url stringlengths 37 208 | title stringlengths 4 148 | author stringclasses 173
values | publish_date stringclasses 1
value | categories listlengths 0 12 | tags listlengths 0 27 | featured_image stringlengths 0 272 | content stringlengths 0 56.1k | comments_count int64 0 900 | scraped_comments_count int64 0 50 | comments listlengths 0 50 | scraped_at float64 1.76B 1.76B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/28/decentralized-chaos-in-germany/ | Decentralized Chaos In Germany | Elliot Williams | [
"cons",
"News"
] | [] | When you’re planning an event with 15,000 hackers in a tight space these days, the COVID logistics can take the wind right out of your sails. And so the Chaos Computer Club decided, for one more year, to
put aside plans for the traditional year-end Chaos Communications Congress
. In it’s place this year? Everyone is doing their own thing, together but apart, for the “Dezentrale Jahresendveranstaltungen”.
Some local clubs are putting on local events, some of them have talk streams, and it’s all happening everywhere and at once. If you’re not near one of the roughly 30 locations in Europe that are doing something live – check out the streams. But be warned, there’s a lot to process!
Maybe it’s best to
start with the schedule
, where you can see what’s coming up next.
Live streams are going on throughout
, until Dec 30. If you missed a talk, you can
check out the pre-release versions on Relive
, but note that start times and end times are approximate, so you might need to seek around. And once they’re edited and polished up, they’ll show up on the
permanent event playlist
, which is still just getting started as we write this.
Right now, we’re watching a talk in German about
how to program laser shows
, but yesterday there were some great talks on subjects as varied as the
history of the C language
, how
perimeter cybersecurity is dead
, how to
find the Norwegian prime minister in an “anonymous” dataset
, and how Hackaday friend [Dave Darko] made his
LED dodecahedron that he was showing off at Supercon
.
In short, there’s a lot going on. Check it out. | 17 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560804",
"author": "juergenUK",
"timestamp": "2022-12-28T20:07:52",
"content": "I find your title rather ugly– is this intentional as it seems nothing comparable exists in the UK or USA?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "656080... | 1,760,372,449.305068 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/28/supercon-2022-mooneer-salem-goes-ham-with-an-esp32/ | Supercon 2022: Mooneer Salem Goes Ham With An ESP32 | Matthew Carlson | [
"cons",
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Slider",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"2022 Superconference",
"digital radio",
"ESP32",
"ESP32-S3",
"radio"
] | After being licensed as a ham radio operator since the early 2000s, you tend to start thinking about combining your love for the radio with other talents. In a
20-minute talk
at Hackaday Supercon 2022, [Mooneer Salem] tells the story of one such passion project that combined software and radio to miniaturize a digital ham radio modulator.
[Mooneer] works as a software developer and contributes to a
project called FreeDV (free digital voice),
a digital voice mode for HF radio. FreeDV first compresses the digital audio stream, then converts it into a modulation scheme sent out over a radio. The appeal is that this can be understandable down to very low signal-to-noise ratios and includes metadata and all the other niceties that digital signals bring.
Traditionally, this has required a computer to compress the audio and modulate the signal in addition to two sound cards. One card processes the audio in and out of your headset, and another for the audio coming in and out of the radio. [David Rowe] and [Rick Barnich] developed the SM1000, a portable FreeDV adapter based around the STM32F4 microcontroller. However, flash space was running low, and the cost was more than they wanted.
[Mooneer] loved the open firmware and open hardware model of the SM1000 and wanted to revisit the idea. Make it easier to use, add newer features, and, most importantly, reduce costs. The ESP32 was an obvious choice as it was cheap and ticked all his boxes. He ultimately settled on an ESP32-S3 as the standard ESP32 didn’t quite have the performance needed to run in real-time. A TLV320 dev board was expensive, so he rolled his own for the experience, an attitude many of us can relate to.
After days of dealing with I2S woes, he respun the board to try and address an audio issue where only 60 Hz noise could be heard. Assuming it was EMI problems, he rerouted traces, tuned components, and added more vias. However, even after the respin, the issue was still there, and he realized the TLV320 had a loopback mode, making it a software problem after all.
The result is the ezDV which has
all its code and board files on GitHub
under a TAPR Open Hardware License and the GNUv3 license. It supports three of the five modes of FreeDV (it doesn’t support 2020 or 700C). Not supporting 2020 makes sense as 2020 uses an LPCNet neural network to turn 8 kHz of audio into just 1600 Hz. This requires a rather beefy computer that has AVX support.
[Mooneer] presents a beautiful story about the journey to create something well-documented and reproducible. If you’re looking into digital radio, maybe this is an excellent place to start.
(Editors note: corrected the spelling of David Rowe and FreeDB, thank you [Drone]). | 10 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560772",
"author": "2ftg",
"timestamp": "2022-12-28T18:35:33",
"content": "Awesome build.Very nice to see a design with _AVAILABLE_PARTS_ to do what SM1000 did.And as hams are never satisfied, M17 support when?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,372,449.176845 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/28/giving-stable-diffusion-some-depth/ | Giving Stable Diffusion Some Depth | Matthew Carlson | [
"Art",
"Artificial Intelligence"
] | [
"ai art",
"depth AI",
"stable diffusion"
] | You’ve likely heard quite a bit of buzz over the last few months about Stable Diffusion. The new version (v2) has come out, and in addition to the standard image-to-image and text-to-image modes, it also has a depth-image-to-image that can be incredibly useful. [Andrew] has a
write-up that guides you on using this mode.
The basic idea is that you can take both an image and depth into the model, which allows you to control what gets put where. Stable Diffusion is a bit confusing, but we already have some
great resources to wrap your head around it
. In terms of input, you can use a depth map from a camera with lidar (many recent phones include this) or have another model (like MiDaS) estimate it from a 2D picture. This becomes powerful when you can preserve a specific composition, such as an iconic scene from a well-known movie. You can keep the characters’ poses on the screen but transform the style of the scene into whatever you wish (as seen above).
We have already
covered a technique to generate textures right in blender
, but this new depth information has already been implemented to provide better accuracy of the textures.
[Justin Alvey] used it to
create architectural photos from dollhouse furniture
. Using the MiDaS model, he estimated the depth and threw away the RGB aspects by setting the denoising strength to maximum. The simplified dollhouse furniture was easily recognizable to the model, which helped produce great results.
However, the only downside is that the perspective produces a rather dollhouse feel. Changing the focal length and moving farther away helps. Overall, it’s a clever use of what the new AI model can do. It’s a fast-moving space, so this will likely be out of date in a few months. | 55 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560777",
"author": "Alexander Wikström",
"timestamp": "2022-12-28T18:46:12",
"content": "Still no discussion about the source material used to train the machine learning model. And how it effects those who’s source material it is.Copyright and associated licensing is quite importan... | 1,760,372,449.722446 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/28/linux-fu-miller-the-killer-makes-csv-no-pest/ | Linux Fu: Miller The Killer Makes CSV No Pest | Al Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Linux Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"linux"
] | Historically, one of the nice things about Unix and Linux is that everything is a file, and files are just sequences of characters. Of course, modern practice is that everything is not a file, and there is a proliferation of files with some imposed structure. However, if you’ve ever worked on old systems where your file access was by the block, you’ll appreciate the Unix-like files. Classic tools like
awk
,
sed
, and
grep
work with this idea. Files are just characters. But this sometimes has its problems. That’s the motivation behind a tool called
Miller
, and I think it deserves more attention because, for certain tasks, it is a lifesaver.
The Problem
Consider trying to process a comma-delimited file, known as a CSV file. There are a lot of variations to this type of file. Here’s one that defines two “columns.” I’ve deliberately used different line formats as a test, but most often, you get one format for the entire file:
Slot,String
A,"Hello"
"B",Howdy
"C","Hello Hackaday"
"D","""Madam, I'm Adam,"" he said."
E 100,With some spaces!
X,"With a comma, or two, even"
The first column, Slot, has items A, B, C, D, and E 100. Note that some of the items are quoted, but others are not. In any event, the column content is B not “B” because the quotes are not part of the data.
The second column, String, has a mix of quotes, no quotes, spaces, and even commas inside quotes. Suppose you wanted to process this with
awk
. You can do it, but it is painful. Notice the quotes are escaped using double quotes, as is the custom in CSV files. Writing a regular expression to break that up is not impossible but painful. That’s where Miller comes in. It knows about data formats like CSV, JSON, KDVP8, and a few others. It can also output in those formats and others like Markdown, for example.
Simple Example Runs
Because it knows about the format, it can process the file handily:
$ mlr –icsv cat miller.in
Slot=A,String=Hello
Slot=B,String=Howdy
Slot=C,String=Hello Hackaday
Slot=D,String=”Madam, I’m Adam,” he said.
Slot=E 100,String=With some spaces!
Slot=X,String=With a comma, or two, even
Notice there is no command called “miller.” The command name is “mlr.” This output wouldn’t be a bad format to further process with
awk
, but we don’t have to. Miller can probably do everything we need. Before we look at that, though, consider what would happen if you just wanted a pretty format output:
Not too bad! Don’t forget, the tool would do the same trick with JSON and other formats, too.
So Many Options
The number of options can be daunting. There are options to pass or ignore comments, process compressed data, or customize the input or output file format a bit.
But the real power to Miller is the verbs. In the above example, the verb was
cat
. These are mostly named after the Linux commands they duplicate. For example,
cut
will remove certain fields from the data. The
grep
,
head
, and
tail
commands all do what you expect.
There are many new verbs, too.
Count
will give you a count of how much data has gone by and
filter
is a better version of
grep
. You can do database-like joins, sorting, and even statistics and generate text-based bar graphs.
The
filter
and
put
commands have
an entire programming language
at their disposal that has all the things you’d expect to find in a language like
awk
or
Perl
.
What’s nice is that when you want to remove a field or sort, you can refer to it by name (like “Slot”), and Miller will know what you mean. There is a way to refer to fields with numbers if you must, but that’s a rare thing in a Miller script.
For example, if you have some data with fields “stock” and “reserve” that you want to get rid of, you could write something like this:
mlr --icsv --opprint cut -f stock,reserve inventory.csv
Or, perhaps you want to select lines where stock is “N”:
mlr --icsv --opprint filter '$stock == "N"' inventory.csv
Go Read
There’s simply not enough room to cover all the features of this powerful program. I’d suggest you check out
Miller in 10 Minutes
which is part of the official documentation. You’ll still need to read the documentation further, but at least you’ll have a good start.
Don’t get me wrong, we still like
awk
. With a little work, you can make it do
almost anything
. But if you can do less work with Miller, why not? | 27 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560706",
"author": "Miroslav",
"timestamp": "2022-12-28T15:24:51",
"content": "Great tool! I was just fighting with csv files recently, and I had to resort to a lot of regexes and other unholy string manipulations, due to quotes. In Python.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,372,449.790918 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/28/fiberglass-mesh-for-stronger-3d-prints/ | Fiberglass Mesh For Stronger 3D Prints | Jenny List | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"fiberglass",
"fibreglass",
"glass fibre",
"reinforced 3d printing"
] | There are many clever ways to make stronger 3D prints, be they by the use of special slicing algorithms or by unusual filaments. [Brtv-z] has taken a more straightforward tack,
by making glass-reinforced prints using painters fiberglass mesh tape
.
It’s a laborious technique that involves stopping the print to manually place the fiberglass at each successive millimeter of print. The resulting test piece comes off the print bed festooned with fiberglass mesh, and once it’s been trimmed, he subjects it to some tests which you’ll see in the video below the break(Russian language, but there are subtitles).
The tests are fairly rough and ready involving a hammer (we winced at the hammering in a vice, but of course this piece isn’t forged steel!) and standing on a flat piece of print balanced between two blocks. As you’d expect, the reinforced piece appears the stronger, but these tests would benefit from a calibrated set-up to quantify the strength.
So if you’re of a mind to experiment, this certainly seems like an accessible if rather tedious way to make glass reinforced 3D prints. If you then want to characterize them, remember
this can be done with a bit of farmyard engineering if you have nothing better
. | 32 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560664",
"author": "Harvie.CZ",
"timestamp": "2022-12-28T12:23:15",
"content": "Improving XY strenght while slightly compromising Z strenght is exact opossite of improvement needed for FDM prints. These are already strong in XY and weak in Z.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1... | 1,760,372,449.551022 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/28/mouse-enjoys-its-freedom/ | Mouse Enjoys Its Freedom | Bryan Cockfield | [
"computer hacks",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"6dof",
"arduino",
"cad",
"degrees of freedom",
"mouse"
] | Although it took a little while to standardize on the two-button-with-scroll-wheel setup, most computers have used a mouse or mouse-like device to point at objects on the screen since the 80s. But beyond the standard “point and click” features of the mouse, there have been very few ground-breaking innovations beyond creature comforts. At least, until the
“Space Mushroom” mouse from [Shinsaku Hiura]
hit our tips line.
This mouse throws away most of the features a typical mouse might have in favor of a joystick-like interface that gives it six degrees of freedom instead of the usual two — while still being about mouse-sized and held in the hand. It doesn’t even have a way of mapping motion directly to movements on the screen. Instead, it maps each degree of freedom to a similar movement of the mouse itself using these three joystick sensors physically linked together, with some underlying programming to translate each movement into the expected movement on the screen.
While this might not replace a standard mouse for every use case anytime soon, it does seem to have tremendous benefit in 3D modeling software, CAD, or anything where orienting a virtual object is the primary goal. Plus, since there’s no limit to the number of mice that can be attached to a computer (beyond USB limitations) this mouse could easily be used in conjunction with a normal mouse
much like macro keyboards being used alongside traditional ones
.
Thanks to [Rez] for the tip! | 29 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560618",
"author": "ono",
"timestamp": "2022-12-28T09:25:31",
"content": "This comes closes to an -overpriced- 3D space navigator mouse.Add few macros keys with small OLED screens and Bt wireless !",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_i... | 1,760,372,449.368718 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/30/robot-rebellion-brings-back-bbc-camera-operators/ | Robot Rebellion Brings Back BBC Camera Operators | Jenny List | [
"News",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"fail",
"robotic camera",
"tv"
] | The modern TV news studio is a masterpiece of live video and CGI, as networks vie for the flashiest presentation. BBC News in London is no exception, and embraced the future in 2013 to the extent of replacing its flesh-and-blood camera operators with robotic cameras. On the face of it this made sense; it was cheaper, and newsroom cameras are most likely to record as set range of very similar shots.
A decade later they’re to be retired in a victory for humans
, as the corporation tires of the stream of viral fails leaving presenters scrambling to catch up.
A media story might seem slim pickings for Hackaday readers, however there’s food for thought in there for the technically minded. It seems the cameras had a set of pre-programmed maneuvers which the production teams could select for their different shots, and it was too easy for the wrong one to be enabled. There’s also a suggestion that the age of the system might have something to do with it, but this is somewhat undermined by their example which we’ve placed below being from when the cameras were only a year old.
Given that a modern TV studio is a tightly controlled space and that detecting the location of the presenter plus whether they are in shot or not should not have been out of reach in 2013, so we’re left curious as to why they haven’t taken this route. Perhaps OpenCV to detect a human, or simply detecting the audio levels on the microphones before committing to a move could do the job. Either way we welcome the camera operators back even if we never see them, though we’ll miss the viral funnies. | 22 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6562692",
"author": "raster",
"timestamp": "2022-12-30T10:06:05",
"content": "Honestly… to me, this looks more like a bad interface design.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6562975",
"author": "not_raster",
"tim... | 1,760,372,449.483978 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/29/pi-cast-adds-atx-signalling-to-kvm/ | Pi-Cast Adds ATX Signalling To KVM | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"atx",
"cable management",
"kvm",
"network",
"pi-cast",
"pikvm",
"raspberry pi",
"rj45",
"switching"
] | A KVM is a great tool for administering a number of different computers without cluttering one’s desk with extra peripherals, or for having to re-connect the keyboard, video, and mouse to each new machine as needed. For local administration this can save a ton of time and headache. For remote administration, though, a virtual KVM is needed, and although these solutions are pricey it’s possible to build one around a Raspberry Pi for a fraction of the cost.
This one adds even more functionality
by also switching the ATX signals from the motherboard and simplifying cable management to boot.
While the PiKVM that we’ve featured before does include the ability to switch these signals to remotely power the computer on or off or reset it, as well as monitor the status LEDs, this project from [vileer] simplifies the design somewhat. By using the built-in USB 3.0 multiplexer, these signals can be integrated with the USB 2.0 needed for the keyboard and mouse into the same RJ45 cable, eliminating the need for USB cables and simplifying cable management. Of course this means that the PiKVM hat won’t work the same way, so [vileer] has created a new breakout board that solves these problems as well.
A true networked KVM like this one
or the PiKVM it takes inspiration from
are indespensible tools, since they allow the computers not only to be reset or power cycled remotely, but also to interact with their BIOS or boot settings without having to physically access the computer. Being able to do this effectively with a Raspberry Pi has surely brought down the cost and complexity of deploying solutions like these for a lot of people. | 18 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6562578",
"author": "CityZen",
"timestamp": "2022-12-30T07:38:01",
"content": "“ATX signals” isn’t very descriptive, since ATX refers to several things. “Motherboard front panel signals” would be a little bit better. “Power & reset switches, power & HDD LEDs” would be even better.... | 1,760,372,449.242743 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/29/debugging-laser-cut-wobble-the-scientific-way/ | Debugging Laser Cut Wobble, The Scientific Way | Arya Voronova | [
"how-to",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"debugging",
"laser cutter",
"Laser cutting",
"lasercutter",
"lasercutting"
] | [PWalsh] was using his lasercutter to cut acrylic, expecting the cuts to have a pleasantly smooth edge. Alas, the edges turned out to be wobbly and sandpaper-like, not smooth in the slightnest. Bummer! Internet suggested a stepper motor swap, but not much in the way of insights – and that would’ve been a royal pain for sure. How would you approach debugging such a problem? Well, [PWalsh] didn’t want to swap crucial components willy-nilly,
going the scientific way
instead, and
breaks it down for us.
Having compiled an extensive list of possible places to look for a fault in, he started going through fundamental assumptions. Do other lasercutters experience this issue? No, even the cheap ones can cut things properly. Is it water level causing intermittent cooling? Nope, not that. Is it the stepping settings? Tweaked, not that. Laser pulsing frequency? No dice.
Air assist? Yes! Somehow, air assist was causing the jagged edges, and merely unplugging it turned the cut edge into a smooth surface. Running assist-less is not the way, and further debugging was done. Is it the power supply or is it the uneven flow of air, causing “puffs”? An air tank was added inline with the assist tube, smoothing out the flow, and the issue disappeared for good. Bonus points – going through steps debugging the issue, the cutter also got some much-needed maintenance checks.
Anyone who’s even debugged a bizarre issue with a 3D printer, can relate to such an experience, and could perhaps appreciate a bit of scientific approach to the problem. After all, 3D printing itself
can be a bit of a science
you get into with your printer’s purchase, and problems
can spring up
where you don’t expect them. Debugging stories
are always fun to learn from,
and
having the right mindset from the get-go
will help you save plenty of time you could spend printing or cutting instead. | 23 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6562390",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-12-30T03:52:01",
"content": "So, how does uneven air flow cause wobble?I am ignorant of the workings of a laser cutter.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_i... | 1,760,372,449.619467 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/29/the-sweetest-glue-in-the-world/ | The Sweetest Glue In The World | Jenny List | [
"how-to"
] | [
"glue",
"gummy bear",
"hide glue"
] | Perhaps we’re not alone in having a penchant for gummy sweets, but we have to admit to never following the train of thought shared by [Lost Art Press]. Upon finding that a hide glue ingredient was raw gelatin obtained from a confectionery company, they stored away the knowledge and eventually
tried making some glue using Haribo Goldbears
from a gas station.
Melting the anthropomorphised sweets in a pot with a little water produced a thin glue, which was tried on a couple of bits of wood. The test joint duly stuck together, and after a few weeks for it to set
it was time to test it
. Simply hitting it with a hammer caused the wood to fracture, but using more traditional hide glue dissolving techniques with water or alcohol gave the expected result of parting it.
So a pretty usable hide glue for woodworking can be made using gummy sweets. We think it’s pretty cool, but perhaps given how easy it is to buy either the real thing or a PVA-based alternative, that this is one for the MacGyver file. Should you ever find yourself stranded in a gas station unable to save the world for want of a bit of glue then now you have the crucial bit of knowledge. Until then, leave out Haribo Goldbears alone!
Thanks [Aaron Tagliaboschi] for the tip! | 19 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6562225",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-12-30T00:18:23",
"content": "ISTR, quality string instruments are joined with hide glue, so they can be disassembled for repair.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"c... | 1,760,372,449.426382 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/29/a-nomadic-chair/ | A Nomadic Chair | Navarre Bartz | [
"home hacks",
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"backpack",
"chair",
"design",
"folding chair",
"folding furniture",
"furniture",
"transforming furniture"
] | There’s no shortage of different types of folding or portable chairs, but designer [Jorge Penadés] built a
backpack chair
that will go the long haul.
Furniture that assembles without screws or glue is always intriguing, and this chair fits the bill. Using simple metal connectors and joinery, it can be setup and taken down in about two minutes without the flimsy feeling of a bag chair. With a natural finish on the wood, the connectors give a nice pop of color without feeling overwhelming. There are even some pictures of a couch version if you follow the link.
In backpack mode, the pieces are held together by leather patches and ratchet straps. [Penadés] was focused on portability over comfort with this piece, but we think this connection method could be used in the future for more comfortable furniture that is still portable.
If you’re looking for more interesting furniture, checkout this
Tambour Table with a Puzzling Secret
or these
CNC-able Seats
. | 21 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6562076",
"author": "Mechenger",
"timestamp": "2022-12-29T21:53:15",
"content": "Doesn’t look very comfortable….",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6562080",
"author": "snapcracklins",
"timestamp": "2022-12-29T21:... | 1,760,372,449.845535 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/29/2022-fpv-contest-turbo-super-submarine/ | 2022 FPV Contest: Turbo Super Submarine | Jenny List | [
"contests"
] | [
"FPV",
"rov",
"submarine"
] | The projects featured on these pages frequently rule the air, the ground, the rails, and even the waves, but very rarely do they rule the deep. Building a submarine is hard, and thus it’s a challenge not taken on by all but the most courageous of builders. This hasn’t discouraged [Timo] though, who has embarked on the construction of
what is shaping up to be a very nice underwater ROV build
.
The design is straightforward enough, with a PVC tubing frame carrying thrusters for maneuvering, and a central tubular compartment for the electronics and a camera. Control and power comes via a wired connection, and there is a companion controller holding a Pi Pico interfaced to a PlayStation controller.
So far the craft is a work in progress, and he’s engaged in a battle with water pressure to keep in dry inside. The fittings are all 3D printed, and this means a constant battle with warped prints and collapsing infill. He’s not given up though, and is instead recovering enthusiasm by working on the shore-side controller.
We look forward to seeing this project completed, meanwhile if you’re thirsty for more underwater projects
take a look at the glider which won the 2017 Hackaday Prize
. | 13 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6562149",
"author": "FastMackerel",
"timestamp": "2022-12-29T23:06:39",
"content": "Very cool!Anyone have thoughts on how much tether length an analog video signal can cover over this (CAT5?) cable before it starts degrading?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [... | 1,760,372,449.896923 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/29/retrotechtacular-gibson-factory-tour-1967-style/ | Retrotechtacular: Gibson Factory Tour, 1967-Style | Kristina Panos | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Retrotechtacular"
] | [
"factory tour",
"gibson",
"guitar",
"retrotechtacular"
] | If nothing else good came out of 2020, we can say that we at least have “
Instrument of the People
” — some 1967-era footage of Gibson Guitars’ “craftory”, which was discovered sometime in the fall of 2020. It appears a bit boring at first — a suit slowly approaches the camera on a dimly-lit factory floor and you half-expect an ‘oh, I didn’t see you there’ type of introduction, but no. When he reaches the foreground, he finds a candy apple-red Gibson semi-hollow body guitar waiting for him. After giving the thing a quick once over, he assesses the straightness of the neck and then begins shredding on it, fingerpicking style.
If you like this or any type of guitar music, then hang on to your headstock, because it lilts nonstop throughout this 20-minute tour as we see a parade of nameless, and often headless, players showing their stuff on various styles of Gibson both electric and acoustic.
The narrator gets down to business soon enough, and we find out that the first of roughly 1500 steps in crafting a genuine Gibson guitar is selecting the finest tonewoods like spruce, maple, ebony, and rosewood. From there, we look at machines that do the rough shaping of solid-body electrics, the special measures used to carve archtop guitars, and the matchbooking of soundboards for dreadnoughts et al.
It is around this time we learn that Gibson brought the f-hole to the guitar in the 1930s. Later, we learn even more casually that a Gibson employee invented the truss rod — a steel rod running through the neck that can be tweaked to adjust the string action.
Speaking of necks, most of them are carved on a special machine, but for some models, only a hand-shaved neck will do. On top of those necks go the finely-inlaid fingerboards, which is all done handily by skilled people. No guitar type is left unplucked throughout this tour, though there is little attention paid to the classicals, mandolins and banjos the company produces.
Sixty to ninety craftory-operating days later, a Gibson guitar is considered complete and ready for sale. On each axe, the final coat of lacquer is buffed to a carefully-researched 7/1000ths of an inch, which is supposed to provide the optimal combination of tone quality, long-lasting wear, and permanent luster. Well, they certainly seem to hold their value. | 14 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6561902",
"author": "Bob",
"timestamp": "2022-12-29T18:59:23",
"content": "Book-matching. Not matchbooking.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6563020",
"author": "Kristina Panos",
"timestamp": "2022-12-30T17:12:... | 1,760,372,450.438793 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/29/form-follows-function-in-this-circuit-sculpture-clock/ | Form Follows Function In This Circuit Sculpture Clock | Robin Kearey | [
"Art",
"clock hacks"
] | [
"ATtiny13A",
"Circuit Sculpture",
"dead bug construction",
"shift registers",
"wall clock"
] | Electronic components are strictly functional objects: their appearance is determined by the function they’re meant to fulfil. But that doesn’t mean there’s no beauty in them. In fact, a whole discipline called
circuit sculpture
exists that aims to make beautiful shapes out of nothing more than electronic components and wires. Today we can show you [Maarten Tromp]’s latest work in this field: a wall-mounted clock that he’s christened the
Clock Sculpture
.
The clock’s main structure consists of two concentric rings made from galvanized steel wire, held together by twelve spokes. All components are soldered directly onto those two rings, with no additional mechanical support. Steel isn’t the greatest material for soldering to, but [Maarten] managed to make it work with a high-wattage soldering iron and a bit of plumbers’ flux.
The overall design is simple but clever: the outer ring holds 60 LEDs to indicate the minutes, with every fifth LED always illuminated dimly in order to provide a background reference in dark conditions. There are 24 LEDs on the inner ring to indicate the twelve hours as well as the “half-hours” in between. Without these, the dial would look a bit odd at 30 minutes past the hour.
A mains transformer, plus a single diode, a buffer capacitor and a 7805 regulator form a simple DC power supply, with its negative terminal connected to the steel frame. Time is kept by an ATtiny13A that counts mains frequency pulses. There’s no way to adjust the time: you’ll have to plug in the clock exactly at noon or midnight in order to synchronize it with the outside world. A crude method perhaps, but one that fits well with the clock’s bare-bones aesthetic.
The individual LEDs are driven by a set of twelve 74HC595 shift registers, all mounted dead-bug style between the two rings. Signals and power are carried between the chips by inconspicuous grey wires taken from old IDE cables; this gives the clock a clean, uncluttered appearance. [Maarten] has had the sculpture clock in his office for several months and while it apparently took some time to get used to, he claims it’s easy to read in bright and dark conditions.
Circuit sculpture has formed the basis for several stunning clock projects:
this Tie Fighter-shaped clock
for instance, or
this insanely complex LED clock
. Our
2020 Circuit Sculpture contest
yielded many breathtaking designs, too. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6562014",
"author": "shod",
"timestamp": "2022-12-29T20:50:20",
"content": "Looks too much like bugs for my comfort.But I’ll venture to guess that is not the case for many others, so don’t take it to heart.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"c... | 1,760,372,450.110836 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/29/wear-your-fave-cassette-tapes-as-a-necklace-with-this-3d-printed-adapter/ | Wear Your Fave Cassette Tapes As A Necklace With This 3D Printed Adapter | Lewin Day | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Slider"
] | [
"3d print",
"3d printing",
"adapter",
"audio",
"audio cassette",
"cassette",
"cassette adapter",
"cassette tape",
"compact cassette",
"tape"
] | While packing merch for a recent gig, I realised I had the opportunity to do something a little fun. I’d released an album on tape, and spent a little extra to ensure the cassette itself was a thing of beauty. It deserved to be seen, rather than hidden away in a case on a shelf. I wanted to turn this piece of musical media into a necklace.
Of course, cassette tapes aren’t meant to be used in this way. Simply throwing a chain through the cassette would lead to tape reeling out everywhere. Thus, I fired up some CAD software and engineered a solution to do the job! Here’s how I built
an adapter
to turn any cassette tape into a cool necklace.
Find the design
on Thingiverse
, and more details below!
Wear it Proud
My plan was simple. I would create a plastic device that would insert into the two reels of the cassette tape, holding them in place. A pair of caps would then be screwed on from the other side to hold the plastic device in the cassette tape. This device would then have a hole in the top, to which I could attach a necklace chain via an intermediate metal jump ring. Straightforward enough, and a perfect application for 3D printing.
The original design. Note the metal split jump ring to mount connect the bead chain, and the screw-on caps to hold the adapter to the cassette.
My first stop was to find an engineering drawing of the Compact Cassette format, designed by Phillips back in 1963. I could always measure the tapes in front of me, but for something like this, it’s generally easier and simpler to rely on the standard. Keying “compact cassette dimensions” into Google Image Search was enough to get me started.
I quickly whipped up a design that would hold both cassette reels in place. It relied on a pair of locating bosses mounted on a simple backing plate. The bosses would insert into the cassette’s reels, locking them in place. This would prevent the tape unwinding itself while being worn as a necklace. The backing plate had a hole on top for attaching a chain. A jump ring would be used, as is typical in pendant-type necklaces, to allow the cassette to lay flat upon the chest without twisting the chain. To create the necklace, one would simply need to insert the locating bosses through the tape. Then, the two 3D-printed caps could be attached from the other side with a pair of screws.
I ran a few test prints to figure out the dimensions. My initial attempts didn’t get the boss size right. This let the cassette reels turn freely. After a few redesigns and reprints, I got things nicely fettled. Much to my surprise, my third or fourth attempt actually ended up working as a snap fit. Thus, there would be no need to use screws and caps to hold the device to the cassette. Instead, the bosses could be snapped into the tape reels with a little pressure. With this method, the necklace adapter managed to hang on to the cassette quite well!
I assembled a series of necklaces and gave them a little product testing. By and large, the concept worked. The only issue was that boisterous activity would cause the jump rings to fail. This was largely due to the fact that the jump rings were intended for fastening small, lightweight pendants to a chain. A cassette tape, by comparison, was far too heavy.
I eventually realised a simple redesign would solve this problem. I eliminated the fussy jump ring entirely. Instead, I simply included a perpendicular hole for the chain as part of the necklace adapter itself. This does complicate the 3D printing process slighly, in that it may require some support material. However, removing that material is only a minor complication. The new design is much tougher, as a bonus. The integrated chain hole means that the cassette is far less likely to fall off the chain when the wearer is running and jumping around.
I have uploaded the designs
to Thingiverse
for anyone that wishes to print their own. It bears noting that snap fits are a finicky, precise thing. You may need to finesse the design slightly to get it to properly fit when printed on your own hardware. The print itself is fairly basic, and shouldn’t pose any issues on even the simplest equipment. I used ABS, but any rigid plastic should perform ably in this role.
The final design. Note the integrated chain hole that eliminates the need for a jump ring.
As Compact Cassettes are a standard design, the adapter can be used with most any cassette you appreciate. I myself have a penchant for the brightest and most colorful designs. Of course, if your cassette is very precious or rare, perhaps don’t go fitting it with this adapter. Damage is unlikely, but not impossible. Overall though, it’s a fun way to show off your music collection. Plus, there’s something inherently cool about being able to pop a tape off your necklace and pump some tunes! | 47 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6561702",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2022-12-29T15:06:37",
"content": "Fashion once again proving that pointless behavior is trendy.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6561762",
"author": "pelrun",
"timesta... | 1,760,372,450.38301 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/29/film-is-dead-long-live-film-say-pentax/ | Film Is Dead. Long Live Film, Say Pentax | Jenny List | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"camera",
"film camera",
"pentax"
] | If your answer to the question “When did you last shoot a roll of film” is “Less than two decades ago”, the chances are that you’re a camera enthusiast, and that the camera you used was quite old. Such has been the switch from film to digital, that the new film camera is a rarity. Pentax think there may be an opening in the older format though, as they’ve announced in the videos below the break that they’re working on a
fresh range of film cameras to serve the enthusiast market
.
We don’t know the economics of the camera business, but we’re certainly interested to see what they come up with. In a world that’s still awash with cheap film cameras from a few decades ago, whatever they produce will have to be good, but given that it’s Pentax who are making the announcement we’re guessing the quality will be of a high standard.
Perhaps more interesting in the revival of interest in film is that it comes at a point when designing and making your own camera has almost never been easier. If you’re bored waiting for the new Pentax,
make your own
!
Header: Andriy Matusevich,
CC BY-SA 3.0
. | 44 | 16 | [
{
"comment_id": "6561575",
"author": "Dude",
"timestamp": "2022-12-29T12:45:36",
"content": "What sort of tech is available for actually developing the pictures, then? Enlargers? Do they work with modern LED light sources, or do you need some unobtainium halogen bulb?",
"parent_id": null,
"d... | 1,760,372,450.524716 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/29/shopping-cart-does-the-tedious-work-for-you/ | Shopping Cart Does The Tedious Work For You | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Machine Learning"
] | [
"automation",
"cashierless",
"checkout",
"machine learning",
"machine vision",
"OpenMV",
"shopping cart"
] | Thanks to modern microcontrollers, basic home automation tasks such as turning lights on and off, opening blinds, and various other simple tasks have become common DIY projects. But with the advent of artificial intelligence and machine learning the amount of tasks that can be offloaded to computers has skyrocketed.
This shopping cart that automates away the checkout lines at grocery stores
certainly fits into this category.
The project was inspired by the cashierless Amazon stores where customers simply walk into a store, grab what they want, and leave. This is made possible by the fact that computers monitor their purchases and charge them automatically, but creator [kutluhan_aktar] wanted to explore a way of doing this without a fleet of sensors and cameras all over a store. By mounting the hardware to a shopping cart instead, the sensors travel with the shopper and monitor what’s placed in the cart instead of what’s taken from a shelf. It’s built around the OpenMV Cam H7, a microcontroller paired with a camera specifically designed for these types of tasks, and the custom circuitry inside the case also includes WiFi connectivity to make sure the shopping cart can report its findings properly.
[kutluhan_aktar] also built the entire software stack from the ground up and trained the model on a set of common products as a proof-of-concept. The idea was to allow smaller stores to operate more efficiently without needing a full suite of Amazon hardware and software backing it up, and this prototype seems to work pretty well to that end. If you want to develop a machine vision project on your own with more common hardware,
take a look at this project which uses the Raspberry Pi instead
. | 36 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6561647",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2022-12-29T14:09:08",
"content": "Aside from how carts are treated in general pretty much the same can be done with phone apps. The only bugaboo is things that need to be weighed.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [... | 1,760,372,450.180911 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/28/usb-host-on-rp2040-with-pio/ | USB Host On RP2040 – With PIO | Arya Voronova | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"PIO",
"pogo pin jig",
"programming jig",
"raspberry pi 2040",
"rp2040",
"test fixture",
"Test jig",
"testing jig",
"usb host"
] | Folks from [Adafruit] are
showing off a neat hack
– USB host on RP2040, using the now-famous PIO peripheral. [Adafruit] builds a lot of RP2040 boards, and naturally, you gotta test them before you ship them to customers. They’ve been using very specific Teensies for that, and at some point, those became unobtainium. Based on the work of [sekigon-gonnoc] and with help of [Thach], they’ve made their TinyUSB library support bitbanging of USB over PIO, and successfully ported their test jig firmware to it!
The base
Pico-PIO-USB repo
by [sekigon-gonnoc] shows a pretty impressive state of affairs – with low-speed and full-speed USB host and full-speed USB device modes supported, and
quite a few examples
to get you started.
[Adafruit]’s work
integrates this code into their TinyUSB stack, specifically focusing on MST (mass storage) features – as this is what you need to program a RP2040. Of course, they also provide
a mass storage example
to boot!
Test jigs are
pretty important to have
when making multiple pieces of a board, and with RP2040 supporting
more
and
more
interfaces
thanks to PIO
, it sounds like the perfect chip for your next production testing-intended PCB. With the jig brains taken care of, you’ll want to look into building no less important mechanical part, and we’ve covered quite a few ways to sort that out – here’s
an OpenSCAD script
that generates lasercutting files out of KiCad boards, or
a jig built out of scrap copperclad FR4
, and a
pretty extensive tutorial
on making your own lasercuttable jigs, to boot. | 11 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6561380",
"author": "bob",
"timestamp": "2022-12-29T09:28:06",
"content": "https://github.com/jfedor2/hid-remapperThis is a similar project that has found a lot of interest among users of older trackballs and mlt04 based mice. it allows cross platform button remapping, dpi scaling, ... | 1,760,372,450.580902 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/28/building-a-new-commodore-64-in-2022-with-all-new-components/ | Building A New Commodore 64 In 2022 With All New Components | Maya Posch | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"commodore 64"
] | Call it fake or simply new, but when [DusteD] set out to build a brand-new Commodore 64 with only new parts, it resulted in Project
MaxFake64
that is electrically and binary compatible with any genuine C64 out there. While not really ‘fake’ in the sense that a C64 emulator is fake, it is in the sense that it uses no parts produced before this millennium. This might actually be easier than getting a used C64 in fully working condition these days.
In total, the project contains an aftermarket C64 power supply by Electroware, a brand new C64C case, a C64 (ASSY NO 250407) mainboard based on the genuine board, a generic RF modular module, an FPGA-based
Kawari
VIC-II replacement, a 6502 MPU using a 6502-to-6510 adapter by Monotech PCs, a dual-GAL-based PLA replacement, EPROMs for the kernal, character and BASIC ROMs (with in-socket hacks), and a SinSID Nano as (temporary) SID replacement.
Issues discovered during the process include some cracking on the (transparent) C64C case and lack of availability on CIA replacements like the
J6526
. The keyboard will also be replaced at some later point, and items like the joystick ports were salvaged from an old C64 rather than purchased brand new. None of which are fundamental problems, and might actually make financial sense when it comes to finding replacement parts in the future. | 16 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6561159",
"author": "RW ver 0.0.3",
"timestamp": "2022-12-29T05:38:11",
"content": "Schrodingers C64 build, is it all new apart from the joystick ports, or is it a “Ship of Theseus” level original that had everything replaced apart from the joystick ports.",
"parent_id": null,
... | 1,760,372,450.633024 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/28/workbench-pc-with-a-50s-twist/ | Workbench PC With A 50s Twist | Arya Voronova | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"computer hacks"
] | [
"vintage computer",
"Workbench Projects"
] | [HolGer71] had a Mini-ITX Intel Atom-powered mainboard that he found useful for its vintage interfaces like COM and LPT. On a whim, he decided to give it even more vintage of a look – transforming it into a device more akin to a 50s home appliance, complete with a fitting monitor, mouse and keyboard.
The project,
dubbed Legacy-PC Computer Case, imitates the sheet metal construction masterfully in its 3D-printed design. That’s not all there is to it, either – everything is open-source, and there is enough documentation that you can build your own!
[HolGer71] starts with
general printing and finishing advice,
and goes through every part of the setup from there. The
mainboard-holding case
builds around a small miniITX case frame, enclosing it and adding extensions for connectors and lightbulbs. For
the monitor,
he built a new frame around an old VGA-equipped 17″ desktop screen – most certainly easy to find.
The keyboard
‘s an inexpensive one yet equipped with mechanical switches, and
the mouse
‘s an old Fujitsu-Siemens, but of the kind you’d see manufactured under different labels. All in all, this combines quite generic components into a trusty and stylish device for your workshop needs.
Equipped with Windows 7 as, apparently, the earliest supported version, this machine is now on desk duty – ready to run obscure software for old programming dongles, and look absolutely fabulous while doing so. It’s rare that we see such effort put into creating designs from scratch and sharing them with the community – most of the time, we see PCs built into already existing devices, like
this vintage radio
, or
a benchtop logic analyzer
. | 32 | 17 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560934",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-12-29T00:12:21",
"content": "I think he nailed the 50s vibe!But does it have a Centronics port?My grandfather used the same green color when he painted his garage.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,372,450.71709 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/27/spinning-holographic-pov-christmas-tree-of-death/ | Spinning Holographic POV Christmas Tree Of Death | Joseph Long | [
"Holiday Hacks",
"LED Hacks",
"Raspberry Pi"
] | [
"DotStar",
"POV",
"Raspberry Pi 4",
"RGB LEDs"
] | [Sean Hodgins] really harnessed the holiday spirit to create his very own
Giant Spinning Holographic Christmas Tree
(of Death). It’s a three-dimensional persistence-of-vision (POV) masterpiece, but as a collection of rapidly spinning metal elements, it’s potentially quite dangerous as well. As [Sean] demonstrates, the system can display other images and animations well beyond the realm of mere holiday trees.
Initial experiments focused on refining the mechanical structure, bearings, and motor. A 1/2 horsepower A.C. motor was selected and then the dimensions of the tree were “trimmed” to optimize a triangular frame that could be rotated at the necessary POV speed by the beefy motor. A six-wire electrical slip ring allows power and control signaling to be coupled to the tree through its spinning central shaft.
The RGB elements are SK9888 LEDs also know as DotStar LEDs. DotStar LEDs are series-chainable, individually-addressable RGB LEDs similar to NeoPixels. However, with around 50 times the pulse width modulation (PWM) rate, DotStars are more suitable for POV applications than NeoPixels. The LED chain is driven by a Raspberry Pi 4 single board computer using a clever system for storing image frames.
If deadly rotational velocity is not your cup of tea, consider this slower
spinning RGB Christmas tree
featuring a DIY slip ring. Or for more POV, may we suggest this
minimalist persistence-of-vision display
requiring only a few LEDs and an ATtiny CPU. | 11 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560572",
"author": "scott_tx",
"timestamp": "2022-12-28T06:13:49",
"content": "I got flashbacks of the MCP in Tron",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6710812",
"author": "Matthew Read",
"timestamp": "2023-12-22T1... | 1,760,372,450.76671 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/27/dietpi-releases-8-12-with-support-for-the-rockchip-rk3588-soc/ | DietPi Releases 8.12 With Support For The Rockchip RK3588 SoC | Maya Posch | [
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"DietPi",
"linux",
"SBC"
] | This month DietPi released
version 8.12
of this SBC-oriented Linux distribution. Most notable is the addition of support for the NanoPi R6S and the
Radxa ROCK 5B
SBCs. The ROCK 5B features the new flagship Rockchip RK3588 SoC with quad Cortex-A76 and quad Cortex-A55. What makes
DietPi
interesting as an operating system for not just higher end SBCs but also lower-end SBCs compared to options like Debian, Raspberry Pi OS and Armbian is that it has a strong focus on being the
most optimized
. This translates in a smaller binary size, lower RAM usage and more optimized performance.
The DietPi
setup experience
is as straightforward as with the aforementioned options, except that right from the bat you get provided with many more options to tweak. While the out of the box experience and hitting okay on the provided defaults is likely to be already more than satisfactory for most users – with something like the
optional graphical interface
easy to add – enterprising users can
tweak details
about the hardware, the filesystem and more.
When we set up DietPi on a Raspberry Pi Zero, it definitely feels like a much more light-weight experience than the current Debian Bullseye-based Raspberry Pi OS. Even though DietPi is also based on Debian, it leaves a lot more RAM and storage space free, which is a definite boon when running on a limited platform like a Raspberry Pi Zero. Whether it’s polite to state in public or not, DietPi definitely rubs in that many standard SBC images are rather pudgy these days. | 31 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560531",
"author": "ConsultingJoe",
"timestamp": "2022-12-28T03:16:26",
"content": "Neat. 1st",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6560650",
"author": "stappers",
"timestamp": "2022-12-28T11:30:16",
"conten... | 1,760,372,450.835834 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/27/flexible-thin-film-biosensors/ | Flexible, Thin-Film Biosensors | Orlando Hoilett | [
"Wearable Hacks"
] | [
"biosensor",
"cardiovascular",
"physiological",
"point-of-care",
"Wearables"
] | We like to keep a pulse on the latest biosensor research going on around the world. One class of biosensors that have really caught our attention is the so-called
thin-film sensors, pioneered by the Rogers Research Group at Northwestern University
.
We’re
no strangers to the flexible PCB here at Hackaday
. Flexible PCBs have become increasingly accessible to small-scale developers and hobbyists, explaining why we’re seeing them incorporated into many academic research projects. The benefit of these types of sensors lies in the similarity of their mechanical properties to those of human skin. Human skin is flexible, so matching the flexibility of skin allows these thin-film sensors to adhere more comfortably and naturally to a person’s body.
The circuits used in these thin-film sensors are what we’ve grown accustomed to. An instrumentation amplifier to measure heart rate (and oftentimes respiratory rate) from the
electrocardiogram
, a light-emitting diode, and photosensor pair to measure heart rate, respiration, and blood oxygen from the
photoplethysmograph
, a thermistor or non-contact infrared sensor to measure
temperature
, and an
accelerometer
to measure activity. Really the beauty behind what the Rogers group has done lies in their flexible PCB design. They’re strategically using serpentine interconnects between modular components of the PCB, allowing the circuit to bend and fold in predetermined locations. All that’s left is some good low-modulus silicone to cover the electronics and give the device a nice, soft-to-touch surface, adding to the comfort level of the user.
Really, this strategy is no different than what
we’ve explored here at Hackaday
, and we’re happy to see others finding utility in flexible PCBs as well, especially for medical applications. We like to think that maybe the Rogers group has been inspired by the many creative projects that have graced the front page of Hackaday and hope that you are inspired to keep on hacking as well. | 6 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560511",
"author": "eazyeeeeeeeee",
"timestamp": "2022-12-28T02:08:11",
"content": "These look wireless too, which MASSIVELY increases usability. One of the banes of nicu/scbu/paed HDU is negotiating all the lines and wires when cuddling/feeding/changing/caring for the child. Anoth... | 1,760,372,450.878862 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/27/esphome-powers-festive-lego-train-set/ | ESPHome Powers Festive LEGO Train Set | Robin Kearey | [
"Holiday Hacks",
"Toy Hacks"
] | [
"ESP8266",
"esphome",
"lego",
"lego train"
] | While the basic concept of LEGO bricks might have changed little since the mid-20th century, some components such as motors and sensors are still affected by technological progress and end up obsolete and unsupported. [Roberts Retro] ran into this problem when he was building a festive train setup and realized he didn’t have the speed controller to match his train engine. Without that part, the engine would only run at full speed and derail as soon as it hit a curve. The official speed controller had been discontinued and was hard to find, so
he had to build his own
.
The basic components needed were an H-bridge driver to operate the motor and an ESP8266 to generate PWM signals. In order to keep the bricky appearance of the train engine intact, [Robert] hollowed out a few cheap imitation LEGO bricks to house the electronics. He also cut out slots for JST connectors, which are far more convenient to work with than LEGO’s brick-style connectors.
The ESP8266 runs ESPHome, which enables [Robert] to control the entire setup using Home Assistant. The train is programmed to run a few laps at the top of the hour and play choo-choo sounds from a mini MP3 player hidden in the coal car. That car also holds a standard AA battery holder to power the system, which makes it easy to swap the batteries without having to partially disassemble the train.
There are various ways to control LEGO creations using standard computer platforms: we’ve seen the
ESP32 powering a LEGO tank
, for instance. If you need a bit more computing power, there’s even
an official LEGO Raspberry Pi HAT
. | 5 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560433",
"author": "ono",
"timestamp": "2022-12-27T22:37:01",
"content": "The world is ripe for an open-source contender to the official Lego robotics, mass-produced from China mold injectors and cheap microcontrollers.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,450.927273 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/27/an-esp32-based-potentiostat/ | An ESP32-Based Potentiostat | Orlando Hoilett | [
"chemistry hacks",
"Science"
] | [
"agriculture",
"electrochemistry",
"glucometer",
"insulin",
"point-of-care"
] | Ever wanted to make your own wireless chemical sensor? Researchers from the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) have got you covered with their
ESP32-based potentiostat
.
We’ve talked about potentiostats here on Hackaday before
. Potentiostats are instruments that analyze the electrical properties of an electroactive chemical cell. Think oxidation and reduction reactions (redox) from your chemistry course, if you can remember that far back. Potentiostats can be used in several different modes/configurations, but the general idea is for these instruments to induce redox reactions within a given electroactive chemical cell and then measure the resulting current produced by the reaction. By measuring the current, researchers can determine the concentration of a known substance within a sample or even determine the identity of an unknown substance, to name a few potential applications.
These instruments have become mainstays in research labs around the world and have incredible utility in the consumer space.
Glucometers
, devices used to measure blood glucose levels, are an example of technologies that have made their way into everyday life due to the advances made in electrochemistry and potentiostat research over the last few decades. Given their incredible utility to scientific research and medical technologies, a great deal of effort has gone into democratizing potentiostats, making them more available to the general public for educational and hobbyist purposes. Of course, any medical applications must go through rigorous testing and approvals by each country’s appropriate governing bodies. So we’re talking more non-medical purposes here.
The first popular open-source, DIY potentiostat was the CheapStat,
which we’ve covered here on Hackaday before
. Since then,
developing newer and more advanced open-source potentiostats
has become a popular endeavor within the scientific community. The researchers from UC Irvine wanted to put their own special spin on the open-source potentiostat craze and they did so with their inclusion of the ESP32 as their main processor. This obviously opens up them up do a whole host (see what we did there) of wireless capabilities that others before them have not explored.
With the ESP32, they developed a nice web-based GUI that makes controlling and collecting data from the potentiostat very seamless and user-friendly. You can imagine the great possibilities here. Teacher-led classroom demonstrations where the instructor can easily access each student’s device over the cloud to help troubleshoot or explain results. Developing soil monitoring sensors that can be deployed all around a farm to remotely collect data on feed, soil composition, and plant health. The possibilities here sure are promising.
We hope you’ll dive into their paper as it’s well worth a read. Happy hacking, Hackaday. | 3 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560596",
"author": "Reluctant Cannibal",
"timestamp": "2022-12-28T07:46:22",
"content": "Quote: “potentiostat very seamless”. Surely seamlessness is a boolean state, either it’s gpt seams in it or it has none?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,451.066319 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/27/lo-fi-fun-beer-can-microphones/ | Lo-Fi Fun: Beer Can Microphones | Kristina Panos | [
"classic hacks",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Slider"
] | [
"contact mic",
"mic",
"microphone",
"piezo",
"piezo disk",
"piezoelectric"
] | Sometimes, you just need an easy win, right? This is one of those projects. A couple months back, I was looking at my guitars and guitar accessories and thought, it is finally time to do something with the neck I’ve had lying around for years. In trying to decide a suitable body for the slapdash guitar I was about to build, I found myself at a tractor supply store for LEGO-related reasons. (Where else are you going to get a bunch of egg cartons without eating a bunch of eggs?) I noticed that they happened to also stock ammo boxes. Bam! It’s sturdy, it opens easily, and it’s (very) roughly guitar body shaped. I happily picked one up and started scheming on the way home.
Having never built a cigar box guitar before and being of a certain vintage, I’m inclined to turn to books instead of the Internet, so I stocked up from the library. Among my early choices was
Making Poor Man’s
Guitars
by Shane Speal, who is widely considered to be the guru on the subject. In flipping through the book, I noticed the beer can microphone project and was immediately taken by the aesthetic of some cool old 70s beer can with a 1/4″ instrument jack on the bottom, just asking for some dirty blues to be belted into it.
I had to build one. Or twelve
.
What It Is, Man
Now, don’t get your hopes up too high here. This is a dirt simple microphone that is essentially a piezoelectric disk wired to a 1/4″ instrument jack. You will sound like you’re on AM radio, basically.
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/beer-can-mic-demo.mp3
In this case, the piezo is glued to the underside of a metal lid, turning the whole thing into a contact mic that is particularly hot at the top. There is a little bit of foam rubber involved here as well, which keeps the mic in a happy medium between feedback and sounding woofy, like you’re talking into a blanket.
Gather Your Supplies
While old steel beer cans may make the coolest-looking microphones, you can make one of these babies out of any tin that’s sturdy enough for the task.
The neat thing about using a tin instead is that you already have a lid, and don’t have to worry about sourcing the right size of Mason jar lid to fit. You can see the complete list of tools and supplies on the IO page, but you will basically need a tin, a lid, a piezo disk, a 1/4″ guitar jack, wire, foam rubber, and some basic tools like a hammer, center punch, and a drill.
Prep Work
If you’re using a beer can, you cannot use it as such — you must remove the lid. This is most easily done with a side-cutting can opener, though you can spend 3-5 minutes sanding it across a piece of 50-grit and then pry it off once you can see the seam, or if you’ve got a belt sander, then bully for you. This leaves a bit of a rough edge, which you can cover with adhesive felt, or else felt and superglue. This really helps friction-fit the lid, by the way.
Speaking of the lid — if using a Mason jar lid, it probably has a white coating on the underside. You will want to scrape this away with some of that 50-grit sandpaper (or whatever you’ve got).
The Basic Plan
There are a couple of steps that must happen no matter what you’re using for the mic body — drilling out the jack hole, and wiring up the guts. You’ll need a 3/8″ hole to mount the 1/4″ guitar jack. I highly recommend using a uni-bit for this instead of a series of larger bits because they make such clean holes, and of course, using a center punch first so the bit doesn’t walk.
In wiring up the piezo to the guitar jack, I used stranded wire because the connection to the piezo is so tenuous. I also used a generous amount of hot glue to secure these connections when I mounted the piezo to the underside of the lid.
The previous collector opened it at the bottom. The extra holes do not affect the sonic quality.
Testing, 1-2
I like to test these at every step of the way just to make sure I haven’t damaged the piezo. Just plug it into an amp or a hardware interface and make sure you can hear tapping on the piezo. I will test it as soon as the solder cools, after I’ve mounted the jack, again after mounting the piezo, and of course, during the “tuning” part of the build where I figure out how much foam needs to be in there.
Make It Look the Part
If you checked out
the components list on the IO page
, you might have seen a couple of strange bits like the red t-shirt and the window screen repair patch. If you’re using a beer can or other lid-less tin with a Mason jar lid in its place, this is where it starts to look like a microphone. Use the Mason lid ring to trace a circle on the shirt, and again to round the corners on the screen repair patch. Flatten the t-shirt across the lid and place the screen on top, then take the lid ring and pressure fit it to the can. It should fit nicely, but we’re still going to close it up and make it look nice. Go ahead and test it again.
Remove the lid, taking care not to detach the piezo from the underside. If you used a Mason jar lid, it is likely that it will al stay together during this process. Cut a strip of foam that is 2″ longer than the can and stuff it inside, then put the lid back on and hold it down tight while you test for feedback or woofy-ness.
You’re almost ready to rock out! With the lid on and the mic tested and tuned, mark four holes around the lid and drill through both lid and tin with a 1/16″ bit. Then secure the lid with sheet metal screws.
Going Further
I’m pretty satisfied with the way this thing sounds, but
there is room for improvement
. For starters, I could add a volume pot so that if I do get feedback, I can easily turn it down instead of just ripping out the cable.
Don’t want to hold the mic? Make a stand for it. In order to record that ditty above, I rested the mic on my legume-filled mouse-hand wrist rest, pointed approximately between my sound hole and the guitar’s.
Ideally, I could take this mic places and use it in performance, but I would need some kind of special holder to interface it with a standard mic stand. So use your imagination, and recycle more things in the process (if you can). | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560312",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2022-12-27T18:30:41",
"content": "Does Bo Diddley have one of these, to go with hishomemade microphone?I suspect these wouod be popular with the good old boys.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,451.131844 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/27/the-zx-spectrum-finally-gets-a-proper-keyboard/ | The ZX Spectrum Finally Gets A Proper Keyboard | Robin Kearey | [
"classic hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"3D printed case",
"mechanical keyboard",
"ZX Spectrum"
] | The Sinclair ZX Spectrum is fondly remembered by many for being their first introduction into the wonderful world of computing. Its advanced capabilities coupled with a spectacularly low price made it one of the great home computers of the 1980s, at least in the UK and nearby countries. What was less spectacular about the Spectrum was its awful keyboard: although a step up from the flat membrane keyboards of earlier Sinclair computers, the Spectrum’s tiny rubbery keys made typing anything more than a few characters a bit of a chore.
If you’re planning to do any serious programming on your Spectrum, you might therefore want to check out [Lee Smith]’s latest project in which he
redesigns the Spectrum’s case to include a proper mechanical keyboard
. [Lee] got this idea when he was looking for ways to fix a few Spectrums with broken or missing cases, and stumbled upon several projects that aim to recreate classic Sinclair machines using modern components. He took a keyboard PCB meant for the
ZX Max 128 project
, populated it with some high-quality switches, and added a modified set of keycaps from the
ManuFerHi N-Go
.
The new keyboard plugs into the original connectors and doesn’t require any board-level modifications.
Together, those parts formed a modern, comfortable keyboard that still had the proper labelling on all keys. This is rather essential on the Spectrum, since each key is also used to generate symbols and BASIC keywords: for instance, the “K” key also functions as
LIST
,
+
,
LEN
and
SCREEN$
.
With the keyboard design settled, [Lee] set to work on the rest of the case: he designed and 3D-printed a sleek enclosure that takes the new keyboard as well as an original Spectrum mainboard. The resulting system is called the ZX Mechtrum, and looks fabulous with its matte black exterior and the obligatory four-coloured rainbow. A replaceable rear panel also allows several board-level modifications, like composite video or VGA output, to be neatly incorporated into the design.
We wrote an extensive retrospect on the Spectrum on
its 40th anniversary
earlier this year. If, somehow, you actually like the Spectrum’s original rubbery keyboard, then you can also
modify the whole thing to work with modern computers
. | 38 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560252",
"author": "mnem",
"timestamp": "2022-12-27T16:48:06",
"content": "That’s a real beauty! Now we just need something similar for the Specy’s older siblings the ZX80 and ZX81/TS1000 which have even worse (and frequently broken) stock keyboards.",
"parent_id": null,
"d... | 1,760,372,451.214921 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/27/all-about-usb-c-illegal-adapters/ | All About USB-C: Illegal Adapters | Arya Voronova | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Parts",
"Peripherals Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"cable",
"usb",
"USB C"
] | Let’s be clear – it’s not enough to have USB-C to USB-C cables. There’s a lot of cables that we might want to acquire for our day-to-day use, perhaps, for a transition period while we still own some amount of devices not adorned with a USB-C connector. However, the USB-C specification only accounts for a limited amount of kinds of cables, explicitly or implicitly excluding a range of cables that you might want to buy or make.
It’s my firm belief that, as a hacker, you should be able to buy any USB-C contraption that you could ever need. Hackers don’t need restrictions driven by marketing – they need understanding of how a piece of tech can or cannot be used, based on how it operates internally. I would like you to provide with such understanding, so that you can make informed decisions.
On the other hand, USB-C is designed to be used by less-than-skilled people, even if it often fails at that. (Cable labelling, anyone?) Clear definitions of what complies to a standard can help enforce it. Here’s the
notorious story of a USB-C cable that killed a Chromebook,
and launched a career of explaining USB-C specifics online for [Benson Leung]. There’s many such failure stories, in fact. Today, we’ll go through USB-C contraptions which might or might not fail you, depending on how you use them.
Extensions – Embrace Or Extinguish?
USB-C extension cables are not USB-C-specification compliant. Or are they? Are they a problem in practice, even if they’re not compliant? Let’s look at a bad example of one. Let’s say, you want to extend the power port on a Raspberry Pi 4.
Here’s
a Type-C extension cable
that forwards VBUS and USB 2.0 data lines – but not CC pins. If you use this extension with a Raspberry Pi 4, the 5.1 kΩ resistors on the Raspberry Pi port are no longer accessible on the female end of the extension, and a Type-C power supply can no longer power the Raspberry Pi involved. Well, unless it’s the official Raspberry Pi “Type-C” power supply, which has no way to detect resistor presence – of course, violating the Type-C specification, but operating as a USB-A to USB-C cable for all intents and purposes, which makes the violation not that significant.
What if the extension were to forward a CC pin with a separate wire inside the cable? It could, indeed; some extensions do that. Sadly, this means they only work in one rotation, and whenever you plug a cable into such an extension, you might have to flip it before it works. Doubly so for F-F couplers – there, you will have to rotate the cable 50% of the time if you want the coupling to work
What about forwarding both CC pins, each one with a separate wire? That would indeed work, and
these are sold online, too.
In fact, that’s how USB-C expansion cards on the Framework laptop work – since the expansion card connector on the laptop is USB-C, those cards are just a really short USB-C extension that forwards pins one-to-one. Is that different from a cable extension? Yes.
And some failure modes just straight up escape me. How is this possible?
Good Enough? Not Quite
What’s the problem with extensions? First off, there’s a conundrum where such cables aren’t compliant to the specification, and most reputable manufacturers don’t make them because they don’t want to fall out of favour with USB standards group – which means you often have to rely on the less-than-reputable manufacturers, with subpar quality control. Given everything that we use USB-C for, that can go awry somewhat quickly. Now, why wouldn’t it be spec-legal?
Framework laptop USB-C expansion card, lid off
Say, you have a “pass every pin through” USB-C extension, that can only handle 3 A internally. If you ever try to charge your 100 W-capable device with a 5 A PSU and 5 A-capable cable with such an extension in series, the PSU would supply 5 A, being none the wiser, but you could find yourself in a dangerous situation where your cable insulation starts to melt. On the other hand, it’s my understanding that a Raspberry Pi 4 will never consume over 3 A, so in that use case, you can probably get away with it, but it’s on you.
When it comes to high-speed signals, there are more pitfalls. USB-C cables already have to be built to a certain standard to work for 40 Gbps data rates, as opposed to being limited to 20 Gbps. If you use an extension that forwards the high-speed wires in order to connect a high-speed peripheral, you might find that your device becomes more glitchy, reconnecting every now and then.
The USB-C specification probably could have solved these problems with extra e-marker logic, which would’ve created a way for USB-C extensions to coexist peacefully, but they decided not to bother. Framework USB-C expansion cards don’t bother anyone, because they are verified to work well in their use scenario and not cause signal issues. As a hacker, should you be able to buy a USB-C extension cable if you need one? Yes. Should you know about the pitfalls associated? Also yes. Let’s talk more about cable pitfalls.
Data Blocker Cables
You might think there’s different resistors in there, but in fact, there’s different exploits
Every cable is required to have at least a USB 2.0 pair. We do know about cases when that’s undesired, however – having seen malicious USB chargers, cables, and simply exploits that can wreck your phone when it’s connected to a PC. You might be reaching for the Aliexpress Buy Now button on a “data isolator” cable, and again, it helps if you know what’s the issue with such cables, so that you can make informed choices as a hacker… not
that
kind of hacker.
When connected to a USB-A port, the only way to negotiate power draw (specifically, current, and sometimes voltage) is to use the data lines. These charging cables are built to facilitate this, and they tend to short the data lines together – signalling the device that it can draw up to 1.5 A. However, as the data lines are disconnected from the charger port, the phone doesn’t know if the charger actually shorts these lines, signalling the 1.5 A supply ability. The overwhelming majority of ports can do 1.5 A, laptops and chargers alike. Some really old ports (or smartphone USB-OTG ports) only do 500 mA, and small portion of those ports don’t have overcurrent protections as the USB standard requires them to.
These situations are seriously rare. Nevertheless, this conundrum makes people online disappointed when it comes to existence of data blocker cables. Some chargers don’t bother with negotiation, but some of them do. This creates funny situations, like Sony PlayStation controllers not charging from certain chargers.
Anyway, I don’t know about you, but it’s clear as day to me, that the USB-C restriction on data-blocking cables is a plot by all the intelligence agencies of the world, working in unison with unseen levels of cooperation, and it’s your duty to stick it to them and buy data blocker cables anyway. On a more serious note, 500 mA-only ports are rare, 500 mA-only ports without overcurrent protections even more so, and you can certainly just consciously avoid such ports if you’re using a data blocker cable.
By the way, if your data blocker cable has a CC wire (as it should, if you want to have data transfer), remember that a multitude of USB-C controller chips allow firmware update over the CC connection, and they’ve been known to,
ahem
, not be perfectly secure about this. Which is to say, if you want to protect yourself, you might just want to speak softly and carry a big powerbank.
USB-C To USB-Anything Adapters
As a rule of thumb, most adapters with a female USB-C socket on them are non-compliant. It still won’t stop me from building a bunch of such cables and mailing them to my friends, and it shouldn’t stop you either. Again – what specifically makes such adapters non-compliant?
Here’s a USB-A male to USB-C female passive adapter, I used this one a lot after my laptop’s only USB-C port died of mechanical causes, but I still needed to use USB-C devices on the regular. Nowadays, I use this adapter to charge USB-C devices from my USB-A-only powerbank. Such an adapter is usually wired to USB 2.0 only – since high-speed signal dual orientation handling in USB-C requires active electronics, if you find such an adapter that actually works for USB 3.0, my money is that it will only work for USB 3.0 in one orientation of the USB-C plug, falling back to 2.0 in another.
Two of this adapter, or one adapter and a USB A-C cable, will also let you build a USB-A to USB-A male-male cable. You shouldn’t ever need to, but someone theoretically can do it, and the USB-C group really dislikes this possibility. If you plug two devices together with an A-A cable, it will cause a current fight between two 5 V supplies, which might result in unpredictable consequences – switch-mode power supplies dislike when you do such things with them, and protection chips for ports might not be able to handle such problems either.
The problem isn’t that a hacker will inevitably build an A-A cable and smoke their laptop. The problem is that a less-than-savvy user might do it. Making these adapters non-compliant is a discouragement for anyone looking to build these adapters, especially large manufacturers. Oh, and the adapter I’m showing, also has footprints for USB-C power-supply-side resistors (pullups), but doesn’t even bother to populate it. This is also quite uncouth. That said – this adapter is very useful.
Barrel Plug To USB-C Adapters
Sometimes, you will see a barrel plug female to USB-C adapter being sold. I’m not talking about trigger boards here, where you plug a USB-C PSU into a board and it provides you with high voltages out of a barrel jack – I’m talking about adapters that you plug a barrel jack PSU into, and then connect it to a USB-C device. Obviously, there’s zero protection involved, and I’m not even talking about resistors anymore.
This adapter is equivalent to a USB-A to USB-C cable when used with a 5 V supply. There’s zero built-in guarantee that such an adapter would only ever be used with a 5 V supply. A hacker might never plug anything other than a 5 V supply into it, of course. With an average user, you really, really can’t rely on that being the case, and they will kill some device of theirs. And on some days, any hacker will eventually behave just like an average user; you can’t always be on your guard.
Not all devices require negotiation before they accept high voltages on their USB-C port, however. For instance, the Pinecil soldering iron does not. I built a female barrel jack to female Type-C adapter so that I could use nice silicone flexible cables with my Pinecil and a barrel jack 20 V power supply.
If you were to plug a Type-C cable from such an adapter into your laptop while 20 V is provided to it, the laptop would most likely die. There are multiple cases of laptops that are known to have died in this exact situation, in fact. Sometimes, USB-C ports provide protection from such situations, as some early USB-C power supplies could create such a situation alone – not switching back, and happily feeding 20 V to the next device plugged in. That said, we will talk about this later, too.
For now, I have written “DO NOT” on the cable plugs of the cable I use with this adapter, to make sure I never plug this cable into anything else. If you were hoping I have a better idea, I do, indeed. There are seemingly legitimate adapters
like this
, that are stated to be designed for use with laptops, and the Aliexpress keyword seems to be “USB PD Step Down”. (Props to @Ralimtek!) They only go up to 60 W, but they appear to do negotiation, and if it’s indeed the case that they actually only bring the voltage up to 20 V after that’s negotiated, they ought to work perfectly for charging your USB-C laptop from a barrel jack. I also fully intend to build my own adapter that does negotiation, perhaps even make it a 100 W one – honestly, I have way too many 20 V power supplies laying around and I want to put them to good use.
Double-Edged Sword
USB non-compliance will keep you on your toes
There’s a lot more to USB-C standards compliance. I would not be surprised if the venerable Type-C trigger boards were non-compliant because of some signalling that the trigger IC does not provide. We hackers use them in large quantities nevertheless, and we will only use more as time goes on. USB-C non-compliance doesn’t prevent us from having tons of fun building cool USB-C things.
Sometimes people argue that places like Amazon should take non-compliant electronics down. Indeed, the Chromebook-destroying cable has no business being sold, as it’s straight up a hostile design masquerading as an innocent one. The humble A-C male-female adapter, however, is undoubtedly worth keeping around, even if it shouldn’t really be sold in big box stores.
What’s your favourite non-standards-compliant device? | 107 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560210",
"author": "mrehorst",
"timestamp": "2022-12-27T15:15:41",
"content": "JHC, flipping cables over? Not having to do that was supposed to be one of the big benefits of USB C. Who designs crap like this? Who decides to make this a standard? Why do any of them still have jobs?"... | 1,760,372,451.860784 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/27/one-hackers-battle-to-slightly-improve-a-sadistic-sony-headset/ | One Hacker’s Battle To Slightly Improve A Sadistic Sony Headset | Arya Voronova | [
"Portable Audio Hacks"
] | [
"MP2625",
"TP4056",
"WH-1000XM3"
] | One thing you won’t read in reviews of pricey Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones – if you choose them, you’re going to find yourself in a one-sided abusive relationship. A button press or low-battery notification makes the headphones scream at you, ignoring the actual sound volume of what you’re currently listening to. Once they’re discharged, they suddenly emit loud noises, lecture you about how the battery is low, then shut down. Oh, and you can’t use them as they’re charging – if your voicecall lasts longer than expected, you might find yourself being shouted at and forced to fumble around with wires, silently pleading for call participants to wait while you change over to a different headset.
[MisterHW]
decided to dig in
and figure out how to work around at least some of the shortcomings. Naturally, the “no charge while using” limit looked like low-hanging fruit, and a hefty usability improvement too – plus, he suspected the charge cutoff to be masking
noise issues already abundant
on these headphones. Some painful disassembly later,
he was inspecting the charger IC
, the MP2625, responsible for power management. Its signals were connected to the MCU using via-in-pad – and some pads had to be cut in half to disconnect the vias.
However, the laborious pad cutting and subsequent careful soldering didn’t turn out to be fruitful. Even with external control of the output inhibition pins,
the shutoff still continued
– something affected the circuit, whether it was VBUS detection, some other unnoticed via-connected pins on the charger, or sensing on D+/D-. About to run out of life force for this mod, [MisterHW] added a Qi charging circuit, powering a TP4056 wired in parallel with the MP2625. The mod, dubbed HW-1000XM3, made these headphones all that more reliable and less annoying – charger and MCU none the wiser.
Now, all that’s needed to charge these headphones is to slap a magnetic charger coil onto them, and it doesn’t interfere with voicecalls as much as the screaming and forced shutoffs do. Hopefully, Sony eventually learns to test their headphones by having humans use them – it’s far from the only gripes with this lineup, after all. We also hope that the voice notifications will be conquered eventually – this summer, we’ve seen a hacker
firmware mod a Bluetooth speaker
to make the sounds more pleasant. If your headphones are based on a relatively popular module, repurposing them
might be even easier than that!
Introducing Sonγ HW-1000XM3 !
– MagSafe Charger support
– low noise charging during(!) conference calls
– the usual USB-C charging that switches them off
https://t.co/eqc4xv6lk6
pic.twitter.com/U92b7T3LJO
— Helge Wurst (@MisterHW)
December 12, 2022 | 48 | 9 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560181",
"author": "JanW",
"timestamp": "2022-12-27T14:00:38",
"content": "I use my pair for many years now in the office and on trains. Never had any problem with them. The spoken “battery low” message is by no means shouting at you lol.Yes, not being able to use the headphones wh... | 1,760,372,451.57145 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/27/3d-printed-self-balancing-robot-brings-control-theory-to-life/ | 3D-Printed Self-Balancing Robot Brings Control Theory To Life | Robin Kearey | [
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"balancing bot",
"PID controller",
"Raspberry Pi Pico",
"Self Balancing Robot"
] | Stabilizing an inverted pendulum is a classic problem in control theory, and if you’ve ever taken a control systems class you might remember seeing pages full of differential equations and bode diagrams just to describe its basic operation. Although this might make such a system seem terribly complicated, actually implementing all of that theory doesn’t have to be difficult at all, as [Limenitis Reducta]
demonstrates in his latest project
. All you need is a 3D printer, some basic electronic skills and knowledge of Python.
The components needed are a body, two wheels, motors to drive those wheels and some electronics. [Limenitis] demonstrates the design process in the video below (in Turkish, with English subtitles available) in which he draws the entire system in Fusion 360 and then proceeds to manufacture it. The body and wheels are 3D-printed, with rubber bands providing some traction to the wheels which would otherwise have difficulty on slippery surfaces.
The PCB has just a few components, with most of the complexity handled by plug-in modules.
Two stepper motors drive the wheels, controlled by a DRV8825 motor driver, while an MPU-9250 accelerometer and gyroscope unit measures the angle and acceleration of the system. The loop is closed by a Raspberry Pi Pico that implements a PID controller: another control theory classic, in which the
proportional
,
integral
and
derivative
parameters are tuned to adapt the control loop to the physical system in question. External inputs can be provided through a Bluetooth connection, which makes it possible to control the robot from a PC or smartphone and guide it around your living room.
All design files and software are available on [Limenitis]’s
GitHub page
, and make for an excellent starting point if you want to put some of that control theory into practice. Self-balancing robots are a favourite among robotics hackers, so there’s no shortage of examples if you need some more inspiration before making your own: you can build them
from off-the-shelf parts
, from
bits of wood
, or even
from a solderless breadboard
. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560305",
"author": "Badi",
"timestamp": "2022-12-27T18:06:31",
"content": "When the tank on top gets empty the balance behavior has to change? How do they do it? With lower voltage the PID gets a different value ? Just kidding… nice project. But do batteries change their weight whe... | 1,760,372,451.620501 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/26/teensy-twofer-of-plug-in-emulated-retro-cpus/ | Teensy Twofer Of Plug-In Emulated Retro CPUs | Elliot Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"6502",
"8088",
"Apple 2",
"commodore 64",
"osborne",
"retrocomputer",
"z80"
] | [Ted Fried] wrote in with not one but two (2!) new drop-in replacements for widespread old-school CPUs: the
Zilog Z80
and the
Intel 8088
. Both of the “chips” run in cycle-accurate mode as well as in a super turbo mode, which can run so fast that you’ll need to use the Teensy’s internal RAM just to keep up.
Both of these designs have a hardware and software component. The PCBs basically adapt the pinout of the Teensy to the target CPU, with a bunch of 74VLC latches on board to do the voltage level conversion. The rest is a matter of emulating all of the instructions on the Teensy, which is
more
than fast enough to keep up. If this sounds familiar to you, it’s basically the same approach that [Ted] used last year to bring us
his replacement for the 6502
found in the Apple ][ and Commodore 64.
Why would you want an emulated CPU when the originals are still available? [Ted] inherited a busted Osborne I, an ancient Z80 luggable. By replacing the original Z80 with his emulation, he could diagnose the entire system, which led him to discover some bad DRAM chips and
get the old beast running again
. Or maybe you just want to
play IBM XT games at insane speeds
?
And it looks like [Ted] has
updated his 6502 emulation to include the undocumented C64 opcodes
, so if you’re into that scene, you should be covered as well.
If any of this tickles your fancy, head over to [Ted]’s blog,
microcore labs
, and follow along. Although now that he’s covered most of the famous retrocomputers, we have to ask ourselves what processor is going to be next? | 12 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560061",
"author": "slincolne",
"timestamp": "2022-12-27T06:11:29",
"content": "This is pretty amazing stuff – if you check the linked article you can see an IBM PC running this emulated CPU returning a Norton ‘SI’ rating of 11.7 – astounding !",
"parent_id": null,
"depth":... | 1,760,372,451.403836 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/26/tube-audio-amplifiers-neednt-be-complex/ | Tube Audio Amplifiers Needn’t Be Complex | Jenny List | [
"home entertainment hacks"
] | [
"hi-fi",
"tube amp",
"valve amp"
] | There’s a mystique in audiophile circles about tube amplifiers. They can have a very nice sound which is attributed to their even-harmonic distortion, but they are often portrayed as requiring rare and expensive components. You don’t need matched gold-plated tubes and special transformers wound by Japanese monks with oxygen-free silver wire when the tube you’d have found in a TV back in the day paired with a repurposed mains transformer will do. [Mikremk] demonstrates this with
a simple but effective amplifier using a PCL82 triode-pentode
.
It’s a conventional tube amplifier circuit in which the triode is a preamplifier for the pentode power output stage. The pentode is running in class A mode, and the high impedance of its output is brought down to speaker impedance with that mains transformer. Best of all it doesn’t need a particularly high voltage, with the 40 V DC power coming from a DC-to-DC converter module.
These amplifiers could be found back in the day in some form in most consumer electronics, and remain a spectacularly cheap way to boast a tube amp in your hi-fi even if
it might not always be the best possible amp
. | 25 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6560035",
"author": "Billy",
"timestamp": "2022-12-27T04:28:47",
"content": "Pity about the typo, it was a good attempt at sarcastic humour though.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6560090",
"author": "BT",
"tim... | 1,760,372,451.925562 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/26/connecting-commercial-433-mhz-sensors-to-mqtt-and-home-assistant-with-rtl-sdr/ | Connecting Commercial 433 MHz Sensors To MQTT And Home Assistant With RTL-SDR | Maya Posch | [
"home hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"433MHz",
"RTL-SDR",
"rtl_433"
] | When [Elixir of Progress] was looking at setting up environmental sensors around their home to keep track of temperature, humidity and such, the obvious ideas of using WiFi-connected sensors didn’t work due to lack of WiFi range. Although Zigbee (Z-wave) sensors have longer range than WiFi, they are decidedly more expensive, proprietary and require a special transceiver hub. That’s where 433 MHz sensors for weather stations
come into the picture
.
The idea is simple: virtually all of those sensors – many of them rated for outdoor use – use the unlicensed 433 MHz spectrum that can easily be captured using cheap RTL-SDR (software defined radio) USB dongles. With the data stream from these sensors captured, the open source
rtl_433
project enables automatic decoding of these data streams for a wide range of supported sensors.
While Realtek RTL2832-based and other RTL-SDRs can be found for quite cheap, it should be noted that these can run quite hot. Rather than heatsinking the IC, for this project it was elected to only listen sporadically and allow the RTL-SDR receiver to cool down in between listening sessions.
Getting the data from there into Home Assistant, InfluxDB or similar is easy, as rtl_433 can output the decoded data directly to an Influx database, MQTT broker as well as other formats. In this case, the data was sent via MQTT with the Home Assistant instance configured to treat these MQTT topics as sensors. With each sensor’s location carefully registered, this allows for setting up a dense, very low-power network of 433 MHz sensors for monitoring and home automation purposes. | 37 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6559960",
"author": "Lee",
"timestamp": "2022-12-27T00:09:12",
"content": "Last I checked zig-bee reaches out the same distances as WiFi. This has been done to death in the HA community.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6559973... | 1,760,372,451.693281 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/26/turning-a-microchip-mplab-snap-into-a-udpi-avr-programmer/ | Turning A Microchip MPLAB Snap Into A UDPI AVR Programmer | Maya Posch | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"AVR",
"MPLAB Snap",
"UDPI"
] | The Unified Program and Debug Interface (UPDI) is Microchip’s proprietary interface for programming and on-chip debugging, and has become the standard on AVR MCUs after Microchip’s purchase of Atmel. Being a proprietary interface means that even entry-level programmers like the Atmel-ICE are rather expensive at over $100. That’s when for [Scott W Harden] the question arose of whether the much cheaper MPLAB Snap board (~$34)
could be used
as well for AVR UDPI purposes.
The stages of grief that [Scott] went through before he had it working involved among others the updating of the MPLAB Snap board firmware, getting yelled at by the Microchip Studio IDE when attempting to use the Snap for AVR MCU programming, and ultimately fixing the board following the relevant Microchip Engineering Technical Note (
ETN #36
) that specifies the removal of a 4.7 kΩ pull-down resistor (R48) on the Snap board. This allows the UDPI line to be pulled high by the MCU.
As the ETN notes, an external pull-up may also be used to override the pull-down, which would leave the ICSP functionality of of the Snap intact. As [Scott] mentions in his conclusion, it feels as if UDPI AVR support with the Snap is really an afterthought for Microchip. Meanwhile there are also more DIY solutions as [Scott] adds, which are useful for just flashing the MCU. An example is with a USB-TTL serial adapter and pymcuprog.
The problem with DIY solutions like
jtag2updi
,
ftdi2updi,
and their kin is the effort required to assemble them, and the uncertainty of long-term support as the UPDI ecosystem keeps evolving with new devices and new features. The MPLAB Snap with resistor mod may be just that middle ground between an Atmel-ICE and reverse-engineered OSS projects.
(Featured image: MPLAB Snap resistor mod illustrated, from
Microchip ETN #36
) | 20 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6559911",
"author": "The Commenter Formerly Known As Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-12-26T21:40:50",
"content": "“Meanwhile there are also more DIY solutions as [Scott] adds, which are useful for just flashing the MCU. ”Is a “more than” missing?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,372,451.98323 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/26/standalone-touch-id-for-your-desktop-mac/ | Standalone Touch ID For Your Desktop Mac | Navarre Bartz | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"computer hacks",
"hardware",
"Mac Hacks",
"Security Hacks"
] | [
"apple",
"Apple keyboard",
"biometrics",
"fingerprint reader",
"keyboard",
"touch id"
] | With the proliferation of biometric access to mobile devices, entering a password on your desktop can feel so passé. [Snazzy Labs] decided to fix this problem for his Mac by
liberating the Touch ID
from a new Apple keyboard.
When Apple introduced its own silicon for its desktops, it also revealed desktop keyboards that included their Touch ID fingerprint reader system. Fingerprint access to your computer is handy, but not everyone is a fan of the typing experience on Apple keyboards. Wanting to avoid taping a keyboard under his desk, [Snazzy Labs] pulled the logic board from the keyboard and designed a new 3D printed enclosure for the Touch ID button and logic board so that the fingerprint reader could reside close to where the users hands actually are.
One interesting detail discovered was the significantly different logic boards between the standard and numpad-containing variants. The final enclosure designs feature both wireless and wired versions for both the standard and numpad logic boards if you should choose to build one of your own. We’re interested to see if someone can take this the next step and use the logic board to wire up a custom mechanical keyboard with Touch ID.
If [Snazzy Labs] seems familiar, you may recognize him from their
Mac Mini Mini
. If you’re more in the mood to take your security to the extreme, check out this
Four Factor Biometric Lockbox
that includes its own fingerprint reader. | 1 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6628382",
"author": "tim",
"timestamp": "2023-04-01T07:15:17",
"content": "how can i buy one?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
}
] | 1,760,372,452.019127 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/26/3d-modelling-in-english-with-ai/ | 3D Modelling In English With AI | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"3d model",
"ai",
"point-e"
] | By now, you’ve surely seen the AI tools that can chat with you or draw pictures from prompts. OpenAI now has Point-E, which takes text or an image and produces a 3D model. You can find a few
runnable demos online
, but good luck having them
not too busy
to work.
We were not always impressed with the output. Asking for “3d printable starship Enterprise,” for example, produced a point cloud that looked like a pregnant Klingon battle cruiser. Like most of these tools, the trick is finding a good prompt. Simple things like “a chair” seemed to work somewhat better.
Is this going to put 3D designers out of business? We think it isn’t very likely, at least for engineering purposes. Unlike a visual image, most 3D models need to be exact and have interfaces to other things. Maybe one day, the AI can do like a Star Trek computer or replicator, just making what you want from a hazy description. But, for today, it might be more useful to train an AI to examine an existing design and help identify problem areas for printing or improve support structures and orientation. That seems more realistic.
On the other hand, we understand this is the early days for these tools. But at the current state, asking if this will replace humans is like wondering if parrots will replace radio disk jockeys. The writing and 3D modeling is, generally, not precise enough. If you wanted an artistic model or a piece of clip art, you might be able to get away with using a tool like this. Still, we are far from AI replacing a writer, a photographer, a graphic artist, or a 3D designer for most practical purposes.
Our opinion: computers work best when they boost human creativity, not replace it.
Texturing
, for example. Our own [Jenny List] has taken us through the
search engine aspects of AI
, too. | 17 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6559790",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2022-12-26T15:40:42",
"content": "What a wonderful times we live in, computers can do such amazing things, yet the humans who program it fail at the most basic things, like designing a decent font.For example: artificial intelligence or “AI” ... | 1,760,372,452.077608 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/26/pedal-your-way-through-games-with-this-usb-exercise-bike/ | Pedal Your Way Through Games With This USB Exercise Bike | Robin Kearey | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"Arduino Leonardo",
"exercise bike",
"game controller"
] | If you’re into cycling, there’s nothing better than heading out on the open road and feeling the wind in your hair. Unfortunately, climatic conditions make this uncomfortable or impossible at certain times of year, so you might be tempted to stay inside and play video games instead. Luckily, you can now get your gaming fix and still get in shape thanks to [Patrick]’s
exercise bike game controller
.
[Patrick] got himself a second-hand exercise bike and discovered that the speed sensor inside it was based on a magnet and reed relay, just like a regular bike computer. Reading out the sensor was therefore as simple as counting pulses using an Arduino Leonardo, and the USB HID protocol made it easy to turn the cycling mechanism into a one-dimensional game controller.
He then completed the setup by adding two 3D-printed handlebar-mounted gamepads with a few buttons and a thumbstick on each side. The total system now works as an ordinary gamepad, but with the option of using the bike as a forward/backward control.
We can imagine that this system will stay interesting for far longer than any off-the-shelf internet-connected exercise bike, because you can interface it with basically any game. [Patrick] demos his rig using first-person shooters like
Doom
and
Team Fortress 2
, but the possibilities are endless: how about turning
FIFA
games into bike polo? Or
Mirror’s Edge
into a bicycle courier adventure? After all, we’ve already seen how a similar game controller can turn
Grand Theft Auto
into
something more like
Grand Theft Bicycle
.
Steam compatibility achieved. Now I can burn off the Covid 15 while playing TF2
@TooftyTV
@DaneUncle
@valvesoftware
@steam
@peloton
#gamification
#fitness
#TeamFortress2
pic.twitter.com/z0raTSV2Hw
— Kingwood_Tech (@KingwoodElectro)
July 24, 2022 | 13 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6559745",
"author": "Graham",
"timestamp": "2022-12-26T13:25:17",
"content": ":|",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6559768",
"author": "Jabberwock",
"timestamp": "2022-12-26T14:13:41",
"content": "Unfortunately, the se... | 1,760,372,452.135462 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/26/self-hosted-gaming-with-friends/ | Self-Hosted Gaming With Friends | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Games"
] | [] | One of the best parts of gaming is gaming with friends, but often this requires everyone involved to have the same expensive piece of hardware. Almost everyone has a computer with a browser already, though, so if you’d like to play online with friends who don’t have the same gaming machine as you, they can play along now simply by opening a web browser thanks to this project called
Qwantify
.
There are a few requirements to get this to work, though. At least one person needs to have a computer with a GPU to run the docker container that hosts the game, but once that’s done anyone with a browser can connect to it and play.
The entire project is open source as well
, and since it’s currently a very young project there is only support for AMD and Intel GPUs but it does have a fairly intuitive user interface as well as some other features like allowing for various gaming peripherals and supporting streaming gameplay to Twitch and YouTube.
Being able to host your own gaming server is pretty common in some games like Minecraft, but we are excited to see something that is self-hosted take this idea to the next level. We haven’t seen something this ambitious
since we were all talking about cloud gaming
, but at least this time the games can be hosted on our own hardware. | 27 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6559649",
"author": "Vincent",
"timestamp": "2022-12-26T09:27:05",
"content": "“since it’s currently a very young project there is only support for AMD and Intel GPUs”Hello, in github they say it as not been tested with intel and amd gpus, only nvidia",
"parent_id": null,
"d... | 1,760,372,452.197621 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/25/reverse-engineering-saves-weller-with-a-wonky-lcd-from-the-trash-pile/ | Reverse Engineering Saves Weller With A Wonky LCD From The Trash Pile | Dan Maloney | [
"Reverse Engineering",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"16x2",
"lcd",
"NXP PCF856CHL",
"PIC16F18326",
"reverse engineering",
"Weller"
] | There’s nothing more satisfying than finding a broken piece of gear in the trash and bringing it back to life. Satisfying, but also potentially more time-consuming — someone tossed it for a reason, after all. Figuring out what that reason is and finding a way to back it better is where the fun — and the peril — are.
Luckily, some pieces of equipment have a relatively short list of well-known failure modes, a fact that [
Lauri Pirttiaho
] relied on for
this fix of an old Weller WD1 soldering station
. The unit, sporting the familiar light blue Weller livery and more than a few scratches and dings, had an LCD that was DOA. Typically it’s the driver that’s the problem here, but [Lauri]’s diagnosis revealed it was the LCD module itself that was bad.
With OEM replacements being basically unobtainium at this point, the fix was to intercept the data heading from the driver to the old LCD and send it to a new, easily sourced 16×2 character LCD display. This began with an inspection of the display controller’s datasheet, and a bit of probing of the old display to find out which segments and backplanes map to which pins. A little bit of case modding allowed the new display to fit, the old controller chip was removed, and a PIC16 went into its place, in a tidy nest of Kapton tape and bodge wires. The PIC does the job of translating the original display, which had a fair number of custom icons and symbols, into sensible text-based equivalents and sending them to the 16×2 via I2C. The video below shows the hack in action; it honestly looks like it could have come from the factory like that.
The nice thing here is that [Lauri]’s fix applies to a whole range of Weller stations, so if you find one in the trash, you might be able to resuscitate it. Failing that, you could always
roll your own Weller from (more-or-less) scratch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AM5GWSbaP0 | 15 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6559613",
"author": "JanW",
"timestamp": "2022-12-26T07:50:00",
"content": "What a sweet hack!I still use two no frills 24VAC Weller Magnastat irons from the mid 70s and mid 80s with constant temperature tips. They made absolutely indestructible tools back then.",
"parent_id": n... | 1,760,372,452.297098 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/25/laser-cut-clips-save-a-lamp-from-the-trash/ | Laser Cut Clips Save A Lamp From The Trash | Jenny List | [
"home hacks",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"ikea hacks",
"ikea lamp",
"laser cut",
"PETG"
] | Ikea have been known for years as a purveyor of inexpensive yet stylish homewares, but it’s fair to say that sometimes their affordability is reflected in their insubstantial construction. Such is the case with the Sjöpenna lamp, whose construction relies on rubber bands. On [Tony]’s lamp these bands degraded with age, causing it to fall apart. The solution?
A set of cleverly-designed laser-cut clips to replace them
.
The challenge to replacing a stretchy material with a rigid one is that it must have enough ability to bend without snapping as it is put in place. For this he selected PETG, with 0.04″ (about 1 mm thick) hitting the sweet spot. His photos demonstrate with some green tape added for visibility, how the clip bends backwards just far enough to fit over where the rubber band once located, and then flips back neatly to hold it all in place.
If you have a collapsing Ikea lamp then this will be just what you need, but this hack goes further than that. A frequent requirement for repairs is some kind of clip, because clips are always the first to break, This technique for laser cutting them is a handy one to remember, next time your design needs a springy bit of plastic. | 6 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6559518",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-12-26T03:07:44",
"content": "Never mind the lamp, I had to find out about “Alphabutt”https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabutt",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6559629",
"au... | 1,760,372,452.244391 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/25/hackaday-links-december-25-2022/ | Hackaday Links: December 25, 2022 | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Hackaday links",
"Slider"
] | [
"amateur radio",
"blinker fluid",
"cgi",
"co2",
"electric vehicle",
"ev",
"guard cell",
"hackaday links",
"ham",
"IMAX",
"InSight",
"mars",
"marsquake",
"mole",
"repeater",
"seismic",
"stomata",
"tires"
] | Looks like it’s
lights out on Mars for the
InSight
lander
. The solar-powered lander’s last selfie, sent back in April, showed a thick layer of dust covering everything, including the large circular solar panels needed to power the craft. At the time, NASA warned that
InSight
would probably give up the ghost sometime before the end of the year, and it looks like
InSight
is sticking to that schedule.
InSight
sent back what might be its last picture recently, showing the SEIS seismic package deployed on the regolith alongside
the failed HP3 “mole” experiment
, which failed to burrow into the soil as planned. But one bad experiment does not a failed mission make — it was wildly successful at most everything it was sent there to do, including
documenting the largest marsquake ever recorded
. As it usually does, NASA has anthropomorphized
InSight
with bittersweet sentiments like “Don’t cry, I had a good life,” and we’re not quite sure how we feel about that. On the one hand, it kind of trivializes the engineering and scientific accomplishments of the mission, but then again, it seems to engage the public, so in the final rinse, it’s probably mostly harmless.
If you’ve ever been advised to check the blinker fluid in your car, or admonished for not using a metric adjustable wrench, you may think that being told your fancy new electric vehicle needs EV-specific tires is just another prank played on the automotively naive. But no, it actually turns out that there’s
a lot about electric vehicles that makes special tires necessary
. Chief among these is weight — all that lithium and cobalt jammed into the battery packs make EVs a lot heavier than ICE vehicles, and the tires need to be engineered for the higher load factor. The weight is also much more evenly distributed over the footprint of the EV, making the handling characteristics of EVs different enough to require tires with stiffer sidewalls. But we were surprised to learn that another big factor in tire selection for EVs is noise — without the growl of an ICE and a long powertrain to drown it out, tire noise in an EV would be intolerable. Having tires with enough stickiness to handle the huge instantaneous torque is another factor in EV tire selection too. All this and more adds up to a lot of money, of course, but just think of all the money you’ll save on oil changes.
We got a tip from Hackaday super friend Mark Hughes that
Project Boondock Echo
is ready for testing. In case you missed it, Boondock Echo came about in response to some of the radio coverage problems that became apparent during the California wildfires a couple of years back. It’s basically a cloud-based store-and-forward simplex repeater system, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Mark is looking for volunteers to help test the system, so if you’re a licensed amateur radio operator and want to pitch in,
head over to the sign-up form
and get on the list.
I don’t usually buy into the IMAX hype for new movies, but I just might make an exception for the planned 2023 release of
Oppenheimer
. First of all, it’s a Christopher Nolan film, so it has to be good, right? Think
Interstellar
and
Dunkirk
more than
Inception
, though — I swear,
I still don’t get that movie
. And second,
it’s actually going to be in black and white
, which should be pretty cool. So yeah, it may be worth the drive to see this film in IMAX. But the big draw for me is the fact that the use of CGI is supposedly limited, meaning that all the effects, even the Trinity test, are going to be practical effects. That’s enough right there — please, just take my money. But, maybe not so fast; if this behind-the-scenes still is any indication of the historical accuracy of the film, I might have to reconsider. Sound off in the comments if you can spot the glaring anachronism in this scene.
And finally, to follow up on
last week’s predatory white blood cells
(last item), we stumbled across this equally incredible photomicrographic footage of
a plant’s “breathing” mechanism in action
. The video shows a single plant stoma, thousands of which line the bottom surface of most leaves. The tiny pore leads into the interior of the leaf, allowing gases like carbon dioxide, water vapor, and oxygen to transition into and out of the leaf. Each stoma is formed by two guard cells, which expand and contract to control the size of the opening. None of this is news, really — we’ve known how stomata work for a long time. The news here is that
the molecular pathway
that controls the size of the guard cells has been elucidated, showing how a string of enzymes called kinases interact to sense CO
2
levels and control the flow of water into and out of the guard cells, changing their size and shape. | 21 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6559451",
"author": "Nick",
"timestamp": "2022-12-26T00:21:38",
"content": "Too many stars on the flags if that was supposed to be during WWII.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6559453",
"author": "Paul LeBlanc",
"timesta... | 1,760,372,452.771891 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/23/chainless-digital-drive-bikes-use-electric-power-transmission-instead/ | Chainless “Digital Drive” Bikes Use Electric Power Transmission Instead | Lewin Day | [
"Transportation Hacks"
] | [
"bicycle",
"bike",
"digital drive",
"e-bike",
"ebike"
] | We’re all familiar with how regular bikes work, with the pedals connected to the rear wheel via a simple chain drive. This setup is lightweight, cheap, and highly efficient. It’s not the only way to drive a bike though, and
there’s plenty of buzz around the concept of “digital drive” bikes.
Look, ma – no chains!
These drivetrains rely on electrical methods to transfer power in place of mechanical. The pedals are used to turn an electric generator, with power then sent to an electric motor which drives the rear wheel. The concept may sound overly complicated, but it does offer some benefits. The generator can change its operation to keep the rider pedalling at their most efficient, consistent rate. There would also be no chain to fall off, get snagged on clothing, or require regular maintenance.
It would make integrating regenerative braking possible, too, allowing the bike to harvest energy when going downhill too. This could be achieved with a storage battery or supercapacitor. As a bonus, it would be very easy to integrate power assist for the rider when tackling tough hills, for example. The lack of requirement for direct mechanical power transfer also means that there’s far more flexibility to design a bike with interesting geometry.
Such drive systems do give up some efficiency, however. All the power conversions between mechanical and electrical energy mean that a “digital drive” would likely only be 58% efficient. This compares poorly to the roughly 95% efficiency of power transfer in regular mechanically-driven bikes. There’s also a weight penalty, too.
Presnetly, there’s only one “digital drive” bike on the market – known as the Mando Footloose. It’s a swooping, folding, futuristic design, that has some feel issues when it comes to pedalling. And, given the added complexity and expense of these systems, it’s unlikely
regular bikes
or
e-bikes
are going away any time soon. Regardless, it’s fun to think about the potential for other drivetrain concepts to change the way we cycle. Video after the break.
[Thanks to Keith Olson for the tip!] | 140 | 37 | [
{
"comment_id": "6557999",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2022-12-24T03:04:45",
"content": "Thanks. I hate it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6558001",
"author": "Nick",
"timestamp": "2022-12-24T03:10:49",
"content": "This can’t ... | 1,760,372,453.203607 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/23/harmonic-vs-cycloidal-show-down/ | Harmonic Vs Cycloidal Show Down | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"cycloidal drive",
"drive",
"harmonic drive"
] | What’s better? Harmonic or cycloidal drive? We aren’t sure, but we know who to ask. [How To Mechatronics]
3D printed both kinds of gearboxes and ran them through several tests
. You can see the video of the testing below.
The two gearboxes are the same size, and both have a 25:1 reduction ratio. The design uses the relatively cheap maker version of SolidWorks. Watching the software process is interesting, too. But the real meat of the video is the testing of the two designs.
You can also download the models yourself if you want to try your own testing. The blog post is “under construction,” but you can see some of the testing in the video. For example, the drives did show differences in backlash and torque testing. He also looked at some of the wear on key parts during failures.
Both of these drives look great, and depending on your needs, you might prefer one to another. But we always love these head-to-head tests. It makes it easier to do a trade-off analysis for your next design.
We’ve seen [How To Mechatronics]
explain drive mechanisms before
. If you think a
3D-printed gearbox can’t build up a lot of torque
, you’d be wrong. | 13 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6557954",
"author": "MacAttack",
"timestamp": "2022-12-24T01:39:09",
"content": "Excellent !!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6557986",
"author": "Andrew",
"timestamp": "2022-12-24T02:23:50",
"content": "tl;dw what’s... | 1,760,372,452.820224 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/23/this-wifi-signal-strength-meter-aint-afraid-of-no-ghosts/ | This WiFi Signal Strength Meter Ain’t Afraid Of No Ghosts | Dan Maloney | [
"Misc Hacks",
"Wireless Hacks"
] | [
"aervo",
"movie prop",
"pke",
"Raspberry Pi Pico W",
"RSSI",
"wifi"
] | The original
Ghostbusters
movie is a classic that’s still delivering nearly 40 years after its release — just let that sink in for a minute. Almost every aspect of the film, from hand props to quotes, is instantly recognizable, even to people who haven’t based their lives on the teachings of [Venkman], [Stantz], and [Spengler]. To wit, we present
this PKE meter-style WiFi scanner
.
Of course, [Kevin McAleer]’s project is strictly in the “Just for Fun” category. But that doesn’t mean it’s not at least somewhat useful. The design is pretty close to the original PKE meter, with a little bit of creative license taken to make it easier to build. Guts include a Raspberry Pi Pico W and a generous 320×240 LCD display. The body of the meter is entirely 3D printed; design files are of course available. The meter’s arms are geared together to move with a single hobby servo.
On the software side, [Kevin]’s GUI lets users see a list of WiFi hotspots in the area and select one from the list. From there, the position of the arms is determined by the RSSI for the hotspot, similar to how the prop was supposed to indicate the proximity to a spook, specter, or ghost. There’s perhaps a bit of a missed opportunity by not adding LEDs to the arms, but we’ll let that slide.
The video below has full design and build details, but fair warning that it’s a bit on the long side. That’s probably just a reflection of how much work [Kevin] put into this, though. Of course, you may rather build a PKE meter that “actually” detects ghosts, in which case
we’ve got you covered
. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6557838",
"author": "The Ghost of Christmas Past",
"timestamp": "2022-12-23T22:17:48",
"content": "Does Wi-Fi experience ghosting like TV?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6558044",
"author": "Bruce Ferrell",
"t... | 1,760,372,452.625153 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/23/laser-scanning-microscope-built-with-blu-ray-parts/ | Laser Scanning Microscope Built With Blu-ray Parts | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"blu-ray",
"microscope"
] | Laser scanning microscopes are useful for all kinds of tiny investigations. As it turns out, you can build one using parts salvaged from a Blu-ray player,
as demonstrated by [Doctor Volt]
.
The trick is repurposing the optical pickup unit that is typically used to read optical discs. In particular, the build relies on the photodiodes that are usually used to compute focus error when tracking a disc. To turn this into a laser scanning microscope, the optical pickup is fitted to a 3D printed assembly that can slew it linearly for imaging purposes.
Meanwhile, the Blu-ray player’s hardware is repurposed to create a sample tray that slews on the orthogonal axis for full X-Y control. An ESP32 is then charged with running motion control and the laser. It also captures signals from the photodiodes and sends them to a computer for collation and display.
[Doctor Volt] demonstrates the microscope by imaging a small fabric fragment. The scanned area covers less than 1 mm x 1 mm, with a resolution of 127 x 127, though this could be improved with finer pitch on the slew mechanisms.
While it’s hardly what we’d call a beginner’s project, this technique still looks a lot more approachable than
building your own scanning electron microscope
. | 14 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6557769",
"author": "The m",
"timestamp": "2022-12-23T20:44:36",
"content": "He sounds like rainier wulfcastle.Impressive hack however!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6557805",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2022-12-... | 1,760,372,452.584229 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/23/your-next-airport-meal-may-be-delivered-by-robot/ | Your Next Airport Meal May Be Delivered By Robot | Lewin Day | [
"Current Events",
"Featured",
"Interest",
"Robots Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"delivery robot",
"hackaday",
"robot",
"robot delivery",
"robotics",
"robots"
] | Robot delivery has long been touted as a game-changing technology of the future. However, it still hasn’t cracked the big time. Drones still aren’t airdropping packages into our gutters by accident, nor are our pizzas brought to us via self-driving cars.
That’s not to say that able minds aren’t working on the problem. In one case, a group of engineers are working ton a robot that will handle
the crucial duty of delivering food to hungry flyers at the airport.
Tacos To Gate 37, And Step On It!
Eating at the airport can be a bit of a crapshoot. Seating is usually limited, with thousands upon thousands of people passing through in any given day. Even if you get to the airport early, you might struggle to find somewhere to sit down and eat. Get there late, or get a bad security line, and you might not have time to order food before you need to walk to your gate. Airports are typically large, sprawling complexes, and the food outlet you desire may be on the opposite side of the building to where you’re boarding your plane.
Robot delivery could potentially solve these issues by delivering food directly to passengers at the gate. It’s this problem that robotics startup Ottonomy set out to solve, working in partnership with Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport.
In the cluttered, indoor environment of an airport, GPS and
other satellite constellations
simply aren’t usable for navigation. Instead, Ottonomy’s Ottobot relies on
lidar
, cameras, and ultrasonic sensors to detect obstacles and find its way around the environment. The company created proprietary software for mapping indoor environments, in order to give its robots the necessary 3D map to get around their workspace.
Airports can get incredibly crowded, and early on, the team found that navigation in these situations was difficult. This led to the Ottobot’s current configuration, in which every wheel is motorized and capable of steering. This lets the robot crab sideways, execute a zero-radius turn, or tightly swerve around corners, both of which are useful to get around tight spaces. The drivetrain was inspired by electric wheelchairs. Just like an electric wheelchair, the Ottobot needs a tight turning circle and the ability to deal with lumps, bumps and kerbs, at times.
Several compartments on the bot are used to store various items a customer might order. As is becoming common in food delivery, this would allow the necessary separation of cold drinks and hot food, for example. The Ottobot is also capable of raising and lowering its ride height. It might seem like a curious feature, but it helps the robot serve a greater range of customers. The robot can lower itself down to allow a child to pickup an order, or raise itself to help a customer that can’t easily bend over. Notably, the company has kept the cabin design modular so that it can be customized by end-users to suit different delivery roles.
As with most any autonomous system humans have ever built, there’s always a risk that things will go wrong. In the event that an Ottobot can’t figure out where it is or where it’s going, staff can take over control to get the robot out of trouble. This feature is particularly useful if the robot finds itself in an unexpected situation. The robots also feature a “How Am I Driving?” sticker on the back, that invites feedback on the robots performance.
Having a “How am I driving? sticker on the robots is good for accountability, and can help ease public concerns around potential safety issues.
Credit: Screenshot,
Ottonomy IO – YouTube
The order process relies on an app called Crave. Customers can scan a QR code at their gate or at the restaurant location itself, and then place an order through the app. Rather than putting in their home address, the customer then provides their desired delivery location in the airport, such as their gate number. When the food is ready, it’s loaded into the robot by the restaurant, and then the robot heads off to find the customer. According to Ottonomy, deliveries can be as quick as 10 minutes for orders of retail snacks, or 20 to 25 minutes for those that are freshly prepared by a restaurant.
The robots are being rolled out to several locations for testing, with a pilot program at Rome Airport among various future deployments. The robots were also recently tested at Pittsburgh International Airport,
with passengers offered a free drink
for helping to trial the system.
Ottonomy obviously isn’t the only company in the robot delivery space.
Other notable competitors we’ve seen before
include Neubility, LG, and Baemin. It’s interesting to note that many of these companies have converged on similar designs. These robots typically feature the same kinds of sensor packages, drive systems, and overall layouts. The vast majority resemble a cooler on wheels that’s designed to be highly maneuverable and handle regular urban terrain. When your rivals have come up with similar solutions, it can be a sign that you’re on the right track.
Overall, airport food delivery seems like an achievable challenge for robotics startups to solve. In relatively-controlled spaces like airports, the risks are low. With the right packaging choices, the smell from potent curries shouldn’t pollute another customer’s salad. An integrated system for customers to report problems should allow any messy robots to be readily sent back for cleaning in the event of spills, too.
A slow robot with enough sensors not to run over people shouldn’t have too much trouble delivering some food from point A to point B. Perhaps the most likely problem is that the robots will be unable to handle navigating around an airport when passenger volumes are highest. Heavy foot traffic would slow deliveries in these conditions, which would also be when demand is highest. And of course, the time to get back from point B to point A also has to be factored in to every delivery.
At the extremes, if the robots become completely unable to move, they could become frustrating roadblocks for passengers in a hurry. Stress testing a robot delivery system would be ideal, but it’s hard to imagine any artificial test measuring up to the sheer havoc and chaos of Thanksgiving weekend at LAX.
In any case, it seems likely that robot delivery will gradually become more common as the technology matures and kinks are worked out. Get familiar with your robot delivery pals, and be friendly, lest they shake up your soda by using their lidar to find a particularly rough bit of pavement just to spite you! | 26 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6557694",
"author": "Zach",
"timestamp": "2022-12-23T18:39:50",
"content": "Already picturing them cyberpunk muggers ambushing your robots in dark alleys for free food and parts",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6557745",
"aut... | 1,760,372,452.97961 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/23/hackaday-podcast-198-major-tom-on-the-iss-3dp-ovals-and-overhangs-inside-a-mini-cheetah-clone/ | Hackaday Podcast 198: Major Tom On The ISS, 3DP Ovals And Overhangs, Inside A Mini Cheetah Clone | Dan Maloney | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Podcasts"
] | [
"Hackaday Podcast"
] | As we slide into the Christmas break, Editor-in-Chief Elliot Williams and Staff Writer Dan Maloney look at the best and brightest of this week’s hacks. It wasn’t an easy task — so much good stuff to choose from! But they figured it out, and talked about everything from impossible (and semi-fractal) 3D printing overhangs and the unfortunate fishies of Berlin’s ex-aquarium, to rolling your own FM radio station and how a spinning Dorito of doom is a confusing way to make an electric vehicle better.
Think it’s no fun when your friend forgets to pick you up at the airport? Wait until you hear about what it’s like to get stuck on the ISS, and the incredibly risky way you might have to get home. Interested in the anatomy and physiology of a cloned robo-dog? Then let the master do a teardown and give you his insight. We’ll make some time for tea, cross our eyes for stereo photos, and dive into the mechanics of the USB-C.
Download the podcast and put it on a minidisc for the reindeer.
Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!
Where to Follow Hackaday Podcast
Places to follow Hackaday podcasts:
iTunes
Spotify
Stitcher
RSS
YouTube
Check
out our Libsyn landing page
Episode 198 Show Notes:
News:
Winter Storm Could Cause Holiday Travel Nightmares
Raspberry Pi 5 Not Launching Until After 2023
What’s that Sound?
If you’ve got a guess for this week’s What’s That Sound,
enter here
.
Interesting Hacks of the Week:
Arc Overhangs Make “Impossible” 3D Prints
Supercon 2022: Sam Mulvey Shows You How To FM Radio
Hackaday Links: November 20, 2022
– Final item is about the FM supertower
Mini Cheetah Clone Teardown, By None Other Than Original Designer
Robot Dog Has Animal Magnetism
The Physics Behind The Collapse Of A Huge Aquarium
Books You Should Read: Why Buildings Fall Down
Plastics: Acrylic
Photography, The Stereo Way
Inexpensive Reading Glasses Become Stereoscope
Raspberry Pi Cameras Stand In For Stereo Microscope
Mazda Patents Spinning Dorito To Extend EV Range
Quick Hacks:
Elliot’s Picks:
Morphing Keyboard Gets You Dialed In Just Right
The Gallium Nitride Revolution
More Detail On That Fantastic Lego OLED Brick
Dan’s Picks:
Top Up Your Teapot In Time With This E-ink Tea Timer
Foot Pedal Ups Vim Productivity, Brings Ergonomic Benefits
Say The Magic Word, And The TinySA Goes Ultra
Can’t-Miss Articles:
Damaged Soyuz May Leave Crew Without A Ride Home
All About USB-C: Connector Mechanics
Fail Of The Week: Hackaday Writer Attempts Xbox Repair | 0 | 0 | [] | 1,760,372,452.862194 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/23/working-with-i2s-compatible-fm-tuners/ | Working With I2S-Compatible FM Tuners | Lewin Day | [
"Parts",
"Radio Hacks"
] | [
"fm radio",
"i2c",
"I2S",
"radio"
] | While the Internet is a great place to get access to any music or audio you can dream of, there’s still a place for broadcast radio. [mit41301] has recently been exploring
implementing a simple FM tuner chip in various projects.
The chip in question is the RDA7088, which is designed to require the bare minimum in external components, and is available in a compact SOP16 package. As per
the datasheet,
it was intended for use in applications like portable radios, PDAs, cell phones, and MP3 players.
[mit41301]’s first attempt involved using the chip as a simple tuner, hooked up to a PIC10F200 for control. Investigation revealed it was capable of outputting digital audio via I2S, while being commanded via I2C. By default, it spits out audio at a low sample rate of 8 kHz, but reconfiguration will jump that up to 44.1 or 48 kHz. Piping that digital I2S stream out to a DAC then delivers analog output that can be fed to an amplifier. The build also got remote control, with the PIC handling decoding IR signals and outputting commands to the radio chip.
Following this success, [mit41301] then went further, hooking up an ESP-01 to the chip
to try and get RDS going
. If you’re unfamiliar with the Radio Data System, it’s a way for short textual messages to be sent out by FM broadcasters. In addition to the duties carried out by the PIC module, the ESP-01 is also charged with receiving RDS data from the RDA7088, and outputting it to a display.
While using such chips is routine in industry, it’s always great to see a DIY guide to interfacing with specific hardware. If you want to integrate FM radio into your own projects, the RDA7088 is a simple and easy way to do so. We’ve seen similar work before,
adding FM radio to the Raspberry Pi. | 9 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6557641",
"author": "Sgt X",
"timestamp": "2022-12-23T17:13:39",
"content": "Here’s a slightly less chinesium URL for the datasheet:https://download.datasheets.com/pdfs/2013/3/19/1/8/39/168/rda_/manual/rda7088.pdf",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
... | 1,760,372,453.02755 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/24/drone-rescue-uses-vhs-tape-and-careful-planning/ | Drone Rescue Uses VHS Tape And Careful Planning | Lewin Day | [
"drone hacks"
] | [
"drone",
"drone rescue",
"FPV",
"rescue"
] | If you regularly fly your drones outdoors, you’ve probably worried about getting your pride and joy stuck in a big tree at some point. But flying indoors doesn’t guarantee you’ll be safe either, as [Scott Williamson] found out. He once got his tiny 65 mm Mobula 6HD quadcopter stuck in a roof beam at an indoor sports complex,
and had to set about a daring rescue.
The first job was recon, with [Scott] sending up another drone to survey the situation. From there, he set about trying to prod the stuck quadcopter free with a improvised lance fitted to the front of a larger drone. But this ended up simply getting the larger bird stuck as well. It eventually managed to free itself, though it was damaged severely when [Scott] caught it as it fell. As told to Hackaday, [Scott] thus decided he needed to build a mock-up of the situation at home, to help him devise a rescue technique.
In the end, [Scott] settled on a grappling hook made of paperclips. A drone lofted a long length of VHS tape over the roof beam, and he then attached the grappling hook from ground level. The VHS tape was then used to reel the hook up to the rafters, and snare the drone, bringing it back down to Earth.
It took some perseverance, but [Scott] ended up rescuing his tiny drone from its lofty prison. The part we love most about this story, though, is that [Scott] planned the recovery like a
heist
or a
cave rescue operation. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6558754",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-12-25T00:32:59",
"content": "Ah! The Old Charlie Brown Predicament!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6558803",
"author": "Comedicles",
"timestamp": "2022-12-25T02:05:08",
... | 1,760,372,453.299504 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/24/spotify-player-brings-back-physical-media/ | Spotify Player Brings Back Physical Media | Navarre Bartz | [
"digital audio hacks",
"hardware",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"audio",
"audio streaming",
"music",
"rfid",
"spotify",
"streaming audio"
] | Digital music has made keeping all your tunes with you a lot more convenient, but have we lost something with dematerialization? [Jordi Parra] felt that there was something lacking with the digital music experience and designed a
Spotify player with a tactile interface
.
Specific playlists are selected via small RFID tags that look like a
cross between a MiniDisc
and a vinyl record. As this is a prototype, an Arduino reads the RFID tag, but needs a computer to actually play the Spotify playlist. Future iterations could include an integrated speaker and run libspotify to create a self-contained device.
While there is still work to do for a fully seamless experience, we love the details in the industrial design of this project. Clean simple lines and a combination of wood and more modern materials make this feel like a timeless piece of tech. Definitely check out the
full photo gallery
including shots of the really impressive packaging.
Want more digital music with a tactile interface? Check out this
MP3 Player Shelf
or a
Simple Internet Radio Transplant
. | 21 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6558652",
"author": "Michael Black",
"timestamp": "2022-12-24T22:07:15",
"content": "I’ll just pop a CD in the player. I just got Laura Nyro’s first album. Well I’ve had it on record, now on CD.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id"... | 1,760,372,453.255333 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/24/blinky-project-is-6502s-all-the-way-down/ | Blinky Project Is 6502s All The Way Down | Lewin Day | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"6502",
"blink",
"emulation",
"emulator",
"mips",
"pic32"
] | Virtually any platform you might find yourself programming on has some simple method of running a delay. [Joey Shepard] got rather creative on a recent project, though, relying on a rather silly nesting method that we’re calling
6502s All The Way Down.
The project in question was a simple PCB that was shaped like a robot, with blinking LED eyes. Typically, you’d simply reach for the usual sleep() or delay() function to control the blink rate, but [Joey] went off-piste for this one. Instead, the PIC32 on the board runs a 6502 emulator written in MIPS assembly. This emulated 6502 is then charged with running a further 6502 emulator coded in 6502 assembly, and so on, until there’s 6502 emulators running six-deep on the humble microcontroller. The innermost emulator runs a simple program that blinks the LED eyes in a simple loop. With the overhead of running six emulators, though, the eyes only blink at a rate of roughly once every two seconds.
It’s an amusing and complicated way to write a blink program, and we applaud [Joey] for going to all that trouble. We imagine it was a great way to learn about programming the PIC32 as well as
emulation in general
. Meanwhile, if you’re working on your own emulator feats,
be sure to let us know! | 19 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6558558",
"author": "Severe Tire Damage",
"timestamp": "2022-12-24T19:12:03",
"content": "A 6502 emulator? Bah! The only reasonable way to do this (not not a 555) is an FPGA configured to be running a 6502 at maybe 100 Mhz. I don’t see that anything else really makes sense for so... | 1,760,372,455.420022 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/24/a-hackers-christmas-story/ | A Hacker’s Christmas Story | Elliot Williams | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Rants"
] | [
"christmas",
"diy",
"diy or buy",
"presents"
] | Twas the night before Christmas, and because I decided to make everyone’s presents myself this year, I’m still working like mad to get everything done before the big deadline. Why do I do this to myself? Well, partly because I enjoy the process.
My wife had this idea that we can make the older folks some fun decorative blinky things, and picked some motives. My son then drew them out on paper, and I scanned those drawings in and traced them over in CAD. We then cut the shapes out of wood on the CNC router, which turned out to be incredibly successful. (Now that I’ve done it, I wouldn’t be surprised if all of those “quirky” decorative objects that the Swedish flat-packers sell aren’t initially sketched out by third graders.)
Then my son painted them, and it’s my job to insert the twinkling. I bought some of those three-wire “fairy lights” for the purpose, and they’re really fun to hack on. They’re like WS2812s, only instead of using four pins and shifting the data downstream, they’re on a bus, each with a hard-coded address – they know where they are in the string and each LED only listens for the Nth set of 24 bits. This means sending 200 color codes just to light up the 4 LEDs in Aunt Micki’s decorative tree, but so be it.
Last stop, and still to do as of the 23rd, route out some kind of wooden battery case, wedge in the LiPo and the charging circuits, and solder on an on/off switch. It’s down to the last minute, but isn’t that always the way?
Definitely would have been easier just to order something online. But is that the spirit of giving? No! The DIY way brings the family together, gets me some quality time with the CNC machine, and tones up my FreeCAD skills. My son even looked over my shoulder as we were coding some of the LED animations. And nothing says Christmas like hand-coded blinkies.
Happy Holidays, y’all!
This article is part of the Hackaday.com newsletter, delivered every seven days for each of the last 200+ weeks. It also includes our favorite articles from the last seven days that you can see on
the web version of the newsletter
.
Want this type of article to hit your inbox every Friday morning?
You should sign up
! | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6558454",
"author": "Alphatek",
"timestamp": "2022-12-24T15:44:53",
"content": "I guess this is as good a place as any…Merry Christmas and a hacky new year to all the staff and commenters! May your stockings be filled with PCBs, and the new year bring the components to fill them.",
... | 1,760,372,454.977845 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/24/how-to-restore-a-musical-amiga/ | How To Restore A Musical Amiga | Bryan Cockfield | [
"News"
] | [
"amiga",
"audio",
"battery",
"circuit",
"commodore",
"filter",
"midi",
"music",
"restoration",
"retro",
"retrocomputer"
] | Despite the huge strides in computing power and functionality that have been achieved in the past few decades, there are still some things that older computers can do which are basically impossible on modern machines. This doesn’t just include the ability to use older hardware that’s now obsolete, either, although that is certainly a perk. In
this two-part restoration of an Amiga 500
, [Jeremy] shows us some of these features like the ability to directly modify the audio capabilities of this retro machine.
The restoration starts by fixing some damage and cleaning up the rest of the machine so it could be powered up for the first time in 30 years. Since it was in fairly good shape he then started on the fun part, which was working with this computer’s audio capabilities. It includes a number of amplifiers and filters in hardware that can be switched on or off, so he rebuilt these with new op-amps and added some new controls so that while he is using his MIDI software he can easily change how it sounds. He also restored the floppy disk drives and cleaned up the yellowing on the plastic parts to improve the overall appearance, as well as some other general improvements.
These old Amigas have a lot going for them, but since [Jeremy] is a musician he mostly focused on bringing back some of the musical functionality of his childhood computer, although he did build up a lot of extra features in this machine as well. These types of audio circuits are not something found in modern computers, though, so to get a similar sound without using original hardware you’ll need to build something like
this NES audio processing unit programmed in Verilog
. | 21 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6558355",
"author": "Jerry",
"timestamp": "2022-12-24T12:48:45",
"content": "I still have a 500 in the back room. Perhaps it’s time to blow the dust off of it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6558540",
"author": "Ren",... | 1,760,372,454.88265 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/24/corefreq-gives-peek-at-cpu-performance-info-on-linux/ | CoreFreq Gives Peek At CPU Performance Info On Linux | Lewin Day | [
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"command line",
"command line interface",
"command line tools",
"linux",
"performance monitor",
"terminal"
] | The CPU is the part of the computer that makes everything else tick. While GPUs have increasingly become a key part of overall system performance, we still find ourselves wanting to know how our CPU is doing.
CoreFreq is a Linux tool
that aims to tell you everything you want to know about your modern 64-bit CPU.
The tool relies on a kernel module, and is coded primarily in C, with some assembly code used to measure performance as accurately as possible. It’s capable of reporting everything from core frequencies to details on hyper-threading and turbo boost operation. Other performance reports include information on instructions per cycle or instructions per second, and of course, all the thermal monitoring data you could ask for. It all runs in the terminal, which helps keep overheads low.
The hardcore among us can build it from source, available on
GitHub
, though it’s reportedly available in package form, and as a live CD, too. We could imagine data captured from CoreFreq could be used
for some fun performance visualizations, too.
If you’ve been whipping up your own nifty command-line tools, be sure to
drop us a line! | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6558218",
"author": "nick black",
"timestamp": "2022-12-24T09:15:53",
"content": "be sure to take a look at turbostat(8) as well (installed from the kernel tools/ directory).",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6558232",
"author... | 1,760,372,454.929134 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/23/an-almost-single-chip-apple-iie/ | An (Almost) Single-Chip Apple IIe | Navarre Bartz | [
"computer hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"65c02",
"apple",
"Apple //e",
"Apple 2"
] | The Apple II is one of the most iconic microcomputers, and [James Lewis] decided to use the Mega-II “Apple IIe on a chip” from an Apple IIgs to build
a tiny Apple IIe
.
While there was an Apple II compatibility card using the related Gemini chip, it was initially unclear whether the Mega-II could even work outside of an Apple IIgs given the lack of documentation for either Apple II SOC. [Lewis] did finally get the Mega-II to boot after a great deal of effort in debugging and design. The system is built with three boards: the Mega-II and RAM board, a CPU board with a
65C02
, and a video out board.
To simplify routing, the boards are all four layer PCBs. Unfortunately, the chips needed to make this system, especially the Mega-II, aren’t available on their own and must be harvested from an existing IIgs. [Lewis] took care to make sure any desoldering or other part removal was done in a way that it could be reversed. If you want to see all the nitty gritty details, check out his
GitHub for the project
.
If you want another 6502-based computer in a tiny package, why not try this one
built on Perf+ boards
? | 10 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6558143",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2022-12-24T07:09:19",
"content": "Be interesting if one took a die picture of the mega-II.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6558295",
"author": "xotmatrix",
"timesta... | 1,760,372,455.166543 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/25/not-can-it-run-doom-but-can-doom-run-it/ | Not Can It Run DOOM, But Can DOOM Run It? | Jenny List | [
"Games"
] | [
"does doom run it",
"doom",
"DOOM computer"
] | It’s the standard test for a hardware hack, half serious half in jest, “
Can it run DOOM?”.
The iconic early-90s shooter from id software has made an appearance on everything from toothbrushes to LEGO bricks, but nobody has yet posed the opposite question:
Can DOOM run it?
“. It’s one answered by [Danny Spencer], who has proved that it’s possible to perform computational tasks in the game by producing
a working adding machine in a DOOM level
.
If you’re familiar with the folks who build
working computers within Minecraft
, this is in a similar vein. Game elements are used to create logic elements, and from there more complex systems can be assembled. DOOM doesn’t have the in-game logic that Minecraft has, but by clever combination of monster behaviour with in-game actions involving rooms, buttons, and doors, it’s possible to create the simplest of building blocks, the NAND gate.
The video below the break shows the adder in action, first in operation (we like the monster-driven display!), and then a tour of the logic area with its rooms full of computational monsters. It’s important to note that this isn’t a computer, he hasn’t proved it as Turing complete, and that the maximum size of a DOOM level whatever it is will impose an upper limit on what can be done. But it does show that in theory at least a computer can be made in DOOM, and we’re sure people will continue this work. | 15 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6559354",
"author": "mt22",
"timestamp": "2022-12-25T21:05:03",
"content": "I can’t want to run Doom… on Doom!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6559382",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-12-25T21:58:12",
... | 1,760,372,455.070149 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/25/self-propelled-chainsaw-reduces-injuries/ | Self-Propelled Chainsaw Reduces Injuries | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"board",
"chainsaw",
"jig",
"log",
"lumber",
"self-propelled",
"track",
"wood"
] | [Advoko] is an expert at milling logs into various sizes of boards. He typically uses nothing but a chainsaw to enable him to mill on-site without needing to bring any large or expensive equipment. The only problem is that sometimes he gets a little carried away running his mill non-stop until he has enough lumber for whatever project he is building, which has led to some repetitive strain injuries. To enable him to continue to run his mill, he’s created
this self-propelled chainsaw jig
.
The creation of the self-propelled chainsaw was a little serendipitous. [Advoko] needed to mill a tree which had fallen on a slope, and he couldn’t move the large trunk before starting to mill. To avoid fatigue while pulling his chainsaw upwards, he devised a system of rubber belts that would help pull the weight of the chainsaw up the hill. Noticing that if the chainsaw could have been operated downhill, it would essentially pull itself along the cut, he set about building a carriage for the mill to hold the chainsaw in place while it semi-autonomously milled lumber for him.
The chainsaw jig isn’t fully autonomous; [Advoko] still needs to start and stop the chainsaw and set up the jig. It does have a number of safety features to prevent damage to the jig, the chainsaw, and himself too, and over a number of iterations of this device he has perfected it to the point where he can start it on a cut and then do other tasks such as move boards or set up other logs for cutting while it is running, saving him both time and reducing his risk of other repetitive strain injuries. If you don’t fully trust the automatic chainsaw jig,
take a look at this one
which requires a little more human effort but still significantly reduces the strain of milling a large log. | 30 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6559275",
"author": "Piecutter",
"timestamp": "2022-12-25T18:04:54",
"content": "Now, that’s five words I never thought I’d hear strung together!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6559282",
"author": "thoriumbr",
... | 1,760,372,455.325722 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/25/virtualizing-iphoneos-1-0/ | Virtualizing IPhoneOS 1.0 | Al Williams | [
"Phone Hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"iphone",
"iphoneOS",
"qemu"
] | Virtualizing computers is nothing new. However, Apple devices always present challenges. Just ask anyone who has built a Hackintosh. At least computer hardware is usually exposed, but on phones, the challenge is even harder due to mysterious devices. [Martijn] managed to reverse engineer the iPod Touch 1G enough to run iPhoneOS 1.0 on it and has several blog posts
explaining how he did it
.
The emulator is the ubiquitous QEMU. He has emulation for the critical hardware, including the cryptographic modules, the hardware clock, and the timer, along with memory and display and interface hardware. However, Wifi, some USB, audio, the light sensor, and some graphics hardware are still absent. That doesn’t stop the OS from booting, however.
The posts give a good explanation of how the device boots, and apparently, the openiBoot project’s code was helpful in figuring the whole thing out. It isn’t perfect. The keyboard crashes things, for example. But it is a major step just to get this far. The second post outlines how to set up QEMU if you want to have your own attempt at it.
On the one hand, the device is just another ARM processor, which QEMU
handles quite well
. On the other hand, all the strange hardware makes it tricky to emulate, reverse engineer, or
even repair
. | 3 | 1 | [
{
"comment_id": "6559425",
"author": "David",
"timestamp": "2022-12-25T23:19:11",
"content": "Iphoneos sounds like a greek god",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6559605",
"author": "Tim",
"timestamp": "2022-12-26T07:08:51",
... | 1,760,372,455.017665 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/25/encoding-ntsc-with-your-hands-tied/ | Encoding NTSC With Your Hands Tied | Matthew Carlson | [
"Software Development"
] | [
"c++",
"emulator",
"ntsc",
"visual effect"
] | Generally, when trying to implement some protocol, you are constrained by your hardware and time. But for someone like [EMMIR], that’s not enough. For example,
NTSC-CRT is a video signal encoding/decoding simulator
with no hardware acceleration, floating point math, or third-party libraries. Just basic C.
While
NTSC has officially gone dark in America
, people still make their
own ATTiny-powered transmitters
. NTSC is a bit of a strange standard and is sometimes referred to as
never-twice-the-same color
, but it does produce a distinct look.
That look is what [EMMIR] was going for. It encodes a message in a ppm format into NTSC and then back in ppm with some configurable noise. It can do this in real-time as an effect in [EMMIR’s] engine or on a rendered image via a CLI. It looks incredible, and there’s something very satisfying. There’s a video after the break showing off the effect. The code is pretty short and easy to read. | 10 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6559157",
"author": "Gravis",
"timestamp": "2022-12-25T14:22:05",
"content": "People may not realize it but this is fantastic! I saw this of course because many emulators of older consoles (from when video outputs were analog) seek to produce the most accurate representation and thi... | 1,760,372,455.370154 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/25/the-spit-detecting-usb-flash-drive-is-nearly-here/ | The Spit-Detecting USB Flash Drive Is Nearly Here | Tom Nardi | [
"Security Hacks",
"Tech Hacks"
] | [
"flash drive",
"Ovrdrive",
"self destruct",
"usb drive"
] | Regular readers may recall that security researcher and general open source hardware fanatic [Walker] has been planning a rather unusual flash drive for some time — one that will only show its contents if the user makes sure to lick their fingers before plugging it in. We’re pleased to report that theory has recently given way to real hardware, and the
Ovrdrive “self-destructing” flash drive is now a step closer to reality
.
The
last time we checked in with [Walker]
, he hadn’t yet put any hardware together, though he was fairly sure what components he would need and how it would all go together. This was assisted somewhat by the fact that USB flash drives are such a ubiquitous piece of tech, making their principle parts plentiful and fairly well documented. As explained in the video below, all you really need to spin up your own flash drive is the USB connector, the controller chip, and a nice slab of flash memory for it to access. Though naturally you’re on your own for spit detection.
The build video has some gorgeous camera work.
What we especially like about this project is that [Walker] is releasing the whole thing as open source hardware. So even if you’re not interested in the whole lick-for-access feature, you’ve still got a boilerplate flash drive design to build on. We haven’t seen a lot of DIY projects tackle USB Mass Storage previously, and perhaps this design can change that.
But of course, only if the thing works. According to the video after the break, [Walker] seems to have hit a snag with this revision of the hardware. While it enumerates as a storage device when plugged into the computer, the operating system claims its capacity is zero. He thinks there might be a swapped trace between the controller and flash chip to blame, so hopefully he can get things sorted out before too long.
We’ve been covering this project since the summer
, and are eager to see it cross the finish line.
Editor’s Note:
This is unrelated to the flash drive itself, but let’s take a moment to appreciate the
shout-out to the developers of all the open source software
used to produce the project and the accompanying video that [Walker] added to the end of the presentation. We should all remember to pay respect to the folks that make so much of what we do possible. | 17 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6559068",
"author": "elwing",
"timestamp": "2022-12-25T11:45:43",
"content": "no thermite involved, what a pity…",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6559406",
"author": "Carl Zeiss",
"timestamp": "2022-12-25T22:34:... | 1,760,372,455.124817 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/24/non-replaceable-battery-not-if-this-proposed-eu-law-passes/ | Non-Replaceable Battery? Not If This Proposed EU Law Passes! | Jenny List | [
"News",
"Repair Hacks"
] | [
"batteries",
"European Union",
"right to repair"
] | A disturbing trend in consumer electronics has been a steady disappearance of replaceable batteries on our devices. Finding a mobile phone with a swapable battery is a struggle, and many other devices follow the trend by sealing in a Li-Po cell. The result is an ever-shorter life for electronics, and a greater problem with devices going to recycling or worse still, landfill. Hope is at hand though, thanks to
a proposed European Union law
that would if passed make batteries in appliances “
designed so that consumers can easily remove and replace them themselves
“.
In case any readers in the rest of the world wonder what it has to do with them, the EU represents such a huge market that manufacturers can neither ignore it, nor in most cases afford to make separate EU and rest-of-world versions of their products. Thus if the EU requires something for sale in its territories, in most cases it becomes the
de facto
norm for anything designed to be sold worldwide.
We’ve already seen this with the EU’s right to repair legislation
, and while we have not doubt that manufacturers will do their best to impede this new law we don’t think they will ultimately prevail.
Via
9to5Mac
. | 104 | 25 | [
{
"comment_id": "6558935",
"author": "William",
"timestamp": "2022-12-25T06:46:02",
"content": "I am of mixed feelings on this one. Sure it would be nice to be able to swap my iPhone battery, but there would be a cost both in terms of the bulkiness of the case and the water-proof-worthiness of the s... | 1,760,372,455.577216 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/24/a-dungeon-master-with-a-thermal-printer/ | A Dungeon Master With A Thermal Printer | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"dd",
"Dungeons and Dragons",
"html",
"printer",
"thermal printer"
] | The thermal printer is ubiquitous in today’s world, mostly found whenever we have to get a receipt from somewhere. They’re cheap, fast, and easy to use. Not only that, though, but as [Daniel] found out, they’re also pretty straightforward to re-program and use for other things than a three-foot-long receipt from a drug store.
He’s adapted them to serve as a key tool of the dungeon master in his D&D games
.
While he has adapted the most common thermal printer standard, the Epson Standard Code, the real fun of this project is in the user interface. He’s made it possible to build templates and other D&D-oriented sheets quickly via HTML, so the dungeon master can print out character sheets, items from the game, maps, or anything else they might possibly need at the time. It’s all highly configurable to whatever needs arise, and the interface works on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
All of the project code is located on
Daniel’s GitHub page
for anyone looking to try this out. Most thermal printers use this standard too, so cheap ones can easily be found and put to use as long as a roll of thermal paper is available. If the feel of thermal paper is bringing up some childhood nostalgia, it could be because you had the Game Boy Printer as a youth and are
looking for ways to recapture that thermal printer magic
. | 30 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6558873",
"author": "Raising concerns makes people pessimistic, right?",
"timestamp": "2022-12-25T04:35:10",
"content": "When you are simply rubbing your fingers across or picking these up, does that affect your character’s stats or yours? BPA or BPS or BPF instead (if it is “BPA Fr... | 1,760,372,455.640106 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/23/this-week-in-security-github-actions-sha-1-retirement-and-a-self-worming-vulnerability/ | This Week In Security: GitHub Actions, SHA-1 Retirement, And A Self-Worming Vulnerability | Jonathan Bennett | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"News",
"Security Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"lastpass",
"Okta",
"openai",
"This Week in Security"
] | It should be no surprise that running untrusted code in a GitHub Actions workflow can have unintended consequences. It’s a killer feature, to automatically run through a code test suite whenever a pull request is opened. But that pull request is run in some part of the target’s development environment, and there’s been a few clever attacks found over the years that take advantage of that. There’s now another one, what
Legit Security calls Github Environment Injection
, and there were some big-name organizations vulnerable to it.
The crux of the issue is the
$GITHUB_ENV
file, which contains environment variables to be set in the Actions environment. Individual variables get added to this file as part of the automated action, and that process needs to include some sanitization of data. Otherwise, an attacker can send an environment variable that includes a newline and completely unintended environment variable. And an unintended, arbitrary environment variable is game over for the security of the workflow. The example uses the
NODE_OPTIONS
variable to dump the entire environment to an accessible output. Any API keys or other secrets are revealed.
This particular attack was reported to GitHub, but there isn’t a practical way to fix it architecturally. So it’s up to individual projects to be very careful about writing untrusted data into the
$GITHUB_ENV
file.
Your Tires Are Leaking (Data)
Back a few years ago, [Mike Metzger] gave
a DEFCON talk about TPMS
, Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems. This nifty safety feature allows sensors in car tires to talk to the infotainment center, and warn when a tire is low. [Drew Griess] decided to
follow up on this bit of info
, and see just how practical it would be to use and abuse these gizmos.
An RTL_SDR and the very useful rtl_433 project do the job quite nicely. Add an antenna, and the signals are readable over fifty feet away. It really becomes interesting when you realize that each of those sensors have a unique ID sent in each ping. Need to track a vehicle? Just follow its tires!
SHA is dead, long live SHA
NIST has
formally announced the retirement of SHA-1
at the end of 2030, with the recommendation to move to SHA-2 or SHA-3 as soon as is possible. Which seems a bit odd, as SHA-1 has been considered broken for quite some time, most notably in the wake of the
SHAttered
demonstration from 2017, where two PDFs were generated with matching SHA-1 hashes. The latest iteration of that attack puts the cost of generating a collision, where the attacker controls both inputs, at a measly $45,000 of compute. The wheels of official change turn slowly at times.
OpenAI, Security Researcher
One of the tedious bits of reverse engineering is to work through the various functions, guess their purpose, and rename everything to something useful. If only there was a way to automate the process. Enter
Gepetto, a project from [Ivan Kwiatkowski]
, that asks OpenAI’s Davinci-003 model to describe what a decompiled function does. It’s packaged as an IDA Pro plugin, but the concept should apply to other decompilers, too. Step two is to fold that description back into the AI model, and ask it to name the function and variables. The normal warning applies — the AI chat engine will always generate a description that sounds good, but it may be wildly inaccurate.
Sovrin and Decentralized Vulnerabilities
The folks at
CyberArk took a look at the Decentralized IDentity (DID) landscape
, and found a
spectacularly bad vulnerability in the open source Sovrin network
. So first, DID is an attempt to do something genuinely useful on the blockchain, in this case storing identity information. Want to prove that your WordPress account is owned by the same person as your Twitter or Mastodon account? DID can help. The version of this idea that really gets our open source juices flowing is Self-Sovereign Identity, a DID network that allows the end users to have ultimate control over their own data. And for all that goodness, the network is still made up of servers running potentially vulnerable code. The
POOL_UPDGRADE
command is limited to authorized administrators of the given pool, but the code behind it uses a validate-then-authenticate paradigm.
Let’s chat about that for a moment. The order of operations can really matter. The first place I really had to think about this concept was while working on Single Packet Authorization in the Fwknop project. Those packets were a bit of request data, both encrypted and then authenticated with a shared key. Which should happen first? Did we want the data to get signed first, and then encrypted? Definitely no. The problem is when the message is received on the other side, the decryption process would happen first, on potentially untrusted data. If there was a vulnerability in the data parsing code, it could be triggered by an unauthenticated user. Instead, the Fwknop project intentionally used the encrypt-then-authenticate approach. So when receiving the incoming packet, the first step was to check the authentication, and drop the packet if it wasn’t from a known user.
Back to Sovrin, where the processing of an incoming command first went through a validation step, before checking for an authorized source. Part of that validation is to look at the packages in the upgrade command, and make a call to
dpkg
to verify that it’s a real package, using a simple concatenation to generate the command. And using
subprocess.run
with shell set to True. So it’s trivially exploitable with a semicolon and whatever command you want to run. And to make matters way worse, the upgrade command gets forwarded through the pool automatically, all before the authentication check. It’s not often that a vulnerability is self-worming. This one has a well-deserved 10.0 CVSS score. This one was privately disclosed back in May, and fixed less than a month later.
Bits and Bytes
Okta is having a rough year. After several breaches earlier this year,
Okta’s private GitHub repositories were accessed and copied by an attacker
. So far, it appears that no customer data was accessed, and to their credit, Okta has a security posture that “does not rely on the confidentiality of its source code as a means to secure its services.” It’s likely that this incident was a follow-on from the previous breach, using credentials obtained in that data.
And breaking just before we hit the presses,
Lastpass has revealed more information about the breach they suffered back in November
. It’s not good. We made an educated guess that the cause was an access token lost during a previous incident, but the latest news indicates it was a social engineering attack, using captured information. The data lost is troubling: including encrypted data vaults, metadata like URLs, customer name, address, phone number, IP Address, etc.
Thankfully this doesn’t include credit card information, and the Lastpass Zero Knowledge architecture does protect the actual passwords — assuming your master password is sufficiently secure. This isn’t quite a worst-case scenario, as no malicious code was shipped to customers, but it’s just about as bad as could be otherwise. Particularly, be on the lookout for spearphishing and other social engineering attacks, in an attempt to leverage the pilfered information. | 6 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6557628",
"author": "Sword",
"timestamp": "2022-12-23T16:48:22",
"content": "Yep been messing with TPMS for a while now. Got some scripts to craft my own custom TPMS files for transmission with the flipper. With all the tiktok kids playing with flippers, I dunno if I wnt them to hav... | 1,760,372,455.679166 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/23/github-esp32-ota-updates-now-in-micropython-flavor/ | GitHub ESP32 OTA Updates, Now In MicroPython Flavor | Elliot Williams | [
"home hacks",
"Software Hacks"
] | [
"ESP32",
"Git",
"micropython",
"OTA",
"python"
] | Wouldn’t it be great if you could keep all of your small Internet-connected hacks up to date with a single codebase? A couple of weeks ago, we wrote up a project that automagically pulls down OTA updates to an ESP32 from GitHub, using the ESP32 C SDK. [Pascal] asked in the comments, “but what about MicroPython?” Gauntlet thrown, [TURFPTAx] wrote
ugit.py
–
a simple library that mirrors all of the code from a public GitHub Python repo straight to your gizmo running Micropython
.
[Damped] wrote in about
Senko
, another library that does something very similar, but by then [TURFPTAx] was already done. Bam! Part of the speed is that MicroPython includes everything you need to get the job done –
parsing streamed JSON was the hard part with the original hack
. MicroPython makes those sorts of things easy.
This is one of those ideas that’s just brilliant for a hacker with a small flock of independent devices to herd. And because
ugit.py
itself is fairly simple and readable, if you need to customize it to do your own bidding, that’s no problem either. Just be sure that when you’re storing your WiFi authentication info, it’s not publicly displayed. ([TURFPTAx], could I log into your home WiFi?)
What’s [TURFPTAx] going to be using this for? We’re guessing it’s going to be deploying code to
his awesome Open Muscle sensing rigs
. What will we be using it for? Blinky Christmas decorations for the in-laws, now remotely updatable without them having to even learn what a “repo” is. | 5 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6557473",
"author": "Hitomi",
"timestamp": "2022-12-23T12:18:33",
"content": "Are OTA Updates useful unless you have a gigantic network or sell a commercial product? I find my ESP8266 and ESP32 run on the same code since years. WPA2 enabled of course. They are mostly sensors and dis... | 1,760,372,455.719592 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/23/beat-backing-box-for-bassists/ | Beat Backing Box For Bassists | Bryan Cockfield | [
"Musical Hacks"
] | [
"bass",
"drum machine",
"drums",
"interface",
"midi",
"stm32",
"vs1053"
] | The soul of a rock band is its rhythm section, usually consisting of a drummer and bass player. If you don’t believe that, try listening to a band where these two can’t keep proper time. Bands can often get away with sloppy guitars and vocals (this is how punk became a genre), but without that foundation you’ll be hard pressed to score any gigs at all. Unfortunately drums are bulky and expensive, and good drummers hard to find, so if you’re an aspiring bassist looking to practice laying down a solid groove on your own
check out this drum machine designed by [Duncan McIntyre].
The drum machine is designed to be as user-friendly as possible for someone who is actively playing another instrument, which means all tactile inputs and no touch screens. Several rows of buttons across the top select the drum sounds for the sequencer and each column corresponds to the various beats, allowing custom patterns to be selected and changed rapidly. There are several other controls for volume and tempo, and since it’s based on MIDI using the VS1053 chip and uses an STM32 microcontroller it’s easily configurable and can be quickly interfaced with other machines as well.
For anyone who wants to build their own, all of the circuit schematics and code are
available on GitHub
. If you have an aversion to digital equipment, though, take a look at t
his drum machine that produces its rhythms using circuits that are completely analog
. | 9 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6557465",
"author": "tony rago",
"timestamp": "2022-12-23T12:01:19",
"content": "Great project. I suggest a jack for remote start, stop footswitch. This will enable hands-free on, off control while the actual drum module stays close to the player.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth... | 1,760,372,455.990995 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/22/gb-interceptor-enables-live-screen-capture-from-game-boy/ | GB Interceptor Enables Live Screen Capture From Game Boy | Lewin Day | [
"Nintendo Game Boy Hacks",
"Nintendo Hacks"
] | [
"game boy",
"nintendo",
"streaming",
"tetris",
"video capture",
"video games"
] | [Sebastian] had a tricky problem to solve. Competitors in a Tetris tournament needed to stream video of their Game Boy screens, but no solution readily existed. For reasons of fairness, emulators were right out, and no modifications could be made to the Game Boys, either. Thus, [Sebastian] created
the GB Interceptor, a Game Boy capture cartridge
.
Thanks to the design of the Game Boy, there’s plenty of access to useful signals via the cartridge port itself. [Sebastian] realized that a non-invasive capture device could be built to sit in-between the Game Boy and a cart, and send video to a computer. Unfortunately, there’s no direct access to the video RAM via this port, but [Sebastian] figured out a nifty workaround.
The build uses a Raspberry Pi Pico. The chip’s two cores emulate the Game Boy’s CPU and Picture Processing Unit, respectively. Doing this, while having the chips keep up with what’s going on in the Game Boy, required overclocking the Pico to 225 MHz. The system works by capturing data from the cartridge’s memory bus, and follows along with the instructions being run by the Game Boy. By doing this, the Pico is able to populate its own copy of the video RAM. It then spits this out over USB, where it can be displayed and streamed online as desired.
There are some edge-case limitations, but for its intended purpose, the system works great. Currently, the hardware is usable on Linux and Windows, though it does require some fiddling in the latter case. Files are on Github for those eager to build their own. If you simply want to dump carts rather than stream from your Game Boy,
we can help there, too
. Video after the break. | 10 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6557257",
"author": "Parker",
"timestamp": "2022-12-23T06:42:15",
"content": "This is Awesome!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6557331",
"author": "Daid",
"timestamp": "2022-12-23T08:38:27",
"content": "> There are s... | 1,760,372,455.765478 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/22/your-own-santa-thermal-camera-roundup/ | Your Own Santa? Thermal Camera Roundup | Al Williams | [
"News",
"Reviews"
] | [
"gift",
"infrared camera"
] | With Christmas and other end-of-year celebrations, there are gifts. The problem is that your loved ones don’t really know what to get you. Who can blame them? Do you want an Arduino, a Raspberry Pi, or a Blue Pill? Is that 3D printer on sale better than the one you have? Do you even want a second printer? They don’t know. In the best case, they’ll give you gift cards. But sometimes you just have to buy yourself something nice. [Wired] has a suggestion: a
phone-based thermal camera
. Which one? They have four suggestions ranging from about $150 to $200.
Different people have different reasons for wanting a thermal camera. You can see hot spots in electronics, for example. Or pick out hot water pipes behind walls. The resolution is limited. The highest in the [Wired] review is only 206×136. For the digital camera buffs, that’s 0.028 megapixels! Some cameras have even less resolution. For example, one of the cameras has an 80×60 resolution but uses an optical camera to give the illusion of a higher resolution.
Still, you can use a thermal camera for many things. You might want to find a missing dog or person (or even an unwelcome critter in your living space), for example. Testing heating and air conditioning or examining home insulation is another potential use case. Just be sure you understand the range of the camera. If you want to image your 3D printer hot end or your basement metal smelting operation, that might be a stretch with cheap cameras. The FLIR One Gen 3 they mention, for example, tops out at 120C.
If you don’t want to tie up your phone, other cameras have their own displays, like a Klein TI250, but they tend to be a bit more expensive, as you would expect. A better standalone camera can cost $600 or more.
If you aren’t buying yourself a thermal camera with your holiday gift card haul, what are you buying? Tell us in the comments. We doubt it will be
a kitchen computer
. The
flame-throwing ugly sweater of death
might be an option, though. | 51 | 15 | [
{
"comment_id": "6557172",
"author": "pelrun",
"timestamp": "2022-12-23T04:14:46",
"content": "So they pick the bulkiest, lowest resolution camera of the lot as “best”?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6557444",
"author": "perlo",
... | 1,760,372,455.947675 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/22/you-can-make-ferrofluid-on-the-cheap-with-vhs-tapes/ | You Can Make Ferrofluid On The Cheap With VHS Tapes | Lewin Day | [
"Science"
] | [
"DIY science",
"ferrofluid",
"home science",
"science"
] | Ferrofluid is a wonderous substance. It’s a liquid goop that responds to magnetic fields in exciting and interesting ways. It’s actually possible to make it yourself, and it’s cheap, too!
The key is to get yourself some old VHS tapes.
The only fitting end for a copy of
Speed II.
The trick is to separate the ferric oxide from the plastic tape inside the VHS cassette. Step one is naturally to smash open a cassette, and pull out the plastic tape from inside. The tape can then be dunked in acetone to dissolve the plastic, leaving behind the ferric oxide that once stored your cherished copy of
Heat.
A magnet is an easy way to collect the ferric oxide, which should then be left to dry. The powdery substance can then be blended in a ratio of 1 mL of ferric oxide to 0.333 mL of cooking oil. Poor mixing can be improved by adding a droplet of water mixed with dish detergent. You should end up with a brownish sludge that acts as a rudimentary ferrofluid.
It’s a neat bit of home science. As with most such activities, it bears noting the safety risks. Don’t leave your acetone uncovered to form a nasty flammable vapor, and keep yourself keenly aware of any fire or ignition risks. Overall though, it’s a fairly straightforward process. While the resulting material isn’t necessarily lab grade,
you could potentially use it to build your own ferrofluid display! | 34 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6557021",
"author": "Geert van Dijk",
"timestamp": "2022-12-23T00:18:51",
"content": "Use mineral oil instead of cooking oil and it will not go rancid, staining and smelling less over time.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6557... | 1,760,372,456.121701 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/22/old-robotic-vacuum-gets-a-new-rc-lease-on-life/ | Old Robotic Vacuum Gets A New RC Lease On Life | Dan Maloney | [
"Reverse Engineering"
] | [
"bluetooth",
"brushless",
"esc",
"hoover",
"magic smoke",
"Raspberry Pi Zero",
"rc",
"reverse engineering",
"roomba",
"vacuum"
] | To our way of thinking, the whole purpose behind robotic vacuum cleaners is their autonomy. They’re not particularly good at vacuuming, but they are persistent about it, and eventually get the job done with as little human intervention as possible. So why in the world would you want to
convert a robotic vacuum to radio control?
For [Lucas], the answer was simple: it was a $20 yard sale find, so why not? Plus, he’s got some secret evil plan to repurpose the suckbot for autonomous room mapping, which sounds like a cool project that would benefit from a thorough knowledge of this little fellow’s anatomy and physiology. The bot in question is a Hoover Quest. Like [Lucas] we didn’t know that Hoover made robotic vacuums (Narrator: they probably don’t) but despite generally negative online reviews by users, he found it to be a sturdily built and very modular and repairable unit.
After an initial valiant attempt at reverse engineering the bot’s main board — a project we encourage [Lucas] to return to eventually — he settled for just characterizing the bot’s motors and sensors and building his own controller. The Raspberry Pi Zero he chose may seem like overkill, but he already had it set up to talk to a PS4 game controller, so it made sense — right up until he released the Magic Smoke within it. A backup Pi took the sting out of that, and as the brief video below shows, he was finally able to get the bot under his command.
[Lucas] has more plans for his new little buddy, including integrating the original sensors and adding new ones. Given its intended mission, we’d say
a lidar sensor
would be a good addition, but that’s just a guess. Whatever he’s got in store for this, we’re keen to hear what happens. | 8 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6556915",
"author": "Pocas",
"timestamp": "2022-12-22T21:30:16",
"content": "Wow this is an awesome idea, love this type of innovation and ingenuity",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6557010",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp":... | 1,760,372,456.040246 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/21/arc-overhangs-make-impossible-3d-prints/ | Arc Overhangs Make “Impossible” 3D Prints | Al Williams | [
"3d Printer hacks"
] | [
"overhang",
"slicer",
"support material"
] | An accidental discovery by [3DQue] allows
overhangs on FDM printers that seem impossible
at first glance. The key is to build the overhang area with concentric arcs. It also helps to print at a cool temperature with plenty of fan and a slow print speed. In addition to the video from [3DQue], there’s also a video from [CNC Kitchen] below that covers the technique.
If you want a quick overview, you might want to start with the [CNC Kitchen] video first. The basic idea is that you build surfaces “in the air” by making small arcs that overlap and get further and further away from the main body of the part. Because the arcs overlap, they support the next arc. The results are spectacular. There’s a third video below that shows some recent updates to the tool.
We’ve seen a similar technique handcrafted with
fullcontrol.xyz
, but this is a Python script that semi-automatically generates the necessary arcs that overlap. We admit the surface looks a little odd but depending on why you need to print overhangs, this might be just the ticket. There can also be a bit of warping if features are on top of the overhang.
You don’t need any special hardware other than good cooling. Like [CNC Kitchen], we hope this gets picked up by mainstream slicers. It probably will never be a default setting, but it would be a nice option for parts that can benefit from the technique. Since the code is on GitHub, maybe people familiar with the mainstream slicers will jump in and help make the algorithm more widely available and automatic.
What will you build with this tool? If you don’t like arcs, check out
conical slicing
or non-
planar slicing
instead. | 11 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6555370",
"author": "heatgap",
"timestamp": "2022-12-21T12:25:44",
"content": "Well done my man! I have noticed this anomaly myself whilst printing when I accidentally bumped the machine and skewed the print destination Ive had wild overhangs that shouldnt have worked but did. As fa... | 1,760,372,456.167876 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/21/morphing-keyboard-gets-you-dialed-in-just-right/ | Morphing Keyboard Gets You Dialed In Just Right | Kristina Panos | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"custom keyboard",
"modular design"
] | So you’re tired of rectangular, brick wall-staggered keyboards and want to go split and/or ergo. But how? Which style? What do? Here’s what you do: you
build one of these here LHM Morph boards
and customize the crap out of it, because that’s what it’s for.
So what is this thing, anyway? Is it a even a keyboard? Well, as long as you can press switches and send key commands to a computer, it certainly smells like a keyboard to us. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, what’s going on here is that [LifeHackerMax] has built a highly-customizable version of the LHM, their 26-key split. The LHM Morph can be fine-tuned to nearly any degree imaginable, including the tenting angle. The keys are grouped in modules that can slide back and forth to suit your varying finger lengths. As they are half-round, these modules can also be tilted and rotated until they’re just right.
But the
super
cool thing about the LHM Morph is the way it goes together — like LEGO. It’s completely modular, and you don’t even have to go split if you’re not ready for that. But all the pieces connect via rods made of copper wire. If you’d like to make one for yourself,
the 3D files are up on Thingiverse
, and
the firmware is on GitHub
. Be sure to check out the video after the break.
Does this keyboard remind you of anything?
[Peter Lyons]’ Squeezebox, perhaps?
Via
KBD #106 | 5 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6555261",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-12-21T10:14:02",
"content": "Is this a keyboard?https://pics.me.me/this-is-bait-3589032.png",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6555442",
"author": "erock steady",
"timestamp": "... | 1,760,372,456.20976 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/20/the-coleman-z80-is-a-modern-take-on-a-1970s-computer/ | The Coleman Z80 Is A Modern Take On A 1970s Computer | Robin Kearey | [
"computer hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"homebrew computer",
"laser cut",
"RC2014",
"z80"
] | [Joshua Coleman] likes to design his own computers. Sometimes, that means drawing up bus architectures, memory maps and I/O port pinouts. Other times, he can focus his efforts more on the general aesthetics, as well as on building a great set of peripherals, as he shows in his
latest ColemanZ80 project
. Thanks to
the RC2014 architecture
defining most of the essential features of a classic Z80 computing platform, [Joshua] was able to design a modern retrocomputer that’s not only genuinely useful, but also looks as if it came off a production line yesterday.
The external design is a sight to behold: bright red laser-cut acrylic pieces form a neat, semi-transparent case with ventilation slots on the sides and lots of blinkenlights on the front. Inspired by 1970s classics like the Altair 8800, the front panel gives the user a direct view of the machine’s internal state and allows simple command inputs through a series of tumbler switches. The CPU, RAM and other basic devices are housed in one case, with all the expansion modules in a second one, linked to the mainboard through a 40-wire flatcable.
Lots of classic chips, but also loads of hand-routed wires grace the ColemanZ80’s mainboard.
Although the mainboard closely follows the RC2014 design, [Joshua] went through a lot of effort to tune the system to his specific needs. The expansion boards he built include an NS16550 UART to replace the default 68B50, a battery-backed real-time clock, a YM2149-based sound card and even a speech synthesizer module built around the classic SP0256 chip, of
Speak & Spell
fame. An even more unusual feature is the presence of an AM9511, one of the earliest math coprocessors ever made, to speed up floating-point calculations. All of these modules were built entirely by hand on prototype boards: we can barely imagine how much time this must have taken.
Output devices include a VGA adapter courtesy of a Raspberry Pi Pico as well as a regular 4-digit 7-segment LED display and a set of classic HP “bubble” LEDs. [Joshua] runs several demos in his video (embedded below), ranging from computing the Mandelbrot set to playing chiptunes on the YM2149. There’s plenty of scope for further expansion, too: [Joshua] plans to build more peripherals including a floppy drive interface and a module to operate a robotic car.
This is not the first Coleman Z80 computer: the previous version ran on an
architecture [Joshua] designed all by himself
. We’ve seen several other impressive RC2014 derivatives, like a
tiny micro version
and this
Altair-inspired case
. | 14 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6555063",
"author": "LambdaMikel",
"timestamp": "2022-12-21T06:22:17",
"content": "Cool project – indeed, impressive machine, expansion cards, and wiring (!), but I would recommend turning this into a proper PCB for reliability. On a nitpick, “SP0256, of Speak & Spell fame” is a bit... | 1,760,372,456.491367 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/20/the-gallium-nitride-revolution/ | The Gallium Nitride Revolution | Al Williams | [
"Science"
] | [
"Gallium Nitride",
"GaN"
] | [Asianometry] has been learning about
gallium nitride semiconductors
and shares what he knows in an informative video you can see below. This semiconductor material has a much higher bandgap voltage than the more common silicon. This makes it useful for applications that need higher efficiency and less heating.
The original use of the material was for LEDs, but we are seeing increasing use of the material in high-power applications like chargers. Phone chargers are especially common using this technology. This isn’t surprising when your think about how many phone chargers are needed worldwide every day.
Other places that need power-efficient devices are data centers, electric vehicles, and battery-operated equipment. It isn’t clear, though, that we can make enough of the material to meet global demand if it becomes extremely popular. This is especially true because the machinery and processes used to create silicon devices don’t work with gallium nitride. Silicon carbide is a competitor, and it could be easier to create, even though it isn’t as efficient as gallium nitride.
We’ve
looked at gallium nitride before
, and we are sure we are going to be seeing it again. Silicon carbide may one day operate on the surface of Venus. You can even use it to make
homemade LEDs
. | 6 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6554981",
"author": "Ostracus",
"timestamp": "2022-12-21T04:44:33",
"content": "Another is in the 1000 W PSU. Kind of relevant with the Nvidia 4090 and the like.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6555403",
"author": "Major Arm... | 1,760,372,456.283386 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/20/ntc-thermistor-to-thingspeak-meter-makes-a-great-iot-starter-project/ | NTC Thermistor To ThingSpeak Meter Makes A Great IoT Starter Project | Donald Papp | [
"how-to",
"Microcontrollers"
] | [
"ESP8266",
"IoT",
"ntc",
"thingspeak"
] | There are a lot of IoT solutions and frameworks out there, and [Davide] demonstrates how to make a simple data logging and tracking application with his
ESP8266-to-ThingSpeak project
, which reads up to four NTC (negative temperature coefficient) thermistors and sends the data to ThinkSpeak over WiFi.
IoT can be a pretty deep rabbit hole, so if you’re looking for a simple project to demonstrate the working parts and provide a starting point,
the project’s GitHub repository
might help you get started. We’ve also seen ThingSpeak used to
track toilet paper sheet usage
, which is a nice demonstration of how to interface to a physical object with moving parts.
On the other hand, if you find reading NTC thermistors to be the more interesting part, you’re in luck because [Davide]
has more information about that
along with a modified ESP8266 Arduino library. Watch a tour of his temperature logging hardware in action in the video, embedded below. | 5 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6555263",
"author": "Leif",
"timestamp": "2022-12-21T10:16:01",
"content": "Ntc are so last-century, except if you are working in analog domain with comparators etc.Using digital ds18b20 one-wire devices are much more precise, and they are factory-calibrated. And you can put many de... | 1,760,372,456.437215 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/20/more-detail-on-that-fantastic-lego-oled-brick/ | More Detail On That Fantastic Lego OLED Brick | Dan Maloney | [
"Art",
"Misc Hacks"
] | [
"brick",
"lego",
"molding",
"oled",
"resin",
"silicone"
] | It’s always great when we get a chance to follow up on a previous project with more information, or further developments. So we’re happy that [“Ancient” James Brown] just dropped
a new video showing the assembly of his Lego brick with a tiny OLED screen inside it
. The readers are too, apparently — we got at least half a dozen tips on this one.
We’ve got to admit that this one’s a real treat, with a host of interesting skills on display.
Our previous coverage
on these bedazzled bricks was disappointingly thin on details, and now the original tweets even seem to have disappeared entirely. In case you didn’t catch the original post, [James] found a way to embed a microcontroller and a remarkably small OLED screen into a Lego-compatible brick — technically
a “slope 45 2×2, #3039”
— that does a great job of standing in for a tiny computer monitor.
The present video shares a lot more detail on this fancy brick. The core of the circuit is four tiny scraps of PCB, hosting the RP2040 microcontroller and necessary support components. [James] used a series of 3D-printed jigs to hold the boards while soldering, which results in a compact package to fit inside the sloped brick. After attaching the diminutive OLED and doing a little testing, the circuit origami is placed into one half of a two-piece silicone mold. Translucent plastic resin is mixed up and added to the mold, which flows around the circuit to complete the build.
The results are amazing — a brick that looks like a stock Lego part, at least until it’s plugged into a powered baseplate. The way the screen is molded right into the resin and shines right through it is enchanting, and the texture on the face of the slope looks fantastic. We’re mightily impressed by the craftsmanship here, and we’re very glad [James] shared the details of his process. Now if we could only get build files…
Thanks to [Footleg], [DKE], and a bunch of other people for this tip! | 39 | 22 | [
{
"comment_id": "6554608",
"author": "CptnHddck",
"timestamp": "2022-12-20T21:39:14",
"content": "Does it run Doom ? ;-)",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6554624",
"author": "fiddlingjunky",
"timestamp": "2022-12-20T21:57:25",
... | 1,760,372,456.567405 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/20/single-photon-detection-with-photomultipliers/ | Single Photon Detection With Photomultipliers | Al Williams | [
"classic hacks"
] | [
"photomultiplier",
"tube"
] | Unless you are an audiophile, you likely think of tubes as mostly relegated to people who work on old technology. However, photomultiplier tubes are still useful compared to more modern sensors, and [Jaynes Network] has
a look into how they work
, especially with scintillating detectors.
The RCA photomultiplier he examines has ten stages and can detect even a single photon. Combined with a scintillating detector, they make good radiation detectors.
We can’t help but smile when we hear someone obviously in love with the engineering behind a tube like this. We get it. The inside of the tube is crowded, so it is hard to identify the dynodes and other portions, but some diagrams make it readily apparent how the tube does its job.
We were impressed with how good the documentation that came with the tube looked, considering its age. We mean the condition it was in. The document itself was obviously a reproduction of a typewritten document with hand-drawn figures and graphs.
We were hoping for some footage of the tube in action, but we’ll have to wait for a future video. We are betting that is coming, though. Although there are some solid-state detectors, they are not suitable for all applications. There was a time, though, when the tubes were in many applications, including
X-ray scanners
and
photography equipment
. | 25 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6554506",
"author": "macsimski",
"timestamp": "2022-12-20T20:16:42",
"content": "Ibought a EMI 9558QA from a ditch auction site and it arrived in shatters. A lot of people still think postal services carry parcels with velvet gloves and put them on a cushion in a slow driving truck…... | 1,760,372,456.687882 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/21/chumby-gets-new-kernel-soon/ | Chumby Gets New Kernel… Soon | Al Williams | [
"Linux Hacks"
] | [
"chumby",
"linux"
] | If you missed the Chumby, we’re sorry. They were relatively inexpensive Linux appliances that acted as a clock, Internet radio, and feed reader. The company went belly up, although there was some functionality remaining thanks to one of the founders and now, for a subscription fee, you can still keep your Chumby operating. However, [Doug Brown] bought one with the goal of using it for his own applications. But the 2.6.28 kernel is showing its age. So he decided to push a
new kernel on the device
.
If you are a Chumby enthusiast, don’t get too excited. The goal isn’t to provide the existing Chumby apps with a new kernel, [Doug] says that’s probably impossible. Instead, he wants a modern booting infrastructure and kernel on the device for his own software.
The post is only part one, but it covers how he got U-Boot to load from an SD card. Given the success of that, we don’t think it will be long before the new kernel is running, too.
Understanding the boot process is a bit of arcane knowledge and [Doug] found back in 2013 that he didn’t quite understand it well enough to get the 3.13 kernel on the box, but now he’s ready to take the challenge and based on his work so far, we agree.
We were sad when Chumby
stopped selling hardware
. Chumby had white labeled the device to other companies, too, and we saw at least one of those
driving a robot
. | 18 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6556194",
"author": "alxy",
"timestamp": "2022-12-22T03:39:12",
"content": "They were relatively EXPENSIVE Linux appliances that acted as a clock, Internet radio, and feed reader.https://blog.adafruit.com/2011/03/10/chumby-one-on-woot/Retail was $100 . Original Chumby was more.htt... | 1,760,372,456.623233 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/21/sliding-wrench-leaves-a-little-to-be-desired/ | Sliding Wrench Leaves A Little To Be Desired | Al Williams | [
"Teardown",
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"adjustable wrench",
"crescent wrench",
"wrench"
] | [Ben Conrad] received an interesting tool as a gift that purported to be a better mousetrap. It was a crescent wrench (made by the Crescent company, even) that didn’t have a tiny adjusting wheel like a traditional wrench. Instead, it had a slide running down the length of the handle. The idea is that you would push the slide to snug the wrench jaws against the bolt or nut, and that would be fast and easy compared to a conventional wrench. As [Ben] notes, though, it doesn’t work very well. Most of us would have just dumped it in the back of the tool chest or regifted it. [Ben] tore his apart to
find out what was wrong with it
.
A typical adjustable wrench has four parts. This one has 19 parts and looks like a conventional wrench with an extra slide and screw running down the length of the handle. [Ben] found the parts were poorly made, but that wasn’t the main problem.
While the poor machining caused skipping and jamming of the mechanism, he also found that even with perfect machining, the design was not very good. The jaws of the wrench move about an inch, and the slide moves about 2.5 inches. So that should offer some mechanical advantage, right? It turns out the screw is inefficient and eats up any potential force gain.
On the face of it, the wrench seems like a good idea exhibiting “out of the box” thinking. But the execution seems flawed. You have to wonder, though, how many basic tools could be improved if we would stop and think through without a lifetime of preconceptions.
We’ve pointed out before that if you build a better mousetrap, it had
better be better
. Then again, why adjust a wrench when you can
make one the right size
? | 29 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6556082",
"author": "Mike",
"timestamp": "2022-12-22T01:10:40",
"content": "I think you mean it leaves a lot to be dired, right?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6556221",
"author": "Naxes",
"timestamp": "2022-1... | 1,760,372,456.788301 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/21/led-christmas-lights-optimized-for-max-twinkleage/ | LED Christmas Lights Optimized For Max Twinkleage | Lewin Day | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"christmas lights",
"holiday hacks",
"led",
"leds",
"ws2811"
] | Old-school filament-based Christmas lights used to be available in twinkling form. LEDs, with their hard-on and hard-off nature, aren’t naturally predisposed to such behavior. To rectify this, some time ago,
[Mark Kriegsman] built an Arduino program that makes LEDs twinkle beautifully.
The program is known as TwinkleFOX, and relies on the popular
FastLED library
for addressable LEDs. [Mark’s] demo setup is built around using WS2811 LEDs, put together in a string with plastic diffusers on each bulb. The Arduino is programmed to vary the brightness of each LED according to a triangle wave function. To create the twinkling effect, each LED has its own unique clock signal, so they vary in brightness at different times and at different rates.
Using an Arduino Uno or Leonardo, [Mark] reports its possible to twinkle 300 individual LEDs at a rate of over 50 updates a second. Using a faster microcontroller should net reliable performance with longer strings. Meanwhile, if you’re wondering how the older-style lights used to twinkle,
we’ve covered that before too
. Video after the break. | 12 | 6 | [
{
"comment_id": "6555860",
"author": "M",
"timestamp": "2022-12-21T21:30:42",
"content": "World’s about to end.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6555949",
"author": "Bryantherobotman",
"timestamp": "2022-12-21T22:45:54",
... | 1,760,372,456.842292 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/21/2022-fpv-contest-the-lotp-robot-dog/ | 2022 FPV Contest: The LOTP Robot Dog | Lewin Day | [
"contests",
"Robots Hacks"
] | [
"2022 FPV Contest",
"FPV",
"robot",
"robot dog"
] | When you think of first person view (FPV) vehicles, aircraft might be what first comes to mind. However,
[Limenitis Reducta] has brought a robot dog into the world,
and plans to equip it for some FPV adventures.
LOTP pictured with various equippable modules.
The robot dog itself goes by the name of LOTP, for unspecified reasons, and was designed from the ground up in Fusion 360. A Teensy 3.5 is charged with running the show, managing control inputs and outputting the requisite instructions to the motor controllers to manage the walk cycle. Movement are issued via a custom RC controller. Thanks to an onboard IMU, the robotic platform is able to walk effectively and maintain its balance even on a sloping or moving platform.
[Limenitis] has built the robot with a modular platform to support different duties. Equitable modules include a sensor for detecting dangerous gases, a drone launching platform, and a lidar module. There’s also a provision for a camera which sends live video to the remote controller. [Limenitis] has that implemented with what appears to be a regular drone FPV camera, a straightforward way to get the job done.
It’s a fun build that looks ready to scamper around on adventures outside. Doing so with an FPV camera certainly looks fun, and we’ve seen similar gear equipped
on other robot dogs
, too. | 7 | 4 | [
{
"comment_id": "6555794",
"author": "Jason Adams",
"timestamp": "2022-12-21T20:14:19",
"content": "Perhaps “LOTP” is shorthand for “Life of the Party”?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6555833",
"author": "Halid YILDIRIM",
"tim... | 1,760,372,457.17737 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/21/blood-pressure-monitoring-courtesy-of-cameras-and-ai/ | Blood Pressure Monitoring, Courtesy Of Cameras And AI | Lewin Day | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"Medical Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"blood pressure",
"blood pressure measurement",
"blood pressure monitor",
"medicine",
"non-contact measurement",
"sphygmomanometer"
] | At the basic level, methods of blood pressure monitoring have slowly changed in the last few decades. While most types of sphygmomanometer still rely on a Velcro cuff placed around the arm, the methodology used in measurement varies. Analog mercury and aneroid types still abound, while digital blood pressure monitors using electrical sensors have become mainstream these days.
Researchers have now developed
a new non-invasive method of measurement that does away with the arm cuff entirely.
The method relies entirely on video capture with a camera and processing via AI.
Under Pressure
The technique was developed by researchers at the University of South Australia and Middle Technical University, Baghdad. It relies on using a DSLR camera to capture footage of the patient for approximately 10 seconds. The camera is placed a short distance from the patient and is aimed at the face. The video captured is then analyzed by AI to extract indicative signals of cardiac activity from two distinct forehead regions. The system is able to capture both systolic and diastolic blood pressure values as the heart pumps and fills back up.
The system relies on video captured at a resolution of 1920×1080 at 60 fps. Face detection is first used to find the part of the image containing the patient’s head, before zeroing in on the forehead and the precise regions of interest, one in the center of the forehead and a second section off to one side. The forehead region was chosen for analysis as it is least affected by movements from facial expressions, breathing, or blinking. The green channel is used for the analysis as prior research has shown it readily reveals stronger plethysmographic signals – i.e. those corresponding to blood-pressure related volume changes. Analysis of changes to the pixels in the selected analysis regions is fed into a model that estimates the patient’s blood pressure values.
The system relies on video captured via a common consumer-grade camera. Machine learning algorithms are used to determine areas of interest in the video data to feed into an algorithm that predicts blood pressure.
Credit:
Research paper
The research builds on earlier work from the same universities, which in 2017 developed a method to determine a person’s heart rate from a video shot via drone. Other work has involved capturing data on blood oxygen levels and respiratory rates. Camera-based techniques have become increasingly common over the past decade, with SIGGRAPH featuring such research
regularly over the years.
These methods of measurement have a simple medical benefit, in that they could theoretically reduce the spread of disease that could spread from close contact. The researchers involved in the project cite this as a primary driver of their work, much of which has taken place in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic.
“
Taking blood pressure
” by National Museum of Health and Medicine.
However, these non-contact methods may give up some accuracy compared to traditional medical practices. In the case of the blood pressure measurement system, testing showed it to be 90% accurate compared to a digital sphygmomanometer. That’s a solid result for a research project, but it means that one in ten patients would be subject to mismeasurement – an unacceptable performance level for medical-grade equipment. It also bears noting that digital sphygmomanometers are not considered the gold-class measurement option. Their measurements use certain base assumptions behind their calculations, and cannot always be relied upon for patients with certain complex conditions. Comparison to a lab-grade mercury sphygmomanometer could provide a truer baseline figure to work from.
The role of AI in medical assessements is a controversial issue, too. Outside of simple measurements, research has also explored the use of AI in performing complex diagnoses
using techniques outside the abilities of human perception.
The problem is that in many ways, an AI system can be a bit of a black box. Without a proper and comprehensive understanding of exactly what the AI is doing, it’s difficult to trust its measurements or conclusions. In the medical field, this is a major concern, where decisions on treatment regularly come down to life or death.
Technology for the non-contact measurement of vital signs has plenty of useful applications in the medical field. While it’s early days yet, these methods will continue to improve in refinement and reliability in coming years. Expect them to play a complementary role, due to their inherent limitations, rather than replacing traditional methods entirely. | 60 | 12 | [
{
"comment_id": "6555679",
"author": "Nick",
"timestamp": "2022-12-21T18:09:44",
"content": "It’s my opinion that taking blood pressure is the *least* scientific practice in modern Western medicine.The standard deviation is infinite.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
... | 1,760,372,457.011162 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/21/squeezing-gifs-into-even-tighter-spaces/ | Squeezing GIFs Into Even Tighter Spaces | Matthew Carlson | [
"Microcontrollers",
"Software Development"
] | [
"AVR",
"GIF",
"image compression"
] | Showing images on a TFT or OLED display with a small AVR microcontroller can be a challenge as it requires significant storage space. One solution is to compress the images, but then you need more RAM to decompress it, and that’s a whole other problem. [David Johnson-Davies] of
Technoblogy
couldn’t find a GIF decoder that fit his needs, so he
started writing his own
.
We had
previously seen a minimal GIF decode
r aimed at a Cortex-M0+ that required 24 K of RAM, but this technique is running on an AVR with just 12 K of RAM. Along the way, [David] uses little tricks to shave down the requirements. Since the TFT he targets is a 5-6-5 color space, those 3-byte colors become 2 bytes. The LZW lookup table is encoded as 12-bit pointers to earlier entries plus an additional pixel. However, these savings come at a cost. Animated, local color tables, transparency, interlacing, or GIF87a formatted images aren’t supported. But he ports it over to the PyBadge, which is ATSAMD51 based.
[David] provides some sample code to display a GIF from program memory and an SD card. All the
code is on GitHub
under a CC By 4.0 license. | 6 | 2 | [
{
"comment_id": "6555654",
"author": "MrSVCD",
"timestamp": "2022-12-21T17:40:15",
"content": "I remember that hackaday had a article about a image format that was like gif/png but used less resources, can someone link it so I can find it again?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies"... | 1,760,372,457.082807 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/21/big-chemistry-liquefied-natural-gas/ | Big Chemistry: Liquefied Natural Gas | Dan Maloney | [
"Current Events",
"Engineering",
"Featured",
"Original Art",
"Slider"
] | [
"cryogenic",
"energy",
"heat exchanger",
"liquefaction",
"liquefied natural gas",
"LNG",
"methane",
"regasification"
] | The topic of energy has been top-of-mind for us since the first of our ancestors came down out of the trees looking for something to eat that wouldn’t eat them. But in a world where the neverending struggle for energy has been abstracted away to the flick of a finger on a light switch or thermostat, thanks to geopolitical forces many of us are now facing the wrath of winter with a completely different outlook on what it takes to stay warm.
The problem isn’t necessarily that we don’t have enough energy, it’s more that what we have is neither evenly distributed nor easily obtained. Moving energy from where it’s produced to where it’s needed is rarely a simple matter, and often poses significant and interesting engineering challenges. This is especially true for sources of energy that don’t pack a lot of punch into a small space, like natural gas. Getting it across a continent is challenging enough; getting it across an ocean is another thing altogether, and that’s where liquefied natural gas, or LNG, comes into the picture.
Liquefaction
Before we start looking at how LNG is made, it’s best to start by asking why we even need LNG in the first place. After all, we’ve got an incredibly complex, continent-spanning infrastructure of pipelines that’s optimized for the long-haul bulk transportation of natural gas. Why bother to go through all the effort and expense of liquefying natural gas?
In a word: oceans. Those vast networks of pipelines pretty much stop at the water’s edge, and while there certainly are some undersea natural gas pipelines, recent events have shown us just how vulnerable those can be. So shipping natural gas by sea has become a necessary means of moving energy from point A to point B. And to do that efficiently, you need to dramatically reduce its volume. Turning natural gas into a liquid does exactly that: it increases its density 600 times, making it feasible to ship in bulk.
The feedstock for liquefied natural gas is, of course, natural gas. We’ve already covered a fair amount about the process of
harvesting and distributing natural gas
, but briefly, natural gas is a mixture of hydrocarbons like methane and ethane produced from the decay of ancient biomass in geological formations. Along with liquid hydrocarbons and contaminants like nitrogen, carbon dioxide, sulfur-containing compounds, and water vapor, the gas accumulates in underground reservoirs that are tapped by drilling.
Raw natural gas is transported, under its natural pressure or with the help of enormous compressors, via pipelines to plants that clean the gas. Recovering
sulfur
and
helium
, both valuable chemical elements, from the raw gas is especially important, but it’s also important to scrub low-value contaminants like water and CO
2
from the natural gas, since they can both cause freezing problems down the line. Water is removed by bubbling the raw natural gas through triethylene glycol (TEG), an extremely hygroscopic solution, while CO
2
is removed using an amine scrubber, which exposes the acidic raw gas to nitrogen-containing amine solutions like diethylamine (DEA), which adsorbs the CO
2
. After further purification, which removes any remaining heavier hydrocarbons and contaminants like mercury, which will not behave when exposed to aluminum and stainless steel, the natural gas feedstock is about 85% to 90% methane (CH
4
), with the rest being a mix of ethane (C
2
H
6
), propane (C
3
H
8
), and butane (C
4
H
10
).
The clean, dry natural gas is then ready for liquefaction. Like most gases, natural gas will condense into a liquid when its temperature drops below its boiling point, which is -161.5°C for methane. So, to make LNG, an industrial-scale cryogenic process is required. Most LNG today is made with a process called C3MR, which is a dual-loop progressive cooling system. The “C3” refers to propane, a three-carbon compound used as the refrigerant in the pre-cooling loop. Each half of the cycle is essentially the same as found in any refrigerator, although vastly different in scale. In the precooling stage, liquid propane is passed through an expansion valve, which causes a phase change and a sudden drop in temperature. The cooled propane removes heat from the natural gas via a heat exchanger, the propane is compressed with a three-stage compressor, and the heat is removed via a condenser so the cycle can begin again.
Air Product’s C3MR liquefaction process. The propane (C3) loop cools incoming natural gas to about -33°C, which is followed by a mixed refrigerant (MR) loop that takes it below the phase transition temperature of -162°C.
After pre-cooling, the natural gas is at about -33°C — cold, but not cold enough. The cooled gas now enters the “MR,” or “mixed-refrigerant” loop, with a mix of propane, pentane, methane, and ethylene used. Again, the thermal cycle is familiar, but the scale is even more massive — the coil-type heat exchangers used in some MR loops can have thousands of kilometers of tubing coiled up inside them, with a heat exchange area of 40,000 square meters. There are also plate-fin heat exchangers, which have multiple layers of corrugated fins sandwiched between flat aluminum plates. Plate-fin heat exchangers are installed in insulation-filled enclosures called cold boxes. Both types of heat exchangers are usually deployed in parallel assemblies called trains to achieve massive throughput and redundancy.
After the MR loop, the natural gas has dropped to about -160°C and is now a colorless, odorless, non-toxic liquid. The energy input to get to this point has been considerable — something like 13 kilowatts to yield a single tonne of LNG. As of 2021, the global liquefaction capacity was over 450 million tonnes per year, with more capacity still under construction.
Storage and Transportation
But all of this production means nothing without somewhere to put all this LNG. The cryogenic nature of LNG presents certain engineering challenges. While not as cold as liquid nitrogen or oxygen, LNG can still cause steel embrittlement, which is why special alloys of stainless steel are used for LNG piping and tanks. Storage tanks, which are used to hold LNG temporarily between production and shipping, also have to be carefully engineered. These tanks are often built partially or even fully underground; while the subsoil provides insulation that reduces heat transfer into the LNG, the cold can freeze groundwater and cause frost heave underneath the tanks. Storage tanks also have to allow for some boil-off of the LNG, with the resulting natural gas either captured and sold off through regular distribution channels, or piped back to the beginning of the process and reliquefied.
Interior of a membrane-type LNG tank. The interior is lined with high-nickel stainless steel; the waffle pattern helps with thermal expansion and contraction. Source:
Thinfourth
, CC0.
Getting LNG from one place to another is the job of specialized LNG tankers, massive vessels that are purpose-built to safely and efficiently move as much LNG as possible. Although ship designs vary, most of the approximately 550 vessels in the LNG fleet use what’s known as “Moss tanks,” giant spheres that stick up above the deck. Most ships have either four or five of these heavily insulated tanks; while their spherical shape isn’t terribly efficient in terms of using all the volume of the ship’s hull, it does eliminate the danger of cargo sloshing. Newer “prismatic” LNG carriers are being designed, with cargo tanks that more completely fill the hull space. The tanks are lined with an insulated membrane made from either high-nickel stainless steel or the alloy invar, which reduces thermal expansion and contraction. The biggest tankers can hold over 250,000 cubic meters of LNG.
Due to the dangerous nature of their cargo, LNG tankers have to be built with safety in mind. No matter how good the tank insulation is, there will inevitably be some boil-off of the cargo while in transit. Many tankers tap this gas and use it as fuel. The ships also have extensive monitoring systems to detect leaks; unlike natural gas that’s piped to homes and businesses, LNG does not contain methylmercaptan odorant. So methane sensors are located in just about every space on an LNG tanker.
Regasification
Once a cargo of LNG arrives at its destination, it has to be turned back into a gas before being used. The regasification process is basically the opposite of liquefaction, with the LNG being gently heated to above the boiling point. Since the LNG is transported at just below its boiling point, it doesn’t take much of a temperature change to force the phase transition. But that doesn’t mean it’s a simple process.
Regasification can either occur in plants located adjacent to port facilities purpose-built to accommodate LNG tankers, or it can be done by floating storage and regasification units, or FSRUs. FSRUs look very similar to LNG tankers, and have a lot of the same equipment, including ether Moss-type spherical storage tanks or prismatic tanks. FSRUs are also equipped with a regasification plant, which takes the LNG from its storage tanks, passes it through heat exchangers, and pipes the boiled-off natural gas to shore via submerged pipelines. The advantage that FSRUs have versus onshore regasification plants is versatility — there’s no need to wait for favorable tides for an LNG tanker to dock, so offloading can occur whenever the ship arrives.
FSRU
Independence
at anchor off Lithuania. FSRUs are basically LNG tankers that can store and regasify LNG, and allow tankers to offload their cargo regardless of tides and without deep-water ports. Source:
AB Klaipėdos Nafta
, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Whether onshore or floating, the heat for regasification is derived from a variety of sources. Many plants use vaporizers, which heat up the LNG by blowing ambient temperature air over heat exchangers with giant fans. Sometimes, seawater is used as the heat transfer medium, with ambient temperature water sprayed over the heat exchanger coils. Where ambient temperatures are lower, some regasifiers will use submerged combustion vaporizers (SCVs), which have burners submerged in large vats of water. Exhaust gas from the burners heats the water, which in turn heats the LNG as it passes through coils in the tank. SCVs are generally powered by natural gas that’s tapped off from the output.
Once the natural gas is back into its gaseous phase it’s ready to enter the local distribution system. Pipeline operators generally run their distribution systems at 30-80 bar (3,000-8,000 kPa), so the output of the regasifier plant has to match that spec. Rather than compressing the output gas from the regasifier, it turns out to be easier and more efficient to pressurize the LNG input using pumps. The pipeline operator will generally do quality control testing on a batch of LNG before releasing it to its customers, and will of course add in the required methylmercaptan odorant.
The LNG supply chain is pretty complex, but surprisingly energy efficient. Most of the energy goes into liquefaction and transport, with only a little energy needed to push the cryogenic liquid back into a gas. In terms of infrastructure, there’s definitely a lot of that at both ends of the supply chain. But in most cases, the LNG system is the most efficient way to transport chemical energy over vast distances.
[Featured images: Moss-type LNG tanker
Arctic Princess
. Source:
JoachimKohlerBremen
, CC BY-SA 4.0.] | 44 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6555527",
"author": "Paul",
"timestamp": "2022-12-21T15:11:36",
"content": "… something like 13 kilowatts to yield a single tonne of LNG….Missing a unit. kilowatt-hours? tonne per day?",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6555632... | 1,760,372,457.288698 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/22/2022-fpv-contest-a-poor-mans-journey-into-fpv/ | 2022 FPV Contest: A Poor Man’s Journey Into FPV | Lewin Day | [
"contests",
"drone hacks"
] | [
"2022 FPV Contest",
"drone",
"flight",
"FPV",
"fpv cockpit",
"Joystick",
"parrot drone"
] | FPV can be a daunting hobby to get into. Screens, cameras, and other equipment can be expensive, and there’s a huge range of hardware to choose from. [JP Gleyzes] has been involved with RC vehicles for many years,
and decided to leverage that experience to do FPV on a budget.
Early experiments involved building a headset on the cheap by using a smartphone combined with a set of simple headset magnifiers. With some simple modifications to off-the-shelf hardware, [JP] was able to build a serviceable headset with a smartphone serving as the display. Further work relied upon 3D printed blinds added on to a augmented-reality setup for even better results. [JP] also developed methods to use a joystick to fly a real RC aircraft. This was achieved by using an Android phone or ESP32 to interface with a joystick, and then spit out data to a board that produces PPM signals for broadcast by regular RC hardware.
[JP] put the rig to good use, using it to pilot a Parrot Disco flying wing drone. The result is a cheap method of flying FPV with added realism. The first-person view and realistic controls create a more authentic feeling of being “inside” the RC aircraft.
It goes to show that FPV rigs don’t have to break the bank if you’re willing to get creative.
We’ve seen some great FPV cockpit builds before, too
. | 4 | 3 | [
{
"comment_id": "6557012",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-12-23T00:11:20",
"content": "So, how many of the FPV contest entries will be tested by drivNever mind! It’s not a good idea anyway.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6557885",
"aut... | 1,760,372,457.984059 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/22/arduboy-mini-is-a-fresh-take-on-an-8-bit-favorite/ | Arduboy Mini Is A Fresh Take On An 8-bit Favorite | Tom Nardi | [
"Games",
"Hackaday Columns",
"Reviews"
] | [
"Arduboy",
"Arduboy Mini",
"handheld game",
"kickstarter",
"miniature console"
] | We’ve always been big fans of the Arduboy here at Hackaday. When creator
Kevin Bates showed us the original prototype back in 2014
, the idea was to use his unique method of mounting components inside routed holes in the PCB to produce an electronic business card that was just 1.6 mm thick. But the Internet quickly took notice of the demos he posted online, and what started as a one-off project led to a
wildly successful Kickstarter
for a sleek handheld gaming system that used modern components and manufacturing techniques to pay homage to the 8-bit retro systems that came before it.
The original Arduboy prototype in 2014
It’s the sort of hacker success story that we live for around here, but it didn’t end there. After the Kickstarter, the Arduboy community continued to grow, thanks in no small part to Kevin never forgetting the open source principles the product was built on.
He took an active role in the growing community, and when some Arduboy owners started tinkering with
adding external storage to their systems
so they could hold hundreds of games at a time, he didn’t chastise them for exploring. Instead, he collaborated with them to produce not only a
fantastic add-on modification for the original Arduboy
, but a new version of the Arduboy that had the community-inspired modifications built in.
Now Kevin is back with the Arduboy Mini, which not only retains everything that made the original a success, but offers some exciting new possibilities. There’s little doubt that he’s got another success on his hands as well as the community’s backing — at the time of this writing, the
Kickstarter campaign for the $29 USD Mini
has nearly quadrupled its funding goal.
But even still, Kevin offered us a chance to go hands-on with a prototype of the Arduboy Mini so that anyone on the fence can get a third party’s view on the new system. So without further ado, let’s take a look at how this micro machine stacks up to its full-sized counterparts.
Seriously Small
It might seem silly to say for a product that has Mini right in the name, but the Arduboy Mini is seriously small. Just imagine how small you
think
it is, and go a bit lower than that. At approximately 50 mm x 35 mm (2 in x 1.3 in), it’s small enough to be a keychain charm — in fact, the hole at the bottom left of the PCB seems to almost be begging for a split ring. I wouldn’t recommend it though, unlike the tough plastic and metal enclosure that protects the full-sized Arduboy, the Mini is just a bare PCB. It’s not hard to imagine some of the components on the back getting ripped off, or the OLED coming loose.
As I said in the intro, the Mini strikes me as an effort to distill the Arduboy experience down to its very core, and part of that is tossing away anything left behind. You’ve still got the same ATmega32U4 running the show to ensure software compatibility with existing games, now paired with 16 MB SPI flash chip to store them, but outside of that there’s almost nothing on the Mini that isn’t there for the express purpose of playing games. There isn’t even a power button on the thing, you simply plug in a USB-C cable and it instantly springs to life.
Speaking of which, you’ve probably noticed there’s no battery onboard. You can only play the Arduboy Mini when its plugged in, and though the cord doesn’t exactly get in the way, it does make it feel less like a portable system. Sure you can use some kind of USB power bank on the go, but it still reminds me of trying to play my Game Boy with the AC adapter as a kid: a workable solution in a pinch, but one that never quite feels natural.
Also axed in the Mini — the speaker. Normally this would be an inexcusable admission for a gaming device, but having played my fair share of games on the original system, I can tell you that audio design has never been a high priority for most Arduboy developers. Many games don’t have sound in the first place due to the limitations of the hardware, and the ones that do are generally little more than bleeps and bloops.
That being said, there are a few games, such as the phenomenal
Arduventure
(a game so good, a
special edition Arduboy was released to commemorate it
) that have music and sound effects good enough that you’ll miss them. There’s also a small collection of music-based games and tools which obviously aren’t going to be playable on the Mini. So while it’s admittedly a far smaller problem than it would be with almost any other system, it still does sting a bit.
Built to be Hacked
That being said, the keen-eyed reader may have noticed that there are pads on the back of the Arduboy Mini PCB for both a battery and speaker — that’s because Kevin has decided to leave their addition as an exercise for the more advanced user. While the official position is that the Mini doesn’t
need
either of those things to be a compelling portable game device, he’s made sure the option is still there for those that want it.
But speakers and batteries aren’t the only thing that can be connected to the Arduboy Mini. While this prototype version doesn’t have it, Kevin is currently working on a new version of the PCB that will feature an I2C Qwiic connector.
The details have yet to be finalized at the time of this writing, but the idea is that this will allow additional hardware to be plugged into the Mini without having to solder anything on the board, which will be a huge benefit for those who wish to use the cheaper Mini in an educational setting, where the
original hardware enjoys a considerable following
.
Personally, I love the idea. The original Arduboy was a great way to make teaching software development fun for younger students, and this new capability could now bring hardware into the mix. It’s easy to imagine a school buying up a bunch of Arduboy Minis for their STEM classes and using them to easily interface with off-the-shelf modular components. Even for grown-up hackers, the Mini would make an awesome tool for quickly visualizing sensor data.
The printed case has room for a battery, and makes the Mini more comfortable in the hand.
Finally, as you might expect given the fact the Arduboy Mini is a bare PCB, there’s naturally going to be plenty of folks who want to produce their own enclosures for the device. It will be interesting to see what kind of different cases get developed over time, and to get the ball rolling, Kevin will be providing STLs for a basic 3D printed case which can be modified however you see fit.
OK, But What’s It Like to Play?
Alright, I know what you’re thinking. Sure there’s all these cool little details about the new variant of the Arduboy hardware, but what you really want to know is what it’s like to play games on the thing.
To that end, I’d have to say that the standard Arduboy is more pleasant from an actual gameplay standpoint. It’s more comfortable in the hand, the screen is much larger, and while they aren’t strictly
necessary
, I certainly do miss the speaker and battery being built-in. If you’re in the market for an Arduboy simply because you want to play games, then the existing FX model is almost certainly the better choice for you.
Don’t expect too many marathon gaming sessions on the Arduboy Mini
But if you’re interested in something you can fiddle around with, then the Mini is unquestionably the more exciting prospect. Customization has been woven into the DNA of the Mini, so whether you come up with a custom amplified sound system to bolt onto the back or just spin up your own 3D printed enclosure, you’ve really got the opportunity to make the system your own. Then there’s the possibilities offered by the proposed I2C interface, which simply isn’t an option on the original hardware.
Choose Your Own Adventure
If you’re new to the Arduboy world and looking for the ideal gaming experience, the Arduboy FX just can’t be beat. It’s extremely portable, and with the built in storage for hundreds of games, allows you to bring hours of entertainment wherever you go. It’s like returning to a bygone era of gaming, except from some alternate timeline you don’t actually have any memory of.
On the other hand, if you’re more into the hacking and development side of things, the Mini is an awesome little platform. I can also see it being extremely popular with existing Arduboy owners, who already know which games lend themselves to the short duration pick-up-and-play style that the smaller system is better suited for.
Then again, when you can get both systems for less than $100 bucks total, who says you even have to chose? There’s no in-app purchases, subscription fees, or nagging ads. Just a community of awesome people making fun games, and the best part is, you can join them and create your own handheld masterpiece for free. Long live the Arduboy. | 8 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6556804",
"author": "Kevin Bates (@bateskecom)",
"timestamp": "2022-12-22T18:39:15",
"content": "The Arduboy Mini is designed to be affordable and easy to produce in small batches for schools! Great for tinkering on your desk! Thanks Tom!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
... | 1,760,372,457.344304 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/22/another-magnetron-teardown/ | Another Magnetron Teardown | Al Williams | [
"High Voltage",
"Teardown"
] | [
"magnetron",
"microwave"
] | [Electronoobs] has a healthy respect for the voltages and ceramics inside a microwave oven. But he still found the courage to
tear one apart and show us the insides
and characterize some of the components. You can see the video of the teardown below.
The danger of the voltage is obvious. However, there is also a ceramic insulator inside. Some of them are made from aluminum oxide, but others are made with beryllium oxide. You probably don’t want to inhale either one, but beryllium oxide, if powdered, can cause serious health problems. Obviously, you need to be careful if you decide to rip your oven open. Of course, the other danger is if you put the oven back together and try to use it. You need to ensure all the shielding is back in the proper place.
The video shows the operation of several of the components using test equipment and, in some cases, some surrogate components. The animation of an LC oscillator is very easy to understand. However, when he actually cuts into the magnetron with a rotary tool, you can really see how the device works. Some animations make it even clearer.
We haven’t seen
a magnetron teardown
for a few years. You can do many things with a magnetron from radar to
vacuum deposition of films
. | 22 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6556866",
"author": "metalman",
"timestamp": "2022-12-22T20:05:16",
"content": "there is no danger from voltage whatsoever and infact if mostvoltage was removed from a human bodythats called deadthere is no place in the universe that is free fromelectromagnetic currents at some meas... | 1,760,372,457.403031 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/22/bbc-world-service-turns-90/ | BBC World Service Turns 90 | Al Williams | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Original Art",
"Radio Hacks",
"Slider"
] | [
"bbc",
"shortwave radio"
] | If you’ve ever owned a shortwave radio, you’ve probably listened at least a little to the BBC World Service. After all, they are a major broadcasting force, and with the British Empire or the Commonwealth spanning the globe, they probably had a transmitter close to your backyard. Recently, the BBC had
a documentary about their early years of shortwave broadcasting
. It is amazing both because it started so simply and when you think how far communications have progressed in just a scant 100 years.
Today, the BBC World Service broadcasts in over 40 languages distributing content via radio, TV, satellite, and the Internet. Hard to imagine it started with four people who were authorized to spend 10 pounds a week.
Early Days
The BBC started with radio 2LO broadcasting to London for a few hours each day in 1922. The service spread across the nation, and the publication of The Radio Times started in September 1923. Up until 1927, the BBC was the British Broadcasting Company, but in 1927 it became a corporation with a royal charter.
As you can see, broadcasting has changed a little over the years. By 1932, the service built the famous Broadcasting House to become its new center of operations.
Shortwave
In 1932 it was pretty unusual to have an interest in worldwide broadcasting. But the Russians and the Vatican were using Shortwave to spread their ideology around the globe. The British, who at the time ruled 20% of the people on Earth, had a vested interest in bringing Britain to the four corners of the Empire. What better way than radio?
As the director general said, “…don’t expect too much in the early days. The programmes with neither be very interesting nor very good.” That’s truth in advertising, but what did you expect on 10 pounds a week? However, not long after that, King George V addressed the world via radio to deliver a Christmas message. Many of the king’s subjects had never heard his voice before, and you can imagine this could help create a bond between people and monarch. The video below shows King Edward VIII’s first broadcast in 1936, about four years after King George’s
Soon “London calling the British Empire” became a common thing to hear on the shortwave bands. The documentary explains the difficulty in building huge shortwave broadcasting sites around the world and then feeding programming to them via an underwater cable. Look at how a 700-foot radio tower went up in 1934.
Arab Service and War
It wasn’t long after the BBC World Service formed that Hitler and Mussolini began using shortwave to push their ideas, too. In response to anti-British propaganda in Arabic, the Home Office asked the BBC to begin transmitting straight news to counter it, also in Arabic.
It wasn’t long before Prime Minister Nevel Chamberlain addressed the Empire about the threat of war via the BBC, and the remarks were translated into multiple languages. The World War brought the BBC’s international broadcasting to the forefront to keep the Empire informed and court favorable world opinion. It also became the home for broadcasts from occupied countries such as Greece and France.
The number of languages the BBC had to handle was staggering. Linguists, translators, and polyglots were in high demand for the service. Listening to the BBC was a crime in Nazi-occupied countries, but people did it anyway to get unbiased news and for a sense of hope. Of course, you can imagine that secret messages to spies and resistance cells were part of the broadcasts.
For example, Pierre Holmes hosted a 15-minute BBC program called “The French Speak to the French.” It often passed coded messages to the resistance regarding arms drops, missions, and even D-Day. For example, the D-Day invasion was signaled with a line from a poem: “Long violin sobs rock my heart in monotonous languish.”
Not all the spies were good guys, though. The Germans planted a Dutch spy, posing as a refugee was picked up at sea. He repeatedly attempted to be allowed to read a message to his family over shortwave, but the message was really to his Nazi handlers. The British were too smart for this, however.
Speaking of spies, the BBC also monitored foreign radio broadcasts — sort of a precursor to GCHQ. You can see a portion of a newsreel about how the BBC recorded about 500,000 words a day during the war.
Cold War
It wasn’t long after the World War that the Empire was transforming into the Commonwealth. But the world was also entering the so-called Cold War. Propaganda was tremendously important to the Cold War, and the BBC was one of the major voices of the West.
In addition to news, the BBC tried to highlight the differences between political ideals and everyday life behind the iron curtain using satire and intellectual programs. “The Two Comrades” program, for example, was a comedy about a party official in ridiculous situations. In one episode, there is a complaint that the party only received 99% of the vote, while in North Korea, they had managed 100% support for the party. Another program, “The Baffled Newspaper Reader,” would have one actor read text from an East German newspaper and another actor would provide the true and humorous meaning parenthetically.
There was also a program entitled “Letters without Signature,” which encouraged listeners to write about their life experiences. Since this often involved negative information, the listeners had to use spy-like methods to deliver their messages and not refer to things that might allow them to be identified by the secret police. The program’s introduction was something like this:
BBC – three dangerous letters. Dangerous for all those who fear the truth and especially dangerous for all those who want to hear the truth and actually hear it at great personal risk.
Letters written to the BBC from target countries could be passed to MI6, facilitating messages from agents. Of course, inserting certain music or phrases into a broadcast also helped to communicate with spies in the field.
Scandal
One thing the BBC documentary doesn’t cover is the
repeated scandals the BBC has faced over its life
. Granted, most of those didn’t directly involve the World Service, but some peripherally did. For example, the BBC broadcast documentaries about Malaysia created by what amounted to a PR firm for Malaysia and eventually would apologize to its listeners around the world.
From the late 1930s until the end of the cold war, the BBC had an MI5 agent assigned who could bar subversives and suspected communists from being on the air or creating content. Once this was revealed, it generated a great deal of controversy. Jazz music, too, was banned for a while as a “filthy product of modernity.” Even Winston Churchill had been refused air time before World War II, something he remained angry about for years.
One scandal that directly hit the World Service was during the Falklands War. The BBC World Service was accused of broadcasting plans and positions of British military units.
On the other hand, you can’t make it to 90 without attracting some scandal. The BBC as a whole has had some doozies, but the World Service has usually avoided the focus of the big ones.
Digital Future
Like anything 90 years old, the BBC has transformed and changed. Today, you are as likely to listen to the BBC World Service using the Internet or satellite radio, and the BBC’s schedule reflects this. Radio broadcasts directed to developed nations are increasingly rare.
A few years ago, the BBC’s director general said that the BBC must prepare for a time when most of its audience never uses traditional broadcast channels. We are certain the BBC World Service will rise to the challenge.
We’ve looked at how
the studios link to the transmitter sites
. The BBC has had
its share of odd stories
over the years. | 23 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6556682",
"author": "Jan",
"timestamp": "2022-12-22T15:52:32",
"content": "Dear Al Williams,although I assume you are way below 90, the sentence “…you can’t make it to 90 without attracting some scandal” suggests a biased point of view. Now what caused that bias? Are there juicy sto... | 1,760,372,457.467352 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/22/alpakka-a-creative-commons-game-controller/ | Alpakka: A Creative Commons Game Controller | Dave Rowntree | [
"Games",
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"analog",
"controller",
"game controller",
"gamepad",
"IMU",
"KiCAD",
"rp2040"
] | Input Labs’ mission is to produce
open-source
Creative Commons hardware and software for creating gaming controllers that can be adapted to anyone.
Alpakka is their current take on a generic controller
, looking similar to a modern Xbox or PlayStation controller but with quite a few differences. The 3D printed casing has a low-poly count, angular feel to it, but if you don’t like that you can
tweak that in blender
to just how you want it. Alpakka emulates a standard USB-attached keyboard, mouse, and Xinput gamepad in parallel so should just work out of the box for both Linux and Windows PC platforms. The firmware includes some built-in game profiles, which can be selected on the controller.
No special parts here, just 3D prints, a PCB and some nuts and bolts
The dual D-pads, augmented with an analog stick, is not an unusual arrangement, but what is a bit special is the inventive dual-gyro sensor arrangement –which when used in conjunction with a touch-sensitive pad — emulates a mouse input. Rest your thumb on the right-hand directional pad and the mouse moves, or else it stays fixed, kind of like lifting a mouse off the pad to re-center it.
The wired-only controller is based around a Raspberry Pi Pico, which has plenty of resources for this type of application giving a fast 250 Hz update rate. But to handle no fewer than nineteen button inputs, as well as a scroll wheel, directional switch, and that analog stick, the Pico doesn’t have enough I/O, needing a pair of NXP PCAL6416A I2C IO expanders to deal with it.
The
PCB design
is done with KiCAD, using a simple 3D printed stand to hold the PCB flat and the through-hole components in place while soldering. Other than a few QFN packages which might be a problem for some people, there is nothing tricky about hand-soldering this design.
We’ve been seeing custom game controllers as long as we’ve been hacking,
here’s an interesting take on the mouse-integration theme
. If you’re comfortable rolling the hardware side of things, but the firmware is a sticking point, then perhaps look no further than
this neat RP2040 firmware project
.
Thanks to [aamott] for the tip! | 21 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6556532",
"author": "Foldi-One",
"timestamp": "2022-12-22T12:51:44",
"content": "Great idea, and in my brief testing as I bulked out the case for my steamdeck with PCL (polymorph branded) to suit my giant hands a low poly finish is actually really good for comfort and grip! I didn’t... | 1,760,372,457.691449 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/22/3d-printed-light-pipe-turns-overly-bright-led-into-design-harmony/ | 3D Printed Light Pipe Turns Overly-Bright LED Into Design Harmony | Donald Papp | [
"LED Hacks"
] | [
"3d printed",
"brightness",
"goldilocks approach",
"kit",
"led",
"testing"
] | There are a number of ways to efficiently and elegantly limit an LED’s brightness, but [Tommy] found that
using a light pipe or diffuser can integrate better with a device
, especially when the device itself is mostly 3D printed in the first place.
Infill has an effect on appearance. 20% infill on the left, 100% infill on the right.
For some problems
the Goldilocks approach is the way to go
. [Tommy] designed a small array of different LED cover options, and tested each to see what yielded the best results for his printed kit. Some of the biggest takeaways include:
100% infill is best for even results (although interesting shadows happen at less than 100% infill.)
Interesting things happen with 7 to 11 mm of top layers of clear PLA, when illuminated from below with a 5 mm high-brightness LED. An even diffusion of light starts to give way to a circular gradient as the upper layer gets thicker.
LEDs emit their light mainly upward in a round pattern. Corners will always be darker, even more so if the guide is not round. This effect becomes noticeably more pronounced as the light guide grows in size, putting a practical upper limit on its effective dimensions.
[Tommy] explores these kinds of issues because he designs and builds electronic synth instruments, and they are mostly 3D printed. He explores efficiency and is
always happy to share his findings about what works and doesn’t work
.
Of course, the usual ways to deal with an overly-bright LED are to limit its current or control its brightness by driving it with a PWM signal. The right approach depends on the application and the scale of the design, and there are actually quite a few ways to crack this nut. Luckily, our own [Inderpreet Singh] is here to tell you all about
how best to control LED brightness
. | 14 | 7 | [
{
"comment_id": "6556485",
"author": "Mathias",
"timestamp": "2022-12-22T11:35:11",
"content": "I had a flashlight with like a million lumen or something brightness. The kid wanted a flashlight that doesn’t blind him or others. So I printed a 1mm diffusor that I put into the flashlight instead of th... | 1,760,372,457.628052 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/21/a-modern-tribute-to-the-classic-hp-16c-calculator/ | A Modern Tribute To The Classic HP-16C Calculator | Lewin Day | [
"Tool Hacks"
] | [
"calculator",
"HP",
"hp calculator",
"hp-16c"
] | The HP-16C Computer Scientist is much beloved as the only dedicated programmer’s calculator that Hewlett-Packard ever made. Most surviving examples in the world are well-used, and you haven’t been able to order one from HP since 1989. Thus,
[K Johansen] set about building a tribute to the HP-16C using modern hardware.
The build relies on a Raspberry Pi Pico as the brains of the operation. As with so many classic HP calculators, it operates in
Reverse Polish Notation,
and includes the customary stack operations. To serve a programmer well, it’s set up to accept entry in hexadecimal, octal, decimal, and binary formats, and can readily convert between them. Beyond that, it’s equipped with the usual arithmetic operators, as well as bitwise operations like NOT, AND, and so on.
Perhaps what we love most, though, is the keypad. It was all put together with a combination of cheap AliExpress keypads, a label maker, and a laser printer. It’s a wholly DIY job, and a little rough around the edges, but it makes the calculator far easier to use.
It’s not an exact replica of the HP-16C, but the differences in operation are minor.Those wishing to build their own can grab the required files from the project’s
Github page.
We’ve seen replicas of other classic HP calculators before, too.
If you’ve got your own mathematical projects brewing up in the lab, don’t hesitate to send them in
to the tipsline! | 19 | 13 | [
{
"comment_id": "6556334",
"author": "craig",
"timestamp": "2022-12-22T07:17:20",
"content": "SwissMicros makes a modern clone. They are rad.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "6556451",
"author": "olaf",
"timestamp": "2022-12-22T10:24:03",... | 1,760,372,457.75018 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/20/all-about-usb-c-connector-mechanics/ | All About USB-C: Connector Mechanics | Arya Voronova | [
"Hackaday Columns",
"how-to",
"Parts",
"Slider"
] | [
"connectors",
"guide",
"howto",
"plugs",
"sockets",
"USB C"
] | There’s two cases when hackers have to think about USB-C connector mechanics. The first is when a USB-C connector physically breaks, and the second is when we need to put a connector on our own board. Let’s go through both of them.
Clean That Connector
What if a socket on your phone or laptop fails? First off, it could be due to dust or debris. There’s swabs you can buy to clean a USB-C connector; perhaps adding some isopropyl alcohol or other cleaning-suitable liquids, you can get to a “good enough” state. You can also reflow pins on your connector, equipped with hot air or a sharp soldering iron tip, as well as some flux – when it comes to mechanical failures, this tends to remedy them, even for a short period of time.
How could a connector fail, exactly? Well, one of the pins could break off inside the plastic, or just get too dirty to make contact. Consider a device with a USB-C charging and data socket, with USB 2.0 but without high-speed pairs – which is to say, sadly, the majority of the phones out there. Try plugging it into a USB-A charger using a USB-A to USB-C cable. Does it charge, even if slowly? Then, your VBUS pins are okay.
Plug it into a Type-C charger using a Type-C cable, and now the CC pins are involved. Does it charge in both orientations? Then both of your CC pins are okay. Does it charge in only one orientation? One of the CC pins has to be busted. Then, you can check USB 2.0 pins, used for data transfer and legacy charging. Plug the phone into a computer using a USB-A to USB-C cable. Does it enumerate as a device? Does it enumerate in both orientations? If not, you might want to clean D- and D+ pins specifically, maybe even both sets.
Can Be Replaced – Sometimes
It also helps if you can take your device apart, get a USB-C plug breakout and measure continuity through the socket. What if your connector is too busted and there’s no continuity, no matter how much you reflow a specific pin? Well, it might be bad news, unless you own a reasonably popular device.
I would not be surprised if there’s literally a thousand different USB-C connectors types out there – and every phone and laptop under the sun seems to use a slightly different, mechanically incompatible one. If a USB-C connector in your expensive device fails, you might have to look for a very, very specific replacement part. They’re also often bothersome to desolder and replace, given that they’re always a combination of through-hole and SMD parts. Sometimes the SMD pads are firmly under the connector and inaccessible, and with edge-mount connectors, sometimes they’re on both sides of the board. Often, there’s plastic right next to the pins, or over them. All of this makes it bothersome to use hot air or a soldering iron for removing the connector.
On the upside, not all manufacturers are half-intentionally hostile like that. New Macbooks have USB-C sockets on a separate, easily detachable and replaceable part. Many phones have the USB-C port on a separate small PCB on the bottom of the phone, too. In both cases, you can just go on Aliexpress and purchase a separate board, that you then replace. Now, disassembling modern phones is a rabbit hole, but I guess we can be thankful that there’s at least there’s some consideration.
Probably not fixable with a cotton swab. On the upside, continuity measurements are easy to do.
Just like MicroUSB, USB-C connectors have small latches. They’re not visible – as they’re inside the plug, on the sides. That said, they’re more often present than not. Of course, just like MicroUSB, these latches also wear out. Thankfully, all you need to do is to buy a different cable. And what if it’s your favourite cable, or what if you feel like building your own cables?
You can also buy USB-C plugs with small breakout PCBs, that let you solder wires onto them. Having such plugs lets you build custom cables or create new ones; I personally buy them from LCSC as they stock a surprising variety if you know where to search. There are plugs that have pullup resistors on them and will work great for building USB-A to USB-C cables, but you better be sure to remove the resistor for USB-C to USB-C applications. There are plugs that expose both CC pads, extra handy in case you want to build your own USB-C extensions or something. And there are also plugs with an emarker programmed, in case you want to get 5 A out of a PSU and need to build a custom cable, among other things.
By now, we’re firmly into the territory of making our own stuff. Let’s talk about doing it properly – again, limiting ourselves to mechanical aspects, for now.
General Connector Rules
For a start, let’s highlight something great about USB-C sockets. The overwhelming majority of them have through-hole mounting pins – a welcome departure from legacy of MicroUSB and MiniUSB, where the cheapest connectors you could buy were surface-mount only, making it easy to rip the connector off the board. It’s really hard to find a USB-C socket that’s fully surface-mount, and this does make things more mechanically sturdy.
For hackers, this does tend to make PCBs and assembly and bit pricier – you need your fab to be able to do PCB slots, since most USB-C connector footprints use slots, and when ordering PCBs with assembly, you have two or four extra through-hole pins that need to be manually soldered – which comes with extra fees. That said, it’s undoubtedly for the better, and prices will go down over time.
USB-C connectors, sockets and plugs alike, have current ratings. All the sockets are supposed to be rated for 5 A, but I’ve seen some Chinese ones rated for 3 A; check the datasheet. Of course, if you’re putting a 5 A connector on your board, remember that it will only pass 5 A if your board is able to request that, which in turn requires active USB-PD communications — the usual dual 5.1K pulldown arrangement isn’t sufficient for that. On the upside, if you’re not aiming to have a 5 A connector specifically, you don’t need to check the current rating.
Downside: it’s unroutable unless you use really small vias. Upside: it looks like it will eat you. (
from RealTimeKodi
)
This variety of sockets exists because there are myriad ways you might want to mount a USB-C socket – on top of the board horizontally, or vertically, or vertically but facing sideways, or inline with the board with dozens of possible heights, with or without waterproofing, and of different manufacturing quality. There’s also myriad ways to expose high-speed pairs, if you need a connector with those. Some use SMD pads and some use through-hole pins for high-speed, and that’s just scratching the surface.
Not all connectors are good for you, either – which does help decrease the variety somewhat. First of all, you will see connectors without CC pins exposed, which will only really work with USB-A to USB-C cables. One could expect to find such a connector in a “baby’s first soldering kit” package sold for $3. You really shouldn’t use them, however. There’s also plenty of connectors that expect to have SMD pads for pins fully hidden under their own package. If your solder paste stenciling skills aren’t up to snuff, you really, really don’t want to debug soldering issues with such connectors.
Low Speed, Simple Rules
USB-C PD configurable trigger board with the tried and true 16-pin connector, based on the CH224K chip
Let’s limit ourselves to USB 2.0 and CC, and of course, VBUS and GND. The hobbyist choice of a tried and true connector, highlighted in the first article, is the 16-pin SMD one. You will see it on devboards, cheap USB-C-equipped products, and many a hacker creation – it’s special in that it’s
somewhat defined in the USB-C specification,
too. KiCad has its footprint listed as
USB_C_Receptacle_HRO_TYPE-C-31-M-12
with a matching symbol called
USB_C_Receptacle_USB2.0
, but HRO are certainly not the first to produce this connector, and there’s a trove of pin- and footprint-compatible connectors to this one specifically. Plus, as I mentioned, you get SBU pins, and you might want to use them for something like a UART – or perhaps,
delete the SBU pads from the
footprint so that you have two less pins you can possibly bridge during soldering, as the picture illustrates.
When you find a nice-looking substitute connector, do check its datasheet pin numbering with that of the PCB footprint you’re using. There’s been cases when in-datasheet footprint pin numbers
are different from the commonly used numbers
, or
the datasheet was confusing
and lead to hackers making mistakes,
causing hours of debugging
after a manufacturing issue has been found. While you’re in the datasheet, check if there’s a recommended PCB thickness for mounting such a connector. Even though such connectors mount on top of the board, PCB thickness might define how easy it’s going to be to have the shell pins solder properly. That said, it’s more of a recommendation than a requirement.
Fluff M0 board by [deshipu]
Of course, you shouldn’t be afraid to search and use any connector that you might ever want. For instance, if you don’t want USB 2.0 and might want an easier soldering experience,
there are really nice connectors
that only expose GND, VBUS and CC pins. In general, if you ever want a connector that exactly fits your usecase, you always can find one, and you can treat the 16-pin one as the safest fallback ever. Oh, and if you’re using a 0.8 mm PCB and you want to do things really, really cheap, you can
build the socket right into your PCB.
It might be just a tiny bit janky and it might eventually fail you, but it will, ultimately, work well enough.
High Speed, High Demands
What if you ever want to use connectors with access to high-speed lanes? Sadly, I don’t have a specific high-speed connector to recommend you, but I I can certainly give you a few guidelines on how you can find one.
For when you’d like to be utterly unable to inspect your soldering (
from Cyber City Circuits
)
If you’re looking to settle on a high-speed-capable socket for your designs, I would recommend that you either find an existing and verified open-source design that looks easy to solder for you, or perhaps, find a few connectors that look suitable, order samples, design a board with test footprints for all of them, then try assembling a few and see how well it goes.
If you’ve found a footprint online that looks like it would fit a nice connector you found, check the dimensions carefully, then check again – even if the footprint name is the connector part number verbatim. Two months ago, I decided to make
a breakout exposing all high-speed lanes on a USB-C socket,
having the signals at least pretend to look like a differential pair. It’s not exactly close to being reasonably suited for actual day-to-day USB3 or DisplayPort use, since I ordered it as a two-layer board and the impedance is therefore out of wack, but it’s still better than
the usual breakouts
with 90 degree bend “high-speed” traces.
I found a footprint in KiCad that looked like it’d be easy enough to solder – through-hole pins for the row under the package, and surface-mount but soldering-iron-accessible pads for the row outside of the package. I found some connectors on LCSC that looked like they fit the footprint. When the day came to solder connectors onto breakouts, it turned out that the shield pins on the front were offset a few millimeters from the footprint locations. It also turned out that PCB holes for through-hole pins were just a tiny bit too tight after plating was added – next version will certainly have slightly larger holes.
Edges And Plugs
It might be that you find a nice edge-mount connector with through-hole high-speed inner row pins. When doing PCB layout, you then might
realize that it’s impossible to pull two of the innermost signals out
– one CC and one SBU. One workaround is to straight up omit these two pins if the footprint is for a USB-C plug: you don’t use SBU and you don’t need a second pin for VCONN, which is, simply put, an unused CC pin reused as a power pin for an emarker.
Or you could solve the problem. The first way is to use a multi-layer board and route the pin out through an inner layer, where annular rings of through-hole pins aren’t present. The second way is using tracks tiny enough that they can still pass around the connector, by the PCB edge. Or for a third way, you could sneakily decrease the width of two through-hole pads around the offending pins on the top (non-solderable) layer, until a track fits between them.
The mid-mount plugs on
a Nintendo Switch payload injector board
Most of what I’ve mentioned applies to sockets and plugs equally. Of course, there are some plug-specific issues. For instance, there are mid-mount plugs – plugs that expose the full set of pins, with each USB-C pin side on different side of your PCB, and they’re reasonably nice to solder. On the other hand, I have no idea how such plugs are assembled at the factory – they seem to be reflowed and not manually soldered in products I’ve disassembled, but since there are SMD pads on both sides that the connector goes on top of, I have no idea how you would stencil such a board, especially in a larger-scale manufacturing environment. Any ideas?
Another peculiar consideration is that you’re only allowed to have a plug connect a single set of USB 2.0 data pins, which is to say, one pair of USB 2.0 pins has to stay disconnected. Some solderable plugs even have a second pair of USB 2.0 pins physically missing. I’m not quite sure why you can’t do this, especially given that almost every single USB-C socket PCB design parallels these pins, and it would just be a parallel connection all the same.
And that’s everything that you might want to know about USB-C connector mechanics. Of course, if I missed something, do talk about it in the comments! | 31 | 10 | [
{
"comment_id": "6554375",
"author": "Coldblackice",
"timestamp": "2022-12-20T18:25:02",
"content": "Wow, fantastic writeup! Informative, detailed, and thorough, with just the right balance of depth. Well done!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": []
},
{
"comment_id": "65... | 1,760,372,457.850242 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/20/seriously-dont-buy-this-mopping-robot/ | Seriously, Don’t Buy This Mopping Robot | Donald Papp | [
"Teardown"
] | [
"regret",
"reverse engineering",
"robot",
"roomba",
"teardown"
] | The original Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner led to loads of clones and lookalikes over the years, and one of them is the ALEE mopping “robot”. [Raymond]
tears it down and reveals what’s inside
. Turns out it contains mostly regret! Although it does host some design cleverness in its own way.
Technically the ALEE, which cost [Raymond] a cool $85 USD, is not a robot since it has no sensors. And unless a dragging a wet cloth pad kept moist by a crude drip reservoir counts as “mopping”, it’s not much of a mop, either.
This one-motor unit (and tiny battery) is responsible for both motion and direction control. There are no sensors.
There is one interesting aspect to this thing, and it’s to do with the drive system and direction control. The whole thing is driven by a single motor, and not a very powerful one. The center of the robot has a pair of wheels that are both driven at the same rate and speed, and the wheel assembly can pivot around its axis. That’s about it. There are not even any bump sensors of any kind.
So how does this thing move, let alone change direction to (poorly) emulate an original Roomba-like crisscross pattern? The control board appears to have one job: if the motor stalls, reverse direction. That, combined with the fact that the drive unit can pivot and the enclosure is dragging a wet rag, appears to be all the chaos that’s needed to turn bonking into a wall into an undefined direction change.
It’s not great performance, but it sure is some impressive cost-cutting. You can see it bonk around unimpressively in a short video, embedded below the page break.
Just to be clear, [Raymond] knows perfectly well what he’s in for when he obtains cheap tech items from overseas retailers for teardowns. The ALEE does have some mildly interesting secrets to share, but overall, it really wasn’t worth it.
Sometimes cheap tech has hacker potential
, but there’s no such potential here. Seriously, don’t buy this thing. | 18 | 11 | [
{
"comment_id": "6554283",
"author": "Leclaron",
"timestamp": "2022-12-20T17:01:50",
"content": "Vileda makes a similar device called the Virobi. It uses it’s mechanics for “collision detection.” From what I’ve heard it’s effectiveness is similar to the device above. Which explains why there’s alway... | 1,760,372,457.945586 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/20/a-love-letter-to-my-lost-amiga/ | A Love Letter To My Lost Amiga | Jenny List | [
"Featured",
"History",
"Original Art",
"Rants",
"Retrocomputing",
"Slider"
] | [
"16-bit",
"amiga",
"commodore"
] | My first love was a black wedge. It was 1982, and I had saved up to buy a Sinclair ZX81. That little computer remains the only one of the huge number that I have owned over the years about which I can truly say that I understood its workings completely; while I know how the i7 laptop on which this is being written works I can only say so in a loose way as it is an immensely complex device.
Computing allegiance is fickle, and while I never lost an affection for the little Sinclair I would meet my true electronic soulmate around eight years later as an electronic engineering student. It no longer graces my bench, but this was the computer against which all subsequent machines I have owned would be measured, the one which I wish had not been taken from me before its time, and with which I wish I could have grown old together. That machine was a Commodore Amiga, and this is part love letter, part wistful musing about what could have been, and part rant about what went wrong for the best desktop computer platform ever made.
Just Why Was The Amiga So Good?
If we had been so convinced by the promise of the Amiga platform to the extent of not seeing the shaky foundations upon which it had been built, just what was it that had seduced us? Perhaps at this point it’s worth taking a quick look at the competition in the world of 16-bit or above computers, to see what else we could have had in our dorm rooms. This is a view from the UK so your market may have had some other players, but for us there were probably five main contenders. If you didn’t have an Amiga you might have had an Atari ST, if your parents chose the computer for you then you had an Amstrad PC-XT clone, if your school had used them you could have had an Acorn Archimedes, and if your parents were very rich you might have had an all-in-one Mac. The Apple IIgs wasn’t big for Brits, and though the Texas Instruments home computers were 16-bit they had been competitors for the 8-bit era.
In the early 90s being able to do this was a big deal. Morn,
CC0
.
Of the other platforms, the Atari had MIDI but the TOS/GEM operating system and desktop was clunky, the PC was what everyone told you was the thing to have but was slow with no sound and awful graphics, the Archimedes was cool and very quick indeed but a bit weird, and the Mac was awesome but unaffordable. The Amiga by comparison was affordable, had amazing graphics for the day, had good audio, had a slick GUI over a proper multitasking OS, and felt fast due to its custom coprocessor chips. By my final year as a student, people were buying 386sx-25 PCs with Windows 3.1, and even those supposed powerhouses felt sluggish and cumbersome compared to the Amiga.
There was of course nothing special about a 68000 running at 7.16 MHz, the key was in the Amiga’s ROM-based OS and those extra-special custom chips that meant that the 68k could compute rather than waste its time on graphics and waiting more than necessary for disk drives. Mine got me through an electronic engineering undergraduate course: it compiled C programs, edited audio for student radio, played marathon overnight
Lemmings
sessions, and even once spent more than a day rendering the obligatory ray traced mirror ball over a checkerboard surface.
We Made Amiga. They F****d It Up
The above phrase was a legend back in 1990 when I had my first A500, a message buried in the version 1.2 Kickstart ROM. It was a commentary from surviving members of the Amiga development team on Commodore’s dismal management and marketing, but we tech-obsessed youths drinking the Amiga Kool-Aid a a few years later were naive and ignorant of such matters. For us it was streets ahead of everything else and was sure to have a promising future. How wrong we were.
The Amiga 1000 launch advert is a minute long. Incredibly, you only see a glimpse of the computer at the very end, and they don’t show you any of what it can do.
A very illuminating read as a former Amiga user came from our Hackaday colleague Bil Herd, in
Back into the
storm
, his autobiographical account of working for Commodore in the mid-1980s. He was bringing us the TED series of 8-bit computers rather than the Amiga, but he illustrates well the chaos and ineptitude reigning in the upper levels.
The impression I gained from it and reading about the early history of the Amiga was that the engineering teams were building impressive hardware, but the company was hell bent on hammering everything to be another Commodore 64 rather than recognising that the computer market had potential beyond a mass-market home gaming platform. It’s
a story repeated through the later years of the Amiga by [Dave Haynie]
, who gives us tantalising glimpses of the Amigas we might have had, when what we were given in the early 1990s was underwhelming and far too little too late.
The infamous phrase from the 1.2 Kickstart ROM referred to Commodore’s dismal marketing for the original Amiga 1000 in 1985 when it could have stood alongside the best of its competition or ahead of many. Commodore’s founder Jack Tramiel had alienated his dealership network before his departure, and a scarcity of supply alongside
the most underwhelming of TV advert campaigns
was not destined to make up any shortfall. The dismal marketing continued with the much more affordable Amiga 500 and its A2000 professional stablemate. The A500 became a hit despite, rather than because of, Commodore’s efforts.
From Infinite Promise To A Failed Game Console
Taking on Nintendo and Sega without some very special new tricks in your console made you either very brave or stupid in 1993. Evan-Amos,
Public domain
.
While their would-be competitor Apple upgraded their lines with new models containing faster processors and more expansion, Commodore rested on their laurels. Over the seven years following the launch of the A1000 they would repackage essentially the same 7.16 MHz 68000 multiple times in a pretence of releasing new models , culminating in 1992 as the writing was on the wall, with the Amiga 600.
When they did upgrade to a 68030 with the A3000 it was in a top-end model out of reach of most customers, and when a 68020 made its way into a low-end Amiga in the A1200 it was the penny-pinching “EC” version without a memory management unit.
By the time Commodore finally went bust in 1994 after a failed attempt to take on Sega and Nintendo with what was essentially an A1200 in a console, the Amiga line was seen as primarily a gaming platform, and an increasingly outdated one at that. Ownership passed through Escom and then Gateway with no new models, and eventually ended up with the name licensed, now a minority platform for a few enthusiasts. The flame is still just about alight as the occasional OS update proves, but the dream is definitely over.
It’s easy to fall into wistful might-have-been stories, as no doubt happens whenever a few Amiga enthusiasts raise a glass. None of us were in the Commodore boss’s office, even though it’s hard to believe we could have done a worse job. It’s not difficult to see what they might have tried: meaningful hardware upgrades and a move to standard interfaces such as PCI among them. Who knows, if that had happened I might now be doing this in front of Workbench, instead of GNOME. | 141 | 41 | [
{
"comment_id": "6554166",
"author": "Severe Tire Damage",
"timestamp": "2022-12-20T15:23:47",
"content": "It is always a pleasure to read what Jenny has to write.When I think of computers that I really enjoyed but will never see again, I think of the DEC-20. It was a big iron timesharing machine, ... | 1,760,372,458.430792 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/20/the-physics-behind-the-collapse-of-a-huge-aquarium/ | The Physics Behind The Collapse Of A Huge Aquarium | Jenny List | [
"News",
"Science"
] | [
"acrylic",
"material science",
"plastic"
] | At the end of last week Aquadom, the world’s largest cylindrical aquarium, unexpectedly shattered and caused an emergency as it flooded both the Berlin hotel that housed it and the surrounding streets. From an engineering perspective it’s a fascinating story, because its construction was such that this shouldn’t have happened.
We have an analysis of what might have gone wrong from [Luis Batalha]
(
Nitter
), and from it we can learn a little about the properties of the plastic used.
The aquarium was made of an acrylic polymer which has an interesting property — at a certain temperature it transitions between a glass-like state and a rubber-like one. Even at room temperature the acrylic is well below the transition temperature, but as the temperature drops the acrylic becomes exponentially more brittle. When the outside temperature dropped to well below zero the temperature also dropped in the foyer, and the high water pressure became enough to shatter the acrylic.
Sadly few of the fish from the aquarium survived, but fortunately nobody was killed in the incident.
News coverage
shows how the force of the water destroyed the doors and brought wreckage into the street, and we’re guessing that it will be a while before any other hotel considers such a project as an attraction. Meanwhile we’ve gained a little bit of knowledge about the properties of acrylic, which might come in handy some day.
Header: Chrissie Sternschuppe,
CC BY-SA 2.0
. | 144 | 38 | [
{
"comment_id": "6553971",
"author": "MCenderdragon",
"timestamp": "2022-12-20T12:09:14",
"content": "Its sad I gto the news here first and not seeing any coverage from German news. Like they reported it as it happened live but thats it.",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,458.232129 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/20/see-the-atari-gem-desktop-running-on-a-portable-word-processor-thing/ | See The ATARI GEM Desktop Running On A Portable Word Processor… Thing | Donald Papp | [
"handhelds hacks",
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"68000",
"AlphaSmart",
"atari st",
"dana",
"GEM",
"tos",
"vintage"
] | Get ready for vintage computing aplenty in [David Given]’s project to
port EmuTOS to the AlphaSmart Dana
. He’s got it all on video, too. All 38 hours of it over 13 episodes!
The GEM desktop, as seen on the Atari ST line of computers.
[David]’s fork of EmuTOS
is an open source version of the Atari TOS, which is itself the 68000-based OS for the Atari ST line of computers.
As for the AlphaSmart Dana, it is a roughly twenty-year-old portable word processor
thing
with pen input which runs a version of PalmOS. It’s a slightly oddball piece of hardware, but quite capable in its own way. A match obviously made in heaven? It is if you have [David]’s skill and drive!
To get EmuTOS working on the Dana, the first step was figuring out how to find and work with the Dana’s debug port, using it to get direct access to the CPU while bypassing the boot ROM. Turns out that the Dana’s 68000-compatible processor has a handy feature: by manipulating the right pin, one can remote-control the CPU (to a certain extent) via the UARTs. That’s the entry point for a whole lot of hacking that ultimately results in firing up the GEM desktop on the Dana, and being able to run (some) original Atari ST software. Probably the biggest issue is that the screen size isn’t a great match for what the OS expects, but it works.
[David] really knows his stuff and has a real knack for working with vintage hardware, and within its limitations. For example, we were blown away when he showed how
a first-person perspective 3D game was possible on the Commodore PET
, despite being limited to a character-only display and only 32 kB of memory.
Embedded just below the page break you can watch the whole process (a 13-video series that begins with figuring out how to access the debug port) of porting EmuTOS to the AlphaSmart Dana, or you can
jump straight to seeing the GEM desktop running happily
. | 14 | 5 | [
{
"comment_id": "6553804",
"author": "James",
"timestamp": "2022-12-20T09:22:34",
"content": "Next up – port of AROS? :-DThen you could run AmigaOS programs on that thing!",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
{
"comment_id": "6553805",
"author": "James",
... | 1,760,372,458.484079 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/19/mouse-whisperer-keeps-you-working-even-when-you-need-a-break/ | Mouse Whisperer Keeps You Working, Even When You Need A Break | Dan Maloney | [
"Peripherals Hacks"
] | [
"attiny85",
"HDI",
"mouse",
"TTP223",
"usb",
"wiggler"
] | When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade, right? What about when life hands you annoyingly intrusive work-from-home policies that require you to physically stay at your computer even though you really, REALLY need to go to the bathroom, but can’t be trusted to act like a responsible adult who won’t get diverted by TV or the fridge on the way back? In that case, you build something like
the Mouse Whisperer
— because malicious compliance is the best kind of compliance.
To be fair, [
andrey.malyshenko
] does list other plausible use cases for what amounts to an automatic mouse wiggler. Like many of us, [andrey] isn’t a fan of logging back in from screen locks, and recognizes that not absolutely every minute of work requires staring at one’s screen. There’s also the need for bio-breaks, of course, and the Mouse Whisperer is designed to accommodate these use cases and more.
The design is quite compact, occupying barely more space than a wireless mouse dongle. Plugged into a USB port, the ATtiny85 mostly sits idle, waiting to detect the touch of a finger on an exposed pad via a TTP223. The dongle then goes into a routine that traces lazy circles with the mouse pointer, plus flashes an RGB LEB on the board, because blinkenlights are cool. The mouse wiggling continues until you come back from your Very Important Business and touch the pad again.
Now, if anyone is actually monitoring you remotely, the circling mouse pointer is going to look a wee bit sus. Fear not, though —
the code
uses a *.h file to define the circle, so other patterns should be possible. Either way, the Mouse Whisperer is a nice solution, and it’s considerably more compact and integrated than
some of the alternatives
we’ve seen. | 144 | 46 | [
{
"comment_id": "6553663",
"author": "PatG",
"timestamp": "2022-12-20T06:47:01",
"content": "I actually made one in order to prevent automatic screen lock when I’m working from home.It’s made with a ‘bad USB’ board. An ATMega32u4 on a tiny usb-connector shaped board.It moves the mouse by 2 pixels ev... | 1,760,372,458.757737 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/19/snail-mail-notifiers-simple-power-management-to-maximize-battery-life/ | Snail Mail Notifier’s Simple Power Management To Maximize Battery Life | Donald Papp | [
"Battery Hacks",
"home hacks"
] | [
"battery",
"ESP",
"low power",
"mail notification",
"mail slot",
"wifi"
] | There are no weird, specialized components nor esoteric sleep mode tricks behind the long battery life of
[Zak]’s WiFi mail slot watcher
. Just some sensible design and clever focus on the device’s purpose: to send an HTTP request whenever it detects that the front door’s mail slot has been opened. The HTTP request is what kicks off useful notifications, but it’s the hardware design that’s really worth a peek.
The watcher’s main components are a ESP-M2 WiFi module, a reed switch, and a single lithium cell. Here’s how it works at a high level: when the mail slot is opened (detected by the reed switch), the ESP module is powered up just long enough to connect to the local WiFi network and send a single HTTP request, after which it shuts back down. The whole process takes between four and ten seconds.
As mentioned, the power control isn’t managed by any unusual components; it comes down to a NAND gate with a single inverted input, and a MIC5504 3.3 V regulator responsible for feeding the ESP board. The logic gate controls whether the voltage regulator is enabled or disabled, and therefore whether the microcontroller receives any power at all. Most of the time the regulator is disabled, but when the reed switch triggers, its input to the NAND gate is pulled low and the regulator is turned on, booting up the ESP board.
In order to stay on, the first thing the ESP board does is use a GPIO pin to drive the inverted input of the NAND gate high in order to keep the regulator enabled, and it has a window of about half a second to do this. Once the HTTP request is sent (and the battery voltage sensed), the ESP board pulls that pin low, disabling the regulator and turning itself off until the reed switch once again begins the process.
After seven months of use, the battery has dropped from 4.2 V to 3.9 V, so there’s plenty of life left.
The project’s GitHub repository
has the necessary code if you’d like to apply some of its ideas to your own projects. Alternately, you may wish to consider
supercapacitors and solar in lieu of batteries
. Even if ultra-level power savings isn’t your bag, when WiFi and networking is involved, there are software-level opportunities to be more efficient. Even
a judicious 1 ms delay can save a surprising amount of power
in the right circumstances. | 33 | 14 | [
{
"comment_id": "6553486",
"author": "SayWhat?",
"timestamp": "2022-12-20T03:20:08",
"content": "Hmmm I created something similar using a Z-Wave magnetic open/close sensor tied into my HA system which told Alexa to announce “You’ve got mail”",
"parent_id": null,
"depth": 1,
"replies": [
... | 1,760,372,458.831585 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/19/z8000-trump-card-needs-your-help/ | Z8000 Trump Card Needs Your Help | Al Williams | [
"Retrocomputing"
] | [
"z8000",
"zilog"
] | [Smbakeryt] needs your help. He bought a 1984-vintage Z8000 coprocessor card for the PC, but the software is missing in action. Apparently, the co-processor — called a Trump Card — appeared in
Byte
magazine courtesy of the famous [Steve Ciarcia]. The
schematics were published
, and if you sent [Steve] proof that you built it, he’d send you the
software
. The product was later commercialized, but no one seems to have the software, so [Smbakeryt] is on the lookout for it.
The board itself was pretty amazing for its day. It added a 16-bit Zilog Z8000 CPU with 512 K of RAM. Big iron for 1984 and a good bit more performance than a stock IBM PC of the era.
We miss the days when computer gear came with big binders of documentation. These days, you are more likely to get a sticker with a URL. The Z8000 was a nice processor and could emulate the Z80, but it never became hugely popular. In addition to Zilog’s System 8000, the CPU found its way into some Unix computers including the Onyx C8002 and several Olivetti computers. Commodore planned to use the CPU in a canceled project. The Z8000 was famous for not using microcode and, thus, it fit on a relatively small die with 17,500 transistors (compared to the 8086’s 29,000 transistors).
We hope someone can help out with the software. If you want your own Z8000 system, you might be better off with
Clover
. Or, stick with a
Z80 on the cheap
. | 45 | 18 | [
{
"comment_id": "6552939",
"author": "Hitomi",
"timestamp": "2022-12-19T09:03:08",
"content": "Orange card bad! On a more serious note beautiful piece of tech and the ring binder with instructions brings me back to a time where purchasing a product made you feel like a customer and not consumer.",
... | 1,760,372,458.959997 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/18/solar-cell-fabric-makes-anything-solar/ | Solar Cell Fabric Makes Anything Solar | Al Williams | [
"Solar Hacks"
] | [
"mylar",
"Solar Cells"
] | MIT has been working on very thin solar cells made of a film just a few microns thick. The problem? The cells are so thin that they’re hard to work with. You could make a small solar cell on top of, say, a glass slide, but that’s not all that interesting since you can make perfectly good solar cells that are as fragile as glass using conventional techniques. But in a new paper, MIT researchers describe
creating 50-micron-thin fabrics that can generate electricity from solar
.
The process still involves using chemical vapor deposition to produce the solar cell on glass. However, the cells are removed from the glass, prepared with electrodes, and then transferred to a piece of fabric which acts as a new substrate.
The fabric used in the paper is a composite fabric known as Dyneema composite fabric. It uses ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fibers and sheets of Mylar. This material has low weight but a very high strength. A UV cure adhesive bonds the fabric and solar cells.
Honestly, we doubt anyone will be making these in their garages anytime soon. But we would love to see what you could do with a roll of this fabric. Wearables, self-charging laptop bags, or solar-powered instruments in an airborne drone could all take advantage of the material’s flexibility and low weight. | 16 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6552902",
"author": "Kire",
"timestamp": "2022-12-19T06:12:03",
"content": "On boats, Bimini covers and spray dodgers are often make from Sunbrella fabric. The solar panels are often put elsewhere, or, if incorporated into a hard dodger or Bimini, then they can’t be easily folded ... | 1,760,372,458.882599 | ||
https://hackaday.com/2022/12/18/image-generating-ai-can-texture-an-entire-3d-scene-in-blender/ | Image-Generating AI Can Texture An Entire 3D Scene In Blender | Donald Papp | [
"Art",
"Artificial Intelligence"
] | [
"3d scene",
"blender",
"image generator",
"stable diffusion",
"textures"
] | [Carson Katri] has a fantastic solution to easily add textures to 3D scenes in Blender:
have an image-generating AI create the texture on demand, and do it for you
.
It’s not perfect — the odd door or window feature might suffer from a lack of right angles — but it’s pretty amazing.
As shown here, two featureless blocks on a featureless plain become run-down buildings by wrapping the 3D objects in a suitable image. It’s all done with the help of the
Dream Textures
add-on for
Blender
.
The solution uses
Stable Diffusion
to generate a texture for a scene based on a text prompt (e.g. “sci-fi abandoned buildings”), and leverages an understanding of a scene’s depth for best results. The AI-generated results aren’t always entirely perfect, but the process is pretty amazing. Not to mention fantastically fast compared to creating from scratch.
AI image generation capabilities are progressing at a breakneck pace, and giving people access to tools that can be run locally is what drives interesting and useful applications like this one here.
Curious to know more about how systems like Stable Diffusion work?
Here’s a pretty good technical primer
, and the Washington Post recently published a less-technical (but accurate) interactive article explaining
how AI image generators work
, as well as the impact they are having. | 26 | 8 | [
{
"comment_id": "6552865",
"author": "Ren",
"timestamp": "2022-12-19T04:05:12",
"content": "I think there have been some amazing changes in AI recently, such as that Chat thing writing code or emails, and generating “art”.But, I am not sure if it is in the direction that will make improvements to ou... | 1,760,372,459.026013 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.