url stringlengths 37 208 | title stringlengths 4 148 | author stringclasses 173
values | publish_date stringclasses 1
value | categories listlengths 0 12 | tags listlengths 0 27 | featured_image stringlengths 0 272 | content stringlengths 0 56.1k | comments_count int64 0 900 | scraped_comments_count int64 0 50 | comments listlengths 0 50 | scraped_at float64 1.76B 1.76B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/14/cheap-camera-gives-clay-pigeons-eye-view-of-trap-shooting/ | Cheap Camera Gives Clay-Pigeon’s-Eye View Of Trap Shooting | Dan Maloney | [
"Weapons Hacks"
] | [
"clay pigeon",
"drone",
"keychain camera",
"POV",
"shooting",
"shotgun",
"target",
"trap shooting"
] | Speaking from experience, it’s always fun to build something with the specific intention of destroying it. Childhood sessions spending hours building boats from scrap wood only to take them to a nearby creek to bombard them with rocks — we disrespectfully called this game “Pearl Harbor” — confirms this. As does the slightly more grown-up pursuit of building
this one-time-use clay pigeon camera
.
The backstory on this build, which dates all the way back to 2017, is that [Thomas] was invited to a birthday bash at the local shooting range for a round of trap shooting. For the uninitiated, trap is a sport that involves launching a clay disc (known as a pigeon) into the air as a moving target and shooting it down with a shotgun. It’s a lot of fun, but [Thomas] was looking for a way to make it even more fun.
After toying with the idea of buying a cheap drone for aerial target practice, he settled on the idea of making a clay pigeon camera. After procuring a cheap keychain camera, he designed a simple wind vane mount for the camera, to keep it pointed in one direction rather than spinning with the pigeon. The wind vane was 3D printed and attached to the pigeon with a skate bearing, and the rig was ready for the range. The snuff film below tells the whole tale; the camera performed admirably and the wind vane did a good job of steadying the camera for all of about five seconds, until the inevitable and dramatic demise of the pigeon.
Watching this makes us feel like we need more projects designed for intentional destruction. Safety first, of course, but we’d be keen to see what everyone comes up with.
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/clay-final.mp4 | 23 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6614807",
"author": "andarb",
"timestamp": "2023-03-14T19:46:53",
"content": "I think it’s fascinating that the camera survived (reasonably?) intact. I guess it would only take one pellet grazing that pigeon to shatter it, the camera could be totally unscathed.It really needed some ... | 1,760,372,368.458931 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/14/hackaday-berlin-the-badge-workshops-and-lightning-talks/ | Hackaday Berlin: The Badge, Workshops, And Lightning Talks | Elliot Williams | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Berlin",
"Hackaday Berlin 2023"
] | Hackaday Berlin is just under two weeks away, and we’ve got news times three! If you don’t already have tickets, there are still a few left,
so grab them while they’re hot
. We’ll be rolling out the final full schedule soon, but definitely plan on attending a pre-party Friday night the 24th, followed by a solid 14-hour day of hacking, talks, and music on Saturday the 25th, and then a mellow Bring-a-Hack brunch with impromptu demos, workshops, and whatever else on Sunday from 10:30 until 14:00.
The Badge Round Two
Many Europeans weren’t able to make the flight to Supercon, so here’s your chance to get hands on Voja Antonic’s superb down-to-the-metal computer trainer-slash-retrocomputer on this side of the Atlantic. It’s been re-skinned for Berlin, with a couple hardware tweaks because nobody can leave a board revision alone, but it’s 100% compatible with the badge that took Supercon 2022 by storm.
If you
want to read more about it
, you should.
We loved it
, and so did the crowd. One of the coolest badge hardware hacks was a
“punchcard” reader
, but there was also a
lot
of work
on the software side as well
, and we got pull requests for most of the cool demos. If you’re coming, and if you’d like to start your badge hacking a bit early, you could start your research now.
We’ll have a Badge Hacking Ceremony Saturday night, so you can show off whatever you made. It’s lots of fun.
Workshops
We’ve got three formal workshops planned for Hackaday Berlin! You’ll find that we’ve added workshop signups on the
ticket sales page
. Of course, you need to be coming to attend.
Because space for each is very limited, we request that you pick your favorite and sign up for only one. If you really want to get in and it’s sold out, send an e-mail to prize@hackaday.com and we’ll put you on the wait list.
Paul Beech
// Hug-O-Rama: Robot Popularity Contest
Given craft materials, motors, servos and Pico microcontrollers, you will be guided in making a robot companion with one redeeming personality trait. We will then battle these neocytes head-to-head as your fellow workshoppers vote on their superficial charm. The winner gets to question those years they spent being really good at something else.
Paul combats his social anxiety and imposter syndrome by mentioning he designed the Raspberry Pi logo. This workshop is presented by Digi-Key.
This workshop runs three hours and costs $20.
Matt Venn
// Tiny Tapeout – design your own chip and get it made!
In this workshop, you will get the opportunity to design and have manufactured your own design on an ASIC! You will learn: The basics of digital logic, the basics of how semiconductors are designed and made, how to use an online digital design tool to build and simulate a simple design, and how to create the GDS files for manufacture on the open source Sky130 PDK. Participants will have the option to submit their designs to be manufactured on the next shuttle as part of the Tiny Tapeout project. Participants will need a laptop with internet connection. Mouse and headphones advised.
Matt Venn is a science & technology communicator and electronic engineer. He brings 20 years of engineering experience to create innovative learning experiences for people all over the world. Most recently he has been focusing on the world of open source silicon.
This workshop runs two hours and costs $20.
Radomir [deshipu] Dopieralski
// Fluffbug: A DIY Desktop Robot
A small, cheap, desktop robot like
Fluffbug
provides ample opportunity for experimenting, while not being too much of a burden. CircuitPython makes it simple to program and it’s easy to add sensors or other hardware to it. It can be controlled with your phone over WiFi, but if you bring your laptop and an USB-C cable, you can also program it yourself.
A Python programmer by day, by night turns into a supervillain constructing insectoid robots, handheld game consoles, custom keyboards and other projects. He sometimes haunts the Swiss Mechatronic Art Society and tries to convert everyone to using CircuitPython.
This workshop runs two hours and costs $40, due mostly to the number of servos involved.
Lightning Talks
A lightning talk is seven minutes long, and it’s your chance to shine as bright as possible in that timeframe. (It’s not easy to give a super short talk – practice it with a clock once or twice.) The idea is to allow the broadest range of the Hackaday community to get up and show off what you’re doing, what’s most interesting to you right now, or anything else that you think we’ll love too.
We had originally planned on keeping the Lightning Talks open until the last minute, but a lot of people wanted to be sure they had a slot before preparing. If you’d like to reserve yourself a slot,
fill in this form
. If we have space, we’ll take walk-ins, but if you want to guarantee your slot, sign up now. | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6614774",
"author": "deshipu",
"timestamp": "2023-03-14T17:37:13",
"content": "You need permissionThis form can only be viewed by users in the owner’s organization.Try contacting the owner of the form if you think this is a mistake. Learn More.Looks like the lightning talks form is ... | 1,760,372,368.69308 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/14/mechanical-keyboard-as-travel-saxophone/ | Mechanical Keyboard As Travel Saxophone | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Musical Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"mechanical keyboard",
"music",
"portable",
"raspberry pi",
"saxophone",
"sound",
"synthesizer"
] | Those who play larger musical instruments, things like drums, piano, harp, tuba, upright bass, or Zeusaphone, know well the challenges of simply transporting their chosen instrument to band practice, a symphony hall, or local watering hole. Even those playing more manageably-sized instruments may have similar troubles at some point especially when traveling where luggage space is at a premium like on an airplane. That’s why [jcard0na] built
this electronic saxophone, designed to be as small as possible
.
Known as the “haxophone”, the musical instrument eschews the vibrating column of air typical of woodwind instruments in favor of an electronic substitute. Based around the Raspberry Pi, the device consists of a custom HAT with a number of mechanical keyboard switches arrayed in a way close enough to the layout of a standard saxophone that saxophonists will be able to intuitively and easily play. Two pieces of software run on the Pi to replicate the musical instrument, one that detects the player’s breaths and key presses, and another that synthesizes this information into sound.
While [jcard0na] notes that this will never replicate the depth and feel of a real instrument, it does accomplish its design goal of being much more easily transportable than all but the most soprano of true saxophones. As a musical project it’s an excellent example of good design as well,
much like this set of electronic drums with a similar design goal of portability
. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6614735",
"author": "bibliobone",
"timestamp": "2023-03-14T15:57:35",
"content": "Very cool! If only this worked for the trombone, my instrument. :)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6614780",
"author": "benWahWahWah",
... | 1,760,372,368.507468 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/14/pcie-for-hackers-the-diffpair-prelude/ | PCIe For Hackers: The Diffpair Prelude | Arya Voronova | [
"computer hacks",
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"hardware",
"Original Art",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [
"pci express",
"PCI-E",
"PCIe"
] | PCIe, also known as PCI-Express, is a highly powerful interface. So let’s see what it takes to hack on something that powerful. PCIe is be a bit intimidating at first, however it is reasonably simple to start building PCIe stuff, and the interface is quite resilient for hobbyist-level technology. There will come a time when we want to use a PCIe chip in our designs, or perhaps, make use of the PCIe connection available on a certain Compute Module, and it’s good to make sure that we’re ready for that.
PCIe is everywhere now. Every modern computer has a bunch of PCIe devices performing crucial functions, and even iPhones use PCIe internally to connect the CPU with the flash and WiFi chips. You can get all kinds of PCIe devices: Ethernet controllers, high-throughput WiFi cards, graphics, and all the cheap NVMe drives that gladly provide you with heaps of storage when connected over PCIe. If you’re hacking on a laptop or a single-board computer and you’d like to add a PCIe device, you can get some PCIe from one of the PCIe-carrying sockets, or just tap into an existing PCIe link if there’s no socket to connect to. It’s been two decades since we’ve started getting PCIe devices – now, PCIe is on its 5.0 revision, and it’s clear that it’s here to stay.
By V4711,
CC BY SA 4.0
PCIe is a point-to-point bus that connects two devices together
– as opposed to PCI, an older bus, that could connect a chain of devices on your mainboard. One side of a PCIe link is a device, and another is a host. For instance, in a laptop, your CPU will have multiple PCIe ports – some used to connect the GPU, some used to connect a WiFi card, some used for Ethernet, and some used for a NVMe drive.
Each PCIe link consists of at least three differential pairs – one is a 100 MHz clock, REFCLK, that is (almost) always required for a link, and two pairs that form a PCIe lane – one for transmit and another for receive. This is an x link – you can also have 2x, 4x, 8x and 16x links, with four, eight sixteen and thirty-two differential pairs respectively, plus, again, REFCLK. The wider the link, the higher its throughput!
Now, link widths in PCIe are a fun topic with plenty of cool aspects – but first, it’d be good to make sure we’re on the same page when it comes to what “differential pair” means in context of PCIe. Here on Hackaday,
we’ve told you about
the nitty-gritty of differential pairs before – absolutely revisit that writeup if you want to learn about differential pairs in depth! Here, I’ll quickly refresh you on the basics, and then tell you what to need to know when working with differential pairs for PCIe specifically.
What’s The Difference?
To put it simply, a differential pair is two signals, one always the opposite of another, one usually referred to as positive and another as negative. You get the logic level of the bit being transmitted by comparing the two signals against each other – instead of comparing each individual signal’s logic level to ground like we usually do, which is referred to as “single-ended”. With a differential pair, signals are close to each other and are even interwoven when it comes to cables, and as a result, any interference affects the signals equally – as signals are compared to each other to receive information, this means that the information received is not affected by noise overlaid onto both of the signals. Differential pairs also make both signals’ magnetic fields cancel each other out, resulting in the link being less noisy.
As a result, differential pairs let you crank the transmission speed up without creating noise or becoming susceptible to noise. The overwhelming majority of high-speed interfaces, as a result, use differential pairs: Ethernet, PCIe, HDMI, DisplayPort, LVDS, and even USB, although USB 2 is only pseudodifferential, USB 3 is truly differential. Resillient interfaces like RS485 and CAN use differential pairs as well. It’s easy for a hobbyist to start with differential pairs with interfaces like CAN, and USB 2 also poses no problem – at short distances, these will work no matter what, despite being differential signals and theoretically requiring special treatment.
That said, differential pairs do in fact require a bit more care when routing a PCB or putting them through cables. If you don’t take care, you risk mysterious glitches or interfaces outright not working. Let’s go through these requirements.
Treating Your Diffpairs With Respect
First off, you want to keep both of the pair’s signals close to each other throughout their length. The closer the two signals are, the better external interference cancellation works, and the less noise they radiate – given that often, multiple diffpairs run next to each other, this will help signal integrity of other pairs as well. Speaking of running separate diffpairs next to each other, you’ll want to keep them away from each other and other things – be it ground fills on the same layer, high-frequency signals. A great rule of thumb is
the 5W rule,
which says you need to have at least five trace width’s worth of clearance between a diffpair’s trace center and other signals. You don’t always have this much space, but it’s good to adhere to this as much as possible.
You will also want to make sure that there is an uninterrupted ground path right under these signals, alongside the entire pair – having a ground fill is ideal. Although the two signals are compared to each other by the receiver, each signal still behaves as a single-ended signal with respect to return current. Plus, a bit of extra shielding certainly doesn’t hurt. If you’re putting PCIe on a custom connector, make sure there’s at least one GND pin between each pair. Last but not least – make sure that both tracks within a pair have the same length. If your pair changes its angle, one of its two tracks becomes ever so slightly shorter, and your PCB editor diffpair tool ought to let you add a ‘wiggle’ to that track to make sure that both track lengths are equal.
Sometimes it will make sense to add a few wiggles. By Phiarc,
CC BY SA 4.0
Then, there’s the little-talked-about matter – impedance matching. If you’re getting a differential pair from point A to B, you will want to make sure that you get the impedance right, and the basics of it are simpler than you might think. Impedance is like resistance, but for signals that change. Each part of the differential pair’s travel path has its own impedance: the receiver and the transmitter inside the ICs used, the IC pins, PCB traces, and any connectors or cables in between if you put the differential pair through these. At any point where impedance of the signal changes, some part of the signal is reflected from the mismatch point, and if the impedance change is significant enough, this will screw with your signal as it’s being received.
Now, this means that you have to make sure the impedance for your PCIe link is good along its entire path – which, in practice, means picking suitable connectors and tuning your PCB trace widths and spacings. PCIe hardware is mostly built with 85 Ω impedance in mind. Things like receivers, transmitters, and PCIe-intended connectors are outside your control, and to get the impedance of the entire path is reasonably uniform, you have to adjust the parts under your control to the same value. For a start, if you have to use connectors for your PCIe link, pick ones that don’t have too significant of an impedance mismatch. A good bet is using high-speed connectors or connectors built with PCIe-like signals in mind – full-size PCIe, M.2, mPCIe, USB3, USB-C, and a lot of high-speed connector families from various manufacturers.
Now to tuning the impedance of your diffpair’s PCB traces. Differential pair impedance depends on a lot of variables in reality, but if you’re a hacker starting out, there are simplified calculators that get you most of the way there –
this one is my favourite.
Scroll down to “Edge-Coupled Surface Microstrip”, leave track height at 35 for routing diffpairs on 1 oz copper layers, leave dielectric constant at 4.3 unless your PCB fab gives you a different value. Then, set isolation height to the distance from your diffpairs – to get that, go to your PCB manufacturer’s info and look for the PCB stackup information. Say, your diffpairs are on the top layer and the ground is on the layer right under them. For that, look for “prepreg” thickness between the top copper layer and the layer under it – that value will be your isolation height. Then, play around with track widths and spacings, aiming for 85 ohm differential impedance. The spec
does give you a range from 70 to 100 ohms,
even!
Practical exercise – let’s look at
OSHPark’s 4-layer stackup.
Its dielectric constant (dk) is 3.6, and our minimum trace width and spacing are both 5 mil, which is 0.127mm, or 127 μm for the calculator’s purposes; the prepreg thickness is 202 μm. Punch the dielectric constant and prepreg thicknesses into the calculator, then play with values.
You will find that increasing the track width decreases the impedance, and so does lowering the track spacing – set that one to the minimum possible. As you will see, if you choose to stick to 85 ohms, you can go for either 0.3/0.127 (width/spacing) pairs and get 84.8 ohms – way more than close enough. if you can’t afford such wide tracks, use 0.2/0.127 to get to 106 Ω – a bit outside of the recommended range, but if you must,
it is alright too!
Last thing – keep your routing clean. Don’t put the differential pairs through vias to different layers if you can help it – each pair of vias adds some inductance to the signal, which can interfere with the high-speed signals. Usually, the end and start points of your PCIe link are both on the top layer – keep it this way as much as you can. If you must switch layers, add a few ground-connected vias near the diffpairs. Also, keep other high-speed and rapidly changing or noisy signals as far away from the differential pairs as you can. If you have high-power, differential-pair and single-ended connections in your projects, layout the differential pairs first.
So, five important things – route diffpairs with signals close to each other, keep ground under them, use proper connectors, adjust differential track width and spacing for the PCIe impedance, and keep your routing clean. These are the basics – it’s what you’re expected to do if you want your differential pairs to serve you well.
The Wet String Conundrum
Now, if you have ever tinkered with PCIe, you might have stumbled upon some forbidden knowledge: in practice, you don’t
really-really
have to do all of the above.
You might have heard that PCIe runs over wet string – the first known reference to this is in
a 2016 presentation on console hacking
at 33C3. This is the hacker-bravado way of talking about PCIe – you can do wrong by a lot of the aforementioned guidelines when connecting PCIe devices together, and it will still chug along. And, unsurprisingly, there’s a big grain of truth – PCIe will still work in suboptimal conditions, and there’s an example after example of it in hacker and consumer worlds! Perhaps the most widely available example of PCIe abuse is passing an 1x PCIe link using USB3 cabling, something the “mining” PCIe risers do – which means that you can just go to your computer accessories store and buy a product that is only possible thanks to some PCIe abuse.
Something else that you might’ve seen and forgotten like a bad dream, is [TobleMiner]
putting a x8 PCIe link through,
shudder
, prototyping wires
– for the sake of testing out an adapter idea for cheap high-speed networking cards from HP servers, not compatible with regular PCIe slots both pinout-wise and mechanically. That prototyping setup let him design a proper version of the adapter, that
we’ve later covered here on Hackaday
! You can put a PCIe link through an FPC for a quick and dirty board-to-board connection, eGPU extenders have also used HDMI cables for this, and you can likely get it working with magnet wire. Here’s an experiment from Linus Tech Tips where they
kept stacking PCIe extenders,
and reached a five meter-long chain before the connection started becoming unstable.
PCIe is quite a bit more forgiving than quite a few other interfaces, say, USB3. There are link training mechanisms – when a PCIe connection is established, the receiver and transmitter play around with their internal parameters, adjusting them until they reach the fastest speed possible while keeping error rate low, using these parameters for the entire connection afterwards. There are also retransmissions for packets that failed to be received. PCIe has exceptional stability in practice.
It’s clear that PCIe link training has some unique parts to it – for instance, to help you make your layout better, PCIe also lets you invert any differential pair, except REFCLK, by swapping the negative and positive signals, and this will be detected and flawlessly compensated for during link training. Other technologies like USB3, HDMI, or DisplayPort don’t support such quality-of-engineer-life features. Other interfaces often require that multiple lanes should be the same length – making sure that data on one set of pairs doesn’t arrive faster than on the other. PCIe, however, is fine with across-pair mismatches as well, also detecting and compensating for these during link training. These two aren’t meant to be resilience features as much as they’re ease-of-layout features meant to help you design PCBs faster and better, but it sure helps that they’re there.
Try Your Best, No Matter What
A two-layer mPCIe-NVMe adapter with wrong impedance, which nevertheless works 24/7 in my server
Does this resillience help hackers? Yes, absolutely – these two ease-of-layout features are used in basically any professional PCIe design, and if you’re in less sterile conditions, you can push PCIe further at your own risk. On the other hand, don’t just skirt every rule because you’ve seen someone do that – put some good-faith effort into following these five guidelines, even if you’re limited to a two-layer PCB and might never get the perfect impedance value. Following these rules will not only teach you some diffpair discipline for later projects, it will make your PCIe signals all that more resillient and error-free, and your PCIe devices more happy. It might feel good to dismiss all or some of these guidelines, since sometimes it might just work out, but the extra half hour calculating proper impedance on your board will help you ensure that your PCB doesn’t need a second revision and stays loyal to your interests throughout its entire life.
So, here’s a guideline: treat your PCIe differential pairs with respect. If you’re using a two-layer PCB and you’re doing a prototype on the cheap and you want quick turnaround time, don’t just give up on impedance because the traces would need to be way too wide to reach 85 ohms – open the calculator and see just how much you can get the impedance down anyway. Lowering isolation height lowers impedance, so consider going for 0.8mm PCB if your project’s mechanical aspects let you. Move your components around if that helps your PCIe tracks follow a better path, with less noise along the way. Perhaps link training will knock an imperfect link down a generation or two, but that’s better than not reaching a stable link at all. Put your best effort following these guidelines with what you’re given, and the differential pairs will respect your intentions in return.
For instance, if you’re using KiCad, here’s a simple demonstration on how to get a PCIe 1x link from one point to another, routing differential pairs while taking care of impedance, clearances, and via stitching.
Now, you see what it takes to route PCIe differential pairs on a board, and these guidelines will apply to all kinds of other differential pair-based interfaces. Next time, I will tell you more about PCIe signal meanings, link widths and throughput – the basics, as well as all the pleasant surprises PCIe can offer you. And, if you’re looking to go deeper into what makes PCIe tick, check out
this earlier writeup
of ours – it’s just the thing if making your own PCIe devices with FPGAs is what you’re looking for! | 35 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6614703",
"author": "Pat",
"timestamp": "2023-03-14T14:20:04",
"content": "“Don’t put the differential pairs through vias to different layers if you can help it – each pair of vias adds some inductance to the signal, which can interfere with the high-speed signals. Usually, the end ... | 1,760,372,368.59172 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/14/three-way-led-bulb-gives-up-its-secrets/ | Three Way LED Bulb Gives Up Its Secrets | Al Williams | [
"LED Hacks",
"Teardown"
] | [
"led bulb",
"teardown"
] | You’ve probably seen three-way bulbs. You know, the ones that can go dim or bright with each turn of a switch. [Brian Dipert] wondered how
the LED version of these works
, and now that he tore one apart, you can find out, too. The old light bulbs were easy to figure out. They had two filaments, one brighter than the other. Switching on the first filament provided some light, and the second gave off more light. The final position lit both filaments at once for an even brighter light.
LED or filament, three-way bulbs have a special base. While a normal Edison-base bulb has the threaded part as the neutral and a center contact for the live wire, a three-way bulb has an extra hot contact ring between the threaded part and the center contact. Obviously, a compatible LED bulb will need this same interface, but will work differently inside.
Inside the LED, [Brian] found two rings of LEDs that took the place of the filaments. He was able to identify all the ICs and devices on the board except one, an MT7712S. If you can read Mandarin, we think
this is the datasheet for it
.
We weren’t sure what [Brian] would find inside. After all, you could just sense which contacts had voltage and dim the LEDs using PWM. It probably wouldn’t take any less circuitry. LED lighting is everywhere these days, and maybe they don’t all work the same, but you have to admit, using two strings of LEDs is reasonably faithful to the old-fashioned bulbs.
Sometimes LED bulbs are different depending on
where you buy them
. We were promised LED bulbs would never burn out. Of course, they do, but you can usually scrounge
some LEDs from them
. | 18 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6614656",
"author": "HTF",
"timestamp": "2023-03-14T11:17:23",
"content": "I had some CFL lamps and now LED that are used on a regular 2 pole Edison socket that change brightness just by quick On/Off/On action. Every time I do this, it selects one of 3 brightness levels.",
"pare... | 1,760,372,368.392136 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/14/classic-gaming-with-fpga-and-atx/ | Classic Gaming With FPGA And ATX | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"atx",
"case",
"gaming",
"mini-itx",
"MiSTER",
"open source",
"pc",
"pcb",
"raspberry pi",
"retro"
] | Playing classic games, whether they are games from the golden age of arcades or simply games from consoles that are long out of production, tends to exist on a spectrum. At one end is grabbing a game’s ROM file, finding an emulator, and kludging together some controls on a keyboard and mouse with your average PC. At the other is meticulously restoring classic hardware for the “true” feel of what the game would have felt like when it was new. Towards the latter end is emulating the hardware with an FPGA which the open-source MiSTer project attempts to do. This build, though,
adds ATX capabilities for the retrocomputing platform
.
The ATX standard was developed as a way to standardize motherboard mounting points in PC cases.
This one uses the Mini-ITX version
, allowing the
MiSTer
FPGA board to mount to a PCB which fits into a Mini-ITX case. All of the ports on the board appear where the I/O would normally be if this was a standard motherboard, but filling the otherwise empty space with blank PCB is where this project really shines. This allows the seamless addition of breadboards, other
single-board computers like the Raspberry Pi
, or any other headers or custom circuitry to be directly included.
What you’ll end up with is an open-source PC with plenty of room for expansion that fits into a standard PC case, which could go a long way to recreating older PC games and their original feel with the FPGA programmed to act as original hardware. We like this as a platform for retro gaming almost as much as
this authentic and brand-new 486 PC
used for similar purposes.
Thanks to [Shane] for the tip! | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6614673",
"author": "elwing",
"timestamp": "2023-03-14T12:11:03",
"content": "they need atx backplates now!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6614959",
"author": "phuzz",
"timestamp": "2023-03-15T10:02:58",
"content": ... | 1,760,372,368.734773 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/13/a-hackers-introduction-to-diy-light-guide-plates/ | A Hacker’s Introduction To DIY Light Guide Plates | Sonya Vasquez | [
"Curated",
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"how-to",
"Laser Hacks",
"LED Hacks",
"Skills",
"Slider"
] | [] | Last year, I found myself compelled to make a scaled-down replica of the iconic test chamber signs from the video game
Portal
. If you’ve played the game, you’ll remember these signs as the illuminated monoliths that postmarked the start of every test chamber. In hyperstylized video game fashion, they were also extremely thin.
Stay tuned for cake at the end of this article.
True to the original, my replica would need to be both slimmed down and backlit with a uniform, natural white glow. As fate would have it, the crux of this project was finding a way to do just that: to diffuse light coming in from the edges so that it would emit evenly from the front.
What I thought would be quick project ended up being a dive down the rabbit hole that yielded some satisfying results. Today, I’d like to share my findings and introduce you to
light guide plates
, one of the key building blocks inside of much of today’s backlit screen technology. I’ll dig into the some of the working principles, introduce you to my homebrew approach, and leave you with some inspirational source code to go forth and build your own.
Hobby and Industry Practices
Tackling this project made me wonder: how do manufacturers in the electronics industry illuminate those ultra-flat laptop displays and TV screens to get a perfectly uniform glow? Following a bit of internet research, I discovered a treasure trove of useful insights.
Before we dive too deep into how the consumer electronics industry solves this problem, I want to first walk you through an analogous hacker side-project: the laser-cut acrylic edge-lit display. We’ve featured quite a few
projects like these
on Hackaday, and they’re just the right level of complexity to get your feet wet at the local Hackerspace.
The core concept is that clear acrylic sheets have the ability to act as fiber optics, piping light from one edge to the other. The journey isn’t perfectly straight though. Much of the light enters at an angle, bouncing back and forth between top-and-bottom surfaces before exiting the other edge. By etching a pattern on one surface of the acrylic, we create a location where the light is absorbed and emitted, rather than mostly reflected. We can take advantage of this quirk to create some pretty swanky looking signage.
an acrylic edge-lit display by vipercmd on Instructables.
Something that careful observers might point out: image features that are further away from the light source are noticeably dimmer. To understand that phenomenon, we need a bit of physics.
Some Background Theory: Snell’s Law
Some fairly simple optics theory behind this hacker project can help us understand what’s going on. Let’s start with a cutaway side view of this project where the left side is illuminated by a bar of LEDs.
Cutaway side view of an LED light source illuminating an acrylic sheet
In this setup, a light source shines from one edge of the plate, sending light rays into the plate at a range of angles. It turns out that there exists special angle Φ
c
called the critical angle. Light rays hitting the surface boundary at
less than
Φc will exit the plate immediately at a slightly different exit angle according to
Snell’s law
. Light rays hitting the surface at angles
greater than or equal to
Φc will be
totally internally
reflected
. In other words, they will continue to bounce around inside the plate at a fixed angle forever, unless they are interrupted. For glass and plastic, Φc ≈ 42°.
By etching the surface of the plate, we create locations where the internally reflected light rays can scatter and exit the plate at a specific location, rather than reflect back internally. This is the phenomenon that causes the signs to glow.
At this point you might be able to guess why etched features of the sign become dimmer as they get further from the light source. It’s because a larger portion of the internally reflected light rays have already exited the plate earlier on.
Industry Practices
It turns out that LCD manufacturers implement a backlighting scheme that uses a similar approach to what we’ve seen so far. Peel back the inside of a liquid crystal display to find that it actually consists of a sandwich of many layers. Separate those layers to find a polarizing layer, a liquid crystal layer, a diffuser layer, clear fiber optic sheet, and finally a thin reflective backing layer. This thin fiber optic sheet, called a
light guide plate
, is illuminated from the screen edge with a bar of LEDs. The goal of this plate is to take internally reflected light from the edge and release it in a controlled fashion along the surface such that the front of the screen is evenly lit.
Similar to the sign projects from above, manufacturers mark the surface of the sheet with a pattern of dots, creating escape points for the light to exit along the way. The diffuser layer takes the illuminated light from this pattern and diffuses it further into a uniform light source, and the reflective layer prevents the light from escaping prematurely out the wrong side.
Beyond these basics, though, is where manufacturers start to differ in their own tweaks to this recipe. First off, light guide plates can be made from either acrylic or polycarbonate. They can be either flat or slightly “wedge-shaped,” where the angle of the wedge helps distribute the light more evenly. They can be marked by laser (acrylic only) or by injection mold where the mold actually carries small detents to transfer the pattern. Finally, the dot pattern can vary in density according to a polynomial or exponential function.
From my background reading, I was pleasantly surprised that plenty of vendors will also sell you a host of items relevant to making displays. Reach out to 3M, and you’ll likely hear back with a host of polarizers and
“brightness-enhancement” sheets
all intended for this purpose. Dig through Aliexpress, and you’ll find vendors offering you a range of “
backlight bars
” of component LEDs made to replace those found in laptop and tv screens. Dig deeper, and you’ll even find vendors offering
made-to-order acrylic panels
with a diffuser grid pattern etched onto them, although the pattern options are somewhat limited.
The Homebrew Light Guide Plate Approach
Inspired by my reading, I started with a first-draft making my own sandwich for my Portal sign. While it turns out that you can buy many of the real materials that go into actual LCD panels by 3M, they come at a hefty pricetag in low quantities, so I settled for some cheaper reflective substitutes. My final stack consisted of:
PET overhead transparency with the Portal sign replica printed on the surface
3 mm opaque white cast acrylic, laser-cut to size
3 mm clear cast acrylic, laser-cut to size and etched with a diffuser pattern
Solar Window Tint Film from
Tap Plastics
The stars really aligned well for this project to be something anyone with a CO2 laser cutter nearby can tackle. First, most of the raw materials are either readily available, or cheaper substitutes exist. Second, by nature of these panels being laser cut, the panel edge gets a nice flame polish in the process of being made. This is critical to increase the amount of light entering the panel. Overall, I was thrilled to be doing most of the fabrication in the home workshop.
Quick and Dirty First Drafts
To find out how much effort I’d need to put into makinig an even backlight, I started with something simple. I started by making an evenly-spaced grid etched on the surface of the clear acrylic, covered the bottom with the window tint film, and illuminated it from two sides with two LED backlight bars. As a quick test, I covered the panel with the opaque white sheet and observed it from a distance.
Hmm, a bit disappointing, but a great starting point
Unfortunately, the results weren’t convincing, but I learned plenty from this setup.
It was clear that the stackup was noticeably dimmer in the middle, the furthest point from the light sources, and the effect was even worse on camera. After another trial, I also noticed that there was an upper limit on how far apart I could space the pattern elements before they started appearing through the diffuser as discrete light sources. I was hoping to avoid writing some custom software to generate the panel pattern, but here we go.
Diffusing Light–Now with BSplines
At this point, I realized that I needed some finer control on these laser parameters, so I cooked up a Python notebook to generate a panel of specified XY dimensions with a custom dot pattern and write the result to an SVG file. For tuning knobs, I wanted to be able to manipulate
dot density
as a function of
distance from the light source
. To do so, I created an interactive 2D graph where I could drag around 5 points, and fit them to a second order B-Spline. The result looked like so:
This script I wrote had some nice constraints on it. First, I could enforce a maximum dot spacing so that the script would never generate a pattern that was so sparse that it would appear as discrete light sources. Next, I could mirror the results to apply the pattern to a panel illuminated from two sides. Finally, I could actually record the parameters of my test pieces.
A sample piece from the output of the script.
Armed with some new software tooling, I started generating squatty light guide plate samples, illuminating them from both sides under the diffuser, and checking the results. After about 6 tries, I had something good enough to fool me–and my camera!
Feeling comfortable with my settings, I cut a full size piece and assembled my final light plate sandwich.
the final plate with window film
the same plate lit from both sides
front view of the lit light guide plate
another gratuitous shot
diffuser layer added on top
diffused result
And, without further ado: the final results after assembly.
The final sign measures 13 x 7.5[in.] with proportions derived from a screenshot
Are you ready for testing?
It’s not 100% perfect, but it’s more-than-convincing for both my eyes and for smartphone cameras. It’s also light years ahead of my original naive approach.
As far as software goes, there are plenty of usability improvements worth adding. It would also be a worthy exercise to try to derive the density curve from a calibration image, a
flat field correction
of sorts. But I’ll leave those items as an exercise for the reader.
We do what we must. because. we can.
This is one of those projects that I was hoping someone had already written up so that I could adopt their results (and credit them, of course!) and use them in my project. In this case, I had to roll up my sleeves and be that someone. But I’m happy to report back with the fruits of my labor. If you’re curious enough to follow this rabbit hole, you are most welcome to have a go at my crude
light guide plate generator notebook
. Who knows? Maybe in the future, this sort of feature will get integrated into other laser software packages if we ask nicely.
References
Light Guide Techniques Using LED Lamps
. Agilent’s Application Brief I-003.
optimal dimension of edge-lit light guide plate based on light conduction analysis
(Optics Express, Vol 29, Issue 12. 2021)
Liquid crystal display and organic light-emitting diode display: present status and future perspectives
. Light Sci Appl 7, 17168 (2018)
DF2000MA 8in. x 10in. Reflective Backing layer by 3M, available on
Digikey | 38 | 20 | [
{
"comment_id": "6614334",
"author": "ono",
"timestamp": "2023-03-13T14:13:05",
"content": "Why not just harvest the guts of old LCD monitors, instead ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6614419",
"author": "Daniel",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,372,369.080739 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/13/breaking-into-the-nintendo-dsi-through-the-browser-window/ | Breaking Into The Nintendo DSi Through The (Browser) Window | Matthew Carlson | [
"Nintendo DS Hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"exploit",
"nintendo dsi",
"opera",
"webkit"
] | The Nintendo DSi was surpassed by newer and better handhelds many years ago, but that doesn’t stop people like [Nathan Farlow] from attempting to break into the old abandoned house through a rather unexpected place:
the (browser) window
.
When the Nintendo DSi was released in 2008, one of its notable features was a built-in version of the Opera 9.50 web browser. [Nathan] reasoned an exploit in this browser would be an ideal entry point, as there’s no OS or kernel to get past — once you get execution, you control the system. To put this plan into action, he put together two great ideas. First he used the WebKit layout tests to get the browser into weird edge cases, and then tracked down an Windows build of Opera 9.50 that he could run on his system under WINE. This allowed him to identify the use-after-free bugs that he was looking for.
Now that he had an address to jump to, he just had to get his code into the right spot. For this he employed what’s known as a NOP sled; basically a long list of commands that do nothing, which if jumped into, will slide into his exploit code. In modern browsers a good way to allocate a chunk of memory and fill it would be a Float32Array, but since this is a 2008 browser, a smattering of RGBA canvases will do.
The actual payload is designed to execute a
boot.nds
file from the SD card, such as a homebrew launcher. If you want to give it a shot on your own DSi, all you need to do is point the system’s browser to
stylehax.net.
If you’re looking for a more exotic way to crack into a DSi,
perhaps this EM glitching attack
might tickle your fancy? | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6614286",
"author": "sw94",
"timestamp": "2023-03-13T12:06:40",
"content": "This sort of thing is so interesting to me, but I wouldn’t know where to start. Anyone got any good links?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6614311",
... | 1,760,372,368.639575 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/13/ai-and-savvy-marketing-create-dubious-moon-photos/ | AI And Savvy Marketing Create Dubious Moon Photos | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"ai",
"art",
"artificial intelligence",
"camera",
"lens",
"marketing",
"moon",
"photo",
"picture",
"samsung"
] | Taking a high-resolution photo of the moon is a surprisingly difficult task. Not only is a long enough lens required, but the camera typically needs to be mounted on a tracking system of some kind, as the moon moves too fast for the long exposure times needed. That’s why plenty were skeptical of Samsung’s claims that their latest smart phone cameras could actually photograph this celestial body with any degree of detail.
It turns out that this skepticism might be warranted
.
Samsung’s marketing department is claiming that this phone is using artificial intelligence to improve photos, which should quickly raise a red flag for anyone technically minded. [ibreakphotos] wanted to put this to the test rather than speculate, so a high-resolution image of the moon was modified in such a way that most of the fine detail of the image was lost. Displaying this image on a monitor, standing across the room, and using the smartphone in question reveals details in the image that can’t possibly be there.
The image that accompanies this post shows the two images side-by-side for those skeptical of these claims, but from what we can tell it looks like this is essentially an AI system copy-pasting the moon into images it thinks are of the moon itself. The AI also seems to
need something more moon-like than a ping pong ball
to trigger the detail overlay too, as other tests appear to debunk a more simplified overlay theory. It seems like using this system, though, is doing about the same thing
that this AI camera does to take pictures of various common objects
. | 48 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6614209",
"author": "𐂀 𐂅",
"timestamp": "2023-03-13T08:17:48",
"content": "The lawyers are going to have fun once they realise that a photo made that way has been (accidently?) presented to a court as evidence of something.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [... | 1,760,372,368.819485 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/12/flipper-zero-mayhem-hat-adds-camera-more-radios/ | Flipper Zero Mayhem Hat Adds Camera, More Radios | Tom Nardi | [
"handhelds hacks",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"ESP32-CAM",
"flipper",
"flipper zero",
"wifi"
] | For a device advertised as the “Multi-tool Device for Hackers”, the Flipper Zero already offers a considerable list of onboard capabilities. But some hard decisions had to be made to get the retail price down, so features like WiFi and Bluetooth had to be left off. Luckily, there’s an expansion interface along the top of the device which makes it possible to plug in additional hardware.
One of those expansions is the
“Mayhem Hat” from [Erwin Ried]
. This board adds many requested features to the Flipper Zero, as well as some that might not seem as obvious. The addition of an ESP32-CAM brings WiFi and Bluetooth to the party, while also unlocking access to the
highly-capable ESP32Marauder firmware
and the plethora of security research tools therein.
But the camera also enables some interesting features, such as motion detection and the ability to read QR codes. It even lets you use the Flipper as an impromptu digital camera, complete with an onscreen viewfinder reminiscent of the
Game Boy Camera
.
What’s more, the Mayhem Hat features its own expansion capabilities. There’s a spot to plug in either a CC1101 or NRF24l01 radio module, both of which are supported by community developed plugins that allow the user to sniff out and hijack signals. There are also extra pins for connecting your own sensors or hardware. In the demo video below you can see the device automatically detect the popular DHT11 environmental sensor and display the current temperature and humidity readings.
[Erwin] has the Mayhem Hat up for sale on Tindie
, but as of this writing, is currently out of stock. Apparently, demand for the add-on boards is just as high as for the Flipper Zero itself — not a huge surprise, given the excitement we saw around this platform
during its $4.8 million Kickstarter campaign
. | 28 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6614202",
"author": "MmmDee",
"timestamp": "2023-03-13T08:02:38",
"content": "Coincidentally, Flipper Zero was in the news this morning due to some import restrictions blocking delivery to Brazil:https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/brazil-seizing-flipper-zero-shipments-to... | 1,760,372,368.989124 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/12/efficient-x86_64-emulation-with-box86/ | Efficient X86_64 Emulation With Box86 | Maya Posch | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"box64",
"box86",
"wine"
] | Running applications on a different architecture than the one for which they were compiled is a common occurrence, not in the least with Apple’s architectural migration every decade or so. It’s also commonly used with for example ARM, OpenRISC, and RISC-V systems to run applications that are only available for x86 or x86_64. While QEMU and kin are often used here, they’re pretty resource heavy, which is where an option like
Box86
and its 64-bit sibling Box64 are attractive options. Unlike QEMU, both
offer
dynamic recompilation and redirection of dynamic library calls to native libraries, including those for SDL and OpenGL.
Both are available on GitHub under an MIT license, with
Box64
probably the most interesting these days as applications and games have moved on to a 64-bit only world. The only hard requirement that Box64 has for a host system is that it is little-endian, which is a pretty easy requirement to meet. The most recent
release
was on March 10th, with Box86 0.3 and Box64 0.2.2. As essentially a translation layer, it does not offer full compatibility with every bit of software out there, but it’s already good enough to run Steam, GoG, and Epic Game Store clients and install and run Windows games via Wine for x86.
A simple set of
benchmarks
comparing it with QEMU and FEX (another emulator) shows it to run both more applications, and with significantly better performance. | 5 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6614085",
"author": "Liam",
"timestamp": "2023-03-13T02:15:22",
"content": "Could either box64 or box86 be used to run a VirtualBox VM on a non-x86 system? So you’d have something like a raspberry pi (ARM) running a VM, the guest OS (Linux or Windows) would then think itself to be o... | 1,760,372,369.154492 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/12/hackaday-links-march-12-2023/ | Hackaday Links: March 12, 2023 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"am radio",
"asteroid",
"drm",
"felony",
"hackaday links",
"hewlett packard",
"HP",
"infotainment",
"ink",
"laser",
"mustang",
"paywall",
"printer",
"ring",
"sdr",
"statute",
"Torino"
] | With a long history of nearly universal hate for their products, you’d think printer manufacturers would by now have found ways to back off from the policies that only seem to keep aggravating customers. But rather than make it a financially wiser decision to throw out a printer and buy a new one than to buy new ink cartridges or toners, manufacturers keep coming up with new and devious ways to piss customers off. Case in point:
Hewlett-Packard now seems to be bricking printers with third-party ink cartridges
. Reports from users say that a new error message has popped up on screens of printers with non-HP cartridges installed warning that further use of the printer has been blocked. Previously, printers just warned about potential quality issues from non-HP consumables, but now they’re essentially bricked until you cough up the money for legit HP cartridges. Users who have contacted HP support say that they were told the change occurred because of a recent firmware update sent to the printer, so that’s comforting.
In other news of corporate unpleasantness,
if you’ve bought into the Ring ecosystem, prepare to take out your wallet
. The Amazon-owned maker of the wildly and inexplicably popular doorbell cameras is set to lock some previously free features behind a paywall. Starting March 29, users will have to sign up for a Ring Protect subscription for $3.99 per month to access either the Home or Away modes within the Ring smartphone app. If you don’t want to pony up, you’ll still be able to control your Ring camera, but only locally through their Ring Keypad, which is pretty much a deal killer for anyone using their camera to monitor their property remotely.
It seems like it’s nothing that needs to be stated, but just in case, shining a laser at an aircraft in flight is a Really Bad Idea™. That’s why we were surprised to see an article about
proposed legislation to make it a felony to flash a plane or helicopter
. But a little further reading makes the situation clear, as the proposed bill from the Colorado legislature aims to make it a state felony to aim a laser at an aircraft. Currently, there’s no state-level statute that’s equivalent to
the federal prohibition against lasing a plane
, which means any reports have to be handled by the Federal Bureau of Investigations, which pretty much means that the flasher is not likely to be caught. Adding a state statute will let the local police or sheriff respond, making it much more likely to catch someone. So it makes sense, but it still leaves us wondering why states haven’t already addressed this issue.
Then again, what’s it all matter when
there’s an asteroid out there that could collide with Earth in 2046
? Relax, it’s a little one; it’s said to be the size of an Olympic-sized swimming pool, which has to be one of the weirdest units of measure we’ve heard lately. And even though it’s still about 18 million kilometers away from us, NASA’s risk assessment for the space rock, dubbed 2023 DW, is exceedingly low. The current risk factor on
the Torino scale
— which we only just learned about thanks to this article — is 1, which means that there’s essentially no danger of collision. So you can relax on this one, but if you ever hear someone talking about anything over a Torino 7 risk, you might want to stock up on canned goods.
And finally, if such dire news ever comes to pass, better hope you’re not driving a new Ford Mustang. That’s because Ford has announced that
their fabled pony car will join the increasing number of cars where AM radio is no longer an infotainment option
. The change is set to start with the 2024 model year. We’ve got to say we find this a puzzling decision; the infotainment system in modern cars has got to be SDR based, so the extra hardware needed to support AM reception should be close to zero. And as the above article points out, there’s a public safety aspect to this, because 90% of the US population is covered by just 75 AM stations. This seems like one of those things that could have unexpected consequences, and unpleasant ones at that. | 38 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6614024",
"author": "Eric",
"timestamp": "2023-03-12T23:05:54",
"content": "“proposed legislation to make it a felony to flash a plane or helicopter”So I can’t take flash photography of a passing plane or drop my pants and expose myself? Sure hope the legal wording is better than th... | 1,760,372,369.514069 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/12/a-parts-bin-cyberdeck-built-for-satellite-hacking/ | A Parts Bin Cyberdeck Built For Satellite Hacking | Tom Nardi | [
"Cyberdecks",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"all-in-one computer",
"rf filter",
"RTL-SDR",
"weather satellite"
] | While there’s little in the way of hard rules dictating what constitutes a cyberdeck, one popular opinion is that it should be a piecemeal affair — a custom rig built up of whatever high-tech detritus the intrepid hacker can get their hands on, whether it be through trades or the time-honored tradition of dumpster diving. It should also be functional, and ideally, capable of some feats which would be difficult to accomplish with a garden variety laptop.
If you’re looking for an example that embraces these concepts to the fullest, look no further than the
Spacedeck built by [saveitforparts]
. Combining a touch screen all-in-one computer pulled from a police cruiser in the early 2000s, an RTL-SDR, and the contents of several parts bins, the rig is designed to work in conjunction with his growing collection of motorized satellite dishes to sniff out signals from space.
As you can see in the build video below, the design for this mobile satellite hacking station was originally very different, featuring considerably more modern hardware with all the buzzword interfaces and protocols you’d expect. But [saveitforparts] couldn’t get all the parts talking satisfactorily, so he went in the closet and dug out one of the surplus police terminals he’d picked up a while back.
He didn’t have the appropriate connector to power the machine up, but by cracking open the case and tracing out the wires, he figured out where he needed to inject the 12 V to get it spun up. From there he installed a new Mini PCI WiFi adapter, loaded up an era-appropriate build of Linux, and got the standard software-defined radio tools up and running.
What really sets this build apart are the two custom panels. The top one offers access to the various ports on the computer, as well as provides a sort of switchboard that connects the RTL-SDR to various onboard filters. The lower panel includes the hardware and controls necessary to aim different styles of motorized satellite dishes, as well as a USB hub and connector that leads into a commercial satellite meter tucked into the case.
At the end of the video [saveitforparts] demonstrates the various capabilities of the Spacedeck, such as the ability to pull in imagery from weather satellites. Considering the sort of
satellite sniffing we’ve seen him pull off in the past
, we have no doubt this machine is going to be listening in on some interesting transmissions before too long. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6614003",
"author": "craig",
"timestamp": "2023-03-12T22:12:36",
"content": "1. Where’s the hack?2. Could use a 5553. I got nothin’ this is supremely rad",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6614072",
"author": "Jeremy",
... | 1,760,372,369.416532 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/12/building-the-sanni-cartridge-reader-to-back-up-and-restore-games-and-saves/ | Building The Sanni Cartridge Reader To Back Up And Restore Games And Saves | Maya Posch | [
"how-to",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"backups",
"video game cartridge"
] | Game cartridges are generally seen as a read-only medium with the contents as immutable as text chiseled into a granite slab, and with accompanying save files on the cartridge surviving for generations. The unfortunate truth is that as with any media storage, cartridges can and do fail, and save files are often just ethereal bits in battery-backed SRAM. This makes being able to copy not only the game data but also the save files off these cartridges essential. Projects like the
Open Source Cartridge Reader
by [sanni] make this something that everyone can do.
Intended to be a kind of Swiss Army knife of game cartridges, many game systems are
supported directly
, and many others via (user-created) adapters. A
how-to-build tutorial
is provided on the project wiki, though anyone interested in building such a system would do well to look at the expected price tag on the
BOM page
, which comes in at $134. A
recent video
by [Kytor Industries] (also included below) demonstrates how to assemble one of these systems, including some modding of the preassembled components.
The main components are the Arduino Mega 2560 Pro MCU module, a Makerbase assembly with LCD, control knob, and SD card slot, an SI5351-based clock generator, a PIC12F629 MCU (for
snesCIC
and handling SNES DRM) and a lot of pin headers and card edge connectors for specific cartridge types. The assembly is rounded off with a surface-mounted GBA card reader and an enclosure.
One important gotcha is that some of these cartridges run on 5V, while others use 3.3V.
N64 cartridges
require the dedicated voltage switch to be set to 3.3V, lest 5V gets sent into the unsuspecting cartridge. Once everything is configured properly, the firmware is flashed onto the Mega 2560 Pro module. The Sanni reader is then ready to run. You can use it to dump ROMs onto SD cards, along with dumping and restoring save files and loading ROMs onto new cartridges.
(Thanks to [Roman] for the tip) | 6 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6613970",
"author": "thelackey3326",
"timestamp": "2023-03-12T20:30:18",
"content": "I don’t need one. I have no use for one. But I want one.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6613981",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "20... | 1,760,372,369.672947 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/12/large-e-paper-slow-movie-player-offers-great-docs/ | Large E-Paper Slow Movie Player Offers Great Docs | Tom Nardi | [
"Art",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"e-ink",
"e-paper",
"slow movie player"
] | Over the last couple of years we’ve seen several iterations of the “slow movie player” concept, where a film is broken up into individual frames which are displayed on an e-paper display for a few minutes at a time. This turns your favorite movie into a constantly changing piece of long-term art. Unfortunately, due to the relatively high cost of e-paper panels, most of the examples we’ve seen have only been a few inches across.
Of course, technology tends to get cheaper with time, which has allowed
[szantaii] to put together this beautiful 10.3-inch version.
With a 1872 × 1404 Waveshare panel capable of displaying 16 shades of gray and a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W installed in a commercially purchased frame, the final product looks very professional. It certainly wouldn’t look out of place in a well-appointed living room.
It’s not just a large display that sets this project apart. [szantaii] has done a phenomenal job documenting both the hardware and software of this project, which includes the “Slow Movie Player service” Python software he’s written. Even if you aren’t using an identical hardware setup, his MIT-licensed code will absolutely get you going in the right direction.
We especially liked the several example configurations provided, as well as the explanation of how ImageMagick’s various grayscale conversion options impact the appearance of the final image.
All in all, this is not only a beautiful and well implemented version of the
slow movie player concept
— but it’s also the kind of project that helps elevate the entire community thanks to its transparency. We wouldn’t be surprised to see this latest iteration inspire more folks to pick up an e-paper panel and build one of their own. Could 2023 be the year of the slow movie player? We certainly hope so. | 9 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6613863",
"author": "SayWhat?",
"timestamp": "2023-03-12T14:48:40",
"content": "What am I missing? Why a gray scale e-paper display when the device is mains powered to run the Pi? Why not a larger, higher resolution 4K LCD that’s more visible, in grey scale, if that’s your artisti... | 1,760,372,369.564145 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/12/immersive-virtual-reality-from-the-humble-webcam/ | Immersive Virtual Reality From The Humble Webcam | Joseph Long | [
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"computer vision",
"virtual reality",
"webcam motion detector"
] | [Russ Maschmeyer] and Spatial Commerce Projects developed
WonkaVision
to demonstrate how 3D eye tracking from a single webcam can support rendering a graphical virtual reality (VR) display with realistic depth and space. Spatial Commerce Projects is a Shopify lab working to provide concepts, prototypes, and tools to explore the crossroads of spatial computing and commerce.
The graphical output provides a real sense of depth and three-dimensional space using an optical illusion that reacts to the viewer’s eye position. The eye position is used to render view-dependent images. The computer screen is made to feel like a window into a realistic 3D virtual space where objects beyond the window appear to have depth and objects before the window appear to project out into the space in front of the screen. The resulting experience is like a 3D view into a virtual space. The downside is that the experience only works for one viewer.
Eye tracking is performed using Google’s
MediaPipe Iris
library, which relies on the fact that the iris diameter of the human eye is almost exactly 11.7 mm for most humans. Computer vision algorithms in the library use this geometrical fact to efficiently locate and track human irises with high accuracy.
Generation of view-dependent images based on tracking a viewer’s eye position was inspired by a classic hack from
Johnny Lee
to create a
VR display using a Wiimote
. Hopefully, these eye-tracking approaches will continue to evolve and provide improved motion-responsive views into immersive virtual spaces. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6613806",
"author": "Shen",
"timestamp": "2023-03-12T12:11:27",
"content": "Most of the positive discussion about these kinds of projects don’t know about, or don’t mention the following:>You need to close one eye to go from “fun effect” to “stunning optical illusion.”",
"parent... | 1,760,372,369.354959 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/12/hack-your-heathkit-to-trace-mosfet-curves/ | Hack Your Heathkit To Trace MOSFET Curves | Chris Lott | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"curve tracer",
"Heatkit"
] | [TRX Lab] has an old Heathkit model IT-1121 curve tracer, and wants to modify it so he can
plot the I-V curves of MOSFETs
. For the uninitiated, curve tracers are used to determine the precise characteristics of components by measuring the output for a set of specific inputs – either voltage or current depending on the device you’re testing.
The IT-1121 was introduced in 1973 and supports bipolar and FET transistors of types NPN, PNP, N-channel, and P-channel, along with various other semiconductor devices. But [TRX] wanted to enhance the tester to deal with MOSFETs as well.
The IT-1121 is very flexible, and has selector switches for all the usual polarity and sweep settings — Heathkit also sold a model IT-3121 in later years, but this seems to have been the same basic tester. [TRX] found two shortcomings when plotting the I-V curve of MOSFETs. First, there is no way to apply a Vgs threshold voltage to the curves. Second, when set for FET testing, the polarity of the gate voltage stair step waveform doesn’t match the desired polarity of the drain-source voltage.
In the video below the break, [TRX] first walks us through some of the reasons you’d want a curve tracer in your lab. In the next part of the video, he breadboards up the modification for testing, and finally buttons it up and installs it. Implementing the modification was pretty straightforward. [TRX] designed four op-amp circuit that adds the adjustable offset and a switch to toggle the polarity of the gate voltage waveform. The whole thing fits on a small breadboard inside the case. Two holes are drilled in the panel for the potentiometer and switch.
There’s no GitHub repository for this project, but he presents the full details in the video and says viewers are free to make snapshots of the schematics and layout if they want to build their own.
Modern I-V curve tracers are pretty pricey. Even used, decades-old professional curve tracers are above the budget of most home and small office labs. If you have, or can get one of these at a decent price, this would be a modification well worth considering. You might also consider a home-brew tracer, like
this one we covered last year
. | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6614101",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2023-03-13T03:04:37",
"content": "https://www.peakelec.co.uk/acatalog/dca75-dca-pro-semiconductor-analyser.html",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6614136",
"author": "NFM",
... | 1,760,372,369.712109 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/11/this-open-hardware-li-ion-charger-skips-the-tp4056/ | This Open Hardware Li-Ion Charger Skips The TP4056 | Tom Nardi | [
"Battery Hacks",
"Parts"
] | [
"battery charger",
"Li-ion",
"LiFePO4",
"Lithium-ion battery",
"TP4056"
] | There’s a good chance that if you build something which includes the ability to top up a lithium-ion battery, it’s going to involve the incredibly common TP4056 charger IC. Now, there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. It’s a decent enough chip, and there are countless pre-made modules out there that make it extremely easy to implement. But if the chip shortage has taught us anything, it’s that alternatives are always good.
So we’d suggest bookmarking this
opensource hardware Li-Ion battery charger design from [Shahar Sery]
. The circuit uses the BQ24060 from Texas Instruments, which other than the support for LiFePO4 batteries, doesn’t seem to offer anything too new or exciting compared to the standard TP4056. But that’s not the point — this design is simply offered as a potential alternative to the TP4056, not necessarily an upgrade.
[Shahar] has implemented the design as a 33 mm X 10 mm two-layer PCB, with everything but the input and output connectors mounted to the topside. That would make this board ideal for attaching to your latest project with a dab of hot glue or double-sided tape, as there are no components on the bottom to get pulled off when you inevitably have to do some rework.
The board takes 5 VDC as the input, and charges a single 3.7 V cell (such as an 18650) at up to 1 Amp. Or at least, it can if you add a heatsink or fan — otherwise, the notes seem to indicate that ~0.7 A is about as high as you can go before tripping the thermal protection mode.
Like the
boilerplate TP4056 we covered recently
, this might seem like little more than a physical manifestation of the typical application circuit from the chip’s datasheet. But we still think there’s value in showing how the information from the datasheet translates into the real-world, especially when it’s released under an open license like this. | 21 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6613716",
"author": "LordNothing",
"timestamp": "2023-03-12T06:55:28",
"content": "i always wanted a single board battery solution for my projects. i meant you can get chargers, switchmode supplies, bms circuits and both bare and protected batteries. but they seldom have the level o... | 1,760,372,369.629121 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/11/electronic-bandage-speeds-wound-healing/ | Electronic Bandage Speeds Wound Healing | Navarre Bartz | [
"Medical Hacks"
] | [
"bandage",
"e-bandage",
"electrode",
"electrotherapy",
"regenerative medicine"
] | We’re a long way from the dermal regenerators in
Star Trek
, but researchers at Northwestern University have made a leap forward in the convenient use of
electrotherapy for wound healing
.
Using a ring and center “flower” electrode, this bioresorbable molybdenum device restores the natural bioelectric field across a wound to stimulate healing in diabetic ulcers. Only 30 minutes of electrical stimulation per day was able to show a 30% improvement in healing speed when used with diabetic mice. Power is delivered wirelessly and data is transmitted back via NFC, meaning the device can remain on a patient without leaving them tethered when not being treated.
Healing can be tracked by the change in electrical resistance across the wound since the wound will dry out as it heals. Over a period of six months, the central flower electrode will dissolve into the patient’s body and the rest of the device can be removed. Next steps include testing in a larger animal model and then clinical trials on human diabetic patients.
This isn’t the first time we’ve covered using
electricity in medicine
. | 20 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6613647",
"author": "Shannon",
"timestamp": "2023-03-12T03:45:12",
"content": "I’m very much a natural sceptic, but “restores the natural bioelectric field across a wound” sounds like “woowoo quantum crystals” to me. Assuming electrotherapy does work I’m sure there is a less nebulou... | 1,760,372,369.772144 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/11/quick-and-dirty-microscope-motion-control-for-focus-stacking/ | Quick And Dirty Microscope Motion Control For Focus Stacking | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"28BYJ-48",
"arduino",
"dslr",
"focus stacking",
"microscopy",
"motion control",
"uln2003",
"ws2812"
] | If you’ve spent much time looking through a microscope, you know that their narrow depth of field can be a bit challenging to deal with. Most microscopes are designed to only have a very thin slice of the specimen in focus, so looking at anything above or below that plane requires a focus adjustment. It’s tedious and fussy, and that makes it
a perfect target for automation
.
The goal behind [ItMightBeWorse]’s microscope mods is “focus stacking,” a technique where multiple images of the same sample taken at different focal planes can be stitched together so that everything appears to be in focus. Rather than twist knobs and take pictures manually, he built a simpler Arduino-based rig to do the job for him. Focus control is through a small stepper motor connected to the fine focus knob of the scope, while the DSLR camera shutter is triggered through a simple relay board. There’s also lighting control, with an RGB LED ring light that can change both the light level on the sample as well as the tint.
The
code
is very simple, and the setup is quite temporary looking, but the results are pretty impressive. We could do without the extreme closeup of that tick — nasty little arachnids — but the ant at the end of the video below has some interesting details. [ItMightBeWorse] doesn’t mention how the actual stacking is being done, but
this CNC-based focus stacking project
mentions a few utilities that take help with the post-processing. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6613728",
"author": "tsweller",
"timestamp": "2023-03-12T07:34:50",
"content": "And the time for your 100 photos is 450 seconds?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6613772",
"author": "recook",
"timestamp": "2023-03-12T10:... | 1,760,372,369.811815 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/11/a-retro-style-trainer-for-motorolas-1-bit-chip/ | A Retro-Style Trainer For Motorola’s 1-Bit Chip | Tom Nardi | [
"classic hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"industrial controller",
"motorola",
"oshw",
"trainer"
] | If you want to program a microcontroller today, you pop open your editor of choice, bang out some code, and flash it over USB. But back in ancient times, when your editor was a piece of paper and you didn’t even have a computer of your own, things were a bit different. In that case, you might have reached for a “trainer”: a PCB that included the chip you wanted to program along with an array of switches, LEDs, and maybe even a hex keypad for good measure. Grab yourself the programming manual (printed on paper, naturally), and you’re good to go.
So when
[Nicola Cimmino] became curious about the Motorola MC14500
, a 1-bit ICU (Industrial Control Unit) from the 1970s, he could think of no more appropriate way to get up close and personal with the chip than to design an era-appropriate trainer for it. The resulting board, which he’s calling the PLC14500 Nano, is festooned with LEDs that show the status of the system buses and registers. Thanks to the chip’s single-step mode, this gives you valuable insight into what’s happening inside this piece of classic silicon.
An early breadboard version of the trainer.
But just because the board looks like it could have come from the 1970s doesn’t mean you have to live in the past. There’s an Arduino Nano on the backside of the trainer that handles communicating with a modern computer. [Nicola] even provided an assembler that lets you write your code in ASM before shuttling the binary off to the board for execution.
Interested in getting your hands on one? Not a problem. The design is completely open source for anyone who wants to build one at home. In fact, [Nicola] even got his trainer
OSHW Certified
. He’s also
selling kits on Tindie
, though at the time of this writing, they’re sold out.
This project has actually been a long time coming. We covered an
early breadboard prototype of the concept back in 2015
. We’re glad to see that [Nicola] was finally able to bring this one across the finish line. It’s a beautiful piece of hardware, and thanks to its open-source nature, something that the whole community can enjoy and learn from. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6613686",
"author": "Isaac",
"timestamp": "2023-03-12T05:32:25",
"content": "The MC14500 had an interesting “feature” that no matter which branch the code took, the execution time for a loop was constant — this was accomplished by reading but not executing the code for the non-activ... | 1,760,372,369.864246 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/11/enzymes-make-electricity-from-thin-air/ | Enzymes Make Electricity From Thin Air | Al Williams | [
"News",
"Science"
] | [
"bioelectrical",
"enzyme"
] | There’s an old magic trick known as the miser’s dream, where the magician appears to pull coins from thin air. Australian scientists say they can now generate electricity out of thin air
with the help of some enzymes
. The enzyme reacts to hydrogen in the atmosphere to generate a current.
They learned the trick from bacteria which are known to use hydrogen for fuel in inhospitable environments like Antarctica or in volcanic craters. Scientists knew hydrogen was involved but didn’t know how it worked until now.
The enzyme is very efficient and can even work on trace amounts of hydrogen. The enzyme can survive freezing and temperature up to 80 °C (176 °F). The paper seems more intent on the physical mechanisms involved, but you can tell the current generated is minuscule. We don’t expect to see air-powered cell phones anytime soon. Then again, you have to start somewhere, and who knows where this could lead?
Microbial fuel cells
aren’t new, of course. If you just want lights, you can s
kip the electricity altogether. | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6613499",
"author": "John Q. Public",
"timestamp": "2023-03-11T20:22:47",
"content": "It’s a matter of scale. We may not be able to scale this up now, but who knows what the future holds?The possibilities….",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"c... | 1,760,372,369.9585 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/11/computers-for-fun/ | Computers For Fun | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"lisp",
"microcomputer",
"newsletter",
"operating system"
] | The last couple years have seen an incredible flourishing of
the cyberdeck scene
, and probably for about as many reasons as there are individual ’deck designs. Some people get really into the prop-making, some into scrapping old tech or reusing a particularly appealing case, and others simply into the customization possibilities. That’s awesome, and they’re all different motivations for making a computer that’s truly your own.
But I really like the motivation and sentiment behind [Andreas Eriksen]’s
PotatoP
. (Assuming that his real motivation isn’t all the bad potato puns.) This is a small microcomputer that’s built on a commonly available microcontroller, so it’s not a particularly powerful beast – hence the “potato”. But what makes up for that in my mind is that it’s running a rudimentary bare-metal OS of his own writing. It’s like he’s taken the cyberdeck’s DIY aesthetic into the software as well.
What I like most about the spirit of the project is the idea of a long-term project that’s also a constant companion. Once you get past a terminal and an interpreter – [Andreas] is using LISP for both – everything else consists of small projects that you can check off one by one, that maybe don’t take forever, and that are limited in complexity by the hardware you’re working on. A simple text editor, some graphics primitives, maybe a sound subsystem. A way to read and write files in flash. I don’t love LISP personally, but I love that it brings interactivity and independence from an external compiler, making the it possible to develop the system
on the system
, pulling itself up by its own bootstraps.
Pretty soon, you could have something capable, and completely DIY. But it doesn’t need to be done all at once either. With a light enough computer, and a good basic foundation, you could keep it in your backpack and play “OS development” whenever you’ve got the free time. A DIY play OS for a sandbox computing platform: what more could a nerd want?
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
! | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6613394",
"author": "Andreas Eriksen",
"timestamp": "2023-03-11T16:00:37",
"content": "Hi Elliot! I’m happy you found my project interesting.I have planned to do a “Philosophy of the project” writeup at some point, but you’ve given me a head start here – You are spot on about some o... | 1,760,372,370.193416 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/11/a-fancy-connected-caliper-for-not-a-lot/ | A Fancy Connected Caliper For Not A Lot | Jenny List | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"caliper",
"esp32-C3"
] | An essential for the engineer is a decent caliper, to measure dimensions with reasonable accuracy. Some of us have old-fashioned Vernier scales, while many up-to-date versions are electronic. When entering large numbers of dimensions into a CAD package matters can become a little tedious, so the fancier versions have connectivity for automatic reading transfer. [Mew463] didn’t want to shell out the cash for one of those, so
modified a cheaper caliper with an ESP32-C3 microcontroller to provide a Bluetooth interface
.
Many cheaper calipers have a handy hidden serial port, and it’s to this interface the mod is connected via a simple level shifter. The ESP and associated circuitry is mounted on a custom PCB on the back of the caliper body, with a very neatly designed case also holding a small Li-Po cell. It adds a little bulk to the instrument, but not enough to render it unusable. Whether the work required to design and build it is worth the cost saving over an off-the-shelf connected caliper is left to the reader to decide.
We’ve covered
similar hacks in the past
, but this one’s to a very high standard. Meanwhile if calipers are of interest to you then they’re
a subject we’ve examined in some significant detail
. | 18 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6613320",
"author": "macsimski",
"timestamp": "2023-03-11T13:26:27",
"content": "It took some time for ke to spot the calipers…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6613367",
"author": "SgLlama",
"timestamp": "2023-03-11T15:1... | 1,760,372,370.321808 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/11/a-love-letter-to-the-sphere-computer/ | A Love Letter To The Sphere Computer | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"6800",
"retrocomputing",
"sphere 1"
] | [Ben Z] loves the Sphere computer, a very early entry in the personal computer boom of the mid 1970s. The 6800 CPU was unique in its day that it was a full system — at least in theory. If you could afford the whole system, you got a nice case with a keyboard and a memory-mapped display board. You can see
a great video tour
of the system below the break.
The Sphere suffered from a few problems, none of which were easily foreseeable by its designer. First, the 6800 didn’t get the traction that the 8080-derived CPUs did. Second, the S-100 bus would prove to be popular but that nearly always meant an 8080-type processor in practice. Third, while an all-in-one system was the right idea, it was pricey at the time, and many people would opt for something less expensive even if it had less capability. People also wanted to leverage hardware they may have already had. It was easier to imagine hooking up a surplus TeleType, for example, to a more conventional computer than to a Sphere that expected its own display hardware and keyboard.
A CPU board for the Sphere was $522 in kit form; the entire computer was $860 or $1,400 if you wanted it assembled. If you wanted a modem and cassette interface, you’d spend about $100 more. For $2,250 you could get assembled computer with 20K of memory along with the modem/cassette. A floppy disk and printer system cost $8,000 and, for some reason, the company’s ads mentioned you could spend up $11,300, but it doesn’t say for what.
Unlike many similar computers that used a card edge connector, the Sphere used ribbon cables to connect boards. According to the video, this was a common point of failure for the Sphere. The mini assembler was quite strange, doubtlessly so it would fit in the cramped ROM. It used hex codes but was able to manage labels and addresses to make writing machine code a bit easier.
The computer was more or less contemporary with the
SOL 20
, another somewhat similar all-in-one. While the Sphere was a bit earlier, it was done by 1977. The SOL 20 appeared shortly thereafter but continued until 1979. The 12,000 SOL-20s sold dwarf the Sphere’s sales which might have been around 1,300 units. However, the IBM PC would appear and wipe out all these machines. If you want to see more about the Sphere, there’s an hour video from the Vintage Computer Federation featuring [Ben Z] talking about the computer. You can watch that video, below.
Everyone “knew” the workstation was coming, but we didn’t know exactly how. While the SOL-20 might have been a few months behind the Sphere, there were earlier commercial all-in-one machines like the
MCM/70
that cost nearly $10,000 and the
IBM 5100
($9,000). | 21 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6613239",
"author": "Dr. Cockroach",
"timestamp": "2023-03-11T09:59:46",
"content": "I just came across the videos the other day and until then I had not known about the Sphere system. I cut my teeth on the IMSAI-8080 back in the 70’s and would have liked to have had a chance to wor... | 1,760,372,370.269981 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/10/27-litres-and-12-cylinders-with-a-practical-station-wagon-body/ | 27 Litres And 12 Cylinders, With A Practical Station Wagon Body | Jenny List | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"custom car",
"Merlin",
"rolls-royce"
] | If you were to name one of the most famous individual road cars in the world, what would it be? If you’re British and of a Certain Age, then it’s possible your nomination is for sale, because “The Beast”, the one-off creation of [John Dodd] using a 27-litre Rolls-Royce Merlin aero engine, is up for auction. The Late Brake Show’s [Jonny Smith]
has given it a drive
, and we’ve pasted the resulting video below the break.
A second-hand motor isn’t usual Hackaday fare, but it’s the manner of this car’s building which we think will draw you in. [John] originally acquired somebody’s failed project featuring not a Merlin but its de-tuned derivative intended for tanks. He solved the problem of finding a transmission able to handle the immense power, and built it up with a pretty 1970s coupe body. After a fire a few years later he commissioned a new body from a dragster manufacturer, which is the wildly period estate car you’ll see in the video. It famously originally had a Rolls-Royce Cars grille, for which he ended up in court in the 1980s as the carmaker sought successfully to have it removed.
The tale of this car is one of epic scale hackery, as there is quite simply nothing else like it. It was once the world’s most powerful road car, and remains capable of well over 200 miles per hour. Sadly we couldn’t afford to buy it even if we could fit its immense length in our parking space.
Hungry for more epic British car hackery?
Have we got the roadster for you
! | 39 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6613159",
"author": "irox",
"timestamp": "2023-03-11T06:59:44",
"content": "Top Gear 1998 coverage of The Beast:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJQ9m3BQjOk",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6613236",
"author": "Rumble_in... | 1,760,372,370.49849 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/10/usb-protocol-explained/ | The USB Protocol, Explained | Al Williams | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"interfacing",
"usb",
"USB interface"
] | If you can explain what a USB PID, a J state, a K state, and an SOF are, you can probably stop reading now. But if you don’t know or you want a refresher, you can spend 15 minutes watching [Sine Lab’s]
straightforward explanation of the USB protocol details
. You can find the video below.
The motivation for this is he wants to add USB to his projects using an ATMega with a hardware USB implementation. Honestly, most of the time, you’ll just consume some premade library and get it working that way. However, understanding the terminology can help you, especially if things don’t go as planned.
Of course, another useful method is to just use a canned USB “serial port” and treat the whole thing like an old-fashioned serial port. But for some things you do want to take advantage of the speed and capabilities of the USB specification.
The last few minutes of the video get to a practical example. We agree with the decision to use a library, and in this case, he uses
LUFA
, an open-source USB stack for the processor he wants to use. But understanding the actual protocol will help you make sense of the documentation and troubleshoot. The example uses a HID device, which is yet more protocol you’ll have to read up on separately.
If you want to
learn more about USB-C
, [Arya Voronova’s] got you covered. The CDC USB profile can support multiple serial ports, but if you’d rather
abuse a single serial port to get multiple virtual ports
, that’s possible, too. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6613122",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-03-11T05:27:56",
"content": "Next up tackle the Bluetooth stack.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6613192",
"author": "b",
"timestamp": "2023-03-11T08:16:46",
... | 1,760,372,370.551415 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/10/low-power-wi-fi-includes-e-paper-display/ | Low-Power Wi-Fi Includes E-Paper Display | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"battery",
"bluetooth",
"e-ink",
"e-paper",
"ESP32",
"esp32c3",
"low power",
"microcontroller",
"sensor",
"wifi"
] | Designing devices that can operate in remote environments on battery power is often challenging, especially if the devices need to last a long time between charges or battery swaps. Thankfully there are some things available that make these tasks a little easier, such as e-ink or e-paper displays which only use power when making changes to the display. That doesn’t solve all of the challenges of low-power devices, but [Albertas]
shows us a few other tricks with this development board
.
The platform is designed around an e-paper display and is meant to be used in places where something like sensor data needs to not only be collected, but also displayed. It also uses the ESP32C3 microcontroller as a platform which is well-known for its low power capabilities, and additionally has an on-board temperature and humidity sensor. With Bluetooth included as well, the tiny device can connect to plenty of wireless networks while consuming a remarkably low 34 µA in standby.
With a platform like this that can use extremely low power when not taking measurements, a battery charge can last a surprisingly long time. And, since it is based on common components, adding even a slightly larger battery would not be too difficult and could greatly extend this capability as well. But,
we have seen similar builds running on nothing more than a coin cell
, so doing so might only be necessary in the most extreme of situations. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6612989",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2023-03-11T00:48:28",
"content": "“It also uses the ESP32C3 microcontroller as a platform which is well-known for its low power capabilities, and additionally has an on-board temperature and humidity sensor.”The ESP32-C3 does not have the a... | 1,760,372,370.592338 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/10/more-drill-press-mods-adding-a-vfd-means-no-more-belt-changes/ | More Drill Press Mods: Adding A VFD Means No More Belt Changes | Dan Maloney | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"drill press",
"harbor freight",
"Machine tool",
"rgb",
"tachometer",
"tool mods",
"variable frequency drive",
"vfd"
] | A decent drill press is an essential machine tool for almost any kind of shop, and marks a significant step up in precision compared to a hand drill. The ability to drill square, true holes is one thing, but the added power over what’s possible with a portable tool is the real game changer. If only you didn’t have to switch around those damn belts to change speeds, though.
You don’t, of course, if you go through the effort to
add a variable frequency drive to your drill press
like [Midwest Cyberpunk] did, along with some other cool mods. The donor tool for these mods came from — where else? — Harbor Freight. Some will quibble with that choice, but the tool was pretty cheap, and really all [Midwest] was interested in here was some decent castings and a quill with acceptable runout, since the entire power train of the tool was slated for replacement. The original motor gave way to a beefy Baldor 3-phase/240-volt motor controlled by a VFD mounted on a bracket to the left of the drill press head, allowing the stock belt and step pulley transmission to be greatly simplified.
[Midwest] also added a digital tachometer to the spindle and some RGB LEDs for zazzle. We don’t really mind the LEDs, but the lack of a safety cover on the belt drive gives us the willies. But that’s a personal choice, of course. As for performance, the mods seem to work pretty well; the advantage of a VFD is constant torque even at low spindle speeds, and that certainly seems to be the case here. Not having to play with belts to change speeds is another big plus, of course.
All in all, we like these mods and have to keep them in mind for our own drill press. We’ve seen a couple of drill press mods lately, including
this extreme drill press makeover
. We can only hope that this is the beginning of a trend. | 29 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6612895",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2023-03-10T21:47:47",
"content": "Why would you add a vacuum fluorescent display to a drill press? VFD’s are not known for dealing well to vibratio… Ohhh, the other VFD!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,370.661578 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/10/making-dry-ice-at-home-is-just-as-hard-as-it-sounds/ | Making Dry Ice At Home Is Just As Hard As It Sounds | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"dry ice"
] | Along the road to developing his own cryocooler to produce liquid nitrogen, there are a number of interesting rabbit holes [Hyperspace Pirate] has found himself taking a look at. For example, using dry ice for a pre-cooling stage and subsequently wondering what it’d take to
make this dry ice oneself
.
Getting the CO
2
required for the dry ice is the easy part, requiring nothing more complicated than baking soda and a suitable acid (like hydrochloric acid). The other options to gather CO
2
include using yeast, capturing the gas from the air people breathe out, calcium hydroxide, etc., none of which are as easy or convenient.
The acid is mixed with the baking soda, with the produced gas led through a bubbler and subsequent dehumidification stage before being collected. For the more involved part of getting dry ice, a bit more science is needed. First, a compressor is used to get pressurized CO
2
into a previously evacuated tank at 160 psi (~12 bar). For the next phase the compressed gas has to be compressed further so that it condenses into a liquid. This involves a second compressor stage and a repurposed paintball tank. At the needed pressure of 1000 psi (69 bar), safety is essential.
With liquid carbon dioxide in the paintball tank, all it takes at this point is to turn the tank upside-down to get the liquid part near the exhaust valve and crank it open. Capturing the dry ice at this point is another fascinating challenge, which was partially solved by a 3D printed mold, with plenty of room for improvement still.
Given the cost and effort involved in producing it, just buying dry ice at the local store looks like it’s still the way to go for
your Halloween fog machine
this year. But it’s a fascinating experiment regardless, especially since it actually produced results — unlike some of the
attempts we’ve covered previously
. | 25 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6612862",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2023-03-10T20:45:05",
"content": "The easy way, attach a pillow case to a CO² fire extinguisher cone. [ As per the warning label, don’t hold the cone, unless you want freezer burn. ] Dump the contents into the pillow case. The rapid expans... | 1,760,372,370.727996 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/10/retrotechtacular-the-revolutionary-visual-effects-of-king-kong/ | Retrotechtacular: The Revolutionary Visual Effects OfKing Kong | Tom Nardi | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Slider"
] | [
"film",
"movies",
"special effects",
"visual effect"
] | Today, it’s easy to take realistic visual effects in film and TV for granted. Computer-generated imagery (CGI) has all but done away with the traditional camera tricks and miniatures used in decades past, and has become so commonplace in modern productions that there’s a good chance you’ve watched scenes without even realizing they were created partially, or sometimes even entirely, using digital tools.
But things were quite different when
King Kong
was released in 1933. In her recently released short documentary
King Kong: The Practical Effects Wonder
, Katie Keenan explains some the groundbreaking techniques used in the legendary film. At a time when audiences were only just becoming accustomed to experiencing sound in theaters,
King Kong
employed stop-motion animation, matte painting, rear projection, and even primitive robotics to bring the titular character to life in a realistic way.
Getting Physical
As you might expect, the stop-motion puppets used in
King Kong
were all relatively small: ranging from a tiny figure used for the scenes where Kong was climbing the Empire State Building, to a two foot (0.6 meter) version used when the monster was at street level.
These puppets were built with an internal metal structure, known as an armature, that used ball joints to achieve a high level of articulation. There was even a diaphragm in the chest that could be moved to make it look like Kong was actually breathing. The armature was then covered with cotton to add bulk, which could be formed into visibly defined “muscles” with the strategic application of string. A final layer of real rabbit fur helped give Kong a more lifelike appearance.
The original 22-inch armature was sold at auction in 2009.
The arm needed to be strong enough to support actress Fay Wray.
Katie mentions that the soft fur did pose a problem: you could clearly see the indents left by the animator’s fingers when they manipulated the puppets between frames. But as luck would have it, audiences interpreted what was essentially a production error as the beast’s fur rippling and standing on end, which actually added to the overall realism.
Full-scale versions of Kong’s hand, foot, and upper torso were also created. The hand and torso specifically were mechanized so they could portray rudimentary movement in the same scene as the actors, such as when Kong pulls Anne out of the apartment building through the window.
Perfecting Projection
As Katie explains,
King Kong
visual effects supervisor Willis H. O’Brien had already pioneered the use of stop-motion to bring giant creatures to life in earlier works such as
The Lost World
in 1925. But what set this film apart was how it combined the technique with footage of human actors.
Kong Kong
combined miniature sets with projected images.
One of the ways this was accomplished was through rear projection — the completed stop-motion segments of Kong would be projected onto a translucent screen from behind the set. From the camera’s perspective the actors would appear in the foreground, and the stop-motion puppets, now enlarged many times their original size, would seem to be behind them.
This could be thought of as the analog version of today’s “green screen” techniques, but with the added bonus that the actors could see the projection and respond accordingly. In fact, in that regard it might actually be more accurate to compare it with the
recently developed “LED wall” sets
used in big-budget science fiction shows such as
The Mandalorian
and S
tar Trek: Strange New Worlds.
The technique could also be used in reverse — with a miniature projector and screen used to place footage of the actors into set with the puppets. By advancing the projector frame-by-frame in conjunction with the movement of the puppet, it would give the impression that Kong was interacting with the human actors.
A Lasting Legacy
A film using any one of these techniques would have been impressive to audiences in 1933. But the way O’Brien and his team managed to combine them, sometimes all within the same scene, redefined what the fledgling medium was capable of. Thanks in large part to their work,
King Kong
is still considered a seminal work in the field of visual effects nearly 100 years after its release — and is often listed among the greatest movies ever made. | 13 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6612802",
"author": "Hirudinea",
"timestamp": "2023-03-10T18:48:23",
"content": "“I REMEMBER WHEN AL JOLSON RAN AMOK AT THE WINTER GARDEN AND CLIMBED THE CHRYSLER BUILDING. AFTER THAT, HE COULDN’T GET ARRESTED IN THIS TOWN.”OK now that the obligatory Simpsons quote is out of the way... | 1,760,372,370.784741 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/10/hackaday-podcast-209-hdmi-tempest-norm-upscaled-seeing-electrons-and-when-the-radios-go-silent/ | Hackaday Podcast 209: HDMI Tempest, Norm Upscaled, Seeing Electrons, And When The Radios Go Silent | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | It was one of those weeks, where Elliot and Dan found a bounty of interesting hacks to choose from for the podcast, making it hard to pick. But pick we did, and we found so many deep and important questions. What good is a leaky HDMI cable? Good for falling down a TEMPEST-like rabbit hole, that’s what. Why would you use a ton of clay to make a car? Because it’s cool, that’s why. What does an electron look like? A little like a wiggling wire, but mostly it looks like a standing wave… of waves.
Is artificial intelligence going to take over all the code and start suing us for copyright violations? Maybe yes, maybe no, but we’re definitely in a strange, new world. And when all our media is on demand, what is the spectrum that broadcasters currently use going to be good for?
It’s not all heavy questions, of course; we found a lot of fun hacks, like an extreme drill press makeover, a couple of low-power cyberdecks, the return of Norm Abram in glorious AI-generated HD, getting up close and personal with flip dot displays, and a sled that lets you go uphill as easily as going downhill.
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
your own personal copy
!
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 209 Show Notes:
News:
Hackspaces that need some help
London Hackspace
xHain hack+makespace
Stranded Motorist Effects Own Rescue Using A Drone And A Cell Phone
What’s that Sound?
If you think you know what this week’s sound is,
we have just the form for you
! Enter and you’ll have a chance to win.
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Pulling Data From HDMI RF Leakage
Tempest for Eliza
TEMPEST: A Tin Foil Hat For Your Electronics And Their Secrets
Norm Abram Is Back, And Thanks To AI, Now In HD
Yesterday’s Drill Press Packed With Tomorrow’s Upgrades
What Does An Electron Look Like?
Low Power Challenge: The PotatoP Runs Lisp For Months Without Recharging
TRS-80 Model 100 Inspires Cool Cyberdeck Build, 40 Years Down The Line
Will Carmakers Switch Clay For Computers?
The Adobe – Saturday Night Live – YouTube
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
This Retro Game Console Puts Vacuum Fluorescent Display To Good Use
The Eyes Have It: Stare Down Your Lighting
FDM Printing With Resin Update
Dan’s Picks:
Never Walk Uphill Again With This Motorized Sled
A Close Look At How Flip-Dot Displays Really Work
Defender Arcade Rebuilt To Settle A Childhood Memory
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Will A.I. Steal All The Code And Take All The Jobs?
What’s Going To Happen To Legacy Broadcast Bands When The Lights Go Out? | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,372,370.823012 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/10/that-cheap-usb-charger-could-be-costly/ | That Cheap USB Charger Could Be Costly | Al Williams | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"battery",
"phone charger",
"reverse polarity",
"teardown"
] | [Big Clive] picked up a keychain battery to charge his phone and found out that it was no bargain. Due to a wiring mistake, the unit
was wired backward
, delivering -5 V instead of 5 V. The good news is that it gave him an excuse to tear the thing open and see what was inside. You can see the video of the teardown below.
The PCB had the correct terminals marked G and 5 V, it’s just that the red wire for the USB connector was attached to G, and the black wire was connected to 5 V. Somewhat surprisingly, the overall circuit and PCB design was pretty good. It was simply a mistake in manufacturing and, of course, shows a complete lack of quality assurance testing.
The circuit was essentially right out of the data sheet, but it was faithfully reproduced. We should probably test anything like this before plugging it into a device, but we typically don’t. Does our phone protect against reverse polarity? Don’t know, and we don’t want to find out. [Clive] also noted that the battery capacity was overstated as well, but frankly, we’ve come to expect that with cheap gadgets like this.
This isn’t, of course, the first
phone charger teardown
we’ve seen. This probably isn’t as deadly as the
USB killer
, but we still wouldn’t want to risk it. | 31 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6612759",
"author": "Thinkerer",
"timestamp": "2023-03-10T16:45:50",
"content": "Somewhere in my parts bin is a Sony wall wart that has a reversed polarity digram molded into it. There was a bit of speculation at the time that they were trying to sell their own replacements since t... | 1,760,372,370.888337 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/10/hacker-hotel-2023-had-a-very-cool-badge/ | Hacker Hotel 2023 Had A Very Cool Badge | Jenny List | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"badge",
"badgelife",
"Hacker Hotel"
] | One effect of the global pandemic was that there were relatively few events in our sphere for a couple of years. This and that other by-product of COVID-19, the chip shortage, meant that over the past year we’ve been treated to several event badges that should have appeared in 2020 or 2021, but didn’t due to those cancelled events. We were lucky enough to receive probably the last of these delayed badges in mid February, as we made the journey to the central part of the Netherlands to Hacker Hotel 2023.
A Puzzle, A 4-Bit Computer, And An Artwork
The badge takes the form of a rectangular PCB with all parts on the top side. The brains of the operation is an RP2040, and it’s powered by a CR2032 coin cell in a holder. It’s divided into two parts, the top third which carries the circuitry and the lower two thirds of which as a row of buttons and LEDs. It’s pretty obvious from the start that it has data and address lines of a 4-bit computer, and as well as these there is an evident serial port and a USB socket. The artwork comes form the same artist whose work graced both the previous Hacker Hotel badge and the MCH2022 badge, and the rear of the PCB makes full use of all layers to create a mystical puzzle. The sum is to create a puzzle game intended to entertain the visitor, take them round the venue, and find clues to an eventual solution. I love the design both from an artistic and technical viewpoint, but have to admit that the puzzle aspect isn’t really my thing. Thus here we’ll concentrate on the badge hardware and production, and mention the puzzles only in passing.
The cracked stonework effect in the copper layer is particularly well done.
For those interested in the full story, there’s
a badge talk you can watch on YouTube
, which we’ve embedded below. The designer [Pim] outlines the early steps before the hammer blows of pandemic and component shortages, before the selection of the RP2040. The artist [
Nikolett
] goes into the detail behind the design, inspired by ancient grave markers, and the genesis of the puzzles. The colour was chosen as a deep blue, inspired by lapis lazuli.
With a design ready for December 2021 as the 2022 event date in February approached, they received another bombshell; the event was once more cancelled due to the pandemic. This however left them in the enviable position of having their badge ready a year early for the 2023 event, with a first prototype in hand. A year later they were able to order the badge production run, and with a minor hiccup of a misplaced diode footprint they were ready to go with a full production run. In practice though, none of the new badges worked. An emergency parcel from China brought samples, and after some anxious debugging they found their flash chips already contained strings and had been set as read-only. Fortunalely Alnet were able to rework them, but it serves as a lesson for anyone considering a remote production run.
Over the weekend there was a constant view of participants bending over their badges, finding clues around the hotel, entering binary code from the event lanyard, and even playing a serial port text adventure game. The participants seemed to be enjoying the challenges, and I know that more than one person solved all the puzzles and received an amulet as a reward.
The idea of a 4-bit computer on a badge isn’t entirely new, but it makes for an interesting diversion. I particularly like the way the copper layer has been used on the rear of the badge to give a cracked stone effect, and as always a lot of effort went into the design. If I have a criticism of this badge it is that it has little utility beyond the event, however it remains an attractive piece of artwork for participants to display. If you’re interested in delving further,
everything can be found on GitHub
, where we’re also promised more about the puzzles.
Now that the lingering effects of the pandemic have lifted from the world of hacker events, we look forward to seeing what new badges 2023 brings. | 8 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6612871",
"author": "Justin",
"timestamp": "2023-03-10T20:58:50",
"content": "I’ve been making boards for decades, and I think this has to be the most beautiful board I’ve seen. Brings a new meaning when I refer to my boards’ artwork.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"r... | 1,760,372,371.072466 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/08/stepper-killer-killer-killed-repair-attempted/ | Stepper Killer Killer Killed, Repair Attempted | Chris Lott | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"electronic leadscrew",
"lathe",
"leadscrew",
"servo motor",
"stepper motor"
] | The low-cost servo motor in [Clough42]’s lathe’s electronic leadscrew bit the dust recently,
and he did a great job documenting his repair attempts
( see video below the break ). When starting the project a few years ago, he studied a variety of candidate motors, including a ClearPath servo motor from Teknic’s “Stepper Killer” family. While that motor was well suited, [Clough42] picked a significantly lower-cost servo motor from China which he dubbed the “Stepper Killer Killer”.
He does a very thorough post-mortem of the motor’s integrated servo controller, checking the circuits and connections on the interface PCB first. Not finding any obvious problem, he proceeds to the main PCB which contains the microcontroller, motor driver transistors, and power supplies. There is no visible damage, but a check of the logic power supply shows 1.65V where 3.3V is expected. Looking at the board with a smart-phone mounted IR camera, he quickly finds the bad news — the microcontroller has shorted out.
He doesn’t have access to the control firmware on the STM32, so even if he replaced the MCU, he has no way to make the motor functional again. After briefly considering the ClearPath Stepper Killer once more, he decides to simply replace the motor with another identical one. The Chinese motor is not only cheaper, but the changes he’d have to make to the motor brackets and control software factor significantly in his decision as well.
As one viewer commented, all might not be lost. If the STM32 firmware can be extracted from the new motor, there’s still a chance the old one can be salvaged. We first wrote about this lathe electric leadscrew project
a few years ago
, and [Clough42] has since made an entire series documenting the modifications and the decisions he made along the way. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6611705",
"author": "m1ke",
"timestamp": "2023-03-09T02:49:05",
"content": "(Didn’t watch the video) So the first motor was a cheap purchase, and now the replacement is a cheap purchase. If the quality motor was even twice the price of the original cheap one you’d still be ahead of ... | 1,760,372,371.201107 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/08/scratch-built-amiga-2000-stacks-up-the-mods/ | Scratch Built Amiga 2000 Stacks Up The Mods | Tom Nardi | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"3D printed parts",
"amiga 2000",
"Drygol",
"recreation"
] | Around these parts, we most often associate [Drygol] with his incredible ability to bring damaged or even destroyed vintage computers back to life with a seemingly endless bag of repair and restoration techniques. But this time around, at the request of fellow retro aficionado [MrTrinsic], he was given a special assignment — to not only build a new Amiga 2000 from scratch, but to pack it with so many mods that just physically fitting them into the case would be a challenge in itself.
The final product,
dubbed Tesseract
, took two and a half years to complete and has been documented over the course of six blog posts. The first step was to get a brand new motherboard, in this case a modern recreation designed by Floppie209, and start populating it with components. With some modifications, the new board slipped neatly into a slick metal case. Unfortunately it quickly became clear some of the mods the duo wanted to install wouldn’t work with the reverse-engineered motherboard. This was around Spring of 2021, which is the
last time we checked in on the project
.
Laying down capacitors to make extra room.
Things have progressed considerably since then. Despite the initial setback, there were still a dizzying array of upgrades and mods that
would
work on the board, so [Drygol] embarked on the laborious process of installing of them. When we say this machine is stacked with mods, we mean it literally.
To get everything installed, add-on boards needed to be piled on top of each other like some kind of three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. Connecting everything together required all sorts of risers and jumpers, as well as dozens of bespoke 3D printed brackets and mounts to hold it all in position. Even then, some boards needed to be physically trimmed so they could fit around the occasional inconvenient capacitor. Frankly, it’s a wonder the lid closed.
Unfortunately, after years of working on the project, the unthinkable happened — while in transit to [MrTrinsic], the Tesseract was nearly destroyed. Judging by the pictures of the aftermath, it looks like the shipping company dropped the computer out of the back of a plane before running it over. Printed brackets were broken, pins were bent, and whole modules were wrenched out of their mounting places. For many, it would have been the end of the road.
The case looked like a box of random parts.
Many pins were bent, requiring careful repair work.
But this team persevered. [Drygol] provided remote assistance, and [MrTrinsic] was able to repair the damage.
At the end of the last blog post on the Tesseract
, the machine was still going through the final software checks, but everything seemed like it was heading in the right direction at least. We’re glad to see this amazing story get the happy ending it deserves, and thankful that its extensive documentation allowed us to come along for the ride.
Prefer to keep your retro machines a bit more authentic? Then check out the unbelievable Atari 800XL restoration [Drygol]
sent our way back in 2018
, which includes some of the
most impressive plastic reconstruction work we’ve ever seen
. | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6611481",
"author": "CityZen",
"timestamp": "2023-03-08T21:06:50",
"content": "Important detail: not an original A2000 case, but a low-profile HTPC case.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6611658",
"author": "SayWhat?",
... | 1,760,372,371.124865 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/08/pi-picos-give-casio-fx9000p-its-memory-back/ | Pi Picos Give Casio FX9000P Its Memory Back | Al Williams | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Repair Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"Casio FX9000P",
"retrocomputing"
] | Is the Casio FX9000P a calculator or a computer? It’s hard to tell since Casio did make calculators that would run BASIC.
[Menadue] didn’t know either
, but since it had a CRT, a Z80, and memory modules, we think computer is a better moniker.
He found one of these, but as you might expect, it needed a bit of work. There were two bad video RAM chips on the device, and [Menadue] used two Raspberry Pi Picos running a program to make them think they are RAM chips. The number of wires connecting the microcontollers might raise some eyebrows, but it does appear to get the job done.
He also used more Picos to emulate memory on cartridges. Then he used a test clip and a — you guessed it — another Pico to monitor the Z80 bus signals. It is amazing that the Pico can replace what would have been state-of-the-art memory chips and a very expensive logic analyzer.
The second video mostly shows the computer in operation. The use of Picos to stand in for so much is clever. It reminded us of the
minimal Z80 computer
that used an Arduino for support chips. The computer itself, though, reminded us more of a cheap version of the
HP9845
. | 12 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6611476",
"author": "Snow",
"timestamp": "2023-03-08T20:58:19",
"content": "making the picos emulate ram sure is a pretty neat hack but isn’t it a bit ironic to use 3 picos to run a machine that’s basically less powerful than a single pico? i mean would it no be simpler to just adap... | 1,760,372,371.406506 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/08/supercon-2022-alec-vercruysse-can-see-through-murky-water/ | Supercon 2022: Alec Vercruysse Can See Through Murky Water | Maya Posch | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Science"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Supercon",
"sonar",
"ultrasonic phased array"
] | Detecting objects underwater isn’t an easy challenge, especially when things get murky and dark. Radio waves don’t propagate well, so most techniques rely on sound. Sonar is itself farily simple, simply send out a ping and listen for an echo, and that will tell you how far something is. Imaging underwater is significantly harder, because you would additionally need to know where each echo is coming from.
To answer the question of whether it is possible to put together an ultrasonic 3D imager that would cheaply enable anyone to image objects underwater, [Alec Vercruysse] and fellow team members at the Harvey Mudd College set out to create a system that does exactly that. You can read the
presentation slides
(PDF) or check out the entire project in the
GitHub repository
.
The design as presented by [Alec] uses a three by three grid of piezoelectric (PZT) transducers, which unlike other designs uses the same transducers both for transmitting the signal and receiving the response. One snag here was that the PZT material does not have the same specific acoustic impedance as water, requiring an interface layer to be added to overcome this. Fortunately a thin coating of clear silicone was sufficient as interface material, without apparently significantly affecting the effectiveness of the transducers as a speaker or microphone. As a bonus, this silicone coating also helps to waterproof the transducers and the wiring connected to them, which is another issue that crops up when designing electronics for use underwater.
Instead of using separated transmitters and receivers, [Alec]’s system connected each of the nine transducers to a TX/RX switch, that enables each transducer to be first used as a transmitter, after which it is switched over to the RX path, which connects the transducer to the ADC of the onboard MCU. For testing, the RX circuit starts off with a 60 Hz filter to reject line noise from North American 60 Hz circuitry, after which the signal is amplified and sampled by the ADC.
For transmitting, the MCU’s DAC and PWM are used together with an analog mux to create a square wave signal that is passed via a
Sallen-Key
second-order active filter before coupled to AC and amplified by a power amplifier. With the resonant frequency of the used PZT transducers being 92 kHz, this is also the frequency that is transmitted at. After sampling the response on the RX path with the MCU’s 1 MSPS rate, this data is sent via I2C to the motherboard.
[Alec] finally demonstrates some captures made of a steel plate suspended underwater in front of the array, showing that the system works both for 2D (scanning) and 3D captures. He does note that size information of the object does get lost in the low resolution, but presumably this is exactly why you’d want to have a cheap system that can be easily expanded with more transducers and TX/RX PCBs without breaking the bank. | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6611329",
"author": "irox",
"timestamp": "2023-03-08T18:35:55",
"content": "Awesome project! I’ve been hoping to see something like this. Actually, I wish something similar was available in kit form for proto-typing and playing around with.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,... | 1,760,372,371.447421 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/08/how-to-make-a-larger-air-cored-inductor/ | How To Make A Larger Air-Cored Inductor | Jenny List | [
"home entertainment hacks",
"Parts"
] | [
"audio",
"crossover",
"inductor",
"loudspeaker"
] | Radio amateurs often have a love-hate relationship with home-made inductors, sharing all kinds of tips and tricks as to how the most stable nanohenry inductor can be wound. But there’s another group in the world of electronics with an interest in high-quality inductors, namely the audio enthusiasts. They need good quality inductors with a values in the millihenries, to use in loudspeaker crossover networks. [Homemade Audio]
takes us through their manufacturing process for these coils
, and the result is a watchable video resulting in some very well-made components.
The adjustable former is a machined aluminium affair of which we’re treated to the full manufacture. It’s likely the same results
could be achieved with a 3D printed reel
. The free-as-in-beer
Coil64 on Windows
is used to calculate the dimensions and number of turns, and it’s set up on a jig with a cordless screwdriver doing the winding. The best technique for flat layers of turns is explained, and a coat of varnish is put on each completed layer. We’re guessing this is to stop the coil “singing” at audio frequencies.
With a set of cable ties holding it together the result is a very tidy component. It’s adjusted a few turns to get the right value with an LCR meter, however experience tells us that a tiny percentage either way won’t harm the resulting network too much. If you make your own speakers, the video below the break could be extremely useful.
Need a loudspeaker primer?
We have just the article for you
. | 20 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6611294",
"author": "PWalsh",
"timestamp": "2023-03-08T17:31:24",
"content": "I did a deep dive into making coils for one of my projects.The typical coil formula (the one you find on Wikipedia) only works to audio frequencies, it tops out at about 100 KHz. Above this, a handful of c... | 1,760,372,371.809072 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/08/will-a-i-steal-all-the-code-and-take-all-the-jobs/ | Will A.I. Steal All The Code And Take All The Jobs? | Joseph Long | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art"
] | [
"artifical intelligence",
"copyright",
"GitHub Copilot",
"intellectual property"
] | New technology often brings with it a bit of controversy. When considering stem cell therapies, self-driving cars, genetically modified organisms, or nuclear power plants, fears and concerns come to mind as much as, if not more than, excitement and hope for a brighter tomorrow. New technologies force us to evolve perspectives and establish new policies in hopes that we can maximize the benefits and minimize the risks. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is certainly no exception. The stakes, including our very position as Earth’s apex intellect, seem exceedingly weighty. Mathematician Irving Good’s oft-quoted wisdom that the “first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need make” describes a sword that cuts both ways. It is not entirely unreasonable to fear that the last invention we need to make might just be the last invention that we get to make.
Artificial Intelligence and Learning
Artificial intelligence is currently the hottest topic in technology. AI systems are being tasked to write prose, make art, chat, and generate code. Setting aside the horrifying notion of an AI programming or reprogramming itself, what does it mean for an AI to generate code? It should be obvious that an AI is not just a normal program whose code was written to spit out any and all other programs. Such a program would need to have all programs inside itself. Instead, an AI learns from being trained. How it is trained is raising some interesting questions.
Humans learn by reading, studying, and practicing. We learn by training our minds with collected input from the world around us. Similarly, AI and machine learning (ML) models learn through training. They must be provided with examples from which to learn. The examples that we provide to an AI are referred to as the data corpus of the training process. The robot Johnny 5 from “Short Circuit”, like any curious-minded student, needs input, more input, and more input.
Learning to Program
A primary input that humans use to learn programming is a collection of example programs. These example programs are generally printed in books, provided by teachers, or found in various online samples or projects. Such example programs make up the corpus for training the student programmer. Students can carefully read through example programs and then attempt to recreate those programs or modify them to create different programs. As a student advances, they usually study increasingly complex programs and they start combining techniques discovered from multiple example programs into more complex patterns.
Just as humans learn to program by studying program code, an AI can learn to program by studying existing programs. Stated more correctly, the AI trains on a corpus of existing program code. The corpus is not stored within the AI model anymore than books studied by the human program are stored within the student. Instead, the corpus is actually used to train the model in a statistical sense. Outputs generated by the trained AI do not come from copies of programs in the corpus, because the trained AI does not contain those programs. The outputs should instead be generated from the statistical model of the corpus that has been trained into the AI system.
AI Systems that Generate Code
GitHub Copilot
is based on the
OpenAI Codex
. It uses comments in the code of a human programmer as its natural language prompts. From these prompts, Copilot can suggest code blocks directly into the human programmer’s editor screen. The programmer can accept the code blocks, or not, and then test the new code as part of their program. The OpenAI Codex has been trained on a corpus of publicly available program code along with associated natural language text. Public GitHub repositories are included in that corpus.
Copilot documentation does claim that its outputs are generated from a statistical model and that the model does not contain a database of code. On the other hand, it has been discovered that code suggested by the AI model will match a code snippet from the training set only about one percent of the time. One reason for this happening at all is that some natural language prompts correspond to a relatively universal solution. Similarly, if we were to ask a group of programmers to write C code for using binary trees, the results might largely resemble the code in chapter six of
Kernighan & Ritchie
because that is a common component in the training corpus for human C programmers. If accused of plagiarism, some of those programmers might even retort, “That’s just how a binary tree works.”
But
sometimes Copilot will recreate code
and comments
verbatim
. Copilot has implemented a filter to detect and suppress code suggestions that match public code from GitHub. The filter can be enabled or disable by the user. There are plans eventually provide references for code suggestions that match public code from GitHub so that the user can look into the match and decide how to proceed.
Is Learning Always Encouraged?
Even if it’s very rare that an AI model trained on a corpus of example code later generates code matching the corpus, we should still consider instances where the code should not have been used to train the model to begin with. There may be limits to when and which source code can be used for training AI models. Looking to the field of intellectual property, software can be protected by patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret.
Patents generally offer the broadest protection. When a system or method practices one or more claims of a patent, it is said to infringe the patent. It does not mater who wrote the code, where it came from, or even if the programmer had no idea of the existence of the patent. Objections to software patents aside, this one is straightforward. If an AI model generates code that practices a patented method, it does not mater if that code does or does not match any existing code, there is a real risk of patent infringement.
Trade secret only applies in the highly pathological situation where the source code was misappropriated, or stolen, from the original owner who was acting to keep the source code secret. Obviously, stolen source code should not be used for any purpose including the training of AI models. Source code that has been published online by its author or owner is not being protected as a trade secret. Trademarks only really apply to names, logos, slogans, or other identifying marks associated with the software and not to the source code itself.
“
Justice scales
” by John
When considering AI model training, copyright concerns can a little more nuanced. Copyright protection covers original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyrights do not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation. Generally, studying copyrighted code and then rewriting your own code is not an infringement of the original copyright. Copyright does not protect the concepts or operations of computer code, it merely protects the specific expression or presentation of the code. Anyone else can write their own code that accomplishes the same thing without offending the copyright.
Copyright can protect computer code from being reproduced into other code that is substantially similar to the original. However, copyright does not protect against reading, studying, or learning from computer code. If the code has been published online, it is generally accepted that others are allowed to read it and learn from it. At one extreme, the concept clearly does not extend to reading the protected work with a photocopier to make a duplicate. So it remains to be seen if, and to what extant, the concept of being free to read will extend to “reading” the copyrighted work into an AI model.
Law and Ethics Controlling the Corpus
There is litigation pending against GitHub, Microsoft, and OpenAI alleging that the AI systems violate the legal rights of programmers who have posted code on public GitHub repositories. The lawsuits specifically point out that much of the public code was posted under one of several open-source licenses that require derivative works to include attribution to the original author, notice of that author’s copyright, and a copy of the license itself. These include the GPL, Apache, and MIT licenses. The lawsuits accuse defendants of training on computer code that does not belong to them without proper attribution, ignoring privacy policies, violating online terms of service, and offending the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provisions that protect against removal or alteration of copyright management information.
It is interesting to note however, that the pending suits do not explicitly allege copyright violation. The defendants posit that any assertion of copyright would be defeated under the fair use doctrine. The facts do appear to parallel those in
Authors Guild v. Google
where Google scanned in the contents of books to make them searchable online. Publishers and authors complained that Google did not have permission to scan in their copyrighted works. However, the court granted summary judgement in favor of Google affirming that Google met the legal requirements of the fair use doctrine.
An interesting open project for the development of source code models is
The Stack
. The Stack is part of
BigCode
and maintains a 6.4 TB corpus of source code under permissive license. The project seems strongly rooted in ethical transparency. For example, The Stack allows creators to request removal of their code from the corpus.
Projects like Copilot, OpenAI, and The Stack will likely continue to bring very interesting questions to light. As AI technology advances in its ability to suggest code blocks, or eventually write code itself, clarity around authorship rights will evolve. Of course, authorship right may be the least of our worries. | 59 | 26 | [
{
"comment_id": "6611219",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2023-03-08T15:25:40",
"content": "I wonder how many folks will still be annoyed if every program written with AI aid, so likely trained only on stuff under various open licenses, is always automatically copy-left licensed itself. You do... | 1,760,372,371.551604 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/08/stranded-motorist-effects-own-rescue-using-a-drone-and-a-cell-phone/ | Stranded Motorist Effects Own Rescue Using A Drone And A Cell Phone | Dan Maloney | [
"drone hacks",
"News"
] | [
"drone",
"Oregon",
"quadcopter",
"rescue",
"sear and rescue",
"sms",
"text message"
] | If you’re looking for a good excuse to finally buy a drone, you probably can’t do better than
claiming it can save your life
.
Granted, you may never find yourself in the position of being stuck in a raging snowstorm in the middle of the Oregon wilderness, but if you do, this is a good one to keep in mind. According to news stories and
the Lane County Sheriff Search and Rescue Facebook page
, an unnamed motorist who was trying to negotiate an unmaintained road through the remote Willamette National Forest got stuck in the snow. This put him in a bad situation, because not only was he out of cell range, but nobody knew where he was or even that he was traveling, so he wouldn’t be missed for days.
Thankfully, the unlucky motorist played all his cards right. Rather than wandering off on foot in search of help, he stayed with his vehicle, which provided shelter from the elements. Conveniently, he also happened to have a drone along with him, which provided him with an opportunity to get some help. After typing a detailed text message to a friend describing his situation and exact location, he attached the phone to his drone and sent it straight up a couple of hundred feet — enough to get a line-of-sight connection to a cell tower. Note that the image above is a reenactment by the Search and Rescue team; it’s not clear how the resourceful motorist rigged up the drone, but we’re going to guess duct tape was involved.
When he brought the drone back down a few minutes later, he found that the queued text had been sent, and the cavalry was on the way. The Search and Rescue unit was able to locate him, and as a bonus, also found someone else nearby who had been stranded for days. So it was a win all around thanks to some clever thinking and a little technology. | 79 | 30 | [
{
"comment_id": "6611133",
"author": "Jonathan Bennett",
"timestamp": "2023-03-08T12:11:56",
"content": "Brilliant! I’ve heard of trying to sling a phone up into the air to try to achieve this. The drone is a nice touch.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comm... | 1,760,372,371.752543 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/09/new-raspberry-pi-camera-with-global-shutter/ | New Raspberry Pi Camera With Global Shutter | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Raspberry Pi",
"Reviews"
] | [
"camera",
"global shutter",
"machine vision",
"Raspberry pi camera"
] | Raspberry Pi has just introduced a new camera module
in the high-quality camera format. For the same $50 price you would shell out for the HQ camera, you get roughly eight times fewer pixels. But this is a
global shutter
camera, and if you need a global shutter, there’s just no substitute. That’s a big deal for the Raspberry Pi ecosystem.
Global vs Rolling
Most cameras out there today use CMOS sensors in
rolling shutter
mode. That means that the sensor starts in the upper left corner and rasters along, reading out exposure values from each row before moving down to the next row, and then starting up at the top again. The benefit is simpler CMOS design, but the downside is that none of the pixels are exposed or read at the same instant.
Contrast this with a global shutter, where
all
of the CMOS pixels are exposed and then their values stored until they’re all read out. This is a much more complicated device, because each cell essentially needs sample and hold circuitry, and this explains the lower pixel density. But the result is that the picture is actually a snapshot in time, and if anything in your scene is moving fast, that matters.
So who needs a global shutter? First and foremost, it’s a must for machine vision. The combination of moving subjects and rolling shutters distorts the shape of whatever is in view, and if you’re trying to measure it’s size or even determine its correct outline, then you need to be filming it with a global shutter. Quad pilots will know the flip side of the rolling shutter coin – the “
jello effect
” (YouTube video link). On quads, it’s not the scene but the camera that’s vibrating rapidly, and this makes even static scenes appear to wobble like that horrible old cliché dream-sequence effect. No good.
Or imagine that you’re taking pictures of lightning, or other short-lived events, and maybe you want to time it. With a global shutter, one frame will be dark and another will be light. With a rolling shutter, you’re almost guaranteed to have half-filled frames on either end.
Here I’ve pulled out the classic demo: a spinning propeller. Have a look at the strange shapes that come out of the rolling shutter camera! All of the images are blurred a little bit because the blade was moving fast during the exposure; if you need to reduce the blur, more light and shorter exposure times would help. But if you want to unbend the banana, only a global shutter can save you.
Global Shutter
Banana
I don’t even know
Similarly, check out the video demos. As I ramp up and down the propeller speed, you can get glimpses of the shape aliasing with the cameras’ frame rates. With the global shutter, you get nice clovers, but with the rolling shutter, you get sickles and even disconnected ghost blades. Trippy.
global2
rolling2
For more on rolling-shutter effects, check out this video.
Is This Camera for You?
If you have $50 burning a hole in your pocket, and you need a camera sensor for your Pi, what do you get? On the pros side, the global shutter camera has a global shutter – that’s obvious enough. It’s also got fairly good light sensitivity, can record 1440 x 1080 pixels at 60 frames per second in video mode, and each of those frames is an actual snapshot in time. The big con is that the resolution is a lot lower relative to the HQ rolling-shutter camera. But for computer vision, and a lot of other non-artistic applications, 1080p is plenty. Honestly, if you’re running CV on a Raspberry Pi, the reduced pixel count is probably a blessing.
Like the HQ camera, this camera has a bigger sensor than the cheaper Raspberry Pi cameras, but you have to (or get to) provide your own lens. Both the HQ and the global shutter cameras have C and CS mounts, which means that you can screw in any CCTV lens, or even 3D print an adapter to attach these to anything from a microscope to a telescope. Sometimes you want a camera, other times you just want the sensor. Here, you’re just getting the sensor and a tripod mount. Factor the price of a lens into your budget if you want a camera.
I got this model for free for review from Raspberry Pi, and they included a lens. It’s pretty good, but for whatever reason it wasn’t easy to get it to focus correctly on the sensor. I think it’s missing a spacer somewhere in the C-mount adapter stack-up, which explains the hot glue in my glamour shots. Longer-term, I’ll probably 3D print up the correct size ring. I also love that the lens manufacturers rated the (analog) optics for the number of megapixels it produces. Physics!
As with the HQ camera, you have to use the new
libcamera
software and drivers. They are a lot more capable and user-friendly than the old
raspistill
and
raspivid
, so it’ll be no problem if you’re writing your own code. But do note that some older programs, like the excellent
RPi Cam Web Interface
, don’t work with the newer libraries yet.
Finally, and I don’t know if this is in common with the HQ camera, there are some inviting test points broken out on the back side of the camera. Anyone know what to do with them?
Analog Megapixels!
What do these test points do? | 37 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6612155",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2023-03-09T18:45:52",
"content": "Oh man,I have done some low level camera stuff and work and academically.Those broken out pins are related to configuring the camera sensor. Specifically, the I2C lines are for configuring the registers of ... | 1,760,372,371.945187 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/09/how-simple-can-a-wind-generator-get/ | How Simple Can A Wind Generator Get? | Jenny List | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"CD ROM drive",
"Robert Murray-Smith",
"turbine",
"Wind turbine"
] | As the world has moved towards sustainable energy sources over the last few years, it’s increasingly common to be close to a wind turbine. The huge turbines visible on the horizon from where this is being written are the upper end of the scale though, and along comes [Robert Murray-Smith] with the opposite,
probably the simplest and smallest wind turbine we’ve seen
.
His use of a 3-phase motor from a CD-ROM drive as the generator isn’t particularly unexpected, these motors are ubiquitous and readily generate power when spun up. A simple 3-phase rectifier and a capacitor delivers a DC voltage that while the ready availability of switching converter modules should be relatively easy to turn into something more useful.
The clever part of this hack lies then in the rotor, it’s not the propeller-style bladed affair you might expect. Instead he takes a CD, as it’s the obvious thing to fit on a CD motor, and glues a piece of Tyvek on top of it. This is cut to form four flaps which make a rudimentary but effective turbine when the wind comes from the side. It’s beautifully simple, and we wish we’d thought of it ourselves. The whole thing is in the video below the break, so take a look.
Maybe this won’t solve the green energy requirement on its own, but
we’ve shown you far larger fabric turbines in the past
. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6612077",
"author": "Justin",
"timestamp": "2023-03-09T16:55:14",
"content": "Really useful info. Please send us some more on wind power.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6612180",
"author": "RunnerPack",
"timestamp": "20... | 1,760,372,371.858222 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/09/the-first-gui-volscan-controls-the-air/ | The First Gui? Volscan Controls The Air | Al Williams | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"light gun",
"Light Pen",
"retrocomputing"
] | In the 1950s, computers were, for the most part, ponderous machines. But one machine offered a glimpse of the future. The Volscan was probably the first real air traffic computer designed to handle high volumes of military aircraft operations. It used a light gun that looked more like a soldering gun than a computer input device. There isn’t much data about Volscan, but it appears to have been before its time, and had arguably the first GUI on a computer system ever.
The Air Force had a problem. The new — in the 1950s — jets needed long landing approaches and timely landings since they burned more fuel at lower altitudes. According to the Air Force, they could land 40 planes in an hour, but they needed to be able to do 120 planes an hour. The Whirlwind computer had proven that computers could process radar data — although Whirlwind was getting the data over phone lines from a distance. So the Air Force’s Cambridge Research Center started working on a computerized system to land planes called Volscan, later known as AN/GSN-3.
Keep in mind that SAGE, the NORAD computer that appeared in movies like Dr. Strangelove, was still in the future, and we imagine Volscan informed that design. The Volscan system was made to be robust and relatively simple.
How It Worked
The system had two identical traffic operator consoles and a monitor console. Each console had the traditional plan position indicator screen or PPI. You know the PPI; it looks like the adjacent graphic. Each operator console had a panel controlling 7 “ANTRACS” and 7 “DATACS.”
The ANTRACS track aircraft. The operator would point at a blip with a light gun. Think of it as a light pen with a handle. Once an ANTRAC saw a blip, it would take ownership of it and draw a box around it that they called a gate. The ANTRAC would update the gate as the blip moved.
To do this, the ANTRAC would estimate roughly where the plane should be on the next radar pass and examine that area to see where the plane really was. If there was no signal, it could continue to show an estimated position.
An operator selects a plane on her PPI using a light gun.
The actual landing planning was the job of the DATAC. It would automatically select an arrival schedule time and compute a heading, altitude, and speed that the plane needs to meet the schedule. It also compares the plane’s true position with the desired position and updates the orders as needed. Remember that to make the system’s throughput goals, they needed to land a plane every 30 seconds. Also, planes operate at different speeds, so the system had to account for faster planes tending to overtake slower planes.
The actual orders were, most likely, relayed to the pilot by radio, although there was a provision to send the data automatically. The system could even interface with the plane’s autopilot. The system would get the plane to where it would be ready to use the airport’s existing landing systems and then move on to the next plane.
Scale and Reliability
A Radio Electronics magazine cover shows the system with a slightly different-looking gun.
The system could scale easily by adding a console and seven channels to handle more traffic. The reason there were at least two consoles was for redundancy. If a console or a bank of channels went down, the other would carry on at a reduced rate.
The designers were proud that each channel contained only 60 tubes. In fact, it is impressive they could do all this with 60 devices. That was important because tubes are not only power-hungry but also prone to failure. A smaller number of tubes meant the devices were cheaper to build, cheaper to operate, and less prone to break down.
The controllers were made to handle landing aircraft at points within two miles of the radar. However, it could operate at a reduced rate from up to 60 miles away.
The entire system and its radar fit in these two trailers.
Not bad for 1950s technology. The project took five years to complete, and the estimated cost per installation was $100,000. That doesn’t sound like too much today, but that is a little more than a million dollars in today’s money. The entire system was able to fit in two trailers, so it was portable… sort of.
Certainly, the airforce would have been interested in deploying such a system to forward air bases or even captured airports in a time of war. Of course, broadcasting your position with an active radar isn’t always a good idea in modern warfare, but depending on your situation, you might be able to get away with it.
There’s no telling how much power the system took, but we assume it was connected to the mains or there was another trailer with the generator.
Reaction
An article in Flying Safety (an Air Force Publication from 1953) quoted Captain Bob Deiz, who had used Volscan for hundreds of flights. He said:
To illustrate the need for the Volscan system, one morning I took off with a 300-foot ceiling and proceeded to the Volscan practice area. In one hour and 15 minutes, I had made four Volscan letdowns to VFR, in one case breaking through the celing at less than 100 feet. On leaving the practice area, I could not get a definite altitude assignment to the home station range, but was assigned 500 feet on top, which put me at 9,000 feet.
Arriving over the range, I was notified that since I was eight in order, my approach time would be one hour and 20 minutes later. During the period of holding, three jet aircraft arrived over the range and were paced ahead of all other traffic. It was not until one hour and 45 minutes after I reported over the high cone that I was able to land. Volscan, 32 miles from there under the same weather conditions could have laned all 11 of the various types of aircraft in less than 12 minutes.
Early light gun from Whirlwind.
There seemed to be various light guns used, probably at different times. We know light guns were used on the earlier Whirlwind and SAGE, which came later. Later, the light pen would be the
de facto
size standard.
We’d call something like Volscan an AMAN or arrivals manager these days. Of course, more computerized air traffic control was on its way. Light pens would come and go as an input device. But the idea of interacting directly with something on the screen may have started with Volscan or its predecessor, Whirlwind.
Can’t get enough oddball input devices? We
can’t either
. If you have a CRT and want to interface a vintage light pen,
we can help with that too
. | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6612099",
"author": "smellsofbikes",
"timestamp": "2023-03-09T17:31:52",
"content": "There’s some more detail on the system here:https://www.tc.faa.gov/its/worldpac/techrpt/TDR%20330.pdfThis is from an evaluation done on the system in 1954. It has a lot of operational data but very... | 1,760,372,372.005789 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/09/bunnie-peeks-inside-ics-with-ir/ | [Bunnie] Peeks Inside ICs With IR | Al Williams | [
"digital cameras hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"decapsulation",
"reverse engineering"
] | If you want to see inside an integrated circuit (IC), you generally have to take the die out of the package, which can be technically challenging and often destroys the device. Looking to improve the situation, [Bunnie] has been working on
Infra-Red,
In Situ
(IRIS)
inspection of silicon devices. The technique relies on the fact that newer packages expose the backside of the silicon die and that silicon is invisible to IR light. The IR reflects off the bottom metalization layer and you can get a pretty good idea of what’s going on inside the chip, under the right circumstances.
As you might expect, the resolution isn’t what you’d get from, say, a scanning electron microscope or other techniques. However, using IR is reasonably cheap and doesn’t require removal from the PCB. That means you can image exactly the part that is in the device, without removing it. Of course, you need an IR-sensitive camera, which is about any camera these days if you remove the IR filter from it. You also need an IR source which isn’t very hard to do these days, either.
Do you need the capability to peer inside your ICs? You might not. But if you do and you can live with the limitations of this method, it would be a very inexpensive way to get a glimpse behind the curtain.
If you want to try the old-fashioned way,
we can help
. Just don’t expect
to be as good as [Ken]
at doing it right away.
https://bunniefoo.com/iris/ir-microscopy-demo_sm.mp4
https://bunniefoo.com/iris/iris_at_home_sm.mp4 | 20 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6611965",
"author": "Ralph Doncaster (Nerd Ralph)",
"timestamp": "2023-03-09T12:29:21",
"content": "This would be great for detecting fake chips. Package it together to make it portable, and bring it on your shopping trips at the SEG.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"r... | 1,760,372,372.06371 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/09/rv-bridge-takes-homekit-to-the-open-road/ | RV-Bridge Takes HomeKit To The Open Road | Arya Voronova | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"camper",
"canbus",
"rv",
"rv-c"
] | In the world of proprietary protocol darkness, it’s comforting to see that the RV realm (Recreational Vehicle, also known as a motorhome) has mostly settled on RV-C, an open protocol that lets various devices and systems inside an RV talk to each other over CAN. The undeniable openness of RV-C is surprising, but we haven’t seen many hobbyists tinker with it — yet.
Now, [Randy Ubillos] sets an example — his gift to us is an
ESP32 firmware called RV-Bridge
and it lets you control your RV’s RV-C network from HomeKit. After all, your motorhome could benefit from home automation, too!
The RV-C network in [Randy]’s family RV already had a factory-provided front-end and an iOS app, but naturally, it had a limited set of features. Having looked around online he found that both RV-C and HomeKit had open libraries for them, and set out to join these worlds together.
Now he’s released the first revision of RV-Bridge, fully-featured enough for comfortable day-to-day use, and
with a setup guide
for those who want to try it out! When it comes to hardware, you’ll want an ESP32 board with CAN support — [Randy] has found a perfect board for sale, and made it even more fitting by designing a 3D printed case for RV use; as usual, files are
on GitHub
!
Making your stock RV more comfy through hacker methods is exactly what we expect to grace our tips line! The kinds of RV projects we’ve seen so far, are also outstandingly cool, yet of different kind – things like building your own RVs out of something not meant to be an RV, whether it’s an
abandoned airliner
, a
school bus,
or
a jet engine!
Oh, and if your hackerspace owns a RV, you can always convert it to something else, be it
a mobile hackerspace
or
a spaceship simulator. | 20 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6611933",
"author": "rndsort",
"timestamp": "2023-03-09T11:19:33",
"content": "I assume the reason not many RV-C projects exist is because RVs are bloody expensive. Especially newer ones that would have such amenities. Think about the Venn diagram of hardware hackers, people who are... | 1,760,372,372.124914 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/08/old-tv-to-rgb/ | Old TV To RGB | Jenny List | [
"classic hacks",
"Video Hacks"
] | [
"crt",
"rgb",
"tv"
] | As CRT televisions have faded from use, it’s become important for retro gaming enthusiasts to get their hands on one for that authentic experience. Alongside that phenomenon has been a resurgence of some of the hacks we used to do to CRT TV sets back in the day, as [Adrian’s Digital Basement] shows us
when he adds an RGB interface to a mid-1990s Sony Trinitron
.
Those of us lucky enough to have lived in Europe at the time were used to TVs with SCART sockets by the mid-1990s so no longer needed to plumb in RGB signals, but it appears that Americans were still firmly in the composite age. The TV might have only had a composite input, but this hack depends on many the video processor chips of the era having RGB input pins. If your set has a mains-isolated power supply then these pins can be hooked up with relative ease.
In the case of this little Sony, the RGB lines were used by the integrated on-screen display. He takes us through the process of pulling out these lines and interfacing to them, and comes up with a 9-pin D connector with the same pinout as a Commodore monitor, wired to the chip through a simple RC network and a sync level divider. There’s also a switch that selects RGB or TV mode, driving the OSD blanking pin on the video processor.
We like this hack just as much as we did when we were applying it to late-80s British TV sets, and it’s a great way to make an old TV a lot more useful. You can see it in the video below the break, so get out there and find a late-model CRT TV to try it on while stocks last!
Unsurprisingly,
this mod has turned up here a few times in the past
. | 19 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6611807",
"author": "James",
"timestamp": "2023-03-09T06:33:38",
"content": "The GBS-8200 with the GBS-Control does a pretty good job for us without hackable TV’s. Neat hack though.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6611842",
... | 1,760,372,372.197486 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/08/bode-plot-un-lecture/ | Bode Plot Un-Lecture | Al Williams | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"Bode plots",
"math"
] | [Rolinychupetin] insists that his
recent video
is not a lecture but actually a “recitation” about Bode plots. That may be, but it is still worth a watch if you want to learn more about the topic. You can see the video below.
If you haven’t run into Bode plots before, they are simple plots of magnitude or phase vs. frequency, usually plotted on a log scale. Named after Bell Lab’s [Hendrik Wade Bode], they are useful for understanding filters or anything with a frequency response.
Of particular interest are the zeros and poles of the graph. Simplistically, you can think of these as the dips and peaks of the response curve. The math is a bit more complicated than that, but you can learn more in the video.
Of course, these days, we are more likely to see a Bode plot from a simulation tool or
test instrument
than plot them by hand, but it is good to understand what’s going on. As you might expect, if you can generate a frequency sweep, it isn’t that hard to display a
Bode plot on an oscilloscope
. Or just use a
network analyzer
. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6611841",
"author": "Chris Maple",
"timestamp": "2023-03-09T07:55:02",
"content": "This “45 degrees per decade” is just wrong. Phase is not ‘degrees per decade’, it’s just degrees.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6611850",
... | 1,760,372,372.301585 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/10/cornell-updates-their-mcu-course-for-the-rp2040/ | Cornell Updates Their MCU Course For The RP2040 | Chris Lott | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"bruce land",
"Cornell University",
"ece4760",
"hunter adams",
"lecture",
"microcontrollers",
"rp2040"
] | The School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University has made [Bruce Land]’s lectures and materials for the
Designing with Microcontrollers
(ECE 4760) course available for many years. But recently [Bruce], who semi-retired in 2020, and the new lecturer [Hunter Adams] have reworked the course and labs to use the Raspberry Pi Pico. You can see the introductory lecture of the reworked class below.
Not only are the videos available online, but
the class’s GitHub repository
hosts extensive and well-documented examples, lecture notes, and helpful links. If you want to get started with RP2040 programming, or just want to dig deeper into a particular technique, this is a great place to start.
From what we can tell, this is the third overhaul of the class this century. Back in 2012 the course was using the ATmega1284 AVR microcontroller, and in 2015 it switched to the Microstick II using a Microchip PIC32MX. Not only were these lecture series also available free online, but each has been maintained as reference after being replaced. One common thread with all of these platforms is their low cost of entry. Assuming you already have a computer, setting up the hardware and software development environment for these modules costs less than the price of a pizza dinner, a fact no doubt appreciated by the ECE department’s budget director.
We’ve covered this course before back in 2015 when it first changed. Another
free online course on embedded system design
is from [Prof James Conrad] at UNC Charlotte, based on the Renasas RX63N microcontroller — the UNC Charlotte team drove development of the autonomous vehicle project
we covered back in 2009
. If you know of other online embedded systems classes, let us know in the comments below. | 16 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6612695",
"author": "Kathy Giori",
"timestamp": "2023-03-10T14:26:53",
"content": "Aha! Now students in the class (or viewing the materials) could also program the RP2040 with the most user-friendly IDE available for microcontrollers — MicroBlocks! It lets users focus on the physica... | 1,760,372,373.077193 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/10/a-tape-loop-echo-you-can-build/ | A Tape Loop Echo You Can Build | Jenny List | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"cassette tape",
"tape loop"
] | Echo and reverb are now electronic audio effects done in a computer or an integrated circuit, but originally they were achieved through mechanical means. Reverb units used springs, and echo units used loops of magnetic tape. As a musician hankering after a mechanical tape echo unit, [Adam Paul] was left with no choice but to build his own. We featured an early prototype, but
now he’s back with a finished version
that’s intended to be replicated by other musicians.
The unit takes a cassette mechanism from one of the last still-manufactured players available through the usual sources. It splits record and play heads, with the normal cassette replaced with a tape loop made from extra-thick computer tape. A custom PCB replaces most of the electronics, and the auto-reverse system is disabled.
The result is a functional tape echo system, as can be seen in the video below the break. This is ready to build yourself,
with everything on a GitHub repository
and
an extremely comprehensive build guide
, so do any of you fancy a go?
Read about the device’s earlier incarnation here
. | 18 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6612575",
"author": "Zapro",
"timestamp": "2023-03-10T09:42:02",
"content": "Both spindles doesn’t turn? Noooooo",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6612580",
"author": "daveboltman",
"timestamp": "2023-03-10T09:57... | 1,760,372,372.523005 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/09/videos-teach-bare-metal-rp2040/ | Videos Teach Bare Metal RP2040 | Al Williams | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Software Development"
] | [
"assembler",
"assembly",
"pico"
] | When we write about retrocomputers, we realize that back in the day, people knew all the details of their computer. You had to, really, if you wanted to get anything done. These days, we more often pick peripherals and just assume our C or other high level code will fit and run on the CPU.
But sometimes you need to get down to the bare metal and if your desire is to use bare metal on the RP2040, [Will Thomas] has a YouTube channel to help you. The
first video explains why you might want to do this
followed by
some simple examples
. Then you’ll find over a dozen other videos that give you details.
Any video that starts, “Alright, Monday night. I have no friends. It is officially bare metal hours,” deserves your viewing. Of course, you have to start with the traditional blinking LED. But subsequent videos talk about the second core, GPIO, clocks, SRAM, spinlocks, the UART, and plenty more.
As you might expect, the code is all in assembly. But even if you want to program using C without the SDK, the examples will be invaluable. We like assembly — it is like working an intricate puzzle and getting anything to work is satisfying. We get it. But commercially, it rarely makes sense to use assembly anymore. On the other hand, when you need it, you really need it. Besides, we all do things for fun that don’t make sense commercially.
We like assembly,
especially on platforms where most people don’t use it
. Tackling it on a modern CPU is daunting, but if you want to have a go,
we know someone who can help
. | 31 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6612523",
"author": "Marvin",
"timestamp": "2023-03-10T07:45:32",
"content": "Mayby I’m too old, but I think youtube is not the right tool for this kind of tutorial…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6612537",
"author": ... | 1,760,372,374.847061 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/09/physics-controlled-component-auto-placer/ | Physics-Controlled Component Auto-Placer | Chris Lott | [
"PCB Hacks"
] | [
"auto placement",
"force-directed algorithms",
"KiCAD",
"parts placement",
"placement"
] | [Jarrett] recently stumbled upon a class of drawing algorithms called force-directed graphs, which artificially apply forces to the elements. The final graph is then generated by applying the laws of physics and letting the system reach equilibrium. This can often result in a pleasing presentation of things like mind maps and other diagrams without having to hand-place everything. He realized that this approach almost mimics the way he places components when doing a PCB layout. Out of curiosity or intense boredom, we’re not sure which, he decided to
implement this in a tool
that interacts with KiCad ( see animated GIF below the break ).
He has to ignore certain nets such as power and ground rails, because they distort the result. This simulation treats the nets as springs, and the center of each footprint behaves a charged particle. [Jarrett] added a twist, literally, to the usual implementations — each net pulls on its pin, not the part center, and therefore the chips will both rotate and be pushed around as the system stabilizes.
The results are sometimes quite striking. Useful? Dubious, but maybe!
The project
code is up on GitHub
, but is very experimental and he is unlikely to carry it further. Among the missing features, the Python code must be tweaked for each different netlist files and other parameters, and there is no way to feed the result back into KiCad. But this is enough for [Jarrett], who only set out to see if the concept was possible. The code is available if anyone wants to try their hand at taking this to the next level. | 9 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6612445",
"author": "DerAxeman",
"timestamp": "2023-03-10T03:52:27",
"content": "I had an idea for something just like this about a decade ago. It would be great for auto placement of parts for pcb layout. Unfortunately i didn’t have an open source cad package at the time so I just ... | 1,760,372,374.698706 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/09/power-tool-battery-fume-extractor/ | Power Tool Battery Fume Extractor | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"fume extractor",
"power tool battery",
"soldering"
] | A solder fume extractor is something we could probably all use. While there isn’t much to them, [Steven Bennett] put a lot of thought into making one that was better for him, and we
admired his design process
, as well as the extractor fan itself. You can see the finished result in the video below.
The electrical design, of course, is trivial. A computer fan, a switch, and a battery — in this case, a Makita power tool battery. But the Fusion 360 design for the 3D printed parts got a lot of thought to make this one of the best fume extractor fans we’ve seen.
There are a lot of details that go into making something like this look professional. For example, the plastic used matches the Makita color scheme, and the nameplate matches the Makita logo. Knowing how to interface with the battery opens up a lot of portable projects. For example, we use a similar battery to power our portable soldering irons.
This is one of those projects where you can
easily get carried away
. But [Steven’s] design is simple yet functional. Sometimes it seems like the overriding design factor
is color matching
. | 19 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6612348",
"author": "Olivier",
"timestamp": "2023-03-10T00:46:09",
"content": "Great build & video about the process behind it 👍",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6613207",
"author": "Ewald",
"timestamp": "2023-... | 1,760,372,374.756734 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/09/a-guided-tour-of-the-nes/ | A Guided Tour Of The NES | Tom Nardi | [
"Nintendo Hacks",
"Teardown"
] | [
"6502",
"nes",
"Nintendo Entertainment System",
"tour"
] | No matter your age or background, there’s an excellent chance you’ll recognize the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) at first glance. The iconic 8-bit system not only revitalized the gaming industry, but helped to establish the “blueprint” of console gaming for decades to come. It’s a machine so legendary and transformative that even today, it enjoys a considerable following. Some appreciate the more austere approach to gaming from a bygone era, while others are fascinated with the functional aspects of console.
The
NesHacker
YouTube channel
is an excellent example of that latter group. Host [Ryan] explores the ins and outs of the NES as a platform, with a leaning towards the software techniques used to push the system’s 6502 processor to the limits. Even if you aren’t terribly interested in gaming, the videos on assembly programming and optimization are well worth a watch for anyone writing code for vintage hardware.
A color-coded map of the NES PCB
In truth we’re a bit late to this party, as the channel has been up and running for about a year now. But a recent installment, titled
“NES Hardware Explained”
is what really got us interested. In this video, [Ryan] first takes the console apart in classic teardown style, showing how all the bits and pieces come together. That includes the occasional pause to show the pinout of a particular connector or some other interesting hardware detail.
After that, he breaks the main PCB down section-by-section, explaining the function of each IC on the board. This is a particularly nice resource for anyone who might need to do some repair work on their system, or perhaps those looking to
piece together their own breadboard NES clone
. We appreciate that he also takes the time to explain how to put the system back together, paying close attention to getting its notoriously finicky cartridge connector working again.
We really like the style of the
NesHacker
videos, which are well produced without feeling forced. There’s no annoying music or shocked-face thumbnails, just a competent discussion of a fascinating device. While this latest entry might be a bit pedestrian for some in the audience, we’re willing to bet the
previous deep-dives [Ryan] has uploaded
to the channel will teach you something new about this legendary machine. | 9 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6612267",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2023-03-09T22:08:54",
"content": "At least, it had proper shielding. And an good old 7805.. 🙂👍",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6612564",
"author": "Francis Stokes",
... | 1,760,372,374.900487 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/09/measuring-a-millisecond-mechanically/ | Measuring A Millisecond Mechanically | Al Williams | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"history"
] | If you are manufacturing something, you have to test it. It wouldn’t do, for example, for your car to say it was going 60 MPH when it was really going 90 MPH. But if you were making a classic Leica camera back in the early 20th century, how do you measure a shutter that operates at 1/1000 of a second — a millisecond — without modern electronics? The answer is a
special stroboscope
that would look at home in any cyberpunk novel. [SmarterEveryDay] visited a camera restoration operation in Finland, and you can see the machine in action in the video below.
The machine has a wheel that rotates at a fixed speed. By imaging a pattern through the camera, you can determine the shutter speed. The video shows a high-speed video of the shutter operation which is worth watching, and it also explains exactly how the rotating disk combined with the rotating shutter allows the measurement.
The marks on the spinning drum move at a precise speed adjusted by a stroboscope. The rolling shutter on the camera shows each horizontal bar as a diagonal line and the exact pattern will show the precise speed. The lines are a bit curved due to the characteristic of the shutter spring.
Honestly, this is one of those things that is probably of zero practical value today. But we never fail to marvel at the ingenuity of engineers who didn’t
have access to modern technology
.
Or materials
, for that matter.
Thanks to [zit] for the tip! | 23 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6612228",
"author": "Michel Wurtz",
"timestamp": "2023-03-09T20:50:58",
"content": "I love this mechanical ingenuity… But for me it was easier to use a 6502 Sym-1 development board with a photo-transistor to measure the shutter speed of my analog reflex camera some years ago… Today... | 1,760,372,375.096579 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/07/this-retro-game-console-puts-vacuum-fluorescent-display-to-good-use/ | This Retro Game Console Puts Vacuum Fluorescent Display To Good Use | Dan Maloney | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"classic hacks"
] | [
"conways game of life",
"game console",
"noritake",
"snake",
"vacuum fluorescent display",
"vfd"
] | Small in size, low-resolution, blocky segments, and a limited color palette — all characteristics of the typical vacuum fluorescent display, any of which would seem to disqualify them as the display of choice for a lot of applications. But this is Hackaday, and we don’t really pay much attention to what we’re supposed to do, but rather to what’s fun and cool to do. So when we see something like
a VFD game console
, we just have to sit up and take notice.
In a lot of ways, the design of [Simon Boak]’s Arduino-based VFD console is driven by his choice of display. The Noritake Itron GU20X8-301 VFD is a “tricolor” display with eight rows of 20 rectangular pixels. Each pixel is composed of six short linear segments, with alternating red and blue colors. Turning on either set of segments yields one of the two base colors, while turning on both yields a sorta-kinda whitish color, if you squint a bit.
[Simon] chose a two-piece design for his console, with a separate controller and display. The controller holds the Arduino Nano and all the controls, plus a piezo buzzer for fun. The display case connects to the controller with a ribbon cable and holds the VFD power supply and driver. To celebrate the retro look of the VFD, both cases are decked out with woodgrain side panels. [Simon] chose appropriately blocky games for the console, like
Snake
, Conway’s Game of Life, and the venerable snow demo. We’d imagine
Pong
would be a good choice too, as well as perhaps
Tetris
if the display were flipped on its side.
We really like the look of this console, and we appreciate putting an otherwise obsolete display to use in a creative way. If you want to learn a little more about these displays, check out
this love letter to the VFD
. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6610805",
"author": "greenbit",
"timestamp": "2023-03-07T20:41:30",
"content": "There’s just something so satisfying about the particular glow you get from hurling electrons through space and then slamming them to a stop.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,375.140381 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/07/laptop-motherboard-lets-boot-and-tinker/ | Laptop Motherboard? Let’s Boot And Tinker | Arya Voronova | [
"Featured",
"laptops hacks",
"Original Art",
"Skills"
] | [
"motherboard",
"reuse"
] | Last time, I’ve shared my experience on why you might want to
consider a laptop motherboard for a project of yours
, and noted some things you might want to keep in mind if buying one for a project. Now, let’s go through the practical considerations!
Making It Boot
Usually, when you plug some RAM and a charger into a board, then press the power button, your board should boot up and eventually show the BIOS on the screen. However, there will be some caveats – it’s very firmware-dependent. Let me walk you through some confusing situations you might encounter.
If the board was unpowered for a while, first boot might take longer – or it might power on immediately after a charger has been plugged in, and then, possibly, power off. A bit of erratic behaviour is okay, since boards might need to do memory training, or recover after having lost some CMOS settings. Speaking of those, some boards will not boot without a CMOS battery attached, and some will go through the usual ‘settings lost’ sequence. Sometimes, the battery will be on a daughterboard, other times, especially with new boards, there will be no CR2032 in sight and the board will rely on the main battery to provide CMOS settings saving functions – in such case, if you don’t use the battery, expect the first boot to take longer, at least. Overall, however, pressing the power switch will cause the board to boot.
Don’t have a LCD to go with your mainboard? Some boards will not show any image through HDMI or VGA ports during boot, only programmed to use the internal screen. Other boards will show an image through VGA, but not HDMI, or vice-versa. If you stumble upon such a board, do know that it will show an external image when you boot into the OS – either at the bootloader stage or at the OS bootscreen stage. If you’d like to check whether your board is booting, connect an external keyboard to it – as you will likely want to do anyway. During boot, the three LEDs on your keyboard (NumLock, CapsLock and ScrollLock) will flash – you’ve likely seen this on-boot pattern, and this situation is no different. In addition to that, if they don’t flash, you can check whether your CPU is responsive, by pressing the CapsLock key and seeing if the associated LED toggles.
Let’s say you have a live CD or OS install flashdrive. Are you plugging your boot flashdrive into a USB3 port on your board? Try a USB2-only port – many boards, especially early USB3 boards with PCIe controllers, won’t support booting over USB3. Whether you’re using a flashdrive or a HDD with an already installed OS, if it doesn’t boot into that, you should check – is BIOS set for UEFI or legacy boot mode? It’s not always both, and sometimes USB boot is disabled by default. If you’re booting blind, without BIOS access, images like
SystemRescueCD
are programmed with support for both UEFI and legacy modes, so you might want to put that onto a LiveUSB to check.
Overall, I’ve had great success booting laptop boards – as much as the initial behaviour can be confusing, now you know what to expect. The power button often could use being extended – I usually solder to the power button pins and add a cable, which helps the unideal mechanics of the default power button location. You can put some glue on the solder points afterwards, and make sure to add some strain relief to the cable to avoid the cable breaking off eventually. Try pulling it through one of the multiple holes that all motherboards have.
Mechanicals
Let’s talk more about the mechanical aspects! Laptop boards don’t have any kind of standardized mounting hole patterns, and measuring out the hole locations might just be a waste of your time. The simplest way you can go is mounting it to a wood board or sheet of some kind – I use lasercuttable birch sheets a lot for quick “put a board somewhere” builds.
Place the motherboard on top of the sheet, hold it steady, use a pencil or marker to mark the hole locations, move the board away, drill through the marked holes, then use something to fasten the board – standoffs will work wonders, and even self-tapping screws or nails will work in a pinch if they’re long and thin enough for the motherboard holes. Make sure that the mainboard isn’t bent after you’ve fastened it to the sheet! If you need to add speakers, battery, WiFi antennas, USB hubs, feel free to fasten them to the same sheet – given a drill, some glue and tape, you can do it all.
That said, you don’t have to go for quick and dirty; laptop motherboard reuse can also look good. If it’s visible, feel free to mount a piece of lasercut acrylic in front of it, both for protection and for fancy looks purposes. Or, perhaps, tech it up – route the wires in a pretty way, add some functional or aesthetic LEDs, use cables and connectors of the same colour as the PCB, there’s plenty of ways to go about it. Alternatively, you can omit all of it and stove the board away under a work desk – if it’s part of your infrastructure, it’s not meant to be touched often, anyway.
One thing, however – make sure you protect the board from any metal parts that might short it out. I’ve built a pretty fun project once – an AiO with a lasercut layered case, built basically out of leftovers, and I aimed it to be a luggable machine for hackerspace use. Sadly, as I was building it, I put some metal parts onto it without disconnecting the power – and the mainboard perished. Ultimately, the project wasn’t worth to me enough that I would pay 50 € for a new board, and I had to shelve it – such occasions are sad, and entirely preventable as long as you’re cautious.
Want More? There Is More
Of course, you might not be completely satisfied by what an off-the-shelf mainboard has in store.
Could you benefit from some I2C in your project, whether for sensors, drivers or something else? Laptop motherboards have plenty of I2C, and loading the i2c-dev kernel module on Linux will show you quite a few. You can find I2C on HDMI and VGA ports, slots like ExpressCard, as well as onboard sensor ICs and RAM slots – though the two latter ones might not be user-accessible. You won’t get GPIOs, unless you manage to reprogram your EC – however, you can absolutely connect a GPIO expander chip over I2C, like the PCF8574 or the MCP23017, and control whatever low-tech device you want. On Windows, I2C isn’t accessible save for hacky or expensive solutions, so you might want to go the external microcontroller route instead if Windows is a requirement.
Whichever signals you might want to solder to, they’re usually well-documented or can easily be figured out. I2C on HDMI, VGA, and ExpressCard is extensively documented. USB can be figured out from differential pair trace layout and things like signal inductor pairs, and for power buttons, there’s no shortage of pins to solder to. However, if you’re looking for more, schematics will help, and here’s how.
Say, you want to add a few buttons to your project – you could absolutely use the keyboard connector, because many laptop keyboards are straightforward key matrices, not even requiring any diodes in a way that the usual keyboards do. However, you will want to know which pins on the keyboard connector are rows and which are columns, so that you know where buttons could be wired up to. Schematics will tell you that, and way more. If your specific board doesn’t have schematics available, you can at least check for keyboard compatibility on online marketplaces, and see if any of the claimed-compatible laptops has schematics available – if a laptop keyboard is compatible with a few different laptops, knowing the pinout for one will be enough.
Need a bit more power in your project, and don’t mind the power source being a tad variable when on battery power? Laptops usually have a main power rail that provides power to all the other rails, from 3.3 V and 5 V to the CPU power input. It has a wide voltage range – as high as the charger voltage, or as low as the lower bound of the included battery pack. As you can guess, this rail is powered from the charger when it’s connected, and from the battery otherwise. If your board needs to power, say, an Ethernet switch that wants 9 V, adding a sufficiently beefy buck converter tapped into the main power rail will save you from needing an external power brick.
Oh, and there’s a trick the 2.5″ HDD industry doesn’t want you to know. If you have a free PCIe slot in your laptop, be it from miniPCIe or from ExpressCard, you can put a NVMe SSD into it using an adapter. This is useful if you have some cheap NVMe SSDs, as lower-capacity ones have been coming down in price recently, or if you want to avoid the fundamental unreliability of spinning rust while not settling for 2.5″ SSDs. If your BIOS doesn’t support booting from NVMe,
use a flashdrive with Clover,
or perhaps, put Clover onto an SD card plugged into the onboard SD reader – if your laptop can boot from that; not all laptops can, do check.
Software And Exploration
When it comes to software, I’d recommend going with Linux wherever possible, unless you don’t have any experience with it, and even then, it might be easy enough for you . Of course, when you want the computer to interface with some x86-only software, that usually implies a Windows requirement as well. Other than such scenarios, Linux will be overall more reliable for ‘machine dedicated to a certain task’ goal – on Windows, you usually have to wage battle to achieve the same things that we take for granted when working on a Raspberry Pi Linux stack.
Is this all? No, there’s way more that you can find –
exploring
the various boards you find, adding
everything and the kitchen sink,
building custom keyboards,
tapping into PCIe links
for your high-speed expansion needs,
adding RAM slots
where none was meant to be,
replacing RAM
and
CPUs
that wasn’t meant to be replaced, tinkering with expansion standards like miniPCIe and
M.2
, hacking your
EC firmware,
building
a wooden enclosure
around the board, | 12 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6610672",
"author": "Steve M.",
"timestamp": "2023-03-07T15:53:05",
"content": "Also, if you need GPIOs, take a look athttps://lab.whitequark.org/notes/2017-11-08/accessing-intel-ich-pch-gpios/.For many Laptops you can find schematics, and I justed tested this on an old Dell Latitud... | 1,760,372,375.337761 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/07/probably-the-most-over-specified-calculator-to-ever-be-manufactured/ | Probably The Most Over-Specified Calculator To Ever Be Manufactured | Jenny List | [
"Android Hacks"
] | [
"android",
"calculator",
"electronic calculator"
] | It’s possible quite a few of our older readers will remember the period from the 1960s into the ’70s when an electronic calculator was the cutting edge of consumer-grade digital technology. By the 1980s though, they were old hat and could be bought for only a few dollars, a situation that remains to this day. But does that mean calculator development dead?
Perhaps not, as [Li Zexi] writes for
CNX Software
, when he reviews
a simple non-scientific calculator that packs an Alwinner A50 tablet SoC and the Android operating system
. As shipped they lack the Android launcher, so they aren’t designed to run much more than the calculator app. Of course that won’t stop somebody who knows their way around Google’s mobile operating system for very long — at the end of the review, there’s some shots of the gadget running
Minecraft
and playing streaming video.
These devices can be had for not a lot on the Chinese second-hand electronics market, and after an extensive teardown he comes to the conclusion that besides their novelty they’re an older specification so not really worth buying.
But it does beg the question as to why such a product was put into production when the same task could have been
performed using very cheap microcontroller
. Further, having done so they make it a non-scientific machine, not even bestowing it with anything that could possibly justify the hardware. Is there a use case he, and us, have missed? We’d love to know.
We cover a lot of calculator stories here at Hackaday. Sometimes they’re classic machines, but
more often they’re modern takes on an old idea
. | 38 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6610551",
"author": "zoobab",
"timestamp": "2023-03-07T12:06:01",
"content": "But nowhere to buy it?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6610612",
"author": "rpavlik",
"timestamp": "2023-03-07T14:01:35",
"c... | 1,760,372,375.224156 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/07/displaying-the-time-is-elemental-with-this-periodic-table-clock/ | Displaying The Time Is Elemental With This Periodic Table Clock | Dan Maloney | [
"clock hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"Chemistry",
"clock",
"ds1307",
"elements",
"neopixel",
"periodic table",
"rtc",
"ws2812b"
] | We see a lot of clocks here at Hackaday, so many now that it’s hard to surprise us. After all, there are only so many ways to divide the day into intervals, as well as a finite supply of geeky and quirky ways to display the results, right?
That’s why
this periodic table clock
really caught our eye. [gocivici]’s idea is a simple one: light up three different elements with three different colors for hours, minutes, and seconds, and read off the time using the atomic number of the elements. So, if it’s 13:03:23, that would light up aluminum in blue, lithium in green, and vanadium in red. The periodic table was designed in Adobe Illustrator and UV printed on a sheet of translucent plastic by an advertising company that specializes in such things, but we’d imagine other methods could be used. The display is backed by light guides and a baseplate to hold the WS2812D addressable LEDs, and a DS1307 RTC module gives the Arduino Nano a sense of time. The 3D printed frame of the clock has buttons for setting the time and controlling the clock; the brief video below shows it going through its paces.
We really like the attention to detail [gocivici] showed here; that UV printing really gave some great results. And what’s not to like about the geekiness of this clock? Sure, it may not be as action-packed as
a game of periodic table Battleship
, but it would make a great conversation starter. | 8 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6610489",
"author": "Marvin",
"timestamp": "2023-03-07T09:53:53",
"content": "Simple. Clean. Beautiful. Nerdy.Perfect!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6610719",
"author": "Publius Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2023-03-07T17:... | 1,760,372,374.942891 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/06/assembly-language-80s-minicomputer-style/ | Assembly Language 80’s Minicomputer Style | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"assembly language",
"retrocomputing"
] | In the days before computers usually used off-the-shelf CPU chips, people who needed a CPU often used something called “bitslice.” The idea was to have a building block chip that needed some surrounding logic and could cascade with other identical building block chips to form a CPU of any bit width that could do whatever you wanted to do. It was still harder than using a CPU chip, but not as hard as rolling your own CPU from scratch. [Usagi Electric] has a Centurion, which is a 1980s-vintage minicomputer based on a bitslice processor. He wanted to use it to
write assembly language programs targeting the same system
(or an identical one). You can see the video below.
Truthfully, unless you have a Centurion yourself, the details of this are probably not interesting. But if you have wondered what it was like to code on an old machine like this, you’ll enjoy the video. Even so, the process isn’t quite authentic since he uses a more modern editor written for the Centurion. Most editors from those days were more like CP/M ed or DOS edlin, which were painful, indeed.
The target program is a hard drive test, so part of it isn’t just knowing assembly but understanding how to interface with the machine. That was pretty common, too. You didn’t have a lot of help from canned routines in those days. For example, it was common to read an entire block from a hard drive, tape, or drum and have to figure out what part of it you were actually interested in instead of, say, opening a file and reading a stream of characters.
If nothing else, fast forward over to the 25-minute mark and see what a hard drive from that era looked like. Guess how much storage was on that monster? If you guessed more than 10 MB, you probably didn’t live through the 1980s. We won’t even guess what the price tag was, but you can bet it was spendy.
If you think entering programs like this is painful,
try a front panel
. That made
paper tape
seem like a great thing. | 19 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6610416",
"author": "k-ww",
"timestamp": "2023-03-07T06:29:00",
"content": "Ah yes, the joy of rolling your own instruction set – one of the fun projects I did for Q1 was designing and building a disk controller using the AMD 2900 series parts – it ran at a modest 5 million instruct... | 1,760,372,375.280299 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/06/the-eyes-have-it-stare-down-your-lighting/ | The Eyes Have It: Stare Down Your Lighting | Al Williams | [
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"Face detection",
"light switch",
"person sensor"
] | You know how you can feel when someone is looking at you? Thanks to a person detector, [Michael Rigsby’s] little robotic light switch also
knows when you are looking at it
. As you can see in the video below, when it notices you are looking at it, it lights up an LED. If you continue to gaze at it, it will turn to stare back at you. Keep staring it down and it will toggle the state of a remote control light switch.
This all works because of the person sensor module by Useful Sensors. The little module has a camera and face detection built into it. It doesn’t draw much power at 150 milliwatts. It can sense faces, including where they are and how many people are looking.
Once you have that data via I2C it is easy to program an Arduino or whatever to do what you want. In this case, an Uno, a servo motor, and some relays are all it takes. We might have made it interface with our smart home devices to turn on anything we want, but that would be an easy mod. The relays have the virtue of working with anything. For this project, he uses them to close switch contacts on a remote control.
You might think this is pointless, but look at all the
Clappers
that have been sold that do virtually the same thing in a much less elegant way. You can also use the sensor in reverse and make a robot or a clock that
is bashful
. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6610350",
"author": "Andy",
"timestamp": "2023-03-07T04:16:32",
"content": "The “person sensor” by “Useful Sensors” has been out of stock for quite a while.Does anyone know if they will re-stock soon or a place where the module is still available?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth... | 1,760,372,375.379981 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/06/your-phone-is-a-200x-microscope-sort-of/ | Your Phone Is A 200X Microscope — Sort Of | Al Williams | [
"digital cameras hacks"
] | [
"microscope",
"microscopy",
"mobile phone"
] | [A. Cemal Ekin] over on PetaPixel reviewed the
Apexel 200X LED Microscope Lens
. The relatively inexpensive accessory promises to transform your cell phone camera into a microscope. Of course, lenses that strap over your phone’s camera lens aren’t exactly a new idea, but this one looks a little more substantial than the usual piece of plastic in a spring-loaded clip. Does it work? You should read [Cemal’s] post for the details, but the answer — as you might have expected — is yes and no.
On the yes side, you can get some pretty neat photomicrographs from the adapter. On the negative side, your phone isn’t made to accommodate microscope samples. It also isn’t made to stay stable at 200X.
[Cemal] found the same sort of things we’ve found with other similar adapters. You need to zoom to fill the frame with the microscope’s image. Otherwise, you get an odd round image with darkness all around it. The microscope works best on something flat and has a very shallow depth of field, so anything poking in our out will probably be out of focus.
The unit did, however, look substantial and had a built-in rechargeable battery and an LED light. None of the photomicrographs looked bad, but you have to remember that you can’t really use it unless what you want a picture of is flat, and the camera can essentially lay flat on it.
Could you use this with an old phone and rig up a holder to make it better? Probably, but with the focal point basically being the back of the phone, it wouldn’t help much. Microscopes are relatively cheap these days so maybe put the $40 towards a better instrument.
If you have a DSLR, you might think about a
3D-printed microscope lens adapter
. Or, go big and build a
full-scale open source microscope
. | 19 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6610232",
"author": "craig",
"timestamp": "2023-03-07T00:42:54",
"content": "Lab microscopes need oil immersion to work at 100x due to properties of light and refraction or some other science stuff. 200x seems unpossible.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,375.437412 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/08/moving-magnet-draws-stylish-shapes-on-flexible-film/ | Moving Magnet Draws Stylish Shapes On Flexible Film | Robin Kearey | [
"Art",
"clock hacks"
] | [
"flexible PCB",
"linear motor",
"magnetic viewing film",
"PCB coil"
] | [Moritz v. Sivers] has a knack for making his own displays, which are typically based on some obscure physical effect. Magnetic viewing films, those thin plastic sheets that change color in response to a magnetic field, are his latest area of interest, as you can see in his
Magnetic Kinetic Art Display
.
The overall idea of the display is similar to a kinetic sand art table, in which a ball traces out shapes in a pile of sand. In [Moritz]’s project, the magnetic viewing film is the sand, and a 2 mm diameter magnet is the ball. The magnet is moved along the film by two sets of coils embedded inside a flex PCB mounted just below the film. One set of coils, on the top layer of the PCB, moves the magnet in the
x
direction, while a second set on the bottom layer moves it in the
y
direction.
The flex PCB is small, but carries lots of windings
[Moritz] used a flex PCB not because it had to be bendy, but to keep the two sets of coils as close together in the
z
direction as possible. This helps to avoid a big difference in strength between the two directions. To drive the coils, he used a pair of TB6612FNG stepper motor drivers, controlled by a Wemos D1 Mini.
The housing was 3D printed mostly from PLA, but with a few bits done in PETG. This was for structural rigidity as well as thermal performance — the coils can carry up to two amps and get pretty warm as a result.
The video, embedded below, shows some of the shapes that can be drawn: squares, spirals and even digits to turn the display into a clock. [Moritz] got the PCB coil idea from
a project by [bobricius]
, and cleverly extended it into a useful product. It’s not the first time [Moritz]
used magnetic viewing film to make a clock
, either. | 2 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6611127",
"author": "metalman",
"timestamp": "2023-03-08T11:45:27",
"content": "take a strong magnet to a crt,and depending on what islegaly consumable in your area,watch the muppets,withthe set upside down",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"com... | 1,760,372,375.695255 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/07/pulling-data-from-hdmi-rf-leakage/ | Pulling Data From HDMI RF Leakage | Jenny List | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"airgap",
"hdmi",
"sdr",
"video"
] | A long-running story in the world of electronic security has been the reconstruction of on-screen data using RF interference from monitors or televisions. From British TV detector vans half a century ago to 1980s scare stories about espionage, it was certainly easy enough to detect an analogue CRT with nothing more than an AM broadcast radio receiver. But can this still be done in the digital age? It’s something [Windytan] has looked into,
as she reconstructs images using leakage from HDMI cables
.
The tale starts with a mystery RF noise, soon identified as not unlike the scanning frequencies of a video signal. Plotting the noise intensities while treating the supposed scanning frequencies as video synchronization yields a shadowy version of her Raspberry Pi desktop, so she’s on to something. It’s important to note that this isn’t a video signal she’s receiving, but the noise associated with the bit transitions in an uncompressed digital video stream, so she quickly concludes that trying to resolve color would be futile.
It does however leave the tantalizing possibility of using this as a medium to wirelessly export data from a compromised machine, and it’s down this route she goes. She finally arrives on a scheme of encoding data as lines of individual colors that look like interference patterns over a desktop, and from there can send and retrieve files. It works for digital audio streams, and as shown in the video below, even an MJPEG video stream, hidden in the noise from a video signal. That’s impressive work, by any standard!
We covered those BBC detector vans
in detail a while back.
https://www.windytan.com/2023/02/using-hdmi-radio-interference-for-high.html | 25 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6611041",
"author": "zoobab",
"timestamp": "2023-03-08T07:24:55",
"content": "The analog version, Tempest for Elisa, back from the CRT days:http://www.erikyyy.de/tempest/",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6611048",
"author": "... | 1,760,372,375.96143 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/07/powercore-aims-to-bring-the-power-of-edm-to-any-3d-printer/ | Powercore Aims To Bring The Power Of EDM To Any 3D Printer | Dan Maloney | [
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"3d printer",
"arc",
"cnc",
"desktop manufacturing",
"EDM",
"electric discharge machining",
"machining",
"plasma",
"subtractive manufacturing"
] | The desktop manufacturing revolution has been incredible, unleashing powerful technologies that once were strictly confined to industrial and institutional users. If you doubt that, just look at 3D printing; with a sub-$200 investment, you can start making parts that have never existed before.
Sadly, though, most of this revolution has been geared toward making stuff from one or another type of plastic. Wouldn’t it be great if you could quickly whip up an aluminum part as easily and as cheaply as you can print something in PLA? That day might be at hand thanks to Powercore, a Kickstarter project that aims to bring the power of
electric discharge machining (EDM) to the home gamer
. The principle of EDM is simple — electric arcs can easily erode metal from a workpiece. EDM machines put that fact to work by putting a tool under CNC control and moving a precisely controlled electric arc around a workpiece to machine complex shapes quickly and cleanly.
Compared to traditional subtractive manufacturing, EDM is a very gentle affair. That’s what makes EDM attractive to the home lab; where the typical metal-capable CNC mill requires huge castings to provide the stiffness needed to contain cutting forces, EDM can use light-duty structures and still turn out precision parts. In fact, Powercore is designed to replace the extruder of a bog-standard 3D printer, and consists almost entirely of parts printed on the very same machine. The video below shows a lot of detail on Powercore, including the very interesting approach to keeping costs down by creating power resistors from PCBs.
While we tend to shy away from flogging crowdfunded projects, this one really seems like it might make a difference to desktop manufacturing and be a real boon to the home lab. It’s also worth noting that this project has roots in the Hackaday community, being based as it is on
[Dominik Meffert]’s sinker EDM machine
.
[David] tipped us off to this one. Thanks, [David]! | 39 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6610958",
"author": "KSburnout",
"timestamp": "2023-03-08T03:33:20",
"content": "Looks promising but I am 0 for 2 on Kickstarter and I won’t test my luck again. It would have gone swimmingly with the $99 Robotic Industries Build One 3D Printer that I ordered five years ago.My crite... | 1,760,372,376.034 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/07/a-ground-source-heat-pump-from-an-air-conditioner/ | A Ground Source Heat Pump From An Air Conditioner | Jenny List | [
"green hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"air conditioner",
"ground source heat pump",
"Heat pump"
] | When it comes to lower-energy home heating, it’s accurate in all senses to say that heat pumps are the new hotness. But unless you happen to work with them professionally, it’s fair to say their inner workings are beyond most of us. Help is at hand though courtesy of [petey53],
who made his own ground source heat pump for his Toronto house using a pair of window-mounted air conditioning units
.
A custom copper “trombone” is buried in the backyard.
An aircon unit is a heat pump that’s designed to scavenge heat from the air indoors and dump it into the warmer air outside. Thus it’s ideally suited to the task of doing the opposite, but the clever part lies in how he uses it as a ground source pump rather than an air source.
He carefully bent the tubing of the aircon to allow hot and cold radiators to sit in water baths, with the hot side feeding an underfloor heating loop and the cold side is a long length of pipe buried in the garden. Meanwhile, a Raspberry Pi paired with a repurposed Droid Alpha robot controller runs the pumps.
It’s exciting to see a relatively simple route into having a heat pump, and we’d hope to see more coming our way over time. We’ve seen
geothermal PC cooling
. Far more common, so far, have been
heat pump controllers. | 39 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6610923",
"author": "HaHa",
"timestamp": "2023-03-08T01:38:50",
"content": "That’s a hack alright.‘Hack’ is a funny word, it can be good or bad, depending on context.His cold side will freeze up. Water not a good choice. Also unlikely he buried ‘ground loop’ far enough underground (... | 1,760,372,375.786534 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/07/hacking-a-e15-8051-based-portable-soldering-iron-with-custom-firmware/ | Hacking A €15 8051-Based Portable Soldering Iron With Custom Firmware | Maya Posch | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"8051",
"soldering iron"
] | With soldering irons being so incredibly useful, and coming on the heels of the success of a range of portable, all-in-one soldering irons from the likes of Waveshare and Pine64, it’s little wonder that you can get such devices for as little as 10 – 15 Euro from websites like AliExpress. Making for both a great impulse buy and reverse-engineering target, [Aaron Christophel] got his mittens on one and set to work on figuring out its secrets.
The results are covered in a
brief video
, as well as a
Twitter thread
, where this T12 soldering iron’s guts are splayed around and reprogrammed in all their glory. Despite the MCU on the PCB having had its markings removed, some prodding and poking around revealed it to be an
STC8H3K62S2
, an 8051-based MCU running at a blistering 11 MHz. As a supported PlaformIO target, reprogramming the MCU wasn’t too complicated after wiring up a USB-TTL serial adapter.
Completing this initial foray into these cheap T12 soldering irons is the
GitHub repository
, which contains the pin-outs, wiring diagrams and further information. Although [Aaron] indicates that he’ll likely not pursuing further development, the mixed responses by people to the overall quality of the firmware on the as-purchased T12 may inspire others to give it a shake. | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6611009",
"author": "ytrewq",
"timestamp": "2023-03-08T05:59:24",
"content": "Reverse engineering of closed devices is a good thing, but when purchasing I do my best to support Open Source devices, so although I have no use for a ucontroller in a solder iron, as soon as it became av... | 1,760,372,375.83657 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/07/probably-the-worlds-most-expensive-bar-bot/ | Probably The World’s Most Expensive Bar Bot | Jenny List | [
"Beer Hacks"
] | [
"barbot",
"ibm",
"tape storage"
] | Bar bots, or robotized bartenders, are a fun feature of events in our community, because there’s nothing like a cocktail untouched by human hand. Usually they have a row of bottles and a slide on which you put the glass, but [SecurityWriter] relates a tale of an altogether much grander affair. Given a weekend with a group of friends and an enterprise-grade IBM tape library robot, they did what any sensible engineer would do.
They turned it into a bar bot
.
Most readers probably won’t have seen a consumer grade data tape for decades, but in the enterprise space they’re very much the most cost effective backup solution. Large corporations have vast numbers of them, and IBM sells robots which retrieve them automatically from huge storage racks. When a group of young techs were given the tedious task of cataloging the whole thing and found themselves stuck in an empty data center for a weekend, of course they produced what was probably the world’s most expensive automated drinking game. Stocking the shelving system with booze and using the command line control for the robot they were able to have it deliver their beverages, and shockingly they managed to do so without the whole thing breaking.
It’s a hack, even if it’s one of which by necessity no evidence remains. Sadly Hackaday doesn’t have a tape library, or you can bet we’d be tempted to give it a try ourselves. Never mind,
we can continue to sample more conventional bar bots from time to time
. | 4 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6610781",
"author": "ConsultingJoe",
"timestamp": "2023-03-07T20:03:30",
"content": "This is my barbot that holds up to 12 bottles and has a touchscreen and uses only 2 steppers and end stop switches.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYPOGQ7yaeM",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1... | 1,760,372,375.888042 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/07/hackaday-berlin-first-round-of-talks/ | Hackaday Berlin: First Round Of Talks | Elliot Williams | [
"cons",
"Hackaday Columns",
"News"
] | [
"berlin",
"Hackaday Berlin",
"Hackaday Berlin 2023",
"talks"
] | We’re super excited to announce the first round of speakers for
Hackaday Berlin
! We’re set to convene on Friday night, March 24th for an evening warm up before the main show on Saturday, March 25. Featuring the triumphant return of Voja’s 4-bit badge, a crew of awesome speakers, lightning talks, workshops, music, food, badge hacking, and all the best of the Hackaday community, this will be a day to remember. And then we’ll chill out Sunday morning with a Bring-a-Hack brunch.
So without further ado: the first round of speakers!
Jiska Classen
Hacking Closed-Source: Reverse Engineering Real-World Products
Closed-source software is prevalent in our everyday lives, limiting our ability to understand how it works, which privacy implication it poses to the processed data, and addressing potential issues in time. Despite the growth of open-source movements, users often have no choice but to rely on closed-source solutions, e.g., for medical devices and IoT products. We’ll discuss key techniques to help you get started with reverse engineering. Hacking your own devices can be challenging, bricking a device is not uncommon, but so is celebrating the moments of a revived and modified device.
James Bruton
Being a Full-Time YouTuber
YouTube is my full-time job and has been for four years. I create STEM education content using everything from 3D printing, CNC, Welding, to Microcontrollers and Coding. Find out how I got started, how I make money, what goes on in the background, and what my future plans are. I’ll tell you how you can do it too!
Trammell Hudson
Hacking your dishwasher for cloudless appliances
Why does your dishwasher, laundry or coffee-pot need to talk to the cloud? In this presentation, Trammell Hudson shows how he reverse engineered the encrypted connections between Home Connect appliances and the Bosch-Siemens Cloud servers, and how you can control your own appliances with your self-hosted MQTT home automation system by extracting the devices’ authentication keys and connecting to their local websocket ports. No cloud required!
Bleeptrack
Oops, my project ended up in a museum
Parameterized design allows for the adaption of projects to different needs but can also change the aesthetic to a persons liking. Bleeptrack will walk you through the creation process and tools of her generative projects, talk about her experience manufacturing unique pieces and explains how to cope when your freshly finished project gets locked up in an art exhibition for a few months.
Ali Shtarbanov
Creating Hardware Development Platforms for Real-World Impact: FlowIO Platform
What does it really take do create and deploy a development platform for real-world impact? Why do we need development platforms and how can they democratize emerging fields and accelerate innovation? Why do most platform attempts fail and only very few succeed in terms of impact? I will discuss the key characteristics that any platform technology must have in order for it to be able to useful for diverse users. FlowIO was the winner of the 2021 Hackaday Grand Prize as well as over a dozen other engineering, research, and design awards.
Come join us!
You!
Whatever you’re up to.
We want you to bring your current project, world-changing ideas, or simply fun hacks for a 7-minute lightning talk! | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6610842",
"author": "g3gg0",
"timestamp": "2023-03-07T21:44:16",
"content": "It’s “Trammell Hudson” – there is a letter L missing.and hey, Trammell, nice hack ;)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6611266",
"author": "Ell... | 1,760,372,376.141822 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/06/mems-teardown-and-macroscopic-models/ | MEMS Teardown And Macroscopic Models | Al Williams | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"MEMS",
"MPU-6050"
] | There is a bit of a paradox when it comes to miniaturization. When electronics replaced mechanical devices, it was often the case that the electronic version was smaller. When transistors and, later, ICs, came around, things got smaller still. However, as things shrink to microscopic scales, transistors don’t work well, and you often find — full circle — mechanical devices. [Breaking Taps] has
an investigation of a MEMS chip
. MEMS is short for Micro Electromechanical Systems, which operate in a decidedly mechanical way. You can see the video, which has some gorgeous electron microscopy, below. The best part, though, is the 3D-printed macroscale mechanisms that let you see how the pieces work.
Decapsulating the MPU-6050 was challenging. We usually mill a cavity on the top of an IC and use fuming nitric on a hot plate (under a fume hood) to remove the remaining epoxy. However, the construction of these chips has two pieces of silicon sandwiched together, so you need to fully expose the die to split them apart, so our usual method might not work so well. Splitting them open, though, damaged parts of the chip, so the video shows a composite of several devices.
The parts inside are microscopically small. It took a week to trace everything out and make the 3D-printed macroscale mechanisms that help explain how each piece works. Seeing a model of the accelerometer that is large enough to handle in your hands is very helpful in understanding how they work. You
can build your own
but be warned: the clearances are very tight, so you need a well-calibrated printer.
Like anyone who makes content, it is easy to find people to correct your mistakes, and [Breaking Taps] did have a minor misspeak you can read about in the first pinned comment. But the error is small, and we predict unless you are an expert MEMS designer, you’ll learn something new by watching this video.
Your phone isn’t the only beneficiary of these tiny mechanical devices. We’ve seen, for example,
digital levels
.
Self-balancing robots
come to mind, too.
Thanks to [smellsofbikes] for the tip! | 18 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6610132",
"author": "Damian1384",
"timestamp": "2023-03-06T21:38:20",
"content": "I loved the video and the 3d printed models really helps show how it works.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6610237",
"author": "rclark",
... | 1,760,372,376.08781 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/06/what-does-an-electron-look-like/ | What Does An Electron Look Like? | Al Williams | [
"Science"
] | [
"electron"
] | In school, you probably learned that an atom was like a little solar system with the nucleus as the sun and electrons as the planets. The problem is, as [The Action Lab]
points out
, the math tells us that if this simplistic model was accurate, matter would be volatile. According to the video you can see below, the right way to think about it is as a standing wave.
What does that mean? The video shows a very interesting demonstrator that shows how that works. You can actually see the standing waves in a metal ring. This is an analog — still not perfect — for the workings of an atom. An input frequency causes the ring to vibrate, and at specific vibration frequencies, a standing wave develops in the ring.
What was most interesting to us is that this explanation shows why electrons only increase and decrease in steps. Turns out nothing is really orbiting the way we all learned in school. Not that this model is exactly correct either, but it is apparently closer to reality than the old-school model.
Electrons are one of those funny things that sometimes look like a wave and sometimes look like a particle. Not that we fully grok all the
quantum weirdness
. Maybe we
half understand it, and half don’t understand it
. | 23 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6610032",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2023-03-06T19:08:35",
"content": "My bet is that quantum stuff is going to be one of those things that turns out to be like 95% wrong in a century or two (and that quantum computers are going to be vaporware and you should short that stuff imm... | 1,760,372,376.291557 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/06/whats-going-to-happen-to-legacy-broadcast-bands-when-the-lights-go-out/ | What’s Going To Happen To Legacy Broadcast Bands When The Lights Go Out? | Jenny List | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Radio Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"am",
"radio",
"spectrum"
] | Our smartphones have become our constant companions over the last decade, and it’s often said that they have been such a success because they’ve absorbed the features of so many of the other devices we used to carry. PDA? Check. Pager? Check. Flashlight? Check. Camera? Check. MP3 player? Of course, and the list goes on. But alongside all that portable tech there’s a wider effect on less portable technology, and it’s one that even has a social aspect to it as well. In simple terms, there’s a generational divide that the smartphone has brought into focus, between older people who consume media in ways born in the analogue age, and younger people for whom their media experience is customized and definitely non-linear.
The Kids Just Don’t Listen To The Radio Any More
We’re guessing this is no longer a scene played out in many homes. Evert F. Baumgardner,
Public domain
.
The effect of this has been to see a slow erosion of the once-mighty reach of radio and TV broadcasters, and with that loss of listenership has come less of a need for the older technologies they relied on. Which leaves a fascinating question here at Hackaday, what is going to happen to all that spectrum? Indeed, there’s a deeper question behind all that, is lower frequency spectrum even that valuable any more?
In the old days, we had analogue TV in several-MHz-wide channels spread across a large part of the UHF bands and some smaller chunks of VHF. Among that we had 20 MHz of FM broadcasting around the 100 MHz mark, and disregarding shortwave, then a MHz of AM down around 1 MHz. Europeans got a bonus band down there too: we’ve got Long Wave, over 100 kHz of AM goodness roughly centered around 200 kHz.
The last twenty years have seen a shift to digital for all broadcast TV, with for Americans at least a bunch of those UHF frequencies being snapped up for data services. Radio has gone digital too, for Europeans with DAB in the 200 MHz-ish band, but we’ve still got a fairly thriving FM band even if governments are making noises about moving FM stations to digital. Meanwhile down at the bottom of the dial those AM and long wave bands are in terminal decline, with transmitters going silent across the board. Perhaps Americans still have more AM stations than Europeans, but we’d wager they are no longer the premium money spots.
Enthusiasts may point to digital AM systems such as
DRM
(Digital Radio Mondial) as their saviour, but can format music radio compete against streaming at all? In a few years then, it’s likely that the AM and longwave broadcast bands will be empty, and possibly not too far behind them the FM band too. What happens then, is the interesting part. Will they be sold on to new uses, or will they lie idle, waiting for a fresh purpose? It’s a question to which the answer is more complex than meets the eye, because it leaves the technical for the political.
How One Auction Broke An Industry Forever
Back in 2000 the cellular business hadn’t seen the smartphone coming, and thought we’d use 3G data for video calling on crazy looking phones. Nokia 7600, AnVuong1222004 (2),
CC BY-SA 4.0
.
Everybody likes free cash, but governments like it especially, and when it comes to radio spectrum they see it all as a huge pile of dollars, pounds, Euros, or whatever just waiting to be unlocked. Where this is being written in the UK, this is especially so, and for that we can thank
the auction round for 3G mobile phones a couple of decades ago
. The various companies entered an unsustainable bidding war and spent far too much on their allocations, and aside from nearly bankrupting a swath of the UK tech industry for a few years, they cemented an idea in the minds of British and other European politicians that free spectrum was a bonanza. Thus there was a keen appetite to empty whatever space they could find and flog it off to the highest bidder, something they found wasn’t as easy as they thought.
What happened next was that subsequent auctions proved to be damp squibs as potential buyers shied away from a 3G-style disaster. Meanwhile as 3G and then 4G services became ubiquitous they claimed another function previously served by an analogue device. PMR, the type of mobile radios that might once have been found in fleet vehicles everywhere, moved first from low VHF frequencies to switched 200 MHz services, and then followed everything else onto the mobile phone networks. Where once your taxi might have had a VHF radio with a switchboard, now the driver uses an app on a phone.
What To Do With Fading 20th Century Signals?
It’s an app on a smartphone that brings your cab, not a VHF radio any more. Ilya Plekhanov,
CC BY-SA 4.0
.
The upshot of this has been obvious to anyone with an SDR, where once there were plenty of channels both digital and analogue to be found with a scanner across VHF and UHF, those once-valuable bands are increasingly empty save for the airband and public services. We’re sure that governments would charge us a heap of money for a licence where our local taxi used to be, but how many of them do they issue now compared to decades ago? Not a lot, we’d wager.
What we’re seeing is in fact the sunset of 20th-century models of radio communication, in which range was valued over bandwidth. The short range and high bandwidth of a cell tower is infinitely more valuable when the landscape is dotted with them than the county or country-wide range and low bandwidth of a VHF channel or an AM broadcast frequency, so the importance of the latter two is inevitably waning. Over time we’ll see yet more services move to data streams, meaning that eventually save for a few radio amateurs there will be previous little left in the first 100 MHz or so beside the military and
a few very specialised services
.
So in years to come, what will happen to these bands? We very much doubt they’ll become a free-for-all, as a badly made AM pirate spewing kilowatts of harmonics audible in the gigahertz is not a desirable outcome for anyone. Instead we’re guessing they’ll languish, forgotten by all but a few enthusiasts polishing their vintage Philco tabletop radios. It’s sad, because we could imagine a vibrant future for an AM band in a world where limited power unlicensed microbroadcast transmissions were legal. This is to some extent already the case in some parts of the world, but if that were to become a more general thing with permissible power in the region of a watt or two then we could see large numbers of short-range stations co-existing across the dial.
We’d love it if that were to happen, but sadly we aren’t holding our breath.
Header: “
Vintage Philco Two-Band (AM-FM) Transistor Radio
” by Joe Haupt | 215 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609989",
"author": "NQ",
"timestamp": "2023-03-06T18:06:33",
"content": "In small town rural America, the radio is still alive and well. Cattle futures and all things ag related still appeal to farmers. You can pull up to about any farm store or livestock sale barn and there will... | 1,760,372,376.555645 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/06/low-power-challenge-the-potatop-runs-lisp-for-months-without-recharging/ | Low Power Challenge: The PotatoP Runs Lisp For Months Without Recharging | Robin Kearey | [
"Cyberdecks"
] | [
"cyberdeck",
"lisp",
"low power",
"ulisp"
] | A common complaint among laptop users is that while battery technology has vastly improved over the past decades, a simulltaneous shrink in form factors has meant that a typical laptop today doesn’t last much longer on a battery charge than one from the early 2000s. But it doesn’t have to be that way, as [Andreas Eriksen] demonstrates with
his entry for the Low Power Challenge
. The PotatoP is a portable computer that should be able to run for about two years on a single battery charge, and can be topped up through an integrated solar panel.
Granted, it doesn’t have the processing power of even the cheapest laptop you can buy today, but it’s perfectly fine for [Andreas]’s use case. He’s a Lisp hacker, and a Sparkfun RedBoard Artemis can run uLisp just fine on its 48 MHz Cortex-M4F processor. The operating environment is very basic though, even requiring [Andreas] to write his own text editor, called Typo, to give him editing luxuries like backspace functionality and a movable cursor.
The Artemis board is very power-efficient by itself – typical power consumption is less than 1 mA. [Andreas] added a simple monochrome black-and-white LCD screen capable of displaying 53 columns of text, plus an SD card reader for data storage, and designed a sleek 3D-printed case to hold everything together. When running a typical piece of code, the entire system uses around 2.5 mA, which translates to about 125 days of continuous run-time on the beefy 12000 mAh lithium battery. Add a bit of solar power, plus a more realistic eight-hour working day, and the two year runtime estimated by [Andreas] appears entirely reasonable.
This has to be one of the most power-efficient portables we’ve ever seen, and one running Lisp at that. Despite its age, Lisp keeps popping up in interesting custom computers like the
Lisperati1000 cyberdeck
and
The Lisp Badge
. | 54 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609943",
"author": "Miles",
"timestamp": "2023-03-06T16:48:17",
"content": "The form factor is one take on battery technology. Another is that processors will gladly burst to 65 or 80 watts, instead of 6 or 8. And screens are 400Nit 4k HD instead of reflective 40 character.I pers... | 1,760,372,376.643731 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/06/the-future-of-risc-v-and-the-visionfive-2-single-board-computer/ | The Future Of RISC-V And The VisionFive 2 Single Board Computer | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Featured",
"hardware",
"Interest",
"News",
"Reviews",
"Slider"
] | [
"RISC-V",
"VisionFive"
] | We’ve been following the open, royalty-free RISC-V ISA for a while. At first we read the specs, and then we saw RISC-V cores in microcontrollers, but now there’s a new board that offers enough processing power at a low enough price point to really be interesting in a single board computer. The VisionFive 2 ran a successful Kickstarter back in September 2022, and I’ve finally received a unit with 8 GB of ram. And it works! The JH7110 won’t outperform a modern desktop, or even a Raspberry Pi 4, but it’s good enough to run a desktop environment, browse the web, and test software.
And that’s sort of a big deal, because the RISC-V architecture is starting to show up in lots of places. The challenge has been getting real hardware that’s powerful enough to run Linux and compile software on, that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. If ARM is an alternative architecture, then RISC-V is still an experimental one, and that is an issue when trying to use the VF2. That’s a theme we’ll repeat a few times, but the thing to remember here is that getting more devices in the wild is the first step to fixing things.
The Hardware
So what do you get? The VF2 comes in three flavors, with two, four, and eight gigabytes of RAM. The boards are otherwise identical, and the star of the show is the JH7110, a 64-bit quad-core RISC-V SoC. Built-in to that CPU is the Imagination BXE-4-32 GPU. There’s a USB-C port, usually used for powering the board, 4 USB 3.0 ports sharing a single PCIe 2.0 lane, and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports. The board has only a single HDMI 2.0 port, but is capable of running dual displays by using a MIPI DSI port as well.
There are also some neat Raspberry Pi compatibility features. The board has a 40-pin GPIO header, mostly compatible with the Raspberry Pi pinout, and even has the four-pin Power over Ethernet header in the correct place for using the Pi PoE HATs. That works very nicely, with the only missing element being the fan control on the HAT.
There’s MIPI input, too. That should be compatible with something like the Raspberry Pi cameras, though I don’t have on one hand to test. There’s an SD card slot, an eMMC socket, and a very welcome M.2 NVMe slot on the bottom of the device. So far, booting off the NVMe still requires a boot partition on the SD card, but still results in all the speed boost the single dedicated PCIe 2.0 lane is worth. Direct boot from NVMe is on the roadmap, but not yet implemented.
OS Support
The hardware is reasonably impressive, but the utility hinges on the OS and software support. There’s a Debian image that’s seeing regular updates, with issues continually getting fixed. What we really care about is upstream status, and
that process has started
. There’s hope for a minimally booting system with kernel 6.3, though there are quite a few drivers to upstream before the system is fully usable with the vanilla kernel.
And one of those drivers we have to mention is the GPU. The hardware is known as BXE-4-32 GPU, a GPU core from Imagination Technologies, and successor to the PowerVR architecture. Imagination is making a play for getting its designs built into RISC-V chips, and as part of that, has released open source drivers for its modern products. There’s an
ongoing effort to upstream those drivers
, and some enablement code has already landed in Mesa.
There’s also the broader issue of RISC-V support. Most of the modern distros build RISC-V packages, but it’s not uncommon to find problems or failing packages on this less popular architecture. For example, I wanted to benchmark the VF2 board using the Phoronix Test Suite. That is available as a noarch package, but has multiple dependencies, like
php-cli
. That depends on
php8.2
, and that package
currently fails to build on RISC-V on Debian
. There’s a patch available to fix the issue, so I was able to rebuild the .deb on the VF2 and get things working.
So About Those Benchmarks
It’s always fun to benchmark shiny new hardware. So imagine my disappointment when nearly every CPU test I tried either failed to install, or failed to run. I suspect this is also the newness of the RISC-V platform, as many of the PTS tests just haven’t been built for the platform yet.
For those that did run, it’s not great. Take a look at
my results
. I suspect the performance may increase as the software becomes more mature, but it’s currently way behind a Raspberry Pi 4.
Jeff Geerling has coverage of this board
, too, and found that the VF2 is currently performing in the ballpark of a Pi B 3.
There are some important exceptions to those observations. First, system tests that rely heavily on drive access show a significant advantage for the VF2. The Pi was booted off a NVMe drive via a USB3 adapter, but the native NVMe performance is still significantly better.
And then those two Ethernet ports are particularly interesting. Could this thing be useful as a high performance router? I checked out it’s performance pushing packets with the Debian install, and it’s capable of almost wire speeds. I ran an iperf3 speed test through the device doing a simple NAT, similar to a standard router install, and it managed to average 755 Mbits per second. Using the bidirectional option, the test managed just over 600 Mbits per second in both directions. Respectable for anything but a full Gigabit Internet connection. There has been work done on bring OpenWRT to the platform, and that may come with better throughput, but the latest OpenWRT development branch fails to boot on my device.
What’s it good for?
That’s a lot of ports.
OK, we’ve covered a lot of ground. So what do the brass tacks look like here? The VisionFive 2 has some potential. The dual Gigabit ports and coming OpenWRT support make the $100 device tempting as a router, and PoE support doesn’t hurt. The NVMe drive is another leg up, and there could be a case made for the VF2 as network storage device.
It’s not powerful enough to be a desktop replacement device, and the lack of dual HDMI ports don’t help any. The various distros don’t really have tier-one support for RISC-V yet, either. And oddly, that may be this board’s biggest selling point. Do you do any maintainer or programming work? Have you checked your code on a RISC-V processor yet? That’s the real opportunity here. It’s an affordable platform to test-run RISC-V support.
That process is ongoing, for developers everywhere. And that’s one of the reasons that performance is a bit disappointing. Many applications that need the performance have function multiversioning, a technique that allows for platform specific code that can really improve performance. If a platform doesn’t have a tailored implementation, the program drops back to the slower default code. And given the relative newness of the RISC-V platform, it’s not surprising that performance isn’t in top shape yet.
But 2023 might just be the year of the RISC-V SBC. The VisionFive 2 is available, and
the folks at Pine64
are planning a new board based on the same JH7110 CPU. There’s the upcoming
HiFive Pro
board, or the
Ventana Veyron CPU
. So maybe it’s time to dive in, and give RISC-V a spin. | 47 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609892",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-03-06T15:05:41",
"content": "Early Transputer. Interesting device with so-so performance.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6646786",
"author": "Mitch",
"timesta... | 1,760,372,376.737436 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/06/programming-spi-flash-chips-use-your-pico/ | Programming SPI Flash Chips? Use Your Pico! | Arya Voronova | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"flashrom",
"pi pico",
"Raspberry Pi Pico",
"rp2040",
"serprog"
] | At this point, a Pi Pico is equivalent to a bag full of programmers and debugging accessories. For instance, when you want to program an SPI flash chip, do you use one of those wonky CH341 dongles, or perhaps, even a full-on Raspberry Pi with a Linux OS? If so, it might be time to set those two aside –
any RP2040 board can do this now.
This is thanks to work of [stacksmashing] who implemented
serprog
protocol for the RP2040, letting us use a Pi Pico with stock
flashrom
for all our SPI flash chip needs.
After flashing the code to your RP2040 board, all you need to do is to wire your flash chip to the right pins, and then use the
serprog
programmer type in your
flashrom
commandline –
instructions are available
on GitHub along with the code, as you’d expect. Don’t feel like installing
flashrom
, or perhaps you happen to run Windows and need a flasher in a pinch? [stacksmashing] has a
WebSerial-based SPI flasher tool
for you, too, and
shows it off
with a fancy all-the-pinouts board of his own making.
This kind of tool is indispensable – you don’t need to mod one of these CH341 programmers to fix the bonkers 5 V default IO, or keep an entire Linux computer handy when you likely already have one at your fingertips. All in all, yay for one more RP2040 trick up our sleeve – this SPI flashing helper joins an assortment of applets for
SWD
,
JTAG
, UART,
I2C
and
CAN
, and in a pinch, your Pi Pico will also work as a digital and analog
logic analyzer
or
an FPGA playground. | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609825",
"author": "YGDES",
"timestamp": "2023-03-06T12:11:57",
"content": "https://hackaday.io/project/7758-spi-flasherworks over Ethernet :-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6609828",
"author": "zoobab",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,372,376.788104 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/06/adversarial-ir-hoodie-lets-you-own-the-night-in-anonymity/ | Adversarial IR Hoodie Lets You Own The Night In Anonymity | Dan Maloney | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"adversarial",
"camera",
"facial recognition",
"hoodie",
"ir",
"led",
"surveillance",
"wearable"
] | If you’re in the market for something to obfuscate your nefarious nocturnal activities, rejoice —
this adversarial infrared hoodie
may be just what you’re looking for.
Not that we condone illegal activities, of course, and neither does artist [Mac Pierce], who created “The Camera-Shy Hoodie.” His purpose seems to be exploring the nature of the surveillance state, or rather to perplex it in the name of anonymity. The idea is simple — equip a standard hoodie with a ring of super-bright IR LEDs, and control them with an RP2040.
We’ve seen blinding hoodies before, but here the LEDs strobe on and off in one of three different patterns, all of which are timed to confound the autoexposure mechanism in just about any surveillance camera by not giving it time to adjust to the rapidly and drastically changing light level. The result is near-total obfuscation of the wearer’s facial features, at least when the camera is in night-vision mode. Check out the results in the video below.
There are some nice touches to [Mac]’s approach, like aluminum PCBs for the LEDs and the use of soldered-on fabric snaps to attach them to the inside of the hoodie, making them easy to remove for laundering. With the LEDs peeking through holes in the fabric, the hoodie looks pretty run-of-the-mill — until, of course, night falls and the USB battery bank in the hoodie’s pocket powers up the light show.
Granted, this won’t exactly help you avoid detection — the big ball of light around your head will be instantly seen by even the most casual observer. But at least it makes it easier to keep your face to yourself. And it won’t help much in daylight — for that, you might want something a little more like
this passive adversarial ugly sweater
. | 76 | 31 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609791",
"author": "Anonymous",
"timestamp": "2023-03-06T09:11:41",
"content": "As seen on TV, in particular an episode of Hawaii Five-0.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6609807",
"author": "Truth",
"timestamp... | 1,760,372,376.952961 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/05/a-medium-format-camera-from-scratch/ | A Medium Format Camera From Scratch | Jenny List | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"film camera",
"medium format"
] | Film photography may now be something so outdated as to be unknown to our younger readers, but as an analogue medium it has enjoyed a steady enthusiast revival. There is still a bonanza of second-hand cameras from the days when it was king to be found, but for some photographers it’s preferable to experiment with their own designs. Among them is Reddit user [elelcoolbeenz],
who has produced their own medium format camera for 120 roll film
.
The camera has a plastic 3D printed body and a single meniscus lens, and perhaps most interestingly, a 3D printed shutter too. It’s heavily reminiscent of the Holga and Lomo plastic cameras that have carved a niche for themselves, and it gives the same photographic effects from its dubious quality optics.
There’s a snag of course, that the STLs are not yet available We say not yet, because this comes with
a detailed explanation
in that further work is required on the shutter and a more commonly available lens is found rather than a one-off. We still think it’s worthy of featuring at this stage though, because it serves to illustrate that building a camera is not impossible. We’d love to see more of them, though we expect few of them to go to the lengths
this aluminium one did
. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609782",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2023-03-06T06:47:56",
"content": ">building a camera is not impossibleWhy would it be? People have been building these things by hand since the 19th century.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_... | 1,760,372,376.834251 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/05/review-of-the-yard-stick-one-radio-dongle/ | Review Of The YARD Stick One Radio Dongle | Al Williams | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [] | When it comes to SDR, you can usually find cheap products that receive and expensive products that can also transmit. The YARD Stick One bucks that trend. It can send and receive from 300 MHz to 928 MHz, thanks to the onboard TI CC1111 chip. [Wim Ton] on Elektor
put the device through its paces
. While the frequency range isn’t as broad as some devices, the price is right at about $99. YARD, by the way, stands for Yet Another RF Dongle.
The frequency range isn’t as cut and dry as it might seem. According to the product’s home page: “official operating frequencies: 300 MHz – 348 MHz, 391 MHz – 464 MHz, and 782 MHz – 928 MHz; unofficial operating frequencies: 281 MHz – 361 MHz, 378 MHz – 481 MHz, and 749 MHz – 962 MHz.” The unofficial operating frequencies are not supported by the chip but appear to work in practice.
The device is made for data applications, and the support software is a Python-based interface that abstracts most of what you want to do. You can directly access the device registers if you need more control.
The YARD stick isn’t great as a generic receiver, but as the review points out, you can use it as a transmitter and then grab a cheaper dongle to use as a receiver if you need more capability. The total system cost will still be less than other solutions.
Ultimately, though, [Wim] was less than impressed. Issues with the software and limited documentation didn’t help. But the fact that the CC1111 isn’t meant for general-purpose radio use makes it difficult to put into many projects where you could use an SDR transmitter. A lot of processing happens on the chip which is fine if you know what you want to send and receive ahead of time and the chip supports what you want to do. But for randomly probing and receiving RF, you don’t always have either of those luxuries.
We like the
Pluto SDR
, which is fairly inexpensive and can transmit.
Lime SDR
seems to be another popular choice. | 20 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609752",
"author": "Jeff Brown",
"timestamp": "2023-03-06T03:29:17",
"content": "I’ve gotten good use out of mine for controlling ceiling fans, heated mattresses, and other domestic appliances. I agree that the software needs some love. Maybe it’s gotten better now but the last v... | 1,760,372,377.008138 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/05/hackaday-links-march-5-2023/ | Hackaday Links: March 5, 2023 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"alto",
"brick",
"CMM",
"coordinate measuring machine",
"crypto mining",
"ford",
"hackaday links",
"illegal",
"illicit",
"infotainment",
"metrology",
"nist",
"parc",
"patent",
"pixel",
"repossession",
"self-driving",
"standards",
"Xerox",
"youtube"
] | Well, we guess it had to happen eventually —
Ford is putting plans in place to make its vehicles capable of self-repossession
. At least it seems so from a patent application that was published last week, which reads like something written by someone who fancies themselves an evil genius but is just really, really annoying. Like most patent applications, it covers a lot of ground; aside from the obvious capability of a self-driving car to drive itself back to the dealership, Ford lists a number of steps that its proposed system could take before or instead of driving the car away from someone who’s behind on payments.
Examples include selective disabling conveniences in the vehicle, like the HVAC or infotainment systems, or even locking the doors and effectively bricking the vehicle. Ford graciously makes allowance for using the repossessed vehicle in an emergency, and makes mention of using cameras in the vehicle and a “neural network” to verify that the locked-out user is indeed having, say, a medical emergency. What could possibly go wrong?
IEEE Spectrum
ran
a really interesting article
on the huge shadow cast by the famous Xerox Alto. It’s pretty amazing when you think about how much of the Alto’s design, which dates from 1973, is still in use today. Pretty much every element of modern UI design, from windows to file management systems to even the physical “keyboard-mouse-monitor on the desk, box on the floor” arrangement, traces directly back to the Alto — about the only thing Alto got wrong is that most of us don’t use monitors in portrait mode.
While the stuff about the Alto hardware is great, for our money the meat of the article is the history of Xerox PARC, and how the somewhat staid photocopier concern decided to break into the computer business and simultaneously build a world-class R&D organization. Particularly interesting was the process of elimination that led to choosing Palo Alto; as a former Nutmegger, we couldn’t agree more with the assessment of New Haven as being unsuitable due to “traditional Yale faculty snobbery.”
Pro-tip: If you’re going to set up an illicit crypto mining operation, there are probably better places to do it than in
the crawlspace of a public high school
. That’s what Nadeam Nahas, former assistant director of facilities at Cohasset High School in Massachusetts, learned after allegedly setting up the operation in an unused utility space in the school. The operation was pretty extensive — police seized at least ten machines from the crawlspace, which were discovered when custodial staff noticed them along with out-of-place electrical wiring and ductwork, presumably for powering and cooling the setup. The rig ran from April to December of 2021, during which time it racked up an estimated $17,500 in electricity expenses on the school district’s tab. No word about which cryptocurrency was being mined or much the rig made before the charges of fraudulent use of electricity and vandalism were leveled.
An interesting story popped up this week about
a YouTube video that causes Pixel phones to reboot
. The cursed video, a 4k HDR clip of perhaps
the best jump-scare from the 1979 classic
Alien
, was said to hard-crash Pixel phones containing Google’s Exynos-derived Tensor SoC before even a single frame of the video was loaded. We just gave it a try with our Pixel 6 Pro and enjoyed the entire scene without a crash, so either YouTube fixed the video or our phone was somehow immune to the bug. It’s probably best to watch the whole movie, though, just to be sure.
And finally, if there’s any bit of you that harbors a secret passion for metrology, you’ll want to check out
Machine Thinking’s latest video
, which features a field trip to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) campus in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Specifically, the tour focused on the coordinate measuring machine (CMM) lab, located 80 feet (25 m) underground and housing a magnificent piece of industrial art, a 1988 Moore M48 CMM. The machine is a study in contrasts — built from massive iron castings but capable of 10-nanometer measurements over a one-meter range. The machine is so sensitive that the room temperature has to be controlled to the hundredth of a Celsius degree, and the lights have to be turned off lest they disturb measurements. If you want to understand what the extremes are in the field of metrology, this is the video for you. | 40 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609718",
"author": "Nick",
"timestamp": "2023-03-06T00:07:20",
"content": "I’m not sure why anyone would win the argument that someone who had a medical emergency would be better off with their vehicle repossessed the traditional way as opposed to being remotely locked out of it.",... | 1,760,372,377.085936 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/05/graphene-and-copper-nanowire-thermal-interface-with-low-thermal-resistance/ | Graphene And Copper Nanowire Thermal Interface With Low Thermal Resistance | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"cooling",
"thermal interface"
] | With the increasing waste heat production by today’s electronics in ever smaller spaces, drawing this heat away quickly enough to prevent thermal throttling or damage is a major concern. This is where research by Lin Jing and colleagues from Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering demonstrates a thermal interface material (TIM) that should provide a significant boost here. In the article, published in
ACS Nano
(paywalled; open access
preprint alternative
) the construction of this copper and graphene ‘sandwich’ TIM is described, along with tests.
The general idea is to use pillars between the two surfaces that can quickly carry the heat from the hot surface to the cool one. Although pure copper versions exist and do work, they suffer from the complications of having to build up these copper pillars in place, and subsequent oxidation reducing the effectiveness. While graphene and similar materials have shown superior heat-transfer capabilities, interfacing these materials with copper and other metals has proven problematic.
What Lin Jing et al. demonstrate in this study is to use essentially the pure copper approach, but to combine it with earlier research by
Raghav Garg et al.
(2017), who demonstrated how to grow 3-dimensional graphene structures. By cladding the copper pillars with graphene, this material improves heat transfer by 60%, while preventing oxidation of the metal. While the challenge is obviously to transfer these findings to something that can be mass-produced for consumer devices, it demonstrates how much potential there is in the use of graphene, which is a relatively new material for such applications due to how hard it was to produce until recently. | 8 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609707",
"author": "Nathann",
"timestamp": "2023-03-05T22:41:47",
"content": "I’m missing the why to using a whole copper block instead of a pillar structure. What is the benefit ?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6609724",
... | 1,760,372,377.131458 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/05/yesterdays-drill-press-packed-with-tomorrows-upgrades/ | Yesterday’s Drill Press Packed With Tomorrow’s Upgrades | Sonya Vasquez | [
"News",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"Machine tool",
"machine tool upgrade",
"pneumatic actuator",
"Pneumatic cylinder"
] | Those who hibernate in their workshops have a habit of re-imagining their relationship to tools. And [Marius Hornberger] is no exception, but the
nine upgrades
he’s added to his grandfather’s old drill press puts this machine on a whole other level.
In proper storytime fashion, [Marius] steps us through each upgrade, the rationale, and the time and effort that went into crafting the solution. Some of these upgrades, like a digital readout (DRO), add modern features to an old-school device. Others, like an oil mist cooling system and a compressed air chip blower, borrow from other machines with similar setups. Some, like the chip guard, are nice personal touches. And a few, like the motorized table with automatic clamp, transform the entire operator experience. On the whole, these upgrades follow a gentle theme of personalizing the machine to [Marius’] tastes, giving him a delightful, more personal operator experience that’s tuned through his everyday use. Amid the sheer volume of tweaks though, we’re convinced that you’ll find something that tickles your tinkering fancy.
It’s worth mentioning that the pneumatic table clamp alone (at
4:28
) makes the entire video worth the watch. If you’ve ever had the mishap of pinching your finger or struggling to hold the table steady while clamping it in place, this little upgrade takes all of that away, replacing the swivel handle with a homebrew pneumatic cylinder made in the shop. With a single button press, a swoosh of compressed air either clamps or releases the table. Best of all, the setup still sports a hand clamp if [Marius] is operating without a compressed air source.
It’s also worth mentioning that a couple of [Marius’] upgrades completely skip the CAD step altogether. Instead, [Marius] creates templates directly off the drill press with tracing paper and then immediately transfers them onto stock materials. It’s a nice reminder that not every small project needs to start with a 3D model.
If all these upgrades are getting you ready to modify your machine, look no further than the video description where he’s courteously posted inks to key components behind these upgrades.
The story of many-a-workshop often involves reinventing your machine tools. If you’re looking for more tales of tool upgrades, have a look at
resurrecting a machine from literal ashes
or a
machine that improves itself
. | 10 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609665",
"author": "Alex",
"timestamp": "2023-03-05T18:47:52",
"content": "Great video showing amazing craftsmanship! The motorized table design is especially cool.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6609667",
"author": "Bren... | 1,760,372,377.183838 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/05/upgrade-ram-on-your-pi-4-the-fun-way/ | Upgrade RAM On Your Pi 4, The Fun Way | Arya Voronova | [
"Raspberry Pi",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"BGA soldering",
"memory upgrade",
"ram",
"ram upgrade",
"Raspberry Pi 4",
"Raspberry Pi 4B"
] | The Raspberry Pi shortage has been a meme in hacker circles for what feels like an eternity now, and the Pi 4 seems to be most affected – though, maybe it’s just its popularity. Nevertheless, if you’re looking for a Pi 4, you would need to look far and wide – and things are way worse if you need the 8 GB version specifically. Or so we thought –
[MadEDoctor] shows us
that refreshing online store pages isn’t the only way, having successfully upgraded the RAM chip on the Pi 4 from 1 GB to 8 GB with help of a hot air gun.
These chips are BGA, and those might feel intimidating if you’re just starting out with hot air – however, we recommend you watch this video, as [MadEDoctor]’s approach is of the kind that brings BGA replacement to hobbyist level. First off, you get a compatible RAM chip somewhere like Aliexpress – lucky for us, those come equipped with a set of balls from the factory. The default balls are made of lead-free solder, and [MadEDoctor] reballed the RAM chip with leaded solder balls to lower the melting point, but it’s by no means a requirement that you do the same.
In fact, you only need a hot air gun, flux, a soldering iron and some solder wick to perform the replacement – no reballing equipment. Put some kapton or metal tape on the board for heat shielding, get the old chip off with hot air, use an iron with wick to clean the pads, add some flux, align the chip, then use hot air to solder a new chip onto the board. Replacing this chip can get your Pi 4 to the highly-sought-after 8 GB target – as an aside, we’re surprised that there was no configuration needed, as the Pi 4 booted right up and successfully recognized the extra RAM added.
We’d personally recommend preheating for such an upgrade – that said, this sure went without a hitch, and such a RAM swap method doesn’t require any stencils, solder paste or solder ball applications. Drop by the video description for compatible RAM chip part numbers, make sure you have your tacky flux and solder wick in order, and let [MadEDoctor] walk you through upgrading your Pi 4 the hacker way. Is this hack to your liking? Take it up a notch with this
laptop soldered-in RAM upgrade journey,
or that one
RAM upgrade for an old GPU
to comply to Apple’s whims. | 17 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609629",
"author": "jenningsthecat",
"timestamp": "2023-03-05T15:13:06",
"content": "“We’d personally recommend preheating for such an upgrade…”Definitely pre-heat the board if you can. The thermal differentials generated by spot heating may create enough unrelieved stress to cause... | 1,760,372,377.343522 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/05/no-wheels-no-mercy/ | No Wheels, No Mercy | Al Williams | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"battle robots"
] | We always like when a designer does something different. After all, it is easy just to do what everyone else is doing. But to see things a different way is always interesting to us. When you think of a battle bot, you probably think of a robot with wheels or tracks, attacking other robots in an arena. But [Shea Waffles Johns] created
Big Cookie
, a combat bot with no wheels. Instead, it is a spinning wheel of death that moves relatively slowly. The robot makes up for that by having a mini-robot helper that brings Big Cookie its prey.
With no wheels and motors for locomotion, the robot can focus on armor and weapon force. It certainly looks dangerous spinning on the floor.
We would prefer seeing autonomous robots fighting, but we enjoyed seeing a different design. How did it do? Well, in the video, one match went to Big Cookie, and it lost one match. The chaotic third match wasn’t a good showing for the robot, either. But we have no doubt there will be improvements, and Big Cookie’s record will get better.
There isn’t a lot of detail about the build, but you could probably build something similar just from looking at the idea. Of course, we’ve seen other combat robots without wheels, including
one that walks
. Maybe we are a bit odd, but we enjoy seeing
the post-mortem analysis
as much as the actual matches. | 15 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609614",
"author": "Gregg Eshelman",
"timestamp": "2023-03-05T13:14:59",
"content": "It’s the Toonces the Cat of fighting robots. It can fight, just not very well.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6609643",
"author": "come2"... | 1,760,372,377.395577 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/05/tiny-tapeout-3-get-your-own-chip-deign-to-a-fab/ | Tiny Tapeout 3: Get Your Own Chip Design To A Fab | Joseph Long | [
"hardware"
] | [
"ASIC",
"chip",
"design",
"verilog",
"vhdl"
] | Custom semiconductor chips are generally big projects made by big companies with big budgets. Thanks to
Tiny Tapeout
, students, hobbyists, or anyone else can quickly get their designs onto an actual fabricated chip. [Matt Venn] has announced the opening of a third round of the Tiny Tapeout project for March 2023.
In 2022,
Tiny Tapeout 1
piloted fabrication of user designs onto custom chips referred to as application-specific integrated circuits or ASICs. Following success of the pilot round, Tiny Tapeout 2 became the first paid version delivering guaranteed silicon. For Tiny Tapeout 2, there were 165 submissions. Most submissions were designed using a hardware description language such as
Verilog
or
Amaranth
, but ASICs can also be designed in the visual schematic capture tool
Wokwi
.
Each submitted design must fit within 150 by 170 microns. That footprint can accommodate around one thousand standard cells, which is certainly enough to explore a digital system of real interest. Examples from Tiny Tapeout 2 include digital neurons, FPGAs, and RISC-V processor cores.
Once the 250 designs are submitted, they’ll be combined into a large grid along with a controller. The controller will receive input signals and pump the inputs via a scan chain through the entire grid to each design. The results from each design continue through the scan chain to be output from the grid. Since all 250 designs will be combined on to one chip, each designer will receive everybody else’s design along with their own. This shared process opens a huge opportunity for experimentation.
To get started on your own ASIC design right away, visit
Tiny Tapeout
. Also check out the talk [Matt] gave at
Supercon 2022: Bringing Chip Design to the Masses
along with his
Zero to ASIC videos
. And we’re not saying anything official, but he’ll probably be giving a workshop at
Hackaday Berlin
. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609546",
"author": "macsimski",
"timestamp": "2023-03-05T09:25:01",
"content": "Did anyone found the electrical specs? What are the voltages and power per pin? Would it be possible to recreate unobtanium ttl chips for restoration purposes?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,372,377.444242 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/04/a-crt-audio-visualiser-for-when-leds-just-wont-do/ | A CRT Audio Visualiser For When LEDs Just Won’t Do | Jenny List | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"audio visualizer",
"crt",
"oscilloscope",
"tv"
] | It has been a recurring feature of consumer audio gear since the first magic eye tube blinked into life, to have some kind of visualization of the sound being played. Most recently this has meant an LED array or an OLED screen, but [Thomas] has gone one better than this with a CRT television
converted to perform as a rudimentary oscilloscope
.
The last generation of commonly available monochrome televisions were small 5″ CRT models made in China. They never received digital tuners, so as digital TV has become the norm they are now useless to most people. Thus they can often be found for pennies on the second-hand market.
[Thomas]’s hack involves gutting such a TV and retaining its circuitry, but disconnecting the line driver from the deflection yoke. This would normally leave a vertical line on the screen as it would then be moved only by the frame driver at 50 Hz for PAL or 60 Hz for NTSC. By connecting an audio loudspeaker amplifier to the line deflection yoke he gets that low quality oscilloscope. It would be of limited use as an instrument, but few others will have such a cool audio visualizer. He’s viewing the screen in a portrait orientation, we’d be tempted to rotate the yoke for a landscape view.
It’s worth pointing out as always that CRT TVs contain high voltages, so we’d suggest
reading up on how to treat them with respect
. | 17 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609522",
"author": "Sailingfree",
"timestamp": "2023-03-05T06:51:09",
"content": "Reminds me of a similar hack my father and I did back in the early 70s when as a teen a couple of mates and I ran a disco. Basically took a TV and replaced the vertical field output with the audio tra... | 1,760,372,377.502607 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/04/reclaiming-a-pi-based-solar-datalogger/ | Reclaiming A Pi-Based Solar Datalogger | Arya Voronova | [
"green hacks",
"home hacks",
"Reverse Engineering",
"Solar Hacks"
] | [
"FOSDEM",
"Modbus",
"solar",
"solar inverter",
"solar power"
] | There’s quite a few devices on the market that contain a Raspberry Pi as their core, and after becoming a proud owner of a solar roof, [Paolo Bonzini]
has found himself
with an
Entrade ENR-DTLA04DN
datalogger which – let’s just say, it had some of the signs, and at FOSDEM 2023, he told us all about it. Installed under the promise of local-only logging, the datalogger gave away its nature with a Raspberry Pi logo-emblazoned power brick, a spec sheet identical to that of a Pi 3, and a MAC address belonging to the Raspberry Pi Foundation. That spec sheet also mentioned a MicroSD card – which eventually died, prompting [Paolo] to take the cover off. He dumped the faulty SD card, then replaced it – and put his own SSH keys on the device while at it.
At this point, Entrade no longer offered devices with local logging, only the option of cloud logging – free, but only for five years, clearly not an option if you like your home cloud-free; the local logging was not flawless either, and thus, the device was worth exploring. A quick peek at the filesystem netted him two large statically-compiled binaries, and
strace
gave him a way to snoop on RS485 communications between the datalogger and the solar roof-paired inverter. Next, he dug into the binaries, collecting information on how this device did its work. Previously, he found that the device provided an undocumented API over HTTP while connected to his network, and comparing the API’s workings to the data inside the binary netted him some good results – but not enough.
The main binary was identified to be Go code, and [Paolo] shows us a walkthrough on how to reverse-engineer such binaries in
radare2
, with a small collection of tricks to boot – for instance, grepping the output of
strings
for GitHub URLs in order to find out the libraries being used. In the end, having reverse-engineered the protocol, he
fully rewrote the software,
without the annoying bugs of the previous one, and integrated it into his home MQTT network powered by HomeAssistant. As a bonus, he also shows us the datalogger’s main PCB, which turned out to be a peculiar creation – not to spoil the surprise!
We imagine this research isn’t just useful for when you face a similar datalogger’s death, but is also quite handy for those who find themselves at the mercy of the pseudo-free cloud logging plan and would like to opt out. Solar tech seems to be an area where Raspberry Pi boards and proprietary interfaces aren’t uncommon, which is why we see hackers reverse-engineer solar power-related devices – for instance, check out this
exploration of a solar inverter’s proprietary protocol
to get data out of it, or reverse-engineering an end-of-life decommissioned but
perfectly healthy solar inverter’s software
to get the service menu password. | 7 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609528",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2023-03-05T07:11:56",
"content": "Is this why Pis are in short supply?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6609538",
"author": "m1ke",
"timestamp": "2023-03-05T08:30:43",... | 1,760,372,377.547908 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/04/assessing-the-micromirror-device-from-a-dlp-printer-for-maskless-lithography-duty/ | Assessing The Micromirror Device From A DLP Printer For Maskless Lithography Duty | Maya Posch | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"DLP projector"
] | Inspired by the idea of creating a maskless lithography system using a digital micromirror device (DMD), [Nemo Andrea] tore into an Anycubic Photon Ultra, DLP & resin-based 3D printer to
take a look
at its projector system. Here Anycubic isn’t the maker of what is called the ‘optical engine’, which would be
eViewTek’s D2
projector and its siblings. This projector assembly itself is based around the Ti DLP300s, which we
covered a while back
when it was brand new. Since that time Anycubic has released the Photon Ultra and Photon D2 3D printers based around these optical engines.
Using DMD for lithography isn’t a new thing, as [Nemo] points out, referencing the
μMLA system
by Heidelberg Systems. What would be new is using a freely available and rather affordable DMD (even if it requires sacrificing a 3D printer) to obtain its optical engine in order to create an open and more affordable lithography platform than commercial ‘contact us for a quote’ option.
No doubt it’s a challenging project, but perhaps the nice side effect of having affordable DLP 3D printers out and about is that their DMDs are now also significantly more accessible than they were previously. We wish [Nemo] all the best in this endeavor, as a maskless lithography machine would be just that addition to any hobbyist’s toolset that we are no doubt waiting for.
(Thanks to Jerry for the tip) | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609497",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-03-05T03:10:10",
"content": "That’ll be the next story about all the IP-less chip designs one can create.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6609621",
"author": "OODev",
... | 1,760,372,377.645054 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/04/inspect-the-rf-realm-with-augmented-reality/ | Inspect The RF Realm With Augmented Reality | Dan Maloney | [
"Radio Hacks",
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"android",
"ar",
"ARCore",
"augmented reality",
"fiducial",
"RSSI",
"spectrum analyzer",
"tinysa",
"vr"
] | Intellectually, we all know that we exist in a complex soup of RF energy. Cellular, WiFi, TV, public service radio, radar, ISM-band transmissions from everything from thermometers to garage door openers — it’s all around us. It would be great to see these transmissions, but alas, most of us don’t come from the factory with the correct equipment.
Luckily, aftermarket accessories like
RadioFieldAR
by [Manahiyo] make it possible to visualize RF signals. As the name suggests, this is an augmented reality system that lets you inspect the RF world around you. The core of the system is
a tinySA
, a pocket-sized spectrum analyzer that acts as a broadband receiver. A special antenna is connected to the tinySA; unfortunately, there are no specifics on the antenna other than it needs to have a label with an image of the Earth attached to it, for antenna tracking purposes. The tinySA is connected to an Android phone — one that supports Google’s ARCore — by a USB OTG cable, and a special app on the phone runs the show.
By slowly moving the antenna around in the field of view of the phone’s camera, a heat map of signal strength at a particular frequency is slowly built up. The video below shows it in action, and the results are pretty cool. If you don’t have a tinySA, fear not — [Manahiyo] has
a version of the app
that supports a plain old RTL-SDR dongle too. That should make it easy for just about anyone to try this out.
And if you’re feeling deja vu about this, you’re probably remembering the
[Manahiyo]’s VR spectrum analyzer
, upon which this project is based.
[via
RTL-SDR.com
] | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609436",
"author": "Piecutter",
"timestamp": "2023-03-04T22:26:43",
"content": "Perhaps a less opaque point cloud would make a better overlay. Excellent start though.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6609653",
"author"... | 1,760,372,377.593748 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/04/fdm-printing-with-resin-update/ | FDM Printing With Resin Update | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d printing",
"laser",
"resin"
] | [Proper Printing] is at it again. He’s trying to perfect his
hybrid printer that works like an FDM printer but uses UV-curable resin gel
instead of filament. You can see the latest update video below. If you missed our take on his early attempts, you might want to
catch up
with
those earlier videos
first.
The latest update brings a new nozzle, an improved light source, and changes to the formula of the resin. The nozzle and light source improvements hinge on conical lenses that convert the laser beams from a spot to a ring. The initial nozzles looked like the business end of a syringe, but this wasn’t very stable. The new video shows a conventional nozzle which also had some issues. This resulted in a custom-made nozzle that solved all the issues with the conventional nozzle and the syringe tips.
The resin formula is particularly crucial. The second attempt used resin with glass beads to give thickness. That wasn’t without problems, though, so it was switched this time with fused silica, as suggested by some comments on a previous video. They also used aggressive mixing and air removal. The consistency of the previous resins was that of a paste, but according to the video, the new mixture is more like a gel.
At some point, things started going badly. There were several equipment failures. Exasperated, he was ready to give up and was editing the video when he had an epiphany. We’re glad he didn’t give up because the new results are pretty impressive.
These printers remind us of some
strange laser CNC
. It also reminds us a little of people curing resin
outside of the normal print process
. | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609375",
"author": "Wereweeb",
"timestamp": "2023-03-04T18:49:34",
"content": "Finally! I really wanted a 3D printer that combines all the downsides of FDM with all the downsides of SLA.Human ingenuity really knows no bounds.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": ... | 1,760,372,377.837632 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/04/chatgpt-bing-and-the-upcoming-security-apocalypse/ | ChatGPT, Bing, And The Upcoming Security Apocalypse | Elliot Williams | [
"Artificial Intelligence",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"ai",
"black box",
"ChatGPT",
"LLM",
"newsletter",
"security"
] | Most security professionals will tell you that it’s a lot easier to attack code systems than it is to defend them, and that this is especially true for large systems. The white hat’s job is to secure each and every point of contact, while the black hat’s goal is to find
just one
that’s insecure.
Whether black hat or white hat, it also helps a lot to know how the system works and exactly what it’s doing. When you’ve got the source code, either because it’s open-source, or because you’re working inside the company that makes the software, you’ve got a huge advantage both in finding bugs and in fixing them. In the case of closed-source software, the white hats arguably have the offsetting advantage that they at least can see the source code, and peek inside the black box, while the attackers cannot.
Still, if you look at the number of security issues raised weekly, it’s clear that even in the case of closed-source software, where the defenders should have the largest advantage, that offense is a lot easier than defense.
So now put yourself in the shoes of the poor folks who are going to try to secure large language models like ChatGPT, the new Bing, or Google’s soon-to-be-released Bard. They don’t understand their machines. Of course they know how the
work
inside, in the sense of cross multiplying tensors and updating weights based on training sets and so on. But because the billions of internal parameters interact in incomprehensible ways, almost all researchers
refer to large language models’ inner workings as a black box
.
And they haven’t even begun to consider security yet. They’re still worried about how to
construct obscure background prompts
that prevent their machines from spewing hate speech or pornographic novels. But as soon as the machines start doing something more interesting than just providing you plain text, the black hats will take notice, and someone will have to figure out defense.
Indeed, this week, we saw the first real shot across the bow:
a hack to make Bing direct users to arbitrary (bad) webpages
. The Bing hack requires the user to already be on a compromised website, so it’s maybe not very threatening, but it points out a possible real security difference between Bing and ChatGPT: Bing gives you links to follow, and that makes it a juicy target.
We’re right on the edge of a new security landscape, because even the white hats are facing a black box in the AI. So far, what ChatGPT and Codex and other large language models are doing is trivially secure – putting out plain text – but Bing is taking the first dangerous steps into doing something more useful, both for users and black hats.
Given the ease
with which people have undone OpenAI’s attempts to keep ChatGPT in its comfort zone, my guess is that the white hats will have their hands full, and the black-box nature of the model deprives them of their best hope. Buckle your seatbelts.
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
! | 46 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609337",
"author": "glowinbot",
"timestamp": "2023-03-04T16:03:01",
"content": "Bing became silent on me, and I wrote “My mind is glowing…” at the prompt. Then went here instead. Yes, exciting times for sure.Best regards.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
... | 1,760,372,377.930378 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/04/trs-80-model-100-inspires-cool-cyberdeck-build-40-years-down-the-line/ | TRS-80 Model 100 Inspires Cool Cyberdeck Build, 40 Years Down The Line | Dan Maloney | [
"Cyberdecks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"cyberdeck",
"laptop",
"model 100",
"radxa",
"trs-80"
] | The TRS-80 Model 100 was a strange beast. When it debuted in 1983, it resembled nothing that was available at the time, and filled a gap between desktop computers and the mostly-not-invented-yet laptop segment of the market. Collectors covet these machines, but they’re getting harder to find four decades later. So, if you want one,
you just might have to roll your own
.
Honestly, it doesn’t appear [Roberto Alsina]’s purpose here we to recreate the Model 100 per se, but rather to take inspiration from its oddball form factor and experiment with the latest components. The design elements from the original that [Roberto]’s creation most strongly echo are the screen with the extreme landscape aspect ratio and the somewhat compressed keyboard. The latter is based on the cheapest mechanical 65% keyboard available, while the former is a 1920×480 LCD display intended for automotive applications. The display seems like it put up a fight, between its need for a custom HDMI cable to connect it to the Radxa Zero SBC under the hood as well as the custom kernel needed to support it.
Along with a USB hub for IO and some 18650s for power, everything went into a 3D printed case with considerably sleeker lines than the Model 100. It’s worth pointing out that [Roberto] didn’t have much experience with design or 3D printing when he kicked off this project. We love to see people stretching their skills like that, and we think the results are great in this case. We’ve seen a lot of Model 100
retrofits
and
brain transplants
, but this may be the first time we’ve seen a build quite like this. | 19 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609368",
"author": "gteague",
"timestamp": "2023-03-04T17:44:26",
"content": "i worked computer support at a newspaper and we bought 6-8 of these, mostly for the sportswriters to file stories back from the stadiums on friday night after the high school football games. they were ver... | 1,760,372,377.777383 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/04/fosdem-sees-surprise-pico-balloon-event/ | FOSDEM Sees Surprise Pico Balloon Event | Arya Voronova | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"amateur radio",
"balloon",
"FOSDEM",
"HAB",
"high altitude balloon",
"pico balloon",
"rp2040",
"tinygo"
] | At any vaguely-related conferences, groups of hackers sometimes come together to create an impact, and sometimes that impact is swinging something into an airspace of a neighboring country. [deadprogram] tells us that such a thing happened at FOSDEM, where a small group of hackers
came together
(
Nitter
) to assemble, program and launch a
pico balloon
they named TinyGlobo 1, which then flew all the way to France!
This balloon is built around a RP2040, and the firmware is written in TinyGo, a version of Go language for microcontroller use. As is fitting for a hacker group, both the hardware and software
are open source
. Don’t expect custom PCBs though, as it’s a
thoroughly protoboarded build.
But a few off-the-shelf modules will get you the same hardware that just flew a 400km route! For build experiences, there’s also a few tweets from the people involved, and
a launch video,
also embedded below.
This reminds us of
the Supercon 2022 balloon story
— darn copycats! If you’re interested in the more Earthly details of this year’s FOSDEM open source development conference,
check out our recent coverage
. | 23 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609249",
"author": "zoobab",
"timestamp": "2023-03-04T09:10:54",
"content": "Ron Evans is a cool dude, his demos with cube LEDs and flying drones with human recognition years ago were just amazing:https://archive.fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/iottinygo/PS: i was organizing this IO... | 1,760,372,377.993829 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/03/defender-arcade-rebuilt-to-settle-a-childhood-memory/ | DefenderArcade Rebuilt To Settle A Childhood Memory | Arya Voronova | [
"Games",
"laptops hacks"
] | [
"arcade",
"arcade cabinet",
"defender"
] | [Jason Winfield] had a nemesis: the
Defender
arcade machine. Having put quite a number of coins into one during his childhood, he’s since found himself as a seasoned maker, and decided to hold a rematch on his own terms. For this, he’s
recreated the machine from scratch,
building it around the guts of a Dell laptop, and he tells us the story what it took to build a new
Defender
in this day and age.
Defender
was a peculiar machine — it was in cocktail table format, unlike many other arcade machines of that period. From pictures, he’s redesigned the whole thing in Fusion 360, in a way more desk-friendly format, but just as fancy looking as before.
As for the laptop, gutting it for its mainboard, screen, and speakers was a surprisingly painless procedure — everything booted up first try. A few board-fitted brackets and a swap from a HDD to a USB flashdrive for the OS later, the electronics were ready. As he was redesigning the entire arcade machine anyway, the new design control panel was also trimmed down for ease of use, while preserving the original colorful look.
All in all, an impressive build from [Jason]. After all was set and done, we don’t doubt that he went on to, let’s say, settle some old scores. It’s not the first time we see a
desktop-sized arcade cabinet,
and you gotta admire the skills making such a machine smaller while sticking to the old-timey aesthetic! Or, perhaps, would you like a cabinet
that’s more subtle? | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609228",
"author": "Joseph Eoff",
"timestamp": "2023-03-04T07:52:01",
"content": "Defender was in a standard stand-up console like most other video games. Like many other video games, there was a limited number of cocktail table consoles made for it.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... | 1,760,372,378.621364 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/03/will-carmakers-switch-clay-for-computers/ | Will Carmakers Switch Clay For Computers? | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"car hacks",
"cnc hacks"
] | [
"cad",
"car design",
"clay modeling"
] | The 3D printing revolution has transformed a lot of industries, but according to [Insider Business] the car industry still uses
clay modeling to make life-sized replicas of new cars
. The video below shows a fascinating glimpse of the process of taking foam and clay and making it look like a real car. Unlike the old days, they do use a milling machine to do some rough work on the model, but there’s still a surprising amount of manual work involved. Some of the older film clips in the video show how hard it was to do before the CNC machines.
The cost of these models isn’t cheap. They claim that some of the models have cost $650,000 to create. We assume most of that is in salaries. Some models take four years to complete and a ton of clay.
A film over the clay makes the material look more like plastic or sheet metal. Modern model makers do use 3D printing to make pieces like headlights or logos. They also use 3D scanners to send the model’s shape to designers for feedback. Of course, if the designers make a change, the model must also change.
You’d think computer modeling would be sufficient, but apparently, there’s nothing like seeing the real thing. They also put the clay models in wind tunnels and use smoke wands to study air flow around the proposed vehicle shape. Maybe one day, they will use pure CAD rendering and VR goggles, but today, they are still paying clay modelers to make replicas.
Concept cars
have been using 3D printing
lately, too. Of course, if they ever do 3D print the entire car, they will have to assemble it from parts or
get bigger printers
. | 47 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609186",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2023-03-04T04:38:10",
"content": "Why do they even bother modeling them in clay, or any other medium? They’re all going to look the same anyway. Monotonous, stultifying, demoralizing uniformity. They aren’t legally permitted to build them any ... | 1,760,372,378.255741 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/03/pcb-makes-7-segment-displays/ | PCB Makes 7 Segment Displays | Al Williams | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"clock hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"clock",
"LED display"
] | Of course, there’s nothing unusual about using 7-segment displays, especially in a clock. However, [Edison Science Corner] didn’t buy displays. Instead, he f
abricated them from a PCB using 0805 LEDs
for the segments. You can see the resulting clock project in the video below.
While the idea is good, we might have been tempted to use a pair of LEDs for each segment or used a diffuser to blur the LEDs. The bare look is nice, but it can make reading some numerals slightly confusing.
The remainder of the project is what you’d expect, a 3D-printed case and an Arduino Nano coupled with a DS1307 make the clock part work.
Honestly, with a few changes, we’d like to make up some of these boards for other kinds of custom displays. We can imagine a PCB where the bottoms of the display elements are right at the edge of the board instead of on stalks. You could even create
a 14-segment display
(we used to call these British flag displays) to make custom text messages. Of course, you can also make
custom electroluminescent displays on a PCB
reasonably easily, too. | 9 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609136",
"author": "YGDES",
"timestamp": "2023-03-04T00:16:40",
"content": "4014-format LED are better :-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6609161",
"author": "Eightbitswide",
"timestamp": "2023-03-04T02:33:11",
"co... | 1,760,372,378.403083 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/03/all-the-usb-you-can-do-with-a-ch552/ | All The USB You Can Do With A CH552 | Arya Voronova | [
"Parts"
] | [
"CH552",
"CH554",
"Native USB",
"PDI",
"UPDI",
"usb",
"usb host",
"USB host mode"
] | Recently, you might have noticed
a flurry of CH552 projects
on Hackaday.io – all of them with professionally taken photos of neatly assembled PCBs, typically with a USB connector or two. You might also have noticed that they’re all built by one person, [Stefan “wagiminator” Wagner], who is a prolific hacker – his Hackaday.io page lists over a hundred projects, most of them proudly marked “Completed”. Today, with all these CH552 mentions in the Hackaday.io’s
“Newest” category,
we’ve decided to take a peek.
The CH552 is an 8-bit MCU with a USB peripheral, with a CH554 sibling that supports USB host, and [Stefan] seriously puts this microcontroller to the test. There’s
a nRF24L01+ transceiver
turned USB dongle, a
rotary encoder peripheral
with a 3D-printed case and knob, a
mouse wiggler
, an interface
for our beloved I2C OLED displays,
a general-purpose
CH55x devboard,
and a flurry of AVR programmers –
regular AVRISP,
an I
SP+UPDI programmer,
and a
UPDI programmer with HV support.
Plus, if USB host is your interest, there’s a CH554
USB host development board
specifically. Every single one of these is open-source, with PCBs designed in EasyEDA, the firmware already written (!) and available on GitHub, and a lovingly crafted documentation page for each.
[Stefan]’s seriously put the CH552 to the test, and given that all of these projects got firmware, having these projects as examples is a serious incentive for more hackers to try these chips out, especially considering that the CH552 and CH554 go for about 50 cents a piece at websites like LCSC, and mostly in friendly packages. We did cover these two chips
back in 2018
, together with
a programming guide
, and we’ve seen things like
badges
built with its help, but having all these devices to follow is a step up in availability – plus, it’s undeniable that all the widgets built are quite useful by themselves! | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609078",
"author": "bubba",
"timestamp": "2023-03-03T21:16:32",
"content": "@AryaYouve got a typo…“The CH522 is an 8-bit MCU …” Should be CH552.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6609083",
"author": "ian 42",
"... | 1,760,372,378.303837 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/03/daniel-valuch-chats-about-cerns-high-caliber-hacking/ | Daniel Valuch Chats About CERN’s High Caliber Hacking | Tom Nardi | [
"Engineering",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"cern",
"Hack Chat",
"large hadron collider",
"lhc",
"particle accelerator",
"physics"
] | For those of us who like to crawl over complex systems, spending hours or even days getting hardware and software to work in concert, working at places like NASA or CERN seems like a dream job. Imagine having the opportunity to turn a wrench on the Space Shuttle or the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) — not only do you get to spend some quality time with some of the most advanced machines ever produced, you can be secure in the knowledge that your work will further humanity’s scientific understanding of the universe around us.
Or at least, that’s what we assume it must feel like as outsiders. But what about somebody who’s actually lived it? What does an actual employee, somebody who’s had to wake up in the middle of the night because some obscure system has gone haywire and stalled a machine that cost taxpayers $4.75 billion to build, think about working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research?
Daniel Valuch
Luckily for us,
Daniel Valuch stopped by the Hack Chat this week
to answer exactly that question. In sharing everything from his grueling nine hour entrance interview to the early days of the LHC where failures occurred every few minutes, he didn’t sugarcoat the situation. That said, after spending two hours sharing his fascinating stories with members of the community, the answer seems pretty clear — Daniel loves his job just as much as we thought he would.
Early on in the chat, he says that joining the LHC team as it was still being built reminded him of movies and documentaries he’d seen about NASA’s Apollo Moon program. There was a palpable feeling that what they were working on was of vast scientific and historic importance, and he couldn’t help but be in awe of the brilliant scientists and engineers that he was rubbing elbows with. He might have been the new guy at the lab, but thanks to his RF experience, Daniel soon found himself working with the high-speed ADCs, DACs, and FPGAs responsible for controlling the beam of accelerated particles.
For the home hacker, it might not be immediately obvious how RF skills apply to particle accelerators. But of course, this is RF on a scale that few of us can imagine. As Daniel explains, accelerating and stabilizing the beam requires multiple megawatt-class amplifiers, and a good working knowledge of RF theory is a must. In his own words, “there is no physics without RF and also no RF without physics.”
Even with all the equipment and knowledge in the world, working on a cutting-edge particle accelerator proves uniquely challenging. When dealing with events that are occurring at effectively the speed of light, nothing is really straightforward. Even the speediest of electronic systems can’t react fast enough to control the beam in real-time, so in a circular accelerator like the LHC, you have to predict what adjustments you’ll need to make for the next pass. Even still, it only takes particles a few microseconds to complete their 27 kilometer (16.7 mile) lap through the accelerator ring before they’re back in front of you — so there’s no time to waste.
But these incredibly powerful beam control systems, which Daniel says aren’t completely unlike the deflectors used to control a CRT, can be at odds with the scientific goals of the project as you also need to detect and measure exceptionally minute signals. Keeping all these systems in balance is a major challenge at CERN, as is compensating for environmental issues. A vast array of variables need to be taken into account while making measurements, from the phase of the Moon the the water level in the nearby Lake Geneva. Large global events, like the recent earthquake in Turkey, could be enough to halt observations temporarily.
Of course, as interesting as these technical details are, the topic of conversation for this Hack Chat was specifically “Life at CERN”, so of course folks wanted to know what an average day for Daniel looks like. Working in what’s called an equipment group, Daniel and his team are responsible for developing and building hardware for the accelerator. But since it runs 24/7, there are only occasional windows to actually get in and work on their new gear. Accordingly, an incredible amount of testing and debugging is done before it’s actually time to install the hardware. When each hour of downtime costs a quarter of a million dollars, due diligence is the name of the game.
When the accelerator is up and running, and directly working on its systems isn’t possible, the teams have the time to pursue new designs and experiments. But should something go wrong with the accelerator, it will immediately become the top priority. While there’s an emergency standby team that can be onsite within 45 minutes, they’re only capable of handling a small subset of possible problems. For anything else, system-specific experts need to step in. As such, Daniel says you need to be ready to respond to a call from the “Big Lady” at any time, day or night.
Often it’s some software issue that can be resolved with relative ease. But not always. Daniel recalled a time when he spent three hours diagnosing a system, only to find that a lightning strike a kilometer away was enough to upset one of the sensitive pieces of hardware.
Solving problems on a machine with hundreds of thousands of systems requires you to not only have an encyclopedic knowledge of how it all fits together, but the ability to quickly pick up on the smallest of clues. He describes it as “very high caliber hacking” — an apt term if we’ve ever heard one.
But he also notes, almost wistfully, that the LHC has been performing with remarkable stability as of late. When first brought online in 2008, he says the mean time between failures (MTBF) of the LHC was just five minutes. Now he goes months without hearing the siren call of the Big Lady, which gives his team more opportunities to work on smaller projects and machines. It might not be as exciting, but it’s certainly productive.
We want to thank Daniel Valuch for providing such incredible insight in what it’s like to work at CERN, and specifically on a machine as incredible as the Large Hadron Collider. We’re glad to hear working in such an environment is as rewarding as we hoped, and wouldn’t be surprised if readers looked at the sciences in a different light after reading his first-hand accounts. As always, the
full transcript of this Hack Chat is available on Hackaday.io
, which we’d strongly recommend checking out if you’re even remotely interested in high-energy physics or the nuts and bolts of the LHC.
The Hack Chat is a weekly online chat session hosted by leading experts from all corners of the hardware hacking universe. It’s a great way for hackers connect in a fun and informal way, but if you can’t make it live, these overview posts as well as the transcripts posted to Hackaday.io make sure you don’t miss out.
Featured image:
CERN
,
CC BY 4.0
, via Wikimedia Commons | 9 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609065",
"author": "Reluctant Cannibal",
"timestamp": "2023-03-03T20:40:42",
"content": "“you have to predict what adjustments you’ll need to make for the next pass” …… If I can do this, can I get a job with CERN? (LOL)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,378.357939 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/03/the-curved-nature-of-time-clock/ | The Curved Nature Of Time Clock | Al Williams | [
"clock hacks",
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"clock",
"ws2812"
] | While we’re told that space-time curves, we aren’t sure that was what [andrei.erdei] was going for when he built
a great-looking curved LED clock
. The LEDs are courtesy of a strip of 84 WS2812 smart LEDs, the curve comes from a 3D printed part, and a Wemos D1 mini provides the brains.
Like all of our favorite clocks, this one has a unique way of displaying the time. If you find the description in the post hard to understand, the video below makes it a bit easier to wrap your head around. Note the time appears in the top left corner of the video in several cases — so you can check to see if you’re reading it correctly.
The secret sauce, of course, is the curved plastic grid that holds the LEDs. Because of the unusual shape, supports are a must and there are notes in the post about the settings used to get the best results. With 84 LEDs, the software has to be careful not to turn them to full brightness at one time, or else the clock would need a 6 amp power supply. Instead, the software limits the brightness to a little less than half of the maximum. No LED is ever white, and not all LEDs are on at once. The clock works easily, according to [andrei], with a 2 A supply. The clock has a WiFi connection where you can set things up easily.
Overall, a nice-looking project that would look at home on a science fiction movie set. We’ve seen
color clocks before
. If you want to economize on LEDs, we’ve seen
a clock with only five
! | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,372,378.172525 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/03/supercon-2022-michael-whiteley-saves-the-badge/ | Supercon 2022: Michael Whiteley Saves The Badge | Joseph Long | [
"cons",
"Featured",
"hardware",
"Slider"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Supercon",
"badgelife",
"DEF CON",
"saintcon"
] | Michael Whiteley (aka [compukidmike]) is a badgelife celebrity. Together, he and his wife Katie make up MK Factor. They have created some of the most popular electronic conference badges. Of course, even experts make mistakes and run into challenges when they dare to push the envelope of technology and delivery schedules. In his Supercon 2022 talk,
There’s No Rev 2: When Badgelife Goes Wrong
, Mike shares details from some of his worst badge snafus and also how he managed to gracefully pull them back from the edge of disaster.
Living the Badgelife
Attendees at the world’s largest hacker convention, DEF CON in Las Vegas, had already become accustomed to receiving and wearing very cool and novel admission tokens, more properly known as badges. Then in 2006, at DEF CON 14, everything changed. Designed by Joe Grand, the first electronic DEF CON badge was a circuit board featuring a tiny PIC microcontroller, two LEDs, and a single pushbutton. Badgelife was born.
DEF CON 30 Humans Sampling Board
Mike begins his war stories with one about the DEF CON 30 badge. This was a herculean project with 25,000 badges being produced on a short timeline in the ever-changing chaos of a semiconductor supply-chain meltdown. Even though many regard it as one of the best DEF CON badges ever made, the DC30 badge posed a number of challenges to its creators. Microcontrollers were in short supply during 2021 and 2022 forcing the badge team to keep an eye on component vendor supplies in order to snipe chips as soon as they appeared in stock. The DC30 badge was actually redesigned repeatedly as different microcontrollers fluctuated in and out of supply.
Last minute changes to an audio amplifier on the DC30 badge were also forced by supply chain shortages. The amplifier modification introduced circumstances where the chip could burn up if the audio cable was looped back from a badge’s audio output to its input. It was also discovered that the amplifier chip could burn up if a lanyard clips shorted against the badge’s audio jack. Unfortunately, this discovery was not made until after the conference started. The amplifier chips that were burning up were in a nearly microscopic ball grid array (BGA) package. At only 1.5 mm square, these are not the easiest chips to rework when the are damaged.
Mike goes on to share stories from other badge projects. These include more lanyard clip problems with a SAINTCON badge, snapped 0.8 mm PCBs, broken traces connected through vias, reversed LEDs, mod wires, silkscreen delays, smashed connectors, and so on. There are so many details that go into an electronic badge and failing any one of them can become a showstopper.
Making Things Right
Of course, a great part of learning about all these problems is hearing how they were mitigated. Handling issues on the fly, as gracefully as possible, is where real expertise comes in. We are lucky to have forums like Supercon where we can learn about one another’s mistakes and hopefully avoid them in the future.
Mike shared how the number of burning amplifier chips at DC30 were significantly reduced by placing stickers on the badge bags and signs around the conference showing how the audio cable was not to be looped back between the audio output and input. Also, many people covered the audio jack pins with tape to avoid shorting against the lanyard clips. And best of all, the Hardware Hacking Village stepped up to assist people to perform the difficult BGA rework on the tiny amplifier chips. While regression testing after the change to the amplifier chip may have caught some of the problems, quickly identifying root causes and communicating fixes really helped to save a lot of badges.
For the SAINTCON 2019 badge, Mike caught reversed LEDs during the manufacturing process. The assembly house was able to flip them, but only at the cost of delayed delivery. The badge boards did not arrive until the morning of conference. Mike also nailed a last minute fix with mod wires on a few hundred DC801 badges. And then once again by stuffing components on all of the Car Hacking Village badges over one final weekend after the board house misprinted the PCB silkscreens introducing a significant delivery delay.
Lessons Learned
Ultimately, Mike summarizes the most important lessons he has learned from all of his badgelife adventures: “Time is everything. It can be your saving grace or your downfall. Things will go wrong, so have a backup plan. Lanyards are chaotic evil. Badges will get broken in unexpected ways. Test, test, and test some more!” | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609015",
"author": "jpa",
"timestamp": "2023-03-03T18:16:27",
"content": "Some of the badges are pretty cool, but I wonder if for the average attendee they are just an useless piece of ewaste?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "... | 1,760,372,378.535085 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/03/hackaday-podcast-208-hallucinating-robots-floppy-cartridges-and-a-flexure-synth-french-horn/ | Hackaday Podcast 208: Hallucinating Robots, Floppy Cartridges, And A Flexure Synth French Horn | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and [former Assignments Editor] Kristina Panos stood around talking about the greatest hacks of the previous week. But first, we’ve got a contest running now through March 21st — the
Low Power Challenge
!
Kristina almost got What’s That Sound this week, but could only describe it as some sort of underwater organ, so still no t-shirt for her. But [BalkanBoy] knew exactly what it was — the
Zadar Sea Organ
in Croatia. Then it’s on to the hacks, beginning with the most beautiful sea of 7-segments you’ll likely ever see. We gush over a tiny PC in a floppy drive that uses custom cartridges, dish about an expressive synth that uses a flexure mechanism, and enjoy a loving ode to the vacuum fluorescent display.
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!
And/or
download it and listen offline
.
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 208 Show Notes:
News:
Low Power Challenge: E-Paper Shelf Label Becomes Ultra-Frugal Clock
Low Power Challenge: Keep Plants Green And Clean With E-Paper Smart Tags
What’s that Sound?
This week’s lucky winner was [BalkanBoy], who knew that the mystery sound was the Zadar Sea Organ in Croatia!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Sailing On A Sea Of Seven-Segment Displays
Building a Sea of Segments – Will Gallia
This Camera Produces A Picture, Using The Scene Before It
Floppy-8 Is A Tiny PC In A Floppy Drive
retroCART USB Cartridge System
Internet Connected Pinball Machine Shows Off Scores
Pinball Lab
A More Expressive Synth Via Flexure
Challenging The Limits Of 3D Printing With Cymbals
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Aaron Christophel Brings DOOM To Payment Terminal
Brand New Colecovision Console – On A Breadboard
A Loving Look Inside Vacuum Fluorescent Displays
Kristina’s Picks:
Watch Time Slide By With This Electromechanical Clock
DIY Tool Makes Wrapping Wiring Harnesses A Breeze
Teaching A Robot To Hallucinate
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Repurposing Old Smartphones: When Reusing Makes More Sense Than Recycling
Laptop Motherboard? No, X86 Single-Board Computer!
Keebin’ With Kristina: The One Where Shift (Really) Happens | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6609143",
"author": "Matt Rozema",
"timestamp": "2023-03-04T00:35:23",
"content": "Elliott, let’s see this old drum machine you have with the VFDs!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,372,378.572286 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.