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https://hackaday.com/2023/12/01/add-some-blinkenlights-to-your-supercon-badge/ | Add Some Blinkenlights To Your Supercon Badge | Kristina Panos | [
"cons",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"2023 Hackaday Supercon",
"2023 Hackaday Superconference",
"addressable led",
"leds",
"ws2812",
"WS2812-1010"
] | We’re not sure what is more amazing here: the glow of the blinkenlights themselves, the tedium involved in creating it, or the fact that
[makeTVee] soldered 280 microscopic WS2812 LEDs while at Supercon
.
This hack began before the con when [makeTVee] designed the LED-diffusing frame in Fusion 360 and printed it in clear resin. Rather than solder the LEDs straight, the frame has 280 teeth that support each one at a 55° angle.
Not only does this look cool, it makes the bridging of DOUT to DIN much easier. That leaves GND and VCC to be painstakingly connected with 30 AWG wire. How, you might ask? With a little help from 3.5x magnifying glasses and the smallest soldering iron tip available, of course.
But that’s not all. Since 280 addressable LEDs need a lot of power, [makeTVee] also designed
a holder for the LiPo battery pack
that fits into the existing AA holders.
Want to see more awesome badge hacks?
Check out the compendium
. | 14 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703933",
"author": "ItsMrJP",
"timestamp": "2023-12-01T15:06:22",
"content": "We had so much fun at SuperCon! I feel very fortunate to be able to call makeTVee my friend. On top of his awesome badge, he also made another for me!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies... | 1,760,372,088.579312 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/12/01/__trashed-10/ | A Few New Car Owners Will Join The 48V Future | Jenny List | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"48v",
"cybertruck",
"tesla"
] | Leaving aside all the annoying hype surrounding Tesla’s Cybertruck, there’s a little technical detail which might be of more interest to readers than the automotive behemoth itself.
It’s one of very few vehicles on the road to eschew 12 volt electrics for not 24 volt, but 48 volt
. This has been one of those automotive innovations promised as just around the corner for many years, and it seems finally we’ll see it in practice.
The reason that there’s nothing new in the prospect of moving on from 12 volt electrics has been brewing for decades now. A typical car has plenty of motorized gadgets from seat adjusters to sunroofs, as well as at least one heated windscreen or other surface. These devices take a lot of power, and at the lower voltage require significant current to operate. The 48 volt system will require much less in the way of copper to get the power where it’s needed, so the surprise is that we’ve not yet seen it in run-of-the-mill vehicles from the likes of Ford or Volkswagen.
What we’re guessing is that other manufacturers will be watching from the sidelines as to whether 48 volt electrics cause any problems for the Tesla, and it’s not impossible we could see it becoming the new hotness. There are many choice words we could say relating to the hype around Tesla and its supposed level of innovation, but it could be that this time they’ve really been first with something the whole industry will go for. If so we should rejoice, because it’s likely to push down the prices of 48 volt lithium-ion packs.
Header image: Mliu92,
CC BY-SA 3.0
. | 135 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703842",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2023-12-01T10:48:32",
"content": "This will probably save a lot of cabling (thicknesswise) and thus weight but also price.Anywhere where 12v is needed (or 5, or 3.3), it can easily be converted down.I was surprised to learn that one type of ... | 1,760,372,088.897938 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/30/is-microsoft-basic-hidden-in-this-educational-childs-toy/ | Is Microsoft BASIC Hidden In This Educational Child’s Toy? | Lewin Day | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"basic",
"microsoft",
"PreComputer",
"retrocomputing",
"VTech",
"z80"
] | The VTech PreComputer 1000 is a rather ancient toy computer that was available in the distant misty past of 1988. It featured a keyboard and a variety of simple learning games, but does it also feature Microsoft BASIC?
[Robin] of 8-Bit Show and Tell dove in to find out.
Officially, the PreComputer was programmable in a form of BASIC, referred to by VTech as PRE-BASIC V1.0. Given that the system has a Z80 CPU and there’s little information in the manual about this programming language, [Robin] was suspicious as to whether it was based on Microsoft BASIC-80. Thus, an examination was in order to figure out just how this BASIC implementation worked, and whether it shared anything with Microsoft’s own effort.
We won’t spoil the conclusions, but there are some strong commonalities between VTech’s BASIC and Microsoft’s version from this era. The variable names in particular are a strong hint as to what’s going on under the hood. The video is worth a watch for anyone that’s a fan of early microcomputer history, BASIC, or just the weird computer-like devices of yesteryear. We also love the idea that the
PreComputer 1000 was actually quite a capable machine
hiding behind a single-line LCD display. | 24 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703797",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-12-01T06:29:27",
"content": "“We also love the idea that the PreComputer 1000 was actually quite a capable machine hiding behind a single-line LCD display.”Hackers first computer. Well, got to start them early.",
"parent_id": nu... | 1,760,372,089.048566 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/30/absolutely-everything-about-the-coleco-adam-8-bit-home-computer/ | Absolutely Everything About The Coleco Adam, 8-bit Home Computer | Donald Papp | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"80's",
"Adam",
"Coleco",
"colecovision",
"retro",
"vintage"
] | [Thom Cherryhomes] shared with us an incredible resource for anyone curious about the Coleco Adam, one of the big might-have-been home computers of the 80s. There’s
a monstrous 4-hour deep dive video
(see the video description for a comprehensive chapter index) that makes a fantastic reference for anyone wanting to see the Coleco Adam and all of its features in action, in the context of 8-bit home computing in the 80s.
[Image by
Akbkuku
, CC BY 4.0]
The Adam aimed to be an all-in-one computer package, targeting a family audience for both education and gaming purposes, with a price target around $600, a pretty compelling pitch.
The video is a serious in-depth look at the Adam, providing practical demonstrations of everything in various scenarios. This includes showcasing commercials from the period, detailing the system’s specs and history, explaining the Adam’s appeal, discussing specific features, comparing advertisement promises to real costs, and giving a step-by-step tutorial on how to use the system.
All of the talk notes are available
as well, providing a great companion to the chapter index.
Manufactured by the same Coleco responsible for the
ColecoVision
gaming console, the Adam had great specs, a great price, and a compelling array of features. Sadly, it was let down badly at launch and Coleco never recovered. However, the Adam remains of interest in the retrocomputing scene and we’ve even seen more than one effort to
convert the Adam’s keyboard to USB
. | 22 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703772",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-12-01T04:22:41",
"content": "$600 was a pretty big step back in those days, especially when I bought my TimexSinclair-1000 for $30.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,088.284864 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/30/hacked-tea-lights-flicker-just-right/ | Hacked Tea Lights Flicker Just Right | Kristina Panos | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"attiny85",
"flickering candle",
"flickering led",
"Tea Lights"
] | Flickering LED tea lights are a friendly and safe alternative to having flaming little pots of wax situated around your home, but sometimes the flicker scheme leaves something to be desired.
[Roger Rabbit] found a set of six such rechargeable tea lights with a base and a remote, and
replaced the controller with an ATtiny85
for a more realistic flicker. When [Roger] opened up one of the candles, they found an IR sensor for the remote, a driver chip, and of course, an LED. No surprises there.
After desoldering the original controller, [Roger] wired in a socketed ATtiny85 on a piece of perfboard and hooked everything back up.The coolest part of this hack might just be the fact that there’s a perfect little compartment for the new microcontroller. How about that?
The Arduino code for this project is available in
the Git repository
, and
the wonderful instruction manual is available in PDF form
. Be sure to check out the brief video after the break.
You like these flickering LED candles?
Here’s one you can blow out
. | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703736",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2023-12-01T00:37:37",
"content": "I once also tore down some seemingly similar looking “candle lights” (Mine were working on CR2032) and all the electronics were integrated in the LED itself. Looking at it though a microscope I could see... | 1,760,372,088.634528 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/30/the-raspberry-pi-5-can-use-external-graphics-cards-now/ | The Raspberry Pi 5 Can Use External Graphics Cards Now | Lewin Day | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"gpu",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspberry Pi 5"
] | The Raspberry Pi line is full of capable compact computers, but they’ve never been the strongest in the bunch when it comes to graphical output. Nor have they been particularly expandable in that regard. However, that’s all beginning to change, with [Jeff Geerling] reporting success
getting external GPUs to work on the Raspberry Pi 5.
Unlike previous Raspberry Pis, the Raspberry Pi 5 has a less quirky implementation for its PCI Express bus. Previous editions have thrown up issues when trying to work with GPUs, but [Jeff] has found much more success this time around. He’s gotten an AMD RX 460 to work with the setup, and has got it running quite a bit of the glmark2 test regime. He’s working on a variety of other AMD cards too, but suspects NVidia parts could be harder due to some initialization issues that are proving difficult to quash.
It still takes some funky adapters and a lot of work, but finally GPUs are starting to work with the platform. Keep up with his list of card trials
on the PiPCI website.
We’ve seen [Jeff]’s work
with earlier iterations of the Raspberry Pi before, too
. Video after the break. | 32 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703696",
"author": "exitableUser",
"timestamp": "2023-11-30T21:11:05",
"content": "Really interesting",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6703705",
"author": "Gino Latino",
"timestamp": "2023-11-30T22:11:03",
"content":... | 1,760,372,089.244315 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/30/the-minimum-required-for-a-film-camera/ | The Minimum Required For A Film Camera | Jenny List | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"35mm film",
"camera",
"pinhole camera"
] | Film cameras
can
be complex and exquisitely-crafted masterpieces of analogue technology. But at their very simplest they need be little more than a light-proof box with a piece of film at the back of it, and some kind of lens or pinhole with a shutter. [ChickenCrimpy] adds the most basic of 35 mm cartridge to create what he calls the
Minimum Viable Camera
. It’s a half-frame 35 mm pinhole film camera with the simplest possible construction.
It can be built from almost any flat light-proof 3 mm thick stock, though something that you can run through a laser cutter is probably ideal. Once snapped together to make to box-like structure, tape is added along the joins for light-proofing. The film is reeled from a full 35 mm cartridge to an empty one, and cranked back frame-by-frame by means of a wooden key that engages with the spindle.
There’s no lens, instead this is a pinhole camera, and the shutter is a piece of the stock held on the front of the camera with bolts and butterfly nuts. Taking a photo is as simple as pointing the device at the subject and lifting the shutter away for a few seconds. There’s a video overview for the project which we’ve placed below the break.
It’s true that this camera needs a moment in the darkroom to load, but we like its extreme simplicity and the ethereal and grainy pictures it produces. If you fancy an introduction to 35 mm photography you could definitely do worse. | 13 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703677",
"author": "SETH",
"timestamp": "2023-11-30T20:13:51",
"content": "My favorite course in college, Photography. I made a cassette tape and an altoids tin pinhole camera. Aka i used an exacto knife and lots of tape. Loading and unloading film constituted assembling and dis... | 1,760,372,088.526697 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/30/end-of-an-era-popular-science-shutters-magazine/ | End Of An Era: Popular Science Shutters Magazine | Tom Nardi | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Slider"
] | [
"magazine",
"popular science",
"print"
] | Just three years after the iconic magazine abandoned its print version and went all-digital,
Popular Science
is now halting its subscription service entirely
. The brand itself will live on — their site will still run tech stories and news articles, and they have two podcasts that will keep getting new episodes — but no more quarterly releases. While you can’t complain too much about a 151 year run, it’s still sad to see what was once such an influential publication slowly become just another cog in the content mill.
Started as a monthly magazine all the way back in 1872,
Popular Science
offered a hopeful vision of what was over the horizon. It didn’t present a fanciful version of what the next 100 years would look like, but rather, tried to read the tea leaves of cutting edge technology to offer a glimpse of what the next decade or so might hold.
Flip through a few issues
from the 1950s and 60s, and you won’t see pulpy stories about humanity conquering the stars or building a time machine. Instead the editors got readers ready for a day when they’d drive cars with warbird-derived turbochargers, and enjoy more powerful tools once transistor technology allowed for widespread use of small brushless motors. It wasn’t just armchair engineering either, issues would often include articles written by the engineers and researchers that were on the front lines.
But
Popular Science
wasn’t just about the future, it also provided plenty of contemporary content for those who liked to toy with technology at home. You could find articles about building your own test equipment, or setting up your own workshop. From woodworking to homebrew Geiger counters, there was a little something for everyone.
This focus on the hobbyist wasn’t without its downside. For the last decade or two, the magazine seemed to have more advertisements trying to sell the reader on the latest wiz-bang gadgetry than it did articles. Then again, there are precious few printed publications that didn’t suffer that particular fate.
Much like when
MAKE
went through its troubles back in 2019
, we have to admit there’s a bit of irony at work here. The reality is, sites like the one you’re reading right now are the reason
tech magazines have become a dying breed
. But even if the age of print is coming to a close, we still have great respect for the seminal publications that came before the Internet took over our lives.
Surely many of the people in this community were inspired to pick up their first soldering iron by something they saw in a magazine like
Popular Science
,
Byte
,
Popular Electronics
, or
Hands-On Electronics.
We can only hope to do their legacy justice for the next generation. | 69 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703634",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2023-11-30T18:02:54",
"content": "Well, most tech and DIY magazines are basically just catalogs now and I suppose it’s just easier to do that on youtube.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": ... | 1,760,372,088.470754 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/30/autonomous-excavator-builds-stone-wall-algorithmically/ | Autonomous Excavator Builds Stone Wall Algorithmically | Kristina Panos | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"autonomous vehicle",
"construction",
"construction equipment",
"excavator"
] | In a move that aims to further the circular economy of the construction industry, researchers at ETH Zurich have let an autonomous excavator loose on a big pile of boulders and reclaimed concrete. The goal? To
build a 20 foot (6 meter) and 213 ft (65 m) long dry-stone wall
as part of a park where the landscape was digitally planned, and the earth autonomously excavated.
The coolest thing about the Menzi Muck excavator is the software, which is explored in the video after the break. Thanks to a bunch of sensors, the excavator can not only draw a 3D map of the site, it can find in situ boulders dotting the landscape and incorporate them into the wall.
Machine vision allows the excavator to grab the stones and assess their size and shape, as well as approximate their weight and center of gravity.
Then, an algorithm determines the best place for each stone and places them there without using mortar or cement. Menzi Muck is capable of number-crunching 20 to 30 stones at a time, which coincidentally is about the number in one delivery.
Want to build your own excavator?
Check out this finely-detailed R/C excavator for top-notch inspiration. | 21 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703604",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2023-11-30T16:48:23",
"content": "It not only scans the rock’s physical geometry but applies textures as well?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6704256",
"author": "Gravis",
... | 1,760,372,088.349962 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/30/falsified-photos-fooling-adobes-cryptographically-signed-metadata/ | Falsified Photos: Fooling Adobe’s Cryptographically-Signed Metadata | Adam Zeloof | [
"Current Events",
"digital cameras hacks",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"ai",
"copyright",
"encryption",
"photography"
] | Last week, we wrote about the
Leica M11-P, the world’s first camera with Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) credentials baked into every shot
. Essentially, each file is signed with Leica’s encryption key such that any changes to the image, whether edits to the photo itself or the metadata, are tracked. The goal is to not only prove ownership, but that photos are real — not tampered with or AI-generated. At least, that’s the main selling point.
Although the CAI has been around since 2019, it’s adoption is far from widespread. Only a handful of programs support it, although this list includes Photoshop, and its unlikely anybody outside the professional photography space was aware of it until recently. This isn’t too surprising, as it really isn’t relevant to the casual shooter — when I take a shot to upload to Instagram, I’m rarely thinking about whether or not I’ll need cryptographic proof that the photo wasn’t edited — usually adding #nofilter to the description is enough. Where the CAI is supposed to shine, however, is in the world of photojournalism. The idea is that a photographer can capture an image that is signed at the time of creation and maintains a tamper-proof log of any edits made. When the final image is sold to a news publisher or viewed by a reader online, they are able to view that data.
At this point, there are two thoughts you might have (or, at least, there are two thoughts I had upon learning about the CAI)
Do I care that a photo is cryptographically signed?
This sounds easy to break.
Well, after some messing around with the CAI tools, I have some answers for you.
No, you don’t.
Yes, it is.
What’s The Point?
There really doesn’t seem to be one. The CAI website makes
grand yet vague claims about creating tamper-proof images
, yet when you dig into the documentation a bit more, it all sounds quite toothless. Their
own FAQ page
makes it clear that content credentials don’t prove whether or not an image is AI generated, can easily be removed from an image by taking a screenshot of it, and doesn’t really tackle the misinformation issues.
That’s not to say that the CAI fails in their stated goals. The system does let you embed secure metadata, I just don’t really care about it. If I come across a questionable image with CAI credentials on a news site, I could theoretically download it and learn, quite easily, who took it, what camera they used, when they edited it and in which software, what shutter speed they used, etc. And thanks to the signature, I would willingly believe all of those things are true. The trouble is, I don’t really care. That doesn’t tell me whether or not the image was staged, or if any of those edits obscure some critical part of the image changing its meaning. At least I can be sure that the aperture was set to f/5.6 when that image was captured.
Comparing Credentials
The CAI Verify Tool
At least, I think I can be sure. It turns out that it isn’t too hard to misuse the system. The CAI provides
open-source tools for generating and verifying signed files
. While these tools aren’t too difficult to install and use, terminal-based programs do have a certain entry barrier that excludes many potential users. Helpfully, Adobe provides a website that
lets you upload any image and verify it’s embedded Content Credentials
. I tested this out with an image captured on the new CAI-enabled camera, and sure enough it was able to tell me who took the image (well, what they entered their name as), when it was captured (well, what they set the camera time to), and other image data (well — you get the point). Interestingly, it also added a little Leica logo next to the image, reminiscent of the once-elusive Blue Check Mark, that gave it an added feel of authenticity.
I wondered how hard it would be to fool the Verify website — to make it show the fancy red dot for an image that didn’t come from the new camera. Digging into the docs a bit, it turns out you can sign any old file using the CAI’s
c2patool
— all you need is a
manifest file
, which describes the data to be encoded in the signed image, and an
X.509 certificate
to sign it with. The CAI website advises you to purchase a certificate from a reputable source, but of course there’s nothing stopping you from just self-signing one. Which I did.
Masquerading Metadata
I used openssl to create a sha256 certificate, then subsequently sign it as “Leica Camera AG” instead of using my own name. I pointed the c2pa manifest file at my freshly minted certificate set, pasted in some metadata I had extracted from a real Leica M11-P image, and ran c2patool. After some trial and error in which it kept rejecting my fake certificate for some reason or another, it finally spit out a genuine fake image. I uploaded it to the Verify tool and — lo and behold — not only did the website say that my fake had been taken on a Leica camera and signed by “Leica Camera AG,” but it even sported the little red Leica logo.
One of the images above was taken on a Leica M11-P, and the other on a Gameboy Camera. Can you tell the difference? Adobe’s Verify tool can’t. Download the original
left image here
, the
right image here
, then head over to
https://contentcredentials.org/verify
to try for yourself.
Of course, a cursory inspection of the files with c2patool would reveal the signature’s public key, and it would be a simple matter to compare that key to Leica’s key to find out that something were amiss. Surprisingly, Adobe’s Verify tool didn’t seem to do that. It would appear that it just string matches — if it sees “Leica” in the name, it slaps the red dot on there. While there’s nothing technically wrong with this, it does lend the appearance of authenticity to the image, making any other falsified information easier to believe.
Of course, I’m not the only one who figured out some fun ways to play with the CAI standard. [Dr. Neal Krawetz] over at the
Hacker Factor Blog recently dove into several methods of falsifying images
, including faked certificates with a method a bit more straightforward than the one I worked out. My process for generating a certificate took a few files and different commands, while his
distills it into a nice one-liner
.
Secure Snapshots?
So, if the system really doesn’t seem to work that well, why are
hundreds of media and tech organizations involved in the project?
As a consumer, I’m certainly not going to pay extra for a camera just because it has these features baked in, so why are companies spending extra to do so? In the CAI’s perfect world, all images are signed under their standard when captured. It becomes easy to immediately tell both whether a photograph is real or AI-generated, and who the original artist is, if they’ve elected to attach their name to the work. This serves a few purposes that could be very useful to the companies sponsoring the project.
In this perfect world, Adobe can make sure that any image they’re using to train a generative neural network was captured and not generated. This helps to avoid a condition called
Model Autophagy Disorder, which plagues AIs that “inbreed” on their own data
— essentially, after a few generations of being re-trained on images that the model generated, strange artifacts begin to develop and amplify. Imagine a neural network trained on millions of six-fingered hands.
To Adobe’s credit,
they tend to be better than most other companies about sourcing their training data
. Their early generative models were trained solely on images that they had the rights to, or were explicitly public domain or openly-licensed. They’ve even talked about how creators can attach a “Do Not Train” tag to CAI metadata, expressing their refusal to allow the image to be included in training data sets. Of course, whether or not these tags will be respected is another question, but as a photographer this is the main feature of Content Credentials that I find useful.
Other than that, however, I can’t find many benefits to end users in Content Credentials. At best, this feels like yet another well-intentioned yet misguided technical solution to a social issue, and at worst it can lend authenticity to misleading or falsified images when exploited. Misinformation, AI ethics, and copyright are complicated issues that require more than a new file format to fix. To quote Abraham Lincoln, “
Don’t believe everything you read on the internet
.” | 34 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703579",
"author": "dongwaffle",
"timestamp": "2023-11-30T15:36:32",
"content": "These all sound like UI problems, nothing in the “attack” presented above appears to actually break the chain of trust. I don’t care much about this stuff but if I was, say, running the photo desk at ... | 1,760,372,088.980573 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/30/300-amps-through-an-open-source-speed-controller/ | 300 Amps Through An Open Source Speed Controller | Lewin Day | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"e-bike",
"ebike",
"electric scooter",
"esc",
"motor controller",
"vesc"
] | Sometimes, a little puny matchbox-sized electronic speed controller (ESC) won’t do the job. If you find yourself looking for something heftier, say, in the range of hundreds of amps, you might look towards a design like the MP2 ESC.
[owhite] has built an example of the design
that can deliver some serious power.
[owhite’s] build has some serious specs: it’s rated to offer up to 300 amps at up to 150 volts, though thus far, it’s only been tested at up to 100 V. Like the original MP2, which hails from the
Endless Sphere forums,
it’s designed to be compatible with VESC code using the STM32F405 microcontroller. It’s intended for driving high-powered traction motors in applications like e-bikes and electric scooters, as you might have guessed by its potential output power being well into the tens of kilowatts range.
If you’re eager to build your own, you can do so, with the design files
on GitHub.
Just note that you’ll need some hefty parts to handle the juice, including
beefy MOSFETS
and juicy capacitors rated at 160 V.
Open source motor controllers abound of late,
and we’ve featured a few in recent times
. Just remember that astute design and using parts within their means is the key to
avoiding letting the smoke out! | 23 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703548",
"author": "PWalsh",
"timestamp": "2023-11-30T14:03:45",
"content": "I took a look at the schematic. No TO-220 packages, no heat sinks.The power MOS-Fets are about $5 apiece on DigiKey, and you need 6 per phase (x3 = 18).You will need bus-bars mounted/soldered to the board ... | 1,760,372,089.11533 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/30/open-source-spacecraft-avionics-with-nasas-core-flight-system/ | Open Source Spacecraft Avionics With NASA’s Core Flight System | Maya Posch | [
"Software Development",
"Space"
] | [
"avionics",
"cFS",
"framework",
"nasa"
] | One thing about developing satellites, spacecraft, rovers and kin is that they have a big overlap in terms of functionality. From communication, to handling sensors, propulsion, managing data storage, task scheduling and so on, the teams over at NASA have found over the years that with each project there was a lot of repetition.
Block diagram of a simplified avionics system. (Credit: NASA)
Either they were either copy-pasting code from old projects, or multiple teams were essentially writing the same code.
To resolve this inefficiency
NASA developed the Core Flight System (cFS)
, a common software framework for spacecraft, based on code and lessons from various space missions. The framework, which the space agency has
released under the Apache license
, consists of an operating system abstraction layer (OSAL), the underlying OS (VxWorks, FreeRTOS, RTEMS, POSIX, etc.), and the applications that run on top of the OSAL alongside the Core Flight Executive (cFE) component. Here cFS apps can be loaded and unloaded dynamically, along with cFS libraries, as cFS supports both static and dynamic linking.
There are a few sample applications to get started with, and documentation is available, should you wish to use cFS for your own projects. Admittedly, it’s a more complex framework than you’d need for a backyard rover. But who knows?
As access to space gets cheaper and cheaper
, you might actually get the chance to put together a DIY CubeSat someday — might as well start practicing now. | 18 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703523",
"author": "ftg",
"timestamp": "2023-11-30T11:22:20",
"content": "Interesting. I wonder how soon there will be a freeRTOS based distribution of this for RP2040, ESP32 or EFR32.And then the real fun starts with hobbyist cubesat formfactor tabletop simulator models.",
"pa... | 1,760,372,089.174252 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/29/gesture-controlled-robot-arm-is-a-nifty-educational-build/ | Gesture-Controlled Robot Arm Is A Nifty Educational Build | Lewin Day | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"gesture control",
"Micro:bit",
"robot",
"robotic arm"
] | Traditionally, robot arms have been controlled either by joysticks, buttons, or very carefully programmed routines. However, for [Narongporn Laosrisin’s] homebrew build,
they decided to go with gesture control instead.
The
MeArm robotic arm
is built using laser cut acrylic parts, and can be had in a kit
if so desired
. It features four servo motors, charged with rotating the arm’s base, pushing the arm forwards and backwards, up and down, and actuating its gripper. The servos are under the command of a micro:bit microcontroller board, which itself receives signals from a second micro:bit which is strapped to the human wishing to control the arm. The second micro:bit detects gestures with its accelerometer, and then sends the relevant commands to the robotic arm’s micro:bit over its built-in radio link. The arm controller then commands the servos to execute the maneuver.
It may be a small robotic arm that doesn’t have the capacity to lift much, but that’s not the point. This project is a great way to teach students how to program microcontrollers, work with sensor inputs,
and just generally how to solve engineering puzzles
. To that end, it looks like [Narongporn] has a great project on hand for teaching their students. Video after the break. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703471",
"author": "Nicely done",
"timestamp": "2023-11-30T06:21:45",
"content": "The further applications of this concept – a wireless remote control via hand gestures – is still dawning on me. All sorts of complicated to control “move-y thingies” could benefit from this.Kudos to ... | 1,760,372,089.283779 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/29/chromiumiii-telluride-as-ferromagnetic-material-with-tunable-anomalous-hall-effect/ | Chromium(III) Telluride As Ferromagnetic Material With Tunable Anomalous Hall Effect | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"anomalous hall effect",
"Berry phase",
"ferromagnetic",
"hall effect",
"spintronics"
] | Chromium(III) Telluride (Cr
2
Te
3
) is an interesting material for (ferro)magnetic applications, with Yao Wen and colleagues
reporting
in a 2020
Nano Letters
paper that they confirmed it to show spontaneous magnetization at a thickness of less than fifty nanometers, at room temperature. Such a 2D ferromagnet could be very useful for spintronics and other applications. The confirmation of magnetization is performed using a variety of methods, including measuring the
Hall Effect
(HE) and the Anomalous Hall Effect (AHE), the latter of which is directly dependent on the magnetization of the material, rather than an externally applied field.
More recently, in a
June 2023 article
by Hang Chi and colleagues in
Nature Communications
, it is described how such epitaxially obtained Cr
2
Te
3
films show a distinct change in the AHE (in the form of sign reversal) depending on the strain induced by the interface with the various types of substrates (Al
2
O
3
, SrTiO
3
) and the temperature, likely owing to the different thermal expansion rates of the film and substrate. Underlying this change in the observed AHE is the
Berry phase
and the related curvature. This is a phenomenon that was also noted by Quentin Guillet and colleagues in
their 2023 article
in
Physical Review Materials
, effectively independently confirming the AHE
Using Cr
2
Te
3
in combination with the appropriate substrate might ultimately lead to spintronics-based memory and other devices, even if such applications will still take considerable R&D.
Top image: Crystal structure of Cr
2
Te
3
thin films. (Credit: Hang Chi et al. 2023) | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703481",
"author": "Carl Foxmarten",
"timestamp": "2023-11-30T07:50:49",
"content": "…Are we back to bubble memory again?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6703714",
"author": "Paul d'Aoust",
"timestamp": "2023-... | 1,760,372,089.326792 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/12/01/robot-pianist-runs-on-arduino-nano/ | Robot Pianist Runs On Arduino Nano | Lewin Day | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"arduino nano",
"music",
"piano"
] | The piano has been around for a long time now. Not long after its invention, humans started contemplating how they could avoid playing it by getting a machine to do the job instead. [vicenzobit] is the latest to take on this task, building a “Robot Pianista”
that uses a simple mechanism to play a tune under electronic command
(Spanish language,
Google Translate link
).
An Arduino Nano is the heart of the build, paired with a shield that lets it run a number of servo motors. The servos, one per key, are each assembled into a 3D-printed bracket with a cam-driven rod assembly. When the servo turns, the cam turns, and pushes down a rod that presses the piano key.
The build is limited in the sense that you can only play as many keys as you have servo channels, but nonetheless, it does the job. With eight servos, it’s able to play a decent rendition of Ode to Joy at a steady tempo, and that’s an excellent start.
We’ve featured some great mechanized instruments before, too
. Video after the break. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6704158",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2023-12-02T00:59:22",
"content": "I misread the title and thought it was going to be a more “spicy” hack.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6704206",
"author": "EvilDuck",
... | 1,760,372,089.370149 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/12/01/radio-emissions-over-sunspots-challenge-models-of-stellar-magnetism/ | Radio Emissions Over Sunspots Challenge Models Of Stellar Magnetism | Donald Papp | [
"Science",
"Space"
] | [
"astronomy",
"astrophysics",
"aurora",
"radio",
"solar"
] | Sustained radio emissions originating from high over a sunspot are
getting researchers thinking in new directions
. Unlike solar radio bursts — which typically last only minutes or hours — these have persisted for over a week. They resemble auroral radio emissions observed in planetary magnetospheres and some stars, but seeing them from about 40,000 km above a sunspot is something new. They don’t seem tied to solar flare activity, either.
The signals are thought to be the result of electron cyclotron maser (ECM) emissions, which involves how electrons act in converging geometries of magnetic fields. These prolonged emissions challenge existing models and ideas about how solar and stellar magnetic processes unfold, and understanding it better could lead to a re-evaluation of existing astrophysical models. Perhaps even leading to new insights into the behavior of magnetic fields and energetic particles.
This phenomenon was observed from our very own sun, but it has implications for better understanding distant stellar bodies. Speaking of our sun, did you know
it is currently in it’s 25th Solar Cycle
? Check out that link for a reminder of the things the awesome power of our local star is actually capable of under the right circumstances. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6704101",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2023-12-01T21:08:41",
"content": "This kind of reminds me of a homopolar motor.Instead of a plasma tornado, it’s a generator, pumping out rf like a magnetron.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,372,089.489315 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/12/01/wine-is-for-windows-and-darling-is-for-macos/ | Wine Is For Windows And Darling Is For MacOS | Lewin Day | [
"Mac Hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"darling",
"linux",
"windows subsystem for Linux",
"wine",
"wsl"
] | Wine has become a highly optimized and useful piece of software for those that live in Linux, but occasionally need to walk on the Windows side. In case you’d wondered, there’s a similar tool for when you need to run a MacOS program in your Linux environment.
Enter Darling, the translation layer you’ve needed all along.
Just as Wine is not an emulator, nor is Darling. As a translation layer, it duplicates functions of the MacOS operating system that programs need to operate but within Linux. It’s fast, because it’s effectively running the MacOS software directly. Initially, Darling was mostly only capable of running MacOS apps at the console level. However, there is rudimentary support for running graphical applications that are based on the Cocoa framework.
Hilariously, if you’re into weird recursive situations, you can go deeper and run Darling
within Windows Subsystem for Linux
, itself running within Windows. Why? Well, you’re probably bored or just trying to for the sake of it. Regardless, we don’t judge. If you’ve got your own nifty translation or virtual machine hacks in the works, don’t hesitate to
let us know! | 44 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6704060",
"author": "Olivier",
"timestamp": "2023-12-01T19:46:36",
"content": "Never really considered this, i always assumed OSX and Linux were close enough that this wasn’t really an issue and releasing software for both is easy enough (or at least much easier compared to win+osx)... | 1,760,372,090.360343 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/12/01/the-sunspots-are-coming-again/ | The Sunspots Are Coming (Again) | Jenny List | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Slider",
"Space"
] | [
"Solar Cycle",
"sun",
"sunspots"
] | There are a bunch of ways to estimate the age of a radio amateur, by the letters in their callsign, by their preferred choice of homebrewing technology, or sometimes by their operating style. One that perhaps doesn’t immediately come to mind is to count how many solar cycles they remember, and since the current cycle 25 is my fourth I guess I’ve seen a few. Cycle 25 is so far shaping up to be quite an active one especially of late, which popular media are describing as bombarding us with flares from a “
sunspot archipelago
” and the more measured tones of
spaceweather.com
giving us warning of X-class flares heading in our direction, today!
We wouldn’t be this guy for anything. From
CBC’s coverage of the 1989 power outage
.
As the technology for solar observation has increased in sophistication and the Internet has allowed anyone to follow the events above us as they unfold, the awareness of solar phenomena has shifted away from the relatively small numbers of astronomers and radio amateurs who would once have been eagerly awaiting a solar cycle to a wider audience. Ever since a particularly severe event in March 1989 during cycle 22 caused disruptions including
the blackout of a significant part of Canada
it’s been a periodic topic of mild doom in slow news moments. But what lies behind the reports of solar activity? Perhaps it’s time to take a look.
The solar cycle refers to the 11-year period of solar activity from a maximum of observed sunspots through a minimum to a new maximum. The sunspots are the visible evidence of the solar magnetic field changing its polarity, and appear as darker areas where there is a greater strength of magnetic flux in the sun’s photosphere. We refer to solar cycles by number with solar cycle 1 occurring in 1755 because that year represents the earliest cycle which can be found in modern astronomical observation data, but previous cycles have been deduced over millennia through dendrochronology, sediment analysis, isotope observations, and other methods.
A coronal mass ejection in progress. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio,
public domain
.
The sunspots are interesting to observe, but of course it’s the other effects of a solar cycle which make them of concern here on Earth. What happens on the sun has an effect here in terms of variations in solar radiation and magnetic field, but the phenomenon which captures the most attention comes directly from the sunspots themselves. In high-school physics terms, where there is a concentration of magnetic field there are more of those magnetic field lines your teacher probably drew for you on the board, and energetic charged material is drawn out from the surface of the sun along those lines. When that concentration of magnetic field breaks down there is a so-called coronal mass ejection, in which those particles are expelled into space. If we on our orbiting planet happen to lie in the path of one of these ejections our atmosphere is bombarded with these charged particles, and life becomes interesting for a while.
Our planet has its own magnetic field, and as the particles hit the atmosphere an electrical current starts flowing in the direction of that planetary field. This in turn becomes concentrated near the polar regions where the magnetic flux is at its most dense, and leads to a concentration of ionised particles in the atmosphere. We can see these as the aurora borealis, and in that lies the reason radio amateurs get excited about sunspot maxima. An aurora makes for a surprisingly effective radio reflector, allowing contacts to be made over much longer distances than normal.
Richard Carrington’s observation of the sunspot cluster responsible for the 1859 storm.
As we’ve discussed, the solar cycle has been in operation since time immemorial, and every eleven years over the relative blink of an eye spanning our industrial recent history it’s been studied by scientists. It’s a phenemenon that shows significant variation, with the scientific record showing evidence of cycles with almost no activity as well as extremely violent moments. As much as any solar cycle can be considered normal, in a normal cycle it causes pretty light shows for people in polar regions and gets radio amateurs and solar astronomers excited, and that’s about it.
Where it crosses the boundary into public consciousness is when a cycle is particularly strong, and so far in cycle 25 it seems this applies to the moment. If we cross the path of a particularly strong coronal mass ejection those currents in our outer atmosphere in turn become particularly strong, and we begin to see immediate effects on the ground. The first cycle I saw as a spotty teen was cycle 22, and it had a higher-than average activity that certainly had multiple effects on the ground. In March 1989 durning cycle 22 for example there was a particularly strong geomagnetic storm, which famously caused a power blackout across large parts of eastern Canada. Of these stronger cycles perhaps the most famous was solar cycle 10, when in September 1859 the strongest recorded storm was observed. Dubbed
the Carrington event
after the astronomer who characterised it, this storm caused auroras to be seen at tropical latitudes, and it gave telegraph operators shocks and allowed the operation of long-distance telegraph circuits without external power.
Don’t worry too much, instead sit back and enjoy the show. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Joshua Strang,
public domain
.
In the 1850s the telegraph was perhaps somewhere near the pinnacle of electronic technology, while today our lives depend on many thousands of electronic circuits that have become the stock-in-trade of Hackaday readers. We have satellites overhead, computers in our pockets, computers controlling our utilities, our cars, and much more. It’s the threat of another storm in the magnitude of the Carrington event or higher which should occupy our minds, because it’s likely that much of that circuitry would be in some way damaged by it with consequent effect on services.
Even then though, it’s worth injecting a measure of common sense, because a study of
the list of past intense solar storms
will show that these are not an uncommon phenomenon. You and I have all lived through a few, and while they aren’t all on the scale of the Carrington event or even the 1989 storm, in practice most of them passed us by unnoticed. It’s likely that if a solar cycle appears to be approaching Carrington levels of activity we’ll have some warning from the astronomers, a lot of interesting scientific research will be done, and with luck the impact of some of our devices going offline will be minimised.
So perhaps we should treat the headlines with amusement rather than fear. If you see the astronomers and the radio amateurs digging shelters get worried, but if the hams are in the shack chasing the DX, watch out for the pretty light show instead.
Header image: NASA,
public domain
. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6704085",
"author": "rnjacobs",
"timestamp": "2023-12-01T20:31:12",
"content": "Link directly to the sunspot “archipelago” from NOAA:https://services.swpc.noaa.gov/images/animations/suvi/primary/195/latest.png",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,089.642676 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/12/01/hackaday-podcast-episode-246-bypassing-fingerprint-readers-is-easy-killing-memory-chips-is-hard-cell-phones-vs-sperm/ | Hackaday Podcast Episode 246: Bypassing Fingerprint Readers Is Easy, Killing Memory Chips Is Hard, Cell Phones Vs Sperm | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | It’s the week after Thanksgiving (for some of us) and if you’re sick of leftovers, you’re in luck as Elliot and Dan get together to discuss the freshest and best inter-holiday hacks. We’ll cue up the “Mission: Impossible” theme for a self-destructing flash drive with a surprising sense of self-preservation, listen in on ET only to find out it’s just a meteor, and look for interesting things to do with an old 3D printer. We’ll do a poking around a little in the basement at Tektronix, see how easy it is to spoof biometric security, and get into a love-hate relationship with both binary G-code and bowling balls with strings attached. What do you do with a box full of 18650s? Easy — make a huge PCB to balance them the slow way. Is your cell phone causing a population crisis? Is art real or AI? And what the heck is a cannibal CME? Tune in as we dive into all this and more.
Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Grab a copy for yourself
if you want to listen offline.
Episode 246 Show Notes:
News:
Strong auroras likely as powerful solar flare eruption hurls possible ‘cannibal CME’ toward Earth (video)
What’s that Sound?
Guess the sound
for a chance to win a Podcast T-shirt!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Easily Bypass Laptop Fingerprint Sensors And Windows Hello
Harvard SETI Project Helps ID Mystery Sound
A 48 Volt Battery Pack With Carefully Balanced Cells
A Beginner’s Guide To Lithium Rechargeable Batteries
An Automated Watch Cleaner From An Older 3D Printer
Wristwatch Revival – Restoration of a $100,000 Rolex GMT From 1958!
G-code Goes Binary With Proposed New Format
MeatPack
Fail Of The Week: This Flash Drive Will NOT Self-Destruct In Five Seconds
Mission Impossible theme song (Original) – YouTube
USB Drive Keeps Your Secrets… As Long As Your Fingers Are Wet?
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Capacitive Rainmeter Measures The Sky Water Just Fine
Tektronix’s Ceramic CRT Production And The Building 13 Catacombs
Single-piece Tank Chassis Goes Robotic
In New Doctor’s Office, Stethoscope Wears You
Dan’s Picks:
Come For The PCB Holder, Stay For The Tour Of FreeCAD
A Tube Guitar Amp For A Modest Budget
Bowling With Strings Attached: The People Are Split
Can’t-Miss Articles:
How Do You Prove An AI Didn’t Make Your Art?
Double-Dose Of AI Turns Daily Tasks Into Works Of Art
Mobile Phones And The Question Of Declining Sperm Quality | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,372,089.596118 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/12/01/bulked-up-mhd-drive-makes-waves-while-standing-still/ | Bulked Up MHD Drive Makes Waves While Standing Still | Tom Nardi | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"Magnetohydrodynamic",
"MHD",
"Plasma Channel"
] | Looking back through the archives, we actually haven’t seen much in the way of homebrew magnetohydrodynamic drives (MHDs) — which is somewhat surprising, as the core concept isn’t nearly as complicated as its syllable-laden name might indicate. You can see results with little more than a magnet, a couple of electrodes, and a bench power supply. The trick is turning these base components into something that might actually have practical value.
That’s where we find [Jay Bowles], who has gone down a bit of a MHD rabbit hole these last few months.
His latest MHD unit
is a considerable improvement over its predecessor by all practical metrics, and as an added bonus, really nails the look of a futuristic propulsion unit. Even though the all-electric thruster hasn’t gone on a mission to anywhere more exotic than a table-top aquarium, you could easily imagine a pair of them slung under some top secret stealth watercraft.
What’s the magic behind the MHD? When a charge is passed through a pair of submerged electrodes, it interacts with the magnetic field within the drive and causes the electrified water to be accelerated through it. It’s the Lorentz force in action, and if powerful enough, can propel a craft through the water with no noise or moving parts. Beyond the slight downside that it only works in salt water, you can see how there would be considerable interest in such technology. Unsurprisingly,
the military has had their eye on large-scale MHD drives for decades
.
For his latest MHD drive, [Jay] has arranged the magnets radially and given them a waterproof coating. The core of the thruster is 3D printed and designed so water can move through it smoothly, and the inner and outer electrodes are off-the-shelf stainless steel pipe sections. The idea is that, once the pipes start to break down from electrolysis, it will be easy to swap in a new set. The whole thing was designed with ease of assembly and maintenance in mind, and it shows.
In terms of performance, [Jay] says this new MHD drive reached an exhaust velocity of 50 cm/s and a flow rate of 3650 ml/s while consuming 30 amps at 25 VDC. He calculates that out to 0.2 watts per ml/s of flow, which is a big boost over the previous thruster, which needed 1.2 watts per ml/s. What does all this mean in a practical sense? Hopefully we won’t have to wait long for the answer, as it sounds like the next step is bolting a pair of these improved MHDs onto a boat and taking it out for a spin.
This all might seem like something of a change of pace for [Jay]. After all, the 25 volts getting pumped through
these prototype MHDs
is nothing compared to the high-voltage experiments we usually see from
Plasma Channel
. But his newfound interest in marine propulsion actually came about through an attempt to
strap a pair of his multi-stage ion thrusters onto a RC catamaran over the summer
, so it’s not quite as unrelated as you might think. | 35 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703993",
"author": "cliff claven",
"timestamp": "2023-12-01T16:56:18",
"content": "Interesting design. I like it. I will note that 361 stainless is 16-18% chromium, so as electrolysis occurs, chromium will end up in the water. The oxidation state and what other reactions that may o... | 1,760,372,089.793253 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/12/01/this-week-in-security-owncloud-nxp-0-days-and-fingerprints/ | This Week In Security: Owncloud, NXP, 0-Days, And Fingerprints | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"0-day",
"bluetooth",
"owncloud"
] | We’re back! And while the column took a week off for Thanksgiving, the security world didn’t. The most pressing news is
an issue in Owncloud, that is already under active exploitation
.
The problem is a library that can be convinced to call
phpinfo()
and include the results in the page response. That function reveals a lot of information about the system Owncloud is running on, including environment variables. In something like a Docker deployment, those environment variables may contain system secrets like admin username and password among others.
Now, there is a bit of a wrinkle here. There is a public exploit, and
according to research done by Greynoise Labs
, that exploit does not actually work against default installs. This seems to describe the active exploitation attempts, but the researcher that originally found the issue has stated that there is a non-public exploit that does work on default installs. Stay tuned for this other shoe to drop, and update your Owncloud installs if you have them.
I'm talking about a "real" exploit, which is to my knowledge not public yet. The one you linked won't work.
— Charles Fol (@cfreal_)
November 30, 2023
NXP
If we consider a chip manufacturer, who makes chips that get included in loads of devices, what’s the worst case security scenario? How about
a skilled attacker in the corporate network for over two years before detection
? That’s the reported situation at NXP from 2017 to 2020. The threat group Chimera managed to gain a foothold on an NXP employee workstation, and very methodically pushed deeper into the network.
First, there’s the obvious possibility that chip designs and source code was leaked for NXP products. An even more worrying scenario is that vulnerability reports were part of the data exfiltrated, possibly giving these attackers an early chance to use unpatched vulnerabilities. We could speculate about even more worrying possibilities, but at this point there is no evidence of any tampering or other supply chain attacks.
Chimera is almost certainly a professional Chinese Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), a bit of innuendo for a state-affiliated hacking group. This is hilariously evidenced by the clockwork precision in working hours, synced to Chinese office hours, lunch break included. There was even a telling break taken for Chinese Golden Week.
Too Many Secrets
So this one is weird. There are
a pair of 0-day attacks in the wild
, one against a popular router, the other against a Network Video Recorder. From the scant details in the Akamai report, we can conclude that the attacks depend on default username and password. Both detection rules mention NTP hostname, so this is likely a command injection flaw in both devices. But what devices? Akamai has opted not to specify.
That’s an unfortunate decision, as these exploits are already in the wild. The advantage is already given to the attacker, and Akamai has opted not to let the rest of us know what devices to even be worried about. The likely reason is that this is a trivial exploit, and the detection rules give away enough for anyone to reverse engineer the attack. It’s still a disappointing decision.
Fingerprints
Up next is
a masterclass on hardware hacking from Blackwing Intelligence
. A security team at Microsoft tasked the Blackwing researchers with trying to crack the fingerprint sensors used in several laptops for the Windows Hello login feature. These fingerprint readers all work using a Match on Chip (MoC) approach, where the fingerprint sensor itself is secure (theoretically) and trusted to do the actual fingerprint verification. To keep that safe, Microsoft has designed the Secure Device Connection Protocol (SDCP) to provide a way to verify the trustworthiness of the device and data being transferred.
That protocol actually seems pretty robust, using a good encryption and authentication scheme. To really dig in, our heroes took the Linux fingerprint scanner driver for one of the laptops, and used it to construct a Wireshark Dissector. And that’s when they discovered the first sign of trouble. The Linux authentication flow worked differently from that of Windows.
The real problem is that the fingerprint reader firmware accepts a less secure implementation of SDCP. To mitigate the danger this poses, the firmware expects to receive a configuration packet at the beginning of an authentication flow that specifies which driver is being used, with the firmware maintaining a separate database of users for each flow. That configuration packet just happens to be unauthenticated and in the clear. The hack that ended up working was to generate a spoofed user from Linux, reboot to Windows, and then inject a config packet telling the scanner to use its Linux driver database.
The device that had the simplest bypass just happened to be Microsoft’s own Surface Pro Type Cover. In a cringe-worthy oversight, this device doesn’t use SDCP at all. All an attacker has to do is unplug the Type Cover and plug in a malicious USB device that spoofs the cover’s ID. “My finger is my passport, verify me.”
BLUFFS
And because we didn’t have enough these past two weeks to keep us all on our toes, there’s a new novel attack against Bluetooth, the
BLUetooth Forward and Future Secrecy attack, BLUFFS
. The key idea here is making a Bluetooth connection to a target device with an intentionally weak key, breaking the cryptography of that session, and then manipulating the target into reusing the broken cryptography material for future sessions. See
the PDF write-up for all the juicy details
.
Bits and Bytes
A Cyberlink installer
has been discovered containing malicious code
. This installer is properly signed, and was hosted on Cyberlink infrastructure. The group behind this supply chain attack is believed to be Diamond Sleet, a North Korean APT. Microsoft has added this compromised certificate to its revocation list, and taken down the second-stage code from Github where it was being hosted.
Own a domain? Wonder if someone has ever tried to typosquat your domain? There’s now a service to check.
Have I Been Squatted
takes a given domain name and runs it through a few permuting tools, checking for registered domains based on typos, different TLDs, and even punycode tricks.
See the announcement
for more details.
And finally, remember the trope from cartoons and cheesy sci-fi episodes, where the nearly omniscient AI is defeated by triggering a paradox or endless loop? Our new AI overlords
are similarly vulnerable
. It turns out if you simply ask ChatGPT to repeat a given word forever, it will try to do so. For a while. Eventually the AI model breaks, and it starts spitting out raw training data. That’s non-ideal. But at least we know how to escape the clutches of an evil AI if we ever find ourselves there. | 18 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703935",
"author": "Maave",
"timestamp": "2023-12-01T15:21:25",
"content": "Fortunately the OwnCloud vulns don’t seem to affect the NextCloud fork",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6703950",
"author": "TechnoMage",
... | 1,760,372,089.853134 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/29/converting-bluetooth-sensors-to-zigbee/ | Converting Bluetooth Sensors To Zigbee | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"firmware",
"humidity",
"LYWSD03MMC",
"sensor",
"temperature",
"update",
"xiaomi",
"zigbee"
] | With the increase in popularity of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and their need to communicate wirelessly, there’s been a corresponding explosion of wireless protocols to chose from. Of course there’s Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but for more specialized applications there are some other options like Z-Wave, LoRa, Sigfox, and Thread. There’s a decent amount of overlap in their capabilities too, so when [SHS] was investigating some low-cost Xiaomi sensors it was discovered that
it is possible to convert them from their general purpose Bluetooth protocol over to the more IoT-specialized Zigbee protocol instead
.
These combination temperature and humidity sensors have already been explored by [Aaron Christophel] who found that
it’s possible to flash these devices with custom firmware
. With that background, converting them from Bluetooth to Zigbee is not a huge leap. All that’s needed is the Zigbee firmware from [Ivan Belokobylskiy] aka [devbis] and to follow the steps put together by [SHS] which include a process for flashing the firmware using an over-the-air update and another using UART if the wireless updates go awry. Then it’s just a short process to pair the new Zigbee device to the network and the sensor is back up and running.
Converting from one wireless protocol to another might not seem that necessary, but using Bluetooth as an IoT network often requires proxy nodes as support devices, whereas Zigbee can communicate directly from the sensor to a hub like Home Assistant. Other Zigbee devices themselves can also act as a mesh network of sorts without needing proxy nodes. The only downside of this upgrade is that once the Bluetooth firmware has been replaced, the devices no longer has any Bluetooth functionality.
Thanks to [RoganDawes] for the tip! | 19 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703389",
"author": "Travis",
"timestamp": "2023-11-30T00:05:42",
"content": "Remember when Wink promised one hub to rule them all? Curse you Sar….errrrr Will.i.am",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6703410",
"author": "Grawp",... | 1,760,372,090.158091 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/29/arbitrary-wave-generator-for-the-raspberry-pi-pico/ | Arbitrary Wave Generator For The Raspberry Pi Pico | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"function generator",
"Raspberry Pi Pico"
] | Once upon a time, if you wanted to generate some waveforms, you needed to buy an expensive off-the-shelf function generator or whip up a big pile of analog electronics. Not so today, when you can grab a fast microcontroller off the shelf and have it squirt out whatever fancy waves you might desire.
That’s just what [rgco] did to build this nifty arbitrary wave generator.
The build improves on prior work by [rgco] with the Arduino Uno, with which they built a device that could output at 381 kilosamples per second, with each sample update taking 42 instruction cycles. Thanks to the Pi Pico’s faster clock speed and certain performance optimizations, they were able to up that to a mighty 125 megasamples per second, using the DMA and PIO subsystems to output a new sample every single clock cycle.
The result is a cheap function generator you can build with a Pi Pico and a handful of resistors, which will probably cost you the grand total of $12. It readily outperforms, at least in regards of speed, devices based on the AD9833 function generator chip, which only runs at 25 megasamples. Plus, that chip can only output sines, triangles, and squares!
Even a passable function generator can be a useful tool to have in the workshop,
as we’ve seen before
. Video after the break. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703362",
"author": "Tadpole",
"timestamp": "2023-11-29T22:58:12",
"content": "Now THIS is a cool project. I would like to express my thanks to the author and of course the person who did all the leg work on this. Well done!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []... | 1,760,372,089.98823 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/29/monitoring-energy-use-and-saving-money/ | Monitoring Energy Use And Saving Money | Bryan Cockfield | [
"green hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"clock",
"electricity",
"energy",
"energy monitor",
"Kilowatt hour",
"smart grid",
"smart meter"
] | On the surface, the electric grid might seem like a solved piece of infrastructure. But there’s actually been a large amount of computerized modernization going in the background for the past decade or so. At a large scale this means automatic control of the grid, but for some electric utility customers like [Alex] this means the rates for electricity can change every hour based on demand. By keeping an eye on the current rate,
you can extract the most value from these utilities
.
[Alex] is located in the United Kingdom and has an energy provider whose rates can change every half hour. This information is freely available well enough in advance to download the data and display it visibly in with a NeoPixel LED ring around a clock. The colors displayed by the LEDs represent an increase or decrease in price for the corresponding time and allow him to better plan out the household’s energy use for the day. The clock uses a TinyPICO ESP32 module to gather the data and handle the clock display. A second wall-mounted device shows real-time energy readings for both gas and electricity using two old analog voltmeters modified to display kilowatt-hours.
While not everyone has a utility which allows this sort of granularity with energy pricing, having one can make a bit of a difference as electricity rates under this system can sometimes go negative. [Alex] estimates that using these two displays to coordinate his energy usage has saved around £50 a month. Even if your utility offers minimal or no price adjustments for time-of-use, it’s still a good idea to monitor energy use in your home.
Here’s a fairly comprehensive project that does that without modifying any existing wiring
. | 23 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703300",
"author": "rclark",
"timestamp": "2023-11-29T19:50:53",
"content": "Price for electricity here same night or day. The bill shows me how much I’ve used. Same with NG. Simple.Neat project for the use case though :) .",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies":... | 1,760,372,090.218221 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/29/scope-gui-made-easier/ | Scope GUI Made Easier | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Skills",
"Slider",
"Software Development"
] | [
"python",
"pyvisa",
"rigol",
"scpi",
"tkinter",
"visa"
] | Last time, I assembled a
Python object representing a Rigol oscilloscope
. Manipulating the object communicates with the scope over the network. But my original goal was to build a little GUI window to sit next to the scope’s web interface. Had I stuck with C++ or even C, I would probably have just defaulted to Qt or maybe FLTK. I’ve used WxWidgets, too, and other than how many “extra” things you want, these are all easy enough to use. However, I had written the code in Python, so I had to make a choice.
Granted, many of these toolkits have Python bindings — PyQt, PySide, and wxPython come to mind. However, the
defacto
GUI framework for Python is Tkinter, a wrapper around Tk that is relatively simple to use. So, I elected to go with that. I did consider
PySimpleGUI
, which is, as the name implies, simple. It is attractive because it wraps tkinter, Qt, WxPython, or Remi (another toolkit), so you don’t have to pick one immediately. However, I decided to stay conservative and stuck with Tkinter. PySimpleGUI does have
a very sophisticated GUI designer
, though.
About Tkinter
The Tkinter toolkit lets you create widgets (like buttons, for example) and give them a parent, such as a window or a frame. There is a top-level window that you’ll probably start with. Once you create a widget, you make it appear in the parent widget using one of three layout methods:
Absolute or relative coordinates in the container
“Pack” to the top, bottom, left, or right of the container
Row and column coordinates, treating the container like a grid
The main window is available from the Tk() method:
import tkinter as tk
root=tk.Tk()
root.title('Example Program')
button=tk.Button(root, text="Goodbye!", command=root.destroy)
button.pack(side='left')
root.mainloop()
That’s about the simplest example. Make a button and close the program when you push it. The
mainloop
call handles the event loop common in GUI programs.
Newer Widgets
Some tkinter widgets look old-fashioned, but newer variants can automatically replace the old ones. The new widgets are packaged as tkinter.ttk. These new widgets have slight differences, but most of the basic setup remains the same. The appearance functions are different, though. For example, a normal button uses
fg
and
bg
to set the foreground and background colors. A ttk button uses a style system that is more complex to set up, but also more powerful.
It is dead simple to use the new widgets. Normally, you’d import the whole GUI library with an import. You can import ttk from the tkinter module and then refer to the widgets explicitly (e.g.,
ttk.Button
). However, it is common to simply import everything from tkinter and then use tkinter.ttk to override anything that is in the ttk library. For example:
from tkinter import *
from tkinter.ttk import *
Now, every reference to
Button
, for example, will resolve to
ttk.Button
. There are
18 “new” widgets
, including some that don’t appear in the original tkinter, like
Combobox
and
Treeview
.
GUI Builder?
I started out looking for a good GUI builder for tkinter and I didn’t really find much. There’s a
website
that doesn’t seem to work well (and doesn’t handle ttk), a project that uses a paid GUI builder and then translates its output to tkinter, and
PAGE
.
PAGE is actually not bad but a little quirky. What I didn’t like was that it does the ordinary placement layout, which means a form you design might look bad on some machines due to font sizes or other factors. So a button might be placed at, say, 0.034 x 0.267 from the top corner of its container. In other words, 3.4% across and 26.7% down. However, if you spend some time with it, it does work and probably generates code that looks ok more than it fails to render nicely.
However, I finally decided just to build the GUI manually. It isn’t that hard. If you want a simple experience, check out PySimpleGUI I mentioned earlier. The layout there is a list of lists. Each list is a row in the GUI. That’s it. So:
[ [ Row_1_column_1, Row_1, column_2,...],[Row_2_column_1,....],...]
. That’s very simple to deal with. But doing it directly in tkinter is not bad, either.
Layout
I used a simple class to lay out my GUI and tried to keep it agnostic to the scope more or less. It creates a Scope object (from the last post) and manipulates it, but it doesn’t understand the commands or the communications. If you are a traditional GUI programmer, the scope object is the model and the GUI class is the view and the controller.
Most of the work occurs in the class constructor. There are three main parts:
Some internal state variables like
connected
and the
scope
object, which, initially is
None
.
The creation of GUI widgets. This doesn’t show anything; it simply creates the objects. This section also creates some ttk styles for use with the Run/Stop button.
The final section arranges the widgets in their parents.
You have to get used to the idea that you specify the parent widget in step 2, but you set the widget’s position in step 3. For example, consider this excerpt from the code:
self.clabel=LabelFrame(self.top,text='Control')
self.rsbtn=Button(self.clabel,text="Run/Stop",command=self.do_rs,style="GoBtn.TButton")
. . . # create more stuff
self.rsbtn.pack(side="left")
. . . # more buttons here
self.clabel.pack(side='top',fill='both',expand='yes')
Here’s what that part of the layout looks like on the screen.
The first line creates a labeled frame attached to the top window. Then, the code makes a button that is a child of the label. It has some text, a style, and a function to call when you push the button.
Placing the button is easy. Then, the label itself has to be packed into the main window. In this case, it goes to the top and will fill the available space. It will also expand if you resize the window.
In the main class, I only use the
pack
layout manager. However, I also use the
grid
manager in a custom component. A tiny bit of code at the end of the constructor captures the Enter key so you can type in an IP address and hit Enter instead of pressing the connect button. The code also sets the focus on the entry field. If you are a keyboard aficionado, the tab order, by default, is the order you create the widgets, although you can change that in the software.
If you are looking for a full tutorial on tkinter, plenty are around.
TutorialPoint
has one that is a fast read.
Custom Components
The direction pad is a custom tkinter component
For the scope controller, I needed some direction pads. That is, four arrow buttons going in different directions and a center button you can push. The tkinter library has nothing like that, but that’s not a problem. You can simply build it yourself. The tkinter widgets are just classes, and you can easily extend them to make your own variations and composite widgets.
First, I needed a small button, and out of laziness, I decided to create a custom component. I simply derived a new class from
Button
and set a default width of 1 in the constructor. Truthfully, I should have just hardcoded the width. If you are going to supply a width, why not just use a regular button? Anyway, here’s the entire code:
# Create a tiny button
from tkinter import *
from tkinter.ttk import *
class Button1(Button):
def __init__(self, parent,text='',command=None,width=1):
Button.__init__(self,parent,text=text,command=command,width=width)
As you can see, creating a custom widget doesn’t have to be a big deal. Normally a good base class for custom widgets is
Frame
. A frame can hold other widgets; by default, it is invisible. Just what you need. In this case, though, it made more sense to customize the
Button
class.
I did use
Frame
as the base class for the direction pad. I create some buttons that use a lambda — an anonymous, inline function — for their actions. This lets the code easily call a single callback for all the buttons. The default callback breaks everything back out to functions like
up
or
down
.
At first, that might seem crazy. Why not just assign the function directly to the key? The answer is reusability. There are several ways to use the custom component:
Set a non-default callback. This is a single function to process all keys.
Create a new subclass and replace the default callback. Again, this is a single function for all keys.
Create a new subclass and replace each of the low-level functions. This provides separate functions for each key.
The layout is simple, using the
grid
call to set a row and column:
def __init__(self,parent,callback=None):
Frame.__init__(self,parent)
self.callback=callback
self.upbtn=Button1(self,text="^",command=lambda: self.press(Dpad.UP))
self.dnbtn=Button1(self,text="V",command=lambda: self.press(Dpad.DOWN))
self.rtbtn=Button1(self,text=">",command=lambda: self.press(Dpad.RIGHT))
self.lfbtn=Button1(self,text="<",command=lambda: self.press(Dpad.LEFT))
self.exebtn=Button1(self,text="*",command=lambda: self.press(Dpad.EXEC))
self.upbtn.grid(row=0, column=1)
self.lfbtn.grid(row=1, column=0)
self.rtbtn.grid(row=1, column=2)
self.dnbtn.grid(row=2,column=1)
self.exebtn.grid(row=1,column=1)
Now, the main code can create two different direction pads without problems.
The Whole Enchilada
You can find the entire code on
GitHub
. Once you get past the GUI layout, most of the code just calls the object from the last time that actually talks to the scope.
There are two interesting things, though. Since the DHO900 doesn’t give you a way to emulate key presses, the program has to understand a bit about the state of the device. For example, pressing the Run/Stop button works differently if the scope is already running or already stopped. So, the program needs to know the current state to send the right command.
It is possible to query the scope at the time of the command, of course. However, I wanted the program to track the state periodically and update certain UI elements. For example, I wanted the Run/Stop button to show red or green based on what would happen if you pressed the button. The trigger type combo box, too, should reflect the current trigger state even if someone manually changes it.
Luckily, tkinter provides a way to add delay processing to the event loop using
after
. The code calls it against the top window with a delay in milliseconds. When the timeout expires, the
tick
function runs. To keep the timer function going,
tick
must also rearm itself by calling
after
again. Before that, though, the code queries the state of the scope and updates the UI along with some state variables in the UI object.
The program seems to work well and should be much easier to port to a different scope now. If you can’t tell, GUIs are generally not my thing, although I build them when I have to. For simple stuff, tkinter isn’t half bad.
Once you can control your scope and grab data from it, there are lots of
fun things
you can do. Things can quickly
get out of hand
— but in a good way. | 14 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703290",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2023-11-29T19:19:03",
"content": "Have you thought about writing it as an interface (library) between SCPI and a project like OpenHantek?I like to see collaboration between different project and extension of capabilities. But often people... | 1,760,372,089.946149 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/29/ct-scanner-reveals-the-difference-between-real-and-fake-airpods/ | CT Scanner Reveals The Difference Between Real And Fake AirPods | Lewin Day | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"Airpods",
"CT Scan"
] | These days, you have to be careful what you buy. Counterfeit hardware is everywhere, especially when you’re purchasing things sight unseen over the Internet. [Jon Bruner] recently set out to look at a bunch of fake AirPod clones,
and found that the similarities between the imposters and the real thing are only skin deep
. A CT scan reveals all.
As you might expect, Apple’s AirPods are a fine example of miniaturization. They’re packed to the gills with hardware, with very little wasted space inside. Flexible PCBs hook up the electronics in an elegant and tidy fashion. Three tiny MEMS microphones are on board to capture the user’s voice and filter out noise. The battery that runs the show is a hefty lithium-ion coin cell which fills almost all the empty space behind the audio driver.
By contrast, the fakes look positively weedy inside. They cut out the bonus microphones, using just one to do the job. Wires link up the different components, with unimpressive blobby soldering visible that has splattered around the internal enclosure. Even the cases are lower-tech, with a weaker battery and a poorer charging solution. Hilariously, cheaping out on the tech makes the fakes lighter, so they compensate by adding weights to create a sense of heft for the user.
It’s amazing how much is revealed by a CT scan, that doesn’t even require opening the devices to tear them down. Fake hardware really is a scourge that many in the tech industry find themselves
fighting against on a regular basis
. | 20 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703257",
"author": "Daniel",
"timestamp": "2023-11-29T17:28:43",
"content": "How much money can I save by buying a working AirPods clone?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6703273",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timesta... | 1,760,372,090.275583 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/29/ejector-seats-the-rocket-chairs-that-save-lives/ | Ejector Seats: The Rocket Chairs That Save Lives | Lewin Day | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Slider"
] | [
"aircraft",
"ejector seat",
"safety"
] | Once upon a time, escaping an aircraft was a tricky business. You had to unstrap yourself, fling open a heavy glass canopy, and try to wrench yourself out of a small opening without getting smacked by the tail or chopped up by the propeller. Many pilots failed this difficult task, to the tragic loss of their lives.
Eventually, the human cost was heavy enough and militaries grew strained at having to train new pilots to replace the experienced ones lost to accidents and enemy fire. The ejection seat was developed to make escaping a plane as simple as tucking yourself in and pulling a big red handle. Let’s dive in and learn how it came to be.
EJECT! EJECT!
Inventor Anastase Dragomir pioneered an escape capsule design in the late 1920s, securing French patent #678,566. The idea would be revisited decades later after more conventional ejector seats were developed in the World War II period. Credit: French patent #678,566
Ejector seats are a marvel of engineering that turned the tide for pilot safety in the mid-20th century. They’re just another arm of the relentless pursuit of innovation in aviation. They emerged from the necessity to provide a quick and reliable escape mechanism for expensive, highly-trained pilots. They quickly became an invaluable asset to air forces across the world, particularly with the development of ever faster military aircraft. Before ejector seats, pilots had to manually bail out of their aircraft, a risky and often fatal endeavor complicated by high speeds or low altitudes. The advent of the ejector seat was a groundbreaking development, offering a glimmer of hope in the otherwise perilous domain of aerial combat.
Dragomir’s early efforts were celebrated by Romania on a stamp in 2011. The inventor is pictured next to a modern Martin-Baker ejector seat. Credit: Post of Romania,
Public Domain
The earliest attempts at creating an ejector seat were as rudimentary as they were daring. Early ideas began to spawn shortly after the development of the aircraft; one such idea from inventor Everard Calthrop in 1916 involved using compressed air to eject a parachute that would then pull the pilot from the airplane. A concept more akin to the modern idea of an ejection seat was later pioneered by Romanian Anastase Dragomir towards the end of the 1920s. He was able to test his idea of a “catapulted cabin” in Paris in 1929, securing patents along the way for his idea.
World War II would become the real impetus for the development of the ejector seat, however. At the time, pilots and crews of military aircraft were limited to desperately clambering out of a faltering, damaged airplane, ideally quickly enough that they could pull the chute with enough altitude left to slow down before hitting the ground. Aircraft designers at Heinkel and Saab independently recognized the dire need for a safe escape mechanism, and began to develop primitive ejector seats. These early models were far from the sophisticated systems we know today, but they laid the foundation for a technology that would evolve dramatically over the ensuing decades. The concept of an ejector seat, however, was not just a product of wartime necessity. It was also a reflection of the rapid advancements in aircraft speed and altitude, which made traditional methods of escape increasingly impractical and dangerous.
The anatomy of a modern Martin-Baker ejection seat.
The core principle of an ejector seat is relatively straightforward: to propel the pilot out of the aircraft to a safe distance, where they can deploy a parachute and descend to the ground. The mechanism behind this life-saving device is a blend of precise engineering and controlled explosive power. At its heart lies a compressed air system, rocket, or an explosive charge, which, when activated, rapidly generates enough force to eject the seat and its occupant from the aircraft. This process must be meticulously timed and executed, as even a split-second delay can mean the difference between life and death. Indeed, it’s not just about the seat itself, either. The ejector seat is necessarily paired with other explosive devices that eject the canopy or other parts of the aircraft out of the way prior to launching the pilot to safety.
The whole process must take place with perfect timing, and it all happens in mere seconds. The canopy is blown off first, before the pilot is launched clear by the pyrotechnics. What happens next depends on the situation. If the ejection was at particularly high altitude, the seat falls for some time before deploying the full parachute to reach a safer altitude where the air is thicker. Alternatively, if the ejection was at low altitude, the parachute is opened shortly after leaving the aircaft.
Captain Christopher Stricklin ejected from an F-16 on September 14, 2003. Note the rocket blast from the ejection seat firing, and the canopy, which was blown well clear of the aircraft beforehand.
Credit: Public domain
The earliest models of ejection seat that saw real use were fitted to some of the more obscure German planes used in the war. The first ejection from a damaged aircraft was by Helmut Schenk, a test pilot flying the Heinkel He 280. During a test flight in early 1942, Schenk found his controls iced up and unresponsive, and chose to abandon the aircraft using the rudimentary ejection seat powered by compressed air. Later models from Heinkel used a seat that used wheels that ran on two pipes like rails in the back of the cockpit. The seat also featured caps that sealed over the ends of those pipes. Explosive charges placed into those pipes could be fired to eject the seat, as the gases produced blew the caps off, forcing the seat upwards and carrying the pilot, ideally, to safety.
Explosive charges remained a common method of designing ejection seats, but the technology ran into a hitch as aircraft flew ever faster. Faster planes needed ejection seats that could more quickly clear the pilot from the plane. The problem was that the shock loading of a rapid explosive release of gas was hard on a pilot’s spine, and increasing this further wasn’t possible without causing excessive injury. Rocket propelled seats would eventually become the norm, providing a smoother, more continuous acceleration to the seat, and thus, the pilot. The first was fitted to the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger in 1958.
Better and Better
In its evolution, the ejector seat has seen numerous innovations. Early models were limited to a certain
performance envelope
in which they were effective. Pilots were educated on the minimum altitude and maximum speed limits at which their ejector seat would be effective. Eventually, seats improved, with one of the key developments being the introduction of a zero-zero capability. This means the seat can be used effectively even when the aircraft is stationary and at sea level. More modern developments have seen the integration of advanced sensors and automated systems further enhanced the reliability and safety of ejector seats. These systems are capable of detecting the aircraft’s condition and automatically initiating the ejection sequence if the pilot is incapacitated or unable to do so.
Modern ejector seats are also designed with human ergonomics in mind. They must accommodate a wide range of pilot sizes and weights, ensuring that the ejection process is as safe as possible for all occupants. This consideration extends to the forces exerted on the pilot during ejection, which can be immense. Manufacturers have continuously refined their designs to minimize the risk of injury from the ejection process itself. It bears noting that an ejection is still often a highly dangerous and intense event for a pilot. Modern Western ejection seats subject the pilot to forces on the order of 12-14 G. Earlier Soviet designs have been stated to be even more aggressive, often from 20-22 G. Injuries to the spine are common, and it’s not unheard of for pilots to suffer dislocations or broken bones in the tumult of an ejection from a stricken aircraft.
Ejector seats are often tested on rocket sleds to verify their performance at high speeds. Credit:
public domain
Another critical component in an ejection seat is the personal survival pack, designed to keep the pilot alive in for the immediate future. This includes a basic gear like a radio, first aid supplies, water and food rations, and usually a life raft in case the plane goes down over water. In the Western world, the most famous ejection seat manufacturer is Martin-Baker, which maintains an exclusive club of pilots who have had to rely on their products in an emergency situation.
The Ejection Tie Club,
as it is known, is full of members who can speak of the challenge of clambering into a life raft after having pulled the ejection handles and fallen out of the sky in dramatic fashion.
An ejection seat is, today, considered a vital life saving device in many military aircraft. At times, the technology has even become an ethical and political sore point. Britain faced a crisis in the Royal Air Force in the 1950s and 1960s when
V-bomber pilots had access to ejection seats
, while their support crews had to bail out by hand. Fatal accidents put a black mark on the aircraft, and air crews would share dark jokes about expecting the pilots to go down with the rest of the crew if the worst were to occur. The case of the V-Bombers highlighted just how much ejector seats had changed military aviation. Pilots had grown to expect a high-tech escape system to evacuate their aircraft in a crisis. Other crew members on larger aircraft like bombers often weren’t so lucky. It lead to the development of large escape capsules for some aircraft like the General Dynamics F-111, or provision for multiple ejection seats for crew in planes like the Rockwell B1.
In the end, the story of the ejector seat is one of continual improvement and adaptation. From its crude beginnings in World War II to the high-tech marvels found in today’s advanced fighter jets, ejector seats represent a fascinating intersection of necessity, innovation, and technology. They not only save lives but also embody the relentless human spirit to push the boundaries of what’s possible in aviation safety. As aircraft continue to evolve, so too will the ejector seats, ensuring that pilots have the best possible chance of survival in the most extreme circumstances. | 36 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703217",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2023-11-29T15:44:17",
"content": "Worthwhile readinghttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Eject-John-Nichol/dp/139850940X/ref=asc_df_139850940X/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=641694124023&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15259699534667874662&hvpone=&hvptwo... | 1,760,372,090.66539 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/29/iowa-demolishes-its-first-3d-printed-house/ | Iowa Demolishes Its First 3D Printed House | Kristina Panos | [
"home hacks",
"News"
] | [
"3d printed house",
"3d printing"
] | It sounds like a headline from the future: the weekend before Thanksgiving,
a bulldozer came for the first example of a printed home
that was supposed to help the housing crisis in the city of Muscatine. Fortunately, it hadn’t been completed and sold yet.
Printing of this first house began in May 2023, and nine more were to be completed by the end of the year. Unfortunately, when tested for compressive strength, the cement mixture this first home was printed out of failed to meet the 5,000 PSI minimum required for the project. Rather than compromise on safety, the parties involved decided to knock it down and start over.
The goal now is to find out why the mixture, which met the strength requirements in laboratory testing, didn’t behave the same on-site. Currently, the plan is to start building the originally-planned second house in the spring, and begin construction on this first site after that.
The project is a collaborative effort between the Community Federation of Greater Muscatine (CFGM), Muscatine Community College, and Alquist 3D. Want to know more about the state of 3D printing when it comes to housing?
Check out our handy guide
.
Editors Note:
The initial post initially indicated that the failed cement mixture contained hemp, but that has since found to be incorrect and the post has been edited accordingly. | 130 | 28 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703156",
"author": "Zoe Nagy",
"timestamp": "2023-11-29T12:03:14",
"content": "not cheaper than wood, nor brick, nor it’s insulated.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6703159",
"author": "Andy Pugh",
"timestamp"... | 1,760,372,090.540777 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/29/resurrecting-a-bricked-wii-u-with-a-raspberry-pi-pico/ | Resurrecting A Bricked Wii U With A Raspberry Pi Pico | Lewin Day | [
"Nintendo Hacks",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"nintendo",
"Wii U"
] | There are reports that some Nintendo Wii U systems out in the wild are falling victim to mysterious failures. As is so often the case, certain error codes have been found in common across failed units out in the community, and
[Voultar] decided to investigate
to see if he could fix this problem with a little hacking.
[Voultar] wasn’t able to source a Wii U with the much-discussed
NAND failure mode
, but he was able to source a number of supposedly bricked Wii U systems displaying the error codes 160-0101 and 160-0103. The hack is achieved with an exploit in the Wii U’s USB Host Stack descriptor parsing module, developed by [GaryOderNichts]. It allows the injection of a payload that lets one run unsigned code on the Wii U, achieved via a Raspberry Pi Pico. The Pico is ultimately used to boot off an SD card running a recovery program for the Wii U. By resetting the Wii U’s “coldboot title ID”, it solves the error and gets the console booting properly, as per normal.
[Voultar] was able to fix five consoles displaying the common error messages, which we’d call a win. It’s not going to be a fix for every failed Wii U out there, but if you’ve got the dreaded 160-0101 or -0103 errors, it might be worth a shot. | 7 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703160",
"author": "70sJukebox",
"timestamp": "2023-11-29T12:27:19",
"content": "I subscribe to Voultars channel, he has some really good soldering tips and techniques",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6703357",
"author... | 1,760,372,090.582568 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/28/noise-cancelling-isnt-as-easy-as-youd-think/ | Noise Cancelling Isn’t As Easy As You’d Think | Jenny List | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"headphone",
"microphone",
"noise canceling"
] | On the face of it, producing a set of noise cancelling headphones should be a relatively straightforward project. But as [Pete Lewis] found out,
things are not always as they seem
. The result is a deep dive into microphone specifications, through which most of us could probably learn something.
Noise cancelling headphones have a set of microphones which provide anti-phase noise through an amplifier to the ‘phones, thus in theory cancelling out the external noise. Since [Pete] is a musician this pair would have to be capable of operating at high noise levels, so he checked the spec for his microphone and with an acoustic overload point at 124 dB for a 115 environment he was ready to go.
Unfortunately these ‘phones showed distortion, which brings us back to the acoustic overload point. This is the sound level at which the microphone has 10% distortion, which is a very high figure, and certainly meant there was enough distortion to be audible at the lower level. After a search for
a higher spec microphone
and a move to a digital codec-based solution with an ESP32 he eventually cracks it though, leading to an inexpensive set of noise cancelling headphones for high-noise environments.
If distortion interests you,
it’s a subject we’ve visited in the past
.
Header image:
fir0002
, GFDL 1.2. | 14 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703066",
"author": "TechnoSwiss",
"timestamp": "2023-11-29T06:43:02",
"content": "Scratching head… I don’t see anything in this article about doing noise canceling with anti-phase, it looks like he’s using standard noise isolation headphones (ear muffs) and passing through external... | 1,760,372,090.717249 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/28/bbc-basic-is-back-in-a-big-way/ | BBC Basic Is Back In A Big Way | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"bbc",
"bbc basic",
"BBC Micro"
] | The BBC has a long history of teaching the world about computers. The broadcaster’s name was proudly displayed on the BBC Micro, and BBC Basic was the programming language developed especially for that computer. Now,
BBC Basic is back and running on a whole mess of modern platforms.
BBC Basic for SDL 2.0 will run on Windows, MacOS, x86 Linux, and even Raspberry Pi OS, Android, and iOS. Desktop versions of the programming environment feature a BASIC editor that has syntax coloring for ease of use, along with luxury features like search and replace that weren’t always available at the dawn of the microcomputer era. Meanwhile, the smartphone versions feature a simplified interface designed to work better in a touchscreen environment.
It’s weird to see, but BBC Basic can actually do some interesting stuff given the power of modern hardware. It can address up to 256 MB of memory, and work with far more advanced graphical assets than would ever have been possible on the original BBC Micro. If you honed your programming skills on that old metal, you might be impressed with what they can achieve with BBC Basic in a new, more powerful context.
If you’re passionate about the BBC and its history with computers,
we’ve talked plenty about the BBC Micro in the past, too.
[Thanks to Stephen Walters for the tip!] | 77 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703023",
"author": "Adam",
"timestamp": "2023-11-29T03:52:20",
"content": "A long time ago, I found a guy on the net who said he wrote one of the 1st, if not the 1st game of Go program. It was in BBC Basic, and he only had a print-out that he had scanned. So I downloaded it, and ty... | 1,760,372,090.992872 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/28/g-code-goes-binary-with-proposed-new-format/ | G-code Goes Binary With Proposed New Format | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3D Printering",
"3d printing",
"binary",
"compression",
"encoding",
"g-code",
"PrusaSlicer"
] | G-code is effective, easily edited, and nearly ubiquitous when it comes to anything CNC. The format has many strengths, but space efficiency isn’t one of them. In fact, when it comes to 3D printing in particular file sizes can get awfully large. Partly to address this, Prusa have proposed a new
.bgcode
binary G-code format. You can read
the specification of the new (and optional) format here
.
The newest version of
PrusaSlicer
has support for .bgcode, and a utility to convert ASCII G-code to binary (and back) is in the File menu. Want to code an interface of your own? The
libbgcode repository
provides everything needed to flip .gcode to .bgcode (with a huge file size savings in the process) and vice versa in a way that preserves all aspects of the data. Need to hand-edit a binary G-code file? Convert it to ASCII G-code, make your changes, then flip it right back.
Prusa are not the only ones to notice that the space inefficiency of the G-code file format is not ideal in all situations.
Heatshrink
and
MeatPack
are two other solutions in this space with their own strong points. Handily, the command-line tool in libgcode can optionally apply Heatshrink compression or MeatPack encoding in the conversion process.
In a way, G-code is the assembly language of 3D printers. G-code files are normally created when slicing software processes a 3D model, but there are some interesting tricks to be done
when G-code is created directly
. | 66 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702965",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2023-11-29T00:22:24",
"content": "No thanks. Why not just compress it on the fly using current techniques?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6702976",
"author": "Sazo",
... | 1,760,372,090.822295 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/28/capacitive-rainmeter-measures-the-sky-water-just-fine/ | Capacitive Rainmeter Measures The Sky Water Just Fine | Lewin Day | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"capacitive sensor",
"ESP32",
"Rain sensor",
"sensor"
] | If you’ve got a smart home, or you just want to know how soaked your garden is getting in the winter, you might want to measure rainfall. There are a bunch of ways to go about it, and this capacitive rainmeter solution from
[Magnus Thome] might just be the perfect solution you’re looking for.
Like many who came before, [Magnus] had experimented with traditional resistive-based sensors using copper traces to measure water levels. As the soil moisture measuring set learned as well, corrosion tends to promise a pretty short life for these designs. Capacitive sensors, on the other hand, can be isolated from the water itself, and thus sense the levels without being subject to such degradation.
[Magnus] pairs the
off-the-shelf capacitive sensor
with an ESP32 charged with reading it and reporting back to Home Assistant. It’s also outfitted with a heater to keep it at a constant temperature to avoid it freezing over during those cold and snowy Swedish winters.
It’s a tidy way to integrate a quality commercial sensor with a DIY smart home setup. If you’ve been whipping up your own neat sensor networks for your smart home, don’t hesitate to
let us know.
Video after the break. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6703111",
"author": "Ewald",
"timestamp": "2023-11-29T08:53:18",
"content": "Interesting way to measure rain intensity, but having the sensor heared to 45 degrees 24×7 seems like an energy inefficient way to get this info.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,091.157265 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/28/led-ring-brings-the-bling/ | LED Ring Brings The Bling | Kristina Panos | [
"LED Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"coin cell",
"leds",
"ring",
"SMD LED"
] | We’ve seen our share of light-up jewelry over the years, but for some reason — probably power — it’s almost always earrings or necklaces. So when we saw
[ROBO HUB]’s LED ring
, we had to check it out. It involves a bit of behind-the-scenes action in the form of a battery holder that you palm, but the end effect is quite cool.
Essentially, this is a 3D printed ring with SMD LEDs painstakingly soldered together in parallel along a pair of thin copper wires. The ring itself is in two parts: a base, and a cover to diffuse and protect the LEDs. A pair of wires run out from the ring and connect to a printed coin cell holder.
One thing we like about this build is the way that [ROBO HUB] handled the soldering of those tiny LEDs — by binder-clipping the ends of the wires to a piece of protoboard at just the right distance apart. Be sure to check out the build video after the break.
So, is there a way to do this without having to palm a coin cell?
Yes, and it involves a tiny capacitor and an inductive charging bracelet
. | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702912",
"author": "Walrus",
"timestamp": "2023-11-28T20:56:43",
"content": "Why wouldn’t you just put the LED on a cheap flex PCB from china, this is so bulky it looks like you’ll have dents in the adjacent fingers after a few minutes",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"... | 1,760,372,090.875596 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/28/a-flasher-mac-25-years-later/ | A Flasher Mac, 25 Years Later | Jenny List | [
"Mac Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"apple",
"Apple mac",
"rom"
] | Apple Macintosh computers of the 1990s came with a system ROM containing an Open Firmware implementation and the Mac Toolbox required to start the operating system. In many cases this was on a SIMM-like daughter board, and it would have been a true ROM that was unable to be reprogrammed. This is not the end of the story though, and [Doug Brown] set out on the trail of
a Flash-based ROM module allowing the firmware on these machines to be updated
.
The trail was warm thanks to an Apple developer utility found on a secondhand Mac prototype, allowing ROM flashing. A little disassembly allowed a list of valid IDs to be made, and this info coupled with a bit of reverse engineering from online photos of a real Apple Flash ROM from the ’90s allowed a new board to be created with four Am28F020 chips. He can now flash at will, with such oddities as running ROMs from different machines with the “wrong” startup chime. It’s an interesting little piece of 1990s Mac trivia, settled.
This isn’t the first time we’ve peered at Apple ROMs, indeed
some of the older ones had plenty of Easter eggs hidden within
. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702817",
"author": "craig",
"timestamp": "2023-11-28T16:43:38",
"content": "A lot of this is well out of my depth but boy this is crystal clear writing. Seriously this is an example of really good technical writing. Punchy and concise topic sentence, clear and logical narrative.",... | 1,760,372,091.197665 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/27/easily-bypass-laptop-fingerprint-sensors-and-windows-hello/ | Easily Bypass Laptop Fingerprint Sensors And Windows Hello | Maya Posch | [
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"biometrics",
"fingerprint security",
"fingerprint sensor"
] | The fun part of security audits is that everybody knows that they’re a good thing, and also that they’re rarely performed prior to another range of products being shoved into the market. This would definitely seem to be the case with fingerprint sensors as found on a range of laptops that are advertised as being compatible with Windows Hello. It all began when Microsoft’s Offensive Research and Security Engineering (MORSE) asked the friendly people over at Blackwing Intelligence to take a poke at a few of these laptops, only for them to subsequently
blow gaping holes in the security
of the three laptops they examined.
In the article by [Jesse D’Aguanno] and [Timo Teräs] the basic system and steps they took to defeat it are described. The primary components are the fingerprint sensor and Microsoft’s Secure Device Connection Protocol (
SDCP
), with the latter tasked with securing the (USB) connection between the sensor and the host. Theoretically the sensitive fingerprint-related data stays on the sensor with all matching performed there (Match on Chip, MoC) as required by the Windows Hello standard, and SDCP keeping prying eyes at bay.
Interestingly, the three laptops examined (Dell Inspiron 15, Lenovo ThinkPad T14 and Microsoft Surface Pro X) all featured different sensor brands (Goodix, Synaptics and ELAN), with different security implementations. The first used an MoC with SDCP, but security was much weaker under Linux, which allowed for a fake user to be enrolled. The Synaptics implementation used a secure TLS connection that used part of the information on the laptop’s model sticker as the key, and the ELAN version didn’t even bother with security but responded merrily to basic USB queries.
To say that this is a humiliating result for these companies is an understatement, and demonstrates that nobody in his right mind should use fingerprint- or similar scanners like this for access to personal or business information. | 30 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702509",
"author": "CityZen",
"timestamp": "2023-11-27T20:21:27",
"content": "What happened to Hackaday Links this week? Taking a week off?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6702580",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly ... | 1,760,372,091.316973 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/27/car-t-cell-immunotherapy-and-the-quiet-hope-for-a-universal-cancer-treatment/ | CAR T Cell Immunotherapy And The Quiet Hope For A Universal Cancer Treatment | Maya Posch | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"cancer",
"CAR t-cell therapy",
"immunotherapy",
"t-cell"
] | All of us have to deal with the looming threat of developing cancer during our lifetime, no matter how good our genetics are, or how healthy our lifestyle is. Despite major improvements to the way that we treat and even cure cases of cancer, the reality today is that not all types of cancer are treatable, in many cases there’s the likelihood that one day it will return even after full remission, and chemotherapy in particular comes with potential life-long health issues. Of the most promising new and upcoming treatments, immunotherapy, is decidedly among the most interesting.
With this approach, it is the body’s own immune system that is taught to attack those cancer cells, requiring little more than a few tweaks to T-cells harvested from the patient’s body, after which they’re sent on their merry cancer-killing way. Yet as simple as this sounds, finding the right characteristics which identify the cancerous cells, and getting a solid and long-lasting immune response is a tough challenge. Despite highly promising results with immunotherapy treatment for non-solid cancers like leukemia – that have resulted in almost miraculous cures – translating this success to other cancer types has so far remained elusive.
New research now shows that
changing some characteristics
of these modified (chimeric antigen receptors, or CAR) T-cells may be key to making them significantly more long-lived and effective within a patient’s body. Is this the key to making immunotherapy possible for many more cancers?
No Two Alike
Important to note about
cancer
is that it is not the name for a singular disease, but rather the collective name for a wide range of diseases, all of which involve abnormal growth with the potential to invade or spread (metastasize) to other parts of the body. This contrasts such growths with
benign tumors
, which are still potentially problematic if they end up exerting pressure on blood vessels, nerves or organs, but which are sufficiently differentiated from the surrounding tissue that they can be surgically removed if necessary. Some of these benign tumors can later become malignant, which is why even very common tumors like a
melanocytic nevus
(‘mole’) ought to be paid attention to in case of any changes.
Results from the Global Burden of Disease 2019 Cancer Risk Factors
report
.
In the case of a malignant tumor we thus call it collectively ‘cancer’, which can affect one or more organs and/or tissue types within the body. There are many reasons for why a cell can become cancerous, ranging from exposure to carcinogens, as found in cigarette smoke and other forms of pollution or in
certain diets
, all the way to genetics (e.g. BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations for breast cancer) and a viral infection as well as hormones and ionizing radiation exposure. Some types of cancers are caused by exposure to minuscule inert physical elements, like
asbestos
.
With so many ways that a cancerous growth can start, it is perhaps more interesting why we aren’t developing fresh malignant tumors every single month. There are a number of answers to this, involving both built-in mechanisms in the body’s cells that detect when something isn’t right, at which point
apoptosis
(programmed cell death) will be triggered. Apoptosis can also be triggered externally using receptors on the cell membrane to which a cytotoxic T cell connects. Using these intrinsic and extrinsic apoptosis pathways cells generally either terminate themselves, or are identified as malignant by the body’s immune system and induced to terminate.
So why is it that some malignant tumors manage to develop regardless of these mechanisms?
T Cell Exhaustion
As effective as the body’s adaptive immune system is, it has a few weaknesses. One of these is a phenomenon called ‘exhaustion’, whereby
chronic antigen exposure
causes T cells to lose their effector function and transition first into a ‘precursors of exhausted’ (T
PEX
) form before the terminal differentiation into ‘exhausted’ (T
EX
) form. These T
PEX
cells can then neither fight against the infection or tumor (as T effector, or T
EFF
), nor become a T effector memory cell (T
EM
) later on, nor produce more T cells. As rapidly growing malignant tumors are likely to flood the body with antigens, such exhaustion is quite likely to occur.
Although T
EFF
cells are replenished by core memory cells (T
CM
) and even less differentiated stem memory cells (T
SCM
), this is not sufficient to counteract the cancerous cells. This explains both why sometimes a malignant tumor can progress essentially unimpeded and why T cell-based immunotherapies have had little luck treating solid cancers as there simply aren’t enough active T
EFF
cells present.
This raises the questions of why T cell exhaustion exists, and whether disabling this mechanism in select T cells might offer a solution.
Epigenetic Expressions
Transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of T cell stemness and exhaustion. (
Gonzalez et al., 2021
)
The mechanism that changes T
EFF
cells is that of
epigenetics
, specifically through the methylation of the cell’s DNA, not unlike the methylation-induced aging of the body’s cells as a whole, a factor which has been shown to also play an important role in tumorigenesis. As suggested by
Enyong Dai and colleagues
in
Molecular Cancer
, preventative therapies against cancer could involve epigenetic drugs which would address such underlying epigenetic changes in addition to directly treating existing malignant tumors.
Epigenetics is an essential element of cellular functioning, which includes DNA methylation and structural elements like
chromatin
and its
histones
, by regulating genetic expression. It also enables generation-level evolutionary changes since aspects like methylation are hereditary. Here DNA methylation is also the most relevant in how it directly affects the individual, especially as it pertains to T
EFF
cells.
As detailed by Xuechen Yin and colleagues in a
2023 review article
in
Immunology
, T
EX
cells are characterized by overexpression of inhibitory receptors (such as
programmed death-1
, or PD-1), with T
PEX
cells able to be revived through blocking these receptors. In addition, CRISPR-Cas9 was used to create PD-1 knockout CAR T cells, which demonstrated significantly better performance against solid tumors. Here a potential target has
been longer known
, in the form of methylation of histone 3 lysine 9 (H3K9) and its effect on modulating immune cell differentiation and immune response. This epigenetic mark is thus highly influential in the outcome of events where the immune system is involved.
The role of histone methylation in immunotherapy targeting tumors was discussed in detail by
Yuanling Zhang and colleagues
in a January 2023 review article in
Frontiers in Immunology
, providing an overview of the different pathways within both T cells and malignant tumor cells that affect immunotherapy. One of these mentioned is the gene
SUV39H1
, which affects the methylation of H3K9me3 and suppresses the killing and memory functions of T
EFF
cells.
Perhaps unsurprisingly,
it is this exact SUV39H1 gene
that Nayan Jain and colleagues in this newest research as mentioned earlier have targeted when they used CRISPR-Cas9 to create SUV39H1 knockout CAR T cells. In trials these knockout CAR T cells were repeatedly challenged with antigens, but did not show the usual signs of turning from T
EFF
cells into T
PEX
or T
EX
cells. Effectively this would appear to have removed at least the most effective pathways by which T cells can become exhausted, and trials on mice have shown encouraging results.
A Long But Promising Road
Although immunotherapy is an
approved therapy
for a number of forms of cancer like leukemia, the T cell exhaustion issue has so far been one of the main obstacles in its wider use. With clinical trials of SUV39H1 knockout CAR T cells being a distinct possibility at this point, it could be only a matter of years until we begin to see the effects of this particular approach with CAR T immunotherapy.
Perhaps it’s not so surprising that with sci-fi literature and movies often referencing ‘medical nanobots’ that we would end up at this point where we would do our best to reverse engineer the nano machines that already exist within our own bodies. Courtesy of a rapidly growing body of medical literature and advanced gene-editing tools at our behest we can today dream of cures and therapies that would have seemed like the purest sci-fi only a few decades ago.
With how terrible cancer is, and how many lives it claims every single day, it almost seems wrong to imagine a world in which every type of cancer is not only treatable, but also curable through routine immunotherapy. Yet this might be the future on which cusp we now find ourselves. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6704148",
"author": "Patrick",
"timestamp": "2023-12-01T23:54:59",
"content": "Absolutely fascinating info. I’d read about this treatment a few years ago but didn’t grasp some of the finer points like the different T-cell states. This seems like such a promising line of inquiry that... | 1,760,372,091.24532 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/27/could-north-koreas-new-satellite-have-spied-on-guam-so-easily/ | Could North Korea’s New Satellite Have Spied On Guam So Easily? | Jenny List | [
"Space"
] | [
"Malligyong-1",
"North Korea",
"spy satellite"
] | Earlier this week, another nation joined the still relatively exclusive club of those which possess a satellite launch capability. North Korea launched their Malligyong-1 spy satellite, and though it has naturally inflamed the complex web of political and military tensions surrounding the Korean peninsula, it still represents something of a technical achievement for the isolated Communist state. The official North Korean news coverage gleefully reported with much Cold War style rhetoric, that Kim Jong-Un had visited the launch control centre the next day and viewed intelligence photographs of an American base in Guam. Could the satellite have delivered in such a short time?
[SatTrackCam Leiden] has an interesting analysis
.
The DPRK official news pictures include a view of the control centre itself, reminiscent of the similar facilities we’re used to from the days of the Space Race. On its giant screen is a barely visible satellite track, and matched with the time displayed on the centre clock it was possible to closely match this to the known orbit of the craft. So indeed, it had just passed within range of Guam when the photo was taken, and had it been equipped with suitable cameras it’s possible that it could have returned pictures.
At this point we enter a murky world of propaganda in which nothing is ever as it seems. Spacecraft rarely pop into being spontaneously, the process of bringing one up is by necessity slow, even when a dictator is breathing down your neck. So it’s unlikely that Mr. Kim was reading the Guam base commander’s morning newspaper headline, instead at best he might have seen a low resolution picture or perhaps even nothing of substance as yet. The mere fact of having a satellite is enough to rattle his sabre, so of course the North Korean propaganda machine will make hay with it.
Should anyone be worried? Those of us old enough to remember the Cold War will remember the endless game of brinkmanship, and to us this feels very familiar. The sun will still rise tomorrow, and spy satellites from many nations will continue to try to read our newspapers. We’re guessing that there will be more launched from North Korea, and we can’t help remembering that
not all countries who developed a space launcher managed to launch more than one craft
. | 29 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702444",
"author": "Dave",
"timestamp": "2023-11-27T17:21:03",
"content": "Good analysis. The speed of the press releases is certainly suspect, but the DPRK has the intelligence to craft the “proof” as needed. Previous failure to obtain orbit was merely announced as success.",
... | 1,760,372,091.377341 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/27/how-do-you-prove-an-ai-didnt-make-your-art/ | How Do You Prove An AI Didn’t Make Your Art? | Lewin Day | [
"Art",
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Slider"
] | [
"ai",
"ai image generator",
"art",
"DALL-E",
"digital art",
"image generator"
] | In the world of digital art, distinguishing between AI-generated and human-made creations has become a significant challenge. Almost overnight, tool sets for generating AI artworks became commonly available to the public, and suddenly, every digital art competition had to contend with potential submissions. Some have welcomed AI, while others demand competitors create artworks by their own hand and no other.
The problem facing artists and judges alike is just how to determine whether an artwork was created by a human or an AI. So what can be done?
Put It To The Test
Dodgy text is a sure-fire way to detect an AI image, but generators are getting better at avoiding these mistakes all the time. This by DALL-E.
First of all, it’s crucial to understand what AI art generators can and cannot do. These algorithms, often trained on vast datasets of human-made art, excel in pattern recognition and replication. However, they typically struggle with conceptual depth and the nuanced, often irregular, elements that human creativity can produce. They’re great at mashing up weird combinations, like creating a cartoon picture of cats surfing off the coast of Neo-Hawaii, for example.
They’re less good at refining a singular style and many AI image generators also often suffer with nuance and detail. For example, they may generate humans with too many teeth, or weird hands, or generate cars with door shut lines that make no sense or tail lights beyond human comprehension. Regardless, these image generators are still capable, and the best can create images that are very difficult to catch out as non-human in origin.
Herein lies the problem. Just looking at an artwork may not be enough to determine whether it was created by a human or an AI. There may be clues of course, but they could also be misleading. For example, was this drawing of a construction worker created by an AI, because of the weird hands, or was that a stylistic choice by the artist? It can be impossible to say with certainty one way or the other.
Ultimately, documentation of creation may be key for artists to prove they really created their own works. AI image generators tend to spit out a finished image without taking any intermediary steps. By contrast, a human drawing an artwork on a tablet, for example, will have made thousands upon thousands of strokes, created layers, applied effects, and so on. By capturing the creative process, or even just capturing snapshots of the art in progress, is the perfect way to prove a piece was created by a human.
Genuine pixel art by a human artist, or AI creation? If the latter, at least the AI knows how to hold a soldering iron – which is more than we can say for some stock photo directors.
Of course, even this is an imperfect science. AIs aren’t just limited to producing still art anymore, for example. It’s plausible that an AI could be created to generate images that appear as progress shots of a final artwork; it could even generate a fake screen-captured video. Even if this would be difficult today, it’s well within the realms of possibility given what we’ve already seen AI tools to be capable of. That might push artists into recording themselves sitting down as they create their art from start to finish just to have proof that their work is their own.
This is all well and good for digital drawing or painting disciplines, but it can fall apart beyond that. Let’s say you’re a photographer. How do you prove that an image you submit is your own? Footage of you holding a camera and pressing the shutter doesn’t really go a long way in that regard. For matters like these, more advanced techniques may be required. Tools could theoretically be developed to look for telltale signatures at the pixel level that reveal a particular AI image generator was used, but by that point, you’re getting way off into the weeds. Suddenly a black box is in charge of determining whose images are legitimate, and whose aren’t, and there’s always the potential for false positives or false negatives to ruin somebody’s day.
Case Study
[Mizkai] provided a series of pieces of evidence to prove the authenticity of her creation, including Photoshop files and line drawings. Credit: Mizkai
For digital artist [Mizkai], this problem has already become very real. [Mizkai] entered an illustration contest in October, penning a Halloween scene with a young witch. After submission though, things went awry. “At first they said they suspected I had traced AI work as my style was inconsistent,” [Mizkai] told
Hackaday.
Trying to rectify the issue in good faith, [Mizkai] elected to try and sort the problem out with the competition organizers. “I said I’m happy to cooperate and provide them with evidence,” says [Mizkai], noting that she provided an original Photoshop file with layers intact, indicating she’d created the piece from scratch. When that wasn’t enough, [Mizkai] provided a range of other artworks including pencil drawings and inked pieces to bear out her case that she was indeed a real artist. When that wasn’t enough, she stepped up to providing time lapse videos of character sketches to show her technique.
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/10000000_24639141735677291_2149074033395101145_n.mp4
After that, [Mizkai] says the panel allowed her entry to proceed with the voting process, only to backflip a short time later. “Only after the voting had closed, they decided to contact me again to say that they were disqualifying my entry as there was insufficient evidence,” says [Miskai]. The experience left her sour on the whole competition. “Honestly it has left me feeling deflated that despite jumping through all their hoops and cooperating with them completely they would still arbitrarily decide that my work is fraudulent,” says [Mizkai], adding “I honestly don’t want to compete in competitions in future and have been feeling like it’s just far too mentally draining to have to prove myself multiple times.”
It’s something that competitions will have to get serious about, and quickly. There must be hard and fast requirements for proof of creation if it’s deemed so important, and they must be presented up front. It’s no good challenging an artist’s creation afterwards, when they haven’t previously been instructed to record their process during the actual creation of a piece. It seems likely many artists will begin recording their work just in case. Regardless, it’s only fair to state the rules up front such that all competitors can compete on an even playing field without having their art unduly called into question.
For now, most art competitions will rely on competitors to play by the rules and only submit their own creations, come what may. Despite this, high-profile competitions have already publicly fallen victim to AI submissions,
even handing over prizes in some cases.
It’s hard to know how to put Pandora back in the box when AI image generators are getting so good at mimicking real human art. It may ultimately be a battle the humans are going to lose. | 92 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702368",
"author": "Clancydaenlightened",
"timestamp": "2023-11-27T15:07:35",
"content": "Use an ai to check for aiCall it Ainception",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6702369",
"author": "Clancydaenlightened",
... | 1,760,372,092.65196 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/27/voice-over-lte-the-reason-why-your-phone-may-soon-stop-working/ | Voice-Over-LTE: The Reason Why Your Phone May Soon Stop Working | Maya Posch | [
"News"
] | [
"4g",
"cellular phone",
"LTE"
] | Although wireless standards like 3G, 4G, and 5G are mostly associated with mobile internet, they also include a phone (voice) component. Up till 4G this was done using traditional circuit-switched telephony service, but with this fourth generation the entire standard instead moved to a packet-switched version akin to Voice-over-IP, called VoLTE (voice-over-LTE). Even so, a particular phone can choose to use a 4G modem, yet still use 3G-style phone connections. Until the 3G network is shutdown, that is. This is the crux of [Hugh Jeffreys]’s
latest video
.
In order to make a
VoLTE
phone call, your phone, your provider, the receiving phone and the intermediate network providers must all support the protocol. Even some newer phones like the Samsung Galaxy J3 (2016) do not support this. For other phones you have to
turn the feature on
yourself, if it is available. As [Hugh] points out in the video, there’s no easy way to know whether an Android phone supports it, which is likely to lead to chaos as more and more 3G networks in Australia and elsewhere are turned off, especially in regions where people use phones for longer than a few years.
The cessation of such basic functionality is why in most countries
2G
networks remain active, as they are being used by emergency services and others for whom service interruptions can literally cost lives, as well as countless feature phones and Internet of Things devices. For some phones without VoLTE, falling back to 2G might therefore still be an option if they support this. With the spotty support, lack of transparency and random shutdowns, things may however get rather frustrating for some the coming years. | 45 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702331",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-11-27T12:16:16",
"content": "VoLTE/VoNR.https://commsbrief.com/volte-in-5g-is-volte-used-in-5g-new-radio-nr-networks/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6702335",
"author": "96... | 1,760,372,091.726531 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/27/tiny-speaker-busts-past-sound-limits-with-ultrasound/ | Tiny Speaker Busts Past Sound Limits With Ultrasound | Donald Papp | [
"Parts"
] | [
"cypress",
"MEMS",
"ultrasonic",
"ultrasound"
] | Conventional speakers work by moving air around to create sound, but
tiny speakers that use ultrasonic frequencies to create pressure
and generate sound opens some new doors, especially in terms of maximum achievable volume.
A new design boasts being the first 140 dB, full-range MEMS speaker. But that kind of volume potential has less to do with delivering music at an ear-splitting volume and more to do with performing truly effective noise cancellation even in a small device like earbuds. Cancelling out the jackhammers of the world requires parts able to really deliver a punch, especially in low frequencies. That’s something that’s not so easy to do in a tiny form factor. The new device is the
Cypress
, from MEMS speaker manufacturer
xMEMS
and samples are aiming to ship in June 2024.
Combining ultrasonic waves to create audible sound is something we’ve seen show up in different ways, like using an array of transducers to
focus sound like a laser beam
. Another thing ultrasonics can do is
cause sensors in complex electronics to become unhinged from reality
and report false readings. Neato! | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702304",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2023-11-27T09:58:26",
"content": "This has been around for years. Promising – but promising does not equal reality. You must remember, quality sound requires pre-distortion digital signal processing linearization and physical transducers ca... | 1,760,372,091.432046 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/26/3d-printing-a-nifty-sphere-without-supports/ | 3D Printing A Nifty Sphere Without Supports | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"FDM",
"filament",
"ornament",
"sphere",
"vase mode"
] | [DaveMakesStuff] demonstrates a great technique for 3D printing a sphere; a troublesome shape for filament-based printers to handle. As a bonus, it uses a minimum of filament. His ideas can be applied to your own designs, but his
Giant Spiralized Sphere
would also just happen to make a fine ornament this holiday season.
Printing two interlocking parts and using vase mode ensures a support-free print that uses a minimum of filament.
The trick is mainly to print the sphere in two parts, but rather than just split the sphere right down the middle, [Dave] makes two hollow C-shaped sections, like a tennis ball. This structure allows the halves to be printed in vase mode, which minimizes filament use while also printing support-free.
Vase (or spiral) mode prints an object using a single, unbroken line of extruded filament. The resulting object has only one wall and zero infill, but it’s still plenty strong for an ornament. Despite its size, [Dave]’s giant ball uses only 220 grams of filament.
A video (also embedded below)
shows the design in better detail
. If you’d like to experiment, we’ve previously covered how
PETG’s transparency is best preserved when 3D printing
by using vase mode, slightly overextruding, and printing at a higher temperature to ensure solid bonding between each layer. | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702306",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2023-11-27T10:16:09",
"content": "3D print a microwave Luneburg Lens:* Luneburg Lens – Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luneburg_lens",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6702381",
... | 1,760,372,091.770975 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/26/robot-goes-to-summer-camp/ | Robot Goes To Summer Camp | Al Williams | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"robot"
] | There are a lot of hobby and educational robots that have a similar form factor: a low, wide body with either wheels or tracks for locomotion. When [Alexander Kirilov] wanted to teach a summer robot camp, he looked at several different commercial offerings and found all of them somewhat lacking. His wish list was a neat-looking compact robot that was easy to extend, had various sensors, and would work with Python. Finding nothing to his liking, he set out to make his own, and
Yozh robot
was born.
The robot certainly looks neat. There is a color TFT display, seven reflective sensors pointing down, two laser time-of-flight sensors facing forward, an IMU, and some LEDs. There are plenty of expansion ports, too. You can check out the
code that runs it
, too.
The camp was about a year ago, and you can see some footage from it in the video below. However, the documentation and files are only recently available, should you want to build your own Yozh.
Looks like a fun project with or without students. [Alexander] estimates the cost to build at around $150. If you want a smaller wheeled robot,
we’ve seen them
. If you make a Yozh, maybe you can
teach it to play
. | 3 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702621",
"author": "RPM",
"timestamp": "2023-11-28T03:19:24",
"content": "Cool story bro, but there are literally thousands of neat looking compact robots that are easy to extend with various sensors that work with Python… a search for “robot python” on Amazon will get you many ch... | 1,760,372,091.641961 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/26/come-for-the-pcb-holder-stay-for-the-tour-of-freecad/ | Come For The PCB Holder, Stay For The Tour Of FreeCAD | Donald Papp | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"freecad",
"PCB holder"
] | PCB holders are great tools. Not only is the
PCB Solder Fren
from [PistonPin] a nice DIY design, it offers some insight into the parts design process with
FreeCAD
.
This design nicely demonstrates FreeCAD’s workflow for designing parts.
The PCB holder uses 3D-printed parts, M5 hardware, a length of 2020 aluminum extrusion, and one spring to create a handy and adjustable design that accommodates a variety of PCB sizes and shapes. If the ends of the extrusion are threaded, the end caps can be screwed in. Otherwise, a little glue ought to do the trick.
Want a little more insight into what making a part like this involves? [Jo Hinchliffe] at FreeCAD reached out to [PistonPin] for more detail and has a blog post
explaining the workflow and steps involved in this part
. As a bonus, STEP files and the FreeCAD project file are all included!
Not only is FreeCAD
simple to use
, but it’s also flexible enough to accommodate custom, niche extensions like a
Rocketry workbench
, so be sure to give it a look for your open-source CAD needs. | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702315",
"author": "H Hack",
"timestamp": "2023-11-27T11:06:04",
"content": "For people interested in learning FreeCAD from scratch, have a look at MangoJelly’s beginning playlist:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXN7TOg3kj4&list=PLWuyJLVUNtc0UszswD0oD5q4VeWTrK7JCHe’s created wast a... | 1,760,372,091.825426 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/26/airlooms-whacky-wind-clothesline-turbine-idea/ | Airloom’s Whacky Wind Clothesline Turbine Idea | Maya Posch | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"Robert Murray-Smith",
"Wind turbine"
] | What if you don’t put airfoils on a central, spinning axis, but instead have them careen around a circular track? If you’re a company called
Airloom
, you’d say that it’s a very cheap, very efficient and highly desirable way to install wind-based generators that can do away with those unsightly and massive 100+ meter tall wind turbines, whether on- or offshore. Although grand claims are made, and venture capital firms have poured in some money, hard data is tough to find on their exact design, or the operating details of their one and only claimed kW-level prototype.
Transpower’s ‘flying clothesline’ wind turbine setup.
Despite the claims made by Airloom, they’re not the first to have this idea, with Transpower in the 1980s making itself famous with their
‘flying clothesline’
that featured a continuous loop of sails tensioned between two ropes. These ran around a pole on either end with each having a generator for a claimed total of 200 kW. Ultimately Transpower seems to have gone under along with many other wind power pioneers of the era as they couldn’t make their idea economically feasible. Something which is
a definite trend
in the field.
Some parts about Airloom’s design are definitely concerning, with the available images showing each airfoil running along a central rail on a number of wheels and with their ‘Power Takeoff’ (i.e. generator) not defined in any meaningful manner. Here is where [Robert Murray-Smith] had a bit of fun
in a recent video
, creating his own dual-chain version that somewhat resembles a mixture between the Transpower and Airloom designs. He also put the design
up on Thingiverse
for others to 3D print and tinker with, requiring a handful of bearings for smooth running.
For the power takeoff, [Robert] suggests that in his design the cogs around which the chain moves could be attached to a generator (like in the Transpower design), but he could see no indication of how Airloom intends to do this. Feel free to put your own speculations in the comments. And if you’re from Airloom, show us the details! | 53 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702167",
"author": "Lr0dy",
"timestamp": "2023-11-26T21:09:03",
"content": "Perhaps Airloom has magnets mounted in each of the sail panels, and there are coils in the track.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6702191",
"... | 1,760,372,092.886545 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/26/retrotechtacular-studio-camera-operation-the-bbc-way/ | Retrotechtacular: Studio Camera Operation, The BBC Way | Dan Maloney | [
"Retrotechtacular"
] | [
"bbc",
"camera",
"focus",
"operator",
"pedestal",
"photography",
"retrotechtacular",
"studio",
"tv",
"video",
"zoom"
] | If you ever thought that being a television camera operator was a simple job,
this BBC training film on studio camera operations
will quickly disabuse you of that notion.
The first thing that strikes you upon watching this 1982 gem is just how physical a job it is to stand behind a studio camera. Part of the physicality came from the sheer size of the gear being used. Not only were cameras of that vintage still largely tube-based and therefore huge — the
EMI-2001
shown has four plumbicon image tubes along with tube amplifiers and weighed in at over 100 kg — but the pedestal upon which it sat was a beast as well. All told, a camera rig like that could come in at over 300 kg, and dragging something like that around a studio floor all day under hot lights had to be hard. It was a full-body workout, too; one needed a lot of upper-body strength to move the camera up and down against the hydropneumatic pedestal cylinder, and every day was leg day when you had to overcome all that inertia and get the camera moving to your next mark.
Operating a beast like this was not just about the bull work, though. There was a lot of fine motor control needed too, especially with focus pulling. The video goes into a lot of detail on maintaining a smooth focus while zooming or dollying, and shows just how bad it can look when the operator is inexperienced or not paying attention. Luckily, our hero Allan is killing it, and the results will look familiar to anyone who’s ever seen any BBC from the era, from
Dr. Who
to
I, Claudius
. Shows like these all had a distinctive “Beeb-ish” look to them, due in large part to the training their camera operators received with productions like this.
There’s a lot on offer here aside from the mechanical skills of camera operation, of course. Framing and composing shots are emphasized, as are the tricks to making it all look smooth and professional. There are a lot of technical details buried in the video too, particularly about the pedestal and how it works. There are also two follow-up training videos, one that focuses on the camera skills needed to shoot an interview program, and one that adds in the complications that arise when the on-air talent is actually moving. Watch all three and you’ll be well on your way to running a camera for the BBC — at least in 1982. | 11 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702130",
"author": "DaveH",
"timestamp": "2023-11-26T18:57:23",
"content": "A great example of this is the Propellerheads video for History Repeating.Shot in glorious monochrome with vintage BBC cameras.https://youtu.be/yzLT6_TQmq8",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repl... | 1,760,372,091.911496 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/26/walking-desk-is-more-annoying-than-a-standing-desk/ | Walking Desk Is More Annoying Than A Standing Desk | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"desk",
"hoverboard"
] | We’re often told that sitting is bad for our backs, for our necks, and even our general health. The standing desk aims to solve this by keeping us in a more vertical position while we work. [Joel Creates] took this a step further
by creating a walking desk that’s motorized and keeps him on the move.
[Joel’s] build started with a standing desk. He then pulled off the desk’s standard wheels, and replaced them with motors sourced from cheap second-hand hoverboards and a couple of casters. The hoverboard wheels and casters were upgraded with pneumatic tires for the sake of a smoother ride, and control is via a thumbstick mounted on a mouse. Power is via a large bank of lithium-polymer batteries which are responsible for running the motors and the computer hardware which [Joel] uses to work on the go. A solar panel canopy helps top off the batteries when he’s out and about.
As you might imagine, a guy walking around trails with an entire computer desk draws a lot of attention. It’s probably not the best way to be productive, but it’s a neat way to
integrate exercise into your routine
if you’re always working at a computer. Somehow we suspect these might not catch on. Video after the break. | 34 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702061",
"author": "Bennybender",
"timestamp": "2023-11-26T15:20:05",
"content": "Probably easier to setup a threadmill underneat the desk.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6702078",
"author": "Joseph Eoff",
"t... | 1,760,372,092.08441 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/26/in-new-doctors-office-stethoscope-wears-you/ | In New Doctor’s Office, Stethoscope Wears You | Al Williams | [
"Medical Hacks",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"stethoscope"
] | The medical professional wearing a stethoscope is a familiar image, but Northwestern University wants to change that. Instead of someone hanging an ancient device around their neck to listen inside of you, they want to put
sticky sensors on patients to continuously monitor
sounds from hearts, lungs, and the GI tract.
The tiny devices stick to your skin and wirelessly beam audio to clinicians for analysis. They’ve tested the devices on people ranging from people with chronic lung disease to premature babies. In fact, you can hear breath sounds (and crying) from a microphone attached to a baby in the video below. The device uses noise suppression to remove the crying sounds effectively.
The 40 mm by 20 mm by 8 mm devices contain flash memory, batteries, Bluetooth, and two tiny microphones. As you might guess, one microphone faces the patient, and the other one faces away to capture noise for cancellation.
Collecting sound from multiple points continuously could be a game changer. We can only guess what the device will cost, but keep in mind that creating it to medical standards and pushing it through certification means it probably won’t be as inexpensive as you’d think just from the bill of materials.
Still, we have a feeling we will see more of these in the years to come in hospitals, clinics, and maybe even doctor’s offices. We have seen
smart noise-canceling stethoscopes
before. If you are satisfied with the old-fashioned kind, why not
3D print one
? | 28 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702029",
"author": "shinsukke",
"timestamp": "2023-11-26T12:09:12",
"content": "Considering how many doctors trust mercury based BP instruments more than the convenient electronic ones, I trust the general public will be able to reap this technology’s benefits very soon!2100s soon.... | 1,760,372,092.153885 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/26/the-slow-march-of-sodium-ion-batteries-to-compete-with-lithium-ion/ | The Slow March Of Sodium-Ion Batteries To Compete With Lithium-Ion | Maya Posch | [
"Battery Hacks",
"chemistry hacks",
"News",
"Science"
] | [
"sodium-ion"
] | The process of creating new battery chemistries that work better than existing types is a slow and arduous one. Not only does it know more failures than successes, it’s rare that a once successful type gets completely phased out, which is why today we’re using lead-acid, NiMH, alkaline, lithium, zinc-air, lithium-ion and a host of other battery types alongside each other. For one of the up-and-coming types in the form of sodium (Na)-based batteries the same struggles are true as it attempts to hit the right balance between anode, cathode and electrolyte properties. A pragmatic solution here involves Prussian Blue for the cathode and hard carbon for the anode, as is the case with Swedish Northvolt’s
newly announced
sodium-ion battery (SIB) which is
sampling next year
.
Commercialization of different SIB battery chemistries by various companies. (Credit: Yadav et al., 2022)
The story of
SIBs
goes back well over a decade, with a
recent review article
by Poonam Yadav and colleagues in
Oxford Open Materials Science
providing a good overview of the many types of anodes, cathodes and electrolytes which have been attempted and the results. One of the issues that prevents an SIB from directly using the carbon-based anodes employed with today’s lithium-ion batteries (LIB) is its much larger
ionic radius
that prevents
intercalation
without altering the carbon material to accept Na+ ions.
This is essentially where the hard carbon (HC) anode used by a number of SIB-producing companies comes into play, which has a far looser structure that does accept these ions and thus can be used with SIBs. The remaining challenges lie then with the electrolyte – which is where an organic form is the most successful – and the material for the sodium-containing cathode.
Although oxide forms and even sodium vanadium fluorophosphate (
NVPF
) are also being used, Prussian Blue analogs (PBAs) are attractive for being very low-cost and effective as cathode material once processed. An efficient way to process PB into fully sodiated and reduced Prussian White was
demonstrated
a few years ago, followed by
successive studies
backing up this assessment.
Although SIBs are seeing limited commercial use at this point, signs are that if it can be commercialized for the consumer market, it would have similar capacity as current LIBs, albeit with the potential to be cheaper, more durable and easier to recycle. | 56 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702040",
"author": "f__",
"timestamp": "2023-11-26T13:16:38",
"content": "Sodium-ion batteries, while not able to solve all our problems, will still solve a large number of them. You’re already able to get your hands on some in smallish (18650) form factors (although they are still... | 1,760,372,092.256273 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/28/mobile-phones-and-the-question-of-declining-sperm-quality/ | Mobile Phones And The Question Of Declining Sperm Quality | Lewin Day | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Medical Hacks",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"cellphone",
"cellular phone",
"mobile phone",
"non-ionizing radiation",
"radiation",
"semen",
"sperm count"
] | In a world increasingly reliant on technology, a pressing question arises: can our dependence on gadgets, particularly mobile phones, be affecting our health in unexpected ways? A growing body of research is now pointing towards a startling trend – declining sperm quality in the human population – with mobile phones emerging as a potential culprit.
Recent studies have been sounding the alarm over
a noticeable decline in sperm counts and quality across the globe
. This decline isn’t just about quantity; it’s about the vitality, motility, and overall health of sperm cells. The implications of this trend are profound, affecting fertility rates and possibly even the long-term viability of populations. The situation is murky and complicated, but new studies suggest that cellular phones could have a role to play.
Ring Ring
Since the development of the microwave, the cellular phone, and WiFi, people have espoused fears around the invisible waves from these technologies. Ultimately, conventional knowledge says there aren’t really a lot of dangers from these devices, which output non-ionizing radiation. This means the radio waves output from these devices are not strong enough to remove an electron from atoms or molecules, and thus they theoretically can’t have a major negative impact on our body’s cells.
However, scientists never presume to know everything, and thus cellular phones have once again come under the spotlight as a potential cause of declining sperm quality. Given the unexplained decline in sperm quality and sperm counts across the globe, which appears to be accelerating, examining a wide range of potential causes only makes sense. Looking at the wireless radiators that we carry in our pockets is perhaps a very worthwhile target. While nothing conclusive has yet been proven, there’s somewhat of a smoking gun that has become apparent across multiple studies.
Spermatozoa pictured with (2) and without (1) DNA fragmentation. Credit:
Gorpinchenko, et al, 2014
In a research paper
published in the
Central European Journal of Urology
in 2014, 32 healthy men with “normal semen parameters” provided samples for a study. Each sample was split into even portions, in A and B groups. The A group was maintained in a thermostatic incubator for 5 hours, while the B group was treated the same, but with the addition of a mobile phone in the test chamber.
The sperm samples were then inspected for quality to determine whether they were potentially effected by the mobile phone. Sperm counts did not change significantly, nor did it differ between the two groups. Nor did the number of dead sperm show any grand difference. However, the group exposed to the mobile phone showed a significantly lower number of sperm displaying progressive movement. In fact, this B group also showed a greater number of sperm displaying non-progressive movement. Levels of DNA fragmentation was also higher in the mobile phone exposed group. It bears noting that DNA fragmentation and lower motility are not what you want for good fertility outcomes.
In this study, sperm in the cellphone-exposed B group demonstrated less progressive movement and more non-progressive movement. A similar number of motionless sperm were found across both samples. Credit:
Gorpinchenko, et al, 2014
Another study in 2015
was published in the
International Journal of Fertility & Sterility,
finding similar results
.
In this study, 124 semen samples were similarly split, with one group exposed to cellphone radiation for 1 hour, while the other was left alone. This study similarly detected elevated levels of DNA fragmentation in the exposed group, along with varied gene expression and protein levels. Sperm motility was also decreased in the exposed group.
More recently, a study hunted for a link between
self-reported phone use and semen quality in young men.
The sample size was a healthy 2886 men from the Swiss population, aged 18 to 22 years old. The researchers found that higher frequencies of phone use (over 20 times per day) were associated with lower sperm concentrations and lower total sperm counts. Analysis found a 30% and 21% increased risk respectively for sperm concentration or sperm counts to be below WHO reference values for fertile men. Interestingly, the study also looked at the impact of phone storage locations, with men who stored their phones in their pockets found not to be at increased risk of poorer performing sperm. The study also didn’t find any impact on motility with regards to frequency of phone use.
Certain studies have found a correlation between cellphone exposure and DNA fragmentation in sperm, with potential negative impacts on fertility.
Gorpinchenko, et al, 2014
Taking a broader view, meta studies have found a growing indication that there is some kind of negative impact on sperm from phone use. It’s unclear the extent of the problem, or the direct impact on fertility, but studies taken
in 2014
and
in 2021
both concluded that phone use was harmful to sperm quality.
There is a caveat though. Some research has indicated long-running trends in which sperm quality has been declining in certain populations for many decades –
as much as 40 or 50 years.
The problem here is that cellular phone use has really only been a major factor for maybe the last 25 years. After all, you can go back to any late 90s sitcom and note that the storylines are often completely free of cellular phones which might have otherwise impacted the proceedings. It was the early 2000s when the cellphone became a default item for adults and youths in the developed world.
Analysis of sperm quality involves examining the sex cells under magnification. Credit:
Bobjgalindo, CC BY-SA-4.0
In any case, it seems apparent that something is going on when it comes to male fertility and the ubiquitous use of cellphones. The problem is at this stage, data remains limited, and causal factors aren’t yet clear. Other factors, like smoking, diet, exercise, and general health seem to play a larger role, and it’s hard to disentangle these from cell phone use in the survey studies.
If there is indeed a link between the two, is this a problem we can fix by changing how our cellphones work, or are we just that sensitive that our sperm can’t be easily protected from this scourge? For now, we don’t know, so it’s probably not time to break out the tinfoil underwear just yet.
The intersection of technology and health is a complex and evolving field. As we become more intertwined with our devices, understanding their impacts on our biological functions becomes increasingly crucial. The potential link between mobile phones and declining sperm quality is a wake-up call for more research, better public awareness, and a thoughtful approach to our use of technology. Only then will we get a full and proper answer to this confusing mystery. | 105 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702783",
"author": "Joseph Eoff",
"timestamp": "2023-11-28T15:26:47",
"content": "“The researchers found that higher frequencies of phone use (over 20 times per day)”Well, I’m fine, then. I only use my phone three times a day:From breakfast to lunchtime, from lunchtime to supperti... | 1,760,372,092.499074 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/28/bowling-with-strings-attached-the-people-are-split/ | Bowling With Strings Attached: The People Are Split | Kristina Panos | [
"Games",
"News"
] | [
"bowling",
"bowling alley",
"bowling pin",
"controversy",
"pin resetter'",
"pinsetter",
"string"
] | There’s a bowling revolution in play, and not all bowlers are willing participants. In fact, a few are on strike, and it’s all because
bowling alleys across America are getting rid of traditional pinsetting machines in favor of a string-based system
.
In hindsight, it seems obvious to this American: attach strings to the tops of bowling pins so they can be yanked upward into holes that settle down the action so that the pins can be reset. In fact, European bowling “houses” have used string pinsetters for decades, instead of lumbering machinery that needs regular maintenance and costs several thousand dollars a month to maintain.
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/string-pin-resetter.mp4
Recently, the U.S. Bowling Congress recently certified these string pinsetters for both tournament and league play, to the dismay of many bowlers. The problem is that the physics of pins suspended on strings affects the game more than you’d think. There is no satisfying crash when the ball hits. More scientifically speaking, obscure forces such as the radius of gyration and the coefficient of restitution make it so the tethered pins go flying around differently than those that are allowed free-fall.
Hundreds of participants during the testing phase reported that bowling to the strung pins felt off, less active. And, perhaps most alarmingly, the players noted occasional spares that occurred because the strings crossed. But the U.S. Bowling Congress recently published new research claiming that the differences are negligible. But as we all know, there is theory, and then there’s operation.
Have you ever heard of candlepin bowling?
Those machines are just as difficult to maintain
. | 52 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702727",
"author": "William C Bonner",
"timestamp": "2023-11-28T12:53:58",
"content": "I saw strings on pins for the first time in the past year. I didn’t like them.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6702919",
"author":... | 1,760,372,095.03189 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/28/a-48-volt-battery-pack-with-carefully-balanced-cells/ | A 48 Volt Battery Pack With Carefully Balanced Cells | Jenny List | [
"Battery Hacks"
] | [
"battery pack",
"cell balancing",
"Li-ion"
] | Many readers will have at some time or another built their own lithium-ion battery packs, whether they are using tiny cells or the huge ones found in automotive packs. A popular choice it to salvage ubiquitous 18650 cylindrical cells,
as [limpkin] has with this 48 volt pack
. It’s based around an off-the-shelf kit aimed at the e-bike market, but it’s much more than a simple assembly job.
Faced with a hundred salvaged cells of unknown provenance, the first thing to do was ensure that they were all balanced and showed the same voltage. Some might do this the inefficient way by hooking each one up to a charger and a programmable load, but in this case a much more radical route was taken. A huge PCB was designed with sockets for all hundred cells, connected in parallel through individual series resistors. This allowed them to balance to a common voltage before being discharged to a safe voltage for assembly. Their individual ESRs were the measured, and the best performing examples were then spot-welded into the final 13s-6p final pack.
We all use lithium-ion batteries, but
how many of us know how they work
? | 60 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702665",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2023-11-28T09:35:02",
"content": "Um, why not just use 4x 12v lead-gel batteries?So many cells are a big factor of uncertainty, I think.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6702672",
... | 1,760,372,094.738504 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/27/tektronixs-ceramic-crt-production-and-the-building-13-catacombs/ | Tektronix’s Ceramic CRT Production And The Building 13 Catacombs | Maya Posch | [
"History"
] | [
"ceramics",
"tektronix"
] | As a manufacturer of test equipment and more, Tektronix has long had a need for custom form factors
with its CRT displays
. They initially went with fully glass CRTs as this was what the booming television industry was also using, but as demand for the glass component of CRTs increased, so did the delays in getting these custom glass components made. This is where Tektronix decided to use its existing expertise with
ceramic strips
during the pre-PCB era to create ceramic funnels for ceramic CRTs, as described in
this 1967 video
.
The Tektronix ceramic CRT molds underneath Building 13.
Recently,
underneath Building 13
at the Tektronix campus, a
‘catacomb’ full of the molds
for these funnels was discovered, covering a wide range of CRT types, including some round ones that were presumably made for military purposes, such as radar installations. These molds consist out of an inner part (the mandrel) made from 7075-T6 aluminium, and an outer cast polyurethane boot. The ceramic (
forsterite
) powder is then formed under high pressure into the ceramic funnel, which is then fired in a kiln before a full inspection and assembly into a full CRT, including the phosphor-coated glass front section and rear section with the electron guns.
The advantages of ceramic funnels over glass ones are many, including the former being much harder and resilient to impact forces, while offering a lot of strength for thinner, lighter structures, all of which is desirable in (portable) lab equipment. Although LCDs would inevitably take over from CRTs here as well, these ceramic CRTs formed an integral part of Tektronix’s products, with every part of production handled in-house. | 17 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702687",
"author": "Andy Pugh",
"timestamp": "2023-11-28T10:48:02",
"content": "I wonder if slip-casting would have been cheaper and more expedient for this?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6702745",
"author": "helge"... | 1,760,372,094.552722 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/27/a-tube-guitar-amp-for-a-modest-budget/ | A Tube Guitar Amp For A Modest Budget | Jenny List | [
"classic hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"guitar amp",
"tube amp",
"vacuum tube"
] | There’s a mystique among both audiophiles and musicians about vacuum technology, thus having a tube amp still carries a bit of a cachet. New ones can be bought for eye-watering prices and old ones can be had for the same price with the added frisson of unreliability. Happily it’s surprisingly straightforward to build your own, as [_electroidiot] shows us with
a fairly inexpensive build
.
The design is inspired by the guitar amps of the 1950s and 1960s so it’s not for audiophiles. The circuit is a pretty conventional single-ended one with a two stage double triode preamp and a single power output tube. The transformers are usually the difficult part of a build like this one, and here instead of resorting to using a mains transformer for audio they come from a defunct 1960s Phillips radio. We especially like the old-school construction technique with a folded aluminium chassis and liberal use of tag strips on which to build the circuits.
The result is something that would have been in no way out of place in the 1960s, and proves that tube circuitry isn’t beyond the constructor in 2023. If it’s whetted your appetite for more,
we can help you there
. | 17 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702618",
"author": "Derek Tombrello",
"timestamp": "2023-11-28T03:10:47",
"content": "That looks like something my late dad would’ve built :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6702631",
"author": "Live guitarist (litera... | 1,760,372,094.647818 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/27/swatch-internet-time-watch-doesnt-miss-a-beat/ | Swatch Internet-Time Clock Doesn’t Miss A Beat | Kristina Panos | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"beats",
"internet time",
"seeed xiao",
"synchronize Swatches!"
] | The thing about human invention is that occasionally, two or more people think of an idea around the same time, and it’s difficult to determine who was first. Such is the case with Swatch’s Internet time, which is told in something called “.beats”. Rather than using hours and minutes, the solar day in the .beat system is divided into 1,000 parts equal to one minute in the French Revolutionary decimal time system, or 1 minute and 26.4 seconds of standard time.
Swatch came up with .beats to sell their special line of .beats watches. But they weren’t the only ones to divide the solar day this way. A few months before Swatch’s announcement of .beats time, a Argentinian drummer named [Charly Alberti] came up with the same idea and created a website for it to display the current Internet time of day.
The point of all this is that
[Roni Bandini] has created an homage to both .beats and [Charly] in the form of a small clock
. The main brain is a Seeed Studio Xiao nRF52840, with a Xiao TFT round display to show the time as well as a tribute to [Charly]. The 3D-printed stand incorporates a cylindrical power source. We think the black and white images, which [Roni] created with Dall-e, look fantastic.
Interestingly enough, the Xiao has no Internet connectivity; the time is set manually via hard-coded variable, and then the display’s RTC keeps track of the seconds and convert them to Internet time. Check out the brief build video after the break.
Interested in regular old metric time?
Here’s a modern metric clock
. | 21 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702588",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2023-11-28T00:48:38",
"content": "Usefully, a centibeat is just about the standard period of a sedentary person’s heart rate.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6702846",
"author"... | 1,760,372,094.494712 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/27/single-piece-tank-chassis-goes-robotic/ | Single-piece Tank Chassis Goes Robotic | Donald Papp | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"RC. 3d printed",
"servo",
"tank"
] | [EXTREME3DPRINT] has a new version of their print-in-place tank chassis:
the PiPBOT
now accepts drop-in motors (in the form of 360° rotation servos), RC receiver, and battery pack to make a functional RC tank platform in no time flat. The design is entirely 3D printed with no supports needed.
This new version is a paid 3D model (and it includes STEP files, thankfully) but
the original proof-of-concept print-in-place tank chassis
is free and remains a highly clever piece of design that really shows off what is possible when one plays to a 3D printer’s strengths.
A better look at the design’s details can be found on
the designer’s website
, and
a short video
demonstrating assembly and operation is embedded below. We particularly like the attachment points on the top of the PiPBOT, which allows for securely mounting all kinds of customized payloads.
Interested in this style of printable RC platform, but want something a little more accessible? If race cars are more your thing, we’d like to also mention the
Gamma 2.0
by [Under Engineered]. It’s a print-in-place RC car that needs minimal parts to get rolling and would make an excellent afternoon project. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6702550",
"author": "Jace",
"timestamp": "2023-11-27T21:50:24",
"content": "That’s pretty cool…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6702627",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "2023-11-28T03:49:07",
"content": "Unless I’m ... | 1,760,372,094.441671 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/25/turbocharge-your-transient-sensors-with-math/ | Turbocharge Your Transient Sensors With Math | Julian Scheffers | [
"Parts"
] | [
"distance measurement",
"research",
"transient sensor"
] | If you’ve made a robot or played around with electronics before, you might have used a time-of-flight laser distance sensor before. More modern ones detect not just the first reflection, but analyze subsequent reflections, or reflections that come in from different angles, to infer even more about what they’re looking at. These transient sensors usually aren’t the most accurate thing in the world, but four people from the University of Wisconsin
managed to get far more out of one
using some clever math. (Video, embedded below.)
The transient sensors under investigation here sends out a pulse of light and records what it receives from nine angles in individual histograms. It then analyzes these histograms to make a rough estimate of the distance for each direction. But the sensor won’t tell us how it does so and it also isn’t very accurate. The team shows us how you can easily get a distance measurement that is more accurate and continues by showing how the nine distance estimates can even distinguish the geometry it’s looking, although to a limited extent. But they didn’t stop there: It can even detect the albedo of the material it’s looking at, which can be used to tell materials apart!
Overall, a great hack and we think this technology has potential – despite requiring more processing power. | 19 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701758",
"author": "woy_tech",
"timestamp": "2023-11-25T12:04:50",
"content": "I wonder if precision and accuracy of such sensors could be raised to the level that would allow them to be used for 3D printer bed calibration.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,094.789205 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/24/build-your-own-nanoleaf-like-hex-lights/ | Build Your Own Nanoleaf-Like Hex Lights | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"hexagon",
"led",
"nanoleaf",
"ws2812b"
] | Nanoleaf makes a variety of beautiful LED lighting products, with their hexagon tiles particularly popular with gamers and streamers alike. However, they do come at a significant cost, particularly if you want to put together a larger display. [Giovanni Aggiustatutto] decided to build his own version from scratch,
with a nice wooden finish to boot.
The benefit of the wooden design is that the panels look nice both when they’re switched on, and when they’re switched off. [Giovanni] selected attractive okumè plywood for the build, which is affordable and has a lovely grain. The hexagons were then fitted on their back side with strips of WS2812B LEDs. The first hexagon is fitted with an ESP32 that runs the lights, with the other hexagons having their LEDs daisychained from there. 3D printed frames were then fitted to each hexagon to allow them to be connected together into a larger wall-hanging piece.
Ultimately, building your own wall lights lets you customize them to operate exactly as you want, and often lets you save a lot of money, too.
We’ve featured other similar builds before, too
. Video after the break. | 11 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701733",
"author": "Capo",
"timestamp": "2023-11-25T06:52:55",
"content": "Well explained with both video and written instructions and documentation. This is how it should be. Excellent job! Instructables has a very good structure too, why cant hackaday.io imitate it?",
"parent... | 1,760,372,094.596617 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/24/mystery-signal-are-you-ready-for-your-mystery-signal/ | Mystery Signal! Are You Ready For Your Mystery Signal? | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"radio",
"shortwave",
"swl"
] | Like many people [Dan Greenall] spent a lot of time in the 1970s listening to shortwave radio. While you often think of that as a hobby involving listening to broadcast stations, some people like to listen to other communications such as airliners, ships, military, and even spy stations. These days, if you hear a strange signal you are probably only one internet search away from identifying what it is. But back then, you had to depend on word-of-mouth or magazines to figure things like that out. [Dan]
found a recording of a mysterious military-like signal
he made in 1971 on 14.85 MHz. He decided that maybe now, all these years later, he could finally identify it.
The operator in the recording is counting and mentions “Midway Island,” famous for a World War II battle and part of the Leeward Islands in the Pacific. Thanks to the internet and the law of six degrees of separation, [Dan] found [Chuck Kinzer] who was a Midway Navy vet.
[Chuck] was stationed at the
Naval Communication Unit, Midway
, and he thinks the transmission was a “long count” test used to tune the 10 kW AN/FRT-39 transmitters and their log periodic antennas. You can see pictures of the transmitting gear and the antennas at that link.
It is amazing that a recording more than 50 years old is still around. It makes you wonder how much history is sitting around on tapes and digital media, waiting for someone to identify what they are.
Although this transmission has a lot of numbers, it isn’t technically
a numbers station
. You
never know what you might hear
on the radio waves. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701762",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2023-11-25T13:09:57",
"content": "They used to have one of those rotatable log periodics at the FAA site off Rt 93 in Nashua NH. My guess is that it was used for contacting transatlantic flights coming into the US. They took it down... | 1,760,372,094.396823 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/24/quest-3-vr-headset-can-capture-3d-video-some-tampering-required/ | Quest 3 VR Headset Can Capture 3D Video (Some Tampering Required) | Donald Papp | [
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"3d",
"3d video",
"adb",
"camera",
"Quest",
"record"
] | The Quest 3 VR headset is an impressive piece of hardware. It is also not open; not in the way most of us understand the word. One consequence of this is the inability in general for developers or users to directly access the feed of the two color cameras on the front of the headset. However, [Hugh Hou] shares a method of doing exactly this to
capture 3D video on the Quest 3 headset
for later playback on different devices.
The Quest 3 runs Android under the hood, and Developer Mode plus some ADB commands does the trick.
There are a few steps to the process and it involves enabling developer mode on the hardware then using ADB (Android Debug Bridge) commands to enable the necessary functionality, but it’s nothing the average curious hacker can’t handle. The directions are written out in the video’s description, along with a few handy links. (The video is embedded below just under the page break, but
view it on YouTube
to access the description and all the info in it.)
He also provides some excellent guidance on practical things like how to capture stable shots, editing the videos, and injecting the necessary metadata for optimal playback on different platforms, including hassle-free uploading to a service like YouTube. [Hugh] is no stranger to this kind of video and camera handling and really knows his stuff, and it’s great to see someone provide detailed instructions.
This kind of 3D video comes down to recording two different views, one for each eye. There’s another way to approach 3D video, however:
light fields
are also within reach of enterprising hackers, and while they need more hardware they yield far more compelling results. | 13 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701732",
"author": "Cyna",
"timestamp": "2023-11-25T06:46:07",
"content": "Irrelevant since Meta bought it. Too bad, with all the work of good people like Carmack.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6701785",
"author": "... | 1,760,372,094.840625 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/24/a-yamaha-dx7-on-a-usb-dongle/ | A Yamaha DX7 On A USB Dongle | Lewin Day | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"dx7",
"midi",
"raspberry pi",
"usb midi",
"yamaha"
] | The Yamaha DX7 was released in 1983, with its FM synthesis engine completely revolutionizing the electronic music world at the time. It didn’t come cheap, and still doesn’t today, but we are blessed with emulators that can give us the same sound on a budget. In that vein, [Kevin] decided to whip up
a Yamaha DX7 you can carry around in a little USB dongle.
The build centers around the use of a Raspberry Pi Zero, Zero W, or Zero 2W configured to run the
MiniDEXED DX7 emulator.
The Pi is then set up with a dongle adapter board that allows it to run in USB Gadget mode. The Zero line of Raspberry Pis are perfect for this use, as they draw less current and so can, under the right conditions, run off a computer’s USB port. The Pi receives MIDI commands over the USB interface, and outputs sound via a Pimoroni Audio Shim. Effectively, the result is a single-channel DX7 synth that plugs in via USB; or eight channels if you use the more powerful Zero 2W.
[Kevin] readily admits that there probably isn’t much use for a DX7 dongle, given that you could just load a DX7 emulator in your DAW of choice instead. Regardless, it’s a fun build, and one that ably demonstrates
the USB Gadget mode of operation
for the Raspberry Pi. Video after the break. | 24 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701664",
"author": "Dafydd Roche",
"timestamp": "2023-11-24T22:09:37",
"content": "Man-oh-man… the PCM510x Family of DAC’s continues to deliver on these linux-type boards. I was lucky enough to work with the design team on it (and fought like crazy for features like the PLL to be u... | 1,760,372,095.124767 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/24/the-other-kind-of-static-hazard-to-your-logic-circuits/ | The Other Kind Of Static Hazard To Your Logic Circuits | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"and",
"boolean",
"gate",
"implicant",
"k-table",
"logic",
"NOT",
"OR",
"race condition",
"STATIC",
"Truth table",
"ttl"
] | We’ve all heard of the dangers of static electricity when dealing with electronics, and we all take the proper precautions when working with static-sensitive components — don’t we? But as much as we fear punching an expensive hole in a chip with an errant spark, electrostatic discharge damage
isn’t the only kind of static hazard
your digital designs can face.
To be fair, the static hazard demonstrated by [Shane Oberloier] in the video below isn’t really an electrostatic problem. “Static” in this case refers to when a change to an input of a logic circuit gives an unexpected output until the circuit stabilizes. The circuit shown is pretty simple, with three inputs going into a combination of AND and NOT gates before going into an OR gate. The static hazard manifests as a glitch in the output when the middle input line’s logical state is toggled; according to the circuit’s truth table, the output shouldn’t change under these conditions, but the oscilloscope clearly captures a high-low-high blip. [Dr. Shane]’s explanation of why this happens makes perfect sense: the inverter on that input line has a brief but non-zero propagation time, putting the whole circuit in an ambiguous state before finally settling down to the correct output value.
So how do you fix something like this? This gets into the Boolean weeds a bit, and we won’t pretend to fully understand it, but at least for this case, [Dr. Shane] was able to add a single AND gate to sum the two other inputs and pipe the output into another input of the OR gate. That has the effect of canceling out the race condition caused by the inverter, but at the expense of a more complicated circuit, of course.
We found this to be a fascinating and informative discussion of a potential pitfall in logic design. But, if you still want to see
some MOSFETs executed with static electricity
, who are we to object? | 21 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701617",
"author": "AZdave",
"timestamp": "2023-11-24T18:16:22",
"content": "Dealing with potential race conditions in logic circuitry has been around as long as logic circuitry has.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6701644",
... | 1,760,372,095.180139 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/24/hackaday-podcast-245-the-silver-swan-ets-umbrella-antenna-model-tanks-vs-space-shuttle-tires/ | Hackaday Podcast 245: The Silver Swan, ET’s Umbrella Antenna, Model Tanks Vs Space Shuttle Tires | Tom Nardi | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi link up through the magic of the Internet to go over some of their favorite stories from the last week. After revealing the bone-chilling winners of this year’s Halloween contest, the discussion switches over to old-timey automatons, receiving deep space transmissions with a homebrew antenna that would make E.T. proud, and the treasures that can be found while poking around in a modern car’s CAN bus.
They’ll also go over how NASA saved the taxpayers a bunch of money by hacking a remote controlled WWII tank, CNC controlled microscopes, and a cinema-quality camera you can probably build from what you’ve already got in the parts bin. Finally, they’ll detail an ambitious effort to recreate an old computer’s motherboard with a new feature in KiCad, and muse over all the interesting things that become possible once your test equipment can talk to your computer.
Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Download and enjoy listening with a cold turkey sandwich
.
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Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
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Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 245 Show Notes:
News:
2023 Halloween Hackfest: This Year’s Spooky Winners
What’s that Sound?
This week’s sound was an automatic wire stripper! Congratulations to [Adrian] for the spot-on guess!
It doesn’t embed well, but here’s the original video source:
IMG_9076.mov
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Restoring The Silver Swan Automaton
Umbrella Antenna Protects You From Rain, But Not The Way You Think
Need A Low-Mass Antenna In Space? Just Blow It Up!
Tune Your Dish Antenna Like A Pro
Simple CMOS Circuit Allows Power And Data Over Twisted-Pair Wiring
That Time NASA Built A Tiny Tank To Pop Shuttle Tires
Keeping A Mazda’s Radio On After The Engine Shuts Off
This ESP32 CAN!
Fixing Astronomy In The Blink Of An Eye
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
LiPo Replacement Keeps Portable Scanner In The Action
Pi-lomar Puts An Observatory In Your Hands
CNC Plus Microscope Plus Game Controller Equals Awesome
Tom’s Picks:
A Brand-New Antique Radio
CinePi Project Promises Open Source Movie Making
Bringing Back The CRT TV Experience In Software
Can’t-Miss Articles:
How To Talk To Your Scope
Amazing All-Band Receiver
Revive A Sony Vaio P-Series With KiCad’s Background Bitmaps | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,372,095.067435 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/25/heat-pump-dryer-explained/ | Heat Pump Dryer Explained | Al Williams | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"dryer",
"Heat pump"
] | Historically, having a washer and a dryer in your house requires “a hookup.” You need hot and cold water for the washer as well as a drain for wastewater. For the dryer, you need either gas or — in the US — a special 220 V outlet because the heating elements require a lot of wattage, and doubling the voltage keeps the current levels manageable. You also need a bulky hose to vent hot moist air out of the house. But a relatively new technology is changing that. Instead of using a heater, these new dryers use a heat pump, and [Matt Ferrell]
shows us his dryer
and discusses the pros and cons in a video you can below. We liked it because it did get into a bit of detail about the principle of operation.
These dryers are attractive because they use less power and don’t require gas or a 220 V outlet. They also don’t need a vent hose which means they can sit much closer to the wall and take up less space. Heat pumps don’t convert electrical energy into heat like a normal heating element. Instead, it uses a compressor to move heat from one place to another. In this case, the dryer heats the air using the heat pump. That causes water in the clothes to evaporate into the air. The heat pump dryer then uses a second loop to cool the air, condensing the water out so the it can reheat the air and start the whole cycle over again.
Where does the water go? Depends. Most models have a tank that fills up, and you can empty it every few loads. However, most dryers can also drain water directly down the same drain your washing machine uses.
[Matt] reports that the clothes don’t always seem very dry at the end of the cycle, which matches our experience with these dryers. However, some of this is just perception. If the clothes air out briefly, they are dry — the dryer drum is just moister than what you used to.
We’ve used these dryers. If you don’t mind the smaller typical size and want a neater installation, this is a reasonable answer. If you want cheaper operating costs, they are definitely worth a look.
Of course, a heat pump can
warm you up
, too. If heat pumps aren’t exotic enough for you, try drying your clothes
with ultrasonics
. | 98 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701976",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2023-11-26T06:34:17",
"content": "“dryer”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6702309",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2023-11-27T10:38:43",
"content": "https://w... | 1,760,372,095.363159 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/25/double-dose-of-ai-turns-daily-tasks-into-works-of-art/ | Double-Dose Of AI Turns Daily Tasks Into Works Of Art | Dan Maloney | [
"Machine Learning",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"calendar",
"ChatGPT",
"DALL-E",
"e-ink",
"e-paper",
"Midjourney",
"prompt",
"raspberry pi",
"waveshare"
] | Not so long ago, “Magic Mirror” builds were all the rage, and we have to admit getting out daily reminders and newsfeeds on an LCD display sitting behind a partially reflective mirror is not without its charms. But styles ebb and flow, so we don’t see too many of those builds anymore.
This e-ink daily calendar reminder
hearkens back to those Magic Mirrors, only with a double twist of AI.
This project is the work of [Ilkka Turunen], and right up front we’ll say the results are just gorgeous. A lot of that has to do with the 10.3″ e-ink display used, but more with the creative use of not one but two machine learning systems. The first is ChatGPT, which [Ilkka] uses to parse the day’s online calendar entries and grab the most significant events to generate a prompt for DALL-E. The generated DALL-E prompt has specific instructions that guide the style of the image, which honestly is where most of the artistry lies. [Ilkka]’s aesthetic choices, like suggesting that the images look like a 19th-century lithograph or a satirical comic from a turn-of-the-(last)-century newspaper. The prompt is then sent off to DALL-E for rendering, and the resulting image is displayed.
It has to be said that the prompts that ChatGPT generates based on the combination of [Ilkka]’s aesthetic preferences and the random events of the day are strikingly complex. The chatbot really seems to be showing some imagination these days; DALL-E is no slouch either in turning those words into images.
Like the idea of an e-ink daily reminder but prefer a less artistic presentation?
This should help
. | 11 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701948",
"author": "PWalsh",
"timestamp": "2023-11-26T03:37:12",
"content": "I do AI research as a hobby now. I’ve got too much OCD now to use any of the AI generated stuff – I keep seeing the flaws, they jump right out at me.The left rear wheel on the car above, or the position of... | 1,760,372,095.42627 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/25/what-it-takes-to-make-a-raspberry-pi-killer/ | What It Takes To Make A Raspberry Pi Killer | Jenny List | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"cm4",
"Pi 4",
"Pi 5"
] | The folks at Raspberry Pi are riding on a bit of a wave at the moment, with the launch of the Pi 5 with its PCIe and RP1 peripheral chip, the huge success of the RP2040 microcontroller, and the supply chain issues that dogged the Pi 4 and Compute Module 4 during and after the pandemic finally working themselves out. But as always there are plenty of would-be competitors snapping at their heels, so [Jeff Geerling] has posed the question of
what it takes to make a Raspberry Pi killer
. He’s in a good position to do this, as he’s amassed
an impressive collection of every competing Compute Module board
.
It’s a well-observed analysis of the world of small Linux SBCs, on hardware, software, community, and price, and we find ourselves pretty much in agreement with it. The Pi hardware has quirks and is rarely the best on paper when compared to the competition, but they win hands-down on distribution support and community. In a sense what you really buy when you get a PI is this, because Raspberry Pi OS will run on it for the reasonable future. Rival makers would do well to read his piece, because we sense that if one of them tried to give the Pi a run for its money away from the hardware it would make for a much better SBC ecosystem. Take a look at his Compute Module comparison below the break.
We recently took
a look at the strategic importance of the Pi 5 and in particular the RP1
. | 60 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701927",
"author": "LookAtDaShinyShiny",
"timestamp": "2023-11-26T00:32:08",
"content": "so the upshot is… It takes everything that raspberry pi has done in terms of development, hardware peripherals, drivers, support, pricing and community since its release to create a pi ‘killer’... | 1,760,372,095.539571 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/25/fail-of-the-week-this-flash-drive-will-not-self-destruct-in-five-seconds/ | Fail Of The Week: This Flash Drive Will NOT Self-Destruct In Five Seconds | Dan Maloney | [
"Fail of the Week"
] | [
"data security",
"fail of the week",
"flash drive",
"fotw",
"h-bridge",
"polarity",
"privacy",
"self destruct",
"superacid",
"Thermite",
"voltage doubler"
] | How hard can it be to kill a flash drive? Judging by the look of defeat on [Walker]’s face in
the video below,
pretty darn hard.
To bring you up to speed, and to give the “Mission: Impossible” reference in the title some context, it might be a good idea to look over our earlier coverage of [Walker]’s Ovrdrive project. It started way back in 2022 with the idea that some people might benefit from a flash drive that could rapidly and covertly render the data stored on it, err, “forensically unavailable.” This would require more than just erasing the data, of course, so [Walker] began looking at ways to physically kill a memory chip. First up was
a voltage doubler
to apply voltage much greater than the absolute maximum rating of 4.6 V for any pin on the chip. That corrupted some files on the flash chip, enough of a win to proceed to a prototype that actually
succeeded in releasing the Magic Smoke
.
But sadly, that puff of smoke ended up being a fluke. [Walker] couldn’t repeat the result, at least not with the reliability required by people for whom data privacy is literally a life-or-death matter. To increase the odds of a kill, he came up with an H-bridge circuit to reverse the polarity of the memory chip’s supply. Surely that would kill the chip, and from the thermal camera images, it sure looked promising. But apparently, even 167°C isn’t enough to forensically disable the chip, which kind of makes sense from the point of view of reflow survivability.
What’s next for [Walker]? He says he’s going to team up his overvoltage and reverse-polarity methods for one last shot, but after that, he’s about out of reasonable options. Sure, a thermite charge or a vial of superacid would do the trick, but neither is terribly covert. If you’re going to go that way, you might as well just buy a standard flash drive and throw it in the microwave or a blender. And we need to remember that this may be something the drive’s owner needs to do with jack-booted thugs kicking in the door, or possibly at gunpoint. It wouldn’t do to be too conspicuous under such circumstances. That’s why we like the “rapid power cycling” method of triggering the drive’s self-destruct sequence; it could easily be disguised as shaking hands in a stressful situation.
Who knew that memory chips were this robust? Kudos to [Walker] for getting the project as far as he did, and we’re still rooting for him to make it work somehow. | 49 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701873",
"author": "Sheff",
"timestamp": "2023-11-25T21:15:23",
"content": "I would think an SD card would be a better route to go.Have that as the flash-drive’s storage and send the over-voltage to that as they are much more fragile.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"r... | 1,760,372,095.627372 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/25/a-555-can-even-make-your-car-indicator-more-visible/ | A 555 Can Even Make Your Car Indicator More Visible | Lewin Day | [
"car hacks"
] | [
"555",
"car",
"indicator"
] | Modern cars often come with white marker lights or daytime running lights that are on all the time, as a supplement to the primary headlights. The problem is that in some vehicle designs, these additional lights tend to make it harder to see the indicators when they’re on. [nibbler] had this very problem, and decided to solve it with a special interrupter circuit
that cuts the daytime running light when the indicator is on
. Even better, they used a 555 to do it!
The circuit is a simple monostable 555 circuit with an active low output. It’s triggered by the indicator signal. When the indicator is on, the circuit drives a relay to switch off the power to the daytime running light. Two copies of the circuit were built, one for the left side, and one for the right side of the car. This means that when the orange indicator is lit, it’s not being overwhelmed by the white daytime running light next to it. In fact, many automakers now program this behavior into their lighting by default.
It’s a nifty hack with a real positive safety impact. We’ve featured some other neat indicator hacks of late, like these tidy sequential indicators. Meanwhile, if you’re hacking on your own automotive lighting solutions, don’t hesitate to
let us know! | 42 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701825",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2023-11-25T18:10:49",
"content": "Great. Now make it work at night, so I can tell whether the car coming at me is going to turn left",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6702157",
... | 1,760,372,095.708496 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/25/thanks-for-hacking/ | Thanks For Hacking | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants"
] | [
"thanks",
"thanksgiving"
] | Hope you’re all having a great Thanksgiving weekend, and are getting your fill of family, food, and maybe even a little bit of fun. Aside from the cranberries, Thanksgiving is probably one of my favorite holidays because of the spirit behind it – thinking about what’s gone well, how you lucked out, and who has done you right over the year.
One of the most poignant expressions of thanks I’ve heard in a while came from Hackaday superfriend [Sprite_tm] in
his Supercon talk this year
, which he closed by thanking “you all” for pushing him on to keep making crazy projects. “I would never finish these projects without people who would be entertained by seeing all this. This is is effectively art – something that doesn’t make sense. The only way it makes sense is because I want it to exist, and because I know that you all love hearing and reading about stuff like this existing. So thank you very much for that.”
That same sentiment goes for all of us here at Hackaday: Thank you all very much for reading! Without this global community of crazy hackers to write
for
, we wouldn’t be able to keep doing what we do – it just wouldn’t make sense. And without your hacks, of course, we’d have nothing to write
about
.
Thanks for sharing, thanks for following along, thanks for inspiring us and for being inspired. Thanks for hacking.
This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on
the web version of the newsletter
.
Want this type of article to hit your inbox every Friday morning?
You should sign up
! | 11 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701781",
"author": "Machinist-Mage",
"timestamp": "2023-11-25T15:07:13",
"content": "Thank you for reporting our hacks and non-“hacks”!Longtime lurker, really appreciate the content and community",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": ... | 1,760,372,095.757754 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/25/tesla-is-claimed-to-have-open-sourced-the-roadster/ | Tesla Claims To Have Open Sourced The Roadster | Jenny List | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"open source",
"tesla",
"Tesla Roadster"
] | In an interesting step for anyone who follows electric car technology, the automaker Tesla has released a trove of information about its first-generation Roadster car into the public domain.
The documents involved
include service manuals, circuit diagrams, and technical details, and Elon Musk himself
Tweeted
posted on X
that “
All design & engineering of the original @Tesla Roadster is now fully open source.
”
We like the idea and there’s plenty of interesting stuff there, but we can’t find an open-source licence anywhere and we have to take issue with his “
Whatever we have, you now have
” comment. What we have is useful maintenance information and presents a valuable window into 2010’s cutting edge of electric vehicles, but if it’s everything they have then something must have gone very wrong in the Tesla archives. It’s possible someone might take a Lotus Elise and produce something close to a Roadster replica with this info, but it’s by no means enough to make a car from. Instead we’re guessing it may be a prelude to reducing support for what is a low-production car from over a decade ago.
When it comes to electric vehicle manufacturers open-sourcing their older models we already have a model in the form of
Renault’s open-source version of their Twizy runabout
. This is a far more credible set of information that can be used to make a fully open-source version of the car, rather than a set of workshop manuals.
Tesla Roadster,
cytech
, CC BY 2.0. | 38 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701759",
"author": "Klaws",
"timestamp": "2023-11-25T12:31:54",
"content": "“Open Source” does *not* mean free (as in freedom), in the public domain or giving you a free (as in beer) license to any related patent or intellectual property.Note that patents are also Open Source “but ... | 1,760,372,095.830984 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/24/a-toe-tappin-set-of-morse-code-pedals/ | A Toe-Tappin’ Set Of Morse Code Pedals | Kristina Panos | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"copper tape",
"morse code",
"Nerf bullets"
] | What’s the worst thing about traditional Morse keyers? If you ask us, it’s the fact that you have to learn how to do two distinct things with one hand, and switch between them quite quickly and often.
This set of Morse code foot pedals
is meant for those who are unable to use traditional methods of keying. It uses a retrofitted wireless keyboard to read Z and X as dit and dah, respectively, and convert the Morse code into text.
[Tevendale_Engineering] started by getting the controller out of the keyboard and figuring out which combination of pads sends Z and X. Then they wired those up with copper tape. The pedals themselves are made from 1/2″-thick wood, foam core board, and Nerf bullets to provide springiness.
There’s no solder here; it’s all copper tape and alligator clip test leads. So if this isn’t your hack for the day, we don’t know what is.
Not so great at Morse code?
Here’s a clock that will train you on the numbers, at least
. | 15 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701532",
"author": "craig",
"timestamp": "2023-11-24T16:32:59",
"content": "Why use the x and y keys when, you know, dot and dash are available? Also- keying in dots and dashes requires an”keyer” for a radio and involves timing and buffers and stuff. but who types out Morse? Is som... | 1,760,372,095.887685 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/24/diy-smart-washing-machine-redeisgn/ | DIY Smart Washing Machine Redesign | Al Williams | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"washing machine"
] | [Mellow Labs] wanted a smart washer and built a simple controller. However, he found out after a few weeks it wasn’t working how he wanted. The detergent quit flowing, and he washed clothes with no soap for a week! So, a
redesign
was in order. You can follow the process and the result in the video below.
A bit of 3D printing, a larger pump, and proper voltage made a big difference. We didn’t see the print files, but unless you have the exact same setup, you’d probably have to customize it anyway. There is a real-time hand-drawn schematic, and the software is probably not hard to pull off the video screen (it is only 18 lines).
Washing machines are what’s known in the industry as “white goods,” and we are always surprised how often commercial implementations don’t seem particularly well thought out. For example, we’ve seen washers that have a remote control implementation that requires you to push a physical button to enable the phone app, and that disables the manual controls. It is good to know that you could just build your own smart appliances; it is quite feasible.
Internet-connected washers
are all the rage
. Even if your machine doesn’t have the requisite sensors, you can usually
figure out something
to monitor the progress. | 17 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701471",
"author": "paul_shallard",
"timestamp": "2023-11-24T11:45:06",
"content": "If you really wanted to do something to improve washing machine design do something about the valves that slam closed every few minutes resulting in pipe damaging “water hammer”",
"parent_id": n... | 1,760,372,095.940231 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/23/agate-light-twinkles-just-right/ | Agate Light Twinkles Just Right | Kristina Panos | [
"Art",
"green hacks"
] | [
"agate",
"beetles",
"blinkenlights",
"Pine"
] | Mother Nature is often a cruel mistress, but what can you do? You’ve got to make the best of what she gives you.
This lovely little light was born from death
— the death of a pine tree, that is, that was killed by beetles boring large holes inside.
When [Craig Lindley]’s friends gave him some slices of that pine tree, he knew he had to make a blinkenlights thing out of it. The next step was to procure slices of agate, and from the top of Pike’s Peak, no less.
Each slice of agate has three RGB LEDs behind it, and these are controlled by an ESP32. There’s also a PIR sensor that detects people and gives them a show. More specifically, it runs through several patterns at random speeds up and down the piece.
The agate slices are embedded in the wood, which [Craig] achieved first with a Dremel, and then with a router when the Dremel proved difficult. After some troubles with resin and an unfortunate mishap with a rag, [Craig] ended up with a beautiful light with which to dazzle his friends, especially the ones who gave him the pine slice.
You know we love blinkenlights; you see them here all the time.
Did you know you can use them to keep time? | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701632",
"author": "Lisa",
"timestamp": "2023-11-24T19:18:13",
"content": "Wow, love it & want one😁.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6701646",
"author": "cultrocker",
"timestamp": "2023-11-24T20:30:06",
"content": ... | 1,760,372,096.096895 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/23/harvard-seti-project-helps-id-mystery-sound/ | Harvard SETI Project Helps ID Mystery Sound | Tom Nardi | [
"Science",
"Space"
] | [
"Harvard University",
"meteor",
"SETI",
"UAP"
] | Last month, thousands of people in New Hampshire took to social media to report an explosion in the sky that was strong enough to rattle windows. Naturally aliens were blamed by some, while cooler heads theorized it may have been a sonic boom from a military aircraft. But without any evidence, who could say?
Luckily for concerned residents, this was precisely the sort of event Harvard’s Galileo Project was designed to investigate. Officially described as a way to search for “technological signatures of Extraterrestrial Technological Civilizations (ETCs)”, the project keeps a constant watch on the sky with a collection of cameras and microphones. With their gear, the team was able to
back up the anecdotal reports with with hard data
.
As explained in a recent article on
The Debrief
written by project head [Avi Loeb], none of Galileo’s optical equipment captured anything interesting at the time. But it’s acoustic monitoring, omni-directional system (AMOS), which records from the infrasonic all the way to ultrasonic (specifically, 0.05 hertz to 190 kilohertz), got an earful during the 12-second event.
[Avi] was able to take the data collected by AMOS and run it through the Taylor–von Neumann–Sedov solution, which was originally developed during World War II to estimate how much energy was released during the detonation of a nuclear bomb from the spherical blast-wave it produced.
By plugging the amplitude and duration of the pressure wave into the equation, he calculated an energy release of approximately 2.4 kilotons of TNT at a distance of about 40 kilometers (25 miles).
Since the detonation of a tactical nuclear weapon within a 40 km radius of Mount Washington would likely have been noticed by somebody, the likely culprit would therefore be some object entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
As it turns out, the Orionid meteor shower was just about at its peak in the skies over Massachusetts at that point. Given the average velocity of these particular meteors (66 km/s), [Avi] figures the source of the sound was a space rock of about a meter in diameter meeting its fiery end.
We know, aliens would have been more fun. But this is precisely the sort of grounded research that needs to happen for
Unidentified Anomalous/Aerial Phenomena (UAP) to be taken seriously
. We hadn’t heard of the Galileo Project before this, but will certainly be keeping an eye on its findings going forward.
Thanks to [PWalsh] for the tip. | 27 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701423",
"author": "Rob",
"timestamp": "2023-11-24T03:17:17",
"content": "Absolutely wild! I freaking love science!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6701425",
"author": "K",
"timestamp": "2023-11-24T03:45:21",
"conte... | 1,760,372,096.172096 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/23/re-inventing-the-single-8-home-movie-format/ | Re-Inventing The Single 8 Home Movie Format | Dave Walker | [
"Art",
"Reverse Engineering",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"8mm",
"cine",
"film",
"movie",
"single8"
] | [Jenny List] has been reverse-engineering and redesigning the
Single8 home movie film cartridge
for the modern age, to breathe life into abandoned cine cameras.
One of the frustrating things about working with technologies that have been with us for a while is the proliferation of standards and the way that once-popular formats can become obsolete over time. This can leave equipment effectively unusable and unloved.
There is perhaps no greater example of this than in film photography – an industry and hobby that has been with us for over 100 years and that has left many cameras orphaned once the film format they relied on was no longer available (
Disc film
, anyone?).
Thankfully, Hackaday’s own [Jenny List] has been working hard to bring one particular cine film format back from the dead and has just released the fourth instalment
in a video series documenting the process
of resurrecting the Single8 format cartridge.
Test frame showing the cartridge in action, using real film
Unlike Super8, which stacks the feeder and take-up reel one atop the other, Single8 adopts the traditional side-by-side approach, giving us a physically wider form-factor while using the same size of film stock (which is still available for Super8) and retaining the removable light-proof cartridge idea.
There are differing opinions on which is the “superior” format, as each has pros and cons, but what is certainly true is that Single8 cameras are readily available at very low costs because of their obsolete status.
We think it’s fascinating to see the development of Jenny’s design and the iterations that take it from being a workable FDM-printed prototype to resin-printed parts that are nearly identical to the original models, including features such as automatic ISO selection through shaped cut-outs in the cartridge shell.
Of course, once you’ve shot the film, you may need to
digitize it
, or maybe you’d prefer to project it with an
LED upgrade
to a classic projector? | 22 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701416",
"author": "Tom",
"timestamp": "2023-11-24T02:19:12",
"content": "Impressive stuff!I find it interesting that we think we have things that are complete. Eg a camera is a device that takes pictures.But what we really have are components in a system. Eg a camera is one compon... | 1,760,372,096.239131 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/23/analog-wall-calendar-keeps-track-of-the-days-for-you/ | Analog Wall Calendar Keeps Track Of The Days For You | Lewin Day | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"calendar",
"clock",
"retrograde hands"
] | [ssh16] had seen some fancy wristwatches with retrograde hands. Wanting to do something similar of their own, they set about
creating an analog wall calendar
that displays the date and the day of the week.
The build uses a pair of stepper motors to control the hands, a simple choice for accurate and reliable motion control. A Microchip PIC18F24J50 serves as the brains of the operation, chosen for its built-in RTC module and the fact that it has plenty of IO for controlling stepper motors. The built-in RTC is programmed with calendar information for the next 100 years, so there is no need to adjust the clock for leap years on the regular. The top hand of the wall calendar is driven in an arc to show days of the month, from 1 to 31. The bottom hand similarly steps through the 7 days of the week. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of retrograde hands, they’re simply hands that sweep in an arc instead of moving in a whole continuous circle.
Hackers do love a good
clock build
, even if this one doesn’t specifically tell the time itself. If you’ve whipped up your own nifty timepiece, know that we’d love to see its fine face
on the tipsline! | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701386",
"author": "arifyn",
"timestamp": "2023-11-23T22:33:08",
"content": "Cool build, although the headline gave me the false hope that it would have an analog date-keeping mechanism, not just an analog-presenting display.To be fair, that would be significantly more challenging!... | 1,760,372,096.377117 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/23/an-automated-watch-cleaner-from-an-older-3d-printer/ | An Automated Watch Cleaner From An Older 3D Printer | Jenny List | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"klipper",
"watch cleaner"
] | The many delicate parts in a mechanical wristwatch present a tricky cleaning problem, one that for professionals there is a variety of machines to tackle. As you might expect, such specialty equipment doesn’t come cheap, so
[daveburkeaus] came up with his own solution
, automated using an older 3D printer.
The premise is straightforward enough: it’s a machine with a succession of stations for cleaning, rinsing, and drying, through which the watch is moved on a set cycle. The hot end and extruder is replaced with a motor and shaft, on the end of which is a basket in which the watch sits. The basket is a commercial part for simplicity of construction, though one could certainly fabricate their own if need be. The printer gets a controller upgrade and of course a motor controller, and with a software stack built upwards from the
Klipper
firmware seems ready to go. There is the small matter of the heater used for drying not keeping the firmware happy as a substitute for the heated bed it thinks it’s driving, but that is fixed by controlling it directly.
We’ve remarked before that
superseded 3D printers are present in large numbers in our community
, and particularly now a few years since that article was written we’re reaching the point at which many very capable machines are sitting idle. It’s thus particularly good to see a project that brings one of them out of retirement for a useful purpose. | 11 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701352",
"author": "H Hack",
"timestamp": "2023-11-23T19:23:04",
"content": "This is definitely a hack, I like it! Personally I wouldn’t “waste” an old 3D printer this way but that’s probably because washing watches has no value for me.He might want to add another bearing along the... | 1,760,372,096.333453 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/23/life-imitates-art-art-13-that-is/ | Life Imitates ART (ART-13, That Is) | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Teardown"
] | [
"boat anchor",
"dynamotor",
"transmitter"
] | [Mr. Carlson] has been restoring vintage military radios, and as part of his quest, he received
an ART-13 transmitter
. Before he opened the shipping box, he turned on the camera, and we get to watch from the very start in the video below. These transmitters were originally made by Collins for the Navy with an Army Air Corps variant made by Stewart-Warner. Even the Russians made a copy, presumably by studying salvaged units from crashed B-29s.
The transmitter puts out 100 watts at frequencies up to 18.1 MHz. The tubes needed a plate supply, and so, like many radios of the era, this one used a
dynamotor
. Think of it as a motor running at one voltage and turning a generator that produces a (usually) higher voltage. If you ever used a radio with one, you know you didn’t need an “on the air” sign — the whine of the thing spinning would let everyone know you had the key or microphone button pushed down. It’s an interesting piece of bygone tech that
we’ve looked into previously
.
The transmitter wasn’t in perfect shape, but we’ve seen worse. When the lid comes off, you can practically smell the old radio odor. There are tubes, coils, and even a vacuum relay, presumably for transmit/receive switching of the antenna. [Carlson] also tears open the dynamotor which is something you don’t see every day. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701380",
"author": "Steven-X",
"timestamp": "2023-11-23T22:12:48",
"content": "Cool. I bought a TCS receiver that was also built by Collins in WW2.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6701400",
"author": "Flairm",
"timestam... | 1,760,372,096.285682 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/23/sometimes-its-worth-waiting-kodak-finally-release-their-super-8-camera/ | Sometimes It’s Worth Waiting: Kodak Finally Release Their Super 8 Camera | Jenny List | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"analog film",
"film",
"kodak",
"super 8"
] | Think of all those promised products that looked so good and were eagerly awaited, but never materialized. Have you ever backed a Kickstarter project in the vain hope that one day your novelty 3D printer might appear? Good luck with the wait! But sometimes, just
sometimes
, a product everyone thought was dead and gone pops up unexpectedly.
So it is with Kodak’s infamous new Super 8 camera, which they announced in 2018 and had the world of film geeks salivating over, then went quiet on. It’s abandoned, we all thought, and
then suddenly five years later it isn’t
. If you really must have the latest in analog film-making gear, you can put your name down to order one now.
The camera itself is a pretty good take on an 8mm movie camera for any decade, with crystal-controlled timing and a C-mount lens system with a widescreen film gate. As befits the 2020s, it has digital sound recording and an LCD viewfinder with HDMI output which we are guessing may be fed by a small camera sensor via a prism from the light path just like an old-style viewfinder.
Gone are the piles of AA batteries of yore in favor of a rechargeable pack, though apparently they’ve not considered that 2018’s micro USB could use an update to 2023’s USB-C. It’s in no way cheap though at a reported eye-watering $5495, which will make it a boutique camera. Even though it’s evidently a good camera, we think that’s very steep indeed for what it is.
So why are we enthusing about a new camera, and an unaffordable one at that? Simply because analog film is at heart a hacker medium, and there’s no need to shell out crazy money to get involved. Super 8 cameras were manufactured in their tens of millions from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, and though there are the usual eBay sharks there’s more than enough of them in second-hand stores to make the barrier to entry significantly lower than the cost of the film. This Kodak camera may be unrealistically priced, but it’s likely to trigger a new interest in thinking really carefully about each shot in your 3.5 minutes of footage. Go on –
film your next hacker camp
!
Thanks Gregg “Cabe” Bond for the tip! | 32 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701268",
"author": "Prfesser",
"timestamp": "2023-11-23T13:12:06",
"content": "“Boutique camera” is a good descriptor. Leave it on the coffee table like one of those huge, colorful-cover books intended to spark conversation but which are never actually read.“Oh, it’s a video camera... | 1,760,372,096.67767 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/23/drone-motion-capture-the-open-source-way/ | Drone Motion Capture, The Open Source Way | Lewin Day | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"drone tracking",
"ESP32",
"infrared",
"tracking"
] | If you want to do some really advanced flying with drones, you typically need to be able to track them in space. [Joshua Bird] has whipped up a drone tracking system that can do the job
for as little as $20 with millimeter-scale precision.
The system uses four PS3 Eye cameras which can be had second-hand at a cost of just $5 each. They’re modified by removing their IR cut filter, and putting in an IR-passing filter in the form of a cut-up slice of floppy disk. The system tracks the drones via their infrared indicators and the known locations of the four cameras themselves, which the system is capable of mapping out automatically. By using four cameras, the system is robust in the event the view of a camera is occluded. The system can track multiple drones at the same time, with [Joshua] demonstrating it working with two drones each carrying three infrared markers. He has the system set up to send positional updates to ESP32 microcontrollers on the drones themselves, which command the drones to hold them in set positions.
Code is available
on GitHub
for the curious.
We’ve seen other similar work before, too
. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701198",
"author": "shaburu",
"timestamp": "2023-11-23T10:08:38",
"content": "Insane work!!SO happy to see undergrads building such amazing tech and going the open source route!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6701238",
"au... | 1,760,372,096.456754 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/22/a-modernized-metric-clock/ | A Modernized Metric Clock | Bryan Cockfield | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"clock",
"french",
"french revolution",
"french revolutionary calendar",
"IoT",
"metric",
"nextion",
"particle photon",
"seconds"
] | Much to the chagrin of many living in North America who still need to do things like keep two sets of wrenches on hand, most of the rest of the world has standardized to a simpler measurement system using metric units exclusively. The metric system is widely adopted worldwide, but we still use a base-60 system for timekeeping that predates the rest of the metric system. The French did attempt to “decimalize” timekeeping as well with the French Republican Calendar at around this same time, but this “metric” timekeeping system never caught on particularly well. It’s still an interesting historical tidbit, and [ClassTech]
built this modern metric clock to explore it a little more
.
The system itself uses ten-day weeks, ten-hour days, and 100-minute hours which makes it more in line with the base-10 system common to the rest of the metric system. But this means that a second in the French Republican system actually works out to a little less than one and a half
SI
seconds, meaning that a modern timekeeping computer needs to do a little more math to display the correct time at the correct interval. [ClassTech] is using a Particle Photon IoT processor getting the time from a NTP server, converting it to “metric time”, and displaying the time on a Nextion touch display.
While the device is reported to update the time once per second, we’re not sure if this is every SI second or every French Republican second. Either way, there are plenty of reasons this timekeeping system never gained widespread adoption, and a surprising one is that timekeeping tends to be easier in a base-60 system due to its capability of having more divisors. Many other reasons are less technical and more cultural, and timekeeping tends to be surprisingly difficult to coordinate
even among shared numbers systems and languages
. | 60 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701155",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2023-11-23T06:07:52",
"content": "Mmm… Lobster Thermidor.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6701158",
"author": "KDawg",
"timestamp": "2023-11-23T06:26:41",
"content": "As ro... | 1,760,372,096.776506 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/22/recreating-the-ibm-thinkpad-case/ | Recreating The IBM Thinkpad Case | Lewin Day | [
"classic hacks",
"computer hacks"
] | [
"laptop",
"thinkpad"
] | Once upon a time, laptops and other computer hardware often came with a fancy leather case for protection. That’s not really the case anymore, but it was in the golden era of the IBM ThinkPad. [polymatt] found a rare example, but wanted another one,
so he decided to try and replicate it from scratch.
Leathercraft was a new discipline for [polymatt], and so the whole build was a learning experience. He started out by measuring the existing design and creating a diagram to guide his own work. He then traced the design on to a large piece of quality leather, carefully rounding the edges and adding a plastic stiffening plates to support the laptop where needed. Additional layers of leather were added to seal these in, and the leather was formed over guides to take the right shape. A slight misstep resulted in the case being too long, but a cut-and-shut job rectified the problem.
The finished result is a clean, impressive thing. Throughout the build, [polymatt] showed a certain mastery of the leatherworking tools that belied his lack of experience, too. The project should serve as a great inspiration to any other aspiring crafters who have contemplated
creating their own custom leather goods
for protecting their electronics. Video after the break. | 7 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701146",
"author": "Severe Tire Damage",
"timestamp": "2023-11-23T04:24:05",
"content": "I have aspirations to learn leatherworking some fine day. My hat is off here on this project. A very nice final result for someone using this as a learning experience.",
"parent_id": null... | 1,760,372,096.499393 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/22/machining-a-reciprocating-solenoid-engine/ | Machining A Reciprocating Solenoid Engine | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Engine Hacks"
] | [
"cylinder",
"engine",
"engine timing",
"infrared detector",
"infrared emitter",
"reciprocating",
"solenoid engine"
] | The reciprocating engine has been all the rage for at least three centuries. The first widely adopted engine of this type was the steam engine with a piston translating linear motion into rotational motion, but the much more common version today is found in the internal combustion engine. Heat engines aren’t the only ways of performing this translation, though. While there are few practical reasons for building them, solenoid engines can still do this job as well and,
like this design from [Maciej Nowak Projects]
, are worth building just for the aesthetics alone.
The solenoid engine is built almost completely from metal stock shaped in a machine shop, including the solenoids themselves. The build starts by making them out of aluminum rod and then winding them with the help of a drill. The next step is making the frame to hold the solenoids and the bearings for the crankshaft. To handle engine timing a custom brass shutter mechanism was made to allow a set of infrared emitter/detector pairs to send signals that control each of the solenoids. With this in place on the crankshaft and the connecting rods attached the engine is ready to run.
Even though this solenoid engine is more of a project made for its own sake, solenoid engines are quite capable of doing useful work
like this engine fitted into a small car
. We’ve seen some other impressive solenoid engine builds as well like
this V8 from [Emiel]
that was the final iteration of a series of builds from him that progressively added more solenoid pistons to an original design. | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701138",
"author": "KJ",
"timestamp": "2023-11-23T02:21:05",
"content": "(1) The pistons should be 90 degrees apart, not 180. Then it won’t “get stuck” with both pistons topped / bottomed. (2) Add a neodymium magnet to the end of a bass piston, then you can implement Piston 1 – pus... | 1,760,372,097.182089 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/22/esp32-used-as-wireless-can-bus-reader/ | ESP32 Used As Wireless CAN Bus Reader | Lewin Day | [
"car hacks"
] | [
"can-bus",
"car",
"obd-ii"
] | The CAN bus, accessible through the OBD-II port, is the channel that holds all the secrets of the modern automobile. If you want to display those for your own perusal, you might consider
this nifty tool from [EQMOD].
Yes, it’s an OBD-II dongle that you can build using an ESP32 WROVER module. It’s designed to read a car’s CAN bus communications and display them on a self-hosted web page, accessible over WiFi. The build relies on the dual-core nature of the ESP32, with the first core handling CAN bus duties via the SN65HVD230 CAN bus transceiver chip. The second core is responsible for hosting the web page. Data received via the CAN bus is pushed to the web user interface roughly every 60 to 100 milliseconds or so for information like RPM and speed. Less time-critical data, like temperatures and voltages, are updated every second.
It’s a neat little thing, and unlike a lot of dongles you might buy online, you don’t need to install some dodgy phone app to use it. You can just look at the ESP32’s web page for the data you seek. The graphics may be a little garish, but they do the job of telling you what’s going on inside your car. Plus, you can always update them yourself.
Getting to grips with the CAN bus
is key if you want to diagnose or modify modern vehicles. Meanwhile, if you’ve been cooking up your own electronic vehicular hacks, don’t hesitate to
drop us a line! | 34 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701099",
"author": "Brent",
"timestamp": "2023-11-22T21:07:13",
"content": "As I’ve discovered recently, not all cars with CAN bus expose it over the OBD-II port. My 2024 only leaks a couple of frames when the car starts, then it’s silent, but it can be accessed through a couple of... | 1,760,372,096.923068 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/21/lipo-replacement-keeps-portable-scanner-in-the-action/ | LiPo Replacement Keeps Portable Scanner In The Action | Dan Maloney | [
"Battery Hacks",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"bms",
"boost",
"dc-dc",
"hand held",
"lipo",
"NiCd",
"portable",
"scanner"
] | If there’s anything people hate more than being locked into a printer manufacturer’s replacement cartridges, it’s proprietary batteries. Cordless power tools are the obvious example in this space, but there are other devices that insist on crappy battery packs that are expensive to replace when they eventually die.
One such device is the Uniden Bearcat BC296D portable scanner that [Robert Guildig] found for a song at a thrift store, which he recently gave
a custom LiPo battery upgrade
. It came equipped with a nickel-cadmium battery pack, which even under the best of circumstances has a very limited battery life. Using regular AA batteries wasn’t an option, but luckily the space vacated by the OEM battery pack left a lot of room for mods. Those include a small module with BMS functions and a DC-DC converter, a 2,400 mAh 4.2 V LiPo pillow pack, and a new barrel connector for charging. With the BMS set for six volts and connected right to the old battery pack socket, the scanner can now run for seven hours on a one-hour charge. As a bonus, the LiPo pack should last a few times longer than the NiCd packs, and be pretty cheap to replace when it finally goes too. There’s a video after the hop with all the details.
If you’re looking at a similar battery replacement project, you might want to check out [Arya]’s guide to
everything you need to know about lithium-ion circuitry
. | 8 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6700689",
"author": "Antron Argaiv",
"timestamp": "2023-11-21T12:28:34",
"content": "NiMH is a good sub for NiCd in most applications. But LiPO is even better!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6700710",
"author": "Joseph Eoff... | 1,760,372,097.122218 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/21/zork-zcode-interpreters-appear-out-of-nowhere/ | ZorkZcode Interpreters Appear Out Of Nowhere | Julian Scheffers | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"interpreter",
"retro gaming",
"virtual machine",
"zork"
] | Some of our readers may know about
Zork
(and 1, 2, 3), the 1977 text adventure originally written for the PDP-10. The game has been public domain for a while now, but recently,
the interpreters for several classic 1980s machines
have also appeared on the internet.
What’s the difference?
Zork
is not a PDP-10 executable, it’s actually a virtual machine executable, which is in turn run by an interpreter written for the PDP-10. For example, Java compiles to Java bytecode, which runs on the Java virtual machine (but not directly on any CPU). In the same way,
Zork
was compiled to “Z-machine” program files, called ZIP (which was of course used in 1990 by the much more well known PKZIP). To date, the compiler, “Zilch” has not been released, but the language specification and ZIP specifications have, which has led some people to write
custom ZIP compilers
, though with a different input language.
For more on the VM, check out
Maya’s Zork retrospective
. (And dig the featured art. Subtle!)
Of course, that’s not the only type of interpreter. Some programming languages are interpreted directly from source,
like this BASIC hidden in the ESP32’s ROM
. | 27 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6700664",
"author": "Kerry Richens",
"timestamp": "2023-11-21T09:43:40",
"content": "I have been looking into the lineage of Dungeons and Drangons-1 “DND1” It has been claimed to be written originally on a PDP11 in BASIC but it looks more like PDP10 . The problem I have is that the ... | 1,760,372,097.442976 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/20/pi-lomar-puts-an-observatory-in-your-hands/ | Pi-lomar Puts An Observatory In Your Hands | Navarre Bartz | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Space"
] | [
"amateur astronomy",
"astrophotography",
"observatory",
"Raspberry Pi 4",
"Raspberry Pi HQ camera",
"rp2040",
"telescope"
] | Humans have loved looking up at the night sky for time immemorial, and that hasn’t stopped today. [MattHh] has taken this love to the next level with the
Pi-lomar Miniature Observatory
.
Built with a Raspberry Pi 4, a RPi Hi Quality camera, and a Pimoroni Tiny2040, this tiny observatory does a solid job of letting you observe the night sky from the comfort of your sofa (some assembly required). The current version of Pi-lomar uses a 16mm ‘telephoto’ lens and the built-in camera libraries from Raspbian Buster. This gives a field of view of approximately 21 degrees of the sky.
While small for an observatory, there are still 4 spools of 3D printing filament in the five different assemblies: the Foundation, the Platform, the Tower, the Gearboxes and the Dome. Two NEMA 17 motors are directed by the Tiny2040 to keep the motion smoother than if the RPi 4 was running them directly. The observatory isn’t waterproof, so if you make your own, don’t leave it out in the rain.
If you’re curious how we might combat the growing spectre of light pollution to better our nighttime observations, check out how
blinking can help
. And if you want to build a (much) larger telescope, how about
using the Sun as a gravitational lens
? | 5 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6700699",
"author": "make piece not war",
"timestamp": "2023-11-21T12:54:21",
"content": "This project is made by a cousin of Sponge Bob Square Pants since the coordinates are well inside the North Sea. And is not warm enough for the real SBSP.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": ... | 1,760,372,097.071285 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/20/easy-hackintosh-with-docker-osx-soon-to-be-impossible/ | Easy Hackintosh With Docker-OSX: Soon To Be Impossible? | Maya Posch | [
"Mac Hacks"
] | [
"Docker-OSX",
"hackintosh",
"macOS"
] | The
Docker-OSX
project has to be among one of the easiest ways to get a fully functional
Hackintosh
off the ground on any Linux or Windows (10+) system, with the Docker image handling the heavy lifting of keeping the copy of MacOS happy and satisfied, even as the
legality remains questionable
, as we
previously
reported on in 2021. Officially, Apple’s software license for MacOS states that it can only be installed and use on Apple-branded hardware, which precludes the installation in e.g. a Docker container. This has left Docker-OSX in a gray zone where it’s technically illegal, but as it’s being advertised by its developer [Sick Codes] to be for use by security researchers who participate in Apple’s Bug Bounty program (including iOS, which requires XCode, which requires MacOS, etc.), it seems to slip through the cracks.
An obvious issue which may soon spell the end of MacOS-on-x86_64 and with it this use of Docker-OSX is that
MacOS
is now straddling Apple Silicon and Intel’s x86_64 architecture, with the latter no longer being sold by Apple’s in any of its systems after the recent introduction of its Apple Silicon-based Mac Pro. Although MacOS Sonoma (14) still supports x86_64, this support
could be cut
in MacOS 15 or 16, at which point running Docker-OSX with an Apple Silicon-only MacOS image would at the very least require an
AArch64
-based ARM system, though likely with an ISA extension level that matches the lowest-end Apple Silicon (
ARMv8.5-A
for
M1
).
Although this should not make it impossible to run Docker-OSX on future Linux (and perhaps Windows) systems on AArch64-based systems, it would make it more complicated and expensive as using one’s existing x86_64-based PC is no longer an option aside from adding a sluggish Qemu layer in between, which would add a significant performance penalty. If you are using Docker-OSX, what are your experiences and plans here? | 44 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6700617",
"author": "Bob A.",
"timestamp": "2023-11-21T03:29:45",
"content": "It’s clear that Apple has no reason to continue to support x86-64 beyond their standard support window for legacy hardware. I’m not so pessimistic to think that 15 or 16 will be the cutoff, I think it’s mo... | 1,760,372,097.012455 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/20/diy-loading-coil-shortens-antenna-lengths/ | DIY Loading Coil Shortens Antenna Lengths | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"amateur radio",
"antenna",
"coil",
"ham radio",
"inductance",
"inductor",
"loading coil",
"radio"
] | A newly licensed amateur radio operator’s first foray into radios is likely to be a VHF or UHF radio with a manageable antenna designed for the high frequencies in these radio bands. But these radios aren’t meant for communicating more than a double-digit number of kilometers or miles. The radios meant for long-distance communication use antennas that are anything but manageable, as dipole antennas for the lowest commonly used frequencies can often be on the order of 50 meters in length. There are some tricks to getting antenna size down like folding the dipole in all manner of ways, but the real cheat code for reducing antenna size is
to build a loading coil instead
.
As [VA5MUD] demonstrates, a loading coil is simply an inductor that is placed somewhere along the length of the antenna which makes a shorter antenna behave as a longer antenna. In general, though, the inductor needs to be robust enough to handle the power outputs from the radio. There are plenty of commercial offerings but since an inductor is not much more than a coil of wire, it’s entirely within the realm of possibility to build them on your own. [VA5MUD]’s design uses a piece of PVC with some plastic spacers to wind some thick wire around, and then a customized end cap with screw terminals attached to affix the antenna and feedline to. Of course you’ll need to do a bit of math to figure out exactly how many turns of wire will be best for your specific situation, but beyond that it’s fairly straightforward.
It’s worth noting that the coil doesn’t have to be attached between the feedline and the antenna. It can be placed anywhere along the antenna, with the best performance typically being at the end of the antenna. Of course this is often impractical, so a center-loaded coil is generally used as a compromise. Coils like these are not too hard to wind by hand, but for smaller, lower-current projects it might be good to
pick up a machine to help wind the coils instead
. | 24 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6700596",
"author": "Observer",
"timestamp": "2023-11-21T00:32:14",
"content": "This guy uses a movable tap to short out unwanted turns to reduce coil inductance. You can find similar topology in the tank circuits of old tube transmitters where a progressively-shorting rotary switch... | 1,760,372,097.323245 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/20/cinepi-project-promises-open-source-movie-making/ | CinePi Project Promises Open Source Movie Making | Tom Nardi | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"movie camera",
"Raspberry Pi HQ camera"
] | Today, there’s open source options for pretty much anything mainstream, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still some niches out there that could benefit from the libre treatment. The
CinePi project
is a perfect example — before today we didn’t even know that an open hardware and software cinema-quality camera was out there. But now that we do, we can’t wait to see what the community does with it.
Inside the 3D printed enclosure of the CinePi, there’s a Raspberry Pi 4 with HQ camera module, a four-inch touch screen, a Zero2Go power supply with four 18650 cells, and a Notcua fan to keep it all cool. The design intentionally favors modules that are easy to source from the usual online sources. You’ll need to be handy with a soldering iron to follow along with the
beautifully photographed assembly guide
, but there’s nothing that needs to be custom fabricated to complete the build.
The software was clearly developed with the user experience in mind, and in the video below, you can see how its touch interface makes it easy to change settings on the fly. While an amateur auteur might need to enlist the assistance of their geeky friend to
build
the CinePi, it doesn’t look like they’ll need them around to help operate it.
Of course, the big question with a project like this: what does the video actually look like? Well the technical answer is that, in terms of raw performance, the CinePi is able to capture 3840 x 2160 CinemaDNG video to an external device such as a NVME SSD or a CFExpress Card at 25 frames per second. But what that actually
looks
like is going to depend on what kind of post-processing you do to it. For the more practical answer, check out the short film
TIMEKEEPER
which was shot partially on a CinePi.
If this all looks a bit high-tech for your liking, don’t worry. You could always
3D print yourself a 35 mm movie camera instead
. | 19 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6700541",
"author": "NurseBobIsRetired",
"timestamp": "2023-11-20T21:49:13",
"content": "It would be useful to know to which footage “partially” applies. It looks to be an interesting project, but neither video clip reveals enough useful information to help decide whether it’s wort... | 1,760,372,097.379641 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/20/a-camera-that-signs-off-your-pictures/ | A Camera That Signs Off Your Pictures | Al Williams | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"cryptographic signature",
"digital photography"
] | We’ll admit we’ve kicked around the idea of a camera that digitally signs a picture so you could prove it hasn’t been altered and things like the time and place the photo was taken for years. Apparently, products are starting to hit the market, and Spectrum
reports on a Leica
that, though it will set you back nearly $10,000, can produce pictures with cryptographic signatures.
This isn’t something Leica made up. In 2019, a consortium known as the
Content Authenticity Initiative
set out to establish a standard for this sort of thing. The founders are no surprise: The New York Times, Adobe, and Twitter. There are 200 companies involved now, although Twitter — now X — has left.
The problem, the post notes, is that software support is limited. There are only a few programs that recognize and process digital signatures. That’ll change, of course, and — we imagine — if you needed to prove the provenance of a photo in court, you’d just buy the right software you needed.
We haven’t dug into the technology, but presumably keeping the private key secure will be very important. The consortium is clear that the technology is not about managing rights, and it is possible to label a picture anonymously. The signature can identify if an image was taken with a camera or generated by AI and details about how it was taken. It also can detect any attempt to tamper with the image. Compliant programs can make modifications, but they will be traceable through the cryptographic record.
Will it work? Probably. Can it be broken? We don’t know, but we wouldn’t bet that it couldn’t without a lot more reading. PDF signatures
can be hacked
. Our experience is that
not much is truly unhackable
. | 38 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "6700500",
"author": "Thomas Brusehaver",
"timestamp": "2023-11-20T19:57:42",
"content": "All cameras should do something like this.Gimp and Photoshop et.al. should be able to add to the signature without being allowed to remove it.It will minimize “deep fakes” in important places.Th... | 1,760,372,097.515076 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/21/a-colorful-take-on-the-e-ink-photo-frame/ | A Colorful Take On The E-Ink Photo Frame | Navarre Bartz | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"digital photo frame",
"e-ink",
"photo frame",
"Pi Hat",
"raspberry pi"
] | Everyone loves sharing photos, and with most pictures being taken on smartphones now, digital frames are more convenient than finding a photo printer. [Wolfgang Ziegler] used an e-ink screen to create a colorful
digital picture frame
.
Starting with a seven color e-ink HAT he’d forgotten he had, a spare Pi Zero, and analog photo frame, he pieced the parts together into a pretty slick, sunlight readable photo frame. [Ziegler] details how he set up the frame to display new images using the Pimoroni inky library. He set a fifteen minute refresh interval since the color e-ink display takes 30 seconds to refresh to keep it from looking weird too often.
With the holidays coming up, this might make a perfect gift for family that wants to see the latest from your travels without blasting it to the whole internet. We’ve covered a few different options from a
lightweight ESP8266 build
, to this
one that can rotate
, and even issues with some of
the commercial options
. | 7 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6700939",
"author": "lis0r",
"timestamp": "2023-11-22T08:27:10",
"content": "I hate that we’re stuck with these rubbish 7-colour panels being the only sanely affordable option. The lack of cyan makes it borderline impossible to render satisfying images.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,372,097.561395 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/21/building-an-animated-turn-signal-for-the-mazda-mx-5/ | Building An Animated Turn Signal For The Mazda MX-5 | Lewin Day | [
"car hacks"
] | [
"led",
"mazda",
"turn signal"
] | Turn signals in most of the world are mandated to be a flashing orange light, distinct from other bulbs on a vehicle. However, there has been a trend in the modern era to go for fancier animated turn signals using great numbers of LEDs.
[ssh16] decided to whip up a set of their own to suit their late-model Mazda MX-5.
Fully lit, the replacement is brighter than the original bulb by some margin.
While many builds go down the route of using addressable LEDs, [ssh16] instead went for garden variety OSRAM yellow LEDs in a 3×12 array, driven via a shift register. A small PIC microcontroller is then used to command the shift register to light the rows of LEDs in turn, generating the sequential lighting effect that sweeps from one side to the other. The LEDs are are installed on a 4″ board designed to install in place of the Mazda’s standard indicator bulb, with the animation spreading from the centerline of the vehicle out towards the direction of the turn.
It’s a fun build that modernizes the rear turn signals of the Mazda. We’ve seen some other neat turn signal builds before, too;
it almost seems to be a trend amongst Mazda enthusiasts
. Meanwhile, if you’ve built your own automotive lighting mods, don’t hesitate to send them
in to the tipsline. | 37 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6700889",
"author": "Matt",
"timestamp": "2023-11-22T00:16:51",
"content": "Some jurisdictions have limits on the maximum brightness of certain lights and indicators, the idea being to avoid blinding other drivers. If this is “brighter than the original bulb by some margin” it may b... | 1,760,372,097.638022 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/21/simple-cmos-circuit-allows-power-and-data-over-twisted-pair-wiring/ | Simple CMOS Circuit Allows Power And Data Over Twisted-Pair Wiring | Dan Maloney | [
"hardware"
] | [
"CD4538",
"monostable",
"pic",
"reset",
"sensor",
"timer",
"twisted-pair"
] | If you need to send data from sensors, there are plenty of options, including a bewildering selection of wireless methods. Trouble is, most of those protocols require a substantial stack of technology to make them work, and things aren’t much easier with wired sensors either. It doesn’t have to be that complicated, though, as
this simple two-wire power-and-data interface
demonstrates.
As with all things electronic, there are tradeoffs, which [0033mer] addresses in some detail in the video below. The basic setup for his use case is a PIC-based sensor — temperature, for this demo — that would be mounted in some remote location. The microcontroller needs to be powered, of course, and also needs to send a signal back to a central point to indicate whether the monitored location is within temperature specs. Both needs are accommodated by a single pair of wires and a tiny bit of additional circuitry. On one end of the twisted pair is a power supply and decoder circuit, which sends 9 volts up the line to power the PIC sensor. The decoder is based on a CD4538 dual monostable multivibrator, set up for an “on” time of one second. A trigger input is connected to the power side of the twisted pair going to the sensor, where a transistor connected to one of the PIC’s GPIO pins is set up to short the twisted pair together every half-second. Power to the PIC is maintained by a big electrolytic and a diode, to prevent back-feeding the controller. The steady 0.5-Hz stream of pulses from the sensor keeps resetting the timer on the control side. Once that stream stops, either through code or by an open or short condition on the twisted pair, the controller triggers an output to go high.
It’s a pretty clever system with very simple and flexible circuitry. [0033mer] says he’s used this over twisted-pair wires a couple of hundred feet long, which is pretty impressive. It’s limited to one bit of bandwidth, of course, but that might just be enough for the job. If it’s not, you might want to check out
our primer on current-loop sensors
, which are better suited for analog sensors but still share some of the fault-detection features. | 29 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6700858",
"author": "Gösta",
"timestamp": "2023-11-21T21:28:23",
"content": "Great article! :-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6700863",
"author": "Cyna",
"timestamp": "2023-11-21T22:00:44",
"content": "A hundred fe... | 1,760,372,097.71828 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/21/computer-gear-with-um-gears/ | Computer Gear With — Um — Gears | Al Williams | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"analog computer",
"military",
"tank"
] | Analog computers have been around in some form for a very long time. One very obvious place they were used was in military vehicles. While submarine fire computers and the Norden bombsight get all the press, [msylvain59] has a lesser-known example: an
M13A1 ballistic computer from an M48 tank
that he tears down for us in the video below.
The M48, known as a Patton, saw service from 1952 to 1987. Just looking at the mechanical linkage to the tank’s systems is impressive. But inside, it is clear this is a genuinely analog computer. The thing is built — quite literally — like a tank. What was the last computer you opened that needed a hammer? And inside, you’ll find gears, bearings, and a chain!
We don’t pretend to understand all the workings. These devices often used gears and synchros (or selsyns, if you prefer) to track the position of some external thing. But we are guessing there was a lot more to it than that. It’s probably an exciting process to see something like that designed from scratch.
We did think of the
Norden
when we saw this. Hard to imagine, but there were “general purpose”
analog computers
. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6700855",
"author": "Piotrsko",
"timestamp": "2023-11-21T20:47:18",
"content": "All my computers require a hammer (or precision adjustment device) at some point of my ownership. Fixes some, causes replacement of others",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},... | 1,760,372,097.830051 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/21/how-to-talk-to-your-scope/ | How To Talk To Your Scope | Al Williams | [
"Featured",
"how-to",
"Interest",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [
"ivi",
"python",
"rigol",
"scpi",
"visa"
] | It used to be only high-end test equipment that had some sort of remote control port. These days, though, they are quite common. Historically, test gear used IEEE-488 (also known as GPIB or, from the originator, HPIB). But today, your device will likely talk over a USB port, a serial port, or a LAN connection. You’d think that every instrument had unique quirks, and controlling it would be nothing like controlling another piece of gear, especially one from another company. That would be half right. Each vendor and even model indeed has its unique command language. There has been a significant effort to standardize some aspects of test instrument control, and you can quickly write code to control things on any platform using many different programming languages. In a few posts, I will show you just how easy it can be.
The key is to use VISA. This protocol is defined by the IVI Foundation that lets you talk to instruments regardless of how they communicate. You do have to build an address that tells the VISA library how to find your device. For example: “TCPIP::192.168.1.92::INSTR.” But once you have that, it is easy to talk to any instrument anywhere.
I say that thinking it is a problem is half right because talking to the box is one task of the two you need to complete. The other is what to say to the box and what it will say back to you. There are a few standards in this area, but this is where you get into problems.
Rigol
The Rigol web interface is just a duplicate of the touchscreen
Way back in 2015, I picked up a Rigol DS1052E and wanted to
play with the remote control via USB
. The resulting code (on
GitHub
) uses Qt and expects to open a USB port. The
command language
is simple and, helpfully, includes commands that simulate pressing keys on the front panel. I would find out that my latest Rigol scope, a DHO924S, doesn’t provide those KEY commands nor does my DS1154z.
So, for a 2023 version, I wanted to abstract some of the complexity away to simplify a future switch between different scopes. I was watching a video review of a DHO900-series scope, and the reviewer complained that while the scope would show its screen via a web interface (and you can operate it via that virtual touchscreen), he missed having access to the knobs next to the screen when using the scope remotely. I realized it would be possible to write a small program to control the scope and provide the “missing” controls as a panel that could sit next to the scope’s web interface.
Python
Since I also wanted to use this in scripts and I was freshly off the Hackaday Supercon badge, which used MicroPython, I decided to do this all in Python. My general plan of attack was simple:
Use VISA to connect to the scope
Abstract the direct SCPI commands using Python methods or properties in a class that represents the scope
Create a GUI to use adjacent to the web interface
This post is about the first two items. I’ll cover the GUI next time. However, I didn’t totally wrap
the entire SCPI command set
in the Python class. Instead, I just provided what I needed for the task at hand. As you’ll see, it is easy to add whatever you like.
PyVisa
The first order of business was to install
PyVisa
. This sounds like it would be all you need, but it isn’t. Instead, it is a wrapper around a “real” VISA backend. Two popular choices are
NI-VISA
from National Instruments (free, although you probably have to register) or the open-source
pyvisa-py
. Try this:
pip3 install pyvisa pyvisa-py
Note that, as of now, pyvisa-py supports TCP/IP, GPIB, USB, and serial. That covers most bases, but if you need something different, you may have to try a different backend.
When you install pyvisa, it should leave a binary (in ~/.local/bin for me) called pyvisa-info. Run that, and it will tell you if it finds backends and will also tell you other things you might need to install. For example, I have no GPIB bus instruments and didn’t install that driver, so it warns me that I should install it if I want to talk to GPIB devices. I don’t, so I’m good. If you get bad error messages from pyvisa-info, you should fix them before you try to go further.
While SCPI defines some commands, mostly it is hit-and-miss. For example, a Tektronix scope might use
CURVe?
to get waveform data, while a Rigol might use
WAV:DATA?
, and other brands might only need
DATA?
. There are a few things you can usually count on, though.
When you see a question mark (like
:WAV:DATA?
) you are expecting the scope (or whatever it is) to answer you. When you don’t see a question mark, you are just sending data. In addition, when you see something like
CURVe?
written down, that means you are allowed to omit the “e” which saves a little time and communication bandwidth. So
CURV?
and
CURVE?
are the same thing.
Using PyVISA
To open a connection to a scope in Python, you will first need to import pyvisa. After that, you’ll create a resource manager and pass it a special open string. Here’s an excerpt from my scope abstraction class (find everything on
GitHub
):
# do the connect
def connect(self,usb,cxstring):
if usb==0:
cxstr="TCPIP::"+cxstring+"::INSTR"
else:
cxstr="USB0::0x1AB1::0x044C::"+cxstring+"::INSTR"
self.visa=pyvisa.ResourceManager('@py')
self.scope=self.visa.open_resource(cxstr)
self.connected=True
In this case, I’m using a known scope, so I assume the USB IDs will be the same. If you are using a different instrument, this will change. Helpfully, if you open the Rigol’s web interface, you’ll find both connect strings written down for you to copy.
The information screen shows connection strings for USB and TCP/IP
The
connect
member function takes just the IP address or scope name and fills in the rest. The usb flag determines if it treats the input as an IP address or a name. The resource manager argument tells the library which “backend” to use. In this case, I’m using pyvisa-py (
@py
). If you omit the
@py
string, the library will use the IVI library which will work with backends like NI-VISA and other vendor-specific libraries. If it can’t find an IVI library it will fall back to using pyvisa-py. You can also pass a full path name to the library you want to use. If you prefer, you can set the
PYVISA_LIBRARY
environment variable instead. There is also a .pyvisarc file you can use for
configuration
.
May I See Some ID?
Nearly every instrument supports the query
*IDN?
to return an identification string. The code defines two methods to send data to the instrument. The
write
method sends data with no return. The
query
method gets a return and chops off the trailing new line:
# send a query and return a response
def query(self,string):
s=self.scope.query(string)
if isinstance(s,str):
return s[0:len(s)-1]
else:
return s
# just send
def write(self,string):
return self.scope.write(string)
# get ID
def id(self):
return self.query("*IDN?")
Once you have that, the rest is just writing little wrapper functions. The only real problem is that the scope doesn’t offer — that I could find — any way to simulate a front panel key. However, some of the front panel keys behave differently depending on other modes. For example, each click of a knob might represent a different value when the scope is set on a slow sweep vs a fast sweep. Or, for another example, the trigger level knob doesn’t have a corresponding SCPI command. Instead, you must set the level for the specific trigger you want to use. That means you must know what triggering mode is set since each one uses a different command to set the level.
If you are writing a script, this isn’t a big problem because you can just set the triggering mode to a known value before you set the level correctly. But for a user interface, it is a problem because you have to write code to emulate the scope’s behavior. Or you can simply do what I did. Make a reasonable assumption and live with it.
The Result So Far
Just as a test, I wrote a little script at the bottom of rigol_scope.py to connect to a fixed IP address (since this is just a test) and put the scope in single mode every 10 seconds.
if __name__=="__main__":
import time
# test script
scope=Scope()
scope.connect(0,"192.168.1.92")
while True:
print("here we go again...")
scope.single()
time.sleep(10)
print(scope.trig_status())
The next step is a GUI, but that will wait until next time. However, writing the code as a class like this has at least three advantages:
It would be easy to support multiple scopes; just instantiate more objects
It is also easy to provide the same abstracted interface to a different scope
You can use the object in other scripts or programs without having to carry along GUI code
Besides that, you could even support multiple GUIs with the same object. Anything you enhance or fix in the scope object benefits all the programs.
This isn’t the first time we’ve looked at
PyVISA
. Or, for that matter,
SCPI
.
Featured image: The delightfully named “
Sine wave 10 kHz displayed on analog oscilloscope
” by [Pittigrilli]. | 21 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6700776",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-11-21T18:18:19",
"content": "Maybe the way Scotty talked to his “computer”.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6700777",
"author": "YGDES",
"timestamp": "2023-11-21T18:30:0... | 1,760,372,097.783995 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/21/picogus-for-all-your-isa-sound-card-needs/ | PicoGUS: For All Your ISA Sound Card Needs | Julian Scheffers | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"isa bus",
"rp2040",
"sound card"
] | Sound cards used to be a big part of gaming machines in the 90s and 2000s but have largely gone extinct in the wake of powerful CPUs doing the sound themselves. Sound cards were expensive back then and, because the good ones weren’t very common, are expensive still for the retro gamer. But if you don’t
need
the real thing, [polpo] has you covered
with his RP2040-based ISA sound card
.
The PicoGUS, as he calls it, primarily serves to replace the Gravis UltraSound with modern components at a low cost. It uses the RP2040’s PIO to attach to an ISA bus and the RP2040’s dual-core power to synthesize the audio for its primary target, but also the AdLib (OPL2), CMS/Game Blaster and Tandy 3-Voice. [polpo] sells the PicoGUS on
his Tindie store
, but since it’s open source, you can of course just make your own.
Although “work-in-progress”, the PicoGUS is very useful to the right person and a perfect demonstration of how the RP2040’s PIO can be used to interface with almost any type of protocol.
Of couse, that’s not the only way to use the PIO, you can also
create a CAN bus
or even
add another USB port
. | 23 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6700761",
"author": "Stappers",
"timestamp": "2023-11-21T17:12:59",
"content": "Either the linkhttps://polpo.org/picogus/is broken, or the server is being DDOSsed by us.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6700862",
"autho... | 1,760,372,097.990875 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/21/keebin-with-kristina-the-one-with-the-duplex-typewriter/ | Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Duplex Typewriter | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"ADHD",
"Coleco",
"coleco adam",
"dactyl",
"dactyl keyboard",
"duplex typewriter",
"macro pad",
"macropad"
] | The Coleco Adam? A not-so-great home computer that likely contributed to the downfall of the company. The keyboard, however, is a different story,
and worth repurposing
.
[Nick Bild] has created a USB adapter that uses a Teensy 4.1 and an RJ-12 breakout board. Now this wasn’t just a simple matrix to decode. No, the fine folks at Coleco rolled their own communications protocol called AdamNet.
The keyboard uses an RJ-12 connector and a single data line to communicate over a 62.5 kbit/s, half-duplex serial bus. Inside the keyboard is a Motorola 6801 that caches the key presses and sends them to the computer. So the BOM is limited to what you see above — an RJ-12 breakout and a Teensy 4.1. It’s great to see old keyboards come alive again, especially one with such cool sci-fi keycaps. Want to hear it clack?
Of course you do
.
Typewriters vs. ADHD
Russell Watson of Sunshine Coast Typewriters. Image via
ABC News Australia
Do you know how long it took me to write Keebin’ this time around? Do you know how much faster it would have been if I’d typed it on a typewriter? Yeah.
This is totally a thing
. It seems typewriters are all the rage among Australian teenagers, especially those with ADHD.
This is according to Russell Watson, founder of Sunshine Coast Typewriters in Queensland, Australia, who has seen the resurgence firsthand. He believes it started with the Netflix Addams Family spin-off
Wednesday.
He gave six typewriters to a teacher, who reported back that students with ADHD in particular were attracted to the clacking, the bell, and the permanence and in-hackability of a typed sheet of paper. Boy howdy!
Education expert Kathy Gibbs isn’t sure that the benefits are sustainable. The students may be hyperfocused on typewriters now, but once the novelty wears off, they’ll be back at the computer. I can tell you from experience that typewriting doesn’t get old, but YMMV. On the other hand, Gibbs believes that the students may end up reading more, thus becoming better writers.
The Centerfold: The Cyboard Dactyl Setup
Image via [pedrorq] on
reddit
Again, we don’t know a great deal about
this edition’s eye candy
. What we do know is that’s a Cyboard Dactyl with wrist rests by Cyboard, and a Logitech Ergo M575 mouse. We didn’t know those came in white and black in addition to the gun-metal gray that yours truly uses.
This is mostly here because of all the pretty colors, including the desk pad and that keyboard in the upper right. Also, I see you, purple D4.
Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad?
Send me a picture
along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!
Historical Clackers: The Dennis-Duplex Typewriter
Image via
Antique Typewriters
This 1895 specimen kind of looks like one of those AI-generated typewriter images I fooled around with a couple months ago —
it has way too many keys
. 100, to be exact, with a typebar for each one.
The type bars were arranged in two separate semi-circles, making it possible to type two characters at once. Just
check out the layout
. The effect is a kind of stenography feel. To type ‘hack’, you would press ‘h’ and ‘a’ at the same time, and then ‘c’ and ‘k’ together.
The Dennis-Duplex typewriter ad copy reasoned that if the experienced typist could type 100WPM on a standard machine, she could type 200WPM on a duplex. Sure.
Unfortunately, the Dennis-Duplex did not sell well. The Duplex 2 struck only one character at a time, and sold better.
ICYMI: Tile-Based Macropad Comes Full Circle
In case you missed a previous ICYMI, I covered
[Michael Gardi]’s lovely tile-based macro pad
, which keeps improving with each iteration.
In the picture, you can see the first version — the purple one — has tiles next to keys. More than just a label, each tile carries a magnet that interacts with Hall effect sensor to update the macro whenever a new tile is placed.
Well, [Michael] found himself hitting the tiles instead of the keys, so naturally, he had to try to integrate the two. The result is a cool 3D-printed custom switch situation that uses those lovely Futaba MDs. We heard that [Michael] is working on a custom PCBs for the buttons and the main board next to reduce the wiring and risk of breakage.
Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards?
Help me out by sending in a link or two
. Don’t want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to
email me directly
. | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6700741",
"author": "eswan",
"timestamp": "2023-11-21T15:23:48",
"content": "“To type ‘hack’, you would press ‘h’ and ‘a’ at the same time, and then ‘c’ and ‘k’ together.”How would it know to type hack instead of ahkc?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,097.934458 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/22/turning-a-saxophone-into-a-midi-controller/ | Turning A Saxophone Into A MIDI Controller | Lewin Day | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"midi",
"midi controller",
"music"
] | Most of the time, if you’re looking for a MIDI controller, you’re going to end up with some kind of keyboard or a fancy button pad. The saxophone is an altogether more beguiling instrument that makes for one hell of an interface, but there’s a problem: they’re seldom MIDI-compatible.
This build from [AndrewChi] changes all that.
This digitized sax relies on a SparkFun ESP32 Thing as the brains of the operation. It uses Hall effect sensors, the digital switch type, to detect the action of the keys of the sax. Choosing parts that are quick to respond is key for musical use, so [AndrewChi] selected the Texas Instruments DRV5023 for its unipolar operation, short output delay and fast rise time. Beyond setting up the basic keys to send MIDI notes, the instrument also received additional octave controls for greater range. With sensors and magnets attached to the saxophone and keys with Sugru, the instrument is ready to serve as a capable MIDI controller. Thanks to the ESP32, it’s capable of sending MIDI data wirelessly over Bluetooth for the maximum freedom of performance.
It’s a nifty build, and a great way for wind players to get into the world of controlling digital synthesizers in an intuitive fashion. We’ve seen some
great MIDI controller builds before, too. | 6 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701101",
"author": "Paul LeBlanc",
"timestamp": "2023-11-22T21:14:03",
"content": "It could also use an air pressure sensor and a touch pressure sensor in the mouthpiece, to measure how hard the player is blowing and how tight their embouchure is. I never played sax, but I played o... | 1,760,372,097.877994 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/11/22/linux-fu-easy-kernel-debugging/ | Linux Fu: Easy Kernel Debugging | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Linux Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"kernel",
"linux"
] | It used to be that building the Linux kernel was not easy. Testing and debugging were even worse. Nowadays, it is reasonably easy to build a custom kernel and test or debug it using virtualization. But if you still find it daunting, try [deepseagirl’s]
script to download, configure, build, and debug the kernel
.
The Python program takes command line arguments so you can select a kernel version and different operations. The script can download the source, patch the configuration, build the kernel, and then package it into a Debian package you can boot under qemu. From there, you can test and even debug with gdb. No risk of hosing your everyday system and no need to understand how to configure everything to run.
If you are impatient, the -a option will do everything. For example, to build the 6.2 kernel, you could execute:
python3 easylkb.py -k 6.2 -a
This will take a few minutes and tax your CPU as it builds lots of files using as many CPUs as it can find. Usually, though, you’ll want to change the configuration a bit. You can use the
-d
flag to simply download the kernel source.
You’ll find the source in the kernel subdirectory of the directory where easylkb lives. There will be a subdirectory for each kernel version you’ve downloaded. There’s also a create-image.sh file that needs the execute bit set on it. If you fail to do this, part of the packaging process will probably fail. If you get an error message, you’ll have to find the copy of the script and set the flag there (for example,
linux-6.2/img/create-image.sh
).
Source Control
Using xconfig is handy and explains options, too.
If you already have a kernel source tree, the
-p
option will let you point to that instead of specifying a kernel version with
-k
. If you specify a version, you can specify the
-d
option to download it.
Once downloaded, you might want to go to the directory and change the configuration using one of the config options in make. While
make config
is classic, you’ll probably prefer
make menuconfig
or
make xconfig
to make life easier. You can also run
make help
to see all the options available.
You can specify a configuration file to append to the kernel’s configuration using –kconfig. By default, the
example.KConfig
file sets some options useful for debugging under
qemu
.
Building and Running
The next step is to use the
-m
option to compile the kernel. That will take a bit of time and probably make your machine sluggish. Once it is done, you can use the
-i
option to build a bootable package for qemu.
The virtual system booting up
The only thing left to do is boot the system up with
-r
. You’ll see the familiar boot console running in your terminal. The project documentation has some tips on how to
ssh
into the virtual system and how to use
gdb
to debug the kernel.
If you just want to do everything, use
-a
. It will either download the kernel (if you use
-k
) or pick up the one you specify with
-p
. You can also do several steps in one run. For example, if you want to configure and make but nothing else, you could use something like:
python3 easylkb -p /tmp/ksource -cm
Wrap Up
Do you have to use this script? Of course not. People have been building kernels for a long time. But it does let you focus on the actual problem at hand and less on having to worry about how to package and boot the kernel for testing.
We aren’t shocked that the script won’t work for
kernel 0.01
. Need to know what that strange Linux kernel function does?
Map it
. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6701745",
"author": "CodeAsm",
"timestamp": "2023-11-25T09:49:48",
"content": "If using a custom kernel in a vm is too hard, download this python script to do all the hard work and if it fails, you have to go into the issues page and ask for help. I understand and made my own script... | 1,760,372,098.151628 |
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