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https://hackaday.com/2012/04/12/open-sourcing-everything-theres-an-app-for-that/ | Open Sourcing Everything… There’s An App For That | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"android",
"Git",
"github",
"open source"
] | What happens if you’re a prolific developer and decide to release all of the source code from your work? Well, you should get a huge pat on the back from all interested parties. And so we say thank you to [Hunter Davis] for releasing the source code for his 70+ Android apps. But just making the decision isn’t the end of things, you’ve got actually get the code out there. And herein lies the hack. Instead of archiving and posting all of those projects he wrote
a script to crawl, init, and push his projects to Github automatically
.
This process is made pretty easy because of the Github API. Looks like he used version 2 for his script but you’ll want to
check out version 3
if you’re looking to write your own script. His script takes the API key and username as command line arguments, then traverses his local source tree. Along the way it uses some text manipulation to sanitize the directories for use as the name of the repository. Once that’s established it steps into the directory, creates a repository, adds and commits all the files, then pushes them to Github.
Following [Hunter’s] example makes it really easy to share your code. We hope more will follow suit, putting their work out there for others to learn from and build upon.
We’ve seen some hardware hacks from [Hunter] as well. He did a bunch
involving the ZipIt
, as well as some work with
playing games with a Dockstar
.
[via
Reddit
] | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "627849",
"author": "huntergdavis",
"timestamp": "2012-04-12T22:09:04",
"content": "You’re welcome, and thanks for checking it out, glad you liked it!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "628223",
"author": "Slain",
"timestamp... | 1,760,376,911.1312 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/12/conways-game-of-life-in-hd/ | Conway’s Game Of Life In HD | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"conways game of life",
"fpga",
"papilio",
"papilio plus",
"spartan-6"
] | We’re going to have to take [Mike’s] word for it that
he built Conway’s Game of Life with high-definition video output
. That’s because this screenshot is his only proof and it looks a bit fuzzy to us. But we are interested in the project which used an FPGA to generate a 1080p VGA output of the classic programming challenge.
One of the biggest benefits of using an FPGA for this application is the hardware’s parallel processing ability. For every frame of the game, the area around each living cell must be analyzed to produce the next evolutionary step. Most of the time this means processing all of the pixels in the playing area, which is the case here. [Mike] is using VHDL to program a Papilio Plus which has a Spartan 6 chip on it. He separated his code into the different components when writing about it. This makes it easy to find the chunks relating to the game if that’s what you’re interested in. If you just want to see how he implemented the VGA interface that’s well documented as well.
If you’re not familiar, Conway’s Game of Life has simple rules regarding when a cell will live, die, or be reborn. As [Mike] points out, every programmer should give it a shot at some point. We’ve seen many iterations from
the very large
to
the very small
. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "627764",
"author": "FrankTheCat",
"timestamp": "2012-04-12T20:28:54",
"content": "I think you destroyed his server. gg",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "627791",
"author": "Mike Field",
"timestamp": "2012-04-12T20:57:41",
... | 1,760,376,911.089097 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/12/poking-at-the-femtocell-hardware-in-an-att-microcell/ | Poking At The Femtocell Hardware In An AT&T Microcell | Mike Szczys | [
"Cellphone Hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"att",
"femtocell",
"microcell",
"SoC"
] | Here’s a picture of the internals of an AT&T Microcell. This hardware extends the cellular network by acting as its own cell tower and connecting to the network via a broadband connection. So if you don’t get service in your home, you can get one of these and hook it up to your cable modem or DSL and poof, you’re cellphone works again. [C1de0x] decided to
crack one open and see what secrets it holds
.
On the board there are two System-0n-Chips, an FPGA, the radio chip, and a GPS module. There is some tamper detection circuitry which [C1de0x] got around, but he’s saving that info for a future post. In poking and prodding at the hardware he found the UART connections which let him tap into each of the SoCs which dump data as they boot. It’s running a Linux kernel with BusyBox and there are SSH and ROOT accounts which share the same password. About five days of automated cracking and the password was discovered.
But things really start to get interesting when he stumbles upon something he calls the “wizard”. It’s a backdoor which allow full access to the device. Now it looks like the developers must have missed something, because this is just sitting out there on the WAN waiting for someone to monkey with it. Responses are sent to a hard-coded IP address, but a bit of work with the iptables will fix that. Wondering what kind of mischief can be caused by this security flaw? Take a look at
the Vodafone femtocell hacking
to find out. | 52 | 28 | [
{
"comment_id": "627712",
"author": "dubyaohohdee",
"timestamp": "2012-04-12T19:11:02",
"content": "I have one. It works well enough. Call quality is comparable to cell service. Range is a bit lacking though. Also, if you get real close (<3 feet or so) it will drop the call.",
"parent_id": n... | 1,760,376,911.421339 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/12/infrared-hides-code-combination-on-geocache-puzzle/ | Infrared Hides Code Combination On Geocache Puzzle | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"geocache",
"infrared",
"ir",
"led"
] | [AJ] and [Brian] are making sure the geocache challenges they set up take some ingenuity to solve. They’ve just rolled out
a two-part cache which uses a code hidden in infrared light
. (Editor’s note from the far future: link wend dead.
Have a look in the Wayback Machine
.)
The first part of the cache is a box (the black one on the left) which contains a mysterious hand crank and a smaller box that has a combination lock on it. The second stage is the wooden box on the right. It’s got a hole in the side to receive the hand crank. This connects to the dynamo inside, letting you build up some electricity as it spins. Inside the case you’ll see two red lights blink as the crank is turned, but when you push the button on the outside of the box nothing will happen. That is, unless you’re looking through a camera which can pick up infrared light. The code (710 in this case) is displayed in an array of IR LEDs, and is used to open that combination lock. We wonder if there’s any clues about using a camera or if you have to figure this out on your own.
Don’t miss the video after the break for a full demo of the system.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNIHNy-bjG0 | 11 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "627686",
"author": "Rob R.",
"timestamp": "2012-04-12T18:41:37",
"content": "Awesome! I love geocaching, where are you guys putting it? Somewhere in north-eastern NJ I hope?!?!Great puzzle, I love the really involved ones that make you think! Just going to find a box is fun, but fi... | 1,760,376,911.179244 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/12/floppy-drive-as-an-audio-sampler/ | Floppy Drive As An Audio Sampler | Mike Szczys | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"floppy",
"floppy disk",
"midi",
"pwm",
"sampler"
] | Here’s
a floppy drive which is being used as an audio sampler
. At first glance we thought this was another offering which drives the stepper motor at a specific frequency to
generate that characteristic sound
at a target pitch. But that’s not what’s happening at all. The floppy is actually being used as a storage device (go figure).
From what we can tell, it’s being used almost like an 8-track tape. A PWM signal is stored on one circular slice of the disk, then the head can be moved back to that same “track” to play back the wave form. The head doesn’t move during playback, but just keeps reading the same track of bits. To the right you can see an Arduino board. This allows for MIDI control of the track selection. [Alexis] shows off some keyboard control in the video after the break. There’s a buffer chip on the breadboard which allows the audio output to be quickly switched off as the floppy drive head is moved. This keeps garbage out of the sound until the new track can be read. | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "627614",
"author": "zuul",
"timestamp": "2012-04-12T16:57:39",
"content": "Pretty cool",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "627933",
"author": "naturetm",
"timestamp": "2012-04-13T00:19:19",
"content": "Very cool!",
"... | 1,760,376,910.885529 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/10/print-in-chocolate-sugar-and-clay-with-a-universal-paste-extruder/ | Print In Chocolate, Sugar, And Clay With A Universal Paste Extruder | Brian Benchoff | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"chocolate",
"extruder",
"reprap"
] | With a glut of Easter candy acquired over the last week, you might be thinking what to do with mountains of chocolate and other sugary delights. How about sending them through a 3D printer with [RichRap]’s
universal paste extruder
?
[RichRap]’s extruder uses a common 10cc syringes slowly squeezed by an off-the-shelf stepper motor. Chocolate wasn’t the only goal for this build; [RichRap] also tested out cake icing, corn chip dough, muffin and sponge cake batter with his new toy. The most interesting paste in our humble opinion is porcelain ceramic clay. [RichRap] was able to make some very nice 3D printed greenware, but we’ll withhold our judgement until the ceramic parts are fired later this week.
After the break you can check out the introduction video for the Universal Paste Extruder, as well as a quick glimpse of [RichRap]’s very cool porcelain clay prints. We’re very interested in the ceramics printed with this extruder, if only for printing reprap parts that will be exposed to plastic-melting temperatures. Of course, all the files to build your own paste extruder
are up on Thingiverse
.
Tip ‘o the hat to [
Josef Prusa
] for sending this one in.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=Moiyvq8P2Vs&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8ILdNDrXrc&w=470] | 11 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "625848",
"author": "DrAvIn",
"timestamp": "2012-04-10T15:59:23",
"content": "O_O IT SINGS!!!being a fan of potery and hateing the wrath of clay on a wheel .. i want one of these",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "625856",
"auth... | 1,760,376,911.023583 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/10/playing-chiptunes-with-a-ym2149-and-optimizing-an-arduino/ | Playing Chiptunes With A YM2149 And Optimizing An Arduino | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"atari",
"chiptune",
"ym2149"
] | [Oryx] grew up with the bleeps and bloops of an Atari ST, so it comes as no surprise he would want to relish in his nostalgia by
playing with the YM2149 sound generator
he recently picked up on eBay. Like most of us, [Oryx] went to his old standby, the Arduino, when it came to connect this bare chip to his computer. The first circuit didn’t work, so after a lot of poking around the firmware, [Oryx] discovered the benefits of hand-optimizing software.
There are a lot of sound files available for the YM2149 floating around on the Internet. These files are just dumps of the 16 registers at 50Hz, so it’s very easy to send these from a computer to an Arduino over a serial connection. Unfortunately, when [Oryx] got his breadboard set up nothing happened. After breaking out the ‘scope, he discovered the Arduino was switching pins 100 times slower than the YM2149 data sheet called for.
[Oryx] remembered seeing a
great blog post
going over the speed at which the digitalWrite() function changes pin states. We’ve
seen this before
, and the fastest way to change pin states on the Arduino is with the ugly bitwise manipulation. After changing a few lines of code, [Oryx] was switching two pins nearly simultaneously.
Now that the YM2149 chip is working correctly, [Oryx] is planning to make a MIDI synth out of his project. You can get an idea of how that will sound with the demo video he put up after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U6ZYENWb24&w=470] | 19 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "625725",
"author": "xrayspex",
"timestamp": "2012-04-10T13:10:25",
"content": "Like. Would listen again.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "625733",
"author": "Brad",
"timestamp": "2012-04-10T13:27:56",
"c... | 1,760,376,911.334102 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/09/ups-with-dead-batteries-reborn-as-a-whole-house-power-backup/ | UPS With Dead Batteries Reborn As A Whole-house Power Backup | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"batteries",
"generator",
"mains",
"ups"
] | [Woodporterhouse] must deal with regular power black outs in his area. He recently converted
a rack-mount uninterruptible power supply to feed a portion of his mains wiring
. This one is not to be missed, since he did such a great job on the project, and an equally remarkable job of documenting it. It’s one of the best examples we’ve seen of how to use Imgur as a project log.
The UPS still needs to have a case, but it doesn’t need room for batteries as he’s going to use a series of high-end sealed lead-acid batteries. So he cut down the enclosure to about half of the original size. That’s it mounted just above the new batteries. For this to work you need some type of transfer switch which can automatically patch between incoming line voltage, and the battery backup. He already had one of these switches in place for use with a generator, that’s it in the upper left. The entire system powers a sub-panel responsible for his essential circuits — the electronics in the home and a few lighting circuits (we’d assume this includes utilities like the refrigerator).
One really great feature that the reused UPS brings to the project is a monitoring card with a NIC. This way he can check the server to see if the UPS is being used, and how much of the 14 battery life remains.
[Thanks Ross via
Reddit
] | 70 | 33 | [
{
"comment_id": "625083",
"author": "BadHaddy",
"timestamp": "2012-04-09T20:27:09",
"content": "My only beef with this is the UPS will charge the batteries rather slowly, as their AH capacity is MUCH higher than the original batteries. You might be able to adjust the charge rate in software or twea... | 1,760,376,911.277026 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/09/resizable-arm-dev-board-just-take-some-off-the-top/ | Resizable ARM Dev Board; Just Take Some Off The Top | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"arm",
"breakout board",
"stm32"
] | [Bob Alexander’s] most recent project is
a hack saw resizable ARM breakout board
. He wanted to start using more ARM microcontrollers in his projects and went for a breadboard friendly design. It uses a 40-pin dip package, but if you need the horsepower but not the I/O you can literally cut it down to size. We might recommend grabbing some tin snips, which can cut through a PCB like butter, but to each his own.
The board is based around an STM32 chip. You’ll find a crystal oscillator for the system clock, and a clock crystal if you need it. On the other side of the chip he included a footprint for a voltage regulator. This setup provides a remarkable range of input voltages, accepting from 2 to 3.6 volts without the regulator, and up to 16 volts if the regulator is present. He designed a package footprint that can be easily bridged if there’s no SMD part there. Just make sure you insulate that pad if you are using one with a conductor on the bottom. He explains this in detail in his writeup.
You’ll need a programmer to work with the board. He uses
an STM32 Discovery Board
for this but there are quite a few other options out there too. | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "625017",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2012-04-09T19:13:22",
"content": "All those comments earlier about this being a “hacking” website were correct!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "625216",
"author": "Hirudinea",
... | 1,760,376,911.477971 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/09/apartment-entry-morse-code-lock/ | Apartment Entry Morse-code Lock | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks",
"Microcontrollers",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"attiny2313",
"door",
"entry",
"intercom"
] | [Bozar88] lives in an apartment building that has a buzzer at the front security door. Guests find your name on the panel next to that door, and press a button to ring the phone just inside the entry of each apartment unit. He decided to extend the built-in capabilities by adding
a morse-code entry password which unlocks the security entrance automatically
(
translated
).
He designed a circuit and etched his own board which fits nicely inside of the wall-mounted phone. It uses an ATtiny2313 to implement the coding functions. The device attaches to the intercom line in order to detect incoming button presses from the entry panel. There’s some protection here to keep the signal at or below 5V. The output is two-fold. The microcontroller can drive the microphone line using a transistor, which gives the user audio feedback when the code is entered. To unlock the door an opt-isolated triac (all in one package) makes the connection to actuate the electronic strike on the entry door.
The video after the break is not in English, but it’s still quite easy to understand what is being demonstrated.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUYceXnb_zY&w=470]
[Thanks RicoElectrico] | 20 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "624959",
"author": "DanJ",
"timestamp": "2012-04-09T18:30:19",
"content": "Clever use of an existing installation.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "624980",
"author": "No One",
"timestamp": "2012-04-09T18:43:16"... | 1,760,376,911.533371 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/09/harvesting-and-graphing-wireless-household-utility-meter-info/ | Harvesting And Graphing Wireless Household Utility Meter Info | Mike Szczys | [
"green hacks",
"home hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"energy consumption",
"meter",
"utility",
"wireless"
] | Both our electrical meter and our gas meter are located in the basement of our house (we recently had the gas meter moved outside though). When people see this they always ask if the meter readers have to come inside once a month. The answer is no, these meters broadcast usage data which is picked up once a month when a utility company vehicle drives down the street. If you have wireless meters in your house, here’s
a way to harvest and graph the wireless data
so that you can analyze your usage patterns.
The hardware used here is
a special USB dongle
. This has a 900 MHz radio which picks out the packets from a reasonably large list of meter types, and pushes them through the USB interface. In the image above you can see that an Arduino with a USB host shield is used, but there are also drivers if you want to connect this directly to your computer.
We looked around and didn’t find any specifics on the hardware used on that board. But it can’t be all that hard to make one of these at home… the populated board seems to have just two ICs and a few passive components. Anyone up to the challenge of hacking together their own packet sniffer? We
wonder if the Next HOPE badge
could pull down the data?
[Thanks Chris] | 46 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "624856",
"author": "Cadu",
"timestamp": "2012-04-09T16:41:44",
"content": "What about modifying this data (injecting packets) on the fly when readers pass along the street, making it look like you used less electricity? XD",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,376,911.614374 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/09/measuring-the-capacities-of-different-battery-brands/ | Measuring The Capacities Of Different Battery Brands | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"hardware"
] | [
"aa battery",
"arduino",
"batteries",
"mah"
] | Being the smart consumer he is, [Denis] usually looks at the price per pound when comparing similar products at the grocery store. When it came time to buy a few AA batteries, he didn’t have any data to go on. To solve his little conundrum, [Denis] decided he would
test several brands of batteries
and see which one gives him the most bang for the buck.
After bringing home a haul of a dozen different brands of AA cells, [Denis] broke out the Arduino and starting designing a circuit. To test how much energy each brand provides, the Arduino measures the voltage across a load every second until the battery reaches 0.2V. The elapsed time, as well as the voltage, Watt hours, Joules, and ambient temperature are logged on an attached LCD screen and sent over a USB serial link to automate the data collection process.
What’s the verdict? Unsurprisingly, words like ‘super,’ ‘max,’ and ‘ultra’ didn’t connotate a better battery. The best bang for the buck came from an off-brand called RS Power Ultra. The worst battery was the Panasonic Evolta cells that came in at about $1.50 USD per watt-hour.
If you’d like to verify [Denis]’ work, all the code is
up on Github
along with the schematic. | 51 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "624788",
"author": "Sam",
"timestamp": "2012-04-09T15:20:58",
"content": "The question is: did he test multiple? Just testing one a piece really doesn’t show significant proof. (I think this way because I’m taking Stats 121 at college right now.)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth"... | 1,760,376,911.872656 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/07/tales-from-the-hackaday-tip-line/ | Tales From The Hackaday “tip Line” | Caleb Kraft | [
"Rants",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"Black Hat",
"hacking",
"idiots",
"lack-wits",
"morons"
] | Lets just start right off and acknowledge that the word “Hack” is in our site name. We all see it. It is right there, in plain English. However, anyone who spends more than a few nanoseconds looking down below that big name, will quickly see that the kind of hacking we do is more like McGyver and less like Operation Swordfish.
This exceedingly obvious point is missed by many, many people. We get tons of requests coming in for various acts of hackery. They range from nonsense gibberish to flagrant lies. Yeah, sure you forgot your password and the recovery system isn’t working. Oh they stole your website but you can’t prove that you’re the owner? Hrm, you want to be a master hacker and are seeking our guidance on how to steal money?
Join me after the break for a few actual examples.
hi haw are you
please hack in software,the software iran.
hurry up
tinx
Hi, I am fine thanks. I’ll get to that as soon as possible.
—————————————————————————————–
hi there, I’m 13 years old, and my level 119 from Runescape.com just got hacked. i would love if you guys can please hack it back please i try to recovery the password but it wouldn’t for for some reason. the user name is (removed) and the last password i knew was (removed). please try your best to hack it back and if you guys get it send me a message the password.
Man, that really sucks. If only there were someone you could contact about that.
———————————————————————————————————————-
Please hack (removed)@hotmail.com this for me and send the password to (removed)@hotmail.com
thank u so much!
jello
Well, I guess the honesty is refreshing. No, we’re not going to hack that email address for you.
————————————————————————————————————————————
Hai. I want to learn the lessons penetrate the system gsm>
send me : (removed)@windowslive.com
No, we’re not going to teach you how to penetrate GSM systems. I’m not even sure that anybody here even knows what you mean.
————————————————————————————————–
Hello
I need smart card writer with softver and 100 blanc card.
I need that to copy bank card ,can you halp me to buy that itams because I am not shure wot card and writer is some.
Regards
D.
No, we will certainly not help you buy the
itams
you need. We’re not really
shure
why you thought we would. (yes, I realize I shouldn’t be throwing stones on spelling and grammar.)
—————————————————————————————————
Hi,
My name is (removed). An enemy of mine put up my picture and my full names on a satanic website, www.(removed).com claiming that I sold my soul.
I have asked them numerous times to take it down since I did no such thing, but they have refused to take it down.
Can you please hack their website?
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Regards.
I have it on good authority that you did in fact sell your soul. Sorry, we just can’t help you there.
——————————————————————————————————-
I was wondering if you could help me hack into your bank account. I’ve lost the password to my own.
Yeah, no prob– wait, you almost had me there!
———————————————————————————————————
i am interested to learn hacking someones bank account or money. i need money for my family. please help me and advice me how can i hack some ones bank account or money.
Man, that is actually sad. Still, NO.
—————————————————————————————————————–
Do you know to hack facebook password
please tell me
Add me on facebook (removed) Jersey Photo.
No, I seriously don’t know how to hack facebook passwords. No I won’t add you on facebook. Missouri Photo.
——————————————————————————————————————-
hello, a sincere request from you’ll could you please teach me how to hack facebook or gmail,,,,pls,,,,u people are masters in this,,,,,jus help me wd this i wud be really thankful to u……
Wow, this just hurts.
————————————————————————————————————
I could go on and on and on. We get these in all the time. Another peculiar thing I’ve noticed is that many of them even forget to give us a link to the site or email they want hacked. They just simply state “please hack”, or “hack site”. Maybe these are just die hard Hackaday fans encouraging us to keep up the good work, but I seriously doubt it.
In conclusion, no, we won’t hack that for you. | 123 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "623459",
"author": "iddeen",
"timestamp": "2012-04-07T17:13:23",
"content": "Hello. Can you please hack hackaday.com to make a section dedicated for this? That would be really funny. Email me at @gmail.com when you did that. Thanks!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repl... | 1,760,376,912.121375 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/07/cnc-conversions-with-bob/ | CNC Conversions With [Bob] | Caleb Kraft | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"lathe",
"mill"
] | [Bob Berg] emailed in to request that we
take a look at his website
. We did, and we liked what we saw! [Bob] has done a couple CNC mill conversions and documented the process quite thoroughly.
The first one listed on his site is a Sieg x-3, seen above. [Bob] explains that the first thing he did when he received it was tore it apart and cleaned it meticulously. We’re not sure if [Bob] was being insanely neat, or if he bought a used dirty unit. Either way, you can’t argue that a nice clean machine is the way to start. After a short while using it the way it was, he added a digital read out for a little more accuracy. From there, he went for a fully motorized conversion.
Keep looking around his site. There is another full build (a lather master RF45) as well as some miscellaneous other projects that are quite interesting. | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "623422",
"author": "medix",
"timestamp": "2012-04-07T16:11:41",
"content": "“[Bob] explains that the first thing he did when he received it was tore it apart and cleaned it meticulously. We’re not sure if [Bob] was being insanely neat, or if he bought a used dirty unit.”Neither. Th... | 1,760,376,912.167249 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/07/hackaday-links-april-7-2012/ | Hackaday Links: April 7, 2012 | Brian Benchoff | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"caltech",
"chess",
"fishing reel",
"gears",
"laser cutter",
"machine learning",
"pinewood derby",
"portal",
"speech synthesizer"
] | Need some gears? Got a timing belt?
[filespace] sent in a neat build he stumbled upon:
making gears with plywood and a timing belt
. Just cut out a plywood disk and glue on a section of timing belt. There’s some math involved in getting all the teeth evenly placed around the perimeter, but nothing too bad. Also useful for wheels, we think.
We’re on a chess kick now.
Huge chess sets are cool, right up until you try to figure out where to store the pieces when they’re not being used. [Jayefuu] came up with a neat
solution to this problem
. His pieces are cut out of coroplast (that corrugated plastic stuff political campaign signs are made of), making it relatively inexpensive and just as fun as normal giant chess pieces on a tile floor.
<INSERT MARGINALLY RELEVANT PORTAL QUOTE HERE>
[Randy]’s son is in the cub scouts. Being the awesome father he is, [Randy] helped out with this year’s pinewood derby build. It’s a car
shaped like a portal gun
with the obligatory color-changing LED. The car won the ‘Can’t get more awesome’ award, but wheel misalignment kicked it out of the competition during qualifying rounds. Sad, that. Still awesome, though.
These people are giving you tools for free
Caltech professor [Yaser Abu-Mostafa] is teaching a Machine Learning class this semester.
You can take this class as well
, even if the second lecture started last Thursday.
Turning an Arduino into a speech synthesizer
[AlanFromJapan] sent in
this product page
for an Arduino-powered speech synthesizer. We’re probably looking at a relabeled ATmega328 with custom firmware here; to use it, you replace the micro in your Arduino Uno with this chip. The chip goes for about
$10 USD here
, so we’ll give it a week until someone has this proprietary firmware up on the Internet. There are English morphemes that aren’t in Japanese, so you can’t just ‘type in English’ and have it work.
Here’s a video
.
Six things in this links post. We’re feeling generous.
What would you build if you had a laser cutter? [Doug Miller] made a real, working fishing reel. No build log or files, but
here’s a nice picture
. | 8 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "623752",
"author": "bronco",
"timestamp": "2012-04-08T01:45:22",
"content": "with 4 gears you could make a device for twist making ropes. i made one without gears but the geared ones would be a better job.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comm... | 1,760,376,912.211878 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/06/gsm-modem-means-wireless-serial-connections/ | GSM Modem Means Wireless Serial Connections | Brian Benchoff | [
"Cellphone Hacks",
"hardware"
] | [
"GPRS",
"gsm",
"modem",
"serial"
] | By now, most of us have seen have seen one of those GSM to wi-fi hotspot bridges. They’re interesting devices, and being able to carry a small wireless router with you at all times is very handy. Surprisingly, we haven’t seen many builds featuring these portable wireless hotspots, something probably due to the effort in breaking out a serial connection on these devices. The people at Open Electronics decided to build their own
small serial-enabled cell phone modem
, a boon to someone wanting a serial connection to any place with a cell tower.
The Open Electronics
GSM/GPRS/GPS modem
includes a header for an FTDI USB serial chip and a
GSM module
. Plug one into your computer and after a few short commands into a terminal, you’ve got a serial connection to nearly anywhere in the world.
The cost of the setup is a little high – around 80€ or $100 USD – and you probably should buy more than one so you can also
receive
data. While it is more expensive than the
XBee wireless boards
we see often, this GSM modem isn’t limited to the 300 foot range of the XBee. We’ll probably see this in a high altitude balloon before too long. | 33 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "622684",
"author": "Zee",
"timestamp": "2012-04-06T20:37:42",
"content": "Why can I buy a 10 euro phone to use with prepaid cards but a GSM serial module is always 80+ euros?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "622952",
"a... | 1,760,376,912.327585 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/06/displaying-bubbles-in-mineral-oil/ | Displaying Bubbles In Mineral Oil | Brian Benchoff | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"bubble display",
"mineral oil",
"solenoid"
] | After he saw a ‘falling water display,’ [Matt] figured he could turn that idea on its head. He built a
display that uses bubbles
for pixels. Even though the build isn’t complete, we love the results so far.
[Matt] began his build constructing a tall, thin water tank out of acrylic. Eight solenoids were mounted in the base of the tank, attached to an aquarium air supply, plastic tubing, and one way valves. The first run of the bubble display
didn’t go too well
, but after adding dividers between each column the
display started working
.
With the dividers, [Matt] no longer had to worry about bubbles colliding or moving any direction but up. The bubbles weren’t moving consistently, so he replaced the water with mineral oil. Oil made a huge improvement, but the bubbles still float up at different speeds. [Matt] ascribes this to the unregulated air supply, but we’re thinking this problem could be mitigated with glycerine like the
previous bubble display
we saw.
It may still have some problems, but we love the result. Check out the video of bubbles in mineral oil after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMVmfARqBAA&w=470] | 15 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "622589",
"author": "arfink",
"timestamp": "2012-04-06T19:32:39",
"content": "They have one of these installed at the science museum of Minnesota. A huge one, that covers a whole wall. They use clear tubes instead of channels between sheets like this, and the bubbles are kept rising ... | 1,760,376,912.379918 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/06/a-simple-project-to-get-you-started-with-the-android-adk/ | A Simple Project To Get You Started With The Android ADK | Mike Nathan | [
"Android Hacks",
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"adk",
"android",
"arduino",
"light",
"temperature"
] | If you just got your hands on a shiny new Android phone and are looking for a fun project to try out, you might want to check out
this simple Arduino exercise
that [Mike Mitchel] put together. Everyone needs a starting off point for hacking, and [Mike] thought that combining and Arduino and Android handset together for the purpose of temperature sensing and light metering would be a great place to begin.
The prerequisites for this project are a bit beyond a simple breadboard and a few ICs, requiring an $80 Android ADK board to go along with your phone and Arduino. If your focus is going to be on interfacing your phone with microcontrollers however, it’s purchase you’ll make sooner than later anyhow.
The setup is pretty simple as you might expect. A photocell and TMP36 temperature sensor are connected to the Arduino, then with a bit of code and USB host magic, the Android app shows the temp and amount ambient light present in the room.
[Mike] has made all of his easy to read and well commented code available online, so be sure to check it out if you have been thinking about (but putting off) playing around with the Android ADK. | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "622379",
"author": "Lucario",
"timestamp": "2012-04-06T16:18:53",
"content": "I’d do this kind of stuff but my ADK came with a “TinkerKit!” Shield and i cant find diddly squat on it. :<",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "622436",
... | 1,760,376,912.259024 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/06/the-best-led-cube-build-weve-seen/ | The Best LED Cube Build We’ve Seen | Brian Benchoff | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"led",
"LED cube"
] | [Nick] wrote in telling us about the LED cube he built over the course of six months. He calls LED cubes ‘done to death,’ but [Nick] might be too humble. His
8x8x8 RGB LED cube
is the best we’ve ever seen.
To start his build, [Nick] built a simple 4x4x4 cube as a proof of concept. The baby cube worked but the fabrication process got him thinking. Instead of building his monster LED cube in layers from the bottom up, he would need to build columns from left to right. After the construction of a jig, soldering eight panels of 64 LEDs, and buying a new soldering iron tip, [Nick] had a beautiful assembled LED cube. The only thing missing was the electronics.
Most of the LED cubes we’ve seen use the TLC5940 LED driver for hardware PWM, [Nick] decided to go with the simpler but more familiar
STP16 chip
. After hooking up his huge LED driver board up to a
chipKIT Uno
, the 80 hours of programming began.
In the end, [Nick] built the best LED cube we’ve seen (even though it
isn’t the largest
) and put together one of the best build logs in recent memory. Because no LED cube build is complete with out a video there’s an awesome demo after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ip2_RDZ5jE&w=470] | 28 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "622256",
"author": "Tech B.",
"timestamp": "2012-04-06T13:15:30",
"content": "I bet the game of life would be pretty wicked 3d in a cube like this.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "622832",
"author": "Hydrox",
"... | 1,760,376,912.436315 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/05/digital-speedometer-with-an-arduino/ | Digital Speedometer With An Arduino | Brian Benchoff | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"led",
"speedometer",
"tachometer"
] | [Martyn] is restoring a 32-year-old Honda motorcycle, so when the ancient speedometer broke last year he thought it was prime time to start of a digital speedometer project. We’re
loving the results so far
, and would love seeing it on a nicely restored bike.
Instead of the relative horror of driving 40 LEDs with a single Arduino, [Martyn] bit the bullet and got a
Maxim 7221
LED driver. Controlling 64 LEDs over a three-wire interface simplified the board design somewhat, allowing [Martyn] to etch his own PCB with the toner transfer & HCl/H2O2 method. To actually power and control the entire circuit, [Martyn] used an Arduino loaded up with a program based
LedControl library
makes programming the spedometer a snap.
Although the speedo works, [Martyn] says he isn’t proud of how it looks. We don’t mind – the
candy colored jumpers
add a nice flair to the project, and they’re hidden behind the face plate of the speedometer. We’re sure once he gets the neutral, high-beam, and warning indicators working with the LED bar array / tachometer, everything will look awesome.
via
reddit | 25 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "621771",
"author": "tomas316",
"timestamp": "2012-04-05T20:59:17",
"content": "Could one use that Maxim 7221 to control multiple IR leds fast enough to be used to control tv/vcr/dvd boxes?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "62186... | 1,760,376,912.509465 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/05/reverse-engineering-a-fubata-sbus-remote-control/ | Reverse Engineering A Futaba SBUS Remote Control | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"fubata",
"radio control",
"rc",
"sbus",
"servo"
] | In the world of model aircraft, Futaba’s SBUS system is a big deal. Instead of having one servo per channel, the SBUS system allows for 16 proportional controls and two digital channels for each receiver. Basically, if you’re building an awesome plane with retracts on the landing gear and bomb bay doors, this is what you want to use. [Michael] wanted to use a few SBUS servos for a project he’s working on, so of course he had to
reverse engineer this proprietary protocol
.
Each SBUS servo operates over a single 100kbps serial connection with a few interesting twists: the signal is transmitted as big endian, but the individual bytes are little endian, something [Michael] figured out after stumbling across
this month old mbed post
. [Michael] used a serial library written by [fat16lib] and was able to change the parity and stop bits along with a simple hex inverter. Everything worked perfectly when the servo was connected to a an Arduino Mini.
Even though the SBUS system requires
special Futaba servos
, we can easily see how useful [Michael]’s work would be to outrageously complex robots or cnc machines. Check out the video after the break for a quick demo of [Michael]’s breadboard controlling one of these SBUS servos.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qeLBebtsdw&w=470] | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "621617",
"author": "davidmitchell836",
"timestamp": "2012-04-05T17:16:20",
"content": "That’s Futaba.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "621647",
"author": "Brian Benchoff",
"timestamp": "2012-04-05T17:51:39",
... | 1,760,376,912.621113 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/05/quick-and-easy-arduino-powered-theremin/ | Quick And Easy Arduino-powered Theremin | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"7400",
"arduino",
"oscillator",
"theremin"
] | [Martin] sent in a
great guide
to a simple Arduino based theremin. It’s a very small build – just a single common IC and some passive components – and easy enough to build in an afternoon.
The theremin is based on a simple LC oscillator built around a 7400 quad NAND gate IC, a wire antenna, and a few caps and resistors. When a hand moves closer to the antenna, the frequency of the oscillator increases; when a hand moves away, the frequency decreases. On the software side, the oscillator is connected to the internal hardware counter of the Arduino. Every time there’s a change in the voltage output by the oscillator (all the time, varying slightly with the distance from a hand to the antenna), the counter increases by one. This counter is tallied up over 1/10th of a second, and the distance from the instrumentalist to the theremin can be determined. From there, it’s just outputting a frequency to a speaker.
All the code, schematics, and board layouts are available on [Martin]’s guide, and most of our readers probably have the parts to build this lying around their workbench. You can check out a video of [Martin]’s theremin in action on his guide. | 19 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "621586",
"author": "Jstylen",
"timestamp": "2012-04-05T16:17:40",
"content": "This looks great, going try putting this together later today!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "621604",
"author": "Velli",
"timestamp": "2012-... | 1,760,376,912.566443 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/05/3d-printer-with-insane-accuracy-uses-a-dlp-projector/ | 3D Printer With Insane Accuracy Uses A DLP Projector | Brian Benchoff | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"cnc",
"DLP projector",
"stereolithography"
] | After years of work, [Junior Veloso] is finally getting his
3D printer project
out to the public. Unlike the Makerbots and repraps we usually see, [Junior]’s printer uses light-curing resin and a DLP projector to build objects with incredibly fine detail.
One highlight of [Junior]’s project is the development of low-cost resins. Normally, light curing resins are extremely expensive, but [Junior] is actively trying to get the price of resin down to $150 USD per kilogram. A quick back-of-the-wolfram calculation tells us you should be able to print about 7-800 cubic centimeters with a kilogram of resin. It’s much more expensive than plastic filament used in other 3D printers, but that’s the price you pay for quality.
There’s a very popular
Indiegogo campaign
that is trying to raise money to mass produce the resin and some components of this kit. We’re not impressed with the rewards for this campaign – $59 for a .PDF description of the printer without any dimensions, $159 for a BOM, dimensions and the formula to make your own resin, and $400 for the closed-source software [Junior] devleoped – but hopefully this Indiegogo gets cheap resin out onto the market. There’s a
short FAQ
about this printer, so we’ll leave our readers to tactfully discuss the merits of this printer in the comments below.
You can check out the process of printing a remarkably detailed alien skull in the video after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPmP0u1HuUM&w=470] | 107 | 35 | [
{
"comment_id": "621437",
"author": "rue_mohr",
"timestamp": "2012-04-05T14:19:11",
"content": "funny, I was just thinking yesterday about making a high res 3d plotter using suspended laser printer toner and a cdwriter laser….",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,912.887893 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/05/hackaday-links-april-5-2012/ | Hackaday Links April 5, 2012 | Jeremy Cook | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"arduino",
"hexapod",
"ipad",
"OpenBeam",
"Sphero",
"USB sound card",
"voice control"
] | A Remote Sphero-Control Trackball
Sphero is a cool little ball that can roll around under the control of a smartphone. Although super-cool by itself, in this application it’s been hacked into a sort of trackball to
drive a remote control car
!
Arduino Voice Control
[Sebastian] Wrote in to tell us about this article about using the Arduino EasyVR shield to
add voice control
to your project. Worth a look if it your application calls for voice-control.
OpenBeam Tiny 80/20-Like Extrusion
Openbeam
is a Kickstarter project designed to produce an aluminium extrusion for building stuff. Although we’ve seen lots of this kind of thing, the small 15mm profile is quite interesting, and it’s designed to use off-the-shelf hardware, which should save on costs!
Hexapod + iPad = Fun for All
There’s not a lot of information on this hack, and the price or
this hexapod
device isn’t even listed, so we’ll assume it’s quite expensive. On the other hand, it’s got a
cool video
of it being controlled by an iPad, so maybe it will give you some hacking inspiration!
USB Sound Card Write-Up
[George] wrote in to tell us about his
USB sound card write-up
. Before you think that this is a
dupe of this post
, he freely admits to building it nearly identically to the one previously posted. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but [George] is also requesting some feedback on his blog and the aforementioned post. feel free to let him know what you think in the comments. Please be polite! | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "621468",
"author": "chango",
"timestamp": "2012-04-05T14:52:40",
"content": "In all fairness, there are a few TI USB soundcard projects in play on the headfi diy forums at any given time. These are pretty easy to design with and can squeeze out decent sound.",
"parent_id": null... | 1,760,376,912.97737 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/04/custom-heaters-for-a-diy-bbq-smoker/ | Custom Heaters For A DIY BBQ Smoker | Brian Benchoff | [
"cooking hacks"
] | [
"bbq",
"meat smoker",
"nichrome"
] | Spring is in the air, and with that comes savory meals cooked over the course of dozens of hours. While preparing for your yearly allotment of pork and beef, check out [Brett Beauregard]’s
custom heater elements
he built for a DIY wood smoker.
This build follows the
very successful smoker
[Brett] built last year. This year, he’s using the same toaster oven heating elements, only cut down to make the heater smaller and more efficient. Basically, [Brett] is making a small cartridge heater out of the equipment he already has.
After cutting the toaster oven heating elements to length, [Brett] reamed out the ends to expose the nichrome wire. A short hit with a TIG welder bonded the lead to the heating element. Insulated with furnace cement, [Brett] had a custom heater perfect for charring chunks of mesquite or hickory.
Meat smokers aren’t very complicated – they can be built with a
flowerpot and a hotplate
, and will still cook up a delicious dinner. We might have to borrow [Brett]’s technique when we build this year’s smoker. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "621085",
"author": "Edward T.",
"timestamp": "2012-04-05T04:41:44",
"content": "Love the little how to.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "622291",
"author": "Hacksaw",
"timestamp": "2012-04-06T14:51:30",
"content": "I’... | 1,760,376,913.236283 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/04/make-your-rc-car-drive-itself-with-this-simple-brain-swap/ | Make Your RC Car Drive Itself With This Simple Brain Swap | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"Parallax Ping",
"radio control",
"rc"
] | If the kids have lost interest in that RC car or truck you bought them over the holidays, [Randy Sarafan] from Instructables has
a few ideas that might help make the toys fun again
, while teaching your kids a bit about electronics in the process. In his writeup, he shows how to swap out the brains of your run of the mill RC truck, enabling it to do far more than was originally intended. The procedure is pretty simple, and something that you can easily involve your kids in, if you’d like.
He uses an Arduino and a motor shield to keep the conversion simple, but this can be done with just about any capable microcontroller you might have on hand. [Randy] added a Parallax Ping sensor to the front of the truck enabling it to avoid objects as it drives itself, but since he cut out the truck’s original control board we’re assuming that there’s no way to override the truck’s actions at present.
[Randy] calls the conversion a “robot” though it seems like more of a semi-autonomous rover if you ask us. Regardless, revamping an old RC car is certainly far better than letting it collect dust on a shelf, or worse, tossing it out during spring cleaning.
Continue reading to see a short video of [Randy’s] RC truck in action.
[via
HackedGadgets
]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Wn3Le37qW64&w=470] | 13 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "620929",
"author": "Dino",
"timestamp": "2012-04-04T21:52:50",
"content": "Just looking at the pic makes me want to build a scale model PING that’s four feet long and mount it to the front of my BMW, then drive around town pulling up to walls, stopping, then backing up. lolHacked to... | 1,760,376,913.02686 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/04/facial-recognition-software-can-tell-when-youre-frustrated-with-xbox-live/ | Facial Recognition Software Can Tell When You’re Frustrated With Xbox Live | Brian Benchoff | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"face.com",
"facial recognition",
"tv",
"Xbox life"
] | Most of us have been faced with the anguish of being shot in the head repeatedly by 12-year-olds. There are also the times when we’re overjoyed by defeating the Mother Brain and making it out of the caverns of Zebes. If we wanted to scientifically quantify how happy, sad, or angry we are while playing video games, we wouldn’t know what to do. [Dale] came up with a
very interesting way
to gauge someone’s state of mind while either playing Xbox, or watching TV.
To get a measure of how happy or sad he is, [Dale] put a webcam underneath his TV and pointed it towards his couch. Every 15 seconds or so, the webcam snaps a picture and sends if off to the
face.com API
. After face.com sends a blob of JSON containing information about all the faces detected in the photo, a short Python script plots it on a graph.
[Dale] admits he’s not entirely scientific with this project; the low resolution of the webcam, coupled with images being captured every 15 seconds means he runs into the limitations of his hardware very quickly. Also, there’s the confound of [Dale] paying attention to something else in the room – like his kids – rather than the TV. Still, it’s an interesting use of hardware and software that would be loved by a market researcher or QA designer. | 20 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "620867",
"author": "healthy",
"timestamp": "2012-04-04T20:10:29",
"content": "is this graphing showing him getting to the end of mass effect 3 and it’s oh so sad mishandling of the ending?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "62086... | 1,760,376,913.294805 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/04/giving-an-old-atari-computer-a-much-needed-upgrade/ | Giving An Old Atari Computer A Much Needed Upgrade | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"6502",
"6809",
"atari",
"commodore",
"cpu",
"trs-80"
] | As a kid, [Boisy] cut his teeth on the TRS-80 Color Computer. It was a wonderful machine for its day, featuring a relatively powerful Motorola 6809 CPU. Although his CoCo was theoretically more powerful than its Commodore and Apple contemporaries, the graphics and sound capabilities of [Boisy]’s first love paled in comparison to his friends 6502-based machines. A little jealously and thirty years go a long way, because now [Boisy] is
adding a 6809 microprocessor to the 6502-based machines Atari put out.
[Boisy]’s goal for his Liber809 project was simple: Put a 6809 CPU in an
Atari XEGS
and get
NitrOS-9
, the Unix-like OS for the TRS-80 CoCo running on his Frankenputer. After a few months of work, [Boisy]
completed his goal
and more so: the Liber809 also works on the
Atari 1200XL
.
To put [Boisy]’s work in perspective, it’s like he took a Macintosh from 1993 and made it run on an Intel 486. While that’s not a terribly accurate analogy, we hope our readers will understand the fortitude needed to make a computer run on a completely different processor.
After the break, you can check out a neat demo app written by [SLOR] from the AtariAge forums showcasing a 6809 running in a machine designed for a 6502. Awesome work for all involved
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6XN5iKGaik&w=470]
While we’re on the subject of replacing CPUs, would anyone be interested in getting a 68060 running in a Mac Quadra? The custom Mac ROM SIMM nut
has been cracked
, so this might be possible. Whoever gets that running is guaranteed a Hackaday post. | 16 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "620808",
"author": "Brian Benchoff",
"timestamp": "2012-04-04T19:13:46",
"content": "Regarding the 68060 comment: The 68060 is pin compatable, but not instruction compatable, with the 68040.I believe the Amiga 5000 tower had something to convert 040 instructions to 060 instructions ... | 1,760,376,913.447257 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/04/board-games-over-ip-means-telepresence-chess/ | Board Games Over IP Means Telepresence Chess | Brian Benchoff | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"chess",
"telepresence"
] | Correspondence chess, or playing a game of chess via email or snail mail, is well-known in the chess community. [FunGowRightNow] thought he could bring correspondence chess into the 21st century, so he
built two robotic chess boards
that communicate over the Internet. The end result makes for an awesome senior project for school.
Instead of a simple monitor displaying the other player’s moves (and having to manually move both black and white pieces), the positions of all the pieces are controlled via
a laptop
an Arduino underneath each board. An electromagnet mounted on an xy frame moves one piece at a time. To detect the positions of the pieces, an
8×8 grid of reed switches
open and close with magnets put in the base of each piece. The end result is a nearly seamless chess game that can be played by two people separated by hundreds of miles.
Right now, all we have are a few videos and the descriptions of the inner machinations of the chessbots. [FunGow] promised the Internet design specs after he turns this in as his senior project on April 10th. Until then, you can enjoy a few of the videos he’s posted after the break.
via
reddit
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX37LFv8jWY&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIFnSxEvxBM&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCp4M08IWnA&w=470] | 19 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "620671",
"author": "healthy",
"timestamp": "2012-04-04T16:26:08",
"content": "i tried to do something similar back in college and man i wish i knew what i did now (and had an aduino). it used a servo with an arm moving a magnet to engage pieces, and a keypad on the front so that you... | 1,760,376,913.197398 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/04/auto-locking-pet-door-ensures-that-your-outdoor-kitty-obeys-its-curfew/ | Auto-locking Pet Door Ensures That Your Outdoor Kitty Obeys Its Curfew | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"home hacks",
"News"
] | [
"arduino",
"pet door",
"real time clock",
"rtc",
"servo"
] | If you’ve got a pet that roams freely in and out of your house, you may find yourself wanting to more closely regulate how they come and go.
[tareker] was looking to keep his cat indoors at night
when dangerous animals might be lurking in the neighborhood, but he didn’t want it to become a hassle.
He already had locking pet door on hand, which he hacked to regulate the egress and ingress of his cat automatically. He installed a pair of reed switches to determine if the door had been opened outwards (cat leaving) or inwards (cat returning), keeping track of the state using an Arduino Nano. A servo motor attached to the door’s frame locks the door whenever it detects the cat is safely inside after nightfall.
While he also added an RGB LED to reflect the status of the door, he’s considering connecting it to the Internet so that he can control and check the door from wherever he might be at the moment. | 26 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "620604",
"author": "nah!",
"timestamp": "2012-04-04T15:12:30",
"content": "At my home i have a Cat door thats lockable for the cat only being able to go out, only being able to go in, do both or neiterone could have used one of these and simply switch them to only inside during nig... | 1,760,376,913.356729 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/04/closing-in-on-nixie-cuff-links/ | Closing In On Nixie Cuff Links | Brian Benchoff | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"jewelry",
"nixie",
"wearable"
] | It’s not Nixie cuff links
yet
, but we’re seeing a lot of potential for a few very classy accoutrements with [thouton]’s
Nixie tube necklace
.
The build was inspired by
this much clunkier necklace
that found its way onto the MAKE blog. Unlike the previous necklace, [thouton] used a much smaller Mullard ZM1021 indicator bulb. Instead of the normal 0-9 digits in a Nixie, this tube displays only
A V Ω + - %
and
~
, betraying its pedigree as part of the display from an ancient multimeter.
To power the bulb, [thouton] is using a single AA battery and a boost converter salvaged from a camera flash unit. All the circuitry is on a
little piece of perfboard
encased in a handsome aluminum tube. Power is delivered through two terminals with a bit of audio cable standing in as the chain of the necklace. We suppose this could be re-engineered to use a coin cell battery; although a coin cell doesn’t offer as many amp hours as a AA cell, [thouton] is confident the AA will last for a few days. A coin cell would be more than enough for a night on the town, though. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "620754",
"author": "conundrum",
"timestamp": "2012-04-04T18:10:01",
"content": "Nice, maybe use one of the Supertex EL drivers as they can do >150V which is fine for Nixies.Camera flash transformers work well but are known current hogs, unless you use a unijunction or series multivi... | 1,760,376,913.397703 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/03/rabiscoscopio-oscilloscope-drawing-made-easy/ | Rabiscoscopio – Oscilloscope Drawing Made Easy | Mike Nathan | [
"classic hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"drawing",
"oscilloscope",
"Rabiscoscopio"
] | If you own an oscilloscope, sooner or later
the urge to see something other than signals on the screen
will strike. Some people ignore the urge and go about their normal business while others give in,
spending hours carefully crafting images
, games,
and more
. The process is time consuming and tricky
as our own [Kevin Dady] discovered
, but rewards come in the form of geek cred and are hard to pass up.
[Alex] wanted to draw on his oscilloscope, but decided that he would try something other than the microcontroller-based solutions we have seen in the past. He figured the easiest and most accessible way to draw on the scope was with sound, so he whipped up a small application he calls Rabiscoscopio to do most of the work for him.
He starts off by drawing an image using a single line, saving it as an SVG file. This image is converted into an audio file by Rabiscoscopio, which can then be fed directly into his oscilloscope from his PC. That’s all there is to it – it really doesn’t get much easier.
While you could claim that [Alex] is cheating his way through the oscilloscope drawing process, we think his application rocks – after all, hacking is about making your technology work for you rather than the other way around.
Give Rabiscoscopio a try and post the results here or in
our Flickr stream
– we’d love to see what you guys come up with.
In the meantime, check out the video below to see [Alex’s] attempt at replicating the
Garoa Hackerspace logo
on his scope.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46jEW5pYeHk&feature=player_embedded&w=470] | 23 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "619690",
"author": "aporto",
"timestamp": "2012-04-03T22:10:42",
"content": "There’s no “cheating” in hacking. A hack is already a kind of cheat!Let’s not get sad just because, after this project, nobody will ever need to create complicated circuits to draw on a oscilloscope :) We c... | 1,760,376,913.509816 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/03/recorder-controlled-snake-game-played-on-a-nokia-6110/ | Recorder Controlled Snake Game Played On A Nokia 6110 | Mike Szczys | [
"Cellphone Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"6110",
"arduino",
"max msp",
"nokia",
"recorer",
"snake"
] | Dig out an old cell phone, hit the dollar store for some plastic recorders, and
build this sound controlled snake game
for your next party. The project will be a snap for those comfortable working with microcontrollers, and a great learning experience if you’re looking to try your first Arduino project.
[László] and his friend call the project the Snake Charmer. As shown in the clip after the jump it uses music notes to direct the path of the solid line in the classic cellphone game of snake. But this isn’t just some PC-based rip-off. They’re playing on the actual cellphone. A camera points at the screen to project it for the enjoyment of spectators. The control scheme uses relays soldered to the pads of the four directional buttons. The pitches are being detected by a Max/MSP program, with the corresponding commands pushed to the Arduino via USB. Yep, it’s overkill but the point was to get this up and running quickly and with a minimum of work. We’d say they succeeded.
Actually, now that we think of it, this isn’t a two player game. Perhaps the recorder control concept needs to be applied to
a more modern version of the game
.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/39492730 w=470] | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "619529",
"author": "Salomon",
"timestamp": "2012-04-03T19:31:28",
"content": "Insane!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "619801",
"author": "Stu",
"timestamp": "2012-04-03T23:49:38",
"content": "Do people receive artsy ... | 1,760,376,913.557154 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/09/projecting-video-directly-onto-the-retina/ | Projecting Video Directly Onto The Retina | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"Portable Video Hacks"
] | [
"head mounted display",
"hud",
"pico projector"
] | With the head-mountable, augmented reality Google Glass capturing tons of attention in the press, it was only a matter of time before we saw
a DIY retina projector
. This isn’t a new build; [Nirav] has been working on it for a few months, but it might just be time for this information to be useful to someone.
A retina projector focuses laser light though beam splitters and concave mirrors to create a raster display on the back of your eye. There’s an
incredible amount of research
into this field, but not many DIY projects. To make this project a reality, [Nirav] picked up a SHOWWX laser video projector and mounted it in a 3D printed frame along with a few pieces of optical equipment.
[Nirav]’s build isn’t without its drawbacks, though. The exit pupil, or the apparent size of the image, is only about 1.5 mm wide and much too small to be of any real use. Also, commercial retina projectors have an output of a puny 2 microwatts, where [Nirav]’s laser projector puts out 200 millwatts. This is more than enough to permanently damage your eye. | 30 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "624715",
"author": "Gutierrez",
"timestamp": "2012-04-09T13:15:01",
"content": "If the Googles have a virtual retina display (vrd), which looks possible given this build, optics would be bright no matter the ambient light. And with proper use of mirrors could be adjusted to appear ... | 1,760,376,913.681855 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/08/getting-12-year-olds-to-learn-assembly-programming/ | Getting 12 Year Olds To Learn Assembly Programming | Brian Benchoff | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"0x10c",
"DCPU-16",
"minecraft",
"notch"
] | [notch], the mastermind behind Minecraft, is working on a new game. It’s called
0x10c
(pronounced
‘trillek’
, we think) and promises to teach an entire new generation the joys of assembly programming on a 1980s-era computer.
The setup for the game is nerdy/awesome enough to make [Douglas Adams] blush; a ‘deep sleep core’ was invented in 1988 that attached to the 16-bit computers of the day. This core was big endian, where the DCPU-16 (the computer in the game) was little endian. What was supposed to be a one-year hibernation turned into a 281 Trillion year coma, the Universe is dying, and everyone from 1988 is just waking up.
The game features a fully functional 16-bit CPU that controls every aspect of your spaceship. The specs for the DCPU-16
have been released
and there are
several emulators available
.
Already, a few communities have been set up around the web to discuss how to program the DCPU-16: the
official forum of 0x10c
, the
0x10c subreddit
, and another dedicated to
programming the in-game computer
. Already there’s a
C-like language
that compiles executables for the DCPU and a
Game of Life implementation
.
We know this isn’t a usual Hackaday post. Despite this, we’re fairly certain a good percentage of our readership will be programming a DCPU-16 in the next year. It just might be time to crack the books and learn how to build a compiler and OS. The dragon book (
Compilers Principles, Techniques, and Tools,
Aho, Sethi, Ullman, 1985) is very good, and [Andy Tanenbaum]’s
Operating Systems Design and Implementation
is how [Linus Torvalds] got his start.
One more thing: we’re going to be running a contest for the best physical implementation of the DCPU-16 in a few months. We’ll wait until the in-game hardware is nailed down, along with any peripherals [notch] plans to add. Right now the prizes are some HaD schwag, but
that may change.
Further info with updates pending, but you’re free to start working now. | 72 | 34 | [
{
"comment_id": "624273",
"author": "Hito",
"timestamp": "2012-04-08T20:27:32",
"content": "We’re going to be running a contest for the best physical implementation of the DCPU-16 in a few monthsOk, now this IS nerdy.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment... | 1,760,376,914.861015 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/08/build-an-induction-heater-and-become-a-metalsmith/ | Build An Induction Heater And Become A Metalsmith | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"blacksmith",
"forge",
"induction heating",
"metalwork",
"power",
"smelting"
] | If you’ve ever wanted to forge, cast, or smelt metal, this project is right up your alley. It’s a
30 kVA induction heater
built by [bwang] over on Instructables. It gets hot enough to melt and forge steel, iron, and aluminum.
An induction heater operates by surrounding the object to be heated with a coil carrying high frequency AC current. Basically, the entire setup acts like a huge transformer with a shorted secondary. To get these currents into a workpiece, [bwang] used a TL494 PWM controller as an oscillator. The output of the TL494 is filtered and amplified a few times to generate a huge amount of AC current.
Larger versions of [bwang]’s induction heater are found in foundries and forges all across the land; even though this small version sucks down 50 A out of a dryer or stove outlet, induction heating is very efficient. We’re actually wondering why we don’t see many home blacksmiths using induction heating, so we’ll leave that for our readers to discuss in the comments.
[sessions] reminded us of
this induction heater
from a few years ago. A little smaller, but still usable. | 84 | 29 | [
{
"comment_id": "624240",
"author": "Manfre",
"timestamp": "2012-04-08T19:16:01",
"content": "We’re actually wondering why we don’t see many home blacksmiths using induction heatingPropane is portable, relatively cheap, and has a lower start up cost.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"rep... | 1,760,376,914.113223 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/08/want-a-two-person-self-destruct-button-but-tired-of-pesky-microcontrollers/ | Want A Two Person Self Destruct Button, But Tired Of Pesky Microcontrollers? | Jesse Congdon | [
"how-to"
] | [
"dual button",
"self destruct",
"switch"
] | We all know that our precious cruisers/warships/assets can not fall into the wrong hands, and what better way to assure that information security than incorporating a self destruct button into the design? While the general premise is simple enough the only real way to make sure some crazy space-virus can’t infect your captain and force him to destroy your ship is to add a two button security system! Wait, what if it’s a computer virus?! Well [Andrea] has it covered with this
two hand hand control
switch. We guess you could also just use the scheme to flip on a dangerous piece of equipment, since it forces the operator to remove both hands from the machine to operate the buttons, but where is the drama in that?
The buttons are timed using a combination of voltage dividers and caps to activate transistors, one to activate the 555 timer and another to disable the button input after a half second or so. Since it’s all resistor capacitor timing your circuit may require just a bit of tuning (or precision components) to get everything right. There is a bit of an issue with using two people to trigger the output, as the second button actually operates the output relay directly. If the second button is held it will only remain active until the timer’s output is triggered, but if your second in command gets cold feet and releases the button before the core goes thermo, well, you’ll have an embarrassing jog to the escape pods.
Check the video after the jump to see [Andrea] fiddling around with the switch.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9uHNrIsJvA&w=470] | 18 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "624157",
"author": "huh",
"timestamp": "2012-04-08T17:07:15",
"content": "I don’t even get the point of this. Why wouldn’t you just use a pair of switches with either their normally open contacts in series, or their normally closed contacts in parallel, depending on if you want a NC... | 1,760,376,913.834914 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/08/cncd-business-cards-will-definitely-get-you-noticed/ | CNC’d Business Cards Will Definitely Get You Noticed | Mike Nathan | [
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"business cards",
"cnc",
"led",
"throwie"
] | The guys over at North Street Labs were bored, so they figured why not go ahead and built a CNC machine just for kicks. While they haven’t put up build details on the CNC just yet, they do have
some newly milled business cards
to show off just how well the machine works.
Part ruler, part LED throwie, we think their new business cards look great. Milled out of thin acrylic sheeting, their cards feature the North Street Labs logo and URL along with 1/32” ruler markings along the top. The card is also fitted with space for a button cell battery and RGB LED, which illuminates the entire card nicely from the side.
They say that the cards take about 5 minutes apiece to make, which is not bad at all. At $0.50 a pop, the cards are not nearly as cheap as those made from cardstock, but when you’re looking to impress what’s a couple of quarters?
Continue reading to see a short video of their CNC-milled business cards in action. | 21 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "624120",
"author": "Tom Hargrave",
"timestamp": "2012-04-08T14:37:41",
"content": "Love the cards. So, when are you guys going to post more details about your CNC machine?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "624132",
"author": "... | 1,760,376,914.549889 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/07/googles-project-glass-and-other-head-mounted-displays/ | Google’s Project Glass And Other Head-mounted Displays | Brian Benchoff | [
"News"
] | [
"head mounted display",
"hud",
"Project Glass"
] | In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past week, Google
announced Project Glass
, a real life head-mounted computer that’s actually useful. Glass is one of the projects being developed by Google X, the super-cool R&D department inside Google. On board are [Babak Parviz], [Steve Lee] and [Sebastian Thrun] (a.k.a. the guy you
learned AI from
last year).
Apart from an
awesome video
put up by the Google Glass team, there’s not much to go on. No hardware descriptions apart from concept pics, and nothing about software, the speech input, or even a complete list of features. Until that info is finalized it’s up to all the makers, hackers, and builders out there to figure out how to use a head-mounted display in public without getting strange looks. Here’s a few wearable computers and head mounted displays we’ve seen over the years:
DIY Monocular displays
The first one
comes from 2009
, when all images on Hack a Day were black and white, with little bits of tape around the edge. [Xenonjon] had an old
Olympus Eye-Trek
and used half of it to make a monocular display. Eye-Treks maxed out at VGA resolution; enough for something an inch from your eye, but good luck finding one used.
We hope Project Glass will allow a little bit of extrasensory perception like Predator’s heat vision or [Geordi LaForge]’s VISOR capable of seeing the electromagnetic spectrum from 1 Hz to 100,000 THz (
The Masterpiece Society
,
S05E13
, and probably impossible even with TNG tech). Seeing in the dark has
already been accomplished
with a camcorder CRT, a low light security camera, and a bunch of IR LEDs.
Extremely portable computing
Part of the challenge behind Google Glass is making computers nearly invisible. Cell phones are small, but even the smallest is much to bulky to wear on your face all day. The big hardware manufactures have a leg up on us normal folk, but that didn’t stop [Brad] from making an
HUD for real-life capture the flag games
.
Since you’ll be wearing a computer all the time, it only makes sense that you could capture a bunch of biometric data all the time. Heart rate, glucose and hormone levels, blood alcohol content, and even EEG readings.
It’s been done
and it generated a
huge amount of data.
We can’t wait to max out our cell data caps in the first 10 minutes of the month.
That’s a short list of what may be possible in 10 years with the commoditized hardware Google and others may be putting out. We’re sure we’ll see some interesting uses for these portable computers, and hopefully we’ll be around to show them to you.
Check out the Project Glass video and all the other title pics we could have used for this post below.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c6W4CCU9M4&w=470]
[slideshow] | 70 | 33 | [
{
"comment_id": "623610",
"author": "svofski",
"timestamp": "2012-04-07T20:28:18",
"content": "This reminds me of one of those schizophrenia simulation videos.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "623621",
"author": "some",
"timestamp": "2012... | 1,760,376,914.27729 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/07/the-teensiest-atari-2600-ever/ | The Teensiest Atari 2600 Ever | Brian Benchoff | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"atari",
"atari 2600",
"SoC"
] | [Dablio] sent in an awesome console mod he made. It may just be the
smallest Atari 2600 ever
(Portuguese, here’s the
Google translation
).
The build began with a
Dynacom MegaBoy
, from the same company that put out many less-than-legal 2600 clones. The MegaBoy PCB is an
exercise in parsimony
consisting of only a single IC, a crystal, and some resistors and caps. [Dablio] made a new PCB board based on the
schematic
he reverse engineered and
this thing is tiny
. It’s much smaller than even the smallest
[Ben Heck] 2600 console
build.
[Dablio] now needed a case for his new console. He had originally planned to mount the whole thing in an Atari controller like
this commercial product
. Serendipity intervened and he realized the entire system (sans cartridge port) fit inside a plastic tube of m&m minis.
Currently, [Dablio] has two ports on his ‘Atari tube of m&ms’ – the largest is the cartridge slot, and a small VGA port sits in the lid of the tube. This VGA port carries the power supply, controller, sound and video signals to and from the console.
[Dablio] sent in a bunch of pictures of his build which are in a gallery after the break. Now for the million-dollar question: anybody know where to buy one of these Dynacom MegaBoys? | 15 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "623553",
"author": "Leandro",
"timestamp": "2012-04-07T19:11:37",
"content": "MegaBoys are quite rare even here in Brazil. However, not so long ago you could buy the 6592 SoC over the counter, but I believe that’s not the case anymore…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"r... | 1,760,376,914.169157 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/03/who-needs-mecanum-wheels/ | Who Needs Mecanum Wheels? | Mike Szczys | [
"cnc hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"casting",
"omni",
"resin"
] | Skills are all that’s needed to solve a problem. Take this four-wheeled robot as an example. [Michal Zalewski] wanted it to be omnidirectional but wasn’t very satisfied with the concept of mecanum wheels and the like. So he designed
a chassis with wheels at each corner that can pivot as one to change orientation
. The image may look like a rendering at first glance, but this is actually the physical prototype. See what we mean about skills?
Okay, so the robot design is pretty cool. But we’re more excited about the build process. We’ve looked at [Michal’s] work before. He wrote
a thorough guide about CNC mold making
. These parts are all cast from epoxy. This starts with a rough milled mold, which is given a second pass for the fine details before being painted with a release agent and used to make a silicone mold. From this the parts are produced. Check out
the Flickr set showing the casting process for the planetary gear box on each motor
. If only these results were as easy to achieve as he makes it look.
[via
Reddit
] | 36 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "619464",
"author": "Vince",
"timestamp": "2012-04-03T18:57:02",
"content": "Just wow!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "619478",
"author": "jonzilla9000",
"timestamp": "2012-04-03T19:05:29",
"content": "I just killed a... | 1,760,376,914.492867 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/03/sliding-camera-mount-is-good-enough-for-amateur-photography/ | Sliding Camera Mount Is Good Enough For Amateur Photography | Mike Szczys | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"felt",
"knex",
"sled"
] | [Unihopper] built this
sliding camera mount
to add some motion to his freestyle unicycle videos. It’s extremely simple, but still pulls off a pretty nice effect as you can see in the clip after the break.
The image above shows the mount without a camera attached. You can see the threaded peg on the block in the foreground which is used for that purpose. Felt has been wrapped around the base of the block, which rides in a wooden channel. The string, which connects to an eye hook in the wood block, is attached to a spool on the far end of the plank. A K’nex motor drives that spool, slowly sliding the camera toward it.
Unlike
other toy-based sleds
, the use of a track system helps to maintain proper orientation of the camera. Obviously this isn’t going to achieve the perfectly smooth and precise motion you’d get out of a sled system like
this rail and linear bearing version
. But honestly, most of us don’t have cameras of the quality to warrant that type of high-end system.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNmHhpgobfY&w=470] | 17 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "619393",
"author": "Chetchez",
"timestamp": "2012-04-03T17:40:03",
"content": "Q. What do you get when you combine the awesomeness of Parkour with the flair of a unicycle?A. What’s the opposite of getting laid?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,376,914.328017 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/03/meet-the-tm65-liquid-propellant-rocket-engine/ | Meet The TM65 Liquid Propellant Rocket Engine | Brian Benchoff | [
"Engine Hacks"
] | [
"copenhagen suborbital",
"liquid fuel",
"rocket",
"rocket engine",
"rocketry"
] | While we’re reluctant to say it for fear of being misinterpreted, the
new liquid fuel rocket engine
being built by Copenhagen Suborbitals is one of the most impressive, daring, and nearly the sexiest machine we’ve ever seen. Although the engine hasn’t been fired yet, [Peter Madsen], Chief launch vehicle designer at Copenhagen Suborbitals, gives an
amazing
18-minute-long rundown of the function of each and every tank and tube of the TM65
in this video
.
When the TM65 engine begins its firing sequence, valves attached to tanks of alcohol and liquid Oxygen are opened. The Oxygen pours directly into an injector manifold that atomizes the liquid in the combustion chamber, while the alcohol makes a much longer trip down to the engine bell, flowing between the double wall of the chamber and nozzle for cooling. Once the alcohol and Oxygen in the combustion chamber ignite, two gigantic tanks of Helium are opened and the gas is forced down to a heat exchanger at the end of the nozzle, increasing the temperature and pressure of the Helium. The Helium is then routed to the tanks, pressurizing them and forcing fuel and oxidizer into the combustion chamber at 40 liters per second. This entire process happens in only eight seconds; after that, the rocket attached to the TM65 will be on its way upward.
We’re not going to say the TM65 is the best engine ever seen on Hackaday; we’ll leave you to decide that. We can’t wait for the video of the test fire to hit the Internet, though. | 52 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "619269",
"author": "leftthehypnotistearly",
"timestamp": "2012-04-03T15:32:34",
"content": "And, unfortunately, that is why this idea is DOA. Helium is a mined resource, not manufactured. There is only so much of on Earth and we’re already starting to hear complaints from scientists... | 1,760,376,914.704388 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/03/working-tachikoma-brings-the-manga-to-life/ | Working Tachikoma Brings The Manga To Life | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"ghost in the shell",
"lego",
"manga",
"tachikoma"
] | This Lego Tachikoma
drives and walks just like in the TV program. You simply must take a peek at the video after the break. We’ve watched it several times and don’t think there’s any editing magic going on. But the movements are so intriguing part of us thinks there’s something fishy about it.
Each leg has a wheel that is connected to a motor via chain drive. But the little guy isn’t constrained to smooth hard surfaces. When the going gets rough, he struts his stuff like an eight-year-old crossing the lawn in roller skates.
This is not just for show and you can build it yourself if you like. The link at the top has assembly instructions. You will need several specialized parts though, not the lest of which is the cement mixer drum halves that make up the rounded blue chassis pieces.
Not sure what the heck this thing is? Don’t feel bad, you’d need to
be a fan of
Ghost in the Shell
to recognize it
.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dargOslomMA&w=470]
[via
Geek Native
] | 19 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "619194",
"author": "soopergooman",
"timestamp": "2012-04-03T14:08:08",
"content": "i so want this so much omg! WIN!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "619203",
"author": "oodain",
"timestamp": "2012-04-03T14:19:39",
"co... | 1,760,376,914.616383 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/03/drummerbot-joins-the-jam-session-when-your-bandmates-are-busy/ | DrummerBot Joins The Jam Session When Your Bandmates Are Busy | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Musical Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"arduino",
"drummerbot",
"music",
"sequencer"
] | It seems that more often than not, [Steffest] finds himself inspired to rock out on his guitar without a percussion section to back him up. Like any enterprising hacker/musician would be wont to do,
he built a robotic drummer
to join in when he got the urge to play.
His DrummerBot is driven using an Arduino, which is tasked with controlling the 8 servo motors that the bot has at its disposal. The bot’s drum set is composed of a variety of items from fan motors to pot lids and more. [Steffest] wanted the ability to produce the maximum variety of sounds possible, so most of the servo motors are driven in two directions allowing the bot to strike more than one item with each “arm”.
[Steffest] is a big fan of interfacing physical objects with a web interface, so he built a simple HTML based sequencer that allows him to program the robot from his phone. Once the sequencer is programmed, the DrummerBot can be launched into action with the simple press of a button.
[Steffest] says that the bot works pretty well, but the sound is a bit raw if you hear it live. A little Ableton Live post-processing goes a long way to smooth things out however, as you can see in the video below.
[Thanks, Wesley]
[youtube=http://youtu.be/c0ZGNsVRgd8&w=470] | 10 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "619150",
"author": "ibster",
"timestamp": "2012-04-03T13:15:23",
"content": "Very cool! I’m surprised that you don’t hear the servos of motors that much.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "619160",
"author": "SC",
"timestam... | 1,760,376,914.750938 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/02/sphere-morphing-hexabot-now-rolls-around/ | Sphere Morphing Hexabot Now Rolls Around | Brian Benchoff | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"hexapod",
"morphex",
"robot",
"sphere bot"
] | [Zenta] has been building his MorpHex rolling hexapod for nearly a year now, and
good things come to those who wait
. After a ton of development and fabrication, [Zenta] finally has his mechanical jellyfish robot rolling
and
walking around.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen [Zenta]‘s MorpHex robot in action. A year ago, we saw
the beginnings of the project
with that included 25 servos mounted on a custom chassis. Last winter,
the top hemisphere of the MorpHex was added
, but rolling locomotion was still on the drawing board. A lot has changed since then, and now [Zenta]’s robot can roll or walk across the floor.
From the video (available after the break), we see that [Zenta] kept the one degree of freedom for the panels on the upper cylinder. He’s thinking about making the MorpHex more symmetrical; just copying the plans for the bottom hemisphere onto the top, for instance. This plan would allow the MorpHex to roll in a straight line, so we can’t wait to see what [Zenta] cooks up next.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuC6q9kbryw&w=470] | 43 | 36 | [
{
"comment_id": "618682",
"author": "bullet_in_head",
"timestamp": "2012-04-02T21:32:46",
"content": "I thought to somthing like this for my first exapod! You are a king! Voted!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "619133",
"author": "Gilbe... | 1,760,376,914.936539 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/02/old-timey-uav-cameras/ | Old Timey UAV Cameras | Mike Szczys | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"carrier pigeon",
"homing pigeon",
"pigeon",
"pneumatic",
"timer"
] | These brave birds are weapons of war. Well, not these actual birds… they’re just models used for this photograph courtesy of a taxidermist. But their living relatives were
used to take spy photographs during World War I
. [Dr. Julius Neurbronner] didn’t suddenly jump into the field of avian photography. He, like his father before him, used homing pigeons to deliver prescription drugs in loads of up to 75 grams. This makes us wonder if the birds are ever used in modern drug running?
The inspiration came when the doctor found out about subminiature cameras available at the turn of the twentieth century. Those cameras included a tiny roll of film, allowing for several images to be taken. He figured out a way to make a timer that used a pneumatic system to trigger the shutter in the camera. You can see a diagram of
the timer mechanism here
. The idea is that the birds will always be able to find their way home. So if you take them to a starting point that puts the enemy lines in between them and home base, they’ll fly over and get some juicy recon in the process.
That’s pretty old school. But we’re still tying things onto birds these days. Here’s some
modern tech that uses sun-up/sun-down to track travel habits
.
[Thanks F via
The Atlantic
] | 15 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "618650",
"author": "jeffspatton1971",
"timestamp": "2012-04-02T20:05:47",
"content": "Gotta love that first flight pic with the birds wings in view!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "618656",
"author": "willaim",
"timestam... | 1,760,376,915.108246 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/01/build-an-elevator-controller-gain-a-friend-for-life/ | Build An Elevator Controller, Gain A Friend For Life | Mike Nathan | [
"home hacks",
"News"
] | [
"controller",
"diy",
"elevator"
] | [Michael Ruppe] was working one day when a man named [Kevin] approached him for a bit of help with a project. It just so happened that [Kevin] was in the middle of constructing a DIY residential elevator and
he needed assistance putting a control board together.
[Kevin] had no problem casting a forklift ram into his basement slab, nor installing a submersible pump in a custom-made hydraulic pit, but wiring up the controls for the device was just not something he was comfortable with. [Michael] was more than happy to lend a hand, and over the next couple of months the pair got things running nicely.
Instead of relying on a microcontroller, [Michael] built a control board that uses little more than a handful of relays and microswitches to get the job done – It’s certainly not hard to appreciate the controller’s simplicity.
It’s stories like these that remind us just how much the hacker community is willing to help out complete strangers with any task, big or small – you guys rock!
Stick around to see a short demo video [Michael] shot, showing the elevator in action.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/37793506 w=470] | 49 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "617819",
"author": "Trisha P.",
"timestamp": "2012-04-01T18:18:42",
"content": "I have been thinking of doing the same. Having an elevator saves so much space in the house otherwise wasted on staircases. It would be exciting to see how you modify this to include a micro-controller a... | 1,760,376,915.241893 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/01/powering-a-robot-with-a-macbook-battery/ | Powering A Robot With A Macbook Battery | Brian Benchoff | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"kiwi drive",
"lipo",
"robot"
] | When [Soo-Hyun]’s friend had an Apple Macbook Pro battery that began to swell, his friend did the reasonable thing and donated it to be used in a robot. Now [Soo-Hyun]’s kiwi drive robot is
powered by a gigantic LiPo battery
, giving it a huge range and a very fast top speed.
The defunct laptop battery that formerly powered a 15″ macbook pro is three battery packs of two cells in parallel, delivering 12.6 Volts. To get the power to the robot, [Soo-Hyun] etched a simple PCB that fit into the slot in the battery. A little bit of soldering later, and mounting the battery as a shark fin because of the 8×8 inch limitation of maze-solving robots, the power plant was complete.
Using a bulging LiPo battery probably
isn’t the smartest idea
(listen for the great line, “it got the camera and my face” at 4:08), but as long as [Soo-Hyun] keeps an eye on the battery as it’s charging, it should be alright.
Check out the video of the robot zipping around on 12.6 Volts after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VHsZWvuikM&w=470] | 5 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "618183",
"author": "conundrum",
"timestamp": "2012-04-02T05:30:18",
"content": "Sounds like a good plan.Most of the time its only one cell which swells up, the others are normally OK.Marginally safer than taking the pack apart, but I’d be concerned about long term safety as swollen ... | 1,760,376,915.282011 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/01/a-little-geneva-drive-made-of-wood/ | A Little Geneva Drive Made Of Wood | Jeremy Cook | [
"cnc hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"cam",
"cnc",
"Geneva Drive",
"Maltese cross",
"mdf"
] | Long ago, before servo motors and linear actuators were common, clever mechanical devices were what engineers used to produce the needed motion for their processes. The
CNC-cut Geneva Drive
may not be fit for industrial use, but
this type of device
has been used in everything from film projectors to rotating assembly tables. The constant rotation of the driving wheel is translated into intermittent motion by the [Maltese cross] driven wheel.
The drive and Maltese cross section of this particular drive are made out of MDF with the exception of a putty material that the motor shaft press-fits into. The article claims that this is the only Geneva drive in existence made out of MDF, however, we’d love to see that proven wrong in the comments!
If you’d like to make one of these yourself, CAD and G-code files are given for the
hand-cranked version
that this Drive is based off of in a separate post. If you’re not familiar with how a drive like this works, or would just like to see everything in action, be sure to check out the video of it after the break!
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32q9gowB7N0%5D | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "617711",
"author": "merriam webster",
"timestamp": "2012-04-01T16:18:50",
"content": "‘puddy’ –> putty?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "617791",
"author": "Jeremy Cook",
"timestamp": "2012-04-01T17:55:17",
... | 1,760,376,915.160343 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/01/updating-your-workspace-for-more-organized-and-efficient-hacking/ | Updating Your Workspace For More Organized And Efficient Hacking | Mike Nathan | [
"how-to",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"organization",
"work bench",
"workspace"
] | If you’ve ever looked at one of [Todd Harrison’s] teardown or how-to videos closely, you would likely notice that his work bench looks like a standard hacker workspace. While we all try to keep our work areas clear of clutter, it’s not uncommon for components to pile up, cords to tangle, and things to get messy.
[Todd] decided it was time to get a bit more organized
, so he recorded a video showing how he went about the process.
Part of [Todd’s] work revolved around adding shelves to his bench so that he didn’t have measurement equipment stacked on top of one another. He also spent a good amount of time adding 30 additional plug sockets to his work space, replacing the single socket he had been struggling with for years.
Obviously this is not really a hack in and of itself, though this sort of reorganization is an important to efficient hacking all the same. We like the fact that [Todd] took the time to explain his process and materials in great detail – it will no doubt be helpful to those new to hacking.
Continue reading to see [Todd’s] video in its entirety, or swing by his blog for more pictures and details.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYtp7P9GPD0&feature=player_embedded#!&w=470] | 18 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "617729",
"author": "aarku",
"timestamp": "2012-04-01T16:32:47",
"content": "Those screwdrivers sticking up look somewhat dangerous. 99999/100000 times no big deal, but that one time someone stumbles and impales their eyeball on one of the pointy things is not worth it to me.",
... | 1,760,376,917.112841 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/01/quieting-a-pendulum-clock-every-night/ | Quieting A Pendulum Clock Every Night | Brian Benchoff | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"clock",
"grandfather clock",
"stepper"
] | [Vinnie] has a wonderful old clock from his grandmother; it’s an exquisite antique with a real mechanical movement and a charming set of bells that ring every hour. Unfortunately, those chimes are a bit of a disturbance to neighbors at 2 o’clock in the morning. Previously, [Vinnie] had been stopping the clock every evening, and hoped he would remember to start the pendulum in motion 12 hours later. This was a chore, so he
decided to automate the process
.
The build is simple and clever; a small stepper motor is mounted in the clock just underneath the pendulum. Every 12 hours, the stepper motor moves a lever and slowly stops the pendulum over the course of a dozen or so seconds, silencing the clock movement. Twelve hours later, the motor turns again setting the pendulum in motion.
The parts count for this build is very low – basically just an ATmega88, a Darlington array to drive the stepper, and a 32.768kHz crystal. We can think of a few friends and relatives with loud clocks in their house, so we might have to build a few of these to give away.
Take a look at the demo video after the break to see how [Vinnie] stops his grandmother’s clock every night.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ_Zd7TeMg0&w=470] | 19 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "617659",
"author": "Dax",
"timestamp": "2012-04-01T14:34:33",
"content": "Would’t it have been a bit more elegant to use the motor to put a damper on the bells instead of stopping the entire clock?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,376,917.062382 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/31/sand-flea-literally-leaps-tall-buildings-in-a-single-bound/ | Sand Flea Literally Leaps Tall Buildings In A Single Bound | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"army",
"boston dynamics",
"jump",
"jumping",
"sand flea"
] | The hidden abilities of this robot that is no larger than a dinner plate are quite impressive. It doesn’t let an obstacle like a building get in its way. The Sand Flea, like its namesake,
posses a remarkable jumping ability
. When it encounters a tall obstruction two levers incline the front of the robot and it launches itself up to thirty feet in the air. In the case of a one-story build this means it will end up on the roof, and it’ll do so much quicker and more reliably than
any wall climber
we’ve seen.
It’s being developed for the US Army by Boston Dynamics, and this isn’t the first time we’ve seen the concept. But the video after the break gives a much better look than
the grainy twenty-second clip from last year
. Of course they’re not giving up too many details so we have to guess a bit. We’d wager the launching mechanism is a solenoid, but at about eleven pounds you need a lot of juice to get that much of a jump. We suppose it’s also possible that there’s an explosive system like the butane combustion used in a framing nailer. The video summary mentions that there’s a stabilization system to keep the body oriented during flight. That’s got to be a gyroscope. Let us know what you think in the comments.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b4ZZQkcNEo&w=470]
[Thanks BetaLyte] | 38 | 28 | [
{
"comment_id": "617139",
"author": "Dave",
"timestamp": "2012-03-31T19:24:09",
"content": "It looks like it’s something that needs to be recharged. I dont see a single shot that shows 2 launches, even though they could have shown that up on the roof. I’m guessing precharged, compressed air.",
"... | 1,760,376,917.184629 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/31/wireless-camera-mount-offers-pan-and-tilt-functions/ | Wireless Camera Mount Offers Pan And Tilt Functions | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"mount",
"pan",
"servo",
"Tilt",
"xbee"
] | [Chris] put together a bunch of common components to
create this wireless pan and tilt system
for a security camera or a robot.
The motorized base is simple enough, using two servos to make up a mount for the digital camera. In this case he used a parts package which is designed to mount the servos perpendicular to each other. You could also 3D print, our build your own brackets quite easily. The control circuitry consists of a pair of PIC 18LF4520 microcontrollers and a set of Xbee modules. This is where the wireless connectivity comes in.
On the transmitter side, a pair of potentiometers are read by the microcontroller’s ADC and translated into position values. The receiver takes those values and drives the servo motors accordingly. In the clip after the break [Chris] is using micro trimpots which require a screw driver to adjust. You might want to hit the parts bin and see if you can get some that have a more user-friendly shaft or knob.
Unfortunately this system doesn’t transmit video. But WiFi webcams are getting quite affordable so that might be a good option in this case.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdylCNybuUU&w=470] | 9 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "617104",
"author": "Brian",
"timestamp": "2012-03-31T18:00:01",
"content": "Wow, the firmware is bad, it translates the trimpots to 3bit values so they can be sent in a single byte. That is probably why the camera moves in jerks.Use some more bytes for each transmission packet.",
... | 1,760,376,917.293192 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/02/whistle-controls-for-you-home-electronics/ | Whistle Controls For You Home Electronics | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"dockstar",
"fft",
"linux",
"outlet",
"remote control",
"RF",
"whistle"
] | You know how to whistle don’t you? You just put your lips together and blow. But do you know how to make the electronics around you react to your whistled commands? Well [Befi] figured out a system that allows him to
assign a whistled command to various home electronics
.
He’s using a set of RF remote control outlets to switch power to various devices like a desk lap, or a turn table. The board you see in the image above is the remote control that came with the system, but that chip is
an ATmega8 which he added to give round-about USB connectivity
using a serial-to-USB converter. The technique is simple enough that we’d bet you can get this to work with an ATtiny2313 and the V-USB project but that’s another story.
The additional piece is the use of embedded Linux to detect and process whistled commands. In the video after the break [Befi] explains that he’s using a Dockstar along with a microphone to capture audio input. It uses a Fast Fourier transform algorithm to process the clip and pushes commands to the remote control after processing is complete.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpZeG4NNxx0&w=470] | 19 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "618587",
"author": "jackkrause",
"timestamp": "2012-04-02T19:07:44",
"content": "Pretty useful.I feel like you could emulate this operation by using nothing but bandpass filters and monostable 555 timers though.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,376,916.898315 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/02/slide-rule-for-musical-scales/ | Slide Rule For Musical Scales | Mike Szczys | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"circle of fifths",
"major",
"minor",
"papercraft",
"scales",
"slide rule"
] | For all those engineers who dabble in music [Magnetovore] has your back. Musicians simply must know their scales and he came up with
a papercraft slide rule for major and minor scales
.
The system is very easy to use. He’s uploaded PDF files that let you print out the mask for the top layer and bar chart and directions for the bottom layer. The top layer is laid out like a piano keyboard, with windows for each key and a couple of windows to identify the major and minor scales being displayed. Just slide the mask until each key is a solid color. The color codes show the tonic, third, and dominant for each key so you know where to start. In the video after the break you can see how it works by playing all of the non-black keys in order. But wait, if you order now you’ll get the slide rule for Cello scales at the same low-cost; free!
This is a fun quick-reference, but you really should know your
Circle of Fifths
.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owbrZq1HAHE&w=470] | 23 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "618537",
"author": "Enharmonic Equivalent",
"timestamp": "2012-04-02T18:30:11",
"content": "Dude, learn to spell notes properly. In the key of A, there are NO flat notes. In the key of A, there are three SHARP notes: F#, C#, and G#.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repl... | 1,760,376,917.583004 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/02/the-trials-of-digital-design-class/ | The Trials Of Digital Design Class | Brian Benchoff | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"classic hacks",
"digital design",
"logic chips"
] | Late last week, we saw a rather clever combination lock build that used only a single 74xx logic chip. [J. Peterson] read this post, and in a battle royale of geek one upmanship sent us a write up of the
logic chip computer
he built nearly 30 years ago at the University of Utah.
Around 1982 or 1983, [J. Peterson] took the Digital Hardware Lab at the University of Utah. The class was split into two semesters; during the fall semester, students would build a four digit, stack-based calculator that could add and subtract. That may sound easy, but everything – including reading the keyboard, multiplexing LEDs, and performing the mathematical operations – was done with gates and latches.
After Christmas break, the poor souls who had just finished their calculator were presented with another challenge due in four short months. The calculator built during the fall would turn into a full-blown computer, functionally similar to a
PDP-8
.
After months of work, and seeing the 70 people who showed up on the first day of class in September dwindle down to a handful in late April, [J. Peterson]’s computer was complete. The test program ran through a couple iterations, and the computer was immediately disassembled.
An awesome tale of digital design from only a generation ago. And you thought Verilog was hard. | 28 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "618481",
"author": "xeracy",
"timestamp": "2012-04-02T16:14:26",
"content": "> The test program ran through a couple iterations, and the computer was immediately disassembled.O_O;",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "618490",
... | 1,760,376,917.247433 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/02/building-a-media-player-with-an-msp430/ | Building A Media Player With An MSP430 | Brian Benchoff | [
"digital audio hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"media player",
"msp430",
"sd card"
] | A media player based on an Arduino and SD card has been done to death several times over, but that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate
[Matt]’s MSP430 audio player
. It’s a very nice piece of work that supports a FAT16 file system and only takes up 54 bytes of RAM.
To make his dream of a 430 media player a reality, [Matt] based his work on the
DIY Life Talking MSP430
project. Unlike this previous attempt to play music with a ‘430 and SD card, [Matt] threw in a full FAT16 file system, allowing him to drag and drop audio files on his computer to the SD card.
Right now [Matt]’s build can play a stereo audio file through its speakers, but the sound quality over a mono file is greatly reduced. The maximum sample rate is 16kHz; a ‘good enough’ sample rate if you’re listening with terrible headphones. In the video after the break, [Matt] plays
this awesome Symphony of Science
on his homebrew media player. We’re guessing his camera doesn’t do his project justice, but it’s still impressive nonetheless.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_SGHgO7Hus&w=430] | 13 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "618426",
"author": "thatcherc",
"timestamp": "2012-04-02T15:11:42",
"content": "54 bytes??? That’s crazy!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "618464",
"author": "kendall14",
"timestamp": "2012-04-02T15:51:17",
"content":... | 1,760,376,917.524277 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/02/open-source-tracking-system-gets-a-kickstarter/ | Open Source Tracking System Gets A Kickstarter | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"follow up",
"gps",
"tracking"
] | Many of the hacks featured here inspire others to build on the creator’s work, and on occasion
the positive feedback brings the hack to market.
Last year we told you about [Wayne’s] creation,
a system aimed at tracking down would-be game console thieves.
He received a bunch of requests to document the tracker in full, so he decided to revise his creation and release it as Open Source Hardware.
As you might remember, his original tracking device was powered by an Arduino, which monitored an accelerometer and GPS sensor, reporting coordinates and movements to his mobile phone on demand. He combined the disparate components together on a single board, and started a Kickstarter for the project.
Aside from his original purpose of tracking stolen goods, he lists off an array of other uses, such as tracking the driving habits of your newly licensed teen, geofencing objects in certain areas and more.
If an SMS controlled all-in-one tracking system is something you might be interested in, check out his Kickstarter, or take a look at the documentation and build one of your own. | 19 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "618368",
"author": "William",
"timestamp": "2012-04-02T13:15:55",
"content": "This is similar to what we use for the OVMS. Except that we use a PIC and a CAN Bus interface.Great Tracker.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "618395",
... | 1,760,376,917.471276 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/01/we-dont-need-no-stinkin-packages/ | We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Packages! | Adam Munich | [
"News"
] | [
"silicone",
"ti"
] | DIP, SOIC, BGA, MLF or QFP? None, so it seems.
This morning I received an email from Texas Instruments. Normally, these things go right into the spambox but this one was a bit unique. You can now buy some of TI’s IC’s without any packaging.
Yup, just trays full of silicon squares
. From TI’s point of view miniaturization has reached a point where that extra 0.1″ of PCB space is now too valuable to give to a piece of worthless plastic, and bonding micro-small wires to a silicon die is a feat that any manufacturer can preform with great accuracy, reliability and speed.
Whether this is a new paradigm in manufacturing or a premature April fool’s joke, if this process catches on smartphones just went from being almost unrepairable to 100% unrepairable, and ipod nanos might just start playing back 1080p video. It’s awesome and scary at the same time.
Now, are they crazy, or just ahead of their time? Tell us what you think. | 91 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "617908",
"author": "tech2077",
"timestamp": "2012-04-01T21:11:07",
"content": "I wonder if this will lead to just new mounting techniques on pcb’s for ultra-small connections instead of using microwire binding?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,376,917.412721 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/04/01/soccer-simulator-rules-a-childs-birthday-party/ | Soccer Simulator Rules A Child’s Birthday Party | Brian Benchoff | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"simulation",
"soccer",
"video game"
] | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKACRU4LKfM&w=470]
Being a dedicated father, soccer coach, general tinkerer, and electrical engineer, [Dave] decided to
build a soccer simulator
video game for his son’s 6th birthday party. The concept behind the game is to put a soccer ball on a tee and have an eager line of six-year-olds kick the ball into the goal. A video of a goalie is projected behind the net, and sensors in the goal will determine if the player scored a goal or not.
The first part of [Dave]’s project was getting footage of a goalie diving for a soccer ball. Luckily, [Dave] is friends with [Mark Macdonald], a former NCAA goalie. After 10 minutes in the park with [Mark] and a 720p camera, [Dave] had all the footage needed to build his video game.
To detect where the soccer ball passed into the goal, [Dave] built a small soccer goal studded with infrared LEDs and
infrared beam break sensors
. Combined with a small switch underneath the ball tee, the software knows the time of flight and where the ball crossed into the goal. The game processes these two numbers to determine if it’s a goal, or was caught by the retired pro goalie.
The kids at the birthday party lined up to play [Dave]’s soccer game – a huge achievement getting 6-year-olds to wait their turn. We admit that we’d like to have a go at this game, although we’re pretty sure we saw an arcade version of this game years and years ago. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "617895",
"author": "Rodger Pape",
"timestamp": "2012-04-01T20:51:11",
"content": "“We admit that we’d like to have a go at this game, although we’re pretty sure we saw an arcade version of this game years and years ago.”All this does is teach young children how to violate patent law... | 1,760,376,917.620499 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/31/floppy-autoloader-takes-the-pain-out-of-archiving-5000-amiga-disks/ | Floppy Autoloader Takes The Pain Out Of Archiving 5000 Amiga Disks | Mike Nathan | [
"classic hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"amiga",
"archival",
"autoloader",
"floppy"
] | Archiving data from old floppy disks can be a tedious process at best. Poorly labeled disks combined with slow transfer speeds put it high on the list of things we would rather not do, and
it turns out that [Dweller] was of the same opinion.
With an estimated 5,000 floppies in his collection, he finally decided it was time to clean house.
With no idea of what was stored where, he decided the best way to go about the process was to read all of the disks, archiving everything, saving the sorting process for later. He originally started by building a floppy autoloader out of Lego Mindstorm parts, which looked good on paper, but performed pretty poorly.
He came across an old floppy duplicator on eBay and figured that since the machine was built for handling gobs of disks, that it was the perfect base for his autoloader. He pulled the mechanical bits from the machine, incorporating them into the rig you see above. He swapped out the duplicator’s brains for an Arduino, which allows him to batch copy his disks and save a picture of each label with little effort.
He says that the system works great, making his life a lot easier (and less cluttered!)
Check out the video below to see his floppy autoloader in action.
[youtube-=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5lkxSY7QsI&w=470] | 71 | 29 | [
{
"comment_id": "616930",
"author": "tobi31061",
"timestamp": "2012-03-31T13:08:57",
"content": "I would probably recommend using an Harddrive or CF-Card with WHDLoad, but wheres the fun in that :D",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "617055",
... | 1,760,376,918.348458 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/30/loudest-telepresence-robot-ever/ | Loudest Telepresence Robot Ever | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"cork",
"drill",
"electric drill",
"skype",
"telepresence",
"wine"
] | This telepresence robot
will never let your Skype callers sneak up on you. [Priit] built the project, which he calls Skype Got Legs, so that his distant friends could follow him around the house during chats. But as you can hear after the break, the electric drills used to motorize the base are extremely loud.
Noise pollution aside, we like the roughness of the hack. It’s utilitarian but seems to work quite well. Commands are sent via the web using a combination of Ajax and PHP function calls. The two drills are controlled by an Arduino via a couple of automotive relays. The drills are powered by their original rechargeable battery packs. So as not to alter those batteries, [Priit] figured out a way to use synthetic wine bottle corks as a connector. They’ve been cut to size, and had tinned wires pushed through holes in them. Now, when he inserts the altered corks they press the wires against the battery contacts.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKpRiLlYS-g&w=470] | 9 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "616389",
"author": "Jan Staal",
"timestamp": "2012-03-30T21:36:57",
"content": "You might get the feeling you are being followed :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "616465",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2012-03-30... | 1,760,376,917.956504 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/30/new-dirigibles-are-power-plants-in-the-sky/ | New Dirigibles Are Power Plants In The Sky | Mike Szczys | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"dirigible",
"geerator",
"helium"
] | We wonder if
a floating wind turbine generator
(
translated
) like this one would alleviate some of the complaints we hear about ground-based turbines. This huge helium-filled structure is designed to generate electricity at high altitude, where winds are stronger and blow much more consistently than near ground level. We’ve read complaints at the unsightliness of wind farms, and the noise that they make as the turbines spin. A test run took place at only 350 feet, but this generator is meant to fly at an altitude of 2000 feet. We’d bet it’s much less obtrusive and much quieter at that distance.
There isn’t a whole lot to the lighter-than-air assembly. It’s got an aerodynamic balloon with stabilizing fins, and a propeller attached to a generator at the center. The tether that holds it in place also carries the conductors which translate the power down to the ground. There is mention of a fail-safe system that allows for a slow descent if it get gets away from its tether, so you shouldn’t have to worry about the sky falling on you.
It’s certainly an interesting idea. For some reason this makes us think of the space-based solar generator panels found on
Larry Niven’s Ringworld
.
[via
Reddit
] | 87 | 40 | [
{
"comment_id": "616291",
"author": "Eric A. Meyer",
"timestamp": "2012-03-30T20:11:59",
"content": "In addition, it should be possible to make use of the tether itself to generate a bit of extra power.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "616304",
... | 1,760,376,918.244799 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/30/10000-posts/ | 10,000 Posts | Mike Szczys | [
"News"
] | [
"10000 posts"
] | According to our CMS calculations (we use WordPress), this is Hackaday’s ten-thousandth published posts. We meant to
build a confetti cannon
, but we were too busy looking for interesting projects to feature multiple times per day.
We’d like to thank everyone who documents their projects to share what they’ve been up to in basements, garages, or hackerspaces with the ecosystem of hackers around the world. We hope that every time you publish a build log or project summary you think about sending us a link. We’re also grateful for those who find intriguing blog or forum posts and send in a tip even though it’s not their project (we wholeheartedly encourage it).
Our contributors and editors deserve kudos. Over the years a growing band of Hackaday alumni have helped keep the front page of Hackday a place you can count on for interesting uses for otherwise everyday things. You’ve heard many of their names, like [Philip Torrone], [Eliot Phillips], and [Caleb Kraft]. But most of what you see on the front page is the result of the writers sifting through tips and scanning a laundry list of RSS feeds to find new and interesting projects and project ideas. Their contribution is what keeps the front page fresh and new, but we continue to use the royal ‘we’ in our posts because it’s the project being featured that is paramount.
And finally we thank the regular readers, whose participation keeps the lights on, and whose comments build a community. Many started out as lurkers, inspired by the projects featured here until the point that they take the plunge and blink their first LED. The threads in the comments section of each post are the evolutionary ooze that often leads to the next amazing build. Keep reading, keep commenting constructively, and we’ll see you all back here for our 16,383rd post when we fill up these digits with ones.
Thank you. | 47 | 37 | [
{
"comment_id": "616188",
"author": "Caleb Kraft",
"timestamp": "2012-03-30T18:15:12",
"content": "16k will be here before you know it!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "616189",
"author": "pvar",
"timestamp": "2012-03-30T18:15:51",
"c... | 1,760,376,918.042251 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/30/the-rc-transmitter-that-does-everything/ | The RC Transmitter That Does Everything | Brian Benchoff | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"OSRC",
"rc",
"remote control",
"transmitter"
] | [Demetris] sent in a project he’s been working on over the last year. It’s called the
Open Source Radio Control
, and promises to be a modular platform for every imaginable remote control transmitter need. If you’d like to control a bipedal android or a 3D aerobatic model plane, the OSRC can do it while transmitting video from the cockpit down to your hands.
Last summer,
we caught wind
of the OSRC project to build an extensible and open source remote control radio that would do anything; from displaying video from the cockpit to serving as the brain of a UAV rig, the OSRC promised to do everything.
A fully decked out OSRC can be had for about $1400, putting it in the upper echelon of remote control radios. For that price, though, you get a fully customizable radio with your choice of shoulder buttons and
a 4.8 inch LCD
that receives a video feed from the cockpit of your favorite model. The base unit starts out around $700; still very expensive for a remote control radio, but reasonable when you consider all the possible upgrades.
[Demetris] and the rest of the team put together an outrageously long yet surprisingly beautiful video showing off a few features of the OSRC. You can check that out after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFLBz7TAvAc&w=470] | 24 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "616160",
"author": "HAD",
"timestamp": "2012-03-30T17:17:44",
"content": "Now THIS is a cool project. Open source! It’s like science!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "616166",
"author": "Demetris",
"timestamp": "2012-03-3... | 1,760,376,918.742559 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/30/display-made-out-of-hundreds-of-seven-segment-lcds/ | Display Made Out Of Hundreds Of Seven Segment LEDs | Brian Benchoff | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"led",
"LED display",
"seven segment"
] | While huge LED panels are a relatively common project du jour for people wanting to flex their engineering muscle, we’re taken aback by the sheer beauty of [Skot9000]’s
huge LED display made of seven-segment displays
. He calls the build DigitGrid, and it’s a wondrous display the likes of which we’ve never seen.
To build a display based on seven-segment LEDs, [Skot] went with a modular approach in designing the DigitGrid. To power and control all these seven-segment displays, [Skot] used a Texas Instruments TLC5920 to run four 4-digit displays as a single module. Four of these modules connect together to form a row of 32×2 digits, and eight rows of digits come together to make a 512-digit display. With seven LEDs for each digit, that works out to
3,584
4,096 individual LEDs for the entire panel.
To power and control this gigantic array of LED displays, each row uses a PIC16F microcontroller which, in turn, is controlled by an FPGA. After several hours of writing Verilog, [Skot] had a reasonably good hunk of software that allowed him to send frames from his computer to the display. The results, quite simply, are amazing. [Skot] managed to put up a short film showing off the animation capabilities of his new display, and it’s a wonder to behold. You can check that video out after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP6xWrKVqo4&w=470] | 23 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "616129",
"author": "EmuMoogly",
"timestamp": "2012-03-30T16:25:26",
"content": "4096 LEDs, actually – did you not notice the decimal point also being used?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "616133",
"author": "agmlego",
"t... | 1,760,376,918.503653 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/30/building-a-combination-lock-with-logic-chips/ | Building A Combination Lock With Logic Chips | Brian Benchoff | [
"hardware"
] | [
"7400",
"lock",
"logic chips"
] | The component gods must have smiled on [Darrell], because he recently ran into a cabinet full of 7400-series logic chips for sale at his local college surplus. All the regulars were there – flip-flops, logic gates, and SRAMs – in DIP packages. the 7400-series of logic chips gets very esoteric as the numbers increased, so when [Darrell] found a 74ALS679 address comparator, he didn’t quite realize what he had. After a quick review of the relevant datasheet he had a fairly good idea of the actual function of this chip and
decided to make a combination lock
.
From
the datasheet
, [Darrell] figured out how this small logic chip can compare two 12-bit addresses with only 20 pins: each of the 12 address pins are hardwired to match a single four-bit value. If the four-bit ‘key’ is set to 0110, the first six address pins are tied low, and pins 7-12 are tied high. After wiring up his address comparator to a trio of Hex dip switches, [Darrell] had a combination lock that used the word ‘FAB’ as a key.
In the 7400-series of logic chips, there are some oddballs; the
7447 seven-segment display driver
is useful, but the 74881 ALU and 74361 bubble memory timing generator aren’t exactly something you would find in a random component stash. If you’ve got a weird logic chip build (there’s a 300-baud modem, you know),
send it on in
. You can check out an animated gif of [Darrell]’s lock after the break. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "616106",
"author": "fartface",
"timestamp": "2012-03-30T15:36:22",
"content": "Welcome to Logic Electronics 102. Most of us that acutally learned electronics did this exact thing in a lab.Cool to see him not being lame and using an arduino.1337 Hax0r5 use logic chips.",
"parent... | 1,760,376,918.398044 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/30/grabbing-data-from-a-rigol-scope-with-python/ | Grabbing Data From A Rigol ‘scope With Python | Brian Benchoff | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"DS1052E",
"oscilloscope",
"python",
"rigol"
] | While a fancy Rigol 1052E oscilloscope is a great tool and a wonderful portable oscilloscope we heartily recommend, sometimes you just need to use the more ‘advanced’ functions of an oscilloscope. Luckily, [cibomahto] figured out how to
use a Rigol scope with Python
, allowing for easy remote viewing and control of a Rigol 1052E ‘scope on any desktop computer.
[cibomahto]’s Python script grabs the screen and can send commands to the oscilloscope, effectively obviating the need for the slightly-terrible Rigol Ultrascope software. Not only that, controlling the 1052E is possible under OS X and Linux because of the portable Python nature of [cibomahto]’s work.
The Rigol DS1052E has become the
de facto
standard oscilloscope to grace the workbenches of makers and hackers around the globe. With a small price tag, the ability to
double the bandwidth
, and an active
homebrew development scene
, we doubt [cibomahto]’s work of grabbing data over USB will be the last hack we’ll see for this fine machine.
Thanks to [Markus] for sending this one in. | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "616077",
"author": "Chewie",
"timestamp": "2012-03-30T14:50:22",
"content": "Good information to publicize, but hardly a hack. The documentation is provided with the scope on how to interface with it via USB commands. I have the DS1102E.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,376,918.445705 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/30/working-software-defined-radio-with-a-tv-tuner-card/ | Working Software-defined Radio With A TV Tuner Card. | Brian Benchoff | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"ham",
"radio",
"sdr",
"software-defined radio"
] | [Balint Seeber] just sent in a small yet timely project he’s been working on: a software radio
source block for the Realtek RTL2832U
. Now with a cheap USB TV tuner card, you can jump right into the world of software-defined radio.
[Balint]’s code comes just a week after
hackaday
and
other outlets
posted stories about using a $20 USB TV capture dongle for software defined radio. At the time, these capture cards could only write data directly to a file. With [Balint]’s work, anyone can use a cheap tv tuner dongle with
HDSDR
,
Winrad
, or
GNU Radio
. If you’ve ever thought about trying out software-defined radio, now might be the time.
Elsewhere on the Internet, a surprisingly active
RTL-SDR subreddit popped up
dedicated to using the Realtek RTL2832U tuner for software defined radio. There’s an
awesome compatibility chart
listing compatible USB dongles. The cheapest (so far, and subject to change) is the Unikoo UK001T available for $11 on eBay.
With his source block, [Balint] can listen to anything on the radio between 64-1700 MHz. The sample depth is 8 bits and the sample rate can be anything up to 3.2 MHz. You can watch [Balint] testing out his $20 GNU Radio rig after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUQd9HOVTk8&w=470] | 77 | 36 | [
{
"comment_id": "616028",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2012-03-30T13:25:29",
"content": "How much processing power does this take to stream? I’d love to see someone integrate this into MightyOhm’s radio if possible.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment... | 1,760,376,918.68254 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/29/quieting-an-inexpensive-bench-power-supply/ | Quieting An Inexpensive Bench Power Supply | Mike Szczys | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"aps3005s",
"atten",
"bench supply",
"fan",
"switch",
"thermostat"
] | [Mike] just purchased this Atten APS3005S bench power supply for around $80. It does the job, but boy is it noisy! We were pretty surprised to hear it fire up in the video after the break. To make matters worse, the noise is persistent since the fan never shuts off. Having worked with other bench supplies he knew that a common feature included in many models is temperature controlled case fans. He set out to
quiet the fan and implement a temperature switch
.
For this project [Mike] had the benefit of looking at a nearly identical model that does have temperature switching. He discovered that the board on this one has a through-hole zero ohm resistor populated in place of a thermostat switch. That switch closes the connection at or above 45 degree Celsius, thereby turning on the cooling fan. Bridging the traces with a zero ohm resistor to save on production costs is what caused the fan to run continuously. After replacing the resistor with a KSD-01F and swapping out the stock fan for a high-quality version [Mike] has takes a noise maker and turned it into a device that’s kind to the ears.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lq1YGAgJ0c&w=470] | 27 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "615623",
"author": "oldornew",
"timestamp": "2012-03-29T21:21:12",
"content": "Great hack!I’ve been looking at older linear power supplies lately… And this kind of thing tips my preference in their favor vs. newer designs that tend to over-economize. And noise. Noise is bad.",
... | 1,760,376,918.566848 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/29/808-camera-hack-produces-a-time-lapse-tic-tac-box/ | 808 Camera Hack Produces A Time-lapse Tic Tac Box | Mike Szczys | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"808",
"attiny13",
"camera",
"time-lapse"
] | It’s not really conceived as a spy cam, but it could be. [Quinn Dunki]
built this tiny time-lapse camera project
with racing in mind. She’s involved in a group that endurance races clunkers, and part of the fun is sharing the experience of riding around in the old beaters. The module seen above takes a picture every four seconds and will last 24 hours before needing new batteries or an SD card change. We wonder if that’s longer than some of the ‘racecars’ make it?
She picked up an 808 camera, which looks like the key fob you use to unlock your car doors. They’re so cheap you can include them in projects and
not really care if you don’t get them back
. Inside it’s got a small lithium battery, the circuit board with a processor, microSD card slot, and of course the SSD used to capture the images. To control the device she used a tiny relay with an ATtiny13 used for the timing. We think the battery selection is a bit overboard, but maybe the next version will be a little more conservative.
There was one folly along the way. She wanted to attach this to the body of the car with a handful of magnets. But they don’t play nicely with the magnetic relays so that was out. The solution was to add that lanyard ring to the case which will allow the camera to be zip tied to the vehicle. So far there are no time-lapse movies available, but keep your eyes on our links posts and we’ll try to include one when it pops up. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "615659",
"author": "zarnochwf1",
"timestamp": "2012-03-29T22:33:23",
"content": "Not to be a nitpicker, but I think you meant ccd instead of ssd there Mike.I love this idea, my friend is in the SCCA and I’ll have to confince him to put a few of these 360 around the car…",
"paren... | 1,760,376,918.789476 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/29/sentry-gun-controller-board-upgrade/ | Sentry Gun Controller-board Upgrade | Mike Szczys | [
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"airsoft",
"arduino",
"controller",
"paintball",
"servo"
] | This open source sentry gun controller board builds on a great concept by getting rid of the Arduino board. The previous version was an Arduino shield, but this upgrade keeps all of the cool features by rolling the necessary parts into one smaller footprint.
The image above doesn’t quite convey the scope of the project. Go take a look at
the feature from last year which used the shield version of the controller
. That build used a servo-mounted paintball gun in conjunction with a webcam. You can still build the same platform, but use the open-source files to include this board. It has outputs for three servo motors, and can also interface with airsoft or paintball guns which have their own electronic triggers and integrated batteries.
We always like to see the schematic for projects like this one. For your convenience we exported an image from the Eagle package. You can find it, along with the demo video, after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdBASlWQTaQ&w=470]
[via
Hacked Gadgets
] | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "615541",
"author": "UltimationEE",
"timestamp": "2012-03-29T19:18:07",
"content": "Now I just want someone to combine it with one of those laser guns starting to appear.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "615542",
"author": "Ul... | 1,760,376,918.843524 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/29/trumpet-hero/ | Trumpet Hero | Mike Szczys | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"controller",
"guitar hero",
"playstation 2",
"ps2",
"trumpet"
] | [Evilsigntist]
combined an old cornet with an old PS2 guitar hero controller
to produce the Trumpet Hero. The fragile looking conglomeration really brings a smile to our faces. Just make sure the instrument has already seen the end of its days before drilling holes to mount the various parts.
In the image above you can see that the three valve buttons have been painted to correspond to frets on the original guitar controller. The orange and blue frets are positioned for the left hand to operate. There seems to be a couple of different version because there is a diagram showing a mute in the bell that can be twisted for whammy bar input, but that’s not shown here. Strumming is accomplished by blowing through the mouthpiece, but as you can see in the video after the break, no buzzing is necessary.
Using actual instruments as game inputs is a lot of fun. We always think back to
the flute and drum set controllers for Rock Band
.
[flickr video=http://www.flickr.com/photos/evilsigntist/3371164498/ w=470] | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "615957",
"author": "ferdinand",
"timestamp": "2012-03-30T10:54:07",
"content": "this can make a nice april 1 joke. that activison make a new game trumpet herobut it is a cool idee to use real insrument as your controller",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}... | 1,760,376,919.01027 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/29/tricoder-project-brings-the-fabled-devices-into-existence/ | Tricorder Project Brings The Fabled Devices Into Existence | Mike Szczys | [
"handhelds hacks"
] | [
"science",
"star trek",
"tricorder"
] | Whether or not you love Star Trek we’d bet you know what a Tricorder is. The handheld device capable of gathering information about the environment around you, or taking health diagnostics about an injured crew member, seemed like unfathomably advanced technology when first seen on the original television series. But our technology has advance so quickly that you can now build a Tricorder of your own. That’s exactly what [Peter Jansen] has done. He founded
the Tricorder project
as a way to put a useful scientific instrument in the hands for the curious masses.
In the promo video embedded after the break [Dr. Jansen] gives us a recap of his progress so far. Three versions of the project have already been produced, and a fourth is under way. The first iteration could take atmospheric, spacial, and magnetic readings. This covers things like temperature, humidity, GPS data, light intensity, and distance measurements among others. Housed in a dark grey case it looks much like the original prop.
The second model, which is seen above, implements a swapable sensor board. That’s the part hanging off the top, but the finished model will enclose that part of the case. The hardware on this is fantastic, using an ARM processor running Linux and two 2.8″ OLED touchscreen displays. But both of these models have a price tag that’s just too high for widespread use. He’s been working on two more, the Mark 3 and Mark 4. The most recent is in software development right now with the hopes of mass production when all the details are worked out.
There’s a lot of info to dig through on the project’s site. It’s open source and all the goodies we usually look for are there.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3sHTKrGdKI&w=470]
[Thanks to everyone who sent in a tip about this] | 34 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "615404",
"author": "Aaron",
"timestamp": "2012-03-29T16:06:38",
"content": "You could spell the name right in the title, at least.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "615406",
"author": "Christopher Mitchell",
"tim... | 1,760,376,918.912128 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/29/rain-barrel-irrigation-system-keeps-your-plants-fed-when-youre-too-busy/ | Rain Barrel Irrigation System Keeps Your Plants Fed When You’re Too Busy | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"home hacks",
"News"
] | [
"arduino",
"automation",
"irrigation",
"rain barrel"
] | [Kyle Gabriel] moved into a house with a nice tract of land behind it, but due to his busy schedule he had yet to plant the garden he so desperately wanted. He worried that his hectic life and busy hours would lead to accidentally neglecting his garden, so he built
a water collection and automated irrigation system
to ensure that his plants never went without fresh water.
The system is fed by two large 55 gallon barrels that collect rain from his gutters. A 1/2 HP well pump is used to pressurize the collected water, which is then dispensed throughout his garden by a sprinkler. [Kyle’s] system is run from a small control box where an Arduino is used to control the pump’s schedule. At a predefined time, the Arduino turns the pump on, while monitoring the system for potential problems.
If the system starts running low on water, the Arduino triggers the valve on his spigot to open, keeping the water level above the pump inlet pipe. He also keeps an eye on pump’s outlet pressure, indefinitely disabling it before a blockage causes the pump to cycle repeatedly.
He says that the sprinkler system works quite well, and with his modular design, he can add all sorts of additional functionality in the future. | 53 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "615310",
"author": "Rob R.",
"timestamp": "2012-03-29T14:24:50",
"content": "Pretty cool, I have always wanted a smaller scale version of one of these, just for a couple of planter boxes and my bonsais, possibly with either drip spouts or the hoses that “bleed” water.Remember if you... | 1,760,376,919.309598 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/29/glue-stick-servo-linear-actuator/ | Glue Stick + Servo = Linear Actuator | Jeremy Cook | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"glue stick",
"hobby servo",
"linear actuator",
"servo"
] | What do you get when you cross a glue stick with a hobby servo motor?
A linear actuator
, of course! Although this could be done with other household implements, the form factor of this glue stick seems perfectly suited to sit on top of a servo horn.
The servo, as you might have guessed, has to be converted to rotate fully instead of the 180 degrees or so that is typical of these types of motors. The trick to this, and what really makes it shine in our eyes, is that instead of attaching two resistors in a normal continuous rotation mod, the potentiometer is used on the glue stick allowing for position feedback.
The resulting force from this gear-reduced actuator is quite impressive, giving an “err” (over 3 Kilograms) on the scale used for testing. [Gareth] or [Chiprobot] gives a great tutorial of how to make one of these after the break, but if you’d rather just see it in action, skip to around 8:20!
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI8tvjdhYxw&w=470&h=315%5D
Thanks [Jason] for letting us know about this hack! | 24 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "615254",
"author": "ino",
"timestamp": "2012-03-29T13:17:25",
"content": "smart one ! I like it !",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "615257",
"author": "steve",
"timestamp": "2012-03-29T13:19:41",
"content": "Haha, how ... | 1,760,376,919.475248 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/28/v-synch-detector-lets-you-use-3d-shutter-glasses-on-linux-systems/ | V-Synch Detector Lets You Use 3D Shutter Glasses On Linux Systems | Mike Szczys | [
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"3d",
"shutter glasses",
"v-sync"
] | This circuit is how [John Tsiombikas]
makes his cheap 3D shutter glasses work with a Linux machine
. It’s not that they were incompatible with Linux. The issue is that only certain video cards have the stereo port necessary to drive the head-mounted hardware.
Shutter glasses block light from one eye at a time, so that different renderings can be shown to create the stereoscopic effect. Since
stimulating the muscles in the eye doesn’t actually work
, you need to find a way to drive the glasses in perfect time with the video signal. His circuit watches for the V-Sync signal, then uses it to toggle the shutter glasses. Since the hardware has no way of knowing whether the left or right frame is being generated, he included the toggle switch as a user-controlled adjustment. If the 3D isn’t coming together, you’re probably viewing the frames with the wrong eye and need to flip the switch.
There’s really no way to show the effect without trying out the hardware in person. But [John] reports that it works like a charm when used with
the OpenGL stereo wrapper
. | 15 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "614768",
"author": "John P",
"timestamp": "2012-03-28T22:49:38",
"content": "Finally a good 3d glasses hack! I’ve been waiting for one!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1025282",
"author": "Roger",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,376,919.808431 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/28/android-on-your-netbook/ | Android On Your Netbook | Mike Szczys | [
"Android Hacks",
"computer hacks"
] | [
"android",
"netbook",
"netbook remix",
"ubuntu",
"unity",
"x86"
] | Looks like there’s a pretty easy way to install Ice Cream Sandwich, the
newest version of Android, on your Netbook
. Actually this is limited to a few types of hardware including netbooks like the eeePC. That’s because the ISO files used during installation have been tailored to the hardware used on those devices. As with other Linux distros,
the ISO file can be loaded on a thumb drive using Unetbootin
. From there you can give it a whirl as a Live CD (or USB as it were) or choose to install it on your hard drive. We haven’t given it a spin as the eeePC version doesn’t want to boot on our Dell Mini 9, but we don’t see a reason why this couldn’t be set up as a dual boot option.
Now why would you want to run Android on your netbook? We’ve already seen that there’s
a way to run Android apps in Ubuntu
. We bet some people just love Android, and others just hate the Unity desktop that Ubuntu now uses… especially when
the Netbook Remix
had a lot of good things going for it. | 40 | 26 | [
{
"comment_id": "614651",
"author": "MobileWill",
"timestamp": "2012-03-28T21:13:20",
"content": "I might have to give this a try on my HP Mini, probably won’t boot though.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "614674",
"author": "xeracy",
"ti... | 1,760,376,919.549456 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/28/coin-cell-battery-charger/ | Coin Cell Battery Charger | Mike Szczys | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"disposable",
"mcp73832",
"rechargeable",
"recharger",
"usb"
] | [Jay Kickliter]
built his own coin cell battery recharger
. This won’t work on the vast majority of coin cells as they are manufactured as disposable parts. But there are rechargeable options out there with model numbers that start with LR instead of CR. In this case he tailored the charging circuit around MCP73832 IC and chose components best suited for charging his 110 mAh LR2450. But we believe all of the LR options out there are rated for 3.6V so altering his design for use with different models should be a breeze.
We’ve been unhappy with the use of disposable coin cell batteries for some time. Sure, in a real-time clock where the cell might last 6-8 years this is not very wasteful. But in an Apple TV remote that gets a lot of use, we hate the choice of a disposable battery. All of our less-hip remotes which use AA or AAA have NiMH rechargeables in them and have used the same pair for year and years. So we’re happy to see this charger project come along.
Now the bad news. We looked around and indeed you can find LR2032; a rechargeable replacement for the CR2032. But the capacity rating falls way flat. The model we looked at boasts only 50 mAh while the disposable CR2032 offers something along the lines of 240 mAh. Hopefully this will change as battery tech evolves. | 19 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "614594",
"author": "tyco",
"timestamp": "2012-03-28T20:27:29",
"content": "I’m not so sure about disposable lithium cells, but I’ve found that alkaline disposable cells recharge just fine; you just have to limit the current to a bare trickle (20mA or so). This takes many days to rec... | 1,760,376,919.860635 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/28/attiny44-drop-in-replacement-for-ikea-dioders-stock-pic-controller/ | ATtiny44 Drop-in Replacement For Ikea Dioder’s Stock PIC Controller | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"attiny44",
"dioder",
"ikea",
"ir",
"remote control",
"tsop1736"
] | The Ikea Dioder is an LED light sold at the big blue and yellow building that lets you mix your own colors using a simple button and wheel controller. [Marco Di Feo] looked at all of the other projects out there that alter the controller and figured out that the IC can be directly replaced with an ATtiny44 microcontroller. With that chip soldered onto the board he added IR control so that he
can change colors using his universal remote control
(
translated
).
[Marco] removed the potentiometer normally responsible for selecting the color. This frees up one pin on the microcontroller which he then uses to receive signals from a TSOP1736 IR receiver. The video after the break shows the device, which illuminates the back of his home entertainment center, reacting to commands from his remote control.
Of course this can be done without the chip swap as
the PIC 16F684 that comes with it can be reprogrammed in place
. But [Marco] didn’t have a PICkit or other programmer on hand.
[Editor from the far future: video has gone private. Sorry about that.] | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "614550",
"author": "Bertho",
"timestamp": "2012-03-28T19:42:30",
"content": "It is neat to remove the pic chip. However, for those interested using the device as is; I wrote completenew firmware for the dioderusing the standard 16f684. The firmware does 256 step pwm on all channels,... | 1,760,376,919.754988 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/28/building-a-better-circuit-for-renewable-energy-harvesting/ | Building A Better Circuit For Renewable Energy Harvesting | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"chipkit",
"switch mode"
] | [David], [Ian], and [Sajjad] finished and submitted their entry to the ChipKIT challenge just under the wire. They designed and built
a maximum power tracking circuit for use with renewable sources
. That is to say, this is a voltage regulator for use with solar cells and other generative sources like wind or water power. The idea is to use the best concepts of switch-mode power supply design, but replace the more wasteful parts with circuits that can harness and roll the loss back into the output.
We have to admit, following their development choices from the write-up at the top is a bit rocky. But luckily they filmed an in-depth description of the design choices, as well as a demonstration of the circuit along with various test measurements. If you’ve got twenty minutes and some patience all will become clear in the video after the break.
This will go along great with
that bucket-based hydro generator you built
.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGW0xz2vo7U&w=470] | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "614533",
"author": "theIdeaMen",
"timestamp": "2012-03-28T19:29:31",
"content": "I did a MPPT as my senior design lab back in ’03 using an 8051. These guys make it look easy. Well done!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "614655",
... | 1,760,376,919.704533 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/28/ask-hackaday-building-nano-scale-antennas/ | Ask Hackaday: Building Nano Scale Antennas | Brian Benchoff | [
"Ask Hackaday"
] | [
"antennas",
"cnc",
"nanoscale"
] | As an RF engineering student, [Camerin] is usually tasked with pointless yet educational endeavors by his advisor and professors. Most of the time (we hope) he sees the task through and ends up pulling something out of his hat, but a few days ago a professor dropped a bombshell on him. After reading
this article on nano scale antenna fabrication
, a professor asked [Camerin] if it was possible to build a 3D inkjet printer with a ludicrous amount of accuracy and precision.
The full article,
Conformal Printing of Electrically Small Antennas on Three-Dimensional Surfaces
, was recently published in
Advanced Materials
and is available via Google Scholar. The jist of the article is that three-dimensional antennas printed on a sphere approach the physical limits of how good an antenna can be. To test out these small, spherical antennas, the authors of the paper built an extremely high-precision 3D inkjet printer that draws antenna traces on a glass sphere with conductive ink.
The positional accuracy of this printer is 50 nanometers, or about half the size of an HIV virus. The conductive silver ink is delivered by a nozzle with a diameter of 100 to 30 µm and prints onto a glass sphere about 6 mm in diameter. This is a level of precision that companies and research institutions pay top dollar for, so we’re left wondering how the authors built this thing.
We’re turning this question over to the astute readers of Hackaday: how exactly would you build a 3D inkjet printer with this much accuracy and precision? Would it even need to be that precise? Post your answer in the comments. | 70 | 44 | [
{
"comment_id": "614291",
"author": "oodain",
"timestamp": "2012-03-28T15:07:22",
"content": "piezoelectric drive technology can achieve these levels comercially but at a huge prize.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "614296",
"author": "Karl",... | 1,760,376,919.656543 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/28/building-the-worst-linux-pc-ever/ | Building The Worst Linux PC Ever | Brian Benchoff | [
"Linux Hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"atmega1284",
"ATmega644P",
"linux",
"sd card",
"sram"
] | Linux is generally considered the go-to OS for under powered computers. Wanting to challenge the preconceived notion that Linux requires ‘a computer made in the last 20 years,’ [Dmitry] built
the worst Linux PC ever
around a simple 8-bit microcontroller.
The ATMega1284p [Dmitry] used doesn’t have a lot to offer as far as RAM and storage goes; just 16 kilobytes of SRAM and a paltry 128 kilobytes of Flash storage. While this may be voluminous in the embedded world, it’s peanuts compared to the gigabytes of RAM and hard drive space on even a low-end netbook. To solve this problem, [Dmitry] threw an antique 30-pin RAM SIMM at the problem. It’s wired up directly to the microcontroller, as is the 1 Gigabyte SD card that serves as the PC’s hard drive.
Linux requires a 32-bit CPU and a memory management unit, something the puny microcontroller doesn’t have. For [Dmitry], the best course of action was
emulating an ARM processor on an AVR.
We’re not sure if we’re dealing with genius or madness here, but it did prove to be a valuable learning exercise in writing a modular ARM emulator.
How fast is it? [Dmitry] tells us it takes two hours to boot up to a bash prompt, and four more to load up Ubuntu and login. If you want a Megahertz rating, good luck; the effective clock speed is about 6.5
kilohertz.
While the worst Linux PC ever won’t win any races, its simple construction puts it within the reach of even the klutziest of hardware builders; the entire device is just a microcontroller, RAM, SD card, a few resistors, and some wire.
If you’d like to build your own worst Linux PC, [Dmitry] has the firmware and disk image available to download. If you want to watch the
time-lapse
of this thing booting, check out the video after the break.
[vimeo=39286771] | 123 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "614189",
"author": "Freax",
"timestamp": "2012-03-28T13:25:41",
"content": "He should add a cooling system and overclock the ATMega for improved performance!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "614196",
"author": "HuB",
"tim... | 1,760,376,919.979935 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/27/riding-rockets-and-jets-around-the-frozen-wastes-of-sweden/ | Riding Rockets And Jets Around The Frozen Wastes Of Sweden | Brian Benchoff | [
"Engine Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"jet",
"liquid fuel",
"pulsejet",
"rocket",
"turbine"
] | An attentive reader tipped us off to the guys at
Mobacken Racing
(
translation
), a group of Swedes dedicated to the art and craft of putting jet and rocket engines on go karts and snowmobiles.
One of the simpler builds is a
pulse jet sled
. Pulse jets are extremely simple devices – just a few stainless steel tubes welded together and started with a leaf blower. The simplicity of a pulse jet lends itself to running very hot and very loudly; the perfect engine for putting the fear of a Norse god into the hearts of racing opponents.
Pulse jets are a bit too simple for [Johansson], so he dedicates his time towards building a
jet turbine engine
. Right now it’s only on a test stand, but there’s still an awesome amount of thrust coming out of that thing, as shown in the video after the break.
In our humble opinion, the most interesting build is the
1000 Newton liquid fuel rocket engine
. The liquid-cooled engine guzzles NOX and methanol, and bears a striking resemblance to liquid fuel engines
we’ve seen before
. Sadly, there are no videos of this engine being fired (only pics of it
strapped to a go-kart
), but sit back and watch a couple other hilariously overpowered engines disturbing a tranquil sylvan winter after the break.
Edit:
[Linus Nilsson] wrote in to tell us while the guys at Mobacken Racing are good friends, [Linus], his brother, and third guy (his words) are responsible for the pulse jet sled. The pulse jet is actually ‘valved’ and not as simple as a few stainless steel tubes. The pulse jet isn’t started by a leaf blower, either, but a
four kilowatt fan.
[Linus]’ crew call themselves
Svarthalet racing
, and you can check out the Google translation
here
.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoD60hEelyo&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMl4go72Y_8&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4n7G7j59ls&w=470] | 31 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "613569",
"author": "Twilight Sparkle",
"timestamp": "2012-03-27T19:47:12",
"content": "Dangerzone.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "613591",
"author": "th3BadWolf",
"timestamp": "2012-03-27T20:29:12",
"content": "Love... | 1,760,376,920.052382 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/27/piano-box-is-a-digital-synthesizer-made-of-paper/ | Piano Box Is A Digital Synthesizer Made Of Paper | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackerspaces",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"capsense",
"keyboard",
"papercraft",
"piano",
"synthesizer"
] | We love the look of this papercraft piano
which [Catarina] built along with some friends at NYC Resistor, a hackerspace in the big apple. It starts off as a cubic black box with a white top. But just lift that top as [Catarina] does in the video after the break and three of the sides fall flat to reveal a pair of speakers and the single-octave keyboard.
The key’s don’t move when you press them. Instead, she decided to use
the CapSense Arduino library
to implement touch sensitive keys. Each key is made up of a plane of copper foil tape, with a strip of tape running back to the center of the box where it is interfaced with an Arduino Mega hidden there. The Tone library produces the waveforms which are played by the speakers, and a set of LEDs on the upright side of the box illuminate the keyboard diagram as you press each key. You can see that there are short white bars on that display which correspond to the black keys on the keyboard.
If you take a
look at the code
, you’ll see the libraries really make the code for the project simple.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFA44-gTNIM&w=470]
[Thanks Erik] | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "613642",
"author": "foo",
"timestamp": "2012-03-27T22:18:17",
"content": "after what break?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "614152",
"author": "willaim",
"timestamp": "2012-03-28T12:30:41",
"content": "I guess the ol... | 1,760,376,920.103879 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/27/polish-your-understanding-of-capacitors-by-building-this-meter/ | Polish Your Understanding Of Capacitors By Building This Meter | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"16f628a",
"capacitor",
"meter"
] | Building a capacitance meter is a great exercise. If you’re feeling quite safe in your digital-circuit-only life, this will push just far enough out of the comfort zone for you to see there’s nothing to fear in adding analog circuits to your designs. Here, [Raj]
compares a voltage divider and RC timer to calculate the value of a capacitor
. The project is aimed at teaching the concepts, and will be easy to follow for anyone who has at least a bit of experience working with a programmable microcontroller.
The meter is based on an established equation that uses are starting and ending voltage, as well as the time it took to transition between the two, to calculate capacitance. The capacitor will be charged from 0 volts to 0.5 volts. Using the built-in analog comparator is the easiest way to do this. [Raj] breadboarded a voltage divider to establish a 0.5V reference on one of the comparator’s pins. The other input comes from a circuit that places a resistor in line with the capacitor being tested. When that reading rises above the 0.5 volt reference the comparator match will be tripped, stopping a timer that had been running during the charge cycle. From there it’s just a matter of using the timer value in the calculation. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "613534",
"author": "Rob",
"timestamp": "2012-03-27T18:41:49",
"content": "I’d love to see this taken to the next level by giving it the ability to charge to *actual* rated or circuit voltage… Running a cap at a higher voltage will result in different measurement. So, having an optio... | 1,760,376,920.149832 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/27/resurrecting-a-cellphone-with-blown-usb-circuitry/ | Resurrecting A Cellphone With Blown USB Circuitry | Mike Szczys | [
"Cellphone Hacks",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"fuse",
"N900",
"nokia",
"over voltage",
"solar"
] | [Script] is pretty lucky. One of the engineers who designed his cellphone included over-voltage protection in the circuit. Of course you probably wouldn’t know about this if there wasn’t a service schematic available. But a bit of searching around let him
resurrect the fried USB segment of his Nokia N900
.
Now [Script] has been experimenting with portable solar power like
the system featured at 25C3 a few years back
. Unfortunately he made an error which routed 12V into the USB connector’s 5V rail. After this unfortunate mistake the phone would not longer connect via USB, or charge the battery. Luickly the N900 is a favorite with the hacker community (you can see
all kinds of N900 related projects here at Hackaday
) and [Script] found his way to
their N900 Schematic page
. Digging into page four he found part F5300 which is labeled 2.0A. He removed the PCB and shielding, and tested the part with a multimeter to confirm it was blown. A quick wire bridge got the phone charging again, but [Script] plans to position a new fuse as soon as he can source the part.
Who says these devices aren’t user serviceable? If we could just get our hands on more service schematics perhaps our gear would last longer. | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "613482",
"author": "F4R4D4Y.dc414",
"timestamp": "2012-03-27T16:50:28",
"content": "Fuses labeled 2.0A are for overvoltage protection?YES.Here’s my trolling math to prove it;E*I=P (watts)E/I=OhmsE/Ohms=I3.7v charger with a DC clamp-on ammeter shows phone drawing 700mA.This gives us ... | 1,760,376,920.199795 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/27/collecting-radon-data-in-the-name-of-science-and-safety/ | Collecting Radon Data In The Name Of Science And Safety | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"home hacks",
"News"
] | [
"arduino",
"data collection",
"pachube",
"Radon",
"sensors"
] | When [Chris Nafis] built an addition onto his historical home he found that a Radon problem, previously mitigated with plenty of concrete, seemed to rear its ugly head yet again. He eventually resigned himself to installing a Radon fan and detector – the latter of which offered no way to store measurement data. He wanted to
get a better feel for the short and long-term Radon measurements
in his house, in hopes of finding some correlation between temperature, moisture levels, and the total amount of Radon emitted from the ground.
To do this, he disassembled a pair of Radon detectors located in different parts of his house, each of which he wired up to an Arduino. Using his oscilloscope to determine which PCB leads controlled the different LED segments on the displays, he quickly had the Arduinos scraping measurement data from the sensors. [Chris] figured the best way to keep track of his data was to do it online, so he interfaced the microcontrollers with Pachube, where he can easily analyze his historical readings.
An additional goal he set for himself is to trigger the Radon fan only when levels start rising in order to save a little on his electric bill. With his data logging operation in full swing, we think it should be a easy task to accomplish. | 32 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "613431",
"author": "Slurm McKenzie",
"timestamp": "2012-03-27T15:18:08",
"content": "Sure, radioactive gas comes into the house… lol.No, seriously that’s the first time i hear about something like this.Is this a real problem ? Where does that happen ?Isn’t it dangerous ?",
"pare... | 1,760,376,920.872233 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/26/accelerometer-based-game-control-using-an-ios-device-courtesy-of-html5/ | Accelerometer-based Game Control Using An IOS Device Courtesy Of HTML5 | Mike Szczys | [
"Cellphone Hacks",
"iphone hacks"
] | [
"accelerometer",
"html5",
"node.js",
"qr code",
"socket.io"
] | This game of Space Invaders is played by tilting your iPhone to the left or right. It’s
a demonstration of HTML5 used to link devices in-browser
. The only setup that’s required is for the base device to load up a webpage, then the control device scans a QR code (or just types in a link) to connect with the game. You can
give it a try right now
if you want.
It only works with iOS devices but we believe that’s because mobile Safari has the ability to poll accelerometer data and other browsers do not. If this was using on-screen buttons rather than the tilt controls it would work on any device that implements HTML5. The connection is facilitated by Node.js and Socket.IO. The QR code that is generated by the host machine’s page includes a unique ID which allows the control device to link with it. Once loaded, commands from the controller are sent via Socket.IO to the node on the host machine.
As with
this HTML5-based sensor data application
, we think this method is important because it allows control without the need for a standalone application. We’re hoping to see a lot of this in embedded projects in the future. By serving data to a smart phone or other device you remove to need for a physical user interface in your projects, which means you can make great things while spending less.
[via
Reddit
] | 14 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "612887",
"author": "fightcube",
"timestamp": "2012-03-26T18:50:30",
"content": "WOW!!! it’s not syncing for me yet… probably due to the HADeffect… but this concept just BLEW MY MIND!!! NICE!!!!!!!! GOTTA THINK OF WAYS TO USE THIS!!!!! They show some details on their blog, but com... | 1,760,376,920.588241 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/26/bodging-up-a-diesel-motorcycle/ | Bodging Up A Diesel Motorcycle | Brian Benchoff | [
"Engine Hacks"
] | [
"diesel",
"motorcycle"
] | [Alex] has been working on a diesel motorcycle project for a few months now, and the project is
finally bearing fruit
. It’s quite an accomplishment for something [Alex] describes as an industrial Chinese engine, a modded Honda Superdream, and a few Royal Enfield parts thrown in for good measure.
[Alex] bought his Honda CB400 from someone who had already done a diesel motor conversion; a 200cc single-cylinder motor provided just enough horsepower to putt around town. [Alex] wanted a bike that could keep up with highway speeds, so he replaced the wimpy 200cc motor with a 406cc diesel engine used for industrial purposes and an amr500 supercharger.
Although we’ve seen a few
insane motorcycle builds
, most of Hackaday’s bike builds focus on
electric
or
scavenged parts
motorcycles. If you’ve got an awesome motorcycle build you’ve been working on, send it in on
the tip line
.
You can check out the video of [Alex] testing out his new motor with vegetable oil (for him, it’s easier than getting diesel fuel) after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1MNfdINeos&w=470] | 34 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "612823",
"author": "Willaim",
"timestamp": "2012-03-26T16:27:32",
"content": "The video might as well be a soundtrack its worthless as you see one red lght and a puff of smoke and thats about it….Why does it take so long to start?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replie... | 1,760,376,920.757183 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/26/dinos-one-year-extravaganza-is-a-laser-oscillograph/ | [Dino]’s One-year Extravaganza Is A Laser Oscillograph | Brian Benchoff | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"laser",
"oscillograph",
"vector display"
] | Readers of Hackaday may have noticed the weekly posts featuring whatever [Dino Segovis] of Hack A Week has cooked up in the last seven days. For [Dino]’s one-year anniversary, he’s pulled out all the stops and put together one of his coolest hacks to date.
It’s a laser oscillograph
that projects waveforms on a screen just like an oscilloscope. What’s more, the entire contraption is built out of a dead hard drive and a few motors and mirrors [Dino] had lying around.
The build uses an old hard drive to draw the vertical component of the waveform. Because hard drives usually use a voice coil to move the heads around the platter, it’s very easy to connect a hard drive directly to the headphone output of [Dino]’s laptop. Playing a sine wave on his computer makes the drive heads move up and down, but [Dino] still another dimension. For that, he used a rotating mirror that reflects the wave onto a paper screen.
[Dino]’s finished build isn’t that much different from an oscilloscope or projection TV. It’s possible for [Dino] to improve upon his build and make a genuine vector display with the addition of additional electronics and optics, but we’re not expecting that until at least the two-year anniversary.
Check out [Dino]’s build video after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEXxJ3toHqs&w=470] | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "612804",
"author": "kernelcode",
"timestamp": "2012-03-26T15:28:07",
"content": "This one you featured in ’06 is in a nice single package :)http://hackaday.com/2006/04/25/hard-drive-oscilloscope/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,376,921.010607 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/26/putting-multitasking-on-an-avr/ | Putting Multitasking On An AVR | Brian Benchoff | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Software Development"
] | [
"ATmega32",
"multitasking"
] | [vinod] wanted to familiarize himself with AVR assembly programming, but wanted to do something a little more ambitious than simply blinking an LED. While the completed build
does
blink a few LEDs, we love that e decided to implement
multitasking on his microcontroller
.
The program [vinod] came up with uses
round robin scheduling
to give one of the seven programmed tasks a little bit of compute time every time a timer is triggered. Although it’s extremely simple compared to “real-life”
real-time operating systems
like VxWorks, it’s still an impressive achievement.
In the video after the break, [vinod] shows off his task-switching with seven LEDs. The white LED is a PWM task, while the six other LEDs are simple toggling tasks that switch a LED on and off at set intervals independent of each other. This would be hard – if not impossible – to do without some sort of scheduling. Nice work, [vinod].
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmduLzdfMhE&w=470] | 15 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "612763",
"author": "neingeist",
"timestamp": "2012-03-26T14:09:44",
"content": "you might as well use protothreads:http://www.sics.se/~adam/pt/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "612782",
"author": "Stephen",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,376,921.067132 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/26/turning-a-rotary-tool-into-a-pcb-drill-press/ | Turning A Rotary Tool Into A PCB Drill Press | Brian Benchoff | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"drill press",
"pcb drill",
"proxxon",
"tools"
] | Drilling holes in PCBs is nearly always an exercise in compromise; the holes are small, precision is paramount, and the common solutions, such as a Dremel drill press, aren’t of the highest quality. In a quest to find the best way to drill holes in PCBs, [reboots] even went so far as to get a pneumatic dental drill, but nothing short of a high-quality micro drill press would do. Not wanting to spend hundreds of dollars to drill a few holes, [reboots] did the sensible thing and
made one from scratch
.
[reboots] ended up buying a
Proxxon Micromot 50
after reading the consistently good reviews around the Internet. To use this rotary tool as a drill press required more work, though. Two precision steel rods from a dot matrix printer were salvaged and pieces of aluminum C-channel and small bearings were bolted together into a very high-precision drill press. Only hand tools were used to build this drill press, and the
results are amazing
.
[reboots] was originally inspired to check out Proxxon tools from one of
Hack a Day’s rare tool reviews
. The Proxxon TBM115/220 earned the skull ‘n wrenches seal of approval (and found its way
into other Hack a Day-ers labs
), but sometimes a few hundred dollars is too much of an investment for something only used occasionally. Considering [reboots]’ scrap aluminum drill press is a better tool than the sloppy consumer rotary tool presses, we’ll call this a success. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "612751",
"author": "miknix",
"timestamp": "2012-03-26T13:43:28",
"content": "Very on topic!I just bought a 0.8mm drill mounted in a 12V DC motor (the kind found in air driers) from ebay:http://tinyurl.com/6vv47p2Now I plan to build a wooden base frame where a vertical sliding frame ... | 1,760,376,920.804519 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/25/weightlifting-coach-will-nag-you-about-your-form-at-least-until-the-batteries-run-dry/ | Weightlifting Coach Will Nag You About Your Form…at Least Until The Batteries Run Dry | Mike Nathan | [
"Medical Hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"accelerometer",
"exercise",
"haptic feedback",
"mega32"
] | We always enjoy seeing what Electrical and Computer Engineering students dream up for their final projects, and though we must have missed this back in 2010 when it was published, [Bruce Land] dropped us a line to bring our attention to this cool
Haptic Exercise Coach.
Designed and built by Cornell students [Michael Lyons] and [Greg Meess], the Haptic Exercise Coach is a small electrical circuit that helps individuals maintain proper form during bicep curls. The device uses accelerometers to monitor the user’s arm position and speed throughout the exercise, offering corrective feedback if it detects poor form. The device is driven by a Mega32 microcontroller which evaluates the data from the accelerometers, triggering one of six pager vibration motors to provide the feedback.
The pair says that the device can be used in athletic training to maximize workout time, or in muscle rehabilitation clinics where proper form can prevent reinjury.
Continue reading to see a video presentation of the device, and be sure to check out their project page for more details on how it was built.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxCpsxHkDxM&w=470] | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "612466",
"author": "Skeltorr",
"timestamp": "2012-03-26T03:46:50",
"content": "Shake weight from south park comes to mind.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "612589",
"author": "jwrm22",
"timestamp": "2012-03-26T0... | 1,760,376,920.957495 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/25/re-live-1978-in-all-its-glory-with-the-roth-scream-box/ | Re-live 1978 In All Its Glory With The [Roth] Scream Box | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"adafruit wave shield",
"arduino",
"David Lee Roth",
"music",
"Van Halen"
] | We never imagined that
[David Lee Roth] would mesh well with an Arduino
, that is until Flickr user [tgtsfkncld] showed off his [Roth] Scream Box a few days ago.
The unassuming box resembles sort of a nondescript “Easy Button”, but its payload is far more entertaining than whatever Staples could have possibly recorded for their device. Once the Scream Box is powered on, each press of the button rewards the user with a short sound clip of [Roth] singing the lyrics from [Van Halen’s] “Runnin’ With the Devil”.
[tgtsfkncld] took snippets of the isolated vocal track from the song, playing them back using an Arduino along with an Adafruit Wave Shield. The circuitry behind the device is not overly complicated, though the final result is great. With the wide array of isolated vocals floating around online, it would be very easy to create one for your favorite band/singer as well.
Continue reading to see the [Roth] Scream Box in action.
[via
Adafruit Blog
]
[flickr video=6995106433 w=470] | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "612396",
"author": "mike",
"timestamp": "2012-03-26T01:13:59",
"content": "this made my day. awesome.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "612421",
"author": "scrubjay",
"timestamp": "2012-03-26T02:01:16",
"content": "Pre... | 1,760,376,920.914785 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/27/building-an-artificial-heart-with-ferrofluids/ | Building An Artificial Heart With Ferrofluids | Brian Benchoff | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"artificial heart",
"ferrofluids",
"heart",
"medical"
] | Here’s something we thought we’d never see on Hackaday. [Chris Suprock] is developing an artificial heart he calls
Steel Heart
. It’s an artificial heart powered by electromagnets and ferrofluids.
The idea behind [Chris]’ artificial heart is ingenious in its simplicity. An elastic membrane is stretched across a frame and a magnetic liquid (or ferrofluid, if you prefer) is poured across the membrane. An electromagnet is activated and the membrane stretches out, simulating the beating of a heart. Put a few of these together and you’ve got a compact, biologically inert pump that’s perfect for replacing an aging ticker.
[Chris]’ plan to use ferrofluids and electromagnets as an artificial heart give us pause to actually think about what he’s done here. Previously, artificial hearts used either pneumatics or motors to pump blood throughout the body. Pneumatic pumps required plastic tubes coming out of the body – not a satisfactory long-term solution. Motor-driven pumps can rupture red blood cells leading to
hemolysis
. Using ferrofluids and an elastic membrane allows for the best of both worlds – undamaged blood cells and transdermal induction charging.
Not only is [Chris] designing
a freaking artificial heart,
he also came up with a useful application of ferrofluids. We were nearly ready to write off magnetic particles suspended in a liquid as a
cool science toy
or artistic inspiration. You can check out [Chris]’ indiegogo video with a demo of the ferrofluid pump in action after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT8G6SQTKsk&w=470] | 61 | 29 | [
{
"comment_id": "613377",
"author": "steve",
"timestamp": "2012-03-27T14:03:12",
"content": "Doesn’t work. The fluids are not long term stable under human body conditions.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "613385",
"author": "HackTheGibs... | 1,760,376,921.165536 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/27/aaron-shows-us-what-life-would-be-like-if-bob-vila-started-hacking-headphones/ | [Aaron] Shows Us What Life Would Be Like If [Bob Vila] Started Hacking Headphones | Mike Nathan | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Musical Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"breakaway",
"construction",
"earmuffs",
"headphones"
] | [Aaron Horeth] had a pair of headphones that had seen better days, and before he tossed them out, he realized that he could use them to
build a set of custom cans.
He had always wanted a pair of headphones with a detachable cord to prevent damage when tripped over, and thought that his old set would be the perfect donor.
He swung by his local hardware store to peruse their collection of construction earmuffs, eventually finding a set that looked decent and didn’t cost an arm and a leg. Using construction earmuffs as the framework for his headphones gave him the durability he was looking for with the added bonus of being designed to deaden extraneous noise. Once he got them home he pulled the drivers from his old set of headphones installing them into the earmuffs, but not before he wired them up to support a breakaway input cable.
There’s no doubt that the modifications are simple, but we imagine they come in pretty handy when tinkering around the shop. | 19 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "613362",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2012-03-27T13:43:16",
"content": "Another project from a couple years ago doing basically the same thing:http://hackaday.com/2010/05/01/custom-headphones-solve-wire-tangles/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
... | 1,760,376,921.220537 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/26/fool-me-once-or-as-often-as-possible/ | Fool Me Once… Or As Often As Possible | Mike Szczys | [
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"april fools' day",
"prank",
"pranks"
] | There was a time when posting a fake story was fun for all involved. But in this age of constant trolling, it’s near impossible to pull it off with our savvy readership. Instead of letting you down with
a really poorly advised how-to
, we’re putting in a call to hear what you’ve got in your own bag of pranks. Consider this another holiday theme and
tell us what you’re planning for April Fools’ Day
.
As always, we’re looking for your own posts on the topic. We always want to give credit where it’s due so post your prank on your blog or other favorite corner of the interwebs and send us the link. Don’t have a place to put it? You can always
start a thread in our project log forum
, or check out this for
additional spots to stake your claim
.
In case you need some help coming up with something, we’ve got a few examples to get you thinking. You can go the route of fake video demonstrations like
this Gmail gestures hoax
, or the more recent
Human BirdWings Project
. But those require a lot of production time and a clever seed idea. Perhaps something really simple will go a long way with the roommates. We’re thinking
soap covered in clear nail polish
to prevent sudsing, or perhaps you want to
reconfigure your router to render pages upside down
. We can’t wait to see what you come up with! | 45 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "613007",
"author": "DerAxeman",
"timestamp": "2012-03-26T23:03:59",
"content": "Not a hack per say, but I’m currently trying to get an e petition with enough signatures to set Wesley Snipes free if he agrees to reprise his role as “Blade” in a future Twilight cross over project.http... | 1,760,376,921.299529 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2012/03/26/brute-force-a-password-protected-pdf-using-the-beaglebone/ | Brute Force A Password Protected PDF Using The BeagleBone | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"arm",
"beaglebone",
"brute force",
"cracker",
"cryptography",
"password",
"pdf"
] | The biggest benefit to using the BeagleBone is it’s 700 MHz ARM processor. If you’re just messing around with basic I/O that power is going unused, but [Nuno Alves] is taking advantage of its power. He built
a PDF password cracker based on the $85 development board
.
We recently saw how easy it is to perform
basic I/O using the BeagleBone
. Those techniques are in play here, used to drive a character LCD and sample a button input from the breadboard circuit. [Nuno] even published separate posts for each of these peripheral features.
The password protected PDF file is passed to the device on a thumb drive. Since the BeagleBone is running embedded Linux you don’t need to mess around with figuring out how to read from the device. A click of the button starts the process. Currently the code just uses a brute force attack which can test more than 6000 four-character passwords per second. This is quite slow for any password more than four or five characters long, but [Nuno] does mention the possibility of running several ARM processors in parallel, or using a dictionary (or rainbow table) to speed things up. Either way it’s an interesting project to try on the hardware. You can see his video demo of the device after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uXesJL-hok&w=470] | 19 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "612971",
"author": "Bertho",
"timestamp": "2012-03-26T22:01:03",
"content": "Might be more fun to add a series of cpld/fpga side-boards to offload the computation than to use parallel beagles. May also be faster. Definitely more hackerish.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,376,921.656309 |
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