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https://hackaday.com/2023/09/28/building-a-woodworking-lathe-from-scratch/ | Building A Woodworking Lathe From Scratch | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"lathe",
"tool hacks",
"tools"
] | Today, cheap dodgy machine tools are more readily available than ever. Sometimes though, there’s great value in putting a simple and rugged version of your own,
as demonstrated by [bartworker]’s woodworking lathe build.
The core of the build is a hefty wooden base, something that is a core component of any good machine tool. It was built from a large beam sourced from a ship supply house, and originally used to hold a sturdy vice. It eventually gained a motor from a cement mixer when [bartworker] decided it should be converted into a lathe. From there, it was further equipped with a sliding support for larger workpieces, allowing [bartworker] to lathe some seriously big stock.
The lathe is very much an ever-evolving thing, and [bartworker] has used it to share the joys of woodworking with his family and friends. As a demonstration of its abilities, the lathe was able to produce a handsome handle for [bartworker]’s axe.
As this story shows, the only thing better than a tool you build yourself is one that
your friends get to enjoy too
! Meanwhile, if you’ve been whipping up your own machinery, don’t hesitate to
drop us a line! | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6687227",
"author": "YoDrTentacles",
"timestamp": "2023-09-28T23:36:39",
"content": "It will be interesting to see how he manages a multi-jaw chuck in that lathe.“First lesson learned: when the center of gravity is not aligned with the axis of the lathe, you’re in trouble.”I imagine... | 1,760,372,152.815018 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/28/hackaday-prize-2023-this-differential-scope-probe-is-smarter-than-it-looks/ | Hackaday Prize 2023: This Differential Scope Probe Is Smarter Than It Looks | Jenny List | [
"The Hackaday Prize",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"2023 Hackaday Prize",
"differential probe",
"oscilloscope",
"self-adjusting"
] | A differential probe, a device for measuring the voltage between two points in a circuit rather than the voltage between a point and ground, it an extremely useful addition to any electronics bench. Inside such a probe you’ll usually find a fancy op-amp working as a differential amplifier, and for correct operation they require careful adjustment to null out DC bias and achieve the maximum common mode rejection.
We particularly like [Craig D]’s probe
, because these adjustments are taken care of automatically by a microcontroller.
The analogue path provides a lesson for anyone interested in instrumentation signal path design, with the signal conditioning and compensation circuits feeding an AD8130 differential amplifier. Another amplifier samples the output voltage and feeds it to the ADC in the microcontroller. Common mode adjustment is taken care of by a digital potentiometer chip, and DC offset by the microcontroller’s DAC. Controlling all this is an ATSAMD10 chip, and the power is derived from the scope’s USB interface.
All in all it’s an extremely well-executed device, and one we’d be happy to have on our bench at any time. It’s by no means the first differential probe we’ve brought you,
here’s another
.
The
Hackaday
Prize 2023
is Sponsored by: | 11 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6687175",
"author": "limpkin",
"timestamp": "2023-09-28T20:22:58",
"content": "The project and its hackaday.io write-up is simply amazing! It’s not often you get to read about what’s inside a diff probe.All that is missing is a few words about the input referred noise performance an... | 1,760,372,152.86336 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/28/a-raspberry-pi-5-is-better-than-two-pi-4s/ | A Raspberry Pi 5 Is Better Than Two Pi 4s | Elliot Williams | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"News",
"Raspberry Pi",
"Slider"
] | [
"new part",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspberry Pi 5"
] | What’s as fast as two Raspberry Pi 4s?
The brand-new Raspberry Pi 5
, that’s what. And for only a $5 upcharge (with an asterisk), it’s going to the new go-to board from the British House of Fruity Single-Board Computers. But aside from the brute speed, it also has a number of cool features that will make using the board easier for a number of projects, and it’s going to be on sale in October. Raspberry Pi sent us one for review, and if you were just about to pick up a Pi 4 for a project that needs the speed, we’d say that you might wait a couple weeks until the Raspberry Pi 5 goes on sale.
Twice as Nice
On essentially every benchmark, the Raspberry Pi 5 comes in two to three times faster than the Pi 4. This is thanks to the new Broadcom BCM2712 system-on-chip (SOC) that runs four ARM A76s at 2.4 GHz instead of the Pi 4’s ARM A72s at 1.8 GHz. This gives the CPUs a roughly 2x – 3x advantage over the Pi 4. (Although the Pi 4 was
eminently overclockable
in the CM4 package.)
The DRAM runs at double the clock speed. The video core is more efficient and pushes pixels about twice as fast. The new WiFi controller in the SOC allows about twice as much throughput to the same radio. Even the SD card interface is capable of running twice as fast, speeding up boot times to easily under 10 sec – maybe closer to 8 sec, but who’s counting?
Heck, while we’re on factors of two, there are now two MIPI camera/display lines, so you can do stereo imaging straight off the board, or run a camera and external display simultaneously. And it’s capable of driving
two
4k HDMI displays at 60 Hz.
There are only two exceptions to the overall factor-of-two improvements. First, the Gigabyte Ethernet remains Gigabyte Ethernet, so that’s a one-ex. (We’re not sure who is running up against that constraint, but if it’s you, you’ll want an external network adapter.) But second, the new Broadcom SOC finally supports the ARM cryptography extensions, which make it 45x faster at AES, for instance. With TLS almost everywhere, this keeps crypto performance from becoming the bottleneck. Nice.
All in all, most everything performance-related has been doubled or halved appropriately, and completely in line with
the only formal benchmarks we’ve seen so far
, it
feels
about twice as fast all around in our informal tests. Compared with a Pi 400 that I use frequently in the basement workshop, the Pi 5 is a lot snappier.
More Powah!
Nothing comes for free. While the Raspberry Pi 5 is more efficient for the same workload than the Pi 4, you can push it still harder. And when you do, it draws a peak 12 W versus the Pi 4’s peak 8 W. And this is where we get to that price asterisk we mentioned in the opening. You might need to fork out for more power coming into the board, and figure out how to handle the heat coming off of it, if you’re computering hard.
But first the good news. The Raspberry Pi 5 has an all-new power subsystem, featuring the DA9091 power-management IC, generating eight separate voltages and capable of supplying 20 A to the BCM2712 SoC. Apparently, this chip was co-developed between Raspberry Pi and Renesas, and it includes a real-time clock unit just because they could squeeze it in. It also supports
USB-C Power Delivery
, so finding a power supply that’s capable of supplying all that juice to the Pi 5 is a lot easier, something that has been a pain point in the past. Will we never see a brownout warning again? We can dream.
The star of the new power management system, hands-down, is the power button. How many
power button hacks
have we seen over the years? We’re happy to bid them adieu.
Now the bad news, in the immortal words of Stan Lee: with great power comes great cooling requirements. The Pi 5 runs hot enough that you might require a heatsink, or even an active cooling solution with a fan. Raspberry Pi shipped us an active cooling package to test out, and it plugs into a fan header on the board, so you know they mean business.
Raspberry Pi has also re-worked their case for the Pi 5, adding a fan with a removable cover, and vents on the underside. And they haven’t forgotten the power button here either – a small piece of acrylic serves as both a button cap and a power status light. Nice.
PCIe, For Real This Time
The most exciting new feature for people who wish to use the Pi 5 on the desktop is probably the official support for a real PCIe lane. When the Pi 4 came out, it was discovered that it spoke PCIe between the USB controller and the SOC, and of course
intercepting those lines was one of the first hacks
that we saw on the then-new Pi 4. Then came the CM4, which forced you to design your own board anyway, so you could choose between USB and PCIe. With the Pi 5, you don’t have to choose, and you won’t have to hack on it either.
But you will need an adapter. A single PCIe 2.0 lane is broken out to a flat-flex connector, and from there you’ll need an adapter board to connect it up to whichever peripherals you’ve got in mind. Adapters will doubtless come on the market soon, but if you just can’t wait, we’ve got a
tutorial series on making your own PCIe devices
to help.
Once you get the connections sorted out, you might also try pushing it up to PCIe 3.0 speeds. [Jeff Geerling] got a preview hardware adapter from Raspberry Pi, and
found that although it’s not certified for PCIe 3.0, it works most of the time at those speeds
. With an NVMe hard drive attached, he found that he could get 450 MB/sec using the sanctioned PCIe 2.0, and almost 900 MB/sec by changing a line in
/boot/config.txt
, enabling the unsupported PCIe 3.0 mode, and crossing his fingers. That was easy.
Under the Hood: The RP1 Custom Controller
Power supply tweaks, including the power button, are down to Raspberry Pi’s cooperation with Renesas. More computational grunt comes from Broadcom’s new SOC. But features like the dual MIPI connectors or the dual USB 3.0
and
USB 2.0 ports with enough bandwidth that they don’t crowd out each other or any of the other peripherals, are all due to Raspberry Pi’s in-house innovation here: the custom RP1 interface / southbridge chip.
According to Eben Upton, Raspberry Pi’s CEO, “It’s basically a chiplet architecture: all the rage now, but very forward-thinking when we started the RP1 development program back in 2016.” Broadcom makes the SOC at a very fine feature scale, while Raspberry Pi can use larger and cheaper processes to handle the rest: Ethernet, USB, MIPI, analog video out, USART, I2C, I2S, PWM, and GPIO – everything but SDRAM, the SD card, and HDMI.
The Raspberry Pi 5 uses PCIe for the backbone between the SOC and their RP1 chip. Four lanes of PCIe, to be exact, providing a 16 Gb/s link between the body and the brains. This is interesting because most chiplet designs are entirely proprietary, and both chips need to speak a common secret language. Here, Raspberry Pi and Broadcom can collaborate, but almost at arm’s length, because there’s nothing proprietary about PCIe. And because they had a spare PCIe channel on the SOC, they were able to break it out for the end user.
Desoldering the RP1 and doing without all the peripherals it provides, patching the kernel appropriately, and turning the Pi 5 into an all-PCIe, five-channel monstrosity is left as an exercise to the motivated reader.
Odds and Ends
The big yellow composite video-out is gone from the Raspberry Pi 5, but they broke out the lines for you to solder to if you want to hook it up to something other than HDMI. The old audio output jack has been removed entirely, so you’re probably going to have to rely on HDMI audio out or a HAT if you want hi-fi audio. Other connections include PoE on a four-pin header, an ARM debug / UART on a three pin header, and a JST battery connector to keep the real-time clock module ticking.
Since you might want a heatsink, with fan or without, they’ve added mounting holes spaced around the processor. For space reasons, the MIPI camera/display flat-flex connectors use the thinner form factor that we’ve seen on the Pi Zero, rather than the wider one on the Pi 4.
Raspberry Pi Evolution
The Raspberry Pi 5 is, in some ways, a modest step forward. A two-times speedup isn’t anything to sneeze at, and the various quality-of-life improvements scattered throughout are great, but none of this is revolutionary when you look at the state of play in the SBC market. Still, the Pi 5 is at least twice as nice as the Pi 4, and at only a small upcharge. If you think back six months ago, where people were paying absurd markups for Pi 4s, the Raspberry Pi 5 is positively a bargain. And while there are faster Linux SBCs on the market these days, they also cost a lot more, so the value proposition of the Pi 5 is still solid. Add in Raspberry Pi’s documentation and software support, and there’s a lot here to like.
They’re not available in stores just yet, but Raspberry Pi plans to have “just under a million” Pi 5s produced and in stores over the course of the rest of 2023, so they’re not going to be scarce — we hope! If you need the speed, and can handle the heat, there’s no reason not to get a Raspberry Pi 5. | 192 | 48 | [
{
"comment_id": "6687124",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2023-09-28T18:03:54",
"content": "I think we might see our fair share of augmented reality headsets and robot vision projects with this board. Perhaps someone will find a way to rapidly switch the screen/camera ports to support two of each... | 1,760,372,153.44115 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/28/the-questionable-benefits-of-paying-more-for-air-quality-monitors/ | The Questionable Benefits Of Paying More For Air Quality Monitors | Maya Posch | [
"Parts",
"Science"
] | [
"air quality sensor",
"AQM",
"pm2.5"
] | Does paying more for air quality monitors (AQMs) make sense? This was the question which [Achim Haug] at the Air Gradient project
sought to answer
, with the answer being a rather revealing ‘not at all’. Using data from the independent South Coast Air Quality Management District agency (
South Coast AQMD
), a plot was created of a range of commercially available AQMs for PM2.5 pollutants and their performance against a reference monitor. Here a value of 1.00 would mean performance equal to the (expensive, calibrated) reference.
R2 vs Price. Data Source: South Coast AQMD Data
This plot shows clearly that paying more for an AQM does not get you better performance, with the reason for this explored in a follow-up article by [Achim], where a range of AQMs are checked for which PM2.5 sensors they actually use. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most AQMs
use the same PM2.5 sensors
, with the sensor module not really affecting the cost of the AQM as they all cost about $10-20 in bulk.
Rather it seems that the other sensors (for CO
2
, NO
2
and other measurements) along with features such as WiFi, LoRa determine much of the price tag. For getting good measurements, properties such as airflow over the sensors, the implemented compensation algorithms are probably the main things you want to look at when purchasing (or building) an AQM.
(Heading image: particulate matter sizes, relative to a human hair. Credit:
California ARB
) | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6687103",
"author": "Piotrsko",
"timestamp": "2023-09-28T16:09:30",
"content": "Matters not if the sensor is located on a pole in a truck stop along a major expressway. Looking at you Cali.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "668... | 1,760,372,153.21556 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/28/the-oldest-living-torrent-is-20-years-old/ | The Oldest Living Torrent Is 20 Years Old | Lewin Day | [
"Current Events",
"Hackaday Columns",
"History",
"Slider"
] | [
"bittorrent",
"the fanimatrix",
"torrent",
"torrents"
] | Twenty years ago, in a world dominated by dial-up connections and a fledgling World Wide Web, a group of New Zealand friends embarked on a journey. Their mission? To bring to life a Matrix fan film shot on a shoestring budget. The result was
The Fanimatrix,
a 16-minute amateur film just popular enough to have
its own Wikipedia page.
As reported by
TorrentFreak
, the humble film would unknowingly become a crucial part of torrent history. It now stands as the world’s oldest active torrent, with an uptime now spanning a full 20 years. It has become a symbol of how peer-to-peer technology democratized distribution in a fast-changing world.
The Perfect Tool For The Job
The BitTorrent protocol is peer-to-peer. Credit:
Scott Martin, CC BY-SA 3.0
In the early 2000s, sharing large files across the internet was a mindbogglingly difficult problem to solve. In the Southern Hemisphere in particular, home internet connections were often 56 kbit dialup modems at best. Most email services limited attachments to 2 MB at most. Services like MegaUpload weren’t on the scene yet, and platforms like YouTube and Facebook were yet to materialize. Sharing a hefty video file to your friends was a difficult proposition, let alone sharing it with the world. Creative minds were left with limited avenues for distributing their content, with running your own server pretty much the only real solution.
Enter BitTorrent, created by Bram Cohen from the University of Buffalo in 2001. It was a new groundbreaking technology designed to facilitate the transfer of large files by distributing the load across multiple users. This decentralized sharing system allowed users to download pieces of a file from many sources simultaneously.
It quickly changed the game for content creators and consumers alike. It allowed users on slow connections to pull in files from peers piece by piece over a long time, without the dropouts and failures common with simple HTTP transfers. It also allowed communities to organically form to share popular files quickly and efficiently. In theory, every downloader could also share the file back to the network. This meant that as a file was downloaded by more people, there would be more upload bandwidth to make it available to yet more users.
However, with the rise of this new technology came the inevitable tide of pirated content. BitTorrent’s distributed model was perfect for piracy, since its decentralized and nominally anonymous nature made it difficult for rights holders to know who to sue. Films, music, and TV shows began circulating with unprecedented ease, causing alarm in the entertainment industry.
$800 And A Dream
Legal issues abound when producing your own content that references an existing commercial property. That can cause problems if you rely on corporate distribution channels, but it’s not a problem on BitTorrent. Credit:
The Fanimatrix,
introductory legal message
The Fanimatrix
was a project that perfectly encapsulated the potential of the BitTorrent protocol. With just $800 in their pockets, a group of friends managed to craft a Matrix homage over nine grueling days. But once the film was in the can, there was a simple question: how to share it with the world?
Traditional methods would involve expensive submissions to film festivals or running a web server online. Both would scale poorly in terms of audience numbers, and present limited reach. The solution came from Sebastian Kai Frost, the team’s IT aficionado. Stumbling upon BitTorrent, Frost saw the potential to sidestep exorbitant server hosting fees. Thus, on September 28, 2003, he released
The Fanimatrix
torrent to the world.
“It looked promising because it scaled such that the more popular the file became, the more the bandwidth load was shared. It seemed like the perfect solution,” Frost told
TorrentFreak.
Fast forward twenty years, and this piece of digital history remains active. A dedicated following remains, still seeding the content to keep the dream alive. It’s believed to be the oldest torrent still active online. It stands as a testament not only to the lasting appeal of the film but also to the robust and resilient nature of the BitTorrent protocol.
Though plans to commemorate the torrent’s 20th anniversary didn’t pan out, the future holds promise. As the team eyes the 25th milestone, there are whispers of a reunion, new content, and even merchandise. Whether or not
The Fanimatrix
torrent will still be active then remains uncertain. Still, with a community rallying behind it, one wouldn’t bet against it. “I never expected to become the world’s oldest torrent but now it’s definitely become a thing I’d love to keep carrying on. So I’ll be keeping this active as long as I physically can,” said Frost.
The Fanimatrix
has been uploaded to YouTube multiple times, but true fans would download it via
the original torrent.
The creators advise that watching the film requires the DivX 5.1 bundle and at least an 800MHz processor.
The Modern Media Landscape
Services like Netflix are now more popular options for watching content online than downloading videos from torrents. However, users are limited to watching what media corporations choose to provide.
The story of
The Fanimatrix
and its two-decade torrent is not just about a fan film’s surprising longevity. It’s also a broader tale of how technology, in the right hands, can transform the way we share and consume content. BitTorrent has evolved since its inception, having become a platform for distributing all kinds of content, both legal and otherwise. Yet, its foundational principle of decentralized sharing remains as relevant as ever.
The Internet has changed since those halcyon early days. Now, if you’re distributing your own content, you’re probably lobbing it onto one or more social media services to get the most eyes on it. The likes of TikTok and YouTube will not only host your videos, they’ll even help promote them if they’re getting enough eyeballs. They’ll even put money in your pocket if you get enough eyes on your content. While anyone can upload to these services, though, and theoretically make a buck, they are anything but democratic. Users must hew the company line, complying with Terms of Service and kowtowing to the demands of corporate advertisers.
The basic BitTorrent ethos, in comparison, hasn’t changed over time. It makes none of those demands of users. It gives you and the broader community a tool to share your content as far and wide as you’d like. At the same time, though, nobody will pay you for your content, and promotion is up to you and whatever word of mouth you can generate. For short films and other similar content, the greater attention and ad dollars on social media tends to leave BitTorrent out of any conversation about distribution.
Similarly, shifting forces have pushed BitTorrent into the background when it comes to mainstream media content. It’s still possible to download pirated TV series, movies, and music on BitTorrent, but it’s far less common for the average punter these days. Paying a tithe to a streaming service or three generally offers access to content with less fuss, a tradeoff that broad swathes of the public are happy to make. While some users will pop over to a torrent site to grab some obscure content they can’t find anywhere else, it’s nowhere near as popular as it once was. An entire young generation has grown up with Netflix and its multitude of rivals, and for them, that’s simply how digital content is consumed these days.
In a way, that’s not a bad thing. Torrents weren’t created for piracy or to distribute Hollywood motion pictures. They were just a useful tool for the job when Big Media hadn’t figured out how to distribute films on computers yet. Users don’t actually mind paying for media when the prices are reasonable and the service is good.
Fundamentally, torrents aren’t going anywhere. They’re still a great tool for grabbing open-source software, for one. They’re also the only place you’re going to find a rip of that obscure Danish film your old college roommate showed you that changed your life. Where the commercial world can’t fill a need, torrents will still be there to help. Torrents will remain a useful tool for community distribution of other types of data, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. So raise a glass to the anniversary of the oldest living torrent, and to many more to come. Cheers! | 41 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6687081",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-09-28T14:34:53",
"content": "““It looked promising because it scaled such that the more popular the file became, the more the bandwidth load was shared. It seemed like the perfect solution,” Frost told TorrentFreak.”One of the reaso... | 1,760,372,153.157729 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/28/looking-inside-a-3d-printer-nozzle-with-computed-tomography/ | Looking Inside A 3D Printer Nozzle With Computed Tomography | Dan Maloney | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"CAT scan",
"computed tomography",
"ct",
"extruder",
"hips",
"hot end",
"melt zone",
"print head",
"tungsten"
] | Have you ever wondered what’s actually going on inside the hotend of your 3D printer? It doesn’t seem like much of a mystery — the filament gets melty, it gets squeezed out by the pressure of the incoming unmelty filament, and lather, rinse, repeat. Or is there perhaps more to the story?
To find out, a team from the University of Stuttgart led by [Marc Kreutzbruck] took the unusual step of
putting the business end of a 3D printer into a CT scanner
, to get a detailed look at what’s actually going on in there. The test setup consisted of
a Bondtech LGX extruder
and
an E3D V6 hot end
mounted to a static frame. There was no need for X-Y-Z motion control during these experiments, but a load cell was added to measure extrusion force. The filament was a bit specialized — high-impact polystyrene (HIPS) mixed with a little bit of tungsten powder added (1% by volume) for better contrast to X-ray. The test system was small enough to be placed inside a micro CT scanner, which generated both 360-degree computed tomography images and 2D radiographs.
The observations made with this experimental setup were pretty eye-opening. The main take-home message is that higher filament speed translates to less contact area between the nozzle wall and the melt, thanks to an air gap between the solid filament and the metal of the nozzle. They also saw an increased tendency for the incoming filament to buckle at high extruder speeds, which matches up with practical experience. Also, filament speed is more determinative of print quality (as measured by extrusion force) than heater temperature is. Although both obviously play a role, they recommend that if higher print speed is needed, the best thing to optimize is hot end geometry, specifically an extended barrel to allow for sufficient melting time.
Earth-shattering stuff? Probably not, but it’s nice to see someone doing a systematic study on this, rather than relying on seat-of-the-pants observations. And the images are pretty cool too. | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6687061",
"author": "RichC",
"timestamp": "2023-09-28T12:38:58",
"content": "Looks like the filament spreads out more after leaving the nozzle at higher extrusion speeds.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6687069",
"auth... | 1,760,372,152.633778 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/28/the-robot-that-lends-the-deaf-blind-community-a-hand/ | The Robot That Lends The Deaf-Blind Community A Hand | Maya Posch | [
"News",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"ASL",
"deafblind",
"sign language"
] | The loss of one’s sense of hearing or vision is likely to be devastating in the way that it impacts daily life. Fortunately many workarounds exist using one’s remaining senses — such as sign language — but what if not only your sense of hearing is gone, but you are also blind? Fortunately here, too, a workaround exists in the form of tactile signing, which is akin to visual sign language, except that it uses one’s sense of touch. This generally requires someone who knows tactile sign language to translate from spoken or written forms to tactile signaling. Yet what if you’re deaf-blind and without human assistance? This is where a
new robotic system
could conceivably fill in.
The Tatum T1 in use, with a more human-like skin covering the robot. (Credit: Tatum Robotics)
Developed by Tatum Robotics, the
Tatum T1
is a a robotic hand and associated software that’s intended to provide this translation function, by taking in natural language information, whether spoken, written or in some digital format, and using a number of translation steps to create
tactile sign language
as output, whether it’s the
ASL
format, the
BANZSL
alphabet or another. These tactile signs are then expressed using the robotic hand, and a connected arm as needed, ideally using ASL gloss to convey as much information as quickly as possible, not unlike with visual ASL.
This also answers the question of why one would not just use a simple braille cell on a hand, as the signing speed is essential to keep up with real-time communications, unlike when, say, reading a book or email. A robotic companion like this could provide deaf-blind individuals with a critical bridge to the world around them. Currently the Tatum T1 is still in the testing phase, but hopefully before long it may be another tool for the tens of thousands of deaf-blind people in the US today. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6687051",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-09-28T11:55:27",
"content": "Decades ago I saw a human interest story on TV that featured a mechanical hand that would sign for a deaf blind person. It appeared to be attached to a RadioShack Model 100. ... | 1,760,372,152.770335 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/27/proper-video-from-an-esp32/ | Proper Video, From An ESP32 | Jenny List | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"ESP32",
"video",
"video player"
] | Back in the day a miniature television, probably on a wristwatch, was the stuff of science fiction. Now, it’s something which can be done with a commodity microcontroller, as [Atomic14] shows us with the
ESP32-TV that plays both video and sound
. Even with modern silicon it’s still somewhat pushing the envelope.
As he explains in the video below the break, not all formats are simple enough to be decoded on the fly by a microcontroller. But he finds an AVI file to be within its capabilities which can be created with a bit of ffmpeg wizardry. The board is a fairly standard ESP32 device with an I2C bus, and the video stream isn’t too fast for this meager interface. You’ll maybe recognize the
Muppets
clip, but it’s possible that the early-80s BBC comedy staple
The Young Ones
might have passed you by if you’re not British.
We think this code is likely to be of use in quite a few projects, and it would be great to see it further refined. Small video players for not a lot of money can never be a bad thing.
Previous ESP32 video projects which have appeared on these pages have been more likely to involve
driving a display directly
. | 19 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6687008",
"author": "jpa",
"timestamp": "2023-09-28T05:29:49",
"content": "To complement the incomplete / misleading hackaday summary: Video format is MJPEG in AVI with 280×240 pixels @ 15 FPS. The display bus is SPI at 80 MHz, not I2C.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"... | 1,760,372,153.069354 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/27/investigating-the-fourth-passive-component/ | Investigating The Fourth Passive Component | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Science"
] | [
"arduino",
"circuit component",
"data",
"memristor",
"passive",
"test bench",
"test rig"
] | When first learning about and building electronic circuits, the first things all of us come across are passive components such as resistors, capacitors, and inductors. These have easily-understandable properties and are used in nearly all circuits in some way or another. Eventually we’ll move on to learning about active components like transistors, but there’s a fourth passive circuit component that’s almost never encountered. Known as the memristor, this mysterious device is not quite as intuitive as the other three, so [Andrew]
created an Arduino shield to investigate their properties
.
Memristors relate electric charge and magnetic flux linkage, which means that their resistance changes based on the current that passes through them. As their name implies, this means they have memory, and retain their properties even after power is removed. [Andrew] is testing three different memristors, composed of tungsten, carbon, and chromium, using this specialized test set. The rig is based on an Arduino Uno and has a few circuit components that can be used as references and generates data on the behavior of the memristors under various situations.
The memristors used here do exhibit expected behavior when driven with positive voltage signals, but did exhibit a large amount of variability when voltage was applied in a negative direction. [Andrew] speculates that using these devices for storage would be difficult and would likely require fairly bespoke applications for each type. But as the applications for these seemingly bizarre circuit components increase,
we expect them to improve much like any other passive component
. | 45 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686988",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-09-28T02:04:20",
"content": "Where does the memristor fit in Ohm’s Law?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6686993",
"author": "David",
... | 1,760,372,153.016963 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/27/will-nickel-hydrogen-cells-be-the-energy-storage-holy-grail/ | Will Nickel-Hydrogen Cells Be The Energy Storage Holy Grail? | Jenny List | [
"Battery Hacks",
"green hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"energy storage",
"nickel hydrogen"
] | You may have heard us here remarking in the past, that if we had a pound, dollar, or Euro for every miracle battery technology story we heard that was going to change the world, we would surely be very wealthy by now. It’s certainly been the case that many such pronouncements refer to promising chemistries that turn out only to be realizable in a lab, but here there’s news of one with a bit of pedigree. Nickel hydrogen batteries have a long history of use in space,
and there’s a startup producing them now for use on the ground
. Could they deliver the energy storage Holy Grail?
The cathode in a nickel-hydrogen battery is formed by nickel hydroxide, and the anode is formed of hydrogen. If a gas as an anode sounds far fetched, we’re guessing that their structure is similar to the zinc-air battery, in which zinc hydroxide forms in a paste of powdered zinc, and works against oxygen from the air over a porous conductive support. What gives them their exciting potential is their ability to take more than 30,000 charge/discharge cycles, and their relative safety when compared to lithium ion cells. Hydrogen in a pressure vessel might not seem the safest of things to have around, but the chemistry is such that as the pressure increases it reacts to form water. The cost of the whole thing is reduced further as new catalysts have replaced the platinum used by NASA on spacecraft.
We really hope that these batteries will be a success, but as always we’ll wait and see before calling it. They may well be competing by then with
the next generation of zinc-air cells
. | 38 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686725",
"author": "C",
"timestamp": "2023-09-27T08:08:49",
"content": "“Hydrogen in a pressure vessel might not seem the safest of things to have around, but the chemistry is such that as the pressure increases it reacts to form water”This doesn’t make any sense. The source articl... | 1,760,372,152.934925 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/26/dead-e-ruxpin-appears-alive-and-well/ | Dead E. Ruxpin Appears Alive And Well | Kristina Panos | [
"Holiday Hacks",
"Microcontrollers",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"animatronic",
"animatronic bear",
"hand puppet",
"rp2040",
"teddy ruxpin"
] | What are you doing to scare trick-or-treaters this Halloween? Surely something, right? Well, Hackaday alum [CameronCoward] certainly has his holiday under control with
Dead E. Ruxpin
, a murderous, cassette tape-controlled animatronic bear.
Readers of a certain vintage will no doubt see the correlation to Teddy Ruxpin, an animatronic bear from the 1980s whose mouth moved as it read stories from cassette tapes. Cleverly, the engineers used one stereo channel for the story’s audio, and the other channel to control the bear’s mouth.
Dead E. Ruxpin takes this idea and expands it, using the same two channels to send audio and control three servo motors that move both arms and the mouth. How is this possible? By sending tones built from one or more frequencies.
Essentially, [Cameron] assigned a frequency to each movement: mouth open/closed, and left and/or right arm up or down. These are all, of course, synced up with specific points in the audio so Dead E. doesn’t just move randomly, he dances along with the music.
The bear is actually a hand puppet, which leaves room for a 3D-printed skeleton that holds the RP2040 and the servos and of course, moves the puppet’s parts. We can’t decide if we prefer the bulging bloodshot eyes, or think the cutesy original eyes would have made a scarier bear. Anyway, check out the build/demo video after the break to see it in action.
Are you now into Teddy Ruxpin?
Here’s a bit more about those scare bears
. And don’t forget,
Halloween Hackfest runs now until October 31st
. | 12 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686698",
"author": "RobHeffo",
"timestamp": "2023-09-27T05:37:12",
"content": "I can see this working really well connected to the Audio output of a soundcard, using software to generate the control tones and audio in real time based on other input.",
"parent_id": null,
"de... | 1,760,372,153.495962 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/26/beating-apples-secret-lid-angle-sensor-calibration-with-custom-tool/ | Beating Apple’s Secret Lid Angle Sensor Calibration With Custom Tool | Maya Posch | [
"laptops hacks",
"Mac Hacks",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"apple",
"macbook pro",
"right to repair"
] | Among the changes made by Apple to its laptops over the years, the transition from a Hall sensor-based sleep sensor to an angle sensor that determines when the lid is closed is a decidedly unpopular one. The reason for this is the need to calibrate this sensor after replacement, using a tool that Apple decided to keep for itself. That is, until recently [Stephan Steins] created a tool which he creatively called the ‘
nerd.tool.1
‘. This widget can perform this calibration procedure with the press of its two buttons, as
demonstrated
on [Louis Rossmann]’s YouTube channel.
This new angle sensor was
first introduced
in late 2019, with Apple’s official reason being an increased level of ‘precision’. As each sensor has to be
calibrated correctly
in order to measure the magnetic field and determine the associated lid angle, this means that third-party repair shops and determined MacBook owners have to transplant the chip containing the calibration data to a replacement sensor system. Until now, that is. Although the nerd.tool.1 is somewhat pricey at €169 ($179 USD), for a third-party MacBook repair shop this would seem to be a steal.
It is however unfortunate that Apple persists in such anti-repair methods, with recently [Hugh Jeffreys] also calling Apple out on this during a MacBook Pro M1/M2
teardown video
. During this teardown [Hugh] came across this angle sensor issue by swapping parts between two otherwise identical MacBook Pros, indicating just how annoying this need to calibrate one tiny lid angle sensor is.
Thanks to [John Sutley] for the tip. | 35 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686669",
"author": "TN",
"timestamp": "2023-09-27T02:31:56",
"content": "I’m sick of apple and their locked down bs. its not cool and nobody likes their war on items that actually work",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6686702"... | 1,760,372,153.759211 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/26/feed-your-fasteners-in-line-with-a-bowl-feeder/ | Feed Your Fasteners In Line, With A Bowl Feeder | Jenny List | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"bowl feeder",
"dds",
"springs",
"vibration"
] | If you spend much time around industrial processes, you may have seen a vibrating bowl feeder at work. It’s a clever but simple machine that takes an unruly pile of screws or nuts and bolts, and delivers them in a line the correct way up. They do this by shaking the pile of fasteners in a specific way — a spiral motion which encourages them to work to the edge of the pile and align themselves on a spiral track which leads to a dispenser.
It’s a machine [Fraens] has made from 3D printed parts
, and as he explains in the video below the break, there’s more to this than meets the eye.
The basic form of the machine has a weighted base and an upper bowl on three angled springs. Between the two is an electromagnet, which provides the force for the vibration. The electromagnet needed to be driven with a sine wave which he makes with an Arduino and delivers as PWM via an H-bridge, but the meat of this project comes in balancing the force and frequency with the stiffness of the springs. He shows us the enormous pile of test prints made before the final result was achieved, and it’s a testament to the amount of work put into this project. The final sequence of a variety of objects making the march round the spiral is pure theatre, but we can see his evident satisfaction in a job well done.
Oddly this isn’t the first bowl feeder we’ve seen, though it may be one of the most accomplished. We particularly like
this tiny example for SMD parts
. | 30 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686641",
"author": "scott_tx",
"timestamp": "2023-09-27T00:16:25",
"content": "as seen on almost half of all the episodes of ‘how its made’",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6686646",
"author": "J W van de Poll",
"timesta... | 1,760,372,153.826233 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/26/13-scope-and-logic-analyzer-hits-18-msps/ | $13 Scope And Logic Analyzer Hits 18 Msps | Al Williams | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"logic analyzer",
"Microchip PIC",
"oscilloscope"
] | We aren’t sure what’s coolest about [Richard Testardi’s]
Flea-Scope
. It costs about $13 plus the cost of making the PCB. It operates at 18 million samples per second. It also doesn’t need any software — you connect to it with your browser! It works as an oscilloscope, a logic analyzer, and a waveform generator. Not bad. The board is basically a little life support around a PIC32MK and the software required to run it.
Of course, for $13, you need to temper your expectations. One analog input reads from -6 to 6V (hint: use a 10X probe). The goal was for the instrument to be accurate within 2%. There are also nine digital inputs sampled simultaneously with the analog sampling. The signal generator portion can output a 4 MHz square wave or a 40 kHz arbitrary waveform.
If you need more channels, the board can cooperate with other boards, which is interesting — who doesn’t want a scope you can add a new channel to for $13 each? The little board also has a Basic programming system built-in that includes an editor, compiler, debugger, and file system so that you can script the entire thing that way.
Honestly, we aren’t sure using this as a scope appeals to us as much as using it as a building block for other things. The fact that you can chain them and it has its own web interface means you could probably build some interesting things with it. [Richard] notes that he has one controlling his reflow toaster oven, for example.
You can find
similar offerings commercially
that have better specifications but, naturally, they don’t cost under $20. Creating
a simple logic analyzer
is fairly easy with today’s high-performance CPUs, but there are still a few details to consider regarding stability and triggering. | 31 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686603",
"author": "Mike Massen, Perth, Western Australia",
"timestamp": "2023-09-26T20:07:53",
"content": "Wow, I think I’m a gonna like it Eg re browser etc, need to check details…Didn’t know about this thanks for the posting, good stuff :-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": ... | 1,760,372,153.607163 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/26/drop-in-upgrade-pcb-brings-usb-c-to-dualshock-4/ | Drop-In Upgrade PCB Brings USB-C To DualShock 4 | Tom Nardi | [
"Playstation Hacks",
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"dual shock",
"ps4",
"USB C",
"USB-C PD"
] | Despite a somewhat shaky start, it seems like everyone is finally embracing USB-C. Most gadgets have made the switch these days, and even Apple has (with some external persuasion) gotten on board. That’s great for new hardware, but it can lead to a frustrating experience when you reach for an older device and find a infuriatingly non-oval connector on the bottom.
If one of those devices happens to be Sony’s DualShock 4 controller,
[DoganM95] has the fix for you
. Sony wisely put the controller’s original micro USB connector on a separate PCB so it could be cheaply replaced without having to toss the main PCB — that same modularity also means it was relatively easy to develop a USB-C upgrade board.
That said, there was a bit of a catch. The USB board on the DualShock 4 also carries a LED module that illuminates the “Light Bar” on the rear of the controller. In this design, [DoganM95] has replaced the original component with a pair of side-firing LEDs. Combined with the extra pins in the flexible printed circuit (FPC) connector necessary to control them, and the pair of 0603 resistors
required for USB-C to actually provide power
, putting this board together might take a bit more fine-pitch soldering than you’d expect.
Over the last couple of years,
we’ve seen a wide array
of devices
receive DIY USB-C upgrades
. In fact, this isn’t even the first time
we’ve seen it done on the DualShock 4
. But there’s something about hacking a modern port onto a legacy piece of hardware that we just can’t seem to get enough of. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686720",
"author": "Gregg Eshelman",
"timestamp": "2023-09-27T07:42:33",
"content": "I got the new Zettle card reader for PayPal and it has a Micro B USB port for. No idea why it’s not USB-C.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "668... | 1,760,372,153.539542 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/26/tech-in-plain-sight-microwave-ovens/ | Tech In Plain Sight: Microwave Ovens | Al Williams | [
"Engineering",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"AC synchronous motor",
"interlock",
"microswitch",
"microwave"
] | Our homes are full of technological marvels, and, as a Hackaday reader, we are betting you know the basic ideas behind a microwave oven even if you haven’t torn one apart for transformers and magnetrons. So we aren’t going to explain how the magnetron rotates water molecules to produce uniform dielectric heating. However, when we see our microwave, we think about two things: 1) this thing is one of the most dangerous things in our house and 2) what makes that little turntable flip a different direction every time you run the thing?
First, a Little History
Westinghouse Powercaster which could, among other things, toast bread in six seconds
People think that Raytheon engineer Percy Spenser, the chief of their power tube division, noticed that while working with a magnetron he found his candy bar had melted. This is, apparently, true, but Spenser wasn’t the first to notice. He was, however, the first to investigate it and legend holds that he popped popcorn and blew up an egg on a colleague’s face (this sounds like an urban legend about “egg on your face” to us). The Raytheon patent goes back to 1945.
However, cooking with radio energy was not a new idea. In 1933, Westinghouse demonstrated cooking foods with a
10 kW 60 MHz transmitter
(jump to page 394). According to reports, the device could toast bread in six seconds. The same equipment could beam power and — reportedly — exposing yourself to the field caused “artificial fever” and an experience like having a cocktail, including a hangover on overindulgence. In fact, doctors would develop radiothermy to heat parts of the body locally, but we don’t suggest spending an hour in the device.
The first Raytheon “Radarange” was nearly 6 feet tall. The 750-pound beast cost about $5,000 which is nearly $70,000 today. You also needed three kilowatts of electricity to feed it. By 1954, the cost came down to about half, along with the energy usage. As you might expect, these were commercial or niche items.
Eventually, of course, the cost and power requirements came down. They solved the problem of running the oven empty, causing damage. There were two other major problems to solve: safety and uniform heating.
Safety Dance
Like any electric appliance, a microwave oven could catch fire or cause an electric short circuit. However, if you open your washing machine and it doesn’t stop, the worst that can happen is you get wet. With the microwave, you could get a big dose of (non-ionizing) radiation! Studies show this probably isn’t as bad as you might imagine, but it is bad enough to burn you.
Of course, if your fridge can turn the light off when you close the door, why not just put an interlock on the microwave door? Microwaves do have an interlock by legal requirement. But not just any interlock: they have to meet strict requirements. In the United States, 21 CFR Part 1030.10. This states, in part:
Safety interlocks.
(i) Microwave ovens shall have a minimum of two operative safety interlocks. At least one operative safety interlock on a fully assembled microwave oven shall not be operable by any part of the human body, or any object with a straight insertable length of 10 centimeters. Such interlock must also be concealed, unless its actuation is prevented when access to the interlock is possible. Any visible actuator or device to prevent actuation of this safety interlock must not be removable without disassembly of the oven or its door. A magnetically operated interlock is considered to be concealed, or its actuation is considered to be prevented, only if a test magnet held in place on the oven by gravity or its own attraction cannot operate the safety interlock. The test magnet shall be capable …
(ii) Failure of any single mechanical or electrical component of the microwave oven shall not cause all safety interlocks to be inoperative.
…
(v) One (the primary) required safety interlock shall prevent microwave radiation emission in excess of the requirement of paragraph (c)(1) of this section; the other (secondary) required safety interlock shall prevent microwave radiation emission in excess of 5 milliwatts per square centimeter at any point 5 centimeters or more from the external surface of the oven. The two required safety interlocks shall be designated as primary or secondary in the service instructions for the oven.
(vi) A means of monitoring one or both of the required safety interlocks shall be provided which shall cause the oven to become inoperable and remain so until repaired if the required safety interlock(s) should fail to perform required functions as specified in this section. Interlock failures shall not disrupt the monitoring function.
Naturally, there are many ways you could meet these requirements, but most of the microwaves we’ve seen do it with three microswitches. Usually, two are normally open, and one is normally closed.
The two normally open microswitches prevent the magnetron from receiving power when the door is open. One of them actually breaks the power to the tube. The other is used as a digital input to the control board. Closing the door actuates the switches and allows power to flow. You would think the switches would be in each leg of the magnetron, but it isn’t that simple. If the switch connected to the board fails, the light, fan, and turntable will operate when the door is open. If you ever open the door and your turntable starts spinning, it is probably one of the normally open switches shorted.
So why is there a normally closed switch? That shorts out the power to the magnetron. So even if, somehow, both normally open switches fail, the normally closed one will short the power and blow a fuse. If it fails, you assume one of the other two switches will still cause a failure if the door opens. A very smart appliance repairman explains it in detail in the video below. Watch it all the way through to get a good tip about checking the transformer power without a lot of trouble.
Our pro tip: buy your microswitches from the usual places, not the appliance part places. You’ll be able to replace all three switches for way less than one switch will cost from the parts house. Just make sure they are exactly the same switch. Obviously the normally open and closed part is important, but the mounting holes, actuator, and the voltage/current ratings need to match, too.
Turntable
The other issue is getting things to heat evenly. The radio energy will have standing waves, which can cause cool places. Some older microwaves have a mode stirrer to reflect microwaves in the oven. But Sharp started using turntables around 1964, and that’s what most modern microwave ovens use. Have you ever noticed that, usually, the turntable will spin one way until you turn it off. When you turn it on again, it will usually — but not always — turn in the other direction.
We were always fascinated about how that might work internally. It turns out the real answer is anticlimactic. Microwave ovens are price-sensitive. The cheaper you can make them, the more you can sell and the more profit you make on each one.
As a result, the motor is almost certainly a synchronous AC motor. The natural direction the motor spins will depend on where it was in the cycle when it stopped. In many cases, the drive gears in the motor will require a little torque to start, and this will cause the motor to change direction. Clock motors, for example, have a spring arrangement, so if it starts in the wrong direction, it gets pushed into the correct direction. The microwave doesn’t have that.
If you’ve taken apart a microwave, you might say that the turntable doesn’t have a drive train, just a motor. But the motor has a surprising number of gears in it, as you can see in the video below.
In Plain Sight
You probably use your microwave every day, but you probably never thought about it having a triple interlock switch and a gear train. These parts aren’t as sexy as the
high-voltage transformer
or the
magnetron
, but they are no less interesting. The deep theory of
why it all works
is pretty interesting, too.
Delightful banner image:
Cover of Short Wave Craft magazine
. | 32 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686584",
"author": "Charles Lamb",
"timestamp": "2023-09-26T18:00:58",
"content": "Didn’t Tesla suggest that microwaves should be used to heat homes? His reasoning was that why heat the whole house when it was only the people who needed to be heated.",
"parent_id": null,
"d... | 1,760,372,154.22856 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/27/explore-linux-space-time/ | Explore Linux Space Time | Julian Scheffers | [
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"linux",
"software"
] | If you’ve ever wondered how much memory a process uses, you’ve probably used a form of task manager or system monitor. System monitors can be useful to identify resource hogs, but are often less versatile if you want more details about just one process. If you’ve ever faced this problem, then [Fabien Sanglard]’s
Space-Time explorer
is for you!
The wonderfully punny Space-Time tool records physical memory usage, time spent in user space vs. kernel space and even threads and subprocesses created. These words may not mean much to some readers, so let’s quickly go over them: Physical memory usage is the actual amount of RAM given (not always the same as requested). The kernel (which lives in kernel space) is the supervisor to all processes on a computer. In contrast, every process lives in it’s own “user space”, a way of protecting the kernel. Finally, a subprocess (or “child process”) is simply a process started by another process (the “parent”).
In their blog post
, [Fabien] starts with a simple test program: allocating 1 GiB and setting each byte individually. What would seem like a simple task that shouldn’t take much more than 10ms actually takes over a second and [Fabien] explains that the kernel doesn’t actually immediately give 1 GiB, but actually waits until the memory gets used. [Fabien] also compares the Space-Time footprints of hello world programs in C and C++ (both clang and GCC), Rust, Java and Go, which yields surprising results. [Fabien] also tries some more “real-world” tasks like a browser (chromium), curl, wget and even a compiling a “medium-size” project (Git) from source. Finally, [Fabien] finishes off by briefly explaining how Space-Time explorer works and why what pushed them to create the tool in the first place.
If you’re looking to improve you Linux arsenal, how about
building a better ls
? | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686976",
"author": "ian 42",
"timestamp": "2023-09-27T23:53:31",
"content": "for windows I still use some of the old systinternals routines, now over at microsoft –https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
... | 1,760,372,154.083147 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/27/testing-oxide-etchants-for-the-home-semiconductor-fab/ | Testing Oxide Etchants For The Home Semiconductor Fab | Dan Maloney | [
"chemistry hacks",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"etchant",
"etching",
"HF",
"hydrofluoric acid",
"oxide",
"silicon",
"silicon dioxide"
] | Building circuits on a silicon chip is a bit like a game of
Tetris
— you have to lay down layer after layer of different materials while lining up holes in the existing layers with blocks of the correct shape on new layers. Of course, Tetris generally doesn’t require you to use insanely high temperatures and spectacularly toxic chemicals to play. Or maybe it does; we haven’t played the game in a while, so they might have nerfed things.
Luckily, [ProjectsInFlight] doesn’t treat his efforts to build semiconductors at home like a game — in fact, the first half of
his video on etching oxide layers on silicon chips
is devoted to the dangers of hydrofluoric acid. As it turns out, despite the fact that HF can dissolve your skin, sear your lungs, and stop your heart, as long as you use a dilute solution of the stuff and take proper precautions, you should be pretty safe around it. This makes sense, since HF is present in small amounts in all manner of consumer products, many of which are methodically tested in search of a practical way to remove oxides from silicon, which [ProjectsInFlight] has spent
so much effort recently
to learn how to deposit. But such is the ironic lot of a chip maker.
Three products were tested — rust remover, glass etching cream, and a dental porcelain etching gel — against a 300 nm silicon dioxide layer. Etch speed varied widely, from rust remover’s 10 nm/min to glass etching cream’s blazing 240 nm/min — we wonder if that could be moderated by thinning the cream out with a bit of water. Each solution had pros and cons; the liquid rust remover was cheap easy to handle and clean up, while the dental etching gel was extremely easy to deposit but pretty expensive.
The good news was that everything worked, and each performed differently enough that [ProjectsInFlight] now has a range of tools to choose from. We’re looking forward to seeing what’s next — looks like it’ll be masking techniques. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686984",
"author": "philosiraptor117",
"timestamp": "2023-09-28T00:54:13",
"content": "buffered oxide etch is your friend! if he is to have any hope of not absolutely annihilating whatever photoresist he cobbles together, he will need a super gentle controlled approach, common indu... | 1,760,372,153.981655 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/27/hackaday-prize-2023-an-anti-tremor-handle-with-no-electronics/ | Hackaday Prize 2023: An Anti-Tremor Handle, With No Electronics | Jenny List | [
"handhelds hacks",
"The Hackaday Prize"
] | [
"2023 Hackaday Prize",
"assistive device",
"hand tremor",
"vibration"
] | Many of us will have seen the various active assistive devices which have appeared over the last few years to help people with a hand tremor. Probably the best known was a fork with a set of servos and an accelerometer, that kept the end of the utensil steady despite the owner’s hand movements. It’s a field which has the potential to help many people, but it’s undeniable that such technology comes with a cost.
What if the same effect could be achieved passively, without all those electronics? It’s something [Jacob] is investigating with
his mechanical anti-tremor cup handle
. It’s a university project completed as part of his studies so it’s very much a work-in-progress which if we’re being fair isn’t quite there yet, but we think the potential in this idea of bringing a useful assistive device at least bears further attention.
The write-up is available as
a Norwegian PDF file
so takes a little bit of Google Translate cut and pasting for an Anglophone. Sadly due to what must be report format requirements set by the university it’s long on procedure and shorter on engineering calculations than we’d like, but there’s an attempt to calculate the properties of the helical springs in each of the joints to match the likely forces. Our intuition is that the design as shown would require significantly more mass on the end of it than that of the mug and beverage alone to achieve some form of stability, but despite that as we said it’s an interesting enough idea that it deserves more thought.
Hand tremor assistive devices have appeared more than once on these pages before,
here’s one for soldering that enlists the aid of a camera gimbal
.
The
Hackaday
Prize 2023
is Sponsored by: | 16 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686913",
"author": "Ahmedson",
"timestamp": "2023-09-27T18:55:17",
"content": "I once read about a design study in which a concept for a drinking cup for Parkinson’s patients was presented. Small breakwaters were integrated into the cup, like on the coast. When the patient had a t... | 1,760,372,154.147994 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/27/youve-got-mail-faster-and-faster-we-go/ | You’ve Got Mail: Faster And Faster We Go | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"History",
"Slider"
] | [
"kiosk",
"missile mail",
"post office",
"self-service",
"speed mail",
"stamps",
"USPS",
"v-mail",
"vending machine"
] | When we last left the post office,
they had implemented OCR to read even the sloppiest of handwriting
. And to augment today’s 99% accuracy rate, there’s a center full of humans who can decipher the rest of those messy addresses with speed and aplomb. Before that, we took a look at many of the machines that make up the automated side of the post office’s movements. But what was being done to improve the customer experience during all of this time?
Quite a bit, as it turns out. In this installment, we’ll take a look at the development of vending machines and programs like Speed Mail, Missile Mail, and V-Mail (no, not voicemail!) as they relate to enhanced customer service over the years.
Mailomat: Post Office In a Box
If you’ve ever waited in line at the post office just to buy stamps, you know the value of the self-service kiosk. Although you can’t get fancy stamps out of them, you’ll at least get what you need to mail off that birthday card to your niece.
It may surprise you to learn that vending machines have been around longer than than the whole automation trend — dating back to the early 20th century. Usually accessible even when the lobby is not, these self-service kiosks have remained popular while growing in scope and services available.
The USPS developed a new kind of vending machine in 1955 that would sell not only stamps, but also stamp books, envelopes, and postcards. Around the same time, a machine called
the Mailomat
was developed by Pitney-Bowes. Essentially a mini post office, the Mailomat accepted un-stamped letters, and automatically printed a meter stamp where both the cancellation and the postage would normally go. It did everything short of weigh the letter for you; the correct postage had to be selected with a dial.
A postcard extolling the virtues of the Mailomat. Image via
ebay
Once the letter had been accepted, stamped, and postmarked in one swift movement, it was automatically stacked and faced for pickup and processing. This streamlined process was appreciated on both sides of the Mailomat, and various types of vending machines proliferated.
Speed Mail: Just the Fax
Throughout the course of our ever forward-thinking society, someone posited that mail would someday primarily travel electronically through fax machines rather than being printed on paper and physically delivered from A to B. The resulting system, dubbed Speed Mail worked very much like a fax machine does today. The message would be inserted into a machine at the origin post office, and then converted to electrical impulses which would be transmitted by microwave shot to the destination post office. There, the message would become tangible again and could be delivered. Ultimately, the process was best suited for occasional or emergency purposes only.
Speed Mail was another one of Postmaster General Summerfield’s ideas. When Postmaster General Day took over in 1961, he ended the Speed Mail program citing cost and the idea that facsimile service was not really within the purview of the post office.
Missile Mail: The DoD Gets Involved
The Regulus missile lands in Florida. Image via
Smithsonian Postal Museum
There’s more than one way to achieve speed for the sake of delivering mail. You’ve probably heard of
airmail
— a class of service offered for a few cents more per ounce that employed government-operated aircraft. Arguably faster was
Missile Mail
, also known as
Rocket Mail
.
Another one of Postmaster General Summerfield’s ideas was to shoot missiles full of letters from one city to another. And so the USPS and the DoD worked together and in the summer of 1959,
fired a missile called Regulus from the
U.S.S. Barbero
(PDF) to a naval station 100 miles away in Mayport, Florida. The trip took about 22 minutes.
Although Summerfield dreamed of missiles shooting thousands of letters apiece around at all hours, the service did not take off, as it were. In fact, the program ended before Postmaster Day could come in and put a stop to it.
V-Mail
A V-Mail envelope with letter inside. Image via
Wikipedia
Few things boost soldiers morale in wartime than a message from the homestead. But letters take up valuable space that could instead be used for supplies and equipment.
Taking a cue from the British Airgraph system, the USPS created
V-Mail
, a hybrid sort of mail system. In both cases, letters were censored, transmitted to film, transported, and reconstituted into paper on the other side.
V-Mail was written on special sheets that were 7″ x 9 1/8″, which were converted into a thumbnail-sized piece of microfilm. One bag of V-Mail could hold 150,000 one-page letters, which would have required an estimated 37 bags in dead tree form. A major advantage of V-Mail was that various forms of espionage were foiled by the process — invisible ink, microdots, and micro-printing.
But Wait, There’s More
Stay tuned for more about the USPS’ advancements, including ZIP codes. And no, I haven’t forgotten about that bit of trivia. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686916",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2023-09-27T18:56:17",
"content": "Not long now until the UK moves over to a barcoded stamp system if I recall correctly.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6687020",
"author": ... | 1,760,372,154.037844 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/27/string-art-build-uses-cnc-to-make-stringy-art/ | String Art Build Uses CNC To Make Stringy Art | Richard Baguley | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"String Art"
] | String art is as old as, well, string and something to hang it from. But, like most things, it gets more enjoyable when you involve a CNC. [Paul MH] went the whole hog with this build, creating a
CNC string art builder
that could handle the whole process, from placing the nails to running the string.
It’s an impressive build: you feed in an image, and the system calculates the location of the pins and the path that the string will need to follow. It then puts the nails into the board, pushes them in, and, with a custom attachment for the CNC, runs the string to create the art.
Of course, the path to this was filled with prototypes, failures, and dead ends. [Paul] has laid these out pretty well in the video for the project, which he just released. In this, problems like detecting when the nails are picked up and placed are detailed, and the prototypes and Rube Goldberg solutions that [Paul] came up with are covered.
Like all great projects, it is still a work in progress, but [Paul] has made some impressive progress, although he hasn’t posted the code and models for his custom parts yet. We’ve featured several string art builds, from
polar platforms
to fully formed commercial-grade builds that
print your work for you
. | 12 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686879",
"author": "Beaker",
"timestamp": "2023-09-27T17:11:49",
"content": "Thought about doing this myself when the original string art post came up, good to see someone followed through.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "668... | 1,760,372,154.280153 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/27/do-bounties-hurt-foss/ | Do Bounties Hurt FOSS? | Maya Posch | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Rants",
"Slider",
"Software Development"
] | [
"bounty",
"funding",
"open source",
"open source ethics",
"software",
"software bounty"
] | As with many things in life, motivation is everything. This also applies to the development of software, which is a field that has become immensely important over the past decades. Within a commercial context, the motivation to write software is primarily financial, in that a company’s products are developed by individuals who are being financially compensated for their time. This is often different with Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects, where the motivation to develop the software is in many cases derived more out of passion and sometimes a wildly successful hobby rather than any financial incentives.
Yet what if financial incentives are added by those who have a vested interest in seeing certain features added or changed in a FOSS project? While with a commercial project it’s clear (or should be) that the paying customers are the ones whose needs are to be met, with a volunteer-based FOSS project the addition of financial incentives make for a much more fuzzy system. This is where FOSS projects like the Zig programming language have put down their foot,
calling FOSS bounties ‘damaging’
.
Bounty Hunting
Within this absolutely volatile and inflammatory topic, it is probably a good idea to first nail down what is meant with a ‘bounty’, as there are a number of possible interpretations just within the field of software development. Perhaps the most well-known is the concept of
bug bounty programs
, where someone who discovers a flaw in the software product or service of a company can get some kind of (monetary) reward. This reward is supposed to be there to both motivate security researchers to discover new bugs, and to report said bugs to the company rather than to let less scrupulous individuals use them for ill-gotten gains.
In a way this makes such a bounty program somewhat into a modern equivalent of the old tradition of
bounty hunters
, yet it is quite distinct from bounty programs that target the development of software features rather than the discovery of bugs. When it comes to motivating the development of new features we can distinguish two major types of incentives:
A community bounty to submit a feature patch to the project.
A monetary reward given to the project’s developer(s) upon completion of the new feature.
In the
Zig project
‘s blog post we can see that they have no issue with bug bounties, which is understandable. Despite some issues with bug bounty programs over the decades, in general they are a net positive incentive which can create a healthy relationship between security researchers and developers. After all, even the best-run software project will inevitably have some bugs in the Golden Master release version that gets pushed out into the world, some of which you’d rather hear about from a reputable researcher than read about in the media.
In contrast, the notion of community bounties is branded as being essentially harmful and something the Zig developers caution against. Rather than providing a friendly, cooperative atmosphere, such bounties are bound to invite hastily developed, poorly considered implementations where the main measure of ‘success’ is whether or not all test cases light up green. Add to this the possibility of the project developers having to judge and likely reject various competing submissions, and it would seem reasonable to conclude that only the security researchers are winning out in such a scenario.
Staking Claims
The idea of putting up software bounties to promote the development of features is not a new thing by any stretch, with for example the GNU Hurd project in 2011
spelling out
why they feel that bounties are a great idea. Yet the website that particular project references –
FOSS Factory
– appears to have been essentially dead since about 2008, or three years before the GNU Hurd project even promoted its use.
A more current example of a software bounty website is
Bountysource
, which currently is still actively accepting new bounties. However, after having been purchased and sold on again by a number of cryptocurrency companies it’s currently in hot water for not paying out the bounty money which it is supposed to hold in escrow. This was apparently an issue
back in 2020 already
, with some projects moving to GitHub Sponsors, which interestingly enough is essentially the inverse of a bounty system as it
involves donating
to a project.
Rather than being strictly a donationware system, however,
it is duly noted
by Naomichi Shimada and colleagues in a 2022 study that GitHub Sponsors turns a project into sponsorware. Although the difference between donating and sponsoring can seem academic to some, the latter has definite expectations of returns, no matter in what form. In the study by Shimada et al., these differing expectations between project managers and those who sponsor or otherwise contribute to a project other than as a developer are addressed as a potential issue that should be kept in mind by project owners before enabling sponsorships.
Commercial FOSS
Modern-day infrastructure, as visualized by XKCD. (Credit: Randall Munroe)
A viable way to get the financial cost of developing software features settled is
covered in detail
by Brad Collette of the Ondsel (FreeCad) core team. Although the points raised against community bounties are pretty much the same as those raised by the Zig developers, the suggested way which does work essentially involves crowdfunding, with the
Krita
project provided as a shining example.
Essentially the project developers will get together to figure out which features could or should be implemented in the next major release and pitch this to the community. By running a crowdfunding campaign with stretch goals, the community can thus directly fund the new features while any stretch goals are similarly decided on by the community through their financing. Although the project is still technically FOSS, this makes the community (users) an integral part of the project by making them stakeholders in the project.
Interestingly, this isn’t far removed from how many big FOSS projects – such as the Linux kernel and the largest distributions – are funded. Although full of little pieces of hobby projects that may conceivably collapse the larger project if they ever developed an issue, these large FOSS projects are by and large sponsored and funded by the world’s wealthiest companies.
As an example, the Linux kernel is backed by the
Linux Foundation’s sponsors
, with in 2021 Huawei
providing the most changesets
and Intel contributing the most lines of code changed on the 5.10 kernel. In 2022, the 6.0 kernel saw Intel, AMD, Google and Linaro
competing in the top 4
of each category. Overall, most FOSS development is
directly paid for
– often using in-house developers – by IT giants like Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Intel and Google. This then clearly renders the question of software bounties moot for these kinds of FOSS projects when companies with billions of USD in revenue are footing the bill already.
Small FOSS
Reading through e.g.
this 2021 discussion
over at Hacker News on the topic of software bounties is also rather interesting as a way to gauge people’s feelings and experiences on the matter. The general consensus would appear to be that for FOSS projects that do not already have the backing of wealthy sponsors or similar, keeping the developer(s) behind them engaged and motivated is crucial.
Speaking as someone who has had their own middling success with some mildly successful FOSS projects, there is a certain rush that comes from people actually paying attention to, and even using your software in real commercial projects. Yet at the end of the day it is essential to differentiate whether a project is a hobby or a job, with the differentiator here being whether you are being paid to do work.
If you are a project owner, and you put out a crowdfunding request that ends up covering your projected feature implementation costs, even if it’s just to cover the rent and human/pet food, you take on the responsibility to get that feature implemented so that those who financially contributed are satisfied with the results.
If, however, someone creates a ticket in your GitHub project saying that they would ‘really like to see feature XZ implemented’, but no funding has been allocated, it’s still just your hobby project and you are free to ignore such tickets, or only take it on because it seems interesting as a challenge within the context of said hobby project.
A major risk with FOSS projects is
FOSS exploitation
, which most recently has become a rather hotly debated topic. Some companies are now moving away from
very open FOSS licenses
to more restrictive ones (
like the GPL
) as a result, as a way to combat other companies making money off something that was given away for free. This could be regarded as a natural response to such exploitation, as companies and individuals alike seek to protect themselves.
We are taught as children that ‘sharing is caring’, yet the concept of fairness is even more crucial. Although FOSS is sometimes portrayed as some kind of utopian dream of infinite free software, the harsh reality is that each line of code is still written and tested by human beings, each of whom need to eat, and deserve their fair due. | 17 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686841",
"author": "limroh",
"timestamp": "2023-09-27T14:52:58",
"content": "Interesting read, thanks. Got a few notes:> which interestingly enough is essentially the inverse of a bounty system as it essentially involves donating to a project.two times “essentially” in essentially ... | 1,760,372,154.342764 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/27/passive-components-get-better/ | Passive Components Get Better | Al Williams | [
"Parts"
] | [
"passive components"
] | When you want to talk about cool new components, you are probably thinking about chips or, these days, even modules. Passive components like resistors, capacitors, and inductors are a solved problem, right? [Darshill Patel]
begs to differ
. There is still innovation happening in the passive market, and he highlights some of the recent advances.
There are thick-film resistors that don’t need lead, for example. There are also supercapacitor modules with very low ESR. For inductors, at least one manufacturer is moving away from traditional wire loops and using flat wire windings instead. These have a larger cross-section, which reduces unwanted resistance. In addition, it offers more cooling area for heat dissipation.
Of course, passive components have never been as simple as people think. Picking a capacitor’s value is only half the battle. You also need to consider the material to optimize how it works in your design. Wirewound resistors are also inductors unless you get special non-inductive ones that use special wiring techniques to cancel much of the parasitic inductance.
It shows that you can never stop learning about even the simplest components. We are still waiting to figure out what we want to
do with a memristor
. While tiny surface mount components are good for some assembly reasons, they also have helped reduce
unwanted component effects
. | 42 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686762",
"author": "nsfboa",
"timestamp": "2023-09-27T11:14:10",
"content": "“… unless you get special non-inductive ones that use special wiring techniques to cancel much of the parasitic inductance.”Why not just call it by name – bifilar winding?",
"parent_id": null,
"dep... | 1,760,372,154.477947 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/26/how-to-chase-the-beam-with-a-z80/ | How To Chase The Beam With A Z80 | Jenny List | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"chasing the beam",
"pixel video",
"sinclair",
"z80",
"zx81"
] | The more accomplished 8-bit microcomputers of the late 1970s and early 1980s had a dedicated display chip, a CRT controller. This took care of all the jobs associated with driving a CRT display, generating the required timing and sequencing all the dots to make a raster. With a CRT controller on hand the CPU had plenty of time to do other work, but on some cheaper machines there was no CRT controller and the processor had to do all the work of assembling the display itself.
[Dr. Matt Regan] had a Sinclair ZX81 which relied on this technique, and he’s put up
the first of what will become a series of videos
offering a deep dive into this method of creating video. The key to its operation lies in very careful use of timing, with operations executed to keep a consistent number of clock cycles per dot on the display. He’s making a very low resolution version of the display in the first video, which he manages to do with only an EPROM and a couple of 74 logic chips alongside the Z80. We’re particularly impressed with the means of creating the sync pulses, using opcodes carefully chosen to do nothing of substance except setting a particular bit.
This method of assembling a display on such a relatively slow microprocessor has the drawback of no means of creating a grayscale, and of course it’s only available in glorious black and white. But it’s the system which gave a first experience of computing to millions, and for that we find the video fascinating. Take a look, below the break.
If this has caused you to yearn for all things Sinclair,
read our tribute to the man himself
.
Thanks [Philippe] for the tip! | 23 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686560",
"author": "Martin",
"timestamp": "2023-09-26T16:23:46",
"content": "It feels a bit like using the Z80 as a binary counter and actually doing PAL from the EEPROM but interesting anyway.I’m working on my first Z80 computer but I ended up using a 128×64 LCD. I don’t know if I... | 1,760,372,154.401307 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/26/a-pulse-of-annoyance-about-oscillators-followed-by-a-flyback-of-a-rant/ | A Pulse Of Annoyance About Oscillators, Followed By A Flyback Of A Rant | Jenny List | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [] | Everyone likes to play with high voltages, right?. Even though the danger of death goes up with every volt, it’s likely that a few readers will have at some time or other made fancy long sparks. You’re reading this so you lived to tell the tale, and we’d only ever counsel only doing so safely, but the point of this piece lies not in the volts themselves but in a touch of frustration at the voltage generators. There’s a circuit I see so often which annoys me every single time, so here if you don’t mind I’m going to deliver both a little rant and a look into flyback converters.
It’s Got Coils, so It’s A Transformer
Linear power supplies with a mains transformer are a surprisingly rare sight now. Dilshan Jayakody,
CC BY-SA 2.0
.
How does a transformer work? An alternating current in a primary winding induces an opposite current in its secondary winding. The voltage out is equal to the turns ratio times the voltage in. Thus if you want to make a high voltage, it’s simply a case of finding a transformer with the right turns ratio, and applying the right AC to the input.
A handy choice for a high voltage transformer has been for years a TV line output transformer, also sometimes known as a flyback transformer. You could find these in CRT displays and TVs, and they consist of a square ferrite core with a big chunky high voltage overwinding for the CRT anode circuit and a load of lower voltage windings. TV designers were always out to save on parts costs, so they often had windings for all the voltage rails inside the set as well as the anode voltage, using the timebase as a crude switching power supply.
It would not be fair to pick on [Skyler]’s circuit alone, as this is one that can be found in many places online. But it’s not a flyback circuit.
(CC BY-SA 3.0)
Given a line output transformer, making some high voltage on that EHT winding should just be a case of applying the right AC to the primary and watching the pretty but dangerous sparks. And here comes the circuit which annoys me, because the simplest way to do that is to drive a primary winding from a transistor or maybe two transistors whose base is in turn driven by a feedback circuit. In other words, turn the transformer into the output device in an oscillator, and that generates the required AC.
This works. It makes the volts, and we can go home happy, right? Wrong, at least if you’re me. The oscillator is an analogue circuit driving the transistor in its linear mode, and with a near 50 % duty cycle. In other words, the transistor spends roughly half its time on and half off, with a bit in the middle where it’s neither on nor off. This means it gets very hot, and you immediately need a much bigger transistor. The transformer gets hot because the core is saturating, and the whole thing takes several amps of current. it’s a great heater, but a very inefficient high voltage generator. You can even buy a module on AliExpress that’s pretty much this circuit, and I have to say right now that I hate it.
Not All Transformers Work In A Conventional Manner
This Philips TV from back in the day supplies the basic circuit of a flyback driver. The diodes on the right hand side are an integrated voltage multiplier, interacting with the capacitance between windings for their operation.
If it’s so bad then, what’s the alternative? The answer should come in looking at the circuit of the TV the transformer came from. There, a transistor switches the primary alongside a deflection coil, but it’s way more clever than a simple AC transformer circuit. It’s both a TV timebase moving the spot horizontally across the screen, and a completely different kind of power supply, a flyback supply.
When the transistor turns on, the current rises through the coils as a ramp. This provides the sawtooth required to move the dot across the screen, but it also slowly builds up the magnetic field in the transformer core. It’ll produce a voltage in the secondary, but not the big voltage needed by the CRT. At the end of the dot’s travel it needs to return to the other side of the screen, so the transistor turns off and the current in the deflection coil falls precipitously. This causes the stored magnetic field in the transformer core to collapse in a very short time, and it induces the huge voltage in that high voltage overwinding. Now a huge high voltage spike is created between the CRT anode output and ground. The CRT is designed to be a high voltage capacitor which acts as a reservoir to build up a constant DC voltage. I’ve always understood the use of the term “Flyback” to describe any supply working in this manner to refer to the period in which the dot on the CRT flies back across to the start of its next line.
My annoyance then every time I see a self oscillating converter using a flyback transformer is this: why can’t they use a flyback circuit, all they have to do is find a TV service manual or two and maybe add a 555 as a pulse generator! But aside from that, the elegant hack devised by a TV designer decades ago has of course morphed into a circuit that’s a vital weapon in the power supply designer’s arsenal. Most flyback supplies you’ll see these days aren’t used to make the huge voltages for a CRT, instead they find a place wherever a higher voltage is required than can easily be made with a boost converter. There’s a little more complexity in that the simple inductor is replaced by a flyback transformer, and if you’re paying attention it’s not quite wired as you’d expect a simple transformer step-up supply to work, but when the right magnetic is paired with the right control chip it’s an extremely efficient way to make more volts than you can otherwise get your hands on.
For their curious position somewhere between the analogue and digital worlds, switching regulators have always fascinated me. There’s no better document I can think of for anyone new to the field, and particular new to flyback converters, than Jim Williams’ 1987 app note 25 for Linear Technology: “
Switching Regulators for Poets
“. Enjoy making volts, and stay safe!
Header image: ZngZng,
CC BY-SA 3.0
. | 38 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686519",
"author": "Observer",
"timestamp": "2023-09-26T14:48:34",
"content": "“A handy choice for a high voltage transformer has been for years a TV line output transformer, also sometimes known as a flyback transformer. ”In 40 yrs as an electrical engineer, I have never heard the... | 1,760,372,154.556828 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/26/single-button-keyboard-has-multiple-uses/ | Single-Button Keyboard Has Multiple Uses | Kristina Panos | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"ESP32",
"ESP32-S3",
"keyboard",
"macro pad"
] | Well now why would I want a single-button keyboard, you might be asking yourself. We say it all depends on how you build the thing, and how you program it. Would you believe that
the MagiClick by [Modular]
is capable of showing live weather information or the date and time, acting as animated dice, or being a stopwatch and Pomodoro timer? Now you’re beginning to understand.
Before we get much further, yes, this bad boy has two additional buttons on the sides. But the spirit of the thing is in the single large switch in the middle. It’s hiding beneath the 0.85″ 128×128 display, which is protected from pressure and fingerprints by that Pop-o-Matic bubble over the top. While the big button is the main operator used to access the function options, the side buttons are used as auxiliaries to exit and return to the home screen.
MagiClick is based on the ESP32-S3 and is designed to run on CircuitPython. In addition to everything else packed into this thing, there are blinkenlights and a small speaker inside, plus a GPIO expansion header around back. Everything is available on GitHub if you want to build your own.
Not enough keys for you?
Well, here’s one with two
. | 13 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686472",
"author": "NQ",
"timestamp": "2023-09-26T12:02:08",
"content": "I immediately think of morse code when single-button-anything is featured. I used a Motorola V60s until last December when Verizon kicked it off the tower and I miss the ability to text by pushing buttons wit... | 1,760,372,154.607286 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/26/16-kbit-dram-gives-up-its-secrets/ | 16 Kbit DRAM Gives Up Its Secrets | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"4116",
"dram",
"ken shirriff"
] | [Ken Shirriff] is looking inside chips again. This time,
the subject is the MK4116
— a 16 Kbit DRAM chip. Even without a calculator, you know that’s a whopping 2 Kbytes, and while that doesn’t sound impressive, in the late 1970s, it was a modern miracle.
The chip showed up in computers ranging from the TRS-80 to the Xerox Alto and was even a mainstay of arcade video games. While [Ken] thought it would be a pretty predictable teardown, he found several surprises.
Static RAM chips use flip flops and retain their state as long as power is on. That’s convenient, but each flip flop takes multiple transistors, so there is a limit to how many bits you can put on a particular size chip. Dynamic RAM increases that limit because it is nothing more than a capacitor and a single transistor. This increases memory density, but the problem is that the capacitor doesn’t hold charge indefinitely. The computer or an associated circuit had to refresh the memory periodically to maintain the contents.
One of the key innovations for this chip was the use of multiplexed address lines so it could use a smaller package. Inside, two banks of capacitors store the bits, and, usually, a computer would use eight chips to store a byte. Of course, each memory bit is made to be as compact as possible. This chip is also made to be very low power when idle. The secret is that it doesn’t use load transistors but instead uses an active pull-up tied to the system clock. Another interesting feature is the sense amplifier, which has to measure the tiny noisy voltage from the capacitors.
You’ll see all this and more in [Ken’s] write-up. Chips from that era were relatively easy to take apart compared to today’s devices. Want to know how it’s done? [Ken]
can tell you
. He is well-known for doing a lot of cool stuff, with ICs and even old mainframe and
space hardware
. | 5 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686466",
"author": "h2odragon",
"timestamp": "2023-09-26T11:11:16",
"content": "Note the writeup is from 2020; hes done quite a lot more since then",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6686498",
"author": "jalnl",
... | 1,760,372,154.761293 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/25/tetris-clone-uses-1000-lines-of-code-and-nothing-else/ | TetrisClone Uses 1000 Lines Of Code, And Nothing Else | Robin Kearey | [
"ARM",
"Games",
"handhelds hacks"
] | [
"ARM Cortex-M7",
"bare metal",
"diy handheld",
"tetris"
] | If you’re programming on a modern computer, you typically make use of lots of work done by other people. There’s operating systems to abstract away the complexities of modern hardware, standard libraries to implement common tasks, and tons of third-party libraries that prevent you from having to reinvent the wheel all the time: you’re definitely not the first one trying to draw graphics onto a screen or store data in a file.
But if it’s the wheels you’re most interested in, then there’s nothing wrong with inventing new ones now and then. [Michal Zalewski], for instance, has made
a beautiful
Tetris
clone in just 1000 lines of C
, without using anyone else’s code.
The purpose of this exercise is to show that it’s possible to make a game with graphics comparable to modern, complex computing systems, without relying on operating systems or third-party libraries. The hardware consists of not much more than an ARM Cortex-M7 MCU, a 240×320 LCD screen and a few buttons soldered onto a piece of prototyping board, all powered by a set of AAA batteries.
The software is similarly spartan: just pure C code running directly on the CPU core. Graphic elements, some generated by AI and others hand-drawn, are stored in memory as plain bitmaps. They are manipulated by 150 lines of code that shuffles sprites around the display at a speed high enough to generate smooth motion. Game mechanics take up about 250 lines, while sound consists of simple square-wave chiptunes written in just 50 lines of code.
[Michal]’s code is very well documented, and his blog post gives even more details about all the problems he had to solve. One example is the length of keypresses: when do you interpret a keypress as a single “press”, and when does it become “press and hold”? Apparently, waiting 250 ms after the first press and 100 ms after subsequent ones does the trick. [Michal] is a bit of an expert on bare-bones game programming by now: he has previously pushed
several 8-bit micros
to
their very limits
. Third-party libraries can make your programming life a lot easier, but it’s good to reflect on the dangers of
relying too much on other people’s code
. | 18 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686430",
"author": "A7",
"timestamp": "2023-09-26T07:30:36",
"content": "Beautiful.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6686434",
"author": "alialiali",
"timestamp": "2023-09-26T08:02:27",
"content": "Love it!That said ... | 1,760,372,154.888171 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/25/processes-threads-and-fibers/ | Processes, Threads, And… Fibers? | Al Williams | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"c++",
"fibers",
"MULTITHREADING",
"windows"
] | You’ve probably heard of multithreaded programs where a single process can have multiple threads of execution. But here is yet another layer of creating multitasking programs known as a
fiber
. [A Graphics Guy] lays it out in a lengthy but well-done post. There are examples for both x64 and arm64, although the post mainly focuses on x64 for Windows. However, the ideas will apply anywhere.
In the old days, there was a CPU and when your program ran on it, it was in control. But that’s wasteful, so software quickly moved to where many programs could share the CPU simultaneously. Then, as that got overloaded, computers got more CPUs. Most operating systems have the idea of a process, which is a program that thinks it is in complete control, but it is really sharing the CPU with other processes. The problem arises when you want to have multiple “little” programs that cooperate. Processes are not really supposed to know about one another and, if they do, there’s usually some heavy-weight communication mechanism allowing them to talk.
A thread, on the other hand, shares its variables and resources with other threads in the same process. In a multi-processor system, a program’s threads might run at the same time, or, in some cases, threads take turns running. For most cases, this is not a problem because many programs sit around waiting for some kind of I/O most of the time, anyway. But as [A Graphics Guy] mentions, video games and similar programs don’t work well with the typical thread scheduler, which tries to be fair and doesn’t really understand what the program is doing.
Another option is coroutines, where a program controls what is running (within its process). Some older operating systems worked this way. You ran until you decided you were at a good place to stop, and then you released to others, which is great until your program crashes, which is why you rarely see that at the top level anymore. Many C systems use longjmp as a way to let unrelated parts of the code switch between each other. C++ 20 introduced coroutines, too.
In fact, a fiber is an abstraction of this type of coroutine. In a practical operating system, a fiber works inside a thread, allowing the programmer to control their scheduling. Of course, the operating system still schedules among CPU cores, processes, and threads. But having, say, ten fibers will allow you to control how and when they execute better than creating ten threads and letting the operating system decide how they run.
The post provides an amazing amount of detail and compares fibers to C++ coroutines. Even if you aren’t writing games, the techniques here would be valuable in any sort of high-performance coding.
Of course, sometimes processes
are all you need
. There’s a lot to consider when you are
multiprocessing
. | 19 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686417",
"author": "uteKIN",
"timestamp": "2023-09-26T05:51:01",
"content": "Using C++ in general is like trying to slice bread with a toilet brush. I’d rather milk bulls instead.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6686557",
... | 1,760,372,154.714883 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/25/hackaday-prize-2023-a-software-defined-radio-with-real-knobs-and-switches/ | Hackaday Prize 2023: A Software-Defined Radio With Real Knobs And Switches | Robin Kearey | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"physical buttons",
"portable radio",
"raspberry pi",
"sdr"
] | When cheap digital TV dongles enabled radio enthusiasts to set up software defined radio (SDR) systems at almost zero cost, it caused a revolution in the amateur radio world: now anyone could tune in to any frequency, with any modulation type, by just pointing and clicking in a computer program. While this undoubtably made exploring the radio waves much more accessible, we can imagine that some people miss the feeling of manipulating physical buttons on a radio while hunting for that one faint signal in a sea of noise. If you’re one of those people, you’re in luck: [Kaushlesh C.] has built
a portable, self-contained SDR system with real knobs and switches
, called SDR Dock 1.0.
The heart of the system is a Raspberry Pi running
GQRX
, an open-source SDR program that supports many different RF modules. [Kaushlesh] used an Airspy HF+ Discovery, a compact receiver that can work the HF and VHF bands, but it’s easy to modify the SDR Dock to accept other types like those ubiquitous RTL dongles. A seven-inch LCD screen with integrated speakers forms the main output device, with everything powered by a 10,000 mAh lithium-polymer battery.
All of this is pretty neat already, but the real beauty of the SDR Dock is in its enclosure. It’s a 3D-printed case with a swivelling handle on the side, an antenna connector at the top and a convenient user interface at the front. There are pushbuttons to change device settings, rotary knobs for frequency tuning and volume control, and sliders to adjust things like gains and bandwidths. All of these are read out by an ESP32 which communicates with the Pi through I2C.
As an open-source design, everything is of course fully customizable, from the radio receiver type to the functions of those dials and switches. The simple, user-friendly design should also make it an ideal SDR system for absolute beginners. It’s not [Kaushlesh]’s first portable Pi-based SDR system, however: he’s also submitted
a somewhat more hardcore version
to this year’s Cyberdeck competition. For those completely new to the SDR game,
[Josh]’s video at the 2020 Remoticon
is a great introduction.
The
Hackaday
Prize 2023
is Sponsored by: | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686368",
"author": "dudefromthenorth",
"timestamp": "2023-09-25T23:03:37",
"content": "Oooh. I like it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6686371",
"author": "reg",
"timestamp": "2023-09-25T23:46:09",
"content": "Yes,... | 1,760,372,154.945221 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/25/carbon-fiber-with-3d-printing/ | Carbon Fiber With 3D Printing | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"carbon fiber",
"moulding"
] | [Thomas Sanladerer] wanted to make 3D prints using
carbon fiber
and was surprised that it was fairly inexpensive and worked well, although he mentions that the process is a bit intense. You can learn what he found out in the video below.
He used an advanced PLA that can endure more temperature than normal PLA. That’s important because the process uses heat and the carbon fiber resin will produce heat as it cures. The first step was to print a mold and, other than the material, that was pretty straightforward.
Wet sanding was quick because he simply wanted to remove any gross imperfections. The next step is to put a UV resin on the mold to prevent the carbon fiber resin from bonding to the plastic. The three layers of UV resin will stay on the mold.
The carbon fiber sheets are in different styles, as [Thomas] explains. Two mold-release compounds line the mold and you do need to wear a respirator and have adequate ventilation when working with all these resins and carbon fibers.
With the mold ready, you put down the actual carbon fiber resin and the sheets of material. Once you have all the layers of fiber and resin, you place a sheet of special paper on the back and wrap the whole thing in a cloth. The final step is to put the whole affair in a vacuum bag and then gently heat it.
The result was good, although the first attempt had some imperfections. The second test had problems releasing from the mold. But the third time was the charm. It looks like a lot of work and, of course, the 3D printer is really only making the mold — this same process would be true of any carbon fiber process where you had a mold or something to wrap.
Carbon fiber isn’t always
made with a mold
, of course. It can even take
electroplating
. | 31 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686325",
"author": "Reluctant Cannibal",
"timestamp": "2023-09-25T20:28:52",
"content": "I’m kind of disappointed the carbon fibre did not come out of the print nozzle like wire in a MIG welder.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,372,155.063725 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/25/the-reverse-oscilloscope/ | The Reverse Oscilloscope | Al Williams | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"synthesizer"
] | Usually, an oscilloscope lets you visualize what a signal looks like. [Mitxela]’s
reverse oscilloscope
lets you set what you want an audio waveform to look like, and it will produce it. You can see the box in the video below.
According to [Mitxela] part of the difficulty in building something like this is making the controls manageable for mere mortals. We really like the slider approach, which seems pretty obvious, but some other controls are a bit more subtle. For example, the interpolation control can create a squarish wave or a smooth waveform, or anything in between.
This is sort of an artistic take on an arbitrary waveform generator but with a discrete-panel user interface. The device contains a Teensy, a Raspberry PI Pico, a 16-bit ADC, and an external DAC. The Pico is little more than an I/O controller, reading the user interface and transmitting it on a serial port.
The outside construction looks excellent (we assume the tape is temporary). The inside is a bit messier, but still nicely done. There are many photos of the construction and details of problems along the way with 12-bit ADCs and power supply experiments.
Of course, if you don’t need the user interface, you can go crazy with
waveform generation
. We did our own similar project, but you could
draw your waveforms on the PC
instead of sliders. | 17 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686309",
"author": "ag",
"timestamp": "2023-09-25T19:05:39",
"content": "Isnt this called a waveform generator ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6686324",
"author": "metasonix",
"timestamp": "2023-09-25T20:16:... | 1,760,372,154.996367 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/25/dark-trace-crts-almost-the-e-ink-of-their-time/ | Dark Trace CRTs, Almost The E-Ink Of Their Time | Jenny List | [
"classic hacks",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Retrocomputing",
"Slider"
] | [
"crt",
"dark trace CRT",
"radar",
"tenebrescence"
] | When you’ve been a fact-sponge for electronics trivia for over four decades, it’s not often that an entire class of parts escapes your attention. But have you seen
the Skiatron?
It’s a CRT that looks like a normal mid-20th-century tube, until it’s switched on. Then its secret is revealed; instead of the glowing phosphor trace we’d expect, the paper-white screen displays a daylight-readable and persistent black trace. They’re invariably seen in videos of radar installations, with the 360 degree scans projected onto large table-top screens which show the action like a map. It’s like e-ink, but from the 1940s. What’s going on?
The tenebrescent mineral Hackmanite, before and after UV exposure. Leland Green…,
CC BY-SA 2.0
and
CC BY-SA 2.0
.
The phosphor coating on a traditional CRT screen is replaced by a halide salt, and the property on which the display relies is called
tenebrescence
, changing colour under the influence of radiation. This seems most associated online with UV treatment of some minerals and gemstones to give them a prettier look, and its use a s a display technology is sadly forgotten.
A high-school physics understanding of the phenomenon is that energy from the UV light or the electron beam in the case of the tube, places some electrons in the crystal into higher energy levels, at which they absorb some visible light wavelengths. This is reversible through heat, in some substances requiring the application of heat while in others the heat of room temperature being enough. Of course here at Hackaday we’re hands-on people, so into the EPROM eraser went a small amount of table salt in a makeshift dish made of paper, but sadly not to be rewarded by a colour change.
On a real dark-trace CRT the dark trace would be illuminated from behind by a ring light round the glass neck of the tube. An interesting aside is that, unlike phosphor CRTs, they were more suitable for vertical mounting. It seems that small amounts of phosphor could detach themselves from a vertically mounted screen and drop into the electron gun, something that wasn’t a problem for tenebrescent coatings.
This display tech has shuffled off into the graveyard of obsolescence, we’re guessing because CRT technology became a lot better over the 1950s, and radar technologies moved towards a computerised future in which the persistence of the display wasn’t the only thing keeping the information on the screen. It seems at first sight to be a surprise that tenebrescent coatings have never resurfaced in other displays for their persistence, but perhaps there was always a better alternative whether it was ultra-low-power LCDs or more recently e-ink style devices.
For more bleeding-edge 1950s radar displays,
we’ve previously brought you Volscan
, a radar with an early form of GUI, which no doubt was one of those which consigned dark-trace CRTs to history. | 33 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686276",
"author": "ziggurat29",
"timestamp": "2023-09-25T17:08:37",
"content": "the photochromic sunglasses of the 70’s come to mind",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6686311",
"author": "Kenneth Welles",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,372,155.139795 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/25/keebin-with-kristina-hack-chat/ | Keebin’ With Kristina Hack Chat | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"Hack Chat"
] | Join us on Wednesday, September 27 at noon Pacific for the
Keebin’ with Kristina Hack Chat
with our own
Kristina Panos
!
When you think about it, wiggling your fingers over a bunch of magic chiclets is a pretty strange gateway to the written word. And yet, here we sit a hundred-odd years after someone first decided that the same basic interface used to run pianos and harpsichords for centuries would be a fantastic model for mechanizing the whole writing thing. Just because it makes perfect sense thanks to the outsized portion of our brains dedicated to the motor and sensory functions of our wonderfully complex and versatile hands doesn’t mean it’s not weird.
Still and all, it seems like there could be some room for improvement in the basic design of keyboards. We could probably do with something that makes typing easier, results in less repetitive strain, or is just more fun to do. Pushing back on the traditional and boring designs of the past is where we find the strange breed of keyboard builders and modders that our very own Kristina Panos counts herself part of. You know here from her popular
“Keebin’ with Kristina” series
, and now we’ve coaxed her into checking into the Hack Chat to talk to all the rest of us keyboard-minded individuals. If you’ve ever thought that there has to be a better way to enter text, or even just something a little bit different, you’ll want to come along and join the conversation.
Our Hack Chats are live community events in the
Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging
. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, September 27 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a
handy time zone converter
. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686429",
"author": "Alan",
"timestamp": "2023-09-26T07:25:52",
"content": "Everyone seems to have a favorite aspect. For me, it’s not so much the switches as the keycaps.Or rather (thanks to HP calculators in my youth) keycaps with Custom Text on the front side. In different colors... | 1,760,372,155.182064 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/25/nasas-parker-probe-gets-front-row-seat-to-cme/ | NASA’s Parker Probe Gets Front Row Seat To CME | Tom Nardi | [
"News",
"Space"
] | [
"CME",
"parker solar probe",
"plasma",
"sun"
] | A little over a year ago, and about 150 million kilometers (93 million miles) from where you’re currently reading this, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe quietly made history by safely flying through one of the most powerful coronal mass ejections (CMEs) ever recorded. Now that researchers have had time to review the data, amateur space nerds like ourselves are finally
getting details about the probe’s fiery flight
.
Launched in August 2018, the Parker Solar Probe was built to get up close and personal with our local star. Just two months after liftoff, it had already beaten the record for closest approach to the Sun by a spacecraft. The probe,
with its distinctive solar shield
, has come within 8.5 million kilometers (5.3 million miles) of its surface, a record that it’s set to break as its highly elliptical orbit tightens.
The fury of a CME at close range.
As clearly visible in the video below, the Parker probe flew directly into the erupting CME on September the 5th of 2022, and didn’t get fully clear of the plasma for a few days. During that time, researchers say it observed something that had previously only been theorized — the interaction between a CME and the swirling dust and debris that fills our solar system.
According to the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), the blast that Parker flew through managed to displace this slurry of cosmic bric a brac out to approximately 9.6 million km (6 million miles), though the void it created was nearly instantly refilled. The researchers say that better understanding how a CME propagates through the interplanetary medium could help us better predict and track potentially dangerous space weather.
It’s been a busy year for the Parker Solar Probe. Back in June it announced that data from the craft was
improving our understanding of high-speed solar winds
. With the spacecraft set to move closer and closer to the Sun over the next two years, we’re willing to bet this isn’t the last discovery to come from this fascinating mission. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686243",
"author": "perry",
"timestamp": "2023-09-25T15:12:15",
"content": "WOW !!!!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6686257",
"author": "ono",
"timestamp": "2023-09-25T15:49:56",
"content": "I wonder why NASA did ... | 1,760,372,155.233714 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/25/inverse-vaccines-could-help-treat-autoimmune-conditions/ | Inverse Vaccines Could Help Treat Autoimmune Conditions | Lewin Day | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Medical Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"autoimmune disease",
"autoimmunity",
"Disease",
"immune system",
"medical hacks"
] | Autoimmune diseases occur when the immune system starts attacking the body’s own cells. They can cause a wide range of deleterious symptoms that greatly reduce a patient’s quality of life. Treatments often involve globally suppressing the immune system, which can lead to a host of undesirable side effects.
However, researchers at the
University of Chicago
might have found a workaround by tapping into the body’s own control mechanisms. It may be possible to hack the immune system and change its targeting without disabling it entirely. The new technique of creating “inverse vaccines” could revolutionize the treatment of autoimmune conditions.
Identification: Friend or Foe
Image by PIRO4D
The body’s immune response is normally a good thing, defending us from various pathogens. Indeed, it’s crucial to our survival; individuals with suppressed immune systems must take all kinds of precautions to avoid harm on a regular basis. In autoimmune diseases, though, the body’s immune response gets misdirected, attacking the body’s own cells. Suppressing the entire immune system can solve the autoimmune problem, but leaves the body with precious little defence against actual pathogens.
A new method of molecular hacking may be key to solving this problem, according to a new paper
published in
Nature
. The idea is simple: it aims to reprogram the immune system, instructing it ignore certain targets that it shouldn’t be attacking. It’s basically the opposite of how a vaccine works, hence the name “inverse vaccine.” They’re intended to advise the immune system on what
not
to kill.
The immune system determines what to attack by focusing on antigens. These are molecular markers, like proteins or strings of amino acids, that the immune system can recognize. For example, the COVID-19 coronavirus features prominent spike proteins. When presented with these spikes, our immune system typically identifies them as foreign and unfriendly, and scrambles to attack them. This happens more quickly once we’ve had a vaccine or previous exposure to the virus, as our body remembers how to recognise those antigens. The problem is when our immune system gets confused, and starts identifying our own cells as targets for attack. In many autoimmune diseases, it’s unclear why the body begins to attack itself, but research continues into theories around genetic predispositions, environmental factors, and responses to viral and bacterial infections.
To try and reprogram the immune system, scientists developed a polymer that was glycosylated with N-acetylgalactosamine, known as pGal for short. Attached to this polymer is the antigen causing the immune response, connected via a “self-immolative linker.” Once the polymer is ingested by an immune system cell in a process called endocytosis, this linker breaks away, releasing the antigen inside the cell’s regulatory environment. Once this happens, the immune system ceases to treat the antigen as a threat.
Tagging an antigen with pGal can tell the immune system to ignore it in future. Credit:
Research paper, Nature
The idea for this method came from the body itself. Normally, when a cell dies naturally, the immune system does not overreact. This is because the liver uses pGal as a tag for molecules from dying cells, which tells the immune system to ignore these molecules. The researchers simply leveraged this existing mechanism as a way to get the immune system to ignore other targets as desired.
Early testing
showed that the technique could be used to prevent Type 1 diabetes from occurring in a mouse model by preventing the autoimmune response to insulin-producing cells.
Later work
showed that the technique could also potentially be used to treat autoimmune diseases that had already occurred. This was achieved by demonstrating that an immune system could be programmed to stop attacking the myelin coating on nerves in animals suffering a multiple sclerosis-like disease. The nerves regained function in time, and the animal’s symptoms were reversed.
Lead author of the study, Jeffrey Hubbell, is buoyant about the possibilities. “In the past, we showed that we could use this approach to prevent autoimmunity,” said Hubbell, adding “But what is so exciting about this work is that we have shown that we can treat diseases like multiple sclerosis after there is already ongoing inflammation, which is more useful in a real-world context.”
Phase I safety trials of an antigen therapy based on this work have taken place with patients suffering from celiac disease, along with a further Phase I safety trial for treating multiple sclerosis. As of yet, no “inverse vaccines” are yet approved for clinical use, but there is strong potential for this technique to improve our ability to treat and manage autoimmune conditions. | 80 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686236",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2023-09-25T14:58:36",
"content": "What if someone develops a virus that produces an inverse vaccine for itself?In fact, why haven’t viruses already evolved to do exactly that?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{... | 1,760,372,155.453092 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/25/bill-steve-and-gary-computer-pioneers/ | Bill, Steve, And Gary… Computer Pioneers | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"CP/M",
"Gary Kildall",
"kildall"
] | If you ask your neighbor who Bill Gates or Steve Jobs is, they’d probably know. But mention Gary Kildall, and you are likely to get a blank stare unless you live next door to another Hackaday reader. [Al’s Geek Lab] has a great
three-part documentary on Gary Kildall
who, in case you didn’t know, was the man behind CP/M, a very influential operating system in the early days of computing and one that set the stage for the PC revolution.
You probably know the folktale that when IBM was looking for an operating system, Bill Gates took the meeting, and Gary Kildall went surfing instead. But like most capsule histories, there is plenty more to the story, and it isn’t as simple as people make it out.
We forget, sometimes, how innovative Digital Research — Kildall’s company — was for the time. We think of CP/M as the venerable CP/M 2.2, which was fine. But there was multitasking CP/M and
GEM
— a precursor to the graphical user interface found everywhere today. Sure, it looks antiquated now, but it was light years in front of everyone else.
If you watch the whole series, you’ll learn that the IBM story isn’t totally apocryphal, but the truth is much different. Kildall didn’t want the IBM deal, and for what seemed like good reasons at the time. Of course, Gates negotiated a deal with IBM that would build a huge company, so it is easy to look back and say that not taking the deal was a mistake, but we would have probably made the same decision as Kildall at that time.
This isn’t the first time we’ve wondered what a world where CP/M won would have looked like. If you want to look inside CP/M,
you can
. Of course, it still powers many retrocomputers and even has some
surprising clones
. | 52 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686167",
"author": "tony",
"timestamp": "2023-09-25T11:59:56",
"content": "8″ floppies, BRADS II, CP/M.The bad old days!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6686224",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2023-09-25T1... | 1,760,372,155.328501 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/24/powder-your-prints-for-baby-smoothness/ | Powder Your Prints For Baby-Smoothness | Kristina Panos | [
"how-to",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"baby powder",
"post-processing",
"resin"
] | Layer lines are a dead giveaway to non-normies that a thing was 3D printed. There are things you can do to smooth them — sanding, chemical smoothing, and fillers come to mind. Although this technique technically uses all three, it starts with something very simple.
In the video after the break, [DaveRig] gets right to the point: baby powder and resin mixed together make a fine smoothing agent when cured. Having read about it online, he decided to give it a try.
Starting with a half sphere that had admittedly pretty big layer lines, [DaveRig] mixed up enough resin and baby powder to make the consistency of milk or cream. Then he put five coats on, curing and sanding with 120 in between each one.
Then it’s on to standard post-processing stuff. You know, wipe it down with alcohol, sand it a little more, wet sand, and then it’s on to the airbrush and clear-coat. The end result looks to be as smooth as your average bowling ball, as you can see in the main photo.
What’s your favorite post-processing method?
Have you tried annealing them in salt?
Thanks to [Keith Olson] for the tip! | 46 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685869",
"author": "JanW",
"timestamp": "2023-09-24T11:56:21",
"content": "I had an huge 3D print assembled from 5 parts a while ago. Needed to print it quite coarse because it was so big. “A bit” of sanding and applying plastic filler from the can gets you there too. There’s fille... | 1,760,372,155.582684 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/24/hackaday-prize-2023-stretch-your-day-with-this-29-hour-clock/ | Hackaday Prize 2023: Stretch Your Day With This 29-Hour Clock | Robin Kearey | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"29-hour clock",
"clock",
"multiple 7-segment display",
"time",
"timescale"
] | Modern life can be stressful. Many of us struggle to balance work, family, exercise, and an ever-growing list of hacking projects, all of which claim our attention during the day. If you sometimes feel that those 24 hours just don’t cut it, you might be in luck: [HIGEDARUMA] has built
a clock that can stretch your day by up to five hours
.
Sadly, [HIGEDARUMA] hasn’t invented time travel (yet). What his clock does instead is slow down its own pace in the evening to push back the midnight hour. When it finally does reach 12:00 a.m., the clock’s pace is accelerated to ensure it’s back in sync with the rest of the world by six in the morning. It might seem silly, but there is a certain logic to it: [HIGEDARUMA] explains that evenings felt much longer when he was a child and that he would like to try and experience that again. Our sense of time may change over our lifetime, even if the actual passage of time doesn’t.
Timescales aside, the 29-hour clock is a neat piece of work from a hardware point of view. The case is made from 4 mm laser-cut MDF with wood-grain foil on the outside. Inside, there’s an ESP32 to run the show, along with an RTC module and three four-digit seven-segment LED displays. A chunky “volume” knob on the front lets you choose how much you’d like your day to be stretched.
We’ve seen clocks with
non-linear dials
before, as well as
extremely linear ones
, but this might be the first one with a non-constant pace. It makes us wonder what the passage of time feels like for those
frozen in ice for 46,000 years
.
The
Hackaday
Prize 2023
is Sponsored by: | 9 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685852",
"author": "Dennis",
"timestamp": "2023-09-24T09:24:34",
"content": "Nightingale, I hear you trample.Is this the preparation for the 5-day week?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6685860",
"author": "Manfred",
"ti... | 1,760,372,155.497175 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/23/input-device-gets-new-input-device/ | Input Device Gets New Input Device | Kristina Panos | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"Glove80",
"nubbin",
"TrackPoint"
] | One of the nicest things about a trackpoint is that you don’t have to take your hands off the keyboard. One of the worst things about a trackpoint is its usual placement, which can force a weird hand position that can cause repetitive stress injury.
[notshitashi] has done an incredible job of
adding a trackpoint to the Glove80 wireless split keyboard
. It must have been really scary to drill holes in the palm rests of such a
nice and not-cheap keyboard
, but [notshitashi] soldiered on nonetheless, and the end result looks great.
Starting with a trackpoint module from Ali, [notshitashi] found that it didn’t fit the palm rest without being trimmed down, so they desoldered the business part from the main PCB and reattached it with wires. They had to go through a few of them to get it just right, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.
[notshitashi] calls this “a bit of a cheat and dirty hack” because the trackpoint module is wired and, therefore, a separate USB HID. Yes, the Glove80 has GPIO connectors in both halves, but the problem is that stock ZMK has yet to support pointing devices. We don’t care; this is quite the elegant hack anyway.
Want to jazz up your mechanical keyboard with a trackpoint?
Here’s a handy guide
. Or, you can perform a
transplant
. | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685898",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2023-09-24T13:24:37",
"content": "I still remember it’s predecessor (on laptops), the trackball.Along with the light pen, it was an early competitor to the mouse.Then the trackpoint trackpad/touchpad came along.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,372,155.626528 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/23/hackaday-prize-2023-a-3d-printed-vertical-wind-turbine/ | Hackaday Prize 2023: A 3D Printed Vertical Wind Turbine | Jenny List | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"vertical turbine",
"wind power",
"Wind turbine"
] | We feature a lot of off-grid power projects here at Hackaday, whether they’re a micropower harvester or something to power a whole house. Somewhere in the middle lies [esposcar90]’s
3D-printed vertical wind turbine
, which it is claimed can deliver 100 watts from its diminutive tabletop package.
It’s designed to be part of a package with another turbine but makes a very acceptable stand-alone generator. The arms have large scoop-like 3D-printed vanes and drive a vertical shaft up the centre of the machine. This drives a set of satellite gears connected to a pair of DC permanent magnet motors, which do the work of generating. For different wind situations, there are even some differing STL gear choices to speed up the motors. The motors are 12V devices, so we’re guessing the output voltage will be in that ballpark. However, it’s not made entirely clear in the write-up.
All in all, it’s a very compact and practical off-grid power solution, given a place with enough wind and a requirement for 100W. We can imagine it might find use with hikers in mountainous regions or perhaps radio amateurs doing a SOTA activation. We like it.
If your tastes run to something
larger
, you can 3D print that, too. If you want a
smaller demonstration
and have a spare CDROM drive, this project can be very simple.
The
Hackaday
Prize 2023
is Sponsored by: | 23 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685774",
"author": "Deargle",
"timestamp": "2023-09-24T03:19:41",
"content": "Missing a link to the project writeup!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6685781",
"author": "Al Williams",
"timestamp": "2023-09-24T... | 1,760,372,155.686316 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/23/electrostatic-generator-project-starts-with-molten-sulfur/ | Electrostatic Generator Project Starts With Molten Sulfur | Robin Kearey | [
"chemistry hacks",
"classic hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"electrostatic generator",
"electrostatics",
"Otto von Guericke",
"sulfur",
"van de graaff"
] | Although the basic concept of electrostatic attraction has been known since ancient times, it was only in the 17th century that scientists began to systematically investigate electrostatics. One of the first to explore this new field was Otto von Guericke, who constructed an electrostatic generator to help with his experiments. [Markus Bindhammer]
has reconstructed this machine
, which formed the basis for later work by the likes of Wimshurst and Van de Graaff. [Markus] kept his machine in an almost period-correct fashion.
Von Guericke’s machine consists of a sulfur ball mounted on a spindle that allows it to be rotated and rubbed against a piece of cloth. By doing so, the ball gains a charge that can be used to attract small pieces of material. [Markus] built a neat wooden frame with faux-antique carved legs and installed a handle, a spindle, and a belt-drive system to rotate whatever’s mounted on the spindle at high speed.
All of this is beautifully documented in [Markus]’s video, but by far the most interesting part of his project is the process of manufacturing the sulfur ball. If you’ve always wanted one, here’s how to make one: first, melt some pieces of pure sulfur in a round-bottom flask using an oil bath. Then, turn on your vacuum pump to remove any air or water vapor trapped inside the liquid. Once the liquid is nice and clear, let it cool down and solidify very slowly; the sulfur ball can then be released from its container by breaking the glass with a hammer.
While it sounds simple, we can imagine it took a bit of experimenting to get all those steps just right. The end result is a simple but useful machine to demonstrate basic electrostatics, which [Markus] is planning to use in science lectures. There are lots of
interesting experiments you can do with static electricity
, including building
a basic motor
. | 38 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685749",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2023-09-24T00:45:13",
"content": "Please be safe when melting sulfur. It’s flammable and the fumes can kill. The safety equipment in this video looks inadequate and there should probably be at least a disclaimer that has to be clicked throu... | 1,760,372,155.843264 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/23/reviving-an-old-lime-e-beta-rideshare-e-bicycle/ | Reviving An Old Lime-E Beta Rideshare E-Bicycle | Maya Posch | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"e-bike",
"lime"
] | What do you do when you come across a cheap electric bicycle on Facebook Marketplace from a seller who has a few hundred of the same ones available? If you’re someone like [Max Helmetag], you figure that it’s probably legit since nobody would be reselling hundreds of Lime ridesharing e-bikes. Thus, it makes for an excellent project to see how
usable an old ridesharing bicycle is
. According to the information on the e-bike’s frame, it was manufactured in 2017, and based on the plastic still covering parts of the bike, it had barely been used, if at all.
The information listed on the cheap Lime-E Beta e-bike.
It would seem that this lot of e-bikes came from
Lime’
s initial foray
into e-bike ridesharing
in 2018, called Lime-E, hence the ‘Lime-E Beta’ on the e-bike’s frame. When looking at Lime’s
current e-bike offering
, it’s clear that the design is noticeably different. This likely explains this large number of e-bikes up for sale as the remnants of that initial test run in 2018, but it also means that these bikes have likely been sitting around idly for about half a decade now.
According to [Max], the seller got the bikes after the city of Los Angeles did not approve Lime’s proposal to start a ridesharing business there, leaving the bikes in LA in limbo until the seller got them for a ridesharing business undertaking that fell through, leaving them for sale on the internet.
When [Max] got his new prize for $100, it appeared to be well-constructed enough, with a Bafang motor, Bafang torque/cadence integrated bottom bracket and sensor, 14.5Ah 36V battery, Shimano nexus brakes, all aluminum construction, and solid tires. All that you’d expect to find on an e-bike that’s supposed to be robust and low-maintenance.
The main issues came in the form of the very flat battery and the proprietary remote control system that Lime would originally have used to keep tabs on the e-bike, or even allow it to move at all. After reviving the original battery (mainly to save some money), the motor controller with the Lime cellular module was swapped out with a cheap motor controller to restore at least basic functionality.
Unfortunately, this loses some of the original functionality, like the lights and the torque and cadence sensors. Despite this minor setback, it still got [Max] a very functional e-bike for less than $200 with a lot of reverse-engineering fun still to be had with the original controller board. Perhaps the only sad note in this story is that when [Max] later went out to get another one of these bikes, the property the bikes were stored on had gone into foreclosure, meaning the remaining unsold e-bikes are now the property of a bank somewhere and may not go on sale again. | 27 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685723",
"author": "NoWay",
"timestamp": "2023-09-23T20:14:59",
"content": "is it a low-res photo or is the frame really butt welded together?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6685724",
"author": "Shirley Marquez",
... | 1,760,372,155.955553 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/23/high-temp-resin-means-faster-hot-foil-stamping/ | High Temp Resin Means Faster Hot Foil Stamping | Kristina Panos | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Art"
] | [
"3d printing",
"hot foil stamping",
"resin printing"
] | [This Designed That] does a lot of hot foil stamping. That’s the shiny embellishment you’ll see on wedding invitations and your fancier letterheads. They wanted a way to quickly see if the process is right for a given design, and how it might come together if so. Many of the designs involve letter forms, which they have tried milling out of brass in the past, but the process is fiddly and takes a while. Seeking a faster way to test designs,
[This Designed That] turned to 3D printing
.
They achieved good results with an Elegoo Mars Pro, but the the most important thing here is the resin needs to withstand at least 130 C, which is the max that [This Deigned That] usually runs it at. The answer was in Phrozen TR300 resin, which can handle temps up to 160 C.
In trials, the stamp heat measured roughly 30 C lower on average than the press, so [This Designed That] kept turning up the heat, but it just wasn’t conductive enough. So they started experimenting with ways to increase heat transfer. First they tried molding metal powder, but it didn’t work. After briefly flirting with electroplating them, [This Designed That] finally tried some aluminum tape, wrapped tight and burnished to the design.
Now the hot foil machine stamps perfectly at only 120 C — the lower end of the standard temperature that [This Designed That] typically runs the thing. They are chuffed at the results, and frankly, so are we. Be sure to check out the process video after the break.
Curious about hot foil stamping machines?
Check out this retrofit job
. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685714",
"author": "mip",
"timestamp": "2023-09-23T18:43:08",
"content": "This foil can also be applied differently:Print it like like when doing toner transfer on a laser printer.Then bond the foil with a heat press to the toner. Peel off transfer tape and clean residue with a sof... | 1,760,372,155.890385 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/23/confluence-of-nerdery/ | Confluence Of Nerdery | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"newsletter",
"Rant"
] | You might find yourself, dear Hackaday reader, attracted to some pretty strange corners of the tech world. Who knows when that knowledge of stenography, ancient retrocomputing, and floppy disk internals will all combine to get someone falsely accused out of jail?
Go read this story and come on back
, but the short version is that [Bloop Museum] helped recover some 40+ year old court evidence off of some floppies to right an old wrong.
If you looked at the combination of extremely geeky topics, you’d say it’s unlikely to find anyone well versed in any one of them, and you’d say that the chances of anyone knowing enough in
each
these fringe domains to be helpful is exceedingly low. But I’m absolutely sure that the folks at [Bloop Museum] had some more to throw into the mix if they were called for. Or better yet, they might know exactly the right geeks to call in.
And that’s the other heartwarming part of the story. When [Bloop Museum] didn’t know everything about old stenography formats, they knew the right people to reach out to –
the Plover open stenography project
. Who is going to know more? Nobody! Together, the nerd community is an unstoppable resource.
So remember, when you’re hanging out with your geek friends, to keep a running catalog of everyone’s interests. Because you never know when you’re going to need an expert in re-gilding frames, or relocating bee hives, or restoring 1930’s radio sets. Or decoding obscure data formats to get someone out of jail.
Hackaday Halloween
We’re running the
2023 Halloween Hackfest
and it’s your chance to document your Halloween projects, and win fame, fortune, or at least one of three $150 DigiKey gift certificates, plus some Arduino schwag courtesy of the contest’s sponsors! You’ve got until the end of October, so get on it!
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
! | 10 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685707",
"author": "Spanish Bladder",
"timestamp": "2023-09-23T17:23:15",
"content": "Tough luck, I don’t have any friends. In early 2022 I’ve decided to cut off all remaining contacts, move out of the city and become a lone wolf. Never been happier, working remotely and studying m... | 1,760,372,156.001871 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/23/exploring-ground-effect-with-a-quadcopter/ | Exploring Ground-Effect With A Quadcopter | Maya Posch | [
"Toy Hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"ground-effect vehicle",
"quadcopter"
] | The ground-effect (GE) refers to the almost mystical property where the interaction of the airflow around an aircraft’s wing and the ground massively increases efficiency due to the reduction of lift-dependent drag, perhaps best demonstrated by the Soviet Lun-class “ekranoplans” of the 1980s and 90s. Interestingly, this principle also applies to rotary aircraft, which led the [rctestflight] YouTube channel to wonder what would happen if a
quadcopter were to be adapted
for GE.
As noted on the
Wikipedia entry for Ground-effect vehicle (GEV)
, it’s essential to have some kind of forward motion. With a rotorcraft like a helicopter or quadcopter this motion is already provided by the spinning propeller, which makes it noticeably easier to get the aircraft into the ground-effect. operating mode. Following the notion that the GE becomes noticeable at an altitude that’s dependent on the length of the aircraft’s wings, this got translated into putting the largest propellers available on the custom inverted-prop (to put them lower to the ground) quadcopter, to see what effect this would have on the quadcopter’s performance. As demonstrated by the recorded current drawn (each time with a fully charged battery), bigger is indeed better, and the GE effect is indeed very noticeable for a quadcopter.
Getting a usable GEV out of the basic inverted-prop quadcopter required some more lateral thinking, however, as it was not very easy to control this low to the ground. Here following design cues from
skirtless hovercraft designs
helped a lot, essentially drawing on the
Coandă effect
. Although this improved performance, at this point the quadcopter had been fitted with a fifth propeller for propulsion and was skidding about more like a skirtless hovercraft and less of a quadcopter.
Although great for scaring the living daylights out of unsuspecting water-based wildlife, what this unfortunately demonstrates is that GEVs are still hard, no matter which form they take. At the very least it does make for an excellent introduction into various aspects of aerodynamics. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685695",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2023-09-23T15:47:13",
"content": "A ground-effect travel would be more useful it was deployable as a lightweight component of a normal quadcopter. Some super light-weight plastic accordion-like pieces and musclewire actuators seem like th... | 1,760,372,156.042634 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/23/getting-shredded-plastic-and-legs/ | Getting Shredded Plastic…and Legs | Navarre Bartz | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"bicycle",
"exercise bike",
"plastic",
"plastic recycling",
"Precious Plastic",
"recycle",
"recycling",
"shredder",
"shredding"
] | While electric motors have taken the drudgery out of many tasks, human power has its advantages. [Precious Plastic Torino] has developed a
human-powered plastic shredder
for those times when an electric motor just won’t do.
Designed primarily for educational purposes at venues where electricity can be difficult to source, but also useful for off-grid environments, this exercise bike-based shredder can take small pieces of plastic and shred them into tiny pieces suitable for use with any of the other machines in the
Precious Plastics
ecosystem like their injection molding machine. As with all [Precious Plastics] projects, the
files
are
will be open source
; however, there is a six month exclusivity period for Patreon subscribers to help fund development efforts.
The build is relatively simple: take an old exercise bike, remove the unnecessary bits, and run the chain up to drive a shredding mechanism mounted on the front of the bike. We think they should’ve kept the flywheel to help keep the momentum going while shredding but can’t fault them for wanting to keep the prototype as simple as possible. Maybe the next step is getting these in spin classes around the country so people can get their exercise and help recycle in their community at the same time!
If this shredder doesn’t suit your fancy, maybe recycle your plastic with
SHREDII
or this
other DIY effort
. If you’d rather generate electricity on your exercise bike, then try building
this bike generator
. | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685686",
"author": "Leandro",
"timestamp": "2023-09-23T14:35:03",
"content": "they don’t even use this shit in the video. No. I don’t want to breath dust off plastic of the air.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6685694",
"au... | 1,760,372,156.091183 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/22/decker-is-the-cozy-retro-creative-engine-you-didnt-know-you-needed/ | Decker Is The Cozy Retro Creative Engine You Didn’t Know You Needed | Donald Papp | [
"Art",
"Software Development"
] | [
"Creative",
"decker",
"hypercard",
"low-code",
"multimedia",
"no-code"
] | [John Earnest]’s passion project
Decker
is creative software with a classic MacOS look (it’s not limited to running on Macs, however) for easily making and sharing interactive documents with sound, images, hypertext, scripted behavior, and more to allow making just about anything in a WYSIWYG manner.
Decker creates decks, which can be thought of as a stack of digital cards that link to one another. Each card in a deck can contain cozy 1-bit art, sound, interactive elements, scripted behavior, and a surprisingly large amount of other features.
Curious? Check out the
Decker guided tour
to get a peek at just what Decker is capable of. Then download it and prototype an idea, create a presentation, make a game, or just doodle some 1-bit art with nice tools.
A peek at what it’s like to create in Decker. Check out the
online guided tour
to learn more.
Decks are saved as standalone HTML documents which execute in any web browser, making them easy to share anywhere a web page can be hosted or embedded.
Decker’s GitHub repository
hosts the code, and pre-built binaries for Mac and Windows are available
from the author’s Itch.io page
for those who would like to support with an (optional) donation.
Does Decker look a little familiar to you? Decker draws strong influence from
HyperCard
, an atypical piece of 90s software that was a sort of graphical interface and toolset, database, and programming language all rolled into one.
We’ve seen HyperCard used to make a game engine
, but Decker looks like a much more modern and friendly way to scratch the same itch. | 9 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685628",
"author": "irox",
"timestamp": "2023-09-23T07:30:51",
"content": "What’s that Macintosh SE era black and white (?) flying scrolling “world” game with clouds and stuff you would expect to find in an xkcd cartoon? Very slow, but a master piece of art.It was way before its t... | 1,760,372,156.195881 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/22/bending-light-to-fit-technology/ | Bending Light To Fit Technology | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Science"
] | [
"color",
"electron",
"electron band",
"energy",
"light",
"photon",
"photovoltaics",
"physics",
"solar energy",
"solar panel"
] | Solar power is an excellent way of generating electricity, whether that’s for an off-grid home or for the power grid. With no moving parts maintenance is relatively low, and the downsides of burning fuel are eliminated as well. But as much as it’s revolutionized power generation over the last few decades, there’s still some performance gains to be made when it comes to the solar cells themselves. A team at Stanford recently made strides in improving cell efficiency
by bending the properties of sunlight itself
.
In order to generate electricity directly from sunlight, a photon with a specific amount of energy needs to strike the semiconductor material. Any photons with higher energy will waste some of that energy as heat, and any with lower energy won’t generate electricity. Previous methods to solve this problem involve using something similar to a prism to separate the light out into colors (or energies) that correlate to specific types of cells calibrated specifically for those colors. This method does the opposite: it changes the light itself to an color that fits the semiconductor material. In short, a specialized material converts the energy from two lower-energy photons into a single higher-energy photon, which then strikes the solar panel to create energy.
By adding these color-changing materials as a layer to a photovoltaic solar panel, the panel can generate more energy with a given amount of light than a traditional panel. The major hurdle, as with any research, is whether or not this will be viable when produced at scale, and this shows promise in that regard as well. There are other applications for these materials beyond photovoltaics as well, and the researchers provide an excellent demonstration in 3D printing. By adding these color-change materials to resin, red lasers can be used
instead of blue or ultraviolet lasers to cure resin
in extremely specific locations, leading to stronger and more accurate prints. | 3 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685653",
"author": "John Little",
"timestamp": "2023-09-23T11:22:20",
"content": "How long before we see a confocal laser scanning microscope based on that technology?The photograph above reminds me of how the two-photon effect is demonstrated:https://cleoqels2010.blogspot.com/2010... | 1,760,372,156.990706 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/22/diy-repair-brings-an-x-ray-microscope-back-into-focus/ | DIY Repair Brings An X-Ray Microscope Back Into Focus | Dan Maloney | [
"Repair Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"high voltage",
"microscope",
"radiation",
"reverse engineering",
"sensor",
"x-ray"
] | Aside from idle curiosity, very few of us need to see inside chips and components to diagnose a circuit. But reverse engineering is another story; being able to see what lies beneath the inscrutable epoxy blobs that protect the silicon within is a vital capability, one that might justify the expense involved in procuring an X-ray imager. But what’s to be done when such an exotic and expensive — not to mention potentially deadly — machine breaks down? Obviously,
you fix it yourself
!
To be fair, [Shahriar]’s Faxitron MX-20 digital X-ray microscope was only a little wonky. It still generally worked, but just took a while to snap into the kind of sharp focus that he needs to really delve into the guts of a chip. This one problem was more than enough to justify tearing into the machine, but not without first reviewing the essentials of X-ray production — a subject that we’ve given
a detailed look
, too — to better understand the potential hazards of a DIY repair.
With that out of the way and with the machine completely powered down, [Shahriar] got down to the repair. The engineering of the instrument is pretty impressive, as it should be for something dealing with high voltage, heavy thermal loads, and ionizing radiation. The power supply board was an obvious place to start, since electrostatically focusing an X-ray beam depends on controlling the high voltage on the cathode cup. After confirming the high-voltage module was still working, [Shahriar] homed in on a potential culprit — a DIP reed relay.
Replacing that did the trick, enough so that he was able to image the bad component with the X-ray imager. The images are amazing; you can clearly see the dual magnetic reed switches, and the focus is so sharp you can make out the wire of the coil. There are a couple of other X-ray treats, so make sure you check them out in the video below. | 6 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685583",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2023-09-22T23:40:21",
"content": "Just thought about that a combination of a sharp enough focus, combined with a very low depth of focus would be excellent for reverse engineering PCB’s. If you can focus on one of the internal copper laye... | 1,760,372,156.129999 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/22/thats-not-a-junker-thats-my-generator/ | That’s Not A Junker… That’s My Generator | Al Williams | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"car hacks"
] | [
"car engine",
"engine",
"generator"
] | If you live somewhere prone to power outages, you might have thought about buying a generator. The problem is that small generators are cheap but — well — small. Big generators are expensive. [Jake von Slatt] had an idea. He has a “yard car” which we thought might be a junk car but, instead, it is an old car he uses to drive around his yard doing tasks. It has a winch and a welder. Now it has
a big generator
, too. You can follow the project in the three videos found below.
The project started with a scrap generator with a blown motor. Of course, the car has a motor so — in theory — pretty simple. Remove the generator from the motor and graft it to the car’s motor. But the details are what will kill you.
The first video shows the teardown of the generator unit and some planning. Some custom parts that were recovered from the scrap pile replaced some of the parts on the generator, including a custom casting leftover from another project that took a bit of machining to repurpose.
By the second video, he had a proof of concept working, but it had a small problem. He was controlling the speed of the motor with a stick on the accelerator linkage. So, he modified an idler from an AC compressor to limit the speed of the generator. The final video uses an Arduino to drive the cruise control to keep a steady RPM to the generator.
Overall, this is an interesting project both because it is unusual and useful, but also because of the wide range of skills [Jake] demonstrates — he knows his way around a machine shop, a car, and the Arduino. Pretty impressive!
We’d rather reuse a car engine than
drive the generator ourselves
. For some reason, that comes up
repeatedly
. | 104 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685511",
"author": "Nathan",
"timestamp": "2023-09-22T20:14:05",
"content": "Nice! I’ve considered doing something similar with my old diesel Jetta. I thought it would be neat if it was like a dynamometer, where you drive the vehicle up onto something with rollers under the wheels.... | 1,760,372,159.076613 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/25/hackaday-prize-2023-abuse-a-reference-chip-for-a-cheap-instrument/ | Hackaday Prize 2023: Abuse A Reference Chip For A Cheap Instrument | Jenny List | [
"The Hackaday Prize",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"2023 Hackaday Prize",
"current sense",
"rogowski coil",
"sense coil"
] | A Rogowski coil is a device for measuring AC current that differs from a conventional current transformer in that it has no need to encircle the conductor whose current it measures. They’re by no means cheap though, so over time we’ve seen some interesting variations on making one without the pain in the wallet. We particularly like [Stephen]’s one, because he eschews exotic devices for an interesting hack on a familiar chip.
He’s taken the venerable TL431 voltage reference chip and turned it into an op-amp
.
We had to look at
the TL431 data sheet
for this one and shamefacedly admit that since we’d only ever used the chip as a voltage reference, we hadn’t appreciated this capability. In this mode, it’s a op-amp with the inverting input connected to a fixed rail, so it can accept a feedback network to its non-inverting input just like any other. He’s using it as both integrator and amplifier, as well as, of course, in a more conventional power supply.
We like the instrument, and the use of the TL431 in an unexpected manner is the cherry on the cake.
Here’s a previous Rogowski circuit using more conventional parts
. You can dive a bit more into the
theory
, too.
The
Hackaday
Prize 2023
is Sponsored by: | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686130",
"author": "k-ww",
"timestamp": "2023-09-25T09:00:07",
"content": "I’d love to read the actual article, but there’s no link to it….",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6686135",
"author": "Alexander",
"tim... | 1,760,372,158.790242 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/24/saving-a-scope-from-the-dumpster/ | Saving A Scope From The Dumpster | Al Williams | [
"Repair Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"dumpster diving",
"oscilloscope",
"repair"
] | If you read Hackaday, you probably get the title of [SunEstra’s] post:
A Casual Date with the Dumpster
. Many great hacking projects start with finding one man’s trash. This June, [SunEstra] rescued an old Tektronix 2465B oscilloscope, which appeared to be in good shape. Why we never find four-channel 400 MHz scopes in the dumpster is hard to explain, but we are still happy for him, if not a little jealous.
As you might expect, powering up the scope was a disappointment. Relays clicked. Lights flashed. But no display. Adjusting the grid bias on the CRT brought up the display, but it also brought up something else: an error message.
The scope was complaining of “test failure 05-40.” A look through the manual reveals that is “positive level too positive.” Huh. Too much of a good thing, we guess. The test checks the A5 board, so a visual inspection there was the first step.
Unsurprisingly, there were electrolytic capacitors leaking electrolyte. This is, apparently, a well-known problem with this scope. Replacing the electrolytics with some similar tantalum capacitors. In a few cases, the corrosion had eaten pads off the PCB, and some were damaged during the removal. It took a little ingenuity to connect the new parts on the board.
The result? A working scope. Maybe the scope will help repair the next thing that comes out of the dumpster. Sometimes, the best dumpster dives involve intercepting the gear
before it hits the dumpster
. We keep hoping to run into
one of these
on the curb (the linked post seems dead, but the video is still there). | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686120",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2023-09-25T07:42:30",
"content": "Leaking electrolytic capacitors is a problem with almost any old piece of gear, not just the 2465B.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6686153",
... | 1,760,372,158.541851 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/24/celebrating-the-6502-with-song/ | Celebrating The 6502 With Song | Bil Herd | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"6502",
"Taylor and Amy",
"VCF",
"VCF Midwest",
"vcfmw"
] | In a wonderful ode to tech nostalgia,
The Taylor and Amy Show
, comprised of YouTubers [Taylor] and [Amy], have released a new video “THE 6502 SONG”. This song had me singing along in roughly six clock cycles, possibly a little dancing around may have occurred as well. This isn’t just any chip they’re singing about; it’s the venerable 6502 microprocessor, the silicon heart behind iconic machines like the Apple II, Commodore 64/128, and the Atari 2600.
Their lyrics reminds me of when I lived for assembly language mnemonics and counting clock cycles, the “feeling” of a processor coming out of tristate to pronounce what it had learned in the last 500ns, and the undulations of the DRAMs like speed bumps. To top it off, portions of the song were actually recorded live at the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 2023, where fans and computing history aficionados alike were treated to an
impressive
display of vintage tech.
What sets “THE 6502 SONG” apart isn’t just its catchy, melodic tune; it’s the expert blend of historical detail and genuine enthusiasm that resonates with everyone from grizzled assembly-language programmers to youngsters newly fascinated by the allure of 8-bit computing. With guest appearances from other female tech YouTubers like [Veronica Explains] and [Evie’s Revue], [AJ], [Jeri and Amy- Tilt5] and [FuzzyBad].
I believe [Chuck Peddle] father of the 6502, would be proud to see his creation live on and be appreciated so. | 23 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686087",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-09-25T02:09:23",
"content": "Cute!Thanks Bil!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6686092",
"author": "Mr Name Required",
"timestamp": "2023-09-25... | 1,760,372,158.746684 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/24/hackaday-links-september-24-2023/ | Hackaday Links: September 24, 2023 | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Slider"
] | [
"links"
] | Modern video games are almost always written on the backs of a game engine platform, and the two most popular are definitely Unreal Engine and Unity. Some bean counter at Unity decided they essentially wanted a bigger piece of the pie and rolled out
new terms of use that would have game development houses paying per Unity install
. This was a horrible blow to small indie game development houses, where the fees would end up eating up something like 15% of revenue in an industry that’s already squeezed between the Apple Store and Steam. It caused an absolutely gigantic uproar in the game dev community, and now
Unity is walking it back
.
We noticed the change first because tons of “migrate from Unity to Godot” tutorials popped up in our YouTube stream.
Godot is a free and open-source game engine
, and while we’re no game devs, it looks to be at about the level of Blender five years ago – not quite as easy to use or polished as its closed-source equivalents, but just about poised to make the transition to full usability. While we’re sure Unreal Engine is happy enough to see Unity kick some more business their way, we’re crossing our fingers for the open-source underdog.
Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing allows independent authors to self-publish. And it’s
apparently been awash in prose written by large language models
. While it was fun for a while to look through self-published books for the shibboleth phrase “As an AI language model,” Amazon caught on pretty quickly. Of course, that only gets the lowest-hanging fruit. Books like the AI-written guidebook to mushrooms that
recommends eating the Death Cap
still manage to sneak through, as we mentioned two weeks ago.
Amazon’s solution?
Limiting self-published books to three per day
. I wrote a book once, and it took me the better part of a year, and Amazon is letting through three per day. If this limit is going to help limit the size of the problem, then we
vastly
underestimate the problem.
And it’s good news, bad news from space. The good news is that NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to return a sample from the asteroid Bennu
successfully landed just a few hours ago
. As we write this, they’ve sent a team driving around the Utah desert to pick up the capsule. The effort reminds us of retrieving high-altitude balloon capsules after a flight: you know roughly where it is, but you still have to get out there to fetch it. Only NASA has a helicopter to go out looking for the capsule and a lot more science to do before they can throw it in the back of their car.
On the bad news side, India’s Vikram and Pragyan lunar lander/rover pair wasn’t really expected to make it through the long lunar night and had
successfully executed all of its planned mission goals before going into deep sleep mode
two weeks ago. But you’ve
got to try to wake it up anyway, right?
Well, the sun came up on Vikram on Friday, and the Indian space agency tweeted a stoic, “Efforts have been made to establish communication with the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover to ascertain their wake-up condition. As of now, no signals have been received from them. Efforts to establish contact will continue.” We’ve still got our fingers crossed, but at this point it would just be extra icing on the cake. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686106",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-09-25T06:01:39",
"content": "Their pricing is suppose to be a symptom of a bigger problem.https://midiaresearch.com/blog/unitys-pricing-is-a-symptom-not-the-cause-of-tougher-times-ahead-for-the-games-industry",
"parent_id": null... | 1,760,372,158.589106 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/24/getting-geared-up-for-home-power-coating/ | Getting Geared Up For Home Powder Coating | Al Williams | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"harbor freight",
"powder coating",
"spray booth"
] | [Blondihacks] wanted to do powder coating for a model train without a lot of special equipment. She started with an Eastwood kit that runs about $230. Depending on the options, you can get the gun by itself for between $110 – $170. However, you will need more than just this kit. You can see
how [Blondihacks] used the kit in the video below
.
The idea behind powder coating is simple: an electrostatic charge attracts a powder — usually some polymer — and makes it stick to an item. Then heat or UV light turns the powder into a hard finish much tougher than paint. Powder coating can be thicker than paint and doesn’t run, either.
The gun requires a small air compressor, and you need an electric oven, which could be a toaster oven. It probably shouldn’t be an oven you plan to use for food. It should also be in a well-ventilated area, plus you’ll want a respirator or dust mask. [Blondhacks] used a portable paint booth so as not to spew powder everywhere, which looked nice, although you could just use a big cardboard box. A custom jig to hang the parts while spraying, and she was ready to go.
If you are on a budget, by the way, you can get a kit from Harbor Freight for a bit less. It probably has fewer accessories, and we don’t know how it compares, but it is an option for much less money. Either way, you need a small air pressure regulator, and you also need a dryer and a filter for the air because you need dry and clean air so as not to contaminate the powder.
The part is grounded, and the gun charges the powder as it sprays. Once coated, you stick the part in the oven for about 20 minutes. The results look good and, compared to a painted part, the coating was super tough. For intricate parts, you can heat the part and then
dip it in fluid-like powder
. If you prefer to stick to regular powder coating,
we have some tips
. | 17 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686008",
"author": "Kirby",
"timestamp": "2023-09-24T20:34:16",
"content": "I have done some home powder coating, until I found a small local powder coating shop who could do it for about the same or less cost than I could. Plus the local ship had the industrial abrasive blasters ... | 1,760,372,158.640745 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/24/humans-and-balloon-hands-help-bots-make-breakfast/ | Humans And Balloon Hands Help Bots Make Breakfast | Kristina Panos | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"News",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"artificial intelligence",
"breakfast",
"breakfast bot",
"cooking breakfast"
] | Breakfast may be the most important meal of the day, but who wants to get up first thing in the morning and make it? Well, there may come a day when a robot can do the dirty work for you. This is Toyota Research Institute’s vision with
their innovatively-trained breakfast bots
.
Going way beyond pick and place tasks, TRI has, so far, taught robots how to do more than 60 different things using a new method to teach dexterous skills like whisking eggs, peeling vegetables, and applying hazelnut spread to a substrate. Their method is built on generative AI technique called
Diffusion Policy
, which they use to create what they’re calling Large Behavior Models.
Instead of hours of coding and debugging, the robots learn differently. Essentially, the robot gets a large flexible balloon hand with which to feel objects, their weight, and their effect on other objects (like flipping a pancake). Then, a human shows them how to perform a task before the bot is let loose on an AI model. After a number of hours, say overnight, the bot has a new working behavior.
Now, since TRI claims that their aim is to build robots that amplify people and not replace them, you may still have to plate your own scrambled eggs and apply the syrup to that short stack yourself. But they plan to have over 1,000 skills in the bag of tricks by the end of 2024. If you want more information about the project and to learn about Diffusion Policy without reading the paper,
check out this blog post
.
Perhaps the
robotic burger joint
was ahead of its time, but we’re getting there.
How about a robot barista?
Via
the Verge | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685977",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2023-09-24T18:51:30",
"content": "That looks like such a fun job, making flapjacks with giant industrial robot controllers",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6686342",
"author": "Milli",
... | 1,760,372,158.836943 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/24/hackaday-prize-2023-computer-vision-guides-this-farm-mower/ | Hackaday Prize 2023: Computer Vision Guides This Farm Mower | Jenny List | [
"green hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"autonomous mower",
"farm",
"mower"
] | It’s a problem common to small-scale mixed agriculture worldwide, that of small areas of grass and weeds that need mowing. If you have a couple of sheep and enough electric fence there’s one way to do it, otherwise, if you rely on machinery, there’s a lot of hefting and pushing a mower in your future. Help is at hand, though, thanks to [Yuta Suito], whose
pylon-guided mower
is a lightweight device that mows an area defined by a set of orange traffic cones. Simply set the cones around the edge of the plot, place the mower within them, and it does the rest.
At its heart is a computer vision system that detects the cones and estimates distance from them by their perceived size. It mows in a spiral pattern by decreasing the cone height at which it turns, thus covering the whole area set out. Inside is a Raspberry Pi doing the heavy lifting, and because it’s designed for farmland rather than lawns, it has an adaptive track system to deal with obstacles. In its native Japan there is an ageing rural population, so it is particularly suitable for being operated by an older person. See it in action in the video below the break.
A robotic mower aimed at farms is certainly unusual here, but we’ve seen a lot of
more conventional lawnmowers
.
The
Hackaday
Prize 2023
is Sponsored by: | 8 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6686067",
"author": "Evaprototype",
"timestamp": "2023-09-25T00:00:53",
"content": "Is that realistic frame rates represented in the video or is that processed on a different computer for the video?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_i... | 1,760,372,158.690011 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/22/rp2040-emulator-brings-the-voice-of-the-80s-back-to-life/ | RP2040 Emulator Brings The Voice Of The 80s Back To Life | Dan Maloney | [
"Parts",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"allophone",
"phoneme",
"Psion Organiser",
"retrocomputing",
"rp2040",
"SP0256",
"speech synthesis"
] | You may not have heard, but there’s a chip shortage out there. And it’s not just the fancy new chips that are in short supply; the chips that were fancy and new back when you could still buy them from Radio Shack are getting hard to come by, too. For different reasons, of course, but it does pose a problem that requires
a little hacking
to fix.
The chip in question here is the General Instrument SP0256, a 1980s-era speech synthesizer chip that [Andrew Menadue] relies on. The LSI chip stored 59 unique allophones, or basic sounds the vocal tract is capable of, and synthesized speech by rapidly concatenating these sounds. The chip and its descendants made regular appearances in computers and games throughout the 80s, so chances are good you’ve heard it. If not, think
WarGames
(yes, we know that wasn’t
actually
a computerized voice) or [Stephen Hawking] and you’ll be pretty close.
[Andrew]’s need for such a chip stems from his attempts to give voice to his collection of Psion Organisers, another 80s relic that was one of the first pocket computers. Some time ago he built a speech board for the Psion based on the SP0256-AL2, but had to resort to building an emulator for the chip since none were to be had. The emulator uses an RP2040 and lives on a PCB that has the same footprint as the original chip, so it can just plug right in. He dug up WAV files of the allophones and translated those to sequences of bytes, allowing the RP2040 to output the correct sounds as they’re called for. Speaker problems notwithstanding, it sounds pretty good in the video below.
We’ve featured a fair number of SP0256 projects before, on everything from
Amstrad
to
Z80
. We’ve also shown off a few of [Andrew]’s builds before, including
this exploration of the voltage tolerance of the RP2040
. | 25 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685488",
"author": "LambdaMikel",
"timestamp": "2023-09-22T18:40:35",
"content": "Excellent! I’m going to pick this up for LambdaSpeak and maybe Talker-80 eventually! This is GREAT, I really struggled with sourcing the SP0. Got fakes and bad ones in the past. Nice that we have an u... | 1,760,372,159.138681 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/22/ham-radio-mini-beam/ | Ham Radio Mini Beam | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"antenna",
"ham radio"
] | Years ago, ham radio operators more often than not had land, and usually there weren’t any restrictions on what kind of antenna they could erect on that land. These days you are more likely to live with less or no land, and even if you do own property, you might have restrictions that prevent you from putting up any kind of visible antenna.
But even if that’s not the case, you might not have room for an old-fashioned “tri-bander” or “cubical quad” that the hams of old preferred. [Waters & Stanton] has a
65-year-old design for a miniature beam
that he explains, and it produces a good beam antenna in a reduced amount of space. You can watch a video about the antenna below.
The design uses a doublet — a dipole fed with a balanced line and tuned at the feed point. A 22-foot doublet can cover 20 meters down to 10 meters without traps. Adding a director and reflector element provides directionality and gain. A unique arrangement allowed a 12-foot boom to support multiple elements on some bands by introducing a central coil on some elements. For example, the director is tuned to 15 meters using a center coil. But the coil is shorted with a 10 meter quarter stub that acts as a short on that band. You can see a complete explanation in the video.
We were hoping to see a build and some on-the-air testing, but, apparently, that is left as an exercise for the viewer. We imagine that 65 years ago, you’d use a
grid dip oscillator
to tune the stubs. Today, an
antenna analyzer
would do the job easily. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685491",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2023-09-22T19:00:11",
"content": "The center coil allows for easy multiband operation via the shorting stub, but elements with center coils radiate less effectively than elements with coils further out from the center. Then again, coils ha... | 1,760,372,158.875983 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/22/hackaday-podcast-237-dancing-raisins-coding-on-apples-and-a-salad-spinner-mouse/ | Hackaday Podcast 237: Dancing Raisins, Coding On Apples, And A Salad Spinner Mouse | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Kristina Panos gathered over the Internet and a couple cups of coffee to bring you the best hacks of the previous week. Well, the ones
we
liked best, anyhow.
First up in the news, we’ve got
a brand-spankin’ new Halloween Hackfest contest
running now until 9AM PDT on October 31st! Arduino are joining the fun this year and are offering some spooky treats in addition to the $150 DigiKey gift cards for the top three entrants.
It’s a What’s That Sound Results Show this week, and although Kristina actually got into the neighborhood of this one, she alas did not figure out that it was an MRI machine (even though she spent a week in an MRI one day).
Then it’s on to the hacks, which had a bit of a gastronomical bent this week. We wondered why normies don’t want to code on their Macs, both now and historically. We also examined the majesty of dancing raisins, and appreciated the intuitiveness of a salad spinner-based game controller.
From there we take a look at nitinol and its fun properties, admire some large, beautiful Nixie tubes, and contemplate a paper punching machine that spits out nonsensical binary. Finally we talk about rocker bogie suspensions and the ponder the death of cursive.
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 savor at your leisure
.
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 237 Show Notes:
News:
Hello, Halloween Hackfest!
Trick Or Yeet Cannon Will Give Them Candy Shell Shock
Make This Halloween A Spider-Stomping Good Time
(It was spiders, not ghosts, and a 3D sensor to boot. My memory!)
Here’s
a good guide to projection mapping
, though.
What’s that Sound?
Congratulations to [David Smith] who knew that those scary noises belong to an MRI machine!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Normal Users Don’t Code On Their Mac, But Apple Keeps Trying
The Science Behind The Majesty Of Dancing Raisins
Nitinol Is A Material We Need To Be Playing With More
The Metal That Never Forgets: Nitinol And Shape-Memory
Kinetic Sculpture Intermittently Lights Up The Night
Preserving Floppy Disks
Greaseweazle
Reading Floppies With An Oscilloscope
Stenography (Yes, With Arduinos)
It’s Time You Built A Smart Pocket Watch
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Salad Spinner Busts Some New Moves
Replicating Faraday’s 200-Year-Old Electric Motor
Driving A Motor With An Audio Amp Chip
[Dalibor Farný]’s Enormous Nixies Light Up Contemporary Art Museum
Kristina’s Picks:
Paper Punching Machine Looks Like Cute Piece Of Computer History Past
Spooky Noise Box Plays War Drums
Time And Tide Are One Thing
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Rocker Bogie Suspension: The Beloved Solution To Extra-Planetary Rovers
What Is Killing Cursive? Ballpoints. Probably. | 7 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685490",
"author": "a_do_z",
"timestamp": "2023-09-22T18:57:01",
"content": "Not dropped to Google Podcasts yet?(I only bring this up because there was recently some wonkiness there, and the podcast is usually available there by this time.)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,... | 1,760,372,159.189847 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/22/this-week-in-security-webp-cavium-gitlab-and-asahi-lina/ | This Week In Security: WebP, Cavium, Gitlab, And Asahi Lina | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"0-day",
"asahi",
"edward snowden",
"linux"
] | Last week we covered the latest 0-day from NSO group, BLASTPASS. There’s
more details about exactly how that works
, and a bit of a worrying revelation for Android users. One of the vulnerabilities used was CVE-2023-41064, a buffer overflow in the ImageIO library. The details have not been confirmed, but the timing suggests that this is the same bug as CVE-2023-4863, a Webp 0-day flaw in Chrome that is known to be exploited in the wild.
The problem seems to be
an Out Of Bounds write in the
BuildHuffmanTable()
function
of libwebp. And to understand that, we have to understand libwebp does, and what a Huffman Table has to do with it. The first is easy. Webp is Google’s pet image format, potentially replacing JPEG, PNG, and GIF. It supports lossy and lossless compression, and the compression format for lossless images uses Huffman coding among other techniques. And hence, we have a Huffman table, a building block in the image compression and decompression.
What’s particularly fun about this compression technique is that the image includes not just Huffman compressed data, but also a table of statistical data needed for decompression. The table is rather large, so it gets Huffman compressed too. It turns out, there can be multiple layers of this compression format, which makes the vulnerability particularly challenging to reverse-engineer. The vulnerability is when the pre-allocated buffer isn’t big enough to hold one of these decompressed Huffman tables, and it turns out that the way to do that is to make maximum-size tables for the outer layers, and then malform the last one. In this configuration, it can write out of bounds before the final consistency check.
An interesting note is that as one of Google’s C libraries, this is
an extensively fuzzed codebase
. While fuzzing and code coverage are both great, neither is guaranteed to find vulnerabilities, particularly well hidden ones like this one. And on that note, this vulnerability is present in Android, and the fix is likely going to wait til the October security update. And who knows where else this bug is lurking.
Snowden and Cavium
Last year, Jacob Appelbaum published his Phd thesis, “
Communication in a world of pervasive surveillance
” (PDF). It went unnoticed for several months, until
electrospaces.net pointed out a few interesting details
. Appelbaum is a journalist and researcher, but the reason this has captured our attention is that he’s one of the few people with access to the Snowden archive. And the real bombshell was a footnote:
While working on documents in the Snowden archive the thesis author learned that an American fabless semiconductor CPU vendor named Cavium is listed as a successful SIGINT “enabled” CPU vendor. By chance this was the same CPU present in the thesis author’s Internet router (UniFi USG3).
Now, to be clear, this isn’t an allegation that Cavium, now part of Marvell Technology, was knowingly producing compromised equipment. As far as we know, this isn’t another Crypto AG. (Heavens no! The NSA tends to make reasonable-sounding suggestions that just happen to weaken cryptography in non-obvious ways.) Regardless, that this action was taken against an American company seems to be beyond the pale.
There’s more in the paper, like confirmation of project BULLRUN, the effort to sabatoge security in IETF protocols, or the bulk collection of high-entropy Internet traffic for eventual decryption. It was also interesting to learn that the NSA has apparently compromised the Russian SORM Lawful Interception program. Or to put it another way, the NSA can spy on Russian citizens just like Russia can.
Gitlab
And then there’s Gitlab. If you host a Gitlab instance with open user enrollment,
it’s time to update
. CVE-2023-5009 allows a user to run certain pipelines as other users, with all the security implications that includes. For deployments with untrusted users, this is a critical patch to grab.
Asahi
One of the neat things about porting Linux to new hardware is that you get really familiar with the quirks of that hardware. And when one of those quirks happens to be missing security controls on virtual memory addresses in the GPU,
you score a really nice bounty
. And if you’re a Vtuber, then you naturally make a video about it. And that’s how we’re here, talking about Asahi Lina’s video. And if the Vtuber format doesn’t terribly annoy you, it’s actually a really well done explanation of the vulnerability and how to use it to run code.
Be Like Retool
Nobody wants to have to write a post-mortem on their own compromise. But for a technology company, security incidents of some description are nearly guaranteed, eventually. So, if you have to do an incident response,
do it like Retool
. An employee fell to a sophisticated spear-phishing attack — including a deepfaked phone call — on August 27. The employee logged in to a fake portal, provided a Multi-Factor Authentication token to the portal, and then gave over a second MFA token over the phone. And that was enough to put an attacker device on that employee’s GSuite account. 27 customers had their accounts accessed. Oof.
Retool broke the proverbial glass, and hit the red emergency button, revoking everything and rolling back changes. Two days later, the mess was contained and Retool contacted all 27 customers that had been affected. And now, less than a month later, the story has been told with much more detail and transparency than we normally get. So don’t make the same mistakes that Retool did, but when you’re inevitably the one in the hot seat, be like Retool.
Bits and Bytes
Juniper released patches for a few medium-severity issues in some of their firewalls and switches. It turns out that
those vulnerabilities can be used together in an RCE attack chain
, considered a 9.8 on the CVSS meter. Patches and fixes are available, but the attack is as trivial as a cUrl one-liner, so get those units patched!
Google has pulled back the curtain just a bit, and
shared the details on an exploit chain
used in the wild against Android phones. One of the noteworthy features is that the three initial bugs were all n-day exploits — fixes had been published upstream that hadn’t landed in real user’s phones yet. And then there’s the fun of exploiting the Linux system underneath all that Android.
DEF CON videos are finally live
! There are some fun talks, like hacking smart grocery carts, the Github Actions worm, and more. Enjoy! | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685423",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-09-22T14:13:18",
"content": "Buffer overflows have been the bane of programming for years now.Well I can understand the Retool advice, the bad guys have technology on their side. Where’s the anti-deepfake tools for example?",
"p... | 1,760,372,159.424582 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/22/whisperframe-depicts-the-art-of-conversation/ | WhisperFrame Depicts The Art Of Conversation | Kristina Panos | [
"Art",
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"adafruit magtag",
"ai art",
"art",
"GPT-4",
"raspberry pi",
"stable diffusion"
] | At this point, you gotta figure that you’re at least being listened to almost everywhere you go, whether it be a home assistant or your very own phone. So why not roll with the punches and turn lemons into something like a still life of lemons that’s a bit wonky? What we mean is, why not take our conversations and use AI to turn them into art?
That’s the idea behind this next-generation digital photo frame created by [TheMorehavoc]
.
Essentially, it uses a Raspberry Pi and a Respeaker four-mic array to listen to conversations in the room. It listens and records 15-20 seconds of audio, and sends that to the OpenWhisper API to generate a transcript.
This repeats until five minutes of audio is collected, then the entire transcript is sent through GPT-4 to extract an image prompt from a single topic in the conversation. Then, that prompt is shipped off to Stable Diffusion to get an image to be displayed on the screen. As you can imagine, the images generated run the gamut from really weird to really awesome.
The natural lulls in conversation presented a bit of a problem in that the transcription was still generating during silences, presumably because of ambient noise. The answer was in voice activity detection software that gives a probability that a voice is present.
Naturally, people were curious about the prompts for the images, so [TheMorehavoc] made a little gallery sign with a MagTag that uses Adafruit.io as the MQTT broker. Build video is up after the break, and
you can check out the images here
(warning, some are NSFW). | 12 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685383",
"author": "1984George",
"timestamp": "2023-09-22T11:36:08",
"content": "wow.What will sensors and AI lead to next?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6685385",
"author": "come3",
"timestamp": "2023-09-22T11:38:12"... | 1,760,372,159.239455 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/22/mosquito-laser-death-grid-is-just-what-it-sounds-like/ | Mosquito Laser Death Grid Is Just What It Sounds Like | Lewin Day | [
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"laser",
"laser grid"
] | Mosquitoes suck. Quite literally. [Allen Pan] lives in an area where they’re so thick in the air, regular methods of killing them fail to put a dent in their numbers. Thus, he set about building a solution
so dangerous we wouldn’t want to be within a mile when it’s turned on.
[Allen] was inspired by a TED talk
from over a decade ago
that involved targeting flying mosquitoes with high-powered scanning lasers. This technology never really came to fruition, and raised many questions about laser safety and effectiveness.
Testing the idea with only two mirrors installed.
This solution keeps the lasers, but goes a slightly different route — two 10-watt lasers bounced between multiple mirrors to create a laser death grid. It goes without saying that 10 watt lasers will blind you near instantly even at great range, and can burn skin and cause all manner of other horrors. Bouncing them around with mirrors and waving them about at mosquitoes is a
really
poor idea when even incidental exposure can do real harm.
Indeed, the laser is so powerful that it burns holes in the mirrors [Allen] used in early testing. It was around this time that [styropyro] was brought in to help ensure everyone involved got through the project with their eyesight intact.
[Allen]’s crew wears laser safety goggles when operating the horrifying handheld device, which mitigates some risk. The team also quickly notice beams escaping from various directions, due in part to the holes burned in their clothes. Electing to wrap the device in a heatproof blanket to avoid accidentally dazzling any nearby pilots was an obvious idea but
turning the device off and destroying it
would have been smarter.
Sadly, despite looking like the coolest cyberpunk weapon we’ve seen in years, the device doesn’t even kill mosquitoes very effectively. The bugs largely avoided the device, and only a few that flew directly into a beam ended up being cooked. The whole time watching the video, we feared someone dropping the rig, leading to a 10-watt beam bouncing off and striking some poor innocent bystander.
Powerful lasers are cool and useful things
. Try and use them responsibly. | 37 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685344",
"author": "hartl",
"timestamp": "2023-09-22T09:24:32",
"content": "“The bugs largely avoided the device”Blood-hungry mosquitoes aren’t attracted by light, they go for CO₂ and the stink transpired by animals.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{... | 1,760,372,160.05902 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/21/the-loveliest-electronics-desk-youll-see-today/ | The Loveliest Electronics Desk You’ll See Today | Kristina Panos | [
"classic hacks",
"Lifehacks"
] | [
"desk",
"electronics workbench",
"mdf",
"organization"
] | Does your electronics desk have a lap drawer? And is it filled with random, disorganized detritus? Well, [Handy Bear] is here to show you that you can put so much more in every drawer you’ve got if you do it right. And boy,
it sure looks like [Handy Bear] did it right
.
Hidden inside this beautiful antique desk is plastic storage compartment after plastic storage compartment, all situated inside custom dividers made painstakingly from 3mm MDF. The first iteration, a cubbyhole arrangement, was not modular and looked crappy by [Handy Bear]’s standards.
Back to the drawing board and the scroll saw. [Handy Bear] came up with a new scheme that mimics the dividers in the plastic storage boxes they’re using for components and more. In addition to the slotted parts are open-top boxes for things like the multimeter, helping hands, and the ever-important label maker.
[Handy Bear] used hot glue and simple joinery for everything, sealing all the seams with a mixture of glue and water to keep it from turning to dust. We especially like the caliper holder for the lap drawer. You’ll notice that not quite everything fits inside the desk, so [Handy Bear] put the bigger stuff on a couple of IKEA carts. Be sure to check out the short build video and take the desk tour after the break.
Don’t have room for a whole desk worth of stuff?
Build an electronics lab in a box! | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685311",
"author": "mythoughts62",
"timestamp": "2023-09-22T05:15:10",
"content": "Impressive. I could never be that organized. The IKEA carts look like something I could use though…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6685340",
... | 1,760,372,159.663217 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/21/faster-string-processing-with-bloom-filters/ | Faster String Processing With Bloom Filters | Julian Scheffers | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"bloom filter",
"computer science",
"string processing"
] | At first, string processing might seem very hard to optimize. If you’re looking for a newline in some text, you have to check every character in the string against every type of newline, right? Apparently not, as [Abhinav Upadhyay] tells us
how CPython does some tricks in string processing
.
The trick in question is based on
bloom filters
, used here to quickly tell whether a character possibly matches any in a predefined set. A bloom filter works by condensing a set of more complex data to a couple of bits in an array. When an element is added, a bit is set, the index of which is determined by a hash function. To test whether an element might be in the filter, the same is done but by testing the bit instead of setting it. This effectively allows a fast check of whether an element might be in the filter.
CPython doesn’t stop optimizing there: instead of a complicated hash function, it simply uses the lowest 6 bits. It also has a relatively small bit array at only 64 bits which allows it to avoid memory all together, which in turn makes the comparisons much faster. [Abhinav] goes far into more detail in his article, definitely worth a read for any computer scientists among us.
Nowadays there is ever increasing amounts of talk about AI (specifically large language models), so why not
apply an LLM to Python to fix the bugs for you
? | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685324",
"author": "eKustozu",
"timestamp": "2023-09-22T07:09:18",
"content": "I hate regex, plain and simple. I find doing manual string processing with loops much easier, more comprehensive and in spirit of Knuth’s Literate Programming paradigm.",
"parent_id": null,
"dept... | 1,760,372,160.103795 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/21/altoids-tin-spy-radio-goes-solid-state/ | Altoids Tin Spy Radio Goes Solid State | Dan Maloney | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"amateur radio",
"ham",
"low power",
"oscillator",
"QRP",
"SI5351",
"transceiver"
] | [Helge Fykse (LA6NCA)] has a type, as they say. At least as far as radios are concerned, he seems to prefer elegant designs that keep the BOM to the minimum needed to get the job done. And Altoids tins — he really seems to like putting radios in Altoids tins.
This QRP transceiver for the 60-meter amateur radio band
is a perfect example of that ethos. For the unfamiliar,
QRP
is Morse code shorthand for decreased power, and is generally used when hams are purposely building and operating radios that radiate very little power, typically below a watt. For this transceiver, [Helge] chose to use modern components, a marked but interesting departure from
his recent tube-powered spy radios
. The design is centered on a custom oscillator board he designed using an Arduino Pro Mini and an Si5351 oscillator chip. Other components include an ADE-1ASK frequency mixer, an antenna tuner module that can be swapped out for operating on different bands, a receiver that’s little more than a couple of op-amps, and a Darlington pair for an RF power amplifier. Everything fits neatly on a piece of copper-clad board inside the tin box.
As is his tradition, [Helge] was on the air in the field with this radio almost before the solder had time to cool. His first contact was a 240-km shot to a friend, who reported a fine signal from this little gem. And that’s with just powering it off a 9-volt battery when it’s designed to the typical 12-volt supplies hams favor; he estimates this resulted in a signal of about 200 mW. Not too shabby.
Honestly, we’d love to learn more about that oscillator board [Helge] used, and maybe get a schematic for it. We found
a little bit about it
on his web page, but not the juicy details. If you’re out there, [Helge], please share the wealth. | 9 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685251",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2023-09-21T23:19:56",
"content": "There are various Si51351 synthesizer boards out there. Here is one:https://qrp-labs.com/synth.htmlAnother:https://www.adafruit.com/product/2045?gclid=Cj0KCQjw06-oBhC6ARIsAGuzdw12NbRHz05I_5gfpfKVcmk4GhrsSM... | 1,760,372,159.710943 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/21/you-can-use-an-old-tape-deck-as-a-distortion-pedal/ | You Can Use An Old Tape Deck As A Distortion Pedal | Lewin Day | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"distortion",
"electric guitar",
"guitar effects"
] | Distorted guitars were a big part of the rock revolution last century; we try to forget about the roll. As a youth, [David Hilowitz] couldn’t afford a loud aggressive amp, a distortion pedal, or even a proper electric guitar. This experience ended up teaching him that you can use random old audio hardware as a distortion effect.
[David’s] guitar journey started when he found a classical guitar on a dumpster. He learned to play, but longed for the sound of a proper electric guitar. Family friends gifted him a solitary pickup, intending he build a guitar, but he simply duct-taped it to his steel-strung classical instead. The only thing he lacked was an amp. He made do with an old stereo system and a record pre-amp. With his his faux-electric guitar plugged into the microphone input,
he was blessed with a rudimentary but pleasant distortion that filled his heart with joy
.
[David] goes on to explain the concepts behind distorted guitar sounds, and how his home hi-fi was able to serve as a passable starter amp when he was young and couldn’t afford better. He then goes on the hunt for more old gear at a local Goodwill store, finding a neat old tape deck that similarly produced some nice warm distorted tones. In [David’s] experience, old hi-fi gear with microphone inputs can generally do a decent job in this role, with electric guitar pickups typically overloading the preamps which expect a lower-level signal. It’s different to what you’d get from a Big Muff or Boss DS-1, but it’s a neat sound nonetheless.
We’ve looked at distortion effects before,
including rolling your own and putting it into production.
Video after the break. | 16 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685232",
"author": "Gamma Raymond",
"timestamp": "2023-09-21T22:13:38",
"content": "No vintage electronics were destroyed in the making of this video. 👍",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6685236",
"author": "Brian C D... | 1,760,372,159.762051 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/21/3d-printed-robot-wants-to-be-your-pet/ | 3D Printed Robot Wants To Be Your Pet | Richard Baguley | [
"Robots Hacks",
"Software Development"
] | [
"robot",
"ros",
"ROS2"
] | Robots are cool. Robots you build yourself are cooler, especially ones that use stuff you have lying around already.
Snoopy is a new open-source robot
that uses an Arduino as a brain but with a 3D printed body and a short list of parts that can probably be sourced from the junk drawer. It’s still being developed, but it looks like a cool project heading in the right direction to produce an interesting robot.
It’s based on a new robot software platform called
Kaia.ai
that is built on top of the Robot Operating System 2 (
ROS2
), but with a more friendly and beginner-focused interface. Currently, the Snoopy project includes enough to get up and running with a printed frame and the electronics to install an Arduino running ROS2 that controls it. That’s an excellent place to start if you want to get into robotics, but without diving straight into the technical challenges of working with real-time operating systems.
It is also interesting that the previous project from the creator (called
Kiddo
) fell into the complexity trap, where you keep adding features and create an overly complex design that is a pain to build. Hopefully the designers have learned from Kiddo and will keep Snoopy simple.
We’ve covered plenty of other robot projects here at Hackaday, from ones that
venture into nuclear reactors
to ones that write your
thank-you notes for you
or give you
hugs
. We’ve even looked at how to give your
robots a personality
. Combine all those together with Snoopy and you could build a hugging, compassionate robot that has nice handwriting and can repair a nuclear reactor. And if you do, write it up and
send it to our tips line
! | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685401",
"author": "sweethack",
"timestamp": "2023-09-22T12:31:58",
"content": "The blog links aren’t even working. It’s talking about making omniwheels on the second page (once you fix up the links by hand) and yet, it doesn’t use them in the presented design. It’s expecting to us... | 1,760,372,159.605453 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/21/keebin-with-kristina-the-one-with-the-busy-box-macro-pad/ | Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Busy Box Macro Pad | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"blind typewriter",
"game boy advance",
"game boy cartridge",
"gameboy cartridge",
"Hamilton Automatic Typewriter",
"harlequin",
"keyboard",
"macro pad",
"macropad",
"typewriter"
] | Well, I must admit that
Google Translate completely failed me here
, and thus I have no real idea what the trick is to this beautiful, stunning transparent split keyboard by [illness072]. Allegedly, the older tweets (exes?) hold the key to this magic, but again, Google Translate.
Based on top picture, I assume that the answer lies in something like thin white PCB fingers bent to accommodate the row stagger and hiding cleverly behind the keys.
Anyone who can read what I assume is Japanese, please advise what is going on in the comments below.
Typewriter-Assisted Philosophy Inspires Art Students
For Sheryl Oring, newly-appointed Dean at UArts School of Arts in Philadelphia, a keyboard isn’t just a tool of expression for the user. It’s a window into hard truths spoken by anyone who happens to be inspired by the vintage red Royal typewriter Sheryl that likes to set up in public places.
Sheryl watches a student embellish their card. Image via
Billy Penn
In 2004, Sheryl started a project called
I Wish To Say
where she invites people to dictate messages to the sitting President. She types them onto 3×5 index cards and keeps a copy for her archives.
The originals she has sent to four United States presidents, urging them to do things such as take notice of the rise in bullying, stop signing things they don’t read, and provide free and effective birth control. Since the beginning, Sheryl has typed 4,300 postcards in dozens of locations across the country.
At a recent student orientation barbecue
, Sheryl once again donned the 1960s secretarial get-up and set up her red Royal on (I can only assume) the quad, inviting incoming students to immortalize their answer to the question, “what does art mean to you?” Though the display may have started as a clacking curiosity, the typewriter setup inspired the students to really think about why they were there.
Sheryl typed out the answers as usual, then invited the students to sign their cards and embellish them with various stamps, including the date. Once complete, the cards were hung up for all to see. Some answers were sarcastic, and some profound, but all of them were honest.
The Centerfold: This ‘Lil Busy Box Macro Pad
In addition to clear everything, I sure love a good display of primary colors, or a harlequin arrangement if you will. (Remember the Volkswagen Harlequin?)
This likely DOIO macro pad-inspired project comes from [theglimy], who didn’t provide a lot of detail in
the reddit thread
(read: basically none whatsoever), but who
did
craft
those lovely ice cream keycaps
out of polymer clay. That’s a sick close-up shot of the keycaps. You should click that.
Those novelties stand in stark contrast to the handwritten labels that are just a LEGO keycap away, but that’s okay. I kind like dichotomies when it comes to my centerfolds.
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 Hamilton Automatic
Image via
Antikey Chop
When the average person thinks of typewriters from the late 1880s (as I’m sure they so often do), they probably picture a large, heavy, perhaps cast iron monstrosity that is anything but portable.
Well, let me introduce the smallest typebar typewriter ever produced,
the Hamilton Automatic
(PDF). It is 9″ x 12″ and weighs 12 pounds. As you can see, it’s the epitome of steampunk, with all that brass everywhere. It sold for $65 beginning in 1887, which is over $2,000 today. However, other typewriters were going for $100 at the time.
The first thing one might notice is the apparent lack of space bar. See that shiny tongue-depressor where the numbers should probably be? That’s the space bar.
Adding to this horrible inconvenience is the fact that this, among many typewriters of its time, is a ‘blind writer’, meaning that the type bars strike the underside of the platen, and the user can’t see what they’ve typed until they scroll up the paper. Loading the paper was even more of a pain that usual because of the design. Furthermore, it wasn’t for everyone — the Hamilton Automatic only typed capitals, some figures, and numerals. There isn’t even a number one; the user has to use I, presumably.
However, the Hamilton Automatic is not without some cool features. It was the first typewriter with proportional character spacing, meaning that the carriage advances depending on the width of the character. Additionally, the machine had a locking plate that prevented adjacent keys from both striking and thus getting stuck.
This typewriter ultimately failed by 1891, probably because of the location of the space bar and the fact that it only typed in uppercase characters. Still, it’s a pretty darn cool piece of history.
ICYMI: TypeBoy and TypePak Are Inseparable
In the world of keyboards, there is tactile, and then there’s
tactile
.
TypeBoy is the latter
.
See, it just won’t work without slotting in a pair of aftermarket Game Boy Advance cartridges to the inner sides. Yeah, that’s right. It’s because the microcontroller stack is in there.
Inside each cartridge is a XIAO BLE microcontroller, a Sharp Memory Display, a shift register, and a LiPo battery. If this particular shade of purple doesn’t inspire some early aughts GBA nostalgia, then surely the thumb wheels will.
This is really quite the project, and
you can learn all about it on [Stu]’s blog
. If you can’t live without your own TypeBoy and TypePak,
the files are available on GitHub
.
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
. | 7 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685112",
"author": "MAC",
"timestamp": "2023-09-21T17:31:10",
"content": "“Furthermore, it wasn’t for everyone — the Hamilton Automatic only typed capitals, some figures, and numerals. There isn’t even a number one; the user has to use I, presumably.” I see that the number 0 is al... | 1,760,372,159.81879 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/21/ballistic-bmw-blocks-both-bullets-and-booms/ | Ballistic BMW Blocks Both Bullets And Booms | Kristina Panos | [
"car hacks"
] | [
"armor steel",
"armored car",
"ballistics",
"bmw",
"grenades"
] | Maybe you like to live dangerously. Like, James Bond dangerously. Well, we won’t judge, but we will pass this along —
BMW has created the ultimate driving machine for shootouts and war zones
.
Rather than having aftermarket anti-ballistic bits and bobs attached at a later date, this BMW 7 Series is born anti-ballistic and explosion-resistant, built from the ground up with armor steel. They call this the BMW Protection Core.
By building it this way, there are many advantages like more cabin space, lower curb weight, and better handling, which is exactly what you’d want if you were under these types of attacks.
For starters, the car has chunkier A-pillars and door/window frames meant to withstand the damage pictured here. The car has special armoring in the roof and undercarriage to withstand explosions. And the fuel tank is self-sealing, so you have a chance at getting out of there if the thing takes a bullet.
Can’t afford this ballistic-grade beast?
You could always roll your own armored vehicle
. | 47 | 23 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685061",
"author": "Dontdriveinsaopalo",
"timestamp": "2023-09-21T15:34:25",
"content": "Almost bought a 740iL (2001) with the protetion package for fun as well. They are quite a bit quieter inside which was the buying point for me.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"rep... | 1,760,372,159.904701 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/21/books-you-should-read-david-macaulays-architecture-series/ | Books You Should Read: David Macaulay’s Architecture Series | Dan Maloney | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"architecture",
"books you should read",
"engineering",
"history"
] | For a lot of us, there’s a bright line separating the books we enjoyed as children from the “real” books of our more mature years. We all eventually age out of the thin, brightly illustrated picture books we enjoyed in our youth, replacing them with thicker, wordier volumes with fewer and fewer illustrations, until they become so dense with information that footnotes and appendices are needed to convey all the information, and a well-written index is a vital necessity to make use of any of it.
Such books seem like a lot less fun than kids’ books, and they probably are, but most of us adjust to the change and accept the fact that the children’s section of the library doesn’t hold much that’ll interest us anymore. But not all the books that get a “JUV” label on their spines are created equal. Some are far more than picture books, even if the pictures are the main attraction. The books of British-born American author David Macaulay come to mind, particularly the books comprising his Architecture Series.
Macaulay’s books were enormously influential in developing my engineering sensibilities, and are still a pleasure to thumb through these many years later. I still learn something about the history of construction and engineering when I pull one of these books off the shelf, which makes them Books You Should Read.
The View From Below
This image hooked me — how do you even imagine a scene like this in the first place? From
Underground.
I first discovered David Macaulay at an age when I was perhaps already pushing things a bit to be browsing the children’s section. I remember clearly happening upon a thin volume with a simple, single-word title:
Underground
. On the cover was a pen-and-ink drawing showing what a city might look like if you had X-ray vision, which was an instant hook for me. Even at that age I had an abiding if slightly weird interest in infrastructure, and seeing how electrical vaults, sewer pipes, and subway tunnels lace the parts of a city together under its streets was pretty powerful stuff. The rest of the book was just as fascinating as the cover, with intricately detailed drawings of everything lying beneath a typical city.
Aside from being a fabulous introduction to the engineering principles used to create the built environment — what
Underground
taught me about the different types of foundations used to support skyscrapers sticks with me to this day — I think the fact that Macaulay is somehow able to create otherwise impossible points of view to convey these principles is one of the most valuable parts of the book. There’s one illustration in
Underground
that shows a building from below, looking up into the forest of pilings from the bedrock upon which they sit, with the soil magically subtracted from the scene. The imagination and skill needed to visualize a scene like that and capture it on paper tells you all you need to know about Macaulay’s books.
Groined vaults and an Easter egg, from
Cathedral
.
Luckily for me,
Underground
was far from a one-off. In fact, by the time it was published in 1976, Macaulay had already published three books in what would eventually become his eight-volume Architecture Series. His first book, 1973’s
Cathedral
, set the tone for what was to follow: books focusing mostly on historical construction methods and materials, in fictional but period-correct settings, using intricately detailed pen-and-ink drawings to show how such buildings were constructed.
Cathedral
follows the fictional French Gothic-style cathedral of Chutreaux over a period of 86 years, from its planning to the final consecration. The drawings are wonderful, with enough detail to satisfy the curiosity of older kids and adults while still telling enough of a story that younger children will be entertained. And there are Easter eggs galore — the section on building the groined vaults over the church’s choir shows a tiny bird’s nest being built atop the wall, with the baby birds eventually flying away as the ceiling is completed. Finding a treasure like that as a kid was fascinating; reading the book to my kids many years later and having them find it was poignant.
Drawing On The Impossible
Cathedral
uses a lot of traditional drafting views — plans, elevations, cross-sections — to illustrate exactly how a Gothic cathedral actually stood up. Even as a youngster, I was able to see how flying buttresses worked, tracing the path of the forces from the roof trusses to the foundation through his excellent drawings. Later books of the series, like 1977’s
Castle
, which traces the construction of a hypothetic 13th-century castle in Wales, continued this tradition, with section drawings detailed enough to show how fireplace chimneys were built, and exactly how a castle’s many garderobes were connected to cesspits — or directly to the great outdoors. Plenty of entertainment in those illustrations, too — nothing hooks a kid better than potty humor.
All of the early books of the Architecture Series —
Cathedral
,
Castle
, and 1974’s
City
, which covered the construction of an imaginary Roman city, make effective use of what I’d later discover in
Underground
— the impossible point of view. Many of the drawings in these books show what construction would look like if a drone were hovering overhead taking pictures.
Castle
has a fantastic picture of the inner curtain wall and a defensive tower being built, looking down almost vertically into the structure. It shows the thick walls with cut stone faces and rubble infill, a growing spiral staircase, and the interior of the growing castle.
Illustrations like these add so much to the reader’s understanding of how buildings like these worked, and his “long shots”, where he gives overviews of the entire project, really help you appreciate the scale of the work.
Castle
, where the fictitious walled town of Aberwyvern springs up around the castle, has many good examples of this, with a series of pictures showing the growing settlement as you might see it from an airplane. The progression of pictures shows at first a few buildings inside the walls, centered around the town well, eventually growing outward as more half-timber, wattle-and-daub houses are added until the whole town fills the walled area and spills out into the surrounding countryside.
Impossible view from
Castle
that shows medieval construction details.
Also from
Castle
, the “long shot” shows the massive scale of ancient construction.
Other works from the Architecture Series include 1975’s
Pyramid
, which covered ancient Egyptian construction, and the slightly oddball
Unbuilding
, a 1980 book that nicely shows off Macaulay’s quirky sense of humor. The backstory for the book involves a rich Arab prince buying the Empire State Building and then having it disassembled for shipment back to his kingdom for reassembly. He uses that as a springboard to discuss how the iconic skyscraper was originally constructed, just in the reverse order. It’s a fascinating book, but unlike the earlier books, it’s one I’ve only read once; not many libraries I frequented seemed to own it.
The two last additions to the series are 1983’s
Mill
, which shows the establishment of a water mill in New England and the fictional mill town that grows up around it, and
Mosque
, which Macaulay wrote in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks.
Mill
is particularly interesting to me, partly because I grew up in New England but also because water-powered mills are historically and technically fascinating to me; some of the illustrations in the book are so detailed that you could almost use them to make blueprints for building a waterwheel and the surrounding machinery.
My collection so far. I still have a couple to go yet.
Kid’s Books, But So Much More
At the end of the day, it’s hard to argue that David Macaulay’s Architecture Series books aren’t children’s books. There’s plenty of text, and while the language is deliberately simple — but never dumbed down — it’s really the illustrations that are the star of the show. But these books are so much more than “just” children’s books. With a few — OK, many, MANY — strokes of his pen, Macaulay is able to show complex engineering ideas that a page of text would struggle to explain, and bring life to long-obsolete construction techniques. Anyone interested in the confluence of history and engineering will find these books endlessly fascinating, no matter how old they are.
So maybe these aren’t children’s books so much as they’re imagination books. And no matter where you are in your engineering journey takes you, everyone can use a little imagination. | 33 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "6685049",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-09-21T14:36:54",
"content": "The way things work is also a fun book.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6685051",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-09-21T1... | 1,760,372,159.982936 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/21/radio-apocalypse-the-bbc-radio-program-that-couldnt-have-started-wwiii/ | Radio Apocalypse: The BBC Radio Program That Could(n’t) Have Started WWIII | Dan Maloney | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"ballistic missile",
"bbc",
"failsafe",
"longwave",
"LW",
"nuclear",
"sigint",
"signals intelligence"
] | Here’s a question for you: if you’re the commander of a submarine full of nuclear missiles, how can you be sure what
not
receiving a launch order really means? If could — and probably does — mean that everything is hunky dory on land, and there’s no need to pull the trigger. Or, could radio silence mean that the party already kicked off, and there’s nobody left to give the order to retaliate? What do you do then?
One popular rumor — or “rumour,” given the context — in the UK holds that BBC Radio 4, or the lack thereof, is sort of a “deadman’s switch” for the Royal Navy’s ballistic missile subs. [Lewis (M3HHY)], aka
Ringway Manchester
on YouTube, addresses this in
the video below
, and spoiler alert: it’s probably not true.
The theory goes that if all other means of communication fail — an unlikely eventuality given the level of redundancy and the sheer number of sensors a ballistic missile sub has at its disposal — monitoring the airwaves for the BBC Radio 4
Today
program should give a sub commander a clear indication of how things are going on the beach, as it were.
Today
has been running continuously since October 1957 — the same month Sputnik was launched; coincidence? The absence of the show from the airwaves would be a clear indication that things had gone terribly wrong, and that the submarine commander would be free to use his judgment regarding the disposition of the weapons under his control.
On the surface, it sounds like a good plan, but a moment’s thought puts the lie to it. How would a commander distinguish between the end of the world as we know it and a more mundane event, like a storm or a power failure? Or even the failure of some of the boat’s radio gear, or just poor propagation (the specific Radio 4 signal was supposed to emanate from Droitwich on 198 kHz in the longwave band). Kicking off World War III under those circumstances, which is basically the equivalent of a US sub coming to periscope depth to visually assess the
Waffle House Index
, would probably be considered bad form, at the least.
Still, we’d imagine that monitoring civilian broadcasts is just one of the many tools at a boomer skipper’s disposal, and contributes mightily to the overall situational awareness picture. There are also a lot of other interesting tidbits in the video, especially the
“letters of last resort.” | 28 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6684992",
"author": "Mystick",
"timestamp": "2023-09-21T11:25:47",
"content": "“Fail-deadly” (opposed to fail-safe) policies were largely dropped from the playbooks after RAND simulations resulted in more-than-even odds of a launch-in-error, increasing as time passed after the “stan... | 1,760,372,160.166371 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/21/building-a-charging-holder-for-the-apple-pencil/ | Building A Charging Holder For The Apple Pencil | Lewin Day | [
"Mac Hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"apple pencil",
"ipad",
"ipod"
] | The Apple Pencil is a neat tool for digital creativity, but the user experience is a bit blah when it comes to charging. You either have to plug it into an iPhone or iPad directly, or an iPhone charger using a special adapter. It’s a bit below Apple’s usual seamless best. [Handy Bear] got around this fuss by building
their own Apple Pencil dock.
The concept is simple. At its heart, it’s not dissimilar from a regular pen holder. It consists of a 3D printed round base filled with quick cement for heft. The base weighs almost a pound, and has a cork base so it sits nicely on a desk. A Lightning charge cable is fed into the base of the device, with the Apple Pencil adapter permanently fitted. All one has to do is remove the cap from the Apple Pencil, slot it into the adapter, and place the cap in the storage hole provided. The base then keeps the device charged, upright, and ready for use.
It’s not a complicated build, but it solves a fundamental problem with the Apple Pencil. It’s hard to imagine fancy-schmancy creatives are leaving these things just floating around on their desks with cables going everywhere; you’d think Apple would be selling a $99 dock for these by now. Instead, it’s up to the DIYers and
the aftermarket
.
You might also consider some
high-end mods to your Apple Pencil for greater finesse. | 24 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6684954",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2023-09-21T09:01:18",
"content": "This is the perfect tool to accidentally stab yourself or poke an eye out for everyone who has a habit of falling asleep behind a desk. Pointy things pointing upwards is asking for trouble if you ask me.",
... | 1,760,372,160.337083 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/20/atari-gets-semi-modern-video-output/ | Atari Gets Semi-Modern Video Output | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"2600",
"2600jr",
"atari",
"s-video",
"video output"
] | The Atari 2600 is a historical enigma in many ways. On one hand, it was the most popular gaming console of its era, but it was also at the center of the video game crash of 1983 due to the poor quality of its games at the time. It is a fascinating system in many ways that are still relevant today, especially when it comes to pushing hardware much farther than it was designed to go. [nicole] brings us a project that overcomes some of the limitations in its hardware
to provide a more modern video output
.
At the heart of the Atari is a custom chip called teh Television Interface Adapter (TIA) that generates the console’s video signal as well as handling controller information and a few other tasks. It was designed at a time where memory was expensive, and essentially trades programmer effort to reduce memory requirements. Interestingly, it separates luminance and chrominance information much like S-video does, so that’s where [nicole] focused their efforts. Thanks to some help from an
adapter board
, the video signals can be intercepted and reprocessed for the S-video standard instead of using RF modulation to send video data out, although this does involve some soldering and modifying of the original Atari hardware. In [nicole]’s case this was a little more involved due to the differences of the 2600jr compared to more standard versions of the console.
While S-video isn’t modern in the strictest sense, as a standard from 1987 it is a huge step forward compared to the available video output methods available in the 1970s when the 2600 was first produced. Plenty of older consoles and other hardware like VCRs and the like used S-video, so if you have a retro gaming setup complete with a CRT you might want to take a look at
this 12-input A/V switch
to keep everything managed. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6684904",
"author": "Eric",
"timestamp": "2023-09-21T05:42:23",
"content": "“custom chip called teh Television Interface Adapter (TIA)” 2 letters flipped thereProgramming for 2600 has been a challenge because of having no video RAM. You had to code to update the video in real time ... | 1,760,372,160.387802 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/20/aluminum-battery-is-sustainable/ | Aluminum Battery Is Sustainable | Al Williams | [
"Science"
] | [
"aluminium",
"battery"
] | If you think of metals in a battery, you probably think of lithium, mercury, lead, nickel, and cadmium. But researchers in Australia and China want you to think about
aluminum
. Unlike most battery metals, aluminum is abundant and not difficult to dispose of later.
Their battery design uses water-based electrolytes and is air-stable. It is also flame retardant. The battery can provide 1.25V at a capacity of 110 mAh/g over 800 charge cycles. The idea of using aluminum in a battery isn’t new. Aluminum is potentially more efficient since each aluminum ion is equivalent to three lithium ions. The batteries, in theory, have higher energy density compared to lithium-ion, but suffer from short shelf life and, so far, practical devices aren’t that close to the theoretical limits of the technology.
Aluminum ion transport is slow, however, so batteries made with the metal tend to have low cathode efficiency. Organic polymer cathodes can help but have their own set of problems. The new battery addresses some of these concerns, but, of course, it remains to be seen if this technology will be competitive with other technologies.
There are several ways to make
batteries with aluminum
. Some take nothing more than
thin air
. | 27 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6684836",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-09-21T02:08:43",
"content": "Time will tell if this battery will be practical.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6685580",
"author": "future g... | 1,760,372,160.447924 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/20/silencing-a-3d-printer-with-acoustic-foam-isnt-that-easy/ | Silencing A 3D Printer With Acoustic Foam Isn’t That Easy | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"acoustic foam",
"sound reduction"
] | 3D printers are supremely useful tools, but their incessant whining and droning can be distracting and tiresome. [Handy Bear] decided to try some simple ways to
quieten down their printer using acoustic foam, with mixed results.
The video starts by exploring two different acoustic foams; one black, one white. The latter was found to hold a flame when ignited, making it a poor choice for
a 3D printer with many hot components.
The black foam, advertised for use in automotive installations, was reluctant to burn at all, and so made a safer choice.
The UP Mini 3 printer is then disassembled to receive its soundproofing treatment. The printer’s various panels all got a healthy lashing of thick sticky insulating foam. This took some work, thanks to the need to cut around various ribs and screw bosses on the panels. Cut appropriately, though, the printed was able to be reassembled neatly with its foam hidden inside.
Unfortunately, the work didn’t have a great effect on the printer’s sound output. That’s perhaps unsurprising, given it still has uninsulated panels like the front window which are still free to radiate sound. The foam did help cut down on fan noise and high-pitch sounds from the printer, but the annoying medium and low pitched noises from the printer’s motors were still very audible.
Using an enclosure or a
quieter stepper driver
are probably more effective DIY methods to quiet a noisy printer; share your own ideas in the comments. Video after the break. | 23 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6684761",
"author": "Brian C",
"timestamp": "2023-09-20T23:47:47",
"content": "Make it quieter by placing it on top of a piece of those excersize mats you can get cheaply…the extra noise usually comes from the vibration translating into a solid object like a desktop, then gets ampli... | 1,760,372,160.553743 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/20/spooky-noise-box-plays-war-drums/ | Spooky Noise Box Plays War Drums | Kristina Panos | [
"classic hacks",
"Holiday Hacks"
] | [
"noise box",
"piezo",
"piezo disk",
"reverb",
"rubber band",
"spring"
] | What do you have cooked up to scare trick-or-treaters this Halloween? We humbly suggest adding in some type of noise box,
especially one like this offering from [Paisley Computer]
that uses reverb and other effects to achieve chilling, thrilling sounds.
As you can see, this instrument is essentially a bunch of doodads affixed to and through a cigar box. And as you’ll hear in the first video after the break, the various rubber bands make great drum sounds. The springs are nice, too, but our personal favorite has to be the head massager thing. Shhhing!
Inside the box you’ll find a guitar jack and some piezos glued to the underside of the top surface, but you’ll also find springs mounted across the inside that add to the resonance of the cigar box.
You can use either an interface and DAW or an effects pedal chain to really make things freaky, and [Paisley Computer] does a showdown between Focusrite interface versus various stomp pedals in the second video. In the third video, we learn how to make one of our own.
Do you like the idea of a spring reverb?
How about a really big one that sounds sort of Satanic? | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6684680",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2023-09-20T20:58:19",
"content": "Yeah the head scratcher is genius",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6684756",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-09... | 1,760,372,160.495707 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/20/cold-metal-fusion-for-3d-printing/ | Cold Metal Fusion For 3D Printing | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Laser Hacks"
] | [
"cold metal fusion",
"metal 3d printing",
"sls"
] | When you see the term cold fusion, you probably think about energy generation, but the
Cold Metal Fusion Alliance
is an industry group all about 3D printing metal using Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) printers. The technology promoted by
Headmade Materials
typically involves using a mix of metal and plastic powder. The resulting part is tougher than you might expect, allowing you to perform mechanical operations on it before it is oven-sintered to remove the plastic.
The key appears to be the patented powder, where each metal particle has a thin polymer coating. The low temperature of the laser in the SLS machine melts the polymer, binding the metal particles together. After printing, a chemical debinding system prepares the part — which takes twelve hours. Then, you need another twelve hours in the oven to get the actual metal part.
You might wonder why we are interested in this. After all, SLS printers are unusual — but not unheard of — in home labs. But we were looking at the latest offerings from
Nexa3D
and realized that the lasers in their low-end machines are not far from the lasers we have in our shops today. The QLS230, for example, operates at 30 watts. There’s plenty of people reading this that have cutters in that range or beyond out in the garage or basement.
We aren’t sure what a hobby setup would look like for the debinding and the oven steps, but it can’t be that hard. Maybe it is time to look at homebrew SLS printers again. Of course, the powder isn’t cheap and is probably hard to replace. We saw a 20 kg tub of it for the low price of €5,000. On the other hand, that’s a lot of powder, and it looks like whatever doesn’t go into your part can be reused so the price isn’t as bad as it sounds. We’d love to see someone get some of this and try it with a hacked printer.
We have seen
homebrew SLS printers
. There’s also
OpenSLS
that, coincidentally, uses a laser cutter. It wouldn’t be cheap or easy, but being able to turn out metal parts in your garage would be quite the payoff.
Be sure to keep us posted
on your progress. | 13 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6684714",
"author": "C. Emery",
"timestamp": "2023-09-20T22:06:12",
"content": "I’ve been interested in amorphous metals and wonder if the bonding agent using it could be sintered using this tech….it seems a very high price for bare materials…hopefully someone will buy a quantity an... | 1,760,372,160.800607 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/20/button-button-whos-got-the-pico-button/ | Button, Button, Who’s Got The (Pico) Button? | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Microcontrollers",
"Raspberry Pi",
"Slider"
] | [
"bootsel",
"pico",
"raspberry pi"
] | There is an episode of
Ren and Stimpy
with a big red “history eraser’ button that must not be pressed. Of course, who can resist the temptation of pressing the unpressable button? The same goes for development boards. If there is a button on there, you want to read it in your code, right? The Raspberry Pi Pico is a bit strange in that regard. The standard one lacks a reset button, but there is a big tantalizing button to reset in bootloader mode. You only use it when you power up, so why not read it in your code? Why not, indeed?
Turns out, that button isn’t what you think it is. It isn’t connected to a normal CPU pin at all. Instead, it connects to the flash memory chip. So does that mean you can’t read it at all? Not exactly. There’s good news, and then there’s bad news.
The Good News
The official Raspberry Pi examples show
how to read the button
(you have read all the examples, right?). You can convert the flash’s chip-select into an input temporarily and try to figure out if the pin is low, meaning that the button is pushed. Sounds easy, right?
The Bad News
The bad news is really bad. When you switch the flash chip-select to an input, you will lose access to the flash memory. But we are running from the flash memory! So, the first thing to think about is that the code will need to run from RAM.
But that’s not all. The Pico has interrupts and two CPU cores. So even if you are out of the flash memory, there’s no reason to assume someone else won’t want to use it simultaneously. So, to make this work, you need to disable interrupts and shut down the other CPU core while you read the pin.
The Example
Looking at the example, they do everything but disable the second core. I recently had to put this code in an Arduino-style program; there is excellent Arduino support for the Pico. Putting the function in RAM is pretty easy:
bool __no_inline_not_in_flash_func(_get_bootsel_button)() {
The rest is just manipulating the I/O pins and turning interrupts on and off:
uint32_t flags = save_and_disable_interrupts();
// Set chip select to Hi-Z
hw_write_masked(&ioqspi_hw->io[CS_PIN_INDEX].ctrl,
GPIO_OVERRIDE_LOW << IO_QSPI_GPIO_QSPI_SS_CTRL_OEOVER_LSB,
IO_QSPI_GPIO_QSPI_SS_CTRL_OEOVER_BITS);
// Note we can't call into any sleep functions in flash right now
for (volatile int i = 0; i< 1000; ++i);
// The HI GPIO registers in SIO can observe and control the 6 QSPI pins.
// Note the button pulls the pin *low* when pressed.
bool button_state = !(sio_hw->gpio_hi_in & (1u << CS_PIN_INDEX));
// Need to restore the state of chip select, else we are going to have a
// bad time when we return to code in flash!
hw_write_masked(&ioqspi_hw->io[CS_PIN_INDEX].ctrl,
GPIO_OVERRIDE_NORMAL << IO_QSPI_GPIO_QSPI_SS_CTRL_OEOVER_LSB,
IO_QSPI_GPIO_QSPI_SS_CTRL_OEOVER_BITS);
restore_interrupts(flags);
That leaves the core. I put a wrapper around this function to avoid any possible problems with it being called from RAM (though it would probably work):
bool get_bootsel_button(void)
{
bool rv;
// freeze
rp2040.idleOtherCore();
rv = _get_bootsel_button();
// unfreeze
rp2040.resumeOtherCore();
return rv;
}
It works. But I do worry about how inefficient it must be. You usually want to poll a button often. Turning off the other core, disabling interrupts, and the idle loop to let the pin settle — all that will take time. In practice, it seems to work OK, but it must be slowing things down some.
In Retrospect…
So, can you read the Pico button? Yes. Should you? Maybe. For some applications, it is probably just fine. But if you are worried about performance, it probably isn’t the best idea.
With two 133 MHz cores, a ton of memory, easy
debugging
, and those
cool peripheral processors
, there’s a lot to love about the Pico. Just maybe not the BOOTSEL button. | 26 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6684647",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2023-09-20T18:01:50",
"content": "My approach was just to add little solder jumpers to the boot and reset pin that connects them (optionally!) to the IO header!https://hackaday.io/project/192207-crapi2040",
"parent_id": null,
"depth... | 1,760,372,160.751341 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/20/salad-spinner-busts-some-new-moves/ | Salad Spinner Busts Some New Moves | Kristina Panos | [
"Games",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"bust-a-move",
"controller",
"controoler",
"custom controller",
"FreePIE",
"mouse",
"salad spinner",
"vJoy"
] | Can you believe that [Tom Tilley]’s wife was just going to pawn off this perfectly good salad spinner on the thrift store when it’s so ripe for hacking? We couldn’t, either. Fortunately,
he caught it just in time
, right before dinner.
One of the coolest things a person can do that also tends to aid gameplay is to make a custom controller. [Tom] decided to make one for
Bust-A-Move
, a simple game where one shoots balls at bubbles in order to pop them. It looks like quite the fun little stress reducer. Anyway, a simple game deserves a simple controller, no? Yes.
As you’ll see in the build/demo video below, [Tom] started with a standard wireless mouse and hot-glued a cardboard origami creation to it. This goes upside-down inside the salad spinner and gets connected to the spinner part so that the entire origami moves in a circle. [Tom] then extended the left mouse button to a switch, which he affixed to the outside.
This controller re-uses a slightly modified mouse that [Tom] used in
a previous
Bust-A-Move
controller
. He is using a
FreePIE
script and
vJoy
in order to map mouse movements to the joystick inputs expected by the game. Watch [Tom] bust some moves after the break. | 18 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6684606",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2023-09-20T15:35:36",
"content": "One could also 3D print or fab up a small testube/vial holder to go inside a salad spinner to make a home lab centrifuge for small samples.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,160.859889 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/20/youve-got-mail-reading-addresses-with-ocr/ | You’ve Got Mail: Reading Addresses With OCR | Kristina Panos | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"ocr",
"post office",
"USPS"
] | Last time I delivered on this column, I told you about
the USPS’ attempts to fully automate a post office
. Of course, that’s a bit of a misnomer, since it took 1,500 employees to actually operate the place on a daily basis. Although Project Turnkey in Rhode Island and Project Gateway in California were proving grounds for all kinds of mail sorting and processing equipment, the act of actually reading addresses and routing mail to its final destination still required human intervention and hand coding.
Today, the post office processes hundreds of millions of mail pieces each day using various pieces of equipment. One of those important pieces of equipment is the OCR address reader, which manages to make sense of all kinds of chicken scratch.
All Eyes On OCR
Image via
Smithsonian Postal Museum
In their ever-increasing efforts to remove the human from the mail sorting operation, the USPS looked with a loving eye toward Optical Character Recognition, or OCR.
The post office was an early adopter of OCR, beginning their R&D in the 1950s. During this time, the Farrington Manufacturing Company began developing their Automatic Address Reader under contract with the USPS.
Within a few rounds of prototypes, this machine could recognize and register addresses almost anywhere on the face of the envelope, whether they were typed, handwritten, or imprinted, tightly-spaced or not, and whether the lines were flush or staggered. After confirming the addresses, the machine would sort the mail into various slots for local, long distance, and international destinations.
Although there were two ways for a machine to recognize characters — optical and magnetic — the optical way eventually won out. The optical operation employed photo-electric cells in order to sense the mail piece and then read the address. The magnetic method scanned for ink containing iron oxides. They both had their merits; although OCR had issues with lack of contrast and sometimes over-marking of addresses, it was ultimately the more practical choice.
As you will see in the video below, OCR machines could read 42,000 addresses per hour by 1970 in an operation called Line Find. The machine performed three steps for each piece of mail. First, it finds either the last line (city and state) or the second-to-last line (street address) depending on whether the letter is local or outgoing, and then secondly it measures the height of the character. Finally, it reads the line.
How does it do this? A CRT shoots a beam of light through an “expanding optical system” at the face of the envelope. The beam produces a raster, which scans from right to left until it finds the address block. Then it finds the leftmost character and stops. All of this happens in five thousandths of a second.
Then the raster changes to a finer scan and takes a look at the first letter in the line to determine it’s size. Based on this, the raster wastes no energy on blank space, adjusting to the height of the rest of the line. The optical system uses the characteristics of letters such as horizontal lines on the left and various curves and lines to the right to determine the letter. There’s a lot more to it than that, but I won’t spoil this short but informative video for you.
The Curse of Cursive
As you might imagine, the wild variations in people’s handwriting caused problems for OCR machines. But by analyzing the length and location of strokes, some handwriting could be analyzed. Today, OCR can read nearly everything — about 99% of addresses, even those written in tight or looping cursive. These days, if an address can’t be read by OCR, a picture gets sent to the Remote Encoding Center (REC) in Salt Lake City, UT for decoding by human eyes.
Check out this special keyboard they use at the REC.
Indeed, the REC’s operations are so vital that they have three ISPs coming in on three fiber lines at different points for redundancy. There used to be dozens of RECs across the United States, but OCR has gotten so good that they only need the one center these days.
Even so, the REC handles 1.2 million mail pieces per day, requiring 7,150 keystrokes minimum per hour from each operator. That means they process one piece of mail every four seconds on average. So as you can see, the movement of mail requires human handling to this day.
In the video below, Tom Scott takes a trip to the REC and learns how to read and encode mail so that it can move forward and be delivered. It’s an interesting process that requires a special keyboard with the numbers on the home row, and a host of modifiers and things in their place along the top.
First, unless it’s missing entirely, the C portion of the address (the ZIP code) is deciphered and coded, then outward portion of the address (city and state), and then the inward portion (the street address). The REC has every known good address in America sitting on their servers, and once they get a match, the plant that has the mail piece is notified immediately where to send it, and the piece moves forward. All of this for the low, price of 66 cents per ounce. Amazing, isn’t it?
But Wait, There’s More
Stay tuned for more about the USPS’ advancements, including ZIP codes, vending machines, and something called v-mail. We’ll also take a look at ways the USPS has attempted to improve productivity and service as well as the customer experience. And no, I haven’t forgotten about that bit of trivia that I promised. | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6684660",
"author": "Dan",
"timestamp": "2023-09-20T19:27:48",
"content": "Banks have moved to OCR to read cheques.When a cheque was repeatedly rejected by the machine, I took it to the human, who helpfully suggested I could save time using the machine.I explained the machine had fa... | 1,760,372,160.684964 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/20/tmd-3-clever-hall-sensor-hack-leads-to-better-turing-demo/ | TMD-3: Clever Hall Sensor Hack Leads To Better Turing Demo | Dan Maloney | [
"computer hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"demonstrator",
"hall effect",
"head",
"state machine",
"tape",
"turing",
"Turing machine"
] | We’ll beat everyone to the punch: yes, actually
building a working Turing machine
, especially one that uses a Raspberry Pi, is probably something that would have pushed [Alan Turing]’s buttons, and not in a good way. The Turing machine is, above all else, a thought experiment, an abstraction of how a mechanical computing machine could work. Building a working one seems to be missing the point.
Thankfully, [Michael Gardi] has ignored that message three times now, and with good reason: some people just grok abstract concepts better when they can lay their hands on something and manipulate it. His
TMD-1
was based on 3D printed tiles with embedded magnets — arranging the tiles on a matrix containing Hall effect sensors programmed the finite state machine, with the “tape” concept represented by a strip of eight servo-controlled flip cards. While TMD-1 worked fine, it had some limitations, which [Mike] quickly remedied with
TMD-2
, a decidedly more complicated affair that used a Raspberry Pi, a camera, and OpenCV to read an expanded state machine with six symbols and six states, without breaking the budget on all the Hall sensors required.
TMD-3 refines the previous design, eschewing the machine vision approach and returning to the Hall effect roots of the original. But instead of using three sensors per tile, [Mike] determined that one sensor would suffice as long as he could mount the magnet at different depths within each tile. That way, the magnetic field for each symbol could be discerned by a single Hall sensor, greatly reducing complexity and expense. An LCD screen and a Raspberry Pi run a console app that shows the tape status, the state machine, and the state transitions.
[Mike] put a ton of work into this one — there are nineteen project logs — and he includes a lot of useful tips and tricks, like designing PCBs directly in KiCAD before even having a schematic. Of course,
with a track record like his
, we’d expect nothing less. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6684519",
"author": "jpa",
"timestamp": "2023-09-20T12:08:20",
"content": "Alternative way to do tile detection could be to have a LC resonator in each tile and a grid of PCB coils. Then check what frequency each tile location resonates at after poking it by transmitting a current p... | 1,760,372,160.899423 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/20/scaled-up-matches-are-hilarious-and-moderately-effective/ | Scaled-Up Matches Are Hilarious And Moderately Effective | Lewin Day | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"campfire",
"giant",
"match",
"matches",
"prop"
] | Regular matches are fine for lighting candles and the like, but they’re a bit small and fiddly to use. After seeing some giant prop matches used in a stage play,
[Handy Bear] decided to see if they could build some functional extra-large matches at home.
The build starts with a square wooden dowel, cut into lengths to serve as the main body of the matches. Regular tiny matches were then harvested for their flammable matchheads, made of potassium chlorate. Sourcing the material this way is far simpler than attempting a chemical synthesis from raw materials. Once roughly ground, the material was glued on to the end of the wooden rod to finish the match. [Handy Bear] then whipped up a giant matchbox to suit, using the ignition strips from multiple smaller matchboxes in the process.
Impressively, the monster matches work, and work well. They readily ignite when struck, and are able to keep a strong flame burning for some time. However they’re not quite potent enough to fully ignite the wood, so they don’t burn down like the real thing. We could see these being a great way to
light a campfire
with less hassle than regular matches, even if they are a bulky solution to the problem. | 22 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6684488",
"author": "adrian",
"timestamp": "2023-09-20T09:14:16",
"content": "Maybe use something like balsa wood ? Less mass to heat up sop it should catch fire more easily",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6684504",
"a... | 1,760,372,160.958248 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/19/open-source-tracker-keeps-an-eye-on-furry-friends/ | Open Source Tracker Keeps An Eye On Furry Friends | Richard Baguley | [
"home hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"cat",
"iphone",
"iphone app",
"pet",
"tracking"
] | Most of the time, you’ll know where your cats are — asleep on the bed about 23.5 hours a day and eating or pooping the rest of the time. But some cats are more active than others, so there’s commercial options for those who want to keep tabs on their pet. Unfortunately, [Sahas Chitlange] didn’t like any of them, so he
designed and built his own open source version: FindMyCat.io
.
The system is in two parts: a module that fits onto a cat collar, and a home station that, well, stays at home. It offers a variety of
tracking modes
. In home mode, the home station signals the collar every 10 seconds, which stays in a deep sleep most of the time. If the collar doesn’t get a signal from the home station, it switches to ping mode, where it will wait for a signal from the FindMyCat over the LTE-M connection and report its location.
Finally, the app can set the collar to Lost Kitteh mode, where the collar will send a location to the app every seven minutes or thirty seconds. The collar also supports a direction-finding feature, using the ultra wideband (UWB) feature of recent Apple iPhones to point you in the direction and distance of the tracked cat.
The collar is built around a
Nordic Semiconductor NRF-9160
, a System in a Package (SiP) that does most of the heavy lifting as it includes GPS, an LTE-M modem, and an ARM processor. One interesting feature here: [Sahas] doesn’t make his antennas on the PCB, but instead uses an
Ignion NN03-310
, an off-the-shelf antenna that is already qualified for LTE-M use. That means this system can be connected to almost any LTE-M network without getting yelled at for using unqualified hardware and making the local cell towers explode.
The collar also includes a
DWM3001CDK
ultrawideband (UWB) module used for the locator feature. The accompanying app uses this and Apple’s UWB support to show the user which direction the cat is in, and how far away it is. The app isn’t in the Apple App Store yet, so you’ll need to sign up for an Apple Developer account to use it. We’d love to hear from anyone who takes it for a test drive with their own pet.
Thanks for the tip, [Claude] | 49 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6684430",
"author": "gene",
"timestamp": "2023-09-20T05:12:32",
"content": "I like the concept of RF tracking like a MarcoPolo system.No service required, very good battery life, very good distance.Someone PLEASE come up with or direct me to an open source transmitter for that, the... | 1,760,372,161.436508 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/19/latency-meter-for-accurate-gaming/ | Latency Meter For Accurate Gaming | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Games"
] | [
"arduino",
"gaming",
"hid",
"human interface device",
"input lag",
"input latency",
"lag",
"latency",
"monitor",
"mouse",
"speed",
"timing"
] | The gaming world experienced a bit of a resurgence in 2020 that is still seen in the present day. Even putting aside the effects from the pandemic, the affordability and accessibility has arguably never been better. Building a gaming PC can have its downsides, though, and a challenging issue to troubleshoot is input lag or input latency. This is something that’s best measured with standalone hardware, and if this is an issue on your setup
you may want to take a look at this latency meter
.
Unlike other measurement devices that use the time between a mouse button input and the monitor’s display of a bullet or shooting event, this one looks at mouse movement and the change in the scene instead. This makes it much more versatile than other methods since it’s independent of specific actions, and can be used in any game without any specific events needed to perform the measurement. A
camera
phototransistor is placed on the monitor’s top edge and the Arduino-based device sends mouse commands to the computer while measuring the time between those commands and the shift in the image on the monitor.
The project is open source, so with the right hardware it’s possible to build one to troubleshoot latency issues or just to learn more about a particular hardware configuration’s behavior. Arduinos and other microcontrollers have been doing all kinds of things by pretending to be human interface devices like this for a while now. One of our favorites of late was
this effects pedal that replicates musical effects
on mice and keyboards. | 17 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6684408",
"author": "Piecutter",
"timestamp": "2023-09-20T02:33:26",
"content": "I think maybe “camera” might be a bit of a liberal interpretation.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6684473",
"author": "Krzysztof",
... | 1,760,372,161.247879 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/18/satellite-hunting-hack-chat/ | Satellite Hunting Hack Chat | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"Hack Chat"
] | Join us on Wednesday, September 20 at noon Pacific for the
Satellite Hunting Hack Chat
with Scott Tilley!
From the very first beeps of Sputnik, space has primarily been the domain of nations. It makes sense — for the most part, it takes the resources of a nation to get anything of appreciable size up out of the gravity well we all live in, but more importantly, space is the highest of high ground, and the high ground has always been a place of advantage to occupy. And so a lot of the hardware we’ve sent upstairs in the last 70 years has been in the national interest of this or that country.
A lot of these satellites are — or were, at least — top secret stuff, with classified payloads, poorly characterized orbits, and unknown communications protocols. This can make tracking them from the ground a challenge, but one that’s worth undertaking. Scott Tilley has been hunting for satellites for years, writing about his exploits on the
Riddles in the Sky blog
and sometimes being
featured on Hackaday
. After recently putting his skills to work
listening in on a solar observation satellite
as its orbit takes it close to Earth again, we asked him to stop by the Hack Chat to share what he’s learned about hunting for satellites, both long-lost and intentionally hidden. Join us as we take a virtual trip into orbit to find out just what’s going on up there.
Our Hack Chats are live community events in the
Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging
. This week we’ll be sitting down on Wednesday, September 20 at 12:00 PM Pacific time. If time zones have you tied up, we have a
handy time zone converter
. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6683823",
"author": "Mystick",
"timestamp": "2023-09-18T20:22:45",
"content": "I would hunt satellites, but the DNR licensing for that is a pain, the season is really short, and they are so skittish, if you don’t have the right blind they just fly away before you can get lined up on... | 1,760,372,161.287093 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/18/fast-charging-a-cargo-bike-from-an-electric-car-charger/ | Fast Charging A Cargo Bike From An Electric Car Charger | Navarre Bartz | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bicycle",
"bike",
"cargo bike",
"ebike",
"ebike battery",
"electric bike",
"electric vehicle charger",
"EV charger",
"Front Loader",
"j1772",
"NACS",
"North American Charging Standard"
] | Fast charging is all the rage with new electric cars touting faster and faster times to full, but other EVs like ebikes and scooters are often left out of the fun with exceedingly slow charging times. [eprotiva] wanted to change this, so he rigged up a
fast charging solution
for his cargo bike.
Level 2 electric vehicle chargers typically output power at 7 kW with the idea you will fill up your electric car overnight, but when converted down to 60 V DC for a DJI Agras T10 battery, [eprotiva] is able to charge from 20% to 100% capacity in as little as 7 minutes. He originally picked this setup for maxing the regen capability of the bike, but with the high current capability, he found it had the added bonus of fast charging.
The setup uses a
Tesla (NACS) plug
since they are the most plentiful destination charger, but an adapter allows him to also connect to a
J1772 Type 1 connector
. The EV charging cable is converted to a standard 240 V computer cable which feeds power to a drone charger. This charger can be set to “fast charge” and then feeds into the battery unit. As an added bonus, many chargers that do cost money don’t start charging until after the first five minutes, so the bike is even cheaper to power than you’d expect.
For some reason, you can
watch him do this on TikTok
too.
If you too want to join the
Personal EV Revolution
, be sure to checkout
how to choose the right battery for your vehicle
and a
short history of the Segway
. | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6683659",
"author": "Eric",
"timestamp": "2023-09-18T15:35:01",
"content": "Are the NACS plugs really the most plentiful? Never really seen them as often as J1772 L2 here in Maryland, but who knows nationwide…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,161.343102 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/18/the-challenge-of-weather-modification-in-the-face-of-climate-change/ | The Challenge Of Weather Modification In The Face Of Climate Change | Maya Posch | [
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Science",
"Slider"
] | [
"terraforming",
"weather modification"
] | Over the past decades we have been able to observe a change in the Earth’s climate, caused by an increasing amount of energy being retained in the atmosphere. This in turn has affected weather systems around the globe, causing more extreme weather. As a result, the prospect of weather control is more relevant than ever for the nations which are most directly impacted by severe rain and winds. Although the concept of weather modification is not new, it used to be primarily focused on rather limited aspects, such as cloud seeding to increase precipitation.
Recent proposals such as Japan’s
weather modification moonshot program
seek to find ways to prevent or lessen the impact of torrential rains, typhoons and similar extreme weather events which accompany climate change. This proposal is part of Japan’s multi-topic
Moonshot R&D
program which seeks to advance the state of the art in a wide range of fields in a very significant way by 2050. As far as weather modification is concerned, this naturally raises many questions. Clearly we are capable of affecting the climate through emissions of e.g. greenhouse gases and large-scale construction, but are there ways in which humans can affect the climate and weather in a more refined manner that benefits society, or is this something which will remain beyond our grasp for the foreseeable future?
Defining Weather
Global circulation of Earth’s atmosphere: showing each Hadley cell, Ferrell cell and polar cell along with the trade winds. (Author:
Kaidor
, NASA)
Weather is defined as the state of the atmosphere, which includes such parameters as temperature, moisture levels, as well as turbulence, such as wind and hurricanes. Driving forces behind weather are differences between air pressure, temperature and moisture between different parts of the atmosphere, where each parameter is driven by a number of different inputs, such as the angle of that part of the planet towards the Sun, available surface water and weather systems in nearby regions, with the Sun’s thermal input providing much of the impetus in this system.
The main difference between climate and weather is that the former is rather constant, pertaining primarily to large-scale systems including
atmospheric circulation
and
ocean currents
. These circulation patterns set the parameters for what ultimately turns into weather through the locally present temperatures, moisture and winds. As a
chaotic system
, most
weather models
rely on historical trends, together with the input from sensors that constantly feed temperatures, moisture levels and many more parameters into the weather simulation.
The ocean’s major currents. (Credit: Dr. Michael Pidwirny)
This ensures a fairly accurate prediction for the next few days, but as the amount of energy in this system increases (higher global temperature) or decreases (e.g. ice age), the historical weather trends become less meaningful, due to fundamental aspects such as the flow rate of the
Gulf Stream
changing, which in turn changes the distribution of thermal energy, moisture and thus local weather patterns.
The essential summary of weather is thus that it is primarily driven by the amount of thermal energy in the system, which itself depends on both the amount of solar irradiation and the percentage of this energy that is ultimately retained within the Earth’s atmosphere, surface and oceans, rather than radiated back into space.
In order to change or control the weather, it is therefore crucial to affect these processes in some manner. When we look at the practice of
cloud seeding
to induce precipitation, this involves adding more nuclei to specific clouds (or fog) around which moisture can collect before falling down to the surface. Here the weather system isn’t fundamentally changed to achieve this effect. Although the moisture that was thus extracted from clouds cannot turn into rain or snow elsewhere now, with the cessation of cloud seeding the system should return to its previous state.
Weather vs Climate Change
Yearly surface temperature compared to the 20th-century average from 1880–2022. Blue bars indicate cooler-than-average years; red bars show warmer-than-average years. (Credit:
NOAA
)
As noted in the preceding sections, there has been a net increase in the amount of
thermal energy retained
in the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, which is causing shifts in the Earth’s climate. Because of this change, it means that the weather changes along with it. With more energy in the system, this result in more evaporation in warmer regions, leading to more extreme downpours where the atmospheric cells meet colder air, as well as droughts and extreme winds in general. This does not just threaten the safety of people, but also everything from agriculture to infrastructure.
Yet despite many considering these to be new considerations, weather and climate modification has been a topic for many decades, with the 1965 report by the
Special Commission on Weather Modification
(PDF) to the National Science Foundation (NSF) providing a glimpse at both the focus and state of the art back then. This is followed by a
1979 report produced by the Secretary of Commerce
as a response to the National Weather Modification Policy Act that sought to take stock of the available options more than a decade after the report to the NSF.
While the benefits of climate control are obvious, as it allows humanity to prevent natural disasters and optimize the weather for agriculture and other human activities, both reports duly note that so far humankind is better at
changing the climate
without intending to do so. Human cities and clear-cutting of forests form heat islands, while the burning of fossil fuel and industrial activity add pollutants to the atmosphere that increase the heat retaining properties of the Earth’s atmosphere as a whole, thus raising global temperatures.
Interestingly, the 1979 report covers experiments performed on hurricane moderation (
Project Stormfury
) which employed the seeding of hurricanes (tropical cyclones) with silver iodide in the hope that this would lessen their force. This was based on the theory that such cyclones contain enough super-cooled water that would respond to the seeding, and thus disrupt the cyclone’s structure. This theory turned out to be incorrect, but would provide valuable information on these tropical cyclones.
It is postulated that rising ocean temperatures could increase the frequency as well as the strength of cyclones and tropical storms, but so far there is still a lot of uncertainty about the impact here, mostly due to how poorly we understand how tropical cyclones form and gain strength.
Terraforming Earth
Within the outlined context, Japan’s weather modification Moonshot program seems rather ambitious, even if the need for it is obvious. We’re seeing more extreme storms, more droughts and as a result more wildfires and flooding. Some countries like the US and China are
investing heavily
in cloud seeding as a way to extract more rain from the clouds, but this raises questions about the long-term viability and overall effectiveness of such an approach. Meanwhile preventing extreme rains and flooding are still beyond our capabilities, beyond designing cities and waterways in rural areas so that they don’t get inundated by large amounts of water.
Illustration of the different solar climate intervention techniques. (Credit:
NOAA/CIRES
)
Among the more extreme weather modification proposals is that of
solar geoengineering
, which would entail essentially blocking part of the sunlight, accompanied by the extraction of CO
2
from the atmosphere (carbon geoengineering), which is to this day a highly contentious issue with no clear (efficient) approach to accomplish this. Meanwhile the concept of blocking sunlight with aerosols in the troposphere along with
other extreme proposals
has been met with significant resistance.
Perhaps the elephant in the room here is that the only aspect of the Earth’s climate that we seem to have a solid control over is that of pollution with greenhouse gases, mostly from the use of fossil fuels and industrial processes. Curbing the pollution there using whatever means available is something that we can begin with today, as demonstrated in the 1970s already in the US, France, Sweden, Norway and Ontario through the use of hydro and nuclear power. Even countries like China that are often chided for their use of fossil fuels like coal are rapidly expanding the share of low-carbon power, with China looking to exceed the number of nuclear plants in the US today (92) with more than
fifty plants under construction
or in planning, in addition to its massive build-out of both solar, wind and hydro renewable capacity.
Pragmatism
As much as we would like to control the weather, including storms, typhoons, hurricanes and a gentle Summer’s rain, there is a reason why Japan’s Moonshot program is called this and targets 2050 as a hopeful date by which to have met any of the goals it has set out to achieve. The Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are after all enormous, with the sheer energy behind its circulatory systems, currents and resulting weather far beyond what we can reasonably hope to master.
This leaves us to consider what we have control over, which is essentially the aforementioned curbing of pollution, as well as changing cities and other areas affected by human activity to change their albedo and reduce loss of moisture via evaporation. This can be achieved through the planting of trees, restoring forests and greening cities while considering rainwater capture and retention. While not as futuristic as weather modification with fancy machinery and weather control grids as seen in Star Trek, these are proven methods that we have available to us today. | 80 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6683642",
"author": "johnrpm",
"timestamp": "2023-09-18T15:03:31",
"content": "Weather modification, what can go wrong.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6683665",
"author": "Shannon",
"timestamp": "2023-09-18T15... | 1,760,372,161.641213 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/18/sailor-hat-adds-graceful-shutdown-to-pis/ | Sailor Hat Adds Graceful Shutdown To Pis | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"capacitor",
"filter",
"hat",
"input voltage",
"noise",
"power",
"power conditioning",
"raspberry pi",
"supercapacitor"
] | Even though Windows and other operating systems constantly remind us to properly eject storage devices before removing them, plenty of people won’t heed those warnings until they finally corrupt a drive and cause all kinds of data loss and other catastrophes. It’s not just USB jump drives that can get corrupted, though. Any storage medium can become unusable if certain actions are being taken when the power is suddenly removed. That includes the SD cards on Raspberry Pis, too, and if your power isn’t reliable you
might consider this hat to ensure they shut down properly during power losses
.
The Raspberry Pi hat is centered around a series of supercapacitors which provide power for the Pi temporarily. The hat also communicates with the Pi to let it know there is a loss of power, so that the Pi can automatically shut itself down in that situation to prevent corrupting the memory card. The hat is more than just a set of backup capacitors, though. The device is capable of taking input power from a wide range of sources and filtering it for the power requirements of the Pi, especially in applications like boats and passenger vehicles where the input power might be somewhat noisy. There’s an optocoupled CAN bus interface as well for those looking to use this for automotive applications.
The entire project is also available on
the project’s GitHub page
for those wishing to build their own. Some sort of power backup is a good idea for any computer, though, not just Raspberry Pis. We’ve seen uninterruptible power supplies (UPS)
with enough power to run an entire house including its computers
, to
smaller ones that’ll just keep your Internet online
during a power outage. | 45 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6683580",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2023-09-18T11:28:07",
"content": "” especially in applications like boats and passenger vehicles… ” PI’s are commercial temp rated. So good luck putting a PI in those types of applications.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repl... | 1,760,372,161.726131 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/18/nitinol-is-a-material-we-need-to-be-playing-with-more/ | Nitinol Is A Material We Need To Be Playing With More | Bob Baddeley | [
"Science"
] | [
"Kickstarer",
"memory wire",
"nitinol",
"shape memory",
"shape memory alloy"
] | Another Kickstarter, another opportunity for people to get mad at delayed and poorly functioning (if delivered at all) gadgets. This project aims to make
airless tires for bikes and scooters using nitinol
, and despite the company’s failed attempt at
pedaling
their wares on
Shark Tank
last year, the campaign has already more than quadrupled its funding goal.
The real star of the show here is
NiTinol
, a shape metal alloy composed of nickel and titanium. We should soon see a real commercial application of this miracle metal, and not long after we’ll see what happens when the rubber meets the road on these airless tires and their long-term performance. It’s not accurate to say they don’t use rubber; they just use LESS, because they’re still treaded, albeit with a layer that is adhered to the metal coil, and you don’t need tubes, either. The tread will still wear down and needs to be replaced occasionally for the lifetime of the tire, but the real advantage is never having a flat tire again. Considering how inconvenient flats are and the number of meetings I’ve been late commuting to because of an unplanned rapid deflation, these tires might be worth it. If you’re wondering why they’re so expensive, some napkin calculations of the nitinol coil have somewhere between 100 ft – 200 ft of wire per wheel, and at $1-2/ft, the raw materials alone before assembly make it an expensive piece of kit.
So what’s so cool about nitinol that it’s worth playing with, and what does it do that spring steel or stainless steel can’t? Well, you can
soak it in acid for a year
, and it will continue unaffected. It has excellent bio-compatibility, so you can put it in someone’s arteries as a stent, and it will go through
tens of millions of cycles
without cracking. It’s 10 times better at recovery and lighter, and it’s not magnetic, which can be useful. The memory capability is handy, too, because it means you can rapidly prototype springs, then heat and quench them to set their memory and easily adjust them.
Admittedly, I don’t have a use for it right now. But just like the coils of nichrome and piano wire waiting anxiously in my bins for their opportunity to shine, nitinol is screaming for a fun use. | 51 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "6683537",
"author": "LOL",
"timestamp": "2023-09-18T08:17:33",
"content": "“The company has been on Shark Tank pedaling their wares”Ah, well done! 😃",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6683540",
"author": "James",
"timestam... | 1,760,372,161.821052 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/17/3d-printing-at-100c/ | 3D Printing At 100C | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"polycaprolactone"
] | Normally, 3D printing with filament takes temperatures of around 200 °C. However, there are some crafting plastics that melt in hot water at 60 °C. You can get spools of similar plastic that prints at very low temperatures, and some 3D printing pens use it. [Lost in Tech] picked up a spool of the stuff meant for medical printing and
found that printing with it was a challenge
. You can watch a video of the results below.
The first problem is that most printers don’t want to extrude at low temperatures. You can override this or, if you want to print with this plastic — PCL — you can rebuild the printer firmware. He never got bridges to work very well, but some prints came out reasonably well.
Of course, you might wonder why you would care about this kind of plastic. For one thing, it’s apparently safe to work with. If you were printing with students, too, you might be interested in a lower printer temperature. However, it didn’t look like the results were that good. However, it makes you wonder what kinds of filament you could use with a little work that might have some benefit.
The last time we heard about this stuff, someone was
printing bones
with it. We are always on the lookout for
oddball filament
to play with. | 23 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6683501",
"author": "DeVice",
"timestamp": "2023-09-18T06:50:41",
"content": "I think the “Moldlay” filament – designed for printing molds you can dissolve easily with heat – is (or was, not sure it’s still made ?) printed at even lower temperatures.",
"parent_id": null,
"de... | 1,760,372,161.879487 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/17/buck-converter-has-tremendous-range/ | Buck Converter Takes 8V To 100V | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Parts"
] | [
"buck",
"buck converter",
"converter",
"dc",
"dc-dc",
"mp9486",
"power supply"
] | For those living before the invention of the transistor, the modern world must appear almost magical. Computers are everywhere now and are much more reliable, but there are other less obvious changes as well. Someone from that time would have needed a huge clunky machine like a motor-generator set to convert DC voltages, but we can do it with ease using a few integrated circuits.
This one can take a huge range of input voltages to output a constant 5V
.
The buck converter was designed by [hesam.moshiri] using a MP9486 chip. While it is possible to use a multipurpose microcontroller like something from Atmel to perform the switching operation needed for DC-DC converters, using a purpose-built chip saves a lot of headache. The circuit was modified a little bit to support the higher input voltage ranges and improve its stability and reliability. The board is assembled in an incredibly tiny package with inputs and outputs readily accessible, so it would be fairly simple to add one into a project rather than designing it from scratch.
Even though buck converters, and other DC converters like boost and the mysterious buck-boost converter, seem like magic even to us, there is some interesting electrical theory going on if you’re willing to dive into the inner workings of high-frequency switching. Take a look at this explanation we featured a while back to see more about
how buck converters, the more easily understood among them, work
. | 40 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6683454",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "2023-09-18T02:13:59",
"content": "I read this as converts 8v into 100v, AKA a boost converter.I see now the title should have been: “accepts up to 100v”.I feel the title could be less ambiguous.Could definitely be useful for a 72v-82v Golf ... | 1,760,372,161.960861 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/19/printed-upgrades-improve-cheap-digital-microscope/ | Printed Upgrades Improve Cheap Digital Microscope | Bryan Cockfield | [
"LED Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"led",
"LED driver",
"microscope",
"voltage regulator"
] | Digital microscopes used to be something that only labs or universities might have, but as image sensor technology has progressed, the prices have fallen to the point that any classroom or hobbyist can easily obtain a usable device. The only problem is that a lot of features and quality have been lost to make some of these digital microscopes more affordable. In an effort to add some of these creature comforts back into more inexpensive devices,
[Marb’s lab] has created a special carriage for one of these microscopes
.
The first addition to the microscope is improved lighting. To accomplish this, three LEDs were built into custom housings and wired to a purpose-built LED driver board coupled with a voltage regulator. Two of the LED housings were attached to the end of adjustable arms, allowing them to be pointed in whichever direction is needed. The third is situated directly below the microscope underneath the stage. These are all mounted to a large, sturdy PVC base which also holds an adjustable carriage for the microscope itself. This allows much more fine-tuning of the distance between the sample and the microscope than it otherwise would have had.
For just a few dollars and a little bit of effort, the usability of a device like this is greatly improved. If you want to take the opposite approach and really go all-out for your microscope, though, take a look at
these microscopes used for PCB circuit construction and troubleshooting
or even
this electron microscope
for viewing things at a much higher magnification than any optical system would allow. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6684106",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2023-09-19T10:12:51",
"content": "Next addition, an electrically actuated slide stage with submillimetre precision. Perhaps add software bookmarks for fast navigation between points of interest.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,372,162.006317 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/18/mobile-gopher-client-brings-fossil-wrist-pda-online/ | Mobile Gopher Client Brings Fossil Wrist PDA Online | Robin Kearey | [
"Retrocomputing",
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"Fossil Wrist PDA",
"Gopher",
"Overbite",
"Palm OS 4",
"PPP"
] | Like many new technologies, smartwatches needed a few iterations before they became useful enough for the average person. Early examples were too clunky and limited to be of use to anyone but geeks who wanted to show off their “next big thing”. The 2005 Fossil Wrist PDA was a prime example: although impressively compact for its time, its limited battery life and poor feature set made it obsolete as soon as it was released. But since it ran on Palm OS, it offered plenty of opportunity for hacking: Palm expert [Cameron Kaiser] has
upgraded his Wrist with internet access
.
While Palm OS 4 natively supports TCP/IP networking, this component was deleted from the Wrist version to save memory. In any case, the only viable network interface would have been the USB port, which isn’t too convenient for a watch. Not to be deterred, [Cameron] worked out a way to add network support back into the Wrist: he used the IR port on a Palm m505 to send a copy of its own network drivers to the watch. This works because both devices run the same basic OS version on the same CPU type; the only drawback is that the network setup dialog doesn’t respond correctly to the Wrist’s different set of buttons.
Since the Wrist PDA could now establish a PPP connection through its USB port, it was able access the internet using [Cameron]’s own
Overbite Palm
Gopher browser. The browser had to be modified a bit to fit into the Wrist’s extremely limited RAM area, but the end result was still fully functional.
Of course, a watch is of limited use if it only works while plugged into a PC’s USB port, so [Cameron] also figured out a way to use the same system on the go: he set up a Raspberry Pi 3B with some scripts to automatically start a PPP connection whenever the watch is plugged in, and hooked both devices up to a powerbank. This setup requires a long USB cable running through his sleeve, but we suppose this goes well with the retro-geek style that the Wrist PDA provides anyway.
With the USB cable providing power as well as data, [Cameron] didn’t need to
upgrade his Wrist’s battery, either.
Having just a Gopher browser may seem like a huge limitation, but there’s still
quite a lot going on
inside this text-based world.
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/videoplayback.mp4 | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6684053",
"author": "Bear Naff",
"timestamp": "2023-09-19T07:11:11",
"content": "Aw man, where was this guy fifteen years ago? I spent ages trying to figure out how to get a continuous PPP connection between a Linux host and a networking-modified WristPDA so I could run a VNC clien... | 1,760,372,162.253509 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/18/multispectral-imaging-shows-erased-evidence-of-ancient-star-catalogue/ | Multispectral Imaging Shows Erased Evidence Of Ancient Star Catalogue | Donald Papp | [
"News",
"Science"
] | [
"ancient greek",
"astronomy",
"history",
"multispectral"
] | Ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus worked to accurately catalog and record the coordinates of celestial objects. But while Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue is known to have existed, the document itself is lost to history. Even so,
new evidence has come to light
thanks to patient work and multispectral imaging.
Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue is the earliest known attempt to record the positions of celestial bodies (predating
Claudius Ptolemy’s work
in the second century, which scholars believe was probably substantially based on Hipparchus) but direct evidence of the document is slim.
That is somewhat less true after it was discovered that the coordinates of
Corona Borealis
(the Northern Crown) appeared to be hidden within some ancient documents. This led to further investigations, which yielded a translated passage, some of the strongest evidence yet of Hipparchus’ lost work. It describes the Corona Borealis and gives coordinates accurate within one degree; considerably more precise than Ptolemy’s calculations. A remarkable achievement for a second-century scholar, considering that the telescope would not be invented for another 1500 years or so.
How was this information uncovered? Multispectral imaging of a palimpsest manuscript (a parchment erased of writing, then re-used) revealed the earlier markings, followed by reconstruction and translation. In 2012 an undergraduate student named Jamie Klair first noticed the astronomical nature of of the undertext present in some pages of the ancient Greek palimpsest known as the
Codex Climaci Rescriptus
. Peter Williams, a biblical scholar at Cambridge University, later noticed it contained the astronomical measurements of the Corona Borealis in 2021, which led to the discoveries.
Hipparchus’ Star Catalogue is far from having been rediscovered, but this is the most direct evidence yet of an important piece of science history from the ancient Greeks; much like the marvelous device known as the
Antikythera mechanism
. | 43 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6683978",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2023-09-19T02:15:57",
"content": "Proof that Big Astronomy has been around suppressing information for millennia.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6683980",
"author": "kmlandr... | 1,760,372,162.089376 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/18/replicating-faradays-200-year-old-electric-motor/ | Replicating Faraday’s 200-Year-Old Electric Motor | Robin Kearey | [
"classic hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"Electric motor",
"electromagnetics",
"history",
"homopolar motor",
"Michael Faraday"
] | Although new electric motor types are still being invented, the basic principle of an electric motor has changed little in the past century-and-a-half: a stator and a rotor built of magnetic materials plus a bunch of strategically-placed loops of wire. But getting even those basic ingredients right took a lot of experimentation by some of the greatest names in physics. Michael Faraday was one of them, and in the process became the first person to turn electricity into motion. [Markus Bindhammer]
has recreated Faraday’s experiment in proper 19th century style
.
Back in 1821, the very nature of electricity and its relation to magnetism were active areas of research. Tasked with writing an article about the new science of eletromagnetics, Faraday decided to test out the interaction between a current-carrying wire and a permanent magnet, in a setup very similar to [Markus]’s design. A brass wire is hanging freely from a horizontal rod and makes contact with a conductive liquid, inside of which a magnet is standing vertically. As an electric current is passed through the wire, it begins to rotate around the magnet, as if to stir the liquid.
[Markus]’s video, embedded after the break, shows the entire construction process. Starting from rods and sheet metal, [Markus] uses mostly hand tools to create all basic parts that implement the motor, including a neat knife switch. Where Faraday used mercury as the conductive liquid, [Markus] uses salt water – cheaper and less toxic, although it does eventually eat up the brass wire through electrolysis.
While not particularly useful in itself, Faraday’s motor proved for the first time that electric energy could be converted into motion through magnetism, leading to a whole class of ultra-simple motors called
homopolar motors
. It would be a while before experiments by the likes of
Tesla and Ferraris
led to modern AC motors. If you don’t like your motors magnetic, you can
use electrostatics instead
. | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6683961",
"author": "limroh",
"timestamp": "2023-09-19T01:19:43",
"content": "I mean ‘technically’ not a hack. ;-)But damn, this is nice!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6684245",
"author": "Rex",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,372,162.138418 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/18/driving-a-motor-with-an-audio-amp-chip/ | Driving A Motor With An Audio Amp Chip | Al Williams | [
"hardware"
] | [
"audio amp",
"h-bridge",
"motor driver"
] | [InazumaDenki] wanted to answer the question:
can you drive a motor with an audio amplifier chip
? The answer, of course, is yes. The TDA7052 has a single input, and a bridge output meant to drive a speaker differentially. It should work if the motor doesn’t present more of a load than a speaker.
The plan was to use a resistive divider to provide several discrete voltages to the input. At precisely the half-way mark, there should be no voltage across the load. Altering the input to go higher than halfway should make the motor turn one way, and making it go lower should turn the motor the other way. As you can see in the video below, it does work, although it may not be ideal for this application.
By varying the voltage at the input, the motor changes speeds, although this won’t be as efficient since you probably would prefer to control the speed using PWM to preserve the motor’s torque output. Since the motor is a very inductive load, the circuit has didoes to trim back kickback voltages to protect the device.
Still, it is an interesting idea, and if you are only interested in direction control, it probably isn’t a bad thing. Feeding PWM through the device might be difficult, though, since it would have to be referenced to the midpoint, not ground. Otherwise, the motor would just spin in one direction for a bit and then back in the other direction — not really what you want.
This works, of course, because it isn’t
a single-ended output.
We’ll stick with a classic
H-bridge circuit
. | 25 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6683819",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2023-09-18T20:16:20",
"content": "Even better: Use a stereo amp to drive the two phases of a stepper.With a pair of DACs driving sine waves into the amp it’s ‘infinite microstepping’, and near dead silent.Burns a lot of power though, but you... | 1,760,372,162.203612 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/18/simulating-a-real-perpetual-motion-device/ | Simulating A Real Perpetual Motion Device | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"perpetual motion",
"physics"
] | Perpetual motion and notions of ‘free energy’ devices are some of those pseudo-science topics that seem to perpetually hang around, no matter how many times it is explained how this would literally violate the very fabric of the Universe. Even so, the very notion of a device which repeats the same action over and over with no obvious loss of energy is tempting enough that the laws of physics are employed to effect the impossible in a handy desktop format. This includes the intriguing model demonstrated by [Steve Mould] in a
recent video
, including a transparent version that reveals the secret.
This particular perpetual motion simulator is
made by [William Le]
and takes the form of metal balls that barrel down a set of metal rails which turn upward so that each metal ball will land back where it started in the top bowl. To the casual informed observer the basic principle ought to be obvious, with magnetism being a prime candidate to add some extra velocity to said metal ball. What’s less obvious is the whole mechanism that makes the system work, including the detection circuit and the tuning of the parameters that tell the device when its electromagnet should be on or off.
When [Steve] figured that he could just make a transparent version using the guts from the one he purchased, he quickly found out that even with [William]’s help, this wasn’t so easy. Ultimately [William] hand-crafted a transparent version that shows the whole system in its entire glory, even if this is somewhat like demonstrating a magic trick in an easy to follow manner. | 25 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6683802",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2023-09-18T19:38:26",
"content": "It’s a great art piece, but in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6683806",
"author": "Greg Garriss... | 1,760,372,162.31842 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/18/what-is-killing-cursive-ballpoints-probably/ | What Is Killing Cursive? Ballpoints. Probably. | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"ballpoint",
"ballpoint pen",
"cursive",
"fountain pen"
] | I get it — you hate writing by hand. But have you ever considered why that is? Is it because typing is easier, faster, and more convenient here in 2023? Maybe so. All of those notwithstanding, I honestly think there’s an older reason: it’s because of the rise of ballpoint pens.
And I’m not alone
.
Bear with me here. Maybe you think you hate writing because you were forced to do it in school. While that may very well be, depending on your age, you probably used a regular wood-case pencil before graduating to the ballpoint pen, never experiencing the joys of the fountain pen. Well, it’s never too late.
A Brief History of Ballpoints
All things considered, ballpoint pens haven’t been around that long
. Although American leather tanner John Loud patented a kind of ballpoint in 1888, it never took off.
I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. Biro. Image via
Wikipedia
A few decades and a few designs went by, but none of them made an indelible mark. These early pens were plagued with problems, mostly having to do with ink. Fountain pen ink is quite thin to facilitate flow, and you can’t put that in a ballpoint design — it will just leak out everywhere.
Then came Hungarian journalist László Bíró. For someone presumably on the go all the time chasing down stories, it’s easy to see how he would have wished for a more portable pen.
Together with his brother György, a chemist, they created the viscous, quick-drying ink that you
struggle with
see today, beginning with newsprint inks. Eventually, they found the right combination of ink and ballpoint and created a pen that didn’t leak
too
badly. Biro’s biro took off (literally) when he sold 30,000 pens to the British Air Force, who were looking for a pen that would work at high altitudes.
Soon after, businessmen were profiting left and right, because they were free to manufacture ballpoints in their countries. Although Biro may have invented the first functional ballpoint pen, it was French businessman Marcel Bich of BiC who made it into the ubiquitous tool it is today. Bich not only profited from the ballpoint, his design and manufacturing techniques drove the price of them into the ground.
Fountains vs. Ballpoints
So, let’s get down to it. What are the pros and cons of fountain and ballpoint pens? Because they both definitely have their upsides and downsides.
First off, fountain pens are straight up delightful to use. You need way less pressure to produce strokes, which is easier on the hand and wrist. Wonder why your hand cramps so easily when writing? Blame the ballpoint.
I can feel this picture. Image via
Unsplash
With a fountain pen, you’ll find that letters flow into each other. This is because you have to lift the pen completely off the paper to get that ink to stop flowing. And depending on your abilities, messy cursive is arguably easier to read than messy print.
But there are downsides to fountain pens, unfortunately. Many of them leak easily whether they’re properly stored or not. They need to be refilled fairly often. The ink smudges easily, even if you’re not left-handed. And even the cheap ones can’t compare to the cost of a ballpoint pen.
But ballpoints have their benefits, too. They are extremely low-cost, so it doesn’t matter as much if they get lost. That low cost translates to convenience. On top of that, they usually don’t leak anymore. But ballpoints are basically bad for you. The thick ink required by the design of the thing means more pressure is needed from your poor hand and wrist. Again, if part of the reason you hate writing by hand is the cramping, well, take a look at your instrument.
So Why the Decline?
Can we really blame typewriters and computers for the decline in cursive?
Or the fact that many schools in the United States don’t teach cursive or spend time on penmanship anymore? According to the archive of such hand-wringing articles,
handwriting and cursive have been in decline since the 1960s
, decades before the personal computer (but well within the age of the typewriter). But there’s more to it than that — people don’t need to write by hand as much anymore, and so they don’t. Checks, letters, and post cards immediately come to mind as things people once wrote quite often, and simply don’t anymore.
Studies have shown that
writing by hand is better for learning and development than using a computer
, and that
doing so can lead to more brain activity during recall
an hour later. From my own personal experience, I can vouch that this is true. What do you think? | 225 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "6683703",
"author": "Jon Mayo",
"timestamp": "2023-09-18T17:14:57",
"content": "I like using pencil, it doesn’t run if it gets wet.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6683753",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,372,163.148079 |
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