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https://hackaday.com/2011/04/24/mini-led-message-board-built-from-retro-displays/ | Mini LED Message Board Built From Retro Displays | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"display",
"led",
"retro"
] | [Iain] is getting to the point in his life where he finds himself waxing nostalgic about various different technologies from his youth. One item he has always been fond of is first generation 7 segment consumer LED displays, like those found in old calculators.
He was excited to find one of these displays at the bottom of a box full of electronics odds and ends he received from a friend. After identifying the display and tracking down a data sheet online,
he decided that he wanted to build some sort of little gadget out of it
.
His first inclination was to build a tiny text scrolling gadget from the display, and thus his “Personal Electronic Retro Telegram” (P.E.R.T) was born. With Arduino in hand, he prototyped the circuit on a breadboard, then sent away to have some PCBs built. Once he received the boards, alll of his prototyping components were swapped out with SMD versions, including a TQFP ATMega168 chip in place of the full-sized Arduino board.
The final result is a nice melding old and new technology which he decided to give to his girlfriend as a gift. Continue reading to see a quick video of the P.E.R.T in action.
[flickr video=http://www.flickr.com/photos/sharpie777/5632026533/ w=470] | 19 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "385408",
"author": "Alex Parting",
"timestamp": "2011-04-24T14:13:22",
"content": "that’s totally wasted on her. it should be the larson scanner in a robot",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "385410",
"author": "vic",
"times... | 1,760,377,207.72696 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/23/hacking-cakes-with-leds/ | Hacking Cakes With LEDs | Mike Nathan | [
"LED Hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"cake",
"circuits",
"food",
"leds"
] | A large part of science is making mistakes and learning from them in order to make each subsequent design that much better. When your experimentation involves hacking cakes, each failure is an exercise in deliciousness.
[Craig] and his group of research partners often bake electronics-related cakes whenever part of the team departs in search of other opportunities. Over the years, farewell parties have seen renditions of anything from multimeters to quantum computers. This time around,
he wanted to make something that contained actual electronics parts
, while still remaining edible.
He settled on making an LED matrix inside of a cake, using silver foil wrapped licorice for wires. In the end however, he found the silver foil to be incredibly difficult to work with, and the matrix ended up being little more than a few randomly blinking LEDs.
Even though things didn’t work out quite how he planned, he is not discouraged. The cake was still quite tasty, and through this process he has discovered edible silver paint, which will undoubtedly make it into the next farewell cake. | 25 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "385096",
"author": "Braian87b",
"timestamp": "2011-04-23T20:55:46",
"content": "OMFG! would be great if the cake is made with dulce de leche!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "385120",
"author": "Elias",
"timestamp": "2011... | 1,760,377,207.562186 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/23/hacking-analog-phones-for-voip/ | Hacking Analog Phones For VOIP | Mike Nathan | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"analog",
"phone",
"voip"
] | [Tyler] has been using Google Voice extensively for some time now, but he hasn’t quite found a microphone/speaker setup he is happy with. He tried a headset, but that just didn’t do it for him.
While browsing around at his local thrift store,
he came across an old Model 500 rotary phone for just a few dollars
and decided it just might do the trick. Once disassembled, he mapped out the circuitry and got busy wiring up the handset to a pair of 3.5 mm stereo plugs – one each for the earpiece and microphone.
Once everything was reassembled, he hooked it up to his computer and gave it a spin – success!
While he is happy with how the phone works at the moment, he already has plans for improving it. He is currently looking for a way to use the handset hook to disconnect calls as well as a way to implement the rotary dial for number entry. We think that hacking a Bluetooth headset would easily take care of the first part, as well as eliminate the need for any sort of wired interface to his PC. It would also make it dead simple to use with any other Bluetooth-enabled device such as a cell phone.
We’re pretty sure he is open to implementation suggestions, so let us know what you think. | 30 | 30 | [
{
"comment_id": "385080",
"author": "weregeek",
"timestamp": "2011-04-23T19:56:54",
"content": "I, too, have a 500 set hooked up to make voip calls through google voice. A SIP or IAX ATA that supports pulse dial, and a relatively recent version on asterisks makes it work just about like it did when... | 1,760,377,207.223998 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/23/the-layerone-hacking-conference-is-around-the-corner/ | The LayerOne Hacking Conference Is Around The Corner | Caleb Kraft | [
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"cons",
"hacking",
"security"
] | We just wanted to give a heads up to everyone to remind them that the annual
layerOne hacking and security conference
is coming up soon. They have announced their speaker line-up which includes talks on home monitoring, lockpicking, mobile malware and tons more. The event is located in Anaheim California on May 28-29.
They sent us sort of a press release with some information on the event and some details on the badge. You can read their email after the break.
The annual LayerOne hacking and security will be held on May 28-29,
2011 in Anaheim, CA. As always, there’s a great speaker lineup
(
http://www.layerone.org/?page_id=85
) at Layer One 2011. Some
highlights include John Norman talking about DIY Access Control
Systems (
http://www.layerone.org/?page_id=85#arclight
), Sam Bowne
talking about Layer 7 DDoS attacks
(
http://www.layerone.org/?page_id=85#bowne
), and Jimmy Shah talking
about For-profit malware on mobile devices
(
http://www.layerone.org/?page_id=85#shah
).
LayerOne includes a full fledged Lockpicking Village
(
http://www.layerone.org/?page_id=105
) and Hardware Hacking Village
(
http://www.layerone.org/?page_id=103
), both of which will have
demonstrations and training for those interested in picking locks,
cracking safes, making blinky lights, or learning how to surface mount
solder. This year will also be LayerOne’s first Tamper Evident Contest
(
http://www.layerone.org/?page_id=45#tamper
), where teams compete to
see who can best defeat mechanical, adhesive, and electronic tamper
indicating technologies while leaving no trace of their attacks.
This year’s badge will be a custom PCB that can be worked on in the
Hardware Hacking Village to make a mini synthesizer. Designed by
Charliex of Null Space Labs (
http://www.nullspacelabs.com
), it is
based on the open source meeblip (
www.meeblip.com
) and the AVR Synth
(
http://www.elby-designs.com/avrsynth/avrsyn-about.htm
). (The meeblip
is a reworked version of the AVR synth.) It has a 16 bit output with a
DAC that’s loaded 8 bits at a time. To cut down costs and assembly
time we used a simple R2R ladder and dropped off the amp stage, since
R2R’s pretty much rock.
The design was changed to surface mount (from through-hole); we don’t
have any through hole soldering equipment and it’s not 1980. The CPU
was switched to the ATMEGA64 or ATMEGA128 for those needing next-level
beats and more hackability. The MIDI interface is on a seperate mini
PCB that connects to the badge so you can play Rockband’s pro keyboard
or guitar. The pots were changed to linear slide and the switches to
momentary to save cost and space. Our intial meeblip version we
reworked at NSL worked out about half the cost of the original —
this one is even less than that. Both ISP and JTAG are broken out,
since the ATMEGA64/128 is one of the bastard children of the ATMEL
series. Finally, 20 charlieplexed LED’s were added because blinky
things are a must have at any premier security conference.
Speakers will have their own top-secret 4-layer PCB badges designed by
Krs (
http://www.layerone.org/?page_id=85#krs
), who is also giving a
short talk on their design and her experiences going from EE newbie to
designing complex PCBs in less than a year. | 20 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "385022",
"author": "Kennychuot07",
"timestamp": "2011-04-23T16:26:02",
"content": "Dc ruj",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "385031",
"author": "MS3FGX",
"timestamp": "2011-04-23T17:09:39",
"content": "“The design was c... | 1,760,377,207.286503 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/23/simple-avr-based-gps-tracker/ | Simple AVR Based GPS Tracker | Caleb Kraft | [
"gps hacks"
] | [
"atmega",
"AVR",
"gps"
] | The latest project from Lucidscience.com is a
simple AVR based GPS tracker
. As usual, the instructions here are quite in-depth including schematics and step by step procedures all the way down to modifying cables when necessary. What we found interesting is that the GPS module he’s using is so simple. It only requires 3 wires, one for power, one for serial communication, and one for a heartbeat.
For the microprocessor, he’s using an ATMega 324, which is a bit of processing overkill but he needed the SRAM for the GPS point storage. You could obviously expand to external storage but the goal here was to keep it extremely simple. Actually, there just isn’t a whole lot here other than the microprocessor, the GPS module, and a level converter. After wrapping up the circuit he goes on to explain how to get the data into Google Earth for display. After a few trips around the block you can see the results are quite nice. | 7 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "384993",
"author": "Brett W. (FightCube.com)",
"timestamp": "2011-04-23T14:45:30",
"content": "Very cool little spy device ;-) I would add a zigbee radio that could be used for the serial download or reprogramming the device from a distance. That way once you sneak it onto the car... | 1,760,377,207.445973 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/22/simple-ir-bounce-tachometer/ | Simple IR Bounce Tachometer | Jesse Congdon | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"ir",
"Microchip PIC",
"PIC18F2550",
"speedometer",
"start USB for PIC"
] | [Rajendra Bhatt] writes in to let us know about a nice simple
IR bounce tachometer
. The project uses a startUSB for PIC board and a 16×2 character LCD with a very basic Infrared bounce circuit. Measuring either a reflective or non reflective spot in the rotating object, in this case a bit of white paper, the micro is supposedly capable of measuring up to 99,960 RPM (we think the paper might fly off at this point) with a resolution of 60 RPM. This is the same concept as a beam-break style
tachometer
but keeps all your electronics on one end of the
spinning hazard
.
The article also goes into detail about setting the PIC18F2550’s Timer0 register to enable 16-bit resolution. The PIC is configured to turn on the infrared LED for one second, measure the number of pulses (through timer registers), and multiply that value by 60. We would be more careful with the TMR0H and TMR0L counters as they have to be read and written in a certain order to preserve their values, but you’d need to be measuring upwards of 15,360 rpm to run into that error.
It is a quality writeup for anyone interested in learning about the start USB for PIC board, tachometers, or a new project. Thanks [Raj]! | 13 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "384741",
"author": "Jacob",
"timestamp": "2011-04-22T21:59:25",
"content": "I’m glad i didn’t buy a turbocharger tachometer from Garrett, seems now i can build my own for $30 or less..On question though, why does the RX pin have to be switched to high using the PNP resistor saturate... | 1,760,377,207.401219 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/22/nerf-mind-bullets/ | Nerf Mind Bullets | Mike Szczys | [
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"mindset",
"mindwave",
"nerf",
"neurosky"
] | [Chris] thinks that using your brain to control your trigger finger is a passé way of operating a toy firearm. Instead, he’s
using his mind to fire foam bullets
at whatever he thinks needs to pretend-die. To read his will, he’s chosen the Neurosky MindWave,
a device that we just looked at for servo control
. That hack shows how to patch into the USB dongle that comes with the device, but [Chris] opted to use a BlueSMiRF module from Sparkfun to connect the headset to an Arduino via Bluetooth.
The rest of the hack involves
modifying the gun for automatic firing
. It’s a Nerf Stampede, which takes six D-cells to power the electrical firing system. [Chris] didn’t want to carry that weight around in the body of the weapon itself so he installed a port for external power and added a firing mechanism at the same time. It uses relays to complete the circuit normally operated by the trigger. Now logic-level signals have no problem dispensing justice from the brightly-colored device.
[via
Make
] | 9 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "384676",
"author": "MrX",
"timestamp": "2011-04-22T18:25:48",
"content": "<>Magic Smoke!!! He could have prevented that by using multi-color cabling. Sure he has some fancy jumper wire, but still..With everything moving to fiber optics, it is not that hard to find color phone line c... | 1,760,377,207.154079 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/22/dslr-infrared-camera-conversion/ | DSLR Infrared Camera Conversion | Mike Nathan | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"conversion",
"dslr",
"infrared",
"ir"
] | [Jerry] recently got a shiny new DSLR camera and was looking to do something with the old Pentax DSLR it replaced. Having performed a few point and shoot IR conversions in the past, he was pretty confident
he could tackle this conversion without too much trouble
.
He located the service manual for the camera and got busy taking it apart. He had to desolder the main board to get to the CCD block, where the sensor, IR cut filter, and the shake reduction motors are all located. The IR cut filter was pried off without too much trouble as it is only secured with a clip and an adhesive foam gasket.
Once things were disassembled, the real work began. He had a little trouble cutting the IR filter he purchased, so it took a little bit of elbow grease to get things exactly the way he wanted. Once he got the filter in place, he carefully re-mounted the sensor block to ensure that it was set at the proper height.
Once things were fully reassembled, he tried taking a few test shots, but found that there were some focus issues due to the IR filter being thicker than the original IR cut filter. A few manual tweaks in the camera’s debug menu and he was in business.
Be sure to check out his photo stream to take a look at some of the pictures he snapped with his new IR camera. | 17 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "384641",
"author": "PocketBrain",
"timestamp": "2011-04-22T17:08:48",
"content": "Heh. I still have my CVS camcorder IR conversion. Incidentally, sharpie marker is invisible to IR, so it’s easy to make a visible-light filter.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies":... | 1,760,377,207.351269 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/22/relay-calculator/ | Relay Calculator | Kevin Dady | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"calculator",
"relay"
] | Calculators are a handy tool to have around in just about every application. We often take them for granted today, but even when I was a kid they were still sort of expensive devices that you put thought into buying. Illustrating just how far we have come is this awesome
Relay Calculator
brought to us by [Team 619].
Featuring an optical slider input system, the user can select any two 4 bit numbers and can add or subtract them. Logic is carried out by a couple handfuls of relays setup to be AND, OR, or XOR gates, which are then linked together to build adders.
Output is in binary as well, in the form of lights, though we cant really tell if those are some form of tubes or if they are just rods lit on end. Either way if you require a lot of nibble math and want a conversation starter this suits the bill quite niceley. Otherwise you can keep hooking up more and more relays and maybe one day
make your own relay computer
.
Join us after the break for a quick video!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U02WQeg10c&w=450] | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "384610",
"author": "...",
"timestamp": "2011-04-22T15:35:55",
"content": "Those are CCFL tubes, FIRST includes them in their robot parts kits sometimes. By the looks of it most of the calculator is leftover FIRST parts, a great use of the junk in th lab!",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,377,207.771789 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/22/beat707-takes-its-cue-from-a-vintage-drum-machine/ | Beat707 Takes It’s Cue From A Vintage Drum Machine | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"synthesizer"
] | We always like musical hacks at hackaday, so we were pleased to see the team at [Beat707] come out with their
Beat707
MIDI groove box.
The Beat707 takes it’s inspiration from the venerable
Roland TR-707
. Like the Roland, the Beat707 can save songs and has MIDI In and Out. Unlike the TR-707, the Beat707 doesn’t have an audio out – it’s purely MIDI based. Don’t think of that as a drawback, though. Just connect the Beat707 to your favorite softsynth and start jamming out.
The Roland TR-707 was heavily used by acts like the Chemical Brothers, Aphex Twin, and the Cocteau Twins. Because of this history, the popularity of the TR-707 has exploded over the past few years, and getting a hold of a real TR-707 has been an expensive proposition. While rebuilds of vintage synths like [Ladyada]’s TB-303 clone, the
x0xb0x
have been around for a while, we’re pleased that more projects are paying their dues to the great music machines of the 1980s. Do any hackaday readers want to tackle an
808
or
909
for their next project?
Video of the Beat707 after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU1Mo97dq3M&w=450] | 19 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "384588",
"author": "Thom",
"timestamp": "2011-04-22T14:29:51",
"content": "Eh, if this is just putting out midi commands how is it anything like a TR-707?? Its a generic sequencer surely?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "384590",... | 1,760,377,207.501205 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/22/rule-your-furnace-with-this-network-enabled-thermostat/ | Rule Your Furnace With This Network-enabled Thermostat | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"ethernet",
"thermostat"
] | Adafruit forum member [Stephanie] embarked on a mission to
replace the thermostat in her home with one that was far more robust and full of electronic goodies
.
Her goal was to build a networked thermostat that allowed for 2-way communications between the base station and any other networked device, such as her laptop or iPhone. She wanted to not only be able to monitor her furnace and air conditioning systems remotely, but to control the units from afar as well.
The brains of the thermostat have changed throughout the project, becoming simpler as time went on. It is now controlled with just an ATMega328 mounted to the back of an LCD display with a Wiznet network module where an Adafruit Ethernet shield used to reside. The thermostat shows the current temperature, set temperature, and time on the front mounted LCD, the latter of which is provided by a Chronodot module. It also has an on board LED that can be seen from afar, indicating whether the heat or air conditioning is running,
Right now the thermostat can be controlled at the unit itself, or remotely using a Telnet session. [Stephanie] is currently happy with the setup, but future plans include creating an iPad application to provide a more user-friendly interface.
If you are interested in learning more, or building one yourself, be sure to
swing by her blog
for a far more in-depth look at the build process. | 13 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "384581",
"author": "Dave",
"timestamp": "2011-04-22T14:12:49",
"content": "This is really cool, and has a great presentation. Nice work Stephanie. Also- interesting blog with lots of pictures and good descriptions. I’m a little nervous about creating my own thermostat because of ... | 1,760,377,207.81922 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/22/pcb-milling-tutorial/ | PCB Milling Tutorial | Mike Szczys | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"EagleCad",
"end mill",
"isopro",
"mill",
"pcb"
] | [Juan Jose Chong] put together a set of videos and
a PDF guide to milling printed circuit boards
. You’ll find the pair of videos, totaling about twenty-two minutes, embedded after the break. In them, [Jaun] details the techniques used by the IEEE chapter at Texas Tech University to mill PCBs instead of using the traditional method of etching them. We’ve long been a fan of
milled PCBs
and often dream about the day we can retire the old iron we use for the toner transfer method.
In the tutorial,
IsoPro
is the software used to control the mill. The CAM files from a PCB design program are imported – they can come from many different programs including EagleCAD. A few setup steps let the operator configure the resolution necessary to mill the correct tolerance and from there the paths that outline each trace are calculated in software. In order to facilitate double-sided boards a reference hole is drilled in the copper clad board to accept a post on the mill table. Tape down the substrate with some foil tape, set the depth of the end mill bit, and let the machine do its thing. [Juan’s] video illustrates how quickly this can produce a rather complicated board, finishing in around 20 minutes.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36wm02cskiE&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZUzuBq9Xr4&w=470] | 26 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "384586",
"author": "Luke",
"timestamp": "2011-04-22T14:28:41",
"content": "I know what I’m doing this weekend!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "384589",
"author": "Will",
"timestamp": "2011-04-22T14:30:11",
"content":... | 1,760,377,207.984717 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/22/mindwave-is-developer-read-hacker-friendly-mind-control/ | MindWave Is Developer (read: Hacker) Friendly Mind Control | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"mindwave",
"servo",
"usb"
] | Here’s a setup to
control a servo motor with your mind
. [Danny Bertner] made this project happen by interfacing a
MindWave headset
with an Arduino. You might wonder what’s the big deal about that since we’ve covered quite a few
mind control hacks that work this way
? So far, the majority of those hacks used the Mindflex toy (to be fair there were several
using the Force Trainer
as well), which depends on a chip made by the company that is responsible for the MindWave. Both the Mindflex and the Force Trainer were reverse engineered to access the stream of data coming in from the EEG sensors. But NeuroSky is embracing the urge to mess with their products by offering developer tools.
[Danny] took advantage of these resources, using the comany’s own
guide to interfacing with an Arduino
(PDF). The quick clip after the break shows his finished project, grabbing data from the USB dongle that comes with the headset, converting it to the necessary levels for the Arduino, then processing the signals for display on and LED bar graph.
We can’t help but chuckle about the warranty-voiding disclaimer at the top of the PDF guide.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/22634724 w=470] | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "384528",
"author": "Ratty",
"timestamp": "2011-04-22T11:25:41",
"content": "Interesting, shame they fall into the trap of charging the same price for their equipment in euros as dollars, just swapping the $ for a €.99 Euros = 144.2331 U.S. dollars says google.",
"parent_id": nul... | 1,760,377,207.919804 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/21/laser-tripwire-water-balloon-prank/ | Laser Tripwire Water Balloon Prank | Mike Nathan | [
"Laser Hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"laser",
"prank",
"tripwire",
"water balloon"
] | Even though it’s a bit late for April Fool’s jokes, [Ameres] wrote in to share
a project guaranteed to catch your friends (or enemies) by surprise
.
Like us, he had some old CD-ROM drives sitting around and thought that there must be some way to put them to good use. He gutted one, saving the laser’s carrier unit for use as his mechanical trigger. He placed the unit above a doorway, soldered a pin on to the end of the laser carrier, and positioned a water balloon at the end of the CD-ROM’s rails. The laser carrier’s motor was then connected to a photocell located about half way down the side of the door.
He mounted a laser on the far side of the door, which is pointed at the photocell. Once the laser beam is broken, the CD-ROM motor is actuated, popping the balloon over the unsuspecting victim.
It’s not the most high-tech prank out there, but how high tech does a water prank need to be? We just wonder how easy it would be to attach one of these things to our cube at work…
Have any ideas as to how he can make a bigger splash with his friends? Share them with us in the comments. | 8 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "384286",
"author": "Harley",
"timestamp": "2011-04-21T23:44:26",
"content": "I’m curious how he learned to do this through a career in electrical engineering possibly?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "384301",
"author": "jedi... | 1,760,377,208.303026 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/21/measuring-the-10-kiloamp-output-of-a-large-capacitor-bank/ | Measuring The ~10 Kiloamp Output Of A Large Capacitor Bank | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"bank",
"capacitor",
"rogowski coil"
] | [Norman] put together a rather impressive 22,500 uF capacitor bank. In addition to find things to torture with the strong magnetic field generated by a sudden discharge, he’d like to measure the current pushed from the device. He’s found
a way to do this using a digital storage oscilloscope
. To protect the oscilloscope [Norman] built his own interface box that includes a 50x voltage divider, and interfaces a current sensor called
a Rogowski coil
. When it comes time to run the experiment, he turns the safety lock-out key on the bank charger, then discharges the stored potential with the flip of a switch.
Take a look at the video after the break to see soda cans and hard drive platters mangled by the device. The oscilloscope measures the output near 10 kA, giving [Norman] the data he set out to capture. He’s entered this project into the Tektronix contest where it’ll compete with the
piano tuner
and
laser light show tester
just to name a few.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YG66kqhUh4&w=470] | 22 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "384191",
"author": "Digimer",
"timestamp": "2011-04-21T21:09:57",
"content": "Needs more cowbell. Err. Needs MOAR POWAR!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "384196",
"author": "sp00nix",
"timestamp": "2011-04-21T21:18:42",
... | 1,760,377,208.360699 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/21/blackberry-lcd-reverse-engineering/ | Blackberry LCD Reverse Engineering | Mike Nathan | [
"blackberry hacks"
] | [
"Atmel",
"blackberry",
"lcd",
"reverse engineering"
] | [Scott] was looking to source some LCD screens for an upcoming project, and was considering buying them from SparkFun. While the Nokia panels they sell are not expensive, they aren’t necessarily the cheapest option either – especially when building in volume.
He searched around for something he could use instead,
and settled on Blackberry screens
. Old Blackberry models were even more durable than the current offerings, plus companies are trying to get rid of old handsets by the truckload. The only problem was that he could not find any information online that would show him how to write to the screens.
It took a bit of digging, but he eventually determined which ICs were used to drive the LCD screen. He had no luck finding screen pinout information online, so after spending a few hours testing things with his multimeter, he came up with a full listing on his own.
He wired up a connector so that he could use the screen on a breadboard, then got busy writing code to display some text on the screen. Everything came together nicely as you can see in the video below, and he has released his code in case anyone else is looking to repurpose some old Blackberry screens.
All we want to know is what sort of project all these screens are going to be used in.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIQcTPdfJAQ&w=470] | 23 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "384162",
"author": "1000100 1000001 1010110 1000101",
"timestamp": "2011-04-21T20:25:41",
"content": "Awesome. His page has been bookmarked.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "384192",
"author": "Mikee55",
"timestamp": "201... | 1,760,377,208.178507 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/21/tandy-color-computer-coco3-color-video-playback/ | Tandy Color Computer (CoCo3) Color Video Playback | Mike Szczys | [
"computer hacks",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"coco3",
"color computer",
"tandy",
"trs-80",
"trs80"
] | [John W. Linville] wrote
a digital video player for the Tandy Color Computer
(aka TRS-80). The decades-old hardware performs quite well considering the limited resource he had to work with. This is the second iteration of his player, and can be seen after the break playing a promo video for
CoCoFEST 2011
where he’ll show it off in person.
In the most recent thread post (at the time of writing) [John] shares the
methods used to get this running
. FFMPEG is used on a modern computer to process the source video by separating the audio into an 8-bit 11040Hz file, and it generates several PPM files with the proper video frame rate. ImageMagick takes it from there to convert the PPM files to a bitmap format. It also processes each frame for differential changes, reducing the size to fall within the available bandwidth. They are then interleaved with the audio to produce the final format. Video is 128×192 with rectangular pixels. [John’s] already used it to watch such classics as War Games on the antiquated hardware.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42jBBrqn70w&w=470] | 18 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "384120",
"author": "Hans PUFAL",
"timestamp": "2011-04-21T19:19:10",
"content": "Actually the Tandy CoCo and TRS-80 are completely different. The TRS-80 is based on the Z80 processor, the CoCo on the Motorola 6809.Tandy DID confuse the issue by naming CoCo the TRS-80 Color Compter, ... | 1,760,377,208.1228 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/21/camera-software-learns-to-pick-you-out-of-a-crowd/ | Camera Software Learns To Pick You Out Of A Crowd | Mike Nathan | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"face recognition",
"predator",
"tld",
"tracking",
"video"
] | While the Kinect is great at tracking gross body movements and discerning what part of a person’s skeleton is moving in front of the camera, the device most definitely has its shortfalls. For instance, facial recognition is quite limited, and we’re guessing that it couldn’t easily track an individual’s eye throughout the room.
No, for tracking like that, you would need something far more robust. Under the guidance of [Krystian Mikolajczyk and Jiri Matas], PhD student [Zdenek Kalal] has been working on
a piece of software called TLD
, which has some pretty amazing capabilities. The software uses almost any computer-connected camera to simultaneously
T
rack an object,
L
earn its appearance, and
D
etect the object whenever it appears in the video stream. The software is so effective as you can see in the video below, that it has been dubbed “Predator”.
Once he has chosen an object within the camera’s field of vision, the software monitors that object, learning more and more about how it looks under different conditions. The software’s learning abilities allow it to pick out individual facial features, follow moving objects in video, and can recognize an individual’s face amid a collection of others.
While the software can currently only track one object at a time, we imagine that with some additional development and computing horsepower, this technology will become even more amazing.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GhNXHCQGsM&w=470] | 42 | 42 | [
{
"comment_id": "384052",
"author": "blaine",
"timestamp": "2011-04-21T18:04:43",
"content": "imagine how this could help in the tracking of suspected terrorists. with it tied into networked cameras in airports world wide. wonder if it can learn from scanned photos of the same subject?",
"parent... | 1,760,377,208.257948 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/21/internet-controlled-robotic-arm/ | Internet-controlled Robotic Arm | Mike Nathan | [
"Robots Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"arm",
"game",
"remote control",
"robot",
"toy"
] | [Trav] was pondering virtual reality and decided it was no longer all that it was cracked up to be, so he created an experience in what he calls “Remote Reality”. While we have seen many installations over the years that allow people to remotely interact with objects across the globe, his Orbduino project consists of more than simply toggling lights on and off (though he’ll let you do that too).
In his house, he has set up a robotic playground of sorts that
allows anyone who visits a chance to play around with the robotic arm
he has installed there. The arm is situated in a pen filled with random objects which can be stacked and moved around. He also promises to show you something fun, provided you can guide the arm to pick up an object and hold it against the target positioned outside the pen.
He didn’t forget the obligatory remote light controls either. You can turn the overhead lights on and off, as well as control a multi-colored orb situated in the corner of the room. Most of the project’s interface is done with an Arduino Mega, which handles the robot arm interface, as well as messing with the light installations.
If you have some free time, swing by his site and give the robotic arm a try. It’s a fun little time waster that you will likely enjoy. Just make sure to take it easy on his web server! | 8 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "383999",
"author": "Brett W. (FightCube.com)",
"timestamp": "2011-04-21T15:58:16",
"content": "Very cool! Over the years I’ve also played with this one, which used to have a faster video feed:http://www.webtruck.org/webtruck/live2010_html",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,377,208.409612 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/21/easter-egg-hacking/ | Easter Egg Hacking | Mike Nathan | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"egg",
"music",
"PICAXE",
"piezo",
"tilt switch"
] | Spring is upon us and Instructables user [Mischka] decided it was a good idea to combine two flavors we never considered putting together:
The Easter Bunny and the A-Team
.
He decided to build the egg as an Easter gift for his brother, who is a huge fan of the A-Team. He found a slightly larger than normal plastic egg, and proceeded to paint the shell white, adding a printed picture of Mr. T once the paint had dried.
The guts of the egg are made up of a Picaxe 08M micro controller mounted on a Picaxe protoboard. Rather fond of buzzing, beeping audio, he decided to forgo a normal speaker and opted to use a piezo instead. To activate the music when the egg is shaken, a tilt switch was added to the board as well. He uploaded his software to the Picaxe, sealed up the egg, and called it a day.
We can imagine his brother will be pretty pleased with the creation – who wouldn’t be? We only wish that there was video of the egg in action. | 7 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "383994",
"author": "mic",
"timestamp": "2011-04-21T15:49:19",
"content": "It should say, “I pity the fool.” when you shake it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "383998",
"author": "Oliver",
"timestamp": "2011-04-21T15:57:4... | 1,760,377,208.456275 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/21/rube-goldberg-machine-puts-engineering-students-in-the-record-books/ | Rube Goldberg Machine Puts Engineering Students In The Record Books | Mike Nathan | [
"contests",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"complex",
"fun",
"guinnessbookofworldrecords",
"rube goldberg",
"silly"
] | Rube Goldberg machines are always a fan favorite around here. They truly embody the concept of over-engineering, and are an entertaining departure from what we normally cover on Hackaday.
Back in February, engineering students from two on-campus professional associations at Purdue University teamed up to construct a
world record-setting Rube Goldberg machine
. Their entry in the Purdue Regional Rube Goldberg Machine Contest not only won them the regional title, but also potentially put them in the books as creating the most complex device of its nature.
Their contraption was dubbed “The Time Machine” and acts out events in our planet’s history. It starts with the big bang, moving through various other time periods, including the stone age, ancient Egypt, and the medieval era. It also makes several stops in more recent times, including World War II and the Cold War, before self-destructing at the Apocalypse.
All told, the machine incorporates 244 steps to water a plant, which is 14 more than the previous record holder. Continue reading to see a video that highlights some of the machine’s more interesting features, and be sure to
check out
these
Rube Goldberg machines
we’ve
covered in the past
.
[via
BoingBoing
]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdPDn1KUz_A&w=470] | 36 | 36 | [
{
"comment_id": "383905",
"author": "bunedoggle",
"timestamp": "2011-04-21T13:08:06",
"content": "Epic.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "383910",
"author": "sariel",
"timestamp": "2011-04-21T13:19:17",
"content": "and thus will end th... | 1,760,377,208.526666 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/21/cotton-candy-just-the-color-you-like-it/ | Cotton Candy Just The Color You Like It | Mike Szczys | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"cotton candy",
"mbed",
"sugar"
] | Hit the web to order up your
custom-color cotton candy from this machine
(
translated
). A computer monitors a web interface for an incoming order, then pushes commands to an mbed microcontroller which dispenses three different colors of sugar to whip up your custom shade of the cottony delight.
In addition to the sugar dispensing system, the candy maker itself is also a do-it-yourself design. It looks like the most difficult part of this project was getting this component right. They’ve got
a collection of videos documenting the multiple attempts
on the road to success. Once dispensed, the colored sugars make their way into a spinning metal cylinder where they’re heated by the flame from a butane candle lighter. Eventually the team manages to get cotton candy to form but we can’t help but feel like
they’re trying to reinvent the wheel with this one
.
[via
Make
] | 9 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "383886",
"author": "Decepticon",
"timestamp": "2011-04-21T12:31:02",
"content": "Very nice. But what I want to know is, what is that track behind them? Looks like phun!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "383900",
"author": "N... | 1,760,377,208.573551 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/21/doj-and-fbi-now-issuing-command-to-botnet-malware/ | DoJ And FBI Now Issuing Command To Botnet Malware | Mike Szczys | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"botnet",
"coreflood",
"department of justice",
"doj",
"fbi"
] | Looks like the FBI is starting to get pretty serious about fighting malware. Traditionally they have attacked the servers that activate and control botnets made up of infected computers. This time they’re
going much further by taking control of and issuing commands to the botnets
. In this instance it’s a nasty little bug called Coreflood, and they’ve been given permission to take the yet-unheard-of step by a federal judge.
An outside company called Internet Systems Consortium has been tapped to do the actual work. It will call upon the malware on infected computers and issue a command to shut it down. That falls short of fixing the problem as Coreflood will try to phone home again upon reboot. This gets back to the initial problem; we won’t ever be able to stop malware attacks as long as there are users who do not have the knowhow (or simply don’t care) to protect and disinfect their own computer systems.
How long do you think it will be before some black hat comes up with a countermeasure against this type of enforcement?
[via
Gizmodo
] | 65 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "383858",
"author": "Coda",
"timestamp": "2011-04-21T11:05:42",
"content": ">How long do you think it will be before some black hat comes up with a countermeasure against this type of enforcement?About 37 seconds. Fight the root cause, not the symptoms!",
"parent_id": null,
"... | 1,760,377,209.437165 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/20/amazing-quad-pick-and-place-system-tirelessly-sorts-your-legos/ | Amazing Quad Pick And Place System Tirelessly Sorts Your Legos | Mike Nathan | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"lego",
"nxt",
"pick and place",
"robot",
"sorting"
] | [Chris] is quite the devoted tinkerer. He recently wrote in to share what can only be described as a labor of love.
His Quad Delta Robot system
has been in the works for about six years now, split into periods of research, building, more research, and rebuilding until arriving at its current form.
The system is made up of four Lego NXT robots which are tasked with sorting Lego cubes by color as they come down a pair of conveyer belts. The robots were built to mimic commercially available pick and place robots which can be found on assembly lines all over the world.
Each robot operates independently, receiving signals via a light sensor which tells the robot where the next brick is located, as well as what color it is. This data is sent by the main NXT unit, which uses a lights sensor to determine brick color and position, relaying the information to the other bots via flashing LEDs. All of the robots receive the same signal, but much like NIC cards ignore frames not destined for their MAC, the bots ignore messages that are not addressed to them.
The machine is truly amazing to watch – it’s clear that all of [Chris’] research and planning has paid off. You have to check out the video embedded below to truly appreciate all of the work that went into this system. Also, be sure to swing by his site for a far more in-depth look at how the machines work, it is definitely worth the time.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VxCl6w3HS0&w=470] | 19 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "383578",
"author": "tehbasti",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T22:25:48",
"content": "the noise drives me insane…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "383591",
"author": "AllThatJazz",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T23:01:28",
"conten... | 1,760,377,208.669081 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/20/trackuino-%e2%80%93-an-open-source-arduino-aprs-tracker/ | Trackuino – An Open Source Arduino APRS Tracker | Jason Komp | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"gps hacks"
] | [
"APRS",
"arduino",
"balloon",
"GPR"
] | Trackuino is a new open source (GPLv2 license) Arduino APRS tracker designed by [Javier Martin]. If you are unfamiliar: APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) is an amateur radio method used to relay small packets of position-tracking data to an online database for easy access and mapping. In this case, GPS telemetry data is used to track latitude, longitude, altitude, course, speed, and time measurements in near real-time via
aprs.fi
.
Although this reminds us of the
WhereAVR
that we covered previously, the Trackuino includes an onboard radio so no external handheld unit is necessary. Since the Trackuino was designed primarily for high-altitude balloon tracking, a number of useful related features are also included: dual temperature sensors, support for a humidity sensor, and a remote “cut-down” trigger really make this a complete package.
Initially there was some concern that the 300mW radio used would not be powerful enough to reach the ground-based receivers from peak altitudes. This was clearly not an issue however, as the signal was heard from nearly 600Km away during the
maiden voyage
. If this still doesn’t sound like enough power, a 500mW radio is also supported.
Make sure to check out
[Javier]’s blog
for some amazing high-altitude photos and everything needed to get your own Trackuino up and running in no time!
Thanks [Brad]! | 31 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "383570",
"author": "Jim",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T22:01:27",
"content": "I want to launch weather balloon sooo Bad!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "383573",
"author": "hpux735",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T22:05:57",
"... | 1,760,377,208.95296 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/20/larson-scanner-using-7400-series-logic-hardware/ | Larson Scanner Using 7400 Series Logic Hardware | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"7400",
"cylon eye",
"flipflop",
"knight rider",
"larson scanner"
] | [RandomTask] is sharing
a Larson scanner he built a few decades ago
. These days you can whip one of these up using an Arduino in under an hour. He mentions this, but we agree that for nostalgic purposes there’s nothing like implementing the scanning LED effect using hardware.
Often called a Cylon Eye (after the television show Battlestar Gallactica) or referred to as the lights on the front of Kitt (the car from Knight Rider), the effect doesn’t just involve switching LEDs on and off in the proper order. A true Larson Scanner fades the LEDs as the bright point moves away from them, resulting in a tail that dims over time.
This implementation uses a 555 timer as the clock signal, allowing for speed control through a potentiometer. A counter chip, J-K flipflop, and line decoder all work with each other to address the movement of the brightest light. The fading effect is managed via a capacitor and resistor for each LED. The video after the break shows the pleasing result of this setup.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbM1JpvKS_A&w=470] | 11 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "383545",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T21:18:06",
"content": "Ah, isn’t that cute, a baby cylon.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "383566",
"author": "fdawg4l",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T21:55:51",
"co... | 1,760,377,209.043532 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/20/capacitive-touch-sensor-shield-for-the-ti-launchpad/ | Capacitive Touch Sensor Shield For The TI Launchpad | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"capacitive",
"lauchpad",
"msp430g2452",
"texas instruments",
"ti",
"touch sensor"
] | Texas Instruments just released a product they call the
Capacitive Touch Boosterpack which is basically a touch-sensitive shield for the Launchpad
. The video after the break shows an unboxing and demonstration of the product which TI is launching with a $4.30 limited-time price tag. The red PCB itself has a capacitive touch button in the center, surrounded by a touch-scroll wheel, which is centered in a proximity senor that takes up the rest of the board. There are also nine LEDs which look like they’re soldered on the underside of the board, through routed holes that mount them flush with the top surface. The pack also comes with a new MSP430 microcontroller,
the G2452
, which has 8 KB of flash memory and takes care of calibrating, reading, and processing signals from the board thanks to the software package that goes along with the add-on kit.
Looks quite nice. There’s a heck of a lot of information in the documentation for this hardware. We do wish it was a bit easier to find board layout information, but we’re sure it’s there somewhere.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_q2_iDhsd8&w=470]
[Thanks t11r via
Four-Three-oh!
] | 37 | 37 | [
{
"comment_id": "383524",
"author": "Loki",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T20:11:57",
"content": "Just ordered two for BrainSilo – these should be fun!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "383525",
"author": "Rogan Dawes",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T... | 1,760,377,209.115801 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/20/interactive-sun-exhibit-uses-3d-projection-screen-and-kinect/ | Interactive Sun Exhibit Uses 3D Projection Screen And Kinect | Mike Szczys | [
"Multitouch Hacks"
] | [
"exhibit",
"Kinect",
"museum",
"projector"
] | A few common components come together to make this
interactive museum exhibit that teaches about the sun
(
translated
). It uses three main physical components to pull this off. The first is a custom projection surface. It’s a hemisphere of the sun with a slice cut out of it. This is presumably coated with the paint you’d use to turn a wall into a projection surface. Software translates a projected image to map correctly on the topographic surface, resulting in what you see above, with a Kinect for user input.
Take a look at the video embedded after the break to see how the exhibit works. It instructs patrons to stand on a pair of footprint markers on the floor. This positions them at the proper range from a Kinect depth camera, which translates their outline into cursor commands. By moving a hand around they can explore the different parts of the sun.
We’re in love with how easy this type of interaction is becoming. Granted, there’s a fair amount of work that goes into to the coding for the project, but the physical build is quick and relatively inexpensive.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/22543837 w=470]
[Thanks Lukasz] | 7 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "383505",
"author": "Ken",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T19:21:34",
"content": "Looks like a great museum!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "383550",
"author": "dwan",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T21:20:28",
"content": "any idea... | 1,760,377,208.998841 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/20/iphone-watching-every-breath-you-take-every-move-you-make/ | IPhone Watching Every Breath You Take, Every Move You Make | Mike Nathan | [
"iphone hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"gps",
"iphone",
"privacy",
"security",
"tracking"
] | Most people tend to enjoy a certain modicum of privacy. Aside from the data we all share willingly on the web in the form of forum posts, Twitter activity, etc., people generally like keeping to themselves.
What would you think then, if you found out your iPhone (or any iDevice with 3G) was tracking and logging your every movement?
That’s exactly what two researchers from the UK are claiming
. They state that the phone is constantly logging your location using cell towers, placing the information into a timestamped database. That database is not encrypted, and is copied to your computer each time you sync with iTunes. Additionally, the database is copied back to your new phone should you ever replace your handset.
We understand that many iPhone apps use location awareness to enhance the user experience, and law enforcement officials should be able to pull data from your phone if necessary – we’re totally cool with that. However, when everywhere you have been is secretly logged in plaintext without any sort of notification, we get a bit wary. At the very least, Apple should consider encrypting the file.
While this data is not quite as sensitive as say your Social Security number or bank passwords, it is dangerous in the wrong hands just the same. Even a moderately skilled thief, upon finding or swiping an iPhone, could easily dump the contents and have a robust dataset showing where you live and when you leave – all the makings of a perfect home invasion.
Continue reading to see a fairly long video of the two researchers discussing their findings.
[Image courtesy of Engadget]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GynEFV4hsA0&w=470] | 89 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "383473",
"author": "Aaron",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T18:19:55",
"content": "$5 gets you $7 that Apple’s response boils down to “There’s nothing to fix here; the innocent have nothing to hide.”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "383... | 1,760,377,209.252914 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/20/zork-on-the-microtouch/ | Zork On The Microtouch | Mike Szczys | [
"Multitouch Hacks"
] | [
"adafruit",
"frotz",
"microtouch",
"rossum",
"z80",
"zork"
] | [Rossum] just finished
porting Zork over to the Microtouch
. This hardware, which
he originally designed
, is now
available for purchase
through Adafruit. It’s a tiny 320×240 TFT touchscreen, driven by an AVR ATmega32u4 microcontroller. The device draws power from a lithium battery, and also boast a USB connection and a MicroSD slot.
The hack here is getting Zork to run with the limited resources available on the device. [Rossum] needed to emulate the Z80 processor, but didn’t want to use extra hardware in the way that [Sprite_TM] did
when he emulated a Z80 using an AVR
. Instead, this is based on a stripped-down implementation of
Frotz
. The final code is too big to fit on the chip along side of the bootloader. This means you’ll need to use an ISP programmer in order to flash this example to the chip. We’re pretty sure that AVRdude can program the ATmega32u4, so pretty much any ISP (including an Arduino) can be used to do the programming. | 10 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "383455",
"author": "DanJ",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T17:49:12",
"content": "Love it! I can remember spending hours hunched over a Lear Siegler ADM-3 terminal connected to a Data General minicomputer as a kid playing “Adventure”.“You are in a twisty maze of passageways, all alike,”",... | 1,760,377,209.164401 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/20/555-contest-winners-to-be-announced-tonight/ | 555 Contest Winners To Be Announced Tonight | Mike Nathan | [
"contests"
] | [
"555 contest"
] | It’s been nearly two months since the official entry portion of the 555 timer contest came to a close, and the judges have been busy poring over the 200+ entries since. Now that the votes have been tallied, it’s
just about time for the official results to be announced
.
The results will be live streamed this evening at 9pm Eastern, and you can watch the results
here on uStream
or
here, with an embedded IRC chat
. There will be four main awards given out this evening, highlighting the most complex, most minimalistic, most artistic, and most useful 555 creations. There are also “Best in Show” and “Best Under 18” awards up for grabs, the winners of which were selected by celebrity judges Forrest Mims and Hans Camenzind.
The show will definitely be worth checking out – we’ll be there at 9pm sharp, see you there!
If you want to take a look at some of the 555 Contest entries we featured throughout February, check these out:
Mini nixie keychain
Le Dominoux – LED dominoes
555 timer from discrete components
Slide whistle toy
555 video game
Alien synth toy
555 Radio
Punch tape musical synth | 7 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "383413",
"author": "j s",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T16:16:14",
"content": "Isn’t Forrest M. Mims III retired?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "383415",
"author": "DerAxeman",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T16:17:29",
"conten... | 1,760,377,209.351607 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/20/apple-ii-weather-display-part-3/ | Apple II Weather Display (part 3) | Kevin Dady | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"apple II",
"retro"
] | In parts 1 and 2, I discussed the important parts of what is going on the PC side with lua. While not 110% detailed I hope it gave you an idea on how the data is processed so the Apple II computer could quickly digest it. Now its time to see what happens at the other end of the serial cable. I am using basic, but its not 100% off the rom Applesoft basic, that would be even slower, so I am using a compiler and a fast graphics driver. Both are from “The Beagle Compiler” which was produced by the ever awesome Beagle Bro’s software company, and though still under copyright, the publishers have given permission for use of their software (within reason I don’t think you will get very far selling it).
Beagle Compiler does not crunch down to machine code like others, so it has a bit of overhead, but I choose it because it has some interesting add-ons like fast hplot (quick drawing), input anything (by default basic will only accept alphanumeric input), and memory drivers for 128K or more machines, all I thought I might need. The final version does not need extra input because all data being sent to the computer is alphanumeric, but I did use fast hplot, which doubles the speed that the computer can draw individual pixels, and one of the memory managers.
On the disk there are 2 COM programs, which are compiled basic scripts, one is STARTUP the other is CLIENT. STARTUP is the first program prodos run when you start a disk and it just does some basic startup tasks.
REM LOAD THE FAST GRAPHICS ROUTINE
11 PRINT CHR$(4)"BLOAD FAST.HPLOT"
REM YAP
12 HOME:VTAB 3
13 PRINT " Please type in IN#n (where n = the ssc"
14 PRINT " slot number, then hold control hit A, "
15 PRINT " and type in 7B (600 baud) at the SSC"
16 PRINT " or ? prompt." :PRINT ""
17 PRINT " (you may or may not need to press"
18 PRINT " return depending on model)":PRINT ""
19 PRINT " Then type the following to run ":PRINT ""
20 PRINT " -CLIENT"
As you can see it loads the FAST.HPLOT program, its a binary program so I BLOAD it (binary load), in order to do that we have to PRINT a (ctrl +D) to tell the interpreter that this is a dos command, then the command we want.
Line 12 clears the Apples current text screen and puts the prompt at the top of the screen, VTAB 3 just bumps the cursor down 3 lines.
Then we have some instructions, this could / should be able to be done automatically, and I remember doing it as a kid with my apple IIe, but no matter what I tried on my current //c I could not get the darn serial port set up via script. I figured if I did ever get it to work, it would be so funky that no other Apple’s would automatically set the serial port, so you have to do it manually.
Next, and more importantly is the CLIENT program
REM STARTUP 0-6
REM ENTER HIGH RES PAGE ONE AND TURN OFF THE 4 LINE TEXT DISPLAY
REM PAGE 2, NORMALLY FULL SCREEN, IS OCCUPIED AND I DONT FEEL
REM LIKE MESSING WITH MOVING STUFF AROUND IN MEMORY
0 HGR:POKE -16302,0
REM LOAD SPLASH SCREEN BINARY INTO HIGH RES PAGE 1 MEMORY
2 PRINT CHR$(4)"BLOAD SPLASH.HGR,A$2000"
REM DELAY
4 FOR I = 0 TO 30000
6 NEXT
REM MAKE A PALETTE 10-12
10 DIM CL(5): CL(1) = 0:CL(2) = 5
12 CL(3) = 2:CL(4) = 1:CL(5) = 6
REM CLEAR HIGH RES GRAPHICS PAGE 1 100-105
100 HGR:POKE -16302,0:HCOLOR = 7
102 FOR Y = 0 TO 138 STEP 2
104 HPLOT 0,Y TO 140,Y
105 NEXT
REM TEMP AND ALERT TEXT GRAPHICS INPUT DECODING 110-125
110 FOR Y = 0 TO 137
112 TB = 140:INPUT TS$
114 FOR X = 1 TO LEN(TS$)
REM CHARACTER --> ASCII VALUE
116 TC$ = MID$(TS$,X,1):TA = ASC(TC$)
REM IF NEW CODE BLOCK
118 IF TC$ = "b" THEN TB = TB + 35
REM DRAW PIXEL
120 IF (TA < 65) AND (TA >= 49) THEN HPLOT((TA - 48) + TB), Y
122 IF (TA >= 65) AND (TA <= 90) THEN HPLOT((TA - 55) + TB),Y
124 NEXT X:NEXT Y
REM BOTTOM TEXT GRAPHICS INPUT DECODING 130-144
130 FOR Y = 139 TO 191
132 BB = 0:INPUT BS$
134 FOR X = 1 TO LEN(BS$)
REM CHARACTER --> ASCII VALUE
136 BC$ = MID$(BS$,X,1):BA = ASC(BC$)
REM IF NEW CODE BLOCK
138 IF BC$ = "b" THEN BB = BB + 35
REM DRAW PIXEL
140 IF (BA < 65) AND (BA >= 49) THEN HPLOT((BA - 48) + BB), Y
142 IF (BA >= 65) AND (BA <= 90) THEN HPLOT((BA - 55) + BB),Y
144 NEXT X:NEXT Y
REM RADAR GRAPHICS INPUT DECODING 150-166
150 FOR C = 1 TO 5:HCOLOR = CL(C)
152 FOR Y = 0 TO 138 STEP 2
154 RB = 0:INPUT RS$
156 FOR X = 1 TO LEN(RS$)
REM CHARACTER --> ASCII VALUE
158 RC$ = MID$(RS$,X,1):RA = ASC(RC$)
REM IF NEW CODE BLOCK
160 IF RC$ = "b" THEN RB = RB + 35
REM DRAW PIXEL
162 IF (RA < 65) AND (RA >= 49) THEN HPLOT((RA - 48) + RB), Y
164 IF (RA >= 65) AND (RA <= 90) THEN HPLOT((RA - 55) + RB),Y
166 NEXT X:NEXT Y:NEXT C
REM WAIT FOR UPDATE LOOP
200 INPUT UD$
210 IF UD$ = "update" THEN GOTO 100
220 GOTO 200
Which has much more meat to it. Starting at the top I have (HGR:POKE -16302,0). The HGR command clears and sends the apple into High GRapichs mode 1. Mode 1 goes to memory page 1 (there are 2 total for 80 column text or High res graphics) and sets the display to 280×160 with 4 lines of text at the bottom. As already stated I dont want the four lines of text so I POKE location -16302,0 to turn that off.
Maybe someone out there is saying to themselves right now “why didnt he use HGR2?” HGR2 (mode 2) defaults to the second page and is full screen by default, but I didn’t want to use it because there is no dedicated video memory on the Apple II, and something was already using that memory space, so it seemed simpler to just use screen 1 and poke it to be full screen, rather than moving every darn thing around in memory just to free up HGR2.
Next I load the lovely splash screen with Hack A Day’s and Weather Underground’s logos. This image was made in the gimp, converted by an older junkier
image converter script I made
and dumped into an emulator running at 10X speed. Once the image is drawn on the emulator I
BSAVEd
it to disk, now in the client script I am just copying that data back into video memory producing the image. There is no time reference for basic so there is just an empty loop to delay the splash screen for a few seconds.
Oddly enough for a machine that has a grand total of 6 unique colors in high resolution graphics, I need to make a palette. The colors on an Apple II are not lined up with the way I want them, and I am not sending it in exact color order either. DIM is dimensioning an array, and the values that follow are the apple color values we want to use and in the order we want them, nice and neat for a loop.
The rest of the script just repeats itself depending on which image is next, first is the tempature and storm advisory graphic(s), its 2 files on the pc side but since they are the same width and going in the same block of the screen I lumped them together as a single image right before it goes to the serial port. Variables are similar to every other Microsoft based 8 bit basic in only the first two characters of a variable is its name, so while you could name everything in nice descriptive words, your going to run into clashes quick.
I loop though each line of the graphic, waiting for input from the serial port each time. each character in the line gets read with the MID function (its like substring) and I also grab each character’s ASCII value using the ASC function. If the character is a “b” then add 35 to the current block counter (TB, BB, or RB for temp, bottom, or radar block).
If the character’s ASCII value is less than 65 but at least 49 then its a number 1-9 so we can just take it at face value, plot the point and move on. If the character’s ASCII value is between 65 and 90 that means its an upper case letter (and here is a
chart
btw). I take the ascii value and subtract 55 from it, 65 – 55 = 10, A is the 10th character in my graphics key and ASCII value 65 and so on. Now I can plot the point.
Radar is exactly the same thing but its wrapped up in a 5 count loop to change the color after one color of the image has been drawn. Its Y counter also advances 2 steps, since we only have the even lines if I did not “STEP 2” the image would be squashed, now it just has the odd lines replaced with black.
Final thoughts: I had a lot of fun writing kludgey bad code, and it does function though very slowly. I wish I knew more about Apple II programming, but all the years I have spent on the thing, its just now coming up as a hobby. Maybe one day soon Ill be laughing at this while coding furiously in C to make an awesome video game or demo, but its kind of low on my list. The Apple II is one of my favorite little computers and it will continue to remain on my desk for quite a while, if you have the means and like retro computers, the Apple II is plentiful and surprising.
Pitfalls and problems:
It took for-freakin-ever for me to settle on a graphics format, even worse I wrote and tested 5 of them. RLE, binary, high ascii, XPM decoding on the apple and finally base 36.
I probably spent 3 evenings trying to get the stupid serial port working via BASIC script, as you can see that never worked out.
Wasted 2 nights poking all sorts of mad stuff into the Apple trying to kick over its color killer circuit, just to find out it was my tv tuner application not switching from NTSC to RS170 when changing from graphics to text (with the color burst signal enabled during text mode you cant read ANYTHING)
My computer died! Yea at the start I disabled my bench pc cause my wifes machine popped its power supply, well my machine also got a little bit of it cause I was just sitting there writing (probably graphics code) and the computer shuts off. Long story short, at like 11pm on a work night I am switching out a motherboard, and my 2.8ghz dual core can go from room temperature to over 100C in less than 10 seconds!
I think the last big fiasco was for the video, other than the durn cat bumping the camera a couple times, I had spend a couple hours getting everything onto my “craptop” and set up in the living room. After doing some test shots, fiddling with lighting its now like 10PM on a work night and I am ready to go … except I did not have the graphic for the splash screen on the Apple II disk. Lucky for me I could not find my USB drive (both were at work) and that afternoon I had just sold my WIFI card to a co worker as I had an internal one on the way. So yea I burned a 8k file onto a cd rom, hurried to patch the basic script, get it sent over and working correctly, and ended up cleaning the living room at like 2AM.
Oh well it was fun.
Part 2
and
part 1
can be found here. | 12 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "383363",
"author": "t&p",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T13:16:44",
"content": "Read the rest of this entry »",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "383364",
"author": "mess_maker",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T13:20:22",
"content": ... | 1,760,377,209.490587 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/20/magellan-gps-hack-for-hassle-free-charging/ | Magellan GPS Hack For Hassle-free Charging | Mike Nathan | [
"gps hacks"
] | [
"gps",
"Magellan",
"power",
"usb"
] | Hackaday reader [Paul] recently shared
a simple hack he put together via our Flickr photostream
.
It seems that his Magellan GPS unit is pretty finicky when it comes to power supplies. When connected to the Magellan adapter, the GPS unit charged as you would expect. When connected to a PC, it sensed the connection and allowed its file system to be mounted, just as it was intended to do.
However, a problem arose when he tried hooking the Magellan up to a different power supply. The unit still thought it was connected to a PC, and refused to perform any GPS-related functions since its file system was tied up. Not wanting to lug around multiple chargers, he decided to see what the heck was going on with his GPS unit.
He pulled the plug apart and found that the 4th and 5th pins of the USB cable were shorted together. While most devices ignore the 4th pin, the Magellan checks to see if that pin is grounded. If so, it assumes it is connected to its power supply. If not, it assumes that it should act as if it is connected to a PC.
With this information in hand, [Paul] did the same thing as any of us would and hacked together a USB cable with shorted pins. The cable can be attached to any standard USB port or charger, saving him from having to lug around an extra adapter. | 21 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "383349",
"author": "Sariel",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T12:36:57",
"content": "I just tried to charge through usb a few days ago and it failed due to the same reasons. thanks for the hack Paul!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "383... | 1,760,377,209.311203 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/20/defcon-19-call-for-workshops/ | Defcon 19 Call For Workshops | Mike Nathan | [
"cons",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"defcon",
"hacking",
"security",
"workshops"
] | The crew at Defcon is hard at work getting things ready for this year’s event, taking place over the first weekend in August. While the typical call for papers has been out for almost two months now, the extra space afforded by the RIO hotel has given the organizers a chance to shake things up a bit and try something new.
Along side the call for papers,
they have issued a call for workshops
. Since they have about 8 spare rooms on hand, they have decided to allow people who consider themselves a leader, ‘leet hacker, or ninja in their particular field to share their knowledge in a small (30 person) workshop setting.
The organizers are not strict on content, though it should be compelling. They cite examples such as teaching people to build an impenetrable Linux installation, PS3 hacking, or even helping people prep for a Ham radio license exam.
If you have something interesting to share with the community, be sure to swing by the Defcon site and get your application started! | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "383355",
"author": "0x4368726973",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T12:53:18",
"content": "Sounds like a good place for a VE session…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "383400",
"author": "Luke",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T15:48:33",... | 1,760,377,209.538725 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/19/laser-tracker-replays-competitive-rock-wall-climbs/ | Laser Tracker Replays Competitive Rock Wall Climbs | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"climbing",
"ghost",
"laser",
"rock wall",
"tracker"
] | Instructables user [PenfoldPlant] is a big fan of indoor rock climbing, and while watching others make difficult climbs, he has often wondered if he could follow the same route up the wall. Unfortunately, aside from watching the other climbers and hoping to remember the path they have taken, he found there isn’t much you can do to ensure that you have precisely replicated the climb.
He thought awhile and came up with
a laser tracking system that can be used to record a climber’s ascent
, then replay it any number of times. This allows climbers to be able to replicate other climbers’ paths as well as compete against one another in timed races.
This works much like the “ghost” feature found in most racing games, though the process is half manual/half automated. The initial ascent is recorded by manually tracing the climber’s route with a laser pointer as they climb. The path is recorded and then can be replayed, courtesy of the onboard Arduino.
It really is a neat system, and while it works pretty well already, we think there is still room for enhancement. It wouldn’t be extremely difficult to have the climber wear some sort of light beacon that could be tracked using a web cam or other recording device, taking the manual labor out of the equation. In that case however, we imagine the Arduino would need to be swapped out for something a touch more powerful.
Stick around for a quick video of the tracking system in action.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNohfGxKvDA&w=470] | 17 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "383059",
"author": "Harvie.CZ",
"timestamp": "2011-04-19T23:44:59",
"content": "I would be way more cool to have 4 lasers – each tracking one hand or leg, so you can see which grip points oponent used to climb.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,377,209.702385 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/19/high-voltage-rig-wipes-cds-clean/ | High Voltage Rig Wipes CDs Clean | Mike Nathan | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"data destruction",
"electricity",
"high voltage"
] | Here at Hackaday, we’re not against showing videos of gratuitous destruction just for the sake of it, though we try not to make it a habit. In this case we just couldn’t help ourselves. However, this video technically constitutes a security hack, as it does involve erasing sensitive information from CDs…
…with awesome!
This may be the coolest CD eraser we’ve seen yet. Positioned between two high-voltage transformers, the spinning CD has its data violently stripped off in just a matter of seconds. To be fair, the data isn’t erased per se, but the metallic substrate on which the data is recorded is flaked off by the aggressive application of electricity.
Having destroyed our fair share of AOL CDs in the microwave over the years, we are now a bit sad over the fact that they were disposed of in such a lackluster fashion – if only we had one of these around!
Since we’re on the topic of mindless destruction, you might as well take a few minutes and check out this
thermite-roasted Thanksgiving turkey
, this
self-destructing hard drive
, or perhaps this
thermic lance built from spaghetti
.
You know, for science.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi_bMYFmFGg&w=470] | 28 | 28 | [
{
"comment_id": "383017",
"author": "Kevin",
"timestamp": "2011-04-19T23:12:50",
"content": "In the name of science!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "383021",
"author": "XiuiX",
"timestamp": "2011-04-19T23:15:40",
"content": "That mad... | 1,760,377,209.895466 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/19/laser-trip-wire-the-bare-essentials/ | Laser Trip Wire – The Bare Essentials | Mike Szczys | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"cadmium sulfide",
"CdS",
"mirror",
"mosfet",
"poster putty",
"trip wire"
] | [Gordon] sent us a tip about
this simple laser trip wire system
after reading yesterday’s post on
a more complicated laser security unit
. That build did a lot to provide functionality, such as a system to disarm the trip wire, and a robust light detection circuit. This time around there’s more happening with smoke and mirrors than with electronics.
[The Timmy] built this simpler version based on
a laser trip system from Afrotechmods
(video of that one is embedded after the break). He had a bag full of small square mirrors which he attached to a wall with some poster putty. A laser module shines a beam of light onto a cadmium sulfide sensor after it bounces around the optical network for a while. That CdS sensor controls an N-channel MOSFET, switching it off when light is detected and on when the intensity of the laser is absent. This example just turns an LED on and off, but since it uses logic-level voltages you can choose to add a microcontroller to the mix if you have other plans in mind.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNfGoy5dqbg&w=470] | 12 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "383022",
"author": "Connor",
"timestamp": "2011-04-19T23:16:28",
"content": "And you will have a laser trip wire that can pshhhhh haha funny but this could proove very usefull for my killing robot!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id"... | 1,760,377,209.650922 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/19/simple-fm-transmitter-that-shows-off-its-own-circuitry/ | Simple FM Transmitter That Shows Off Its Own Circuitry | Mike Szczys | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"coil",
"fm",
"sean michael ragan",
"transmitter"
] | [Sean Michael Ragan]
built this FM transmitter
which shows off its circuitry via a clear plastic dome. The device is
electrically identical to one we looked at in September
. That version championed a construction method that used small squares of copper clad as solder points which were each super-glued to a large copper-clad platform serving as a ground plane. [Sean] is using a printed circuit board that was laid out by Sonodrome. You can check out
their own glass-jar transmitter build
where the board artwork is available for download.
One of the tips we enjoyed from [Sean’s] step-by-step build is the coil wrapping. He used the threads of a 1/4-20 bolt to guide copper wire as he wrapped a total of four turns. Once the bending is done, just unthread the bolt to separate it from the coil and gently stretch the wire for a 12mm distance between the two leads. Not only is this visually pleasing, but it will help with transmission clarity. | 8 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "382957",
"author": "DocDawning",
"timestamp": "2011-04-19T20:33:47",
"content": "Wow, that looks sooo beautiful. Looks like a fairly simple circuit to build too.. ooooooOOOooo! :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "383060",
"au... | 1,760,377,209.750112 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/19/powering-vehicles-with-aluminum/ | Powering Vehicles With Aluminum | Mike Szczys | [
"chemistry hacks"
] | [
"aluminum",
"fuel cell",
"hydrogen",
"sodium hydroxide"
] | Pop a few aluminum bits into this little RC racer
and you’ll have power for around forty minutes. This concept, which has been patented, is the result of a college research project. It uses a chemical reaction between aqueous Sodium Hydroxide and aluminum. The result of that reaction is hydrogen, which is gathered and directed to a fuel cell that drives the car.
Novel? Yes. Interesting? Absolutely. But you should be raising an eyebrow at the dubious choice of fuel that is aluminum.
If you don’t know what we’re talking about let us paint you a picture. Aluminum is a metal that is refined from bauxite ore. It takes an immense amount of electricity to smelt the metal. This is usually justified because aluminum is one of the most recyclable substances on earth, capable of being melted down and reformed countless times. But dissolving it in drain cleaner breaks it down and then it’s gone. So what we have here simply must be the least efficient disposable battery so far developed. It’d probably use less resources to grow and
harvest lemons as a power source
.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/20311112 w=470]
[via
Engadget
] | 83 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "382922",
"author": "Xiver",
"timestamp": "2011-04-19T19:42:15",
"content": "Yeah, but in the meantime its cheap energy right?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "382923",
"author": "vmspionage",
"timestamp": "2011-04-19T19:4... | 1,760,377,209.982891 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/19/eagerfeet-lets-you-scrape-your-nike-data-from-the-web/ | EagerFeet Lets You Scrape Your Nike+ Data From The Web | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"gps",
"gpx",
"nike",
"nike+ipod"
] | Runners that wear shoes with the Nike+ system can upload GPS data about their runs to the proprietary website. If you’ve been using this for a while you may be reluctant to switch to another service that works with the hardware because you don’t want to lose the historical data. Faced with this issue, [Robert Kosara] developed some
software that can scrape Nike+ data
. Not only did he write the code, but he also threw up a website that shows how well it works.
EagerFeet
lets you copy and paste your Nike+ ID for mapping on Google Maps.
Data is scraped from Nike+ and assembled as GPX files, which are backups of GPS data. From there you can use it for whatever you like. Since the code is available in a Git repository it’s easy to depend on it with your own projects, and still get updates if the scraping system needs to be changed in the future. Even if you don’t want to use the GPX files in your own projects, they can be imported on some third party exercise tracking sites if that’s what you’re interested in.
Of course you could try to
pull the data straight off of your iPod
. | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "382896",
"author": "bunnyboy",
"timestamp": "2011-04-19T18:58:49",
"content": "Almost what I need! I have old data on the Nike+ site but it doesn’t have any GPS component. I still want to be able to get the speed/pace info but haven’t found a way to access it…",
"parent_id": n... | 1,760,377,210.224873 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/19/ludum-dare-20-starting-april-29th/ | Ludum Dare 20 Starting April 29th | Kevin Dady | [
"contests"
] | [
"Ludum Dare"
] | Ludum Dare
20 is only 10 days away! Great, what the heck is Ludum Dare? Well its only the most awesome video game creation contest on the internet, thats what. While originally for the hardest of the hard core, it has recently been split up into 2 events so everyone gets to have some fun.
The Jam is pretty relaxed in the rules. Lets say you and 4 buddies want to make the ultimate zelda remix using fan sprites and free music. This is where you want to be. Its there to give people who want to join in the fun but not make serious obligations.
The Compo is the real deal for those who are insane, or really good. You are given a theme at the start of the contest and 48 hours. You must then work solo and create all original content to use within your game. You can however use premade frameworks, game engines, libraries etc to accomplish your goal, but if you really wanted to you could make a 3D engine with brain fu*k during the competition. (though I would not advise it)
Prizes include internet bragging rights, and quite possibility the best darn feeling of accomplishment possible IF you manage to come up with some form of game, based on a voted theme, by yourself, in less than 48 hours.
Be sure to check out the
rules and guide page
for all details and I hope to see you there. | 9 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "382845",
"author": "Spork",
"timestamp": "2011-04-19T16:40:14",
"content": "Cool idea, down sides being that it’s not exactly a fair competition. For instance, I have a friend who has designed 1000’s of sprites. Entering the contest, he can easily pull from those sprites and not hav... | 1,760,377,210.122116 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/19/apple-ii-weather-display-part-2/ | Apple II Weather Display (part 2) | Kevin Dady | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"apple II",
"retro"
] | In part one of the Apple II weather display I quickly went over how data is fetched and phrased. Now its time to do something with it in part 2. In the order of functions I do the text parts first, and though its very similar to the process that the radar image goes through, its in monochrome and a bit simpler to explain. Before I go into how it works I should explain how I am dividing the Apple II’s screen.
The high resolution mode on an Apple II gives you 280×160 with 4 lines of text on the bottom, or 280×192 full screen. I will be using 280×192 full screen, because as useful as the text can be, it also would show the endless stream of gibberish while updating, and since the entire color video mode of the Apple II design is a NTSC hack, its not all that pretty on a standard TV while also displaying color graphics. I also divide the screen into “blocks” 35 pixels wide each, this came about due to my encoding system.
Without getting into high ASCII or special characters I decided to use a base 36 type numbering system, we only need 35 unique characters to represent any pixel on a line within a block. The value of 1 means the first pixel in a given block and so on to Z being pixel number 35 in a block, and up to 8 blocks for the entire screen. Block separators and other functions can be sent using lower case characters, making a nice n easy plain text system. For example, if the apple received bbb123Z it means skip to block 4 and place a pixel at 1,2,3, and 35 within that block (and if there is no pixels at all for that given line a n is sent).
Looking at text.lua …
-- Weather Underground to Apple //
-- 2011 Kevin Dady
--
-- Text to Graphics:
-- take text from web.data
-- make text images with image magick
-- phrase *.xpm files to apple //
-- send text images
-- end
text = {}
text.data = {}
text.data.input = {}
text.data.packed = {{},{},{},{}}
text.data.apl2 = {{},{},{}}
text.createIMG = function()
if web.data[1] == nil then
web.data[1] = "No Advisories"
end
if web.data[3] == nil then
web.data[3] = web.data[7]
end
-- create the bottom text
cmd.imageMGK(" -background black -fill white -font req/VeraMoBd.ttf"..
" -dither none -map req/mono.xpm -size 279x53 -pointsize 11 -gravity West"..
" caption:'".. web.data[2].."\n"..web.data[6].."\n"..web.data[5].."\n"..web.data[3].. "'"..
" temp/textBTM.xpm")
-- create the text for advisories
cmd.imageMGK(" -background black -fill white -font req/VeraMoBd.ttf"..
" -dither none -map req/mono.xpm -size 139x64 -pointsize 11 -gravity Center"..
" caption:'".. web.data[1].."'"..
" temp/textALT.xpm")
-- create the text for temperature
cmd.imageMGK(" -background black -fill white -font req/VeraMoBd.ttf"..
" -dither none -map req/mono.xpm -size 139x74 -pointsize 36 -gravity Center"..
" caption:'".. web.data[4].."'"..
" temp/textTMP.xpm")
end
text.convertIMG = function()
local files = {"textTMP.xpm","textALT.xpm","textBTM.xpm"}
local footer = {82,72,61}
local width = {140,140,280}
-- read the files into a table one at a time
for img = 1, 3 do
local file = io.open("temp/".. files[img],"r")
table.insert(text.data.input, img, {})
for line in file:lines() do
table.insert(text.data.input[img], tostring(line))
end
file:close()
-- remove header
for y = 1, 7 do
table.remove(text.data.input[img], 1)
end
-- remove footer
table.remove(text.data.input[img], footer[img] - 7)
-- remove non pixel data
for y = 1, #text.data.input[img] do
text.data.input[img][y] = string.sub(text.data.input[img][y], 2, width[img])
end
end
end
text.sortIMG = function()
local newChar = ""
for img = 1, 3 do
-- need to convert the strings into tables
for y = 1, #text.data.input[img] do
table.insert(text.data.apl2[img], {})
-- for each column in the current row
for x = 1, #text.data.input[img][y] do
-- read the character at that Y,X point
newChar = string.sub(text.data.input[img][y], x,x)
if newChar == "." then
table.insert(text.data.apl2[img][y], x) -- pixel
end
end
end
end
end
text.packageIMG = function()
for img = 1, 2 do
for y = 1, #text.data.input[img] do
local one = ""
local two = ""
local three = ""
local four = ""
for x = 1, #text.data.apl2[img][y] do
if text.data.apl2[img][y][x] <= 35 then
one = one .. string.sub(graphicsKey, text.data.apl2[img][y][x], text.data.apl2[img][y][x])
elseif text.data.apl2[img][y][x] <= 70 then
two = two .. string.sub(graphicsKey, text.data.apl2[img][y][x] - 35, text.data.apl2[img][y][x] - 35)
elseif text.data.apl2[img][y][x] <= 105 then
three = three .. string.sub(graphicsKey, text.data.apl2[img][y][x] - 70, text.data.apl2[img][y][x] - 70)
else
four = four .. string.sub(graphicsKey, text.data.apl2[img][y][x] - 105, text.data.apl2[img][y][x] - 105)
end
end
if one == "" and two == "" and three == "" and four == "" then
table.insert(text.data.packed[img], "n")
else table.insert(text.data.packed[img],one.."b"..two.."b"..three.."b"..four)
end
end
end
for y = 1, #text.data.input[3] do
local one = ""
local two = ""
local three = ""
local four = ""
local five = ""
local six = ""
local seven = ""
local eight = ""
for x = 1, #text.data.apl2[3][y] do
if text.data.apl2[3][y][x] <= 35 then
one = one .. string.sub(graphicsKey, text.data.apl2[3][y][x], text.data.apl2[3][y][x])
elseif text.data.apl2[3][y][x] <= 70 then
two = two .. string.sub(graphicsKey, text.data.apl2[3][y][x] - 35, text.data.apl2[3][y][x] - 35)
elseif text.data.apl2[3][y][x] <= 105 then
three = three .. string.sub(graphicsKey, text.data.apl2[3][y][x] - 70, text.data.apl2[3][y][x] - 70)
elseif text.data.apl2[3][y][x] <= 140 then
four = four .. string.sub(graphicsKey, text.data.apl2[3][y][x] - 105, text.data.apl2[3][y][x] - 105)
elseif text.data.apl2[3][y][x] <=175 then
five = five .. string.sub(graphicsKey, text.data.apl2[3][y][x] - 140, text.data.apl2[3][y][x] -140)
elseif text.data.apl2[3][y][x] <= 210 then
six = six .. string.sub(graphicsKey, text.data.apl2[3][y][x] - 175, text.data.apl2[3][y][x] - 175)
elseif text.data.apl2[3][y][x] <= 245 then
seven = seven .. string.sub(graphicsKey, text.data.apl2[3][y][x] - 210, text.data.apl2[3][y][x] - 210)
else
eight = eight .. string.sub(graphicsKey, text.data.apl2[3][y][x] - 245, text.data.apl2[3][y][x] - 245)
end
end
if one == "" and two == "" and three == "" and four == "" and five == "" and six == "" and seven == "" and eight == "" then
table.insert(text.data.packed[3], "n")
else table.insert(text.data.packed[3],one.."b"..two.."b"..three.."b"..four.."b"..five.."b"..six.."b"..seven.."b"..eight)
end
end
end
text.sendIMG = function()
for img = 1, 3 do
for y = 1, #text.data.packed[img] do
cmd.sjinn(text.data.packed[img][y])
end
cmd.sleep(2)
end
end
I start off in text.createIMG() by checking a couple things, One if there is any advisories, and if not place a No Advisories tag, Second looking for “windchill”, there is not always a “windchill” and if not place “dew point” in its place so we don’t have any blank lines. once were good to go we send the script off to imagemagick to make 3 graphics that contain black and white text. one for the long text at the bottom, one for advisories, and one for temperature.
text.convertIMG() reads the XPM files generated by imagemagick and does some cleanup. It starts by chopping the header and footer off of the image file, and removes the line formatting from each line of the image.
text.sortIMG() takes the leftover string data and scans each character in each line, in this case a white pixel is represented by a “.” (period) and a black pixel (which we don’t care about) is represented by a ” ” (space). Each time a period is found its x position is added to the end of a table. By the end of the image we are left with a table that has a subtable for each line, and contains X values for each pixel in each line, for example:
data= {}
data[1] = {1,2,12,80}
data[2] = {140,143,144,150}
There are 3 images to process, and they are different sizes, though how tall they are does not really matter to my script, its the width we are concerned about. text.packageIMG() reads each image and divides them up into blocks, the temperature text and advisory text are both 140 pixels wide and consume 4, 35 pixel blocks, so each value in each line is read out of our tables above and have some basic math done on them. If a value is greater than 35 for example then its block 2, the value has 35 subtracted from it and that is our block value (36 – 35 = block 2 pixel 1) . The bottom text is the widest graphic, taking up the entire width of the screen, but its just the same thing just spread over 8 blocks. Once we have our blocks as encoded strings they are packed into a single string per line of the image with “b” separating each block.
radar.lua does pretty much the same thing, except instead of making graphics it dithers the radar image downloaded earlier.
-- Weather Underground to Apple //
-- 2011 Kevin Dady
--
-- Radar processing:
-- feed jpeg to image magick
-- phrase output.xpm to color tables
-- package for apple //
-- send radar
radar = {}
radar.data = {}
radar.data.input = {} -- raw file data table dump
radar.data.packed = {} -- packed apple data
radar.data.apl2 = {{},{},{},{},{},{}} -- black, green, violet, orange, blue, white
radar.img = {}
radar.img.header = 11 -- xpm file header # of lines
radar.img.w = 141
radar.img.h = 141
radar.convertIMG = function()
cmd.imageMGK(" temp/radar.jpg -level 0%,70%,1 -dither none -map req/apple.xpm temp/output.xpm")
-- read the file into a table
local file = io.open("temp/output.xpm","r")
for line in file:lines() do
table.insert(radar.data.input, tostring(line))
end
file:close()
-- remove header
for i = 1, radar.img.header do -- hardcode
table.remove(radar.data.input, 1)
end
-- remove footer
table.remove(radar.data.input, radar.img.w)
-- remove non color data
for i = 1, #radar.data.input do
radar.data.input[i] = string.sub(radar.data.input[i], 2, radar.img.h)
end
-- only deal with odd rows, due to the even / odd, bit / line, funny way apple 2's display highres colors.
-- if we leave them all in the image there is a gret chance of 2 colors phasing into another,
-- since we are going to loose pixel resolution anyway, we can cut that down some by deleting every other line
-- giving 140x70 also making transfer size smaller.
local keep ={}
for i = 1, #radar.data.input do
if (i % 2) == 1 then table.insert(keep, radar.data.input[i]) end
end
radar.data.input = keep
end
-- " " = 0 Apple color black (1)
-- "X" = 1 Apple color green
-- "o" = 2 Apple color violet
-- "." = 5 Apple color orange
-- "O" = 6 Apple color blue
-- "+" = 7 Apple color white (2)
radar.sortIMG = function()
local newChar = ""
-- need to convert the strings into tables
for y = 1, #radar.data.input do
-- add a new "line" string to each color table
for color = 1, 6 do
table.insert(radar.data.apl2[color], {})
end
-- for each column in the current row
for x = 1, #radar.data.input[y] do
-- read the character at that Y,X point
newChar = string.sub(radar.data.input[y], x,x)
-- assign each character a individual table value
if newChar == " " then table.insert(radar.data.apl2[1][y], x) -- black
elseif newChar == "X" then table.insert(radar.data.apl2[4][y], x) -- GREEN
elseif newChar == "o" then table.insert(radar.data.apl2[3][y], x) -- violet
elseif newChar == "." then table.insert(radar.data.apl2[2][y], x) -- ORANGE
elseif newChar == "O" then table.insert(radar.data.apl2[5][y], x) -- blue
elseif newChar == "+" then table.insert(radar.data.apl2[6][y], x) -- white
end
end
end
end
radar.packageIMG = function()
for color = 1, 5 do -- ignore white, white takes a long time to draw since it makes up most of the graphic
for y = 1, #radar.data.apl2[color] do
local one = ""
local two = ""
local three = ""
local four = ""
for x = 1, #radar.data.apl2[color][y] do
if radar.data.apl2[color][y][x] <= 35 then
one = one .. string.sub(graphicsKey, radar.data.apl2[color][y][x], radar.data.apl2[color][y][x])
elseif radar.data.apl2[color][y][x] <= 70 then
two = two .. string.sub(graphicsKey, radar.data.apl2[color][y][x] - 35, radar.data.apl2[color][y][x] - 35)
elseif radar.data.apl2[color][y][x] <= 105 then
three = three .. string.sub(graphicsKey, radar.data.apl2[color][y][x] - 70, radar.data.apl2[color][y][x] - 70)
else
four = four .. string.sub(graphicsKey, radar.data.apl2[color][y][x] - 105, radar.data.apl2[color][y][x] - 105)
end
end
if one == "" and two == "" and three == "" and four == "" then
table.insert(radar.data.packed, "n")
else table.insert(radar.data.packed,one.."b"..two.."b"..three.."b"..four)
end
end
end
end
radar.send = function()
for line = 1, 350 do
cmd.sjinn(radar.data.packed[line])
end
end
Imagemagick is used to dither the radar image to 6 of the 8 “available” colors, the Apple II only has 6 unique colors in high resolution mode, and the other 2 are black 2 and white 2. This has to do with how the apple does color, I mentioned earlier that its a hack, which basically uses bit patterns and the phase of the color burst to generate different colors. The end effect is always interesting as you can never place a specific color on each and every location on each and every line.
In order to help cut down on artifacts between lines and to cut the data transfer in half I then only use the even lines of the image, which yea reduces my radar resolution from 140×140 to 140×70 but due to the above mentioned wonkyness of the Apple’s video system I would have lost most of that resolution anyway.
The output XPM file has its header, footer and line formatting removed and each color is split up into individual tables, from there the process is the same, reading each monochrome image, packing it into block defined lines and packed up for the Apple to consume. I ignore white and just draw that on the screen as it makes up most of the image, saving time, and the end data is 5 copies of the image line / block encoded, each acting as a mask for its unique color.
For the most part were done looking at the lua scripts, so join me for part 3 (the end) where we will explore the software the apple II uses.
Part 1
and
Part 3
are also available. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "383299",
"author": "jef",
"timestamp": "2011-04-20T09:49:06",
"content": "It would be helpful if you put the link to part 1 in the text. Thanks.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,377,210.028505 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/19/teaching-children-to-walk-using-video-games/ | Teaching Children To Walk Using Video Games | Mike Nathan | [
"Medical Hacks",
"Nintendo Wii Hacks"
] | [
"balance",
"games",
"rehabilitation",
"therapy",
"wii"
] | Medical conditions that prevent individuals from being able to walk are difficult to handle, even more so if the patient happens to be a child. Shriner’s hospitals treat a good number of children suffering from cerebral palsy, spina bifida, or amputations. They are always looking for creative treatment methods, so their Motion Analysis Laboratory looked to some Rice University undergrads for help. They asked the group of engineers to design a system that would make physical therapy a bit more fun, while helping encourage the children along.
The team recently unveiled their project, called the Equiliberator.
The game system incorporates a series of five Wii balance boards situated between a pair of pressure-sensitive handrails. The platform communicates with a computer via Bluetooth, registering the patient’s movements as he or she moves along the path. The software portion of the system consists of a monster-slaying game which requires the child to step on a particular section of the pathway to dispose of the oncoming enemies.
The game is designed to get more difficult as the child’s balance and coordination improve, encouraging them with an ever growing bank of points as they progress. The final goal of the project is to enable the pressure sensitive handrails to determine how much the child is relying on them for balance, offering in-game incentives to walk with as little support as possible.
We love seeing hacks like this which not only entertain, but truly help people in the process. Kudos to the team at Rice University – they have done a fantastic job here.
Continue reading to see a quick video describing the Equiliberator in the designers’ own words.
[via
MedGadget
]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcDUL_O4-GU&w=470] | 11 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "382787",
"author": "Miles Hale",
"timestamp": "2011-04-19T14:19:59",
"content": "I love seeing stuff like this.I did a thesis on stroke rehabilitation with a PS3 Eye and during my reasearch I found that the are LOADS of people and groups taking advantages of games and consoles to he... | 1,760,377,210.075789 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/19/cellphone-battery-mouse-modification/ | Cellphone Battery Mouse Modification | Mike Szczys | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"aa",
"battery",
"cellphone",
"lithium",
"mouse",
"wireless"
] | Ever wanted to increase the battery performance in your wireless mouse? [Davetech] shows you the way with this guide for
converting a mouse from AA to lithium batteries
. We were delighted by his hack-tacular approach that seems to have a nice little work-around at each step in the process. He grinds down the plastic battery housing that is molded into the original mouse body, then uses an old Compact Flash card connector as a set of spring terminals for a Nokia cellphone battery. This battery has more capacity and recharges faster than non-Lithium AA cells. But unfortunately the spring terminals didn’t quite reach the recessed batter contact. No problem, he just builds up solder on the battery to bridge the gap.
[Davetech] manages to fit the entire battery inside the mouse and the pointing-device still works. Your mileage may vary by model (both battery and mouse). It is necessary to take the battery out of the mouse for recharging, but since this only happen about every couple of weeks thanks to the extended capacity it’s not too much of a hassle. Perhaps someone could carry this to the next level by
adding a USB port
and the necessary charging circuitry? | 23 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "382743",
"author": "uky",
"timestamp": "2011-04-19T13:10:50",
"content": "Is the battery life really that bad? My wireless mouse uses a single AA battery, I usually end up putting in used AA batteries and only need to change it maybe once a year. And I’m a pretty heavy user of the m... | 1,760,377,210.181801 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/19/build-a-spinning-pov-in-a-day/ | Build A Spinning POV In A Day | Mike Szczys | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"18f252",
"74ls373",
"pic",
"POV"
] | We love spinning POV displays but have yet to build one to call our very own. This project might be the one that we end up building. It’s looks good and it’s the only
persistence of vision display that comes to mind which can be built in twelve hours
.
The spinning is taken care of by a PC fan. This actually helps with some of the calculations as this fan spins at a know RPM. That information, along with a bit of geometry, can be used to calculate the timer interrupts for syncing the display. A reference point for this device is provided by an IR receiver/emitter pair which is easy to wire up since you already need a voltage source for the fan itself. The rest of the hardware is pretty common: a battery holder is centered on the axis for proper weight distribution and protoboard houses the components such as a PIC 18F252, 74LS373 data latches, and the LEDs themselves. The circuit is wire-wrapped, and works like a charm as evidenced in the clip after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWx7Jezz0rM&w=470]
[via
Hacked Gadgets
] | 10 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "382775",
"author": "jaqen",
"timestamp": "2011-04-19T14:03:06",
"content": "nice, maybe it would look better if the leds were closer together.Won’t the fan burn out faster with the extra load? there ought to be more wind resistance than it’s built for.some day i need to build a POV ... | 1,760,377,210.275954 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/19/guitar-teaches-you-to-play-using-leds/ | Guitar Teaches You To Play Using LEDs | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"LED Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"chords",
"guitar",
"learning",
"leds"
] | [Andrew] is an electrical engineering student at UIC, and decided that he would build a MIDI guitar for his senior design project. After tinkering for awhile, things were not looking good, and the MIDI guitar idea was scrapped. With his deadline creeping up,
he came up with a new idea, the Guitarduino
. His new project is a guitar that teaches you how to play chords and scales by showing you the proper notes to play via LEDs embedded in the guitar’s neck.
He removed the neck, and carefully drilled the holes that would eventually house his 130+ LEDs. The LEDs were wired to his Arduino via some multiplexing circuitry that resides on the back of the guitar’s body. The Arduino was mounted on the front of the guitar along with a shield used for communicating with his LED array. He built another shield that serves as the LCD display as well as the input board for his guitar.
The final result of all his work is fantastic. The user simply needs to dial in the chord or scale that he wants to learn, and the guitar lights up, showing the proper finger positions on the fretboard. We could see this coming in quite handy for anyone just starting to learn how to play.
Check out the video below to see a demonstration and walkthrough [Andrew] put together highlighting his guitar’s features.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2s5c1RcswA&w=470] | 38 | 34 | [
{
"comment_id": "382711",
"author": "Ron",
"timestamp": "2011-04-19T11:18:46",
"content": "It’s been done.http://www.fretlight.com/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1563693",
"author": "Chad Harding",
"timestamp": "2014-06-11T06... | 1,760,377,210.354346 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/18/laser-tripwire-alarm-system-uses-mirrors-to-increase-coverage/ | Laser Tripwire Alarm System Uses Mirrors To Increase Coverage | Mike Nathan | [
"Laser Hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"alarm",
"buzzer",
"laser",
"pic",
"security",
"tripwire"
] | Instructables user [EngineeringShock] has been hard at work building a
laser trip wire security system
, complete with a combination lock. The security system works just like you see in the movies, employing an array of mirrors to bounce the laser across an opening several times in order to secure the space.
A PIC18F1220 micro controller sits at the center of the alarm and handles the majority of its functions. It takes input from the laser detection circuit, triggers the buzzer, as well as arms and disarms the entire alarm system. An LS7222 digital lock handles the passcode verification side of things, taking input from a 16-button matrix keypad, and telling the PIC when the proper code has been entered.
As you can see in the video below, the alarm system works and the buzzer is quite loud. There is one small problem however – the alarm only arms itself after the proper code has been entered and the lights have been turned off. The light sensing circuit he uses is too sensitive and can only operate in darkness, though he discusses the ability to add a more accurate sensing solution.
If you are interested in reading more about laser tripwire security systems, check out this similar
passcode-based system
, this alarm system
built into a toy
, and this
Arduino-based alarm system
.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FenGMQQwgTg&w=470] | 15 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "382492",
"author": "Valen",
"timestamp": "2011-04-18T23:41:22",
"content": "Its not a bug its a featurenow the baddies have to try to break in in the dark ;->(plus it’ll make the cool Hollywood red laser + smoke effects way niftier)for bonus points should have used a green laser, i ... | 1,760,377,210.412334 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/18/laser-camera-sees-around-corners/ | Laser Camera Sees Around Corners | Brian Benchoff | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"atmega",
"camera",
"laser"
] | After reading over the proceedings of the 2005 SIGGRAPH, [Dan] realized he could reproduce one of the projects with $50 worth of equipment and some extreme cleverness.
[Dan]’s
dual scanning laser camera
operates by scanning a laser across an object. The light reflected from the object illuminates a flat surface, and this light is measured by a photocell. After measuring the resistance of the photocell, an image can be reconstructed from the light reflected off the flat surface. The result is quite ingenious, and we’re very grateful [Dan] gave us a great walkthrough with the code and theory of operation.
The project was covered in
this Slashdot story
a from a few years ago, and we’re surprise no one has bothered to cobble this project together. It’s a very simple build – two servos to control the x and y axes of the laser scanner, a photocell, and an ATMega board. Dan says the microcontroller isn’t even necessary, and this ‘remote imaging’ could be done with an ADC hooked up to a parallel port.
[Dan] was kind enough to to give us a
video
of his contraption in action. A very nice build from a very accomplished guy. | 18 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "382457",
"author": "ferdie",
"timestamp": "2011-04-18T22:09:06",
"content": "video link dont worki download it by click on itbut no video play or download",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "382462",
"author": "localroger",
... | 1,760,377,210.460171 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/18/nixie-tube-conference-badge/ | Nixie Tube Conference Badge | Mike Nathan | [
"cons",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"badge",
"nixie",
"security"
] | Maker [Jeffrey Gough] was recently asked to
construct a set of badges for the TROOPERS11 IT security conference
held in Heidelberg last month. The badges were to reflect the overall theme of this year’s conference – personal progression, education, and striving to become better IT security professionals. To do this, he designed a badge that tracked a conference attendee’s participation in various activities.
The badge sports a center-mounted nixie tube that is used to show the attendee’s score. It is worn around the neck using a Cat-5 cable that acts as a LANyard as well serves as a power switch for the badge. The badge can be plugged in to a special programmer used by conference organizers, which updates the attendee’s score after completing each activity.
[Jeffrey] made sure to add all sorts of extra goodies to the badge, including a capacitive touch button that displays a secret message via the nixie, as well as plenty of hole and SMT pads so that hackers could get their game on.
Overall, the reception of the badge was extremely positive. All of the conference attendees had lots of fun exploiting the badges as well as adding components such as LEDs and speakers.
Continue reading to check out a quick demonstration video [Jeffrey] put together, highlighting the badge’s features.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRaCzuQ2TTQ&w=470] | 13 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "382432",
"author": "Brett W. (FightCube.com)",
"timestamp": "2011-04-18T21:23:38",
"content": "I’ve been checking this out ever since Jeri Ellsworth tweeted about it last week… SUPER NICE design ;-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id"... | 1,760,377,210.579677 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/18/xerox-phaser-drum-unit-hacked-lives-to-print-another-day/ | Xerox Phaser Drum Unit Hacked, Lives To Print Another Day | Jeff Katz | [
"hardware"
] | [
"eprom",
"phaser",
"printer",
"repair"
] | Faced with a printer that would stop printing for no apparent reason, Finnish pirate and hacker [Janne] decided he had had enough. After doing a bit of research, he
disassembled the drum assembly and replaced some components
. The end result? Supposedly ‘broken’ printers started working again.
Apparently, Xerox uses a fairly basic scheme to determine when it’s time to replace your printer drum: An I2C eeprom keeps a count of the number of pages printed. After a certain number, the printer decides that it’s broken and won’t print any more. To fix this, a suitable replacement memory chip needed to be sourced. The original chip was a ST22C02WP. However, this was difficult to find, so the replacement part was selected to be a CSI 24C01WI. Amusingly enough, the replacement part has only half the space of the original chip, but this doesn’t appear to have caused a problem. The chips were swapped, and after some precision soldering the printer was completely repaired. The blank replacement chip functioned… due to the fact that there is no security or encryption involved between the printer and the drum (Score!)
Have you ever had to get intimate with a soldering iron just to get your printer to do its job? Let us know in the comments. | 38 | 37 | [
{
"comment_id": "382387",
"author": "PiP",
"timestamp": "2011-04-18T20:08:09",
"content": "HP CP1700 — Had to remove a CR2032 button battery to kill the internal clock and trick printer into using “expired” ink cartridges.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comm... | 1,760,377,210.697419 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/18/open-hacker-conference-badge-project-needs-your-help/ | Open Hacker Conference Badge Project Needs Your Help! | Jeff Katz | [
"Hackerspaces",
"hardware",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"atmega",
"AVR",
"electronics",
"led",
"rfid"
] | [Aestetix] writes in to tell us that the
OpenAMD
(Attendee Meta-Data) project is working on a new revision of their hardware, to be debuted at CCC Camp this fall.
For the uninitiated, OpenAMD combines an Active RFID tracking system with social networking, and is completely open-source. You walk into the conference, put on the OpenAMD badge, and suddenly you can see yourself as a dot moving around on a map. Or you can log into the social networking site, create a profile, and watch as your personal information is pulled into the mesh, which then tells you talks you might like, people you might like, where those people are, and more. There’s even an open API where you can create your own ‘killer’ apps, which may include games or other interesting aggregates of the attendee information.
This year’s “erlenmeyer flask” badge is the latest incarnation of the project you may have seen at 2600’s Hackers on Planet Earth conference in 2008 and 2010, or at Chaos Computer Congress (CCC) in 2006 or 2007. This time, the team is looking to deploy at this summer’s CCC Camp, and at numerous conferences in the future to be determined.
The badge itself is an Atmega AVR microcontroller connected to a Nordic nRF24L01+ and a pair of 74HC595 shift registers. The AVR is running
USBaspLoader
with custom OpenAMD firmware on top, which in concert with the Nordic chip implements the
OpenBeacon
air protocol. The shift registers drive 14 LEDs which are capable of being used as a persistence of vision display. Because of the USBaspLoader, you don’t even need an Atmega in-circuit programmer to reflash the chip: You can even use the
Arduino
IDE to implement your own functionality.
The badges, the ‘readers’, all the hardware and software required to create your own instance is completely open source, and you can download the specs
today
and tinker with them.
So what’s the catch? They need your help. They’re running a
kickstarter
to raise the minimum amount needed to fabricate these badges and bring them to CCC Camp, and any support you can offer will go a long way to help. Even if you’re not going to CCC Camp, they’re planning at deploying at many more conferences state-side in the future, and the badges themselves are more than enough fun to tinker with. The Nordic chip can be
particularly fun
.
Here’s a short video explaining the whole thing from last year’s installation at TNH:
[vimeo
http://vimeo.com/12032834%5D
Full disclosure? I’m designing the badge hardware this time around. | 18 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "382360",
"author": "jeditalian",
"timestamp": "2011-04-18T19:07:17",
"content": "nice how it plugs into usb. the invisible components are soldered on nicely.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "382364",
"author": "jeditalian",
... | 1,760,377,212.59077 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/18/auxiliary-battery-pack-for-field-operations/ | Auxiliary Battery Pack For Field Operations | Mike Nathan | [
"Solar Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"portable",
"solar"
] | Ham operator [Ken – wa4mnt] wrote us to share a small project that he uses nearly every time he goes out in the field. His
portable sealed lead acid battery pack
(PDF) always ensures that he has a 12v power source at his fingertips, both for fun as well as in emergency situations.
The battery pack is pretty simple, and includes a 12v, 17ah battery strapped into a light aluminum chassis which he fabricated. The battery is secured with zip ties, so it can easily be swapped out or replaced without much fuss. The frame also sports a tiltable 4w, 17.5v solar panel that keeps the battery topped off and ready to go at all times. He stuck a voltmeter to the top of the battery to keep an eye on things, and he employs a 10A fuse to make sure he doesn’t fry any sensitive radio components should something go wrong.
The battery pack is pretty compact when you think about it, and we imagine it would be great to have on hand for a wide array of outdoor activities. Even if you’re not into Ham field operations, it’s hard to argue with its usefulness during power outages.
[Ken] doesn’t appear to have any published plans for the chassis or the electronic portion of the pack, but we’re pretty sure he would share if asked. | 11 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "382334",
"author": "supermunchkin",
"timestamp": "2011-04-18T18:07:11",
"content": "i’m just getting into fabbing my own stuff and this looks really useful. i would definately like to see some plans if he wants to share them. a pricesheet for the parts would really be awesome :)",
... | 1,760,377,213.011311 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/18/mechanical-twitter-feed-for-offline-reading/ | Mechanical Twitter Feed For Offline Reading | Mike Nathan | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"mechanical",
"offline",
"projector",
"servos",
"twitter"
] | Twitter can be a great tool for keeping up to date with your favorite person/company/band/etc. You can find a Twitter client for just about anything that plugs in these days, but sometimes we find that we simply need a break from our computers and smart phones – even if just for a few minutes. What happens when you want to unplug, but still need to know what everyone is up to?
[Patrick Dinnen] asked himself the same thing, and decided that the solution was
a mechanical Twitter feed display
. The display consists of a static user list strung up against the wall, with a mobile speech bubble mounted next to it. The bubble moves to the user who has most recently updated their status (presumably using a pair of servos), and uses a projector to display their messages. The effect is pretty neat, and it still allows you to get your Twitter fix without staring blankly at your computer screen or smart phone.
We think it would be even cooler if it used a projector on both sides, enabling it to dynamically shuffle through users and status messages at the same time. [Patrick] says that for right now it is merely a proof of concept, so there is no telling how he’ll tweak it going forward.
Continue reading to see his mechanical Twitter feed in action.
[via
Adafruit
]
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/22438159 w=470] | 11 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "382301",
"author": "ThunderBird",
"timestamp": "2011-04-18T16:34:56",
"content": "Maybe the speech bubble could use epaper. It would add complexity to driving it, but maybe it would be cheaper in the long run.Just my two cents…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies":... | 1,760,377,212.343053 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/18/apple-ii-weather-display-part-1/ | Apple II Weather Display (part 1) | Kevin Dady | [
"Featured",
"how-to",
"Misc Hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"apple II",
"retro"
] | Due to computer issues I had to rob some parts from my “electronics” computer, which wasn’t bad, since I was not working on anything at the time and I felt a software project itch. I also wanted to do something with my Apple //c, which resides on my computer desk, so this ghetto brute force “solution” to use the 25 year old computer as a weather display came about.
In a nutshell there is the Apple II, a serial cable, and a PC running linux mint 10 and a handful of command line utilities. My specific Apple is the fist revision of the //c which means its got a buggy rom and the serial port(s) can be troublesome, the best speed I was able to get was 600 baud with just basic, though every other model could probably go a little faster.
On the linux side, wget downloads html and the radar image from
Weather Underground’s mobile site
, which is not a perfect source, but its easy. A lua script phrases text and graphics into string patterns that the Apple II can handle as keyboard input, and its sent down a serial cable where it is drawn on screen in basic.
Yea its pretty darn slow … it typically takes about eight to twelve minutes to redraw the screen, which is not all that horrid (imo) considering what is going on, but anyone with a more serious take on this could find numerous ways to optimize it, I just wanted to see what it would look like.
Join us after the break for a short video and to read all the details about how this all works!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35rJoMLGz1U&w=450]
Stuff you need:
*nix PC with a serial port and something with the following software
GNU Wget
GNU core utilities
(both are probably already installed )
Lua 5.1
(I used sudo apt-get install lua5.1)
ImageMagick
(again sudo apt-get install imagemagick)
Lynx
(I am just using it to strip html tags and didnt feel like using anything “proper”)
Sjinn
, which is a nifty little command line program that lets you deal with the serial port without having to manually set it up and fuss with redirecting i/o in the terminal.
And my project folder
.
On the Apple II side, you need a 128k IIe or newer, disk drive/controller, serial card, blank disk, and high resolution graphics. For software you will need
ADT Pro
, and the disk image I made. ADT Pro is the currently developed Apple Disk Transfer utility that allows you to copy disk images to and from the Apple II, and the disk image is contained in the zip file above.
Transfer the disk image to the Apple and reboot with that disk in the drive, once the screen is at the white box, you are free to run “lua a2weather.lua” on the PC. The lua script fetches data, pipes it to the Apple, and then goes to sleep for 45 min using the gnu sleep() command.
Since lua is doing all the lifting, I guess that’s a good place to start. Also, let’s get this out of the way in case you missed it, I am not a programmer, much like my writing, be prepared to see some massive sins!
First up is the main a2weather.lua script (and I see wordpress is going to murder my formating)
-- Weather Underground to Apple //
-- 2011 Kevin Dady
--
-- main script:
-- read data off of the http://www.wunderground.com/ mobile site
-- phrase it
-- process text & graphics
-- send
-- sleep
-- loop
--
-- This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied
-- warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages
-- arising from the use of this software.
--
-- Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose,
-- including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it
-- freely, subject to the following restrictions:
--
-- 1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not
-- claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software
-- in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be
-- appreciated but is not required.
-- 2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be
-- misrepresented as being the original software.
-- 3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.
require("req/web")
require("req/text")
require("req/radar")
require("req/os_commands")
graphicsKey = "123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
cmd.serialPort = "/dev/ttyS0"
cmd.webURL = "http://m.wund.com/US/FL/Orlando.html"
--cmd.webURL = "http://m.wund.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?brand=mobile&query=West+Yellowstone%2C+MT"
while true do
web.get()
web.sortTXT()
web.cleanTXT()
text.createIMG()
text.convertIMG()
text.sortIMG()
text.packageIMG()
text.sendIMG()
radar.convertIMG()
radar.sortIMG()
radar.packageIMG()
radar.send()
-- clean up data
radar.data.input = {}
radar.data.packed = {}
radar.data.apl2 = {{},{},{},{},{},{}}
text.data.input = {}
text.data.packed = {{},{},{},{}}
text.data.apl2 = {{},{},{}}
cmd.sleep("45m")
-- after sleep do tell the apple and do it again
cmd.sjinn("update")
end
… pretty straight forward, some comments, zlib license, Ah, required files! These are just other lua scripts with functions and variables in them, though there is no reason all of those functions could not be in this script, I just find it easier to deal with.
web.lua downloads html and the radar image from weather underground, strips HTML tags via lynx, searches for keywords, and packs those keywords into a table (tables in lua are like arrays, but you can put pretty much anything you want in them, even functions)
text.lua takes the text data gathered in web.lua and passes it to ImageMagick to make simple text images, then phrases those images into data strings and transfers that data to the Apple.
radar.lua dithers the radar image with ImageMagick, phrases the that file, builds data strings, and transfers that image data to the Apple.
os_commands.lua contains functions to run command line programs like wget, lynx, etc.
The graphics key needs to remain constant, I will go into how that works in a little while, but each character represents a numeric value within a 35 pixel column of the screen, there are 280 horizontal pixels in Apple // high res graphics. Its ripped from
base36,
missing the zero value and you dont add the numbers up, each is its own.
Theres also a string to define your serial port, and one to put the url for the area you want to see, go to
Weather Underground’s mobile site
search for wherever (I dont know how well it works outside North America) and copy/paste the resulting page url.
Next is a infinite while loop and the various functions contained within the above required scripts. Then, a little blurb where I define a bunch of empty tables (thats just me being re-assured tables start fresh and I didn’t goof up).
Next is web.lua
-- Weather Underground to Apple //
-- 2011 Kevin Dady
--
-- Web Processing:
-- get text data
-- get radar image
-- phrase text for apple //
web = {}
web.data = {}
web.keywords =
{
"National Weather Service:",
"Updated","Windchill","Temperature","Humidity",
"Conditions","Dew Point","animated radar image"}
web.get = function()
-- download html from website
cmd.wget(cmd.webURL, "text.html")
-- look for the radar image url
local file = io.open("temp/text.html")
local image = ""
for line in file:lines() do
if string.find(line, "jpg") then
image = line
break
end
end
file:close()
-- remove the html tags from image url
local firstQuote = string.find(image, "\"") + 1
local secondQuote = string.find(image, "\"", firstQuote) - 1
image = string.sub(image, firstQuote, secondQuote)
-- download image
cmd.wget(image, "radar.jpg")
end
web.sortTXT = function()
local fileLines = {}
-- use lynx to strip html tags
cmd.lynx("temp/text.html")
-- dump the lynx output file into a table
local file = io.open("temp/text.txt")
for line in file:lines() do
table.insert(fileLines, line)
end
-- look for keywords and scrape data
for y = 1, #fileLines do
local sub = ""
-- storm advisory
if string.find(fileLines[y], web.keywords[1]) ~= nil and web.data[1] == nil then
sub = string.gsub(fileLines[y + 1], "%d", "!")
sub = string.gsub(sub, " , ", " ")
table.insert(web.data, 1, sub)
-- last updated date and time
elseif string.find(fileLines[y], web.keywords[2]) ~= nil then
table.insert(web.data, 2, fileLines[y])
-- windchill
elseif string.find(fileLines[y], web.keywords[3]) ~= nil then
sub = string.gsub(fileLines[y], web.keywords[3], "")
table.insert(web.data, 3, sub)
-- everything but forecast
else
for keyWord = 4, (#web.keywords - 1) do
if string.find(fileLines[y], web.keywords[keyWord]) ~= nil and web.data[keyWord] == nil then
sub = string.gsub(fileLines[y], web.keywords[keyWord], "")
table.insert(web.data, keyWord, sub)
end
end
end
end
end
web.cleanTXT = function()
for y = 1, #web.data do
if web.data[y] ~= nil then
-- remove extra spaces from start of each string
while (string.sub(web.data[y], 1, 1) == " ") do
web.data[y] = string.sub(web.data[y], 2, -1)
end
-- remove degrees character
web.data[y] = string.gsub(web.data[y], "°", "")
end
end
-- Add keywords back in (skipping nill values, and tempature)
for keyWord = 3, (#web.keywords - 1) do
if web.data[keyWord] ~= nil then
if keyWord ~= 4 then
web.data[keyWord] = web.keywords[keyWord] .. ": " ..web.data[keyWord]
end
end
end
-- remove / from Temperature
web.data[4] = string.gsub(web.data[4], " / ", " ")
end
Yea I know its a mess, WordPress is ignoring tabs and it is only 40 columns if I had to guess. At the top there is a function called web.get(), this function uses wget to download the html page from weather underground, it then opens that file and scans through it for a JPG image, as luck would have it, the only jpg on the entire page is the radar. Once it has the URL for the radar it strips the HTML tags and uses wget again to download just the radar image.
The next function is web.sortTXT(), this sends the downloaded HTML file to lynx where it strips out the tags and spits out a plain text file. The function then reads each line looking for keywords. Some keywords require special action … like if it finds a storm advisory, it then knows to skip to the next line, because that line just says “National Weather Service:” and change the link number inserted by lynx to a” !”. At the end of the function there is a little loop that looks for the rest of the keywords and then removes the actual keyword, this is needed to remove unwanted spaces between the keyword and data.
The final function is web.cleanTXT(), this goes through all the lines of data we have and removes all the leading spaces. It then adds back keywords to the appropriate line, while it ignores nil values as they were not present (like advisories or windchill). It also ignores the Temperature keyword as I don’t need the word Temperature in the display. Lastly I remove the “/” in my temperature data as it makes the graphics format funny, and its just to separate F and C values in the original string.
So we now have the software installed and running, data and radar downloaded from weather underground, text data scrapped, sorted and cleaned and we are now ready to make some graphics!
Join me in
part 2
where I explain how graphics are reduced, encoded and drawn on the Apple II computer. | 24 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "382222",
"author": "aztraph",
"timestamp": "2011-04-18T11:55:30",
"content": "Wow. Lots of work in that. Great exorcise.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "1007341",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2013-05-23T14:33... | 1,760,377,212.657877 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/17/radiation-sensor-shield-for-the-arduino/ | Radiation Sensor Shield For The Arduino | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"geiger counter",
"radiation"
] | The [Libelium] team wanted to help people in Japan measure radiation in their surroundings following the nuclear accident in Fukushima. Because of the affordability and seeming ubiquity of the Arduino platform, they have been hard at work this last month trying to get their
Geiger counter sensor board
for an Arduino out the door. We think they’ve done a remarkable job.
A Geiger tube is a remarkably simple device, but getting the part can be a fairly expensive proposition. Thankfully, [Libelium] has already tested and verified a number of tubes from different manufacturers – very helpful if you don’t want to be tied down to one specific component.
This looks like this is just the sort of thing that the folks at [Seed Studio] wanted for an
open hardware radiation detector
, and [Libelium] has already shipped their first batch to the Tokyo Hackerspace. It’s good to know that help is going where it’s needed.
Video of the sensor board being tested after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm97_wn2Pac&w=470] | 49 | 48 | [
{
"comment_id": "382000",
"author": "Rob Ray",
"timestamp": "2011-04-17T23:08:09",
"content": "Yeah! good projects!There’s also RDTNhttp://www.rdtn.org/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "382001",
"author": "Drew",
"timestamp": "2011-04-17T... | 1,760,377,212.538702 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/17/musical-tesla-concert-is-electrifying/ | Musical Tesla Concert Is Electrifying | Mike Nathan | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"concert",
"electricity",
"music",
"tesla"
] | Hackaday reader [Tyler Laseter] wrote in to tell us about an event that he and his fellow Tesla Orchestra team members are hosting next month.
The “Open Spark Project” is a concert event taking place on May 14th
, which melds together electricity and music in spectacular fashion. The event features two large Tesla coils which are tuned to play musical notes while shooting bolts of electricity through the air.
Musical Tesla coils
are
nothing new around here
, but we have yet to see someone allow the general public to play music on their coils. That’s what makes this event unique – anyone is encouraged to submit their to the Tesla Orchestra team, which will then be played back via a live video stream next month. Their web site offers up all of the technical details as well as the file format requirements for submitting music for the event, so get started on your entry today!
If a passive approach is more your style, stick around for a quick video demonstrating their coils’ abilities. Sure it’s Lady Gaga, but we won’t tell anyone you watched it. Plus, it’s totally legit when the song is being played using 20,000 volts.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzLC1lVWDSk&w=470] | 18 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "381964",
"author": "ferdie",
"timestamp": "2011-04-17T21:30:07",
"content": "wow thats coolbut why lady gaga i hate this songhear it to meny times",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "381998",
"author": "Tyler Laseter",
"time... | 1,760,377,213.203817 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/17/ip-based-engine-remote-enable-switch/ | IP-based Engine Remote Enable Switch | Mike Nathan | [
"Security Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"anti-theft",
"car",
"enable",
"IPv6",
"remote",
"switch",
"zigbee"
] | [Mariano] owns a late 90’s Jeep Wrangler, and had no idea just how easy it was to steal. Unfortunately for him, the guy who made off with his Jeep was well aware of the car’s vulnerabilities. The problem lies in the ignition – it can be broken out with a screwdriver, after which, the car can be started with a single finger. How’s that for security?
[Mariano] decided that he would take matters into his own hands and
add a remote-controlled switch to his car
in order to encourage the next would-be thief to move on to an easier target. He describes his creation as a “remote kill” switch, though it’s more of a “remote enable” switch, enabling the engine when he wants to start the car rather than killing it on command.
The switch system is made up of two pieces – a server inside the car’s engine bay, and a remote key fob. The server and the fob speak to one another using IPv6 over 802.15.4 (the same standard used by ZigBee modules). Once the server receives a GET request from the key fob, it authenticates the user with a 128-bit AES challenge/response session, allowing the car to be started.
It is not the simplest way of adding a remote-kill switch to a car, but we like it. Unless the next potential car thief digs under the hood for a while, we’re pretty sure [Mariano’s] car will be safe for quite some time. | 28 | 26 | [
{
"comment_id": "381906",
"author": "Hackius",
"timestamp": "2011-04-17T19:37:35",
"content": "Such encrypted equipment should come as a manufacturer option.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "381925",
"author": "Gray Simpson",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,377,212.730082 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/17/hacking-gets-a-cover-story/ | Hacking Gets A Cover Story | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackerspaces"
] | [
"bicycle",
"electric car",
"geo metro",
"plow",
"sector67",
"trek"
] | We do see hacking in mainstream print media from time to time, but you know the movement must be gathering steam when a collection of hacks gets the cover story in a local paper. This week’s issue of The Isthmus – the premiere free newspaper here in Madison, WI –
features the local hackerspace and a handful of green hacks
.
The man seen riding the
pedal-powered plow
above is [Kevin Blake], a mechanical engineer for Trek Bicycles which is headquartered in Waterloo, WI. He built the rig with the chassis of a riding lawnmower, adding shovel blades in a V-shape on the front, with cranks and other parts salvaged from bicycles.
The article goes on to feature the local hackerspace,
Sector67
, by interviewing its founder, [Chris Meyer]. The paper tracked down some other local hackers (and Sector67 members) who have been
prototyping wind turbines
.
The largest feature in the story goes to [Ben Nelson’s]
Geo Metro electric vehicle conversion
. The self-employed video producer picked up the diminutive car for about $500 and dropped in a forklift motor which he picked up at a garage sale ($50 + $50 for new brushes makes for a steal at $100). But here’s the best part of the project: after ripping out the unneeded parts for the car he sold them for $550. Anyway, all said and done he’s got about $1300 invested in the project and now has an all-electric car that gets up to 45 mph with a range of twenty miles in between charges. Maybe
a big tail cone
would help extend that reach.
This is the most interesting stuff we’ve read in the newspaper in years. Maybe you should contact your local journalists for a feature in your area? If they’re not receptive, don’t fret…
we’re always looking for great builds to feature here at Hackaday
. | 13 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "381893",
"author": "Pete Prodoehl",
"timestamp": "2011-04-17T18:58:07",
"content": "One more note on Ben’s car, I believe he won an Instructables/Craftsman contest, and $5,000 worth of tools. So he’s made a lot of money with that car! :)He’s also one of the people you’ll see down at... | 1,760,377,213.060339 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/17/chatbox-wireless-im-client/ | Chatbox Wireless IM Client | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"8051",
"arduino",
"chat",
"ir",
"text"
] | [Utpal Solanki] wanted to do some text chatting from the comfort of the couch. He built this
wireless chat client that he calls Chatbox
using a microcontroller, a character LCD screen, and a keypad that he built himself.
The device communicates via an Infrared emitter and receiver. It pairs up with an Arduino using an IR shield that [Utpal] built. The handheld unit flashes a pair of white LEDs whenever it receives a message from the Arduino. You can then hit the Inbox button and scroll through to read what was received. To reply just type on the keypad the same way you would with a cellphone, then hit the send button to shoot that message back to the Arduino.
On the computer side of things the messages are being relayed to and from the Arduino over a USB connection. Early on in the video demonstration (embedded after the break) [Utpal] shows his Chat Box program communicating via the handheld unit in the same way that other messenger programs work.
Looks to us like he’s built his own non-pink version of what
the IM-ME
was originally intended to do.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCOJz_DnrfQ&w=470] | 8 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "381862",
"author": "varg",
"timestamp": "2011-04-17T17:28:21",
"content": "Interesting… Most people have something that already does that though, it’s called a cell phone. Is this a 1990s flashback post?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"commen... | 1,760,377,213.106136 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/17/dtmf-shield-aimed-at-ham-controlled-arduino/ | DTMF Shield Aimed At Ham Controlled Arduino | Mike Szczys | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"7 segment",
"arduino",
"dtmf",
"ham",
"mt8870",
"shield"
] | [Colin] wanted a way to reliably control an Arduino via ham radio. One of the easiest methods of automated radio control makes use of Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency signalling. To those who aren’t into amatuer radio you probably recognized DTMF as the touch-tone system for telephone communications. [Colin] built
a shield that has an audio input and can decode DTMF signals
.
The hardware is based around an MT8870 DTMF decoder chip. This is
a popular choice for DTMF hardware
because it does all of the decoding work for you. Whenever a valid tone is detected it outputs the associated value in binary on four output pins. There is a fifth pin that strobes after each new tone. [Colin’s] design offers a lot of feedback for what’s going on with the input signal. The DTMF value is displayed on a 7-segment display (controlled completely in hardware), the value is output on for Binary Coded Decimal pins, and mapped to a set of ten pins which pull to ground to match the digit received. | 8 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "381839",
"author": "Rob",
"timestamp": "2011-04-17T16:44:55",
"content": "Why only ten outputs?(For pins?)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "381869",
"author": "Ash",
"timestamp": "2011-04-17T17:48:05",
"content": "0-9... | 1,760,377,213.152364 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/17/webcam-turned-security-cam-with-motion-detected-email-notifications/ | Webcam Turned Security Cam With Motion Detected Email Notifications | Mike Szczys | [
"iphone hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"CCTV",
"growl",
"ios",
"prowl",
"server",
"webcam",
"yawcam"
] | [Sean] used his old
webcam to assemble a closed circuit television feed for his home
. He already had a server up and running, so this was just a matter of connecting a camera and setting up the software. He wasn’t satisfied by only having a live feed, so he decided to add a few more features to the system.
He started off by hanging a webcam near the front of his house. He mentions that he’s not sure this will last long exposed to the elements, but we think it’d be dead simple to build an enclosure with a resealable container and a nice piece of acrylic as a windows. But we digress…
The camera connects via USB to the server living in the garage. [Sean’s] setup uses
Yawcam
to create a live feed that can be access from the Internet. The software also includes motion detection capabilities. Since he wanted to have push notifications when there was action within the camera’s view he also set up
Growl
alert him via his iOS devices. You can see [Sean] demonstrate his completed CCTV system in the video below the fold.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=787y4ygeg-k&w=470] | 27 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "381805",
"author": "addidis",
"timestamp": "2011-04-17T15:08:47",
"content": "Look up webcamXP , i have used it for this for a few years now. Just plug in an 8$ webcam.http://www.webcamxp.com/home.aspx",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_... | 1,760,377,214.020598 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/17/sunday-hackaday-links-april-16-2011/ | Hackaday Links: April 16, 2011 | Mike Szczys | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"induction",
"iphone",
"mouse trap",
"ping pong ball",
"snow tires",
"super mario bros"
] | Induction cook top provides power too
We’re familiar with induction cook tops but we never thought to
power a microcontroller with one
. [Thanks Hadez]
Ping-Pong Uranium
We’ve been big fans of the chain reaction demonstration using ping-pong balls and mouse traps ever since we saw [Mr. Wizard] do it back in the day. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, check out this
demonstration that is analogous of a fission reaction
. [Thanks nateL]
Phone tripod enclosure
If you’re interested in using your smart phone for some photography, [Mike] has a nice
wood and elastic mount for an iPhone
which you might try yourself.
Bicycle snow tires
Admittedly we’re a bit late on this one. But keep it in mind for next year: you can use some
zip ties for added traction on your bike when it snows
. [Thanks Rob]
Now you can
BE
mario
A little
Kinect script lets this gentleman play Super Mario Bros.
with his body. Now you can have all the fun that goes along with being a pixellated character stuck in a two-dimensional environment (plus, there are shrooms). [Thanks Das_Coach via
Slashdot
] | 8 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "381806",
"author": "bob",
"timestamp": "2011-04-17T15:10:22",
"content": "Somehow, I don’t think those zip ties are enough to keep you from breaking your head.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "381808",
"author": "theodore",
... | 1,760,377,214.147071 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/17/oscilloscope-piano-tuning-101/ | Oscilloscope Piano Tuning 101 | Jason Komp | [
"contests",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"oscilloscope",
"piano",
"scope",
"tuner"
] | [Todd Harrison] recently wrote in to tip us off on his submission to the Tektronix oscilloscope contest –
using a scope to tune a piano
. In his video he demonstrates how a Fast Fourier Transform can be used to determine the fundamental frequency of the note being played. This is a quick and easy way to determine if that key is in tune, and if not, how far off it is from the desired frequency and in which direction.
He goes on to explain that a scope can only be used as a starting reference point since “mathematically correct” tuning on a piano doesn’t sound right to the human ear. It turns out that when struck, the stretched wires in the piano behave less than ideally. In the case of a piano, the overtones (the other peaks shown on the scope higher in frequency than the fundamental) are actually slightly sharper (higher in frequency) than the expected harmonic whole-number multiple of the fundamental frequency. As a result, the frequency ranges of each octave must be “stretched” in order to accommodate this and sound correct when multiple notes are played together across octaves.
Typically, only the A4 key is actually tuned to its correct frequency of 440Hz and all of the other keys are manually tuned off of this baseline. The amount of necessary stretch applied to each octave increases as you get further away from this initial reference point in either direction and is unique to each and every individual instrument – thus there is no universal device capable of perfect tuning. Although [Todd] admits that he won’t attempt to tune the entire piano himself using this technique, he finds it a convenient way to keep the most heavily played center sections of the piano closer to true between professional tunings.
If you have any interesting or unique uses for your Techtronix scope, you can enter the contest
here
. Just don’t forget to
tip us off
too! Thanks [Todd]! | 10 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "381932",
"author": "therian",
"timestamp": "2011-04-17T20:29:53",
"content": "you telling me I can see frequencies on oscilloscope, wow what a discovery",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "382043",
"author": "Jason Komp",
"t... | 1,760,377,213.30514 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/16/the-basics-of-building-a-multitouch-table/ | The Basics Of Building A Multitouch Table | Mike Szczys | [
"Multitouch Hacks"
] | [
"acrylic",
"community core vision",
"infrared",
"physics",
"webcam"
] | Here is
a bare-bones multitouch table setup
. We looked in on [Seth Sandler’s] multitouch work a few years ago when he completed
the MTmini build
. He’s scaling up the size a bit with the MTbiggie, and showing you how easy it is to put together. The demo rig seen above is just a couple of chairs, a sheet of acrylic, a mirror, a projector, a computer, and a diy infrared webcam.
The rig uses ambient infrared light to detect the outlines of your fingers when they touch the acrylic surface. A webcam with an exposed camera film filter feeds an image of the infrared light received below the surface to the computer. The incoming video is processed using
Community Core Vision
, where each individual point is isolated and mapped. Once the data is available the sky’s the limit on what you can develop. [Seth’s] demo packages include a mouse driver, some physics applications, an Angry Birds implementation, and a few others. See for yourself in the video after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJU8sBt7eC8&w=470] | 15 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "381532",
"author": "marv",
"timestamp": "2011-04-16T19:40:40",
"content": "I build something similar. It was a rear DI for architectural presentations. Basically an translucent city-mock-up ontop of a multitouch table.http://www.gedankensuppe.de/xxiiixSorry the documentation is in g... | 1,760,377,213.25705 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/16/pidato-box-adds-vibrato-effect-to-digital-pianos/ | Pidato Box Adds Vibrato Effect To Digital Pianos | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"digital audio hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"digital",
"midi",
"piano",
"vibrato"
] | [Joren] likes his digital piano, but it was missing one key component that he wanted to use: the ability to produce vibrato while playing. Vibrato can be done in several different ways on regular pianos, but it seemed as if there was not a lot of consideration given to the effect when designing digital pianos.
He enjoys playing all sorts of music, including solos from Franz Liszt which suggest using vibrato at times, so
he decided to build himself a vibrato box
. Constructed with a bit of assistance from the friendly folks at
Hackerspace Ghent
, his “Pidato” incorporates an Arduino and three-axis accelerometer to get the job done.
The Arduino is connected to both the MIDI output of the piano as well as to the accelerometer, which he has mounted on his wrist. While playing, all he needs to do is simply move his hand rapidly to produce the vibrato sound as you can see in the video below. The Arduino code filters out any other sorts of movements to ensure that he does not accidentally trigger the effect when it is not desired.
Check out the video below for a quick demonstration of the Pidato box.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phDV_qioBMU&w=470] | 9 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "381510",
"author": "eafd",
"timestamp": "2011-04-16T19:09:08",
"content": "You can’t do vibrato on a normal piano…The closest thing is a trill, but all digital pianos can do that.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "381519",
"au... | 1,760,377,213.349708 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/16/pinewood-derby-cars-have-come-a-long-way/ | Pinewood Derby Cars Have Come A Long Way | Jesse Congdon | [
"LED Hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"cub scouts",
"el wire",
"electroluminescent",
"leds",
"pinewood derby"
] | Get your graphite and hike a wheel, [Aron Hoekstra] writes in to completely embarrass us with some excellent
pinewood derby cars
. In the pursuit of that extra something [Aron] consulted with his sons who came up with some cool ideas for cars, one Tron themed and the other basically a Wiimote with wheels! The official Pinewood derby rules say nothing about electronics, so as long as
nothing helps
the block-o-wood travel down the track faster, anything goes. This means you are free to load up whatever cool lights you want, but will have to earn your
robotics merit badge
some other way.
[Aron] Starts the builds by carving out the shape of the cars, each feature a hollowed out cavity underneath to accommodate the batteries and electronics. For the Tron Light Runner car, one continuous EL strip weaves in and out of the derby car’s body, and a single AAA battery runs the driver. [Aron] notes that it took around five feet of EL wire to cover the little car, which is two more than the driver is rated for. Fortunately the extra little bit of additional wire had little effect on its brightness.
The Wiimote car has detailed 3d buttons, a breadboard with a linear regulator, and PIC 16F628 driving blue LEDs. For the majority of the time the PIC simply runs a chase routine for the four LEDs, but [Aron] went through the trouble to program in the Wiimote’s start-up sequence!
Shown above the [Hokestra]’s work is my older brother’s pinewood derby car (top left) and my… potato rocket… thing… (top right) from many many years ago. I now seriously regret not considering LEDs! Although I think all that existed then was red, green and IR.
Check out videos of the [Hoekstra] bros’ cars after the jump!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlwaO01otjk&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcPfzmP03-s&w=470] | 20 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "381418",
"author": "Will",
"timestamp": "2011-04-16T15:41:40",
"content": "PURE. WIN. I am SO building cool cars like this with my kids!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "381421",
"author": "splik",
"timestamp": "2011-04-1... | 1,760,377,213.649511 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/16/creating-nes-cartridge-clones-from-rom-dumps/ | Creating NES Cartridge Clones From ROM Dumps | Mike Nathan | [
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"clone",
"eprom",
"games",
"imports",
"multicard",
"nintendo",
"video games"
] | Sometimes emulators just don’t cut it when you want to play a vintage game. Like it or not, some people enjoy the nostalgia of playing old games on the actual hardware for which it was designed.
[Callan] wrote in to share a method he has been using to
make some of his own NES game cartridges from ROM dumps
in order to play them on an honest to goodness NES console.
He starts out with a 190 in 1 game cartridge, where he found a neat Famicom game never released in the US. He decided he would patch the ROM he found on the multicart in order to have an English menu, and then create his very own cartridge from the image. He discusses how to identify which EPROM chips you will need in order to construct your cartridge, as well as some helpful ways of finding a donor cart that has a similar enough board to house your components.
[Callan] also provides a quick walkthrough of erasing and burning your new EPROM chips, before discussing some post-soldering troubleshooting steps you might need to take before your game will work properly.
While we can’t comment on the legality of these game clones, we still think it’s pretty awesome.
Be sure to check out his site for a far more in-depth discussion of the process if this is something that interests you. | 25 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "381352",
"author": "mowcius",
"timestamp": "2011-04-16T13:38:41",
"content": "“While we can’t comment on the legality of these game clones”Shows what kind of a world it’s become…UV EEPROM – nice :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,377,213.959126 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/15/long-range-bluetooth-wardriving-rig/ | Long-range Bluetooth Wardriving Rig | Mike Nathan | [
"Cellphone Hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"antenna",
"bluetooth",
"usb",
"wardriving"
] | [Kyle] was digging through a box of junk he had lying around when he came across an old USB Bluetooth dongle. He stopped using it ages ago because he was unsatisfied with the limited range of Bluetooth communications.
He was going to toss it back into the box when an idea struck him – he had always been a fan of WiFi wardriving, why not try doing the same thing with Bluetooth? Obviously the range issue comes into play yet again, so he started searching around for
ways to boost his Bluetooth receiver’s range
.
He dismantled the dongle and found that the internal antenna was a simple metal strip. He didn’t think there would be any harm in trying to extend the antenna, so he soldered an alligator clip to the wire and connected the CB antenna in his truck. His laptop sprung to life instantly, picking up his phone located about 100 feet away in his house. He took the show on the road and was able to pick up 27 different phones set in discoverable mode while sitting in the parking lot of a fast food chain.
While it does work, we’re pretty sure that the CB antenna isn’t the most ideal extension of the Bluetooth radio. We would love to see what kind of range he would get with a properly tuned antenna.
Keep reading to see a quick demonstration of his improvised long-range Bluetooth antenna.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtIKzhHcInk&w=470] | 56 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "381033",
"author": "hpux735",
"timestamp": "2011-04-15T22:09:38",
"content": "Also, an aligator clip is about that last thing I’d think of using for Ghz-range RF connection… :) Neat how well it did work, though.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,377,213.742591 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/15/drag-and-drop-programming-gets-kids-started-early/ | Drag And Drop Programming Gets Kids Started Early | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Software Development"
] | [
"arduino",
"code",
"fun",
"gui",
"kids"
] | While programming an Arduino is a piece of cake for EEs who have been around the block a few times, there are some groups who would still find it difficult to get started with the IDE. It is touted for its ease of use, but there is a steep learning curve if say, you are 5 or 6 years old. [Julián da Silva] has been hard at work for a while now, to
make the Arduino more accessible than ever
.
Earlier today, we posted a story about
moldable putty which can be used by children
to build rudimentary circuits, enabling them to enter the fun world of hobby electronics at a young age. [Julián’s] project “Minibloq” aims to do the same thing with the Arduino. A work in progress, Minibloq uses a graphical interface to “build” Arduino code a block at a time. The code components are dragged and dropped into place on one side of the screen, while the source code is generated on the other half. This helps gently introduce those people new to the Arduino how to write actual code, a little bit at a time.
[Julián] is working hard to ensure that his application works well on OLPC and other classroom-oriented computers to ensure it can reach as wide an audience as possible. We think this would be a great introduction to the world of micro controllers for children as well as those who have never tinkered with electronics at any point in their lives.
Keep reading to see a quick demo of the software in action.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc61WI4DXU0&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpWi_fZCRv0&w=470] | 49 | 47 | [
{
"comment_id": "381006",
"author": "CutThroughStuffGuy",
"timestamp": "2011-04-15T21:26:24",
"content": "This. Do want this. Now.Obviously the more robust, flexible code will be handwritten, just like a root shell vs a GUI but I see this as a a very good thing towards making the Arduino even easier... | 1,760,377,214.102854 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/15/aquarium-overflow-sensor-saves-your-fish-and-your-floors/ | Aquarium Overflow Sensor Saves Your Fish And Your Floors | Mike Nathan | [
"home hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"aquarium",
"ir",
"pump",
"shutoff"
] | If you’ve ever had a water leak in your home, you know the sinking feeling that comes over you as you walk through the door to the sound of running water. [Greg] knows this feeling quite well, having returned home to a sopping wet floor and an overflowing reef aquarium on more than one occasion.
Both of the overflows he experienced were due to a clogged drain in his display, but there was little he could do as far as walling off the drain from potential blockages. With all of the delicate creatures living in the tank, the only possible solution that came to mind was
monitoring the aquarium’s water level
.
Unfortunately he had no idea how to get this done aside from using probes (which would rust in the salt water) or expensive off the shelf systems. [erich_7719] from the All About Circuits forums helped [Greg] out and designed a circuit for him which would monitor the water level using an IR sensor. The circuit simply shuts off the pump if the water level gets precariously high. As you can see in the video below it works quite well, and as a safety measure, requires a manual restart of the pump once the high water sensor has been tripped.
If you have a need for the same sort of setup, swing by his site for a detailed schematic as well as a bill of materials. | 31 | 30 | [
{
"comment_id": "380958",
"author": "therian",
"timestamp": "2011-04-15T20:10:22",
"content": "fish is food dogs are pets",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "380961",
"author": "TheCapt",
"timestamp": "2011-04-15T20:14:00",
"content": "I... | 1,760,377,213.806082 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/15/feel-like-we-do-with-a-bass-guitar-talk-box/ | Feel Like We Do With A Bass Guitar Talk Box | Mike Nathan | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"effects",
"guitar",
"hackaweek",
"talk box"
] | Hacker [Dino Segovis] wrote in to share the latest hack from his HackAWeek series, and this time around he has
constructed a talk box for his bass guitar
. Providing you are old enough, you probably remember when the talk box made its way into mainstream music, on the “Frampton Comes Alive” album.
The concept of a talk box is pretty simple. A small speaker is built into a sealed enclosure, which carries the sound from the musician’s guitar to his mouth via a plastic tube. The tube is placed in the musician’s mouth, near the microphone. When his mouth is moved, the sound from the guitar is modified and reflected into the microphone.
[Dino] built a similar system using his bass guitar and an amplifier hacked together from an old tape deck. He initially ran into problems with the sound not making it all the way up the tube due to the bass’ low frequency. He had an ‘Aha!’ moment and mounted the speaker on the mic rather than down on the floor, which seems to have fixed the issue.
Be sure to check out the video below to see his talk box in action.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XPaSf9wxv0&w=470] | 9 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "380960",
"author": "echodelta",
"timestamp": "2011-04-15T20:12:12",
"content": "What kind of speaker was originally used on the floor? A cone speaker won’t work well. The bass, with clean sound and plenty of power in a proper tube and driver won’t work without distortion (fuzz) to m... | 1,760,377,214.193585 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/15/push-notifications-for-snail-mail-on-an-iphone/ | Push Notifications For Snail Mail On An IPhone | Brian Benchoff | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"iphone hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"iphone"
] | [Matt] over at Make came up with a way to send
push alerts
to his iPhone whenever his mailbox is opened.
The electronics are just a switch mounted to the mailbox connected to an Arduino with an ethernet shield, but the interesting part of the build is the code. [Matt] got the Arduino WebClient to request a PHP script sitting on a server. This script connects to the
Prowl API
to push the notification onto an iPhone.
[Matt]’s project has been up for a few months now, and we still haven’t seen any projects using an Arduino+Push combo, or really any other phone except for the iPhone. We think this could be done on an Android phone with
cloud to device messaging
, but that can’t be the only solution. Any hackaday readers have an idea of how to implement this outside the iOS world? What would Hackaday readers do with a microcontroller that can send push alerts to your phone?
Video of [Matt] walking us through the project after the break
[youtube=http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W45c9UOvWSo&w=470] | 11 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "380917",
"author": "Duncan",
"timestamp": "2011-04-15T18:51:22",
"content": "You can just email yourself, or send a text to you, that way it wouldn’t matter what phone you had. If you can email, you can send a text.http://20somethingfinance.com/how-to-send-text-messages-sms-via-emai... | 1,760,377,214.243321 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/15/the-origin-of-ctrl-alt-delete/ | The Origin Of CTRL-ALT-DELETE | Mike Szczys | [
"computer hacks"
] | [
"ctrl-alt-delete",
"ibm",
"pc",
"reboot"
] | You may not have ever thought about it, but the far-too-often-used keyboard combination of Control + Alt + Delete had to have been brought into existence by some random coder at some point in technological history. But wait, it wasn’t just a random coder. The keystroke combo is attributed to [David Bradley]. He was one of the original designers of the IBM Personal Computer. You can even hear
his own recount of the story
in the video after the break.
He came up with the idea after growing weary of waiting for the Power-On Self Test (POST) routine to finish during each reboot of his software testing regiment. We remember the old days of slow hardware and can understand his frustration at the
lost time
. He decided to throw in a shortcut that allowed the software to reboot without power cycling the hardware. The original implementation used CTRL-ALT-ESC, but was later changed so that one frustrated keyboard mash couldn’t accidentally reboot the system.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_lg7w8gAXQ&w=470]
[via
Gizmodo
]
[Image Source:
Wikimedia Commons
] | 32 | 32 | [
{
"comment_id": "380860",
"author": "caleb",
"timestamp": "2011-04-15T17:10:12",
"content": "actually i had wondered. intresting tho",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "380862",
"author": "Robert Ely",
"timestamp": "2011-04-15T17:13:10",
... | 1,760,377,214.366866 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/15/fiberoptic-mouse-prevents-stray-magnetic-fields/ | Fiberoptic Mouse Prevents Stray Magnetic Fields | Brian Benchoff | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"electronics",
"fiberoptic",
"mouse"
] | [Ben] needed an input device that would operate where electrical signals and magnetic fields wouldn’t be tolerated, so he ended up
running fiberoptics
instead of electricity to a mouse.
[Ben] ran some glass fiber from the mouse to quadrature encoders to get the x and y velocity. Mouse clicks are read by modifying the existing buttons with a small shutter to block light from shining through the button frame. This isn’t the first time [Ben] adapted fiberoptics to an input device. Last year, he also built a
fiberoptic joystick
using the same principles.
We covered [Ben]’s DIY Electron Microscope
last month
, and we’re wondering if these two projects are related. His
project log
said he was getting distorted images from the electric field coming from his cooling fan and heater. Maybe he solved that problem and is now just tracking down every last unwanted electromagnetic emission.
Video of the mouse after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2Uj3-B_MSo&w=470] | 20 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "380853",
"author": "emilio",
"timestamp": "2011-04-15T16:55:29",
"content": "wow, that’s stunning – brilliant! that looks like a totally patentable idea, as well.so, it’s a ball mouse? what about using an optical mouse and some aligned fibers? it would cut down ok the number of f... | 1,760,377,214.300998 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/15/squishy-circuits-for-tiny-tinkerers/ | Squishy Circuits For Tiny Tinkerers | Mike Nathan | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"circuits",
"fun",
"kids",
"play dough",
"putty"
] | Getting kids interested in electronics at a young age is a great idea. Feeding their developing minds via creative projects and problem solving is not only rewarding for the child, it helps prepare the next generation of engineers and scientists. University of St. Thomas professor [AnnMarie Thomas] along with one of her student [Samuel Johnson]
have put together a winning recipe for getting kids started in electronics tinkering
at a very young age.
While some
5-year-olds can wrangle a soldering iron
just fine, some cannot – and younger kids should probably stay away from such tools. This is where the the team from St. Thomas comes in.
They scoured the Internet looking for Play Dough recipe clones, testing the resistance and useability of each before settling on two formulas. The first formula incorporates salt, and has a very low resistance. The second contains sugar and has about 150 times the resistance of the first formula. If you use them together, you have very simple conductor and insulator substrates that can be manipulated safely by tiny hands.
As seen in the demo video below, a small battery pack can be wired to the conductive putty easily lighting LEDs, turning small motors, and more. We can only imagine the delightful smile that would emerge from a child’s face when they power on their putty circuit for the first time.
While only two different types of putty have been made so far, we would be interested to see what other materials could be integrated –
how about homemade peizo crystals
?
[Thanks, Spence]
[ted id=1111 w=470] | 24 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "380814",
"author": "Random",
"timestamp": "2011-04-15T15:21:34",
"content": "Ok, that’s fantastic.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "380819",
"author": "rusty",
"timestamp": "2011-04-15T15:28:45",
"content": "I would h... | 1,760,377,214.429395 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/15/variable-super-capacitor-battery-provides-power-on-the-go/ | Variable Super Capacitor Battery Provides Power On The Go | Mike Nathan | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"power supply",
"super capacitor"
] | Instructable user [EngineeringShock] got sick of buying batteries for his devices all the time and has instead opted to build himself
a super capacitor bank
that can be used to power common household items.
His “forever” rechargeable capacitor bank is made of two large super capacitors rated at 400 farads apiece. It is charged through a LM317-based charging circuit that is adjustable to allow for slow or fast charging, the latter of which he admits, is slightly dangerous.
Since the super caps are only rated at 2.7 volts, they are wired through a DC-DC booster circuit that allows him to adjust the output voltage from 4.3 v to 34 v. The adjusted voltage is then passed through a digital display that allows him to see what the output voltage is at any time.
He says that the super cap bank can power his computer’s speakers for about two hours before requiring a recharge, which takes just a few short minutes, depending on how he is charging them.
While it’s not exactly cheap, the capacitor bank could be useful for those requiring quick portable power for relatively short periods of time. If we were to build one ourselves, we would likely fit all of the components into a small project box to protect the caps from accidental discharging, and top it off with a couple of solar cells to charge it for free during the day.
Keep reading to see a quick video demonstration of his super cap “battery” in action.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shky9wfpfoc&w=470] | 27 | 27 | [
{
"comment_id": "380786",
"author": "Brad",
"timestamp": "2011-04-15T14:32:59",
"content": "This is good stuff. I may have to incorporate this in to a project. Thanks for posting it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "380789",
"author": "Arra... | 1,760,377,214.521235 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/15/hsnet-node-communications-for-feature-limited-microcontrollers/ | HsNet: Node Communications For Feature-limited Microcontrollers | Mike Szczys | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"12f683",
"communications",
"node",
"packet",
"pic",
"rs485"
] | [Diego Spinola] wrote in to tell us about
a node communication system he’s been working on called HsNet
. The aim is to build a system of nodes that can be made up of small and inexpensive microcontrollers. The problem is that the least expensive controllers often don’t have a hardware UART. HsNet implements the RS485 protocol using a software UART along with a slim and sleek addressing scheme.
The first module developed, seen in the image above and video after the break, is
a single channel pulse-width-modulation node
using a PIC 12F683. It can be sent commands in
the payload of the HsNet packet format
. The PWM modules accept three different commands; one is a desired PWM value, another is a delay between steps for the PWM, and the last toggles a blink function.
He has also developed an analog sensor module and an Arduino-based TCP/IC gateway module. Now that the packet communications have been established, it will be rather simple to add nodes based on that groundwork. [Diego] brought these components together to build an interactive wall which can also be seen after the break.
PWM Nodes:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8UC-3-twBo&w=470]
Wall artpiece:
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/18570263 w=470] | 11 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "380859",
"author": "Grazz256",
"timestamp": "2011-04-15T17:08:28",
"content": "Out of curiosity, why define your own communications protocol rather then going with an industry standard such as modbus?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_i... | 1,760,377,214.751283 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/15/3-phase-jacobs-ladder/ | 3-phase Jacob’s Ladder | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"jacob's ladder",
"microwave oven",
"three-phase",
"transformer"
] | Two sparks are better than one, a sentiment that was never more blindingly illustrated than with
this three-conductor Jacob’s Ladder
. The build centers around
three-phase power
, which uses a trio of alternating current sources sharing the same frequency, but offset by 1/3 from one another. If we’re reading the schematic correctly, [Jimmy Proton] is using normal mains as a power source, then connecting three transformers and a capacitor to set up the different phases. Two of the transformers, which were pulled from microwave ovens, are wired
in antiparallel
, with their cores connected to each other. The third transform is connected in series on one leg of the circuit.
The video after the break starts with the satisfying hum of power, only to be outdone by the wild sparks that traverse the air gap between conductors of the ladder. After seeing the first demonstration we kind of expected something to start on fire but it looks like all is well. We’ll probably stick to
a less complicated version of Jacob’s Ladder
.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w54QjtR0nc&w=470] | 18 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "380705",
"author": "jim",
"timestamp": "2011-04-15T11:23:02",
"content": "This is seriously dangerous to the unskilled hacker.More.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "380713",
"author": "Oli",
"timestamp": "2011-04-15T11:29... | 1,760,377,215.134242 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/15/tactical-wifi-cantenna-needs-picatinny-rails/ | Tactical Wifi Cantenna Needs Picatinny Rails | Jesse Congdon | [
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"antennas",
"cantenna",
"wifi"
] | [Wes] built a cool looking
Tactical Wifi Cantenna
with some parts from a broken airsoft pistol. The antenna is a cookie can type with an added cone to increase performance, as seen in
this tutorial
. Once the antenna was built it was time to add some kind of handle, [Wes] just so happened to have such a thing on hand. After epoxy puddying the pistol’s grip to his cookie cantenna he observed that the magazine lock was still functioning. Quick thinking and the application of a hammer in nut allows the whole rig to quickly attach to the tripod. The antenna also sports a plastic lid and textured paint finish for that ultimate tactical look and feel. A USB Alpha AWUSO36H Wifi dongle even mounts on the back of the rig. We wouldn’t go around outside pointing this at stuff attaching and detaching the tripod but the finish looks great, nicely done!
Check out some other various
types
of
cantennas
, even a
rifle
version if you crave more wifi goodness. | 17 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "380711",
"author": "metro",
"timestamp": "2011-04-15T11:25:49",
"content": "“epoxy puddying” yuk. Presume you mean “puttying”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "380744",
"author": "Ian Tester",
"timestamp": "2011-04-15T12:4... | 1,760,377,214.811152 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/14/full-featured-battery-tester-puts-them-through-their-paces/ | Full-featured Battery Tester Puts Them Through Their Paces | Mike Szczys | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"16f88",
"battery",
"ds1820",
"lithium",
"pic",
"tester"
] | When working on battery-dependent projects you want accurate performance information where a datasheet may not be available. [E. Lelic] set out to build a device that would meter internal battery resistance but ended up with
a bench tool that can do much more
than that.
A PIC 16F88 microcontroller takes center stage on the meter, taking voltage level readings, monitoring a DS1820 temperature sensor, and controlling an LM2575 step-down regulator. The components provide functionality for measuring Lithium Ion, Lithium Polymer, Nickel Cadmium, Nickel Metal Hydride, and Alkaline batteries. It is capable of fully discharging and fully charging the batteries, measuring time and power consumption during this cycle, and monitoring temperature changes for the NiMH and NiCad versions.
Look for the little red ‘Download’ icon at the bottom of the post linked above. That archive includes a schematic (which we’ve also embedded after the break), board layout in .LAY format, and a HEX firmware file.
If you enjoyed this build you might want to look at
this other battery capacity tester
. | 10 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "380409",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2011-04-14T23:56:44",
"content": "Also check out:http://www.stefanv.com/electronics/battman2.html",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "380410",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2011-... | 1,760,377,214.85795 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/14/quick-dirty-usb-phone-charger/ | Quick & Dirty USB Phone Charger | Mike Nathan | [
"Cellphone Hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"battery charger",
"cell phone",
"evo 4g",
"MintyBoost",
"usb"
] | Hackaday forum member [Dan Fruzzetti] wrote in to share a
simple, yet useful hack he built just the other day
. He and his wife both have Evo 4G smartphones and they were pretty disappointed in the lack of portable charging solutions available.
Instead of buying something and modifying it to his needs, [Dan] decided to build a quick and dirty charger instead. His ghetto-mintyboost was built into a cheap project box he found at Radio Shack, which is stocked with a set of four D-cell batteries. The batteries were wired in series and connected to a pair of salvaged USB ports mounted on a small piece of protoboard.
Knowing that most portable devices get 5.7v from their chargers already, he was not worried about hooking his phones straight into the 6v battery pack he built. He says that the phones actually charge pretty quickly, and that he estimates he should be able to get about 50 charges out of the box before he needs to swap the batteries.
This is not a complex hack by any means. It is quick & dirty, solves an annoying problem, and it’s dead simple to build. That’s exactly why we like it. | 33 | 33 | [
{
"comment_id": "380384",
"author": "APE",
"timestamp": "2011-04-14T22:47:44",
"content": "Cool idea but I would imagine the non-environmental friendly aspect of this makes it less than marketable (hence the lack of quality solutions). Could you do this with a bank of capacitors and a solar panel?",... | 1,760,377,214.926609 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/14/reversible-relay-based-motor-controller/ | Reversible Relay-based Motor Controller | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"h-bridge",
"motor controller",
"relay"
] | [Nothinglabs] built this
motor controller as an alternative to using an H-bridge
. They call it the RAT controller which stands for “Relay and Transistors”. You can see above that two Darlington transistors along with their base transistors allow logic signals to switch the relay on and off, driving the motor in one direction or the other based on the open or closed state of the relay. See it working in the video after the break.
It’s a nice little workaround with few parts, but because the relay is mechanical there will be a short lifespan when compared to solid-state motor controllers. That’s okay, because the motivation here was lack of parts on hand, rather than an increase in performance. It’s also worth mentioning that all of these parts can be purchased at your local Radio Shack when you don’t want to wait for component orders by mail. We certainly appreciate that it takes far few components than
[David Cook’s] H-bridges
. His designs are our favorite –
we’ve used them in our own projects
– but for quick and dirty you can’t beat five components and the short assembly time needed when using this type of dead-bug style soldering.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvhB0gCcZC0&w=470] | 16 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "380355",
"author": "spag",
"timestamp": "2011-04-14T21:36:12",
"content": "Simple and effective, I like it. One change I’d make is to add a diode reverse-biased across the coil, to keep the transistor from being fried when the coil is switched off.",
"parent_id": null,
"dept... | 1,760,377,215.187101 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/14/save-boatloads-of-cash-by-building-your-own-laser-cutter/ | Save Boatloads Of Cash By Building Your Own Laser Cutter | Mike Nathan | [
"cnc hacks",
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"cutter",
"diy",
"laser",
"open source"
] | Have a bunch of time on your hands, and about $2,500 sitting around? Why not settle in and
build yourself a laser cutter
?
That’s exactly what Buildlog forum member [r691175002] did, and he told us about it in our comments just a few moments ago. Laser cutters can be pretty cost prohibitive depending on what you are thinking of picking up. The cheapest Epilog laser we could find costs $8,000, and you know what can happen when you
try buying a cheap laser online
.
Instead of going for a ready-made cutter, he purchased an open-source kit from Buildlog, documenting the highlights of the build process online. The build log walks through a good portion of the construction starting with the frame and motor mounts, continuing through wiring up the electronics as well as some of the finishing touches. If you happen to head over to take a look around, you will find that there are plenty of pictures from various stages of the construction process to keep you busy for awhile.
With everything said and done, [Ryan] is quite happy with his laser. After going through the build process, he offers up some useful construction advice, as well as tips on sourcing cheaper hardware. He estimates that if he built the laser today, he could probably cut the costs nearly in half.
There’s no doubt about it – a $1300 laser cutter sounds pretty darn good to us. | 26 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "380301",
"author": "DocDawning",
"timestamp": "2011-04-14T20:06:36",
"content": "Very rad. Looks really really nice. Great looking cable management too. I hope to follow in these footsteps.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "380303... | 1,760,377,215.390917 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/14/oshw-logo-announced/ | OSHW Logo Announced | Jason Komp | [
"News"
] | [
"open source hardware",
"oshw"
] | The results are in and the new Open Hardware logo has been selected! After tallying nearly 9,000 votes it has been decided that “Golden Orb” by Macklin Chaffe will now represent the
OSHW definition v1.0
.
Rest assured that despite
earlier controversy
regarding a few users that had submitted a very large number of duplicate votes (over 3,100 in all), the results have been cleaned up and validated prior to announcing the winner.
If you agree with the definition you can now go ahead and use the logo on your creations! Some creative individuals at this
Open Hardware Summit forum
have made it easy for you with logos of varying sizes, colors, and fill – perfect for application on any background. Here you will also find vector-based versions and even an Eagle parts library for inclusion on your next board’s silkscreen!
[Jason] at MrDecals.com has also generously offered
3 free decals
of the new logo to anyone who asks – just pay for shipping. Please note that this is not a paid advertisement, [Jason] received permission from opensourcehardware.org to run the promotion and $1 for US shipping seems very reasonable. We are guessing from the responses to previous giveaways that many HackaDay readers might be interested!
We personally love the way that the new logo keeps with the feel of the
Open Source Intiative
logo and can’t wait to see what hardware it starts showing up on! | 31 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "380238",
"author": "wardy",
"timestamp": "2011-04-14T18:14:05",
"content": "That’s a keyhole right? Personally I associate keyholes with locks – and locks with CLOSED doors.Closed != open.Perhaps I’m over-analysing it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},... | 1,760,377,215.077818 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/14/fpga-based-turbografx-16-clone/ | FPGA-based Turbografx 16 Clone | Mike Nathan | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"Altera DE1",
"clone",
"fpga",
"PC engine",
"turbografx 16"
] | [Gregory] wrote in to share his most recent project,
an FPGA clone of the PC Engine/Turbografx 16 console
. You may remember him from last year, when we talked about
his SEGA Genesis FPGA clone
. He just couldn’t leave well enough alone, and decided to resurrect yet another 16-bit machine in FPGA form.
He has been working on the project for about three months now, but he has been making very quick work of getting everything up and running. As of a few weeks ago, the project was in a pretty unstable alpha stage, but after pounding away at some bugs, he is now able to render any game he pleases.
The clone uses an Altera DE1 board just like his previous builds, and he has been able to emulate all three if the main chips that make up the Turbografx logic board. He has yet to work on the Programmable Sound Generator, but that is slated for the near future. While the FPGA currently stores ROMS in its flash memory, he has plans to add the ability to load games from an SD card.
Keep reading to see a pair of videos showing his console clone in action, it’s impressive.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0jXQXZHToE&w=470]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVt4fZFnMpw&w=470] | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "380327",
"author": "Alex",
"timestamp": "2011-04-14T20:39:04",
"content": "Thats a weird coincidence, I have been forking a PCEngine / TurboGrafx Emulator for the Haiku Operating system for the last week or so…http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5560191/HuKU3.png",
"parent_id": null,
"d... | 1,760,377,215.231147 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/14/buying-a-laser-cutter-from-china/ | Buying A Laser Cutter From China | Jesse Congdon | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"cncmachine",
"engraver",
"laser cutter"
] | We here at Hackaday have been pining over these cheap laser cutters on the e-bay. They are, however, just outside of the price range to make them worth ponying up for. [Stephen Hobley] however seems to have taken one for the team in his
three
part
series
, and is allowing us to live vicariously through is experiences.
Not surprisingly the price point leads to the potential for headaches. The units ship directly from China, and see their fair share of rough handling from package carriers. Broken/misaligned laser tubes are not uncommon (replacement tubes are prevalent). Shockingly the laser tube managed to survive the seven thousand mile journey! That only leaves a couple crucial
modifications
and careful cleaning and aligning to get the unit up and running. You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?
To top off all the modifications adjustments and cleaning steps [Stephen] found (in part three) that his controller board was on the fritz. With a new one on the way from China, [Stephen] is debating either reverse engineering the included controller board or coming up with his own CNC solution. We could
suggest
quite
a
few
alternate
solutions
ourselves
.
We will be glued to [Stephen]’s blog for updates.
Stick around for a video of what we all really want to see, a laser burning stuff.
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/v/MBj1uc8_vF0&w=470%5D | 58 | 41 | [
{
"comment_id": "380167",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2011-04-14T16:01:29",
"content": "the question is: buy a crappy cutter and make it useful or start from scratch and build your own. Judging from the latest DIY cutter projects the price is almost the same (1000-2000US$ depending on strength of... | 1,760,377,215.323903 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/14/sony-ericsson-android-bootloader-unlockin/ | Sony Ericsson Promotes Android Bootloader Unlocking | Noah Dunker | [
"Android Hacks",
"News"
] | [
"android",
"googleandroid",
"jailbreak",
"mobile phone",
"mobilephone",
"root",
"Sony Ericsson",
"unlock"
] | Sony Ericsson recently added a new section to their developer world portal called
Unlocking the boot loader
. They provide all the information and tools needed to root some of their newer Android phones.
Of course, this information comes from Sony Ericsson dripping with warnings, disclaimers and warranty-voiding rhetoric. Once you’ve waded through all of that, you’ll have to enter your phone’s IMEI number, your name and email address in order to get your phone’s unique bootloader unlock key. Here’s hoping they don’t use the form information to instantly void warranties.
Unlocking doesn’t come without consequences, but from UI tweaks and performance improvements to custom apps and tethering, there are probably more reasons to unlock your Android device than there are reasons to leave it alone. In an age where people are making a fuss about companies adding stumbling blocks for would-be jailbreakers, it’s good to see that at least one of them is doing what they can to help hackers take the plunge. Anyone want to clear up why Sony Ericsson feels like supporting hackers but
Sony sues people for doing similar things on the ps3
?
Thanks to [flip] | remixed image credit (cc by-sa 2.0): [
taka@p.p.r.s
] | 42 | 42 | [
{
"comment_id": "380112",
"author": "Life2Death",
"timestamp": "2011-04-14T14:05:01",
"content": "I was under the impression running software on hardware would not void hardware warranties. Though I can acknowledge that they shouldn’t be responsible for supporting said 3rd party software.",
"par... | 1,760,377,215.468186 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/14/real-time-gps-tracker/ | Real-time GPS Tracker With Mobile Phone Uplink | Noah Dunker | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Cellphone Hacks",
"google hacks",
"gps hacks",
"News"
] | [
"arduino",
"googlemaps",
"gps",
"gsm",
"mapping"
] | [jayesh] wasn’t actually trying to solve any clever problems when we built his
homebrew GPS tracker
. He just had the hacker mentality and wanted to build something fun and useful while geeking out with electronics and software.
On the hardware side, he started with an Arduino, then added a GPS module for location detection and a GMS/GPRS module for the data uplink to his server over AT&T’s network. The Arduino uses several libraries and plenty of custom code. On the server, he worked up some wizardry with open-source packages and the Google Maps API. All of the source code and hardware details are well-documented. Put together, it’s a GPS tracker that can update a map in real-time. Sure, there are commercial products that do roughly the same thing, but where’s the fun in that? The principles here can also be put to good use in other microcontroller-based projects. | 12 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "380102",
"author": "elektrophreak",
"timestamp": "2011-04-14T13:26:15",
"content": "nice work! i am glad it is open source…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "380108",
"author": "fartface",
"timestamp": "2011-04-14T13:58:24... | 1,760,377,215.675063 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/14/analog-scope-stands-in-to-for-laser-light-show/ | Analog Scope Stands In To For Laser Light Show | Mike Szczys | [
"contests",
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"laser projector",
"oscilloscope"
] | [Joey] likes to dabble in laser projection, building his own hardware and writing the software that drives it. One way that
he tests his setup is by replacing the laser assembly with an analog oscilloscope
. This allows him to ensure that the driver board is receiving data from the software, and translating it into the correct electrical signals to drive the motors controlling the mirrored redirection of the laser beam.
In the video linked above [Joey] walks us through this process. It starts by connecting scope probes to the digital-analog-converter card that outputs image data for the projector. From there the XY mode is used to map the two channels perpendicular to each other; the motors that these signals are meant to control have mirrors that also move perpendicular to one another. After adjusting the scale and the timebase you will see the pattern the laser dot is meant to trace.
[Joey] entered this in
a Tectronix contest
. There’s plenty of other interesting entries to browse though. If have an entry that you’d like to see featured, or if you come across any other interesting stuff, don’t forget to
tip us off
. | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "380081",
"author": "spiderwebby",
"timestamp": "2011-04-14T12:17:01",
"content": "thou shalt not use a timebase in XY mode!good thinking though :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "380084",
"author": "ejonesss",
"timestamp... | 1,760,377,215.624714 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/14/doorbell-hack-makes-coworkers-less-annoying/ | Doorbell Hack Makes Coworkers Less Annoying | Mike Nathan | [
"digital audio hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"attiny",
"audio",
"deadbug",
"doorbell",
"prank"
] | Hackaday reader [Sprite_tm] works in an office building that used to house several businesses, and as a remnant of the previous configuration, a doorbell sits in the hallway just outside his office. Several of his coworkers get a kick out of ringing the doorbell each time they enter the office. While not annoyed at the practice, he was getting tired of the same old “ding-dong” and
decided to shake things up a bit
.
He wanted to modify the doorbell to play random sounds when triggered, but he was pressed for time as it was March 31st, and he wanted to get it installed for April Fools’ Day. Without any real plan or bill of materials in mind, he pieced things together with whatever he happened to have sitting around.
He used a
design borrowed from Elm-chan
in order to play wav files from an SD card with an ATTiny85, and used an L293 H-Driver as an improvised sound amplifier. After sorting out some power-related problems, and configuring the circuit to be as stingy with its battery as he could, he declared the project complete. He originally aimed to deadbug everything on the metal sleeve of the SD card socket (which is awesome), but considering the size of the speaker and the battery he selected for the project, he ended up stuffing everything into a cardboard box.
We don’t care too much about how he packaged it, we just wanted to know what his co-workers thought of his doorbell augmentation. In the end, they loved it, but we imagine this doesn’t do anything to discourage any of them from hitting the doorbell multiple times a day.
Stick around to see a quick video of his doorbell hack in action.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRsh-K8A_ws&w=470] | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "380109",
"author": "DeadlyFoez",
"timestamp": "2011-04-14T14:02:57",
"content": "This is a perfect basis to use for a hack that I plan on working on soon. My buddy has an electric scooter, and for fun he wants to make it so it makes the Jetson’s vehicle sound while he is driving aro... | 1,760,377,215.723968 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/13/knex-whiteboard-plotter/ | K’nex Whiteboard Plotter | Mike Nathan | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"knex",
"plotter",
"printer",
"steppers"
] | [Jerry] has been wanting to put together a whiteboard plotter for some time and just
recently got around to building one
.
The plotter draws pretty much about anything he can imagine on a white board measuring just shy of 2′ x 3′. The design first started off with a Basic Stamp board at the helm, which he sourced from another project he no longer had any use for. The Stamp worked for awhile, but eventually he ran into problems due to the board’s limited 128 bytes of program space. Needing a more robust micro controller, he switched to an Arduino mid-project, which he says runs the plotter far faster than the Stamp ever did.
The plotter uses a pair of stepper motors mounted on a horizontal platform situated above the whiteboard. Much like
this large-format printer
we featured earlier this week, the steppers vary the length of a pair of fishing lines, moving the pen precisely across the board. As you can see in the image above, [Jerry] has been able to create some pretty intricate patterns with his plotter, and we imagine they will only get better with more refinement.
Be sure to check out his site for more details on his build process as well as several additional samples of the plotter’s capabilities. | 8 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "379763",
"author": "Mich",
"timestamp": "2011-04-13T23:18:43",
"content": "No wonder it runs much faster using an arduino, seeing as the PIC on the Basic stamp needs to parse the Basic code every time it’s run. It’s probably the most stupidly designed microcontroller setup around, R... | 1,760,377,215.824705 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/13/hackaday-links-april-13-2011/ | Hackaday Links: April 13, 2011 | Mike Nathan | [
"Hackaday links"
] | [
"desoldering",
"easy button",
"LCD repair",
"LED lighting",
"links",
"parts",
"recapping",
"scrounging"
] | Oven parts scrounging
In response to last week’s post about parts scrounging with a heat gun, Hackaday forum member [BiOzZ] decided to
try doing the same thing in his oven
. It seems to work quite well, but we’re wondering if there should be any concerns over the lead content of the solder. Anyone care to chime in?
Spill-proof parts holder
Have you ever been in the midst of disassembling something and knocked over your container full of screws onto the floor? [Infrared]
has a simple solution to the problem
which also happens to keep a couple of plastic bottles out of the landfill.
Easy button stops abuse of the word awesome
Do you often repeat a word ad nauseam? Make author Matt Richardson does, and
he hacked a Staples “Easy” button
to help him break his addiction to the word “Awesome”.
Cheap Remote-controlled baseboard lighting
[Sean]
scored a pair of LED deck lighting kits for a steal
and decided to install them into his newly renovated kitchen. They are currently remote operated, but he plans on adding an X10 interface as well as PIR sensors for automatic triggering in the near future.
Yet another LCD recapping guide
It starts with a finicky backlight, or perhaps a high-pitched whine from the back of your display – by now, we’re sure that everyone knows the symptoms of an LCD panel that’s just about to die. [Eric’s] Syncmaster recently quit on him, so
he pried it open and got busy recapping
. It’s running again, and he wanted to share his repair process in case others out there own the same display. | 34 | 34 | [
{
"comment_id": "379726",
"author": "CutThroughStuffGuy",
"timestamp": "2011-04-13T22:10:49",
"content": "Lead is toxic. Period. Lead solder is toxic. Period. You can use equipment to generally protect against said toxicity. People work generally safely in lead mines and lead refineries. But you nee... | 1,760,377,215.950001 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/13/haptic-gps-sneakers-for-the-visually-impaired/ | Haptic GPS Sneakers For The Visually Impaired | Mike Nathan | [
"Android Hacks",
"Arduino Hacks",
"gps hacks"
] | [
"android",
"arduino",
"assistive technology",
"haptic",
"navigation",
"shoe",
"vision impaired"
] | The world can be a pretty difficult place to navigate when you lack the ability to see it. There are many visually impaired people across the globe, with some figures claiming up to 40 million individuals affected. While walking canes and seeing-eye dogs can be a huge help, [Anirudh] of Multimodal Interactions Group, HP Labs India, and some students at the College of Engineering in Pune, India (COEP) have been hard at work constructing
a haptic navigation system for the blind
.
[Anirudh Sharma and Dushyant Mehta] debuted their haptic feedback shoe design during an MIT Media Lab Workshop hosted at COEP. In its current form, Google Maps and GPS data is sourced from an Android device, which is fed to an Arduino via Bluetooth. The Arduino then activates one of four LEDs mounted on a shoe insert that are used to indicate which direction the individual should travel in order to safely reach their destination. While the current iteration uses LEDs, they will be swapped out for small vibrating motors in the final build.
We’re always fans of assistive technology hacks, and we think this one is great. The concept works well,
as we have seen before
, so it’s just a matter of getting this project refined and in the
hands
shoes of those who need it.
Stick around for a quick video about the project filmed at the MIT/COEP event.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZirrzMUblTA&w=470] | 9 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "379722",
"author": "Rick",
"timestamp": "2011-04-13T22:05:34",
"content": "It looks similar to the feelspace belt that was around a few years ago (http://feelspace.cogsci.uni-osnabrueck.de/en/technology_01.html).Most GPS devices have text-to-speech built in, but combining it with a ... | 1,760,377,215.877368 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/13/using-kinect-to-make-human-marionettes/ | Using Kinect To Make Human Marionettes | Mike Nathan | [
"Kinect hacks"
] | [
"Kinect",
"neurostimulation"
] | [Choi Ka Fai] has
been experimenting with neurostimulation for some time now
. His body of work has focused on exploring the possibility of using neurostim devices to replay pre-recorded muscle movements.
Until now, he has been
recording his muscle movements as acoustic waveforms
for real-time playback in the bodies of his research partners. This usually requires him to sit beside the subject, tethered to a machine. This tends to limit his movement, so he has invested in a new form of movement recording technology – a Kinect sensor.
Using fairly standard skeleton tracking as we have seen in some previous Kinect hacks, he has enabled himself to direct the motion of his subject by merely moving in front of the camera. The benefit of using the Kinect over wired sensors is that he can use any body part to direct his partner’s movements by simply changing how the software interprets his actions. As you can see in the video below, he uses his hands, knees, and even his head to direct the motion of his partner’s arm.
It really is a neat application of the Kinect, and we are totally digging the shaky “human marionette” effect that it produces. Since this was only an initial test of the system, expect to see some more cool stuff coming from [Choi] in the near future.
Stick around to see a quick video of the Kinect-driven neurostim rig in action.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/22242891 w=470] | 16 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "379667",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2011-04-13T20:19:14",
"content": "Umm, if he truly wants to minimize interference from his non-disabled “partner”, he should have him blindfolded. The fact that the partner can see what motion is desired totally invalidates the results. I coul... | 1,760,377,216.000803 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/13/building-an-electric-kiln/ | Building An Electric Kiln | Mike Szczys | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"blacksmith",
"fire brick",
"forge",
"kanthal",
"kiln"
] | [EmcySquare] is delving into some hobby-blacksmithing by making his own knives. He needs a furnace to heat the metal, and after trying out a few different forge designs he decided to attempt
an electric kiln build
. The final project seen above is a box within a box. The outer shell is reclaimed using old computer cases and metal shelving brackets. Inside you’ll find a box made from fire brick, with stone-wool insulation to keep the heat where it’s supposed to be.
He cut the bricks to the right size to build the inner box, then added grooves on the inside edge witch will host the heat coils. This cutting was done with an angle grinder and [EmcySquare] notes that it kicks up an extraordinary amount of brick dust to make sure you’re wearing a respirator and goggles. Once the enclosure was ready he set out to fabricate the heat coils. Twelve meters of
Kanthal A1 wire
was used, shortened to a neat length by shaping coils around a 1 cm diameter wooden dowel. This prototype works but future improvements plan to add automatic temperature control through a thermocouple and a relay. | 16 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "379640",
"author": "dax",
"timestamp": "2011-04-13T19:33:16",
"content": "..just like a project I’m working on — it will be a glass fusing kiln, which also requires similar heat treatment to anneal glass. I plan on using Nichrome, Kanthal, or Stainless MIG wire as an element, and TR... | 1,760,377,216.222606 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/13/cnc-mill-built-from-junk-and-hardware-store-parts/ | CNC Mill Built From Junk And Hardware Store Parts | Mike Szczys | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"dremel",
"mill",
"precision rod",
"scanner"
] | [Csshop] is setting a new bar for
building an inexpensive CNC mill
. Not only did he complete his build at a very low cost, but it seems to work quite well too. Check out the video after the break to see the device cut out thin wood parts for a toy plane.
The majority of the build uses scrap wood for the body of the mill. The business end of the device is a flexible rotary attachment for a Dremel tool which takes a lot of the weight and bulk out of the gantry assembly. Old flat bed scanners were gutted for the precision ground rod and bearings, as well as the three stepper motors used to drive the axes. An Arduino board controls the device, commanding the stepper motors via
EasyDriver boards
.
Once the hardware is assembled there’s still a fair amount of work to do. [Csshop] builds his designs in Google Sketchup, but some conversion is necessary to arrive at code that the Arduino will understand. He’s got
a second project write-up that covers the software
side of things.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeHzfY2kwuM&w=470] | 19 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "379607",
"author": "Josh",
"timestamp": "2011-04-13T18:04:35",
"content": "This is going to help me out a lot for mine when i build it. I plan to use a dremel as the tool though, i think it might be a better idea.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,377,216.058429 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/13/rsa-securid-two-factor-authentication-comprimised/ | RSA SecurID Two-factor Authentication Comprimised | Mike Szczys | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"emc",
"rsa",
"SecurID",
"two-factor authentication"
] | SecurID is a two-factor hardware-based authentication system. It requires you to enter the number displayed on a hardware fob like the one seen above, along with the rest of your login information. It’s regarded to be a very secure method of protecting information when users are logging into a company’s secure system remotely. But as with everything else, there’s always a way to break the security. It sounds like last month
someone hacked into the servers of the company that makes SecurID
.
You’ll need to read between the lines of that letter from RSA (the security division of EMC) Executive Chairman [Art Coviello]. He admits that someone was poking around in their system and that they got their hands on information that relates to the SecurID system. He goes on to say that the information that the attackers grabbed doesn’t facilitate direct attacks on RSA’s customers.
We’d guess that the attackers may have what they need to brute-force a SecurID system, although perhaps they have now way to match which system belongs to which customer. What’s you’re take on the matter? Lets us know by leaving a comment.
[via
Engadget
] | 34 | 34 | [
{
"comment_id": "379547",
"author": "Daniel",
"timestamp": "2011-04-13T15:42:43",
"content": "According to the Security Now podcast, the only secret in the system is the mapping between serial numbers and the secret key inside the device that determines the sequence of numbers on the screen.The atta... | 1,760,377,216.298065 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/13/robotics-merit-badge-just-announced/ | Robotics Merit Badge Just Announced | Mike Szczys | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"boy scouts",
"bsa",
"merit badge"
] | So you know how to build and program robots; what do you want, a badge? Now you can get just that, assuming you’re 11-18 years old and know all of the secret (or not so secret) handshakes, oaths, and pledges. The Boy Scouts of America
recently announced
the brand-new
robotics merit badge
. Now kids who cut their teeth building
rule-breaking entries in the Pinewood Derby
can have a go with robotics kits.
The requirements which must be satisfied to earn the badge start with safety and end with an exploration of the careers associated with the field. Along the way the Boy Scouts are encouraged to learn about keeping an engineering notebook during the design process, planning and programming the hardware, and attending a robotics competition like
FIRST
or
VEX
.
It’s not hard to see that this merit badge is right up our alley. We just hope it can grab some attention from the uber-popular badges like
Stamp Collecting
and
Basketry
. | 19 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "379524",
"author": "jme",
"timestamp": "2011-04-13T14:41:24",
"content": "i think the badge should be the new open source hardware logo",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "379542",
"author": "Dakota",
"timestamp": "2011-04-1... | 1,760,377,216.456303 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/13/variable-capacitancereistance-switch-box-has-you-covered/ | Variable Capacitance/reistance Switch Box Has You Covered | Mike Nathan | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"benchtop",
"capacitance",
"resistance",
"tool",
"variable"
] | While working on electronics projects, it’s often necessary to test out different capacitance or resistance values as things are moving along. Depending on what you are testing, this can be a tedious process even when using a breadboard. Instructables user [mattthegamer463] recently built
a very useful device that would help out in these situations
, and would likely be a welcome addition to any Hackaday reader’s workbench.
His variable resistor/capacitor box makes it easy to test out any number of different resistance or capacitance values with a simple turn of a knob. He wired up a pair of pots to provide a wide range of resistance values, being sure to add a low-resistance safety as well as safety override switch for those of you who like to
have things blow up in your face
live dangerously. A set of 22 capacitors were wired up on a piece of perfboard, each of which can be selected using a pair of knobs. He added a simple switch to allow the capacitors to be toggled between parallel and series orientations as well.
[Matt] did a wonderful job here – this is a great project that can be customized in a multitude of ways to fit almost anyone’s specific needs. | 11 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "379469",
"author": "ibedazzled",
"timestamp": "2011-04-13T12:15:42",
"content": "this is thee type of thing i need but dont think i would buy the parts for and make… dont know why exactly. I would probably buy a kit for something like this though…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth... | 1,760,377,216.344533 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2011/04/13/super-refined-kinect-physics-demo/ | Super Refined Kinect Physics Demo | Mike Nathan | [
"Kinect hacks",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"Kinect",
"physics",
"smoothing",
"video"
] | Since the Kinect has become so popular among hackers, [Brad Simpson] over at IDEO Labs finally purchased one for their office and immediately got to tinkering. In about 2-3 hours time,
he put together a pretty cool physics demo
showing off some of the Kinect’s abilities.
Rather than using rough skeleton measurements like most hacks we have seen, he paid careful attention to the software side of things. Starting off using the Kinect’s full resolution (
something not everybody does
) [Brad] took the data and manipulated it quite a bit before creating the video embedded below. Skeleton data was collected and run through several iterations of a smoothing algorithm to substantially reduce the noise surrounding the resulting outline.
The final product is quite a bit different than the Kinect videos we are used to seeing, and it drastically improves how the user is able to interact with virtual objects added to the environment. As you may have noticed, the blocks that were added to the video
never
rarely penetrate the outline of the individual in the movie. This isn’t due to some sort of digital trickery – [Brad] was able to prevent the intersection of different objects via his tweaking of the Kinect data feed.
We’re not sure how much computing power this whole setup requires, but the code is available from their Google Code repository, so we hope to see other projects refined by utilizing the techniques shown off here.
[via
KinectHacks
]
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/22219563 w=470] | 15 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "379457",
"author": "Grovenstien",
"timestamp": "2011-04-13T11:24:54",
"content": "Now for some haptic feedback! Really smooth motion, the refresh rate seems quicker than other demos.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "379459",
... | 1,760,377,216.399519 |
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