composer Studio IDE
and the
controlSUITE
software package. You can also run the free
SYS/BIOS
RTOS on this board. It’s nice to see TI providing a lot of free, non-crippled tools that could be used to power some pretty advanced hacks.
Most MSP430 Launchpad Booster Packs should be compatible with this board, and TI has a new layout for Booster Packs that use the additional pins. There is a C2000 specific
LED Booster Pack
available now for $30. There are also
specifications
for building your own Booster Packs for the C2000.
TI has released a slightly cheesy promotional video that features a [Billy Mays] like performance. Check it out after the break.
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IyPz3zPb7U?rel=0%5D | 28 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "721859",
"author": "Alex",
"timestamp": "2012-08-02T17:15:32",
"content": "i really want to know when they’re releasing the TI Infomercial Emulator, it could save me so much time!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "721862",
"au... | 1,760,376,786.489961 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/02/digital-zoetrope-uses-18-lcd-displays/ | Digital Zoetrope Uses 18 LCD Displays | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"lcd display",
"zoetrope"
] | [Jasper] sent in a project he, [Quinten], and [Mr. Stock] have been working on for a while. It’s called
the Pristitrope
and brings the classic 19th centrury paper-based animation device into the 21st century with 18 LCD displays.
The lazy suzan portion of the build was fabricated out of plywood cut on a CNC router and fastened together with the help of a slip ring to transfer power between the stationary and spinning portions of the device. For the electronic part of the build, eighteen LCD displays were connected together on a data bus with each display independently addressable by a microcontroller.
One really interesting feature of the Pristitrope is its ability to detect if it is currently rotating clockwise or counterclockwise. While [Quinten]’s video doesn’t show off the full possibilities of this feature, the spin sensor makes it possible to always have an animation played in the right direction regardless of how the Pristitrope is spun. | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "721802",
"author": "afex",
"timestamp": "2012-08-02T16:17:30",
"content": "1) this is awesome2) i wish he had a BOM, i’d love to know what LCD module that is – i’m assuming it was cheap since he had to get 18, and a cheap RGB module is always good to have on hand!",
"parent_id":... | 1,760,376,786.113397 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/02/giving-the-trs-80-coco-a-44-color-display/ | Giving The TRS-80 CoCo A 44 Color Display | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"CoCo",
"color computer",
"trs-80"
] | As a relic of the early 80s, the TRS-80 Color Computer couldn’t display very many colors. By default, the CoCo could only display 8 colors on the screen at a time, but [John] figured out a way to
increase the number of colors displayed
using a very simple trick that surprisingly isn’t found in original CoCo games.
The TRS-80 Color Computer uses a Motorola 6847 video display generator to produce color graphics on its display. There are several graphics modes available to CoCo programmers, including a high-resolution black and white mode, and two four-color modes using red, green, blue, and yellow or buff, cyan, magenta, and orange.
These color palettes are extremely limiting, and usually switching between these modes produces a lot of flicker. [John] figured out if he switched the color pallets every 1/60th of a second (i.e. during the
vertical blanking interval
), he could display 44 colors on the CoCo.
It’s a clever little hack to increase the color palette of the CoCo, and in our opinion should be in the running for winning
this season’s Retrochallenge
. Sadly, [John] is judge for the Retrochallenge this time around, so he’ll have to settle for earning a Hackaday merit badge. | 25 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "721798",
"author": "asdf",
"timestamp": "2012-08-02T16:13:56",
"content": "This technique is used at least on the C64, both in old commercial games and demos. As long as you’re careful about which colours you’re blending the results can be quite impressive.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,376,786.272294 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/02/genezap-improves-your-video-game-skills-using-corporal-punishment/ | Genezap Improves Your Video Game Skills Using Corporal Punishment | Mike Nathan | [
"ATtiny Hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"genesis",
"genezap",
"sega",
"shock collar"
] | As if getting your ass handed to you while playing video games wasn’t annoying enough, [furrtek] decided that the best way to help improve his skills
was by inflicting physical pain each time his on-screen character died.
While perusing the Internet looking for something to break through the doldrums of the day, he came upon a video in which someone decided to try on a dog shock collar just for kicks. This sparked [furrtek’s] imagination, and he started to think that it would be pretty cool to use the same sort of device to make dying in a video game that much more unpleasant.
After ordering a set of collars online, he tore them apart to see how they functioned, and to measure just how big of a jolt they were able to deliver. [furrtek] then modified two Genesis controllers with a pair of ATtiny 25s, which let him send the fire signal to the collars. Unfortunately, stock Genesis games don’t allow you to send signals to the controllers, so [furrtek] had to spend some time hacking ROM images to trigger events when players are injured or lose a life.
We think the project is pretty slick, and if you don’t mind fiddling with your old controllers, you too can have a merciless trainer strapped around your neck. For those slightly more averse to pain, you can watch [furrtek] and his friend [Dyak] suffer the consequences of poor gameplay for your amusement.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=let-4RxEvS8&feature=player_embedded&w=470] | 13 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "721623",
"author": "Nick",
"timestamp": "2012-08-02T14:10:22",
"content": "“and if you don’t mind fiddling with your old controllers” yes, and the rom images as stated in the post…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "721645",
"a... | 1,760,376,786.061634 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/02/artificial-skin-lets-robots-feel/ | Artificial Skin Lets Robots Feel | Richard Steele | [
"Medical Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"biotech",
"cyborg",
"robotics",
"sensors",
"skin",
"tactile",
"touch"
] | BioTac
Artificial Skin Technology is sure to be a storm with Robotics Designers. Giving them the opportunity to add a third sense to there robotic marvels. Now they can have the sense of touch to go along with existing technologies of sight and of sound. Thanks to the technology coming out of the
University of Southern California
making this possible.
They have chosen to call their sensor BioTac, which is a new type of tactile sensor designed to mimic the human fingertip with its soft flexible skin. The sensor makes it possible to identify different types of texture by analyzing the vibrations produced as the sensor brushes over materials. This sensor is also capable of measuring pressure applied and ambient temperature around the finger tip, expect to see this technology in next gen prosthetics. Let us know your thoughts on it.
[via
technabob
]
[vimeo
http://vimeo.com/43688296%5D | 32 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "721574",
"author": "Nordmann",
"timestamp": "2012-08-02T13:18:52",
"content": "I welcome thy, ohh great mechanical overlords!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "721588",
"author": "Bacchus",
"timestamp": "2012-08-02T13:31:4... | 1,760,376,786.558419 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/02/tis-inexpensive-piccolo-and-stellaris-dev-boards/ | TI’s Inexpensive Piccolo And Stellaris Dev Boards | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"arm",
"c2000",
"launchpad",
"piccolo",
"stellaris",
"texas instruments",
"ti"
] | Texas Instruments is trying to take the success it had with the LaunchPad and apply it to other chip architectures. The board seen above is
their new C2000 Piccolo LaunchPad
. It’s a development board for the F28027 chip. This 32-bit offering is a part we know nothing about. A first look shows a clock speed between 40 and 60 MHz, 64k of Flash memory, and a JTAG programming interface. It sounds like an unrestricted copy of Code Composer Studio is also available to use as the development environment. At $17 won’t break the bank, but we also don’t feel that welling of excitement to get in on one of these units.
What does get us excited is the Stellaris LaunchPad offering. It’s not available yet (which always makes us want it more), but
you can enter a drawing to get a free one
when they are released. Be warned, with only 25 up for grabs the odds are against you. There are no details, other than a target price of $4.99 for the ARM development board. We’ve had
a lot of fun with the STM32 ARM board
, and this might be a new adventure to undertake.
[Thanks Máté] | 26 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "721541",
"author": "bluehash",
"timestamp": "2012-08-02T12:28:08",
"content": "Awesome! I have been following the Piccolo at the C2kCentral forums(http://www.forum.c2kcentral.com/)and it seems to have a lot of horsepower for what it’s worth.. tons of PWM.. high resolution. The Stell... | 1,760,376,786.415377 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/02/nxt-android-telepresence-robot/ | NXT Android Telepresence Robot | Mike Szczys | [
"Android Hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"html5",
"mindstorm",
"nxt",
"telepresence"
] | Here is
a telepresence robot that uses an Android device and LEGO NXT parts
. [Wolfgang] had an extra phone on hand and decided to put it to good use. The Mindstorm parts make it really easy to produce a small robot, and adding the phone really ups the computing and connectivity options available to him.
The Android device is able to control the NXT bot via Bluetooth. [Wolfgang] didn’t go into detail on that part, but you can get some pointers on the topic
from this other Android controlled Mindstorm project
. [Wolfgang] wanted the ability to check in at home when he’s travelling. He uses nanohttpd on the Android device to serve up a simple web interface. It uses HTML5 to push a snapshot from the phone’s camera as user feedback, and provides a set of directional arrows which let him drive the bot around.
Obviously this thing is going to run out of juice if he’s away for too long. To combat that problem he included a battery which powers both the NXT parts and the phone. Now he just needs to build an inductive charging station and he’ll really be set. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "721556",
"author": "Dr. DFTBA",
"timestamp": "2012-08-02T12:53:28",
"content": "I really hate it when people mount that ultrasonic sensor as if it is the robot’s eyes. Kids get the wrong idea about what it does. I think there might have even been a few people that read this article ... | 1,760,376,786.000332 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/01/electric-paint-brush-loads-itself-with-paint/ | Electric Paint Brush Loads Itself With Paint | Mike Szczys | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"bucket",
"electric",
"hose",
"paint",
"paintbrush",
"painting",
"pump"
] | Meet [Jahangir Ahmad]. He’s a 19-year-old from India who recently won third place in a contest put on by the National Innovation Foundation. Here he’s posing with
the electric paint brush which he developed
after seeing some local painters struggling with brushes and buckets at the top of a ladder.
His system uses a 1 hp motor to pump paint from the bucket directly into the brush. Once it enters the handle a distributor splits the flow into four parts so that it reaches the bristles evenly. The pump of the paint is actuated by a controller which can be worn on the painter’s belt. When you get a little low on paint, just hit the button and you’ll get boost. Since the base of the bristles is meant to hold a small reservoir of paint, this has the potential to be better than dipping in a bucket.
[via
Reddit
via
Home Harmonizing
via
Damn Geeky
] | 37 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "721153",
"author": "notdave",
"timestamp": "2012-08-01T23:02:04",
"content": "saw this product realized on a late night informercial… just sayin.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "721164",
"author": "GotNoTime",
... | 1,760,376,786.350264 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/01/android-4-0-on-raspberry-pi/ | Android 4.0 On Raspberry Pi | Mike Szczys | [
"Android Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"ice cream sandwich",
"ics",
"RPi"
] | The folks over at the Raspberry Pi foundation are showing off their latest wares. This time around it’s
Android 4.0 running on the Raspberry Pi
. Although this is a pre-release announcement, it sounds like the work is rather far along. Hardware acceleration for video playback is in place, but there are still some audio issues that need to be fixed before it will be ready.
We know the foundation isn’t the first one to pull this kind of thing off. Look around and you can see
some other proof-of-concept videos
which show Ice Cream Sandwich running on the board in one stage or another. But the demo from the video after the break gives us hope that rock solid support is just around the corner. After all, Netflix runs on Android and
so does XBMC
. Both running on the RPi brings the device one step closer to the holy grail of dirt cheap and mostly-open set top boxes. The one thing we haven’t seen yet is the killer control method for the device. If you’ve got one up your sleeve you should post some details and
send us the link
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgJ7yck1qwY | 29 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "721126",
"author": "stephenjosephbishop",
"timestamp": "2012-08-01T22:31:23",
"content": "Can’t wait to try this out on my friends Pi.On the subject of remotes.I recently bough one of these cheap guys:http://goo.gl/rzEexIt’s nice because it came with it’s own usb Bluetooth dongle. T... | 1,760,376,786.635932 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/01/never-miss-a-roadside-photo-op-with-an-easy-camera-hack/ | Never Miss A Roadside Photo-op With An Easy Camera Hack. | Caleb Kraft | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"digital camera hack",
"remote shutter"
] | When you’re driving for days on the highway, you see some interesting things. If you’re like me, you usually don’t have the time to get your camera out and snap a picture. Especially if it is just a goofy looking car, or an interesting tree or something. This hack will make it really easy to get pictures of sights on the highway by allowing you to snap a picture at the press of a button.
First, I sourced some cameras. Wal-mart had a decent selection of really cheap digital cameras for under $30. I bought two 7.1 Megapixel vivitars. Removing them from their packaging and snapping a few sample pics, it became evident that the picture quality wasn’t going to be fantastic. The optics on these things are pretty cheap. It will work fine for this project though.
I began planning all kinds of ways to trigger these. Optimally, they would be always-on for quicker response time. I realized however that all the methods I was thinking of were ridiculously over complicated for this project. All that was really necessary was to extend the power and shutter buttons. I can turn one on and snap a picture in about 3 seconds.
After soldering in some extenders and wiring this to a breakout box, I made simple harnesses for them out of the package they came in and a few small suction cups. This should hold them in place well enough for this trip. I snapped a few example photos around town and the results are acceptable. Nothing amazing, but enough to show someone that school bus full of sad clowns that drove by while they were sleeping. | 31 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "721048",
"author": "jeffspatton1971",
"timestamp": "2012-08-01T21:12:19",
"content": "That’s awesome! I commute every day and at least once a week there is something on the road where I wish I had my camera handy, I may put that together this weekend!",
"parent_id": null,
"d... | 1,760,376,786.873931 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/01/hacking-the-computer-interface-of-a-ford-focus-mk2/ | Hacking The Computer Interface Of A Ford Focus Mk2 | Mike Szczys | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"can-bus",
"elm327",
"focus",
"ford",
"odb-ii"
] | You can do some neat stuff to the way your Ford Focus Mk2 works, but first you have to gain access to the data system. If you know some Russian, and don’t mind a bit of dongle rewiring,
this guide will have you hacking the car’s CAN bus
in no time. It was written by [Preee] and he has already added Radio RDS and CD Track information to the speedometer display panel, implemented hands free control for his cellphone, disabled the sounds the car makes when he goes into reverse, changed the door locking speed from 5mph to 10mph, and much more.
To gain access to the system you need hardware to bridge from a computer to the CAN bus. He hit eBay and bought an ELM327 cable which plugs into the On-Board Diagnostics port (ODBII). There are two different ways these dongles can be configured and since this isn’t the right one for the Focus he had to alter it. His hardware changes are illustrated in the second post of the forum thread. Instead of just switching over to the other configuration, he wired up a toggle switch to select between the two.
With hardware in place he grabbed some software and started hacking away. But as we hinted above, it’s not as simple as you might think. The software is in Russian. [Preee] did his best to add translations to a few screenshots, but it’s still going to be a bit of a bother trying to find your way around the GUI.
[Thanks Fred] | 16 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "721012",
"author": "addidis",
"timestamp": "2012-08-01T20:31:34",
"content": "Nice, more can hacking please! Incredibly a very much respected engineer I know didnt know what it was for. Its like “the final frontier” lol",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,376,787.036231 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/08/01/digital-tv-converter-reverse-engineering/ | Digital TV Converter Reverse Engineering | Mike Szczys | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"converter",
"digital television",
"dtv",
"hdtv",
"reverse engineering",
"tuner"
] | Back when broadcast television was first switching over from analog to digital most people needed to get a converter box to watch DTV broadcasts. Remember that abomination that was “HD-Ready”? Those TVs could display an HD signal, but didn’t actually have a digital tuner in them. Nowadays all TVs come with one, so [Craig] found his old converter box was just gathering dust. So he cracked it open and
reverse engineered how the DTV hardware works
.
The hardware includes a Thompson TV tuner, IR receiver for the remote control, and the supporting components for an LGDT1111 SoC. This is an LG chip and after a little searching [Craig] got his hands on a block diagram that gave him a starting place for his exploration. The maker of the converter box was also nice enough to include a pin header for the UART. It’s populated and even has the pins labeled on the silk screen. We wish all hardware producers could be so kind. He proceeds to pull all the information he can through the terminal. This includes a dump of the bootloader, readout of the IR codes, and much more. | 16 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "720938",
"author": "truebassb",
"timestamp": "2012-08-01T19:05:40",
"content": "In some places in Europe we are still in the transission.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "720945",
"author": "notdave",
"timestamp": "2012-0... | 1,760,376,786.8024 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/31/reworking-the-electronics-for-better-computer-speaker-audio/ | Reworking The Electronics For Better Computer Speaker Audio | Mike Szczys | [
"digital audio hacks",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"amplifyer",
"computer speakers",
"corsair",
"sp2200"
] | [Michael Chen] liked the sound he was getting out of these Corsair SP2200 computer speakers, with one big exception. They were giving off some unpleasant crackling sounds. He figured this might be as easy as replacing a faulty potentiometer, but soon found out the fix was going to be more complicated than that. All said and done
he ended up reworking the design of the speakers’ amplifier board
.
The hardest part was identifying the problem. Once he had cracked open the case he found the volume potentiometer was working correctly by testing it with a multimeter. Next he inspected the board for bad solder joints but didn’t really find any. The breakthrough came when he realized that the crackling was also happening when he used headphones. With that discovery he started making a few more observations and realized that the crackling didn’t happen when the volume knob was all the way up or all the way down. There was an impedance issue between that potentiometer and the amplifier circuit. He rerouted the signal flow on the board to use the headphone amp as a filter and it fixed the problem. Fittingly, he’s entered this project into
the Instructables Fix & Improve contest
. | 23 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "720192",
"author": "DainBramage1991",
"timestamp": "2012-07-31T22:09:53",
"content": "Nicely done!While I agree that Corsair customer support is usually quite good, a nice hack like this beats dealing with RMAs and international shipping any day.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth"... | 1,760,376,786.9831 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/31/a-look-at-the-upgraded-msp430-chip-shipping-with-the-ti-launchpad/ | A Look At The Upgraded MSP430 Chip Shipping With The TI Launchpad | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"msp430",
"MSP430G2553"
] | [JMN] took some time to
look at the MSP430G2553 mircocontroller
(
translated
). Specifically, he was interested in the clock options and the low power modes. This chip is one of the upgraded processors which
have been shipping with the TI Launchpad
.
Both the MSP430G2553 and MSP430G2452 come with the Launchpad development board. They replace the MSP430G2231 and MSP430G2211 which came with
the original offering
. If you already have a Launchpad the chips themselves can be had for around $2.25 and are easily programmed since the development hardware hasn’t changed.
The review starts off by looking at clock options for the processor. The internal VLO is put to the test first, with a look at the power consumption followed by temperature stability through the use of a hair dryer. The actual frequency provided has fairly low accuracy, but it stays pretty stable when hit with the hot air. The next test uses the provided 32.768 kHz clock crystal as an external input. The crystal came with the Launchpad board, and the chip has configurable internal capacitors so this is as easy as soldering the package in place. Hit the link at the top to find out how this clock source fared in testing.
[Thanks D] | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "720122",
"author": "Peter",
"timestamp": "2012-07-31T20:13:04",
"content": "“since the development hardware hasn’t changed”This is not entirely true. The set of jumpers connecting the MSP430 to the programmer at the top of the board has changed. In particular, the Rx and Tx pins wer... | 1,760,376,786.91971 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/31/msp430-gaming-shield-based-on-the-gameduino/ | MSP430 Gaming Shield Based On The Gameduino | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"8 bit",
"controller",
"fpga",
"gameduino",
"gamingpack",
"msp430",
"nes"
] | Get your 8-bit gaming fix with
this gaming shield for the TI Launchpad
. It’s called the Launchpad GamingPack and was developed as part of TI’s 2012 Intern Design Contest. The team had just six weeks to complete the project.
The video after the break starts off with some fast-motion PCB layout. It is followed by footage of the board being populated, then anchored with graphics testing and some game play demonstrations. It looks like a real blast! NES controller ports were included on the board, and the device puts out 400×300 VGA, as well as audio.
As with
the Gameduino
, the hard work is done by the FPGA at the center of this board. It handles all of the VGA timing work, using what looks like 3-bit color. It is also responsible for generating the audio and monitoring the inputs. Since the team was under a time crunch the shield also includes a 10-pin header on the underside which was added for easy connection with a logic analyzer. | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "720066",
"author": "duskwuff",
"timestamp": "2012-07-31T18:57:57",
"content": "Looks like the video board is based on an XC3S200. Really feels like some of crazy overkill — the FPGA has considerably more memory than the MSP430 (216K of block RAM), and is running at a higher clock ra... | 1,760,376,787.338461 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/31/scale-model-of-a-civil-war-mortar-shoots-steel-golf-balls/ | Scale Model Of A Civil War Mortar Shoots Steel Golf Balls | Mike Szczys | [
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"golf ball",
"lathe",
"mortal",
"steel"
] | [Sir Keyboard Commando] just emerged from his machine shop to show off
the 1/6th scale model of a Civil War mortar
which he recently finished fabricating. It started with some bar stock that measured four inches in diameter and accepts steel balls the size of golf balls as ammunition.
The bore diameter is 1.725″ which gives just a bit of clearance for the 1.685″ golf ball specs. Each of the steel balls weighs in at just over 11 ounces. You get a really good look at the finished mortar in
this test-fire video
. It’s quite small but [Sir Keyboard Commando] reports that the full assembled unit still weighs in at a whopping forty pounds.
This certainly isn’t
an improvised weapon
, but we’re quite surprised to see it being test fired. We’d bet it turns some heads that the local firing range.
[via
Reddit
] | 27 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "719951",
"author": "electronics",
"timestamp": "2012-07-31T17:12:33",
"content": "Dude, I have seen the exact same thing last night on History Channel (Pawn Stars) and it was shooting out bowling balls :)This is great :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}... | 1,760,376,787.217277 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/31/developing-a-better-way-to-control-10000-leds/ | Developing A Better Way To Control 10,000 LEDs | Mike Szczys | [
"digital audio hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"fpga",
"led",
"papilio",
"sound puddle",
"soundpuddle",
"strip"
] | The SoundPuddle project drives thousands of LEDs based on audio input. The team is
working on a replacing the controller for this wire-filled setup
with something more robust. They took the mess seen above to
the Apogaea Festival
and were plagued by loose wires and unreliable communications due to noise and interference. The aim of the new system is to reliably control up to 10,000 LEDs.
The red PCB seen at the center of the rats-nest is a Papilio FPGA board. They still want to use it to drive the installation, but a new hardware interface is necessary. The solution is to design what they call a megawing (wings are to Papilio as shields are to Arduino). The LEDs will be in RGB strip form, so one of the requirements is to supply enough connectors to drive 16 channels of SPI devices. The wing will also include the 48V power source and connectors for the condenser microphone that serves as an input for the SoundPuddle. There are also two other options for audio input, one via a Bluetooth module (which can double as a control device) and the other via MIDI.
After the break you can see a lighting demo. Be ready with the volume controls as most of the sounds used in the test are quite annoying.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX3d7aHBEWY
[Thanks Charlie] | 14 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "719921",
"author": "johnisenglish",
"timestamp": "2012-07-31T16:28:33",
"content": "Goodnews: Yay, we’re on hackaday!Bad news: on no, it crashed our site!Working to get it up as fast as possible. In the mean time, our kickstarter is at:http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1464351351/... | 1,760,376,787.147738 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/31/mouth-powered-tools-that-will-make-your-dentist-cringe/ | Mouth-powered Tools That Will Make Your Dentist Cringe | Mike Szczys | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"drill",
"lathe",
"mouth"
] | Want to try your luck drilling out a PCB with this mouth-powered drill? [Cheng Guo] shows off one of
his many mouth-powered tools
above. It’s a tiny drill which spins with the opening and closing of your jaw. The concept may seem a bit silly, but his ability to fabricate these machines is fantastic.
The clip after the break starts off with the drilling demo seen above. From there he shows off several different tools. One is a molding machine that uses your breathing to spin a mold, thereby forcing the material inside to conform to its shape. There’s also a wood lathe. You hold the cutting tool in the your mouth and spin the mechanism with a bow and string setup. If you’re good at sucking, his vacuum former is right up your alley. Just heat up the plastic stock in the microwave and suck with all your might. Finally he shows off an extruder. We’re not quite sure how that one works.
[via
Make
] | 25 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "719872",
"author": "Destate9",
"timestamp": "2012-07-31T15:34:12",
"content": "“Cheng, I need to use your dremel real quick… Aw dude! It’s wet! Why is it wet!? All of your tools are wet! … Why have they all been in your mouth!?”On the other hand, I can’t wait to see him make a ta... | 1,760,376,787.281515 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/31/control-everything-in-your-car-with-the-car-kracker/ | Control Everything In Your Car With The Car Kracker | Brian Benchoff | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"car diagnostics",
"car stereo",
"ODB-2",
"propeller"
] | If your whip is a Honda, Toyota, BMW, Chrysler, VW, or Mini made in the last decade or so,
the Car Kracker
is for you. This project allows you to connect directly to your car’s computer system, allowing you to display messages on your stereo, play music off an SD card, and even override factory settings like always-on daytime running lights.
The Car Kracker uses ISO 9141, an in-car communications protocol that is now mostly used in foreign (for the US) cars. The build uses a Gadget Gangster
Propeller board
to connect to the CD changer port and OBD-2 port in the trunk, and the diagnostic port located under the hood.
With the Car Kracker, it’s easy to connect the Aux In on your stereo to an SD card loaded with music, or even plug in an iPod for the poor souls without a 1/8″ jack. Dealer customizations such as turning the ‘door is ajar’ noise off, toggling daytime running lights, and throwing a nav warning up are also possible.
Check out the two videos after the break, and if anyone has any more info on getting
this deep
into a car’s computer system (a wiki, maybe?), send a link in on the tip line. | 47 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "719792",
"author": "MB",
"timestamp": "2012-07-31T14:13:10",
"content": "ODB-2… OBD-2?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "719972",
"author": "gabriel",
"timestamp": "2012-07-31T17:43:21",
"content": "sucks... | 1,760,376,787.593855 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/31/a-large-hexapod-made-of-wood-and-pvc-pipe/ | A Large Hexapod Made Of Wood And PVC Pipe | Jeremy Cook | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"hexapod",
"PVC",
"remote control",
"wood"
] | Although not the biggest hexapod walker we’ve seen by any means,
this one
is nonetheless worth a mention. Made with windshield wiper motors, PVC pipe, and lots of wood, it’s still a good size ‘bot. It’s a work in progress, but check out the video of it’s legs being tested as well as one of it’s preliminary assembly after the break.
Control is similar to
this little hexapod
that
we’ve featured
before in the the front and back legs are driven by a motor and linked together using threaded rod. In this case though, the rod is 1/4 – 20, much larger than the 4-40 rod used by it’s little predecessor. Also unlike little PegLeg, the middle legs are independently actuated, not linked together. This should allow for some different modes of locomotion.
Different modes of locomotion, that is, if it’s able to walk. Although able to pick itself up, the middle legs are barely strong enough to support the large battery and powerful, but heavy, automotive motors. This is an introductory post to this project, and everything will hopefully be worked out and explained in time. Be sure to check back and see how this robot progresses, and the details of the different elements of this ‘bot.
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gZnngMo29g%5D
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFXKD_RlyxQ%5D
Special thanks to [Evie] the dog for posing next to this RC walker in the photo! | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "719814",
"author": "Rob Wentworth",
"timestamp": "2012-07-31T14:47:59",
"content": "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgBNjdwYdvE",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "719816",
"author": "Rob Wentworth",
"timestamp": "2012-07-31T... | 1,760,376,787.387771 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/31/automated-turret-gives-you-the-upper-hand-in-office-warfare/ | Automated Turret Gives You The Upper Hand In Office Warfare | Mike Nathan | [
"Misc Hacks",
"News",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"msp430",
"office",
"ti",
"turret"
] | When your co-workers get on your nerves, the mature recourse is to be the bigger person and simply ignore the obnoxious individual. A team of engineers from TI
show us a slightly alternative means
of dealing with office mates which is not quite as mature, though far more entertaining.
The office toy cum mechanized weapons system relies on a TI MSP430 LaunchPad, coupled with a custom Turret430 breakout board. The former is the brains of the operation, while the latter houses motor drivers for the motorized turret. The system can be steered throughout its 300 degree range of rotation using an attached joystick, but in the interest of catching their target by surprise, they added an automated mode as well. The automated targeting system uses an attached webcam to pick out victims by the color of their clothing, which seems to work pretty well.
To see the system in action, check out the video embedded below.
[youtube =http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMa5-Q2yTV4&feature=player_embedded&w=470] | 17 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "719719",
"author": "RobinJood",
"timestamp": "2012-07-31T12:34:18",
"content": "I have the same model of logitech webcam. You can strip it down to a tiny pinhole camera just by removing a couple of screws and snapping a final bit of plastic.It doesn’t have a lens cover in the first ... | 1,760,376,787.647812 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/30/ping-pong-ball-barrage/ | Ping Pong Ball Barrage | Mike Szczys | [
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"ping pong",
"ping pong ball",
"shop vac",
"vacuum"
] | What should you do with your down time between sophomore and junior year at MIT? You better build something awesome. [Christian Reed] didn’t disappoint with his newest creation. He calls it
the Ping Pong Mauler
and we think that’s an appropriate name. It doesn’t just lunch a ball, it belches forth a relentless barrage.
He certainly has no shortage of ammo. A few garbage bags full of the white orbs number at least 3000 strong, and the plastic drum he’s using as a hopper has room for them all. Jamming is an issue and in the image above you can see him working the agitator with his right hand to prevent a clog. The system is mobile, but the shop vacuum used to propel the balls needs AC power. This means there is a tether that keeps it from roaming too far from home. [Christian] included an air tank in the design but apparently the pressurized air doesn’t do much to help with launch speed. That’s good because
pressurized ball guns can be scary
.
Check out the video after the break to see the ping pongs fly. We bet they’ll be mowing over some strays out in the yard for at least the rest of this summer.
[Thanks Nela] | 21 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "719264",
"author": "Aaron",
"timestamp": "2012-07-30T22:13:06",
"content": "Lunch a ball! I’m not even sure why that’s funny, but I’m pretty sure it is.Super nifty hack. Makes me wish I hung out with some MIT grads.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{... | 1,760,376,787.5119 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/30/magic-clock-locates-your-friends/ | Magic Clock Locates Your Friends | Brian Benchoff | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"grandfather clock",
"Magic clock",
"wifly"
] | Just like the clock from
Harry Potter
, a team of media informatics students at the University of Munich built a grandfather clock that doesn’t keep track of time; instead, it keeps track of
where everyone is
, whether it be their university, work, or in prison.
The build uses Android and iOS apps on each team member’s cell phone to send their current location to a web server. A circuit built inside an old grandfather clock the team picked up from eBay communicates with the web server through a
WiFly Shield
to control a quartet of servos and drive the clock hands.
Because the grandfather clock only came with two clock hands, the team used a series of four concentric shafts to move each hand around the dial. With a bit of clever gear fabrication on their laser cutter, they were able to use unmodified servos move the hands all the way around the clock.
The avatars on the tip of each clock hand are the remains of decapitated LEGO minifigs, a choice that makes sense after viewing the build video available after the break. | 15 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "719218",
"author": "tech2077",
"timestamp": "2012-07-30T21:27:28",
"content": "Who’s in prison?!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "719248",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2012-07-30T21:59:02",
"content":... | 1,760,376,787.696629 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/30/getting-connected-with-your-home-security-system/ | Getting Connected With Your Home Security System | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"12f683",
"alarm",
"home security",
"phantomlink",
"pic",
"wifi"
] | This simple device, paired with some creating code will let you
become your own home security monitoring service
. It’s called the PhantomLink and [Adam] started the project as a commercial venture. He recently decided to go open source with the hardware and will soon be posting a guide on how to program your own web interface too.
We just looked in on a project which
takes control of a security panel using an Arduino
. The PhantomLink is focused on not just reusing the input hardware, but monitoring the whole system. It sounds like several different protocols are supported.
The DB9 jack is intended for use with an adapter you can wire yourself. Basically just tap into the terminal block on the alarm controller for your house, then route those connections to the proper pins. A PIC 12F683 monitors the alarm system, pushing data via the WiFi module mounted on the board. With that web connection you can do anything you want by catching and formatting the data. | 24 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "719175",
"author": "Corey",
"timestamp": "2012-07-30T20:51:40",
"content": "Excellent project. I did something similar by tying my existing Ademco alarm into home automation system by using anAD2USB device:http://www.nutech.com/online-store/35.htmlNow when my alarm is tripped, I can... | 1,760,376,787.7536 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/30/hackathon-results-in-the-facebook-book/ | Hackathon Results In The Facebook Book | Mike Szczys | [
"hardware"
] | [
"book",
"character lcd",
"facebook",
"lcd",
"python"
] | [Jeremy Blum] and [Jason Wright] pose with their project at the end of a 24 hour hackathon. The Facebook headquarters in New York City held the event as part of their Summer of Hack program. As an homage to the hosts, the hacking duo decided to
create a physical book and populate it with the virtual Facebook
. And what do you call such a creation? The Face(book)^2.
The video after the break gives the best overview of the hardware, but here’s the gist of it: They started with the largest hardcover book they could find, hollowing out its pages to house their own hardware. When you open the book it calls back to a computer over an Xbee link with a request for data. The python script on the computer pulls the newest from a Facebook feed, sending it back to the book to be displayed. There is a graphic LCD and four character LCDs built in for this purpose. There’s also an accelerometer which is used for detecting page turns when the cover is jostled. The rest of the interactivity is provided by a few tactile switches mounted next to the smaller LCD screens for navigation and the ‘like’ feature. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "718974",
"author": "Ldw",
"timestamp": "2012-07-30T19:17:25",
"content": "What is this buch of wires and what useful purpose does it serve?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "719094",
"author": "Le Samourai",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,376,787.886571 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/30/mechanical-relay-logic-that-was-snubbed-for-a-microcontroller/ | Mechanical Relay Logic That Was Snubbed For A Microcontroller | Mike Szczys | [
"hardware",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"gears",
"logic",
"relay"
] | [Alex] was tasked with a control design problem for a set of motors. The application called for the back of a truck to open up, some 3D scanning equipment to rise from its enclosure, and finally the equipment needed to rotate into place. All of this needed to happen with one flip of a switch, then proceed in reverse when the switch was turned off. We can understand why the final design used a microcontroller, but we also think that [Alex’s]
relay logic circuit is an eloquent way of doing things
.
He uses limiting switches as the feedback loop for the logic. In the video after the break he walks us through the schematic. Each of the three motors has an up and down limiting switch. These control the three relays which switch power to the motors. We like the design because interrupting the movement mid-operation provides no problem for the system. The only real issue we see is that relays wear out, and the automotive application of the hardware may cause this to happen more quickly than normal.
You may recognize the clear gears used in the demo. [Alex] previously showed us
how he makes those
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpQH_4jfrHk | 27 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "718916",
"author": "EccentricElectron",
"timestamp": "2012-07-30T18:17:26",
"content": "ELEGANT",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "719074",
"author": "rkward",
"timestamp": "2012-07-30T19:51:29",
"content"... | 1,760,376,788.001577 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/29/checking-network-status-with-a-traffic-light/ | Checking Network Status With A Traffic Light | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"internet",
"raspberry pi",
"traffic light"
] | If you’ve ever dealt with a buggy Internet connection, you know how frustrating it can be.
This project
takes the guesswork out of mashing F5 over and over, or simply walking over to your router and ‘turning it on and off again.’
Necessity is the mother of invention, and when the folks at the
Bitlair hackerspace
in Amersfoort, Netherlands got tired of opening up a terminal to see if their network connection was down at this weekend’s
Haxogreen camp
they did what any self-respecting hackerspace would do: make a traffic light monitor the Internet.
The traffic light is controlled by a Raspberry Pi the Bitlair folks had lying around attached to a spare traffic light they somehow obtained with a relay. Green means the Raspi can reach 8.8.8.8, red means there is no connection, and flashing lights means there is packet loss.
Not bad for a project put together in a few hours. Now if we only knew how they obtained a traffic light, ‘just lying around.’
Video after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxdJv-h0Fks&w=470] | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "717699",
"author": "ds18s20",
"timestamp": "2012-07-29T19:53:06",
"content": "Fix the schematics please oh mighty hackers…:)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "717715",
"author": "gmchar",
"timestamp": "2012-07-29T20:04:18"... | 1,760,376,787.938879 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/29/geigers-on-a-plane/ | Geigers On A Plane | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"airplane",
"geiger",
"radiation"
] | [Thomas]
took a Geiger counter he built on a plane
. Why? Because he can, much to the chagrin of airport security.
[Thomas]’ Geiger counter
is built around an
old Russian SBT-10A
detector containing ten separate Geiger tubes. This tube was connected to a circuit containing a LiPo battery, a few high-voltage components, and an audio jack connected to the tubes themselves. When alpha, beta, or gamma radiation hits one of the Geiger tubes, an enormous
click
is sent to the audio jack and into the microphone jack of a small netbook.
Right after boarding a plane in Dublin, [Thomas] booted up his computer, started recording in Audacity, plugged in his Geiger counter, and stored his experiment safely in the overhead compartment. After landing in Prague a few hours later, [Thomas] saved the 247 MB .WAV file and began working on a way to convert clicks in an audio track into usable data.
The audio output on the Geiger counter overloaded the mic input on his netbook, making ‘event detection’ very easy with a small C app. After plotting all the data (seen above), [Thomas] had a complete record of the radiation on his 2-hour flight.
Because there was far less atmosphere to absorb cosmic radiation, [Thomas]’ radiation dose was 9.1 microsieverts. Much more than at sea level, but nothing even air crews need to worry about. | 37 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "717590",
"author": "kylehotchkiss",
"timestamp": "2012-07-29T17:09:48",
"content": "Love this. Scientists are my fave.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "717591",
"author": "Luke Weston",
"timestamp": "2012-07-29T17:12:46",... | 1,760,376,788.073451 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/29/book-review-the-dangers-of-computer-hacking/ | Book Review: The Dangers Of Computer Hacking | Caleb Kraft | [
"Reviews"
] | [
"hacking"
] | Years and years ago, someone gave me this book as a gift. [John Knittel], a co-author thought I might find it amusing. The book, titled
The Dangers of Computer Hacking
, is a grade school level breakdown of, well, computer hacking and the dangers thereof. At the time, I thought it was rather fun and amusing. Since then, it has sat on my shelf without much action.
Last weekend, however, my 8 year old son was building perfectly spaced shapes for his slinky (new plastic slinkies suck) and found this book. I snatched it up and read through it real quick. The realization came to me that though this is somewhat tongue-in-cheek(check the topics on the back cover), this book is actually a fantastic reference for the un-initiated.
They manage to push out a rather well put history of hacking, while keeping it short and easily consumable. Keep in mind this book focuses on “computer hacking” so they touch on the influence hackers like [Steve Wozniak] had on the computer industry. What the difference between “hacking” and “cracking” are, and even jump into how to safely practice “hacking” in your own home. They don’t skimp on social engineering either, with stories about [Kevin Mitnick].
I would easily recommend this book to my parents or my children alike. | 30 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "717527",
"author": "randy",
"timestamp": "2012-07-29T15:34:09",
"content": "It still looks better than “hacker” by marjorie blackman.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "717582",
"author": "ShiroiYami",
"timestamp": "2012-07... | 1,760,376,788.144319 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/29/two-hard-disks-and-one-dj-get-down-with-no-delay/ | Two Hard Disks And One DJ Get Down With No Delay | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"dj",
"hard drive",
"midi",
"midi controller"
] | Mixmaster [robelix] built a
MIDI controller for DJs
that uses two hard drives for scratching and cutting some wicked beats.
[robelix]’s project is called Hard DJ and was inspired by
this earlier build
capable of producing a droning appreciated chiptune music using the motor inside a hard drive. Instead of reading the out of phase sine waves produced when a hard drive platter is manually rotated, [robelix] used
custom laser cut encoder wheels
and an IR detector from old computer mice. This gives [robelix] far more resolution than would be possible by reading the drives stepper motors and allows him to scratch and cut to whatever his MC desires.
The electronics portion of the build are a little rough at this stage – just an Arduino Mega, a few buttons, and a trio of faders. [robelix] will be building a proper enclosure for his controller soon, something we can’t wait to see.
If you’d like to clone this DJ controller, all the files are up
on the Git
. Check out the video after the break. | 15 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "717471",
"author": "rkward",
"timestamp": "2012-07-29T13:56:10",
"content": "Works well and sounds awful ;-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "717491",
"author": "sonofabit",
"timestamp": "2012-07-29T14:27:33",
"conten... | 1,760,376,788.197246 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/28/reading-analog-sensors-with-the-raspberry-pi/ | Reading Analog Sensors With The Raspberry Pi | Brian Benchoff | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"analog sensor",
"raspberry pi",
"sensor",
"tutorial"
] | Adafruit just posted an awesome tutorial on
reading analog sensors
with the Raspberry Pi. It’s a great walkthrough that can be applied to your next Raspi project as well as any project where you just need
one more
analog input.
Earlier, the folks over at Adafruit
posted a tutorial
on using a
MCP3008
ADC with the Raspi to directly read analog values using a Raspi. Sometimes, though, you don’t need eight analog inputs and a 12-bit ADC to get a project off the ground. Adafruit’s tutorial for reading analog values without an ADC relies on a single 1μF ceramic capacitor attached between a digital input and ground. By pulling the sensor line high for a millisecond or two, the capacitor charges at different rates depending on the value of the analog sensor.
Yes, it’s just an RC timing circuit but seeing as how the Raspi doesn’t have an analog input, we figure this tutorial could help out a few people. | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "716803",
"author": "Hack Man",
"timestamp": "2012-07-28T19:31:10",
"content": "it’s just an RC timing circuitThen why title itReading analog sensors with the Raspberry Pi?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "716814",
"auth... | 1,760,376,788.256869 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/28/a-wireless-mame-coffee-table-controller/ | A Wireless MAME Coffee Table Controller | Jeremy Cook | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"controller",
"mame"
] | Although we’ve featured quite a few MAME controllers here, we thought we’d
feature one more
. It’s only a well-drawn mechanical plan at this point, but if the results are anything like the model or detail drawing, we will be quite impressed.
One thing that is of particular interest is the
planned parts list
. Amongst them are the typical joysticks, buttons, and even a trackball. What may be new to some of our readers is the
bluetooth arcade controller
by [Wayne and Layne] opensource hardware kits. Although they aren’t cheap at just under $80, and requre an Arduino Mega for use, this is nonetheless an interesting control option. The maximum button presses may be another limiting factor at 6, but it should be a cleaner solution than cannibalizing one or more wireless controllers.
Of course, we’d be negligent if we didn’t at least give you a link to a completed MAME controller. Be sure to feast your eyes on
these images
if you’d like some finished controller eye candy or check out the pic after the break!
Via [
Reddit
] and
this article
as well. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "716829",
"author": "Vonskippy",
"timestamp": "2012-07-28T20:03:15",
"content": "Obviously not married.That’s not a coffee table, it’s a ginormous controller.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "717261",
"author": "derpdeed... | 1,760,376,788.300463 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/28/excavate-your-basement-using-rc-equipment/ | Excavate Your Basement Using RC Equipment | Jeremy Cook | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"excavation",
"rc",
"remote control"
] | Although it could be debated as to whether or not
this is a “hack,”
since the equipment used is built for excavation, the scale of it seems deserving of a mention. In the linked article, [Joe] is quoted as saying, “the common misconception here is that the RC’s are not here to excavate my basement, but rather the basement excavation project is here for the RC’s.” This could be a motto for most makers/hackers in that projects are frequently not done for the resulting product, but for the experience of making something your own.
According to [Joe], he excavates 2 – 3 cubic yards per year with his little RC vehicles. Living in Canada as a rancher and farmer, he’s required to be near his home to feed his hungry animals even during the cold winter months. During this time, there can be very little to do. After sometimes working 16 hour days during the summer, he needed something to keep him occupied close to home. Be sure to check out the excavation video after the break, or check out
the original article
for even more pictures and video!
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmcC2bzJjME&w=470&h=315%5D | 41 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "716595",
"author": "Mulvane",
"timestamp": "2012-07-28T15:33:39",
"content": "This is amazing actually. I’ve been looking to build soem bots to do something similar under a portion of my house so I can throw down eventually a sheets of plastic and then make it usable storage space. ... | 1,760,376,788.52839 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/30/understanding-op-amps-from-simple-to-hard/ | Understanding Op-amps From Simple To Hard | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"circuit",
"ece",
"op-amp",
"theory"
] | [Tim] wanted to help out a ECE student struggling with some Op-Amp problems. He put together
a video which does a good job of explaining what an Op-Amp does
, then tackles each of the questions one at a time.
His analogy is illustrated in this image. There’s an operator using a crane to lift a crate. He is watching a ‘radio man’ in a window of the building to know how high it should be lifted. These roles are translated to the function of an Op-Amp in a way that makes understanding the common parts quite easy. The crane is the Op-Amp and the floor to which it is trying to lift the crate is the input pin. The current height of the crate is the output signal. The radio man is the feedback resistor which is trying to get the desired height and current height to equal each other. Watch the video after the break and all becomes clear.
After this analogy is explained [Tim] tackles
the actual homework problems
. He’s going through everything pretty quickly, and doesn’t actually give the answers. What he does is show how this — like most circuit solving problems — depends on how you group the components in order to simplify the questions. Grab a pen and paper and put on your electron theory hats to see if you can solve the questions for yourselves. | 17 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "718914",
"author": "Ryoku",
"timestamp": "2012-07-30T18:12:25",
"content": "I’d like to see hack a day make a youtube guide to electronics from free examples like this it would be cool for people like me who are stary eyed for hackers doing cool stuff but have no idea what they are ... | 1,760,376,788.579566 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/30/recovering-from-a-seagate-hdd-firmware-bug/ | Recovering From A Seagate HDD Firmware Bug | Mike Szczys | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"7200.11",
"bug",
"busy state",
"firmware",
"hard drive",
"seagate"
] | Hard drive firmware is about the last place you want to find a bug. But that turned out to be the problem with [BBfoto’s] Seagate HDD which he was using in a RAID array. It stopped working completely, and he later found out the firmware has a bug that makes the drive think it’s permanently in a busy state. There’s a firmware upgrade available, but you have to apply it before the problem shows its face, otherwise you’re out of luck. Some searching led him to
a hardware fix for the problem
.
[Brad Garcia] put together the tutorial which illustrates the steps needed to unbrick the 7200.11 hard drive with the busy state bug. The image in the lower right shows the drive with a piece of paper between the PCB and the connectors which control the head. This is necessary to boot the drive without it hanging due to the bug. From there he issues serial commands to put it into Access Level 2, then removes the cardboard for the rest of the fix.
In the tutorial [Brad] uses a serial-TTL converter. [BBfoto] grabbed an Arduino instead,
using it as a USB-ttl bridge
. | 41 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "718797",
"author": "Nunya Bizniss",
"timestamp": "2012-07-30T16:16:38",
"content": "I went through this too awhile back. I used a BusPirate.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "718799",
"author": "Arvydas",
"timestamp": "201... | 1,760,376,788.650954 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/30/dino-builds-a-fetch-o-matic-for-this-months-make/ | [Dino] Builds A Fetch-O-Matic For This Month’s Make | Brian Benchoff | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"ball launcher",
"dino",
"make magazine"
] | Perennial Hackaday favorite [Dino] has an article in this months Make magazine. It’s
an automated ball launcher
that allows you to play fetch with your dog without wearing your arm out.
The powerhouse inside [Dino]’s ball launcher is a windshield wiper motor powered by an 18 Volt cordless drill battery pack. When a ball in dropped into the hopper, it turns on a switch sending some power to the motor.
The swing arm that actually launches the ball is anchored to the frame of the ball launcher with a spring. This stores energy for one half of a rotation of the motor until the arm rotates half way around inside the box. Then, the arm quickly accelerates and launches the ball across the yard.
[Dino] says he’s working on training his dog to drop the ball into the chute after retrieving it, creating a perpetual game of fetch. At least until the battery runs down, that is. Video after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9UOcUKazSA&w=470] | 21 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "718710",
"author": "The Cageybee",
"timestamp": "2012-07-30T15:08:25",
"content": "Shouldn’t it be a throw-o-matic or launch-o-matic?I mean, the machine isn’t doing the fetching.Or is the hack in getting the dog to fetch the ball?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replie... | 1,760,376,788.755414 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/30/reading-punch-cards-with-an-arduino-and-digital-camera/ | Reading Punch Cards With An Arduino And Digital Camera | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"classic hacks",
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"chdk",
"punch card"
] | [digitaltrails] wanted the data on a few old IBM 80-column punch cards he had lying around, but didn’t have decades old computer hardware in his garage. He decided to
build his own
out of LEGO, an Arduino, a digital camera, and a bit of Python.
The
hardware portion
of [digitaltrails] build includes a crank-operated feed mechanism made entirely out of LEGO. For each turn of the crank, the feed mechanism sends one card down a chute where a photodetector wired into an Arduino tells a camera to take a picture. After that, a servo is activated, sending the card into the ‘already scanned’ bin.
On the
software side of the build
, [digitatrails] used the
Python Imaging Library
to scan one row of pixels where each column is expected to be. The software outputs the code and data contained on the 80-column card as well as a very cool ASCII art version of each card.
Considering you just can’t go down to Fry’s and buy an IBM 80-column punch card reader, we’re loving [digitatrails]’ clever way of getting data off an otherwise unreadable storage medium. Check out the video of the card reader in action after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcwxW2ne-UU&w=470] | 27 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "718637",
"author": "Sven",
"timestamp": "2012-07-30T14:06:49",
"content": "Since he has built it out of lego, and is using an arduino, why isn’t the crank motorized?Yet another completely useless use of an arduino sneaks into hackaday because it means they can put “arduino” in the t... | 1,760,376,788.818037 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/30/gumball-machine-delivers-ebooks-and-games-to-your-phone/ | Gumball Machine Delivers Ebooks And Games To Your Phone | Brian Benchoff | [
"Cellphone Hacks"
] | [
"near field communication",
"NFC"
] | Instead of rock-hard bubble gum that loses its flavor after 2 minutes,
this gumball machine
delivers apps and games directly to your smartphone.
The communications protocol used by this app-delivering gumball machine isn’t bluetooth or WiFi but
near field communication
. This protocol allows for a point-to-point network between the app dispenser and a phone to deliver games, music, videos, and ebooks to any compatible portable device.
The hardware for the gumball machine is a Galaxy Tab, an
Adafruit NFC shield
, two Arduinos, and a few switches and other components stuffed into an old gumball machine. To get purchase an app, just put a quarter or two in the machine, turn the crank, and put your phone up against the dispenser. Through the magic of near field communications, you phone or tablet receives whatever media you purchased.
Near field communication has been a standard for a while, but hasn’t been available in most phones. With oracles of Apple speculating the upcoming iPhone will have NFC capability other phone manufacturers are sure to pick up the tech. Very cool project, and we can’t wait to see some truly home-brew versions of this build.
Vidia after the break. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "718559",
"author": "Isaac",
"timestamp": "2012-07-30T12:55:40",
"content": "As cool as this is, it would have been cooler if it dispensed gumball shaped NFC tags :P",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "719269",
"author": "F... | 1,760,376,788.697071 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/30/refurbing-an-old-piano-with-carbon-fiber/ | Refurbing An Old Piano With Carbon Fiber | Brian Benchoff | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"baby grand",
"piano"
] | [Chris] picked up a baby grand. Of course for a complex mechanical device made out of wood, it wasn’t in the best shape. He’s doing his best to
refurbish this $350 piano
and turn it into something that plays and sounds like a $200,000 concert grand
The 1941 Kimball baby grand piano [Chris] picked up for $350 was a complete mess when it arrived in his house. After cleaning up the wood and replacing some felt the piano looked much better, but [Chris] wanted to make it
play
better.
After picking up a set of hammers from a 1909 Steinway, [Chris] tore apart the action on his Kimball. The Steinway hammers were removed from their shanks, carbon fiber shanks glued into place, and the entire assembly put back into the piano.
With new felt, new hammers, and light weight shanks on every key, [Chris] has a remarkable piano that is most likely better than new. Not a bad result for a $350 piano.
You can check out [Chris]’ build video after the break along with a little [Mozart] (we think) after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fyiPNAcVfw&w=470] | 20 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "718467",
"author": "nah!",
"timestamp": "2012-07-30T11:11:44",
"content": "Still shure needs finetuning, sounds a bit honky tonk like",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "718896",
"author": "Niru",
"timestamp": "201... | 1,760,376,788.986176 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/29/building-the-most-offensive-video-game-ever/ | Building The Most Offensive Video Game Ever | Brian Benchoff | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"arcade",
"arcade cabinet",
"Challenger",
"mame"
] | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pZ70teW678&w=470]
[Autuin]
created the most offensive video game ever
. Inside a small cocktail arcade cabinet, he installed his own video game that recreates the experiences of the Space Shuttle
Challenger
and her crew on their last flight.
The build started off by picking up an old cocktail version of
Space Zap
from
The Hackery
, a neat little recycling place that turns old computers, monitors, and even old arcade machines into something useful again. After [Autuin] lugged his arcade machine back to his home base at Free Geek Vancouver.
After drooling over the 30-year-old circuitry, [Autuin] disassembled the old machine and installed a mint condition 19″ VGA monitor where an ancient black and white CRT once resided. The control panels replete with their comically large buttons were refurbished and connected to an Arduino and the whole shebang hooked up to a slightly outdated computer.
The real magic happened when [Autuin] coded his game. He created a few sprites from NASA archival footage and made a game where a shuttle takes off and is controllable by each player. As the most offensive video game ever, the space shuttle blows up shortly after launch, declaring ‘game over’ for both players.
[Autuin] will be showing off his new arcade game with a new bezel and cabinet graphics during Vancouver’s
Eastside Culture Crawl
this November. The game will probably be updated by then; we suggested editing the ‘time to explosion’ to T+73 seconds, but [Autuin] said he’s thinking of ways to make it even more awful. | 76 | 47 | [
{
"comment_id": "717716",
"author": "Bob Chigg",
"timestamp": "2012-07-29T20:04:25",
"content": "Too soon?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "718047",
"author": "Tim",
"timestamp": "2012-07-30T03:00:56",
"content": "There ... | 1,760,376,789.142955 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/28/the-minotaurs-revenge-dueling-labyrinths/ | The Minotaur’s Revenge: Dueling Labyrinths | Caleb Kraft | [
"News"
] | [] | In case you hadn’t noticed, we participated in a contest recently. The RedBull Creation contest. The basic idea was that they gave us 72 hours to build something based on a theme. The whole thing would be streamed live as the 12 teams competed. The theme was “game of games” and the rules were pretty basic. It had to be a game with a clear winner (nothing too general), it had to be safe, and it had to fit in their shipping container.
Our project is called “the minotaur’s revenge”, and is basically a set of dueling labyrinths. A pair of giant tilting mazes that have to be controlled while attempting to trigger traps on your opponents table. We knew that watching us screw some wood together for 3 days would be painfully dull, so we put extra effort into keeping our feed amusing. We had scheduled events like a fire breather, grafitti artists, people in costume, and strange things happening all the time. We took time to answer questions and converse with our watchers. It paid off, our feed was usually host to double the viewers of any other feed.
Keep reading for a full writeup on how everything was made, along with a ton of pictures and some video.
The basic construction began with a sturdy frame. Built mainly from plywood and MDF, the frame had to be strong enough to handle the weight of the table, the banging from the people playing it, and the possible effects of shipping.
The “play field” had to be able to rotate on x and y axis just like the table top versions. We looked at how some of those are constructed and ultimately decided to go with a two part system. Theres a gimbal at the central point of the table to act as a pivot and a cable system to pull the sides the direction we need them to go. The gimbal in the middle allows for the table to support even more weight and still have full x and y mobility.
The gimbal is constructed from a single piece of 4 inch PVC. We simply drilled 4 opposing holes in the PVC and used those as our hinge points. As you can see in the picture, this gave us more of a range of motion than we needed.
Controlling the X and Y axis was done by a simple pulley system. We had a shaft connecting our lever to a central point where some vinyl coated clothesline attached. This then went through a pulley and out to the center of the table on each axis. When you turn the lever, the table tilts.
The playfield itself is constructed of pegboard and 1″x2″ wood. We drilled and pegged the walls so that they would drop right into the pegboard but found that a little bit of hot glue helped keep them firmly in place. This pegboard piece actually lifts out fairly easily so it could be replaced with different types of mazes down the road.
On the electronics side, we ended up using PicAxe microcontrollers to handle our servos. Each table has 8 servos triggered by arcade buttons located on the opposing table. The code is fairly simple. On button press, actuate servo. Wait a few seconds, and deactivate servo. Wait a few more seconds before allowing reactivation so that the ball can escape.
This means that you could do anything that a simple servo can accomplish. We used them to raise/lower magnets below the table as well as open/close pathways on the maze. The magnets were surprisingly effective and the gates worked exactly as you would expect.
At the end, we had just enough time to add some fancy trim, add cup holders, paint some nice accents on the table, and adjust the range of motion before we had to present it. It worked fairly flawlessly!
team credits:
[Caleb Kraft]
[Scott Sauer]
[Phillip Broussard]
[Nick Tarr]
[Andrew Mitzel]
[Brian Zweerink]
[Shawn McKee]
[Mike Szczys]
[Ryan Fitzpatrick] | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "716577",
"author": "KG4MXV",
"timestamp": "2012-07-28T15:16:32",
"content": "Well it looks like yall had a blast and thats all that matters. I am wokring on a hack of my own,I travel 99% for my job and every once and a while all the IT stuff at home needs to be rebooted. and the wi... | 1,760,376,789.903382 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/27/only-you-can-kick-a-childs-balls-into-space/ | Only You Can Kick A Child’s Balls Into Space | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"balls",
"children",
"Crowd Funding",
"experiment",
"kids",
"ping pong",
"science",
"space",
"weather balloon"
] | We had a lot of fun with that title. Of course when you’re talking about launching a thousand ping pong balls into space there’s no end to the puns which can be made. But this is actually a fantastic initiative to get people of all ages excited about science and near-space experiments. [John Powell]
offers school children the opportunity to send an experiment into space
. He’s Kickstarting the next launch, which is scheduled to take place in September. This way each entrant can fly their project for free, then get the results and a certificate back once the weather-balloon-based hardware is recovered.
There is one size restriction for the program. Each experiment must fit inside of a ping pong ball. But you’ll be surprised what can be accomplished. [John] reports that the most simple, yet interesting project is to place a small marshmallow inside the ball. As it rises through the atmosphere it will grow to fill the entire ball, then be freeze-dried by the the extreme temperatures. Some are not so low-tech. There’s an image of a tiny PCB holding a DS1337 and some sensors. It’s an atmospheric data logger that will provide plenty of information to analyze upon its return.
[via
Hacked Gadgets
] | 26 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "716024",
"author": "attiatte",
"timestamp": "2012-07-28T00:49:49",
"content": "Your title needs some work.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "716056",
"author": "Hackerspacer",
"timestamp": "2012-07-28T01:47:53",
... | 1,760,376,789.04766 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/27/decoding-noaa-weather-radio-with-an-arduino/ | Decoding NOAA Weather Radio With An Arduino | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"noaa",
"same",
"weather alert",
"weather radio",
"xr-2211"
] | The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is responsible for broadcasting the signals used in weather radios. They use a protocol called Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) and [Ray Dees] recently published
an Arduino library that lets you decode the SAME message packets
.
He doesn’t provide a method of tuning the radio signal, but at first you can use the audio samples he points to. The actual broadcasts happen on one of seven frequencies between 162.400 MHz and 162.550 MHz but the tones are also broadcast on TV and Radio alerts. Once you have the audio it is fed into a pair of XR-2211 Tone decoders. This provides just three interface pins for the Arduino to watch.
The annoying noise that grabs your attention at the beginning of a weather alert, or test of the alert system is actually what the SAME data packets sound like. From those tones this system will be able to decode what type of alert is being issued, and the geographic locations it affects. If you interested in more info about SAME head over to
the Wikipedia article on the topic
. | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "716159",
"author": "Cheshire",
"timestamp": "2012-07-28T05:09:00",
"content": "I have used an ezcap668 dongle that uses an RTL2832U cand an elonics4999 tuner chio to eneble a software radio mode that can receive the weather satellite broadcasts at 137 MHz, its fairly easy with the r... | 1,760,376,789.187649 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/27/bending-a-home-security-control-panel-to-your-will/ | Bending A Home Security Control Panel To Your Will | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"home hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"dsc",
"keypad",
"pc1500rk",
"security system"
] | Does your home have a security system but you don’t subscribe to the monitoring service to make it work? Rip that baby off of the wall and do something with it, or just build your own system around it. If you have a DSC PC1500RK control panel [CaitSith2] shows us
how easy it is to control the buttons, LEDs, and buzzer
. If you’ve got a different model this is still a good jumping off point to start your own reverse engineering.
There are only four connections that need to be made. [CaitSith2] is using an Arduino for the demonstration. He connected the red wire to voltage, the black wire to ground, the yellow wire (clock) to digital pin 3 and the green wire (data) to digital pin 2. A communication cycle starts by setting the data line high, then clocking out eight bits to capture keypresses. 16-bits are then clocked in to set the LEDs and drive the buzzer. This is shown in the video after the break as well as documented in
his sample code
. We’ve embedded the sketch after the break to preserve it in case the pastebin code goes missing in the future.
/*
The code is to interface a DSC PC1500RK alarm keypad.
It has 15 keys, 11 LEDs, and a Beeper that can be controlled.
This code cycles through all the LEDs in a top-down fashion.
The beeper is used to acknowledge that a key has been pressed.
If the key was pressed successfully, its character is output on the serial line, at 115200 bps.
Wiring is simple. Red is Vcc, hooked to 5V
Black is Gnd.
Yellow is the Clock line. In this configuration, it is on Digital Pin 3.
Green is Data, and is on Digital Pin 2.
*/
void setup() {
//Pin 2 is Data, and is bidirectional.
//Pin 3 is Clock, and is an output.
pinMode(2, OUTPUT);
pinMode(3, OUTPUT);
Serial.begin(115200);
}
int readdata(int control)
{
int i,j=0,k=control;
int bitcount=0;
for(i=0;i<8;i++)
{
j<<=1;
digitalWrite(2,HIGH);
digitalWrite(3,LOW);
delay(2);
if(digitalRead(2)==HIGH)
j|=1;
digitalWrite(3,HIGH);
delay(2);
}
for(i=0;i<16;i++)
{
if(k&0x8000)
digitalWrite(2,HIGH);
else
digitalWrite(2,LOW);
digitalWrite(3,LOW);
delay(2);
digitalWrite(3,HIGH);
delay(2);
k<<=1; } j^=0xFF; switch(j&0x70) { case 0x10: case 0x20: case 0x40: switch(j&0x8F) { case 0x80: case 0x08: case 0x04: case 0x02: case 0x01: return j; default: return 0; } default: return 0; } return 0; } void printchar(char A, char B, char C, int D) { switch(D) { case 1: Serial.println(C); break; case 2: Serial.println(B); break; case 4: Serial.println(A); break; } } void loop() { int i; static unsigned int j=0x80; static int k=0,l; static int m=0; digitalWrite(13, HIGH); // set the LED on i=readdata(j | l); m++; if(m==4) { m=0; j>>=1;
if(j==4)
j=0x8000;
if(j==0x0200)
j=0x80;
}
if(k==0)
{
switch(i&0x8F)
{
case 0x80:
printchar('F','E','P',(i&0x70)>>4);
break;
case 0x08:
printchar('*','0','#',(i&0x70)>>4);
break;
case 0x04:
printchar('7','8','9',(i&0x70)>>4);
break;
case 0x02:
printchar('4','5','6',(i&0x70)>>4);
break;
case 0x01:
printchar('1','2','3',(i&0x70)>>4);
break;
}
}
if((k!=i)&&(k==0))
l=1;
else
l=0;
k=i;
delay(20);
}
/*
if(Serial.available()) {
int inByte = Serial.read();
if(inByte == 'H')
{
digitalWrite(2,HIGH);
digitalWrite(3,LOW);
delay(3);
}
else
{
digitalWrite(2,LOW);
digitalWrite(3,LOW);
delay(3);
}
if(digitalRead(2)==LOW)
Serial.println("LOW");
else
Serial.println("HIGH");
digitalWrite(3,HIGH);
delay(3);
}
*/ | 35 | 26 | [
{
"comment_id": "715954",
"author": "Rogan Dawes",
"timestamp": "2012-07-27T22:34:46",
"content": "Odds are good there is a central controller that has all the sensors connected to it somewhere. That’s really the box that you should be looking at. The panel is simply an interface to the central cont... | 1,760,376,789.259554 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/27/building-a-coffee-roaster-from-junk/ | Building A Coffee Roaster From Junk | Mike Szczys | [
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"beans",
"coffee",
"gas",
"roaster",
"stove",
"washing machine"
] | [Rxdtxd] has tried his hand at roasting coffee beans in a frying pan. It works but he can only roast small batches at once. What he really needed was a large-scale roaster that would have no problem with a few pounds of the green beans all at once. He ended up
building this large-scale coffee roaster out of junk parts
.
The vessel which holds the beans is the drum from a top-loading washing machine. It was headed for the junk pile, but the fully-enclosed drum is perfect for this purpose. After acquiring it [Rxdtxd]
set out welding a frame
that would hold either side by the pivot points. He used a geared motor to automate the process. The output shaft on the gear box is meant to drive a chain, but
he just welded some pieces onto the gear
to use as a coupling.
In the picture above he’s giving the roaster a thorough testing with about ten pounds of beans. A portable gas stove placed below the rotating drum supplies the heat. After the beans have reached the desired darkness he pours them out into a large skillet to cool. Take a peek at the roasting action in the clip after the break. | 10 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "715903",
"author": "'Duino",
"timestamp": "2012-07-27T21:02:46",
"content": "Nice to see they didn’t use a epoxy coated steel washer body. Not sure how well that would take that much heat – probably not too well.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,376,789.351595 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/27/lab-robot-demonstrates-mastery-of-culturing-and-other-tasks/ | Lab Robot Demonstrates Mastery Of Culturing And Other Tasks | Mike Szczys | [
"Medical Hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"harzardous",
"infectious",
"lab"
] | Lab work is a pretty good job. But sometimes being around hazardous samples, or completing tedious and repetitive tasks leave scientists looking for a different way. This
robot seems to know its way around a lab
. The folks behind it claim it’s more precise than veteran lab technicians, and that it can complete the tasks in half the time.
After watching the video (embedded after the jump) we’re quite impressed. The dexterity shown by the system illustrates care down to the tiniest of details. This is because everything the robot works with has been passed through a 3D scanner in order to establish a virtual model. This way the training is done in the computer. The robot can be run though any number of scenarios before it actually starts working with infectious materials like the influenza virus and other not-so-nice microbes.
What we’d really like to know is what kind of visual feedback system is being used.
[via
Technabob
and
Geek
] | 12 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "715880",
"author": "Robot",
"timestamp": "2012-07-27T20:21:08",
"content": "Who needs real robots when you’ve got grad. students?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "716277",
"author": "Vonskippy",
"timestamp": "20... | 1,760,376,789.311648 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/27/melting-plastic-powder-together-one-layer-at-a-time/ | Melting Plastic Powder Together, One Layer At A Time | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"Blueprinter",
"reprap"
] | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVOtKSKyIvI&fw=470]
Here’s an interesting development in the world of 3D printers: A rapid prototyping machine that
melts plastic powder together
to create objects with extremely good resolution
The Blueprinter works by drawing a 0.1 mm thick layer of plastic powder over the build platform. After that, a very hot needle-shaped probe melts the plastic together. This process continues at a rate of 10mm an hour on the z axis, and a very precise plastic model eventually appears in the powder.
There is no price ( or solid release date ) for the Blueprinter, but
this 3ders.org article
from earlier this year tells us the price for the machine will be €9,995, with a material cost of €49 per kg. Pricey, yes, but seeing as how the RepRap community already has the techniques behind melting plastic down pat, it might now be too hard to build your own plastic sintering printer.
If you know of any current projects or builds that are trying to emulate this plastic powder melting technique, drop us a note
on the tip line
. We’d love to see a version of this printer up and running. Until then, you can check out the render showing a rendered Blueprinter in action, along with a demo of a plastic clip printed on this sintering printer.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVOtKSKyIvI&fw=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rFD48KdibY&w=470] | 23 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "715816",
"author": "Zee",
"timestamp": "2012-07-27T19:09:46",
"content": "Any SLS printer works exactly like this. I don’t understand what’s new.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "715833",
"author": "'Duino",
"ti... | 1,760,376,789.556155 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/07/27/make-a-cardboard-bookshelf-in-less-than-a-day/ | Make A Cardboard Bookshelf In Less Than A Day | Mike Szczys | [
"green hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"bookshelf",
"cardboard",
"gorilla glue",
"upcycle"
] | Lucas came up with a real winner when
upcycling cardboard to use as a bookshelf
. It’s visually pleasing, can be built basically for the cost of glue and a mounting brackets, and you don’t have to feel bad if you decide to get rid of it later on.
What he saved in raw material cost he spent in labor. There are 23 different layers of cardboard that went into the project, not including the spacer squares between each piece. The vast majority of the time spent in the clip after the break shows a fast-time video of him cutting out the layers. It apparently took about eight hours of cutting, and we’d image he’s got a claw of a hand after all of that work.
This is hanging from a single L bracket positioned in the square opening with two nails to keep it level. We’d suggest including a better mounting technique in your design. If you have some ideas about this please let us know in the comments. | 8 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "715444",
"author": "Hack Man",
"timestamp": "2012-07-27T13:44:51",
"content": "Laser cutter.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "715539",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2012-07-27T14:59:39",
"content": "That would be great... | 1,760,376,789.41068 |
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