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https://hackaday.com/2023/01/09/iot-archaeology-leads-to-api-resurrection/ | IoT Archaeology Leads To API Resurrection | Jenny List | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"LED sign",
"public transport",
"startup"
] | What happens when someone’s personal project is turned into a startup which becomes something of a publicity darling, then collapses with very little product shipped and takes all its customers’ money with it?
That’s the subject of a blog post from [Kevin Chung],
who investigated the legacy of NYCTrainSign
, a company whose product was an LED NYC subway sign and which has become a meme byword for a startup scam. Along the way he found himself reverse engineering its API, and eventually even purchasing the expired domain name to resurrect the API for any NYCTrainSigns that may still be out there.
Securing a second-hand NYCTrainSign, he dismantled it to see what made it tick. Inside the handmade wooden case was an array of LED panels, driven by a Raspberry Pi 3 and an Adafruit LED panel HAT. This gave pause for thought, as the component choice gives rise to a very high BoM cost which was unsustainable given their habit of steep discounts.
The software proves straightforward enough to reverse engineer, and since the original domain was for sale he bought it and set up a replacement API. Do you have one of the few signs that made it to customers? Now you can run it again.
The rest of the piece tells a tale that will be familiar to startup veterans: one of far too much marketing, too many bosses, and too little engineering to create a viable product. The founders remain tight-lipped about what happened and where the money went, but since there are few more efficient money pits than a badly-run startup, it’s more likely that ill-advised spending is to blame than someone running off with suitcases of cash.
If you’d like a public transit sign without the dodgy start-up,
we’ve got you covered
. | 21 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6571081",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2023-01-10T06:00:39",
"content": "I like how he points out the “huge hole in the back for some unknown reason”, when he must have used it for it’s intended purpose – shoving a finger in there when trying to take the back off.This is totall... | 1,760,372,438.078211 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/09/clever-mechanism-makes-a-linear-control-from-a-rotary-hall-sensor/ | Clever Mechanism Makes A Linear Control From A Rotary Hall Sensor | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"diametrally",
"hall effect",
"linear",
"magnet",
"neodymium",
"sensor"
] | Every once in a while we stumble across something so simple yet so clever that we just have to call it out.
This custom linear Hall effect sensor
is a perfect example of this.
By way of backstory, [Nixieguy], aka [The Electronic Mercenary], offers up a relatable tale — in the market for suitable hardware to make the game
Star Citizen
more enjoyable, and finding the current commercial joystick offerings somewhat wanting, he decided to roll his own controllers. This resulted in the need for a linear sensor 100 mm in length, the specs for which — absolute sensing, no brushes or encoders, easily sourced parts — precluded most of the available commercial options, like linear pots. What to do?
The solution [Nixieguy] settled on was to use a Hall effect sensor and a diametrally magnetized neodymium ring magnet. The magnet is rotated through 180 degrees by a twisted aluminum bar, which is supported in a frame by bearings. A low-friction slider with a slot captures the bar; moving the slider along the length of the control rotates the bar, which rotates the magnet, which allows the Hall sensor to measure the angle of the magnetic field. Genius!
The parts for the prototype sensor are all made from 0.8-mm aluminum sheet stock and bent to shape. The video below shows the action better than words can describe it, and judging by the oscilloscope trace, the output of the sensor is pretty smooth. There’s clearly a long way to go to tighten things up, but the basic mechanism looks like a clear win to us.
Hats off to [Nixieguy] for this one, which we’ll surely be following for more developments. In the meantime, if you need to brush up on the Hall effect,
[Al Williams] did a nice piece on that
a while back. | 81 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6570872",
"author": "doug",
"timestamp": "2023-01-10T00:12:15",
"content": "Very nice! And by adding more twists to it you can even get better resolution.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6570946",
"author": "paulvdh",... | 1,760,372,438.382203 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/09/you-can-now-fix-your-deere/ | You Can Now Fix Your Deere | Jenny List | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"john deere",
"right to repair",
"tractor"
] | Over the last few years we have brought you many stories about John Deere tractors, and how their repair has been locked down such that only manufacturer-authorised technicians can work on them. They’ve become a poster child in the battle for the right to repair, a symbol of the worst practices. Finally now we can bring you some good news of sorts, as the agricultural giant has
signed a memorandum of understanding
with the American Farm Bureau Federation to ensure that their products will henceforth be repairable by people without Deere approval.
We can’t imagine that Deere will have taken this step willingly, and while we’d like to imagine that consumer protests in favour of right-to-repair have hit their mark, we’re guessing that it’s more of an economic pressure at work alongside
the threat of legislation outside their native America
. If farmers getting caught out waiting for a Deere van to arrive while their crop withers in the field wasn’t enough,
when the price of a second-hand tractor without the DRM outstrips that of a newer one with it
, eventually the sales of new tractors will also suffer.
So this is good news, and we’re guessing that other agricultural manufacturers doing the same DMCA practices will now follow suit. But it’s not a complete victory. The problem starts not with the DMCA restriction itself, but with the extension of the machine’s computer system into every part, including those many parts which simply don’t need it. It’s not a complete victory if anyone can now use the software to register a new hydraulic valve with the system; instead that hydraulic valve should not have to be authorised in the first place.
It’s this creeping unnecessary complexity which is the true enemy of right-to-repair,
and we shouldn’t forget that.
Header image: Dwight Sipler,
CC BY 2.0
. | 29 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6570768",
"author": "Name",
"timestamp": "2023-01-09T21:25:07",
"content": "I hope food prices will drop because without all this fake sensors and ovecomplicated parts will be removed so Tractors and their repair will be cheaper.John Deere lost some cases because it was their mistak... | 1,760,372,438.272052 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/09/get-pumped-for-this-miniature-gym/ | Get Pumped For This Miniature Gym | Abe Connelly | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Arduino Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"atmega328p",
"desktop toy",
"led strip",
"miniature",
"mp3",
"peak detector"
] | [Duncan McIntyre] lives in the UK but participated in a secret Santa gift exchange for his Dutch friends’ Sinterklaas celebration. In traditional maker fashion, [Duncan] went overboard and created a
miniature gym gift box
, complete with flashing lights, music and a motorized lid.
[Duncan] used [TanyaAkinora]’s 3D printed
tiny gym
to outfit the box with tiny equipment, with a tiny mirror added to round out the tiny room. An ATmega328P was used as the main microcontroller to drive the MP3 player module and A4988 stepper motor controller. The stepper motor was attached to a drawer slide via a GT2 timing belt and pulley to actuate the lid. Power is provided through an 18V, 2A power supply with an LM7805 providing power to the ATmega328P and supporting logical elements. As an extra flourish, [Duncan] added some hardware audio signal peak detection, fed from the speaker output, which was then sampled by the ATmega328P to be able to flash the lights in time with the playing music. A micro switch detects when the front miniature door is opened to begin the sequence of lights, song and lid opening.
[Duncan] provides
source
on GitHub for those curious about the Arduino code and schematics. We’re fans of miniature pieces of ephemera and we’ve featured projects ranging from tiny 3D printed
tiny escalators
to
tiny arcade cabinets
.
Video after the break! | 5 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6570727",
"author": "robomonkey",
"timestamp": "2023-01-09T20:34:19",
"content": "The only thing missing???Budgies working out in the gym!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6570765",
"author": "mrehorst",
"timestamp": "202... | 1,760,372,438.422511 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/09/all-about-usb-c-power-delivery/ | All About USB-C: Power Delivery | Arya Voronova | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Slider",
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"Type-C",
"USB C",
"USB Type-C",
"USB-C PD"
] | USB-C eliminates proprietary barrel plug chargers that we’ve been using for laptops and myriads of other devices. It fights proprietary phone charger standards by explicitly making them non-compliant, bullying companies into making their devices work with widely available chargers. As a hobbyist, you no longer need to push 3 A through tiny MicroUSB connectors and underspecced cables to power a current-hungry Pi 4. Today, all you need is a USB-C socket with two resistors – or a somewhat special chip in case the resistors don’t quite get you where you want to be.
You get way more bang for your buck with USB-C. This applies to power too; after all, not all devices will subsist on 15 W – some will want more. If 15 W isn’t enough for your device, let’s see how we can get you beyond.
Reaching Higher
USB-C power supplies always support 5 V and some are limited to that, but support for higher voltages is where it’s at. The usual voltage steps of USB-C are 5 V, 9 V, 15 V and 20 V ; 12V support is optional and is more of a convention. These steps are referred to as SPR, and EPR adds 28 V, 36 V and 48 V steps into the mix – for up to 240 W; necessitating new cables, but being fully backwards and forwards compatible, and fully safe to use due to cable and device checks that USB-C lets you perform.
A charger
has to support all steps below its highest step,
which means that 20 V-capable chargers also have to support 5 V, 9 V, and 15 V as well – in practice, most of them indeed do, and only some might skip a step or two. You can also get voltages in-between, down to 3.3 V, even, using a PD standard called PPS (or the AVS standard for EPR-range chargers) – it’s not a requirement, but you’ll find that quite a few USB-C PSUs will oblige, and PPS support is usually written on the label.
You can’t get beyond 5 V with just resistors though – you’ll need digital communications over the CC line, using a protocol called USB PD (Power Delivery) – which lets a device and a PSU negotiate power requirements in a featureful way. It’s a constant-baudrate bidirectional protocol, there’s CRC checks, response timing requirements, and it’s used for basically everything USB-C – even high-speed protocol negotiations. Most importantly, USB-C PD is immensely powerful.
There’s a mindboggling amount of communication possible through USB-C, letting us build devices smarter than ever before. It’s thoughtfully designed – the communications are forwards- and backwards-compatible, with new 140 W EPR chargers happily charging old 60 W devices at 60 W rates, and 60 W chargers still usable for slower charging of 140 W-craving devices. USB PD capabilities are way beyond “give me this voltage limited by this current”, too – devices can query each other’s power role preferences, charging states, swap power roles on the fly, determine what a cable is capable of, and do all of that with safety in mind.
Docks For Everyone, Let Nobody Leave Dissatisfied
If you don’t yet appreciate the complexity, let me walk you through a complex scenario that is made easy by USB-C. Imagine a USB-C dock with a USB3 port, a HDMI port, and a USB-C charger input port. If you connect such a dock to your laptop without plugging a charger into it, the laptop will feed this dock with 5 V, capped at either 1.5 A or 3 A, depending on the laptop. That alone is quite useful when you need HDMI or an extra USB3 port on the go, and some such docks have Ethernet too – hard to pass up on that. All in all, the dock acts as a power sink, and the laptop acts as a power source. The arrangement is turned onto its head, however, when you plug a high-voltage-capable charger into this dock’s charger input port.
The IC inside the dock will detect the charger and act as an intermediary, talking PD with the laptop and the charger, determining each other’s power requirements and capabilities. Say, the laptop’s interested in the 20 V, 3 A that the charger can provide. The intermediary IC will tell the laptop to stop supplying 5 V and prepare to charge from a higher voltage instead, and once the laptop agrees, will tell the charger to ramp up the voltage. Within a second, the system’s changed completely – instead of running on 5 V from the laptop, the dock now passes 20 V from the charger to the laptop through itself, and gets power for its own needs from the same 20 V.
This power role swap is designed to be completed within a small timeframe – your USB3 and HDMI devices won’t experience brownouts, and high-speed communications aren’t interrupted as power role swap happens. 20 V doesn’t get onto the 5 V-only pins, either – the dock has power regulation and gating inside to prevent that. The dock will also work if your laptop or phone doesn’t support video output over USB-C, in which case, everything but the HDMI port will function as intended, and if the laptop doesn’t support charging over USB-C, then charging negotiations will fail in a safe way.
The dock IC knows the power budget for its own USB3 and HDMI ports, and subtracts it from the charger’s power budget before presenting it to the laptop, with the laptop knowing exactly how much current it’s able to consume, and being able to stick to that for powering everything, keeping the charger happy and not overloading it. If the gear used is up to USB-C standards, the user doesn’t have to take any precautions – everything is safe.
Best of all, you can buy a dock like this for just $10 online. All of these features aren’t a fluke or a hack – USB-C is designed to do all of this and much more. As a user, you no longer need to buy a business class laptop to get a fully featured single-cable dock – many consumer-grade laptops and phones with USB-C data and charging chops can handle all things listed above without breaking a sweat.
How Do They Talk?
If you like geeking out about consumer and hacker tech advances, you will find USB-C firmly within the futuristic-technology territory as you get to know it. You deserve to know how all of this works, too – let’s go through the basics of power communications with PD.
Say, you plug a charger into a laptop. The charger provides a pull up on the CC line, the laptop will detect that, and if your laptop is USB-C charging-capable, it will put a pull down onto the CC line. The charger will then provide 5 V, and will get ready to talk PD for anything higher than that. As you can see, before higher voltages are possible, you first have to go the 5 V and analog communications way. Put your 5.1 kΩ resistors onto CC pins, get 5 V, and talk the power supply into giving you a higher voltage from there.
The resistors remain connected during communications – in fact, the combination of the pullup and pulldown resistor has to be present constantly for the charger to keep supplying current, even at voltages way beyond 5 V. The CC line voltage is used so that the PSU can quickly determine when a device has been unplugged, and vice-versa – this helps with safety features like reducing contact arcing at higher voltages when unplugging the cable, and making sure the charger goes out of its higher-voltage modes so that it doesn’t destroy the next device connected – which used to be a failure mode for some very early USB-C chargers.
The idle voltage on the bus is the resistor divider-created voltage
As a result, the digital signalling is overlaid onto the CC line voltage. You could say that PD a half-digital protocol. This requirement of PD, plus demands like applying VCONN to currently unused pin for checking high-speed or > 3 A cables, make it hard to just wire the CC pins up to a UART peripheral or the like. However, there are microcontrollers with PD peripherals, both of Western and Eastern design, and there’s PD-talking chips you can hook up over I2C if your microcontroller lacks one.
The ability to talk PD is instrumental for making USB-C hacker-accessible. You don’t have to know the PD lingo if high voltage out of a USB-C port is all you need, however.
Just Give Me Twenty Volts
You can buy a friendly IC to speak PD for you. You might’ve heard of “PD trigger boards” – a small board with a USB-C socket, two pins for voltage output, some solder jumpers if you’re lucky, and an IC with just enough PD vocabulary to convince a power supply it should give us 20 V or 9 V. We’ve seen hackers use PD trigger boards and chips for converting old laptops and higher-powered devices to get power from USB-C power supplies, in situations where the manufacturer most absolutely didn’t intend for that to happen.
A custom breakout for CH224K, assembled
There’s a number of trigger ICs around. We’ve seen hackers successfully use
IP2721
, and recently, exploring ICs like the CH224K. Most of us just buy a small PCB with everything soldered on, however, and don’t fret over the specific ICs; that said, you’ll want to have a few suggestions whenever you set out to design a device with a USB-C port high voltage demands, what’s with surprise out-of-stock events and all.
PD trigger boards are not perfect for everything. Say, you want to power a resistive load of 8 Ω through USB-C – let’s use a PD-capable soldering iron as an example. The tip needs 2.5 A at 20 V, and 1.9 A at 15 V. A 60 W charger can provide 3 A at 20 V and will happily power your load, so you can safely set your trigger board to 20 V with a solder jumper. But then, a 45 W charger can only offer 2.25 A on 20 V, however, and a 8 Ohm load will put it into overcurrent protection mode – you need to use 15 V even though the 20 V mode is available. Trigger board ICs aren’t designed with logic like this in mind – thus, projects like
the PD Buddy Sink
exist, pairing a PD-talking chip with a MCU that can handle more complex logic.
In fact, trigger boards don’t tend to give you any current limit information – if there’s risk of overcurrent because the charger cannot provide 3 A at the voltage the trigger board request, you’ll just have to make sure the charger you’re using implements overcurrent protections; those are mandated by USB-C and done by most, that said, you don’t want your device powercycling every few seconds, either. Also, if you want a dual-role port that works with OTG adapters or perhaps can do high-speed lanes, a trigger IC won’t be able to help you, and you can’t just connect multiple PD ICs requesting different functions in parallel to your CC pins. We can try and surpass these limitations in later articles – for now, know that trigger boards have their well-defined place in your USB-C arsenal, and they will help you with your USB-C projects as far as higher voltages are concerned.
I Want To Give Something Twenty Volts
What if you have a 20 V barrel jack PSU that you’d like to turn into a USB-C charger? After all, the voltages match. Things aren’t as simple – you can’t just shove 20 V into a USB-C port and expect your laptop to charge. In fact, your laptop might die if you do that – it’s not guaranteed that magic smoke won’t be released; some laptops have protections against that, but I’ve witnessed this arrangement cause magic smoke emissions, and I’d rather not have that happen to you, too. You want to do it properly, and for that, you need to go through the PD negotiation song and dance first, limiting the supplied voltage to 5 V while at it.
There are adapters online that seem to do at least the 5 V and PD parts for you – without the intermediate steps, but hey, you can omit them safely if you know that 20 V is what your device needs. You do also need to make sure that your 20 V is within a reasonable range; sometimes the adapter will check that for you, and sometimes the device won’t mind. There’s also quite a few USB-C PSU designs with DC input, that will have active conversion onboard – so your 12 V, 19 V and 24 V PSUs can be put to good use with USB-C stuff.
Power, But Not Always For Good
There are caveats to USB-C power. One of them is connecting two dual-role ports together – say, a laptop and a powerbank. Both of them are able to either provide power or use power for charging, and with USB-C, they use the same port for both of these functions. As a result, if you want to charge your fancy laptop from your fancy powerbank, you might be surprised to find your laptop charging your powerbank instead – and same might happen if you connect your phone to your laptop. It’s not often that it happens and it seems that some powerbank manufacturers manage to avoid such an arrangement; however, other products might not fare as well.
This and more fun tales of customers reverse-engineering their own laptops’ third-party lockout behaviour
can easily be found
There are provisions for battery level information exchange
in USB-C, but I’d guess they are
not utilized or implemented by all.
Some devices that expose the USB-C layer controls to users, will show you a menu where you can check – in part, modern phones and
Chromebooks
do that. Powerbanks with their single-button controls, if they even have a button, might not do that, and many laptops aren’t able to ask anything either, so we’ll just have to wait and see towards
an eventual solution for manufacturers to standardize upon.
USB-C also lets you implement digital signing for device validity verification. If you can read between the lines, it smells of DRM, and that’s what it is. Some device manufacturers, especially from the HP/Dell/Lenovo dark triad,
will implement DRM
that makes their laptop throttle its CPU if the charger or the cable is third-party – even if it’s all the same 100 W. It sort of makes sense when Dell does that in cases where they push 6A through a verified-to-work combination of charger, cable, and laptop. But at this point, let’s be fair, the conscientious choice would’ve been to go for EPR and 140 W instead, and throttling is inexcusable either way.
On the topic of laptops – if you ever try to find a laptop that gives more than 5 V on its USB-C port, I wish you good luck. As far as I’m aware, such laptops do not exist, and you’ll want a charger and a powerbank.
Still, We Win
There’s little technical reasons that a switch-mode power supply has to be hard-wired to a certain voltage, and USB-C breaks these chains. Now, you can get 9 V or 20 V at 3 A from a gas station charger and a small cheap board, and you can even charge Li-Ion batteries from a PPS charger. There’s a potential in USB-C capabilities, that we’re only now starting to tap into. As times goes on, proprietary plug and wacky voltage chargers around us will completely die out, and we’ll forget about them, just like we’ve forgotten about all the cellphone data transfer cable standards after MicroUSB took over. How many proprietary data cable ports did Samsung alone create, again? | 65 | 19 | [
{
"comment_id": "6570650",
"author": "Mel",
"timestamp": "2023-01-09T18:44:06",
"content": "I’m a big fan of USB-C for all the reasons you mention above. I do worry about its mechanical robustness though, as it seeing a lot more ‘action’ now that is is the only charging port on many laptops. I’ve no... | 1,760,372,438.023441 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/09/sls-amg-velomobile/ | SLS AMG Velomobile | Navarre Bartz | [
"car hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bike",
"bike car",
"gull wing",
"mercedes",
"mercedes benz",
"quadracycle",
"sls amg",
"velocipede",
"velomobile"
] | Many gearheads dream of owning a supercar, but their exorbitant prices make them unattainable for all but the most affluent. [Andrzej Burek] decided to make his dreams come true by building his own
supercar with a human-powered twist
. [YouTube]
At first glance, [Burek]’s SLS AMG looks like the real thing. Pop the hood, and you’ll find this “car” is missing it’s V8 which has been replaced by a beefy speaker pumping out engine sounds from any car you choose. Both driver and passenger can provide propulsion for the
sociable tandem
, and the power is routed through a differential to the rear wheels. [Burek] decided to install the differential to make installing power assist motors simpler in future revisions of this quadracycle.
[Burek] said it’s taken him four years from buying the first component to the bike’s status in the video after the break. Other than the front and rear bumpers, he built the body himself out of fiberglass to learn how to work with the material. He welded the frame himself as well, and, in a testament to good measurements, the two parts fit together when united despite being built in separate locations. You can checkout more pictures
on his Instagram
.
If you want some more bike hacks, check out this
Open Source Bike Computer
or this
Exercise Bike Game Controller. | 14 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6570563",
"author": "CRJEEA",
"timestamp": "2023-01-09T16:47:08",
"content": "I wonder how many times you’d have people honking at you for “driving” too slowly, because they didn’t realize it was peddle powered.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,437.912534 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/09/ask-hackaday-whats-your-worst-repair-win/ | Ask Hackaday: What’s Your Worst Repair Win? | Dan Maloney | [
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Rants",
"Repair Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"broken wire",
"ferrule",
"fix-it",
"Rant",
"repair",
"satisfaction",
"stove"
] | Like many of you, I’ve become the designated “fix-it” person for my family and friends. While it can be a lot of work — I just finished an oil change that required me to lay in a cold, wet driveway and I can’t mention in polite company the substances I was bathed in while fixing a clogged pipe last week — I generally relish my role. I enjoy solving problems, I love working with my hands and my head, and who doesn’t like saving money and time?
But for me, the best part of being the fix-it guy is the satisfaction that comes from doing something others can’t do. I find this especially true with automotive repairs, which conventional wisdom says is strictly the province of factory-trained experts. A little bit of a hero complex, perhaps? Absolutely! After all, I don’t get paid for my repairs, so I’ve got to get a little something for the effort.
This is why a recent pair of unrelated fixes left me feeling thoroughly unsatisfied. Neither of these jobs was a clear win, at least in terms of getting the rush of being able to do something that nobody else could. At best, these were qualified wins, which both still left me feeling a little defeated. And that got me thinking that I’m probably not the only one who has had marginal repair wins like these.
Fix 1: The Driveway Watchdog
The first repair was for a friend of mine who lives deep in the woods. Somewhat ironically, his driveway is a very busy place, mainly with wildlife like deer, elk, and the occasional moose. Keeping track of their comings and goings is important for safety; one does not want to surprise a moose, after all. A fair number of cars find their way up his driveway too: most of them are innocent, but occasionally they come with ill intent.
So wisely, he installed
a wireless driveway alert system
that gives him a heads-up on intruders. During the recent cold snap, though, his system stopped working. He changed the batteries and tried a few basic diagnostics, but no dice — the transmitter wouldn’t work. So I offered to take a look and see if maybe I could save him a few bucks on a replacement.
Now, this transmitter is a somewhat ad hoc assembly. Inside the weatherproof case is what appears to be an off-the-shelf PIR motion sensor, which is wired to a PCB that contains a microcontroller and a radio module in an RF can. When the PIR sensor triggers, it sends power to the radio module, where the MCU sends a recorded sound clip — “Alert zone one, alert zone one…” — to the transmitter, broadcasting it to a receiver inside the house. Simple, but effective.
His report was that he couldn’t even get the LED on the PIR sensor to light up, so I figured I’d start there and popped the cover off. This is where I started having thoughts of heroics — perhaps one of the SMD components on the sensor’s PCB was bad, and I’d be able to trace the problem and do a little microsoldering. Or maybe I’d have to do some reverse engineering of the firmware to figure out what was wrong. The possibilities!
Sadly, it was not to be. After I had removed the sensor — which entailed disconnecting the battery pack wires from screw terminals on the PCB — I noticed that the positive lead had broken off in the terminal block. Surely this wasn’t just a broken wire? Where are the heroics in that? But alas, when I stripped the wire back and put everything back together, the whole thing worked like a charm. I felt cheated — no need to bust out the oscilloscope, the waveform generator, the spectrum analyzer, or even the bench power supply. At least I got to use
my microscope
. Just to make myself feel like I’d done something, I crimped
some ferrules
on the ends of the battery pack wire and gave it back to my friend. Yay me.
Fix 2: The Spicy Stove
As if that wasn’t disappointing enough, a day or two later my daughter texted me to come over and look at her stove. Alarmingly, one of the electric burners on the stovetop had started causing electric shocks through their cookware. The shocks ranged from barely noticeable to a little on the spicy side. Not good!
69 volts to ground; not as bad as it was when I first tested, but still pretty spicy.
I rushed over with a multimeter and started poking around. My thought was that the burner element was cracked or otherwise internally damaged, and a short between the nichrome wire and the outer covering had developed. I did some continuity checks between the element and chassis ground, but didn’t see anything. Voltage checks between the burner and ground were a little different, though — I was seeing 117 volts on the problem burner. Well, there’s your problem, lady!
Unfortunately, the local big-box stores were all sold out of 8″ burner elements for GE stoves, so I couldn’t replace the dodgy element right away. We decided to swap the other 8″ element on the stove, which wasn’t shocking her, into the spot where the bad element was. Surprise! That showed 117 volts too. So it’s not the element, but the spot on the stovetop? Confused, we swapped everything back to the original locations and that seemed to fix the problem — no voltage from either burner to ground. What?
Clearly, this one isn’t a fix. There’s still something wrong with the stove, and I’ll need to do more diagnostics. It was kind of a fix, I suppose — at least my kid isn’t getting shocked when she cooks. But it certainly wasn’t a satisfying fix, and even if I replace the suspect burner with a new element, I’m not sure I’m going to trust the repair.
Your Turn
I think we can all agree that neither one of these repairs is very satisfying. In the case of the driveway alarm, I barely needed to be involved at all — my friend would probably have found out what the problem was with just a little tug on the wires. It was a fix, to be sure — it wasn’t working at all when I got it, and it’s working because of something I did. But it’s a boring fix, at best. The spicy stovetop is unsatisfying, too, but in another way: it’s not really a fix, because I didn’t replace anything or find anything that appeared broken. It’s just back together the way it was, and working normally, at least for now.
A fix is a fix, but some fixes are just not worth the effort. So the question is: what’s your least satisfying repair story? Have you ever had high hopes for a glorious repair, only to end up with something a toddler could have fixed? Or like my daughter’s stove, have you managed to make a problem “go away” without actually having done anything? What do you do in cases like that? How do you know when you reach the point of diminishing returns in terms of finding the problem? And when do you — gasp! — throw in the towel and call in an expert? Sound off in the comments below. | 191 | 50 | [
{
"comment_id": "6570487",
"author": "TG",
"timestamp": "2023-01-09T15:08:49",
"content": "Had a friend with a street-legal dirt bike which would do strange things when riding two-up: it would try to dive to one side and throw people off of it. Really dangerous. He took it to a bunch of local motorb... | 1,760,372,438.678554 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/09/a-simple-serial-display/ | A Simple Serial Display | Matthew Carlson | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"atmega8",
"serial",
"seven segment display"
] | Often with more “modern” complex protocols involving handshaking, token exchanges, and all the other hoops and whistles accompanying them, we forget how useful and powerful serial can be. In what might be a wonderful tribute to that, [Davide Gironi] created a
simple AVR-powered 16-digit serial display
.
It can display two numbers, and that’s it. A MAX7219 drives the display, and the brains are an ATmega8. It’s straightforward to send new values: a start byte, a CRC, the data to display, and an end byte. A CP2102 provides a UART to USB interface to connect to a host. An EEPROM helps it remember the last numbers shown. It supports positive, negative, and floating-point numbers.
This is a beautiful example of doing one thing and doing it well. The design is simple and allows it to be used for anything. You can show the current stock market price, the time for the next two trains for your commute, or whatever else you can think of. [Davide] included a schematic, code, and a 3d printed enclosure.
Perhaps the idea could be combined with a
clever design for a single-motor seven-segment display
. | 11 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6570409",
"author": "John Boxall",
"timestamp": "2023-01-09T13:05:17",
"content": "Nice, but the EEPROM won’t last forever.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6570418",
"author": "sjm4306",
"timestamp": "2023-01-0... | 1,760,372,438.206843 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/09/spaceballs-get-serialized/ | Spaceballs Get Serialized | Matthew Carlson | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"6dof",
"serial interface",
"spaceballs",
"spacemouse"
] | As much as we’d love a TV show version of the cult classic movie, we’re talking about a different kind of Spaceball. While there have been many iterations, [Evan] had a Spaceball built by a company known as Spacetec in 1991 and rebranded by HP. Being an older peripheral, he used the
Orbotron 9001, a converter from RS232 serial to USB
, to interface his Spaceball with modern devices.
The spaceball was one of the first 6 degrees of freedom controllers, useful for CAD and some games that supported it. It’s famous for being involved in the NASA Mars Pathfinder mission as it was used to control the Sojourner rover. In addition to the perfect orb, it also features eight handy buttons.
The Orbotron is a USB-capable microcontroller (Atmel SAMD21) designed to support the Spaceball 360, 4000, and 5000 series. Ultimately, after tinkering with the code to support the 2003 and 3003 Spaceballs, he had some reasonably usable with some rough edges. For example, acceleration curves still need tweaking, and going too fast can get you stuck. The downside was the rubber coating on the ball that had degraded over the years, making it horrendously sticky.
All the code changes are on
GitHub
. We’d love to see more spacemice integrated into things, like
this ergonomic keyboard
. Or even an
open-source version of a spacemouse
. After the break, we have a video of [Adafruit] showing a Spaceball 2003 working with a serial adapter. | 33 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6570340",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2023-01-09T10:17:20",
"content": "That rubberised coating from the early ’90s is a menace to society. At least it comes off with some IPA and elbow grease.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_... | 1,760,372,438.485 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/08/recreating-a-numpad-for-the-adm-3a/ | Recreating A Numpad For The ADM-3A | Matthew Carlson | [
"classic hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"ADM-3A",
"ADM3A",
"numpad",
"QMK",
"stackpole"
] | [Evan] already had a working ADM-3A (a dumb terminal from 1976) but was starting to eye the accessories hungrily. He had only seen the numpad on Wikipedia and in the manual. So when he found some authentic stackpole numpads on a surplus sale, he grabbed them and converted them to be
ADM-3A compatible.
Looking at the schematic for the ADM-3A, [Evan] figured out that the numpad was parallel to the keyboard matrix, not adjacent. This meant that pressing a five on the keyboard was electrically equivalent to pressing a five on the keyboard. So holding shift while punching on the numpad leads to some unexpected characters for those of us used to more modern keyboards. Since [Evan] only needed to make one or two of these, he soldered wires directly to switch contacts in the matrix that the ADM-3A expects. A 3d printed housing, some rubber feet, and a ribbon cable later, it was done. While it looks slightly different from the original, the vibe is right, and given that it is a stackpole switch, it has the same feel. With the spare numpads, he created a replacement PCB that runs QMK and connects to a more modern computer via USB-C. The files for the 3d printed housing are also
up on GitHub
, along with the PCBs and QMK configuration files.
If you’re interested in what more you can do with an ADM-3A,
why not hook it up to a Raspberry Pi
? | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6594683",
"author": "Kelli",
"timestamp": "2023-02-07T22:26:25",
"content": "“This meant that pressing a five on the keyboard was electrically equivalent to pressing a five on the keyboard.”I assume that you meant for one of the instances of the word ‘keyboard’ in the above to be re... | 1,760,372,437.853143 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/08/building-a-giant-remote-controlled-model-airbus-a380-in-a-year/ | Building A Giant Remote Controlled Model Airbus A380 In A Year | Maya Posch | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"A380",
"model aircraft",
"RC airplane"
] | A year ago [Ramy RC] set out on a momentous challenge: to build a 1:21 scale Airbus A380-800 RC model with functional engines, landing gear and all other details. Recently he finished the project and
published a video
with a summary of the whole build process (also linked below). The full video series can be found on the
Ramy RC channel
. The final RC airplane came out at a massive wingspan of 3.9 meters (12.7′), a length of 3.6 meters (11.8′) and a weight of 25 kg. This weight is carried by the full landing gear of multiple bogeys that can retract much like on the real airplane.
A range of materials were used for the body, including carbon fiber and wood, with each part carefully modeled with CAD software and 3D-printed or cut on a CNC cutter. Four ducted fans provide the propulsive power that lift this enormous model airplane into the skies, which is the only part where the noise profile doesn’t quite match that of the real A380. Even so, seeing the airplane taxing, taking off and flying through the skies makes you look twice to realize that it is in fact a scale model and not a real Emirates A380-800, also courtesy of the excruciating amount of detail to the model’s final look, down from the logos to the silver-grey lines.
We’re also quite convinced that the maiden flight of such an exquisite model has to be one of the most terrifying experiences imaginable. | 21 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6570195",
"author": "Mr Name Required",
"timestamp": "2023-01-09T03:11:50",
"content": "It’s an impressive beast! Large scale RC flights turn heads. I used to fly RC decades ago and beginners fears were mitigated somewhat by having the student’s transmitter linked to the instructor’... | 1,760,372,438.735185 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/08/hackaday-links-january-8-2023/ | Hackaday Links: January 8, 2023 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"continents",
"crime",
"crypto",
"cubesat",
"fraud",
"hackaday links",
"helium",
"JAXA",
"LoRa",
"mesh",
"office space",
"photography",
"remote",
"satellite",
"sony",
"tectonics"
] | Something odd is afoot in the mountains around Salt Lake City, Utah, at least according to local media reports of
remote radio installations that have been popping up for at least the past year
. The installations consist of a large-ish solar panel, a weatherproof box full of batteries — and presumably other electronics, including radios — and a mast bearing at least one antenna. Local officials aren’t quite sure who these remote setups belong to or what they’re intended to do, but the installations obviously represent a huge investment in resources.
The one featured in the story was located near the summit of Twin Peaks, which is about 11,000 feet (3,300 meters) in elevation, which with that much gear was probably a hell of a hike. Plus, the owner took great pains to make sure the site would withstand the weather, with antenna mast guy wires that must have required lugging a pretty big drill up with them. There aren’t any photos of the radios in the enclosure, but
one photo
shows a 900-MHz LORA antenna, while
another
shows what appears to be a panel antenna, perhaps pointing toward another site. So maybe a LORA mesh network? Some comments in the Twitter thread show most people are convinced this is a Helium crypto mining rig, but the
Helium Explorer
doesn’t show any hotspots listed in that area. Either way, the owners are out of luck, since their gear is being removed if it’s on public land.
Most of us have probably had the realization that at least some aspects of our professional life bear uncomfortable similarities to Mike Judge’s 1999 cult classic,
Office Space
. It might be the color of your stapler, or it might be your lack of flair, but for one Seattle-area developer, things allegedly went a little further when he was able to
swipe about $300,000 from his employer a couple of bucks at a time
. The dev, one Ermenildo Castro, is alleged to have pulled a Pete Gibbons by installing code on the checkout page of his employer,
Initech
Zulily, which sent the shipping fees to his account. He also is accused of manipulating prices on the e-commerce site to buy $41,000 worth of merchandise for pennies on the dollar, presumably paid for with his ill-gotten gains. Sadly, Zulily security found his secret evil plan in a document on his laptop called “Office Space Project,” while Tacoma police found boxes of merchandise piled up on his porch and driveway. So things don’t look good for Ermenildo; maybe he should have vented his work frustrations in
a more constructive way
.
If you’ve ever been using Google Maps and thought how cool it would be to press a button and get a freshly updated satellite image displayed, you may be in luck. Sony, in cooperation with the Japanese space agency Jaxa and the University of Tokyo, is launching
a service called Star Sphere
, which aims to provide custom space-based photography to the masses. The service will provide web-based access to a 6U CubeSat in a 500 to 600 km orbit. Details are sketchy, but it appears the satellite is little more than a Sony 4k digital camera with a 28-135 f/4 zoom lens, along with the equipment needed to keep it in orbit and communicate with Earth. It’s not clear if the satellite is in orbit yet, but Sony claims the public will be able to take custom shots of both Earth and the stars. No word of how much this is going to cost, but they say it’ll be available in the US and Japan this year.
And finally, if you prefer a really, REALLY historical view of our planet from space, check out
this interactive ancient Earth visualization
. You can go back in time up to 750 million years, and see what the planet looked like before plate tectonics had its way with the current arrangement of continents. There’s a handy “jump to” feature that lets you see what the planet looked like when the first algae appeared, or when our ancestors first came down out of the trees onto the savannah. Another nice touch is the ability to locate your city and keep track of it through time; like a lot of places in North America, my city seems to have spent about 500 million years at the bottom of the sea, only popping up above the surface in the early Triassic period. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6570119",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-01-09T00:06:15",
"content": "My stapler, and tape dispenser are pink.Other men may borrow it, but usually bring it right back.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"com... | 1,760,372,438.784393 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/08/can-ai-replace-your-gm/ | Can AI Replace Your DM? | Jenny List | [
"Artificial Intelligence"
] | [
"ai",
"ChatGPT",
"dd",
"DM",
"GM"
] | The current hotness is anything to do with artificial intelligence, and along with some interesting experiments comes a lot of mindless hype. The question is, what can it do for us! [Jesse] provides a fun answer
by asking ChatGPT to perform as a
Dungeons and Dragons
dungeon master
.
There are many ways to approach a game of D&D, and while some take the whole thing very seriously indeed we prefer to treat it as a lightly inebriated band of intrepid heroes smacking each other and assorted monsters with imaginary swords and war hammers. Would the AI follow the nerdiest cliches to their pedantic conclusions, or would it sense that the point of a game is to have fun?
We follow the AI D&D campaign from the creation of the world, then a band of heroes. The heroes go to an inn where they are approached by a mysterious stranger with a quest to explore a cave. The story evolves to become a pretty good D&D game, that we can imagine our human DM would have a lot of fun embellishing and performing as he led us along it.
Maybe the key to this lies in that last sentence. While this is an acceptable storyline that might appear in a D&D book, it’s just not enough to carry a game. The machine DM lacks the sparkle that a good human DM would add to the game. The names, locations, and characters are also painfully formulaic, the type of thing that teenagers find really cool when they discover D&D, but later figure out isn’t really necessary.
The AI is doing what it’s good at and spinning a D&D yarn from all the D&D yarns it knows, but since it’s never experienced a real game with a human DM, it still gives only a semblance of intelligence. Human DMs can now breathe a sigh of relief, they’re not about to be made redundant.
Having an AI with a D&D angle has been an entertaining story to write. We more often see the game
in context of people making dice
.
Header: DALL-E prompt “A game of D&D in progress, fantasy art oil painting”. | 18 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6570044",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-01-08T21:10:43",
"content": "When I read the Title, I was wondering how Al Williams was going to replace my Digital Meters.Anyway if he wanted to replace them, he’d have to first pry them from my cold dead... | 1,760,372,438.931266 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/08/low-cost-433-mhz-door-sensors-get-open-firmware/ | Low-Cost 433 MHz Door Sensors Get Open Firmware | Tom Nardi | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Parts"
] | [
"433 mhz",
"custom firmware",
"replacement firmware",
"smart home",
"Wireless sensor"
] | It’s an unfortunate reality these days that if you see a cheap piece of consumer electronics, there’s a good chance its only cheap because it’s designed to lock you into some ecosystem where you’ll either end up paying a subscription, or worse, have your personal information sold behind your back. One of the best tools we have against these sort of anti-consumer practices is the development of open source firmware replacements that put control of the device into the hands of the community, rather than a corporation.
Now,
thanks to the work of [Jonathan Armstrong]
we have such a firmware for the 433 MHz magnetic door and window sensors that you can pick up on AliExpress for $4 USD a piece. The new firmware not only ensures you can use these sensors with a wide array of receivers, but adds a number of new features over their stock configuration.
Connecting to the programming header is easy.
In addition to tweaking the transmission protocol so it can be picked up with existing open source projects such as the
popular rc_switch library
, [Jonathan] has also added a periodic heartbeat signal that can be used to verify the sensor is still online. The new firmware will also transmit the status of the sensor’s internal tamper switch, alerting you to the possibility that somebody is trying to physically manipulate the sensor.
He’s got more ideas for features, but tells us he could use some assistance from folks experienced with the 8051 architecture. [Jonathan] says the development tools
[Vincent Defert] put together for the STC15 microcontroller
used in the sensors got him on the right track, but he’s struggling to use emulated EEPROM as code space. If he could figure that out, it would pave the way for more capabilities such as connecting additional sensors to the board.
Replacement firmware projects can not only free a device from the proprietary ecosystem it was designed for, but open up a whole new world of possibilities. One of our favorite examples is the custom firmware
[Aaron Christophel] developed for Xiaomi’s Bluetooth thermometers
, which took a cheap vendor-locked gadget and turned it into a smart home powerhouse. | 38 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6569962",
"author": "NdK",
"timestamp": "2023-01-08T18:45:16",
"content": "Popping in just to mention one of the features of the alternative fw for those BLE thermometers is support for a reed contact so that they can additionally act as a door sensor…",
"parent_id": null,
"... | 1,760,372,438.869551 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/08/forth-cracks-risc-v/ | Forth Cracks RISC-V | Jenny List | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"forth",
"GD32",
"RISC-V"
] | Over the decades there have been many programming languages, some of which have flowered briefly, and others that have stuck around despite newer, better, and faster competition. Few languages embody this last group more than FORTH, over five decades old and still cropping up wherever a simple, elegant, fast, and compact stack-based programming language fits the bill. [Alexander Williams] has now taken it somewhere new, with
a FORTH in RISC-V assembly
which runs on the GD32 series of microcontrollers that are RISC-V lookalikes of the popular STM32 ARM parts.
We have to admit to last having used FORTH on an 8-bit home computer in the 1980s, aside from a moment’s idle play on discovering that the Open Firmware on Apple computers is a FORTH interpreter. Thus we’re intrigued by this implementation, but not from a position of FORTH expertise. We’d expect such an efficient language to be extremely quick though, so it’s definitely something to keep an eye on for when a suitable dev board comes our way. If it interests you,
take a look at the GitHub repository
. | 49 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6569896",
"author": "Yaakov",
"timestamp": "2023-01-08T15:06:25",
"content": "What! Is FORTH really still alive? I’m not sure I remember any of it now, it’s been so long…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6569911",
"au... | 1,760,372,439.018202 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/08/the-github-silverware-drawer-dilemma-or-finding-active-repository-forks/ | The GitHub Silverware Drawer Dilemma, Or: Finding Active Repository Forks | Maya Posch | [
"internet hacks",
"Software Development"
] | [
"fork",
"github"
] | An fortunate reality of GitHub and similar sites is that projects that are abandoned by the maintainer are often continued by someone else who forked the project. Unfortunately, the ease of forking also means that GitHub projects tend to have a lot of forks, with the popular projects having hundreds of them. Since GitHub has elected to not provide a way to filter or sort these forks, finding the most active fork can be rather harrowing.
In addition, a popular project’s dead repository tends to score higher in search results than replacement forks. For these particular situations a couple of very useful websites and browser add-ons have been developed. The
Lovely Forks add-on
by [
Utkarsh Upadhyay
]
seeks to insert information on forks that are notable or newer than the repository one is looking at.
Meanwhile, the
Active Forks
project by [
Samar Dhwoj Acharya
] provides a
sortable list
of project forks when provided with a GitHub repository name. This helps enormously when trying to find the freshest forks in a whole list. This is similar to the
Useful Forks
project that provides a
web-based interface
in addition to a Chrome extension. Do note that these queries will count towards the GitHub API rate-limits, so you may need to add an access token.
It’s a shame that GitHub doesn’t offer such functionality by default, but thanks to these projects the times of clicking through a hundred forks to find the freshest one is at least over. For now. | 11 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6569811",
"author": "Scopeuk",
"timestamp": "2023-01-08T12:01:46",
"content": "Insights and then network will get you pretty close, it’s sorted by most recently active",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6569828",
"author"... | 1,760,372,439.470762 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/08/release-less-magic-smoke-with-a-bulb-limiter/ | Release Less Magic Smoke, With A Bulb Limiter | Jenny List | [
"hardware"
] | [
"incandescent lamp",
"power"
] | As electronics have moved lower in voltage, it’s perhaps less common to work on live-mains equipment. Thus particularly among younger hardware hackers it sometimes seems as though such work is viewed as so dangerous as to be only for the foolhardy. In practice it remains safe, so long as appropriate precautions are taken and a few pieces of useful safety equipment are present. One of those mains bench essentials is something less common in 2022, a mains current limiter using a set of switched incandescent light bulbs. [
Donna LaRocco
] shares
a modern take on the idea
, incorporating a digital mains voltmeter.
The idea is that a mains device under test is connected in series with a light bulb of a suitable wattage to let through enough current to run the device in normal operation, but to light up and bring down the voltage if the device draws too much. It’s an extremely simple but effective tool. Traditionally these are built using household electrical fittings on a board, and this one is no exception. The voltmeter comes from the RV market where voltage drop is an issue, no doubt giving European readers a chance to chuckle with their 230 V outlets.
If mains safety needs your attention,
it’s a subject we’ve addressed in the past
. | 29 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6569746",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2023-01-08T09:28:29",
"content": "Was going to post an interesting aside, but it’s not worth the abuse. Screw the lot of ya!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6569772",
"author": "A... | 1,760,372,439.42101 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/07/classic-video-chip-drives-a-modern-tft/ | Classic Video Chip Drives A Modern TFT | Jenny List | [
"home entertainment hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"STM Nucleo",
"TMS9928A",
"video"
] | A lot of us have a soft spot for retrocomputers, and there’s nothing quite like running original hardware. Unfortunately if you’re after the truly original touch then that means carrying along the family TV from 1982, and that’s where life becomes annoying. What if there were a way you could easily drive an LCD panel from a classic video controller? Help is at hand for owners of TI TMS9928A video chips, courtesy of [umaker], with
a clever interface board that drives an SPI or parallel TFT
.
At its heart is not the FPGA you might expect, but an STM32G4 microcontroller on an STM Nucleo board. This digitizes the R-Y and Y components from the TMS chip which would originally have been destined for an NSC or PAL encoder, does the color conversion through its algorithm, and transfers the result to the screen. This is a task which would back in the day when NTSC or PAL were king have been seen as extremely computationally intensive, so it’s a mark of just how capable an STM can be that a few dollar microcontroller can do it.
We can see this technique proving to be extremely useful across a lot of different retro color graphic applications. We’re not sure whether its lag would be too much for a light gun game, but it would be nice to think that it would result in handheld retro machines.
We encountered this project previously, when as part of its development
he needed a sync separator
. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6569682",
"author": "rnjacobs",
"timestamp": "2023-01-08T06:16:26",
"content": "Microcontroller than has an integrated ADC that can sample at at least 11MSa/sec?? Apparently I’ve been failing to keep up-to-date.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,439.353264 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/07/tiny-robots-that-bring-targeted-drug-delivery-and-treatment-a-little-bit-closer/ | Tiny Robots That Bring Targeted Drug Delivery And Treatment A Little Bit Closer | Maya Posch | [
"News",
"Science"
] | [
"Drug delivery",
"origami",
"robotics"
] | Within the world of medical science fiction they are found everywhere: tiny robots that can zip through blood vessels and intestines, where they can deliver medication, diagnose medical conditions and even directly provide treatment. Although much of this is still firmly in the realm of science-fiction, researchers at Stanford
published work
last year on an origami-based type of robots, controlled using an external magnetic field. Details can be found in the
Nature Communications
paper
.
These miniature robots use the well-known
Kresling
origami pattern, which when compressed creates a rotor-like structure. When equipped with magnetic surfaces, these robots can be controlled in a variety of ways that allows them to propel themselves through fluids by spinning, as well as do flips. What enables the targeted drug delivery feature is the internal pocket of fluid (dye in the experiment) and the monostable state of these origami robots. When the magnetic field is removed, they unfold by themselves, which causes an embedded needle to pierce the pocket with medication after which turning the magnetic field on and off creates a pumping motion.
Effectively, by tracking the robots’ journey through the body and steering them using a precisely controlled magnetic field, they can deliver medication, assist in therapies and surgeries. Although medical applications and requisite usage approval are still years away, it’s nevertheless an exciting glimpse at what could one day be yet another incredibly useful medical tool.
(Thanks to [koppanyh] for the tip!) | 8 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6569646",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-01-08T04:54:28",
"content": "No payroll!The videos at the link are interesting.But, I wonder if the “swim fins or propeller” mechanism might macerate tissues it travels along.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,372,439.513144 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/07/gorgeous-sunflower-macropad-will-grow-on-you/ | Gorgeous Sunflower Macropad Will Grow On You | Kristina Panos | [
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"Kailh",
"Kailh chocs",
"macro pad",
"macropad",
"rp2040",
"sunflower"
] | Once [Hide-key] saw the likes of the banana and corn macro pads, they knew they had to throw their hat in this strange and wonderful ring. Some family members suggested a sunflower, and off they went looking for inspiring images, finally settling on
a more iconic and less realistic design
which we think is quite beautiful.
This lovely little macro pad has seven keys hiding under those petals, with the eighth major petal concealing a XIAO RP2040 microcontroller. The rest of the major petals actuate a low-profile Kailh choc in — what else? — brown. Don’t worry, the middle isn’t a wasteland — there’s a low-profile rotary encoder underneath. Part of the reason this flower looks so great is that [Hide-key] started with SLA prints, but the paint choices are aces as well. If you’d like to grow your own sunflower, everything about this garden is open-source.
Oh yes, we totally covered the
banana
and the
banana split
, though we must have missed out on the corn. We hear that when you try it with butter, everything changes.
Via
KBD #109 | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6569581",
"author": "Happy guy",
"timestamp": "2023-01-08T02:38:00",
"content": "Fantastic! Adding little bits of whimsy to your daily grind/life is such an under-rated way of helping your mental health.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comm... | 1,760,372,439.304313 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/07/wireless-cnc-pendant-implemented-with-esp-now/ | Wireless CNC Pendant Implemented With ESP-NOW | Maya Posch | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"cnc",
"ESP-Now"
] | As a fervent fan of twiddly and twirly widgets and tactile buttons in a device’s user interface, [Steve M Potter] created a remote control (pendant) for his CNC machine, which he explains in a
recent video
that’s also linked down below. In addition to all the tactile goodness, what is perhaps most interesting about this controller is that it uses Espressif’s
ESP-NOW
protocol. This still uses the same 2.4 GHz as WiFi would, but uses a system more akin to the pairing of a wireless mouse or keyboard.
Advantages of ESP-NOW include the lower power usage, longer range, no requirement for a router and WiFi SSID & password. As far as latency goes, [Steve] measured a round-trip latency of 2.4 ms, which is fast enough for this purpose. Since it does control a potentially dangerous machine, all transmissions are acknowledged and re-transmitted at higher power if needed.
The lower power usage means that the pendant will last a lot longer on a single charge from the 18650 Li-ion cell, while ESP-NOW’s fixed address pairing saves time when turning the pendant on. Meanwhile, on the CNC side, another ESP32 acts as the receiving end for commands, although theoretically an ESP8266 could be used as well, if size or power was a concern there.
As for the transparent enclosure? It’s to make it easier to show it off to interested folk, apparently. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6569574",
"author": "Rich S",
"timestamp": "2023-01-08T02:15:08",
"content": "As a CNC machinist, I would love to have a wireless Handwheel Pendent. Great idea!!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6569677",
"author": "Andrew",
... | 1,760,372,439.558739 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/07/new-part-day-esp32-p4-espressif-risc-v-powerhouse/ | New Part Day: ESP32-P4 Espressif RISC-V Powerhouse | Jenny List | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Parts"
] | [
"ESP32",
"espressif",
"RISC-V"
] | It seems every day there’s a new microcontroller announcement for which the manufacturer is keen to secure your eyeballs. Today it’s the turn of Espressif, whose new part is the
ESP32-P4
, which despite being another confusingly named ESP32, is a high-performance addition to their RISC-V line-up.
On board are dual-core 400 MHz and a single-core low power 40 MHz RISC-V processors, and an impressive array of hardware peripherals including display and camera interfaces and a hardware JPEG codec alongside the ones you’d expect from an ESP32 part. It’s got a whopping 768 KB of on-chip SRAM as well as 8 K of very fast cache RAM for intensive operations.
So after the blurb, what’s in it for us? It’s inevitable that the RISC-V parts will over time displace the Tensilica parts over time, so we’ll be seeing more on this processor in upcoming Hackaday projects. We expect in particular for this one to be seized upon by badge developers, who are intent on pushing extra functionality out of their parts.So we look forward to seeing the inevitable modules with this chip on board, and putting them through their paces.
Thanks [Renze] for the tip. | 63 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6569292",
"author": "Hitomi",
"timestamp": "2023-01-07T18:05:58",
"content": ">H.264 encoding support>Looks like a license trap, will see the implications and what this might do to the price. Anyone who knows their stuff regarding this potential issue?",
"parent_id": null,
"... | 1,760,372,439.658366 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/06/myceliotronics-biodegradable-electronics-substrates-from-fungi/ | MycelioTronics: Biodegradable Electronics Substrates From Fungi | Navarre Bartz | [
"hardware",
"Science"
] | [
"biodegradable",
"circular economy",
"electronics",
"ewaste",
"fungi",
"mushroom",
"myceliotronics",
"mycelium",
"pcbs"
] | E-waste is one of the main unfortunate consequences of the widespread adoption of electronic devices, and there are various efforts to stem the flow of this pernicious trash. One new approach from researchers at the Johannes Kepler University in Austria is to replace the substrate in electronics with a
material made from mycelium skins
.
Maintaining performance of ICs and other electronic components in a device while making them biodegradable or recyclable has proved difficult so far. The substrate is the second largest contributor (~37% by weight) to the e-waste equation, so replacing it with a more biodegradable solution would still be a major step toward a circular economy.
To functionalize the mycelial network as a PCB substrate, the network is subjected to Physical Vapor Deposition of copper followed by deposition of gold either by more PVD or electrodeposition. Traces are then cut via laser ablation. The resulting substrate is flexible and can withstand over 2000 bending cycles, which may prove useful in flexible electronics applications.
If you’re looking for more fun with fungi, check out these
mycelia bricks
, this
fungus sound absorber
, or this
mycellium-inspired mesh network
. | 12 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6568534",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-01-06T20:04:57",
"content": "I’m sure manufactures would love a circuit board that decays after a few years.They could even bribe politicians into making laws requiring it.Then, no one can keep their elec... | 1,760,372,439.707037 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/06/this-week-in-security-lastpass-takeaway-bitcoin-loss-and-pytorch/ | This Week In Security: Lastpass Takeaway, Bitcoin Loss, And PyTorch | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"Citrix",
"lastpass",
"pytorch",
"This Week in Security"
] | We mentioned the LastPass story in closing a couple weeks ago, but details were still a bit scarce. The hope was that LastPass would release more transparent information about what happened, and how many accounts were accessed. Unfortunately it looks like
the December 22nd news release is all we’re going to get
. For LastPass users, it’s time to make some decisions.
To recap, an attacker used information from the August 2022 breach to target a LastPass Employee with a social engineering ploy. This succeeded, and the attacker managed to access LastPass backups, specifically a customer account database and customer vaults. There has been no official word of how many users’ data were included, but the indication is that it was the entire dataset. And to make matters worse, the encrypted vault is only partially encrypted. Saved URLs were exposed as plain-text to the attacker, though usernames and passwords are still encrypted using your master password.
So what should a LastPass user do now? It depends. We can assume that whoever has the LastPass vault data is currently throwing every password list available at it. If you used a weak password — derived from words in any language or previously compromised — then it’s time to change all of your passwords that were in the vault. They are burned.
Whether you stick with LastPass or go to another solution, it’s just a matter of time until your vault is cracked. Making matters worse, some old Lastpass accounts only use 5,000 rounds of PBKDF2 (Password-Based Key Derivation Function) hashing. New accounts are set to use over 100,000 iterations, but some older accounts could still use the old setting. The result is that an attack against the encrypted vault runs much faster. The number of iterations is almost certainly in the stolen data, so these accounts will likely be tested first. If you’re a long-time user, change all of the passwords stored in the vault.
There is some good news. The vaults use a salt to go with the passwords — additional data that gets folded into the PBKDF2 function. It means that the password cracking procedure has to be done individually per user. If you’re just another uninteresting user, you might not ever get targeted for cracking. But if you might be interesting, or have URLs that look interesting, there’s likely a higher chance of being targeted. And unfortunately, these were plain text.
So how does the math stack up? Lucky for us, [Wladimir Palant]
ran the numbers for us
. A minimum complexity password, using the 2018 rules for a LastPass password, results in 4.8×10^18 possible password combinations. An RTX 4090 can sustain in the ballpark of 1.7 million guesses per second on an account using only 5,000 iterations of PBKDF2, or 88,000 guesses per second on a properly secured account. That’s 44,800 years, and 860,000 years to break a vault open, assuming one RTX4090 working on it. Some very rough math on
the size of a three-letter-agency datacenter
would suggest that devoting the entirety of one of these datacenters to the task would crack the less secure vault in under 4 months. With an account using the full security settings, this rises to nearly six years. Keep in mind, this approach is a best-case scenario for an attacker, and represents devoting a $1.5 billion datacenter to the task for an extended period. But it also assumes you chose your password randomly.
But here’s the rub: If the risk is enough to push you to action, it’s not enough to change your LastPass password. Whether you stay with LastPass or move to another solution, you’ll need to change the master password first, and then go through the grueling process of changing every password in your LastPass vault. This whole mess was certainly a failing on the part of LastPass, and their post-incident reporting certainly leaves some transparency to be desired. Unencrypted URLs associated with each saved password is unfortunate. But the central tenet, that not even LastPass can access your saved passwords, seems to have held up.
Bitcoin Hacker Hacked
Luke Dashjr is a Bitcoin Core developer, the primary signer of the Bitcoin Knots software, and
has suffered a major security breach
. This may be a follow-on incident from
a November physical attack
, where someone managed to reboot his co-located server from a flash drive, and install a backdoor. That one was caught, and the malware was seemingly removed. Luke lost a total of about 200 bitcoin, out of both his active (hot) and offline (cold) wallets. He’s treating this as a total compromise, and has warned that his PGP key should be suspect as well. That means recent releases of Bitcoin Knots should be suspect, too.
There have been several theories floated, everything from a “boating accident” to avoid tax liability, to a known problem with random number generation on the Talos system he uses (CVE-2019-15847). None of this seems quite as likely as the idea that this was a missed rootkit on the compromised server, and lateral movement back into [Luke]’s home network. Either way, it’s a terrible mess, and we’re hopefully looking forward to a positive resolution.
PyTorch Nightly Compromise
The PyTorch-nightly package was
hit with a dependency confusion attack
, active between December 25th and December 30th. The issue here is that PyTorch hosts a
torchtriton
package as part of its nightly repo, and that package name wasn’t claimed on PyPi. So, all someone had to do was come along and upload a package under that name, and presto, any new pip install of PyTorch-nightly grabbed the PyPi version. The malicious package vacuums up system data, like current nameservers, hostname, username, working directory, and environment variables, and sends those to h4ck[dot]cfd (
Archive link
). That bit isn’t so bad, though environment variables are sure to include auth tokens. The kicker is that bash history,
/etc/hosts
,
/etc/passwd
,
~/.gitconfig
,
~/.ssh
, and the first 1000 files in the home directory are all packaged up and uploaded, too. On a modern system, the
passwd
file doesn’t actually contain any password hashes, but the
.ssh
folder may very well contain private SSH keys. Yikes.
Now,
the developer behind this bogus package has been found
, and claims that this was intended to be security research, and promises that all data will be deleted. The stolen data was claimed to be in order to positively ID the victim, presumably for the purpose of collecting bug bounties. This has some element of believability, but really doesn’t matter, as any secrets leaked in this incident need to be revoked regardless. The silver lining is that no malicious code is run simply by installing the package, but a Python script would need to do an explicit
import triton
in order to trigger the payload. The PyTorch project has renamed the package to
pytorch-triton
, and reserved that project name on PyPi to avoid a repeat incident.
Mapping Vulnerable Citrix Installs
There have been a couple of critical vulnerabilities fixed recently in Citrix ADC and Citrix Gateway, one of which prompting a notice from the NSA that an APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) was actively compromising systems with the bug. The fixed version numbers are known, and that made researchers at Fox It, part of NCC Group, wonder.
Is there a way to determine the release version
of a Citrix device from the pre-authentication HTTP response? Spoiler: There is. The
/vpn/index.html
endpoint contains a hash that seems to vary between release versions. The only trick left was to find a quick way to map the hash back to the version.
Enter Google’s Cloud Marketplace, which has a one-click option to spin up a new Citrix virtual machine. One SSH session later confirmed the version and corresponding hash. That’s one down. Also part of Google’s service is a zip file that has information about older versions, including image names that can be used to download previous versions as a
qcow2
virtual disk image — easy enough to grab the hash and version number from there. Between these images and the Citrix download page, quite a few of the known hashes were identified, but strangely, there are some hashes observed in the wild that didn’t seem to line up with a known release. By finding a specific read-only file that is also accessible remotely, it’s possible to get an accurate timestamp on when a given firmware was built. That fills in the gaps on the known version numbers, and let them chart out exactly what versions were showing up in the wild.
Because the hash was part of the data collected by scanning services like Shodan, it’s possible to look at the history of installed versions, as well as the current state. There’s a very noticeable change in the deployed versions, nicely corresponding to the NSA warning. Even at that, there are many deployed Citrix servers that still appear to be running vulnerable firmware, though the details of the deployment may mean they are not in imminent danger. It’s a very interesting look at how we end up with statistics like these.
Bits and Bytes
Synology’s VPN server
has a critical vulnerability, CVE-2022-43931
, that scores a CVSS score of 10, and allows an unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary commands. Patched releases are available. The flaw itself is an out-of-bounds write in the Remote Desktop service, so there is some hope that this vulnerable service isn’t widely exposed to the open Internet.
Here’s the exploit you didn’t know you needed,
breaking out of the Lua interpreter to get shellcode
execution. The trick here is to encode shellcode as numbers, then trick the runtime into unaligned access, which jumps program execution into the data. Another fun trick is that the target Lua interpreter will let you run Lua bytecode and trusts it just like regular Lua code. So what’s the purpose of all this? Sometimes the fun is in the journey.
What do you get when bored security researchers decide to poke at the mobile app for electric scooters? Lots of mysteriously honking and flashing scooters. And when those same researchers up the ante and try to make cars honk?
A truly impressive list of remote vulnerabilities
in vehicles of all brands. From live GPS tracking, to turning on lights, unlocking doors, and even remotely starting vehicles, [Sam Curry] and his band of merry hackers made it happen. To the credit of the many vendors that were affected, pretty much every vulnerability ends with “they fixed it right away.” | 10 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6568536",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-01-06T20:07:51",
"content": "“This Week in Security:” posted AFTER the Hackaday podcast?What’s this world coming to?B^)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_i... | 1,760,372,439.763109 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/06/the-surprisingly-simple-way-to-steal-cryptocurrency/ | The Surprisingly Simple Way To Steal Cryptocurrency | Jenny List | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"cryptocurrency",
"public key encryption",
"security"
] | In the news a few days ago, the revelation that
Luke Dashjr, a core Bitcoin developer, had his wallet compromised, and lost 200 BTC
. A small fortune, and something of a shock. I’m guessing that someone with that expertise would not have left his private key lying around, so as a cryptocurrency non-enthusiast I’m left curious as to how the attackers might have done it. So I phoned a few friends who do walk those paths for an explanation, and the result was a fascinating conversation or two. The most probable answer is still that someone broke into his computer and copied the keys — straight-up computer theft. But there’s another possible avenue that doesn’t involve stealing anything, and is surprisingly simple.
Are You A Gambler, Or An Engineer?
For some reason while writing this I have a Kenny Rogers earworm. Jason Lam (
CC BY-SA 2.0
)
I’m guessing that most Hackaday readers will know something about
how a blockchain works
, and also
how public-key cryptography works
. Public-key cryptography is key to the security of a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, with the key that unlocks all your wealth for you being your private key and the key which allows transactions to be made with you by other people being your public key.
If you want to send some cryptocurrency to someone else, you encrypt the transaction using their public key which is as its name suggests, public, and your private key which is known only to you. Thus it’s important that your private key is kept
really
private, because if someone finds it they control your stash of cryptocurrency. So to steal all those bitcoins someone had his private key, an eventuality that should never have happened. We can safely assume that his protection of the key was as good as it gets, so further assuming that nobody physically stole his hardware wallet or whatever he kept it on, his key was compromised by other means.
The true security of public-key cryptography lies in it being extremely difficult to guess an individual’s private key. A brute-force algorithm to guess Luke Dashjr’s private key would require unimaginable computing power over a geological-level timespan, thus it’s also safe to assume that nobody set their computer to guessing his key alone. At this point, it’s helpful to stop thinking like an engineer, and start thinking like a gambler. An engineer calculates the time required to brute force Luke Dashjr’s private key, but a gambler throws the dice and sees if the throw generates any money.
Thinking from a gambler’s perspective, what are the dice, and how likely is a throw to win? If you roll the dice by guessing a private key at random and try it against Luke Dashjr’s stash of Bitcoin alone, then you’re in the same area as the engineer waiting geological time for your computer to crack it. But if you’re a gambler, you don’t care about Luke Dashjr or anyone else, you’re simply interested in the keys to any wallet with some Bitcoin in it. At this point the odds against you come down enormously, because instead of one chance with Luke Dashjr, you have a whole blockchain’s worth of possibilities for a match.
How To Steal 200 BTC By Brute Force
So here’s how it works. The blockchain contains the public keys of all its participants, everyone who has, or has had, Bitcoin. You collect that list, which is quite large, and hold onto it. Then you roll the dice, by generating a random private key. From that private key you generate the corresponding public key, and check whether it’s in the list of public keys on the blockchain. If it matches, you empty the wallet connected with it; if not, you repeat the process by generating another key. By not focusing on a particular individual account, you’ve reduced the time you’ll have to wait to crack
any
account from a geological aeon to a much more manageable figure. My friends suggested that it might be possible to find something in the order of months if they had enough resources.
As the title says then, it’s a surprisingly simple way to steal cryptocurrency. But simple doesn’t mean that the attack makes economic sense. Guessing key pairs requires significant resources and time, and you have to weigh this against the chances of finding a whale with boatloads of Bitcoin versus the chance of finding an account with a couple bucks left in it, which would sting after having invested millions into computer time. Doing this seriously is a gamble, and thankfully for the integrity of Bitcoin, probably a bad bet. But who knows? People
do
play the lottery.
If you want to roll the bones yourself, there is even a handy proof of concept in the form of
keys.lol
, the product of Sjors Ottjes, a Dutch web developer. This site displays a range of keys and queries the Bticoin and Ethereum blockchains to see if they match anything. You’ll soon see the scale of the task as you load random pages, and it’s safe to say that the chances of loading a page with a valid key on it are very small indeed.
If you hold Bitcoin, you should at least think about the brute force attack. But it doesn’t concern us — our wealth is held in unobtainable semiconductor devices stashed in a safety deposit box.
Header image: Ralf Roletschek,
CC BY-SA 3.0
. | 78 | 24 | [
{
"comment_id": "6568472",
"author": "sebastian",
"timestamp": "2023-01-06T18:21:30",
"content": "Sorry but this is nonsense, the likelihood of an address collision is not just kind of low so that with enough compute power you would practically have a chance to find one, it’s ridiculously low, impos... | 1,760,372,439.887556 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/06/hackaday-podcast-200-happy-new-year-the-ultimate-game-boy-and-python-all-the-things/ | Hackaday Podcast 200: Happy New Year, The Ultimate Game Boy, And Python All The Things | Tom Nardi | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Managing Editor Tom Nardi ring in the New Year with…well, pretty much the same stuff they do every other week. After taking some time to talk about the nuts and bolts of the podcast in honor of Episode 200, discussion moves on to favorite stories of the week including an impeccably cloned Dyson lamp, one hacker’s years-long quest to build the ultimate Game Boy, developing hardware in Python, building a breadboard computer with the 6502’s simplified sibling, and the latest developments surrounding the NABU set-top box turned retrocomputer. The episode wraps up with a review of some of the biggest themes we saw in 2022, and how they’re likely to shape the tech world in the coming years.
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 it in living MP3
.
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 200 Show Notes:
What’s that Sound?
Think you know this week’s sound?
Fill out the form
for a chance to win a Hackaday Podcast t-shirt.
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
DIYson Lamp Hides Cables Between The Seams
An Epic Quest To Build The Ultimate Game Boy
Game Boy Color Makes Itself At Home In A DMG-01
The Ultimate Game Boy Talk
The Whole Thing In Python
Clever Design Technique Makes Flexible PCB Fit For A Queen
Squeezing A Minimalist 6502 Retrocomputer Onto A Single Breadboard
A Homebrew SMD Vise Built From Scrap Wood
NABU PC Gets CPU Upgrade, Emulates A TRS-80
Teensy Twofer Of Plug-In Emulated Retro CPUs
NABU PC – A 1984 Z-80 Computer You Can Buy Today
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
A White-Light Laser, On The Cheap
Stewart Platform Keeps Its Eye On The Ball
The Crawlspace Crawler
Tom’s Picks:
Machine Learning Makes Sure Your LOLs Are Genuine
Supercon 2022 Badge Gets A Tinkering Helper Add-on
Fool A Drone With A Fixed Battery
Can’t-Miss Articles:
2022: As The Hardware World Turns | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6569346",
"author": "Anders Nielsen",
"timestamp": "2023-01-07T19:36:38",
"content": "Eeey! I’m on the podcast! :D I have a lot of fun making these videos and I’m super proud to get the mention.Elliot, of course I mentioned the Atari 2600 :D The comment section of Hackaday articles ... | 1,760,372,439.926802 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/06/triple-zone-clock-tells-time-in-style/ | Triple Zone Clock Tells Time In Style | Kristina Panos | [
"clock hacks"
] | [
"7-segment display",
"clock",
"multiple 7-segment display",
"PCB clock"
] | Although the cutoff for saying ‘Happy New Year’ is somewhere around today, there’s still plenty of time to reminisce about 2022 and all that we accomplished. Hackaday alum [Jeremy Cook] spent much of last year designing and building
a triple-zone PCB clock
, dubbed the 742 clock. It is called so because of all the 7-segments, and then 42 from the height in millimeters of each PCB. Also because it’s 24 backwards, and if we may be so bold, because 42.
If this looks familiar, it’s because
we covered the single-panel version
a few months ago. Much like that one, the triple time zone clock is controlled by a single Wemos D1 mini, and the other two panels are chained to the primary board. This version has a frame made of 20/20 extrusion with nice 3D printed caps on the ends to finish off the look.
As with the single-panel clock, this one uses bared-FR4 PCBs to diffuse the LEDs, and the effect looks really nice. We particularly like the capacitive corners that control the clock and the colors, which change throughout the day when left to their own devices. Be sure to check out the build video after the break.
Are you really into LEDs? Consider building a
Berlin clock
. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6568417",
"author": "Ken AC3DH",
"timestamp": "2023-01-06T17:07:51",
"content": "Very cool clock! you could add time zone info to the random dot area…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6568420",
"author": "Jeremy Cook",
"t... | 1,760,372,440.568258 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/06/fifteen-flat-crts-and-a-bunch-of-magnets-make-for-interactive-fun/ | Fifteen Flat CRTs And A Bunch Of Magnets Make For Interactive Fun | Dan Maloney | [
"Art",
"classic hacks"
] | [
"cathode ray tube",
"crt",
"deflection",
"exhibit",
"magnet",
"museum",
"neodymium"
] | If you were a curious child growing up when TVs were universally equipped with cathode ray tubes, chances are good that you discovered the effect a magnet can have on a beam of electrons. Watching the picture on the family TV warp and twist like a funhouse mirror was good clean fun, or at least it was right up to the point where you permanently damaged a color CRT by warping the shadow mask with a particularly powerful speaker magnet — ask us how we know.
To bring this experience to a generation who may never have seen a CRT display in their lives, [Niklas Roy] developed
“Deflektron”
, an interactive display for a science museum in Switzerland. The CRTs that [Niklas] chose for the exhibit were the flat-ish monochrome tubes that were used in video doorbell systems in the late 2000s, like the one
[Bitluni] used for his CRT Game Boy
. After locating fifteen of these things — probably the biggest hack here — they were stripped out of their cases and mounted into custom modules. The modules were then mounted into a console that looks a little like an 80s synthesizer.
In use, each monitor displays video from a camera mounted to the module. Users then get to use a selection of tethered neodymium magnets to warp and distort their faces on the screen. [Niklas] put a lot of thought into both the interactivity of the exhibit, plus the practical realities of a public installation, which will likely take quite a beating. He’s no stranger to such public displays, of course — you might remember
his interactive public fountain
, or
this cyborg baby in a window
. | 46 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6568234",
"author": "Ston",
"timestamp": "2023-01-06T12:46:12",
"content": "Hmm.. leaving a row of high voltage power supplies exposed to probing fingers…”WCGW ?”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6568577",
"author": "Pe... | 1,760,372,440.145156 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/06/developing-an-open-source-bike-computer/ | Developing An Open Source Bike Computer | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bicycle",
"bike",
"computer",
"gps",
"lcd screen",
"maps",
"open source",
"raspberry pi",
"sensors",
"zero"
] | While bicycles appear to have standardized around a relatively common shape and size, parts for these bikes are another story entirely. It seems as though most reputable bike manufacturers are currently racing against each other to see who can include the most planned obsolescence and force their customers to upgrade even when their old bikes might otherwise be perfectly fine. Luckily, the magic of open source components could solve some of this issue, and
this open-source bike computer
is something you’ll never have to worry about being forced to upgrade.
The build is based around a Raspberry Pi Zero in order to keep it compact, and it uses a small 2.7 inch LCD screen to display some common information about the current bike ride, including location, speed, and power input from the pedals. It also includes some I2C sensors including pressure and temperature as well as an accelerometer. The system can also be configured to display a map of the current ride as well thanks to the GPS equipment housed inside. It keeps a log in a .fit file format as well so that all rides can be archived.
When compared against a commercial offering it seems to hold up pretty well, and we especially like that it’s not behind a walled garden like other products which could, at any point, decide to charge for map upgrades (or not offer them at all). It’s a little more work to set up, of course, but worth it in the end. It might also be a good idea to
pair it with other open source bicycle components as well
.
Thanks to [Richard] for the tip! | 45 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6568082",
"author": "Artenz",
"timestamp": "2023-01-06T09:10:57",
"content": "Why not use a phone?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6568088",
"author": "Hitomi",
"timestamp": "2023-01-06T09:19:56",
"cont... | 1,760,372,440.2271 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/07/happy-new-year-hackaday/ | Happy New Year, Hackaday! | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants"
] | [
"newsletter"
] | [Tom Nardi] and I were talking on the podcast about 2022, and how it went from the hacker’s perspective. As the global chip shortage entered its second full year, we both thought back on the ways that we all had to adapt and work around the fact that we just couldn’t get the parts we were accustomed to picking up with ease.
What had previously been an infinite supply of knockoff Arduino clones and STM32 Blue Pill boards all of a sudden just dried up. Sometimes you just couldn’t get the DAC chip you wanted, or at least not without many weeks’ lead time, and even then, it’d cost you. Raspberry Pi single-board computers became hard to find. PCB designs had to change and new SDKs needed to be learned. I know I had to grab twice for unfamiliar microcontroller platforms this year.
We hacked around the problems. It would be absurd to say that the chip shortage wasn’t a pain in the posterior, but in the end we all managed to carry on and keep creating. We created more flexible footprints, learned to design around what we could get, and definitely had to do more planning. We pulled parts for projects out of the junk box or shelf stock. Or, as Tom noted, we did what everyone in the parts of the world who aren’t as fortunate to get free expedited shipping does – we made do.
Making do often meant learning new environments, questioning old habits, and double-checking pinouts. But if you’re like me, not all of that time was wasted. Sometimes it’s good to get shaken out of comfy workflows, even if by force. So while we wish you parts-in-stock and easy availability for 2023, don’t forget the lessons learned from 2022. Stay scrappy, Hackaday!
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
! | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6569366",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-01-07T20:03:06",
"content": "How did it affect the mechanical hardware part of supply chain?https://youtu.be/_ziP_4pouN8",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6569603",
"author": ... | 1,760,372,440.04764 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/07/put-your-serial-port-on-the-web/ | Put Your Serial Port On The Web | Navarre Bartz | [
"classic hacks",
"Microcontrollers",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"dongle",
"ESP8266",
"serial port",
"wifi",
"wifi dongle",
"wireless serial port"
] | Today, everything from your computer to your dryer has wireless communications built in, but devices weren’t always so unencumbered by wires. What to do when you have a legacy serial device, but no serial port on the computer you want to connect? [vahidyou] designed a
wireless serial dongle
to solve this conundrum.
Faced with a CNC that took instructions over serial port, and not wanting to deal with the cabling involved in a serial to USB adapter, [vahidyou] turned to an ESP8266 to let his computer and device talk wirelessly. The hand-made PCB connects via a 3.5 mm headphone jack to DB9 adapter which he describes in
another article
. While [vahidyou] did write a small Windows program for managing the device, it is probably easier to simply access it in a web browser from any device you have handy.
Want to see another wireless serial port application? This
Palm Portable Keyboard
Bluetooth dongle will let you type in comfort on the go, or you can use a
PiModem
to get your
retrocomputer
online! | 37 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6569114",
"author": "irresponsible computer user",
"timestamp": "2023-01-07T12:42:52",
"content": "It would be ‘fun’ if someone would put a CNC lathe on the web, so that people could send motor commands to it via cURL, and then put the whole thing up on a twitch stream. see what kin... | 1,760,372,440.41277 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/07/printable-case-for-pinecil-and-ts100-soldering-irons-misuses-a-608-bearing/ | Printable Case For Pinecil And TS100 Soldering Irons (Mis)Uses A 608 Bearing | Donald Papp | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"carry case",
"organizer",
"pinecil",
"printable",
"soldering iron",
"ts100"
] | [PjotrStrog]’s
rugged Pinecil / TS100 storage case
is the perfect printable accessory to go with a hacker’s choice of either the Pine64 Pinecil, or the Miniware TS100 soldering irons. There are some thoughtful features beyond just storing the iron, too!
A standard 608 bearing makes for a handy heat-resistant stand.
Some of you may have spotted a 608 bearing in the image above, and might be wondering what it is for. In proud hacker tradition of using things for something other than their intended purpose, the bearing makes a heat-resistant stand to hold the iron while in use.
This design has a pretty deep history that illustrates the value of sharing one’s designs and allowing others to remix and refine ideas. [PjotrStrog]’s work makes use of the earlier and highly thoughtful
TS100, Pinecil, TS80 & TS80p cases with options by [Termiman]
, which
themselves
are based on bearing-equipped
TS100 case by [Olvin] that we covered back in 2020
.
We loved the Pine64 Pinecil soldering iron
, and this looks like a fantastic printable storage and carry option. There are a few pieces of hardware needed to put the rugged version together, but [PjotrStrog] also offers
a less rugged design with fewer hardware needs
, so check that out as well. | 61 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6569006",
"author": "Ian McEachern.",
"timestamp": "2023-01-07T09:33:02",
"content": "It’s funny, I’m always getting yelled at by the EEs for using their (or my) soldering iron to put heat thread inserts into 3d printed prototypes and how that’s not what a soldering iron is for. No... | 1,760,372,440.519162 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/06/salty-refrigeration-is-friendly-to-the-environment/ | Salty Refrigeration Is Friendly To The Environment | Al Williams | [
"Science"
] | [
"refigerator",
"refrigeration"
] | Widespread use of refrigerators is a hallmark of modern society, allowing people to store food and enjoy ice and cold beverages. However, a typical refrigerator uses gasses that are not always good for the environment. Now the Berkeley National Lab says they can change that using
ioncaloric
cooling, a new technique that uses salt as a refrigerant.
The new technique involves using ions to drive a solid-to-liquid phase change which is endothermic. Unlike some similar proposals, the resulting liquid material would be easy to pump through a heat exchanger. In simple terms, it is the same process as salting a road to change the melting point of ice. In this case, an iodine-sodium salt and an organic solvent combine. Passing current through the material moves ions which changes the material’s melting point. When it melts, it absorbs heat. When it resolidifies, it releases heat.
People often mention how different the world was without electricity. But another modern convenience we tend to take more for granted is refrigeration. Although the University of Glasgow demonstrated an artificial refrigerator as early as 1748, and there were some earlier designs, commercial refrigerators wouldn’t appear until 1834. Home refrigerators wouldn’t be practical until 1918. Before all this, there was a huge market for harvesting ice where it occurs naturally and transporting it to other places for underground storage and distribution. Early refrigerators used toxic gases. Your refrigerator could literally kill you until the development of a safer gas. But even modern gasses are not good for the environment.
The organic solvent used in the demonstration is actually carbon negative, another potential boon to the environment. With one volt of input, the phase change was 25C, which is, according to the post, better than other similar solid phase change systems.
The other related modern tech is
air conditioning
. It turns out
rubber cools down when it changes shape
, and you can use that to make a fridge, too. | 34 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6568962",
"author": "Rumble_in_the_Jungle",
"timestamp": "2023-01-07T08:11:39",
"content": "“The organic solvent used in the demonstration is actually carbon negative”Until it rain from the sky, there is no such thing.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,440.701232 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/06/chataigne-an-open-source-swiss-army-knife/ | Chataigne: An Open-Source Swiss Army Knife | Dave Rowntree | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"art",
"controller",
"software"
] | [Ben Kuper] is a developer with a history of working on art installations, and had hit upon a common problem often cited by artists. When creating installations involving light, sound, and motion, they often spend too much time on the nuts and bolts of electronics, programming, and so on. Such matters are a huge time sink with a steep learning curve and oftentimes just a plain distraction from the actual artistic intent they’re trying to focus upon. [Ben] has been working for a few years on a software tool,
Chataigne
which is designed as the glue between various software tools and hardware interfaces, enabling complex control of the application using simple building blocks.
The tool aims to act as a central controller, kind of like the conductor of an orchestra, pulling in and conditioning inputs from sensors, running state machines, and sending the results back out to whatever the installation needs, be they lighting controllers via
DMX
, or moving stepper motors around with an attached Arduino, the tool seems to be flexible enough to control many of the things one would typically find in an art installation. The user base is already in the multiple thousands, with a community of third-party developers adding more functionality as per their own particular needs.
The project looks polished and easy to use, but it seems that the vast majority of the tutorial videos are in French (like this
example controlling LEDs from a MIDI controller
as an input), so that might slow down adoption a little for those of us with little more than high school French, some thirty years in the past. That said, the
documentation
looks good, so most interested parties should be able to figure out how to drive it.
Art and hacking go hand in hand, due to the nature of one-off installations, and the frugality of your average artist. We’ve seen a few fun hacks, like this
neat optomechanical sequencer
. But can the
hacks themselves be creative
?
Update: [Ben] points out that there is a
English language tutorial video
that covers most topics. | 47 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6568801",
"author": "Severe Tire Damage",
"timestamp": "2023-01-07T03:18:41",
"content": "Isn’t this exactly what Arduino and “sketches” set out to do?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6568815",
"author": "The Commenter... | 1,760,372,440.834477 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/06/is-it-a-game-or-a-calculator/ | Is It A Game? Or A Calculator? | Al Williams | [
"Games",
"Retrocomputing",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"football",
"LED game",
"mattel"
] | If you are a certain age, you probably remember the Mattel Football game. No LCD screen or fancy cartridges. Just some LEDs and a way to play football when you should be in class. While these might seem primitive to today’s kids, they were marvels of technology in the 1970s when they came out. [Sean Riddle] looks, well, not exactly at the games, but more like in them. As it turns out, they
used chips derived from those made for calculators
.
[Sean’s] post is a glimpse into this world of over four decades past.
Football
was actually the second electronic game from Mattel. The first one was Auto Race. There were also games called Space Alert, Baseball, and Gravity. Inside each are quad in-line packages with 42 pins, a Rockwell logo, and a custom part number.
The analysis led [Sean] to buy several games along with Rockwell calculators and microcontrollers. By decapping the ICs in each, he was able to note the similarities and differences between the old processors. There were also patent filings that had key information, along with donated source and object code and an
interview
with the designer of several of the games.
In a classic case of a bad computer model, Mattel made 100,000 Football games which were sold by Sears and Roebuck. Sears sold a few and used a computer model to predict that Football and Auto Race would not be big sellers, so production stopped. However, the game was a runaway success, selling up to 500,000 units a week, according to the article in the Handheld Museum.
If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing a state-of-the-art 1977 Football game, check out the video from [The Retro Future] below. Mattel even made
a personal computer
back in the day. Milton Bradley was in the game, too, with their programmable
Big Trak
. | 27 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6568717",
"author": "Steve L",
"timestamp": "2023-01-07T00:29:36",
"content": "There was a lot of creativity that went into these devices in the 70’s, given the crude and expensive chips and the manufacturing technologies available.I had adult friends who owned BigTraks and the Matt... | 1,760,372,440.629723 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/06/arduino-synthesizer-uses-modified-slide-pots/ | Arduino Synthesizer Uses Modified Slide Pots | Kristina Panos | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"arduino",
"slide pot",
"slide potentiometer",
"synthesizer"
] | There comes a point in every Arduino’s life where, if it’s lucky, it becomes a permanent fixture in a project. We can’t think of too many better forever homes for an Arduino than inside of a 3D-printed synthesizer such as
this 17-key number by [ignargomez
] et al.
While there are myriad ways to synthesizer, this one uses the tried-and-true method of FM synthesis courtesy of an Arduino Nano R3. In addition to the 17 keys, there are eight potentiometers here — four are used for FM synthesis control, and the other four are dedicated to attack/delay/sustain/release (ADSR) control of the sound envelope.
One of the interesting things here is that [ignargomez] and their team were short a few regular pots and modified a couple of slide pots for circular use — we wish there was more information on that. As a result, the 3D printed enclosure underwent several iterations. Be sure to check out the brief demo after the break.
Don’t have any spare Arduinos?
The BBC Micro:bit likes to make noise, too
. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6568738",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-01-07T01:21:59",
"content": "Slider pot to knob?My guess is Rack and Pinon.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6568743",
"author": "fallous",
"ti... | 1,760,372,440.745519 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/05/diy-gametank-game-console-gets-upgraded-cartridge/ | DIY GameTank Game Console Gets Upgraded Cartridge | Tom Nardi | [
"Parts",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"6502",
"cartridge",
"flash cartridge",
"game console",
"homebrew computer"
] | Over the summer, you might recall seeing a homebrew 6502 game console called the GameTank grace these pages. The product of [Clyde Shaffer], the system was impressively complete, very well documented, and even had a budding library of games.
Recently,
[Clyde] took to the r/electronics subreddit
to show off the latest improvement to the GameTank: a revised removable cartridge. The biggest change this time around is the addition of 32 KB of battery-backed SRAM that gives games (or any other software that might be on the cartridge) some persistent storage to work with.
An earlier cartridge without the battery.
By utilizing the eighth output bit of the cartridge’s shift register, software can switch between accessing the Alliance Memory AS29CF160B 2 MB NOR flash chip (which is taking the place of a traditional ROM) or SRAM. The upper half of the cart’s address space is always available, as it contains the 6502’s reset vector. But once the system is up and running, the lower half of the flash can be accessed by a sliding “window” in memory that’s controlled by the shift register.
Adding the backup power source only took the addition of a coin cell and a couple diodes to make sure it doesn’t interfere with the power being provided from the system when the cartridge is in use. Interestingly [Clyde] notes that if a cartridge is installed in the GameTank when the power is switched off, it can provide enough juice to preserve the system’s RAM — so removing the cartridge when not in use is probably a good idea.
The GameTank is a fantastic example of a
well-executed homebrew 6502 computer
, but of course the beauty of working with the iconic 8-bit microprocessor is how little it really takes to get a system off the ground. So if you’re looking to start with something a bit less complex, take a look at this
single breadboard implementation we covered recently
. | 2 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6569297",
"author": "David Hand",
"timestamp": "2023-01-07T18:10:45",
"content": "I love it and it’s super cool, just wondering why they went for 6502 instead of the superior 65c816? Struggling to see what is gained by losing address modes, having undefined instructions, etc. If i... | 1,760,372,440.88609 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/05/pcb-gets-weighty-assignment/ | PCB Gets Weighty Assignment | Al Williams | [
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"scale",
"strain gauge",
"weight"
] | [Curious Scientist] tried building an integrated strain gauge on a PCB, but ran into problems. Mainly, the low resistance of the traces didn’t show enough change under strain to measure easily. Even placing a proper strain gauge on the PCB had limitations. His
new design
uses a bridge design to make the change in the gauges usefully large. You can see a video of the project below.
Bridging strain gauges isn’t a new idea. However, the novelty of this design is that the PCB has cantilever beams that facilitate the weighing. Standoffs mount a plate to the beams so that weight on the plate cause deformation on the beam that the strain gauges can measure.
An HX711 module takes care of managing the whole thing. Rounding out the build is a CPU, a battery charger, and an OLED display.
By itself, the output of the device is raw counts, but thanks to the HX711, the output is linear so a simple linear regression can convert the counts to the units you want, such as grams. The resulting line equation is simple enough to implement in the microcontroller, and you can have normal scale units put out on the display.
While the display is nice, there’s something undeniably cool
about an analog scale
. You might think you don’t need to design a scale, but sometimes you want to
weigh something as part of another device
. Then it comes in pretty handy. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6567969",
"author": "Isaac",
"timestamp": "2023-01-06T05:28:09",
"content": "I suspect that, for various reasons, using epoxy-fiberglass for the flex element would not provide stable calibration over the long term and temperature …",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repli... | 1,760,372,440.937558 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/05/new-and-improved-arduboy-mini-smashes-funding-goal/ | New And Improved Arduboy Mini Smashes Funding Goal | Tom Nardi | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"handhelds hacks"
] | [
"Arduboy",
"Arduboy Mini",
"handheld",
"handheld game",
"kickstarter"
] | Just before the holidays, we brought you word of the Arduboy Mini — the latest in the line of open source 8-bit handheld gaming systems designed by [Kevin Bates]. He was good enough to send along a prototype version ahead of the system’s Kickstarter campaign, and we came away impressed with the possibilities it offered for customization.
Today, we’re pleased to tell you that not only did the
Arduboy Mini Kickstarter cross the finish line
with more than six times its original funding goal, but [Kevin] has made some pretty major changes to the design from the last time it graced these pages. The final Mini offers even more opportunities for modification and expansion, while still keeping the $29 USD price tag which made it so appealing in the first place.
In our
review of the prototype Arduboy Mini
, one of the diminutive handheld’s few downsides was that [Kevin] had decided not to include a speaker or battery. It was an observation we noted several other publications made as the campaign went on, which might have lead to something of a change of heart. For the final design, he ended up adding a 5 mm SMD piezo speaker to the back of the final unit.
Looking to avoid the headaches associated with shipping LiPo pouches, there’s still no battery included. But he did add a 1.25 mm Molex connector that’s popular with micro drone batteries, so it will be easier to hook one up yourself compared to the prototype’s solder pads.
The I2C Qwiic connector he hinted at during the campaign has also made the cut for the final hardware, which will allow the handheld to be easily connected to all sorts of off-the-shelf sensors and hardware. In addition, he’s broken all the GPIO pins of the 16 MHz ATmega32U4 microcontroller out to test pads on either side of the system.
While we’d still pick the Arduboy FX for pure gaming purposes
, these changes make the Arduboy Mini an eminently hackable device that we think will be just as welcome on the work bench as it would be on a park bench. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6567765",
"author": "Kevin Bates (@bateskecom)",
"timestamp": "2023-01-06T00:29:19",
"content": "Thanks and don’t forget about the game jam!https://community.arduboy.com/t/arduboy-fx-game-jam/10738",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,372,440.988717 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/05/replace-your-automatic-transmission-with-a-bunch-of-relays/ | Replace Your Automatic Transmission With A Bunch Of Relays | Dan Maloney | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"CEL",
"Check Engine light",
"DTC",
"ecu",
"emulator",
"EuroVan",
"relay",
"sensor",
"solenoid",
"tcm",
"transmission",
"volkswagen"
] | A “Check Engine” light on your dashboard could mean anything from a loose gas cap to a wallet-destroying repair in the offing. For [Dean Segovis], his CEL was indicating a fairly serious condition: a missing transmission. So naturally, he built
this electronic transmission emulator
to solve the problem.
Some explanation may be necessary here. [Dean]’s missing transmission was the result of neither theft nor accident. Rather, he replaced the failed automatic transmission on his 2003 Volkswagen EuroVan with a manual transmission. Trouble is, that left the car’s computer convinced that the many solenoids and sensors on the original transmission weren’t working, leaving him with a perfectly serviceable vehicle but an inspection-failing light on the dash.
To convince the transmission control module that a working automatic was still installed and clear the fourteen-odd diagnostic codes, [Dean] put together a block of eight common automotive relays. The relay coils approximate the resistance of the original transmission’s actuators, which convinces the TCU that everything is hunky dory. There were also a couple of speed sensors in the transmission, which he spoofed with some resistors, as well as the multi-function switch, which detects the shift lever position. All told, the emulator convinces the TCU that there’s an automatic transmission installed, which is enough for it to give the all-clear and turn off the Check Engine light on the dash.
We love hacks like this, and hats off to [Dean] for sharing it with the VW community. Apparently the issue with the EuroVan automatic transmissions is common enough that a cottage industry has developed to replace them with manuals. It’s not the only
questionable aspect of VW engineering
, of course, but this could help quite a few people out of a sticky situation. | 78 | 21 | [
{
"comment_id": "6567601",
"author": "Adam",
"timestamp": "2023-01-05T21:11:01",
"content": "Either I’m being particularly color-blind today, or the brown cable is plugged into the socket labeled “black cable”, and vice versa…!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,441.325751 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/05/retrotechtacular-critical-code-reading-70s-style/ | Retrotechtacular: Critical Code Reading, 70s Style | Dan Maloney | [
"Retrotechtacular"
] | [
"cobol",
"coding",
"logic",
"PL/1",
"retrotechtactular",
"standards",
"structured programming"
] | Anyone who has ever made a living writing code has probably had some version of the following drilled into their head: “Always write your code so the next person can understand it.” Every single coder has then gone on to do exactly the opposite, using cryptic variables and bizarre structures that nobody else could possibly follow. And every single coder has also forgotten the next part of that saying — “Because the next person could be you” — and gone on to curse out an often anonymous predecessor when equally inscrutable code is thrust upon them to maintain. Cognitive dissonance be damned!
It’s a tale as old as time, or at least as old as programming has existed as a profession. And by 1975, poorly written code was enough of a problem that an outfit called Edutronics put together the animated gem
Critical Program Reading: Structuring an Unstructured Program
.
It’s apparently Part 1 of a larger series on structured programming techniques, and comes to us by way of [Alec Watson], host of
Technology Connections
on YouTube, by way of his second channel, the delightfully named
Technology Connextras
.
The film’s three minimally animated characters, each of whom could have been the villain in an episode of
Scooby Doo
, are tasked by a stern-sounding narrator to analyze a fragment of pseudocode that’s written in a concoction of COBOL, PL/1, and a bunch of other languages. The code is a hot mess, but our heroes muddle through it line by awful line, making it more readable by guessing at more descriptive variable names, adding structured elements, and making logical changes to improve the program’s flow. The example code is highly contrived, to be sure, but the business logic becomes much clearer as our team refactors the code and makes it far more approachable.
For as much as languages have changed since the 1970s, and with all the progress we’ve made in software engineering, the lessons presented in this film are still surprisingly relevant. We loved a lot of the little nuggets dropped along the way, like “Consistency aids understanding,” and “Use symbols in a natural way.” But we will take exception with the statement “Wrong means poor structure” — we’ve
written
seen plenty of properly structured code that didn’t work worth a damn. We also enjoyed the attempt at socially engineering a less toxic work environment: “Use tact in personal criticisms.” If only they could learn that lesson over at Stack Overflow.
It’s not clear where [Alec] found this 16-mm film — we’d sure like to hear that story — but it’s a beauty and we’re glad he took the time to digitize it. We’re consistently amazed at his ability to make even the most mundane aspects of technology endlessly fascinating, and while this film may be a bit off from his normal fare, it’s still a great find. | 30 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6567604",
"author": "craig",
"timestamp": "2023-01-05T21:16:39",
"content": "Same cycle of teaching, ignoring and regretting happens to every grad student to keep a lab notebook.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6567617",
"au... | 1,760,372,441.207573 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/05/the-dawn-of-synthetic-milk-when-milk-becomes-more-like-beer/ | The Dawn Of Synthetic Milk: When Milk Becomes More Like Beer | Maya Posch | [
"green hacks",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"milk",
"synthesized milk"
] | What would we do without milk in modern day society? Although
lactation
originally evolved as a way to provide a newborn mammal with nutrients and the other essentials during the first weeks of their life,
milk
has for thousands of years now been a staple food in human cultures. Whether from cows, camels, sheep or other mammals, each year humans consume many liters of this mythical substance, with our galaxy’s name – the
Milky Way
– coming courtesy of Greek mythology and a spilled milk incident.
A major issue with mammalian milk, however, is that it is only produced by females for a certain time after giving birth, which requires for example a dairy cow to constantly go through pregnancies, which is both cumbersome and not very animal-friendly. Simultaneously, the newborn offspring cannot drink this milk, but must be provided with an alternative. For these reasons synthetic milk is becoming an increasingly more popular animal- and environmentally-friendly alternative.
For years now, companies such as US-based Perfect Day are producing milk that’s for all intents and purposes identical to cow milk, with the added advantage of being free of lactose and other problematic additions. The best part of this all? It’s all done with existing fermentation techniques.
Bubbly About Fermentation
The production of proteins in a cheap and efficient manner has been one of the triumphs of the 20th century, with success stories like
insulin
, the
hepatitis B vaccine
and
chymosin
all being produced using industrial fermentation that employs recombinant DNA with bacteria, yeast and fungi. These single-celled organisms are grown in bioreactors where they absorb nutrients from their environment, and use these to create the proteins which are encoded in the newly inserted DNA. Once enough of these proteins are created, the contents of the bioreactor are sent off to be
lysed
. This breaks down the cells, freeing the intracellular proteins for further processing.
Originally, replacement insulin for diabetes patients was extracted from animals. Since the 1980s, modified
E. Coli
bacteria are now producing virtually all of the world’s insulin supply. Similarly, chymosin is a key part of
rennet
, the collection of enzymes that is essential in the production of cheese and related products. Originally this substance was usually extracted from the stomachs of butchered calves, but thanks to recombinant DNA, bacteria can also produce this enzyme. These days, over 95% of cheese produced in the US uses rennet from bacterial sources.
The recombinant hepatitis B vaccine from modified yeast replaced blood-derived vaccines, and over the past years the Impossible Foods company has made waves with its use of modified yeast that produces
leghemoglobin
. This is similar to hemoglobin as found in animals, and adds to this company’s meat-like products like its Impossible Burger.
When it comes to
industrial fermentation
, we distinguish a number of types:
Biomass production
Extracellular metabolites (e.g. alcohols)
Intracellular metabolites (proteins)
Substrate transformation
The fermentation process as we know it from brewing beer, creating wine, bread, yogurt and other types of
fermented food
is the second type (extracellular). Sugars are used by the microorganisms and converted to the alcohols, acids and other target chemicals that change the properties of the input materials into the desired product. In the case of insulin, vaccines, and other types of protein production we use the third type, with intracellular production of the desired protein.
In order to apply the same approach to synthetic milk, we have to identify the protein(s) so that an encoding DNA sequence can be inserted into a microorganism .
Milk Proteins Without The Animal
Milk is defined as an emulsion of
butterfat
globules within water-based fluid, containing carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and minerals. The proteins found in milk are both the
whey proteins
(like
β-lactoglobulin
) and the
caseins
(like
K-casein
) that form micelles: aggregates of thousands of these proteins. The Perfect Day company
focuses on
β-lactoglobulin, as it’s the main whey protein in mammalian milk.
Whey
is a byproduct of cheese production, and has many commercial uses.
Whey proteins aren’t the only option here, of course. As recently
reported
by The Guardian, a number of start-up companies are seeking to produce the full milk product, including the whey proteins, casein proteins and the other elements that provide milk with its characteristic properties and taste. Of the 20+ proteins in cow’s milk, most are casein proteins, with the casein micelles playing a key role in the thermal stability that enable its use in hot drinks.
Australian start-up Eden Brew is looking to use recombinant yeast to produce six of the most common milk proteins, with plans for an ice-cream in 2023, followed by plain milk by 2024. This is indicative of the biggest challenge in this new industry: namely scaling. For each protein added you need to maintain the recombinant strain of the microorganism, set up its own production line of bioreactors and processing equipment and provide these bioreactors with nutrients.
Even though the general process is similar to that of insulin, the sheer scale is a few orders of magnitude larger, since not only do about 80% of the world population consume milk, they also do so on a scale that’s far beyond the relatively small amounts of insulin produced in these bioreactors annually. Scaling up the production facilities and setting up a supply chain will take time, but the benefits of doing so would be astounding. One only has to picture the number of animals needed to produce insulin today if we had not created recombinant insulin to get an idea of the sheer scope here.
Cut The Cow
A good perspective on the environmental footprint required by cow’s milk, as well as a number of plant-based alternatives is provided by
Our World in Data
in the form of the following chart:
What this chart tells us is that although cow’s milk scores pretty poorly on environmental metrics, plant-based alternatives come with their own sets of trade-offs. Here synthetic milk offers a tantalizing new option: since it is produced in bioreactors by microorganisms, the land use is minimal, with the other parameters limited by the source of electricity and nutrients for greenhouse gases, as well as the overall filtration and water recycling ability of the facility that houses the production lines.
Another important aspect here is that of
monocultures
. For dairy cattle, large stretches of pasture are required, while for plant-based alternatives large croplands are used to grow just soy, rice, almonds, etc. A bioreactor facility would avoid the pesticides, fertilizer runoff, and greenhouse gases of natural milk production.
Whey To The Future
One thing that synthesized milk definitely has going for it is that it doesn’t necessarily do anything new. Using techniques pioneered as far back as the 1970s in the medical field, we have now reached a point where we can modify microorganisms to produce proteins easily and consistently. Even if buying a liter of synthesized milk off the shelf at the local grocery store is still a few years off, whey proteins are already being produced this way, displacing at least part of the demand from cow’s milk.
Although the
milk consumption per capita
has remained relatively constant since the 1960s, the world population has increased by a few billion (3 billion in 1961, 8 billion in 2022), which means a corresponding increase in demand for milk. Even if synthesized milk won’t outright replace cow’s milk and dairy farms along with it over the coming years, maybe it can make a useful dent in the increased demand.
It seem reasonable to conjecture that as the supply chains for bioreactors and related equipment for such large-scale industrial fermentation ramp up, synthesized milk producers might just begin to not only supply the ice-cream and baked goods markets, but also push into the regular milk market. A lot here depends on how fast and how cheaply this can be made to scale.
At the very least there definitely is no lack of start-ups, with in November of 2022 US-based New Culture
announcing
its mozarella cheese made using synthesized caseins. Much like the Impossible Burger with its leghemoglobin protein from yeast, this makes it a vegan option since no animal was involved at any stage of the production, which is an aspect that for example
cell culture meat
struggles with.
Whether this will be enough is hard to say at this point, but with approved products on the market available today and more in the pipeline, some optimism would seem warranted. Even if some will definitely want to
argue
whether synthesized milk is even
‘real’ milk
. | 85 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "6567472",
"author": "Hans",
"timestamp": "2023-01-05T18:43:35",
"content": "These juices made of soy, oat and other plants has noting to do with milk.Is raspberry-juice also going to be called raspberry-wine in the future?It make absolutely no sense.",
"parent_id": null,
"de... | 1,760,372,442.104749 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/05/a-practical-glue-stick-oscillator/ | A Practical Glue Stick Oscillator | Jenny List | [
"Parts",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"glue stick",
"oscillator",
"permeability tuning"
] | A few months ago we brought you some experiments from [Bill Meara, N2CQR], in which he investigated the use of a glue stick as the former for a permeability tuned inductor. His set-up was very much in the spirit of experimentation, and we’re very pleased to now see
[Nick, M0NTV] has taken the idea and demonstrated it
for the 7 MHz, or 40 meter, amateur radio band.
The result can be seen in the video below the break, and is housed in a tin enclosure that we’re guessing once contained toffees. The oscillator circuit comes courtesy of [Ashar Farhan VU2ESE] of BitX transceiver fame, but we’re most interested in the glue stick coil former which makes use of a small bracket for stability. With the glue removed, he’s mounted a ferrite ring in its glue carrier which is moved in and out of the coil. We’re guessing this could also be done with other permeability-altering materials, for example we’d follow [VU2ESE]’s lead and try a piece of brass.
The knurled glue feed knob protrudes through a hole in the tin, and we’re guessing there’s enough separation for an operator’s hand not to drag the frequency too much. All in all given that variable capacitors are now something of a rarity, it makes for a useful demonstration of a very cheap replacement. Meanwhile,
you can read our notes on [N2CQR]’s work here
. | 15 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6567555",
"author": "Jim",
"timestamp": "2023-01-05T20:22:32",
"content": "With that pattern, the tin likely held shortbread.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6567642",
"author": "NQ",
"timestamp": "2023-01-05T22:01:17",
... | 1,760,372,441.639284 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/05/excuse-me-your-tie-is-unzipped/ | Excuse Me, Your Tie Is Unzipped | Al Williams | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Original Art",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"cable ties",
"zip ties"
] | If you ask your typical handyperson what’s the one thing you need to fix most things, the answer might very well be duct tape. But second place — and first place in some circles — would have to be zip ties. These little wonders are everywhere if you look for them. But they are a relatively recent invention and haven’t always had the form they have today.
The original zip tie wasn’t called a zip tie or even a cable tie. In 1958 they were called Ty-Raps and produced by a company called Thomas and Betts. Originally meant to improve aircraft wiring harnesses, they found their way into various electronic equipment and packaging uses. But they’ve also become helpful in very unusual places too. A policeman trying to round up rioters would have problems carrying more than a few conventional handcuffs. But flexible cuffs based on zip ties are lightweight and easy to carry. Colon surgeons sometimes use a modified form of zip tie during procedures.
History
Maurus Logan worked for the Thomas and Betts company. In 1956, he was touring an aircraft manufacturing plant. Observing a wiring harness being put together on a nail board, similar to how
car harnesses are made
, he noted that the cables were bundled with waxed twine or nylon cord. A technician had to tie knots in the cord, sometimes cutting their fingers and often developing calluses. In addition, the twine was prone to fungal growth, requiring special treatment.
Logan kept turning the problem over in his mind and tried various approaches. By 1958, he had a
patent
for the Ty-Rap. The tie was lightweight, easy to install, easy to remove, and inexpensive.
The Design
Patent drawing from 1958
The original design didn’t exactly look like today’s zip tie, but it wasn’t far off. The patent called for a “flexible plastic” strap. Like today’s version, the strap had a set of ratchet-like teeth. However, the original Ty-Rap used a metal tooth to engage the ratchet — the pawl. This style of cable tie is still available but not as common as ones made entirely of nylon or some other plastic.
Usually, once you’ve engaged the zip tie, the only way to get rid of it is to cut it off, destroying it in the process. However, some ties have a small tab that lets you slip the pawl and release the zip tie so it can be removed and reused.
Variations
There are many variations of zip ties. Most are now made of nylon and often have some UV-resistant additive. You can get many different colors that are handy for color coding. Some also have heat-stabilizing additives to the nylon. Other additives allow metal detectors to sense the ties. There are other material options, including polypropylene, LDPE, and even stainless steel, which may be coated with another material. Size varies from tiny to around five feet long. We aren’t sure what anyone needs with a five-foot zip tie, but they do exist.
Some zip ties have mounting holes. Others have integrated tags to write on. Some use a bead-like design instead of a ratchet. Others use a slotted strap, called a ladder tie, to prevent slipping and facilitate release.
Very exotic zip ties have two “heads,” so you can put the strap through one hole to bundle one set of wires and then reverse it through the second hole to bundle another set of wires. You can get an idea of what’s available from companies like
Panduit
,
Avery Dennison
, or
Essentra
, among others.
Is there a difference between cheap zip ties and expensive ones? Watch the video below from [Donut Media] to find out what they think. Be sure to watch both tests before you decide. The cost, by the way, isn’t arbitrary. The expensive tie, in this case, is made from ECTFE fluoropolymer known as
Tefzel
, which has good chemical, radiation, and thermal resistance.
If you have a 3D printer, you could try
printing your own
. Nylon would be great as that’s what most of the commercial ones use, but apparently, they work with other materials, too.
Tooling
A
Harbor Freight zip tie gun
Most of us cinch a zip tie by hand and use cutters to remove them. If you are really trying to get tight, pliers might help. However, you can buy guns that tighten the zip tie for you, which might be useful if you have to do thousands of them a day. Expensive versions use power and can even put a specific amount of tension on the zip tie. Simple ones are just jigs that push the head down the strap when you pull the trigger. You can see a simple, inexpensive gun in the video below. There are quite a few more expensive options from different suppliers. Another advantage to a good gun is that it cuts the excess off completely flush. If you cut by hand, be careful not to leave a sharp stub hanging out that might cut you or cut into something else.
If you are a bicycle enthusiast and you have a
brake cable puller tool
, those work, too. However, with that tool, you still need to cut the tie manually. We’ve seen people recommend twisting the end off with pliers or another zip tie, which leaves a soft point, but it also stresses whatever is in side the zip tie, so we don’t suggest it.
What Can’t They Do?
Zip ties are supposed to replace cable lacing, but they have many other uses, as well. The Internet is replete with “
life hacks
” for zip ties. They make good zipper pulls, for example. Some of them are a little silly or common sense, like many of the ones in the video below.
Case modders like [Daniele Tartaglia] always have great tricks for cable bundling and labeling. Check out the video below for some of those tips.
Less practically, you can do some strange things with zip ties, like make
a lampshade
or a fidget toy:
What’s your favorite zip tie hack? Let us know in the comments what you use them for or how you use them better. Or, if you prefer, what you use instead. | 102 | 38 | [
{
"comment_id": "6567343",
"author": "Jason Doege",
"timestamp": "2023-01-05T15:10:12",
"content": "5 foot long zip ties are used in the HVAC industry for attaching flexible ducts to collars.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6567393",
"... | 1,760,372,441.797068 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/05/n-o-d-e-unveils-slick-tech-news-site-hackaday-editors-suddenly-feel-sweaty/ | N-O-D-E Unveils Slick Tech News Site | Tom Nardi | [
"News"
] | [
"N-O-D-E",
"news",
"Tech",
"websites"
] | There’s probably some axiom in professional journalism that says you shouldn’t give out free advertisement to your competitors — but since none of us have any formal training in this kind of thing and are just making it up as we go along — we’re more than happy to plug the brand-new
MOSFET.net
.
We like the option to ignore Reality.
Created by the mysterious hacker [N-O-D-E], the site is exceptionally minimal, providing an experience not entirely unlike a feed reader. Each story has a main image, a few sentences that describe what it’s about, and the ever-important link to the original source. There’s even a color filter applied on the images so they aren’t jarring when compared to the site’s monochrome color scheme. (If that all sounds familiar, it’s because Hackaday came up with the idea 18 years ago. But it’s cool, we’re not salty or anything.)
In all seriousness, the site looks very well done and will no doubt be a great resource for the community. A particularly interesting feature is that entries expire automatically after 30 days. This speaks to the goal [N-O-D-E] has for MOSFET.net — it’s designed to show you relevant tech news, and literally nothing else. The focus and simplicity is beautiful.
Here’s wishing all the luck to [N-O-D-E] in this new venture. We know better than most that it can be a difficult and sometimes thankless job, but we wouldn’t still be doing it all these years if it wasn’t worth the effort. The tech world is always growing and there’s plenty of room for everyone. In fact, a recent peek at the analytics revealed that Hackaday got more views in 2022 than at any time in its history. As far as we’re concerned, the future looks bright for everyone. | 24 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6567261",
"author": "Plantenvoeding",
"timestamp": "2023-01-05T12:54:34",
"content": "“A particularly interesting feature is that entries expire automatically after 30 days.”One other feature I’ve been wondering about in the same vein is that articles would be hidden after you have ... | 1,760,372,441.419919 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/05/the-flight-of-the-dremel/ | The Flight Of The Dremel | Jenny List | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"dremel tool",
"helicopter",
"power tool",
"rotary tool"
] | A few months ago we featured a model aircraft whose power plant came courtesy of an angle grinder. It was the work of [Peter Sripol], and it seems he was beseiged by suggestions afterwards that he might follow it up with a helicopter built using a Dremel rotary tool.
Which he duly did
, and the results can be seen in the video below the break.
The Dremel itself requires a gearing to drive the balsa-bladed rotor, and a tail rotor is mounted with its own motor at the end of a boom. The video has many entertaining failures which see him arrive at a set of balancing arms and a tailplane for stability. The result is a helicopter that flies after a fashion, and is even able to stay aloft for a few seconds rather than crashing to earth.
The machine lacks the full rotor pitch control of its commercial bretheren, indeed the only control is directional via the tail rotor. Still it deserves top marks for entertainment alone, and we wouldn’t mind a go ourselves.
The original angle grinder craft can be seen here
. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6567184",
"author": "Javier",
"timestamp": "2023-01-05T09:19:26",
"content": "i just want that laugh and attitude when failures happen. It will get me everywhere!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6567282",
"author": "The Comm... | 1,760,372,441.468282 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/04/a-white-light-laser-on-the-cheap/ | A White-Light Laser, On The Cheap | Dan Maloney | [
"Laser Hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"fiber",
"laser",
"non-linear",
"silica",
"single mode",
"spectra",
"stilbene",
"supercontinuum"
] | Lasers are known for the monochromatic nature of their light, so much so that you might never have thought there could be such a thing as a white laser. But in the weird world of physics, a lot of things that seem impossible aren’t really, as demonstrated by
this dirt-cheap supercontinuum laser
.
Of course, we’re not experts on lasers, and certainly not on non-linear optics, so we’ll rely on [Les Wright]’s video below to explain what’s going on here. Basically, a “supercontinuum” is just the conversion of a monochromatic source to a broader spectral bandwidth. It’s a non-linear optical process that’s usually accomplished with expensive bits of kit, like photonic crystal fibers, which are optical fibers with an array of tiny air-filled holes running down their lengths. Blast a high-intensity monochromatic laser down one end, and white light comes out the other end.
Such fibers are obviously fantastically expensive, so [Les] looked back in the literature and found that a simple silica glass single-mode fiber could be used to produce a supercontinuum. As luck would have it, he had been
experimenting with telecom fibers
recently, so along with a nitrogen laser he recovered from a Dumpster, he had pretty much everything he needed. The final setup uses the UV laser to pump a stilbene dye laser, which shoots a powerful pulse of 426 nanometer light into about 200 meters of fiber, and produces a gorgeous supercontinuum containing light from 430 nm to 670 nm — pretty much the entire visible spectrum.
It’s great to see projects like this that leverage low-cost, easy-to-source equipment to explore esoteric physics concepts. | 51 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6567202",
"author": "Esa Räikkönen",
"timestamp": "2023-01-05T09:53:02",
"content": "You get a donut mode because the fiber is not single mode at visible wavelengths. The core is too large.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6567... | 1,760,372,441.926316 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/04/stewart-platform-keeps-its-eye-on-the-ball/ | Stewart Platform Keeps Its Eye On The Ball | Al Williams | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"ball balance",
"pid",
"Stewart platform"
] | Although billed as a balancing robot, [Aaed Musa’s] robot doesn’t balance itself. It
balances a ball on a platform
. You might recognize this as something called a Stewart platform, and they are great fun at parties if you happen to party with a bunch of automation-loving hackers, that is. Take a look at the video below to see the device in action.
If you want to duplicate the project, there’s a bit of expense, but the idea behind it is explained in the video. Much of the robot is 3D printed with threaded inserts. Even the ball is 3D printed in two parts along with a cubic connector to hold the two hemispheres together. The acrylic platform was cut with a water jet, although you could just as easily have cut it with hand tools.
This type of robot is an especially visual manifestation of PID control and that’s explained in the second video. Sure, most 3D printers use that to control their nozzle temperature, but that’s hardly as exciting as watching the ball roll around on the platform.
The key to the algorithm is the realization that you must simultaneously control the ball’s position and speed. You want the ball to reach the set point — the middle of the platform — just as its speed goes to zero. That means the algorithm has to adjust which way the platform tilts to change the direction of the ball’s travel, but also the amount of tilt to control the speed.
We are seeing more
Stewart platforms lately
for some reason. Some of them have
a very modern look
. | 4 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6567297",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2023-01-05T13:42:17",
"content": "I can’t be arsed to click through two videos, but why does it need a full 6DOF Stewart platform? You only need 2 degrees of freedom to balance a ball on a plate.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,372,441.836138 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/04/zen-and-glowing-air-bubble-displays/ | Zen And Glowing Air Bubble Displays | Elliot Williams | [
"classic hacks",
"clock hacks"
] | [
"bubble display",
"clock",
"glowing",
"led"
] | When you work in a medium for long enough, and you learn how it works more and more deeply, you eventually become its master. [Yukio Shinoda] is probably
master of the LED bubble display
.
She started out with an idea, back in 1994, of a column of water and an array of solenoids to inject air, making patterns in the bubbles. Time passed, and she began to realize these works, first in water and then switching over to glycerine for slower, more predictable, and more spherical bubbles. The latest version realizes her initial vision, after 29 years, with an 8×8 array of nozzles making 3D shapes in the slowly rising columns.
To get a feel for the different stages of incremental progress, you really should watch all the videos, of
version 1 in water
,
version 2 in glycerin
,
version 3 with fonts and FFT mode
, and finally
version 4 in 3D
, embedded below.
It looks easy on paper: inject bubbles in to the fluid in time, and you get patterns. But the details here include separate tubes for each bubble, to prevent them from interacting, and careful attention to the timing. Indeed, the bubble clock has to adjust itself continually to take the viscosity of the glycerine into account,
which changes with temperature
in this video demo. Conveniently, the common DS3231 clock modules also have a temperature sensor built in, making this all a matter of code.
The soft clicking of the solenoids are reminiscent of flip-dot displays, but the slow rise of the bubbles is more meditative. And while the precision of the later models is admirable, we definitely also love the jumpy effect in the water version when a new bubble is introduced and the air pressure settles into its new circumstances. Fun stuff!
Is this the first bubble display we’ve seen?
Not by a long shot
. And it’s not
the biggest
or
the simplest
. But as far as we’re concerned, it’s one of the most refined, relaxing, and most evolved. But we have to admit, we’re also looking forward to version 5. What’s next? | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6567013",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2023-01-05T00:38:20",
"content": "That’s actually pretty.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6567024",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2... | 1,760,372,441.974321 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/04/an-epic-quest-to-build-the-ultimate-game-boy/ | An Epic Quest To Build The Ultimate Game Boy | Tom Nardi | [
"Nintendo Game Boy Hacks"
] | [
"DMG-01",
"drop in replacements",
"game boy",
"game boy color"
] | If you didn’t grow up clutching Nintendo’s original DMG-01 Game Boy, it might difficult to see the appeal in 2023. It had the ergonomics of a brick, the system’s unlit LCD screen utilized a somewhat nauseating green color palette, and when compared to its contemporary competition like the Sega Game Gear or Atari Lynx, it would certainly appear to be the inferior platform. But despite its faults there was just something magical about the machine, and those who have a soft spot for the iconic handheld are always eager to relive those glory days.
Now, thanks to the incredible work of [Bucket Mouse], playing the old “brick” Game Boy doesn’t have to be nearly as austere an experience as it was in 1989. That’s because
he’s developed a set of replacement PCBs for the handheld
that not only implement all of the features of the later Game Boy Color, but sprinkle in some modern niceties as well. The result is a handheld that looks like the original on the outside, but plays all your favorite games even better than you remember them.
[Bucket Mouse] has put together some superb documentation for this project, and the design files are released under the Creative Commons license for anyone who wants to spin up their own copies. He’s even selling boards for those who don’t want to go through the time and trouble of getting them manufactured. But be warned — this is no weekend project.
To start with, you’ll need to salvage several key components (such as the CPU and SRAM) from a sacrificial Game Boy Color, and pull the external connectors off of your Game Boy’s original PCB. Then you’ll need to pick up a third party LCD and lens at the absolute minimum, though you might as well go all in and get a custom new-manufactured case and button set while you’re at it.
Beyond the ability to play Game Boy Color games, the new internals offer a number of improvements over the stock hardware. For example there’s an integrated navigation switch (mounted where the contrast dial used to be) that lets you page through the settings menu of the upgraded IPS LCD panel. The audio hardware has also been upgraded for better sound, and a modern switch mode power supply should get you a few more hours out of the AA batteries than before. You’ve also got the option to swap the face buttons for the more tactile versions used in the Game Boy Advance SP, and if you really want to show off that aftermarket translucent case, add some RGB LED lighting to your born-again handheld.
As you might expect, this project has been a long-term labor of love. [Bucket Mouse] has been dropping occasional updates in the
Hackaday Discord server
for several months now, and it’s been fascinating to see the progression. You may recall we covered an earlier version of the concept, where he literally
crammed a Game Boy Color motherboard into the DMG-01 case,
but this new approach allows for a much more professional and reliable installation — befitting the legendary reliability of Nintendo and Gunpei Yokoi’s portable brainchild. | 8 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566964",
"author": "Quinn",
"timestamp": "2023-01-04T23:01:12",
"content": "“If you didn’t grow up clutching Nintendo’s original DMG-01 Game Boy, it might difficult to see the appeal in 2023.”Where I lived, in 1991 original GameBoy cost as much as two months wage of university lect... | 1,760,372,442.157613 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/04/machine-learning-makes-sure-your-lols-are-genuine/ | Machine Learning Makes Sure Your LOLs Are Genuine | Dan Maloney | [
"Machine Learning"
] | [
"chortle",
"chuckle",
"EdgeImpulse",
"laugh",
"lol",
"machine learning",
"model",
"ROTFL",
"Seeeduino Xiao",
"Teensy"
] | There was a time not too long ago when “LOL” actually meant something online. If someone went through the trouble of putting LOL into an email or text, you could be sure they were actually LOL-ing while they were typing — it was part of the social compact that made the Internet such a wholesome and inviting place. But no more — LOL has been reduced to a mere punctuation mark, with no guarantee that the sender was actually laughing, chuckling, chortling, or even snickering. What have we become?
To put an end to this madness, [Brian Moore] has come up with the
LOL verifier
. Like darn near every project we see these days, it uses a machine learning algorithm — EdgeImpulse in this case. It detects a laugh by comparing audio input against an exhaustive model of [Brian]’s jocular outbursts — he says it took nearly three full minutes to collect the training set. A Teensy 4.1 takes care of HID duties; if a typed “LOL” correlates to some variety of laugh, the initialism is verified with a time and date stamp. If your LOL was judged insincere – well, that’s on you. See what you think of the short video below — we genuinely LOL’d. And while we’re looking forward to a ROTFL verifier, we’re not sure we want to see his take on LMAO.
Hats off to [Brian] for his attempt to enforce some kind of standards online. You may recall his earlier attempt to make
leaving Zoom calls a little less awkward
, which we also appreciate.
I made this thing called LOL Verifier: a device that only lets you type lol if you’ve actually laughed out loud
pic.twitter.com/Gsc63yGEm0
— Brian Moore (@lanewinfield)
January 3, 2023 | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566931",
"author": "𐂀 𐂅",
"timestamp": "2023-01-04T21:38:33",
"content": "The next step would be an automatic emotion logger with a timeline and a “share emotion event” approval function, you could even have access control for your emotions with some people seeing the full stream... | 1,760,372,443.960393 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/04/somethings-rotating-in-the-state-of-denmark-a-clock/ | Something’s Rotating In The State Of Denmark: A Clock | Al Williams | [
"clock hacks",
"Hackaday Columns"
] | [
"astronomical clock",
"clock",
"mechanical clock"
] | If you visit the Copenhagen City Hall, you’ll see an ornate mechanical clock. By itself, this is unremarkable, of course. There are plenty of ornate clocks in city halls around the world, but this one has a fascinating backstory that starts with a locksmith named
Jan
Jens Olsen. Unfortunately, Jens didn’t actually complete the clock before his death. It would take 12 years to put together the 15,448 individual parts. However, he did manage to see most of the clock that he had been designing for 50 years put together.
Jens was 60 when he started constructing the clock, but the story starts when he was only 25. In Strasbourg, the young locksmith saw an astronomical clock with a perpetual calendar in a cathedral. He was fascinated and returned several times to study the mechanism. Around the age of 30, Jens had moved to watchmaking and had a keen interest in astronomy — he was a founding member of the Danish Astronomical Society. Perhaps it was the combination of these two interests that made it inevitable that he would want to build a precise astronomically-correct clock.
Finish Line
The clock garnered national attention and received funding from a variety of sources. It was well known that when a seemingly-insoluble problem would arise, Jens would solve it in a way that left his workers amazed. Unfortunately, Jens died near the end of 1945 with only 10 of the 11 parts of the clock actually under construction. His apprentice, Otto Mortensen had to take over, leaving King Frederik IX and Olsen’s granddaughter set the clock in motion on December 15, 1955.
Dials and More Dials
There are three major sections to the clock. The left section’s top dial shows the local time and the actual solar time. There is a dial to the left that can show the time at any location on the planet. A dial to the right has a black and white portion that shows sunrise, sunset, and the length of both day and night. There is also a calendar in this section that shows the year, the date, and the day of the week.
Back view of the clock.
The middle section shows the local mean time. In addition, it shows the moon phase and several holidays, such as Easter Sunday. The right section shows the star map over Denmark and information about solar and lunar eclipses, along with associated data such as the distance between the Earth and the moon. There’s also a model of the solar system showing the position of the configuration of planets around the sun. This section also shows the Jullian date.
Of course, you could program all of this into your Raspberry Pi. But in the 1940s and 1950s, this would have required a roomful of computers. And this is a mechanical movement that only requires winding once a week. Not too shabby. The fastest gear rotates at 6 RPM, and the slowest turns once every 25,753 years! The winding is a chore, as seen in [Patrick Limoges’] home video below.
Restoration
Did we mention this is supposed to be the most precise mechanical clock in the world? At least, that’s true after some
restoration work to improve the fix frozen bearings
. The restoration included cleaning, adding ball bearings and Teflon to surfaces, and repainting many markings in a way that will last longer. The parts are mostly brass made from melted-down kitchen utensils. However, many parts are now coated with rhodium for wear resistance. There’s also 4 kg of gold gilding for aesthetics.
Dekatrons
make a great-looking retro clock, but nothing like the Olsen clock. You can build s
omething like the Olsen clock
, though, if you have the patience for it. | 15 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566842",
"author": "Spesman0190 (@spesman0190)",
"timestamp": "2023-01-04T18:10:59",
"content": "You managed to misspell his name only 8 times",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6566844",
"author": "mh",
"timestamp": "2023... | 1,760,372,444.245194 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/04/a-homebrew-smd-vise-built-from-scrap-wood/ | A Homebrew SMD Vise Built From Scrap Wood | Al Williams | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"PCB vise",
"smd"
] | We don’t see too many wooden projects around these parts, but when
[olikraus] turned a few pieces of scrap lumber into a functional SMD vise
, how could we not take notice? The idea is simple. Two pieces of wood with slots in them hold the PCB. Two other pieces form an arm with an adjustable needle that can hold down tiny parts while you solder. Magnets hold each piece to a metal working surface. Simple and elegant.
We might have 3D printed some of the pieces, but then again, you have to be careful where your soldering iron goes if you go that route. The other advantage to using wood is that you can easily grab a few pieces of scrap and have a different-sized vice in just a few minutes.
There are a few improvements we might suggest. For example, a thumbscrew to fix the needle would be welcome. It seems like you could make the part that holds the needle smaller, too, to help you get your soldering iron into the same area. But it looks workable with no changes at all.
Working with scrap wood isn’t glamorous, but it does make for quick and easy functional builds. A number of the holes and bolts here could even be replaced with glue if you don’t mind the time for it to set.
Of course, you could mix and match this with other designs. We like the
“dollar store PCB holder,”
but it would work well with the arm from this project. We couldn’t help but think of the
SMD beak
when we saw this project. | 23 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566817",
"author": "elwing",
"timestamp": "2023-01-04T17:19:55",
"content": "Neat, I am using kapton tape to old tje smd components, the rare times when I solder smd but this seems so much better…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,372,443.895049 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/04/all-about-usb-c-resistors-and-emarkers/ | All About USB-C: Resistors And Emarkers | Arya Voronova | [
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Skills"
] | [
"emarker",
"Type-C",
"usb",
"USB C",
"USB Type-C",
"USB-C PD",
"vconn"
] | If you’ve been following along our USB-C saga, you know that the CC wire in the USB-C cables is used for communications and polarity detection. However, what’s not as widely known is that there are two protocols used in USB-C for communications – an analog one and a digital one. Today, let’s look at the analog signalling used in USB-C – in part, learn more about the fabled 5.1 kΩ resistors and how they work. We’ll also learn about emarkers and the mysterious entity that is VCONN!
USB-C power supply expects to sense a certain value pulldown on the CC line before it provides 5 V on VBUS, and any higher voltages have to be negotiated digitally. The PSU, be it your laptop’s port or a charger, can detect the pulldown (known as
Rd
) because it keeps a pullup (known as
Rp
) on the CC line – it then checks if a voltage divider has formed on CC, and whether the resulting voltage is within acceptable range.
If you plug a device that doesn’t make a pulldown accessible through the CC wire in the cable, your device will never get power from a USB-C port, and would only work with a USB-A to USB-C cable. Even the smarter devices that can talk the digital part of USB-C are expected to have pulldowns, it’s just that those pulldowns are internal to the USB-C communication IC used. A USB-C port that wants to receive power needs to have a pulldown.
This part is well-known by now, but we’ve seen lack-of-resistor failures in cheap devices aplenty, and the colloquial advice is “add 5.1 kΩ resistors”. You might be afraid to think it’s so simple, but you’d be surprised.
Pullups, Pulldowns, And The Resulting Voltage Divider
There are two kinds of power roles for USB-C ports – supply side and consumer side. The analog side of USB-C lets designers add a simple way to negotiate power requirements when using USB-C at 5 V, without using specific or expensive ICs – using pullups for sources and pulldowns for sinks. The combination of a pullup and a pulldown forms a voltage divider, and the voltage itself represents the charger’s current capability.
Now, in analog signaling mode, the source may adjust the pullup based on the power budget available to it, and that’s quite useful. Imagine a laptop or a charger with multiple USB-C ports. As each port gets loaded, there will be less current to give to other ports, which is in large part defined by how the device is built internally. Take the Framework laptop, for instance, which is equipped with four USB-C ports. Each port can provide 15 W at 5 V / 3 A, but if you want to power four sink-only USB-C devices at once, it will only be able to give 1.5 A on third and fourth port – quite a reasonable limitation from an engineering perspective.
This means that higher-consumption devices, like 1.5 A and 3 A max devices, are expected to monitor the voltage on the CC line to determine whether they might exceed the power budget by adjusting their power demands, or otherwise getting shut down if the newly established current limit is exceeded.
The “Default” power refers to the USB stated current limits we’ve been used to – 500mA max for USB2 devices and 900mA max for USB3 devices. While hardly ever enforced, these are the USB standard-stated limitations, indeed.
What does this mean for you as a user? Nothing, if your devices are low-power enough. Your devices are expected to monitor the voltage on the CC line and adjust their appetite accordingly. Some storebought devices won’t do that, but it’s rare. As a hacker? If you build a device that gets power from a USB-C port and you aim to get full 3 A at 5 V, remember that not all USB-C ports will provide you with that. You can, however, check for 3 A availability by measuring the voltage on the CC line. Or don’t, I’m not your mom, and many a hacker device thrives with zero detection.
What voltages can you expect on the CC line? Well, it’s the kind of voltage you can read with a basic ADC that your microcontroller has, or even a comparator.
As you can see, it’s all under 3.3 V so you won’t need a voltage divider if you’re using a full-swing microcontroller ADC. Oh, and if a USB-C socket is what you have, remember to monitor both CC pins separately, of course.
Do I Really Have To?
Do you really need to monitor the CC voltage? When you’re just hacking away at something, not really, but it can help if you do when you want to go beyond 0.5 A – 1 A. If you exceed the current demands that the source port can provide, it is supposed to simply stop supplying power to your device – a pretty safe outcome. On the other hand, the USB-C philosophy is to have multiple layers of safeguards, and if you’re building a 15 W device with the simple 5.1 kΩ resistor approach, you might as well make it be a device that can detect its power supply being insufficient. Also, it’s quite easy to do!
Otherwise, you can just expect that your device will want to be paired with a charger that always gives 3 A at 5 V, which the overwhelming majority of chargers out there do. Then, you will never experience problems – always able to work with the full 15 W. If you’re connecting your device to a laptop port, however, be it USB-C or USB-A with a USB-C adapter, you can’t fully expect 3 A to always be there – you actually will want to check.
5.1 kΩ isn’t the only pulldown you will encounter. There’s a different kind of pulldown, which we hackers have met before, and it’s the
Ra
– something that comes into play when we talk about e-marked cables.
VCONN: Feeding Your Emarker Properly
Emarkers are basically memory chips that can talk USB PD protocol. They’re used in cables that are slightly fancier than normal, i.e. cables with high-speed capabilities like USB3 and Thunderbolt, as well as 5 A cables. They tap into the CC line on the cable, and can be queried by either the source or the sink – though they’re typically queried by the source.
If there’s an emarker inside your USB-C cable, it’s going to need some power, and USB-C has a way to provide power to it – it’s called VCONN. As you know, only one CC pin is used for communication. The opposite CC pin, not connected to a CC line, is used to provide the emarker with power; the other CC pin is VCONN.
Within the USB-C plug, you will know which CC pin is attached to the CC wire, and therefore, you know beforehand which pin will act as VCONN. However, you can insert the plug in two different orientations – and this means that the receptacle has to be able to treat either of two CC pins as either CC communications line or a VCONN pin. This keeps cables relatively dumb and cheap, letting the devices themselves handle the complexity.
As a hacker, you won’t need to worry about VCONN in all likelihood. Most of us will work with USB2 or USB3, no higher than 3 A current, and the emarker check won’t be all that necessary. Going further than that, there are ICs that will take care of a multitude of USB-C aspects for you – including, indeed, supplying VCONN.
The voltage requirements on VCONN are quite lax, as opposed to the 5 V you’re expected to provide to VBUS – the allowed range is 3 V to 5.5 V; often, it’s direct LiIon single-cell battery voltage in smartphone implementations, which means you avoid two conversions and can do quite a bit of power saving. After all, VCONN power isn’t just for emarkers it can be used to power small accessories and headphone adapters with up to 1 W power budget.
This fun presentation from a USB-C hacker
talks about prototyping VCONN-powered devices that cover the full range of what the USB-C spec allows a VCONN-powered device to do.
That said, emarkers are the most widespread thing that wants VCONN, and they’re quite simple. Sometimes a cable will contain two emarkers, sometimes it will contain one – it’s a manufacturing choice. In case of a single-emarker cable, one of the cable ends will contain the emarker, and there’s going to be an extra “bring emarker power to other end” VCONN wire run through the cable from the emarker-equipped plug, connected to the VCONN pin on the other cable plug. So, if you ever see a mention of a VCONN wire, that’s what it means – a diode-isolated wire connected to an unused CC pin on one end of the cable, that simply brings power to an emarker on the other end.
Now, this is fun and all, but what about that
Ra
pulldown thing?
The Ra-spberry Pi 4 Problem
An emarker signals its presence by applying a pulldown resistor (known as
Ra
) to the VCONN pin; it’s 1 kΩ on average, in the range from 800 Ω to 1200 Ω. If the receptacle is able to provide VCONN, it looks for such resistor on the CC pin not currently used for communications, and feeds VCONN into that pin when the resistor is sensed. This resistor, as a result, is available on the second CC pin inside the cable plug – on both plugs of the cable.
What happens if you short both CC pins together in your device’s receptacle, and then insert an high-capability emarked cable? The 5.1 kΩ resistor gets put in parallel with the 1 kΩ resistor, and you get 840 Ω total pulldown, give or take. This pulldown is what the power supply sees on the CC line, and it’s out of the 5.1 kΩ expectation. Specifically, the voltage divider pulls the voltage too low and the power supply doesn’t provide 5 V on VBUS.
This is what Raspberry Pi 4 did in its first revisions, remember? As a result, you wouldn’t have been able to power the Pi 4 with an emarked cable through a Type-C charger – you’d need a non-emarked cable or perhaps a USB-A to USB-C cable with a USB-A power supply. And, of course, the official Raspberry Pi power supply doesn’t have an emarker in its captive cable. It doesn’t have to have an emarker, either – after all, emarkers are intended for questioning unknown cables, and captive cables are known cables by definition.
The question I’ve seen nobody ask, was – why did they do it? If you check the schematic, you’ll see that the
PD_SENSE
net from the joined CC pins goes to an analog input pin on the PMIC. You might be able to guess by now – they implemented the “voltage monitoring” part of the standard, but didn’t implement the “emarker” part properly. How much voltage monitoring do they actually do,
is questionable,
but the capability’s at least there.
Raspberry Pi resolved the issue in upcoming revisions, and if you have an older revision, you can
patch it yourself.
We
don’t yet know how they patched it,
but we will eventually find out. In the meantime, this is all what you ought should know about resistors, emarkers and the elusive VCONN.
Next up: USB-C power in ports, power roles, and higher voltages! | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566782",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2023-01-04T16:12:43",
"content": "“The question I’ve seen nobody ask, was – why did they do it?”I thought it was stated pretty explicitly at the time that it was a simple case of misunderstanding the standard, not having any emarker cables... | 1,760,372,444.093617 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/04/squeezing-a-minimalist-6502-retrocomputer-onto-a-single-breadboard/ | Squeezing A Minimalist 6502 Retrocomputer Onto A Single Breadboard | Dan Maloney | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"6502",
"6507",
"6522",
"6532",
"MOS",
"ram",
"rom",
"SBC",
"solderless breadboard"
] | Over the years, and especially lately, we’ve seen tons of single-board retrocomputer builds. That’s fine with us — the more, the merrier. But they all start to run together a bit, with little to distinguish between them. Not so
this about-as-compact-as-possible 6502 computer that fits on a single breadboard
.
Now, when you do the math, it seems like there’s no way that [Anders Nielsen] would have been able to fit even a minimal chipset onto a standard solderless breadboard. The 40-pin 6502 alone takes up nearly two-thirds of the connections available; add in equally large but necessary chips like the 6522 interface adapter, ROM and RAM chips, and some support ICs, and one breadboard isn’t going to cut it. Luckily, some frugal engineers at MOS back in the 70s came up with the 6507, a variant on the 6502 in a 28-pin DIP. The other key to this build is the 6532 RAM-I/O-timer chip or RIOT, which puts a tiny amount of RAM and some IO lines on a single 40-pin DIP. Along with a 28-pin ROM, a 14-pin hex inverter, and a little crystal oscillator, the entire chipset just barely fits on a single breadboard.
But what can this minimalist 6502 actually do? As you can see in the video below, anything a 555 timer can do, and maybe a little bit more. That’s not a dig, of course — [Anders] actually calls out his initial blinkenlight application as a little more than a glorified 555, and actually comes up with a marginally more complex application just to prove the point. The interesting part here is dealing with the constraints imposed by the limited resources available on this machine.
We’re looking forward to whatever comes next for this clever build. It’s hard to see how some of the plans [Anders] has for it will still fit on a single breadboard, though — these things
tend to spread out
as they go. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566687",
"author": "joe R",
"timestamp": "2023-01-04T12:47:57",
"content": "the 6507 was a customized version of the 6502 that was initially mad exclusively for Atari. The original ones didn’t even have 6507 anywhere on the chip. It was designed for the Atari vcs and later used i... | 1,760,372,444.304318 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/04/bypass-defective-stdp9320-video-controller-on-wacom-cintiq-companion-2/ | Bypass Defective STDP9320 Video Controller On Wacom Cintiq Companion 2 | Maya Posch | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"cintiq",
"wacom"
] | Some products seem to have a part of two that’s pretty much guaranteed to end up dying on you. In the case of the 2015-vintage Wacom Cintiq Companion 2, this turns out to be the so-called Athena chip, which switches the display input between the HDMI port and internal display controller. This allows for use in both standalone mode (tablet), as well as companion mode, where it acts as a drawing tablet for a connected PC. When confronted with such a faulty device,
[neutrino] found and applied a simple fix
: bypassing the Athena chip altogether.
This fix is
recommended
by the Repair Preservation Group’s wiki page on the topic, noting that this will permanently disable its use as an external display without additional repairs to recreate the functionality of the removed chip. This
STDP9320
(PDF) part by ST Microelectronics is described as a ‘Premium high resolution multimedia monitor controller with 3D video’ and contains a wide range of video scalers, a HDMI receiver, DisplayPort (including embedded DP) support. With this fix, the Cintiq Companion 2’s Intel CPU’s graphics core is directly connected to the display’s eDP input, along with a range of voltages and enable pins.
What the exact reason is for the STDP9320 dying after a few years with what appears to be some kind of internal power failure or short, but this bypass fix at least restores standalone functionality. Sourcing a replacement for this obsolete IC
seems possible
, but a big gamble. Sadly, it would seem that this Wacom device will no longer be a companion for much longer. | 8 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566628",
"author": "Iván Stepaniuk",
"timestamp": "2023-01-04T09:45:49",
"content": "This is amazing work. I’m wondering, if this something that happens often, wouldn’t it make sense to make a bypass PCB that has the same BGA footprint and can be soldered onto the board as it was ... | 1,760,372,443.773885 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/03/near-field-emi-probes-any-good/ | Near Field EMI Probes: Any Good? | Al Williams | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"emi probe",
"spectrum analyzer"
] | [Learnelectronics] purchased some
near-field EMI probes
for his tiny spectrum analyzer for about $5 on sale. Could they be any good at that price? Watch the video below and find out.
The probes arrived as a kit with four probes: three circular ones for sensing the H field and a stubby probe for sensing E fields (although the video gets this backward, by the way). There’s not much to them, but for the price, it probably isn’t worth making them yourself if your concern is the cost. Now, if you just want to make your own, we get that, too, but don’t expect to save much money.
If you want an idea of what you can do with these probes, GW Instek has an application note titled “The Brand New Concept of EMI Probes” that, of course, uses their probes. You have to log in
to view the document
, but if you are handy with Google, you should be able to find a distributor with a copy of it in the open. Or, check out this article by
Tektronix
. You might also enjoy section 3.3.1 of Rohde and Schwarz’s
white paper on the topic
.
We’d really like to see these cheap probes compared to some of the higher-priced alternatives. There are also
other designs
we’ve seen. Whatever you are using, you ought to watch the
2020 Hackaday Remoticon workshop on debugging RF
if you are interested in these probes. | 17 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566568",
"author": "PWalsh",
"timestamp": "2023-01-04T06:08:23",
"content": "> The probes arrived as a kit with four problemsDid you mean to say “problems”?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6566575",
"author": "pelrun"... | 1,760,372,444.428947 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/03/continuous-printing-on-lcd-resin-printer-no-more-wasted-time-on-peeling-is-it-possible/ | Continuous Printing On LCD Resin Printer: No More Wasted Time On Peeling? Is It Possible? | Maya Posch | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3D resin printer",
"FEP",
"sla"
] | Anyone who has done any amount of 3D printing with SLA printers is probably well aware of the peeling step with each layer. This involves the newly printed layer being pulled away from the FEP film that is attached to the bottom of the resin vat. Due to the forces involved, the retraction speed of the build plate on the Z-axis has to be carefully tuned to not have something terrible happen, like the object being pulled off the build plate. Ultimately this is what limits SLA print speed, yet [Jan Mrázek] postulates that replacing the FEP with an
oxygen-rich layer
can help here.
The principle is relatively simple: the presence of oxygen inhibits the curing of resin, which is why for fast curing of resin parts you want to do so in a low oxygen environment, such as when submerged in water. Commercial printers by Carbon use a patented method called “continuous liquid interface production” (CLIP), with resin printers by other companies using a variety of other (also patented) methods that reduce or remove the need for peeling. Theoretically by using an oxygen-permeating layer instead of the FEP film, even a consumer grade SLA printer can skip the peeling step.
The initial attempt by [Jan] to create an oxygen-permeating silicone film to replace the FEP film worked great for about 10 layers, until it seems the oxygen available to the resin ran out and the peeling force became too much. Next attempts involved trying to create an oxygen replenishment mechanism, but unfortunately without much success so far.
Regardless of these setbacks, it’s an interesting research direction that could make cheap consumer-level SLA printers that much more efficient.
(Thumbnail image: the silicone sheet prior to attaching. Heading image: the silicone sheet attached to a resin vat. Both images by [Jan Mrázek]) | 20 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566585",
"author": "Chris",
"timestamp": "2023-01-04T07:39:24",
"content": "Carbon doesn’t use an lcd, they use a projector. I don’t think this would be possible with an lcd since the lcd screen needs to be right up against the membrane to reduce light bleed from light that isn’t p... | 1,760,372,443.831156 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/03/hp-33120a-repair-shutting-down-the-eye-of-sauron/ | HP 33120A Repair: Shutting Down The Eye Of Sauron | Maya Posch | [
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"HP33120A"
] | When a friend of [Tom Verbeure] came into possession of two HP 33120A 15 MHz function/arbitrary waveform generators, he could not resist giving them a try. Although not exactly high-end units, the HP 33120A makes for a pretty nice unit for a home lab. During the first test run, however, [Tom] discovered that one of the units had a dead output, which made it rather useless. Undeterred, [Tom] set to work
diagnosing it
, helped by the repair manual and full schematics.
While the cause was quickly tracked down to the general area around an exploded MLCC, fixing the fried Zener diode that may have initiated the short on the -15V rail revealed an unpleasant surprise. To [Tom]’s horror, he saw a portal to Hell itself open when part of the PCB caught on fire due to an internal short. After making sure to capture a video of this event, he then proceeded to use a thermal camera to track down the hot spot and uses a drill to remove the short.
While one can argue with the use of a drill to remove shorts on inner layers of a PCB, ultimately the fix was effective. A look on the schematic and comparison with the functioning 33120A unit later, all it took was two bodge wires to restore functionality. After this event, [Tom]’s friend gave him the repaired unit as thanks, and definitely not because [Tom] had begun to refer to it as ‘his precious’. | 22 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566493",
"author": "smellsofbikes",
"timestamp": "2023-01-04T00:11:15",
"content": "Having done this: take a file to the hole after drilling. It’s really easy for a drill to wipe metal from a ground plane down to contact other traces or a power plane. If you use a fine file and g... | 1,760,372,444.026217 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/03/the-crawlspace-crawler/ | The Crawlspace Crawler | Elliot Williams | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"crawler",
"FPV",
"radio control"
] | This crawlspace crawler FPV robot is a fairly simple build. [Jeff G] bought a boxy chassis kit with frame, motors, and wheels, mounted lights and camera, and
we get to see it in action
(video, embedded below).
As always, the details are where it’s at, and his overview covers most of the high points. [Jeff] went for relatively slow 60 RPM motors so that he’d have plenty of grunt. The FPV setup is particularly simple – he bought a cheap Flysky i6 transmitter and receiver, and an Eachine TX05 all-in-one camera and transmitter. An interesting choice was a USB UVC video receiver so he can watch the footage on a computer, tablet, or a cell phone, which means he didn’t have to shell out for expensive FPV goggles. We also love the sticks-and-zip-ties used as feelers, letting him know when he’s about to get stuck, but that also serve as a visual frame for the camera.
The
FPV Contest
just came to an end, and we’ll be announcing the winners soon! If you find any inspiration there for your own project, [Jeff]’s simple basis here should get you started on the right track.
Thanks [Lilja] for the tip! | 35 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566425",
"author": "Eric Mockler",
"timestamp": "2023-01-03T21:05:45",
"content": "I’ve used an RC car to run a pull string for ethernet cable up in a drop ceiling. In a big Burlington Coat Factory, saved moving the ladder probably 20x, it wasn’t FPV, we could hear where it was fro... | 1,760,372,444.378242 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/03/fool-a-drone-with-a-fixed-battery/ | Fool A Drone With A Fixed Battery | Jenny List | [
"Battery Hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"bms",
"lithium ion"
] | Lithium-ion and lithium-polymer rechargeable batteries have given us previously impossible heights of electronics power and miniaturization, but there’s a downside they have brought along with them. When a battery pack has to contain electronics for balancing cells, it’s very easy for a manufacturer to include extra functions such as locking down the battery. Repair a battery, replace cells, or use a third-party battery, and it won’t work. [Zolly] has this with a DJI Mavic Mini pack,
and shares with us a method for bypassing it
.
The pack talks to the multi-rotor with a serial line, and the hack involves interrupting that line at the opportune moment to stop it telling its host that things are amiss. Which is a good start — but we can’t help hacing some misgivings around the rest of the work. Disconnecting the balance line between the two cells and fooling the Battery Management System (BMS) with a resistive divider seems to us like a recipe of disaster, as does bypassing the protection MOSFETs with a piece of wire. It may work, and in theory the cells can be charged safely with an external balance charger, but we’re not sure we’d like to have a pack thus modified lying around the shop.
It does serve as a reminder that BMS boards can sometimes infuriatingly lock their owners out. We once encountered this with a second-generation iBook battery that came back to life after a BMS reset, but it’s still not something to go into unwarily. Read our
guide to battery packs and BMS boards
to know more. | 21 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566398",
"author": "ytrewq",
"timestamp": "2023-01-03T20:02:11",
"content": "Chipped batteries, oh my! This drone goes straight in my do not buy list, no matter how good it may be.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6566424",
... | 1,760,372,444.657332 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/03/the-problem-with-passwords/ | The Problem With Passwords | Jenny List | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"passwords",
"security",
"security theatre"
] | By now it’s probable that most readers will have heard about LastPass’s “
Security Incident
“, in which users’ password vaults were lifted from their servers. We’re told that the vaults are encrypted such that they’re of little use to anyone without futuristic computing power and a lot of time, but the damage is still done and I for one am glad that I wasn’t a subscriber to their service. But perhaps the debacle serves a very good purpose for all of us, in that it affords a much-needed opportunity for a look at the way we do passwords.
What Does A Car Ferry Have In Common With A Password?
If I close my eyes, I can almost imagine I’m on a cruise! Stena Line,
CC BY 3.0
One of my favourite ways to leave the UK is the ferry from Harwich to Hoek van Holland. There’s an odd difference between its two legs though, the UK end has airport style security with metal detectors and x-rays, while at the Hoek I simply walk through passport control onto the ferry.
It’s a particularly egregious demonstration of security theatre, the practice of overdoing largely unnecessary security measures to appear to be doing something. In the case of a car ferry it’s especially pointless to use measures on foot passengers designed to protect aircraft, when all the motorists simply drive onto the ferry unobstructed. A ferry might seem to have little relevance to password security, but the idea of security theatre it introduces is definitely of relevance in the field of passwords. How often have you encountered a website that imposes arcane rules on your choice, demanding a a specified length, that it must contain numbers, or even worse, special characters? Does this help much? I’m not convinced, and I’d like to take a little journey through the issue to find out.
Weak And Feeble Human Brains Are No Match For A Computer!
The ideal password is a long randomly-generated string designed to confound brute force cracking software. These techniques rely on trying every possible combination of characters sequentially, and the longest string with the most entropy is intended to be the one that takes the most time to reach. If you take the 95 printable ASCII characters as the alphabet, an attacker has to try 95 to the power of the string length
different strings to catch everything, something that is likely to take a while. For a 10-character password that figure is 5.987369392 × 10¹⁹, you do use passwords that long, don’t you?
Unfortunately very few humans use random strings as their passwords. They aren’t memorable at all, and thus if your passwords are like this you’re probably using some kind of password manager for them. Real humans have an unfortunate propensity to behave in predictable ways rather than random ones, so they’ll use words and phrases they know and remember. And when asked to add letters, numbers, and special characters, they remain just as incapable of doing so in a random manner as they were with strings. A simple string such as
jennylist
becomes
JennyList
with capitals added, then
JennyList!
with a special character, and finally
JennyList!1234
when it’s been padded out to fit. The developer trying to crack it can try short cuts such as given names, dog’s names, football teams, and birth years with common letter substitutions and numerical sequences, making these memorable passwords secure in appearance but with substantially reduced entropy. But it’s all OK folks, because they pass the test of having a special character, numbers, and upper-case letters.
Incorrect Horse Battery Staple
The famous “correct horse battery staple” from XKCD. (
CC BY-NC 2.5
)
So we’ve established that password security theatre is a thing, so what are the alternatives? XKCD had a stab at it with “
correct horse battery staple
“, in which they put forward the idea of picking four memorable words to make a much longer password with greater entropy because of its size. This is a great way to make a memorable password, but it deserves a closer look. The attacker has only to guess four things to crack it, but that’s still OK. Assuming the owner of the password is an Anglophone and taking a back of the envelope estimate of around 250,000 English words including obsolete ones then we calculate that there are 3.90625 × 10²¹ possibilities, which is better than our random 10-character ASCII string.
The trouble is, the vocabulary of an average native English speaker is considerably less than the 250,000 figure.
You can check yours here
, but the average is around 20,000. When I worked for a well-known dictionary publisher we did the test and found most of us were in the 30,000 ballpark, with one specialist lexicographer colleague whose job was finding new words reaching an astounding 65,000. But if most users have 20,000 English words from which to pick their password, the number of tries drops to a more manageable 1.6 × 10¹⁷. Given that it’s more likely they will pick words with a higher frequency in the language that figure drops even further, and as they’ll tend to form a sentence rather than a random sequence the attacker can narrow down their choices even more. Are you still happy with your accurate equine power source fastener now?
Just How Far Do You Need To Go?
So the more we look at password security, the more it becomes evident that the whole edifice is built on foundations of sand. But should it be our only defence? Of course not, and we’re sure that most readers will already be using two-factor authentication, in which something you have as well as something you know becomes a factor. For many that’s a cellphone rather than a security key, but even then there’s the prospect of a miscreant hijacking your number. Is nowhere safe? Perhaps it’s time to dial back the paranoia.
XKCD for the second time, on the nail. (
CC BY-NC 2.5
)
There are probably several levels of service for which you need a password. Ones that don’t matter, ones that would be a mild PITA if cracked, ones that would be a major PITA, and ones that would be game over. And in turn there are several classes of attacker which you can probably classify by level of resources and by willingness to put in the work.
If a government agency wants your password they’ve already been through everything in your life and found it, or more likely they’ll haul you into jail and hit you with a wrench until you tell them. Likewise your local hoodlums, except they won’t bother hauling you into jail before breaking out the wrench. Scammers in a country far away will have you give it to them through a phishing scam or a piece of malware if you’re unwary enough to fall for them. Which leaves the shadowy hoodie-wearing “hackers” beloved of popular media, who will use the techniques described above on password hashes in leaked databases.
It’s clear that password security is something we all need to have on our minds, and that using two-factor authentication with regularly changed unique and entropic passwords is probably about as good as it gets without descending into paranoia. But there’s still the problem of remembering passwords for hundreds of different sites, unless you simply reset the forgotten password with another arbitrary string every time you need to use one of the less-important ones. Has the LastPass incident put paid to the use of such services, or is that just more paranoia? Maybe it’s time to revert to the most secure method of them all, and write hem on the Post-It note under your keyboard. | 129 | 38 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566365",
"author": "Frankel",
"timestamp": "2023-01-03T18:27:52",
"content": "No word on 2FA and second factor? No word on self-hosting with vaultwarden?Remember kids:The “cloud” is just someone else’s PC. If I make a mistake it is my fault, if someone else makes a mistake with my ... | 1,760,372,444.832651 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/03/veteran-polaroid-camera-lives-again-with-film-conversion/ | Veteran Polaroid Camera Lives Again, With Film Conversion | Jenny List | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"instant film",
"Instax",
"polaroid"
] | Browsing the thrift stores will net an amazing array of old cameras for dirt cheap prices, meaning that a film enthusiast can have plenty of fun without wasting money they could spend on the film itself. Unfortunately many of the more interesting cameras are those which use film long out of production, leaving the photographer with a need to improvise using a more modern film that’s still in production.
[Nicholas Morganti] has just such a camera, a Polaroid Big Shot, a 1970s instant camera designed for portrait work, for which the Polaroid 100 film packs are sadly a distant memory. Leave it on the shelf? Not likely,
he’s adapted it to work with Fuji Instax 210
, a readily available and cheap instant film.
Polaroid 100 and Instax 210 are almost the same size, but are not close enough for a direct fit. An Instax cartridge can be persuaded to fit into the Big Shot, but it’s a tight fit that puts strain on the aged Polaroid hinges. Even then the Polaroid rollers and photo ejection system are very different from those in the Fuji, so it involved a workflow in which the cartridge had to be unloaded in a darkroom between shots and processed through a real Fuji camera for the final picture.
His eventual solution takes a less camera-straining tack, still requiring a darkroom but taking an individual unexposed frame from an Instax pack and placing it in the Big Shot on an adapter plate. The result is a usable if a little cumbersome workflow for vintage Polaroid pictures, something plenty of instant photography enthusiasts will be thankful for. If you’re one of them, you might like to read
our look at the process
. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566326",
"author": "Brenda",
"timestamp": "2023-01-03T16:35:22",
"content": "As a kid, when I saw one of those in a drug-store, I wanted one!Edward Land:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_H._Land",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id":... | 1,760,372,444.527028 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/03/2022-as-the-hardware-world-turns/ | 2022: As The Hardware World Turns | Tom Nardi | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"artificial intelligence",
"chip shortage",
"electric vehicles",
"Hackaday Supercon",
"Year in Review"
] | Well folks, we made it through another one. While it would be a stretch to call 2022 a good year for those of us in the hacking and making community, the light at the end of the tunnel does seem decidedly brighter now than it did this time 365 days ago. It might even be safe to show some legitimate optimism for the year ahead, but then again I was counting on my Tesla stocks to be a long-term investment, so what the hell do I know about predicting the future.
Eh, my kids probably weren’t going to college anyway.
Thankfully hindsight always affords us a bit of wisdom, deservedly or otherwise. Now that 2022 is officially in the rearview mirror, it’s a good time to look back on the highs (and lows) of the last twelve months. Good or bad, these are the stories that will stick out in our collective minds when we think back on this period of our lives.
Oh sure, some might wish they could take the
Men in Black
route and forget these last few years ever happened, but it doesn’t work that way. In fact, given the tumultuous times we’re currently living in, it seems more likely than not that at some point we’ll find ourselves having to explain the whole thing to some future generation as they stare up at us wide-eyed around a roaring fire. Though with the way this timeline is going, the source of said fire might be the smoldering remains of an overturned urban assault robot that you just destroyed.
So while it’s still fresh in our minds, and before 2023 has a chance to impose any new disasters on us, let’s take a trip back through some of the biggest stories and themes of the last year.
The Chip Shortage Hits Home
Technically the origins of the chip shortage started well before 2022, and those with larger component appetites, like car manufacturers, started feeling the pressure some time ago. But 2022 marks the point where the problem got so large that even the hobbyist was impacted.
It’s to the point now that we’d wager few reading these words can say they’ve remained completely untouched. Case in point, have you tried to buy a Raspberry Pi recently? Unless you were willing to pay scalper prices on the second-hand market, they have been largely unobtainable for months. It’s bad enough that a service like
rpilocator
had to be created in the first place, but even with automated stock tracking, you’ve only got a few minutes to put your order in before they are sold out again.
An outdated thin client will run circles around the Raspberry Pi.
Without a steady supply of the cheap Linux single-board computers, many folks have switched over to
buying old small form factor x86 computers for their projects
. Just search eBay for “thin client” and take your pick — even the oldest ones you’re likely to see will still massively outperform the ARM chip in the Raspberry Pi.
There’s a certain irony to this, because unless you were doing something that actually utilized the unique properties of the Raspberry Pi (I.E. access to GPIO, SPI, I2C, etc), an outdated x86 box was probably always a better option to begin with.
Makes you wonder — had more people made this realization earlier on, maybe the demand for the things wouldn’t be so high in the first place…
But it’s not just Pis that have become difficult, or at least more expensive, to get our hands on — a wide array of once common components are now nearly unobtainable. To combat the situation, we’ve started to see some open hardware projects
include a list of compatible replacement chips in their Bill of Materials
, often listed in descending order of capability compared to the ideal component. We’ve even seen some boards ship with
multiple footprints for the same part
since it wasn’t clear which one would end up getting used by the time it was ready for assembly.
Seeing how the open source hardware world has responded to this unprecedented situation has been fascinating, and there’s an argument to be made that the lessons being learned will have a positive impact on the community going forward. After all, assuming that everyone who might want to use your design is fortunate enough to live in a place where resources like Digikey and Mouser are just a click away was always a pretty bold assumption. What we’re calling a part shortage is just business as usual for some folks out there, and being able to make do with what you have on-hand is a skill any good hacker should strive to master.
AI Tools Go Mainstream
While we’d heard rumblings about artificial intelligence text-to-image generators in 2021, it wasn’t until earlier this year that the floodgates really opened up. That’s when software like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion became open to the public. Just a few months later, and social media is awash with dream-like images produced by increasingly bizarre text prompts.
Of course, these tools wouldn’t be nearly as popular if it wasn’t for the fact that the images generated are, in many cases, extremely impressive. While understandably rough around the edges at such an early juncture, there’s little doubt that the core technology is here to stay.
From improving your photographs
to
creating virtual worlds out of song lyrics
and
generating textures for 3D environments
, it’s a powerful tool that’s only going to get better with time.
DALL-E Prompt: Realistic image of a hardware hacker sitting at their workbench and reading their favorite website
But art isn’t the only thing that machine learning models have suddenly gotten very good at. In June Microsoft announced that GitHub Copilot, their AI-powered software development tool, was out of “technical preview” and ready for commercial use. Trained on the content of millions of open source GitHub repositories, Copilot is able to produce chunks of usable source code by predicting what the programmer is trying to accomplish.
The service immediately sparked controversy, as it would occasionally spit out a function pulled verbatim from an open source project — without crediting the original author or explaining the terms of the license it was released under. The
resulting class-action lawsuit
, filed early last month, was inevitable.
November also marked the public release of ChatGPT, which despite what its name might imply, is capable of quite a bit more than just shooting the breeze. In the weeks that it’s been available to the public, we’ve seen it write code, generate three-dimensional objects in OpenSCAD, and even
act as a Linux virtual machine
. But just like its image-generating kin, ChatGPT isn’t perfect. It makes assumptions and mistakes that might not seem obvious at first glance, so you’d do well to
take what it spits out with a grain of salt
.
Webb Shows its Stuff
Readers may recall that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) lifted off from French Guiana on Christmas Day of 2021. But by the time it completed the 1.5 million kilometer (930,000 mile) journey to the the Sun–Earth L2 Lagrange point, unfolded itself, and got all its hardware checked out, it wasn’t until the summer of 2022 that we were graced with the first proper images from the massive infrared observatory.
The Cosmic Cliffs of the Carina Nebula, one of the first images released from the James Webb Space Telescope
Graced might be something of an understatement — while there was never any doubt that the $10 billion JWST would provide unprecedented views of the cosmos — it didn’t make the reveal any less spectacular. The infrared telescope’s 6.5 meter (21 feet) gold-coated beryllium reflector allows it to see objects that were too faint or distant for the Hubble Space Telescope, which was already a very capable instrument.
Because of the immense distances involved versus the speed of light, that means the James Webb Space Telescope very literally allows humanity to see farther into the distant past than has ever been possible previously. The potential for new discoveries offered by the observatory simply can’t be overstated, and we’ve all got a front-row seat.
Electrify All the Things
While 2022 might not have been the year you personally moved on from the internal combustion engine, it certainly marked a turning point for the automotive industry. In the last twelve months, a lot of big promises have been made about electric vehicles (EVs), from California and the European Union banning the sale of gas cars and trucks beyond 2035, to Dodge announcing their iconic Charger and Challenger muscle cars will be retired this year as the brand moves towards an all-electric future. In a June interview, even Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods had to admit he believes
all new passenger cars will be electric by 2040
.
This 335 HP motor weighs just 28 kg (63 lbs).
There’s two big takeaways from all this: first, the clock is ticking on that gas-burning ride you’ve got parked outside, and second, EV technology is going to have to get better and cheaper in a relatively short amount of time if the industry is going to be able to hit these lofty timetables. We’re already starting to see the needle move, with
new lightweight motors
,
impressive range extension gains
, and research into new battery
technologies
.
But it’s not just the cars themselves that are getting more advanced. In this brave new world, even the roads get in on the act, with pilot programs currently exploring the idea of
embedding inductive charging coils into the surface
. Millions of cars plugged into their chargers could also
provide a nice buffer for the energy grid
, so one day, vehicle-grid integration (VGI) might mean your car ends up powering the neighbor’s TV in the middle of the night.
Of course, it’s not all good news. Building these vehicles, and the infrastructure necessary to charge them, means the global demand for things like
copper
and
cobalt
will skyrocket. There’s also some worrying security implications of hastily-designed
EV chargers getting plugged into the grid en masse
.
The Return of Supercon
Of course, no highlight of the previous year in hardware hacking would be complete without mentioning
the triumphant return
of our very own Hackaday Supercon in Pasadena, California. While we’re immensely proud of the two Remoticons which were held virtually during the COVID-19 lockdowns, there’s simply no substitute for getting a few hundred hackers together in one spot for 72 hours of soldering, coding, and general nerdy merriment. Until Discord can adequately convey the smell of a Twinkie being roasted by a neon sign transformer, in-person events will always have the upper hand.
A particular highlight of this year’s Supercon was the incredible
4-bit badge designed by the legendary Voja Antonic
. Whenever we put together an event badge, it’s our fervent hope that it becomes more than a temporary curiosity. We want our badge to stay out on your desk for as long as possible, and that means striking a careful balance — it should be
just
challenging enough to keep you engaged, but not so difficult that it becomes frustrating. From the response this badge got, it’s clear we hit the target.
Clearly, this badge belonged to Cooler Daniel.
Badge hacking aside, it wouldn’t be Supercon without a slate of fascinating talks from talented hackers. For logistical reasons we could only live stream about half of them during the event, but don’t worry, every talk was recorded and we’re currently in the process of getting them edited and uploaded to the Hackaday YouTube channel.
In fact, some of them have already been released, such as
Sam Mulvey’s talk on building your own FM radio station
. We hope to release a couple talks a week from this point out, so stay tuned.
Share Your Memories
So what will stand out the most for you when you think back on 2022? Was it some personal triumph? The return of a favorite hacker con? Let us know in the comments. Even if you’re in the other camp, and this year treated you as poorly as the two that came before is, feel free to get it off your chest below. After all, if we don’t learn from history, we’re doomed to repeat it.
If you’re feeling particularly bold, we’d love to hear what your hopes are for 2023. After all, there’s no way this year could be worse than the ones we’ve just gone through…right? | 30 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566289",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2023-01-03T15:14:24",
"content": "I’m sorry about your stock. With the twitter debacle it looks like Musk is going the same way as Hughes.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6566355",
... | 1,760,372,444.602531 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/03/wearable-skobots-full-of-steam-and-vanishing-indigenous-languages/ | Wearable SkoBots Full Of STEAM And Vanishing Indigenous Languages | Michael Shaub | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"education",
"educational robot",
"female tech",
"indigenous"
] | [Danielle Boyer] is Ojibwe: Sault Ste Marie Tribe and passionate about preserving vanishing indigenous languages. She’s invented a shoulder-worn talking companion,
called a SkoBot
, to teach STEAM to children through building robots programmed with indigenous language lessons and founded the STEAM Connection to give them away.
Through her
Every Kid Gets a Robot
program, more than 8,000 ESP32-based kits have been distributed to students. With a total cost of less than $20 USD, the 3D printed bots help democratize access to robotics. As many rural areas lack access to high-speed internet, they are designed to be controlled locally by the student’s phone.
During an
interview on WBUR in Boston
, [Danielle] recalled that one of her students once said that she was the first Native person they’d seen in robotics, and she inspired them to get into it. “That really made me emotional and inspired to see the power that us being ourselves has and being authentic to ourselves, to our community, I just think that’s such a beautiful thing.”
Learn more about the impactful and fun work [Danielle] is doing at
the STEAM Connection
that scored her an invite to the White House, see a preview in the GMA video after the break, and watch for her plant-based
BioBotz
coming later this year.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen robots invade the classroom:
from student-built “Battle Bots”
to the
modular 3D printed SimpleSumo project
, these educational initiatives can help teach the basics of electronics and software development in a more engaging way than simply reading theory from a textbook. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566211",
"author": "Mystick",
"timestamp": "2023-01-03T12:21:26",
"content": "For some unknown reason, I am craving the delicious, satisfying beverage Slurm…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6566359",
"author": "kaaaaa... | 1,760,372,444.935422 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/03/a-single-ended-vacuum-tube-amplifier-with-a-modern-twist/ | A Single Ended Vacuum Tube Amplifier With A Modern Twist | Jenny List | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"stereo",
"tube amp",
"valve amp"
] | Despite the oldest solid state audio circuitry now qualifying for a pension and a bus pass where this is being written, the thermionic tube retains a foothold in the world of audio — cherished by enthusiasts for the warm sound it is claimed to impart. For the electronics enthusiast a tube audio amplifier makes for an interesting and unusual project, and for that reason it’s one tackled by many. [Keri Szafir] is no exception, and
she’s produced a stereo tube amp with a few modern features
.
Electrically it’s a relatively conventional single-ended design using a double triode and a power pentode for each channel. It follows a so-called ultra-linear circuit, with a tap on the output transformer feeding one of the pentode’s grids. The modern features come via a switched Bluetooth input and a motorized volume control, something that would have never been found on such an amp when they were the cutting edge.
We have to admit a soft spot for this type of amp, and we particularly like this one for its very period construction style using cable lacing to keep the wiring under control. We more often see these amps
using the cheaper integrated triode-pentode tubes
which makes them especially easy to build, so the separate preamp is a little different. We’re not sure we’d have spent extra on the fancy E88cc tubes though. | 40 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566159",
"author": "tg",
"timestamp": "2023-01-03T09:30:19",
"content": "Gotta have the fancy expensive tubes just to flex on them",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6566216",
"author": "justsayin",
"timestamp": ... | 1,760,372,445.070425 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/02/holographic-cellphones-coming-thanks-to-ai/ | Holographic Cellphones Coming Thanks To AI | Al Williams | [
"Science"
] | [
"ai",
"artificial neural network",
"holograms",
"tensorflow"
] | Issac Asimov foresaw 3D virtual meetings but gave them the awkward name “tridimensional personification.” While you could almost do this now with VR headsets and 3D cameras, it would be awkward at best. It is easy to envision conference rooms full of computer equipment and scanners, but an MIT student has a method that may do away with all that by using machine learning to
simplify hologram generation
.
As usual, though, the popular press may be carried away a little bit. The key breakthrough here is that you can use TensorFlow to generate real-time holograms at a few frames per second using consumer-grade processing power found in a high-end phone from images with depth information, which is also available on some phones. There’s still the problem of displaying the hologram on the other side, which your phone can’t do. So any implication that you’ll download an app that enables holograms phone calls is hyperbole and images of this are in the realm of photoshop.
Still, the idea that you can generate 3D from a camera essentially in real-time is pretty exciting. Even if your phone is a few years away from a holographic display, we can imagine this working its way into VR headsets much sooner. After all, VR headsets must choose if they connect to a big computer or have limited capabilities with an onboard cellphone-like computer.
The technique essentially trained a neural network to predict what a scene would look like as a hologram using supervisory holograms as a reference. However, the recent paper expands on this, using a two-stage training regime with one training set having supervision and another training cycle without supervision.f
If you want to give any of this a shot, the models and other things you’d need are on
GitHub
. This probably isn’t quite ready for casual weekend hacking, but if you are a hologram guru, perhaps you’ll find a way to get us a little closer to the kind of things you see in popular videos about the topic, like the one below.
We need a good
holographic display
, of course. If you need
a refresher on holograms
, talk to [Brian McEvoy]. | 21 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566115",
"author": "aki009",
"timestamp": "2023-01-03T07:31:26",
"content": "Every time this topic comes up, nirvana is just around the corner and the latest thing is the magic key to unlock the future. For the time being I’ll put this latest thing in the same bucket with the previ... | 1,760,372,444.99334 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/02/whats-new-from-1927/ | What’s New, From 1927 | Jenny List | [
"History"
] | [
"1927",
"copyright",
"internet archive",
"public domain"
] | Here we are at the start of the new year, which for the Internet Archive means
a note about what has just entered the public domain
. 1927’s finest previously copyrighted materials are now up for grabs in the public domain, which means there’s a treasure trove of films, books, and music to freely copy and remix.
Their article highlights a few notable pieces of 1927’s popular culture , of which we suggest you should definitely take note of
Fritz Lang’s
Metropolis
if you have any interest in sci-fi, but for Hackaday readers there’s not much else in the article itself relating to technology.
Delving into the archive for 1927
is still a fascinating pastime though, because beyond the interest of seeing what’s now free it led onto what was the state of technology in the 1920s. And here we find ourselves as much navigating the English language as we do the library itself, because so much of what we do uses vocabulary from the decades since.
Electronics in 1927 largely involved radio using vacuum tubes, so it’s relatively straightforward to find textbooks from that year such as
T
he theory of thermionic vacuum tubes
, and
The propagation of radio waves
, and a
sheaf of radio periodicals
to go with them. Computers as we know them simply didn’t exist, and some of the words we’d use to describe the machines used for automation tasks seemingly weren’t in use at the time. Words like “Electromechanical” or “Sequencer” return nothing of use, but there is a wealth of books on heavy electrical engineering.
Engineering of power plants
sets the scene, and we’d have to admit spending quite some time on
Electric Trains
.
If we spent a while browsing the archive and found a lot of interest, we are guessing you will too. | 13 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6566015",
"author": "SB5K",
"timestamp": "2023-01-03T03:10:42",
"content": "Metropolis is a masterpiece. I saw it in college in the 1970’s and we were amazed by the special effects. Scenes from it now are visual tropes, like the man working the dial like a clock face with a lot of f... | 1,760,372,444.880829 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/02/all-aboard-the-garbage-express/ | All Aboard The Garbage Express | Bryan Cockfield | [
"home hacks"
] | [
"automation",
"bin",
"CAN",
"cog",
"garbage",
"home",
"rack and pinion",
"rail",
"remote control"
] | Cog railways are a somewhat unusual way of train locomotion, typically only installed when a train needs to climb steep terrain. Any grade above about 10% needs the extra traction since the friction between the wheels and rails won’t be enough to push the train forward or keep it from falling backwards. Even without a steep hill to climb, sometimes a cog railway is necessary for traction as [Max Maker] discovered
while building a train for his garbage cans
.
The build started out as a way to avoid having to wheel his seven waste bins to the curb every month. Originally he built a more standard railway with a simple motor to drive the train, but he quickly realized that there wasn’t enough grip even when using plastic wheels, even though this track follows fairly flat terrain. Since the rail is built out of steel he quickly welded up a rack-and-pinion system to one of the rails. The build goes through many iterations before he finally settles on a design that solves the problem, and it includes several other features as well such as remote control and a spring-loaded automatic charger for the train at its station in the back yard.
While we always appreciate the eccentricity of those who would automate a relatively simple task that only happens once a month, [Max Maker] hopes to build this into a commercial product aimed at the elderly or disabled who would really benefit from a reliable, semi-automatic system that takes their trash bins to the curb for them. And, if your system only involves a single trash can,
there are other ways of automating the task of taking the garbage to the curb
.
Thanks to [P0482] for the tip! | 39 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6565952",
"author": "paulvdh",
"timestamp": "2023-01-03T00:43:47",
"content": "It sure looks cool and it also looks like it works, but there is one thing I’ve got some doubt about.How do you get a garbage bin off the cart when it is full? The wheels are on the wrong side.At 13:56 he... | 1,760,372,445.283539 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/02/the-whole-thing-in-python/ | The Whole Thing In Python | Elliot Williams | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"PCB design",
"python"
] | [hsgw] built a macropad in Python, and that’s not a strange language to choose to program the firmware in these days. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The whole process — from schematic capture, through routing and generating the PCB, and even extending to making the case —
was done programmatically, in Python
.
The macropad itself isn’t too shabby, sporting an OLED and some nice silkscreen graphics, but the whole point here is demonstrating the workflow. And that starts with defining the schematic using
skidl
, laying out the board with
pcbflow
, which uses a bunch of KiCAD footprints, and then doing the CAD design for a case in
cadquery
, which is kind of like OpenSCAD.
The result is that the whole physical project is essentially code-defined from beginning to end. We’re not sure how well all the different stages of the workflow play together, but we can imagine that this makes versioning a ton easier. Coding a PCB is probably overkill for something simple like this — you’d be faster to lay it out by hand for sure — but it doesn’t really scale. There’s definitely some level of complexity where you don’t want to be clicking an pointing, but rather typing. Think of this as the “hello world” to designing in code.
Some of the tools in the workflow were new to us, but if you’d like
an in-depth look at cadquery
, we’ve got you covered. [Tim Böscke]’s
insane CPU made from 555 timers
(yes, really) uses pcbflow. And if you’d like to dig back a bit into the origins of Python PCB design,
this post introduces CuFlow
, on which pcbflow was based. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6565856",
"author": "stappers",
"timestamp": "2023-01-02T21:23:59",
"content": "Based upon XIAO RP2040 (https://wiki.seeedstudio.com/XIAO-RP2040/)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6565909",
"author": "Iván Stepaniuk",
... | 1,760,372,445.113093 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/02/a-bicycle-trailer-fit-for-heavy-haulage/ | A Bicycle Trailer Fit For Heavy Haulage | Jenny List | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bicycle",
"bike trailer",
"cycling"
] | One of the problems of being a cyclist is that a bicycle just isn’t designed to carry much more than a human. You can get panniers and hang shopping bags from the handlebars, but sooner or later there’s a load which just doesn’t fit. At that point there’s only one way forward that involves staying on two wheels: find a bike trailer. If you fancy building one yourself, then there’s
La Charette
(French language,
Google Translate link
), an open-source three-wheeler design from France.
Construction is a sturdy welded box section tube spaceframe, with the single wheel at the front providing steering, and a towing bar attached to the seat post of the bicycle. Along with the impressive load capacity comes the problem of towing it, and for the cyclist with less-than-superhuman strength there’s the option of an electrically-driven front wheel. Stopping the whole thing is an essential feature with loads this size, and to that end there’s an inertial braking system operated by the force on the towing bar.
All in all it appears to be a useful trailer, albeit on the large side for storage when not being used. It’s certainly one of the larger bike trailers we’ve seen, though not perhaps
the most stylish
.
Thanks [Jeff] for the tip! | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6565792",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2023-01-02T18:33:08",
"content": "There’s a moving company here in Montreal that moves by bicycle. Obviously multiple trips. I think no special bikes, just trailers.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
... | 1,760,372,445.331923 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/02/supercon-2022-badge-gets-a-tinkering-helper-add-on/ | Supercon 2022 Badge Gets A Tinkering Helper Add-on | Arya Voronova | [
"cons",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"2022 Hackaday Supercon",
"badge hacking",
"CP2102"
] | Are you one of the lucky ones to own a Hackaday Supercon 2022 badge? Would you like to make it even easier to program than it already is? [brokebit] has exactly the project you might’ve been dreaming of all along —
it’s a Supercon 2022 Badge programming adapter
. With pass-through for all badge pins, four buttons, a total of ten DIP switches and four LEDs, the sheer IO of this add-on makes good use of the badge’s expansion header. But that’s not all, as there’s a USB-UART converter accessible through a MicroUSB socket.
Using mostly through-hole components, this board won’t leave you digging through parts drawers for exotic buttons or pin headers; most everything is jellybean. The pass-through capability of the adapter means that other badge add-ons will be compatible and you can even use this adapter to debug them, with DIP switches helping you disconnect whatever onboard circuitry interferes. For instance, if you’re not looking for USB-UART functionality provided by the classic CP2102, the dual DIP switches are right there for you to disconnect it on the fly.
The board is 6 layers, but since the quoted price was the same as a 4-layer board, it made for a more comfortable layout. Want a refresher on the badge?
Here you go,
and here’s
our write-up about it
before Supercon. Hackers have been stretching the limits of what the 2022 badge can get done —
here’s a punch card reader,
for instance. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6565932",
"author": "macsimski",
"timestamp": "2023-01-03T00:02:43",
"content": "Six layers?? Is this the hardware equivalent of software development bloatware?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6565964",
"author": "Arya... | 1,760,372,445.370801 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/02/generative-music-created-in-minimalistic-javascript-code/ | Generative Music Created In Minimalistic Javascript Code | Joseph Long | [
"digital audio hacks",
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"generative art",
"javascript",
"music synthesis"
] | Dittytoy user [srtuss] has recreated one of the most influential works of electronic music in an elegant nineteen kilobytes of Javascript code. The
recreation of Jean-Michel Jarre’s Oxygene Part IV
on the Dittytoy platform, currently in beta, plays live right in your browser.
Dittytoy
empowers users to create generative music online using a simple Javascript API. Syntax of the API is loosely based on that of
Sonic Pi
, a code-based music creation and performance tool.
“Oxygene (Part IV)” was recorded by Jean-Michel Jarre in 1976. It was Jarre’s most successful single, charted on the top ten in several countries, and was more recently featured in the Grand Theft Auto IV video game. In the 1990s, famed electronic music innovator Brian Eno used the term “generative music” to describe music generated by an electronic system comprising ever-changing elements that may be algorithmic or random.
Recreation of Jarre’s work required modeling the Korg Minipops 7 drum machine, one of the instruments presented in our
slew of open-source synthesizers
. | 10 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6565578",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2023-01-02T12:27:51",
"content": "That’s cool but DittyToy has serious performance issues during playback when used with Firefox.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6565673",
"a... | 1,760,372,445.420752 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/02/diyson-lamp-hides-cables-between-the-seams/ | DIYson Lamp Hides Cables Between The Seams | Sonya Vasquez | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"cable management",
"flexible flat cable"
] | [Steven Bennett] is so fond of Dyson’s new Lightcycle lamp that he’s decided to clone
his own version in the spirit of the original
. Dyson, however, knows what makes their lamp so special — so much that they patented their technique for tucking away the power wiring. Undaunted, [Steven]’s latest challenge has been to create a cable management solution that captures the elegance of the original without making a flat-out duplicate.
[Steven]’s latest update starts with the details of the original model’s patent. In a nutshell, Dyson’s elegance comes from both a flat cable (a flex PCB, perhaps?) and a magnetic interface that transfers power between the two primary structural beams. The latter half discusses [Steven]’s alternate solution: a miniature drag chain that can be 3D printed to arbitrary lengths. Like the flat flexible cable, this cable rides in the groove of the lamp’s two structural beams; but unlike the original, it spools outwards into a hoop on one end of its travel length. Overall [Steven] is quite happy with this result, and we think this solution gives the lamp a charm that’s distinctly original.
Capturing the design essence doesn’t just stop at wire management though. Have a look at some
previous video logs in the series
to get a sense of some of the other challenges faced in both heat dissipation and mechanical feel.
Wire management, when done well, scratches a design itch somewhere in the back of our heads. If you’re curious for more cable management solutions, have a look at some of these other tricks that use
tape measure
or involve
a DIY coiling method
. | 52 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6565524",
"author": "Lukilukeskywalker",
"timestamp": "2023-01-02T10:40:46",
"content": "It looks like Dyson really likes to patent anything…I feel there is nothing patentable to that Design… Power Transmission to a movable system has already existed for a few decades and the system... | 1,760,372,445.512387 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/01/snow-plowing-by-bicycle/ | Snow Plowing By Bicycle | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"55 gallon",
"bicycle",
"bike",
"cargo bike",
"ebike",
"infrastructure",
"plow",
"snow",
"transportation",
"winter"
] | There are few challenges more difficult or dangerous than trying to get around the majority of North American cities by bicycle. Not only is the bicycle infrastructure woefully inadequate for safe travel (if it exists at all), but it’s often not maintained to any reasonable standard, either. This goes double in colder areas, where bike paths can essentially become abandoned in the winter after a snowfall. [Phil] found himself in this situation recently after a snowfall in western Canada and decided to DIY
his own bike-powered snowplow to help keep his bike paths cleared
.
The plow is built around an electric-assisted cargo bicycle, which is almost as rare in North America as bicycle infrastructure itself, but is uniquely suited to snowplow duty. It has a long wheelbase and a large front cargo area that can be weighed down if needed to ensure the plow makes good contact with the ground. The plow itself is built out of sections of plastic 55-gallon drums, which have been cut into two scooping sections and attached to the bike with a wooden 2×4 frame. The plow can be raised or lowered with a ratchet strap mechanism, and the plastic scoop skips over bumps in the path with relative ease.
With this relatively simple mechanism attached to his bike, [Phil] can make sure the trails that he frequents around Vancouver are more suitable for bike travel in the winter. Riding a bicycle through the winter,
even in the coldest of climates
, is not that difficult with the right support and investment in infrastructure, and this build is the best DIY solution we’ve seen to bicycle infrastructure support outside of
adopting something like this remote-controlled snowblower to the job
. | 44 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6565426",
"author": "punkdigerati",
"timestamp": "2023-01-02T07:26:53",
"content": "I’ve been wondering if there is a way I could do something like this but for general detritus on the bike path. Might be able to avoid some goats heads or other puncture hazards. Maybe just attach a ... | 1,760,372,445.656074 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/01/aioc-the-ham-radio-all-in-one-cable-for-audio-and-aprs/ | AIOC: The Ham Radio All-In-One Cable For Audio And APRS | Dave Rowntree | [
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"APRS",
"audio",
"AX.25",
"baofeng",
"ptt",
"STM32F3",
"tty",
"usb",
"USB C"
] | The
Ham Radio All-in-one cable (AIOC)
is a small PCB attachment for a popular series of radio transceivers which adds a USB-attached audio interface and virtual TTY port for programming and the push-to-talk function. The STM32F373 microcontroller (which, sadly is still hard to find in the usual channels) is a perfect fit for this application, with all the needed hardware resources.
With USB-C connectivity, the AIOC enumerates as a
sound card as well as a virtual serial device, so interfacing to practically any host computer should be plug-and-play. Connection to the radio uses 12mm separation 3.5mm and 2.5mm TRS connectors, so is compatible with at least the Baofeng UV-5R but likely many other cheap transceivers that have the same physical setup.
Instructions are provided to use the AIOC with
Dire Wolf
for easy access to APRS applications, which makes a nice out-of-the-box demo to get you going. APRS is not all about tracking things though since other applications can sit atop the APRS/AX.25 network, for example,
HROT: the ham radio of things
.
We’ve seen quite a few Baofeng (and related products) hacks, like
this sketchy pile of wires
allowing one to experiment with the guts of the radio for APRS. Of course, such cheap radio transceivers cut so many engineering corners that there are
movements to ban their sale
, so maybe a new batch of better radios from our friends in the East is on the horizon?
Thanks to [Hspil] for the tip! | 23 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6565303",
"author": "true",
"timestamp": "2023-01-02T03:25:02",
"content": "There is no link to project details in the article.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6565581",
"author": "itomato",
"timestamp": "2023-... | 1,760,372,445.57795 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/01/electronics-explained-with-mechanical-devices/ | Electronics Explained With Mechanical Devices | Arya Voronova | [
"how-to"
] | [
"educational circuits",
"educational toy",
"electronics through mechanics",
"eletronics education",
"learning electronics",
"mechanical computer"
] | It can be surprisingly hard to find decent analogies when you’re teaching electronics basics. The water flow analogy, for instance, is decent for explaining Ohm’s law, but it breaks down pretty soon thereafter.
Hydraulics aren’t as easy to set up when you want an educational toykit for your child to play with, which leaves them firmly in the thought experiment area. [Steve Mould]
shows us a different take
– the experimentation kit called Spintronics, which goes the mechanical way, using chains, gears, springs and to simulate the flow of current and the effect of potential differences.
Through different mechanical linkages between gears and internal constructs, you can implement batteries, capacitors, diodes, inductors, resistors, switches, transistors, and the like. The mechanical analogy is surprisingly complete. [Steve] starts by going through the ways those building blocks are turned into mechanical-gear-based elements. He then builds one circuit after another in quick succession, demonstrating just how well it maps to the day-to-day electronic concepts. Some of the examples are oscillators, high-pass filters, and amplifiers. [Steve] even manages to build a full-bridge rectifier!
In the end, he also builds a flip-flop and an XOR gate – just in case you were wondering whether you could theoretically build a computer out of these. Such a mechanical approach makes for a surprisingly complete and endearing analogy when teaching electronics, and an open-source 3D printable take on the concept would be a joy to witness.
Looking for something you could gift to a young aspiring mind? You don’t have to go store-bought – there are some impressive hackers who
build
educational
gadgets,
for you to learn from. | 16 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6565207",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2023-01-02T00:38:50",
"content": "“using chains, gears, springs and to”belts?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6565213",
"author": "The Commenter ... | 1,760,372,445.705409 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/01/ledcard-the-pocketable-ring-light/ | LEDCard: The Pocketable Ring Light | Maya Posch | [
"LED Hacks",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"led",
"LEDCard",
"right light"
] | How many times have you found yourself fumbling about with lighting while trying to get a clear up-close shot of an object? Although smartphones come with pretty nice cameras these days, properly lighting an object and taking impressive macro shots isn’t exactly their strong suit. This is where [MisterHW]’s
LEDCard
is a very welcome companion. Not only does it provide a credit card sized ring light, it also allows for a molded acrylic lens to be inserted for high-quality macro shots.
The project in its current iteration consists out of a single PCB with rechargeable Li-ion coin cells (LIR2430) and a USB-powered charge controller. After charging the LEDCard (or inserting freshly charged Li-ion coin cells), a single button press will light up the SMD LEDs via the LM3410 LED driver IC. Press the ON button gently (half-press) for medium brightness and fully for full intensity. Finally, pressing the TEST button with the LEDs lit performs a battery level test that turns the LEDs off if the battery is ok. If they stay lit, it’s time to recharge the LEDCard.
As [MisterHW]
points out
, the LEDCard being compact enough to carry around with you wherever you go makes it suitable as an emergency flashlight as well. It’s also not the final iteration of the design. Future (incremental) improvements include a diffuser for the ring light and more. Even so, in its current state LEDCard is already a proven design. | 17 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6565140",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2023-01-01T22:47:16",
"content": "Now, level up by putting a polarizing filter over the LEDs, and another over the lens, rotated 90 degrees to block specular reflection: It entirely blocks the direct reflection from the LEDs, and dramaticall... | 1,760,372,445.838499 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/01/use-usb-c-chargers-to-top-up-li-ion-packs-with-this-hack/ | Use USB-C Chargers To Top Up Li-Ion Packs With This Hack | Arya Voronova | [
"Battery Hacks"
] | [
"CC/CV",
"liion",
"lithium charging",
"PPS",
"Type-C",
"USB Type-C",
"USB-C PD",
"USB-PD",
"usbc"
] | In USB-C Power Delivery (PD) standard, the PPS (Programmable Power Supply) mode is an optional mode that lets you request a non-standard voltage from a charger, with the ability to set a current limit of your choice, too. Having learned this, [Jason] from [Rip It Apart] decided to investigate — could this feature be used for charging Li-Ion battery packs, which need the voltage and current to vary in a specific way throughout the charging process? Turns out, the answer is a resounding “yes”, and thanks to a USB-C tester that’s programmable using Lua scripts, [Jason] shows us how we can use a PPS-capable USB-C charger for topping up our Li-Ion battery packs,
in a project named DingoCharge.
The wonderful write-up answers every question you have, starting with a safety disclaimer, and going through everything you might want to know.
The GitHub repo
hosts not only code but also full installation and usage instructions.
DingoCharge handles more than just Li-Ion batteries — this ought to work with LiFePO4 and lithium titanate batteries, too. [Jason] has been working on Ni-MH and lead-acid support. You can even connect an analog output thermal sensor and have the tester limit the charge process depending on the temperature, showing just how fully-featured a solution the DingoCharge project is.
The amount of effort put into polishing this project is impressive, and now it’s out there for us to take advantage of; all you need is a PPS-capable PSU and a supported USB-C tester. If your charger’s PPS is limited by 11V, as many are, you’ll only be able to fully charge 2S packs with it – that said, this is a marked improvement over many Li-Ion solutions we’ve seen. Don’t have a Li-Ion pack?
Build one out of smartphone cells!
Make sure your pack
has a balancing circuit
, of course, since this charger can’t provide any, and all will be good. Still looking to get into Li-Ion batteries? We have
a three-part guide
, from basics to mechanics and electronics! | 5 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6565004",
"author": "Raster",
"timestamp": "2023-01-01T18:40:48",
"content": "I wouldn’t leave the current limitation to a random USB-C power source…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6565482",
"author": "Jimmy Z",
... | 1,760,372,445.785346 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/01/a-diy-pulse-tube-cryocooler-in-the-quest-for-home-made-liquid-nitrogen/ | A DIY Pulse Tube Cryocooler In The Quest For Home-Made Liquid Nitrogen | Maya Posch | [
"Science"
] | [
"cryo-cooler",
"cryocooler",
"liquid nitrogen",
"nitrogen",
"physics"
] | What if you have a need for liquid nitrogen, but you do not wish to simply order it from a local supplier? In that case you can build your very own pulse tube cryocooler, as [Hyperspace Pirate] is in the process of doing over at YouTube. You can catch
part 1
using a linear motor and
part 2
using a reciprocating piston-based version also after the break. Although still very much a work-in-progress, the second version of the cryocooler managed to reduce the temperature to a chilly -75°C.
The
pulse tube cryocooler
is one of many types of systems used for creating a cooling effect. Commercially available refrigerators and freezers tend to use
Rankine
cycle coolers due to their low cost and effectiveness at (relatively) warmer temperatures. For cryogenic temperatures,
Stirling engines
are commonly used, although they find some use in refrigeration as well. All three share common elements, but they differ in their efficiency over a larger temperature range.
In this video series, the viewer is taken through the physics behind these coolers and the bottlenecks which prevent them from simply cooling down to zero Kelvin. Despite the deceptive simplicity of pulse tube cryocoolers — with just a single piston, a regenerator mesh, and some tubing — making them work well is an exercise in patience. We’re definitely looking forward to the future videos in this series as it develops. | 5 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6564911",
"author": "Frankel",
"timestamp": "2023-01-01T16:26:40",
"content": "Thanks for the article, this was an incredible watch! I hope he can pull it off, but the results of part 2 look promising.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_... | 1,760,372,445.889963 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/01/this-fingernail-sticker-can-detect-when-you-stop-breathing/ | This Fingernail Sticker Can Detect When You Stop Breathing | Orlando Hoilett | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"Empatica",
"fitbit",
"photoplethysmography",
"PPG",
"wireless power transfer"
] | Sometimes we dig through the archives to see what kind of crazy hacks we can pull out of the depths of the world wide web and this one was worth sharing. Researchers at Northwestern University developed a
sticker that’s applied to the fingernail and measures heart rate, motion, and blood oxygen, all without a battery
.
The
photoplethysmograph (PPG) system is similar to what we’ve covered before
and the motion sensor is simply an accelerometer, so we won’t go over those aspects of the device. The parts of the device that did catch our attention were the battery-less operation as well as its size. It’s just so dang small! And fits snuggly on a fingernail or on even on your earlobe. The size here is actually a very interesting feature and not just a marketing plug. Because the device is so small and lightweight, it is very easy to adhere to the fingernail or skin with very little sensory perception. Basically, the person wearing the device won’t even notice it’s there. That’s definitely an advantage over the traditional, bulky, hospital-grade instruments we’ve grown accustomed to.
The device adheres really well given its small and lightweight design, so motion artifacts are significantly reduced. Motion artifacts in PPG-based devices are due to the relative motion between the optode (LED and photodiode) and the skin. The traditional approaches of ensuring the device don’t move are for the patient to keep very still during a recording, to wear the device tightly against the skin (think of how tightly you need to wear your smartwatch to get consistent readings), or use some seriously tough and uncomfortable adhesive as you may have done if you’ve ever gotten an electrocardiogram reading before. This device eliminates those three problems.
The other aspect of the device that caught our attention is its use of wireless power instead of a battery. In some senses, this could be seen as an advantage or as a disadvantage. The device relies on NFC for power and data transmission,
a pretty common approach for devices that only need to be used intermittently
. Wireless power could be a bit problematic for continuous monitoring devices which provide readings every second or several times a second. But who knows,
wireless power seems to be everywhere these days
.
Digging into the details a bit, the double-layer antenna is designed around the circumference of the device using wet etching to create traces on a copper polyimide foil. The team electroplated holes through the different layers of the device (optode layer, first antenna layer, polyimide, second antenna layer, component layer, protective top coat) connecting the antenna to the die pad NFC chip (SL13A, AMS AG). Connecting the chip requires some pretty fine-pitch soldering techniques,
but nothing we’re not accustomed to here at Hackaday
. Overall, they seemed pretty successful, obtaining a Q factor of 16 and a transmission distance of 30 mm using a smartphone and not
some giant reader antenna
.
Definitely, a really cool project that we recommend checking out. | 8 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6564875",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2023-01-01T15:30:26",
"content": "Flooding a hospital room with a 13.56 MHz signal seems problematic considering they do everything to avoid RF emissions. However, I think this would be great for hospice care or at home care.",
"paren... | 1,760,372,446.087393 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2023/01/01/nabu-pc-gets-cpu-upgrade-emulates-a-trs-80/ | NABU PC Gets CPU Upgrade, Emulates A TRS-80 | Robin Kearey | [
"classic hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"emulation",
"NABU",
"nabu PC",
"Teensy",
"trs-80"
] | The NABU PC caused a bit of a buzz in the retrocomputing community a couple weeks back. After all, it doesn’t happen often that a huge batch of brand-new computers from the 1980s suddenly becomes available on eBay. Out of the box, the computer itself isn’t that useful: with no internal storage, or any application software whatsoever, it can really only serve as a bare-bones development platform. But since its hardware is quite similar to that of other contemporary home computers, emulating one of those shouldn’t be too difficult, which is exactly what [Ted Fried] did: he managed
to turn his NABU into a TRS-80 clone
by using his MCLZ8 CPU emulator.
The MCLZ8 is basically an 800 MHz Teensy CPU with an adapter board that allows it to be plugged into a Z80 socket. It emulates the Z80 CPU in real-time, but it also holds the TRS-80 ROM and performs real-time translation between peripherals. On the input side, it reads out the ASCII characters coming in from the NABU’s 8251A UART and stores them in the virtual TRS-80’s keyboard buffer. On the output side, it transfers the TRS-80’s video data to the NABU’s TMS9918 video chip.
One problem [Ted] ran into was a difference in screen resolution: the NABU has a 40×24 character display, while the TRS-80 generates a 64×16 character image. [Ted] solved the vertical difference by simply keeping the NABU logo on the screen at all times, and decided to just ignore the 24 characters that drop off the right side – it’s not a big issue for a typical BASIC program anyway.
The repurposed NABU might not be a perfect TRS-80 clone, but that’s not the point: it shows how easily the NABU’s hardware can be reprogrammed to do other things. For example, [Ted] has already started work on
a new project that doesn’t emulate the Z80
, but instead runs code directly on the Teensy’s ARM A9 processor. As you might imagine, this gives the NABU several orders of magnitude more processing power, although the practical use of this is limited because the CPU still has to wait for the NABU’s slow data bus and display chip. [Ted] explains the setup and runs a few impressive demos in the video embedded below.
[Ted]’s NABU experiments are a great example of the Teensy board’s flexibility: we’ve already seen how it can
emulate a Z80 as well as an 8088
. We’re also curious to see what others will develop with
the NABU’s hardware
—
if they can still buy it
, of course. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6564776",
"author": "Joshua",
"timestamp": "2023-01-01T12:52:01",
"content": "I think it’s impressive that so many people contribute something to an 8-Bit system and that it kind of awakens the Canadian thinkerer’s/homebrew scene.On the other hand.. I think the Z80 was fine and I ca... | 1,760,372,446.035729 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/31/raspberry-pi-and-pplogger-make-a-low-cost-chemiluminescence-detector/ | Raspberry Pi And PpLOGGER Make A Low-Cost Chemiluminescence Detector | Orlando Hoilett | [
"chemistry hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"electrochemistry",
"open source science",
"potentiostat"
] | [Laena] and her colleagues at the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science in Melbourne, Australia used a Raspberry Pi to make a
low-cost electrochemiluminescence (ECL) detector
to measure inflammation markers, which could be used to detect cardiovascular disease or sepsis early enough to give doctors a better chance at saving a patient’s life.
ECL reactions emit light as a result of an electrically-activated chemical reaction, making them very useful for detecting biochemical markers in blood, saliva, or other biological samples. ECL setups are fundamentally fairly straightforward. The device includes a
voltage reference generator
to initiate the chemical reaction and a photomultiplier tube (PMT) to measure the emitted light. The PMT outputs a current which is then converted to a voltage using a transimpedance amplifier (TIA). That signal is then sampled by the DAQCplate expansion board and the live output can be viewed in ppLOGGER in real-time.
Using the RPi allowed the team to do some necessary, but pretty simple signal processing, like converting the TIA voltage back to a photocurrent and integrating the current to obtain the ECL intensities. They mention the added signal processing potential of the RPi was a huge advantage of their setup over similar devices, however, simple integration can be done pretty easily on most any microcontroller. Naturally, they compared their device to a standard ECL setup and found that the results were fairly comparable between the two instruments. Their custom device showed a slightly lower limit of detection than the standard setup.
Their device costs roughly $1756 USD in non-bulk quantities with the PMT being the majority of the cost ($1500). Even at almost $2000, their device provides more than $8000 in savings compared to ECL instruments on the market. Though cost is much more than just the bill of materials, we like seeing the community making efforts to democratize science, and [Laena] and her colleagues did just that. I wonder if they can help us figure out the
venus fly trap
while they’re at it? | 11 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6564687",
"author": "Larry",
"timestamp": "2023-01-01T10:30:54",
"content": "If that includes a Rpi then that’s pretty cheap 🤣",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6564752",
"author": "olaf",
"timestamp": "2023-01-01T12:04:1... | 1,760,372,445.963837 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/31/dirty-usb-c-tricks-one-port-for-the-price-of-two/ | Dirty USB-C Tricks: One Port For The Price Of Two | Arya Voronova | [
"computer hacks",
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"USB 3",
"usb 3.0",
"USB 3.1",
"USB Type-C",
"usbc"
] | [RichardG] has noticed a weird discrepancy – his Ryzen mainboard ought to have had fourteen USB3 ports, but somehow, only exposed thirteen of them. Unlike other mainboards in this lineup, it also happens to have a USB-C port among these thirteen ports. These two things wouldn’t be related in any way, would they? Turns out, they are, and [RichardG]
shows us a dirty USB-C trick
that manufacturers pull on us for an unknown reason.
On a USB-C port using USB3, the USB3 TX and RX signals have to be routed to two different pin groups, depending on the plugged-in cable orientation. In a proper design, you would have a multiplexer chip detecting cable orientation, and routing the pins to one or the other. Turns out, quite a few manufacturers are choosing to wire up two separate ports to the USB-C connector instead.
In the extensive writeup on this problem, [Richard] explains how the USB-C port ought to be wired, how it’s wired instead, shows telltale signs of such a trick, and how to check if a USB-C port on your PC is miswired in the same way. He also ponders on whether this is compliant with the USB-C specification, but can’t quite find an answer. There’s a surprising amount of products and adapters doing this exact thing, too, all of them desktop PC accessories – perhaps, you bought a device with such a USB-C port and don’t know it.
As a conclusion, he debates making an adapter to break the stolen USB3 port out. This wouldn’t be the first time we’re cheated when it comes to USB ports – the
USB2 devices with blue connectors
come to mind. | 48 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6564450",
"author": "SB5K",
"timestamp": "2023-01-01T03:12:36",
"content": "That’s what you get for motherboards designed by SauronOne port to rule them all, one port to bind them, one port to fake you out and on the board hide them",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"repl... | 1,760,372,446.237331 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/31/get-to-know-touch-with-this-dev-board/ | Get To Know Touch With This Dev Board | Jenny List | [
"Parts"
] | [
"capacitive touch",
"Sam&Wing A108",
"touch sensor"
] | In the catalogue of the Chinese parts supplier LCSC can be found many parts not available from American or European suppliers, and thus anyone who wants to evaluate them can find themselves at a disadvantage. [Sleepy Pony Labs] had just such a part catch their eye, the Sam&Wing AI08 8 channel capacitive touch controller. How to evaluate a chip with little information?
Design a dev board, of course
!
The chip tested is part of a family all providing similar functionality, but with a variety of interface options. The part tested has eight touch inputs and a BCD output. Said output is used to feed a 74 series decoder chip and drive some LEDs. The touch pads were designed with reference to
a Microchip application note
which incidentally makes for fascinating reading on the subject as it covers far more than just simple touch buttons.
Whether or not you’ll need this touch chip is a matter for your own designs, however, what this project demonstrates is that with the ready availability of cheap custom PCBs and unexpected parts it’s not beyond reason to create boards just for evaluation purposes.
Perhaps the subject of
a previous Hackaday piece
would have found this board useful. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6564404",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2023-01-01T02:12:41",
"content": "AI08 & AI08B, what’s the difference? Both datasheets are 100% in Chinese :-(",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6570524",
"author": "Sleepy Pony... | 1,760,372,446.139186 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/31/kicad-2022-end-of-year-recap-and-7-0-preview/ | KiCad 2022 End-of-Year Recap And 7.0 Preview | Joseph Long | [
"hardware",
"News"
] | [
"design tool",
"KiCAD",
"pcb layout",
"Schematic Capture"
] | [Chris Gammell] moderated the
KiCad 2022 End-of-Year Recap
with several KiCad developers and librarians. They reviewed what’s been bubbling up in the nightly KiCad 6 builds, what we can expect from KiCad 7, and even answered some questions from the user community. Over the course of 2022, the KiCad project has grown both its development team and library team. The project even has a preliminary support commitment from the CERN Drawing Office!
Improvements to the KiCad Schematic Editor include smart wire dragging that simplifies moving components around within schematic diagrams. Components selected in the schematic now remain selected while switching to the PCB Editor. Internal documentation of schematics has advanced with support for fonts, embedded graphics, and the inclusion of hypertext links to datasheets and other reference materials. New features for PDF generation offer interactive files and links between sheets.
A new search panel within the KiCad PCB Editor supports finding components by footprint, net, or text search. A property panel allows common properties to be edited across multiple selected items. While a full-blown auto-router remains outside of the scope for KiCad, “push and shove” routing is faster and easier. An “attempt to finish” feature routes a quick connection for the currently selected trace, and “pack and move” positions all selected footprints into proximity to simplify placing them as neighbors within the board layout.
The KiCad PCB Editor also adds support for the use of fonts and inverted “knockout text” which even works on copper zones. Bitmap graphics can be imported and scaled beneath layout work as reference illustrations. Private footprint layers can be used to place extra documentation within footprints. The design rule checker (DRC) now can catch more layout issues, especially those that may impact manufacturability.
These are just a sampling of the impressive improvements we can expect with KiCad 7.0. There are also additions to circuit simulation and modeling features, a new command line interface for script-based automation, ARM64 support for KiCad running on Apple silicon, and a huge number of additions to the default library including symbols, footprints, and 3D Viewer models.
The KiCad team suggests several ways to support the project. There are always needs for additional developers and librarians. Financial contributions can be made at
kicad.org
. As users, we can run the nightly builds, try to break them, and give feedback in the form of detailed bug reports. Community testing will help make KiCad 7.0 as solid as possible. The project team is also seeking open hardware projects to include with KiCad 7.0 as demos. For example, the
StickHub project
was included with KiCad 6.0 as a demo.
The official release of KiCad 7.0 is currently scheduled for January 31, 2023. While we wait, let’s flashback to our January 2022 presentation of
what features made it into the KiCad 6.0 release
. | 22 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6564489",
"author": "Conrad Farnsworth",
"timestamp": "2023-01-01T04:23:26",
"content": "God bless this project.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6564603",
"author": "Not Another Version",
"timestamp": "2023-01-01T07:37:1... | 1,760,372,446.407912 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/31/battery-powered-esp8266-sensor-never-been-simpler/ | Battery-Powered ESP8266 Sensor? Never Been Simpler | Arya Voronova | [
"Arduino Hacks",
"Battery Hacks",
"how-to",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"ESP8266",
"Wemos",
"Wemos d1",
"wemos d1 mini",
"wemos mini d1"
] | Say, you’re starting your electronics journey with a few projects in mind. You have an ESP8266 board like the Wemos D1, a Li-Ion battery, you want to build a small battery-powered sensor that wakes up every few minutes to do something, and you don’t want to delve into hardware too much for now. Well then, does [Mads Chr. Olesen] have
a tutorial for you!
Here, you’ll learn the quick and easy way to get your sensor up and running, learn a few tricks for doing sleep Arduino environment, and even calculate how long your specific battery could last.
You’ll need a TP4056 board, providing charging and battery protection features, a jumper, and maybe a pushbutton – the Fritzing diagram shows everything you’d like to know. From there, you have examples on using deep sleep, do pushbutton or sensor-driven wakeup, manage WiFi, and even read the battery voltage – all of these are a single line of code away, and you learn the few important caveats there are. In the end, there’s even an embedded calculator for how long your Wemos D1 board can survive on a single charge – enter your capacity, the amount of time between wakeups, and see just how long your board will last.
This tutorial is truly accessible if you never touched ESP8266 deep sleep before but would like to start – it’s short and sweet, and you’ll have your battery-powered sensor up and running in no time. It doesn’t go into topics like
optimizing the onboard hardware,
but in all fairness, you don’t have to do that until you’re ready, and sometimes, it’s really software optimizations that
will have a hefty payoff
. And, if you ever want to learn more about Li-Ion-powered devices, our tutorials are
there for you. | 23 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6564088",
"author": "mathman",
"timestamp": "2022-12-31T18:05:45",
"content": "Damn, I almost googled what a Lilon battery is…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6564116",
"author": "Arya Voronova",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,372,446.470938 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/31/in-praise-of-just-because-hacks/ | In Praise Of “Just Because” Hacks | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Rants",
"Slider"
] | [
"creativity",
"newsletter",
"why we hack"
] | Sometimes you pick a project because the world needs it to be done. Or maybe you or a friend need it. Or maybe you don’t really
need
it, but it fulfills a longstanding dream. In my mind, the last stop before you reach “why am I doing this” is the “just because” hack.
The ideal “just because” hack is limited in scope. You don’t want to spend years on a whimsical project, and because of this a “just because” hack isn’t usually motivating enough to keep you going that long anyway, except for the tenacious few. A “just because” doesn’t necessarily have to be an easy win, but it makes sense for you to see your way out before you get in too deep.
I’m not sure if it’s
the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon
or not, but in the last week or so in the Hackaday universe, a lot of people have been singing the praises of “just because” hacks. (
Check out this one discussion
, for instance.) Mostly, it’s a combination of them turning out better than initially thought, or it’s about the learning that came along for the ride. Of course, many of them spin off into longer, serious projects even if they didn’t start that way.
Not everything in life can be frivolous, of course. But that makes the “just because” hack that much sweeter, and you should try to make mental room for them if you can. When the stakes are low, creativity can be high. You might still want to impose a deadline, lest you fall into
eternal yak shaving
, but take it easy. You don’t need a justification all the time: the journey can be the destination.
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
! | 25 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6563958",
"author": "ono",
"timestamp": "2022-12-31T15:20:26",
"content": "Amen.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6564011",
"author": "Mark",
"timestamp": "2022-12-31T16:33:49",
"content": "Amen",
... | 1,760,372,446.539409 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/31/want-to-play-with-fpgas-use-your-pico/ | Want To Play With FPGAs? Use Your Pico! | Arya Voronova | [
"FPGA",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"emulation",
"fpga",
"fpga emulation",
"pi pico",
"Raspberry Pi Pico",
"rp2040",
"verilator",
"verilog"
] | Ever want to play with an FPGA, but don’t have the hardware? Now, if you have one of those ever-abundant Pi Picos, you can start playing with Verilog without getting an FPGA board.
The FakePGA project
by [tvlad1234], based on the Verilator toolkit, provides you with a way to compile Verilog into C++ for the RP2040. FakePGA even integrates RP2040 GPIOs so that they work as digital pins for the simulated GPIOs, making it a significant step up from computer-aided FPGA code simulation
[tvlad1234] provides instructions for setting this up with Linux – Windows, though untested, could theoretically run this through WSL. Maximum clock speed is 5KHz – not much, but way better than not having any hardware to test with. Everything you’d want is in the GitHub repo – setup instructions, Verilog code requirements, and a few configuration caveats to keep in mind.
We cover a lot of projects where FPGAs are used to emulate hardware of various kinds, from
ISA cards
to
an entire Game Boy
.
CPU emulation
on FPGAs is basically the norm — it’s just something easy to do with the kind of power that an FPGA provides. Having emulation in the opposite direction is unusual, though, we’ve seen
FPGAs being emulated with FPGAs,
so perhaps it was inevitable after all. Of course, if you have neither a Pico nor an FPGA, there’s always
browser based emulators.
We thank [Randy Glenn] for sharing this with us! | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6563822",
"author": "Hitomi",
"timestamp": "2022-12-31T12:07:21",
"content": ">compile Verilog into C++But then it is not verilog anymore and not even C++. It’s machine code. If a high level language boils only down to mere convenience and experience in using it, you are just limite... | 1,760,372,446.601245 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/31/if-you-cant-see-a-solar-panel-that-doesnt-mean-its-not-there/ | If You Can’t See A Solar Panel, That Doesn’t Mean It’s Not There | Jenny List | [
"green hacks"
] | [
"roof tile",
"solar cell",
"solar roof"
] | In the shift away from fossil fuel energy sources, there has been a huge expansion in solar power. We’ve seen solar thermal plants in the desert and photovoltaic panel farms covering huge areas of land, but perhaps the most potential comes from placing the panels on rooftops. In some parts of the world this is encouraged through a system of subsidies, as is the case in Italy. But what if your building is part of a protected world heritage site such as the Roman city of Pompeii? The answer comes in the form of
traditional roof tiles that hide their photovoltaic elements under a polymer skin
that looks for all the world like a traditional Roman pan tile. As is so often the case with such products,
the manufacturer’s description page
is cagey about the details in the name of protecting their invention. What they do tell us is that the tile uses conventional solar cells mounted underneath the polymer layer, which is described as “
opaque at the sight but translucent to sun rays
“. This sounds like an inherent contradiction, so naturally, we’re intrigued as to how it works.
A clue comes in its claimed properties, one of which is that it has photocatalytic self-cleaning. This implies the presence of a titanium dioxide film which generates oxygen free radicals from air in the presense of light. Titanium dioxide is ubiquitous as a white pigment and food colouring, but it also has interesting colour properties in thin films, being used in iridescent and reflective effects. If we wanted to make a guess as to how these work, we’d expect them to use a carefully selected dye whose spectral profile doesn’t interfere too much with that of the solar cells, along with the colour effects bestowed by a titanium dioxide thin film.
However they work, these tiles are a fascinating bit of technology and we’d love to know more. It’s certainly
not the first solar roofing innovation we’ve brought you
. | 45 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6563709",
"author": "Tweepy",
"timestamp": "2022-12-31T09:23:51",
"content": "I don’t understand the point of having theses super expensive, low efficiency and hard to install PV modules.Before needing theses, we should already have every industrial building and parking lot covered... | 1,760,372,446.685165 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/30/turn-a-webpage-into-a-desktop-app-with-gluon/ | Turn A Webpage Into A Desktop App With Gluon | Arya Voronova | [
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"electron",
"javascript",
"web framework"
] | Electron is software for running web-written apps in the same way as native ones, and has gotten plenty of bad press for its RAM appetite around these parts. But while the execution might leave something to be desired, the concept itself is quite solid — if you’ve already got code written for the web, a quick and easy way to bring it over to the desktop would be very valuable.
Which is why [CanadaHonk] is building a framework called
Gluon
, which aims to turn your web pages into desktop apps with little to no effort. We’ve seen their work a few months ago with
the OpenASAR project,
hacking the Discord desktop app to speed it up. Drawing from that experience, Gluon is built to be lean – with apps having low RAM and storage footprints, lightning-speed build times, and a no-nonsense API.
One of the coolest parts is that it’s able to use your system-installed browser, and not a bundled-in one like Electron. Firefox support is firmly on the roadmap, too, currently in experimental stage. Linux support is being worked on as well — the framework is Windows-born, but that’s to change. There’s also room to innovate; [CanadaHonk] recently added a hibernation feature with aggressive RAM and CPU footprint reduction when the app is minimized, something that other frameworks like this aren’t known for.
If you want to write user-facing software, JavaScript’s a decent language, and quite a few of you are going to be familiar with it. You aren’t limited to the software side of the tech world, either — tools like WebUSB and WebSerial will let you write a user interface for a board that you’ve just developed. For instance, here’s a
WebSerial-based oscilloscope
, a nifty
serial terminal,
or a hacker conference badge
programming toolkit
. For all that browsers have gotten wrong, they certainly don’t seem to become less abundant, and if that means you can quickly develop cross-platform hardware-facing apps, it’s certainly a useful addition to one’s toolkit. | 39 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6563598",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2022-12-31T06:50:56",
"content": "Careful, [CanadaHonk] is Loonie.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6563603",
"author": "Drone",
"timestamp": "2022-12-31T06:56:21",
... | 1,760,372,446.76611 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/30/audio-old-and-new-meet-in-perfect-harmony/ | Audio Old And New Meet In Perfect Harmony | Jenny List | [
"digital audio hacks"
] | [
"audio",
"digital audio",
"streaming"
] | There’s an uneasy meeting in the world of audio between digital and analogue. Traditional analogue audio reached a level of very high quality, but as old-style media-based audio sources have fallen out of favor there’s a need to replace them with ones that reflect a new digital audio world. To do this there are several options involving all-in-one Hi-Fi separates at a hefty price, a cheaper range of dongles and boxes for each digital input, or to do what [
Keri Szafir
] has done
and build that all-in-one box for yourself
.
The result is a 1U 19″ rack unit that contains an Orange Pi for connectivity and streaming, a hard drive to give it audio NAS capability, plus power switching circuitry to bring all the older equipment under automation. Good quality audio is dealt with by using a Behringer USB audio card, on which in a demonstration of how even some digital audio is now becoming outdated, she ignores the TOSlink connector.
The rear panel has all the connectors for power, USB, network, and audio laid out, while the front has an array of status lights and switches. We particularly like the hand-written lettering, which complements this as a homebrew unit. It certainly makes the Bluetooth dongle dangling at the back of our amplifier seem strangely inadequate.
If audio is your thing,
we had a look at some fundamentals of digital audio
as part of our
Know Audio
series. | 20 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6563561",
"author": "IIVQ",
"timestamp": "2022-12-31T05:57:41",
"content": "I have done similar but simpler: A wooden box the width of my amplifier, which sits under it, with a Raspberri Pi (1), a USB power adapter, a mains relay (for detecting the amp is on) and IR inputs, and also... | 1,760,372,446.821877 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/30/test-your-capacity-for-circuit-sculpture-with-flashing-lights/ | Test Your Capacity For Circuit Sculpture With Flashing Lights | Kristina Panos | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"1206",
"555",
"555 timer",
"Circuit Sculpture",
"flashing"
] | Have you tried your hand at circuit sculpture yet? Well, if you were waiting for the ideal first project with a great build video to go along with it, keep reading. [4dcircuitry]’s
555-based flashing circuit sculpture
ticks all the go-for-it boxen for us — the component list is short, the final circuit looks cool, and well, there are blinkenlights.
Of course, it’s not quite a zero-entry project. Although [4dcircuitry] makes it look oh-so easy build it in the video below, they are using 1206 components and an SOIC-packaged 555 timer here. On the other hand, they start by smartly laying everything out on double-stick tape before applying flux and soldering. Then when it’s time to run the wires that no one wants to see, [4dcircuitry] carefully tweezers it from the tape and flips it over, re-using the tape do solder up the back side.
Don’t have the patience to solder 1206? All component sizes are beautiful, as evidenced by
this amazing circuit sculpture clock
. | 15 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6563455",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-12-31T02:53:22",
"content": "The secret sauce is…Double stick tape!Great idea!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6563472",
"author": "Nick",
"ti... | 1,760,372,446.960459 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/30/acoustic-coupler-gets-you-online-through-any-desk-phone/ | Acoustic Coupler Gets You Online Through Any Desk Phone | Robin Kearey | [
"Phone Hacks"
] | [
"acoustic coupler",
"bbs",
"modem"
] | Up until the mid-1980s, connecting a computer to a phone line was tricky: many phone companies didn’t allow the connection of unlicensed equipment to their network, and even if they did, you might still find yourself blocked by a lack of standardized connectors. A simple workaround for all this was an acoustic coupler, a device that played your modem’s sounds directly into a phone’s receiver without any electrical connection. Modem speeds were slow anyway, so the limited bandwidth inherent in such a system was not much of a problem.
Nowadays it’s easier to find an internet connection than a phone line in many places, but if you’re stuck in an ancient hotel in the middle of nowhere you might just find [GusGorman]’s
modern take on the acoustic coupler
useful. The basic design is quite simple: it’s a 3D-printed box with two cups that fit a typical phone handset and a space to put a USB speaker and microphone. Thanks to
minimodem
it’s easy to set up a connection with any other computer equipped with a phone connection.
The maximum speed achievable with this setup is between 100 and 300 bits per second, so using it for anything more than text-based messaging is pretty much impossible. [Gus] therefore also designed a simple BBS-like system that can be used to acces things like weather reports and cryptocurrency wallet information. Thanks to VoIP, the server doesn’t need a physical phone line and could even be running on a cloud computing service.
The BBS system is quite limited as of now, but can easily be adapted to interface with any kind of online service. We’ve seen a similar setup in
a teletype that queries Wolfram Alpha
, for example. Although acoustic couplers have been
obsolete for decades
, they still sometimes come in handy
for circumventing internet censorship
. | 48 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6563200",
"author": "David Spencer Lyons",
"timestamp": "2022-12-30T21:18:55",
"content": "How about a game of global thermal nuclear war?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6563438",
"author": "Jeff Axelrod",
"ti... | 1,760,372,446.90791 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/30/2022-fpv-contest-esp32-powered-fpv-car-uses-javascript-for-vr-magic/ | 2022 FPV Contest: ESP32-Powered FPV Car Uses Javascript For VR Magic | Arya Voronova | [
"Robots Hacks",
"Virtual Reality"
] | [
"2022 FPV Contest",
"hackaday.io",
"javascript",
"samsung gear vr",
"vr",
"WebGL",
"webxr"
] | You don’t always need much to build an FPV rig – especially if you’re willing to take advantage of the power of modern smartphones. [joe57005] is showing off
his VR FPV build
– a fully-printable small Mechanum wheels car chassis, equipped with an ESP32-CAM board serving a 720×720 stream through WiFi. The car uses regular 9g servos to drive each wheel, giving you omnidirectional movement wherever you want to go. An ESP32 CPU and a single low-res camera might not sound like much if you’re aiming for a VR view, and all the ESP32 does is stream the video feed over WebSockets – however, the simplicity is well-compensated for on the frontend.
The software stack, served as client-side JavaScript by the ESP32, is what makes this elegant build shine. [joe57005] uses Samsung Gear VR for the projects, a cheap but decent-quality “smartphone holder” VR headset. The ESP32’s camera feed is converted into a faux 3D VR image inside the smartphone’s web browser, using the technology called WebXR , with image de-warping using WebGL, and vanilla JavaScript straightforward touch controls for the HUD. All is open-source and public, and 3D printing files are soon to come to Printables – for now, we get the FreeCad source, which is more than good enough.
If you wanted a self-sufficient FPV platform you could play with, check this one out – it’s seriously accessible, software effort put in is worth learning from, and if you ever wanted to try WebXR, the code provided ought to be a nice playground. It reminds us of an
another cute ESP32-driven FPV bot
that we’ve seen a few years ago.
Got an FPV idea in mind? We’d like to see it, and
we have a contest for that too!
Don’t delay bringing it to life! | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6563108",
"author": "spiritplumber",
"timestamp": "2022-12-30T19:07:55",
"content": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbKIo50a4_4May we enter this in the contest?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6563115",
"author": "Joe57005"... | 1,760,372,447.629226 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/30/hackaday-podcast-199-ferrofluid-follies-decentralized-chaos-and-ntsc-for-you-and-me/ | Hackaday Podcast 199: Ferrofluid Follies, Decentralized Chaos, And NTSC For You And Me | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts",
"Slider"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | This week, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Assignments Editor Kristina Panos decided against using one of Kristina’s tin can microphones to record the podcast, though that might be a cool optional thing to do once (and then probably never again).
After a brief foray into the news that the Chaos Communications Congress will be decentralized once again this year, as COVID restrictions make planning this huge event a complete headache (among other notable symptoms), we discuss the news that the EU is demanding replaceable batteries in phones going forward.
After that, it’s time for another
What’s That Sound
results show, and despite repeated listens, Kristina fails to guess the thing. Even if she’d had an inkling as to what it was, she probably would have said ‘split-flap display’ instead of the proper answer, which is ‘flip-dot display’, as a few people responded. Finally, it’s on to the hacks, where we talk about uses for ferrofluid and decide that it’s one of those things that’s just for fun and should not be applied to the world as some sort of all-purpose whacking device.
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 199 Show Notes:
News:
Decentralized Chaos In Germany
Non-Replaceable Battery? Not If This Proposed EU Law Passes!
What’s that Sound?
The sound was a flip-dot display, and the winner is [Derek, K]!
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
GB Interceptor Enables Live Screen Capture From Game Boy
Morphing Keyboard Gets You Dialed In Just Right
Encoding NTSC With Your Hands Tied
You Can Make Ferrofluid On The Cheap With VHS Tapes
2022 FPV Contest: A Poor Man’s Journey Into FPV
Beat Backing Box For Bassists
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Harmonic Vs Cycloidal Show Down
Blinky Project Is 6502s All The Way Down
Turning A Microchip MPLAB Snap Into A UDPI AVR Programmer
Teensy Twofer Of Plug-In Emulated Retro CPUs
Kristina’s Picks:
3D Printed Light Pipe Turns Overly-Bright LED Into Design Harmony
Spotify Player Brings Back Physical Media
The ZX Spectrum Finally Gets A Proper Keyboard
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Chainless “Digital Drive” Bikes Use Electric Power Transmission Instead
Lo-Fi Fun: Beer Can Microphones
How To Make Your Own Piezoelectric Speaker | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6563783",
"author": "Davidmh",
"timestamp": "2022-12-31T11:19:11",
"content": "The promised gif of the Jolly Ranger is missing from the notes!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6565015",
"author": "Elliot Williams",
... | 1,760,372,447.010222 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/30/logic-gate-game-is-fun-and-educational/ | Logic Gate Game Is Fun AND Educational | Kristina Panos | [
"Games",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"game",
"logic",
"logic gates",
"raspberry pi",
"Raspberry Pi Pico"
] | How well do you know your logic gates? For their final submission for STEM Projects class, [BKriet] gamified the situation using a Raspberry Pi Pico, some blinkenlights, and a not-insignificant amount of 3D printing. The result is
Name! That! Gate!
, a fun and educational toy that [BKriet] ultimately donated back to the class (that’s a hot move in our book).
The objective of this game is to figure out which logic gate is being used to make the output shown on the screen, given A, B, and/or C as inputs. There are ten stages to the game, and each correct stage awards the player 14 points, for a perfect score of 140. Although a random gate is loaded for every stage, code ensures that no gate is ever repeated during a single game.
This project is completely open source, so the gate is wide open. Don’t have a 3D printer?
Here’s a big set of PCB logic gates
, but really, you can
make logic gates out of almost anything
. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6655030",
"author": "Marcelo Cuin",
"timestamp": "2023-06-22T12:26:57",
"content": "Congratulations on the project! Do you have a video showing how it works? Thanks.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,372,447.24709 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/30/this-week-in-security-adblock-for-security-proxynotshell-lives-and-cvss-10-to-not-worry-about/ | This Week In Security: Adblock For Security, ProxyNotShell Lives, And CVSS 10 To Not Worry About | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"linux",
"password manager",
"ransomware",
"samba",
"This Week in Security"
] | The ubiquity of ransomware continues, this time with
The Guardian announcing they were partially shut down
from an attack. Staff are working from home as the incident is being investigated and data is recovered. Publishing seems to be continuing, and the print paper ran as expected.
There have been a couple reports published recently on how ransomware and other malware is distributed, the first being
a public service announcement from the FBI
, detailing what might be a blindly obvious attack vector — search engine advertising. A bad actor picks a company or common search term, pays for placement on a search engine, and then builds a fake web site that looks legitimate. For bonus points, this uses a typosquatted domain, like adobe[dot]cm or a punycode domain that looks even closer to the real thing.
The FBI has a trio of recommendations, one of which I whole-heartedly agree with. Their first suggestion is to inspect links before clicking them, which is great, except for the punycode attack. In fact, there are enough lookalike glyphs to make this essentially useless. Second is to type in URLs directly rather than using a search engine to find a company’s site. This is great so long as you know the URL and don’t make a typo. But honestly, haven’t we all accidentally ended up at website[dot]co by doing this? Their last recommendation is the good one, and that is to run a high-quality ad-blocker for security. Just remember to selectively disable blocking for websites you want to support. (Like Hackaday!)
Exchange Still Targeted
And the other report,
a PDF from Prodraft
, details the activities of FIN7, who have added ransomware to their criminal portfolio. These attacks are launched through multiple means, including malicious USB drives and using known Exchange vulnerabilities, such as CVE-2020-0688 and the ProxyShell family of problems.
And speaking of which, ProxyShell/ProxyNotShell isn’t dead, as
there’s been another bypass found in-the-wild
. This isn’t an effective bypass against the November 8th patch, but does bypass the rewrite rules that were touted as an effective mitigation. The reason is that this attack doesn’t use the autodiscover endpoint, but applies the same technique to the OWA (Outlook Web App) endpoint instead.
Password Manager Fail
LastPass isn’t the only password manager in the news, and
the problems found in Passwordstate
makes the recent LastPass issues seem like the most minor of inconveniences. Passwordstate is an enterprise solution for password management. Researchers at modzero started with the browser extension, that allows a user to access saved passwords. To authenticate, a token is generated and sent to the server. Turns out, that token is just the username and other user information, XOR’d with a static, universal key. And on the server side, the only check that happens is on the username. So on any Passwordstate install anywhere, if you can talk to the API, and know a valid username, you can pull every password accessible to that account.
That same API has another problem, any user can write to any other user’s stored passwords, including the login URL for a given password. And since the whole interface is web-based, Cross-Site Scripting attacks are the way to go. There is, of course, insufficient sanitisation. An administrator can use the API to run Powershell scripts. So spray the malicious link into other user’s URLs, and wait for an admin to use the interface to login somewhere. The powershell script runs, starting a reverse shell. And because the stored passwords aren’t usefully encrypted (AES encrypted, but the key is stored, obfuscated, on the same machine as the database), this allows an attacker to abscond with the entire database of passwords. The vulnerabilities have been fixed in release 9.6 Build 9653, though seeing the severity of issues and other problems, one has to wonder how effectively these problems were dealt with.
Linux Does the Samba (Badly)
There’s
a perfect 10 vulnerability
in the Linux kernel.
CVE-2022-47939
is a problem in the
ksmbd
driver, that was added last year for the purpose of faster SMB performance. SMB here meaning the Server Message Block, the primary file-sharing protocol for Windows machines. The problem is a dangling pointer, allowing for a use-after-free. The solution is
a one-line patch
that sets the pointer to null upon close.
Now as scary as a CVE scoring a severity score of 10 seems, I’m pretty sure you have nothing to worry about, even if you are a Linux user or manage a Linux server. Why? Because while
ksmbd
is
officially
in the kernel, hardly any distros are compiling it into their official kernels, the Samba project isn’t using any of the vulnerable code, and it’s already a horrible idea to expose any SMB service to untrusted connections. Or put another way, if you’re making use of the
ksmbd
driver, you did it on purpose.
The Kernel config option is
CONFIG_SMB_SERVER
, and you can check your current config in either
/proc/config.gz
or
/boot/config-$(uname -r)
. Alternatively, use
lsmod
to search for the
ksmbd
module. The real place where this could be a real issue is in a NAS appliance that runs Linux under the hood, though my guess is that the kernel module is new enough that none of the popular appliances on the market are making use of it. Be sure to let us know if you’re aware of a major distro that compiles the module in by default, or a NAS that uses it.
Google Home Takeover
Google’s smart home devices are based on the same firmware as the Chromecast, and use a similar under-the-hood approach to authentication.
[Matt] noticed this, and started wondering
, could that be a security problem? See, playing a video on a TV isn’t terribly dangerous, but a smart speaker has access to a few more important abilities. Chromecasts serve a key on a local API, and sending a request with that key off to Google links the device to your account. The intent is that anyone on the local network should be able to cast to the TV. It seems like it was unintentional that the process worked on other smart devices.
But wait, there’s more. These devices have a setup mode, where they broadcast an open WiFi network. All it takes to trigger this mode is to knock the device offline — and that’s as easy as sending spoofed deauth wireless packets. Connect to that network, make the API request, and you have the secret key. Let it reconnect to the real network, and you can authenticate as a new verified user. Smart home actions let you do some interesting things with other devices, but just the ability to make a quiet phone call from the device is creepy enough. Google agreed, and removed both the unintended auth flow and ability to call a phone number via a routine.
Bits and Bytes
The TYPO3 content management system
fixed and announced an RCE earlier this month
. This one was only accessible by authenticated users with access to the Form Designer module, but allowed injection of TypoScript that could be executed as PHP code.
Do not trust
save games from the internet
. This is good general advice, but specifically applies to games built on Ren’Py, a visual novel engine built on Python. For loading save games, the pickles library is used — it’s already notorious for being unsafe when unpickling untrusted data. It’s just not obvious that save games can deserialize themselves right over Python functions and take over program execution.
The Netgear RAX30, and possibly other models, run the
pucfu
application on on boot, checking for firmware updates from a Netgear domain.
Researchers at NCC Group have discovered
that if they control the JSON response to that request, the binary can be manipulated into command injection, leading to a reverse shell. | 14 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6562968",
"author": "Jeff",
"timestamp": "2022-12-30T16:17:39",
"content": "I’m not much of a hacker but wonder if the G-Home takeover tactic can be deployed against other devices like the Ring cameras",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"commen... | 1,760,372,447.29827 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/30/a-fun-low-cost-start-for-your-macropad-hobby/ | A Fun Low-Cost Start For Your Macropad Hobby | Arya Voronova | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"CircuitPython",
"kmk",
"macro pad",
"macropad",
"pi pico",
"Raspberry Pi Pico"
] | If you were ever looking for a small relaxing evening project that you could then use day-to-day, you gotta consider the
Pico Hat Pad kit by [Natalie the Nerd]
. It fits squarely within the Pi Pico form-factor, giving you two buttons, one rotary encoder and two individually addressable LEDs to play with. Initially, this macropad was intended as an under-$20 device that’s also a soldering practice kit, and [Natalie] has knocked it out of the park.
You build this macropad out of a stack of three PCBs — the middle one connecting the Pi Pico heart to the buttons, encoders and LEDs, and the remaining ones adding structural support and protection. All the PCBs fit together into a neat tab-connected panel — ready to be thrown into your favorite PCB service’s shopping cart. Under the hood, this macropad uses KMK, a CircuitPython-based keyboard firmware, with the configuration open-source. In fact everything is open-source, just the way we like it.
If you find yourself with an unexpected affinity for macropads after assembling this one, don’t panic. It’s quite a common side-effect. Fortunately, there are cures, and it’s no longer inevitable that you’ll
go bananas about it.
That said, if you’re fighting the urges to go bigger, you can try
a different hand-wireable Pico-based macropad
with three more keys. Come to find that one not enough? Here’s a
2×4 3D printable one
.
Now, if you eventually find yourself reading every single
Keebin’ With Kristina
episode as soon as it comes out, you might be too far gone, and we’ll soon find you spending hundreds of dollars
building tiny OLED screens into individual keys
— in which case, make sure you document it and
share it with us!
Some tacked headers, an ec11 rotary encoder, two switches and a Pico: Pico hat pad!
Designed to be a cheap and easy macropad and a solder practice kit. Powered by
#KMK
using
#circuitpython
https://t.co/SVbF7X6Gto
(Kicad files will be uploaded soon)
pic.twitter.com/AK7Sn8ceNE
— natalie (@natalie_thenerd)
December 19, 2022 | 7 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6563802",
"author": "qwrwer",
"timestamp": "2022-12-31T11:35:06",
"content": "many people probably need more keysarrows + esc , enter.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6563899",
"author": "Kidpixo",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,372,447.208203 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/28/2022-fpv-contest-get-the-train-drivers-view-in-your-n-scale-railway/ | 2022 FPV Contest: Get The Train Driver’s View In Your N-Scale Railway | Robin Kearey | [
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"first person view",
"miniature camera",
"model railroad",
"N scale"
] | Model railroaders typically observe their project from high above. It would be neat to see what the world looks like to the residents of your little town, but getting down to their point of view is difficult, especially if you’re working in one of the smaller scales. For those working in the N scale, there’s now an easy way of observing your project as the train driver would see it: [Vassily98] managed to
squeeze a wireless camera into an N-scale railcar
.
The main challenge here was the extremely limited space available: the track in N-scale layouts is 9 mm wide, meaning that the whole system had to fit in just 23 x 20 mm
2
, the frontal area of a typical train car. One of the few cameras that fit within that profile was the RunCam Nano 4, which [Vassily98] connected to an ultra-tiny Team BlackSheep 5.8 GHz video transmitter.
It’s a bit of a sqeueeze, but everything fits perfectly.
Everything is powered through a 3.6 V lithium battery, rather than through the rails – cameras and RF transmitters are quite sensitive to power interruptions and interference, and wouldn’t work reliably on direct rail power. This did require the addition of a boost converter however, because the video transmitter requires at least 4.5 V to work. [Vassily98] designed a neat 3D-printed wagon body that securely holds all components and fits on top of a standard cargo wagon chassis.
If you can’t wait to get a train driver’s view of your N-scale layout, then you’ll be happy to know that STL files and detailed build instructions are available on the project’s Hackaday.io page. We’ve seen FPV cameras in model railroad engines before, but that was
in the huge O scale
. You can also fit
a miniature display in the slightly smaller HO scale
– perhaps something similar would be a neat companion project to [Vassily98]’s camera train. | 23 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560829",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2022-12-28T21:09:38",
"content": "Very cool.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6560863",
"author": "azeff73",
"timestamp": "2022-12-28T22:17:46",
"content": "Very nice layout. L... | 1,760,372,447.401561 |
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